Excellent column at Salon by Joe Conason:
Rove is a proven liar who cannot be trusted to tell the truth even when he is under oath, unless and until he is directly threatened with the prospect of prison time. Or has everyone suddenly forgotten his exceedingly narrow escape from criminal indictment for perjury and false statements in the Valerie Plame Wilson investigation? Only after four visits to the grand jury convened by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, and a stark warning from Fitzgerald to defense counsel of a possible indictment, did Rove suddenly remember his role in the exposure of Plame as a CIA agent.
Harkening back to my post from yesterday, I would like to offer a passage from The Tommyknockers by Stephen King:
You talked to people who lived through one administration after another in which their elected officials told one lie after another, then lied about the lies, and when those lies were found out the liars said: Oh, jeez, I forgot, sorry--and since they forgot, the people who elected them behaved like Christmas and forgave. You couldn't believe there were so fucking many of them until you remembered what P. T. Barnum said about the extraordinary high birth rate of suckers. They looked you square in the face and told you you were full of shit, that the American government didn't tell lies, not telling lies was what made America great.
The passage is from an early chapter which introduces Jim Gardner, a marginally successful poet and spectacularly unsuccessful nukes protester. It deals with his feelings about government policy concerning the regulation of nuclear power, but the sentiment certainly seems to fit the administration's approach to the subpoenas that have been issued for White House staffers concerning the US Attorney firings scandal.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
It really works, Ethel!
As what is probably a direct result of a story run a month ago on Democracy Now!, 9 year old Kevin Yourdkhani and his parents have reached Canada after an eight week long totally unwarranted stay at an immigrant detention center in South Texas. The story on their released was chronicled on today's show. It has also been chronicled in Canadian papers here and here.
This is a striking example of the difference that independent media can make on the lives of those living in circumstances that I, for one, can not really fathom dealing with on a day to day basis, as well as the impact on policy that places people in those circumstances in the first place. The most amazing thing about it is that Amy and the crew at DN! didn't actively pursue this story. It literally fell into their lap during another story when Kevin's father Majid essentially cold called the show in the middle of the broadcast with his the story of his family's plight. Who knows whether it was recommended to him by someone else in the detention center, but it is another amazing example of the power of communication and information in all forms.
This is a striking example of the difference that independent media can make on the lives of those living in circumstances that I, for one, can not really fathom dealing with on a day to day basis, as well as the impact on policy that places people in those circumstances in the first place. The most amazing thing about it is that Amy and the crew at DN! didn't actively pursue this story. It literally fell into their lap during another story when Kevin's father Majid essentially cold called the show in the middle of the broadcast with his the story of his family's plight. Who knows whether it was recommended to him by someone else in the detention center, but it is another amazing example of the power of communication and information in all forms.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Anyone who enjoys watching this is kind of bent themselves...
Kevin Drum sums up the whole sorry, getting more painful to watch them stumble as they they to cover their tracks mess that is the Attorney Firings Scandal:
They've now had nearly two months to come up with a simple, clear, understandable explanation for why they chose those eight to fire but not the others. So what is it? And why has it taken such an interminable amount of internal chaos to come up with something?
People aren't stupid. If there were a simple, innocent explanation we would have heard it in January. The fact that the President of the United States held a press conference eight weeks after this issue first hit the media and still didn't have a plausible story to tell suggests pretty strongly that there is no plausible story to tell.
Steve at Crooks and Liars:
It’s an important point about this scandal, which is probably helping drive the media’s interest. The White House, and its vaunted communications office, has had eight weeks to come up with a plausible explanation. What have we heard? The Bush gang said a purge like this is normal and routine. It wasn’t. They said Clinton did the same thing. He didn’t. They said the U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, which is true, but doesn’t offer any substantive explanation why these specific U.S. Attorneys had to go.
They couldn’t decide whether (and which) prosecutors were actually bad at their jobs. They can’t explain why Justice Department officials lied to Congress. They can’t explain why White House officials can’t testify under oath. They can’t explain what role the president had in the firings. They can’t explain what role the Attorney General had in the firings. They can’t explain the meaning of the phrase “loyal Bushies.” They can’t explain the 18-day document gap (which is slowly closing... see here). They can’t explain why they can’t explain.
