Military Resistance: thomasfbarton@earthlink.net 5.10.11 Print it out: color best. Pass it on.

Military Resistance 9E8

“The Taliban’s Ability To Mount

Such A Massive Operation In
Afghanistan’s Second-Largest
Metropolis, Sustaining Two
Days Of Street Battles,
Punctured The U.S. Military’s
Narrative Of Progress”
 “This Is A Message That We Can
Carry Out Huge Attacks Even In
The Heart Of Kandahar City”
“The Kandahar Government
Spokesman, Conceded The Taliban’s
Widespread Reach And Increasingly
Sophisticated Tactics”
“As Much As We Change And Improve
Our Security Tactics, They Are Able To
Do The Same”

REUTERS/Ahmad Nadeem 5.8.11

Dust billows from the roof of a government building which the Taliban took over during
an offensive in Kandahar city May 8, 2011.

MAY 9, 2011 By MARIA ABI-HABIB, Wall St. Journal [Excerpts]

KABUL—Taliban fighters flooded southern Afghanistan’s main city over the weekend,
seizing key buildings to stage attacks on government agencies, in a two-day battle that
brought Kandahar to its knees and showcased the insurgency’s strength.

Fighting began Saturday at noon as up to 60 insurgents armed with explosive vests,

vehicles and rickshaws crammed with explosives attacked the Kandahar intelligence
service and police headquarters, the provincial governor’s compound, various police
stations and coalition infrastructure, according to U.S. and Afghan officials.

Holed up in several buildings in central Kandahar, including the electric plant near the
governor’s office, a three-story shopping mall, a school and the Kandahar Hotel, the
insurgents traded gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades with Afghan security forces well
into Sunday night. A bombing at 8 p.m. marked the end of the attack, 32 hours after it
began, authorities said.

“Helicopters are circling the area and have fired on buildings with Taliban fighters”
inside, said Janan, a Kandahar resident living near the intelligence service headquarters,
under attack Sunday night. “Many people who live around the area have tried to
evacuate their houses. Everyone is fearful.”

Residents in other parts of Kandahar said they were shut indoors, with coalition and
Afghan forces patrolling heavily and preventing many Afghans from leaving their homes.
“All the shops are closed, and there’s no traffic in the streets,” said Kandahar teacher
Ghulam Shafi.

“We are concerned that the government is not able to stop such attacks.”

The Taliban’s ability to mount such a massive operation in Afghanistan’s second-largest

metropolis, sustaining two days of street battles, punctured the U.S. military’s narrative
of progress in pacifying Kandahar, the focus of President Barack Obama’s military surge
and the Taliban movement’s birthplace.

Accounts of the fighting’s toll differed dramatically.

According to Zalmai Ayubi, the Kandahar provincial government spokesman, 22 people

were killed, including 18 insurgents, three Afghan security personnel and a civilian. The
Taliban claimed they killed 116 Afghan troops and public servants.

The insurgents usually exaggerate the toll of their attacks, while Afghan government
officials don’t always report the full casualties.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yusuf Ahmadi said the operation wasn’t a reprisal for bin
Laden’s killing but marked instead the beginning of the insurgents’ spring offensive,
dubbed Badar and announced late last month.

“This is a message that we can carry out huge attacks even in the heart of Kandahar city
and bring high-profile government installations under attack for as long as we want,” he
said.

“The operations are going well and the (government) gangsters of Kandahar can’t
control our fighters.”

He added that more than 100 insurgents staged the attacks, many of them Taliban
fighters set free in a spectacular prison break from Kandahar’s Sarpoza prison last
month.
Mr. Ayubi, the Kandahar government spokesman, conceded the Taliban’s
widespread reach and increasingly sophisticated tactics.

“We have no doubt that the insurgency has strong hands behind it. As much as
we change and improve our security tactics, they are able to do the same,” My.
Ayubi said.

