August 25, 2002,  A recent Newsweek Magazine poll found 49 percent of Americans “said they were very concerned” about President Bush’s unilateral invasion and occupation of Iraq.  Furthermore,  ”Some 49 percent of Americans questioned in yesterday’s poll said they did not want him re-elected.”  The tide of American public opinion has shifted against Bush’s war…

For the first time, more Americans say they would oppose President George Bush’s re-election in 2004 than support a second term, according to a poll published yesterday that showed mounting pessimism over the US military presence in Iraq.

As attacks on coalition forces continue to inflict casualties, a Newsweek poll found that the human and economic costs of occupation were eroding the president’s support at an accelerating rate.

Sixty-nine per cent of those asked were concerned that the US would be bogged down for many years in Iraq with little to show for it in improved security for Americans; 49% said they were very concerned.

Bush August 26, 2003 vowed ‘there will be no retreat’ from Iraq (Larry Downing/Reuters)   49% now want Bush to retreat from the White House.  In this rare photo, he looks like the twisted brain dead kill-freak he really is.

A recent public opinion poll conducted by Scripps Howard and Ohio University found that 42 percent of people polled were not sure that sending troops to Iraq was the right thing to do. Less than a third had such doubts in a similar survey conducted in May.

What do you think?  Comments from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome.  Send to the E-mail address up top.  Name, I.D., withheld on request.  Replies confidential

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Two soldiers were killed Wednesday in separate attacks in Baghdad and a city just to the west, the military reported.

In one incident, a soldier was killed and three were wounded in a roadside bombing in Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad. The military said the attack occurred at 7:10 a.m. The dead soldier was from the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the military said. It provided no other details.

The second death came in an attack on a military convoy at 7:45 a.m. in Baghdad. The dead soldier was of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade. No other details were given.

The number of American troops killed in postwar Iraq surpassed the toll of those killed in major combat, reaching 140 with the deaths of a soldier in a roadside bombing and another in a traffic accident.  (”Postwar” Iraq?!  For sheer journalistic stupidity, this has to take some kind of major prize.)

A total of 141 United States soldiers have died from May 1 to today, compared with 137 from March 19 to April 30, according to a spokesman at Central Command at McDill Air Force Base in Florida.

One of the soldiers killed Tuesday was riding in a support convoy hit by a bomb in the town of Hamariyah, 16 miles northwest of Baghdad, the military announced. Two other soldiers were wounded in that attack. The other U.S. fatality was a soldier who was struck by an Iraqi motorist while changing a flat in a convoy from Tikrit to a forward base, the military said.

In another incident, a third soldier was taken to a military hospital with an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Several mortar shells were fired at a Polish base in Karbala on Monday night, missing their target and causing no damage or injuries, Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said in Warsaw.

During the first six weeks of fighting, each branch of service lost members, although the Army and Marines lost the most.  Since May 1, the Army has suffered nearly all the deaths from hostile action.  The Navy and the Air Force each have lost one member as a result of hostile fire.  The Marine Corps has not reported any combat deaths, although 17 Marines have died in Iraq since May 1 from non-hostile causes.

A sizable number of the Army’s deaths from hostilities have involved reservists called up for wartime duty, including eight members of the National Guard and five members of the Army Reserves.  (Comment: A disproportionate number of convoy drivers and escorts are from Guard and Reserve units.)

(Vietnam Veterans take notice; same old same old 30 years later.)

BAQOUBA, Iraq – An American soldier stands at the side of an Iraqi highway, puts his AK-47 on fully automatic and pulls the trigger.

Within seconds the assault rifle has blasted out 30 rounds. Puffs of dust dance in the air as the bullets smack into the scrubland dirt. Test fire complete.

U.S. troops in Iraq may not have found weapons of mass destruction, but they’re certainly getting their hands on the country’s stock of Kalashnikovs and, they say, they need them.

The soldiers based around Baqouba are from an armor battalion, which means they have tanks, Humvees and armored personnel carriers.  But they are short on rifles.

A four-man tank crew is issued two M4 assault rifles and four 9mm pistols, relying mostly on the tank’s firepower for protection.

But now they are engaged in guerrilla warfare, patrolling narrow roads and goat trails where tanks are less effective. Troops often find themselves dismounting to patrol in smaller vehicles, making rifles essential.

“We just do not have enough rifles to equip all of our soldiers. So in certain circumstances we allow soldiers to have an AK-47,” said Lt. Col. Mark Young, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.

“Normally an armor battalion is fighting from its tanks. Well, we are not fighting from our tanks right now,” Young said. “We are certainly capable of performing the missions that we have been assigned, there’s no issue with that, but we do find ourselves somewhat challenged.”   

