Perspectives

Zero Default; Zero Tolerance

As the Economy plummeted, the Military tightened its recruitment standards and Congress lowered the enlistment incentives.  Re-enlistment bonuses shrank, and Congress decided against more than the legally required pay raises.  Senator Webb, a Veteran himself, and normally on the Pro-Troop side of his party put it this way: with the Economy in bad shape, we don't need to pay the Troops more to recruit the numbers we need.  He was right of course.  The recruiters have been turning away qualified applicants for some time.  Only the National Guard is missing its decreased recruiting goals.  People are signing up for a job, instead of for the Mission.

And with the process of cutting the force by another 49,000, the Army has an opportunity to weed out bad apples, right?  Between the bad economy, the increase in new recruits, and the looming cuts, the Army has to figure out who to fire, and has little incentive to tolerate any misbehavior.  This is a good thing, right?

On the heels of bad publicity over DUI's and "Sexual Assaults" and "hazing" and the repeal of DADT, "Zero Tolerance" isn't just a buzzword, but an excuse to toss out the excess, for the least of allegations.  In the Sexual Assaults report, an allegation, even if unproven, of inappropriate contact or words, is sufficient to discharge from the military.  Innocent until proven guilty isn't applied.  There are cases of individuals allegedly slapping someone's butt in a line of Troops, where insufficient evidence exists to prove misconduct, yet the individual was tossed out.

Cutting Troops in A Time of War?

In a recent conversation about the pending cuts to the number of Active Duty Troops, a reader asked, "but with the end of the War in Iraq, aren't these 'overflow' Soldiers unnecessary?"  (I'm paraphrasing.)  The base of the discussion is that the current Administration is cutting 49,000 Soldiers from the Active duty Army.  The question is whether this is a responsible thing to do, while we continue our War in Afghanistan, or if the end of the War in Iraq, and the Administration's plan to "end" the War in Afghanistan means that these Troops are no longer needed and hence can be thrown into the unemployment lines.

Some would argue that these aren't wars at all, that the Administration calls them "Overseas Contingency Operations," but to the Troops on the Ground, getting shot at, political correctness does not translate into a change of reality.  Nevertheless, we've been at war for 10 years, and one would think that we've increased the size of Our Military since the attacks of 9/11/01.  And we did, by a little bit, sorta, but most of the increase in Troops serving every day of the week has been by activating units and members of the National Guard and Reserves.  Other shortfalls in manning were filled by sending in Air Force or Navy Troops to back-fill the Army and Marines, in ground operations, in places that Navy and Air Force personnel wouldn't normally be assigned.

What's Another Trillion or Two?

The POTUS has said he's going to ask for another $1.2 Trillion debt increase.  That's $1200 Billion or $1,200,000 Million.  It seems that Trillion is just such an unfathomable number that it seems imaginary to those who are being given the bill: the taxpayers.  Unlike prior debt increases, Congress doesn't have to approve this one.  All they have to do is not fly back to Washington and oppose it.  Yeah, they agreed to that when they agreed to have the "Supercommittee" solve the spending crisis last year.

Hillary and others in the Administration have called these budget deficits the most dangerous National Security issue we face, but they just can't seem to figure out how to stop spending like drunken college kids on their parent's credit cards.  Many politicians have been accused of "tax & spend" policies, but this Administration has preferred to spend first and tax later.  They figure if the Nation is in enough financial crisis, the taxpayers will take their bitter medicine, that the opposition will approve higher taxes.

But how did we get to a $15 Trillion dollar Federal Debt?  Partially, it was a $Billion or two at a time.  During Reagan's years, after 200 years of Federal Debt, he was asking for increases of, on average, less than $110 Billion each.  It was only in the 1980's that the Total Federal Debt exceeded $1 Trillion.  As he re-built Our Military and bankrupted the Soviet Empire in the arms race, America attained the position of the most technologically advanced and best trained military in the world, capable of defeating the Communist Hordes that were threatening Europe.  After 40 years of Communist Imperial expansion, the Cold War enemy lost ground to Freedom for the first time in Grenada.  At the end of his 8 years, the Federal Debt stood at $2.85 Trillion.  The tide had turned in El Salvador to democracy.  Nicaragua's Communist Dictatorship was falling.  And Americans found their pride again.

