Like it or not, Capt. Semrau must be punished

I'm not sure I'm the guy to take this on and as usual these days I'm busy juggling flaming chainsaws on the  job search and family fronts (ain't transPacific relocation a hoot!), but I have to say I'm getting a bit tired of all the letters to the editor I'm seeing about how the high command and "the system" has failed Capt. Semrau and how he deserves a medal.
I don't for a moment think the guy is some kind of bloodthirsty scofflaw, but rules are rules and exist for a very good reason. Do we want soldiers on the battlefield deciding which among  the wounded may or may not be successfully treated and simply shooting the ones they think won't make it at their own discretion? Would those who want to pin a medal on Capt. Semrau like to see Canadian soldiers treated by such a standard?
I think the military judge showed the wisdom of Solomon and exercised considerable leniency in dismissing the captain from the military without giving him a dishonorable discharge or a prison sentence. He may well have acted from the highest motives - or the lowest, there really isn't any way of reading his mind - but he acted in clear violation of all the rules of the Canadian Forces and the Geneva Convention, so obviously - at the very least - he had to be punished as an example.
Semrau has been portrayed as an exemplary soldier and commander and he probably was until he stepped over this important line. His men defended his actions and his defence has been that what he did was a mercy killing.
That may be, but it was still an unlawful killing. What he did was withhold medical treatment from a wounded prisoner and then murder that prisoner.  Whatever the motive, whether he acted out of brazen cruelty, a secret desire for revenge, or (most likely) compassion for someone in pain he didn't think would survive, what he did was still a war crime and has to be treated as such.  His motives and intentions, noble though they may be, don't really matter in the end. Whether international law needs to be revisited to allow for such actions is an entirely separate minefield and one I don't suggest we should enter.
Semrau must be punished not only for his concrete actions, but for what they represent - a commissioned officer willfully and knowingly violating the rules of war, the regulations of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Geneva Convention. Such conduct, no matter the reason, must carry consequences, otherwise military discipline is seriously undermined. Let us not forget that while the Canadian military defends our democracy and all those other egalitarian principles we hold dear, it is not and cannot be a democracy itself. Structure, chain-of-command and top-down leadership are all essential to the military functioning properly. Soldiers must follow orders and regulations or they are nothing more than a well-armed mob. I'm sorry that Semrau has sacrificed his military career, but his actions cannot be ignored - he is fortunate not to be in prison.

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Bake at 350 Degrees 'til Explosion Occurs . . . .

Michael Moore gives the definitive review of Bob Woodward's new obama administration novel.

Excerpts:

In fact, after you read Woodward's book, you'll split a gut every time you hear a politician or a government teacher talk about "civilian control over the military." The only people really making the decisions about America's wars are across the river from Washington in the Pentagon. They wear uniforms. They have lots of weapons they bought from the corporations they will work for when they retire.


_______________


It matters not whom we elect. The Pentagon and the military contractors call the shots. The title "Commander in Chief" is ceremonial, like "Employee of the Month" at your local Burger King.

_______________

So here's your assignment for tonight: Watch Eisenhower's famous farewell speech. And then start thinking about how we can tame this beast. The Soviet Union had its own military-industrial complex, which is one reason they got into Afghanistan...which is one reason there's no more Soviet Union. It happened to them.

Don't think it can happen to us?

Here in Canada we've got stevie and petey ginning up the military apparatus to improve Canada's status on the world stage.

Great.

Let's follow the US' lead, that oughta work out just fine.

Here's how to assemble this taste treat:

Take your basic army, navy and air force on hand for defence of your nation. Add in the fact that the corporate-owned media is on the side of spinning conflicts globally to increase ratings. Stir in profits to the bottom line of the media giants plus military contractors and your recipe for disaster is ready to go in the oven.

Follow directions in this post title . . . .

Leaking Like a Sieve . . . .

Julian Assange and WikiLeaks have done it again, and BIG TIME. Apparently, the leak of tens of thousands of Afghan war documents makes the Pentagon Papers look like child's play.

The Guardian UK has the full story with lots of background links.

Fascinating stuff to wade thru which I've just begun to do.

Something for you to do on a summer Sunday afternoon, eh ? ? ? ?

