Veterans for Common Sense

May 26, 2008 – This Memorial Day, as an ever-increasing number of mentally and physically wounded soldiers return from Iraq, the Department of Veterans Affairs faces a pressing crisis: women traumatized not only by combat but also by sexual assault and harassment from their fellow service members. Sadly, the department is failing to fully deal with this problem.

Women make up some 15 percent of the United States active duty forces, and 11 percent of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly a third of female veterans say they were sexually assaulted or raped while in the military, and 71 percent to 90 percent say they were sexually harassed by the men with whom they served.

This sort of abuse drastically increases the risk and intensity of post-traumatic stress disorder. One study found that female soldiers who were sexually assaulted were nine times more likely to show symptoms of this disorder than those who weren’t. Sexual harassment by itself is so destructive, another study revealed, it causes the same rates of post-traumatic stress in women as combat does in men. And rape can lead to other medical crises, including diabetes, asthma, chronic pelvic pain, eating disorders, miscarriages and hypertension.

The threat of post-traumatic stress has risen in recent years as women’s roles in war have changed. More of them now come under fire, suffer battle wounds and kill the enemy, just as men do.

As women return for repeat tours, usually redeploying with their same units, many must go back to war with the same man (or men) who abused them. This leaves these women as threatened by their own comrades as by the war itself. Yet the combination of sexual assault and combat has barely been acknowledged or studied.

Last month, when the RAND Corporation released the biggest non-military survey of the mental health of troops since 2001, it unwittingly reflected this lack of research. The survey found that women suffer from higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression than men do, but it neglected to look into why this might be, and asked no questions about abuse from fellow soldiers. Terri Tanielian, the project’s co-editor, told me that RAND needs more money to explore these higher rates of trauma among women.

As the more than 191,500 women who have served in the Middle East since 2001 return home, they will increasingly flood the Veterans Affairs system. To ask those who need help for post-traumatic stress disorder to turn to a typical Veterans Affairs hospital, built in the 1950s and designed to treat men, is untenable. Women who have been raped or sexually assaulted often cannot face therapy groups or medical facilities full of men.

At the moment, the Department of Veterans Affairs operates only six inpatient post-traumatic stress disorder programs specifically for women. And although all 153 department-run hospitals will treat women, only 22 have stand-alone women’s clinics that offer a full range of medical and psychological services.

This number of clinics may seem adequate for the 1.7 million female veterans currently at home, especially since they represent only 7.2 percent of all veterans at the moment, but it isn’t. Many clinics are miles from where soldiers live, and many more are open only a few hours a week and lack staff members trained to deal with sexual assault, let alone assault combined with combat trauma.

The Department of Veterans Affairs says it plans to open more clinics for post-traumatic stress disorder, but how many will be only for women remains undecided.

Women are the fastest-growing group of veterans, and by 2020 they are projected to account for 20 percent of all veterans under the age of 45. Not all of these women will have suffered sexual assault, but many will have medical or psychological needs that conventional department hospitals cannot meet.

The Department of Veterans Affairs must open more comprehensive women’s health clinics, designate more facilities for women who have endured both combat and military sexual trauma and finance more support groups specifically for female combat veterans. The best way to honor all of our soldiers is to do what we can to help them mend.

Bush loyalist turns harsh critic in memoir: Former press secretary says president used propaganda to govern

May 28, 2008, Washington, DC – In a White House full of Bush loyalists, none was more loyal than Scott McClellan, the bland press secretary who spread the company line for all the government to follow each day. His word, it turns out, was worthless, his confessional memoir a glimpse into Washington’s world of spin and even outright deception.

Instead of effective government, Americans were subjected to a “permanent campaign” that was “all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president’s advantage,” McClellan writes in a book stunning for its harsh criticism of Bush. “Presidential initiatives from health care programs to foreign invasions are regularly devised, named, timed and launched with one eye (or both eyes) on the electoral calendar.”

The spokesman’s book is called “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.”

The book, which had been scheduled for release on Monday, was being sold by bookstores on Wednesday after the publisher moved up its release. McClellan planned promotional appearances on news talk shows on Thursday.

Governing via endless campaigning is not a new phenomenon, but it accelerated markedly during the tumultuous Clinton White House and then the war-shaken years of the Bush administration. Bush strategist Karl Rove had a strong hand in both politics and governing as overseer of key offices, including not only openly political affairs and long-range strategic planning but as liaison for intergovernmental affairs, focusing on state and local officials.

