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 AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
Soldier From 101 (City Of London)
Engineer Regiment (EOD) Killed In Nahr-
E Saraj
30 Oct 10 Ministry of Defence

It is with sadness that the Ministry of Defence must announce that a soldier from 101
(City of London) Engineer Regiment (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) serving with the
Counter-Improvised Explosive Device Task Force, was killed in Afghanistan on Saturday
30 October 2010.

The soldier was killed as a result of a gunshot wound suffered whilst he was tasked to a
suspect device in the Nahr-e Saraj North area of Helmand Province.

'Fallen Hero' Lynch Is Laid To Rest

Pallbearers remove the casket from the hearse containing Marine Lance Cpl. Scott
Lynch at the Church of the Holy Rosary in this image captured from video.

10/14/10 By Alyssa Sunkin, Times Herald-Record

GREENWOOD LAKE — Shoulder to shoulder, they packed the pews at the Church of
the Holy Rosary Wednesday to honor and say goodbye to fallen Marine Lance Cpl. Scott
Lynch.

“We gather here today to honor a fallen hero, a husband, a son, a brother, a comrade, a
Marine,” said the Rev. Robert Sweeney, to the standing-room-only crowd for a Funeral
Mass Wednesday morning.

Family, friends and neighbors paid homage to the 22-year-old Greenwood Lake man —
known for his beaming smile — who was killed Oct. 6 while conducting a combat
operation in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, according to the Department of
Defense.

He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine
Expeditionary Force, out of Camp Lejeune, N.C.
Asunkin@th-record.com

He is the third serviceman from the region to be killed in Afghanistan and the 20th
from the region to be killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

“It's horrific,” said family friend Nadine Vaccarino. “Parents aren't supposed to bury their
children. It's not supposed to be that way.”

Especially for this man, whom Vaccarino, her daughter Cassie and friend Celia Hoffman
described as a sweet and loving person who always smiled. They called him “Scotty
Smiles.”

“We're all proud of him, and we'll never forget him,” Hoffman said.

Lynch is survived by his wife, Tanya Sterling Lynch; parents, James and Tammy Lynch;
two brothers, James Lynch and Jerry Lynch; as well as other family members.

Tanya Lynch told the Times Herald-Record last week that her husband loved
unconditionally, and he was equally loved by all who knew him.

“He was the most genuine, sincere person you could ever meet,” said Lauren Farrell,
whose brother Michael was one of Lynch's best friends. Farrell said she looked up to
Lynch as an older brother.

Mourners lined the streets clutching flags as the motorcade for Lynch left the church for
St. Stephen's Cemetery in Warwick, where he was laid to rest. They did the same
Monday, when a motorcade brought Lynch's body back from Afghanistan.

During calling hours Tuesday, the line to pay respects to Lynch and his family spilled out
of the church and snaked around Windermere Avenue.

“Over the past week we have seen a town come together,” said the Rev. Chris Yount of
the Warwick United Methodist Church, who married Lynch and Tanya last May.

“Scott brought an entire community together. This man has touched your lives, and his
sacrifice can make a huge difference if we stay together.”
Yount said it's tempting to ask why this tragedy happened. “There are so many
questions. We can try to answer them, but the answers seem to fall short and our pain
remains.”

If there is one thing that's certain, it's this: Lynch was a great man who had a captivating
smile, Yount said. He lived — and died — a hero.

Chiefland Remembers Fallen Soldier

October 11th 2010 by Kristin Giannas, WCJB

Audrey Campbell of Chiefland says it was her daughter-in-law who called last Monday,
with devastating news.

“When i got on the phone, she said to me, he's gone...and I said who's gone, and then
she said to me, Karl got killed, and all I said was, not my son,” said Campbell.

On Monday, 34-year-old Sgt. Karl Campbell was killed while on foot patrol in Babur,
Afghanistan, after insurgents attacked his unit with an explosive device.

“He was in the lead, so he got the blunt of the explosion, but there were two other
soldiers that were seriously wounded, but Karl was the only one that was killed,” said
Campbell.

Karl enlisted in the army in 1995 and served as an infantryman until 2003. During that
time, he became an Airborne Ranger, and a father.

“He was a great dad, he loved his kids,” said Campbell.

After a six-year break from the military, Karl re-enlisted last November, joining the 101st
Airborne Division in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. On June 15, Karl was deployed to
Afghanistan.

“The day he was deployed, he told my daughter in law... that he would come home to
her,” said Campbell.

