A somber Veterans Day
The memorial marking the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, World War II -- though Veterans Day was meant to mark the previous war -- the "war to end all wars."
With the country having just memorialized those murdered at Fort Hood, and with our troops dying in increasing numbers in Afghanistan, and still dying in Iraq, it’s another sad Veterans Day. Still, here’s to all of those who have served, in wars past and present (including my next door neighbor, who returned not too long ago from his latest tour and is now enjoying civilian life.) To the old, and the young, the grizzled veterans and those just returning from war (and those still there) thank you and may God bless and keep you and your families.
Meanwhile, if you’re a history buff like me there’s more after the jump. Read more
Will Chickenhawk Joe use Fort Hood to go after Muslim troops?
Joe Lieberman spent the weekend mired in idle speculation (when he wasn’t threatening to kill healthcare reform by not allowing his Senate colleagues to vote).
Another "Joe" -- Joseph McCarthy, launched the "Army-McCarthy hearings" in 1954.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut who heads the Senate’s Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, said initial evidence suggested that the alleged shooter, Army Major Nidal Hasan, was a “self-radicalized, home-grown terrorist” who had turned to Islamic extremism while under personal stress
… Mr. Lieberman, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” cautioned that it remained too early to draw any definitive conclusions. He said his comments were based on “reports that we are receiving” about Mr. Hasan’s actions and comments.
… Mr. Lieberman said that if news reports were true that Mr. Hasan had turned to Islamic extremism, “the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most-destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11.”
“We don’t know enough to say now, but there are very, very strong warning signs here that Dr. Hasan had become an Islamist extremist and, therefore, that this was a terrorist act,” Mr. Lieberman added.
So … the teevee news told Joe that terrorists may be infiltrating our military, though he can’t say so for sure, but that doesn’t stop him from invoking 9/11 … so now he’s going to have hearings on it? What is Joe going to do? Hold up lists containing the names of every Muslim currently serving in the United States military, and demand that they appear before him and answer as to whether they are now, or have ever been, an Islamic extremist? And … this guy is still chairman of the Homeland Security committee … why, again? Mr. Lieberman may be about to walk down a familiar road for self-important Senators named “Joe,” to whom too much power has been given:
By 1953, Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy had become one of America’s best-known politicians through his campaigns to uncover subversives in government operations. His attacks on the U.S. Army in the fall of 1953 led to the first televised hearings in U.S. history, the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. The American public watched McCarthy live in action, and they didn’t much care for what they saw. Popular approval for McCarthy eroded during the hearings and his eventual fall from power became just a matter of time.
In the fall of 1953, McCarthy conducted an investigation of the Army Signal Corps. His announced intent was to locate an alleged espionage ring, but he turned up nothing. However, McCarthy’s treatment of General Ralph W. Zwicker during that investigation angered many. McCarthy insulted Zwicker’s intelligence and commented that he was not fit to wear his uniform.
And no, at long last, Joe — who received multiple draft deferments so he wouldn’t have to fight in Vietnam, like his political doppleganger, Dick Cheney, and just about every other member of the neocon cabal, but who supports sending other people’s sons to die overseas, and who now apparently plans to investigate those wearing the uniform for their religion (rather than , say, letting the Army do its job, and looking into whether there are adequate mental health screenings to keep highly stressed and possibly dangerous individuals away from fellow troops…) has no decency. Read more
13th Fort Hood victim ties; FBI probing whether web postings tied to Hasan
New details this morning on the shooting at Fort Hood, from USA Today, which also reports that a 13th victim has died:
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. citizen born in Virginia to Jordanian parents, was wounded by a civilian police officer responding to a shooting rampage that is believed to be the worst ever at a U.S. base, said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, commanding general of Fort Hood.
