DebateGate

WAR ON TERROR
Nightmare at Guantanamo
As a Muslim, U.S. Army Chaplain James Yee stood tall for humanity while ministering to the detainees at Guantanamo Bay - to the point that he was arrested and falsely accused of treason.

By Brad Buchholz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, March 23, 2008

One year after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. Army Chaplain James Yee ? a converted Muslim, born and raised in America ? was sent to the Guant?namo Bay detention facility with the assignment of a lifetime. His job: to minister to the prisoners there, in service to the United States.

It was harrowing work.

"We say that the war on terror is not a war against Islam, but that's not how it felt most days at Guant?namo," Yee writes in "For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire," his 2006 memoir. The environment at Guant?namo "excused, if not encouraged, open hostility toward Islam."

By almost every measure, Yee's tour at Guant?namo was a nightmare, offending his sensibilities as an American and a Muslim. For 10 months, from November 2002 to September 2003, Yee says, he bore witness to man's inhumanity to man as the Guant?namo prisoners were systematically beaten and humiliated by U.S. military police and interrogators.

Yee says he was horrified to see "religion used as a weapon" against Guant?namo detainees ? as prisoners told him of detainees being forced to bow down in the middle of a satanic circle in an interrogation room and profess that Satan was their god, not Allah. Detainees were mocked during prayer and taunted or teased sexually by American women while chained. At first, Yee thought it an act of compassion that Guant?namo detainees were allowed to keep a Quran in their cells. But the detainees begged Yee to have them taken away, he says, for American MPs took such delight in mishandling the books or breaking their bindings during random searches.

"I was not willing to silently stand by and watch U.S. soldiers abuse the Quran, mock people's religion, and strip men of their dignity ? even if those men were prisoners," wrote Yee, who became an in-house human rights advocate for the detainees. "It was my job to stop those behaviors ? it was my duty, even, since the day I took my oath as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army."

Yee, who was raised Lutheran but converted to Muslim shortly after graduating from West Point in 1990, brought his concerns to the command at Guant?namo, even to Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller. He advocated sensitivity training, trying to educate the military about Islamic culture. In the meantime, he bonded with Muslims in the American military and hosted prayer meetings for them at his apartment.

During his first leave from Guant?namo in September 2003, Yee was arrested and imprisoned in maximum-security brigs for 76 days. The military accused him of being part of a Guant?namo spy ring and suggested that it would seek the death penalty against him. Yee's wife and daughter in Washington were subjected to interrogation as well; the pressure became so intense at one point that his wife thought of suicide. Although charges against him were dropped in 2004, Yee believes the military might have wanted to discredit his reputation out of fear that he might one day share what he saw at Guant?namo.

Yee left the military in 2005 and was granted an honorable discharge. The experience has left him $260,000 in debt. The American-Statesman caught up with him by phone, three days before Yee spoke at the University of Texas School of Law about Guant?namo, human rights and the rule of law. Yee says, to his knowledge, there has not been a full-time Muslim chaplain at Guant?namo since his arrest.

Austin American-Statesman: How much is Guant?namo a part of your consciousness, on a day to day basis?

James Yee:Every day. Before I even check my e-mail, I will go to Google News and type in "Guant?namo Bay" to see what new developments have occurred. So this has become almost an obsession with my whole life: following Guant?namo issues. Perhaps that is a symptom of post-traumatic stress or something, you know? I'm actually looking into (PTSD) right now, as part of a claim with the Veterans Administration.

Why should Guant?namo be prominent in the American consciousness?

I look at Guant?namo as one of the darkest black spots on the history of my country. When Guant?namo shows up in the history books, our grandkids are going to be asking, "What was going on? How did we let this happen?" It's contributing tremendously to the anti-American sentiment in the international community. I believe the way we show the world how prisoners are treated in the custody of the United States helps others recruit terrorists, recruit people to extremist ideas. We're going to have to close Guant?namo in order to rectify the problems it brings today with regard to human rights and the rule of law, to help our country regain its reputation and respect.

