Tag: Army

Bashee Down Under

A SOLDIER was bashed by three or four men at his Darwin army base and says he was left for two days with no medical treatment.

Private Lachlan Nimmo, 33, has told The NT News about a culture of violence and a lack of support for victims in Defence.

He was bashed by “three or four men” in a carpark at Robertson Barracks on October 12 last year.

He was found bloodied and slipping in and out of consciousness in his room two days later.

Despite calls from his distraught wife, Evelyn, 29, guards did not look for him until he missed a shift.

By the time he was found and taken to Royal Darwin Hospital, his kidneys had shut down. He was put in an induced coma, underwent 10 operations and spent the next two months in hospital.

Doctors said he was just hours away from death.

http://www.news.com.au/nationa…

Despite the horrible circumstances of this event, it is oddly satisfying to learn (as if it wasn’t obvious enough already) that the phobia against social lepers like victims and particularly the manifest treatment of disabled enlisted soldiers is universal.

Victims carry a lifelong stigma and I suspect few understand it.

It is most obvious and ugly in the case of the raped female but omnipresent for all victims.

Real men win, you see, and good girls avoid being raped.

Damn you, Chuck Hagel, you put the problem front and center despite all your heroics and attractions.

Rachel Maddow Lays Out Why Chuck Hagel’s Positions on Rape, Abortion, and Gays are Important

http://www.towleroad.com/2013/…

A personal note:

My wife wanted oh so bad to rescue a tiny “rare” tiger kitten from the shelter.  For whatever reason I couldn’t tell her the tiger cats were by far the most common of all cats and a tiny kitten in a house with a PTSD German Shepherd and a warrior half-breed Border Collie might not be safe for a tiny, undersized kitten.

I had seen kittens killed by farm dogs.  Not a pretty sight.

But this tiny kitten was a true tiger.  She quickly put the dogs and and another cat in their places.  Only really, really dumb dogs are willing to take the punishment from unsheathed claws.

We named the tiny tiger Rachael.  

Best,  Terry

DADT Update: The Service Chiefs Report, The Republicans Fret

There’s been a great deal of concern around here about the effort to prepare the US military for the full repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), and I’ve had a few words of my own regarding how long the process might take.

There was a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee last Thursday that had all four Services represented; with one exception these were the same Service Chiefs that were testifying last December when the bill to set the repeal process in motion was still a piece of prospective legislation.

At that time there was concern that the “combat arms” of the Marines and the Army were going to be impacted in a negative way by the transition to “open service”; the Commandant of the Marine Corps and the Army’s Chief of Staff were the most outspoken in confirming that such concerns exist within the Pentagon as well.

We now have more information to report-including the increasing desperation of some of our Republican friends-and if you ask me, I think things might be better than we thought.

On Actually Ending DADT, Or, “Could It Really Take Another Year?”

So we got the good news that legislative repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy that kept LBGT folks from openly serving in the military has occurred, as the Senate voted Saturday to first cut off debate on the question (that’s the vote that required 60 Senators to pass) and then to pass the actual repeal legislation (which also garnered more than 60 Senate votes, even though it only needed 51).

Most people would assume that once Bill (remember Bill, from Schoolhouse Rock?) made it out of Congress and over to the President to for a signature that the process of repeal will be ended-but in fact, there’s quite a bit more yet to do, and it’s entirely possible that a year or more could go by before the entire process is complete.

Today we’ll discuss our way through why it’s going to take so long; to illustrate the point we’ll consider an actual military order that is quite similar to the sort of work that will be required from the Department of Defense (DOD) before the entire “DADT to open service” transition is complete.

Discharging Single Mom

Many have been hoping for this outcome to this single mothers plight.

