Molestus Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc

Updated Nov. 8

Every once in a while, I see someone use what I refer to as the molestus hoc, ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. A play on the phrase post hoc, ergo propter hoc (more or less literally "it follows, therefore it is caused by"), this variation uses the verb molestus, which means "annoy", or "anger". This version of the post hoc fallacy is a common one these days - people assume that events are caused by whatever it is that annoys, angers, or frightens them, whether there's actually any reason to or not.

Yesterdays shooting at Ft. Hood has yielded a treasure trove of such speculation. Blue Texan described some of it this morning at FireDogLake:

The Anchor Baby [Michelle Malkin]:

Political correctness is the handmaiden of terror.

Atlas Juggs [Atlas Shrugs]:

They knew this guy was a jihadi. They knew. But they sacrificed American lives at the alter [sic] political correctness.

Jihad Watch:

Yet there was, and what’s more, Major Hasan’s motive was perfectly clear — but it was one that the forces of political correctness and the Islamic advocacy groups in the United States have been working for years to obscure.

The Corner:

This is not the first time American soldiers have been victims of politically correct policies.

It takes a particularly demented type of crazy to blame the US military for a tragedy like this. Because that’s exactly what they’re doing here.

Right-Wingers: “Political Correctness” to Blame for Ft. Hood Shootings

I don't know what's more offensive, the notion that the Army would deliberately allow this sort of thing out of a spirit of political correctness, the idea that tolerance is killing people at a faster rate than intolerance, or the pathetic conceit that these assclowns are the only ones "courageous" enough to point this out. Whatever it is, they're wrong. The guy who did this, who is probably the only one who actually knows why he did it at this point, hasn't been talking publicly. And while these people are at turns deceitful, stupid, and feckless, they are not courageous.

They're frightened of a religion that's different from their own. Since it frightens them, to them it's obviously responsible for anything done by any Muslim, or anyone who is influenced in some way by Islam, or who advocates tolerance of it. They're ignorant cowards. Unfortunately, they have a lot of company.

Less pernicious, but equally misguided, is the attempt to explain this incident as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). There has been a notable increase in the incidence of PSTD in the last few years, and a rise in both violence and suicide among service members. That is a problem, and it needs to be addressed. At the moment, though, there is no direct evidence that Maj. Hasan suffered from PTSD. He may have had some psychiatric problem, and he may not.

For the record, combat isn't the only way to contract a case of PTSD. Insisting that Hasan couldn't have it because he wasn't in combat is wrong. Many forms of stress can cause it, as Medicinet notes:

Virtually any trauma, defined as an event that is life-threatening or that severely compromises the emotional well-being of an individual or causes intense fear, may cause PTSD. Such events often include either experiencing or witnessing a severe accident or physical injury, receiving a life-threatening medical diagnosis, being the victim of kidnapping or torture, exposure to war combat or to a natural disaster, exposure to other disaster (for example, plane crash) or terrorist attack, being the victim of rape, mugging, robbery, or assault, enduring physical, sexual, emotional, or other forms of abuse, as well as involvement in civil conflict. Although the diagnosis of PTSD currently requires that the sufferer has a history of experiencing a traumatic event as defined here, people may develop PTSD in reaction to events that may not qualify as traumatic but can be devastating life events like divorce or unemployment.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: What Causes PTSD?

Here's a story of someone who contracted PTSD doing mortuary work for the Army. It can happen, even to people who only experience the pain of war through others.

People saddened by the stress our soldiers are experiencing in Iraq and Afghanistan might see this as another example, but as yet there isn't proof.

My own conclusion about what's happened is that it is apparently the work of a single individual. Given that, its origins probably lie in the mind of that individual. Certainly, whatever the motivations are will be something we'll have to learn through interviews by law enforcement and mental health professionals. Until such interviews are done, speculating about what caused this is both pointless and potentially dangerous.

Hasan was wounded four times during his rampage. He is most likely not yet in a condition to give a coherent account of his reasons for doing this. I feel safe in asserting that no one has yet determined why this event occurred, beyond the obvious fact that Hasan felt the need to shoot people. I could come up with alternative explanations to PTSD or Muslim rage that fit the facts, but that doesn't mean it would be any closer to the truth. Speculation isn't fact.

I’d like for some serious investigation into Maj. Hasan’s state of mind to have taken place before I decide who, or what, is to blame. By the time that happens, of course, some white woman will have gone missing, or some big explosion will have happened somewhere other than Iraq or Afghanistan, and the TV news will have forgotten all about this. That's sad, because there may be important lessons we can draw from this.

It's just clear that as of yet, we don't know what those are.

