[Thanks to David Honish, Veterans For Peace, who sent this in.]

“Only Terry Lisk Has Seen The End Of This War”

 June 29, 2006 By Dexter Filkins The New York Times

 RAMADI, Iraq

 A soldier was dead, and it was time for him to go home.

 The doors to the little morgue swung open, and six other soldiers stepped outside carrying a long black bag zippered at the top.

 About 60 soldiers were waiting to say goodbye. They had gathered in the sand outside this morgue at Camp Ramadi, an army base in Anbar Province, now the most lethal of Iraqi places.

 Inside the bag was Sergeant Terry Michael Lisk, 26, of Zion, Illinois, killed a few hours before.

 In the darkness, the bag was barely visible. A line of blue chemical lights marked the way to the landing strip not far away.

 Everyone saluted, even the wounded man on a stretcher. No one said a word.

 Lisk had been standing near an intersection in central Ramadi on Monday morning when a 120 mm mortar shell, fired by guerrillas, landed about 30 paces away. The exploding shell flung a chunk of steel into the right side of his chest, just beneath his arm. He stopped breathing and died a few minutes later.

The pallbearers lifted Lisk into the back of an ambulance, a truck marked by a large red cross, and fell in with the others walking silently behind it as it crept through the sand toward the landing zone. The blue lights marked the way.

 From a distance came the sound of a helicopter.

 Death comes often to the soldiers and marines who are fighting in Anbar Province, the most intractable region in Iraq.

 Almost every day, a U.S. soldier is killed somewhere in Anbar - in Ramadi, in Haditha, in Falluja, by a sniper, by a roadside bomb, or as with Lisk, by a mortar shell. In the first 27 days of June, 27 soldiers and marines were killed here. In small ways, the military tries to ensure that individuals like Lisk are not forgotten in the plenitude of death.

 One way is to say goodbye to the body of a fallen comrade as it leaves for the United States.  Here in Anbar, American bodies are taken first by helicopter to Camp Anaconda, the big logistical base north of Baghdad, and then on to the United States. Most helicopter traffic in Anbar, for security reasons, takes place at night.

 In the minutes after the mortar shell exploded, everyone hoped that Lisk would live. Although he was not breathing, the medics got to him right away, and the hospital was not far.

 “What's his name?” asked Colonel Sean MacFarland, the commander of the 4,000-soldier First Brigade.

 “Lisk, sir,” someone replied.

 “If he can be saved, they'll save him,” said MacFarland, who had been only a few yards away in an armored personnel carrier when the mortar shell landed.

 About 10 minutes later, the word came.

 “He's dead,” MacFarland said.

 Whenever a soldier dies, in Iraq or anywhere else, a wave of uneasiness - fear, revulsion, guilt, sadness - ripples through the survivors. It could be felt Monday, even when the fighting was still going on.

 “He was my best friend,” Specialist Allan Sammons said, his lower lip shaking. “That's all I can say. I'm kind of shaken up.”

 Another soldier asked, “You want to take a break?”

 Sammons said, “I'll be fine,” his lip still shaking.

 Lisk's friends and superiors recalled a man who had risen from a difficult childhood to become someone whom they counted on for good cheer in a grim and uncertain place.

 “He was a special kid,” Sammons said of Lisk. “He came from a broken home. I think he was divorced. I'm worried that it might be hard to find someone.”

 He said he would write a letter to the family - to whom it was not clear yet.

 Hours later, at the landing zone at Camp Ramadi, the helicopter descended. Without lights, in the darkness, it was just a grayish glow. With its engines still whirring, it lowered its back door.

 The six soldiers walked out to the chopper and lifted Lisk's body into it. The door went back up. The helicopter flew away.

 The soldiers saluted a final time.

 In the darkness, as the sound of the helicopter faded, MacFarland addressed his soldiers.

 “I don't know if this war is worth the life of Terry Lisk, or 10 soldiers, or 2,500 soldiers like him,” MacFarland told his men and women.  “What I do know is that he did not die alone.  He was surrounded by friends.

 “A Greek philosopher said that only the dead have seen the end of war,” the colonel continued.  “Only Terry Lisk has seen the end of this war.”

