2/8 Marines taking care of business in Afghanistan

My old unit, the Second Battalion of the Eighth Marine Regiment, was mentioned today in the Washington Post. Update: There is also a short piece here on NPR's All Things Considered. It's about how families back home deal with their unit in the news.

(See my post here about a NY Times Article on 2/8 from May.)

It's more commonly written as 2/8, which is pronounced "two eight."

Be safe, guys, and come back soon.

Coup in Honduras

So the Honduran military asked the U.S. for help with the coup, and the U.S. said no? That's at least what Zelaya thinks, and he apparently believed there would be no coup after hearing that.

Spanish newspaper El Pais reported Sunday morning - as Zelaya was being kidnapped - that Zelaya said a coup was thwarted because the U.S. wasn't involved.

That leaves two possible situations:
1. The Honduran military (and Supreme Court, etc.) went along with the coup without U.S. support.
2. The U.S. changed its mind and gave at least tacit authorization.

Option #1 seems far more likely to me. The Obama administration, like every other member of OAS, has denounced the coup. I trust that the U.S. would not be involved in this, and certainly hope that is the case. Knowing Latin American history, however, of course some observers will think #2 is the case. Hugo Chávez, predictably, is suggesting this.

Will Chávez send troops in? How does the U.S. react to that? How could this alter Cuba's (non-)relationship with OAS? Maybe an improvement?

Anyway, the best analysis I've seen thus from is from Bloggingsbyboz, who I found about via Miguel.




http://www.bloggingsbyboz.com/

Iran in flames; media struggles to report

It's hard to determine what precisely is happening in Tehran, since foreign journalists are essentially not allowed to report, but the social media sources are producing a great deal of content. Some "old media" sources such as the NY Times are doing a decent job of aggregating content, such as they do on their Lede blog, which has been updating all day. But the Times can't seem to keep up with sites such as the Huffington Post. The videos, photos, and eyewitness accounts are amazing.

Some videos, such as this BBC Persia video on Youtube, show shocking scenes where civilians run and hide from (generally) off-camera threats. Why does everyone flee around 2:20? At 4:10, is that a gunman shooting down into the street? Chaos.

One bright spot on the reporting end is that the New York Times's Roger Cohen is apparently in Tehran. He filed this sobering piece today.

Cohen mentions the courage of Iranian women in particular; For a country and indeed region where women are stereotyped as being submissive, they are often taking a lead in the uprising. They can be seen resisting police officers in this video making the rounds, at Shiraz University, and have reportedly been calling men "cowards" if they run from the police.

Hats off to Cohen and the Times for that piece, though. Amazing reporting. He is one of the few Western reporters in the country, and some of his other recent article are here and here.

Couldn't agree more with Andrew Sullivan, who writes that "Cohen proves the old media is not dead."

Update later in the evening

The NY Times blog The Lede apparently clocked out before dinner time.

Update | 5:36 p.m. The Lede will be back with more updates tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, bloggers like the Huffington Post keep updating all night.

On another note of media disappointment, CNN decided to run a two-hour pre-recorded program on the economy tonight. Whoops. This was after a day of lackluster pseudo reporting, basically Don Lemon reading Twitter and Facebook. The only thing CNN had going for it Saturday was Christiane Amanpour taking over Larry King's show. She was great challenging the president, and CNN needs her analysis more often.

Meanwhile, Fox anchors were touting the fact that they were the only cable news network with live Iran coverage all evening. Indeed.

Some links to sites (Twitter and otherwise) with good content, mostly via my friend Jake:

http://shooresh1917.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/TehranBureau
http://twitter.com/LaraABCNews
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8105207.stm

How many veterans are in Congress? How are veterans distributed by political party?

This blog has discussed the military civilian divide a number of times. I've cited statistics showing that fewer Americans now are veterans than during most or all of the 20th century, and that Congressional representation follows the same pattern: about 25 percent of representatives are veterans, but the percentage was 75 percent just a few decades ago. The end of the draft, and the lack of major ground combat wars in recent years are a substantial part of this.

But the numbers matter more than simply for historical trend-tracking. A good democracy should not be too isolated from its military, for a number of reasons. When the leadership cannot understand the military, leaders might be more prone to misuse the military. For example, leaders might send soldiers off to war without the leaders having adequate understanding of the consequences. Military advisers and joint chiefs are insufficient. The public, the voters, should also understand the military, for similar reasons. Of course the military should not control the state, and we have civilian oversight for good reason. But note that in some countries where the military becomes aliented from the government, we sometimes see military coups. This is another reason to avoid a military civilian divide.

So the percentage of veterans in Congress has been noted (25), but how does that break down? Fortunately, a website called Vietvet.org has listed the veterans in the 111th congress. (The site also has a great tribute to Lewis B. Puller Jr., who became one of the many post-war casualties of the war in 1994 when he took his own life.) The site breaks Congressional members down by House and Senate, and by whether the member is a combat veteran. I sorted it further by political party, and this is what we have:

The House of Representatives has 94 veterans, which is about 22 percent of its members.* There are 15 combat vets, about 3 percent of all representatives.

The Senate has 26 veterans, 26 percent of the Senate. There are 7 combat vets.

Both houses, by political party:

25 percent of Congressional Republicans are veterans (61 out of 242).
20 percent of Congressional Democrats are veterans (59 out of 290).

3 percent of Congressional Republicans are combat veterans (7 out of 242).
5 percent of Congressional Democrats are combat veterans (15 out of 290).

So it's interesting that a greater percentage of Republicans are veterans (in general), but a greater percentage of Democrats are combat veterans.