UPDATE: Over at Political Animal, Steve Benen adds a postscript:

A tragic part of American life is that, from time to time, we learn of horrific shootings like the one at Fort Hood yesterday. There was, apparently, another shooting this morning, this time in Orlando, in which one was killed and seven were critically wounded. The gunman wasn't a Muslim.

Likewise, last year, 32 people were shot down in Virginia Tech. In March, 10 were killed in a shooting rampage in Alabama. In April, 13 were killed in upstate New York. In each instance, the gunmen weren't Muslim.

Bringing Out The Worst In Small, Sad Minds

The fact that some of these people were Christians, and may have said something like "God help me", or whatever, won't be taken by the Islamophobes as proof that Christians are a source of danger.

UPDATE 2 (Nov. 8): I didn't see this until today, but Greg Marx at the Columbia Journalism Review seems to have been thinking along the same lines I am:

It’s been just over twenty-four hours since Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire on his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood—more than enough time, clearly, for our pundits to begin opining on what it all means. And though those interpretations are varied, there is one headline that could apply to nearly all of them: Tragic Massacre Vindicates My Pre-existing Political Convictions.

Jumping To Confusion

He then goes on to detail how confused the initial reporting of this event has been, as well as how many folks were willing to jump to the conclusion that this has something to do with islamofascism or PTSD. Worth a read, I think.

Army Suicide Rate Increasing

Image credit: U.S. Army

The caption reads: 1st Lt. Erik Wiesehan, of Canby, Ore., maintains security during Brig. Gen. Robin Swanís visit to a Husseniyah marketplace Jan. 22. Wiesehan is the essential services coordinator for 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment "Wolfhounds," 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team "Warrior," 25th Infantry Division, currently attached to 3rd BCT, 4th Inf. Div., Multi-National Division - Baghdad. Swan is the deputy commanding general for the 4th Infantry Division and MND-B.


The Los Angeles Times reports:

The suicide rate among Army soldiers reached its highest level in three decades in 2008, military officials said Thursday in a report that pointed to the inadequacy of anti-suicide efforts undertaken in recent years.

At least 128 Army soldiers took their own lives last year -- an estimated suicide rate of 20.2 per 100,000, a sharp increase from the 2007 rate of 16.8.

Army Sees Sharp Rise In Suicide Rate

American military involvement in Vietnam largely ended in 1973. The article indicates later that the Army didn't start tracking suicide rates until 1978, so how this compares to the Vietnam era is likely a subject of conjecture. The military, the Army in particular, had a difficult time after the war, with high rates of drug abuse and other disciplinary issues. There seems little doubt what the cause is this time:

"Why do the numbers keep going up? We cannot tell you," Army Secretary Pete Geren said.

Army officials believe that contributing factors include emotional and psychological stress caused by repeated combat deployments, along with the toll that the tours have taken on marriages.

About a third of suicides occur during deployments abroad, a third after deployments and a third among soldiers who never deploy.

"We all come to the table believing stress is a factor," said Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the Army's vice chief of staff.

Army Sees Sharp Rise In Suicide Rate

Caution diagnosing such a phenomenon is wise, since it really is the result of a great many individuals making the decision to end their lives. Every decision has its own reasoning. Still, the high rates of deployments overseas to a combat zone probably have something to do with it, and the Army admits as much.

Beyond that, though, all I really can do is ask questions. What can be done to keep this situation from getting worse, besides ending the need for the deployments? I have to wonder if the recent appearance of dimwitted faith-based suicide prevention strategies have anything to do with this:

Here at the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), we get countless complaints about religiously based mental health and counseling programs, which, over the past few years, have been systematically replacing proven psychological and medical approaches to a multitude of issues faced by military personnel.
...
In March 2008, this presentation, titled "A New Approach To Suicide Prevention: Developing Purpose-Driven Airmen," was shown at a commander's call that was mandatory for an estimated 1,000 of Lakenheath's Air Force personnel, and sent out by email to the entire base of over 5,000 the following day. As the use of the phrase "Purpose-Driven" in its title implies, also incorporated into this presentation is the wisdom of presidential candidate inquisitor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, a book that, second only to the Bible itself, is the most heavily promoted religious book in the military.

Creationism: The Latest In Military Suicide Prevention

While the particular example that author Chris Rodda cited was an Air Force program, it's hard to imagine the Army is untouched by this movement. Army Secretary Geren, who was quoted in that report, has been associated in the past with a Christian evangelical organization called "Christian Embassy".

Another question would be, is there any difference in how suicides are being reported now? Back in April, I wrote about Sen. Patty Murray's (D-WA) efforts to get the Veterans Administration to come clean about the suicides they'd been noticing among their clients:

Senator Patty Murray, D-WA, said yesterday that she thinks the Veterans Administration is vastly understating the numbers of soldier suicides:

The Veterans Administration has lied about the number of veterans who have attempted suicide, Sen. Patty Murray said Wednesday, citing internal e-mails that put the number at 12,000 a year while the department was publicly saying it was fewer than 800.