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald has now weighed in on the topic, and his summary is spot on:

Whatever else is true, WikiLeaks has yet again proven itself to be one of the most valuable and important organizations in the world. Just as was true for the video of the Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad, there is no valid justification for having kept most of these documents a secret. But that's what our National Security State does reflexively: it hides itself behind an essentially absolute wall of secrecy to ensure that the citizenry remains largely ignorant of what it is really doing. WikiLeaks is one of the few entities successfully blowing holes in at least parts of that wall, enabling modest glimpses into what The Washington Post spent last week describing as Top Secret America. The war on WikiLeaks -- which was already in full swing, including, strangely, from some who claim a commitment to transparency -- will only intensify now. Anyone who believes that the Government abuses its secrecy powers in order to keep the citizenry in the dark and manipulate public opinion -- and who, at this point, doesn't believe that? -- should be squarely on the side of the greater transparency which Wikileaks and its sources, sometimes single-handedly, are providing.

Gay Eternity

The Guardian UK today reveals:

Censored gay sex scenes in From Here to Eternity revealed

Daughter of author James Jones discloses details of cuts insisted upon by the novel's original publisher

* Alison Flood | * guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 November 2009

It is one of the most celebrated images in cinema, an icon of heterosexual romance: Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissing as the waves crash over them in the 1953 film From Here to Eternity. But behind the Hollywood gloss is a tale of censorship and repression, with the author of the award-winning novel on which the film was based forced to remove scenes of gay sex from the manuscript before publication.

Kaylie Jones, a novelist in her own right, says her father, James Jones, was told by his publisher Scribner to eliminate both expletives and homosexual scenes in From Here to Eternity, which was based on his own experiences in Hawaii in the army on the eve of the Pearl Harbour bombing.

The original manuscript of From Here to Eternity went into "great detail" about the kinds of sexual favours soldiers like Private Angelo Maggio, played in the film by Frank Sinatra, would provide to rich gay men for money, Kaylie Jones revealed in an article written for US news website the Daily Beast.

"'I don't like to be blowed [by a man]'," the novel's hero Private Robert E Lee Prewitt tells Maggio in a section cut from the novel. "Angelo shrugged," writes James Jones. "'Oh, all right. I admit it's nothing like a woman. But it's something. Besides, old Hal treats me swell. He's always good for a touch when I'm broke. Five bucks. Ten bucks. Comes in handy the middle of the month ... Only reason I let Hal blow me is because I got a good thing there. If I turned him down I'd blow it sky high. And I want to hang onto that income, buddy.'"

________________


James Jones, she wrote, "believed that homosexuality was as old as mankind itself, and that Achilles, the bravest and most venerated fighter ever described, was gay, and to take a younger lover under your wing was a common practice among the soldiers of the time". "He also believed also that homosexuality was a natural condition of men in close quarters, and that it in no way affected a soldier's capabilities on the battlefield. What would have amazed him is that the discussion still continues to this day, cloaked in the same hypocrisy and silence as it was 60 years ago," she wrote. The US military's current "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy allows gay men and lesbians to serve only if they keep quiet about their sexuality. President Obama has previously announced his intention to revoke the rule, but for the moment it remains in force.

It's time for Eternity to be Here, Mr. President.

Let the women and men in the US military "ask" and "tell" . . . .

H/T Penelope ;-)

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Declare an operational pause,

Give everyone a 30 leave and wait for summer to cool. Then come back and start over.

Last week a French Foreign Legion unit stationed at Carpaigne near the southern French port of Marseille was conducting a live-fire exercise and let loose a few tracer rounds into a forested area around the camp. The problem was, the forest fire hazard level was "extreme".

French soldiers have been branded "imbeciles" for firing shells into parched woodland - and sparking a massive forest blaze that threatened up to 1000 homes.

The Foreign Legion unit started one of the worst fires in recent years when it blasted tracer ammunition into tinder dry trees at their base near Marseille.

At about the same time, the Russian Navy was preparing to celebrate Navy Day in the Russian Pacific port of Vladivostok. Things didn't go quite as well as hoped.

A missile fired from a military vessel during a Navy Day parade rehearsal has hit an apartment block in the Far Eastern city of Vladivistok, Russia.

News agencies said the missile hit a nine-storey block of flats in Leonova Street, but that noone was injured. Other reports said the missile fell a meter short of the building, leaving a wide crater on the ground and breaking the windows of the ground floor apartments.

In the profession of arms, shit happens. Usually because someone executed a really stupid idea.

Want your combat team to have an edge? Add women.

