GI SPECIAL 3C59:

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

18th MP BRIGADE SOLDIER KILLED BY IED

September 20, 2005 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS Release Number: 05-09-16C

BAGHDAD, Iraq  An 18th Military Police Brigade Soldier was killed 75 miles north of Baghdad when his vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device at 2:25 p.m. Sept. 20.

FOUR II MEF SOLDIERS KILLED BY RAMADI IED

September 20, 2005 HEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND NEWS Release Number: 05-09-15C

CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq  Four Soldiers assigned to the 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), were killed in action by improvised explosive devices during two separate incidents while conducting combat operations Sept. 19 in Ar Ramadi, Iraq.

Several U.S. Army units are attached to II MEF (Fwd) during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Ohio Soldier Killed On Tank

September 20, 2005 Associated Press

Ironton, Ohio - An Ohio soldier whose older brother also is in the Army was killed in Iraq, family said Monday.

Army Spc. David Ford, 20, of Ironton, was killed Thursday while riding in a tank in Baghdad, family members said.

Ford joined the military to raise money for college and wanted to be a forensic pathologist, said his mother, Violet Ford, 55, of Los Angeles.

Ironton is about 100 miles south of Columbus along the Ohio River.

U.S. "Agent," Three U.S. Mercenaries Killed In Mosul:

Two More Wounded

September 20, 2005 By Jonathan Finer and Fred Barbash, Washington Post Staff Writers

An American diplomat and three private security contractors died Monday in the northern city of Mosul when their armored SUV was attacked by a car bomber, a Western official in Baghdad confirmed Tuesday morning.

Two others riding in the three-vehicle convoy -- which was departing a U.S. embassy satellite office in Mosul -- suffered minor injuries in the attack, which occurred at 9:49 a.m., the official said.

A lone driver pulled alongside the convoy and detonated an explosion next to the second vehicle. U.S. security personnel immediately cordoned the area and administered first aid, but the four appeared to have died instantly.

The diplomat killed in the attack was not named, but was described as a diplomatic security agent.

Vt. National Guard Soldier Killed

September 20, 2005 WorldNow

A member of the Vermont National Guard, and Wilmington Police Department, has been killed in Iraq.

1st Lieutenant Mark Dooley was killed Monday by an improvised explosive device while on a routine patrol mission in Ramadi.

Dooley was a native of Wallkill, New York.

Six Soldiers Wounded In Baghdad By Car Bomb

2005-09-20 By: Mary Wicoff, Commercial-News

DANVILLE  The family of Joshua "Jake" Denney is relieved to hear the serviceman is recovering well from wounds he suffered in an attack in Iraq.

"He's alive and doing well, and his spirits are high," his mother, Delores Carlisle, said Monday. "He's doing quite well."

Denney, 25, serves with the 130th National Guard Infantry.

Reports say he and six other soldiers were on foot patrol near Baghdad last week when shrapnel from a car bomb hit them. Denney was airlifted to a hospital in Germany, where he endured several surgeries.

Carlisle said she spoke to her son, who expects to return to the United States this week. She doesn't know where he will be, but she plans to visit him.

Denney is a 1999 graduate of Danville High School. His father is William Denney of Rossville.

Arkport Grad Injured;

Humvee Blast Sprays Shrapnel

September 20, 2005 By ROB MONTANA - STAFF WRITER, Hornell Evening Tribune

Army Staff Sgt. Samuel Edwards was 15 miles from completing his mission when the explosion came early in the morning Sept. 11 in Tikrit, Iraq.

The humvee the 1989 Arkport graduate was riding in fell victim to an improvised explosive device, which Edwards said is usually a mortar round stuck in the ground and detonated with a remote control.

"It was the very last day, we had 15 miles to go before we were done," Edwards said in a telephone interview Monday from Eisenhower Army Medical Center in Fort Gordon, Ga. "I knew it could happen, but I was still surprised by it."

Edwards' truck was bringing up the rear of a convoy of escorts for military trucks when the blast occurred. As truck commander, Edwards said he is responsible for the others in the vehicle. He said once the blast went off he called out to everyone to call out their names.

"Everybody did but my gunner," Edwards said. "Finally he started yelling and I had the other guys go out and get him out."

The gunner - Sgt. Kurtis D. K. Arcala, 22, of Palmer, Alaska - had sustained shrapnel wounds to his head and body, primarily on the right side, and was in very serious condition, Edwards said. He added they got the radio working and called to the rest of the convoy - which had continued on - for help.

