Author: Jeffersonian Democrat

to my fellow Trib-Tribers, Pond Wonks, and et al.  That I’m back an owe a little explanation.  Those of you who know me know about my PTSD and subsequent depression and alcoholism and know that I’ve been sober since last summer.  You know because someone else posted a similar diary that I read, which shook me out of denial and I’ve commented on it.
Well, fell off the wagon on New Years, and real hard too.  I had my very first visual flashback (obviously the alcohol helped with the trigger).  I woke up in the morning strapped to a bed in the klinik I was at last year.  Since I am in Germany, the judge had the legal right and put me the clinic for a week (Jesus! I was COMMITTED!!!!!).  After that week, I volunteered to stay for therapy for four months.  It was a great way to enforce my resolution.

My God, what a difference without the news, political lies, and the whole world just going to hell.  Just the quiet of a sanatorium in the German mountains, think Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain”.  I was in the PTSD station with mostly people who were affected as victims of rape, child abuse, etc.  I did, however, make a good friend with a young man who was a Kosovo Albanian and had been fighting since he was ten.  For us it was a little different as we were both victim and perpetrator.  Funny thing about the Germans, they really don’t have a lot of experience with war induced PTSD – they really don’t like wars at all and try to stay out of them, at least since that last bad experience.  The therapy really helped…

In fact, not only am I alcohol free, but also NICOTINE free and dysfunctional girlfriend free!  The only addiction left is coffee!  I haven’t been depressed in a month nor have I been on medication for a month.  The nightmares are seldom and I developed techniques to deal with the disassociation.

Man!  I can’t remember ever feeling this good.  It’s spring!  It’s RUTTING season!  My 40th is next month!  And life is really good!

I’m going to get out there and start living it again!

Two parts gasoline, one part Tide detergent, an empty glass bottle.  Mix well, top off with a rag.  Light, ignite, and throw.
I was happy, coming out of a party meeting earlier of the Democratic Socialist Party (PDS)-Germany.  A gathering of new members for the new year.  A Stammtisch and singing the Internationale.  My first meeting and made some new friends and Komrades.  I volunteered for some committes and pamphleteering and we have a demonstration in a couple of weeks against racism for refugees by the governmental bureaucracy.  A successful meeting all around.

Then I come home to see so many atrocities, including graphic images of people tortured and boiled in Uzbekistan in the name of the war on terror.  In the name of the country that I grew up in.  In my name.  And I can tell you that I am past outraged, my bullshit meter broke and the warantee ran out.

I want to throw molotov cocktails (NSA, are you listening?)I want to, well Henrik Ibsen put it best: “If I had a submarine during the flood, I would’ve torpedoed Noah’s Ark”

Yes, I am now asocial, and I am ready for revolution, how long and how many more offenses before the masses catch up?

Ugh!!!!!!!!

x-posted at Kos & Eurotrib
I posted this as a comment on both “Did NSA Spy on Me? Anyone Else Have This Happen?” and “The Bastard’s Scared” but then thought that perhaps it would make a somewhat decent diary.

Jeffersonian Democrat’s diary :: ::
Yep, I have an NSA file.

I graduated from UMich in ’95 in Russian and Eastern European Studies.  I studied in Moscow for three semesters at the Moscow Institute for Social and Political Studies.  While in Moscow, not only did I have some great job offers but that is where I met my ex-wife.

I was stupid and turned down the offers because I wanted to graduate then become a Naval intelligence officer.  So I did, but it was only after I was in the the Navy had an issue with my wife’s nationality regarding my security clearance.  So after due process they revoked my clearance in the name of national security and without a minimal clearance, one cannot be an officer.  So while they were processing me out, I started to think about those great job offers in Moscow.  I called the Russian embassy and asked about visas (the conversation was in Russian) and told them up front that I was soon to be a former intelligence officer.  They had no problem with that.

