7.99 DoD photo by Spc. D. Ernst USArmy
    antiW A R
links &
"The only way to abolish war
  is to make peace heroic."
John Dewey, 1859-1952
U.S. philosopher & educator
Phil Ochs ¹
soldiers destroying weapons
 
OPERATIONJoint Guardian
DC protest group stands test of time   7.9.00   Matt Hagengruber KnightRidder

Wash.DC   Ellen Thomas sits on a blue Mexican serape blanket, which partly covers a large blue protest sign directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. It's adorned with the slogans "LIVE BY THE BOMBDIE BY THE BOMB " & "CONVERT THE WAR MACHINES". She's been sitting there, peacefully protesting since 1984. The signs have been there since 1981, and so has her husband, vigil founder Wm. Thomas, whom they call simply "Thomas."
plowshares, not swords Ellen Thomas talks quietly with passers-by and hands out fliers to tourists, schoolkids and business people. Only those who stop to read the signs are offered a flier. Many toss them once out of view, but a few will read the newsletter, and a few more might check out the group's Web site. At the base of a large tree, her dog, Bo, lounges in the late-morning summer heat. He pants even though he just got a haircut.
Ellen Thomas is just one of a handful of volunteers who spend their evenings, nights, mornings, weekends or afternoons in the shade, with theirback to the White House, looking into Lafayette Park. Twenty-four hours aday, 365 days a year. 19 years and counting. They're protesting nuclear weapons. They want the U.S. govt, along with the other nations of the world, to give up their nuclear weapons and divert the money spent on the arms to humanitarian and environmental causes.
"Basically, the core motivation is my beliefs," Wm Thomas said. "I believe that energy & resources should be expended in a constructive manner, and I live in a society where constructive use of those resources isn't highly valued."

Party lines
They have been successful in introducing in the U.S. House of Representatives an initiative known as Proposition 1, which calls for the disarmament of nuclear weapons. The proposition has been introduced 4 times by D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, but it never made it out of committee.
William Thomas began the Lafayette Park vigil in 1981 with Concepcion Picciotto, another protester who sits about 20 ft away with her signs. The protesters have endured bitter cold, pulsing heat and jail time in order to promote their message to tourists and now three presidents. One group member claims that President Clinton once pulled up at 3 a.m. and spoke with him for several minutes, but the story can't be substantiated. Ellen Thomas is relieved of her vigil duties after several hours by Donn Condron, another protester. He's been involved in the vigil since its inception, but didn't start protesting until last June.
"I've done all kinds of things, construction, carpentry; but I used to come over here on my lunch break," he said. "We used to use my apartment to make the signs."

Group members have to be careful with how they protest. Displeased presidents and Secret Service agents have pushed for ordinances over the years that limit their protesting, such as allowing only two signs and the right to remove the signs if protesters are more than 3 feet away from them. "When the Republicans are in office, it's more stringent," Condron said. "With the Democrats, it's not as bad." Thomas concurs, pointing out that the group is banished from the White House side of Pennsylvania Avenue. But the vigil is still going with no end in sight.
"The police tried to get rid of him (Thomas), but we just keep on going," Ellen Thomas said. "There used to be a concerted effort to get us out of here, but it doesn't seem to be a policy to remove us anymore, and we appreciate that."

"Planted some seeds"
Ellen Thomas became involved in the group after her two children were grown. "I was working at the National Wildlife Federation," she said. "I decided that when I didn't need to worry about providing for my daughter, I was going to reduce my income to below the poverty level so I wouldn't have to pay taxes, because I don't agree with the policies" of the U.S. govt. She met William Thomas soon after and the two were married in 1984. Since then, she has spent time in prison for "camping" in Lafayette Park. She and Thomas were arrested in 1987 for wrapping themselves in a blanket to keep warm, which, according to the U.S. Park Police, is considered illegal.
Ellen Thomas believes that after 19 years, something has been accomplished. "We've planted some seeds because 3 million people visit the White House each year," suggesting that some of those visitors leave with a different perspective on nuclear weapons. Many people who pass by the signs think that the protesters are homeless, but that isn't the case. The group lives and works out of an office on 12th Street in Northwest Washington, where they run their award-winning Web site. They received the office, a former crack house, free in exchange for bringing it up to code.
Through it all, Ellen is proud to point out that she's there to offer a solution. "I'm doing it because I choose to do it. I meet a lot of interesting people and learn stuff I wouldn't otherwise learn," she said. "I'm not here to complain, I'm here to fix."

A revolution for revolt ¹   Britain's biggest political protest was mobilised on the web
2.20.03   Alistair Alexander Stop the War Coalition

This weekend's anti-war demonstration was almost certainly the largest coordinated political protest the world has seen. Events began in Melbourne, Australia, and then erupted in hundreds of cities across the world like a global wave before ending in San Francisco 48 hours later. While estimates range from six to 12 million people taking part, February 15, or F15 in activist parlance, underlines the extent to which the dynamics of protest politics have been transformed by the internet.
As a press officer for the Stop the War Coalition in the run-up to Saturday's march, I experienced first-hand how the internet has allowed tiny political groups with virtually no resources to mobilise millions of people. The press campaign would not have existed without the internet. By using email for press releases, we could send immediate responses to govt statements at no cost. We could direct journalists to our website.

The internet provides a vital resource for checking discrepancies in govt statements. The revelation that a govt dossier was cut & pasted from a 10-year-old thesis would never have made the headlines had the original author not read the dossier on the internet. The web exposes govt information to unprecedented scrutiny.
The internet has dramatically effected the way Stop the War Coalition is organised. "A major part of campaigns in the past was stuffing envelopes. That used to take literally days," says Andrew Burgin, one of the founders of Stop the War. "So campaigns in the past always required a much bigger labour force."

Using mailing lists & its website, the central office communicates with a rapidly growing network of local groups that provide much of the movement's organisation. Those local groups communicate with their members and the wider movement through their own mailing lists, group text messages and local websites. The groups also run their own press campaigns with local media.
My local group is in Dulwich, South London, hardly a hotbed of revolutionary fervour. But meetings draw people from every ethnic background, class, age and political persuasion, who you could hardly imagine meeting in any other circumstance.

The founder of the group, Mike Healey, has also researched the social effects of the internet as a lecturer for Westminster University. "We've used the internet to build the group," he says. "There's a lot of talk of virtual communities and what's happened here is one example.
"But the community only exists to mobilise, not to just chat online." This distributed structure has proved to be infinitely extensible, with more & more local groups continuing to be formed and the central office remaining minimal, it is run by less than 10 people.

But for the anti-war movement the internet is only a means to an end. The reason people get involved is not for online discussions, but for offline protest such as Saturday's march. The internet makes that process more accessible to people who would not normally get involved in politics.


Bush, Blair nominated 2002 peace Nobel   ¹
2.4.02   Doug Mellgren AP

Oslo, Norway   Pres.GWBush & British PM Tony Blair nominated for the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for fighting terrorism & securing world peace, a Norwegian lawmaker announced Monday. Harald Tom Nesvik, a member of parliament from the right-wing Party of Progress, said he has nominated the 2 leaders who have been at the forefront of the war in Afghanistan. "The background for my nomination is their decisive action against terrorism, something I believe in the future will be the greatest threat to peace," Nesvik said. "Unfortunately, sometimes ... you have to use force to secure peace." Nesvik has nomination rights as a member of a national legislature. The Oslo-based awards committee accepts nominations postmarked by Feb. 1, so proposals continue to arrive and a final number is not expected until late in the month.

Last year, 136 individuals and groups were nominated. The $943,000 prize was shared by the UN & Sec.Gen Kofi Annan. The committee keeps the names of nominees secret for 50 years. However, those making nominations often reveal their choice. 9.11.01 expected to influence this year's nominations, because those events were too late to be considered in last year's award. Other nominations mentioned, but not confirmed, include former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Guy Tozzoli, an engineer who helped design the World Trade Center. Also Monday, 2 Christian Democratic members of Norway's parliament announced their nomination of the Salvation Army, adding to a list that includes Rome-based Catholic group Church of Sant'Egidio for peace & humanitarian efforts and the Mission of Mercy humanitarian group for work in Latin America. The Nobel Prize winners are named in mid-Oct. and the awards are always presented on Dec. 10, the day their founder, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, died in 1896. The peace prize is awarded in Oslo, and the others in Stockholm, Sweden.

Belgium amends law to avoid war crimes lawsuit against Bush   3.25.03   AFP

Brussels   The Belgian parliament amended a controversial law to prevent US President GWBush being prosecuted for war crimes over the conflict in Iraq. The law allows Belgian courts to try suspects for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, regardless of where the alleged acts took place or the nationality of the accused.
Under the amendment, which the Belgian Senate must approve before it takes effect, a federal prosecutor will decide in certain cases whether to accept a suit filed under the so-called "universal competence" law. This was one of the "filters" that lawmakers inserted into the law to prevent plaintiffs bringing "harebrained" lawsuits.

Critics of the law, incl U.S., have warned Belgium that its role as host to intl institutions like NATO & the European Union, would be threatened if a war crimes suit were filed against Bush. "It's a serious problem," said US Sec.State Powell, after he was named last week in a lawsuit for alleged crimes during the 1991 Gulf war along with former US president George Bush & current VP Cheney.
"For a place that is an intl center they should be a little bit concerned about this," Powell said. The lawsuit against him was filed by 7 Iraqi families over the bombing of a civilian shelter in Baghdad that killed 403 people on the night of 2.12-13.91. Powell served as the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and Cheney as defense secretary during the 1991 Gulf war.

