Winds of War

With American/NATO, Iranian and Russian warships playing chicken, it appears a missing plug in, in today’s language, is the only thing missing.

Syria could be it. Israel could be the decider

There is increasing evidence that the Putin Regime wants to match arms with the U.S., a battle it lost long ago and is not likely to win again.

Clearly it is a way to guarantee his election to a second presidential term. Only time will tell whether the tactic can be dropped once the victory is won.

Critics of expanding relations with Moscow would say we have already given away most our leverage. Last December Moscow was allowed in the World Trade Organization.

Retired CIA station chief Robert Grenier, writing for Al Jazeera, said, “Any conventional war involving Israel, the US, Iran and perhaps other regional powers would be a limited one. Military efforts to degrade Iranian nuclear capabilities and defence infrastructure will surely not include an attempt at occupying the country, nor at forcibly removing its government. Even the US would not be capable of doing so, even if it were so inclined. Nor is war likely to induce either the Iranian regime or its people to capitulate on their nuclear program, regardless of its ultimate intent. Instead, armed intervention is far more likely to swing the Iranians more solidly behind their government and its nationalist agenda, even if that agenda were temporarily set back.”

I recall France once rather ominously pointed out  that it has a very dirty bomb that could be used and keep property damage limited.

Should strong force be needed to drive Syria’s Assad from power could that cause Iran to step back. Would Russia attempt to forcefully block the West, not if its recents signals are accurate.

Hysterical Nation Calms Down

If the nation had gone on Freud’s couch after 9/11 he might have diagnosed it as hysterical.

Although this diagnosis has lost favor because some deem it as anti-female, it originated with women but was not confined to them.

It concluded that hysterical symptoms were part of an attempt to protect the patient from psychic stress and sometimes had other motives including gain.

One might say many in the nation suffered from PTSD, especially the editors near Ground  Zero. It made them vulnerable, even duty-bound, to support the Bush-Cheney war machine.

In years past the human cost of phony missions searching for WMDs might have been reined in by the cost of dead soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.

Not an easy problem to resolve. Certainly we could use the all-volunteer military to avoid the Vietnam scenario. Still, frequent deployments would be required. To induce the required enlistments expensive bonuses, health care and educational grants would have to be promised.

It worked well until the PTSD and suicide rate began rising sharply among those fighting the wars. Neither was new to war. Some said Westerners had evolved to the point where killing at all, even in self defense, would scar them. The expanding use of roadside explosive devices created more head injuries. And generally speaking, most soldiers were deployed outside the wire longer than those in World War II. Studies then, by the U.S. government, found the longer the GIs were on the front lines the less effective they became.

Anecdotal signs of the cost were war crimes that turned up on YouTube. Urinating on dead Taliban was hardly the worse. There is a saying. We must remember who we are and who we are not.

Now with the date for ending the Afghan war still not known, and Iraq still explosive, President Obama wants to cut 100,000 soldiers.

Where will they work? What about those with PTSD or prescription drug problems? 
The director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, warned in a meeting yesterday in Davos that inappropriate spending cuts might strangle growth prospects, the BBC reported.
What if more wars break out, which seems likely. Will we have to bring them back, at a high cost, or hire even more private contractors, at an even higher cost? We are breaking our word to these people who fought dirty wars for their country.

The National Guard will be next, at the same time its burden will grow. Iowa is already considering how much it will pay for college for those who have served.

That has been a tradition in our military, especially on medical care. I know, my father, a 17-year-old machine gunner who pursued a military career for pay that amounted to peanuts, was one of them.

If they can pull this off with the military, seniors look out.

To sum up: don’t betray the soldiers. End the wars. Trillions will be saved because of the collateral costs. Plus it will keep 100,000 in good jobs and off the dole.

Bradley Manning Landmark

Baby boomers growing up learned of cases like the Scopes “Monkey Trial.” Clarence Darrow, perhaps the best American lawyer of all time, made it a landmark.

Although teacher John Thomas Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution, which is still a hot topic, he was released on a technicality.

Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in 1927 for two murders committed in South Braintree, Mass., authorities said, on behalf of anarchists. Historians remain split over whether they were guilty.

Manning’s lawyer and the prosecution were gave final arguments today in his preliminary hearing but the judge, who limited the defense to two witnesses, has until mid-January to render a verdict. And it won’t be conclusive. He could be ordered to go through the whole thing again in a court martial.

Manning’s case is more controversial than either, even before a verdict, for two reasons.  He was not fit for such classified duty. He demonstrated it on numerous occasions when he lost control, and even reported himself.  As a writer on disability because of PTSD I know what it is like to contend with overwhelming forces.

The second reason is the Army has demonstrated it is not capable of dealing with such cases. This can be partly blamed on making it all-volunteer. Rome’s downfall was preceded by a decision to replace draftees, indeed only those who owned property, with mercenaries. It is all a chimera meant to allow presidents to get away with unwanted wars.

Legally, there is a third reason. His lengthy detention, which included the punishment of being held in solitary, is illegal.

My view is based on having covered military trials, murderous military fiascos, and Wikileaks itself.

Manning, who now is being presented as literally gaga, is accused of walking out of an Iraq base with 251,000 classified documents he had put on a DVD marked Lady Gaga.

The documents, including a video showing what appeared to be an unjustified U.S. helicopter attack on Baghdad civilians, reached Wikileaks which published them selectively.

Any analysis of what happened should begin with noting American soldiers are required by military to report war crimes.

In fact, I have witnessed time and time again soldiers being given white glove treatment in court martials for killings and wounding of civilians.

Pat Tillman, an NFL football star, a volunteer, should not have died of friendly fire in Afghanistan.

In one case, a soldier charged with others for throwing two non-combatant Iraqis in a river where one drowned, was given a leading question. He didn’t know the man was going to drown or he would have intervened. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said to courtroom laughter as I recall.

Then the defense asked why the other man, who was a witness, was not in court or on a televideo. The Army said they couldn’t find him.

That led to the defense saying the AP had found him an interviewed him, which was true.

Suddenly the military judge wanted me, then an AP reporter, to say whether this was true or not. Of course I refused to comment. And this was something that could have been found on Google.

The Army told me over and over again that potential sufferers of PTSD would be stopped from deploying. Yet history shows many were, including some who had already been deployed and thus suffered the psychiatric wound.

A soldier-translator was charged with cowardice, the first case since Vietnam, because he freaked out when he witnessed the body of an Iraqi killed by the Special Forces he accompanied. Publicity led to his discharge.

A doctor who was in charge of dispensing medicine that led to the death of a soldier who had returned from deployment with serious psychiatric problems. Civilians seemed just as incompetent. An El Paso County doctor got the man’s race wrong.

Once, after listening to the umpteenth attempt by Army commanders to convince reporters that PTSD was not cowardice, an Army captain leaned over to me and said it was all horseshit; these people were all cowards.

Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Virginia-born Muslim psychiatrist, killed  13 at Fort Hood. His likely behavior should have been obvious.  In World War 2, the Army tended to avoid sending Japanese Americans to fight in the Pacific.

It was not the first time a Muslim soldier had killed his Christian counterparts.

In military and civilian courts it has been shown that Muslims sometimes get special treatment, at least from journalists.

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