Politics Daily

Obama: Here's Your Change, Sir

Robert and Donna Trussell — 2011-03-10T12:25:00+00:00

Filed under: Humor, Taxes, Foreign Policy, Obama Administration, Chaos Theory, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Iraq

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82nd Airborne Quick-Strike Force Gives Obama New Option in Mideast Crises

David Wood — 2011-03-08T22:24:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Foreign Policy, National Security, Afghanistan, Military, Middle East, Iraq

FORT BRAGG, N.C. -- As revolution zigzags chaotically across the Middle East and North Africa, the U.S. Army is sharpening its readiness to launch rapid-reaction, kick-in-the-door combat forces, adding capabilities and skills that had atrophied during a decade of counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For the first time in years, the 82^nd Airborne Division here has stood up its "ready brigade," trained to a razor's edge and poised to move instantly, as one of its paratroopers said, "to the sound of the guns."

This new capability gives President Obama the option to swiftly land powerful military forces anywhere in the world for missions that could include evacuating American citizens, safeguarding fragile new democracies from counterattack, or violently taking down a renegade regime.

At the same time, the Army is considering reinforcing this Global Response Force with heavier combat units that could swiftly reinforce the 82^nd Airborne's lightly armed paratroopers.

With these steps, said the division commander, Maj. Gen. Jim L. Huggins, the United States is regaining the "strategic depth" it lacked during much of the past decade when the Army was struggling to man the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and simply lacked the troops to set aside for crisis response. "The resources are flowing, and we are building that capability back," he said.

And it's coming just in time. Few may hope more devoutly for peaceful, democratic change in the Middle East than the division's 20,000 hardened war-fighters, many of whom are facing their fifth or sixth combat deployment.

But hope is not a strategy.

Instead, Huggins' soldiers are honing their skills at "forcible entry" -- the ability to parachute into enemy territory with their armored gun trucks and 155mm howitzers, seize and defend an airfield to enable reinforcements to land, and fight their way to the objective. Safely landing 2,000 paratroopers and equipment at night on a three-mile-long, blacked-out drop zone and then swiftly organizing and moving out, Huggins observed dryly, "takes some practice."

But as political upheaval boils, from nuclear-armed Pakistan to the oilfields of the Persian Gulf fiefdoms and North Africa, sending in paratroopers may not be enough if heavy armed conflict begins to threaten vital U.S. national interests.

With the encouragement of Gen. Martin Dempsey, selected to become the Army's new chief this spring, the Army is considering adding "medium and heavy combat brigades" to the Global Response Force, said Col. Dan Baggio, a spokesman for the Army's Forces Command. The units being evaluated, which could include elements of a Stryker brigade and even heavy armored brigades, are stationed in the United States and would have to be airlifted into combat.

The idea is to provide a heavy force quickly for major combat, Dempsey wrote in a new addition to the Army's operations field manual, to "gain the initiative . . . and set conditions for stability operations" to follow.

All these steps seem in sync with an emerging vision for a leaner, smaller, faster Army after Iraq and Afghanistan. In a widely noted speech last month at West Point, Defense Secretary Robert Gates memorably trashed the idea of sending a massive land force into war in the Middle East or Africa, saying big wars should be the responsibility primarily of naval forces and aviation. But he strongly endorsed the "strategic rationale for swift-moving expeditionary forces" as "self-evident" for counterterrorism, rapid reaction, disaster response, stability or security force assistance missions.

The Obama administration also has proposed cutting the size of the Army by 27,000 soldiers beginning in 2015, assuming that by then the Afghan war will be winding down, Gates said last week.

Expanding from the narrow mission of counterinsurgency to quick-reaction missions -- which might demand a full spectrum of skills, from providing disaster relief to fighting the opening battles of World War III -- marks an abrupt change for the 82^nd Airborne Division. For a decade it has fought in small units, squads of nine to 12 soldiers and platoons of 30 or 40, working with local soldiers and villagers in a kind of armed nation-building. These operations required little or no coordination with neighboring units.

But now, with its ready brigade unhooked from this counterinsurgency mission, it can refocus on the skills required for larger company- and battalion-size maneuvers involving hundreds of soldiers in tight coordination with artillery, mortars, helicopter gunships and Air Force strike fighters. And the paratroopers, relieved of counterinsurgency duty, can catch up on the jumping skills they hadn't been able to practice in Iraq or Afghanistan. Before 2001, it was common to see a staff sergeant here with 60 or 70 jumps to his credit; today, a senior enlisted paratrooper may have fewer than 20, said 1^st Sgt. Christian Requejo of the 2^nd Battalion, 505^th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

They are getting the practice. In one exercise last month, the division and the Air Force coordinated an airdrop of 1,600 paratroopers, together with eight armored Humvee gun trucks, two howitzers, a dump truck and a grader (for building airfield defensive fortifications) from an air armada of 27 C-17 and C-130 airlifters.

Doing all that quickly and safely requires an immense amount of preparation. "We were not used to maneuvering as a company or a battalion," said one company commander, Capt. Mike Thompson. "It takes meticulous planning -- or it can be a goat-screw."

