Military Resistance 10H2: the Cuffed Sleeves

7/31/2019 Military Resistance 10H2: the Cuffed Sleeves

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Military Resistance 10H2

Deeply Respected PlatoonSergeant Removed After

Command Sgt. Maj. SpottedThe Platoon Sergeant With

Cuffed Sleeves, A Violation OfUniform Standards

I Have Never Been MoreEmbarrassed And Ashamed Of My

Battalion And Brigade As I AmNow
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Soldiers Said They FeelDespondent, As Though Their

Leaders Do Not Care About ThemCommand Crackdown DevastatingTo Us

Sgt. 1st Class Mark Manthorne was relieved as platoon sergeant at Forward OperatingBase Tillman.

Although sergeants major are always responsible for upholding standards,Hutchison said, he acknowledged being influenced by the new back-to-basicspush from Army leadership as the length of deployments shrink.

Losing him has struck a devastating blow to our Platoon, soldier NattakitSittiwong wrote in an email.

We dont want to fight without him. We dont want such an honorable andincredible man to go down this way.

8.6.12 By Joe Gould. Army Times [Excerpts]


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Forward Operating Base Tillman is a place just six kilometers from the Pakistani borderin Paktika province, Afghanistan. Two platoons, an artillery unit and a handful of supportpersonnel occupy the rugged and tense outpost where troops have sporadically tradedfire over the Pakistani border.

FOB Tillman monitors a dynamic area where discipline matters, said Command Sgt.Maj. Wylie Hutchison, of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division.

You have to be on your A-game out there; and standards and discipline will get youthrough the day, he said.

But some troops say discipline was taken too far.

The first sergeant and a platoon sergeant were removed in July after Hutchison spottedthe platoon sergeant with cuffed sleeves, a violation of uniform standards.

The timing, weeks after a popular soldiers death, has damaged morale in the unit,

soldiers said.

They saw it as a blatant disregard for uniform standards, and they decided to relievehim, which was devastating to us, Spc. Jesse Venable, the platoon medic, said of hisformer platoon sergeant.

He really was the bedrock of who we are here. Hutchison, a self-described stickler onuniforms, said the cuffed sleeves were simply the final straw.

There had been a series of violations of uniform and hygiene standards on the FOBsince May, when B Company of the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, based in FortRiley, Kan., took over the outpost, he said in a July 27 interview with Army Times.

Although sergeants major are always responsible for upholding standards,Hutchison said, he acknowledged being influenced by the new back-to-basicspush from Army leadership as the length of deployments shrink.

The current sergeant major of the Army wants to get back to discipline, standards andthe basics, Hutchison said. You know thats how we operate and how we thrive.

Hutchison said reassigning the two noncommissioned officers was a tough decision butthe right one. With subordinate units in roughly 20 outposts, he said he has to be able totrust company- and platoon-level leaders.

People might ask if sleeves are a big deal, and I would say, Yeah, because itsan indication that what else arent they doing right? he said.

When I tell them something, Ive got to know that they can execute it. If I tell them threeor four times, I have to ask if this is really the right guy.

Troops at the outpost, named for U.S. football star Pat Tillman, who was killed inthe war zone by friendly fire, have exchanged fire with enemy fighters 30 timessince April, an International Security Assistance Force spokesman said.


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In the 10 months before, troops at the outpost fired four times over the border intoPakistan, heightening tensions between Pakistan and the U.S., according to pressaccounts.

The 1-28ths main mission is to train and mentor Afghan forces, and it is one of the

busiest battalions in the brigade, Hutchison said. They get after it, and were very proudof them, he said.

On July 3, Pfc. Cody O. Moosman, of B Companys 2nd Platoon, was killed by sniper firewhile on guard duty at an observation post overlooking the FOB. (Moosman, 24, ofPreston, Idaho, was posthumously promoted to specialist.)

Venable said he treated Moosman, who was known as a squared-away soldier and well-liked.

For a week, it didnt seem real, Venable said. When you walk by his room, by thememorial we put up for him or see his empty chair in the (dining facility), it was pretty

rough the first week or two.

Three weeks later, when Moosmans platoon sergeant, Sgt. 1st Class Mark Manthorne,was removed from his job, his soldiers took it hard.

Battalion 1st Sgt. Wayne Whetten also was removed.

Manthorne and Whetten each have been replaced and reassigned to new positions atthe same rank. Manthornes new job is on the battalion staff, and Whetten now works ina brigade command cell.

Neither Manthorne nor Whetten could be reached for comment.

In emails to Army Times, soldiers from 2nd Platoon described the bald and burlyManthorne, a 20-year Army veteran with five deployments, as incrediblyknowledgeable, a father figure and an anchor.

I have never been more embarrassed and ashamed of my Battalion and Brigadeas I am now, wrote a private first class, who asked not to be named, in a messageto Army Times.

SFC Man-thorne is perhaps one of the most experienced and caring (platoonsergeants) I have served under, not to mention unselfish and loyal.

Soldiers said they feel despondent, as though their leaders do not care aboutthem.

Everybodys morale is so low right now that its just impossible to look forwardto the work future and be proud of ourselves, soldier Anthony Rosado wrote inan email.

Losing him has struck a devastating blow to our Platoon, soldier NattakitSittiwong wrote in an email.