Six months later, before I was about to go on terminal leave, NCIS showed up and interviewed me about that conversation.  They then searched my briefcase, car, and home.  I asked the agent to please be sensitive about my wife because if this happened in her country, I would not be going home at the end of the day.  Boy was she pissed when they searched the house, she had more balls than I when she told the agent that she didn’t see any difference between him and the KGB.  The guilty look on his face was priceless.

I went on terminal leave and had been hired by Eli Lilly as a pharma-salesman.  A week before sales training graduation I had an aggressive phone message from NCIS stating that they wanted another interview.  The only way they could’ve gotten my number was from my manager and on the day of graduation I was fired for “business reasons”.

I returned to Virginia Beach and called NCIS.  They asked me nicely for a voluntary polygraph.  This time I grew some balls and replied “F*k you, you fked my military career and now my civilian job too, fk off!”  The agent then asked me for the courtesy of letting them know if I would seek legal representation for a law suit and I hung up on him.

So I am sure I have a file.  I watched Will Smith in “Enemy of the State” and laughed throughout this thriller because I said to myself “I’ve seen this movie before, I starred in it!”.

This is why now I believe people are really innocent, like the guy who was accused of the anthrax attacks without evidence, they really fked his life up.  Or the professor from Florida who was recently acquitted.  These govt. people are nasty.  My ex-wife told me that she was happy that I didn’t become an intel officer because people get “funny, strange” when they get into that world, they change.

My ex and I are best friends and more intimate now than when we were married.  But that situation threw me into depression and despair.  I withdrew emotionally and lost my normally healthy sex drive and libido.  We lived as brother and sister for four years after that until we divorced.  Not only did they f*k up my career(s) but also my mental health and marraige.  See, I was always a patriot and a combat veteran and I could never concieve of the thought of betraying my country nevermind being a security risk.  I was a true-blue American.  Now I am not so naive.

BTW Kossacks, this is why I am know as a Tin-Foil Hat person.  I would have never believed that this could happen and this was in ’98.  So after writing this, the next person who slams me for tin-foil hat posts, well, the reply will be similar to my response to NCIS.  God I hate that show!  JAG too!  All NCIS is a bunch of people who couldn’t cut it with the FBI, they couldn’t investigate their way out of a wet paper bag!  Am I bitter or what?!?!?

I haven’t written a lot of diaries, mostly because people here have much more insight, expertise, and perception than I.  Nevertheless, I think I’ll write this one up because it something I have personal experience with and the subject came up on another thread.  I’m a SERE grad, and although the program, especially the Resistance Training Laboratory (RTL, or mock POW camp) is classified, I think that I can comment on what’s been going on in the news about the program and correct a lot of misperceptions on the objective of torture.
I went through in November ’87.  Some of the best training I’ve ever had as one really learns about oneself.  I mean really learns about oneself.  I think the human ego quite naturally, for survival reasons, blocks out and denies mental weaknesses but with this training one is confronted by one’s psychological weaknesses, which is a good thing in order to be able to compensate for them.  That is the object of the training.

I was a weapons sergeant in 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne)  [before I went to college and switched to the Navy as a Naval intelligence officer] but when I went through SERE, I back-doored my in while still a young infantry buck-sergeant in the 82nd Airborne Division.

The training was tough for me, psychologically, which made it even more worthwhile in my opinion.  It was a cold November and I was the first to visit the “People’s Pond” by the infamous “bearded one”, a former A-Team master sergeant from Vietnam who had his camp overrun by NVA.  A very big guy, and I am relatively small (5’6) and at the time had a build like a swimmer.  I was never a Rambo type, that’s not me genetically, but as every SF guy or SEAL will tell you, it’s the size of the heart that matters; if you really want that profession you can succeed, it’s all about will-power.  In anycase, I was stupid and while wearing hospital pajamas, boots without laces, and a black canvas hood over my head, I rose my hand when they asked who would not sign their signiture for blankets.  Since you are not supposed to sign anything, I rose my hand (assuming everyone else would also) and suddenly found myself jerked up and flung into the icy water of the “Peoples Pond”, then “de-loused” by having a water hose put up under my hood (and those hoods stay wet for the entire duration!).  During my first interrogation, my wet clothes were taken from me and the female interrogator made a big deal and laughed about my shrunken genitalia (yea, why don’t YOU go take a swim, bitch!).  Sorry, a little mysogeny coming out.

