Veterans for Common Sense

April 3, 2008 – Hate mail is useful stuff. First, it proves that somebody is paying attention; second, it reveals public prejudices. Recently, the House of Commons voted to extend the military mission in Afghanistan until 2011.

This, I said in a television interview, was a mistake. Sure enough, a hate message soon came rolling into my inbox. “You must be a card carrying NDPer,” it said in part, “so go back to your safe little classroom with the rest of your left-wing students.”

Of course, being left-wing does not necessarily mean that you are wrong, although in fact, far from being a Birkenstock-wearing, bearded, tree-hugging leftist, I’m a suit-wearing, clean-shaven former soldier, who is a research associate at the French military academy at Saint-Cyr, has lectured at West Point, Sandhurst and the Royal Military College of Canada, and writes for The American Conservative.

Why is it that people assume that if you are against the West’s current military adventures you must be on the left, and that if you favour military intervention and more defence spending you must be a conservative?

Favouring military activism and higher defence spending is not a conservative trait. Rather it is the position of neo-liberal idealists smitten by what the British philosopher John Gray recently called “right-wing utopianism.”

There was a time when conservative-minded folk regarded standing armies as dangerous forces, liable to be used to suppress liberty.

Quite how this tradition vanished is not clear, but a possible turning point was when British politician Joseph Chamberlain left the Liberal party and sided with the Conservatives in protest over Irish Home Rule in 1885.

Chamberlain was a radical liberal by the standards of his day, and he imported into conservatism a form of liberal imperialism that was profoundly un-conservative in nature. Over decades the original distrust of armed forces and military expeditions overseas disappeared.

The Cold War cemented conservatives’ love of the defence establishment. The right identified itself by its hostility to communism and as a result married itself to the military. In doing so, it lost its ideological bearings.

Conservatism is hard to define, but if there is a hard core at the centre of it, it consists of skepticism about the perfectibility of the human condition and the ability of man to reshape his environment using reason alone.

On this basis, there is nothing conservative about the belief that we can reform the world for the better using military power. The true conservative is willing to use violence to defend the things he prizes against direct attack, but he doubts that exporting western values by force is ever likely to work.

Indeed, the post-Cold War interventionist phenomenon has been driven largely by those on the political left. The proponents of ideas such as “humanitarian intervention” and the “responsibility to protect” have been men such as former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy and ex-British Labour prime minister Tony Blair, who proudly proclaim themselves to be “progressives.”

By allying itself with this movement, Canada’s Conservative party has shown that it is truly a party of the left, not the right.

Similarly, the preference of the Conservative party for higher defence spending is anomalous. For years, the Tories have preached the virtues of free markets, lower taxation and reduced government spending. They express regular skepticism about governments’ ability to solve social problems by increasing spending.

Yet for some unfathomable reason, defence is exempted from this logic. Magically, more defence spending will produce better security.

Yet the defence sector is notoriously inefficient. The procurement project that comes in on time and even remotely close to its projected budget is so rare as to be almost unheard of.

The true conservative position is hostile to war and hostile to defence expenditure. During the recent battles for the Republican presidential nominations, only one candidate could be truly described as anti-war: Ron Paul, probably the most conservative Republican of all.

Today’s so-called Conservative party is a party devoted to rapid increases in government spending, which has entered into a thoroughly un-conservative alliance with liberal imperialists.

This manifests itself in a naïvely utopian military policy. Criticizing this is a mark of realism.

If being anti-war really does make one a “card carrying NDP-er,” as my hate mailer believes, that must mean that the NDP has become the only truly conservative party out there.

Paul Robinson is a public and international affairs professor at the University of Ottawa. He was previously a military intelligence officer in both the British army and the Canadian Forces.

April. 3, 2008 – A week before Army Gen. David Petraeus updates Congress on the war in Iraq, two new studies have found that soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering from especially high rates of post-combat psychological problems, exacerbated by an unusually high rate of repeat deployments.

Some of the most severely affected troops are in the National Guard, often detailed to front-line combat positions.

The studies were conducted by Veterans for America, a nonpartisan advocacy organization led by Bobby Muller, whose efforts to ban landmines earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. Politico received early copies of the reports, set to be released Friday.

Muller is particularly concerned because Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is expected to tell Congress that overall troop reductions should be put on hold, pending a reassessment.

