Military Resistance:

thomasfbarton@earthlink.net

12.29.13

Print it out: color best. Pass it on.

Military Resistance 11L5

How Washington Plans To Screw Veterans:

The Most Recent Embrace The Suck Passed In The House That Screws Military Veterans' Pension Benefits Is Just One Step In The Effort To Screw Vets

Top Brass Will Be Deemed Essential To Force Shaping And Enlisted Grunts Get The Shaft
That Would Be A Sure Bet Because It's In The Recommendations
[Thanks to Clancy Sigal, who sent this in.] Dec 16, 2013 by brooklynbadboy, Daily Kos If you think the most recent "embrace the suck" passed in the House that screws military veterans' pension benefits is just one step in the effort to screw vets, you'd be wrong. In fact, these ideas and worse have been brewing in Washington for a few years now. I first covered this issue in 2011, when the Obama Administration first began proposing 85 percent cuts in military pension plans. I noted later that year that a big battle was brewing over it, and then again in 2012 when some of the proposed cuts became part of Grand Bargain negotiations. Each time, military families have fought back, including our very own angelajean, MilitaryTracy, and others who are part of the Daily Kos Military Group. First and foremost, join their campaign to fight this cut in military benefits. Make no mistake, the Administration and Congress have big plans for military veterans and their retirement and none of them are good. Among the changes being considered: The Department should establish a new structure for the military retirement system, based on annual contributions. One model for this new structure is the existing Uniformed Military Personnel Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). The TSP operates in much the same way as a 401(k) plan, which is the largest scam ever perpetrated in the history of finance. Money is taken out of your meager military pay and then invested in mutual-type funds. They work just like a 401(k) plan, in that you can take the money out before you retire, borrow against it, or play around in high-risk securities with it. One of the funds invests in government securities and is managed by the Plan's trustees. Those funds will not ever lose money, so long as there is never a default.

But, you guessed right, the rest of the funds are invested in Wall Street securities. Those funds are managed by Larry Fink's BlackRock, a spin-off of Steven Schwartzman's Blackstone Group. Management fees are, of course, paid to BlackRock. How nice is that? So, first things first: End pensions for military members, and instead, throw them into 401(k)-type plans managed by Wall Street firms. Which, I'm sure you all know, are just overflowing with happy retirees. Next, this little turd: DoD contributions could vary depending on the needs of the services, such as larger contributions at certain retention gates, specific Military Occupational Specialty, or other demands to assist in force shaping, Under the current deal, it does not matter what your rank or billet is. If you serve your 20 years, you get your pension for life. You put your life on the line, you get this promise in return for you and your family. It's that simple. But under the new plan, how much the Pentagon contributes to your market-sensitive 401(k) plan will depend on your rank and billet! How much would you guess that top brass will be deemed "essential to force shaping" and enlisted grunts get the shaft? That would be a sure bet because it's in the recommendations. Now, one of the things the government needs to address is this problem: If you serve less than 20 years, you don't get a military pension. Yes, that is the deal, you know that going in. If you want to go to the private sector after a 4-year stint, well ... good on you. But what of someone who serves 15 or 19 years? Well, those folks should be taken care of, obviously. A graduated pension system makes sense. Your pension amount should start quite low and increase over time served, obviously. That is the obvious, sensible solution. Turn the retirement cliff into a slope. The Administration and Congress, however, aren't proposing that as a simple solution. They propose to do away with military pensions altogether and put in a 401(k) system instead. I can't think of a greater insult to those whose jobs involve so much sacrifice for them and their families. Sometimes their very limbs. The current budget agreement passed in the House is just a first step, cutting the cost of living adjustment. The next step is junking the military pension system altogether.

There is no way President Obama and members of Congress can support this and claim with a straight face that they are keeping America's promise to our veterans.

DO YOU HAVE A FRIEND OR RELATIVE IN THE MILITARY?

Forward Military Resistance along, or send us the email address if you wish and well send it regularly with your best wishes. Whether in Afghanistan or at a base in the USA, this is extra important for your service friend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of growing resistance to injustices, inside the armed services and at home. Send email requests to address up top or write to: Military Resistance, Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657.

