Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America ask for your help

Please read this request for you to sign a petition and get the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to do the job that they are well paid to perform.  That wounded Veterans have to wait up to 2 yrs to get the help they need is unacceptable.

Congress, the President and their staff don't have to wait for anything.  It is about time that Veterans who defended our country get the same consideration.  Really.

A shocking report just came out about the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability benefits backlog. It says that delays for new vets to receive disability compensation from the VA are much longer than originally reported, which is saying a lot. (If you’ve had a loved one file a claim, you know what I mean.) We must end this backlog now. Sign a petition to call for action with IAVA. According to the report, more than 900,000 veteran’s benefits claims are currently in the system, a number that VA expects to grow to over a million by the end of this month. Of the 600,000 backlogged, VA has said that the average wait time was 273 days, but this report reveals that veterans are waiting between 316 and 327 days after filing. Furthermore, despite spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on developing a digital claims process, 97% of claims are still on paper. The wait is 490 days in New Orleans. 619 in Los Angeles. 612 in Indianapolis. 586 in Houston. 642 in New York. And 681 in Reno. That’s 681 days to get benefits for injuries received while at war. 681 days. That’s just ridiculous. And it’s gone on for long enough. The men and women who have sacrificed so much deserve better than that. Sign the petition today to call on President Obama to establish a Presidential Commission to end the backlog.  Next week at Storm the Hill, IAVA’s membership will bring the petition with your name to the White House. We’ll also gather IAVA members from across the nation on the steps of the Capitol to demand the President fix this ongoing problem once and for all. We’ll keep the pressure up – and we won’t stop fighting until it's done. Paul Paul Rieckhoff Founder and CEO Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)

Just the facts, Ma'am

A clear distinction is evident....

POLS aim to shrink the US Navy just when we need it most...

Playing politics with our national defense is not what we should have to worry about but for those in the White House, the military has always been in the " cross hairs ".

They want to somehow justify downsizing the US Navy while still expecting the fleet to ensure we will be able to defend ourselves and that is a tall order.

I agree with the opinion of at least on politician who sums it up pretty succinctly -

“It makes little sense to be shrinking our Navy just months after the announcement of a strategy that would shift emphasis to Asia, the Pacific, and the Mideast — areas where a strong naval presence is an imperative,” Rep. Todd Akin, the chairman of the House subcommittee on seapower.

The idiots in charge will be the cause of our decline in Superpower status and they will blame everyone else when the biggest threat we face at present is short sighted POLS who are driven by their own egos and stupidity.


Shrinkage: Navy Won’t Build as Many Ships as It Planned
By Spencer Ackerman - Wired.com /Danger Room - 03/29/12

President Obama wants the U.S. Navy to patrol the vast Pacific Ocean and build itself up in the Middle East. Which is a nice dream. But the Navy is conceding it won’t build many ships to make it a reality — especially over the next five years. The Navy’s acknowledged as much — tensely, defensively, and always with a retort — for months. But now it’s officially revised its long-term shipbuilding plan downward and provided details about what’s effectively a five-year shipyard freeze.

According to the new shipbuilding plan (.pdf), released Wednesday by Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, the Navy won’t build any new ballistic missile submarines until 2021. It won’t build any big-deck amphibious assault ships, key for the Navy and the Marines to fight as a team, until 2017, when it will build… one more. After next year, the Navy won’t fund the construction of ships above replacement levels until 2018. All told, the Navy’s downgrading the total number of ships in 30 years it wants to maybe 300, a drop of at least 13 ships. And all this will occur as the Navy surges in the Persian Gulf and the Western Pacific.

“It makes little sense to be shrinking our Navy just months after the announcement of a strategy that would shift emphasis to Asia, the Pacific, and the Mideast — areas where a strong naval presence is an imperative,” Rep. Todd Akin, the chairman of the House subcommittee on seapower, said at a Thursday hearing. The likely presidential nominee of Akin’s political party, Mitt Romney, is proposing a big (and expensive) increase in shipbuilding. On Navy issues, U.S. voters will face a clear choice.

The last time the Navy set its long-term goals, in 2006, its plan for the mid-2030s was to create a fleet of 313 ships. That was the target number the Navy set for meeting the anticipated threats of the future. But since January, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of Naval operations, has talked instead about getting to “approximately 300″ ships over that time frame. Aboard the U.S.S. Wasp that month for a huge Navy war game, Greenert told reporters that the Navy would hold steady at 285 ships until 2018 — with a bit of a dip in the next two years — only to start enlarging the fleet again afterward.


The reason is financial. The military has to cut at least $487 billion from its ledgers over the next decade as a matter of law. Navy ships are big ticket items. And since the military budgets for five years at a time, punting the Navy’s shipbuilding surge another five years is, effectively, an accounting trick — and one that makes the current defense budget look small enough to be legal.

But that doesn’t satisfy members of the congressional committees that oversee defense. (Yes, even though many of those legislators voted for the budget constraints in the first place. Don’t try to apply logic or consistency with Congress; you’ll get a headache and nothing will change.) The moneymen on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense were incredulous that the Navy’s leadership came to them earlier this month to ask for a slightly smaller fleet that has to do more around the world.