Army discharging single mom who refused deployment

Test Votes Mean Nothing to Afghanis and Americans

One hopes that President Obama will strongly and clearly frame our mission in Afghanistan tonight, including the reason for our continued presence in a country that has known wave after wave of outside invaders fighting to advance their own ends.  We are but the latest army to set up shop and increase troop presence in pursuit of an elusive and often invisible enemy force.  The ultimate result is cloudy at this juncture, as was the previous President’s troop surge in Iraq when it was proposed.  I would hasten to call the latter decision an unequivocal success, but it did largely and surprisingly contain a low-grade Civil War.  It is with this fact in mind that many will choke down the prospect of another round of foreign entanglement, troop deployment, and media saturation coverage of major military skirmishes.      

One could, I suppose, reach for an obscure citation describing a similar conflict to which the United States committed troops.  In this situation, however, there are no easy parallels and no conventional warfare nor wisdom to cite.  The Soviet Union’s disastrous nine years in the country might be the best possible comparison under the circumstances, but the peculiarities of that conflict leave it more akin to Vietnam to our current endeavor.  The Soviet War in Afghanistan was an attempt to bolster the existing Communist party from collapsing against the Mujahideen.  We, of course, allocated weaponry and financial support to the Islamic insurgents as a means of undermining the Soviets.  

What has been forgotten in this day is that for nearly fifteen years, the Communist government ruled effectively and made great strides in developing a civilization rather than a backwards state beholden to constant conflict.  With the collapse of the USSR in 1991 came the decline of the Communist state and the rise of the Taliban, which single-handedly destroyed years of reform and plunged the country back into the Dark Ages.  The country deserves lasting stability if it is ever to move forward in time but until it ceases to be a designated battleground, it never will.

Army Suicides, “Things are getting better.” Huh?

This was caught a short while ago:

Number of Army Suicides Expected to Top Last Year’s Number

The U.S. Army says it expects the number of suicides among active duty soldiers to top last year’s numbers, although it says progress is being made in addressing the issue…>>>>

They just made a quick comment at the end of the PBS News Hour, saying “The pace was slowing.” the Army’s response to the higher numbers of suicides!

Army Trains For Battle For Mental Health

Sunday, NPR Morning Edition, 08.23.09 {4min 5sec.}

Daniel  Zwerdling, of NPR, continues his outstanding research into and reporting on the Army’s, and the Military’s, care of returning soldiers suffering from PTSD and other possible mental problems developed as to serving in these wars and occupations.

Gov’t was torturing while troops lacked armor protection?

(Cross-posted at DailyKos and my blog)

I am asking. I’m not sure whether this is a case of “correlation doesn’t equal causation” or not. Either way, I want to put this question out there, not as a Fox News-ish “some people say” but rather an honest question.

Right in the midst of the 2004 election, there was a major issue involving Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, who was being “hounded” (read: asked questions) by members of the military, who were not being equipped properly, and so lots of them were being blown up and killed.

Obviously this isn’t something I’m just throwing out here. I’ve got some things to back up my question. Let’s start with 2001.

According to this timeline of the torture policy (which you might want to read before this post:)

September 17: Bush gives the CIA the authority to kill, capture, and detain al Qaeda operatives. The CIA lays plans for secret overseas prisons and special interrogations

[…]

December: The Department of Defense general counsel’s office solicits information (PDF) on detainee “exploitation” from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA), which advises on counterinterrogation techniques known as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape).

July 2002: Richard Shiffrin, a counsel in the Department of Defense, inquires about SERE techniques — initially designed to help U.S. soldiers captured abroad. Members of the CIA learn SERE techniques in September.

In October of 2003, the Red Cross says US is abusing detainees at Guantanamo. And then in March-April of 2004, stories broke about other abuses there by the military.

So that shows that the Department of Defense had been investigating SERE techniques for use since at least 2001, the findings were taught to the CIA, who used them. Then the whole policy spread throughout prisons in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and the CIA black sites.