When you first refer to detainees you met at Guant?namo in your book, you take great pains to refer to them as 'alleged al Qaeda' or 'suspected terrorists.' This language is not often used by the Bush administration or those who support Guant?namo. You're more likely to hear words like 'terrorists' or 'enemy combatants.'

The administration has already rendered these individuals guilty. They've been called terrorists. They've been called (by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) "the worst of the worst." They've been called hardened criminals and trained killers. They've been referred to as people who would chew through the hydraulic lines of airplanes in order to bring the plane down, as captives. But when you look at the reality of the situation ? especially when I was there, from late November of 2002 through September of 2003 ? can we say that there were hard-core terrorists at Guant?namo? My answer is really, "No." The people there when I was there were not hardened terrorists. Of course, today, in a secret Camp 7, there are now 16 high-value al Qaeda suspects who may be potential terror suspects.

One of the most haunting images of the book is your first visit with a detainee at Guant?namo, a 15-year-old boy, who is reading a Disney picture book with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in it. This image certainly flies in the face of the administration's larger inference of what Guant?namo is and who lives there.

Interestingly enough, that individual will probably be the first prisoner tried in these military commissions at Guant?namo. (Ahmed Khadr is accused of killing Sgt. 1st Class Christopher J. Speer, in Afghanistan, with a hand grenade.) He's a Canadian citizen, and I don't think it's good for the reputation of our nation when we may be setting some kind of precedent in choosing to try a juvenile as an adult for war crimes.

Just to be clear: You don't believe there were any terrorists among the detainees at Guant?namo during your time there?

When you really seek to define what a terrorist is, (to me) that's someone who is going to fly a plane through the World Trade Center or attack innocent civilians. That is a terrorist. But if you're in Afghanistan and a foreign military invades your country and busts down the door of your house ? and then you grab for an AK-47, a weapon that's in most households in Afghanistan, in order to defend your family ? I mean, that's not a terrorist. If some foreign army invaded the United States and busted down the door of my house, I'm going to grab whatever weapon I can to defend my family. Does that make me a terrorist? ...

The reality says a legitimate terrorist in our custody would not have been brought to Guant?namo. They would be brought to secret CIA black sites. We know these black sites existed ? and exist now ? because in late 2006, after the Supreme Court ruled against President Bush on tribunals, he took 14 of the highest-value al Qaeda out of the CIA black sites and brought them into Guant?namo in order to get the Military Commissions Act. That action was self-admittance by the Bush administration that we were operating CIA black sites. And just this week, we've learned another prisoner was moved to Guant?namo from a CIA black site. So we know they are still in operation.

When referring to the Guant?namo detention areas, you clearly and consciously used the word 'cage' in your book, again and again, as opposed to 'cell.'

When you look at an overhead shot of Camp X-Ray (the original detention area at Guant?namo), it looks like a place to keep animals. Perhaps a cattle stall. Or a pen. And in my experience at Guant?namo (in the newer Camp Delta), the people there would tell me over and over they felt they were being treated like animals. One of the prisoners I recall saying, "Look. We've seen the guard dogs you have down there. And we know that the facility they're kept in has air conditioning. ... We're being treated worse than the dogs are."

You wrote: 'I believed that the hostile environment and animosity toward Islam were so ingrained in the operation that Maj. Gen. (Geoffrey) Miller and the other camp leaders lost sight of the moral harm we were doing.' Could you define what you mean by 'moral harm'?

The general was so focused on gaining intelligence. He wanted information and didn't care how he got it. So he, in my view, gave almost free rein to the intelligence-gathering operation, allowing the interrogators to do anything they wanted to get information. The flip side of it was, the people that were in Guant?namo probably didn't have any valuable information. So it's as if you're beating a dummy, trying to get it to talk, when it can't. ...

I observed some very young adults (serving in the U.S. military) at Guant?namo, many who were right out of high school, many who had never had any serious position of responsibility, now given complete control over the lives of other human beings, the prisoners there.

And what did they do with this authority? Many abused it.

As a Muslim chaplain at Guant?namo, you tried, with mixed success, to persuade military leadership to expose U.S. military personnel to sensitivity training about Islam. What's the message you wanted to convey there, and would want to convey today, about the basis of Islam, or misconceptions about Islam?

