There is No 'King' or 'Dictator' Ruling This Country
The 'Hired' Representatives Make Law Not An Administration
No Waiting Till '06 Elections, No Senate Investigations Needed, The Time Is NOW After Nationwide TV Admission!!!
Too Much Damage Has Been Done to Country and Way Too Many Lives Lost and Ruined!!!
Impeach Both Bush and Cheney and Fire Rest Of Administration With Investigations To Follow Leading To Possible 'Criminal Charges'!!
VFP calls for Impeachment of George W. Bush
And Impeachpac.org
James Starowicz
VFP 'Declaration Of Impeachment'
Sign On and Pass Link To Others
USN '67-'71 GMG3 Vietnam In-Country'70-'71 COMNAVFORV
Member: Veterans For Peace
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Another "Deja Vu (All Over Again)" Of Vietnam.........
{And Korea, and for Any and All Conflicts started, On Lies, for Corporate/Other Interests, by Civilian Leadership with Compliance from Comfortable Military Leadership, who get Much More Comfortable!!
The 'American' People don't mind sending Others to War, while the Greater Majority Cower From Serving, than they Loose Interest/Concern and Any Understanding, than they Refuse Too Fund the Needed Care they have Wrought!!
Aren't those 'Yellow Ribbon Magnets' just so Comforting and Cute [till they scratch the surface, than Off they come! Or those 'Fun To Have' 'Purple Heart Bandages', What Joy!!
Like I Said "Deja Vu (All Over Again)"!!}
December 11, 2005
Bush’s VA Healthcare Budget a Recipe for Disaster
Republicans call it an increase – Vets’ groups call it a “shell game” – Cuts in services and more vets add up to a VA healthcare crisis
by Larry Scott -- VA Watchdog dot Org
On November 30, President Bush signed the "Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2006." Much was said about the military and little was said about veterans. The President’s only mention of veterans in his 474-word statement was, “The Act also provides funds to support the medical care and other needs of our Nation's veterans.”
Why the deliberate lack of attention to the healthcare budget for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA)? Because it is a cause of great embarrassment to the Bush administration. This VA healthcare budget is such political bad news that the Bush appointees who run the veterans’ agency won’t even comment on it. Numerous requests for interviews have been met with, “No one is available.”
While President Bush claims to “Support Our Troops” in every speech, he hides the checkbook when it comes to supporting our veterans. The new VA healthcare budget, once again, leaves countless thousands of veterans in a life-and-death struggle for medical services.
Administration officials brag of a “53 per cent increase in the VA budget in President Bush’s first five years in office.” What they forget to explain is that most of the VA budget is made up of components that are part of the mandatory budget process. The overall VA budget would have gone up no matter who was President.
However, the healthcare portion of the VA budget must be hammered-out in Congress every year as part of the discretionary budget process. Republicans claim the VA healthcare budget for this fiscal year is a whopping $22.5 billion, a 17 per cent increase over last year. A closer look at those numbers shows a budget that is nothing more than a “shell game” according to veterans’ groups who have analyzed the figures. “…You never know where the pea is,” said Richard Fuller, national legislative director for Paralyzed Veterans of America.
$1.5 billion of the budget is a promised carryover from last fiscal year. Except, no one knows if that money exists. If it does, no one knows where it is. And, there appears to be no mechanism to carryover funds into the new budget. So, we have to scratch that figure and now the budget is down to $21 billion.
Then there is $1.2 billion stipulated as emergency funding. Those funds can only be released by President Bush if he declares a funding emergency at the VA. This won’t happen. Last fiscal year Republicans refused to admit there was a budget shortfall at the VA until the reality was forced on them by Democrats. VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said of the billion-plus dollar shortfall, “A crisis? I don’t agree.” So now we take out the $1.2 billion and the budget is down to $19.8 billion.
At $19.8 billion, the VA healthcare budget is just 2.6 per cent larger than last fiscal year. This figure is immediately turned into a negative. Inflation in the healthcare sector supplying goods and services to the VA has averaged 5.6 per cent per year for the last five years. The negative becomes larger when we factor in a 3.1 per cent pay raise for VA employees.
Now we have a VA healthcare budget with less spending power than it had the year before. For the last few years many VA hospitals have been so underfunded that they have instituted hiring freezes, closed patient wards and cut essential services to the point where they are turning away qualified veterans seeking necessary healthcare.
Add to chronic underfunding a dramatic increase in the number of veterans seeking VA healthcare. There are three main groups. The first is middle-aged, qualified veterans who have never used the VA system and now find themselves, because of unemployment or under-employment, without healthcare benefits. The second is older veterans who have discovered that it is less expensive to use the VA pharmacy than it is to purchase medications through Medicare.
The third group is veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the official Pentagon list of wounded stands at just over 15,000, the reality is eight times that figure. It depends on your definition of wounded. The VA’s latest figures (released in October) show that of 433,398 troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, 119,247 have sought medical treatment.
Of those 119,247 veterans, 39 per cent have joint and back and connective system disorders, 30.9 per cent have mental problems, 30.1 per cent have diseases of the digestive system and 27.1 per cent suffer from diseases of the nervous system or sense organs. Also, 15.5 per cent have been poisoned and 15.1 per cent exhibit problems with metabolism, nutritional, thyroid, parathyroid, adrenal, pancreas, and pituitary gland diseases. The list continues with 12.9 per cent having diseases of the circulatory system and 12.8 per cent having skin diseases. Obviously, many of the veterans suffer from more than a single disease or condition.
The above laundry list represents the tip of the iceberg when it comes to medical problems that will be experienced by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. As they age many will experience acute PTSD symptoms. And, the effects of exposure to depleted uranium munitions, a subject on which the Department of Defense is eerily silent, may lead to catastrophic health conditions.
The Bush administration harshly admonishes anyone who says there has been a cut in VA benefits. They point only to the increased dollar amount of the overall VA budget. But, as VA hospitals are closed and services cut back, it is safe to say that a CUT IN SERVICES is a CUT IN BENEFITS. The miniscule “real dollar” increase in the VA healthcare budget turns into “fewer usable dollars” when inflation and the increased number of veterans needing healthcare are factored-in.
Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, expressed concern and dismay over the VA healthcare budget. “I will not be surprised at all if we have, once again, short-funded vets,” she said last week.
What will become of the veterans who are denied healthcare by the VA or who are put on waiting lists that can delay medical treatment for as long as 36 months? Some veterans will seek healthcare in the private sector and go into debt to pay for medical treatment that should have been provided by the VA. Other veterans will try to get help from state Medicaid programs if they can get accepted.
And, some veterans will simply do without and hope…….
The 'American' People don't mind sending Others to War, while the Greater Majority Cower From Serving, than they Loose Interest/Concern and Any Understanding, than they Refuse Too Fund the Needed Care they have Wrought!!
Aren't those 'Yellow Ribbon Magnets' just so Comforting and Cute [till they scratch the surface, than Off they come! Or those 'Fun To Have' 'Purple Heart Bandages', What Joy!!
Like I Said "Deja Vu (All Over Again)"!!}
December 11, 2005
Bush’s VA Healthcare Budget a Recipe for Disaster
Republicans call it an increase – Vets’ groups call it a “shell game” – Cuts in services and more vets add up to a VA healthcare crisis
by Larry Scott -- VA Watchdog dot Org
On November 30, President Bush signed the "Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2006." Much was said about the military and little was said about veterans. The President’s only mention of veterans in his 474-word statement was, “The Act also provides funds to support the medical care and other needs of our Nation's veterans.”
