Author: TSO

My friend Eve had this up on her Facebook page and I wanted to share it.  Some groups *cough* votevets *cough* kept bashing the army on suicide numbers without even looking at the issue.  Back then I defended the army, and I was right to do so.  Yes, one suicide is always too much, and we can’t tolerate even that one, but the Army, made up of folks who want to do the right thing are working hard at it.

I like the message here.  The back and forth camera thing stinks, and the dopey clap on the back seems a bit theatrical, but so it goes.  But listen, your battle buddy IS the guy to handle this stuff.  My battle buddy was the best, old “Southern Dem/VT Woody.”  Now, I’ve never considered suicide, not even close.  But SD/VT would have stepped in WAY before that happened if I had gotten to that level.  Frankly, I am somewhat of a loner, and he drove me nuts asking about stuff and talking non-stop, but as much as it annoyed me, that is what battle buddies and friends do.

Anyway, no one cares what I think really, but dudes (and dudettes) if you are still in, keep an eye on your buddy.  We need everyone in this fight, ok? I can’t get the blog to work, so go here and Jonn will fix later.

No? Neither did I, but the douchenozzles at VoteVets are pimping this numbuts evaluation of Afghanistan:

One Iraq analogy that does apply pretty neatly to the Afghanistan situation is that in both cases, you can count on screwball conservatives to take a debate and depict it in utterly black and white terms, no matter how nuanced, multi-faceted and careful it actually is. Ben Frumin flags Condi Rice’s latest interview in Fortune, that hot-house of crack journalism, as evidence of this phenomenon:

“The last time we left Afghanistan, and we abandoned Pakistan,” she said, “that territory became the very territory on which Al Qaeda trained and attacked us on September 11th. So our national security interests are very much tied up in not letting Afghanistan fail again and become a safe haven for terrorists.

“It’s that simple,” she declared, “if you want another terrorist attack in the U.S., abandon Afghanistan.”

If memory serves me correctly, the last time we left Afghanistan and we abandoned Pakistan, was not actually before 9/11, but when Condi and the Bush administration invaded Iraq….But on a broader level, who exactly is talking about abandoning Afghanistan?? I’m pretty sure that for all the haranguing done by Michael, he’s not ready to call for the U.S. to start packing its bags.

Oh my. Where to start. For one thing, we didn’t pull out of Afghanistan. I was there in 2004-2005 (when we were allegedly gone) and I met an absolute shitload of great troops fighting the good fight, and not a single one of them was named Patrick Barry that I recall. He must have been busy in Iraq, although his Bio makes no mention of that.

Second, um….are you shitting me? NO ONE is calling to abandon Afghanistan? I guess that would depend on your definition of “abandon” is, but based on your definition of “left” I think we may already have a problem.

For starters, you should check out the individual pages of all the members of the “Out of Iraq Caucus” which, as the Detroit Independant Examiner noted:

A congressional caucus called the “Out of Iraq Caucus” is now looking to focus on finding ways to get the U.S. out of Afghanistan.

“I think we see that we have the same problems in Afghanistan that we once had in Iraq: no end, no exit strategy, no clear end product of our presence there,” said Democratic Congressman Raul M.Grijalva of Arizona.

Further,

Another caucus, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has formed a group to investigate current U.S. policies in Afghnistan and Pakistan. Currently, the caucus attention is focused on President Obama’s request for $83.4 billion for additional funding for the two ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This shift in concentration has brighted the hopes of anti-war advocacy groups like the Progressive Democrats of America::”We would love to see the Out of Iraq Caucus continue working.We want to focus more attention on Afghanistan. Our theme should be health care, not warfare.” said their executive director, Tim Carpenter.

Perhaps you’d like to address the views of The Nation:

In my view, there are many good reasons to support the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. But Afghanistan is not Iraq and public opinion still largely supports Obama’s escalation. (This is partly, I think, because there’s so little media coverage of what’s actually taking place in the country — recent estimates of coverage by major news outlets report that a scant 0.6 percent of reporting has been devoted to Afghanistan.)

So, the first step to effectively opposing the war in Afghanistan is shifting US public opinion. That’s why a coalition led by United for Peace and Justice has organized this Thursday’s National Media Day of Action. The idea is to focus attention on all the reasons the current strategy isn’t working and to highlight positive solutions for re-shifting our priorities.

And, if abandoning Afghanistan is not the unstated goal of this video, please explain to me just what that goal actually is:

(Note that the video stresses the financial impact, while Patrick Barry is saying that he sees more evidence of “Calls for increased foreign assistance, channeled through Afghan-run NGOs as a means of addressing root-causes of terrorism”.)

I don’t know how the hell I missed this, but from way back in April:

Now, in a column this week criticizing a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report on right-wing extremism, Malkin has made another utterly erroneous assertion: “The SPLC,” she wrote, “has designated the venerable American Legion a ‘hate group’ for its stance on immigration enforcement.” The claim rapidly spread to right-wing sites on the Internet and elsewhere.

