Category Archives: War

Bradley Manning

Americana, War

Bradley ManningBefore, I start I want to acknowledge that Bradley Manning has much bigger attachments than most people and that includes me. He is one of the few people in the world that have been willing to make a huge personal sacrifice to do what they think is right.

Carol Burnett once said that Comedy is Tragedy plus Time. I think a corollary of that might be A Hero is a Traitor plus Time. Maybe you don’t think Bradley Manning  is a hero – although I think he is – and the judge has already ruled that he is not a traitor by throwing out the charge of  Aiding the Enemy, and it is still too early to look at Manning and see reality through the fog of our own preconceptions, but he has exposed to light a dark part of our National Character.

Today, most people think that Daniel Ellsberg, if not a hero, was a patriot and a positive contributor to our collective history.  But, that is now. In January of 1973, he was thought a traitor by the government and brought to trail under the Espionage Act as well as charges of theft and conspiracy. He would have gone to jail for up to 115 years if the judge hadn’t thrown out the case because of government misconduct. That is much less likely to happen in the military court where Manning is being tried.

What Ellsberg did do was embarrass the United States – or, more accurately, the Nixon, Johnson, and Kennedy Administrations, or, even more accurately, powerful, people in those administrations – by showing, in Ellsberg’s words, that the [Nixon and] Johnson Administrations had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance. Bradley Manning has done pretty much of the same thing only with alot more documents.

Among  91,731 other classified documents, Manning gave WikiLeaks videos of an American helicopter airstrike in Baghdad in 2007 and an airstrike in Granai, Afghanistan in 2009. Both airstrikes were most likely accidents and both were classified. The 2007 airstrike was  was against a journalist and two other men who were Reuters employees carrying cameras (the helicopter then fired on a van that stopped to help). The 2009 airstrike killed somewhere between 86–147 Afghan civilians (depending on who is counting).

We don’t like to admit that we kill journalists or civilians in our  hygienic wars and, when we do kill them, it often gets covered up. To kill journalists or civilians is embarrassing. I don’t think that making wars and killing seem civilized and controllable is in the best interest of the United States and I don’t think that the guy who exposes these cover-ups  should be put in jail.

Democracy is doomed without informed citizens, says Robert Meeropola, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg’s son, and I believe he is right. That is where I disagree with the Obama Administration. Maybe I don’t disagree with Obama himself, maybe he really does still believe in the transparency that he ran on. Maybe his administration is going after Manning only because they think they have no political choice, or, maybe they are only trying to cover their asses. I hope Obama still believes in transparency, but I don’t know and have no way of knowing, so I can only hope.

 

The Battle of Champion Hill

Americana, General U.S. Grant, War

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In May, 2008, five years ago, Michele and I didn’t visit Champion Hill. We got close, we got to Vicksburg, but we didn’t get to Champion Hill. Today, one hundred and fifty years ago, on May 16th, 1863,  Ulysses S. Grant did.

He attacked the Confederate Army of General John Pemberton there. That battle, eventually, led to the fall of the Confederate fortress of Vicksburg, the separation of the South into two unconnected halves, the re-connection of the Midwest with the sea, and – I think – the end of the Confederacy. Lincoln said it best, We can take all the northern ports of the Confederacy, and they can defy us from Vicksburg. It means hog and hominy without limit, fresh troops from all the states of the far South, and a cotton country where they can raise the staple without interference.

It was one of, if not the greatest, military campaigns in our history. Grant was behind enemy lines  and outnumbered by almost two to one. All this, in an area that was swampy and mosquito infested. When Michele and I were there  – in 2008 on a pilgrimage – we didn’t even want to leave the paved roads. But Grant had been moving constantly since he and his army had crossed the Mississippi on April 3oth, two weeks before.

To distract and confuse the enemy, Grant had ordered two diversionary actions. One of them, Col. Ben Grierson’s raid, was  featured in the New York Times a couple of days ago.  Grierson made a 16 day, 600 mile, raid behind enemy lines. It was audacious, and typical of Grant, and it succeeded in diverting much of the southern cavalry – the eyes and ears of the army at that time – away from Grant’s Army.

