Military Recruitment At An All Time High-- why?

Below is a story from the Washington Post of a few weeks ago about the historic success the military achieved last year in recruitment - meeting all of their recruitment targets for the first time since 1973. This has a lot to do with the "great recession" and the huge surge in unemployment, which has left many with no other option but to join the military. At the same time, the promise of withdrawal from Iraq seems to have also convinced many to join - although many probably did not foresee escalation in Afghanistan when they were signing up. By the way, did you know that "the Defense Department spent about $10,000 on advertising, marketing, recruiters and other budget items per recruit, with the Army spending more than double that, at $22,000."

I don't think this is any reason to get depressed - it just reinforces the importance of the work of the anti-war and counter-military recruitment movements. I hope that in the next few months we can really step things up and mobilize against the surge in Afghanistan, the massive military budget, and the lies fed to youth by military recruiters. A good flash point is Obama's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10th, which I think is a great opportunity to protest and hold events demanding real peace - which starts with getting U.S. troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/13/AR2009101303539_2.html

By Ann Scott Tyson

The Washington Post

Wednesday, Oct 14, 2009

For the first time in more than 35 years, the U.S. military has met all of its annual recruiting goals, as hundreds of thousands of young people have enlisted despite the near-certainty that they will go to war.

The Pentagon, which made the announcement Tuesday, said the economic downturn and rising joblessness, as well as bonuses and other factors, had led more qualified youths to enlist.

The military has not seen such across-the-board successes since the all-volunteer force was established in 1973, after Congress ended the draft following the Vietnam War. In recent years, the military has often fallen short of some of its recruiting targets. The Army, in particular, has struggled to fill its ranks, admitting more high school dropouts, overweight youths and even felons.

Yet during the current budget year, which ended Sept. 30, recruiters met their targets in both numbers and quality for all components of active-duty and reserve forces.

"We delivered beyond anything the framers of the all-volunteer force would have anticipated," Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy, said at a Pentagon news conference.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are considered by experts to be an unprecedented test of the volunteer military's resilience. Its ability to bring fresh recruits into the force is critical not only to increasing the overall size of the Army and Marine Corps, but to ensuring that additional units are available to rotate into conflict zones. Some Army units sent overseas recently have been deployed at less than full strength.

As lengthy, multiple combat tours place U.S. forces under enormous stress, the willingness of young people to enlist has surprised even military leaders, experts said.

The military is suffering "strains that are tragic in personal lives, but institutionally the ground forces have held together and are not broken. They are even recovering a little bit as we speak," said Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Still, it is difficult to predict how much stress the volunteer military can take as it navigates uncharted waters, experts said.

"There is no way to tell at what point the Army will break in the sense of mass desertion, or people unwilling to stay in, or not meeting recruiting quotas," O'Hanlon said.

Overall, the Defense Department brought in 168,900 active-duty troops, or 103 percent of the goal for the fiscal year, officials said. It reached 104 percent of the goal for recruitment of National Guard and reserve forces.

The quality of recruits also improved, with about 95 percent reporting that they had received high school diplomas; last year, 83 percent of the Army's active-duty recruits had diplomas, short of the goal of 90 percent. The active-duty Army this year admitted only 1.5 percent of recruits who scored in the lowest acceptable category on the standard qualification test; in recent years, that figure had reached nearly 4 percent.

Carr said strong recruitment was driven by economic conditions that have made civilian jobs scarce, along with other factors such as pay increases and investment in recruiting budgets.

The recession "was a force," Carr said, and, "given the unemployment that we had not directly forecast, allowed us to be for much of the year in a very favorable position."

Historically, there has been a strong correlation between rising unemployment and increases in "high quality" enlistments, according to Curt Gilroy, the Pentagon's director of accession policy.

Carr said the Defense Department spent about $10,000 on advertising, marketing, recruiters and other budget items per recruit, with the Army spending more than double that, at $22,000.

"The unemployment . . . left us with more dollars per recruit than proved to be minimally necessary," he said.

Carr also credited hefty enlistment bonuses for the military's success, saying 40 percent of recruits received an average bonus of $14,000, compared with $12,000 on average in 2008. The size of the bonus varied by service, with the Army, which has the toughest mission, offering more.

