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A week’s collection (except items 1 and 2), of news items and OpEds
reflecting the difficult issues inherent in the accelerated militarization of
foreign policy. KwC New Today: Reuters: World military spending tops $1 Trillion in 2004; US leads the pack. World military spending rose for a
sixth year running in 2004, growing by 5 percent to $1.04 trillion on the back
of "massive" U.S. budgetary allocations for its war on terror. With expenditures of $455 billion, the United States accounted for almost half the global
figure, more than the combined total of the 32 next most powerful nations, said SIPRI, which is widely recognized
for the reliability of its data. In
2003, U.S. spending stood at $405 billion, SIPRI said. "The major determinant of the
world trend in military expenditure is the change in the United States, with
its 47 percent of the world total," the Swedish
government-funded institute said. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0607-03.htm Army plans to keep
troop levels through 2006 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A33540-2005Jan24.html Partial Transparency: Pentagon releases some photos of war dead http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-photos29apr29,0,1112215.story?coll=la-home-nation US military expert says Iraq on
verge of civil war: Pat Lang,
retired top Middle East intelligence official at the Pentagon, says, "It's just political rhetoric to say we are not in a
civil war. We've been in
a civil war for a long time." "I think we are really on
the edge" of all-out civil war, said Noah Feldman, a New York University
law professor who worked for the U.S. coalition in Iraq. He said the insurgency has been
"getting stronger every passing day. When the violence recedes, it is a sign that they are
regrouping."
While there is a chance the current flare of violence is the insurgency's last
gasp, he said, "I have not seen any
coherent evidence that we are winning against the insurgency." http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-woiraq0512,0,4630319.story?coll=ny-top-headlines Generals offer sober assessment
of Iraq; troop pullback less likely than earlier optimistic
projections. ”Only
weeks ago, in the aftermath of the elections, American generals offered a more
upbeat view, one that was tied to a surge of Iraqi confidence that one
commander in Baghdad now describes as euphoria. But this week, five
high-ranking officers, speaking separately at the Pentagon and in Baghdad, and
through an e-mail exchange from Baghdad with a reporter in Washington, ranged
with unusual candor and detail over problems confronting the war effort. By insisting that they not be identified, the three officers based in
Baghdad were following a Pentagon policy requiring American commanders in
Baghdad to put "an Iraqi face" on the war, meaning that Iraqi
commanders should be the ones talking to reporters, not Americans. That policy has
been questioned recently by senior Americans in Iraq, who say Iraqi commanders
have failed to step forward, leaving a news vacuum that has allowed the
insurgents' successful attacks, not their failures, to dominate news coverage.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/19/international/middleeast/19iraq.html?ex=1274 US to build 4 giant bases in
Iraq http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5199524-103681,00.html Military recruiters lie about
dangers in Iraq http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0521-06.htm
and http://www.channelcincinnati.com/news/4508233/detail.html Study says injuries may not be a
factor in stress disorders Injured troops aren’t more
likely to develop traumatic stress disorders than their uninjured comrades, at
least in the short-term, according to a study released last week. Researchers
following the psychological recovery of 613 service members admitted to Walter
Reed Army Medical Center found about 4 percent of the wounded fighters showed
signs of traumatic stress initially, with about 12 percent showing lingering
stress disorders six months later. Those numbers are comparable to what has
been observed in all combat troops, researchers said. http://www.estripes.com/ The Children’s
Crusade: Military programs move into middle schools to fish for
future soldiers http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2136/ Leave My Child Alone!
A little known provision, Section
9528, of the No Child Left Behind Act requires public high schools
to send student information to military recruiters. A national coalition has
launched a Military Opt Out campaign, providing access to the Opt Out
form. See http://www.leavemychildalone.org/ and http://www.militaryfreezone.org/ Tillman’s family blasts Bush
administration for lying about ‘friendly fire’ death; charge the Pentagon knew for a month before telling the
family the truth, so that the funeral would serve as a recruiting and
patriotism boost. Father: “They blew up
their poster boy.” http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/05/23/tillmans_parents_criticize_army_investigations?mode=PF Officers plot exit strategy from
military careers. “Many
young lieutenants and captains, key leaders in combat, are deciding against
Army careers in light of the open-ended war on terrorism. http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-captains22may22,1,5134094,print.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage AWOL in America: The Pentagon has estimated that since
the start of the current conflict in Iraq, more than 5,500 U.S. military
personnel have deserted. "Some of them leave because they're unwilling to
kill, some because of family and personal problems and some because of the
unjust recruiting process." Original source: Harper’s; found @ http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/15/1453256 Desertion huge problem for US: The most recent
Pentagon figures suggest that 5133 troops remain missing from duty. Of these,
2376 are sought by the Army, 1410 by the Navy, 1297 by the Marines and 50 by
the Air Force. Some have been missing for decades. But campaigners say the true figure of those who have gone
Awol could be much, much higher. Staff who run a volunteer hotline to help
desperate soldiers and new recruits looking to get out or else having
discovered at basic training that military life is not for them, say the number
of calls has increased by 50 per cent since 9/11. Last year alone, the GI
Rights Hotline received more than 30,000 calls. At the moment the hotline is
