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.

My War, You’re One Of Them»

The Windy’s Mike Lillis has a great story about how the blue-dog Democrats are standing in the way of Jim Webb’s new GI Bill.

But Democratic leaders face tough opposition from both sides of the aisle. Conservative Republicans oppose the policy, arguing that the benefits are too generous; while conservative-leaning House Democrats — the Blue Dogs — oppose the process, maintaining that the 10-year, $52-billion cost should be offset rather than borrowed, as party leaders have proposed.

House Democrats hope to score a political victory by voting separately to attach the education proposal to a must-pass emergency war spending bill — all but daring Republicans to vote against a veterans benefit just before Memorial Day in an election year. The bill would then move to the Senate, where the same scenario could force some Republican senators — including likely GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) — into a similarly uncomfortable vote. To get the bill out of the House, however, will likely require cooperation from the 47-member-strong Blue Dogs, whose opposition to the off-budget GI Bill came as a surprise. The shakeup pushed House debate on the war spending package to later this week.

Among House Democrats, the conflict boils down to this: Do lawmakers have a greater responsibility to the returning troops or to future generations via smaller budget deficits? The saga underscores the difficulty of moving legislation in a high-stakes election year — when lawmakers want to be seen working hard in Washington, but political wrangling ensures the failure of most big ideas.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) has said that the Democratic differences would be ironed out this week. But Blue Dog Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) said Tuesday that he has no intention of backing down. “The Blue Dogs still have plenty of fight,” Cooper said.

We All Need Somebody To Lean On»

Did these guys hold it down or what? Eric, Ilan, Cernig and Fester: thank you guys. Everyone’s reading their blogs, right?

In other, more-self promotional news, my latest Windy piece is the sixth installment of my “Rise of the Counterinsurgents” series. It’s about why the civilian component of the government has faced a steeper COIN learning curve than the military has:

As the structure of the nation’s wars changes, so, too, must the organization of the U.S. government, argues the new generation of counterinsurgency theorists. They say that diplomats, reconstruction experts, governance advisers, economists, lawyers and even agronomists must be as easily inserted into a theater of battle as troops are — and must work with the warfighters in the effort to convince a population not to ally with insurgents.

This capability is now largely missing. So some counterinsurgents are trying innovative methods to solve the problem. But it is still unclear if they will be sufficient — let alone timely enough to reverse the fortunes of both current wars.

There are many reasons why American civilians working for the government have stayed on the sidelines of counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. For one thing, the United States still lacks a corps of civilians ready to deploy into conflict zones. That is unlikely to change. “We’ll never match boots on the ground with wingtips on the ground,” said Eliot A. Cohen, counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, using a shorthand term for diplomats that is common among the counterinsurgency community.

The Cry Of A Tortured Man»

Does Bush’s admission that he knew about his advisers’ approval of torture carry any legal implications? Kind of! All that and more in this new piece from the Washington Independent:

“I predict that there will be calls for top administration officials to be prosecuted in an international court for war crimes,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, a civil liberties expert who teaches at Duke University Law School. “This meeting supports the involvement of top officials — including the president — in approving torture.”

“If you, as an individual, order such conduct, you’re culpable under the aiding-and-abetting provision of federal law,” said Aziz Huq, director of the Liberty and National Security Project at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. “There is at least a colorable theory, a credible case, for federal criminal liability here.”

Also, Howie at Crooks and Liars links to a user-generated video of one my favorite Clash songs, “Washington Bullets.” I’m trying to convince my bandmate Rory that we should update it. Oh, did I not mention my band, The Surge? More on that in the future!