Wednesday, March 10, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces deaths, counting ballots continues in Iraq, Iraqi widows face huge problems, the US Congress hears about issues facing the children of parents deployed in foreign countries, and more. Starting with yesterday evening's US House Armed Services subcommittee hearing. The Military Personnel Subcommittee held a hearing chaired by US House Rep Susan Davis on the issue of military children. At the start of the hearing, Chair Davis explained, "Given the limited legislative calendar available to the committee, today we are embarking on a different hearing structure. This hearing will focus on a specific topic: the effects of deployment on military children and will only last approximately one hour, prior to our votes at six-thirty [p.m.]." It is an important topic. Hopefully, the topic will be addressed again in the future and, if so, we can see some real independence in the witnesses. We need to see clinical social workers, we need to see child psychiatrists and pscyhologists and family practioners and more testifying. If the children are our focus. If it's not just, "This is how we make the military brass happy." Which is a lot of what we heard: How to make the military brass happy. I want to stress before we go further that if you are the mother or father raising the child (or children) while you're spouse is away (or the grandparent or legal guardian raising the child), you know best what to do. You are with the child. If there's a problem, you know that and you know you need to address it and seek out help available. But some of the stuff that follows, I want to be very clear, you do not need to be guilted into anything. Your primary concern is the child. Two witnesses appeared before the subcommittee: Anita Chandra (RAND Corporation) and Leonard Wong (US Army War College). Ranking Member Joe Wilson's opening remarks included, "Finally, I would like to know how else we could help these incredible children who have to be strong beyond their years while their parent is away." Wong presented that his study found children ages eleven through teens spoke of less stress when a parent deployed if the parent had already been on at least two other deployments. Chair Susan Davis: Let me just start with you, Dr. Wong, because I found that interesting in terms of the adolescents and one of things I wondered about is you are able to separate those young people who were living in a more confined military base versus those who were living in the public domain essentially -- attending public school versus a military, on-base school? What differences did you see? Leonard Wong: That's a good question and we did ask both of those. We asked, "Did you live on base?" -- versus off post. And we also asked, "Did you go to a DoD school or a public school?" What we discovered is that there's really only in this age group -- age eleven to seventeen -- there are only two DoD high schools anyway. So that question sort of went away. So as far as the on-post, off-post, we did not find a difference. Why is that? It could be because some place like Fort Carson where off post there is a huge variance in what off-post experience is. There are some that are far away and they're very civilianized, but there are some that are very close and they're very military. What we think we heard from the anecdotal evidence we picked up in the interviews was how much the family participated in the post activities as opposed to where they lived was a bigger factor. Chair Susan Davis: Mm-hmm. And so if they participated heavily in post advitivites, there was a higher level -- Leonard Wong: Exactly. As opposed to -- and then when they lived off post, they took the time to take advantage of activities. Chair Susan Davis: Alright. Yeah. Leonard Wong: Interestingly during deployment, you reduce the persons available to drive-to activities by 50%. Chair Susan Davis: Mm-hmm. Dr. Chandra -- and I think, Dr. Wong, you can weigh in on this as well -- while there were certainly differences in your studies, one of the things that was similar is that if the non-deployed parent, the extant or the well being of that parent particularly or provider as it relates to their own mental health. Was their anything particular that you found that was quite supportive of that non-deployed parent? That, you know, jumped out a little bit, that was more unusual, whether or not they actually accessed services, family support centers, etc. Did you learn anything about what kind of programs perhaps that that non-deployed parent took advantage of? Anita Chandra: For this study, we didn't look at the services that non-deployed care givers access. We are looking at that issue in follow up analysis. But certainly, we had a very strong relationship between the care giver's mental health and their ability to cope as well as the ability for their children to handle some of the deployment stressors. Leonard Wong: For our study, we did ask the spouse how they handled deployments and that was a very significant factor. From the interviews, what we discovered was that the -- a key factor in the spouse's dealing with deployment is the family readiness group and-and that is a strong factor and you could almost tell in the children how active the parents were and the children saw that as -- as a nondeployed spouses role during the deployment. Chair Susan Davis: Mm-hmm. Were there any particular gaps that you picked up in speaking with them? Something that would have been helpful? One of the things actually that I picked up over a number of contacts with military families is the lack of tutoring assistance. That the non-deployed parent has sort of