MILITARY NEWS

Pentagons Many Campaigns To Clean Up Its Accounts Are Failing:

Persistent Pay Errors Hound Soldiers, Sapping Troop Morale

Programs To Modernize RecordKeeping Have Fallen Prey To Bureaucratic Rivalry, Resistance To Change And A Lack Of Consequences For Failure
The Pentagon Is Unable To Account For Itself, And Thus For Roughly Half Of All Congressionally Approved Annual Federal Spending
All other federal agencies are audited annually, in accordance with a 1990 law, and with rare exceptions, they pass every year. The Pentagon alone has never been audited, leaving roughly $8.5 trillion in taxpayer dollars unaccounted for since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited.

December 23, 2013 by Scot J. Paltrow, Reuters [Excerpts] ALEXANDRIA, Virginia - The U.S. Air Force had great expectations for the Expeditionary Combat Support System when it launched the project in 2005. This accountants silver bullet, the Air Force predicted a year later, will fundamentally revolutionize the way the Air Force provides logistics support. The new computer-based logistics technology would replace 420 obsolete, inefficient and largely incompatible legacy systems with a single, unified means of tracking the hardware of warfare. And it would be done for a mere $1.5 billion, combining three offthe-shelf products from Oracle Corp and modifying them only enough so that they could work together. Seven years and $1.03 billion taxpayer dollars later, the Air Force announced in November 2012 that it was killing the project. ECSS had yielded negligible value and was no longer a viable option, the Air Force said. It would have taken an estimated $1.1 billion more to turn it into a system that

could perform about one-quarter of its originally planned tasks, and couldnt be fielded until 2020. An August 28, 2013, report on the project, commissioned by an undersecretary of defense, filled in more of the blanks. The original promise of ECSS was an exaggeration not founded on any true analysis, it said That seven-year exercise in waste was not an anomaly. It was the norm for the U.S. Defense Departments effort in recent years to upgrade the way it keeps track of money, supplies and people. Burdened with thousands of old, error-filled record-keeping systems - estimates range from 2,100 to more than 5,000 of them - the Pentagon is unable to account for itself, and thus for roughly half of all congressionally approved annual federal spending. To fix that, the Defense Department has launched 20 or more projects to build modern business-management systems since the late 1990s. At least five were subsequently killed as complete failures after billions of dollars were spent on them. The Defense Department inspector general said in a 2012 report that just six of these so-called Enterprise Resource Planning projects under way had racked up cost overruns of $8 billion and delays ranging from 1.5 to 12.5 years. With each failure, a pattern emerges: An off-the-shelf product with a proven track record in the private sector is chosen and then modified to the point where it doesnt work properly. On every single one of the ERPs, they go out and customize the shit out of it to make it do what the legacy system did the same way the legacy system did it, said Mike Young, a former Air Force logistics official and now a consultant on defense logistics and accounting. Interviews with scores of current and former defense officials, contractors and Pentagon watchers, as well as a review of dozens of reports by oversight agencies, show that the Pentagon is continually thwarted by a lack of accountability for failures, rivalry among and within various branches of the department, resistance to change, and an incentive to spend. All other federal agencies are audited annually, in accordance with a 1990 law, and with rare exceptions, they pass every year. The Pentagon alone has never been audited, leaving roughly $8.5 trillion in taxpayer dollars unaccounted for since 1996, the first year it was supposed to be audited. In previous installments of this series, Reuters has exposed the staggering costs and harmful effects of the Defense Departments chronic accounting dysfunction.

