Torture 101

For over 20 years, I have supported the campaign to close the School of the Americas in south Georgia. All the while, there was this other military academy of torture that was even worse, that was probably the source of much of SOA's curriculum and that I had never even heard of. The author of this article, himself a "graduate" of the SERE, surmises that military interrogators would think something along the lines of "I survived waterboarding, so it's OK to do it to this guy". Well, I remember a top Pentagon / DOD official actually articulating that argument, with no apparent recognition of the essential sickness of what he was saying.
The thing is, both SERE and SOA, and also the "hazing" in military academies (not just in the US, despite what David Morris thinks - there is an ongoing scandal in the British Armed forces involving suspicious deaths of young recruits in training) are symptoms of the whole military culture that allows them to happen. That is not going to change by closing the schools, by presidential edict or by legislation. Not that I know how it can be changed. I thought bringing women into the military might help, over 30 years ago when I still had my idealism, but that theory has been quashed by the evidence at Abu Ghraib.

Another view of the so-called Warrior Prince

Catherine Bennet's insightful and rather more realistic look at the Prince Harry love-fest chimes perfectly with my cynical, republican views. Several things I wish I had been clever enough to say . . .

City Pages - Sgt. Briggs's War

The Twin Cities' weekly newspaper City Pages tells the story of yet more underestimated and underfunded support for US soldiers in Iraq through the story of one Iowa man, grievously injured in Iraq, hurriedly retired from the National Guard and now receiving care at the VA hospital in Minneapolis. The Minneapolis VA is one of four new "polytrauma" treatment centers set up to handle the new complexes of injuries that soldiers are experiencing (and surviving) in 21st century warfare. But how are they going to cope with the incoming flood of veterans from this war on the one hand, and massive funding cuts on the other?

News Flash: Army War College slams Global War on Terror plan

Back to Iraq 3.0 has this story, a now familiar point of view, but from a surprising new source, and a peculiarly well-informed one, at that. Peaceniks, get used to the idea of citing a US Army think tank to support your arguments.

Another story about the betrayal of the US military

Tristero reprints this story from the "totally liberal and Commie-run Army Times".

That Old Lie "Dulce et Decorum Est ..."

This story from the Jefferson City News Tribune, about a possible impending pay cut for National Guard serving in the Middle East, is just one of many of the stories in the US media, on the web and in weblogs about all the petty, mean ways the current US administration is jerking around (there's no nicer way to say it) the men and women serving in the war(s) on terrorism/Iraq. (The British government could not last a week in office if they pulled these kinds of shenanigans.)

Another and more serious story is this, from the El Paso Times, about an apparent Army cover-up around the deaths in an ambush near Nasiriyeh of several soldiers from Fort Bliss. A quote: "Ruben Estrella, father of 18-year-old Pvt. Ruben Estrella-Soto, from El Paso, said he no longer believes anything the Army tells him." To really appreciate what an extraordinary story this is, you have to understand that El Paso is an Army town, through and through, and the El Paso Times a paragon of military orthodoxy and patriotism.

Yet another tale, very touching in its slightly hysterical edge, is this letter from a Reservist serving in Kuwait, blogged on Buzzflash.

Pentagon cover-up on pneumonia-like deaths

This story by United Press International concerns one suspicious death in Kuwait of a soldier serving in Iraq, and refers to about a half-dozen more cases. The common link is that they were all previously healthy and that their illnesses followed on from receiving an anthrax vaccination. It's the usual deal with relatives and in some cases doctors suspecting a link and spokespersons from the Pentagon trying to dance and sing their way out of it.

Military Rank Trivia

Some of the sharper viewers and readers may have noticed that certain news providers - TV, online and print - have referred to the British military spokesman Group Captain Al Lockwood as simply "Captain". There is no such rank in the RAF. Group Captain in the RAF is a bit higher than Captain in the Army. (In the US Armed Forces, the ranks for Air Force and Army are almost identical, mainly because the Air Force was originally part of the Army - the Army Air Corps. This is not the case in the UK.) If you would like to find out what all the RAF ranks are, in the proper order, try the RAF Officers Rank Test.