Muller’s group argues that changing overall deployment policies to give troops time to recover from combat situations would have a far greater impact than piecemeal mental health legislation.

“We are compounding the injuries for those who already served,” Muller said, calling multiple deployments without sufficient rest a “prescription for catastrophe.”

Veterans Affairs spokeswoman Laurie Tranter said the department would have no comment because officials had not seen the studies.

But in a hearing before a House defense panel last month, Secretary of the Army Pete Geren said the military is trying to deal with the mental health issues.

“It’s a challenge for us,” he said. “The military has always struggled with it in wartime.” And he acknowledged that the mental health problems follow the troops home and “affect their families.”

A report by the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health last year found that the military health system “lacks the fiscal resources and the fully trained personnel to fulfill its mission.”

The veterans group’s findings come as Congress is considering numerous legislative initiatives to help veterans deal with the stress of the war, with programs ranging from counseling to suicide prevention.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) praised the veterans group’s work and called for “humane deployment cycles.”

“These critical reports reveal how our overstretched and misused military is among the most devastating costs of this war,” Reid said in a statement to Politico. “Our nation’s bravest volunteers deserve our gratitude for their service and sacrifice; they do not deserve to be sent on extended and repeated tours in an endless civil war.”

The studies found that National Guard troops do not receive the same level of care as regular Army soldiers when they return home. They often do not have the same on-base medical clinics as the regular Army and are often quickly thrust back into civilian life with little support.

Psychological effects were found in 49 percent of National Guard troops after returning from the battlefield – 29 percentage points higher than for regular soldiers.

The National Guard troops are treated like “bastard stepchildren,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said in a recent meeting with Maryland veterans.

In total, more than 1.6 million troops have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than a third have served at least two tours of duty, and some, as many as four.

Post-combat psychological problems for troops increased by 125 percent between their first and third or fourth deployments, according to one of the studies, which cited internal military statistics.

The military acknowledges the problems of lengthy deployments but says it needs to maintain troop levels.

In testimony last month before the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said the Army’s research showed that combat tours of “15 months is too long; 12 months home is too short.” He said that the Army’s goal this summer is to reduce deployment time to one year but that there were no immediate plans to increase leave times.

Over the past three years, the Army has begun a program to send mental health counselors to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army is also providing counseling to military families and is seeking more recruits in order to ease the burden on existing troops.

“We are doing everything we can to mitigate [the stress on soldiers] in a time of crisis,” Army public affairs spokesman Paul Boyce said Wednesday.

Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) has sponsored legislation to give military personnel mandated periods of rest between combat deployments, but his bill was defeated twice last year after close votes and opposition from the Pentagon. Still, Senate Democratic leaders are considering reintroducing it.

The Veterans for America findings also appear to correlate with a recently published study in The New England Journal of Medicine, which found that 42 percent of reservists returning from Iraq required mental health services, more than double that of active-duty soldiers.

The report, which mixes military studies with firsthand reporting, found that National Guard troops received less care and had little institutional support when compared with regular soldiers. National Guard veterans who requested compensation by the Department of Veterans Affairs were twice as likely as regular soldiers to be rejected, the study found.

The wait time for mental health care can be long. For instance, Veterans for America reported some soldiers had to wait two months for an appointment.

Other veterans groups say soldiers who have seen combat may not be getting the mental health care they need, said Patrick Campbell, the legislative director for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, an advocacy group that was not involved with the studies.

His group is advocating for mandatory in-person screenings by mental health professionals for all veterans returning from combat, not just the over-the-phone interviews that are currently in place. “They are just being released from a war zone back into their normal lives. It is hard to process,” said Campbell, a decorated Iraq veteran who uses VA facilities himself.

The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee has sought information from the VA on waiting times for mental and other types of health treatment, but the data the agency provided have been inconsistent, according to a committee aide. “It has been frustrating,” he said.

“Care for service members returning from combat must be considered a cost of war.”

The committee recently passed a bill that would provide for treatment of substance abuse at VA facilities and study its relationship with post-traumatic stress syndrome. The VA has cut back on substance abuse treatment in recent years.

Another bill, sponsored by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), would study the increase in suicide across the armed forces. Attempts have increased sixfold since 2002, according to the senators.

And Mikulski is among a group of legislators seeking $45 million for a state-run initiative, known as the “Yellow Ribbon” program, to help National Guard troops who have been in combat make the transition back to civilian life. The program was enacted early this year but so far has received no funding.

