This will remind more about the workings of the bush administration, and should, but as the article below points out Gen McChrystal won't feel comfortable about it nor should many in the Army leadership as well as the Pentagon at the time. This shouldn't only remind people of just the Tillman tragic incident and fabrication of what took place, but the others already known about as well, in Iraq and Afghanistan, all the cover ups, fabrications and lies! DeJa-Vu of us older vets time!
Featuring candid and revelatory interviews with Pat's fellow soldiers as well as his family, Amir Bar-Lev's emotional and insightful film not only shines a light on the shady aftermath of Pat's death and calls to task the entire chain of command but also examines themes as timeless as the notion of heroism itself. Continued with Video of Director Description
The Pentagon has responded to subpoenas from a Senate Committee seeking to hold hearings into the events leading to MAJ Nidal Hasan's alleged murder of 13 Soldiers at Fort Hood last year. DoD has agreed to release some documents, but will not allow testimony. The committee isn't happy about that:
Leslie Phillips, spokeswoman for the committee, in an e-mail called the decision "an affront to Congress's Constitutional obligation to conduct independent oversight" and said that committee chairman Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., is weighing further legal action.
Well, sorry Joe Lieberman, Homeland Security Committee, and any senator of any party who is pushing this hearing. Maybe you should wait until the criminal investigation and trial are complete before looking for scapegoats in a hearing room. If not, you maybe repeating history and will find yourself invalidating otherwise valid convictions for borderline treasonous acts.
To be sure, there are individuals who must be held accountable for the lack of leadership shown throughout Hassan's career. There will be time for that later. That time is not now. The justice system must first ensure that swift, deliberate, hard, and fair justice is dispensed upon MAJ Hasan. Worrying about these Congressional hearings before that is accomplished will only put that possibility in jeopardy.
The Department of Defense (DoD) is denying our troops the best medical treatment.
"From: Perry, Cyndi I Ms CIV USA MEDCOM HQ
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2010 5:47 PM
To: ...
Subject: FW: WTU Patient load in the NCA (UNCLASSIFIED)
Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: FOUO
Consultants,
The attached adheres to guidance from the MEDCOM Chief of Staff and the TSG. With the approaching BRAC transformations in the National Capitol Area it is crucial to decrease the flow of wounded Soldiers to WRAMC and Ft Belvoir in preparation for new facilities being constructed.
Barracks space on the Bethesda campus will be significantly less than
presently at WRAMC. Similar space on Ft Belvoir will eventually increase but is still in construction and staffing for an increased number WTs is still in the planning stage until space actually exists.
It is crucial to direct Wounded Warrior flow arriving from the DWMMC at Landstuhl to MTFs outside the NCA. Today there are 569 Wounded Warriors at WRAMC. This number needs to decrease in a controlled fashion to about half over the next months. MTFs in other Regions need to gradually increase their populations wherever and whenever they have the clinical capability.
One risk to this mission is for receiving physicians to accept Soldiers who could be well-served elsewhere. Please re-enforce this message and pass it to your physicians, particularly those in the NCA and those at sites which are now receiving an increased WT flow.
VR/
Neil Maher ."
The Base Realignment And Closure (BRAC) is now causing DoD planners to deprive wounded military personal and indeed the entire military family of the very best medical care. The above quote confirms that the Department of Defense (DoD) directed that wounded soldiers be routed away from Walter Reed, the only world-class institution of its kind in the world. By DoD admission, the the New Walter Reed National Military Medical Center will not be world class.
What is the immediate impact of BRAC Compliance?
-- Our wounded and injured will be sent from the war zones to the "next best" facility
-- Concentrated surgical expertise found at Walter Reed is compromised
-- Concentrated rehabilitation expertise is compromised
The military is facing the largest offensive of the Afghanistan war. And DoD is blithely cutting back on military medical expertise and capability to meet BRAC timetables. A high ranking military medical source unwilling to be officially quoted, stated that if the US conducted a major offensive, the Army in particular and all the military in general, would have no choice but to further overextend medical capabilities through a surge with reduced care. What is going on?
Inconceivably, Bethesda Navy facility will close approximately half of its operating rooms this September for a long awaited renovation. The Navy facility's 19 operating rooms will be reduced to seven for one year to meet BRAC requirements. Walter Reed will close its 16 modern state-of-the-art operating rooms in August 2011 and the Navy will follow by closing their remaining operating rooms to remodel them. The result is fewer operating rooms due to incompetent planning and implementation of BRAC construction.
The New Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WRNMMC) at Bethesda is now officially a catastrophe. DoD refuses to request extension of the BRAC mandated closure of Walter Reed even though Congress urges them to do so. Perhaps the reason is the possible highlighting of the massive, well over one and a half BILLION dollar cost overrun. The Navy retained the authority for the Bethesda WRNMMC project. Perhaps recognizing the failed Navy roll, the Joint Chiefs reportedly assigned BOTH the responsibility and the authority for the New Walter Reed to the Joint Task Force, a long overdue step.
