Today's Stories

September 4-6, 2009

Carl Ginsburg
Saving New Orleans' Charity Hospital

George Wuerthner
The Unintended Consequences of Wolf Hunting

September 3, 2009

Marcus Rediker
Inside Auburn Prison

Ron Jacobs
Embedded With the Taliban

Mike Whitney
How Bad Will It Get?

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Untold Story of the Cuban Five: Indictment À La Carte

Saul Landau
Moby Dick and Asian Typhoons

Anat Matar
Israeli Academics Must Pay a Price to End Occupation

Tanya Golash-Boza
How Immigration Enforcement is Weakening National Security

Dave Lindorff
Which Side Are You On?

Andy Worthington
The Story of Gitmo's Two Syrians

Website of the Day
Plundering Appalachia

September 2, 2009

John Ross
Mexico's Plagues

Vijay Prashad
Hey Ram, the Things the Financial Times Group Does!

Rev. Jim Rigby
Why is Universal Health Care "Un-American"?

Joanne Mariner
What the Inspector General Found

Missy Beattie
Hejira: At Martha's Vineyard with Cindy Sheehan

Soren Ambrose
Multilateral Money

Diane Farsetta
Water: the Newest Wave of Corporate "Social Responsibility"

Nadia Hijab
Mulling Mullen's Message

Shamus Cooke
How to Lower the Deficit Without Killing Social Security

Charles R. Larson
Is Dick Cheney Running Scared?

Website of the Day
Inside the Egg Hatchery

September 1, 2009

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Wolf at Trout Creek

Paul Craig Roberts
Why Not Sanctions for Israel?

Mark T. Harris
The Whole Foods Boycott: It's About More Than CEO Hypocrisy

Dean Baker
Bank Profits Are Up: Did You Hear Anyone Say, "Thank You"?

Jeffrey Buchanan
Ending the Human Rights Crisis in KatrinaRitaVille

Robin Mittenthal
A Sea of Monocrops: Old MacDonald Never Had a Farm Like This

Ellen Brown
Mercury Mischief

Martha Rosenberg
Vytorin Marketing is Back

Website of the Day
Crazy Town Hall Protester Interviews

August 31, 2009

Pam Martens
Madoff and the SEC's Revolving Door

Anthony DiMaggio
What Obama Isn't Telling You About Afghanistan

Bouthaina Shaaban
Israeli Bodysnatchers

Ray McGovern
The Press and Torture: Covering for Cheney?

Joseph Shansky
Scenes of Resistance in Honduras

Greg Moses
The Dying Dillos of Austin

Brian McKenna
Pig Sacrifice and Swine Flu Panic

David Macaray
The Tender Trap

Brenda Norrell
Uranium Mining in the Grand Canyon

Paul Craig Roberts
The Environment Loses a Champion

Beth Sherouse
Why I'm Going to the Big Gay March in Washington

Website of the Day
The Failure of the Left Antiwar Movement

August 28-30, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Teddy Kennedy the Hollow Champion

Joshua Frank /
Jeffrey St. Clair
From the Ledge to the Edge: How Tre Arrow Became America's Most Wanted Environmental "Terrorist"

Steve Early
Kennedy's Sins Against Labor

Michael Hudson
Learning About Financialization the Hard Way

Carl Ginsburg
Bernanke in Obamatime

Saul Landau
The Nuclear Gang Rides Again

Dave Marsh
Trapped Again: Michael Jackson's Crossover Dream

Mike Whitney
Band-Aids for the Recession

Dave Lindorff
Obama's War

José Pertierra
A Decision in the Posada Case

Joe Bageant
Obama's Fake Fight for Reform

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Spies Without Espionage

Lee Sustar
On Strike for Health Care Justice

David Ker Thomson
Life in the 'Shed

David Rosen
The Silent Slaughter: Sex Wars and Nation-Building in Iraq

Alison Weir
Israeli Organ Harvesting

Ron Jacobs
Will There be Free Speech in Pittsburgh?