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We dont want to fight without him. We dont want such an honorable andincredible man to go down this way.

Soldiers said Manthornes discipline was not lax at all.

According to Rosado, Manthorne pushed himself and his soldiers. He alwaysworked himself to the fullest, Rosado wrote.

Hutchison, however, said on visits to the FOB that he repeatedly pointed out problems.

In May, soldiers were wearing an unauthorized patch.

Several weeks later, he saw soldiers who were not wearing required eyeprotection or long-sleeved tops.

Visiting with the division command sergeant major in late June, they spotted trashand urine-filled bottles.

We went up to one guard tower, and there was probably a weeks worth of trashup there, Hutchi-son said. I talked to the platoon sergeant, and he said, Thosewerent my guys. I was like, OK, really, thats your answer?

On the next trip, Hutchison gave Manthorne an on-the-spot correction for hiscuffed sleeves.

He said he decided July 1 to make a change.

For administrative reasons and in consideration of Moosmans death July 3, thecommand team waited three weeks.

Because of morale, and because they lost a brother in arms, we decided to wait,Hutchison said.

Manthorne and Whetten were already due to rotate out of their leadership positions, butthe moves came months earlier than scheduled.

Hutchison argued the decision to replace Whetten and Manthorne would ultimatelyimprove morale by ensuring soldiers safety.

I will promise you, if you talk to these kids a month from now, they will tell you they lovetheir leaders and theyre absolutely the right guys, he said. Every kid in the unit wants

to be the best, and theyll realize we made the right decision. The soldiers whocontacted Army Times would not be punished, Hutchison said, alluding to their right tofree speech.

Theyre entitled to it, he said. After all, thats what theyre fighting for. His death wasdeeply upsetting.


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AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS

Two New Zealand Soldiers Killed And Six

Wounded In Afghanistans BamyanProvince

5 Aug 2012 AAP

Tributes are flowing for two New Zealand soldiers killed in action in AfghanistansBamyan province.

Six wounded NZ soldiers, three of whom are in a serious condition, are being treated inmilitary hospitals.

Chief of Defence Force Lieutenant General Rhys Jones told a briefing in Auckland onSunday that one of the soldiers killed on Saturday was in an armoured vehicle hit by arocket while the other was shot by a rifle or a machine gun.

One died immediately and the other died in a helicopter while being evacuated.

Three of the wounded soldiers were seriously injured, but in a stable condition, and threeothers suffered moderate injuries.

The New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team had gone to the aid of local securityforces fighting suspected insurgents near a village south of Do Abe about 7pm NZT

(5pm AEST) on Saturday.

The insurgents moved into a building and the New Zealanders were asked to fire on thebuilding and secure the area.

They were attacked as they were moving to secure the high ground.

New Zealand has previously announced its intention to withdraw from Bamyan in 2013,a year earlier than intended. There were no plans to change the withdrawal date.

POLITICIANS REFUSE TO HALT THEBLOODSHED

THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THEWAR


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Resistance Action

August 05, 2012 RFE/RL, Inc.

Four Afghan intelligence officers have been killed and 16 injured in clashes with Taliban

militants in central Afghanistan.

Afghan provincial governor Habiba Sarabi said the Taliban had ambushed agents of theNational Directorate of Security -- the Afghan intelligence service -- during a searchoperation in Baghak village, Shiber district.

Several hours of gun battles ensued, in which four Afghans were killed.

It was immediately unclear whether any militants were killed.

IF YOU DONT LIKE THE RESISTANCEEND THE OCCUPATION

Several American-Funded BorderPolice Bases In Afghanistan HaveBeen Largely Abandoned Or Left

UnoccupiedMost Of The Facilities On Three Of TheFour Bases That It Inspected Were Either

Unoccupied Or Werent Used For TheIntended Purposes

A Well House At The Lal Por 1 Base

Was Being Used As A Chicken CoopJuly 29, 2012 By NATHAN HODGE, Wall Street Journal [Excerpts]

WASHINGTONInspectors from a U.S. government watchdog agency discovered thatseveral American-funded border police bases in Afghanistan have been largelyabandoned or left unoccupied, raising questions about the coming hand-over of securityduties to local forces.


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Among other findings, inspectors found that one base, Lal Por 2, wasnt being used byAfghan border forces because it had no water supply, a report due out Monday states.

A second, Nazyan, may soon be uninhabitable because of shoddy construction thatcaused sewage overflow.

All told, the new report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstructionfound most of the facilities on three of the four bases that it inspectedeach built tohouse 93 border police personnelwere either unoccupied or werent used for theintended purposes.

At issue is the construction of four Afghan border-police bases in eastern Nangarharprovince, a key region that borders Pakistans Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Theregion is home to a highway that forms a crucial military supply line and trade link to theAfghan capital.

The U.S. inspection work, carried out between January and July, found extensive

evidence of shoddy construction.

Leaking fuel lines on generators created fire hazards; drainpipes werent installed,causing water damage; and poorly installed doors wouldnt close.

In one case, a well house at the Lal Por 1 base was being used as a chicken coop,increasing the risk of sanitation and health issues, the report states.

The inspectors didnt examine whether the Afghan police units which were supposed tooccupy the facilities were performing their jobs elsewhere.

