But another news item of immense import surfaced today as well: the agreement by the Iraqi and American governments on a deadline for the withdrawal of most U.S. troops by 2011.

Now, aside from the groundbreaking nature of this agreement, I would like to suggest a possible impact on the presidential election.

Given that a large part of the campaign (aside from the economy) is centered around foreign policy (especially Iraq, Afghanistan and, more recently, Georgia), does this agreement not, in some respects, take the issue of when to bring the troops home off the table?

And, if so, does that not hurt Obama more than McCain? As it is, Obama has been able to hammer McCain on his judgment in sending troops to Iraq (while Obama opposed it in the first place) and his (out of context) comment about remaining in Iraq for a hundred years. By losing this as an issue, Obama loses one of his most effective talking points and the motivation for some of his supporters to work so diligently for the campaign.

Hopefully, I am overestimating the impact this agreement will have on the campaign, but it should be interesting to watch unfold.

For the conspiracy theorists out there: Does this also not smack of a President Bush playing politics with the war?

Just FYI.

Next up:

An item entitled “Watch ‘Charlie Rose – An hour with General David Petraeus’” I sent myself through Google Reader on 10 SEP 2007 at 8:18 AM. I think the title is self-explanatory. The reason I want to watch it — and still save it? Because I love me some Petraeus. Link still works. Delete.

Next is a really old e-mail (17 OCT 2007 at 3:25 PM) with a link to The Blakes’ (a band) Myspace page. I’m deleting without looking further. Can’t remember why I saved it. If anyone knows if they’re any good, let me know and I’ll look into ‘em this time around.

22 OCT 2007 at 11:12 AM: Another Google Reader e-mail with a link to the Mother Jones’ issue focusing on leaving Iraq. The e-mail itself contains an interview with T.X. Hammes that was posted on the Kings of War blog, written by various faculty and research students of the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. The link still works.

Okay, I’m going to stop here again for a while. Maybe I’ll aim for getting rid of three old e-mails per post.

Does anyone else find random stuff on the Web, e-mail it to themselves and then let it sit there lingering forever?

Saturday night, Tim Mahoney and [Speaker of the House Tom Craddick crony] Harrison Keller qualified for a runoff election in the race for Austin Community College Board of Trustees, with the former getting 48.5% of the vote and the latter taking 33%. Today, Keller decided to withdraw . . .

His explanation?

I have learned that the cost of the upcoming runoff for Place 1 on the Austin Community College Board of Trustees could cost the college up to $400,000. Given that I joined this race to expand educational opportunities for our community and to make sure that taxpayers’ money is spent as efficiently and effectively as possible, I think this money would be better spent on ACC’s educational programs.

And:

. . . I have decided to withdraw from the runoff election and to donate the balance of my campaign funds to the Austin Community College Foundation.

For a Republican crony who stands by the side of wannabe-emperor Tom Craddick, that’s a pretty upstanding thing to do — acting on your principles. If only we could convince Hillary to do the same. [Chronic]

Lt. Col. Edith A Disler, an associate professor of English and deputy head of the Department of English at the Air Force Academy, argues that the Air Force is attempting to reassert its masculinity through language.

Essentially, she argues that two prominent, rather recent linguistic changes or additions have intentionally excluded women serving in the Air Force.

After deeming the Air Force a support service (rather than a mainly combat service; which I would argue is correct in our current conflicts aside from the Close Air Support they provide allied ground troops), she writes:

Women have long and proudly served in almost any support function one can name — the types of functions dominant in the Air Force today. In the face of this reality, its feminine implications, and leadership’s sense that “Congress doesn’t see what the Air Force is bringing to the fight,” inhabitants of the E-ring have engaged a stealthy and powerful weapon of choice — language — to consciously instantiate reification of the male elite. Such language cloaks women in the Air Force as assuredly as our enemies and potential enemies cloak their women in conservative Islamic dress. Sadly, the use of the term “wingman” is just the start.

I’m not certain that it’s a conscious decision on the part of the Air Force leadership to exclude women through the use of language. I do think they should have taken into consideration the diversity of the force, though. There’s no excuse for the Air Force leadership to have missed the implications of such uses of language. But I don’t think it was malicious.

She does make a good point when she says this, though:

Were you to attempt to attract my attention by calling out, “Hey there, airman,” I would assume that a young enlisted member was nearby and I would neither lift my head nor break my stride. Further, as a lieutenant colonel, I consider myself an airman neither by rank nor by sex.

I don’t want to quote too much more because I want those of you who, like me, enjoy the study of language to read the article yourselves, but I did want to add this:

Lt. Col. Disler recounts watching a video that encouraged airmen to turn in other airmen they witnessed perpetrating a rape:

The video implores its viewers to “take care of your wingman.” Apparently the leadership didn’t know that they’d perpetrated a double entendre of the grandest proportion. In the parlance of today’s 20-somethings, a man who knows that another male is a sexual predator and facilitates that predatory nature is known as a “wingman.” Enter the term into your search engine of choice and you will learn that a “wingman” is a man who occupies the attentions of less attractive women so that his “pilot” can target, as it were, the attractive ones. In the Air Force video, the airman rapist, a man, is known by a friend, a man, to be a sexual predator — the enabler is thus the “wingman” of popular American culture.

