McCain does not deserve the support of any Veteran
Now Playing: Brandon Friedman: McCain's Miserable Record of Not Supporting America's Troops and Veterans
Topic: Military Affairs

 
On Friday, September September 26, 2008, John McCain said the following:

 

"I know the veterans, I know them well, and I know that they know that I'll take care of them, and I have been proud of their support and their recognition of my service to the veterans, and I love them, and I'll take care of them, and they know that I'll take care of them."
This statement--made near the end of Friday's debate--immediately infuriated veterans across America and overseas.  In fact, Senator John McCain has a very clear, long, and illustrious history of not supporting troops and veterans one bit.  

Now, I've seen legislative examples, I've watched the YouTubes, and I've lived this lack of support in more ways than one.  But now, for the first time, I've tried to compile as much of this non-support as possible into a single document--from a variety of sources--complete with links, quotes, and video clips.  It's something that readers often ask me about, so I hope this helps.  I'm sure there's a lot missing, so feel free to add more in the comments.  But for now, I think this should give us a good start in exposing John McCain's abysmal of record of supporting troops and veterans.  Here we go: 

Senator John McCain's Record on Troop and Veterans' Issues

Voting Against Veterans

 

Veterans Groups Give McCain Failing Grades.  In its most recent legislative ratings, the non-partisan Disabled American Veterans gave Sen. McCain a 20 percent rating for his voting record on veterans' issues.  

 

Similarly, the non-partisan Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America gave McCain a "D" grade for his poor voting record on veterans' issues, including McCain's votes against additional body armor for troops in combat and additional funding for PTSD and TBI screening and treatment.

 

McCain Voted Against Increased Funding for Veterans' Health Care.

 

McCain Voted At Least 28 Times Against Veterans' Benefits, Including Healthcare.   Since arriving in the U.S. Senate in 1987, McCain has voted at least 28 times against ensuring important benefits for America's veterans, including providing adequate healthcare.

 

McCain Voted Against Providing Automatic Cost-of-Living Adjustments to Veterans.  McCain voted against providing automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments for certain veterans' benefits. 

 

McCain voted for an appropriations bill that underfunded the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development by $8.9 billion.

 

McCain Voted Against a $13 Billion Increase in Funding for Veterans Programs. 

 

McCain was one of five senators to vote against a bill providing $44.3 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, plus funding for other federal agencies. 

 

McCain was one of eight senators to vote against a bill that provided $47 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

 

McCain Voted Against $51 Billion in Veterans Funding.  McCain was one of five senators to vote against the bill and seven to vote against the conference report that provided $51.1 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs,

 

McCain Opposed $500 Million for Counseling Services for Veterans with Mental Disorders.  McCain voted against an amendment to appropriate $500 million annually from 2006-2010 for counseling, mental health and rehabilitation services for veterans diagnosed with mental illness, posttraumatic stress disorder or substance abuse. 

 

McCain was one of 13 Republicans to vote against providing an additional $430 million to the Department of Veterans Affairs for outpatient care and treatment for veterans. 

 

McCain opposed an amendment that would have prevented the Department of Veterans Affairs from outsourcing jobs, many held by blue-collar veterans, without first giving the workers a chance to compete.

 

McCain did not vote on the GI Bill that will provide better educational opportunities to veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, paying full tuition at in-state schools and living expenses for those who have served at least three years since the 9/11 attacks. McCain said he opposes the bill because he thinks the generous benefits would "encourage more people to leave the military." 

McCain voted against a ban on waterboarding--a form of torture--in a move that could eventually endanger American troops.  

 

Cheerleading for War with Iraq--While Afghanistan was Unfinished
McCain suggested that the war in Iraq could be won with a "smaller" force.

 

 "But the fact is I think we could go in with much smaller numbers than we had to do in the past. But I don't believe it's going to be nearly the size and scope that it was in 1991." (CBS News, Face the Nation, 9/15/02)

McCain said winning the war would be "easy."  "I know that as successful as I believe we will be, and I believe that the success will be fairly easy, we will still lose some American young men or women." (CNN, 9/24/02)

McCain echoed Bush and Cheney's rationale for going to war.  McCain:

 

"We're going to win this victory. Tragically, we will lose American lives. But it will be brief.  We're going to find massive evidence of weapons of mass destruction . . . It's going to send the message throughout the Middle East that democracy can take hold in the Middle East." (Fox News, Hannity & Colmes, 2/21/03)

"But I believe, Katie, that the Iraqi people will greet us as liberators." (NBC, 3/20/03)

 

March 2003: "I believe that this conflict is still going to be relatively short." (NBC, Meet the Press, 3/30/03)

 

 "It's clear that the end is very much in sight . . . It won't be long . . . it'll be a fairly short period of time." (ABC, 4/9/03)

Staunch Defense of the Iraq Invasion
McCain maintained that the war was a good idea and that George W. Bush deserved "admiration."  At the 2004 Republican National Convention, McCain, focusing on the war in Iraq, said that while weapons of mass destruction were not found, Saddam once had them and "he would have acquired them again." McCain said the mission in Iraq "gave hope to people long oppressed" and it was "necessary, achievable and noble." McCain: "For his determination to undertake it, and for his unflagging resolve to see it through to a just end, President Bush deserves not only our support, but our admiration." (Speech, Republican National Convention, 8/31/04)
Senator McCain: "The war, the invasion was not a mistake. (Meet the Press, 1/6/08)

McCain said our military could just "muddle through" in Afghanistan. While giving a speech, McCain was asked about Afghanistan and replied,

 

"I am concerned about it, but I'm not as concerned as I am about Iraq today, obviously, or I'd be talking about Afghanistan.  But I believe that if Karzai can make the progress that he is making, that in the long term, we may muddle through in Afghanistan." (Speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, 11/5/03)

 

 

A Day's Memorial
Now Playing: Arthur: About One Special Veteran on this holdiay
Topic: Military Affairs

the generation that is living with the pain and consequences of our leaders' daily decision to continue this war.
Now Playing: " ...you look with suspicion at everyone you pass, waiting to be attacked.."
Topic: Military Affairs

I remember last September's meeting with U.S. Rep Baird (D) concerning his turn-around support of the Surge. I think about SecDef Gates who yesterday put a positive spin on two female suicide bombers in an Iraq marketplace by suggesting that if they really were mentally retarded then Al Qaeda is getting desperate and entering the Dull-but-Deadly Cheney's "last throes." With an administration entering its last throes, I think we can look beyond candidates and ambitious military politicians like Petraeus. We can perceive more fully our military reality as described by those who've been there and done that. ... like  "former Sergeant" Kelly Dougherty

It gets frustrating to see that the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq as a political priority is declining.

It gets frustrating to realize that such a decline is artificial in that news organizations can exaggerate other concerns by merely changing emphasis on things that might sell more - sell because they are either new or less embedded in America's entertainment boredom.

It is always frustrating to share opinion with folks for whom Iraq is now merely one of several political campaign abstractions around which to build strategies.

These are strategies more governed by consultants and spinners who are paid by candidates to teach them how to say what voters want to hear rather than come anywhere near a legitimate straight-talk reputation.

These are strategies presented with straight-faced declarations about patience with bloodshed;

... that ending bloodshed in Iraq must wait while America's political cycle moves slowly toward it's next phase.

This is true whether buying into Mrs. Clinton's Bush-like refusal to acknowledge past errors in judgement,

... whether buying into Mr. McCain's pretense of truth-telling that deteriorates into a fixed and rigid Westmoreland view on the contribution of America's military blood to foreign policy

or to Romney's absolutely naive and un-informed pretense at understanding foreign policy, military matters and their relationship to Constitutional Values.

The success of the current surge has the same credibility as the smirking smile that presented his 7th SOTU.

