Briefly, Real Clear Politics quoted General Franks in Qatar and highlighted the following:

“The number of stories presented in any media outlet over the last five years that can be called into question and proven invalid is huge, and the number of incorrect assertions and absurd allegations is enormous.

If you as a military officer, diplomat or politician, use your judgement to make decisions and if your judgement is bad, what happens? You lose your job, livelihood, because you are responsible for what you do…”

Interesting, but if you’re a politician and you make a bad judgement, do you lose your job or livelihood? Obviously not.

In the same Q&A reported in a different Gulf Times article, General Franks reminds that “there is no guarantee that there not be” a civil war in Iraq. Continuing, he said, “My own country was founded in the late 18th century and some 60 years later what did we see? A civil war.” Ah, enter the General into the battle of words On the Media capably reported on 3 March 2006.

Briefly, the military is censoring, but it’s not what you think. They are censoring the websurfing of troops in Iraq, using filtering software to protect children and citizens of Muslim countries from accessing "questionable" content. While preventing porn surfing could be seen as reasonable (trying to accomodate the filter notion), but the implementation is much broader and blocks political speech. What is Centcom’s take on this? I don’t know, but it’ll be interesting to find out.

See Wonkett’s We’re Bringing the War Back Home and Our Boys Need Gossip, a listing by BoingBoing of some of the blocked sites, and Kathryn Cramer’s always penetrating analysis and deep sea dredging (be sure to review her side links on the "SmartFilter Lowdown" for other offsite news and analysis). Kathryn notes, among other things, some of the states licensing SmartFilter: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia.

Should our troops be subject to the same censorship? Beyond using the troops as props (sourced from TPM), is the Administration really concerned about the Zogby poll (with or without various repudiations and concerns about its accuracy), or MilitaryTimes polls that continue to show the military on a different page than their civilian leadership?

Is this really necessary? Is this a necessary and proper use of our resources? Are we that concerned about the time our guys are spending on "subversive" blogs and news sources?

The is a natural, and unfortunate, extension of the McCarthyism of the White House’s rhetoric: "you’re with us or against us and I don’t care if you’re really with actually because I’ll do what I want".

Briefly, Protesting at Soldier Funerals is repulsive and pathetic.

In the back of a truck, there were signs that read "Thank God for IED’s" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers."
I was with the Phelps family. They’ve launched a disturbing campaign to tarnish the funerals of fallen soldiers.

Fred Phelps is the pastor of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka. The congregation is made up mostly of his family. Phelps has 13 children, 54 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren.

He describes himself as an "old-time" gospel preacher who says, "You can’t preach the Bible without preaching the hatred of God."

The divide continues in America. This is not the rich v poor or white v non-white debate. This is the civil-military relationship in the United States. Joshnua Green’s Company Left in the January/February issue of the Atlantic Monthly comments on a change presently happening.

Joshua Green’s article conforms with the MilitaryTimes survey’s of serving officers: an expanding disagreement with the President and the Administration over policy. I was asked the other day why doesn’t the military simply do something and act on their beliefs. Seriously, would you want that? The deep tradition of civil-military relations, a founding tenent of our democracy, requires the military to be subjugated below the civilian leadership.

It is clear the military leadership is feeling out alternative expressions. Public disagreements with the Administration is on the rise, evident in the few examples I’ve posted in the civil-military category on this site. Few people seem to remember that the Pentagon’s leadership is generally civilians, but one might conclude the "politicized" brass resident in the Pentagon is more closely aligned with civilians than the military.

I’d also suggest listening to Tom Ashbrook’s interview with Pete McCloskey. Hon McCloskey is "coming back to confront a Republican party — his party — that he says has gone dangerously wrong."

From a bit of surfing comes this. As with all humor, there’s a bit of truth in each stereotype.

All persons, upon entering Military Service and upon reenlistment, are required to take the Oath of Enlistment. At one time, the Oath of Enlistment was the same for all services. Due to changes in both society and the differing Military Branches, the Oath has undergone marked change and has been specifically tailored to each branch of the Military and their specific function. Here are the latest versions of the Oath of Enlistment as recently released by the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

Continue reading “Humor: Updating U.S. Military Oaths
“ →

News brief on how we treat some of our veterans. Highlights are below from this WaPo story: Who Can Fight for the Soldiers?.

If American soldiers are mature and responsible enough to choose torisk their lives for their country, shouldn’t they be consideredcompetent to hire a lawyer? No, not if that lawyer is going to pursuetheir veterans’ benefits claims before the Department of VeteransAffairs. That’s the flabbergasting answer from Congress and theSupreme Court….

…But later the Board ofVeterans’ Appeals said that Myers didn’t use the precise words thatare required for what is known as a “notice of disagreement” (or NOD).Without that, the board rejected his appeal.

The exclusion of lawyers has also been a cause for the huge delaysthroughout the benefits system. It is common for a VA proceeding tolast more than a decade. Many claims are recycled over and over.Whereas ethical rules prohibit lawyers from filing frivolous claims,there are no such rules constraining service representatives. Manyveterans have died of old age before their claims were resolved. Theirclaims die with them, since widows and orphans by statute have noright to pursue the claims.

