Marc Hall

The rapper in the Army who wrote a derogatory song about stop-loss and sent it to the Pentagon sits in military prison and now will face his court martial in Iraq.

Fort Stewart, Ga.  – The US military plans to extradite a stop-lossed Iraq war veteran to Iraq “within a few days” to face a court martial for allegedly threatening military officers in a protest rap song he made.

Spc. Marc Hall has been jailed in the Liberty County Jail near Fort Stewart, Ga., since Dec. 11 because he wrote a song called “Stop Loss” about the practice of involuntarily extending military members’ contracts.

“It is our belief that the Army would violate its own regulations by deploying Marc and it would certainly violate his right to due process by making it far more difficult to get witnesses. It appears the Army doesn’t believe it can get a conviction in a fair and public trial. We will do whatever we can to insure he remain in the United States,” said Hall’s civilian attorney, David Gespass.

Gespass claims the Army’s attempts to deploy Hall violate Army Regulations 600-8-105 and the Army’s conscientious objector regulations. Hall applied for a conscientious objector discharge Monday. The military’s move would also separate Hall from both his civilian legal team and military defender.

“The Army seeks to disappear Marc and the politically charged issues involved here, including: the unfair stop-loss policy, the boundary of free speech and art by soldiers, and the continuing Iraq occupation. The actual charges are overblown if not frivolous, so I’m not surprised the Army wants to avoid having a public trial,” explained Jeff Paterson, executive director of Courage to Resist.

An Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) member, Hall served 14 months in Iraq. He was scheduled to end his military contract on Feb. 27 but received a stop loss order that he would have to stay on active-duty to re-deploy to Iraq with his unit.

“Marc served his tour of duty to Iraq honorably,” said Brenda McElveen, Hall’s mother. “To his dismay, he was told that he would be deployed again. When Marc voiced his concerns over this matter, his concerns fell on deaf ears. To let his frustration be known, Marc wrote and released the song. Marc is not now nor has he ever been violent.”

Using stop loss orders, the US military has stopped about 185,000 soldiers from leaving the military since 2001. An additional 13,000 troops are now serving under stop-loss orders. President Obama said he thinks the practice should be stopped.

Hall, 34, was charged Dec. 17 with five specifications in violation of Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Conduct, including “wrongfully threatening acts of violence against members of his unit.” His arrest came about a month after 13 people were killed in a shooting incident at Fort Hood, Texas. Hall, whose hiphop name is Marc Watercus, mailed a copy of his “Stop Loss” song to the Pentagon.

Based at Fort Stewart, Hall said the song was a “free expression of how people feel about the Army and its stop-loss policy” not a threat. “My first sergeant said he actually liked the song and that he did not take it as a threat,” Hall added.

A South Carolina native, Hall wanted to leave the military to spend more time with his wife and child.

Hall’s song: http://marcwatercus.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/stoploss.mp3

A copy of the US Army’s press release about transferring Hall to Iraq is available on request.

IVAW is a national organization of veterans and active-duty service members who have served since September 11, 2001 – including those who took part in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. IVAW also is dedicated to fighting for adequate physical and mental healthcare, full benefits, and other support for returning veterans.

INTERVIEWS AVAILABLE:

-       Jason Hurd, IVAW Organizer, is in regular contact with Marc Hall. jehurd@gmail.com , 1-678-896-3821

-       Brenda McElveen, Marc Hall’s mother, 1-843-206-3439

-       Chantelle Bateman, IVAW Field Organizing Team. chantellebateman@ivaw.org , 1-202-758-7818

-       David Gespass, Hall’s civilian attorney, 1-205-323-5966

-       Jeff Paterson, the founder and director of the soldier advocacy group Courage to Resist, jp@jeffpaterson.net , 1-415-279-9697

-       LTC Eric Bloom, US Army Public Affairs, eric.bloom@mnd-b.army.mil

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT WWW.IVAW.ORG

Kurt Haskell is interviewed by Alex Jones of infowars.co. Haskell reveals information omitted by the mainstream media that the bomber suspect was perhaps allowed to board the plane even though he had no passport by a man seen with him who insisted he could be boarded. Was he passed through by intelligence people as part of a conspiracy to fake an attempted terrorist bombing? Why were the passengers of the plane left on the plane for 20 minutes after the plane landed and officials had apprehended the alleged terrorist suspect? Why is the right claiming that this kind of thing would only happen under an Obama administration? The whole thing smells of right wing conspiracy. But don’t dare say that to people because you’ll be labeled as a conspiracy nut.