Now take Kelly Dougherty, Former Sergeant,Army National Guard, Executive Director, Iraq Veterans Against the War;

Can you imagine McCain, Clinton or Romney trying to oppose in an effective and persuasive way the views of this military veteran?

In this regard, not even McCain could pull rank on Dougherty.

In THIS time and in THIS conflict a "Patton Slap"wouldn't get it.

	Iraq Veterans Against The War - there's more of them organized. Up from  last year's 8 chapters nationwide to 37 chapters.

January 10, 2008
By Kelly Dougherty,
Former Sergeant, Army National Guard,
Executive Director, Iraq Veterans Against the War;IVAW

In just over a year, America will have a new President.

We will have endured a year of campaign commercials and attack ads.

We'll have watched debates devoid of any real discussion of the withdrawal from Iraq that a growing number of Americans now call for.  We'll have waited, for yet another year, for our leaders to find a way to say what we know in our hearts: we must leave Iraq.

But what will have changed in the next year that will make that happen?

We must face this fact: we run the serious risk that one year from today we'll be right where we are now, but with another year's worth of casualties, a year's worth of grieving families, a year's worth of Iraqi anger and suffering built on our occupation of a country we now know was no threat to us.

Ending this war in a year is different than ending it now, just as ending it now is different than ending it a year ago, or a year before that.

There is a price to pay for every day that we wait.

As a veteran who served in Iraq as a military police sergeant, I see our continued occupation of that country as more than simply a list of numbers.

On daily patrols through Baghdad and other cities, your glance darts from one window to the next and you look with suspicion at everyone you pass, waiting to be attacked.

Every time you drive, you anxiously scan the roadways and gutters, anticipating the explosion of a roadside bomb that will send burning shards of metal through both vehicles and flesh.

Indiscriminate home raids at all hours of the day and night become a common experience, as do the mass detentions of terrified and angry Iraqis.

You spend hours at checkpoints, with your finger on the trigger, prepared to make life and death decisions in a country where the line between civilians and combatants is blurred and in constant motion.

   These things take a toll, on our soldiers, their families, and the Iraqi people.

As members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, we know these things and many of us still face them on a daily basis.

Despite what you see on TV, or read in the paper, this is daily life in Iraq.

A year from now, will we have moved any closer to withdrawal?

Or will our leaders continue to push such a decision off into the future, where, like so many decisions made by the powerful, the price to be paid rests squarely on the shoulders of the next generation?

We are at a crossroads: we can focus our energy exclusively on an election in which no viable candidate is committed to rapid withdrawal, or we can spend the next year ensuring that whoever takes office, Republican or Democrat, will face a country mobilized to the cause of bringing our troops home.

The veterans and active duty troops of Iraq Veterans Against the War represent the generation that is living with the pain and consequences of our leaders' daily decision to continue this war.

We have watched our closest friends be killed and injured, we've seen innocent people dehumanized and destroyed.

   We are first-hand witnesses and participants of an illegal war and occupation and we are here to tell you that we have had enough.

We have come together, as members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, with this message: It is time to put this awful chapter of our history behind us.

It is time to do the right thing for the people of Iraq and the people of America.

It is time.

If at the end of the cycle you and I will more than likely still be discussing when we can start withdrawal,

... whether or not America should maintain a jillion military outposts in Iraq,

... whether or not our oil companies deserve control of Iraq's oil,

... and whether or not some new on-going "surge"-ical politico-military tactic requires patience,

then we all are mere fiddling Nero's watching Rome burn

and we are all tragically guilty, responsible and accountable for the tears

... because we had it in our power to stop the carnage and refused to do so

...  because politicians and spinners

glorying in and playing with their newly won power

led us to believe there was a better way while telling us to keep fiddling.

Depleted Uranium debunkers - the trees and the forest
Now Playing: What's the real issue for DU doubters?
Topic: Military Affairs
[Updated after feedback from other sources. Update appears right after the break. AR]

 

Note: Cross-posted to Daily Kos (Recommends solicited please) and Willapa Magazine

My wife and I have included a concern about depleted uranium in our writings now going back almost five years. Recently - as members of a Google group that focuses on Veteran Health issues in Washington State - we received an email  from another military veteran group member which included the following:

Since you are a former AF brat, wife of a Viet Vet and mother to soldiers still serving, I would appreciate it if you would contact me. You have been gravely mislead by a bunch of frauds about DU.

What made you even go looking for them (or did they come to you) -- you are the perfect person for them to make a dupe as they have made Congressman McDermott who was sent a forged document that is purported to be from 1943.

Feedback from DailyKos and VFP 109 in Olympia have made me aware that the individual who generated my response-turned-article is a known internet troll who has made it his mission to propagate anti-anti-DU information.

He is LTC. Roger Helbig, USAF (ret). and is not and has not been an on-going member of our Washington Veteran's Google group. Rather, Helbig seems to have made it his practice to insert himself into every anti-DU rally, debate, symposium and forum including and primarily those on line.

For those interested in the use of Depleted Uranium in military weapons, I make no apology for this lengthy update.

In the spirit of Fair Use, I'm posting the entirety of the following piece from the Axis of Logic Site

"April 11, 2005 -- (Oklahoma City) "Individuals on web sites throughout the United States have complained over a period of months about the abusive and aggressive actions of an Air Force Lieut. Colonel named Roger Helbig," stated Project Censored Award Winning writer Bob Nichols.

 

"Col. Helbig has consistently misrepresented himself and his participation, voluntarily or on a paid basis, as a "minder" or enforcer for the DOD lie about Uranium Munitions in direct contravention of US Army Regulations and Orders," Nichols stated.

"Col. Helbig apparently is fervently following the Secret Los Alamos Memo about Uranium Weapons (UW), aka so-called "Depleted Uranium," instructing personnel to lie about Uranium Weapons to maintain the political viability of continued use of the Genocidal Weapons: "weaponized radioactive and poisonous ceramic uranium oxide gas and dust" in Iraq and throughout Central Asia," added Nichols.

[Ed Note: They are not kidding. A copy of the actual memo encouraging lies and misinformation is online. AR]

Nichols stated "Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D., is the former Army Officer in charge of the Pentagon's Depleted Uranium Project. Dr Rokke is a career officer, loyal to the Constitution of the United States of America, not to any political party. He is the man the people of the United States can turn to for "on the level information" about the true nature of Uranium Weapons (UW.)

Dr. Rokke commented, "LTC Roger Helbig, United States Air Force: I would suggest that since you claim to be so knowledgeable about DU and my specific activities during Gulf War 1 and while I was the Director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium that you produce the actual official documents, not some comments by Bob Cherry or Ed Battle or Mike Kilpatrick, your bosses up the line, verifying your comments."

Rokke added "Unless you can do so, please cease and go away. But before you go away you still have not answered; why you, as an United States Air Force officer, refuse to support my / our actions to ensure that United States Department of Defense officials provide medical care to all DU casualties and clean up all environmental contamination as required by AR 700-48 and TB 9-1300-278; and, that medical care is provided to all DU casualties as required by Lt General Ron Peake's April 29, 2004 order."

"Will you provide us a public endorsement supporting full compliance of these mandatory actions?"

"Yes" or "No"?

Dr. Rokke concluded "It is time for you to decide. The question is not about me, but whether or not United States Department of Defense personnel comply with their own requirements to provide medical care and clean up all environmental contamination as specified in AR 700-48, TB 9-1300-278, and all of the orders mandating medical care for DU casualties."

Copyright 2005 by AxisofLogic.com

The text of what Lt Col (ret) Helbig sent to Lietta via email follows:

Lietta,

Since you are a former AF brat, wife of a Viet Vet and mother to soldiers still serving, I would appreciate it if you would contact me.

You have been gravely mislead by a bunch of frauds about DU. What made you even go looking for them (or did they come to you) -- you are the perfect person for them to make a dupe as they have made Congressman McDermott who was sent a forged document that is purported to be from 1943.

