LOST FREEDOM

What Noble Cause?  Vietnam Combat Veteran 
Not Welcome at Vietnam War Memorial

Jozef Hand-Boniakowski

   I joined seven Vermont bus loads of concerned United States citizens in converging on the nation's capital, Washington D.C. on Saturday, September 24, 2005.  We endured twenty-two hours on a bus which afforded little opportunity for sleep and twelve hours on our feet in solidarity with the multitude protesting George W. Bush's illegal war on Iraq.  It was a tiring day, made so in large part by standing in place for two-and-a-half hours at the corner of Constitution Avenue and K Streets as the feeder marches converged on the rally site nearby.  Wave after wave of people streamed by as we awaited our turn to step off into the march.  We were standing at the corner where Camp Casey was established and the Veterans For Peace were gathering.  More than one-quarter-million people had come to Mordor to say, "Stop the war!  We've had enough".  I joined hundreds and hundreds of Veterans For Peace (VFP), Military Families Speak Out, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and the Gold Star Mothers for Peace in being the lead contingent of the march.  We marched three-and-a-half miles through the streets of D.C. passing the institutions and their immense buildings that make war profitable.  We passed in front of the White House where we expressed the people's growing displeasure with this regime.  In no uncertain terms we let the occupant of the People's House know that impeachment is in the wind.  

One of my veteran brothers from Vermont, a Vietnam combat veteran burdened with PTSD and unable to stay in one place for very long headed off to pay his respects at the Vietnam War Memorial.  Upon arriving at the Vietnam Memorial he held his VFP flag with both hands and gazed at the black granite wall.  Tears filled his eyes as he looked at the myriad of names while holding the dove-on-helmet VFP flag in his hands.  No sooner had the tears flowed then he was ordered to put the flag down.  Not being easily intimidated this former G.I.questionedthe D.C. authority on the rationale for having to remove his flag.  He was then told he had to leave or be arrested.  This Vietnam combat veteran who was sent to kill others in Vietnam under the pretense of protecting the American way of life was now being threatened with incarceration for practicing it!  

The U.S. system inculcates obedience to the State.  It indoctrinates children from a very early age in the schools to parrot the Pledge of Allegiance.  The words of the National Anthem sung at sporting events state that we are "the land of the free and the home of the brave."  However, the free are not those confined to paying their respects to fallen comrades within the narrow parameters as defined by the State.  Telling my Vietnam combat veteran friend how he can mourn is not living in the land of the free.  His resistance, however, is testament to our still being in the home of brave.  

The Noble Cause of the People

George W. Bush says that one's service to one's country is a "noble cause", with the sacrifice of one's life being the highest offering.  But why is one's service to one's country not noble enough to merit being able to pay homage to the war dead in one's own chosen way?  Why is dying in Bush's war, the so-called noble cause, not worthy of visibility as the dead return home under secrecy and the cover of darkness?  Why are the  dead of Bush's "noble cause" hidden from view the way that the executioner's face is always well hidden?  Bush's "noble cause" perversely requires that the United States and Iraqi dead and maimed be hidden from public view.  Why do the United States people allow this administration to callously use the dead for their own political purposes?   How many names will there be on the yet-to-be-built Iraq war memorial?  How many names on the Afghanistan war memorial?  The future Iran war memorial?  The future Syria war memorial?  The next and ad-infinitum war memorial?  Can the United States of America exist without waging some war, some place in the world, all of the time?  Has perpetual war become a defining parameter of the United States?  Is war a necessary component for neo-liberalism's survival?  Someday, the peoples of the world will put up a memorialto the fallen victims of United States imperialism.  How many acres and acres of marble walls would that take?  How many tens-of-millions of names would there be on this wall?  How many native American names?  How many African American names?  How many Southeast Asian names?  How many Central and South American names?  How many names from Hiroshima, Nagasaki, My Lai, Fallujah, etc.?

Wrong Person Arrested

Cindy Sheehan, the Gold Star Mother for Peace, along with her sister and 370 others were arrested at the White House on  Monday, September 26, 2005.  After being refused a meeting with George W. Bush, Cindy Sheehan and others sat in front of the White House refusing to move until George W. Bush came out to met with them.  George wasn't coming out.  They were arrested.  Cindy wrote of her arrest on her website, www.afterdowningstreet.org, 

We all know by now why George won't meet with parents of the soldiers he has killed who disagree with him. First of all, he hates it when people disagree with him. I am not so sure he hates it as much as he is in denial that it even happens....he is a coward who arrogantly refuses to meet with the people who pay his salary... [The] reason why he won't talk to us is that he knows there is no Noble Cause for the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq. It is a question that has no true answer.