When Michael Coren unloaded the contents of his mesozoic mind regarding the death of armoured corps trooper Karine Blais he unleashed a flood of criticism aimed at his sexist take on Blais' combat death. Worse though, Coren dismissed Blais' service in a frontline combat arms unit as "dressed up as a soldier" and then went on to insult every serving female by stating, "... there are few if any women who have the skills required to serve as a front-line combat trooper."

Coming from someone who possesses no combat training at all, it was viewed by any informed person as an incredibly stupid statement. It also isn't true, and the US Army and US Marine Corps are finding that women serving in combat positions are not only just as capable as men, but have frontline skills unique to their gender.

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army and Marines found it useful to send a female soldier along on raids, as it was less disruptive to have a woman search the female civilians. There was no shortage of volunteers for this duty. The marines, as is their custom, saw more opportunities in this. Thus the marines began sending a team of women on such missions.

The US Marine Lioness teams were established to facilitate searches of women and children during security operations in Iraq, but it turns out the teams of 3 to 5 female marines have other significant results.

Iraqi women were surprised, and often awed, when they encountered these female soldiers and marines. The awe often turned into cooperation.

That, however, isn't as significant as this.

The marines also noticed that the female troops were better at picking up useful information in general.

[...]

Iraqi men were also intimidated by female soldiers and marines. In the macho Arab world, an assertive female with an assault rifle is sort of a man's worst nightmare. So many otherwise reticent Iraqi men, opened up to the female troops, and provided information. Women also had an easier time detecting a lie.

So, the question from across the room is, "That's a no-brainer. What took them so long?"

Indeed. What is taking them so long? U.S. law still prohibits women from serving in the true combat arms occupations. Infantry, artillery and armour remain male-only military trades.

In Canada, as in many countries, however, no such restriction exists. Women can and do serve in any occupation offered by the Canadian Forces. Further, they do it well and with as much skill and dedication as any man. And there are times when women simply do the job better.

In the aftermath of the brutal Liberian civil war, India sent an all-female peacekeeping contingent. The success of their mission has brought a request from the UN to member states to increase their contingents of female soldiers in both peacekeeping and peace enforcement missions. Currently, of 90,000 personnel on UN police and military missions only 8 percent of police and 2 percent of the military are female.

The Corens of this world, having never served period, much less with women in a combat unit, don't get it. In Afghanistan, Iraq and the multitude of conflict areas of the world the combat involves insurgency and guerilla warfare. There is no head to head fight between massive organized forces. In such asymetrical warfare you take every advantage you can get. Intelligence has to be gathered, filtered and analyzed rapidly and effectively. Putting women into combat teams gives those teams an edge they would otherwise not have.

And my own experience serving with women in a combat unit is that they can handle themselves and the job extremely well. The only difficulty they endured was within the unit from males unable to accept the presence of women and who were willing to expend energy attempting to sabotage what they (those few men) viewed as some sort of social experiment. Some of them shrunk into their shells when, after an opposed boarding of a suspicious Honduran merchant ship, the boarding party returned cheering on a female leading seaman who had taken down two opposing sailors, with her feet, before the rest of the team could get to her.

The honest truth is, the gender of a soldier, sailor, marine or aircrew is meaningless as long as the task is being accomplished and the mission is going forward. Whether its putting ordnance on target, pacifying a village or gathering intelligence, the requirement is dedicated, focussed and properly trained people.

The US Army and Marine Corps are figuring that out, finally. The Corens of this world never will.


Hat tip deBeauxOs

"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" - Rachel's on the Case . . . .

We love Rachel:

IF, (and that's a big "if") Mr. Obama puts an end to this ridiculous policy, it is Rachel Maddow's efforts that should be credited . . . .

(H/T "Olde Goat Patrick)

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

MOTS (More of the Same) . . . .

Somehow, this is not too surprising, is it?

Per CBS News and others:

Gates: No Change Soon On `Don't Ask, Don't Tell'
Gates Doesn't Expect Any Change Soon On `don't Ask, Don't Tell' Military Policy On Gays

WASHINGTON, Mar. 29, 2009

Don't expect any change soon to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy about gays in the military.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says both he and President Barack Obama have "a lot on our plates right now." As Gates puts it, "let's push that one down the road a little bit."

The White House has said Obama has begun consulting with Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on how to lift the ban. Gates says that dialogue has not really progressed very far at this point in the administration.

The Pentagon policy was put in place after President Bill Clinton tried to lift the ban on gay service members in 1993.