David Swanson
Bush Tortured

Udi Aloni
An Appeal to Israeli Filmmakers

Charles R. Larson
Children During Wartime

Kim Nicolini
District 9: Science Fiction of the Now

David Yearsley
The Wagner Cult in Seattle

Lorenzo Wolff
Riding the Rails with King Curtis

Poets' Basement
Three Poems by Marc Beaudin

Website of the Weekend
The Hidden History of Katrina

August 27, 2009

Andrea Peacock
Bearly Making It: How Many Biologists Does It Take to Count a Dead Grizzly?

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
Incapacitating the Cuban Five

Ray McGovern
Closing in on the Torturers

Gideon Levy
The Last Refuge: Neve Gordon and the Boycott of Israel

Shamus Cook
World Bankers Agree: the Recession is Over ... Maybe

Norman Solomon
The Afghanistan Gap

Marshall Auerbach
We Already Have a Public Option

Benjamin Dangl
Reclaiming a Continent

Kathryn Gray
The Water Privateers

David Macaray
Please Buy Our Beer (And Join Our Union)

Website of the Day
Stop the Privatization of Ocean Fisheries

August 26, 2009

Gareth Porter
The Leaking Game: Planted News Stories About Iran and Nuclear Weapons

Dave Lindorff
Getting Away With Torture: Holder's Limited, Modified Hangout

Dean Baker
The Reappointment of Bernanke

Laura Carlsen
The Coup and Honduran Women

Paul Craig Roberts
When the Government Comes First

Laura Raymond /
Bill Quigley
Haiti One Year After the Hurricane

Jordan Flaherty
Still Homeless, Still Struggling in New Orleans

Jonathan Cook
The Long Struggle to Reclaim Beersheva's Great Mosque

Robert Bryce
Bamboozled About Energy

Danny Weil
The Future of Charter Schools

Cindy Sheehan
Farewell, Senator Kennedy

John V. Walsh
Cindy Sheehan's Lonely Vigil in Obamaland

Website of the Day
The President's Laugh Line

August 25, 2009

Gabriel Kolko
Israel: A Stalemated Action of History

Danny Weil
The Charter School Hype and How It's Managed

Martine Bulard
China's Wild West

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada
The Cuban Five: The Face of Impunity

Bélen Fernández
Why Didn't the Leopard Eat Tom Friedman?

August 24, 2009

Danny Weil
Obama and Duncan's Education Policy: Like Bush's, Only Worse

Neve Gordon
Stopping the Apartheid State
Boycott Israel

John Ross
Mexico's Supreme Court Tosses a Bombshell into Chiapas

Open Letter to Kenneth Roth
Why Has Human Rights Watch Fallen Silent on Honduras?

Dan Bacher
A Burston-Marsteller Greenwash:
Westlands Hoards Surplus Water While Farmers Suffer

August 21-23, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Right Wing's Prince of Gonzo

Patrick Cockburn
The Truth About Afghan Election

Ray McGovern
Unwritten CIA Death Contract Awarded to Blackwater

Carl Ginsburg
Paycheck President

Dave Lindorff
American Justice is Not Blind, But it is Truly Sick

M. Shahid Alam
An "Abnormal" Nationalism

Ron Jacobs
The Continuing Story of Camp Ashraf

Eric Walberg
Russia/Georgia/U.S. One Year Later
Who Came Out Ahead

No War on the Moon!
In Defense of the Dark Side of the Moon

Gilad Atzmon
The Hostage Dream: Loving Oneself at the Expense of Another

Crawdad Nelson
What It's Like to Die

David Yearsley
Why I Chose to Play Scarlatti on Bainbridge Island

Justin Frew
Grim Times for Irish Travelers

Website of the Day
Picket Whole Foods Friday!

