also see: Bill would require VA to offer sexual assault counseling
VA Struggles to Gear Up to Care for Female Veterans
VA Struggles to Gear Up to Care for Female Veterans
By Les Blumenthal, www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/37409.html
McClatchy Newspapers
Sunday 18 May 2008
Washington - Two nightmares haunt Robin Milonas.
While serving in Afghanistan in 2004 as an Army Reserve civil affairs officer, the former lieutenant colonel got lost in a minefield while leading a small convoy delivering school supplies to civilians. Even more troubling is the memory of a man who arrived at the main gate of Bagram Air Base carrying a young boy whose leg had been blown off by a land mine.
"I was an outgoing, energetic, determined good soldier who wanted to make the Army a career," said Milonas, of Puyallup, Wash., who just turned 50. "Now I am broken."
Milonas is one of roughly 180,000 women who've been deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. While they don't officially serve in combat, they have experienced life in a war zone where there are no front lines.
And as they return home, they're increasingly turning to an already overtaxed Department of Veterans Affairs for help. Last year, the VA treated more than 255,000 female veterans. The number is expected to double within five years.
VA officials say they're better prepared to handle female patients than they were several years ago. But they acknowledge "continual challenges" as they move to open the door to a man's world, where pap smears and mammograms could become as common as prostate exams.
And where "military sexual trauma" would be treated as a serious and growing mental health problem, rather than as a subject to be avoided.
"It's not your father's VA - it really isn't," said Patricia Hayes, the VA's national director of women's health care issues. "We have geared up and are gearing up. But there are places that may have gaps."
Others say the agency is far from prepared. And given the VA's chronic budget shortfalls and increasing demands from the rapidly growing number of male veterans, the task could be even harder than expected.
"They aren't ready," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said of VA officials. "Absent a proactive, concerted effort and knowing their limited resources, they (VA officials) are struggling with so much this might get lost."
Murray, perhaps the leading VA critic on Capitol Hill, has introduced legislation that requires studying how serving in Iraq and Afghanistan has affected the physical, mental and reproductive health of women, and how the VA is dealing with their problems.
The legislation also would require the VA to start caring for newborn children of female veterans who are receiving maternity care. Currently the VA doesn't cover newborn costs. In addition, it would require increased training for VA personnel dealing with military sexual trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, in women.
The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on Murray's bill on Wednesday.
"It's a hard issue, and pouring a huge light on this is a risk, as some will say women just shouldn't be in the military," Murray said. "But as more women transition home from the physical and mental wounds of war and step back into lives as mothers, wives and citizens, the VA must be there for them."
Robin Milonas says she's been stopped three times by police for erratic driving. When she sees a dark spot in the road, she thinks it's a landmine and swerves. Except for her job teaching special education, she stays home. She constantly checks to see whether the doors and windows are locked.
Milonas has been diagnosed with PTSD and receives therapy at the veterans center in Tacoma, Wash. But three times she's been denied a disability rating from the VA, which says Milonas hasn't proved her problems are related to her service in Afghanistan.
Milonas believes that the VA has yet to recognize that even though women are barred from combat, it's hard for them to avoid the trauma associated with serving in a war zone like Afghanistan.
"The battle is everywhere," she said. She thinks the government's attitude is that "because women aren't allowed in combat, they can't have PTSD. It must be depression or women's issues like PMS."
VA officials say there's no double standard when it comes to disability ratings for PTSD.
"This is the first group of women's vets we have seen with this intensity of experience," Hayes said. "We are not sure what the long-term effects will be."
The VA has begun a long-term study of 12,000 female veterans.
Female veterans have faced a number of problems, ranging from clinics that don't have full-time obstetrician/gynecologists to uncomfortable group therapy sessions where men outnumber women and topics can include sexual assault and harassment.
Concern is mounting over the number of female veterans suffering from military sexual trauma, which can include rape, assault and harassment. According to the VA, nearly one in five female veterans seeking care has been diagnosed as a victim of military sexual trauma, though some believe the figure could be nearer to one in three. The character Melissa in the comic strip Doonesbury was a victim.
