Jezebel In Hell»

It’s hard to express how non-stop awful this week has been, so I’m not going to bother. Instead, I’m getting on a plane and flying to Austin. See, almost ten years ago this weekend, when I was in high school, me and two of my best friends put on a 30-band hardcore festival in New Jersey. Headlining the second night was one of the best punk bands of the 1990s: Chicago’s Los Crudos, who broke up shortly thereafter. Tomorrow, they’re reforming to play Prank’s Chaos In Tejas festival.

Seriously, if you read this blog and are in Austin, email sackerman-at-washingtonindependent-dot-com. Let’s have a beer. Especially if you can tell me where is/isn’t a good place to collect at least one new tattoo. (When I’m sober.)

I may blog a little this weekend. Not exactly sure. But I’m not leaving you guys high and dry! I raided the Jezebel comment threads and convinced three of my favorite commenters. This blog has too much testosterone, so welcome to the stage: Hicks (a/k/a Parasol), Charlotte Corday (a/k/a Charlotte Corday) and Erica (a/k/a JaneSays). Charlotte and Erica are IRL friends of mine, and I hold out hope that Hicks will be as well when we finally meet. You’ll get along. But if I see any sexist nonsense in the comment threads I will rip your throats out. After my guestbloggers castrate you.

Otherwise, have fun!

I Ain’t Gonna Listen To You No More»

Meet Army Sgt. Matthis Chiroux, who served in Japan, the Philippines and Afghanistan. He’d rather go to jail than Iraq.

Good afternoon. My name is Sgt. Matthis Chiroux, and I served in the Army as a Photojournalist until being honorably discharged last summer after over four years of service in Afghanistan, Japan, Europe and the Phillipines. As an Army journalist whose job it was to collect and filter servicemember’s stories, I heard many stomach-churning testimonies of the horrors and crimes taking place in Iraq. For fear of retaliation from the military, I failed to report these crimes, but never again will I allow fear to silence me. Never again will I fail to stand.

In February, I received a letter from the Army ordering my return to active duty, for the purpose of mobilization for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Thanks in great part to the truths of war being fearlessly spoken by my fellow IVAW members, I stand before you today with the strength, clarity and resolve to declare to the military and the world that this Soldier will not be deploying to Iraq.

This occupation is unconstitutional and illegal and I hereby lawfully refuse to participate as I will surely be a party to war crimes. Furthermore, deployment in support of illegal war violates all of my core values as a human being, but in keeping with those values, I choose to remain in the United States to defend myself from charges brought by the Army if they so wish to pursue them. I refuse to participate in the occupation of Iraq.

I Don’t Know Just Where I’m Going But I’m Gonna Try For The Kingdom If I Can Cause It Makes Me Feel Like I’m A Man»

We’re aboard the Pequod with John McCain:

Iraq was the first subject McCain discussed.

“By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq war has been won,” he said.

First, note that after McCain’s magical victory, only “most” of the troops come home. The rest remain for the beneficent 100 (”Make It A Thousand!”) Year Occupation. Read the rest of this entry »

Vengeance, From The Grave, Kills The People He Once Saved»

As promised! The long-awaited Iron Man Doctrine piece, fresh from The American Prospect. It’s a meditation on Iron Man and imperialism. I know, I know, I’m so f*cking cliche.

The second way Marvel subtly readjusted Iron Man for America’s post-Vietnam sensibilities was to reveal that the reason Stark could control neither his company nor his relationships was that he couldn’t control himself. Stark’s booze-soaked, womanizing lifestyle was cleverly reinterpreted as rampant alcoholism and self-loathing. His drive to save the world was nothing more than a martyr complex born of a callow solipsism. It was a brilliant maneuver by the writers. Iron Man began to ask America: Would you trust such unfettered, unaccountable power to someone this messed up? The introduction of War Machine took the critique a step further, showing that the very act of donning the armor makes you messed up. Some exercises of power are too dangerous to be left in the hands of one man. The writers never turned Iron Man into a villain — that would have been the easy way out. Instead they presented a fascinating character study, a compelling Cold War critique, a subtle plea for liberal internationalism, and a defense of a series of theses presented to the world in America’s founding documents. It helps that Iron Man also blows stuff up.

Other recent updates to the Stark/Iron Man story have jettisoned the Cold War element but deepened the dynamic established in the 1970s. In Extremis, a reboot of the franchise during the current Bush era, Warren Ellis, one of the most talented comic-book writers currently working, has Stark unable to answer the question “What is the Iron Man armor for, Tony?” A left-wing filmmaker, dismissive of Stark’s protestations that he’s more than a weapons merchant, asks, “Do you think they have your painkilling drug pumps in Iraq? Do you think an Afghan kid with his arms blown off by a landmine is remotely impressed by an Iron Man suit?” Tony Stark is meant to be read as a tragic figure. He is one of the smartest men alive, yet he cannot think his way out of the traps his genius constructs for him. And so he blunders, again and again, into a hell of unintended consequences.

God can I not wait for the Ultimates/Avengers movie.

Update: Welcome, Metafilterers.

Wages Of Sin, We Keep Paying»

Amazingly, the Bush administration can’t figure out just why the Arab governments it occasionally flirts with undermining/subverting/overthrowing — and whose citizens it reserves the right to abduct, imprison, kill and certainly demonize — won’t cooperate with its proxy Iraq government!

And look at the alibi. As a wise man once said, you want it to be one way –

But U.S. and Iraqi officials dismissed Arab security concerns as a smokescreen. “If I believed the issue were purely one of security, it would be one thing,” a senior Bush administration official said. The Iraqi government has offered the Arabs space inside the fortified Green Zone, where the U.S. embassy and much of the Iraqi government is located.

