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"But I
don’t want to go among mad people," said Alice. "Oh, you
can’t help that," said the cat. "We’re all mad here."
~ Lewis Carroll

Current scenario:
Nineteen guys with box cutters instigated the "Global War on
Terror" seven years ago, which is directed by the US government
against a guy who is said to be holed up in a Pakistani cave and
his "Islamofascist" organization. Really. As a part of
the "GWOT" the United States is currently fighting two
wars, one of them for almost seven years and the other for over
five, which is over-reacting just a tad, I’d say. As a result the
US military is stretched thin. Many are being killed and injured
so the need for human and economic resources to continue these wars
is an onerous burden on the country. The enlistments of soldiers
are being involuntarily extended, national guard troops are being
activated and soldiers with mental disability are being sent back
to the war zones. Huge supplemental budgets are passed to fund these
wars, which shift a billion dollars every couple of days into greedy
hands. These expenditures, along with the routine military corporate-welfare
expenditures of another three billion dollars every couple of days
have driven the national debt to sky-high levels, with every man,
woman and child in the US bearing a $30,000 portion of the national
debt. Printing all this additional money has deflated the value
of the dollar, and the resulting inflation of prices has caused
a heavy burden on Americans and diverted resources from domestic
infrastructure needs. It’s a time of giant folly and dire need.

That’s madness
enough – but the Pentagon has found a way to exceed its own limits,
to waste resources in irrelevant places while spending additional
borrowed-billions on the US empire. At a time when people and dollars
are stretched to the breaking point, the mad hatters in the Pentagon
puzzle palace, prattling persistently about the "GWOT,"
have found a place to build a new military city. It’s in a faraway
place, completely unrelated to "Islamofascists." It’s
not down Lewis Carroll’s rabbit hole, but it might as well be. This
new military city, this wonderland, this new bulking up of the US
empire, this novel way to spend money that we don’t have uselessly
is in the land of the rising sun, Korea.

Korea –
isn’t that the place where the US fought a war over half a century
ago? But that’s over, isn’t it? Isn’t that the country that produces
the inexpensive Hyundai and Kia automobiles which are now partially
responsible for Detroit seeking $50B
in loans from Congress? Korea, with the thirteenth
ranking economy of the world?

Korea is obviously
not a combat zone any longer, and hasn’t been for fifty years. The
US Secretary of Defense has recently, finally gotten around to admitting
it. On June 4, 2008, Robert Gates
acknowledged that the threat of an attack from the North doesn’t
exist. "I don’t think anybody considers the Republic of
Korea today a combat zone," Mr. Gates told reporters on the
final day of a weeklong Asian trip. You can see that this guy earns
his salary with innovative thinking like that. I guess the intelligence
on Korea is improved over what it was for Iraq.

Carlton
Meyer: "North Korean soldiers suffer from malnutrition
and rarely train due to a scarcity of fuel and ammo. Most North
Korean soldiers could not attack because they are needed to defend
the entire DMZ (DeMilitarized Zone) and coastal approaches (they
remember the 1950 landing at Inchon) while entire divisions must
remain throughout North Korea to fend off heliborne offensives,
food riots, and probable coups.

"On the
other hand, the entire 700,000 man South Korean active duty army
can be devoted to the defense of [Korea]. The modern South Korean
army is backed by over 5,000,000 well-trained reservists who can
be called to duty in hours. South Korea has twice the population
of the North, thirty times its economic power, and spends three
times more on its military each year. South Korean military equipment
is first class whereas most of the North Korean military equipment
is over 30 years old and much is inoperable due to a lack of maintenance.
If war broke out, South Korea has a massive industrial capacity
and $94 billion in foreign currency reserves to sustain a war, while
North Korea has no industry and no money. As a result, South Korea
is roughly five times more powerful than North Korea."

South Korea
can obviously defend itself, a fact which will result in the Pentagon
grudgingly allowing South Korea, not right away but four years from
now, to control its own military after sixty years of US support
and training. (Contrast this with Iraq, where the Iraqi President
has taken control of the New Iraqi Army.)

The Pentagon
has finally grasped the truth. SecDef Gates,
the Grand Chief Military Vizier of the Empire, announced last November
that there would be a realignment plan and a transition of control
of allied forces to a South Korean joint military command by 2012.
Gates: "Our discussions touched on transformation and realignment
of U.S. Forces Korea, measures to increase defense preparedness,
and South Korean plans to increase its defense capabilities. In
particular, we had a good discussion and review of how we plan to
transition wartime operational control of Republic of Korea forces
by 2012."

Gen. Joseph
Fil, 8th Army commander and chief of staff of US Forces Korea: "It
is a transformation in the command and control." As part of
the transformation, the Army will relinquish to the Republic of
Korea army its leadership role in the demilitarized zone in the
north. Most importantly, the responsibility for the defense of Korea
will be passed to its rightful stakeholders – the South Koreans.
That transfer of operational control is currently expected to take
place in April 2012. In place of the combined forces command, the
Koreans will stand up their own headquarters, under the ROK’s
joint chiefs of staff. The United States will, in turn, stand up
a Korea Command in the country to provide support. Fil – "It
is a transformation in the command and control." Spoken like
a true General of the Empire, no? Generals love command and control,
even when nothing’s going on.

In June, Gates
said that Korea is not a combat zone and he supported extending
the tours of thousands of troops stationed there to three years
and allowing their spouses and children to live with them during
their assignments. There has been no public discussion of this matter,
and not even a Pentagon press conference, as there are on other
matters, most of them trivial. But there were news report of the
Great One’s momentous decision. SEOUL, South Korea, June 2, 2008
– Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today he’s not
only receptive to extending U.S. troop deployments here to three-year,
accompanied tours, but personally believes it’s "overdue."
"I don’t think anybody considers the Republic of Korea
today a combat zone. . .I don’t see a reason why our troops
in Korea should have unaccompanied tours any more," Gates said,
particularly in light of planned operational and quality-of-life
changes under way here. Gates conceded that permitting the 28,000
U.S. troops here to bring their families with them has financial
implications, because it would require more family housing and other
facilities and services. "But as a matter of principle, I think
it is past time," he said.

The Grand Chief
Military Vizier of the Empire has determined that financial implications
shouldn’t stand in the way of doing something that is "past
time," and he kindly gave the news to reporters while on a
foreign trip.

The New
York Times then picked up the story, with an interesting
twist at the end. SEOUL, South Korea, June 4, 2008 – Defense
Secretary Robert M. Gates said Tuesday that he supported extending
the tours of thousands of troops stationed here to three years and
allowing their spouses and children to live with them during their
assignments. His endorsement adds momentum to a policy shift favored
by commanders to improve the quality of life for most of the 28,500
troops assigned to South Korea on unaccompanied 12-month tours.
Such a change would also reverse decades of Pentagon policy for
South Korea, acknowledging that the threat of an attack from the
North has declined . . ."I don’t think anybody considers
the Republic of Korea today a combat zone" Gates said. . .
.But Mr. Gates, elaborating on comments he made on Monday, noted
that extending tours and allowing families to join soldiers here
would require building more housing and consideration of other financial
and logistical details, suggesting that such a step was still years
away.

"Still
years away?" We’ll get to that.

The Associated
Press picked up the story on June 6th, and it was published in the
Air
Force Times: "As a matter of principle, I think it’s
past time" to extend the tours to three years and allow troops
to bring their families with them, Gates told reporters traveling
with him on the plane to Seoul. "It communicates that … our
view of the reality here is that the Republic of Korea is literally
safe enough for our families to be present." But, the Air Force
Times adds: The Air Force is not moving toward "normalized"
tours on the Korean peninsula, Capt. John Ross, a spokesman for
the 51st Fighter Wing at Osan, told Air Force Times in March.
The number of accompanied tours at Osan Air Base will increase slightly
during the next three years – from 5 percent to 10 percent
and Kunsan Air Base will remain at 100 percent one-year, unaccompanied
tours. So, while Gates failed to make this clear, the "normalization"
of military tours in Korea apparently applies only to the Army.
In Korea, Air Force tours will not be normal.

Why do we need
nearly 30,000 US troops in combat-free Korea, at a time when resources
are needed elsewhere and the South Koreans can defend themselves?
As Charley Reese said about Japan, are we expecting the Mongols
to descend? Why does the Pentagon claim that the South Korean army,
after fifty years of US support, is only "increasingly capable?"
And not only does the US have troops in Korea, but it is extending
their tours of duty and thereby spending billions of dollars to
provide them and their families which can now accompany them with
all the amenities they will need for the next hundred years.

US bases in
Korea will undergo a transformation.
The US Military will reduce its presence from 41 installations down
to just 10, while one installation, Camp Humphreys, undergoes a
huge expansion.

At Camp
Humphreys, in the central part of South Korea, construction
is already underway for the move. In addition to housing operational
facilities, Camp Humphreys will also include facilities to support
military families. There are new schools, childcare centers, gymnasiums,
playgrounds, dining facilities and family housing. The new infrastructure
is being put in place because the Army plans on changing two things
about a soldier’s assignment to Korea. First, tour lengths
will be "normalized," as they are in other locations.
Instead of one year, they will be three years. Second, instead of
telling soldiers they must leave their families back in the States,
they will be allowed to bring them along to Korea,

Officials at
Camp Humphreys have begun an $8.2 billion-dollar construction project,
with some financial aid from the South Korea government, building
high-rises full of single-soldier barracks, bachelor officers’
quarters and family apartments.

"It’s
the right thing to do," said 8th Army Commander Lt. Gen. Joseph
F. Fil. "This alliance is strong and enduring. It will last
through the 21st century and beyond. It is time to make this permanent
instead of doing it one year at a time." A hundred more years!
A hundred plus fifty already passed!! Permanent!! Where have we
heard that before? General Fil has served in Iraq – that’s it!
(Meanwhile, the funding for Afghan
security forces, supposedly a high priority in the "GWOT,"
is budgeted at $3 billion, much less than the expenditures in Korea.)

The troops
at Camp Humphreys will get spiffy new barracks buildings, with the
latrine and showers at the end, right?

Wrong.

This will not
be your father’s barracks. Each enlisted soldier arriving in Korea
can expect what officials call the "two-plus-two" standard:
one roommate and a private bathroom attached to their room. The
furniture can also be arranged to divide the room into two separate
areas, giving each soldier as much privacy as possible. The ultimate
goal, officials said, is a private room for every soldier.

And the families
will get the familiar plain vanilla Wherry and Capehart housing
units, right?

No, not by
a long shot.

Homer Capehart
would be shocked. To house the families which will now accompany
soldiers on assignment to non-combat zone Korea, the Army plans
to build thirty-six 12-to-15-story apartment buildings that will
house almost 3,000 families. The sizes will vary, but the apartments
will be larger than the standard in the States or Europe. The model
has four bedrooms, two bathrooms and almost 2,000 square feet, with
space for a living area, dining area and a den. Three of the towers
have already been completed, are surrounded by playgrounds and are
within walking distance of the post elementary school.

Thirty-six
12-to-15-story apartment buildings for families, plus others for
unaccompanied soldiers and officers, and note that "three of
the towers have already been completed" which means that Gates
was a bit off-truth when he suggested that such a step was still
years away. So it’s a fait accompli – it is being done, and we
heard all about it, well not quite all, from Gates on a plane to
Seoul. This is a government? But I digress.

The kids –
will they have schools and other facilities?

Of course.

Camp Humphreys
will gain a 40,000 square-foot education center and a new food,
beverage and entertainment complex. Both the child-development center
and the school at Humphreys are rapidly expanding and offer the
newest facilities in Korea. Right now, Humphreys’ elementary
school can accommodate 255 students; soon it will be able to accommodate
about 350, and new schools are planned. The new child development
center is only partially full now and can accommodate about 300
children.

That little
pool in the back of the NCO club will be great in the summer, right?

No, they have
more.

Humphreys has
a "Splish ‘N Splash" water park with different water slides
that as many as 500 people visit at once in the summer, and a miniature
golf course.

And a sweaty
gym?

Not exactly.

Many of the
units will have their own, smaller gyms in addition to the "Super
Gym," which, when completed, will be one of the largest in
the Army, with more than 100,000 square feet.

General Fil:
"Korea’s a great place to be assigned. We seek to make this
be the dream assignment for soldiers," he said. And it is a
dream assignment, at a time when it’s a nightmare to be sent back
to the Iraq killing fields for the third or fourth time, or to the
Afghanistan quagmire.

The Fletchers
agree that Korea is a great assignment. Sgt. Delaina Lynn Fletcher,
who married Spc. Lonnie Fletcher while in Korea and recently had
a baby, said she’s taken advantage of a number of classes in
childbirth and parenting offered by Army Community Services in Seoul.
The assignment, she said, is very family friendly. She and her husband
don’t have jobs that require a lot of time in the field, so
they can focus on each other and their baby. In Korea, they have
a dream assignment.