Hasan was unconscious Friday, on a ventilator and in custody in a hospital. Immediately after the shootings, authorities began trying to determine whether the incident was a coordinated act or the work of a lone gunman. Three other people were questioned but were released, Cone said. Read more
Arab, Muslim groups condemn Fort Hood attack
… and brace themselves for the backlash. Funny how there is no backlash against the entire faith when a Christian commits a horrendous crime…
Ralph Peters keeps smearing Private Bergdahl, with O’Reilly’s help
… with the help of fellow douchebag Bill O’Reilly, last night. And he and O’Reilly don’t even bother to address Peters’ fantasies about the Taliban murdering an American soldier. In fact, Peters has apparently changed his mind, at least about the murder … Oh, and O’Reilly has “been to Afghanistan,” mostly likely in full G.I. Joe gear … right??? Watch:
Peters claims that he has talked to a “senior military person.” Why do I get the feeling that person is in his mirror… Meanwhile, 23 members of Congress from both parties have sent a letter to Roger Ailes:
“As members of Congress and veterans of the United States Armed Forces, it was with incredulity and disgust that we watched Fox News Strategic Analyst Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters (Ret.) suggest on your airwaves that Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, “abandoned his buddies, abandoned his post, and just walked off,” and stated that, if this is true, ‘the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.’”
… “We demand an apology to PFC Bergdahl’s family and to the thousands of soldiers who put their lives on the line for our country. As a member of the military family, Mr. Peters should measure his remarks and remember that the United States will never abandon one of its own.”
And one Congressman, Eric Massa, wants O’Reilly and Peters fired. Yeah. Good luck with that. We’re talking Roger Ailes…
So what have actual reporters been able to find out? Rick Sanchez reached out to actual military leaders, as did NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski, senior Pentagon corespondent from NBC. Here’s what they had to say:
Sanchez: “Is the military saying that he’s a deserter in any way? We have checked. No, not at all.”
Miklaszewski: “senior Pentagon and military officials have ruled that out entirely, they say there is no evidence that he is a deserter. … They also point out that remarks like that are not the least bit helpful and in fact could endanger Pfc Bergdahl.”
Watch Rick’s rant. He also digs into Peters’ background, which apparently doesn’t include having ever been in combat (he tells O’Reilly he has been “on patrols.” Hm…
Go Rick!
Flashback: Peters once styled himself a defender of soldiers being “smeared” by the New York Times. Ah, irony.
Meanwhile, former SERE trainer and intelligence expert Malcolm Nance comes to Private Bergdahl’s defense:
Despite the nature of the conflict, Bergdahl is not a prisoner of war – he is a terrorist hostage. The difference is important. The United States government classifies persons held against their will in several different categories, depending on the captor and the circumstances of conflict. In a war where one state is a signatory of the Geneva Convention, the soldiers taken off the battlefield are prisoners of war. In an insurgency war against irregular and unlawful battlefield combatants – bandits, terrorists or even armed civilians or vigilantes – soldiers captured are considered hostages. …
… Like all hostages, Bergdahl is under immense psychological stress. His fate rests on the unknown and his life and freedom are in the hands of others. Already, he has managed to make it well past a point where other, more hardnosed soldiers would have been killed.
And:
Barring a demonstrated history of joining and fighting for the Taliban, second-guessing Bergdahl’s behavior and statements – as some commentators like Fox News analyst Ralph Peters are already doing – is pointless. Peters’ on-air rant on Sunday, essentially daring the terrorists to kill an American serviceman (with the caveat that they should do so “if” he turns out to be a deserter), was disgraceful. No matter what the circumstances of capture, this type of fiery talk denigrates the memory of everyone who has ever died at the hands of a terrorist.
This is the very type of macho rhetoric we train SERE students to avoid. Civilian authorities and unit commanders must withhold judgment of what a hostage does under duress until after repatriation.
Amen.
