A Place to Talk About War

I would like to hear from soldiers who have been in combat situations, from their families, or from others interested in this conversation. I am a graduate student interested in war rhetoric. I have no preset agenda: I simply want to listen, to learn, and to be supportive.

Name:
Location: Texas, United States

Married, two kids. Worked in the defense industry for 20 years before taking a different path. I'll be starting my dissertation on the rhetoric of war in a few months. This semester I am teaching Freshman Composition. I DON'T CARE ABOUT BLOGGERS' SPELLING, PUNCTUATION, OR ANY OTHER GRAMMAR MATTERS--I JUST WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU.

Thursday, September 22, 2005

Lyndon Johnson, George Bush, and hurricanes

This came from the latest issue of Newsweek. I'm not weighing in on the presidential responses, but I thought the article was interesting.

In September 1965, a massive hurricane hit New Orleans. By the next day the president--a Texan in a time of war--was in the city, visiting a shelter. With no electricity in the darkness there, Lyndon Baines Johnson held a flashlight to his face and proclaimed, "This is the president of the United States and I'm here to help you!" Almost precisely 40 years later, when another horrific hurricane hit the city, the president was, again, a Texan in wartime. But rather than hurry to New Orleans from his Texas ranch, George W. Bush decided, three days after Katrina hit, to fly back to Washington first. Photographers rarely are allowed into the forward cabin of Air Force One, but consigliere Karl Rove and other aides summoned them so they could snap pictures of the Boss gazing out the window as the plane flew over the devastation. Republican strategists privately call the resulting image--Bush as tourist, seemingly powerless as he peered down at the chaos--perhaps among the most damaging of his presidency.

Katrina's winds have unspun the spin of the Bush machine, particularly the crucial idea that he is a commanding commander in chief. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, only 17 percent of Americans say that he deserves the most blame for the botched early response to Katrina. But, for the first time, less than a majority--49 percent--say he has "strong leadership qualities," down from 63 percent last year. That weakness, in turn, dragged down his job-approval rating--now at 38 percent, his lowest ever--as well as voters' sense of where the country is headed. By a 66-28 margin, they say they are "dissatisfied," by far the gloomiest view in the Bush years, and among the worst in recent decades. Katrina has deepened concern about the nation's ability to respond to catastrophe--natural or man-made. "I'm unsatisfied with where we are right now," Republican Senate Leader Bill Frist told NEWSWEEK, "because I cannot be assured now that if a similar event were to happen today, that anything would be different."

Katrina seems likely to blow away much of Bush's agenda, already burdened by an expensive and increasingly unpopular construction project in Iraq. Congress already has shoveled out $62 billion in relief money alone, with several times that likely to be spent on rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Democrats declared Bush's costly Social Security-reform plan dead (again), as well as his plan to repeal the estate tax. Few Republicans disagreed. Frist didn't shut the door on a tax increase, saying, "I'm not going to rule it out nor am I going to endorse it." But he noted that Congress faces "the most expensive redevelopment project the country has ever seen. I would think, and predict, that it is going to cost money."

Rove sent press secretary Scott McClellan into the media maw to decry "the blame game," but even Frist called for a swift investigation--though not the independent commission demanded by Sen. Hillary Clinton. Backpedaling, the administration did something unusual: under fire, it more or less fired someone (hapless FEMA chief Michael Brown).

The Democrats' own public standing is low, and it's unclear how big an opportunity the storm presents. Respected handicapper Charlie Cook still sees only modest gains. But Simon Rosenberg of the New Democratic Network predicts something more. "Voters see not just a failure of execution, but of the Bush brand of conservatism," he said. The alternative? Senator Clinton offered one, informally launching her 2008 run by touting the last president's record on disaster relief. She wasn't proposing another Johnsonian Great Society, but, at least for Democrats, she was offering a flashlight in the dark.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Colin Powell on the Iraq war

From http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1456650.htm comes this report of Powell's regret over his U.N. speech in favor of invading Iraq. I like a man who can express regret over a "blot on his record" instead of fixating on his "legacy" or blathering nonsense such as "mistakes were made." Click on the link above to read Powell's position on the war in Iraq now.

Former US secretary of state Colin Powell says his United Nations speech making the case for the US-led war on Iraq was "a blot" on his record.
Mr Powell has also said that he had "never seen evidence to suggest" a connection between the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States and the Saddam regime.
In the February 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council, Mr Powell forcefully made the case for war on the regime of Saddam Hussein, offering "proof" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
The presentation included satellite photos of trucks that Mr Powell identified as mobile bioweapons laboratories.
After the invasion, US weapons inspectors reported finding no Iraqi nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
In an interview with American ABC TV news to be broadcast on Friday (US time), Mr Powell said "it's a blot" on his record.
"I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and (it) will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now," he said.
Mr Powell spent five days at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters ahead of the speech studying intelligence reports, many of which turned out to be false.
He said he felt "terrible" at being misinformed.
However, he did not blame CIA director George Tenet.
Mr Tenet "did not sit there for five days with me misleading me," he said.
"He believed what he was giving to me was accurate."
Some members of the US intelligence community "knew at that time that some of these sources were not good, and shouldn't be relied upon, and they didn't speak up," Mr Powell said.
"These are not senior people, but these are people who were aware that some of these resources should not be considered reliable," he said.
"I was enormously disappointed."

