There's just not much to say about the tragic news yesterday - twelve 13 dead and 30 injured as a result of a "lone gunman," now identified as an Army major. MAJ Nidal Hasan was a psychiatrist who had graduated from Virginia Tech in 1997 and spent six years at Walter Reed Army Medical Clinic before moving to Fort Hood. He was not a happy man.

In an interview, his aunt, Noel Hasan of Falls Church, said he had endured name-calling and harassment about his Muslim faith for years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and had sought for several years to be discharged from the military.

"I know what that is like," she said. "Some people can take it, and some cannot. He had listened to all of that, and he wanted out of the military, and they would not let him leave even after he offered to repay" for his medical training.
--------------
He had been affected by the physical and mental injuries he saw while working as a psychiatrist at Walter Reed for nearly eight years, according to his aunt. "He must have snapped," Noel Hasan said. "They ignored him. It was not hard to know when he was upset. He was not a fighter, even as a child and young man. But when he became upset, his face turns red." She said Hasan had consulted with an attorney about getting out of the service.

On the rare occasions when he spoke of his work in any detail, the aunt said, Hasan told her of soldiers wracked by what they had seen. One patient had suffered burns to his face so intense "that his face had nearly melted," she said. "He told us how upsetting that was to him."

It's clear that this was not a simple case of "Vietnam Vet" syndrome. He was a prior enlisted soldier who got a commission through ROTC, and was promoted to major last year. Hasan had not deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, but he was faced with the aftermath of that conflict on a very personal basis. In a big organization like the Army, and on a huge and busy base like Fort Hood, it's clear that his colleagues and other people who probably saw his behavior worsen didn't see the opportunity to intervene. With big organizations, sometimes the system fails the individuals who need the most help. It's a horrible situation, but this is what war can lead to - the injuries aren't limited to the battlefield. Thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims at Fort Hood.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1825)

PLAYS: (654)

After we were told all day that the man -- named Nidal Malik Hassan -- accused of shooting 43 people, 12 of them fatally, yesterday at Fort Hood, had been killed in the gunfire, late in the evening came the news that he was in fact still alive:

A solider suspected of fatally shooting 12 and wounding 31 at Fort Hood in Texas on Thursday is not dead as previously reported by the military, the base's commander said Thursday evening.

A civilian officer who was wounded in the incident shot the suspect, who is "in custody and in stable condition," Army Lt. Gen. Robert Cone told reporters.

"Preliminary reports indicate there was a single shooter that was shot multiple times at the scene," Cone said at a news conference. "However, he was not killed as previously reported."

The suspect, identified as Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, opened fire at a military processing center at Fort Hood around 1:30 p.m., Cone said.

Three others initially taken into custody for interviews have been released, Cone said.

The New York Times has a profile of Hasan:

He had also more recently expressed deep concerns about being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. Having counseled scores of returning soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, first at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington and more recently at Fort Hood, he knew all too well the terrifying realities of war, said a cousin, Nader Hasan.

“He was mortified by the idea of having to deploy,” Mr. Hasan said. “He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier became aware of Internet postings by a man calling himself Nidal Hasan, a law enforcement official said. The postings discussed suicide bombings favorably, but the investigators were not clear whether the writer was Major Hasan.

In one posting on the Web site Scribd, a man named Nidal Hasan compared the heroism of a soldier who throws himself on a grenade to protect fellow soldiers to suicide bombers who sacrifice themselves to protect Muslims.

“If one suicide bomber can kill 100 enemy soldiers because they were caught off guard that would be considered a strategic victory,” the man wrote. It could not be confirmed, however, that the writer was Major Hasan.

Of course, the wingnuts -- led by Michelle Malkin and Pam Geller -- are going ape in their campaign to paint this as a terrorist attack by a Muslim jihadi. Nothing like a big dose of the very ethnic stereotyping that appears to have driven Hasan to a murderous rage to make things better, eh?