With just two months until he'd be back home for some R&R, Karl returned home, and
Campbell says, on Thursday, just as when he left, her son's wife and children were there
to receive him.

“She stood and saluted his casket as they took it from the plane to the van, and after
they had it in the van she leaned over and said to me, 'mom, he's home, my hero is
home.'“

Sgt. Karl Campbell will receive the Bronze Star and Purple Heart as well as the Army
Commendation Medal.
The memorial service will be this Saturday, at 1:00 P.M., at the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints in Chiefland.

South Grad Killed In Afghanistan

October 13, 2010 By JODY MURPHY, Parkersburg News and Sentinel

PARKERSBURG - A Parkersburg man killed in Afghanistan this weekend is coming

home to be buried.

Details are sketchy, but David Alan Hess, a 2003 Parkersburg South High School
graduate, was apparently driving a vehicle that was struck by a roadside bomb, said
Hess' mother Kathryn Dowler.

Hess, 25, had been living in Ruskin, Fla., where he worked in construction before he
joined the military in December. Hess, a member of the 101st Airborne, shipped out to
Afghanistan in June from Fort Campbell, Ky., said Dowler, who spoke to Hess about two
weeks ago.

“He called me every week,” she said.

Sarah Hess said her brother talked about seeing his buddies hit by a roadside bomb.

She spoke to him by phone on her birthday and the two chatted over the computer once
or twice a week.

“He was scared,” she said. “There was a roadside bomb and one of the guys in his
platoon had been killed and he was scared.”

Hess' Facebook page lists “Only the dead have seen the end of war” as his favorite
quote.

Hess' father Jeffrey was the first member of the family to be notified of his son's death.

Jeffrey Hess, who lives in Ruskin, said he was heading to work Sunday afternoon when
he was informed by military officials. He described his son as the all-American kid who
played baseball, football and wrestled at Parkersburg South, and enjoyed hunting,
fishing and watching sports.

Jeffrey Hess called his daughter Sarah Hess to deliver the news. Sarah Hess called her
older sister, Christie Hess. The two drove to Cisco in Ritchie County to tell his mother.

“My mother was the last to know,” Christie Hess said. “We couldn't find her.”

Dowler, who was four-wheeling Sunday, didn't return to the house until around 7 p.m.
when she was greeted by her daughters and servicemen.

“They showed up around 3 o'clock in the afternoon,” Dowler said. “I got back at 7 p.m.
and they were still sitting on the porch, waiting on me when I got back.”
Dowler said funeral arrangements are being made at Lambert-Tatman Funeral Home on
Pike Street. Memorial services will be at the South Parkersburg Baptist Church, but a
date has not been set, Sarah Hess said.

Dowler said everything is up in the air until Hess' body is released by the military. Dowler
had nothing but praise for the officers helping the family.

“They have been excellent,” she said.

Dowler said Hess will be buried at the family plot in Sandyville next to his grandfather,
who died in March.

In addition to his mother, father and two sisters, David Hess is survived by his wife of
almost three years, Diane Hess, and their 5-year-old son, Bryor.

Sarah and Christie said their phones have been ringing off the hook from people calling
to express their concern and condolences.

“I don't even answer my phone,” Sarah Hess said. “It still won't bring him back.”

Granite Bay Marine Killed In

Afghanistan:
“I Don't Know What To Do With My
Wedding Dress”
10/14/2010 Jason Kobely, News10.net

GRANITE BAY - A Marine from Granite Bay was among four U.S. servicemen killed
earlier this week during combat operations in Afghanistan, according to the U.S.
Defense Department.

Private First Class Victor A. Dew of Granite Bay was one of four Americans killed
Wednesday when an improvised device exploded around the Marines' vehicle during
fighting in the Helmand province of Afghanistan.

Dew was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I
Marine Expeditionary Force stationed out of Camp Pendleton.

Dew's fiance Courtney Gold said Dew, a graduate of Granite Bay High School, had only
been Afghanistan for about three weeks before the blast that took his life.

“We had plans to start our whole life together,” a tearful Gold said Thursday night. “We
had wedding plans. I don't know what to do with my wedding dress.”
Three other members of Dew's battalion also died in the explosion, including Cpl. Justin
J. Cain, 22, of Manitowoc, Wis.; Lance Cpl. Phillip D. Vinnedge, 19, of Saint Charles,
Mo.; and Lance Cpl. Joseph E. Rodewald, 21, of Albany, Ore.

As of last week, at least 1,219 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan as a
result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to an Associated Press
count.

