At least stop sending women to war…

I saw it when I was in the U.S. Army 30 years ago: women in combat zones. It just doesn’t work.

When I was posted to West Germany from 1979-82, our unit, a field intelligence unit, had many women in it. One of them was a young wife who was 6 months pregnant when we went on field maneuvers in the Fulda Gap, where the Soviet offensive would have blitzed us.

6 months pregnant? Out on maneuvers in an Army truck? Insane.

We treated her well, of course. She sat in our commo (communications) truck and made coffee. A 6-months pregnant woman can’t string barbed wire, carry heavy radios and encryption equipment, or even lift an M-16 more than a few yards.

And let me stress, again, that this was peacetime.

Yet all presidents, from Carter and Reagan and Bush Uno, to Clinton and Bush Dos,  have abetted such abominations.

Now this:

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—More than 80 percent of a sample of Air Force women deployed in Iraq and other areas around the world report suffering from persistent fatigue, fever, hair loss and difficulty concentrating, according to a University of Michigan study.

The pattern of health problems reported by 1,114 women surveyed in 2006 and 2007 is similar to many symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome, the controversial condition reported by veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

“It is possible that some unknown environmental factor is the cause of current health problems and of Gulf War Syndrome,” said U-M researcher Penny Pierce.

“But it is also possible that these symptoms result from the stress of military deployment, especially prolonged and multiple deployments.”

War is bad enough on men, but even worse on women. Men were designed by God — or evolution, if you will — to bear the stresses of war. Since time immemorial, there have been wars and rumors of wars, fought by men. And a main motivation of wars for men is to keep their womenfolk safe.

It’s only modern, feminized, de-masculinized, Neoconnized America that imposes this absurd experiment on women gullible enough to enlist. Well, at least women aren’t drafted — yet.

Instead of sending even one woman into a combat zone, we should send Bush Uno, Bush Dos, both Clintons, Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, every Neocon ever heard of, and anybody else who supports these wars.

Women don’t belong in arms, their arms belong holding babies.

Sorry, but the surge is NOT working

McCain and Bush have been pushing the line that the “surge” in Iraq is working. Violence is down, goes the reasoning, so the whole thing is a “success.” McCain insisted:

I’m happy to tell you we’ve succeeded in Iraq and we—unless we reverse the strategy that’s succeeding — we will win this war.

Not really. William Lind, our best strategist, explains:

The reduction in violence in Iraq, which is likely to prove temporary, has four causes, the least of which is the surge.

In order of importance, they are:

1. Al Qaeda’s alienation of much of its Sunni base, a consequence of its attempt to impose its Puritanical version of Islam before it won the war and consolidated power.  This is a common error of revolutionary movements.  The smart ones back off and take a “broad front” strategy until the war is won, at which point they cut their “moderate” allies’ throats.  Al Qaeda’s non-hierarchical structure, coupled with the message it employs to recruit, may prevent it from adopting a broad front strategy.  If so, that may prove a fatal weakness.
2. A change in policy by the U.S. Marines in Anbar Province whereby they stopped attacking the Sunni population and started paying it instead.  As the FMFM 1-A argues, in 4GW, cash is your most important supporting arm.  The Marines’ new policy, which has now spread to the U.S. Army and beyond Anbar, enabled the locals to turn on al Qaeda and its brutally enforced Puritanism.
3. General Petraeus’s decision to move U.S. troops off their FOB’s and into populated areas where they could protect the population instead of merely protecting themselves.
4. Last and least, the surge, which made more troops available for #3.  Absent the other three developments, the surge would have achieved nothing.

So, the war will continue.

Richard Perle: Another Iraq War profiteer

I wrote earlier about members of Congress who have made big bucks from Bush’s wars, especially the Iraq War.

The Neocon schemer who propagandized for this war also are cashing in. One of the top Neocons is Richard Perle, dubbed “the Prince of Darkness” for his evil acts manipulating the U.S. government into wars. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Influential former Pentagon official Richard Perle has been exploring going into the oil business in Iraq and Kazakhstan, according to people with knowledge of the matter and documents outlining possible deals.

Mr. Perle, one of a group of security experts who began pushing the case for toppling Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein about a decade ago, has been discussing a possible deal with officials of northern Iraq’s Kurdistan regional government, including its Washington envoy, according to these people and the documents.

It would involve a tract called K18, near the Kurdish city of Erbil, according to documents describing the plan.

It’s simple, really. You and your family fight and die, Perle and the other Daddy Warbucks reap huge profits.

Oh, and the war’s cost drives the economy into the ditch, so you might lose your job and house while paying record oil prices. Perle and his cronies profit, too, from the high oil prices.

