From persona_216 at yahoo.com Fri Dec 3 08:09:37 2004 From: persona_216 at yahoo.com (brent) Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 08:09:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Subvertistas] The Civilians We Killed Message-ID: <20041203160937.49109.qmail@web41212.mail.yahoo.com> An article from The Guardian by Michael Hoffman, co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Hoffman makes some interesting points in the article about the perspective of US soldiers, how this perspective increases their likelihood of committing inhumane criminal acts, and most importantly about who bears the responsibility for these acts. One of the current charades in our public media today is to pretend that it (the media) is performing its vital role of holding public and otherwise government officials/workers accountable for their actions. Scapegoats, therefore, wind up being publicly paraded to pacify (i.e. silence) the cry for justice by advocates of peace. We make a huge media event of putting Martha Stewart in jail and pretend something is being done about "corporate crime" while Ken Lay (and many other publicly known and unknown criminals) walk free. We wring our hands and denounce the horrific murder of an injured and unarmed man in a mosque by a US soldier. Maybe we even cry for a war crime trial. Yet we don't question that this is an official policy being dictated by the administration? We don't ask who gives the orders to bomb and otherwise attack places of worship (protected places under the Geneva Conventions), and then send footsoldiers in--placing them in a situation where they are likely to commit such acts? (For those of you who have an internal dialogue running like "I didn't see them bomb or attack the mosque in the video footage I watched," just take a look at the condition of the mosque, with debris and concrete strewn everywhere--this obviously happened before the soldiers went in on foot. Therefore how are they to prop up their insufficient argument that it is okay to attack places of worship if we just say weapons are being held there? Maybe the spy....ahem, guy on the ground who they don't shoot had something to do with it. You know, the one who speaks to the soldiers, something like "I was the one who was talking to you.") All that being said, here's the article, from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1364244,00.html The civilians we killed If only those who sent us to Iraq lay awake at night Michael Hoffman Thursday December 2, 2004 The Guardian The chaos of war should never be understated. On the way to Baghdad, I saw bodies by the road, many in civilian clothing. Every time a car got near my Humvee, everyone inside braced themselves, not knowing if gunfire would suddenly erupt out of it. When your enemy is unclear, everyone becomes your enemy. I will not judge the marine who killed the wounded Iraqi. I do not know what was going on around him or what he experienced in the hours before. But I do know what the stress of combat will do. I remember talking to a friend who told how, after a greatly loved lieutenant was killed in Nassiriya, the unit started shooting anyone that got close. I remember when a pickup truck got too close to my convoy, the armoured vehicle up front shot the passenger to get the message to the driver. Just as these marines should face charges, then those that put us in these situations should have to answer for their actions. In his book The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien said: "You can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromised allegiance to obscenity and evil." This is something people in the US have forgotten after years of watching CNN. War is dirty, always wrong, but sometimes unavoidable. That is why all these horrible things must rest on the shoulders of those leaders who supported a war that did not have to be fought. I know the commitment it takes to serve your country, but I also know this war has nothing to do with protecting my country. My sergeant put it best a week before we left for the Middle East: "Don't think you're going to be heroes. You're not going for weapons of mass destruction. You're not going to get rid of Saddam, or to make Iraq safe for democracy. You're going for one reason, and that's oil." War for oil: is a term the troops in Iraq know well. That is the only reason left for this war, leaving those on the ground with only one reason to fight - get home alive. When this kind of desperation sinks in, it is easy to make the person across from you less then human, easier to do horrible things to them. Did the soldiers who committed those acts in Abu Ghraib view Iraqis as equals? Those who committed these acts will have to live with the memories - just as I wonder how many Iraqi children were killed by my artillery battery, or how many Iraqis were trapped in burning vehicles on the road to Baghdad. These are the thoughts that keep me up at night: the bodies of children and the burned remains of Iraqi troops that couldn't get out in time. But those who put all of us there will never understand this. That is why they need to be judged. But they will never receive the most just punishment: feeling what myself and all the other