Persistent pay errors hound soldiers, sapping troop morale, while an impenetrable tangle of logistics and personnel systems can hinder commanders ability to know who and what are available for deployment. And the lack of reliable accounts - Pentagon staff routinely insert billions of dollars a year of false accounting entries to cover missing information - conceals huge sums lost to waste, fraud and mismanagement. The Pentagon has for years kept lousy books with impunity. From 1995 through 2002, Senator Charles Grassley pushed through an amendment to the annual defense appropriations bill requiring the Pentagon to account for its expenditures by following one seemingly simple procedure: match each payment to the expense it covered. The order was ignored, and Grassley gave up. The goal was for the practice to become self-sustaining, Grassley said in an email to Reuters. It was wishful thinking. Rivalry and turf issues among and within each of the military services also thwart comprehensive fixes to the bookkeeping mess. Each branch has insisted on building from scratch its own systems for basic accounting, logistics and personnel, roughly tripling costs. The Army, Navy and Air Force also routinely disregard department-wide standards and rules imposed by the secretary of defenses office in order to preserve their own ways of doing things. Thats what happened to the Defense Integrated Human Resource System, which was intended to replace the scores of payroll and personnel systems that cause so many pay errors. Competing demands from military services ultimately rendered the system useless, and it was killed in 2010 after sucking up $1 billion. When the Logistics Modernization Program, intended to streamline supply lines and better manage inventory, was eventually fielded in 2010, it was deficient in so many ways that the Army had to add an Increment 2, which wont be ready until September 2016. This has increased the projected cost of building and operating the LMP to $4 billion from $2.6 billion, according to Army figures.

TROOPS INVITED:
Comments, arguments, articles, and letters from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Write to Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 or email contact@militaryproject.org: Name, I.D., withheld unless you request publication. Same address to unsubscribe.

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had I the ability, and could reach the nations ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose. Frederick Douglass, 1852 Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder and it is the working class who fights all the battles, the working class who makes the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely sheds their blood and furnishes their corpses, and it is they who have never yet had a voice - in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war. They are continually talking about patriotic duty. It is not their patriotic duty but your patriotic duty that they are concerned about. Their patriotic duty never takes them to the firing line or chucks them into the trenches. -- Eugene V. Debs

Indian-Hating And Empire Building;

[Book Recommendation]
From: Sanford Kelson [Veteran & Military Resistance Organization] To: Military Resistance Newsletter Sent: December 28, 2013 Subject: RE: Military Resistance: 11L4 Bring It On This issue, through its separate articles, discloses that the building of the American Empire from the beginning involved racial hatred and violence against the American Indians and people in other countries but also against the working people here at home as well. Many of your newsletters do a fine job showing this. Do you know Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire Building by Richard Drinnon? If not, I recommend it highly. Thanks.

MORE:

[Review at Amazon] American expansion, says Richard Drinnon, is characterized by repression and racism. In his reinterpretation of "winning" the West, Drinnon links racism with colonialism and traces this interrelationship from the Pequot War in New England,

through American expansion westward to the Pacific, and beyond to the Philippines and Vietnam. He cites parallels between the slaughter of bison on the Great Plains and the defoliation of Vietnam and notes similarities in the language of aggression used in the American West, the Philippines, and Southeast Asia.

Battalion Flees Afghan District After Discovering Spider Hole Containing Giant Arachnid

October 31, 2013 By G-Had, The Duffle Blog KAPISA PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN A battalion of soldiers has unexpectedly and completely withdrawn from its Area of Operations after discovering a spider-hole containing a giant arachnid. A squad of soldiers from Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion 4th Infantry Regiment were on the second day of a routine joint-patrol mission, searching for Taliban weapons caches near the village of Cirith Ungol, when Sgt. Vic Duhamel discovered a ten-meter hole bored into the side of a mountain. A video shot on a helmet-mounted camera and obtained by Duffel Blog shows Duhamel and his clean-shaven squad poking at the hole while making generic and wholesome comments about America and brandishing pictures of the families and sweethearts they cant wait to see back home. At one point Duhamel jokes that it sounds like theres some kind of animal down there, before being engulfed in an explosion of hairy legs. At this point the image becomes extremely distorted, although a large amount of gunfire and high-pitched screaming in English and Pashto can be heard.