Greenert and his civilian counterpart, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, have a response at the ready. The current Navy strategic plan envisions stationing more ships permanently outside U.S. ports, reducing the strain on the rest of the fleet for rotational deployments. Over the next few years, four Aegis cruisers will call Spain their home. Singapore will host two of the Navy’s new Littoral Combat Ships.

That’s too clever, says seapower blogger Raymond Pritchett, who’s facepalming over the Navy’s new shipbuilding plan. His problem is that he’s seen this movie before: the Navy promises that someday it’s going to ramp up its ships, only to scale back its expensive plans as the date for the ramp-up approaches. Meanwhile, the Navy takes on more and more global responsibility — and struggles to keep up with technological advances in propulsion and design, which drives up the costs of shipbuilding and fuels a repeat of the whole sorry cycle.

“The Navy is now officially doing the same thing again and again with their shipbuilding plans in the 21st century and expecting everyone to believe the result will be different this time,” Pritchett blogs. “The new plan — same as the old plan — is to meet a specific number of ships determined by requirement (313 or approximately 300) by loading all of the construction of the ships needed to meet that number in the budget years beyond the [Five Year Defense Plan]. If the new ‘approximately 300-ship’ shipbuilding plan is doing exactly what failed in the old 313-ship shipbuilding plan, then how can the Navy claim to have a plan — or for that matter — how can the Navy claim to have a valid ship requirement that needs a plan if the Navy doesn’t have a legitimate plan intended to meet that requirement?”

Pritchett might actually be understating things. If Congress doesn’t come up with a way to balance defense cuts and entitlement cuts by January, then according to the very law it passed in August, the defense budget will have to lose another $600 billion-plus over ten years. There is no evidence Congress will do so. The Navy’s “approximately 300″ ship fleet might be more “approximate” than the Navy brass is letting on.

In fact, buried in the new plan is a warning about precisely that. “If the [Navy Department] is unable to sustain average annual shipbuilding budgets of $19.5 [billion] over the course of the mid-term planning period,” the plan states, “plans to recapitalize the Nation’s secure second-strike nuclear deterrent [i.e., subs] and the Navy’s conventional battle force will have to be dramatically changed, and the overall size of the battle force will drop below the levels needed to meet all naval presence and warfighting requirements

Afterwards, the games go on

And the "games" go on....Too bad they are playing with our tax dollars.

If The Economy Is Improving….

Another week and the labor numbers were released. They "say" that unemployment went down but this is the number used to record who is on benefits. Those that fell off benefits after 26 weeks or more are not included.

These are some serious questions. Read through and see if you come to a conclusion.

If The Economy Is Improving….

Everywhere you turn these days, someone is proclaiming that the economy is improving. Barack Obama is endlessly touting the "improvement" in the economy, the mainstream media is constantly talking about "the economic recovery" and an increasing number of Americans seem to be buying into this line of thinking. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 37 percent of Americans believe that the economy will improve over the next year, while only 17 percent of Americans believe that it will get worse. But is the economy actually improving? Not really. At the moment things are relatively stable. Some economic statistics are improving slightly and some continue to get even worse. However, it is very important to keep in mind that one of the biggest reasons why things have stabilized is because the federal government is pumping more than a trillion dollars a year into the economy that it does not have.

The Obama administration is engaging in a debt binge unlike anything America has ever seen before, and yet many economic indicators are still in decline. So what is going to happen when the federal government stops injecting gigantic waves of borrowed money into the economy? That is a frightening thing to think about. The best efforts of our "leaders" in Washington D.C. are not accomplishing a whole lot. The Federal Reserve has pushed interest rates as low as they can go and the federal government is spending unprecedented amounts of money. But even with the federal government and the Federal Reserve pushing the accelerator all the way to the floor, the economy is still not improving much at all. Millions upon millions of Americans out there are anticipating some sort of a "great economic recovery", and they are going to be bitterly disappointed.

But right now there are some "bright spots" in the economy, and you are bound to run into family and friends that will repeat to you the nonsense that they are hearing on the television about how the economy is recovering.

When they try to convince you that the economy is getting better, ask them these questions....

If the economy is getting better, then why did new home sales in the United States hit a brand new all-time record low during 2011?

If the economy is getting better, then why are there 6 million less jobs in America today than there were before the recession started?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the average duration of unemployment in this country close to an all-time record high?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of homeless female veterans more than doubled?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of Americans on food stamps increased by 3 million since this time last year and by more than 14 million since Barack Obama entered the White House?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of children living in poverty in America risen for four years in a row?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the percentage of Americans living in "extreme poverty" at an all-time high?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the Federal Housing Administration on the verge of a financial collapse?

If the economy is getting better, then why do only 23 percent of American companies plan to hire more employees in 2012?

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of self-employed Americans fallen by more than 2 million since 2006?