veterans of this hideous war will deal with for the rest of our lives. ? Michael Hoffman took part in the invasion of Iraq as a US marine and is co-founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War (www.ivaw.net). He is speaking in London on Sunday End of Article. ~~~~~~~ Progress and improvement are not always synonyms. A people may grow in Gall instead of grace. I measure a century by its men rather than by its machines, and we have not, since civilization took its boasted leap forward, produced a Socrates or a Shakespeare, a Phidias or an Angelo, a Confucius or a Christ. This century runs chiefly to Talmages and Deacon Twogoods, pauper dukes and divorce courts--intellectual soup and silk lingerie. WCB ~~~~~~~ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From trin at resist.ca Mon Dec 6 20:48:08 2004 From: trin at resist.ca (trin at resist.ca) Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 20:48:08 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Subvertistas] the meetin' Message-ID: <62442.24.20.236.168.1102394888.squirrel@mail.resist.ca> Hello all, The meeting for the Portland Subvertistas will be Tuesday at six o'clock, in The Meetro (it's the little coffee shop on the ground level of King Albert Hall in the PSU campus). If yer not too sure where it is, then just meet me at my place and we'll walk over there together. Call me at 971-404-9449 if you got any questions about the meeting. There's some new developments afoot which we should all get on the same page about. We got use of the reserved space at The Meetro from 6pm till 10pm, I hear there's a whiteboard there too with dry erase markers to use for notes, oh cool. I hope that everyone local can come, maybe we can have a really good meeting this time? Yers in budness, Trin From trin at resist.ca Sun Dec 12 01:42:15 2004 From: trin at resist.ca (trin at resist.ca) Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 01:42:15 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Subvertistas] Subvertistas meeting notes of 12/7/04 Message-ID: <61155.24.20.236.168.1102844535.squirrel@mail.resist.ca> Meeting notes of 12/7/04 for Subvertistas 1) Video and tv production classes for Subvertistas have been offered, free of charge, by a benefactor of ours. a - Members present decided it'd be a good thing if I (Trin) went through it myself first, so that at least I'd be empowered to take out video and audio equipment for events and actions of ours, or for whatever purposes which their use might be helpful to us. b - All others stated how busy they already are, what with school, work, social lives (what's that?), etc., that they couldn't take the classes just yet (I imagined how our benefactor would be relieved financially but would still urge the others to take the classes any old how). c - Being able to have a command of media equipment and processes enables us somewhat to 'up the ante' on our effectiveness as a radical affinity group, a discussion ensued to the effect which got us all thinking about some of the projects we could take up, videos, documentaries, news stories, and roll-ins for our cable access tv show which soon begins. 2) j20 Anti-Inaugural Event planning a - PDX or DC, which is right for Subvertical? Well, here we decided pretty much unanimously that we couldn't afford a trip to DC which has us there in a little over 6 weeks time, and that our efforts would best be spent in trying to make our presence known here in PDX instead. b - Strategy and tactics? Here we talked some of how the j20pdx ppl have really begun to prepare for this event and that we ought to throw in with them as best we can, and that we might be able to werk some actions of our own into the whole affair. c - Logistics? Well, seeing as how we'll all be here instead of in DC, the concerns of travel and whatnot really are out the window at this point. We got into how we'll at least be able to focus more so on the matters of planning our own particular, signature action(s) for that day and perhaps for the days leading up to it too. We encouraged one another to dream up some big ideas for the occasion, so that we might be able to werk out any potential kinks or faults in our plans beforehand. 3) The Conference of the Radical Contingent - It's back! a - Though we tabled this idea about two months ago on the well intentioned advice of one of our comrades (not I), it's definitely time we got busy with the werk of planning this whole affair. The aforementioned advice came from concerns about timeliness because of the elections and this whole Cascadian autonomy movement which has emerged, but now we must proceed with our efforts to make the Conference (CRC) into a real thing. b - We need to flesh out our ideas for this thing, its character, tone, goals, time-frame, etc., lots of werk to do. One idea which we must do our best to identify with is the idea of 'building the myth' of the CRC, well before it actually materializes, so that there's a good and very clear sense of purpose for all who would attend. c - We got to talking a little bit about when we could pull this off, the CRC, and March 20th came up because of that date's significance with the beginning of the Iraq occupation, and well, it's just too bloody early now for us