In Humvees, on tanks but never openly on base, U.S. soldiers are carrying the Cold War-era weapon, first developed in the Soviet Union but now mass-produced around the world.

The AK is favored by many of the world’s fighters, from child soldiers in Africa to rebel movements around the world, because it is light, durable and known to jam less frequently.

Now U.S. troops who have picked up AKs on raids or confiscated them at checkpoints are putting the rifles to use and they like what they see.

Some complain that standard U.S. military M16 and M4 rifles jam too easily in Iraq’s dusty environment. Many say the AK has better “knockdown” power and can kill with fewer shots.

Some troops say the AK is easier to maintain and a better close-quarters weapon. Also, it has “some psychological affect on the enemy when you fire back on them with their own weapons,” McCarson said.

Most U.S. soldiers agree the M16 and the M4, a newer, shorter version of the M16 that has been used by American troops since the 1960s is better for long distance, precision shooting.

But around Baqouba, troops are finding themselves attacked by assailants hidden deep in date palm groves. Or they are raiding houses, taking on enemies at close-quarters.

Two weeks ago, Sgt. Sam Bailey of Cedar Falls, Iowa, was in a Humvee when a patrol came under rocket-propelled grenade and heavy machine gun fire. It was dark, the road narrow. On one side, there was a mud wall and palms trees, on the other a canal surrounded by tall grass.

Bailey, who couldn’t see who was firing, had an AK-47 on his lap and his M4 up front. The choice was simple. “I put the AK on auto and started spraying,” Bailey said.

Some soldiers also say it’s easier to get ammo for the AK they can pick it up on any raid or from any confiscated weapon.

“It’s plentiful,” said Sgt. Eric Harmon, a tanker who has a full 75-round drum, five 30-round magazines, plus 200-300 rounds in boxes for his AK. He has about 120 rounds for his M16.

Young doesn’t carry an AK but has fired one. He’s considered banning his troops from carrying AKs, but hasn’t yet because “if I take the AK away from some of the soldiers, then they will not have a rifle to carry with them.”

Staff Sgt. Michael Perez, a tanker, said he would take anything over his standard issue 9mm pistol when he’s out of his tank.

And the AK’s durability has impressed him.  ”They say you can probably drop this in the water and leave it overnight, pull it out in the morning, put in a magazine and it will work,” Perez said.

Do you have a friend or relative in the service? Forward this E-MAIL along, or send us the address if you wish and we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Iraq or stuck on a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to the war, at home and in Iraq, and information about other social protest movements here in the USA.  Send requests to address up top.  For copies on web site see:www.notinourname.net/gi-special/

A group of Fort Lewis soldiers was injured when their truck hit a mine outside Tikrit, about 120 miles north of Baghdad.

The six soldiers were taken to a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Stephen Barger said. Identities and conditions were not released Tuesday.

All are members of the 555th Combat Engineer Group, 14th Engineer Battalion, which specializes in setting and clearing mine fields, breaching obstacles and demolitions.

The six were injured Friday while traveling north of Tikrit, said Barger.

The wounded soldiers were treated at the 28th Combat Support Hospital, Barger said, then flown to Landstuhl for further evaluation.

The division has upgraded security in areas where they are staying.  (Obviously not enough.)

FALLUJAH, Aug 25 (AFP): Three US soldiers were wounded on Monday morning when three rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) were fired at their convoy near Habbaniya, near the flashpoint town of Fallujah, 50 kilometres west of Baghdad, a witness said.

Hamed Khamis Hamoud, a 45-year-old railwayman, said a vehicle was also damaged in the attack.

“The American soldiers left with the damaged vehicle before returning with two tanks and blocking the road,” he said.

There have been frequent attacks on the road between Fallujah and the nearby US base.

Guerrilla fighters try to ambush soldiers by firing rocket-propelled grenades, Kalashnikov rifles and detonating roadside bombs. The attacks come every two hours on average.

BAGHDAD: Iraqi town near Syrian border al-Qaim Tuesday morning rocked with a blast, a report said. Local population also confirmed report of blast. However no deaths were reported. US forces have imposed curfew in the area after the blast.

If you are unfortunate enough to use Hotmail, Yahoo E-mail, Mail.com, or Go.com, you may have trouble receiving GI Special.  That’s because they offer virtually NO capacity to receive mail.  If you have a second service other than these let us know and we’ll shift your address to keep you from an overstuffed inbox. (See 8.27.03 Wall St. Journal “Personal Journal” Section, Page 1 for a consumer oriented review E-mail services.)

