I know I do this every year or so, but I've been going through a lot of incredible changes and realizations in my life lately, and one of them was *yet another* realization of the piece of me that is missing when I'm not blogging on a regular basis.

I've been getting caught up in a lot of crap lately that ultimately, in the larger scheme of things, doesn't matter, and forgetting the important things in life, like getting the word out to people about important issues that affect their lives -- or, hey, are just plain cool to watch and talk about.

So with that...I bring you the latest episode of
Hometown Baghdad -- in incredible video blog coming out of Iraq that the creators have been nice enough to remind me about every so often.

Here's a brief description:

It shows the aftermath of the US troops killing the innocent uncle of one of our subjects. In the video you can see a cheery, largely US-friendly family turn fully against America and the troops. It is chilling. And perhaps the most moving entry into our series.

Love you all and thanks for waiting around for me to start paying attention again!

Every time I post, the response is so gratifying. You've all become a very important part of my life, and it feels like an old friend I've been neglecting or something...

Let's see if I can keep it going this time. So much going on. So much to learn and share!

Was it two men and a woman and her child? Or three women and three men?

Does it really matter?

This is how we show the insurgents that violence is wrong?

Zarqawi lived briefly after attack
By Kim Gamel and Robert Burnss, Associated Press Writers
(AP Military Writer Robert Burns also contributed to this story from Washington.)

At the news conference, the spokesman also provided a revised death toll from the attack.

Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in
Iraq, had said four people, including a woman and a child, were killed with al-Zarqawi and Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi, the terrorist's spiritual consultant.

Caldwell said it now appears there was no child among those killed. He cautioned that some facts were still being sorted out but said that three women and three men, including al-Zarqawi, were killed.

Here is the full text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060609/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

Zarqawi lived briefly after attack

By KIM GAMEL and ROBERT BURNS, Associated Press Writers 1 hour, 5 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A mortally wounded Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was still alive and mumbling after American airstrikes on his hideout and tried to get off a stretcher when he became aware of U.S. troops at the scene, a top military official said Friday.
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Also, U.S. troops conducted 39 raids late Thursday and early Friday based on information gleaned from searches in the hours after the al-Qaida leader's death. Fearing that insurgents will seek revenge, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki imposed driving bans in Baghdad and restive Diyala province, where the terrorist was killed.

Al-Zarqawi could barely speak when Iraqi police arrived at the scene of Wednesday's attack.

"He mumbled something, but it was indistinguishable and it was very short," U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said at a news conference.

U.S. and Polish forces arrived intending to provide unspecified medical treatment, and al-Zarqawi was put on a stretcher, Caldwell said. The terrorist "attempted to sort of turn away off the stretcher, everybody reached to insert him back. ... He died a short time later from the wounds suffered during the airstrike.

"We did in fact see him alive," he said. "There was some sort of movement he had on the stretcher, and he did die a short time later."

Caldwell said the U.S. military was still compiling details of the airstrike, including the exact amount of time Zarqawi was alive afterward. He said an initial analysis of Zarqawi's body was done but he was not certain it constituted a full autopsy.

In an interview earlier Friday with Fox News, Caldwell was more descriptive of Zarqawi's actions before he died.

"He was conscious initially, according to the U.S. forces that physically saw him," Caldwell told Fox. "He obviously had some kind of visual recognition of who they were because he attempted to roll off the stretcher, as I am told, and get away, realizing it was U.S. military."

At the news conference, the spokesman also provided a revised death toll from the attack.

Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in
Iraq, had said four people, including a woman and a child, were killed with al-Zarqawi and Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi, the terrorist's spiritual consultant.

Caldwell said it now appears there was no child among those killed. He cautioned that some facts were still being sorted out but said that three women and three men, including al-Zarqawi, were killed.

Pentagon officials have refused to say whether U.S. special operations forces participated in the al-Zarqawi operation Wednesday, but a comment Friday by
President Bush suggested that some of the military's most secretive units may have been involved on the ground.

Speaking to reporters, Bush mentioned that among the senior officers he called to offer congratulations for killing Zarqawi was Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of Joint Special Operations Command, whose forces include the Army's clandestine counterterrorism unit, Delta Force.

Caldwell also said U.S. forces have conducted many raids over the past two days based on intelligence gathered from the scene of Zarqawi's killing.

A targeted individual was killed and at least 25 people were captured, he said. One raid discovered small arms, ammunition and other items hidden beneath the floor of a building in the Baghdad area.

Speaking to the British Broadcasting Corp., the spokesman said troops carried out 39 raids overnight in which troops "picked up things like memory sticks, some hard drives" that would allow American forces to begin dismantling al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq.

Those raids were based on 17 simultaneous raids U.S. troops staged Wednesday near Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province. The region is in the heartland of the Sunni Arab-led insurgency and has seen a recent rise in sectarian violence. Baqouba is 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

He said the latest information was helping U.S. forces unravel the source of al-Qaida's weapons and financing.

As Iraqi and U.S. leaders cautioned that al-Zarqawi's death was not likely to end the insurgency, Caldwell said another foreign-born militant was poised to take over the terror network's operations.

He said Egyptian-born Abu al-Masri would likely take the reins of al-Qaida in Iraq. He said al-Masri trained in
Afghanistan and arrived in Iraq in 2002 to establish an al-Qaida cell.

The U.S. military did not further identify al-Masri and his real identity could not immediately be determined. But the Central Command has listed an Abu Ayyub al-Masri as among its most wanted al-Zarqawi associates and placed a $50,000 bounty on his head.

Al-Masri, whose name is an obvious alias meaning "father of the Egyptian," is believed to be an expert at constructing roadside bombs, the leading cause of U.S. military casualties in Iraq.

The midday driving ban in Baghdad lasted four hours. All traffic was banned in Diyala from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. for three days starting Friday.

The Baghdad ban fell when most Iraqis attend Friday prayers. Bombers have previously targeted Shiite mosques with suicide attackers and mortars hidden in vehicles.

The bans aim "to protect mosques and prayers from any possible terrorist attacks, especially car bombs, in the wake off yesterday's event," an Iraqi government official said, referring to al-Zarqawi's death. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to media.

Al-Zarqawi, who had a $25 million bounty on his head, was killed at after an intense two-week hunt that U.S. officials said first led to his spiritual adviser and then to him.

The U.S. military had displayed images of the battered face of al-Zarqawi and reported that he was identified by fingerprints, tattoos and scars. But Caldwell said Friday that authorities made a visual identification of al-Zarqawi at the site of the airstrike.

Biological samples from his body were delivered to an
FBI crime laboratory in Virginia for DNA testing. Results were expected in three days.

Violence was unabated Thursday and Friday:

_Gunmen kidnapped Muthanna al-Badri, director general of state company for oil projects, or SCOP, while he drove Thursday in his predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhood of Baghdad, ministry spokesman Assem Jihad said Friday.

_A fire fight Friday west of Baqouba killed five civilians and wounded three, and demolished five houses, according to regional authorities.

_The torso of a man wearing a military uniform was found floating in a river Friday morning near Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, a morgue official said.

_Police found five unidentified bodies late Thursday of men who had been shot in the head in eastern Baghdad.

_Gunmen opened fire on Friday's funeral procession for the brother of the governor of the northern city of Mosul. Zuhair Kashmola was killed by gunmen on Thursday.

____

AP Military Writer Robert Burns contributed to this story from Washington.

This is from the October 2, 2005 program of
60 Minutes.

This contains the "Military-Industrial Complex Speech" by Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1961.

Andy Rooney's really a stand up guy! One of the few on television these days to have the courage to tell it like it is.

Video - Andy Rooney On The Military Industrial Complex Taking Over The U.S. (6 MB)

Audio - Andy Rooney On The Military Industrial Complex Taking Over The U.S. (MP3 4 MB)

Dwight D. Eisenhower:
"We must guard against the aquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disasterous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

Andy: "Well, Ike was right. That's just what's happened."

Complete Transcription:

I'm not really clear about how much a billion dollars is. But the United States, our United States, is spending five billion, six hundred million dollars a month ($5,600,000,000.00) fighting this war in Iraq that we never should have gotten into. We still have 139,000 soldiers in Iraq today. Almost 2,000 Americans have died there. For what?

Now, we have the hurricanes to pay for. One way that our government pays for a lot of things is by borrowing from countries like China. Another way the government is planning on paying for the war and the hurricane damage is by cutting spending for things like medicare perscriptions, highway construction, farm payments, Amtrak, national public radio, loans to graduate students. Do these sound like things you'd like to cut back on to pay for Iraq?

I'll tell you where we ought to start saving, on our bloated military establishment. We're paying for weapons we'll never use. No other country spends the kind of money we spend on our military. Last year, Japan spent $42 billion dollars, Italy spent $28 billion dollars, Russia spent only $19 billion. The United States spent $455 billion. We have 8,000 tanks, for example. One Abrams tank costs 150 times as much as a Ford stationwagon. We have more than 10,000 nuclear weapons. Enough to destroy all of mankind. We're spending $200 million dollars a year on bullets alone. That's a lot of target practice.