The Taliban’s ability to mount such a massive operation in Afghanistan’s second-largest

metropolis, sustaining two days of street battles, punctured the U.S. military’s narrative
of progress

IRAQ WAR REPORTS

Resistance Action

A destroyed police car hit by a roadside bomb attack targeting a police patrol in
Baghdad, Iraq May 9, 2011. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

May 9 (Reuters)

KIRKUK - Attackers in a speeding car opened fire and killed an off-duty policeman in the
city of Kirkuk, police said.

BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb in central Baghdad went off near a police patrol and
wounded two policemen.
BAGHDAD - A roadside bomb wounded a policeman, in Sadr City, a district in northeast
Baghdad.

AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Family Mourns Soldier Killed In

Afghanistan
May 2, 2011 WISN

WALWORTH COUNTY, Wis. -- A father-in-law is mourning the loss of his daughter’s

husband after Sgt. Matthew Hermanson of Appleton died Thursday during a fire fight
trying to retrieve Taliban bodies.

“He (Hermanson) was ambushed (and shot in the leg) by a sniper hiding behind a door.
He went down, but he got up again to defend himself. And they shot him again,” the
Rev. Donald Youner said.

Hermanson was supposed to come home this month, and Youner said he is having a
difficult time, given the fact that he married his daughter and Hermanson in a church
near Elkhorn just shy of a year ago.

“I’ve been a pastor a long time, and I’ve conducted funerals for my family. But I’ll be
honest, when you bury a son-in-law, that’s a life that’s totally different. You’re never
prepared for that,” Youner said.

“(He was) a loving young man -- a young man who was taking his marriage seriously
and wanted to be a good husband,” said the Rev. Doug Anderson, of Calvary
Community Church.

Anderson said he provided premarital counseling for Hermanson and his widow, Rachel
Hermanson, who sings in the choir at Calvary Community Church.

“They had spoken via Skype on Easter Sunday afternoon as a family; and of course,
they were talking about his (coming) return and their plans. It’s a tragedy for us,”
Anderson said.

Youner said he hopes Osama bin Laden’s death brings rest to the situation in
Afghanistan. “I believe that with Osama bin Laden gone, Matthew’s death hopefully
wasn’t in vain,” Youner said.

Details of Hermanson’s funeral have not been released yet, but his family said they are
expecting his body to be returned to Wisconsin later this week.

Officials said 23 Wisconsin soldiers have died while fighting in Afghanistan.

 Foreign Occupation Troops Wounded In
Qarghai:
Nationality Not Announced
Reuters 5.9.11

In Laghman province May 9, 2011 a bomber on a motorcycle wounded foreign troops,

Afghan police and civilians, near the centre of Qarghai district in eastern Laghman
province, Afghan and NATO officials said.

ENOUGH OF THIS SHIT;

ALL HOME NOW

May 8, 2011: A U.S. soldier in a grape field near the city of Qalat in the Zabul Province
of Afghanistan. REUTERS/Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson-USAF/Handout

Resistance Action
May 2, 2011 DPA & Daily Times & 05/09/11 TOLOnews.com & 5.10.11 BBC

Kabul - A bomber Monday attacked a joint patrol of foreign and Afghan forces in
southern Afghanistan, killing a policeman, officials said. The bomber rode a motorbike
towards the patrol, opened fire and killed one policeman. The attack took place in
Sangin district. There were no causalities among the foreign forces.
At 10:00 am local time an attacker blew himself up near Qargha district office building,
Faizanullah Patan, a spokesman for governor of Laghman told TOLOnews reporter.
Two Afghan policemen were also wounded in the attack, he added.

*****************************************************

At least six Afghan police officers have been killed in an ambush in Ghazni province,
officials have told the BBC.