Early on a recent, chilly morning, a clutch of captains and lieutenants of the division's ready brigade gathered to rehearse a complex mission: coordinating air strikes from F-16s and attack helicopters with artillery and mortar fire as paratroopers maneuvered through bands of enemy to seize a small village.

A scale model of the terrain was laid out on the grass behind their barracks, with tape marking out routes and plastic blocks representing houses. In what is called an ROC (rehearsal of concept) drill, the lieutenants who lead platoons walked through their actions as they engaged the enemy and made quick decisions on whether calling in artillery strikes would endanger nearby troops or conflict with the Apache helicopter gunships and UAVs orbiting over the battlefield.

Their battalion commander, Lt. Col. Marcus Evans, is a demanding teacher and coach. "If you haven't run through this four or five times with a chalk board before you come out here, you're missing something," he told his young officers. "Drill it, drill it, drill it!" And plan for the unexpected, he added. "We can't war-game all the contingencies -- but we can do the top 10 and rehearse them!"

Brigades training in these skills will get severely tested at the Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., which has built extensive facilities for counterinsurgency training, including mock Afghan villages and Pashtun-speaking role players. But starting this August, the NTC will switch from training only for counterinsurgency, and instead will hold six month-long war games over the course of a year, pitting visiting brigades against the battle-hardened 11^th Armored Cavalry Regiment in simulated, but grueling, full-spectrum combat.

None of the skills and capabilities the Army is regaining may be applicable as upheaval sweeps across the Middle East and North Africa. As Gates and others have noticed, the Pentagon has a perfect record in predicting where and when future conflict will erupt: It has gotten it wrong every time. But that is one reason for the "full-spectrum" preparation of the 82^nd Airborne Division's ready brigade.

"We've been deficient as a great power in being overly committed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without having any additional capacity to do anything else that could come along," said John Nagl, a former West Point armor officer and Rhodes scholar who is president of the Center for a New American Security, a nonpartisan research institution in Washington, D.C. "The Army was really tapped out."

"Particularly with what's going on in the world, it's not hard to imagine the president needing a brigade of the 82^nd at short notice," Nagl said. "But having that capability doesn't mean we're going to use it."

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Libya and Iraq: Two Ways of Opposing a Tyrant -- but One Stole the Nation's Pride

Mark I. Pinsky — 2011-03-05T22:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Terror, Foreign Policy, Obama Administration, Afghanistan, France, Military, Middle East, Iraq, Egypt Crisis

The historic anti-authoritarian, pro-democratic uprisings that have swept across North Africa raise an intriguing and troubling question: Absent American intervention, could a similar movement have unseated Iraq's Saddam Hussein?

Communism came to Eastern Europe in the kit bag of the Red Army, according to the old glib-but-accurate gibe. This is essentially how the U.S. military installed democracy in Iraq.

WikiLeaks Suspect Bradley Manning Hit With 22 New Charges

Tom Diemer — 2011-03-03T09:56:00+00:00

Filed under: Scandal, Investigations, Terror, National Security, Afghanistan, Military, WikiLeaks, Iraq

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, the suspected source of many of the hundreds of thousands of classified documents turned over to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, has been hit with 22 additional charges, including "aiding the enemy," which carries the death penalty on conviction.

Military prosecutors, however, have told Manning's lawyers they will not recommend capital punishment in the case that, if tried, would go before a court-martial. Manning, 23, is being held at a military brig in Quantico, Va., on earlier accusations related to leaks when he was an intelligence specialist in Iraq.

Charges brought Wednesday under the Uniform Code of Military Justice include aiding the enemy -- the "enemy" is not specified -- wrongly causing intelligence to be posted on the Internet, and violating Army regulations on information security, the Washington Post reported. The government asserts that WikiLeaks' posting of Iraq and Afghanistan war documents and also State Department cables put soldiers and civilians at risk.

"The new charges more accurately reflect the broad scope of the crimes that Pfc. Manning is accused of committing," Army spokesman Capt. John Haberland said. If convicted on all charges, Manning could face life in prison.

In a separate matter Tuesday in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange appealed an extradition order that would force him to return to Sweden to answer sex offense complaints. The appeal could drag on for two or three months, an Assange attorney told CNN.

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Rumsfeld: MIA on the True Costs of the Iraq War

David Corn — 2011-02-11T05:00:00+00:00

Filed under: George W. Bush, Deep Background, Iraq

I was reading Donald Rumsfeld's just-released memoir, "Known and Unknown," when I came across a passage that brought me to a dead stop:

"The U.S. military involvement in Iraq has come at a high price. Combat took the lives of thousands of American servicemen and -women and left many more wounded. The U.S. Treasury spent hundreds of billions of dollars. The prolong war also poisoned our politics at home."

What's missing from this picture? A hundred thousand or so dead Iraqi civilians.