The VA now offers women-only group therapy sessions. In addition, female vets can request female counselors, and women-only entrances to clinics are being provided.
"A lot of women are reluctant to come into a hospital," said Jan Buchanan, a women's veterans program manager for the VA's Puget Sound Region. "It seems too military to them. They fear they might see their perpetrator."
But they are coming, and it's the younger veterans in particular.
So far, 41 percent of the women who've served in Iraq and Afghanistan have sought medical help at least once at the VA. That compares with 14 percent of older women and 22 percent of male veterans.
They want birth control, infertility and family planning advice, child care for when they're being treated and coverage for their newborns, VA officials say. There's also increasing concern about homeless female veterans.
"The old saying was, 'If the Army wanted you to have a baby, it would have issued you one,'" said Lourdes Alvarado-Ramos, who rose to the rank of sergeant major in the Army Medical Corps and now is deputy director of the Washington state Department of Veterans Affairs. "But that has changed. The system has been geared to males. Bricks and mortar, clinics and hospitals, they were all thought of as a male place. We need to make women veterans more comfortable with the system.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
VA Struggles to Gear Up to Care for Female Veterans
"supposed open letter" from Ray McGovern to Admiral Fallon
Below is Ray McGovern's open letter:
________
"
Dear Admiral Fallon,
I have not been able to find out how to reach you directly, so I drafted
this letter in the hope it will be brought to your attention.
First, thank you for honoring the oath we commissioned officers take to
protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all
enemies, foreign and domestic. At the same time, you have let it be
known that you do not intend to speak, on or off the record, about Iran.
But our oath has no expiration date. While you are acutely aware of the
dangers of attacking Iran, you seem to be allowing an inbred reluctance
to challenge the commander in chief to trump that oath, and to prevent
you from letting the American people know of the catastrophe about to
befall us if, as seems likely, our country attacks Iran.
Two years ago I lectured at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. I found it
highly disturbing that, when asked about the oath they took upon
entering the academy, several of the “Mids” thought it was to the
commander in chief.
This brought to my mind the photos of German generals and admirals (as
well as top church leaders and jurists) swearing personal oaths to
Hitler. Not our tradition, and yet …
I was aghast that only the third Mid I called on got it right – that the
oath is to protect and defend the Constitution, not the president.
*Attack Iran and Trash the Constitution *
No doubt you are very clear that an attack on Iran would be a flagrant
violation of our Constitution, which stipulates that treaties ratified
by the Senate become the supreme law of the land; that the United
Nations Charter – which the Senate ratified on July 28, 1945, by a vote
of 89 to 2 – expressly forbids attacks on other countries unless they
pose an imminent danger; that there is no provision allowing some other
kind of “pre-emptive” or “preventive” attack against a nation that poses
no imminent danger; and that Iran poses no such danger to the United
States or its allies.
You may be forgiven for thinking: Isn’t 41 years of service enough;
isn’t resigning in order to remove myself from a chain of command that
threatened to make me a war criminal for attacking Iran; isn’t making my
active opposition known by talking to journalists – isn’t all that enough?
With respect, sir, no, that’s not enough.
The stakes here are extremely high and with the integrity you have shown
goes still further responsibility. Sadly, the vast majority of your
general officer colleagues have, for whatever reason, ducked that
responsibility. You are pretty much it.
In their lust for attacking Iran, administration officials will do their
best to marginalize you. And, as prominent a person as you are, the
corporate media will do the same.
Indeed, there are clear signs the media have been given their marching
orders to support attacking Iran.
At CIA I used to analyze the Soviet press, so you will understand when I
refer to the /Washington Post/ and the /New York Times/ as the White
House’s /Pravda/_ _and /Izvestiya/.
Sadly, it is as easy as during the days of the controlled Soviet press
to follow the U.S. government’s evolving line with a daily reading. In a
word, our newspapers are revving up for war on Iran, and have been for
some time.