The policy refers to the military practice of not asking recruits their sexual orientation. In turn, service members are banned from saying they are gay or bisexual, engaging in homosexual activity or trying to marry a member of the same sex.

The more things "Change We Can (wait to) Believe In" . . . .

H/T "drf"

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Year End Cleanup . . . .

Some end of the year cleanup is in order, and how fitting it is to feature the bush administration.

From Bob Herbert of the New York Times we get:

Add Up the Damage
By BOB HERBERT - December 30, 2008

Does anyone know where George W. Bush is?

You don’t hear much from him anymore. The last image most of us remember is of the president ducking a pair of size 10s that were hurled at him in Baghdad.

We’re still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel is thrashing the Palestinians in Gaza. And the U.S. economy is about as vibrant as the 0-16 Detroit Lions.

But hardly a peep have we heard from George, the 43rd.

When Mr. Bush officially takes his leave in three weeks (in reality, he checked out long ago), most Americans will be content to sigh good riddance. I disagree. I don’t think he should be allowed to slip quietly out of town. There should be a great hue and cry — a loud, collective angry howl, demonstrations with signs and bullhorns and fiery speeches — over the damage he’s done to this country.

This is the man who gave us the war in Iraq and Guantánamo and torture and rendition; who turned the Clinton economy and the budget surplus into fool’s gold; who dithered while New Orleans drowned; who trampled our civil liberties at home and ruined our reputation abroad; who let Dick Cheney run hog wild and thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job.

_______________


The catalog of his transgressions against the nation’s interests — sins of commission and omission — would keep Mr. Bush in a confessional for the rest of his life. Don’t hold your breath. He’s hardly the contrite sort.

He told ABC’s Charlie Gibson: “I don’t spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history. I guess I don’t worry about long-term history, either, since I’m not going to be around to read it.”

The president chuckled, thinking — as he did when he made his jokes about the missing weapons of mass destruction — that there was something funny going on.

Paul Krugman, winner of the Nobel prize in economics, also of the New York Times now weighs in:

Looking for a word
December 31, 2008

Unusually, I’m having a vocabulary problem. There has to be some word for the kind of person who considers his mild discomfort the equivalent of torture, crippling injury, or death for other people. But I can’t think of it.

What brings this to mind is this from Alberto Gonzales:

"I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

This reminded me of Laura Bush’s remark on carnage in Iraq:

"And believe me, no one suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this."

Remember this. And remember, too, that for long years these people were considered heroic patriots, defenders of the nation.

And now it is time for them to go away . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

"Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to War We Go!" . . . .

Per Reuters today:

Up to 30,000 new U.S. troops in Afghanistan by summer
Sat Dec 20, 2008 - By Golnar Motevalli

KABUL (Reuters) - The United States is aiming to send 20,000 to 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan by the beginning of next summer, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Saturday.

Washington is already sending some 3,000 extra troops in January and another 2,800 by spring, but officials previously have said the number would be made up to 20,000 in the next 12 to 18 months, once approved by the U.S. administration.

"Some 20 to 30,000 is the window of overall increase from where we are right now. I don't have an exact number," Admiral Mike Mullen told reporters in Kabul.

_______________


U.S. President-elect Barack Obama has pledged a renewed focus on Afghanistan, where U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001 after the September 11 attacks.

The United States now has some 31,000 troops in Afghanistan.

______________


Mullen said beefing up U.S. forces in Afghanistan was linked to winding down in Iraq.

"Available forces are directly tied to forces in Iraq. As we look to the possibility of reducing forces in Iraq over the course of the next year, the availability of forces to come here in Afghanistan will increase," Mullen said.

INDIA-PAKISTAN

Mullen said the attacks by Islamist militants in Mumbai last month showed the need to reduce Indian tensions with Pakistan and that would help bring stability to Afghanistan.

"That's another big piece of the strategy, what I would call regional focus to include Pakistan, Afghanistan and India ... leadership in all three of those countries to figure out a way to decrease tensions, not increase tensions," Mullen said.

Well, yes, that's perfectly clear.

We'll just pump MORE troops into a volatile area. THAT should "decrease tensions", huh?

Is there an end to this lunacy in sight ? ? ? ?

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

"Goodbye George" from McClatchy . . . .

McClatchy's Washington Bureau bids an early farewell to george bush today.