Immediate pleas for help over the radio were disregarded by officers in the battalions Tactical Operations Center, who decided that giant spiders were not automatically declared hostile under the ISAF Rules of Engagement, and then peppered the patrol with multiple requests for information. Duffel Blog has obtained a partial transcript of the radio call: Sgt. Duhamel: Warrior Main, Charlie 3-2. Were hearing a lot of rustling down there, like an animal or AAAAAAAAAAAAA! Its a giant spider! Stand by for a fire mission, danger close Watch Officer: Ah, roger Charlie 3-2, this is Warrior Main. Division wants to know how big the spider is for their storyboard? Sgt. Duhamel: I dont fucking know! Maybe two hundred pounds! Watch Chief: A two hundred pound spider would be the size of a large pig. Big, yes, but not giant. Sgt. Duhamel: Well however big it is just fucking kill it! Fires Officer: Charlie 3-2, Warrior Fires. Even a small horse weighs about nine hundred pounds. I think it would have to weigh more than a thousand to qualify as giant. Sgt. Duhamel: Oh my God! Kill it! Kill it! Watch Officer: Any station, any station, this is Warrior Main: does a thousand pound spider even sound realistic? Break. Id be more willing to believe two hundred. (Unknown): It got Sarge! What do we do? Game over, man! Charlie Company: Warrior Main, Charlie Main. A two hundred pound spider would be all legs. Its probably at least three hundred. Executive Officer: Warrior Main, this is Warrior Five. Just submit 375, which sounds enough like an average of a real weight range that Division will accept it, but still be kinda blown away. (Unknown): (In Pashto) Bend over, Gulbuddin. You do not wish to die a virgin, do you? Battalion S-2: This is Warrior Deuce. Actually Archaeologists in Mexico have uncovered fossils of prehistoric spiders weighing up to 175 pounds, so two hundred isnt totally off the wall. Watch Officer: This is Warrior Main. Shut the fuck up Warrior Deuce. Charlie 3-2, how copy? Charlie 3-2? They never had (Positive Identification), explained Capt. Johnathon Cleary, the watch officer at the time.

When we later asked if was a giant brown recluse or a giant daddy long legs, they couldnt even take the time to give us a proper situation report; just a large wet smacking sound, like when you smash a watermelon with a hammer, then suck out all the innards. After the survivors had returned to Forward Operating Base Tagab, LtCol. Joe Hemming, the battalion commander, ordered an immediate retrograde to Bagram Airbase. I guess we should have stayed away from Cirith Ungol, which apparently means Pass of the Giant Spider; but even when the locals told us that it really was guarded by a giant fucking spider we kinda thought it was a mistranslation, he explained. My S-2 was convinced that when the interpreter kept saying death will come at you with great hairy legs he was just warning us about the women. Capt. Cleary added, In all fairness, the literal meaning was pass of the bigger than all arthropod, since Pashto lacks a unique word for spider or a superlative form of big. It also doesnt help that arthropod doubles as slang for Jew, so you can understand our initial confusion. Both Hemming and Cleary spoke with Duffel Blog while hiding on top of their desks with a flashlight and large baseball bat. The spider has been tentatively identified by Army biologists as an arachnus gigantus, a monstrously large species of arachnid best known for ambushing wayward Afghan travelers and hiding under toilet lids, like the one in your bathroom.

ANNIVERSARIES

Happy Anniversary
December 31, 1948; Honor To The 60,000
Peace History December 25-31 By Carl Bunin Sixty thousand Puerto Rican men refused to register for the draft. Eight were prosecuted.

Happy Anniversary
December 31, 1970 The Day The Liars Were Repudiated
Peace History Dec 31 - Jan 6 By Carl Bunin The U.S. Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which in 1964 authorized a dramatic increase in U.S. military involvement in Vietnam in response to an attack on U.S. forces that was later revealed to be fictitious.

How The Tonkin Gulf Lie Launched Vietnam War

July 27, 1994 By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, Media Beat