August 20, 2009

Eugenia Tsao
Inside the DSM:
The Drug Barons' Campaign to Make Us All Crazy

Dave Lindorff
The Worst and the Best Thing to Happen to the Democratic Party in Years

Yonatan Preminger
The Strategy Behind Israel's Migrant Labor Policies

Wajahat Ali
The Detention of Shah Rukh Kahn

Website of the Day
How to cope with flu pandemics

August 19, 2009

David Michael Green
Guess What? He's a Terrible President

Paul Craig Roberts
Americans: Serfs Ruled by Oligarchs

Marshall Auerback
Debt Revolt? Tax Strike? There are a Lot of Angry People Out There

Franklin Lamb
AIPAC Sends in the Clowns

John Ross
Three Amigos Summit

Marjorie Cohn
Legendary Lawyer Doris Brin Walker Dies; Represented Angela Davis, Smith Act Defendants

August 18, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Specter of Debt Revolt Is Haunting Europe?

Mary Lynn Cramer
Obama-Fraud: Don't Confuse Medicare with Single-Payer

Jonathan Cook
U.S. Turns Blind Eye to Israel's New Separation Policy

Uri Avnery
Whose Acre?

Ralph Nader
Block Obama's Abject Surrender to Insurance and Drug Companies

Bill Quigley & Davida Finger
Katrina Pain Index - 2009

August 17, 2009

Ray McGovern
Can the Washington Post Save Dick Cheney?

Andy Worthington
Bagram Isn't the New Guantánamo, It's the Old Guantánamo

Patrick Cockburn
Life and Death in Baghdad as Americans Leave

Don Fitz
The True Story of Fox's Hero, Kenneth Gladney

P. Sainath
Drought of Justice, Flood of Funds

Helena Cobban
Zionist Pioneer Renounces Zionism

August 14-16, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Health Plans and Death Plans

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Fall of the House of Stanford

Peter Linebaugh
The Commons, the Castle, the Witch and the Lynx

Esam Al-Amin
What Actually Happened in Fatah's Elections?

Marshall Auerback
Why a Debtor's Revolt Would Work

Mike Whitney
Bulletins From Clunkerville

Paul Krassner
Woodstock at Forty

Saul Landau
Health Care and the Seeds of Disunity

Nikolas Kozloff
Colombian Elites Fear Bolivaran Revolution

Henry A. Giroux
Politics After Hope

John Ross
Sleepwalking Through the Minefield

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Land Sale

Isabella Kenfield
Monsanto's Man in the Obama Administration

David Rosen
Sexual Torture, Yet Again

Ron Jacobs
Unconditional Negotiations, Now!

Wajahat Ali
Obama's Immigration Reforms: Neither Humane Nor Thoughtful

David Macaray
Prison Games

Greg Moses
Down in South Texas: the Geometries of Bob Dylan

Charles R. Larson
Egyptian Economics 101

David Yearsley
Stalked by Bill Evans' Ghost: Kind of Blue at Fifty

Lorenzo Wolff
There Ain't Much to Country Livin': the Drive-By Truckers and the Fine Print

Kim Nicolini
Class, Race and Clint

Poets' Basement
Reiss, Ford and Moser

Website of the Weekend
Timidity and Transparency

August 13, 2009

Eduardo Galeano
I Hate to Bother You

Joanne Mariner
Letting Cheney Off the Hook

Michael Donnelly
Burning Forests for Electricity

Norman Solomon
When the Dead Have No Say

Russell Mokhiber
Boycott Whole Foods

Tim Wise
Sick Heil! The Hitlerizing of Obama

Brian M. Downing
Succession and the Pakistani Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Single-Payer and Medicare

David Manning / Miriam Cotton:
Iran Versus Honduras: a Subtle Difference

Martha Rosenberg
John Hughes, Gone With Only 59 Candles

Website of the Day
Congress Can't Find Their As-teroids

August 12, 2009

Michael J. Watts
Nigeria on the Brink

Bouthaina Shaaban
Where are the Arabs to Stand Up for the Hanoun and Ghawi Families?

