Salon.com > Christopher M. Matthews

Army says deployments not linked to suicides

Thu, 05 Mar 2009 22:40:00 +0000

The Army released frightening new suicide statistics Thursday, but suggested the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have little to do with this alarming trend.

In fact, the vice chief of staff of the Army said that after reviewing suicide statistics for 2008, multiple combat deployments actually make soldiers less likely to commit suicide.

"The rational person might think the more deployments, the more likely you are to commit suicide, but we saw exactly the opposite," said Gen. Peter Chiarelli. "A certain resiliency seems to grow in an individual who has multiple deployments."

Chiarelli and other Army officials released the February statistics on a conference call with online journalists Thursday. Last month, the number of Army suicides nearly equaled that of soldiers killed in combat. Among active-duty, National Guard, and Reserve soldiers, there were 18 unconfirmed suicides and 20 combat-related deaths in February.

"This is not business as usual," Chiarelli said.

While that may be the case, Army suicides are becoming more and more frequent. In January, 24 soldiers killed themselves, more than died in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. At least 138 soldiers took their own lives in 2008, up from 115 in 2007.

Not your average tea party

Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:10:00 +0000

WASHINGTON -- How times change. For the past eight years, Lafayette Square, directly in front of the White House, was littered with liberal protesters. But with a Democrat in office, it’s the Republicans' turn now.

Roughly one hundred protesters gathered there Friday afternoon to launch their own conservative revolution with a modern-day Boston Tea Party.

"We have to do what the blacks did in the civil rights movement," said Randy Michaux, a protester from Virginia. "What we need is something like the Million Man March."

Judging by the crowd on Friday, that's a long way off. And as Michaux himself observed, "Small groups like this don't mean nothing,"

The idea for this protest came about after CNBC's Rick Santelli called for a new tea party during a rant on the floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange. Conservative groups took up the call and now protests like this have been popping up across the country; this one was organized by some of those groups, along with the American Spectator.

Though the event's planners described the tea party as a non-partisan event, the crowd appeared to be largely Republican, a mix of pin-stripe suit types in town for the Conservative Political Action Conference and people who'd come in for the day Maryland and Virginia. But while the protesters' dress codes may have differed, they were at least united by their hatred of government intervention.

GOP: “The devil is in the details”

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Gathered in Statuary Hall, just outside the House chamber, to chat up their hometown reporters, Republican lawmakers hailed Obama’s calls for fiscal responsibility in his congressional address tonight, but attacked the president for speaking in generalities.

“There weren’t a lot of details,” said Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas. “It was just a recitation of the problems we all know we have.”

The Republican critique is a tried and true opposition reaction to the State of the Union: praise the president for promising reform, but attack him for not offering specific solutions. And it wasn't surprising -- it was a difficult night for the GOP. Obama did not give the Republicans much ammunition, and they were acutely aware of the night’s historic significance. So as they've been doing frequently lately, they tried to find something Obama said that they could claim as their own.

“Tonight all Americans were proud eyewitnesses to history as an African-American president addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the GOP's Senate leader, and therefore one of Obama's chief antagonists.

Perle: It’s bound to work this time

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:15:00 +0000

WASHINGTON -- Richard Perle, a key neoconservative proponent of the Iraq war, offered a strategy Thursday for dealing with Iran that sounded eerily similar to the neocons' Iraq plans -- use military action to remove the oppressive government, then let freedom reign.

"Preemptive war has always struck me as a common sense position," Perle said. "Of course, you could get it wrong."

Facing a hostile crowd at a conference hosted by the National Interest, Perle's positions sounded like a neocon greatest hits album.

One of the conference's attendees, Richard Burt, the U.S.' chief negotiator in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Soviet Union, questioned Perle's approach. "Is regime change really a realistic option?" Burt asked. "The Iranians have a strong national identity, millions of them fought to the death against Iraq."

While Perle didn't go so far as to suggest a military invasion, he advocated covert operations on Iranian soil, working with internal opposition groups within Iran and increasing economic pressure on the Islamic regime, all in the hopes of forcing a regime change. He also dismissed the possibility of defusing Iran's nuclear intentions through diplomatic means.

On stimulus, Dems ready to go it alone

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:25:00 +0000

WASHINGTON -- At a press conference Thursday, Senate Democrats tried to show that they’d had just about enough of the game of political chicken going on over the stimulus package. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), for one, seemed ready to leave the GOP behind. “The idea the president had of 80 votes is a distant memory,” Schumer said. “We would rather pass a bill with good ideas at 65 votes. It takes two to tango and the Republicans aren’t dancing.”

Still, Schumer seemed to acknowledge that the GOP has made some headway painting themselves as old-school fiscal conservatives by picking away at provisions in the stimulus package for preventing sexually transmitted diseases and non-smoking programs. But he dismissed any concerns over the strategy, saying, “People don’t care about these little items. I think the Republicans are looking for an excuse not to vote for the bill.”

Also at the press conference was Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who said he hoped to hold a vote on the stimulus package Thursday, and told reporters that Senate Democrats are prepared to pass the legislation with or without significant Republican support. The GOP, he insisted, “can not hold the president of the United States hostage.”

Hoyer: Obama unlikely to investigate torture

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:45:00 +0000

WASHINGTON -- The second-highest-ranking Democrat in the House signaled to Salon Thursday that he thinks President Obama is unlikely to order an investigation of torture during the Bush administration.

"I think looking at what has been done is necessary," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said during a press conference, in response to a question from Salon. "That does not mean I think the Obama administration has the intent to revisit all of these issues. I think he's more intent on what should be done and on moving forward on what we're going to have as a practice for our country."

Experts in international law have heatedly debated whether the new administration should, or legally must, investigate torture allegations for possible prosecution. Obama advisors previously floated the idea of a commission with subpoena power and at least a fact-finding mandate to explore torture. But Hoyer suggested Thursday that the Obama White House might not have the stomach for any retrospective review.

Earlier in the day, President Obama signed a series of executive orders concerning detainees. One establishes a taskforce, co-chaired by the defense secretary and attorney general, charged with evaluating detainee policy. A fact sheet sent out by the White House clarifies that the review would only include policy "going forward."