Rick Breitenfeldt, spokesman for the National Guard, said the Yellow Ribbon program is an important method of helping returning troops. “The word is out that National Guard troops and airmen need this program,” he said.

But while Congress debates specifics, the overall system of care for returning soldiers remains badly overburdened and will only get worse unless changes are made soon, veterans advocates say.

“We know what works,” Campbell said. “We’re just not doing it.”

April 2, 2008 – New York — The military is using the FBI to skirt legal restrictions on domestic surveillance to obtain private records of Americans’ Internet service providers, financial institutions and telephone companies, the ACLU said Tuesday.

The American Civil Liberties Union based its conclusion on a review of more than 1,000 documents turned over by the Defense Department after it sued the agency last year for documents related to national security letters, or NSLs, investigative tools used to compel businesses to turn over customer information without a judge’s order or grand jury subpoena.

“Newly unredacted documents released today reveal that the Department of Defense is using the FBI to circumvent legal limits on its own NSL power,” said the ACLU, whose lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court.

ACLU lawyer Melissa Goodman said the documents the civil rights group studied “make us incredibly concerned.” She said it would be understandable if the military relied on help from the FBI on joint investigations, but not when the FBI was not involved in a probe.

The FBI referred requests for comment Tuesday to the Defense Department. A department spokesman, Air Force Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, said in an e-mail that the department had made “focused, limited and judicious” use of the letters since Congress extended the capability to investigatory entities other than the FBI in 2001.

He said the department had acted legally in using a necessary investigatory tool and noted that “unusual financial activity of people affiliated with DoD can be an indication of potential espionage or terrorist-related activity.”

Ryder said the information in the ACLU claims came in part from an internal review of DoD’s use of the letters.

“We have since developed training and provided it to the services for their use,” he said.

He said that there was no law requiring it to track use of the letters but that the department had decided it was in its best interest to do so.

Goodman, a staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, said the military is allowed to demand financial and credit records in certain instances but does not have the authority to get e-mail and phone records or lists of Web sites that people have visited. That is the kind of information that the FBI can get by using a national security letter, she said.

“That’s why we’re particularly concerned. The DoD may be accessing the kinds of records they are not allowed to get,” she said.

Goodman also noted that legal limits are placed on the Defense Department “because the military doing domestic investigations tends to make us leery.”

In other allegations, the ACLU said:

• The Navy’s use of the letters to demand domestic records has increased significantly since the Sept. 11 attacks.

• The military wrongly claimed its use of the letters was limited to investigating only Defense Department employees.

• The Defense Department has not kept track of how many national security letters the military issues or what information it obtained through the orders.

• The military provided misleading information to Congress and silenced letter recipients from speaking out about the records requests.

Goodman said Congress should provide stricter guidelines and meaningful oversight of how the military and FBI make national security letter requests.

“Any government agency’s ability to demand these kinds of personal, financial or Internet records in the United States is an intrusive surveillance power,” she said.

April 1, 2008 – The scourge of suicides among American troops in Iraq is a serious and seriously underreported problem. One of the few high-profile cases involves a much-admired Army colonel named Ted Westhusing — who, in his 2005 suicide note, pointed a finger at a then little-known U.S. general named David Petraeus. Westhusing’s widow, asked by a friend what killed this West Point scholar, had replied simply: “Iraq.”

Now there is a disturbing update on this case.

Before putting a bullet through his head, Westhusing had been deeply disturbed by abuses carried out by American contractors in Iraq, including allegations that they had witnessed or even participated in the murder of Iraqis. His suicide note included claims that his two commanders tolerated a mission based on “corruption, human right abuses and liars.” One of those commanders: the future leader of the “surge” campaign in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus.

Westhusing, 44, had been found dead in a trailer at a military base near the Baghdad airport in June 2005, a single gunshot wound to the head. At the time, he was the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq. The Army concluded that he committed suicide with his service pistol. Westhusing was an unusual case: “one of the Army’s leading scholars of military ethics, a full professor at West Point who volunteered to serve in Iraq to be able to better teach his students. He had a doctorate in philosophy; his dissertation was an extended meditation on the meaning of honor,” as Christian Miller explained in a major Los Angeles Times piece.

