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Today's Stories June 2 / 3, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Last of the Texas Outsiders Marc Levy Iraq Dead Ahead: a Brief Military History and Civilian Guide to Arlington National Cemetery Diana Johnstone Great Power Meddling in Kosovo John Ross The Oaxaca Volcano Stews Uri Avnery On Generals and Admirals Richard Neville Were the Hippies Right? Nisrine Abiad and Victor Kattan The Hariri Tribunal: a Fait Accompli? Rannie Amiri Lebanon, Bush and the Three Stooges Margot Pepper Deconstructing "Return to Sender" Eric Stewart Censorship and Cop Brutality in the New Bison Wars Ralph Nader The Halberstam Camp Richard Rhames Selling Five Acres in Crawford June 1, 2007 Dave Marsh The FBI and the Godfather (of Soul): James Brown's FBI Files Saul Landau Return to Cuba: 47 Years Later in Havana David Phinney How the Baghdad Embassy Was Built: Forced Labor and Worker Abuse Robert Jensen The Bigot and the Boycott Stanley Heller Arrest Robert McNamara Yifat Susskind Indigenous Women Fight Back Robert Weissman Corporate Power Since 1980 Paul Buchheit Africa and Its Discontents William S. Lind The Folly of Maximalist Objectives Sherwood Ross 78,000 Iraqis Have Been Killed by Coalition Airstrikes Stephen Lendman Terrorism Defined Website of the Day Desert Autonomous Zone May 31, 2007 Robert Bryce The Language Barrier Patrick Cockburn Killing with Impunity: Iraq's Militias Under the Surge Gary Leupp Appropriate Disillusionment: the Despair of Cindy Sheehan and Andrew Bacevich Kathy Kelly Being Hope Marjorie Cohn The Unitary King George Chris Kutalik and Tiffany Ten Eyck Fallout from the Sale of Chrysler: Jobs, Health Care, Pensions, All in Jeopardy Corporate Crime Reporter Zheng Xiaoyu Meet Lester Crawford Dave Lindorff Our Monica: a Hero of the Constitution Website of the Day Know Your Rights!   May 30, 2007 James Ridgeway The Bi-Partisan Con on Synthetic Fuels Franklin Lamb Lebanon and the Planned US Airbase at Kaleiaat Terrence E. Paupp Withdrawal Symptoms Uri Avnery To the Shores of Tripoli Alan Maass and Jeffrey St. Clair The Green Masquerade: Corporate America's Latest Counter-Attack Rock and Rap Confidential Watching the Detectives: the Political Censorship of Hip Hop Ralph Nader Taming the Giant Corporation Nirmal Ghosh China, CITES and the Fate of the Tiger Jean Daniels Dealing Democrats: Folding to Mr. 28% Tom Barry Meet Robert Zoellick: Bush's Pick to Head World Bank Website of the Day Petuuche Gilbert on the Rights of Indigenous People May 29, 2007 Stephen Soldz Shrinks and the SERE Technique at Guantanamo Eliza Ernshire Refugees Forever: Inside Bedawi Camp Ron Jacobs The Exit of Cindy Sheehan Dave Lindorff Whatever Happened to Signing Statements? Evelyn Pringle What Qualifies Bush to Lead Iraq War Mike Whitney Bush's New Middle East David Swanson How We Got Here: The Democrats and the Antiwar Movement John Holt Gating Montana, Part Two: the Feedback Loop Cynthia McKinney Dreaming of a True Memorial Day Martha Rosenberg Mad Cows, Mad Pigs and the Horse Slaughter Lobby Website of the Day The Ruminant May 28, 2007 Bill Quigley Katrina Activists: "Less Meeting, More Fighting" Col. Dan Smith The Paranoid and the Dead Cindy Sheehan Why I Am Leaving the Democratic Party Dr. Susan Block Dr. Laura's Little Monster Jeeni Criscenzo What I Learned About Being a Dickhead Douglas Valentine Memorial Day: a Poem Website of the Day Peace TV     May 26 / 27, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Greenhousers Strike Back and Out Michael Donnelly Green Sabotage as "Terrorism" Patrick Cockburn Sadr's Dramatic Reappearance Franklin Lamb Inside Nahr el-Bared: "Another Waco in the Making" Jean Bricmont The Moral Collapse of the Moral Left Gary Leupp Cheney, Israel and Iran James Petras Imperial Rot: The Beginning of the End of the American Empire? William Peace Ashley Unlawfully Sterilized Judith and John Sharpe The Saga of Our Son, Lt. Commander John Sharpe: Under Investigation for Antiwar Sentiments Saul Landau Four Dead in Ohio: From Kent State to Tiannamen Square Paul Craig Roberts Democracy in Iraq, Tyranny at Home? Jonathan M. Feldman Congress and the Iraq War Vote Dave Lindorff Democratic Blood