Some 30 current or former political leaders are facing action under the Belgian law, incl Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Cuban President Fidel Castro. "I expect there to be, any day, a suit against President (George W.) Bush in Belgium," Herman De Croo, speaker of Belgium's lower house of parliament, said earlier Tuesday.
Throughout the day, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt had hosted intense negotiations among political leaders from his ruling "rainbow" coalition to discuss changes to the law. Under the amendments passed, the prosecutor will decide if a lawsuit is valid if the alleged crime did not happen in Belgium; if the alleged perpetrator is not Belgian or is not on Belgian territory; and if the victims are not Belgian or have not resided in Belgium for at least 3 years. If one of these conditions applies, the lawsuit goes ahead automatically.

If none of the conditions apply, the Belgian justice minister can pass on the case to the country of the accused. The amendments will affect only cases filed after 7.1.02, like the one against Bush senior and only those where the country of the accused has war crimes legislation.
Fears that a war crimes lawsuit over the Iraqi conflict could be brought against the current US president have further strained relations between U.S. & Belgium, which has been a fierce critic of the war on Iraq and was at the center of an unprecedented crisis at NATO over the conflict last month.

The changes to the law came only a week before Belgium's parliament was due to be dissolved ahead of a general election scheduled 5.18.03. According to parliamentary sources, the parties in the ruling coalition were divided over how to amend the law. Verhofstadt's Liberals, backed by Flemish-speaking Socialists, had proposed a "diplomatic filter" allowing the govt to pass on any cases to the country where the alleged crimes took place, providing it is democratic. Francophone Socialists & Greens feared that the law would be rendered toothless if the amendments were too radical.

Teen anarchist's supporters accuse FBI of AIM hack   2.7.02   Brian McWilliams Newsbytes

Los Angeles   The FBI declined to comment Wednesday on allegations that federal agents have commandeered online chat accounts belonging to the teen-aged operator of anti-govt site Raisethefist.com. However, the agency denies allegations that it has harassed associates of 18-year-old self-proclaimed anarchist Sherman Martin Austin. According to several of Austin's supporters, someone has repeatedly logged into the teen's accounts on America Online's AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) real-time chat service while he was in police custody.
Austin, a resident of Sherman Oaks, Calif., has been incarcerated in a high-security federal jail in Manhattan since Saturday on charges of disorderly conduct following a protest against the World Economic Forum in New York. A friend listed on Austin's AIM Buddy List who identified himself only as "James" said he was threatened Monday by someone he suspects was an FBI agent using Austin's account. "He told me, 'Your ass is next, pal,'" James said.

Laura Bosley, a spokesperson for the FBI's Los Angeles field office, declined to say whether the FBI would commandeer someone's AIM account as part of an investigation, citing its ongoing nature. But she said FBI agents would never harass associates of a suspect. Last week, federal agents executed a search warrant at Austin's home and confiscated several computers as well as equipment for making explosives. According to an affidavit, the FBI suspects Austin of hacking into several Web sites to post anarchist messages and using his own site, Raisethefist.com, to publish bomb-making information.
Newsbytes independently observed that someone using Austin's AOL screen name "Ucaun" signed on to the service briefly Tuesday night. But that person did not respond to interview requests. Matt Yarborough, head of the cyberlaw section at Fish and Richardson and a former assistant U.S. attorney, said it was "certainly possible" that FBI agents commandeered Austin's AIM accounts as part of their undercover work on the case. "I've dealt with federal agents who did things that made my stomach turn. But, assuming these claims are true, the agents might see this as a good technique for flushing people out," said Yarborough, who noted that Austin may also have been instructed to sign on to his AIM account while in custody.

However, Mark Rasch, vice president of cyberlaw at Predictive Systems and a former federal prosecutor, said it was most likely that one of Austin's enemies, and not the FBI, was responsible for hijacking his AIM accounts. "It would be very improbable that even an overzealous agent would do this. It's unfathomable that a court would grant such an order," said Rasch. Susan Tipograph, the attorney representing Austin in New York, said Austin has not spoken to the FBI since being arrested. According to Tipograph, he has been held in a maximum-security cell around the clock and it was impossible that he would have signed on to his account.

"He's in the same unit where they held people who bombed the U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. It seems odd to treat an 18-year-old this way," said Tipograph.
Austin's political views have made him a target for verbal attack by right-wing extremists, his associates said, but they dismissed suggestions that his accounts may have been compromised by such adversaries.

While AIM accounts are password-protected, the technology has been abused in the past by attackers who hijack others' AIM accounts through trickery, Trojan horses, packet-sniffing and other techniques. Matthew Dickinson, a San Diego-based accountant who said he was an online acquaintance of Austin's, reported that the teen told him last autumn that his AIM accounts had been hacked into by law enforcement officials. Dickinson provided a Nov. 10 e-mail message, purportedly from Austin, in which he recounted discovering that one of his AIM screen names was being used by the FBI to harass him.

The message included a log file of an AIM session in which someone using Austin's screen name Raisethefist told Austin, "This is a matter of national security, pal. We're tapping all accounts," and, "We're watching you, and packeting you. Warrants are wonderful." AIM log files are simple text documents that can be created or edited using a word processor. As such, their authenticity is difficult to determine. It was not clear whether Austin shared the login information for his AIM account with family members or friends. Austin's mother referred all inquiries to Tipograph, who said she had no information on the matter. If federal agents took over Austin's AIM accounts without his permission, such an action would constitute unauthorized access and be illegal, according to Yarborough.
"The govt doesn't have the right to hack into someone else's computer. If these allegations are true, it would look bad in court, as if the agents were attempting to intimidate people to disclose information," he said. In an interview with Newsbytes last week over AIM, Austin admitted to defacing several Web sites in the past three years to post messages about overthrowing the U.S. govt. One of the defacements included the message: "We don't gather weapons, plan extreme operations, and risk our lives for nothing. This is real." Austin was not charged with any crimes as a result of his arrest in New York, Tipograph said. However, federal charges were filed against him for posting information at his site about making explosives and with possessing a Molotov cocktail, which is considered an "unregistered firearm" by the FBI.

No hacking charges have yet been filed against Austin, although Bosley told Newsbytes that additional charges are possible. Raisethefist.com has been unreachable since late last week. Austin's former hosting company, About Web Services, refused to comment on the status of the site, citing the firm's privacy policy. Domain registration records today showed that Raisethefist.com is no longer receiving domain-name service from About Web's Freeservers.com service, and that the domain was transferred to InfoSpace's HyperMart hosting service on Feb. 1.

In the interview last week, Austin told Newsbytes that he didn't think 18 was too young to be an anarchist. "16yr olds fight in the New Peoples Army in the Philippines," he said. When asked whether he thought it should be illegal to publish bomb-making information, Austin replied that everyone should have a right to distribute such knowledge.
"I think it should be illegal for other people to get rich off dropping bombs on poor women and children. I personally would like a society without bombs," he said. According to an FBI affidavit, a search by New York police of Austin's car last weekend uncovered "electrical wiring, electrical tape, one empty gasoline tank, and anarchist literature."


I joined the Army seven months after I squeaked through high school. In 1970, I volunteered for the airborne infantry & Vietnam. Now I am the Viet Cong. In 1980, I went to Panama. I was in Guatemala in 1983 for the last coup. In 1985, I was in El Salvador; 1991, Peru; 1992, Colombia. Over & over, the fact that we as a nation seemed to take sides with the rich against the poor started to penetrate, first my preconceptions then my rationalizations & finally my consciousness. People don't generally hear from retired Special Forces soldiers. But people need to hear the facts from someone who can't be called an effete liberal who never "served" his country. A liberal will tell you the system isn't working properly. I tell you the system works exactly the way it's supposed to.
12.99   "Inside U.S. Counterinsurgency" Stan Goff iF magazine
"Military spending FY2000 will be almost $290 billion; all other domestic discretionary spending, such as education, job training, housing, Amtrak, medical research, environment, Head Start & many other worthwhile programs will total $246 billion, the biggest disparity in modern times."
former US Sen. Dale Bumpers, Dir. Ctr for Defense Information
BOGOTA   Flying missions over guerrilla-infested coca fields or staffing remote radar stations in the jungle, private American citizens are working perilously close to the front lines of the drug war in Colombia. Referred to as "contractors" by the Washington agencies who hire them and "mercenaries" by critics, they are supposed to number no more than 300. Yet with the U.S. govt "outsourcing" much of its drug war aid to these contractors, officials are already indicating that the ceiling needs to be raised. As Colombian President Andres Pastrana travels to Washington to meet with President Bush on Tuesday, worries are mounting about the danger the U.S. contractors face and whether their presence and that of U.S. troops could lead to deeper involvement in Colombia's decades-old civil war. street theatre at 11/19/99 demo Photo: Jack Gould 1/17/01   When Defense Dept opens new Western Hemisphere Inst. for Security & Cooperation at Fort Benning GA today, it will revitalize old debate about U.S. role in training military personnel from countries where democracy is vulnerable. Officials in Washington said the Institute will promote new era in military relations between U.S. & Latin America, making democracy a priority.
Critics insist Institute is merely touched-up version of School of the Americas that in 54 years trained more than 63,000 members of Latin American armed forces. After graduating such infamous individuals as Manuel Noriega, officers of Augusto Pinochet and death squad leaders from El Salvador, it became known by some as the "School of the Assassins."