All told, the value of the construction contract for the four bases was nearly $19 million.

In a written response to a draft of the inspection report, the U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers, which awarded the base contract to Road & Roof Construction Co., anAfghan contractor, said it was working to fix the problems uncovered by inspectors.

But the Corps also said the precarious security in the country made it difficult for it toundertake spot checks on construction projects.

The report says the bases are located in extremely remote and predominatelyinaccessible sites.

Ahmad Jawaid Abdullah, an executive with Road & Roof Construction Co., said the firmwas aware of reports of minor deficiencies at sites, but added that most of the

problems were not due to construction, but rather poor facility maintenance.

Since the end of 2001, Congress has appropriated just under $90 billion forAfghanistans reconstruction, of which about $52 billion has been allocated towardbankrolling and building up Afghan security forces.


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SOMALIA WAR REPORTS

Government Forces Came Under Heavy

Ambush Attacks Launched From SeveralDirections By Al Shabab Militants

August 4, 2012 Shabelle Media Network

QANSAH-DEERE At least 18 people have died in heavy artillery clashes betweenIslamist rebels and Somali forces in Qansah-dhere district of Bay region, Witnesses andOfficials said on Saturday.

Reports suggested the two sides pounded each other after the forces allied to the

Somalias Transitional Federal government in the town came under heavy ambushattacks launched from several directions by Al shabab militants.

Somalis Demonstrate Against RegimeForces Looting And Robbing Citizens At

Night

Aug 4, 2012 Garowe Online

Hundreds protested in Mogadishus Huriwa district about a spate of robberies whichprotestors are claiming were committed by Somali forces, Garowe Online reports.

Protestors who spoke to local media said that the robberies are committed byTransitional Federal Government (TFG) troops who target stores, warehouses andvendors at night.

One protestor who spoke to local media said that the robberies are daily occurrence andhave ceased to stop even after formal complaints to government.

These robberies occur every night and shop owners return to their shops in the morning

to find their store has been raided, we have talked to officials in Mogadishu but it hasntstopped, said Mohamed Maalin.

Protestors were adamant that TFG forces were committing the robberies because theypatrol the markets of Mogadishu at night.

Who else could be robbing these vendors, these forces are the only people who travelat night and most are stationed near busy markets in Mogadishu, said Mr. Maalin.


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A majority of the protestors had closed their shops on Saturday to highlight their problemto Mogadishu residents and officials. However, this is the second protest by Mogadishushop owners in the past week and TFG Mogadishu officials have yet to comment on theproblem.

Just 30 kms west of Mogadishu in Afgoye, there has been reports of abuse and robbery

committed by TFG forces, so much so that TFG President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed visitedthe corridor three times since it was captured in June.

In the three visits to Afgoye, President Sharif met with community leaders, military andpolice officials to try to put an end to the violence and abuse.

In his last visit he warned top military officials in the town that he would hold themaccountable for the actions of the military stationed in Afgoye.

MILITARY NEWS

Syrian Regimes Combat ArmsAnd Order Of Battle Under

Severe Strain:

Syria Is Having Trouble KeepingIts Sophisticated AndMaintenance-Intensive Weapons

FunctioningRebels In Aleppo Claim To Have

Control Of A Total Of 14 T-72 And T-55 Tanks And Many Indirect-Fire

Weapons, Including Artillery PiecesAs Well As Mortars


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Months Of Sustained Combat Are No DoubtTaking A Heavy Toll On Tanks And Aircraft In

A Military That He Said Was Never Known

For MaintenanceAugust 3, 2012 By C. J. CHIVERS, The New York Times

With diplomatic efforts dead and the future of Syria playing out on the battlefield, manyof the Syrian governments most powerful weapons, including helicopter gunships,fighter jets and tanks, are looking less potent and in some cases like a liability for themilitary of President Bashar al-Assad.

Rebels have turned part of Mr. Assads formidable arsenal on his own troops.

Anti-Assad fighters on Wednesday shelled a military airport in the contested cityof Aleppo with captured weapons.

On Tuesday, rebels used commandeered Syrian Army tanks in a skirmish with Mr.Assads troops.

Perhaps even more worrying to Mr. Assad, his military has come to rely more heavily onequipment designed for a major battle with a foreign enemy, namely Israel, rather than aprotracted civil conflict with his own people.

Close observers of his military say Syria is having trouble keeping itssophisticated and maintenance-intensive weapons functioning.

The strain is likely to grow more acute as the government depends on helicoptergunships to extend its reach to parts of the country rendered impassable to logisticsconvoys and even armored vehicles by the rebels improvised bombs.

Analysts said Syrias fleet of Mi-25 Hind-D attack helicopters, which numbered 36at the start of the conflict, is insufficient to hold back rebels as the number offronts, from Aleppo and Idlib in the north to the suburbs of Damascus in the southand Hama and Homs in the center of the country, continues to proliferate.

Maintenance technicians are struggling to keep the machines aloft in an intensecampaign and in the searing heat and sand associated with summer desert war.

Estimates are that only half his fleet can be used at a given time, with somehelicopters cannibalized for spare parts and Mr. Assad dependent on suppliesfrom Russia.