Let’s hear again from Country Joe:

There’s plenty good money to be made,
By supplying the Army with the tools of the trade.

– “I Feel Like I’m Fixing to Die Rag,” by Country Joe and the Fish

Inflation and pink elephants

Since around 2002 I’ve been warning about inflation, first when I was at the Orange County Register, then on this blog. Inflation usually begins as a cheap way for the government to pay for a long war, as this history of inflation notes. The Iraq War now is more than five years old, with no end in sight. It’s the second-longest war in American history, after the Vietnam War — itself paid for by the late 1960s-1970s inflation.

Look at the graph in the upper right. It shows how the inflation of the 1970s was sparked by a sharp rise in the price of gold. And how gold has more than tripled against the dollar since 9/11. That now is translating  into inflation across the board. Now we’re getting it — good and hard.

Isn’t that obvious? When you supply too much of something, its value goes down. With inflation, too much money is created — is put in circulation — so the value goes down against gold.

Why can’t Bush and the Federal Reserve Board see that and stop printing so much money, thus cutting the price of gold to around $350, where it was for most of the previous 2 decades?

The inflation sequence…

First commodities go up: hence the oil and gas price hikes.

Then manufactured goods go up.

Next, services and retail goods go up.

Depending on interest rates and other factors, sometimes a real-estate boom ensues, then goes bust. We’re going through that with the boom/bust in housing values and ensuing spike in foreclosures.

Finally — and last — wages. That’s why consumers get slammed, hard. AP is reporting:

Most inflation this year has come from food and fuel, as retailers resisted passing along to strapped consumers the higher prices manufacturers charged them, but coming increases from companies such as Johnson & Johnson and Hasbro Inc. may leave them with no choice.

“While these increases have not for the most part been passed on at the retail level, it is inevitable that they will be at some point,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “Car dealers and other retailers cannot continue to absorb rising costs at the wholesale level and not pass some of these increases on to consumers.”

Sherwin Williams Co. on July 17 announced its third price increase in eight months. The company has been having “difficult discussions” with retailers, Chris Connor, chairman and CEO, said on its quarterly conference call….

The increases keep coming.

Dow Chemical Co., the second largest chemical company in the world after Germany’s BASF, is raising some prices by as much as 25 percent this month, following June price increases that were as high as 20 percent on all products. The increase is sure to put more pressure on manufacturers, since Dow’s chemicals are used in everything from packing peanuts to frozen-food trays to diapers.

Some of us remember the 1970s

It was all so predictable, especially if you lived through the 1970s inflation, with most of our lawmakers and policy makers did, including Fed inflationist bosses Greenspan and Bernanke.

Maybe the explanation is that President Bush spent the 1970s getting drunk, so he doesn’t remember anything from that decade except pink elephants…

Iraq to USA: Time to leave…

“Fish and visitors stink in three days” was a phrase I learned from my late Mom. Good advice.

It certainly applies to Iraq, where American forces have been visitors for more than five years. Now the locals want them to go.

On Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki said Iraqis want a timetable for when the Americans leave.

So, what are we waiting for? Isn’t this the moment the Bush government has told us is the result of American sacrifice: When the local officials, elected by their own people, can govern by themselves and we can get our troops out?

Yet US Defense Boss Gates says, no deal. What’s with these Bush people?

We won. Let’s go. Let the Iraqis sort out the details.

Is John McCain too old to be president?

Back when Pope Benedict XVI visited America in April, I was listening to Dennis Prager’s radio show. Prager was comparing the Pope’s advanced age, he just turned 80, with that of John McCain, who’s 71. Prager said we admire the wisdom of old people, such as priests, ministers, rabbis, and so on.

Therefore, Prager continued, age should be no bar to McCain performing as president.

But these are different jobs. The Pope or another religious leader certainly should have wisdom, but he doesn’t need the quick-reaction capabilities needed by a military commander. If the Pope doesn’t feel well, he can lie down for a week until he feels better.

The next papal action can have repercussions, for good or ill, even more important than wars, but the delay of weeks or months seldom is crucial.

Not so a president who controls the most powerful military forces the world has ever seen. He will have to make quick decisions that affect millions of lives.

And not so for someone who clearly wants to be a war president. Reuters reported July 3:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain wants the U.S. military to be much larger than current expansion plans envision, an adviser to the Arizona senator said this week.

The Bush administration has begun expanding the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to create a combined strength of around 750,000 active duty troops — a process backed by McCain’s Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

But McCain believes an Army and Marine Corps with a combined strength of up to 900,000 troops is necessary, said Randy Scheunemann, an adviser to the candidate on foreign policy and national security.