Rep. Joe Moakley D-MA said changes in the school proposed by the Clinton admin & approved by Congress last year are "little more than a fresh coat of paint, and do not address our concerns with this training facility." Moakley spearheaded long campaign in Congress to close the school, said, "Democracies aren't built with weapons & war. They are built with democratic institutions like fair judiciaries, open electoral systems and civilian police forces that protect people. That is what we should be teaching Latin Americans, not how to wage war against their own people."
Defenders of the new institution say military exchanges bring greater understanding & cooperation in the hemisphere, which are key elements to confront new realities & threats in the Americas. They also say that bringing together the region's armed forces, esp. those with questionable human rights records, is better than no contact at all.
  [ No contact is not the only option. Intl tribunal's prosecution & imprisonment for convicts are excellent alternatives. ]

"Arguably our best instrument of cooperation, of defense engagement in the hemisphere, is military education & training and that is what this institute does," said Pedro Pablo Permuy, dep. asst secretary of defense for inter-American affairs. "It is absolutely critical." He added that there is no doubt that training 800 members of Latin American armed forces at the school each year in professionalism, respect for human rights and support for democracy is positive. He said it is unfortunate Pentagon is trying to break past patterns while new institute's critics been slow "to get into the mindset that we are no longer in a Cold War."
Unlike the school, which closed last month, the new institute will also train civilians in govt & nongovt jobs and will be under congressional oversight. It will have a civilian-military dept directed by State Dept official not yet been named, and the curriculum will include courses such as natural disaster response, intl law & human rights. All students take 8hrs min. of human rights training.
New institute opening & earlier changes in SOA resulted in part from critics efforts but these also may have brought military training increase outside the U.S. which limits possibility of oversight, said observers, incl authors of a report to be released Thursday. Most U.S. military training takes place in the Andean region & Mexico under pgms such as Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) & International Military Education & Training (IMET). "If all training was as transparent as the SOA's, we wouldn't have much of a mission," said Adam Isacson of the Center for Intl Policy in Washington, which prepared the report with the Latin American Working Group, a coalition of religious, human rights & policy organizations. The report, Just the Facts 2000-2001, says 5% to 10% of U.S. training for Latin American military personnel in 1999 was provided at SOA. The report estimates 13,000 to 15,000 Latin American military & police personnel were trained by U.S. in 1999, more than all armed forces personnel trained by the U.S. in the Middle East, East Asia and countries of the former Soviet Union.

Isacson recognized courses' value in promoting better relations with civilians & respect for human rights, but added that other courses are worrisome, such as training in combat, weapons familiarization & infiltration. Concern is heightened, he said, with perception that the U.S. govt underestimates need to take responsibility for training results. "We contend that with training comes a share of responsibility for how skills transferred are subsequently used," the report says. Last year Congress passed a law to establish a way to track foreign military personnel trained by the U.S. which states beginning Jan. 1, Sec.Def must maintain database with information about all trainees, the type & date of their training and, as far as possible, the positions they hold after training.

action on location
"[Nearly 70% of the military budget] is to provide men and weapons to fight in foreign countries in support of our allies and friends and for offensive operations in Third World countries … Another big chunk of the defense budget is the 20% allocated for our offensive nuclear force of bombers, missles, and submarines whose job it is to carry nuclear weapons to the Soviet Union … Actual defense of U.S. costs about 10% of the military budget and is the least expensive function performed by the Pentagon."
Rear Admiral Gene LaRoque, U.S. Navy retired
at School of Assassins, GA

New military school gives officers new tools   Course in Iraq challenges conventional tactics, stresses cultural awareness   2.21.06   Thos. Ricks Wash.Post

Taji, Iraq   If the U.S. effort in Iraq ultimately is successful, one reason may be the small school started recently on a military base here by U.S. commander in Iraq Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. Called the COIN Academy, using military shorthand for "counterinsurgency", the newest educational institution in the U.S. military establishment seeks, as a course summary puts it, to "stress the need for U.S. forces to shift from a conventional warfare mindset" to one that understands how to win in a guerrilla-style conflict. Or, as a sign on the wall of one administrator's office here put it less politely: "Insanity is doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different outcome."

The purpose of the school north of Baghdad is to try to bring about a different outcome than the U.S. military achieved in 2003-04, when Army commanders committed mistakes typical of a conventional military facing an insurgency. "When the insurgency started, we came in very conventional," said Col. Chris Short, the District native and recent Manassas resident who is the new school's commandant.
Back then, U.S. forces rounded up tens of thousands of Iraqis, mixing innocent people in detention with hard-core Islamic extremists. Commanders permitted troops to shoot at anything mildly threatening. They failed to give their troops the basic conceptual and cultural tools needed to operate in the complex environment of Iraq, from how to deal with a sheik to understanding why killing insurgents usually is the least desirable outcome in dealing with them. (It is more effective, they are now taught, to persuade them either to desert or to join the political process.)

Last year, an internal study by Army experts of U.S. commanders here found that some understood the principles of counterinsurgency and applied them well, while others faltered. "If the commander had it, the unit had it, but if the commander got it halfway, then the unit got it halfway," Casey said in a recent interview. The new school is designed to ensure that all the commanders get it.
Even now, some conventional unit commanders balk at the idea of leaving their troops for the 5 day course, which covers subjects from counterinsurgency theory and interrogations to detainee operations and how to dine with a sheik. When told that he had to leave his battalion of Marines in Fallujah to come here, recalled Lt. Col. Patrick Looney, his reaction was disbelief.
"I didn't want to come," concurred Lt. Col. David Furness, commander of the 1st Battalion of the 1st Marine Regiment, now operating between Baghdad and Fallujah. "But I'm glad I came."

Casey, the school's builder, found an easy way to make them come: He made attendance compulsory for any officer heading to a combat command in Iraq. He also meets with each class, offering the captains and lieutenant colonels a rare chance to quiz a four-star general.
Some members of the facultydraws heavily on Special Forces officers, were not eager to teach U.S. infantry, artillery, aviation and armor officers. Short recalled that some said: "That's not our mission. We don't teach U.S. forces." Such qualms have been eliminated, he said with a chuckle.

Again and again, the intense immersion course, which 30 to 50 officers attend at a time, emphasizes that the right answer is probably the counterintuitive one, rather than something that the Army has taught officers in their 10 or 20 years of service. The school's textbook, a huge binder, offers the example of a mission that busts into a house and captures someone who mortared a U.S. base.
"On the surface, a raid that captures a known insurgent or terrorist may seem like a sure victory for the coalition," it observes in red block letters. It continues, "The potential second- and third-order effects, however, can turn it into a long-term defeat if our actions humiliate the family, needlessly destroy property, or alienate the local population from our goals."

At points, the school's leaders seem to go out of their way to challenge current U.S. military practices here. Short said in an interview Friday inside his sandbagged headquarters that he has issues with "this big-base mentality" that keeps tens of thousands of troops inside facilities called forwarding operating bases, or FOBs, which they leave for patrols and raids. Classic counterinsurgency theory holds that troops should live out among the people as much as possible, to develop a sense of how the society works and to gather intelligence.
As Apache attack helicopters clattered overhead, Short also offered an unconventional view of Iraq's December elections, which many U.S. officials have portrayed as a great victory.
"You can ask just about every Iraqi, 'What about the elections?' " he said. "They'll say", Short shrugged his shoulders, " 'Well, we voted five times, and nothing's happening out here.' "

Recent attendees at the school came away impressed. "I think it's an incredibly insightful course," said Army Maj. Sheldon Horsfall, an adviser to the Iraqi military in Baghdad. "One of the things that was brought home to us, again and again, was the importance of cultural awareness."
"The course opened my eyes to some of the bigger picture," said Lt. Col. Nathan Nastase, the operations officer for the 5th Marine Regiment, based near Fallujah. He said he especially liked hearing about the role of Special Operations Forces in Iraq, as well as learning about the tactics being used by successful commanders.

The school's greatest effect seems to be on younger officers. "My initial impression of it was it was a waste of time," said Capt. Klaudius Robinson, commander of a cavalry troop in the 4th Infantry Division. "But after going through it, it really changed my thinking about how to fight this insurgency. I came to realize that the center of gravity is the people, and you have to drive a wedge between the insurgents and the people."
Before the course, he said, he expected to spend his time here combating insurgents, but instead he is focused on training and operating with Iraqi troops. "We're never going to catch every bad guy," he tells his troops. "That's not a ticket home. But what I can do is help Iraqi security forces and get them to take the lead."

"One of the things I picked up at the COIN Academy is, we don't need to be hard on people all the time," said Capt. Bret Lindberg, commander of another 4th Infantry cavalry troop.
The major criticism offered by students is that it would have been better to have the education 6 months earlier, when they were training their troops to deploy to Iraq, not after the units have arrived. Short had a tart response: It's not a bad idea, he said, but the Army back home wasn't stepping up to the job. "They didn't do it for three years", the length of the war so far, he noted. "That's why the boss said, 'Screw it, I'm doing it here.' "

At any rate, the school isn't just about operating in Iraq, Short said, but about preparing officers for the rest of their careers. "I think we're going to be in more of these wars," he said.


Olympic sniper competition   DoD photo by TechSgt Rick Sforza USAF

Fed. Acq. Reform Act eliminated foreign arms sales fee req. by law to recoup tax funded R&D

active denial technology


Pentagon fielding electromagnetic crowd dispersal weapon   3.2.01   F. Morales
CNN

"The Marine Corps is on the verge of unveiling perhaps the biggest breakthrough in weapons technology since the atomic bomb: a nonlethal weapon that fires directed energy at human targets. I have nothing to hide. This is a good news story. Our American public needs to understand that we have done our homework."
5.5.01 Col. Geo.Fenton, dir. Defense Dept Joint NonLethal Weapons Directorate per Marine Corps Times
In a neatly calculated "unveiling" of weapons designed for social control, for use against civilians and the suppression of dissent, the Pentagon has gone "transparent" with the latest in electronic weapons technology which targets people.
Vehicle Mounted Active Denial System prototype At a selective 3.1.01 press briefing for congressional & military leaders, Pentagon officials stated they were "developing a new non-lethal weapon which uses electromagnetic energy to cause a burning sensation on the skin..." (Reuters, 3/1/01) The "biggest breakthrough in weapons technology since the atomic bomb" is none other than the so-called "Vehicle-Mounted Active Denial System" VMADS.