It had been a last choice to join the military in the 70's, but by the end of the 80's, Our Citizens looked at their Troops as a source of Pride, and with Respect.  The spitting on Troops of the early 70's had ended.

In less than 3 years, the current Administration has asked for and received more debt in a single year than the entire first 213 years of the Nation.  In fact, this Administration has asked for and received 3x as much in Debt than the first 200 years of the Nation took to build.

But Bush Sr., was bolder than Reagan.  He asked for debt ceiling increases on average of $224 Billion at a time.  In the first half of his Administration, we still had the Cold War going on, and as Soviet Empire crumbled, Saddam invaded Kuwait, which launched Desert Storm to expel the invaders of our ally.  For the next 10 years, partisans would ask me why we didn't "finish the job" in Iraq.  Saddam was still a thorn in our side, but the fact was that the mission in Desert Storm was to expel him from Kuwait, not to remove him from power.  It took us 100 hours, with the Military that Reagan had re-built.  There were 500,000 American Troops on the ground and on ships in the Persian Gulf.

Bush Sr then said it was time to cash in the "Peace Dividend," to cut our Military Spending and Force, since there was no apparent power in the world that could challenge Our Troops, and we were supposed to be entering a new period of World Peace.  He significantly cut the number of Troops stationed in Europe, specifically those awaiting invasion through the Fulda Gap in Germany, from 250,000 to 125,000.

It turns out that it costs a LOT of money to give Military Bases to Municipalities and States.  The Budgets under Clinton had to pay for the Hundreds of Millions of dollars to give them away, while simultaneously building new facilities for the bases the remaining Troops would be moved to.  Clinton decided not to just cash in the "Peace Dividend" but to sell the Stock that was paying it.  He cut the Military by another 20%, over what Bush Sr. had proposed. 

That didn't mean smaller Defense Budgets.  It meant fewer Troops and that Clerks were transferred to DoD Union Civilian Employees.  It meant that cooks were contracted out.  It meant that medical staff were hired as Civilians instead of recruited into the Officer Corps.  It meant a lot of Union Construction projects and less Military Training.  One of my friends at the time had gone over to the Officer side of the house.  He couldn't even get the Army to buy camouflage face paint for his Troops in the field.

Clinton asked for increases in the debt ceiling of $451 Billion at a shot, on average.  By the end of his Administration, the National Debt had doubled from the end of Reagan's era, to $5.95 Trillion.  What had taken 213 years to borrow, had been doubled in just 12 years of Bush Sr. and Clinton, while the Defense Budget was squandered giving away the bases the Army needs to train and scrapping the ships the Navy needed to patrol the high seas.  The debt would have accelerated quicker, but the American People elected an opposition Congress based on Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America," that promised and delivered in cutting spending, and protecting the Military from a further hollowing out.

We often hear that "Clinton balanced the budget," but it was the unwillingness of political opponents; Newt's Congress and the Clinton Administration to fund the other's pet projects, that slowed spending.  Many confuse a balanced budget with lack of debt, but a balanced budget only means we are not going further in debt, not that the debt was paid off.  At the end of the Clinton Administration, the National Debt was a bit more than a 1/3rd of what it is today, and twice what it was at the end of the Reagan Era.  It was 6x as much as it had been when Carter had left office, but none had requested chunks of Trillion Dollar increases, not yet.

Bush Jr. would be challenged early in office.  Clinton's term had left the economy spent.  The dot.com bubble had just burst and Congressional mandates to extend home loans to those that couldn't afford them hadn't yet put the housing market on fire.  In March 2001, just 2 months into his term, the Clinton Recession started.  And just as the economy was recovering, Al-Qaeda attacked on 9/11/01.  Clinton had spent his DoD money on Union Construction projects and giving away Military Bases.  The Army didn't have Body Armor and didn't have Armored HumVees. 

General Shinseki had cut out Armored Personnel Carriers and bought Chinese made Black Berets, for everyone, times two.  Even the Army's boots were of Viet Nam style.  General Shinseki had decided against modern boots of the same cost.  Instead, he had changed the shade of Army dress uniforms, so slightly that only if two were side by side could anyone tell the difference.  It was the Troops responsibility to buy the new shade, to the tune of Hundreds of Dollars, per Soldier.  After he demoralized the Army and retired, the current Administration appointed him as Secretary of Veterans' Affairs, where he has pressed for and gotten approval of Veterans to pay for their own Combat Injuries, more and more.