Funny thing is, I never gave them the information of our “mission” in the scenario.  Not because I didn’t break (I did, and I still have an aversion to ice cold water to this day), but because of the sleep deprivation and overwhelming stimuli, I simply FORGOT!  Yep, and afterwards they said how well I did, heh.  I guarantee you, I would’ve told them if I had actually remembered!

Most people break in the training, everyone has a breaking point.  The object is to bounce back like a basketball and resist and live to come home with honor.  Too many POWs in North Korea and Vietnam were psychologically ruined because they broke but still believed that they were traitors and weak and they were not prepared to deal with it.  They thought interrogations were of the Hogan’s Heroes type and if you gave more than name, rank, and serial number you were a traitor.  That may have worked fine in WWII but our cold war communist adversaries were a totally different animal altogether.

That’s why the late Col. Nick Rowe and his friend who was also a POW with him, Dan Pitzer, started the SERE program at Ft. Bragg.  The program, though classified, is based on his experiences as a 5-year POW.

If you are truly interested in the SERE program, I highly suggest Rowe’s book “Five Years to Freedom”.  It’s all in there.

See, the point of this diary is not that torture is used to get information (forget 24 folks) but rather it is used to turn a person, exploit them and indoctrinate them.  There is no such thing as brain-washing, you can’t wash someone’s brain of their thoughts, but you can indoctrinate, just watch “Outfoxed” again.  The torturers of today know that, they don’t expect the “ticking bomb” scenario, they want to drive a wedge between the victim and the other detainees; to exploit, indoctrinate, and turn them.

See, I learned that physical pain is NOTHING (but I confess to not have a branding iron applied to my genitals but that attitude sure adds spice to the sex life).  No, the PSYCHOLOGICAL pain is much worse.  Not knowing if you are ever going home to friends and family is much worse than the physical pain because at a point, the brain shuts off the pain receivers, but the psychological rollercoaster remains.  These people at GITMO are not trying to commit suicide because of the physical pain, it’s the psychological pain that’s driving them; and consider that suicide is a mortal sin in Islam as it is in Judeo/Christianity and you have the extent of this psychological pain.

It’s a damn shame, to put it mildly, that these techniques were developed by our Communist “enemies” and now we’re the ones using them.  I recognized the techniques immediately when Abu Graib first broke.  I wanted to blog about it but I signed a sensitive information disclosure agreement and I wouldn’t get the same kid gloves treatment as Uncle Karl.

Like I said, read the book, it’s all in there.

So, I haven’t revealed anything classified, just anecdotal and philosphical in regards to the purpose of torture post-WWII.  So to you DIS types – screw you, revoke my clearance, I don’t care, I live in Europe and am now a member of a socialist party – go do something usefull like catching Bin Laden or something.

Ok everyone, just to put you all on notice.  I am now an official card carrying socialist.  I just got my voting card from the PDS here in Germany.  The Party of Democratic Socialists.  So I am puting everyone on alert that I am now an official socialist troll so you can take my future comments or leave them as you wish.

I’m excited!  I am getting into politics on the grass-roots level of my new country: Germany.  I also have excellent health care.  Meeting new people, people who know who Marx is and what he actually wrote.  I am even wearing a red scarf around my neck!  So Boo-Tribers, there’s a socialist in the midst.  Just wanted to warn everyone.