Winger to Taliban holding U.S. troop: kill him
More proof that the right loves war, but hates the troops. This time, it’s Ralph Peters, a Fox News (surprise!) military pundit who recently suggested that the Taliban should just go ahead and execute a captured American soldier, 23-year-old Private Bowe Bergdahl, whom he (being nowhere near Afghanistan) has decided is a liar and a deserter, because in his expert opinion, soldiers never lag behind their patrols and get pinched by the enemy. Watch:
Just wondering: is suggesting that it might be a good thing for a foreign enemy with whom we are at war to murder an American serviceman considered technical treason? A rare rightie who has actually served, Blackfive, has it right (at least for now.) [Sidebar: per several comments -- the suggestion of rare righties who have served of course excludes Milbloggers, and refers to the most vocal section of the right wing commentariat -- Vietnam avoiders like Rush Limbaugh and pretty much all of the neocon think tankers and chickenhawks like Bill Kristol, plus elected military service avoiders like Dick Cheney and all but a handful of pro-war conservative Congressmen, who somehow aren't in favor of pay raises or decent healthcare for returning vets... just to clear that up ...] Blackfive to Peters:
Hey dipshit, the fact that we have a term like “break in contact” means that it happens. Who the hell is Ralph to call this kid a liar from a TV studio in the US. The first thing we all should do in the absence of solid info, is to give the kid a freakin’ break. He deserves the benefit of the doubt and for jackasses like Peters to start calling him a liar based on a completely inaccurate concept is pathetic.
Peters, a neocon/PNACer associated with Fox News and USA Today, the Murdoch New York Post, and who figured in the “Rathergate” affair, is retired military too, though he skipped Vietnam to attend Penn State and then enlisted afterward, spending his time in Germany, and thus avoiding the nasty business of actually having to kill anyone himself. Meanwhile, Peters isn’t the only one accusing Bergdahl of essentially defecting to the Taliban (and Blackfive says his view could change based on what unfolds.) A guy called P.J. Tobia, who calls himself an “independent freelance writer” working in Afghanistan (he had been embedded with the 101st Airborne,) claims he has sources who say Bergdahl quit his unit “to find himself in the mountains.” If Bergdahl did wander away from his unit, because he was drunk, or depressed, or for whatever reason, the bottom line is that he needs to be found, and because he is one of ours, we need to be praying for him, not endangering his life. If and when he is found, his commanders will properly debrief him. It’s not for stateside armchair warriors to judge him from waaaaay over here. Peters, and Michelle Malkin and the rest of the right, who are holding their own online court martial before the poor kid is even found, ought to can it, and at least pretend they give a damn about the people who put their lives on the line for this country (and their families.) More circumspect is the blogger Bouhammer, who calls himself a friend of Tobia’s and the parent of a deployed troop. But even Bouhammer focuses on Bergdahl’s “oddities”:
He came in the Army just one year ago. He enlisted in June of 2008, went to basic training, AIT, and airborne school before being assigned to the Geronimos of the 1/501st ABN. We now know he was home-schooled, and was very active in the ballet and in fencing. Not exactly the type of person that wants to excel and be part of a high-speed Airborne Infantry Unit, if you ask me. Could it be his fellow soldiers knew of his past and harassed him? Could they have made him feel like an outsider? Who knows, and really it does not matter as what he did (if desertion as PJ implies) is inexcusable. I am confident that as the past comes to light we will see this soldier demonstrated behavior that would be considered outside the norm.
That’s all very interesting (if somewhat contradicted by other reports that say he was indeed the kind of guy who wanted to “excel and be part of a high-speed Airborne Infantry Unit…”) Who knows? And the kid may well turn out to have been in an abnormal state of mind. But that’s a far cry from his being a “deserter” who some right wing pundit says should be killed by the Taliban.
UPDATE: ABC News reports Bergdahl may not be in Afghanistan anymore. And ThinkProgress has more of Ralph Peters’ right wing nuttery.
UPDATE 2: According to Brandon Friedman at VetVoice, Private Bergdahl isn’t the only person Ralph Peters is gunning for:
Such proclamations aren’t unusual for Peters, however. He actually has a bizarre penchant for executions. Recently, Peters stated his lusty desire to see the U.S. government execute all prisoners at Guantanamo Bay–without regard for their legal rights, and in spite of the fact that, in his own words, “there will be miscarriages of justice.” And in another instance in May of this year, Peters also called for “military attacks on the partisan media.”