Money Missy Beattie Congress Plays Dead Mike Whitney Swan Song of the Democrats Badruddin Khan AIPAC Intervenes on Iran and Congress Folds, Again Ron Jacobs The Crime of Silence Zoe Blunt The Antidote to Despair Arjun Chowdhury, Mark Hoffman and Kevin Parsneau The Can-Do Troops and the New Anti-Politics Heather Gray The 1969 Riots Against the Chinese in Malaysia: a New Explanation N. D. Jayaprakash Disarmament Negotiations: A History and Prospectus Joe Allen and Paul D'Amato Cartoons with Class Poets' Basement Gowani, Ford, Anderson and Simon Website of the Weekend Addicted to War May 25, 2007 Robert Jensen What the Finkelstein Tenure Fight Tells Us About the State of Academia David Vest So You Thought They'd End the War John Stauber Democratic Spin Won't End the War in Iraq Evelyn Pringle Congress Gives War Profiteers Another $100 Billion Corporate Crime Reporter Why Corporate Social Responsibility Programs are a Fraud Susan Rosenthal, MD What's Missing from the Health Care Debate Roberto Rodriguez Us vs. Them in the Immigration Debate Steve Fournier Goodie, Goodie Goodling Patrick McElwee Venezuela and RCTV: Is Free Speech Really at Stake? Robert Weissman Resisting the Commercialization of Public Schools Website of the Day New DNC Motto: "We Suck"     May 24, 2007 Franklin Lamb Who's Behind the Fighting in North Lebanon Corporate Crime Reporter House Democrats Buckle to Big Oil: Strip Down Price Gouging Bill Robert Fantina Giuliani: Righteous, Indignant and Wrong Norman Solomon Deadly Illusions, Rest in Peace Dave Lindorff Kerrycrats All!: Now It's a Democratic War Sen. Russell Feingold We are Moving Backwards on Iraq Fred Gardner Doctor of Last Resort Mike Whitney Paulson in China Kevin Parsneau, Arjun Chowdhury and Mark Hoffman Becoming Imperialist: a Warning to Iraq War Critics Caroline Paul My Brother the "Terrorist": Animal Liberation and Prosecutorial Overkill Eva Liddell In Defense of Lying on Job Applications Website of the Day Johnny's Jumped the Shark May 23, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Opium: Iraq's Newest Export Rev. William Alberts Faith-Based Imperialism Joe DeRaymond Colombia's Civil War and the US Sudhanva Deshpande and Vijay Prashad The Political Economy of a Crisis Paul Craig Roberts Republicans in Self-Destruct Mode Glen Ford A Less "White" USA Rannie Amiri The Great Bank Heist of Tripoli China Hand China's Great Wall of Cash? Zoe Blunt Tales from the Tree Tops: Veteran Tree Sitter Tells All Nivien Saleh Who's to Blame for Iraq? Website of the Day Debating the Israel Lobby May 22, 2007 Robert Fisk A Front Row Seat for the Bloodbath in Lebanon Joshua Frank Hillary Clinton's Achilles Heel? Harvey Wasserman Drop Dead, New Yorkers: Giuliani and the Toxic Fallout from 9/11 David Mos Masumoto An Orchard Without Workers Sonja Karkar Israeli Forest Named After Australian Prime Minister Conn Hallinan The Afghan Quagmire Dave Lindorff A Widening Chasm on Impeachment Jeffrey Kolakowski Meet Us in Detroit: an Open Letter to John Konyers Evelyn Pringle A Misleading Suicide Warning Jim Baumer Politics Gary, Indiana-Style Website of the Day Should the Democrats Fear Mike Gravel? May 21, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Secret US Plot to Kill Sadr Nicole Colson Much Ado About the Fort Dix Pizza Plot John Ross Shooting for the Top: Mexico's Drug Gangs Take Aim at Calderon Stephen Fleischman Werewolf of Washington: Wolfowitz Comes Full Circle M. Shahid Alam Chosenness and Israeli Exceptionalism Ron Jacobs Green Mountain Days: Return to Vermont Peter Rost, MD Pfizer CFO Resigns Alan Farago Can the Everglades Save Florida? Paul Buchheit The Dark Side of Democracy Promotion Website of the Day Code Monkey: Live! May 19 / 20, 2007 Andrew Cockburn Why America Lost the War in Iraq Uri Avnery The Next War Peter Gelderloos My Arrest in Spain: The Easy Road from Tourism to Terrorism Saul Landau Bush's Accomplishments Robert Fantina Iraq's History: Lessons for the Present and the Future Fred Gardner Hemp vs. Pot, a False Dichotomy Ralph Nader Timid Democrats and the Antiwar Movement Jean Daniels Waiting for Obama Reza Fiyouzat Vietnam Syndrome: Dead or Alive? Missy Beattie Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani and Osama's Fatwah Robert Alvarez Magical Thinking About Nuclear Waste Sonja Karkar The Palestinians of Iraq Dave Lindorff Mumia Case on Hold Jeff Sher Keep Workers Healthy and Reduce Health Care Cost: Eliminate Co-Pays Julian C. Holmes Torture, Maine Style Clancy Sigal Red Mutiny: 11 Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin Prairie Miller The Murder of Fred Hampton James Murren The Dog Ate Karl Rove's Homework: When Turd Blossom Met the Teachers of the Year Poets' Basement Davies, Valentine and Engel Website of the Weekend Yellowstone's Shame: Harassing Newborn Bison   May 18, 2007 Adam Jones When Does Genocide Purify? Ask the Pope Sharon Smith The Death of Triangulation Politics? Christopher Brauchli Cheney's Middle East Adventure Peter Rost, MD Bribes and Spies in the Drug Industry Denise Maloney Pictou The Murder of Our Mother, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash: After 31 Years, It is Time for Justice David Swanson Of Snoops and Dupes Ali Khan The Lawyers' Mutiny in Pakistan Susan Rosenthal, M.D. Cho Seung-Hui Delivers His Message Samer Assad Israel and the Refugees: Fifty-Nine Years of Dispossession CP News Service Bidding for Extinction: Ivory Trade on eBay Threatens Survival of Elephants Website of the Day Another War Criminal Goes to Harvard   May 17, 2007 Tariq Ali The General vs. the Judge Yifat Susskind Honor Killings in the New Iraq: The Murder of Du'a Aswad Dave Zirin Being Ali or Being Owned: an Open Letter to LeBron James Brian J. Foley Hell, No, Harry Won't Go! W. John Green The Godfather of Colombia: Uribe and the Para Scandal Eric Johnson-DeBaufre Challenges for the New Sanctuary Movement Badruddin Khan Rebirthing the Neocons: Bernard Lewis' Latest Call to Arms Martha Rosenberg From Cockfighting to Foie Gras: On the Menu and on the Docket China Hand Pope Rat in Brazil: "The Amazon Tribes Longed for Christianity!" Dan Vojir Falwell's Tinky Winky Legacy: Who Will Battle the Telebubby Threat Now? Website of the Day Welcome to the Terrordome May 16, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Chalabi Speaks Ashley Dawson Who's Afraid of Wolfowitz? Joshua Frank Obama's Cash Flow: Maverick or Kidder? Corporate Crime Reporter Corporate Drug Pushers Ray McGovern A Four-Letter Word for Tenet Glen Ford Black Labor and the Big Mission Joe Bageant The Ghosts of Timothy Leary and Hunter S. Thompson Sonja Karkar The 59-Year Catastrophe Mickey S. Huff Preaching Hate: Farewell, Falwell John Chuckman Falwell's Lone Act of Kindness Kaz Dziamka What Ever Happened to Rogerian Argument? Website of the Day We're All Going to Hell   May 15, 2007 Michael Neumann Two States, One State and Snake Oil Patrick Cockburn An American Nightmare Ashley Smith How the US Set Iraq on Fire Marc Gardner Parole and the Long-Distance Trucker Dave Lindorff and Linn Washington, Jr Mumia Case Reaches Its Climax Ben Terrall Benchmark as Theft: Iraq Oil Workers Strike to Stop Privatization Ron Jacobs Cheney Threatens More War Harvey Wasserman The Legacy of Seabrook Marcus Mabry Shopping During Katrina Dr. Susan Block Cheney and the DC Madam's Cookie Jar Website of the Day Save Jean Klock Park from the Mega-Developers!   May 14, 2007 Jennifer Roesch Giuliani Time: the Mussolini of Manhattan Jeffrey St. Clair Humans, CO2 and Climate Change George Bisharat For Palestinians, Memory Matters Diane Wachtell The Real Imus Lesson Ramzy Baroud From Palestine to Rotterdam Rosemary and Walter Brasch When the National Guard Goes Missing: An Ill Wind and American Policy Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Blair's Exit Roberto Rodriguez The Elusive Bars of Justice Jonathan Culp Cutting Out Collage: Copyright and Art in Canada Website of the Day Uranium Rock May 12 / 13, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Who are the Merchants of Fear? Patrick Cockburn State of Surge Jeffrey St. Clair High Line Fever: a Trip Across the Dark Side of Montana Diane Farsetta Untold Stories from the Pat Tillman / Jessica Lynch Hearings Ralph Nader Strip Mining the Newsroom: Mr. Zell and the Tribune Company Jean Bricmont The Great Illusion: Sarkozy and the "Decline" of France Marcus Breen Cheering Sarkozy: the US Media and the Rightwing Takeover