TresSugar

Little Girl Who Captured Hearts Welcomes Dad Home From Iraq

TresSugar — Thu, 13 May 2010 13:15:07 PDT

Last July, 4-year-old Paige Bennethum captured hearts when she held her father's hand and wiped her eyes as he stood in attention, about to head to Iraq. Her mother snapped a picture of the moment, and the photo and the family became an overnight sensation.

Now dad is home and Paige is five, and she's less cuddly and more "teenagey" according to him. Of the picture, which now sits on the fireplace mantel of their Pennsylvania home, Paige says "Now I'm always gonna remember that he's going to be back after work every day." Sounds like she's still daddy's little girl!

Army Suicides Likely Surpass Combat Deaths in January

CitizenSugar — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:30:00 PST

When an Army official says "This is terrifying. We do not know what's going on," there's a problem. It may be looking at the grimmest suicide statistics yet. If the seven confirmed suicides plus 17 pending cases are compared to the 16 combat deaths in January, it seems the Army's previous fear may be reality: more deaths by suicide than combat.

Col. Kathy Platoni, the Army's chief psychologist, cites Winter weather for the sudden rise, but with four suicides last January, that seems tangential at best. More likely, she says, the culprit is multiple deployments, disrupted mental-health care, and the stigma attached to taking antidepressants and seeking therapy.

After record suicide numbers in 2008 (128), the Army is taking more precautions. It will soon begin screening all soldiers to identify those at risk for suicide. A program launching this month will help soldiers recognize suicide signs and employ intervention methods, and another in the Spring will focus on prevention. New training will also prepare soldiers and families to cope with war before, during, and after deployment.

While encouraging, these steps seem so basic and obvious, I do wonder what they did before.

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Study Abroad Sans the Glamour: Soldiers Take Classes in Iraq

CitizenSugar — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 11:01:55 PST

Study Abroad in Iraq? The headline jumped out of the Daily Beast, and I knew I had a story. Until, that is, I read it and learned the average American student cannot register for a semester in Baghdad the way they can in Strasbourg. But mon Dieu!, someday soon they will.

As for now, only US service members can sign up. Courses like child psychology, American government, and cultural anthropology are offered in makeshift classrooms, ranging from tents to conference rooms once reserved for Saddam Hussein.

Last November, the University of Maryland began offering these classes, as it's been doing for over 50 years on military bases in Asia and Europe. Students, who juggle six to seven 12-hour work days per week, usually only take one course at a time, but can earn two- and four-year degrees along with masters.

The fact that classes are being offered indicates Iraq's increasing stability and new sense of normalcy. It allows students to leave the rigidness of military life, if only for an hour, to be called by their first names and discuss ideas openly.

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Music Is the New Torture: 8 Songs to Break Detainees Down To

CitizenSugar — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:30:43 PST

If simulated drowning isn't enough, you can add music to America's weapons of mass degradation. Amped-up tunes are used as "sonic bludgeons" at US military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay.

Songs such as Britney Spears's "Baby One More Time" are turned up and set to repeat to create fear, disorientation, and a prolonged capture shock. It can cause long-term psychiatric problems if blasted for extended periods of time. And it is!

Prisoners, who grew up in Afghanistan under the music-banning Taliban, are hypersensitive. The blasted music leads some to scream and smash their heads against walls. "Plenty," one former prisoner said, "lost their mind."

A Guantanamo interrogator bragged in an FBI memo that he only needed "four days to 'break' someone by alternating 16 hours of loud music with just four hours of silence." So, mission accomplished?

What's Guantanamo breaking down to? To see the top eight songs,

"Born in the USA," Bruce Springsteen
"Babylon," David Gray
"We Are the Champions," Queen
"American Pie," Don McLean
"Stayin' Alive," Bee Gees
"Dirrty," Christina Aguilera
Theme song from Sesame Street
"I Love You" from Barney and Friends

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President Bush Calls Iraq War a Success

LibertySugar — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 00:01:50 PST

While debris from collapsing financial institutions continue to fall during the final days of the Bush Administration, the President has found something he considers a "success" - the Iraq war.

In an interview played on Japanese TV this week, a "very pleased" Bush said:

I think the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was right. . . . We are bringing troops home because of the success in Iraq. But Iraq is not yet completely safe. So there will be a US presence for a while there at the request of the Iraqi government. The United States is willing to continue to help. Most countries there within a very broad coalition have come home but we want to help this government.

Since the war began, more than 4,200 US soldiers have died, along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. And don't forget the monetary cost. At the five-year anniversary, the cost of the Iraq war topped $600 billion - perhaps Bush forgot his original prediction that the war would cost only $60 billion. Despite the human and financial cost, do you think the Iraq war will ultimately be a success?

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War Slang: New Words From US Soldiers

CitizenSugar — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:30:54 PST

Slang is hard to define, but you know it when you hear it. It's sarcastic and witty (when it's good) and establishes social bonds. War slang is no different, though it serves the additional function of exposing military problems. Slang from earlier wars - skedaddle, triumph, ballistic - has made a home in our vernacular, and now US soldiers in Iraq are playing with words, too. Check out what they're saying:

Splurge: Mocking term for "surge."

Hillbilly armor: Improvised vehicle armor, salvaged from digging through landfills for scrap metal to bolster armor on vehicles.

Sandbox: Iraq

Embrace the suck: The situation is bad; deal with it.

Geardo: The guy who has to have all the latest and greatest gear on his uniform, yet doesn’t know how to use it.

To see the rest,
read more
.

Fobbits: A play on FOB (Forward Operations Base). It's reserved for base-bound soldiers who rarely get out.