Thirty years ago, it all seemed very clear. American Planes Hit North Vietnam After Second Attack on Our Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression, announced a Washington Post headline on Aug. 5, 1964. That same day, the front page of the New York Times reported: President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action against gunboats and `certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. But there was no second attack by North Vietnam -- no renewed attacks against American destroyers. By reporting official claims as absolute truths, American journalism opened the floodgates for the bloody Vietnam War. A pattern took hold: continuous government lies passed on by pliant mass media...leading to over 50,000 American deaths and millions of Vietnamese casualties. The official story was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an unprovoked attack against a U.S. destroyer on routine patrol in the Tonkin Gulf on Aug. 2 -- and that North Vietnamese PT boats followed up with a deliberate attack on a pair of U.S. ships two days later. The truth was very different. Rather than being on a routine patrol Aug. 2, the U.S. destroyer Maddox was actually engaged in aggressive intelligence-gathering maneuvers -- in sync with coordinated attacks on North Vietnam by the South Vietnamese navy and the Laotian air force. The day before, two attacks on North Vietnam...had taken place, writes scholar Daniel C. Hallin. Those assaults were part of a campaign of increasing military pressure on the North that the United States had been pursuing since early 1964. On the night of Aug. 4, the Pentagon proclaimed that a second attack by North Vietnamese PT boats had occurred earlier that day in the Tonkin Gulf -- a report cited by President Johnson as he went on national TV that evening to announce a momentous escalation in the war: air strikes against North Vietnam. But Johnson ordered U.S. bombers to retaliate for a North Vietnamese torpedo attack that never happened. Prior to the U.S. air strikes, top officials in Washington had reason to doubt that any Aug. 4 attack by North Vietnam had occurred. Cables from the U.S. task force commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J. Herrick, referred to freak weather effects, almost total darkness and an overeager sonarman who was hearing ships own propeller beat. One of the Navy pilots flying overhead that night was squadron commander James Stockdale, who gained fame later as a POW and then Ross Perots vice presidential candidate. I had the best seat in the house to watch that event, recalled Stockdale a few years ago, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets -- there were no PT boats there.... There was nothing there but black water and American fire power.

In 1965, Lyndon Johnson commented: For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there. But Johnsons deceitful speech of Aug. 4, 1964, won accolades from editorial writers. The president, proclaimed the New York Times, went to the American people last night with the somber facts. The Los Angeles Times urged Americans to face the fact that the Communists, by their attack on American vessels in international waters, have themselves escalated the hostilities. An exhaustive new book, The War Within: Americas Battle Over Vietnam, begins with a dramatic account of the Tonkin Gulf incidents. In an interview, author Tom Wells told us that American media described the air strikes that Johnson launched in response as merely `tit for tat -- when in reality they reflected plans the administration had already drawn up for gradually increasing its overt military pressure against the North. Daniel Hallins classic book The Uncensored War observes that journalists had a great deal of information available which contradicted the official account; it simply wasnt used. The day before the first incident, Hanoi had protested the attacks on its territory by Laotian aircraft and South Vietnamese gunboats. Whats more, It was generally known...that `covert operations against North Vietnam, carried out by South Vietnamese forces with U.S. support and direction, had been going on for some time. In the absence of independent journalism, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution -- the closest thing there ever was to a declaration of war against North Vietnam -- sailed through Congress on Aug. 7. (Two courageous senators, Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska, provided the only no votes.) The resolution authorized the president to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression. The rest is tragic history.

January 1831: Magnificent Anniversary

The masthead of William Lloyd Garrisons abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, denounces slavery. [Wwnorton.com/]

January 1831: William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionist, announces his anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator. I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for severity? I will be harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not with to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to sound a moderate alarm...but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present... I am in earnest--I will not equivocate--I will not excuse--I will not retreat a single inch--AND I WILL BE HEARD.

January 1, 1781: Anniversary Of A Betrayal;

General George Washington Tricked The Troops Into Disarming He Then Had Their Leaders Shot By A Firing Squad
1.1.11 By Dave Blalock, GI Caf Kaiserslautern, Facebook, Open Group PAST NEW YEARS DAY IN THE GI RESISTANCE MOVEMENT FIRST RECORDED FRAGGING & MUTINY!!! Vietnam wasnt the first war in which disgruntled US troops murdered their own officers. This tradition goes back to the American Revolution. The first incident of fragging was recorded in the Revolutionary War diary of a 9th Pennsylvania troop officer named Captain Joseph McClellan, who wrote that drunken troops turned on their superiors on January 1, 1781. These soldiers were disgruntled because they felt they should have been discharged after serving for three years. In describing the casualties of this fragging he wrote that, Captain Bitting was shot through the body and soon died, and that Captain Tolbert was badly wounded. Later in the month the Pennsylvania and New Jersey troops of the Army wage a mutiny.

In order to crush their rebellion General George Washington tricked the troops into disarming. He then had their leaders shot by a firing squad made up of some of their fellow mutineers.