Ralph just wants to see some executions. Doesn’t matter who. Soldier, terrorist, just anybody. Somebody needs to die. Now.
UPDATE 3: Bergdahl’s godmother hits back at his critics. And Media Bistro is reporting that Peters plans to go back on Fox and explain his comments, to of all people, Bill O’Reilly.
UPDATE 4: Dr. Rusty Shackleford writes the definitive post on Bergdahl, in my opinion, when he says: who cares how and why he got captured. And Shackleford makes another important point:
I think, perhaps, we may be confusing the term desertion with AWOL (Absent Without Leave).
Very few soldiers desert, but thousands of them go AWOL every year. The key difference being that a deserter leaves and intends never to return. Someone who goes AWOL simply leaves, but with the intention of coming back. Usually because there is some fun to be had. Say, with one of the local girls? Generally you don’t get permission from your commanding officer to visit the local red light district. Especially in Afghanistan.
Most AWOL cases are simply errors of judgment. You can’t put tens of thousands of college age men anywhere on Earth and not expect lapses of judgment.
And as far as I know, we don’t execute our soldiers for going AWOL, nor do we call on our enemies to do so for us. Bottom line — since nobody knows what happened, it’s cruel to his family, and to Private Bergdahl, to speculate (not to mention how helpful it is to the Taliban to have Americans suggesting they do to this guy what they might be pondering doing anyway.)
UPDATE 5: A dishonest winger lies about this post. And you just assumed bloggers could read…!
Maybe now the Bushies will talk to them
(BBC) Iran has test-fired nine missiles, including a new version of the Shahab-3, which is capable of reaching its main regional enemy Israel.
The Shahab-3, with a range of 2,000km (1,240 miles), was armed with a conventional warhead, state media said. Iran has tested the missile before, but the latest launch comes amid rising tensions with the US and Israel over the country’s nuclear programme.
The early morning launch at a remote desert site sent oil prices climbing.
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe called on Iran to “refrain from further missile tests if they truly seek to gain the trust of the world”.Two other types of missile with shorter ranges were also fired as part of the Great Prophet III war games being staged by Iran’s military.
PARIS — One day after threatening to strike Tel Aviv and United States interests if attacked, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were reported on Wednesday to have test-fired nine missiles, including one which the government in Tehran says has the range to reach Israel.State-run media said the missiles were long- and medium-range weapons, among them a new version of the Shahab-3, which Tehran maintains is able to hit targets 1,250 miles away from its firing position. Parts of western Iran are within 650 miles of Tel Aviv.
The reported tests coincide with increasingly tense negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, which Iran says is for civilian purposes but which many Western governments suspect is aimed at building nuclear weapons. At the same time, United States and British warships have been conducting naval maneuvers in the Persian Gulf — apparently within range of the launching site of the missiles tested on Wednesday. Israel insisted it did not want war with Iran.
“Israel has no desire for conflict or hostilities with Iran,” Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said. “But the Iranian nuclear program and the Iranian ballistic missile program must be of grave concern to the entire international community.”
The missile tests drew a sharp response from the United States. Gordon D. Johndroe, the deputy White House press secretary, said in a statement at the Group of 8 meeting in Japan that Iran’s development of ballistic missiles was a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
“The Iranian regime only furthers the isolation of the Iranian people from the international community when it engages in this sort of activity,” Mr. Johndroe said.
He urged Iran to “refrain from further missile tests if they truly seek to gain the trust of the world. The Iranians should stop the development of ballistic missiles which could be used as a delivery vehicle for a potential nuclear weapon immediately.”
As you might expect, the news shot the price of oil up, yet again.