In some respects the manipulation and suppression of information in the
present lead-up to an attack on Iran is even more flagrant and all
encompassing than in early 2003 before the invasion of Iraq.
It seems entirely possible that you are unaware of this, precisely
/because/ the media have put the wraps on it, so let me adduce a
striking example of what is afoot here.
The example has to do with the studied, if disingenuous, effort over
recent months to blame all the troubles in southern Iraq on the
“malignant” influence of Iran.
*But Not for Fiasco*
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, told reporters on
April 25 that Gen. David Petraeus would be giving a briefing “in the
next couple of weeks” that would provide detailed evidence of “just how
far Iran is reaching into Iraq to foment instability.”
Petraeus’s staff alerted U.S. media to a major news event in which
captured Iranian arms in Karbala would be displayed and then destroyed.
Small problem. When American munitions experts went to Karbala to
inspect the alleged cache of Iranian weapons they found nothing that
could be credibly linked to Iran.
News to you? That’s because this highly embarrassing episode went
virtually unreported in the media – like the proverbial tree falling in
the forest with no corporate media to hear it crash.
So Mullen and Petraeus live, uninhibited and unembarrassed, to keep
searching for Iranian weapons so the media can then tell a story more
supportive to efforts to blacken Iran. A fiasco is only a fiasco if
folks know about it.
The suppression of this episode is the most significant aspect, in my
view, and a telling indicator of how difficult it is to get honest
reporting on these subjects.
Meanwhile, it was announced that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
had formed his own Cabinet committee to investigate U.S. claims and
attempt to “find tangible information and not information based on
speculation.”
*Dissing the Intelligence Estimate *
Top officials from the president on down have been dismissing the
dramatically new conclusion of the National Intelligence Estimate
released on Dec. 3, 2007, a judgment concurred in by the 16 intelligence
units of our government, that Iran had stopped the weapons-related part
of its nuclear program in mid-2003.
Always willing to do his part, the malleable CIA chief, Michael Hayden,
on April 30 publicly offered his “personal opinion” that Iran is
building a nuclear weapon – the National Intelligence Estimate
notwithstanding.
For good measure, Hayden added: “It is my opinion, it is the policy of
the Iranian government, approved to the highest level of that
government, to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq. … Just make
sure there’s clarity on that.”
I don’t need to tell you about the Haydens and other smartly saluting
generals in Washington.
Let me suggest that you have a serious conversation with Gen. Anthony
Zinni, one of your predecessor CENTOM commanders (1997 to 2000).
As you know better than I, this Marine general is also an officer with
unusual integrity. But placed into circumstances virtually identical to
those you now face, he could not find his voice.
He missed his chance to interrupt the juggernaut to war in Iraq; you
might ask him how he feels about that now, and what he would advise in
current circumstances.
Zinni happened to be one of the honorees at the Veterans of Foreign Wars
convention on Aug. 26, 2002, at which Vice President Dick Cheney
delivered the exceedingly alarmist speech, unsupported by our best
intelligence, about the nuclear threat and other perils awaiting us at
the hands of Saddam Hussein.
That speech not only launched the seven-month public campaign against
Iraq leading up to the war, but set the terms of reference for the Oct.
1, 2002 National Intelligence Estimate fabricated – yes, fabricated – to
convince Congress to approve war on Iraq.
Gen. Zinni later shared publicly that, as he listened to Cheney, he was
shocked to hear a depiction of intelligence that did not square with
what he knew. Although Zinni had retired two years earlier, his role as
consultant had required him to stay up to date on intelligence relating
to the Middle East.
One Sunday morning three and a half years after Cheney’s speech, Zinni
told “Meet the Press”: “There was no solid proof that Saddam had weapons
of mass destruction. … I heard a case being made to go to war.”