Why the deliberate lack of attention to the healthcare budget for the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA)? Because it is a cause of great embarrassment to the Bush administration. This VA healthcare budget is such political bad news that the Bush appointees who run the veterans’ agency won’t even comment on it. Numerous requests for interviews have been met with, “No one is available.”
While President Bush claims to “Support Our Troops” in every speech, he hides the checkbook when it comes to supporting our veterans. The new VA healthcare budget, once again, leaves countless thousands of veterans in a life-and-death struggle for medical services.
Administration officials brag of a “53 per cent increase in the VA budget in President Bush’s first five years in office.” What they forget to explain is that most of the VA budget is made up of components that are part of the mandatory budget process. The overall VA budget would have gone up no matter who was President.
However, the healthcare portion of the VA budget must be hammered-out in Congress every year as part of the discretionary budget process. Republicans claim the VA healthcare budget for this fiscal year is a whopping $22.5 billion, a 17 per cent increase over last year. A closer look at those numbers shows a budget that is nothing more than a “shell game” according to veterans’ groups who have analyzed the figures. “…You never know where the pea is,” said Richard Fuller, national legislative director for Paralyzed Veterans of America.
$1.5 billion of the budget is a promised carryover from last fiscal year. Except, no one knows if that money exists. If it does, no one knows where it is. And, there appears to be no mechanism to carryover funds into the new budget. So, we have to scratch that figure and now the budget is down to $21 billion.
Then there is $1.2 billion stipulated as emergency funding. Those funds can only be released by President Bush if he declares a funding emergency at the VA. This won’t happen. Last fiscal year Republicans refused to admit there was a budget shortfall at the VA until the reality was forced on them by Democrats. VA Secretary Jim Nicholson said of the billion-plus dollar shortfall, “A crisis? I don’t agree.” So now we take out the $1.2 billion and the budget is down to $19.8 billion.
At $19.8 billion, the VA healthcare budget is just 2.6 per cent larger than last fiscal year. This figure is immediately turned into a negative. Inflation in the healthcare sector supplying goods and services to the VA has averaged 5.6 per cent per year for the last five years. The negative becomes larger when we factor in a 3.1 per cent pay raise for VA employees.
Now we have a VA healthcare budget with less spending power than it had the year before. For the last few years many VA hospitals have been so underfunded that they have instituted hiring freezes, closed patient wards and cut essential services to the point where they are turning away qualified veterans seeking necessary healthcare.
Add to chronic underfunding a dramatic increase in the number of veterans seeking VA healthcare. There are three main groups. The first is middle-aged, qualified veterans who have never used the VA system and now find themselves, because of unemployment or under-employment, without healthcare benefits. The second is older veterans who have discovered that it is less expensive to use the VA pharmacy than it is to purchase medications through Medicare.
The third group is veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the official Pentagon list of wounded stands at just over 15,000, the reality is eight times that figure. It depends on your definition of wounded. The VA’s latest figures (released in October) show that of 433,398 troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, 119,247 have sought medical treatment.
Of those 119,247 veterans, 39 per cent have joint and back and connective system disorders, 30.9 per cent have mental problems, 30.1 per cent have diseases of the digestive system and 27.1 per cent suffer from diseases of the nervous system or sense organs. Also, 15.5 per cent have been poisoned and 15.1 per cent exhibit problems with metabolism, nutritional, thyroid, parathyroid, adrenal, pancreas, and pituitary gland diseases. The list continues with 12.9 per cent having diseases of the circulatory system and 12.8 per cent having skin diseases. Obviously, many of the veterans suffer from more than a single disease or condition.
The above laundry list represents the tip of the iceberg when it comes to medical problems that will be experienced by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. As they age many will experience acute PTSD symptoms. And, the effects of exposure to depleted uranium munitions, a subject on which the Department of Defense is eerily silent, may lead to catastrophic health conditions.
The Bush administration harshly admonishes anyone who says there has been a cut in VA benefits. They point only to the increased dollar amount of the overall VA budget. But, as VA hospitals are closed and services cut back, it is safe to say that a CUT IN SERVICES is a CUT IN BENEFITS. The miniscule “real dollar” increase in the VA healthcare budget turns into “fewer usable dollars” when inflation and the increased number of veterans needing healthcare are factored-in.
Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, expressed concern and dismay over the VA healthcare budget. “I will not be surprised at all if we have, once again, short-funded vets,” she said last week.
What will become of the veterans who are denied healthcare by the VA or who are put on waiting lists that can delay medical treatment for as long as 36 months? Some veterans will seek healthcare in the private sector and go into debt to pay for medical treatment that should have been provided by the VA. Other veterans will try to get help from state Medicaid programs if they can get accepted.
And, some veterans will simply do without and hope…….
Friday, December 16, 2005
The Holidays Are Here {and We're Still At War} - {Updated-AddOns}
Brett Dennen - The Holidays Are Here (and We're Still at War)
Home Page, with Pics
Listen To Song,MP3
Lyrics
A Great Song!!
Thanks, once again, to Peace Takes Courage
And Eric, for posting these up, at bushflash
I'll Be Home For Christmas-Flash Video
EASIER TO LIE-Flash Video
Home Page, with Pics
Listen To Song,MP3
Lyrics
A Great Song!!
Thanks, once again, to Peace Takes Courage
And Eric, for posting these up, at bushflash
I'll Be Home For Christmas-Flash Video
EASIER TO LIE-Flash Video
My Bill Of Rights.org
A Message From Chris Bliss
My Bill Of Rights
President of The Foundation Foundation
Everywhere I go in America these days, people seem to have two things in common: a deep love of our country and the ideals we’ve always stood for in the world, and a growing sense that somehow we’ve lost our way. More than anything, good and decent people of all stripes are dismayed over the deep divisions and polarization within the country, and looking for some positive first step they can take to build a bridge back to common ground. It is this heartfelt longing to rebuild our crumbling national conversation on a foundation of mutual respect, represented so powerfully by the collective genius and spirit of compromise that created the Bill of Rights, that is the inspiration behind mybillofrights.org and the Foundation Foundation.
My own politics happen to be, by today’s definitions, moderate to liberal, though I’ve never been a member of any political party, and have always been more interested in new ideas and solutions than old ideologies and arguments. That’s why, rather than add to the heat over Ten Commandments displays in and around America’s legislatures and halls of justice, the Foundation Foundation seeks instead to throw light on these uniquely American laws that have contributed far more to the greatness of our nation and the hope it has offered to freedom-loving people everywhere, and that too many of us have taken for granted for too long.
The Foundation Foundation does not begrudge or oppose any individual American’s religious beliefs. Our sole purpose is to remind all Americans of that brilliant, shining and truly revolutionary document, the Bill of Rights, which has for 200 years been the lifeblood of our freedoms.
My Bill Of Rights
President of The Foundation Foundation
Everywhere I go in America these days, people seem to have two things in common: a deep love of our country and the ideals we’ve always stood for in the world, and a growing sense that somehow we’ve lost our way. More than anything, good and decent people of all stripes are dismayed over the deep divisions and polarization within the country, and looking for some positive first step they can take to build a bridge back to common ground. It is this heartfelt longing to rebuild our crumbling national conversation on a foundation of mutual respect, represented so powerfully by the collective genius and spirit of compromise that created the Bill of Rights, that is the inspiration behind mybillofrights.org and the Foundation Foundation.