to committ to a date when we have so much werk to do in terms of actually defining the whole event. There'll be lots more talk of this as time goes by. 4) Banner drops, freeway blogs, postering - yay, everyone's favourite! a - Materials for signage can be got by dumpstering behind art and media stores, Lowes, Home Depot, the like. b - Construction of signage could be done at either Midian 48 (HQ) or at the infoshop (so says comrade MD) c - Ideas for slogans, sayings, and whatnot for the banners, signs, and posters can probably best be arrived at by werking in teams of two so that too many cooks won't spoil the soup. d - Deployment of these things at the best places was also discussed, we also understand the need to make it easy to record with cameras our werk after its placed (so we can post it all on IMC and be rockstars! lol) 5) Next week's meeting time and place is something we'll werk out between all of us throughout this week in correspondence. --------------------------------------------------------- Yo all, I'll be in touch soon about some new developments which we should all be made aware. :) Oh btw, anyone here wanna do some tv broadcast journalism in Salem on Monday? Please let's stay in touch more and not less. Trin From persona_216 at yahoo.com Tue Dec 21 15:54:02 2004 From: persona_216 at yahoo.com (brent) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 15:54:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Subvertistas] More Documented Torture Message-ID: <20041221235402.12079.qmail@web41210.mail.yahoo.com> Confirmed reports of torture at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and in Iraq. Published on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 by the Los Angeles Times FBI Agents Complained of Prisoner Abuse, Records Say Documents obtained by ACLU show continued reports of mistreatment in Iraq and Cuba by Richard Serrano WASHINGTON ? FBI agents have lodged repeated complaints of physical and mental mistreatment of prisoners held in Iraq and Cuba, saying in reports that military officials have placed lighted cigarettes in detainees' ears and humiliated Arab captives by wrapping Israeli flags around them, according to new documents released Monday. The FBI records, which are among the latest set of documents obtained by the ACLU in its lawsuit against the federal government, also include instances in which bureau officials said they were disgusted by military interrogators who pretended to be FBI agents as a "ruse" to glean intelligence from prisoners. The FBI complained that military interrogators had gone beyond the restrictions of the Geneva Convention that prohibit torture; the agents cited Bush administration guidelines that permit the use of dogs and other techniques to harass prisoners. The records disclosed Monday are the second set in which FBI officials objected to military detention practices, and are notable because some instances occurred after revelations this year of prisoner abuses at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Earlier this month, the ACLU released records in which FBI agents complained about prisoner abuse in 2002. The new records show FBI complaints have continued through 2004. In each case, the names of the agents were removed before the records were released. FBI officials participate in interrogations at military prisons and lockups as part of the bureau's counterterrorism duties. FBI agents have been stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Iraq. "We know what's permissible for FBI agents but are less sure what is permissible for military interrogators," the FBI's "on-scene commander-Baghdad" complained to his bureau colleagues in May. "We cannot have our [FBI] personnel embedded with military units abroad, which regularly use these interrogation techniques." Another unidentified FBI agent told his superiors in July that he had witnessed military interrogators and government contract employees at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay using "aggressive treatment and improper interview techniques" on prisoners. "I did observe treatment that was not only aggressive, but personally very upsetting," he said. At the Pentagon, Air Force Maj. Michael Shavers, a military spokesman, said the Defense Department would have no comment about the FBI records or the administration guidelines that were the subject of complaints by agents. The FBI agents referred to what they described as a new executive order on prisoner treatment by President Bush. They described the order as allowing interrogation tactics that were forbidden for FBI agents. The records did not include a copy of the Bush order, or make clear exactly when it was signed. Pentagon officials would not comment on whether there was any new order. According to FBI officials, the Bush order approved interrogation tactics that included "sleep deprivation and stress positions," as well as "loud music, interrogators yelling at subjects and prisoners with hoods on their heads." Earlier this year, White House documents and legal memos outlined the administration's legal view that enemy combatants were not strictly prisoners of war, and that therefore the Geneva Convention might not always apply in the post-Sept. 11 war