In an "all hands on deck" effort, the Navy is not addressing the major decrease in medical care for our wounded but rather attempting to convince the Joint Chiefs to return authority for the New Walter Reed to the Navy and to retain the base as a navy run facility. The massively over tasked and over extended DoD and JCS appear unable or unwilling to address this catastrophe directly. The result will be degraded medical treatment for our wounded. The Obama Administration and/or the Congress must step in to obtain relief from BRAC in the capital region, at least until the Afghanistan fighting begins to wind down and our casualty rates decrease. The Obama Administration and Congress own this issue now.
Why is it in all these speeches the press seems to think are so important, like those of the shrill voiced hockey puck mom, who's son served or is still serving, and anyone attached to this so called 'tea party', as they rail against taxes and more, do we not hear mention of the funding nor sacrifice as to those serving or have served!
Seems the only time the military soldier and veterans of, are mentioned is when a meme needs to be added as flag is wrapped around their 'patriotism?'!
Many are the same that never mention defense budgets, except wanting them to grow even more, nor gave any mention to military and veterans care as they beat the drums of war louder and louder, and still do!
(With minor edits. - promoted by Richard Allen Smith)
The following was originally posted in the comments section of Tom Ricks's blog "The Best Defense".
Tom--
Cheap shops are beneath you.
I'm a big fan and daily reader, but this one is frankly loaded with cheap shots and your facts are wrong. First, full disclosure, I sit on the DNC's Veterans and Military Families Council, so I am not a casual observer.
A few corrections for the record:
Your wrong re Matt Flavin. Matt heads the White House's Office of Veterans and Wounded Warrior Policy (ie, Veterans issues only). He does not have Military Families in his portfolio. Since military families fall under the DoD, military families policy is overseen by the NSC. In particular the portfolio belongs to Mike Harasimowicz - he's a USAF Colonel serving in the Defense Directorate. AND, maybe most importantly, this is new to this administration. No previous administration had military families as a policy portfolio within the NSC staff. So again, your "facts" are wrong. Not to sound trite, but a little fact-checking by a journalist of your caliber would have yielded this info.
You know as well as anyone that the First Lady's office has no statutory authority to "monitor implementation of policies and executions of budgets." That is a naïve claim at best. That is why the military families policy portfolio again sits with the NSC (where it LEGALLY belongs). The causal link in your argument that the First Lady is responsible for the Pentagon's personnel office is wildly off-base. Again, you know better than most that the First Lady has no authority over the Pentagon's personnel office.
Putting statutory authority aside, the First Lady and Dr. Biden have used their ultra-high public visibility to lead the effort on highlighting the problems and issues affecting military families. Did you see the video they released two days ago regarding Month of the Military Child? You make no mention of it? You're attacking the First Lady for "policy oversight" which she cannot legally do, yet you give her no credit for the massive PR campaign she has led by leveraging the power of her public profile.
Since the inauguration (by my count) the First Lady has visited: the Pentagon (TODAY!), Fort Bragg, Fort Hood, Naval Station Norfolk, Bolling Air Force Base, Eglin Air Force Base, and Walter Reed. The primary purpose of almost everyone of these visits has been to talk about the issues affecting military families. Where do you get the line "when Michelle Obama does engage, she seems to hang with generals' wives at officers' clubs, which indicates a certain tone deafness." Again, that is blatant nonsense beneath someone of your journalistic caliber. I wonder who is whispering in your ear? Does this look like hanging out with generals wives at the officer's club?
You should probably retract this piece or at least issue a correction to all of the mistakes in it.
Yesterday, a group of troops attended a queston and answer session regarding the proposed changes to the Department of Defense's "don't ask, don't tell" policy for homosexual service:
Picked at random and assembled in the Pentagon auditorium, about 350 rank-and-file troops asked the leaders of a new working group whether bunking arrangements would change and if the spouses of gay personnel would be given military family benefits, among other issues.
First, I'd like to know what "picked at random" means in this context. I'm not doubting outright that this group was a representative sample. Certainly it could have been. But I think it would be good to know whether these were Soldiers from across the force, or if the "random" group was selected from those serving in the Pentagon and/or the Military District of Washington. If the latter is true, the sample would be disproportionately older and higher ranking than the majority of the force.
This is also interesting:
At one point, a moderator asked how many troops believed they have served with a gay person. About half the people in the audience raised their hands.
So at least half of the group believed they had served with gays, and somehow our military has still managed to function as the most effective and professional force the world has ever known. And this doesn't even consider those who have served with gays without knowing it without any detriment to the force.
ARLINGTON, Va. - A software issue has led to the Army's backlog of thousands of applications for retroactive stop-loss pay, said Maj. Roy Whitley, project manager for the compensation program.
So far, the Army has received 10,541 applications, of which only about 1,000 will have been forwarded to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service by the end of the week, Whitley said on Thursday.
A major limiting factor has been that the Army did not have case management software that could close claims electronically and send them to DFAS, Whitley explained.
My first question was "Why the hell didn't the Army get their act together before the application process opened up?" The article addressed that question:
Why wasn't the software ready by October?
"It's a lot to do in 120 days - from June until Oct. 21," Whitley said.
Oh right. A lot of work. To engineer software. In a cubicle. With air conditioning.
You know what was a lot of work? Being stop-lossed. For eleven months. Eight of them in Afghanistan. After leaving my newborn daughter a week after she was born. Hundreds of other Soldiers have stories similar or worse. In spite of that, DoD wants to bitch about all the hard work they have to do to get their computers working correctly.
