Romanian party ships

It's funny when The Corner devolves into infighting. This case is KLo's blathering about the problems of porn on military bases "bears scrutiny." Lisa Schiffren talks some sense, and gets into some interesting cases of supplying "R&R" for the troops in the First Gulf War.

Back in 1991, during Desert Storm, I worked at the Pentagon. I was, at first, taken aback to see routine message traffic cross my desk discussing explicitly the logistical arrangements for "R&R" for the troops. How were the boys at bases in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and how were they going to get action? The problem, I still recall, was that the normal ports of call in nearby Africa were having problems with AIDS, which was still newish. Whichever country was the traditional port was very miffed at losing the business, because those soldiers at the bars and brothels were a big source of hard currency. Almost anywhere in a reasonable distance was under the sway of the mullahs. I bet you're wondering how the military solved this problem. My recollection is a little hazy, since this was something I followed mainly for entertainment (as did my Special Ops colleagues). But I believe the government of Romania made an offer. Eastern Europe was just emerging from the Soviet boot, and a bunch of those countries really wanted the business. Romania was judged to have better resort infrastructure than most. And I also believe that one of the less religious Gulf emirates decided that it would allow a few huge "party ships" to dock just offshore. I suppose we transported our troops to Romania. I don't know who brought the hookers to the ships. Everyone winked and nodded, and the troops carried on.

It's continually hilarious how Republicans bleat about moral problems, then create situations that exacerbate the things they fear. Of course, this allows them to increase their outraged cries of moral crisis, which then helps get them re-elected. Nice racket they have there.

Army of Dude

Army of Dude - One of the few remaining milbloggers the army hasn't yet shut down. A recent post:

What has been bothering me this whole deployment is the brevity and formality in which the media handles the death of soldiers. It always goes, “PFC John Smith, Norman, Oklahoma, killed by enemy small arms fire in Baghdad. Assigned to 1/43 Engineers, Third Infantry Division.” What a crock to read that in a paper. It would be wholly appropriate to dedicate a full color photo and a real biography in every paper in America. The anonymity of dead soldiers would evaporate and the public would be forced to look at the faces of the fallen. Would it set in progress change? Perhaps. It certainly would go to show that we’re out here every day, dying for an ideal long forgotten. As for me, I started to sign these entries with my initials long ago to avoid detection by superiors. I could and still can get in trouble for what I’ve written. Lately this blog has been passed around to dudes of every rank, and those who would be punishing me have become readers. So it’s no longer necessary to be sneaky and secretive, another anonymous soldier. My name is Alex Horton, and I’m a 22 year old from Frisco, Texas. I can recite Pulp Fiction line by line and my favorite color is blue. I want to be a journalist when I grow up, and I want to see every part of the world. For the first time in my life I’m an avid reader. Fifteen months here has been fifteen months away from Lauren, the girl I’m crazy about. This wouldn’t be much of a blog without her, as she’s the inspiration for anything creative coming out of me, my beautiful muse.

In the future, I want my children to grow up with the belief that what I did here was wrong, in a society that doesn’t deem that idea unpatriotic.

Herbert Hoover said, "Older men declare war. But it is the youth who must fight and die." These are the young men we can’t afford to go without. Brian Chevalier and Jesse Williams, George Bush and Secretary Gates, we’re all flesh and blood. Every life is sacred. You probably don’t know the names of the first two. But you should.

Makes me cry. This guy and other like him are the Eric Maria Remarques of our time, and I can only hope that it's him and not the Ernst Jungers who influence how this war is interpreted here after it's over.

Another recent post describes the juxtaposition of meaning and meaninglessness experienced by a self-aware soldier with the soul of a writer:

This occupation, this money pit, this smorgasbord of superfluous aggression is getting more hopeless and dismal by the second. It’s maddening to think that more than a year’s worth of blood, sweat and tears will lead to little more than a pat on the back and a hideously redundant speech from someone who did none of the bleeding, sweating or crying.

Despite being in a meaningless situation, my life has never had this much meaning. I watch the backs of my friends and they do the same for me. I’ve killed to protect them, and they’ve killed to protect me. For friends and family, being deployed is like being pregnant or surviving a car wreck; everyone is nice to you all of a sudden. People I don’t even know send me kind words and packages from all over. They came out of the woodwork knowing my plight and shared with me heartfelt hope and luck. The fact that you’re reading this now, dear reader, is a testament to that. Would you have cared about what I thought, felt or did two years ago? This position I’m in, shared by less than one percent of the U.S. population, has given me the distinct privilege of sharing my experiences and ruminations of this war, observations undiluted by perpetually delirious officials like General Petreaus and mainstream media sirens. I have felt every extreme of the human condition, physically, morally and emotionally. I’ve never laughed so hard, cried so long or felt more ashamed of myself in all of my life. In a matter of weeks it’ll be over, and I’ll have just the memories of enduring 130 degree heat, and poker games lasting well into the night. I’ll look back on the hysterical laughter during fifteen hour Baghdad clears, the terror of being pinned down by machine gun fire, the sight of a Stryker on its side and the unfolding of a body bag under the flames of a nearby school, unzipped tenderly to fit the body of Chevy as RPGs screamed overhead. Soon this place will all be in the past.

We need to bring him and his brothers home for good. Now.

"Shock Troops", "Scott Thomas", and war reporting comtroversies

So TNR publishes a piece called "Shock Troops" by a "Scott Thomas", who writes about all the terrible things he and his buddies did over in Iraq. Another entry in the 'war is hell' genre, with a heavy dose of self-reflection on the implications for one's morality, sanity, etc. (Point #1: this is a great bit of soldier storytelling, whether fiction, semifiction, or nonfiction is hard to tell.)