We have 1,155,000 enlisted men and women, and 225,000 officers. One officer to tell every five enlisted soldiers what to do. We have 40,000 Colen and 870 generals.

We had a great commander in WWII, Dwight Eisenhower. He became President, and on leaving the White House in 1961 he said this:

"We must guard against the aquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disasterous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist."

Well, Ike was right. That's just what's happened.

This is from the February 6, 2005 program of Meet the Press.
Update 2/8/05: I've broken it down into 2 halfs, and made MP3s of it
I still have to break this down into smaller clips, but I wanted to make complete video and audio available for press folks and things that might need it asap.

Basically, Tim Russert is ruthless with the flinging of the fact.

Rummy loses it a couple time, although he quickly recovers. He admits that he may have "mis spoke" a couple times, and disregards those facts and figures that he wasn't prepared to respond to.

I will be putting up smaller clips and better analysis soon, promise.

For now, this stuff is here:

Video Of Rumsfeld On Meet The Press

This is from the November 21, 2004 program of 60 Minutes.

This story is about the Shrub Administrations efforts to hide thousands of American deaths and casualties of this war by simply not reporting them, claiming they are "non-combat injuries." The families of dead soldiers and shell shocked soldiers who have lost limbs/become paralyzed/will never be the same again are pretty upset about it.

The Uncounted
(
Mirror

'Unusual Weapons' Used in Fallujah
By Dahr Jamail for Common Dreams.

The U.S. military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah, eyewitnesses report..

”Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah,” 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. ”They used everything -- tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground.”

Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report the use of illegal weapons.

”They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud,” Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. ”Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them.”

He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well as napalm are known to cause such effects. ”People suffered so much from these,” he said.

Macabre accounts of killing of civilians are emerging through the cordon U.S. forces are still maintaining around Fallujah.

”Doctors in Fallujah are reporting to me that there are patients in the hospital there who were forced out by the Americans,” said Mehdi Abdulla, a 33-year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad. ”Some doctors there told me they had a major operation going, but the soldiers took the doctors away and left the patient to die.”

Kassem Mohammed Ahmed who escaped from Fallujah a little over a week ago told IPS he witnessed many atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in the city.

”I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks,” he said. ”This happened so many times.”...

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1126-01.htm

Published on Friday, November 26, 2004 by the Inter Press Service
'Unusual Weapons' Used in Fallujah
by Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD, Nov 26 (IPS) - The U.S. military has used poison gas and other non-conventional weapons against civilians in Fallujah, eyewitnesses report..

”Poisonous gases have been used in Fallujah,” 35-year-old trader from Fallujah Abu Hammad told IPS. ”They used everything -- tanks, artillery, infantry, poison gas. Fallujah has been bombed to the ground.”

Hammad is from the Julan district of Fallujah where some of the heaviest fighting occurred. Other residents of that area report the use of illegal weapons.

”They used these weird bombs that put up smoke like a mushroom cloud,” Abu Sabah, another Fallujah refugee from the Julan area told IPS. ”Then small pieces fall from the air with long tails of smoke behind them.”

He said pieces of these bombs exploded into large fires that burnt the skin even when water was thrown on the burns. Phosphorous weapons as well as napalm are known to cause such effects. ”People suffered so much from these,” he said.

Macabre accounts of killing of civilians are emerging through the cordon U.S. forces are still maintaining around Fallujah.

”Doctors in Fallujah are reporting to me that there are patients in the hospital there who were forced out by the Americans,” said Mehdi Abdulla, a 33-year-old ambulance driver at a hospital in Baghdad. ”Some doctors there told me they had a major operation going, but the soldiers took the doctors away and left the patient to die.”

Kassem Mohammed Ahmed who escaped from Fallujah a little over a week ago told IPS he witnessed many atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers in the city.

”I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks,” he said. ”This happened so many times.”

Abdul Razaq Ismail who escaped from Fallujah two weeks back said soldiers had used tanks to pull bodies to the soccer stadium to be buried. ”I saw dead bodies on the ground and nobody could bury them because of the American snipers,” he said. ”The Americans were dropping some of the bodies into the Euphrates near Fallujah.”

Abu Hammad said he saw people attempt to swim across the Euphrates to escape the siege. ”The Americans shot them with rifles from the shore,” he said. ”Even if some of them were holding a white flag or white clothes over their heads to show they are not fighters, they were all shot..”

Hammad said he had seen elderly women carrying white flags shot by U.S. soldiers. ”Even the wounded people were killed. The Americans made announcements for people to come to one mosque if they wanted to leave Fallujah, and even the people who went there carrying white flags were killed.”

Another Fallujah resident Khalil (40) told IPS he saw civilians shot as they held up makeshift white flags. ”They shot women and old men in the streets,” he said. ”Then they shot anyone who tried to get their bodies...Fallujah is suffering too much, it is almost gone now.”

Refugees had moved to another kind of misery now, he said. ”It's a disaster living here at this camp,” Khalil said. ”We are living like dogs and the kids do not have enough clothes.”

Spokesman for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad Abdel Hamid Salim told IPS that none of their relief teams had been allowed into Fallujah, and that the military had said it would be at least two more weeks before any refugees would be allowed back into the city.

”There is still heavy fighting in Fallujah,” said Salim. ”And the Americans won't let us in so we can help people.”

In many camps around Fallujah and throughout Baghdad, refugees are living without enough food, clothing and shelter. Relief groups estimate there are at least 15,000 refugee families in temporary shelters outside Fallujah.

Hel-lo? Is there anybody out there? Now our government is sending National Guard troops to old WWII Prisoner of War camps and treating them like prisoners themselves before shipping them off to Iraq to become inevitable casualties of War.

They are treated horribly, given poor combat training, and then sent off to perform extremely dangerous tasks for a government that doesn't care if they live or die.

Many of them are going AWOL. Who can blame them? They are running off to see their families one last time before being sent to their deaths. (Theoretically, many are coming back after Thanksgiving. To these people I say: "Save yourself! Keep going! Don't ever come back if you want to stay alive!")

Will somebody please do something to stop this madness? I feel so helpless hearing about this stuff. So powerless to do anything to stop these nut cases in charge of our country.

Guardsmen Say They're Facing Iraq Ill-Trained
Troops from California describe a prison-like, demoralized camp in New Mexico that's short on gear and setting them up for high casualties.
By Scott Gold for the LA Times.

Members of a California Army National Guard battalion preparing for deployment to Iraq said this week that they were under strict lockdown and being treated like prisoners rather than soldiers by Army commanders at the remote desert camp where they are training.

More troubling, a number of the soldiers said, is that the training they have received is so poor and equipment shortages so prevalent that they fear their casualty rate will be needlessly high when they arrive in Iraq early next year. "We are going to pay for this in blood," one soldier said...

"I feel like an inmate with a weapon," said Cpl. Jajuane Smith, 31, a six-year Guard veteran from Fresno who works for an armored transport company when not on active duty.

Several soldiers have fled Doña Ana by vaulting over rolls of barbed wire that surround the small camp, the soldiers interviewed said. Others, they said, are contemplating going AWOL, at least temporarily, to reunite with their families for Thanksgiving.

Army commanders said the concerns were an inevitable result of the decision to shore up the strained military by turning "citizen soldiers" into fully integrated, front-line combat troops. About 40% of the troops in Iraq are either reservists or National Guard troops.

Lt. Col. Michael Hubbard of Ft. Bliss said the military must confine the soldiers largely to Doña Ana to ensure that their training is complete before they are sent to Iraq.

"A lot of these individuals are used to doing this two days a month and then going home," Hubbard said. "Now the job is 24/7. And they experience culture shock."

But many of the soldiers interviewed said the problems they cited went much deeper than culture shock...

At Doña Ana, soldiers have questioned their commanders about conditions at the camp, occasionally breaking the protocol of formation drills to do so. They said they had been told repeatedly that they could not be trusted because they were not active-duty soldiers — though many of them are former active-duty soldiers.

"I'm a cop. I've got a career, a house, a family, a college degree," said one sergeant, who lives in Southern California and spoke, like most of the soldiers, on condition of anonymity.

"I came back to the National Guard specifically to go to Baghdad, because I believed in it, believed in the mission. But I have regretted every day of it. This is demoralizing, demeaning, degrading. And we're supposed to be ambassadors to another country? We're supposed to go to war like this?"...

Hubbard, the officer at Ft. Bliss, also said conditions at Doña Ana were designed to mirror the harsh and often thankless assignments the soldiers would take on in Iraq. That was an initiative launched by Brig. Gen. Joseph Chavez, commander of the 29th Separate Infantry Brigade, which includes the 184th Regiment.