It's hard for me to conceive of a mindset capable of subscribing to a line of reasoning that goes something like this:
Someone has an idea that seems really ingenious and solves a lot of problems. Never mind that actually executing the idea may bend a few rules--"hey, we enforce the rules, so we can bend them, and in the unlikely event that we're asked about it, we can just bend the truth about bending the rule". Then when asked about bending the rule or bending the truth about bending the rule, they claim ignorance based on how many people were involved in the bending of the rule and the bending of the truth about bending the rule. And if, God Forbid, the question askers want sworn testimony about the rule bending or truth bending, the benders (or the bosses of the benders) feign horror and indignation claiming partisan witch hunting and swear to protect the sanctity of the workings of the inner sanctum of the rule and truth benders.
They even try to invoke supposed precedents set during past administrations and try to employ tactics used in attempts to stave off the questioners by previous embattled administrations, but eventually to no avail. That is what makes the whole affair painful to watch, it is the beginning of the panicked last throes of an administration that thought itself more impervious and immortal to criticism and oversight than any other known in the history of this country...
They've now had nearly two months to come up with a simple, clear, understandable explanation for why they chose those eight to fire but not the others. So what is it? And why has it taken such an interminable amount of internal chaos to come up with something?
People aren't stupid. If there were a simple, innocent explanation we would have heard it in January. The fact that the President of the United States held a press conference eight weeks after this issue first hit the media and still didn't have a plausible story to tell suggests pretty strongly that there is no plausible story to tell.
Steve at Crooks and Liars:
It’s an important point about this scandal, which is probably helping drive the media’s interest. The White House, and its vaunted communications office, has had eight weeks to come up with a plausible explanation. What have we heard? The Bush gang said a purge like this is normal and routine. It wasn’t. They said Clinton did the same thing. He didn’t. They said the U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, which is true, but doesn’t offer any substantive explanation why these specific U.S. Attorneys had to go.
They couldn’t decide whether (and which) prosecutors were actually bad at their jobs. They can’t explain why Justice Department officials lied to Congress. They can’t explain why White House officials can’t testify under oath. They can’t explain what role the president had in the firings. They can’t explain what role the Attorney General had in the firings. They can’t explain the meaning of the phrase “loyal Bushies.” They can’t explain the 18-day document gap (which is slowly closing... see here). They can’t explain why they can’t explain.
It's hard for me to conceive of a mindset capable of subscribing to a line of reasoning that goes something like this:
Someone has an idea that seems really ingenious and solves a lot of problems. Never mind that actually executing the idea may bend a few rules--"hey, we enforce the rules, so we can bend them, and in the unlikely event that we're asked about it, we can just bend the truth about bending the rule". Then when asked about bending the rule or bending the truth about bending the rule, they claim ignorance based on how many people were involved in the bending of the rule and the bending of the truth about bending the rule. And if, God Forbid, the question askers want sworn testimony about the rule bending or truth bending, the benders (or the bosses of the benders) feign horror and indignation claiming partisan witch hunting and swear to protect the sanctity of the workings of the inner sanctum of the rule and truth benders.
They even try to invoke supposed precedents set during past administrations and try to employ tactics used in attempts to stave off the questioners by previous embattled administrations, but eventually to no avail. That is what makes the whole affair painful to watch, it is the beginning of the panicked last throes of an administration that thought itself more impervious and immortal to criticism and oversight than any other known in the history of this country...
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Blog Jambalaya
First ingredient:
The wagons are being drawn into a tight circle and the Shrub is puffing out his chest like we've seldom seen before to declare his omnipotent, omniscient power to resist any and all efforts to call his administration to account in the latest of what is sure to become many scandals that will now be pursued to the fullest as opposed to being ignored with a mere "oh, it's alright, I'm sure they bent/broke/ignored (insert law here) in the interest of national security or the pursuance of the War on Terror or blah, blah, blah"... He's offered up an alternative that the Congress is sure to laugh at before issuing subpoenas to Harriet Miers and the Cranium...
Meanwhile, the folks over at the Justice department are literally paralyzed by the prospect of any communication being snatched and used in an investigation into the workings of the department. This begs the painfully obvious question: If they're afraid to talk or communicate about anything, have they been doing anything on the straight and narrow over there, and if not, how long have things been seriously out of whack and partisan at DOJ? Since Gonzo took over? Highly unlikely--Ashcroft was about as non-partisan as Miers...
