Monday, May 26, Memorial Day, was a dark day in Los Angeles – but it had little to do with thoughts of the dead from all the wars, those who fought the good fight. It was just the low, dark clouds scudding in off the Pacific, driven by a cold wind. There were scattered services here and there, but you didn’t hear taps being played in the distance. It was just another Monday holiday – those who had the day off found themselves shopping in the malls, or napping at home. It was a crappy day for any kind of picnic.
Still, there’s that thing you heard about back in high school English class, if you remember – the sympathetic fallacy, where the writer arranges the weather to match the mood. You know all about that – the pouring rain as the lovers part (see Rick reading that note from Ilsa at the train station in Paris, in the pouring rain, in that old movie, Casablanca). Of course life isn’t like that – bad things that change your life forever happen on perfectly nice summer days, and lovely new snow on Christmas morning is rare even if you live in Vermont. It’s a cheap trick, just heavy-handed and somewhat silly symbolism. But writers cannot resist it – it drives home the mood they want to establish, meteorological probability notwithstanding.
Memorial Day this year – the day for the war dead, and the living veterans – was, then, just about right out here. It was gloomy. Classicists muttered that line that opens one of Horace’s odes – Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori – it is sweet and right to die for your country. It is an honor. The anti-war crowd might have remembered the Wilfred Owen poem that ends with those words. Owen did not agree.
But it hardly matters now. As you read this the day is gone – here the day is ending on the West Coast, it is well after midnight in New York, and it’s already mid-morning in Paris. Yep, the earth rolls to the right and the days roll away. And on we go.
But some things should be noted. In the New York Times there was David Carr:
Even as we celebrate generations of American soldiers past, the women and men who are making that sacrifice today in Iraq and Afghanistan receive less attention every day. There’s plenty of blame to go around: battle fatigue at home, failing media resolve and a government intent on controlling information from the battlefield.
According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s News Coverage Index, coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has slipped to 3 percent of all American print and broadcast news as of last week, falling from 25 percent as recently as last September…
The tactical success of the surge should not be misconstrued as making Iraq a safer place for American soldiers. Last year was the bloodiest in the five-year history of the conflict, with more than 900 dead, and last month, 52 perished, making it the bloodiest month of the year so far. So far in May, eighteen have died.
This is serious business. See Memorial Day Puts Iraq War Suicides in Spotlight - instead of past conflicts, Editor and Publisher reports that newspapers are focused on “the disturbing rise in suicides among Iraq veterans - and concerns over the military response.”
Here’s one of the many stories noted:
One suicide just this week involved Chad Oligschlaeger, a Marine who was found at his barracks at Twenty Nine Palms in California. His family said he was on eight medications for PTSD and had been sent back to Iraq for a second tour after asking superiors for help, which he allegedly did not get.
This is not good, and it is not helped by items like Gates Acknowledges Poor Troop Care:
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates Thursday said the military had made mistakes in its treatment of returning combat troops including in their physical and mental health care and by providing some sub-standard housing.
That’s from Reuters, and from the Las Vegas Sun, Nevada Vet’s Death Spurs VA Reform Bill – a move to actually address the problem of those veterans who fall into substance abuse and not designate as either a crime or a moral failure.
And there’s this – Soldier Haunted by Memory of Iraqi. That’s from McClatchy:
Until the day he died, Sgt. Brian Rand believed he was being haunted by the ghost of the Iraqi man he killed.
The ghost choked Rand while he slept in his bunk, forcing him to wake up gasping for air and clawing at his throat.
He whispered that Rand was a vampire and looked on as the soldier stabbed another member of Fort Campbell’s 96th Aviation Support Battalion in the neck with a fork in the mess hall.
Eventually, the ghost told Rand he needed to kill himself.
And there’s this – Vet’s Father: “We Want to Call Attention to the Military’s Responsibility” – that offers this:
On July 11, 2007, in a violent Baghdad neighborhood, Master Sgt. Jeffrey R. McKinney killed himself. He put his M-4 rifle to his neck and pulled the trigger.
There was no Purple Heart, and the Defense Department announced it as a “non-combat-related incident.”
His father, a World War II veteran, disagrees.
So the Memorial Day stories were dire.
But we are at war. And we will be at war for some time. The entire premise of John McCain’s view of Iraq policy, looking out into the future, is that we will be able to position permanent military bases in the heart of the Middle East, in Iraq, and the model he uses is Japan and South Korea. That worked out swimmingly.
There’s just one problem. Iraq is part of the holiest territory in Islam. It’s not Japan. It’s not Germany. And it seems that any such pact with infidel occupiers just isn’t in the cards:
Iraq’s most revered Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has strongly objected to a “security accord” between the US and Iraq. The Grand Ayatollah has reiterated that he would not allow Iraq to sign such a deal with “the US occupiers” as long as he was alive, a source close to Ayatollah Sistani said. The source added the Grand Ayatollah had voiced his strong objection to the deal during a meeting with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the holy city of Najaf on Thursday. The remarks were made amid reports that the Iraqi government might sign a long-term framework agreement with the United States, under which Washington would be allowed to set up permanent military bases in the country and US citizens would be granted immunity from legal prosecution in the country.
The requirement that all US citizens be granted immunity from legal prosecution in Iraq in the deal is a bit of a kick in the balls. Nouri al-Maliki seems okay with that Bush-McCain stipulation. But even our folks in Germany and Japan must obey the local laws. Something is very odd here. If we’re fighting to establish a stable democracy there, even if under the auspices of the United States Military, maybe they ought to be able to enforce their own laws. Or maybe we’re just kidding.
