The Nightowl Newswrap

"Noncombat" deaths in the theater of war continue to receive short shrift but soldiers electrocuted by faulty building construction when they step into the shower are just as dead as if they were hit by an IED or took a bullet. That is exactly how Ryan Maseth died, and his families loss was compounded by the fact that the Army lied and tried to blame him, saying he had carried an electrical appliance into the shower. His mother, Cheryl Harris, has been a force of nature not to be denied in forcing Congress and the Pentagon to investigate the issue. On July 11 she finally testified before a panel of mostly Democratic lawmakers, and she is suing to hold KBR liable for her son's death. "It is about time we got some answers ... at long last," said Sen. Robert Casey Jr., D-Pa. He released a letter to Gen. David Petraeus asking why his command had only recently ordered "theaterwide" technical inspections of military facilities despite being alerted to widespread wiring problems in Iraq installations more than three and a half years ago in a report filed by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers safety specialist. Debbie Crawford of Oregon, who worked for KBR in Baghdad, told the Senate Democratic Policy Committee that "Time and time again we heard, 'This is not the United States... OSHA doesn't apply here. If you don't like it, you can go home.'"


If the Red Pill reveals the truth and the Blue Pill preserves the illusion, what the hell color pill did Carly Fiorina take??? In a stunning display of blatant dishonesty, she went on Meet the Press this morning to try her hand at revisionist history, in defiance of John $idney's own record. In Carly-World, her guy has stood up to bu$h repeatedly and opposed him on the war. By the time she was done, the bullshit was so deep she needed a snorkel.

No daylight between 'em on economic matters, either In an interview with Wolf Blitzer, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford drew a blank when pressed for differences between Mc$ame and bu$h on their economic policies.



$200K will buy a lot of Ri¢hie Ri¢h comic books Stephen Payne, a Bush pioneer whose fundraising for il Douche' bought him a political appointment to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, has been caught on tape offering access to administration officials in exchange for six-figure donations to the aWol bu$h presidential library - presuming they find a location that doesn't recoil in horror at the thought of him lionized on their campus.


Lieberman forgot that you should dance with them what brung ya And as soon as a stronger Democratic majority takes over in the Senate, the leadership is likely to treat him with the utter contempt and revulsion that he has earned these last two years, and make the last four years of his term an exercise in misery and group humiliation the likes of which one usually only sees in high school.


Would Jesus really give guns to kids? Windsor Hills Baptist, a church in Oklahoma, had planned to give away a semiautomatic assault rifle to entice attendance to a youth conference. Friday evening th youth pastor said the gun giveaway had been canceled afterthe Pastor emeritus who ran the event injured his foot and wouldn’t be able to attend. The gun giveaway was also removed from the church Web site, but the youth minister said the $800 assault rifle would be given away at next years event instead.


We won't be renewing our subscription to The New Yorker This months cover is just over-the-top - It depicts Senator Obama in a turban, fist-bumping Michelle who is sporting a full afro and commando gear, including an assault rifle and a bandoleer. An American flag burns in the fire place. Asked for comment a magazine spokesman said it was satire. We think that the folks at the New Yorker should take an intensive tutorial with our friend Jon Swift before they ever attempt satire again.

No, It's Not Satire--it's a Smear

Well, this isn't even remotely funny:

The Obama campaign is condemning as “tasteless and offensive” a New Yorker magazine cover that depicts Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in a turban, fist-bumping his gun-slinging wife.

An American flag burns in their fireplace.

The New Yorker says it's satire. It certainly will be candy for cable news.

The Obama campaign quickly condemned the rendering. Spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

It's the kind of smear that falls flat. These are two people who, for lack of a better way to describe it, are far more representative of how real Americans live their lives than, I dunno...John and Cindy McCain? For starters, the Obamas can use computers and go to soccer games.

When do we get to see the cover with McCain, red-faced and enraged, with a cartoon bubble next to his mouth, calling Cindy a cunt as she pops pills in one of their seven homes and racks up $500,000 on the AMEX? Better yet, let's not see that. No one needs this kind of garbage. Plus, Michelle Obama's hair is fantastic--the depiction of her hair on this cover is the outrage of the week.