This army is going to start breaking, said Jeffrey White, a former Defense IntelligenceAgency analyst now studying Syria for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Not the whole thing at once, but pieces of it will break.


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Mr. White said that by his estimates the Syrian military suffered nearly 1,100soldiers killed in July, and is losing more soldiers and officers to defections.

The loyalties of many commanders and units are suspect, he added, and monthsof sustained combat are no doubt taking a heavy toll on tanks and aircraft in a

military that he said was never known for maintenance.

Defections of government troops and seizures of armaments are also a growingproblem.

Rebels in Aleppo claim to have control of a total of 14 T-72 and T-55 tanks andmany indirect-fire weapons, including artillery pieces as well as mortars.

The tanks are driven by our members, and their specialty is driving tanks, thatswhat they did before they defected, said Bashir al-Haji, a Free Syrian Armycommander in Aleppo.

The tanks and artillery are important in our fight because they enable us to shell theregime from a distance.

More potent arms for the rebels and the strain on helicopters may help explainwhy the Syrian military recently began using L-39 trainer jets in and aroundAleppo, Syrias most heavily populated city.

Another explanation for the appearance of jets is that the Syrian military isfighting for Aleppo without enough artillery tubes, said Joseph Holliday, a formerAmerican intelligence officer who covers the war for the Institute for the Study ofWar, in Washington.

Rebel commanders routinely say that what they most need are antiaircraft weapons tothwart government aircraft, especially helicopters.

But even if the rebels have no missiles these aircraft are almost certainly a dwindlingasset, arms specialists who follow the Syrian conflict say.

An American government official who covers the war said that fewer than 20 ofthese aircraft were likely available to the Assad government on any given day, outof the 36 in the fleet.

Mr. Holliday, the former American intelligence officer, put the estimate of workingHind-Ds even lower. Assessing a max of 15 operational, he wrote by e-mail.

As backup attack gunships, Syria possesses a similarly sized fleet of Gazellehelicopters, a platform more suited for attacking armor than foot-mobile guerrillas, and amuch larger fleet of Mi-8 and Mi-17 utility helicopters, another Russian-made design.

Open-source estimates indicate Syria began its crackdown with 100 Mi-8s or Mi-17s,along with more than 30 Gazelles.


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Robert Hewson, a specialist in air-launched weapons at IHS Janes, noted that thepylons on the Mi-8 and Mi-17 helicopters can be fitted with many of the same Russian-made weapons carried by the Mi-25, including one of the most powerful pieces ofordnance that have been verified thus far in the conflict: 550-pound OFAB free-fallbombs.

Taken together, Syrias helicopters have been used in attacks with high-explosiverockets fired from pods, in the release of unguided bombs like the OFAB and possibly inat least one cluster-munitions strike. These are weapons commonly associated, in thepublics mind, with fixed-wing attack aircraft, including Syrias MIG 23s.

But the Mi-8 and Mi-17 helicopters have many other missions.

By early summer, rebel commanders and Western analysts said, many Syrianunits were largely confined to their garrisons. Some, as in Azaz, had beenprincipally resupplied by these utility helicopters -- a mission that demandedmany flight hours and diverted aircraft from ground-attack roles.

Mr. Holliday said that perhaps 60 of those helicopters were still in full-timeservice.

Two wild cards remain in the air-to-ground element of the conflict.

First, the analysts said, was the meaning of the recent use of Syrias ground-attack jets. This introduced a delivery system with a heavy payload and the abilityto frighten inexperienced guerrillas with low-level passes.

But that can be read as both an incremental move intended to increase thepressure on antigovernment forces and an indication that Syrias helicoptersquadrons are less robust than even several weeks ago.

If so, like the increased use of helicopters earlier this year as the anti-Assadfighters effective use of makeshift bombs spiked sharply upward, it could be asign that the Syrian military has fewer combat tools at its disposal than before,and fewer options for pushing its foes back.

That could augur a larger future role for Syrias fixed-wing fleet.

The second wild card lies in the rebels acquisition of more weapons able to downaircraft, especially helicopters. In an interview last month, a Syrian Mi-17 pilot who haddefected said that through June he and his peers did not worry about the anti-Assadforces, often referred to as the Free Syrian Army, possessing heat-seeking, shoulder-

fired antiaircraft missiles.

The principal worry, he said, was fire from RPG-7s, a shoulder-fired anti-armor weaponthat at short ranges can be effective against helicopters, too. (Such a system was usedlast August, American military officials said, to down an American Chinook helicopter inAfghanistan, killing all 38 people aboard.)

We knew that the Free Syrian Army didnt have antiaircraft missiles, he said. So weflew at an elevation higher than kilometer -- above the RPGs.


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In recent weeks there have been indications that the anti-Assad fighters are creepingtoward posing greater risks to the government helicopters.

One video, which analysts said was credible, showed a fighting group in Rastan withwhat appeared to be two-thirds of an SA-7 shoulder-fired, heat-seeking missile system.

NBC News reported this week that unnamed anti-Assad sources claimed to haveobtained as many as two dozen heat-seeking missiles via transit through Turkey. Theclaim has since been denied by other opposition members, though the Americangovernment official said that there were indications that rebels had apparently capturedmore SA-7 missile tubes and batteries from Syrian government stocks. The officialadded that as yet the essential grip stock required to fire the weapon had not been seen.