We never complained about all the work we had to do in the military. When there was a mission that had to be accomplished, we accomplished it even if it required working around the clock. I don't understand why organizations like DoD, and previously the VA with the G.I. Bill fiasco, can't hold themselves to a fraction of that standard when it comes to honoring Veterans with the benefits they deserve-- that they earned with all that work.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) are hosting a first-of-its-kind national summit to address the mental health care needs of America's military personnel, families and Veterans, harnessing the programs, resources and expertise of both departments to deal with the aftermath of the battlefield.
"This is about doing what is best for those who serve this country and using every federal, state and community asset to do it," said Secretary Shinseki. "We're proud of the people and the organizations who have stepped up today to make sure everyone who fought for this country gets a fighting chance for a sound mind and an independent life."
The summit, which opened today at the Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., invited mental health experts from both departments, Congress, the president's cabinet and more than 57 non-government organizations to discuss an innovative, wide-ranging public health model for enhancing mental health for returning service members, Veterans, and their families.
Snip
VA operates the largest mental health program in the nation. VA has bolstered its mental health capacity to serve combat Veterans by adding thousands of new professionals to its rolls in the last four years. The department also has established a suicide prevention hotline (1-800-273-TALK) and Web site available for online chat at Suicide Prevention Lifeline-Veterans....>>>
The flag of the National League of Families of American Prisoners of War and Missing in Southeast Asia will be flown over the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the departments of State, Defense, and Veterans Affairs, the Selective Service System Headquarters, the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, and national cemeteries across our country.
This black and white banner, symbolizing America's missing, is a stark and powerful reminder to people around the world that our nation will keep faith with those who have served and sacrificed, that we will not rest until we receive the fullest possible accounting of every American missing in service to our country.
Sept. 18, 2009 is National POW/MIA Recognition Day. I ask all citizens to join me in honoring former American prisoners of war and those whose fate is still undetermined. I also encourage you to remember with special sympathy and concern the courageous families who maintain their steadfast vigil and who persevere in their search for answers and for the peace that comes only with certainty................Read The Rest Here
We were saying what was actually going on but those doing it kept denying, as they passed on the talking points to their public mouths and those were carried forward by the flocks, that relished in being led, on any online board, right wing feeding troth site, and in reply's wherever they could be placed.
Let me get this straight. The latest polls say three-quarters of the American people want a public option in health care, yet it's in question. But, Congress is about to throw $369 million (on a down-payment of $2 billion) for a dozen F-22 fighter jets that even the Pentagon doesn't want. Oh, and the money for it? It's coming out of funds that were set aside to clean up dangerous nuclear waste in the U.S.
Only in Washington.
For those not familiar with the F-22 and why it's a waste, let me explain. It's one of the most - if not the most advanced air-to-air fighters in the world.... To fight the Soviet Union's next generation fighters. That's right, that's why it was developed. The fighter has limited air-to-ground capabilities, which renders it pretty much useless in the wars we're fighting right now, and might be fighting well into the future. President Obama and Secretary Gates have rightly decided to shift our procurement to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, which we could actually use, because of its air-to-ground and stealth capabilities.
Nevertheless, to play it safe, we've got 187 of the obsolete F-22s on-hand or in the pipeline already, just in case the Soviet Union ever comes through with their next-generation fighters. Secretary Gates asked for only four more, to complete what the Pentagon said it could use. After that, the military doesn't want any more of them. Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz have publicly withdrawn support for it saying, "The time has come to move on."
Apparently not those looking out for defense contractors, though.
And so, Congress is about to use the Defense Authorization Bill to pay for fighters we don't need from Lockheed-Martin, while taking money from cleaning up nuclear waste. Six decades of U.S. nuclear weapons research, testing, and production activities have left dozens of Department of Energy sites contaminated by radioactive and hazardous waste. The contamination threatens workers, communities, and the environment, including major water supplies.
Now, other veterans and I aren't for cutting the Pentagon budget in a way that would hurt our troops in the field, or hurt our ability to defend America now or in the future. But, our money is best spent on equipment that is so desperately needed in Iraq and Afghanistan - items like the Stryker armored vehicle, which the troops and veterans of VoteVets.org have almost unanimously raved about, for its ability to maneuver while protecting them from IEDs. That helps us a lot more than planes sitting idle somewhere.
So, a warning. To any in Congress who vote to keep this money for the F-22 in, don't try to present it as a pro-military vote. The military doesn't want it. Troops can't use it. Most veterans would say they're not for it. And none of us are for letting dangerous nuclear waste continue to seep into our land and water. So don't try to tie this pork to troops and veterans.
In fact, those who really care about the military, troops, veterans, and America will vote to strip the money for the F-22 out. We'll be watching.
Of all the hard choices Defense Secretary Robert Gates had to make in his radical overhaul of the Pentagon's arsenal, the toughest, he tells Danger Room, was the decision to gut Future Combat Systems, the Army's $200 billion effort to design a fleet of next-generation tanks and troop carriers.
"Most difficult of all of these for me was the FCS program," Gates says in a Pentagon conference call. "I actually didn't make up my mind once and for all on it until this weekend."
