After bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki the year before, US officials knew the effect of massive radiation on human beings and animals.  They had to know.  So what else were the thousands of navy personnel positioned on ships from five to eight miles from the Bikini Atoll bomb site in the central Pacific if not guinea pigs?

Think of it as an international public works program.  Think of it as an army of builders as opposed to an army of destroyers.  Think of it as an army of tractors and cranes to balance our army of tanks and cannons.  

We have the Peace Corps, which is mainly grass roots, and we have the military, which has the bulk of the funding and technological bells and whistles.  What if we had an army of builders, well equipped, well organized, and well funded that can serve as the carrot to the military's stick on the international front?

(NOTE: I apologize for my recent extended delay in publishing this weekly column series. I was on Easter break the 25th and was busy with other matters on the 11th and 18th. I can assure you this lengthy delay was unintentional.)

Mr. Hannity: America's strength does not intimidate other nations. (p. 142)

My response: The United States is the most powerful nation on earth. Since we attained that status in the twentieth century, the rulers of this country have had the capacity to use that strength for good or for evil. In the 1900s we used our military might and economic prowess a number of times to defend weaker countries and assist poorer countries. World War II saved Europe from Nazi aggression, while the Korean and Vietnam Wars attempted to halt Communist advances. Our Marshall Plan helped Europe rebuild its economy after World War II; our Berlin airlift prevented tens of thousands of East Germans from starving to death.

(NOTE: The essay below was the first installment of my first article written for publication. Although originally drafted as one long piece in March 2005, this article remains relevant three years later. Both Parts One and Two previously appeared in the Ethical Spectacle (February and March 2006, at www.spectacle.org/0206/sout ar.html and www.spectacle.org/0306/sout ar2.html). The article provides a condensed summary of my beliefs about terrorism and how it should be addressed. Check back later for Part Two.)

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing.

"The man went into Iraq without justification, without a plan; he just decided to go in there and win, and he had no idea what was going to happen. There have been terrible deaths on our side, and it's even worse for the Iraqi population. It's another Vietnam." -- Mary MacNeely, Mother of Air Force Reservist

Vietnam, which ruptured this country in incalculable ways. Among them, a right/left split that moved most military and military families to kneejerk Republican allegiance. Speaking as a member of one of those few left-leaning military families, let me say that I have seen this this coming; this Republican loss of its reliable military voter base.

Families with ties to the military, long a reliable source of support for wartime presidents, disapprove of President Bush and his handling of the war in Iraq, with a majority concluding the invasion was not worth it, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.

The views of the military community, which includes active-duty service members, veterans and their family members, mirror those of the overall adult population, a sign that the strong military endorsement that the administration often pointed to has dwindled in the war's fifth year.

The Bush Administration's obsessive pursuit of "victory" in Iraq has not only managed to destroy its own support from military culture, but that of its party.

When military families were asked which party could be trusted to do a better job of handling issues related to them, respondents divided almost evenly: 39% said Democrats and 35% chose Republicans. The general population feels similarly: 39% for Democrats and 31% for Republicans.

Appearing at The Jaundiced Eye, the Independent Bloggers' Alliance, and My Left Wing.

Frederick W. Kagan



Glenn Greenwald, whose forthcoming book is on the meaningless chest-thumping of chicken-hawk culture, offers the following illustration. He quotes Fred W. Kagan, whose argument against Jim Webb's proposal for allowing our troops more time at home between deployments, is that it will be a bureaucratic nightmare.

So this amendment would actually require the Army and Marine Corps staffs to keep track of how long every individual servicemember had spent in either Iraq or Afghanistan, how long they had been at home, how long the unit that they were now in had spent deployed, and how long it had been home...

See You In September, With A Report We Wrote In July

In a story in the LA Times this morning "Top general may propose pullbacks" Julian E. Barnes and Peter Spiegel report that Petraeus may announce pullbacks from some areas in Iraq, including al Anbar province and a turnover of those ares to Iraqi forces.

I'm somewhat mystified by this process as it appears that, at the White House, they seem to know already, in other words, today, what they are going to report in September, in other words, a month from today. In fact it seems that they began writing their "field report" weeks ago... in the White House.

I'm not sure why exactly, but this somehow reminds me of reports I hear from teachers with experience in the "no child left behind" follies, who have described to me the specter of spending weeks and weeks of classroom time devoted to "teaching to the test" in order to maintain mandated academic ratings and the flow of federal funds. Taking the test is mostly a charade, passing the test, a foregone conclusion, an exercise in making things look good on paper.

In other words, as Junior might say every few seconds, in the case of Iraq they are writing a "report" which will contain recommendations that will allow us to draw conclusions, that were decided on in the White House more than a month ago.

According to dictionary.com, the word moratorium means "a suspension of activity." Examples include the moratorium on nuclear testing and the 1969 moratorium staged in protest of the Vietnam war. It is time for a new moratorium, this one, hopefully, can bring an end to the war in Iraq.

This article was originally posted by me on MicahsCall.org.

Back in the days when the Presidio of Monterey's roads were open to civilian vehicles, providing a shortcut between Monterey and Pacific Grove, I used to enjoy watching what would happen outside at 4:30pm. For the uninformed civilian merrily driving along, having cars in front of her suddenly stop and troops get out of their cars, stand at attention and salute, must have seemed so bizarre. Some motorists would honk their horns, some would yell, most would just sit and wait, steaming at the interruption of their day.