My own politics happen to be, by today’s definitions, moderate to liberal, though I’ve never been a member of any political party, and have always been more interested in new ideas and solutions than old ideologies and arguments. That’s why, rather than add to the heat over Ten Commandments displays in and around America’s legislatures and halls of justice, the Foundation Foundation seeks instead to throw light on these uniquely American laws that have contributed far more to the greatness of our nation and the hope it has offered to freedom-loving people everywhere, and that too many of us have taken for granted for too long.
The Foundation Foundation does not begrudge or oppose any individual American’s religious beliefs. Our sole purpose is to remind all Americans of that brilliant, shining and truly revolutionary document, the Bill of Rights, which has for 200 years been the lifeblood of our freedoms.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Wounds Unseen Prove Just as Deadly to Troops
Wounds unseen prove just as deadly to troops
Suicides renew focus in military on alleviating toll of combat stress
12:00 AM CST on Sunday, December 4, 2005
By DAVID McLEMORE / The Dallas Morning News
Not all the wounds received in Iraq are visible. Not all the combat deaths occur on the battlefield. For Capt. Michael Pelkey, the war followed him home.
After a year in the Persian Gulf region, Capt. Pelkey returned to Fort Sill, Okla., in July 2003. He quickly immersed himself in a new job and began getting reacquainted with his wife and infant son.
Then came the terrifying nightmares of the death and destruction he had seen in Iraq – and the inexplicable anxiety he felt in the safety of home. He grew forgetful. He began sleeping with a loaded 9 mm handgun.
On Nov. 5, 2004, a week after an off-post therapist determined that he had post-traumatic stress syndrome, Capt. Pelkey shot himself in the chest and died.
"Michael wasn't in Iraq, but in his mind, he was there day in and day out," said his widow, Stefanie Pelkey of Spring, Texas. "He'd never discuss the details of his experiences in Iraq, but they changed him forever. What killed my husband was a wound of war."
Since combat operations began in Iraq in March 2003, 45 soldiers have killed themselves in Iraq, and an additional two dozen committed suicide after returning home, the Army has confirmed.
And while no one knows precisely what pushes someone over the edge, the unresolved stresses of combat on the soldier's heart and mind are a factor.
The Army surgeon general estimates that 30 percent of returned Iraq veterans showed signs of some mental stress three to four months after coming home. The 2004 Army Mental Health Advisory Team survey, while showing improved unit morale in Iraq over the previous year, also showed that nearly one in five U.S. combat soldiers had acute post-traumatic stress syndrome.
"This is the froth of the wave. The big numbers are coming," said Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center, an advocacy organization for veterans of conflicts in the Persian Gulf region. "It took years for the severity of PTSD among Vietnam veterans to show up. If we don't give the soldiers the help they need, such as face-to-face counseling, we're cheating them of a debt owed."
Another Army study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that 17 percent of U.S. combat troops, including Army and Marines, experienced major depression and combat stress, the highest rate since Vietnam.
Twenty-three to 40 percent of those with post-traumatic stress disorder sought help, according to the Army study. And some 65 percent of those questioned said they worry that if they asked for help, it would make them look weak or affect their military careers.
Taking care
The military is keenly aware of the mental health need and the potential for numbers to increase. More mental health workers are serving in line units in Iraq. Commanders of units destined for Iraq and Afghanistan are urged to give soldiers and their families information on the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder before and after deployment.
All returning soldiers go through mandatory screenings, though they vary from commander to commander. And the Army is sending more mental health teams to Iraq to work more closely with soldiers in the field.
"We recognize that it is in our best interest to decentralize mental health care. For the wounded sent stateside, it's presented as just another part of the care. We can provide some confidentiality," said Col. Lorenzo Luckie, chief of behavioral medicine at Brooke Army Medical Center in the San Antonio area and a consultant with the Great Plains Army Regional Medical Command.
For those still overseas, the Army is improving access to mental health workers and making mental health care "more visible to commanders as a source of help," he said. "We hope that leadership will present mental health care as something safe and without negative effects on career."
National Guard and reserve soldiers, who make up half the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, show higher rates of post-traumatic stress. But once deactivated and sent home, they must fall back on the Department of Veterans Affairs for treatment. According to VA data, 9,600 of the 360,000 soldiers discharged after fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have received a provisional diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.
"We're a lot better able to assess needs now than we were for Vietnam," said Dr. Larry Lehman, chief psychiatric consultant with the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington. "We hope to identify the psychological and social problems resulting from combat stress before they harden into mental disorders."
Critics of the VA, however, aren't convinced. On Veterans Day, retired Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar, a former commander in the Middle East, called on the federal government to strengthen its health care system for veterans.
"President Bush has consistently refused to provide enough," Gen. Hoar said. "Earlier this year, his administration admitted they were $1 billion short in funding for critical health care services. Thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will require mental health care, yet the Bush administration has not taken action to deal with this emerging problem."
Lacking resources
In April, the Department of Veterans Affairs acknowledged it had underestimated medical care costs, requiring Congress to approve an additional $1.5 billion in emergency funds for this budget year.
Congressional leaders said the additional money would correct underestimations by the VA of the number of veterans seeking care, as well as increased costs of treatment and long-term care. But Congress also found that the VA had not taken into account the additional costs of caring for veterans injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Veterans in several states have found that Veterans Affairs had to stop scheduling appointments because of a lack of staff or a shortage of funds, said Mr. Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center.
"For the Guard and reserve, it's particularly bad," he said. "Their soldiers are separated from the Defense Department support system almost immediately after deployment and sent home to VA hospitals and clinics that are already overwhelmed and backlogged.
"We have to recognize the need and provide help, not wait for the veterans to ask."
U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, is also concerned. He cites a study in General Hospital Psychiatry that VA primary care clinics recognized less than half of the cases of post-traumatic stress distorder identified by researchers.
"Just as a bullet can destroy limbs, warfare can injure one's psyche," Mr. Reyes said. "PTSD is a serious war wound that requires serious treatment."
As a member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, Mr. Reyes has joined in legislation that would provide a more structured, comprehensive approach to addressing post-traumatic stress and other mental health needs, including cross-training to better screen for the disorder and the development of a joint VA-Defense Department plan to advise clinicians on state-of-the-art diagnosis and treatment.
Veterans Affairs officials said they have already placed VA liaisons in military hospitals to make the transition from one level of care to another seamless, Dr. Lehman said.
In January, the Pentagon announced it would begin health assessments of military personnel three to six months after redeployment, focusing on support to those needing assistance with post-traumatic stress disorder and psychological and social readjustment issues.
"This new initiative is designed to assist service members who have returned from areas of combat operations to ensure their health and well-being," said Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. "We have the capacity and the desire to manage these issues proactively."
The screenings, set to begin in the spring, will include active-duty soldiers and National Guard and reserve forces returning from combat tours.
Michael's decline
Mrs. Pelkey, who also served in the Army, testified in July before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on how her husband wrestled with his wartime demons before killing himself.
Just before his departure for Fort Sill, he expressed concerns about emotional conflicts to a doctor in Germany. The doctor referred him to a counselor. But on-post counselors were so understaffed that they couldn't see him before he left five days later.
At Fort Sill, the pressures of everyday life – a new house, a new baby and new jobs – pushed treatment to the back burner.