Gen. Zinni had as good a chance as anyone to stop an unnecessary war –
not a “pre-emptive war,” since there was nothing to pre-empt – and Zinni
knew it. No, what he and any likeminded officials could have stopped was
a war of aggression, defined at the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal as the
“supreme international crime.”
Sure, Zinni would have had to stick his neck out. He may have had to
speak out alone, since most senior officials, like then-CIA Director
George Tenet, lacked courage and integrity.
In his memoir published a year ago, Tenet says Cheney did not follow the
usual practice of clearing his Aug. 26, 2002 speech with the CIA; that
much of what Cheney said took him completely by surprise; and that Tenet
“had the impression that the president wasn’t any more aware of what his
number-two was going to say to the VFW until he said it.”
It is a bit difficult to believe that Cheney’s shameless speech took
Tenet completely by surprise.
We know from the Downing Street Minutes, vouched for by the UK as
authentic, that Tenet told his British counterpart on July 20, 2002,
that the president had decided to make war on Iraq for regime change and
that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”
*Encore: Iran *
Admiral Fallon, you know that to be the case also with respect to the
“intelligence” being conjured up to “justify” war with Iran. And no one
knows better than you that your departure from the chain of command has
turned it over completely to the smartly saluting sycophants.
No doubt you have long since taken the measure, for example, of Defense
Secretary Robert Gates. So have I.
I was one of his first branch chiefs when he was a young, disruptively
ambitious CIA analyst. When Ronald Reagan’s CIA Director William Casey
sought someone to shape CIA analysis to accord with his own conviction
that the Soviet Union would never change, Gates leaped at the chance.
After Casey died, Gates admitted to the /Washington// Post’s/ Walter
Pincus that he (Gates) watched Casey on “issue after issue sit in
meetings and present intelligence framed in terms of the policy he
wanted pursued.” Gates’ entire subsequent career showed that he learned
well at Casey’s knee.
So it should come as no surprise that, despite the unanimous judgment of
the 16 U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran stopped the weapons related
aspects of its nuclear program, Gates is now saying that Iran is
hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons.
Some of his earlier statements were more ambiguous, but Gates recently
took advantage of the opportunity to bend with the prevailing winds and
leave no doubt as to his loyalty.
In an interview on events in the Middle East with a /New York Times/
reporter on April 11, Gates was asked whether he was on the same page as
the president. Gates replied, “Same line, same word.”
I imagine you are no more surprised than I. Bottom line: Gates will
salute smartly if Cheney persuades the president to let the Air Force
and Navy loose on Iran.
You know the probable consequences; you need to let the rest of the
American people know.
*A Gutsy Precedent*
Can you, Admiral Fallon, be completely alone? Can it be that you are the
only general officer to resign on principle?
And, of equal importance, is there no other general officer, active or
retired, who has taken the risk of speaking out in an attempt to inform
Americans about President George W. Bush’s bellicose fixation with Iran.
Thankfully, there is.
Gen. Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser to President
George H.W. Bush, took the prestigious job of Chairman, President’s
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board when asked to by the younger Bush.
From that catbird seat, Scowcroft could watch the unfolding of U.S.
policy in the Middle East. Over decades dealing with the press,
Scowcroft had honed a reputation of quintessential discretion. All the
more striking what he decided he had to do.
In an interview with London’s /Financial Times/ in mid-October 2004
Scowcroft was harshly critical of the president, charging that Bush had
been “mesmerized” by then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
“Sharon just has him wrapped around his little finger,” Scowcroft said.
“He has been nothing but trouble.”
Needless to say, Scowcroft was given his walking papers and told never
to darken the White House doorstep again.
There is ample evidence that Sharon’s successors believe they have a
commitment from President Bush to “take care of Iran” before he leaves
office, and that the president has done nothing to disabuse them of that
notion – no matter the consequences.
On May 18, speaking at the World Economic Forum at Sharm el Sheikh, Bush
threw in a gratuitous reference to “Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.”
He said:
“To allow the world’s leading sponsor of terror to gain the world’s
deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future
generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to
have a nuclear weapon.”