OCCUPATION PALESTINE

Imitation: The Highest Form Of Flattery

Excerpts from Hitlers Empire; How The Nazis Ruled Europe; Mark Mazower; Penguin Group; New York, 2008

Land Without People

The Wartime Scheme Devised In Berlin To Push The GermanSlav Racial Frontier To The East
["The slogan 'A Land Without A People For A People Without A Land' was common among Zionists at the end of the nineteenth, and the beginning of the twentieth century."] [Wikipedia] ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The present war offers the opportunity, perhaps for the last time in world history, for Germany to assume in a decisive way its colonization mission in the East .. . It must not be deterred by words; rather, it must be engaged with resolute action; it calls (for us) in time to get accustomed to the idea of a resettlement of large masses of people. These sentences could easily have been written in 1939 or 1940.

But in fact they come from a much earlier set of plans drawn up in 1915 under the title Land without People (Land ohne Menschen), the wartime scheme devised in Berlin to push the GermanSlav racial frontier to the east and to create a wall of German farmers on Polish land. As we have seen, this was an idea that attracted numerous German policy-makers, intellectuals and planners, and only defeat prevented its realization)

The Nazis Saw Themselves Reconquering Land That The German Knights Had Won And Settled Many Centuries Before
This Infatuation With History Distinguished Nazi Colonialism From Its European Overseas Rivals
The British And French Rarely If Ever Claimed To Be Taking Back Land That Had Once Been Theirs
Two eminently modern ideas drove the entire vision. One was an intense nostalgia for the past, in particular for that long-vanished medieval past that provided the template for the society the Nazis dreamed about and that offered their main historical justification for what they were doing. Heirs to nineteenth-century romantic historians Himmler had grown up on their stories the Nazis saw themselves reconquering land that the German knights had won and settled many centuries before. This infatuation with history distinguished Nazi colonialism from its European overseas rivals the British and French rarely if ever claimed to be taking back land that had once been theirs.

They Wanted To Turn Race And Biology Into The Guiding Principle For Administration
The other modern element in Nazi policy was their commitment to the science of race. Leaving what they saw as the half-hearted misconceptions of the Kaisers prewar nationalities policy behind them, they wanted to turn race and biology into the guiding principle for administration. Our mission is not to Germanise the East in the old sense bringing the German language and laws to those living there, stated Himmler but rather to ensure that in the East dwell only men with truly German, Germanic blood.

This commitment to a strict policy of racial difference broke new ground.

The Idea Of A Frontier Wall, Which Had First Emerged During The First World War, Had Grown In Himmlers Fertile Imagination
The idea of a frontier wall, which had first emerged during the First World War, had grown in Himmlers fertile imagination to something which bore less and less contact with reality. The war showed that there were few limits to the Third Reichs ability to expel or even exterminate entire populations; but not even the Nazis could conjure up Germans where they did not exist, at least not while prioritizing race and blood over cultural assimilation.

The German-Born Zionist Arthur Ruppin, For Instance, Was Close In Many Of His Theoretical Views To Hans Gunther, The Nordic Race Expert Who Acted As Mentor To Himmler
The Struggle Between Germans And Poles In The Prussian Borderlands Framed Ruppins Approach To Zionist Settlement Among Arabs
Not Surprisingly, Perhaps, The German Influence On Israeli Settlement Strategy Remained Strong After Independence
Between the wars, to take a particularly striking example, it was not only German racial theorists whose research provided an imprimatur of scientific respectability to the Third Reichs policy of forcing the Jews to emigrate; some Jewish scholars and commentators justified Zionism on similar grounds. The German-born Zionist Arthur Ruppin, for instance, was close in many of his theoretical views to Hans Gunther, the Nordic race expert who acted as mentor to Himmler. Both men they met in 1933 to discuss the Jewish question believed the Jews were a racially distinct people who should not assimilate and did not belong in Europe.