“In e-mails to his family,” Miller wrote, “Westhusing seemed especially upset by one conclusion he had reached: that traditional military values such as duty, honor and country had been replaced by profit motives in Iraq, where the U.S. had come to rely heavily on contractors for jobs once done by the military.” His death followed quickly. “He was sick of money-grubbing contractors,” one official recounted. Westhusing said that “he had not come over to Iraq for this.” After a three-month inquiry, investigators declared Westhusing’s death a suicide.

Last March, The Texas Observer published a cover story by contributor Robert Bryce titled “I Am Sullied No More.” It is featured in a chapter in my new book on Iraq and the media.

Bryce covered much of the same ground paved by Miller but added details on the Petraeus angle. Now, in the past few weeks, Bryce has added more in an update — which explores whether Westhusing was murdered.

“When he was in Iraq, Westhusing worked for one of the most famous generals in the U.S. military, David Petraeus,” Bryce observed last year. “As the head of counterterrorism and special operations under Petraeus, Westhusing oversaw the single most important task facing the U.S. military in Iraq then and now: training the Iraqi security forces.”

Bryce referred to a “two-inch stack of documents, obtained over the past 15 months under the Freedom of Information Act, that provides many details of Westhusing’s suicide….The documents echo the story told by Westhusing’s friends. ‘Something he saw [in Iraq] drove him to this,’ one Army officer who was close to Westhusing said in an interview. ‘The sum of what he saw going on drove him’ to take his own life. ‘It’s because he believed in duty, honor, country that he’s dead.'”

In Iraq, Westhusing worked under two generals: Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, and Petraeus, then a lieutenant general. But Bryce continued: “By late May, Westhusing was becoming despondent over what he was seeing.” When his body was found on June, a note was found nearby addressed to Petraeus and Fil. According to Bryce it read:

“Thanks for telling me it was a good day until I briefed you. [Redacted name]–You are only interested in your career and provide no support to your staff–no msn [mission] support and you don’t care. I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human right abuses and liars. I am sullied–no more. I didn’t volunteer to support corrupt, money grubbing contractors, nor work for commanders only interested in themselves. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. I trust no Iraqi. I cannot live this way. All my love to my family, my wife and my precious children. I love you and trust you only. Death before being dishonored any more.

“Trust is essential–I don’t know who trust anymore. Why serve when you cannot accomplish the mission, when you no longer believe in the cause, when your every effort and breath to succeed meets with lies, lack of support, and selfishness? No more. Reevaluate yourselves, cdrs [commanders]. You are not what you think you are and I know it.”

Twelve days after Westhusing’s body was found, Army investigators talked with his widow, who told them: “I think Ted gave his life to let everyone know what was going on. They need to get to the bottom of it, and hope all these bad things get cleaned up.”

Bryce concluded: “In September 2005, the Army’s inspector general concluded an investigation into allegations raised in the anonymous letter to Westhusing shortly before his death. It found no basis for any of the issues raised. Although the report is redacted in places, it is clear that the investigation was aimed at determining whether Fil or Petraeus had ignored the corruption and human rights abuses allegedly occurring within the training program for Iraqi security personnel.” Since then, the corruption and failed training angles have drawn wide attention although the Petraeus’s role, good or bad, has not.

The writer returned to the case this past February with another Texas Observer article. I’ve run out of space here so I will merely quote its opening and link to it:

Since last March, when I wrote a story about the apparent suicide of Col. Ted Westhusing in Iraq, I had believed there was nothing else to write about his tragic death.
But in December, I talked to a source in the Department of Defense who met Westhusing in Iraq about three months before his death. The source, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, was investigating claims of wrongdoing against military contractors working in Iraq. After a short introduction, I asked him what he thought had happened to Westhusing. ‘I think he was killed. I honestly do. I think he was murdered,’ the source told me. ‘Maybe DOD didn’t have enough evidence to call it murder, so they called it suicide.'”

Bryce doesn’t yet back the “murder” claim but notes that Rep. Henry Waxman is now looking into the Westhusing case.

April 1, 2008 – Hastings on Hudson, NY — Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of Multi-National Force Iraq must be held accountable for systematic violations of international law by US forces in Iraq when he appears before Congress next week, argues a new war crimes report published today by ConsumersforPeace.org on its website http://www.consumersforpeace.org.

