Coming Home

The DOD recently decided to continue not awarding the Purple Heart to solders with post traumatic stress disorder. The blogosphere has been set aflame with the debate over the issue with one side arguing that this would make a substantial step toward acknowledgment, reducing stigma, and treatment of the disease within the military, and the other side trying hard to find new ways to say that PTSD doesn't exist while not overtly saying that.

This was followed the next day with the revelation that military suicides have reached a new record and have surpassed the rate of suicide in the general population. The close timing gave me pause to think about the significance of the two stories in relation to each other. I am not saying that awarding a medal for having PTSD would reduce suicide among military veterans. I just think that there needs to be a better way of serving those who have done their service to protect us. Having veterans among my family, friends, and co-workers, I have found that many of the combat vets are too proud too seek help even when they need it. You would think that psychologists could find a way to communicate directly with a soldier's experience and explain that getting treatment doesn't detract from their valor or self reliance. But I am not a soldier and I don't have any answers. I just don't like the toll that the psychological wounds of war are taking.

War and Business as Usual

When one learns of phenomenal profits reaped by elected officials during their tenure, the typical reaction isn't necessarily one of disgust. However, when one learns that several officials personally profited off of W's decision to go to war, any American citizen who claims to 'support our troops' should be incensed. Incredibly, to belabor the point with an altogether morbid and tragic twist, the fact that 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, one is left simply flabbergasted.

Why, after all, should the voters attempt to disregard an individual's rational choice? If the decision is presented that one must vote against or otherwise hinder and impede a potentially illegal invasion of another country yet lose billions of dollars (and counting) in the process, or wave a flag and cash the checks, the voters should not expect much.

Clearly, many American politicians are in the business of war, but how much of this business is really in the public interest?

random Chinese fortune

Sun Tzu says:

II.WAGING WAR

10.Poverty of the State exchequer causes an army to be maintained by contributions from a distance. Contributing to maintain an army at a distance causes the people to be impoverished.

Geopolitics: What Goes Bump in the Night

What is a threat? Is it a lone suicide bomber or a million man army on a hair trigger? The basis for this thought exercise, of course, is the size and quality of one's own forces. The quality and status of the American Armed Forces is beyond the scope of this current exercise, though. Therefore, for our purposes, we will assume that the U.S. is indeed the hyperpower beyond compare. So what is the biggest threat to the national security of the United States?

Pentagon general counsel William J. Haynes II feels not obtaining convictions in the military tribunals of terrorist suspects held in Guantanamo Bay's Camp X-Ray would be a threat to our national security. Former head of the prosecution of these prisoners, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, on the other hand, feels that opaque justice is the only way to see justice done. Even if these men were released today, how much would they still believe in the cause after up to six years of the strictly regimented and austere lifestyle afforded by Camp X-Ray's accommodations. I would be willing to bet that most of them would just go home and try to live out the rest of their lives trying to cope with what they've been through.

While Iraq may not be our 53rd state yet, the presence of 140,000 American troops means that our government throughout our continued presence in country will be forced to consider the security ramifications of a country in the middle of the most dangerous region of the world. So what a twisted web we weave when one of our NATO allies, Turkey, is potentially threatening the viability of the state that we're trying to carve out of the remnants of Saddam Hussein's regime. While the Bush administration characterizes the actions of the Turkish government as being responsible, this escalation will invariably agitate other regional powers, and stoke fears that Turkey seeks to impose its own order over Kurdistan.

Another threat that the Bush Administration is keenly aware of is the potential legal ramifications of the application of the Bush Doctrine. Thus, while Iran is alleged to pose a very real nuclear threat, members of the Coalition of the Willing are meeting to write and produce the 'third strike' resolution against Iran, ala the prequel to the invasion of Iraq. This incident smacks of another leading problem in the administration of the American National Security strategy, the human element of information interpretation. Documents the U.S. is using as the "smoking gun" are, predictably, be denounced as complete forgeries by the Iranian government. Curveball told the administration everything that they needed and wanted to hear about Iraq's illicit weapons programs, the accuracy of this information was criticized at the time by German Intelligence, and later by every other respectable intelligence agency that was worthy of the name. Remember this? Perhaps the thinkers in the Administration aren't creative enough to come up with another method to draw the world into another conflict that will further destabilize the energy infrastructure the world economy relies on. At any rate, there probably will be a third UN Resolution denouncing Iran. The reason for this is that the UN Security Council is about the only organization in the world that can legitimately overrule Iran's right to a peaceful nuclear energy program under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

One of the most dangerous positions in the world, though, is to be without friends. Thus, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the best salesman for the Military Industrial Complex, is touring Asia, and is currently enjoying two days of talks with Indian leaders. While the stalled nuclear deal will only be tangentially discussed, one can be sure that the U.S. Military's involvement in Pakistan and India's recent sea-based missile test will be near the top of the agenda, beneath promoting weapon sales. While military relations may be the goal of this trip, see China's agreement to release information on American POWs, one has to wonder whether this will actually be realized with the white elephant of historical tensions between Pakistan and India in the room. The lingering question, though, is whether the United States can successfully balance punishing Iran for violating the NPT while at the same time rewarding India with a nuclear agreement that will allow it to continue to develop nuclear weapons and delivery platforms.

Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister and presidential candidate, Dmitry Medvedev, warned in a campaign speech that the U.S. is placing Europe in a difficult position by recognizing Kosovo, yet is not taking any of the risk because of the intervening ocean. Given Russia's long term plans for Serbia, expect this issue to remain prickly.

But, of course, everyone knows that killer robots will be the primary threat of the 21st Century.

Waxing and Waning

Escalation and peace talks, or things in between are the theme of military news today, with local grassroots activism thrown in for flavor. Roughly organized from worst news to best news, here is a brief of places where people are killing each other or moving away from it.

In what would be a dangerous escalation of the Bush administration's Global War on Terror, the CIA is reportedly considering expanding its area of operations into the tribal regions of Pakistan. Pakistan's government, of course, has announced that they would not allow any such operations within their country. Meanwhile, Pakistan's government has reassigned Generals ahead of a massive military effort in the aforementioned tribal region that is the North West Frontier Province. Should the CIA get approval to implement such a horribly misguided policy, the situation will become much worse, with global public opinion shifting further away from the idea of the United States as anything other than a lonely bully.

On the front of one of the longest-smoldering flashpoints in the world, Ehud Olmert has ordered security forces "to escalate Israel's actions" in Gaza after their homemade rockets went a little further than normal. According to the article, 4 people were killed and 34 wounded. This comes ahead of Bush's visit to the Middle East, which has been roundly denounced by al Qaeda's American spokesman. On the question of what becomes of those held by Israeli security forces during their raids into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization, has published a damning report of the Israeli Defense Force's military court system.

From another of the world's longest-smoldering flashpoints, comes news that the Tamil Tiger's military intelligence chief has been killed amid renewed fighting in northern Sri Lanka. The Nordic monitors are leaving, and the army is expected to begin its new escalation on January 16th.

In other news, the deal worked out with North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program isn't being implemented as smoothly as envisioned.

Myanmar is celebrating its Independence Day! Iraq is celebrating its Army Day!

The Armed Forces of the Phillipines announced they are on schedule to crush the Islamist uprising in the southern regions of the country.

The guns will fall mostly silent in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as the government has suspended operations against rebel factions ahead of a planned peace summit.

Local citizens in Cyprus attempted to stand up for their sovereign rights in the face of British imperialism, with 120 demonstratings throwing rocks and fireworks at RAF Akrontiri.

Stumbling Upon the Horror

Behold, a horror of war, via Stumble Upon.

"A Papercut"

Consider this as indicative of the overall situation of the military, the war in Iraq, and the unfortunate enlisted volunteers.

Clearly, the military is almost desperate for people if they are speaking of individual soldiers and their skill sets as "investments." Not to say that every single soldier isn't expensive, but they are having problems recruiting and retaining people and those who have already suffered are suffering more "papercuts."

Around 700 people have gone through just Walter Reed to be treated for serious injuries involving the loss of a limb, not to mention thousands of others who have suffered severe burns and traumatic head injuries. The War in Iraq, due to the nature of the weapons involved has become one of the most brutal bloodbaths in history, and with each side continuously re-inventing the bomb, the death toll stands to climb higher. But, as some may say, the insurgents are fighting a guerrilla war, trying to best us through ten thousand papercuts.

Despite the fact that many of these injuries have cost these men and women their lives livelihoods, they are not especially cared for in the manner that most Americans would expect. The individual Army of One is not particularly significant in and of him or herself, indeed to the impersonal military bureaucracy that is the Department of Defense, their losses are only so many papercuts.

The Numbers of Iraq

In the course of investigating this report about the most recent attempt to gauge the death toll in Iraq, I stumbled into a twisted web of public opinion companies. The organization responsible for the report, the ORB, is a member of the British Polling Council, which in turn is modeled on the National Council on Public Polls, an American organization. Thankfully, to help navigate this heady mix of numbers, acronyms, and propaganda, the NCPP on its homepage was nice enough to publish this list of 20 Questions That A Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results. The most significant question on the list for determining whether the poll is strong or not is #11, dealing with the notion of margin of error. According to the pollsters at the ORB, the aforementioned report on Iraq had a very strange +2%. I say strange in that normally, this measurement would be a plus or minus type of operation, but thankfully for the people of Iraq or the propagandists who will publish these data for their own ends, the results are only positive.