The real basis for Arab reluctance, the U.S. official said, “is political. It’s a choice, an acknowledgement that there is a new Iraq, of recognizing that its political structures, its constitution, its government, is in fact legitimate.”

– but it’s the other way.

The Arabs, unsurprisingly, say that is nonsense. “Iraq is an Arab country and we want the same things the Americans want,” an Arab official said. But beyond diplomatic security, he and others said they are not convinced that the Basra offensive proved that Maliki is ready to stand up to Tehran. They also note that Maliki’s government has so far failed to incorporate more than a fraction of the largely Sunni Awakening security forces backed by the U.S. military into the Iraqi police and military forces.

Several Arab officials questioned whether Iraq’s military offensives against Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia were staged to crack down on “criminals,” as Maliki has said, or to benefit Sadr’s Shiite rivals, who are allied with the prime minister. Administration officials raised that possibility themselves immediately after the Basra assault, one Arab noted, before they decided to hail it as evidence of Maliki’s willingness to go after his co-religionists.

Several Arab officials attributed their hesitation partly to what they describe as Iraqi government incompetence. Egypt has complained that it has yet to receive the body of its assassinated ambassador, and also that political factions in Baghdad have been unable to agree on Iraq’s envoy to Cairo. A Saudi official noted that while Iraq complains about Riyadh’s failure to forgive billions in debt, Baghdad has not provided the necessary paperwork and has paid no principal or interest for the past 20 years. Still, the Saudi official said, “nobody is taking them to the credit bureau.”

It’s almost as if telling the Arab world to snack on ‘em before you need it to support your imperial fantasies isn’t an effective strategy!

Disappeared In The Crowd, All You Seen Was Troops»

Iraq Veterans Against The War took Winter Soldier to the Congressional Progressive Caucus yesterday. Their testimony was almost as grueling as the March convention was. I wrote it up for the Washington Independent.

The hearing’s emotional crescendo was the testimony of Goldsmith. ” I joined the Army to kill Iraqis, to kill Muslims,” Goldsmith said, before apologizing. When he finally went to Baghdad in 2005, he found the Iraqis had greater sympathy to the Mahdi Army militia of Moqtada Sadr than the U.S.-backed government. “They feel they have been let down by America and by their own government that George Bush’s administration put in power,” he said.

His voice occasionally wavering, Goldsmith confessed that he attempted suicide after returning home. “I never deployed a second time. Because of that I received a general discharge,” he said. “I lost my college benefits, the $40,000 promised me in the Montgomery GI Bill I will not be eligible to receive. And currently there is a senator in Congress — excuse me, currently running for president — who is fighting to kill our Webb GI bill. And I’m one of the soldiers who will never get that money.”

Barbara Lee promised Goldsmith, “You will go to college,” as she vowed to pass Sen. Jim Webb’s new GI Bill.

Never Ever Thought You’d Be The One To Betray Me»

Is there a criminal statute that could apply to whomever’s responsible for this?

An internal e-mail written by a Veterans Affairs Department employee suggested avoiding a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder for veterans and instead considering a diagnosis that might result in a lower disability payment.

A copy of the e-mail was distributed Thursday by the groups Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a congressional watchdog group, and VoteVets.org. The e-mail dated March 20 had been forwarded to VoteVets.org, an Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans lobbying group opposed to the Bush administration’s handling of the war and veterans issues.

The name of the sender and the recipients were blacked out by the groups. The e-mail has the subject title “Suggestion.”

“Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I’d like to suggest that we refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out. Consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder, R/O PTSD,” the e-mail said.

It also said, “Additionally, we really don’t or have time to do the extensive testing that should be done to determine PTSD.”

PTSD is no joke. People die from what PTSD does to them. Kristofer Goldsmith is just one soldier who came home from the war and attempted to take his own life. Real strength is living through that — when you can’t exactly answer why you should — and deciding to wake up in the morning.

This VA bureaucrat probably doesn’t realize exactly what he or she did. It’s not just that his/her policy would misdiagnose PTSD. It’s that his/her policy entails telling veterans they don’t have PTSD. My friends tell me that it’s not the easiest thing to even go to the VA hospital, emotionally. I know men who haven’t been to war who won’t tend to their mental health because they’re uncomfortable admitting they need help. Think about how likely it is that all that applies to the soldier, sailor, airman or Marine who steps through those VA hospital doors anyway. And then he or she gets told whatever s/he’s going through, it’s not PTSD. Just rub some dirt on it. What, you went to war and you’re whining now?

There’s probably no statutory penalty for this. But morally? Morally, this bureaucrat’s hands are covered in blood.

On Animal Farm, My Animal Home»

It’s been a grueling and awful day of war-related misery, mitigated only marginally by the House’s defeat of the war supplemental. Luckily, things still look like ducks.

The Mask Has Cracked»

Faiz captures the greatest moment in television history: a right-wing talk show host goes on Hardball to yell appeaserappeaserappeaser and has no idea what happened at Munich in 1938. Video via TPM:

Chris Matthews, that next eightball is on me.

Rejected»

I can’t believe it happened. Is this for real? Is this headline going to change when I hit refresh? Or did the House really vote down the $160 billion war supplemental?

Matt Stoller:

This war is going to end because it is politically unsustainable. The Senate is going to add the funding back in and the House will make sure the money goes to the war, but recognize how big a deal this is. The Republicans in the House and the Senate are going to utterly collapse this fall, and Democrats will have a mandate to end the war. It’s something Obama has promised to do, and now the political logic there is undeniable. The question is whether there will be residual troops in the country, and that is where we can have an impact.

An end to this war means no more troops in Iraq. The Republicans are going to face, as Tom Matzzie said, extinction, because they kept the war going.