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This is an e-mail archive of John's analysis and observations on "news" specific to the crimes against humanity committed on 11 September 2001.
(See also Web Reference Links High-Lighted by John Judge for other analysis.)
NOTE: Please let me know if you find that a link to a news story is no longer valid. I will make a local copy here to keep this archive complete.--ratitor
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- Subject: Citizen Soldiers Leave Big Gaps on Home Front
2 Feb 2003Activating the reserves before the active duty, part of the Total Force Doctrine (read: Blitzkreig, replete with the 1942 Wehrmacht helmet and uniform, even), takes its toll on local police, fire and community service because so many of them are veterans of active duty still running out the clock on 8-year enlistments. Reserves are still more recently trained than most active duty, and certainly available for a longer period of time. How do you fight two or more wars abroad and maintain a huge Homeland Security force?
This is why I think the real push for universal military training and service will be to butress the fortress state at home. Ground troops are really the last element of modern war planning, they come in to mop up and keep order. There is more attrition in Afghanistan since the war ended, but we are not being told about it. We are just at the crest of all this, and what we do now will have the most impact.
Citizen Soldiers Leave Big Gaps on Home Front
by Dean E. Murphy, New York Times, 1 February 2003
http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/natguard.htm- Subject: Uncle Scram
3 Feb 2003Here's the cover story from this week's City Paper, replete with photo headlines saying I am telling people to run away from the military and that I am "DC's premiere Army brat". The article is slightly more balanced, but in the works since last summer because the editor kept insisting on covering the few rude recruiters who challenge me. Quotes from them ought to be enough to understand the problem. However, CHOICES has a good reputation in the schools and we are invited back annually and appreciated by many teachers as well as other career recruiters that present tables.
My statistics are as current as I can make them, and the telling ones concerning the outcome of military service for veterans were skipped over here. The only way I can imagine that African Americans are 15% of combat troops is if you include all types of combat support units. They are still way more than that on any front lines I have ever heard about. The low level of deaths in the Gulf is not much of an indicator since the ground troops mostly died from friendly fire not enemy resistance.
I think the counter-recruitment community needs to compile the most current stats on AWOL, veterans problems, racism and sexism in the ranks, illnesses like the Gulf War syndrome, GI unionization abroad, lack of internal military judicial systems in other countries, recruiting scams, common problems of enlisted members, and the destruction of both accidents and war, "combat fatigue", suicides after the war, etc. and get them out. We could split up on areas of interest and compilation if need be. I'm sad to hear Bill Mauldin died, but we need someone of his ilk to chronicle real military life and injustices.
There are interesting admissions and figures in this story also. I am already getting response from it, finding new veterans to go into the schools and hearing from people with DEP problems. We just trained about 30 counter-recruiters in DC with help from AFSC/DC, CCCO, Youth & Militarism Project and local counter-recruiters and anti-militarism activists. There is a city wide coalition building, mostly youth, who want to work on JROTC, No Child Left Behind and CHOICES.
They paint me as an idealist because I want a military that reflects and protects the values of the Constitution for those in it, since they are being asked to die and kill to protect it for everyone else. Of course, such ideas won't work as long as you want an imperial military for a Pax Americana. Center on Conscience and War has also been working on a revival of the Miliatry CO Act they helped Ron Dellums to draft years ago after the Gulf War fiasco. We have a chance to reach many questioning minds among the youth now. Don't waste it.
UNCLE SCRAM
John Judge wages class warfare on the front lines of the D.C. school system.
by Brian Montopoli, Washington City Paper, 31 January 2003
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/archives/cover/2003/cover0131.html- Subject: Special `Conspiracy Theory' Edition
3 Feb 2003This is my favorite paragraph in what follows:
The following quote from Rumsfeld appeared in an article on the front page of the January 16 edition of the L.A. Times: "The fact that the inspectors have not yet come up with evidence of Iraq's [weapons of mass destruction] program could be evidence in and of itself of Iraq's noncompliance."
Most of what is said is rhetorical and repetitive of what we know, but follow down to the section about half way down on Securacom/Stratesec. This is an interesting link and could pay off from further scrutiny in my view. Most of the rest is not worth the effort so I cut out some of the extraneous.
Special 'Conspiracy Theory' Edition, Part II
Center for an Informed America, Newsletter #28, 23 January 2003
Stratesec.html- Subject: going broke - our Achilles Heel may save Earth
3 Feb 2003An unexplored economic aspect of our current interventions and covert operations, the switch to the Eurodollar.