 The soldiers turned and walked back to their barracks in the darkness.  No one said a word.

 IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Winnsboro Soldier Killed

 June 28. 2006 The Associated Press, WINNSBORO, La.

 A 33-year-old soldier from Louisiana was killed in Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded near his vehicle, his family said Wednesday.

 The Department of Defense has not released the circumstances of Army Sgt. Terry Wallace's death, but his mother, Mary Wallace of Winnsboro, said military authorities knocked on her door Wednesday morning to bring her the news.

 Wallace, a member of the 42nd Field Artillery Unit based at Ford Hood, Texas, enlisted after graduating from Winnsboro High School.  He was deployed to Iraq last November and was scheduled to return home in December, his wife, Shunda, told KNOE-TV of Monroe.

 Mrs. Wallace said her husband died Tuesday night "when a bomb exploded and blew up his Humvee."  He was killed immediately.  The family was not told whether any other soldiers were killed in the blast, said Wallace from Bellevue, Neb., where she moved for work after her husband was deployed.

 Wallace's twin brother, Jerry, said the soldier's active lifestyle pushed him to get what he wanted out of life.

 "He loved any sport," he said.  "He loved to play in the band. He was just a brother that just loved to strive to get to anything and everything he wanted to do. It wasn't anything that couldn't cross his path that you could tell he couldn't do because he was going to show you he could do it."

 Wallace's survivors also include five children.

UKIAH:

Sgt. Jason J. Buzzard Loved To Go Fishing

June 24, 2006 Cicero A. Estrella, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer

 Army Sgt. Jason J. Buzzard grew up with his father as his best friend. They spent countless hours together outdoors -- hunting, fishing, skiing and camping.

 "It's something he's done all his life," said Sgt. Buzzard's wife, Michele, "He just loved fishing and hunting with his dad."

 Sgt. Buzzard was killed in Baghdad Wednesday when an explosive device detonated near his cargo truck during combat operations, the U.S. Department of Defense said. He was 31.

 He joined the Army in 1998 and was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas.

 Jason Buzzard was born in Willits and grew up in Ukiah. He first thought about joining the military while attending Ukiah High School, where he played tuba for the school band and from where he graduated in 1993.

 "It's something that he thought about, but wasn't able to do," Michele Buzzard said. "He always wanted to join and defend his country.

 "He liked the structure of the Army and the fact that he was able to travel to different places and meet different people," she said.

 During his time in the Army, Sgt. Buzzard was stationed in Colorado, Korea and most recently Fort Hood.

 But wherever he was, Sgt. Buzzard always kept close tabs on his family. He exchanged instant messages with his wife in Texas and parents in Ukiah almost every day.

 "He always wanted to know what everyone was doing," said Michele Buzzard, who began dating him after high school and married him in 1997. "I told him every day to be safe and to come home to us."

 She said that her husband had planned to ask for a transfer to Fort Lewis, Wash., when he returned from his duty in Iraq so that they could be closer to family in Northern California.

 Michele Buzzard said her husband enjoyed romping on the trampoline and bowling with their 12-year-old daughter Michala and 9-year-old son Tristin.

 Whenever he got the chance, he returned home to Ukiah to spend time with his parents, Jerry and Marilyn Buzzard.

 Father and son always found time for outdoor activities, especially fishing.

 "Lake Pillsbury, Lake Sonoma, Lake Trinity, Lake Mendocino -- they would fish on any lake they could find," Michele Buzzard said.

 Sgt. Buzzard also enjoyed diving for abalone at Ft. Bragg and ocean fishing with his father-in-law, Steve Swingle, she said.

 He was also a big fan of the San Francisco 49ers.

 "He liked watching them on TV, eating salami and just hanging out in his sweatpants," said Michele Buzzard, who broke down a couple of times during a phone interview from Ukiah.

 Sgt. Buzzard is also survived by an older sister, Kelly Macmillan.

REALLY BAD IDEA:

NO MISSION;

HOPELESS WAR:

BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW

U.S. Marines patrol in Ramadi June 26, 2006.  (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg)

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

“The Taliban Has Expressed Its Thanks To The U.S. Air Force For Greatly Increasing Its Popular Support In The Bombed Areas.”