The program has resulted in everything from an alcohol ban to armed guards at the entrance to Doña Ana, Hubbard said.

"We are preparing you and training you for what you're going to encounter over there," Hubbard said. "And they just have to get used to it."...

They also said the bulk of their training had been basic, such as first aid and rifle work, and not "theater-specific" to Iraq. They are supposed to be able to use night-vision goggles, for instance, because many patrols in Iraq take place in darkness. But one group of 200 soldiers trained for just an hour with 30 pairs of goggles, which they had to pass around quickly, soldiers said.

The soldiers said they had received little or no training for operations that they expected to undertake in Iraq, from convoy protection to guarding against insurgents' roadside bombs. One said he has put together a diary of what he called "wasted days" of training. It lists 95 days, he said, during which the soldiers learned nothing that would prepare them for Iraq.

Hubbard had said he would make two field commanders available on Tuesday to answer specific questions from the Los Angeles Times about the training, but that did not happen...

The soldiers also said they were risking courts-martial or other punishment by speaking publicly about their situation. But Staff Sgt. Lorenzo Dominguez, 45, one of the soldiers who allowed his identity to be revealed, said he feared that if nothing changed, men in his platoon would be killed in Iraq.

Dominguez is a father of two — including a 13-month-old son named Reagan, after the former president — and an employee of a mortgage bank in Alta Loma, Calif. A senior squad leader of his platoon, Dominguez said he had been in the National Guard for 20 years.

"Some of us are going to die there, and some of us are going to die unnecessarily because of the lack of training," he said. "So I don't care. Let them court-martial me. I want the American public to know what is going on. My men are guilty of one thing: volunteering to serve their country. And we are at the end of our rope."

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-guard25nov25,0,7278305.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Guardsmen Say They're Facing Iraq Ill-Trained
* Troops from California describe a prison-like, demoralized camp in New Mexico that's short on gear and setting them up for high casualties.

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IRAQ
ARMY U S
CALIFORNIA NATIONAL GUARD MILITARY DEPLOYMENT IRAQ
CALIFORNIA NATIONAL GUARD
PF IG
MILITARY DEPLOYMENT

By Scott Gold, Times Staff Writer

DOÑA ANA RANGE, N.M. — Members of a California Army National Guard battalion preparing for deployment to Iraq said this week that they were under strict lockdown and being treated like prisoners rather than soldiers by Army commanders at the remote desert camp where they are training.

More troubling, a number of the soldiers said, is that the training they have received is so poor and equipment shortages so prevalent that they fear their casualty rate will be needlessly high when they arrive in Iraq early next year. "We are going to pay for this in blood," one soldier said.

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They said they believed their treatment and training reflected an institutional bias against National Guard troops by commanders in the active-duty Army, an allegation that Army commanders denied.

The 680 soldiers of the 1st Battalion of the 184th Infantry Regiment were activated in August and are preparing for deployment at Doña Ana, a former World War II prisoner-of-war camp 20 miles west of its large parent base, Ft. Bliss, Texas.

Members of the battalion, headquartered in Modesto, said in two dozen interviews that they were allowed no visitors or travel passes, had scant contact with their families and that morale was terrible.

"I feel like an inmate with a weapon," said Cpl. Jajuane Smith, 31, a six-year Guard veteran from Fresno who works for an armored transport company when not on active duty.

Several soldiers have fled Doña Ana by vaulting over rolls of barbed wire that surround the small camp, the soldiers interviewed said. Others, they said, are contemplating going AWOL, at least temporarily, to reunite with their families for Thanksgiving.

Army commanders said the concerns were an inevitable result of the decision to shore up the strained military by turning "citizen soldiers" into fully integrated, front-line combat troops. About 40% of the troops in Iraq are either reservists or National Guard troops.

Lt. Col. Michael Hubbard of Ft. Bliss said the military must confine the soldiers largely to Doña Ana to ensure that their training is complete before they are sent to Iraq.

"A lot of these individuals are used to doing this two days a month and then going home," Hubbard said. "Now the job is 24/7. And they experience culture shock."

But many of the soldiers interviewed said the problems they cited went much deeper than culture shock.

And military analysts agree that tensions between active-duty Army soldiers and National Guard troops have been exacerbated as the war in Iraq has required dangerous and long-term deployments of both.

The concerns of the Guard troops at Doña Ana represent the latest in a series of incidents involving allegations that a two-tier system has shortchanged reservist and National Guard units compared with their active-duty counterparts.

In September, a National Guard battalion undergoing accelerated training at Ft. Dix, N.J., was confined to barracks for two weeks after 13 soldiers reportedly went AWOL to see family before shipping out for Iraq.

Last month, an Army National Guard platoon at Camp Shelby, Miss., refused its orders after voicing concerns about training conditions and poor leadership.

In the most highly publicized incident, in October, more than two dozen Army reservists in Iraq refused to drive a fuel convoy to a town north of Baghdad after arguing that the trucks they had been given were not armored for combat duty.

At Doña Ana, soldiers have questioned their commanders about conditions at the camp, occasionally breaking the protocol of formation drills to do so. They said they had been told repeatedly that they could not be trusted because they were not active-duty soldiers — though many of them are former active-duty soldiers.

"I'm a cop. I've got a career, a house, a family, a college degree," said one sergeant, who lives in Southern California and spoke, like most of the soldiers, on condition of anonymity.

"I came back to the National Guard specifically to go to Baghdad, because I believed in it, believed in the mission. But I have regretted every day of it. This is demoralizing, demeaning, degrading. And we're supposed to be ambassadors to another country? We're supposed to go to war like this?"

Pentagon and Army commanders rejected the allegation that National Guard or reserve troops were prepared for war differently than their active-duty counterparts.

"There is no difference," said Lt. Col. Chris Rodney, an Army spokesman in Washington. "We are, more than ever, one Army. Some have to come from a little farther back — they have a little less training. But the goal is to get everybody the same."

The Guard troops at Doña Ana were scheduled to train for six months before beginning a yearlong deployment. They recently learned, however, that the Army planned to send them overseas a month early — in January, most likely — as it speeds up troop movement to compensate for a shortage of full-time, active-duty troops.

Hubbard, the officer at Ft. Bliss, also said conditions at Doña Ana were designed to mirror the harsh and often thankless assignments the soldiers would take on in Iraq. That was an initiative launched by Brig. Gen. Joseph Chavez, commander of the 29th Separate Infantry Brigade, which includes the 184th Regiment.

The program has resulted in everything from an alcohol ban to armed guards at the entrance to Doña Ana, Hubbard said.

"We are preparing you and training you for what you're going to encounter over there," Hubbard said. "And they just have to get used to it."

Military analysts, however, questioned whether the soldiers' concerns could be attributed entirely to the military's attempt to mirror conditions in Iraq. For example, the soldiers say that an ammunition shortage has meant that they have often conducted operations firing blanks.

"The Bush administration had over a year of planning before going to war in Iraq," said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor who has acted as a defense lawyer in military courts. "An ammunition shortage is not an exercise in tough love."

Turley said that in every military since Alexander the Great's, there have been "gripes from grunts" but that "the complaints raised by these National Guardsmen raise some significant and troubling concerns."

The Guard troops in New Mexico said they wanted more sophisticated training and better equipment. They said they had been told, for example, that the vehicles they would drive in Iraq would not be armored, a common complaint among their counterparts already serving overseas.

They also said the bulk of their training had been basic, such as first aid and rifle work, and not "theater-specific" to Iraq. They are supposed to be able to use night-vision goggles, for instance, because many patrols in Iraq take place in darkness. But one group of 200 soldiers trained for just an hour with 30 pairs of goggles, which they had to pass around quickly, soldiers said.

The soldiers said they had received little or no training for operations that they expected to undertake in Iraq, from convoy protection to guarding against insurgents' roadside bombs. One said he has put together a diary of what he called "wasted days" of training. It lists 95 days, he said, during which the soldiers learned nothing that would prepare them for Iraq.

Hubbard had said he would make two field commanders available on Tuesday to answer specific questions from the Los Angeles Times about the training, but that did not happen.

The fact that the National Guardsmen have undergone largely basic training suggests that Army commanders do not trust their skills as soldiers, said David Segal, director of the Center for Research on Military Organization at the University of Maryland. That tension underscores a divide that has long existed between "citizen soldiers" and their active-duty counterparts, he said.

"These soldiers should be getting theater-specific training," Segal said. "This should not be an area where they are getting on-the-job training. The military is just making a bad situation worse."

The soldiers at Doña Ana emphasized their support for the war in Iraq. "In fact, a lot of us would rather go now rather than stay here," said one, a specialist and six-year National Guard veteran who works as a security guard in his civilian life in Southern California.