If the economy is getting better, then why did an all-time record low percentage of U.S. teens have a job last summer?

If the economy is getting better, then why does median household income keep declining? Overall, median household income in the United States has declined by a total of 6.8% since December 2007 once you account for inflation.

If the economy is getting better, then why has the number of Americans living below the poverty line increased by 10 million since 2006?

If the economy is getting better, then why is the average age of a vehicle in America now sitting at an all-time high?

If the economy is getting better, then why are 18 percent of all homes in the state of Florida currently sitting vacant?

If the economy is getting better, then why are 19 percent of all American men between the ages of 25 and 34 living with their parents?

If the economy is getting better, then why does the number of "long-term unemployed workers" stay so high? When Barack Obama first took office, the number of "long-term unemployed workers" in the United States was approximately 2.6 million. Today, that number is sitting at 5.6 million.

Business as usual...heading into 2012

USMC to leave Helmand in 2012 - A case of what is needed or is this being done for political gains ?

The Commandant of the Marines was out in Helmand Province to see the troops and to spend Thanksgiving Day with them, but he was also there to let them know that this mission is not going to continue for long. It appears the USMC has been given new marching orders and they are preparing to depart Afghanistan much sooner than previously planned.

This is likely based on fiscal and political issues, not what is needed on the ground. While it is true that Afghanistan needs to stand up for itself, and man it's own defense, the nature of the fight there shows that if we leave too soon, the country will fall back into chaos. The efforts we have provided over 10 years could all be for naught.

I am glad the Marines will be leaving but is it the right move or are they being pressured to fulfill the President's political goals?? There have been too many times over the last three years where Obama's personal political goals have been placed ahead of what is right and I hope that this is not one of those cases.

Semper Fi to the USMC and the troops in Helmand. I was there and have a greater understanding what you are dealing with on a daily basis than the POLS in Washington DC.


Marines to wind down Afghan combat in 2012
By ROBERT BURNS AP –
CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S. Marines will march out of Afghanistan by the thousands next year, winding down combat in the Taliban heartland and testing the U.S. view that Afghan forces are capable of leading the fight against a battered but not yet beaten insurgency in the country's southwestern reaches, senior U.S. military officers say.

At the same time, U.S. reinforcements will be sent to eastern Afghanistan in a bid to reverse recent gains by insurgents targeting Kabul, the capital.

Gen. James F. Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps, said in an Associated Press interview that the number of Marines in Helmand province will drop "markedly" in 2012, and the role of those who stay will shift from countering the insurgency to training and advising the Afghan security forces.

The change suggests an early exit from Afghanistan for the Marine Corps, even as the prospects for solidifying their recent successes are uncertain.

"Am I OK with that? The answer is 'yes,'" Amos said. "We can't stay in Afghanistan forever."

He added: "Will it work? I don't know."

At stake is President Barack Obama's pledge to win in Afghanistan — the war he touted during his 2008 presidential campaign as worth fighting, while pledging to get out of Iraq. Facing a stalemate in 2009, Obama ordered an extra 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan — including about 10,000 Marines to Helmand province — on the belief that if the Taliban were to retake the government al-Qaida would soon return to the land from which it plotted the 9/11 attacks.

Also at stake are the sacrifices of the nearly 300 Marines killed in Afghanistan over the past three years.

Weighing against prolonging the conflict is its unsustainable cost and what author and former Defense Department official Bing West has called its "grinding inconclusiveness."

In a series of pep talks to Marines in Helmand this past week, Amos said the Marine mission in Afghanistan would end in the next 12 to 18 months. That is as much as two years before the December 2014 deadline, announced a year ago, for all U.S. and other foreign troops to leave the country.

"Savor being out here together," Amos told Marines on Thanksgiving at an outpost along the Helmand River called Fiddler's Green, "because it's going to be over" soon.

He was referring only to the Marines' role, which is limited mainly to Helmand, although there also are Marine special operations forces in western Afghanistan. The U.S. military efforts in Kandahar province and throughout the volatile eastern region are led by the Army, along with allied forces.

Helmand and neighboring Kandahar for the past two years have been the main focus of the U.S.-led effort to turn the tide against a resilient Taliban insurgency. In that period, the Taliban and other insurgent networks have grown bolder and more violent in Afghanistan's eastern provinces where they have the advantage of sanctuary across the border in Pakistan and where U.S. and NATO forces are spread more thinly than in the south.

During two days of visiting Marine outposts throughout Helmand this week, Amos touted progress against the Taliban and was told by Marine commanders that plans are well under way to close U.S. bases, ship war equipment home and prepare for a major drawdown of Marines beginning next summer. Amos declined to discuss the number of Marines expected to leave in 2012, but indications are that 10,000 or more may depart.

There are now about 19,400 Marines in Helmand, and that is due to fall to about 18,500 by the end of this year.

Marine Gen. John Allen, the top overall commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, was ordered by Obama last summer to pull out 10,000 U.S. forces by the end of this year and another 23,000 by the end of September 2012. That has driven the move to accelerate a transition to Afghan control.