Ricardo Alarcón
The Cuban Five: Justice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
Terror Australis

Paul Craig Roberts
Concocting the Appearance of Recovery

Alan Farago
Going Down Absurd: the Future of Florida Bay

James Ridgeway
Ghostwriting Your Meds

Dave Lindorff
10 Questions to Ask If You Find Yourself at an ObamaCare Town Hall Meeting

David Macaray
Labor and the Conventional Wisdom

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Assimilation of Niranjan Ramakrishnan

Website of the Day
A Petition in Support of Janice Harper

August 11, 2009

Ricardo Alarcón
Forbidden Heroes

Marshall Auerback
America's Biggest Economic Problem?

Reza Yavari
Inside Iran's Most Infamous Prison

Winslow T. Wheeler
How Congress Pays For Its Pork

Tim Wise
Red-Baiting and Racism

Uri Avnery
A Moral Person

Deepak Tripathi
Getting Away With Torture

Greg Moses
Time to Plan for the Worst

Benjamin Dangl
Boycotting Big Beer

Dave Lindorff
Hecklers Unite! Why Aren't Progressives Disrupting ObamaCare Town Halls?

Website of the Day
What Bush Told Chirac About the Iraq War

August 10, 2009

David Price
Trial by FBI Investigation

Mike Whitney
There is No Recession; It's a Planned Demolition

Alan Farago
Seeds of Destruction: How the National Economy was Wrecked by the Politics of Deregulation in Florida

Conn Hallinan
The Honduran Coup: a U.S. Connection

Russell Mokhiber
Health Care: In Defense of Disruption

Paul Krassner
The Mystery Behind the Manson Murders

Sousan Hammad
Orgy of the Dead: the 2009 Fatah Conference

Jonathan Cook
Israeli School Apartheid

Ira Glunts
Netanyahu's Sister-in-Law Detained by Israeli Police; Calls Evictions an Unjustified Folly

George Wuerthner
Dead Tree Hysteria

Website of the Day
Conyers: ObamaCare is Crap

August 7 - 9, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
It Pays to Have a Nuke

Mike Whitney
Economy on a Scaffold

Elaine C. Hagopian
Obama's Israel Albatross

Carl Ginsburg
RX For Healthcare

Miguel Tinker Salas
Honduras is Only Part of the Story: the Conservative Counter-Attack in Latin America

Saul Landau
The Kidney Broker and the Money Laundering Rabbis

John Ross
The Mexican Genome: Big Science in the Service of Indian Genocide?

Anthony DiMaggio Obama and the Israel Lobby: Origins of Power

John Stanton
Expanding Human Terrain Systems?

Christopher Brauchli Legal Absurdities: Outing Three Strikes

Wajahat Ali
A Muslim American Hero: an Interview with Dave Eggers on "Zeitoun"

Ron Jacobs
As Long as the Wars Continue, We Must Resist Them

Franklin Lamb
Sunday Morning on the Dunes: Cleaning "Free Gaza Beach"

Bruce E. Levine
Protect Us From Our Friends

Michael Winship
Neighborhood Watch for Planet Earth

David Macaray
Glimmers of Hope for Labor?

Stephen Fleischman
Suicide Squad

Robert Bryce
Unplugging the Next Big Thing: the Hype Over Electric Cars

Robert Dodge, MD: Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered

Mark Seth Lender
The Message of the Glossy Ibis

David Yearsley
Vaucanson's Faun and the Duck in the Attic

Ben Sonnenberg
Chris Fuller's Brilliant Debut

Lorenzo Wolff
When Music's the Character

Poets' Basement
Dominguez and Corseri

Website of the Weekend
Warren Buffett's Betrayal

August 6, 2009

Ishmael Reed
Let's All Have a Beer

Paul Craig Roberts
The Expiring Economy

William Blum Assassinations and Coups: Keeping Track of the Empire's Crimes

Michael Donnelly
Rod Coronado: the Hardest Working Man in Animal Rights "Terrorism"

Jonathan Cook
Rabbis Ban Marriage for Israeli "Untouchables"

