Analysis of Today's Events 26 August 2008

Before I discuss the NY Times Article on Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI) I wanted to take a second and discuss the latest from President Medvedev. Today with Prime Minister Putin looking on from his side, he stated he did not fear another cold war. That the issue of a cold war was not their problem, and rested firmly with the West to choose that course of action. It was almost the old school yard, "I didn't do anything, now if you do your in the wrong", game.

There is just one major glaring problem with their rationale. The fact that they signed a treaty with Georgia and the West agreeing to a number of things. So far the only one that has been partially done is the withdrawal. But to top that off they still have forces within Georgia proper. So just to recap all that has happened. Russia signed a treaty to conduct a cease fire and depart Georgia. They haven't fully executed that. They said they would return to a 7 August 2008 status quo, they have not done that, and today they recognized the two areas as sovereign nations.

If there is anyone who is forcing the issue of a cold war it is Russia right now. You invaded your neighbor, you have been waving the saber of intimidation at your former eastern bloc countries, committing cyber attacks, and now blatantly not keeping your part of the cease fire agreement. I would take a very hard look in the mirror if I was Medvedev, but then again I think this was a plan all along.

Second issue tonight is the New York Times article yesterday about MTBI. I think it is an OK article. There are two major issues that I want to talk about though, the first is you have to read all three pages for both sides, and then you only get 25% of any sort of "good news."

If I am going to write an article discussing something I try to approach it from both sides of the debate, so that you can read my facts, read my analysis, see my conclusions, and then agree or disagree. I hope I made a good enough argument that you agree, but as long as I showed all sides of the problem, I can feel good about it. I know Im not spinning an issue as Bill would say.

But this article spends 75% of the time talking about the negative. The military has in the last two years done a huge turn around trying to help soldiers with MTBI. Up until that point from my understanding there was a genuine misunderstanding of what was going on. Medical professionals were not sure what was going on. The problem was identified though, and the steps being taken are extraordinary.

The second issue was that some of these cases were exactly what was discussed by the Army Family Action Plan Roundtable last week that I wrote about. Soldiers many times, especially in our Guard and Reserve Units, return home, and are miles and miles away from their unit and other military members. They are a great distance away also from medical facilities that are specifically looking for and treating these conditions. That was the entire basis for one of their most major initiatives targeting these soldiers to better treat them and service them. But, did the article cover anything along these lines, no. Did it pass on any of this information, no it did not, and that is where my severe disappointment is.

I know that this could just be called another case of the main stream media not telling the entire story. But this is different for me. This is an issue of taking care of soldiers, and that is a charge I take very seriously.

The link to the NY Times article is listed again below, and the link to my last story on the Army Family Action Plan.

God Bless America

Bryan

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/us/26tbi.html?pagewanted=1

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