of France Joe Bageant Rising Above Politics Conn Hallinan European Missiles and the Camel's Nose Fred Gardner The Unreported I-880 Fire Juan Santos and Leslie Radford Public Terror: Escalating the War on Migrants Eve Bachrach Inside Colombia's Flower Industry Missy Comley Beattie Shame Ron Jacobs The Bitterness of Regis Debray Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Sepoy Mutiny After 150 Years Susie Day Jesus Christ Weds Pat Robertson Poets' Basement Newberry, Engel, Landau, Katz and Davies Website of the Weekend The Shipyard: Recycling as Art May 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Blair's Depature: the View from Baghdad Kathleen Christison Playing at Peace Mike Ferner Collateral Genocide John Holt Gating Montana: A Ghastly Disneyland with High Rise Outhouses Laurie Hasbrook This Minute and Then the Next: a Plea from an Antiwar Mother Christopher Brauchli The Children of Limbo: Will the Pope Finally Set Them Free? Margaret Kimberley GOP Openly Embraces Gipper Values: Racism, Violence and Control Dave Lindorff Use It or Lose It: The Democrats and the Impeachment Clause Nicole Colson Anger Erupts at Conditions in For-Profit Indiana Prison John V. Walsh Beware the Do-Gooders in Body Armor Website of the Day Take the Terrorist Quiz!   May 10, 2007 Tariq Ali Adieu, Blair, Adieu Patrick Cockburn Killing of Teachers Turns Iraqi Sunnis Against al--Qa'ida Neve Gordon and Yigal Bronner In Israel Not All Blood is the Same: The Death of Samir Dari Marjorie Cohn Fighting Terror Selectively: Washington and Posada Carriles David Rosen The New Disappeared: Sex Offenders, Civil Confinement and the Resurrection of "Evil" Alan Farago Why the Everglades Have Dried Up: Developers and the South Florida Drought John Hellman France: From Pétain to Sarkozy Kathy Rentenbach A 100 Days of Rafael Correa BANCO The Stage is Set for Sentencing Another Innocent Black Man Richard Rhames Is Paris Burning? Website of the Day Tame the Corporation May 9, 2007 Jeff Leys Iraq and Afghanistan Supplemental Spending, 2008 Patrick Cockburn An Interview with Iraq's Foreign Minister on Iran and Iraq Glen Ford No Black Plan for America's Cities Paula Rothenberg Feminism Then and Now Kathryn Weber A Conversation with Norman Finkelstein John Chuckman The Likely Historical Significance of the War in Iraq Jordan Flaherty Looking for Justice in Jena, Louisiana Dave Lindorff Pelosi's Toothless Threat to Sue Bush Stephen Lendman Criminalizing Speech: the War on Free Expression in a Post-9/11 World Website of the Day "Fifth and Market": a Short Film About the Iraq War     May 8, 2007 Dave Lindorff The Great Oil Robbery Patrick Cockburn The Horrific Stoning Death of a Yazidi Girl Sparks Waves of Revenge Killings Corporate Crime Reporter Snuff Politics: Democrats Escalate Attack on Single Payer Ralph Nader The People's Crusade of Mike Gravel Malini Johar Schueller Decoding Harlan Ullman: Shock and Awe as Sexual Fantasy Juan Santos The Hate Equation: Targeting Migrant Children in LA Dave Zirin Jason Whitlock, the Clarence Thomas of Sportswriters? Joshua Frank The Price of Fire in Latin America Evelyn Pringle Serotonin Syndrome Eamonn McCann Irish Peace Dividend for Discredited Premiers Website of the Day The Pagan Science Monitor     May 7, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Great Wall of Baghdad Rises Monica Benderman Land of Opportunity Greg Moses Hutto Prison Rebuffs UN Rapporteur Rannie Amiri The Sham at Sheikh: Iraq Regional Conference a Flop Fitrakis / Wasserman Media Silence on Kent State Revelations Fred Wilhelms Another Royalty Forfeiture From SoundExchange: And This Time It's Secret! Ramzy Baroud The Hourglass of Blood: Darfur Revisited Bruce K. Gagnon The Democrats Don't Own the Antiwar Movement T. W. Croft Home Movies from a Weekend in Paris--And Related Dreamscapes Sonja Karkar Prizes for Supporting Israel? Website of the Day Posada Carriles: the Declassified Record May 5 / 6, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Trying to Catch Up with the Voters William Blum How America Has Changed Iraq Uri Avnery Exercise in Escapism Franklin Lamb Harvard's Twisted Report on Israel's Invasion of Lebanon Fred Gardner Elective Surgeries Kill Lawrence R. Velvel