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1898)

PLAYS: (1441)

No sooner was the identity of the Fort Hood shooter released -- a man with the Arab name Nadal Malik Hasan -- than the wingnuts sprang into predictable action: Of course he was a jihadi embarking on a murderous terrorism spree!

Pam "Atlas Barks" Geller immediately proclaimed it "an obvious act terrorism" and ran big all all caps heads declaring: "IT'S THE JIHAD STUPID." Elsewhere in the right blogosphere, people like the folks at HotAir jumped all over the "news" that Hasan was a convert to Islam.

Then Shepard Smith interviewed Hasan's cousin, and we found out that this was all so much tripe:

-- Hasan was American born and educated, but raised Muslim. He was not a convert.

-- He had never previously been deployed to Iraq or anywhere overseas, for that matter. So much for the theories he suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

-- He was regularly abused by his colleagues in the military for being Muslim -- called a "raghead" and other such terms -- and had been seeking to get out of the military because the environment had become so hostile.

Another interview, on just before this one, that Smith had with a former colleague of Hasan's indicated that Hasan was prone to making outrageous remarks about Muslims "defending themselves," particularly in reference to last summer's shooting of two military recruiters in Arkansas by a Muslim convert.

There are also reports that he had recently been the victim of a hate crime: His car was vandalized, with the word "Allah" scratched into the paint, and he was reportedly extremely upset by it.

It's obviously a complicated story. We'd all be well advised to reserve the speculation to actual hard facts about the case as they emerge. But it certainly appears this is much a matter of Columbine-like backlash to bullying as it is anything ideological.

And no, it's not the Jihad, stupid.

I don't usually comment on a blog post that comments on another blog post, but I believe Matt Yglesias hits on an important issue in his observations on Andrew Exum's interview with Washington Post reporter and author Greg Jaffe.

Greg Jaffe, speaking to Andrew Exum, says “This whole conventional vs. irregular debate is stupid.”

War is war. And we waste far too much energy trying to categorize it. I think most lieutenants, captains and majors are beyond this false conventional vs. irregular frame that we try to impose on war. I wish I could say the same for the more senior people in the Pentagon.

I think there’s a lot of truth to that. At the same time, just because things look one way to “lieutenants, captains and majors” and another way to “senior people in the Pentagon” doesn’t mean we should take a dismissive view of the senior people’s outlook in a rush to celebrate the insights of the practical warfighter.
----------
And when you get down to the guts of defense budget politics, these high-level strategic concepts matter a great deal. Nobody, of course, is going to say that the U.S. should somehow completely abandon its ability to fight conventional wars. But the choice between a mindset that says “the main purpose of the military is to scare China & Russia” or a mindset that says “the main purpose of the military is to intervene effectively in third world backwaters” has very real implications for what kind of hardware purchases look cost effective.

There is no doubt in my mind that the issue of "hardware purchases" looms very large in the minds of senior military and civilian decision makers. Conventional warfare means lots of tanks, armored vehicles, stealthy jets, next generation bombers, submarines, destroyers, and aircraft carriers. And let's not even get into the care and feeding of that massive military machine. Counterinsurgency operations, or COIN, is completely the opposite, with a focus on maintaining security and diminishing the insurgent grasp on the population without destroying real estate. Also a no-brainer that the DOD budget is already too bloated, and that in managing two wars, protecting the homeland, and trying to modernize its equipment, there's going to be some in-fighting.

But more importantly, the issue is also in the theory and execution of national strategy. The basic idea of military doctrine is that small military units execute tactics on the ground that must support the overall plan of operations within a theater. The theater commander needs to ensure that he has adequate numbers of personnel, that operations continue toward a particular set of goals, and that the logistics support those operations - and his operations must support the overall national strategy for that region. If your tactics and operations don't align against the strategic goals and expected outcome, then you're doing something wrong - even if you're General McChrystal.

Now under the Bush administration, strategic goals and outcomes changed every Friedman unit (six months), which made it difficult to effectively plan operations or execute tactics. But one thing that was certainly clear was that conventional tactics that destroyed the Taliban in 2002 and that took the Iraqi army out in 2003 didn't support the post-conflict goals. You can't prosecute military operations with a conventional frame of mind when what one really needs is an approach to irregular warfare. That's why we failed in Lebanon in 1983.