So, when we went to war in Afghanistan, there weren't enough cargo planes to get the Troops and Equipment there.  There were less than 100 Armored HumVees in the entire Army.  There were less than 1000 sets of Body Armor.  And training ammunition for the range was at a premium.  It all had to be bought.  Often, equipment had to be bought, after it was designed for the first time. 

The Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq not only presented new challenges, such as counter-IED protective measures, but also old ones, such as how to avoid friendly fire.  In the first two years of the War in Afghanistan, we had killed more of Our Own Troops, by accident, than the enemy had killed of Our Troops.  Nevermind that 'friendly fire' incidents were down significantly from previous wars, they were the biggest percentage of losses, and the people wanted it fixed.

The solutions cost a LOT of money.  Blue Force Tracker integrated GPS mapping technology, satellite text messaging, and showed Commanders and units on the ground where all other friendly forces on the battlefield were.  It costs tens of thousands of dollars per unit, down to 4 man teams.  To Armor those HumVees, a better engine, better transmission, better brakes, and better shocks had to be designed and built to get the old steeds up the hills with 5x the weight and fewer Troops.  It cost Billions. 

But while the Armored HumVees were very effective against bullets, Troops were still sometimes killed or injured by the most powerful of IED's.  The Iranians were even pumping EFP's (exposively formed projectiles) into Iraq as fast as they could produce them.  For the heavy IED's, the MRAP was designed and delivered in record time, at a cost of hundreds of thousands per vehicle.  External, specialized Armor, was bought and hung on it, in order to counter the more deadly EFP's.  Specialized equipment was designed and installed to counter the primary means of detonation being used in Iraq.

And the American people were in an outrage that the Troops didn't have 30 lbs of body armor on.  American factories cranked it up to full capacity and still couldn't field body armor fast enough to make up for years of neglect to equip our Troops.  At thousands of dollars a piece, the new stuff became outdated as fast as it was produced, and Congressmen pressed for new camouflage patterns quicker than the old could be fielded.  The Army went from BDU's to DCU's to ACU's to Multi-cams, which look a lot like the old BDU's, in just a few years.  The Navy got their very own urban digital uniforms, which blend in very well with water and hence can't be used while at sea.  Representative Jack Murtha, who demanded the Army purchase new uniforms, eventually got an Award from the Obama Appointee to head up the Navy.

To pay for this equipment, Planes, Jets, Body Armor, Blue Force Trackers, Armored HumVees, then MRAP's, that wasn't bought on Clinton's watch, as well as coax the political opposition in Congress into compliance, with pork spending, cost a LOT of money.  Though the DoD Budget wasn't increased dramatically, Bush Jr. went to Congress asking on average for $766 Billion increases in the Debt Ceiling.  The increases in Spending were smaller than in previous wars, under Roosevelt, under Truman, under JFK, and under Johnson, and even less than they had been under Reagan, in winning the Cold War.   We've fought two wars for 10 years, on less money than any of those, in real terms, and with far fewer Troops.  As a percentage of GDP, we were only spending 4.3% at the peak of the wars, on National Defense, compared to north of 6% to maintain the peace in the 80's.

Nevertheless, the National Debt nearly doubled under Bush Jr. from what Clinton had finished with.   Junior's last Fiscal Budget was a record deficit.  Almost a Half Trillion dollar shortfall.  Now, some will blame Junior for the 2009 deficit, but all of the money spent in 2009 was approved by Obama.  Nancy Pelosi controlled the House in 2008 and Harry Reid controlled the Senate.  The junior Senator from Illinois made a special trip to the White House, taking time out from the Everlasting Campaign, to campaign for the TARP bill, spending $787 Billion tax dollars to bail out the banks, and directly benefiting Obama's biggest fundraiser, Warren Buffett.  He stayed there until Harry Reid told him he was too young to be at the table.  Without that $787 Billion extra, the 2009 Deficit would not have reached $1 Trillion for the first time ever.   Without TARP, the budget deficit of 2009 would not have tripled Bush's record deficit of 2008.