At the end of this phone conference, which last about thirty five minutes, the Defense Secretary talks about the Military and Veterans, as well as their families, care monies that have been off budget, or not even thought of or included, and in the supplementals these years of these two occupations, which now will be included in the Defense Budget, nothing hidden, we hope!
**********
And the mindset should Always Be: "War as a very last resort!!"! No Wars Of Choice Which Damages Our Nations Security And Moral Standing!!
There has been a small sprinkling of reports about the Military Suicides in the last couple of months, most of those found only if one is hitting a number of news outlets but not making National News, even as those who serve do so for the Country not a Community located near a base or where their from.
Earlier today I received an e-mail from an on line friend, she is the wife of a military serviceman now serving in Iraq, she is also very active in support of her fellow spouses and the families as well as returning OIF and OEF military personal seeking needed help but finding the going sometimes extremely troubling, confusing or denied.
Many of us Veterans have found her and she us and have gotten to know her through our own advocacy of our brothers and sisters. Some are working directly with her and she with them.
She has written a very personal letter, the title I used above is the one from her letter to us, of her experiences and feelings, as a military spouse, and while posting it on a few sites it has now found it's way to a number of other sites.
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon plans to recruit more foreigners in a fresh effort to make up for chronic shortages of doctors, nurses and linguists available for wartime duty.
The Defense Department already draws from aliens living in the United States on green cards and seeking permanent residency. But under a trial program, it will now look to also recruit from pools of foreigners who've been living in the states on student and work visas, with refugee or political asylum status and other temporary visas.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has authorized the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps to recruit certain legal residents whose critical medical and language skills are "vital to the national interest," officials said, using for the first time a law passed three years ago.
Gates' action enables the services to start a one-year pilot program to find up to 1,000 foreigners who have lived in the states legally for at least two years.
In other words, the military is forced by law to recruit non-Americans for these "vital" positions over patriotic Americans who happen to be gay. Consider, the Pentagon says it has a "chronic shortage" of linguists. But the military forced out 58 gay Arabic linguists in 2007. And now, they're attempting to replace those 58 trained, gay linguists with foreigners.
Let's take a look at what's happening here: As the AP says, the Pentagon is trying to find 1,000 foreigners to fill these positions. But from 2002 through 2006, the military kicked out 3,715 troops under the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy. Think any "doctors, nurses, and linguists" were included in there?
Absolutely there were. Here are just three examples of service members discharged after their sexual orientation became an issue--service members who held the positions described above as being "vital to the national interest." These are the people the Pentagon seeks to replace with non-Americans:
JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. - A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist was dismissed from the U.S. Army under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, though he says he never admitted being gay and his accuser was never identified.
Bleu Copas, 30, told The Associated Press he is gay, but said he was "outed" by a stream of anonymous e-mails to his superiors in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C.
"I knew the policy going in," Copas said in an interview on the campus of East Tennessee State University, where he is pursuing a master's degree in counseling and working as a student adviser. "I knew it was going to be difficult."
An eight-month Army investigation culminated in Copas' honorable discharge on Jan. 30 -- less than four years after he enlisted, he said, out of a post-Sept. 11 sense of duty to his country.
Martin Chin, 40, of Logan Circle, experienced that discrimination firsthand, he says, while serving the Air Force in Japan two years ago.
Chin, a psychiatrist and flight surgeon, claims things turned ugly once his commander let him know that she was aware of his sexual orientation.
''It wasn't really explicit because they're not allowed to out you,'' he says. ''So she sat me down and said, 'There is something about your personal life that I find very upsetting. I'm ordering you not to tell me anything and I'm not asking you anything.' It was kind of clear what she was talking about.''
Chin claims he was taken off ''special projects,'' and instead assigned to routine tasks. It was also during a time when people from Chin's unit were being deployed. Accordingly, their absences left Chin with more responsibilities.
''It seemed unfair that I was being asked to do basically four jobs, at the same time that they're telling me that I'm a liar and an embarrassment to Air Force and therefore I can't be on these high-profile cases.
''I felt like...I couldn't really be as effective as I needed to be,'' he continues. ''It impacted my ability to work. It impacted my ability to take care of patients, and it made me see that I didn't really have a future with the company.''
In 1993, Maj. Margaret Witt was a poster woman for the Air Force's flight nurse recruiting program.
In her career of 18-plus years, the decorated operating room and flight nurse from McChord Air Force Base earned stellar reviews for her work, which included helping to evacuate the nation's wounded troops and humanitarian missions to aid civilians.
In 2003, President Bush awarded her the Air Medal for her Middle East deployment and, later, the Air Force Commendation Medal, for saving the life of a Defense Department worker.
Less than a year later, after an Air Force investigation, Witt, a reservist, was drummed out.
Her offense: a committed relationship, but with another woman, a civilian, from 1997 to 2003.
I think the absurdity is apparent. And I'm not the only one. President-Elect Obama agrees. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen agrees. 75 percent of Americans agree. It's now on Congress to pass legislation that allows gays to serve openly in the Armed Forces. Foreigners shouldn't be filling these military roles when Americans are willing and able--regardless of their sexual orientation.
