Wait, wasn't being commander of the Alaska National Guard part of Palin's executive experience the McCain camp has been touting?  I guess that means she runs things about as well as the rest of the Republican Party.

Veterans For America: 

The post-deployment challenges facing Alaska's Army National Guard are more daunting and widespread than any seen by Veterans for America (VFA).

VFA's National Guard Program just completed a week in the state reviewing the needs of Alaska's citizen-Soldiers and the resources in place to meet them. The needs of Alaska's Guard members and their families far outstrip the available help.

Many of the Alaska's Guard members have been deployed, and redeployed, despite the shortage of care and treatment available upon their return. With more than one-quarter of Alaska's Guard members living 60 miles or more from a Veterans Affairs facility, many rarely if ever get treatment they need. Travel to Anchorage alone can cost more than $1,500 for each Guard member - an upfront cost too burdensome for many to shoulder, even if they are eventually reimbursed. With the economy worsening, the costs to Guard families for their own healthcare will mount and even fewer will receive treatment.

We owe our citizen-Soldiers better than this.

Read our findings

During the recent debate with Barack Obama, John McCain stated that "I know the veterans, I know them well, and I know that they know that I'll take care of them". Obama let it slide, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Our good friend Brandon Freidman of VetVoice has done some excellent work researching and compiling the Master List of how little McCain cares for troops and veterans. It's a must-read post that's too detailled to excerpt but it comprehensively lists all the times McCain: refused to support veterans by refusing to vote for veteran benefits, healthcare and support; refused to support the troops in combat by voting against extra armor for them; refused to  support the troops by first cheerleading for and then voting for enmiring America in Bush's war of choice in Iraq; refused to support the real front in Afghanistan by continually voting against any withdrawal from Iraq. It also lists a whole slew of McCain's foreign policy gaffes, pointing to systemic ignorance and bad judgement rather than a few accidental mis-speakings. Brandon has included sources for his list and YouTube videos to back many of the items.

Seriously, you'll want to read and cite this list often. His support for veterans and troops is a big part of McCain's pitch but in reality it's simply mythology created out of whole cloth.

And so is McCain's "judgement" on Iraq.

McCain: "We're going to win this victory. Tragically, we will lose American lives. But it will be brief.  We're going to find massive evidence of weapons of mass destruction . . . It's going to send the message throughout the Middle East that democracy can take hold in the Middle East." (Fox News, Hannity & Colmes, 2/21/03)

The Obama campaign has released a whole bunch of videos by "Next Generation" veterans - those who served and fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Here's the first:

 And here's one from partial-amputee Jon Kuniholm, who talks about his experiences, addresses the "phony troops" meme and directly asks John McCain how long he'll support a "mission" that amounts to puting up figurative "accomplished" banners at regular intervals.

There's also one from veterans and military family members in Virginia and another from Bobby Wise, who served in Iraq and is veterans field director for the Obama campaign. All good, powerful stuff and these veterans and military family members really do make the best spokespeople for why Barack Obama is stronger and smarter on national security and veterans issues.

Did you think it would be any different?

 The Associated Press has learned that President Bush plans to keep the number of U.S. troops in Iraq near the current level through the end of the year, then bring home up to 8,000 combat and support troops by mid-January.

In a speech on Tuesday, Bush is expected to announce that he will maintain the current U.S. forces - that's roughly 145,000 troops, including 15 combat brigades and thousands of support forces - through the final full year of his administration.

So while Bush bragged this morning, and much of the mainstream media lapped it up, that returning troop numbers to pre-surge levels constitutes a "withdrawal," the math...and the consequences...don't add up.   From The Guardian (UK):

But a reduction of 8,000 troops over the next few months will still leave US troop levels in Iraq at about 140,000, posing a big problem for Bush's successor.

In fact, the pace of the reduction in combat troops is both slower and smaller than had been anticipated. US commanders see little alternative to keeping a big troop presence in Iraq for now because the situation remains fragile, although Baghdad has made it clear it would like all US combat forces to leave by 2011 in current talks on a security pact.

He went on to argue that the US needed to maintain current levels through the Iraqi provincial elections later this year, and that consideration of force reductions makes sense only after those elections and until the incoming commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, has assessed the new situation.

Toby Dodge, an analyst at Queen Mary, University of London, said Bush's decision was a compromise between Petraeus and Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

He said: "Petraeus wanted a slower withdrawal because the thinks the gains are reversible, while the other commanders wanted to shift troops to Afghanistan and to save the army from being broken, so Bush compromised between the two camps."