 June 19, 2006 By William S. Lind, On War #171

 This Sunday’s sacred ritual of Mass, bagels and tea with the Grumpy Old Men’s Club was rudely disrupted by the headline of the day’s Washington Post: “U.S. Airstrikes Rise In Afghanistan as Fighting Intensifies.”

 Great, I thought; it’s probably cheaper than funding a recruiting campaign for the Taliban and lots more effective at creating new guerrillas.

 Getting into the story just made the picture worse:

 As fighting in Afghanistan has intensified over the past three months, the U.S. military has conducted 340 airstrikes there, more than twice the 160 carried out in the much higher-profile war in Iraq, according to data from the Central Command…

 The airstrikes appear to have increased in recent days as the United States and its allies have launched counteroffensives against the Taliban in the south and southeast, strafing and bombing a stronghold in Uruzgan province and pounding an area near Khost with 500-pound bombs.

 One might add, “The Taliban has expressed its thanks to the U.S. Air Force for greatly increasing its popular support in the bombed areas.”

 At present, the bombing is largely tied to the latest Somme-like “Big Push,” Operation Mountain Thrust, in which more than 10,000 U.S.-led troops are trying another failed approach to guerrilla war, the sweep.

 I have no doubt it would break the Mullah Omar Line, if it existed, which it doesn’t. 

 Even the Brits seem to have drunk the Kool-Aid this time, with the June 19 Washington Times reporting that “British commanders declared for the first time yesterday that their troops were enjoying success in the restive south of Afghanistan after pushing faster than expected into rebel territory.”

 Should be in Berlin by September, old chap.

 Of course, all this is accompanied by claims of many dead Taliban, who are conveniently interchangeable with dead locals who weren’t Taliban.

 Bombing from the air is the best way to drive up the body count, because you don’t even have to count bodies; you just make estimates based on the claimed effectiveness of your weapons, and feed them to ever-gullible reporters.  By the time Operation Mountain Thrust is done thrusting into mountains, we should have killed the Taliban several times over.

 Icing this particular cake is a strategic misconception of the nature of the Afghan war that only American generals could swallow.

 According to the same Post story,

 U.S. officials say the activity is a response to an increasingly aggressive Taliban, whose leaders realize that long-term trends are against them as them as the power of the Afghan central government grows.

 “I think the Taliban realize they have a window to act,” Army Maj. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, commander of the 22,000 U.S. troops in the country, said in a recent interview. “The enemy is working against a window that he knows is closing.”

 Except that the power of the U.S.-created Afghan government is receding, not growing, and the Taliban’s “window” only closes when Christ comes again.

 Aaugh!  The last time a nation’s civilian and military leadership was this incapable of learning from experience was under the Ching Dynasty.

Perhaps it’s time to offer a short refresher course in Guerrilla War 101:

 Air power works against you, not for you.

 It kills lots of people who weren’t your enemy, recruiting their relatives, friends and fellow tribesmen to become your enemies.

 In this kind of war, bombers are as useful as 42 cm. siege mortars.

 Big, noisy, offensives, launched with lots of warning, achieve nothing.  The enemy just goes to ground while you pass on through, and he’s still there when you leave.  Big Pushes are the opposite of the “ink blot” strategy, which is the only thing that works, when anything can.

 Putting the Big Push together with lots of bombing in Afghanistan’s Pashtun country means we end up fighting most if not all of the Pashtun.  In Afghan wars, the Pashtun always win in the end.

 Quisling governments fail because they cannot achieve legitimacy.

 You need closure, but your guerilla enemy doesn’t.  He not only can fight until Doomsday, he intends to do just that, if not you, then someone else.

 The bigger the operations you have to undertake, the more surely your enemy is winning.

 The June 19 Washington Times also reported that

 The ambassador from Afghanistan traveled to America’s heartland to promote his war-torn country as the “heart of Asia” and a good place to do business…

 In his region, “all roads lead to Afghanistan,” he said…

 Asia doesn’t have any heart, and Afghanistan doesn’t have any roads, not even one we can follow to get out.