And things seemed to be normal again, Mrs. Pelkey said. When the restlessness, insomnia and other early symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder popped up, neither Michael nor his wife recognized the signs.
"We were both officers. These were things we should have known but didn't. We hadn't been made aware of what to look for," Mrs. Pelkey said in a phone interview. "There had been no debriefings for family members or forced evaluations in Germany. The post-deployment evaluation was more a check-of-the-box and move on."
At Fort Sill, Capt. Pelkey sought medical help but was discouraged that appointments were sometimes a month away. The family contacted Tricare, a program that lets military families use civilian medical care, and were told the only outside therapy available was "family therapy." They took it.
Over the next two weeks, Capt. Pelkey was told that he had post-traumatic stress disorder and that help was available.
"He was really happy," Mrs. Pelkey said. "Help was on the way."
A few days later, he was found on the couple's bed with a gunshot wound to the chest.
Three months after Capt. Pelkey's death, the Army did begin more intensive intervention for cases of the disorder at Fort Sill.
"Soldiers and families now get information on combat stress and effects before and after deployments. They learn how to prepare themselves," Mrs. Pelkey said. "But coordination in the military is horrible. Things happen at local commands, but there should be an Army-wide program that carries the weight ... from the top."
And the stigma of reaching out for help still remains a substantial barrier, she said.
"That's the biggest problem," she said. "Until the leaders – and I mean the Joint Chiefs and the president and Donald Rumsfeld – recognize PTSD as a wound of war and step up to the plate and push for more care, it's not going to filter down. And our soldiers won't let their guard down."
Mrs. Pelkey's efforts to have her husband's death recorded as a casualty of war have proved fruitless to date. The Pentagon has refused her petition, saying he died more than a year after his tour.
"PTSD doesn't always show up until a year has passed," she said. "I'm not giving up, though. I want my son to know why his daddy died. And I don't want this to happen to other military families. I don't want it to just be another suicide in the Army."
E-mail dmclemore@dallasnews.com
Suicides renew focus in military on alleviating toll of combat stress
12:00 AM CST on Sunday, December 4, 2005
By DAVID McLEMORE / The Dallas Morning News
Not all the wounds received in Iraq are visible. Not all the combat deaths occur on the battlefield. For Capt. Michael Pelkey, the war followed him home.
After a year in the Persian Gulf region, Capt. Pelkey returned to Fort Sill, Okla., in July 2003. He quickly immersed himself in a new job and began getting reacquainted with his wife and infant son.
Then came the terrifying nightmares of the death and destruction he had seen in Iraq – and the inexplicable anxiety he felt in the safety of home. He grew forgetful. He began sleeping with a loaded 9 mm handgun.
On Nov. 5, 2004, a week after an off-post therapist determined that he had post-traumatic stress syndrome, Capt. Pelkey shot himself in the chest and died.
"Michael wasn't in Iraq, but in his mind, he was there day in and day out," said his widow, Stefanie Pelkey of Spring, Texas. "He'd never discuss the details of his experiences in Iraq, but they changed him forever. What killed my husband was a wound of war."
Since combat operations began in Iraq in March 2003, 45 soldiers have killed themselves in Iraq, and an additional two dozen committed suicide after returning home, the Army has confirmed.
And while no one knows precisely what pushes someone over the edge, the unresolved stresses of combat on the soldier's heart and mind are a factor.
The Army surgeon general estimates that 30 percent of returned Iraq veterans showed signs of some mental stress three to four months after coming home. The 2004 Army Mental Health Advisory Team survey, while showing improved unit morale in Iraq over the previous year, also showed that nearly one in five U.S. combat soldiers had acute post-traumatic stress syndrome.
"This is the froth of the wave. The big numbers are coming," said Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center, an advocacy organization for veterans of conflicts in the Persian Gulf region. "It took years for the severity of PTSD among Vietnam veterans to show up. If we don't give the soldiers the help they need, such as face-to-face counseling, we're cheating them of a debt owed."
Another Army study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that 17 percent of U.S. combat troops, including Army and Marines, experienced major depression and combat stress, the highest rate since Vietnam.
Twenty-three to 40 percent of those with post-traumatic stress disorder sought help, according to the Army study. And some 65 percent of those questioned said they worry that if they asked for help, it would make them look weak or affect their military careers.
Taking care
The military is keenly aware of the mental health need and the potential for numbers to increase. More mental health workers are serving in line units in Iraq. Commanders of units destined for Iraq and Afghanistan are urged to give soldiers and their families information on the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder before and after deployment.
All returning soldiers go through mandatory screenings, though they vary from commander to commander. And the Army is sending more mental health teams to Iraq to work more closely with soldiers in the field.
"We recognize that it is in our best interest to decentralize mental health care. For the wounded sent stateside, it's presented as just another part of the care. We can provide some confidentiality," said Col. Lorenzo Luckie, chief of behavioral medicine at Brooke Army Medical Center in the San Antonio area and a consultant with the Great Plains Army Regional Medical Command.
For those still overseas, the Army is improving access to mental health workers and making mental health care "more visible to commanders as a source of help," he said. "We hope that leadership will present mental health care as something safe and without negative effects on career."
National Guard and reserve soldiers, who make up half the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, show higher rates of post-traumatic stress. But once deactivated and sent home, they must fall back on the Department of Veterans Affairs for treatment. According to VA data, 9,600 of the 360,000 soldiers discharged after fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan have received a provisional diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.
"We're a lot better able to assess needs now than we were for Vietnam," said Dr. Larry Lehman, chief psychiatric consultant with the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington. "We hope to identify the psychological and social problems resulting from combat stress before they harden into mental disorders."
Critics of the VA, however, aren't convinced. On Veterans Day, retired Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar, a former commander in the Middle East, called on the federal government to strengthen its health care system for veterans.
"President Bush has consistently refused to provide enough," Gen. Hoar said. "Earlier this year, his administration admitted they were $1 billion short in funding for critical health care services. Thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan will require mental health care, yet the Bush administration has not taken action to deal with this emerging problem."
Lacking resources
In April, the Department of Veterans Affairs acknowledged it had underestimated medical care costs, requiring Congress to approve an additional $1.5 billion in emergency funds for this budget year.
Congressional leaders said the additional money would correct underestimations by the VA of the number of veterans seeking care, as well as increased costs of treatment and long-term care. But Congress also found that the VA had not taken into account the additional costs of caring for veterans injured in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Veterans in several states have found that Veterans Affairs had to stop scheduling appointments because of a lack of staff or a shortage of funds, said Mr. Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center.
"For the Guard and reserve, it's particularly bad," he said. "Their soldiers are separated from the Defense Department support system almost immediately after deployment and sent home to VA hospitals and clinics that are already overwhelmed and backlogged.
"We have to recognize the need and provide help, not wait for the veterans to ask."
U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, is also concerned. He cites a study in General Hospital Psychiatry that VA primary care clinics recognized less than half of the cases of post-traumatic stress distorder identified by researchers.
"Just as a bullet can destroy limbs, warfare can injure one's psyche," Mr. Reyes said. "PTSD is a serious war wound that requires serious treatment."
As a member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, Mr. Reyes has joined in legislation that would provide a more structured, comprehensive approach to addressing post-traumatic stress and other mental health needs, including cross-training to better screen for the disorder and the development of a joint VA-Defense Department plan to advise clinicians on state-of-the-art diagnosis and treatment.
