Military Resistance 9J6
“Just 34% Of U.S. Veterans Who Served In The Military After The 9/11 Attacks Say The Combat In Iraq And Afghanistan Was Worth It”
“About 6-In-10 Said The United States Should Pay Less Attention To Problems Overseas And Instead Concentrate On Problems At Home”
“About Half (51%) Of Post-9/11 Veterans Say That The Use Of Military Force To Fight Terrorism Creates Hatred That Breeds More Terrorism”
[Thanks to Sandy Kelson, Veteran & Military Resistance Organization; Michael Letwin, New York City Labor Against The War & Military Resistance Organization; Alan Stolzer, Military Resistance Organization & Felicity Arbuthnot, who sent this in. Felicity Arbuthnot writes: “You’ve surely seen this, but in case. It looks remarkably like two in three soldiers speaking truth to power. Mutiny next?”]
10/5/2011 BY Aliyah Shahid, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER & MSNBC.com
America’s wars have become so unpopular that many of the nation’s veterans don’t support them.
Just 34% of U.S. veterans who served in the military after the 9/11 attacks say the combat in Iraq and Afghanistan was worth it, according to a Pew Research Center poll released Wednesday.
That number is slightly above the 28% of the general public who say the wars are worth fighting.
About 6-in-10 said the United States should pay less attention to problems overseas and instead concentrate on problems at home.
About half (51 percent) of post-9/11 veterans say that the use of military force to fight terrorism creates hatred that breeds more terrorism; 40 percent say it is the best way to defeat terrorism.
Approximately 4,500 troops have died in Iraq and about 1,700 in Afghanistan.
Overall, 16 percent of post-9/11 veterans report they were seriously injured while serving in the military, and most of the injuries were combat-related.
Forty-seven percent say they know and have served with someone who was killed while in the military.
While an overwhelming majority -- 96% -- of the vets were "proud" of their service, the combat has taken its toll as service members return to civilian life, the survey revealed.
A sizable 44% said the transition has been difficult, compared to 25% of vets surveyed from previous eras.
To top it off, a whopping 84% of the vets believe the rest of America has little or no understanding of the problems faced by the military.
The survey was taken July 28 to Sept. 15 with 712 military vets and 2,003 people from the general public polled.
MORE:
87% Tell New York Daily News Poll:
“Time To Get Out” Of Iraq And Afghanistan
[The New York Daily News is a working-class readership morning paper, sized for subway and bus reading, and editorially tending to the right. That makes the poll results below highly significant. T]
10/5/2011 NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Poll Results
Overall, do you think the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are worth fighting?
Yes. We need to be there. 10%
No. Time to get out! 87%
I don’t know. 3%
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 and economic injustice, 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
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
Two Foreign Occupation “Servicemembers” Killed Somewhere Or Other In Afghanistan:
Nationality Not Announced
October 9, 2011 Reuters
Two foreign servicemembers died following an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan Saturday.
‘He Didn’t Hesitate’
Airborne Medic Jim Butz Dies A Hero In Afghanistan
Spc. James A. Butz
10/3/2011By KEVIN NEVERS, Chesterton Tribune
Jim Butz didn’t hesitate.
When two Marines on a patrol in the Helmand Province in Afghanistan were hit last week — probably by an improvised explosive device (IED) — Butz, a medic with the 82nd Airborne Division, rushed to their aid.
And was himself struck by an IED.
Butz, a 2009 graduate of Chesterton High School, a football player, a wrestler, the beloved son of John Jr. and MaryJane Butz, brother of Will and John, died of his wounds on Thursday, Sept. 28.
He was 21.
Jim’s father, John Jr., told the Chesterton Tribune today that the U.S. Army is still investigating the circumstances of his son’s death but, as he’s been told, Jim’s platoon of 24 — an element of the 1st Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division — was working in support of a Special Forces detachment negotiating with local villages.
At some point the patrol had dismounted and two members of Marine Recon, tasked to Jim’s unit, walked ahead for a reconnaissance, alert to the possibility of IEDs as they’d been reported in the area.
“They walked up, they walked back, they didn’t find anything,” John said. “Then they walked back up again and there was an explosion and the two Marines went down. Jimmy didn’t hesitate.
He ran out to give aid and a second blast went off. He was killed in the second explosion. All three died at the same time.”