With the question of whether the anti-Assad forces have obtained functional antiaircraftmissile systems still unsettled, another question is not.

Many videos have shown fighting groups with what appears to be a growing

number of captured 12.7-millimeter, 14.5-millimeter and 23-millimeter machineguns -- all of which can be lethal to helicopters, and show the risks to Mr. Assad,whose own weapons have been increasingly turned against the forces that securehis fate.

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS


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At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh hadI the ability, and could reach the nations ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream ofbiting 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 theyoppose.

Frederick Douglass, 1852

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

Laotian Whore

Photograph by Mike Hastie. U.S. Army Dust-off helicopter Vietnam 1970. On the frontis painted: Laotian Whore

From: Mike HastieTo: Military Resistance NewsletterSent: August 02, 2012Subject: Laotian Whore


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Laotian Whore

A quick History 101 class in the art of U.S. Goonery.Subject: War in SyriaParticipants: Syrian rebel troops vs President Bashar Al-AsadsGovernment troops.

Goon plan: The U.S. Government supports both sides.That creates a pseudo civil war.Results: They beat the shit out of each other.This means U.S. soldiers dont have to kill as many people.It is proxy armies going at each other.After years of both sides killing each other,the country is destroyed beyond belief.Final outcome: The U.S. picks up the pieces and helps establisha government that supports their own goonery government.This is the number one play in the U.S. Empire playbook.Neat!Mike Hastie

Army Medic VietnamAugust 2, 2012

Photograph by Mike HastieU.S. Army Dust-off helicopter Vietnam 1970.

On the front is painted: Laotian Whore

Outcome of the war: One of the greatest liesin American history.58,000 American soldiers killed.300,000 American soldiers wounded.

More Vietnam veterans have committedsuicide than were killed during the war.Millions of Vietnamese, Laotian, andCambodian people killed by U.S. armaments.Lessons learned: NoneWhy: Because there is a shit load of moneyto be made off of these wars for profit,disguised as noble causes.The Art of Goonery is alive and well inthe United States of America.In order to understand this truth,your old belief system has to be executed.

That happened to me in a padded cell ofa psychiatric hospital in 1980, where somany truths are born.

Mike Hastie


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This Was The Public-AffairsCommittee, One Of The Villages

Revolutionary CouncilsAll Around Taftanaz, Amid The

Destruction, Rebel Councils Like ThisWere MeetingTwenty-Seven In AllEach Of Them Had Elected A Delegate

To Sit On The Citywide Council

Hakim acknowledged that in this revolution, we have to give to each as heneeds.

It was a phrase I heard many times, even from landowners and merchants whomight otherwise bristle at the revolutions egalitarian rhetoric they cannotignore that many on the front lines come from societys bottom rungs.

August 1, 2012 By Louis Proyect, The Unrepentant Marxist [Excerpts]

Today a commenter on my blog demanded to know the particularities of the rebelforces, (and) the classes they represent in Syria as if I were on the witness stand in a

criminal trial.

For the conspiracist left, the Syrian rebels are the latest version of UNITA in Angola orthe Nicaraguan contras.

How do they know this? Well, Turkey is providing aid to them and Hillary Clinton went toTurkey.

Thats all you really need to know. This, of course, is the leftist version of God said it, Ibelieve it, that settles it.

Fortunately, theres an article in the latest Harpers by Anand Gopal titled Welcome to

Free Syria that sheds some light on the living humanity that has risen up against theBaathist dictatorship.

Gopal, for what it is worth, has spoken at International Socialist Organization functionsnumerous times and for all I know may be a member. If so, they have coveredthemselves in glory by having one of their comrades making such a powerfulcontribution.


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The article is behind a paywall but this longish excerpt should be sufficient to motivateyou to get the magazine and read it in full.

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

Ibrahim Matar served in the army unit that put down the early protests in Daraa.

He didnt believe the governments assertions that the protests were organized by AlQaeda, but he felt it was too dangerous to desert.

When he finished his service, in November 2011, he came home to a transformedTaftanaz: ordinary people were running the town.

It was like a renaissance, he said, a new look at life.

During the massacre, he fought alongside the rebels and then abandoned the town atnight.

When he returned to his scorched home, he headed straight for his prized library.

I saw the burned paper, he told me, and tears came to my eyes. He had beenstudying for a masters degree in English translation and had maintained the library foryears, collecting books by Shakespeare, Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett. Some sayGodot is God, he said, but I say he is hope. Our revolution is now waiting for Godot.

Matar brought me to a mosque that sits next to one of the mass graves. Inside, therewere heaps of clothes, boxes of Turkish biscuits, and crates of bottled water.

An old bald man with a walrus mustache studied a ledger with intensity while agroup of old men around him argued about how much charity they could demand

from Taftanazs rich to rebuild the town.

This was the public-affairs committee, one of the villages revolutionary councils.

The mustached man slammed his hands on the floor and shouted, This is arevolution of the poor! The rich will have to accept that.

He turned to me and explained, Weve gone to every house in town and determinedwhat they needhe pointed at the ledgerand compared it with what donations comein. Everything gets recorded and can be seen by the public.

All around Taftanaz, amid the destruction, rebel councils like this were meeting

twenty-seven in all, and each of them had elected a delegate to sit on the citywidecouncil.