Roger Helbig Vietnam Era vet Retired USAF (5 years active; 20 Guard/Reserve)
DoD Civilian (ret)

grew up with the Army Reserve (my Dad was both reserve officer and civilian employee
- I helped him run preenlistment tests when he got over run by applicants in 1965)
Geologist - that makes me a Geoscientist too --
Trained to recognize and protect against nuclear fallout Contracts Director, Navy Nuclear Shipyard - got to befriend nuclear engineers and technicians, people who know their stuff, not frauds who pretend that they do
Tireless researcher (that's the real me, not the Axis of Evil variant perpetrated by Rokke and Nichols
-- they made me so mad, I FOIAed Rokke's records and have been on his tail and the entire anti-DU crusade's tail ever since -
lying about me was a big mistake on their part)

Part of Helbig's actual post on the group site included the following:

 

There is one major flaw in this study ..
Uranyl Acetate does not exist in nature and thus is unlikely to ever contaminate a soldier or civilian bystander's lungs.  

Another major flaw is that the material that was used in the study contains natural, not depleted uranium.  If anyone wants to write me or come to DUStory in Yahoo Groups, I will put you in touch with chemists who have analyzed this.  

I am surprised that it was funded by a grant and intend to ask questions of the granting organization about why they funded this flawed study which seems made to order for the anti-depleted uranium crusade that wants to convince you that your soldiers are in danger, that you are in danger and that your children are in danger when their real goal is convicting your soldier of a non-existent war crime for intentionally poisoning the Middle East.

 

So, aroused from my aging veteran reverie, I knocked over my coffee, forgot to feed that cat and pounded on my keyboard.

On major flaws ...

(1) Uranyl Acetate - whether or not it exists in nature - "is unlikely to ever contaminate a soldier or civilians bystander's lungs."

Chemists have analyzed this you say?

So what is it we are discussing, the legitimate danger of depleted uranium or why the hell we are using it or need to use it in the first place?

And why would you say that any weapon - possessed of DU or not - is safe for civilian bystanders? What kind of doofus statement is that?

(2) Unless someone with an impressive educational and vocational pedigree (such as yours) can justify/defend America's need to involve nuclear crap in our weaponry as vital to the defense of the nation, what's the problem with crusading against the use of DU?

Are you trying to say that without DU our military is somehow emasculated and insufficiently potent to get the job done?

Do we need to go around shooting field  mice with elephant guns because our generals and defense contractors need the viagra effect of DU to effectively rattle sabers?

(3) I'm not aware of any accusations of war crimes against soldiers  for being in a war zone where their own government has authorized the use of depleted uranium. Who is doing the accusing of our troops? I'll help you smack them.

Actually, it sounds like you're on your own narrow and biased justify-the-use-of-depleted-uranium crusade.

Bottom line is that you can call everyone else's opinion flawed as hell, but in all honesty should you not state and clarify your own particular bias?

As a Veteran with a big mouth and an opinion I'm entitled to, I'll admit to the following biases of concern:

- I am the patriarch of our particular military family with it's own tradition going back decades. My deceased WWII father's flag sits on the wall in my study. My own medals and uniform fruit salad ribbons are in the special box I put them upon receipt of an honorable discharge thirty two years ago.

- I don't wear a silly little flag on my lapel nor stick cheap metal ribbons on my vehicle to prove how patriotic I am. I leave that to gullibles who think Fox News is honest broadcasting.

- I was against Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq from the get-go.

- I still am. Bush is the one most guilty of war crimes. More innocent civilian "bystanders" have been killed on Bush's orders than those killed by the dictator Bush lied about to justify an invasion that included the DU viagra.

- My family is not anti-war nor part of that political crowd. But we are also nobody's gullible puppets and nobody's pretend patriots conforming to false logic.

- Invading Iraq was never justified, necessary and is a false prop for Bush & Company's flawed definition of what a "war on terror" is or should look like.

- In that context, using depleted uranium - serious as that may be in terms of risk -  is secondary to blowing up our soldier family members and innocent by-standing civilians based on what does or does not naturally occur in nature.

As a Veteran with a big mouth, you owe us clarification, not rhetoric.

- Your position regarding the invasion and occupation of Iraq is what?

- your position regarding the reality of a "war on terror" and whose definition of that "war" is drinkable bathwater is what?

- you absolutely promise that depleted uranium has no lethal side effects based on nuclear radiation - being  essentially then harmless except for the traditional lethal intent of those weapons with or without DU inclusion?  You do acknowledge that original intent don't you? Blowing up people and things?

- You guarantee that my family and I and all who read here can absolutely sleep at night without concern about DU cause you've done our homework for us? We have absolutely no reason to worry about DU as the cause of any potential "agent orange" kind of illness or sterilization in our  military sons and daughters? DU absolutely will not be the reason if our soldier families become parents of grandchildren with birth defects?

- You can guarantee that any increased incidence of sterilization and birth defects in the innocent by-standing Iraqi civilian population is not going to be a consequence of DU and that America should have no guilty conscience about DU's inclusion among the rotten eggs we've laid and left laying around in the Middle East?

If you can't make that guarantee then perhaps you should go do more homework before calling anyone or anything flawed.

For these folks, it's not abstract
Now Playing: IED buried too deep?
Topic: Military Affairs

How can you argue with this young soldier? His truth exceeds any political truth.
Now Playing: An offer Bush, Cheney, Lindsey Graham, McRomniani should not refuse.
Topic: Military Affairs

Do you realize just what you say when you spill terrible talking points?  

The troops may as a majority harbor traditional patriotic sentiment but they ain't as stupid as our politicians. 

Some of them are just plain common sense human beings.

Here's my hurried transcript excerpt from an ABC News film clip (Thanks for the tip to Dan at On The Road to 2008)

 

"I challenge Bush to come and spend a tour with me. I'll serve another 15 months if he will. They don't need to pay me any more. They don't have to do anything just come here and hang out with me.

We have people up there in Congress with brain of a two year old who don't know what they're doing. They don't experience it.

I challenge the President or whoever has us here for 15 months to ride along side me. I'll do another fifteen months if he comes out here and rides along with me every day for 15 months.  I'll do 15 more months. They don't even have to pay me extra."

Is there even one entreprenuerial crony who can get it right?
Now Playing: Walter Ree'ds contracted ot mail room with no bottom line
Topic: Military Affairs

Bring the troops home now and take care of them when they get here. That's the thrust of those supporting the military and their families in opposing the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

And it's a bit difficult to take pot shots at the military when it has been stretched to the breaking point by fools. The Walter Reed mail room story excerpted below deserves the light of day. Trouble is, the fools will blame the military for incompetence - the mail room was turned over to the private sector by a contract?

THen we can't blame the Army, we blame the fools who can't blame anyone but their cronies. 

 

Excerpt from Huffington Post (click to read entire article)

 Mail Sent to Walter Reed Never Delivered

WASHINGTON - Turns out the trouble at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the focus of a firestorm of criticism over poor treatment of wounded war veterans, reached into the mailroom.

The Army said Friday that it has opened an investigation into the recent discovery of 4,500 letters and parcels _ some dating to May 2006 _ at Walter Reed that were never delivered to soldiers.

And it fired the contract employee who ran the mailroom.

"If we leave now chaos will result"
Now Playing: Arthur editorial on troop withdrawal from Iraq
Topic: Military Affairs
point in staying because of the now pointless and useless mantra that if we leave chaos will result.

That argument has become the cheapest, most demeaning and diminishing turd regarding the value of every human life in the Middle East.

A Presidency, a Party and it's intellectually foppish projects for new centuries,

...not to mention the parade of presidential wannabes in both parties who attempt to don some sort of wise-statesman cap and gown

... have worn this particular fabric so transparently thin as to  offer the American electorate nothing but pure intellectual insult.