Bush’s presidency “wandered and remained so far off course by excessively embracing the permanent campaign and its tactics,” McClellan writes. He says Bush relied on an aggressive “political propaganda campaign” instead of the truth to sell the Iraq war.

That’s about right, says Brookings Institution political analyst Thomas Mann, co-author of a book entitled “The Permanent Campaign.”

“It was such a hyped-up effort to frame the problem and the choices in a way that really didn’t do justice to the complexity of the arguments, the intelligence,” Mann said in an interview. Though all presidents try to “control the message,” he said, “it was really a way of preventing that discussion. It just had enormously harmful consequences. I think they carried it to a level not heretofore seen.”

Each day, underscoring the daily blend of politics and government, Bush and his administration make an extraordinary effort to control information and make sure the White House message is spread across the government and beyond. The line for officials to follow is set at early-morning senior staff meetings at the White House, then transmitted in e-mails, conference calls, faxes and meetings. The loop extends to Capitol Hill where lawmakers get the administration talking points. So do friendly interest groups and others.

The aim is to get them all to say the same thing, unwavering from the administration line. Other administrations have tried to do the same thing, but none has been as disciplined as the Bush White House.

It starts at the top

McClellan recounts how Bush, as governor of Texas, spelled out his approach about the press at their very first meeting in 1998. He said Bush “mentioned some of his expectations for his spokespeople — the importance of staying on message; the need to talk about what you’re for, rather than what you are against; how he liked to make the big news on his own time frame and terms without his spokespeople getting out in front of him, and, finally, making sure that public statements were coordinated internally so that everyone is always on the same page and there are few surprises.”

In September 2002, Bush’s chief economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, ran afoul of the president’s rules by saying the cost of a possible war with Iraq could be somewhere between $100 billion and $200 billion. Bush was irritated and made sure that Lindsey was told his comments were unacceptable. “Lindsey had violated the first rule of the disciplined, on-message Bush White House: don’t make news unless you’re authorized to do so,” McClellan wrote.

Within four months, Lindsey was gone, resigning as part of a reshaping of Bush’s economic team.

While message control has been part of many administrations, Mann said that, “They were just tougher and more disciplined about it than anyone else had been.”

‘Political propaganda campaign’

As spokesman, McClellan ardently defended Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and the conduct of his presidency over the course of nearly 300 briefings in two years and 10 months. Now, two years after leaving the White House and eager to make money on his book, McClellan concludes Bush turned away from candor and honesty and misled the country about the reasons for going to war.

It wasn’t about Saddam Hussein’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, McClellan writes. It was Bush’s fervor to transform the Middle East through the spread of democracy. “The Iraq war was not necessary,” writes McClellan, who never hinted at any doubts or questioned his talking points when he was press secretary.

McClellan writes that Bush and his team sold the Iraq war by means of a “political propaganda campaign” in which contradictory evidence was ignored or discarded, caveats or qualifications to arguments were downplayed or dropped and “a dubious al-Qaida connection to Iraq was played up.

“We were more focused on creating a sense of gravity and urgency about the threat from Saddam Hussein than governing on the basis of the truths of the situation,” McClellan wrote.

McClellan is not the first presidential spokesman to write a tell-all book, but his is certainly the harshest, at least in recent memory. He says his words as press secretary were sincere but he has come to realize that “some of them were badly misguided. … I’ve tried to come to grips with some of the truths that life inside the White House bubble obscured.”

White House colleagues were stunned, but not lacking for the day’s response. “We are puzzled. It is sad. This is not the Scott we knew,” said Dana Perino, the current press secretary who was first hired by McClellan as a deputy.

Later in the day, she relayed the reaction of Bush himself: “He’s puzzled, he doesn’t recognize this as the Scott McClellan that he hired and confided in and worked with for so many years.”

May 24, 2008 – NewsHour: Retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel Gary Solis is an attorney and expert on the law of armed conflict. He teaches at West Point. Before watching the televised “Winter Soldier” meeting at our request, he was skeptical about their claims. Afterward, he changed his mind.

Lt. Col. Gary Solis: I was immediately impressed with the sincerity, the depth of feeling, the sense of wanting to right wrong. What they had to say jibes with reports I’ve received from lieutenants who returned to West Point where I taught. My former students come back and tell me the same thing.

Full NewsHour transcript and video

• Watch Winter Soldier on the Hill testimony on CSPAN
• Listen to archived audio from KPFA.org
• Winter Soldier March 15th event: watch archived testimony online and get more information on Winter Soldier.