The report, which was prepared with the review of noted international human rights attorney Karen Parker, recommends the following areas of questioning with respect to Petraeus’ strategy and tactics in Iraq during the so-called “surge,” resulting in Iraqi suffering that is generally unreported:

* Increased use of attack helicopters and aerial bombing against individuals and buildings under circumstances where it is virtually impossible to ensure against civilian casualties; and the use of excessively powerful munitions that also cause civilian casualties.

* Massive detention of Iraqi civilians without charge, often under atrocious living conditions, a practice that has increased in 2007-2008 both by United States and Iraqi forces.

* Continuing, intentional avoidance by the United States of its responsibilities under international law to provide for the basic human needs of the Iraqi people.

“These strategies are all violations of long-established rules of the laws and customs of war, also referred to as humanitarian law,” the report says in its preface. “What we are witnessing is no less than the United States forces committing war crimes on a daily, wholesale basis for no discernible reason except perhaps to maintain a perception of US dominance in the Middle East.”

Parker is President of the San-Francisco-based Association of Humanitarian Lawyers (www.humanlaw.org) and Chief Delegate to the United Nations for the Los-Angeles-based International Educational Development/Humanitarian Law Project (IED/AHL), an accredited non-governmental organization on the U.N. Secretary-General’s list.

The report, prepared by Washington D.C. based researcher Bill Rau using government and non-governmental documents, press, and video reports, is the third in a series on U.S. war crimes in Iraq published by Consumers for Peace since the fall of 2006.

“We are reporting on US conduct in Iraq simply because international law requires us as individuals, not just our governments, to act to stop war crimes,” said Nick Mottern, director of Consumers for Peace, which is working for total withdrawal of US forces from Iraq through a boycott of ExxonMobil, Shell and BP oil companies.

April 2, 2008 – In Helmand province the British are supposed to be in charge. In Kandahar it is the Canadians, while in Uruzgan they have the Dutch. The Germans are in the north, the Italians in the west, the Americans all over the place but concentrated in the east. Welcome to the Nato mission in Afghanistan: a patchwork of fiefdoms nominally under one banner but which at times seem to be fighting different wars.

As Nato leaders assemble in Bucharest, at the back of many minds will be the thought that this was meant to be a peacekeeping mission, not a war. Doubts are mounting as to who has the will to stay the course in a conflict that could last decades. There are concerns, too, over the key policy of “Afghanisation” – handing over fighting, security and governance to the Afghans, seen as an exit strategy that has not always reaped encouraging results.

In the forward operating bases of Helmand, the British insist that progress is being made. Most soldiers believe that they will experience less intense fighting, expecting the war to switch from direct confrontation to a classic insurgency, giving them space to consolidate and concentrate on winning hearts and minds.

Bases in central Helmand that were under daily attack last summer are now relatively quiet. More development work is under way in villages, the British say, and they report that hundreds of enemy commanders want to give up the fight – the euphemism is “reconcile”.

But if reconciliation with the Taleban is a British policy, it is not an American one — “they just want to kill them” is a common refrain — and there are no signs of a more nuanced approach. A British official in Kabul said: “There is a lot of frustration that everything is on hold until the US election in November. Details of policy won’t be decided until that is out of the way.”

Other frictions have emerged. The smaller Nato partners – even Britain and Canada, which are fighting costly battles – are military minnows compared with the US contingent. At the other end of the scale is frustration at the Germans, whose 3,000-strong force is the third-largest International Security Assistance Force contingent but which is stuck in its relatively safe bases in the north. One disgruntled squaddie said: “The squareheads have got one of the finest armies in Nato but they hardly leave their bases.”

Internal squabbles are generally kept private but they surface often enough to demoralise the Afghans, who fear that the foreign soldiers will grow tired and leave. There is also distrust of the American liking for recruiting local militias, which reminds Afghans of the chaos of the 1990s.

Even if co-ordinating the Nato forces can be achieved, Afghanisation is proving a tougher nut to crack.

Building up the Afghan National Army has been one of the few clear-cut successes of the mission but it is still small – 61,000-strong at the moment, with 3,000 new recruits turned out each month. It remains dependent on Nato support, as well as being prone to desertion. It is years away from being able to take on the Taleban. The underpaid, ill-trained Afghan National Police are little better than bandits in many areas.