… “Working with our European and regional allies is the best way to meet the threat posed by Iran, not unilateral concessions that undermine multilateral diplomacy,” McCain said in a statement.Obama has been criticized by Republicans for being too eager to engage enemies of the U.S. in talks. Asked how he would respond to the missile tests if he were president, Obama said he would confer with his national security team to find out whether “this indicates any new capabilities on Iran’s part.”
“At this point, the report is unclear, it’s still early,” Obama said on “The Early Show” on CBS. “What this underscores is the need for … a clear policy that is putting the burden on Iran to change behavior. And frankly, we just have not been able to do that the last several years, partly because we’re not engaged in direct diplomacy.”
Obama said he continued to favor an incentive package that is aimed at getting Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions.
And:
McCain said Iran’s missile tests “demonstrate again the dangers it poses to its neighbors and to the wider region, especially Israel.”“Ballistic missile testing coupled with Iran’s continued refusal to cease its nuclear activities should unite the international community in efforts to counter Iran’s dangerous ambitions,” McCain said.
Obama, while calling Iran a threat, criticized the Bush administration for using bellicose language against the Iranian government while increasing exports to the country.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that U.S. exports to Iran grew more than tenfold under President Bush in spite of his criticism of its government as a sponsor of terrorism and warnings against any efforts to develop a nuclear weapon.
“It’s that kind of mixed signal that has led to the kind of situation that we’re in right now,” Obama said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
(WASHINGTON) Nuclear weapons? No way. But there are plenty of items on Iran’s shopping list the United States is more than happy to supply: cigarettes, brassieres, bull semen and more.U.S. exports to Iran grew more than tenfold during President Bush’s years in office even as he accused it of nuclear ambitions and sponsoring terrorists. America sent more cigarettes to Iran — at least $158 million worth under Bush — than any other product.
Other surprising shipments during the Bush administration: fur clothing, sculptures, perfume, musical instruments and military apparel. Top states shipping goods to Iran include California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of seven years of U.S. governmenttrade data.
Despite increasingly tough rhetoric toward Iran, which Bush has called part of an “axis of evil,” U.S. trade in a range of goods survives on-again, off-again sanctions originally imposed nearly three decades ago. The rules allow sales of agricultural commodities, medicine and a few other categories of goods. The exemptions are designed to help Iranian families even as the United States pressures Iran’s leaders.
“I understand that these exports have increased. However, we believe that they are increasing to a segment of the population that we want to reach out to, we want to know and understand that the U.S. government, the U.S. people want to be friends with them, want to work with them to integrate them into the world economy and become partners in the future,” Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman, said Tuesday when asked by reporters about AP’s findings.
So … we want them to get hooked on our cigarettes and be our friends before we … blow them away…? And remember, while we’re increasing exports to Iran (and don’t think Dick Cheney’s Halliburton isn’t still doing business there, too…) we’re also conducting covert operations which may be designed to provoke Iran into a war…
“Iran is a great threat. We have to make sure we are working with our allies to apply tightened pressure on Iran,” the Illinois senator said.Iran demonstrated its military force with the test-flight of nine long and medium-range missiles in the strategic Strait of Hormouz, through which 40% of the world’s oil passes.
Tehran said the exercise was in retaliation to threats from the US and Israel over its disputed nuclear projects, which it claims are civilian.
Obama said if he were to be elected president, he would combine more direct diplomacy with the threat of much tougher economic sanctions.
“I think what this underscores is the need for us to create a kind of policy that is putting the burden on Iran to change behaviour, and frankly we just have not been able to do that over the last several years,” Obama said.
He cited reports that US exports to Iran have increased under George Bush, even as the administration has toughened its rhetoric.
Earlier, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said the “war games” justified America’s defence plans with bases in eastern Europe. She said the tests were “evidence that the missile threat is not an imaginary one.”
“Those who say there is no Iranian missile threat against which we should build a missile defence system perhaps ought to talk to the Iranians about their claims.”