The military was actually opposed to torture and objected many different times to its use:

The idea that torture is illegal, unethical and ineffective is well established in military circles. When elements of the military saw the interrogation plan being crafted by the White House, serious objections were raised. Those objections will be key to any prosecutions because they demonstrate that the White House should have been aware that what they were proposing was against the law.

The architects of the torture program, however, seem aware of the power of those dissenting views and, according to the Senate report, repeatedly denied receiving them.

Soon, the Air Force, Army, Navy and others voiced their objections. Nobody listened. They put their fingers in their ears and screamed. Then, of course, Rumsfeld signed off on the policy:

Despite the broad and deep concerns within the military, Haynes recommended to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the bulk of the practices be approved. On December 2, Rumsfeld signed off, famously scribbling in the margins: “I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”

Right. I guess you torture and scapegoat the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to scapegoat at a later time.

Then, once we invaded Iraq the troops started being, I guess, a military of whiners:

Specialist Thomas Wilson, a scout with a Tennessee National Guard unit set to roll into Iraq this week, was the first to step forward, saying that soldiers had had to scrounge through landfills here for pieces of rusty scrap metal and bulletproof glass — what they called ”hillbilly armor” — to bolt to their trucks.

”Why don’t we have those resources readily available to us?” Specialist Wilson asked Mr. Rumsfeld, drawing cheers and applause from many of the 2,300 soldiers assembled in a cavernous hangar here to meet the secretary.

There were a lot of these questions sincerely asked by our military, who just wanted to serve and be properly protected. A guy I went to school with, whom I hadn’t seen since sixth grade or so, died in Iraq because of faulty equipment near the beginning of the war.

And naturally, Rumsfeld expressed empathy and respect for our troops:

”Now, settle down, settle down,” he said. ”Hell, I’m an old man, it’s early in the morning and I’m gathering my thoughts here.”

[…]

”You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can be blown up,” he said. ”And you can have an up-armored Humvee and it can be blown up.”

How sweet. You’re gonna get blown up, no matter what, so why should we waste money on your asses? Unless we’re paying to train people to torture for absolutely no reason. Then wasting money is perfectly fine. I mean, I stand eight hours a day, you can deal with some IEDs.

Which, by the way, was the whole fucking point of the request for more armor. IEDs. The insurgents had switched tactics at that point, so while they were making roadside improvised explosive devices, our troops were stuck with no armor.

And if for some reason you’re not completely pissed off yet, it gets a lot worse.

The LA Times has Rumsfeld telling us why the troops were being screwed out of equipment:

Rumsfeld responded that the Pentagon had taken steps to equip soldiers being sent to Iraq, but that factory production was limited. “It’s essentially a matter of physics. It isn’t a matter of money. It isn’t a matter on the part of the Army of desire. It’s a matter of production and capability of doing it.

So it wasn’t that they were squandering money elsewhere or anything. It was a matter of physics. There was no one available to do any of the work to make sure the troops were equipped. That’s all. Not the administration’s fault. And nobody will ever say differently.

Except… the people who make the equipment:

WASHINGTON — The manufacturer of Humvees for the U.S. military and the company that adds armor to the utility vehicles are not running near production capacity and are making all that the Pentagon has requested, spokesmen for both companies said.

“If they call and say, ‘You know, we really want more,’ we’ll get it done,” said Lee Woodward, a spokesman for AM General, the Indiana company that makes Humvees and the civilian Hummer versions.

Why do O’Gara-Hess & Eisenhardt and AM General hate America?

This is how enormous of a problem there was at the time:

According to Army figures, there are almost 19,400 Humvees operating in the Iraq theater. Of those, about 5,900 were armored at the factory and armor was added to about 9,100 of them later.

Other vehicles also lack armor. The House Armed Services Committee released statistics yesterday showing that most transport trucks crisscrossing Iraq to supply the troops don’t have armor. Only 10 percent of the 4,814 medium-weight transport trucks have armor, and only 15 percent of the 4,314 heavy transport vehicles do.