Of course Nouri al-Maliki has rolled his troops into Sadr City, and seems to be gaining the upper hand, or he isn’t:
There is a real danger that Maliki will fall prey to his new found (over)confidence and push the Sadrist movement into a corner. A two-pronged plan might be in the works. Part one would be to arrest large numbers of Sadrists in Sadr City instead of doing discriminate raids against extremist cells. Part two would be a renewed effort to preclude Sadrists from the provincial elections unless JAM is completely disbanded, or take other measures to decisively tilt the electoral playing field against the Sadr Trend. If Sadr and his movement are near defeat, these steps might be the nail in their coffin. But they don’t seem near defeat - they seem wounded. And wounded, cornered animals lash out.
But McCain persists. And he knows he’s right. See McCain says Obama should visit Iraq:
Republican John McCain on Monday sharply criticized Democratic rival Barack Obama for not having been to Iraq since 2006, and said they should visit the war zone together.
“Look at what happened in the last two years since Senator Obama visited and declared the war lost,” the GOP presidential nominee-in-waiting told The Associated Press in an interview, noting that the Illinois senator’s last trip to Iraq came before the military buildup that is credited with curbing violence.
“He really has no experience or knowledge or judgment about the issue of Iraq and he has wanted to surrender for a long time,” the Arizona senator added. “If there was any other issue before the American people, and you hadn’t had anything to do with it in a couple of years, I think the American people would judge that very harshly.”
Things are fine – they want us there – and we should be there, permanently. The response:
Obama spokesman Bill Burton declined to respond directly to McCain, saying only: “Senator Obama thinks Memorial Day is a day to honor our nation’s veterans, not a day for political posturing.”
Of course that circles back to Memorial Day and the veterans, and the new GI Bill of rights, the Webb Bill that has overwhelming bipartisan support and only Bush and McCain oppose. Of course, McCain can explain that:
“I am running for the office of commander in chief. That is the highest privilege in this country, and it imposes the greatest responsibilities. And this is why I am committed to our bill, despite the support Senator Webb’s bill has received,” McCain, a Navy veteran and Vietnam prisoner of war, said at the New Mexico Veterans Memorial. “It would be easier, much easier politically for me to have joined Senator Webb in offering his legislation.”
“More importantly, I feel just as he does, that we owe veterans the respect and generosity of a great nation because no matter how generously we show our gratitude it will never compensate them fully for all the sacrifices they have borne on our behalf,” the Arizona senator said.
However, McCain said he opposed Webb’s measure because it would give the same benefit to everyone regardless of how many times he or she has enlisted. He said he feared that would depress reenlistments by those wanting to attend college after only a few years in uniform. Rather, McCain said the bill he favored would have increased scholarships based on length of service.
Out here, in the gloom, Digby had a few things to say:
Right. We should be generous, but let’s not go crazy. Those bastards who think they deserve to have the government pay for their college after just a few years in uniform simply don’t deserve it. Sure, they may put themselves in the line of fire in Iraq or Afghanistan for a couple of tours and maybe they work for peanuts and their families are on food stamps while they do it. But that’s no reason for them to cheat the taxpayers by taking a college scholarship when they are needed indefinitely in the war zones. They’re nothing but a bunch ‘o big babies.
And once again I’m reminded that the best thing about McCain is that in case you missed just how much of a maverick he is on these issues, how brave, how true, how boldly non-political - he is always the first to remind you.
This was some Memorial Day.But we know why we’re fighting – to keep America free:
Al-Marri’s capture six years ago might be the Bush administration’s biggest domestic counterterrorism success story. Authorities say he was an al-Qaida sleeper agent living in Middle America, researching poisonous gasses and plotting a cyberattack.
To justify holding him, the government claimed a broad interpretation of the president’s wartime powers, one that goes beyond warrantless wiretapping or monitoring banking transactions. Government lawyers told federal judges that the president can send the military into any U.S. neighborhood, capture a citizen, and hold him in prison without charge, indefinitely.
Really? See this:
The full appeals court is reviewing that decision and a ruling is expected soon. During arguments last year, government lawyers said the courts should give great deference to the president when the nation is at war.
“What you assert is the power of the military to seize a person in the United States, including an American citizen, on suspicion of being an enemy combatant?” Judge William B. Traxler asked.
“Yes, your honor,” Justice Department lawyer Gregory Garre replied.
And that’s that. The counter is this:
“The president is not a king and cannot lock people up forever in the United States based on his say-so,” said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer who represents al-Marri and other detainees. “Today it’s Mr. al-Marri. Tomorrow it could be you, a member of your family, someone you know. Once you allow the president to lock people up for years or even life without trial, there’s no going back.”
Glenn Sulmasy, a national security fellow at Harvard, said the issue comes down to whether the nation is at war. Soldiers would not need warrants to launch a strike against invading troops. So would they need a warrant to raid an al-Qaida safe house in a U.S. suburb?
Sulmasy says no. That’s how Congress wrote the bill and “if they feel concerned about civil liberties, they can tighten up the language,” he said.
Oh – it all comes down to that Authorization to Use Military Force Bill from way back when, the one Hillary Clinton voted for, gladly. Perhaps as a tribute to those who fought for this country, that ought to be reexamined. It’s the least you could do on Memorial Day.
But the day has come and gone.