“Sen. McCain feels the proposed increases are not sufficient. They need to be more, to fully address the challenges we face in the 21st century,” Scheunemann told Reuters in a telephone interview.

McCain’s war aims

McCain has said America:

* Could stay in Iraq another 100 years.

* Should stay in Afghanistan until we achive “victory.”

* Should make sure Iran doesn’t get nuclear weapons it allegedly is developing, which likely would include bombing Iran.

* Should confront Russia over its dispute with Georgia over Abkhazia and Ossetia, two areas few Americans have ever heard of, let alone can spell.

* Should expand NATO to include Ukraine and Georgia, meaning that if either country would get in a military dispute with Russia, America automatically would be forced to join in. Russia has more than 6,000 nuclear weapons.

* Should confront China.

* Should stay involved in the Balkans (where Kosovo just declared independence, which Serbia rejects; McCain wanted “boots on the ground” during Bill Clinton’s 1999 bombing of Serbia in 1999 that killed 5,000 Christian Serbs to aid the Kosovo Liberation Army, which is connected to al-Qaeda).

* Should continue its involvement in  Colombia, which he just visited, and whose government is fighting guerrillas.

That’s quite an agenda. No wonder he wants more troops — even though the military already is lowering standards because it can’t meet recruiting quotas for its existing commitments. Do you feel a draft?

And forget about McCain’s promised tax cuts. He’ll need more of your tax dollars, not less, for all his wars.

Admiral McCain

War takes its toll on anyone, even commanders. A good example is the most remarkable McCain, the senator’s grandfather, a fighting admiral during World War II:

In January 1945 he was reassigned as commander of a fast carrier task force that he led through the Battle of Okinawa and raids on the Japanese mainland.^[5]

By war’s end in August 1945, the stress of combat operations had worn McCain down to a weight of only 100 pounds. He requested home leave to recuperate but Halsey insisted that he be present at the Japanese surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay, Japan on September 2, 1945. Departing immediately after the ceremony, McCain died of a heart attack at his home in Coronado, California on September 6, 1945. He was posthumously promoted to full admiral.^[6]

You can see where the presidential candidate gets his ambition, drive, and sense of mission. But Admiral McCain had to follow orders. A President McCain would not, and likely would exhaust himself in fighting all those wars. He’s also 11 years older than was Admiral McCain at the time of the latter’s death.

MacArthur’s deteroiration

Another example is Gen. Douglas MacArthur, one of America’s most storied generals. But by the time of the Korean War he was 70, younger than McCain is now. The story is told in “Snafu: Great American Military Disasters,” by Geoffrey Regan:

Away from the world of pious hopes, where “age shall not wither them,” there is no denying that old age is the enemy of the military commander. Faculties that were once sharp become atrophied, and weaknesses that were once merely dismissed as the follies of youth begin to exert a malign influence on ailing minds and bodies. And so it proved to be with five-star general Douglas MacArthur.

After his legendary Inchon Landing, everything went downhill, as MacArthur’s egoism, arrogance, and stubborness turned victory into a long stalemate that killed more than 50,000 Americans and millions of Koreans, and prolonged the war for another three years. MacArthur was fired by President Truman 10 months into the war.

McCain is similar in ego and arrogance to the other Mac. But if he blunders as president, there will be no way to recall him short of impeachment by the House and removal by the Senate, and we all remember how that worked with Clinton.

Wilson, FDR, LBJ, and Reagan

What about other presidents under strain?

* Although World War I lasted less than 2 years for the USA, President Wilson‘s health deteriorated fast, and he suffered a debilitating stroke less than a year after the war ended; his wife ran the government. He died 4 years later, age 67.

* President-for-Life FDR long was in failing health when he was elected to a 4th term in 1944, as World War II was winding down. He then took a long and arduous winter journey to Yalta, in the USSR, where in Feb. 1945 Stalin snookered him into “giving” the Soviets Eastern Europe. FDR died two months later, age 63.

* LBJ‘s long and unpopular war in Vietnam destroyed his health. He became obsessed with the minutest details of the war. He declined to run again in 1968.  He died 4 years after leaving office, age 64.

* Ronald Reagan wound down the Cold War across his 8 years in office. He was just shy of 70 when he took office, so younger than McCain is today. Yet his health began failing in his second term, as the early signs of Alzheimer’s began appearing. And he let the Neocons trick him into the Iran-Contra scandal that marred his last two years in office.

Counter-examples

On the other hand, President Truman was in mostly good health throughout the Korean War, leaving office at age 68 and living to 88. And the current President Bush, age 62,  has aged fairly well despite running the Iraq and Afghan wars. But those presidents, like Reagan, seem to be able to relax amid the stress.

