The Iraq War Ain’t Over, No Matter What Obama Says

By Spencer Ackerman from Wired.com

President Obama announced on Friday that all 41,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq will return home by December 31. “That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end,” he said. Don’t believe him.

Now: it’s a big deal that all U.S. troops are coming home. For much of the year, the military, fearful of Iranian influence, has sought a residual presence in Iraq of several thousand troops. But arduous negotiations with the Iraqi government about keeping a residual force stalled over the Iraqis’ reluctance to provide them with legal immunity.

But the fact is America’s military efforts in Iraq aren’t coming to an end. They are instead entering a new phase. On January 1, 2012, the State Department will command a hired army of about 5,500 security contractors, all to protect the largest U.S. diplomatic presence anywhere overseas.

The State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security does not have a promising record when it comes to managing its mercenaries. The 2007 Nisour Square shootings by State’s security contractors, in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed, marked one of the low points of the war. Now, State will be commanding a much larger security presence, the equivalent of a heavy combat brigade. In July, Danger Room exclusively reported that the Department blocked the Congressionally-appointed watchdog for Iraq from acquiring basic information about contractor security operations, such as the contractors’ rules of engagement.

That means no one outside the State Department knows how its contractors will behave as they ferry over 10,000 U.S. State Department employees throughout Iraq — which, in case anyone has forgotten,is still a war zone. Since Iraq wouldn’t grant legal immunity to U.S. troops, it is unlikely to grant it to U.S. contractors, particularly in the heat and anger of an accident resulting in the loss of Iraqi life.

It’s a situation with the potential for diplomatic disaster. And it’s being managed by an organization with no experience running the tight command structure that makes armies cohesive and effective.

You can also expect that there will be a shadow presence by the CIA, and possibly the Joint Special Operations Command, to hunt persons affiliated with al-Qaida. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has conspicuously stated that al-Qaida still has 1,000 Iraqi adherents, which would make it the largest al-Qaida affiliate in the world.

So far, there are three big security firms with lucrative contracts to protect U.S. diplomats. Triple Canopy, a longtime State guard company, has a contract worth up to $1.53 billion to keep diplos safe as they travel throughout Iraq. Global Strategies Group will guard the consulate at Basra for up to $401 million. SOC Incorporated will protect the mega-embassy in Baghdad for up to $974 million. State has yet to award contracts to guard consulates in multiethnic flashpoint cities Mosul and Kirkuk, as well as the outpost in placid Irbil.

“We can have the kind of protection our diplomats need,” Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough told reporters after Obama’s announcement. Whether the Iraqi people will have protection from the contractors that the State Department commands is a different question. And whatever you call their operations, the Obama administration hopes that you won’t be so rude as to call it “war.”

America's Costly War Machine

Published on Monday, September 19, 2011 by The Los Angeles Times

Fighting the war on terror compromises the economy now and threatens it in the future.

by Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz

Ten years into the war on terror, the U.S. has largely succeeded in its attempts to destabilize Al Qaeda and eliminate its leaders. But the cost has been enormous, and our decisions about how to finance it have profoundly damaged the U.S. economy.Wounded soldiers attend the opening of the Center for the Intrepid in San Antonio, Texas on January 29, 2007. To date, the United States has spent more than $2.5 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Ben Sklar / Getty Images)

Many of these costs were unnecessary. We chose to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan with a small, all-volunteer force, and we supplemented the military presence with a heavy reliance on civilian contractors. These decisions not only placed enormous strain on the troops but dramatically pushed up costs. Recent congressional investigations have shown that roughly 1 of every 4 dollars spent on wartime contracting was wasted or misspent.

To date, the United States has spent more than $2.5 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon spending spree that accompanied it and a battery of new homeland security measures instituted after Sept. 11.

How have we paid for this? Entirely through borrowing. Spending on the wars and on added security at home has accounted for more than one-quarter of the total increase in U.S. government debt since 2001. And not only did we fail to pay as we went for the wars, theGeorge W. Bush administration also successfully pushed to cut taxes in 2001 and again in 2003, which added further to the debt. This toxic combination of lower revenues and higher spending has brought the country to its current political stalemate.