Needless to say, the warbloggers are not pleased. They call it a made-up hack job whose purpose s to smear the troops. Now the "Thomas" has revealed himself as Scott Thomas Beauchamp, real soldier and aspiring writer, they find other ways to ignore reality. That's what they do best. (Point #2: the story is the latest exhibit of the right blogosphere's descent into cultural combat straight out of Weimar.)

Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has the best piece I've read on the controversy surrounding the story. He connects it to a video he saw once of college students abusing baboons they were supposed to be experimenting on:

I saw not only cruelty to animals, but also a profound failure on the part of the professors who should have been there to prevent this sort of thing from happening. .... [A]nyone who puts a student in a morally dangerous situation like this has an obligation to try to see that they get out of it without moral injury. But no one did that for these students. They were left to find their way on their own. And that's just wrong.

(Point #3: the story itself, whether true or not, reflects the condition of the military as designed by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. Lack of leadership at the top creates atrocities at the bottom.)

(Link to the original story itself will have to wait until TNR gets its shit sorted out with my subscription. Starting to hate their customer service as much as their increasing illiberalism.)

sick and wrong

video of American soldiers in Iraq taunting kids with bottles of clean water. one to pair with the "Humvee Traffic Driving in Baghdad"

Now let's get out there and win those hearts and minds!!

Rethinking the War

Sullivan's change of heart continues... this edition, based on the recent survey on how our military morals have been flushed down the crapper.

He cites a WashPost story on psychological stress in the military:

"A considerable number of Soldiers and Marines are conducting combat operations everyday of the week, 10-12 hours per day seven days a week for months on end," wrote Col. Carl Castro and Maj. Dennis McGurk, both psychologists. "At no time in our military history have Soldiers or Marines been required to serve on the front line in any war for a period of 6-7 months."

And this is what transforms ordinary soldiers into torturers and killers. As wrong as Sully was in supporting the war initially, to his credit he has come around ever since the Abu Ghraib pics laid bare how we are losing our soul in this war. And in the long term, this damages us and our security in a very real way:

This is why the Iraq war, so far, must be seen as a huge al Qaeda propaganda victory. Their narrative is that Muslims are under siege by an evil, imperialist, infidel army that tortures and abuses Muslims at will. Before Iraq, this was an absurdity. After Iraq, less so. Iraq has helped sustain al Qaeda's narrative with imagery and violence that will always stain the image of America in the Middle East.

longer tours and solderis' mental health

Firedoglake description of a Pentagon report on soldiers' mental health. (Note that the report's release was delayed from November, so that it wouldn't impact the election of Bush's surge plan.) Links to an Editor & Publisher summary of the findings, which include:

• Only 47 percent of the soldiers and 38 percent of Marines said noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect.

• About a third of troops said they had insulted or cursed at civilians in their presence.

• About 10 percent of soldiers and Marines reported mistreating civilians or damaging property when it was not necessary. Mistreatment includes hitting or kicking a civilian.

• Forty-four percent of Marines and 41 percent of soldiers said torture should be allowed to save the life of a soldier or Marine.

• Thirty-nine percent of Marines and 36 percent of soldiers said torture should be allowed to gather important information from insurgents.

And so the once-vaunted morality of the American military takes another step down. Thanks Bush and Rummy!! You've turned us into murdering torturers like everyone else.

One of the biggest problems here is that longer tours lead to increased stress, which then warps attitudes.

The study team said shorter deployments or longer intervals between deployments would give soldiers and Marines a better chance “to reset mentally” before returning to combat. The Pentagon last month announced a policy that extends tours of duty for all active duty Army troops from a year to 15 months. Pollock acknowledged that was “going to be a stress” on troops.

Marine tours are seven months, one likely reason that soldier morale was lower than Marine morale, she said.

Pike contrasted Iraq’s campaign to World War I, saying: “The trenches were pretty stressful, but a unit would only be up at the front for a few months and then get rotated to the rear. There’s no rear in Iraq; you’re subject to combat stress for your entire tour.”

So the Iraq War is more stressful to the troops than WWI!?!? Jeezus.

Americans used 'comfort women'

CNN/AP story about how American soldiers allowed the comfort women system to continue, and took advantage of it despite having some evidence that the women were coerced into prostitution.

"Sadly, we police had to set up sexual comfort stations for the occupation
troops," recounts the official history of the Ibaraki Prefectural Police
Department, whose jurisdiction is just northeast of Tokyo. "The strategy was,
through the special work of experienced women, to create a breakwater to protect
regular women and girls."

MacArthur stopped the practice in spring 1946. Story here.

Afghan Garden of Eden

One of the few green spots in Afghanistan... Sandbox blog post describes conflict between Pashtun and nomadic Cuchies that starts when Cuchie horse drinks from Pashtun oasis.

http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/2007/04/the_garden_of_e.html

Author worries that it could have turned into another Mai Lai massacre of civilians - and if it had, he would have been responsible!

The Termite Mound

Blog post at The Sandbox - Doonesbury's military blog for soldiers deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. This one describes conditions at a combat outpost in baghdad - very WWI-like conditions it seems.

http://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/2007/04/the_termite_mou.html

Ends with news coming down that DoD has unilaterally extended rotations to 15 months... they find out through Yahoo news, not from the military itself. And they know some of them will die because of that decision.

AP picture "shows" soldier flipping bird

The latest in the wingnut/moonbat photoshop wars. Contrast with Soviet and other historical modifying of photography. Now people are more sophisticated, both in the techniques to edit photos or to detect the modification. But it's still just as effective if people only get the first photo and never see the debunking.

http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/223905.php