“It was a medic’s worst nightmare,” John said. “That’s what medics do. They help people under fire.”
This morning John remembered his son. “He was pretty outgoing. He had the gift of gab. He always had a lot of friends around him. Jimmy was a leader. He was the instigator. He was a happy, fun kid. He was full of energy.”
Jim had his passions. “The last couple of years it was the military,” John said. “Before that it was football and wrestling. Before that it was soccer.”
In fact Jim missed his senior year with the Trojans—he was a defensive lineman—after being injured. “He couldn’t play football. He couldn’t wrestle. That really hit him. He was on crutches his last year.”
What Jim did do, though, was take a medical class. “He’d heard there was a bunch of girls in the class and he signed up for it. They learned physical therapy, rode with ambulances.”
Then, on graduating CHS, Jim enlisted, John said. “He made up his mind early to go into the military. I don’t really know why. No one else in the family had gone into the military.” John thinks now that it may have been his son’s strong streak of independence, his desire “to do it on his own,” to make his own way in the world.
Jim’s decision, on the other hand, to jump out of airplanes—to wear the maroon beret of Airborne—may have had something to do with John’s own skydiving experiences. “I parachuted when I was young. I think he was trying to impress me. That’s the reason he joined Airborne.”
John admits to having been disappointed when Jim opted for the military instead of college—“I had a college fund set up for him. He had the brains, he had the ability, he was very smart”—but he saw his son blossom as a soldier. “Jim really liked what he was doing. He thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s kind of a Spartan lifestyle but he had his act together. He had a plan for himself. He had objectives and he was working to achieve them.”
“He’d bought himself a Ranger and just paid it off,” John said. “He was so thrilled and proud. He was putting aside money for himself for the future.”
And when John last spoke with his son, Jim was “talking about re-enlisting. He was looking at his options. He wanted to get through LPN training. That was his overall goal, to become a registered nurse. That was his plan.”
Spc. James A. Butz didn’t hesitate. He died doing his job, giving succor, acting selflessly. He died a hero.
“Jim always wanted to be the star of the football team,” John recalled fondly. “He wasn’t but he wanted to be. But they’re all heroes. All the guys who go over there.”
John and MaryJane will celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary this week. “We have a good family and we’re looking forward to another 25 years. But it’s hard to get used to. We’re so proud of Jim.”
The last thing John told the Tribune this morning is this: “Please let everyone know how thankful we are to the community. People have really been nice, in the community, at work. I work at Mittal, MaryJane works at Lighthouse Place. The kindness and support mean so much to us.”
GOOD ADVICE:
PACK UP
GO HOME
10.3.11: US soldiers walk towards their base in Kuschamond, Paktika province, last month. (AFP Photo/Johannes Eisele)
MILITARY NEWS
THIS IS HOW OBAMA BRINGS THEM HOME:
ALL HOME NOW, ALIVE
The remains of Lance Cpl. Frankie Watson at McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base in Blount County, Tenn., Oct. 1, 2011. Dozens of family members and friends were present for the arrival of Lance Cpl. Watson’s remains at the base. Lance Cpl. Watson was shot and killed Sept. 24 while serving in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/The Knoxville News Sentinel, Adam Brimer)
POLITICIANS CAN’T BE COUNTED ON TO HALT THE BLOODSHED
THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THE WARS
Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet:
The Virus Has Resisted Multiple Efforts To Remove It:
“We Keep Wiping It Off, And It Keeps Coming Back,”
“The Specialists Don’t Know Exactly How Far The Virus Has Spread”
Photo courtesy of Bryan William Jones
October 7, 2011 By Noah Shachtman, Wired.com [Excerpts]
A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones.
The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military’s Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source.
But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech’s computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military’s most important weapons system.
“We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” says a source familiar with the network infection, one of three that told Danger Room about the virus.
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“We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.”
Military network security specialists aren’t sure whether the virus and its so-called “keylogger” payload were introduced intentionally or by accident; it may be a common piece of malware that just happened to make its way into these sensitive networks.
The specialists don’t know exactly how far the virus has spread.
But they’re sure that the infection has hit both classified and unclassified machines at Creech.
That raises the possibility, at least, that secret data may have been captured by the keylogger, and then transmitted over the public internet to someone outside the military chain of command.