Greg Jaffe is a good journalist, and I look forward to reading his book. On the other hand, making a statement like "War is war. And we waste far too much energy trying to categorize it" is a remarkably stupid statement. Nuclear war is not the same as conventional war. Conventional war is not the same as irregular war. Our military needs to be able to operate across a range of different operations, and needs to be equipped properly to execute its operations quickly and efficiently. But what we really need is national leadership that understands the nature of war, that knows how to develop a strategy that is executable, and that knows when it's time to go. From Sun Tzu:

All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

Thus ends the lesson.

I wanted to echo Brother Matt's point at Foreign Policy Watch that this AP article at the Huffington Post, "Troops In Afghanistan Outnumber Taliban 12-1" written by Slobodan Lekic, does completely miss the point.  We don't expect journalists to understand military theory before they write about military issues, so this doesn't surprise us. But it does bear correcting the observations within the article.

There are already more than 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan working with 200,000 Afghan security forces and police. It adds up to a 12-1 numerical advantage over Taliban rebels, but it hasn't led to anything close to victory.

Now, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan is asking for tens of thousands more troops to stem the escalating insurgency, raising the question of how many more troops it would take to succeed.
-----------
The 12-1 ratio may be misleading because two-thirds of the Allied force is made up of Afghans, who lack the training and experience. The Taliban usually fight in small, cohesive units made up of friends and fellow clansmen. A more meaningful ratio, then, might be 4-1 or 5-1.

Historically in guerrilla wars, security forces have usually had at least a 3-1 advantage.

Now, any strategist worth his/her salt will tell you that numerical supremacy within a theater of operations doesn't count for squat. It doesn't matter whether the US coalition outnumbers the Taliban by a ratio of 12-1, 5-1, or 3-1. What matters is what the ratio is when US forces are engaging the Taliban in tactical battles, such as those in Nuristan provinces. If the side with superior forces is spread out and trying to cover everything, then the side with fewer numbers and more agility has the combat advantage. This has happened time and time again through history.

These numbers and rations ought not to be considered in McChrystal's request for 40,000 more troops. What matters is what strategy is pursued - country-wide COIN operations, conducting combat operations, protecting "ink spots" and vital regions, or just training Afghan security forces and protecting the government. McChrystal didn't ask for enough to do a country-wide option, so I'm guessing that he's going for "ink spots" plus combat operations. President Obama seems to be leaning toward just doing the "ink spot" strategy, which might not require additional troops.

So ignore the talk about force ratios and troop increases - it's not relevant until a sustainable long-term regional strategy is developed and implemented. The real unanswered question remains, "How does this all end?"  

If you don't read anything else about Afghanistan, make sure that this NY Times article on President Karzai's brother is the one you read. It's a very interesting piece, and has implications far beyond the immediate shock waves that it will inevitably cause.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.
----------
These military and political officials say the evidence, though largely circumstantial, suggests strongly that Mr. Karzai has enriched himself by helping the illegal trade in poppy and opium to flourish. The assessment of these military and senior officials in the Obama administration dovetails with that of senior officials in the Bush administration.

Now the fact that Mr. Karzai is profiting both from the drug trade and from supporting the CIA's operations is not in and of itself particularly amazing or outlandish to most people who understand the Afghani culture and who have to demonstrate short-term progress against the Taliban. A former CIA intel officer is quoted in the article:

“Virtually every significant Afghan figure has had brushes with the drug trade,” he said. “If you are looking for Mother Teresa, she doesn’t live in Afghanistan.”

The CIA has a long record of supporting bad actors in the name of getting intelligence or achieving progress against other countries whose goals are inimical to US interests, and that may be understandable in some situations, except when that practice runs counter to official US policy in those particular regions. The brother to the president of Afghanistan uses his position to profit from the drug trade and also is a prime suspect in trying to fix the election (in a disappointingly transparent and amateurish fashion). That might be acceptable except for the fact that he's not helping the US government advance its efforts to stabilize the country.

