Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for Sept 2010

[Tony Nuspl]

"Don't Believe the Hype!" - Truth in Recruiting

Lead Story from the past month's news:

Solidarity March in OKC: Pfc. Manning, whistle blower, hailed as a hero of the
people
--political fallout of the Wikileaks story, divulging information embarrassing to to the Pentagon and neocon
warmongers
--another march held in Quantico, VA, where Pfc. Manning is being held in the brig, prior to show
trial

quote:
"Thanks to Wikileaks and heroic leakers inside the military, we now know the U.S. government has killed many more innocent Afghan civilians than we were aware of
heretofore. We also know that American military and intelligence
personnel roam Afghanistan assassinating suspected bad guys.
Sometimes they kill people they later acknowledge weren’t bad guys
at all."
~Sheldon Richman, in an op/ed "What They Do in Our Name: What the latest information from Wikileaks reveals about the
Afghanistan debacle"
August 10, 2010

file under: civilians continue to die at the hands of U.S. occupiers:
Occupation Command Liars Deny Killing 52 Afghans In Rigi, Afghanistan
--So a BBC Reporter takes a road trip to Rigi and sees reality of war crime committed by U.S./NATO forces

quote:
“We don’t know why they’re killing us. The foreigners say they try to protect civilians, but they are killing us. They are supposed to have very advanced technology that
can detect a nail on the ground from the air, so why the hell could
they not see a house full of women and children? No one survived the
strike. They talk of humanity and civilization, where does their
humanity and civilization go when they decide to kill women and
children?  It’s all lies.  They’re just our enemies …
”
~ Haji Hussain, a man from Joshali village who had taken refuge in Rigi, Afghanistan.

featured op/ed
file under: bringing the war home
Military Suicides and Guilty Consciences
by Jacob G. Hornberger

quote:
"Any soldier who killed an Iraqi knew, with 100 percent certainty, that the person he was killing was entirely innocent of any actual attack or threatened attack on the
United States, including 9/11."

file under: bringing the war home
Joint Chiefs boss: Many Iraq, Afghanistan Vets Find Bleak Future
--Adm Mike Mullen bemoans the fact that "hundreds of thousands" of returning
veterans have symptoms of PTSD, but he will not take blame for their
inability to re-integrate with mainstream civilian society,
States-side.

file under: bringing the war home
Hundreds of PTSD Soldiers Likely Misdiagnosed
--follow up on lamentable condition of treatment services for PTSD

facts & figures:
According to figures provided by the Army, the service discharged about a 1,000 soldiers a year between 2005 and 2007 for having a personality disorder, defined as a
"deeply ingrained maladaptive pattern of behavior."

sidebar:
Army Report: AWOLs Up 234%
--Thank you to the Oklahoma Center for Conscience, for bringing this fact to our attention

file under: bringing the wars home
Fallen Marine's mother airs grief
--Liza Natkin, in the tradition of Cindy Sheehan

quote:
“There’s babies like my son over there that shouldn’t have to come home in a box like him.”
~Liza Natkin talks her dead son, Marine Lance Cpl. Nathaniel Schultz, who was
killed in Afghanistan.

book review:
The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex, otherwise known as "Permanent War"
--In his latest book, Washington Rules, historian Andrew Bacevich calls for
Americans to reject the Washington consensus to demand
instead that America "come home," as Martin Luther King
called for in 1967, and that America focus on resolving its
own domestic problems, rather than always meddling abroad.

quote:
The military-industrial complex is an overlapping, interlocking mass of individuals, firms, political lobbies, and government offices with one thing in common: The
livelihood of the complex and the livelihoods of the individuals it
comprises are entirely dependent upon the forcible transfer of wealth
from your pockets to theirs via a perpetual regime of “war and
rumor of war.”
~Thomas Knapp

---

The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for Sep 2010
lead story


There was a one-line mention of the OKC march in solidarity with Pfc. Manning in the Washington Post, in this
article:

Army analyst linked to WikiLeaks hailed as antiwar hero
By Michael W. Savage
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 14, 2010; A02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/13/AR2...