. . .

At best, the leadership is out of touch with the societal surround of the demographic at which the film was targeted: 19-25 year olds. At worst, the leadership has created a nefarious subtext. Overtly, the leadership is sending a message of teamwork; covertly, however, the Air Force video invokes a term — “wingman” — peculiar to the overwhelmingly male-dominated fighter aircraft community, thereby reinforcing predatory “work hard, play hard” behaviors consistent with the “flyboy” myth of the fighter pilot. In lieu of the term “wingman,” the leadership could easily have invoked a plethora of more widely known, or at least non-gendered, terms that denote teamwork and mutual concern. Instead, the leadership chose a term from the Air Force community statistically least populated by women, nepotistically retaining delusions of self-made grandeur in hopes of fending off threats to the service’s masculinity.

I agree, I agree. I do think the Air Force leadership is out of touch with the civilian world, and especially the age group she mentions — just like the civilian world is almost completely out of touch with the military subculture. I also think that this argument (that the Air Force used a loaded word in the video that will/would likely result in ridicule rather than instruction) is stronger than her first (that the Air Force is consciously making malicious decisions in their use of language).

I will agree that, on some level, these are conscious decisions, especially in the case of the rape video. “Wingman” is probably used more by civilian college-age males than Air Force personnel (given that pilots are a fairly small percentage of the force). However, again, I don’t believe it is malicious.

And I love her closing:

Words create our worlds — hostile worlds, gentle worlds, artistic worlds and militaristic worlds. The words “duty, honor, country,” “integrity, service, excellence,” “selflessness,” and “sacrifice” invoke worlds that demand devotion enough, without ranking maleness above femaleness or killing above reluctance to kill.

Read the whole thing and let me know what you think.

1. If the enemy is in range, so are you.
2. Incoming fire has the right of way.
3. Don’t look conspicuous, it draws fire.
4. There is always a way, and it usually doesn’t work.
5. The problem with the easy way out is that it has already been mined.
6. Try to look unimportant, they may be low on ammo.
7. Professionals are predictable; it’s the amateurs that are dangerous.
8. The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions:
9. When you’re ready for them.
10. When you’re not ready for them.
11. Teamwork is essential; it gives them someone else to shoot at.
12. If you can’t remember, then the claymore IS pointed at you.
13. The enemy diversion you have been ignoring will be the main attack.
14. A “sucking chest wound” is nature’s way of telling you to slow down.
15. If your attack is going well, then it’s an ambush.
16. Never draw fire, it irritates everyone around you.
17. Anything you do can get you shot, including nothing.
18. If you build yourself a bunker that’s tough for the enemy to get into quickly, then you won’t be able to get out of it quickly either.
19. Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself.
20. If you’re short of everything but the enemy, you’re in a combat zone.
21. When you’ve secured the area, don’t forget to tell the enemy.
22. Never forget that your weapon is made by the lowest bidder.
23. Friendly fire isn’t.
24. If the sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.
25. Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when you can sleep.
26. The most dangerous thing in the world is a second lieutenant with a map and a compass.
27. There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.
28. A grenade with a seven second fuse will always burn down in four seconds.
29. Remember, a retreating enemy is probably just falling back and regrouping.
30. If at first you don’t succeed, call in an air-strike.
31. Exceptions prove the rule, and destroy the battle plan.
32. Everything always works in your HQ, everything always fails in the colonel’s HQ.
33. The enemy never watches until you make a mistake.
34. One enemy soldier is never enough, but two is entirely too many.
35. A clean (and dry) set of BDUs is a magnet for mud and rain.
36. Whenever you have plenty of ammo, you never miss. Whenever you are low on ammo, you can’t hit the broad side of a barn.
37. The more a weapon costs, the farther you will have to send it away to be repaired.
38. Field experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
39. Interchangeable parts aren’t.
40. No matter which way you have to march, its always uphill.
41. If enough data is collected, a board of inquiry can prove ANYTHING.
42. For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism (in boot camp).
43. The one item you need is always in short supply.
44. The worse the weather, the more you are required to be out in it.
45. The complexity of a weapon is inversely proportional to the IQ of the weapon’s operator.
46. Airstrikes always overshoot the target, artillery always falls short.
47. When reviewing the radio frequencies that you just wrote down, the most important ones are always illegible.
48. Those who hesitate under fire usually do not end up KIA or WIA.
49. The tough part about being an officer is that the troops don’t know what they want, but they know for certain what they DON’T want.
50. To steal information from a person is called plagiarism. To steal information from the enemy is called gathering intelligence.
51. The weapon that usually jams when you need it the most is the M60.
52. The perfect officer for the job will transfer in the day after that billet is filled by someone else.
53. When you have sufficient supplies and ammo, the enemy takes two weeks to attack. When you are low on supplies and ammo the enemy decides to attack that night.
54. The newest and least experienced soldier will usually win the Congressional Medal Of Honor.
55. A Purple Heart just goes to prove that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it, and lucky enough to survive.
56. Murphy was a grunt

[The Sandbox]

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the four-star general who led troops in Iraq for the past year, will be nominated by President Bush to be the next commander of U.S. Central Command, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

Gates said he expected Petraeus to make the shift in late summer or early fall. The Pentagon chief also announced that Bush will nominate Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno to replace Petraeus in Baghdad.