Our government's goals do not align with the brothers Karzai's goals. Mr. Karzai's interests are to protect the drug lords in the south provinces, who in turn pay and rely on the Taliban for protection. Those are the same provinces where US, British, and other forces are fighting and dying every day. Until the current Afghani government is replaced by a legitimate group which has a real desire to advance the Afghani people's needs and interests, there is no way that a strategy based on COIN tactics will work. And if there is no way that COIN tactics will work, then there is no reason to support Gen. McChrystal's request for 40,000+ additional troops.

Of course, there is the possibility that our government's actual goal is to develop Afghanistan into "a horrific, full-fledged quagmire by 2012."

(This is a follow-up on Heather's earlier post on same subject)

Editor's note: Please welcome to the Crooks and Liars team Jason Sigger, who many of you may already know from his superb work at the Armchair Generalist. Jason is going to be writing about national-security issues for C&L; we're pleased and excited to have him aboard.

There has been some talk in the papers about the NATO Secretary General's support for Gen. McChrystal's report. I would suggest that what he said was that Afghanistan clearly does need some COIN support. What he also said was this (see around 3:30 mark):

"NATO will consider the addition of ground forces when the time is right."

Wow. So it's okay to endorse the strategy, but there's no way that NATO is going to actually add any substantive amount of troops to the mix. Other than Britain, I am not sure we're going to see more than a few dozen military personnel from the rest of the community. So whenever NATO wants to get serious about sending its fair share of troops - say, about 20,000 or so of the 40,000 request on the table - then feel free to discuss how our operations in Afghanistan ought to be conducted, Mr. Rasmussen.

More from Spencer Ackerman.

Minor disclaimer - My usual audience at Armchair Generalist knows that I am not a COIN fan and pessimistic as to how NATO works in these coalition operations. As others wiser than I have noted, the US govt can certainly stay and do COIN, but it's long term and very expensive. I'd much rather see a limited COIN/CT strategy such as the one described by VP Biden, Gen Krulak and others, with a disengagement and pull out before 2012. The US engagement won't end overnight, but we certainly need to put a cap on the future investments of "blood and treasure" in this region.

So these researchers (being encouraged, of course, by fine organizations like the American Enterprise Institute) are working to counterbalance all that gloomy, depressing stuff like post-traumatic stress disorder that people associate with serving in a combat zone.

A sense of personal strength, appreciation for life and love of family have all been enhanced, says Frikken, 39, who directs artillery fire for 10th Mountain Division troops fighting here. "I will never be the same person I was before my combat experiences," he says.

What happens to soldiers like Frikken has led Army leaders to develop a resiliency program that urges GIs to look inward and discover how combat may have made them emotionally stronger.

Research appears to show that many people can emerge from traumatic experiences with greater self-confidence, a keener sense of compassion and appreciation for life, says Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, director of the Army's Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program. Cornum and other experts call this concept post-traumatic growth.

Although the military focuses attention on troops who develop mental health conditions in combat, Cornum says, the majority of war veterans do not suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other problems.

"We never ask if anybody had some positive outcomes. We only ask about this laundry list of illnesses," says Cornum, referring to a battery of health questions soldiers face when they leave the combat zone.

And this is seen as what we used to call "proof." Traumatized soldiers, who suspect their military careers will take a turn for the worse if they admit to problems, have no incentive at all to pretend they're fine. Right? And of course, it couldn't possibly be that the trauma itself might make them less likely to admit it! (Even though we've read stories of vets who were later denied benefits because they didn't admit they had a problem when asked to fill out the questionnaire.) God knows, I'm not saying everyone who sees combat has PTSD. But to base your conclusion on whether soldiers admitted they had problems is nowhere near a scientific method.

She often alludes to her experiences as a prisoner during the Persian Gulf War. Cornum was an Army captain and flight surgeon in 1991 aboard a Black Hawk helicopter shot down over Iraq. Five of the seven soldiers died. Cornum suffered two broken arms and a gunshot wound to the shoulder, was captured with two others and held for eight days.