Pentagon board says cuts essential
By Bryan Bender
Globe Staff / November 10, 2008
WASHINGTON - A senior Pentagon advisory group, in a series of bluntly worded briefings, is warning President-elect Barack Obama that the Defense Department's current budget is "not sustainable," and he must scale back or eliminate some of the military's most prized weapons programs.
The briefings were prepared by the Defense Business Board, an internal management oversight body. It contends that the nation's recent financial crisis makes it imperative that the Pentagon and Congress slash some of the nation's most costly and troubled weapons to ensure they can finance the military's most pressing priorities.
Those include rebuilding ground forces battered by multiple tours to Iraq and Afghanistan and expanding the ranks to wage the war on terrorism.
"Business as usual is no longer an option," according to one of the internal briefings prepared in late October for the presidential transition, copies of which were provided to the Globe. "The current and future fiscal environments facing the department demand bold action."
The briefings do not specify which programs should be cut, but defense analysts say that prime targets would probably include the new F-35 fight er jet, a series of Navy ship programs, and a massive Army project to build a new generation of ground combat vehicles, all of which have been skyrocketing in cost and suffering long development delays.
Citizen soldiers returning from active military duty are entitled by law to get back their old jobs or at least the same salaries, but many are still having trouble. Leslie Stahl reports.
Soldiers at the military hospital languished in part due to incompatible databases and dismal record keeping. Welcome to the Pentagon's $20 billion medical-records boondoggle.
The above subject title is a report, over at Mother Jones, I couldn't think of a better title than used, really, written by Niko Karvounis who, according to the Mother Jones info at the end, is a program officer at The Century Foundation, where he researches health care, among other issues and is a regular contributor to HealthBeatBlog.org.
It's one of those "Here we go again, on the incompetence and arrogance, of those that were placed on the public payroll under this corrupt and totally incompetent administration and arrogant wanna-be top CEO, only in his dreams, and complacent GOP congress up till the previous election!".
I'm going to be upfront before I begin this: this is going to be hard for me to write. As a young woman who went through all the typical traumas and dramas of growing up in America, I, like many women, have seen and experienced violence against women. I'll be the first one to admit that the topic of rape is an emotionally charged one, a subject that lends itself to flying off the handle, irate reactions and, sometimes, even tears. Let me also preface this with the admission that I am not exempt from this.
Apparently, LCpl Maria Lauterbach's mother intends to sue.
Was this impending hearing the impetus for Shrub to OK the carrying out of the death penalty in the case of this soldier?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Did they feel the need to make an impression, despite this hearing on 'sexual abuse' and the need for a victims advocate earlier in the Shrub's term? Especially after the deaths of Maria, Holley Wimunc, and Megan Touma.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2...
Or how about the use of "suicide" as the cause of death for Levena Johnson to cover-up these autopsy results.
Barack Obama canceled a pre-planned visit to the troops in Germany yesterday after being told by the Pentagon that the trip would violate a Pentagon policy prohibiting campaign stops on military installations. No problem there.
However, the McCain campaign is now blasting Obama:
The McCain camp has nonetheless been using Obama's canceled trip to insinuate that he's anti-troops. "Barack Obama is wrong," McCain spokesperson Brian Rogers said in a statement yesterday. "It is never 'inappropriate' to visit our men and women in the military."
The problem here is that the McCain campaign was denied a visit to a military base under the same policy back in April. Of course, there was no outcry or false outrage from Brian Rogers at that time.
With Department of Defense rules prohibiting political campaigning on military bases, it was determined that in some cases McCain could visit the installations as a senator but could not engage in any political activity or have news media present.
McCain campaign officials said Thursday they intentionally did not campaign on military property.
"We follow the rules," said senior McCain adviser Steve Schmidt.
Because all three presidential candidates are sitting senators, DoD officials have privately noted for some weeks that the whole matter of drawing the line between Senate business and campaigning is sensitive.
A U.S. Army official told CNN there are no pending requests from any of the campaigns to visit Army bases at this time. He noted that Sen. Barack Obama recently visited Fayetteville, North Carolina, but did not go to Fort Bragg; and Sen. Hillary Clinton visited Killeen, Texas, but did not go to Fort Hood.
For his Wednesday visit to the U.S. Naval Academy -- of which he is a graduate -- McCain was allowed to make a political appearance at the academy's football stadium because it is privately owned property and is not owned or run by the U.S. military.
Earlier in the day, when McCain had breakfast with midshipmen on academy grounds, it was closed to the press and considered a private event.
The military spokesman points out that any U.S. senator could also request to visit the academy or any military installation.
But the Navy declined a McCain campaign request to speak at the Naval Aviation Museum at the naval base in Pensacola, Florida, because it is a military owned installation and is located on the base, the official said.
McCain did attend an airshow over the weekend at the Navy base in Meridian, Mississippi, because it was open to the general public. But he declined to answer political questions from reporters traveling with him.
I understand that the McCain campaign is disorganized and pathologically clueless when it comes to utilizing the media, but they're clearly being dishonest in this case. McCain is demonstrably criticizing Obama for following a Pentagon rule to which the McCain campaign itself has been subjected recently. That's a fact. So this seems to be a simple cheap shot at Obama, in the hopes that the media won't be internet savvy enough (i.e., able to use Google) to figure out the whole story.
