Sir! No Sir! Exposing and Debunking Military Lies from Vietnam to Iraq

Happy July 4th from our friends at the Military Industrial Complex

This was originally published in Fort Lewis Free Press, vol. 2, no. 1

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Chickenshit Weekly No. 2 has been added to the Sir! No Sir! Archives

The following pamphlet, published by GIs For Peace Ft. Bliss was added to the Sir! No Sir! Archives

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Upcoming Events - National Antiwar Conference

Upcoming Events - Celebrate Robin Long's Release!

Shutting down the Machine - Questioning the War (Courage to Resist Pamphlet)

The following pamphlet was originally distributed by Courage to Resist. Click here to download the original

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Where's the Outrage 148 - War Resisters Held in Legal Limbo

This article by Sarah Lazare, was originally posted to Truthout, 16 June, 2009

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At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, AWOL soldiers find themselves detained for months under difficult conditions in an extended legal limbo they cannot escape.
Dustin Stevens is one of about 50 soldiers being held at Fort Bragg awaiting likely AWOL and desertion charges that seem like they will never arrive, he says.
A former soldier who refused to continue military service seven years ago because he did not want to fight a war, Stevens says that he and his colleagues are being held in legal limbo - a no man's land of poor living standards and arbitrary punishments - while awaiting charges and possible court-martial. Stevens has been in a holdover unit for five months without charges, and he says that others have been held for up to a year in conditions he describes as harrowing.
The unit is overcrowded and filthy, he says, with four people to a room. The command verbally abuses the soldiers, with one commanding officer proclaiming, "We should just shoot you all," according to Stevens. Troops are not receiving the medical and mental health care they need. "People around me are literally going crazy. I hear people threaten suicide on a daily basis," says Stevens. "They won't give us leave passes unless it's a dire emergency, so we're just sitting here, day by day."
The command offered the soldiers a free pass if they agreed to deploy to Afghanistan, according to Stevens. About ten people took up the offer, he says. Those who decline must find a way to endure.
At least 50 AWOL troops are being held right now in the holdover unit at the 82nd Replacement Company, constituting about three-quarters of its population, with the rest medical holdovers, says Stevens, who is corroborated by his civilian lawyer, James Branum. A holdover unit is a special unit for people who are on a legal hold of some kind, whether it is because they are seeking medical discharge, switching assignments or, as in Stevens's case, waiting for charges.
Branum says that at this particular holdover unit, AWOL soldiers are being held for long stretches of time before receiving charges. "People are in this unit for months and months. They take forever to do anything," says Branum. "You are going to be there six months if you're lucky, 12 if you're not."
Maj. Virginia McCabe, 82nd Airborne Division spokesperson, confirmed that AWOL soldiers are in the Holdover unit at the 82nd Replacement Company at Fort Bragg, but could not say how many are there, how long they are being held, or what their conditions are like. She acknowledged that soldiers are confined to the unit if they are deemed a flight risk, but could not provide details on how that is determined. "Each AWOL soldier has his or her own special circumstances," she says. "They stay in a holding platoon until a legal decision is made. Or they might say they made a mistake and are ready to serve."
Kathy Gilbert, head of the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild, says that holdover units can be very unpleasant. "In reality, a lot of times these units are run by senior enlisted personnel who are obnoxious and give people a hard time," she says.
Gilbert also says that legal hold makes it structurally difficult to make complaints. "People on restriction would have to request to see a commanding officer, the person officially in charge of restriction, if they wanted to make a complaint. There is not an official way to do that," says Gilbert. "Most people who are on restriction don't even know whose authority places them on restriction and don't know that senior enlisted personnel don't have the authority they often claim to have. Command doesn't have an open door policy or encourage people to speak up."
In a military where desertion is still technically punishable by death, Stevens says he has found military "justice" to be cruel and arbitrary.
In May 2002, after five months in the Army, Stevens refused to stand in formation at his Airborne graduation and declared that he no longer wanted to serve. Stevens had joined the army to escape a broken home, thinking he had few other options. Yet, since day one, he had been having panic and anxiety attacks, finding himself morally opposed to his service, and to the prospect of deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan sometime in the future. "I knew in my heart and in my mind, I couldn't kill anybody and couldn't be a part of an organization that did so," he says. Upon his refusal, Stevens's command told him to simply go home and wait for his discharge papers, he says. The papers never showed up, but he didn't think anything of it, he says.
Seven years later, during a routine traffic stop, Stevens was told that there was a warrant for his arrest and he was whisked off to military custody, torn away from his girlfriend and his job. "This whole time, I've been living my life. I've been working, paying taxes, had a car and apartment," he says. Since January 15, 2009, he has been in a holdover unit, biding his time while he awaits charges that might be months away. These months of detention will not count toward his sentence.
Stevens says that the people being held in the 82nd Holdover Unit went AWOL for various reasons, some because they were opposed to the war, some because the Army wouldn't let them leave to tend to family problems, and some because of medical problems.
"It is horrible here. We are treated like animals," he says. "We're all just lost, wanting to go home. Some of us are going crazy, some were already crazy, some are sick," he says. "I'm bouncing on a pin needle. I read all of the time, I talk to people all of the time to try to stay out of this place in my mind. It's really hard."
"AWOL troops being held in a replacement unit is totally absurd and unusual and is an example of how the command has plenty of ways to punish people and enforce discipline, bypassing the formal justice system. Smoking people, giving them unofficial duties, mistreatment, and in this case, making an example out of people and segregating them, are all informal mechanisms of punishment commonly used in the military." says Carl Davison, Iraq war resister and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. "People who follow their consciences deserve our support, and there needs to be a highly vocal community out there to let them know they are not alone."
"Every single person here should not be here. There are people here who should be in mental hospitals, who are just sitting here. This place is hell, it really is," says Stevens. "And in my mind, I didn't even do anything wrong."