Maj. Gen. Donald Campbell, head of the Army's recruiting command, said one factor in its success was putting a large number of recruiters on the streets.

"I think the most important thing that helps us with success, whether you're talking money, resources, advertising, is having the right number of recruiters, soldiers on the ground," he said.

In recent years, military officials cited the intensity of the fighting in Iraq as dampening interest in military service among 17-to-24-year-olds and, in particular, lessening the support of parents and other influential adults. But Pentagon officials said earlier this year that the declining violence in Iraq had made young people more willing to sign up.

Eight Years Too Long!

Eight Years and Counting: End the Occupation of Afghanistan
Brett Hoven http://www.socialistalternative.org/news/article13.php?id=1152
Eight years after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the occupation continues to drag on with no end in sight. U.S. casualties are on the rise, with July and August the two deadliest months since the beginning of the war. The recent Afghan elections, which were supposed to legitimize the U.S.-backed government and its “democratic” institutions, have instead exposed widespread corruption. Accusations of mass voter fraud and threats of violence, alongside low voter turnout, have undermined what little credibility remained for the Karzai government. A renewed offensive in southern Afghanistan has led to increasing violence, as U.S. and NATO troops attempt to force the Taliban out of their stronghold in Helmand Province. The new offensive is part of a new emphasis on using ground troops, following massive outrage at the deaths of thousands of civilians in indiscriminate aerial bombings by U.S. and NATO planes. This new strategy will require substantially more soldiers, on top of the 21,000 already approved for Obama’s surge. There are currently 63,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, nearly twice as many as at the beginning of the year (and joined by over 40,000 other foreign troops and 74,000 private U.S. military contractors). Anthony Cordesman, an adviser to General McChrystal, the commander of forces in Afghanistan, is recommending that as many as 45,000 additional U.S. troops be sent, which would raise the total above 100,000 (Times (UK), 8/10/09). Worth the Sacrifice? These developments have led to a dramatic decline in support for the war in Afghanistan. 54% of Americans now oppose the war (CNN, 8/6/09). Only 25% think more troops should be sent to Afghanistan. Still, Vice President Joe Biden claims that the war in Afghanistan “is worth the effort we are making and the sacrifice.” (BBC News, 7/23/09) This flies in the face of reality. After eight years, billions of dollars have been sunk into Afghanistan, thousands of U.S. soldiers have been killed or permanently disabled, and for what? Malalai Joya, an outspoken 30-year-old women’s rights activist who was ousted from her position in the Afghan parliament by right-wing religious fundamentalists and warlords, describes Afghanistan after eight years of occupation: “Your governments have replaced the fundamentalist rule of the Taliban with another fundamentalist regime of warlords… While a showcase parliament has been created for the benefit of the U.S. in Kabul, the real power is with these fundamentalists who rule everywhere outside Kabul.” For women, “the situation now is as catastrophic as it was under the Taliban.” (Independent (UK), 7/28/09) The war has been an unending nightmare for the ordinary people of Afghanistan. Poverty remains endemic. 53% of the population live on less than $1 per day, and 77% lack access to clean water. Female literacy – at 13% - has barely improved on what it was under the reactionary rule of the Taliban. Afghans also face daily terror from NATO ground forces and unmanned drones, and their lives are dominated by corrupt warlords and the Taliban. Yet, according to Biden, the war must go on because Afghanistan is “a place that, if it doesn’t get straightened out, will continue to wreak havoc on Europe and the United States.” But the brutal U.S. occupation, along with the grinding poverty and oppression faced by the peoples of Central Asia and the Middle East, is only sowing the seeds for future terrorist attacks. “Straightening out” Afghanistan will be a long, costly, and ultimately futile campaign. General Sir David Richards, the head of British forces in Afghanistan, believes it will take another 40 years of occupation before there will be stability (Telegraph (UK), 8/8/09). As NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman put it (echoing the White Man’s Burden rhetoric of the British empire), "America has just adopted Afghanistan as our new baby." With a discredited U.S. puppet regime, ruling through warlords and drug-traffickers guilty of all sorts of war crimes, “stability” means nothing more than a government strong enough to suppress dissent and defend the interests of U.S. imperialism in the region. Is this really worth the sacrifice? Rebuild the Antiwar Movement All of this shows clearly the need to rebuild the antiwar movement. A powerful antiwar movement in the U.S. and around the world is of decisive importance in stopping the carnage in Afghanistan and preventing thousands upon thousands more troops from being sent off to kill and be killed in an unjust war. The ground is being laid for such a movement. Millions voted for Obama and the congressional Democrats hoping they would end the disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet now in power, the Democrats have frustrated these hopes by pursuing an imperialist foreign policy that is fundamentally the same as Bush’s, despite some difference in tactics. Already, “Peace Mom” Cindy Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq, has set up a vigil outside Obama’s vacation home in Martha’s Vineyard, just as she did outside Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. Protests are also being organized across the country on October 7 and 17 against the wars. As the Obama Administration readies to request even more troops for Afghanistan, the majority who oppose the war must be mobilized in the streets against any escalation, as well as to demand an immediate withdrawal of all foreign forces. ----------------------------------------------------------- So Much for Democracy and Liberation U.S. politicians never tire of talking about bringing democracy and liberation to the people of the Middle East and Central Asia. Yet in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, home to an air base critical to the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the NY Times reports: “Many opposition politicians and independent journalists have been arrested, prosecuted, attacked, and even killed over the last year as the president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, consolidated control in advance of elections... The U.S. has remained largely silent in response to this wave of violence, apparently wary of jeopardizing the status of its sprawling air base. Indeed, the Obama Administration has sought to woo the Kyrgyz president since he said in February that he would close the Manas base.” (7/23/09) So much for hopes the Obama Administration would mean a kinder, gentler U.S. foreign policy.

