President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, on August 7, 1990, unilaterally ordered U.S. ground and naval forces to invade Saudi Arabia in border areas near Iraq, claiming he was responding to Iraq’s August 2 “naked aggression” of the Sheikdom of Kuwait. United States military veterans, along with many, but not enough others, sprang into immediate action, knowing that was not the real issue. There have been numerous “naked aggressions” committed by one country against another in the Middle East as well as elsewhere, including Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980 with U.S. support, and Israel’s “naked aggression” against the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt over the past 44 years, all having received either tacit or open support from the U.S. The worst offender in the world for committing lawless aggression and interventionism is the United States which possesses a global network of a thousand military bases and installations which have supported, it is now known, more than 350 U.S. led or supported military interventions in the “Third” world since the end of World War II, murdering millions.

SANCTIONS; U.S. INTENTIONALLY DESTROYED IRAQ’s WATER SUPPLY

Accompanying the sending of military forces to the Gulf, the U.S. immediately orchestrated UN-imposed sanctions such that no raw materials or modular system parts could be received by Iraq, devastating reconstruction efforts and exasperating hunger and malnutrition leading to hundreds of thousands of children dead. The 20 years of sanctions, 1990-2010, are estimated to have directly caused between 670,000 and 880,000 excess child deaths (“Lessons We Should Have Learned From the Iraqi Sanctions,” Foreign Policy, January 4, 2012). On our October 1991 visit we saw dying children with their desperate mothers everywhere – in hospitals if they were lucky to get a bed to wait out the death process, and on the streets.

The U.S. had systematically targeted the bombing of sewage treatment and water pumping plants, including destruction of pipelines carrying sewage or drinking water, respectively. Worse, the U.S. knew that the sanctions would prevent Iraq from restoring clean water due to its inability to acquire imported specialized equipment and chemicals needed to purify its water supply. Iraq had no domestic sources of both water treatment replacement parts and essential chemicals such as chlorine. Confidential U.S. Documents reveal awareness that this deprivation policy would be especially devastating for children, identifying likely outbreaks of acute diarrhea brought on by bacteria such as E. coli, shigella, and salmonella, or by protozoa such as giardia or rotavirus, and typhoid and cholera outbreaks. The U.S. knowingly carried out a policy that would create thousands, likely hundreds of thousands, of Iraqi deaths, especially of children, and did it anyway. (“The Secret Behind the Sanctions: How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq’s Water Supply” by Thomas J. Nagy, The Progressive , September 2001 <http://www.progressive.org/mag/nagy0901.html>).

U.S. high ranking officials have publicly supported the policy of sanctions, killing hundreds of thousands of children:

Democracy Now!, September 22, 2005 – AMY GOODMAN asks: The U.N. sanctions…led to the deaths of more than a half a million children, not to mention more than a million Iraqis. New Mexico GOVERNOR RICHARDSON, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under president Clinton responds: Well, I stand behind the sanctions. I believe that they successfully contained Saddam Hussein. I believe that the sanctions were an instrument of our policy. (http://www.democracynow.org/2005/9/22/governor_richardson_calls_for_an_exit)

CBS 60 Minutes, May 12, 1996 – Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq comments, then asks: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” President Clinton’s Secretary of State MADELEINE ALBRIGHT responds: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it. (http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084)

REAL REASONS FOR THE INVASION

In March 1990, the White House had issued its National Security Strategy of the United States, reminding its readers that the U.S. has “. . . always sought to protect the safety of the nation . . . and its way of life,” requiring efforts aimed at “contributing to an international environment . . . within which our democracy – and other free nations, – can flourish.” The report states that these goals have guided “American” policy “throughout the life of the Republic,” being the “driving force behind President Jefferson’s decision to send the American Navy against the Pasha of Tripoli in 1804 as they were when President Reagan directed American naval and air forces to return to that area in 1986.” Tripoli, of course, is today’s Libya, and the period 1801-1805 were the dates of the First Barbary or Tripolitan War.

The report continues by declaring our “pivotal responsibility for ensuring the stability of the international balance,” and it identifies the Middle East as a region in which “even as East-West tensions diminish, American strategic concerns remain,” identifying threats to, for example, the “security of Israel” and the “free flow of oil.” Israel is strategic for assuring U.S. hegemony even beyond the region.

It makes the interest in oil very clear: “Secure supplies of energy are essential to our prosperity and security. The concentration of 65 percent of the world’s known oil reserves in the Persian Gulf means we must continue to ensure reliable access to competitively priced oil and a prompt, adequate response to any major oil supply disruption.” Of course this is not surprising, nor is it a new policy. It is simply worth noting again, that the American Way Of Life (AWOL) leaves us little choice but continue our addiction to oil and fossil fuels.

The early 1979 Iranian revolution that toppled the western friendly Shah, the hostage crisis that followed, and the Soviet December invasion of Afghanistan in response to U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s funding Contras to aimed at overthrowing a revolutionary government there, all contributed to catalyze open domestic support for escalated U.S. military buildup in the Middle East. President Carter responded with the “Carter Doctrine,” in which he warned that the “United States would use any means necessary, including military forces,” to protect its vital interests in the Gulf. This went further than the Eisenhower Doctrine espoused in 1957.

A few months before the Gulf war of 1990-1991, General A.M. Gray, commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, stated the U.S. problem very clearly:

The underdeveloped world’s growing dissatisfaction over the gap between rich and poor nations will create a fertile breeding ground for insurgencies which have the potential to jeopardize regional stability and our access to vital economic and military resources. This situation will become more critical as our nation and allies, as well as potential adversaries, become more dependent on these strategic resources.

If we are to have stability in these regions, maintain access to their resources, protect our citizens abroad, defend our vital installations, and deter conflict, we must maintain within our active force structure a credible military power projection capability with the flexibility to respond to conflict across the spectrum of violence throughout the globe.

(Michael T. Klare, “The New World War,” The Progressive (November 1990), 14-15).

U.S. BEGINS 43 DAYS OF INCESSANT BOMBING

The U.S. started bombing Iraq on January 16, 1991. Bombing was incessant. This included sending two (“Smart”) Cruise missiles through the air conditioning system of a large bomb shelter in Baghdad on February 13, killing hundreds of women and children. On February 17, former Marine Lt. John SCHUCHARDT, and his wife Carrie, attended the First Congregational Church in Kennebunkport, Maine on a Sunday when President George Bush and his wife Barbara were in attendance. At a point in the service when people were invited to share words, John stood up and firmly, but politely decried the bombing of Iraq with several poetic and factual declarations. He was forcefully dragged out of the church by Secret Service and local police. He was convicted of making unruly noise in a church and served three days in jail. Most in the Middle East knew of his act.

U.S. VETERANS RESPOND IN PROTEST; VETERANS DELEGATION TO IRAQ

As quickly as August 12, only five days after Bush’s decision to invade the Gulf region, veterans began in different places and ways to assert opposition and resistance to this aggressive policy. A few veterans refused orders to be part of the Gulf invasion, and others participated in teach-ins and state and local demonstrations.

On September 7, 1991, a group of eight U.S. military veterans, ranging in age from 36 to 76, seven men and one woman, left the United States for the Middle East to investigate the issues of the region, and to observe the effects of the U.S.-led bombing and sanctions war against Iraq. No organization or entity in the United States or elsewhere financially sponsored the 1991 Veterans Peace Delegation. No organization or entity of any kind invited us to the Middle East or any of its countries. Each member of the delegation, individually and collectively, was motivated by conscience to viscerally experience the Middle East at this critical time. Each member sought his or her own funding enabling their participation in the delegation.

William Kelsey provided a unique contribution as the delegation’s general translator. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he grew up in Amman, Jordan, the son of Baptist archaeologists and missionaries, and possesses not only a good grasp of the Arabic language, but also of the cultural, political, and Biblical history of the Middle East region. Viet Nam veteran Rick Droz served as our photographer.

The delegation traveled approximately 3,600 ground miles (5,800 kilometers), interviewing people and observing conditions in rural areas and in 75 communities and cities. This travel and observation occurred from September 8 – September 19 in Green line Israel, Palestine, and the Golan Heights (areas in Syria illegally annexed by Israel in 1981); from September 20 – September 29, and October 11 – October 13 in Jordan; and from September 30 – October 11 in Iraq.

UNITED NATIONS REPORT ON DAMAGE: “RELEVATED TO A PRE-INDUSTRIAL AGE”

According to the March 20, 1991, United Nations Report on the impact of the war on Iraq, submitted by Under Secretary-General Martti Ahtisaari to the Secretary-General, approximately 9,000 homes were destroyed or damaged beyond repair from the bombing. Of these, 2,500 were in Baghdad, 1,900 in Basrah. The report cites destruction of the following components of Iraq’s infrastructure:

1. The sole vaccine producing laboratory; 2. All vaccines; 3. Virtually all electrical power plants; 4. Virtually all oil refineries; 5. Virtually all oil storage facilities; 6. Virtually all electrically operated installations; 7. Virtually all plants manufacturing water treatment chemicals; 8. Virtually all telephone and communications systems; 9. All ports; 10. Eighty three bridges.

The U.N. Report used the terms, “near apocalyptic results,” “relegated to a pre-industrial age,” “imminent catastrophe,” “calamitous consequences,” “devastation,” “grave deficiencies” of food, and “deep crisis.”

In terms of estimates of total human casualty figures, the New York Times (June 5, 1991) reported 100,000 Iraqi military killed, and 300,000 wounded, citing DOD “tentative” figures. Other estimates suggest 200,000 Iraqi soldiers killed (London Times, March 3, 1991), with many more maimed. Civilian dead directly from bombings and immediate after effects are in the 25,000 to 50,000 range, with as many as 100,000 post-war adult deaths as of 1992, for a total of 150,000 civilian deaths (The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf, Ramsey Clark, Thunder Mouth’s Press, 1992, pp. 83-4, 130, 209). The Red Crescent Society of Jordan estimated 123,000 civilian dead just before the end of the war. Thus as many as 250,000 to 300,000 adult Iraqis, both military and civilian were killed directly from the war and its immediate aftermath. When added to the estimated 670,000 to 880,000 children who died over twenty years as a direct result of the sanctions, 920,000 to 1,180,000 Iraqis were killed due to the U.S.-led Gulf War and its accompanying sanctions.