Iraq Body Count website, which keeps track of reported civilian casualties, reports that since the U.S. invasion there have been between 99,702 and 108, 854 documented civilian deaths in Iraq related to the war. Some estimates are higher. The actual number doesn't matter. Rumsfeld pays no attention to the notion that many Iraqi civilians lost their lives because of the war he supported and managed.

In his recent book, George W. Bush, also ignored this cost of the war. He wrote:

For all the difficulties that followed, America is safer without a homicidal dictator pursuing WMD and supporting terror at the heart of the Middle East. The region is more hopeful with a young democracy setting an example for others to follow. and the Iraqi people are better off with a government that answers to them instead of torturing and murdering them.

When Bush was promoting his book, he told NBC's Matt Lauer, "I will say, definitely, the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power, as are 25 million people who now have a chance to live in freedom."

Not everyone, though, is better off. As journalists Nir Rosen put it last November,

Certainly the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis are not better off. Their families aren't better off. The tens of thousands of Iraqi men who languished in American and subsequently Iraqi gulags are not better off. The children who lost their fathers aren't better off. The millions of Iraqis who lost their homes, hundreds of thousands of refugees in the region, are not better off. So there's no mathematical calculation you can make to determine who's better off and who's not.

Bush and Rumsfeld might calculate that the benefits of the war do surpass even these particular costs. But what's jarring is that the pair does not acknowledge this side of the ledger. I wonder why.

There are several possibilities. Perhaps they believe their calculus would be harder to defend if such extensive and tragic losses were recognized. This is a tremendous amount of blood to place on the scales. Or can it be that they have just not paid much attention to the matter of civilian casualties and are (perhaps willfully) ignoring the topic? The Pentagon apparently never officially kept a tally of the Iraqi civilian death count. Yet any honest accounting of the Iraq war -- or any war -- would cover this portion of the outcome. Any honest debate about the merits of a war would consider this angle.

Conservatives often hail cost-benefit analysis when it comes to government actions, such as regulations. They praise market forces. They promote the value of responsibility. At least, in the abstract. Rumsfeld's book -- and Bush's too -- is a fine example of an abandonment of such principles. The Iraq war cannot be judged without weighing these consequent deaths. But Rumsfeld and Bush duck the issue. Iraqis and citizens in other nations can be forgiven for regarding the Bushites' inability -- or unwillingness -- to recognize such a tremendous loss of life as an indication that they do not much value Iraqi lives.

It's easy for Rumsfeld, Bush, and others to proclaim that Iraqis have benefited from the war, now that the murderous Saddam and his repressive regime are gone. But Bush and Rumsfeld did not have to pay the ultimate sacrifice. They imposed it on others -- without asking their consent. They were the deciders. In Iran and Egypt, the world has seen that citizens can rise up against autocrats -- when they believe the time is right and when they are willing to accept the consequences of their defiance. The 100,000 or so dead Iraqi civilians were given no such choice.

Is it surprising that Rumsfeld and Bush do not pay even lip service to the dead Iraqi civilians? Probably not, for addressing this subject could cause a debate they'd obviously rather avoid. Better for these warriors to commit an act of moral cowardice than engage in that difficult fight.

You can follow David Corn's postings and media appearances via Twitter.

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At Risk in Egypt's Turmoil: U.S. Military Access to the Middle East

David Wood — 2011-02-05T22:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Iran, Foreign Policy, National Security, International, Military, Analysis, Iraq, Egypt Crisis

Three hundred combat-armed paratroopers from the 82^nd Airborne Division plummeted from a cobalt Egyptian sky. U.S. and Egyptian marines swarmed ashore in waves of armored vehicles, and American jets streaked low overhead. It was October 2009, the most recent -- and perhaps the last -- of the massive combat maneuvers staged in Egypt every two years in an assertive demonstration of U.S. power and resolve in the troubled Middle East.

Whatever the outcome of the tumult wracking Egypt, those who eventually consolidate power in Cairo may not welcome back the biannual Bright Star military exercises.
Also suddenly at risk, along with Bright Star, is the access of U.S. military forces to Egypt's sprawling naval facilities at Alexandria and the huge Cairo West air base, as well as over-flight rights and guaranteed transit for U.S. warships through the Suez Canal -- all critical underpinnings of the U.S. ability to project power in the region, to contain Iran, reassure Israel and strengthen stability.

McCain Tells Rumsfeld: I Was Right on Iraq

Tom Diemer — 2011-02-04T09:15:00+00:00

Filed under: George W. Bush, Bush Administration, Senate, Republicans, John McCain, Media, Iraq

Rummy and Mac are still having a spat over Iraq. Sen. John McCain says history has proven him correct in his insistence that the United States needed more boots on the ground in its battle against a bloody insurgency in Iraq.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resisted the call for more troops -- arguing that a leaner, more efficient Army could get the job done -- and he largely defends his prosecution of the war in a new memoir, "Known and Unkown."

