U.S. soldiers salute a fallen comrade at Fort Riley.
In an effort to encourage troops to seek psychiatric counseling for combat stress, the U.S. military announced Thursday it will no longer consider such treatment when issuing security clearances. The U.S.
Jules wanted to know where the reports are the show all of the veterans who either do not suffer the after effects or that go on to cope with their symptoms, living productive, fairly normal lives. Well, if we reverse this study information on the fact sheet, if 18% develop PTS or the more chronic PTSD, that means at least 82% of all troops come home to healthy, productive lives. With over 1 million already having served in Iraq and Afghanistan, that's approximately 820,000 troops. With 11% of the 18% that goes on to have the more chronic "disorder", that means another 70,000 who have the "acute", short term PTS and go on to live fairly healthy lives.
That is good news. Especially for our troops who may be concerned that they will be part of some overwhelming number of troops who will not be able to return to "normal". However, that's really not the point. These troops, by and far, do not need our "defense". They know they are fine and going on with their lives.
There are still 11%, over 110, 000 troops, who will struggle with PTSD. Some of the 70,000 with the "acute" variety, will not receive treatment, will stop treatment or will refuse treatment and may go on to develop the chronic disorder. Then, there are the unknown numbers who will not report any symptoms, not seek treatment and be below the radar, with both soldier and family suffering. These are the people that we need to worry about, that we need to "defend".
Last year, some 67,000 soldiers returned from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan were treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Eighty-nine of them committed suicide. Perhaps even more than physical injuries, mental trauma incurred by servicemen tends to have an insidious ripple effect on the affected families and communities. Numerous studies suggest that domestic violence, child abuse, drug and alcohol abuse and other destructive behavior is a regular byproduct of untreated PTSD.
Making matters worse, as Joshua Kors reported in an award-winning Nation expose published in March of 2007, there have been numerous cases in which soldiers wounded in Iraq were suspiciously diagnosed by the military as having a personality disorder, then prevented from collecting benefits which made it virtually impossible for them to treat their PTSD. (As Kors noted, the conditions of their discharge have infuriated many in the military community, including the injured soldiers and their families, veterans' rights groups, even military officials required to process these dismissals.)
The Veterans' Mental Health Outreach and Access Act of 2007, S. 38, headed soon to the Senate floor for a vote, would seek to address the metastasizing problems of returning vet's PTSD.
John McCain says the United States could stay "100 years... 1,000... 1 million years" in Iraq. But what does he mean?
The liberal group MoveOn.org began airing ads Wednesday against Republican John McCain, citing his claim that the U.S.
Haven't we been listening to talk of "100 years" of war in Iraq for 100 years now? It certainly feels that way. But this favorite talking point of the two Democrats presidential candidates is bogus.
"Instead of offering an exit strategy for Iraq, (Sen. John McCain is) offering us a 100-year occupation," Sen. Barack Obama said on the fifth anniversary of the coalition’s move on the then-oppressed Iraq. But it could have been any day; Obama uses the sound bite often enough.
What the "100 years" talk refers to is something McCain rightly said in response to a question during a New Hampshire townhall meeting in January. The question regarded Bush’s statement that we could be in Iraq for 50 more years. McCain sensibly responded: "Make it 100. We’ve . . . been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, that’s fine with me. I hope that would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting and equipping and motivating people every single day."
When asked to clarify, he would go on to say that it could be 1,000 years, or even a million years. These are the lines that try Democrats’ souls. But McCain was right about the long war. It was a sensible answer. And though it doesn’t sound like the most attractive answer -- who wants 100 years in Iraq? -- it was straight talk from a senator who has a better track record on Iraq than most. And it may not hurt his campaign, either.
John McCain has been insisting that his 100 years in Iraq comment is being taken out of context. That in fact what he meant is that American troops can stay in Iraq for fifty or 100 years if American troops are no longer being attacked. This assertion leads to a whole new set of questions that reflect McCain's lack of understanding of what is going on inside Iraq.
First of all, how exactly does Senator McCain envision getting to a point where there are no American casualties in Iraq? The idea of a large American troop presence in Iraq that does not draw any fire is farfetched. What we have in Iraq today is some odd and complicated mix of numerous sectarian conflicts with Americans stuck in the middle. This isn’t Korea. There will be no armistice or Demilitarized Zone. Senator McCain has not laid out any kind of a roadmap or strategy for how we get to this idealized scenario where American forces are no longer being fired upon.
Second, how long does he think it will take to get to this end state that he envisions? Will it take 10 years? Will it take 20? 30? When under his plan do American troops stop taking casualties? It would be good to know.
Finally, there is the question of a permanent presence in Iraq and the strategic costs to the United States. One of the Bush Administration’s premises for the war in Iraq, was the idea that we needed to eliminate Al Qaeda. But one of the major inspirations for Al Qaeda, was the American presence in Saudi Arabia. In a similar way, creating a large permanent troop presence in Iraq would act as a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda and draw anger and suspicion from all over the Arab World.
An American soldier stands near the site of a car bombing in Iraq.