Of course, this figure is in addition to the second Iraq war which began with the U.S. invasion on March 19, 2003, lasting officially until December 2011, killing anywhere from 120,000 to 130,000 civilians (iraqbodycount.org) to about 865,000 (unknownnews.org/casualties.html). Between the two wars, the first Gulf War, (really massacre) and the second Gulf War (or “Operation Iraqi Freedom), somewhere between one and two million Iraqis were murdered. In addition the U.S. war has created 600,000 orphans, internally displaced at least 1.3 million Iraqi citizens, and twice that many in exile (“Iraq: Remembering Those Responsible” Stephen Zunes, Truthout, January 1, 2012 <http://www.truth-out.org/iraq-remember-those-responsible/1325433300>).

LEAVING IRAQ; THE RUG

As we prepared to leave the country, we went to one of the large markets in Baghdad. Few if any tourists were in the country. I was attracted to a vendor sitting next to huge piles of Oriental RUGS. As we engaged him in discussion, he described 42 consecutive days of bombing as the ultimate in terror. For about 10 or 12 days, he said, Baghdad was bombed every 3 to 5 minutes, at least 10 hours a day, from about 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. If only one bomb hit Baghdad every 3 to 5 minutes, that would amount to 12 to 20 bombs per hour, 120 to 200 bombs per the 10 hour bombing night, or 1200 – 1440 to 2000 – 2400 total bombs for the 10 or 12 day period of intense bombing. Virtually every other night, and daytime, witnessed bomb hits as well, though with less intensity. Almost certainly more than one bomb exploded every 3 to 5 minutes for some of the bombing period. Thus it is easy to imagine that Baghdad was hit at least 3,000 to 4,000 times with bombs and missiles.

I couldn’t resist acquiring one of the beautiful RUGS lying in numerous piles awaiting for tourists to once again visit Iraq. One caught my fancy and I asked the vendor how much it cost. He responded: “make me an offer.” I had no idea the value of these RUGS but I imagined they were way out of my reach. But I simply offered $50 thinking he would laugh. He said “give me $55 and it is yours. I was stunned. Virtually no outsiders had been shopping in these markets since the bombing ended in February, some seven months prior. He said he thought the RUG was made in Babylon sometime in the early 1930s. I had no idea, not being a rug expert. I wrapped it in a black plastic garbage bag tied with a rope, in preparation for our return travel to Amman, Jordan, then on the plane to the U.S.

We left Baghdad at 5:15 am for our 550 mile (900 kilometers) return trip to Amman, Jordan, Friday, October 11 through the Syrian Desert. We were concluding 12 days in Mesopotamia, one of the “Cradles of Civilization.” Perhaps its plight portends the end of “civilization” as we have come to understand the term.

After passing through Falluja, we came to Ramadi where we were forced to take an extensive detour because three bridges (that we could see) over the Euphrates River had been bombed. We observed another destroyed electric power station. From Ramadi, Iraq, to the eastern edge of Amman, Jordan, we traveled through the seemingly endless Syrian Desert. We continued through Rutba, Iraq, to the Iraq border town of Trebil. Virtually every communications center and power station visible from Baghdad to the Jordan border seemed to have been bombed or missiled, probably one or two dozen in number. Scars were visible on the road pavement where bombs had apparently struck moving vehicles. Coming eastward into Iraq we had seem few road scars on the roadway. Apparently the numerous scars in the westward lanes heading into Jordan suggest the targeting of fleeing vehicles.

It took about three hours at the Iraq Customs and Immigration post at the border town of Trebil before we could enter Jordan. I was informed by Iraqi officials that the Oriental RUG I had purchased in Baghdad was considered a “national treasure” and that it could NOT be removed from the country. I was disappointed, but was not going to argue with them, or offer a bribe. After all, I was a citizen of the country that had bombed Iraq to a “pre-industrial age.” They were curious as to why we veterans had traveled to Iraq and wondered what we had been doing. We expressed our outrage at the U.S. invasion and bombing and that we wanted to offer our apologies for our country’s barbarism, and to document the damages to the Iraqi society. They were absolutely astonished to hear this. I then thought to ask them, through our own translator, Bill Kelsey, whether they had heard of the man who stood up in Bush’s church in February 1991 demanding the end of the bombing, a story that had made the February 18, 1991 New York Times headline, “Dissent Makes Discord in Bush’s Church.” Oh, yes, they exclaimed, and their faces lit up. Well, I said, here is the guy, JOHN SCHUCHARDT stood up in Bush’s church demanding the bombing to be stopped. That led to an incredible conversation which ultimately led to their wanting me to take the cherished RUG with me. All, thanks to JOHN SCHUCHARDT’S bold, moral action in Bush’s church that we discovered virtually all people in the Middle East had heard about.

We arrived at our Jordan destination, the Caravan Hotel, about 9 p.m. Friday evening.

MEMBERS OF OUR DELEGATION

* Phil Roettinger, Retired Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps, WW II; Ex-CIA Officer (Guatemala and Mexico); President, Association of National Security Alumni, opposed to all U.S. covert and overt interventions; portrait painter; BA, Pol. Sci., Ohio Wesleyan Univ.

* John Schuchardt, Ex-Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps; Attorney; “Plowshares” activist against U.S. weapons buildup and all interventionist policies; Juris Doctor (JD), Univ. of Chicago.

* S. Brian Willson, Ex-Captain, U.S. Air Force; Security Officer in Viet Nam (VN); trained attorney; long-time peace activist; lost both legs when U.S. munitions train accelerated over nonviolent protest of U.S. policies in Central America; JD, The American Univ,; LLD, CUNY Queens.

* Mark Birnbaum, Ex-Sergeant, U.S. Army intelligence, Viet Nam; Director of his own video production company; produced documentaries about U.S .intervention in Nicaragua; videographer for delegation: BA, Psych., Univ. of Maryland.

* Rick Droz, Ex-Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps, Viet Nam; lost leg in VN; professional photo- journalist; long-time peace activist; photographer for delegation; BA, Photography, Brooks Institute.

* William Kelsey, Ex-Ensign, U.S. Navy, graduate of U.S. Naval Academy; discharged as conscientious objector; freelance pilot; grew up in Jordan; speaks Arabic; translator for delegation; BNS, Naval Acad.

* Dr. Lawrence Deems Egbert, Ex-Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy, World War II; Medical Doctor (anesthesiologist); previously on faculty of universities in Iran and Lebanon; Member, Dallas, Texas Physicians for Social Responsibility; MD and MPH, Johns Hopkins Univ.

* Ellen Elizabeth Barfield, Ex-Sergeant, U.S. Army; diesel mechanic; Laboratory technician, knowledgeable about water toxins and animal pathogens; peace activist; assists at Dallas, Texas AIDS Center; BS, Animal Science, W. Texas State Univ.

One hot sunny morning in April 1969 I found myself in a small Mekong Vietnamese fishing village that had just been bombed, burned bodies lying everywhere. My job in that moment was to assess the success of bombing missions of so-called military targets. In my naivete, it never occurred to me that the countless targets, systematically being bombed, were undefended, inhabited rice farming and fishing villages. In effect, all that mattered was the creation of “enemy” body counts – lots of them – Washington’s demonic criteria for defining “success.” I was overwhelmed in grief as I looked into the eyes of young, napalmed, blackened mothers with children – hundreds of them – lying in their own village 9,000 miles distant from my sleepy farm community in upstate New York. I gagged when I witnessed these horrible scenes of carnage, and later became enraged at the incomprehensible lie that I had so easily believed in.

What on earth was going on? Americans were taught that among nations we were unique: a nation of laws, not of men. In one shamefully startling moment in a Vietnamese village, I realized I had been brainwashed, mesmerized by US American mythology. I was overcome by an irreversible knowledge that a huge lie had been perpetrated by men in open defiance of the laws of the land at the expense of countless innocent people.

I futilely demanded that my superiors in Saigon headquarters stop the bombing that violated both US and international laws of warfare prohibiting targeting of civilians or their infrastructure. My pleas were summarily ignored, confirming that in fact there are no laws of war. The pilots of these planes were rewarded for their routinely successful turkey shoots at 300 feet, while other young men back in the states were jailed for burning the national symbol that represented this very policy of burning human beings – the US flag.

The vast majority of US citizenry were paying taxes to finance this grotesquely criminal war, absurdly touted by political, religious, economic and many academic leaders as necessary to protect our national security by destroying other, far-away people’s aspirations for independence. I staggered at how preposterous and racist this policy was. Later I learned that Ralph McGehee, a CIA officer in Viet Nam, had revealed intelligence that could find no significant support for our intervention there. McGehee became depressed when his bosses in Washington reported exactly the opposite to the US American public. He reluctantly concluded that the CIA is the covert action arm of the President’s foreign policy advisers which reports and shapes “intelligence” to justify desired political policy.

This basic lie has been with us since our country’s origins. We ignore the fundamental fact that the US was built on dispossession and genocide of hundreds of ancient nations of Indigenous peoples, describing ourselves as being “as a city upon a hill,” and later as an “exceptional” people. We celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday that was first officially proclaimed by the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637 to commemorate the massacre of 700 Pequot men, women and children at what is now Groton, Connecticut. Today, Groton is the home of the Electric Boat Corporation which makes US nuclear submarines. Thus, our official life as a nation is constructed on a shared denial of painful realities and the suffering they created, and continue to create. Denial as a way of life is politics in US America.

Even our founding document, the Constitution, is suspect. The Convention was conducted by 55 well-to-do White men meeting in strict secrecy, and the document was never submitted to a popular vote. Domination by a very few men and the subordination of the many was made the law of the land, in effect, assuring that inherited property replaced inherited government, commercial enterprises reigning over human liberty. However, that is not how it is taught. As we persist in believing the lie that it is “we the people” and not “we the largest property owners” who govern this country, we assure our continued disempowerment.

For more than two centuries, the process of preserving and expanding private property and profits under the lofty rhetoric of living in a democracy has been assured by over 560 US military interventions in more than 100 countries, murdering millions of people. I did not know this history when I was in Viet Nam. One discovers deceit and secrecy surrounding every one of these foreign interventions (necessary to assure public support), starting with the very first intervention in the Dominican Republic in 1798 and through all of our wars and interventions to the present ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. World War II was no exception. Journalist Robert B. Stinnett discovered similar deceit behind US entrance into World War II, the so-called “good war.” His research confirms that not only was the attack on Pearl Harbor known in advance at the highest levels from decoded Japanese intelligence, but it was deliberately provoked.