Second ingredient:
The Democratic Primary race is not even officially kicked off and it's already more interesting than any other one that I can remember (even the one with the Gary Hart boondoggle). Barack Obama has pledged to refrain from engaging in personal attacks in his campaign, but has already made some curious remarks concerning his opponent John Edwards (which Arthur had a thing or two to say about) , and a very slick redux of the classic Apple Computer Super Bowl commercial from 1984 (pay close attention to what the hammer slinger is wearing to bring it up to date in a very subtle way...) has popped up on YouTube in support of his campaign (which the campaign denied any connection to). Interesting way of not engaging in personal attacks on his opponents...
Third Ingredient:
A new report on Walter Reed shows that the military is continuing a long standing tradition of class discrimination between the enlisted ranks and the officers that goes back hundreds of years...
Fourth Ingredient:
More and more is coming out about the Shrub's administration's skewing of information from credible sources attributing numerous observable climate changes and anomalies to global warming and connecting said global warming to the activities of man and the byproducts of those activities. To quote Dead or Alive: "You Spin Me Round Baby (Like a record baby right round)"...
Fifth Ingredient:
While the fourth anniversary of the onset of the Iraq War is being marked by protests and demonstrations this week, another event's third anniversary is fast approaching: the killing of four security contractors in Fallujah in March of 2004. I've been writing about the plight of the men and women serving in the Middle East in the Military, and while their plight is harrowing while they are there and when they return, the contractors' situation is much worse.
Their personal safety is addressed in a bare minimum fashion by the huge corporations whose only concern, it would seem, is the securing of the multi million dollar no bid contracts from the US government. From the KBR website employment page (italics are mine):
It should be understood that employment may be located in potentially dangerous areas, including combat or war zones. This might involve the possibility of suffering harm by dangerous forces or friendly fire. These dangers are inherent to working conditions in a dangerous environment.
This is the standard language that is listed at the end of any job posting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems to be all they think they need to tell you to absolve themselves of any culpability even when they fail to take the precautions they say they will in a signed contract(italics mine again):
But the Blackwater men were uneasy. One team member, former Army Ranger Wes Batalona, complained to a friend that the team had never worked together before. And contractually, Blackwater was to supply two SUVs with three guards per vehicle. Instead, the men set out that morning with just two men per car, each short a rear gunner.
And this is only the beginning. The contractors lucky (?) enough to make it back home alive are likely to suffer from the same ailments, both physical, mental, and emotional, as their counterparts in the armed forces, but they, being independent contractors, have no support system, however ineffective and dysfunctional, to turn to for treatment of any kind. The mounds of cash they made working under those harrowing conditions will, if not having been previously committed to previous crushing debts, melt away like a snowball on a hot stove going towards healthcare to address their post Gulf region employment ailments. Another feather in the cap of the corporate giants reaping as much in profit from no bid military and government contracts--no money poured down the drain that is employee benefits!
The disparity between the regular military personnel and the contractors is highlighted repeatedly in the Frontline Special--the fact that the contractors are a good thing, because there's no sense in having a soldier do menial tasks like KP duty, latrine patrol and the like; contrasted with the fact that they can be a liability when a camp or base where military personnel and contractors are stationed comes under fire: there's xx,000 personnel on the grounds, but only 2/3 of them are combat trained to defend the facility, what do the other 1/3 do in a combat situation to help and or stay out of the way? Another huge source of friction is the gulf (pun definitely intended...)between the pay that the armed forces personnel are receiving compared to the contractors (it's significantly lower) and the fact that the contractors are just that--contractors, who can opt out of their contract for what ever reason, as opposed to military personnel, who are committed for a fixed length of time (and sometimes longer, depending on what the Surger has been told by his advisors on any given day)
Combine ingredients in a Cranium with 1 cup of Cerebrospinal fluid and the Brain.
Mix well.
DO SOMETHING..
This is what our country is being outsourced and relegislated to...