The American Moral Meltdown Accelerates Missy Beattie Lying and Dying: The Moral Sensibility of Military Recruiters Robert Fantina Bush's Veto: Hypocritical Words and Actions Carla Blank American Massacres and the Media Linn Washington, Jr. The Long Ordeal of Harold Wilson Stephen F. Jackson Taking It to Drummond: Paramilitaries and Mining Companies in Colombia P. Sainath The Jailing of Indian Farmers Anthony Papa Time to End New York's War on Itself James T. Phillips Blather Cancer John Ross Last Days of the Willie Loman of the EZLN Stephen Lendman Chavez's Oil Policy Sparks Panic at Wall Street Journal Ben Terrall Iggy Pop at 60 CounterPunch Newswire Advice from a Geezer Assassin Poets' Basement Valentine, Engel and Davies Website of the Weekend Mountain Justice Summer   May 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn How the Surge is Failing Col. Dan Smith From Watergate to Gonzogate Norman Solomon FOX on Wall Street Azmi Bishara Why is Israel After Me? Ron Jacobs Sitting in on Senator Kohl and the War Dave Lindorff Clinton and Byrd are Calling for Revocation of the Wrong AUMF Kevin Zeese The Democrats Cave to Bush Bob Fitrakis Why Four Died in Ohio: Kent State, Gov. Rhodes and the FBI Janet Kauffman "Stop the Mudness!" Bare Earth is Scorched Earth Website of the Day Let Us Gather in Missouri!   May 3, 2007 Jeff Halper The Livni-Rice Plan for the Middle East: a Just Peace or Apartheid? Christopher Brauchli Bush's Best and Brightest: From Dr. Keroack to Bernard Kerik Dave Zirin Talking Sports from Death Row: an Interview with Kevin Cooper Corporate Crime Reporter Big Pharma Gets Its Hooks into Seton Hall Law School Robert Fisk Olmert Comes Undone Mike Ferner Bush Veto, Right for the Wrong Reasons? Mike Whitney A Stock Market Post-Mortem Pham Binh The Democrats and War Funding Dave Lindorff Kucinich's Impeachment Train: Look Who Just Stepped Aboard Michael A. Johnson Tenet on 60 Minutes Website of the Day Olivia Wilde: the Interview   May 2, 2007 Saul Landau Would Jesus Wear a Rolex on His TV Show? Dr. Susan Block Hookergate II: Madame Julia's Big Black Book of Cheesy Republican Sex Acts Carla Blank Historical Amnesia: Worst U.S. Massacre? Margaret Kimberly The Candor of Mike Gravel: "These People Frighten Me" Kevin Zeese Durbin Gives Edwards More to Apologize For Carlos Villareal How "Law and Order" Covers for Bigotry in the Immigration Debate Michael Dickinson Trouble in Turkey: Criminalizing Political Art Tim Shorrock A Raw Deal Between Washington and Seoul: Corporate Interventionism as Trade Policy Alevtina Rea The Myth-Makers of Estonia William S. Lind General Incompetence: Col. Yingling and the Military Brass Website of the Day Good News: Rost's "ZubeGate Exposé Prompts Congressional Inquiry May 1, 2007 Andrew Cockburn How Rumsfeld Micromanaged Torture Fred Gardner Affirmative Abstinence: Adios, Randall Tobias, the Man Who Turned His Wife's Suicide into a Sales Pitch for Prozac Chase Madar Are Working Class Jobs Bad for Your Health? Ralph Nader Cheney and the BYU 25: Faith, Accountability and Protest in Utah John V. Walsh Edgy Dems Snarl at Their Antiwar Base Joshua Frank Obama, Incorporated Leslie Radford The Migrant Trap and the Migrant's Way Out Shaun Harkin An Interview with Nativo López on Immigration Bills and Protests Dave Lindorff Murtha Talks Impeachment Peter Rost, MD Inspector General Requests Meeting with Pfizer Whistleblower Peter Linebaugh May Day and Magna Carta Website of the Day Impeachment? Why Bother?         Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition June 2 / 3, 2007 From Foot Soldier of Empire to Rebel for Peace Camilo Mejía's War By MARTIN SMITH CAMILO MEJIA, the first soldier to refuse deployment to Iraq, has joined the ranks of military veterans who have written classics that inspired antiwar movements. Mejía's memoir, Road from Ar Ramadi, is the story of an individual who held on to his humanity in the depths of the abyss to become forever changed--from a foot solider of U.S. empire to a steadfast rebel for peace. Mejía's work--written from the vantage of a soldier who served and saw firsthand the consequences of U.S. imperialism--cuts through the deceptions and lies used to justify the war. Mejía's background profoundly shaped his decision to join the military. He was born in Nicaragua to parents who were deeply involved with the Sandinista Front for National Liberation (FSLN). In fact, Mejía's father was a famous performer whose radio show and satirical songs criticized the U.S.