They were a sign of a deeper transformation that the revolution had wrought inSyria:

Bashar al-Assad once subdued small towns like these with an impressive apparatus ofsecret police, party hacks, and yes-men; now such control was impossible without anoccupation.


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The Syrian army, however, lacked the numbers to control the hinterlandsit entered,fought, and moved on to the next target. There could be no return to the status quo, itseemed, even if the way forward was unclear.

In the neighboring town of Binnish, I visited the farmers council, a body of about

a thousand members that set grain prices and adjudicated land disputes.

Its leader, an old man Ill call Abdul Hakim, explained to me that before the revolution,farmers were forced to sell grain to the government at a price that barely covered thecost of production.

Following the uprising, the farmers tried to sell directly to the town at almost double theformer rates. But locals balked and complained to the citywide council, which thenmandated a return to the old priceswhich has the farmers disgruntled, but Hakimacknowledged that in this revolution, we have to give to each as he needs.

It was a phrase I heard many times, even from landowners and merchants who

might otherwise bristle at the revolutions egalitarian rhetoric they cannotignore that many on the front lines come from societys bottom rungs.

At one point in March, the citywide council enforced price controls on rice andheating oil, undoing, locally, the most unpopular economic reforms of theprevious decade.

We have to take from the rich in our village and give to the poor, Matar told me.He had joined the Taftanaz student committee, the council that plans protests anddistributes propaganda, and before April 3 he had helped produce the townsnewspaper, Revolutionary Words.

Each week, council members laid out the text and photos on old laptops, sneaked thefiles into Turkey for printing, and smuggled the finished bundles back into Syria.

The newspaper featured everything from frontline reporting to disquisitions onrevolutionary morality to histories of the French Revolution. (This is not an intellectualsrevolution, Matar said. This is a popular revolution. We need to give people ideas,theory.)

Most opposition towns elect a delegate to one of the fifty or so district-widecouncils across the country.

At the next level up is the Syrian Revolution General Command, the closest thing to a

nationwide revolutionary institution. It claims to represent 70 percent of the district-widecouncils. The SRGC coordinates protests and occasionally gives the movement politicaldirection: activists in Taftanaz told me that they sometimes followed its suggestionsconcerning their publications.

The SRGC sends representatives to the Syrian National Council, the expatriate bodybased in Turkey that has been Washingtons main interlocutor, but the relationshipbetween the two organizations is complicated, and many in Taftanaz expressed theirdisdain for the SNC.


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Who are they? Omar asked me. What have they done? They are busy talking toforeigners but they dont know the situation inside Syria.

I asked Elizabeth OBagy, an analyst who studies the Syrian opposition at theInstitute for the Study of War, about the U.S. approach to these two different rebel

organizations.

She said she doubted the usefulness of supporting a group like the SNC, whichon paper pays tribute to all the Western ideals we hold dear but has absolutely nolegitimacy on the ground.

DO YOU HAVE A FRIEND OR RELATIVE IN MILITARYSERVICE?

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DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK


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Troops Invited:Comments, arguments, articles, and letters from service menand women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Write to Box126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 or [email protected]: Name, I.D., withheld unless yourequest publication. Same address to unsubscribe.

Assad Filth Slaughter MorePalestinians:

The Tyrants Army Fired SeveralMortar Shells On The Heart Of The

Yarmouk Refugee Camp InDamascus;

At Least 20 People Were Killed And

Over 70 InjuredThe Free Syrian Army (FSA) Has NoPresence Whatsoever At The Camp

A few weeks ago, a bus carrying more than 20 cadets of the Palestine LiberationArmy was abducted by the so-called Shabbeha or pro-regime thugs in centralSyria.

The bus was taken to a nearby glen were all the soldiers and their driver weresummarily executed.

04/08/2012 by Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem, Occupied Palestine

On Thursday, shortly before the Iftar meal, when Muslims break their day-long Ramadanfast, the Syrian army fired several mortar shells on the heart of the Yarmouk refugeecamp in Damascus.

At least 20 people were killed and over 70 injured in the random shelling.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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The Free Syrian Army (FSA) has no presence whatsoever at the camp as the campsleadership maintained strict neutrality in the 18-month internecine showdown betweenthe minority Alawite regime and its mainly Sunni opponents.

A few weeks ago, a bus carrying more than 20 cadets of the Palestine Liberation Armywas abducted by the so-called Shabbeha or pro-regime thugs in central Syria.

The bus was taken to a nearby glen were all the soldiers and their driver were summarilyexecuted.

It is not exactly known how many Palestinians have been so far killed in Syria since theoutbreak of the revolution against the Bashar el-Assad regime in the early 2011.However, conservative estimates put the number at a few hundreds.

The regime denies any responsibility for the murderous killings and accusesarmed gangs of committing the atrocities.

However, Palestinian and third-party sources affirm the responsibility of the

regime for the killing.

This writer has contacted Ahmed, a resident of the Yarmouk Refugee Camp, whoholds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from a Western University and asked him who he thoughtstood behind the killing of the Palestinians in Syria.