There is only one other time in U.S. history that a war was financed entirely through borrowing, without raising taxes: when the Colonies borrowed from France during the Revolutionary War.

Even if we were to leave Afghanistan and Iraq tomorrow, our war debt would continue to rise for decades. Future bills will include such things as caring for military veterans, replacing military equipment, rebuilding the armed forces and paying interest on all the money we have borrowed. And these costs won't be insignificant.

History has shown that the cost of caring for military veterans peaks decades after a conflict. Already, half of the returning troops have been treated in Veterans Administration medical centers, and more than 600,000 have qualified to receive disability compensation. At this point, the bill for future medical and disability benefits is estimated at $600 billion to $900 billion, but the number will almost surely grow as hundreds of thousands of troops still deployed abroad return home.

And it isn't just in some theoretical future that the wars will affect the nation's economy: They already have. The conditions that precipitated the financial crisis in 2008 were shaped in part by the war on terror. The invasion of Iraq and the resulting instability in the Persian Gulf were among the factors that pushed oil prices up from about $30 a barrel in 2003 to historic highs five years later, peaking at $140 a barrel in current dollars in 2008. Higher oil prices threatened to depress U.S. economic activity, prompting the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates and loosen regulations. These policies were major contributors to the housing bubble and the financial collapse that followed.

Now, the war's huge deficits are shaping the economic debate, and they could keep Congress from enacting another round of needed stimulus spending to help the country climb out of its economic malaise. Many of these war debts are likely to continue to compromise America's investments in its future for decades.

For years, the public failed to adequately question how it was possible that we could spend and borrow so freely, with so few consequences. But now the painful legacy of these decisions has become clear. Throughout the past decade, Congress routinely approved huge "emergency" appropriations to pay for the wars. This process preempted the usual scrutiny and debate that accompanies large spending bills. In part, this is because the U.S. lacks the basic accounting tools necessary for informed debate. Our future debts from the war are not listed anywhere in the federal government's budget. We don't even know for certain where the money has been spent. The Pentagon hasn't produced a clean financial audit in the 20 years since government auditing began, nor has it developed an accounting framework that would allow an assessment of the future costs of current decisions. This has almost certainly increased the overall cost of the war.

Our response to Sept. 11 has weakened both the current economy and our future economic prospects. And that legacy of economic weakness — combined with the erosion of the credibility of our military power and of our "soft power" — has undermined, rather than strengthened, our national security.

Nearly 10 years into the Afghanistan war, the violence in that country shows little sign of abating. August was the deadliest month of the war yet for U.S. troops, and there were also multiple attacks on Afghan security forces, government officials and civilians. The surge in violence comes as NATO is drawing down and handing over security control to national forces. But tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel are scheduled to remain in Afghanistan through the end of 2014.

The costs of fighting the war on terror have already been far higher than they needed to be. The U.S. should not take on even greater war debt without understanding the true costs of continuing down that path.

© 2011 The Los Angeles Times

Time to Repeal Congress' Blank Check on Wars

by Barbara Lee from Commondreams.org

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress passed a joint resolution broadly authorizing the president to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against those involved in attacking our nation and to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States. I was the only member of Congress who voted against the "Authorization for the Use of Military Force" because I knew some would use it as a blank check to wage war anywhere around the world. It is safe to say that if we knew at the time what the next decade would bring, I would not have been alone.

In the nine years since Congress passed this authorization, the United States has waged two wars at a cost of more than $1 trillion. Afghanistan has now become the longest war in our history - longer than World War II or the Vietnam war. Estimates for the total direct and indirect costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq by their end range from $5 trillion to $7 trillion with more than 5,700 Americans having given their lives in these conflicts. As we watch an increasing number of lives lost abroad and jobs lost at home, it is clear we cannot accept a policy of open-ended war without accepting a less prosperous, less secure country for ourselves and future generations. Every additional dollar invested in war is a dollar we take away from much-needed investments in health care, education, infrastructure and clean energy that will preserve and create high-quality jobs, as well as ensure America's future competitiveness.