The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War in Iraq:
A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth,
by W. Clark, 26 January 2003
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html- Subject: more "shock and awe"
4 Feb 2003The blitzkrieg in the cities, total terror and destruction, and the troops surround the oil. Shock and awe indeed. Never been contemplated? Ask the Nazis about London or the Americans about Dresden or Hiroshima/Nagasaki.
800 missiles to hit Iraq in first 48 hours
by Andrew West and agencies, The Sun-Herald, 26 January 2003
http://www.mideastfacts.com/800missile_shockawe.html- Subject: Democracy's Foot Soldiers: A History of Protest Marches
5 Feb 2003Protests didn't reach the Capitol until 1894, but since then they just keep on coming, An interesting historical account. I hope it also chronicles the increasingly militarized response to all this democracy in the streets.
Democracy's Foot Soldiers: A History of Protest Marches
Marching on Washington: The Forging of an American Political Tradition, by Lucy G. Barber
by Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post, 23 January 2003
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A30633-2003Jan22?language=printer- Subject: "Left" apologists for US imperialism red-bait the anti-war movement
10 Feb 2003Red White and Blue-Baiting by ANSWER
"Left" apologists for US imperialism red-bait the anti-war movement
by David Walsh and Barry Grey, World Socialist Web Site, 5 February 2003
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/feb2003/left-f05.shtml- Subject: Veterans for Common Sense
10 Feb 2003Veterans know what war is, and they are starting to speak louder now.
A Veteran's Appeal
by Charles Sheehan-Miles, Veterans for Common Sense
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/2003-February/006613.html- Subject: Iraq - Dossier: Sample text
6 Feb 2003Re-hashed tripe passes for "intelligence" and is always little more than propaganda and opinion. The recent piece falsely "proving" that Hussein "gassed his own people" when in fact the Iranians used cyanide on the Kurds following Iraqui gas attacks on Iranians, was written by Jeff Goldberg, who is the son of Sydney and Lucianne Goldberg, intelligence supported disinformation specialists from North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA) founded by British intelligence operative Ian Flemming after WWII. They have falsified history about events as long ago as Lee Harvey Oswald's 1959 "defection" to Moscow and as recently as the "sex scandal" of President Clinton that spelled his end in office. Here's one more example, and I am sure the funding of these "academic" writers would be revealing as well.
Iraq - Dossier: Sample text
by Jonathan Rugman, Channel 4 News, 6 February 2003
dossierSampl.html- Subject: Secrecy News -- 02/10/03
12 Feb 2003Good items and links on Patriot Act 2 and the phony Oversight Board for DARPA's setup of the Total Information Awareness systems. Look at the members.
SECRECY NEWS - from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
by Steve Aftergood, Federation of American Scientists, 10 February 2003
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/2003/02/021003.html- Subject: Chomsky on the Anti-War Movement
12 Feb 2003He gets most of this right, but neither oil nor "democracy" is our ultimate goal. The US wants the geopolitical position to wage a broader war in the whole region and to prevent OPEC from adopting the Euro as well.
Chomsky on the Anti-War Movement
by Matthew Tempest, The Guardian, 4 February 2003
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4598379-110513,00.html- Subject: Justice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism Act
17 Feb 2003This article describes Patriot Act II, and has a link to the full text in pdf. This law would expand on the existing excesses. [Complete hypertext and text-only copies on ratical.]
Justice Dept. Drafts Sweeping Expansion of Anti-Terrorism Act
by Charles Lewis and Adam Mayle, Center for Public Integrity, 7 February 2003
http://www.public-i.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=502&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0- Subject: Petition to restore Congress's role as declarer of wars
17 Feb 2003This effort asserts state rights and the Constitution to stop Bush's illegal drive to war. See www.montauk.com for more details. There are also several bills in Congress right now to repeal the use of force authorization given to Bush last year.