VA Lying About Number Of Veteran Suicides, Senator Charges

VA Caught Witholding Information

It's at least possible that fallout from that scandal has caused the Defense Department to be more ready to count a deaths as suicides than it was before. If the Army had to adjust the way it counts suicides, then that might affect the number, as well. Based on this quote from the New York Times, though, that seems unlikely:

At a news briefing, the secretary of the Army, Pete Geren, said the Army wanted to bolster its efforts to prevent suicide and was prepared to allocate the resources, “human and financial,” to do so. The Army had stepped up its efforts in the last two years as the numbers had begun to climb.

But, Mr. Geren cautioned, there are no easy answers. “Is there a silver bullet out there?” he said. “I’m confident there isn’t.”

The Army said that in the last year it had hired more general practitioners, often the first health care providers to come into contact with soldiers in distress. It also hired 250 more providers of mental health care, and wants to hire an additional 50.

Suicides of Soldiers Reach High of Nearly 3 Decades

That would indicate a problem of long standing, not a statistical glitch.

Hopefully, with a new Presidential Administration that's friendlier to science, proper psychological procedures will replace religious nonsense, and the added mental health professionals may help deal with the added stress.

A Good Idea, Pending Implementation

Image credit: Ann Erickson for the U.S. Army. The caption for this photo reads:

Purple Heart recipients Staff Sgt. Cypress Phipps, Staff Sgt. Michael Henning and Spc. David Talbot sing the 'Dog Face Soldier Song' during their Purple Heart ceremony, Nov. 20 at Winn Army Community Hospital. Phipps, Henning and Talbot were assigned to a 3rd ID unit at the time of their injuries and are now assigned to the Warrior Transition Battalion.

One of my local newspapers, the Tacoma News Tribune, featured an article today on a visit by the Secretary of the Army to Ft. Lewis:

Secretary of the Army Pete Geren reached into the inside pocket of his sport coat and pulled out four blue notecards.

The palm-sized cards were filled with comments soldiers had made to him: praise of resources for injured and wounded soldiers, complaints about the slow-moving bureaucracy that determines if a soldier is medically fit for duty.

Such feedback doesn’t always make it back to the Pentagon, Geren admits. Listening to real-world concerns of soldiers is one reason he tours Army installations around the world, including a stop Tuesday at Fort Lewis.

“There are a lot of filters between individual soldiers and the office of the Secretary of the Army – or anybody at the Pentagon,” he said. “Every trip is a chance to hear first-hand from soldiers: How are we supporting them? Are they getting what they need?”

Army Boss Fears From Fort Lewis' Hurt Warriors

Geren was visiting the Warrior Transition Battalion there, which is a unit made up of soldiers who are recovering from wounds or post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). Warrior Transition Units were set up by the Army this year to help soldiers recover and return either to their regular duties or to civilian life:

The Army is ready to launch a new phase in caring for wounded warriors, the assistant surgeon general for warrior care and transition told Soldiers and Army Civilians during an Army Leader Forum at the Pentagon Tuesday.

Brig. Gen. Mike Tucker announced that the Comprehensive Care Plan is scheduled to begin March 1, and will focus on healing the whole person - body, mind, heart and spirit - and not just physical well-being.

The program will include educational, vocational and life-skills development, leadership and mentoring, relationship coaching and behavior-health treatment in addition to medical treatment and physical and occupational therapy.

...

"We want them to return to duty or return to be a citizen in society and be successful and be proud of their service," he said. "If we're not careful, we'll raise a generation, 10-15 years from now, that will be panhandling because they don't have any life skills.

"It's important that we give these kids life skills. They all want to be something in life, other than what they are right now. They have to aspire. We have to allow them to achieve all they can be and provide them the structure at a time in their lives when they need it the most."

Army to Launch New Program for Wounded Warriors

As I've noted before, treatment ideas, particularly for PTSD, have changed quite a bit since the Second World War. This program makes it the soldiers' duty to recover, and assigns specific tasks for them to do that are designed to accomplish that goal. Occupational therapy, I suppose you could call it, combined with other forms. Soldiers, at least in my experience, are people who want to feel like they're making a contribution to their group. In such units they will be around other people who are in similar circumstances, which can make it easier to empathize with and support each other. So this sort of unit seems to me like a good idea.

Unfortunately, good ideas encounter plenty of hurdles in the Defense Department. The TNT article continues:

Geren talked to five soldiers participating in a weekly woodworking course, which helps relieve stress brought on by post-traumatic stress disorder. Staff Sgt. Irma Proffitt, who’s been in a medical holding unit since 2006, showed off her wood carvings of bears.