Allen said in an interview Thursday that winding down the Marine combat mission in Helmand makes sense because security "has gotten so much better now." He said the pullout of 23,000 U.S. forces in 2012, including an unspecified number of Marines, likely will begin in the summer, which historically is the height of the fighting season in Afghanistan. Allen said Afghan security forces, often criticized for weak battlefield performance, desertion and a lack of will, are closer to being ready to assume lead responsibility for their nation's defense than many people believe.

"The Afghan national security forces are better than they thought they were, and they're better than we thought they were," Allen said.

That is why he thinks it's safe to lessen the Marine's combat role in Helmand, reduce their numbers and put the Afghans in charge.

That approach also allows Allen to build up elsewhere. He said that in 2012 he will put more U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan, increase the number of U.S. special operations forces who are playing a key role in developing Afghan forces, and add intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance resources. He said he plans to add "several battalions" of U.S. forces in the east. He gave no specific troop number, but a battalion usually totals about 750.

"I'm going to put a lot more forces and capabilities into the east," he said. "The east is going to need some additional forces because our intent is to expand the security zone around Kabul."

The top Marine in Helmand, Maj. Gen. John Toolan, said he is not convinced that 2012 is the best time to shift the focus to eastern Afghanistan, where the Haqqani network has taken credit for a series of spectacular attacks recently, including suicide bombings inside Kabul, the heavily secured capital. He said he believes the Taliban movement in southern Afghanistan is still the biggest threat to the viability of the central government.

Toolan said the Marines continue to make important progress against a Taliban whose leaders are showing signs of frustration and division.

"They're starting to break up," Toolan said. "There's still a lot to be done to see that these insurgents stay on their backs."

Stephen Biddle, a defense analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations and who recently visited U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said there is a risk to putting the Afghans in the lead role in Helmand as early as 2012.

"If you throw them into the deep end and put them in the lead in really tough neighborhoods you run the risk that they get their noses bloodied early in ways that could make it hard for them to recover because they lose confidence," Biddle said in an interview in Washington. On the other hand, if the U.S. and its allies wait until 2013 or 2014 to hand off to the Afghans in the most challenging areas, there would be less chance to bail them out.

"It's a dilemma with no obvious solution to it," he said

One Year Out

One Year out from the 2012 Election.

A lot of things can happen in a year. The way news is produced, reported and distributed, we have now have a 24/7 news cycle. That means a year's worth of issues, analysis and discussion, some which is worthy of attention, some not.

Politics around the world now drives our issues as our economy is connected as the goods, services and trade of other nations causes ripples in our approach to our own country problems. Most businesses still work on the 5 day week model, but the way economies around the world are connected, news occurs overnight and affects the daily political & business discussion even while one 1/2 of the world sleeps or takes a weekend.

Greece fails to act on their financial issues, Europe reacts and that "wave" washes ashore here before people are out of their beds. The overseas markets rise or fall and Wall Street has to expect the market here to be on a up or down push before the traders are in place.

The President rightly faces an uphill fight as his handling of our economy has been patently poor. He spent the first two years focusing on his own narrow political wants & desires instead of putting the needs of the nation first. He went on a spending spree that benefited his political allies (unions, public employees and "green" businesses like Solyndra) which wound being sinkholes for the taxpayers money. The billions spent on TARP by his Czars and others did not yield jobs. It fattened up the coffers of his political pals but left the majority of citizens without any jobs.

A year is a long time in our country's election cycle. Those who looked strong 6 months ago when they announced their candidacy ( Perry, Bachmann, Huntsman, etc.) have not been able to create any real sustained drive. This left voters seeking someone who could have enough "buzz" to get them excited about supporting a candidate. In the end, we have seen all but Slick Mitt get some push but due to self inflicted errors, fall as quickly as they rose. Mitt has made some real stupid remarks too but he seems to have enough $$$ and support from the GOP party establishment that his blandness is given a pass.

So, where does that put the voter one year out? In a very untenable position. No real choice for voters between the President (who is a failure) and a GOP candidate (who will not be the best choice, but rather what we are offered.)

This week has seen Nancy Pelosi deluding herself about recapturing the House from the GOP. The GOP candidates make position statements but hardly anyone pays attention. The President denounces the GOP house for reaffirming the nation's motto of " In God we trust" which inflames those who see him as not in line with the majority of voters beliefs and moral values. The primary schedule was solidified and the NH voters will go first, as they should, on January 10th. Unemployment stays solid at 9% because companies refuse to hire more workers and are hording cash.

When you add up all the +'s and -'s in the mix, the President is heading for a historic arse-kicking. He keeps alienating the middle, the suburban voters that have swung the election for the last 40 years. The GOP will likely fall in behind Slick Mitt not based on his being the best candidate but because he is the blandest and least offensive of all the GOP contenders. If NJ Governor Chris Christie had jumped in, this would have been a vastly different political landscape.