Pre-briefing the press, Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley
identified Iran as one of the dominant themes of the trip, adding
repeatedly that Iran “is very much behind” all the woes afflicting the
Middle East, from Lebanon to Gaza to Iraq to Afghanistan.
*The Rhetoric is Ripening*
In the coming weeks, at least until U.S. forces can find some real
Iranian weapons in Iraq, the rhetoric is likely to focus on what I call
the Big Lie – the claim that Iran’s president has threatened to “wipe
Israel off the map.”
In that controversial speech in 2005, Ahmadinejad was actually quoting
from something the Ayatollah Khomeini had said in the early 1980s.
Khomeini was expressing a hope that a regime treating the Palestinians
so unjustly would be replaced by another more equitable one.
A distinction without a difference? I think not. Words matter.
As you may already know (but the American people don’t), the literal
translation from Farsi of what Ahmadinejad said is, “The regime
occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the pages of time.”
Contrary to what the administration would have us all believe, the
Iranian president was not threatening to nuke Israel, push it into the
sea, or wipe it off the map.
President Bush is way out in front on this issue, and this comes through
with particular clarity when he ad-libs answers to questions.
On Oct. 17, 2007, long after he had been briefed on the key intelligence
finding that Iran had stopped the nuclear weapons-related part of its
nuclear development program, the president spoke as though, well,
“mesmerized.” He said:
“But this – we got a leader in Iran who has announced he wants to
destroy Israel. So I’ve told people that if you’re interested in
avoiding World War III, it seems you ought to be interested in
preventing them from have (sic) the knowledge necessary to make a
nuclear weapon. I take the threat of Iran with a nuclear weapon very
seriously.”
Some contend that Bush does not really believe his rhetoric. I rather
think he does, for the Israelis seem to have his good ear, with the tin
one aimed at U.S. intelligence he has repeatedly disparaged.
But, frankly, which would be worse: that Bush believes Iran to be an
existential threat to Israel and thus requires U.S. military action? Or
that it’s just rhetoric to “justify” U.S. action to “take care of” Iran
for Israel?
What you can do, Admiral Fallon, is speak authoritatively about what is
likely to happen – to U.S. forces in Iraq, for example – if Bush orders
your successors to begin bombing and missile attacks on Iran.
And you could readily update Scowcroft’s remarks, by drawing on what you
observed of the Keystone Cops efforts of White House ideologues, like
Iran-Contra convict Elliot Abrams, to overturn by force the ascendancy
of Hamas in 2006-07 and Hezbollah more recently. (Abrams pled guilty to
two misdemeanor counts of misleading Congress, but was pardoned by
President George H.W. Bush on Dec. 24, 1992.)
It is easy to understand why no professional military officer would wish
to be in the position of taking orders originating from the likes of Abrams.
If you weigh in as your (non-expiring) oath to protect and defend the
Constitution dictates, you might conceivably prompt other sober heads to
speak out.
And, in the end, if profound ignorance and ideology – supported by the
corporate press and by both political parties intimidated by the Israel
lobby – lead to an attack on Iran, and the Iranians enter southern Iraq
and take thousands of our troops hostage, you will be able to look in
the mirror and say at least you tried.
You will not have to live with the remorse of not knowing what might
have been, had you been able to shake your reluctance to speak out.
There is a large Tar Baby out there – Iran. You may remember that as
Brer Rabbit got more and more stuck, Brer Fox, he lay low.
A “Fox” Fallon, still pledged to defend the Constitution of the United
States, cannot lie low—not now.
Lead.
Respectfully,
Ray McGovern; Steering Group; Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity (VIPS)
*Ray McGovern, a veteran Army intelligence officer and then **CIA**
analyst for 27 years, now works with /Tell the Word/, the publishing arm
of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city **Washington***
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It appears legit and I am attempting to verify the source of this but due to the content, the military world should be aware of this...... I saw on the news last night that the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan and 6 other ships in the battle group left San Diego that would make 3 Air Battle groups available in the mid east if that is their destination.....