Groundhog Day: Every day of duty in Iraq.

Rummy's Dummies: A derogatory name for the US military under the leadership of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Single-digit midget: A member of the armed services who has nine days or less left of duty.

Waxed: To get hit hard or killed.

Weekend warrior: US reservist or National Guard soldier.

None of these sound destined for the everyday, but then I doubt anyone saw "snafu" coming. Though "weekend warrior" could make the argument that it's arrived - if by arrived you mean cliche magazine headlines. But what do you think? Will any of these make it out of the desert?

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What You Could Buy For $1 Trillion - Besides the Iraq War

CitizenSugar — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:00:04 PDT

Citizen Rob Simpson set out on a mission: to find out what else the US could have purchased for the $1 trillion dollars the war will probably cost. As with superhumanly large numbers, most recently and famously, the $700 billion bailout, it's helpful to put the number in concrete terms. That's what Simpson did with his new book What We Could Have Done With the Money.

The book's corresponding website has a ticker on it, calculating how much money has been spent since you've been looking at the site. I had it up for a bit this morning and presto, $25 million gone. Here's the entertaining (like a haunted house is entertaining) part of the website: you can "shop" with a $1 trillion dollar credit card. Anything from sports teams to Air Force One is up for sale - and if you choose the plane, the site asks you, "quantity"? The cost of the plane is only $325 million. I tried and bought every NFL franchise, Dracula's castle, and a theme park and didn't even come close.

To see what else $1 trillion buys,
read more
.

For $1 trillion, the US could the double the 663,000 cops on the beat for 32 years.

1.9 million additional teachers for America's classrooms.

Forget fixing roads, for that amount the US could pave the entire interstate highway system with gold - 23.5-karat gold leaf.

Every person on the planet could have an iPod.

Every American's credit card could be paid off.

See something on the list you'd rather have? Test yourself and see if you know where spending on Iraq stacks up against other wars.

Source

Front Page: Foreclosures Grow by 70%, US Hands Province to Iraqis, Pirate Attacks Up 75%

CitizenSugar — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:58:31 PDT

Foreclosures Grow by 70%:
The number of homes in a state of foreclosure grew 70 percent in the third quarter of this year, compared with the same time last year. Almost 766,000 homes received at least one foreclosure related notice between July and September. By the end of the year it's thought there will be a million bank-owned properties for sale, or a third of all houses on the market.

US Hands Province to Iraqis:
Iraqis have been given control of security of the province of Babil by the US military. This marks the 12th of 18 provinces to be given back to Iraqi control. Babil has seen much sectarian violence including a clash two days ago between militants and tribesmen which killed 15 people.

Pirate Attacks Up 75%:
On the Ukranian arms ship hijacked by Somali pirates, food and water are running low. So far only $1 million has been collected toward the pirates' initial $20 million ransom demand. Pirate attacks are up 75 percent this year off the coast of Somalia. A NATO flotilla is sailing to the waters now to begin anti-piracy operations in the next few days.

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Will the Recession Cause the End of the War in Iraq?

CitizenSugar — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 03:00:00 PDT

While the subject of a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq has been hotly debated, it's a decision that might prove moot. The US may very well have to leave whether it's considered strategically correct or not. The democratically elected Iraqi government may actually want to employ their sovereignty, leading both US and Iraqi negotiators reportedly close to setting a withdrawal date, mostly at the insistence of Iraq. The agreement will likely require all US forces to leave the nation by the end of 2011 and by all cities by next summer. It still has to be approved by the Iraqi parliament.

The agreement comes as the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is released - and the picture isn't so rosy. The surge, which coincided with a downturn in violence, may not even be the key reason for that result but rather just one contributing factor. A major reason, states the NIE is the truce with the Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr as well as the alliance with the Sunni insurgents, both of which occurred at roughly the same time. The bad news is that according to General David Patraeus, the gains made in Iraq recently are “fragile” and “reversible” due to a series of rising regional tensions.

To see where the recession fits in,
read more
.

And while all of this timetable talk may seem like a partisan debate in the US, one overall factor must be considered before the discussion of “should we withdraw” or “should we remain” even begins -“how do we pay for it”? According the Congressional Budget Office, the price tag of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan from 2001 to 2017 will be roughly $2 trillion (factoring in some $705 billion in interest since we are, um, borrowing all of this money). Currently the US debt has surpassed 10 trillion dollars. And precisely because the US is borrowing the money, the looming global recession is set to stunt the funds Washington has available for the war.

Source

Front Page: Bush Defends Economic Measures, China's Media Freedoms to End, US Pushes for Iraq Security Deal

CitizenSugar — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 07:00:41 PDT

Bush Defends Measures:
In a speech at the US Chamber of Commerce moments ago, President Bush defended the government's recent intervention in the financial crisis as measures of "last resort," saying that it will "take a while" for the credit system to thaw and that Americans can be confident it will. He said of the intervention, "Had the government not acted. . . We would have been forced to respond with even more drastic and costly measures later on."

China's Media Freedoms to End:
The rules that allowed greater freedom for foreign reporters during the Olympics are set to expire. There has been no word yet whether they will be extended, tossed, or traded for a new set of rules. The rules that allowed journalists to travel around China without applying for permission did not apply to Chinese journalists. Many hope the freedom will expand as a legacy of the Games.

US Pushes for Iraq Security Deal:
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is seeking to extend the US mandate in Iraq which is set to expire later this year. The details of the planned draft would have US troops withdraw from Iraq by 2011. Official approval by Congress isn't required though approval from Iraq, is. The current mandate expires on Dec. 31.

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