Help me, Rhonda. Help me understand how your being sexually molested while held captive made you a better person, and that you wouldn't trade that experience for all the world.

And while you're at it, explain to me why this program shouldn't be seen as coercive, an attempt to manipulate soldiers into suppressing their emotional problems - because it's so much easier (and cheaper) for the Pentagon that way.

Continue reading »

So many of the saner people were driven out of the military during the Bush administration, it doesn't surprise me that the people left include a lot of the right-wing, racist fringe elements. Still, it's shocking to hear this:

DURHAM — The U.S. military is not just fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, America’s most renowned investigative journalist says.

The army is also “in a war against the White House — and they feel they have Obama boxed in,” Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh told several hundred people in Duke University’s Page Auditorium on Tuesday night. “They think he’s weak and the wrong color. Yes, there’s racism in the Pentagon. We may not like to think that, but it’s true and we all know it.”

In a speech on Obama’s foreign policy, Hersh, who uncovered the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War and torture at Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraqi war, said many military leaders want Obama to fail.

“A lot of people in the Pentagon would like to see him get into trouble,” he said. By leaking information that the commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the war would be lost without an additional 40,000 American troops, top brass have put Obama in a no-win situation, Hersh contended.
“If he gives them the extra troops they’re asking for, he loses politically,” Hersh said. “And if he doesn’t give them the troops, he also loses politically.”

The journalist criticized the president for “letting the military do that,” and suggested the only way out was for Obama to stand up to them.
“He’s either going to let the Pentagon run him or he has to run the Pentagon,” Hersh said. If he doesn’t, “this stuff is going to be the ruin of his presidency.”

Hersh called the “Af-Pak” situation — the spreading conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan — Obama’s main challenge.

The only way for the U.S. to extricate itself from the conflict, Hersh said, is to negotiate with the Taliban.

“It’s the only way out,” he said. “I know that there’s a lot of discussion in the White House about this now.

An article in the Joint Forces Quarterly, an official military publication published for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argues powerfully and using available evidence for an end to discrimination against gays and lesbians in the military.

WASHINGTON - An article in the Pentagon’s top scholarly journal calls in unambiguous terms for lifting the ban on gays serving openly in the armed forces, arguing that the military is essentially forcing thousands of gay men and women to lead dishonest lives in an organization that emphasizes integrity as a fundamental tenet.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of Pentagon leaders, but their appearance in a publication billed as the Joint Chiefs’ “flagship’’ security studies journal signals that the top brass now welcomes a debate in the military over repealing the 1993 law that requires gays to hide their sexual orientation, according to several longtime observers of the charged debate over gays in the military.

While decisions on which articles to publish are made by the journal’s editorial board, located at the defense university, a senior military official said yesterday that the office of Admiral Mike Mullen, the Joint Chiefs chairman who is the nation’s top military officer, reviewed the article before it was published.

“After a careful examination, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that unit cohesion will be negatively affected if homosexuals serve openly,’’ writes Colonel Om Prakash, who is now working in the office of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. “Based on this research, it is not time for the administration to reexamine the issue; rather it is time for the administration to examine how to implement the repeal of the ban.’’

Via Adam Bink at Open Left, here's the entire article. The author takes a very deliberate approach, marshaling all of the arguments before and against repeal and coming to an unequivocal conclusion. He says that allowing gay members to serve while hiding their true identity compromises their personal integrity to an unacceptable degree. He says this ends up hurting unit cohesion more than it helps, as commanders know everything about their troops except one hidden fact. He cites the tragedy of 12,500 willing servicemembers no longer serving, likely a low number "since it cannot capture the number of individuals who do not reenlist or who choose to separate because of the intense personal betrayal they felt continuing to serve under the auspices of DADT."