But TARP wasn't Obama's last addition to the 2009 deficit.  There was also the UAW Bailout bill and the Pork Stimulus Bill, which put signs up everywhere to advertise it, and without which, unemployment would have been 8%, and there was the Cash for Clunkers program, which fueled the Japanese Car Factories.  While the "cash for clunkers" program pumped up sales of Japanese cars, it was the Tsunami which shut them down, and in turn pumped up US sales.  The UAW bailout bill took the Big 3 from the owners, and sold Chrysler to the Italians and gave Government Motors to the Unions.  Only Ford survived it, by not taking the money.

The Budgets of nearly every department of government saw double or triple digit percentage increases.  The two parts that did not see increases: the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

The Trillion Dollar Deficits didn't get there on increases to the DoD Budget, but rather despite cuts to it, while increasing nearly every other budget, including that of the Department of Treasury and the IRS to the tune of 300%.  The Fox history of debt increases attributes the debt of 2009 to Bush, but it should be on Obama's record. 

In less than 3 years, even by Fox standards, Obama has requested and gotten increases in the debt equal to 16 years of both Clinton and Bush Jr., greater than all debt accumulated in the first 213 years of our Nation, including the Civil War, two World Wars, the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, two wars with Britain, one with Spain, and the War with Mexico, plus lesser wars in Latin America, the Caribbean, twice against Islamists and one against Pirates, as well as the Cold War against the expansion of the Soviet Empire.  Obama has increased the Debt in 3 years, by 50% of what it was when he was elected.

Opposition parties in control of various parts of government do one of two things: they buy off the other party by supporting spending on the opposition's pet projects, as we seem to see today, or they compromise on cuts to their own pet projects as we see in the Gingrich-Clinton era.  In both the Bush Jr.-Reid era and the Obama-Reid-Boehner era, we're seeing spending rise to get the spending the other wants, but the Trillion Dollar Deficits didn't get here, until we had a party in absolute power under Obama-Reid-Pelosi, and they quickly tripled the record deficit of the year before.

Calling his political appointee the "Defense Department," Obama sent Secretary of Defense Gates and his replacement Secretary of Defense Panetta out to support cuts in Defense, and increases in the cost of treatment of Combat Injuries to Veterans:
The "transparency cuts:" http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2009/04/appeasing-barney-frank.html
Then it was retention bonuses & recruiters: http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2009/05/recruiting-cuts-reasonable.html
http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2010/05/gates-calls-for-significant-cuts-in-defense-overhead.html
As he was leaving Admiral Mullen gave President Obama his endorsement to slash the Military: http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2011/09/adm-mullen-endorses-cuts-in-dod-veteran-benefits.html
http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2010/08/sec-gates-announces-efficiencies-initiatives-.html
The $100 Billion Cut: http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2011/01/gateswhite-house-target-marines-for-wartime-spending-cuts.html
The $78 Billion Cut was supposed to be to the bare bone, beyond which even Obama knew we couldn't cut more: http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/home/2011/01/secdef-gates-calls-for-cuts-in-dod-budget-armymarine-personnel.html

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US spends more than 215 countries combined

How About a Little Income Equalization?

Did you hear the news?  The Income gap between the rich and poor has widened.  The Organization of Economically Developed Countries came out with their list based on 2008 incomes and it "isn't pretty" for the United States.  Now, I've seen how some of the rest of the world lives, and I've seen how those "below the poverty line" in the United States live, so I was curious what it actually meant.  I'll get to their recommendations to "fixing it," later.

Evidently, the average income of the top 10% of Americans is $114,000/year.  Now, I'm not sure how this works, but according to the CIA, 30% of Americans are in the top 10% of income earners, while only 2% are in the bottom 10% making $7,800/year.  But if one goes with OECD data, that puts the average income at $60,900/year.  That's not bad for an economy that produces $47,200/year in actual goods (GDP per capita).  Of course, if we only count the workforce, we produce $95,257/year in actual value, and that is pretty impressive.  But the disparity between the top 10% and the bottom 10%, according to the OECD is 14.6x.

The OECD didn't make it easy to find the data, and they didn't examine disparities in places like China or North Korea, but it appears even the CIA finds that information difficult.  Still, the OECD did find some "shining examples" of places that do it better, like Download OECD-France Inequality, Download OECD-ItalyInequality, & Download OECD-Spain Inequality.  Since these are in the top 10% of economic powers, perhaps we should do what they are doing to alleviate this disparity.  France has a disparity of the top 10% and bottom 10% of only 7x while Spain is at 10.9 and Italy is at 10.1.