Think about that for a minute. What kind of world is it where we agree to accept war just to balance the political spectrum? Why isn’t war horrifically wrong and something that should never ever be resorted to as long as people can talk things out. It’s not like the middle ages where in order to negotiate you have to travel thousands of miles to meet with your foes. Every nation in the modern world has an open dialog with every other one. The fact that we attack territories like Iraq or Afghanistan to rid ourselves of “terrorists” is absurd. No group of people or enemy lives within the borders of any single country. If you attack them, they simply pick up and move to another territory, just as Al Qaeda exists in countries all over the world.

Paul Krugman - Nobel Prize Winning Economic Scholar

But back to the media pundits. Paul Krugman is one that I find a little less “balanced.” That’s a good thing. He attacked Obama for the selection of the same assholes that brought down our economy as the people to run our treasury and economics. He was left out to dry by the media for that, which indicates to me that he was doing something right. The media is owned by conservatives, even MSNBC, the one thought of as progressive. Olbermann and Maddow take their stories from their higher ups at MSNBC based on what is marketable to the progressive leaning audience. The fact that MSNBC is bent as far as it is toward progressives, indicates that progressives are actually close to center and not on an extreme end of the political spectrum. But when Olbermann talks about Limbaugh or the Fox News dickheads, he’s just giving them free advertising. If he truly thought they were of as little importance as they really are, he’d ignore them completely. They are nonentities and don’t exist in my world.

Now the Senate just passed a healthcare bill and Krugman is applauding that as a great step forward. Is Krugman trying to get back into the media spotlight by going middle of the spectrum here?

Krugman writes in the New York Times article, Tidings of Comfort, about the split of people into three distinct areas of the political spectrum: the far right teabaggers, the fiscal conservatives and the progressives, as if this defines left, right and center.

First, there’s the crazy right, the tea party and death panel people — a lunatic fringe that is no longer a fringe but has moved into the heart of the Republican Party. In the past, there was a general understanding, a sort of implicit clause in the rules of American politics, that major parties would at least pretend to distance themselves from irrational extremists. But those rules are no longer operative. No, Virginia, at this point there is no sanity clause.

A second strand of opposition comes from what I think of as the Bah Humbug caucus: fiscal scolds who routinely issue sententious warnings about rising debt. By rights, this caucus should find much to like in the Senate health bill, which the Congressional Budget Office says would reduce the deficit, and which — in the judgment of leading health economists — does far more to control costs than anyone has attempted in the past.

But, with few exceptions, the fiscal scolds have had nothing good to say about the bill. And in the process they have revealed that their alleged concern about deficits is, well, humbug. As Slate’s Daniel Gross says, what really motivates them is “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, is receiving social insurance.”

Finally, there has been opposition from some progressives who are unhappy with the bill’s limitations. Some would settle for nothing less than a full, Medicare-type, single-payer system. Others had their hearts set on the creation of a public option to compete with private insurers. And there are complaints that the subsidies are inadequate, that many families will still have trouble paying for medical care.

Unlike the tea partiers and the humbuggers, disappointed progressives have valid complaints. But those complaints don’t add up to a reason to reject the bill. Yes, it’s a hackneyed phrase, but politics is the art of the possible.

The truth is that there isn’t a Congressional majority in favor of anything like single-payer. There is a narrow majority in favor of a plan with a moderately strong public option. The House has passed such a plan. But given the way the Senate rules work, it takes 60 votes to do almost anything. And that fact, combined with total Republican opposition, has placed sharp limits on what can be enacted.

There may not be a Congressional majority in favor of single payer, but there is (I think) a popular majority among all Americans in favor of it, or would be if they understood what it really is and were not misinformed by conservative owned media.

And that’s at the heart of what’s wrong in the U.S. government. It doesn’t act on the will of the majority. It’s not representative. This is one fact that pretty much all of these three groups agree on. Taxation without representation is alive and well.

The other point here is that progressives are painted as far left of center, when in fact they are more middle. With the extreme right moving into the spotlight in the Republican party it makes progressives perceived as being far right only because of a popular obtuse sentiment that these two groups have to be balanced.

Nothing could be farther from reality. Progressives don’t balance with right extremists any more than right balances with wrong. You might think that right does balance with wrong, and if so then you exemplify my point. If right balances with wrong then we should allow just enough crime to balance with the good that people do. If a hero saves a life then it should be OK to murder someone for balance.

And so for Obama and others to say we have to compromise and balance the political spectrum is completely absurd, irresponsible, and morally corrupt.

Investigators knock on doors of Hasan's neighbors at Ft. Hood TX

The pervasive racism toward Muslims in the military is obviously at the heart of why Nidal Malik Hasan went to the breaking point. This is all too familiar as we have seen with the kids at Columbine.