Let me be very clear: I do not believe in conspiracies, mainly due to the fact that conspiracy theories do not take into account that the only secret is the one kept by one person.  If something like this report took place, it would take lot’s of logistics and support personnel to carry out.  Since I firmly believe that people in our intelligence organs, the professionals, truly believe in protecting our country, such a conspiracy would produce whistle-blowers in the chain of people with the need-to-know.  That is why this study puzzles me and I do not know what to make of it.  Below the fold:
Y. professor thinks bombs, not planes, toppled WTC
By Elaine Jarvik
Deseret Morning News
      The physics of 9/11 — including how fast and symmetrically one of the World Trade Center buildings fell — prove that official explanations of the collapses are wrong, says a Brigham Young University physics professor.
      In fact, it’s likely that there were “pre-positioned explosives” in all three buildings at ground zero, says Steven E. Jones.
      In a paper posted online Tuesday and accepted for peer-reviewed publication next year, Jones adds his voice to those of previous skeptics, including the authors of the Web site www.wtc7.net, whose research Jones quotes. Jones’ article can be found at www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html.

Now here is an academic physics professor putting his academic reputation on the line.  BYU is a respectible institution of higher learning, but this professor sets out many points in his argument:

 * The three buildings collapsed nearly symmetrically, falling down into their footprints, a phenomenon associated with “controlled demolition” — and even then it’s very difficult, he says. “Why would terrorists undertake straight-down collapses of WTC-7 and the Towers when ‘toppling over’ falls would require much less work and would do much more damage in downtown Manhattan?” Jones asks. “And where would they obtain the necessary skills and access to the buildings for a symmetrical implosion anyway? The ‘symmetry data’ emphasized here, along with other data, provide strong evidence for an ‘inside’ job.”
      * No steel-frame building, before or after the WTC buildings, has ever collapsed due to fire. But explosives can effectively sever steel columns, he says.
      * WTC 7, which was not hit by hijacked planes, collapsed in 6.6 seconds, just .6 of a second longer than it would take an object dropped from the roof to hit the ground. “Where is the delay that must be expected due to conservation of momentum, one of the foundational laws of physics?” he asks. “That is, as upper-falling floors strike lower floors — and intact steel support columns — the fall must be significantly impeded by the impacted mass. . . . How do the upper floors fall so quickly, then, and still conserve momentum in the collapsing buildings?” The paradox, he says, “is easily resolved by the explosive demolition hypothesis, whereby explosives quickly removed lower-floor material, including steel support columns, and allow near free-fall-speed collapses.” These observations were not analyzed by FEMA, NIST nor the 9/11 Commission, he says.
      * With non-explosive-caused collapse there would typically be a piling up of shattering concrete. But most of the material in the towers was converted to flour-like powder while the buildings were falling, he says. “How can we understand this strange behavior, without explosives? Remarkable, amazing — and demanding scrutiny since the U.S. government-funded reports failed to analyze this phenomenon.”
      * Horizontal puffs of smoke, known as squibs, were observed proceeding up the side the building, a phenomenon common when pre-positioned explosives are used to demolish buildings, he says.
      * Steel supports were “partly evaporated,” but it would require temperatures near 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit to evaporate steel — and neither office materials nor diesel fuel can generate temperatures that hot. Fires caused by jet fuel from the hijacked planes lasted at most a few minutes, and office material fires would burn out within about 20 minutes in any given location, he says.
      * Molten metal found in the debris of the World Trade Center may have been the result of a high-temperature reaction of a commonly used explosive such as thermite, he says. Buildings not felled by explosives “have insufficient directed energy to result in melting of large quantities of metal,” Jones says.
      * Multiple loud explosions in rapid sequence were reported by numerous observers in and near the towers, and these explosions occurred far below the region where the planes struck, he says.
      Jones says he became interested in the physics of the WTC collapse after attending a talk last spring given by a woman who had had a near-death experience. The woman mentioned in passing that “if you think the World Trade Center buildings came down just due to fire, you have a lot of surprises ahead of you,” Jones remembers, at which point “everyone around me started applauding.”