In terms of misconceptions, what's most harmful is that Muslims are somehow naturally inclined to terrorism and violence. This is really harmful ? and it's a completely wrong assessment. Being ignorant about Islam is not bad. But characterizing something as "evil," coming from a place of not knowing, is very harmful.

I'm sure you're aware that there are some skeptical readers out there who will have a hard time believing that you were targeted and arrested out of a spirit of vindictiveness alone, that there's no way you were harassed and arrested (and accused of espionage) by the military simply for trying to bring a more humanitarian focus at Guant?namo.

Many people who haven't had military experience perhaps won't be able to understand that when you're told to do something in the military ? and it's wrong ? you're going to do it anyway. The military trains you to follow orders, not to question your commanders. You're supposed to trust your commanders to only give you lawful orders. So when you're told at Guant?namo that the Geneva Conventions don't apply, you're essentially throwing out the rule book. It's like telling a football team that there's no rules here. You can't be penalized. So you go out and face-mask and clip and do whatever you can in order to win.

You were detained between two and three months. You experienced sensory deprivation, you were shackled constantly, housed in a high-security facility. Does this give you special insight, or concern, about what kind of effect detention has had on those imprisoned in Guant?namo ? who perhaps, like yourself, were imprisoned unjustly ? for two, three, even six years?

Yeah. I was able to survive 76 days, by the grace of God. But two and a half months is a drop in the water compared to going on seven years in Guant?namo. Even in the first year at Guant?namo, I saw noticeable mental deterioration of prisoners.

There's no doubt that anyone who's been held in Guant?namo is never going to be the same. Certainly, there's some type of post-traumatic stress in each and every one of these prisoners who have been released. I've often raised concerns about the juveniles, the 12- to 14-year-old Afghans who were there. At the prime development stage in their life, they were held (without due process) and subjected to interrogation by the U.S. military. It's quite disturbing for me to think how their lives have turned out.

http://www.statesman.com/search/content/editorial/stories/insight/03/23/0323yee.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/22/AR2008032201020.html?hpid=sec-nation

McCain Stiffs U.S. Workers, Helps Europeans Win Air Tanker Deal
   

by James Parks, Mar 12, 2008
Photo credit: Connie Kelliher    
   

At a time when American jobs are disappearing and our manufacturing base is being decimated, working people are outraged that Republican presidential nominee John McCain played a key role in the Bush Defense Department?s decision to award one of our largest military contracts to a foreign company. 

Had Boeing been awarded the air tanker deal, it would have supported at least 44,000 new and existing jobs in the United States, many of them good union jobs, and more than 300 suppliers in 40 states. But now only a few thousand lower-paying nonunion jobs will be created. (Click here to send a message to your representatives in Congress, urging them to overturn this decision.)

The DOD announced Feb. 29 the awarding of a $40 billion to $100 billion contract for the construction of Air Force refueling tankers to Northrop Grumann and the European firm EADS, which makes the Airbus. Defense expenditures are supposed to comply with federal Buy American Law provisions, which require purchasing certain products from American companies when possible. But this administration has granted more waivers of the Buy American provisions than any administration in history. 

Time magazine reports that McCain has been a ?key figure? in the Pentagon?s attempt to complete the tanker deal. According to the news magazine, McCain wrote letters and pushed the Pentagon to change the bidding process so that Airbus?s government subsidies could not be considered when deciding to whom to award the contract. This placed Boeing, which receives no subsidies, at a clear disadvantage and conflicted with U.S. trade policy. In fact, the U.S. currently has a complaint before the World Trade Organization (WTO) charging unfair trade practices resulting from Airbus?s illegal subsidies. 

Time also reveals that two current advisers to McCain worked on the deal for Northrop and EADS as lobbyists. They gave up their lobbying jobs when they came to work for McCain?s campaign, but a third lobbyist, former Rep. Tom Loeffler (R-Texas), lobbied for EADS while serving as McCain?s national finance chairman. Click here to read the Time article.