Unfortunately, my prediction that the broad 2001 authorization would open a Pandora's box has come true - and not just in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Domestically, civil rights advocates have challenged the legality of the National Security Agency's warrantless electronic surveillance and wiretapping activities. The detention center at Guantanamo Bay, operated under the pretext of "all necessary and appropriate force," continues to symbolize our eroding constitutional values. United Nations officials have expressed concern over lack of accountability within U.S. intelligence-run targeted killing operations, most notably drone strikes and related civilian casualties. Further, U.S. involvement or tacit backing of military operations in Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere shows that an indefinite pursuit of loosely defined global targets is opening the door to war without end. All this, and more, started with that fateful vote on Sept. 14, 2001. Encouragingly, we are hearing bipartisan calls both inside and outside Congress that America cannot afford, nor is it in our long-term national security interest, to wage endless war around the world. As long as the expansive mandate of the 2001 authorization remains in force, the politics of "victory" may result in an ever-growing U.S. military commitment.

Correcting mistakes begins with accepting them. So I have introduced bipartisan legislation for Congress to sunset and repeal the "Authorization for the Use of Military Force" over a six-month period.

This legislation is not a referendum on any one U.S. operation, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere. The repeal of the act is about Congress restoring its constitutional prerogative in determining and defining the commitments of our country while at war. Anything less does a disservice to our military service members, our nation, and our democracy.

© 2010 The San Francisco Chronicle

Barbara Lee represents Oakland and other parts of Alameda County in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Flying the Flag, Faking the News

Published on Thursday, September 2, 2010 by The New Statesman

Flying the Flag, Faking the News

Loud noises from Washington about a US pull-out from Iraq are a poor disguise for America’s determination to keep waging war. And the same sort of spin is at work in Britain

by John Pilger from Commondreams.org

Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, is said to have invented modern propaganda. During the First World War, he was one of a group of influential liberals who mounted a secret government campaign to persuade reluctant Americans to send an army to the bloodbath in Europe. In his book Propaganda, published in 1928, Bernays wrote that the "intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society", and that the manipulators "constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country". Instead of propaganda, he coined the euphemism "public relations".

The American tobacco industry hired Bernays to convince women that they should smoke in public. By associating smoking with women's liberation, he made cigarettes "torches of freedom". In 1954, he conjured a communist menace in Guatemala as an excuse for overthrowing the democratically elected government, whose social reforms were threatening the United Fruit Company's monopoly of the banana trade. He called it a "liberation".

Bernays was no rabid right-winger. He was an elitist liberal who believed that "engineering public consent" was for the greater good. This could be achieved by the creation of "false realities" which then became "news events". Here are examples of how it is done these days.

False reality The last US combat troops have left Iraq "as promised, on schedule", according to President Barack Obama. The TV news has been filled with cinematic images of the "last US soldiers", silhouetted against the dawn light, crossing the border into Kuwait.

Fact They have not left. At least 50,000 troops will continue to operate from 94 bases. American air assaults are unchanged, as are special forces' assassinations. The number of "military contractors" is 100,000 and rising. Most Iraqi oil is now under direct foreign control.

False reality BBC presenters have described the departing US troops as a "sort of victorious army" that has achieved "a remarkable change in [Iraq's] fortunes". Their commander, General David Petraeus, is a "celebrity", "charming", "savvy" and "remarkable".

Fact There is no victory of any sort. There is a catastrophic disaster, and attempts to present it as otherwise are a model of Bernays's campaign to "rebrand" the slaughter of the First World War as "necessary" and "noble". In 1980, Ronald Reagan, running for president, rebranded the invasion of Vietnam, in which up to three million people died, as a "noble cause", a theme taken up enthusiastically by Hollywood. Today's Iraq war movies have a similar purging theme: the invader as both idealist and victim.

False reality It is not known how many Iraqis have died. They are "countless", or maybe "in the tens of thousands".