TROOP NEWS

THIS IS HOW BUSH BRINGS THE TROOPS HOME:

BRING THEM ALL HOME NOW, ALIVE

Army Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, is lowered at his funeral in Brownsville, Texas, June 28, 2006.  Members of his family oppose the war in Iraq.  (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

100 Soldiers From Colorado 169th Guard Unit Going To Bush’s Imperial Slaughterhouse

 June 29, 2006 By Dick Foster, Rocky Mountain News

 More than 100 soldiers from the Colorado Army National Guard's 169th "Fires" Brigade will go to Iraq at the end of next month, Guard officials said Wednesday.

 The unit, headquartered at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, has been training since March 1 at Fort Sill, Okla., and in Hawaii to prepare for its deployment.

 The 169th, formerly a field artillery brigade, has been renamed a fires brigade and will coordinate all large "stand-off" weapons that support ground troops, including artillery and airborne weapons.

 "We are responsible for synchronizing all of those indirect fires on the battlefield," said Lt. Col. Mark Brackney, the brigade's deputy commander.

 The brigade is made up mostly of Coloradans from all walks of life, said Brackney, a program manager for Lockheed Martin in civilian life.  Many are going to Iraq for the first time.

 The Guard unit, commanded by Col. Kenneth Lull, will work for a division commander in Iraq, coordinating the use of large weapons for operations over a large swath of northern Iraq, Brackney said.

 "We will bring together all the puzzle pieces for the division commander," Brackney said. "We will integrate radar, artillery, Army attack helicopters and the Air Force's close air support, because you can't just shoot into the sky without clearing the air space."

 The 169th will be the third Colorado Army National Guard unit serving in or headed to Iraq.

 About 135 members of the 947th Engineer Company went in October and are building roads in western Iraq, guard spokesman 2nd Lt. Darin Overstreet said.

 Another 300 troops from the 2/135th Aviation Company were mobilized in April and are training in Texas for deployment in September.

Pentagon Surrenders:

Will Stop Calling Gay Troops Head Cases

June 29, 2006 Washington Post

 The Pentagon is revising a document that calls homosexuality a mental disorder.  DoD said homosexuality should not have been characterized as a mental disorder in an appendix of a procedural instruction.  [This after a shit-storm of condemnation.]

The Weasel Kerry Betrays Again:

Breaks Promise To Fight “Lousy” “Paltry” Pay Raise For Troops;

Now He Says Higher Ranks Need The Money More

 [This is the same rat that attacked Bush for not destroying Falluja more quickly, and demanded 40,000 more troops be sent to Iraq.  T]

 June 28, 2006 By Rick Maze, Army Times staff writer [Excerpts]

 After promising in February to lead a fight against the smallest military pay raise since 1994, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., failed to offer an amendment to give a larger raise during Senate debate on the 2007 defense budget.

 After the Senate passed its defense authorization bill June 22 and left intact the 2.2 percent raise sought by the Bush administration, Kerry said he had been working with Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., on an amendment calling for a 2.7 percent raise for all service members effective Jan. 1, but was waved off by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In February, Kerry was the leader of a 10-senator effort to press the Senate for a bigger pay raise.  He called the proposed 2.2 percent hike “lousy.” 

“Our troops are sacrificing so much, in every corner of the world.  Shortchanging them and the families who love them is a lousy way to say thanks,” Kerry said in a statement at the time.

 “Our military deserves leadership that matches their service and patriotism. Getting our troops the pay raise they deserve is the very least we can do to show how much we value everything they do for us.

 “I’m going to fight for a fair military pay raise until it becomes a reality.”

 His initial effort was supported only by Democrats, who tried and failed to get the Senate Budget Committee to amend the overall federal budget to make room for the bigger military pay increase.

 In a Feb. 16 letter to the budget committee, Kerry and the other Democrats said the 2.2 percent raise is “paltry.”