“Pulling out would have dire consequences for the alliance and it would be a disaster for Afghanistan,” Brigadier Andrew Mackay, the outgoing British commander in Helmand, told The Times. “It would lead to the return of the Taleban.”

Last month, when a Gurkha patrol reached a remote village in the north of Kandahar province, Zain Ullah, a farmer, gave them a stark picture of what law and order meant to him. He said: “We have to feed the Taleban because they have guns. Then the police come and harass us for feeding the Taleban. When we go to Kandahar robbers steal our money and motorbikes, some of them dressed like police or Taleban. We don’t know who is stealing from us — police, robbers or Taleban. What we need here is security.”

March 31, 2008 – The stories are shocking in their simplicity and brutality: A female military recruit is pinned down at knifepoint and raped repeatedly in her own barracks. Her attackers hid their faces but she identified them by their uniforms; they were her fellow soldiers. During a routine gynecological exam, a female soldier is attacked and raped by her military physician. Yet another young soldier, still adapting to life in a war zone, is raped by her commanding officer. Afraid for her standing in her unit, she feels she has nowhere to turn.

These are true stories, and, sadly, not isolated incidents. Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.

The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Healthcare Center, where I met with female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of female veterans seen at the clinic say they were victims of sexual assault while in the military, and 29{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} report being raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and the downward spirals many of their lives have since taken.

Numbers reported by the Department of Defense show a sickening pattern. In 2006, 2,947 sexual assaults were reported — 73{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} more than in 2004. The DOD’s newest report, released this month, indicates that 2,688 reports were made in 2007, but a recent shift from calendar-year reporting to fiscal-year reporting makes comparisons with data from previous years much more difficult.

The Defense Department has made some efforts to manage this epidemic — most notably in 2005, after the media received anonymous e-mail messages about sexual assaults at the Air Force Academy. The media scrutiny and congressional attention that followed led the DOD to create the Sexual Assault and Response Office. Since its inception, the office has initiated education and training programs, which have improved the reporting of cases of rapes and other sexual assaults. But more must be done to prevent attacks and to increase accountability.

At the heart of this crisis is an apparent inability or unwillingness to prosecute rapists in the ranks. According to DOD statistics, only 181 out of 2,212 subjects investigated for sexual assault in 2007, including 1,259 reports of rape, were referred to courts-martial, the equivalent of a criminal prosecution in the military. Another 218 were handled via nonpunitive administrative action or discharge, and 201 subjects were disciplined through “nonjudicial punishment,” which means they may have been confined to quarters, assigned extra duty or received a similar slap on the wrist. In nearly half of the cases investigated, the chain of command took no action; more than a third of the time, that was because of “insufficient evidence.”

This is in stark contrast to the civilian trend of prosecuting sexual assault. In California, for example, 44{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of reported rapes result in arrests, and 64{cd9ac3671b356cd86fdb96f1eda7eb3bb1367f54cff58cc36abbd73c33c82e1d} of those who are arrested are prosecuted, according to the California Department of Justice.

The DOD must close this gap and remove the obstacles to effective investigation and prosecution. Failure to do so produces two harmful consequences: It deters victims from reporting, and it fails to deter offenders. The absence of rigorous prosecution perpetuates a culture tolerant of sexual assault — an attitude that says “boys will be boys.”

I have raised the issue with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Although I believe that he is concerned, thus far, the military’s response has been underwhelming — and the apparent lack of urgency is inexcusable.

Congress is not doing much better. Although these sexual assault statistics are readily available, our oversight has failed to come to grips with the magnitude of the crisis. The abhorrent and graphic nature of the reports may make people uncomfortable, but that is no excuse for inaction. Congressional hearings are urgently needed to highlight the failure of existing policies. Most of our servicewomen and men are patriotic, courageous and hardworking people who embody the best of what it means to be an American. The failure to address military sexual assault runs counter to those ideals and shames us all.

Jane Harman (D-Venice) chairs the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence.

MEDIA ADVISORY: TRIAL TO BEGIN IN FEDERAL COURT CASE BY WOUNDED VETS AGAINST VA

PRESS CONTACTS: 

1. Paul Sullivan, Veterans for Common Sense, (202) 491-6953

2. Robert M. Handy, Veterans United for Truth, (805) 455-5259

3. Gordon P. Erspamer, Attorney, Morrison & Foerster, (925) 295-3341

4. Sidney M. Wolinsky, Attorney, Disability Rights Advocates,  (510) 665-8644

WHAT: Trial

WHO: Before Senior Judge Samuel Conti, United States District Court, Northern District of California.