News brief: In an effort to further break civil-military relations, or at least demonstrated lack of understanding and support of the sacrifices made by our soldiers and their families…

The Pentagon hopes to reap billions of dollars to pay for ships, aircraft and other weapons by doubling or tripling health insurance premiums paid by military retirees and driving 600,000 of those pensioners out of the military medical system, charges a coalition of veterans’ organizations….

Defense Department officials have complained for
years that skyrocketing health care costs, particularly for retirees,
are cutting into money needed to equip today’s troops. The Pentagon’s
medical expenses have doubled in the p ast five years and could reach
$64 billion annually by 2015, according to Pentagon estimates.

From The Virginian-Pilot story notes the appropriate concern for rising health care costs. The "comparisons between civilian and military health premiums ignore the hardships that go with military life" and furthers (demonstrates?) the image that military service is an occupation and not an institution in the mind of many.

News brief from UPI that former generals promote anti-torture bill:

About three-dozen retired military officers with combat experience in World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Iraq met privately near the Pentagon last week to discuss their support for a new anti-torture law, oppose White House efforts to water it down and press reluctant colleagues to join them publicly.

The seperation between civilian leadership that has not experienced war because of having something "better to do" becomes clearer in the torture discussions. Countries with ticking time bombs walking the streets like Israel finds less need (not no need) for torture and extraordinary rendition than the US. Does their perception have something to do with the civilian leadership understanding the nature of war?

News brief: Rumsfeld Seeks Cut in Military.

Hampered by an increasingly combative relationship with Congress, the Pentagon is expected to seek savings from its payroll rather than making deep cuts in major weapons programs in its next long-range plan.

The lead of this story immediately distracts the reader from reality. The combative relationship with Congress is not with the military. The public almost entirely reads "Pentagon" and hears "US Armed Forces". This is an example of the civilian leadership (civilian elites in the executive branch) of the military having a combative relationship with the civilian elites in the legislative branch. There are reasons why the uniformed military has its own lobbyists on Capitol Hill to lobby for restoring budgets the Pentagon civilians (and politicized military… three star and above?) have cut.

News brief that the US Marines have ended their security detail at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis and at the revered crypt of Captain John Paul Jones. West Point made the transition to private security long ago, a quiet distinction the middies would comment on with the knowledge the Marines were about to go.

A Naval Academy tradition that lasted 155 years has come to an end: The Marine Corps sentries who guarded the gates and the crypt of Revolutionary War Capt. John Paul Jones have been withdrawn and sent to war. The four dozen Marines were released from their security duties in a ceremony on Friday and are being replaced by Navy enlisted personnel. "Pray for them, for many of them are going into harm’s way," a chaplain said in an invocation for the departing members of the Naval Academy Company, Marine Barracks. The Marines have provided security at the gates and for dignitaries’ visits and special events on the academy campus since before the Civil War. They also performed largely ceremonial duties, including standing guard outside the crypt of Jones, one of the founders of the Navy. "They’ve done much more, in their ability to look tough but remain pleasant," said Vice Adm. Rodney Rempt, the academy superintendent. Dozens of military installations across the nation have turned to civilian security officers in recent years, and the Navy is leaving that option open for the academy. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point brought on a private security firm in 2004. The sentries will bolster U.S. forces stretched thin by deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Obviously, we can use those Marines in more significant roles," said Gary Solis, a West Point professor and former official historian for the Marine Corps who frequently lectures at the Naval Academy. "But it’s too bad a tradition like that has to end."

It is fascinating and a little scary that we are that stretched that a century and a half tradition at the finest service academy must be sacrificed. Were are the priorities and the sense of tradition in institutions such as the military services?

Technorati Tags: Annapolis, USNA

This could also be labelled: budget cuts force alternative to armored HMMVEE (from a listserv, I’m not this clever)

Technorati Tags: Politics, Iraq, Transformation, FCS

Changes in enlistment motivation from institutional to occupational and back can be found in the advertisements for the military service. Consider the purpose of the Army of One, the Navy’s Accelerate Your Life, and the Air Forces program (which was what again? obviously it didn’t track well with this demographic). The JMSDF has apparently two recruiting videos. One is clearly institutional and the other, well, I’m not sure what the other is. Look for yourself and determine (this link has both videos playing simultaneously). Thank to Glimpse of the World for this. See note: see this English-language Japanese news story on SDF / JMSDF recruiting changes (not quite the Army of One or Be All You Can Be).

News about recruiting is not generally interesting and usually far from exciting, usually a less exciting version of the press releases that triggered the story. Of course, there is more information behind the story and interesting aspects of what was not told. My interest is in the later part.

An AP story, Military Recruitment Hits October Targets (10 Nov 05), is an all-too easy re-write of a press release:

The Army, which missed its recruiting goal for 2005 by a wide margin,
got off to a good start in the new budget year by exceeding its October
targets for the active-duty Army as well as the National Guard and
Reserve.

Continue reading “Recruiting Goals and the Executive
“ →

News brief (14 Nov 2005)): Unemployment Rate Skyrockets

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that for the first three quarters of 2005, nearly 15 percent of veterans aged 20-24 are jobless — three times the national average.