US spying on American citizens that work for NGO's
New NSA Whistleblower Tells of Faulty WMD Evidence
David Swanson
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/62368
May 19, 2008
David Murfee Faulk was a translator in the Navy, working in Arabic and Iraqi dialect. In April 2004 he began working for the National Security Agency (NSA) at Fort Gordon outside Augusta, Georgia. (He now writes, under the name Murfee Faulk, for the Metro Spirit newspaper in Augusta, but he has never written about what he did for the NSA.)
Faulk says that in May 2004 he found an extremely large text file containing grid coordinates for alleged chemical weapons sites in Iraq. Faulk showed it to his supervisor, who was surprised. But he was not surprised that the file existed, only that it had not been deleted. The supervisor said he had believed all such files had been deleted, and that there had been a great many of them. In fact, according to this supervisor, U.S. Special Forces had gone to the locations and found nothing.
That's what usually happens, Faulk's supervisor told him, when you get something from the Israelis. "Four out of five times it's complete and total bullshit."
I asked veteran Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst Ray McGovern what he made of this, and he said that there is "no such thing as a 'friendly' intelligence service. Reporting from liaison services always needs to be taken with utmost reserve. That goes in spades for what comes from the Israelis, the more so since they have unique, yes unique, access to the White House and Pentagon, and are thus able to circumvent the intelligence bureaucracy set up to vet and evaluate raw intelligence and prevent unverified and/or tendentious 'intelligence' from reaching senior officials, lest they be misled."
With regard to other pieces of Israeli "intelligence" on Iraq's mythical weapons of "mass destruction," McGovern said: "Yes, most of the Israeli 'intelligence' on things like chemical weapons in Iraq was of little or no value. Worse still, data like coordinates for suspected chemical weapons-related sites could not be dispassionately evaluated by objective intelligence analysts because the key function of imagery analysis was ceded by the CIA to the Pentagon in 1996. What sergeant was going to tell Rumsfeld that Israeli sources and the 'intelligence' from the Israelis or the likes of [Ahmed] Chalabi were certainly not worth what Rumsfeld was paying for. At the same time, if truth was not the objective, but rather reports alleging this or that WMD-related sites, well, the Israelis were performing a useful service for the likes of Doug Feith, who would bundle them up and give them to the 'Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal' for passing to the president. Woof! Proof!"
McGovern seemed to find it perfectly possible that "evidence" of the sort that Faulk stumbled upon was voluminous: "The neuralgic search for WMD pointed up the problem. US chief WMD-searcher, David Kay, has told lurid stories of being awakened in Iraq at all hours by people working in the office of the Vice President: 'Hey we got new coordinates; check them out!'"
McGovern recalled one instance of someone speaking openly about the quality of Israeli "intelligence." When John Negroponte was Director of National Intelligence, National Public Radio´s Robert Siegel asked him to explain why the Israelis have suggested a much shorter timeline for Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. "I think that sometimes what the Israelis will do [is] give you the worst-case assessment," Negroponte said.
Faulk is not the first former NSA employee from Fort Gordon to speak about things he saw there. In fact, Faulk contacted me after reading an article I wrote last July ( http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/24183 ) when Adrienne Kinne decided that she would stay silent no longer. (She also told her story on "Democracy Now" this month: http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/13/fmr_military_intelligence_officer ). Kinne described the priority that was given to less than credible WMD claims that came in from Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress.
She also described how the NSA's policies with regard to spying on Americans changed completely on September 11, 2001. Prior to that date, she said, it was unacceptable to listen in on or collect information on Americans. The practice was barred by United States Signals Intelligence Directive (USSID) 18. Kinne recalled an incident in 1997 in which an American's name was mentioned, and she and her colleagues deleted every related record because they took very seriously the ban on collecting information on Americans. After September 2001, she said, it was acceptable to spy on Americans even after identifying them as aid workers for non-governmental organizations. Faulk confirmed that this was the policy when he worked there as well.