Dave Lindorff
The Health Care Reform Sell-Out

Ellen Brown
The Public Option in Banking

Website of the Day
Ellsberg on Hiroshima

August 5, 2009

Dedrick Muhammad /
Barbara Ehrenreich
The Destruction of the Black Middle Class

Norman Solomon
The Incredible, Shrinking Health Care Plan

William Blum
The Myths of Afghanistan: Past and Present

Gareth Porter
The ISI and the Taliban: US Officials Are Protecting Pakistani Aid to Taliban

Mary Lynn Cramer
The Myth of Medicare for All

Jim Goodman
Obama Needs to Take a Stand on Trade

Nadia Hijab
Playing From Strength in the Middle East

Gretchen Kroth
Guatemala's Garbage Dump Education System

Steve Macek /
Scott Sanders
Privatizing the Airwaves

Sarah Lazare
Inside G.I. Resistance

Website of the Day
The Locavore Myth

August 4, 2009

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Shell Game

Dave Lindorff
The Recession Isn't Over, By a Long Shot

Patrick Cockburn
Did British Bomb Attacks in Iran Provoke Hostage Crisis?

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Campaign to Silence Human Rights Groups

Jeff Sher
Making a Mess of Health Care Reform

Dean Baker
Why Don't We Globalize Health Care?

Andy Worthington
Gitmo as Hotel California

Uri Avnery
A Jeremiad

Mark Weisbrot
U.S.-Brokered Mediation in Honduras Has Failed

Alvaro Huerta
Hold That Dustbin! So Much for the "End of Racism"

Website of the Day
Pentagon to Ban Facebook and Twitter?

Weekend Edition
September 4-6, 2009

From Vietnam to Afghanistan

The Bling They Curse and Carry

By MARC LEVY

That night at dinner Ron and his father keep pushing me.  They want to hear about the war from someone who knows, someone who’s seen it.  So I tell them. “You’re going to hear a lot of things from a lot of grunts, but here’s my take.” I get it over with.  I talk about what’s actually happening and not what the press says.  I tell them that they should give the protesters the time of day because they may be right.  I tell them about the lies, the stupidity, the failed tactics, and the American politicians scrambling  for damage control.  I tell them about demoralized troops and dead civilians, about how we are fighting the war for the Saigon government and not the people of Vietnam, that we can hardly say anymore that we are protecting the Vietnamese from the Communists because we are killing more civilians than the Communists ever did.  The more civilians we kill, the more the Cong look like the liberators and the war swings their way.  I tell them the Saigon regime’s days are numbered.  I tell them the war has made me sick in the soul.

-- Doug Anderson 

As the large commercial jet swept over a patchwork of emerald fields, on a sunlit grassy hill scores of men beneath white sheets slept peacefully on canvas cots. “When the doors open, exit quickly” said the pilot over the intercom, as we neared the American base. The craft touched down, tropic heat rushed in, two hundred fresh troops hurried to screaming soldiers pointing to sand bag bunkers. “Rocket attack last night,” yelled a sergeant, pointing to the open air morgue on the hill. “Welcome to Vietnam.”

The next day another war racket. A bored clerk pointed to our gear-filled GI duffel bags. “Turn it all in,” he said, motioning to large wood crates.  Each man tossed spanking new combat fatigues, mess kits, gas masks, canteens, pistol belts, web gear, flashlights, steel helmets and helmet liners, brindled leather and nylon boots, towels, ponchos and camouflaged poncho liners, socks, T shirts, briefs, worth several hundred dollars, away. “Keep the line moving,” said the clerk. Next, we FNGs, friendly new guys, ignorant of black markets and rear echelon kickbacks, were re-issued the exact same gear.

A few days later the majority of men were sent to supply, artillery or logistics units. The remaining ten percent were infantry or elite ground forces.

