War Stories

4. This will mark the first time the U.S. has sat with Iran and Syria to look at Iraq's future, an initiative that lawmakers and a bipartisan panel of American statesmen have sought. The Iraq Study Group, headed by former secretary of state Republican James Baker, recommended in its Dec. 6 report that the U.S. engage in a wider regional diplomatic offensive to curb violence in Iraq.

Or Reason #165 As to Why the South Should’ve Won the Civil War:

The Revolutionary War took a lot longer, and we won that one—in five years, if you date it from the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 to the British surrender after the Battle of Yorktown in October, 1781. But even without the fact that that was more than 225 years ago, what precedential value the Revolutionary War has cuts against the US in Iraq.

Iraq is now a full blown civil war and the vacuum for power is greater now than it was even a year ago. Our troops are simply target practice for the thirty or more political factions that want control of Iraq. Chaos is no place for our troops.

As I've been reading about Pfc. LaVena Johnson's suspicious death and the situation for female troops in Iraq,

Q: The Kono statement was, of course, a statement issued on behalf of the cabinet and it is on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website; I wondered if I could ask you about its content in a bit more detail, because I believe there certainly has been confusion in the past few days. Just to ask the most basic question: there were—in the view of Foreign Minister Aso and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—there were comfort stations in military facilities during World War II?

But anti-intellectualism is a familiar ideological tack in the U.S., dating right back to our Puritan beginnings (and becoming even more entrenched after universities proved crucial in organizing opposition to the Vietnam War). Growing accustomed to this new vocabulary, I’d bet that after a while the hapless Post reader no longer finds a speech by major Republican mouthpieces like Limbaugh or O’Reilly quite so alien.

Five million soldiers from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales fought in World War One but around 60 per cent of the service records for these soldiers were destroyed during a German bombing raid on the War Office in London in September 1940.

Huh?! How about some Congressional reaction to this flip-flopping? Either the military was lying a year ago when they acknowledged dumping munitions after World War Two, or the Army is not acting in good faith in making this latest claim that they are not responsible for these pellets. Or the Army may be splitting hairs, for example, perhaps it was some other branch of the military that dumped these particular munitions.

Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Wednesday introduced legislation (S 713) that would require the Veterans Administration to increase inspections of military hospitals, create a timeframe for repairs and improve access to mental health services, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Under the bill, the amount of paperwork that veterans must complete in order to receive disability benefits also would be simplified. The bill has bipartisan support. A companion bill will be introduced in the House within the next few days, according to Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.). The House and Senate next week will hold hearings on how the Department of Defense and the VA are caring for U.S. troops who return from war. Several legislators recently have said they will introduce bills aimed at increasing aid for veterans and their families.