WHEN: Monday, April 21, 2008, at 9:00 a.m.

WHERE: Federal Courthouse, Courtroom #1, 17th Floor, 450 Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco, CA

Senior Federal District Court Judge Samuel Conti has expeditiously set trial in this ground-breaking nationwide lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) challenging systemic problems in the VA’s health care and adjudication systems for disabled veterans.  The trial, to begin on April 21, will include testimony from the heads of national veterans organizations, top VA officials and some of the leading experts in the country on the widespread failings of the VA system.

Tragically, the VA has been neglecting wounded veterans returning from service in Iraq and Afghanistan who are in desperate need of ongoing care and support, including medical treatment and disability payments for living expenses. Among those suffering the most are returning veterans with mental disabilities such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Veteran suicides have reached an epidemic level, with over 120 veterans taking their own lives every week. This lawsuit is unprecedented in directly challenging the VA’s 600,000 case backlog in handling claims, appellate delays of five to ten years, the waiting lists that veterans face before receiving health care, and the inadequacy of VA care for PTSD.

PTSD is a psychiatric disorder that can develop in a person who witnesses or is confronted with a traumatic event.  PTSD is the most prevalent mental disorder arising from combat.  The suit claims that numerous VA practices violate the constitutional and statutory rights of veterans by denying veterans safeguards in the VA benefits process and mandated medical care. The suit also calls for court orders requiring the VA to provide immediate medical and psychological help to returning troops and to screen them for risk of suicide.

March 28, 2008 – The following information was released by the office of California Rep. Duncan Hunter:

As American forces confront the global terrorist threat on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, an equally serious threat exists here at home with the continuous outsourcing and erosion of our defense industrial base. The deterioration of our domestic defense industries, which helped carry us to victory in World War II and the Cold War, represents one of the greatest challenges to our security and the future success of our military forces.

Despite this fact, the list of U.S. defense contracts awarded to foreign competitors continues to grow, most recently with the addition of the French- and German-controlled European and Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS) as the proposed manufacturer of the Air Force’s next refueling tanker. The initial $35 billion contract for 179 aircraft was awarded to EADS over the U.S.-based Boeing Co., a leading competitor in the aerospace industry that has built and supported the Air Force’s tanker fleet since the Eisenhower administration.

In 2005, the Navy chose an international group primarily composed of British and Italian manufacturers to build the next presidential helicopter, even though Sikorsky Aircraft, an American defense contractor, had manufactured the familiar Marine One helicopter since the Eisenhower years. Only several months earlier, the Brazilian jet maker Embraer was awarded a $6 billion contract to build the new Aerial Common Sensor reconnaissance aircraft.

Even the pistols and medium machine guns our Marines and soldiers are using on the battlefield today are no longer American-made. The 240G machine gun that replaced the venerable M-60, the standard machine gun from Vietnam to the first Gulf War, is manufactured by Fabrique Nationale, a Belgian company. The standard 9mm pistol carried by U.S. service personnel, which replaced the Colt M-1911, a weapon that was in service from 1911 through the late 1970s, is now made by the Italian company Berretta.

These examples clearly illustrate that foreign contractors are assuming a much greater role in the development and maintenance of America’s defenses. But as we become increasingly dependent on other countries for military resources and innovative technologies, we are becoming less capable of meeting our own critical defense needs.

In fact, when I was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and American troops began taking casualties from roadside bombs on the streets of Iraq, I sent out my team to locate more steel to armor and better protect their tactical vehicles. They found only one company left in the United States that could still produce high-grade armor plate steel.

The danger of this dependency also became evident when the Swiss company Micro Crystal refused to provide our military with components for the effective deployment of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM), otherwise known as smart bombs, during the first phase of the Iraq war. Because the Swiss government objected to American action in Iraq, it ordered the company to stop the shipment of JDAM components.

Given that our military relies on this weapons system to strike with precision and limit the potential for collateral damage, this could have cost time and lives. We were fortunately able to find alternative components through a domestic manufacturer, though it took several months.

These issues alone should be reason enough to begin restoring our defense manufacturing base and reverse the current course. Unfortunately, as evidenced by the continued selection of foreign contractors to build some of our weapons systems, it appears we have learned little so far.

Today, our nation’s defense-manufacturing base is at a crossroads. Current law requires that our military systems be manufactured with at least 50 percent of domestic-made materials. But when I wrote language into the House version of the annual Defense Authorization Act several years ago to raise this requirement to 65 percent, these provisions were met with strong opposition by the Bush administration and several of my Senate counterparts. Although these provisions were later removed from the bill, the discussion surrounding this effort valuably underscored the fact that our reliance on foreign suppliers is infringing on our industrial productivity and the operability of our armed forces.

Those who believe we do not need to worry about the health of our defense industrial base and propose free trade and globalization as remedies are wrong. Consider our high-tech defense industry, for example. In 2000, the Defense Department and National Security Agency became concerned about the shortage in domestic sources of supply for semiconductors, a necessary component for the next generation of weapons systems. These concerns prompted the agencies to jointly fund a “Trusted Foundry” to fabricate these integrated circuits domestically and rebuild this technical expertise in the U.S.

American companies that helped build our nation’s defenses, particularly over the last several decades, did so through years of experience and the talent of thousands of valuable engineers and technicians. But each time we outsource our most critical defense needs and award contracts to foreign suppliers, we lose this expertise, and, once lost, it is extremely difficult to regain.

The tanker contract award is just the latest case in what is becoming a standard practice in America today. As this decision is reviewed by the Government Accountability Office, I am carefully considering several courses of legislative action, in preparation for the approaching budget process, to ensure the next American tanker is built in the United States by American workers. Moreover, I intend to introduce legislation that prohibits the defense secretary from entering into contracts with beneficiaries of foreign subsidies, as appears to be the case with EADS, which offer companies unfair competitive advantages.

It is important that we also make greater investments in the research and development of new defense technology, as well as our domestic manufacturing capability. Together, these efforts will not only help create and keep American jobs, but will also ensure that our military services have a reliable source of supplies and equipment in future conflicts.

The father of free trade, Adam Smith, stated in his book, “The Wealth of Nations,” that an exception to this practice must be made when it comes to defense production. On this point, I will agree with him. And for those who say that opening our defense market engenders security cooperation, one need only look at the last request for NATO troops in the Afghan operation. This spring, 3,000 Marines will deploy to Afghanistan for the simple reason that our 26 NATO allies refused to come up with approximately 100 soldiers apiece.

Every time we send elements of our defense industrial base overseas, we are also outsourcing a piece of our security. We must reverse this damaging course and begin revitalizing our own defense industrial base in the interests of promoting a strong and prosperous America.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican, is the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee.

April 1, 2008 – On Tuesday, U.S. Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Daniel K. Akaka (D-HI) and committee member Senator Bernard Sanders (I-VT) met with Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake. They discussed funding for the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and a proposal to modify VA’s income threshold to make more middle-income veterans eligible for VA healthcare. Akaka, Sanders and other committee members have pressed Secretary Peake on both issues since his recent confirmation as VA Secretary.

“As we move through the final year of this Administration and this Congress, we must work together to find common ground for the sake of our veterans. I appreciate the Secretary’s willingness to work with us on these issues,” said Akaka. Secretary Peake agreed during the meeting to look more closely into the income threshold for veterans, as well as strengthening support for the National Center for PTSD.

Senators Akaka and Sanders wrote Secretary Peake on January 24, 2008, urging him to dedicate more funds to the National Center for PTSD. The Center has taken on a larger mission and workload in recent years, due in part to the increased number of veterans suffering from PSTD. Already, more than 100,000 servicemembers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have reported mental health disorders, according to the Congressional Research Service. Meanwhile, the PTSD Center’s budget, adjusted for inflation, has been flat for the past half-decade, and overall staff levels have been reduced since 1999.

The Senators and Secretary also discussed health care eligibility for middle income veterans, known as “Priority 8” by the VA. In response to a question from Chairman Akaka at a hearing on February 13, 2008, Secretary Peake stated that he was willing to work with the Committee to consider modifying the policy, adopted in 2003, that prohibits middle-income veterans from enrolling in the VA health care system. On March 14, 2008, Majority Members of both the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees wrote Secretary Peake to follow up. Today in some geographical regions, veterans making as little as $28,430 are considered too wealthy to enroll for VA heath care.