American Exiles in Canada - Kenney's Canada: Who's in, who's out and who is getting kicked out

This article by Krystalline Kraus, was originally published by Rabble News, June 17, 2009

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Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney have the political power to decide who they want to let into Canada and who they want to keep out.
With the power to make these decisions, a pattern has emerged where the current Conservative government has laid out the red carpet for former U.S. government officials such as George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Condoleezza Rice. While other people seeking entry or residency to Canada have encountered nothing but a locked door and an unwelcome mat. Or, if they currently reside in Canada, they are about to be kicked out.
With a strong case being built around charging Bush with war crimes, why was he allowed into Canada without question or scrutiny by the government and Royal Canadian Mounted Police when others have been denied?
Again, it comes down to political choices and political will.
Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Jason Kenney, has made numerous public statements defending the impartiality of Canada’s immigration system but a developing pattern is emerging regarding who is on Canada’s Most Wanted vs. Most Un-wanted list -- so much so that Jason Kenney has been dubbed by Canadian activists as the new “Minister of Censorship and Deportation.”
While Kenney has stated that the Ministry of Immigration and Citizenship is separate from the country’s immigration system (and denies the ability to interfere politically), the operational truth is that these two political entities work in conjunction with one another.
For example, Minister Kenney has the ability to shape the immigration policy, the basis of the immigration system.
Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, Peter Van Loan, who is in charge of Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), has control over this enforcement arm of the Canadian immigration system.
This means Kenney has the power to table legislation and set policy to prevent a deportation and Van Loan could grant a waiver to halt a deportation by the CSBA.
If they wanted to.
Here’s an overview of who Canada has let into this country, who it has kept out and who it is currently trying to kick out.
Who’s in
On Friday May 29, 2009, Presidents “W.” Bush and Clinton were invited to come to Toronto to speak about their legacies as U.S. presidents. The event was sponsored by such corporations such as the Globe and Mail, TD Financial Group, Nayarit Gold Mining and the Toronto Board of Trade.
Protesters outside the Convention Centre where the two men spoke were more concerned with the presidents’ legacies regarding war crimes:

• President George W. Bush and his administration for their actions in Iraq, including his declaration of pre-emptive war and his support of CIA-operated rendition sites and torture practices.
• President Bill Clinton and his administration for working through the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Iraq between 1990-2003 and for the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999.