We need the courage to pull out and let the chips fall where they may.

We as a nation are now in Iraq like drunk wife-beatters too stupid to know that the best thing is to stop trying to make it right and get the hell out.

The whole damn pottery barn is full of nothing but bloody shards and we ... as demanded by the tavern-taliking by Dumbass-in-Chief ... have brought it all on ourselves.

anti-equipment and anti-troop demonstrations involving deployment of equipment or troops to Iraq.
Now Playing: Port Demonstrations and Commentary by Arthur
Topic: Military Affairs

[Excerpt] Read the entire article at the Aberdeen Daily World  Anti-war groups rally at the Port

By Paula Horton - Daily World Writer

Monday, May 7, 2007 11:17 AM PDT

 

 

Police braced for possible mass arrests and chaos as anti-war activists gathered in Aberdeen Sunday to protest military cargo shipments from the Port of Grays Harbor.

There was a lot of shouting, name calling and frustration but no arrests or property damage. Police and protesters did face off for about an hour after dozens of protesters refused to assemble in the “free speech zone” that had been established across from The Home Depot.

“We have the right to gather anywhere!” Caitlin Esworthy, a leader with the Olympia Port Militarization Resistance group, yelled through a megaphone. “The USA is a free speech zone!”

Nearly 100 protesters paraded for 30 minutes from 28th Street in Hoquiam, down Simpson Avenue to Myrtle Street and over to the Port. Many local protesters stopped at the designated public assembly area. Others, however, continued toward the entrance to Terminal 4 where the Naval ship MV Cape Henry was being loaded with helicopters, Jeeps, Stryker vehicles and other cargo bound for Iraq.

Beating on buckets and singing “Solidarity forever … the union makes us strong!” out-of-town protesters remained on the Port Industrial Road, blocking traffic. They gathered on both sides of the streets.

After several warnings from police to move to the assembly area and to remain on the side of the street across from the Port docks, a dozen specially trained Seattle bicycle officers rode out from the Port. They ushered everyone to the side of the road and lined their bikes along the shoulder, creating a sort of police line barricade.

The Seattle officers retreated after about 20 minutes and local law enforcement officers took over, lining the Terminal 4 road and the area across the street from the protesters with about 17 patrol cars. Dozens of officers were ready to spring into action.

The protesters, however, remained peacefully on the shoulder of the road.

DAILY WORLD / KATHY QUIGG Around 100 protesters slowed traffic on Simpson Avenue Sunday afternoon as they paraded for a couple blocks in Hoquiam before turning onto Myrtle Street toward the Port of Grays Harbor, where military equipment is being loaded on a ship bound for Iraq.

“I think the Seattle officers were very professional and I thought their tactics and presence were extremely beneficial to us,” Aberdeen Police Capt. Dave Johnson said. “I believe it helped diffuse the situation.” The Seattle police made their expertise available to Aberdeen free of charge, Johnson said.

Counter demonstrators gathered between the two groups of anti-war protesters, and Mayor Dorothy Voege even stopped by. She said she was pleased with how the day was going and told the protesters that she appreciated them being peaceful. “They’re using their heads and things aren’t going to hell,” she said.

Trey Smith of Aberdeen, the treasurer of the state Green Party, had been keeping close contact with Aberdeen Police to help ensure things stayed orderly. Capt. Johnson commended Smith on his efforts.

Smith, in turn, gave credit to the officers.

“This could have turned into a really bad situation,” he said. “Police used a great deal of wisdom in this case.”

Many out-of-town protesters, however, claimed they were harassed and intimated by officers throughout the weekend. They said they were constantly watched, and accused officers of making illegal traffic stops.

“It’s a gross violation of our civil liberties to be harassed, followed and photographed,” Esworthy said. Officers have been “unprofessional and rude. We have every right to be here as citizens of the United States.”

Before the parade started, Esworthy told the crowd that officers continued to cruise by a restaurant where nine protesters had gathered to eat. One person picked up a toy gun that he found lying on the ground and seven cars raced up the alley to confront him, she said.

They were also prevented from speaking at an event at the Polish Club after officers talked to the event organizer, she said.

Cars of protesters leaving the Port on Sunday were also followed until they left town.

 

[Excerpt] Read the entire article at the Aberdeen Daily World 

Personally, although infuriated by the use of police tactics (rubber bullets, batons, verbal threats and intimidation) to suppress the port demonstrations in Tacoma,  I have not nor do I now endorse any anti-equipment and anti-troop demonstrations involving deployment of equipment or troops to Iraq.

Such activities fail to differentiate between the military, military leadership, our troops and the genuine authors of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

For the most part I deplore the tactics the military has had to use to shore up it's numbers via deceptive recruiting, stop-loss and narrow interpretations of a soldier's right and duty to refuse illegal orders. But I do not hold the military responsible for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Radical activism sometimes appears to be getting wild-eyed and feeling partiotically dissentful while at the same time forgetting the humanity and circumstance of our military family neighbors and their loved ones caught in a contractual bear trap.

Although not widely known, there was controversy over the final wording of the report from the recent Citizen's Tribunal held in Tacoma.

This because incredibly powerful and legitimate testimony about the illegality of the war seemed for the most part to take a back seat to a deteriorated focus on troop behavior, reported atrocities and anectdotal accounts pounced upon despite very little second and third-source verification or confirmation.

The illegality of the war was and is not established by individual acts of soldiers. War crimes can be established that way, and the intent of a tribunal supposedly by definition is to reach a valid conclusion as to the original premise.

The Port of Grays Harbor is less than 40 miles from my home in Bay Center, but my time is better spent lobbying and agitating for fixed time frames  for troop withdrawal and for presidential CIC accountability rather than whining about the loading and shipping of war equipment that includes in its design and intent protection of our troops.

Removing the troops seems the best way to get the troops to stop using equipment for killing while risking their own maiming or death in an invasion and occupation whose blood is on the hands of a leadership gone over to the dark side of force.

Arthur Ruger

Publisher, Willapa Magazine 

Support the Troops! Exploit Their Vulnerability!
Now Playing: Huffington Post Blog by Pauline Arrillaga
Topic: Military Affairs
This is one powerful example of how dissociated the civilian population is from the reality of war and military loved one's in harm's way.

Air Force fills out Army ranks in Iraq
Now Playing: By MICHELLE ROBERTS, Associated Press Writer
Topic: Military Affairs


CAMP BULLIS, Texas - A row of rumbling flatbed trucks and Humvees outfitted with gun turrets lurches toward a mock village of cinderblock buildings where instructors posing as insurgents wait to test the trainees' convoy protection skills.

The training range is Army, as is the duty itself — one of the most dangerous in Iraq these days. But the young men and women clad in camouflage and helmets training to run and protect convoys are not Army; they're Air Force. They are part of a small but steady stream of airmen being trained to do Army duty under the Army chain of command, a tangible sign the Pentagon was scouring the military to aid an Iraq force that was stretched long before President Bush ordered 21,500 additional U.S. troops there.
"What we've seen is the Department of Defense continues to find ways to meet the

 requirements imposed by the commander in chief," said retired Brig. Gen. Kevin Ryan, a senior fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center in the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

No plans to expand the Air Force's role in convoy operations have been announced since Bush ordered the troop surge in Iraq, but Ryan said the Army and other branches of service have been looking at every possible job that can be shifted — from the Air Force performing convoy duty to the Navy setting up medical facilities far from waterfronts.

"I can't imagine there are any jobs that they could be doing that they aren't doing, but certainly, that doesn't mean they're not continuing to look to find every possible instance where we can use the full military to solve this problem and not just have this be an Army and Marine Corps issue," he said.