McCain can’t.

We won: Time to leave Iraq

Everybody says Iraq now has its act together. USAToday reported today:

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took a victory lap Monday through the streets of Amarah, the latest city to be retaken from the control of Shiite militias.

The Iraqi army reported no major resistance during four days of operations, and al-Maliki walked freely through the southern city Monday. In a speech attended by local tribal leaders, he vowed to continue “using force against those who revolt against the will of the people.”

A string of military successes since March — in Basra, Mosul, Sadr City, and now Amarah — has brought a degree of peace to once-violent cities and significantly strengthened al-Maliki’s government. The Iraqi army has routed the militias largely on their own, depending on the U.S. military for air power and strategic support but conducting most operations themselves.

Also, U.S. casualties are way down. Roadside fatalities of U.S. troops are down 90% in the past year. The Bush folks say the surge worked.

Iraq now is the fifth-highest exporter of oil to the U.S.

Not only that, but Iraq beat U.S. troops 9-0 in a soccer game, what Iraqis misleadingly call “football.” It’s clear that normalcy has returned. We lost at soccer but won the war.

So, let’s bring our troops home. What else are they there for? Are they going to stay until Iraqis start calling “football,” “soccer”? Or maybe Baghdad is waiting for an NFL expansion franchise?

We won.

Let’s go.

Bring all the troops home to their lonely, loving families.

Now.

Bush and Cheney should resign after McClellan revelations

I’ve been saying for years that Bush and Cheney lied us into the Iraq War. This war was not needed, and now has killed more than 4,000 brave American troops and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians.

Former Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan gives us the first — of many to follow — rat’s eye view of the inside of the Bush rat’s nest. You’ve probably read most of the revealing excerpts from his new book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” — published next Monday — so I’ll just include a couple:

He signed off on a strategy for selling the war that was less than candid and honest.

Or, as the anti-war slogan has it: Bush lied, people died.

The Iraq war was not necessary.

Like I’ve been saying from before it started. As I have been pointing out for six years, Saddam didn’t have WMD, didn’t have ties to al-Qaeda, and couldn’t hurt the USA.

The Bush team imitated some of the worst qualities of the Clinton White House and even took them to new depth.

Clinton was a massive liar, but any American with an IQ above room temperature knew he was lying. A lot of people still bought his hokum because they wanted to believe it was true, like some people believe the U.S. Constitution can be restored.

Bush was different because he had that East Coast patrician sensibility about “honor”: he went to Phillips Academy, Yale, and Harvard, after all. They’ve been running the country for 450 years and England for millennia before that. The patricians know what’s best. They’re better than us. They have a code of chivalry — don’t they?

Maybe they used to. But now that reputation is just a facade behind which lies even bigger than those told by Clinton were percolated, then unleashed upon us.

If there’s any chivalry left with Bush and Cheney, they would resign today. Of course, there isn’t — and they won’t.

They’re dishonorable and mendacious cads and bounders, the opposite of the ancient ideal of the gentleman. They’re chickenhawks who avoided Nam, but sent young men — and even, the ultimate unchivalrous act — young women, to die in a pointless and unneeded war.

They won’t resign because men who commit the kinds of crimes they did are not the type to act honorably.

Just McClellan’s book, but the many more that will follow, will tell the story of this administration of infamy.

The truth will out.

McCain: Four more years! (of the Iraq War)

In a weird speech, a kind of scripted free-association about the world after John McCain has been president for four years, the candidate said the Iraq War finally would be winding down. That means, if he’s right, in January 2013 the Iraq War will have lasted nearly 10 years.

And the Afghan War, assuming it’s also going on when McCain potentially leaves office, will have lasted longer, more than 11 years.

Let’s look at how long other American wars lasted:

Vietnam War: 8 years — scored from the beginning of LBJ’s major escalation in early 1965 (just after he won re-election claiming Goldwater was a warmonger!) to Nixon’s troop pullout in early 1973.

Civil War: 4 years.

World War II: 3-3/4 years.

Korean War: 3 years, one month.

1812 War: Less than 3 years.

World War I: Less than 2 years.

Mexican-American War (1846-48): Less than 2 years.

Spanish-American War (1898): 5 months.

Gulf War (1991): 3 months.

Whether you agree with the Iraq War or not, it’s just lasting too long. And McCain wants it to last even longer.

This is going to be a major campaign issue, eclipsed only by the imploding economy. It’s McCain’s top issue, and he’s going to keep pushing it until he loses.

