Afghanistan: "Why Are We Still There?"

This is the cost of war.  Look at it, don't turn away and pretend you didn't see.

Congressman Walter Jones, a republican from North Carolina, is raising that question in the House Armed Services Committee's hearings on the Afghan war this week.  Maureen Dowd writes in the NYT:

The impossible has happened in the past few weeks. A war that long ago reached its breaking point has gone mad, with violent episodes that seemed emblematic of the searing, mind-bending frustration on both sides after 10 years of fighting in a place where battle has been an occupation, and preoccupation, for centuries.

Afghan security forces cold-bloodedly murdered some American troops after Korans were burned by military personnel. Then an American soldier walked out of his base early one morning and began cold-bloodedly murdering Afghan innocents, leaving seven adults and nine children in one small village dead.

There was an exhausted feel to the oversight hearing, lawmakers on both sides looking visibly sapped by our draining decade of wars. Even hawks seem beaten down by our self-defeating pattern in Afghanistan: giving billions to rebuild the country, money that ends up in the foreign bank accounts of its corrupt officials. . . .

Jones was once so gung ho about W.’s attempts to impose democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan that, after the French opposed invading Iraq in 2003, he helped lead the effort to rename French fries “freedom fries” and French toast “freedom toast” in the House cafeteria.

But now he thinks that both wars are sucking away lives and money, reaping only futility, and that he was silly about the fries. He said he’s fed up with having military commanders and Pentagon officials come to Capitol Hill year after year for a decade and say about Afghanistan: “Our gains are sustainable, but there will be setbacks” and “We are making progress, but it’s fragile and reversible.”

He said he had recently visited Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval Hospital to see wounded troops: “I had a young Marine lance corporal who lost one leg,” in a room with his mother.

“My question is,” the Marine asked him, “Why are we still there?” . . .

[Jones] concluded: "We can declare victory now. But there’s one thing we cannot do, and that is change history, because Afghanistan has never changed since they’ve been existing."

The epitaph of our Sisyphean decade of two agonizing wars was written last year by then-Secretary of Defense Bob Gates: “Any future defense secretary who advises the president to send a big American land army into Asia, or into the Middle East or Africa, should have his head examined."

What I Say:   Your Head Trucker is no military man, but as a student of history, the insanity of trying to subjugate and occupy a country so impenetrable and so far away has long been apparent, as shown by the disastrous careers of invaders in other lands down through the centuries, from Alexander to Napoleon to Hitler. This takes no special knowledge of military science, just a simple appreciation of the facts of geography, terrain, an enormously long supply line, the lack of dependable nearby allies, corruption, and the natural resistance of any people to a foreign invader.

It's crazy. It's stupid. It's a totally ridiculous proposition, one that is doomed to fail before it ever begins. And yet . . . why does our country keep doing this terrible thing? Korea - Vietnam - Iraq - Afghanistan. Does nobody in Washington ever have a brain bigger than his goddamn dick?

I bet the Marine lying there in Bethesda missing a leg wonders that too.

Not in My Name

As I wrote some time back, I no longer care to post many stories about the awful things that happen in the world.  Too much bad news makes me numb and listless.  But this horror in Afghanistan -  done by a soldier wearing the uniform of my country - it so grieves my conscience and all my moral sense, and is so utterly repugnant to contemplate that I have to speak out and say the only thing I can:

I'm sorry.  And I am so ashamed for my country.

That doesn't cover it or change it or make it any less terrible, I know.  But I hope the Afghan people know that this inexcusable massacre is not something the American people ever willed or wanted, nor the vast majority of our soldiers.

I'm so sorry.  I don't know what else to say.  So very, very sorry.

May God give peace to the dead, comfort to the grieving, and have mercy on us all.