The attack took place in Deh Yak district, several kilometres from the district
headquarters. Police officials said a group of police was hit by a roadside bomb and
then came under gunfire. The police of Ghazni province, Dilawar Zahid, told the BBC
that six police officers were killed and four wounded in yesterday morning’s attack in Deh
Yak district

IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE

END THE OCCUPATIONS

SOMALIA WAR REPORTS

Government Troops Kill Each Other

Again, As Usual
5.8.2011 Mareeg

Transitional Federal government of Somalia’s soldiers have clashed among them self’s
in Dharkanley district of Mogadishu today, two soldiers were reported dead, and at least
four civilian bystanders were critically injured.

The clashes erupted when TFG soldiers tried to stop some of their comrades from
looting nearby Food-Aid warehouse where the distribution of food aid for internally
displaced people and other volnurable groups have being taking place for months, the
distribution was disrupted by TFG soldiers who looted the shipment for their own benefit.

According to an eye witness; TFG soldiers clashed in a battle lasted for approximately
an hour causing civilian injuries and serious damage to properties owned by civilians.

Its worth mentioning that, such incidents are on rising trend with the lack of any legal
mechanisms or initiatives by TFG to make those responsible accountable for their
actions, if were not the UN recognition of the transitional government of Somalia we
would’ve basically classified it as another warlordisim mentality manifestation.
 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.”

“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they
oppose.”

Frederick Douglass, 1852

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

Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many — they are few
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1819, on the occasion of a mass murder of British
workers by the Imperial government at Peterloo.
 Return To Vietnam

Vietnam veteran at the “Moving Wall” in Salem, Oregon in 1989.

Photograph by Mike Hastie

From: Mike Hastie

To: Military Resistance
Sent: May 06, 2011
Subject: Return To Vietnam

Return To Vietnam

You break it down,

and you break it down,
and you break it down,
until you see the absolute truth.
When the truth no longer has
different opinions,
the lies die a tormenting death.
What you have left is the corpse
of your old belief system.
Betrayal forces you to see the real enemy.
What you are is the survivor of all the lies
that took you to Vietnam in the beginning.
Freedom forces you to roll over in your grave.

Mike Hastie
U.S. Army Medic
Vietnam 1970-71
May 6, 2011

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

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/)
 “GI Activists Should Remain On Base
And Work Directly With People At Their
Jobs And In The Barracks”
“This Should Be Part Of A General Shift
In The Locus Of GI Action Away From
Off-Base Coffeehouses, Back To The
Barracks”.

From: SOLDIERS IN REVOLT: DAVID CORTRIGHT, Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden

City, New York, 1975. Now available in paperback from Haymarket Books. [Excerpts]

***********************

[By activists with the paper FighT bAck in Germany, 1973. Excerpts]

Radicals Must Join The Army.

The role of radicals who purposely join the services to organize has been important
throughout the GI movement and remains so today. Within the FighT bAck grOup, in the
GI Alliance in Tacoma, and at numerous other projects, former civilian activists, some of
whom gave up deferments to join, have been a vital force in sustaining GI dissent.

The presence of even a few hundred committed activists could have great impact on the
level of servicemen’s dissent.
 Civilian Support Is Crucial:
As we have seen throughout the history of the GI movement, such support has been a
crucial ingredient of successful organizing. Civilian activists are most needed as political
workers and counselors at local projects.

Peace organizations should adopt programs for training civilians in military counseling
and supporting them during a tour of duty working directly with servicemen at major
bases.

A Newspaper Or Newsletter Is Necessary:

Nearly every servicemen’s organization has coalesced around a newspaper as the best
means available for communicating with other GIs.

An important variation of this is unit newsletters, pioneered at Fort Lewis, to expose

abuses within individual units and mobilize political pressure at the local level. Unit
newsletters appearing on a biweekly basis could then be supplemented by a monthly or
bimonthly base-wide newspaper.

This should be part of a general shift in the locus of GI action away from off-base
coffeehouses, back to the barracks.

Off-base locations are still needed for printing and counseling activities by civilian
staffers, but GI activists should remain on base and work directly with people at
their jobs and in the barracks

Regardless of what form it takes, though, citizen action must continue.

Continued work is necessary to establish democratic control over the institutions of war
and to secure independence and dignity for people in the ranks.