According to 3.5.01 Marine Corps Times article entitled, "The People Zapper: This new secret weapon doesn't kill, but it sure does burn", the "VMADS system is the first non-lethal, directed energy weapon designed specifically for use against humans." The weapon "focuses energy into a beam of micromillimeter waves designed to stop an individual in his tracks." Powered by electricity, it would ultimately "be powered by the modified Humvee on which it would be mounted."

According to Marine Corps Times report, the projected energy "falls near microwaves on electromagnetic spectrum, causes the moisture in a person's skin to heat up rapidly, creating a burning sensation, similar to a hot light bulb pressed against one's flesh." The microwaves, "whose exact length, frequency and amplitude are classified, cause water molecules in the skin cells to vibrate." Presumably, "when used as directed, i.e. briefly, the weapon causes no long-term problems".

Meanwhile, "the amount of time the weapon must be trained on an individual to cause permanent damage or death is classified." Studies of long-term effects of "the VMADS system" have been completed, according to the report, but "the findings have not been released publicly." It should be noted that the Joint Chiefs of Staff major policy directive in the area of non-lethal weapons, DoD Directive 3000.3, which is currently under revision, calls for these weapons to have a built-in "rheostatic" (ie. "tunable") capability.

  speculative conjecture
  longitudinal EM interferometers scattered around the world (sometimes called "Tesla howitzers). One of the abilities of these new superweapons is to create waves of electromagnetic energy at the distant target which can soften metal. …
*
Sounds like specular RF reflector 'd send the beams off in all directions, & with practice maybe even right back at those firing them. Wonder what a large, parabolic dish would do.
Break out the mirrors per RF Causes Cancer 3.16.01

U.S. military unveils 'super sandwich'
4.11.02   BBC

American military researchers have cooked up an indestructible sandwich for soldiers to eat on the battlefield. It is designed to stay fresh & dry for up to 3 years, and to withstand airdrops, rough handling and extreme climates. Until now, American soldiers have been forced to construct their own sandwiches from pasteurised ingredients stored in separate pouches. …

To combat sogginess, researchers at the US Army Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Massachusetts used fillings such as pepperoni and chicken, then added substances called humectants which prevent water from leaking out. Humectants also limit the amount of moisture available for bacterial growth. Oxygen-scavenging chemicals prevent yeast from growing in the sealed plastic sandwich pouches.

Soldiers who tried the pepperoni and barbecue-chicken "pocket sandwich" have given it their approval, New Scientist magazine reported. Researchers hope to extend the menu of indestructible edibles to include pocket pizzas, cream-filled bagels, breakfast burritos and peanut butter sandwiches.

New Scientist wrote: "The pocket sandwiches won't see action until 2004. But like dehydrated egg, freeze-dried coffee and processed cheese all originally developed by the military; the long-life sandwich will probably find its way into grocery stores."


While the Marines expect to be microwaving people, it was the Air Force that developed the "technology" in the first place. On February 22, 2001 U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, located at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, issued it's own news release announcing that "a breakthrough technology designed to project an energy beam that drives away adversaries without injuring them, is now undergoing advanced testing." (2) According to the Air Force, the projected energy "beam" travels "at the speed of light" and penetrates "1/64 of a inch into the skin", rapidly heating up the skin's surface, causing the "subject", within seconds, to "feel pain that stops when the transmitter is shut off or when the subject moves out of the beam." According to the news release, the weapon was developed by two Air Force Research Laboratory teams: one from it's Directed Energy Directorate at Kirtland, the other from it's Human Effectiveness Directorate, located at Brooks Air Force Base, Texas. The learned team leaders, Lt. Col.Chuck Beason and Dr. Kirk Hackett noted, in reference to the new EM weapon, that "the effect exploits a natural defense mechanism, pain, that has evolved to protect the human body from damage."

The Air Force Research Laboratory Directed Energy Directorate, in addition to developing "high powered electromagnetic weapons and countermeasures" also develops "moderate and high power laser devices". (3) In fact, recently (2/212/01), the public affairs office of the Airborne Laser System Program Office, located at Kirtland, AFB, announced that "Lockheed Martin Space Systems will open an $8 million, 16,000 square-foot optical test center...designed to analyze the beam guidance system for the U.S. Air Force's Airborne Laser, the world's first combat aircraft armed with a directed energy weapon." (4) Meanwhile, the Space Vehicles Directorate - Air Force Research Laboratory, "develops technologies to support evolving warfighter requirements to control and exploit space." (5) This past November, Kirtland AFB was the sight of the 3rd Annual Directed Energy Symposium entitled, Directed Energy for the 21st Century, presented by the Directed Energy Professional Association, in cooperation with the Office of the Secretary of Defense. (6)
The VMADS system is currently being tested in field conditions by the Air Force at Kirtland, AFB. At the New Mexico site, "they are using a transmitter that sends a narrow beam of energy to a test subject hundreds of yards away." It is reassuring to note that "all testing is being conducted with strict observance of the procedures, laws and regulations governing animal and human experimentation". In addition, "the tests have been reviewed and approved by the Air Force Surgeon General's Office and are conducted by the Air Force Research Laboratory's Human Effectiveness Directorate." Finally, "although testing is expected to continue in this summer (2001), officials have begun examining the technology for use on a vehicle-mounted version. Future versions might also be used onboard planes and ships." (7)

Col. George Fenton, director of the US Marine operated NLW program firmly believes in the safety of this "revolutionary force protection technology." He recently stated that "humans have been exposed more than 6,000 times in testing, all inside the laboratory (and that) no long term effects have been detected." Given that track record, Fenton believes that "the technology could move into the acquisition phase of making a prototype as soon as this summer (2001), when the project would be taken over by the Air Force's Electronic Systems Center at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass., near Boston." (8)
Finally, on-cue the New York Times joined in on the "unveiling", heralding "what some military officials hope will become the rubber bullet of the 21st century: a weapon that uses electromagnetic waves to disperse crowds without killing, maiming or, military officials say, even injuring anyone slightly." (9) Not even slightly! After all, notes the Times, they are only "intended to influence motivational behavior." According to free lance writer/researcher David Guyatt, "less than lethal anti-personnel weapons, especially some classes of EM weapons that are viewed as having a capability to remotely modify behavior or attack higher functions, are seen in some influential quarters as being the ideal remedy for future domestic disturbances...", wherein, the forces of repression will target the opposition, "armed with innovative technological weapons that do not necessarily kill but which render disenfranchised segments of society physically inactive, emotionally stupefied and incapable of meaningful thought..." (10)

Sound farfetched? Back in 1986, Marine Corps Captain Paul E. Tyler, author of an influential study entitled, "The Electromagnetic Spectrum in Low-Intensity Conflict" (11) was already making the point that "the potential applications of artificial electromagnetic fields are wide ranging and can be used in many military or quasi - military situations" including "crowd control". At that time he pointed out that although scientists hadn't identified electromagnetism for what it really was until the eighteenth century, "the results of many studies that have been published in the last few years indicate that specific biological effects can be achieved by controlling the various parameters of the electromagnetic (EM) field." And further, "many of the clinical effects of electromagnetic radiation (have) been reported in the literature to induce or enhance the following effects (including) … electroanesthesia...behavior modification in animals, altered electroencephalograms in animals and humans, altered brain morphology in animals, altered firing of neuronal cells." According to Capt.Tyler, "a 1982 Air Force review of biotechnology had this to say: Currently available data allow the projection that specially generated radio frequency radiation (RFR) fields may pose powerful and revolutionary antipersonnel military threats. Electroshock therapy indicates the ability of induced electric current to completely interrupt mental functioning for short periods of time, to obtain cognition for longer periods and to restructure emotional response over prolonged intervals." Further, "experience with electroshock therapy, RFR experiments and the increasing understanding of the brain as an electrically mediated organ suggested the serious probability that impressed electromagnetic fields can be disruptive to purposeful behavior and may be capable of directing and or interrogating such behavior", while "the passage of approximately 100 milliamperes through the myocardium can lead to cardiac standstill and death, again pointing to a speed-of-light weapons effect."