Although the violence has dropped largely because of the surge, Dodge also believes the progress that has been achieved is clearly reversible.

"The Iraqi army is a work in progress and the police is still completely divided along sectarian lines."...

Current US deployments to Afghanistan include 14,000 troops that are part of a Nato force and an additional 19,000 under separate US command. As Bush shuffles American troops around, one thing remains certain: American forces are fully stretched and are likely to remain so well into next year.

Brandon Friedman at VetVoice notes that for its "Pledge of Allegiance video" on Tuesday night, the Republican National Convention used stock footage of a staged military funeral, along with actors - fake soldiers and a staged military funeral instead of the real thing.

Brandon writes:

The issue here isn't that the RNC used actors in what might have been a haste.  Rather, the underlying problem is that Bush and McCain supporters don't like to deal with the messy reality of warfare that genuine troops bring to the table.  That is, they feel compelled to stage a funeral with actors.  Because to show a real military funeral--with the heaving chests of a broken family clutching a flag-draped coffin containing the pieces of their dead soldier--might just make the funny hat-clad, stupid button-wearing audience blanch.  And that doesn't make for good TV.  Plus, people just wouldn't go for it.  So they use sanitized actors.   

But this is an insult to the military.  The use of actors shows an unwillingness to face up to what they've done--to the military and to the nation.  And it shows that the only way to keep up support for the war is to hide its reality from the American people.   

If I said that something like this surprised me, though, I'd be lying.  But then, this is also why troops overseas are donating to Obama at a six to one rate over McCain.  They're tired of being treated like this.

I'd add that its another example of the glorification of war - something that can only be done by sanitizing it - that McCain says he hates but that Republicans indulge in at every turn. Even some on the Right have previously noted McCain's love for warmongering.

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  There's a bit of a difference of opinion between NATO and Afghan authorities over the result of recent airstrikes.

American-led coalition forces killed 76 Afghan civilians in western Afghanistan on Friday, the interior ministry said.

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"Seventy-six civilians, most of them women and children, were martyred today in a coalition forces operation in Herat province," the statement said.

Coalition forces bombarded the Azizabad area of Shindand district in Herat province on Friday afternoon, the ministry said. Nineteen victims were women, seven were men, and the rest were children under 15, it said.

However, the coalition denied killing civilians. It said 30 militants had been killed in an air strike in Shindand district in the early hours of Friday and no further air strikes had been launched. Air strikes took place between 1am-2am after Afghan and coalition soldiers were ambushed by insurgents while on a patrol targeting a Taliban commander in Herat, the US military said in a statement.

...Saeed Sharif, a council member where the strike occurred, said: "Last night at 2am some people were attending a holy Koran recitation in Shindand district when Americans started bombing."

This isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. What usually happens next is the NATO carries out an investigation and says it is in the clear while the Afghans stick to their story. Which makes me wonder about the disconnect between that absence of admission for culpability in individual incidents and the overall admission that airstrikes and shootings by coalition troops killed as many Afghans as the Taliban did last year. I'm sure Afghans wonder too - and then NATO wonders why the Taliban is resurgent.

(VOAvideo of US, Poland Sign Missile Defense Deal)

American plans for missile defense bases in bordering nations infuriate Russia, and the US has had to bend over backwards to push through the Polish and Czech sites over the objections of those nation's populace - even going so far as to offer Poland US troops and air-defense missiles on their border with Russia. But why is the Bush administration pushing so hard for a defense against a so-far entirely hypothetical threat from Iran and to have bases for missiles that don't work?

Phil Coyle, the Pentagon's former top weapons tester (.pdf), says it's all for nothing. "The system proposed for Poland and the Czech Republic doesn't exist, has never been tested, and has no demonstrated effectiveness to defend Europe or the U.S. under realistic operational conditions," Coyle contends in an exclusive conversation with DANGER ROOM.

He says that even our existing missile defenses, installed in Alaska, couldn't stop more than one or two rudimentary missiles from, say, Iran. "For these reasons the U.S. BMD system proposed for Europe is causing strife with Russia for nothing."

Well, not exactly for nothing.

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Download | play Download | play

This Week with George Stephanopoulos marks the passings of Issac Hayes, Bill Gwatney, Jerry Wexler, Leroy Sievers, and the pentagon released the names of 9 service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to icasualties, the total fatalities for the Iraq coalition is now 4,460, and per Iraq Body Count, there were 138 Iraqi civilians killed this week.