Rumsfeld Says He Should Have Quit Defense Post After Abu Ghraib Scandal

Politics Daily Staff — 2011-02-03T10:29:00+00:00

Filed under: Bush Administration, Terror, Foreign Policy, International, Afghanistan, France, European Union, Iraq, Islam

Donald Rumsfeld, known for his tart one-liners as well as his hawkish foreign policy stands, says in a new memoir that he regrets that he did not step down as defense secretary after reports of abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

In "Known and Unknown," Rumsfeld says he wishes he had insisted that President George W. Bush accept his offer to resign after news broke in 2004 of the rough and humiliating treatment of detainees by American jailers. In an account of the book by the New York Times, Rumsfeld blamed the abuses on rogue soldiers -- not any approved policies. But he says that "more than anything else I have failed to do . . . I regret that I did not leave at that point."

The subsequent "drum-beat of 'torture' " by critics became a "damaging distraction," he writes in the book, which is published by Sentinel and due out next week.

As for those snappy wisecracks, the 78-year-old Rumsfeld now says he shouldn't have said "stuff happens" when looting was reported after the fall of Baghdad, and admits that using the term "Old Europe" to diminish France and Germany for not supporting the Iraq War was not all that diplomatic, the Washington Post notes in its report on the book.

But Rumsfeld, for the most part, defends his actions and says the invasion of Iraq was worthwhile because the Middle East "would be far more perilous than it is today" had Saddam Hussein stayed in power. And he says President Bush broached the idea of a war strategy for Iraq just 15 days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. With the Pentagon preparing to fight al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the president "asked that I take a look at the shape of our military plans on Iraq," Rumsfeld says.

Rumsfeld also calls Bush a "far more formidable president" than he is given credit for, but says his management style often failed to produce clear objectives during National Security Council meetings. He puts part of the blame for that on then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and also criticizes then-Secretary of State Colin Powell for running an operation at Foggy Bottom that was reluctant to follow Bush's political direction.

For his part, Rumsfeld says he never refused requests from military commanders for more troops for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But he concedes more boots on the ground may have averted the looting and chaos in Baghdad after the government was toppled.

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Army Was Advised Not to Send Suspected Leaker Bradley Manning to Iraq

Politics Daily Staff — 2011-02-02T09:34:00+00:00

Filed under: Investigations, Afghanistan, WikiLeaks, Iraq

Pfc. Bradley Manning, suspected of leaking classified information to the whistleblower site WikiLeaks, was assessed by a mental health specialist as being unfit for duty in a war zone, but the Army sent him to Iraq anyway.

The decision on whether to deploy a soldier rests with his immediate superiors, but an Army investigation concludes that not going along with the specialist's recommendation may have contributed to the security breach down the road, the Washington Post reported Wednesday, quoting an unnamed military source.

Before his deployment overseas, Manning's behavior was a cause for concern at Fort Drum, N.Y., where he allegedly threw chairs at other soldiers and shouted at higher-ranking colleagues, McClatchy Newspapers said.

Manning, 23, an intelligence analyst, is accused of downloading classified Pentagon and State Department information on his personal computer in Iraq and transmitting some material to an unauthorized person. He is being held in solitary confinement at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va.

A Manning support group, Bradleymanning.org, urged followers to phone the White House on Thursday to demand that the soldier's "human rights be respected" during his detention at Quantico.

The Army investigation, which is separate from a criminal probe, is underway to determine whether internal, procedural breakdowns led to the security breach. "There were serious leadership failures within the unit chain of command and gross negligence in the supervision of Pfc. Manning in Iraq," another source, familiar with the inquiry, told the Post.

Manning was deployed to Iraq in 2009 and 2010. His outbursts there got the attention of a master sergeant, who disabled his weapon, Manning's private lawyer said previously. He was later demoted for assaulting another soldier.

He has not been charged with leaking all of the information made available to WikiLeaks. The anti-secrecy site has posted tens of thousands of documents and cables relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The head of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, now under court supervision in London, is contesting extradition to Sweden, where authorities want to question him about sexual misconduct complaints. Assange won't say where WikiLeaks got the secret information.

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State of the Union: Obama Calls Investment in Innovation 'Our Sputnik Moment'

Alex Wagner — 2011-01-25T21:19:00+00:00

Filed under: Senate, Democrats, Republicans, State of the Union, Education, Health Care, Immigration, Social Security, Energy, Obama Administration, Afghanistan, Congress, Arms Control, Deficit, Unemployment, Military, White House, Economy, Health Care Reform, Barack Obama, Iraq

President Obama outlined an ambitious plan Tuesday to "win the future," urging renewed investment in American technology, infrastructure and education, while simultaneously calling for a more streamlined federal government and a reduction of the deficit.

In his State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress -- some of whose members crossed the aisle in a symbolic show of bipartisanship -- Obama emphasized a common purpose and a shared future. "We will move forward together, or not at all," he said, "for the challenges we face are bigger than party, and bigger than politics."

Early in his address, Obama called attention to the empty seat that would have been occupied by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was severely wounded during the Tucson shootings on Jan. 8.