Family Remembers Fallen Soldier

October 15, 2010 By Benjamin Alexander-Bloch, St. Tammany bureau, Times-Picayune

It was about noon Thursday, and a flower delivery woman approached. Before
speaking, the grieving Slidell mother intercepted her, explained, “I'm Janice” and signed
for the condolences, suddenly seasoned at receiving care packages.

Three weeks to the day after her son, Spc. Matthew C. Powell, had hugged her goodbye
and returned to Afghanistan, the 20-year-old Slidell native died Tuesday of wounds he
received from an improvised explosive device near the Pakistani border.

Janice Powell, 48, recalls her son's sighs as he prepared to fly back to rejoin his unit on
Sept. 21: “Ah, I wish I had more time. I wish I didn't have to leave so soon.”

A member of the Northshore High class of 2009, Powell was killed in Ghunday Ghar
when his military vehicle was attacked, the Department of Defense announced
Wednesday night.

On Thursday, Janice Powell stood in her front lawn in Slidell's Yester Oaks subdivision,
five small American flags blowing in the wind as cars packed her driveway.

“I'm still in shock, still dealing with this,” his mother said.

Yet despite her son's natural longing to continue hugging her last month, Powell was
ready to re-enter the theater, his mother said.

On Thursday, his family and friends described how Powell had matured, “grown into a
man,” since joining the Army in July 2008. He'd found something that gave his life
purpose and pride, they said.

Powell was assigned to Company A., 526th Brigade Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade
Combat Team, of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) based in Fort Campbell, Ky.
He arrived in Fort Campbell in November 2008 and first left for Afghanistan in May.

During his recent home leave, Powell had paid a special visit to his former football
coach, Mike Bourg. As the two walked onto the Northshore High football field, side by
side, Bourg noticed Powell held himself taller.
 Four Marine Casualties In Nabuk

A U.S. Marine from the 8th Marines Alpha Company bends over from fatigue upon
returning to base after an intense battle against Taliban insurgents that lasted several
hours and led to four Marine casualties in the town of Nabuk in southern Afghanistan's
Helmand province, November 1, 2010. REUTERS/Finbarr O'Reilly

Taliban Successfully Launch A

Northern Afghanistan Surge:
Insurgents’ Offensive Wrecking
The Obama Regime Afghan War
Strategy:
“Day By Day, The Taliban Are
Advancing Into New Districts”
U.S. Commander Admits That “In Order
To Deny That Terrain To The Enemy,
You'd Have To Have People All Over
Afghanistan In Combat Outposts”
The northern provinces where the Taliban presence has grown in recent months—
such as Baghlan, on the crossroads of highways linking Kabul to Central Asia—
are among Afghanistan's most strategically important.

OCTOBER 19, 2010, By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV, The Wall Street Journal [Excerpts]

PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan—The Taliban's influence in northern Afghanistan

has expanded in recent months from a few hotspots to much of the region, as
insurgents respond to the U.S.-led coalition's surge in the south by seizing new
ground in areas once considered secure.

Taliban militants stop traffic nightly at checkpoints on the road from Kabul to Uzbekistan,
just outside Baghlan province's capital city of Pul-e-Khumri, frequently blowing up fuel
convoys and seizing travelers who work with the government or the international
community.

In many areas here and the rest of the north, the Taliban have effectively supplanted the
official authorities, running local administrations and courts, and conscripting recruits.

“Day by day, the Taliban are advancing into new districts,” said provincial council chief
Mohammad Rasoul Mohseni of Baghlan.

Such advances challenge the coalition strategy that assumes Taliban losses in its
southern heartland would undermine the entire insurgency, driving the militants
to pursue peace on terms acceptable to the West.

The northern provinces where the Taliban presence has grown in recent months—
such as Baghlan, on the crossroads of highways linking Kabul to Central Asia—
are among Afghanistan's most strategically important.

The number of insurgent attacks in Baghlan alone jumped to 163 in the third
quarter, from 73 in the second quarter, according to the Afghanistan NGO Safety
Office.

The Taliban have consolidated their war gains by tapping into broad
disillusionment with the incompetence and venality of Afghan government
officials.

“People don't love the Taliban—but if they compare them to the government, they see
the Taliban as the lesser evil,” said Baghlan Gov. Munshi Abdul Majid, an appointee of
President Hamid Karzai.

As a result, the Taliban are winning support beyond the Pashtun community, their
traditional base.