Veterans Affairs officials said they have already placed VA liaisons in military hospitals to make the transition from one level of care to another seamless, Dr. Lehman said.
In January, the Pentagon announced it would begin health assessments of military personnel three to six months after redeployment, focusing on support to those needing assistance with post-traumatic stress disorder and psychological and social readjustment issues.
"This new initiative is designed to assist service members who have returned from areas of combat operations to ensure their health and well-being," said Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. "We have the capacity and the desire to manage these issues proactively."
The screenings, set to begin in the spring, will include active-duty soldiers and National Guard and reserve forces returning from combat tours.
Michael's decline
Mrs. Pelkey, who also served in the Army, testified in July before the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee on how her husband wrestled with his wartime demons before killing himself.
Just before his departure for Fort Sill, he expressed concerns about emotional conflicts to a doctor in Germany. The doctor referred him to a counselor. But on-post counselors were so understaffed that they couldn't see him before he left five days later.
At Fort Sill, the pressures of everyday life – a new house, a new baby and new jobs – pushed treatment to the back burner.
And things seemed to be normal again, Mrs. Pelkey said. When the restlessness, insomnia and other early symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder popped up, neither Michael nor his wife recognized the signs.
"We were both officers. These were things we should have known but didn't. We hadn't been made aware of what to look for," Mrs. Pelkey said in a phone interview. "There had been no debriefings for family members or forced evaluations in Germany. The post-deployment evaluation was more a check-of-the-box and move on."
At Fort Sill, Capt. Pelkey sought medical help but was discouraged that appointments were sometimes a month away. The family contacted Tricare, a program that lets military families use civilian medical care, and were told the only outside therapy available was "family therapy." They took it.
Over the next two weeks, Capt. Pelkey was told that he had post-traumatic stress disorder and that help was available.
"He was really happy," Mrs. Pelkey said. "Help was on the way."
A few days later, he was found on the couple's bed with a gunshot wound to the chest.
Three months after Capt. Pelkey's death, the Army did begin more intensive intervention for cases of the disorder at Fort Sill.
"Soldiers and families now get information on combat stress and effects before and after deployments. They learn how to prepare themselves," Mrs. Pelkey said. "But coordination in the military is horrible. Things happen at local commands, but there should be an Army-wide program that carries the weight ... from the top."
And the stigma of reaching out for help still remains a substantial barrier, she said.
"That's the biggest problem," she said. "Until the leaders – and I mean the Joint Chiefs and the president and Donald Rumsfeld – recognize PTSD as a wound of war and step up to the plate and push for more care, it's not going to filter down. And our soldiers won't let their guard down."
Mrs. Pelkey's efforts to have her husband's death recorded as a casualty of war have proved fruitless to date. The Pentagon has refused her petition, saying he died more than a year after his tour.
"PTSD doesn't always show up until a year has passed," she said. "I'm not giving up, though. I want my son to know why his daddy died. And I don't want this to happen to other military families. I don't want it to just be another suicide in the Army."
E-mail dmclemore@dallasnews.com
Iraqi's Are Voting [?] {Updated}
This country has already gone through an Extremely Bloody and Devestating attempt at Nation Building in a Small Country, one that Did Absolutely Nothing To Us, which turned Corrupt rather quickly!
I and Thousands were there and living the Reality!
This attempt will only open up an Extremely Bloody, which is already happening, Power Struggle!
And this whole mess is much more Dangerous to the World Community, they just don't want us Out!
There's is one Winner, and in reality no one Wins, and that is Iran!
It Was Just...{12-15-05 7:30AM}
Two More Reports....
I and Thousands were there and living the Reality!
This attempt will only open up an Extremely Bloody, which is already happening, Power Struggle!
And this whole mess is much more Dangerous to the World Community, they just don't want us Out!
There's is one Winner, and in reality no one Wins, and that is Iran!
Riverbend - Elections - Baghdad Burning
... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend...
Thursday, December 15, 2005
A Family in Baghdad - Elections - Thursday, December 15, 2005
It Was Just...{12-15-05 7:30AM}
Reported on NPR, by one of their Correspondants in Iraq [I believe in a Sunni Area], that in Her Area Women Were Not Coming To The Voting Polls.
That the Men, against the Voting Rules, were Voting For The Women as well as their own Votes, and it was being Allowed!
Two More Reports....
Also from NPR's people in Iraq.
One is that a Bomb went off in the Green Zone, injuring a Marine and Iraqi's nearby.
The second came from the Kurdish Area and the Correspondant stated that there were a number of people refusing to get their fingers colored, after voting, leaving them open to vote again.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
But We're Not Counting
Yesterday, President Bush did something highly out of character for him:
He answered a question—from a citizen, no less—directly. In public. Just when we'd all gotten used to Scott McClellan constantly telling us that he can't comment, the president answered lawyer
Didi Goldmark's question of how many Iraqis had been killed with, "I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis."
The war has been going on for 33 months, and yesterday was the first time Bush acknowledged that coalition soldiers aren't the only people dying.
But Bush's 30,000 figure simply can't be taken at face value—especially since he didn't elaborate who, exactly, he was counting. Does he mean insurgents? Iraqi civilians who got caught in the crossfire? Iraqi troops? All of the above?
The Pentagon, of course, has long held the position that it doesn't count enemy deaths (expect when it needs to show that progress is being made. Then counting is okay.) Because of the no-count policy, it's been up to citizen groups and human rights organizations to tally Iraqi deaths, and their totals vary. Iraq Body Count estimates 27,000 to 31,000 civilian deaths (not including Iraqi soldiers). The peer-reviewed British medical journal Lancet last year published research citing 100,000 civilian deaths. The Brookings Institute's Iraq Index estimates up to 18,715 civilian deaths, not including the civilians killed in major combat operations in the first months of the war. The Iraqiyun humanitarian organization in Baghdad estimated that 128,000 Iraqis have been killed, with 55 percent of those deaths women and children under age 12.
Bush's casualty remarks came at the end of a speech hailing Iraq's upcoming elections and the country's emerging democracy. "The year 2005 will be recorded as a turning point in the history of Iraq, the history of the Middle East and the history of freedom," he said. "No nation in history has made the transition to democracy without facing challenges, setbacks and false starts."
Setbacks? Is that what we're calling civilian deaths these days?
--Laura Donnelly | Tuesday 10:06 AM
Monday, December 12, 2005
Please Pass This On, To Those You Know Could Use It!!
Sometimes you just need a person in the know to talk to.
The National Veterans Foundation has opened a toll-free helpline (1-888-777-4443) for Troops, Veterans and their families.
All calls are answered live by trained veterans, who listen, provide crisis intervention services, emotional support and information, or immediate referrals to local providers who can help. The NVF Helpline has already served more than 275,000 people in need.
NVF aims to get the helpline running 24/7, but it currently operates from 9a.m.-9p.m., M-F. All messages received during off hours are returned the next business day, and requests for assistance can also be submitted via e-mail at vetsupport@nvf.org.
Please feel free to forward this email to Troops, Veterans, or military families you know in need of support. I hope this service is helpful.
Thanks for supporting Operation Truth.
Sincerely,
Perry Jefferies
1SG, USA (ret.)
Operation Truth
The National Veterans Foundation has opened a toll-free helpline (1-888-777-4443) for Troops, Veterans and their families.