Terrifying New Domestic Weapons

What do you guys think of these devices? Are they necessary to keep public order? What situations are they okay for? Do you support their development? Do you think the military should be allowed to test these weapons on Iraquis and Afghans? Where do you draw the line on weapons manufacture? Why do the police feel like they need this kind of weaponry on the streets of the USA?

http://www.truthout.org/092909U

No longer the stuff of disturbing futuristic fantasies, an arsenal of "crowd control munitions," including one that reportedly made its debut in the US, was deployed with a massive, overpowering police presence in Pittsburgh during last week's G-20 protests.

Nearly 200 arrests were made and civil liberties groups charged the many thousands of police (transported on Port Authority buses displaying "PITTSBURGH WELCOMES THE WORLD"), from as far away as Arizona and Florida with overreacting ... and they had plenty of weaponry with which to do it.

Bean bags fired from shotguns, CS (tear) gas, OC (Oleoresin Capsicum) spray, flash-bang grenades, batons and, according to local news reports, for the first time on the streets of America, the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD).

I saw the LRAD, mounted in the turret of an Armored Personnel Carrier (APC), in action twice in the area of 25th, Penn and Liberty Streets of Lawrenceville, an old Pittsburgh neighborhood. Blasting a shrill, piercing noise like a high-pitched police siren on steroids, it quickly swept streets and sidewalks of pedestrians, merchants and journalists, and drove residents into their homes, but in neither case were any demonstrators present. The APC, oversized and sinister for a city street, together with lines of police in full riot gear looking like darkly threatening Michelin Men, made for a scene out of a movie you didn't want to be in.

As intimidating as this massive show of armed force and technology was, the good burghers of Pittsburgh and their fellow citizens in the Land of the Brave and Home of the Free ain't seen nothin' yet. Tear gas and pepper spray are nothing to sniff at and, indeed, have proven fatal a surprising number of times, but they have now become the old standbys compared to the list below that's already at or coming soon to a police station or National Guard headquarters near you. Proving that "what goes around, comes around," some of the new Property Protection Devices were developed by a network of federally funded, university-based research institutes like one in Pittsburgh itself, Penn State's Institute for Non-Lethal Defense Technologies.

* Raytheon Corp.'s Active Denial System, designed for crowd control in combat zones, uses an energy beam to induce an intolerable heating sensation, like a hot iron placed on the skin. It is effective beyond the range of small arms, in excess of 400 meters (about one-quarter mile). Company officials have been advised they could expand the market by selling a smaller, tripod-mounted version for police forces.