While the gunner received the most serious injuries, Edwards said he had multiple shrapnel wounds to both legs and sustained three fractures to his right ankle.

"I can limp around on my left leg when my right leg isn't hurting a lot," he said. "I can't walk on my right leg."

Thus far Edwards has had four surgeries to clean the wounds and was slated for another procedure today.

"So far they haven't been able to set the bone," Edwards said. "They have to wait for the muscle and skin to heal to put pins in my ankle."

Edwards said he is doing fine right now, especially since he has seen plenty of his wife, Sarah, and children, 7-year-old son Keaston and 5-year-old daughter Kennidy.

While Edwards survived his injuries, his gunner wasn't so lucky. Edwards said his gunner's injuries were too extensive and he passed away as a result of the blast. He said he thought the man would make it through, but there was little the hospital could do for him.

Edwards added he feels responsible for the man dying. "I know there was nothing I could do, but I was responsible and I want to bring everyone home," he said. "He was a fine soldier and one of the best we had. The guys took it hard too."

Gov. Of Basra Calls British Occupation Raid "Barbaric, Savage And Irresponsible"

"This Is Terrorism. All We Had Was Rifles"

Commander Caught Telling Stupid Lie About Damage

Lying British officer says only "minor damage" after British forces raided a jail in Basra September 20, 2005. An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said that British forces stormed the Major Crimes Unit Monday night using six tanks and freed two British undercover soldiers who had been arrested earlier in the day. REUTERS/Atef Hassan

September 20, 2005 Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. & Ananova Ltd

A spokesman for Iraq's prime minister, meanwhile, described as "very unfortunate" an incident in the southern city of Basra in which British armored vehicles broke down the wall of a jail to try to free two British soldiers who were later found in the custody of local militiamen elsewhere in the city.

"My understanding is, first, it happened very quickly. Second, there is lack of discipline in the whole area regarding this matter," said Haydar al-Abadi, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. "It is (a) very unfortunate development that the British forces should try to release their soldiers the way it happened."

The commander of the operation to free them sought to minimize the extent of destruction at the jail.

"Minor damage was caused to the prison compound wall and to the house in which our two soldiers were held," said Brig. John Lorimer, commander of the 12th Mechanized Brigade.

Photos from the jail Tuesday showed a concrete wall broken through, several cars crushed - apparently by armored vehicles.

Iraqi policemen at the jail surveyed a mass of rubble, broken plywood and air conditioning units where their perimeter wall and a number of prefabricated structures once stood. [Hit his base that hard with mortars and rockets and see if the asshole calls it "minor damage."]

Mohammed al-Waili, the governor of Basra province, condemned the British for raiding the prison, an act he called "barbaric, savage and irresponsible."

British Defense Minister John Reid defended the action as "absolutely right."

His comments contradicted earlier Defense Ministry statements in which British authorities said the two soldiers were freed through negotiations. [Another stupid lie. These guys have shit for brains. They can't even keep their lies organized.]

Residents of Basra, in a region with Iraq's biggest oil reserves, called on British troops to leave the country.

"It is inappropriate for any Iraqi to be insulted by a British or an American or any other occupier, we reject the occupying forces," said Abbas Jassim.

"The British violated the government, police and the sons of this country, which we all reject."

The raid could boost the popularity of Shi'ite cleric Sadr, who can mobilise thousands of supporters quickly.

"What the two Britons did was literally international terrorism," Ali al-Yassiri, an aide to Sadr, told Reuters.

"If the British had condemned this, it would have calmed the situation but instead they came and demanded them back which sets a dangerous precedent."

British soldiers have not drawn as much fury as their U.S. allies, but Iraqi police vented their anger in Basra as they inspected damage from the British raid.

"Four tanks invaded the area. A tank cannon struck a room where a policeman was praying," said policeman Abbas Hassan, standing next to mangled cars outside the police station and jail that he said were crushed by British military vehicles.

"This is terrorism. All we had was rifles."

Car Bomb Hits US Military Convoy In Western Baghdad;

Casualties Not Announced

2005-09-20 (Xinhuanet)

A car bomb detonated near a US military convoy in western Baghdad on Tuesday, police said.