Regarding the military civilian divide, I can't say much with these numbers, as I am not sure what percentage of the general public are veterans. It must depend considerably upon age.

Regarding political party membership of Congressional veterans, I am heartened to see that veteran-status is not a partisan phenomenon. It would be disconcerting for our republic if veterans were primarily in one party. (Political views of the active duty military are much debated, though I found that most Marines I served with were non-political. This interests me, but is beyond the scope of this post.) Also, the numbers here challenge the stereotype held by some that the GOP is the veterans' party.

*Total for the House is 434, total for the Senate is 99. Numbers come from Capitol.net. Each house had one vacancy at the time. If you divide by 435 or 100, however, the percentages do not change.

"You want my weapons": Gun paranoia inspiring murders

Most media sources are quick to suggest antisemitism and racism as the motivating factor in James von Brunn's attack on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Surely it decided his choice of that institution as a target, and perhaps it contributed to his choosing of a black man, security guard Stephen T. Johns, as his (first?) victim. Von Brunn's antisemitism and racism are well-documented.

But what did the chilling note say that he left in his car?

"You want my weapons -- this is how you'll get them. The Holocaust is a lie. Obama was created by the Jews."

Obvious antisemitism here, but he's also convinced that someone wants his guns. As a felon, he hasn't been able to own guns since the 1980s. Why would he think that someone is out to get his guns now?

Right-wing paranoia about gun-grabbing is out of control ever since President Obama's election.

One consequence of right-wing paranoia is skyrocketing prices on guns and ammunition, as some shooters stockpile supplies in case of some sort of ban. Anecdotally, I was in a gun shop the other day and noticed the price on an SKS military rifle had almost tripled in about a year. Some gun shops are running out of ammunition. (Ammunition prices and supply are explained in part by the 4-fold increase in copper prices since 2004. But this does not explain the change in prices for firerams and non-copper ammo.)

Another consequence of right-wing paranoia is murder. Von Brunn explicitly linked his domestic terrorism to a fear that someone was coming to get his guns. Von Brunn is not the only one.

In April in PA, Richard Poplawski shot and killed three police officers when they came to house for a domestic disturbance call. According to a friend, he feared "the Obama gun ban that is on the way." He didn't like that "our rights were being infringed upon." So he holed up in his house, and killed three police officers.

Clearly these men are nuts, and do not represent the typical gun owner. But where are they getting their ideas? Did each man independently come to the conclusion, in Spring of 2009, that someone was coming to take their guns, and therefore the time was right for violent action? Of course not.

The NRA has been distributing literature suggesting that serious gun control is right around the corner. The half-truths spread like wildfire on the Internet, not unlike emails that purport that President Obama is not a U.S. citizen or that Microsoft will give you money for passing along an email. Factcheck.org sorts fact from fiction in some of the NRA mailings.

The main issue, it seems, is that Obama made some strong statements about gun control in the 1990s. However, as he has acknowledged, he does not have the votes in Congress to substantively change gun laws. Both Reid and Pelosi oppose reinstating the assault-weapons ban, for example. (Ironically, arch-conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia appears to be more of a threat to assault weapons than Reid and Pelosi: He recently wrote in a decision that the Second Amendment does not apply to "M-16 rifles and the like.") But the "Obama gun ban" that Poplawski feared, that was cited as part of the reason he killed three police officers, is not a reality. Shame on those that try to fill their coffers by exaggerating the possibility of such a ban.

The left tries to inspire hysteria on its side as well, of course. But pro-gun-control advocates haven't murdered anyone in the name of their cause, as far as I can tell.

Old Army Buddies?

The Washington Post has a piece by some (non-veteran) guy who looks back with nostalgia about the days when everyone was drafted, his dad included. The "Old Army Buddy" bonds are tight, the author reports.

It's an interesting Memorial Day piece, and rightfully points out statistics such as Congress having 25% veterans now, while it was 75% veterans just a few decades ago. The end of the draft, among other factors, has increased the military-civilian divide, as I have written about on this blog several times.

But the author seems to be the Exhibit A piece of evidence of the military-civilian divide. Why didn't he serve? What does he know? Is the purpose of the article just to throw a bone to peacetime vets? I appreciate that he is essentially saying that peacetime vets (like myself) have unique bonds between them, as do wartime vets. There were peacetime vets in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, too, you know. Why the focus on the 50s and 60s? The article is worth a read, but the author just seems to be missing a few things.

I guess what's so odd is that he has great nostalgia for the days when "everyone served," yet he didn't feel inclined to serve when he came of age.

Anyway, semper fi and happy Memorial Day.

More Afghanistan reporting

As the administration has started shifting priorities from Iraq to Afghanistan, journalists are shifting as well. There are some good stories on Afghanistan recently, with NY Times reporter (and former Marine) C.J. Chivers again leading the pack. Check out this story and video that Chivers recently did. My friend Jake brought this to my attention.

Also, NPR has an interesting series on the Second Battalion of the Eighth Marine Regiment, also known as Two-Eight or 2/8 (pronounced "Two-Eight"). I have particular interest in this because I was a member of 2/8 for three years. I had forgotten that 2/8 is called "America's Battalion," but NPR plays it up.

The media doesn't always identify the units serving overseas, so it's neat to recognize 2/8. It's been tough to track how many times the unit has been to Iraq and Afghanistan since these wars started. 2/8 was in the initial Iraq invasion in 2003, then went back a second time, and also has been to Afghanistan once before. There was possibly a third Iraq trip. That's a lot of deploying, although of course personnel rotate in and out.

Hopefully the press doesn't forget about the 100,000-plus servicemembers in Iraq, but it's good that the operations in Afghanistan are finally getting some attention.