Chalmers
Johnson: "The total of America’s military bases in other
people’s countries in 2005, according to official sources, was 737.
Reflecting massive deployments to Iraq and the pursuit of President
Bush’s strategy of preemptive war, the trend line for numbers of
overseas bases continues to go up." Yes, it will be literally
up, with more than 36 tall apartment buildings at Camp Humphreys,
Pyeongtaek, Korea.

The sun never
sets on the American military empire, and now we have high-rise
housing and a Splish ‘N Splash water park in the land of the
rising sun, which can only be done in a remote conflict-free zone.
Krazy in Korea! The guy in the cave must love it.

Note: Much
of the information in this article was taken from the August 2008
issue of Soldiers
Magazine (pdf).

August
27, 2008

Don
Bacon [send him mail]
is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley
Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler
said, “war is a racket.”

DIGG THIS

"Axis of evil" was a term coined by United States President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002 in order to describe governments that he accused of helping terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction. Bush named Iraq, Iran, and North Korea in his speech.

Of course, they weren’t an axis, that is they weren’t an alliance, at all; in fact two of them, Iraq and Iran, had fought a bloody war with the United States supporting Iraq.

Anyhow, it looks like the "axis" is down to one.

The first to go was Iraq, with the United States-led invasion on March 20, 2003 by a multinational coalition composed of U.S. and U.K. troops supported by smaller contingents from Australia, Denmark, Poland, and other nations.

At the start of the war, U.S. officials argued that Iraq and its alleged possession and further pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) posed an imminent threat to the security and interests of the United States, Europe and the other nations of the Middle East. Also Iraq was linked with terrorism. However the links to terrorism were found to be false, and weapons inspectors found no evidence of WMD.

And then North Korea.

The Agreed Framework signed by the United States and North Korea on October 21, 1994 in Geneva agreed that:

• North Korea would freeze its existing nuclear program and agree to enhanced International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.
• Both sides would cooperate to replace the D.P.R.K.’s graphite-moderated reactors for related facilities with light-water (LWR) power plants.
• Both countries would move toward full normalization of political and economic relations.
• Both sides will work together for peace and security on a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.
• And that both sides would work to strengthen the international nuclear non-proliferation regime.

Then along came Bush. South Korea was told in March 2001 that President Bush and Secretary Powell would not continue the talks with North Korea representatives on their nuclear program that were begun the year before by President Clinton and Secretary Albright. Next, Bush called the DPRK a part of the axis of evil in his 2002 State of the Union Address.

So, thanks to Bush, North Korea got to work.

Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee February 4, 2003 that the administration received a National Intelligence Estimate in June 2002 stating that North Korea “had engaged in at least [a research and development] project for highly enriched uranium.” He also stated that intelligence received the next month, however, indicated that North Korea was acquiring “many more [centrifuges] than was originally thought,” adding that a September 2002 intelligence memorandum said that North Korea “had embarked on a production program.”

A November 2002 CIA report to Congress says North Korea “is constructing a [uranium-enrichment] plant that could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for two or more nuclear weapons a year when fully operational.” The Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard testimony that the uranium-enrichment program could produce fissile material in “probably…months and not years.”

This was followed by years of disengagement with North Korea and its nuclear program. In 2003 North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and it subsequently acted belligerently, reactivating its nuclear power facilities and firing a land-to-ship missile into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. It also conducted an underground nuclear explosive test on October 16, 2006.

Then came a shocker. On June 26th the Bush administration asked Congress" to de-list North Korea from America’s "terrorist watch list, and suspended sanctions on North Korea that are tied to the "Trading with Enemies Act."

This puts US-North Korea relations on a whole new track. Chalk it up as a success for Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian & Pacific Affairs Christopher Hill, who has been attacked by former US Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton for the last year.

President Bush: "North Korea pledged to declare its nuclear activity. With today’s declaration, North Korea has begun describing its plutonium-related activities. It’s also provided other documents related to its nuclear programs going back to 1986. It has promised access to the reactor core and waste facilities at Yongbyon, as well as personnel related to its nuclear program. All this information will be essential to verifying that North Korea is ending its nuclear programs and activities.

"The six-party talks are based on a principle of ‘action for action.’ So in keeping with the existing six-party agreements, the United States is responding to North Korea’s actions with two actions of our own:

"First, I’m issuing a proclamation that lifts the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act with respect to North Korea.

"And secondly, I am notifying Congress of my intent to rescind North Korea’s designation as a state sponsor of terror . . .Multilateral diplomacy is the best way to peacefully solve the nuclear issue with North Korea.

"They said they’re going to destroy parts of their plant in Yongbyon. That’s a very positive step — after all, it’s the plant that made plutonium.

"Now, as I mentioned in my statement, there’s a lot more verification that needs to be done. I mentioned our concerns about [uranium] enrichment. We expect the North Korean regime to be forthcoming about their programs."

Catch the new Bush:

"North Korea has begun describing its plutonium-related activities."
"They said they’re going to destroy parts of their [plutonium] plant in Yongbyon."
"I mentioned our concerns about [uranium] enrichment."
"We expect the North Korean regime to be forthcoming about their programs."

So it looks like two down.

But what about the third and last "Axis" member, Iran?

Do they get the attack like Iraq, or do they get the concern and expectations like North Korea? (Hint: They’ve got oil and gas, like Iraq, and North Korea doesn’t.)

Iran has been subjected to a series of United Nations sanctions for its refusal to cease enriching uranium, as North Korea is doing, and the United States refuses to talk to Iran.

This is despite the fact that Iran, a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Pact signatory, is in full compliance with the NPT which states:
"Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with articles I and II of this Treaty."

In other words, Iran, like any NPT signatory, is not only allowed but encouraged to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Iran is in full compliance with the NPT.

In February of this year, the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated:

"The Agency has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran. Iran has provided the Agency with access to declared nuclear material and has provided the required nuclear material accountancy reports in connection with declared nuclear material and activities."

And again in May:

"The Agency has been able to continue to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran."

Despite these affirmations Iran has been threatened with attack by Israel. Iran has said that it would react violently if attacked. As a result, UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon criticized — Iran.

Talk about the double standards at the United Nations, reports Kaveh L Afrasiabi of Asia Times. Whereas UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon has repeatedly condemned Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric against Israel, expressing "shock and dismay," he has remained ominously, and inexcusably, silent about the blatant Israeli threats of military attacks on Iran, thus undermining the world’s confidence in his ability to steer the global community clear of yet another major war in the Middle East caldron.

Afrasiabi continues: Having turned a blind eye to Iran’s formal protest at the UN regarding Israel’s explicit threats, Ban may need to revisit his own statement of June 7, 2007, "The secretary general points out that all members have undertaken to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."

In light of new media disclosures about Israel’s advanced plans to launch a major air offensive against Iran’s nuclear installations, bound to inflict serious civilian casualties and trigger the volatile region into a "fireball," to paraphrase the reaction of the head of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohammad ElBaradei, who has stated categorically that he would resign immediately if Iran is attacked, Ban is borderline on the verge of skirting his official obligation by refusing to issue a stern statement on this serious matter of war and peace.

And what’s the US up to? Until recently, writes Sarah Van Gelder at Huffington Post, the power struggle within the Bush administration over whether to attack Iran seemed to be going badly for the hawks. Their disastrous record in Iraq coupled with flimsy arguments for attacking Iran meant they were gaining little support. But now it appears congressional Democrats may be riding to the rescue of those pushing for war. Bills have been introduced in both houses that would impose strict inspections on all cargo inbound to Iran.

Imposing "stringent inspection requirements" would amount to a naval blockade, many believe, and thus constitute an act of war. At the very least, it would be perceived by Iranians of all political persuasions as a hostile act, further marginalizing moderate voices, unifying the country behind the most belligerent leaders, and bolstering the argument of those within Iran who are pushing for the rapid development of nuclear weapons as a defense against U.S. attack.

Why are 96 House Democrats (along with 111 House Republicans) co-sponsoring this resolution? Aren’t these the Democrats who rode into majorities in both houses on public revulsion against war in the Middle East?

According to a recent story on CBS News, the answer seems to be a "full-court press" by the government of Israel and the American-Israeli lobby AIPAC. CBS ran the story Tuesday as Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen was on his way to the Middle East to confer with Israeli government officials. "Israelis are uncertain about what would be the policies of the next [U.S.] administration vis–vis Iran," CBS consultant Michael Oren says in the report.

Hence the rush to war?

It sure looks like war, if these bills become law and the UN falls in line.

H. Con. Res 362 (introduced by Democrat Gary Ackerman) and S.Res.580 (by Democrat Evan Bayh) are identical bills which have as their goal "preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, through all appropriate economic, political, and diplomatic means, is vital to the national security interests of the United States and must be dealt with urgently…." The bill:

"demands that the President initiate an international effort to immediately and dramatically increase the economic, political, and diplomatic pressure on Iran to verifiably suspend its nuclear enrichment activities by, inter alia, prohibiting the export to Iran of all refined petroleum products; imposing stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains, and cargo entering or departing Iran; and prohibiting the international movement of all Iranian officials not involved in negotiating the suspension of Iran’s nuclear program;"

So the US is concerned about North Korea’s uranium enrichment and, thanks to the Democrats, ready to go to war over Iran’s.

As Edward Abbey said: "As war and government prove, insanity is the most contagious of diseases."

Don Bacon [send him mail] is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler said, “war is a racket.”

Don Bacon Archives

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In March, after U.S. President George W. Bush got an earful about problems and progress in Afghanistan, he said: "I must say, I’m a little envious. If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed. It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger."

Well, we’ve got some jobs lined up for George when he leaves office in January. Heck, he’ll only be 62 years old, and with all that mountain-biking I’m sure that even a dummy like him he can handle the easy jobs we’ve found for him. His reservations shouldn’t matter, if he’s honest about it (I know).

First, let’s check out the romance of confronting danger as seen through the dead eyes of two US Navy sailors who served together in romantic Afghanistan.

Raised in Davison, Michigan, Ross Toles, the father of three boys — Shawn, 14, Jake, 10, and Ryan, 5 — had recently relocated his family to a new home in North Branch. He was the consummate family man — the kind of guy who stepped in to head the cub scout troup and served on the neighborhood association.

Toles enlisted in the Navy right out of high school, and now at 37, he was settling into a managerial role in his career. He’d followed in his dad’s footsteps, Ross Toles II, and switched over to the Naval Reserves. His father retired from the same unit earlier this year as a senior petty officer. There was no reason to believe he’d have to go into the war zone, because he was in a unit that supported the Naval Air Station Sigonella base in Sicily. Annually they’d trek to the country for three weeks of training.

Lt. Commander George Degener, Toles’ executive officer for 10 years, said Toles was tapped for an assignment in Afghanistan for one reason — he was the best. "Being in the military we are all subject to individual augmentation, where you’re chosen because of the rate or specialty you have," Degener said. "That was the case in Petty Officer Toles going to Afghanistan. His specialty was public works and construction battalions."

Marc Retmier spent his life like most of his friends, riding skateboards and doing high-flying motocross stunts in the hills of Beaumont and Lake Elsinore, California. A star safety on the West Valley High School football team, he also had lettered in swimming as a freshman. He attended Hemet High and graduated from Alessandro High School in Hemet. He was the eldest of three brothers, ahead of Matthew, 17, and Mason, 11. "He was one of the most popular kids in town," said Dale Powers, the grandfather whom Marc Retmier called "Papa."

After graduating from high school, Retmier enlisted in the Navy. He attended training at Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune, N.C. and worked in the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., before volunteering for a tour, either in Iraq or Afghanistan. His dream was to become a doctor eventually, his mother said. Steven Retmier, Marc’s father, said the lack of job opportunities and activities makes the region an easy target for military recruiters.

"There’s nothing else for these kids to do," he said. "There’s no future here for them."

When a Marine deployment to Iraq was canceled, Retmier volunteered for one to Afghanistan to provide medical services for Marines there. When in Afghanistan, Retmier exchanged e-mails and phone calls with his family and said he loved what he was doing, but they sensed the war was beginning to wear on him. When his convoy delivered candy and coloring books to Afghan children, they often would throw rocks at the Humvees as they drove away.

"He felt like they were wasting their time there," his mother said. "He was worried they didn’t want us there at all."

Last week, on Wednesday, June 18th, a US Navy unit was working in an Afghan village when ten Chinese-made rockets slammed into them. Petty Officer 1st Class Ross Tolles III, 37, of Michigan, and Corpsman Marc Retmier, 19, of California died at the scene.

One of the tragedies of war, among others, is that we send our best and strongest to get physically and mentally mangled in the war racket. Smedley Butler understood this. General Butler, who served thirty-three years in the Marine Corps and received two Congressional Medals of Honor, had some ideas on who should go to war and who should pay for it.

General Butler on the war racket: "The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labor before the nations manhood can be conscripted. One month before the Government can conscript the young men of the nation — it must conscript capital and industry and labor. Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our munitions makers and our shipbuilders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all the other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted — to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get. Let the workers in these plants get the same wages — all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers — yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders — everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches! Let all these kings and tycoons and masters of business and all those workers in industry and all our senators and governors and majors pay half of their monthly $30 wage to their families and pay war risk insurance and buy Liberty Bonds.