Way back in September, we learned that Barack Obama and Ron Paul, who don’t have too much in common, were the top two presidential candidates when it came to financial support from U.S. troops.

It had a certain political salience — opponents of the war in Iraq took note of the fact that the top two recipients of military donations went to critics of the Bush policy — but it was still relatively early in the process. Would the trend continue once the race grew more competitive? Actually, yes.

The Center for Responsive Politics reported today that Obama has received six times as much money from the troops as John McCain.

According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain’s haul.

Despite McCain’s status as a decorated veteran and a historically Republican bent among the military, members of the armed services overall — whether stationed overseas or at home — are also favoring Obama with their campaign contributions in 2008, by a $55,000 margin. Although 59 percent of federal contributions by military personnel has gone to Republicans this cycle, of money from the military to the presumed presidential nominees, 57 percent has gone to Obama.

Aaron Belkin, a professor of political science at the University of California who studies the military, said, “That’s shocking. The academic debate is between some who say that junior enlisted ranks lean slightly Republican and some who say it’s about equal, but no one would point to six-to-one” in Democrats’ favor. “That represents a tremendous shift from 2000, when the military vote almost certainly was decisive in Florida and elsewhere, and leaned heavily towards the Republicans.”

That last point is especially striking. Eight years ago, Bush outraised Gore among military personnel almost 2 to 1. Four years ago, Kerry did better, but Bush raised $1.50 for every dollar Kerry raised.

And yet, now the numbers have shifted to Obama, in a big way.

A couple of months ago, Time magazine posed the question: “Does McCain Have a Vets Problem?” The question hardly fits into the existing media narrative — John McCain is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War. He shouldn’t, the argument goes, have any trouble winning over the support of other veterans.

But the narrative is incomplete, to put it mildly. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave McCain a grade of D for his record of voting against veterans (Obama got a B+), while the Disabled Veterans of America gave McCain a 20% vote rating. The Vietnam Veterans of America compiled a list of key votes, and found McCain voted against the group’s position 15 times and with the group eight times. (Obama, in contrast, voted with the VVA 12 times, and against it only once.)

With that in mind, when McCain went to Las Vegas over the weekend to speak to the Disabled American Veterans, perhaps it shouldn’t have been too big a surprise that the presumptive Republican nominee received lukewarm support.

Sen. John McCain, speaking to disabled veterans Saturday in Las Vegas, attacked his Democratic opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, for his foreign policy record, while also proposing a program that would allow veterans to acquire health care at private hospitals and not just through the Veterans Affairs Department.

The veterans, at Bally’s for their national convention, gave him a tepid reception, especially considering McCain’s life story.

The Las Vegas Sun interviewed 14 veterans after McCain’s speech, only one identified himself as a certain McCain voter. Devoting most of his remarks to attacking Obama apparently didn’t help.

Retired Marine Duke Hendershot, a double amputee who served in Vietnam, supported McCain’s 2000 campaign, but is undecided now. “John just isn’t the same as he used to be. He’s not his own man,” Hendershot said. “A lot of that has to do with how he’s wanted this job so bad for so long that he’s tied himself to President Bush.” Hendershot added, “[McCain]should have been talking about veterans issues, not his opponent.”

Obama, in contrast, appeared via video, did not attack McCain, and focused exclusively on veterans’ issues.

SilentPatriot asked yesterday why the Bush administration would ban non-partisan voter registration drives from federally-financed veterans sites. Maybe this has something to do with it.

An op-ed in today's New York Times questions the Veterans Administration's policy that bans nonpartisan voter registration drives from federally-financed veterans sites.

NYT:

WHAT is the secretary of Veterans Affairs thinking? On May 5, the department led by James B. Peake issued a directive that bans nonpartisan voter registration drives at federally financed nursing homes, rehabilitation centers and shelters for homeless veterans. As a result, too many of our most patriotic American citizens — our injured and ill military veterans — may not be able to vote this November.

The federal government should be doing everything it can to support our nation’s veterans who have served us so courageously. There can be no justification for any barrier that impedes the ability of veterans to participate in democracy’s most fundamental act, the vote.

So let me get this straight: We ask these brave young men and women to risk their lives in order to protect our rights and freedoms -- most important of which is the right to vote -- and then we make it harder for them to exercise that right when they return? Why is Bush so afraid to have our veterans register and vote?