receiving up to 3000 calls a month and the volunteers say that by the time a
soldier or new recruit dials the help line he or she has almost always decided
to get out by one means or another. "People are calling us because there is a real
problem," said Robert Dove, a Quaker who works in the Boston
office of the American Friends Service Committee, one of several volunteer
groups that have operated the hotline since 1995. "We do not profess to be
lawyers or therapists but we do provide both types of support." http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10126890 Guantanamo defines the US to
Muslims http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/21/international/asia/21gitmo.html?hp&ex=1116734400&en=a7ee3f336b4069f3&ei=5094&partner=homepage Biden says US should close Gitmo (Columnist
Friedman and Human Rights First’s Michael Posner made the same argument
earlier) http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gitmo6jun06,1,7775046.story?coll=la-headlines-nation Tarnished image abroad fails to
register with Americans http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0521-02.htm
and http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5198789-103681,00.html Anti-U.S. anger spreading in
Islamic states, survey finds:
Anti-American anger in Islamic countries continues to spread across age
and economic groups, according to a new survey of Muslim elites. But the survey
of focus groups, carried out for the Council on Foreign Relations, also
concluded that hostility
could be softened if the U.S. administration adopted a humbler tone, listened
more closely to Muslim concerns, drew sharper attention to U.S. aid programs,
including assistance to tsunami victims, and agreed to disagree on key issues,
such as Iraq and Israeli-Palestinian conflict. http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/18/news/poll.php Scheer: US
its own worst enemy in Iraq http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-oe-scheer17may17,0,4358906.column?coll=la-home-headlines The Rumsfeld Stain
By Bob Herbert, NYT, Monday, May 23, 2005 How does Donald Rumsfeld survive as
defense secretary? Much of what has happened to the
military on his watch has been catastrophic. In Iraq, more than 1,600 American
troops have died and many thousands have been maimed in a war that Mr. Rumsfeld
mishandled from the beginning and still has no idea how to win. The generals
are telling us now that the U.S. is likely to be bogged down in Iraq for years,
and there are whispers circulating about the possibility of "defeat." Potential recruits are staying away from the armed forces in
droves. Most Americans want no part of the administration's hapless venture in
Iraq. A woman in Connecticut with two college-age sons said to me recently:
"My boys should die in Baghdad? For what?" Parents
from coast to coast are going out of their way to dissuade their children from
joining the military. Recruiters, desperate and in many cases emotionally
distraught after repeatedly missing their monthly goals, began abandoning
admission standards and signing up individuals who were physically, mentally or
morally unfit for service. The abuses became so widespread that the Army suspended
recruiting on Friday so recruiters could spend the day being retrained in the
legal and ethical standards they are supposed to maintain. The Army is going
through its toughest year for recruiting since the nation went to an
all-volunteer military in 1973. The
military spent decades rebuilding its reputation and regaining the respect of
the vast majority of the American people after the debacle in Vietnam. Under
Mr. Rumsfeld, that hard-won achievement is being reversed. He invaded Iraq with too few troops, and
too many of them were poorly trained and inadequately equipped. The stories
about American troops dying on the battlefield because of a lack of protective
armor have now been widely told. The insurgency in Iraq appeared to take Mr. Rumsfeld
completely by surprise. He expected to win the war in a walk. Or, perhaps, a
strut. Now the military is in a fix. Many of the troops have
served multiple tours in Iraq and are weary. The insurgency remains strong, and
the Iraq military has proved to be a disappointing ally. A senior American officer, quoted last week in The Times,
said that while he still believed the effort in Iraq would succeed, it could
take "many years." As if all this were not enough, there is also the grotesque
and deeply shameful issue that will always be a part of Mr. Rumsfeld's legacy - the manner in
which American troops have treated prisoners under their control in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Guant�namo Bay, Cuba. There is no longer any doubt that large numbers of troops
responsible for guarding and interrogating detainees somehow loosed their
moorings to humanity, and began behaving as sadists, perverts and criminals. The catalog of confirmed atrocities is
huge. Consider just one paragraph from a long and horrifying story on Friday by
Tim Golden of The Times about the torture and brutal deaths of two Afghan
inmates at the hands of U.S. troops: "In
sworn statements to Army investigators, soldiers describe one female
interrogator with a taste for humiliation stepping on the neck of one prostrate
detainee and kicking another in the genitals. They tell of a shackled prisoner
being forced to roll back and forth on the floor of a cell, kissing the boots
of his two interrogators as he went. Yet another prisoner is made to pick
plastic bottle caps out of a drum mixed with excrement and water as part of a
strategy to soften him up for questioning." These were among the milder abuses to come to light. The
continuum of bad behavior that has been a hallmark of the so-called war on
terror extends from this kind of activity to incidents of extreme torture and
death. Neither the troops nor the American public signed
on for a war in Iraq that would last many years. And I can't believe there are
many Americans who wanted their military sullied by the wanton behavior of the
torture crowd. The
troops who do their jobs honestly and diligently, and who fight bravely when
they have to, have been betrayed by leaders who encouraged abusive behavior and
allowed atrocities to flourish. Mr. Rumsfeld has driven the military into
a ruinous quagmire, and there is no evidence at all that he's capable of
finding a serviceable route out. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/23/opinion/23herbert.html?hp |
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