1. Marine Corps Times, "The People Zapper: This new secret weapon doesn't kill, but it sure does burn", C. Mark Brinkley, March 5, 2001, pg.10.
2. United States Air Force, Air Force Research Laboratory, News Release, Office of Public Affairs, "New Technology Drives Away Adversaries", February 22, 2001. www.de.afrl.af.mil/pa/releases/2001/01-09.html
3. Air Force Research Laboratory, Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, Directorate descriptions, www.afrl.af.mil/techconn/directorate_descriptions.htm
4. United States Air Force, Airborne Laser System Program Office, Office of Public Affairs, "Airborne Laser Optical Facility Opens", February 21, 2001. www.de.afrl.af.mil/pa/releases/2001/01-06.html
5. Air Force Research Laboratory, Directorate descriptions (above)
6. Directed Energy for the 21st Century, 3rd Annual Directed Energy Symposium, Preliminary Program and Registration, Kirtland Air Force Base, White Sands Missile Range, 30 October - 3 November 2000.
7. Air Force Research Laboratory, "New technology Drives Away Adversaries" 2/22/01 (above) 8. Marine Corps Times, 3/5/01 (above)
9. New York Times, "Pentagon Unveils Plans for a New Crowd-Dispersal Weapon", James Dao, 3.2.01
10. David G. Guyatt, "Some Aspects of Antipersonnel Electromagnetic Weapons", February 1996 www.adacomp.net/~mcherney/aspects.html
11. Capt. Paul E. Tyler, MC, USN, "The Electromagnetic Spectrum in Low-Intensity Conflict", in, LtCol. David J. Dean, USAF, Editor, Low-Intensity Conflict and Modern Technology, Air University Press, Alabama, June 1986. www.adacomp.net/~mcherney/mn142a.htm
    general
    & links
  re
"Patterns of Conflict" & OODA loop :   2 primary themes   • A focus on time, not speed, specifically using dislocations in time to shape the competitive situation, effects quite different in business than in war.
  • A culture with attributes that enable, even impel, organizations to exploit time for competitive advantage. Within Boyd´s culture, members will seek out or invent specific practices that will work for it.

"   … ability to employ these maneuver concepts rests on an underlying cultural foundation. Sun Tzu, writing sometime before 400 B.C., made the earliest known identification of the elements of such a high-performing culture.
  Chief among these is trust, which is so fundamental that he simply called it, "The Way." Mutual trust is now recognized as essential by every successful practitioner of maneuver concepts.
  … destruction of trust as a result of corporate short-sightedness or lack of integrity among sr managers is the single most significant cause of business failures in the early 21st century."  
Belisarius
  ¹ ² ³


" I fear that machines are some centuries ahead of morals. "
Harry S. Truman touring bombed out post-war Berlin
Of 67 fatal casualties by the 12th day of the second Gulf War, more died of mishap (multiple helicopter crashes & other vehicle accidents), 25, than by enemy fire in combat, 21. In addition to these, more died from friendly fire, 6, than by sappers, 4.
3.30.03   Forces: U.S. & Coalition / casualties CNN
According to NATO's own figures, of 307 cruise missiles launched at Iraq during the first Gulf War, 65 (21%) missed their targets.
10.10.01   Bombing long-term fears BBC
What mythological confusion is this? Since when has Mars been god of commerce & Mercury god of war ?
Viennese ed. Karl Kraus auth. & publ.
"Die Fackel" (The Torch) 1899-1936
… (few) will pick up a gun if it means putting down a cash register.
Horse under water   auth. Len Deighton

Mother Jones' Index
Proposition One Washington's finest peace patrol
Country Joe McDonald & Zipper Wars
Ctr for Intl Policy   hammering out plowshares
California Peace Action L.A.   formerly SANE/FREEZE
infoshop.org
Chico State Gulf protest
Friends Committee on Legislation of California, longest running cause lobby in Sacramento
FY99 655 Report State Dept rpt on direct commercial sales licenses of munitions
Arms Control per
  Intl Security Pgm Union of Concerned Scientists
COAT Coalition to Oppose Arms Trade (Canada)
U.N. recent docs re conventional arms/small arms
The Arms Fixers   weapons watch
Biowar kill patient to cure disease : Tricky Dick's ghost vs. the future of the planetary ecosystem
Pentagon's Fraud   Emperor's newest clothes
Army InspectorGen Kosovo abusive troops report   &   RULES of PEACEKEEPING
FEMA ¹
D I Y munitions   from the front lines of the drug wars
torture

The last days of mankind a tragedy in 5 acts
auth. Karl Kraus   "a play to be performed on Mars" compiled from Vienna newspaper articles, official bulletins, and overheard conversations during WWI re wartime reporting as popular entertainment. Performed excerpts during the war.   Franz Pfemfert

Global Exchange of Military Information As a participating state in the Helsinki Document 1992, U.S. must submit annually to the Organization of Security & Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) information on major weapon and equipment systems & personnel in their conventional armed forces.
Only Russia stood between Napoleon and France's domination of Europe. … At the beginning of the 18th century, the Russian frontier had been on the Dneiper; a century later, it reached the Vistula, 500 miles farther west.
At the beginning of the 18th century, Russia had been fighting for its existence against Sweden at the Poltova, deep in the present day Ukraine. By the middle of the century, it was participating in the Seven Years' War and its troops were at the outskirts of Berlin. By the end of the century, it would be the principal agent in the partition of Poland.
Henry Kissinger Diplomacy p74

    OSCE
U.S. meets European allies for talks on bases
12.8.03  
Reuters

Brussels   U.S. began a diplomatic roadshow Monday to explain the post-Cold War realignment of its military forces, which is widely expected to bring base closures in Western Europe. Bush admin has made no decisions yet, but Defense under secretary Feith said its new defense policy would reflect NATO's eastward shift as countries once behind the Iron Curtain join the alliance.
"A lot of the current force posture in Europe is based on the realities of the Cold War, and so adjustments are going to have to be made to take into account that the alliance is larger & stronger than it was a few years ago," he said. Feith was speaking at a news conference after briefing NATO ambassadors with Under Sec. State Marc Grossman at the U.S. led alliance's HQ.

From Brussels the 2 men will split for consultations in nearly a dozen capitals across Europe, a sign, diplomats said, of Washington's eagerness to tread carefully after transatlantic strains over the Iraq war. "No final decisions have been made. The work we are doing now is an attempt to talk to people about the strategy and the concepts," Grossman said.
Some adjustments would be made in the next year or two, Feith said, but the whole review would take years to implement. 1991 Gulf War and more recent conflicts in Afghanistan & Iraq have taught the U.S. & its allies that military mobility, incl temporary basing & overflight rights, combined with technology, rather than entrenched Cold War forces, are the keys to preventing or winning future wars.

Washington has already withdrawn its forces from Saudi Arabia and is working on plans to realign the 100,000 U.S. troops in the Western Pacific, South Korea and Japan. It keeps 2 of its 10 army divisions in Europe. In Germany, it has some 77,000 personnel, many with families, at bases which have become thriving townships in their own right and bring considerable benefits to the local economies.
U.S. strategic planners have long argued that 110,000 service personnel stationed in Europe at huge cost should be replaced by smaller units with troops on short rotation tours at bases stretching into eastern European countries. This would give U.S., and by extension NATO, a foothold in the Balkans and strategic reach into central Asia & MidEast to take on new security threats such as terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. forces in Europe commander Gen. James Jones, champion of expeditionary forces, has been pressing for a 3 tiered bases structure. He told Reuters recently that this would entail main operating bases such as Ramstein in Germany, lighter forward operating bases at further-flung locations such as Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo and bare- bones forward operating locations "where you … bring in what you wish to have on your back."

Joint Task Force Six   JTF-6 supports Domestic Law Enforcement Agency counterdrug efforts in the continental US to reduce availability of illegal drugs. Established in 1989, mission originally focused exclusively along SW US border. Succession of National Defense Authorization Acts expanded JTF-6 charter by adding specific mission tasks for the organization. In 1995, JTF-6 area of responsibility expanded to incl entire continental US.
To date, the focus of the U.S. Govt's efforts to disrupt private support to terrorists has been on prosecutions under provisions of the Antiterrorism & Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). This law requires the Secretary of State to designate groups that threaten U.S. interests & security as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. There are 28 organizations on the most recent list, issued in October of 1999 by the Secretary of State. Current practice is to update the FTO list every 2 years, although the threat from terrorist groups can change at a faster pace.
The FTO designation makes it a crime for a person in the U.S. to provide funds or other material support (including equipment, weapons, lodging, training, etc.) to such a group. There is no requirement that the contributor know that the specific resources provided will be used for terrorism. In addition, American financial institutions are required under the law to block funds of FTOs & their agents and report them to the govt. The FTO designation process correctly recognizes that the current threat is increasingly from groups of terrorists rather than state sponsors. In addition to deterring contributions to terrorist organizations, FTO designation serves as a diplomatic tool. It provides the State Department with the ability to use a "carrot and stick" approach to these groups, providing public condemnation and a potential for redemption if the groups renounce terrorism.

Rather than relying heavily on the FTO process, the U.S. Govt should take a broader approach to cutting off the flow of financial support for terrorism from within the United States. Anyone providing funds to terrorist organizations or activities should be investigated with the full vigor of the law and, where possible, prosecuted under relevant statutes, including those covering money laundering, conspiracy, tax or fraud violations. In such cases, assets may also be made subject to civil & criminal forfeiture.
In addition, the Treasury Dept. could use its Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) more effectively. OFAC administers & enforces economic sanctions. For example, any U.S. financial institution holding funds belonging to a terrorist organization or one of its agents must report those assets to OFAC. Under OFAC's regulations, the transfer of such assets can be blocked. OFAC's capabilities and expertise are underutilized in part because of resource constraints. Other govt agencies such as IRS & Customs also possess information & authority that could be used to thwart terrorist fundraising. For instance, the IRS has information on NGOs that may be collecting donations to support terrorism, and Customs has data on large currency transactions. But there is no single entity that tracks and analyzes all the data available to the various agencies on terrorist fundraising in the U.S.

In addition to domestic efforts, disrupting fundraising for terrorist groups requires intl cooperation. A new UN convention, the Intl Convention for Suppression of Financing of Terrorism, provides a framework for improved cooperation. Each signing party is to enact domestic legislation to criminalize fundraising for terrorism and provide for seizure & forfeiture of funds intended to support terrorism. The parties are to cooperate in criminal investigation & prosecution of terrorism fundraising & in extraditing suspects.