How could they possibly achieve such numbers?  The Average income (using the same formula above) is $42,574 in France, $33,106 in Italy, and $25,349 in Spain.  While OECD didn't give the data to figure out what the bottom 10% in the US earn per hour, it works out to $8.49/hr in France, $3.40/hr in Italy, and $3.24/hr in Spain.  The French produce $73,158/workforce member, while the Italians produce $71,245 and Spaniards produce $59,290. 

We can reduce the disparity in income here too, if we did what they did.  According to the CIA, the US tax burden is 14.7% as opposed to France 48.4%, Italy 46.7% and Spain 35.7%.  Take a look at your gross income on your paystub.  Are you willing to take half of that so we can all make the same amount?

The Growing Power & Threat of Islamism

A while back, I created a map overlay demonstrating the worldwide threats, with a focus on Islamism but also including secular and Communist regimes that ideologically or violently oppose us.  The world has changed since then.  Reluctant allies have distanced themselves in the last 3 years.  Lasting allies have fallen.  Old enemies have fallen to new enemies.  And my current picture editor isn't as good as the one I had then.

There is one small speck of good change in the world.  The Sudan split into two nations, helping to decrease the mass genocide of Islamists killing Christians and Animists in the newest Nation of South Sudan.  The South Sudanese have an uphill battle to establish their new government and this success began its path years ago.  North Sudan remains Islamist, in greater concentration.

Unfortunately, Islamism has spread dramatically in the last year, both in its violent attacks and in its takeovers of governments.  Tunisia was the first to fall, followed by Egypt, while the Islamist party of Turkey retained its power.  Some have hailed these as successes for democracy, but it is a failure of US Foreign Policy and a blow to Freedom.

The Obama Administration's response to seeing mass protests against an old ally was precisely as was the Carter Administration's.  Both in Tehran 1978 and Cairo 2011, the Administration urged a Military Coup against an allied leader.  The difference is that the Egyptian Generals were actually able to hold the reins of power for a short period of time, while the Iranian Generals had never really taken the concept as reasonable.  In both cases, the protestors were a mix of those supporting Freedom and Democracy and those supporting Islamism.  Forces for Democracy outnumbered forces for Islamism, but the Islamists were better organized.

Last Minute Legislation & Kicking the Can Down the Road

Have you noticed how many times in the last few yearsthe politicians of Washington waited to the last minute to vote on key legislation barely averting a government shutdown?  The tactic of take it or leave it brinkmanship is not new, but I don't recall it being used so often as it has been in recent years.  The 2011 budget, which should have been passed by Sep 30, 2010, was kicked down the road by weeks at a time for all of 2011.  The Debt Ceiling was lifted at the very last minute.  In each of these cases, the vote offered no time for negotiations.  The choice was to support all the earmarks, ie. pork, or be responsible for shutting down the government.

The 2012 Budget, which should have been passed no later than Sep 30, 2011 is currently being held up because the House is pushing for a full year extension of a Social Security Tax cut, as the POTUS said he wanted, until the House said they would push for it, and the Senate didn't.  Now, the Senate has decided they won't even work on a compromise until the House approves what they've voted down.  The bully tactics of the Senate Millionaires club are pretty bold, based primarily in a belief that voters will blame the majority party of the House, rather than the majority party of the Senate.

The most basic, most routine responsibility of Congress is to develop and approve the Annual Budget of the Federal Government.  This isn't some surprise to the members of Congress.  They know they have to do it every year.  They know it is due by 30 September every year.  There is no reason that this shouldn't be worked out well ahead of the deadline.  And there is no legitimate reason for the Budget to include money for researching why Monkeys fling dung or preservation of the history of video games.

Biden & Obama's DC Adventure

It's been an interesting week, as we learned that the current POTUS considers himself more accomplished than all but 3 others, and VP doesn't view the Taliban shooting at us in Afghanistan "the enemy."  Blows my mind to be honest.  If we give these guys another 4 years, the POTUS should proclaim himself more important than George Washington, and the VP will probably be telling us that there is no North Korean nuclear threat.  They're both arrogantly ignorant.  I never thought Robert Gibbs should have lasted a week, but he made those two look smart, and they should hire him back.