In Baghlan, where Pashtuns account for less than one-quarter of the province's 804,000
residents, the insurgency is now drawing ethnic Uzbeks, Tajiks and other minorities
previously seen as unsympathetic to the rebel cause.
“It's clear that the insurgents concentrate their efforts on those areas where they can
hope to reach a significant impact,” explained Maj. Gen. Hans-Werner Fritz, the German
commander of 11,000 coalition troops across Afghanistan's nine northern provinces.

“The northern part could become the game-changer for all of Afghanistan.”

Baghlan is of strategic importance, he added, because most supplies from

Uzbekistan and Tajikistan pass through, including most of the coalition's fuel. The
power line from Uzbekistan, the main source of Kabul's electricity, also runs
through here.

Initial signs of insurgency in the north appeared around 2007. Ethnic Pashtun villages in
some districts of Kunduz were the first to succumb, virtually unopposed by the German
military, whose rules of engagement limited offensive operations.

The expansion of the Taliban's reach has caught the coalition and Kabul off guard.

Only some 300 Hungarian soldiers, recently reinforced with small German and
American units, are policing Baghlan province. By comparison, there are almost
30,000 allied troops in Helmand, with roughly the same population.

U.S. and allied military commanders in Kabul classify the campaign in the north as an
“economy of force” operation, however, saying troops and materiel are more needed for
the main effort in the south.

The north, in short, is having to make do with a shoestring version of the surge.

“In order to deny that terrain to the enemy, you'd have to have people all over
Afghanistan in combat outposts,” said Army Col. Bill Burleson, commander of the
1st Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division, the main infantry contribution to the
surge in the north.

The Taliban, who collect the Islamic ushr and zakat taxes across the north, also
brought their mobile courts, much to the relief of the locals who usually have to
bribe Afghan officials to lodge a complaint and often wait for years for a verdict.

An American official familiar with Baghlan noted that the Taliban courts make a
special effort not to show any preferential treatment to Pashtuns—a contrast to
government officials, who often favor their own clan or ethnic group.

Even a year ago, small bands of Taliban roaming in the mountains and deserts of
Baghlan were too scared to enter Baghlan's villages, said Gul Mohammad, a teacher
from the area. “Now the Taliban are in our village every night,” he said. “The people
have to either give their youngsters to the Taliban as fighters, or send them far away as
laborers.”
 Resistance Captures Khogyani
District In Ghazni Province:
“The Ghazni Assault Was Only The
Latest In A Series Of Significant Attacks
By The Militants In The Past Few Days”
Nov 1, 2010 By Mustafa Andalib, Reuters

A large number of insurgents attacked and seized a district in an Afghan province on

Sunday night, officials said, the latest in a string of assaults on foreign and government
targets.

Mohammad Yaseen, police commander for Khogyani district in Ghazni province,

southwest of Kabul, told Reuters the militants had set fire to the district headquarters
and police had suffered casualties defending the area.

Yaseen, who fled to the provincial capital, Ghazni city, did not know the exact number of
casualties and said the insurgents were still holding the area.

Several rooms in the district centre and a police vehicle were destroyed in the attack, it
said, but gave no details on casualties.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said the Islamist group had carried out
the attack, adding the militants had seized police vehicles and weapons.

The Ghazni assault was only the latest in a series of significant attacks by the militants in
the past few days.

There were at least two other attacks in the south and just north of Kabul, on Friday and
Saturday, Afghan and ISAF officials said.

U.S. Occupation Fuel Tankers Attacked,

As Usual
Nov 1 AFP

Taliban fighters armed with assault rifles fired at two tankers just across the Pakistan
border in Afghanistan carrying fuel for U.S. troops in Afghanistan on Monday, wounding
a driver, his assistance, and another person, police said.
“Around eight militants in two cars intercepted two oil tankers near the town of Pabbi on
the Grand Trunk road and fired at them with Kalashnikovs,” local police official Hayat
Khan told AFP.

“Two drivers and a helper were wounded and taken to hospital in Peshawar. Their
condition is stable now,” Khan said, adding that oil leaked from the tankers but did not
catch fire.

Intelligence officials in Peshawar also confirmed the attack and said the attackers fled
the scene.