* M5 Modular Crowd Control Munition, with a range of 30 meters (about 98 feet) "is similar in operation to a claymore mine, but it delivers ... a strong, nonpenetrating blow to the body with multiple sub-munitions (600 rubber balls)."

* Long Range Acoustic Device or "The Scream," is a powerful megaphone the size of a satellite dish that can emit sound "50 times greater than the human threshold for pain" at close range, causing permanent hearing damage. The Los Angeles Times wrote that US Marines in Iraq used it in 2004. It can deliver recorded warnings in Arabic and, on command, emit a piercing tone ..." [For] most people, even if they plug their ears, [the device] will produce the equivalent of an instant migraine," says Woody Norris, chairman of American Technology Corp., the San Diego firm that produces the weapon. "It will knock [some people] on their knees." CBS News reported in 2005 that the Israeli Army first used the device in the field to break up a protest against Israel's separation wall. "Protesters covered their ears and grabbed their heads, overcome by dizziness and nausea, after the vehicle-mounted device began sending out bursts of audible, but not loud, sound at intervals of about 10 seconds.... A military official said the device emits a special frequency that targets the inner ear."

* In "Non-Lethal Technologies: An Overview," Lewer and Davison describe a lengthy catalog of new weaponry, including the "Directed Stick Radiator," a hand-held system based on the same technology as The Scream. "It fires high intensity 'sonic bullets' or pulses of sound between 125-150db for a second or two. Such a weapon could, when fully developed, have the capacity to knock people off their feet."

* The Penn State facility is testing a "Distributed Sound and Light Array Debilitator" a.k.a. the "puke ray." The colors and rhythm of light are absorbed by the retina and disorient the brain, blinding the victim for several seconds. In conjunction with disturbing sounds, it can make the person stumble or feel nauseated. Foreign Policy in Focus reports that the Department of Homeland Security, with $1 million invested for testing the device, hopes to see it "in the hands of thousands of policemen, border agents and National Guardsmen" by 2010.

* Spider silk is cited in the University of Bradford's Non-Lethal Weapons Research Project, Report #4 (pg. 20) as an up-and-comer. "A research collaboration between the University of New Hampshire and the US Army Natick Research, Development and Engineering Center is looking into the use of spider silk as a non-lethal 'entanglement' material for disabling people. They have developed a method for producing recombinant spider silk protein using E. coli and are trying to develop methods to produce large quantities of these fibres."

* New Scientist reports that the (I'm not making this up) Inertial Capacitive Incapacitator (ICI), developed by the Physical Optics Corporation of Torrance, California, uses a thin-film storage device charged during manufacture that only discharges when it strikes the target. It can be incorporated into a ring-shaped aerofoil and fired from a standard grenade launcher at low velocity, while still maintaining a flat trajectory for maximum accuracy.

* Aiming beyond Tasers, the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, (FY 2009 budget: $1 billion) the domestic equivalent of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), plans to develop wireless weapons effective over greater distances, such as in an auditorium or sports stadium, or on a city street. One such device, the Piezer, uses piezoelectric crystals that produce voltage when they are compressed. A 12-gauge shotgun fires the crystals, stunning the target with an electric shock on impact. Lynntech of College Station, Texas, is developing a projectile Taser that can be fired from a shotgun or 40-mm grenade launcher to greatly increase the weapon's current range of seven meters.

* "Off the Rocker and On the Floor: Continued Development of Biochemical Incapacitating Weapons," a report by the Bradford Disarmament Research Centre revealed that in 1992, the National Institute of Justice contracted with Lawrence Livermore National Lab to review clinical anesthetics for use by special ops military forces and police. The lab concluded the best option was an opioid, like fentanyl, effective at very low doses compared to morphine. Combined with a patch soaked in DMSO (dimethylsufoxide, a solvent) and fired from an air rifle, fentanyl could be delivered to the skin even through light clothing. Another recommended application for the drug was mixed with fine powder and dispersed as smoke.

