Stupidity from the Pentagon

Proposed smoking ban angers some in military
Gates considering report urging total prohibition for active-duty personnel
By Alex Johnson
msnbc.com
updated 6:42 p.m. ET, Tues., July 14, 2009

A Pentagon-commissioned report urges the Defense Department to ban smoking in the military, even by combat troops in battle zones, a proposal that quickly ignited a controversy among service members.

The study, which was completed late last month by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, recommends closing “the pipeline of new tobacco users entering the military” by prohibiting tobacco use in the service academies and officer-training programs like ROTC and eventually instituting a total ban on all use of tobacco by active-duty personnel.

The Defense Department said military health officials were studying the report and planned to make their recommendations to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The proposal, if accepted by Gates, could take more than a decade to implement, said the report, which the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs requested in 2007.

However long it takes, it will be too soon for some in uniform — “especially guys that are in combat,” said Bobby McCarter, a retired veteran who served 20 years in the Navy.

“They need that cigarette break for stress relief,” McCarter said at a bar popular with the military in Norfolk, Va., home to a large naval base. “I’m totally against that, and I think the Pentagon should leave it alone.”

McCarter echoed the sentiments of many active-duty and retired military personnel when they learned of the proposed ban this week. Message boards on popular military forums like military.com, armchairgeneral.com and officer.com were burning up with reactions like “what a CROCK” and “If they really do ban tobacco in the military there are going to be some ****ed off troops.”

Rakeshia Baity, a member of the Kentucky National Guard, doesn’t smoke, but she said at a recruitment center in Paducah, Ky.: “That’s not right. That’s not right at all.

“It’s your right” to smoke, she said.

Smoking blamed for billions in Pentagon, VA costs
The study, led by Stuart Bondurant, a professor of medicine and emeritus dean at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said smoking and tobacco-related illnesses cost the Pentagon more than $800 million a year in lost productivity and health care expenses.

The bill for the VA is much higher, it said, saying more than 80 percent of the $5 billion annual cost of treating pulmonary disease among military retirees was directly attributable to smoking.

The Defense Department already restricts smoking on military installations, much in the same way airports and other public buildings set aside designated smoking areas. But smoking in the military remains much more common in the military than in the general public, the report found — smokers have dropped to only about one in five Americans overall, but they make up more than one in three service members.

While the Pentagon offers quit-smoking programs, “tobacco control does not have a high priority” in the Pentagon or at the VA, the report charged. “Neither department has instituted a comprehensive tobacco-control program.”

The report particularly criticized the Pentagon for selling cigarettes and similar products at a discount at many military installations, which the report called “unfortunate” and a “contradiction.”

“The committee believes that [the Pentagon] should not be selling products that are known to impair military readiness and health,” it said. But it noted that such sales are protected by Congress, a provision it called on lawmakers to overturn.

If the monetary costs of smoking don’t get the attention of Pentagon brass, the report also identified what it said was a “strong association between tobacco addiction and mental-health problems, among them mood disorders, schizophrenia and substance abuse” — not exactly the state that generals and admirals want their gun-toting charges to be in.

The bottom line, it said, is that while the Pentagon and the VA have made strides toward reducing smoking and chewing, “tobacco use continues to impair military readiness.”

2 U.S. Marines killed in Afghanistan

2 U.S. Marines killed in Afghanistan

(CNN) -- Two U.S. Marines died Monday during a "hostile incident" in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Tuesday.

No further details were immediately available in their deaths.

"We deeply mourn the loss of these determined service members, who died in combat defending our freedom and the just cause of Afghans," said Brig. Gen. Eric Tremblay, spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force.

"This is a moment of great sorrow for these members' families and friends, and I extend my deepest condolences to them during this difficult time."

The deaths come as almost 4,000 Marines and sailors, along with several hundred Afghan security forces, are working to clear Taliban militants from population centers in the Helmand river valley, in the south of the country.

British forces launched a similar offensive in the province in late June.

The push, called Operation Khanjar, is targeting militants in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and poppy-growing region.

The forces are trying to gain and hold ground in the perilous region ahead of national elections this August.

2 Marines killed in Helmand

4 US Marines killed in Afghan bomb blasts

CORRECTION as per ISAF: 2 Marines killed, not 4.

By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer
58 mins ago

KABUL – Bomb blasts killed four U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan, where thousands of American troops have deployed in recent weeks as part of an offensive in the country's dangerous drug-producing region, an official said Sunday.

The four Marines died Saturday in Helmand province, where about 4,000 troops this month launched the largest Marine operation in Afghanistan since 2001. U.S. forces have met little resistance but face the danger of roadside bombs everywhere they travel.

A fifth U.S. service member wounded in June died of wounds in the U.S. on Friday, said Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, who confirmed the deaths of the four Marines. The four killed Saturday were initially identified as Army soldiers.

The five deaths bring to 106 the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this year — a record pace. Last year 151 U.S. troops died in the country.

The U.S. casualties come on the heels of eight British deaths in Helmand during a 24-hour period that ended Friday, deaths that have triggered a debate in Britain about its role in Afghanistan. Britain has now lost more troops in Afghanistan than it did in Iraq.

President Barack Obama called Britain's contribution critically important in an interview with Sky News broadcast Sunday .

"My heart goes out to the families of those British soldiers," he said. "Great Britain has played an extraordinary role in this coalition, understanding that we cannot allow either Afghanistan or Pakistan to be a safe haven for al-Qaida, those who with impunity blow up train stations in London or buildings in New York."

Obama ordered 21,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan earlier this year to help quell an increasingly violent Taliban insurgency. Some 10,000 Marines and 4,000 soldiers from the Stryker Brigade — the 5th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division based in Fort Lewis, Washington — are deploying in the south, the Taliban's spiritual birthplace and stronghold.

The troops are expected to help provide security for the country's August presidential election and help train army and police units who U.S. officials hope can one day provide security for the country.

In other violence around the country, international troops and Afghan police killed 12 Taliban insurgents in a gunbattle in southern Afghanistan, police said Sunday.

The joint force attacked a compound north of the capital of Uruzgan province where the militants were hiding Saturday evening, sparking the fighting, police spokesman Mohammad Musa said. He said no Afghan police or international troops were killed.

In eastern Kunar province, meanwhile, one civilian was killed and five wounded when shelling from a gunbattle between insurgents and Afghan and international forces hit a house.

Provincial Police Chief Gen. Abdul Jalal Jalal said everyone in the house initially survived Saturday's blast, but one man died from his injuries after being rushed to a hospital. Jalal said it was unclear which side fired the shots that hit the house.

Also Saturday, at least six police officers were killed by roadside bombs — two in southern Helmand province and at least four south of Kabul in Logar province, officials said.

In Logar, the officers were driving in a private car in Charkh district when the explosion hit, said provincial police chief Gen. Mustafa Mosseini.

NATO forces, who secured the site and treated one wounded officer, said in a statement that four police were killed. Mosseini said five officers died.

The bombing in Helmand took place Saturday night in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, killing two police and wounding three, said Dawood Ahmadi, the governor's spokesman.

Police officers are regular targets of Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan. Mosseini said the officers had been traveling in a civilian car in order to avoid drawing the attention of potential attackers.

In another gunbattle in eastern Paktia province between insurgents and Afghan police, two militants and one police officer were killed, said Rahullah Samon, a spokesman for the governor.

___