Fact As a direct consequence of the Anglo-American-led invasion, a million Iraqis have died. This figure, from Opinion Research Business, follows peer-reviewed research by Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC, whose methods were secretly affirmed as "best practice" and "robust" by the Blair government's chief scientific adviser. This is rarely reported or presented to "charming" American generals. Neither is the dispossession of four million Iraqis, the malnourishment of most Iraqi children, the epidemic of mental illness, or the poisoning of the environment.

False reality The British economy has a deficit of billions which must be reduced with cuts in public services and regressive taxation, in a spirit of "we're all in this together".

Fact We are not in this together. What is remarkable about this PR triumph is that only 18 months ago, the diametric opposite filled TV screens and front pages. Then, in a state of shock, truth became unavoidable, if briefly. The Wall Street and City of London trough was on full view for the first time, along with the venality of once-celebrated snouts. Billions in public money went to inept and crooked organisations known as banks, which were spared debt liability by their Labour government sponsors.

Within a year, record profits and personal bonuses were posted and the "black hole" was no longer the responsibility of the banks, whose debt is to be paid by those not in any way responsible: the public. The received media wisdom of this "necessity" is now a chorus, from the BBC to the Sun. A masterstroke, Bernays would surely say.

False reality Ed Miliband offers a "genuine alternative" as leader of the Labour Party.

Fact Miliband, like his brother and almost all those standing for the Labour leadership, is immersed in the effluent of New Labour. As a New Labour MP and minister, he did not refuse to serve under Blair or to speak out against Labour's persistent warmongering. He now calls the invasion of Iraq a "profound mistake". Calling it a mistake insults the memory and the dead. It was a crime, of which the evidence is voluminous. He has nothing new to say about the other colonial wars, none of them mistakes. Neither has he demanded basic social justice - that those who caused the recession clear up the mess and that Britain's fabulously rich corporate minority be taxed seriously, starting with Rupert Murdoch.

The good news is that false realities often fail when the public trusts its own critical intelligence. Two classified documents recently released by WikiLeaks express the CIA's concern that the populations of European countries, which oppose their governments' war policies, are not succumbing to the usual propaganda spun through the media.

For the rulers of the world, this is a conundrum, because their unaccountable power rests on the false reality that no popular resistance works. And it does.

© 2010 New Statesman

John Pilger was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He has been a war correspondent, film-maker and playwright. Based in London, he has written from many countries and has twice won British journalism's highest award, that of "Journalist of the Year," for his work in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Ann Wright Visits Guam

Ex-envoy warns against US plan for Guam
Wednesday, 22 July 2009 00:51 by Jude Lizama
Marianas Variety News Staff

A FORMER U.S. diplomat turned peace activist advised Guam residents to be
wary of the American government’s military buildup plan for the
island.Retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright speaks against war and
militarization during a presentation held Monday at the University of Guam.

“We need to be looking very carefully at what our federal government does
to us,” said Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army colonel who spoke to a small
crowd on the implications of the relocation of 8,000 U.S. Marines from
Okinawa to Guam during a presentation held Monday night at the University of
Guam.

“While we all want to be safe and secure in the world, sometimes our federal
government uses this issue of national security to do things to us that we
normally wouldn’t put up with,” she added.

Wright accompanied members of the Code Pink Japan, a peace activist group,
who visited Guam to discuss the impact of the military buildup with local
activists. The group left Guam yesterday.

“Our delegation is here in solidarity with the people of Guam in terms of
the movement of 8,000 marines from Okinawa. The people of Japan,
particularly the people on Okinawa, have been working very hard to remove
some of the extensive military forces. Now, they seem to be coming to your
lovely island,” said Wright, a native of Arkansas.

“The [Okinawans] certainly understand that whenever the U.S. military lands
somewhere, it leaves a very large footprint. You all know it very well,
because much of your land is already occupied by the U.S. military,” the
former U.S. envoy told the audience.


Anti-war
Wright is a former U.S. deputy ambassador who was assigned in Sierra Leone,
Afghanistan, Mongolia and Micronesia. She joined the military at the time
when the U.S. military was invading Vietnam.