More Resistance Action

The site of a bomb blast in Kunduz November 1, 2010, where at least three guards to an
Afghan district chief were wounded after a remote controlled roadside bomb explosion in
northern Kunduz province. REUTERS/ Wahdat

October 28, 2010 By Associated Press

A bombing in western Afghanistan on Tuesday killed four Afghan policemen, including a

local police chief. The bomb appeared to be targeting the top police official in Obe
district and exploded as his vehicle drove past, said Naqib Arwen, a spokesman for the
governor of Herat province where the blast took place. “It was a very strong explosion,”
he said. “We are investigating, but our initial reports show that it was a remote–
controlled bomb.”
 The Great Afghan Army Training
Fiasco Rolls On:
“Corruption, Drug Use, Mediocre Or Poor
Fighting Skills, Including An
Unwillingness To Patrol Regularly And In
Sizable Numbers, Or To Stand Watch In
Remote Outposts”
Some units openly shirked combat duty — refusing to patrol, or sending a bare
minimum of soldiers on American patrols, sometimes only a pair of soldiers to
accompany an American platoon.

The remaining Afghans stayed behind, lounging in the relative safety of outposts
the Americans secured.

October 12, 2010 By C. J. CHIVERS, New York Times [Excerpts]

KABUL, Afghanistan — Long a lagging priority, the plan to produce many more highly
trained Afghan troops is moving this fall at a rapid pace.

Away from the capital, in the rural areas where the insurgency rages, the Afghan military
has not performed well. In provinces where the Taliban are strongest and the fighting is
most pitched, the common view is that the Afghan Army and the police have thus far
been disappointing.

At the small-unit level, Western troops and journalists have documented their
corruption, drug use, mediocre or poor fighting skills and patterns of lackluster
commitment, including an unwillingness to patrol regularly and in sizable
numbers, or to stand watch in remote outposts.

At the higher levels, Western military officers often describe patronage, favoritism
and an absence of managerial acumen, rooted in part in the pervasive culture of
corruption and in widespread illiteracy. (Now, 14 percent of the combined force
can read or write — at the third-grade level.)

There is also a strong worry about Taliban infiltration into the ranks, especially
among the police.

The training mission in Afghanistan also labors under a legacy of unfulfilled past
promises, inadequate training even in basic skills like marksmanship and driving military
vehicles, and a pattern of overstating how ready or skilled the forces are.
Early this year, the Pentagon and senior Afghan and American officers in Kabul
insisted that the complex operation to re-establish a government presence in
Marja, a Taliban stronghold, was “Afghan led.”

It was not.

And many Afghan units, by the accounts of many Americans present, performed poorly.

Some units openly shirked combat duty — refusing to patrol, or sending a bare
minimum of soldiers on American patrols, sometimes only a pair of soldiers to
accompany an American platoon.

The remaining Afghans stayed behind, lounging in the relative safety of outposts
the Americans secured.

In the operations under way in Kandahar, reports continue to indicate that

American forces are almost always in the lead

WELCOME TO OBAMAWORLD:
WHERE EVERY DEATH IN COMBAT
ACCOMPLISHES NOTHING AT ALL

Oct. 10, 2010: U.S. soldiers carry the body of an American soldier, killed in a roadside
bomb attack in Afghanistan's Kandahar province, to a medical evacuation helicopter.
Pararescuemen and pilots from the 46th and 26th Expeditionary Rescue Squadrons
responded to the attack which killed two American soldiers and wounded three others.
(AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)
 NEED SOME TRUTH?
CHECK OUT TRAVELING SOLDIER
Traveling Soldier is the publication of the Military Resistance Organization.

Telling the truth - about the occupations or the criminals running the government
in Washington - is the first reason for Traveling Soldier. But we want to do more
than tell the truth; we want to report on the resistance to Imperial wars inside the
armed forces.

Our goal is for Traveling Soldier to become the thread that ties working-class
people inside the armed services together. We want this newsletter to be a
weapon to help you organize resistance within the armed forces.

If you like what you've read, we hope that you'll join with us in building a network
of active duty organizers. http://www.traveling-soldier.org/

And join with Iraq Veterans Against the War to end the occupations and bring all
troops home now! (www.ivaw.org/)
 MILITARY NEWS

The Traitor Gates Inspects His Bloody

Work

SecDef Gates, left, look on at the burial service for Sgt. Karl A. Campbell, at Arlington
National Cemetery Nov. 1, 2010. Campbell, 34, of Chiefland, Fla., died in Babur,
Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised
explosive device. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Army Suicides:
“I Blame The Medication,” Ms.
Barrientes Said. “You Go And Try
To Get Help And All They Do Is Put
You On Medication”
“Advocates For Veterans Say The
Shortage Of Therapists Means That
 Army Doctors Tend To Rely More On
Medication Than Therapy”
“The Majority Of Soldiers Who Have
Committed Suicide — About 80 Percent
— Have Had Only One Deployment Or
None At All”
[Thanks to Clancy Sigal, who sent this in.]