lost that extension in terms of helping out with school. And they said, "If we only had more ability to access tutors or get some help because I," as one of the parents would say, "I can't -- I've got three kids, I can't help them all at one time." Leonard Wong: We didn't pick up anything like that. What we heard was a lot of spouses just want someone to listen to and chat with and talk about things, to feel like they're not alone. As far as specific tutoring programs? We didn't pick up that. Anita Chandra: For this part of the study we focused specifically on the types of challenges that children are facing during and after deployment. So what we found is that there were things that they endorsed as highly difficult -- both from the care giver perspective as well as children. And these were things like missing school activities, finding out that people in the community really didn't understand what life was like for them. So they definitely articulated some of those things that you're referencing as more common challenges -- particularly during the deployment. Chair Susan Davis: Mm-hmm. What do you think should be done to assist military families? Anita Chandra: Well I think our studies -- both of our studies -- really point to the needs of older youth and as we reference in our work there's certainly been a lot more attention on younger children -- younger than 12. For which we know that there are a lot of child development and support programs on base and off. So what we hope from this work is that it starts to identify some of the needs of older youth and teenagers so that we can look at the programs that we currently have and try and figure out, "Are we alinging our programs with those needs? Particularly of adolescents and, particularly, those oler adolescents. Leonard Wong: What our study showed was also a similar focus but what I liked about our study was the surprising findings that there are some obvious, easy things like sports activities. The kids need to be busy to keep them distracted. Strong families. Oh that's a hard one. And yet it's very intutitive to all of us that you need a strong family. That starts long before deployment and it starts maybe even before the soldier comes into the army. But how do you influence -- because we found that the factors of the child's beliefs -- what they feel about the army, what they feel about the nation makes a difference. And they'll see through propaganda. So how do you influence a child's beliefs? We'll cut him off there. How do you influence a child's belief? You don't. Their parents or care givers can. We jumped in on that and I want to stress, if you're the parent raising the child while your spouse is deployed, you do what works for you. Not what some expert tells you. Don't be guilted into doing anything. If participating in base activities is your thing, that's great and participate. But you may have any number of reasons for not participating. Including work but I'm thinking of a base where there's a high ranking male that a number of wives see as a predator. The easiest way to deal with it -- while their husbands were deployed -- was to avoid the base. If that's you, avoid the base. You're doing what you need to do to take care of yourself and your children. No one knows better how to do that than you because you're the one, hands on, there every day. Also remember that Susan Davis called them "doctors." I did not. I will call a medical doctor a "doctor" and I will call a psychologist a "doctor." I do not call a behavioral scientist with a PhD a doctor. And behavioral scientists working for certain outlets are not doing research on children for children, they're doing it to make the larger wheel -- in this case, the military -- run smoother. In other words, your child -- whether you're a mother or a father -- is your primary concern. That is not always the case with behavioral scientists working for the military. And let's go back to "distraction." Wong said "distraction." I raised kids via distraction. I'm all for distraction. I distract them from this with that. But he said sports were a good distraction and that's a red flag for many parents because their children don't participate in sports and they're left with: Can this apply to me? Or else with, "I've got to force the kid to play sports." Wong explained later that he also looked at whether they were in band and/or drama club and boys and girls clubs like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Really? When I was studying piano (and I studied from before I entered school through college), I practiced an average of three hours a day. If I had been a child in their study, I wouldn't have qualified for 'sports." (I would have for other activites but sports weren't that big for women in my childhood days.) I question any study that leaves out something like piano or guitar or any individual instrument (music is so much more helpful -- in terms of mathematics and other skills than many of the things Wong's study included). There are many other activities not included in Wong's study -- that includes drawing and painting. The study is a bunch of the usual macho b.s. you'd expect from the Army War College. In response to US House Rep Vic Snyder's question about the number of children being talked about, Anita Chandra said it was "1.8 to 2 million children." That's a large number of children. Dr. Snyder (we can call him that, he is one) also emphasized that Wong's study was reduced to only those who are active duty and not to the reserve. Why was that done? "To keep the survey short enough for an eleven-year-old to fill it out," Wong replied. (The children were simplified by Wong's study, as was the