Read the entire article at Yahoo News

Retired Generals: Bush is ?Breaking the Army?
Now Playing: Inter Press Service
Topic: Military Affairs

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush’s ongoing “surge” of some 35,000 troops to add to the 140,000 already deployed in Iraq is highlighting growing concern, particularly among the military brass, that the U.S. army is overstretched and fast becoming “broken”.

 

An increasing number of senior retired officers, some of whom had previously expressed optimism that the active-duty force of some 500,000 soldiers could handle U.S. commitments in the “global war on terror”, now say the current situation today reminds them of 1980, when the service’s top officer, Gen. Edward Meyer, publicly declared that the country had a “hollow Army”.

 

“The active army is about broken,” former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who also served as chairman of the Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff under President George H.W. Bush 15 years ago, told Time magazine this week, while another highly decorated retired general who just returned from Iraq and Afghanistan described the situation in even more dire terms.

 

“The truth is, the U.S. Army is in serious trouble and any recovery will be years in the making and, as a result, the country is in a position of strategic peril,” ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former head of the U.S. Southern Command, told the National Journal, elaborating on a much-cited memo he had written for his colleagues at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

 

“My bottom line is that the Army is unraveling, and if we don’t expend significant national energy to reverse that trend, sometime in the next two years we will break the Army just like we did during Vietnam,” he added.

 

In an indication of the growing concern, both Time and the more elite-oriented Journal ran cover stories this week. They both concluded that the Army was rapidly approaching or had already reached “the breaking point”.

 

“Pressed by the demands of two wars, plus mandates to expand, reorganise, and modernise, the Army is nearing its breaking point,” according to the Journal, which also ran a companion article on how much the service has been forced to lower its mental, physical and moral standards to meet recruitment targets.

 

Some 15 percent of Army recruits last year were granted “waivers” from the Army’s minimum standards — about half of those were “moral waivers”; that is, they were permitted to enter the service despite prior criminal records. Only 82 percent of recruits had a high school diploma or its equivalent, below the Army’s benchmark of 90 percent and the lowest rate since 1981, according to the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

 

From just over 1.6 million soldiers at the height of the Vietnam War, the Army’s active-duty force fell to a half million troops by the mid-1990s, following the end of the Cold War. Counting reserve and National Guard forces, the Army’s total strength stands at about one million soldiers, of whom less than 400,000 are trained for combat.

 

While that was considered adequate for conventional conflicts with clear military and political objectives like the first Gulf War, in which the U.S. used overwhelming force to quickly prevail, it has proven far less suitable for the kind of prolonged occupation and unconventional war in which Washington now finds itself engaged in Iraq.

 

While some in the military brass, like then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki, warned the Bush administration even before the 2003 Iraq war that several hundred thousand troops would be required to stabilise the country, Bush’s defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was determined to show that a “transformed” military — one that used advanced technology to make up for numbers — was the wave of the future, repeatedly rejecting appeals by his commanders, Congress and some of his neo-conservative allies to expand the army’s size.

Congress didn't act then, doesn't act now; History Lesson - Bonus Army - 1932
Now Playing: Lietta Ruger Post copied here from WASHBLOG
Topic: Military Affairs
The Bonus Army March on Washington DC in 1932 provides us with a model that has seemingly gone unchanged in how Congress responds to our military veterans, and the intensity by which veterans and civilians have to 'demonstrate' to get the attention of Congress - no not just get the attention, but enough attention that causes Congress to finally take action.   

A history lesson.

Last night, on PBS station, was airing of a show about the 20,000 Bonus Army veterans of World War 1,along with their families, and other affiliated groups in their march on Washington DC, their encampment in Washington DC during the spring and summer of 1932, and the resulting riot that ensued to break up the encampment.  

Congress continued to vote no to keeping a promise they had already made and given to these WW 1 veterans. Perseverance and persistence, on the part of the veterans, families and supporters and finally Congress said Yes to keeping their promise. What happened in between with Congress saying No to Congress saying Yes is not a pretty American tale, but indeed, part of American history.  

1932 - World War 1 and all the wars that followed up to the present in 2007 - why do our veterans have to fight Congress as well as fight in the battlefields?  It seems this is the 'norm', not the exception.

In 1924 promise was made via Adjusted Service Certificate Law giving to WW1 veterans "bonus" certificates the following year that would be redeemable for cash after a maturation period of 20 years - payable in 1945.

June 17, 1932 and Congress was to vote on the Patman Bonus Bill, which would have moved forward the date when World War I veterans received a cash bonus. The 'Bonus Army' massed on DC, in hopes of convincing Congress to grant payments immediately, providing relief for the marchers/protestors who were unemployed. It was the era of the Great Depression, and veterans who already served found themselves in the food lines, without means to provide for their families, and were reduced from proud returning warriors to street beggars and bums (note; use of those words street beggars and bums reflects the social thinking of that era, not my definitions for how I think of the veterans of that era).

Not a pretty sight then for veterans, and doesn't it bring up recent history of Vietnam-era veterans who are homeless, living in the streets in reduced life circumstances?

Why is it no surprise that Congress defeated the bill July 28, and offered the pittance of paying the veteran demonstrators way home?  Some accepted and went home; others did not and remained. The Washington Police moved in to disperse the encampment, and two veterans were fatally shot in the process. The veterans hit back with blunt instruments, and the Washington Police backed off telling then President Hoover that they could not maintain the peace.

President Hoover ordered in federal troops to remove the veteran protesters.   Noted Generals, General Douglas MacArthur with Dwight D. Eisenhower as part of his staff,  and General George S. Patton were in command of the removal.  Troops carrying rifles, unsheathed bayonets and tear gas were sent in.    Hundreds of veterans were injured, several killed.  It's not hard to imagine the impact on the public of a visual of  U.S. armed soldiers confronting poverty-stricken veterans from what was then in American history the recent Great War.  (note; jumping forward in hisotry, we've seen this image again in Vietnam war protests).  

It did set the stage and we do have these protesting WW 1 veterans to thank for what would become Veteran relief and eventually the Veterans Administration, making benefits of medical, home loans, and college tuition available to the next generation of veterans.

(Side note) And these benefits, I'm afraid, are on the serious decline as this Administration cites budget constraints while asking for budget supplemental appropriation to feed troop increases and keeping the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

In the battle against it's own veterans to clear the encampments, burning down the tents and shacks, by the end a list of casualties looked like this:

    - Two veterans were shot and killed.
    - An 11 week old baby was in critical condition resulting from shock from gas exposure.
    - Two infants died from gas asphyxiation.
    - An 11 year old boy was partially blinded by tear gas.
    - One bystander was shot in the shoulder.
    - One veteran's ear was severed by a Cavalry saber.
    - One veteran was stabbed in the hip with a bayonet.
    - At least twelve police were injured by the veterans.
    - Over 1,000 men, women, and children were exposed to the tear gas, including police, reporters, residents of Washington D.C., and ambulance drivers.

 President Hoover was not re-elected, and a new President in Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected. After his 1933 Inauguration, some of the veterans regrouped to make their case to the new President.  He did not want to pay the bonus either, and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt engaged the veterans encouraging many of them to sign up for jobs making roadways at the Florida Keys.

In the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 in Florida, 259 of these veterans were killed at their worksites on the highway.  Public sentiment in reaction to seeing  newsreels of veterans giving their lives for a government that had taken them for granted, is what persuaded Congress they could no longer afford to ignore it in an election year (1936). Roosevelt's veto was overridden, and the veterans received their bonus.

 NPR Soldier Against Soldier; The Story of the Bonus Army with vintage newsreel.

I will mention 'Vietnam' without getting into another history lesson - a decade of sending our young into combat in an un-necessary war, 58,000 names of the dead on Vietnam Wall in Washington DC; millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians killed - oh yes, if you didn't know it to be true, U.S. troops were ordered by the Nixon Administration into Cambodia and Laos - it wasn't limited to Vietnam.