October 10, 2010 By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr., The New York Times [Excerpts]

[N]early 20 months after the Army began strengthening its suicide prevention program
and working to remove the stigma attached to seeking psychological counseling, the
suicide rate among active service members remains high and shows little sign of
improvement.

Through August, at least 125 active members of the Army had ended their own lives,
exceeding the morbid pace of last year, when there were a record 162 suicides.

Advocates for veterans say the shortage of therapists means that Army doctors tend to
rely more on medication than therapy.

They also say the Army screens too few soldiers for mental problems after deployments,
placing the burden on the soldier to seek help rather than on officers to actively find the
damaged psyches in their corps.

In July, Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the vice chief of staff of the Army, ordered that all
soldiers returning from combat be evaluated by a mental health professional, either face
to face or by video conference.

General Chiarelli and other top commanders have argued that the roots of the rise in
military suicides are complex and that blame cannot be laid solely on repeated
deployments.

The majority of soldiers who have committed suicide — about 80 percent — have
had only one deployment or none at all.

Another factor is that after years of war, the Army is now attracting recruits already
inclined toward risky behavior and thus more prone to suicide, according to a 15-month
Army review of suicides released in July.

Master Sgt. Baldemar Gonzalez, 39, an airborne combat veteran in the Persian Gulf and
Iraq, began seeing a therapist at Fort Hood a year ago and received a diagnosis of post-
traumatic stress disorder. He suffered nightmares, insomnia and flashbacks, said his
wife, Christina Barrientes. He had planned to go to school for engineering on the G.I. Bill
when his enlistment ended this year.

Army psychiatrists prescribed antidepressants, sleeping pills and a tranquilizer — a

cocktail of five drugs, she said. He started taking them in mid-March, and his personality
changed. Always an athletic, outgoing man, he became listless and quiet, sleeping much
of the day and avoiding his friends.

On Sept. 25, he dropped his daughter off at a football game at her high school, then
returned home and told his wife he was going to work on some homework in the kitchen.
She found him upstairs later in the day, dead in their bedroom closet, having apparently
hanged himself.

“I blame the medication,” Ms. Barrientes said. “You go and try to get help and all they do
is put you on medication.”

Holiday Mailing Deadlines or Overseas

Troops
10.18.2010 Karen Jowers, Army Times [Excerpts]

It’s time to get cracking on those holiday gifts — particularly packages going to friends
and loved ones in the overseas military community. How you plan to send those gifts
determines how long it will take to arrive.

If they’re traveling the slowest way — parcel post — mail that package by Nov. 12 to get
it there by Dec. 25, according to recommended holiday shipping dates provided by the
Military Postal Service Agency.

Hanukkah begins Dec. 1 this year, so subtract 24 days from each of the recommended
mailing dates.

MAILING DEADLINES
Express MaiI N/A* Dec. 18+

Military Services:
First-class cards and letters Dec. 4* Dec. 10+
Priority Mail Dec. 4* Dec. 10+
Parcel Airlift Mail (PAL) Dec. 1* Dec. 3+
Space Available Mail (SAM) Nov 20* Nov. 26+
Parcel Post Nov. 12* Nov. 12+

*: APO/FPO/DPO AE Zip 093 (contingency locations)

+: All other APO/FPO
 FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had
I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of
biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.

“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.

“We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

Frederick Douglass, 1852

Hope for change doesn't cut it when you're still losing buddies.
-- J.D. Englehart, Iraq Veterans Against The War

I say that when troops cannot be counted on to follow orders because they see
the futility and immorality of them THAT is the real key to ending a war.
-- Al Jaccoma, Veterans For Peace

“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to
time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.”
-- Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787
A revolution is always distinguished by impoliteness, probably because the ruling
classes did not take the trouble in good season to teach the people fine manners.
-- Leon Trotsky, History Of The Russian Revolution

“The Nixon administration claimed and received great credit for withdrawing the
Army from Vietnam, but it was the rebellion of low-ranking GIs that forced the
government to abandon a hopeless suicidal policy”
-- David Cortright; Soldiers In Revolt

It is a two class world and the wrong class is running it.

-- Larry Christensen, Soldiers Of Solidarity & United Auto Workers

Disneyland Happy Hour

From: Mike Hastie

To: Military Resistance
Sent: October 17, 2010
Subject: Disneyland Happy Hour

Disneyland Happy Hour

America is so unfathomably self-centered,

that it can't see its own narcissism.
That is like a medical doctor not being able
to diagnose his patient with alcoholism when
the patient's drinking history parallels his own.
The United States Government suffers from
inebriated violence.
The guy with the gun is in a blackout.