Bush had previously visited Calgary, Alberta for another speaking engagement on March 17, 2009. Protesters in both Calgary and Toronto were infuriated to hear that Canada had allowed suspected war criminals to freely enter the country.
Upon hearing that Bush would be travelling to Canada, Lawyers Against the War (LAW) issued a statement to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) asking that Bush be denied entry into Canada under Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Protection Act -- Section 35(1)(a), because Bush is a war criminal under Canada's Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act -- Sections 4 to 7 / subsections 6(3) to (5)
Along with Clinton and Bush, other prominent members of the Bush’s administration, or Bush’s “war allies,” have been allowed to enter Canada. These include: Condeleezza Rice’s (former U.S. Secretary of State) visit to Calgary on May 13, 2009; Michael Chertoff’s (former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security) visit to Ottawa on February 23, 2007; John Howard’s (former Prime Minister of Australia and member of Bush’s Coalition of the Willing) visit Ottawa on May 18, 2006; and Donald Rumsfeld’s (former U.S. Secretary of Defence) visit to Banff, Alberta on September 13, 2006.
Canada’s decision to allow individuals such as Bush to cross the border establishes the trend of an open-door, blood-red carpet policy of inclusion to those who are suspected of committing war crimes
According to writer Joshua Blakeney, “It is clear that Canada is increasingly perceived to be a ‘safe haven’ for self-confessed torturers and war criminals who have committed what at Nuremburg -- reflecting upon the unilateralism and genocidal practices of Nazism -- was defined as the ultimate war crime of aggressive war.”
Who’s Out
Juxtaposed against the list above of individuals Canada has allowed to cross its borders are individuals who have been denied entry or repatriation; the list of 'who’s out' reads like a black-list of prominent foreign peace activists and current Canadian citizens.
The most notorious case being that of British MP George Galloway, who was denied entry into Canada by the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) on March 20, 2009, right before his Canadian speaking tour, because he was considered a threat to national security.
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Kenney could have overturned the decision but chose not to do so. The Federal government cited the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), Section 34(1), which reads among other points of order, that refusal can be based on whether, “e) engaging in acts of violence that would or might endanger the lives or safety of persons in Canada; or (f) being a member of an organization that there are reasonable grounds to believe engages, has engaged or will engage in acts referred to in paragraph (a), (b) or (c).”
Along with Galloway, other peace activists and progressives who have been barred entry into Canada include: Reza Alijani (an award winning Iranian journalist with Reporters Without Borders) and; Shadi Sadr (a women’s activist in Iran) were denied entry into Canada in early May, 2009; and Ann Wright (retired U.S. Army colonel and peace activist) and Medea Benjamin (co-founder of Code Pink), who were denied entry into Canada on October 22, 2007.
Along with these peace activists, Canada has so far refused to repatriate Canadian citizens held in a hellish legal and diplomatic limbo, thus denying them re-entry into the country.
One such case is that of Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen held captive in Guantanamo Bay for the past six years who seeks repatriation.
Khadr was captured by American forces at the age of 15 following a four-hour firefight with militants in the village of Ayub Kheyl, Afghanistan. He has spent six years in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps charged with war crimes and providing support to terrorism after allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier, but has yet to face a U.S. military tribunal.
The youngest person held in Guantanamo bay and the only Western citizen left, the Canadian government has so far refused to demand his repatriation to Canada. On June 12, Prime Minister Harper told Fox News that “that Canada is not willing to take in Guantanamo Bay detainees.” This despite an April 23, 2009 Federal Court ruling ordering the government of Canada to seek Omar Khadr's repatriation from the United States.
Another Canadian citizen suspended in diplomatic limbo is Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen from Montreal who is currently stranded in Sudan, literally living inside the Canadian embassy for more than a year.
Abdelrazik was arrested on potential terrorism charges back in 2003 but the Sudanese government had released him without charges. Both the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligent Service (CSIS) have similarly stated they both have no evidence against him.
Regardless of his innocence, the Canadian government has refused to allow Abdelrazik back into Canada despite a June 4 Federal Court ruling which orders the Federal government to repatriate him.
Who’s being kicked out
Included in the list of Canada’s most un-wanted are also those foreign nationals or refugee status applicants who face the threat of deportation from Canada because of the politics these individuals embody.
These include foreign nationals currently being held on Canadian Security Certificates. According to writer Justin Podur, “The entire security certificate process is based on urgency in placing someone in detention and ignoring due process, followed by a long, dragged out detention.”
Although major changes were made, including a February 2007 Federal Court ruling that struck down the security certificate system as violating the Canadian Charter, a re-vamped security certificate system still remains in place in Canada.
Podur writes, “In response to legal challenges to these secret deportation trials and opposition to draconian long-term detentions of people without trial, the government has released many of its detainees on house arrest. These include Mohamed Harkat, Mohammad Majoub, Mahmoud Jaballah, Adil Charkaoui, and most recently Hassan Almrei. Despite the pressures to ignore the lack of evidence, the courts have slowed down the government's rush to persecute these men.”
If the government’s security certificates withstand further court challenges, deportations of these men will begin.
Iraq war resisters seeking permanent residence status in Canada are another group of individuals and families facing impending deportation back to the United States in the coming months, where they face military court marshals and less-than honourable discharges from the U.S. military for their conscientious objections to being deployed to Iraq.
Canadian Parliament passed two majority motions in support of resisters, but Kenney has spoken out against them as a group from his position as minister in charge of immigration, referring to them as “bogus refugee claimants.”
Kenney was rebuked by writer John Hogan in a Toronto Sun article, where Hogan claimed the Minister was interfering politically in the cases of war resisters by speaking publically, exposing his government’s bias. While a spokesperson from Kenney’s office later stated that resister claims are being handled through what the government has called “independent tribunals,” Hogan countered, “The immigration officers who are deciding the war resisters' applications do not constitute ‘independent tribunals.’ They exercise decision-making authority delegated to them by the minister of citizenship and immigration."
Lee Zaslofsky, an organizer with the War Resisters Support Campaign (WRCS), called Minister Kenney's comments political interference on the supposedly independent Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) tribunal, which passes judgment on resisters' immigration claims. He said, "Minister Kenney's comments show the Harper government has a blanket policy of opposition against war resisters, which makes it nearly impossible for them to be treated on a 'case-by-case basis' as our government has been leading Canadians to believe."
Criticism of Minister Kenney's remarks was also expressed through an open letter by Elizabeth McWeeney, President of the Canadian Council of Refugees. In the letter, written on January 8, 2009, she stated her concern surrounding Kenney's comments which she called, "highly inappropriate," since they "give the strong appearance of political interference."
Fear and exclusion
Take all the separate elements of exclusion from Canadian society through the Canadian immigration system and put them together and the common factor between all the different groups of the un-wanted revolve around our perception of ‘national security’; as if the current government is using fear to force to public into a false decision between people’s security or a person’s right to not be discriminated against based on someone else’s politics.
Again, it all comes down to political decisions. Ask yourself: would you rather our government allow a suspected war criminal into this country, or someone who promotes peace or simply wants to live here in peace?