There was a two-minute story on local TV:

Supporters: Bradley Manning Is A 'Hero'
Thu Aug 12, 9:01PM PT - KOCO - Oklahoma City
Supporters of Pfc. Bradley Manning marched at the state capital on
Thursday
http://news.yahoo.com/video/oklahomacity-koco-18229979/supporters-b...

[Recommended:  Try to stop/pause the video before the reporter's throw away comment
at the end. Otherwise, the website will loop to the next video,
automatically]

Oklahomans in Solidarity with Bradley Manning
Photo album from August 12th event, in Oklahoma City, in support of Bradley Manning

Bradley Manning Solidarity March

picasaweb.google.com

Photos by Rena, Aug 12, 2010 - Supporters of Bradley Manning in Oklahoma City, 8/12/2010

further info:

Bradley Manning Support Network
http://www.bradleymanning.org/

You can send letters of support to Pfc. Manning:

Contact Bradley!
Inmate: Bradley Manning
3247 Elrod Avenue
Quantico, VA 22134
USA

Brig phone: [phone]
Brig fax: [phone]



Some Oklahomans quoted in the Wall Street Journal, in this story, which suggests Manning was
inspired by the film Silkwood, about his hometown, Crescent
Okla:

Computer Evidence Ties Leaks to Soldier from Crescent, Oklahoma
July 30, 2010

By Julian E. Barnes, Miguel Bustillo and Christopher Rhoads

Childhood friends and acquaintances of Pfc. Manning describe him as smart,
interested in current affairs, proficient with computers and not shy
about sharing his opinions, which were often at odds with those
around him in his hometown of Crescent, Okla. (pop. 1,281.)

Pfc. Manning believed in the theory of evolution, for example, and was
intolerant of those who disputed it due to traditional religious
views, associates said.

"His views were very different from everyone else's on the world and government, and maybe part of
him wanted to take things into his own hands," said Chera Moore,
23, a Crescent classmate from kindergarten on.

Though he earned average grades in school, Pfc. Manning seemed more interested
in national and global affairs than his peers, according to
associates.

"He was probably one of the more politically aware kids at that time, and he supported the U.S.," said Mark
Radford, the editor of the weekly Crescent Courier newspaper, who
once chaperoned Pfc. Manning and his class on a Washington trip. Mr.
Radford also said he was interviewed by investigators.

Pfc. Manning's mother and father separated before he entered high school.
Pfc. Manning's mother, Susan, a native of Wales, moved with him to a
small house in Crescent for about a year and then moved to Wales with
her son. She couldn't be reached for comment.

After returning to Oklahoma in 2005, Pfc. Manning briefly worked for an Internet firm
in Oklahoma City, then moved to Tulsa, where he held a variety of
jobs, including at a pizza parlor and a guitar store, according to
Mr. Davis, who had also briefly moved to Tulsa.

Pfc. Manning eventually moved to Potomac, Md., to live with an aunt, and then in
2007 enlisted in the military.

When Mr. Davis, the childhood friend, last saw Pfc. Manning about nine months ago, Mr. Davis said
he could sense a change in his friend, who he said "wasn't
having an easy time" in the military and "felt he wasn't
being treated fairly."

Pfc. Manning was demoted from specialist to private first class while in Iraq for an incident
unrelated to the leak, a defense official said.

Crescent, Okla., is perhaps best known as part of the setting for the 1983 film
"Silkwood" about a whistleblower who was killed in a
suspicious car accident after exposing wrongdoing at a nearby
plutonium plant. Ms. Moore said her class watched the film, but
didn't know if Pfc. Manning was ever inspired by it.

"If he did it, it was not to make money or be famous," Mr. Davis
said. "He would only do something like this if he thought it was
right."

http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:SB100014240527487045322045...


