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American torture, American porn: "Abu Ghraib and "The Passion of the Christ" are connected in a dark basement of the American psyche. Twice in the last few months torture and its graphic representation has been at the center of public discourse. The first time had to do with "The Passion of the Christ," a film that features more violence than any big Hollywood movie before it. The second time -- now -- has to do with the events at Abu Ghraib. The two spectacles reveal disturbing truths about American politics, sexuality and spirituality."

Level With Americans. "It's not too late for President Bush to go on television and level with the American people about what the war in Iraq is costing the nation in human treasure and cold hard cash. Like members of a family, the citizens of a nation beset by tragedy have a need and a right to know the truth about its dimensions and implications."

PRETENDERS PALE BESIDE OLD VETERANS. "The most bizarre thing about D- Day's momentous 60th anniver sary here were the swarms of military re-enactors and vintage-vehicle enthusiasts who tooled around the countryside in World War II jeeps and trucks, dressed in original uniforms."

June 6, 2004

600th US Soldier Killed.

Why Military Justice Can Seem Unjust. "Not long after Abu Ghraib became a symbol of American military abuse, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld stood in the prison and declared that the American military would prove that it punished wrongdoing. "The world," he vowed, "will see how a free system, a democratic system, functions and operates transparently."

It might take some explaining, though.

Compared with the accepted legal practices of the civilian world, the military's justice system is neither particularly free nor particularly democratic. And it rarely operates in the bright glare of public scrutiny. Justice is not secondary, the system's defenders say, but it is subject to other considerations, not least of which is accomplishing the military's mission, often in the middle of war.

As a result, justice in the military ultimately depends almost entirely on the judgment of commanders. An offense that sends one soldier to Leavenworth after a public court-martial can end for another soldier in a quiet discharge or retirement, with the exact nature of his or her punishment protected by privacy laws."

June 5, 2004

Muzzling a Marine: The Pentagon orders the military spokesman featured in the acclaimed documentary "Control Room" not to talk -- and now he plans to walk. "There's a moment a half-hour into "Control Room," Jehane Noujaim's widely acclaimed new documentary about the Arab news channel Al Jazeera and media coverage of the war with Iraq, when U.S. press officer Lt. Josh Rushing discusses his reaction to the brutal images of captured and killed American soldiers that Al Jazeera chose to broadcast in March 2003 -- to the condemnation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

"The night they showed the POWs and dead soldiers ... it was powerful, because Americans won't show those kinds of images," Rushing says. "It made me sick to my stomach." The viewer then expects him to proceed in the same vein of patriotic rhetoric he's been using up to this point in the film -- he is, after all, a Marine -- but instead what follows is an unexpected, and profoundly moving, observation."

U.S. Gulf War POWs Denied Settlement

U.S. Soldier Killed in Explosion in Baghdad. " A roadside bomb killed an American soldier and wounded three others Saturday in the second fatal attack on U.S. troops in the capital in as many days. Iraq's new leader called for a halt to attacks on foreign troops, saying their rapid withdrawal would be a ``major disaster.''" NY Times.

7 Convicted in Attack on Marines in Kuwait. "A criminal court on Saturday convicted seven Kuwaiti Islamic extremists of involvement in the 2002 shooting attack on U.S. Marines that killed one and injured a second during training in the oil-rich country. Three of the militants were sentenced to jail." NY Times.

The Pentagon Looks South. New York Times. "Now that Latin America is on the back burner as far as American diplomacy is concerned, hemispheric relations are once again increasingly driven by America's military. This isn't healthy. History shows that when military-to-military ties dominate the relationship, as they did for much of the cold war, generals in Latin America feel empowered to act in any way they want so long as they guarantee a semblance of stability."

Beating Specialist Baker, New York Times. "The prison abuse scandal refuses to die because soothing White House explanations keep colliding with revelations about dead prisoners and further connivance by senior military officers — and newly discovered victims, like Sean Baker.

If Sean Baker doesn't sound like an Iraqi name, it isn't. Specialist Baker, 37, is an American, and he was a proud U.S. soldier. An Air Force veteran and member of the Kentucky National Guard, he served in the first gulf war and more recently was a military policeman in Guantánamo Bay.

Then in January 2003, an officer in Guantánamo asked him to pretend to be a prisoner in a training drill. As instructed, Mr. Baker put on an orange prison jumpsuit over his uniform, and then crawled under a bunk in a cell so an "internal reaction force" could practice extracting an uncooperative inmate. The five U.S. soldiers in the reaction force were told that he was a genuine detainee who had already assaulted a sergeant.

Despite more than a week of coaxing, I haven't been able to get Mr. Baker to give an interview. But he earlier told a Kentucky television station what happened next:"

June 4, 2004

The military's hazing hell. Carol Burke, author of "Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane and the High and Tight," talks to Salon about the military's frat-boy culture, how torture and initiation rites are used to transform civilians into soldiers -- and how Abu Ghraib is just a drop in the bucket."

Bush, Veterans, & the Confederacy, By Kyle Tucker, Z Commentary. "It is disturbing that President Bush not only has refused to attend the funeral of any service-person killed in Iraq, but also refuses to send condolences to fallen servicepeople’s relatives. Bush’s denial of acknowledging U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq—the same as his government’s media ban on showing body bags and coffins—is even worse when compared to his sending wreaths to Confederate graves on Memorial Day. However, looking at his record, this should not be surprising:"

A Pentagon Plan Would Cut Back G.I.'s in Germany, By MICHAEL R. GORDON, New York Times. "The Pentagon has proposed a plan to withdraw its two Army divisions from Germany and undertake an array of other changes in its European-based forces, in the most significant rearrangement of the American military around the world since the beginning of the cold war, according to American and allied officials." More troop changes. Kerry criticizing Bush's 'backdoor draft' plan.

The Thoughtful Soldier. Douglas Brinkley, the author of Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Viet Nam War, on John Kerry's conflicted but heroic service in Vietnam. Within a five-year period from 1966 to 1971, John Kerry gave a college graduation speech denouncing the Johnson Administration's policies in Vietnam, voluntarily entered the United States Navy, requested duty in Vietnam, won three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star, became the most prominent spokesman for the anti-war group Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and quit the organization because it had became too radical. Atlantic Monthly.

June 2, 2004

"When will the U.S. military tackle the problem of sexual abuse? According to a Pentagon-ordered report, sexual violence against female soldiers is rampant -- and not nearly enough is being done to stop it." From Salon.

May 30, 2004

Brothers In Arms : The Epic Story of the 761St Tank Battalion, WWII's Forgotten Heroes
by ANTHONY WALTON and KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR.

"Drug causing GIs permanent brain damage
By Mark Benjamin and Dan Olmsted,UPI. Six U.S. soldiers have been diagnosed by the military with permanent brain damage from an anti-malaria drug used in Iraq and Afghanistan, and health officials must reassess its safety, a U.S. senator said.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, said the drug, called mefloquine, has "serious risks" that have not been adequately tracked by the Pentagon, the Peace Corps and other government agencies that distribute it."

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