Susan Schuman: My son is a Massachusetts National Guardsman, so he’s not regular Army and he’s stationed in Samara in northern Iraq.  Unfortunately, I haven’t heard from him for about two-and-a-half weeks.  Communication is really difficult, which is hard for me.

In our last conversation, one of the things he said to me was that the United States just doesn’t understand what’s going on here. He said there are 30 to 40 major incidents a day. His office took a direct mortar attack. Living conditions are very difficult, he doesn’t complain about that at all.  Obviously, as his mom, I’m very concerned about that. He’s lost 30 pounds. They’re rationed to two liters of water a day. It’s 120 degrees, two liters of water is a pretty skimpy ration.

I think what is of greatest concern, however, is that where he is stationed, they are under constant ambush. There are ambushes all the time. They’re engaged in guerrilla warfare on a daily basis.

Of course, he’s in the National Guard and these guys and gals are all signed up and are perfectly willing to do the job. But they find themselves in a situation where it wasn’t what they bargained for.

I think even more seriously, some of the things that I’m hearing from him and from other people in his unit is that they don’t have equipment, they don’t have supplies, they don’t have the kind of support that they need to be able to do the job. One of the things he said to me is that they don’t even have radios. People go out on patrol and they can’t radio back.  

I think it’s a very poignant description of the cynicism of the Bush administration and (Secretary of Defense Donald) Rumsfeld in the way they have approached the aftermath of the supposed shock-and-awe bombing with no planning. Essentially, there was no preparation for the follow-up of the bombing of the country of Iraq.

Our troops want to come home, their families want them home, the people of Iraq want them to go home, so we need to bring them home.

The military presence in Iraq, the presence of U.S. military personnel in Iraq is not really solving any kind of problem whatsoever. As long as there are troops in Iraq, the Iraqi people are going to resist them.

They are also proud people. As long as there is a military presence in Iraq, we’re not going to solve this problem of this continual daily insurgency and resistance, it’s not going to make it any safer, we’re not going to pass it by the Iraqi people.

(Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2003) Pentagon planners are rethinking how the military uses cluster bombs, because unexploded bomblets littering Iraq significantly impeded American troops’ battlefield maneuverability. The trouble comes when the bomblets do not explode, which can happen when they land in soft marshes, sandy deserts or thick foliage.

(Too late now.)

“Let me ask you a question,” said Amir Diahiab, 36, whose father’s home was raided by U.S. troops last month and heavily damaged. “If the Iraqi army invaded your country, and burst into your home at night, would you accept it or would you fight them?”

“Targeting the U.N. was a warning that anyone who cooperates with the United States – foreign or domestic – is a collaborator and will be treated accordingly,” the official said. “The message to the Turks, the Pakistanis and others who might be thinking about helping out is: ‘Stay out of this.’”

The resistance strategy has four elements:

— Kill Americans to raise the cost of the occupation and attract foreign resistance fighters.

— Kill other foreigners to discourage cooperation with the United States.

— Kill Iraqi collaborators with the Americans.

— Stoke popular discontent by sabotaging basic services.

What Abizaid didn’t say – but ordinary Iraqis know – is that the resistance is finding sympathizers among a growing number of people who have been alienated by the heavy-handed tactics of the Occupation, and by the failure of the U.S.-led occupation to deliver safe streets, electricity, clean water and jobs.

“The occupation is a mess,” said Hassan Fattah Pasha, the Iraqi-American editor of Iraq Today, a weekly English-language newspaper.  ”The people who really would have stuck their necks out for us – we’re losing them. The more upset people get with the Americans, the more likely they are to at least look away from the troublemakers, if not support them.”

The resistance finds Iraq an easy place to operate. It’s a giant ammunition dump, filled with discarded and deadly explosives that are easy pickings for would-be bomb-makers. Saddam spent years building up his weapons arsenal. As the war wound down in April, many Iraqi soldiers just abandoned their guns and ammunition and walked away.

In a country the size of California, no number of soldiers can protect every, hotel, bridge, electrical station, water and oil pipeline, especially from determined attackers.

BAGHDAD: Thousands of Shia Muslims protested peacefully on Monday outside the headquarters of the US-led coalition in Baghdad, charging the occupation force was lax on security and did too little to stop a weekend of ethnic bloodshed in the north of the country and the bombing at the house of an important Muslim Shia cleric in the south.

“For those of us with family members over there, nothing has changed since the beginning of May. It’s still a war. May 1 was only an ‘end’ to newspaper writers and politicians.”