Oh, I'm sorry, he already thinks he's done more than George Washington!?!?  Evidently, he thinks Truman did more than Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington as well.  The Founding Fathers, supposedly did less than the guy that came along 240 years later?  Winning the Cold War was less influential than "ending" the War in Iraq?

The Washington Post would have us believe that he not some type of egomaniac that puts himself above the First President, but a dupe who fell for a gotcha moment.  But Obama did in fact say that ONLY his first two years, when he had absolute power with an absolute majority in both houses were enough to outshine even Thomas Jefferson, who put an end to piracy in his time, on Foreign Policy, that he has more legislative achievements than George Washington who oversaw the implementation of the Bill of Rights in his own first two years.

Meanwhile, Biden sits in his back office and opines that though we went to war with the Taliban, that we tossed them out of power, though they regularly throw acid in the faces of girls learning to read, that they are not the enemy.  And that's the guy who tried to comfort us by saying he would always be in the room when Obama was making important decisions?

These are the guys that told us there were no Al-Qaeda in Iraq, that more guns in fight meant only more targets on the battlefield, for the enemy, that told us that no matter how many Troops we put on the battlefield, we would lose?  These are the guys that after campaigning on Afghanistan as the first priority, and the "good war," had to be forced to send re-enforcements?  These are the guys that told us that there were only 50-200 Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan when they took office are telling us there are still only 200?

These are the guys that tell us we should shift our Department of Defense budget from Troops and F-22's to Solar Panels?  And are doing it?  In every year that these two have been in office, the Budget Deficit has been TRIPLE the record year, while the DoD budget has shrunk.  In a time of war, they've started a 3rd, without Congressional Consultation, much less authorization, and cut the number of Troops to fight them.

Arrogantly ignorant, or Ignorantly Arrogant?  You choose, but it appears that Biden is rubbing off on Obama.

Pragmatic Views on Overcoming Insidious Ambivalence Towards Our Troops

So, Assoluta Tranquillita tells us the top words of the year are Pragmatic and Ambivalence.  I immediately wondered how many of the Top Ten I could work into a single article.  I expect, with more dedication, I could have used them all, but I immediately decided to avoid some of them.

Even the least interested politicians have noted the great disconnect between Our Troops and Our Citizens.  Unfortunately, the most interested of the vitriolic politicians want to re-connect Troops and Citizens by force, in order to undermine popular support for the Mission of Our Troops, i.e. they wanted to re-institute the draft, to force the unwilling to fight for Freedom.  The former Representative Charles Rangel-NY, was the primary force behind the move, before he left Congress amidst allegations of misconduct.  Mr. Rangel was a Veteran himself, but his belief was that if "the rich" sent their sons to War, alongside the minorities, both would push for an end to the Wars.

The slogan of ethnic and impoverished genocide was used early in the anti-War propaganda, but had no legs.  The Military is drawn from across the whole of America, but the fatalities had demonstrated that Caucasian Men bore a disproportionately higher brunt of the fighting.  The diversity of the Infantry was stunted, not due to some arbitrary system, but instead by the choices made by Individuals voluntarily enlisting in the Marines and Army Infantry.  Proportionately, Hispanic Men are also more likely to join the Infantry and bear the brunt of combat.

Bradley Manning: Sex, Lies, & Espionage

So, Bradley Manning's excuse for betraying Our Nation is he's gay:

"The defense revealed that Manning had written to one of his supervisors in Baghdad before his arrest, saying he was suffering from gender-identity disorder. He included a picture of himself dressed as a woman and talked about how it was affecting his ability to do his job and even think clearly."¹

In 1992, he would have been asked by recruiters prior to enlistment if he were or ever had been homosexual.  He would have been asked by Security Clearance investigators the same question.  It would have disqualified him for a clearance and entry into the military.

In 2002, he would not have been asked, but had he told, he would have been removed from the military.  In 2009 & 2010, when he told that he was homosexual, he was supposed to have been removed from the military.  The picture above comes from Manning's FB page and was posted prior to his arrest.  His defense for his crimes is that his homosexuality drove him to commit espionage.  His spymaster's (Julian Assange) defense against sexual assault charges is that his homosexuality prevents him from having (wanted to have) assaulted those women.