The next 365 days will be a roller coaster of ups & downs for the country and the voters. The economy will likely stay pat and not provide the President with anything that will show his pitiful efforts can make a difference. The GOP will not want to give him any political victories in this next year. His continued whining about the " Jobs Bill" is not gaining traction as most see it for what it is - another chance for him to funnel millions to his union supporters and a 2nd stimulus bill. No one wants to allow him a 2nd spending spree when the first yielded no real change in unemployment. We can hardly afford this type of one-sided spending in our current fiscal status.

I don't see how any issue that is presented helps the present administration. They are truly an unlikable bunch - Biden sticking his foot in his mouth daily, Napolitano acting like people are guilty until proven innocent, Holder ignoring crimes when it is his political allies who have done something & acting counter to what you would expect from an attorney general, The Administration spokesman giving people the "stonewall" treatment when the press asks for answers.....it goes on & on.

Those who are aligned hard left or hard right will not change their votes. The MIDDLE is where the action will be and presently, the MIDDLE has been getting slammed for the past three years. This is not a recipe for victory for the DEMS as they have been in charge for the past three years.

Time will tell the tale but right now, it looks like we will have to choose between the President ( a known failure ) and a GOP candidate ( bland, blander & blandest of POLS). If the DEMS are dumped, they will not take the rejection of the voters as they should (a learning moment on what they need to do better next time) but will make sure that they obstruct anything new the GOP proposes. This is the main challenge the new President will face as he will be "on the clock" and watched very, very closely to make a difference in short order.

Either way, the country is in a tough place with a year to get off the "train to nowhere" we have been on since Obama got in....stand by for rough seas. Rougher than we have been on presently, which is making quite a statement.

General Stanley McChrystal's POV - The US began the war with a "frighteningly simplistic" view of Afghanistan

General Stanley McChrystal tells it like he sees it. His POV is that we are only 50% of the way to achieving what is needed for Afghanistan. We are at the 10 year mark and there is little support for additional troops or resources as there are more dire needs at home.

This is not where anyone would expect to be at 10 years into a conflict. I agree with the General but know that while he states " The US began the war with a "frighteningly simplistic" view of Afghanistan...", the solution will not be simple or easy.

The task of finalizing our involvement in Afghanistan will fall on the next President, as our present one will only be able to stand pat with what we are doing presently. Obama has benefited politically from the very military he criticized for most of his adult life. If it was up to him, we would have cut & run long ago. His concern was always with his political life, not what is best for the country or the world.

An excerpt from Bob Woodward's book " O'Bama's Wars " paints the picture of what the President's real concerns were:

The President lost his poise, according to the book. “I’m done doing this!” he erupted.

To ensure that the Pentagon did not reinterpret his decision, Mr. Obama dictated a six-page, single-space “terms sheet” explicitly laying out his troop order and its objectives, a document included in the book’s appendix.

Mr. Obama’s struggle with the decision comes through in a conversation with Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who asked if his deadline to begin withdrawal in July 2011 was firm. “I have to say that,” Mr. Obama replied. “I can’t let this be a war without end, and I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party.”

And there you have it. Not the loss of life, National Security or the fate of civilians...." I can’t lose the whole Democratic Party.”

No wonder we are only 50% of the way to achieving our goal.....Politics came first for the President, as it does in all things.

Stanley McChrystal said the US and Nato were only 50% of the way to achieving their goals in Afghanistan. UK Telegraph - 10/07/11

One of America's most celebrated generals has issued a harsh indictment of his country's campaign in Afghanistan on the 10th anniversary of the invasion to topple the Taliban.

The US began the war with a "frighteningly simplistic" view of Afghanistan, the retired general Stanley McChrystal said, and even now the military lacks sufficient local knowledge to bring the conflict to an end.

The US and Nato are only "50% of the way" towards achieving their goals in Afghanistan, he told the Council on Foreign Relations.

"We didn't know enough and we still don't know enough. Most of us, me included, had a very superficial understanding of the situation and history, and we had a frighteningly simplistic view of recent history, the last 50 years."

McChrystal led the Obama administration's "surge" strategy that started in 2009 and sent US troop levels in Afghanistan to more than 100,000. Widely acknowledged as a gifted military commander, he was forced to resign last year amid controversy over remarks he made to Rolling Stone magazine.

The 10th anniversary of the war, marked on Friday, has prompted sober reflection in the US about a conflict that has passed Vietnam as the military's longest war.

Just over 2,750 foreign troops have been killed – 28% of them in Helmand – while between 14,000 and 18,000 civilians have died as a result of fighting, according to various estimates.

Yet although the US entered Afghanistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden and topple the Taliban, its most prominent targets quickly slipped across the border into Pakistan.

The al-Qaida leader was discovered in Abbottabad, north of Islamabad, last May, while the Taliban have used remote border bases in Pakistan's tribal areas to launched a stiff resurgence.

In his comments on Thursday night, McChrystal also indirectly criticised the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq in 2003, saying it made success in Afghanistan more difficult to achieve. The invasion "changed the Muslim world's view of America's effort", he said.