Back to the LA Times article, for more screwing the troops:

It took the Pentagon nearly a year after President Bush declared an end to “major combat operations” on May 1, 2003, to equip all soldiers with protective plates for their protective vests. War planners had initially equipped only “front line” units with the plates. But militants made it clear that any location could become a battle zone.

The equipment problems were underscored in October when an Army Reserve supply unit south of Baghdad disobeyed a direct order to deliver fuel and other supplies to a base in northern Iraq. After an investigation into the incident, 23 members of the unit were given nonjudicial punishments, which could entail a reduction in rank and loss of pay.

A WHOLE YEAR after Mission Accomplished to equip them with protective vests? And, of course, when the administration screws up, look who gets fucked.

The guy who was president at the time, who’d authorized torture and training people to torture and military tribunals and rescinding Geneva Conventions protections and habeas corpus had this to say:

“The concerns expressed are being addressed, and that is we expect our troops to have the best possible equipment,” the president said in response to a reporter’s question at the White House.

“If I were a soldier overseas wanting to defend my country, I’d want to ask the secretary of defense the same question, and that is, ‘Are we getting the best we can get us?'”

[…]

“I’ve told many family I’ve met with, ‘We’re doing everything we possibly can to protect your loved ones.'”

I. HATE. that. guy. Can we please arrest him? Can we please prosecute all of these fuckers? It was already sick enough to see these people bash the troops, and to see Bush speak at anti-torture conventions about American values and all of that. But THIS.

They actively AVOIDED GIVING TROOPS ARMOR while fucking ordering them to torture.

Not to be outdone, there’s more:

“I think it’s good” that ordinary soldiers are given a chance to express their concerns to the defense secretary and senior military commanders, Rumsfeld told reporters during a visit to India.

“It’s necessary for the Army to hear that, do something about it and see that everyone is treated properly,” Rumsfeld said, referring not only to the complaint about insufficient armor but also to another soldier’s statement about not getting reimbursed for certain expenses in a timely way.

The military expressed reservations about torturing. Rumsfeld signed off. The military expressed reservations about being blown up by IEDs, Rumsfeld made smartass remarks.

And this was right in the middle of torturing, when the administration was paying and training people to torture. This was around the time that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld testified after Abu Ghraib that:

It’s my obligation to evaluate what happened, to make sure that those who have committed wrong-doing are brought to justice, and to make changes as needed to see that it doesn’t happen again.

[…]

It’s important for the American people and the world to know that while these terrible acts were perpetrated by a small number of U.S. military, they were also brought to light by the honorable and responsible actions of other military personnel.

I don’t even know what to say.

The LA Times article mentions that it “would cost” $9.5 billion annually to keep the military properly equipped. I’d have much rather paid for that than torture.

There were accusations at the time that one question by a person in the Army wasn’t his own, but was a reporter’s question. At the time, people were complaining. I’m glad it happened regardless of the controversy. Real people were really being blown up all the time, and I don’t care if it’s a reporter or a soldier who asks the question.

Is any of this seriously going to be looked at? We won’t investigate torture anymore deeply than a few troops, we aren’t even getting access to how much money was spent, or if it was diverted from equipment to torture planning and training by the Department of Defense.

In 2004, people were asking what is wrong with this picture:

But is this a topic that anyone wants to examine ever? Last April, the photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq shocked the world and put the treatment of prisoners in the headlines for several weeks. Then, Congressional hearings faded, military investigations were begun in all directions, a few individuals were tried without great publicity – and attention shifted to the presidential campaign, where no one was going to touch the issue.

As Mark Danner points out in his book “Torture and Truth” (New York Review Books), in the end the lurid photos may have deflected the central question of what role torture may have played, or yet be playing, in American policy for waging a war on terror into the question of individual indiscipline and sadism – “Animal House on the night shift,” as former Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger called the Abu Ghraib atrocities.