The wagons are being drawn into a tight circle and the Shrub is puffing out his chest like we've seldom seen before to declare his omnipotent, omniscient power to resist any and all efforts to call his administration to account in the latest of what is sure to become many scandals that will now be pursued to the fullest as opposed to being ignored with a mere "oh, it's alright, I'm sure they bent/broke/ignored (insert law here) in the interest of national security or the pursuance of the War on Terror or blah, blah, blah"... He's offered up an alternative that the Congress is sure to laugh at before issuing subpoenas to Harriet Miers and the Cranium...
Meanwhile, the folks over at the Justice department are literally paralyzed by the prospect of any communication being snatched and used in an investigation into the workings of the department. This begs the painfully obvious question: If they're afraid to talk or communicate about anything, have they been doing anything on the straight and narrow over there, and if not, how long have things been seriously out of whack and partisan at DOJ? Since Gonzo took over? Highly unlikely--Ashcroft was about as non-partisan as Miers...
Second ingredient:
The Democratic Primary race is not even officially kicked off and it's already more interesting than any other one that I can remember (even the one with the Gary Hart boondoggle). Barack Obama has pledged to refrain from engaging in personal attacks in his campaign, but has already made some curious remarks concerning his opponent John Edwards (which Arthur had a thing or two to say about) , and a very slick redux of the classic Apple Computer Super Bowl commercial from 1984 (pay close attention to what the hammer slinger is wearing to bring it up to date in a very subtle way...) has popped up on YouTube in support of his campaign (which the campaign denied any connection to). Interesting way of not engaging in personal attacks on his opponents...
Third Ingredient:
A new report on Walter Reed shows that the military is continuing a long standing tradition of class discrimination between the enlisted ranks and the officers that goes back hundreds of years...
Fourth Ingredient:
More and more is coming out about the Shrub's administration's skewing of information from credible sources attributing numerous observable climate changes and anomalies to global warming and connecting said global warming to the activities of man and the byproducts of those activities. To quote Dead or Alive: "You Spin Me Round Baby (Like a record baby right round)"...
Fifth Ingredient:
While the fourth anniversary of the onset of the Iraq War is being marked by protests and demonstrations this week, another event's third anniversary is fast approaching: the killing of four security contractors in Fallujah in March of 2004. I've been writing about the plight of the men and women serving in the Middle East in the Military, and while their plight is harrowing while they are there and when they return, the contractors' situation is much worse.
Their personal safety is addressed in a bare minimum fashion by the huge corporations whose only concern, it would seem, is the securing of the multi million dollar no bid contracts from the US government. From the KBR website employment page (italics are mine):
It should be understood that employment may be located in potentially dangerous areas, including combat or war zones. This might involve the possibility of suffering harm by dangerous forces or friendly fire. These dangers are inherent to working conditions in a dangerous environment.
This is the standard language that is listed at the end of any job posting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems to be all they think they need to tell you to absolve themselves of any culpability even when they fail to take the precautions they say they will in a signed contract(italics mine again):
But the Blackwater men were uneasy. One team member, former Army Ranger Wes Batalona, complained to a friend that the team had never worked together before. And contractually, Blackwater was to supply two SUVs with three guards per vehicle. Instead, the men set out that morning with just two men per car, each short a rear gunner.
And this is only the beginning. The contractors lucky (?) enough to make it back home alive are likely to suffer from the same ailments, both physical, mental, and emotional, as their counterparts in the armed forces, but they, being independent contractors, have no support system, however ineffective and dysfunctional, to turn to for treatment of any kind. The mounds of cash they made working under those harrowing conditions will, if not having been previously committed to previous crushing debts, melt away like a snowball on a hot stove going towards healthcare to address their post Gulf region employment ailments. Another feather in the cap of the corporate giants reaping as much in profit from no bid military and government contracts--no money poured down the drain that is employee benefits!
The disparity between the regular military personnel and the contractors is highlighted repeatedly in the Frontline Special--the fact that the contractors are a good thing, because there's no sense in having a soldier do menial tasks like KP duty, latrine patrol and the like; contrasted with the fact that they can be a liability when a camp or base where military personnel and contractors are stationed comes under fire: there's xx,000 personnel on the grounds, but only 2/3 of them are combat trained to defend the facility, what do the other 1/3 do in a combat situation to help and or stay out of the way? Another huge source of friction is the gulf (pun definitely intended...)between the pay that the armed forces personnel are receiving compared to the contractors (it's significantly lower) and the fact that the contractors are just that--contractors, who can opt out of their contract for what ever reason, as opposed to military personnel, who are committed for a fixed length of time (and sometimes longer, depending on what the Surger has been told by his advisors on any given day)
Combine ingredients in a Cranium with 1 cup of Cerebrospinal fluid and the Brain.