Mike Hastie
U.S. Army Medic
Vietnam 1970-71
October 17, 2010

Photo and caption from the I-R-A-Q (I Remember Another Quagmire) portfolio of
Mike Hastie, US Army Medic, Vietnam 1970-71. (For more of his outstanding work,
contact at: (hastiemike@earthlink.net) T)

One day while I was in a bunker in Vietnam, a sniper round went over my head.
The person who fired that weapon was not a terrorist, a rebel, an extremist, or a
so-called insurgent. The Vietnamese individual who tried to kill me was a citizen
of Vietnam, who did not want me in his country. This truth escapes millions.

Mike Hastie
U.S. Army Medic
Vietnam 1970-71
December 13, 2004

“For The Last Nine Years, U.S.

Government Officials Have Used The
Pretext Of The 9/11 Terrorist Attacks As
A Blank Check To Wage War Against
Any Country This Government Chooses”
September 13 - 27, 2010 Spark Newspaper

After a Florida preacher tried to make a name for himself, threatening to make 9/11 a
day to publicly burn Korans, he was opposed by Obama administration and military
officials.
Fox News and Republican Party politicians already were making outright appeals to
bigotry and racism by mobilizing opposition to the construction of an Islamic cultural
center two blocks from ground zero in New York City – supposedly “hallowed ground”
that had previously been a Burlington Coat Factory store, that happened to be one block
away from a “gentleman’s club” – that is, a strip club.

These outright bigoted appeals posed problems for the U.S. military in its wars in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen, especially since the U.S.’s main allies and client
states are themselves Muslim fundamentalist states.

So Obama and all the rest pretended to oppose bigotry.

Obama highlighted that in his speech at the Pentagon on September 11. “As Americans
we are not – and never will be – at war with Islam.” No, the U.S. is not at war with “Islam”
– only with the people of several countries in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Yes, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which took 3,000 lives, were horrifying and barbaric –
like all terrorist attacks against civilians. And, of course, people, especially in New York
City, may feel upset by them.

But for the last nine years, U.S. government officials have used the pretext of the 9/11
terrorist attacks as a blank check to wage war against any country this government
chooses – sowing the U.S. military’s own brand of terror and mass murder against the
people of Afghanistan and Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen.

The U.S. government has also carried out a witch hunt against immigrants, with mass
arrests and detentions on trumped up charges that followed 9/11.

Obama’s Justice Department continues to frame-up Muslims under charges of terrorism,

including gunning down a Detroit minister in cold blood by FBI agents. U.S. officials
have turned the remembrances of the horrendous 9/11 terrorist attacks into a political
circus.

They have invoked the 3,000 deaths in this country to justify carrying out terrorist
attacks on a vast scale against entire populations, as well as to justify that we pay
for those wars, while the government steps up its repression at home.

And the U.S. government’s own policies have sown the seeds of racism, bigotry
and hatred.

POLITICIANS CAN’T BE COUNTED ON TO HALT

THE BLOODSHED

THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THE

WARS
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The Origin Of The Golden Rule:

[Those Who Have The Gold Make The
Rules]
[Via Gerald Ali]

By Frederick Engels 1887. Source: Marx and Engels On Religion, Progress Publishers,
1957

The world outlook of the Middle Ages was substantially theological. The unity of the
European world which actually did not exist internally, was established externally,
against the common Saracen foe, by Christianity.

The unity of the West-European world, which consisted of a group of nations developing
in continual intercourse, was welded in Catholicism.

This theological welding was not only in ideas, it existed in reality, not only in the Pope,
its monarchistic centre, but above all in the feudally and hierarchically organized Church,
which, owning about a third of the land in every country, occupied a position of
tremendous power in the feudal organization.

The Church with its feudal landownership was the real link between the different
countries; the feudal organization of the Church gave a religious consecration to the
secular feudal state system.

Besides, the clergy was the only educated class. It was therefore natural that Church
dogma was the starting-point and basis of all thought.

Jurisprudence, natural science, philosophy, everything was dealt with according to,
whether its content agreed or disagreed with the doctrines of the Church.

But in the womb of feudalism the power of the bourgeoisie was developing.
A new class appeared in opposition to the big landowners.

The city burghers were first and foremost and exclusively producers of and traders in
commodities, while the feudal mode of production was based substantially on self-
consumption of the product within a limited circle, partly by the producers and partly by
the feudal lord.

The Catholic world outlook, fashioned on the pattern of feudalism, was no longer
adequate for this new class and its conditions of production and exchange.