(HT: Faiz)

NiemanWatchDog:

Her son is on his second deployment in Iraq, where his military camp recently burned to the ground as a result of an electrical fire. Mary Hornig thinks journalists should be asking if anyone is going to do anything about shoddy contracting - and whether there is any limit to what will be asked of the armed forces.

Q. Who has responsibility for shoddy contracting resulting in electrocutions and fires on military sites in Iraq? Where is the accountability? Why are our servicemen and women risking injury and dying in showers and housing units in Iraq?
Q. Will Halliburton contractors continue to be awarded electrical contracts based on past sub-par performance?

Q. Will military personnel be compensated for their losses resulting from electrical fires and if so, at what percentage of their losses?

Read on

Supporting the troops is just another Republican talking point. 

Nicole and I have both written posts about the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of PFC LaVena Johnson, and Democracy Now! had a heartbreaking interview with her family last week. LaVena's family has worked hard to find the truth about her death and have finally had a breakthrough in the case. Unfortunately, the new details they uncovered are so disturbing that they could potentially make the Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch stories pale in comparison. The above video from Cenk of The Young Turks captures my exact feelings about this horrific case.  What you're about to read will sicken and enrage you.

The Army claims the 5’1” African-American soldier from North County died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound with a rifle on July 19, 2005. Her father, John H. Johnson, Ph.D. of Florissant, said color photos and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the military suggest otherwise.

“Our worst fears were substantiated when we started going through information from the Army,” Johnson said.

He said the pictures and documents from the incident proved that his daughter had been brutalized - raped, beaten, shot and set on fire.

"Someone poured lye in her vagina to destroy evidence," her father said. "Her body was dumped in a dirty, filthy contractor's tent. Read on...

This was not a suicide. Contact your representatives in the House and Senate to demand a full scale Congressional investigation begin immediately. This crime and obvious cover up cannot go unpunished. 

BREAKING:  The House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs is holding a hearing now on Sexual Assault in the Military.  You can watch the live stream here. 

It seems hard to imagine a presidential candidate, running in the midst of two wars, openly speculate about cutting back on veterans’ healthcare. And yet, here we are.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain appeared Tuesday to suggest rationing of veterans’ health care may be needed so combat veterans can receive the care they deserve.

At a town hall meeting in Dover, N.H., McCain talked about the need to “concentrate” veterans’ health care on people with injuries that “are a direct result of combat.”

“Right now, there are people who drive a long way and they stand in line to stand in line to get an appointment to get an appointment,” McCain said.

McCain’s campaign press office did not return a telephone call asking for clarification of the remarks.

Well, that’s not good at all.

The Washington Monthly ran a terrific cover story a couple of years ago, heralding the success of the VA system, and the quality of the medical care veterans receive. McCain may hold some kind of ideological grudge against the VA system — it is, after all, a form of socialized medicine — but even raising the prospect of rationing veterans’ health care seems like a remarkably bad idea. It’s not good policy, and it’s certainly not good politics.

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When Americans were asked in 1993 about whether U.S. troops should be able to serve, even if they’re gay, a majority (55%) were opposed to the idea. About eight years later, in 2001, public opinion had already shifted a great deal — 62% of Americans supported gays serving openly in the Armed Forces, while 35% did not.

And now, as hearings on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" are poised to begin on the Hill, public opinion on the issue is practically one-sided -- in a progressive direction.

Seventy-five percent of Americans in a new Washington Post-ABC News poll said gay people who are open about their sexual orientation should be allowed to serve in the U.S. military, up from 62 percent in early 2001 and 44 percent in 1993.

Majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents alike now believe it is acceptable for openly gay people to serve in the U.S. armed forces. Shortly after he took office in 1993, Clinton faced strong resistance to his campaign pledge to lift the military’s ban on allowing gay people to enlist. At that time, 67 percent of Republicans and 75 percent of conservatives opposed the idea. A majority of independents, 56 percent, and 45 percent of Democrats also opposed changing the policy.

Today, Americans have become more supportive of allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the armed forces. Support from Republicans has doubled over the past 15 years, from 32 to 64 percent. More than eight in 10 Democrats and more than three-quarters of independents now support the idea, as did nearly two-thirds of self-described conservatives.

That’s really quite extraordinary. Get this: even 57% of evangelical Protestants support gays serving openly in the military.

On the one hand, it’s a very encouraging development. It’s hard to know what prompted the reversal, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with the need for well-trained, physically-fit, patriotic Americans volunteering for duty during two wars, regardless of those Americans’ sexual orientation.

And on the other hand, we have John McCain and the Republican Party establishment.

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