"When we went after the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, there was a certain understanding that we had the ability and the right to defend ourselves and the fact that al-Qaida had been harboured by the Taliban was legitimate. I think when we made the decision to go into Iraq that was less legitimate [in the eyes of the Muslim world]."

The 10th anniversary has also been marked in downbeat fashion in Afghanistan where talk of US-driven "nation building" has largely evaporated. Despite $57bn in international aid since 2001, aid agencies say most people remain mired in deep poverty.

"There has been some important progress, especially in urban areas," said Anne Garella of Acbar, an umbrella group of 111 foreign and local aid agencies. "But our research highlights the gap behind positive rhetoric and grim reality."

An Acbar study found that 80% of Afghans now have access to health services compared with 9% in 2001. The number of children in school has rocketed from barely one million a decade ago, 5,000 of them girls, to seven million today, one third of whom are girls.

But Afghanistan still has been some of the world's worst health indicators due to shoddy facilities, conflict and official corruption.

Afghans have grown highly sceptical of western aid over the years, with a widespread perception – partly well founded – that much of the money finds its way back to western countries through security costs and inflated expatriate wages.

But the greatest worry for most Afghans now is the consequence of the US drawdown planned for the end of 2014, which will see the vast majority of 150,000 foreign troops leave the country.

The American plan is to hand power to the shaky Karzai-led government, which is plagued by corruption and enjoys diminishing credibility. McChrystal said that building a legitimate government that ordinary Afghans believed in, and which could serve as a counterweight to the Taliban, was among the greatest challenges facing US forces.

Efforts are under way to bolster the government's authority. Nato says it will have trained 325,000 Afghan soldiers by January 2015, and the US is likely to continue financial support, although exact levels have yet to be decided.

But rising ethnic and political tensions could destabilise the country before then. And plans to bring the Taliban to peace talks were hit by the assassination of Karzai's main peace envoy, Burhanuddin Rabbani, last month

Sorry Sailor, we gotta show you the hatch....Captain, you too sir.

This is a predictable outcome of the lousy economy....and now there will be more Veterans looking for work.

Will businesses step up and assist some of our nation's finest or will it be more likely that they will face what Vets face now?? A much higher unemployment rate than their non-veteran counterparts. A terrible turn of events for those who have protected our freedoms.

Navy has a Problem: Too Many Personnel
June 24, 2011
The Day, New London, Conn.by Jennifer McDermott

So many Sailors are choosing to stay in the Navy rather than take their chances in a struggling economy that now the Navy will decide who gets to stay.

Sailors completing their first enlistment are staying in the Navy at a rate of 72 percent. There is no room for them to move through the ranks because not enough people are leaving.

This summer, the Navy will convene a retention board to review roughly 16,000 records and choose 3,000 sailors to leave the service earlier than they had planned. With more than 270,000 enlisted sailors serving today, that means 6 percent of the force will be evaluated and 1 percent separated.

Sailors with nuclear training will be spared because the Navy needs to retain their technical skills and because the number of these Sailors is generally in line with the number of submarine jobs the Navy has to fill.

Officers, however, may not be spared.

The Navy will convene a second board in August to choose about 240 commanders and captains for early retirement, possibly including some submarine warfare officers. The Navy cited high retention and low attrition as the reason for this review as well.

"The reason that we are letting people go is because they are not leaving the Navy on the projected rate that they normally do," Adm. Gary Roughead, chief of naval operations, said earlier this month at a military strategy forum. "People are in the Navy to fill specific jobs. So it's not as if I can keep people just because I want to."

Personnel costs have the highest inflation rate because of pay and benefits. The service has to live within its means, Roughead added.

The Navy is overmanned in 31 of its 84 ratings, or jobs for enlisted sailors. The retention board will consider selected third class petty officers through senior chief petty officers in the 31 specialties, who have more than seven but fewer than 15 years of service as of Oct. 1. One-third will be in aviation jobs.

None of the 31 specialties is submarine specific. Lt. Cmdr. Kyung Choi, spokesman for the commander of the Submarine Force, said the personnel requirements for the submarine force have not changed.

But some of the Sailors serving on shore at submarine bases, either assisting the chaplain or providing career counseling and maintaining personnel records, could be affected. Both kinds of specialists are assigned to the Naval Submarine Base in Groton.

This is the first time sailors with lower levels of experience have been reviewed by a retention board, although some more senior Sailors were previously considered by a board.

Some in Congress question the Navy's plan. The House Armed Services Committee said in its recent report on the defense authorization act that it was concerned by the Navy's request to reduce its ranks.

"The Navy has been challenged over the past several years as sailors deployed as individual augmentees to overseas contingency operations to execute non-traditional Navy missions, which has drained needed manpower from the fleet," the report said, adding that the committee would "closely monitor" the Navy's reduction of manpower and the impact on operations and requirements.

U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, and a committee member, said the impact to southeastern Connecticut should be lessened by the fact that nuclear-trained Sailors are exempt.