-backed Somoza dictatorship and took up the plight of the poor. When the FSLN took power in 1979, the contradictions of their victory were soon apparent. The leaders of the revolution grew rich. Mejía's father employed a chauffeur, maid and gardener, and Mejía attended an elite school for the exclusive attendance of government officials' children. Meanwhile, the U.S. backed a mercenary army, the contras, to topple the fledgling Sandinista government, which introduced mandatory military service and found itself forced to constrain social spending. When his parents separated, Mejía and his mother left Nicaragua for Costa Rica, a country where Nicaraguans often fled in search of jobs and to escape the war, which claimed over 50,000 lives. Nicaraguans took the worst-paying jobs and faced discrimination, often singled out for their darker skin. Mejía was ridiculed at school and called derogatory names. He described the sharp transition in his life: "In Nicaragua, I had been a privileged child of the revolution...All that came to an end during the two years we spent in Costa Rica, and I became introverted and lonely." By 1994, Mejía's grandmother had become a naturalized American citizen and obtained permanent resident status for his mother and him. They joined the ranks of Miami's working poor. While his mother worked as a grocery cashier, Mejía flipped burgers and then attended night school. During his studies at a community college, his federal student financial aid was cancelled because, it was claimed, he made too much money. * * * IT WAS in the midst of such hardships--in need of financial stability and money for tuition, but also in search of his place in the world--that Mejía joined the Army. As he explained, "I just wanted to be with a group of people with whom I shared something, to acquire a sense of belonging." But Mejía was to find out that the military's promises came with strings attached. He served his four years on active duty with distinction; however, every soldier actually signs an eight-year contract, a reality that was never fully disclosed to him until he was separating from the Army. In order to get additional funding for school, he then entered the National Guard. However, he soon learned that the Guard did not pay tuition at the private school he was attending. Mejía describes the lies that are the bedrock of military recruitment. "I was disappointed in the system," he writes. "It preyed on the vulnerability of people, exploiting the lack of options to get them to sign up, and subsequently tied them into service with the constant promise of benefits that were just around the corner." A bigger shock was still to come. In January 2003--with only months until he both graduated from college and completed his military contract--Mejía's unit was activated for Operation Iraqi Freedom, and his service was extended under a "stop-loss order." Mejía didn't know that according to the law, "stop-loss" didn't officially apply to non-citizens like himself; the military concealed this fact from him. He left with his unit for Jordan and ultimately to Ar Ramadi, the heart of the Sunni Triangle and the emerging Iraqi resistance. Mejía's "sense of belonging" to a "military family" began to fracture. He awakened to the realities of the military bureaucracy, an institution that mirrored the class divisions rampant in the civilian world. A culture of competition for higher rank and wartime medals, including backstabbing and jockeying for power, exposed Mejía to the fact that the true enemy resided within the military itself. His National Guard unit was riddled with officers and career soldiers hell-bent on seeing combat in order to win the coveted Combat Infantry Badge, a prerequisite for higher rank. From the beginning, Mejía's unit, Charlie Company, was ill-equipped, rushed and unprepared. "Rumors that someone at the battalion level forged documents to get our units into combat