To top it off, OpenSecrets.org reports that McCain received $28,000 in contributions from EADS?s American employees, including CEO Ralph Crosby, Senior VP Sam Adcock and lobbyists representing EADS.

This is the third time in three weeks it has been reported that McCain was involved in highly questionable conduct that belies his claim to be a crusader for integrity. Newsweek and The Washington Post reported that McCain pressured the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to vote on an application to buy a TV station submitted by Paxson Communications at the same time McCain was flying on Paxson?s corporate jet and accepting tens of thousands in campaign contributions.

The media also pointed out that  McCain weighed in on behalf of Glencairn Ltd, a client of one of his lobbyist friends, to urge the FCC to abandon efforts to close a loophole that was ?vitally important? to Glencairn business. Click here to read the Newsweek article and here for the Washington Post story.

Machinists (IAM) District 751 President Tom Wroblewski says U.S. taxpayers deserve a better deal. 

    Now with this decision, America has to rely on a foreign country to defend our nation. This is wrong! And we will not stand silent on this issue. This is an unjustified gamble, which puts our armed services at risk. U.S. taxpayers shouldn?t be lining the pockets of Europeans.

Tom Buffenbarger, president of IAM, says working people will fight ?tooth and nail and get this decision overturned.?

    How we could turn over the crown jewel of support for our nation?s Air Force to foreign manufacturers is beyond me. We?re going to see that America gets what it deserves in the form of economic justice and fairness for American workers.

Gregory Junemann, president of International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), says:

    By turning our backs on American workers, we have certainly missed a prime opportunity to reinvest American taxpayer dollars in our own workforce. Our tax dollars are still at work, but in this circumstance, they are working to the benefit of foreign workers, not U.S. workers.

IAM and IFPTE combined represent 55,000 workers at Boeing.

The stakes in the bidding were high. Boeing would have performed much of the tanker work in Everett, Wash., and Wichita, Kan., and used Pratt & Whitney engines built in Connecticut. The company said the contract would have supported  at least 44,000 new and existing family-supporting union jobs at Boeing.

The Northrop-Airbus proposal calls for converting new Airbus passenger jets, currently built in Toulouse, France, into tankers. Northrop said the planes will be constructed of European components that will be shipped to this country and assembled in a yet-to-be-built plant in Alabama, a so-called right-to-work state, resulting in far fewer U.S. jobs. In states with such laws, the average pay for workers is 15 percent less than in states where workers have rights to bargain contracts (including wages and benefits).
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http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/12/mccain-stiffs-us-workers-helps-europeans-win-air-tanker-deal/

Obama's Minister Committed "Treason" But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero

Frank Schaeffer Sun Mar 16, 11:58 PM ET

When Senator Obama's preacher thundered about racism and injustice Obama suffered smear-by-association. But when my late father -- Religious Right leader Francis Schaeffer -- denounced America and even called for the violent overthrow of the US government, he was invited to lunch with presidents Ford, Reagan and Bush, Sr.


Every Sunday thousands of right wing white preachers (following in my father's footsteps) rail against America's sins from tens of thousands of pulpits. They tell us that America is complicit in the "murder of the unborn," has become "Sodom" by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say, as my dad often did, that we are, "under the judgment of God." They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. By comparison Obama's minister's shouted "controversial" comments were mild. All he said was that God should damn America for our racism and violence and that no one had ever used the N-word about Hillary Clinton.

Dad and I were amongst the founders of the Religious right. In the 1970s and 1980s, while Dad and I crisscrossed America denouncing our nation's sins instead of getting in trouble we became darlings of the Republican Party. (This was while I was my father's sidekick before I dropped out of the evangelical movement altogether.) We were rewarded for our "stand" by people such as Congressman Jack Kemp, the Fords, Reagan and the Bush family. The top Republican leadership depended on preachers and agitators like us to energize their rank and file. No one called us un-American.

Consider a few passages from my father's immensely influential America-bashing book A Christian Manifesto. It sailed under the radar of the major media who, back when it was published in 1980, were not paying particular attention to best-selling religious books. Nevertheless it sold more than a million copies.