DO YOU HAVE A FRIEND OR

RELATIVE IN THE MILITARY?
Forward Military Resistance along, or send us the address if you
wish and we’ll send it regularly. Whether in Afghanistan, 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 wars, inside the armed
services and at home. Send email requests to address up top or
write to: The Military Resistance, Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New
York, N.Y. 10025-5657. Phone: 888.711.2550
 NOT ANOTHER DAY
NOT ANOTHER DOLLAR
NOT ANOTHER LIFE

The remains of Army Cpl. Kevin W. White of Westfield, N.Y. at Dover Air Force Base,
Del. May 4, 2011. White died of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit
using an improvised explosive device. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

POLITICIANS CAN’T BE COUNTED ON TO HALT

THE BLOODSHED

THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THE

WARS

Troops Invited:
Comments, arguments, articles, and letters from service men
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.
DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

CLASS WAR REPORTS

 Workers’ Rebellion In The
Brazilian Amazon:
“More Than 80,000 Workers All
Over The Country Paralyzed The
Work Of ‘Progress’”
“The Revolt Of The Laborers In Jirau
Took Everyone By Surprise—
Government, Business Owners, And
The Unions”
“Víctor Paranhos, President Of The
Construction Consortium, Said: ‘It Is
Troubling Because We Don’t Know The
Motive. There Are Not Even Leaders’”

It all started with something very small, just like in Tunisia, the way all great social
events begin.

It was a fight involving a worker and a bus driver, on the afternoon of March 15, at
the camp where thousands of laborers from the poorest regions of Brazil are
building one of the largest hydroelectric dams in the country, a gigantic project on
the Madeira River that will cost ten billion dollars.

20/04/2011 by Raúl Zibechi, Cipamericas.org via AmeriConscience [Excerpts]

Raúl Zibechi is an international analyst for Brecha of Montevideo, Uruguay, lecturer and
researcher on social movements at the Multiversidad Franciscana de América Latina,
and adviser to several social groups. He writes a monthly column for the Americas
Program (www.cipamericas.org).

************************************************************************

During the month of March 2011 the biggest social protest by workers in many years
erupted in Brazil.

More than 80,000 workers all over the country paralyzed the work of “progress” in
the form of hydroelectric plants, refineries, and thermoelectric generating
facilities.

The spark of the protest was lit in Jirau, in the Amazon jungle, provoked by
arbitrary action, violence, and authoritarianism.

It all started with something very small, just like in Tunisia, the way all great social
events begin.

It was a fight involving a worker and a bus driver, on the afternoon of March 15, at the
camp where thousands of laborers from the poorest regions of Brazil are building one of
the largest hydroelectric dams in the country, a gigantic project on the Madeira River that
will cost ten billion dollars.

Soon after the fight, in which the laborer was beaten, hundreds of workers began
to set fire to the buses that take them from their barracks to the worksite.

Some sources mention 45 buses and another 15 vehicles burned, but others raise the
toll of buses burned to 80, in just a few minutes.

The offices of the construction firm, Camargo Correa, also burned, along with half
the workers’ dormitories and at least three bank ATMs.

Some 8,000 workers went into the jungle to escape the violence.

The police were overwhelmed, and only managed to protect the facilities where the
explosives used to alter the course of the river are stored.

Calm was only restored when the national government headed by president Dilma
Rousseff sent 600 troops of the military police to take control of the situation.

But the workers, numbering around 20,000 in the Jirau site, went back to their
places of origin rather than returning to work.
At the nearby Santo Antonio construction site a work stoppage began that involved the
17,000 workers who are building yet another generating plant on the Madeira River near
Porto Velho, the capital of the state of Rondônia.

In just a week the wave of strikes spread through the huge worksites: 20,000 workers
left their jobs at the Abreu e Lima refinery in Pernambuco, another 14,000 at the Saupe
petrochemical plant in the same city, 5,000 in Pecém, in the state of Ceará.