Thanking the Troops

In a video posted last week on whitehouse.gov, the President and the First Lady (who are now enjoying a little R&R in Hawaii) offer their gratitude and holiday greetings to American forces around the world:




And another interesting video from the White House, on the remarkable menorah used there this year:

Pentagon Report Asks for Repeal of DADT

The long-awaited report is out, and it's a good one. Full 267-page PDF report here, which your Head Trucker has read and highly recommends.

David Wood summarizes at Politics Daily:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday urged the Senate to speedily repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell'' law banning gays from serving openly in the military, as the Pentagon released a year-long internal study that found repeal would cause only ''limited and isolated'' short-term disruptions to military readiness and esprit.

Seventeen years to the day after President Clinton signed into law the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy, the Pentagon formally asked that the law be abolished and set out both the rationale and the procedure to implement what would be a broad social change among the nation's 2.5 million active-duty, reserve and National Guard soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines. . . .

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also concurred with the report's findings, and noted that whatever the personal feelings of individual service members about repeal of the law, existing military regulations on personal behavior would continue to govern."We in uniform have an obligation to follow orders,'' he said. "We treat people with dignity and respect in the armed forces -- or we don't last long.''

Gates and Mullen had previously declared themselves in favor of repeal of the gay ban, arguing that it required gay and lesbian service members to lie, violating the military's highest value of honor. The service chiefs, who head the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, have expressed greater doubts about repeal, with Gen. James Amos, Marine commandant, expressing outright opposition.

Nonetheless, about two-thirds of active-duty, reserve and National Guard personnel would be comfortable serving alongside openly gay or lesbian service members or felt indifferent about the change, the study found.

More resistance was found within the largely male Marine Corps and Army combat troops and special operations units, where the Pentagon study found 40 to 60 percent either were opposed to repeal of the gay ban or said it would harm the critical camaraderie of their units.

But across the military services, the study also found that about 69 percent of troops have served with a gay or lesbian service member. Of those, 92 percent said they either favored repeal or did not oppose it.

Even among combat units with the greatest doubt about changing the law, 84 percent of the Marines and 89 percent of Army soldiers who said they had served with gays or lesbians said they did not oppose repeal.

Asked at a Pentagon briefing Tuesday about doubts and reservations among troops about repeal of the law, Gates said, "Part of this is a question of unfamiliarity, part of it is stereotypes, and part of it is just inherent resistance to change when you don't know what's on the other side.''

It's perhaps the largest survey of military personnel ever undertaken, involving direct survey responses from 115,000 active-duty personnel and their spouses, and about that many more responses via other channels.

And when all is said and reviewed - and my Stetson is off to the military, they did it all up good and proper - the bottom line is:  having the gays in the military just ain't no big deal.

So suck it, McCain.

Memorial Day

A lovely rendition of "Amazing Grace" by LeeAnn Rimes to honor our fallen soldiers of all the wars.



BTW guys - your Head Trucker just wants to say that it's really not fitting to wish one another a "Happy Memorial Day," you know?

When Grandma goes to take some flowers to Grandpa's grave, do you say to her, "Have fun at the cemetery"?

Think about it.

The More Things Change . . .

African-American and white soldiers at a base in Italy during World War II.

Today there's supposed to be some further news from the Defense Department on Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  Some blogs and news sources are already reporting what they think will or won't be said.

Whatever the case may be, don't expect anything to change overnight.  It always takes time.  To illustrate the point, look at this timeline from the Truman Library, which shows how long it took from Truman's 1948 executive order until the military was fully integrated.

And note also the many committees, reports, studies, and recommendations the military put itself through along the way . . . as well as the foot-dragging and bellyaching and protestations that the military was "not an instrument for social evolution" (Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall, 1949).  Notice also the fulminating reaction in Congress:

[T]his proposed program would adversely affect the rights, privileges, and freedom of the people of all sections and of all walks of life in this country. It stabs at the very heart of the rights and freedom of all races, colors, and sections of our great country. For, if the Federal Government can repeal the poll tax in Mississippi and several other Southern States, regulate employment under the FEPC, punish innocent taxpayers under the Anti-Lynch Bill, and abolish segregation in the several States by usurpation of the sovereign rights of the several States of the Union, then we have indeed witnessed an end of constitutional government as conceived by the founding fathers. . . .