It's a shame that we have to learn what our government is up to, after the fact, from former employees daring to speak out, but if more of them would do so the risk to them would be lessened, our knowledge increased, and our government's worst abuses reined in.
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She also described how the NSA's policies with regard to spying on Americans changed completely on September 11, 2001. Prior to that date, she said, it was unacceptable to listen in on or collect information on Americans. The practice was barred by United States Signals Intelligence Directive (USSID) 18. Kinne recalled an incident in 1997 in which an American's name was mentioned, and she and her colleagues deleted every related record because they took very seriously the ban on collecting information on Americans. After September 2001, she said, it was acceptable to spy on Americans even after identifying them as aid workers for non-governmental organizations. Faulk confirmed that this was the policy when he worked there as well.
Call me old fashioned but spying on Americans by Intelligence agencies within the US is illegal, the only government agency authorized to do it, is the FBI and they need court orders to conduct such operations, this suggests that none of this is being done, it does not shock me, nothing the Bush administration has done shocks me anymore, after watching the enlisted personnel go to prison over Abu Grahib while they protected the general Officers and the civilian Chain of Command which we now know goes into the White House, that the tirture WAS authorized by VP Cheney and the EO were drawn up by John Yoo of DOD and David Addington assistant to the VP, and approved by AG or then Presidential Counsel Alberto Gonzalez, these men belong in prison as much as the privates and Sergeants at Abu Grahib did, if not more so, the lower ranking men and women should have known what they were doing was illegal and covered by the Geneva Convention, but the civilian leadership ordered it. The Nuremberg Defense will work no better here than it did at Nuremberg in 1947 and 1948.Sphere: Related Content
Bush administration insults U.S. troops with its policies, behavior
Bush administration insults U.S. troops with its policies, behavior
In his offering on April 30, Ryan Cooper again displays his lack of knowledge of current affairs, devoting his article to how he thinks Democrats disrespect our armed forces. There follows six examples of how the Bush administration insults our troops on a regular basis.
Isn't it an insult to covertly sneak the flag-draped caskets of soldiers killed in Iraq back into the United States? Is this a hero's welcome? What is the Defense Department ashamed of: It offers the lame excuse that it doesn't want to intrude into the grief of the families of our fallen dead. How would pictures of a planeload of anonymous caskets intrude in the final burial in some small cemetery where most of them are interred?
Many will remember the scandal at Walter Reed General Hospital a few months ago where recuperating soldiers were living in rot and roach-infested quarters while the Defense Department figured out what to do with them.
It should also be pointed out that it was not the Defense Department, it was not one of the flag-waving veterans' organizations who serve as captive audiences for George Bush and Dick Cheney who exposed such terrible living conditions; it was reporters from the liberal Washington Post who let the public know how our wounded troops are treated after their medical treatment is completed.
Then just a couple of weeks ago, the father of an 82nd Airborne Division trooper took pictures of a barracks at Fort Bragg where, among other scenes, there was one of a raw-sewage-covered bathroom floor. Are incidents of this nature evidence of how the "conservative" Bush administration honors our troops for their valiant service or are they an indication of what they think of our troops when they think nobody is looking?
When we have the DOD's "stop-loss" policy and its 15-month deployment policy. You may think the latter has been changed, but it is in effect until Aug. 1. The 4th Infantry Division will be redeployed in July, so under the Bush (and God forbid, McCain) administration, it will be in Iraq until November 2009.
Under "stop-loss," after a trooper has completed his enlistment and can leave the service, DOD can arbitrarily, depending on what skills and special ties it needs, extend the trooper's enlistment. This is nothing more than a "back-door draft," keeping a trooper in the service against his will.
If these sad examples aren't enough, the current one is the supreme insult. Sen. Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia, with the support of Sen. John Warner, Republican of Virginia, is supporting an educational Afghan and Iraq wars veterans bill. This bill would be similar in its scope of benefits to the famous WWII G.I. Bill of Rights that educated Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" after its war service.