"A car packed with explosives blew up at about 2:10 p.m. near a passing US military convoy on the main road near Nafaqal-Shurta (Police Tunnel)," an Interior Ministry source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Several shops and nearby buildings were damaged by the blast, the source said, adding the car was parking on the side of the road.

It was not clear whether there was any casualty among US soldiers or Iraqi civilians, as US troops cordoned off the area to prevent people and Iraqi police from approaching the scene.

Iraq Troop Deaths Hit 1,903

September 20, 2005 Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The U.S. military said Tuesday that four U.S. soldiers were killed in two separate roadside bombings near the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, pushing the toll of American forces killed in Iraq past 1,900.

As of Tuesday, 1,903 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,483 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Lance-Corporal Cheng Lui, a radio operator with Fox Company of the Second Battalion, Third Marines, returns fire after his convoy was attacked during Operation Whalers in the Chawkay Valley in the Kunar Province, Afghanistan, August 18, 2005. REUTERS/Sgt Cooper I Evans/Handout

TROOP NEWS

"I Hope Armed Forces Families Won't Go Through What My Family Is Going Through"

September 18, 2005 By Michael Levenson, Boston Globe Correspondent

CAMBRIDGE -- Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a slain soldier whose vigil outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, helped galvanize antiwar sentiment last month, told 200 cheering, chanting supporters in Cambridge yesterday that Americans should never again be led into what she called an illegal and unjust war.

''We remembered something that we as Americans had forgotten after almost five years of being under a virtual dictatorship," she said on Cambridge Common. ''We have the power. We Americans are the ones with the power."

Sheehan's supporters had set up tents on the grass yesterday and hung a placard reading, ''Welcome to Camp Alex," in honor of Alex S. Arredondo, a 20-year-old Marine lance corporal from Randolph who died in August 2004.

He was shot by insurgents while storming a building in Najaf. His father, Carlos Arredondo of Roslindale, later made national headlines when he set himself on fire inside a van that the Marines had used to bring him the news of his son's death. He survived, but suffered burns on 26 percent of his body.

''I hope armed forces families won't go through what my family is going through," Arredondo said in an interview at the rally yesterday, describing his battle with post-traumatic stress disorder. ''Because it's one year gone by, and it's still very difficult, and people are telling me it's a far road ahead."

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

Behind The Curtain Of War

From: Mike Hastie

To: GI Special

Sent: September 19, 2005

Subject: Behind The Curtain Of War

To G.I. Special:

It is great to have an opinion about the war in Iraq.

But, if you support this war, please do some research on what happens behind the curtain of war. "What you don't see won't hurt you," is not being an adult. Because, what is in front of the curtain, is the Disneyland version of reality. What is behind the curtain of war, may trample your belief system.

Most of the pro-war people I talk to, have a childish perception of war. And, when they talk about fighting for freedom, it is always someone else's children who do the fighting.

When I came back from Vietnam, I went underground for fifteen years, because the lies of that war dismantled any sense of patriotism.

The only thing I believed in was mistrust.

The war in Iraq is a malignant cancer, just like the Vietnam War. All the ignorant people, where do they all come from?

Thank God for the anti-war movement.

If I did not have the companionship of that beloved cause, I would probably be back in a padded cell.

I had a friend who served in Vietnam, who went into a Vietnamese village after it had been shelled by American artillery, and he saw internal organs hanging from trees. You gotta look behind the curtain of war, and get sick.

That way, you won't vote for stupid people.

Mike Hastie

1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry,

4th Infantry Division

Vietnam 1970-71

A History Of U.S. Armed Forces Rebellions

[Continued]

By Martin Smith (Sgt. USMC; out of service)

Writing this was about healing a really dark chapter in my life, my experience in the marine corps. The words I wrote came out of an inner pain and experience that needed to heal.

But most of all, I hope that my words in some way bring an end to this god damn war and that no one else will have to come back in a body bag.

This isn't about me, it's all about bringing the troops home now,

Martin Smith

Vietnam: When Soldiers Stopped A War

The material inequality of base life promoted an incentive for the brass and lifers to support the war effort and a reason for their hatred of dissent.

Printed in April 1968, an anonymous soldier wrote to the paper to explain how career soldiers cared more about their promotion than the lower enlisted men's lives:

"I can tell you first hand that the war is not popular at all with the people concernedLifers, of course, support the warThe reason that they do favor the war is obvious; the more men in the service, the more rank possibilities. If the war were ended today you can imagine the promotion freeze that would occur. So the most ambitious favor the war. That in turn explains the reason such material (anti-war) is suppressed because it threatens their career."