When he crossed the Mississippi, Grant was deep in the delta flatlands – the Plantation South – and, as he captured territory, he freed slaves. Later, many of those slaves became Union soldiers, and some were immediately helpful to the Union. Without their help, Grant would have been blind; he didn’t know the country and he had no maps.  As an aside that amuses me, Grant also purchased, according to his son – freed?  liberated? captured? according to others – a horse from the plantation of Joseph Davis, Jefferson Davis’ brother. Grant renamed the horse Jeff Davis and rode him, along with Cincinnati,  for much of the war. End of asides.

Because he couldn’t attack Vicksburg directly, Grant moved east to cut off the city’s supply line. In doing so, he cut off all connection to his own base. Now he was alone, outnumbered, and surrounded. In his memoirs, Grant says, I therefore determined to move swiftly towards Jackson, destroy or drive any force in that direction and then turn upon Pemberton. But by moving against Jackson, I uncovered my own communication [and supply lines]. So I finally decided to have none–to cut loose altogether from my base and move my whole force eastward. I then had no fears for my communications, and if I moved quickly enough could turn upon Pemberton before he could attack me in the rear.

It was a blitzkrieg if I can use that word with an army mostly walking and using muledrawn wagons, oxcarts, and horses pulling buggies. According to Major-General J F C Fuller, an early theorist of modern armored warfare, Grant’s tremendous energy electrified his men, everywhere was there activity….reconnaissances were sent out daily to examine the roads and country, and foraging parties swarmed over the cultivated areas collecting supplies….Nothing was left undone which would speed up the advance, and assist in maintaining it at maximum pressure once the move forward was ordered.

On May 14th, two weeks after he crossed the Mississippi, in country he did not know and without maps, Grant took Jackson, about 60 miles from where he crossed the river, and as he says in his memoirs, his troops hoisted the National flag over the rebel capital of Mississippi. 

One more aside, in the Not everybody appreciates Grant’s humor department, the night after capturing, Jackson, Mississippi, Grant stayed at the best hotel in town, The Bowman House (in the same room that General Joseph Johnson had stayed in, for free, the night before). When the owner demanded payment, Grant’s aide-de-camp said No, but Grant agreed with the hotel owner and insisted on paying for the room…in Confederate money. End aside.

Grant then turned towards Vicksburg  from the east, and 27 miles west of where he slept two days before, he met Pemberton at Champion Hill. Again, Grant in his memoirs, The battle of Champion’s Hill lasted about four hours, hard fighting, preceded by two or three hours of skirmishing, some of which almost rose to the dignity of battle….We had in this battle about 15,000 men absolutely engaged. Our loss was 410 killed, 1,844 wounded and 187 missing. The south lost 4,082 men and were driven back into Vicksburg never to recover.

On our pilgrimage of only one day, we only had time to drive south to the area where Grant crossed the Mississippi and tour the Vicksburg Battlefield itself. Our guide for the day told us that Champion Hill was too far away (maybe he was influenced by our reluctance to leave the road earlier). He didn’t say Keep moving, there is nothing to see there, keep moving but that was the drift. Now I am sorry that I missed it, even if there was nothing to see, and I want to say that I am sorry that I will not be able to attend the 150th Anniversary, but that is not true, if I did go, all I would do is gloat.

But we did have time to get a Chinese dinner in Vicksburg  as is our ritual when traveling, and we did have time to see the Mighty Mississippi. From the bluff overlooking the River, we confirmed, as Lincoln said, that The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea.
Vicksburg-2

And Thanks to Michele who really helped write this. 

 

We invaded Iraq 10 years ago

Americana, Politics, War

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“Fuck Saddam, we’re taking him out.” President George Bush to three U.S. Senators in March 2002.

“The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas.” President George Bush

“My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.” Vice President Dick Cheney.

“[Saddam] is a threat. He’s a murderer and a thug. There’s no doubt we can do this. We’re stronger; he’s weaker. You’re looking at a couple weeks of bombing and then I’d be astonished if this campaign took more than a week. Astonished,”  Bill Clinton

“Five days or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last longer.” Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense

“Sunni Islamist insurgents linked to al Qaeda are regaining ground in Iraq, invigorated by the war next door in Syria and have stepped up attacks on Shi’ite targets in an attempt to provoke a wider sectarian confrontation…After Operation Iraqi Freedom promised to liberate the Iraqi people, Iraq has struggled with a decade that drove the country into sectarian mayhem which killed tens of thousands and the turmoil of a young democracy emerging out of dictatorship. Since the last election in 2010, Maliki’s Sunni and Kurdish critics have accused him of consolidating his own authority, abusing his control of the security forces to pressure foes and failing to live up to a power-sharing deal.” Reuters

“At least 56 killed in Baghdad attacks. Twelve bombs explode in Shia areas on tenth anniversary of US-led invasion of country.”  The Guardian

 

Total United States causalities: 4,487 dead, 31,965 wounded.   