"Why shouldn’t they? They aren’t running any risk of being killed or of having their bodies mangled or their minds shattered. They aren’t sleeping in muddy trenches. They aren’t hungry. The soldiers are!"

Now under General Butler’s prescription, Bush’s pay would be cut to a private’s and he could keep the job that daddy got him. But George did say he wanted a romantic assignment confronting danger, so here’s some choices for George.

KBR — Afghanistan
#455906 Pest Controller
#443624 Coordinator — Security Services
#425510 Field Buyer
#10432 Heavy Truck Driver
(plus others too numerous to list, and they change)

Just do it, George, and be sure to write. Thanks for everything that you’ll do. It’s never too late; let’s hope the experience will make a man of you. In the meantime, our thoughts return to two real men, and others like them, who saw their duty and did it. They didn’t BS it like George, they just did it. So this GI poem is for them, Ross and Marc and all the other gentle heroes who were left behind.

If you are able, save them a place inside of you
and save one backward glance when you are leaving
for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say you loved them,
though you may or may not have always.
Take what they have left and what they have taught you
with their dying and keep it with your own.
And in that time when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes you left behind.

This poem was written by Major Michael Davis O’Donnell, on January 1, 1970 in Dak To, Vietnam. Major O’Donnell was a helicopter commander with the 170th Aviation Company, 17th Aviation Group, 52nd Aviation Batalion, 1st Aviation Brigade. He and his crew were shot down two months later, on 24 March, 1970, while performing an extraction operation. Major O’Donnell’s remains were never found.

"Take what they have left and what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own." Let’s just do it, without reservations.

Don Bacon [send him mail] is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler said, “war is a racket.”

Don Bacon Archives

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threat: an expression of intention to inflict evil, injury, or damage

from "threat central" — the White House:

There are five Threat Conditions, each identified by a description and corresponding color. From lowest to highest, the levels and colors are:

# Low Condition (Green). This condition is declared when there is a low risk of terrorist attacks.

# Guarded Condition (Blue). This condition is declared when there is a general risk of terrorist attacks.

# Elevated Condition (Yellow). An Elevated Condition is declared when there is a significant risk of terrorist attacks.

# High Condition (Orange). A High Condition is declared when there is a high risk of terrorist attacks.

# Severe Condition (Red). A Severe Condition reflects a severe risk of terrorist attacks.

The Department of Homeland Security tells us the current status:

# The United States government’s national threat level is Elevated, or Yellow.

# The U.S. threat level is High, or Orange, for all domestic and international flights.

# At this time there is no credible information warning of an imminent, specific threat to the homeland.

So while there is no threat there is a significant general risk and a high risk on aircraft (and the government’s "threat levels" are actually risk levels).

Does that make sense? Don’t ask. Actually, it’s not supposed to make sense except to make it clear to Americans that the government is in charge:

Randolph Bourne: "Wartime brings the ideal of the State out into very clear relief, and reveals attitudes and tendencies that were hidden. In times of peace the sense of the State flags in a republic that is not militarized. For war is essentially the health of the State. The ideal of the State is that within its territory its power and influence should be universal. As the Church is the medium for the spiritual salvation of man, so the State is thought of as the medium for his political salvation. Its idealism is a rich blood flowing to all the members of the body politic. And it is precisely in war that the urgency for union seems greatest, and the necessity for universality seems most unquestioned."

Part of American militarization is the expanded US Border Patrol, which operates fixed and roving checkpoints, as well as random vehicle stops, within the United States and its territories. You may not see them where you live, but in the Southwest they have a highly visible presence, and no doubt they will be coming to a community near you eventually. The Border Patrol is now on a hiring spree to meet a recruitment goal of 18,000 agents.. It’s the largest expansion of the Border Patrol ever. Employees will make anywhere between $40,000 and $48,000 their first year of employment, and have the potential to earn up to $75,000 by the end of their third year. There are federal government benefits and a chance to retire as young as age 50,

Border Patrol Agents, according to their "supporters" website, can operate anywhere within the United States — including Hawaii and Alaska and even Puerto Rico (in their vernacular it’s the Ramey Sector). You might not normally see Border Patrol Agents in Kansas but that sure doesn’t mean they aren’t there; they are. If a Border Patrol Agent stops you, your actions and reactions to the Agent’s questions can and will determine how long and how involved the interview will be.

The Agent will stop you because he has "reasonable suspicion" that you-the-pedestrian or you-the-occupant-of-a-vehicle is an illegal alien or is involved in "criminal activity." The Border Patrol Agent must notice that you are different from "innocent persons engaged in similar but legal behaviour." But to the Agent, his "reasonable suspicion" is the "sole authority" for your "detention." To the Agent, "reasonable suspicion" may be engendered by:

• Suspicious behaviour
• Unusual reaction to uniformed officers
• Nervous demeanor
• Corroborated tips
• Citizen calls

According to "supporters" of the Border Patrol: Federal officers can freely stop vehicles for inspection at these checkpoints without any required level of suspicion or justification. That is the law. Most of these checkpoints have separate areas reserved nearby where a vehicle can then be nearly stripped under what is called "secondary inspection." The referral of a vehicle to "secondary inspection" needs only to be "selective" and does not require any "reasonable suspicion." It is best if you do not annoy, abuse, alarm, alert, tease, torment, or disturb a Border Patrol Agent at any of these checkpoints. While the Agent is having this consensual conversation with you you are — essentially — detained. You and your vehicle cannot leave. It is very important that you do not attempt to leave.

You will then be a "detainee" — does that ring any bells?

It gets worse — the "supporters of the Border Patrol" website continues: Leaving the Agent without his permission will almost certainly be met with what is called in the vernacular of the profession a "Dynamic Apprehension." We civilians might call it ….. a chase and a tackle. The problem with a Dynamic Apprehension is that one or more of you will fall to the ground and or bounce off of various hard objects like walls, cars, the sidewalk or rocks and bushes if perpetrated in more suburban areas. This fall almost certainly will be with you — the illegal / the uncooperatve — on the bottom and with the usually larger more athletically inclined Agent on top. If somehow you wind up on top then things can get very energetic and the mysteries of your life may be found in your autopsy report.

Whatever. They’re just kidding, probably. Don’t get nervous.

So while there is no threat, the country is at war and the threat level is "elevated" even though there is no threat which means that your car can be "nearly stripped" and you can be "detained" if you have a "nervous demeanor." But you have no reason to be nervous if there is no threat, even though the threat level is "elevated."

You can’t make this stuff up, and it bears repeating: "As war and government prove, insanity is the most contagious of diseases." ~ Edward Abbey

Don Bacon [send him mail] is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler said, “war is a racket.”

Don Bacon Archives

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She’s thirty-six
US military bases in a country a third of the way around the
globe. She’s over half a century old but the warhawks and the chickenhawks
love her – she’s that sweet Korean Model. You know, the one
they use as a model for Iraq.

President Bush
(what a source!) has referred to the "Korean Model" for
Iraq. Also, in discussing plans to keep US troops in Iraq, John
McCain stated: "We’ve been in South Korea… for 60 years."
and Defense Secretary Robert
Gates: "So I think that the reason that Korea’s been mentioned
is – and it’s been mentioned in contrast to Vietnam, where
we just left lock, stock and barrel." and White House Press
Secretary Tony
Snow last year mentioned it too:" … in South Korea, where
for many years there have been American forces stationed there as
a way of maintaining stability and assurance on the part of the
South Korean people against a North Korean neighbor that is a menace."

Maintaining
stability? Oh, yes, like against democratization movements. From
the CIA
Factbook: In 1993, Kim Young-sam became South Korea’s first
civilian president following 32 years of military rule. To many
South Koreans, the long American presence in their country is a
reminder of tacit
U.S. support for a series of ruthless despots. "South Korea
between ’61 and ’89 was ruled by some of the worst military dictators
created during the Cold War," [Chalmers] Johnson says. "Finally
the Koreans got rid of them and have quite a healthy democracy now.
But all the credit goes to the Koreans – there is a terrible
tendency for Americans to mislead themselves about the good things
they have done in East Asia." During that period, Korean history
was marked by the The Gwangju
Democratization Movement, a popular uprising in the city of
Gwangju, South Korea from May 18 to May 27, 1980. During this period,
citizens rose up against Chun Doo-hwan’s military dictatorship and
took control of the city. During the later phase of the uprising,
citizens took on arms to defend themselves, but were crushed by
the South Korean army. Senior officials in the Carter
administration approved South Korean plans to use military troops
against pro-democracy demonstrations ten days before former General
Chun Doo-hwan seized control of the country in a May 17, 1980, military
coup, according to newly released U.S. government documents.

So our guys
helped in domestic repression, but the South Koreans need help defending
against the menace of North Korea, right?

Not exactly.
South
Korea currently ranks 12th in the world militarily, whereas
North
Korea is 18th. South Korea has twice as many men available to
the military (24 million to 11 million) and roughly twice as many
under arms (657,000 to 382,000). Economically
the South ranks 13th in the world with a GDP of $982b (just above
Australia), the North ranks 156th with $2b (just above Greenland).
North
Korea‘s gross national income was valued at $26.7 billion last
year, with its per capita gross national income at $1,152, according
to the Bank of Korea. By contrast, South
Korea‘s $971 billion economy grew 5 percent last year, giving
it a per capita income at $20,045.

Nevertheless,
about
27,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea, a legacy of
the 1950–53 Korean War. The two Koreas (and the US) are still technically
in a state of war since the 1950–53 Korean War ended with an armistice,
not a peace treaty.

But while the
US is technically still at war with North Korea, it no longer considers
Korea to be a combat zone. In fact, the US Defense Secretary considers
the country to be safe.

News
report: Seoul, South Korea – Defense Secretary Robert M.
Gates said Tuesday [June 3, 2008] that he supported extending the
tours of thousands of troops stationed here to three years and allowing
their spouses and children to live with them during their assignments.
His endorsement adds momentum to a policy shift favored by commanders
to improve the quality of life for most of the 28,500 troops assigned
to South Korea on unaccompanied 12-month tours because South Korea
was considered a combat zone, but that has changed. “I don’t
think anybody considers the Republic of Korea today a combat zone,”
Mr. Gates told reporters earlier this month.

Despite South
Korea’s emergence as one of the most modern, progressive and
democratic nations in the world over the past 55 years, the United
States still rotates its troops here as through it’s still
an active combat zone, Army
Gen. Walter Sharp, who has recently taken command of U.S. Forces
Korea, pointed out to the Senate Armed Services Committee during
his confirmation hearing in April. At the time Defense
Secretary Gates said that extending tours and allowing troops
to bring their families to Korea would send the message that South
Korea is safe, and would bring assignment policies in South Korea
in line with those in Japan and Europe.

So South Korea
is like Japan and Europe, not threatened and now just a nice safe
place for US troops to bring their families. Nobody knows this better
than the leaders of North and South Korea. The South and the North
are reconciling.

Relations
improved following the 1997 election of Kim Dae-jung. His "Sunshine
Policy" of engagement with North Korea set the stage for the
historic June 2000 inter-Korean summit between President Kim and
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. President Kim was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize in 2000 for the policy, but the prize was somewhat tarnished
by revelations of a $500 million dollar "payoff" to North
Korea that immediately preceded the summit. The United States, according
to the US State Department, believes that the question of peace
and security on the Korean Peninsula is, first and foremost, a matter
for the Korean people to decide.

And they’ve done it. The leaders of North and South Korea last year
signed a joint
declaration calling for a permanent peace deal on the Korean
Peninsula. South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and the North’s Kim
Jong-il issued the declaration after a three-day historic summit
in Pyongyang.

The Korean
people also want reunification. Christine
Ahn testified to the US Congress on January 25, 2005, including
the following. The Korea Institute for National Unification, or
KINU, a national research policy institute, recently conducted a
public opinion poll of 1000 South Koreans citizens and 300 leaders
from political, media and civil organizations. It found that 84
percent of the public and 96 percent of opinion leaders believed
that unification was an urgent task for the nation, and 85 percent
of the general public and 95 percent of opinion leaders approved
of North-South economic cooperation. Tourism has also been booming
in North Korea. In 2005, over 275,000 South Korean tourists visited
Mt. Kumgang resort in North Korea, bringing the total to over 1.1
million. That year, over 10,000 Koreans, not counting tourists,
had social and cultural exchanges in the north, a doubling from
2002 to 2004, when an average of 5,000 Koreans met per year. Together,
they reconstructed Buddhist temples and Christian churches, and
held meetings to discuss intellectual property rights of literature
and a common dictionary. Last year, North Koreans watched a South
Korean opera, and this year, South Koreans will watch "Sa-yuk-shin,"
a North Korean drama on TV.