Appearing at The Blogging Curmudgeon, My Left Wing, and the Independent Bloggers' Alliance.

I could feel a huge concussion wave,

and then I couldn't hear anything.

I told my sergeants my ears were hurting

and that I felt really weird.

My vision was acting all strange.

-- Spc. Paul Thurman

Paul Thurman was not supposed to be deployed. His brain had been damaged before he even left Ft. Bragg; a training accident in which a log was dropped on his head. Brain scans showed evidence of lesions. Yet, inexplicably, he was sent to Iraq. There he sustained a second head trauma; another training accident. An IED  simulator went off three feet from his head.

We have now learned that the outpatient conditions faced by some of our wounded returning soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center are truly shocking--rodent and roach infested rooms, mold and leaky plumbing, no heat and water, inadequate and unqualified staffing, and seemingly interminable bureaucratic delays in their treatment. But equally stunning is the fact that several high-level officials have actually lost their jobs as a result of this news--despite initial efforts to downplay and discount the reported negligence. After all, considering the Bush administration's lengthy record of action and inaction worthy of public outrage and condemnation, we might wonder why this particular instance of wrongdoing and mismanagement has drawn such a strong, unified, and seemingly effective response from the American people. From a psychological perspective, one reason is clear: the discoveries at Walter Reed represent a near "perfect storm," triggering all five core concerns--about vulnerability, injustice, distrust, superiority, and helplessness--that often govern the way we understand the world around us.

Someone needs to tell Peter Pace that the U S Military is not the arbiter of moral behavior. He's not the only one who makes this mistake. My husband informs me that many of his fellow Marines are of the opinion that the UCMJ is a tract on morality. It is not.

Peter Pace says he doesn't want the military to change its policies on homosexuality because it is "immoral." He likens it to adultery, which is prohibited under the UCMJ.

"As an individual, I would not want (acceptance of gay behavior) to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else's wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior," Pace was quoted as saying.

Will the Chicken-Hawk-in-Chief never tire of hiding behind our troops? Follow the pretzel logic if you will. We must attack Iran in order to "protect our troops."

At Rice's Senate appearance in January, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, of Delaware, pointedly asked her whether the U.S. planned to cross the Iranian or the Syrian border in the course of a pursuit. "Obviously, the President isn't going to rule anything out to protect our troops, but the plan is to take down these networks in Iraq," Rice said, adding, "I do think that everyone will understand that--the American people and I assume the Congress expect the President to do what is necessary to protect our forces."

That's right. We must set Iran on fire, while our troops are sitting ducks in Iraq, in order to protect them. We must exhaust what's left of our military supplies and hardware in order to protect them.  I fail to see how destroying our military readiness protects the troops or the country, for that matter.

A few weeks ago, I almost fell out of my chair when I heard Hilary Clinton tell Keith Olbermann that she had opposed preemptive war with Iraq at the time. Not only did she say it with a straight face, she breezed through the comment it with the same light, dismissive tone she always uses when she's talking about the debacle she co-created.

Via TPM's "Election Central," a story that gives a little more context to Hillary's apparent lie. In her interview with New Hampshire Union Leader, Hilary explains:

"I have taken responsibility for that vote. It was based on the best assessment that I could make at the time, and it was clearly intended to demonstrate support for going to the United Nations to put inspectors into Iraq.

"When I set forth my reasons for giving the President that authority, I said that it was not a vote for pre-emptive war," the former first lady said.

A Clinton campaign spokesman later noted that on the Senate floor on Oct. 10, 2002, Clinton stated that her vote for the resolution "is not, however, a vote for any new doctrine of pre-emption, or for unilateralism, or for the arrogance of American power or purpose - all of which carry grave dangers for our nation, for the rule of international law and for the peace and security of people the throughout the world."

She said the Bush administration forced an end to the final round of weapons inspections and invaded prematurely. The administration is responsible for the status of the war, she said, and for being "grossly misinformed" or for having "twisted the intelligence to satisfy a pre-conceived version of the facts. [emphases mine]

The New York Daily News is one of a handful of news venues to pick up on a key revelation in the New Yorker's recent profile of "24". The show was approached by military and FBI leaders, who asked them to stop glorifying torture.

The grossly graphic torture scenes in Fox's highly rated series "24" are encouraging abuses in Iraq, a brigadier general and three top military and FBI interrogators claim.

The four flew to Los Angeles in November to meet with the staff of the show. They said it is hurting efforts to train recruits in effective interrogation techniques and is damaging the image of the U.S. around the world, according The New Yorker.

"I'd like them to stop," Army Brig. Gen. Patrick Finnegan, dean of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told the magazine.

Finnegan and others told the show's creative team that the torture depicted in "24" never works in real life, and by airing such scenes, they're encouraging military personnel to act illegally.

My life-partner is often the spark that causes the flame of writing to happen. Yesterday, after hearing about President Bush's recent interviews, he quipped "How come every time someone asks Bush if he made mistakes, Bush starts by talking about how wonderful the military is?"

"It's kind of like some mayoral candidate confronted by a gunman grabbing the nearest baby and shielding himself, and saying 'You wouldn't shoot this innocent baby, would you?'"

No one is asking Bush if the troops on the ground made mistakes - they're asking if HE made mistakes.