Trumpland U.S.A

[SympathysSilhouette]

Apparently that fast food was cold and kind of disgusting by the time the players got to eat it.

 

[CandleVixen]

6 hours ago, elfstone said:

Do you know who the VP is?

He’s impeachment insurance. 

[elfstone]

U.S. Senate’s First Bill, in the Midst of the Shutdown, Is a Bipartisan Defense of the Israeli Government From Boycotts

Quote

When each new Congress is gaveled into session, the chambers attach symbolic importance to the first piece of legislation to be considered. For that reason, it bears the lofty designation of H.R.1 in the House and S.1 in the Senate.

In the newly controlled Democratic House, H.R.1 — meant to signal the new majority’s priorities — is an anti-corruption bill that combines election and campaign finance reform, strengthening of voting rights, and matching public funds for small-dollar candidates. In the 2017 Senate, the GOP-controlled S.1 was a bill, called the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” that, among other provisions, cut various forms of corporate taxes.

But in the 2019 GOP-controlled Senate, the first bill to be considered — S.1 — is not designed to protect American workers, bolster U.S. companies, or address the various debates over border security and immigration. It’s not a bill to open the government. Instead, according to multiple sources involved in the legislative process, S.1 will be a compendium containing a handful of foreign policy-related measures, the main one of which is a provision — with Florida’s GOP Sen. Marco Rubio as a lead sponsor — to defend the Israeli government. The bill is a top legislative priority for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

In the previous Congress, that measure was known as S.170, and it gives state and local governments explicit legal authority to boycott any U.S. companies which themselves are participating in a boycott against Israel. As The Intercept reported last month, 26 states now have enacted some version of a law to punish or otherwise sanction entities that participate in or support the boycott of Israel, while similar laws are pending in at least 13 additional states. Rubio’s bill is designed to strengthen the legal basis to defend those Israel-protecting laws from constitutional challenge.

Punishment aimed at companies that choose to boycott Israel can also sweep up individual American citizens in its punitive net because individual contractors often work for state or local governments under the auspices of a sole proprietorship or some other business entity. That was the case with Texas elementary school speech pathologist Bahia Amawi, who lost her job working with autistic and speech-impaired children in Austin because she refused to promise not to boycott goods produced in Israel and/or illegal Israeli settlements.

Thus far, the two federal courts that have ruled on such bills have declared them to be unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment speech rights of American citizens. “A restriction of one’s ability to participate in collective calls to oppose Israel unquestionably burdens the protected expression of companies wishing to engage in such a boycott,” U.S. District Court Judge Diane Humetewa of Arizona wrote in her decision issuing a preliminary injunction against the law in a case brought last September by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of “an attorney who has contracted with the state for the last 12 years to provide legal services on behalf of incarcerated individuals,” but lost his contract to do so after he refused to sign an oath pledging not to boycott Israel.

A similar ruling was issued in January of last year by a Kansas federal judge, who ruled that state’s Israel oath law unconstitutional on the ground that “the Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment protects the right to participate in a boycott like the one punished by the Kansas law.” In that case, a Mennonite who was a longtime public school teacher lost her independent contract as a school curriculum developer after she followed her church’s decision to boycott goods from Israeli companies in the occupied West Bank and thus, refused to sign the oath required by Kansas law.

These are the Israel-defending, free speech-punishing laws that Rubio’s bill is designed to strengthen. Although Rubio is the chief sponsor, his bill attracted broad bipartisan support, as is true of most bills designed to protect Israel and supported by AIPAC. Rubio’s bill last Congress was co-sponsored by several Democrats who are still in the Senate: Bob Menendez of New Jersey, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Ron Wyden of Oregon, and Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.

The support among Democrats for bills that would punish supporters of the Boycott Israel movement is now particularly awkward given that two of the most prominent newly elected Democratic members — Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, the first two Muslim women in Congress — are both supporters of that Israel boycott.

Last year, Cardin introduced a bill that would have criminalized participation in international boycotts of Israel, and it was on the verge of passing with significant bipartisan support until the ACLU sounded the alarm on how gravely unconstitutional that bill was. Once The Intercept reported on the mechanics of the bill and the covert effort to enact it with little attention, numerous Democratic senators announced that they were reconsidering their support, stalling the bill’s enactment. Though Cardin attempted to pass a watered-down version in the lame-duck session, it is now Rubio’s Israel-defending bill that has taken center stage even as the U.S. government is in the midst of a shutdown for American citizens.

