Been a soldier for a thousand years . . .

So McChrystal was sacked today, for obvious reasons. He's a complicated guy, who voted for Obama, and banned Fox News from TV's at his headquarters.

But lest anyone remember him fondly, he's still this guy:

Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, describing McChrystal's role in what he calls an "executive assassination wing" of the military's joint special-operations command that Hersh claims reported directly to former Vice President Cheney's office (NPR, March 30, 2009).

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1897542,00.html#ixzz0rqYP1wp6

And this guy:

McChrystal has been accused of involvement in covering up of the fact that Tillman had been shot by his own comrades, having approved a citation for a posthumous medal that attributed his death to "enemy fire," though the general also penned a memo warning the White House against describing the circumstance of Tillman's death for fear of future embarrassment.

An official investigation blamed McChrystal for “inaccurate and misleading assertions” in the formal recommendation of Tillman for a Silver Star.

And this guy:

Camp Nama, for example, was clearly authorized by high authorities, was a mini-concentration camp for detainees, with U.S. soldiers in no uniform, with no names, licensed by their commander-in-chief to beat and terrorize and torture at will. Money quote from a soldier who witnessed the systematic, approved abuse:

"Once, somebody brought it up with the colonel. 'Will [the Red Cross] ever be allowed in here?' And he said absolutely not. He had this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there's no way that the Red Cross could get in — they won't have access and they never will. This facility was completely closed off to anybody investigating, even Army investigators." ...

Was he just allowing his staff to shoot-off their collective mouts, or was he condoning clear and obvious disrespect for the chain of command? Was he even trying to organize a "soft coup"?

McChrystal’s, of course, playing innocent now, and he’s apologized to the White House, but it’s hard to believe a man who spends his every waking hour plotting strategy would “accidentally” leak these kinds of whopping gaffs to the press.

It should serve as a reminder to everyone that not all military coups are violent overthrows of a democratically elected president. Sometimes, disgruntled generals can perform “soft coups,” a gradual, sneaky undermining of presidential authority and policy. Oops, did I just mentioned we’re killing civilians to the press? Whoops! Did I just discredit the president to Rolling Stone?

I dunno. But he's clearly not in charge of his staff. And that doesn't bode well for a military commander.

And he doesn't seem to understand this kind of soldier:

Kill them all and let god sort them out ...

... appears to be the American and Israeli military strategy:

Truckloads of Dead Civilians After Afghan Battle

[...]
Civilian deaths have become a bitter source of friction between Afghan authorities and U.S. forces. Washington says it is working harder this year to limit civilian deaths and investigate reports of such incidents more rapidly after the number of civilians killed by U.S. forces soared last year.

In the worst incident last year, the Afghan government and the United Nations said a U.S. strike killed 90 civilians. Washington initially denied it, but after three months said it had killed 33 civilians as well as 22 people it called militants.

Even if the US assessment is correct, killing 3 civilians for every 2 militants doesn't seem conducive to anything but creating more militants.
*************

UN Blames Israeli Army for Gaza War Attacks

UNITED NATIONS - A United Nations inquiry Tuesday blamed Israel for six serious attacks on UN buildings during its Gaza offensive, drawing fury from Israeli officials who accused the UN body of bias.

The report was drawn up by an independent commission of inquiry set up to investigate nine cases in which UN buildings in the impoverished Gaza Strip were damaged by bombardments or arms fire during the three-week war.

The findings present the latest criticism of Israel over the war it launched against the Hamas-run territory on December 27 in response to ongoing rocket fire from Gaza militants. More than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis [soldiers] died.

And that's just the UN buildings attacked in the report. Not to mention the illegal arms Israel used on Palestinian civilians:

Israel backs down over white phosphorus

Israeli troops stopped using white phosphorus shells in Gaza this year after The Times published evidence that they were injuring civilians.
[...]
On January 7 a military spokeman said that the shells in question had “no explosives and no white phosphorus”.

Wow, a government investigates itself, finds itself innocent and then proof is shown that they lied and then they backtrack to another excuse.

I think I've seen that movie before.

But I digress, my main point is that you cannot use bombs or missiles or 'air strikes' within a area known to contain civilians in order to kill combatants. Even if the bombs are 'smart.' Even if the combatants are hiding behind civilians.

This is not a reason to call in air, this is a hostage situation. Generally it's handled by negotiators and an overwhelming, but individually targeted, threat of force. Both of which the armies involved have.