Manning's defense specifically asked the investigators if they had looked for the gay defense evidence.

"We already knew before we arrived that Pfc. Manning was a homosexual," Special Agent Toni Graham said.

Veterans Don't Want Your Pity...

... not even if you call it "compassion, sympathy," or "intellectual empathy."  We are not "victims," even if you prefer to use the term "survivors."  Why do I bring this up?  For years, the media has been portraying Veterans and Troops as victims of circumstances beyond their control.  Recently, even the Washington Post (please note that the gratitude demonstrated by Kid Rock should not be confused with pity of intellectuals) noted that Veterans and Troops feel the pity of Citizens, rather than Respect, for what we have done.  But more to the point, a particular reader has been attempting to justify her feelings of sympathy for our "misfortune" to me.  She has changed the labels, over time, as I've explained why we don't want pity, and how we are not victims, but the underlying attitude has not changed.

In recent decades, it has become unpopular to use words that define certain things.  Instead, alternate words are used to re-label the same concept, in a more politically correct manner, altering the meaning of the new word, while not changing the reality of that being defined.  Sometimes, these new labels are applied for political purposes, such as changing "War" to "Overseas Contingency Operation," which does nothing to alter the reality on the ground.  When an enemy is setting off explosives and shooting bullets at you, it doesn't matter what the politicians want to call it, it is combat, even if they label an Infantryman a "Non-Combat Troop," and the enemy, "man-made disaster makers."

What is a victim?  According to Merriam-Webster:

 

The Difference between MedEvac & CasEvac: Video Update

It never ceases to astound me that the self-proclaimed experts are so ignorant of the basic terms and definitions and too lazy to find the definitions they wish to elaborate on.  In recent months, that has been one self-published journalist on a crusade to remove MedEvac markings from DustOff helicopters.  He has recently proclaimed that the definitions of CasEvac and MedEvac are just too murky to figure out, for him, and hence beyond the comprehension of his readers, the Generals, and politicians he's trying to convince.  Previously, he couldn't figure out what "Arab" means.

So what does the Army say is the difference?

a. Medical Evacuation. MEDEVAC is defined in FM 8-10-6as the timely, efficient movement and en route care by medical personnel of the wounded, injured, and ill persons, from the battlefield and other locations to MTFs (medical treatment facilities). The term MEDEVAC refers to both ground and air assets. Divisions are equipped with both ground and air MEDEVAC assets.

b. Casualty Evacuation. CASEVAC is defined as movement of casualties to initial treatment facilities and movement of casualties to MTFs in the combat zone. It does not include en route care by medical personnel and implies that nonmedical assets (UH-60s or CH-47s) are being used to move casualties. CASEVAC should only be used when the unit has a large number of casualties (exceeding the ability of the MEDEVAC aircraft to carry) or MEDEVAC is not available.

Those Pesky Veterans Are Bankrupting the Nation?

To hear some people talk about it, the Nation can no longer afford to provide Health Care and Disability payments to Our Veterans.  The Obama Administration says they need to pay for their own health care to a greater degree.  We "all" need to "share in the sacrifice."  And others point to 10 years of war and question how we could possibly afford to fulfill Our National promise and obligation to those that volunteered to put their lives in harm's way.  Surely, the number of Veterans in the Nation is rising, and the number that have earned disability checks and care for their injuries is rising as well, right?

No.  As of 2007 (VA's most recent information), there were 3x as many Veterans over 65 than under 40. Of Our Living Veterans, more than 39% are over 64. In fact there were twice as many Veterans over 80 than there are Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.  As of the end of 2006, according to CBS (in 2009), 947,000 Viet Nam Veterans were receiving compensation for their disabilities.  This compares to only 181,000 current conflict Veterans receiving compensation (of at least $1).  "Officially" we've been at war longer, and in two Nations, than we were in Viet Nam, though that doesn't account for the early years of the Viet Nam War.

Why are there so many more Viet Nam Veterans than current conflict Veterans?  A greater burden has been placed on a smaller number of people.  In Viet Nam, a very high percentage of Veterans did one deployment and one term of enlistment.  In today's conflicts, a very high percentage of Troops have served multiple tours.  And we have fewer Troops deployed.