Joint Memorial - Petitioning the President to reaffirm our nation's commitments to the Constitution
State of Washington Senate bill no. SJM 8021 - House bill no. HJM 4022
http://www.montauk.com/SNOW/WA_Joint_MemorialFeb10,%202003.pdf- Subject: The World Says No to War
17 Feb 2003Demonstrators in New York City on Saturday joined others around the globe in 690 cities, numbering in the tens of millions worldwide. Dwight Eisenhower once said that some day the people would want peace so much they would just push governments out of the way to get it. That day may be closer than we think. Not a bomb has dropped and we have more people in the street than at the height of Vietnam-era protests. One cop in NYC told me there were 1/2 million of us by their count. The NY Times admitted "hundreds of thousands". We packed 1st Avenue from 51st to 71st, and 2nd and 3rd Avenues from 36th to 49th, where police actively barricaded us from going to the demonstration. This is what finally led to the clashes with police in the streets, because they blocked our orderly and peaceful progress north and east.
Bush and his "empty warheads" at the White House have been forced to cut back on their rhetoric, Powell is bogged down in the Security Council, and the world is opposing their pre-emptive strike plans against Iraq. This dissent has already spread into the ranks of reservists they want to mobilize for this war. It has cut across all lines in this country and is both deep and broad at this point.
I am glad that this march, the largest yet by far, was organized by United for Peace & Justice, a broad coalition of the real peace movement. You can see the range of speakers that appeared. It shows that ANSWER is not the only option for organizing against this war, and not the best one. There are bills pending in Congress to repeal the earlier resolution giving Bush the right to use force in Iraq and we should be supporting them. War should be as obsolete as slavery in the 21st century when it is even more inevitable that it will escalate into worldwide genocide. Raise your voice wherever you can to say NO MORE WAR.
Over 200 Pictures from 133 Protests around the World on February 15/16, 2003
http://www.punchdown.org/rvb/F15/- Subject: A voice not heeded well enough
17 Feb 2003"Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, made swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense, we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial [-intelligence - ed, in original draft] complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Farewell Address, 1961- Subject: U.S. Military Plans the War of Words
17 Feb 2003Will the press be "embedded for life" with the Pentagon? Should they get blood tests, a license and a ring?
U.S. Military Plans the War of Words
by Carol Brightman, Los Angeles Times, 16 February 2003
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/USMplansWoW.html- Subject: Re: present situation like Vietnam
21 Feb 2003Sanctions have already devestated the civilian population for ten years. Bombings and attacks have gone on since the last Gulf War without cease. Parts of northern Iraq already have troops in them. Just ask anyone who disagrees this question: If Iraq was putting as many troops in Canada and Mexico and at sea right now and making the same belligerent statements, would the Americans say they were at war with us or not? If 9/11 was a "pre-emptive strike" from Al Quaeda once they learned the US planned to invade in mid-October, they acted on much better evidence than we have against Saddam Hussein.
Penny Schoner wrote:
> John, Is anyone flashing on the fact that the same number of u.s.
> troops are in the Middle East, severely abusing the whole area, as there
> were in Vietnam? I'm working on a bulletin, on-going, that will inform
> middle america that we ARE at war. We need to alleviate the invasion
> that has happened. What do you think?
> Thanks for every article!
> Penny- Subject: 2 million in England for Peace - great signs!
22 Feb 2003Feb 15, 2003 - One million plus in New York City (for photos and reports on that see www.unitedforpeace.org), more in San Francisco and 690 cities around the world. 30 million estimated world-wide. Two million in Rome. Here is a series of pictures (7 sets, keep hitting the bottom link after you scroll down) with wonderful signage from the UK. (http://www.arbeiterfotografie.com/galerie/reportage-2003/index-2003-02-15-london-gegen-krieg-1.html) Some of my favorites from NY and here:
Police put numbers at less than 12
Put down the gun, George
Empty Warheads Discovered at White House
Diplomacy Not Duct Tape
Don't be a Warhead (people with missles for heads)
Draft the Bush Twins
Pull out Bush, like your father should have!
My Bush Makes Love, Not War
There is clearly a material breach (with Blair's head sticking out of a hole in Bush's pants)
"I know of two kinds of law because I know of two kinds of men, those who are with us and those who are against us" Hermann Goering, 1934OK, have fun -
Arbeiterfotografie-Reportage: Bilder zum Anfordern
MANY, MANY, MANY photo sets over over the past THREE years.
http://www.arbeiterfotografie.com/galerie/reportage/- Subject: THEY CAN HEAR YOU!
22 Feb 2003Not only can the troops hear from us, they are also speaking back to us in their AWOL rates, calls to avoid mobilization, etc. There was more opposition in the ranks during the first Gulf War than in Vietnam, and that was a popular war. A local student here told me the only thing his friends have in common with the JROTC students is their opposition to the war. I told him to help them make a statement up and take a picture of them in uniform. Anger about protests will soon become anger about duty with this level of public dissent. We are already slowing them down.