All calls are answered live by trained veterans, who listen, provide crisis intervention services, emotional support and information, or immediate referrals to local providers who can help. The NVF Helpline has already served more than 275,000 people in need.
NVF aims to get the helpline running 24/7, but it currently operates from 9a.m.-9p.m., M-F. All messages received during off hours are returned the next business day, and requests for assistance can also be submitted via e-mail at vetsupport@nvf.org.
Please feel free to forward this email to Troops, Veterans, or military families you know in need of support. I hope this service is helpful.
Thanks for supporting Operation Truth.
Sincerely,
Perry Jefferies
1SG, USA (ret.)
Operation Truth
'Terrorism' and 'Insurgency' - Two Very Differant Destructive 'Actions'!!
Published on Monday, December 12, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
The Bogus Blurring of Terrorism and Insurgency in Iraq
by Norman Solomon
Now what would you say about a Country that Invades another, for Absolutely NO REASON, what are They Practicing?
And those within the Invaded Country would be Described as Doing What after being Invaded?
The Bogus Blurring of Terrorism and Insurgency in Iraq
by Norman Solomon
With public support for the Iraq war at low ebb, the White House is more eager than ever to conflate Iraq's insurgency with terrorism. But last week, just after President Bush gave yet another speech repeatedly depicting the U.S. war effort in Iraq as a battle against terrorists, Rep. John Murtha debunked the claim. His refutation deserved much more news coverage than it got..
"You heard the president talk today about terrorism," Murtha told reporters at a Dec. 7 news conference. "Every other word was 'terrorism.'" Speaking as a lawmaker in close touch with the Pentagon's top military leaders, he went on to confront the core of the administration's current argument for keeping American soldiers in Iraq.
"Let's talk about terrorism versus insurgency in Iraq itself," Murtha said. "We think that foreign fighters are about 7 percent -- might be a little bit more, a little bit less. Very small proportion of the people that are involved in the insurgency are terrorists or how I would interpret them as terrorists."
Murtha threw cold water on the storyline that presents U.S. troops as defenders of Iraqis. He cited a recent poll, commissioned by Britain's Ministry of Defense, indicating that four-fifths of Iraqis now want the American and British forces out of their country. "When I said we can't win a military victory, it's because the Iraqis have turned against us," Murtha said.
Contrary to what countless pundits still contend, Murtha sees the U.S. presence in Iraq as a boon, not an impediment, to terrorism. "I am convinced, and everything that I've read, the conclusion I've reached is there will be less terrorism, there will be less danger to the United States and it'll be less insurgency once we're out," he said. "I think the Iraqis themselves will turn against this very small group of Al Qaeda. They keep saying the terrorists are going to control Iraq. No way."
The relatively small number of Al Qaeda forces in Iraq will become isolated when the deeply resented occupiers leave Iraq, he predicted, and actual terrorists will no longer find a haven among most Iraqis.
During his presentation about the importance of distinguishing between terrorism and insurgency, Murtha was directly admonishing the White House. But what he said could also serve as a reality check for news media. All too often -- without attribution to any source -- reporters have asserted that the U.S. military actions in Iraq are part of a "war on terror." And journalists have routinely failed to include any perspectives that challenge the view, avidly promoted by the Bush administration, that the fighters doing battle with American forces in Iraq are, by definition, terrorists.
In a typical news report from Baghdad, airing on "All Things Considered" early this month, NPR correspondent Anne Garrels presented the U.S. government line as the only one worth mentioning. During the Dec. 2 broadcast, she described recent American offensives and then told listeners: "The military says its actions have resulted in numerous terrorists killed or detained, as well as the discovery of a large number of weapons caches."
The Bush administration is glad to define a "terrorist" as anyone who uses violence against occupation troops. And many U.S. news outlets parrot the claim. But that is flagrant manipulation of language.
Solomon is the author of the new book "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." For information, go to: War Made Easy
Now what would you say about a Country that Invades another, for Absolutely NO REASON, what are They Practicing?
And those within the Invaded Country would be Described as Doing What after being Invaded?
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Write Your Senators TODAY!!
Retired military leaders, human-rights activists outraged by Graham amendment
Several retired military leaders, including Veterans for Common Sense director Brigadier General Evelyn Foote and advisor Brigadier General David Irvine, are urging Congress to reject Senate-passed legislation that would nullify a 2004 Supreme Court ruling that gives detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the right to challenge their imprisonment.
Please visit Veterans for Common Sense
Conspiracy to Torture
Torture is about acts: the blow to the head, the scream in the ear, the scar-free injuries whose diagnosis has become an international medical subspecialty. But torture is also very much about words: the whispered or shouted questions of the interrogator; the muddled confession of the prisoner; the too rarely tested language of laws protecting prisoners from "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment.
Witness Against Torture
a march to visit the prisoners of Guantanamo
Marchers to Reach Guantánamo Tomorrow
Friday, 7pm - After camping out last night, today the marchers continued their trek through the Santiago de Cuba Province -- the second most populated province in the island of Cuba. Tonight they are staying in a hotel in Niceto Pérez. Tomorrow, International Human Rights Day, the marchers plan to arrive in the city of Guantánamo, about 12 miles from the detention centers.
Britain's Top Court Rules Information Gotten by Torture Is Never Admissible Evidence
Here is important news that should impact how free people and free nations should treat captured enemy prisoners of war -- Britain's highest court thrust itself into the middle of a roiling international debate on Thursday, declaring that evidence obtained through torture - no matter by whom - was not admissible in British courts. It also said Britain had a "positive obligation" to uphold antitorture principles abroad as well as at home.
Illegal, Immoral and Pointless
There are many reasons why Americans should not torture prisoners, but here is one that may help those who are still not moved by the fact that it is morally wrong and illegal, damages the nation's image, and puts American soldiers who are taken prisoner in mortal peril: It usually doesn't work.
Center for American Progress - "Torture is not US."
The Torture Administration
Anthony Lewis writes one of the best essays of the year describing the deep involvement of the current administration in the issue of torture. Yes, there must be "command responsibility" and command accountability for the on-going advocacy of torture by the current administration.
For Most Understand 'What You Do You Receive In Return, Retaliation On Your Fellow Soldiers'!
James Starowicz
USN '67-'71
'67-'68: Meridian Mississippi/Naval Air Station
'68-'70: GMG3, Panama Canal Zone/Rodman Naval Base
'70-'71: GMG3, Coronado Calif - CounterInsurgency/S.E.R.E. School, Vietnam -- In-Country COMNAVFORV
Member: Veterans For Peace
It Takes a Potemkin Village - MUST READ
December 11th, 2005
NY Times: [This takes a $7.50 a month subscription]
Mirror URL: [more will be posting this up]
It Takes a Potemkin Village
By FRANK RICH
WHEN a government substitutes propaganda for governing, the Potemkin village is all. Since we don’t get honest information from this White House, we must instead, as the Soviets once did, decode our rulers’ fictions to discern what’s really happening. What we’re seeing now is the wheels coming off: As the administration’s stagecraft becomes more baroque, its credibility tanks further both at home and abroad. The propaganda techniques may be echt Goebbels, but they increasingly come off as pure Ali G.
The latest desperate shifts in White House showmanship say at least as much about our progress (or lack of same) in Iraq over the past 32 months as reports from the ground. When President Bush announced the end of “major combat operations” in May 2003, his Imagineers felt the need for only a single elegant banner declaring “Mission Accomplished.” Cut to Nov. 30, 2005: the latest White House bumper sticker, “Plan for Victory,” multiplied by Orwellian mitosis over nearly every square inch of the rather “Queer Eye” stage set from which Mr. Bush delivered his oration at the Naval Academy.