But Europes impact upon Zionism was not just a matter of ideas, and Ruppins real significance does not lie in his views on race. As the first head of the Palestine Bureau he had been buying up property and land on behalf of Jewish colonists since before the First World War. A Prussian Jew who had grown up near Posen before emigrating to Palestine, he was familiar with the experience of the Prussian Colonization Commission and its resettlement activity. I see the work of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) as being similar to that of the Colonization Commission working in Prussia and Western Poland, he wrote in 1907 after just two weeks in the country. The JNF will buy land whenever it is offered by non-Jews and will offer it for resale either partly or wholly to Jews. Thus the struggle between Germans and Poles in the Prussian borderlands framed Ruppins approach to Zionist settlement among Arabs. In Ottoman Palestine, to be sure, the odds were even tougher on Zionists than they were on Prussian nationalists in Posen: more than 88 per cent of the lands inhabitants were Arabs compared with 60 per cent Poles in the Prussian province. Faced with such an overwhelming challenge, Ruppin planned to establish small Jewish settlement islands which could eventually be joined up a rather different goal from those of his Prussian precursors. Nevertheless, he sought to apply the lessons of his homeland to Palestine and brought in a Prussian adviser to help him. The minorities situation in eastern Europe was a constant point of reference for many people and not only for Ruppin. Austrian Zionists who warned that Jews were in danger of being swamped by Arabs complained that if things continue thus, we shall fall victim to the same fate as the Germans in certain Slavic lands. In the 1920s, advocates of a bi-national state criticized Ruppin for being too wedded to a German approach, too much of a eugenicist, too committed to keeping the Jewish people separate and to making them a political majority in their own state. According to Martin Buber, we appear to have scarcely made any more progress (regarding the Arabs) than the Poles have made relative to us. Ruppins colleague, Samuel Bergman, sarcastically wrote off his obsession with land as simply more of the same old European disease: Just as the Italians are hastening to constitute the majority in the South Tyrol so as to ensure their rule over the Germans, just as the Czechs are hastening to

ensure their own majority, and the Germans vis--vis the Poles, and the Poles vis-vis the Ukrainians, and so on and so forth, so let Israel . . . begin from the very beginning: let there be a majority for us in Eretz Israel! Prague-born Hans Kohn was equally critical, contrasting the German idea of a monoethnic state, territorial control and national separation with the Habsburg empire in which different peoples had shared the same state. (Kohn increasingly believed that the Zionists were simply repeating the mistakes of other European nationalists and he left Palestine after the 1929 riots.) Ruppin, the father of Zionist settlement, died in 1943 and did not live long enough to see the denouement. But he had laid the foundations upon which others built. Unlike Ruppin, they were not bothered by eugenic considerations; they used the Jewish National Fund Land Authority to settle as many Jews as possible on the land and tried to coordinate this with largescale transfers of populations. Not surprisingly, perhaps, the German influence on Israeli settlement strategy remained strong after independence. In few countries after the war, for instance, was spatial planning as important as it was in the new Jewish state, and the first Israeli national plans for population distribution were strongly influenced by the interwar German school of economic geography, especially by the ideas of Walter Christaller, whose theories about the optimal location of settlements had been deployed in Himmlers colonization of wartime Poland and in General Plan East.

Israels Single-Minded Pursuit Of An Organized, State-Led Homecoming Saw The Existence Of Jews Abroad As A Source Of National Weakness And Their Return As Essential For National Survival
Another Way Perhaps In Which The Influence Of German Nationalism Continued To Exert Itself
In The Minds Of Politicians Keen To Build Up Their National Strength, Rescuing Co-Nationals Abroad Was Often Hard To Distinguish From Deliberately Uprooting Them
As Ben Gurion understood very well, Israels emergence while intimately connected to the experience of the war depended much less on the influx of survivors from

Europe than it did on the political impact of the Holocaust and on American backing in particular. The motor was Israels single-minded pursuit of an organized, state-led homecoming which saw the existence of Jews abroad as a source of national weakness and their return as essential for national survival (another way perhaps in which the influence of German nationalism continued to exert itself). In 1953, Jacques Vernant, a scholar of refugee flows, noted that Israel had accepted a larger number of refugees than any other country in the world both relatively and absolutely. Whether in some cases it actually tried to force Jews to leave their homes in order to immigrate from Iraq, for example remains shrouded in controversy. But this too was a policy which could be found in the longer European history of forced population movements. As we have seen throughout this book, in the minds of politicians keen to build up their national strength, rescuing co-nationals abroad was often hard to distinguish from deliberately uprooting them. I [To check out what life is like under a murderous military occupation commanded by foreign terrorists, go to: www.rafahtoday.org The occupied nation is Palestine. The foreign terrorists call themselves Israeli.]