survey.) Snyder noted that base activities really wouldn't apply to the reserve children. US House Rep Vic Snyder: I want to ask about special-needs kids. Did either of your studies look at special-needs kids and how this might impact on them? Because that's a problem that we have in the military even when everybody's home. Anita Chandra: Unfortunately we didn't include questions about this in this study but we are hoping to include this in follow up work because I think the Exceptional Family Member Program and other services that are available to special-needs families are an important consideration. Leonard Wong: Our study did not address special-needs specifically but during the interview portion of our study we did have special-needs children arriving for interviews and we took their comments -- US House Rep Vic Snyder: Their thoughts? Leonard Wong: -- into consideration US House Rep Vic Snyder: I think, Ms. Davis has heard me talk about this before but -- I don't know, three or four years ago? -- at the LIttle Rock Airforce Base, I had them arrange a meeting with family members of kids with autism. And they had to work at it a little bit because of medical privacy -- so they extended that, we finally ended up with a group -- I can't remember, maybe six to eight parent families were represented there and the most striking thing about it was that they didn't know each other. That it was like, you know, a God's send for them that they finally had other parents on the base -- the Little Rock Air Force Base is supposedly a small base -- but it was their first opportunity to -- we've gotten so protective of people's privacy that there wasn't ability to get people together. So I actually recommended -- I'm told that this has been done by some bases around the country -- that once every so often that the base commander needs to have kind of like Special-Needs Parents Day and get everybody in there for coffee at eight o'clock in the morning and then, at eight-thirty, say, you know, "That's autism corner, that's asthma corner, that's diabetes corner," -- however you want to do it but just to get people -- instruct parents and get parents going because I think this must be a tremendous deployment -- a tremendous potential burden on those families that really have difficulties anyway with a child with either some emotional or physical health issues. And those were very good points that Snyder raised. The study Wong discussed appeared to especially be geared towards what was easiest -- easiest to count (which is why reserve children were not included), easiest to stereotype, easiest to ask, easy, easy, easy. Yesterday the US military announced: "CONTINGENCY OPERATING STATION KALSU, Iraq – Two U.S. Soldiers died yesterday of non-combat related injuries resulting from a vehicle accident. Two other Soldiers were injured in the same accident that is currently being investigated. The names of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense.The names of service members are announced through the U.S. Department of Defense official website at http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/. The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kin.The incident is under investigation." The announcement brings ICCC's count of the number of US service members killed in the Iraq War to 4382. Last night, Mike observed, "And you realize that if all US troops had been pulled out of Iraq, those two would be alive, right? So those are the first two for this month. And two more reasons why the Iraq War needs to end now. Two more reasons why you need to participate in the March 20th demonstrations calling for an end to the wars." A wide range of groups will be participating and we'll have more on that later in the snapshot. But meanwhile families in Iraq also suffer. In February of last year, Timothy Williams (New York Times) reported on Iraqi widows and noted that the was an "estimated 740,000 widows" in the country. Michael Gisick (Stars and Stripes) reports today that the Iraqi government estimates the number of widows in Iraq to be 900,000 and Gisick notes, "Government assistance programs, which pay widows as little as $50 a month plus $13 per child, depending upon the husbands' jobs, are plagued by corruption and waiting lists that can stretch for years, aid officials and some in the government say." Shata al-Qaysi states, "Right now, the government is just sitting quietly and doing nothing to help. So if a widow is lucky, she will get some help from her family or a charity, which happens to about one in 1,000. The other options are she can be a beggar, she can sell plastic bags, she can be a servant or she can be a prostitute." And how is that any different from 2006? In July of 2006, Joshua Partlow (Washington Post) was reporting on the problems and quoting the Labor and Social Affairs Ministry's Isma Talib Mohammed stating, "The money is not sufficient. The time is not sufficient. Our lives are not sufficient at this point. Many women cannot even come here to ask for money because the security situation does not allow it." As Partlow noted, there was also a problem with corruption. (Check his figures, over $300 million to distribute that year for programs with 500,000 enrolled? Every Iraqi on public assistance could have been a millionaire.) As Mike Sergeant (BBC News) noted last year, widows have to result to begging and the US equivalent of one dollar a day that were supposed to receive isn't received for most ("a survey by the charity Oxfam has discovered that less than a quarter actually get the money"). Last October, Aadel Rashid (ABC News) noted the Parliament's Women and Child Committee head, Samira al-Musawi, put the number