Since President Obama assumed office, a fleet of approximately 30 CIA-directed drones have hit targets in Pakistan more than 230 times; all told, these drones have killed more than 2,000 suspected militants and civilians, according to the Washington Post.
More than 150 additional Predator and Reaper drones, under U.S. Air Force control, watch over the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.
American military drones struck 92 times in Libya between mid-April and late August. And late last month, an American drone killed top terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki — part of an escalating unmanned air assault in the Horn of Africa and southern Arabian peninsula.
The lion’s share of U.S. drone missions are flown by Air Force pilots stationed at Creech, a tiny outpost in the barren Nevada desert, 20 miles north of a state prison and adjacent to a one-story casino.
In a nondescript building, down a largely unmarked hallway, is a series of rooms, each with a rack of servers and a “ground control station,” or GCS. There, a drone pilot and a sensor operator sit in their flight suits in front of a series of screens. In the pilot’s hand is the joystick, guiding the drone as it soars above Afghanistan, Iraq, or some other battlefield.
Some of the GCSs are classified secret, and used for conventional warzone surveillance duty.
The GCSs handling more exotic operations are top secret.
None of the remote cockpits are supposed to be connected to the public internet. Which means they are supposed to be largely immune to viruses and other network security threats.
But time and time again, the so-called “air gaps” between classified and public networks have been bridged, largely through the use of discs and removable drives.
In late 2008, for example, the drives helped introduce the agent.btz worm to hundreds of thousands of Defense Department computers.
The Pentagon is still disinfecting machines, three years later.
Use of the drives is now severely restricted throughout the military.
But the base at Creech was one of the exceptions, until the virus hit.
Predator and Reaper crews use removable hard drives to load map updates and transport mission videos from one computer to another. The virus is believed to have spread through these removable drives. Drone units at other Air Force bases worldwide have now been ordered to stop their use.
In the meantime, technicians at Creech are trying to get the virus off the GCS machines.
It has not been easy.
At first, they followed removal instructions posted on the website of the Kaspersky security firm. “But the virus kept coming back,” a source familiar with the infection says. Eventually, the technicians had to use a software tool called BCWipe to completely erase the GCS’ internal hard drives. “That meant rebuilding them from scratch” — a time-consuming effort.
The Air Force declined to comment directly on the virus.
However, insiders say that senior officers at Creech are being briefed daily on the virus.
“It’s getting a lot of attention,” the source says. “But no one’s panicking. Yet.”
Dozens Of U.S. Paratroopers Hospitalized After Parachute Jump During Mock Battle Goes Horrifically Wrong:
13 Paratroopers Suffered Head, Spine And Pelvic Injuries During The Training Exercise:
“The Military Said That They Would Not Be Staging An Inquiry Into What Happened Because The Injury Rate Was “Acceptable”
7th October 2011 By Allan Hall, Daily Mail
Dozens of U.S. Army paratroopers have been hurt during a massive airborne drop in Germany.
Sixteen of the 47 injured men are still in hospital, two of them in intensive care after the jump involving 1,000 soldiers went terribly wrong.
They suffered head, spine and pelvic injuries.
The exercise pitted soldiers from the Vicenza, Italy-based 173rd Airborne Brigade in a mock-battle scenario with Slovakian soldiers and American troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team over the Hohenfels training area in Bavaria, southern Germany.
It is unclear what precisely happened to cause the numerous injuries.
Most of the injuries occurred during the first wave of the morning drop, which involved about 650 soldiers.
Officers at the clinic where the soldiers were treated said some of the injuries appeared related to parachutes drifting into nearby trees.
Polish troops also took part in the exercise but none of them were hurt.
The victims suffered a variety of broken bones and spinal injuries and every one of them required hospital treatment.
They were ferried to a local hospital in a fleet of ambulances.
A German civilian who witnessed the drop told Radio Bavaria: ‘I’ve never seen so many parachutes in the sky. It was incredible sight, but I had no inkling that anything was wrong. I didn’t see any chutes tangled or men appearing to drop too fast.’
But the military said that they would not be staging an inquiry into what happened because the injury rate was “acceptable”.
Civilian spokeswoman for the Joint multinational Training Command, which is under U.S. Army command, Denver Makle, said as the numbers injured ‘was within expected margins’ an investigation was not necessary.
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