Here's Dad writing in his chapter on civil disobedience:

If there is a legitimate reason for the use of force [against the US government]... then at a certain point force is justifiable.



And this:

In the United States the materialistic, humanistic world view is being taught exclusively in most state schools... There is an obvious parallel between this and the situation in Russia [the USSR]. And we really must not be blind to the fact that indeed in the public schools in the United States all religious influence is as forcibly forbidden as in the Soviet Union....

Then this:

There does come a time when force, even physical force, is appropriate... A true Christian in Hitler's Germany and in the occupied countries should have defied the false and counterfeit state. This brings us to a current issue that is crucial for the future of the church in the United States, the issue of abortion... It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is contrary to God's law it abrogates it's authority. And our loyalty to the God who gave this law then requires that we make the appropriate response in that situation...

Was any conservative political leader associated with Dad running for cover? Far from it. Dad was a frequent guest of the Kemps, had lunch with the Fords, stayed in the White House as their guest, he met with Reagan, helped Dr. C. Everett Koop become Surgeon General. (I went on the 700 Club several times to generate support for Koop).

Dad became a hero to the evangelical community and a leading political instigator. When Dad died in 1984 everyone from Reagan to Kemp to Billy Graham lamented his passing publicly as the loss of a great American. Not one Republican leader was ever asked to denounce my dad or distanced himself from Dad's statements.

Take Dad's words and put them in the mouth of Obama's preacher (or in the mouth of any black American preacher) and people would be accusing that preacher of treason. Yet when we of the white Religious Right denounced America white conservative Americans and top political leaders, called our words "godly" and "prophetic" and a "call to repentance."

We Republican agitators of the mid 1970s to the late 1980s were genuinely anti-American in the same spirit that later Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (both followers of my father) were anti-American when they said God had removed his blessing from America on 9/11, because America accepted gays. Falwell and Robertson recanted but we never did.

My dad's books denouncing America and comparing the USA to Hitler are still best sellers in the "respectable" evangelical community and he's still hailed as a prophet by many Republican leaders. When Mike Huckabee was recently asked by Katie Couric to name one book he'd take with him to a desert island, besides the Bible, he named Dad's Whatever Happened to the Human Race? a book where Dad also compared America to Hitler's Germany.

The hypocrisy of the right denouncing Obama, because of his minister's words, is staggering. They are the same people who argue for the right to "bear arms" as "insurance" to limit government power. They are the same people that (in the early 1980s roared and cheered when I called down damnation on America as "fallen away from God" at their national meetings where I was keynote speaker, including the annual meeting of the ultraconservative Southern Baptist convention, and the religious broadcasters that I addressed.

Today we have a marriage of convenience between the right wing fundamentalists who hate Obama, and the "progressive" Clintons who are playing the race card through their own smear machine. As Jane Smiley writes in the Huffington Post "[The Clinton's] are, indeed, now part of the 'vast right wing conspiracy.' (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/im-already-against-the-n_b_90628.html )

Both the far right Republicans and the stop-at-nothing Clintons are using the "scandal" of Obama's preacher to undermine the first black American candidate with a serious shot at the presidency. Funny thing is, the racist Clinton/Far Right smear machine proves that Obama's minister had a valid point. There is plenty to yell about these days.

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of "CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20080317/cm_huffpost/091774;_ylt=Ah33hrrjdCETr05IpvsKTr.s0NUE

Meat Packer Admits Slaughter of Sick Cows
Doug Mills/The New York Times

Steve Mendell, president of the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company, testified before a House subcommittee Wednesday.

By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: March 13, 2008

WASHINGTON ? The president of a slaughterhouse at the heart of the largest meat recall denied under oath on Wednesday, but then grudgingly admitted, that his company had apparently introduced sick cows into the hamburger supply.
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He then tried to minimize the significance.

The executive, Steve Mendell of the Westland/Hallmark Meat Company of Chino, Calif., said, ?I was shocked. I was horrified. I was sickened,? by video that showed employees kicking or using electric prods on ?downer? cattle that were too sick to walk, jabbing one in the eye with a baton and using forklifts to push animals around.