“In mid-August, just a few weeks after moving to Killeen, Texas USA, Hasan had a run-in with a soldier living in apartment No. 12. One night after he had been drinking, John Van de Walker scraped a key along the full length of the passenger’s side of Hasan’s car. Then he removed and destroyed a bumper sticker that read, ‘Allah is Love,’ according to several residents, including live-in managers John and Alice Thompson.”

Troops at Fort Hood in the aftermath of the shooting.

The U.S. military has a long standing policy of racism toward the peoples of countries we are “at war with.”. It is standard procedure to dehumanize these foreign populations so that soldiers can more easily deal with the rampant death of innocent people that they see in war. I use the term racism loosely here as it actually applies to the Muslim religion. But few make the distinction between the Muslim religion and Arab ethnicity.

Hasan was known to his comrades in his apartment complex as “number 9″, a reference to his apartment number. Many are calling him a terrorist because he is a Muslim, and in the context of the wars against Muslim nations that we are engaged in. Has Tim McVeigh ever been called a terrorist? Perhaps. But that hasn’t given white middle-state Americans the stigma of terrorism.

I think Hasan has a lot more in common with Timothy McVeigh than he does with Muslim terrorists in Afghanistan. They are (or were) both U.S. military members who were disgruntled enough with the military to retaliate and kill innocent victims.

Every religion has the concept that people should not kill. We don’t know for sure and probably never will, but in addition to be driven to the brink by the incessant tormenting he suffered, I believe it was this devotion to his religion that may have lead him to open fire upon deploying troops to an unjust war that dehumanizes and kills the innocent as a matter of policy. But that is purely my conjecture in trying to explain the unexplainable. Killing is not justified in civilian life or even in war when the innocent die. But this may help to explain what happened, why it happened, how it might have been prevented, and could be prevented in the future.

The BBC reports that Hasan had long wanted to leave the military due to suffering harassment because of his religion, and that many Muslims in the U.S. military suffer harassment and this shooting has raised fears among them:

According to the Pentagon, there are 3,572 Muslims in active service. However, some Muslims in the military say the real number is as high as 20,000.

The US government has made no secret of the fact that it would like to see more people from Arab and Muslim communities joining the armed forces.

More American Muslim troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan has long been seen as a vital part in helping the US in its missions to win hearts and minds in those countries.

“They are a great asset to the army,” Lt Col Nathan Banks, army spokesman for the Pentagon, told the BBC.

“When they do deploy they help facilitate a lot of our missions. American Muslims in the army work hand in hand with local Muslims, and we welcome that.”

He said the army did not foresee heightened tensions within its ranks as a result of Fort Hood. Meanwhile tensions have risen sharply around the country, as we see on internet posts like this one, where many accuse Hasan of being a terrorist, sympathetic to the Muslims we fight against. This BBC article also reports that Muslims in the U.S. military now have a growing fear of harassment as a result. It’s obviously very hard for people to distinguish between Muslims in general (including those in our own military) and the Muslims we fight as members of the Taliban or Al Qaeda.

Hasan likely suffered from secondary PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) in listening to the many troops’ horrid stories of war as they came to him after returning from war. Fort Hood Private Michael Kern who knew of Hasan tells of his own problems dealing with his killing a child, and how stories like this had to effect Hasan. Hasan had tried in vain to leave the military but there was no way once you are deployed as the private says.

Hasan’s cousin tells Amy Goodman, “About a week before the incident, he hired a lawyer in order to leave the Army, get married, and live his life. But they rejected his request and asked him to go to Afghanistan. This was the biggest shock for him. So, there’s another reason why he did what he did, not just because of the harassment of the soldiers. There is another reason.” Watch the Ft. hood video clip here.

An independent journalist and author Dahr Jamail describes how the military pressures troops to “suck it up” and not admit to any PTSD, which indicates the problem is a “rampant problem.” According to Jamail, “And even those that do get help and go get treatment, they find themselves being put back into action anyway. As of last year, more than 43,000 soldiers already listed as medically unfit to be deployed were deployed anyway. We have a situation right now in Iraq where 12 percent of combat troops in Iraq, and then over in Afghanistan 17 percent of combat troops in Afghanistan, are already on psychotropic meds to help them sleep at night and because they have PTSD and severe depression. And this is just that we know of. So, they’re encouraged not to talk about it, not to get help. And then when they do, they simply don’t tend to get the treatment that they need.”

