Comments on: Veterans Day

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 21:11:51 +0000

The world should have gotten a clue when Rumsfeld scheduled Walter Reed for closure while there were two hot wars in progress. For Rumsfeld anything that didn’t involve pulling a trigger was overhead and should be eliminated.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 06:53:31 +0000

Eric Shenseki is a good man, an honest man. He got fired by Bush for that, remember? When he told the truth about how many soldiers it’d take to secure Iraq? As vs. all Rummy and Cheney were interested in, which was the number of troops needed to secure the Oil Ministry and the oil wells. But in the case of the VA, he’s trying to drain a lake with a teacup. The Shrubbery really shredded the VA good… and the influx from the military hospitals isn’t helping.

But hey, veterans have a day all their own, the ingrates should just quit their carping and accept their fate as road kill in the New America that the Reagan Revolution hath wrought, right? Like you say, “that’s the way the Republicans have always treated vets, as accessories for photo ops who should have done the honorable thing and died during service so they wouldn’t be a burden.” Grrrrrrrrrr…………

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 06:17:18 +0000

The VA does a lot of good work, given the limitations imposed by people who only care about veterans when it helps them politically.

The DoD has been “dumping” people on the VA who should still be in military hospitals, as well as the huge influx from Bush’s wars. I won’t register unless I have no other choice, because it will knock someone you may need the help more than I do off the roster. It’s a points system based on your service, where it was once for any veteran.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 06:07:22 +0000

Kryten, you give me the time and the specified conditions and in less than two months I will have you telling me things you wouldn’t tell anyone else in the world. It isn’t fast. It isn’t easy to learn how to do, but it works.

Hell, there were times in law enforcement when I couldn’t get suspects to shut up after they started talking, and this was after they heard their rights verbally, and then were given their rights on a form to read and sign.

Almost everyone likes to talk, you just have to know how to listen.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 05:59:35 +0000

A friend who works for the V.A. appears to have spent most of Veteran’s Day sleeping off the exhaustion from the work. Why? Because they “can’t afford” to hire replacements for assistants who left in mid-project (for medical and other valid reasons), leaving my friend effectively doing the work of three people. The veterans in hospital care, but no one else much cares whether anyone is worked like a literal slave, as long as they don’t have to hire an additional person. Welcome to America, and America’s treatment of veterans!

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 05:58:19 +0000

What I really liked about Veterans Day when I was in the service is that quite often instead of a day off, you were pulled in for “squadron duty” to march in somebody’s parade. This is made even worse by the general lack of ability to march in the Air Force. Normally you never do it again after basic training.

Yeah, that’s the way the Republicans have always treated vets, as accessories for photo ops who should have done the honorable thing and died during service so they wouldn’t be a burden. Dead vets are fine, but the ones who fail to die are just an expensive, whining annoyance who expect people to actually provide the benefits that were part of the enlistment contract.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 05:39:42 +0000

Okay, so the VA's backlogged and veterans aren't getting the care they need, a quarter of the long-term homeless are veterans, and the Catfood Commission wants to cut veteran's benefits that were earned the hard way under conditions that the Catfood Commissioners would never have subjected their lily-white hands to. But look: we got a day set aside just for you! Now, isn't that just so special? - Badtux the Snarky Penguin

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 05:24:49 +0000

BTW (and I know you know Bryan, but for others who don’t):

Top US officials shaped ‘torture’ policy: report

The part of that report that just makes me shake my head is this:

“The approach harnessed a US military program known as Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), which aims to train US military personnel to resist questioning by foes who do not follow international bans on torture.”

And people say America’s don;y know irony!! 😆 Most may not understand it, but they sure know how to create irony! And this:

One of the officials quoted in the report says some of the harsh tactics were used before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq amid frustration in Washington at the lack of evidence linking Al-Qaeda and Baghdad.

“Even though they were giving information and some of it was useful, while we were there a large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq,” the report quoted US Army psychiatrist Major Paul Burney as saying of some Guantanamo Bay interrogations.

“We were not being successful in establishing a link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq. The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish this link… there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results,” said Burney.
…
The report also details repeated warnings from military and other experts, almost from the outset, that harsh questioning was likely to yield “less reliable” intelligence results than less aggressive approaches.

One July 2002 memo from the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency that oversees the SERE program warned “if an interrogator produces information that resulted from the application of physical and psychological duress, the reliability and accuracy of this information is in doubt.

“In other words, a subject in extreme pain may provide an answer, any answer, or many answers in order to get the pain to stop,” it said.

Yeah… what I said! Idiots.

By: Kryten42

Kryten42 — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 04:33:29 +0000

It does not work at all!! I know for a fact! Part of our training was what to expect if captured (like your SERE program). We were taught two things. 1) If you are being *interrogated* by someone who enjoys it, they don’t care what you say. They will keep torturing you. 2) If it is someone who really wants answers, we were trained how to endure and give them bogus info (it is a VERY tricky thing… you have to be very convincing, they have to believe you). We learned that you get to a point where your mind will actually manufacture *memories*. You will remember things that may or may not ever have happened, and if they did, you will remember *details* that probably never existed. And you *will* be 100% certain it is real! And *THAT* is the biggest problem with torture! It is *TOTALLY* unreliable!

I’d LOVE to get my hands on all these morons for a month! I could make them believe their mother is Ronny Raygun! And I kid you not at all! And they will 100% believe it!

Sooooo pissed off with this crap!!

*sigh* Sorry m8… not a good day. Anyway, I am sure you know about this from interrogating witnesses when you were a cop. 🙂 Amazing what people will tell you, and believe it! 🙂

By: Bryan

Bryan — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 03:48:19 +0000

At some point some of these guys are going to end up at the International Criminal Court because the US government has refused to do anything about it.

“Moving beyond it” doesn’t work, you have to deal with it.

People who would surrender, won’t, knowing they will be tortured.

It doesn’t even provide usable intel, as every study has shown.

It was done because a bunch of sadistic scum were in command. It is that simple.