The State of the Union and the Military: Balancing Defense With Debt

David Wood — 2011-01-21T22:54:00+00:00

Filed under: State of the Union, Budget, Foreign Policy, Obama Administration, Afghanistan, Congress, Deficit, Military, Analysis, Iraq

When Houston comes to play at San Antonio's AT&T Center next Friday night, seven people jammed in among the 19,000 Spurs and Rockets fans would represent roughly the proportion of the U.S. population fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq: 150,000 troops out of a nation of 308.7 million people, 0.00048 percent.

Just as stunning as America's non-participation in its wars is the cost the country is running up in the name of national security: more than $700 billion this year - twice as much as in 2001 and more than the rest of the world combined spends on defense.

Biden Tell U.S Troops, 'You Will Be Proud' of Moving Iraq Forward

Tom Diemer — 2011-01-14T13:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Joe Biden, Terror, Obama Administration, Afghanistan, Iraq

Vice President Biden returned Friday from a four-day swing through Afghanistan, Pakistan, and finally Iraq, where he told U.S. troops they have successfully trained Iraqi forces "to the point now where they can be in the lead."

Yet in the next breath, the vice president cautioned that even though the Iraqis are getting stronger, "they're going to continue to need our assistance and your assistance for some time." While Biden said the Obama administration remains committed to pulling American troops out by the end of the year, he also suggested the U.S. would continue to train and equip the Iraqis, the Associated Press said.

"Our mission has fundamentally shifted since September," he said, referring to the departure of most combat troops. "But it's going to shift again at the end of 2011. We will probably be in the position of still maintaining and giving support."

Biden, who arrived in Iraq from a tour that began Monday in Afghanistan and then touched down in Pakistan, spoke emotionally to about 400 U.S. soldiers in Baghdad. "You are leaving a legacy, a legacy of not just having helped free a country, but helped getting the country on its feet," he said. "You will be proud" of what you "put in motion."

Biden said he thinks the Iraqis "are on the verge of literally creating a country that will be democratic, sustainable and, God willing, prosperous." But he also told the New York Times that Iraq still has "a long way to go."

It was Biden's seventh trip as vice president to the war-scarred country. He has emerged as President Obama's point man in the region. Is he effective? "I've got to say, it was positive across the board," a senior administration official told reporters traveling with Biden. "I think we came away feeling that the Iraqis . . . were in a good place."

More than 4,400 U.S. troops have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Biden said he was heartened that the casualty rate has decreased, and that he would not be returning to Washington with a "coffin strapped the floor of the aircraft as we take off."

Update: After Biden's departure, the AP said a dozens suspected terrorists, disguised in police uniforms, busted out of an Iraqi jail in one of Saddam Hussein's former palaces near the southern port city of Basra.

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Democrats Boast of 'Top 10' List in Last Congress

Tom Diemer — 2010-12-29T15:16:00+00:00

Filed under: Senate, House, Democrats, Republicans, Nancy Pelosi, Gay Rights, Foreign Policy, National Security, 2010 Elections, Congress, Arms Control, Nuclear Proliferation, Harry Reid, Unemployment, Jobs, Military, Economy, Health Care Reform, Barack Obama, Iraq

They lost 63 districts and the majority in the U.S. House and saw their edge in the Senate whittled down to a few seats, but the Democratic Party says lawmakers carrying its banner can look at the just-completed congressional session "with pride."

5 Hair-Raising Crises in Foreign Affairs/National Security We Somehow Avoided in 2010

David Wood — 2010-12-27T23:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Foreign Policy, National Security, Afghanistan, Nuclear Proliferation, Military, Iraq

Year-end lists always look back at people and events of significance, but sometimes it's just as instructive to recall things that didn't take place. Here are five -- among many -- of the most hair-raising crises and terrifying emergencies that we managed to skirt in 2010:

North Korea didn't start a nuclear war. The brutal and xenophobic regime in Pyongyang continued its fusillade of incendiary rhetoric and bluster, vowing once again to unleash nuclear war if South Korea and the United States continued their "provocative'' military exercises. But the North's leadership stayed safely inert, perhaps -- perhaps -- recognizing that unleashing their large but antiquated military against the 28,500 U.S. ground troops in South Korea, U.S. air power and the powerful Republic of Korea military would be a suicidal proposition, let alone actually using one of its nuclear weapons. It's even possible that 2011 will see the relaunching of six-party talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons program. But first, the White House said, the North must end its "belligerent actions.''

Iraq didn't explode into renewed civil war. The U.S. invasion of 2003 toppled the Saddam Hussein regime and unintentionally ignited a brutal civil war that killed 4,430 American troops, took the lives of perhaps 150,000 Iraqi civilians, and forced some 4.5 million Iraqis from their homes. The war left Iraq deeply split along sectarian lines and seething in anger, frustration and bitterness, seemingly ripe for exploitation by rival militias and powerful terrorist gangs. Yet at midyear, the United States declared its combat mission over and pulled out nearly 100,000 troops. For now, at least, Iraqi passions have been diverted into politics.