Ahn’s testimony
continued: Perhaps the most emotional aspect of this historic process
is the meeting of families, many who have not seen their relatives
in over 50 years. Last year, 660 separated family members were reunited
in person, and 800 family members were able to see and speak to
each other through webcast, a new technology that has helped the
elderly who can no longer travel far distances. Koreans, seeing
the significant gains in peace and reunification, are no longer
willing to accept America’s Cold War mentality. On January
18th, the Journalist Association of Korea, the largest journalist
group with 6,000 members, asked U.S. ambassador Alexander Vershbow
to "stop making anti-North Korean remarks that do more harm
than good," and to apologize for his remarks, which they viewed
as "an intrusion in domestic affairs." South Korean President
Roh Moo-hyun also recently made clear that he did not endorse U.S.
sanctions against North Korea. If the Bush administration continues
hostile regime change policies, Roh said, "there will be friction
and disagreements between Seoul and Washington."

And how do
the Korean people feel about the continuing US presence?

One group
of young Koreans claims that since 1945, U.S. soldiers committed
over 100,000 crimes against South Korean civilians. Between 1993
and April 2000, these crimes averaged 820 incidents per year or
2 to 3 incidents per day. Yet, the South Korean government has only
been able to bring to trial 20 or 3.56% of the 562 crimes committed
in 1999 alone.

Obviously it
doesn’t serve US interests for Korea to re-unite. Permanent war
is better. But, despite what the White House says, if there is no
threat and the South can handle a threat that arises, and the people
and governments want to re-unite, then why does the US maintain
troops in Korea fifty years after the war? Could it be financial?
Could be, but the current expensive changes in US basing have caused
a stir.

South Korea’s
financial burden sharing for a multi-billion
dollar project to relocate U.S. military facilities is expected
to reach some 9 trillion won ($8.8 billion), a figure far higher
than the originally estimated 5.6 trillion won. Last year, Seoul
and Washington agreed on a master plan for the estimated $11-billion
project under which South Korea was to pay about 5.6 trillion won.
Under a 2004 land-swap pact, the United States is required to return
170 square kilometers of land housing 42 military bases and firing
ranges across the country by 2011. In return, Seoul is required
to offer 12 square kilometers of land to help triple the size of
Camp Humphreys to some 15 square kilometers housing 500 buildings.
The expanded Camp Humphreys, located 70 kilometers south of Seoul,
will accommodate more than 44,000 U.S. servicemen, their families,
base workers and South Korean reinforcements, according to the master
plan.

The
United States has called on South Korea to pay more to reach
the 50-50 level in tune with the country’s growing economy and increased
responsibility for national defense. "Defense burden sharing
is advantageous to both partners. For the United States, the Republic
of Korea’s willingness to equitably share appropriate defense costs
is a clear indicator that the United States Forces in Korea are
welcome and wanted," USFK (US Forces Korea) Commander Gen.
B. B. Bell said in a statement presented to the House Armed Service
Committee on March 12. Under the Land Partnership Plan (LPP) reached
in 2002, the United States promised to pay for moving the bases
of the 2nd Infantry Division, north of Seoul, to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi
Province, where a consolidated U.S. military base will be built.
On the other hand, Seoul agreed to bear the cost for relocating
the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul under the Yongsan Relocation Plan
(YRP) finalized in 2004. Under a master plan drawn up by the two
governments last year, Seoul agreed to spend about $5.2 billion
on the program to move U.S. bases to Camp Humphreys, which will
be tripled in size to accommodate more than 44,000 U.S. service
members, their families, base workers and KATUSAs (Koreans serving
with the US Army).

General Bell
told Congress on March 12 that South Korea had paid "about
$2 billion" in a relocation effort "that’s going
to cost them around $10 billion." His comments caused
an uproar in South Korea, which had pledged to pay only about
$4.5 billion toward the move. Bell blamed his comments on a "misstatement
or mischaracterization" in a transcript of his speech, but
the news service that provided the transcript said it reported his
comments accurately.

And the landowners
subject to land confiscation for base expansion weren’t happy
either. From a 2006 news report: Daechuri, South Korea – Here
in the marshy heartland of the Korean Peninsula, the rabble-rousing
rice farmers of this tiny village are engaged in their own little
war against the U.S. military. With American forces in the midst
of their largest regional realignment in decades, the farmlands
of Daechuri have been condemned to make room for the expansion of
a nearby U.S. base. While about half the residents have quietly
accepted a lucrative cash-for-land deal being offered by the South
Korean government, a core group of about 70 holdouts have rebuffed
all efforts to buy them out. Their refusals to make way for the
base – or give in to what many of the farmers are calling "American
bullying" – have won them instant hero status among some
South Korean labor unions and student groups. Over the past several
weeks, protesters have held the largest anti-American demonstrations
in South Korea in four years, turning Daechuri into a symbol of
their struggle to drive U.S. troops out of the country. "We
are sick of being treated like America’s servants!" said Cho
Sun Yeh, a fiery 90-year-old rice farmer. Her first home in the
area was bulldozed to make room for a U.S. base during the 1950–53
Korean War.

So much for
Tony Snow’s "assurance on the part of the South Korean people."

The US is currently
expanding its military forces and needs its overseas bases because
there is no room for these troops in the United States, and it’s
financially advantageous to dun our allies for half the cost of
maintaining these troops and their families. The US needs these
bases so badly, in fact, that it has put a terribly increased burden
on the troops in Iraq (stop-loss, extensions, recalls etc.) just
to keep these overseas bases in operation and the Empire in business.
Not only that, but when it comes to newly invaded and occupied countries
the US can use these anachronistic examples to justify more new
and permanent bases in more countries. The US is in a self-perpetuating
military empire mode with no end in sight, with the Korean Model
as a prime example. And the new bases in Korea will accommodate
fifty percent more troops than are currently stationed there! For
three-year tours, with their families! Think of it – new schools,
child development centers, gymnasiums, swimming pools – and
two towns up from me the kids go to school in temporary trailers,
just big boxes. Go figure. Edward Abbey: "As war and government
prove, insanity is the most contagious of diseases."

Incidentally,
the sweet Korean model being used for a policy in Iraq may not be
accepted by the Iraqis. Trudy Rubin, Philadelphia
Inquirer, on the proposed Status of Forces Agreement: "A
surge of Iraqi nationalism . . . spurred questions about whether
the Iraqi parliament would deliver the required two-thirds vote
to endorse an accord."

Of course Miss
Korea isn’t the only model that’s struttin’ her stuff – besides
her there are enough other
models to fill the runway: Germany, 75,603 US troops; Japan,
40,045 troops; Afghanistan, 17,900 troops; Italy, 13,354 troops;
UK, 11,801 troops; Qatar, 3,432; Bosnia-Hercegovina, 2,931; and
Iceland, 1,754 troops. Is that all? No. According to the US Postal
Service there are about 3,000
overseas military ZIP codes.

So the warhawks
and chickenhawks should lay off the Korean Model. She’s still sweet,
but she’s no longer useful and she’s no longer wanted. Like Japan
and Germany, and a hundred other places, she’s high maintenance
and not worth the trouble. Bottom line – she sets a bad example,
if you know what I mean. Give her the hook.

June
24, 2008

Don
Bacon [send him mail]
is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley
Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler
said, “war is a racket.”

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Operation Enduring
Freedom is the official label for the US military invasion and occupation
of Afghanistan. After almost seven years of fighting, what has been
gained? What might be gained?

Militarily,
US frustration with heavy casualties and lack of progress came to
a head recently when Defense Secretary Robert
Gates blamed NATO allies for US casualties. “I know I’ve
been a big nag, and I know I’ve been a pain, … but for
NATO to continue to be tied up in politics [because of a lack of
public support] and issues between governments that are irrelevant
to whether we are making progress in Afghanistan, I just don’t
have patience any more . . .We’ve got kids dying because of
the gaps.”

Freedom? There’s
no progress there, either, for women, journalists and Afghanis in
general.

Freedom for
women? Ann
Jones, a writer who has lived in Afghanistan, writes that promises
to the Afghans are repeatedly broken. The national government, with
the consent of the occupation, installed many of the very warlords
who had shelled Kabul for years. Afghan women, by far, have had
it the worst, suffering for centuries in a moribund patriarchal
culture, from relentless discrimination that regarded them as the
lowest form of slaves. A recent example: On May 21, 2007, the lower
house of the Afghan parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, voted to suspend
Malalai Joya, a female MP elected from Farah province. Malalai
was accused of insulting the parliament and suspended until the
end of her term in 2009. Malalai’s suspension occurred after
she appeared in a television interview comparing the parliament
to an animal stable.

Freedom of
the press? The fourth
trial of journalist Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, condemned to death,
scheduled for Sunday, June 15, was delayed again by the judges in
the case. Medical evidence has been submitted showing Kambakhsh
was tortured during interrogations at the Balkh provincial jail.
Yakub Kambakhsh, older brother of Parwez, and a noted journalist
himself said, “Now we have found out that there is no impartial
court in Afghanistan, even in the capital." The Committee
to Protect Journalists in Afghanistan on June 11th called on
President Karzai for press freedom:

• Call for
  the release of imprisoned journalism student Parwez Kambakhsh,
  who was sentenced to death by a provincial court in January on
  blasphemy charges.
• Identify
  and prosecute the killers of BBC journalist Abdul Samad Rohani,
  who was slain in Helmand province on June 7.
• Investigate
  reported attacks in western Herat province against two female
  journalists who later resigned their news media positions. Unidentified
  assailants twice hurled grenades at Khadija Ahmadi’s house
  in April after she was anonymously warned to quit her post at
  Faryat radio station, according to news reports.
• Direct prosecutors
  to drop criminal charges against the privately run television
  network Tolo TV for defying a parliamentary ban on selected Indian
  soap operas.

Freedom for
the Afghanis? According to the recent Amnesty
International Report 2008: Violations of international humanitarian
and human rights law were committed with impunity by all parties,
including Afghan and international security forces and insurgent
groups. All sides carried out indiscriminate attacks, which included
aerial bombardments by the International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF) and US-led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) forces, as well
as suicide attacks by armed groups. According to the Afghanistan
NGO Security Office, there were around 2,000 non-combatant civilian
deaths, with international forces causing over a quarter of casualties
and insurgent groups just under half. Rights associated with education,
health and freedom of expression were violated, particularly for
women. Human rights defenders and journalists, many of them women,
were threatened, physically intimidated, detained or killed. Reforms
of key government institutions, including the police and intelligence
service, made limited progress. Government officials and local power-holders
were not held accountable for reported abuses and there was little
or no access to justice in many areas.

Freedom is
in big trouble in Afghanistan, but let’s think positive, prospects
for a natural gas pipeline might be better.

Turkmenistan
is just north of Afghanistan. Daniel Sershen reported a year ago
from Ashgabat, Turkmenistan for the Christian
Science Monitor: "Blanketed by vast deserts, Turkmenistan
sits atop some of the world’s largest natural-gas reserves. As Russia
and the West look to secure new gas and oil supplies in a tightening
race for energy security, this Central Asian country has landed
squarely in their sights. Last weekend, Russia secured a deal for
a new pipeline to take Turkmenistan’s gas north, delivering a serious
setback to US and European hopes for one that would siphon the gas
to the West – bypassing Russia’s increasingly powerful grip
on energy resources and routes."

Setback to
the West? Not so fast. In response, last November Turkmenistan,
Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, the four partners of a proposed
$3.3 bn
pipeline, vowed to accelerate work on the four-nation project
to bring natural gas from Turkmenistan to India. The declaration
was adopted in New Delhi at a two-day regional economic cooperation
forum on Afghanistan, which was attended by Afghan President Hamid
Karzai. The proposed gas pipeline project (TAPI)
will initially provide 30 million cubic meters of gas to Pakistan
and India each and 5 million cubic meters to Afghanistan on a daily
basis, which can be later increased up to 90 million cubic meters
in aggregate. TAPI
will run from the Dovetabat gas deposit in Turkmenistan to the Indian
town of Fazilka, near the border between Pakistan and India. Six
compressor stations are to be constructed along the pipeline. TAPI
certainly would help the consumer countries, Pakistan and India,
while Turkmenistan could make billions of dollars from gas exports.
But arguably it would benefit
US-client Afghanistan most by providing steady transit fees
to fill depleted state coffers in Kabul.

The American
company Unocal
has a ten-year history of interest in the Turkmenistan gas field
and a pipeline through Afghanistan. The Taliban wasn’t interested,
but the Hamid Karzai government is more amenable. On April 28 Afghan
President Hamid Karzai and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov
met in Kabul, where they signed an agreement
on extension of a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan,
Pakistan and India.

A key political
objective of the TAPI pipeline, one that changed it from TAP to
TAPI, was to involve India and keep it away from a proposed Iran-Pakistan-India
(IPI) pipeline. This would receive a boost from a civil nuclear
energy pact with the United States.