In addition to Senator Warner, 10 other Republican senators, including Kit Bond of Missouri, have "signed on" to the bill, as have 46 other Democrats. Missing from the list of supporters is Sen. John McCain, who has bought into the White House and Pentagon argument (you won't believe this) that if the Webb bill passes, it would be so generous that it would encourage a trooper to quit the military after he qualifies for the top benefit of a four-year state university education after serving on active duty for three years. In other words, putting your life on the line for three years isn't enough for Bush, the Pentagon and 38 Republican senators, including McCain.
Can Sen. McCain possibly believe that veterans' educational benefits should be so limited and unattractive that a trooper would choose to re-enlist and be subject to "stop-loss" frequent deployments? Is treating troopers essentially as captives after they initially enlist a way of honoring them?
One hopes it isn't too much of a surprise to Ryan Cooper that almost all Democrats and a significant minority of Republican senators think "honoring" is more than wearing a lapel pin and sticking a yellow ribbon made in China on your car. It's known as putting your money where your mouth is.
Ed Janosik, PhD, is a retired infantry major of the U.S. Army and lives in Springfield.
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This retired Major thinks an awful lot like this old Staff Sergeant does, to heck with themagnets and flag pins, put the nations money where their mouths are, these mulitple deplpyed veterans have earned their college educations with repeated deployments even during a 3 year enlistment and by being held over due to stop loss so most end up doing 4 years with 2-3 tours in either combat zone Iraq or Afghanistan they have earned the same college aid we had as veterans of the wars before the end of Vietnam, yes even the Vietnam vets had the same GI Bill that WW2 vets had, I know because I used mine..........
Monday, May 19, 2008
Bill O'Reilly meltdown
Just because I can I can't get enough of this clip and Stephen Colbert doing an impression of Papa Bear is hilarious
General Wesley Clark on Morning Joe
General Wesley Clark on Morning Joe about politics, Hillary and his being mentioned as a Vice Presidential nominee
Senator Akaka continued, “This deception must end
May 19, 2008 (202) 224-9126
INSPECTOR GENERAL REPORT FINDS THAT VA CONTINUES TO INACCURATELY REPORT PATIENT WAIT TIMES
Akaka concerned by apparent lack of commitment to accurate assessment
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Responding to a report by the Department of Veterans Affairs Inspector General (IG) on VA patients’ waiting times today, U.S. Senator Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI), Chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, expressed concern that VA continues to report inaccurate data on wait times for health care appointments. The IG audit, which focused one VA health care network, VISN 3, found that VA under-reported patient wait times, and that staff there failed to follow recommendations made by the IG in previous reports on the issue. Some VISN 3 employees reported to the IG that their superiors directed them to violate existing guidelines and directives, and deliberately manipulate data.
“VA’s neglect of patient wait times is a breach of the faith that servicemembers put in the system. This audit indicates that the Veterans Health Administration is not committed to reducing unacceptable wait times. I am concerned that this problem exists throughout the VA system,” said Akaka.
The IG report, released today, is titled “Audit of Alleged Manipulation of Waiting Times in Veterans Integrated Service Network 3.” For the third time in three years, the IG found that VA is not producing accurate wait time records nor following proper scheduling procedures. As a result, wait times are dramatically under-reported. Further IG comments note that VA as a whole still has not implemented the majority of recommendations made in the July 2005 and September 2007 wait time reports, which contained similar conclusions.
Akaka continued, “This deception must end. Veterans are not receiving the services they need, and inaccurate data prevents VA from fixing the problems. This failure is inexcusable, especially given the unprecedented funding increases VA has received in recent years.”
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Senator Akaka deserves all of the veterans support on this and the other issues he has been demanding accountability from Secretary Peake, he is standing up for us, and we need to stand up and with him and his staff
Call you Senators and let them know you want them supporting Senator Akaka on veterans issue's it's past time for accountability and our nations veterans deserve it now more than ever.