That the newly elected U.S. Congress would choose to prioritize protection of this foreign nation — at the expense of the constitutional rights of American citizens and over countless bills that would help Americans — was only one of the stinging criticisms voiced to The Intercept by ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Kathleen Ruane:

In the midst of a partial government shutdown, Democratic and Republican senators have decided that one of their first orders of business next week should be to sneak through a bill that would weaken Americans’ First Amendment protections. The bill, Combatting BDS Act, encourages states to adopt the very same anti-boycott laws that two federal courts blocked on First Amendment grounds. The legislation, like the unconstitutional state anti-boycott laws it condones, sends a message to Americans that they will be penalized if they dare to disagree with their government. We therefore urge senators to vote no on the Combatting BDS Act next week.

With the seven Democratic co-sponsors, the bill would have the 60 votes it needs to overcome a filibuster. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. — who supported Cardin’s far more draconian bill of last year and is one of the Senate’s most reliable AIPAC loyalists — also plans to support the Rubio bill, rather than whip votes against it, sources working on the bill said. Schumer’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

If the bill does pass the Senate, the major question will be whether the Democratic House — now led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime Israel advocate but also as a supporter of the First Amendment — takes it up and passes it into law.

 

[ILUVAdrianaLima]

5 hours ago, SympathysSilhouette said:

Apparently that fast food was cold and kind of disgusting by the time the players got to eat it.

 

 

Sort of fits Don the Con no?  

[elfstone]

Let's Expose Congress Members for the Warhawks They Are

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/lets-expose-congress-for-the-warhawks-they-are/

Quote

As the nation continued to reel from President Donald Trump’s shock decision last month to remove all U.S. troops from Syria, news came Wednesday that an unknown number of U.S. soldiers were among at least 15 killed in a bombing in northern Syria. Amid such continued violence, one would think the president’s withdrawal would have ever more urgency. And yet, just about everyone in Washington has attacked his decision to pull out.

The reflexive hatred for Trump that dominates the national conversation is bad for the U.S., especially when it comes to foreign policy. This is not to say that the president isn’t a flawed figure; after all, I’ve spent the better part of two years critiquing most of his policies. Still, when the man demonstrates prudent judgment—as in his recent calls to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and Afghanistan—he should be applauded. But that’s unlikely to happen in a divided America, as long as an interventionist, bipartisan consensus runs the show in Washington.

Some call it the deep state, others the swamp—but the terminology hardly matters at this point.  This forever-war crowd of congressional members, media pundits, arms industry CEOs and semiretired generals holds the reins on foreign policy in ways that are counter to the war-exhaustion instincts of both Trump and the American public. And it has to stop. That’ll be no easy task, of course, as the military-industrial-congressional complex has gathered ever more power in the generations since President Dwight D. Eisenhower—a Republican—coined the term. Still, there’s one way, in the near term, to expose Beltway bellicosity on foreign affairs: Force Congress to publicly debate and vote on each of America’s ongoing wars. Let’s start with Syria, since it’s there that President Trump has a rare opportunity to shift the onus of responsibility for the bloody conflagration onto U.S. representatives. And that’s the last thing cowardly congressional members want.

 

Legislators in Washington—imitating the media pundits they increasingly resemble—prefer only to yell, scream and tweet about every foreign policy move this president makes. Some of Trump’s actions have undoubtedly been unacceptable, but whenever he goes with his “instincts” and recommends troop withdrawals and less war in the Middle East, he’s immediately castigated by politicians from both sides of the aisle. Ranging from New Jersey Democrats like Bob Menendez to stalwart Southern Republican hawks such as Lindsey Graham, they’re all essentially selling the same snake oil: perpetual war.

Not that these members of Congress do anything about it—they’re all talk. In that sense, they’re no more useful than the mainstream media pundits peddling the same militarist agenda. The Senate traditionally has a powerful role in overseas policy, but these days, all the Foreign Relations Committee chairs and co-chairs do is give interviews in the Capitol Rotunda.  “Conservative” constitutionalists must recall that it’s Congress that’s supposed to declare wars, whereas the president only executes the chosen policy. So instead of squawking about Trump’s “isolationism” and “irresponsibility” in Mideast affairs, these empty suits should head back into their deliberative chambers and craft some alternative policy for a change.