Importantly, Col. Prakash applies empirical data from other NATO and allied countries who have allowed gay members of their militaries and sees absolutely no basis to the claim of a loss of unit cohesion:

Prior to lifting their bans, in Canada 62 percent of servicemen stated that they would refuse to share showers with a gay soldier, and in the United Kingdom, two-thirds of males stated that they would not willingly serve in the military if gays were allowed. In both cases, after lifting their bans, the result was “no-effect.” In a survey of over 100 experts from Australia, Canada, Israel, and the United Kingdom, it was found that all agreed the decision to lift the ban on homosexuals had no impact on military performance, readiness, cohesion, or ability to recruit or retain, nor did it increase the HIV rate among troops.

This finding seems to be backed by the 2006 Zogby poll, which found that 45 percent of current Servicemembers already suspect they are serving with a homosexual in their unit, and of those, 23 percent are certain they are serving with a homosexual. These numbers indicate there is already a growing tacit acceptance among the ranks.

This was written by a member of the military, for members of the military, and his study leads to the inescapable conclusion that Don't Ask Don't Tell is a costly failure that must be repealed. Furthermore most Americans favor repeal. There is absolutely no excuse for delay on this subject from either Congress or the Obama Administration.

Via Raw Story, news that police use of this weapon is even closer - and more portable, so use will be widespread. I was writing about this in 2006. And no, it's more than "burning sensations" - when they did the tests, they banned metal buttons and zippers because they caused burns, and they also banned contact lenses because they could become fused to the eyeballs.

What brave Congress member will introduce legislation to stop this? Bueller? Bueller?

A powerful hand-held weapon being developed by the Pentagon could end up in police hands, says a report in a UK science journal.

The Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate has been developing the Thermal Laser System since 2005, with the purpose of developing a weapon that could disperse crowds or incapacitate individuals by causing them to experience burning sensations in their skin.

According to NewScientist magazine, the weapon has evolved into a rifle-mounted instrument, and there are plans for a hand-held model that could be used by police forces.

News of the possibility that police departments could obtain the burn weapon will likely concern civil-liberties advocates, who have been watching with alarm as the Taser conducted-energy weapon has gone into regular use in police forces across the United States.

First of all, if we had national health care, those who served wouldn't have to beg for help with medical bills. And it never ceases to amaze me that we'll throw billions of dollars to incompetent but politically-connected war profiteers, but we fight the claims of those who put their bodies at risk while in the service. Unbelievable:

TAMPA, Florida (CNN) -- For Rick Kelly, the first sign of cancer was a feeling of discomfort in his chest.

"My wife would hug me, and it became almost unbearable," he said. "I went to a doctor, and they sent me to the oncologist, and they did biopsies on both sides. And then I ended up with a double mastectomy."

Kelly is one of 20 retired U.S. Marines or sons of Marines who once lived at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and who are now suffering from breast cancer, a disease that strikes about one man for every 100 women who get it. Each of the seven men CNN interviewed for this report has had part of his chest removed as part of his treatment, along with chemotherapy, radiation or both.

All 20 fear that water contaminated with high levels of toxic chemicals may have caused their illnesses, but the Marine Corps says no link has been found between the contamination and their diseases. Without that link, the men are denied treatment by the Department of Veterans Affairs, which says it can't treat them for a condition that hasn't been shown to have been "service-related."

Kelly was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1998, 16 years after he served at Camp Lejeune. Now a single father of a 7-year-old boy and without health insurance, he filed a claim with the VA to help pay his medical bills.

Kelly said his VA representative told him, "It's not the VA's problem, it's the Marine Corps' problem."

And Peter Devereaux, who was stationed at Camp Lejeune in the early 1980s, was told in writing that his breast cancer "neither occurred in nor was caused by service."

But Kelly, Devereaux and other stricken men CNN interviewed say the Marine Corps knew about the contamination in tap water years before it shut down tainted wells in the mid-1980s. Now they want the service to acknowledge that the water from those wells made them sick, which could make them eligible for VA benefits.

"They want it to go away, and it kind of just makes you sick with disgust," Devereaux said.