U.S. seeks to bolster leased facilities
Security rules would affect cities, private sector
3.16.02   Spencer S. Hsu Wash.Post

The federal govt is seeking new security standards for more than 6,500 buildings it leases across the country to protect workers in privately owned sites from biological, chemical or conventional bomb attacks. Recommendations under consideration for new or renewed leases include setting sensitive buildings up to 100 ft from streets, securing parking lots or garages and using stronger construction materials & techniques to prevent a catastrophic collapse. Such guidelines would have broad implications for the commercial real estate industry & other corporate tenants in the District, where the federal govt is the dominant renter, and could potentially affect downtowns in larger cities where the govt houses workers. General Services Administration this week proposed the changes to the federal Interagency Security Committee, panel established soon after 1995 OKC federal bldg bombing to safeguard govt operations. The committee oversees security standards set after that bombing for 1,700 federally owned buildings, a $1.3 billion effort to date that has increased new construction costs 15 to 25%

"What we now need, esp. after 9.11.01, is similar guidelines for space the govt leases from the private sector," said GSA's Public Buildings Service commissioner F. Joseph Moravec, which owns 180 million sq ft and leases 150 million sq ft across the country. "It's one thing for govt to incorporate some of these expensive measures because we're building buildings to last 100 years," said Moravec, whose agency leads the panel. "But it's going to be challenging for the private sector to incorporate them and at the same time be competitive with market rents." The proposal is a response to 9.11.01 and illustrates the govt's pace-setting role in office-building security, even as it struggles to streamline actions taken by myriad independent agencies. Adjusting to the new threat often places security-minded officials at odds with local leaders, urban planners and architects, who say that too much security will sacrifice public access and economic vitality.

The debate is sharpest in Washington, where an empty downtown office tower dramatizes the stakes for the capital & urban downtowns nationally. In Dec., Federal Emergency Management Agency surprised GSA & Washington officials by canceling plans to move its national HQ & 1,000 workers to the million sq ft Potomac Center redevelopment near Washington's waterfront, backing out of a 10-year, $100 million lease after citing unspecified security concerns.

Members of Congress quietly grumbled at the FEMA decision, which they say is an overreaction. People close to the project say the agency demanded that the building be set back 100 ft from the street, strictly interpreting a safeguard that could make major federal offices unsuitable in downtowns.
"Scared? Are you mad?" said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton D-D.C., recalling her reaction when she asked for a Capitol Hill meeting with FEMA dir.
Joe M. Allbaugh in January. "Do you know that if FEMA looks like it is afraid to be in downtown D.C., 200,000 federal workers will wonder whether they should be here?"
Allbaugh is working with GSA and still wants & intends the agency to remain in the District, a spokesman said. But the GSA this week failed to find a site within a 20-mile radius, said congressional officials tracking the project, leaving FEMA in its current HQ atop a parking garage it shares with a hotel.

FEMA spokesman John Czwartacki said former top Pres.Bush political aide Allbaugh acted after 9.11.01 heightened the agency's unique homeland security role. Law enforcement agencies concluded that the building was exposed because it was close to the street, an off-ramp of Interstate 395 and the Potomac River, a flight corridor for Reagan National Airport.
The decision, among other things, suggests that any building housing a federal office is subject to a security overhaul or, worse, agency relocation.
"There's a snowball effect here," said GSA's 1995 to 2000 Public Buildings Service commissioner Robert A. Peck , referring to security measures embraced by federal agencies. "We're talking about spending a lot of money, disrupting a lot of lives and commerce, and some of it may not be necessary at all." Peck, now president of Greater Washington Board of Trade, said the govt must be wary of reacting to past threats, instead of future ones, and spending tax dollars on a false sense of security. "We need to ask … 'What are the risks a democracy must take?' " Peck said. "Security people are going to push for what they can get. We need to push back."

Norton has called for a national commission to balance security demands against the values of an open society. The American Institute of Architects, American Planning Assoc., American Society of Landscape Architects and National Trust for Historic Preservation and others formed coalition arguing Washington should be model for how security is applied to public buildings & spaces nationwide.

"We have to be vigilant," D.C. Planning Director Andrew Altman said at a forum last month on federal security held at the National Building Museum, "not to allow an environment or an atmosphere of fear to pressure us to make huge decisions about the federal workforce & federal offices and relocate them." The task has largely fallen on the Interagency Security Committee, which meets monthly and draws together security directors from 17 major govt agencies as well as representatives from law enforcement & national security agencies. The panel regularly updates a seminal June 1995 federal study that set 52 security standards for federal facilities, such as perimeter lighting, physical barriers and tv surveillance. The report divided facilities into 5 security levels, assigning each one to escalating degrees of compliance with the standards.

To meet govt requirements for leased buildings, Moravec said, developers need clear standards. For example, building owners may have to limit who can enter or park at their properties or what other businesses, including retail, can lease space. The committee, chaired by GSA Administrator Stephen A. Perry, deliberates in private and will be addressing standards for privately owned buildings in the coming weeks. The govt also is seeking but not mandating assurances that foundations, supports and exterior walls will not fail in case of an explosive impact; that heating, ventilation and water systems resist easy tampering with chemical or biological agents; and that electrical & critical communications systems have backups.
"The idea will be to achieve a consensus that can be used as a template for the private sector," Moravec said. Buildings that fail a guideline would not necessarily be knocked out from a bid but could be graded lower than a competitor, he said. "We really want to avoid being rigid.

Officials point to the recently completed U.S. mission to the UN in NYC planned before September, as one of the most secure federal facilities ever built in a city. The mission has hardened exterior walls, large windows restricted to high above street level and other measures that render it safe even though it is less than 50 ft from the street. Similarly secure buildings are being constructed from Brooklyn to Los Angeles to Seattle, where a federal building uses a water pool as a moat. In Washington, a $104 million Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms HQ set to break ground this spring will be among the first to incorporate all post-Oklahoma City federal recommendations. The 1,100-worker center at Florida Ave & N Street NE will anchor a new office corridor & Metro stop when complete by 2005. The project features an L-shaped building and a curving 3 story "garden wall" that also serves as a defensive ring. City & federal planners agreed to partly close 2 streets behind the building to meet the 100 ft buffer requirement, while still permitting traffic. The govt plans to allow public access to cafes or other retailers in the outer wall away from the building itself. Nevertheless, terrorist attacks have prompted new security assessment for the building, designed before 9.11.01. The ATF is requesting that pedestrians be kept 100 ft away. No decision has been made.

    The Phantom Menace
    Could terrorists attack U.S. with weapons of mass destruction? Highly unlikely, say defense experts. So why is the Clinton administration spending billions to foil a most improbable threat?
    9.00   Robt Dreyfuss M.Jones ¹
Bush calls for $50 billion for war on terrorism ¹ ² ³
Talks economic compromise with congressional leaders
1.23.02   Sandra Sobieraj AP
perpetrators, profiteers & pork

Wash.DC   Pres. GWBush called 1.23.02 for nearly $50 billion in additional military spending for the war on terrorism, the largest increase for the Pentagon in 2 decades. Privately, he assured GOP & Democratic leaders that he has "no ambition whatsoever" to exploit the war on terrorism for political gain in this election year. With his chief political strategist Karl Rove seated behind him in the Cabinet Room, Bush gave House & Senate leaders an update on the fight against terrorists and added: "I have no ambition whatsoever to use this as a political issue. There is no daylight between the executive & the legislative branches."
No one in the room for the closed-door morning meeting responded, according to congressional & White House sources who related the scene. Rove had caused a stir among Democrats last week when he told a GOP conference that Republicans would do well to talk up the popular war in this year's midterm elections.

In an afternoon address to the Reserve Officers Association, Bush gave the first details of the $2 trillion budget that Bush submits to Congress on Feb. 4. That spending plan will ask Congress to give the Pentagon an increase of $48 billion, bringing its budget within range of $380 billion. If approved by the House & Senate the funds would amount to the largest increase in military spending in 20 years, Bush said. The extra money would give service personnel another pay raise, acquire more precision weapons and build missile defenses. "Buying these tools may put a strain on the budget but we will not cut corners when it comes to the defense of our great land," Bush said to cheers from the Reserve officers. To keep Americans safe from terrorists here at home, Bush said his budget will also call for hiring 30,000 airport security workers & an additional 300 FBI agents, buying new equipment to improve mail safety, and beefing up research on bioterror threats.

For the budget year beginning on Oct. 1, Bush is expected to request roughly double the current $13 billion for homeland security, a spending item that did not exist a year ago. The budget is expected to be in deficit for the first time in 4 years, by just over $100 billion for this year and about $80 billion for 2003. To address the recession, which Bush blames for the return to deficits, lawmakers emerged from their White House meeting and expressed commitment on both sides to a compromise economic package. Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott told reporters in the White House driveway that the middle-ground plan offered by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has potential to break the long partisan stalemate over how to boost the economy and help millions of unemployed Americans. "It is a focus of our attention. It's a process that could get us into considering the bill and reaching a conclusion," said Lott, R-MS. House Speaker Dennis Hastert agreed, for the most part. "We made a commitment to at least start the discussion and try to work things out."

" I'm committed and I think other leaders are that we need some type of a stimulus package," said Hastert, R-IL. Daschle, who for much of the holiday recess was locked in a long-distance war of words with the White House over economic policy, suggested detente was in the works. Bush invited Daschle & the other leaders to continue the White House breakfast meetings he began after launching the anti-terror war in Afghanistan, Daschle said. The breakfasts will shift from a weekly happening to once every 2 weeks, with the first already scheduled for Tuesday, aides said.