None of this is new. The executive branch has increased its size, scope and power in foreign policy since at least World War II. Nevertheless, it’s not too late to rectify part of this unconstitutional state of affairs. After all, on Syria and Afghanistan, Trump has the strategic high ground, in that the wars are aimless failures, and the support of a majority of Americans who are sick of endless war and ready to bring the troops home. In a sense, that’s exactly what Trump ran on: ending “stupid” wars.

But the militarist elites don’t care what the people—especially Trump’s supporters—want. As far as they’re concerned, they alone know what’s good for America. Or so they’d have us believe. In reality, whether they’re election-obsessed legislators or ratings-obsessed media moguls, these interventionists all serve the same corporate masters. They play politics even when lives—both of U.S. troops and countless civilians—are at stake. That goes for pugnacious Republicans of the Lindsey Graham mold, as well as hypocritical media celebrities like Rachel Maddow and her Democratic fan club. On the ostensible left, we’re even seeing an entire generation of born-again hawks rise in opposition to any and all de-escalation, even if those same liberal politicians and pundits would likely celebrate the same decision were it made by President Barack Obama.

With this in mind, Trump should send future Syria and Afghanistan policy to Congress, forcing its members to debate and publicly vote for either more or less war. Congress, with the exception of the recent Yemen War resolution, hasn’t done so since October 2002. At the very least, constituents would finally know where their representatives stand on our many wars and could hold representatives accountable should they choose to follow strategic inertia and prolong these unpopular conflicts.

The health of American democracy depends on adhering to the Constitution and its representative institutions. Legislators—not unelected presidential advisers, media pundits and retired generals—should decide on matters of war and peace. That’s why Americans shouldn’t canonize men like former Secretary of Defense Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis. This darling of the mainstream left and right was neither martyr nor missionary.

At every turn, it appears, he and his allegedly self-described Committee to Save America, subverted Trump’s popular intention to end decades-long wars. That wasn’t his job—or John Kelly’s or H. R. McMaster’s—so in some ways, resigning was the most appropriate decision for Mattis. Note that the secretary of defense chose to finally fall on his sword not over U.S. support for starving 85,000 Yemeni children, but in response to a modest de-escalation from an aimless military intervention in Syria. A curious ethical decision to say the least.

Mattis wasn’t the only one on the president’s team to disapprove of the withdrawal. Just take national security adviser John Bolton, who at every turn seems to backtrack or soften the blow of the president’s policies. Bolton works harder than anyone in Washington to continue—or even radically expand—U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. Though his actions would seem to run counter to Trump’s recent anti-interventionist announcements, Bolton remains a fixture in a very confusing White House.

This is yet another reason the life-and-death decisions of war and peace must be decided in public—not in the West Wing or corporate boardrooms, but rather on the floors of the Senate and the House of Representatives. If the bipartisan crowd of congressional members who’ve been so critical of Trump’s proposed Mideast withdrawals sincerely believe that more war is the answer, let them cast their vote accordingly.

Even if ultimately the citizenry proves apathetic and fails to hold its representatives accountable, a public war debate and vote would be refreshing. It’s the least that my fellow soldiers—and our many nameless victims–deserve.

 

[frenchkiki]

On 1/17/2019 at 3:08 PM, CandleVixen said:

He’s impeachment insurance. 

Lol!

[elfstone]

Quote

Jeff Bezos Protests the Invasion of His Privacy, as Amazon Builds a Sprawling Surveillance State for Everyone Else

https://theintercept.com/2019/02/08/jeff-bezos-protests-the-invasion-of-his-privacy-as-amazon-builds-a-sprawling-surveillance-state-for-everyone-else/

 

[elfstone]

America Is a Socialist Country for the Rich

Quote

“America will never be a socialist country,” Donald Trump declared in his State of the Union address. Someone should alert Trump that America is now a hotbed of socialism. But it is socialism for the rich. Everyone else is treated to harsh capitalism.

In the conservative mind, socialism means getting something for doing nothing. That pretty much describes the $21 billion saved by the nation’s largest banks last year thanks to Trump’s tax cuts, some of which went into massive bonuses for bank executives. On the other hand, more than 4,000 lower-level bank employees got a big dose of harsh capitalism. They lost their jobs.