Central Command oversees the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

. . .

At a hastily arranged Pentagon news conference, Gates said the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other problems in the Central Command area of responsibility, demand knowledge of how to fight counterinsurgencies as well as other unconventional conflicts.

“I don’t know anybody in the U.S. military better qualified to lead that effort,” he said, referring to Petraeus.

Asked if moving Petraeus from the Iraq command could interrupt momentum against the insurgency, Gates said that by waiting until late summer or early fall he hoped to “ensure plenty of time to prepare for a good handoff.” He said it also would help that Odierno has had experience as “Petraeus’ right-hand man” over the last year.

If confirmed by the Senate, Petraeus would replace Navy Adm. William Fallon, who abruptly stepped down in March after a magazine reported that he was at odds with President Bush over Iran policy. Fallon said the report, while not true, had become a distraction.

[Emphasis Mine]

A truer statement than Secretary Gates’ I could not make.

Some of my favorite COIN bloggers, though, disagree with Gen. Petraeus’ appointment — and its possible after-effects.

[Danger Room]

In another story, retold recently in Youngstown, Ohio, she describes a “young woman who lost her husband in Iraq, a lovely young woman who had a daughter.”

“Here’s what happened to her,” Clinton said. “She was given $6,000. She was told to leave the [military] base within 90 days. She was told her daughter was no longer eligible for Army medical care. She was basically on her own. So I said, ‘That’s not right.’ So we began to work to change what was really cruel — you lose your husband, you lose your wife, you lose your mom or your dad, and you’re out, and nobody seemed to care.”

Nice story. Too bad it’s false.

In a 22 March 2008 story in The New York Times, death benefits given to military families are outlined:

Three years ago, advocates for military families succeeded in winning a significant expansion in survivor benefits, which include life insurance, a death gratuity, medical care and housing and education assistance.

. . .

In 2005, the so-called death gratuity — the sum given to survivors for an active-duty death — jumped to $100,000 from $12,420, and the military’s group life insurance maximum rose to $400,000 from $250,000. Both are retroactive to October 2001, covering the nearly 4,500 service members who have been killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since.

There are myriad other survivor benefits, too, many determined by specific circumstances. Joyce Wessel Raezer, chief operating officer of the National Military Family Association, said that a hypothetical widow of an Army corporal based at Fort Drum, in upstate New York, with three years of service and two young children would likely receive payments totaling $5,335 a month for the first year. In addition, a spouse would get free medical care for three years — the children into adulthood — and all would receive education assistance.

Through private companies, the Department of Veterans Affairs provides insurance beneficiaries the service of a professional financial planner for a year, but a spokesman said that only one in 10 families uses it.

So, let’s see, Clinton said that:

1. The wife was given $6,000. Huh? Any other time I would assume that was the basic death gratuity to cover funeral expenses, but that was over $12,000 before being increased to $100,000 three years ago. So, false.
2. The wife was given 90 days to move off-base. Probably correct — for obvious reasons.
3. She said the daughter was no longer eligible for military health care. Completely and utterly false. Not only is her daughter eligible for military health care until she’s an adult, but the wife continues to receive it for three more years.

So she’s either out-right lying or just doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about — which she should because I’m certain the increase in death benefits had to be approved by the Senate.

This is what we want in a president?

Duck and cover! It’s a sniper!

UPDATE: Hillary’s campaign site notes that:

She cosponsored the Military Death Benefit Improvement Act to raise the military survivor benefit from $12,000 to $100,000.

So that’s something.

By law, most skin mags can’t be sold in military stores. Playboy and Penthouse aren’t deemed scandalous enough to fall under those regulations, though.

When I was in Air Force technical school, you could have porn in your room as long as it didn’t involve penetration. The service wanted to save penetration for itself. “If anyone’s going to get fucked up the ass, it’s going to be you, airman, with this 24-foot Air Force cock.”

What kind of wacko group — okay, we know what kind, Donald Wildmon’s — would want to keep porn mags from highly armed, young, over-testosteroned soldiers faced with a dearth of real, live females (what’s the ratio of males to females in the military, anyone? Bueller?)?

You’re old enough to kill, son, but don’t touch yourself. You’ll go blind.

A commenter on the story over at Military.com summed it up nicely:

Pornography is one of the things that seperate us from the Islamofacists and Sharia law.

Porno is Patriotic

Damn unpatriotic, troop-hating Christian fanatics.