The man, who asked for anonymity for his own safety said the following:

What kind of question is this? Everyone knows the regime and its thugs arebehind the killing. I have no iota of doubt that the murderers and cutthroats of theregime did the killing. Do you think those who wouldnt spare their own peoplewould spare the Palestinians?

I further asked him But what interests does the regime have in deliberatelymurdering the Palestinians?

He said: It is the sectarian dimension. The sectarian regime, which relies on thesmall Alawite minority for its survival, thinks that most Palestinian refugees inSyria are sympathetic to and supportive of the opposition; hence it is turning itsguns at our people.

I asked him further is this true?

He said well I havent carried out a scientific opinion survey to establish the facts in this

regard. But if you ask me about my opinion, I think the vast bulk of Palestinians herehate the regime and hope the FSA will finish it off sooner than later.

None the less Ahmed stressed several times that, officially and practically, thePalestinians of Syria maintain strict neutrality in the bloody confrontation betweenthe regime and the freedom fighters.

In fact, not only the Palestinian refugees in Syria are maintaining neutrality in the currentcrisis in Syria.


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Nearly all Palestinian factions, including Fatah, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad aswell as the Palestinian Authority (PA) are also maintaining neutrality although alarge majority of Palestinians in Occupied Palestine have their hearts decidedly onthe side of the mostly Sunni freedom fighters struggling to rid Syria of more than50 years of dictatorship and tyranny under the Assad dynasty.

I recently asked one prominent Hamas leader why Hamas was maintaining strictneutrality in the conflict in Syria although it was amply clear which side has the moralhigh -ground.

He told me this It is not that we are morally callous and insensitive. We have eyes andears and hearts and minds and know well what is going on in Syria. We just dont wantto give the regime a pretext to massacre the Palestinians in Syria.

Yet, the regime and its supporters seem indifferent to the fate and lives of Palestiniansas is evident from the latest massacre at the Yarmouk refugee camp.

A few weeks ago, Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Islamic movement in 1948-Palestine led a demonstration in northern Palestine in solidarity with the Syrianpeople.

Salah was subsequently denounced as Zionist, Wahhabi, and agent of Americaand Israel by the pro-Iranian media and Hezbullah mouthpieces.

The Sheikh, who spent the prime of his life defending the Aqsa mosque againstZionist encroachment and who languished for years in Zionist jails suddenlybecame a Zionist and Wahhabi just because he dared to speak up against thegenocidal killing of the Syrian people at the hands of a ruthless regime thatmurders innocent, women and children as if they were flies not human beings.

Similarly, in most mosques in Occupied Palestine, special supplication prayers arerecited for the Syrian people at the end of the nightly Tarawih prayers.

I really hate to invoke the sectarian dimension with regarding to the wanton,pornographic killings taking place in Syria and Iraq.

In the latter, where the countrys spiritual (Shiite leadership ) e.g. Ayatollah Sistani,issued a series of Fetwas or religious edicts prohibiting followers from putting up anyresistance to the invading American troops, Palestinian refugees in the hundreds havebeen abducted, tortured and subsequently murdered by Shiite militias, mainly the MahdiArmy of Mugtada al-Sadr and other pro-government militias.

The estimated 40,000 Palestinians living in Iraq before the ousting of Saddam wererepeatedly warned to leave the country or else they will be killed by Shia militias.

More than 1000 Palestinians are believed to have died at the hands of Shia militias since2003, including at least 500 from the Baladiat area of Baghdad.

Many of the victims were tortured with electric drills before they died.


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Interestingly, the Spiritual Shiite leadership in Iraq and Iran didnt utter a single word incondemnations of the murderous killings.

Instead, they continued to invoke the fight against Zionism and American imperialism asif the non-existing confrontation with Zionism and American imperialism justifiedmurdering Palestinians and using electrical drills to make big holes into their heads to

make sure they die a painful death.

Two weeks from now, on the last Friday of the Holy Month of Ramadan. Thousands ofShiites all over the world will mark the International al-Quds day, which was designatedby the late Ayatollah Khomeini in solidarity with Palestine.

We hope and pray that our Shiite brothers will exercise some soul searching on thisoccasion and see for themselves the utter contradictions between highlighting theirsolidarity with the Palestinian people and their just cause on the one hand and on theother hand the barbarian sectarian killings of Palestinians and Syrians at the hands ofShiites killers who make the obscene claim that they are doing the killings for the sake ofPalestine and in order to expedite the fight against Israel, America and the

Wahhabis.!!!

We Palestinians have no special enmity toward Shiites as Shiites.

We are not the Almighty to hold them accountable for their beliefs and practices. This isGods business, not our business.

However, the Shiite leaderships should never bring itself to thinking that we will beneutral between the victims and the murderers, especially when the victims happen tobe our own brothers in both the ethnical and religious sense.

Chicken-Brained RussianDictatorship Grinds On With

The Pussy Riot Trial:Judge Refuses To Allow 10

Defence Witnesses:In One Week, Syrova Has RefusedTo Hear Nearly All The Objections

Brought By The Defence


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One Objection Claimed That ExactlyThe Same Spelling Errors Were Found In

Several Witness Statements, ImplyingThey Were Falsified

Pussy Riot band members: from left, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevichand Maria Alyokhina in court. Photograph: Aleshkovsky Mitya/Corbis

3 August 2012 By Miriam Elder in Moscow, Guardian News and Media Limited

By the end of the first week of Pussy Riots trial, everyone in the shabby Moscowcourthouse was tired.

