The announcement today that the United States will deploy up to 15,000 more troops to Afghanistan is just the latest signal of the Pentagon's seeming support for Barack Obama's strategy to fight Al Qaeda in the region. Following by just weeks Obama's latest call to send at least two more brigades of American troops there, the request by U.S. commanders again confirmed Obama's assertion, one denied by John McCain, that Iraq represents a "zero sum game" for scarce American military resources.
It’s not enough for the Pentagon to have the best; the newest, and the most destructive weapons (and the most of them) on the planet. No, the Pentagon has to have the most lethal weapons that can strike anywhere, anytime against anyone -- then not have to lay claim to any such strike(s) -- for the sake of political expediency. It’s just what the doctor neocons ordered for trying and unstable times like these; a highly effective weapon that delivers its payload anonymously -- the perfect compliment to McCain’s war du jour mentality.
It’s affectionately referred to at the Pentagon as the "long-range blowtorch." But the Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) is designed like no other weapon in the world. It has the ability to remain anonymous as to its source. This is the perfect tool of war-whacked imperialism.
... in fact, The United States has far less control over events in Iraq than John McCain and his lapdog press corps would have us believe.
It’s a real tragedy that 147,000 American troops are essentially being held hostage in Iraq by the ever-changing political winds swirling 'round an ancient culture we know little about. Yet, after five-years this is our basic strategy, and it shall remain so if John McCain is somehow elected to the Oval Office.
Relying on current, relatively calm conditions in Iraq (as McCain is doing) to sustain the claim that the so-called surge escalation is working is a flawed strategy. Truth is; if McCain actually had half the "experience" in foreign policy that he thinks he does he’d realize there’s more trouble blowin' down the road in Iraq.
I'm going to be upfront before I begin this: this is going to be hard for me to write. As a young woman who went through all the typical traumas and dramas of growing up in America, I, like many women, have seen and experienced violence against women. I'll be the first one to admit that the topic of rape is an emotionally charged one, a subject that lends itself to flying off the handle, irate reactions and, sometimes, even tears. Let me also preface this with the admission that I am not exempt from this.
No one knows exactly how many female veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been sexually assaulted while on duty. That's because it is estimated that half of all sexual assaults go unreported.
As it is, 15% of female veterans have screened positive for Military Sexual Trauma. At a jaw-dropping estimate of 1 in 3, the rate of sexual assault victims in the military is twice that of the civilian population, an eerie echo of the doubled rate of suicide among veterans compared to civilians.
I've already expressed outrage at the avoidable factors threatening our troops that don't come from battling with the enemy, factors like electrocutionin showers to exposure to contaminated water. But imagine if the biggest threat you've encountered came from a fellow military member, someone living in close quarters with you, someone you worked with, ate with, and interacted with on a daily basis.
Most of the push-back stories on the on-again/off-again Landstuhl visit in the progressive blogosphere (and now finally some in the MSM) have focused on the McCain campaign going nuclear in their attack on Obama.
Reported initially by Joe Sudbay at AmericaBlog and Art Levine in the HuffingtonPost, but seemingly overlooked since is that this was probably a deliberate pre-meditated bait-and-switch by partisan Republican operatives operating under the guise of being DOD officials.
Following Obama's trip overseas, the Republicans counterattacked using the one angle on which they think Obama is most vulnerable - by asking the question, how truly American is this strange black man? Does he love America or is he just trying to get into her pants? An obvious point of attack in a racist and xenophobic society from the right wing party.
But what was interesting was the infection vector they chose to use: US soldiers. While McCain's ad attacked Obama for not visiting the wounded troops in Germany, a viral email purportedly from an American officer accused Obama of snubbing the troops during his Afghanistan visit. Which leads me to ask: just how far up is this cult going to go and how far is the left prepared to go down the slope?
Obama had the most successful visit to the Middle East and Europe, including an electrifying speech that captivated the largest audience ever for an American politician. (120,000-Kennedy; 40,000-Reagan; 200,000-Obama--to be fair, I think W got 207,000--but they were all protesters).
And it was soooo nice to see Europe waving American flags again.
So what is McSame gonna do? Resort to the Rovian GOP playbook. Lie and smear.
It's hitting the press everywhere. McCain is saying Obama didn't visit injured troops, and McCain (god, in his mind) would have defied the Pentagon and visited the troops anyway - "there would have been a seismic event."
After looking back over and seeing how it pulls multiple threads with references together, I decided to post it here, as a summary overview to date of this latest effort by the Republicans to spin a controversy out of thin air and lies.