The men with breast cancer are among about 1,600 retired Marines and Camp Lejeune residents who have filed claims against the federal government. According to congressional investigators, they are seeking nearly $34 billion in compensation for health problems they say stemmed from drinking water at the base that was contaminated with several toxic chemicals, including some the federal government has classified as known or potential cancer-causing agents.

Via Teddy Partridge at FDL, the shocking news that military weapons are now being deployed against civilians in the United States, just as many of us predicted:

You think your town hall meeting's law enforcement presence was authoritarian and heavy-handed?

Check this out: San Diego Sheriff Bill Gore deployed (but did not use) military type sonic crowd-control devices at two town hall meetings, one held by GOP Darrell Issa and the other by Democrat Susan Davis. These devices are the same as those used to control crowds of insurgents in the Iraq war theatre and have been linked to ear and brain injury.

Both town halls took place without incident; however the use of the military device concerned San Diegians. The LRAD [Long-Range Acoustic Device] crowd control is primarily used in Iraq to control insurgents and can cause serious and lasting harm to humans.

According to the manufacture, American Technology Corporation, the LRAD provides “military personnel the capability to transition through the rules of engagement to determine a target’s intent and also provides greater assurance that innocent lives on both sides of the device are not lost due to miscommunication.”

[...]“It’s very concerning,” Kevin Keenan, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said. “ It is fine for the Sheriff’s Department to have new less-than-lethal weapons, but for their interactions with individuals these still-dangerous weapons need to be used only as substitutes for firearms. They can’t be used as just another tool on the tool belt. As we’ve seen with tasers and pepper spray, these types of weapons are being used to subdue people even though they pose the risk of serious physical harm.”

Continue reading »

While I didn't agree with every vote she cast, Democrat Nancy Boyda learned, worked hard and excelled during her time in Congress. She was always a staunch supporter of the troops serving in Iraq (as evidenced by the video above from 2007)and Afghanistan, and veterans issues in general and that support and hard work earned her a position at the Pentagon:

Former U.S. Rep. Nancy Boyda was sworn in Monday at the Pentagon as a deputy assistant secretary of defense for manpower and personnel issues.

She will focus on serving the interests of reserve and National Guard service members. At this time, 141,000 reserve and guard troops are deployed.

"It is all things personnel - retention, recuitment, issues of retirement, deployment issues, families, health care," she said. "I think it's going to be a fascinating job."

She said immediate goals were to broaden training opportunities for soldiers to reduce time away from home and to reform benefits to match the heavier reliance on reserve and guard forces for overseas deployments. Read on...

While George Bush and his regime used our men and women as cannon fodder, Democrats like President Obama and Nancy Boyda fought for better benefits and services for our veterans. I can only hope they continue to work even harder going forward.

(original segment from July 20th)

Scumbag Ralph Peters, a retired Lt. Colonel turned Fox News "analyst" made some nasty statements about captured U.S. soldier Bowe Berdahl earlier this week, calling him a deserter and basically saying the Taliban should execute him:

Now look, Julie, I want to be clear. If, when the facts are in, we find out that through some convoluted chain of events, he really was captured by the Taliban, I'm with him. But, if he walked away from his post and his buddies at wartime... I don't care how hard it sounds, as far as I'm concerned, the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills.

Now a bipartisan group of House veterans led by Ohio Democrat, John Boccieri has sent a letter to Fox News' Roger Ailes, demanding an apology.

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."

Mr. Peters' comments are so far beyond the pale that they don't even approach the decorum and respect deserved by a member of the United States Armed Forces. Mr. Peters' indefensible comments call into question, without any supporting evidence whatsoever, PFC Bergdahl's patriotism and commitment to his country, and suggest in a non-subtle way that he deserved to be captured. The events surrounding the capture of PFC Bergdahl are irrelevant at this point. The only priority should be his safe and immediate release to U.S. forces. Read on...

Peters attempted to backtrack, but according to Think Progress, he's still using Fox News to attack the captured U.S. soldier. Will Ailes do the right thing by firing Peters and publicly apologizing to Bergdahl's family? I wouldn't count on it.