The Nixon Administration also ordered the military use of weapons of mass destruction in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos without much regard to the troops or non-combatant civilians.  What did it take to get Congress to act in this history lesson?  

Today, then, in 2007, in the matter of four years of U.S. military deployed in occupation of Iraq, despite four years of mounted protests by hundreds of thousands in cities across the United States, in Washington DC - what is it going to take to affect Congress to action instead of using just empty words as they jocky for political position?  

Despite the efforts of veterans - over 1,300 Iraq veterans signed the Appeal for Redress that was delivered to Congress in January 2007 - Lt. Ehren Watada's efforts by his refusal to deploy to put the Iraq war on trial in accord with U.S. compliance with Geneva Conventions - the poll which indicated that 70% of deployed troops polled believe they should come home -----   what is going to take to get Congress to listen and act?  

No, that is not a rant or a hopeless question.  The history dating back to the Bonus Army, and the wars in which the U.S. military has been deployed since clearly show a more than casual disregard for the military and veterans over a 65 year period.  That is more than happenstance - that is a pattern of behavior on the part of Congress.  And I only went back to 1932, choosing the Bonus Army as a starting place.  

Is it any wonder that there is almost now by rote an action = U.S. military deployed into questionable wars with reaction = U.S. public must battle Congress to see the error it it's ways via repeated and accelerated protest demonstrations before Congress will act?  

Is this the norm in our country - this land of freedom?  Freedom of what, I ask myself sometimes - freedom to send our young off in repeated historical wars to be killed and maimed and scarred for life and with just a thank you Sir and then are as quickly as one clicks the remote to change the tv channel the 'new veterans' are forgotten? Freedom to maintain freedom by sending our young repeatedly generation after generation to war?  I have to wonder when freedom isn't freedom but an act of an extreme kind of  selfishness.  Why is it that only our country deserves the largess?

No, I don't want to move to another country and I'm sure many would be happy to invite that opportunity if I am so dis-satisfied with my own country.  And no, I don't want to live under a dictatorship or other forms of government that are oppressive in nature.  Besides, I've had a husband and now a son-in-law and nephew pay my price of freedom and freedom to speak since they have been in combat over two wars - Vietnam and Iraq. Oh, and my nephew was also in Bosnia - you remember Bosnia?  Clinton years?

But, just because we, in this country, have some mythical definitions of what it is to be a democracy and those definitions are bathed and perfumed in nostalgic and patriotic dressing, doesn't mean we should accept that as the satisfactory bar or standard of what it means to be a democracy.  We should strive for better, yes, and we should re-examine our definitions and we should, perhaps improve on those definitions, and we should stop sending our young generations to be killed in the name of democracy and freedom, or at the very least get a clearer sense of what constitutes a 'threat' and imminent danger to our country. .

Quoting President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who witnessed and participated in routing out the Bonus Army - U.S. troops against U.S. veterans:

 

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

 

  Don't think for a moment, that our Congress today, our Administration today does not well know the lessons of history.  Which is exactly why Congress refusing to act against an Administration who refuses to listen to the advice and warnings of his war experts is beyond deplorable as static energy - moving neither forward or backward,  perpetuating more of the same by doing nothing different. When did 'stay the course' become a patriotic nomenclature?  How is that bravery or wisdom in the face of foolishness?  

I truly do not wish to see the two in our family go back to Iraq this year - they returned alive, not necessarily well, but alive from their first 15 month deployment in 2003-2004.  Believe me, none in our family will consider it a noble sacrifice for them to go back, and their deaths will not honor them or us, rather it will be remembered that this Administration and Congress in concert did, in fact, exploit and dishonor our brave young service men and women.    

You Must Be a Military Brat if....
Now Playing: Lietta
Topic: Military Affairs

They were never as smart as they pretend and sure as hell ain't that smart now.
Topic: Military Affairs

What is it they think they know that results in such a surprising position that insists in the face of disaster that the iron can still be pulled out of the fire?

McCain's toadying to the party hard-core power base looks for all the world like compromising his prior image and principles in the name of political expediency.

It's a continuation of his hat-in-hand olive branch to the radical religious right. (BTW, note that Dobson has said he would not vote for McCain under any circumstances.)

The issue with McCain, Lieberman, and the pretend party moderates like Lindsay Graham who debated Barbara Boxer on Lehrer last week is in fact that they may be Veterans, but they are Veterans lacking legitimate military strategic training despite being privy to national security information. - which then is the only difference between them and politically active veterans like me.

We all have a general lack of large scale military strategic/tactical training, experience and skill and had no careers as military tacticians.

Not even McCain's veteran status suggests that he is any kind of military genius and/or tactician. His strong opinions about the military's tactical and strategic need of more boots on the ground has not been established nor vindicated by his personal bigographic credentials that compare to any of our current generals, or retired generals like Clark.

He's no more gifted on strategy than Murtha whose suggestions are as legitimate as McCain's.

Where was John McCain when Shinseki was singing the same song Johnny now bleats about albeit too little, way too late and but needed in order to secure a presidential nomination from those party hacks who can deliver?

McCain was subordinating himself to the pretend wisdom of Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld whom he must have assumed were themselves more intelligent than he about military strategy and tactics.

If back in 2002-2003 McCain, Lieberman, Graham and other Republicans deferred to Wolfie and Rummy - who ultimately lost their strategic, tactical and logistical credibility (long after their lack was apparent to amateur politicals like us) - what does that say about current Republican wisdom when it supports blind Bush ignorance and self-destructive stubbornness?

The only difference between McCain's veteran opinion and my veteran opinion regarding Clausewitz-like wisdom, is that his vocation is as a politician with a politician's perspective and priority.

Mine is that my vocation is social work and a social justice perspective. Neither of us are experts on military stragedy but one of us is flirting with military tragedy.

Shinseki was right and is still right and 21,000 warriors are too little too lat.
Topic: Military Affairs
General Shinseki knew what he was talking about when he did the job he was paid to do and earned his pay. Not Wolfowitz, not Rumsfeld, certainly not Cheney and leastwise not our national ignoramus were ever wiser than the general. Now we have a new general who is quite capable I'm sure. But not a Houdini and certainly not going to pull an iron out that is bigger than the fire itself. Then of course the party line from the more conventional Republicans, not to be confused with the marionettes placed in power by the religious wingnuts.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: I think it would be very irresponsible for this Congress to declare a new strategy dead upon arrival before it has a chance to be implemented. I think it would be unwise for the Congress to tell a military commander he can't win before he's had a chance to make the case for winning. I think it would be devastating to our war effort for the Congress to declare Iraq lost by cutting off funding. The most irresponsible thing we can do as a Congress is be pushed to act before we hear all the facts and send the signals to the people who are trying to kill us that empower them and deflate moderates who will live with us in peace. Listen to General Petraeus. Don't destroy his ability to win before he has a chance to win.

South Carolina's Graham's advice is a fart in the wind he hopes no one will smell. It keeps his Republican bona fides bona fided, but makes about as much sense as suggesting that blanks in a pistol will stop a charging rhino. Carl Conetta is co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA). His assessment puts truth and reality ahead of either party's attempt to self-portray as possessing a knowledge of the wisest way to wield American military power.

What the Bush administration has sought to do, at the point of a gun, is thoroughly reinvent Iraq -- its public institutions, legal system, security structures, economy, and political order. This is a revolution as profound as any, but foreign in origin, design, and implementation. It should not be surprising that these efforts -- which have flooded the country with nearly 300,000 foreign handlers -- have bred resentment and worse. The most disconcerting data from Iraq concerns popular attitudes toward US forces. The percentage of Iraqis desiring US withdrawal within a year or less has steadily increased as has the percentage who support attacks on US troops. Indeed, strong majorities in both the Sunni and Shia communities now favor such withdrawal and support such attacks. This leaves no grounds for optimism regarding the effects of adding troops. What the Bush administration has sought to do, at the point of a gun, is thoroughly reinvent Iraq -- its public institutions, legal system, security structures, economy, and political order. This is a revolution as profound as any, but foreign in origin, design, and implementation. It should not be surprising that these efforts -- which have flooded the country with nearly 300,000 foreign handlers -- have bred resentment and worse. The most disconcerting data from Iraq concerns popular attitudes toward US forces. The percentage of Iraqis desiring US withdrawal within a year or less has steadily increased as has the percentage who support attacks on US troops. Indeed, strong majorities in both the Sunni and Shia communities now favor such withdrawal and support such attacks. This leaves no grounds for optimism regarding the effects of adding troops.