Mix well.
DO SOMETHING..
This is what our country is being outsourced and relegislated to...
Monday, March 19, 2007
Recovering from the weekend
The weekend out at the farm was great, but I find myself needing to recharge my batteries from the recharging of my batteries out there... Lots of good food, beer drinking, fire sitting, guitar picking and singing. I also spent two nights in a tent for the first time in something like 20 years or so. Mike lent me a cot to sleep on in the tent I borrowed from Micha, so I was pretty darn comfortable.
I returned to Houston early Sunday afternoon for a second visit to the Rodeo to see that lil' old band from Texas, ZZ Top. I started listening to them a year or two before the release of Eliminator to some of their earlier more bluesy albums like Tres Hombres and Tejas. It was the first time I have seen them, and while it wasn't the best venue to see a show in (as I chronicled in my post about the Sheryl Crow show) they put on an amazing show, all the more so considering that they've been together and making music for close to forty years now. Here's the set list as best I was able to notate in text message form on my phone:
Ring of Fire (June Carter Cash)
I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide
Pincusion
Beer Drinkers, Hell Raisers
Cheap Sunglasses
Pearl Necklace
Just Got Paid
Waltz Across Texas (Ernest Tubbs)
Gimme All Your Lovin'
Sharp Dressed Man
Viva Las Vegas (Elvis Presley)
Legs
La Grange
Baby Why Don't You
Tush
Lots of surprises and good old material in there. The show finished nice and early as well, giving me the opportunity to get home and sleep like a log, which was nice because it's been a rare occurrence lately. As a matter of fact, I can hear the bed calling me right now, so I'll sign off...
I returned to Houston early Sunday afternoon for a second visit to the Rodeo to see that lil' old band from Texas, ZZ Top. I started listening to them a year or two before the release of Eliminator to some of their earlier more bluesy albums like Tres Hombres and Tejas. It was the first time I have seen them, and while it wasn't the best venue to see a show in (as I chronicled in my post about the Sheryl Crow show) they put on an amazing show, all the more so considering that they've been together and making music for close to forty years now. Here's the set list as best I was able to notate in text message form on my phone:
Ring of Fire (June Carter Cash)
I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide
Pincusion
Beer Drinkers, Hell Raisers
Cheap Sunglasses
Pearl Necklace
Just Got Paid
Waltz Across Texas (Ernest Tubbs)
Gimme All Your Lovin'
Sharp Dressed Man
Viva Las Vegas (Elvis Presley)
Legs
La Grange
Baby Why Don't You
Tush
Lots of surprises and good old material in there. The show finished nice and early as well, giving me the opportunity to get home and sleep like a log, which was nice because it's been a rare occurrence lately. As a matter of fact, I can hear the bed calling me right now, so I'll sign off...
Friday, March 16, 2007
Reward for Service Rendered
I don't come from a hardcore military family. A relative on my mother's side of the family fought for the Union in the Civil War. My Grandfather enlisted in the Navy and served one stint before World War I. My father was drafted in the mid Fifties and served his tour as a clerk in a Signal Company. So I have no personal axe to grind as far as the subject of this post goes. I do have friends who have served in the recent past. A former coworker at the theatre served in the Marine Corps. One of my engineers has a brother in the Army who is based out of Fort Hood here in Texas. He just got back from Iraq a few months ago, and is scheduled to return for another rotation later this year. I wrote about the ridiculousness of short rotations off for the personnel serving in Iraq and Afghanistan here and here. Another former coworker has a brother who is currently deployed in Iraq. I imagine that I share these examples of two and three degrees of separation with about everyone in the US these days.
I do have an axe to grind about the dignity and honor that is the right of every man and woman who takes the oath to defend the Constitution and the US as a member of the Armed Forces. In doing so, they are choosing to place their lives on the line to preserve our right to (for the moment) live where we want, associate with who we want, and say what we want about pretty much anything we want to. Whether or not I agree with the policies of an administration that sends them off to fight an ill advised war, I have the utmost respect for the commitment of these individuals.