In a similar letter published in September 1969, a soldier in the 1/1 Cavalry Americal Division talks about how the lifer in his unit only cares about promotion: "Fighting over in this hole is one thing, but hassling with this lifer is really the big problem our unit has. He cares more about his company area looking good (so he can kiss ass with the brass)...Anybody in my platoon can testify to that."

By supporting the war effort, lifers positioned themselves as "the straw bosses of the Army," according to soldier activist Andy Stapp in his autobiography published in 1970, Up Against the Brass, meaning that they must supervise and manage the war while the real decisions are made from above. "The hardest job they have is getting up early and waking the privatesOnce a man gets his foot on the bottom rung of the NCO ladder he's set for life. No job in the world is more secure," Stapp contends.

Others expressed outrage at how the military cared more for the lives of the upper ranks and the protection of its war machinery than for the safety and security of the enlisted soldier.

In January 1969, one letter from a private from the 1^st Calvary Division complained how the officers' lives always came first: "We lost another guy because the lifers were in a big hurry to finish a bunker for the Colonel, they completely forgot about the safety of the men, and we had an accident causing a death. THE COLONEL HAD HIS F---- BUNKER BUILT ON TIME NO MATTER WHAT."

Likewise, a Corporal from the 26^th Marine Regiment wrote how his teammates routinely lied to the Medivac chopper pilots, claiming there was no incoming enemy fire; because otherwise, the choppers would not land. He explained in a letter printed in August 1968, "One buddy got a leg blown off digging trenches for our brave hard-charging colonel and because we weretaking rounds this guy suffered twelve hours before hedied, all because this pilot wouldn't land. One man over here is nothing but one chopper to the Marine Corps is a hell of a lot."

The perceived unequal privileging of the lives of the upper ranks and for the safety of expensive military hardware engendered bitterness in the lower enlisted, revealing the formation of class consciousness.

In a letter printed in June 1968, an army troop compared his enlistment to a form of slavery. "The viewsin your paper bring the much needed facts to those of us who are over here not because we want to be, but because we were forced. The lifers through legal means have made slaves of our bodies," a soldier in the Fourth Division wrote to the editors of the paper. This letter echoed sentiments of both the conscripted and the contracted enlistee. Soldiers thought "short," the term used to describe for how troops counted the endless days until their mandatory year in Vietnam was up.

Soldiers not only complained about their daily lives within the pages of Vietnam GI, they also discussed strategies of resistance.

Revealing their ingenuity and creativity, soldiers invented new forms of rebellion shaped by the conditions of work in the rear.

In a letter published in June 1968, a troop in Da Nang wrote, "The big thing is organize against the Army, write Congressmen, cancel Savings Bonds, and generally refuse to cooperate as much as you can. If the GIs can stick together we can force the brass to start treating us like human beings instead of animals or half-wits."

And "stick together" they did. A soldier wrote a letter to the paper, suggesting an act of resistance for other troops to spread in other units. Troops of the 534^th Transportation Company sabotaged numerous trucks and humvees at Long Binh before a large command inspection after numerous petty inspections took place.

The PFC explained in the August 1968 edition:

"We really forced the lifers to do an about-face. Almost any Army vehicle, especially in Nam can be deadlined' for something, meaning it's useless until the deficiency is correctedWhen a companyhas 2/3 of its trucks deadlined and they're not being repaired, there's gonna be some big brass coming around your company area demanding explanations from your good ole CO and Motor SGT."

In response to the mass sabotage, the petty inspections stopped and this tactic was later used by the 10^th Transportation Company to "get rid of a Motor SGT they couldn't get along with." In another collective act of resistance, an army personnel from Da Nang wrote that he and his friends taught their First Sergeant a lesson in this letter published in January 1969:

"We recently got our new first sergeant...we started to get screwed over. We, the lower EM, immediately took action. We contacted the right people and had his finance records destroyed, and his personnel records sent to DA, as a KIA. Results: things have been definitely getting better. I wonder why?

Such letters reveal the hidden voices of resistance in the rear, the existence of rebellion never published in the mainstream military newspapers. Soldiers forwarded these letters for print to foment action by other troops, encouraging similar tactics of refusal, and thus created networks of solidarity. These acts were collective in nature, creative, and rebellious, revealing that life in the rear was a contested battleground.

