Military & Armed Forces
Page 5
- Now, here's a good question: should serious people focus on global political instability – terrorism, failing states, nuclear weapons – or should we focus on global climate instability – droughts, floods, extreme weather? Here's the correct answer: yes, both, because climate disruption will make every other national security problem worse.
- We’re getting rid of the D [in PTSD]. PTS is an injury; it’s not a disorder. The problem is when you call it a disorder, [veterans] don’t think they can be treated. An employer says, ‘I don’t want to hire somebody with a disorder.’
- I view the United States, today, much like East Berlin. And I'm off the grid. I've tried for 20 years to warn the country about the Democrats and Republicans, and nobody's listening.
- Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg apparently called President Obama directly to complain about NSA and how it spies on ordinary Americans. That's right, the guy who runs Facebook got mad at the NSA for spying on people. Talk about the pot unfriending the kettle!
- At the moment, the U.S. is talking loudly and carrying a small stick. Economic sanctions and visa denials won’t impact Russia in serious ways, nor will they make Ukraine an economically viable and democratic country. Furthermore, Americans have no desire and no reason to go to war with Russia over Crimea.
- In battle, combatants engaged in war against America get no due process and may lawfully be killed. But citizens not in a battlefield - however despicable - are guaranteed a trial by our Constitution. No one argues that Americans who commit treason shouldn’t be punished. The maximum penalty for treason is death. But the Constitution specifies the process necessary to convict.
- There is no safe place in Gaza right now. Bombs can land at any time, anywhere. A small metal shack with no electricity or running water on a jetty in the blazing seaside sun does not seem like the kind of place frequented by Hamas militants - the Israel Defense Forces’ intended targets. Children, maybe four feet tall, dressed in summer clothes, running from an explosion, don’t fit the description of Hamas fighters, either.
- They didn't promise a per diem or payment. Only free food, clothing, weapons, and a guarantee that they would transport our bodies to Rostov-on-Don and give them to our relatives. If, of course, they found them.
- Our country was born out of a desire to be free. And every day since, it’s been protected by our men and women in uniform – people who believed so deeply in America, they were willing to give their lives for it.
- So when I say that - as a clinic - we were only functioning at 50 percent or less, I’m being generous. It’s as if the whole staff had made an agreement that we would only keep the clinic open for half a day - although our veterans are waiting 30 days for follow up care, they’re waiting 25 days for their first appointment. That was what I encountered.
- The relationship has truly been fine. Our defense cooperation and intelligence sharing, which has been substantial in both directions, and our work on anti-missile and anti-rocket defense have been very good. And this work continues under Chuck Hagel and President Obama - and I’m pleased with that. That doesn’t mean we can’t have differences of opinion on Iran.
- Any adverse event for a veteran within our care is one too many. We can and we must do better.