Guards, armed with submachine guns, grabbed journalists and threw them out of theroom at will.

The judge, perched in front of a shabby Russian flag, refused to look at the defence.

And the police dog a 100lb black Rottweiler no longer sat in the corner she hadoccupied since the start of Russias trial of the year, but barked and foamed at the mouthas if she were in search of blood.

The trial of the three band members, jailed since March after performing a punk prayer

against Vladimir Putin in Moscows main cathedral, has been about more than thecharges brought against them formally, hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.

In five days of testimony, lawyers and witnesses have laid bare the stark dividethat has emerged in Russian society: one deeply conservative and accepting of astate that uses vague laws and bureaucracy to control its citizens, the other liberalbordering on anarchist and beginning to fight against that state with any means itcan.


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The court is dominated by a glass cage that holds the three women Maria Alyokhina,who has emerged as their unofficial spokeswoman; Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, whosechiselled features have made her the bands unofficial face; and YekaterinaSamutsevich, who sits in a corner of the cage looking every bit the disgruntled punk.

After five days sitting in the cage, some days for 10 hours at a time, the women appearexhausted.

Violetta Volkova, one of their lawyers, said they were being tortured denied foodand adequate sleep.

After a week of being dismissed and lectured by the judge, she could no longerhide her anger. On Friday, as the judge, Marina Syrova, denied yet anotherdefence objection, Volkova began to shout.

Syrova, her glasses forever perched perfectly in the middle of her nose, answeredtartly: Youre losing the frames of dignity.

Those frames long havent existed here, Volkova replied, seething.

According to Pussy Riots lawyers, Russia has revived the Soviet-era tradition of theshow trial with its case against the group.

Even in Soviet times, in Stalins times, the courts were more honest than this one,lawyer Nikolai Polozov shouted in court.

Outside, during a rare break, he explained: This is one of the most shameful trials inmodern Russia. In Soviet times, at least they followed some sort of procedure.

In one week, Syrova has refused to hear nearly all the objections brought by thedefence.

One objection claimed that exactly the same spelling errors were found in severalwitness statements, implying they were falsified.

The prosecution was allowed to call all its witnesses, mainly people who were inside thechurch at the time of the performance or who had viewed a video of it on YouTube. Theyanswered questions like: What does your Orthodox faith mean to you?, Was thewomens clothing tight? and What offended you about their balaclavas?

One witness said she heard music during the bands performance in the Cathedral

of Christ the Saviour, although footage shown in court showed the women singingwith no live instruments.

The music was added later to their viral video clip, Virgin Mary, Chase Putin Out!

What kind of music did you hear? asked the defence. It wasnt classical and it wasntOrthodox, the witness replied.


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The defence, meanwhile, tried to call 13 witness, including opposition leaderAlexey Navalny and celebrated novelist Lyudmila Ulitskaya.

Syrova only allowed them to call three.

The prosecution launched the questioning of all its witnesses with the same

question: Are you an Orthodox believer?

When the defence tried to ask the same question of one of its three witnesses,Syrova shouted: Question stricken.

The defence knows they are fighting a losing battle in a judicial system that is notoriouslypoliticised.

But the media battle remains.

Pyotr Verzilov, Tolokonnikovas husband, has spent the trial perched in the seat closestto his wifes cage. He tweets furiously, and constantly checks how often his message is

spread.

On Friday, three men climbed on to a ledge across from the courtroom windows,wearing white, purple and green balaclavas and shouted Freedom to PussyRiot!. There have been reports of imitation stunts carried out in other cities inRussia.

At first, after the (anti-Putin) protests started in December, the authorities got scaredthat they had lost control, Polozov said. Now theyve recovered and have started toreact and the trial against Pussy Riot is the clear first step.

Every day as the trial begins, dozens of journalists gather on the stairs outside the court,

repeating a tradition launched with the second trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oiltycoon and Putin foe, which was held in the same room.

Amid the crush stands Samutsevichs father and Alyokhinas mother, Natalya.

My daughter and I had very different views about politics, Alyokhina said. But this trialis bringing them closer.

Putin said this week that the women should not be judged too harshly. They face up toseven years in jail if convicted but their lawyers took Putins comments as a signal thatthey would not receive the full sentence. A verdict is expected next week.

MORE:

50 Percent Of Moscow ResidentsBelieve The Three Women Should Be

Released


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Putins Approval Ratings In MoscowHave Dropped To 38 Percent

July 30, 2012 By Alexander Billet, Socialist Worker [Excerpt]

A Paris art display was thrown together and unveiled dedicated to the group.

Red Hot Chili Peppers Anthony Kiedis recently performed wearing a homemade PussyRiot T-shirt, and the whole band has sent personal messages to the women in jail. FranzFerdinands members have also spoken out during their own shows.

The support for Pussy Riot among musicians and artists isnt coming out of nowhere.The same day as their most recent day in court, a poll was released from the LevadaCenter, a sociological research NGO.

The poll revealed that 50 percent of Moscow residents believe the three women should

be released, while 36 percent supported prosecution. Meanwhile, Putins approvalratings in Moscow have dropped to 38 percent.

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