--WS

Misconceptions About "Moral Conduct" Waivers

While it's no secret that there are problems with military recruiting--and one of those problems being the acceptance of substandard recruits--there is a misconception out there as to what this really means. Letting in people who can't read and write is worse than letting in people with questionable backgrounds.

Part of the problem comes from using flawed or misguided methodology to panic the American people into thinking that the military is full of gangbangers and criminal masterminds. That kind of thing pisses me off to no end--a statistically small number of troops have always made the military look lawless and unprofessional, and that's the bullshit that needs to be debunked. It's not a "shocker" and it's not a crisis. We have plenty of other problems, but this is not the one we should be focused on.

Here, Greg Mitchell quotes from the Sacramento Bee and its coverage of "moral conduct" waivers in the military:

During a yearlong examination, the Sacramento Bee studied the civilian and military backgrounds of hundreds of troops identified from recruiting documents and other military records, focusing on those who entered the services since the Iraq war began and those linked to in-service problems.

Though not a representative sample, the 250 military personnel analyzed most closely for "Suspect Soldiers" included 120 with questionable backgrounds, including felonies and serious drug, alcohol or mental health problems.

Risks associated with employing people with criminal histories multiply in a war zone, where a single incident by one soldier or Marine can affect entire units and fuel anti-American sentiment.

Ruby, Holmes and Gonyon were among 70 with troubled pasts whom The Bee linked to incidents in the military, most occurring in Iraq. A number of those incidents were identified for the first time through military records; even in some well-publicized incidents, The Bee uncovered criminal records not previously made public.

Though dozens of these soldiers would not have qualified for law enforcement jobs in this country, the military sent them to Iraq, where troops often function as police officers.

"These guys are out there carrying weapons, fighting on the streets with drugs in their pockets," said Tressie Cox, whose son, Lee Robert, had a history of drug and mental problems before he was charged with selling drugs in Iraq. "Shame on my son, but shame on all you people out there who are policing this and allowing this to continue to happen."

Right off the bat, I can tell you that when I see that the sampling was not "representative," I know we're in for a ride down bullshit lane. The easiest way to construct a negative piece is to simply pick the worst examples--the most sensationalized ones--and run with it.

When I served, you could have written this exact same story by looking at criminal activity in the military. If you had gathered up the worst offenders from 1997, you would have found that the highest ranking NCO in the US Army was accused of sexual harassment.You would have found NCOs convicted of sexual abuse of trainees at Aberdeen Proving Ground. You would have found other stories of members of the military associating with gangs, shooting people, robbing people and stealing. You would have found domestic assaults, murders and more. The problem is, you would have found all of this reprehensible conduct and more long before we went to war in Iraq.

There are two things people need to remember--despite the increase in "moral conduct" waivers, the fundamental mindset of the military has not changed. The UCMJ allows commanders to kick people out if they break the law--no one is saddled with a bad soldier permanently because of shortages. They are simply ramrodding more questionable troops into the system and making the commanders sort out the ash and trash. But what I don't see is evidence where the troops who have been given "moral conduct" waivers have become adequate or even good soldiers. The Sacramento Bee article cites several studies which show that, yes, the military ends up separating the "moral conduct" waiver recruits at a higher rate than recruits without the waiver, but were those studies complete? One study only looked at the California National Guard--hardly a representational look at the National Guard as a whole.

That's where I question the methodology. Because it wasn't representative, it didn't focus on a randomly generated group and show what happened in each of their cases--it just showed the most outrageous criminals. Well, those outrageous criminals are nothing new. What is new is that someone thinks all of this can be linked to the lax recruiting standards, and that's probably correct. Keeping felons out would make it easier for commanders throughout the military. The problem is, what do you do with the felon who joins the military and becomes a model soldier and turns their life around? Anyone who served in the military of the '50s and '60s knows people who went in badasses and screwups and came out model citizens.