Banks that are too big to fail—courtesy of the 2008 bank bailout—enjoy a hidden subsidy of some $83 billion a year, because creditors facing less risk accept lower interest on deposits and loans. Last year, Wall Street’s bonus pool was $31.4 billion. Take away the hidden subsidy and the bonus pool disappears.

Trump and his appointees at the Federal Reserve are easing bank requirements put in place after the bailout. They’ll make sure the biggest banks remain too big to fail.

Trump is promoting socialism for the rich and harsh capitalism for everyone else in other ways. Since he was elected, GM has got more than $600 million in federal contracts plus $500 million in tax breaks. Some of this has gone into the pockets of GM executives. Chairman and CEO Mary Barra raked in almost $22 million in total compensation in 2017 alone.

But GM employees are subject to harsh capitalism. GM is planning to lay off more than 14,000 workers and close three assembly plants and two component factories in North America by the end of 2019.

When he was in business, Trump perfected the art of using bankruptcy to shield himself from the consequences of bad decisions—socialism for the rich at its worst—while leaving employees twisting in the wind.

Now, all over America, executives who run their companies into the ground are getting gold-plated exit packages while their workers get pink slips.

Sears is doling out $25 million to the executives who stripped its remaining assets and drove it into bankruptcy, but it has no money for the thousands of workers it laid off.

As Pacific Gas and Electric hurtles toward bankruptcy, the person who was in charge when the deadly infernos roared through Northern California last year (caused in part by PG&E’s faulty equipment) has departed with a cash severance package of $2.5 million. The PG&E executive in charge of gas operations when records were allegedly falsified left in 2018 with $6.9 million.

Under socialism for the rich, you can screw up big time and still reap big rewards. Equifax’s Richard Smith retired in 2017 with an $18 million pension in the wake of a security breach that exposed the personal information of 145 million consumers to hackers.

Wells Fargo’s Carrie Tolstedt departed with a $125 million exit package after being in charge of the unit that opened more than 2 million unauthorized customer accounts.

Around 60 percent of America’s wealth is now inherited. Many of today’s super rich have never done a day’s work in their lives.

Trump’s response has been to cut the estate tax to apply only to estates valued at over $22 million per couple. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is now proposing that the estate tax be repealed altogether.

What about the capitalist principles that people earn what they’re worth in the market, and that economic gains should go to those who deserve them?

America is on the cusp of the largest inter-generational wealth transfer in history. As rich boomers expire over the next three decades, an estimated $30 trillion will go to their children.

Those children will be able to live off of the income these assets generate, and then leave the bulk of them to their own heirs, tax-free. (Capital gains taxes don’t apply to the soaring values of stocks, bonds, mansions and other assets of wealthy people who die before they’re sold.)

After a few generations of this, almost all of the nation’s wealth will be in the hands of a few thousand non-working families.

To the conservative mind, the specter of socialism conjures up a society in which no one is held accountable, and no one has to work for what they receive. Yet that’s exactly the society Trump and the Republicans are promoting for the rich.

Meanwhile, most Americans are subject to an increasingly harsh and arbitrary capitalism in which they’re working harder but getting nowhere, and have less security than ever.

They need thicker safety nets and deserve a bigger piece of the economic pie. If you want to call this socialism, fine. I call it fair.

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/robert-reich-america-is-a-socialist-country-for-the-rich/

[frenchkiki]

https://hillreporter.com/new-app-locates-restaurants-that-are-maga-hat-and-firearm-friendly-27177

It's like Green Book in reverse: It helps you find places that ARE white supremacist.

https://hillreporter.com/new-app-locates-restaurants-that-are-maga-hat-and-firearm-friendly-27177

 

[CandleVixen]

Who thinks that our current president is going to be a one and done president?

 

I certainly say YES. 

[jkjk]

^^  I don't know, the people who love him really love him. Also, it seems like one of the reasons he won the first time was that people assumed he couldn't.

[Stromboli1]

1 hour ago, CandleVixen said:

Who thinks that our current president is going to be a one and done president?

 

I certainly say YES. 

 

Who are the Democrats going to run against him? I really wonder if they learned from last time.

 

The Don isn't going anywhere and he's savvy enough to pick a new running mate on his ticket too.

[ILUVAdrianaLima]

4 hours ago, CandleVixen said:

Who thinks that our current president is going to be a one and done president?