Bradley Manning's guilt (sic) — and ours
The accused leaker to WikiLeaks appears to have acted out of idealism. Now that we've
seen the results of our wars, can we say the same?
posted on August 13, 2010
by  Will Wilkinson

The bloody events portrayed in the WikiLeaks' “Collateral Murder” video seem
gratuitously malign. It is no consolation to know that the victims
were riddled with bullets in accordance with military protocol.
(Again, for what?) Consequently, it takes no great empathy to
understand Manning’s desire to expose such savage, pointless
destruction of human life, or his desire to distance himself from
it.

“I don't believe in good guys versus bad guys anymore,” Private Manning confessed in an instant message chat.

Manning's disillusionment may strike unfaltering patriots as the germ of his
betrayal. But lazy love of country blinds us to the possibility of
our country's wrongdoing. What’s more, it blinds us to the
possibility that Manning's softening of partiality, his recoil from
slaughter, is the morally right response to what he had seen.
 
It is hard to sense our own complicity in injustice, especially when the
victims of injustice appear remote. But Manning saw that he was an
adjunct to injustice and senseless death, and was moved to risk his
freedom, possibly his life, to do something about it.

Manning explained his aim: “Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and
reforms,” he wrote. “[I] want people to see the truth, regardless
of who they are, because without information, you cannot make
informed decisions as a public.” Though he has soured on the state,
Manning evidently remains an idealist animated by the possibly naïve
hope that a democratic public that has seen what he has seen will
feel moved, as he was moved, to do something about it.

Private Manning and WikiLeaks have also created the possibility that millions
of Americans will now come face to face with the same ugly truths
that led Manning to conclude that he had obligations to humanity
weightier than an oath to the state. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
have left Americans with blood on our hands, and on our wallets -- a
truth most of us prefer to avoid. Unfiltered facts and uncensored
video about what has been done on our behalf, on our dime, are
“dangerous” precisely because they lead to mortifying moral
clarity when it is face-saving obfuscation that we crave.


http://theweek.com/article/index/206106/bradley-mannings-guilt-mdas...

[TPF editorial note:  Manning is innocent until proven guilty, under
U.S. law. The title of the above op/ed piece may mislead the reader.
Caveat lector.]

page 1

Occupation Command Liars Deny Killing 52 Afghans In Rigi
So A Reporter Takes A Roadtrip To Rigi And Sees Reality:
“Why The Hell Could They Not See A House Full Of Women And Children?  No One Survived The Strike”

August 9, 2010 Aziz Ahmad Shafe reported from Rigi. Jean MacKenzie reported
from Boston, GlobalPost [Excerpts]

RIGI, Helmand — The issue of civilian casualties has once again assumed center stage in
Afghanistan.

One such incident, say Afghans, was in Rigi, a village in the Sangin district of Helmand province.

On July 23, residents there reported that a cruise missile hit a large family
compound, killing as many as 52 civilians.

NATO officials deny the strike.

A press release issued on July 26 by the press office of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF),
emphasized that there had been no military operations in Rigi on the
specified date.

There had, in fact, been a joint ISAF-Afghan operation about 10 kilometers away, continued the press release;
precision-guided missiles were used against insurgents. But ISAF
insists that all missile strikes were accounted for and reached their
intended targets.

Given the conflicting reports from Sangin, it was almost impossible to establish what actually occurred without
first-hand information.

Aziz Ahmad Shafe, an Afghan cameraman for the BBC, traveled to the area to interview victims.

Here is his own account of the trip:


I kept getting phone calls from local people in Sangin, asking me to cover this
tragedy.

First I tried to get information from the provincial authorities in Helmand, but they told me that nothing had
happened.

First I searched the hospitals, but could find no evidence that any dead or wounded had been brought in from
Sangin.

Finally Dr. Qayum Pukhla, the head of the Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar, told me on the telephone that, at 1 a.m. on
July 24, they had received seven injured children from Sangin.

I decided to go there myself, regardless of the danger.  Sangin is
almost completely under Taliban control.

The Taliban commander in Sangin told me by phone that the situation was too unstable for me
to come.  But I persisted. I told him that I needed to cover the
story and would take responsibility for my own security.