When I talk about methodology, this chart exemplifies why you can't accept the numbers at face value:



The chart has a lot of things that I question. Including the calendar year 2003 is my biggest complaint--we did not have a problem in 2003, but we had the initial indications of one. By the end of 2003, we knew we had "problems" in Iraq, but the first units to have invaded Iraq were largely still there. We did not enter the backbreaking rotation of combat brigades until 2005 or so. When the casualties began to skyrocket, when the rotations began to strain the active duty and the National Guard, and when the first spike in the number of troops going AWOL happened, that triggered the recruiting issues. The problems that triggered the increase in accepting substandard recruits didn't even exist in 2003 or 2004 at a high rate:

Army desertion rates have fluctuated since the Vietnam War _ when they peaked at 5 percent. In the 1970s they hovered between 1 and 3 percent, which is up to three out of every 100 soldiers. Those rates plunged in the 1980s and early 1990s to between 2 and 3 out of every 1,000 soldiers.

Desertions began to creep up in the late 1990s into the turn of the century, when the U.S. conducted an air war in Kosovo and later sent peacekeeping troops there.

The numbers declined in 2003 and 2004, in the early years of the Iraq war, but then began to increase steadily.

In contrast, the Navy has seen a steady decline in deserters since 2001, going from 3,665 that year to 1,129 in 2007.

The Marine Corps, meanwhile, has seen the number of deserters stay fairly stable over that timeframe _ with about 1,000 deserters a year. During 2003 and 2004 _ the first two years of the Iraq war _ the number of deserters fell to 877 and 744, respectively.

The Air Force can tout the fewest number of deserters _ with no more than 56 bolting in each of the past five years. The low was in fiscal 2007, with just 16 deserters.

Despite the continued increase in Army desertions, however, an Associated Press examination of Pentagon figures earlier this year showed that the military does little to find those who bolt, and rarely prosecutes the ones they find. Some are allowed to simply return to their units, while most are given less-than-honorable discharges.

A chart which shows "problem recruits" from calendar years 2003 and 2004 plainly misses the problem of recruiting entirely--we were not in a crisis during those years. We didn't actually step up the acceptance of the moral conduct waiver troops until AFTER the data on this chart, reaching the high level we're at now:

The percentage of Army recruits receiving so-called "moral conduct" waivers more than doubled, from 4.6 percent in 2003 to 11.2 percent in 2007. Others, The Bee found, were able to enlist because they had no official criminal record of arrests or convictions, their records were overlooked or prosecutors suspended charges in lieu of military service - akin to a now-defunct Vietnam-era practice in which judges gave defendants a choice between prison and the military.

I don't know how you read a chart like that when, clearly, it uses calendar year data that isn't relevant. Even so, the statistical differences are not great. Yes, troops with moral conduct waivers are "slightly" more likely to be bad troops. Not all of them are--the numbers would be off the charts were that the case.

So, statistically, they're only slightly more likely to be worse. And we don't have the right data to back it up. Take it with a grain of salt, then.

Finally, two quick points--urinalysis testing for drug offenders and keeping troops who have Lautenberg violations from owning or carrying weapons. If there are troops on drugs, they better be testing them and catching them and kicking them out. If there are troops that have domestic violence issues, they better not be allowed to re-enlist.I think what is missing is an understanding of the Lautenberg Amendment, which should have helped eliminate some of the problems in the Sacramento Bee article much earlier on, if it was applied and enforced properly:

The Lautenberg Amendment to the Gun Control Act of 1968, effective 30 September 1996, makes it a felony for those convicted of misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence to ship, transport, possess, or receive firearms or ammunition. The Amendment also makes it a felony to transfer a firearm or ammunition to an individual known, or reasonably believed, to have such a conviction. Soldiers are not exempt from the Lautenberg Amendment.

Summary court-martial convictions, nonjudicial punishment under Article 15, UCMJ, and deferred prosecutions (or similar alternative dispositions) in civilian court do not constitute qualifying convictions within the meaning of the Lautenberg Amendment. The prohibitions do not preclude a soldier from operating major weapons systems or crew served weapons such as tanks, missiles, and aircraft. The Lautenberg Amendment applies to soldiers with privately owned firearms and ammunition stored on or off post.

Army policy is that all soldiers known to have, or soldiers whom commanders have reasonable cause to believe have, a conviction of a misdemeanor crime of domestic are non-deployable for missions that require possession of firearms or ammunition. Soldiers affected by the Lautenberg Amendment are not eligible for overseas assignment. However, soldiers who are based outside the continental United States (OCONUS) will continue to comply with their assignment instructions.