But India has
its politics also. The future of the nuclear energy pact between
New Delhi and Washington appears bleak, and last month, reports
Downstream
Today, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq said
that, after a visit from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project is moving toward
the "final stage" of its implementation. "The direction
of the project is positive," said Sadiq at a weekly news briefing.
The US$7.5-billion IPI gas pipeline project, which has been under
discussions since 1994, is to deliver natural gas from Iran to Pakistan
and India. Last month, the long-stalled talks on the gas pipeline
project made a breakthrough when Ahmadinejad made whistle-stop visits
to Pakistan and India. The three countries are expected to sign
agreements on the IPI project soon.

Yikes, foiled
again, outflanked by Iran? Again, there are options. The IPI pipeline
wouldn’t of course pass through war-torn Afghanistan but it would
pass through Balochistan,
the largest of Pakistan’s provinces and the scene of recent unrest
including pipeline bombings. (I wonder who financed the unrest?)
In fact, Balochistan might opt to become an independent state if
it is not granted provincial autonomy, Senate Deputy Chairman Jan
Muhammad Jamali
said recently. “The time is running out … there is no other
option left but to grant provincial autonomy to all the provinces
including Balochistan,” Jamali told the Upper House while speaking
on a point of order. He said he had been forced to raise the voice
of the people of his province, as the situation was rapidly deteriorating.
“The four brothers (provinces) will not be able to live together
if the situation remains the same,” he added.

Is there any
chance that Jamali’s threats might come true? Do the Jamalis have
any clout? Could Pakistan break up? It’s possible. The Jamali
family has in the past collaborated with the CIA and the ISI
(Pakistan Intelligence) in countering the activities of two other
tribes and their Marxist influence in Balochistan. During the course
of this collaboration, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali became friendly
with Nancy Powell (no relation to Colin), who was then a young member
of the diplomatic corps in Pakistan and then served as US ambassador
to Pakistan 2002–2004. She is currently the ambassador to Nepal.

An independent
Balochistan would balkanize Pakistan, create a US-friendly state
between Iran and India, and hurt Iran badly by stymieing the IPI
pipeline. It would also provide a side benefit by isolating the
large new port that the Chinese are financing in Gwadar,
on Balochistan’s coast. In March 2002, Chinese vice premier Wu Bangguo
laid the foundation for Gwadar port, which is intended be a key
Chinese facility on the Arabian Sea, not far from the Persian Gulf
and the Strait of Hormuz. The US might consider this a threat to
The Carter Doctrine, which dictates that the US shall be the big
dog in the Middle East.

Operation Enduring
Freedom? With John McCain and Barack Obama now arguing about widening
the Afghanistan war and invading Pakistan, the TAPI natural gas
pipeline has a better chance than freedom ever had. It would be
an American-controlled cash cow that would hurt Iran. All the US
needs to do is pacify Afghanistan with more troops (to safeguard
TAPI) and balkanize Pakistan (to stymie IPI) while widening the
war and antagonizing India. Freedom be damned. Freedom was never
an option anyhow, especially when there’s money to be made by endless
war.

June
20, 2008

Don
Bacon [send him mail]
is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley
Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler
said, “war is a racket.”

DIGG THIS

The
New York Times
has reported that the Supreme Court has handed its third consecutive
rebuff to the Bush administration’s handling of the detainees
at Guantánamo Bay, ruling 5 to 4 that the prisoners there
have a constitutional right to go to federal court to challenge
their continued detention. The finding, Boumediene
v. Bush, (pdf) reversed and remanded a refusal of the DC Circuit
Court to issue a writ of habeas corpus to Gitmo internees.

This decision
has received rave reviews. Jacob Hornberger (my top Constitution
mentor, bar none!) called it "a stunning rebuke of President
Bush, the Pentagon, and Congress." Jonathan Taplin said "I
think it is hard to overstate how important the Supreme Court decision
was." The Houston Chronicle editorialized that we shall
have "No King George – U.S. Supreme Court preserves freedom
by backing the Constitution’s ban on arbitrary imprisonment."
The Salt Lake Tribune: "Supreme Court rightly affirms
the Constitution" Jonathan Hafetz, writing in The Nation:
"Supreme Court Deals Death Blow to Gitmo – Today’s ruling
by the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush delivered a dramatic
blow to the President’s lawless detention policies and overturned
an effort by the previous Congress to eliminate the centuries-old
right of habeas corpus." And so on.

But the adulation
wasn’t unanimous. After all, four of the nine Court justices disagreed
with it. Justice Antonin Scalia spoke for the minority: “Today,
for the first time in our nation’s history, the court confers
a constitutional right to habeas corpus on alien enemies detained
abroad by our military forces in the course of an ongoing war.”

I know this
may not surprise a lot of people, but Justice[sic] Scalia was approximately
ninety-nine per cent wrong. This ruling applies to the 275 prisoners
at Gitmo but not to the tens of thousands of other people that the
US military has detained abroad, primarily in Iraq.

What did the
Supreme Court say about applicability?

"The
Constitution grants Congress and the President the power to acquire,
dispose of, and govern territory, not the power to decide when and
where its terms apply. To hold that the political branches may switch
the Constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which
they, not this Court, say “what the law is.”

So apparently
Boumediene applies directly only to Gitmo prisoners, because of
the "territory" consideration. The US has a long-term
lease at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But apparently it doesn’t apply wherever
in the world that the US military has detention facilities.

The US has
700 bases in 120 countries around the world, and enjoys nefarious
relationships with dozens of others (such as Syria, Saudi Arabia
and Egypt). Many of these countries are not known as champions for
human rights. Are any US detainees on any of these bases now empowered
to petition a US court for a writ of habeas corpus, and appeal to
the Supreme Court when they don’t get it? Apparently not.

US-run prisons
in Iraq and Afghanistan hold tens of thousands of prisoners, and
the US puppet governments in both places hold thousands more (a
bit fewer in Afghanistan – 870 inmates escaped in a recent
prison break).

In Iraq, some
claim that the American captors have eliminated the physical torture
that was once part of the regimen at Iraqi prison camps, part of
a new plan to avoid creating new enemies through mistreatment. But,
as the military supposedly institutes a plan to turn many of its
over twenty thousand prisoners over to the Iraqi government, some
fear the abuse will resume. Most of these prisoners, if not all,
were the subjects of arbitrary arrest in neighborhood sweeps in
the middle of the night and have done nothing wrong, except to be
living in Iraq as a young male.

According to
Ciara Gilmartin, writing for CounterPunch,
"Detainees are held by the U.S. command in two main locations
– Camp Bucca, a 100-acre prison camp and Camp Cropper, inside
a massive U.S. base near the Baghdad airport. The number of Iraqis
held in these facilities has steadily risen since the early days
of the occupation. In 2007, the inmate count rose 70% – from
14,500 to 24,700. Camp Bucca, with about 20,000 inmates, is perhaps
the world’s largest extrajudicial internment camp. The facility
is organized into "compounds" of 800 detainees each, surrounded
by fences and watch towers. Most detainees live in large communal
tents, subject to collapse in the area’s frequent sandstorms. Water
has at times been in short supply, while temperatures in the desert
conditions can be scorching hot in the day and bone-chilling at
night. In October 2007, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded
a contract to expand Camp Bucca’s capacity from 20,000 to 30,000.
While easing notorious crowding, the contract suggests Washington
is preparing for even more detentions in the future.

"Camp
Cropper consists of more traditional cellblock buildings. Among
its roughly 4,000 inmates are hundreds of juveniles. Cropper is
a site of ongoing interrogation and it holds many long-term detainees
who complain that they never see the light of day. Though recently
expanded, the facility suffers from overcrowding, poor medical attention
and miserable conditions. U.S. forces are holding nearly all of
these persons indefinitely, without an arrest warrant, without charge,
and with no opportunity for those held to defend themselves in a
trial. While the United States has put in place a formal review
procedure that supposedly evaluates all detainees for release on
a regular basis, detainees cannot attend these reviews, cannot confront
evidence against them, and cannot be represented properly by an
attorney. Families are only irregularly notified of the detentions,
and visits are rarely possible."

It gets worse.
According to Human
Rights Watch, US military authorities were as of May 12, 2008
holding 513 Iraqi children as “imperative threats to security,”
without due process, and have transferred an unknown number of other
children to Iraqi custody.

In Afghanistan,
the New
York Times reports, "The American detention center,
established at the Bagram military base as a temporary screening
site after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, is now teeming with
some 630 prisoners – more than twice the 275 being held at
Guantánamo. The administration has spent nearly three years
and more than $30 million on a plan to transfer Afghan prisoners
held by the United States to a refurbished high-security detention
center run by the Afghan military outside Kabul. But almost a year
after the Afghan detention center opened, American officials say
it can accommodate only about half the prisoners they once planned
to put there. As a result, the makeshift American site at Bagram
will probably continue to operate with hundreds of detainees for
the foreseeable future, the officials said. Meanwhile, the treatment
of some prisoners on the Bagram base has prompted a strong complaint
to the Pentagon from the International Committee of the Red Cross,
the only outside group allowed in the detention center." Afghanistan,
if we believe the politicians, will soon replace Iraq as the principal
US military target and so we can expect US military detainees to
increase there.

The Pentagon
operates military
prisons in many places besides Cuba, Iraq and Afghanistan, including:
Mannheim, Germany; Yokosuka and Sasebo, Japan; Rota, Spain; Roosevelt
Roads, Puerto Rico; Keflavik, Iceland; Naples, Italy and Guam. There
are brigs on over twenty US Navy warships. Do these prisons house
detainees who are denied due process? Who knows.

Is it feasible
to provide due process to US military detainees in places other
than Cuba, in those places where the "territory" consideration
doesn’t apply? The Israelis apparently have found a way. Israel
provides judicial review for all its detainees, according to an
‘amicus curiae’ (friend
of the court brief) (pdf) sent in by seven Israeli law professors
on the Boumediene case. "Judicial review of executive and military
detention, the indispensable core of habeas corpus, need not be
sacrificed to protect public safety and national security, even
in the face of an unremitting terrorist threat. Israel has demonstrated
that security detainees and prisoners of war, including alleged
unlawful combatants, can and should be afforded the opportunity
for prompt, independent judicial review of the factual basis for
their confinement."

So while we
might celebrate the arrival of due process for the hundreds of civilians
who allegedly abetted al Qaeda, we should also find a way to extend
the same rights to the tens of thousands who have allegedly hindered
the US occupation of their countries. How? The Congress has the
Constitutional
power, under Article I Section 8, "To make Rules for the
Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces" that
would bring the treatment of all detainees, not just a small percentage
of them, into accordance with not only the Constitution but also
the Geneva Convention
and the Nrnberg
Principles.

When a Member
of Congress stands up for the Constitution and says: "Mr. Speaker,
I hereby introduce a bill to extend to our liberated but detained
subjects overseas the same rights recently granted to alleged al
Qaeda confederates being held at Guantanamo Bay," and that
bill becomes law, only then will the Constitution be fully affirmed,
and only then will I reach for the bubbly while recalling the stirring
words of the Leader
Of The Free World: "Our commitment to democracy is tested
in countries like Cuba and Burma and North Korea and Zimbabwe –
outposts of oppression in our world. The people in these nations
live in captivity, and fear and silence. Yet, these regimes cannot
hold back freedom forever – and, one day, from prison camps
and prison cells, and from exile, the leaders of new democracies
will arrive." ~ GW Bush, Nov 6, 2003

June
17, 2008

Don
Bacon [send him mail]
is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley
Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler
said, “war is a racket.”

DIGG THIS

It is widely
reported that the US military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, continuing
on for over five years, have been "counterinsurgencies"
(COIN) led in Iraq by the expert on COIN General David Petraeus.
Petraeus has been highly praised for his COIN abilities and soon
will be able to expand his influence to Afghanistan, the almost-seven-year
quagmire.

From the Washington
Independent: "David Petraeus will go down in history
as a great counterinsurgency theorist and practitioner," said
retiring Army Lt. Col. John Nagl, one of the counterinsurgency experts
who helped write FM (Field Manual) 3-24 on COIN. "From his
Princeton doctoral dissertation on counterinsurgency in Vietnam
through three tours in Iraq – during the last of which he wrote
the introduction for the first-ever translation in French of David
Galula’s classic Counterinsurgency
Warfare: Theory and Practice after leading the writing team
that produced the Army-Marine Corps counterinsurgency field manual
– Gen. Petraeus has led the Army to rediscover ‘the graduate
level of war.’"

Hogwash and
poppycock, these counterinsurgency experts rediscovering stuff.
General Petraeus is an accident of history, a guy who wrote a key
op-ed with inaccurate rosy military predictions just prior to
the last presidential election and has been rewarded for it. Along
the way Petraeus helped
oversee the drafting of a new Army Field Manual (FM 3-24) purported
to cover counterinsurgency, which supposedly is being followed in
Iraq. I will show that both of these premises are false.

The term counterinsurgency
gained currency under President John Kennedy in the 1960′s, and
referred initially to countering "communist inspired, supported,
or directed insurgency, defined as subversive insurgency" by
Soviet-aligned guerillas against western colonial nations. (When
the US aided indigent forces in the overthrow of unfriendly governments
it was called paramilitary operations.) As in the above quote the
US involvement in Vietnam was called a counterinsurgency.