The soldiers also said they were risking courts-martial or other punishment by speaking publicly about their situation. But Staff Sgt. Lorenzo Dominguez, 45, one of the soldiers who allowed his identity to be revealed, said he feared that if nothing changed, men in his platoon would be killed in Iraq.

Dominguez is a father of two — including a 13-month-old son named Reagan, after the former president — and an employee of a mortgage bank in Alta Loma, Calif. A senior squad leader of his platoon, Dominguez said he had been in the National Guard for 20 years.

"Some of us are going to die there, and some of us are going to die unnecessarily because of the lack of training," he said. "So I don't care. Let them court-martial me. I want the American public to know what is going on. My men are guilty of one thing: volunteering to serve their country. And we are at the end of our rope."

The usual anti-depressant drugs aren't working for these guys. Remember that most of these Vets will have to get lawyers to get the medical benefits coming to them anyway -- so all of this is combining to form a big stinking mess -- that our boys/girls returning from this war are going to have to clean up for themselves.

These Unseen Wounds Cut Deep
A mental health crisis is emerging, with one in six returning soldiers afflicted, experts say.
By Esther Schrader for The LA Times.

A study by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research found that 15.6% of Marines and 17.1% of soldiers surveyed after they returned from Iraq suffered major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder — a debilitating, sometimes lifelong change in the brain's chemistry that can include flashbacks, sleep disorders, panic attacks, violent outbursts, acute anxiety and emotional numbness.

Army and Veterans Administration mental health experts say there is reason to believe the war's ultimate psychological fallout will worsen. The Army survey of 6,200 soldiers and Marines included only troops willing to report their problems. The study did not look at reservists, who tend to suffer a higher rate of psychological injury than career Marines and soldiers. And the soldiers in the study served in the early months of the war, when tours were shorter and before the Iraqi insurgency took shape.

"The bad news is that the study underestimated the prevalence of what we are going to see down the road," said Dr. Matthew J. Friedman, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Dartmouth Medical School who is executive director of the VA's National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Since the study was completed, Friedman said: "The complexion of the war has changed into a grueling counterinsurgency. And that may be very important in terms of the potential toxicity of this combat experience."

Mental health professionals say they fear the system is not moving fast enough to treat the trauma. They say slowness to recognize what was happening to Vietnam veterans contributed to the psychological devastation from that war.

More than 30% of Vietnam veterans eventually suffered from the condition that more than a decade later was given the name post-traumatic stress disorder. But since their distress was not clinically understood until long after the war ended, most went for years without meaningful treatment.

"When we missed the boat with the Vietnam vets, we didn't get another chance," said Jerry Clark, director of the veterans clinic in Alexandria, Va. "When they left the service, they went away not for a month or two but for 10 years. And they came back addicted, incarcerated and all these things. We can't miss the boat again. It is imperative."...

Before the war, LaBranche was living in Saco, Maine, with his wife and children and had no history of mental illness.

He deployed to Iraq with a National Guard transportation company based in Bangor. He came home a different person.

Just three days after he was discharged from Walter Reed, he was arrested for threatening his former wife. When he goes to court Dec. 9, he could be looking at jail time.

He lies on a couch at his brother's house most days now, struggling with the image of the Iraqi woman who died in his arms after he shot her, and the children he says caught some of his bullets. His speech is pocked with obscenities.

On a recent outing with friends, he became so enraged when he saw a Muslim family that he had to take medication to calm down.

He is seeing a therapist, but only once every two weeks.

"I'm taking enough drugs to sedate an elephant, and I still wake up dreaming about it," LaBranche said. "I wish I had just freaking died over there."

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-trauma14nov14,0,2230913.story?coll=la-home-headlines

These Unseen Wounds Cut Deep
* A mental health crisis is emerging, with one in six returning soldiers afflicted, experts say.

Times Headlines

These Unseen Wounds Cut Deep


By Esther Schrader, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Matt LaBranche got the tattoos at a seedy place down the street from the Army hospital here where he was a patient in the psychiatric ward.

The pain of the needle felt good to the 40-year-old former Army sergeant, whose memories of his nine months as a machine-gunner in Iraq had left him, he said, "feeling dead inside." LaBranche's back is now covered in images, the largest the dark outline of a sword. Drawn from his neck to the small of his back, it is emblazoned with the words LaBranche says encapsulate the war's effect on him: "I've come to bring you hell."

In soldiers like LaBranche — their bodies whole but their psyches deeply wounded — a crisis is unfolding, mental health experts say. One out of six soldiers returning from Iraq is suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress — and as more come home, that number is widely expected to grow.

The Pentagon, which did not anticipate the extent of the problem, is scrambling to find resources to address it.

A study by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research found that 15.6% of Marines and 17.1% of soldiers surveyed after they returned from Iraq suffered major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder — a debilitating, sometimes lifelong change in the brain's chemistry that can include flashbacks, sleep disorders, panic attacks, violent outbursts, acute anxiety and emotional numbness.

Army and Veterans Administration mental health experts say there is reason to believe the war's ultimate psychological fallout will worsen. The Army survey of 6,200 soldiers and Marines included only troops willing to report their problems. The study did not look at reservists, who tend to suffer a higher rate of psychological injury than career Marines and soldiers. And the soldiers in the study served in the early months of the war, when tours were shorter and before the Iraqi insurgency took shape.

"The bad news is that the study underestimated the prevalence of what we are going to see down the road," said Dr. Matthew J. Friedman, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Dartmouth Medical School who is executive director of the VA's National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Since the study was completed, Friedman said: "The complexion of the war has changed into a grueling counterinsurgency. And that may be very important in terms of the potential toxicity of this combat experience."

Mental health professionals say they fear the system is not moving fast enough to treat the trauma. They say slowness to recognize what was happening to Vietnam veterans contributed to the psychological devastation from that war.

More than 30% of Vietnam veterans eventually suffered from the condition that more than a decade later was given the name post-traumatic stress disorder. But since their distress was not clinically understood until long after the war ended, most went for years without meaningful treatment.

"When we missed the boat with the Vietnam vets, we didn't get another chance," said Jerry Clark, director of the veterans clinic in Alexandria, Va. "When they left the service, they went away not for a month or two but for 10 years. And they came back addicted, incarcerated and all these things. We can't miss the boat again. It is imperative."

Experts on post-traumatic stress disorder say it should come as no surprise that some of the soldiers in Iraq are fighting mental illness.

Combat stress disorders — named and renamed but strikingly alike — have ruined lives following every war in history. Homer's Achilles may have suffered from some form of it. Combat stress was documented in the late 19th century after the Franco-Prussian War. After the Civil War, doctors called the condition "nostalgia," or "soldiers heart." In World War I, soldiers were said to suffer shell shock; in World War II and Korea, combat fatigue or battle fatigue.

But it wasn't until 1985 that the American Psychiatric Assn. finally gave a name to the condition that had sent tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans into lives of homelessness, crime or despair.

A war like the one in Iraq — in which a child is as likely to die as a soldier and unseen enemies detonate bombs — presents ideal conditions for its rise.

Yet the Army initially sent far too few psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers to combat areas, an Army study released in the summer of 2003 found. Until this year, Congress had allocated no new funds to deal with the mental health effects of the war in Iraq. And when it did earmark money, the sum was minimal: $5 million in each of the next three years.

"We're gearing ourselves up now and preparing ourselves to meet whatever the need is, but clearly this is something that could not be planned for," said Dr. Alfonso Batres, a psychologist who heads the VA's national office of readjustment counseling services.

Last year, 1,100 troops who had fought in Iraq or Afghanistan came to VA clinics seeking help for symptoms of depression or post-traumatic stress; this year, the number grew tenfold. In all, 23% of Iraq veterans treated at VA facilities have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"And this is first-year data," Batres said. "Our experience is that over time that will increase."

In the red brick buildings of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the "psych patients," as they are known, mingle, sometimes uncomfortably, with those who have lost limbs and organs.

One soldier being treated at Walter Reed, who spoke on condition of anonymity, walks the hospital campus in the bloodied combat boots of a friend he watched bleed to death.

Another Iraq veteran in treatment at Walter Reed, Army 1st Lt. Jullian Philip Goodrum, drives most mornings to nearby Silver Spring, Md., seeking the solitude of movies and the solace of friends.

He leaves early to avoid traffic — the crush of cars makes him jumpy. On more than one occasion, he has imagined snipers with their sights on him in the streets. Diesel fumes cause flashbacks. He keeps a vial of medication in his pocket and pops a pill when he gets nervous.

"You question — outside of dealing with your psych injury, which will affect you from one degree or another throughout your life — you also question yourself," Goodrum said. "I trained. I was an excellent soldier, a strong character. How could my mind dysfunction?"