Commentary: Bush makes a farewell tour. Good riddance

Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers

December 18, 2008

We've been treated to a real spectacle this week as President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney limped into the home stretch of their Magical History Tour, employing distortions, half-truths and untruths in a final, desperate attempt to pervert or somehow prevent history from judging them accurately.

_______________

The great gray eminence himself, Dick Cheney, of no known address, went on national television pleading guilty to committing a war crime. Yes, Cheney said, he participated in the White House discussions on the use of torture in the interrogations of suspected terrorists. Yes, he said proudly, he approved the use of such outlawed practices as water-boarding, the simulated drowning of bound and helpless prisoners to make them talk. So what?

Photo credit: Kevin Seirs of the Charlotte Observer

_______________

Over in the White House, the president was busy signing a flood of executive orders opening the gates to oil drilling on massive chunks of previously protected public lands in the West; protecting big corporations from lawsuits in state courts when their products harm or kill innocent Americans, and generally giving his fat cat friends one last shot at looting a national Treasury of any remaining table scraps.

The president and his spinmeisters keep talking about how, with the passage of time, historians will come to judge his presidency a huge success, much as history has come to judge the administration of Harry S. Truman.

Balderdash. Or as I much prefer to say in situations like this: Bullshit!

_______________


Bush told his War College audience that of all the things he loved about the job, he was proudest of all of his role as their commander-in-chief.

Why then did he and his minions oppose virtually every attempt to reinforce their numbers and shorten the time they spent in Hell? Why did they oppose virtually every attempt to increase their pay and their benefits, and those of millions of American veterans of these and other wars?

How could so proud a commander sit idly by while soldiers and Marines were sent off to war without the armored vehicles and body armor they so desperately needed in this new kind of war?

How could his administration pinch pennies when it came to funding and manning the military hospitals that treat the thousands of wounded troops flowing home from his wars?

How can this man talk about making the world a safer and freer place by his actions when so much innocent blood has been shed by civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan? When millions have been turned into homeless refugees inside and outside Iraq? When America is left with far fewer friends and allies among the nations of the world?

The only good news left to us this gloomy, cold December is that we only have to put up with this wretched spectacle for another 30 days or so.

George W. Bush should make a hurry-up call to his architect and see if it's not too late to substitute firing slits for the ground floor windows in his new Presidential Library in Dallas.

Good-bye George, and good riddance.

Well done, Mr. Galloway.

Well done . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Sunday Morning War Worship . . . .

The MSM is at it again. Ratchet up the War Machine and watch the ratings soar.

When are we gonna put a stop to this crap?

As Carl Levin says at the end: "Lotsa luck!"





How much longer 'til we're out of here?

Counting the days, counting the days . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

Are the Dems Up to the Task ? ? ? ?

From AlterNet today:

Five Things for Dems to Keep in Mind When Gen. Petraeus Testifies on Iraq

By Paul Krugman, The New York Times - Posted on September 7, 2007

Here's what will definitely happen when Gen. David Petraeus testifies before Congress next week: he'll assert that the surge has reduced violence in Iraq -- as long as you don't count Sunnis killed by Sunnis, Shiites killed by Shiites, Iraqis killed by car bombs and people shot in the front of the head.

Here's what I'm afraid will happen: Democrats will look at Gen. Petraeus's uniform and medals and fall into their usual cringe. They won't ask hard questions out of fear that someone might accuse them of attacking the military. After the testimony, they'll desperately try to get Republicans to agree to a resolution that politely asks President Bush to maybe, possibly, withdraw some troops, if he feels like it.

There are five things I hope Democrats in Congress will remember.

First, no independent assessment has concluded that violence in Iraq is down. On the contrary, estimates based on morgue, hospital and police records suggest that the daily number of civilian deaths is almost twice its average pace from last year. And a recent assessment by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office found no decline in the average number of daily attacks.

So how can the military be claiming otherwise? Apparently, the Pentagon has a double super secret formula that it uses to distinguish sectarian killings (bad) from other deaths (not important); according to press reports, all deaths from car bombs are excluded, and one intelligence analyst told The Washington Post that "if a bullet went through the back of the head, it's sectarian. If it went through the front, it's criminal." So the number of dead is down, as long as you only count certain kinds of dead people.

_______________

In light of all this, you have to wonder what Democrats, who according to The New York Times are considering a compromise that sets a "goal" for withdrawal rather than a timetable, are thinking. All such a compromise would accomplish would be to give Republicans who like to sound moderate -- but who always vote with the Bush administration when it matters -- political cover.