A Soldiers' Counterculture

Troops also developed a soldiers' counterculture and networks of organizing by using pirate radio stations, unofficial and illegal radio broadcasts, which frequented the air waves in Vietnam and Thailand. These stations were made of military radio equipment subverted into anti-authority, anti-military protest.

Such stations allowed soldiers to listen to counterculture acid rock and soul music that was part of the wider youth rebellion of the period. In Winter Soldiers, an oral history of activists in Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Mike McCain, a marine radio operator who arrived in country on May 28, 1967, explained how radio provided a means of collective resistance:

"There was an underground system of radio stationsSo I'm sitting on top of the highest point in South VietnamI think it was Hill 1327. We were a mile or so up. After midnight, all these underground radio stations would start coming on the air. The entire country was connected from top to bottom with this underground system. You'd have the guys from Detroit with the Motown showThere'd be a salsa show and rock and roll, and all of this was interspersed with news about what was actually going on.

"That was the first time we actually started hearing about the mutinies in the Army. Of course, we had done the same things in the Marine Corps already."

Thus radio was another outlet that connected troops with each other, developing networks that helped spread the existence of anti-military sentiment and resistance.

On "Radio First Termer," a pirate radio stationed that operated in Saigon in the early 1970s, DJ Dave Rabbit regularly broadcast acid rock and spoke with vulgar and sexist language. Archived recordings of the program reveal similar patterns of dissent as printed in Vietnam GI.

Rabbit regularly interjected what he claimed as actual graffiti from the base latrine walls that disclose the hatred between the lifers and enlisted. For example, he asserts, "Lifers are like flies. They both eat shit and bother people." Rabbit also reveals anti-war sentiment, "If you're sitting down taking a crap and reading this, you're probably the only mother fucker in the Republic of Vietnam that knows what he's doing." Another latrine saying, "eighteen days until I can go home to picket and protest this fucking waste of human lives that lifers and the government call a war," proves that anti-lifer and political sentiment was widespread beyond the undergrounds.

Troops produced media outlets in country, revealed in graffiti slogans and broadcast illegally via radio, that expose anti-military consciousness.

The music selection by Rabbit and the songs listened to by troops also provide a source of evidence for resistance not included in the official news reports or traditional historical records. Counterculture music broadcast on the airwaves occupied an important medium for expressing a soldiers' culture of opposition.

Sixties and seventies rock and soul music offered a connection to the troops overseas with the youth rebellion occurring at home, made famous at Haight-Ashbury and Woodstock (1969). Sixties rock and soul, according to George Lipsitz in "Who'll Stop the Rain?" challenged the dominant culture while never living up to its idealism in practice.

The music was multicultural and, as all rock and blues, largely rooted in African American music. These counterculture songs praised sexual pleasure, attempted to minimize specific gender identity, and witnessed strong independent female leads, such as Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin. The lyrics also celebrated love and peace at a time consumed by war and the assassinations of dynamic leaders for social change.

Army veteran Pat True, who served from July 1969 to December 1971, spoke of his experiences at Camp Perri in Germany during the war. True explained the role of music for him and the troops in his unit, almost one third of which were troops directly from service in Vietnam. When they partied together after work, they listened to music to escape the drudgery of their jobs:

"I had friends coming over all of the time, and we would just listen to music all weekend. And a lot of the music that was coming out was anti-establishment. There was a big anti-establishment thing, and Woodstock happened while I was over thereJust a lot of people questioning what was going on through the music. So it was like the news, the news of the underground coming in through the songs. So when a new album came out we would listen to it to hear what the latest underground movement was."

While True was in Germany, his story echoes similar comments made in other oral histories about the importance of counterculture and ethnically diverse music to troops in Vietnam. For example, according to psychiatrist Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, who specialized in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and conducted numerous interviews and rap sessions with veterans for his work, Home from the War, published in 1973, music played an important part of protest for soldiers in Vietnam.