An hour later, Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi called me.

“The Taliban in Sangin will let you through, no problem,” he said. “Go
ahead, do your work.”

I found a driver who was willing to take me, and we set off from Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.

Up until Dorahi, where the road splits off for Kandahar, the road was
paved and there was no problem.  But as soon we entered Sangin
district, I could feel that we had entered Taliban
territory.

Suddenly bullets hit our car from all sides. I saw gunmen by the side of the road, but it was not clear whether they
were Taliban, government forces or simply thieves.

When they saw we were unarmed, they came no closer.

“Go back!” one of them shouted.

We prepared to do just that when some dust-covered vehicles arrived from the direction of Hyderabad. 
They told the gunmen that the operation in Sangin was finished.

“It is okay, you can pass,” said one of them.

I understood that these men belonged to a local militia that was fighting the
Taliban.

We had survived our first confrontation, but there were many more. We were stopped frequently by the Taliban.  I
was expecting to be killed at any moment, but they just looked at our
car and let us go.

When we got to the district center of Sangin, I saw Afghan Army bases, which reassured me a bit, but just a
kilometer outside the center we were once again in Taliban
country.

The place is called Ghargarai — on one side you can see the black, red and green of the Afghan national flag, while just
300 meters away the white Taliban banner waves.

About three kilometers outside of Sangin district center I began to see NATO
bases. There were heavy vehicles and tanks, driving across planted
fields as if they were on a road.

We passed them, and entered Sarwan Kala, which is controlled by the Taliban.

The area is full of mines, and we did not know which way to go. The Taliban told
us how to avoid the explosives.  But soon we were lost and the
driver wanted to turn back.

I saw a village and asked local people the way to Rigi.

“Why would you want to go there?” they asked. They told us there had been a NATO strike and civilians
had been killed. They also said Taliban would kill us if we
went.

But I told them that I was a journalist and wanted to give the victims a voice.

“I am going with you!” said one of the villagers. His name was Abdul Karim, a strong, healthy man
with a white turban who looked about 40. He used to be with the
Taliban, he said, but now he was just sitting at home.

“You cannot go by road, it’s too dangerous,” he said. “Not even a
cat could make it.  But I know a back way, and I will show
you.”

Abdul Karim took the wheel and seemed very competent. There were Taliban checkpoints every 100 meters or so, but he managed
to talk us through them easily.

Finally we got to Rigi.

The first thing we saw was a cemetery, called Faqir Baba. Residents told
me they had buried 24 bodies from the strike there. I counted the
graves.

>From the cemetery there was a small, thickly wooded road to the village itself. Suddenly, about a dozen armed
Taliban jumped out of the trees and demanded to know where we were
going.

When we explained why we wanted to get to Rigi, they said, “Okay. But if you are killed, it is your own
responsibility.”

We found the compound that was hit.  There was a gathering in front of it.

The compound was almost completely destroyed. All the household goods were mixed together,
kitchen things with children’s toys, and wood for the stoves, all
lying in heaps.

Mohammad Khan, a 15-year-old boy, told me the story.

”It was Friday when all this happened,” he said. “Down from this village, there is another one called Joshali, where
I live.

“The Taliban attacked the American and Afghan forces and a short fight broke out between them.  The people of Joshali
decided to evacuate the village, so we came here to Rigi — women,
children, old and young, all of us.

“When we got here, the people of Rigi helped us and gave us shelter,” he continued.

“They put the women and children in one big compound and the men stayed
outside. It was around three in the afternoon that we saw helicopters
in the air.  The men fired on the helicopters from the ground
with AK-47s.  I ran towards the compound and told the children
to go inside.  Some obeyed me and some just stayed outside to
see what was happening.

“Suddenly I heard a big boom and I was knocked down. There was dust everywhere. I could not hear
anything.  When the dust settled, I ran towards the compound. I
saw human bodies scattered everywhere. I started looking for my
mother, and finally found her, covered with blood and dust. I pulled
her out of the ruins. I found three of my little brothers too, near
my mother. They were all dead.”