Bush, McCain, the Neocons, and most Republicans are like Gollum in “Lord of the Rings” (who actually looks like Bush), and the Iraq War is the ring they are addicted to: “Precious, precious, precious! My precious! O my precious!”

Outrage: West Point footballer exempted from Iraq duty

West Point cadets train to lead men in combat. When a war is on, they get shipped straight to the front.

Not Caleb Campbell, a football star for Army. AP reports:

In full cadet uniform, Army’s Caleb Campbell sat upright in one of Radio City Music Hall’s plush seats. On his head was a Detroit Lions ballcap.

Cupped in his left hand was his ticket out of Iraq.

It was the card the Lions turned in to take Campbell 218th overall on Sunday at the NFL draft, changing his post-graduation plans to lead a platoon, one that may well have seen combat.

“I’m very fortunate,” Campbell said. “Without the Army and the academy … I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

Campbell is the first Army football player to benefit from a new policy allowing athletes with a chance to play professionally to complete their service by serving as recruiters and in the reserves.

He’ll still be an Army officer, just working as a recruiter as he earns millions as a safety for the Lions.

It’s a common story: Rich man’s war, poor man’s fight.

If you’re among the powerful, like Bush, Cheney, and Campbell, you get out of wars and profit from them. If you’re a peon, you fight and die.

World War II heroes

This also shows America’s Elite doesn’t take the Iraq War seriously (despite their lying rhetoric). In World War II, the wealthy as well as sports and showbiz figures were expected to fight, and maybe die.

Joe Kennedy Jr., Glenn Miller, and Leslie Howard were killed in the war.

Ted Williams was a war hero, a fighter ace — then went on to fight in the Korean War. Jimmy Stewart was a decorated bomber pilot; the French gave him the Croix de Guerre, with palm. Robert Montgomery became a lieutenant commander in the Navy. Clark Gable, though in his 40s, according to Wikipedia:

as an observer-gunner in B-17 Flying Fortresses between May 4 and September 23, 1943, [he earned] the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his efforts. Adolf Hitler esteemed Gable above all other actors; during the Second World War he offered a sizable reward to anyone who could capture and bring Gable unscathed to him.

Jackie Robinson wouldn’t break baseball’s infamous “color barrier” until 1947. But in World War II served in the Army and missed combat only because he resisted the Army’s segregation of blacks and was discharged.

My favorite director, John Ford, was a Naval Reserve officer nearing 50 when the war started. He was put in charge of film crews for Naval Intelligence. At the Battle of Midway, he was wounded. He filmed the D-Day invasion. He later became an admiral.

The policy will backfire

Showing its usual cluelessness, the Bush administration thinks this new policy somehow will increase recruits. The opposite will happen as youngsters see the obvious double standard at work.

Instead of Lt. Caleb Campbell going to Iraq, Lt. Kilroy Smith will go. Lt. Smith believed the Army propaganda about “An Army of One” and joined to get help with his college education. Although in good shape, Lt. Smith obviously isn’t an NFL-caliber athlete. Maybe on patrol his reflexes will be a little slower than Lt. Campbell’s would have been, and he’ll get himself and his platoon killed; whereas if Lt. Campbell had been there, everybody would have survived.

In the past, athletes starring at the service academies knew they would not be treated differently. They would have to put in five years of service after graduating. Then they could go to professional sports. Roger Staubach graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, then served in Vietnam. After his service, he joined the Dallas Cowboys as a 27-year-old rookie, and won 2 Super Bowls. He’s in the NFL Hall of Fame.

Napoleon McCallum starred for Navy. He briefly played for the L.A. Raiders while serving in the Navy. But then he began his full-time, five-year “active duty obligation,” as it’s called. After his commitment was met, he again played for the Raiders until a busted knee ended his career. The Navy named the Napoleon McCallum Trophy after him, giving it to the Navy player who gains the most all-purpose yards.

That’s the way it’s supposed to be: You get your free education at the taxpayers’ expense, you fulfill your active duty obligation as a member of the president’s officer corps, maybe you go to war — and only then do you go on to the NFL and make millions.

Caleb Campbell, if he went to Iraq, might get killed or badly wounded. Or he might just get a minor wound — say a broken leg — that would end his NFL career, keeping him from getting those millions.

But at least he would have honorably kept the promise of service he made when he went to West Point.

It’s Pythonesque

West Point’s players are called the Black Knights. That’s because, historically in Europe, the knights got to run things in return for training to defend the country, duchy, principality, etc. Fighting was their job. Jousts were to get ready for fights, not to be just entertainment.

The Caleb Campbell escapade turns the the West Point Black Knights into the Black Knight from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (YouTube here.)

“Tis but a scratch!”