Having to indiscriminately kill civilians to obtain an objective shows weakness, not strength. Lying about it proves the weakness.



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Can't We All Just Get Along?

Can't We All Just Get Along? Short answer: NO!

A Chance for Consensus on Iraq
By John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham
[...]
Now it's time for the unthinkable to take place in Washington. For the past several years, Iraq has divided and polarized our parties, our policymakers and our people. The debate over the war has often been disfigured by politics and partisanship, precluding the national consensus so important to American security in a dangerous world.

Consensus!? Freakin' CONSENSUS!? You dumb,lying,malevolent bastards! There's been a consensus for years! 60%+ Americans want us out and 70%+ Iraqis want us out, that's your consensus! The sovereign government of Iraq stated it quite clearly in the SOFA. Remember when Bush said we'd leave when they asked us to? They not only asked, they're telling us to get out!

The op-ed continues:

To achieve this, the president-elect, his national security team and all of us in Congress should seek the counsel of Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, and Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of coalition forces in Iraq.

Oh really!? Listen to those treasonous bastards?

US Military Defiant on Key Terms of Iraqi Pact

U.S. military leaders and Pentagon officials have made it clear through public statements and deliberately leaked stories in recent weeks that they plan to violate a central provision of the U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement requiring the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 by reclassifying combat troops as support troops.

The scheme to engage in chicanery in labeling U.S. troops represents both open defiance of an agreement which the U.S. military has never accepted and a way of blocking President-elect Barack Obama's proposed plan for withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of his taking office.
[...]
Gen. David Petraeus, now commander of CENTCOM, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who opposed Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan during the election campaign, have drawn up their own alternative withdrawal plan rejecting that timeline

The first time one of them pulls this crap after the inauguration I hope Obama does a Truman to their MacArthurs!



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Oh, Sweet Bird of Hitler Youth

School Military Recruiting Could Violate International Protocol

[...]
The 46-page report, “Soldiers of Misfortune“, which was prepared by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for submission to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, also found that the U.S. military disproportionately targets poor and minority public school students.
[...]
While the United States is one of only two countries — the other being Somalia — to have never ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the U.S. Senate ratified the Protocol in 2002, making it binding under U.S., as well as international, law.
[...]
The army’s own Recruiting Programme Handbook, for example, instructs its more than 10,600 recruiters to approach high school students as early as possible, and explicitly before their senior year, which, for most students, starts at age 17. “Remember, first to contact, first to contract…that doesn’t just mean seniors or grads…,” according to an excerpt quoted in the report. “If you wait until they’re seniors, it’s probably too late.”

Once recruiters are inside their assigned high schools, the Army’s Recruiting Command instructs them to “effectively penetrate the school market” and “(b)e so helpful and so much a part of the school scene that you are in constant demand”, with the goal of “school ownership that can only lead to a greater number of Army enlistments.” That includes volunteering to serve as coaches for high school sports teams, involvement with the local Boy Scouts, attending as many all school functions and assemblies, and even “eating lunch in the school cafeteria several times each month”.

The report documents a number of specific cases, mostly in New York and California — the two most populous states with the largest number of minority high school students — in which recruiters clearly followed these instructions. In a survey of nearly 1,000 children, aged 14 to 17, enrolled in New York City high schools, the ACLU New York affiliate found that more than one five respondents — equally distributed among the different grades — reported the use of class time by military recruiters, and 35 percent said military recruiters had access to multiple locations in their schools where they could meet students.

The report also noted that the Pentagon’s central recruitment database systematically collected information on 16-year-olds and, in some cases even 15-year-olds, including their name, home address and telephones, email addresses, grade point averages, height and weight information, and racial and ethnic data obtained from a variety of public and private sources. The explicit purpose of the database is to assist the military in its “direct marketing recruiting efforts”. As the result of a 2006 ACLU lawsuit, the Pentagon agreed to stop collecting data about students younger than 16.

But recruitment efforts even dip below 15-year-olds, according to the report, which found that the Pentagon’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), which operate at more than 3,000 junior high schools, middle schools, and high schools across the country, target children as young as 14 for recruitment. The report cited recent studies that found that enrollment in some JROTC programmes was involuntary.

JROTC “cadets”, of whom there were nearly 300,000 in 2005, receive military uniforms and conduct military drills and marches, handle real and wooden rifles, and learn military history, according to the report, which noted that the programme is explicitly designed to “enhance recruiting efforts”. African American and Latin students make up 54 percent of JROTC programmes.