On March 19, 2003, the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Wright cabled a
letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin Powell, stating that
without the authorization of the UN Security Council, the invasion and
occupation of a Muslim, Arab, oil-rich country would be a isaster. Since
then, she has been writing and speaking out for peace and is now a resident
of Honolulu.

“It has been deeply emotional for all of us. Here we are in war again. The
United States has started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” she said. “When you
look at the number of civilians who have been killed in Iraq, Afghanistan,
and Guam, it brings home to us all what we should be working on.”

“The history of the United States is not a peaceful history,” said Wright,
who added that the U.S. has, “a history of invading other countries.”


Land grabbing
With regard to the local military buildup, Wright told the audience that,
“You have been seeing your own lands being taken from you,” adding that,
“The federal government builds without your agreement. They build enormous
facilities that have disastrous effects on your environment.”
The retired colonel suggested that people weigh the importance of their own
lands, and whether or not it is worth it to lose those lands for an increase
in short term values such as trade and business.
“Once the federal government gets its hands into something it never
gets it out. With the Obama administration I certainly hope that we will all
join together to throw out many of the provisions of the Patriot Act that
are really curtailing our own civil liberties,” she said.


Threatened
Japanese parliamentarian and Code Pink member Sumi Fujita said that because
of the long military presence and all of the rape cases in Okinawa, “women
[there] now feel threatened.”

“All of the military promises to help the Okinawan economy have been a big
lie,” Fujita said, through interpreter Hisae Ogawa.

As for the rape issue, Wright said, “This is a failure in leadership that is
coming to you, that will allow this to continue.”

“Sometimes being an activist leads to things that you’d never thought you’d
be doing,” said Wright.

The former U.S. diplomat also stated that we should all be aware of the
“isms” created by policy makers. “Our government has been very good, meaning
very bad, in using the ‘isms’ like communism, terrorism, and fascism to
frighten and scare the American public so that they can do things that
normally we would protest,” she said. “It something we should always be very
wary of, when there’s another ‘ism’ coming up.”

Fallen Soldier's Diary: Jonathan Santos

Fallen soldier's diary: Santos' words speak profoundly of life and war
By Brett Kelman
Pacific Daily News
December 6, 2008

Hunkered down in a desert and surrounded by killers, U.S. Army Spc. Jonathan Santos scribbled in a worn journal he'd carried since he flew into Iraq excited and woozy on Dramamine. He wrote about wanting to live so he could go on to accomplish "great" things.

"I will write the great American novel and get hired as a professor at a prestigious university," he wrote on Oct. 10, 2004. "But first I have to make it out of this war alive ... And I will go to college and move on to do great things with my life. Look out world. I'm almost free."

The 22-year-old Guam native recorded intimate details about his 38 days in Iraq -- both in the journal and in a video diary. He was killed on day 38.

A documentary titled "The Corporal's Diary" -- created from Santos' journal and home videos -- has made headlines nationwide. It includes details about his squad mates' and his family's struggle to cope with their loss.

Yesterday, Santos' mother, Doris Pangelinan Kent, said she always keeps a copy of her son's journal by her side, so that when she misses her son, she can hear him.

"For those of us who know Jonathan, you can hear his voice in what he wrote and hear everything he hoped to do," she said. "I know it was a dream of Jonathan's to go back to Guam. He wanted to go. And so I want for the film to come to Guam so people can see who they can be proud of. Jonathan has given us so much to be proud of as a people."

Santos most recently lived in Guam from 1992 to 1997, between his father's tours of duty in Germany. He graduated from Piti Middle School in 1997, Kent wrote in an e-mail.

Santos' father, Staff Sgt. Les Santos is in active duty in the Guam Army Reserves.

Santos was recruited into the Army out of high school in 2001. He was deployed to Haiti on a mission of peace, Kent said. He was shifted from Haiti to Fort Bragg in North Carolina for training before heading to Iraq in 2004.

On some pages of his journal, Santos' tall looping letters spill into the margins of the pages. He cursed. He left exclamation points everywhere. And when he felt strongly about something, he capitalized everything.