May 23, 2008 – Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward, whose reporting (or lack of) on the White House and WMD [weapons of mass destruction] in the run-up to the war in Iraq has drawn much criticism, continues to shirk much of the blame. The latest evidence is in an interview this week with the news editor of the Reno News & Review in Nevada. In it, Woodward’s reveals that his attitude about Saddam and WMD was guilty-until-proven-innocent — and he still largely defends that approach, which helped pave the way for more than five years of war.

In a maddening but revealing exchange, Woodward admits that he felt the evidence for WMD was skimpy but he took the word of his inside sources who said it was adequate. At another point he reveals that he knew there was no “smoking gun” — and that there should be one before going to war — but hey, what more could he do?

Finally, he claims that we couldn’t just take Saddam’s word that he had no WMD. His questioner points out that we did have weapons inspectors on the ground just before the war, who were finding nothing.

The interviewer, Dennis C. Myers, caught Woodward while he was in town for a scholarship dinner. After chatting about other media-related matters, Myers (a thoughtful fellow who has corresponded with me in the past) asked whether Woodward thought there was less scrutiny of “deception” in Washington by the press than in the past. Woodward replied, “I think there’s an awful lot of scrutiny going on. I think there should be more, and I think it should be tougher, but there’s a lot.”

Myers then dropped a bomb: “It’s said fairly commonly in journalism circles that people actually died in Iraq because reporters did not do their jobs. Do you believe that?”

Woodward, not getting it (or pretending not to), replied: “In what way?”

“There were sources out there who could have been tapped to find out about weapons of mass destruction, about things like that, and it didn’t happen,” Myers explained.

Woodward (according to Myers’ transcript): “Well, it did happen and it was really hard and–[pause]”

Myers: “For example, you guys didn’t find what Knight Ridder folks found [about WMD].”

Woodward: “Yes, but if you go back and look at those stories, it’s not clear what they had.”

This is balderdash. It’s actually quite clear what they had: strong testimony that the evidence for WMD was extremely questionable.

Woodward admits, “I fault myself mightily for not being aggressive enough on that. But I had sources who told me the evidence on WMD is skimpier than they say and we were going to do a big story about it, and I went back to the sources and I said, ‘Okay, the evidence is skimpier, but do you still believe that there is WMD in Iraq?’ ‘Oh, yes.’ They all–all the sources believed it. They didn’t say it didn’t exist, they said the evidence is skimpier.

“And I ran a story before the war on the front page of the Washington Post saying there’s no smoking gun evidence of WMD. Now, I should have known, if there’s no smoking gun, you don’t have it. Should have been more aggressive. But how do you penetrate that without going to Iraq under Saddam, knock on–you know, and say, ‘Hey, I’d like to investigate your WMD.’ Not going to get very far.”

But Myers jumps in: “But there were people who were there. They were arms inspectors and they were disdained by the press back here.”

Woodward replies incoherently: “No, that’s not true. I mean, we ran stories on it and Hans Blix, who was the chief weapons inspector for the U.N., said before the war he had inspected 300 sites and found no WMD, but he could not yet say there was not [WMD].”

This is a gross rationalization, of course. Blix was adamant about the progress being made, the surprising absence of any evidence of WMD, and naturally could not prove a “negative” — that there were no WMD at all — in just a few weeks.

Woodward seems to want it both ways: Get credit for admitting he could have been tougher while claiming that there really wasn’t much more he could do. In this, his explanation perfectly mirrors the argument of nearly everyone in the mainstream media.

Link to Myers piece: http://www.newsreview.com/reno/Content?oid=666699

May 22, 2008, Buffalo, NY – There’s a new program in Buffalo aimed at helping local veterans. It’s called Veteran’s Court. It’s a program designed by the Buffalo City Court to keep non-violent offenders, who are veterans, out of jail.

2 On Your Side’s Josh Boose asked Judge Robert Russell, “Did you see veterans locally here, falling through the cracks in a sense?”

“We seemed to notice, here locally, we may have been working with veterans in a drug treatment court, we worked with a number of veterans in a mental health treatment track; however, when one veteran was working with one veteran, peer to peer, it appeared to increase our probability of success with that population,” said Russell.

After a year of planning, Veteran’s Court kicked-off in January.

Here’s what happens: If a veteran is arrested for a non-violent offense, they can ask to enter Veteran’s Court where they can get proper treatment, mentors who can help them and assistance with any military benefits from the Veteran’s Hospital.

“It’s a group that many may not have the same degree or understanding or appreciation for,” said Russell.