He said there is "obviously an economic backdrop" to the retention issue since both recruitment and retention numbers went up after the financial collapse.

The board will first look for any indicators of poor performance, such as past punishments for disciplinary offenses, then base decisions on the Navy's quotas for each job, said Lt. Matthew Allen, spokesman for the chief of naval personnel.

Sailors in the crowded jobs were given the chance to apply for other Navy jobs that are short-staffed. Those who are told to leave the Navy this summer must do so by June 30, 2012. They will be eligible for benefits and pay for people who are involuntarily separated, such as employment assistance and help relocating for those stationed overseas.

2011 The Day, New London, Conn.

Brave Sir Barack (with apologies to Monty Python)

He's a poser that's for sure - This rerminds me of a Monty Python song called "Brave Sir Robin" which we will retitle to "Brave Sir Barack" (with apologies to all the Monty Pyton Fans out there)

Brave Sir Barack ran away

Bravely, ran away...away...

When danger reared its ugly head

He bravely turned his tail and fled

Yes, brave Sir Barack turned about

And gallantly he chickened out

Bravely taking to his feet

He beat a very brave retreat

Bravest of the brave, Sir Barack

He is packing it in and packing it up

And sneaking away and buggering off

And chickening out and pissing off home,

Yes, bravely he is throwing in the sponge.

Total Unemployment Numbers Worse Than Federal Government's Touted Numbers...Don't believe the hype being put out by the Politicians and the Media

The BS that is being put out by the Administration and the media on improved employment doesn't tell the whole story - 11.7 Million are either on extended benefits or have gone beyond the limit and get no benefits at all....That is the real story....In a country as prosperous as ours, we have over 11 million people unemployed while the stock market roars to new heights...where & when these people will find new work and what type of job they will be offered is anyone's guess.

Total Unemployment Numbers Worse Than Federal Government's Touted Numbers

San Diego, CA (Vocus/PRWEB) March 28, 2011 Extensive data mining and research by the analytical staff of the Rhino Report indicates the actual employment trends and scenario are far from significantly improved relative to cyclical lows reached in 2009. James Brumley, chief analyst of the Rhino Report, has shared details of the true unemployment picture with the newsletter's subscribers.

Select data from the report are being made public for non-subscribers. The key concerns are:

1. While the shrinking number of initial unemployment claims has been falling since the March of 2009 high of 647K to last month's 385K, the total number of people working in the United States as of the end of February is still under the number of employed workers in late 2008. A total of 147 million people were working in December of 2007, and only 139 million U.S. residents are employed now. That's fewer than were working in March of 2009.

2. While the number of regular ongoing unemployment claims has been falling since the early 2009 peak of 6.3 million, reaching 4.3 million as of last month, the government's reported figure doesn't include the 4.4 million unemployed currently receiving emergency benefits. It also excludes the estimated 3 million who stopped receiving any benefit, yet are still not employed.

Brumley adds that even though the unemployment trend is not getting measurably better in the least, it's not inherently a reason to avoid the stock market. In fact, corporations are almost earning as much money now as they were in late 2007. The stocks in the S&P 500 are projected to be earning at record levels by the end of 2011, and have already dramatically improved since lulls in late 2008 even though the number of employed people since than has fallen.

The implication is that the market does not need strong employment to thrive, as companies have been able to squeeze more from the active workforce. To learn more about this study, the portfolio's stocks, and the site's near-term and short-term outlook, go to the Rhino Report web site located at www.rhinoreport.com for more information.

Massachusetts Governor plays politics with Veterans services office....turned it into a blatantly political operation to bolster his re-election....

This story should be no surprise to anyone who has observed the way that the liberal left has an absolute disdain for Veterans, especially the Democratic Party operatives. They have called us " War Mongers", " Baby Killers" and any other slur they can use to libel those who have worn the uniform and stood in defense of our country. This has been part of the Democratic DNA since the mid 60's when the party turned away from JFK's philosophy of a strong defense and went with the what the hippies and George McGovern spouted. Seems as they forgot that the only reason they were able to live free and spout off about the military was because Veterans paid for that right with their sacrifices and many times, with their lives.

Now, they have decided that the best way to use the Veterans is to take over the Veterans' services departments and turn it into another political machine to prop up the very people who show utter contempt for Veterans.

Case in point, Governor Deval " Spend-it-all" Patrick, who is Obama's best buddy fired the Massachusetts secretary of Veterans Services for four governors, Tom Kelly, Medal of Honor recipient and replaced him with his own political appointee.

Now, they are purging further into the staff and fired Tom Kelly's 2nd in charge while she was out on a medical leave. No reason for this change other than they can.

There will be a special place in Hell for these weasels when they have to answer for their sins. To take what is supposed to be a non-political program and use it as a prop to further your electability is beneath contempt. Deval Patrick and Obama never wore the uniform because they always saw service in the military as the kind of work that others had to do.....it was beneath them....But now when it is part of their political machine, they will be more than happy to try to "latch on" to the Veterans and tout how they have always admired them for their service.