And six or seven months from now it will be the same thing all over again. Mr. Bush will stage another photo op at Camp Cupcake, the Marine nickname for the giant air base he never left .on his recent visit to Iraq. The administration will move the goal posts again, and the military will come up with new ways to cook the books and claim success.

One thing is for sure: like 2004, 2008 will be a "khaki election" in which Republicans insist that a vote for the Democrats is a vote against the troops. The only question is whether they can also, once again, claim that the Democrats are flip-floppers who can't make up their minds.

The other four points Krugman makes are here.

My bet is the Dems will fold - as usual - and bushco will continue the clusterf_ck in Iraq until they can hand it off to another administration to "lose".

The odds are in my favour.

Any takers ? ? ? ?

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

How Convenient . . . .

The White House has announced when General Petraeus will present testimony before Congress on the Iraq war escalation.


The date is September 11.




Coincidence?




I think not . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

British troops and dark veil of silence

Much will probably be made of this.

Armed forces given gagging order

Because it looks like something new.

The Ministry of Defence has introduced new guidelines to prevent military personnel talking publicly about their experiences as members of Britain's armed forces.

Soldiers, sailors and air force members will be prevented from blogging, taking part in surveys, speaking in public or posting on bulletin boards, according to The Guardian.

They will also be barred from playing multi-player computer games and sending text messages, photographs and audio or video material without permission if they relate to defence matters.

The guidelines declare "all such communication must help to maintain and, where possible, enhance the reputation of defence", the newspaper reported.

The new policy follows the row earlier this year sparked by two members of the Royal Navy who sold their stories to the media after being held captive in Iran.

Receiving money for interviews, conferences and books which draw on official defence experience has now been formally banned.

Ummm....

This doesn't appear to be new. In almost all armed forces, there is a limit to what members may express publicly. The banning of receiving money for interviews, books, etc., where a member is still in the service is something I completely agree with. If a person wants to get out and then market themselves and their story, that's fine, but as long as one is "accepting the Queen's shilling", so to speak, one's voice is limited - by regulations. It always has been. Some troops have permanent gag orders, undertakings of confidence, which do not permit them to utter anything at all about their work, past or present - ever. (Despite the writings of one Andy McNab).

The UK Ministry of Defence, however, did a pretty awful job of explaining it. Considering it came from their Director General of Media and Communications, that's not surprising.

One of the first questions any British service member would be asking: "Is the DGMC a fucking civvie?"

In that the answer is "Yes", (Simon MacDowall), the average uniformed lower decker or squadie is not likely to take to kindly to the order. And sure enough, they didn't.

All of this stemmed from the capture of 15 sailors by Iran and subsequent to their release, the sale of the story, by two of those members, to the news media. The Hall Report issued a scathing indictment of the mishandling of that affair by the UK Ministry of Defence and recommended that, in future, accepting payment for a story which originated with and related directly to a person's service be prohibited.

To be honest, when I had first heard that some of the released captives were being paid, while still wearing the uniform, for their story, I was appalled.

The rules as published here, are pretty much those which have always existed. The additions which seem to be getting everyones' nickers in a twist are in paragraph 15:

15. Examples of communicating in public in public are:

• publishing material (for example books, articles, papers for academic qualifications, or any other text, audio, still images, video or other content) or submitting material with the intention or likelihood of publication, in any medium (print or electronic) available outside the government;
• self-publishing or otherwise releasing material on the internet or similar sharing technologies, for example through a blog, podcast, or other shared text, audio or video, including via mobile devices;
• interviews with journalists using broadcast, print or electronic media;
• speaking at conferences, private engagements or other events where the public or media may be present;
• completing external organisations' questionnaires, taking part in external surveys or polls, or contributing to external studies or research projects;
• contributing to any online community or shared electronic information resource available outside government, for example a bulletin board, newsgroup, wiki, on-line social network, mutliplayer game or other information sharing application.

The emphasized sub-paras are new, and it is those which are causing the problem. Inasmuch as MacDowall is saying this is nothing out of the ordinary, he clearly doesn't understand sailors, soldiers, marines and airmen, and he has no grasp on the magnitude of censorship the new regulation imposes.

Service in the armed forces is not the same as working for the local company, no matter how large. Service personnel have always bitched, and will continue to bitch, about their lot in life, their leaders and the crappy gear the government expects them to use.