"We follow the rules," Steve Schmidt from the McCain campaign said.
Exactly. And they have no problem attacking Obama for doing the same. That's the very definition of "double standard."
Regardless, the Pentagon will now be under more pressure to keep the playing field even--and to keep the policy consistent on both sides.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama scrubbed a planned visit to see wounded American servicemen and women in Germany after Pentagon objections that the stop at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center could be seen as a political event, according to Obama's campaign.
Although the Illinois senator visited troops in Afghanistan and Iraq on the first part of his overseas trip, those stops were part of an official Congressional delegation, and therefore deemed apolitical. The European tour, which included a speech in Berlin last night before an enthusiastic crowd of 200,000, is funded by the campaign and as such is not official government business.
"Senator Obama had hoped to and had every intention of visiting our troops to express his appreciation and gratitude for their service to our country," retired Air Force Major General Scott Gration, an Obama adviser, said in a statement.
"We learned from the Pentagon [Wednesday] night that the visit would be viewed instead as a campaign event. Senator Obama did not want to have a trip to see our wounded warriors perceived as a campaign event...and decided instead not to go."
As jimstaro announced in his diary yesterday, the Defense Department has publicly released all the documents they gave to the New York Times for the investigation on the Pentagon Propaganda Program. You can access this treasure trove of documents by clicking here.
And for what it's worth, a quick scan through some of the documents does show that Michael O'Hanlon is also involved.
The Pentagon thanked thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans on Tuesday by telling them that, unless they'd served six years on active duty, they weren't worthy of receiving the new GI Bill proposed by Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel:
We certainly do have issues with Senator Webb's bill as it has been described to us. And it's not, as some have suggested, a matter of cost. You know, we are mostly concerned with the harm it would do to troop retention. We have no issue with the fact that Senator Webb wishes to, you know, provide a more generous education benefit to troops, but we are certainly concerned that this would be eligible to them after only two years of service.
We think pegging it to a longer period of service -- the number we have in mind at this point is six years of service -- that the longer you stay in, the sweeter the benefits are to you. Six years would show a commitment to service. In fact, it would allow for at least, at that point, one reenlistment for another tour of duty.
So for all you veterans out there--and even those of you on active duty--who've done multiple combat tours during your first 2-5 years of service, this means you haven't done enough to have earned full GI Bill benefits.
It doesn't matter if you've lost your marriage. It doesn't matter if you wake up three nights a week now with your heart racing. And it doesn't matter if you've left parts of your body on some street in Baghdad. You still haven't given enough. If you want the government to cover the full cost of your education--like it did for your grandparents after World War Two--you'll just have to keep giving until you reach that six year mark.
At some point, the Pentagon is going to have to face up to the fact that unjust wars and greedy contractors do far more damage to retention than the GI Bill. But they'll never be forced to unless you speak up.
A shocking story got lost in the media frenzy on the Pennsylvania primary this weekend. The New York Times had an explosive report finding that most of the retired brass and senior experts that you see on television are merely reciting Pentagon talking points. A massive Pentagon PR effort, started years ago to ensure that the most senior retired military officials get the party line, is paying dividends. The airwaves are now flooded with men who have "retired General," "former Green Beret," and "Colonel (Ret.)" attached to their name telling you what the Pentagon wants you to hear.
Torie Clarke, the former public relations executive who oversaw the Pentagon's dealings with the analysts as assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, had come to her job with distinct ideas about achieving what she called "information dominance." In a spin-saturated news culture, she argued, opinion is swayed most by voices perceived as authoritative and utterly independent.
And so even before Sept. 11, she built a system within the Pentagon to recruit "key influentials" -- movers and shakers from all walks who with the proper ministrations might be counted on to generate support for Mr. Rumsfeld's priorities.
The analysts, they noticed, often got more airtime than network reporters, and they were not merely explaining the capabilities of Apache helicopters. They were framing how viewers ought to interpret events. What is more, while the analysts were in the news media, they were not of the news media. They were military men, many of them ideologically in sync with the administration's neoconservative brain trust, many of them important players in a military industry anticipating large budget increases to pay for an Iraq war.
It's eerie how in unison the voices were. You can see that in the Times interactive feature, which lays out the evidence for their story.
Of course, not all the retired Generals marched in lockstep. General Anthony Zinni took to NBC to call for then Secretary Rumsfeld to resign. Major Generals Paul Eaton and John Batiste also called for Rumsfeld to step down, and, as many here know, appeared in ads from VoteVets.org, highly critical of the administration. And yet, after he came out to criticize the Pentagon, CBS fired Batiste as an analyst, rather than invite him on the air even more, to counter-balance the Pentagon spin machine.
For anyone who thinks Patrick McHenry (R-NC) is one of the most unctuous members of Congress, I have good news: The traditional media has now picked up on the story of how the North Carolina Congressman assisted insurgents in Iraq, endangered American lives, and then bragged about it cluelessly in a homemade video he posted on his Congressional website.