Psychologist Carl Jung has described how the psychology of nations with imperial ambitions successfully hides its dark internal “shadows” (harsh truths) by projecting outward its own evils onto other nations described as enemies (“demons”): Everything our nation does is touted as good, everything the “enemy” does is evil. But many of us obedient soldiers who participated first hand in these imperial wars of good versus evil had these projections quickly stripped from our eyes. We discovered in fact that we were the savages, not those lying dead at our feet in their home villages whom we had been taught to demonize.

It is easy to identify our nation’s shadows by carefully examining the images we project onto others. But if we continue to maintain a dangerous, distorted vision of the world, we assure protection of our moral high-mindedness at the expense of severely weakening our grasp of reality. We ensure our own destruction unless we muster the courage to look at our own dark shadows, whether as individuals or nations. Instead, we pretend, endlessly.

How many of our citizens know of the systematic crimes committed by the US throughout the world that have been constant, remorseless, and fully documented? As British playwright and Nobel Prize recipient Harold Pinter angrily comments: “Nobody talks about them…It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.”  The US just wouldn’t be involved in such criminal interventions any more than our origins are built upon dispossession and genocide.

Over 100 years ago, noted US socialist and reformer Upton Sinclair bemoaned our corrupt political and media system, and his words still ring true: “…we are just like Rome. Our legislatures are corrupt; our politicians are unprincipled; our rich men are ambitious and unscrupulous. Our newspapers have been purchased and gagged; our colleges have been bribed; our churches have been cowed. Our masses are sinking into degradation and misery; our ruling classes are becoming wanton and cynical.”

Pretending to be democratic takes a lot of effort. This harsh political reality has required the constant managing of the “public” mind to assure mass “democratic” compliance with the undemocratic oligarchic economic and political structures. Pretending to be democratic takes a lot of effort. Edward L. Bernays, the premier pioneer of US public relations, argued that the ability to shape and direct public opinion had become indispensable to the maintenance of order. President Woodrow Wilson was re-elected in 1916 on the promise that he would keep the US neutral, and would not send “American” boys to war in Europe. Once elected, however, ongoing pressures from US banking and other economic interests to enter the war on the side of England required Wilson to develop a strategy to convince a public overwhelmingly against the war to change their minds. With Bernays’ coaching, Wilson created the first modern de facto Minister for Propaganda, selecting liberal newspaperman George Creel to head up The Committee for Public Information (CPI). Creel launched an intense advertising campaign using catch phrases and fear-inducing language with 75,000 traveling speakers (the famous Four Minute Men), ads, and essays reaching every nook and cranny of the United States.

Fifty years later, as noted above, CIA officers realized during Viet Nam that another war was being stage managed from Washington, as the Vietnamese were telling us they understandably wanted no part of our imperial ambitions. This is systematically documented in the Pentagon Papers, released in 1971 by Pentagon insider Daniel Ellsberg.

Now, in the 21^st Century we increasingly discover that the so-called War on Terror – actually a war of wholesale terror on retail terror, is itself stage managed, as Stephan Salisbury describes in his excellent expose, Mohamed’s Ghosts: An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland. “The plain fact is that if there is no ‘enemy within,’ if ‘homegrown’ cells are not simply elusive but an illusion – as appears increasingly to be the case – then the entire apparatus of the war on terror crumbles in the homeland…What can be imagined has replaced the actual.”

Brazilian educator Paulo Freire observed that manipulation of public thinking “is an instrument of conquest” and an indispensable means by which the “dominant elites try to conform the masses to their objectives.” Everything is make believe; honesty is dangerous. Wars abroad and wars at home must be constantly stage managed to keep the pretentions alive. Our national news constantly stage manages events to conform to our convenient view of ourselves as “exceptional.” Infotainment replaces information.

Eminent quantum physicist David Bohm summed up our dilemma perfectly. Since exploitation continues to be the essential feature of a modern society bent on accumulation of “wealth,” and its popular consumption, man is doomed to ever-increasing confusion, for he has to justify this theft to himself. “This is in fact impossible, except by continual recourse to confusion. For how else can you justify the arbitrary authority of some people over others? You can pretend that God or nature ordered it, that the others are inferior, that we are superior, etc. But once you start on this line, you can never allow yourself to think straight again, for fear that the truth will come out. You tell the child that she or he must be honest, treat people fairly, etc. Just this one point is enough to destroy the minds of most children. How can you square up the emotion of love and truth with that of plundering an enemy, stealing his wealth, murdering helpless people, and enslaving others?”

Viet Nam was not a mistake any more than the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars were a mistake. There neither was or is anything different about these wars. They are part of a pattern of brutality written into our country’s DNA. The long pattern of US intervention policy does not make atrocities by individual soldiers inevitable, but it does make it inevitable that US soldiers as a whole would murder many civilians. Currently, Army private Bradley Manning is accused of revealing to the public numerous and egregious US war crimes in Iraq (the truth). He has been incarcerated for nearly two years awaiting a trial that military judicial authorities say promises life in prison or possibly death. This dramatically contrasts with the recent exoneration (pretend), with no jail time, by that same military system, of eight US Marines, four of whom were officers, of cold-blooded murder of 24 unarmed civilians in Haditha, Iraq, aged one year to 76 years, shooting them at close range in the head and chest. The evil of the US simply does not occur.

Since the first European settlers raped, pillaged, and massacred the local Indian populations in order to claim the land for themselves, we in the United States have felt it our manifest destiny as exceptional people to gain ever more material goods, even at the expense of anyone and everyone else, and the earth. We continue to treat others as inferiors. We are told that these human beings are demons – vermin – which we could only absurdly believe because we as a people have not yet found the courage to look within and discover our own inner darkness – our own vermin – that festers from believing in the lies of our national myths, that we are the “exceptional” people.

I can never forget the eyes I saw on mother’s faces as they clutched their children when they were caught by the bombs exploding in their villages. In a sudden moment of truth, I realized we are all connected. If we continue to pretend that we are not connected, we invite our own destruction, even extinction. How sad that we would pretend rather than be honest, and become real. Living in a pretend world assures that countless more men, women and children, here and abroad, will continue to be considered as worthless, as the power of the few continue their plunder. Our survival demands that we seek courage to examine our own shadows, rather than cowardly project those shadows onto others, and thus begin peeling back the layers of deception to recover our humanity.

_________________________________________________________________________

REFERENCES Cited:

Ralph W. McGehee, Deadly Deceits: My 25 Years in the CIA (New York: Sheridan Square Publications, 1983), 192.

Robert B. Stinnett, Day Of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor (New York: The Free Press, 2000).

Harold Pinter, Various Voices: Prose, Poetry, Politics, 1948–1998” (New York: Grove Press, 1998), 237.

Stuart Ewen, PR! A Social History of Spin (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 49.

Stephan Salisbury, Mohamed’s Ghosts: An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland (New York: Nation Books, 2010), 1–28.

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), 144.

Lee Nichol, ed., The Essential David Bohm (London: Routledge, 2000), 217.

_______________________________________________

S. Brian Willson is the author of “Blood on the Tracks-The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson” (PM Press, 2011). Willson is a Viet Nam veteran whose wartime experiences transformed him into a revolutionary nonviolent pacifist. He gained renown as a participant in a prominent 1986 veterans fast on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. One year later, on September 1, 1987, he was again thrust into the public eye when he was run over and nearly killed by a U.S. Navy Munitions train while engaging in a nonviolent blockade in protest of weapons shipments to El Salvador. Since the 1980s he has continued efforts to educate the public about the diabolical nature of U.S. imperialism while striving to “walk his talk” (on two prosthetic legs and a three-wheeled handcycle) and live a simpler life.

“According to the foremost historians of American labor violence, the U.S. has had the ‘bloodiest and most violent labor history of any industrial nation in the world.’ An admittedly grossly underestimated tabulation of the number of casualties in labor disputes indicates over seven hundred deaths and thousands of serious injuries, almost all of which occurred in the 1873-1937 period” [Goldstein, Robert Justin. (1978). Political Repression in Modern America, From 1870 to the Present. Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing Co., Inc., p. 3; Graham, Hugh Davis, and Ted Robert Gurr, Eds. (1969). Violence in America: Historical and Comparative Perspectives. New York: Bantam Books, p. 380].

In 1878 Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act (18 USCS Sec. 1385) making it illegal for the government to deploy its military against “civil disturbances.”  Since the passage of this law, and despite its provisions, there have been at least 114 instances of use of U.S. military against its own citizens participating in “unrest,” 1878–1994 (Sweeney, A Handbook of American Military History, pp. 102-269). However, in recent years the Posse Comitatus Act has been eroded even further by (1) amendments and secret executive decrees that enable the president to use the military to restore order if enforcement of the law by civil authorities is not able to “quell civil disturbances”; and (2) the alarming extreme militarization of domestic police departments all around the country [Churchill, Ward. (2003). Perversions of Justice: Indigenous peoples and AngloAmerican Law. San Francisco: City Lights, pp. 363, 398]. Furthermore, use of “noncombat” employment of military personnel have intervened under the aegis of the ”War on Drugs” and war on so-called immigrants.

NOTE:  When the figure of 136 domestic US military interventions, or the higher figure of 216 [56 military interventions into racial or civil unrest (Sweeney) plus 160 into labor unrest (Graham and Gurr)] is added to 560 identifiable overt foreign military interventions, 1798 – 2008, the total of US overt military interventions, foreign and domestic, is 665 (or 776) US Military interventions. Since the date of the first domestic intervention was 1794 (Whiskey Rebellion), and first foreign intervention was 1798 (Dominican Republic), and these figures cover the period of 1794-2008, a period of 214 years, a US military offensive operation, domestic and foreign, has been conducted an average of anywhere from 3.2– 3.6 times per year to preserve the American Way Of Life.

.

Reagan Launches Explicit Policy Using “Terror“ as Pretext for Repression

**December 4, 1981, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed 14 page Executive Order 12333, establishing operating procedures for the FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies to restore domestic surveillance. ["This continued the trend toward increasing CIA power and White House support. In particular, it authorized the infiltration, manipulation, and disruption of domestic organizations by the FBI and CIA even in the absence of any evidence of wrongdoing," according to Covert Action, Number 22 (Fall 1984)].