Army infantry carried fifty-pound rucksacks stuffed with canned food (C-rats), Claymore mines, trip flares, det cord, six to twelve canteens of water, a change of clothes, a pen and pad, letters from home, candy, a tooth brush and tooth paste, soap and cigarettes, drugs (marijuana, opium,Thai sticks) paperback books, skin mags, cameras, photos of family or girlfriends. We pried open Claymore mines for chunks of C-4 to boil water for mud-like powdered coffee. Slung rifle straps across our shoulders, draped bandoleers across our chests or stowed full clips to hip hugging cloth bags. We hung grenades on pistol belts, tied leech straps at our ankles and knees to stop the pests from crawling to our private parts. Inked cloth helmet covers to mark the days gone by, or scrawled our home towns, our nicknames, our thoughts on this war. Peace signs and love beads dangled from our sweaty necks.  A few wore necklaces made of dried human ears.

Army grunts carried the much cursed M16 which often jammed or malfunctioned. Leathernecks toted the heavier but reliable M14. Machine gunners lugged cumbersome but effective M60s.  Medics were issued first aid supplies and M16s, or hustled shotguns or .45 cal grease guns. Elite units had access to unconventional weaponry, or used the Viet Cong’s  SKS or AK 47.

A patrol might last a few days or a few weeks. Up at dawn, a quick meal, pull in the perimeter trip flares and Claymores, march till noon, chow down, set an ambush, or walk into one.  Or nothing.  Just hump, and hump and more hump. In free fire zones, kill or be killed.  At dusk, find a place to dig in, set out the trips and Claymores, eat, rest, wait for guard, two shifts, two hours each. “My sit reps are negative,” you whisper into the radio handset if your sector is safe.

Over the months we grew lean and muscular, and our dark eyes held intense stares that soldiers in rear bases could not comprehend. But regular infantry know that life in war means kill first, ask questions later, and half the time it’s a crap shoot.

A year later, survivors turned in beat up gear for clean clothes, washed up, boarded civilian jets, flew ‘back to the world.’ For many, a world less than welcoming.

The Bling They Carry

All that was quite some time ago but war, a Marine general has said, is a racket. And business is booming.

Army infantry troops deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan are supplied with much equipment, including: night scopes, thermal imaging scopes, Kevlar helmets, close combat optics, commo gear, body armor, M4 carbines, knee and elbow pads, hydration systems, back packs, combat boots, fire proof gloves, cold weather gear, camouflaged fatigues, safety glasses, and M4 carbines. Elite soldiers and medics are issued additional gear. Average weight: seventy-five pounds. Average cost: $18,000. One hundred thousand private contractors fill a range of jobs once held by the military. Many are poorly paid third world nationals. Thirty thousand mercenaries kill for the money.

What was true in Iraq will be true in Afghanistan: where there are corporate contracts, soldiers of fortune, corrupt officials, unscrupulous allied or US troops, there will be shady alliances, war crime cover ups, and black markets that traffic in stolen or shoddy goods. But the heart of dark commerce originates elsewhere.

M16 Redux

Much to the over-equipped US soldiers’ dismay, for several years the military has stated that endemic battle field complaints and repeated ballistic test failures are insufficient cause to replace the defective M4. The weapon is ill suited for desert or high altitude combat; prone to jamming; requires constant cleaning; the barrel not long lived. Yet despite abundant in house and anecdotal evidence, last year the Marines ordered twenty-six thousand additional flawed Colt fire arms.  Special Ops troops prefer superior automatic weapons manufactured by a variety of companies, none or few made in America.

The AK 47, little changed since Vietnam, is light, cheap, easily manufactured and maintained, reliably fires when submerged underwater, silted with mud, dusted with sand, chilled at high altitudes, or heated by tropic sun. Compared to the underwhelming six-hundred dollar, high tech M4, the one-hundred dollar or less wood and steel AK is the guerrilla weapon of choice. As is the twenty-dollar shoulder launcher and three-dollar per round RPG (rocket-propelled grenade). This standard issue third world weapon can destroy or disable  Humvees, shoot down multimillion dollar Black Hawks, pin down, kill or maim American grunts, or blow up nervous convoys traversing high-risk tarmac or dirt roads embedded with IEDs.