This latest example of inane, gross neglect in the VA hospital scandal is too extreme for words and almost unbelievable to me. The fact that a decorated veteran would be shunted around like this and then dumped off in his own driveway to die underscores the root dehumanization of anyone who is part of the mechanisms that the current administration is using in its illegal excursions and adventures throughout the world.
The military personnel serving and returning from Iraq and Afghanistan need to know that the government is going to be there for them to uphold its end of the agreement they embarked upon when they signed their Oath of Service, which, by the way, is to the Constitution and the Country, not the aspirations of the administration currently in place. Part of this oath is an implicit trust placed in the officeholder of the Presidency that, as their Commander-in-
Chief, that individual will be able to differentiate between politics and the practical defense of the Country and its citizens. It may be a naive expectation, but it is there, and the abuse of it is unforgivable, especially from a group such as the current administration and some of its former members (save one exception who didn't exactly distinguish himself during the first administration) who have very little active military experience and who have been shown to have done whatever they could to avoid service when the call was likely to come.
This pack of privileged back scratching opportunists who have wormed their way into the highest levels of our government and are abusing and desecrating every and any part of the government that, however disfunctional it may be, does keep the country going and places, for the most part, the welfare of its citizens at the top of the list of priorities. The only way that there is even a prayer of a chance for this issue to get addressed properly is for the representatives in Congress to keep hearing about it and how unacceptable it is from their constituents, not just from the mainstream media while it's the hot story in the current news cycle (unlike the independent media, which broke the story two years ago).
I'm off to Mike and Julie's farm in Moravia for a few days to recharge my batteries and help them celebrate their third anniversary. I can't decide whether I'm going to take the Compy with me, so there may be nothing from this end of things for a day or two. Everyone have a great weekend!
I do have an axe to grind about the dignity and honor that is the right of every man and woman who takes the oath to defend the Constitution and the US as a member of the Armed Forces. In doing so, they are choosing to place their lives on the line to preserve our right to (for the moment) live where we want, associate with who we want, and say what we want about pretty much anything we want to. Whether or not I agree with the policies of an administration that sends them off to fight an ill advised war, I have the utmost respect for the commitment of these individuals.
This latest example of inane, gross neglect in the VA hospital scandal is too extreme for words and almost unbelievable to me. The fact that a decorated veteran would be shunted around like this and then dumped off in his own driveway to die underscores the root dehumanization of anyone who is part of the mechanisms that the current administration is using in its illegal excursions and adventures throughout the world.
The military personnel serving and returning from Iraq and Afghanistan need to know that the government is going to be there for them to uphold its end of the agreement they embarked upon when they signed their Oath of Service, which, by the way, is to the Constitution and the Country, not the aspirations of the administration currently in place. Part of this oath is an implicit trust placed in the officeholder of the Presidency that, as their Commander-in-
Chief, that individual will be able to differentiate between politics and the practical defense of the Country and its citizens. It may be a naive expectation, but it is there, and the abuse of it is unforgivable, especially from a group such as the current administration and some of its former members (save one exception who didn't exactly distinguish himself during the first administration) who have very little active military experience and who have been shown to have done whatever they could to avoid service when the call was likely to come.
This pack of privileged back scratching opportunists who have wormed their way into the highest levels of our government and are abusing and desecrating every and any part of the government that, however disfunctional it may be, does keep the country going and places, for the most part, the welfare of its citizens at the top of the list of priorities. The only way that there is even a prayer of a chance for this issue to get addressed properly is for the representatives in Congress to keep hearing about it and how unacceptable it is from their constituents, not just from the mainstream media while it's the hot story in the current news cycle (unlike the independent media, which broke the story two years ago).
I'm off to Mike and Julie's farm in Moravia for a few days to recharge my batteries and help them celebrate their third anniversary. I can't decide whether I'm going to take the Compy with me, so there may be nothing from this end of things for a day or two. Everyone have a great weekend!
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Words, Now... Action?
Joe Biden is pissed.
It's great to see this sort of debate and passion on the Senate floor about the Iraq War. Hopefully it will be followed up with actions that befit the fiery words.