What these strikes have in common is that they all have taken place in the gigantic
projects of the Growth Acceleration Program (Programa de Aceleração do
Crescimiento–PAC), and they have challenged the biggest construction firms in the
country, the Brazilian multinationals contracted by the national government.

The Madeira River is the main tributary of the Amazon.

Starting at the convergence of the Beni and Mamoré Rivers near the city of Vila Bela on
the border of Brazil and Bolivia, it is 4,207 km long, one of the 20 longest rivers in the
world and one of the top 10 in volume. It is fed by runoff from the Andes mountains in
Bolivia and southern Peru, and thus has great potential for hydroelectrical generation.

Brazil’s growth plans require huge amounts of electrical energy, and national planners
take the position that the rivers of the Amazon basin are underutilized.

The plan for the Madeira River is to build four hydroelectric dams, of which two, Jirau
and Santo Antonio in the Brazilian stretch between the Bolivian border and Porto Velho,
are already under construction. The Jirau dam, 150 km from the state capital, will
produce 3,350 megawatts, and Santo Antonio will have the capacity for 3,150
megawatts. These two projects are priorities of the Growth Acceleration Program, which
seeks to connect the isolated systems of Acre state (adjacent to Rondônia) and
Maranhão (on the Atlantic coast to the north) to the national electrical distribution grid.

The two projects now under construction employ about 40,000 workers, 70% of whom
are from other Brazilian states.

At Jirau alone there are some 20,000 employees, the great majority poorly paid laborers
(wages are around 1,000 reais per month, about 600 dollars).

They come to the isolated jungle work sites from distant places in the northeast, far
north, and even the south of Brazil, many times tricked by labor recruiters (called gatos,
“cats”) who promise them wages and working conditions better than the reality.

All of them must pay the gatos for the “services” they provide.

When they arrive on the site workers are already in debt, and food and medicines
are more expensive because they must be purchased from company stores.

Many are housed in wooden barracks where they sleep on mattresses on the
floor.

The bathrooms are few and distant, there is no electricity, and they are crowded.
Maria Ozânia da Silva, of the Pastoral of the Migrant in Rondônia, says that the
workers “feel frustrated by their wages, and for the deductions from them made
with no explanation.”

The first problem they complain about is that Camargo Correa, the company in
charge of Jirau, does not pay overtime.

But the “revolt of the laborers” is not about wages, but about dignity, says journalist
Leonardo Sakamoto.

The ten main demands of the protesters include: putting a stop to the aggressive
actions of supervisors and security guards, who use private jails; respectful
treatment of those who come into the barracks when inebriated; an end to the
moral harassment of office workers and laborers; payment for transportation time
when the trip to the worksite is long; efficient service in the dining halls so that
the wait in line doesn’t take up the time for rest after the meal; and payment for
rations that is based on local prices.

According to Sakamoto the laborers of today have a profile quite different from those
who worked in construction in the 1990s.

Today they use cell phones and the internet, they know what is happening in world, they
are proud of dressing well, they demand respectful treatment and they often use the
word “dignity.”

They are bothered by the precarious condition of the buildings and dormitories as well as
the isolation far from their families, and the least mistreatment sets them off.

Silvio Areco, an engineer with experience on large projects, notes the change:
“Before, whoever gave the orders on the worksite was almost a colonel, he had
authority. Nowadays that doesn’t work. A common laborer has more
independence.”

The companies are in a hurry because the work tends to fall behind schedule, so they
put pressure on the workers.

In September 2009 the Ministry of Labor freed 38 people who worked in slavery-like
conditions, and in June 2010 it reported 330 violations of labor conditions at Jirau. The
main problem is insecurity. In Da Silva’s opinion the migrants become an easy target for
labor recruiters and construction companies because they have no protection from
abuses.

But the problems are not limited to the workplace.