Early in July, Bush asserted that U.S. military forces were more than adequate to deal with attacks by Iraqi militants. “Bring ‘em on,” Bush said.

The remark prompted a spike in membership in Military Families Speak Out, a war protest group representing more than 600 families nationwide, formed before the invasion of Iraq….”Bush said bring ‘em on. We say bring ‘em home.”

If the current casualty rate remains constant, some 600 Americans will die in Iraq during the first year of U.S. involvement. He noted that about 370 GIs died annually during the first five years of America’s military effort in Vietnam (1961-65).

(New York Times, August 25 2003) Americans badly wounded in Iraq are usually flown straight to a sprawling network of tents, officially known as the 28th Combat Support Hospital, built in an empty stretch of desert 20 miles southwest of Baghdad. The past week has been by far the busiest ever for the 150 doctors and nurses there.

(USA Today, August 25, 2003, Pg. 1) For the first time since the all-volunteer Army began in 1973, significant numbers of U.S. combat soldiers may have to start serving back-to-back overseas tours of up to a year each in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, top Army officers say. Based on the forces they must keep in place overseas, planners have concluded they will have no choice but to assign thousands of troops to new overseas assignment after only a short time at home.

Still in soft hats and unarmored vehicles, British troops patrolled the streets of Basra yesterday, their anxieties heightened by the killing of three military policemen.

Though much of the southern Iraqi port city was calm, soldiers admitted to new fears following the ambush.

“Everybody’s nervous now,” said Cpl Warren Salisbury, of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, as he performed security checks on cars in the center of Basra.

“I’m nervous every time I go out. The attackers have upped it now, and we are conducting a lot more operations against them in return.”

News of the attack on Saturday, and with it a new sense of vulnerability, spread within minutes to British serviceman throughout the region.

“The news rippled out very quickly once it happened,” said Cpl Salisbury, “and the effect spread just as fast.”

Among those on patrol at the time of the attack was 21-year-old Pvt. Jason King, who is on his first operational tour of duty.

“We were out on Saturday at the same time the MPs were hit,” he said. “When the news came across the radio it made me realize just how dangerous this place is. Now you just really watch your own back and your mates’ backs all the time.”

Increasingly edgy soldiers expressed their concerns about the soft-skinned civilian cars, known as “white fleet” vehicles, which have been rented by the Army to make up for a shortfall of “green fleet” armoured Land-Rovers.

Though bullets ripped through the unarmoured Nissan driven by the victims of Saturday’s attack, a British military spokesman in Basra yesterday said “white fleet” cars would still be used for “essential missions”.

But soldiers manning the checkpoints around Basra yesterday dismissed the “white fleet” vehicles as “a waste of space”.

They claimed that the cars were favored by senior officers only because they have air-conditioning.  ”Money would be better spent fitting air conditioning to the armored equipment,” one soldier said.

At British Army headquarters at Basra’s airport north of the city, officers are confident that British troops are not yet facing an “established pattern” of attacks. (What the fuck ever that means.  Dead is dead.)

For the soldiers on the ground though, any attack in a city where they are on good terms with the vast majority of people comes as a shock.

Pvt. Ryan King was surveying a gaggle of grinning children, all making a thumbs-up sign.

“When trouble hits like on Saturday it hits home that some of these people are out to kill you, despite the smiling faces,” he said.

A friend and colleague at the university has been passing around a poster that he made on a Xerox machine. It’s a faded picture of four aging Native Americans at the turn of the century in their indigenous dress. They’re all holding rifles and they’re not posing. They are standing with their rifles looking directly into the camera. And the banner across it says “homeland security, fighting terrorism since 1492.” That’s our tradition.  (They got the same tradition in Iraq.  Time to come home.)

(Washington Post, August 25, 2003, Pg. 12) After months of U.S. military raids and bold assertions of “taking the fight to the enemy,” the truck bombing at U.N. headquarters in Baghdad last week has left American soldiers in a defensive crouch in a city that was the crowning victory of the three-week war.  Soldiers still come under fire about a dozen times a day in attacks that appear to be increasingly sophisticated.

(Christian Science Monitor, August 25, 2003.) Countries that could send troops to Iraq are balking amid signs that anyone associated with the American occupation will be targeted by the resistance. (No shit, that’s what happens when you invade somebody else’s country.)  (Duh.)

“People feel Iraq is a mess that could still go either way, and that explains to a great extent the reluctance to send soldiers,” says Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy in Washington.