 After the Senate passed its defense authorization bill June 22 and left intact the 2.2 percent raise sought by the Bush administration, Kerry said he had been working with Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., on an amendment calling for a 2.7 percent raise for all service members effective Jan. 1, but was waved off by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

 “It is our understanding that the committee has made the determination, in consultation with people in the services, the needs of the services, that there is a particular problem with respect to retention of noncommissioned officers,” Kerry said, appearing to indicate that he didn’t think it was possible to carry through with a Bush administration plan to provide targeted pay raises for warrant officers and mid-career enlisted members on April 1 if the Jan. 1 pay increase for all ranks was slightly higher.

However, the House Armed Services Committee approved a two-part pay plan, urged by Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., that would do exactly what Kerry said is impossible.

 At a cost of about an extra $300 million, the House version of the defense bill includes a 2.7 percent basic pay raise and also includes a targeted pay increase of up to 8.3 percent for E-5s, E-6s, E-7s and warrant officers.

 Twisted Kill Freak Goes Free:

Staff Sgt. Called Him “A Cancer To My Soldiers”

 June 25, 2006 E&P Staff

 NEW YORK

 An American soldier convicted in the fatal shooting of a handcuffed Iraqi cow herder in 2004 was freed from a military prison in Oklahoma on Friday, more than a year before his sentence was up, the Dayton Daily News reported today.

 Army Spec. Edward Richmond Jr., 22, of Gonzales, La., was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced in August 2004 to three years in prison for the April 28, 2004, shooting death of Muhamad Husain Kadir in the village of Taal Al Jal, which is about 40 miles southwest of Kirkuk.

 Richmond was released on parole, his attorney said Friday.  "He told me this morning it feels good to be free," said Richmond's father, Edward Richmond Sr.

 The shooting was one of two of Iraqi civilians during a 10-day period by members of the same Hawaii-based platoon, the HHC 1/27th Mortar platoon. 

 Richmond Jr. said that he shot Kadir because he thought he lunged at the soldier who was holding him, Sgt. Jeffrey D. Waruch of Olean, N.Y., and that he wasn't aware Kadir's hands were bound.

 Waruch was accused in the other shooting, in which a 13-year-old girl was killed and her mother and sister wounded.

 Waruch was discharged without being accused of a crime.  Army officials determined it was unlikely they would find sufficient evidence against him.  Both shootings were examined by the Dayton Daily News late last year in a special report.

 The Ohio newspaper reported then that dozens of soldiers were accused of crimes against Iraqis since the first troops deployed for Iraq, but despite strong evidence and convictions in some cases, only a small percentage resulted in punishments. 

 "As with the death of former NFL star Pat Tillman and the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians by Marines in Haditha, the military did not immediately conduct a criminal investigation into the shooting of the three women by Waruch.

 The Army Criminal Investigation Command did not begin a formal investigation until more than a year after the Feb. 18, 2004, shootings, after official requests for records from both the Dayton Daily News and Richmond's father. 

 "The Daily News reported that in the months leading to Waruch's deployment in Iraq, two women alleging domestic abuse obtained temporary restraining orders against him, each order requiring him to surrender his firearms to police.”

 “During an interview, Waruch's supervisor, Staff Sgt. Marcus Warner of New Iberia, La., called him 'a cancer to my soldiers,' and he unsuccessfully tried to prevent him from going to Iraq."

IRAQ RESISTANCE ROUNDUP

Assorted Resistance Action

 June 29, 2006 Press Trust of India & IOL & (KUNA) 7 Reuters

 Guerrillas in a civilian car intercepted a car carrying Kadhim Challoub, who was in charge of the guards at Baghdad University, ordered his driver and his guard out, then killed the security chief on the eastern side of the capital, police Lt Mohammad Khayoun said.

 Fighters on a motorcycle also killed a policeman

 Unidentified armed men killed Thursday a police officer in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad 24 hours after his capture.  A security source in the Iraqi Interior Ministry said that the body of Lieut. General Mohammed Nasser in the west Baghdad.

 The source added that an armed group kidnapped on Wednesday the police officer, where his body was found today bearing torture marks and gun shots on a road side in Al-Ghazaliyah.

 BAQUBA, Iraq:  The commander of an Iraqi quick reaction force and two soldiers were shot dead by a sniper.