of widows at over one million -- this was the same person responsible for 'pimp the widows' -- the program that may provide them with an initial payment (or not) for remarrying but it does take them off the government assistance payroll -- which may be the whole point of the government pressuring them to remarry. Six months ago, quoting Muslim Aid Acting CEO, Hamid Azad, OXFAM stated Iraq had "5 million orphans and 2 milliion widows [who] are living in desperate conditions." A year ago (March 9th), Oxfam issued [PDF format warning] "In Her Own Words: Iraqi women talka bout their greatest concerns and challenges" which found 76% of Iraq's widows recieved no pensions while a third of all Iraqi women (not just women) stated they "had received no humanitarian assistance since 2003". Dr. Rajaa H. Dhaher al-Khuzai is the president of Iraqi Widows' Organization and she has said: Only one-sixth of Iraqi widows receive federal aid, amounting to between $34 and $81 a month. In order to receive such benefits a widow must be well-connected or enter into a "temporary marriage" based on sex with one of the bureaucrats who distribute the funds. Even then, this paltry amount does not come close to covering a family's needs, so many widows are forced to work as servants, beg, or ask their families for help. Some have become prostitutes, while others have joined the insurgency in exchange for money. Turning to some of the violence reported today . . . Reuters notes an armed clash in Baghdad Tuesday in which 1 police officer and 1 assailant were killed with two suspects being injured. Xinhua reports (link has text and audio) a Tuesday Anbar Province roadside bombing which claimed the lives of 3 police officers. And today, the vote totals were released for the Parliamentary elections and . . . Oh, wait. They weren't released. Charles Levinson (Wall St. Journal) reports, "Election officials on Wednesday delayed for a second straight day the announcement of preliminary results in Iraq's parliamentary vote, but the back-room wheeling and dealing to form the country's next government has already begun." And then he's off to the horse races and we're not interested. But it was the second straight day of promises. Which is why you shouldn't take promises as anything more than press releases -- and those aren't supposed to be considered news. For more on that topic, see this morning's entry. And what follows is a press release from the Ahrar Party: Intimidation, violence and vote tampering rife within Iraq's recent election"The delays in announcing the recent election results are extremely concerning," Ayad Jamal Aldin, leader of the Ahrar Party, told reporters today in Baghdad. "The international community has been hesitant to become involved due to fear of being seen as interfering with the elections. This is understandable. Everyone wants to portray the impression that Iraq is now capable of fending for itself. But this is not the case. American Vice-President Joe Biden glossed over these very real problems facing the Iraqi electorate on his recent trip to Baghdad. If evidence of vote tampering is uncovered - as is highly likely - the United Nations should use all means necessary to hold those responsible accountable." The speculation of vote fixing comes after several acts of international violence and intimidation being reported against the electorate and station commanders. In Fallujah, a member of the Anbar Provincial Council arrived at the polling station with heavily armed guards, and attacked the station commander before removing nine bundles of pre-marked ballot papers and inserting them in the ballot box. Similar stories are common across the country. Even internationally, violence has marred these elections. In London, a group of Ahrar supporters were attacked and prevented from voting by supporters of al-Maliki. Violence amongst voters has also been reported in Beiruit, Dubai and even the USA. For further information, contact:Ahrar Media Bureau Tel: +964 (0)790 157 4478 / +964 (0)790 157 4479 / +964 (0)771 275 2942 press@ahrarparty.com About Ayad Jamal Aldin:Ayad Jamal Aldin is a cleric, best known for his consistent campaigning for a new, secular Iraq. He first rose to prominence at the Nasiriyah conference in March 2003, shortly before the fall of Saddam, where he called for a state free of religion, the turban and other theological symbols. In 2005, he was elected as one of the 25 MPs on the Iraqi National List, but withdrew in 2009 after becoming disenchanted with Iyad Allawi's overtures to Iran. He wants complete independence from Iranian interference in Iraq. He now leads the Ahrar party for the 2010 election to the Council of Representatives, to clean up corruption and create a strong, secure and liberated Iraq for the future. That's a press release. It speaks for the Ahrar Party. Nothing wrong with a press release. But a press release is not reporting and neither is repeatedly turning in copy which states, "Tomorrow the election results will be released!" Sticking with actual reporting, Ernesto Londono and Leila Fadel (Washington Post) explain that Ahmed Chalabi and boy-pal Ali al-Lami were feeling frisky so they actually banned another 55 candidates via their Justice and Accountability Commission (an extra-legal body -- and the same one that earlier barred 500 candidates from the elections) -- charged with being 'Ba'athist' the night before the Sunday vote. These candidates were not taken off the lists and supposedly the votes for them will be counted. The reporters explain, "If the votes for the newly barred candidates are annulled, it could give the Iraqiya coalition powerful ammunition to allege vote-rigging by rival