against terrorism. Iraqi detainees always have been considered POWs. Nevertheless Jameel Jaffer, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, maintained that "the methods that the Defense Department had adopted were illegal, immoral and counterproductive." He added that the ACLU, which has been obtaining detention records under a lawsuit it filed against the federal government, finds it "astonishing that these methods appear to have been adopted as a matter of policy by the highest levels of government." In many of the records released Monday, FBI officials expressed repulsion upon learning that military interrogators posed as FBI agents in their interviews with prisoners. They said they had learned the "ruse" was approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and that it had an adverse effect on obtaining "cooperation" from prisoners. In one instance, an FBI official told his superiors in a December 2003 e-mail that impersonation "tactics have produced no intelligence." The official added that these techniques actually "have destroyed any chance of prosecuting this detainee." The FBI official added: "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way, [Defense Department] interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [by] the 'FBI' interrogators. The FBI will be left holding the bag before the public." Another FBI official, who worked in the bureau's counterterrorism division and was assigned to Guantanamo Bay, wrote in a July 2003 memo that military interrogators often interrupted efforts underway by FBI agents. "Every time the FBI established a rapport with a detainee, the military would step in and the detainee would stop being cooperative," the FBI official wrote. "The military did not stop the interviews while they were in progress but routinely took control of the detainee when the interview was completed. "The next time that detainee was interviewed, his level of cooperation was diminished," the official said. Many agents assigned to Iraq and Cuba reported witnessing incidents of abuse by military units or civilian contractors. In a June "urgent report" to the FBI director from the Sacramento field office, for example, a supervising special agent described abuses such as "strangulation, beatings, placement of lighted cigarettes into the detainees' ear openings and unauthorized interrogations." The supervisor added that some military officials "were engaged in a cover-up of these abuses." In other instances, a female prisoner "indicated she was hit with a stick," according to a memo from May 2003. In July, Army criminal investigators were reviewing "the alleged rape of a juvenile male detainee at Abu Ghraib prison." It was not clear whether the incident was related to a previous report of a boy who was raped by a contractor. Other agents gave more details of alleged abuses. In a June instance, an agent from the Washington field office reported that an Abu Ghraib detainee complained he was cuffed and placed into an uncomfortable physical position that the military called "the Scorpion" hold. Then, the prisoner told the FBI, he was doused with cold water, dropped onto barbed wire, dragged by his feet and punched in the stomach. An FBI official in a July 30 e-mail message described an incident at Guantanamo Bay that he found bothersome: "I saw a detainee sitting on the floor of the interview room with an Israeli flag draped around him, loud music being played and a strobe flashing." He said the captive was in the custody of military officials at the time. "Such techniques were not allowed nor approved by FBI policy," the agent wrote. One FBI report said a Guantanamo Bay detainee in May 2002 was spat upon and then beaten when he tried to protect himself. At one point, soldiers apparently were "beating him and grabbed his head and beat it into the cell floor," knocking him unconscious, the report said. Another agent reported in August that while in Cuba he often saw detainees chained hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor, "with no chair, food or water." "Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left for 18 to 24 hours or more," the agent wrote. Sometimes, he reported, the room was chilled to where a "barefooted detainee was shaking with cold." Other times, he said, the air-conditioning was turned off and the temperature in the unventilated room rose to well over 100 degrees. He said one detainee "was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his own hair out throughout the night." The FBI documents also included a report of a prisoner in Cuba whose legs were injured and who said he had lied about being a terrorist out of fear that the U.S. military would otherwise have his legs amputated. "He indicated he was injured severely and in a lot of pain," the FBI documents said, yet the prisoner constantly was being asked whether he had attended a terrorist camp in Afghanistan. The agent wrote that the prisoner "stated he wanted to receive decent medical treatment, and felt the only way to get it was to tell the Americans what they wanted to hear." ? Copyright 2004 Los ANgeles Times *** *** *** In the seventh paragraph, the FBI's on scene commander in Baghdad says that the FBI isn't sure of what is