Deval Patrick doesn't care for Veterans and neither does Obama. Veterans are political props for these two empty suits and the sooner we jettison these two fools back to where they came from, the better off we will be.


At Massachusetts Veterans Services, charges of playing politics
By Kevin Cullen
Globe Columnist / February 20, 2011

Maria Spiewakowski saw it coming.

“After Tom Kelley was fired,’’ she recalled, “I said, ‘I’m next.’ ’’

She was. Kelley, Massachusetts secretary of Veterans Services for four governors, was informed after Christmas that he was being replaced. The 71-year-old Kelley is a Medal of Honor recipient and his ousting was controversial, as much for the way it was handled as anything.

Spiewakowski worked in Veterans Services for 18 years, rising through the ranks to become Kelley’s No. 2. But when Coleman Nee was hired as undersecretary in 2007 on orders, Kelley says, from the governor’s office, she was suddenly No. 3.

Upset over the way Kelley was treated, and dealing with a medical problem of her own, Spiewakowski went on medical leave Jan. 18.

She got a Jan. 24 letter from Nee, Kelley’s replacement. “I know you’ve been away from work but I need to meet with you briefly to discuss my vision for Veterans Services,’’ Nee wrote.

Four days later there was another letter, saying she was fired.

“Incoming leadership has the authority to select its management team to carry out its policy goals,’’ Nee wrote. “This often necessitates the replacement of existing personnel. As a result, this action should not be construed in any way as a reflection on you personally or on your performance under prior leadership.’’

Spiewakowski’s removal was similar to Kelley’s. Kelley was asked by his boss, Health and Human Services Secretary JudyAnn Bigby, to show up for a meeting to talk about the department’s future.

When Kelley got there, the only thing about the future that was discussed was his not being part of it.

Governor Deval Patrick had every right to replace Kelley, just as Coleman Nee has the authority to replace Spiewakowski. The problem for both the governor and his new veterans secretary is that the people being replaced are not going softly into the night.

Spiewakowski and Kelley are saying publicly what had been whispered: that Nee turned the department that oversees the welfare of the state’s 400,000 veterans into a blatantly political operation to burnish the images of Patrick and Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray.

Spiewakowski says employees were asked to volunteer for campaign efforts, and that Nee and some workers busied themselves with efforts to reelect the governor on department time.

Nee denies each and every one of the allegations.

Asked about firing someone on medical leave, he said he “can’t talk about personnel issues.’’ As for why Spiewakowski was fired, he said, “We’ve had some restructuring, some positions consolidated.’’

Asked if there is an ongoing purge of anyone perceived as a Kelley loyalist, Nee said, “That’s nonsense. I haven’t given any litmus test.’’

Spiewakowski says Nee put a political gloss on things that had been previously apolitical. For example, she said the department’s newsletter became a vehicle to emphasize the Patrick administration’s commitment to veterans as much as a way to inform veterans about services.

Kelley agrees, saying, “The newsletter had not been used like that before.’’

Nee scoffs at this. He said complaints that the newsletter was politicized are really bruised feelings about his efforts to modernize the department.

“Everything down here was using an old dynamic,’’ he said.

Spiewakowski and Kelley say Nee intervened when a contract employee was about to be fired for poor performance. They declare that Nee said Murray and the governor’s office wanted the employee kept on.

“That’s an absolute lie,’’ Nee said.

But Spiewakowski and Kelley say that episode hurt morale and made it clear that some workers had inside pull with the administration and would be treated differently.

Kelley says that in June 2009, Nee told him his main priority was to get the Patrick-Murray team reelected and to get veterans behind the effort. Kelley was so disturbed that he immediately wrote a memo about it.

“I never said that,’’ Nee told me.

Spiewakowski and Kelley say one employee complained that Nee had approached him in the workplace and asked him about lining up veterans to support the governor’s reelection campaign.

Nee said he didn’t recall approaching employees. Asked if doing so would be an ethical violation, Nee said, “I think it would. But I don’t think I’d do that.’’

Spiewakowski said she was going public because the department’s morale has been destroyed.

“I can respect the governor and lieutenant governor making the decision to replace Tom,’’ she said. “I can’t accept that Coleman Nee is the person to replace Tom, because he has completely politicized the office and its work.’’

Spiewakowski is not alone. Several others who worked or still work for Veterans Services have filed complaints against Nee with the Ethics Commission and the Office of Campaign and Political Finance.

Nee’s first battle in his new job is against an insurgency within his own staff.

He acknowledged he has heard from ethics and finance investigators, looking for records. But he is confident he did nothing wrong. “Anybody can make a complaint to OCPF or Ethics,’’ he said.

I asked Nee why some people are trying to destroy him.

“I don’t know what the motivations are, and frankly I don’t want to speculate,’’ he said. “But it’s always anonymous. If they are veterans and saying this, then they are heroes, and they should have some guts and come out of the shadows and say it to me. Say it to my face.’’

If the department of Veterans Services wasn’t politicized before, it sure is now.

Kevin Cullen is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at cullen@globe.com