After Country Joe and the Fish's performance of their song, "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die-Rag," at Woodstock in August 1969, according to one veteran, it became the most popular song listened to by soldiers in his unit in Vietnam. The song asks listeners to question the absurdity of war and manly honor:

Come on all of you big strong men

Uncle Sam needs your help again

He's got himself in a terrible jam

Way down yonder in Viet Nam so

Put down your books and pick up a gun we're

Gonna have a whole lotta fun

(CHORUS)

And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for

Don't ask me I don't give a damn, next stop is Viet Nam

And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates

Ain't no time to wonder why, whoopee we're all gonna die

Come on mothers throughout the land

Pack your boys off to Viet Nam

Come on fathers don't hesitate

Send your sons off before it's too late

And you can be the first ones on your block

to have your boy come home in a box

The absurdity of the war was a fact that many soldiers already knew inside, and this same veteran explained how the song spoke to him with truth. "It gave methe ultimate vent to all those feelings of idiocy and lunacy about the whole warHere was some way that I could release it allI guess when I heard the Fixin'-to-Die Rag' I really just let it all hang out and say that it was really crazy," he explained.

Music was a way of releasing a suppressed truth and voicing internalized feelings of resistance. Pat True listened to Black Sabbath frequently, and Dave Rabbit regularly played Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Santana, and The Who on First Termer Radio. Some troops listened to counterculture music at work, thus interjecting oppositional culture into the military domain.

The song "War" (1970), by Edwin Starr, and played on Radio First Termer likely spoke to the troops with its overtly anti-war lyrics:

Ooooh, war

It's an enemy to all mankind

The point of war blows my mind

War has caused unrest

Within the younger generation

Induction then destruction

Who wants to die

Aaaaah, war-huh

Good God y'all

What is it good for

Absolutely nothing

"War" also, as True suggests in his interview, likely connected troops overseas with the civilian anti-war "underground movement" at home.

There were other connections through music as well. When grunts returned to the field to from forced marching, they carried the melodies and lyrics of the new music they heard in the rear along with them, thus connecting oppositional culture between both. Troops sang these tunes to ease tension and evoke solidarity.

Charlie Trujillo, who served in the Americal Division from January to July of 1970, for example, told how one soldier in his unit sang, "And When I Die" (1969), by Blood, Sweat and Tears. The melancholy lyrics evoked the harsh reality of how life is fleeting in the eyes of soldiers, who witness the banality of death and the struggle for survival, day in and day out:

I'm not scared of dying,

And I don't really care.

If it's peace you find in dying,

Well then let the time be near

Now troubles are many, they're as deep as a well.

I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell.

Trujillo recalls that shortly after singing this song, the soldier and fourteen other men were killed in action.

In a poignant moment, CBS news filmed marines of Third Reconnaissance, Bravo Company, at the infamous siege at Khe Sanh, an isolated base located in the northwest corner of South Vietnam, ten days before the Tet Offensive in 1968.

Revolutionary forces, nearly 20,000, surrounded and outnumbered 6,000 U.S. troops in what many compared to the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. In the documentary footage, eight marines, seven white with one possibly Chicano and one African American hidden in the rear, band together, strumming guitars, and sing Pete Seeger and Joe Hickerson's anti-war classic, "Where Have all the Flowers Gone?" (1961).

These marines sang while in the "v-ring," the impact zone, filled with sand bags for protection from the daily incoming mortar fire during the infamous siege. On camera, eight battle weary marines gently plead:

Where have all the soldiers gone?

Long time passing.

Where have all the soldiers gone?

Long time ago.

Where have all the soldiers gone?

They've gone to graveyard, every one.

Oh, when will they ever learn?

When will they ever learn?

These marines chose to sing an anti-war folk tune, knowing the moment would be broadcast to U.S. audiences. Their performance was an intended means of protest, revealing how troops resisted informally through music. These troops did not want to "go to graveyards" but wanted the military leaders and planners to listen and learn from their voices of dissent.

Finally, the lyrics of Marmalade's top forty song, "Reflections of my Life" (1970), is perhaps indicative of the general sense of how soldiers came to understand the war and fight for their collective survival.

On April 6, 1970, CBS news filmed the mutiny of an entire company that refused an order to follow their new captain down what they perceived as a potentially dangerous road where revolutionary forces might be hiding.

After the refusal, the unit command gives the mutinous company an easy assignment guarding the division headquarters with no punitive retribution. The troops sleep in late and listen to "Reflections" on the base radio while filmed. The words seem to grasp what must have been a common emotion:

Reflections of my life, oh, how they fill my eyes

The greetings of people in trouble

Reflections of my life, oh, how they fill my eyes

All my sorrows, sad tomorrows

Take me back to my own home

The world is a bad place, a bad place

A terrible place to live, oh, but I don't wanna die

The grunts of Charlie company did not "wanna die"; and to ensure their survival, they took matters in their own hands, gaining a sense of independence that threatened the sacred obedience to all orders that is the crux of military command.