Then came the
definition of insurgency: From the DOD
Dictionary of Military Terms: insurgency – (DOD, NATO)
– An organized movement aimed at the overthrow of a constituted
government through use of subversion and armed conflict.

So an insurgent
by definition is trying to overthrow a government, usually his own.
Therefore if a population is resisting a foreign military occupation
(or fighting other sects) they are not insurgents and it is not
an insurgency. Is this just semantics? No. The point is that it
is a natural human reaction to resist by force an alien foreign
military occupation, whereas people are inclined to be more tolerant
of their own government, before they take up arms, no matter how
badly they act. Understanding this simple fact explains why the
US has not been and will not be successful in its military occupations
of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Vietnam, Petraeus’s
wellspring of doctrinal knowledge, was not really a counterinsurgency.
Vietnam was a country where the US illegally installed a government
in its southern part, invaded that part of Vietnam and then fought
a long, losing campaign against the properly constituted and recognized
Vietnam government which had its capital (and still does) in the
north. If anyone, it was the US military which acted as insurgents!
Similarly Iraq and Afghanistan are not insurgencies.

In Iraq, combatants
include not only those contesting the US military presence and killing
US collaborators, but also various religious sects fighting each
other as a result of the instability the US has brought, and also
religious fanatics calling themselves al Qaeda-Iraq from outside
Iraq who have been drawn there, again, because of the US destabilization
of that tormented country. A similar situation exists in Afghanistan.
None of these are "insurgents" according to the Pentagon
definition.

Oh, we know,
the implication is clear. We’re not supposed to believe that other
countries actually have sovereignty over their own territory. According
to this scenario the US Empire owns the world, particularly those
parts situated over oil, and anyone resisting US hegemony and occupation
of those parts is an insurgent. Even under this interpretation,
is this "insurgent" (AKA "terrorist") trying
to overthrow the US government? No, he’s resisting a US military
occupation. In Iraq the Iraqis weren’t people we liberated, as the
initial story went, they are our enemies because of the extended
occupation. That’s essentially what George
Bush said back in November, 2005 – that our enemy is ordinary
Iraqis: "The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists,
Saddamists and terrorists. The rejectionists are by far the largest
group. These are ordinary Iraqis, mostly Sunni Arabs, who miss the
privileged status they had under the regime of Saddam Hussein –
and they reject an Iraq in which they are no longer the dominant
group." Current US enemies in Iraq include not only the Sunnis,
but also the most popular Shiite sect, the Sadrists (consisting
of various splinter groups).

Wonderful –
the people we’re liberating are our enemies, because of the extended
occupation – now there’s a good reason to support the troops
and extend the occupation. I guess Congress thought so too. They’ve
continually done it despite the fact that the Iraqis DON’T want
it – a recent
poll indicates that nearly 60% of Iraqis see attacks on US-led
forces as justified and nearly half say the US should leave now.

Actually the
facts are that the world is composed of 190-odd sovereign countries
and the US can’t legally act as though it is the legal government
over other countries. From the United
Nations Charter, Article 1, Chapter 2: "The Organization
is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members."
While in Iraq and Afghanistan there are no functional governments,
they still have loyal citizens, nationalists, and the people in
these countries (US enemies according to Bush) are resisting brutal
US military occupations. Who among us wouldn’t resist a foreign
military occupation? A military that raids neighborhood homes often
in the middle of the night like this,
this,
this,
and this,
harasses the inhabitants including taking retina
scans, rounds
up, handcuffs and blindfolds
young males and carts them roughly off to prison
(over 20,000 now) where they are tortured
and detained for months without any sort of legal review. There
is in each country, Iraq and Afghanistan, a corrupt and dysfunctional
government but the people, mostly, are not fighting (insurging)
against these governments, which being weak are not even factors.
They’re fighting the US military occupiers (and each other due to
instability). No country, including our own, will ever tolerate
an intensive occupation by a foreign nation.
(photo credits: AP, JM, JM, AP/Petros Giannakouris, AP/Marko Drobnjakovic,
REUTERS/Bob Strong, JM, defendamerica, antiwar.com)

The principal
US strategy in both places is more time, more money and above all,
more troops. The "COIN" part of this, the purported new
and unique part, is the concept of using troops to secure the population,
thereby fostering conditions conducive to reconstruction and reconciliation.
COIN is nothing new. In Vietnam it was "win their hearts and
minds." Regarding Iraq, Petraeus
described the effort this way in October 2003: "This is
a race. This is a race to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi
people. And there are other people in this race. And they’re not
just trying to beat us to the finish line. In some cases, they want
to kill us." In other words these are old techniques for gaining
acceptance from a hostile population enduring a brutal military
occupation, which is an impossible task as has been proven many
times. The US in Vietnam and the Russians in Afghanistan are the
two most recent historical examples, the British in both places
are earlier examples. All failed. The US is failing now in Iraq
and Afghanistan as evidenced by the stumbling US attempt to obtain
a Status
of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Iraq which after five years
of warfare would allow continued US military sovereignty in that
battered country. The Iraqis of all political persuasions are against
it, but of course they may yet be bought off (or threatened). The
Independent reports that under the terms of the new treaty, Americans
would retain the long-term use of more than fifty bases in Iraq.
American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law
for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests
and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad
government. Does this sound like a liberated country, or an occupied
one?

Field
Manual FM 3-24 (pdf) essentially promotes an approach to dealing
with "insurgents" (really occupation resisters) with a
minimum of force so as not to alienate them unduly from the occupiers.
"Ultimate success in COIN is gained by protecting the populace,
not the COIN force." Deal with the populace with a minimum
of force? Protect the populace? Obviously this was not the idea
of the Petraeus surge and it is not the course of action Petraeus
pursued in Sadr City, resulting in a humanitarian crisis. The inability
to move armored vehicles through the narrow slum streets of this
poor city meant an increased use of indirect fire and air power
to destroy hospitals, apartment buildings and entire blocks of buildings,
where a lot of people were present. So there are more dead, more
refugees and more hatred toward the US in direct contradiction of
the "minimum of force" concept which is supposed to be
essential for "counterinsurgency" operations.

The
Washington Post on the recent US attacks in Sadr City: "Since
late March, the military has fired more than 200 Hellfire missiles
in the capital, compared with just six missiles fired in the previous
three months." The military says the tactic has saved the lives
of ground troops and prevented attacks, but the strikes have also
killed and wounded civilians, provoking criticism from Iraqis. So
the COIN tactic of "protecting the populace, not the COIN force"
is not being followed. This is not surprising when you think about
it – the primary motivator of soldiers, after accomplishing
the mission, is to stay alive.

Prior to Petraeus’s
arrival as Iraq commander, US military forces applied bogus "counterinsurgency"
tactics to the utmost in the siege of Fallujah in 2004. From Tomdispatch:
"Fallujah was gutted. Two months after the invasion, Erik Eckholm
of the New York Times described the city as "a desolate
world of skeletal buildings, tank-blasted homes, weeping power lines
and severed palm trees." At least a quarter of its homes were
fully destroyed, and virtually all the others were severely damaged.
Blown out windows, wrecked furniture, three-foot blast holes in
walls, and disintegrated doors demonstrated that American troops
had relentlessly applied what they jokingly called the "FISH"
strategy (Fighting in Someone’s House), which involved "throwing
a hand grenade into each room before checking it for unfriendlies."
Since (in the words of Lt. Gen. Sattler) "each and every house"
was searched, very few remained livable.

"The civilians
who stayed during the fighting found themselves in a kill-anything-that-moves
free-fire zone. When the first medical teams arrived in January
they collected more than 700 unburied and rotting bodies (reputedly
including those of 550 women and children) in only one-third of
the city; and these obviously didn’t include the dead already buried
during the battle or hidden under the debris."

It is the policy
of the US government to conduct preemptive strikes on potential
threats (think Iraq), so how could we expect less of soldiers and
Marines? From the National
Security Strategy (pdf): "America will act against such
emerging threats before they are fully formed." The occupation
equivalent to the US attacking a country considered to be potentially
dangerous, is the Marine who throws a fragmentation grenade into
a room before entering, a soldier who shoots a man carrying a shovel
and a soldier who turns his machine gun on an approaching car. The
room and the car might only contain innocent adults and children
or they might contain potential killers, and the guy with the shovel
might intend to implant a mine. Therefore the basis of COIN –
"Ultimate success in COIN is gained by protecting the populace,
not the COIN force" – is what we used to call in the army
"eyewash," for civilian consumption only. The operative
tactic is to kill them so they won’t kill you – this is the
tragedy of a brutal military occupation. Even in wanton revenge
killings of old men, women and children, like the Haditha massacre,
soldiers (or in this case Marines) are not punished

In the Haditha
massacre (also prior to Petraeus’s command), where 24 Iraqi
men, women and children were killed in a mindless fit of revenge
after a Marine died from a convoy mine, Lt. Gen. James Mattis dropped
the charges against one Marine who had been accused of murder and
against another accused of failing to investigate the incident.
The reason? Marines are trained to kill and they can’t be punished
for doing so. General Mattis is infamous for his remarks about the
joy of killing people. News
report: Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who commanded Marine expeditions
in Afghanistan and Iraq, made the comments Tuesday during a panel
discussion in San Diego, California. "Actually it’s quite fun
to fight them, you know. It’s a hell of a hoot," Mattis said,
prompting laughter from some military members in the audience. "It’s
fun to shoot some people. I’ll be right up there with you. I like
brawling. You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around
for five years because they didn’t wear a veil," Mattis said.
"You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway.
So it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." This is "protecting
the populace?"

A secondary
but important tragedy of this strategy of tormenting and killing
the populace and not protecting them, of course, is the mental anguish
brought upon the government operatives, actually "the boy next
door," who must implement the terrible government strategy.
The number of US veterans receiving disability compensation for
Post-Traumatic
Stress Disorder (PTSD) has increased nearly threefold since
1999, rising from 120,000 to nearly 329,000, according to the Veterans
Administration. The Army is losing its battle to stem suicides
among troops serving in Iraq, with a new report showing that 32
soldiers killed themselves in the war zone last year (2007) –
a record high since the war began five years ago.

The US military
is in Iraq to fight insurgents who are attempting to overthrow their
government? No. Recently Iraqis have taken to the streets protesting
the American occupation and promoting
their heroes, the anti-occupation nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr
and the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, while displaying
the Iraqi flag and burning
the American flag. (Photo credits: AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, AP
Photo/Alaa al-Marjani, REUTERS/Stringer, AP Photo/Alaa al-Marjani)

So toss the
counterinsurgency "COIN" into the fountain of government
propaganda. Don’t use the word; use resisted occupation instead.
Counterinsurgency doctrine is not followed and anyhow it doesn’t
apply to foreign military occupations which bring instability and
hated occupation to a country. Counterinsurgency is a meaningless
term when applied to military occupations except to try to put a
legitimate face on a criminal act. After all, it does make the US
look better to call our enemies insurgents (or terrorists) rather
than occupation-resisters. But it’s not accurate. Might as well
put lipstick on a pig, or call the War Department the Defense Department.

The cure? End
the brutal US military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. As General
Petraeus said in Iraq: "There are many here who regard
us still as liberators. But there are also some that say, jeez,
when are these guys going to leave? And inevitably, over time, even
the best of liberators will become seen as occupiers." Petraeus
for once got it right – and Louise
gets it too. (photo credit: Judy)

June
10, 2008

Don
Bacon [send him mail]
is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley
Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler
said, “war is a racket.”

DIGG THIS

“I have
left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency,
even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.” ~ President Ronald Reagan

In fact the
United States operated under a continuous state of emergency from
1933 until 1976, according to By
Order Of The President by Phillip J. Cooper.

To correct
this ridiculous situation Congress passed The
National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601–1651) in 1976
to stop open-ended states of national emergency and formalize Congressional
checks and balances on Presidential emergency powers. The act sets
a limit of two years on states of national emergency. It also imposes
certain "procedural formalities" on the President when
invoking such powers, and provides a means for Congress to countermand
a Presidential declaration of emergency and associated use of emergency
powers.

The perceived
need for the law arose from the scope and number of laws granting
special powers to the Executive in times of national emergency (or
public danger). Constitutional protections are subject to revocation
during a state of emergency including the right of habeas corpus.

In addition,
many provisions of statutory law – as many as 500 by one count
– are contingent on a state of national emergency. According
to a 1990
report to Congress the President may seize property, organize
and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military
forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation
and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise,
restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of
United States citizens.

A popular penalty
in recent presidential edicts has been to block property transfers
of any offenders. There is never a mention of due process, of course.
When it comes to executive privilege justice is not only blind but
deaf and dumb.

A big part
of the problem is the assumed "executive powers" by presidents
who want to act like kings (naturally). From the founding of this
nation, American presidents have developed and used various types
of presidential or executive "directives." The best-known
directives are executive orders and presidential proclamations,
but many other documents have a similar function and effect. Presidential
directives have been raised to dangerous levels by Presidents William
Clinton and George W. Bush. Another excellent reference in this
area is With
A Stroke of the Pen by Kenneth R. Mayer. It includes a quote
from a Clinton advisor which described the strategy: "Stroke
of the pen . . . . law of the land. Kind of cool."