The video was taken by an undercover investigator from the Humane Society of the United States. One tape showed a worker using a garden hose to try to squirt water up the nose of a downed cow, a technique that Representative Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat who conducted the hearing where Mr. Mendell testified, referred to as waterboarding.

Testifying before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Mendell, who appeared only after being subpoenaed, assured lawmakers that despite his lack of knowledge about conditions at the plant, sick animals were not slaughtered for food, so no safety issue existed.

But Mr. Mendell retracted the statement when shown a second video in which a ?downer? cow was shocked and abused by workers trying to move it to the ?kill box,? then finally shot with a bolt gun and dragged by a chain to the processing area.

When Mr. Mendell told the committee he was unaware of the abuses, Mr. Stupak asked him, ?What?s your curiosity, as president and C.E.O. of the company you?re responsible for??

Mr. Mendell replied that after he had seen the first video, he concluded that ?it was a regulatory violation, for sure, it was inhumane treatment, for sure,? but that he did not believe it was a food safety issue until he saw the second video on Wednesday.

Mr. Stupak asked if one could conclude from the video that the cow dragged into the killing area had gone into the food supply.

?That would be logical, sir,? Mr. Mendell replied.

Mr. Mendell said he had asked for a copy of the second video but it had been refused. The president of the Humane Society, Wayne Pacelle, said, however, that the video had been on the group?s Web site since Feb. 19.

The undercover investigator for the Humane Society did not appear but Mr. Mendell found a way to make his identity public, seeking to contradict the investigator?s accusation that when he was hired at the plant, he had not received the required training in humane handling. Mr. Mendell volunteered that he had with him a form signed by the investigator acknowledging such training. (Whether the training actually occurred was not established.)

Of the 143 million pounds of beef that were recalled, about 50 million pounds went to school lunch programs or federal programs for the poor or elderly, Mr. Stupak said. But the recall covered all the meat produced for two years, Mr. Mendell said, so most of it had already been eaten.

The biggest threat from ?downer? cattle is mad cow disease. The chairman of the full committee, Representative John D. Dingell, also of Michigan, said the incubation period for the human form could be 20 years.

A ?downer? animal can still be slaughtered if a government veterinarian has determined the cow is fit for human consumption, but Mr. Mendell acknowledged that no veterinarian was visible on the tape.

After the testimony, Mr. Mendell?s lawyer Asa Hutchinson, a former member of Congress from Arkansas and former under secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said that Mr. Mendell still did not have all the facts about the events shown in the videotapes.

Mr. Mendell made the point that parts of the animal most likely to carry the defective protein that causes mad cow were routinely removed. ?I think there is less than a minute chance of that product being contaminated,? he said.

He also produced audits from outside companies showing that the plant complied with rules on humane treatment of animals, evidence that some committee members said shook their confidence that Mr. Mendell understood the operations of his company.

The committee is considering several proposals for new procedures, including food irradiation. That would reduce the risk of contamination by E. coli, the bacterium that killed three children in a 1993 outbreak linked to the Jack in the Box restaurant chain. (Westland/Hallmark was one of the slaughterhouses closed down in that outbreak.) But it would not affect the mad cow risk.

Representative Diana DeGette, Democrat of Colorado, has proposed improving the ability to track meat back to the slaughterhouse as well as giving the Agriculture Department the authority to issue recalls. That could make it easier, she said, to catch tainted meat before it was consumed, ?or preferably, to deter conduct like this.?

A spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department, Amanda Eamich, refused any substantive comment, saying that the case was still under investigation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/business/13meat.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

    Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday.

 

    Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.

[.........]
from the same article:
Petraeus credited both the mainly Sunni neighborhood patrols known as the Awakening and a cease-fire called by Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr with helping to bring down violence. The Awakening fighters include former insurgents who say they have turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq, a largely homegrown Sunni group that Petraeus said is in communication with al-Qaeda leaders abroad. The United States is now paying 88,000 members of the Awakening $300 a month to take part in the neighborhood patrols.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/13/AR2008031303793.html

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,336330,00.html

http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Make_a_Suit_of_Chainmail_Armor_From_Soda_Can_Tabs