After his layover in Germany, Santos poured jokes, musings and fears into his journal. He wrote daily right up to the end -- 38 days, 37 pages -- and injected his humor into every page.

"Tomorrow is the first day of Ramidon, the Muslim equivalent of Lent, or equive-Lent," Santos wrote in his journal on Oct. 14, 2004. The following day he was killed.

His family now lives in Bellingham, Wash., a coastal town about 50 miles south of the Canadian border. Kent and her two other sons live in a house coated with photos of their fallen hero.

Kent said without Justin and Jared, she would be lost.

"If it wasn't for them, I wanted to die, you know. I missed Jonathan so much," Kent said yesterday. "I miss him every day."

Santos became the seventh son of Micronesia to die in the War on Terror when a suicide bomber attacked a military vehicle and killed him and two others on Oct. 15, 2004.

His story is reminiscent of other fallen soldiers. He was young and aspiring. He went to fight a war in a faraway place, and he didn't come back. He missed home and home still misses him.

But unlike so many other soldiers' stories, Santos' has been preserved.

It was at that Bellingham home where Kent received Santos' military trunk containing the belongings he left behind when he died. Inside were his gear, books, his combat boots -- and his memories.

"I had never known Jonathan to keep a journal," Kent said yesterday. "I had anticipated the video cassettes and a video camera coming back. He had just bought it and he took it everywhere and videotaped everything in his life. He was just so enamored with it, I knew the tapes would be there. But when I went through the box, I found the little book."

Santos' journal comes packed with details about his deployment. His brother narrated the documentary by reading the journal over footage from Santos' camera. Together they paint a picture of an undeniably likable young man.

He was a bit of a goof. He liked video games, movies and boozy birthday parties. When the barracuda eats all the clownfish in beginning of "Finding Nemo," Santos gets angry. And like many people, he read "The DaVinci Code" in two days. It was the last book he finished, according to his journal.

Theater showings of the documentary sold out in Santos' home town when the movie was released in October, according to the Bellingham Herald. The film made waves in the nearby city of Seattle.

On Nov. 27, Good Morning America profiled the documentary and its story about Santos and another soldier, Pfc. Matthew Drake, whom he befriended in Iraq. Drake survived the attack that killed Santos, but was left physically and mentally disabled.

In the aftermath of her son's death, Kent reached out to the soldier who lived. Kent said she met with Drake and his mother so they could bond over their sons' friendship. She found Drake on a long road to recovery, with his mother suffering from survivors' guilt. When they parted, everyone had healed a little, she said.

This year was especially hard, Kent said, because as the U.S. presidential election dragged on, the deadly war in Iraq was always under debate. The casualties on the nightly news were a constant reminder of her son. She feels each loss as if it were her own.

"Every day was like reliving Jonathan being killed again and again and realizing that other mothers were hearing it for the first time that their son was gone. It was just relentless," she said, sobbing a little.

Guam's Young Steeped in History, Line Up to Enlist

Guam's Young, Steeped in History, Line Up to Enlist
U.S. Territory Pays High Cost in War Deaths
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, January 27, 2008; Page A15

BARRIGADA, Guam -- As a recruiter for the Guam Army National Guard, Staff Sgt. Gonzalo Fernandez has oodles of time for golf. In the past two years, he has taken 18 strokes off his handicap.

Slipping away to the links, however, has done nothing to dull his rising star at the office. Thanks to the eagerness of young Americans on this remote Pacific island to join the military, Fernandez is a two-time winner of the Guard's recruiter of the year award for a seven-state western region that includes Colorado, Utah and California.

"I'll win it again this year," said Fernandez, who also expects to have time for a lot more midweek golf. "I have a very relaxing life."

On the U.S. mainland, long-running wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made life miserable for military recruiters. The armed forces have repeatedly missed enlistment targets, and standards have been lowered in response. More recruits with criminal records and histories of drug abuse have been allowed to enlist. And recruiters, pressured to meet quotas, have increasingly been accused of unethical and criminal misconduct.

Nothing of the sort is happening here.