Is it any wonder then, Mr. Speaker, that a revolt has arisen all over our country, from Mississippi on the shores of the Gulf-kissed coast in the South to the stony crags of Maine in the North, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, by southern Democrats and those freedom-loving Americans everywhere, at this attempt to destroy the true civil rights of the citizens of our great and common country? . . .

But now, for the first time in the history of the country, and the loyalty of my section to the Democratic Party, a President of the United States has asked the Congress to enact such a devastating, obnoxious, and repugnant program to the people of that section and their Jeffersonian conception of democracy as this so-called civil-rights program. No President, either Democrat or Republican, has ever seen fit heretofore to make such recommendations. . . .

"Freedom-loving Americans."  Right.  Doesn't the tone of those remarks sound awfully familiar?  Can you say teabagger?

So you see, the decades roll on, but some attitudes just stay the same - only the names are changed.

One more thing I want to mention:  some people who want to keep gays out of the military talk about their disgust at the idea of straight boys having to take showers with gay ones, and all such as that; as if that's the most repellent idea ever, something no decent (heterosexual) male should ever have to be subjected to.

What some of my Yankee truckbuddies may or may not understand - something that is practically forgotten nowadays - is that white Southerners felt an equally strong aversion to fraternizing with blacks.  Speaking from my own personal knowledge and experience growing up in that legally segregated world, a great many white Southerners had an inward feeling - completely irrational, of course, but a strong one - that "Negroes" were somehow simply dirty, if not diseased, and therefore close contact was to be avoided - for example, eating together, or riding public transportation together.  Whites in that time and place felt contaminated by that kind of contact - physically so.

Which is utterly ridiculous - no, asinine - when you realize that they had not a shadow of hesitation about eating anything dished up by black cooks in the kitchen - either at home, or in a restaurant - and served to them by black waiters.  No, that never troubled anyone's mind for a second, not a bit.

You see how people are?

But to have a black person sitting at your elbow, eating off a plate next to your own - that was a horrifying thing, as much so as socializing with a typhoid carrier.   Plenty of people - including my own dear, kind, intelligent, college-graduate parents, I'm sorry to say - believed that "all black people have syphillis" or some such nonsense.  But even if you didn't think about veneral disease, still, as an ordinary Southerner, you usually felt the need to keep your distance from black people in certain public activities. 

I bring this up just to make the point:  no matter how the straight boys and girls foam on now about how awful it would be to shower with teh gayz, et cetera - and how amusing that attitude is, because it's a fact they've been showering with us all these years anyway, without knowing, right? - no matter how they carry on right now, it is a reaction that they can and will get over.

No one in the South now thinks anything about eating in a restaurant with blacks, or riding the bus with them, or sleeping in a motel bed a black person might have slept in the night before - or all the hundred-and-one other things that would have completely horrified white people down here, fifty years ago and more.  It's simply not an issue now, even if some other racist attitudes still linger.

And the homophobes of today will get over it too.  Once the laws are changed and enforced, attitudes will follow.  Just realize that, as with desegregation of the services, the process of dismantling DADT will probably take a few years, no matter what the President and the military chiefs say or do this week.  And just like with the Dixiecrats of 1948, there will be thunder and lightning in Congress too, no doubt - but it will all work itself out eventually, I'm sure.  Just not overnight.

Patriotic in Pink

While on combat duty in Afghanistan this week, Army Specialist Zachary Boyd, 19, of Fort Worth, has made front page news, and he will never live it down. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Boyd, a 2007 graduate of Keller Central High School, was in his sleeping quarters this week when the Taliban attacked in the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Boyd rushed to a defensive position clad in his helmet, vest and boxers -- the pink ones decorated with the "I Love NY" slogan.