And to no avail. Despite the insistently redundant graphics - and despite the repetition of the word “victory” 15 times in the speech itself - Americans believed “Plan for Victory” far less than they once did “Mission Accomplished.” The first New York Times-CBS News Poll since the Naval Academy pep talk, released last Thursday, found that only 25 percent of Americans say the president has “a clear plan for victory in Iraq.” Tom Cruise and evolution still have larger constituencies in America than that.
Mr. Bush’s “Plan for Victory” speech was, of course, the usual unadulterated nonsense. Its overarching theme - “We will never accept anything less than complete victory” - was being contradicted even as he spoke by rampant reports of Pentagon plans for stepped-up troop withdrawals between next week’s Iraqi elections and the more important (for endangered Republicans) American Election Day of 2006. The specifics were phony, too: Once again inflating the readiness of Iraqi troops, Mr. Bush claimed that the recent assault on Tal Afar “was primarily led by Iraqi security forces” - a fairy tale immediately unmasked by Michael Ware, a Time reporter embedded in that battle’s front lines, as “completely wrong.” No less an authority than the office of Iraq’s prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, promptly released a 59-page report documenting his own military’s inadequate leadership, equipment and training.
But this variety of Bush balderdash is such old news that everyone except that ga-ga 25 percent instantaneously tunes it out. We routinely assume that the subtext (i.e., the omissions and deliberate factual errors) of his speeches and scripted town meetings will be more revealing than the texts themselves. What raised the “Plan for Victory” show to new heights of disinformation was the subsequent revelation that the administration’s main stated motive for the address - the release of a 35-page document laying out a “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” - was as much a theatrical prop as the stunt turkey the president posed with during his one furtive visit to Baghdad two Thanksgivings ago.
As breathlessly heralded by Scott McClellan, this glossy brochure was “an unclassified version” of the strategy in place since the war’s inception in “early 2003.” But Scott Shane of The New York Times told another story. Through a few keystrokes, the electronic version of the document at whitehouse.gov could be manipulated to reveal text “usually hidden from public view.” What turned up was the name of the document’s originating author: Peter Feaver, a Duke political scientist who started advising the National Security Council only this June. Dr. Feaver is an expert on public opinion about war, not war itself. Thus we now know that what Mr. McClellan billed as a 2003 strategy for military victory is in fact a P.R. strategy in place for no more than six months. That solves the mystery of why Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey of the Army, who is in charge of training Iraqi troops, told reporters that he had never seen this “National Strategy” before its public release last month.
In a perfect storm of revelations, the “Plan for Victory” speech fell on the same day that The Los Angeles Times exposed new doings on another front in the White House propaganda war. An obscure Defense Department contractor, the Lincoln Group, was caught paying off Iraqi journalists to run upbeat news articles secretly written by American Army personnel and translated into Arabic (at a time when American troops in harm’s way are desperate for Arabic translators of their own). One of the papers running the fake news is Al Mutamar, the Baghdad daily run by associates of Ahmad Chalabi. So now we know that at least one P.R. plan, if not a plan for victory, has been consistent since early 2003. As Mr. Chalabi helped feed spurious accounts of Saddam’s W.M.D. to American newspapers to gin up the war, so his minions now help disseminate happy talk to his own country’s press to further the illusion that the war is being won.
The Lincoln Group’s articles (e.g., “The Sands Are Blowing Toward a Democratic Iraq”) are not without their laughs - for us, if not for the Iraqis, whose intelligence is insulted and whose democratic aspirations are betrayed by them. But the texts are no more revealing than those of Mr. Bush’s speeches. Look instead at the cover-up that has followed the Los Angeles Times revelations. The administration and its frontmen at once started stonewalling from a single script. Mr. McClellan, Pentagon spokesmen, Senator John Warner and Donald Rumsfeld all give the identical answer to the many press queries. We don’t have the facts, they say, even as they maintain that the Lincoln Group articles themselves are factual.
The Pentagon earmarks more than $100 million in taxpayers’ money for various Lincoln Group operations, and it can’t get any facts? Though the 30-year-old prime mover in the shadowy outfit, one Christian Bailey, fled from Andrea Mitchell of NBC News when she pursued him on camera in Washington, certain facts are proving not at all elusive.
Ms. Mitchell and other reporters have learned that Mr. Bailey has had at least four companies since 2002, most of them interlocking, short-lived and under phantom names. Government Executive magazine also discovered that Mr. Bailey “was a founder and active participant in Lead21,” a Republican “fund-raising and networking operation” - which has since scrubbed his name from its Web site - and that he and a partner in his ventures once listed a business address identical to their Washington residence. This curious tale, with its trail of cash payoffs, trading in commercial Iraqi real estate and murky bidding procedures for lucrative U.S. government contracts, could have been lifted from “Syriana” or “Glengarry Glen Ross.” While Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. McClellan valiantly continue their search for “the facts,” what we know so far can safely be filed under the general heading of “Lay, DeLay and Abramoff.”
The more we learn about such sleaze in the propaganda war, the more we see it’s failing for the same reason as the real war: incompetence. Much as the disastrous Bremer regime botched the occupation of Iraq with bad decisions made by its array of administration cronies and relatives (among them Ari Fleischer’s brother), so the White House doesn’t exactly get the biggest bang for the bucks it shells out to cronies for fake news.
Until he was unmasked as an administration shill, Armstrong Williams was less known for journalism than for striking a deal to dismiss a messy sexual-harassment suit against him in 1999. When an Army commander had troops sign 500 identical good-news form letters to local newspapers throughout America in 2003, the fraud was so transparent it was almost instantly debunked. The fictional scenarios concocted for Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman also unraveled quickly, as did last weekend’s Pentagon account of 10 marines killed outside Falluja on a “routine foot patrol.” As the NBC correspondent Jim Miklaszewski told Don Imus last week, he received calls within hours from the fallen’s loved ones about how the marines had been slaughtered after being recklessly sent to an unprotected site for a promotion ceremony.
Though the White House doesn’t know that its jig is up, everyone else does. Americans see that New Orleans is in as sorry shape today as it was under Brownie three months ago. The bipartisan 9/11 commissioners confirm that homeland security remains a pork pit. Condi Rice’s daily clarifications of her clarifications about American torture policies are contradicted by new reports of horrors before her latest circumlocutions leave her mouth. And the president’s latest Iraq speeches - most recently about the “success” stories of Najaf and Mosul - still don’t stand up to the most rudimentary fact checking.
This is why the most revealing poll number in the Times/CBS survey released last week was Mr. Bush’s approval rating for the one area where things are going relatively well, the economy: 38 percent, only 2 points higher than his rating on Iraq. It’s a measure of the national cynicism bequeathed by the Bush culture that seeing anything, even falling prices at the pump, is no longer believing.
NY Times: [This takes a $7.50 a month subscription]
Mirror URL: [more will be posting this up]
It Takes a Potemkin Village
By FRANK RICH
WHEN a government substitutes propaganda for governing, the Potemkin village is all. Since we don’t get honest information from this White House, we must instead, as the Soviets once did, decode our rulers’ fictions to discern what’s really happening. What we’re seeing now is the wheels coming off: As the administration’s stagecraft becomes more baroque, its credibility tanks further both at home and abroad. The propaganda techniques may be echt Goebbels, but they increasingly come off as pure Ali G.