When it began to become clear that what the Pentagon initially believed would be a rapid, clear-cut war had transmuted into a drawn-out counterinsurgency, the Army began pushing to reach and treat distressed soldiers sooner.

The number of mental health professionals deployed near frontline positions in Iraq has been increased. Suicide prevention programs are given to soldiers in the field. According to the Pentagon, 31 U.S. troops have killed themselves in Iraq.

At more than 200 storefront clinics known as Vet Centers — created in 1979 to reach out to Vietnam veterans — the VA has increased the number of group therapy sessions and staff. Three months ago, the VA hired 50 Iraq war veterans to help serve as advocates at the clinics.

Officials acknowledge that is only a start. The Government Accountability Office found in a study released in September that the VA lacked the information it needed to determine whether it could meet an increased demand for services.

"Predicting which veterans will seek VA care and at which facilities is inherently uncertain," the report concluded, "particularly given that the symptoms of PTSD may not appear for years."

The Army and the VA are also trying to catalog and research the mental health effects of this war better than they have in the past. In addition to the Walter Reed study, several more are tracking soldiers from before their deployment to Iraq through their combat experiences and into the future.

If Iraq veterans can be helped sooner, they may fare better than those who fought in Vietnam, mental health experts say. And they note that the nation, although divided on the Iraq war, is more united in caring for the needs of returning soldiers than it was in the Vietnam era. And in the last decade, new techniques have proved effective in treating stress disorders, among them cognitive-behavioral therapy and drugs like Zoloft and Paxil.

Whether people like Matt LaBranche seek and receive treatment will determine how deep an effect the stress of the war in Iraq ultimately has on U.S. society.

Before the war, LaBranche was living in Saco, Maine, with his wife and children and had no history of mental illness.

He deployed to Iraq with a National Guard transportation company based in Bangor. He came home a different person.

Just three days after he was discharged from Walter Reed, he was arrested for threatening his former wife. When he goes to court Dec. 9, he could be looking at jail time.

He lies on a couch at his brother's house most days now, struggling with the image of the Iraqi woman who died in his arms after he shot her, and the children he says caught some of his bullets. His speech is pocked with obscenities.

On a recent outing with friends, he became so enraged when he saw a Muslim family that he had to take medication to calm down.

He is seeing a therapist, but only once every two weeks.

"I'm taking enough drugs to sedate an elephant, and I still wake up dreaming about it," LaBranche said. "I wish I had just freaking died over there."

Wesley Clark has been chiming in a lot lately on the Shrub War situation. I think he's a smart guy with a lot of experience in this War stuff, so I've created a category for him.

I'm not trying to archive everything the guy does or anything, but once I've posted a couple things from the same person (as I am about to- I've got some good clips of him from Bill Maher's show a few weeks back), it will make it easier to find the stuff later if it has its own category.

The Real Battle
Winning in Fallujah Is Just the Beginning
By Wesley K. Clark for The Washington Post.

Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assures us that U.S. and Iraqi government forces have moved steadily through the insurgent stronghold and that the assault has been "very, very successful." Last night, even as troops fought to secure the final section of the Sunni city, senior Iraqi officials declared it "liberated." But it's hardly surprising that the measure of success in Fallujah is elusive: There's no uniformed enemy force, no headquarters, no central command complex for the troops to occupy and win. At the end, there will be no surrender.

After "winning": Tactical victory is one thing, strategic victory another. U.S. Marines regroup inside the Khulafah Rashid mosque in Fallujah after taking it Thursday. They left later after routed insurgents regrouped and fired on the mosque. (Luis Sinco -- Los Angeles Times Via AP)

Instead, the outcome of the battle must be judged by a less clear-cut standard: not by the seizure and occupation of ground, but by the impact it has on the political and diplomatic process in Iraq. Its chances for success in that area are highly uncertain. Will Fallujah, like the famous Vietnam village, be the place we destroyed in order to save it? Will the bulk of the insurgents simply scatter to other Iraqi cities? Will we win a tactical victory only to fail in our strategic goal of convincing Iraqis that we are making their country safe for democracy -- and specifically for the elections scheduled for the end of January?...

But in what sense is this "winning?"

To win means not just to occupy the city, but to do so in a way that knocks the local opponent permanently out of the fight, demoralizes broader resistance, and builds legitimacy for U.S. aims, methods and allies. Seen this way, the battle for Fallujah is not just a matter of shooting. It is part of a larger bargaining process that has included negotiations, threats and staged preparations to pressure insurgent groups into preemptive surrender, to deprive them of popular tolerance and support, and to demonstrate to the Iraqi people and to others that force was used only as a last resort in order to gain increased legitimacy for the interim Iraqi government.

Even the use of force required a further calculus. Had we relentlessly destroyed the city and killed large numbers of innocent civilians, or suffered crippling losses in the fighting, we most certainly would have been judged "losers." And if we can't hold on and prevent the insurgents from infiltrating back in -- as has now occurred in the recently "liberated" city of Samarra -- we also shall have lost...

This insurgency has continued to grow, despite U.S. military effectiveness on the ground. While Saddam Hussein's security forces may have always had a plan to resist the occupation, it was the failure of American policymakers to gain political legitimacy that enabled the insurgency to grow. And while the failure may have begun with the inability to impose order after Saddam's ouster, it was the lack of a political coterie and the tools of political development -- such as the Vietnam program of Civil Operations-Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) -- that seems to have enabled the insurgency to take root amid the U.S. presence. These are the sorts of mistakes the United States must avoid in the future, otherwise the battle of Fallujah may end up being nothing more than the "taking down" of an insurgent stronghold -- a battlefield success on the road to strategic failure.

Troops are in Fallujah because of a political failure: Large numbers of Sunnis either wouldn't, or couldn't, participate in the political process and the coming elections. Greater security in Fallujah may move citizens (whenever they return) to take part in the voting; it's too early to say. But it's certain that you can't bomb people into the polling booths.

We should be under no illusions: This is not so much a war as it is an effort to birth a nation. It is past time for the administration to undertake diplomatic efforts in the region and political efforts inside Iraq that are worthy of the risks and burdens born by our men and women in uniform. No one knows better than they do: You cannot win in Iraq simply by killing the opponent. Much as we honor our troops and pray for their well-being, if diplomacy fails, their sacrifices and even their successes in Fallujah won't be enough.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47034-2004Nov12.html

The Real Battle
Winning in Fallujah Is Just the Beginning

By Wesley K. Clark
Sunday, November 14, 2004; Page B01

Americans scouring news reports of the U.S.-led assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah can be forgiven if they are experiencing a degree of confusion and uncertainty.

Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assures us that U.S. and Iraqi government forces have moved steadily through the insurgent stronghold and that the assault has been "very, very successful." Last night, even as troops fought to secure the final section of the Sunni city, senior Iraqi officials declared it "liberated." But it's hardly surprising that the measure of success in Fallujah is elusive: There's no uniformed enemy force, no headquarters, no central command complex for the troops to occupy and win. At the end, there will be no surrender.

After "winning": Tactical victory is one thing, strategic victory another. U.S. Marines regroup inside the Khulafah Rashid mosque in Fallujah after taking it Thursday. They left later after routed insurgents regrouped and fired on the mosque. (Luis Sinco -- Los Angeles Times Via AP)

Instead, the outcome of the battle must be judged by a less clear-cut standard: not by the seizure and occupation of ground, but by the impact it has on the political and diplomatic process in Iraq. Its chances for success in that area are highly uncertain. Will Fallujah, like the famous Vietnam village, be the place we destroyed in order to save it? Will the bulk of the insurgents simply scatter to other Iraqi cities? Will we win a tactical victory only to fail in our strategic goal of convincing Iraqis that we are making their country safe for democracy -- and specifically for the elections scheduled for the end of January?

An attack on Fallujah has been inevitable for many months. If we are to succeed in the democratization of Iraq, the interim government and its U.S. and coalition allies must have a "monopoly" on the use of force within the country's borders. There can be no sanctuaries for insurgents and terrorists, no fiefdoms run by private armies. Fallujah could not continue to be a base for those waging war on the Iraqi government and a no-go place for those organizing elections.

Now that we have engaged, there cannot be any doubt about the outcome. It, too, is inevitable. U.S. forces don't "lose" on the battlefield these days. We haven't lost once in Iraq. Nor in Afghanistan. Not in the Balkans, or in the first Gulf War. Nor in Panama. We fight where we are told and win where we fight. We are well trained, disciplined and, when we prepare adequately, exceedingly well equipped. We will take the city, and with relatively few U.S. casualties. And we will have killed a lot of people who were armed and resisting us.

But in what sense is this "winning?"