(International Herald Tribune, August 25, 2003) Senior senators of both parties urged the Bush administration to send thousands more American troops to Iraq and said that many billions more dollars were needed to stabilize and rebuild that country and Afghanistan.  (Comment; Please point this out to anybody you run into who has been conned into thinking Democrat politicians are less bloodthirsty than the Bush crowd, or less committed to War For Empire, or one bit less dedicated to killing U.S. soldiers or Iraqis.)

President George W. Bush may soon seek new funds for the occupation of Iraq, a spokeswoman said after a top aide said reconstruction efforts might require “tens of billions of dollars” more.

Bush announced in a statement that he was invoking his prerogative to limit a planned January 2004 pay raise for many federal workers, saying it “would interfere” with the war on terrorism.

In a statement released here, Bush informed top US lawmakers that he was using his powers to limit the planned pay raise for many federal employees because of budgetary constraints.

THANKS TO B WHO E-MAILED THIS IN:  B WRITES:

Canceling raises to pay for more Halliburton contracts. What pricks.

As part of his long-term goal of remaking the Middle East, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld today suggested merging Iraq and Afghanistan into one nation, tentatively named Iraqistan.

The merger of the two nations would result in “significant” savings, Mr. Rumsfeld said, since the cost of escalating one great big war was smaller than that of escalating two smaller wars.

To complete the merger, Mr. Rumsfeld said, a ten-lane highway through Iran would be built by the Halliburton Company at an estimated cost of $800 billion.

Explaining the choice of Halliburton, Mr. Rumsfeld said, “Halliburton has by far the most experience at being granted enormous contracts without bidding for them.”

Just hours after Mr. Rumsfeld’s announcement, President Mohammad Khatami of Iran objected to the Secretary of Defense’s plan, particularly Mr. Rumsfeld’s proposal to line the Iranian superhighway with Motel 6 and Denny’s franchises.

Moments after Mr. Khatami’s speech, however, Mr. Rumsfeld issued a fresh warning to the Iranian leader: “If Iran so much as obstructs the construction of even one Denny’s or Motel 6, that will be seen as a direct threat to the sovereignty of the Iraqistanian people.”

Mr. Rumsfeld, while stopping short of threatening Iran with war, said he would not rule out incorporating Iran into a new nation, tentatively named Iraqiranistan.

While some foreign policy experts worry that an Operation Iraqiranistanian Freedom might spread the U.S.’s military resources too thin, Mr. Rumsfeld identified what he called a “huge upside” of such a war: “Instead of three nations being ticked off at us, there’d just be one.”

(New York Times, August 25 2003) In several weeks, the Bush administration is expected to announce a major increase in aid to Afghanistan that would greatly expand the American role in the country. A senior American diplomat said President Bush, viewing the situation “like a businessman,” had decided that investing more reconstruction money now could lead to an earlier exit for American forces and save money in the long run.  

(New York Times, August 25 2003) Afghan officials have reported another attack on their troops in the southeastern part of the country, as five government soldiers died on Saturday when a military truck was ambushed by resistance fighters.

Chief executives of companies that had the largest layoffs and most underfunded pensions and that moved operations offshore to avoid U.S. taxes were rewarded with the biggest pay hikes in 2002, on average, a new report has found.

The study, released Monday by United for a Fair Economy in Boston and the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington

While the median CEO pay increase was 6% in 2002, median pay rocketed 44% for chiefs of the 50 companies that announced the biggest layoffs in 2001, according to the study.

At the 30 companies with the greatest shortfall in their employees’ pension funds in 2002, CEOs that year made 59% more than the CEO median reported in Business Week’s annual executive compensation report, the study said.

Among the 24 companies with the most offshore subsidiaries in tax-haven countries, CEOs earned 87% more than the median pay for the last three years, the study concluded.

THANKS TO DS WHO E-MAILED THIS IN:  HE WRITES:

Why not ?  They made more profit for their companies.  Isn’t that what they are there for?  Come on, let’s be fair.

(For more about what capitalism is and how to fight it, see www.socialistworker.org.)

To check out what life is like under a murderous military occupation by a foreign power, go to: www.rafah.vze.com. The foreign army is Israels’; the occupied nation is Palestine.  

As example of the disgusting racist bigots who rule Israel is given by Gordon Levy, End The Occupation, 8.27.03:

“Shock is the proper reaction to the remark of cabinet Minister Gideon Ezra, who explained last week that Arabs should be used as security guards in Israel because only they have ‘the sense of smell needed to smell other Arabs, more so than guards who are immigrants from the former Soviet Union.’”

If printed out, this newsletter is your personal property and cannot legally be confiscated from you.  ”Possession of unauthorized material may not be prohibited.” DoD Directive 1325.6 Section 3.5.1.2.