Part of the reason is economic. Poverty rates and unemployment on Guam -- a U.S. territory located more than 7,500 miles west of Los Angeles -- are historically much higher than on the mainland, and wages are low. Schools are poor, and technical training is hard to find. There is not much for young people to do.

But those are not the most important reasons, according to enlistees and recruiters, families of soldiers killed in action and veterans of the Iraq war.

The key factor, they agree, is the island's unique status in American history. People here grow up with war ringing in their ears -- as described by their grandparents.

Guam, a U.S. possession since it was taken in 1898 from the Spanish, is the only American soil with a sizable population to have been occupied by a foreign military power.

During World War II, the Japanese held the island for almost three years and brutalized nearly everyone on it. They created concentration camps, forcing the indigenous Chamorro people to provide slave labor and sex.

"If there is a group of Americans who understand the price of freedom, we do," said Michael W. Cruz, lieutenant governor of Guam and a colonel in the Army National Guard.

Cruz's grandmother told him awful stories: She was held in a concentration camp. She was forced to watch as Japanese soldiers chopped off the heads of her brother and her eldest son. Her eldest daughters were forced into prostitution.

Today, Guam is a haven for Japanese tourists, who account for most of the visitors to the island and whose spending powers much of the economy. But people haven't forgotten.

"We saw war in color -- the beaches were splattered with blood," said Cruz, referring to the 1944 liberation of Guam by U.S. forces, in which 3,000 Americans and 18,000 Japanese were killed.
"When our nation calls us to serve, it is for us to answer it," Cruz said.

So military recruiters on Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, also administered by the United States, have an embarrassment of riches. Standards have not been lowered. Targets are routinely exceeded. At his Army National Guard office, Fernandez meets potential recruits only if they call ahead and make an appointment.

With a population of 173,000, Guam ranked No. 1 in 2007 for recruiting success in the Army National Guard's assessment of 54 states and territories. (Maryland ranked last, the District second to last, and Virginia was 30th.)

"I have got 12 people who want to join up this month," Fernandez said. "But I can only process three of them because of lack of doctors to give them physicals. We can afford to be picky."
Roshjun Aguon, 19, plans to join the Army when he finishes his agriculture studies at the University of Guam, where he is in ROTC.

Serving in the military, he said, is in his family's blood. His father, his two uncles and most of his cousins have joined. His cousin Richard Junior D. Naputi, 24, was killed two years ago in Iraq by an improvised explosive device.

"Of course the unpopularity of this war affects us," Aguon said. "Mothers and sisters do not want to see us go off to war. But it is a tradition for my family."

And for the entire population. Liberation Day, July 21, is far and away the most important of Guam's holidays -- and is celebrated for the better part of a month, with speeches, parades and wild parties.

During the Vietnam War, at least 70 servicemen from Guam were killed, a death rate nearly three times the national average. That war was not viewed on Guam as misguided or a failure, many residents here say.

In the current wars, Micronesia is absorbing an exceptionally high death toll -- 10 from Guam, 14 from the rest of Micronesia. On a per capita basis, various parts of Micronesia have killed-in-action rates up to five times as high as on the mainland.

But that has not hurt recruiting. In fact, commanders here limit the number of war-zone duty tours for which soldiers can volunteer -- so that other soldiers can get a chance to see action, according to Lt. Col. Marvin R. Manibusan, commander of the Guam Army National Guard's recruiting and retention division.

Poster-size pictures of the dead are displayed at the international airport.

One photograph is of Army Maj. Henry San Nicolas Ofeciar, who was killed in an ambush in Afghanistan in August. He was a 37-year-old career officer and had volunteered for duty in a combat zone.

His mother is Agnes Rillera.

"The pain of his death I will take to the grave," she said. "But I respect my son's decision to serve. You tell Washington that we support what he did."

When Ofeciar's remains were flown back to Guam, hundreds of people showed up at the airport to pay their respects -- even though the coffin arrived on a flight that landed in the middle of the night, Rillera said.

The governor and lieutenant governor of Guam have gone to the airport to receive the bodies of most of the fatalities.