JROTC also oversees the Middle School Cadet Corps (MSCC), in which children ages 11 to 14 can participate, according to the report. Florida, Texas, and Chicago schools offer military-run after-school MSCC programmes in which children take part in drills with wooden rifles and military chants, learn first-aid, civics, military history and, in some cases, wear uniforms to school for inspection once a week.

The Army also uses an online video game, called “America’s Army”, to attract potential recruits as young as 13, train them to use weapons, and engage in virtual combat and other military missions. Launched in 2002, the video game had attracted 7.5 million registered users by September 2006.

This was what Bush meant when he said 'No Child Left Behind.'



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

Supplying Smoking Guns to the Mushroom Cloud Crowd

Is our politicians learning? Uhhh, no!

US Defense Chief in India to Push Arms Sales, Military Ties

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates plunged into one of the world’s hottest arms market Tuesday, saying rapidly expanding US-Indian defence ties were in both countries’ interests.

His arrival coincided with news that India successfully tested its first nuclear capable missile from a submerged platform, completing its goal of developing air, land and sea-based ballistic missiles.
[...]
“India is the world’s largest democracy. It is in our interest to develop this relationship, just as it is in India’s,” he told reporters in New Delhi after strolling the grounds of the tomb of 16th century Mughal emperor Humayun.
[...]
He also expressed hope for completion of a US-Indian civil nuclear technology agreement that has been held up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s communist allies, but said that was not part of his talks here.

Gates flew in from Indonesia, where he also pledged strong US support for arms sales to the Indonesian military and its emergence as a power in southeast Asia.
[...]
India traditionally has relied on Russia as its primary military supplier but is now diversifying as the country modernises its military with an eye to China’s parallel drive to develop a military capable of projecting power in the region.

So Bushco & Gates want to sell arms to Indonesia, (the world's 4th most populous country, and had their first free elections in 2004), and to India, (a country with full nuclear capability and close communist ties.)

America sold arms to afghanistan to defeat the USSR, America sold arms to Iran to defeat Iraq, America sold arms to Iraq to defeat Iran.

Is anyone else detecting a trend?



Cross posted at VidiotSpeak

From a heart of darkness came a twisted faith, Reaching to the far east with a burning hate

Military Evangelism Deeper, Wider Than First Thought

For US Army soldiers entering basic training at Fort Jackson Army base in Columbia, South Carolina, accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior appears to be as much a part of the nine-week regimen as the vigorous physical and mental exercises the troops must endure.
[...]
Frank Bussey, director of Military Ministry at Fort Jackson, has been telling soldiers at Fort Jackson that "government authorities, police and the military = God's Ministers,"

Bussey's teachings from the "God's Basic Training" Bible study guide he authored says US troops have "two primary responsibilities": "to praise those who do right" and "to punish those who do evil - "God's servant, an angel of wrath." Bussey's teachings directed at Fort Jackson soldiers were housed on the Military Ministry at Fort Jackson web site. Late Wednesday, the web site was taken down without explanation. Bussey did not return calls for comment. The web site text, however, can still be viewed in an archived format.

These religious extremists are not only targeting boot camps, they are in the military Academies:

Evangelist Video Shot at Air Force Academy Exposed

A video made by a Christian ministry group shows Air Force Academy cadets being pressured to become “government paid missionaries when they leave” the academy, according to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which released the video this week.

And in the Pentagon:

Inquiry Sought Over Evangelical Video
Defense Department Asked to Examine Officers' Acts Supporting Christian Group

A military watchdog group is asking the Defense Department to investigate whether seven Army and Air Force officers violated regulations by appearing in uniform in a promotional video for an evangelical Christian organization.

In the video, much of which was filmed inside the Pentagon, four generals and three colonels praise the Christian Embassy, a group that evangelizes among military leaders, politicians and diplomats in Washington. Some of the officers describe their efforts to spread their faith within the military.
[...]
Pete Geren, a former acting secretary of the Air Force who oversaw the service's response in 2005 to accusations that evangelical Christians were pressuring cadets at the Air Force Academy, also appears in the video.

If you have a rifle in one hand and a bible in the other you should be made to disassemble one because you're dissembling with the other.

BTW, my friend and co-blogger Bill Arnett at VidiotSpeak, who has been there and done that, is an atheist. He has more agape in his heart than any of these so called christians.