permissible for military interrogators. In order to help the FBI see things more clearly, I'd like to point out that the things described in this article are NOT PERMISSIBLE, for military interrogators, FBI interrogators, or for any other human being to do to ANOTHER HUMAN BEING. Meanwhile, back at home, all sides of the political spectrum are still quarreling over who has the best definition of what it means to "support our troops." Is it to give them free reign, or is it to bring them home now. Here's the answer: STOP SUPPORTING THE TROOPS! People who engage in this kind of behavior are not "our" troops. They certainly aren't my troops. Anyone who supports this illegal occupation disgraces any semblance of honor a U.S. military uniform ever had, if in fact it ever had any at all. Peace, brent http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WACOuncensored/ ~~~~~~~ Progress and improvement are not always synonyms. A people may grow in Gall instead of grace. I measure a century by its men rather than by its machines, and we have not, since civilization took its boasted leap forward, produced a Socrates or a Shakespeare, a Phidias or an Angelo, a Confucius or a Christ. This century runs chiefly to Talmages and Deacon Twogoods, pauper dukes and divorce courts--intellectual soup and silk lingerie. WCB ~~~~~~~ --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Send holiday email and support a worthy cause. Do good. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From trin at resist.ca Tue Dec 28 14:17:31 2004 From: trin at resist.ca (trin at resist.ca) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 14:17:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Subvertistas] meeting? Message-ID: <64065.24.20.236.168.1104272251.squirrel@mail.resist.ca> This just in, we don't have telephone servive at HQ anymore, so we're gonna need to talk on the listserve until we get another phone, sorry. Also, we all need to get together as soon as we're able so we can get into the details of Bastille Day. Let's all keep in touch today, today, today. We don't necessarily need to have a meeting today but we should at least arrive at a time for our next one. There's so much for all of us to go over, and well, this not-having-a-phone thing is really putting a damper on our werk right now, but we'll get one again soon. Remember everyone, please email us back today, we need to hear from you soon. In solidarity, Wee Raven and Trin From trin at resist.ca Tue Dec 28 17:40:09 2004 From: trin at resist.ca (trin at resist.ca) Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 17:40:09 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Subvertistas] meeting? Message-ID: <63050.24.20.236.168.1104284409.squirrel@mail.resist.ca> Ok, some of you have chimed in, thanks so much. How about we meet on Thursday this week, say at 6 o'clock pm? Please keep in touch so we can all be sure to know where to go (we'll meet at HQ, downtown). In solidarity, Wee Raven and Trin From trin at resist.ca Wed Dec 29 17:35:27 2004 From: trin at resist.ca (trin at resist.ca) Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 17:35:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Subvertistas] HQ Message-ID: <61751.24.20.236.168.1104370527.squirrel@mail.resist.ca> Ok well, HQ is at 1880 sw 5th ave. (the Westfal Apts.), #48. Use the Trimet website for bus directions or Mapquest if yer drivin', ok? Our meeting is at six on Thursday. Please let us know through this email addy if you can be here for it because we'll be needing to wait downstairs in order to let you in. It's really too bad about our phone being turned off (my evil ex-girlfriend did it to us) because it's how we let ppl into the bldg. Ok then, enough of that, we're both looking forward to seeing all of you tomorrow, remember to let us know if you can make it. In solidarity, Wee Raven and Trin From trin at resist.ca Fri Dec 31 04:55:24 2004 From: trin at resist.ca (trin at resist.ca) Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2004 04:55:24 -0800 (PST) Subject: [Subvertistas] Thee meeting of 12/30/04 Message-ID: <64022.24.20.236.168.1104497724.squirrel@mail.resist.ca> The meeting slated for 12/30/04 went ahead as planned, and well, it was a smashing success. Present for the occasion were: Wee Raven Aleksei Vanc Ana?s Pax Pyotr Trin We made hella progress in terms of our werk concerning the Bastille this time. To all of you other Subvertistas, and to all of you on this listserv that we'd like to consider as such, you were greatly missed. We're looking forward to next Tuesday at 7pm, when we'll have our next meeting. It's crunch time, so we need to be present for this next meeting in far greater numbers. For those of you not here for the 12/30/05 meeting, we hope that yer curious as to its goings on, anyone with questions about it can reach us through trin at resist.ca and we can get into its details from there, ok? There's much to cover and we're all in agreement that you should each be brought up to speed about it. Ok well, not meaning to put too fine a point on it here, but please let's all keep in touch because we're getting down to the wire on the Bastille. Remember, direct action gets thee goods. With love and solidarity, Wee Raven and Trin