Khan began to cry. “I want my mother back,” he said, and left me.

Haji Hussain, another man from Joshali village who had taken refuge in Rigi, was visibly
angry as he told of his ordeal.

“We don’t know why they’re killing us,” he said, his voice rising. “The foreigners say they
try to protect civilians, but they are killing us. They are supposed
to have very advanced technology that can detect a nail on the ground
from the air, so why the hell could they not see a house full of
women and children? No one survived the strike.

“They talk of humanity and civilization, where does their humanity and
civilization go when they decide to kill women and children? 
It’s all lies.  They’re just our enemies … ”

Hussein was unsure of the exact number of casualties; he thought it was about
45.

Haji Shah Wali, another refugee from Joshali, agreed.

“In total we took 39 bodies out of the ruins and buried 24 of them in
Faqir Baba cemetery,” he said. ”Some others are in Ghargarai. 
At least six other bodies are still under the rubble; we have not
managed to get them.”

Suddenly a frightened villager came running up.

“Go go, the Americans are coming!” he shouted.

Everybody started to run. The driver and I left Rigi and went back to Lashkar Gah. We arrived at about 8 p.m.

I went straight to the governor’s office and talked to his spokesman,
Dawood Ahmadi. I wanted to explain what had happened in Sangin.

He would not listen.

“Nothing happened there,” he said. “Why are you so
upset?”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/afghanistan/100806/civilian-deat...


featured op/ed:
Military Suicides and Guilty Consciences
by Jacob G. Hornberger

American statists and imperialists are coming up with all sorts of explanations to explain the epidemic of
suicides among U.S. military personnel. The most popular explanations
are war stress and stress at home.

I’ve got another possible cause: guilt, arising from the wrongful killing of other human
beings.

Consider Iraq. Neither the Iraqi people nor their government ever attacked the United States or even threatened to do
so. They had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. When U.S. soldiers
invaded Iraq, they were the aggressors. At worst, every single Iraqi
killed by U.S. forces was simply defending his country against an
unlawful invasion by the military forces of a foreign power.

U.S. soldiers in the initial invasion force undoubtedly convinced
themselves that they were killing Iraqis under the notion of
self-defense, telling themselves that they were protecting the United
States from an imminent WMD attack.

At some point, however, reality set in. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Yet,
countless Iraqis had already been killed by U.S. soldiers.

At that point, did the U.S. government apologize for this grave mistake?
Did President Bush order an immediate withdrawal from the
country?

No.

Once it was determined that Saddam Hussein had in fact destroyed his stocks of WMD, the U.S. government
nonetheless decided to remain in Iraq, calling on the troops to
enforce a brutal occupation, one that necessarily involved killing
more Iraqis.

At that point, any semblance of the “self-defense” rationale disappeared for U.S. troops killing
Iraqis. Any soldier who killed an Iraqi after that point knew, with
100 percent certainty, that the person he was killing was entirely
innocent of any actual attack or threatened attack on the United
States, including 9/11 and the WMDs.

The U.S. government had no right whatsoever, legal or moral, to be in Iraq, and especially
not after it was conclusively determined that Bush had been wrong
about the WMD threat. That means that U.S. soldiers had no right,
legal or moral, to kill any Iraqi, not even Iraqis who were defending
their country from an unlawful invasion.

Aggravating this entire situation is the fact that U.S. soldiers have killed people in
a war that violates the U.S. Constitution, the document that soldiers
took an oath to support and defend. It is undisputed that Congress
never declared war on Iraq, as the Constitution requires.

Since soldiers are not permitted or encouraged to confront the reality of what they have actually done in Iraq — kill people as part of a wrongful invasion
or occupation — and because they have to continue pretending that
that they have killed Iraqis in service of America or for the good of
Iraq, suicide becomes an easy way out to escape the ongoing pain of a
guilty conscience.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2010-08-05.asp


Joint Chiefs boss: Many Iraq, Afghanistan vets find bleak future
--Adm Mike Mullen bemoans the fact that "hundreds of thousands"
of returning veterans have symptoms of PTSD, but he will not take
blame for their inability to re-integrate with mainstream civilian
society, States-side.