When a hearse carrying the coffin of a war casualty leaves the airport and travels across the island, which is about three times the size of the District of Columbia, residents here often line the streets in silence, holding up candles.

The people of Guam are very much aware of the failings of U.S. policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Ofeciar's sister, Orlene Ofeciar Arriola.

"One thing about Guam, as compared to the mainland, we are not as fickle," she said. "Our loved ones made a commitment. We are not going to dishonor their service because the policy is not correct."

A Letter from the Frontlines

From No Rest for the Awake - Minagahet Chamorro:

This essay was written in my effort to express a local perspective into a war few in the media, and island understand. I sent it to Pacific Daily News, after making contact with a editor through email and was asked to write and send pictures. I did and found no response since. I could not find a contact in Marianas Variety so if any do please forward this, with the intention of remembering those from the Islands who have served and remain a ripple in the pond, have created change and are a part of a change regardless if seen as good or bad, honorable men and women who gave, or give the ultimate sacrifice, being gone for long periods of time from their families or to a higher place....................

First and for most, I would like to convey my families condolences to the to former senator Umpingco's family. All people from all parts of Guam, appreciate the sacrifice he, and his family gave to serve our Island.

I write to you not for fame or recognition, but to share a event that might bring the war closer to home, and sharing one of my experience's in Iraq. This is a example of the emotional rolacoster that we face everyday. I hope that those that read this (if published) understand my intentions for it's weight in my heart compelled me to write .......

I arrived In Balad, Iraq with high hopes of finding friends and family, like I did in 2006. A second tour for me, and a holiday free tour in the sand box. I met the Guam National Guards 909th, Gil Reyes of Yona, Craig, my second cousin from Malojojo and David Quimbao from Talofofo, a childhood friend and brother in arms. To my surprise and dismay, those days of comfort and taste of home no longer existed. I visited the former building of the 909th, and asked a officer I saw walking out if he knew where the the Chamoru's were and he looked at me with a no idea. I found it alittle disturbing considering the big cement mortar barrier with the 909th emblem and Guam seal to their backs, and they still had no idea of whom I speak.

As I drove away with mixed feelings about them being gone and me being alone, and reassuring my self of the better morning my comrades will have because they will wake up too their families in Guam, something struck me to the core. A man was standing along the fence line with a little girl in his arms courting with the other towards the little girl in his arms saying loud and clear " Gift, Gifts, Gift", as to gesture something from the impenetrable walls that divide us. To help clarify what a man was doing out side the fence, I must explain. Outside the wire, farmers tend to their sunflower patches, and other vegetables while still tending to the children and live stock. All my training did not prepare me for what I was seeing. I could respond to incoming mortar, and taking on enemy fire, but this hopefully innocent gesture by this farmer, did me in. All my thoughts of fighting and unhappiness from being away from home stopped. I did what every well trained sailor or soldier would do.....

I have flown in helicopters over homes made of clay and farms as green as the Talofofo valleys in the middle of a desert, I have seen many of things, nothing more troubling than the man outside the wire with that little girl. It brought to light questions of this war, and what that man, like those of his country think. With Guam always in my mind, and the image of that man and child staring in the fence, I immediately related with the thought of us Chamoru's looking in the fence on our own land, and saw me and my 2 girls (Ha'ani & Sinahi), looking at the already crowded island with base's extending the fence lines with the soon movement of Marines, and the island's economic hand being led into reliance on the federal government or foreign investors. Every day away from my family, and Guam, the more I ponder on our course as a people, just like those in Iraq hoping the effort put into this war, and it's restructuring is really for their benefit.

To those fellow Chamoru's who have served and sacrificed their lives, I remember you and your sacrifice, and use that fuel to keep my head up with the love from my wife and two kids.

If I could convey one message, to people in Guam, " Hita I man Taotao Tano! Hita I kutura, I linguahi, i biblia, I ire yan I Tano Chamoru!" Your pains are the pains of every people, no matter the shades of ones skin, we must work toward a common goal of affordability in our home land, and our acceptance of changes on our own terms.

Saina Ma'ase,
Sean R, "Aguon" Sanchez