**January 29, 1982, National Security Decision Directive 22 (NSSD-22), authorized the CIA to request the FBI to collect information on U.S. citizens for use by the CIA.

**July 22, 1982, NSSD-47, “Emergency Mobilization Preparedness,” authorized “relocation of large numbers of people” [detention] and an “intensified counterintelligence effort” during major domestic or national security emergencies.

**July 28, 1983, NSSD-100, “Enhanced U.S. Military Activity and Assistance For the Central America Region”, ordering U.S. military operations in the area “significantly increased.”

**April 3, 1984, NSDD-138, “Combating Terrorism,” approved both preemptive strikes and retaliatory raids against “terrorists” by FBI, the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) and CIA paramilitary squads [Veil, pp. 361-362];

**November 13, 1984, a few days after Reagan’s second election he signed an intelligence authorization “Finding” (and a subsequent one on May 12, 1986) to conduct “good faith” aggressive covert actions against “terrorists”, interpreted as a “license to kill” (See Oakland Tribune, October 5, 1988, “Reagan Signed Two Intelligence Directives Regarded As ‘Licenses to Kill’”; San Francisco Examiner, October 5, 1988, “Reagan Loosened CIA Leash, Order Could Have OK’d Assassinations”).

**July 20, 1985, NSDD-179, “Task Force on Combating Terrorism,” established the executive Task Force on Combating Terrorism, chaired by Vice-President Bush which, in turn, created the Operations Subgroup (OSG) under the Terrorist Incident Working Group (TIWG) chaired by Oliver North; “International terrorism poses an increasing threat to U.S. Citizens and our interests.” BW Note: There are those U.S. interests again!!

**January 20, 1986, NSDD 207, “The National Program for Combating Terrorism,” created a National Security Council (NSC) coordinator of counterterrorism, also chaired by Oliver North, to develop more effective measures for apprehending, extraditing, and prosecuting terrorists.

**July 18, 1986, FBI presents “counter intelligence/counter-terrorism operations plan” at a meeting of the OSG-TIWG (see above) to initiate active FBI domestic surveillance.

The following evidence suggest how intensely President Reagan pursued surveillance, especially under the new rationale of investigating and preempting “terrorist” incidents.

1. Reagan Executive Order 12333, signed December 4, 1981. This Order allows the CIA to collect foreign intelligence and counter-intelligence within the U.S., to conduct covert operations in the U.S., and allows physical surveillance by the CIA of a person abroad to obtain foreign intelligence. The Order allows warrantless, unconsented physical searches, mail surveillance, monitoring, and similar techniques if “there is probable cause to believe that the technique is directed against a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power.” (The 1947 National Security Act that created the CIA prohibits the CIA from “internal security functions.”)

2. National Security Decision Directive #2 was signed by President Reagan on January 12, 1982. This NSDD reorganized the National Security Council (NSC) and set up interagency groups on (1) foreign policy, (2) defense policy, and (3) intelligence to “undertake such other activities as may be assigned to the NSC.” NOTE: In effect, this Directive states that the NSC will set policy, and will participate in operational roles. It shifts NSC from adviser to the actual running of covert campaigns.

3. National Security Decision Directive #22 was signed by President Reagan on January 29, 1982. This NSDD authorized the CIA Director to request the FBI to collect information for the CIA in the United States. (The 1947 National Security Act prohibits the CIA from “internal security functions.”)

4. National Security Decision Directive #47 was signed by President Reagan on July 22, 1982. This NSDD was entitled “Emergency Mobilization Preparedness” and provided for wage and price controls, the “relocation of large numbers of people” and an “intensified counterintelligence effort” during major domestic or national security emergencies.

5. National Security Decision Directive #100 was signed by President Reagan on July 28, 1983. This NSDD was entitled “Enhanced U.S. Military Activity and Assistance for the Central America Region” and it ordered U.S. military operations in the area “significantly increased.”

6. President Reagan signed intelligence authorization Findings for any aggressive covert actions against “terrorists” if conducted in “good faith.” The first was signed Nov. 13, 1984, a few days after his second election; the second was signed August 11, 1985; and the third was signed May 12, 1986. These authorizations were considered a “license to kill,” an astounding blank check “to kill.” A former White House official called the orders the “go anywhere, do anything” authority.

7. There was (and is) a FBI Anti-Terrorist Task Force (Ref. Agents George Kiszynski and Kevin Currier relating to Jack Terrell).

8. A July 28, 1986, memorandum from Poindexter of the NSC (memo prepared by Col. North) addressed to President Reagan identifies the Operations Sub-Group (OSG) of the Terrorist Incident Working Group (TIWG) of the NSC. This Group made available to the FBI all information from other U.S. agencies relating to Terrell in early 1986.

January 7, 1986, the Operations Sub-Group (OSG) was convened for the first time [Covert Action Information Bulletin, Number 33 (Winter 1990), p. 14]; see above, July 17, 1985, NSDD-179, “Task Force on Combating Terrorism,” established the executive Task Force on Combating Terrorism, chaired by Vice-Pres Bush which, in turn, created the Operations Subgroup (OSG) under the Terrorist Incident Working Group (TIWG) chaired by Oliver North; The OSG had apparently already been meeting with North under the auspices of the Restricted Terrorist Incidents Working Group (RTIWG) [Covert Action, Number 33 (Winter 1990), p. 14]

October 31, 1986, a four-page FBI message addressed to the Director and All Offices of the Bureau from the Chicago office, SUBJECT: “Domestic Security/Terrorism Sabotage”, including the launching of an October 30 investigation of the “Plowshare” group, and group called the Veterans Fast For Life, as part of “an organized conspiracy to use force/violence to coerce the United States Government into modifying its direction“.

December 14, 1987, FBI Director William Sessions sends 3-page response letter to Congressman Don Edwards’ (D-CA) inquiry of October 6, 1987, admitting that six individuals from two organizations, “Silo Plowshares”, and “Veterans fast For Life”, “were developed as suspects“, and that the FBI conducted a “preliminary inquiry….under the domestic security/terrorism caption“.  From the pattern of conduct “it was reasonable to conclude a political motive, by two or more persons engaged in activities in violation of Federal law…..Such investigations are initiated when the facts or circumstances reasonably indicate that two or more persons are engaged in an enterprise for the purpose of furthering political or social goals, wholly or in part, through activities that involve force or violence and a violation of the criminal laws of the United State”.  The letter indicated that the preliminary inquiry was closed on April 28, 1987.

Brian Note #1: The FBI response does not indicate whether there have been any other investigations, official or unofficial, for any other reasons, and whether the initial inquiry remains part of the historical record or whether it has been physically eliminated. A wave of break-ins (see Brian Note #3 below) at offices of political opponents to Reagan’s foreign policies suggest government behavior has systematically been involved directly or indirectly in violation of the law and civil liberties, going far beyond surveillance and investigations.

Brian Note #2: Ex-FBI agent Jack Ryan who was fired for refusal to obey orders to investigate members of “Silo Plowshares,” and “Veterans Fast For Life” as “terrorists” has said the origin of the investigation was suspicious for two reasons, believing that one may have already been underway, now needing a formal cover: (1) the investigation triggered by acts of minor vandalism at recruiting offices, an insignificant crime in FBI experiences, normally would not lead a local FBI office to initiate a national “priority” communication to every field office and to the director in Wash., DC; it is so unusual as to hint another FBI motive involved; (2) the October 31, 1986 national FBI communication authored by a local office already possessed a code name, an extraordinarily unusual, also suggesting another reason behind the FBI communication.

Brian Note #3: As of January 1988, the Movement Support Network of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York had recorded 90 burglaries and break-ins with apparent Central American-related political motives since 1983.  From November 1984 through June 1986, the offices sharing space in the basement of the Old Cambridge Baptist Church in Cambridge, MA were broken into eight times.  The targets included: The New England Central American Network (NECAN), Central American Solidarity Association, Central American Information Office, Educators in Support of ANDES (the Salvadoran teachers union) and New Institute of Central America (NICA), the latter of which sent Brian to their language school in Esteli, Nicaragua on a scholarship as a military veteran, Jan.-Feb. 1986.  The Church itself had become a sanctuary for Central American refugees the week before the first break-in.  On May 15, 1987, the NICA office experienced another break-in.  Burglars poured muriatic acid on computer discs.  NECAN was broken into again on May 3, 1988. (Sklar, pp. 351-52).

Among the other organizations and sanctuary churches that have experienced break-ins are: the Central American Historical Institute located on the campus of Georgetown Univ. in Wash., DC; MADRE, a NY-based association of women in solidarity with women in Central America and the Caribbean; Calvary United Methodist Church in Wash., DC; Veterans Fast For Life, World Peacemakers, and Washington Pledge of Resistance, all housed in the Church of the Savior in Wash., DC (on same block of Massachusetts Avenue where I had lived in Mrs. Christian’s Boarding House with the Cuban exiles in 1961-62, some 25-years earlier), among many other organizations located around the U.S. [Holly Sklar, p. 352; "Testimony of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)", House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights (Don Edwards, Chair), February 20, 1987, pp. 21-26; Movement Support Network, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York City, "Incidents of Intelligence Gathering and Harassment," Revised monthly; Paul Hirshon, Boston Globe, May 4, 1988].

Observation and monitoring became criminal.  Throughout the 1980s, Central American activists experienced nearly 200 cases of harassment and intimidation, including break-ins of private homes and organizational offices [Ross Gelbspan. (1991). Break-ins, Death Threats, and the FBI. Boston: South End, regarding break-ins; House Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Committee of the Judiciary, Break-Ins at Sanctuary Churches and Organizations Opposed to Administration Policy in Central America: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, 100th Congress, 1st Session, February 19-20, 1987].

In addition, the VFFL Christic house was broken into in early October 1986 in Wash., DC.  And Daniel Sheehan, director of Christic was investigated by the FBI as well.

BW Note #1: In former CIA officer John Stockwell’s book, The Praetorian Guard, The U.S. Role in the New World Order. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. (1991), pp. 105-106, he reports that in September 1988, FBI Director William Sessions announced the disciplining of FBI officers who had improperly targeted the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) and 160 other civic organizations, many of which were critical of the Reagan administration’s policy in Central America. During the summer of 1989, Congress discovered that a total of 1,600 groups had been improperly targeted by the FBI.