 

I certainly say YES. 

 

2 hours ago, Stromboli1 said:

 

Who are the Democrats going to run against him? I really wonder if they learned from last time.

 

The Don isn't going anywhere and he's savvy enough to pick a new running mate on his ticket too.

 

Donald is going to be done and gone after his first term. He is much too compromised with multiple investigations, scandals, inability to control his impulses, complete lacking and understanding of basic government functions and powers, and the list goes on and on with his lies and rhetoric. His cult base will and shall stand with him regardless of what he does and it's pointless to pander to them in any way to convince them of Trumps wrongdoings. Plus, the dynamics have changed significantly with the way Trump has alienated many conservatives and those who voted for him the first time around before all the skeletons started coming out of the closet. Anything is possible but Trump's chance of scoring a 2nd term have diminished greatly in my option and many others due to how he carries himself on a daily basis. The democrats have learned A LOT from the last election without question! A viable democratic candidate will be put forth to take him out assuming Trump goes for the 2020 run since he flip-flops and is so unhinged he might drop out for all we know. The fact we have many people running in the democratic party is a plus since this is a good time to get a few fresh faces but more importantly, qualified individuals including those we have yet to see. Remember, Obama wasn't even a blip during his first term run and he sort of came out of left field to win. I'm very optimistic that the dems will take back the white house with the way Trump keeps sabotaging himself, I'm not even worried about it.

[Stromboli1]

An extreme left liberal democrat will not win the presidency, a moderate left leaning democrat has more of a chance. I still think the democratic party is arrogantly elitist in their thinking. The Republican party is anachronistic.

 

I don't like either party at all as all they do is create division. We should've listened to George Washington's warning about the creation of political parties.

[Michael*]

I think going forward, we're going to be seeing an increase in tactical voting, pretty much across the board. People will be more engaged than ever before, but probably motivated more by trying to keep the opposition out of office than supporting someone they actually want. For example, Democrats who in 2016, didn't like the idea of holding their noses and voting Clinton, are unlikely to be as complacent in 2020.

 

More or less everyone who won their respective last elections by positioning themselves as alternatives to a broken system, but have since shown themselves to be establishment insiders to the core, can expect backlash to some degree. It probably won't hit Trump as hard as, say, Macron, but it's another factor.

[elfstone]

It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD

The Iraq war faceplant damaged the reputation of the press. Russiagate just destroyed it

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/russiagate-is-wmd-times-a-million

[elfstone]

Mueller Report Ends a Shameful Period for the Press

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/mueller-report-ends-a-shameful-period-for-the-press/

The Mueller report’s categorical statement that Donald Trump and his campaign did not collude with Russia ends one of the most shameful periods in modern American journalism, one that rivals the mindless cheerleading for the Iraq War by most of the press. It further erodes and may prove fatal to the credibility of a press that has steadfastly rendered most of the country invisible and functions as little more than an array of gossiping courtiers to the elites.

 

 

[elfstone]

 

[elfstone]

Uncle Sam Sent Me to Rehab for PTSD

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/uncle-sam-sent-me-to-rehab-for-ptsd/

Quote

I arrived an absolute mess; most of us did. Bloated cheeks, sunken eyes, wearing my PTSD and depression on every inch of my face. I can’t say I really wanted to be there, even if I had volunteered. Ironic, wasn’t it?

This, a civilian treatment facility in nowhere, Arizona, was to be my last official duty as an officer in the U.S. Army—an ignominious end to a once-bright career. Still, the truth is I needed it: After several years of treatment for post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety, I wasn’t getting any better. The Army saw it and decided to retire me a few years early. Over the last year, my life ran off the rails—self medicating, spiraling, the standard drill for a broken vet.

Only those closest to me saw it; however, these were the very ones I’d hurt, who couldn’t take it anymore—with the fallout of bridges burned and relationships sabotaged. Nonetheless, most of us remain publicly functional long after these afflictions have taken the wheel. The frightening paradox of it all was that while my writing only improved, my emotional health deteriorated. That said, kudos to the Army, I suppose, for footing the bill and offering the opportunity for inpatient treatment on my way out the proverbial door. That’s how they do it: Ask the impossible, shatter a life, send for help when you’re too far gone to be of much use any longer—the assembly line of endless wars and the unfortunates who fight them.