In fact, the SPLC has never listed the legion as a “hate group” nor put it on any other kind of list. Intelligence Project Director Mark Potok on Thursday wrote Malkin and her syndicate to demand a retraction of the libelous statement. “Your assertion … amounts to reckless disregard of the truth,” he stated in an E-mail sent early Thursday. As of Friday afternoon, however, the SPLC had received no response. Malkin’s columns appear in major newspapers nationwide and are also published online.

Then they even name us, but naturally, no link:

In addition to including the misinformation in her April 15 column titled “You Might Be a Radicalized Right-Wing Conservative if…,” Malkin also proclaims the same falsehood in an item she posted the previous day on her blog. In it, she links to another blog called “This ain’t hell,” which she appears to have relied on for her “facts” — never mind that the blog doesn’t even get the SPLC’s name right. “This ain’t hell,” in turn, links to an SPLC blog post that doesn’t come close to asserting that the legion is a hate group. Instead, the story points out numerous misstatements and myths in a legion report on immigration enforcement. The legion later issued an updated report from which the most egregious mistakes had been removed.

Let me show just one more time for Mr. Potok whence comes the assertion of Ms. Malkins:

Now, notice the prominent moniker of “HATEWATCH” and then underneath it an article about The American Legion. What if someone had a website entitled “Pedophile Alert: Keeping an Eye on Those who Would Make your Child a Catamite” and the first article was entitled to “SPLC is it again.”  Now, would you not be offended by that? 

I am on their email list now, and I have to tell you, everything they touch is full of half-truths and stuff taken out of context.  It’s astonishing.  Today they are lamenting that Joe Arpaio subpoenaed Acorn records. What part of “Law” is it that the Southern Poverty Law Center opposes? Even a group that was potentially willing to help smuggle in underage children as sex slaves is fine with them, because there is no money in going after their allies.

What a despicable group SPLC is.

Look, I agree with the recent decision to limit the ROE to try to curtail civilian casulties.  I suspect it will end up being misapplied, as it was recently when guys in a tree line couldn’t be engaged, but I understand the inherent need to limit non-combatant deaths.

Unfortunately our enemy has no such ROE, nor compunction about killing young children.  From Soldiers Angels Germany comes this video which makes this point crystal clear:

Meanwhile, some folks think we should just abandon the people of Afghanistan to their own devices. Sure, you guys be the one to tell this little boy that we are leaving him to deal with these savages on his own.

Just imagine the horror that is Geoffs life…

It has been nearly four years sense my return from Iraq and yet some days I feel like I am still in the ROC at FOB Speicher. Last night was one of those nights…

I kept nervously shuffling through my pocket and playing with my Washington DC drivers license. I felt the smooth edges and ran my fingers across the face until it reached a corner whose own face has begun to peel. As I flicked the peeling facade of my ID with my finger I looked up and was bad in the ROC. I could hear MAJ M not the presenter. I strained to hear through the crackle of the radio, not the interpreter.

I hear ya Geoff. Waking up in a cold sweat, wondering if you clicked at the right time on that presentation…praying to God that the schematic diagram on slide #14 was right…reminiscing about the time that the general colonel Sanders Chuck-e-Cheese your make believe friend made a comment about Hadji’s driving…wondering when you’ll get investigated for the Stolen Valor Act…wondering why you don’t know the difference between “sense” and “since”…wondering what the hell “bad in the ROC” means….trying to figure out if you used “facade” correctly…. Christ, the humanity of it all, eh?

To morrow night these same Iraqis will have dinner at the IVAW DC house. Maybe then they will see that what I do now is with as much sorrow and regret as it is with love and solidarity.

Hey Iraqi guys, don’t drink the apple juice in the fridge, it is extract of man root if you know what I mean….

While apparently US Attorneys are too busy, or just don’t give a crap*, the Marine Corps isn’t happy with Stolen Valor cases one bit…

SABILLASVILLE, Md. – On a sultry day in July 2008, Marine Sgt. David W. Budwah strode in his battle fatigues to the front of a picnic pavilion to tell three dozen young boys what he did during the war.

With his clear gaze, rigid posture and muscled, tattooed arms, Budwah looked every inch the hero he claimed to be. He said he was on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan when a homemade grenade exploded, wounding his face and arm when he dove to shield a buddy from the blast.

Quick, someone sign him up as a VoteVets Diarist, he has all the qualifications of Duncan, and just as much to back it up as Matthew Alexander….

But the Marines say Budwah is a liar, a fraud and a thief. They are court-martialing the 34-year-old Springhill, La., native, alleging he was never in Afghanistan, wasn’t wounded and didn’t earn the combat medals he wore — or the many privileges he enjoyed.

Budwah joined the Marines in October 1999 and spent nearly all of the next six years with a radio communications unit in Okinawa, Japan, according to the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va., where Budwah has been stationed since February 2006.

Those Combat RTO’s from Okinawa sure are tough dudes…

*I am being told that the US Attorney for Colorado is not going to press charges against Rick Duncan for Stolen Valor. I will be discussing this at length in the future, but that is the word that was passed down to me.