US Troops Angered By War Protests
by M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Scripps Howard News Service, 20 February 2003
http://www.rense.com/general35/angr.htm- Subject: Freeing the Iraqi People to Death
23 Feb 2003A well written comment on the real costs of war in a new and interesting publication.
LIGHTING THE FUSE
Freeing the Iraqi People to Death
by Peter Matthiessen, Orion Online, February 2003
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/oo/sidebars/Patriotism/index_Matthiessen.html- Subject: Debunking the 9-11 Conspiracy Theorists
26 Feb 2003He gets some of the facts wrong, but humor and satire can be a powerful approach, I use it in my talks all the time. It reminds me of the researcher asked by the Dallas Morning News reporter on the Grassy Knoll on November 22 what was the craziest conspiracy theory he ever heard. His answer was, "The Warren Commission". "No, be serious" said the reporter. "I am serious" he said.
Debunking Conspiracy Theorists Paranoid Fantasies About Sept 11
Distract From the Real Issues
by Gerard Holmgren, 9 January 2003
DCTPFA911.html- Subject: Post 9/11 Restrictions on Academic Research
26 Feb 2003An interesting development, all lines of approach to the truth are closing under this new regime and information is a commodity of the national security state.
Post 9/11 Restrictions on Academic Research
Harvard, MIT panelists decry federal rules
by Nathan J. Heller, The Harvard Crimson, 24 February 2003
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=274170- Subject: National Peace Lobby Project
26 Feb 2003This, and it's counterpart in the Senate (SJR 32) could actually stop the war if passed.
BE HEARD IN CONGRESS!
THE NATIONAL PEACE LOBBY PROJECT is a nation-wide grassroots effort to pass House Joint Resolution 20 (HJR20).
HJR20 will `repeal Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq' and put the power back in Congress, where Article 1 section 8 of the Consitution states it should be.
We have the full support of United for Peace and Justice, who all earned our respect and admiration for the turnout they generated for "The World Says No to War" February 15th. We are building on that momentum and taking the same message directly to Congress. We are also working with National Labor Organized Against the War, EPIC, SCNL, Black Voices for Peace, Veterans Against the War and a rapidly growing list of others.
- Subject: Veterans Teaching Peace in Schools
27 Feb 2003One of several sites that might be useful in talking to young people about war and military realities.
Veterans Teaching Peace in Schools
VTPS seeks to promote peace by bringing U.S. military veterans into academic environments to share their experiences and discuss alternatives to war.
http://users.erols.com/madjim/- Subject: Gulf War Vet Group: US Troops Set Kuwait Oil Fires
27 Feb 2003Gee, what a surprise! What else aren't we lying about? It's not about the oil, George?
Gulf War Vet Group: US Troops Set Kuwait Oil Fires
by Jon Rappoport, 26 February 2003
USsetFires.html- Subject: Military recruitment unaffected by 9/11
27 Feb 2003Remember the old anti-war slogan, "What if they gave a war and nobody came?" I think we are approaching that. There were so many volunteers wanting to enlist after Pearl Harbor they had to set up the Selective Service to sort them out and ration them in month to month. Not this time. Who, exactly, is for this war? Perhaps we could print out a nice looking anti-RSVP card addressed to the White House, responding to their invitation to invade Iraq. "Sorry, I must decline, I'm not the least bit interested in this sophmoric and dangerous event."
Military recruitment unaffected by 9/11
by Gina Damron & Erika Bey, The South End, 11 September 2002
http://www.southend.wayne.edu/days/2002/sept/9112002/news/recru/recru.html- Subject: China Pursues Ambitious Role In Oil Market
28 Feb 2003China has to be kept in line from getting cheap access to the oil in Iraq and the Caspian Sea basin, and oil has to be kept on the dollar not the Euro. These are two main reasons for going into Iraq, which switched over to the Euro a year ago and encouraged OPEC to follow. This puts into perspective a news story this week about a plane going down in the sea flying from Karachi which had on board several Pakistinian foreign ministers, the oil minister from Afghanistan and the petroleum minister from China.
China Pursues Ambitious Role In Oil Market
Energy Needs Push Beijing To Bid High for Access
by David B. Ottaway and Dan Morgan, Washington Post, 26 December 1997
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/china/stories/oil.htm
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