Her comments were backed by the Republican presidential candidate, John McCain. He said the tests “demonstrate the need for effective missile defence now and in the future, and this includes missile defence in Europe as is planned with the Czech Republic and Poland”. These plans are strongly opposed by Russia.
Four more years … indeed …
Gunmen attacked a police guard post this morning outside the heavily fortified U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, killing three Turkish police officers in what Ambassador Ross Wilson called “an obvious act of terrorism.”
Three of the assailants were shot to death during the gun battle, authorities said, and a fourth person was taken into custody a short time later, according to Turkey’s Dogan News Agency.
No Americans or consular employees were injured.
“This was an attack on the American diplomatic establishment here,” Wilson said in an appearance before reporters in Ankara, the Turkish capital. ” . . . Our countries will stand together and confront this, as we have in the past.”
Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Istanbul Gov. Muammer Guler also labeled the incident a terrorist attack. Gul referred to the slain police officers as martyrs and said Turkey “will fight against those who masterminded such acts and the mentality behind it till the end.”
The world just
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Gone
The Iraq war soldier made famous by a photograph, and by his compassion for an Iraqi child, dies back home:
The March 2003 image became one of the most iconic of the U.S. invasion of Iraq: that of a bespectacled American soldier carrying an Iraqi child to safety. The photograph of Army Pfc. Joseph Dwyer, who was raised in Mount Sinai, was used by news outlets around the world.After being lionized by many as the human face of the U.S. effort to rebuild a troubled Iraq, Dwyer brought the battlefield home with him, often grappling violently with delusions that he was being hunted by Iraqi killers.
His internal terror got so bad that, in 2005, he shot up his El Paso, Texas, apartment and held police at bay for three hours with a 9-mm handgun, believing Iraqis were trying to get in.
Last month, on June 28, police in Pinehurst, N.C., who responded to Dwyer’s home, said the 31-year-old collapsed and died after abusing a computer cleaner aerosol. Dwyer had moved to North Carolina after living in Texas.
Dwyer, who joined the Army two days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and who was assigned to a unit of the 3rd Infantry Division that one officer called “the tip of the tip of the spear” in the first days of the U.S. invasion, had since then battled depression, sleeplessness and other anxieties that military doctors eventually attributed to post-traumatic stress disorder.
The war that made him a hero at 26 haunted him to the last moments of his life.
“He loved the picture, don’t get me wrong, but he just couldn’t get over the war,” his mother, Maureen Dwyer, said by telephone from her home in Sunset Beach, N.C. “He wasn’t Joseph anymore. Joseph never came home.”
Dwyer’s parents said they tried to get help for their son, appealing to Army and Veterans Affairs officials. Although he was treated off and on in VA facilities, he was never able to shake his anxieties.
Dwyer can only be described as the victim of the indifference of the U.S. system to the men and women that we send into harm’s way. Once they’ve been used up in Mr. Bush’s war, they are, to coin a Bushian term, on their own. The Newsday story continues:
An April report by the Rand Corp. said serious gaps in treatment exist for the 1 in 5 U.S. troops who exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression following service in Iraq or Afghanistan. Half of those troops who experience the disorder sought help in the past year, the report said, and those who did often got “minimally adequate treatment.”“He went away to inpatient treatments, none of it worked,” his father, Patrick Dennis Dwyer, said. “And the problem is there are not adequate resources for post-traumatic stress syndrome.”
After a PTSD program in Durham, N.C., turned Dwyer away because of a lack of space, Maureen Dwyer said her son received inpatient care for six months at the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center, beginning last August. After doctors discharged him in March, she said, his anxieties returned with such intensity that Dwyer’s wife, Matina, 30, took their daughter Meagan, 2, and moved out five days later.
Dwyer had taken to sleeping in a closet, arming himself with guns and knives, and inhaling aerosol to help him sleep. The most chilling quote in the piece comes from Dwyer’s mom:
“Talking to him, he knew he was going to die,” Maureen Dwyer said.
Read the entire piece. Every American should.