She used her time with Geren to voice concern about the staffing levels of clinical providers – a doctor, a nurse practitioner or a physician’s assistant – assigned to the battalion.

“We need more for the WTB,” said Proffitt, who’s been in the Army for 23 years. “We’re a big battalion and we’re going to grow. We need more” primary care managers.

Geren listened and asked a few more questions. Once he moved into another room, he asked Maj. Gen. Patricia Horoho, the commanding general of Madigan Army Medical Center, about Proffitt’s complaints.

Horoho said four clinical providers were assigned to the 512 soldiers of the Warrior Transition Battalion, which is better than the 1-to-200 ratio goal.

“I think it’s just a misperception on her part,” Horoho said.

Army Boss Fears From Fort Lewis' Hurt Warriors

This is a disheartening exchange for several reasons. First, there's the rather obvious issue of getting a bureaucratic response to a statement of a problem - the unit needs to grow, but there isn't enough care being provided. The response, that they already have more than their allocation, ought to be enough to give a thoughtful person pause: Are there really enough resources being allocated? A ratio of 200 (potential) patients to 1 caregiver sounds like an awfully large one to me. Let's face it, anyone who is wounded or injured is a potential PTSD sufferer. Even if only the physical injuries are of concern, that's a lot of people to keep track of. Many of these soldiers are young men in their late teens or early twenties - not the most self-aware population when it comes to taking care of themselves.

This is how good ideas can be lost in a bureaucracy. The resources are allocated per our direction, bureaucrats will say, what's the problem? Any process, whether it's intelligence, science, engineering, or caregiving, requires constant review to see if it's being done as well as it can. Directives aren't commandments from some deity, they are created based on a perception of need and the resources available. Such perceptions can be, and often are, wrong.

I give the Army and Secretary Geren major props for implementing this idea. I just hope it's not lost in a fog of bureaucratic rationalization.

VA Caught Witholding Information

[Coffins coming back from Iraq in 2004. That's not the only cost of this war that the Administration doesn't want people reminded of, apparently. Image credit: The Guardian UK.]

Senator Patty Murray, D-WA, said yesterday that she thinks the Veterans Administration is vastly understating the numbers of soldier suicides:

The Veterans Administration has lied about the number of veterans who have attempted suicide, Sen. Patty Murray said Wednesday, citing internal e-mails that put the number at 12,000 a year while the department was publicly saying it was fewer than 800.

VA Lying About Number Of Veteran Suicides, Senator Charges

To which I can only add: gee, go figure.

It's not like this Administration has ever lied to us about anything else.

Still, a propensity doesn't prove a specific case, so let's look at the basis for Murray's assertion:

The e-mails, uncovered as part of a class-action lawsuit filed against the VA in San Francisco, was reported by CBS News on Monday.

"Our suicide-prevention coordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities," Katz wrote in a Feb. 13 e-mail to Ev Chasen, the department's communication director. "Is this something we should [carefully] address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on it?"

Chasen responded: "I think this is something we should discuss among ourselves, before issuing a press release. Is the fact we are stopping them good news, or is the sheer number bad news? And is this more than we have ever seen before?"

Murray: VA lied about vets' suicide attempts

Looks to me like being caught red-handed.

Numerous critics, including Sen. Murray, have been pointing out for some time that the VA is out of its depth when it comes to the mental health of veterans. Last year, CBS News conducted a study of suicide rates of veterans versus the general population. Their conclusions were that veteran suicide rates were at least twice the rate of the general U.S. population in 2004 and 2005. Their conclusion was the 6,250 veterans of various wars had killed themselves in 2005 alone. While some may quibble with some of the study's conclusions, it seems clear that veterans have special mental health needs that aren't being addressed adequately. Ilona Meagher of PTSD Combat points out this quote from an editorial in the Mankato (MN) Free Press:

Many veterans groups have favored the congressional proposals saying the number of veterans entering the VA health system from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan warrants the extra funding. In fact, Congress and the president in the most recent fiscal year boosted VA funding by an “emergency” $3.7 billion appropriation midway through the budget year after seeing tremendous increases in health care costs for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. That figure is close to the increase being proposed by Bush.

Editorial: Veterans funding or permanent tax cuts?

That's about three percent of the most recent "emergency appropriation" for Iraq requested by the Pentagon for the next few months of useless war.

If we spent a small fraction of the money we are spending on destroying Iraq to help these veterans, how much better off would they, and we, be? It's a question worth asking.

A Must Read For Brain Fans

Image credit: WriterHound at Wikipedia.