So I want to know. I want us to investigate torture. I want to know where our money went. I want to know if any money was diverted to pay for torture. And if so, who authorized it. And of course everything else that will never be uncovered if no investigations happen.

Why can’t we look deeper into this?

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Bloggers Against Torture

Tortured to death

I posted this over at DailyKos and it was my first rec-listed diary there.

There was a front-page post the other day on DailyKos about the detainees that have died in US custody since 2002 after being tortured and abused, so I’m following up on that post with more information I’ve found.

In 2005, the ACLU released findings from autopsy reports of detainees held by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq. Twenty one of the autopsies were ruled homicides. Something the ACLU notes that’s interesting (ugh, I hate using that word for this seriously sick finding) is that while at the time CIA abuse was being widely reported in the media, their autopsies revealed a problem with abuse by Navy Seals and military intelligence too.

Some things the report found… and I have to warn you this whole post is graphic:

A detainee at Abu Ghraib Prison, captured by Navy Seal Team number seven, died on November 4, 2003, during an interrogation by Navy Seals and “”OGA.””  A previously released autopsy report, that appears to be of Manadel Al Jamadi, shows that the cause of his death was “”blunt force injury complicated by compromised respiration.””  New documents specifically record the circumstances of death as “”Q by OGA and NSWT died during interrogation.””

A detainee was smothered to death during an interrogation by Military Intelligence on November 26, 2003, in Al Qaim, Iraq.  A previously released autopsy report, that appears to be of General Mowhoush, lists “”asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression”” as the cause of death and cites bruises from the impact with a blunt object.  New documents specifically record the circumstances of death as “”Q by MI, died during interrogation.””

The documents were obtained from the Department of Defense from a Freedom of Information Act request and a judge also ordered that more Abu Ghraib photos should be released, but as of this article the decision was stayed. Are those the ones due to be released this year?

CIA, FBI, DoD, DoJ, Army, Air Force: ‘Torture doesn’t work.’

I posted this over at DailyKos the other day and some people said posting it here would be a good idea. So here I am.

Here I’ve compiled a lengthy list on the ongoing discussion (read: illegal implementation and defense) of torture. I just think it is really interesting, in hindsight, to go re-read articles where various agencies commented on torture.

I’m not trying to prove a point that torture doesn’t work, so we shouldn’t use it. We should never use it even if it ‘works’ because it’s cruel, inhumane and un-American. There is no excuse to use torture and there never will be. I am writing this because I’m actually wondering, given all these comments about how it doesn’t work, why was it still used?

Honestly, it makes no sense. It hampered evidence gathering and trials of real terrorists and everything else, along with being completely immoral. I doubt we’ll ever get any answers but I figured I’d put it out there.

What motive does the Army have to misdiagnose PTSD?

So asks the two Salon writers, Mark Benjamin and Michael de Yoanna,  following their recent series starting with the incriminating evidence, an audio recording by a Veteran suffering from PTS. Recording his visit because his wife couldn’t be there so he needed a way to remember what took place in his session with his army psychologist.

A reluctance to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder could be about the money, and about the need for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Honoring the vets today… starting with my family

My grandfather was in the Army for all of 3 days during WWII. He was an artilleryman at the Battle of the Bulge. After those 3 days he was given a medical discharge as he had completely lost his hearing. He came back and worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yards as a tank mechanic.

My uncle served in the Navy in the 50’s before returning to work as a DoD contractor for Sperry, later Unisys, where he joined my father, eventually becoming the company’s manager in charge of all DoD contracts.

My dad, an electrical engineer, was on the original design team for the E2-C AWACS radar at Sperry in 1959. Most of his career was spent developing and testing radars and weapons guidance systems. Many of the battleships, destroyers and carriers out there have been worked on by my father. He was also involved in the development and maintenance of Polaris, Trident and Terrier missile systems while at Sperry/Unisys in Great Neck and Ronkonkoma, and later at Harris PRD/GSSD in Syosset.

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