BTW, Dwyer is not alone. A 2004 Army study found that 1 in 8 returning troops suffered from PTSD. By 2007 the estimate spiked to 1 in 2.
Records show roughly 40,000 troops have been diagnosed with the illness, also known as PTSD, since 2003. Officials believe that many more are likely keeping their illness a secret.
“I don’t think right now we … have good numbers,” Army Surgeon General Eric Schoomaker said…
And not only has the VA failed to provide adequate numbers, and adequate treatment, for vets suffering from PTSD, it appears they’ve also fudged the numbers, to undercount the number of post-deployment suicides taking place among our returning troops.
(May 6) At a hearing held by the House Veterans’ Committee today, chairman Bob Filner, D-Calif., said he thought there was “criminal negligence” and “clear evidence of a bureaucratic coverup” in the VA’s handling of mental health findings.
“If you have a thousand, and you said it could be more, of suicide attempts per month, we’ve got some real difficult issues,” Filner said to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. James Peake.
But most of the committee’s time was spent on a report aired by CBS News last year that said the VA was under-reporting the magnitude of suicides among veterans by manipulating the data.
The Army is facing particular burdens, since it is mostly Army, Army National Guard and Reserve troops who are pulling the 2, 3 and 4 rotations to fight this war (not to leave out the Marines, but the Army is currently the more broken force.) And all of the signs point to the homefront being unequal to the task of handling hundreds of thousands of psychologically (and physically) wounded warriors coming home. Hell, Democratic vets in Congress had to fight the “commander in chief” AND fellow veterans like John McCain just to get a G.I. Bill with decent educational benefits for the troops last month, while the GOP simply fought for more incentives to keep soldiers in, and deployed, indefinitely in Iraq. (Of course, now that it has passed, members of the GOP who opposed the bill, up to and including Bush and McCain, are trying to jump on the GI Bill bandwagon…)
Shame on us for not taking better care of our soldiers when they come home, starting with the Bush administration, but ultimately, including us all.
For information on what you can do to help returning veterans, go to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America website. And Godspeed to Pfc Dwyer’s grieving family.
Related: Visit the site for HBO’s new miniseries “Generation Kill” here.
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JAGs make it plain
Four retired military generals write to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy to put some clarity to an issue that should have long been clear. From Leahy’s website:
The letter was written by Brigadier General David M. Brahms, United States Marine Corps (Ret.); Major General John L. Fugh, United States Army (Ret.); Rear Admiral Donald J. Guter, United States Navy (Ret.); and Rear Admiral John. D. Hutson, United States Navy (Ret.). Admiral Hutson testified before the Judiciary Committee Oct. 18 as part of the Mukasey confirmation hearings.“In the course of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s consideration of President Bush’s nominee for the post of Attorney General, there has been much discussion, but little clarity, about the legality of ‘waterboarding’ under United States and international law,” the generals wrote. “We write because this issue above all demands clarity: Waterboarding is inhumane, it is torture, and it is illegal.”
The full letter is available here.
The most important part of the letter reads as follows (it’s the part you won’t likely see teletyped on your favorite cable news show):
This is a critically important issue — but it is not, and never has been, a complex issue, and even to suggest otherwise does a terrible disservice to this nation. All U.S. Government agencies and personnel, and not just America’s military forces, must abide by both the spirit and letter of the controlling provisions of international law. Cruelty and torture — no less than wanton killing — is neither justified nor legal in any circumstance. It is essential to be clear, specific and unambiguous about this fact — as in fact we have been throughout America’s history, at least until the last few years. Abu Ghraib and other notorious examples of detainee abuse have been the product, at least in part, of a self-serving and destructive disregard for the well-established legal priciples applicable to this issue. This must end.The Rule of Law is fundamental to our existence as a civilized nation. The Rule of Law is not a goal which we merely aspire to achieve; it is the floor below which we must not sink. For the Rule of Law to function effectively, however, it must provide actual rules that can be followed.
Never better said.
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