There are some strict rules, if you’re in the program you must remain sober, lead a law abiding life and find a stable job or schooling.

Judge Russell says there are no additional costs. The court expenses already exist and there are some volunteers.

“So there’s no out of pocket expenses for the city or something like that,” Boose asked Russell.

“No,” the judge replied.

So far, Buffalo is the only city in the country to focus in on the needs of veterans like this.

Russell and Buffalo City Court Projects Director Hank Pirowski say it’s something other cities are taking note of.

“Where do you see this a year from now,” Boose asked Pirowski.

“One hundred vets without a problem in the next twelve to eighteen months and I hope to see 15, 20, 25 other veteran’s courts open across the country,” he replied.

Right now about 35 veterans are in the program. They are right in the middle of it now. Those who complete the program will graduate at the beginning of next year.

Veterans who need some help but are not violating the law in anyway can go through the program too. For more information about Veteran’s Court, call 716-845-2697.

May 27, 2008 – The night before he hanged himself with a garden hose in the basement of his parents’ home, Jeffrey Lucey asked if he could sit on his father’s lap. For the better part of an hour, Kevin Lucey quietly held his 23-year-old son, an Iraq war veteran who had returned depressed and deeply ashamed of what he said was his brutal treatment of Iraqis. When Kevin Lucey discovered his son’s body the next night, there was a suicide note: “I am totally embarrassed at the man I have become and I hope you can remember me only as a child.”

Jeffrey Lucey was not counted among the 4,082 American troops who have died in the war so far, but, yesterday, veterans groups and peace activitists remembered the Marine Reserve lance corporal along with tens of thousands of others whose deaths are attributable to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As sunbathers lolled on the grass of Christopher Columbus Park, protesters dropped a carnation into Boston Harbor for each of the 80 Massachusetts service men and women who died in the two conflicts, then tossed bouquets on the water for troubled veterans such as Lucey as well as the countless Iraqis who have died since the 2003 US invasion.

“This government has steeped all of us . . . in a shroud of shame,” said Kevin Lucey of Belchertown, who has filed a federal lawsuit against the Veterans Affairs secretary for failing to get his son the help that could have prevented his 2004 suicide. “Please help us stop it now.”

Organizers of the waterfront rally, including Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War, said they wanted an alternative way to mark Memorial Day from traditional “militaristic” parades and speeches that glorify war. For instance, President Bush yesterday talked about soldiers in Iraq who died “doing what they loved most: defending the United States of America.” The reality, said Memorial Day for Peace organizers, is that troops and civilians alike are dying for Bush’s foreign policy mistakes.

Yet, despite opinion polls over the last two years that consistently show the majority of Americans oppose the five-year-old war, many protests draw small crowds. Only about 100 people, mostly veterans and veteran activists, turned up at the waterfront, drawing a few barbs from the speakers about all the people who view Memorial Day as little more than a day off from work.

“It’s indicative that the war is not touching people that much,” said Nate Goldshlag of Veterans for Peace. The 35,000 dead and wounded are concentrated among military families rather than spread across the 300 million population, he explained, and no one is being asked to pay higher taxes to finance the war. As a result, he said, “The war is hidden from America.”

But the war is ever-present for Ian J. Lavallee, cochairman of the Boston chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Lavallee, 24, stabbed himself in a men’s room stall of New York City’s Penn Station one drunken night after he returned from Iraq in December 2005. The military gave him an honorable discharge based on a pre-existing personality disorder, Lavallee said, but hasn’t accepted his claim that the war drove him to a suicide attempt.

Lavallee, who served in the 82d Airborne Division, said he was constantly pressured to be more brutal and aggressive. During his four months stationed west of Mosul, Lavallee said, he helped terrify Iraqi detainees, forcing them to eat pork against the teaching of Islam, humiliating them in front of their families, and even throwing them off trucks.

“The things we were doing just encouraged more people to dislike us, not to want us there, and, frankly, try to kill us,” said Lavallee, who said he “became a person that I never wanted to become.”

Now, Lavallee devotes himself to helping other veterans through his group, eking out a living on his $728-a-month government disability check. Lavallee argues that the government – not the troops – deserve the blame for incidents of brutality. “We all are capable of doing the best things or the worst things,” he said. “Our soldiers are just reacting to a horrific crisis our government has put them in.”

Joyce Lucey said it was too late to save her son Jeffrey, who never recovered from the nightmares, depression, and substance abuse that plagued him after his service in Iraq. But she said many other veterans need more psychological and medical help than the government will provide. “War robbed them first of their innocence, then of their future,” she said.