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 5.8.11Dust 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 RESISTANCEEND 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 ResistanceSent: May 06, 2011Subject: 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 hasdifferent opinions,the lies die a tormenting death.What you have left is the corpseof your old belief system.Betrayal forces you to see the real enemy.What you are is the survivor of all the liesthat took you to Vietnam in the beginning.Freedom forces you to roll over in your grave.

Mike HastieU.S. Army MedicVietnam 1970-71May 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 HastieU.S. Army MedicVietnam 1970-71December 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 DAYNOT 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: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXTo: contact@militaryproject.org Subject: Interested in your over all missionDate: 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,

TFor Military Resistance Organization

#1

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

#2Information 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.orgBox 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 waivedCivilians @ $25Students/Unemployed @ $10Civilian/Military Prisoners @ Dues Waived

Comments:

Military Resistance: Contact@militaryproject.orgBox 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.orgBox 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 WarActive 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 1262576 BroadwayNew York, N.Y.

10025-5657

Military Resistance Looks Even Better Printed OutMilitary 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.