As one member of the Army Rumour Service Forum said, We legally cannot put a memorial up for fallen comrades in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Over at RumRation, the Royal Navy and Royal Marine unofficial forum, the same kind of discussion is going on.

The truth is, it is just an expansion of some very old rules, but the regulation is so badly written that nobody can decide whether they are actually allowed to post to the forums or whether they are now in breach of regulations.

Without clarification, which the MOD's response did little to provide, people in a conversation discussing the crappy food on a past patrol or the lousy weather on an Atlantic crossing are, in literal terms, violating regulations. Telling the world that your new body armour is useless can get you landed in a court martial.

So, yeah. This is a gag order... unless someone with a uniform and a brass hat tells the troops otherwise and clarifies what they are actually allowed to discuss.

Update: It is particularly noteworthy that British service personnel, unhappy with this policy, are expressing themselves in forums. That ought to get MacDowell twisting in the wind, but one of the best comments I've seen so far is this one:

Every one should write in with an application so that they can talk to their mother, as she is a member of the public talking to her is banned. After 4000 applications in a week they will get the message.

[...]

Next time an MP turns up and asks you a question, tell them you do not have written authority to answer there [sic] questions

I feel a breeze....

You Can't Play In My Sandbox . . . .

Today's On Point radio program with Tom Ashbrook on NPR featured a story concerning global sovereignty. The current activity between Canada and Russia in the Arctic was the main topic. No doubt the US will soon enter the fray with the dwindling natural resources south of the as yet untapped area. (For some unknown reason the audio links on the site are inoperable. I'll update when available)

Global Resources Wars

By host Tom Ashbrook:

This hour On Point: flags and ice and the new resource scramble at the North Pole and around the world.

It was a quirky story in the US news media, and a national triumph in Moscow.

Last Thursday, in the frigid wake of a nuclear powered ice-breaker, Russia sent two mini-submarines 13,000 feet beneath the Arctic ice cap, and planted a titanium-encased Russian flag on the seabed of the North Pole.

"The Arctic," declared expedition leader Artur Chilingarov, "is ours." And with it, Moscow hopes, a huge share of the massive oil and gas reserves under the melting pole.




The US and Canada laughed, but not for long.

Fred Weir, Moscow Correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor

Michael Klare, Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College and author of "Blood and Oil"

Michael Byers, Professor of International Law at the University of British Columbia

Eric Posner, Professor of Law at University of Chicago Law School

One of the panel discussion participants, Michael Byers, is a professor of international law at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He cautions to not become hysterical at this point over the activity in the area. Hope he's right.

Ashbrook interviews a US Coast Guard lieutenant currently on the largest cutter in the fleet that is mapping the area for who-knows-what purposes?

The listener call-in comments are particularly interesting. Typical of the "us-or-them" US mentality is one caller who advocates setting up alliances with Russia as opposed to Canada in the battle to control resources. It would be interesting to get stevie harper and peter mackay's take on that type of attitude.

Now this headline from the CBC today:

Planned army base, port in North heat up Arctic quest

I wonder how all this figures in to the Deep Integration/SPP discussion?

How this plays out over the next few years should be quite a show. Get your popcorn and grab a seat . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

Where To Begin ? ? ? ?

There are so many obvious questions raised by this story it's impossible to know where to begin . . . .


Rice: Iran now the biggest U.S. strategic challenge in Mideast



Take a breath . . . .



I know you're probably pulling your hair out . . . .



Relax, take a chill pill . . . .



Now, . . . .



All together, . . . .



ARRRGGGHHH ! ! ! !


BTW, the photo is crying for a caption. Feel free . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

Yeah, That'll Work . . . .

Un-f'ingbelievable.

This should really make things better. (From Reuters)

U.S. plans big arms sale to Saudi Arabia
Fri Jul 27, 2007 11:30PM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve arms sales totaling $20 billion over the next decade for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors, The New York Times reported in Saturday editions.

Coming as some U.S. officials contend that the Saudi government is not helping the situation in Iraq, the proposal for advanced weapons for Saudi Arabia has stoked concern in Israel and among its U.S. backers, the Times said.

Senior officials, including State Department and Pentagon officials who outlined the deals' terms, told the Times they thought the Bush administration had resolved those concerns, partly by offering Israel more than $30 billion in military aid over the next 10 years, which would be a significant increase over recent levels.

The sad thing is, the US congress will probably approve both sales in the interest of the US economy or "security".