Counterculture music played an important part of informing resistance connected soldiers in Vietnam with the youth rebellion at home. The music also connected the rebellion in the rear with troops who fought in the front.

[To be continued]

By Mort and Greg Walker: Army Times 9.12.05

"And All The Soldiers Are Still Getting Killed"

From: D, Wounded Iraq Soldier's Mom

To: GI Special

Sent: September 19, 2005

Subject: Re: GI Special 3C57: "Honorable Soldiers In A Dishonest War"

I am lost for words after reading about the soldiers report the mother got in the mail - and all the soldiers are still getting killed. This one tonight was really upsetting to me. I have no words they said it all - death - my heart goes out to all - tonight I am lost for words - I will say a prayer for all.

"An Imperium On Its Last Legs"

14 September 2005 by William Bowles, Williambowles.info. [Excerpt]

As I have long contended here in these columns, the fact that the US possesses overwhelming military power, does not by itself an empire make, nor does it necessarily guarantee winning a war as Iraq is showing.

[Walden] Bello contends and I think quite correctly, that the US is suffering from severe "overstretch". The Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al, axis' upon whose theories Bush has pinned his hopes, has from the beginning proved to be an abject failure.

Having decided that the US didn't need a big, permanent army (that would only be possible if conscription was reintroduced), the Bush Gang having marched them up to the top of the hill' had no choice but to commit itself, first in Afghanistan which was the Gang's first mistake but unavoidable because it was in Afghanistan that the airpower alone' theory could be put to the test (after an initial dry run' pounding a defenceless Yugoslavia).

Worse, Afghanistan has proved to be a big drain, sucking up men who it desperately needs in Iraq. All in all, Cheney and co's theory went belly up before it was even put into practice.

But even worse, the Bush Gang policy of going it alone' (or unilateralism), invading countries willy-nilly, has created not only a host of enemies, from Latin America to the Urals but has opened up deep cracks in the so-called Western alliance.

As Bello puts it, a uni-polar world is inherently unstable.

Driving the entire enterprise is a capitalism beset with recurring and ever-worsening crises which are entirely determined by over-production and by the over-accumulation of capital that simply put, has no place to go short of displacing a competitor or of finding new markets into which to invest the surplus. Integral to this process is the falling rate of profit, itself an inevitable product of the capitalist economy.

All of this might seem miles away from what even on the left' is largely presented as one of bad men' will evil intentions but the fact is, regardless of how its executed, the policies of Bush and Blair are driven largely by the economics of capitalism.

Bello does a wonderful job of unpacking the history of contemporary US capitalism and in doing so, exposes exactly why New Orleans happened. He sums it up as follows;

"[T]ere crises threaten to convulse the empire: a crisis of overproduction, a crisis of overextension, and a crisis of legitimacy 

"Today global capitalism is distinguished by the hegemony of the U.S. economy, both as a market for goods and as a destination for capital. Roaming the world, U.S. transnational corporations function as agents for capital accumulation and production 

"One crisis is rooted in the contradiction between increased consumption of natural resources and the production of waste and finite ecological space. A second stems from the more intense conflict between the minority in command of productive and financial assets and a majority with little control over these "

You are right to ask, what has this got to do with New Orleans?

Consider the following statistics:

Between 1979 and 1989 in the United States, the hourly wage of 80 percent of the workforce declined, with the wage of the typical (or median) worker falling by nearly 5 percent in real terms.

By the end of the Bush I administration, in 1992, the bottom 60 percent of the population had the lowest share, and the top 20 percent had the highest share, of total income ever recorded. And indeed, among the wealthiest 20 percent, gains were concentrated at the top 1 percent, which captured 53 percent of the total income growth among all families.

In an ironic replay of the picture of Victorian England painted by Marx, corporations were nevertheless forced to invest in the new technologies or if they didn't, their competitors would or, they'd get swallowed up in the wave of mergers and acquisitions or go bust.

But even though the new technologies were introduced to lower costs by reducing labour, the new technologies actually increased the output of already over-productive economies. And mergers didn't help either, they too created even greater overcapacity by rationalising' production through economies of scale.

Thus the entire propaganda campaign mounted over the decades from failed states