"Are we gonna break this man and woman's army? What are we gonna do here? How many times are we going to ask those 175,000 to rotate, three, four, five, six, seven times?"
This is one of the key points in this issue which I wrote about here. The fact that there US Ground Forces were barely at strength to embark on this excursion and have since been stretched paper thin in four years (along with the National Guard, much to the detriment of states which depend on them almost annually) has seemingly never been recognized by the architects of this current course we're on. Not only is there a question of the Army and Marines breaking on an operational level, but there is the question of the individuals breaking down on multiple levels, and, after being deigned unfit to serve, simply dumped back into society with no support system in place to help them reorient themselves and deal with the crippling physical, mental and emotional aftereffects of their experience in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Instead of working to fix the broken support system, the current administration is focusing on luring more young men and women into the system in order to feed them into the abbatoir that is the Civil War in Iraq and the front against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Were anything to happen in another part of the world that the US would traditionally respond to (in its imperialistically minded fashion) it would be nigh on impossible to put an effective force in place, because such a force does not exist. If there is another terrorist attack on par with 9/11 the super intelligence machine that is the FBI/CIA/NSA would come up with someone that they could plausibly point a finger at and then go in and bomb the Hell out of them, but then there would be no one to send in after the bombing to shoot at the rubble and see if there were any survivors to send off to undisclosed locations for "interrogation". Even now, there aren't enough forces available for the newest surges to be implemented efficiently. More often than not, new fresh troops are not introduced into either Iraq or Afghanistan because they don't exist. Previously deployed forces are merely moved from one theater to another, or their deployments are simply extended with no regard to the physical and mental strain put on the military personnel.
Let's hope we see some action to back up this passion. Politics can not play a part in anything the Congress does to address this situation, as it did here and here. Only a sense of empathy with their fellow men and women who have been tasked with a nigh on impossible mission, as well as the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, whose lives have been ended or shattered by this seemingly endless, ill-advised and now unjustified (WMDs? NOT!, Iraq-Al Qaeda connection? NOT!) occupation, can drive them to do what is necessary.
It's great to see this sort of debate and passion on the Senate floor about the Iraq War. Hopefully it will be followed up with actions that befit the fiery words.
"Are we gonna break this man and woman's army? What are we gonna do here? How many times are we going to ask those 175,000 to rotate, three, four, five, six, seven times?"
This is one of the key points in this issue which I wrote about here. The fact that there US Ground Forces were barely at strength to embark on this excursion and have since been stretched paper thin in four years (along with the National Guard, much to the detriment of states which depend on them almost annually) has seemingly never been recognized by the architects of this current course we're on. Not only is there a question of the Army and Marines breaking on an operational level, but there is the question of the individuals breaking down on multiple levels, and, after being deigned unfit to serve, simply dumped back into society with no support system in place to help them reorient themselves and deal with the crippling physical, mental and emotional aftereffects of their experience in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Instead of working to fix the broken support system, the current administration is focusing on luring more young men and women into the system in order to feed them into the abbatoir that is the Civil War in Iraq and the front against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Were anything to happen in another part of the world that the US would traditionally respond to (in its imperialistically minded fashion) it would be nigh on impossible to put an effective force in place, because such a force does not exist. If there is another terrorist attack on par with 9/11 the super intelligence machine that is the FBI/CIA/NSA would come up with someone that they could plausibly point a finger at and then go in and bomb the Hell out of them, but then there would be no one to send in after the bombing to shoot at the rubble and see if there were any survivors to send off to undisclosed locations for "interrogation". Even now, there aren't enough forces available for the newest surges to be implemented efficiently. More often than not, new fresh troops are not introduced into either Iraq or Afghanistan because they don't exist. Previously deployed forces are merely moved from one theater to another, or their deployments are simply extended with no regard to the physical and mental strain put on the military personnel.
Let's hope we see some action to back up this passion. Politics can not play a part in anything the Congress does to address this situation, as it did here and here. Only a sense of empathy with their fellow men and women who have been tasked with a nigh on impossible mission, as well as the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, whose lives have been ended or shattered by this seemingly endless, ill-advised and now unjustified (WMDs? NOT!, Iraq-Al Qaeda connection? NOT!) occupation, can drive them to do what is necessary.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)