politicians, including some in the Shiite-led camp of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. " In the US, strong efforts at revising history by the right-wing are taking place. Karl Rove's alleged book is part of the revisonary work. Allison Kilkenny (True/Slant) calls out the latest attempts at revisionary history, "I know liberals like to think Dubya and his crew were so evil no one will ever, ever forget the lessons learned during the Bush years, but this kind of revisionist bulls**t has a way of slowly seeping into the populace's subconscious. After enough hours of hearing Liz Cheney talk about how rad her dad is, and reading enough of Friedo's disgusting columns, people will start to believe this crap." And they will -- especially when the response is silence. In veterans news, Lauren Collins (NECN) reports on Iraq War veteran Aaron Lee Marshall who returned to the US with a Purple Heart and difficulties re-adjusting to civilian life. With the support and encouragement of his mother, Aaron Lee Marshall focused on music and recorded Now Maybe leading him to state, "I feel like I'm coming out of a fog." Collins notes, "Aaron's album Now Maybe is available at Bull Moose Record stores in Maine and New Hampshire, and on iTunes. His concert at the Rochester Opera House is June 10th." Click here for Aaron Lee Marshall on iTunes. Click here for his MySpace page which does allow you to stream some songs from the album. March 20th, many organizations, groups and individuals will be participating in the march for peace in DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The Party for Socialism and Liberation will be participating and they announce: March 20 is the seventh anniversary of the invasion and continuing criminal occupation of Iraq. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is escalating its war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. More than a million lives have been lost and countless more destroyed through the U.S. aggression. While we're told that there's no money for education, health-care and jobs, next year's real military budget will exceed $1.4 trillion.
Join us for analysis and discussion on:
$3 - $5 donation requested, no one turned away for lack of funds. (Refreshments served. Cross street 21st. Near 24th St. BART. MUNI #14, 49, 26. Parking garage located one block west on 21st. St. btwn. Mission & Valencia, parking cost $2/hr.) For more info, or to reserve free childcare (please call at least one day in advance if you would like childcare) contact PSL at 415-821-6171. Check out our website: http://www.pslweb.org/ World Can't Wait is another organization which will be participating and this is from WCW's Debra Sweet: "Peace of the Action" starts Monday, March 15 near the Washington Monument as an ongoing protest to demand that the occupations of Iraq & Afghanistan end. Cindy Sheehan was in New York recently with Chelsea Neighbors for Peace, calling on people to participate in its first action, Camp OUT NOW. I will be speaking there on Wednesday March 17, with David Swanson on the need for prosecution of war crimes. Cindy's new book, Myth America II is online. She includes World Can't Wait in acknowledgements as a group that has made her life easier over this past year and thanks "Debra Sweet from World Can't Wait for being the unwavering moral backbone of this movement and my support 'group' when I was at my all-time Obama-lowest." Cindy and the thousands of people protesting Saturday, March 20 against Obama's wars, including World Can't Wait, are pushing to make history and change the disastrous direction the U.S. government is pursuing. Find flyers & post your event. Actions in Washington DC, Chicago, Charlottesville VA, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles. Sign up on Facebook. The World Can't Wait's sustainer fund drive runs through March 15. We can and must fulfill our goal of reaching monthly expenses to strengthen the national resistance to the crimes of our government. You can sign up here at any level you choose. Lastly, TV note. NOW on PBS begins airing Friday on most PBS stations (check local listings): Two men on a remarkable journey high in the Himalayas investigate threats to global water and food supply. Next on NOW change will cause some of the world's largest glaciers to completely melt by 2030. What effect will this have on our daily lives, especially our water and food supply? With global warming falling low on a national list of American concerns, it's time to take a deeper look at what could be a global calamity in the making. On Friday, March 12 at 8:30 pm (check local listings), David Brancaccio and environmentalist Conrad Anker -- one of the world's leading high altitude climbers - trek to the Gangotri Glacier in the Himalayan Mountains, the source of the Ganges River, to witness the great melt and its dire consequences first-hand. The two also visit Montana's Glacier National Park to see the striking effects of global warming closer to home and learn how melting glaciers across the world can have a direct impact on food prices in the U.S. Along the way, Brancaccio and Anker bathe in the River Ganges, view a water shortage calamity in India, and see with their own eyes and cameras the tangible costs of climate change. "We can't take climate change and put it on the back burner," warns Anker. "If we don't address climate change, we won't be around as humans." Visit http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/516/ right now to watch an extended hour-long version of the program, and to access David's 12-day photo-filled travel journal from their trek. |
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Iraq snapshot