Neither did the Middle East, where a decade of horrific bloodshed and violence gave way, slowly and fitfully but unmistakably, to negotiations. On one of the toughest issues -- security -- Israelis and Palestinians are actually cooperating on a practical, working level, notes Robert Danin, a Mideast expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Palestinian security forces are working for the first time in earnest to provide law and order and combat terrorism. Israeli security officials acknowledge this, as well as the unprecedented security cooperation between the two sides,'' he writes. " It marks a fundamental shift from times past when Israel suspected the Palestinian leadership of turning a blind eye toward, or even encouraging, terrorist activities.''

Pakistan survived intact. High on the list of everyone's nightmare scenarios is the collapse of Pakistan's weak, nuclear-armed civilian government, besieged by a bankrupting depression, a debilitating flood, a deadly terrorist insurgency and missile strikes by CIA drone aircraft on its ungovernable territory along the border with Afghanistan. Somehow the government of Prime Minister Asif Ali Zardari skated along the edge of catastrophe, staving off, for now, another of the military coups d'etat that have kept Pakistan under army rule for more than half of its 63 years of independence.

Terrorist bombs didn't explode in Times Square; Portland, Oregon; or Baltimore, thanks to good luck (the Times Square bomb fizzled) and good police work (undercover FBI agents thwarted the intended bombings in Portland and Baltimore). Another notable fizzle: the parcel bomb plot attempted by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Violent death in the wreckage, panic and over-reaction might have ensued had any of these attacks succeeded.

Top terrorism officials are convinced that despite their best efforts, an attack will eventually succeed. So watch out in 2011.

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For the War's Wounded Troops and Families, Elmo Can Help

David Wood — 2010-12-24T18:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Afghanistan, Military, Iraq

How can you gently explain to a 4-year-old that Daddy has been killed in Afghanistan and will never come home?

How does a combat-wounded Marine convince his scared young son that he's still the same loving Dad, even though his thighs now end in stumps?

How does a family cope with their returned soldier who looks the same, but whose traumatic brain injury from a near-miss IED slurs her speech and dims her memory and sometimes wracks her with unreasoning spasms of hot fury?

How does a family celebrate Christmas while a loved one is hundreds of miles away in a military hospital ward?

War doesn't pause for the holidays, and for American military families who have suffered beyond the "ordinary'' stress of a year-long combat deployment, this can be an extraordinarily difficult season.

In nine years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 5,800 families have lost a mother, father, son or daughter to the war. Some 42,000 families are caring for a family member with physical wounds or the less visible damage of traumatic brain injury or combat stress. Many of these painful struggles have gone on for years.

Among those most severely affected are the children of military families, kids struggling with sorrow, fear, anger, resentment and a sense of betrayal: My Dad promised he'd be OK but he isn't, and the military didn't keep him safe either, so who can I trust?.

For these children and their families, a new hero has emerged: a Muppet named Elmo.

In a series of free videos distributed widely to military families and to those who support them, Elmo and his Muppet parents and friends, together with real humans, figure out how to talk through anguishing situations, how to find the words to use to express grief, fear, anger, and how to harness the healing power of love.

In this video, for instance, Elmo encourages his friend Rosita to tell her father how upset she is that he needs a wheelchair and can't play kickball.

In a voice breaking with emotion, Rosita tells him, "I wish your legs were OK, Poppi, and I wish you didn't have to go to the doctor's so much. . . . I just wish things could go back to the way they were!''

He strokes her and answers, "Listen . . . I may be a little different, but I am still your Dad, still your Poppi. Even though some things have changed, my love for you has not.''

The videos were produced by Sesame Workshop (the creator of "Sesame Street") and by Navy Capt. Russell Shilling, an aerospace experimental psychologist at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, with the support of the Pentagon, corporate underwriters and mental health organizations. And while the videos are targeted at children between the ages of 2 and 8, they are equally instructive -- and emotional -- for adults.

A recent showing at the Pentagon left "a roomful of generals dabbing their eyes,'' said a Marine staff officer.

One reason is that the videos are relentlessly upbeat while acknowledging profound tragedy and loss.

"At first I didn't think she wanted to hug me, she was scared of me, maybe,'' an amputee soldier, speaking on a Sesame Workshop video, said about his daughter. As she clung to him, he said, "That hug made me so happy. . . It made me feel I didn't really lose anything at all.''

Said another wounded trooper: "As macho as you think you are -- that you are a U.S. soldier and a fighting machine -- this particular fight, you can't do it alone, you need family.''

That it has taken this long -- nine years into the war -- for the trauma of military families and children to be recognized is a testament of sorts to the stoic toughness of the troops and their loved ones.

"The majority of military families come from a place of strength; the parents and children have a sense of cohesion, mutual support, pride in service,'' said Gregory Leskin, a clinical psychiatrist at UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute. But under severe stress, military families risk losing cohesion and shattering into lonely individuals. Being able to communicate is a "key factor'' in keeping the family together, said Leskin, who specializes in working with military families.