Syria and Jordan

Politics, War

SYRIA-CONFLICT

 

As the Civil War in Syria rages on and is becoming  more entrenched, Jordan just held an election – with scattered protests – in which the King of Jordan put alot of effort into making sure that nothing really changed.  I don’t understand that and I suspect it is because my point of view is different than that of a middle east monarch. King Abdullah, afterall, grew up in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. His – God-given, I suppose –  right to be monarch is even in the country’s name. I grew up in a democracy and my main political influence was a father who was both a Democrat and, more importantly, a democrat.

When I first read about the protests in Syria, in March of 2011, I was sure that Bashar al-Assad would agree to work at setting up a democracy. The autocratic rulers of Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt had already fallen and it seemed to me that the writing was on the wall. Now, almost two years later, in his craving to hold on to power, Dictator Bashar al-Assad has killed, atleast, 60,000 people  – more than the 50,000-plus U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam – and driven more than 750,000 of his own people into exile. If I were King Abdullah of Jordan, I would be worried that the same thing could happen to me. I would be jumping through hoops trying to get a real Democracy established so that Jordan doesn’t turn into Syria – or Egypt or Libya – even though the situation is not exactly the same.

Maybe the ruler of Jordan feels safe because, in Syria, the ruling class of Alawites is in the minority. Maybe he thinks that that is the only reason a popular uprising in the streets has morphed into a Civil War. From my point of view – with almost no knowledge of particulars – Jordan might be next. I suspect that I see only all the similarities between Syria and Jordan and King Abdullah sees only the differences. But, more importantly, democracy and change are in my blood and, I suspect, not in Abdullah’s.

I hold George Washington to be a National Hero because he gave up power and, in the United States, the tradition has continued with not only our elected leaders giving up their power to the next elected leader,  but over the years, the ruling class of land-owning, white, men, has given up its exclusive power. In Jordan, the rulers are part of the majority population and they are holding on to their power as tight as they can (but there is an large immigrant population that does not seem to be very happy with this). In Jordan, elections are held but they don’t seem to change anything – although I did read that this year, one big change is that the ballots are actually printed – and I am of the point of view that that this refuse to change will boil over into a bigger problem.

 

 

 

Malala Yousufzai, Gabby Giffords, head injuries, and our wars

Current Affairs, War

Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousufzai was shot in the head by a religious fanatic and Gabby Giffords was shot in the head by some-other-kind of fanatic. By all rights, they should be dead but they both seem to be prospering (prospering being a relative term here, I am sure that it has not been a net positive experience).

As an aside, I hold the position the anybody who tries to kill another human being is crazy. That may be my main definition of crazy, any body who thinks they have the right to kill somebody else is crazy. I suspect that alot of PTSD is otherwise sane people being forced to kill other human beings which is why drone pilots, living and working near Syracuse New York, get PTSD. End aside.

How disheartening that must be for the madmen that pulled the trigger on Malala, she is now a world wide celebrity living in England and he is living a life of an hunted animal. And poor, smiley,   Jared Lee Loughner after everybody argued over his sanity – in public – he will be spending life in prison without parole, reading about how terrific Giffords is. The new technology used to save both Malala and Gabby – if I may be presumptuous enough to use their first names – is a collateral benefit of our wars in the Gulf and Afghanistan.

In the Civil War, if somebody was wounded, they had only about a 40% chance of living. Those were the days before anesthesia or antibiotics like penicillin but it was also before IED’s or hollow-point bullets. In World War II, the odds climbed to about 70%. Now, in Afghanistan, it is better than 80%. With Malala and Gabby, it is 100%. Much of this is because of how fast we can get wounded people to help, but it is also because, once we get them to help, the doctors have learned so much about stopping the damage from getting worse and, then, repairing the damage.

It is extraordinary how far these little wars have pushed trauma medicine. I still don’t think they are worth it, though.

Shot schoolgirl treated in the UK