Saturday, September 10, 2005

"Sorry we forgot to tell you how your son really died"

"The Army said Saturday it knew for more than a year after 1st Lt. Kenneth Ballard's death in Iraq in May 2004 that he was not killed in action, as it initially reported. The family was not told the truth until Friday."

It seems that the military told Ballard's family that he was killed in a "firefight with insurgents." What they found out within a few days, and didn't reveal for 15 months, was that he " actually died of wounds from the accidental discharge of a M240 machine gun on his tank after his platoon had returned from battling insurgents in Najaf," when the tank "accidentally backed into a tree and a branch hit the mounted, unmanned machine gun, causing it to fire . . . Ballard was struck at close range and died of his wounds."

His mom, who has attended some events at Camp Casey, is understandably less than pleased to find out at this point that his death was caused not by enemy fire, but by a steering accident.

The Army has stated that it "regrets that the initial casualty report from the field was in error as well as the time that it has taken to correct the report and to inform his family."

http://start.earthlink.net/article/nat?guid=20050910/43225a40_3ca6_15526200509101114228829

Wednesday, September 07, 2005

"You rescued people without asking?!"

I lifted the following straight from Steve Houchin's site:

According to this article, two Navy Pilots received counseling for using their helicopters to rescue people trapped in New Orleans. After they dropped off the supplies that constituted their mission, the pilots used their H-3 helicopters to pick up 110 people stranded in the city.

"They were not reprimanded, they were counseled," points out civilian Public Affairs Officer Patrick Nichols. (Counseling is less severe than reprimand in the military, but is still corrective action.)

The problem wasn't that these pilots, one of whom was temporarily assigned to kennel duty, rescued the people. Rather, the problem was that they did not follow orders. Their Commander praised their actions, but then "reminded them their orders were to run water and other supplies" to three places in Mississippi.

One of the pilots did receive permission to return and continue saving people after he stopped to refuel.

What I get from this is that the pilots have to make sure that these stranded people must get supplies until they are able to be properly rescued. I love how bureaucracy works!

I understand that following orders is paramount in the military, but since Steve, a veteran, can see the inanity of this, I don't feel bad about shaking my head over it either.

Leavin' th' maid with th' dogs

I learned about this on NPR's Morning Edition today. A very wealthy family in New Orleans lives in a big mansion with their three dogs and their maid from El Salvador. In advance of Hurricane Katrina, the family left the city and went to Atlanta for shelter, leaving the maid behind to care for the dogs in their absence.

The maid said that she would like to leave and go to Atlanta, as well, and that's what she plans to do, once someone from the ASPCA comes to rescue and care for the dogs.

I guess we should revise the colloquialism "That place is goin' to the dogs" to "That place is goin' to the dogs . . . and maids."

Note to all wealthy families with their heads screwed on right: won't one of you please hire this woman and treat her as a human being?

Monday, September 05, 2005

A voice from Mississsippi Gulf coast

I have plenty to say about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but so does everyone else, and I probably wouldn't say anything that others haven't already thought of. So instead of my weighing in here, I'm just pasting below an email I received this morning from a friend at church. The message is verbatim, but I have taken the liberty of highlighting a few passages.

"My sis lives 15 miles north of Gulfport in the outlying areas.
They have only canned foods. No perishables being delivered anywhere. No power since. They do have well water. My sis described the area as a bomb hitting. Stayed in their house watching 100-mph winds for 12 hours continuous. The barn is gone, well house gone, fence gone, trees gone. FEMA has locked the gas pumps down for their trucks only and not thinking about the folks that are using gas for their generators. She was really scared yesterday when I called earlier in the morning. She said they had 2 gallons in the generator for refrigeration, and about 5 gallons in the car/truck to get to town and hopefully get more gas. The lines were horribly long just to get $20.00 worth. Of course, that's only 7 gallons now!!!!!! No milk, eggs, just canned stuff. Dale and my son-in-law were going to fill up a 100-gallon tank and take it to them. Go to the grocery store to load up on food for them and she called back saying there were gangs roaming and shooting people that looked like they had gas on them and not to come as power was beginning to come on in Hattiesburg which is 50 miles away. It's a pretty desperate situation as you can imagine. Especially when FEMA said if anyone had a complaint to log it on their web site. Be nice....if you had electricity!!!!!!
Need lots of prayer for those outlying folks that no one is hearing about."