To win means not just to occupy the city, but to do so in a way that knocks the local opponent permanently out of the fight, demoralizes broader resistance, and builds legitimacy for U.S. aims, methods and allies. Seen this way, the battle for Fallujah is not just a matter of shooting. It is part of a larger bargaining process that has included negotiations, threats and staged preparations to pressure insurgent groups into preemptive surrender, to deprive them of popular tolerance and support, and to demonstrate to the Iraqi people and to others that force was used only as a last resort in order to gain increased legitimacy for the interim Iraqi government.

Even the use of force required a further calculus. Had we relentlessly destroyed the city and killed large numbers of innocent civilians, or suffered crippling losses in the fighting, we most certainly would have been judged "losers." And if we can't hold on and prevent the insurgents from infiltrating back in -- as has now occurred in the recently "liberated" city of Samarra -- we also shall have lost.

The battle plan was tailored to prevent significant destruction. It called for a slow squeeze, starting with precision strikes against identified targets, and followed by a careful assault directed at taking out the opposition and reoccupying the city, while minimizing civilian and friendly casualties. We have superior mobility, with heavily armored vehicles; we have superior firepower, with the Bradley's 25mm cannon, M1A1 Abrams tanks, artillery and airstrikes; we have advantages in reconnaissance, with satellites, TV-equipped unmanned aerial vehicles and a whole array of electronic gear. But urban combat partially neutralizes these advantages. A weaker defender can inflict much punishment with only a meager force fighting from the rubble, provided they fight to the death. So this has not been a "cakewalk." This has been a tough battle, and the men and women fighting it deserve every Combat Infantryman's Badge, Bronze Star or Purple Heart they receive.

During the recent presidential campaign, there was a lot of talk about supporting our troops in wartime. And yet calling what's going on in Iraq "war" has distracted us from marshaling the diplomatic and political support our troops need to win.

To a considerable extent, the insurgency in Iraq has been supported by external efforts: Syria's facilitating of passage by jihadists, Iran's eager efforts to reintegrate Shiism and assure the emergence of an Iraqi regime to Tehran's liking, efforts by some Saudis to reinforce Sunni dominance in Iraq. (On the eve of the battle in Fallujah, one group of 26 Saudi religious scholars urged Iraqis to support the insurgents.)

The success of our military efforts in Iraq is thus directly connected to the skill of U.S. diplomacy in the region. Certainly neither Syria nor Iran could welcome American success in Iraq if they believe it means they'll be next on a list of regimes to be "reformed" by the United States -- and yet that's precisely the goal of American policy. Bringing about change in those countries should be a matter of offering inducements as well as making threats, but not if it adds to the danger for our men and women in uniform. We need to choose: continue to project a grand vision, or focus on success in Iraq. Not only the safety of our troops, but the success of our mission depends on a degree of Syrian and Iranian accommodation for an American-supported, peaceful, stable, democratizing Iraq. And we won't get that support if they think they're next on the hit list.

It is equally important to seek a resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, which has fueled the recruiting efforts and determination of the jihadists we're fighting in Iraq.

And then there's the matter of the political struggle inside Iraq. If, despite a high level of chaos, the elections do take place, the Bush administration must be prepared to accept and empower an Iraqi government and a nascent political process with sufficient independence to win support from the populace and undercut anger at the American troops. For most of a year, the effort at political transformation was been submerged beneath the rubric of "reconstruction" and hindered by the attitude that "security must come first." Security and domestic Iraqi politics go hand in hand.

Which brings us back to some of the factors that made last week's battle of Fallujah inevitable: a series of circumstances and errors in 2003 -- an initial coalition occupying force too small to achieve dominance over a historically restive population, the lack of a skilled political corps to reorganize the local inhabitants, the proscription of Baathist participation in the early postwar recovery and the disbanding of the Iraqi military. Then there was the aborted April 2004 effort to subdue the city, in which an under-strength Marine assault was called off by the White House. A silly plan of turning the city back over to a thrown-together Iraqi force left the enemy in control of the battlefield and turned Fallujah into even more of an insurgent stronghold.

This insurgency has continued to grow, despite U.S. military effectiveness on the ground. While Saddam Hussein's security forces may have always had a plan to resist the occupation, it was the failure of American policymakers to gain political legitimacy that enabled the insurgency to grow. And while the failure may have begun with the inability to impose order after Saddam's ouster, it was the lack of a political coterie and the tools of political development -- such as the Vietnam program of Civil Operations-Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) -- that seems to have enabled the insurgency to take root amid the U.S. presence. These are the sorts of mistakes the United States must avoid in the future, otherwise the battle of Fallujah may end up being nothing more than the "taking down" of an insurgent stronghold -- a battlefield success on the road to strategic failure.

Troops are in Fallujah because of a political failure: Large numbers of Sunnis either wouldn't, or couldn't, participate in the political process and the coming elections. Greater security in Fallujah may move citizens (whenever they return) to take part in the voting; it's too early to say. But it's certain that you can't bomb people into the polling booths.

We should be under no illusions: This is not so much a war as it is an effort to birth a nation. It is past time for the administration to undertake diplomatic efforts in the region and political efforts inside Iraq that are worthy of the risks and burdens born by our men and women in uniform. No one knows better than they do: You cannot win in Iraq simply by killing the opponent. Much as we honor our troops and pray for their well-being, if diplomacy fails, their sacrifices and even their successes in Fallujah won't be enough.

Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark served as commander in chief, U.S. Southern Command and later as supreme allied commander in Europe during the war in Kosovo. He was a candidate for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.

This is from November 5, 2004.

Military hospital preparing for Fallujah battle

Marines say the toll is expected to rival those seen in Vietnam War
By Tom Lasseter for Knight Ridder Tribune News.

The number of dead and wounded from the expected battle to retake insurgent-controlled Fallujah probably will reach levels not seen since Vietnam, a senior surgeon at the Marine camp outside Fallujah said Thursday.

Navy Cmdr. Lach Noyes said the camp's hospital is preparing to handle 25 severely injured soldiers a day, not counting walking wounded and the dead.

The hospital has added two operating rooms, doubled its supplies, added a mortuary and stocked up on blood reserves. Doctors have set up a system of ambulance vehicles that will rush to the camp's gate to receive the dead and wounded so units can return to battle quickly...

More than 1,120 U.S. soldiers and Marines have died in Iraq since the war began.

The deadliest month was April, when fierce fighting killed 126 U.S. troops, largely at Fallujah and Ramadi, before a cease-fire virtually turned Fallujah over to the insurgents.

Even then, the death toll was far below the worst month of Vietnam, April 1969, when the U.S. death toll was 543 at the height of American involvement there.

The toll in human suffering has already been grave.

Here is the full text of the entire article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/world/2885271

Military hospital preparing for Fallujah battle
Marines say the toll is expected to rival those seen in Vietnam War
By TOM LASSETER
Knight Ridder Tribune News

WITH U.S. FORCES NEAR FALLUJAH, IRAQ - The number of dead and wounded from the expected battle to retake insurgent-controlled Fallujah probably will reach levels not seen since Vietnam, a senior surgeon at the Marine camp outside Fallujah said Thursday.

Navy Cmdr. Lach Noyes said the camp's hospital is preparing to handle 25 severely injured soldiers a day, not counting walking wounded and the dead.

The hospital has added two operating rooms, doubled its supplies, added a mortuary and stocked up on blood reserves. Doctors have set up a system of ambulance vehicles that will rush to the camp's gate to receive the dead and wounded so units can return to battle quickly.

The plans underscore the ferocity of the fight the U.S. military expects in Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim city about 35 miles west of Baghdad, which has been under insurgent control since April.

On Thursday, U.S. troops pounded Fallujah with airstrikes and artillery fire, softening up militants ahead of the expected assault.

Loudspeakers at Fallujah mosques blared out Quranic verses and shouts of "Allahu akbar," or "God is great," during the assault, residents said.

American aircraft blasted militant positions in northeastern and southeastern parts of the city, the military said. U.S. batteries later fired two to three dozen heavy artillery shells at insurgent positions, the military said.

U.S. forces have been building up outside Fallujah for weeks in preparation for taking the city back.

Military officials say they expect U.S. troops to encounter not just fighters wielding AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, but also heavy concentrations of mines, roadside bombs and possibly car bombs.

"We'll probably just see those in a lot better concentration in the city," said Maj. Jim West, an intelligence officer with 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.

West said he thinks there are some 4,000 to 5,000 fighters between Fallujah and nearby Ramadi, and they may try to draw troops into cramped urban areas in Fallujah that have been booby-trapped.

More than 1,120 U.S. soldiers and Marines have died in Iraq since the war began.

The deadliest month was April, when fierce fighting killed 126 U.S. troops, largely at Fallujah and Ramadi, before a cease-fire virtually turned Fallujah over to the insurgents.

Even then, the death toll was far below the worst month of Vietnam, April 1969, when the U.S. death toll was 543 at the height of American involvement there.

The toll in human suffering has already been grave.

Staff Sgt. Jason Benedict was on a convoy heading to the Fallujah camp Saturday when a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle into the truck Benedict and his platoon mates were traveling in.