Uneasy Riders

After the initial Humvee debacle, Pelosi et al made much of securing up armored versions of this post-Vietnam all purpose Jeep. At $60,000 per unit, with pre 2009 back orders in the tens of thousands, the bleak truth is the improved variant remains vulnerable to homemade Improvised Explosive Devices. Early in the Iraq war American troops discovered countless weapons caches buried in Iraq’s desert sands. Left unguarded, millions of  heavy artillery shells, mortars, rockets, grenades, small arms and ammo were stolen by future insurgents. Buried or disguised as garbage, detonated by remote control (a cell phone will do), IEDs have blown up countless American vehicles. Youtube IED ambush videos are chilling. Moments before the fiery blast an off camera voice steadily repeats, “Allahu Akbar...Allahu akbar...”  God is Great. Then BOOM and smoke and flames and too often dead or wounded Americans and Iraqi or Afghan civilians strewn among the wreckage. The advent of suicide car bombers is equally lethal.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, no combat vehicle and its occupants are safe. Not the multi ton Abrams or Bradley tanks, not the fearsome Stryker Fighting Vehicles, nor the early praised Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored personnel carriers, known as MRAPs.

Invented by the South African’s forty years ago, the vehicles V shaped hull successfully deflects outward explosions originating under ground. Thousands are in use, but too late the Marines and Army have discovered the MRAPs failings. Its bulk (seven to twenty-five tons) limits mobility; its high center of gravity, meant to further protect against land mines, has lead to numerous roll overs, injuries or death by drowning. To make matters worse, the bullet proof windshields are composed of carcinogenic material. When pulverized by an RPG, the crew are coated with and inhale the toxic dust. In cities the multi-wheeled goliath may snag power lines, which electrocute the occupants. The vehicles are costly to repair, have dreadful mileage, and often are too big to maneuver on urban roads.

At $300,000 to nearly $1,000,000 per unit, the air transport delivery cost of an Iraq-bound MRAP is an astounding $750,000. Multiple design versions have created logistical nightmares.  Worst of all, this motorized behemoth has encouraged Iraqi and Afghan fighters to greater improvisation. For all its heft and glamor, the MRAP cannot withstand a large scale, cheap and locally made EFP (buried shaped charges which punch a hole straight into the belly of the beast), or massive and inexpensive fertilizer bombs whose incredible explosive force can flip an MRAP over, killing or maiming all inside.

Better late than never, the Army and Marine’s have found it expedient to save lives by canceling or reducing further MRAP orders. BAE Mobility and Protection Systems; General Dynamics Land Systems;  General Purpose Vehicles LLC; International Military and Government LLC; Oshkosh Truck Corporation; Protected Vehicles, Inc, and Textron Marine & Land, cannot be pleased, though legions of MRAPs and Humvee’s in Iraq will be shipped to Afghanistan, and will require private contract maintenance.

Selling Out

Now that we are on the road to leaving Iraq, the Pentagon’s Foreign Military Sales program hopes to sell the Iraqi government much US weaponry. According to Defense News, this would involve: “140 M1 Abrams tanks, up to 400 Stryker vehicles, 80 Armored Security Vehicles, helicopters, and .50-caliber machine guns.” But such is the state of the Iraqi government that, “Baghdad’s credit rating is too low, corruption there too rife, and the Iraqi military procurement system too primitive to meet the (FMS) standards.”  Not to worry.  According to Defense News, “If the Pentagon wants the deal to go through, they will find a way to do it,” said Dean Lockwood, an analyst with Forecast International, a Connecticut-based think tank. “The main reason a deal does not go through would be if Congress got involved and stopped it.” A challenge the Pentagon will likely overcome, the better to insure US interoperability with the Iraqi army, and to keep in country US firms which provide weapons upkeep.

The War Drags On

And what a drag it is. Among other complaints, the 19 August 2009 issue of Army Times distills the battle for better combat uniforms. Many grunts had emailed the paper; most found the Army-created digital pattern useless in Afghanistan’s varied terrain.