August 31, 1988, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, “Political Break-ins: A Disturbing Whodunit”: Citing a Knight-Ridder story by their Washington, D.C. reporter, Alfonso Chardy, “The CIA, the FBI and the National Security Agency have cooperated in a three year operation aimed at monitoring the activities of U.S.-based opponents of Reagan’s Central America policies.”

September 17, 1988, NYT, “F.B.I. Is Willing To Erase Names From Its Records,” by Philip Shenon: “The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, William S. Sessions, indicated today that the bureau was willing to expunge the names of people and organizations identified in files of a bureau surveillance campaign aimed at opponents of the Reagan Administration’s policies in Central America.

Brian Note #1: Brian’s name?

Brian Note #2:  Reagan’s Office of Public Diplomacy had applied techniques from the Public Relations industry as well as utilizing intelligence shenanigans, coordinating its efforts with Western Goals, a private intelligence computerized data gathering agency closely connected to the John Birch Society, to create a data-base cataloguing the names and personal information of activists in the nuclear freeze and Central American solidarity movement.  The information was turned over to the FBI.  The OPD worked hand-in-glove with the State Dept., the Defense Dept., the CIA, the NSC, and a vast private network of right-wing individuals and organizations. Retired General John Singlaub was on the Western Goals board [The New Right Humanitarians, The Resource Center, Albuquerque, NM, 1986, pp. 39-40].

The special CISPES investigation rationalized under “international terrorism” guidelines, lasted 5 years, involved all 59 of the FBI’s U.S. field offices, and collected information on over 2,000 individuals and over 1,000 groups.  It generated 178 spin-off inquiries reaching into every aspect of the anti-interventionist movement, including a number of Congressional offices, the SCLC, the Maryknoll Sisters, the United Auto Workers, and the Inter-Religious Task Force on Central America [Grandin, Empire's Workshop, p. 138].

The FBI believed it was in a near war campaign against traitors, and specifically targeted individuals who clearly displayed their contempt for the U.S. government by making speeches and propagandizing their cause [Gary M. Stern, The FBI's Misguided Probe of CISPES, Washington: Center for national Security Studies, 1988, p. 2].

Oliver North had drawn up plans to arrest and detain Central American activists indefinitely if the U.S. were to invade Nicaragua [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, The FBI and CISPES, 101st Congress, 1st Session, 1989, p. 20; in general, Ross Gelbspan. (1991). Break-Ins, Death Threats, and the FBI. Boston: South End Press; Alfonso Chardy, "Reagan Aides and the 'Secret' Government," Miami Herald, July 5, 1987].

Activists who traveled to Central America, especially Nicaragua and El Salvador, often had their personal documents and papers seized, mail tampered with, and employers questioned.  FBI Director William Webster had admitted that these investigations were conducted at the request of the CIA and Oliver North’s NSC [Ross Gelbspan, "More Probes Found of Latin Policy Foes; FBI Surveillance Called Pervasive", Boston Globe, June 18, 1988].

Brian Note #3: President Reagan was obsessed in assuring that the Nicaragua revolution would be destroyed.  On the home front there was significant opposition to his policy of utilizing public funds and taking up government energy to undermine the sovereign government of Nicaragua.  To contend with domestic opposition, Reagan devised a 3-prong attack: (1) creation of a centralized public diplomacy campaign (OPD) to concoct stories in the media, universities, churches, etc., about the evil Sandinistas and the noble “freedom fighter” Contras; (2) a massive campaign to monitor and interrupt (CIA, FBI, NSC, etc.) U.S. citizens who were actively opposed to Reagan’s funding, whether done legally through Congress or illegally through surreptitious sources, and organizing strenuously to have Congress vote No; and (3) building a countervailing grassroots right-wing support network supporting the Contras (part of the “Enterprise”) among the militarist community, vestiges from Viet Nam veterans, and evangelicals, advocating for a hard-line foreign policy supporting murder.

NOTE: In 1988, FBI director William Sessions finally admitted to the Library Awareness Program in which librarians were asked to report on the reading habits of people with foreign accents or funny sounding names (Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, p. 759).  The Washington Monthly published a January 1989 article, “Ma’m, What You Need Is a New, Improved Hoover,” by Mathew Miller, in which he humorously points out that if this standard were applied, “Zbigniew Brzenski could be busted any day in the Columbia stacks.”  Actually the Library Awareness Program predated Sessions by many years, having been established by J. Edgar Hoover in 1962 in efforts to solicit librarians as informants (Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, p. 760).

September 1990, “International Terrorism, FBI Investigates Domestic Activities To Identify Terrorists,” prepared by the U.S. General Accounting Office, Report to the Chairman, Subcommittee On Civil and Constitutional Rights, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives (Rep. Don Edwards), that reveals between January 1982 and June 1988, the FBI opened 18,144 cases because of suspicion that individuals or group were involved in terrorist activities, of whom 6,895 were “U.S. Persons” (U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens). Congressman Don Edwards (D-10th Congr Distr/San Jose) initiated the inquiry. William Webster had been director of the FBI, February 23, 1978 – May 25, 1987.  He was succeeded by William S. Sessions, director from November 2, 1987 – July 19, 1993.  John E. Otto was the Acting Director, May 26, 1987 – November 2, 1987 at the time Brian was struck.

GAO Report: “The FBI redacted the closed files before we reviewed them…We were limited in our ability to develop overall conclusions regarding the FBI’s international terrorism program.  The questionnaire and case file data clearly demonstrated that the FBI did engage in monitoring of First Amendment-type activities during its international terrorist investigations”.

Brian Note #1: There is no way of knowing the veracity of any FBI statements.  Information is blacked out (redacted) preventing any accountability as to who was investigated, and whether their names are still on a watch list.

Brian Note #2: See: Ross Gelbspan. (1991). Break-ins, Death Threats and the FBI, The Covert War Against the Central America Movement. Boston: South End Press, p. 150: The “hook” in the FBI Guidelines that permitted investigations of various individual U.S. citizens, including Congress people, was because of their “contacts with representatives of foreign governments”.

SEE Attachment: “The Politics of Fear – Living in a Terrorama Society”

Sam Adams, Mayor/Commissioner, samadams@ci.portland.or.us

Nick Fish, Commissioner, nick@ci.portland.or.us

Amanda Fritz, Commissioner, Amanda@ci.portland.or.us

Randy Leonard, Commissioner, randy@ci.portland.or.us

Dan Saltzman, Commissioner, dan@ci.portland.or.us

Portland City Hall, 1221 SW 4^th Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97204

From the first Red Scare during World War I, to the present, our national history is replete in its obsession with national security at the expense of liberties of its citizenry. In the process, lawful political activity and free speech are regularly thwarted. The obsession itself virtually always lacks sufficient oversight, no matter the rhetoric to the contrary, with law enforcement efforts quickly becoming stage managed using informants and concocted propaganda.

The politics of labeling, whether one is called a “communist” or a “terrorist,” have virtually always masked realities of systemic injustices and egregious class inequities. While the Red Scare was prosecuting “radicals” and “Bolsheviks,” the KKK, with as many as 25 percent of the adult male population of the country, was regularly murdering and lynching African Americans with impunity. Terrorists? Not even suggested.

As distance between a democratic base and its law enforcement mechanisms are increased, accountability of police behavior inevitably decreases, no matter the amount of training. The empirical pattern of abuse is so well documented that accountability structures are paramount.

I have been a direct victim of being labeled a “domestic terrorist suspect” on the whims of the FBI simply for expressing my vigorous nonviolent dissent to Reagan’s policies of terror against the impoverished in Central America. And under President Obama, the lack of protections of civil liberties has actually increased. It takes little for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to collect information on lawful political and religious activities using the most spurious grounds.

Joining the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force only complicates accountable law enforcement.

Sincerely,

S. Brian Willson, J.D., LL.D (Hon.)

As a nation we have lived in the grip of induced fear now for most of a century, built largely on what have later been revealed as serious exaggerations of foreign or domestic enemies. The first Red Scare, 1917 to the mid-1920s, with vestigial repression until World War II, brought a reign of terror against those “suspected” of being “radicals” and “Bolsheviks.” The second Red Scare, post-World War II to the early 1960s, with vestigial effects until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, produced more persecution of “radicals” and “communists.” Now the Muslim scare of the 2000s has created a campaign of terror targeting Muslim “extremists.” Fear is an easy emotion to manipulate and exploit, making it convenient to create compliant constituent support for aggressive domestic and foreign policies. All the government has to do is declare a threat to our “national security” and then proceed by virtually any means to eliminate the evil du jour.

Meanwhile, real, live terrorists at home have been generally ignored or overlooked and, if acknowledged, rarely labeled as terrorist. In 1920, there were an estimated six million members of the KKK, nearly 25 percent of the adult male population of the nation with representatives in every state. They were rarely, if ever, prosecuted. In 1917, President Wilson created the Office of Military Intelligence (OMI) in the War Department to conduct wholesale clandestine surveillance of thousands of U.S. citizens suspected of “disloyalty.” And, in 1919, the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation, precursor to the FBI, headed by young J. Edgar Hoover, collected personal files on 150,000 U.S. Americans labeled seditious radicals, often described as communists or Bolsheviks. Thousands were rounded up and jailed, hundreds deported, virtually none enjoying any due process whatsoever. In the meantime members of the KKK were lynching with impunity African Americans at the rate of six a month, while murdering countless Black leaders and civil rights activists into the late 1960s. [Between 1882-1946, 4,715 African Americans were lynched, with a lesser number 27 lynched between 1947-1968.] The government did not consider this behavior terrorism, as it did those who were critical of U.S. domestic and foreign policy.

Furthermore, hundreds of massacres were committed by white citizens and riots raged against African Americans in cities throughout the U.S. throughout the twentieth century. The period 1917-1970 saw the appointment of 86 state or federal riot commissions seeking to identify the causes while recommending remedies. Consistently, these commissions found virulent racism and severe class differences as causes. Rarely was terrorism mentioned and few programs were instituted to address these structural causes aside from a brief period in the late 1960s when the 80-year-old Jim Crow laws were finally outlawed. Much of their racist spirit, however, remains alive today.

Throughout the early 1900s and into World War II, the war against labor activists was equally intense, even if the number of murders only counted in the hundreds. These were perpetrated by paramilitary goon squads hired by company barons with assistance of local police. [From the mid-1870s into the latter 1930s, over 700 labor activists were murdered, with thousands injured.] This was not considered terrorism and did not warrant a government war against goon squads or corporate heads. In fact, the police often supported the murder of labor activists, under the rationale of teaching radicals a lesson.