Aluisio Vidal is the pastor of Jaci-Paraná, a town near Jirau, and the president of the
Party of Socialism and Freedom (Partido Socialismo e Liberdade—PSOL) for the state
of Rondônia. He complains of the increase in crime and prostitution. Between 2008 and
2010 the population of Porto Velho grew 12% (it has half a million inhabitants), but in the
same period homicides increased 44% and according to the child protection court the
abuse of minors increased some 76% in that time.
According to the social activist organizations in the region, joined together in the Amazon
Rivers Alliance (Aliança dos Rios da Amazônia), “All possible problems are concentrated
in Jirau: At an uncontrolled pace, the project has brought to the region the ‘development’
of prostitution, drug abuse among young fishermen and in riverbank settlements, real
estate speculation, a rise in food prices, unattended disease, and all types of violence.”

Elias Dobrovolski, a coordinator in the Movement of those Affected by Dams (Movimento

dos Atingidos por Barragens—MAB) who has followed the situation of the workers since
the beginnings of the project, states that the districts around Jirau are experiencing very
serious problems. “Towns that had two thousand inhabitants now house 20,000. There
is no infrastructure for so many people—not enough schools, health clinics, nor police to
support all the people that came in with the projects.”

In addition to all this, the huge projects of the Growth Acceleration Program have above-
average rates of job-related deaths. The Brazilian construction industry has a rate of
23.8 deaths per 100,000 workers, and in PAC projects the rate is 19.7. In the United
States the equivalent number is 10 per 100,000, in Spain it is 10.6, and in Canada 8.7.
The Brazilian figure is higher than it should be because the large construction firms
“have sufficient technology to protect the workers.”

The Movement of those Affected by Dams also denounces work days longer than
12 hours, and epidemics in the worksites.

To make matters worse, the companies hired ex-colonels suspected of committing

sabotage to bring criminal accusations against the unions.

The revolt attacked the symbols of power. “Witnesses of the attacks said that the
men who came to destroy the living quarters first set fire to those of the
supervisors and engineers.”

Those employed in civil construction in Brazil exceeded 1.8 million in 2006, and 2.8
million in 2010. Unemployment in the construction sector is only 2.3%.

The unions estimate that when the infrastructure projects are in full swing, including
those related to the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games of 2016, the projects
included in the Growth Acceleration Program alone will have a million workers. This is
overwhelming to both the companies and the unions.

The revolt of the laborers in Jirau took everyone by surprise—government, business

owners, and the unions.

Víctor Paranhos, president of the construction consortium, said: “It is troubling

because we don’t know the motive. There are not even leaders.”

The union leaders’ position is curiously similar. “In these revolts in Jirau we
perceive that there is no leader who could negotiate a truce,” said Paulo Pereira
da Silva, of the union group Força Sindical.

The Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT), not to be left out, defended the
government against the workers: “They have to return to work. I am Brazilian and I
want to see this plant in operation.
This shared culture of business and organized labor, which tries to redirect social protest
into institutional channels and smother it with the massive police presence (the
government sent in 600 members of the military police), fails to comprehend that the
revolt is not only nor even mainly about wages.

Groups such as MAB, the indigenous people, and the church-affiliated social
movements have a different reading of the situation. “The revolt is a result of
authoritarianism and the drive for accumulation of wealth through the exploitation of both
nature and the workers,” says a statement by the Movement of those Affected by Dams.

In the opinion of the Instituto Humanitas Unisinos, neither the left nor the
environmentalists were sensitive to what was behind the Jirau revolt. The sites of
the movements barely covered the conflict. “The violence of the revolt in Jirau
and that of the Arabs is similar, but the reception here, in both cases, was
negative,” said the journalist Janio de Freitas.

On April 5 the workers of Santo Antonio returned to work after 10 days on strike,
following a vote of the membership in favor of an agreement between the CUT and the
Odebrecht firm.

The accord includes an early increase in wages of 5% in anticipation of further

negotiations, an increase in the food stipend from 110 to 132 reals, and five days leave
every three months to make family visits home, with a right to airfare.