Cindy Sheehan gets arrested for as she puts it, the "tragic and needless deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and Americans (both in Iraq and here in America) who would be alive if it weren't for the criminals who reside in and work in the White House".  A Vietnam War veteran gets threatened with arrest for crying at the Vietnam Wall with a Veterans For Peace flag in his hands.  Shame on you George.  You have brought the United States of America to a new low.  Your noble cause is not the noble cause of the people, which is to end the war and have you removed from office.  

A Crawford, Colorado man as he was being arrested at the White House said it was "an honor to be arrested with this group of people."  The crowd chanted, "Arrest Bush".  Yes, indeed, do arrest Bush.  The tears of my Vietnam combat veteran friend and comrade, the arrest of Cindy Sheehan, and the collective exhaustion of the 300,000 plus gathered in Washington D.C. on September 24, 2005 will not be for naught.  The time is approaching when their noble cause will be realized as the thugs and criminals in the White House are removed.  The world's second super-power, the People, are in the process of making certain this happens shortly.  Impeach George W. Bush.

What Noble Cause?  Vietnam Combat VeteranNot Welcome at Vietnam Memorial ****************************************************************************************

FBI Admits Mistakes in Security Wiretaps

By Mark Sherman / Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The FBI says it sometimes gets the wrong number when it intercepts conversations in terrorism investigations, an admission critics say underscores a need to revise wiretap provisions in the Patriot Act.

The FBI would not say how often these mistakes happen. And, though any incriminating evidence mistakenly collected is not legally admissible in a criminal case, there is no way of knowing whether it is used to begin an investigation.

Parts of the Patriot Act, including a section on "roving wiretaps," expire in December. Such wiretaps allow the FBI to get permission from a secret federal court to listen in on any phone line or monitor any Internet account that a terrorism suspect may be using, whether or not others who are not suspects also regularly use it.

The bureau's acknowledgment that it makes mistakes in some wiretaps - although not specifically roving wiretaps - came in a recent Justice Department inspector general's report on the FBI's backlog of intercepted but unreviewed foreign-language conversations.

The 38,514 untranslated hours included an undetermined number from what the FBI called "collections of materials from the wrong sources due to technical problems."

Spokesman Ed Cogswell said that language describes instances in which the tap was placed on a telephone number other than the one authorized by a court.

"That's mainly an instance in which the telephone company hooked us up to the wrong number or a clerical error here gives us the wrong number," Cogswell said.

He had no estimate of how often that happens, but said that when it does the FBI is required to inform the secret court that approved the intercept.

The FBI could not say Friday whether people are notified that their conversations were mistakenly intercepted or whether wrongly tapped telephone numbers were deleted from bureau records.

Privacy activists said the FBI's explanation of the mistaken wiretaps was unacceptably vague, and that in an era of cell phones and computers it is easier than ever for the government to access communications from innocent third parties.

"What do you mean you are intercepting the wrong subject? How often does it occur? How long does it go on for?" said James Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology.

David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said technological advances have made it harder, not easier, to "conduct wiretapping in a surgical way" because digital communications often carry many conversations. "It's not like the old days when there was one dedicated line between me and you," Sobel said.

The FBI has acknowledged errors in the past. An FBI memo from 2000, made public two years later, described similar problems in the use of warrants issued by a court that operates in secret under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In 2002, an FBI official said the bureau averaged 10 mistakes a year in such cases.

These warrants are among the most powerful tools in the U.S. anti-terrorism arsenal, permitting secret searches and wiretaps for up to one year without ever notifying the target of the investigation.

The court approved 1,754 such warrants in 2004.

The Patriot Act, passed 45 days after the Sept. 11 attacks, gave the government sweeping powers in terrorism investigations, including allowing the use of roving wiretaps. The authority also applies to espionage and other foreign intelligence cases.

The FBI is not supposed to use material it collects either by mistake or from people who happen to use phones that are tapped legitimately, but that requirement doesn't satisfy some lawmakers.

"They have recorded the information, but they're saying, 'Trust us, we won't listen to what we recorded,'" said Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va. "People ought to be concerned."

Versions of the Patriot Act renewal that passed the House and Senate during the summer both contain the roving wiretap. It would expire in 10 years under the House-passed bill and four years in the Senate version. Congressional negotiators are expected to hammer out final details of the legislation starting in late October.

The Justice Department fought congressional efforts to require investigators to determine that the target of surveillance actually was using the tapped phone or computer before they listened in. Some lawmakers said such a requirement would reduce the chance that other conversations would be intercepted.

Administration officials argued that safeguards in the law already require the government to discard those conversations. "Such a restriction would make it harder to use multipoint wiretaps in terrorism and espionage investigations than in drug trafficking and other ordinary criminal investigations," assistant Attorney General William Moschella wrote Scott.