President Truman instituted “loyalty oaths” as part of the second Red Scare and created the National Security Agency and Operation Shamrock to spy on correspondence and electronic communications of thousands of U.S. Americans, which expanded to include antiwar activists, civil rights leaders and drug peddlars. In 1967, the CIA, created in 1947, initiated Operation Chaos, exceeding its statutory authority, indexing 300,000 names of citizens to “discover” ties between dissenters and “foreign interests.” The Department of Defense in the 1960s launched massive domestic surveillance without authority on as many as 100,000 U.S. citizens, utilizing 1,500 army plainclothes operatives. From 1967-1974, both Presidents Johnson and Nixon used the Army Security Agency (ASA) in separate operations working with other military units to illegally survey communications of U.S. citizens opposed to the Viet Nam War in Operation Minaret. President Nixon created the secret “Plumber’s Unit” to conduct “dirty tricks” on his opponents that led to the Watergate Break-in.

From the mid-1950s to the early 1970s, the FBI carried out more than 2,200 major secret actions against US citizens considered “suspicious” because of “communist” connections, in what was called COINTELPRO Operations. These were coupled with thousands of warrantless wiretaps, secret bugs, and mail interceptions. Hundreds of Black organizers were murdered, destabilized or imprisoned. A December 1963 FBI memo describes the spirit of the campaign – to “neutralize” Martin Luther King, Jr., with “no holds barred,” with later memos describing the need to “neutralize” Black nationalist groups. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover consistently identified King and other Black groups “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.”

From the beginning of the founding of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) in 1967, the FBI kept files on its members, infiltrated its local groups, made harassing visits to members’ homes, and generally attempted to disrupt their activities. After the large anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C. organized by VVAW in April 1971, at which I was present, the FBI increasingly suggested VVAW was Communist inspired and, therefore, “must be considered a prime target for infiltration.” Martin Luther King, Jr. endorsed VVAW’s anti-war goals two months before his assassination in 1968. The mean-spirited nature of the FBI campaign against VVAW was demonstrated when it was later revealed that the FBI had contaminated VVAW’s national headquarters with an undetectable chemical that caused severe itching.

Five years after the founding of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in 1968, in the post-COINTELPRO period, FBI memos identified AIM as “a relevant danger” to the United States. By 1976, dozens of AIM members and supporters had been murdered and hundreds of others injured, victims of paid Indian goon squads with tacit support of the FBI. More than a thousand were jailed.

In 1975-1976, the U.S. Senate Church Committee hearings revealed for the first time elaborate details of U.S. intelligence operations, both at home against U.S citizens, including COINTELPRO, and abroad, including assassination of foreign leaders. As a result, new laws were passed to curtail some of the worst abuses.

However, President Ronald Reagan quickly revived de facto COINTELPRO tactics with a virulent campaign against the Soviet Union (the “evil empire”), seeing Reds everywhere once again. In a series of executive orders, intelligence findings, and National Security Decision Directives (NSDD), he authorized widespread domestic covert surveillance by the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency, among others, that included directives “to go anywhere, do anything” to destroy “terrorists.” Thus, the modern war on “terrorism” really began with Reagan, not George W. Bush. By 1986 the FBI had created a government-wide formal Counter-Terrorism Operations Plan. Between 1982-1988, thousands of individuals had been harassed and intimidated, 1,600 groups had been improperly targeted, and over 18,000 individuals and groups had been identified as suspects in “terrorist” activities. I myself got swept up as a “suspect” in this paranoid madness which used concocted propaganda, stage managing with thousands of informants/infiltrators, the creation of enemies all over the place at home. It cost me dearly physically. It was ridiculous. Reagan claimed impoverished Nicaragua was creating a “Soviet beachhead” and that its revolutionary aspirations for social justice posed “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security” of the United States, even suggesting that it might invade the U.S. at the small border town of Harlingen, Texas. This, despite the fact that Harlingen was 1,250 miles and four countries distant from Managua which was preoccupied defending itself from Reagan’s 20,000 Contra terrorists.

Unfortunately, President George W. Bush’s Department of Justice in 2002 formally eliminated most of the remaining legal restrictions on domestic intelligence that had been implemented as a result of the 1976 Church Committee Hearings, limitations that had already been virtually wiped out by Reagan in the 1980s, and ignored by Bush I and Clinton. The war on terror has accelerated since 9/11 with a vengeance and the Obama administration has only continued to expand elimination of restrictions. Using the same methods of stage managing a war on terror using informants and concocting propaganda to the extreme, we are now declaring Muslims, at home and abroad, as the new “terrorists.”

Ex-career FBI agent, Jack Ryan, has testified that virtually all FBI agents are expected to have informants, also known as source, asset, snitch, stool-pigeon, or a 137 (informant file number). The pressure to distort, exaggerate, misrepresent, falsify or otherwise manipulate information is common despite rules and procedures intended to prevent abuse.

Although Middle East terrorists have largely replaced the earlier target of the official fear campaign, “radicals” suspected of being supportive of the Red menace, there are many within our country who continue to disparage “socialism” as a great and terrible threat. Being able to declare evils du jour enables the politics of fear to continue, ad infinitum, perpetuating uncritical thinking and the ballooning of military and intelligence budgets. Thus, the military-intelligence industrial complex and all that it represents, including immense profits at the expense of domestic health, is entrenched further at the expense of freedoms at home, which in my opinion is nothing good.

S. Brian Willson, Portland, Oregon

*USAF Installation Security and Law Enforcement Officer, 1966-1970; Commander, combat security unit protecting U.S. airbases in Viet Nam, 1969; Member, International Association of Chiefs of Police, 1967-1970; Honorably Discharged as Captain; Inactive member, Washington, DC Bar; Member, Veterans For Peace

Here are the lyrics.

When you’re weary, feeling small, When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all;

I’m on your side. When times get rough And  friends just can’t be found, Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down. Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down.

When you’re down and out, When you’re on the street, When evening falls so hard I will comfort you. I’ll take your part.

When darkness comes And pain is all around, Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down. Like a bridge over troubled water I will lay me down.

Sail on silvergirl, Sail on by. Your time has come to shine. All your dreams are on their way. See how they shine.

If you need a friend I’m sailing right behind. Like a bridge over troubled water I will ease your mind. Like a bridge over troubled water I will ease your mind.

S. Brian Willson

The magnitude of the US policy of full spectrum dominance, and the extraordinary level of deceit that seeks to mask its egregious nature, is beyond the pale. With no genuine people’s process available to address this grotesque militarism while our domestic society heads toward collapse, the popular business must now be resistance and more resistance as we relocalize our lives into thousands of locally sufficient economies networked with one another.

Our country’s current exaggerated militarism and plunder is but the latest in a long pattern of aggression since our founding, itself based on a gargantuan genocide. Examination of the empirical record reveals at least 560 overt military interventions in scores of countries and territories since 1798. Since the end of WWII, 390 of these overt aggressions have occurred mostly in what we call “The Third World”, along with thousands of covert interventions in more than 100 countries (bombing 28 of them). Additionally, US warships have sailed thousands of times into foreign ports since the post-Civil war days. Today, the US military, in contingents of 100 or more, are dispatched to at least 150 countries at over 1,000 installations. US military planes fly in virtually every airspace; US ships sail in virtually every seaspace.

This is astounding but represents a nation that with but 4.6 percent of the world’s population insists on continued insatiable consumption of anywhere from a quarter to a third of the world’s resources. This systematic theft can only occur by force or its threat, but is always rationalized in noble sounding rhetoric, repeated over and over.

This incredible barbarism is so pervasive it is the equivalent of what philosopher Hannah Arendt described as the banality of evil. The political process, and many of her citizens, barely question its absurdity and diabolical nature, even if it is noticed.

Thus our task, as veterans and citizens, is to reclaim our genuine and evolutionary universal humanity from the pathology of the nation state. Resistance, through various forms of creative and bold nonviolence, no matter the risks involved, especially at the local level everywhere, is now our obligation knowing our survival with dignity is at stake.

Veterans who choose to become truth tellers are among our most important resources in the United States.

S. Brian Willson

USAF, 1966-1970, Viet Nam 1969. Trained lawyer. Activist.

The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.

In December 1963, four months after the large civil rights march on Wash, DC, a nine-hr conference was held at FBI HQ to discuss ways to “neutralize” Martin Luther King, Jr. A prepared list of 21 proposals was discussed – “using” ministers, “disgruntled” acquaintances, “aggressive” newsmen, “colored” agents, Dr. King’s housekeeper, & a suggestion to use King’s wife or “placing a good looking female plant in King’s office” to develop info for use “at an opportune time in a counterintelligence move to discredit him” w/o embarrassment to the Bureau. [Pepper, W. F. (2003). "An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King." London: Verso, p. 11].

The reason King Finally had to be completely neutralized:

After King’s radical speech on April 4, 1967 against the Viet Nam War, that included a call for a revolution away from capitalism toward a socially just society, he began discussing strategies to address the widening gap between rich & poor, i.e., taking the class problem head-on. By November 1967, his plan for a Poor People’s Campaign was taking shape. This included a permanent tent city of as many as 500,000 people to be called “Resurrection City” encamped on Wash., DC’s mall starting May 1968, to remain until the government re-directed all its money devoted to the barbaric war to a new socially just society at home. The plan was based on need to “disrupt” cities to create a crisis without destroying life or property. King wanted to create an action that did “not count on government good will,” that would be a “force that interrupts its functioning.” The plan was to be “dislocative and even disruptive” because “pressureless persuasion does not move the power structure.” He had concluded that the “old style” kind of march on Washington “isn’t sufficiently crisis-packed.” King’s words were simply becoming too threatening to maintenance of the status quo: “There must be a radical reordering of our national priorities…We’re not going to Washington to beg. I hope we are beyond that stage. We are going to Washington to demand what is ours.” [Pepper, W. F. (2003). "An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King." London: Verso, p. 7; Garrow, D. J. (1988). "Bearing the Cross." NY: Vintage, pp. 574-624].