Work at Jirau remained suspended after 20 days, awaiting negotiations with Camargo
Correa.

As the report on “The Rebellion in Jirau” notes, “The Growth Acceleration Program is the
synthesis of the developmentalist model that reproduces the project of a grandiose
Brazil from the era of Getúlio Vargas, Juscelino Kubitschek, and the military dictatorship.
It is a model based on huge projects, in particular on the exploitation of energy and its
consumption by an emerging nation focused on commodity export.”

That plan for Brazil’s exponential growth ends up converting the Amazon and all
its resources into commodities. It has few organized opponents, since the vision
is shared by labor and business, left and right, government and opposition.

The Movement of those Affected by Dams (MAB) has been resisting what it considers a
dispossession for 20 years now.

Its motto is “water and energy are not commodities.”

The Jirau revolt is the response of the poorest sector, the laborers of Brazil, to the
ambitious project of modernization and the deepening of capitalism.

Gilberto Cervinski, of MAB, summarizes the problem: “To build the generating plants of
the Madeira River is to open the Amazon region to dozens of other hydroelectric
projects, without even discussing questions that we believe are fundamental: Energy for
what? And for whom?”
 RECEIVED:

“I Am A Soldier In The US Army”

“I Have Stumbled Onto Your Site And Am
Interested In Your Motives”
From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
To: contact@militaryproject.org
Subject: Interested in your over all mission
Date: May 8, 2011

I am a soldier in the US army, I have stumbled onto your site and am interested in your
motives.

I may be getting kicked out of the military soon, basically for not being willing to conform
to their idea of a model soldier even though I do my job flawlessly.

Please if you find the time I would like to know more.

REPLY:

Inquiry received.

Information below.

There is also link to our publication Traveling Soldier. Half way through is a poem by
Brecht. From your email comment, looks like he wrote it for you.

Please feel free to reply with any comments, questions or criticisms.

Respect,

T
For Military Resistance Organization

#1
Link to Traveling Soldier: http://www.traveling-soldier.org/TS34.pdf

#2
Information Requested:
 MILITARY RESISTANCE TEN POINTS
Mission Statement:
1. The mission of Military Resistance is to bring together in one organization
members of the armed forces and civilians in order to give aid and comfort to
members of the armed forces who are organizing to end the wars of empire in
Afghanistan and Iraq. The long term objective is to assist in eliminating all wars
of empire by eliminating all empires.

2. Military Resistance does not advocate individual disobedience to orders or

desertion from the armed forces. The most effective resistance is organized by
members of the armed forces working together.

However, Military Resistance respects and will assist in the defense of troops who
see individual desertion or refusal of orders as the only course of action open to
them for reasons of conscience.

3. Military Resistance stands for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all

U.S. and other occupation troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Occupied nations have the right to independence and the right to resist Imperial
invasion and occupation by force of arms.

4. Efforts to increase democratic rights in every society, organization, movement,

and within the armed forces itself will receive encouragement and support.

Members of the armed forces, whether those of the United States or any other
nation, have the right and duty to act against dictatorships commanding their
services, and to assist civilian movements against dictatorship.

This applies whether a political dictatorship is imposed by force of arms or a

political dictatorship is imposed by those in command of the resources of society
using their wealth to purchase the political leadership.

5. Military Resistance uses organizational democracy.

This means control of the organization by the membership, through elected

delegates to any coordinating bodies that may be formed, whether at local,
regional, or national levels.

Any member may run for any job in the organization. All persons elected are
subject to immediate recall, by majority vote of the membership.
Coordinating bodies report their actions, decisions and votes to the membership
who elected them, and may be overruled by a majority of the membership.

6. It is not necessary for Military Resistance to be in political agreement with

other organizations in order to work together towards specific common
objectives.

It is productive for organizations working together on common projects to discuss

differences about the best way forward for the movement.

Debate is necessary to arrive at the best course of action.