Oh, OK, I'm having trouble with titles today. Over at Firedoglake, Dr. Kirk Murphy provides a tutorial on brain trauma:

We all like to think we're special. And we are - we're all unique individuals. So we all believe our brains and even our assholes are special. On the individual level, our brains and assholes are indeed special - and disease that affects my brain (or my asshole) will affect me in a unique and special way. Yet as biological organisms, we humans are pretty similar to one one another. As a species, our brains appear to share the same stucture and function ...

Every politician - even Dan Quayle - has a brain. Senator McCain has a brain, too. And Senator McCain would take his brain along with the rest of him to the Oval Office were he to win election (or 5 votes from the Supremes).

McCain’s Brain - How’s It Doin?

Then he touches on something I've been wondering about, but hadn't mentioned for obvious reasons:

And - sadly - torture can also predispose victims to brain disease. The resulting impairments can take the form of psychiatric disease (especially PTSD), cognitive impairments, or both. The experience of being a POW has - in WWII POW's - also been shown to be associated with neuropsychiatric impairment (although the same study found the difference between POWs and non-POW's from the same combat theatre was realtively small).

McCain’s Brain - How’s It Doin?

I've written about PTSD a time or two, so I certainly had wondered whether there might be some PTSD in McCain's past. I'll just add, for emphasis, that if Kirk Murphy isn't qualified to give a diagnosis about this condition, then I certainly am not. It's possible that he functions at a high enough level that he could manage as President. I'll just say that this gives extra meaning to who ends up being McCain's running mate.

Click on the links and read. It's a fascinating article, dosed with a bit of humor.

Do They Know It's Christmas Time?

[Updated December 24]
[Updated December 23]


In case you don't recognize it, that's the title of a song from a charity event called Band Aid back in 1984. That's the cover of their twentieth anniversary single, by the way. Part of the first stanza is:

But say a prayer - pray for the other ones
At Christmas time, it's hard, but when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window
And it's a world of dreaded fear
Where the only water flowing is a bitter sting of tears
And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom

Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you

Do They Know It's Christmas Time Lyrics by Band Aid

Here are just a few things people less fortunate than we are doing this Christmas, and a little that you can do to help.

First, in Iraq, our soldiers are learning to cope with new rules for convoys. In the past, they were allowed to rule the road - warning Iraqis driving near them to get off the road, and even shooting at them on occasion. Now that the violence has ebbed there a bit, they have been issued new orders:

CAMP TAJI, Iraq — In the first month that they were in Iraq, someone threatened, shot at or tried to blow up the soldiers of the Kentucky National Guard's B Battery, 2nd Battalion, 138th Field Artillery 12 times. Last month, there were only three such incidents.

But confirmation that the roads have become safer came a few weeks ago when a flier went up in the 2-138's office at this base 20 miles north of Baghdad.

"Effective immediately," it read, "assume all civilian vehicles are friendly."

The order admonished soldiers throughout Iraq to yield to civilian drivers, allow vehicles to pass and avoid firing their weapons as they escorted convoys of concrete barriers, generators, water and food to U.S. military outposts.

U.S. convoys struggle to adjust to policy change

Now, both our soldiers and Iraqi drivers are having to sort out the new rules:

On the road, most civilian drivers still pulled over, darkened their lights and made room for the long stretches of U.S. military vehicles. Soldiers of the 2-138 followed orders and used their spotlights to urge them back onto the road.

"You have to change your whole mindset," said Little, a bank employee from Radcliff, Ky., who holds a degree in anthropology. "Makes you a little nervous."

U.S. convoys struggle to adjust to policy change

The Iraqis now have to decide if they want to share the road with people who were shooting at them a month ago. The soldiers have to worry that they're sharing the road with someone driving a car bomb. I don't envy either group.

Even though they're well equipped, there are many things our soldiers in Iraq don't have. One thing is a way to phone home. Working Asset's CREDO is accepting donations for calling cards for wounded veterans. They might not get the cards by Christmas if you order them now, but as someone once said, the spirit of giving shouldn't be confined to one day a year. See UPDATE

[MoveOn.org is still accepting donations for phone cards for the holidays.]

What about the soldiers who have come back from Iraq? As Joe Galloway wrote a couple of weeks ago, some of them might be sleeping on a steam grate:

Consider this:

* An average of 18 veterans commit suicide each and every day of the year, according to recent statistics from the Veterans Administration (VA). That’s 126 veterans who kill themselves every week. Or some 6,552 who take their own lives each year. Our veterans are killing themselves at twice the rate of other Americans.

* One quarter of the homeless people in America are military veterans. That’s one in every four. Is that ragged man huddled on the steam grate in a brutal winter wind a Vietnam vet? Did that younger man panhandling for pocket change on the street corner fight in Kandahar or Fallujah?