To me, this is simply implausible because of the reasons I said I do not believe in conspiracy theories.  Nevertheless, to a layman, these arguments seem sound and perhaps worth investigating further.  I am truly puzzled.  Perhaps Pat Lang may intercede here and substantiate my doubts that this could have happened within our intelligence community and reinforce my point of view.  Otherwise, this is troubling as it offers not tin-foil theories but actual laws of physics.  At least the good doctor offered a disclaimer:

As for speculation about who might have planted the explosives, Jones said, “I don’t usually go there. There’s no point in doing that until we do the scientific investigation.”

This President and his entire administration makes me ill, mentally ill, seriously!  Just to give a perspective of what vets go through to get their benefits, let me give you, dear readers, a little insight.
I served in the Army as a paratrooper then later as a weapons sergeant in 7th Special Forces Group.  Our area focus was/is Latin America.  This was during late Reagan years; early Bush I years.  I served on many deployments during that time including the invasion of Panama.  During that time I suffered several compressed disc fractures and afterwards started to feel really funny inside.  I began to have really strange nightmares.  During the day my chest felt tight and very strong sensations of butterflies in my chest.  I am very jumpy as well.

I left active duty and attended UMich while staying in 19th Special Forces Group National Guard to help pay.  It was at this time that I was diagnosed with spinal injury and degenerative bone condition in the lumbar.  Somehow, when I graduated, I got permission and a medical waiver to switch to the Navy to attend OCS and become an intelligence officer.  During this time I began to drink even more heavily to sleep at night.

Up to current day.  Out of the service and recieved 60% disability.  But here are the problems.  I had to pay for my own sleep study (sleep apnea) and orthopedic exams beyond the regular VA exam.  After the war started I got worse with these funny feelings inside and drinking even more heavily.  I went to a shrink at my grad school and was finally diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, Interpersonality Disorder, and PTSD.

Though I have all my paperwork in order (medical diagnosis, CIB, stressor letter, buddy letters, failed marraige, etc.) and the VVA is helping me, the VA says that I need to go to therapy to help back up my claim.  But guess what, they won’t send me to therapy because it isn’t service connected yet and I have no health insurance to go to therapy.  Catch 22.  Vietnam Veteran’s Association says this is common place in that the VA hopes the veteran will eventually give up and save the government money because this asshat administration is gutting VA funding.

My claim has been in since March 2002 and is still pending the appeals process.  Will I eventually win?  I believe so, my ducks are in order.  But how much taxpayer money and resources are they wasting by keeping me in appeals when thos sources could be going to other vets?

Yes folks, this might be a personal bitch, but I thought I’d give you some food for thought on this wonderful veteran’s day about just ONE person’s struggle against the government and how they treat us once we’re all used up and broken.

The good side is that I’ve taken a road to recovery to get out of the alcoholism.

Dear Tribers,

I disappeared last month and haven’t been on the internet since.  Nevertheless, those of you who gave me support in May over at Kos, I owe you a diary.
First of all I wish to express my thanks to many of you, especially Holy Handgrenade.  It was a diary from HHG that I read one Sunday morning about his recovery while drunk that hit home and made me cry – the denial of my own alchoholism broke through my unconscious like a tital wave.  The next day I went to AA here in Germany.  Unfortunately, that lasted a little over a week as I truly had no controll or mindset to accept a life without booze…I mean, what was I going to do when I actually had to be alone with myself????

I hit the bottle again and it became worse until I woke up one morning from passing on my balcony with a noose tied around neck.  Then I decided I really needed help.  I checked myself into a very, very nice sanatorium in the mountains of Sauerland (in the European sense, not a crazy house – think “The Magic Mountain” by Thomas Mann) for rehab/depression/PTSD.  Thank you socialized medicine, because although the nurses didn’t wear Gucci uniforms, it was so nice that I thought that this is what the Betty Ford clinic must be like and that I could never afford this in the US: my co-pay was 80 euro.

