Here is a veteran’s response to Senator John Walsh’s claim that PTSD is to blame for him committing plagiarism:
What really upsets me is Walsh’s use of post-traumatic stress disorder to defend academic dishonesty. It has the potential to further distort society’s understanding of mental trauma and create space for veterans to misuse their diagnoses in any number of situations, academic or otherwise. [New York Times]
Read the rest at the link.
I highly recommend everyone read OFK’s take on all the recent US initiatives regarding North Korea. He offers an interesting option that I hadn’t thought of before regarding the influencing of the South Korean election, but could the Bush Administration be that clever?
Last month the IDF made headlines with former female soldiers appearing in a sexy commercial and photo spread in Maxim magazine. Well now here is a video of current serving female Israeli soldiers:
As you can see the IDF has no shortage of good looking women with guns.
Just another example of the politicization of the military. Did this guy have to post the guy’s wedding pictures and slime his wife? That is pretty low.
The sell out of the families of abducted South Korean citizens by the Korean government continues:
President Roh Moo-hyun urged his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-il, to help resolve the issue of South Korean abductees and prisoners of war living in the North during their summit talks in Pyongyang on Wednesday, but Kim’s reaction was negative, according to Roh’s office Cheong Wa Dae.
"Roh and the South Korean delegation openly raised the abduction and POW issues at the summit talks, but only confirmed a wide gap in perception," Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Cheon Ho-seon was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency.
"But the government won’t give up the abduction and POW issues, and will continue to raise them at the upcoming inter-Korean prime ministerial talks scheduled for November in Seoul," said Cheon. [Korea Herald]
"Wide gap in perception"? What perception problem is there about returning people kidnapped by the North Koreans to their families in the south? It is quite obvious that 66 year old grandmas will have to continue to launch rescue operations to free their captive husbands since the Korean government is having a "wide gap in perception" on the status of these abducted citizens.
This is actually a pretty smart policy being implemented by the State Department and makes me wonder why they didn’t do this long ago:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday ordered federal agents to ride with Blackwater USA escorts of U.S. diplomatic convoys in Baghdad to tighten oversight after a shooting in which private guards are accused of killing 13 Iraqi civilians.
She also ordered video cameras installed in Blackwater vehicles.
The steps will require the State Department to deploy dozens of additional in-house Diplomatic Security agents to accompany Blackwater guards and are the first in a series of moves Rice is expected to take to boost control of contractors the agency depends on to protect its diplomats in Iraq. [Matthew Lee, AP]
Police officers in the US long ago installed video cameras to help protect the police from all the false claims of police brutality and now the State Department has to do the same thing. The deploying of additional diplomatic security agents once again leaves me wondering why didn’t they do this a long time ago? I can only guess it is because when Blackwater guys die in Iraq no one cares when a State Department guy dies it will makes news.
Don’t expect this issue to go away because I fully expect more manufactured controversies to be forthcoming in Iraq if not against Blackwater than against other government contractors. Another important question that needs to be asked is that as Iraq transfers more and more into a police role for the US military will the military need cameras installed as well?
Has anyone else noticed that the fact that the US military met their 2007 recruiting goals is hardly mentioned in the media? Back in August I called the media’s attempts to politicize the fact that the active duty Army did not meet their June and July recruiting goals a “False Recruiting Crisis” and the final statistics prove me right.
Could you imagine what the headlines would be if the military did not meet their recruiting goals? I think we all know the answer to that one.
Now here is my prediction for headlines next year. In 2008 the military is going to have a hard time making the recruiting mission because of the plan to expand the force. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates shares my concerns:
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that he is “inclined to approve” an Army request to cut a year off of the five-year plan to expand the active-duty force.
“I’m probably going to recommend that they go ahead and give it a try,” he told reporters during a Pentagon press conference.
However, Gates said, “my questions are focused principally on whether they can do it, in terms of recruitment, and whether they can do so without lowering standards.” [Stars & Stripes]
To increase the Army by 74,000 soldiers over five years means that the Army would have to recruit at most an additional 14,500 soldiers a year. This number can be off set by the number of re-enlistments which I think will continue to be strong. However, recruiting next year is going to be tough because of the January announcement to further expand the military. If the military does not meet the recruiting goals expect sensationalized media reports with little no context about the expanding of the military. Additionally it’s an election year and the final recruiting stats will be released a month before the presidential election.
So I fully expect the Democrats to jump on this as an example of a “broken military” as they have in the past. Remember next year that you heard it here first; to expect the politicization of US military recruiting numbers in 2008.
This is definitely the best article I have read yet on the status of the Iraq War:
The great question in deciding whether to keep fighting in Iraq is not about the morality and self-interest of supporting a struggling democracy that is also one of the most important countries in the world. The question is whether the war is winnable and whether we can help the winning of it. The answer is made much easier by the fact that three and a half years after the start of the insurgency, most of the big questions in Iraq have been resolved. Moreover, they have been resolved in ways that are mostly towards the positive end of the range of outcomes imagined at the start of the project. The country is whole. It has embraced the ballot box. It has created a fair and popular constitution. It has avoided all-out civil war. It has not been taken over by Iran. It has put an end to Kurdish and marsh Arab genocide, and anti-Shia apartheid. It has rejected mass revenge against the Sunnis. As shown in the great national votes of 2005 and the noisy celebrations of the Iraq football team’s success in July, Iraq survived the Saddam Hussein era with a sense of national unity; even the Kurds—whose reluctant commitment to autonomy rather than full independence is in no danger of changing—celebrated. Iraq’s condition has not caused a sectarian apocalypse across the region. The country has ceased to be a threat to the world or its region. The only neighbours threatened by its status today are the leaders in Damascus, Riyadh and Tehran. [Bartle Bull, Prospect Magazine]
Make sure to read the entire article, especially his reporting on Sadr. I will remain skeptical about Sadr until he shows otherwise, but it is quite clear that Iraq is reaching a tipping point or has already reached a tipping point and we just don’t know it yet. That doesn’t mean things are going to be easy from here on out because Al Qaeda still isn’t finished and a final confrontation with the Mahdi Army has yet to occur, so there are plenty of challenges left. However, trends are definitely pointing towards a sustainable Iraq.
I recommend further reading on this over at Milblogs.
Leave it to the Army to put a happy spin on traumatic brain injuries:
A traumatic brain injury (TBI) can happen anytime, anywhere, and to anyone.
Each year TBI contributes to a substantial number of deaths and cases of permanent disability. This fact sheet was developed to accompany the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center’s (DVBIC) “Survive, Thrive, and Alive!” brain injury awareness and prevention video.* It provides: (a) a general overview of TBI, (b) prevention tips to help you and your family reduce the risk of TBI, and (c) a list of organizations that can provide you with additional resources and information on TBI.
Now would you want your buddy diagnosing you with a brain injury?
I love the Government Accountability Office. Today they just exposed something that has irked me for awhile.