Membership Requirements:
7. It is a condition of membership that each member prioritize and participate in
organized action to reach out to active duty armed forces, Reserve and/or National
Guard units.

8. Military Resistance or individual members may choose to support candidates

for elective office who are for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan,
but do not support a candidate opposed to immediate, unconditional withdrawal.

9. Members may not be active duty or drilling reserve commissioned officers, or

employed in any capacity by any police or intelligence agency, local, state, or
national.

10. I understand and am in agreement with the above statement. I pledge to

defend my brothers and sisters, and the democratic rights of the citizens of the
United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

----------------------------(Signed

(Date)

----------------------------- (Application taken by)

Military Resistance: Contact@militaryproject.org

Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657
888-711-2550

MILITARY RESISTANCE MEMBERSHIP

APPLICATION
Name (please print): __________________________
Armed Forces? (Branch) ____________

Veteran? Years: ____________

Union: ____________________

Occupation: _________________________________________

Mailing address: ______________________________________

E-Mail:_____________________________

Phone (Landline):_______________________________________

Phone (Cell):___________________________________________

$ dues paid and receipt given by _________________________

(Calendar year basis.)

Armed Forces Members @ Dues waived

Civilians @ $25
Students/Unemployed @ $10
Civilian/Military Prisoners @ Dues Waived

Comments:

Military Resistance: Contact@militaryproject.org

Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657
888-711-2550

“People Need Not Be Helpless

Before The Power Of Illegitimate
Authority”
MILITARY RESISTANCE:
Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657
Contact@militaryproject.org

[Based on a statement by David Cortright, Vietnam Veteran.]

In the final analysis the stationing of American forces abroad serves not the national
interest but the class interest of the corporate and political elite.
The maintenance of a massive, interventionist-oriented military establishment is
based on the need to protect multinational investment and preserve regimes
friendly to American capital.

Imperialism is at the heart of the national-security system and is the force

fundamentally responsible for the counterrevolutionary, repressive aims of U.S.
policy.

Only if we confront this reality and challenge it throughout society and within the
ranks can we restore democratic control of the military.

Of course nothing can be accomplished without citizen involvement and active

political struggle.

During the Vietnam era enlisted servicemen created massive pressures for
change, despite severe repression, and significantly altered the course of the war
and subsequent military policy.

To sustain and strengthen this challenge we must continue to build political

opposition to interventionism and support those within the armed services,
including national guard and reserves, who defy the goals and program of Empire.

The central lesson of the GI movement is that people need not be helpless before
the power of illegitimate authority, that by getting together and acting upon their
convictions people can change society and, in effect, make their own history.

The Military Project

Military Resistance: Contact@militaryproject.org

Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657
888-711-2550

A Vietnam Soldier Wrote The Book

All About How Armed Forces
Resistance Stopped An Imperial War
Active Duty who want one:
Free with APO/FPO/DPO or BAH address.
SOLDIERS IN REVOLT: DAVID CORTRIGHT, Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City,
New York
Requests to:

Contact@militaryproject.org

OR:
Military Resistance
Box 126
2576 Broadway
New York, N.Y.
10025-5657
 Military Resistance Looks Even Better Printed Out
Military Resistance/GI Special are archived at website
http://www.militaryproject.org .
The following have chosen to post issues; there may be others:
http://williambowles.info/wordpress/category/military-resistance/ ;
news@uruknet.info; http://www.traprockpeace.org/gi_special/;
http://www.albasrah.net/pages/mod.php?header=res1&mod=gis&rep=gis

Military Resistance distributes and posts to our website copyrighted material the use of which has not always been
specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance
understanding of the invasion and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. We believe this constitutes a “fair use” of any
such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law since it is being distributed without
charge or profit for educational purposes to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for educational purposes, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. Military Resistance has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor is Military Resistance endorsed or sponsored by
the originators. This attributed work is provided a non-profit basis to facilitate understanding, research,
education, and the advancement of human rights and social justice. Go to:
www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml for more information. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for
purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

If printed out, a copy of 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.