For the past four years, the Department of Veterans Affairs has been insisting that it’s doing everything it needs to for the nation’s veterans. That's simply not true, particularly when it comes to the VA's treatment of mental health issues.

The disgraceful treatment of our veterans

I've written about these issues before and so have numerous others, but this is something that these veterans live with every day. Galloway sums this situation up eloquently:

The same people who don’t blink at spending $3 billion a week on their war of choice in Iraq were the ones who cut the VA budget and privatized maintenance at Walter Reed Army Hospital and opposed every attempt to expand benefits for veterans old and young.

They're the same people who turned a blind eye as their corporate sponsors and private donors looted billions of dollars from the Treasury with no-compete contracts and bloated bills for everything from food for the troops to fuel for their tanks and trucks.

As a wave of wounded troops suffering brain injuries from the blasts of roadside bombs and landmines poured into military hospitals, these people, posing as fiscally responsible budget makers, were cutting in half the money spent on research into brain injuries.

These frauds who love to pose as wartime leaders sat back and did nothing as a cruel bureaucracy sent bill collectors out to harass double amputee veterans for thousands of dollars because they neglected to turn their armored vests and other gear in to the supply sergeant after they were blown apart on the battlefield.

The disgraceful treatment of our veterans

Of course, since Galloway wrote this, Congress has chucked another $70 billion into the black hole that is our campaign in Iraq, with no preconditions. To quote my favorite Air Force colonel at his most sarcastic, "Thanks for putting up a struggle, guys."

Meanwhile, the Iraqis have suffered in even greater numbers. The number of refugees, according to Juan Cole, has grown in just the past few months:

How the US 'surge' drove almost one million Iraqis to Syria last spring and summer is a great mystery, and casts severe doubt on its political success. A significant proportion of these one million Surge Victims appear to have been Baghdad Sunnis, since from January of 2007 through July 2007 the US military admits that Baghdad went from being 65% Shiite to being 75% Shiite. Since another 500,000 left between July and October, depending on what proportion of those were Sunnis, Baghdad could now be even more than 3/4s Shiite.

Surge Exiled One Million Iraqis to Syria where they Face Starvation

A U.N. report Prof. Cole cited on Iraqi refugees who have fled to Syria says that of the sample interviewed, 78% of them came from Baghdad. It also says that among the interviewees, 5% of the members of their households they reported on to the U.N. in 2003 are now missing or dead. Of those that are dead, 78% of them were murdered.

Unfortunately, I know of no charities set up to help Iraqi refugees. As I've explained before, the security situation in Iraq has made it almost impossible to help those still in the country. Giving to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) may help, but then again it may not.

Speaking of refugees, nothing's gotten any better for the Sudanese refugees. Talks, thanks to a lack of motivation on the part of the Sudanese government, a cease fire is looking very unlikely at this point:

18 December 2007 – A senior United Nations envoy has issued an appeal for all sides to the Darfur conflict to cease their hostilities on the eve of the deployment of a hybrid UN-African Union peacekeeping force (UNAMID) to try to quell the violence and suffering in the war-wracked region of western Sudan.

Rodolphe Adada, the AU-UN Joint Special Representative for Darfur and the head of mission of AMIS, the current AU mission to the region, launched the appeal yesterday after holding talks with a senior Sudanese Government official in Khartoum.

Mr. Adada said a cessation of hostilities would help create an environment conducive to the success of the peace process between the Government and the many rebel groups in Darfur, where they have been fighting since 2003.

Darfur: UN envoy calls for cessation of hostilities on eve of force deployment

The deployment of the U.N. peacekeeping force is being obstructed by them as well.

You can help, by ordering a Berkeley cookstove through The Hunger Site. Twenty dollars will buy a cookstove for a Sudanese refugee family. It won't get there by Christmas, of course, but, well, we covered that already.

If none of these charities appeal to you, The Hunger Site has a whole list of things you can give that you don't have to wrap and give to someone who doesn't want it. Have a look.

Meanwhile, as Band Aid said, be thankful you can give these people your time or money, and you're not the people who need the help.

Happy Holidays.

UPDATE: Knew I should have checked that link - the CREDO calling card program has been discontinued. According to the page I was redirected to, The VA administration let us know that they cannot accept any more cards at this time. Thanks to everyone that donated to make this project a success. I've removed that link. I'll try to find a replacement.

UPDATE 2: Added a link to UNICEF.

UPDATE 3 (Dec. 23): I need to read my e-mail more often. I received this from MoveOn.org the other day:

It's inspiring—in less than 24 hours, MoveOn members like you have given over $250,000 to help our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and around the world call home. Men and women who are separated from their families this holiday season will be a little closer thanks to your generosity.

They are still accepting donations for phone cards for the holidays. It's something that the soldiers over there will really appreciate.