Private Kern went on to say that he didn’t think anyone at Ft. Hood saw Hasan’s religion as the problem, “And even those that do get help and go get treatment, they find themselves being put back into action anyway. As of last year, more than 43,000 soldiers already listed as medically unfit to be deployed were deployed anyway. We have a situation right now in Iraq where 12 percent of combat troops in Iraq, and then over in Afghanistan 17 percent of combat troops in Afghanistan, are already on psychotropic meds to help them sleep at night and because they have PTSD and severe depression. And this is just that we know of. So, they’re encouraged not to talk about it, not to get help. And then when they do, they simply don’t tend to get the treatment that they need. Hasan’s lawyer requested he not be interrogated until further investigation and doubts there can be a fair trial in light of Obama’s Tuesday visit and public statement made by the post commander.

Retired Col. John P. Galligan said he was contacted Monday by Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s family and was headed to an Army hospital in San Antonio to meet Hasan. “Until I meet with him, it’s best to say we’re just going to protect all of his rights,” Galligan said. “There’s a lot of facts that still need to be developed, and the time for that will come in due course… You’ve got his commander in chief showing up tomorrow… That same kind of publicity naturally creates an issue as to whether you find a fair and impartial forum, whether that’s in the military or even if it were in a federal forum.”

Hasan, 39, is accused of opening fire on the Army post on Thursday, killing 13 people and wounding 29 before civilian police shot him in the torso. He was taken into custody and eventually moved to Brooke Army Medical Center, where he was in stable condition Monday and able to talk, hospital spokesman Dewey Mitchell said.

But Hasan has not yet been charged. Meanwhile the AP reports that a 9/11 terrorist contact praised Hasan’s actions, which exacerbates the widespread hatred toward Hasan and is exactly the kind of reporting that makes for this issue of him being unable to get a fair trail.  Military justice experts agree that this trial will be a long complicated proceeding. His physical and mental health will first have to be evaluated and will likely cause a delay of many months. He will be tried under the military justice system, not civilian law, unless there are findings that he was operating as an international terrorist, in which case he’ll be transferred for federal prosecution under ant-terrorism laws. If he remains in military custody it’s unlikely he’ll get the death penalty since the military justice system’s lengthy appeals process has effectively thwarted all executions since 1961. Hasan has not yet been charged with any crime either civilian or military. Richard Durbin, chief of the criminal section for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Antonio declined to comment on Sunday. Because of the high publicity the Army will offer his defense a “wide latitude.” The Houston Chronicle reports the following:

“We’re in for a long haul,” said Scott L. Silliman, a retired career JAG officer in the Air Force who now directs Duke University Law School’s Center on Ethics and National Security….

What’s likely to occur is a court-martial under Article 2 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to punish offenses allegedly committed by a man wearing a U.S. military uniform against other military personnel on a military base. The Army’s Criminal Investigation Division is responsible for recommending charges, prompting the military equivalent of a grand jury, known as an Article 32 hearing, where both prosecutors and defense can present evidence.

Those results would be reviewed by base commander Cone, who would decide whether to convene a court-martial. The 12-person jury would be composed of officers higher in rank than Hasan – lieutenant colonels and above.

Under the rules of military justice, Hasan is permitted to have a lawyer present during interrogation, but former military lawyers say that the Army psychiatrist cannot be questioned by Army Criminal Investigation Division agents until doctors formally deem him medically and mentally able.

“A doctor would have to certify that the suspect is competent to decide whether to remain silent, speak to investigators or ask for a lawyer,” Silliman said. “He would have to be able to make an intelligent and informed decision before waiving any of his rights.”

….One military justice expert also predicted that an insanity defense is unlikely. Silliman said the standard for an insanity defense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice is that the suspect “cannot comprehend the wrongfulness of his actions.”

Hasan’s family demands that he be allow to speak to a lawyer before investigators or any mental health evaluation. The Chronicle also reports that the trial will likely be moved from the Ft. Hood location because of the “climate” there and the large number of local victims.

In other words Obama is wondering, along with the rest of us that have brains, what the hell are we doing there?

We have no exit strategy. We have questionable support from the Afghanistan government amidst its recent fraudulent elections. Pakistan and Iran are said to be helping the Taliban. Meanwhile, the Taliban never attacked the U.S. Al Queda did, which makes this a preemptive illegal war. Add racism to that since our military has a standing policy of overt racism, as reported by returning U.S. troops.

‘”I’m not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan . . . or sending a message that America is here for the duration,” Obama said.’

Now about that head thing. “The rekindled debate came as a shock to some officials who considered broad U.S. strategy in Afghanistan to be a settled issue. Military officials were scrambling Monday to determine how drastic any changes might be.” I guess they just figure we’re all going to just go along with their failed military policy of never ending war spending. Wakie! Wakie!