more quickly were reinforced when we landed in Baghdad and found there was no unit waiting for us, no orders, no place to sleep, not even food or water," Mejía reported. In Ar Ramadi, what seemed on the surface to be the incompetence of the officers turned out to be, in fact, part and parcel of a master scheme based upon the slaughter of the Iraqi people, and paid at the price of U.S. soldiers' lives. As Mejía explained, "Somewhere there had been a meeting, in some fancy office, where some grand plan had been discussed by detached people. The plan required the loss of many lives in order to reach the goals, but it was all acceptable. My life and the lives of those in my unit were all part of that acceptable loss." Reminiscent of the Vietnam War, the lower ranks of Charlie Company were sent out on suicide missions to draw enemy fire. The unit would stay out on patrols that were longer than necessary and repeatedly occupy the same area at similar times--thus giving up the element of surprise. It became obvious to Mejía that they were merely acting as bait and putting the lives of the rank-and-file soldiers in grave danger while the career officers sat in the protection of their air-conditioned rooms. When the death toll rose sharply in Charlie Company and as the Battalion Commander, Lt. Col. Mirable, ordered the same dangerous missions, rumors circulated that members of the company were plotting his assassination. * * * MEJIA ALSO describes the U.S. military's blatant racism and disregard for Iraqi culture, which angered the civilian population and fueled the resistance. At Al Assad, his unit assisted in running an illegal detainee camp, operating at roughly the same time as the infamous brutality at Abu Ghraib. Prisoners deemed as "enemy combatants" were hooded and kept awake through acts of cruelty and disorientation. Beyond Mejía's exposure of the lies of occupation, the strength of his book is the humility with which Mejía explains the change within himself that led to his decision to follow his conscience and oppose war. Torn between his feelings of duty to his fellow soldiers and his growing opposition to an illegal and immoral war, Mejía, home on a two-week leave, decided he could no longer be a pawn for U.S. empire. He decided that the new war he was prepared to fight in would be "a war against the system I had come from, a battle against the military machine, the imperial dragon that devours its own soldiers and Iraqi civilians alike for the sake of profits." He went underground for five months and then applied for conscientious objector status. He then turned himself in to the military and faced a high-profile court martial. "I made my decision based on my understanding that this is a criminal, illegitimate war for empire," he told reporters. "Had I died in the war, in my heart, I would have died a mercenary." At a time when the war was still supported by large numbers of people, Mejía became the first soldier to be sentenced and serve nine months in prison for resisting. Mejía's public denunciation of the war was a thorn in the side of the military that claimed to be building democracy and spreading freedom. But most importantly, he helped spark a new movement of dissent within the military, including a growing number of deployment refusals and the newly formed Iraq Veterans Against the War. Road from Ar Ramadi should be read and shared with all as a potent aid to opposing military recruitment and as a testament to the power of speaking truth to empire from a working-class soldier--and hero--for our side. Martin Smith is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. He can be reached at: send2smith@yahoo.com

Now Available! The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained! Buy End Times Now! Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal Click Here to Order!   "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz WHAT'S INSIDE Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair       The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont   CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed   Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh   The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"