UPDATE 4 (Dec. 23): I haven't found any good links for aid to veterans - there are plenty of them, but I don't know of any I could recommend personally. Veterans for Peace provides a resource page of organizations that are concerned with helping veterans adjust to civilian life, help them in their dealings with the government, and to help homeless veterans. There's plenty to investigate there.

Meanwhile, CREDO, who ran the phone card drive for veterans I mentioned earlier, wrote this in their blog recently:

They are lying in beds, two to three to a room. Many have no use of their limbs. One young man paralyzed from a combat injury in Iraq used a computer through a device attached to his forehead. Photos of his young son covered a wall next to his bed. Still, as a group of donors and staff from CREDO Mobile moved through the spinal-cord injury ward at the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, the military veterans were cheerful, polite and all smiles.

We were there to deliver calling cards to military veterans. Hundreds of other volunteers fanned out across the country in person (and other hospitals received cards by Federal Express) so veterans can call home and connect with their families over the holidays. Through its donation-based program, CREDO Mobile (www.credomobile.com) has partnered with Veterans For Peace to distribute long distance calling cards to military veterans at 150 VA hospitals nationwide. CREDO Mobile and Veterans For Peace have raised over $100,000 to distribute 30,000 cards this year, totaling 3.5 million minutes of talk time.

Veterans in California Appreciate the Support

We already covered that bit about charity not being a Christmas-only thing, right?

UPDATE 5 (Dec. 24): Just in time, Taylor Marsh found a charity that aids wounded veterans. It's Operation First Response. Presidential candidate Bill Richardson sent out an appeal on their behalf, so I think we can assume it's legit.

Wolcott On Bolton

James Wolcott splattered John Bolton with this coconut the other day, and if you don't find it hilariously funny then you're probably at the wrong blog.

And for even more comic hijinks, might I suggest taking a peak at the right wing's attempts to smear Larry Johnson and Patrick Lang as a pair of love bead-wearin' hippies. If you have a fetish for the sort of humor where people make fools of themselves, you'll love this one, too.

Meanwhile, my Memorial Day essay was a bit later than I'd have liked, so if you missed it please take a look.

A Way To Say Thank You

It's Memorial Day, when we're supposed to remember those who are no longer with us, particularly those who gave their lives in service to our country. But a wise man once told me that funerals aren't for the dead, they're for the living, and so it is with memorials as well. We build them to express our sorrow, our guilt at being alive when they no longer are, or just our wish to remember.

There are many veterans living today, far more than have died in our recent wars, I should think. They, too, need to be remembered. A story in my local paper discussed the experiences of a brigade sergeant major from Ft. Lewis in Iraq and after. It reminded me, as if it were possible to forget, that there are many veterans who returned home without parts of their bodies or with serious psychological problems. The latter, sadly, are all too often not addressed. As we've learned recently, veterans with more conventional injuries are not always treated well, either.

My father, like nearly thirteen million of his generation, enlisted in the U.S. military after World War II began. He became a pilot, learning to fly several heavy bombers, including the B-29. That's a flight of B-29s in the photo, flying past Mt. Fuji on their way to bomb Tokyo. Thankfully, my father's training didn't end before the war did, or he might have been in one of those planes.

What was it like for those who were on those planes? Typically, they'd get up early in the morning, or would wake up at a time most of us would still consider "night", to be briefed about the mission, after which they'd take off in planes loaded with as much fuel and explosives as they could carry. Here's a description of such takeoffs at one airbase on Saipan:

At Isley Field it was common on take off for the pilot of a fully loaded B-29 to hold the wheels to the runway until the final few hundred feet (the last two percent of the runway's length); hauling back at the last possible instant to lurch over the road along the cliff edge; then diving full throttle for the sea far below, gaining airspeed while retracting the wheels; and finally beginning the long takeoff climb as the belly of the plane virtually skimmed the water. More than one of the crews failed at this manoeuvre, especially at night.

B-29 Combat Mission Logs, 1945 of Wm. C. Atkinson, Radar Navigator

If they didn't manage to take off, they'd be hitting the water in an overloaded aircraft, with only a few small hatches from which to escape, if they were lucky enough to be conscious and uninjured after the impact.

Assuming they survived takeoff, they'd have a several hour flight over open ocean before trying to form up with the rest of the planes that would be taking part in the mission.

Sofu-Gan was the assembly point. Sofu-Gan is an item in the very damn middle of the Pacific and at the end of the vast Nanpo Shoto extending south from Tokyo bay. It is an item so small that it didn't appear in the radar until we were almost on top of it and even that never would have occurred if John hadn't had a small bit of luck on his last LoRaN fix. It is a mere finger of rock that sticks out of and breaks the surface of the sea like a stump in a swamp.