On March 3, 1968, one month before King’s April 4 assassination, a memo by J. Edgar Hoover identified an FBI “Counter-Intelligence Program” directed against “Black Nationalist Hate-Groups:”

1. “Prevent the coalition of black nationalist groups…[which] might be the first step toward a real ‘Mau Mau’ in America, the beginning of a true black revolution.”

2. “Prevent the rise of a ‘messiah’ who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement…King could be a very real contender for this position should he abandon his supposed ‘obedience’ to ‘white liberal doctrines’ (nonviolence) and embrace black nationalism…” [Trager, J. (1992). "The People’s Chronology." NY: Henry Holt and Co., p. 1015].

Neutralization in Viet Nam

In Viet Nam at the same time in 1968, the US was carrying out a separate program called PHOENIX to “neutralize” as many as 3,000 Vietnamese community leaders/month, using CIA-trained assassination squads, some known as Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRU). [Sheehan, N. (1988). "A Bright Shining Lie." NY: Random House, p. 732]. As many as 87,000 Vietnamese were neutralized – imprisoned, tortured, murdered, or converted. [Prados, J. (1996). "President's Secret Wars." Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, p. 309].

US ORIGINS In Genocide/Extermination:

But this policy of eliminating people, whether in the form of genocide of whole peoples, or of key individuals who possessed followers, when they are perceived in the way of White Man’s “progress” – prosperity for the few through expansion at any cost – has been the guiding cultural ethos of USAmerica since our origins.

Starting in 1600s:

The British arrived in Jamestown, VA in 1607. A policy of intentional extermination of the native population began almost immediately. “Hundreds of Indians were killed in skirmish after skirmish. Other hundreds were killed in successful plots of mass poisoning. They were hunted down by dogs, ‘blood-Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seize them.’ Their canoes and fishing weirs were smashed, their villages and agricultural fields burned to the ground. Indian peace offers were accepted by the English only until their prisoners were returned; then, having lulled the natives into false security, the colonists returned to the attack. It was the colonists’ expressed desire that the Indians be exterminated, rooted ‘out from being longer a people upon the face of the Earth.’ In a single raid the settlers destroyed corn sufficient to feed four thousand people for a year. Starvation and the massacre of non-combatants was becoming the preferred British approach to dealing with the natives.” [Stannard, D. E. (1992). "American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World." NY: Oxford University Press, p. 106].

Long before Thomas Jefferson’s desire to “exterminate” the Indians,  and George Washington had said that Indians were “wolves and beasts” who deserved nothing from the whites but total ruin, the MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONY in 1630 made it illegal to “shoot off a gun in any unnecessary occasion, or at any game EXCEPT an Indian or a wolf.” [Stannard, D. E. (1992). "American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World." NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 240-41].

“Founding Fathers”

In 1812, Thomas Jefferson, now a senior sage out of office, concluded that White Americans were “obliged” to drive the “backward” Indians” with the beasts of the forests into the Stony Mountains”; in 1813 Jefferson stated that the American government had no other choice before it than “to pursue [the Indians] to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach.” In other words, the Native Americans are to be given the choice “to be extirpated from the earth” or to remove themselves out of the White Americans way. Thus, to the majority of White Americans the choice for Indians was one of expulsion or extermination.  [Stannard, D. E. (1992). "American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World." NY: Oxford University Press, p. 120].

Scalping Bounties

Extermination was officially promoted by a “scalp bounty” on dead Indians. “Indeed, in many areas it [Indian-killing] became an outright business.”

Thomas Jefferson, writing to his Secretary of War in 1807, instructed that any native resistance to U.S. expansion into their territories should be overcome militarily, with the object that the Indians be “exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi.” This was sound policy, he claimed, because “in war, they [Indians] will kill some of us; we shall destroy all of them.” [Churchill, W. (1997). "A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present." San Francisco: City Light Books, pp. 150, 181-182].

Washington’s Orders to Sullivan:

Continental Army Supreme General George Washington’s orders to General Sullivan in 1779 during the Revolutionary War made it clear he wanted the Iroquois threat completely eliminated:

Orders of George Washington to General John Sullivan, at Head-Quarters May 31, 1779:

“The Expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents. The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more.

I would recommend, that some post in the center of the Indian Country, should be occupied with all expedition, with a sufficient quantity of provisions whence parties should be detached to lay waste all the settlements around, with instructions to do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed.

But you will not by any means listen to any overture of peace before the total ruinment of their settlements is effected. Our future security will be in their inability to injure us and in the terror with which the severity of the chastisement they receive will inspire them.”

[Writings of George Washington. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, XV, pp. 189-93; Drinnon, R. (1980). Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, p. 331].

US Historical Operating Principles (several of which are explicit in George Washington’s orders):

1. Total War, civilians and combatants alike considered legitimate targets

2. Preventing/Not Wanting Peace

3. Preventive and Pre-emptive War

4. Terror

5. Torture

6. Revenge

FROM: S. Brian Willson, bw@brianwillson.com

TO: Portland Public Schools (PPS), 501 North Dixon St. (PO Box 3107), Portland, Oregon 97227

*Superintendent: Carole Smith, superintendent@pps.k12.or.us

*Board of Education (BOE) Members:

            Ruth Adkins, radkins@pps.k12.or.us

            David Wynde, david.wynde@pps.k12.or.us

            Bobbie Regan, bobbie.regan@pps.k12.or.us

            Martin Gonzalez, mgonzalez@pps.k12.or.us

            Pam Knowles, pknowles@pps.k12.or.us

            Trudy Sargent, tsargent@pps.k12.or.us

            Dilafruz Williams, diafruz.williams@pps.k12.or.us

*BOE Student Representative: Henry Johnson, hjohnson@pps.k12.or.us

*BOE Office Senior Manager: Lynda Rose, Lrose@pps.k12.or.us 

DATE: Originally sent February 16, 2010 

RE: DoD & Portland STARBASE (Science Technology Academics Reinforcing Basic Aviation and Space Exploration) 

1. Introduction 

2. (Mis)Representation 

3. DoD Largest Polluter in the World 

4. Military Social Environment is Chronically Problem-Laden 

5. Suicide Epidemic 

6. Veterans Experience Serious Problems 

7. Bribery To Public School Systems Purchases Pentagon Access to Children as Young as Five 

8. My Experiences 

9. Conclusion 

RE: DoD & Portland STARBASE (Science Technology Academics Reinforcing Basic Aviation and Space Exploration) 

1. Introduction 

I examined representations from printed and electronic web materials offered by DoD (Department of Defense)* and Portland STARBASE, a “fun academy” conducted at a military base designed for “opening young people’s minds to the military” – specifically at risk 5 to18 year-old Portland Public School (PPS) students (K-12). I am struck by the fanciful rhetoric which, from my experiences as a veteran, former officer in the US Air Force and commander of a ranger-type unit in Viet Nam, and general observer of military life and activities, severely masks the realities on the ground. That STARBASE is represented in lofty terms, of course, is not surprising since its funding derives directly from the Pentagon’s recruiting budget, and is considered by military commanders as a “cornerstone” in the creation of their public image [DoD STARBASE 2008 Annual Report]. The U.S. Military Recruiting Handbook unapologetically declares that “School recruiting is critical to long-term recruiting success…It means having the Army perceived as a positive career choice as soon as young people begin to think about the future.” And as DoD admits, STARBASE “is one element in the building of that talent pool” [italics added for emphasis].

*Department of Defense is Orwellian doublespeak for Department of War. Since World War II, scholars identify more than 350 overt military interventions in countries around the world without the constitutionally required declaration of war, and thousands of additional covert interventions, all illegal. 

2. (Mis)Representations 

I am particularly struck by the stated goals of STARBASE Portland: “[I]mprove the knowledge and skills of at risk youth in math, science, and technology by exposing them to the technological and positive role models found on military bases and installations,” specifically the Oregon Army National Guard Jackson Armory and the Portland Air National Guard Base. And, “Strengthen youth resistance to negative influences, including substance and alcohol abuse.”

During my four years of active duty employment I was stationed at four different bases in five states – three Air Force (TX, MD, LA) and one Army (KY, TN), plus two in Viet Nam, before being honorably discharged at the rank of Captain. Putting public relations fluff and recruiting rhetoric aside for a moment, I cannot think of a poorer setting to which to expose impressionable young children than military bases. Their representations as “technological and positive role models” have clearly not been critically examined! 

3. DoD Largest Polluter in the World 

The DoD is the largest polluter in the world, producing more hazardous waste than the five largest US chemical companies combined. This includes poisonous compounds such as pesticides, defoliants, solvents, petroleum, perchlorate (from rocket fuel), trichloroethylene (TCE), lead, depleted uranium, and mercury, among others. TCE, used as a degreaser for metal parts, is the most widespread water contaminant in the country, and more than 1,000 military sites are contaminated with it, but perchlorate is a growing contaminant in groundwater as well. The DoD controls more than 31,000 environmental sites officially declared severely dirty at more than 4,600 active and formerly active installations scattered around all 50 states. Yet, the DoD continues to resist orders from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clean them up. Of the dirtiest of the dirty, the Pentagon owns 129 of the 1,255 identified Superfund clean-up site. ["Pentagon Fights EPA On Pollution Cleanup," Washington Post, June 30, 2008; "Military Pollution: The Quintessential Universal Soldier," commondreams.org, March 27, 2005; "Communities Seek Accountability For Military Pollution," Press Release (of five Environmental Groups), commondreams.org, March 23, 2009]. This is the record of the same DoD that pretends to offer young children a superb “technological role model.” 

The Portland Air National Guard Base hosts the 142nd Fighter Wing, which includes A-15 fighter jets, as well as hosting the 939th Air Refueling Wing. This means lots of fuel storage and inevitable fuel spillages, use of TCE degreasers, solvents, etc., that normally accompany the high tech atmosphere of military and aviation installations. 

In sum, military installations are very unhealthy places environmentally, as I can attest to from personal experiences, despite public relations representing the opposite. I served for two years on a command-wide Inspector General staff where we wrote and enforced regulations for bases that emphasized appearances far more than substance, a kind of image-making endemic in our culture. 

4. Military Social Environment is Chronically Problem-Laden 

Furthermore, I can attest to the fact that the “positive role models” to which you are exposing Portland’s “at risk” youth are quite farcical when you look below the surface. No matter what military regulations dictate or public affairs officers describe, the military social environment possesses serious racism (cf. civilian life), chronic abuse of alcohol and drugs – prescription and illegal (cf. civilian life), domestic violence, rape, mental illness, suicides at much higher rates than found in civilian life, and popular but unhealthy high-fat, high-salt, high-sugar diets offered on military bases by Fast Food chains like McDonalds, Wendy’s, Burger King, Popeyes, etc.

