Florida Veterans
for Common Sense
Veterans Benefits
We have a simple contract with the members of our armed forces: You fight for us; we will take care of you. At times, that contract has taken a beating. Ask just about any veteran. So, when my friend, a retired Army captain, told me recently that his health care co-payments were going up, I knew it was happening again. And, this time it is happening in the middle of a war in Iraq, and while we are facing perhaps decades of a struggle against terrorism. And, my friend’s increased payments are just a small part of it. The Florida Sun Vets magazine points to reports that the Department of Defense is going to raise TRICARE premiums for military retirees under the age of 65. At the same time, the Veterans Administration backlog of disability claims, which had improved dramatically in recent years, now is back up to more than 368,000, says the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Two different funding sources are involved, the DOD and the VA, but both involve veterans. The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) puts a fine point on all of this: The Joint Chiefs of Staff are having to choose between weapons and health care at a time of hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts and billions of dollars more in budget pork. MOAA believes this is only the first round of cost-shifting and that this is the most serious threat to military benefits in years. And, those aren't the only problems. Our warriors of today are being affected by glitches in the system. Sgt. Edward Wade of the 82nd Airborne Division, lost an arm and suffered a traumatic brain injury in Iraq, but he has had to battle the Army to obtain care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for the loss of his right arm.
Capt. Troy O’Donley, Army National Guard, had to insist on remaining on active duty to receive care at WRAMC, showing the need for providing equal access to care for wounded members of the Guard and Reserve.
We must have improved services for our military, active, honorably discharged and retired. Much has been accomplished in the Veterans Administration in recent years, but much more needs to be done.
And, it must be done on a continuing, transparent, sensible basis. Neither the DOD nor the VA can solve the biggest overriding problem. Only Congress can move veterans health care from a discretionary to a mandatory funding source. This would eliminate the year-to-year uncertainty about funding levels that have prevented the VA from adequately planning and meeting the needs of veterans, the same uncertainty that puts our military leaders in a no-win situation with the DOD.
In addition to the humanitarian reasons to do this, there is a very practical one. We need our finest young men and women to continue enlisting to help in the struggle against terrorism. Ensuring them the best possible health care is a big incentive to do so.
More importantly, Our senior military leaders would not be put in the dishonorable position of choosing between money for weapons and money to help veterans.
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IRAQ WAR POSITION PAPER
The blast in February that blew apart the 100-year-old gilded dome of the Shiite Askariya Shrine in Samarra and brought the country to the brink of disaster cast in stark relief our war in Iraq. We realized three things: We do not have the power to stop a civil war, and we already are involved if one begins. Most importantly, we need to refocus, and redouble, our efforts to combat terrorism.
We are fighting against relatively few terrorists in Iraq and many Sunni nationalists. Those nationalists, who are waging an effective insurgency because of the passivity or help from the Sunni population, are one of the two major sides in a civil conflict.
The group we have empowered, the Shia, have militias that are blamed for kidnappings and murders, and they are wearing the uniform of the new government we enabled to take power.
We have accomplished much. A brutal dictator has been toppled, three elections have been held, each one more successful than the preceding one, and we have trained tens of thousands of Iraqi police and military. But, the cost has been high. Thousands of Americans are dead or horribly wounded as are tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis. And sectarian violence has been added to a situation that seems to be spiraling out of control.
Our reconstruction effort has failed. It obviously is going to take much longer than expected. Billions of dollars are unaccounted for, corruption charges and allegations of corruption have been made against Americans and Iraqis, and some basic services are not even back to pre-invasion levels. Immediately, we should begin transferring reconstruction to the control of the United Nations.
And, we should have a plan now to begin bringing our troops home. All American troops should be out by the end of 2007. It is clear that they have done their duty and now it is up the Iraqis.
Musab al-Zarqawi is dead, and we should concentrate solely on eliminating the remaining terrorists in the coming months, and let the Iraqis sort out problems between the Sunni and Shia and Kurds. Our military leaders and diplomats have said that we need to peel the Iraqi nationalists away from the terrorists. In fact, there already have been discussions with representatives of the insurgents, an attempt to bring them into the new government.=== We should do this because we are in a struggle against terrorists and their fanatical worldwide ideology.The draw-down in Iraq could re-focus our military soley on capturing or killing terrorists where they stand and tracing their support back to the countries from whence it came. In Afghanistan as well as Iraq, we need to deal with that support, including the supply of new terrorists, at the source.
This means a diminishing foot print for the American military in Iraq, which means fewer targets for the insurgents and the terrorists. We should immediately begin turning over the forts we have built to show that we do not mean to stay as a conquering power. We can leave in stages, keeping until the last those forts needed for the safety of our troops.
Should we need to provide help against the terrorists in Iraq after 2007, that support should be under the aegis of the United Nations or NATO or some other umbrella group.
As we pull out, the State Department needs to initiate talks with countries in the region, regardless of our differences with Iran or Syria. Their leaders and leaders of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others need stability for their own security. And, those talks facilitated by the United Nations should eventually include the larger world body of muslim countries such as Indonesia so that they can provide military support for the new Iraq government against insurgents.
Americans have an increasingly clear picture of what is happening in Iraq, and what is needed to resolve the situation. But, clarity brings questions as well as answers. An 18-year-old kid off the streets of New York or a farm in Georgia can be trained as a Marine in 13 weeks, so why don't we have robust military and police forces in Iraq after two and a half years of training?
The Marine knows who his government is and what he is fighting for. The Iraqi doesn't.
We can't change that. Only the Iraqis can.
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Florida Veterans for Common Sense
27 Fletcher Ave
Sarasota, FL 34237
phone: 941 349-5131
email:FLveterans@aol.com