“The Army needs a new uniform, period. Not just for Afghanistan,” wrote 2nd Lt. Chris Cahak. “The ACU (army combat uniform) uses ‘universal camouflage,’ meaning it doesn’t blend into anything. There is no natural setting that I have seen anywhere that blends in with the ACU.”

“The ACU pattern is horrible,” exclaimed Sgt Ricky Hill of Fort Carson. “...it has failed miserably.  What ever happened to the Multicam uniform?”

“Being an aviator,” said Capt. Joe Corsentino, “I get a top-down view of the battlefield. I can tell you 100 percent that the ACU stands out like a sore thumb in the Afghan environment.”

 “The Army should have one desert pattern and one woodland pattern, at a minimum,” says Sgt. Adam Houtkooper. “Afghanistan varies widely in the amount and type of vegetation, no one uniform works for the entire country. … The bottom line is that bad camouflage risks soldiers’ lives, and the decision to force every soldier to wear a pattern that is ineffective has reduced the effectiveness of our force.”

In Vietnam, the standard issue combat uniform was solid green.  Elite troops wore coveted “Tiger Stripes.” The multiple versions featured brush strokes of brown, green and black. Fast forward forty years.  Crye Precision, a private company, began work on combat camouflage patterns in 2002.  Says owner Caleb Crye, “We saw guys being deployed to Afghanistan with a combination of camouflage patterns that just weren’t effective.” After much research, trial and error, Crye developed MultiCam.  Though not perfect, Special Ops forces and the Marines have adopted MultiCams’ pleasing watercolor-like blend of desert and forest patterns which make detection difficult. Army brass, far from combats caterwaul, remain undecided and need to study, perhaps save face, before recommending a battle dress uniform which combat troops desperately demand. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., launched a congressional camouflage mandate in mid-June 2009.

Vested Interests

Most US body armor in Iraq and Afghanistan consists of a vest and ceramic inserts which protect the upper body from armor-piercing rounds. Nearly a dozen companies make body armor for US troops; hundreds of thousands of body armor sets have been issued since 2002.

Late last year Army Secretary Pete Geren quietly recalled 16,000 body armor vests after an audit revealed Armor Works bullet plates failed ballistic tests and adequate protection was lacking. The DoD Inspector General cited the Army for flawed testing procedures prior to awarding an armor contract. Army brass disputed the findings but implemented the nearly fifty-six million dollar recall. In 2006 the Air Force recalled hundreds of body armor sets made by Pinnacle Armor Inc based on test failures. That same year the Navy ordered $9.2 million worth of body armor from Point Blank Body Armor, whose equipment was recalled in 2005 by the Army and Marines. Guaranteed to stop a 9mm bullet, government tests revealed some inserts were fully penetrated.

Ironically, many Army and Marine troops complain that current body armor is heavy and bulky and slows them down when endurance, speed and agility are critical. This past spring, military brass stated troops need not wear body armor until manufacturers cut the weight of improved protective inserts.

End Game

Lousy weapons, shoddy equipment, questionable contracts, poor intel, burnt out troops, a foreign populace not disposed to American occupation, endemic roadside and suicide bomb attacks, the absence of a
cogent US mission, warlords gone wild, Olympic levels of Afghan government corruption, Afghan civilians made hostile by chronic friendly fire. What folly. No wonder the British public want their troops out.

Once, in a distant war, GI DJs woke American troops with, “Good morning, Vietnam!”  In Afghanistan and Iraq, their  successors might proclaim to weary grunts trudging in or setting out on patrol, “Good night, and good luck.”

Marc Levy was an infantry medic in Vietnam/Cambodia in 1970.  His war related fiction and non fiction have been published in various online and print journals, most recently on slowtrains.com. He can be reached at silverspartan@gmail.com.

Doug Anderson won the Kate Tufts Discovery Prize for his war poetry collection The Moon Reflected Fire.  His memoir,  Keep Your Head Down-Vietnam, The Sixties, and a Journey of Self-Discovery, was recently published by Norton and is available at http://tinyurl.com/n92rl9.  Introductory quote used by permission of the author.

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