Casey Porter Is Back Behind The Camera

[Fire on the Mountain is proud to able to post the latest video produced by Iraq Veterans Against the War member Casey J. Porter from the frontlines in Iraq. Previous installments can be found here and here.



I'm not going to try to better Casey's description:

The latest film, Deconstructed, continues to show the realities of war. Featuring statements from former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Former President Bill Clinton, The O'Reilly Factor host Bill O'Reilly, amongst many others, this is a look into the arrogance and lies of those who promoted, and continue to promote this war interlaced with combat footage straight from Iraq. Included are scenes of Soldiers not only speaking their minds, but speaking the truth about the continued occupation of Iraq.

Also featured are some of the harsh realities of combat and in the midst of that combat, good Soldiers continuing to make the best out of it by helping their "adopted" child at their combat outpost. This is an honest look into the minds of Soldiers, and an honest look into their lives during a deployment.

This is Deconstructed.

[The usual hat tip to Jeri Reed.]

Read more!

Casey J Porter Breaks the Lob-Bomb Story!

Two days ago the Washington Post broke a story on a new weapon that Shi'ite resistance forces in Iraq are using against US Troops there.

U.S. military officials call the devices Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions, or IRAMs. They are propane tanks packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives and powered by 107mm rockets.

Then again, you might have already known about it, that is, if you follow the videos being posted by Casey J Porter, a soldier based near Baghdad who is an active-duty member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. FotM has been proud to carry previous videos of his, like this one, and a moving letter of apology for the occupation he wrote.

His latest vlog from inside the Sandbox is call "A.O.--Area of Operations."

The video opens with this text:

Lob-Bombs are the new threat here in Iraq. It is the process of taking an oxygen tank that is used for welding and using it as a weapon. You cut it open and pack a portion of it with ball bearings, screws, and bolts. You then weld the tank back together and put pressure into it, some 3,000 pounds of pressure per square inch.

For maximum effectiveness, you attach mortars or small rockets to the side and set those off.

The video gives you a real-time glimpse of a Lob-Bomb attack in which two US troops died. Casey points out that the military reported these deaths to the media and the American public as resulting from "small arms fire."

Unh-hunh.

[And thanks again to the invaluable Jeri Reed for the tip-off.]

Read more!

Casey's in the Sandbox Now

Last week I posted a video made by a guy named Casey J. Porter. He was in Kuwait, waiting to be shipped into Iraq. Casey is an active duty soldier who got Stop-Lossed and sent back to Iraq a couple weeks ago. He's also an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, and he's taken his video camera with him. His goal--to give folks here (and troops who haven't been shipped to Iraq yet) a sense of what it's like to be part of an occupying army in a distant country in a senseless war.

This one records the mortar attacks that hit the FOB as soon as they got there. Check it out.



And thanks again to Jeri Reed, this time for kicking this to me as soon as it was up at YouTube.

Read more!

Soldier Peeks Behind the Scenes in Kuwait

[Another note from Jeri Reed, who wrote the powerful piece on the anti-war struggle I posted here only two days ago. This one introduces a new video by a friend of hers, a young IVAW member just Stop-Lossed from Ft. Hood to the Big Sandbox, who gives us a look behind the scenes at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, en route.]

Casey J. Porter posted a new video online today, The Staging Game. At first I thought, maybe I have sent out too many emails--until I watched it. You have to see the end of this one, when he visits the Harley dealer at his camp in Kuwait. I have spent many hours with such tools as maps and Google Earth, trying to envision what these bases are like, and never really understood until I watched this. A powerful message to soldiers on their first deployment who just don't get what the game is all about yet. Of course, Casey is no longer at this camp/shopping mall in Kuwait, but in the middle of Iraq, in an area with a lot of rocketing and mortaring and US air strikes, so think of him while you are watching.

Read more!

Black NJ Organizes Against the War--2008 edition!

Yesterday, the People's Peace and Justice Coalition held its 2008 conference in Newark, NJ. Fire on the Mountain has been covering the Coalition since before the inaugural conference was held last year with over 500 participants. Since then, the Coalition held an even larger indoor rally and the historic People's March for Peace, Equality, Jobs and Justice through downtown Newark on a scorching August day.

When the assembly was called to order by Larry Hamm of the People's Organization for Progress, we thought we might be looking at a real setback--there were fewer than one hundred people in the hall at Rutgers. As it turned out, folks kept coming and, unusually, the conference hit its peak in mid-afternoon with over 250 people present at one time, overwhelmingly from the African-American, Latina/o and other minority communities of Northern NJ.

Among them was a sizable contingent from the street organization The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation, who have seen a good number of their Northern NJ members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. They attended workshops with titles like "Challenging Military recruitment Among the Poor, Working Class, People of Color & Immigrants," "Stop the Violence: Ending the War in Our Streets," "Building the Peace Justice Movement Among Young People," and "The Influence of the Prison Industrial Complex & the War."

Still, while the event went very well, we need to reflect on why participation in the Coalition has not continued to grow. POP Chairman Larry Hamm and I had to cut out at the start of the morning workshops and make a run to the Ironbound section of Newark for a community and hospital workers rally against the closing of St. James Medical Center. The drive over gave us a chance to consider why the attendance was off back at Rutgers. Brother Hamm felt that the short participation might be his fault, given that he hadn't spent a lot of time making his usual personal phone calls to build attendance among the clergy and elected officials. I suggested a significant growth in cynicism since the Democratic majority in Congress had essentially ignored why their Republican rivals had been tossed out in '06 ("End this criminal war, dummies!").

In Ironbound, we came face to face with another reason: about 750 people, mostly neighborhood residents, protesting the closing of their hospital! This was an interesting contrast to the weak community response to the closing of other hospitals throughout Newark and Essex County recently. This powerful protest reminded us was that the survival struggles of poor and working folk are so urgent that they take priority over issues like stopping the war, even though most of them recognize the direct connection with the trillions of dollars being wasted on the war and worsening living conditions here.

Back at the conference, a conversation with Margaret Stevens of Iraq Veterans Against the War (a sponsoring organization of the Peace & Justice Coalition) helped me see something else that has changed since last year. Margaret described how one early and dedicated member of the new NJ Chapter of IVAW had gotten so wrapped up in the presidential campaign of Congressman Dennis Kucinich, that he is not very active in the veterans anti-war movement. The lure of "quick fixes" is in some ways a mirror image of the view that the war against Iraq a matter of individual leadership errors. So too many concentrate on electing a President who promises (sort of) to end the war, or on impeachement, at the expense of the drive to bring the troops home has disarmed the bring the troops home movement.

The crowd was buoyed throughout its day's work by exciting cultural performances including the Martin Luther King, Jr. Association of Columbia High School Gospel Choir, the NJ Industrial Union Council's Solidarity Singers, and the return of Nell Sanders' incredible drumming.

To see addition photographs from the January 2008 People's Peace Conference, go to the People's Organization for Progress photo page http://homepage.mac.com/union_county_labor/Peoples_Org_for_Prog/PhotoAlbum160.html.

Read more!