Pentagon tells lawmaker not to air Green Zone video again
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon told a North Carolina lawmaker Tuesday that he couldn't re-air a video he'd shot in Baghdad after accusations surfaced that he breached operational security in detailing enemy rocket attacks.
Those accusations are 11 posts below this one. The McClatchy piece--which appeared in the print version of Wednesday's Charlotte (NC) Observer--credited VoteVets with bringing this to light, as well as provided some answers to questions I still had.
On Monday, a veterans group called VoteVets.org accused McHenry of giving away intelligence information that could have aided terrorist organizations in targeting the Green Zone.
"The bottom line is that whoever launched that strike could take the information McHenry provided and use it to kill Americans in the Green Zone," wrote Brandon Friedman, vice chairman of VoteVets.org, a veterans advocacy group that has called for troop withdrawal and promoted veterans for political office. "This is why professionals operating in a combat zone are trained not to reveal any battle damage after an attack."
After Friedman's posting, McHenry's office pulled the video and sent it to the Pentagon for review.
So they say. McHenry's office followed with this statement on Tuesday afternoon:
"The Congressman shot the video in the company of State Department and military personnel, and was not briefed on withholding its publication," his spokesman Wes Climer said in a written statement. "We voluntarily removed the video after learning that it might infringe on accepted protocol, and then contacted officials at the Department of Defense, who supported our decision."
The Department of Defense "supported our decision?" That's funny. That's a mild way of saying, "The Department of Defense told us to shut our yaps or we won't ever be invited back into theater as part of a CODEL."
A Pentagon spokesman said he didn't know what McHenry was told, "but we routinely brief our operational rules to our visitors in Iraq and Afghanistan ."
"We do not as a matter of policy discuss attacks in a way that would provide the enemy any better understanding of the effectiveness of their attacks," said Lt. Col. Todd Vician.
A spokesman for the Multi-National Forces in Iraq said that he didn't know what the rules were for congressmen, but the military is not allowed to talk about battle damage.
This is like the parents telling the kid, "We don't do that in our family."
And frankly, at this point, members of the military are tired of covering for these chickenhawk wannabe-heroes who go around looking for glory the easy way. We're tired of them starting wars they can't finish and we're disgusted with their enthusiasm to use a military which they don't understand in the slightest.
To be quite honest, it's only because McHenry is a Congressman that the Pentagon and MNF-Iraq spokesmen were so lenient with him.
If Patrick McHenry wants to tell war stories so badly, he should resign his Congressional seat and go enlist. He's only 32. That way, he could get some training--so that next time he's in a combat zone trying to be a tough guy, he won't be such a bumbling, self-promotional fool about it.
Say you were the CEO of a company in charge of acquisitioning and utilizing new technology in a rapidly developing marketplace and the various vendors produced pitiful delays like this:
14% more than 4 years late
15% 2-4 years late
38% <2 years late
33% On time
I'm no businessman, but I'd probably be shredding documents and flying the coop overseas Enron-style. Well, the joke is on us taxpayers, because these figures represent program delays for new weapons systems from the DoD (see lengthy GAO report here, or Christian Science Monitor article here). They don't come cheap either. From the GAO report summary:
Since 2000, the Department of Defense (DOD) has roughly doubled its planned investment in new systems from $790 billion to $1.6 trillion in 2007, but acquisition outcomes in terms of cost and schedule have not improved. Total acquisition costs for major defense programs in the fiscal year 2007 portfolio have increased 26 percent from first estimates, compared with 6 percent in 2000.
And you thought the Iraq war was expensive. New military technology is important and a crucial part of keeping our military up to snuff as the world changes around us. But, these horrendous delays and wasteful budgets cannot be tolerated by an economy that has slipped into the dregs (yeah, our economy has tanked, despite the fact that Fox News thinks it's a big media conspiracy).
The new MTV film "Stop Loss" is obviously a work of fiction, and like any movie, you have to create a story that fits into 90 minutes and follows a three-act structure, and market something that will sell. And while the movie takes a couple of liberties to those ends, the issue it addresses is all too real.
While we've seen America's youth interested in current events like they haven't been for generations, far too many in the MTV audience still aren't taking the time to understand the issues that affect them and the people of their generation. If this film causes 10,000 young Americans to go home and Google, "Stop Loss" and get educated about the policy, and what it does, then the movie has served an important role.
The facts are as shocking as they are troubling. Repeated extended deployments have been linked to depression, PTSD, and even suicide. If I had to pinpoint something that's most responsible for breaking our overstretched military (other than the war in Iraq itself), it would be Stop Loss.
Maybe after reading up on the facts, thousands of America's youth, and others, will feel compelled to do something about it. And, thankfully, to that end, Credo Mobile Action (a project of Working Assets) has started an online petition to end the Stop Loss policy.
Let's face it, we troops and veterans can use all the help we can get from the American people. Stop Loss, while not a perfect movie, presents us a real opportunity to recruit tens, if not hundreds of thousands of young Americans into the fight for responsible military policies. I say we take advantage of that opportunity. Sign the petition and pass it on.
The Pentagon on Wednesday said an eruption of violence in southern Iraq, where US-backed government forces were battling Shiite militias, was a "by-product of the success of the surge."
Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said it showed that the Iraqi government and security forces were now confident enough to take the initiative against Shiite extremists in the southern port of Basra.