While there, my mom who practices Buddhism in No. Cali sent me two books; one on meditation and the other, “The Art of Happiness” by Howard Cutler, M.D. and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.  Now I’ve always despised pop-psychology self help books, but I soon realised that His Holiness is waaaaaaaay far from that.  His words made a very deep impression on me.  For instance, I just got back into cyberspace to see the new Pat Robertson issue.  One commentor, here or on Kos, thought that the Lord should take them all now.  My perspective may have changed as I remembered what HH said, something like “our friends do not give us the opportunity to grow, only our enemies do that.  Therefore we should be grateful for our enemies and look to them as our teachers with admiration and respect”.  Now for someone who lost his country and has had his people oppressed and tortured, those words are very poignant and really put this issue into perspective for me.

Yesterday was a very, very strange day.  One my way to an electronic superstore, I noticed a display of all the Dalai Lama’s books in the window of a bookstore.  Secondly, once at my destination, there was a Buddhist monk in robes shopping.  Then it turns out that there is a Wing Chun Kung Fu school about six blocks from my apartment (and had my first lesson last night).  Finally, I found out in passing that the bus stop 200 meters from my home goes directly to a bus stop in Iserlohn (20 minutes) which is directly in front of a Tibetian Buddhist center.  All in one day!  Strange days indeed!  It seemed as though all of these opportunities for my own growth just presented themselves to me, or maybe I am just more aware, who knows.

However, the real purpose of this diary is to not only thank Holy Handgrenade, Pastor Dan, Dammit Janet, Military Tracy, Susan Hu, and the countless others who showed me so much support in May, but to also let you know that the progress has hit the right time and right place for me.  I really had to sink lower to learn that the booze is not the right medicine for the PTSD and depression but only made them worse and gave me another sickness to deal with…but dealing with it I am.

Thank you all so very much

I think his words are valuable today.
“walk into the shrink wherever you are and just walk in and say, shrink:  You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant and walk out.
Y’know if one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and won’t take him.

And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think you’re both faggots and won’t take either of you.

And if three people do it, three people, can you imagine three people walking, three people walking in and singing a bar of Alice’s Restaraunt?   They may think it’s an organization, and can you imagine fifty people, can you? Fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in and singing a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out, and friends they may think it’s a movement…

And that’s what it is, the Alice’s Restaurant anti-massecre movement…and all you have to do to join is sing it the next time it comes around!”

A song that should live in our hearts, it’s time to revive the Alice’s Resteraunt movement!

South Florida Sun Sentinal has an interesting column.

VFW vets in a red state don’t give Bush the time of day!  I remember a diary a few days ago by Cold Fusion who wrote about a Bushie friend that turned.  Comments made there were enthusiastic about wing-nuts turning one-by-one (or two-by-two, heh).  Now it’s your average vet.

more below:  

“Does it have to be so loud”????  At a VFW while the President speaks?  Dominos!  Yes, key supporters of Bat-Shit Loopy are ignoring him!  more:

Now, if you’re the president and vet’s are saying this about you…your shit is weak!

The greatest generation and the forgotten war guys see the folly of Iraq.  These were guys (and gals) who were Dubya’s base for a strong national defense.  They don’t sound so supportive now, but to me a more patriotic.

Wow, when the guy spooning out meatballs in the VFW kitchen is pissed (take it from me, I know) you really need to think of resigning.  Note red, white, and blue vets are saying that they wouldn’t let their kids go to Iraq.

This is it.  The vets “get it”.  “Don’t wave a flag in my face and tell me that I’m not patriotic”, wow!  I am impressed because, as a vet myself, I know these types of folks.  They’re really good people but what is common in the VFW is the amount of kool-aid served.  It looks like the kool-aid is running out of surger!  These are normal folks like Cold Fusion’s friend.  I am posting this because I think this is an important indicator of Grand Poobah’s eroding support from some of the most diehard supporters.

AND THIS IS IN A RED STATE!