* After upgrades, the infamous "Puff the Magic Dragon" gunship from the Vietnam War is now the AC-130. "Non-Lethal Weaponry: Applications to AC-130 Gunships," observes that "With the increasing involvement of US military in operations other than war ..." the AC-130 "would provide commanders a full range of non-lethal weaponry from an airborne platform which was not previously available to them." The paper concludes in part that "As the use of non-lethal weapons increases and it becomes valid and acceptable, more options will become available."

* Prozac and Zoloft are two of over 100 pharmaceuticals identified by the Penn State College of Medicine and the university's Applied Research Lab for further study as "non-lethal calmatives." These Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), noted the Penn State study, "... are found to be highly effective for numerous behavioral disturbances encountered in situations where a deployment of a non-lethal technique must be considered. This class of pharmaceutical agents also continues to be under intense development by the pharmaceutical industry.... New compounds under development (WO 09500194) are being designed with a faster onset of action. Drug development is continuing at a rapid rate in this area due to the large market for the treatment of depression (15 million individuals in North America).... It is likely that an SSRI agent can be identified in the near future that will feature a rapid rate of onset."

In Pittsburgh last week, an enormously expensive show of police and weaponry, intended for "security" of the G20 delegates, simultaneously shut workers out of downtown jobs for two days, forced gasping students and residents back into their dormitories and homes, and turned journalists' press passes into quaint, obsolete reminders of a bygone time.

Most significant of all, however, was what Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania ACLU, told The Associated Press: "It's not just intimidation, it's disruption and in some cases outright prevention of peaceful protesters being able to get their message out."

First Article: What the Iraqi Shoe-Thrower Had to Say

Hey everyone,

The Iraqi shoe-thrower (Munatadha al Zaidi), who threw his shoes at Bush during a press conference last year, has been released from prison. Below are his words on his release, one of the most damning indictments of the U.S. occupation.

And here is the link to the video, a treasure for all of time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmt2_wyDKJI&feature=player_embedded

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/75438.html

Posted on Tue, Sep. 15, 2009

What Iraqi journalist who threw shoes at Bush had to say

last updated: September 15, 2009 01:03:32 PM

BAGHDAD — Muntadhar al Zaidi, the Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at former President Bush last year in an act of protest that gained international notoriety, was freed from an Iraqi prison Tuesday after nine months behind bars and gave a passionate defense of his actions.

Here are his remarks, translated by McClatchy special correspondent Sahar Issa.

In the name of God, the most gracious and most merciful.

Here I am, free. But my country is still a prisoner of war.

Firstly, I give my thanks and my regards to everyone who stood beside me, whether inside my country, in the Islamic world, in the free world. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: What compelled me to confront is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.

And how it wanted to crush the skulls of (the homeland's) sons under its boots, whether sheikhs, women, children or men. And during the past few years, more than a million martyrs fell by the bullets of the occupation and the country is now filled with more than 5 million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. And many millions of homeless because of displacement inside and outside the country.

We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shiite would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ, may peace be upon him. And despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than 10 years, for more than a decade.

Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. Until we were invaded by the illusion of liberation that some had. (The occupation) divided one brother from another, one neighbor from another, and the son from his uncle. It turned our homes into neverending funeral tents. And our graveyards spread into parks and roadsides. It is a plague. It is the occupation that is killing us, that is violating the houses of worship and the sanctity of our homes and that is throwing thousands daily into makeshift prisons.

I am not a hero, and I admit that. But I have a point of view and I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated. And to see my Baghdad burned. And my people being killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, and this weighs on me every day and pushes me toward the righteous path, the path of confrontation, the path of rejecting injustice, deceit and duplicity. It deprived me of a good night's sleep.

Dozens, no, hundreds, of images of massacres that would turn the hair of a newborn white used to bring tears to my eyes and wound me. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Fallujah, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. In the past years, I traveled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and hear with my own ears the screams of the bereaved and the orphans. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.

And as soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies of the Iraqis, and while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the traces of the blood of victims that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.

The opportunity came, and I took it.

I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.

I say to those who reproach me: Do you know how many broken homes that shoe that I threw had entered because of the occupation? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? And how many times it had entered homes in which free Iraqi women and their sanctity had been violated? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.