That's some impressive spin, if you ask me. Takes balls to get up there in front of the media--and the world for that matter--and tell everyone that the conflagration we're on the verge of witnessing is due to how awesome we are.
Almost Bush-like in his simplistic view of the situation, Morrell went on to say:
"Citizens down there have been living in a city of chaos and corruption for some time and they and the prime minister clearly have had enough of it," he said at a Pentagon press conference.
Because that's clearly what's going on. Next thing you know, he'll be calling them "al Qaeda."
Yesterday I noted that the Pentagon was officially acknowledging for the first time that there were no links between Saddam and al Qaeda. (Thanks, guys!) In the McClatchy article to which I linked, journalist Warren Strobel stated that the report was "scheduled for release later this week."
Well, it turns out that the Pentagon has now gotten cold feet. Apparently someone thinks this might not go over so well if too many Americans realize this whole war in Iraq was based on cooked-up bullshit. So now the Pentagon is trying to bury the report:
ABC News' Jonathan Karl Reports: The Bush Administration apparently does not want a U.S. military study that found no direct connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda to get any attention. This morning, the Pentagon cancelled plans to send out a press release announcing the report's release and will no longer make the report available online.
The report was to be posted on the Joint Forces Command website this afternoon, followed by a background briefing with the authors. No more. The report will be made available only to those who ask for it, and it will be sent via U.S. mail from Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia.
It won't be emailed to reporters and it won't be posted online.
Asked why the report would not be posted online and could not be emailed, the spokesman for Joint Forces Command said: "We're making the report available to anyone who wishes to have it, and we'll send it out via CD in the mail."
Another Pentagon official said initial press reports on the study made it "too politically sensitive."
The Bush administration cracks me up. We have less than a year left.
In a press briefing on Tuesday, the Pentagon, always the watchdog for KBR's interest, blamed the troops for the health problems that were a result of using the KBR water:
You know, we've all been to Iraq several times. Everywhere you go they make it perfectly clear that you don't want to drink the water, so I'm a little surprised myself that this is an issue. As I understand it, the bottled water, which is what you're supposed to be drinking in Iraq, had no issues whatsoever in the testing that was done. Evidently, there was some issue with some of the other water that was, I guess, primarily meant for washing. [...]
But I think our encouragement is always - for journalists and warfighters alike is read the signs and just drink the bottled water.
Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman who made the statement, is wrong on so many levels. First, not all water is unsafe to drink in our areas of operation. Second, the report indicated the water was used for bathing and laundry, not drinking. So the Soldiers should be using Evian for bathing and laundry? Well, for laundry at least, that isn't an option. Guess who does Joe's laundry. If you chose KBR, score yourself ten points for a correct answer.
Clearly the Pentagon is on the side of KBR on this one, and don't make the mistake of believing that is the troops' side. Unless, you think, as the Pentagon would have you believe, that it's Joe's fault when he unknowingly bathes in shit.
"Don't let the quiet fool you," a senior defense official says. "There's still a huge chasm between how the White House views Iraq and how we [in the Pentagon] view Iraq. The White House would like to have you believe the 'surge' has worked, that we somehow defeated the insurgency. That's just ludicrous. There's increasing quiet in Iraq, but that's happened because of our shift in strategy - the 'surge' had nothing to do with it."
And just a few sentences, so I followed the link. Here's abit more to hopefully get you to drop over to the Asia Times online and read the rest.
It looks like the center will be the begining of a state of the art facility for TBI/PTSD/Mental health, and will also focus on studying these things as well.
It is a joint venture between the DoD, The Dept of Veterans Affairs and the DVBIC(Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center). I dont really know how well these 3 organizations will work together.
The DoD seems to be too bullheaded, the VA is underfunded and the DVBIC pretty much just prints out pamphlets.
I will try to get as much info as I can on this center to see if it is anything more than a smokescreen to say they are taking care of TBI/PTSD.
"The welcome mat for memoirs by veterans of operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom might never wear out so long as they write with the savvy of Brandon Friedman . . . Friedman's take is vivid, frank, precise and dramatic."--Military Times
"Add Brandon Friedman's The War I Always Wanted to the ranks of outstanding non-fiction produced by officers from elite combat units in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Always truthful, often excruciatingly so, The War I Always Wanted rises at numerous points to the level of literature."--Steven Pressfield, author of Gates of Fire
"A Time To Lead confirms the rewarding benefits of military service at a time when such service is experiencing considerable strain. It also includes a comprehensive description of America's current national imperatives, which deserve serious consideration."--General Alexander M. Haig, Jr., former Secretary of State
"This is a primer on leadership forged in battle and by decades of experience. . .This isn't just a book; it's a manual for leading people and living a good life."--Barry McCaffrey, General, USA (ret.)
"Whip smart, sassy, with a mouth as foul as a sailor's, 28-year-old Sergeant Kayla Williams. . .tells what it's like to be a female soldier in Iraq."--Booklist
". . .echoes military memoirists from Julius Caesar to Ernie Pyle."--Publishers Weekly
". . .a shocking, on-the-ground view of one military woman's experience in Iraq."--Bookmarks Magazine
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