Researchers also are coming to understand what military families have long realized: while a combat deployment lasts a year or less, the impact of a combat death or injury can be infinite.

"Combat injury is not an event, but a cascade of events, starting with the shock of notification'' that a loved one has been badly injured, said Dr. Stephen Cozza, professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University and former chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

After absorbing the shock, one or more family members typically travels to a military hospital at some distance from home. A severely injured military member may be hospitalized for years, requiring long family separations. Often the kids must be farmed out to relatives or brought to spend hours at the hospital bed, upsetting school and other routines.

"In short, there's a lot of stress on military families, exacerbating the stresses and strains of normal family life,'' said Cozza.

What many military families find hard to share, with each other and with friends, is the most disturbing or awkward information about a wound, especially when a vigorous young father or brother suddenly needs a wheelchair, a colostomy bag or a prosthetic hand, or is bedridden with partial paralysis. "Parents who have difficulty discussing questions of sex with their kids are going to have trouble here,'' said Cozza.

That's where the "Sesame Street" videos can be useful. Left on their own, "kids tend to act out instead of saying, 'I'm scared,' '' said Lynn Chwatsky, Sesame Workshop's senior director for outreach. "You see kids regress -- bed-wetting, temper tantrums, misbehavior at school, all from emotions that they don't know how to express.

"What we try to do is help them communicate their feelings,'' she said. "Muppets provide hope and a bit of levity from some real tough situations. They can feel what kids are feeling, even when kids don't realize what they are feeling.'' The writers and producers of the Sesame Workshop videos have found the videos also help parents. "They open the door to a dialogue they've never been able to have with their kids,'' said Chwatsky. "Elmo can do that.''

As the population of wounded military families expands, therapists are urging communities to help integrate them back into civilian society.

There is a wealth of resources for military families and civilians who want to get involved, not just for a one-time event, but on a continuing basis.

"There's sort of a waxing and waning of interest and support for our military families,'' said Leskin. "More and more, we are seeing the need for regular, ongoing support, activities that acknowledge and support them over a lifetime.''

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WikiWatch: Cables Reveal Delicate Diplomacy After U.S. Soldier Killed Italian in Iraq

Carla Baranauckas — 2010-12-22T14:33:00+00:00

Filed under: Foreign Policy, International, WikiLeaks, Iraq

After an American solider killed an Italian secret service agent at a U.S. checkpoint in Iraq, both the United States and Italy conducted investigations. And when the two inquiries disagreed on some of the findings, American diplomats decided against challenging the differences in hopes that the case would recede from public controversy more quickly, according to secret cables from the American Embassy in Rome released by WikiLeaks on Tuesday.

The Italian secret service agent, Nicola Calipari, was killed on March 4, 2005, at a roadblock in Baghdad after he had rescued an Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, who had been kidnapped.

Neither the United States nor Italy found Calipari's killing to be intentional, but the reports differed sharply on what had led to the shooting. The American report said the soldier, Spc. Mario Lozano, had fired on Calipari's car because it was approaching the checkpoint at high speed and warning shots had not slowed it. The Italian report cited "inexperience and stress" among American troops as the cause of the shooting.

Before the Italian report was released, Ambassador Mel Sembler and other embassy officials met with members of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's staff to review it. Italian officials told the Americans that they "wanted to put the incident behind us, that it would not damage our strong friendship and alliance, and that it would not affect the Italian commitment in Iraq," according to a cable Sembler sent to Washington.

Sembler noted that the Italian report "quibbles with many findings and much of the methodology" of the U.S. report about the killing. But he added, "We will be best served by resisting the temptation to attack the Italian version point-by-point, and should instead continue to let our report speak for itself."

The Italian finding that the shooting was unintentional -- a "tragic accident" -- was important, Sembler wrote, because under Italian law prosecuting magistrates "can investigate cases of intentional homicide against Italian citizens outside of Italy, but not cases of unintentional homicide." He added a note saying, "Our contacts warn that Italian magistrates are infamous for bending such laws to suit their purposes, so it remains to be seen whether the GOI [government of Italy] tactic will work in this regard."

(In 2007, Lozano was indicted and tried in absentia in Italy, but the charges were dismissed.)

The ambassador also wrote in the cable, "It would be useful for President Bush to call Berlusconi Wednesday, so that he could say before Parliament the next day that he had spoken with the president about the matter."

President George W. Bush did make the phone call to Berlusconi, saying Calipari was "a heroic servant of Italy and esteemed friend of the United States," according to The New York Times.

In another cable after Berlusconi presented the report to Italy's Parliament, an embassy official wrote: "As much as possible, we should allow our report to speak for itself on our view of the incident. This will hasten the fading of the case from the political radar screen."

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Gays in the Military: Still Illegal for Time Being

David Wood — 2010-12-18T17:04:00+00:00

Filed under: Senate, Democrats, Republicans, Gay Rights, Obama Administration, Afghanistan, Military, Barack Obama, Iraq

What happens now that Congress has voted to repeal the 'don't ask, don't tell' ban on gays in the military? Nothing.