Nevertheless, this new class remained for a long time a captive in the bonds of almighty
theology.

From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century all the reformations and the
struggles carried out under religious slogans that were connected with them were,
on the theoretical side, nothing but repeated attempts of the burghers and
plebeians in the towns and the peasants who had become rebellious by contact
with both the latter to adapt the old theological world outlook to the changed
economic conditions and the condition of life of the new class.

But that could not be done.

The flag of religion waved for the last time in England in the seventeenth century,
and hardly fifty years later appeared undisguised in France the new world outlook
which was to become the classical outlook of bourgeoisie, the juristic world
outlook.

It was a secularization of the theological outlook.

Human right took the place of dogma, of divine right, the state took the place of the
church.

The economic and social conditions, which had formerly been imagined to have been
created by the Church and dogma because they were sanctioned by the Church, were
now considered as founded on right and created by the state.

Because commodity exchange on a social scale and in its full development, particularly
through advance and credit, produces complicated mutual contract relations and
therefore demands generally applicable rules that can be given only by the community
— state-determined standards of right — it was imagined that these standards of right
arose not from the economic facts but from formal establishment by the state.

And because competition, the basic form of trade of free commodity producers, is
the greatest equalizer, equality before the law became the main battle-cry of the
bourgeoisie.

The fact that this newly aspiring class’s struggle against the feudal lords and the
absolute monarchy then protecting them, like every class struggle, had to be a political
struggle, a struggle for the mastery of the state, and had to be fought on juridical
demands contributed to strengthen the juristic outlook.
But the bourgeoisie produced its negative double, the proletariat, and with it a
new class struggle which broke out before the bourgeoisie had completed the
conquest of political power.

As the bourgeoisie in its time had by force of tradition dragged the theological
outlook with it for a while in its fight against the nobility, so, too, the proletariat at
first took over the juristic outlook from its opponent and sought in it weapons
against the bourgeoisie.

The first elements of the proletarian party as well as their theoretical

representatives remained wholly on the juristic “ground of right,” the only
distinction being that they built up for themselves a different ground of “right”
from that of the bourgeoisie.

On one side the demand for equality was extended so that equality in right would be
completed by social equality; on the other, from Adam Smith’s proposition that labour is
the source of all wealth but that the product of labour must be shared with the landowner
and the capitalist the conclusion was drawn that this sharing was unjust and must be
either abolished or modified in favour of the worker.

But the feeling that to leave this question on the mere juristic “ground of right” in no way
made possible the abolition of the evil conditions created by the bourgeois-capitalistic
mode of production, i.e., the mode of production based on large-scale industry, already
then led the major minds among the earlier socialists — Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen
— to abandon entirely the juristic-political field and to declare all political struggle
fruitless.

Both these views were equally unsatisfactory to express adequately and embrace
completely the working class’s desire for emancipation created by economic conditions.

The demand for the full product of labour and just as much the demand for equality lost
themselves in unsolvable contradictions as soon as they were formulated juristically in
detail and left the core of the question — the transformation of the mode of production —
more or less untouched.

The rejection of the political struggle by the great Utopians was at the same time the
rejection of the class struggle, i.e., of the only form of activity of the class whose
interests they represented.

Both outlooks made abstraction of the historical background to which they owed
their existence; both appealed to feeling: some to the feeling of justice, others to
the feeling of humanity.

Both attired their demands in the form of pious wishes of which one could not say
why they had to be fulfilled at that very time and not a thousand years earlier or
later.

The working class, who by the changing of the feudal mode of production into the
capitalist mode was deprived of all ownership of the means of production and by the
mechanism of the capitalist mode of production is continually engendered anew in that
hereditary state of propertylessness, cannot find an exhaustive expression of its living
condition in the juristic illusion of the bourgeoisie.

It can only know that condition of life fully itself if it looks at things in their reality
without juristically colored glasses.

But Marx helped it to do that with his materialist conception of history, by

providing the proof that all man’s juristic, political, philosophical, religious and
other ideas are derived in the last resort from his economic conditions of life, from
his mode of production and of exchanging the product.

Thus he provided the world outlook corresponding to the conditions of the life
and struggle of the proletariat; only lack of illusions in the heads of the workers
could correspond to their lack of property. And this proletarian world outlook is
now spreading over the world.

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DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

CLASS WAR REPORTS
 Troops Invited:
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and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Write to Box
126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 or send email to
contact@militaryproject.org: Name, I.D., withheld unless you
request publication. Same address to unsubscribe.

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