Crapola . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)

The Good Harbor Report

Noodling about the internets yesterday I happened upon a reference to Richard Clarke. This reference included a link to a website called The Good Harbor Report so I clicked on it.

There are several very good articles and features there, including a report from Clarke entitled "While You Were At War" which seems to me to be a good substitute for the NIE the Senate keeps being stonewalled on. Good Harbor Report is also about to undergo a significant change. Very soon their name will change to Cold Hard Truth dot com and readers will be invited to submit articles because "We want to be the place where the smartest, most original, most unexpected ideas in global security, foreign policy and politics are proposed and discussed, where we don’t simply follow the news but lead the way to new concepts, new philosophies, new realities."

Anyway, the article that really caught my eye and got me looking further was the piece by Julie Sirrs, "Let The Afghans Lead".

Sirrs is a former DIA military analyst. She was the first, for a long time the only, analyst to recognize the significance of Bin Laden moving his base of operation from Sudan to Afghanistan back in the 90s. Gail Sheehy wrote about her in The New York Observer in '04. It's yet another tale of intelligence ignored and people threatened and ostracized by the intelligence and diplomatic communities in the US. (Why exactly do we believe anything they tell us about Arar again?)

Sirrs makes the observation that the Afghans have been fighting each other for centuries and more recently successfully fighting more traditionally organized modern military machines and defeating them.

And yet we don't consider them as capable of handling the fight against the Talibs because the Afghan army isn't enough like a modern army.

As she says, "It’s been five years since the U.S. supported Afghan fighters in overthrowing the Taliban. It boggles the mind that the Afghans who had been fighting the Taliban – and before that the Soviets and themselves – for over 20 years are just now becoming “nearly ready” to fight on their own. Could it be that the way we are “training” the Afghans isn’t really as effective as what they already know? Witness the Taliban’s resurgence. Obviously superior firepower and numbers – the combined U.S. and NATO forces total about 40,000 troops, the Afghan National Army is currently about 24,000, while the Taliban are estimated to have around 10,000 fighters – aren’t the way to win the war in Afghanistan."

Close-quarters vibrators?

Think of that vibrating cell phone. The one that causes you to stop in the middle of a crosswalk, dig into your pocket and start talking amongst the crowd. Now, MIT is working on doing the same thing to soldiers and possibly other occupations who need to have information passed to them in a noisy and often confused environments.

A vibrating vest that writes messages on its wearer's back is being tested by researchers in the US. In future, it could be used to send important commands to soldiers or fire-fighters, warning them of imminent danger when ordinary radios cannot be used, for example.

The vest is made from black spandex and fastens around a person's lower torso with Velcro. An array of 16 small vibrating motors is embedded in the back of the vest and connects to a control unit on one side. This unit contains a wireless transceiver linked wirelessly to a controlling computer.

Hmmm... sounds like a good idea on the surface except that it is yet another item for the poor infanteer to strap on before going to work. The other thing is that it's jammable as is any radio signal.

Commands sent from the computer are translated into patterns "displayed" – like Braille-on-the-back – by the vibrating motors. The wearer's back was chosen to receive messages because it is a relatively large area that is also less likely to sustain damage.
The US army is part-funding the research: "They are interested in a way to communicate simple commands in situations when the hands are doing other things, or radios can't be used," explains Lynette Jones, the MIT engineer leading the project.

OK. I wonder is Lynette aware of this program? The Land Warrior program integrates several systems onto the body of a dismounted (moves on foot) soldier. One of them is a communications system. A problem with both the "soldier" and the "leader" radio is that the effective range is about 1300 meters. More range would certainly help, but if the soldier is being sent maneouvring signals does that not mean he/she is within visual range?

Right now the US soldier using a Land Warrior system carries 92.5 lbs. of gear (including weapon) into close combat. That is expected to be reduced to 84 lbs. That's one helluva combat load.

Eight of the symbols are derived from hand signals already used by the US military. "They communicate things like stop, look left, run, proceed faster or proceed slower," explains Jones. When four corners of the array vibrate, for example, this means stop. And a vibrating column, moving from one side to the other, means turn left or right.

This system looks to be one-way or "simplex". The current Land Warrior system offers two way communications, a global positioning system, a computer and monocle viewer.

There is also the question of vibrating motors under a load carrying harness... ouch!

Although... a little soothing back massage in the middle of a close-quarters battle would actually be kind of... you know... exciting relaxing.

(I told you this was coming)