By Greg Gardner, Detroit Free Press Business Writer
Aug. 26, 2010

Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, urged community leaders to
hire, educate and help find resources to support tens of thousands of
Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans returning to the most difficult
economy in decades.

Speaking today to the Detroit Economic Club, Mullen called on small business owners, hospital and college
administrators to work with the Pentagon and the Veterans
Administration to prevent veterans with medical and social needs from
falling through the cracks.

“Hundreds of thousands, we’re not sure quite frankly, are exhibiting the symptoms of and will have
post-traumatic stress that all of us need to deal with,” Mullen
said. “We pass these precious individuals, who are the best
military personnel I have ever seen, from silo to silo, and tell them
to do the best you can and have a nice life."

Homeless veterans are also a major issue.
Mullen, a Vietnam War veteran, said it took nearly 10 years before Vietnam vets began showing up as
a significant portion of the homeless.

Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are experiencing homelessness in greater numbers
and at a faster rate. Women veterans, including those with children,
are ending up homeless in larger numbers than their male
counterparts, according to Mullen.

“There are those in the homeless world right now who tell me that we are generating homeless
veterans at four times the rate out of these wars,” Mullen
said.

http://www.freep.com/article/20100826/BUSINESS06/100826084/1001/NEW...


Hundreds of PTSD Soldiers Likely Misdiagnosed
Anne Flaherty, Associated Press

The report begins: "At the height of the Iraq war, the Army routinely fired hundreds of soldiers for having a
personality disorder when they were more likely suffering from the
traumatic stresses of war, discharge data suggests."

Under pressure from Congress and the public, the Army later acknowledged
the problem and drastically cut the number of soldiers given the
designation. But advocates for veterans say an unknown number of
troops still unfairly bear the stigma of a personality disorder,
making them ineligible for military health care and other
benefits.

"We really have an obligation to go back and make sure troops weren't misdiagnosed," said Dr. Barbara Van
Dahlen, a clinical psychologist whose nonprofit "Give an Hour"
connects troops with volunteer mental health professionals.

Unlike PTSD, which the Army regards as a treatable mental disability caused
by the acute stresses of war, the military designation of a
personality disorder can have devastating consequences for
soldiers.

Defined as a "deeply ingrained maladaptive pattern of behavior," a personality disorder is considered a
"pre-existing condition" that relieves the military of its
duty to pay for the person's health care or combat-related disability
pay.

After 2008, the annual number of personality disorder cases dropped by 75 percent. Only 260 soldiers were discharged on
those grounds in 2009.

At the same time, the number of post-traumatic stress disorder cases has soared. By 2008, more than
14,000 soldiers had been diagnosed with PTSD — twice as many as two
years before.

A congressional inquiry is under way to determine whether the Army is relying on a different designation —
referred to as an "adjustment disorder" — to dismiss
soldiers.


http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/96-96/2684-hun...


sidebar:
Army Report: AWOLs Up 234%
by Aaron Glantz
Posted: August 12, 2010

Tucked into this massive Army report  on suicide is an interesting fact: Since
2004, the number of soldiers going AWOL, deserting, and "missing
movement" -- that is failing to deploy when they're supposed to
-- has gone up a shocking 234 percent.

The Army includes this fact on page 92 of the 350 page document, in a section on misdemeanor
crimes -- alongside motor vehicle violations, substance abuse, and
other crimes -- which collectively have been rising at the rate of
more than 5,000 a year for the last five years.

"Good order and discipline are on the decline," the report
says.

Alternatively, one could say that after seven years of war in Iraq and nearly a decade in Afghanistan, American soldiers are
increasingly unwilling to risk their lives for unpopular wars with an
unclear path to victory.

byline: Aaron Glantz is author of: "The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle Against America's
Veterans"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-glantz/army-report-awols-up-234...