Soldiers with qualifying convictions may not be assigned or attached to tables of organization and equipment (TOE) or modified TOE (MTOE) units. Commanders will not appoint such soldiers to leadership positions that would give them access to firearms and ammunition. Soldiers with qualifying convictions may not attend any service school where instruction with individual weapons or ammunition is part of the curriculum.

Soldiers whom commanders know, or have reasonable cause to believe have, a qualifying conviction may extend if otherwise qualified, but are limited to a one year extension. Affected soldiers may not reenlist and are not eligible for the indefinite reenlistment program. Soldiers barred from reenlistment based on a Lautenberg qualifying conviction occurring after 30 September 1996 may not extend their enlistment. However, such soldiers must be given a reasonable time to seek removal of the conviction or a pardon.

I think the bottom line is, we need better research, a clearer understanding of what constitutes a recruit that can succeed in the military, and better methodology before we panic about what we're getting.

We still have the best military in the world; we need to concentrate our efforts on fixing it and rebuilding it and healing the troops affected by the Iraq War before we condemn them to a phony stigma of being "a bunch of gang bangers and felons."

US Base Overrun in Afghanistan

This is a horrific example of what we face in Afghanistan. A significant body of Taliban troops has overrun a Forward Operating Base or outpost and has inflicted devastating casualties with small arms and RPGs.

Taliban insurgents killed nine US troops when they attempted to overrun an American base as bloody fighting broke out in several parts of Afghanistan today.

Nato reported that the small American Combat Outpost in Dara-I-Pech district of Kunar Province, on the border with Nuristan Province in the east of the country, came under heavy fire at around 4.30am local time. Heavy fighting continued throughout the day with US forces calling in artillery, fast jets and Apache helicopters.

Nato spokesmen warned of casualties "on both sides", and in the last few minutes it has emerged that nine American soldiers were killed, making it one of the biggest single losses in a day for the coalition since military operations began in the country.

"Insurgents have been firing at the COP with small arms, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars using homes, shops and the mosque in the village of Wanat for cover," said a Nato statement.

All I can say after that is, holy shit. This is bad. No amount of spin can be used to mask what this means--our troops are in for a long fight in Afghanistan and the enemy are getting bolder and more dangerous.

--WS

Jeez I'm busy!

This is me right now - the sand is slipping through the hourglass and my departure for Netroots Nation is fast approaching - There is a lot of effort that is going into this trip, and I want to get the most out of it for all of us, bloggers, occasional contributors, readers, commenters, lurkers, everyone.

I apologize for the lack of content I have been generating, but preparing for the trip is really eating into the time I have to blog.

Thanks for all of your support in every imaginable way - I will do my best to represent for y'all.

~BG

No SOFA For You

The complete and utter failure of our policy in Iraq is exemplified in our ability to negotiate a working Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with a country that is run by a man who would be dead or exiled in 24 hours if our troops weren't there.

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have abandoned efforts to conclude a comprehensive agreement governing the long-term status of U.S troops in Iraq before the end of the Bush presidency, according to senior U.S. officials, effectively leaving talks over an extended U.S. military presence there to the next administration.

In place of the formal status-of-forces agreement negotiators had hoped to complete by July 31, the two governments are now working on a "bridge" document, more limited in both time and scope, that would allow basic U.S. military operations to continue beyond the expiration of a U.N. mandate at the end of the year.

The failure of months of negotiations over the more detailed accord -- blamed on both the Iraqi refusal to accept U.S. terms and the complexity of the task -- deals a blow to the Bush administration's plans to leave in place a formal military architecture in Iraq that could last for years.

The position of the Maliki government is this--we'll get a better deal from someone else. They refuse to be the Arab client state of the neoconservative movement, so they have scuttled the talks and dealt Bush a very minor blow.

Minor, because the war isn't exactly being reported in the US. That's why we're blogging this on Sunday morning--no one gives a shit about what failed over the weekend. You can expect the fact that we have no SOFA agreement with Iraq--after over five years of occupation--to be raised as an issue exactly zero times from here on in.

--WS