When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.

After six years of humiliation, of indignity, of killing and violations of sanctity, and desecration of houses of worship, the killer comes, boasting, bragging about victory and democracy. He came to say goodbye to his victims and wanted flowers in response.

Put simply, that was my flower to the occupier, and to all who are in league with him, whether by spreading lies or taking action, before the occupation or after.

I wanted to defend the honor of my profession and suppressed patriotism on the day the country was violated and its high honor lost. Some say: Why didn't he ask Bush an embarrassing question at the press conference, to shame him? And now I will answer you, journalists. How can I ask Bush when we were ordered to ask no questions before the press conference began, but only to cover the event. It was prohibited for any person to question Bush.

And in regard to professionalism: The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism were to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.

I take this opportunity: If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I wish to apologize to you for any embarrassment I may have caused those establishments. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day.

History mentions many stories where professionalism was also compromised at the hands of American policymakers, whether in the assassination attempt against Fidel Castro by booby-trapping a TV camera that CIA agents posing as journalists from Cuban TV were carrying, or what they did in the Iraqi war by deceiving the general public about what was happening. And there are many other examples that I won't get into here.

But what I would like to call your attention to is that these suspicious agencies -- the American intelligence and its other agencies and those that follow them -- will not spare any effort to track me down (because I am) a rebel opposed to their occupation. They will try to kill me or neutralize me, and I call the attention of those who are close to me to the traps that these agencies will set up to capture or kill me in various ways, physically, socially or professionally.

And at the time that the Iraqi prime minister came out on satellite channels to say that he didn't sleep until he had checked in on my safety, and that I had found a bed and a blanket, even as he spoke I was being tortured with the most horrific methods: electric shocks, getting hit with cables, getting hit with metal rods, and all this in the backyard of the place where the press conference was held. And the conference was still going on and I could hear the voices of the people in it. And maybe they, too, could hear my screams and moans.

In the morning, I was left in the cold of winter, tied up after they soaked me in water at dawn. And I apologize for Mr. Maliki for keeping the truth from the people. I will speak later, giving names of the people who were involved in torturing me, and some of them were high-ranking officials inthe government and in the army.

I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country, and that is a legitimate cause confirmed by international laws and divine rights. I wanted to defend a country, an ancient civilization that has been desecrated, and I am sure that history -- especially in America -- will state how the American occupation was able to subjugate Iraq and Iraqis, until its submission.

They will boast about the deceit and the means they used in order to gain their objective. It is not strange, not much different from what happened to the Native Americans at the hands of colonialists. Here I say to them (the occupiers) and to all who follow their steps, and all those who support them and spoke up for their cause: Never.

Because we are a people who would rather die than face humiliation.

And, lastly, I say that I am independent. I am not a member of any political party, something that was said during torture -- one time that I'm far-right, another that I'm a leftist. I am independent of any political party, and my future efforts will be in civil service to my people and to any who need it, without waging any political wars, as some said that I would.

My efforts will be toward providing care for widows and orphans, and all those whose lives were damaged by the occupation. I pray for mercy upon the souls of the martyrs who fell in wounded Iraq, and for shame upon those who occupied Iraq and everyone who assisted them in their abominable acts. And I pray for peace upon those who are in their graves, and those who are oppressed with the chains of imprisonment. And peace be upon you who are patient and looking to God for release.

And to my beloved country I say: If the night of injustice is prolonged, it will not stop the rising of a sun and it will be the sun of freedom.

One last word. I say to the government: It is a trust that I carry from my fellow detainees. They said, 'Muntadhar, if you get out, tell of our plight to the omnipotent powers' -- I know that only God is omnipotent and I pray to Him -- 'remind them that there are dozens, hundreds, of victims rotting in prisons because of an informant's word.'

They have been there for years, they have not been charged or tried. They've only been snatched up from the streets and put into these prisons. And now, in front of you, and in the presence of God, I hope they can hear me or see me. I have now made good on my promise of reminding the government and the officials and the politicians to look into what's happening inside the prisons. The injustice that's caused by the delay in the judicial system.

Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.