A few minutes later, mortars and rifle fire rained down on the survivors.

As he rolled toward the safety of a ditch, Benedict saw one of his friends crawling on all fours, with blood pouring from his face.

"You've got to expect casualties," said Benedict, 28. The fight for Fallujah, he said, "is overdue."

I was interviewed by BBC's Maggie Shiels in April 2003 about being a peace blogger, amidst all of the "War Bloggers." She had no way of telling me at the time when the piece was going to air, but she did give me a clip that I could play for my parents -- but I couldn't publish it on my blog or anything.

Well, now that so much time has passed, I wrote to see if it was OK, and she said it was.

Here it is. (Real File)

(Here's a link to its directory if you need that for some reason.)

Also interviewed are UC Berkeley School of Journalism Professor Paul Grabowitz and blogger Chris Perillo. (Will somebody let them know about this for me? I don't have their emails.)

That's me reading from Salam Pax's weblog too.

The story is about bloggers taking over as reliable sources of news.

Hey Colin! You've got one more day to save face and come clean with us. Just say you're sorry, and that you were just hanging out to try to keep things from getting crazy and out of control, but they just got crazy and out of control anyway, and now your just real sorry and you're not going to cover for this guy anymore.

Say it before the election, and we just might forgive you.
(Though, it'll still be tough.)

Anyway, here's the latest story where "Colin privately tells "X" how he really feels." It's only a couple paragraphs long:

Colin Powell believes U.S. is losing Iraq war

Secretary of State Colin Powell has privately confided to friends in recent weeks that the Iraqi insurgents are winning the war, according to Newsweek. The insurgents have succeeded in infiltrating Iraqi forces "from top to bottom," a senior Iraqi official tells Newsweek in tomorrow�s issue of the magazine, "from decision making to the lower levels."

This is a particularly troubling development for the U.S. military, as it prepares to launch an all-out assault on the insurgent strongholds of Fallujah and Ramadi, since U.S. Marines were counting on the newly trained Iraqi forces to assist in the assault. Newsweek reports that "American military trainers have been frantically trying to assemble sufficient Iraqi troops" to fight alongside them and that they are "praying that the soldiers perform better than last April, when two battalions of poorly trained Iraqi Army soldiers refused to fight."

If the Fallujah offensive fails, Newsweek grimly predicts, "then the American president will find himself in a deepening quagmire on Inauguration Day."

-- David Talbot, Salon.

This is from the October 19, 2004 program.

Daily Show Comedy Clips From October 19, 2004

Mirror of these clips
(Thanks to Internet Veterans For Truth)

Included in these (2) clips:

Lewis Black on how the Shrub Administration continually wastes our tax dollars on extravagant purchases in the name of Homeland Security and $500,000 parties for the TSA.

The opening bit from 10-19-04
Messopotamia
Iraqi tourism board
Soldiers who refused to go on "suicide mission"
Bush saying that we will "not have an all volunteer army" and then being corrected by someone in the crowd.

The Daily Show (The best news on television.)

Just put video of
Richard Clarke On The Daily Show back up.

Sorry for the hold up!

Okay, so I'm having trouble posting because of all the traffic on the server -- which is GOOD, I suppose, except that it's making it hard for me to post.

(Don't worry! The video should play back fine, we bought a larger pipe this week just for the occasion.)

So I'm just going to fight to get this post up for a while, with links to the directories of everything. And then I'll try to get the posts up one by one later today.

Frontline: Rumsfeld's War
(How Rumsfeld used the poor tactics that screwed up the military in Vietnam to screw up the military in Iraq. Really, except for, of course, the innocent people of Iraq who were killed/tortured by some of our troops, the rest of our troops are in the process of being screwed over worse than anybody right now.)

Frontline: The Choice 2004
(This chronicles the lives of Kerry and the Shrub from Yale on.)

Patrick Miller On 60 Minutes
The real hero of the Jessica Lynch story, and how the Shrub Administration actually covered up his heroism in order to peddle their false story about Jessica Lynch's rescue.

This is from the June 21, 2004 program.

Stewart: "Mr. Vice President, I have to inform you: You're pants are on fire."

Cheney said he never stated that it was "pretty well confirmed" that meetings had taken place between Saddam's Officials and Al Queda members. The Daily Show dug up the Meet the Press coverage from December 9, 2001 that proves otherwise.

As a blogger and "traditional" journalist, I always hesitate to throw the word "lie" around unless I can validate my statement. How wonderful that we live in an age where I can present my case and back it up with evidence all on one interactive medium (for those that have quicktime, anyway...)

I also had the luxury of having the Daily Show With Jon Stewart to do my homework for me.

Here's the Complete Video Clip of the contradicting statements as presented within this larger daily show clip. (The larger clip also contains footage of the Shrub and Rummy making excuses for their past inaccurate statements.)

Here'sa tiny clip of Cheney denying he ever said the meeting was "pretty well confirmed.
(Source: CNBC)

CNBC: "You have said in the past that it was quote "pretty well confirmed."

Cheney: "No, I never said that. Never said that. Absolutely not."

Here's a little clip of the Meet the Press footage
where he clearly did say just that such a meeting was "pretty well confirmed."
(Source: Meet The Press, December 9, 2001)

Cheney: "It's been pretty well confirmed, that he didn't go to Prague and he did meet with a Senior Official of the Iraqi Intelligence service."

The Daily Show (The best news on television.)

This is from the June 21, 2004 program.

These should be up by 1pm CA time today. (Uploading now.) I've got to run.

Here's the interview with Stephen F. Hayes, the guy who wrote The Connection, the new book claiming that there's a connection between 911 and Saddam.

Turns out that his book is based on a single report by none other than Douglas Feith -- the Shrub's Undersecretary of defense, and one of the most notorious members within the Administration known for helping companies he used to work for to cash in on the Iraqi Gold Rush. (See the Bill Moyers Story all about it.

Bill Moyers On The Insider Business Deals Between Shrub Administration Officials And Iraqi Reconstruction Companies

Specifically, between Douglas Feith, the Undersecretary of Defense and several companies (many related to his "former" business associate Marc Zell), including: Zell, Goldberg and Company, Diligence, New Bridge Strategies, Barber, Griffith and Rogers, SAIC (courtesy of current Shrub Administration Official and former SAIC Senior Vice President Ryan Henry), and The Iraqi International Law Group.

Anyway,
Here's the interview in two parts.

The Daily Show (The best news on television.)

Michael Isikoff discovered
this Shrub Administration memo which outlines a policy of rejecting the Geneva Convention for War On Terror prisoners.

Here's the Newsweek story that got this all started:

Double Standard?.

This is a big deal guys, and Bill Moyers and Brian Brancaccio do their usual great job of explaining exactly why -- and within a historical context. Then Brian interviews Columbia Law School Professor Scott Horton about the frighting implications of this policy.

This is from the May 21, 2004 program of Bill Moyers Now.

Want to mirror these clips?? Let me know! (
Mirror 1 of the complete version.)

This first clip provides details of the memo and some historical context:

Moyers On The Shrub's Geneva-Rejection Policy - Part 1 of 3 (Small - 10 MB)

These next two clips contain an interview with Scott Horton where he analyses the Shrub's justifaction for a Geneva Convention "double standard":

Moyers On The Shrub's Geneva-Rejection Policy - Part 2 of 3
(Small - 14 MB)

Moyers On The Shrub's Geneva-Rejection Policy - Part 3 of 3
(Small - 14 MB)

Here's the whole thing in a huge 37 MB file

David Brancaccio talks to Scott Horton, President of the International League for Human Rights. Horton will discuss the legal basis for the global war on terror and the U.S. government classified memo that puts forth what NEWSWEEK described as "a legal framework to justify a secret system of detention and interrogation that sidesteps the historical safeguards of the Geneva Convention." Mr. Horton also recently spearheaded a Bar Association of New York report: "
Human rights standards applicable to the United States' interrogation of detainees."

More about Scott from his website:

Mr. Horton has been a lifelong activist in the human rights area, having served as counsel to Andrei Sakharov, Elena Bonner, Sergei Kovalev and other leaders of the Russian human rights and democracy movements for over twenty years and having worked with the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and the International League for Human Rights, among other organizations. He is currently president of the International League and a director of the Moscow-based Andrei Sakharov Foundation. Mr. Horton is also an advisor of the Open Society Institute's Central Eurasia Project, and a director of the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, the Council on Foreign Relations's Center for Preventive Action and numerous other NGO organizations.

Mr. Horton is an adjunct professor at the Columbia University School of Law and the author of over 200 articles and monographs on legal developments in nations in transition.

This post goes with this footage from Bill Moyers Now

Double Standards?
A Justice Department memo proposes that the United States hold others accountable for international laws on detainees—but that Washington did not have to follow them itself
By
Michael Isikoff for Newsweek.