John McCain has announced his campaign is going to run an ad in Colorado in the next few days criticizing Barack Obama for not visiting troops while in Berlin.
I have been an avid reader of Daily Kos for half of a year now, and more and more often I see headlines on the recommendations list a week before it gets reported anywhere else. Usually, the BBC is the second to break to me the most important news that gets missed, before outlets CNN and MSNBC catch up.
Over the past several days, I had been reading about about attempts by the Department of State and the Pentagon to close off access to diplomatic aid and access to troops under the criticism that the congressional delegation visiting constituted just a campaign trip. This is the diary that alerted me to the double standard of what constitutes a congressional delegation by the Department of State when it comes to diplomatic guidance, and by the Pentagon when it comes to military base access.
Well, today the BBC reports that John McCain is attacking Obama for not meeting with the wounded American troops the Pentagon refused to let him meet. He claims that there would have been a "seismic event" had the Pentagon done the same thing to his campaign.
(I re-edited this in a hurry as I hold my stomach about to throw up, but read on, I think it is now coherent - despite my rage!)
It makes me sick to the stomach to read about the stupid press people at camp Obama reiterating how both McCain and Obama both love the troops, support the troops, and all that bullshit. This stupid press department did the same during the primaries, leaving me wondering exactly which candidate they were working for. While the primaries involved battling against fellow Democrats, and a delicate balancing act indeed that was, particularly when battling a woman, this is the general, and the Rethugs need us never, not once be their spokesperson for any of their virtues (if there are indeed any)
cnn's skewed coverage
This staying above the fray will just never work with Rethugs, and this is the perfect example of why this should never have been allowed to happen! I honestly don't know that the Obama candidacy can survive this onslaught!
I have no idea who came up with the brilliant idea of covering up for Condi, Gates, Bush and Co! I can just picture the Clintons and all Clintonistas now saying, "I told you so! He couldn't battle the Rethugs and this is an example! "
Buried inside all the usual morning news noise was this piece regarding Obama's not visiting the wounded troops in Germany. The Obama campaign is saying that they were told by the Pentagon that they could not visit the troops as his trip was now political rather than an official congressional visit. That they say is why he was allowed to visit wounded troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
First, it was Condi Rice's memo to American consulates abroad, now Pentagon...
There was much of noise last night over Der Spiegel's report that Obama camp cancelled his previously planned trip to the hopsital in Landstuhl, Germany. Rush, Hannity, all had crap to talk about. Some at Faux Noise suggested the trip was cancelled because there was no photo op, developing a new meme against Obama.
It is now confirmed that Pentagon played a crucial role in cancellation:
"Senator Obama had hoped to and had every intention of visiting our troops to express his appreciation and gratitude for their service to our country," retired Air Force Major General Scott Gration, an Obama adviser, said in a statement.
"We learned from the Pentagon [Wednesday] night that the visit would be viewed instead as a campaign event. Senator Obama did not want to have a trip to see our wounded warriors percieved as a campaign event...and decided instead not to go."
There's a video game, not unlike many of the first person shooters, called America's Army. You fight in military formation, you kill terrorists, you get points. It's very popular, and has made its makers a lot of money. Except that this video game was made by the Pentagon to boost recruiting, and it's working great. An informal Army study of the same year showed that 4 out of 100 new recruits in Ft. Benning, Georgia, credit "America's Army" as the primary factor in convincing them to join the military. Sixty percent of those recruits surveyed said they played the game more than five times a week. And a 2004 Army survey found that nearly a third of young Americans aged 16 to 24 had some contact with the game in the previous six months. It also might be a violation of international treaty obligations, at least according to the ACLU, but I'm pretty sure those are non-binding on the US because of the awesomeness of this country.
U.S. commanders are asking the Pentagon for up to 10,000 more troops for Afghanistan.
The request was a subject of discussion when President Bush met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon on Wednesday.
But getting more troops to the increasingly violent battle zone is unlikely to happen before Bush leaves office in January, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.
Edit: thanks to brady4747 for the link to this article (also here thanks to MattR) which corrects my belief that the military had been denying the presence of the C-130 in the area on 9-11. I'm not going to delete my comments below which mention that, but I do stand corrected. I think this is still an interesting piece of history.
A long time ago I posted a short 1-minute clip of footage I shot next to the Pentagon on 9-11. I never properly labelled the tape, so I was not sure where the footage was hiding, but I just got a 500GB drive so I could start capturing everything on every tape I've ever shot, and within a day I'd found the footage buried between a bunch of shots of people in DC nightclubs.