It was due
in part to concern that a declaration of "emergency" for
one purpose should not invoke every possible executive emergency
power that Congress in 1976 passed the National Emergencies Act.
Among other provisions, this act requires the President to declare
formally a national emergency and to specify the statutory authorities
to be used under such a declaration. The declaration must be published
in the Federal Register.

Wow, they really
tightened it up, didn’t they. The president must state what laws
are involved and the order must be published in the Federal Register
so that the Congress might act on it if it sees the need to countermand
the President. Don’t hold your breath – the US Congress has
never countermanded a presidential executive order, in fact recently
it has rarely stood up to "executive privilege" of any
kind. It’s simply not an issue, unfortunately. And according to
Phillip J. Cooper (cited above), although Congress provided in the
National Emergencies Act for the possibility of a legislative veto
that would terminate an emergency, the Supreme Court struck down
the legislative veto in 1983. So the President rules supreme! US
presidents hate Americans for their freedom, apparently, and seek
to reduce it.

In the case
of executive orders the president supposedly binds himself to do
only what’s in his order. Sure he does. The problem is that recent
presidents (principally Clinton and Bush-43) haven’t even obeyed
legislated laws and have issued "signing statements" to
that effect, so who says they would obey their own executive orders?
Might not a president just decide that certain additional steps
must be taken because of a national emergency?

In a national
emergency, one thing an unrestrained president might do is enact
martial law – call out the troops. Can the President impose
martial law on his own say-so? Well, yes, whenever he decides to.

US
CODE TITLE 10-332: Whenever the President considers that unlawful
obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against
the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce
the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course
of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of
the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he
considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.

Note that the
President doesn’t even need a state of emergency to call out the
troops. But a state of emergency would help, and has customarily
been used by state governments after catastrophic acts of nature,
for example, to call up the National Guard and to ask for federal
support.

The new domestic
military command, NORTHCOM,
was set up for this purpose. NORTHCOM includes a task force which
consists of active, Guard and Reserve military members drawn from
all service branches, as well as civilian personnel, who are commanded
by a federalized National Guard general officer. From its mission
statement: "USNORTHCOM plans, organizes and executes homeland
defense and civil support missions."

Admiral
Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on NORTHCOM: “The
command also has maturing relationships with agencies inside our
country, the FBI for instance.”

Oh goody, domestic
military forces which are ready to provide "civil support"
have "maturing relationships" with organizations that
spy on US citizens and keep files on them. But what about the Posse
Comitatus Act (Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 1385), which states:
"Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly
authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses
any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise
to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned
not more than two years, or both." Posse Comitatus is supposed
to keep troops in the barracks regarding domestic situations, right?

Well, no, according
to Homeland
Security: "The Posse Comitatus Act is often cited as a
major constraint on the use of the military services to participate
in homeland security, counterterrorism, civil disturbances, and
similar domestic duties. It is widely believed that this law prohibits
the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps from performing any
kind of police work or assisting law enforcement agencies to enforce
the law. This belief, however, is not exactly correct. . . . The biggest
error is the common assertion that the Posses Comitatus Act was
enacted to prevent the military services from acting as a national
police force."

So the bottom
line is that we’d better pay attention when a national emergency
is declared, right?

That’s right,
in fact pay attention fourteen times. There are currently fourteen
(14) national emergencies in effect in the United States. Here they
are, with their topics, listed chronologically in order of their
last annual renewal (they seem perpetual):

Western
Balkans – "(i) extremist violence in the Republic
of Macedonia and elsewhere in the Western Balkans region, or (ii)
acts obstructing implementation of the Dayton Accords in Bosnia"

Former
Liberian regime of Charles Taylor – "blocking of property
of certain persons associated with the former Liberian regime of
Charles Taylor"

Terrorism
– after 9/11 "constitute an unusual and extraordinary
threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of
the United States" [Note: Current Homeland Security position:
"At this time there is no credible information warning of an
imminent, specific threat to the homeland."]

Colombian
Narcotics Traffickers – "to deal with the unusual
and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy,
and economy of the United States constituted by the actions of significant
narcotics traffickers centered in Colombia"

Democratic
Republic of the Congo – "blocking the property of
certain persons contributing to the conflict in that country"

Sudan
– "the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national
security and foreign policy of the United States constituted by
the actions and policies of the Government of Sudan"

Iran
– "the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national
security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States constituted
by the situation in Iran"

Weapons
of mass destruction – "the unusual and extraordinary
threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of
the United States posed by the proliferation of nuclear, biological,
and chemical weapons "weapons of mass destruction" and
the means of delivering such weapons"

Middle
East Terrorists – "the unusual and extraordinary threat
to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United
States constituted by grave acts of violence committed by foreign
terrorists who threaten to disrupt the Middle East peace process"

Cote
d’Ivoire – "blocking the property of certain persons
contributing to the conflict in Côte d’Ivoire"

Cuba
– "to address the disturbance or threatened disturbance
of international relations caused by the February 24, 1996, destruction
by the Cuban government of two unarmed U.S.-registered civilian
aircraft in international airspace north of Cuba"

Syria
– "the Government of Syria continues to engage in certain
conduct that formed the basis for the national emergency declared
in Executive Order 13338 of May 11, 2004, including but not limited
to undermining efforts with respect to the stabilization of Iraq"

Zimbabwe
– "blocked the property of persons undermining democratic
processes or institutions in Zimbabwe"

Burma
– "additional steps with respect to the national emergency
declared in Executive Order 13047 of May 20, 1997"

These are the
fourteen US "national emergencies" that George W. Bush
has annually renewed with his signature within the past year, without
a peep from Congress. Now obviously these are not truly national
emergencies. They are fakes, dictated by a phony President, acceded
to by a rubber-stamp Congress and abetted by a dictator-loving Supreme
Court. The United States is in no way extraordinarily threatened
by the Government of Sudan. But these Presidential decrees do have
some purposes, don’t they? First, they are ploys to give the US
government some power it wouldn’t ordinarily have. Secondly, they
are meant to frighten US citizens about terrorism, among other things.
(Terror means fright and the goal of terrorists is to frighten,
so what does that tell you?) Thirdly, they might provide a President,
a "Decider," some basis for military or other action against
US citizens. Okay, not under a Balkans or Liberian "national
emergency," but how about WMD or terrorism? Or Iran?

Fourteen (not
exactly) US national emergencies. Sleep on, America.

June
5, 2008

Don
Bacon [send him mail]
is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley
Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler
said, “war is a racket.”

DIGG THIS

Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, one of the most colorful
officers in the Marine Corps, was one of two Marines to receive
two Congressional Medals of Honor for separate acts of outstanding
heroism. General Butler was born in 1881 and raised as a Quaker.
He was still in his teens when he was commissioned as a second lieutenant
for the war with Spain and served in the Philippines, China, Puerto
Rico, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, Haiti, France, and, after a stint
as Director of Public Safety in Philadelphia, in China again. General
Butler died at the Naval Hospital in Philadelphia on 21 June 1940.
At the time of his death he was the most decorated marine in U.S.
history. General Butler has had a naval destroyer, a military base
and a chapter of Veterans for Peace (the ‘Smed Butts’) named for
him. He is loved and quoted not only in the United States but around
the world. We are fortunate to have General Butler with us for this
“interview” conducted by Don Bacon, who founded the Smedley Butler
Society several years ago to perpetuate the memory of this masterful
maverick Marine.

General Butler is no longer with us in body but his spirit and
his popularity live on. He left us a legacy in deeds and words which
we have used to construct this imaginary interview that includes
his verbatim words and paraphrased quotations. Much of what follows
comes from General Butler’s book War
Is a Racket.

Q: General Butler, the United States military is currently bogged
down in Iraq. What are your thoughts?

General Butler: When our forefathers planned this government, they
saw no necessity for foreign wars, for wars that didn’t concern
us. As a matter of fact, after we got our independence our army
and navy were eliminated. The Constitution states that the Congress
has the power to provide for the common defense, and has the power
to raise and support armies, but it also states that such forces
can’t be funded for more than two years. It says nothing about foreign
wars. We had a militia, that is each state had a militia, but this
was the only armed force at the time and was not to be used beyond
the territorial limits of the United States. If you look into history,
you will find that during the War of 1812 a certain regiment of
militia marched northward toward Canada, but they refused to cross
the border and went home. The militia was for home defense only.
That’s what our armed forces should be. Home defenders, ready and
able to defend our homes, to defend us against attack, and that’s
all.

Q: What do you think of the recent militarization of US foreign
policy, with all this emphasis on force. And do you think it’s fun
to shoot people as Marine Corps General Mattis once said?

General Butler: Well, I served in the Marine Corps for thirty-three
years, and of course my military philosophy evolved. As a seventeen-year-old
second lieutenant in the Boxer rebellion, and then as a field grade
officer in Central America and Haiti, I conducted myself with a
certain flair. Later, as a brigadier general commanding troops in
China again, I had a different, and I think more successful, way
of dealing with the differences of opinion that normally occur in
the course of human events. We had some interests in China at the
time, and some Americans were just hoopin’ and hollerin’ for military
action. I, however, felt that they all had personal axes to grind.
They were just trouble makers and not problem solvers. If you took
them seriously and tried to listen to everything that they said,
you’d be hopelessly mixed up. I felt that the local people should
settle, among themselves, their own form of government and their
own ruler. Our job was to make sure they didn’t molest our people,
that’s all. As long as I was commander, we weren’t going to do what
we did in the Banana Wars. We weren’t going to cause a lot of violence
and take over their banks and run things the way we did in Central
America, which I unfortunately had a hand in. I felt that the millions
of dollars in American capital in China was nothing compared to
the taxes Americans would have to pay for the battleships and Marines
to protect them. At the time, we were known as "the Marines
who wouldn’t fight" which was fine with me. My views haven’t
changed.

Q: What do you think of the current political situation in Washington,
with warmongers in control of the government and their talk of continuous
war?

General Butler: Back in my day we had similar people. In Italy
there was Benito Mussolini, who said: “Fascism . . . believes neither
in the possibility or the utility of perpetual peace . . .
War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy.” I
didn’t like this fascist, or any fascist, but the US media loved
him. As you may know, I was put under arrest and threatened with
court-martial for criticizing Mussolini at the time. Later on, I
stopped the bankers’ putsch against Roosevelt. See, some Wall Street
big shots wanted to topple President Roosevelt and the New Deal.
I was a life-long Republican, and they knew that I was a soldier’s
general, so they approached me and wanted me to lead an army of
five hundred thousand veterans to overthrow the government. We’d
do the whole thing from Civilian Conservation Corps camps, which
were already set up. If I refused, they were going to get MacArthur.
Well, I blew the whistle on them. I always sided with the underdog
against the rich and powerful with their damnable wars, and I’d
do it again.

I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of
our country’s most agile military force – the Marine Corps. I served
in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General.
And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class
muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and for the bankers.
In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I suspected I was part
of a racket all the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members
of the military profession I never had an original thought until
I left the service.

Q: Getting back to the Iraq war, many reports say that the troops
are being treated poorly, that they have their service extended,
that their equipment and medical care are substandard and that their
lack of financial support is punitive and insulting. We don’t hear
of a soldier’s general these days; how did you operate differently?

General Butler: If you take care of the troops, they’ll take care
of you. Some military people are just careerists, and you can’t
expect civilians who never served to understand soldiers. In 1917,
when I commanded the training base at Quantico, I opposed elevating
the Corps Commandant to lieutenant general so long as the soldiers
were getting no extra reward for doing the heavy work in the trenches.
When I was sent to France, we had a situation where we were building
up to a million men but our camp was knee-deep in eternal mud and
supply requisitions weren’t working. So one afternoon I marched
down to the docks with seven thousand men, confiscated fifty thousand
sections of duckboards, which were wooden slats to be used in trenches,
plus some shovels and kettles that we needed, and we carried them
back to camp. Since I too carried a duckboard up the hill, I became
known as General Duckboard. Hell, I’ve been called worse names than
that.

I’ve been called a devil-dog, the bad boy of the marines, maverick
Marine, old gimlet eye – I didn’t much care for that – and, by
Teddy Roosevelt, the ideal American soldier. I liked that one.

Anyhow, years later, in 1932, when President Hoover and the Congress
had denied these brave men their bonus, these same wonderful men
I had served with in France, and twenty thousand of them gathered
in Washington, I urged them to stick it out. You’ve heard of the
bonus marchers? I got up on this rickety stand they had built and
said: “You hear folks call you fellows tramps, but they didn’t call
you that in ’17 and ’18. I never saw such fine soldiers. I never
saw such discipline . . . You have as much right to lobby here as
the United States Steel Corporation.” If I were around today I’d
be up on that stand again, believe me. Then General MacArthur came
through and cleaned ‘em out. I have no comment on that.