We broke it with unjustified and foolish wielding of American military power. We cannot fix Iraq with any wise wielding of American military power. And we've got to quit kidding ourselves that we can or should. The time was there once, but that time has come and gone. It's too late for that.

"Your son volunteered. He knew what he was getting into ..."
Topic: Military Affairs

So did I

... in 1968 five months after the Tet offensive. I dropped out of college and enlisted. And like the current volunteers who are described by worn-out conservative flag-wearers, I had a rough idea of what I was getting into.

That "rough idea" was based on trust ... trust in a system and, ultimately, trust in a specific leader and a specific governing political party. The specific leader of course was LBJ, the specific party was the Democratic Party and the specific system was and is the system that allows us to hang our political opinions on buttons and sanctimonious drapery of stars and stripes from which we belch our prejudices.

When you sign up you endorse a contract on the bottom line. It's a contract with specified written obligations on the part of both parties, but also with unspecified but powerful assumptions on the part of both parties.

In the case of joining the military knowing what you are getting into is based on very powerful unwritten but nationally accepted assumptions:

• The integrity and honor of the commander in chief of the military and that CIC's skill, wisdom and understanding of all reasons when and why military citizens are to be placed in harm's way.
  
• As a volunteer you are at the mercy of that individual, his party and their combined priorities - with a strong expectation that those priorities extend beyond a desire to remain in the driver's seat.
  
• As a volunteer you are at the mercy of your own fellow citizens (including your own family) whom you trust to be willing and supportive in making sure the leadership does not waste your vital blood, devotion and patriotism in pipe dreams, self-interested agenda's and ideologies;
  
• That leaders are driven by a genuine desire to involve the country in on-going mutual participation and compromise regarding foreign policy before resorting to force as a last resort. 

Volunteering to become a soldier is volunteering to preserve and protect - with your own power and will - the country, its borders, its citizens and its institutions. It isn't volunteering to keep a political party in power.

The only way to avoid that circumstance is for the citizens to assume their rightful role in the triangular relationship with the troops and the CIC. The troops are expected to trust the CIC's wisdom as well as the patriotic participation of the Citizens who will keep the CIC honest.

The CIC is expected to trust the troops to follow orders and expects to sustain by honesty and integrity the support of the Citizens. The Citizens expect the troops to do their duties and expect the CIC to sustain by honesty and integrity his political authority.

The Citizens must be willing to hold the CIC accountable and willfully resist when the honesty and integrity of leadership is absent.

That is what is going on right now. The President has demonstrated a lack of leadership at a time when leadership is needed. The killing continues daily .... and we are witness to a repeat of a leader who is like a deer caught in the headlights ... sitting there ... doing nothing ... pondering what ... while pretending to enjoy "My Pet Goat."

First Published in Daily Kos 8/19/2005

 

Patriotic Duty - The relationship between the Citizen, the Soldier and the President
Now Playing: Arthur
Topic: Military Affairs
Despite claims by supporters of the Bush administration to a monopoly on American patriotism and their right to define that patriotism, organizations such as MFSO are exercising one of the highest duties with which any American citizen is charged. If our family members serving in the military are duty bound to follow their Commander-in-Chief they then have a right to expect fidelity from that commander. The commander must have no higher priority than the greatest possible support of the troops, must focus on keeping them as safe and least exposed to harms way as possible in pursuit of national security objectives.

Likewise, citizens are duty-bound to our military in a way no less important than the troops' obligation to obey and trust their commander-in-chief. The commander-in-chief is neither an emperor nor a dictator and at all times remains accountable to all citizens - not just those who voted for him. American civilians have - as their highest duty in support of our family members in the military - an insistence on accountability for decisions placing our troops in harms way. We in fact are a vital part of a system of checks and balances that must function in order to protect the integrity of what constitutes democracy in America.

On the one hand, military devotion to duty, courage in the line of fire, and obedience regardless of agreement or disagreement with command decisions ought to be the highest measure of soldierly patriotism.

On the other hand, civilian devotion to the fact of American democratic process is equally vital in making sure ulterior motives and secret special interest agendas are not placed ahead of the safety and well-being of our troops.

When either of the dominant political parties in this country makes an assertion that patriotism and loyalty are defined within that particular party, we disenfranchise ourselves if we blindly buy into that notion. Particularly dangerous is the circumstance where we as citizens find politicians attempting to exploit what they believe to be our own personal politics, philosophy or economic outlook with highly emotional rhetoric in an attempt to stampede us into acting without thinking.

We see the Democratic Party expend a lot of energy trying to appeal to the electorate as an alternative to the Republican administration that - in response primarily to 9/11 - launched this country into a military enterprise. We see the Republican Party expend a lot of energy trying to appeal to the electorate based entirely on a war on terrorism launched after the 9/11 event - essentially appealing to our patriotism.

What has devolved is a conflict around who is patriotic and who is not.

The fundamental truth of the matter is this: Neither party has the monopoly on patriotism. Neither party is empowered to define for you and for me what it means to love your country and what a patriotic act looks like.

The politician who says that those who do not support the President are then in support of terrorists is deliberately denying that which is at the heart of democracy.

The politician who declares that dissent and disagreement with national leadership is not patriotic and in fact is a betrayal of the country is deliberately denying that which is at the heart of democracy.

The politician who declares that families with relatives on active duty betray those relatives when they openly disagree with the administration is deliberately attempting to harm a vital component of our political system in pursuit of a personal agenda.

If we who remain at home do not do our part to make a powerful lobby on behalf of our military troops we may be able to lay the blame for disaster at the feet of those whose politics got us into a disaster. However, the blame will lay more fully in our corner for believing someone else's deliberate denial of what is at the heart of our America.

It is, after all, Our America.

Watada: Who taught him moral courage, integrity & values?
Topic: Military Affairs
Expectations: The warrior immunized against the infection of moral blindness.

What do our adult children say when asked about who Americans are and what core values represent America’s best message to the world?

Are our children opportunists with little regard for whatever America’s core values truly represent because they are more motivated by some slick sales presentation that says excitement awaits when you’re on the path of being all that you can be?

Are they, as has been pointed out in several venues, children out of poverty who joined up out of economic and intellectual desperation?

Are they genuine civic-minded patriots who combine their personal sense of self-development with career objectives blended with legitimate appreciation for what it means to live in the American democracy?

Or somewhere in between?

Voluntary military recruits - both those who’ve enlisted and those with commissions - bring to the military initiation process that set of ethics and morality cultivated in childhood. Although family circumstances in some cases were inadequate in helping create a solid foundation of ethics and morals, most who join come out of families where at least some degree of a value system was encouraged and demonstrated.

Ideally then, entry into military life would include a strengthening of moral and ethical traits into a blend with a warrior’s code of conduct.

Soldiers are neither devoid of nor excused from ethical and moral responsibility. If - in destroying those preconceived notions considered by the military to be contrary to the values and skills necessary in a soldier - new notions, values and skills do not include a strong sense of moral responsibility then our basic training and combat training programs are harming both recruits and the nation.

Our sons and daughters are not to become amoral killing machines totally lacking in moral responsibility. This sense of moral responsibility absolutely must graduate from basic training intact in a soldier’s mind and heart.