The military analysts you see on television are often ex-military officers retired to public life.
The paper offers no evidence that any of these men were using their influence to directly further a personal interest (unless one counts "networking"), and it offers no evidence of coercion on the part of the administration. So the charge is a lack of transparency, and it rests on the assumption that Americans are too stupid to surmise the likely ideological and institutional biases of a former general officer in the United State military.
Of course, Americans are not so stupid, and I suspect most will appreciate the irony of the New York Times judging retired military officers as insufficiently objective in their analysis of the war in Iraq.
We’ve known for a while that the Bush administration has been manipulating Iraqi media for propaganda purposes, but the U.S. maintains an independent fourth estate. At least, it’s supposed to.
Many of these retired military commanders knew they were being manipulated by the administration, and knew they were telling the public misleading information, but felt compelled to play along anyway.
For five years, these men have been dominating the airwaves, telling Americans that we’re “winning,” that the Bush policy is “working,” and that the media is ignoring the “good news.” It wasn’t true, as some of them are now willing to admit.
But as offensive as it is to learn about the retired military leaders regurgitating White House talking points for fear of losing lucrative contracts, it’s even more offensive that the Bush gang would view retired commanders as puppets, and the public as suckers.
Can I see your I.D.?
A number of U.S. states are considering legislation to lower the legal drinking age from the current standard of 21 -- if only to allow troops home from Iraq to drink. The move would defy a generation of federal law and public opinion in America which is strongly opposed to lowering the drinking age.
It makes little sense that America considers an 18-year-old mature enough to marry, to sign a contract, to vote and to fight and die for his country, but not mature enough to decide whether or not to have a beer.
So for all of those drawbacks, has the law worked? Supporters seem to think so. Their primary argument is the dramatic drop in the number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities since the minimum age first passed Congress in 1984. They also cite relative drops in the percentage of underage drinkers before and after the law went into effect.
But a new chorus is emerging to challenge the conventional wisdom. The most vocal of these critics is John McCardell Jr., the former president of Middlebury College in Vermont. McCardell's experience in higher education revealed to him that the federal age simply wasn't working.
It may have negligibly reduced total underage consumption, but those who did consume were much more likely to do so behind closed doors and to drink to excess in the short time they had access to alcohol. McCardell recently started the organization Choose Responsibility, which advocates moving the drinking age back to 18.
Some folks think 21 was pulled out of the air. But despite what you may think, there are some pretty good reasons that age 21 was selected.
Back in the late 1960s and early 70s a number of states lowered their drinking age from 21 to 18. In many of these states, research documented a significant increase in highway deaths of the teens affected by these laws. So, in the early 1980's a movement began to raise the drinking age back to 21. After the law changed back to 21, many of the states were monitored to check the difference in highway fatalities. Researchers found that teenage deaths in fatal car crashes dropped considerably - in some cases up to 28% - when the laws were moved back to 21.
Like it or not, it is clear that more young people were killed on the highways when the drinking age was 18. Back in 1982 when the many of the states had minimum drinking ages of 18, 55% of all fatal crashes involving youth drivers involved alcohol. Since then, the alcohol-related traffic fatality rate has been cut in half! Research estimates that from 1975-2002 more than 21,000 lives have been saved. Hard to argue with that!
Specialist Monica Brown, a U.S. Army medic, received a Silver Star for valor in March. Brown is the second female since World War II to earn the medal for her gallant actions while in combat in Iraq.
Women in the U.S. military are now a fact of life. American servicewomen are flying jets and helicopter gunships, driving and fixing trucks, searching suspected terrorists, patching the wounded and, in some cases, killing the enemy up close. Is that a good thing?
Men and women home from the war acknowledge that there are many questions from the old co-ed combat debate still unresolved, despite years of experimentation.
Shock integration happened when the administration decided to wage a war in Iraq on top of an increasingly complex operation in Afghanistan. And now women in unprecedented combat roles have become essential to sustaining force strength overseas. This situation, and all its unacceptable consequences, will only get worse as long as the Bush administration refuses to initiate troop reductions and limit deployments. The candidates contending to replace Bush, meanwhile, offer little prospect of saner policies: the Democratic candidates have been silent on the realities of co-ed combat, while the Republican nominee insists that we may be in Iraq for another century.
America never consciously chose to send women into combat, but they are there now and in some cases are paying a tragic price.
"Women aren't big and strong enough for combat." I'll buy this when someone explains why the Marine Corps will cheerfully accept a 4-foot-10 male recruit who weighs 96 pounds.
Sure, the Marines will make a man out of him, but even if they water the guy with Miracle-Gro, they won't be able to turn him into a 6-footer. The average man may be bigger and stronger than the average woman, but plenty of women are bigger and stronger than many men. Why discriminate based on gender when you could have straightforward, task-specific strength requirements?
Locking women out of combat positions may help a few American men maintain the illusion of gallantry, but it's time to acknowledge reality. Women will die alongside men in any terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and women, like men, are affected by our national defense policies. It's time to give them the right to fight for their country.