As luck would have it, an Associated Press photographer was working at Firebase Restrepo in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan’s Kunar Province, where Boyd is stationed.

His boxers ended up in newspapers nationwide -- including Tuesday's Star-Telegram -- and on the front page of the [New York] Times.

His mother was surprised to see that her son was in the Times, but she was not surprised that he was wearing unusual skivvies.

"It was typical," she said. "He has always been an interesting little character."

Mom should have stopped right there, but she babbled on:

"But he has always been one to run around in his boxers. He even went and played golf one time in his boxers."

He no doubt selected pink boxers as a joke to share with his fellow soldiers, Sheree Boyd said.

"They like to have a good time," she explained about the soldiers, "to deal with the tension."

Oooookay. Your Head Trucker is not gonna touch that one with a ten-foot pole.

Bush Activates "Homeland" Army Brigade

Glen Greenwald at Salon.com shares the frightening news and gives some background:

Several bloggers today have pointed to this obviously disturbing article from Army Times, which announces that "beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the [1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division] will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North" -- "the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities." . .

For more than 100 years -- since the end of the Civil War -- deployment of the U.S. military inside the U.S. has been prohibited under The Posse Comitatus Act (the only exceptions being that the National Guard and Coast Guard are exempted, and use of the military on an emergency ad hoc basis is permitted, such as what happened after Hurricane Katrina). Though there have been some erosions of this prohibition over the last several decades (most perniciously to allow the use of the military to work with law enforcement agencies in the "War on Drugs"), the bright line ban on using the U.S. military as a standing law enforcement force inside the U.S. has been more or less honored -- until now. And as the Army Times notes, once this particular brigade completes its one-year assignment, "expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade will take over and that the mission will be a permanent one." . . .

After Hurricane Katrina, the Bush administration began openly agitating for what would be, in essence, a complete elimination of the key prohibitions of the Posse Comitatus Act in order to allow the President to deploy U.S. military forces inside the U.S. basically at will -- and, as usual, they were successful as a result of rapid bipartisan compliance with the Leader's demand (the same kind of compliance that is about to foist a bailout package on the nation). . . .

The decision this month to permanently deploy a U.S. Army brigade inside the U.S. for purely domestic law enforcement purposes is the fruit of the Congressional elimination of the long-standing prohibitions in Posse Comitatus (although there are credible signs that even before Congress acted, the Bush administration secretly decided it possessed the inherent power to violate the Act). It shouldn't take any efforts to explain why the permanent deployment of the U.S. military inside American cities, acting as the President's police force, is so disturbing. Bovard:

"Martial law" is a euphemism for military dictatorship. When foreign democracies are overthrown and a junta establishes martial law, Americans usually recognize that a fundamental change has occurred. . . . Section 1076 is Enabling Act-type legislation—something that purports to preserve law-and-order while formally empowering the president to rule by decree.

The historic importance of the Posse Comitatus prohibition was also well-analyzed here.

As the recent militarization of St. Paul during the GOP Convention made abundantly clear, our actual police forces are already quite militarized. Still, what possible rationale is there for permanently deploying the U.S. Army inside the United States -- under the command of the President -- for any purpose, let alone things such as "crowd control," other traditional law enforcement functions, and a seemingly unlimited array of other uses at the President's sole discretion? And where are all of the stalwart right-wing "small government conservatives" who spent the 1990s so vocally opposing every aspect of the growing federal police force? And would it be possible to get some explanation from the Government about what the rationale is for this unprecedented domestic military deployment (at least unprecedented since the Civil War), and why it is being undertaken now?

I've always gotten a very bad taste in my mouth from the use of the word "homeland," evoking as it does so strongly the Nazi use of that word. As this report shows, there's a reason it should make you gag, too.

Maybe it's all just routine stuff. Let's hope so. Guess we will find out soon enough, won't we? Election Day is less than 40 days from now.