The latest desperate shifts in White House showmanship say at least as much about our progress (or lack of same) in Iraq over the past 32 months as reports from the ground. When President Bush announced the end of “major combat operations” in May 2003, his Imagineers felt the need for only a single elegant banner declaring “Mission Accomplished.” Cut to Nov. 30, 2005: the latest White House bumper sticker, “Plan for Victory,” multiplied by Orwellian mitosis over nearly every square inch of the rather “Queer Eye” stage set from which Mr. Bush delivered his oration at the Naval Academy.
And to no avail. Despite the insistently redundant graphics - and despite the repetition of the word “victory” 15 times in the speech itself - Americans believed “Plan for Victory” far less than they once did “Mission Accomplished.” The first New York Times-CBS News Poll since the Naval Academy pep talk, released last Thursday, found that only 25 percent of Americans say the president has “a clear plan for victory in Iraq.” Tom Cruise and evolution still have larger constituencies in America than that.
Mr. Bush’s “Plan for Victory” speech was, of course, the usual unadulterated nonsense. Its overarching theme - “We will never accept anything less than complete victory” - was being contradicted even as he spoke by rampant reports of Pentagon plans for stepped-up troop withdrawals between next week’s Iraqi elections and the more important (for endangered Republicans) American Election Day of 2006. The specifics were phony, too: Once again inflating the readiness of Iraqi troops, Mr. Bush claimed that the recent assault on Tal Afar “was primarily led by Iraqi security forces” - a fairy tale immediately unmasked by Michael Ware, a Time reporter embedded in that battle’s front lines, as “completely wrong.” No less an authority than the office of Iraq’s prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, promptly released a 59-page report documenting his own military’s inadequate leadership, equipment and training.
But this variety of Bush balderdash is such old news that everyone except that ga-ga 25 percent instantaneously tunes it out. We routinely assume that the subtext (i.e., the omissions and deliberate factual errors) of his speeches and scripted town meetings will be more revealing than the texts themselves. What raised the “Plan for Victory” show to new heights of disinformation was the subsequent revelation that the administration’s main stated motive for the address - the release of a 35-page document laying out a “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq” - was as much a theatrical prop as the stunt turkey the president posed with during his one furtive visit to Baghdad two Thanksgivings ago.
As breathlessly heralded by Scott McClellan, this glossy brochure was “an unclassified version” of the strategy in place since the war’s inception in “early 2003.” But Scott Shane of The New York Times told another story. Through a few keystrokes, the electronic version of the document at whitehouse.gov could be manipulated to reveal text “usually hidden from public view.” What turned up was the name of the document’s originating author: Peter Feaver, a Duke political scientist who started advising the National Security Council only this June. Dr. Feaver is an expert on public opinion about war, not war itself. Thus we now know that what Mr. McClellan billed as a 2003 strategy for military victory is in fact a P.R. strategy in place for no more than six months. That solves the mystery of why Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey of the Army, who is in charge of training Iraqi troops, told reporters that he had never seen this “National Strategy” before its public release last month.
In a perfect storm of revelations, the “Plan for Victory” speech fell on the same day that The Los Angeles Times exposed new doings on another front in the White House propaganda war. An obscure Defense Department contractor, the Lincoln Group, was caught paying off Iraqi journalists to run upbeat news articles secretly written by American Army personnel and translated into Arabic (at a time when American troops in harm’s way are desperate for Arabic translators of their own). One of the papers running the fake news is Al Mutamar, the Baghdad daily run by associates of Ahmad Chalabi. So now we know that at least one P.R. plan, if not a plan for victory, has been consistent since early 2003. As Mr. Chalabi helped feed spurious accounts of Saddam’s W.M.D. to American newspapers to gin up the war, so his minions now help disseminate happy talk to his own country’s press to further the illusion that the war is being won.
The Lincoln Group’s articles (e.g., “The Sands Are Blowing Toward a Democratic Iraq”) are not without their laughs - for us, if not for the Iraqis, whose intelligence is insulted and whose democratic aspirations are betrayed by them. But the texts are no more revealing than those of Mr. Bush’s speeches. Look instead at the cover-up that has followed the Los Angeles Times revelations. The administration and its frontmen at once started stonewalling from a single script. Mr. McClellan, Pentagon spokesmen, Senator John Warner and Donald Rumsfeld all give the identical answer to the many press queries. We don’t have the facts, they say, even as they maintain that the Lincoln Group articles themselves are factual.
The Pentagon earmarks more than $100 million in taxpayers’ money for various Lincoln Group operations, and it can’t get any facts? Though the 30-year-old prime mover in the shadowy outfit, one Christian Bailey, fled from Andrea Mitchell of NBC News when she pursued him on camera in Washington, certain facts are proving not at all elusive.
Ms. Mitchell and other reporters have learned that Mr. Bailey has had at least four companies since 2002, most of them interlocking, short-lived and under phantom names. Government Executive magazine also discovered that Mr. Bailey “was a founder and active participant in Lead21,” a Republican “fund-raising and networking operation” - which has since scrubbed his name from its Web site - and that he and a partner in his ventures once listed a business address identical to their Washington residence. This curious tale, with its trail of cash payoffs, trading in commercial Iraqi real estate and murky bidding procedures for lucrative U.S. government contracts, could have been lifted from “Syriana” or “Glengarry Glen Ross.” While Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. McClellan valiantly continue their search for “the facts,” what we know so far can safely be filed under the general heading of “Lay, DeLay and Abramoff.”
The more we learn about such sleaze in the propaganda war, the more we see it’s failing for the same reason as the real war: incompetence. Much as the disastrous Bremer regime botched the occupation of Iraq with bad decisions made by its array of administration cronies and relatives (among them Ari Fleischer’s brother), so the White House doesn’t exactly get the biggest bang for the bucks it shells out to cronies for fake news.
Until he was unmasked as an administration shill, Armstrong Williams was less known for journalism than for striking a deal to dismiss a messy sexual-harassment suit against him in 1999. When an Army commander had troops sign 500 identical good-news form letters to local newspapers throughout America in 2003, the fraud was so transparent it was almost instantly debunked. The fictional scenarios concocted for Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman also unraveled quickly, as did last weekend’s Pentagon account of 10 marines killed outside Falluja on a “routine foot patrol.” As the NBC correspondent Jim Miklaszewski told Don Imus last week, he received calls within hours from the fallen’s loved ones about how the marines had been slaughtered after being recklessly sent to an unprotected site for a promotion ceremony.
Though the White House doesn’t know that its jig is up, everyone else does. Americans see that New Orleans is in as sorry shape today as it was under Brownie three months ago. The bipartisan 9/11 commissioners confirm that homeland security remains a pork pit. Condi Rice’s daily clarifications of her clarifications about American torture policies are contradicted by new reports of horrors before her latest circumlocutions leave her mouth. And the president’s latest Iraq speeches - most recently about the “success” stories of Najaf and Mosul - still don’t stand up to the most rudimentary fact checking.
This is why the most revealing poll number in the Times/CBS survey released last week was Mr. Bush’s approval rating for the one area where things are going relatively well, the economy: 38 percent, only 2 points higher than his rating on Iraq. It’s a measure of the national cynicism bequeathed by the Bush culture that seeing anything, even falling prices at the pump, is no longer believing.
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