The Military

When Wesley Clark was gunned down and left to die with five bullets in his back he was Medevaced out and brought back home, as they said in those days, in a basket. My first sympathies went to him as I was more or less at the same time in a safe combat hospital just to the left; 150 miles away from the action and passion. Mine was only a bad case of jungle fever at one time and a collapsed lung at another, but pilots and fighters from the heat of war kept coming in through the night; one pilot, not five years older than us still without full beards in the enlisted ranks, had just had his leg blown off in the air — he screamed and cried all through the night without pause, clutching a framed picture of his wife. Read more...

"Violence can always destroy power; out of the barrel of a gun grows the most effective command, resulting in the most instant and perfect obedience. What never can grow of it [violence] is power."

— Hannah Arendt, On Violence.

Violence and power are often confused as being two sides of the same coin, when in fact they are contradictory. Real power in a state depends on consent and support of the population. Violence requires no such constituency. Prior to last week’s demonstrations, the Iranian government seemed to enjoy reasonable support for the institutions of the state. Read more...

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America helps vets on one level, but a number of small groups focus on other needs not addressed by anyone.

The Yellow Ribbon Fund's mission is to "Welcome Our Injured Service Members Home." They do this by supplying free rental cars to family members (1,000 in four years), free cab vouchers, hotels, apartments, job mentoring and internships, and free tickets to cultural and sporting events. Read more...

Folks, it's important to remember the fallen on Memorial Day — and then every day, to follow through to help out the veterans among us.

The folks at the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America do that every day.

They helped get the new GI Bill passed, helped end stop-loss, and now work on stuff like advance funding for the VA. Read more...

With torture dominating the news headlines, Armstrong Williams takes a look at when and why the U.S. would use methods like waterboarding.

People ask me why I support the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). To wit:

We will be heading out tomorrow into the other "Stan" to get this adventure rolling. It has been passed to me that internet will be very difficult to come by from now on. Be prepared for radio silence for a while. Just know that I am in good shape and will be thinking of you all along the way.

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The Hill's A.B. Stoddard evaluates how Democrats are handling backlash from the President’s decision not to release detainee photos, and how Republicans need to find a message before they can rebrand themselves.

Armstrong Williams says Speaker Pelosi wasn't lied to by the CIA or the Bush administration on the use of waterboarding as an interrogation tactic, but rather she is lying about what she knew.

After promising transparency in his administration, and after promising to release whatever evidence a court ordered, President Obama has suddenly reversed course and decided to fight the release of photos of prisoners tortured inside American military camps in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama said he would challenge a federal court order because release of the photos would only “inflame anti-American opinion.” The White House also cited fears expressed by military commanders that publication of the photos would further endanger our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Read more...

I am against torture. Torture is what the Gestapo did in World War II. Torture is what the Japanese did in the movie “The Bridge Over the River Kwai.” Torture is what they did in the Middle Ages. Remember the rack?

President Bush said repeatedly that America doesn't do torture. Well, in my book, putting somebody in a little box and filling it up with insects is torture. Waterboarding is torture. You can’t parse your way out of that one. Sorry.

We lose the moral high ground when we condone torture. And I believe that the moral high ground is a useful space to occupy. Read more...