In a crucial memo written four months after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, Justice Department lawyers advised that President George W. Bush and the U.S. military did not have to comply with any international laws in the handling of detainees in the war on terrorism. It was that conclusion, say some critics, that laid the groundwork for aggressive interrogation techniques that led to the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The draft memo, which drew sharp protest from the State Department, argued that the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war did not apply to any Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters being flown to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, because Afghanistan was a “failed state” whose militia did not have any status under international treaties.

But the Jan. 9, 2002 memo, written by Justice lawyers John Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty, went far beyond that conclusion, explicitly arguing that no international laws—including the normally observed laws of war—applied to the United States at all because they did not have any status under federal law.

Here is the complete article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5032094/site/newsweek/

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Isikoff
Investigative Correspondent
Newsweek
Updated: 1:42 p.m. ET May 22, 2004

May 21 - In a crucial memo written four months after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, Justice Department lawyers advised that President George W. Bush and the U.S. military did not have to comply with any international laws in the handling of detainees in the war on terrorism. It was that conclusion, say some critics, that laid the groundwork for aggressive interrogation techniques that led to the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The draft memo, which drew sharp protest from the State Department, argued that the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war did not apply to any Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters being flown to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, because Afghanistan was a “failed state” whose militia did not have any status under international treaties.

But the Jan. 9, 2002 memo, written by Justice lawyers John Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty, went far beyond that conclusion, explicitly arguing that no international laws—including the normally observed laws of war—applied to the United States at all because they did not have any status under federal law.

“As a result, any customary international law of armed conflict in no way binds, as a legal matter, the President or the U.S. Armed Forces concerning the detention or trial of members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” according to a copy of the memo obtained by NEWSWEEK. A copy of the memo is being posted today on NEWSWEEK’s Web site.

More War Crimes Memos
• Read the complete Yoo-Delahunty memo:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
• Read the memo on habeas jurisdiction
At the same time, and even more striking, according to critics, the memo explicitly proposed a de facto double standard in the war on terror in which the United States would hold others accountable for international laws it said it was not itself obligated to follow.

After concluding that the laws of war did not apply to the conduct of the U.S. military, the memo argued that President Bush could still put Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters on trial as war criminals for violating those same laws. While acknowledging that this may seem “at first glance, counter-intuitive,” the memo states this is a product of the president’s constitutional authority “to prosecute the war effectively.”

The two lawyers who drafted the memo, entitled “Application of Treaties and Laws to Al Qaeda and Taliban Detainees,” were key members of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, a unit that provides legal advice to the White House and other executive-branch agencies. The lead author, John Yoo, a conservative law professor and expert on international law who was at the time deputy assistant attorney general in the office, also crafted a series of related memos—including one putting a highly restrictive interpretation on an international torture convention—that became the legal framework for many of the Bush administration’s post-9/11 policies. Yoo also coauthored another OLC memo entitled “Possible Habeas Jurisdiction Over Aliens Held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” that concluded that U.S. courts could not review the treatment of prisoners at the base.

Critics say the memos’ disregard for the United States’ treaty obligations and international law paved the way for the Pentagon to use increasingly aggressive interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay—including sleep deprivation, use of forced stress positions and environmental manipulation—that eventually were applied to detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The customary laws of war, as articulated in multiple international treaties and conventions dating back centuries, also prohibit a wide range of conduct such as attacks on civilians or the murder of captured prisoners.

Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, who has examined the memo, described it as a “maliciously ideological or deceptive” document that simply ignored U.S. obligations under multiple international agreements. “You can’t pick or choose what laws you’re going to follow,” said Roth. “These political lawyers set the nation on a course that permitted the abusive interrogation techniques” that have been recently disclosed.

When you read the memo, “the first thing that comes to mind is that this is not a lofty statement of policy on behalf of the United States,” said Scott Horton, president of the International League for Human Rights, in an interview scheduled to be aired tonight on PBS’s “Now with Bill Moyers” show. “You get the impression very quickly that it is some very clever criminal defense lawyers trying to figure out how to weave and bob around the law and avoid its applications.”

More From Michael Isikoff
• Memos Reveal War Crimes Warnings
• Prison Scandal: Brooklyn's Version of Abu Ghraib?
At the time it was written, the memo also prompted a strong rebuttal from the State Department’s Legal Advisor’s office headed by William Howard Taft IV. In its own Jan. 11, 2002, response to the Justice draft, Taft’s office warned that any presidential actions that violated international law would “constitute a breach of an international legal obligation of the United States” and “subject the United States to adverse international consequences in political and legal fora and potentially in the domestic courts of foreign countries.”

“The United States has long accepted that customary international law imposes binding obligations as a matter of international law,” reads the State Department memo, which was also obtained by NEWSWEEK. “In domestic as well as international fora, we often invoke customary international law in articulating the rights and obligations of States, including the United States. We frequently appeal to customary international law.” The memo then cites numerous examples, ranging from the U.S. Army Field Manual on the Law of Land Warfare (“The unwritten or customary law of war is binding upon all nations,” it reads) to U.S. positions in international issues such as the Law of the Sea.

But the memo also singled out the potential problems the Justice Department position would have for the military tribunals that President Bush had recently authorized to try Al Qaeda members and suspected terrorists. Noting that White House counsel Alberto Gonzales had publicly declared that the persons tried in such commissions would be charged with “offenses against the international laws of war,” the State Department argued that the Justice position would undercut the basis for the trials.

“We are concerned that arguments by the United States to the effect that customary international law is not binding will be used by defendants before military commissions (or in proceedings in federal court) to argue that the commissions cannot properly try them for crimes under international law,” the State memo reads. “Although we can imagine distinctions that might be offered, our attempts to gain convictions before military commissions may be undermined by arguments which call into question the very corpus of law under which offenses are prosecuted.”

The Yoo-Delahunty memo was addressed to William J. Hanes, then general counsel to the Defense Department. But administration officials say it was the primary basis for a Jan. 25, 2002, memo by White House counsel Gonzales—which has also been posted on NEWSWEEK’s Web site—that urged the president to stick to his decision not to apply prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Conventions to captured Al Qaeda or Taliban fighters. The president’s decision not to apply such status to the detainees was announced the following month, but the White House never publicly referred to the Justice conclusion that no international laws—including the usual laws of war—applied to the conflict.

FREE VIDEO
Launch
• Inside Abu Ghraib Prison
This video, provided by The Washington Post, shows U.S. soldiers with Abu Ghraib prisoners. The undated footage was said to have been shot last fall.

NEWSWEEK
One international legal scholar, Peter Spiro of Hofstra University, said that the conclusions in the memo related to international law “may be defensible” because most international laws are not binding in U.S. courts. But Spiro said that “technical” and “legalistic” argument does not change the effect that the United States still has obligations in international courts and under international treaties. “The United States is still bound by customary international law,” he said.

One former official involved in formulating Bush administration policy on the detainees acknowledged that there was a double standard built into the Justice Department position, which the official said was embraced, if not publicly endorsed, by the White House counsel’s office. The essence of the argument was, the official said, “it applies to them, but it doesn’t apply to us.”

But the official said this was an eminently defensible position because there were many categories of international law, some of which clearly could not be interpreted to be binding on the president. In any case, the general administration position of not applying any international standards to the treatment of detainees was driven by the paramount needs of preventing another terrorist attack. “The Department of Justice, the Department of Defense and the CIA were all in alignment that we had to have the flexibility to handle the detainees—and yes, interrogate them—in ways that would be effective,” the official said.

The Roots of Torture
The road to Abu Ghraib began after 9/11, when Washington wrote new rules to fight a new kind of war.
By John Barry, Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff for Newsweek International.

Indeed, the single most iconic image to come out of the abuse scandal - that of a hooded man standing naked on a box, arms outspread, with wires dangling from his fingers, toes and penis - may do a lot to undercut the administration's case that this was the work of a few criminal MPs. That's because the practice shown in that photo is an arcane torture method known only to veterans of the interrogation trade. "Was that something that [an MP] dreamed up by herself? Think again," says Darius Rejali, an expert on the use of torture by democracies. "That's a standard torture. It's called 'the Vietnam.' But it's not common knowledge. Ordinary American soldiers did this, but someone taught them."

Who might have taught them? Almost certainly it was their superiors up the line. Some of the images from Abu Ghraib, like those of naked prisoners terrified by attack dogs or humiliated before grinning female guards, actually portray "stress and duress" techniques officially approved at the highest levels of the government for use against terrorist suspects. It is unlikely that President George W. Bush or senior officials ever knew of these specific techniques, and late last - week Defense spokesman Larry DiRita said that "no responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses." But a NEWSWEEK investigation shows that, as a means of pre-empting a repeat of 9/11, Bush, along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashc