There on the golf course, Mike stepped to the tee, lifted the club, and--poooock!--knocked the ball straight/high/long down the fairway. Behind him, there was a white heron poking along the bank of a pond and, beyond that, staring straight at me, steely and proud, the white letters of a McCain/Palin sign in someone's backyard. Mike got his degree in business administration from a college in California last year and then, in a move that still amazes me, joined the Army. One of the advantages of joining the Army with a college degree is that you can start as an officer, but such was the state of Army recruiting a year ago among people with college degrees that the guys behind the desk in the recruiting office had to dig up a manual to figure out how to sign him up when he walked in the door.

Mike's a Republican, a semi-Libertarian, an action-movie fan, a born warrior, and easily the most virtuous of my three brothers--honest, humble, hardworking, funny, self-deprecating, easygoing. He doesn't make a theater of his opinions, the way the rest of us do. He's not a meat head. He voted for Kerry in 2004 because, as he explained to me at the time, "Bush is an idiot." A couple months ago, bored out of his mind at an Army base in Oklahoma, he bought and read Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father because I told him how good I thought it was, and then he did me better by reading John McCain's Faith of My Fathers, which he liked better. I tried to make a case about the importance of Obama having written his own book, but it crumbled in mid-air. For a military guy, McCain's war story is hard to set aside on a technicality. Most of the guys in the Army are voting for McCain. "Except for the black guys," Mike says.

Ever since he read Faith of My Fathers, Mike's been leaning toward McCain, but since he's not big on pronouncements, his way of telling me that has been to say he hasn't made up his mind. And cuz I love the guy, and cuz I know he knows what I think, and cuz I don't want to spend the little time we ever get to talk hassling him, I haven't been bugging him about it. But seeing Sarah Palin's name in bright white there on the golf course, and later by the side of the road where our hotel was, and later in the front yard of a house next to the house where we went to a pre-wedding party for our older brother who was getting married--which is why we were all in Florida in the first place--I got up the nerve to ask Mike what he made of the possibility of Sarah Palin as commander in chief. This, I was pretty sure, would score me a couple points. But never one to fight, he grinned and said something neutral and changed the subject.

Our dad was in the Air Force. Our older brother, the one getting married, is in the Navy (he's the one I wrote about years ago in this piece, parts of which are regrettably stupid [the lack of understanding of Iraq's history, the part where I hold forth on what Iraqis "want"]). Our grandpa was in the Marines during World War II--was a hand-to-hand combat instructor, lost a bunch of buddies in Japan--and then a conservative politician in California. I sat next to grandpa at the wedding rehearsal dinner and asked him the Sarah-Palin-as-commander-in-chief question. Even though he is a true right radical (thinks teachers get paid too much, thinks the plight of black people has been "overdramatized," he wrote a bill when he was in the California legislature that would allow Christian Scientist parents to let their children die of easily remedied medical conditions), I suspected that the idea of Sarah Palin giving orders to the Marines would freak his shit out. No such luck. He smiled and told me that he loved Sarah Palin because unlike most politicians, who don't tell you the truth, she says what she believes, no matter what it is. Like how she doesn't believe dinosaurs existed or whatever.

My dad, now a vice president at Northrop Grumman, the military contractor, lives in Virginia and is voting for McCain and there's nothing that will sway him. He laughs whenever I bring it up. His wife, my stepmom, is voting likewise, though they both are resigned to the probability that Virginia will go for Obama anyway.

As for Mike--well, when I sat down to write this post, I didn't exactly know where things stood. As far as I knew, his heart was still with McCain. He just finished field artillery (i.e., blowing shit up) school in Oklahoma and drove to Texas last week for his new assignment in El Paso. I sent him a text last night to ask him how Texas was treating him and whether he'd made up his mind about the election. He texted back to say:

I already voted Obama. Texas seems okay I guess. Definitely better than Oklahoma.

I texted:

Are you getting shit from your pals in the army? Or do they not know who you voted for?

He texted:

They know. Both my roommates voted too. They both went McCain but I guess they were on the wall.

I wanted to know what did it for him, what put him over the wall. He texted back:

Republican party, palin, and the neverending "redistribution of wealth" (that's what the government does!) needed better argument. SHIT'S WEAK

Mike Frizzelle, ladies and gentlemen.

...hundreds of these soldiers would lose their lives thrown into action by generals who knew that the Armistice had already been signed.

The recklessness of General Wright, of the 89th American Division, is a case in point.

Seeing his troops were exhausted and dirty, and hearing there were bathing facilities available in the nearby town of Stenay, he decided to take the town so his men could refresh themselves.

"That lunatic decision cost something like 300 casualties, many of them battle deaths, for an inconceivable reason," says [historian] Mr Persico.

At 10.45 another 40-year-old soldier, Frenchman Augustin Trebuchon, was taking a message to troops by the River Meuse saying that soup would be served at 11.30 after the peace, when he too was killed.

Augustin Trebuchon's grave - along with all those French soldiers killed on 11 November 1918 - is marked 10/11/18. It is said that after the war France was so ashamed that men would die on the final day that they had all the graves backdated.

Seattle needs to wake up and see military recruiters for what they are: vultures selling our children into servitude. Take this Iraq veteran's word for it: Once you let the army set up gimmicks and violent videogames in city parks, you are only a step away from getting calls in the middle of the night from your children while serving multiple tours in Iraq. Don't believe me? Ask my mom.

Peace,
Evan Knappenberger
OIF 05-07 Veteran

If you want to know in more detail, read Chayes's book The Punishment of Virtue. It details her attempts, among other things, to get the local warlord in the southern center of Kandahar fired—instead he was promoted by Karzai. (If you're pressed for time with this book, you can skim some of the historical sections without missing much.) Given the news lately, this ought to be a popular Christmas gift.

Choice bits from the interview?:

The U.S.-backed Karzai government is "basically a criminal enterprise."

Pakistan, which receives $1 billion a year from the U.S., is a Taliban factory: "It's actually U.S. taxpayer money paying the insurgency."

That's only the beginning. Really. Just 22 minutes.

Cuba.

The United States military says US and Afghan forces have exchanged gunfire with Pakistani troops across the border with Afghanistan.

A senior US military official says a five-minute skirmish broke out after Pakistani soldiers fired warning shots near two US helicopters.

Financial crisis (the bailout), political crisis (suspended campaigns), more political crisis (McCain polling better than he should), nuclear crisis (North Korea giving us the finger), and now the Pakistani army has the cojones to fire at the U.S. military? Could you even imagine that happening eight years ago? No. You cannot.

To repeat a post from yesterday: we are losing leverage by the day.

The family of a British soldier serving in Afghanistan has been forced from their home after a poisonous spider hitched a ride back with him and apparently killed their pet dog.

The camel spider's bite is not deadly to humans but can kill small animals.

Lorraine Griffiths and her three children, aged 18, 16, and 4, moved out of their house in Colchester, southeast England, and are refusing to return until the spider is apprehended, the UK Press Association reported.

Griffiths told the East Anglian Daily Times that the spider appeared after her husband, Rodney, returned from a four-month tour of duty in Helmand province, the arid southern Afghan frontline in the fight against Taliban extremists.

"My son Ricky was in my bedroom looking for his underwear, and he went into the drawer under my bed, and something crawled across his hand," she told the paper.

She said their pet dog Cassie confronted the creature, which they identified on the Internet as a camel spider, but ran out whimpering when it hissed at her.

When I hear McCain, channeling Bush, prattling on about winning the war in Iraq, I have to wonder: What does he mean by win? A stable, free and democratic Iraq? Not going to happen. We all know it, I'd hope even McCain knows it.

When we leave, the oil-bearing parts of the country will become the effective property of Iran. In turn, Iran will be embroiled in an insurgency of its own. Eventually, when the country is hollowed out enough, it'll become at best a petty oil-dictatorship.

Can we be honest with ourselves, even if just for a moment? This war was about oil. In any candid sense, 'victory in Iraq' means we have access, perhaps exclusive access, to the vast oil resources contained within its borders. Everything else is gingerbread.

As usual, the War Nerd can help:

There are three basic facts to keep in mind about the smokin’ little war in Ossetia:

1. The Georgians started it.
2. They lost.
3. What a beautiful little war!

...

The American military’s response so far has been all talk, and pretty damn stupid talk at that. A Pentagon spokes-thingy called Russia’s response “disproportionate.” ...

If you want a translation, luckily I speak fluent Pentagon. So what “disproportionate” means is—well, imagine that you’re watching some little hanger-on who tags along with you get his ass whipped by a bully, and you say, “That’s inappropriate!” I mean, instead of actually helping him. That’s what “disproportionate” means from the Pentagon: “We’re not going to lift a finger to help you, but hey, we’re with you in spirit, little buddy!”

The quickest way to see who’s winning in any war is to see who asks first for a ceasefire. And this time it was the Georgians. Once it was clear the Russians were going to back the South Ossetians, the war was over. Even Georgians were saying, “To fight Russia by ourselves is insane.” Which means they thought Russia wouldn’t back its allies. Not a bad bet; Russia has a long, unpredictable history of screwing its allies—but not all the time. The Georgians should know better than anybody that once in a while, the Russians actually come through, because it was Russian troops who saved Georgia from a Persian invasion in 1805, at the battle of Zagam. Of course the Russians had let the Persians sack Tbilisi just ten years earlier without helping. That’s the thing: the bastards are unpredictable. You can’t even count on them to betray their friends (though it’s the safer bet, most of the time, sort of like 6:5 odds).

This time, the Russians came through. For lots of reasons, starting with the fact that Bush is weak and they know it; that the US is all tied up in that crap Iraq war and can’t do shit; and most of all, because Kosovo just declared independence from Serbia, an old Russian ally. It’s tit for tat time, with Kosovo as the tit and South Ossetia as the tat. The way Putin sees it, if we can mess with his allies and let little ethnic enclaves like Kosovo declare independence, then the Russians can do the same with our allies, especially naïve idiotic allies like Georgia.

One cannot think of Russia today as being the same as the Russia of the Soviet Union or Cold War. Russia is little more than an oil company--a belligerent, preening and despotic oil company with thousands of nuclear warheads. A company driven almost entirely by greed and insecurity.

The neo-Liberal economic reforms foisted upon the country (thought up by the same DLC assholes who came up with welfare reform and the financial industry deregulation that directly lead to our own financial collapse, for those of you keeping track) in the 1990s have left the Russian population constantly bristling at any sense that they are being denigrated.

Georgia's agitation to join NATO, and the growing sense that the US might also strongly encourage this, proved intolerable. Georgia is strategically located, near to some of the Russian oil deposits and pipelines. We didn't like those nuclear missiles in Cuba. Why would Russia tolerate NATO right next door?

As Dan noted, subsequently we're started sending some troops and humanitarian aid. I wouldn't start digging your fallout shelters right now, but who knows. Just like during the blockade of Cuba--the biggest risk is of an "accident" occurring, in which American and Russian troops start shooting at one another without really intending to.

On that cheerful note, do you know the four primary nuclear warhead targets for the city of Seattle proper?

The University of Washington main campus, Boeing Field, Seattle Center and Seatac Airport.

Estimated casualties? 341,000. Neat.

Because Matthew Broderick knows all.

From The Guardian:

A US air strike killed 47 civilians, including 39 women and children, as they were travelling to a wedding in Afghanistan, an official inquiry found today. The bride was among the dead.

From the Pentagon, via VOA News:

The Pentagon says no civilians were killed in an air strike Sunday in a remote area of eastern Afghanistan, which local officials say killed 27 people who were walking to a wedding. U.S. military officials in Kabul say they believe the air strike hit its intended target, a group of militants. Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman confirmed that view. "I can only tell you I talked to Afghanistan this morning, and they are very clear with that particular strike that they believe they struck the intended target and that there were not innocent civilians involved in that particular strike," said Whitman.

The reports of civilian casualties came from Afghan officials, who said they spoke to people in the remote area by telephone. The U.S. military says Taliban militants often pressure villagers into claiming civilian casualties after air strikes.

Alrighty then.

What consumes jet fuel:

The official reportedly went on to say that, for the time being, "the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice" was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic.

But don't worry! "The White House on Tuesday flatly denied an [Israeli] Army Radio report that claimed US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term."

Bush just wants us all to know "All options are on the table." Whew. I feel much better.

But, according to an email leaked to a citizens' advocacy group, VA bosses are discouraging social workers and psychiatrists from diagnosing PTSD in veterans because it's inconvenient:

In the words of Melanie Sloan, the righteously outraged director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, "the VA is calling on its employees to deliberately misdiagnose returning veterans in an effort to cut costs."

Which isn't just outrageous—it's outrageously dumb.

Ignoring PTSD now will only cost the VA, with interest, in the next few decades. As this WSJ story reports, PTSD is both underreported and lasting:

Many military personnel are reluctant to seek counseling for PTSD because they are afraid that seeking help would harm their careers. A recent survey by the American Psychiatric Association found that 75% of military personnel felt that asking for assistance would reduce their chances for promotion.

Undoubtedly, some people fake PTSD—but the incentives lean towards underreporting, not overreporting.

Military officers and psychologists fear that veterans of the two wars will suffer mental-health problems for decades to come, a largely hidden cost of the current conflicts.

"There's a financial cost to this, but more importantly there'll be a cost in lives if we don't get a handle on this problem now," Sen. Christopher Bond (R., Mo.) said in a recent interview.

Money for research is good. Money for treatment is imperative.

The US army doubled its use of "moral waivers" for enlisted soldiers last year to cope with the stress of the Iraq war, allowing convicted sex offenders, people convicted of making terrorist threats and child abusers into the military, according to new records released today.