Daschle chuckled when Bush jokingly wondered whether they would be able to keep the breakfasts going "as things heat up" in the election year, the Capitol Hill & White House sources said. "A new year brings a new opportunity to start over. We're going to do that and work, hopefully, in a very positive & a bipartisan spirit," Daschle said. "We talked today about the areas for which we both have a high priority and it was amazing. I thought it was identical, trade, energy the economy, election reform, prescription drugs, patients bill of rights, agriculture." Bush wants tens of billions of dollars more for homeland defense & military spending. On the economic front, he's pushing to break the stalemate over his economic revival package of tax cuts, mostly for businesses, and extended unemployment benefits.

Daschle proposes that Republicans & Democrats work on a compromise economic plan requiring both sides to make concessions. Democrats would shelve raising unemployment benefits and subsidizing health care premiums for the newly unemployed under the Daschle plan, while Republicans would drop accelerating the income tax cuts enacted last year and repealing the corporate alternative minimum tax. The Democratic proposal focuses on extending unemployment benefits, giving tax rebate checks to people who missed out last year, allowing businesses more generous tax write-offs for new investment and increasing federal Medicaid money to cash-strapped states.
Administration advisers said Wednesday the president was open to a slimmed-down package as long as it includes job-creating provisions. Later Wednesday, Bush was signing legislation waiving income tax liability for 2 years for families of 9.11.01 victims, last fall's anthrax attacks & the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The bill is H.R. 2884.

11.24.03   Reuters

Wash.D.C.   President Bush signed a record $401.3 billion defense bill on Monday that includes a 4.15% raise for troops as the Iraq occupation puts increasing strain on soldiers & their families. "In this time of war, our military is facing greater sacrifice," Bush said as he signed the legislation in a ceremony at the Pentagon. "Your men and women in uniform are facing longer separations. Your families are feeling great pride and sometimes they worry," he said.
Since Bush declared major combat over in Iraq on 5.1.03, 185 soldiers died as guerrilla attacks have escalated. The administration has extended military deployments in Iraq to a full year and begun mustering tens of thousands of regular & reserve troops for rotation into Iraq next year.

Besides raising military wages, the defense authorization bill for fiscal 2004 continues $225 per month in imminent danger pay and $250 in a monthly family separation allowance for troops in Iraq & Afghanistan, incl tens of thousands of reserve & national guard troops. The Pentagon in August said it had considered altering the compensation plan for soldiers in the 2 countries, but denied in the face of criticism that it intended to cut their pay.

Last year's defense authorization bill totaled $393 billion and included a 4.1% raise for troops. This year's bill clears the way for the Air Force to acquire 100 Boeing Co. refueling aircraft, expands veterans' benefits and allows research on new types of nuclear weapons. It also includes $9.1 billion for ballistic missile defense and $12 billion for the purchase of Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force fighters as well as further development of a Joint Strike Fighter program.
Separate legislation is needed to actually spend the money authorized by the bill Bush signed.

After he signed the measure, Bush left Washington for Ft Carson CO to hold a rare meeting with families of U.S. troops who have died in Iraq. In a speech to troops at the base, he thanked the families of fallen soldiers and said "our prayers are with you."
Bush has come under increasing criticism for not attending any funerals of soldiers killed in attacks in Iraq and for barring media coverage of the return of dead service members to U.S. Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark, Democratic candidate for presidential nominee, accused Bush of "the kind of cover-up tactics we saw during Vietnam."

White House aides say Bush has met privately with families of war casualties and writes letters to the families of each soldier who has died. In Senate testimony last week, Pentagon officials acknowledged reports of morale problems in some units serving in Iraq, and said the Army Reserve had fallen short of its goals for re-enlisting existing members.
"The longer we operate at the tempos we have, the greater the challenge will be in this," said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker. Longer-than-expected call-ups have also pulled many reservists away from regular jobs and fueled discontent among families.

Bush said U.S. troops were "standing between our country and grave danger. You're standing for order and hope and democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. You're standing up for the security of all free nations, and for the advance of freedom," he told the military audience at the Pentagon.

War injured toll soars, hits veterans health costs
6.28.05   Reuters

As the numbers of U.S. war injured in Iraq and Afghanistan soared, the Bush administration admitted to lawmakers on Tuesday it had underestimated funds to cover health care costs for veterans and Congress would have to plug a $2.6 billion hole.
"The bottom line is there is a surge in demand in VA (health) services across the board," said Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson. The Veterans Administration assumed it would have to take care of 23,553 patients who are veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but that number had been revised upward to 103,000, Nicholson told a House of Representatives panel.

Nicholson told a House Appropriations subcommittee that his agency's estimate of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in need of health care services was now four times greater than thought. The updated figures underscored how the costs of the Iraq war, approaching $300 billion, were rippling through other parts of a federal budget already under tight spending limits.
Nicholson's testimony, coming after his assurance to Congress in April that veterans' health programs were being adequately funded, angered some lawmakers. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis R-CA complained during a hearing that the Veterans Administration was silent as his panel wrote a fiscal 2006 veterans spending bill. The measure, he said, could have responded to the funding shortage.
"It borders on stupidity," said Lewis, adding, "I think someone was hoping they could hide the ball for a while." At the same time, resources are being stretched by aging veterans from past wars who are suffering from "more maladies" than new veterans, Nicholson said.

Lewis said Congress will have to "move very quickly" to approve additional funding, before the start of the next fiscal year on 10.1.05. But he did not say whether other programs would have to be cut to pay for the fix. The Senate debated on Tuesday a proposal by a group of Democrats to add $1.4 billion to veterans' health care funding for next year.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid NV chided Republicans for finally acknowledging a problem. He noted that early attempts by Democrats to add money for veterans health care were "voted down on a strictly partisan vote."
The House already has approved a fiscal 2006 veterans funding bill that is about $1.1 billion above the Bush administration's request. Lawmakers said that will take care of part of the health-care funding problem, which still must be reviewed by the Senate.

Nicholson said his agency is in intensive discussions with the Office of Management and Budget on a request that is likely to be around $1.5 billion in additional funds. Meanwhile, a $1 billion health-care funding shortage is being taken care of this year, Nicholson said, by tapping a reserve fund and deferring some maintenance and equipment acquisition costs, moves criticized by Democrats.
While Nicholson said veterans' health care was not being compromised by the budget problem, some Democrats were skeptical, citing a veterans health clinic closing in California, cutbacks at an Arlington VA, veterans' medical center and supply shortages in Chicago. Veterans groups have complained that funding is not keeping pace with inflation and rising medical costs and that veterans in some parts of the country experience long waits for care.


Fed. aid promised to cities for counter-terrorism   ¹
1.24.02   Toby Eckert Copley News Service

Wash.D.C.   Homeland Security Dir. Tom Ridge assured the nation's mayors yesterday that their cities will get substantial federal aid for their counter-terrorism efforts. But Ridge cautioned that the added funds "won't cover all your costs" since 9.11.01 which the mayors put at more than $2.6 billion. L.A. Mayor James Hahn welcomed Ridge's comments. But he was disappointed that Ridge said the funding would only cover the cities' future costs. "We need it now," Hahn said of the federal support. "These extra costs come at the same time we've also experienced decreased revenues. It's really cut a big hole in our budget." The budget President Bush will propose to Congress early next month will include "unprecedented support" for police, firefighters and emergency personnel who would be the first to respond to a terrorist attack, Ridge said in a speech to the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

"This … isn't a one year & out initiative. This is a major investment," Ridge said, without citing a specific spending figure. "We want to empower cities and states to build upon their first-response capability." Bush is expected to detail some of the homeland security elements of his budget today. The proposal is for FY2003, which starts 10.1.02.

To underline their priorities, the mayors released a study yesterday estimating that cities would spend more than $2.6 billion for extra security by the end of 2002. The figure was based on a survey of 192 cities and incl spending since 9.11.01. Hahn said Los Angeles has spent $11 million to $12 million on police overtime alone.

While an overall spending figure for the city of San Diego was not available, the police dept alone incurred more than $540,000 in additional costs between Sept. 11 and Dec. 11, said asst chief John Welter. That includes increased security at city buildings, water facilities and large public events, as well as training and equipt for biological & chemical attacks. NatSec fashions. AP foto The dept expects to spend an extra $2 million a year on security in the post-Sept. 11 environment, Welter said. "It's a major expense and a serious impact. When you couple that with the loss of revenue from sales taxes, we're really hurting," he said.

The mayors' concerns over the fiscal impact of the war on terrorism echo those already expressed by governors. The National Governors Assoc. has lobbied the White House for at least $3 billion for the states. Gov. Gray Davis is counting on $350 million in federal funds to help cover state security costs in California. Hahn, meanwhile, called for a beefed up Coast Guard on the West Coast. "We see more . . . resources going to the East Coast than the West Coast, even though we have greater coastline," he said. "The Coast Guard is really stretched pretty thin on the West Coast. They have to cover Alaska and Hawaii and California, Oregon and Washington."
environment

Allies deliberately poisoned Iraq public water supply in Gulf War
9.17.00   Felicity Arbuthnot
Sunday Herald Scotland
more re

US-led allied forces deliberately destroyed Iraq's water supply during the Gulf War, flagrantly breaking the Geneva Convention & causing thousands of civilian deaths. Since 1991 war end, allied nations thwarted any attempts to make contaminated water safe.
American Thos. J. Nagy, Professor of Expert Systems at Geo.Washington Univ. Business School & Public Management doctoral fellowship in public health intends to convene expert hearings to pursue criminal indictments under intl law against those responsible. "Those who saw nothing wrong in producing [this plan], those who ordered its production and those who knew about it and have remained silent for 10 years are in violation of Federal Statute and perhaps conspired to commit genocide." Professor Nagy obtained a minutely detailed 7pg document prepared by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, issued the day after the war started, entitled Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities and circulated to all major allied Commands.