Q: There has been a lot of evidence of corporate profiteering on
this current war, extending to the highest levels. What’s you view?

General Butler: War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly
the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.
It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars
and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe,
as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people.
Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted
for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many.
Out of the war a few people make huge fortunes. New millionaires
and billionaires are created in a war. How many of these war millionaires
shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them
were wounded or killed in battle? Out of war, nations acquire additional
territory. They just take it. This newly acquired territory is exploited
by the few – the self-same few who wrung dollars out of blood
in the war. The general public shoulders the bill. And what is this
bill? This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones.
Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic
instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking
taxation for generations and generations. Truly, war is a racket.

Q: What do you suggest Americans do to stop this war?

General Butler: The Government declares war. To say helplessly:
As individuals we have nothing to do with it, can’t prevent it.
But who are we? Well, “we” right now are the mothers and fathers
of every able-bodied boy of military age in the United States. “We”
are also you young men of voting age and over, that they’ll use
for cannon fodder. And “we” can prevent it. Now – you mothers,
particularly. The only way you can resist all this war hysteria
and beating tomtoms is by hanging onto the love you bear your boys.
When you listen to some well-worded, well-delivered speech, just
remember that it’s nothing but sound. It’s your boy that matters.
And no amount of sound can make up to you for the loss of your boy.
After you’ve heard one of those speeches and your blood’s all hot
and you want to bite somebody like Hitler – go upstairs to
where your boy’s asleep. . . . Look at him. Put your hand on that
spot on the back of his neck. The place you used to love to kiss
when he was a baby. Just rub it a little. You won’t wake him up,
he knows it’s just you. Just look at his strong, fine young body
because only the best boys are chosen for war. Look at this splendid
young creature who’s part of yourself, then close your eyes for
a moment and I’ll tell you what can happen . . .

Somewhere – five thousand miles from home. Night. Darkness. Cold.
A drizzling rain. The noise is terrific. All Hell has broken loose.
A star shell burst in the air. Its unearthly flare lights up the
muddy field. There’s a lot of tangled rusty barbed wires out there
and a boy hanging over them – his stomach ripped out, and he’s
feebly calling for help and water. His lips are white and drawn.
He’s in agony.

There’s your boy. The same boy who’s lying in bed tonight. The
same boy who trusts you. . . . Are you going to run out on him?
Are you going to let someone beat a drum or blow a bugle and make
him chase after it? Thank God, this is a democracy and by your voice
and your vote you can save your boy. (from a 1939 broadcast)

Q: Finally, general, how do we end this war racket?

General Butler: Well, it’s a racket all right. A few profit, and
the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can’t end it by
disarmament conferences, peace parlays in Geneva or well-meaning
resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit
out of war.

First, before the government can recruit or conscript young people
for military service, they must conscript politicians and industry
and labor. Pay them the same that the soldiers get. They aren’t
running any risk of being killed or having their bodies mangled
or their minds shattered, so why shouldn’t they?

Second, hold a limited plebiscite to determine whether war should
be declared, not of all the voters, but merely those who would be
called upon to do the fighting. Why have the old president of a
munitions firm or the flat-footed head of a tank plant vote on a
venture of high profit and no risk to them?

A third step in this business of smashing the war racket is to
make certain that our military forces are truly forces for defense
only. At each session of Congress the question of naval appropriations
comes up. The swivel-chair admirals in Washington are very adroit
lobbyists. And they are smart. They don’t shout: “We need a lot
of battleships to war on this nation or that nation.” Oh no. First
they say that our nation is menaced by a great naval power, poised
to strike suddenly and annihilate our people. Next they cry for
a larger navy, for defense purposes only, of course. Then, they
announce maneuvers in the Pacific Ocean, and the Indian Ocean, and
the Gulf of Arabia, and any other place that’s blue on the globe.
The countries that border on these waters will be pleased beyond
expression to see these warships just off their shores, just as
we would be pleased as punch to see, through the morning mist, Chinese
warships playing at war games off Los Angeles. I have proposed a
constitutional amendment to limit our military forces to home defense
purposes only. Let’s pass all our suggested antiwar legislation,
let’s attend all the peace and disarmament conferences, let’s have
all the war protest meetings we can arrange, but if we really want
to make war impossible, then let us by all means insist upon adding
a Peace Amendment, such as the one which I have drafted, to the
United States Constitution. That’s how we can smash the war racket.

(end of interview)

Comment: Nobody ever claimed that they didn’t understand General
Butler, but a lot of people didn’t like to be spoken to as plainly
and as clearly as he spoke. One said: “If he was as wise in speech
as he was brave in war, he would not have lost the prestige he deserved.”
Smedley Butler with lost prestige? Not on our watch. Be sure to
read General Butler’s book War Is a Racket, and please do
whatever you can do to keep General Butler alive.

May
9, 2008

Don
Bacon [send him mail]
is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley
Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler
said, “war is a racket.”

DIGG THIS

The Thirteenth
Amendment of the Constitution, adopted at the end of the civil War
in 1865, abolished slavery, but this same amendment expressly permits
prison slavery and involuntary servitude.

AMENDMENT
XIII — SECTION 1

Neither slavery
nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof
the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

The United
States has less than 5 percent of the world's population and almost
25 percent of the world's prisoners. Are Americans more criminal
than other folks? Or are there incentives that give the US the dubious
honor of leading the world in prison population.

Prison labor
has its roots in slavery. After the 1861–1865 Civil War a system
of “hiring out prisoners” was introduced in order to continue the
slavery tradition. Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out
their sharecropping commitments (cultivating someone else's land
in exchange for part of the harvest) or petty thievery — which were
almost never proven — and were then “hired out” for cotton picking,
working in mines and building railroads.

The tradition
continues. The nation needs a way to fill the prisons which provide
a source of cheap labor. Surely the criminal justice system can
be of help here, and indeed they are. Gerry Spence, the famed criminal
lawyer, in his book From
Freedom To Slavery, tells us: “I found that the minions
of the law — the special agents of the FBI — to be men who proved
themselves not only fully capable, but also utterly willing to manufacture
evidence, to conceal crucial evidence and even to change the rules
that governed life and death if, in the prosecution of the accused,
it seemed expedient to do so.”

Well surely
the court judges are concerned with justice? Spence: “We are told
that our judges, charged with constitutional obligations, insure
equal justice for all. That, too, is a myth. The function of the
law is not to provide justice or to preserve freedom. The function
of the law is to keep those who hold power, in power.”

Now the law
enforcement authorities don’t do this all by themselves. For one
thing, they have onerous laws to help them. It is instructive to
look at the state of California in this regard.

The California
Prison system is the third largest penal system in the country,
costing $5.7 billion dollars a year and housing over 170,000 inmates.
Since 1980 the number of California prisons has tripled and the
number of inmates has jumped significantly. In the past few years
controversies involving prison expansion, sky-rocketing costs, and
claims of mismanagement and inmate abuse have put the California
prison system under heightened public scrutiny.

What caused
prisons to be a growth industry in California? Did Californians
suddenly become lawless? We need look no further than the CCPOA,
the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. "The
Power this prison guards' union wields inside our prisons, legislative
chambers and governor’s office disturbs me. It should disturb every
citizen." ~ Judith Tannenbaum, formerly an English teacher
at San Quentin State Prison

The CCPOA is
the biggest contributor to political campaigns in California. The
CCPOA gives twice as much in political contributions as the California
Teachers Association, yet it is one-tenth its size. In 1998, the
CCPOA gave over $2 million to Governor Gray Davis, $763,000 to the
media, and over $100,000 to Proposition 184, the 3 Strikes law.
The 3 Strikes law mandated that convicted felons with one prior
felony got twice the normal sentence for their 2nd strike, and convicted
felons with two or more prior felonies would get at least 3 times
the normal sentence or 25 years (whichever is more) for their 3rd
strike. The CCCPOA has a vested interest in locking up more and
more Californians for longer sentences.

The California
prison guards union has grown from a fledgling group of fewer than
2500 members in 1978 to a powerhouse of 31,000 members who contribute
$21.9 million dollars a year. The union employs a 91 person staff
including 20 full-time attorneys and uses the services of five lobbyists
and a team of public relations consultants, housed in the 62,000
square foot CCPOA headquarters. The state hiring office for prison
guards brags that the job has been called the greatest entry-level
job in California — and for good reason. “Along with the great salary,”
one of their ads notes, "our peace officers earn a retirement
package you just can't find in private industry."

California
prisons are managed by an agency with 60,000 employees, including
the 30,000 in the prison guards’ union. California’s fourth prison
chief in a row, Jim Tilton, is leaving earlier than planned from
a meat-grinder of a job reputed to be among the toughest in state
government. So what makes the incoming Matt Cate think he can depart
on his own terms? “This mission is where my heart is,” said Cate,
named by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the $225,000-a-year job running
the state’s massively challenged prison agency. “Public safety has
been my career because I care about it.”

Currently California
is in a fiscal crisis, so Governor Schwarzenegger is proposing the
early release of some 22,000 inmates and eliminating about 4,500
prison guard positions to help shave $400 million from the budget
of the state corrections department. The guards’ union is unhappy
with that scenario, and has allied with victims’ associations to
fight it. Meanwhile overcrowding in state prisons results in violence.
A stabbing attack on four guards at one overcrowded state prison
and a racially sparked brawl at another mark the type of violence
that guards, inmates’ attorneys and Schwarzenegger have been worried
about for years.

What to do
with all these prisoners? A US prison population of over 2 million
people — mostly Black and Hispanic — are working for various industries
for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison
industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don't have
to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations
or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive
late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they
don't like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they
are locked up in isolation cells.

Private companies,
now numbering 135, began using prison labor in the 1970s. Microsoft,
McDonalds, TWA, IBM, Victoria's Secret, AT&T and Toys R Us are
just some of the companies that use prisoners to cheaply produce
products or provide services. While the rate of pay may vary from
state to state, the constant is that the great majority of the money
that the companies pay goes to the state in which the prisoners
are incarcerated.

For instance,
in California prisoners receive the "minimum wage" on
paper, but the state takes 80 percent for state restitution, anti-drug
campaigns, victim's rights organizations and a prisoner "trust
fund."

The state of
Colorado employs prison labor for everything from agriculture, which
includes running a fishery, dairy farm and harvesting grapes, to
making furniture and firefighting. Colorado legislators recently
passed some of the most restrictive immigration laws in the country
following a massive mobilization for immigrant rights. The new laws
scared away workers, causing many crops to spoil in the fields for
lack of farm workers. The Colorado farm owners' answer to this crisis
is to find labor even more exploitable than immigrant workers —
prison labor "chain gangs." And the need for more prisoners
is thereby increased even more.

The prison
industry complex is one of the fastest-growing industries in the
United States and its investors are on Wall Street. This multimillion-dollar
industry has its own trade exhibitions, conventions, websites, and
mail-order/Internet catalogs. It also has direct advertising campaigns,
architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses
on Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies,
armed security, and padded cells in designer colors.

The federal
prison industry produces 100% of all military helmets, ammunition
belts, bullet-proof vests, ID tags, shirts, pants, tents, bags,
and canteens. Along with war supplies, prison workers supply 98%
of the entire market for equipment assembly services; 93% of paints
and paintbrushes; 92% of stove assembly; 46% of body armor; 36%
of home appliances; 30% of headphones/microphones/speakers; and
21% of office furniture. Airplane parts, medical supplies, and much
more: prisoners are even raising seeing-eye dogs for blind people.

It might be
a good idea to get away from these public union-driven prisons.
How about private prisons? The number of prisoners in private prisons
grew more than 3,000 percent between 1987 and 2004, soaring from
3,122 to 98,700.

Two companies
dominate the for-profit incarceration industry — Corrections Corporation
of America (CCA) and the GEO Group, formerly known as Wackenhut
Corrections. These two companies control 75 percent of the for-profit
incarceration market. The highest-paying private prison is CCA in
Tennessee, where prisoners receive 50 cents per hour for what they
call “highly skilled positions.”

The problem
with prison privatization is that Corporate-owned prisons need a
steady flow of inmates to maintain profits. To protect their profit
margins, prison companies exert political influence by contributing
thousands of dollars to state political campaigns. Lobbyists for
private prisons support tough-on-crime legislation that ensures
the continued need for prison space, including mandatory minimum
sentences, life terms for "three strikes," and sentencing
juveniles as adults.

We’re back
where we started, with the private corporations doing what the California
union is doing — promoting the supply of more inmates in more prisons
with longer sentences.

So there we
have it. America, with one-quarter the population of China, has
500,000 more prisoners than China and many of them are hard at work.
US citizens are placed in long-term involuntary servitude with the
help of law enforcement and onerous laws pushed by a prison workers
union and private prison corporations, and it’s all constitutional.

May
3, 2008

Don
Bacon [send him mail]
is a retired army officer who founded the Smedley
Butler Society several years ago because, as General Butler
said, “war is a racket.”