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

Pentagon Revokes 9/11 Officer's Clearance

By Kimberly Hefling / Associated Press

WASHINGTON - An officer who has claimed that a classified military unit identified four Sept. 11 hijackers before the 2001 attacks is facing Pentagon accusations of breaking numerous rules, charges his lawyer suggests are aimed at undermining his credibility.

The alleged infractions by Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, 42, include obtaining a service medal under false pretenses, improperly flashing military identification while drunk and stealing pens, according to military paperwork shown by his attorney to The Associated Press.

Shaffer was one of the first to publicly link Sept. 11 leader Mohamed Atta to the unit code-named Able Danger. Shaffer was one of five witnesses the Pentagon ordered not to appear Sept. 21 before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss the unit's findings.

The military revoked Shaffer's top security clearance this month, a day before he was supposed to testify to a congressional committee.

Mark Zaid, Shaffer's attorney, said the Pentagon started looking into Shaffer's security clearance about the time in 2003 he met in Afghanistan with staff members of the bipartisan commission that studied the Sept. 11 attacks and told them about Able Danger.

Zaid said he can't prove the Pentagon went after Shaffer because he's a whistleblower, but "all the timing associated with the clearance issue has been suspiciously coincidental."

Citing concerns with the privacy act, Cmdr. Terry Sutherland, a Defense Intelligence Agency spokesman, declined to release any information on Shaffer.

According to papers provided by Zaid, the Defense Intelligence Agency is questioning whether Shaffer deserved a Defense Meritorious Service Medal he was awarded. Shaffer, who is supported by a retired colonel who has praised his work, says those challenging the medal do not have firsthand knowledge of his actions.

Shaffer says he showed his government credentials during two incidents in 1990, when he was drunk, and 1996, when he was pulled over by police. The military says he misused his credentials, but Shaffer says he was not told he should not have used them. He also said he has joined Alcoholics Anonymous and has been sober for 13 years.

As for the pens and other office supplies taken, he blamed that on "youthful indiscretions" more than 20 years ago.

According to the paperwork, the alleged infractions against Shaffer also include:

- Falsely claiming $341.80 in mileage and tolls fees. He said he filed travel expenses based on what he was told by human resources staff.

- Obtaining $67.79 in personal cell phone charges. He said the amount was a legitimate expense accrued so he could forward calls.

- Going over his chain of command to do briefings. Shaffer said he was providing briefings to higher-ups on projects even his direct superiors did not know about, and he received superior review ratings for that time.

- Showing irresponsibility with $2,012 in credit card debt. He said he paid off the debt, and Zaid said DIA dropped the issue.

Shaffer, now a member of the Army Reserves, has been on administrative leave since March 2004. During the same time, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel on Oct. 1, 2004.

Shaffer has said he tried three times to meet with the FBI to convey the Able Danger unit's findings before Sept. 11, but was ordered not to by military attorneys.

Shaffer's assertions on Able Danger have been supported by Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa. If correct, they would change the timeline as to when authorities first learned of some of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

The Sept. 11 commission has dismissed the claims. The Pentagon has acknowledged some employees recall seeing an intelligence chartidentifying Atta as a terrorist before the attacks, but said none have been able to find a copy of it.

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

1,933   A Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq

By The Associated PressThu Sep 29, 8:23 PM ET

As of Thursday, Sept. 29, 2005, at least 1,933 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,499 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.

The AP count is nine more than the Defense Department's tally, last updated at 10 a.m. EDT Thursday.

The British military has reported 96 deaths; Italy, 26; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; El Salvador, Estonia, Thailand and the Netherlands, two each; and Denmark, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Latvia one death each.

Since May 1, 2003, when President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 1,794 U.S. military members have died, according to AP's count. That includes at least 1,385 deaths resulting from hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

___

The latest deaths reported by the military:

• Five soldiers were killed Wednesday in a roadside bombing in Ramadi.

___

The latest identifications reported by the military:

• Air Force Airman 1st Class Elizabeth N. Jacobson, 21, Riviera Beach, Fla.; killed Wednesday when a bomb exploded near her vehicle; assigned to 17th Security Forces Squadron, Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas.

• Army Staff Sgt. Jason A. Benford, 30, Toledo, Ohio; killed Tuesday by small arms fire in Ramadi; assigned to 2nd Battalion, 69th Armor Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, Fort Benning, Ga.

• Army Sgt. Steve Morin, Jr., 34, Arlington, Texas; killed Wednesday in Umm Qasr when a bomb exploded near his vehicle; assigned to Army National Guard's 111th Engineer Battalion, 36th Infantry Division, Mineral Wells, Texas.