The new strategy being considered, which requires no more troops for this debacle, is to get out of Afghanistan and go after Al Queda. Duh. Oh yeah, weren’t they the guys that actually destroyed the twin towers? You remember. That whole 9/11 thing that we went to war over in the first place, at the the cost of 5000 American lives and over a million innocent civilian Iraqi and Afghan lives. The same innocent civilians whose survivors became insurgents in retaliation, just as Americans would do in the same situation.

What was that guys name? Bin laden. Yeah that’s it. Let’s go get him and his operatives. Gee ya think our military might need some remedial critical thinking education? Maybe a special day class. It only took seven years to figure this out. And you wonder why Greece elected a socialist government (as opposed to failed capitalism).

__________________________________________________
Do something!

The administration and Congress need to know that regular Americans are paying close attention and that we want a clear military exit strategy.
That’s why I signed a petition urging the President and Congress to lay out a plan with a military exit strategy. Will you join me at the link below?
http://pol.moveon.org/afghan_exit/?r_by=17429-17264405-e6frX8x&rc=confemail

Source: Iraq Body Count

Iranians have been holding a protest vigil since the Iran election in front of the federal building at Westwood and Veteran Avenues in West Los Angeles. On Sunday, June 28, 2009, about 5,000 of them took to the streets there in the march depicted in this film. Many would not be interviewed on camera, probably in fear of reprisals against their families in Iran by the Iranian government, as some told us. Of those who spoke on camera, they explained how their presence was only to show solidarity with those in Iran. They feel frustrated that they cannot do something more to stop the Iranian government. Some want the U.S. and the U.N. to impose sanctions on Iran, specifically to companies like Nokia that do business with the Iranian government in providing surveillance technology used wrongfully against the Iranian people, to deny them basic freedoms.

However, sanctions on Iran from the U.S. in the past have hurt the Iranian people as much, if not more than it hurt the Iranian government. Is it possible for the U.S. or the U.N. to have the acuity to distinguish between the Iranian people and the Iranian government; to impose selective and targeted sanctions on companies like Nokia, or at least the offending technologies they sell? If so they would then target the Iranian government’s anti-democratic behavior without hurting the Iranian people, unlike what the U.S. did to Iraq after the Gulf War in obtuse sanctions that effectively broke down their infrastructure, and took away basic human needs like water and electricity from all the Iraqi people.

One good thing that these marches do is to show the world and the Iranian government the faces of Iranians, which makes it impossible for the U.S. and other governments, to dehumanize the Iranian people in order to wage war, as the U.S. has done in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq War veterans have testified to this fact in the Winter Soldier testimonies on U.S. military racism (http://ivaw.org/wintersoldier), citing how their superiors demean Iraqis, and now Afghans, by routinely referring to them as “hodgie”, a slag term for Hajji.

It is a well known fact among scholars (like Dr. Haig Bosmajian, University of Washington in Seattle) that the U.S. military has, as a matter of policy, demeaned the people of entire countries that we have gone to war with, ever since the Korean War when they referred to Koreans as “gooks”, which carried over to the Vietnam War. It is no stretch to call our military racist. But this was also found during WWII when they called the Germans “krauts”. The Germans are especially infamous for their pro-war dehumanization campaign of the Jewish people in calling them “rats”. The purpose of this as government policy is to make it easier for people and troops to accept war, especially the killing and genocide of innocent people.

See also: Iran Was an Easier Enemy Before We Saw Their Faces

by David Bromwich, Huffington Post, June 24, 2009 12:32 PM

Why celebrate independence anyway? What are we independent from? The British? How about our own government? Our taxes fund all these things without our consent. They are dictated to us. We’ve had nationwide “tea parties” in protest of the Wall Street bailouts. We are in a war in Afghanistan with no exit strategy. We don’t know who we’re fighting. We are incapable of distinguishing civilians from Taliban and so we just bomb and raid civilian homes. We occupy Afghanistan just as we occupied Iraq and just as the British attempted to occupy the U.S., the independence from which we celebrate this holiday. Anyone who celebrates this independence day is a bigot and a hypocrite. We are not independent. Our flag does not deserve our honor and respect on this day in 2009 when our troops fight and die in vain for no known cause. Our bombing and killing of civilians motivates surviving young men to join the insurgency against the U.S. and fight back. Our war is a liability to our freedom. Our troops do not protect our freedoms they endanger them. July 4th is a sham.Our flag does not stand for freedom today. It stands for corruption, deceit, and dictatorship.