It was a strange place, this facility on the outskirts of Phoenix. And expensive! Some 60 percent of the “clients” (as the staff unnervingly referred to patients) were wealthy professionals, well-off white folks with afflictions ranging from depression to suicidal ideation to personality disorders to heroin addiction. Some had Cadillac health insurance plans; a surprising number paid cash, a cool 60 grand.

The rest, well, they were veterans, active or retired, from every branch of the service. Tricare, our (ironically) socialistic government insurer, footed the bill. These men and women, my peers, looked and spoke differently from the civilian “clients” at the center. A microcosm of the select class of volunteers that fight America’s hopeless wars, they were generally enlisted, younger, browner, poorer, less educated and more rural than their civilian counterparts. God, you could just feel the distance that separates military from civilian society in the 21^st-century United States—the chasm between polite society and an increasingly unrepresentative military caste.

Perhaps you’re wondering just who these kids—actually, they ranged from 20 to 50 years old—were, what they “were in for,” what they were like. While omitting their names, as is customary when reporting about mental-health matters, let me provide a snapshot, a representation of a generation of damaged warriors the U.S. government has lately produced.

Every morning the lot of us would circle up and publicly announce our name, claim and affirmation. The name was just a given one with a one-letter last initial—anonymity was a way of life in recovery. The affirmation was a positive statement about ourselves meant to rewire the brain to think happy thoughts. Most interesting was the claim, the list of problems that each vet suffered from. Among the civilians, the claims were fairly diverse, but among my fellow veterans, almost everyone claimed what I took to calling the “Military Big Four”: depression, anxiety, PTSD and alcohol abuse.

See, the formula is as simple as it is dreadful: The military takes these kids, trains ‘em for a few months, then sends them off to some unwinnable war (Iraq and Afghanistan are the current go-to spots). There, they’re sometimes killed or mutilated, but more often than not they suffer PTSD and moral injury from what they’ve seen and done. Then they go home, released into the wild of some shitty garrison town. At that point, the trauma begins to manifest as major depression and crippling anxiety. Finally, just to function, or in order to fit into society, the vet begins self-medicating; alcohol is most common, but opiates, and eventually even heroin, are also prevalent. If they spiral too low or consider/attempt suicide, well, then, they end up along with yours truly in an inpatient facility.

Some, and I met more than two dozen like this, are there by mandate, as part of an impending punishment for some “alcohol-related” incident like a fight, hospitalization, arrest or DUI. Make no mistake, our punitive military is still grappling with the correct balance between discipline and treatment. Punishment they know, it’s comfortable; actual treatment, that’s another story.

It’s ironic, though, this obsession with stamping out alcohol-induced “incidents.” After all, the military in which I served supported a culture of alcohol abuse, of binge drinking at every major unit affair—and we had lots of them. Then, back in their modest homes, it was no big secret that troopers from the ranks of private to major general regularly abused substances to numb combat trauma. Just about every vet down in Arizona fit this disturbing profile.

There were other unsettling trends. Perhaps 25 percent had attempted or seriously considered suicide just prior to intake. That shouldn’tbe surprising—after all, military suicide is a veritable epidemic, with an average of 22 successful veteran attempts on the daily—but I bet it still is for many uninformed civilians.

Then there were the female vets. I hadn’t served with many of these during my time in pre-integrated combat units, so even I was a bit shocked by what I found. No less than half the military women in the facility were victims of sexual assault while in the service. And, though the active military touts its recent successes on this front, the disreputable patterns persist. Statistics indicate that one in four female veterans report at least one sexual assault during their term of service. Despicable.

Meeting these women in person, I couldn’t help but wonder if Democratic presidential hopeful and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is right: The military might not be capable of processing and prosecuting these cases fairly, and it’s time for civilian arbiters to take over. This, of course, rates as blasphemy among my fellow officers, who guard their authorities with special care, but my time in Arizona indicated the status quo is irreparably broken.

Consider a few final vignettes about my peers in the facility, many of whom are representative of thousands more similar cases. There was my Air Force buddy from whom I’d become inseparable and who’d served a tour in mortuary affairs cleaning and processing the bodies of young American troopers. His dreams haunted by that experience for years, he turned inward, to the bottle, and, eventually attempted suicide. The poor guy just wanted out of his contract, but the Air Force wouldn’t let him go.

