Tag Archives: war

Political Rants

On serving.

This is one for the veterans. I felt I had to write about this because of a story I heard on DemocracyNow! this week about wounded and PTSD soldiers receiving less-than-honorable discharges based on behavior attributable to their injuries … and in some cases, based on virtually nothing at all. This is one of the most maddening stories I have heard this year, but I guess it shouldn’t surprise me. It’s pretty much a given in this country that many of the people who fight our wars will be discarded after they’ve sacrificed dearly on our behalf. These past twelve years have brought us back to a place we hadn’t been since the end of the execrable Vietnam war – dealing with the aftermath of a prolonged, highly destructive conflict, and doing a very poor job of it.

Why do we – in the age of magnetic yellow ribbons – still suck so badly at this? A couple of things come to mind. First, this war is not broadly shared, so any improvement in our basic humanity since the end of the last war (and I like to think there has been some) is offset by the fact that, in the absence of conscription, only a tiny fraction of American families have any skin in this fight. 

The second is an institutional/political reason. When a large institution like the United States military, as an instrument of American power, is very good at something, that’s usually because it’s deemed of great importance to those in power. The opposite is true of things they are really bad at. Our leaders look bad when many Americans are killed on the battlefield, so we’re really good at getting soldiers out alive. Once they’re out of the action, they become statistically insignificant to those in power. If they suffer, it doesn’t cost our leaders anything. If they die, no one is counting the way they do when soldiers die overseas.

This phenomenon isn’t unique to this bogus war. When my dad returned from World War II and the occupation of Europe, he evidently had PTSD – nightmares, sleeping with a gun under his pillow, etc. There was no help for him, just as there was none for those returning from Korea and Vietnam. The philosophy was, suck it up. It’s up to us to say that this is as unacceptable today as it was then.

Raise your voice about this. These people deserve better.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

High crimes and missed opportunities.

Congressman Darryl Issa (“Step away from the vehicle!”) had his most excellent Benghazi hearing this week – a real blockbuster for the right. Bigger than Watergate, we’re told. A heinous coverup on the eve of a presidential election. What a scandal! Issa will leave no stone unturned, chasing down those responsible for providing false information about the nature of the attack on our consulate. After all, four people are dead – four! That’s nearly half as many as died on our side this week in Afghanistan. Nearly 1/10 the number killed in one of the more notorious drone strikes in Yemen a few years back. Nearly 0.0001% of the number of civilians likely killed in Iraq based on false testimony and obfuscation.

Sure … if you want to hold someone accountable in high places, that seems fair. Just put the Benghazi culprits in line at the Hague behind Bush and Cheney, whose deceptions led us into two wars, one of which is still raging. That, of course, will never happen. But there’s still no justification in being so selective in your enforcement of high crimes.

If you’re going to call the Obama administration on the carpet, why not do so for the unprecedented number of “signature” strikes they are conducting around the world, some of them on American citizens? Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of radical Islamist Anwar al-Awlaki, was summarily killed in a drone strike that tore up a restaurant in Yemen. Why not ask them about that, Issa? Why not call them out for killing people on the basis of behavioral profiles, not intelligence? Is it perhaps because that doesn’t bother you or your constituents? I thought so.

Sure, Obama’s foreign policy is abusive and murderous, just like all of his predecessors in my lifetime. The difference between them is a question of degree. During the Johnson/Nixon war on Vietnam, the same standard was applied as in the current drone war: if you were outside the wire in rural South Vietnam, you were assumed to be part of the Viet Cong (NLF) and therefore a target. The difference is that we killed hundreds of thousands there – probably in the million range – whereas in the current drone war, they take more of a retail approach.

Does that count for much? I suppose it counts for something. But when you split hairs over the numbers of innocents killed, you sacrifice your humanity on some level.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Guantanahole.

I’m going to write about a topic I haven’t visited for some time in the vain hope that it would be corrected, now that we have left the George W. Bush administration in its deserved dustbin of history. (Save, that is, for within the W. Library, which is a central repository for the disastrous idiocy that was that presidency writ large, but I digress.) The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has re-entered the news cycle once again, owing in large part to an organized protest – a hunger strike – undertaken by more than 100 of its inmates. I have a few things to say about this shit hole, and I’ll keep it brief.

Guantanamo
Camp Joy.

First: Why the hell is this place still open? I know, I know – Congress demagogue’d the issue of closing it down and bringing some of the still-accused to the U.S. for trial and likely eventual imprisonment. (There’s a surprise – they demagogue everything!) The thing is, Obama has options, particularly with regard to those prisoners cleared for release. There are third countries they can most certainly be sent to. Obama is avoiding this option because it will garner criticism, most likely. Not a good reason at all.

Second: The hunger strike is a manufactured crisis, by all appearances. They have generally been presenting it as a difficult situation being handled by the Army as best they can, but the fact is that conditions at the prison turned decidedly worse when the Navy handed over control to the Army early this year. The prisoners were searched, their Korans pored over by investigators, and the prisioners’ communal priviliges were taken away. They are now kept in isolation 22 hours a day or so. Here’s a possible solution to the hunger strike: rotate the Army unit out and bring back the freaking Navy team that was running it before.

Third: If half of these men have never been charged with anything, have been determined to be of no danger to the U.S., why the hell are they being held … and while they’re being held, why are they being kept in prison-like conditions? Many have been there for 11 years. For chrissake, if they’re innocent, build them a freaking house in Guantanamo Bay and let them live like human beings until they are released. What kind of warped sense of justice is at work here?

Finally, if any of these men die while protesting their ill-treatment, it is going to exponentially increase Guantanamo’s value as a jihadist recruitment tool. Add that to your security considerations, Barry.

luv u,

jp

P.S. – Happy May Day. Invented in America, celebrated elsewhere. Ask why.