Advice from Mr Natural

Taxi to the Dark Side

Taxi to the Dark Side - BBC - Uploaded for www.pacman.pt.vu Taxi to the Dark Side is a 2007 Academy Award-nominated documentary film directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney. The film focuses around the controversial death in custody of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar.[2] Dilawar was beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Bagram Air Base. Taxi to the Dark Side also goes on to examine America's policy on torture and interrogation in general, specifically the CIA's use of torture and their research into sensory deprivation. There is description of the opposition to the use of torture from its political and military opponents, as well as the defence of such methods; the attempts by Congress to uphold the standards of the Geneva Convention forbidding torture; and the popularisation of the use of torture techniques in shows such as 24. The film is said to be the first film to contain images taken within Bagram Air Base. On November 19, 2007, Taxi to the Dark Side was named by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of 15 films on its documentary feature Oscar shortlist, and was ultimately one of five films nominated for a prize in the "Best Documentary Feature" category

Coming Home To Another War - An expendable life

The following comments were posted by an anonymous GI to his blog Just Another Expendable Life. The direct, and simple truths they express are timeless, bold and shattering and as Wilfred Owen observed in his anthem for a doomed youth there are no "pasing bells for those who die as cattle" There are no voices "of mourning save the .... demented choirs of wailing shells and bugles calling them home from sad shires."

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Thursday June 18: The basic reason that I enlisted was due to "misinformation". I was uninformed on what the "real" Army is like. Nobody sees what really happens, either in combat or at home. The recruiters painted a great picture of how my life was going to change and how it was going to get better. To tell you the truth, I would do anything to get back to the day I joined with what I know now. I did not have a completely fucked up childhood, I did not come from a family that was all military--hell my father never wanted me to join. People tried to tell me what the army was like, but I listened the the recruiters instead. It was a mistake. Yes, I signed a contract, yes I knew I was going to war, but you know once you get over there and see what we are REALLY doing, and how this is a illegal occupation of a third would country, you begin to wonder......
Put yourself in their shoes. If Iraqis were here, shooting at us, ramming our cars off the road taking control of our life, shit i know what I would be doing to them, I would be trying to blow them up to get them out of my country... think about it.

Monday June 15: Since my redeployment back to the United States, the only thing I have wanted is my life back...
It seems right now I am going to have to live with the person I hate the most in the world, myself. Even after trying to seek help and even after time in the mental ward of the post hospital I am currently at, taking medication that is suppose to make me feel better about myself I still hate waking up in the morning, I still hate myself and everything I do. No matter what I am doing any day of the week I some how am still reminded of the things I did while I was in Iraq, and sometimes it gets so bad that I believe I am still in Iraq.
When I go back to Iraq in my mind it seems like wow well the last few months didn't happen, I was just day dreaming of what life will be like when I get back there. That was probably the best way I could cope with being in a was I did not believe in, thinking about home and what life will be like. While day dreaming you paint yourself such a pretty picture of what you are going to do with your life, how life is going to be when you get back. It is never what it seams....
Sometimes I wish i never came back