Fallen Marine's mother airs grief

By Justin George, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Aug 27, 2010

TAMPA — Liza Natkin wants people to know about the boy in the pictures: her son at
the Keys, in his senior portrait, holding a rifle, flexing his
muscles in the mirror, playing electric guitar.

Natkin, who is from Dover, called a press conference Thursday at the Hillsborough
County Sheriff's Operations Center to share memories of her son,
Marine Lance Cpl. Nathaniel J.A. Schultz.

Lance Cpl. Schultz died Saturday during combat operations in Helmand province,
Afghanistan, according to the Marine Corps. He was 19.

"Nate was very bright," Natkin said. "He was very funny. He had a
sense of humor that didn't quit, and he was always active, always
doing something."

Lance Cpl. Schultz was deployed to Afghanistan in June and promoted to lance corporal Aug. 1. A gung-ho,
do-everything kind of kid, Schultz was into demolition and
disassembling bombs, Natkin said.

"He never talked about how dangerous it was," she said.

A reporter at the Thursday press conference asked why she was choosing to share her
memories with the public.

"Because there's babies over there," Natkin said. "There's babies like my son over there
that shouldn't have to come home in a box like him."

http://www.tampabay.com/news/military/fallen-m...arines-mother-airs...


The Permanent War System Rolls On
America's Political Elite is in Serial Denial on Iraq and Afghanistan
by Gareth Porter, August 11, 2010

In his latest book, Washington Rules, historian Andrew Bacevich points to this largely un-discussed aspect of recent U.S. wars.  The "Washington
rules" to which the title refers are the basic principles of
U.S. global policy that have been required beliefs for entrance into
the U.S. political elite ever since the United States became a
superpower.  The three rules are U.S. global military presence,
global projection of U.S. military power and the use of that power in
one conflict after another.  

Bacevich suggests that personal and institutional interests bind the U.S. political elite and national security bureaucrats to that system of global military dominance. The politicians and bureaucrats
will continue to insist on those principles, he writes, because they
"deliver profit, power and privilege to a long list of
beneficiaries: elected and appointed officials, corporate executives
and corporate lobbyists, admirals and generals, functionaries
staffing the national security apparatus, media personalities and
policy intellectuals from universities and research organizations."

That description of the problem provides a key to understanding the otherwise puzzling serial denial by the political elite on Iraq and Afghanistan.  It won’t do much good for antiwar people to
demand an end to the war in Afghanistan unless they are also
demanding an end to the underlying system that has now produced
quasi-permanent American war.

Bacevich's new book is a call for Americans to reject the Washington consensus for permanent war, global counterinsurgency, and global military power projection, and to demand instead that America
"come home," as Martin Luther King called for in 1967, and
focus on resolving its own domestic problems rather than act as a
self-appointed global police and occupation force.

http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2010/08/10/the-permanent-war-sys...

---

The Tulsa Peace Fellowship's Counter-Recruitment Update/Digest, for Sep 2010
masthead

who we are:

The Tulsa Peace Fellowship is the activist wing of the peace movement in Eastern Oklahoma.  TPF offers citizens and
community groups tools and resources to participate personally in our
democracy, to help shape federal budget and policy priorities, and to
promote peace, social and economic justice, and human rights.  
TPF is a registered non-profit organization and a non-partisan
civic-sector organization, loosely affiliated with the Unitarian
Universalist Church of the Restoration, north side of Tulsa.

"Waging Peace One Person at a Time".

Through its counter-recruitment task force, TPF is a
member of the National Network in Opposition
to the Militarization of Youth (NNOMY) representing some
188 counter-recruitment groups in cities and towns across the
country. On the web:
http://www.nnomy.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=v...

The information provided in this digest/update herein is for non-profit use only, according to "fair
use" doctrine.  Copyright and all commercial exploitation
rights remain with the various authors/publishers cited above. The
Tulsa Peace Fellowship does not necessarily endorse the views
expressed in the articles appearing herein.