Military bases have histories of violence, especially domestic abuse and homicides (described as a “spousal aggression issue” by the military) ["Base Crimes: The Military Has A Domestic Violence Problem," Mother Jones, July/August 2005], as well as collective murders ["U.S. Army Base Has Bloody History," CBS News, November 5, 2009]. Domestic abuse is believed to be double that of the civilian population ["A Considerable Service: An Advocate's Introduction to Domestic Violence and the Military," Domestic Violence Report, April/May 2001, Civic Research Institute, Kingston, NJ]. And sexual assaults and rape of female veterans by male soldiers is chronic: more than 40 percent of female veterans report being victims of sexual assault, including rape, while serving in the military, with few of the male criminal perpetrators brought to justice ["Sexual Assault In Military 'Jaw-Dropping,' Lawmaker Says," CNN.Com, July 31, 2008]. 

The stated Portland STARBASE goal to “strengthen youth resistance to negative influences, including substance and alcohol abuse,” is simply an irresponsible resort by the PPS to unexamined representations which ironically expose at risk youth to ever more health and life risks as targeted military recruits. Serious alcoholism and drug abuse continues to plague military life, just as it did when I was in the military 40 years ago ["Heavy Drinking Still Acute Among Young Military Members," Pacific Institute For Research and Evaluation News Release, March 2, 2006; "Wounds of War: Drug Problems Among Iraq, Afghan Vets Could Dwarf Vietnam," Join Together newsletter, Boston University School of Public Health, June 15, 2009; "U.S. Troops Admit Abusing Prescription Drugs," USA Today, December 16, 2009; "Alcohol Abuse Weighs On Army," USA Today, February 9, 2010]. General Peter Chiarelli, Army Vice Chief of Staff, recently admitted “an increase in military violence, alcohol and substance abuse, and an increase in destructive or reckless behaviors” [Oregon Military Department Official Blog, September 15, 2009]. Just in the past week, two soldiers with the Oregon National Guard have been removed from duty for serious substance abuse and erratic behavior, each now facing punishment ["The Military and Substance Abuse," by Mike Francis, The Oregonian, February 10, 2010]. 

5. Suicide Epidemic 

In 2009, suicides among active duty personnel exceeded number of soldiers killed in Afghanistan, and was the highest number since records began to be kept in 1980. For every successful suicide, at least five other active duty members are hospitalized for attempts. Resources of the military and Veterans Administration for dealing with problems experienced by soldiers simply have not been sufficiently allocated ["Suicide Claims More US Military Lives Than Afghan war," World Socialist Web Site, January 6, 2010; "Despite Prevention Efforts, U.S. Military Suicides Rise," McClatchy Newspapers, January 15, 2010; "Investigation Shows Military Suicides Up; Leaders Push Response," CaliforniaHealthline, November 25, 2009, California Healthcare Foundation]. Our society continues to glorify the military and war. However, when it comes to honestly addressing the reality of military life and the costs and traumas of war, our society historically falls terribly short [Richard Severo & Lewis Milford, The Wages of War: When America's Soldiers Came Home - From Valley Forge to Vietnam (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989)]. 

6. Veterans Experience Serious Problems 

Once discharged from the military into civilian life, problems experienced while in the military often continue, or are even exacerbated. The suicide rate among veterans is twice that of other US citizens – 6,500 a year, or 125 a week, or 18 per day. One thousand veterans receiving care from the VA attempt suicide every month. Of the 1.7 million military personnel who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, 300,000 suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or major depression. Another 320,000 suffer from traumatic brain injury or physical brain damage, a majority of whom have yet to receive mental health and disability benefits. These two categories alone comprise 36 percent of the wounds, not counting thousands more suffering from various other bodily injuries. In the six months leading up to March 31, 2008, nearly 1,500 veterans died while awaiting to learn if their disability claim would be approved. And veterans who appeal a VA denial of their disability claim wait an average of nearly four-and-a-half years for an answer. Veterans also exhibit higher rates of unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, overeating, unsafe sex, and higher rates of physical and mental health problems and mortality ["The Truth About Veteran Suicides," Foreign Policy In Focus/FPIF, May 8, 2008; "Suicide Epidemic Among Veterans: A CBS News Investigation Uncovers A Suicide Rate For Veterans Twice That of Other Americans," CBS News, November 13, 2007]. As many as 400,000 veterans experience homelessness during the course of each year ["Homeless Veterans," National Coalition for the Homeless, September 2009]. 

7. Bribery To Public School Systems Purchases Pentagon Access to Children as Young as Five 

That the Pentagon is able to effectively pay a bribe worth several hundred thousands of dollars to PPS each school year in order to access and brainwash its youth, while government funding is being cut for genuine creative learning programs and college assistance, is grotesque. This policy squeezes out other educational and career alternatives while deliberately channeling certain young people to the military. I cannot think of a more insidious recruitment scheme under the mask of providing special math and science education for at risk students, a curriculum PPS is already charged by law with providing. DoD STARBASE defines the characteristics of those it intends to target, apparently with the cooperation of five PPS staff: “[B]eing from a single parent household, having an older sibling who dropped out of high school, changing schools two or more times…, having C’s or lower grades, being from a low socioeconomic status family, or repeating an earlier grade.” Educators should spurn this program offer. 

What process does the PPS staff undertake for selecting young people to attend a military “science camp” packaged as if it is a fun video game? This is a mockery of the PPS policy of zero tolerance for weapons in the learning environment. PPS school staff, working with DoD STARBASE officials, are likely to disproportionately select low-income students and minority students of color, softening them up for subsequent hard-core recruitment into a “career pathway” toward an early death sentence, i.e., white-washing a “career” of being cannon fodder. What constructive and creative alternatives are school officials exploring and implementing for these youth? That it is those students with the fewest options in life who are selected for this masked military recruitment program is deleterious discrimination. 

Children do not possess the maturity of judgment or critical thinking skills needed to carefully analyze all opportunities presented to them. Would we offer children a rifle to shoot at targets without careful thought, even if the child was eager to do so? Would we offer a child a computer to simulate launching of robotic drone warfare directed at targets in far off lands, even if the child finds this a thrill? Would we offer various drugs and alcohol even if children desired same? Would we continue to feed them fast foods without regard to nutrition, knowing the harmful health effects and likely onset of obesity and diabetes? Learning settings require understanding contexts and long term consequences which educators presumably assess before offering them. I am not suggesting that these specific things are being offered by STARBASE, but that the program insidiously opens certain doors to at risk children that likely will not lead to the glorious future represented in the promo. 

Children are impressionable, and the glamour of military high technology of “Aviation and Space Exploration” imparts exciting images in young children’s minds, the content and context of which have not been assessed for appropriateness in developing open minds. STARBASE enables further militarization of our culture, distorting our cultural psyche to the detriment of everyone. Remember, that once in the military, a soldier undergoes basic training where the primary skill learned is to operate a firearm and become proficient at killing another human being without first gaining knowledge of the history or context of the killing fields to which the soldier may be thrust. 

8. My Experiences 

As a security and law enforcement officer at headquarters of a major Air Force command Inspector General’s Office, I assisted in overseeing compliance at dozens of bases with safety, security, public relations and readiness requirements. 

In Viet Nam I was commander of a 40-man ranger-type unit where I witnessed the immediate aftermath of low-flying fighter-bomber Turkey Shoots destroying inhabited but undefended fishing and farming villages, leaving hundreds of murdered and maimed Vietnamese in the bomb’s wake. My unit was primarily protecting US Air Force installations during which we survived 18 mortar and rocket attacks. 

Subsequently, I was shocked when I realized that our military forces had invaded another country whose people simply wanted their independence from outside colonial powers. The Vietnamese were simply defending themselves from an attacking force of incredible firepower of which I was a part. I was not defending freedom for US Americans, but in fact destroying the deserving freedom of others. It was absurd! The reason I did not understand this reality: I was never taught this history, knew nothing about Vietnamese culture, and was ignorant about the insidious reasons my country was committing an egregious crime against peace. When the Pentagon Papers were published in 1971, it all became quite clear. 

Commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity were normal, deliberate policy, despite being in violation of US Rules of Engagement, international law, the US Constitution, and my own conscience. Many of my superiors laughed at the “Rules of Engagement.” I witnessed these crimes more than 40 years ago, yet these experiences remain a permanent imprint, leaving me with a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. 

In my final assignment in the Air Force, I served as executive officer addressing personnel problems of a 250-man supply squadron: severe racism that existed on our base and in the nearby community, domestic abuse, violence in the nearby community, suicides or their attempts, drunkenness, drug addiction, etc. 

Fifteen years later I served as executive director of a veterans outreach center. Homelessness was epidemic; alcoholism and drug addiction were chronic, causing a number of pre-mature deaths; veterans in car accidents died at nearly twice the rate as non-veteran car accidents; a number of “bush vets” lived isolated in nearby forests; many veterans suffered from chronic diseases, including various cancers and early deaths attributed to poisoning from the herbicides the United States used in Viet Nam. On several occasions I disarmed troubled veterans in threatening crises. Eight veterans committed suicide during my tenure there. Upon reflection I began to comprehend just how deep was the traumatic and unnatural conditioning that results from military training without context about the wars soldiers are ordered to engage in. It makes us fierce fighters, oftentimes murderers, as we witnessed peers being killed. Upon reflection, many of us knew deep down the reasons for our involvement in the war as told to us by our elders, schools, churches, families, and government, didn’t hold up to a critique that we wished we had been offered as part of our education as young men. 

9. Conclusion 

STARBASE is an egregious affront to the youth of our country, our culture, our city. That its assumptions and representations have been accepted without question by professional educators reveal an irresponsibility that is unconscionable. Why has no critical review been conducted by people who are in the know and can properly reflect upon the dangers of exposing young people to images and influences that are likely to have grave consequences on their future lives?

_______________________________ 

S. Brian Willson, Portland resident, bw@brianwillson.com

United States Air Force, 1966-1970, Viet Nam 1969; Honorably discharged as Captain

BA, MS, JD, Ph.D (Hon.), LL.D (Hon)