CLASS WAR REPORTS

Tens Of Thousands Protest Against Niger Government Failure To Improve Living Standards:
The Population Continues To Be Decimated By Hunger And Thirst
Dec 28, 2013 Reuters Tens of thousands of opposition supporters staged a protest rally on Saturday against what they said was the failure of President Mahamadou Issoufou to improve living standards in Niger, one of the world's poorest countries. The rally, in the capital Niamey, was the largest in Niger since pro-democracy protests against then-President Mamadou Tandja that helped to block his bid to serve a third term and ushered in a military coup that toppled him in February 2010. It was the first public show of strength by the Alliance for the Republic, Democracy and Reconciliation in Niger (ARDR), a coalition of 15 opposition parties formed in October. Last month, a court lifted a government ban on opposition marches. Police said some 20,000 people took part in Saturday's rally, while organizers put the figure at 30,000. "Mahamadou Issoufou promised an end to food insecurity but the population continues to be decimated by hunger and thirst," said Amadou Hama, president of the National Assembly whose Nigerien Democratic Movement (MODEN) broke away from the ruling coalition this year. The ARDR was formed in response to the creation of a national unity government by Issoufou, including breakaway members of MODEN and former president Tandja's National Movement for the Development of Society (MNSD). Hama and MNSD leader Oumarou Seyni are regarded as the main challengers to Issoufou for the 2016 presidential election. Niger, with a fast-growing population of 17 million people, has some of the lowest government revenues per capita in Africa despite the start of oil production in 2011. Output is running at around 16,500 barrels a day, the IMF said in September. Niger, the world's fourth largest uranium producer, is also seeking to renegotiate longterm mining contracts with French nuclear power firm Areva to increase tax revenues.

MILITARY RESISTANCE BY EMAIL

If you wish to receive Military Resistance immediately and directly, send request to contact@militaryproject.org. There is no subscription charge. Military Resistance In PDF Format?
If you prefer PDF to Word format, email: contact@militaryproject.org

GOT A COMMENT?
Comments, arguments, articles, and letters from service men and women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Write to Box 126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 or email contact@militaryproject.org: Name, I.D., withheld unless you request publication. Same address to unsubscribe.

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

Vietnam GI: Reprints Available

[THEY STOPPED AN IMPERIAL WAR]

Edited by Vietnam Veteran Jeff Sharlet from 1968 until his death, this newspaper rocked the world, attracting attention even from Time Magazine, and extremely hostile attention from the chain of command. The pages and pages of letters in the paper from troops in Vietnam condemning the war are lost to history, but you can find them here. Military Resistance has copied complete sets of Vietnam GI. The originals were a bit rough, but every page is there. Over 100 pages, full 11x17 size. Free on request to active duty members of the armed forces. Cost for others: $15 if picked up in New York City. For mailing inside USA add $5 for bubble bag and postage. For outside USA, include extra for mailing 2.5 pounds to wherever you are. Checks, money orders payable to: The Military Project Orders to: Military Resistance Box 126 2576 Broadway New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 All proceeds are used for projects giving aid and comfort to members of the armed forces organizing to resist todays Imperial wars.

Military Resistance Looks Even Better Printed Out

Military Resistance/GI Special are archived at website http://www.militaryproject.org . The following have chosen to post issues; there may be others: news@uruknet.info; http://williambowles.info/military-resistance-archives/.
Military Resistance distributes and posts to our website copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in an effort to advance understanding of the invasion and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law since it is being distributed without charge or profit for educational purposes to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for educational purposes, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. Military Resistance has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of these articles nor is Military Resistance endorsed or sponsored by the originators. This attributed work is provided a non-profit basis to facilitate understanding, research, education, and the advancement of human rights and social justice. Go to: law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml for more information. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

If printed out, a copy of this newsletter is your personal property and cannot legally be confiscated from you. Possession of unauthorized material may not be prohibited. DoD Directive 1325.6 Section 3.5.1.2.