B-29 Combat Mission Logs, 1945 of Wm. C. Atkinson, Radar Navigator

Assuming they found whatever little point of land they were supposed to meet near, they would then have to hope that the rest of their group would be there to meet them. Often, that didn't go well:

The nearest B-29 must have been ten miles away. The formation was gone. The whole of Japan socked in like a cup of lousy coffee. After straightening out my muddled bombing problem [we] turned up Suruga Wan and [I] figured it would be just as easy to cross the bay with a long bomb run to Hamamatsu as to go to Motosu-ko and make a near 180 [degree turn]. We turned left and with a few course corrections were zeroed in on the yellow-green blob [on the radar] that was Hamamatsu. We passed Omae-zaka. Course 141 true.

There were, all of a sudden, ships all over hell and back. A lone wolf here, [a] three ship element there, some more single planes and a few larger groups that had managed to reassemble after making it into the clear. Some fellows were even creaming around below in the soup at the risk of an "egg" down the astrodome.

B-29 Combat Mission Logs, 1945 of Wm. C. Atkinson, Radar Navigator

Back then, bombers would fly together for mutual protection. To be alone on a mission was often fatal.

On their first mission, a night bombing raid, William Atkinson and his crew were caught by searchlights over their target, which meant that they drew much of the anti-aircraft fire in the area. Their plane was hit, and they may have only survived thanks to Iwo Jima having been captured by Marines a few weeks earlier.

In short, a typical heavy bombing mission was hours of boredom interrupted by moments of terror, when the animal inside a person's mind would realize that he's trapped in an aluminum tube miles above the earth, with nowhere to hide. If someone was wounded or the aircraft was damaged, the nearest help was hours away. Enough of that kind of stress could damage anyone's personality, I'd think.

Thanks to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or "combat fatigue" as it was then called, fliers who survived the war sometimes didn't do well in its aftermath. Taylor Marsh's uncle was one such man:

My uncle suffered from "battle fatigue." I'll never forget seeing him in the hospital with my mom when I was just a little girl. The once dandy of a man had shrunk to a shell of a human being. He flew bombing missions in WWII, my mom told me, with the never ending flights finally doing him in.

Even The Bravest Get PTSD

Or maybe it was just one horrible mission, who knows? One of the troubling aspects of PTSD is that its causes are still unclear. Some people get it, some don't. The only thing that is clear is that the more someone is exposed to such stress, the more likely it is that they will get PTSD. Contrary to what some believe, it's not just the sissies who get it. Here's a quote from the Seattle Times story about the brigade sergeant major:

At a dusty desert base in Kuwait, [Sergeant Major Thomas] Adams went from unit to unit, telling his fellow soldiers that he was not OK and would seek counseling when he returned. He urged others to do the same.

In the Army, where soldiers often mask the traumas of war, this was an unsettling confession from a leader who had unflinchingly tackled the grimmest of tasks -- even washing out the insides of armored Stryker vehicles bloodied by human remains.

Haunted by memories, a warrior seeks change

By sheer luck, my father didn't have to go through this. He was able to leave the army, go to college, and have a successful career in engineering. He was able to start a family. Would he have been able to do that if he'd been inducted a year earlier, and had to fly combat missions in the Pacific or Europe? Who can say? One thing's for sure, Taylor's uncle wasn't able to, because at the time we didn't understand even as much about PTSD as we do now.

There are many soldiers and marines coming back from Iraq with PTSD. Most are young, with most of their careers ahead of them. Think of the difference PTSD could have made in my father's life, multiplied by all the people who are suffering from PTSD coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. These people will be the engineers, lawyers, doctors, and leaders of tomorrow, if they can overcome what the war has done to them. The opportunity cost alone is almost incalculable, let alone the cost in human suffering.

To be a young soldier in a war is to learn the meaning of "choiceless". They are usually told what to do, where to go, and what not to do or where not to go. The consequences for not following those directions can be drastic. They are often even told when they can sleep and eat, in contradiction to what seems like the most basic human instincts. When they are sent to a war their only choices are to serve or face jail, or worse. That's their duty.

Our duty is to make sure that they aren't sent into a war for frivolous reasons, which as I've mentioned before, we have not done. The other part of our responsibility is to help the soldiers who are hurt in those wars as well as we are able. In that way we've also failed to do our duty.

I think the best way we can thank all these people for what they have done for us is to live up to our end of the bargain.

A good place to learn about how PTSD is being handled by the U.S. military is Ilona Meagher's PTSD Combat.

UPDATE: Added links to the Seattle Times story on Sgt. Maj. Adams, the lamentable opinions of Dr. Sally Satel, President Bush's "advisor" on PTSD, and a quote from the Seattle Times article.