It states Iraq had gone to considerable trouble to provide a supply of pure water to its population. It had to depend on importing specialised equipment & purification chemicals, since water is "heavily mineralised & frequently brackish". Geneva Convention Article 54 states: "It is prohibited to attack, destroy or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population" and includes foodstuffs, livestock and "drinking water supplies and irrigation works". Results of the allied bombing campaign were obvious when Dr David Levenson visited Iraq immediately after the Gulf War, on behalf of Intl Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. He said: "For many weeks people in Baghdad, without tv, radio, or newspapers to warn them, brought their drinking water from the Tigris, in buckets. "Dehydrated from nausea & diarrhea, craving liquids, they drank more of the water that made them sick in the first place." Rep. Tony Hall D-OH wrote SecState Madeleine Albright saying he shares concerns expressed by UNICEF about "profound effects the deterioration of Iraq's water supply and sanitation systems on children's health". Diarrheal diseases he says are of "epidemic proportions" and are "prime killer of children under five".

U.S. Truth Commission   Roni Bowers
US has its own record of atrocities
12.23.00   Boston Globe
Johns Hopkins Univ. asst prof. sociology & poli-sci Jas. Ron & Brown Univ. Watson Inst. for Intl Studies asst prof. for research Chas. T. Call

During Serbia's forced depopulation of Kosovo in 1999, Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslavian president, acknowledged that irregular Serbian forces were committing excesses while fighting Kosovar insurgents. He claimed, however, that these were mild when compared with US war crimes in Vietnam. Slobodan Milosevic was a deceptive autocrat responsible for the deaths of thousands, but he had a point. Compared with the US record in Vietnam, Serbia's Kosovo atrocities were far fewer.
Remember My Lai? In just a few hours, Lieutenant William Calley's men shot or knifed more than 400 men, women, and children, raping and mutilating some victims. Even that chilling episode, however, pales alongside US tactics in the Vietnamese and Cambodian countryside, where high explosives, napalm, and defoliant were the methods of choice. Serbian forces killed some 10,000 Kosovars, but in Southeast Asia U.S. and its allies slew 1 million, many of whom were civilians. More than twice that number were wounded or forcibly displaced.

Direct US involvement in war crimes continued even after the Vietnam conflict. CIA operatives mined Nicaragua's main harbor in the 1980s, and until the 1990s, US Army courses for Latin American soldiers included torture. In the early 1990s, CIA agents created a right-wing group in Haiti that killed hundreds of civilians. Although most Americans barely recall those events, others elsewhere have not forgotten. For them, the contemporary US fascination with human rights seems empty and cynical. If U.S. does not investigate its past misdeeds, these suspicions will ring true. In addition to directly participating in abuses, U.S. also covertly aided brutal authoritarians abroad. Just as Milosevic pulled the strings during Bosnia's ethnic cleansing, U.S. secretly sponsored cruel allies to advance political goals.
Consider Chile, where CIA operatives helped overrow an elected leftist leader in the early 1970s, creating the long nightmare of Pinochet's rule. The Chilean judiciary is now investigating Pinochet's crimes, but the CIA is only reluctantly opening its files. Or recall Iran, where US operatives in the 1950s helped depose an elected govt that was threatening Western oil profits. They then installed the Shah, a dictator who relied on torture to maintain control. The same is true for Guatemala, where UN-backed investigators found that govt counterinsurgency forces killed 90% of an estimated 200,000 civil war victims.

President Clinton recently called the substantial, clandestine US role in that war wrong, but did nothing to investigate those responsible. The US govt offered widely accepted reasons for its behavior during the Cold War years. It was fighting global communism, which to many seemed a noble and worthwhile goal. Yet wouldn't men like Milosevic supply similarly reasonable explanations? Govts are skilled at justifying abusive policies, citing overwhelming threats to national security. Milosevic defended the Serbian nation, Pinochet battled subversives, and South African whites were fighting communism. Although the rhetoric of justification shifts with time, the realities of abuse remain constant. When states use indiscriminate force to get their way, innocents usually suffer.
In the post-Cold War environment there is increasing cause for optimism. Many countries, including Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Ethiopia, Chad, El Salvador, Chile, Haiti, and Guatemala, have tried to expose the truth about their past, often at great political cost. Yet U.S. still refuses to practice what it preaches. As supreme Cold War victor, its representatives lecture others about human rights without stopping to consider their own past crimes. For both moral and political reasons, U.S. should create a commission to investigate its own involvement in Cold War misdeeds. The methods of an official US "truth commission" should be professional and nonpartisan in order to avoid narrow political agendas. Despite these precautions, a U.S. inquiry would be painful and divisive. Presidential fortunes might suffer, and congressional careers could be hurt. Yet recall that these are only some of the powerful risks run every day by politicians promoting truth-telling elsewhere, from S.Africa to Argentina. How long can U.S. promote accountability for others if it itself is unwilling to do the same?


    spartans
For gays, secrecy in love, war
Partners of American military personnel are the invisible players back home, bearing their burdens without support or rights.
4.17.03   Patricia Ward Biederman
L.A. Times

When he went off to fight in Iraq, the 39-year-old Los Angeles resident did what any airman might do. He took with him a photo of his beloved, a reminder of who waits for him at home. But the airman is gay. So the photo he carries with him appears to be of his dog. The pet is in the foreground, and the man's partner of 5 years, a 41-year-old talent agent named Brian, is in the background, as if Brian were a friend who just wandered into the frame.
U.S. armed forces deem open homosexuality a risk to morale, good order, discipline and unit readiness. Gay servicemen & women who reveal their sexual orientation or are found to be homosexual are subject to discharge.

Brian and other partners of American military personnel are invisible players on the home front. Media photos of worried families of straight soldiers include tearful, poignant goodbyes or joyous reunions. Gay & lesbian partners can't access support services the military offers spouses. They can't be sure they would find out if their loved ones were wounded, captured or killed.
"We do our goodbyes at home behind closed doors and then drive to the base or the airport … and, there, we'll just shake hands like we're brothers or friends," Brian said. Brian's partner has been mobilized several times since they met, said Brian, who asked to be interviewed in a Beverly Hills restaurant, where other diners would not overhear. He declined to let his surname be printed, lest it reveal his partner's identity to other airmen. The men keep in touch by e-mail, but they never know who might be reading their exchanges. "We have to keep our e-mails very sterile & cryptic," Brian said.

Brian said he hates pretending that they are just pals, but subterfuge has become second nature for his partner after almost 20 years in USAF. Their caution extends to the greeting heard by anyone who calls their Westside home, a house that Brian lived in for years before he met his partner: "Our answering machine at home has to be in his voice only, no mention of me," Brian said.
Brian tolerates these evasions, which he blames on the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. "Americans shouldn't have to do this," he said. A Defense Dept cial pointed out that "don't ask, don't tell" is the law and said: "The dept continues to work tirelessly to administer that law in a manner that is both fair & consistent. Defense Dept remains committed to treating all service members with dignity & respect while fairly enforcing the provisions of the law."

In 1982 the Defense Dept formalized World War II-era policies against allowing homosexuals to serve. As a presidential candidate, Bill Clinton supported repealing the ban, but early in his first term he softened his stance in the face of opposition from the military, Congress and a substantial portion of the U.S. public. The opposition argued that the presence of homosexual soldiers could offend or make other troops uncomfortable, undermining esprit de corps and possibly compromising security.
In 1994 the "don't ask, don't tell" compromise took effect. Recruits could not be asked their sexual orientation, but evidence of homosexual conduct could be turned over to unit commanders for fact-finding investigations. In recent years, most European countries have begun allowing out-of-the-closet gays to serve in their militaries. In the MidEast, closeted American gays serve alongside openly gay troops from Britain and Australia. Among the 19 NATO countries, 6 do not let openly gay men & women serve: Greece, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Turkey and U.S.. Ireland & Israel are among the 24 nations that allow openly gay soldiers.

UC Santa Barbara Ctr for Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military dir. Aaron Belkin said his group is keeping watch to see whether other nations open their militaries to gays as a result of a 1999 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that led to Britain's lifting of its ban in 2000.
Servicemembers Legal Defense Network in Washington has counseled & provided legal services to about 3,000 gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans in the military over the last decade. The defense network advises gay soldiers filling out military life insurance forms to describe the beneficiary partner only as a "friend."
Similarly, the defense network advises gay soldiers to use "friend" on the form that tells the military whom to notify in case the soldier is wounded, taken prisoner, missing in action or killed. Next of kin must be listed on notification forms as well, and blood relatives are more likely to be called than "friends," say the defense network and other advocates for gay soldiers. Unlike blood relatives and straight spouses, gay & lesbian partners don't have access to base support groups & services, and they often can't visit hospitalized service personnel, let alone have a voice in their treatment.

Brian is listed as a friend on his partner's notification form, and Brian doubts that he would be treated like a mourning spouse if his airman partner were to fall in battle. "If something were to happen to him, they're not going to knock on my door. They're going to go to the person who is first on that list, and the person who's first on that list is not going to tell me," Brian said.
In wartime, when manpower needs are high, soldiers who are identified as gay are less likely to be ousted than in peacetime, according to a 2001 report by the UC Santa Barbara center. Discharges often all but stop during the actual conflict, only to pick up again as soon as the fighting is over. Discharges for homosexuality tripled after World War II ended in 1945