Then there was the former army infantryman, wounded in a bomb attack, crippled by chronic pain after retiring. He turned to opiates for relief, then to cheaper heroin, and finally, to more powerful synthetic fentanyl. He overdosed, found himself in the emergency room a time or two, and awoke in Arizona.

I remain haunted, too, by the ever-so-young serviceman who checked in for alcohol abuse and depression but was actually suffering as a closeted homosexual. Despite the Obama-era repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” restrictions on gays in the military, neither the kid’s family nor his still-patriarchal and homophobic military peers were accepting. He came out before our eyes in a highly emotional way. I’ll never forget it.

You see, it was the very youth of so many of these men and women at the time of their trauma that was striking. Here we all were, at the funny farm, but I started to realize that so many of these oh-so-publicly adulated veterans arrived “crazy by design.” After all, the military grabs kids, purposefully, before their brains have fully developed, when they’re physically and emotionally pliant. Many, I’d guess a disproportionate number, enter service with a history of childhood trauma and hail from families positioned on the bottom half of the economic scale. Our government then uses and abuses them, ships them off to wars that can’t be won (and that Congress never even authorized) and implants emotional grenades in their psyches. That’s the last the American people usually hear of them—but I spent a month with those for whom the grenade has finally exploded.

Such is the tragic reality: The military breaks us and then kindly allots 30-45 days to “get right.”  The outcomes, I fear, will be less than hopeful.

I’ve left now, with Arizona in my rear view, never, I hope, to return. Nevertheless, part of me stayed there, just as pieces of my soul still roam Baghdad and Kandahar. Something about the latest experience sticks with me; I can’t shake the thoughts—perhaps some inherent meaning that’s all in the mind. Anyway, heck, I’m a writer. May as well write about it.

Here it is: I’m left with the profound, if hopeless, wish that every American voter and aspirant adolescent soldier would spend a moment with the veterans in rehab across this country tonight. To know what I know, to see what we—all of us—have allowed to happen in our names. There’s romance, and naivety, in that wish, I know, but I wish it just the same.

But oh, the satire of it all: I hadn’t wanted to go to that “loony bin” in Arizona in the first place, but there I eventually stood, crying in the airport on my discharge date. I fell in something approaching love, literally and figuratively, with some of my peers, friends I hope, in the program. In treatment I was safe, and healthy, and authentic—the so-called crazy clients, especially the band of broken vets, really got me. The outside was terrifying; maybe it should be.

Then it hit me.  This transition, out of the madhouse and into the world, was bigger than my own manageable diagnoses. It was the typical discomfiting journey of the professional soldier back into a society that is no more ready for us than we are for it. Think on that for a moment.

No amount of yellow ribbons or thank-you-for-your-service salutes can alter an unmistakable reality. Our country—your country—has waged perpetual war, across the globe, against an ill-defined enemy and with scant hope for “victory,” for nearly two decades. It’s cost some 6 trillion tax dollars, sacrificed 7,000 soldiers and contributed to the killing of perhaps 500,000 foreigners, including 240,000 civilians. It has done so with a professional, volunteer military, one that’s disjointed from the populace and largely operates in the shadows. Through it all, you’re no safer now—maybe less so—than on 9/11, when many of the damaged vets I met were just children. America, your government owns the fractious world it helped create, and—like it or not—owns the hundreds of thousands of PTSD-afflicted vets living within its borders.

Even if the wars ended tomorrow (they won’t, by the way), American society has another half-century ahead of it, laden with the burden of these unnecessary disabled veterans. It’s inescapable. Would that we’d learn from the tragedy of the forever war as it’s been waged, but chances are our leaders, current and future, will be far too obtuse for all that.

So on the war machine rolls, flattening all before it. Still, the invisible wounds are suffered at home, by my friends—the men and women I slept, ate, laughed and cried with in nowhere, Arizona. I’m tempted to (fruitlessly) plea with the American people: Watch how you vote! Skip the next war! Support your vets by creating fewer of them!

After all, they’re the heart and soul, the best I’ve ever seen. Some will recover and lead happy, meaningful lives. Most won’t, statistically speaking. Alas, they matter.

I wish only this: that you’ll see them, as they saw me—and, perhaps, spare them a sincere thought now and again.

 

Major Danny Sjursen, a regular Truthdig contributor, is a retired U.S. Army officer and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, “Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge.” He lives in Lawrence, Kansas