In the absence of real moral responsibility in our soldiers, not only will we see more and more tragic incidents of the shaming of one’s self, one’s unit, one’s branch of service, one’s community, and one’s country, but the absence of moral responsibility will stand more fully revealed as a flaw in the civilian society as well.

The antics of civilian leadership when it deliberately ignores or downplays the horrific consequences of war, bombing campaigns and torture justified by something other than literal defense of the homeland reflects a legitimate moral blindness.

We do not send our children out to fight irresponsibly with no sense of ethics simply because the ethical and moral sense has been assigned to higher authorities.

We don’t excuse our soldiers for ethical and moral lapses because authorities placed in positions of appointed power have - with self-preserving hypocrisy - labeled offenders as some few “bad apples,” who deserve no further close scrutiny and need to be locked up, the key thrown away.

We should not tolerate civilian administrators pleading innocence because of the vast gap between the highest echelons of authority and the lowest front line chain of command; that front line where sergeants can be punished because a corporal suffered the same moral blindness as those self-serving civilians on Mount Olympus.

Moral blindness at an even more starkly elevated level insists that:

An invasion that became a military occupation must be continued in the name of staying on an immoral and unethical course of deliberate destruction of innocents because we were lied to by the liars who now declare that to cease the immoral aggression would be "cutting and running."

This is the lack of moral responsibility we’ve seen in the civilians now seated at the steering wheel who are passing judgment on the moral fiber of anyone who disagrees, thereby labeling dissent as treason.

Our soldiers absolutely must emerge from basic and combat training with moral competence intact.

I hope that stories of institutionalized programming of racial hatred, bigotry, stereotyping and name-calling are not predominantly a part of teaching warriors a moral and ethical code. If the stories are true, I declare here and now … they are not doing it in my name nor on behalf of my family. I repudiate these tactics of moral recklessness.

That is of course why we raise our children to become independent and self-reliant adults. The worst example of poor parenting I can think of is having a 29-year-old insist that I tell him what to think and what to do constantly because he can't or lazily won't think for himself.

When my son or daughter join the military and enter into its initiation, I am not being unreasonable in expecting the military to blend its own sense of ethical and moral responsibility with that which we as parents have endeavored to plant in our children’s hearts.

I clicked on a link in the article referred to at the end of this post and immediately found a book by Shannon French entitled “The Code of the Warrior”. This from the Amazon site quoting Publisher‘s Weekly:

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To which I want to add that as an American citizen who willingly endorses - if it happens - the decision of my own flesh and blood to join and serve in the military, I request that you teach the real moral and ethical code of the warrior.

If my child has an officer's commission and is to become a leader of soldiers, do not attempt to destroy the inner sense of integrity of that fledgling officer. Do not try to replace integrity with moral blindness.

Moral blindness can be infectious and if left untreated will pass from soldier to soldier, even from officer to officer.

Discernment is the key here and it is absolutely vital to this nation that we do not place morally blind officers in positions of command that lead to blind amoral obedience.

We do not want morally blind soldiers who cannot act competently when confrontations with ethical dilemmas arise. We want to see in our soldiers’ behavior a strong support for legal authority, moral authority and ethical authority. To the degree that such authority is lacking or not modeled by the political leadership, America suffers.

This is no more amply demonstrated than by behavior at the highest levels that denigrates genuine dissent and genuine efforts to ascertain legalities, moralities and ethics involved in launching an invasion that has become an occupation of Iraq. Hiding behind shallow “cut-and-run” slogans demonstrates aptly and without question the moral and ethical shallowness of placing politics at the forefront of national security priorities.

… of placing soldiers in confrontations demanding high ethical and moral values where none were taught or encouraged in a military too focused on fear of its civilian leadership.

Our 2004 election has been publicized as a victory for voters supporting moral values. The most prominent and whining conservative Religious leaders in this country have contributed to this fog of confusion regarding ethics and moral competency.

We have prominent voices declaring ethical nonsense like the U.S. should “blow them away in the name of the Lord,” (J. Falwell) … or the disingenuous un-Christian immorality of looking the other way while a Republican administration invaded and occupied Iraq, killing thousands of innocent Iraqis in the process.

These are ethical and moral lapses of the highest gravity - especially when it’s revealed that the higher conservative Christian priority is a Constitutional amendment against gay marriage or teaching creationism in schools.

As if God were focused on gays and evoltuion, looking the other way and not at Iraq.

So what do we do when a soldier refuses an order based on his own developed sense of ethics, morality, loyalty and patriotism?

Again from the author of The Code of the Warrior:

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What does the initiation into the military teach our children?

Discipline … which of course takes many forms.

What does moral and ethical discipline look like in the life of an American soldier?

Whose moral and ethical values are the primary instinctive and emotional guides in a human being?

Certainly none taught by the infection of moral blindness.

I recommend the following article:

Teaching Military Ethics: Personal Development versus Moral Drill

By Mrs. E.M. Wortel
Faculty of Military Sciences
Netherlands Defense College

and

Major J.P.M. Schoenmakers
Netherlands Royal Military School

Which can be found at The International Military Ethics Symposium.

"That sonofabitch Nixon, killed more of our boys than needed to die."
Topic: Military Affairs
<span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(255, 255, 153);"><blockquote>For Chrissake can we all just stop using Nazi references.  This is nothing like WWII and noone here is like the freakin Nazis.</blockquote></span>I remember coming home to straighten out all my family in the early 1970's because, like my WW II father, I'd been there now, and done that ... well to the degree that flyboys can be there and do that.

So I could tell my father that Viet Nam was nothing like WW II or even Korea and, disregarding the fact that he was drafted and faced a much greater risk to himself in WW II than I did flying 35,000 feet above the conflict and dodging occasional Mig's.

His stories were of course about places like Guadalcanal, the Battle of the Bulge and even Dunkirk even though he spent the war on Adak in the Aleutians as a radio relay operator.

His perspective in the early 1980's when he was neareer my age now, just blew me away.

I grew up listening to him talk about WW II and watching the 1940's and 50's John Wayne and Audie Murphy movies with him.

But the 50-ish Dad of the early 1980's had more to say about war and his country beyond Audie Murphy and John Wayne.

A republican voter, he of course had no stomach for LBJ or JFK, but he absolutely despised Nixon for how the 1968 campaign promises about Viet Nam were ignored, repudiated and obscured while the Republican commander-in-chief and his ass-Kissinger only made things worse, not better.

My Dad was a farm implement salesman who was also a musican, playing a sax and singing for his 3-piece combo in local night clubs. He was not a shy person.

But, all those years following his WW II service, regarding his political opinions, we were all left guessing as to what he really thought.

He rarely read and only kept one book, a huge memorial history of WW II that now sits in my bookcase.

In the mid 1980's Dad came to live with me for a while in Vancouver, WA. The movie Red Dawn had just come out and we watched it.

After words he said in his quiet voice that no longer sang in night clubs,

"Gives you something to think about."

and then this about which I had no idea of his feelings:

"That sonofabitch Nixon, killed more of our boys than needed to die."

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I read that the UCMJ forbids denigrating the Commander-in-Chief - something that Lt. Watada has not done. I listened to the Lt. first hand, watched his press conference Q&amp;A and heard nothing treasonable in what he had to say.

I'm of course post UCMJ and no longer subject to its jurisdiction. So I can tell you ...

I also hate comparisons to Nazis and was not even thinking about that when I wrote this diary.

However ... that sonofabitch lied to me and to all of us. He lied to get us to invade Iraq and make of this country an aggressor nation.

He lied to get our soldiers to shoot to kill when it never had to be that way with Iraq.

If Nuremberg hurts your feelings, then let's shift it to The Hague. Either way, that sonofabitch deserves The Hague and our country deserves better than the taint he's given us, Nazi or otherwise.