For the next few months and possibly for as long as a year, gays and lesbians in uniform will still be subject to investigation and discharge if they acknowledge their sexual orientation, Pentagon officials said. Despite action in Congress to repeal it, the controversial policy banning gays from serving openly remains in effect until, in essence, until the Defense Department is good and ready to wipe if off the books.

The Pentagon issued a directive Saturday from its personnel chief, Clifford Stanley, alerting troops worldwide to the Senate vote to join the U.S. House in approving legislation to repeal DADT. The directive was expected to emphasize that the law itself has not been immediately repealed, and that the current regulations banning gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military remain in place.

"Once this legislation is signed into the law by the president, the Department of Defense will immediately proceed with the planning necessary to carry out this change carefully and methodically, but purposefully," Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Saturday. Change is coming, Gates said, but the current policy stays in place during an implementation process.
The law itself will not be effectively pulled down until the Pentagon has had a chance to adjust regulations that relate to same-sex partners, including next-of-kin notification, family access to commissaries and military fitness centers, health insurance and other benefits.

The Defense Department also plans to conduct training of all military personnel to emphasize current standing orders that every member is to be treated with dignity and respect regardless of gender, religion, color and other differences.

When all that is completed -- a process that Gates has said could take up to a year -- actual repeal won't happen until the president, the Secretary of Defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all certify that it will not negatively affect combat readiness.

WikiLeaks Suspect a 'Hero'? Berkeley, Calif., Council Puts Off Vote

Tom Diemer — 2010-12-15T11:04:00+00:00

Filed under: George W. Bush, Bush Administration, House, Dick Cheney, Crime, National Security, Culture, Video, Liberals, Military, WikiLeaks, Iraq

The famously liberal city of Berkeley, Calif., has indefinitely postponed voting on a resolution declaring the soldier suspected of providing classified documents to the WikiLeaks website a "hero."

Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, 23, was arrested in May and charged with illegally downloading classified information while working with an intelligence unit. He faces a possible court martial but has not been formally charged regarding the recent spate of WikiLeaks postings of State Department cables and war documents.

In Berkeley, the City Council apparently decided to wait for more legal clarity before deeming Manning a hero. The council voted 8-0 to table its Manning resolution after several hours of debate Tuesday night . "We don't even know if he [was the leaker]," Mayor Tom Bates said, according to CNN. ". . . We are willing to watch it and to consider it in the future, and if we feel it's appropriate to us to make some statement, we'll bring it back to our council." The resolution at this point, Bates said, is "premature. This is going to be a long debate."

Thyme S. Siegel, a member of Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission, told KTVU television that the Manning matter was a "drain" on the council's resources. "They have a fiscal crisis to deal with. Hello!" But the chairwoman of the commission, Wendy Kenin, argued that Manning provided an "amazing service" to the country so citizens "can make informed decisions about war and how it affects our troops around the world."

Manning was born in Oklahoma, but has also lived in Wales, part of the United Kingdom. He has been accused of providing WikiLeaks with a classified video purporting to show U.S. forces in a deadly helicopter attack on civilians in Baghdad in 2007.

Weighing in on Manning's situation was not a reach for the Berkeley lawmakers. In the past, the city across the bay from San Francisco has long been a hotbed of student activism (at the University of California, Berkeley), including anti-war protests. In 2006, the city approved a ballot issue calling on the U.S. House of Representatives to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Follow Tom Diemer on Twitter http://twitter.com/tomdiemer

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Christian Right Activist Blasts Medal of Honor as 'Feminized,' Sparks Fury

David Gibson — 2010-11-20T23:00:00+00:00

Filed under: Religion, Gay Rights, Terror, Culture, Disputations, Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Iraq

Bush Library May Show 'Mission Accomplished' Banner From 2003 Iraq Speech

Tom Diemer — 2010-11-19T14:07:00+00:00

Filed under: George W. Bush, Bush Administration, Democrats, Dick Cheney, Gaffes, Military, Iraq

The infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner that was the backdrop for a 2003 speech as President George W. Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq may wind up hanging in the planned Bush library in Dallas.

The red, white and blue banner, initially stored by the National Archives, has been shipped to the temporary headquarters of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Lewisville, Texas. Alan Lowe, director of the center, said a decision has yet to be made on whether or how to display it in the 227,000-square foot building, which is to open in 2013.

The banner became the subject of ridicule when violence raged on in Iraq after the Bush speech. He made it from the deck of the aircraft carrier, USS Lincoln, after landing in a jet plane that he piloted, and hopping out dressed in a flight suit. Democrats called it a publicity stunt and decried the triumphalism -- premature triumphalism, at that.

Bush, joined by former Vice President Dick Cheney, broke ground on the presidential center on the campus of Southern Methodist University earlier this week. In a recent interview on NBC, he said of the decision to display the banner, "No question, it was a mistake." At the time, the White House said it provided the banner at the request of the U.S. Navy. And the Navy said it was intended to honor sailors who had been deployed to Iraq. In any event, it is now part of the historical record.

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