Chief Warrant Officer James Brad Smith broke five ribs, punctured a lung and shattered bones in his hand and thigh after falling more than 20 feet from a Black Hawk helicopter in Baghdad last month. While he was recovering at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, his doctor suggested he add acupuncture to his treatment to help with the pain. On a recent morning, Col. Richard Niemtzow, an Air Force physician, carefully pushed a short needle into part of Smith’s outer ear. The soldier flinched, saying it felt like he “got clipped by something.” By the time three more of the tiny, gold alloy needles were arranged around the ear, though, the pain from his injuries began to ease. “My ribs feel numb now and I feel it a little less in my hand,” Smith said, raising his injured arm. “The pain isn’t as sharp. It’s maybe 50 percent better. Acupuncture involves placing very thin needles at specific points on the body to try to control pain and reduce stress. There are only theories about how, why and even whether it might work. Regardless, the ancient Chinese practice has been gradually catching on as a pain treatment for troops who come home wounded. Now the Air Force, which runs the military’s only acupuncture clinic, is training doctors to take acupuncture to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. A pilot program starting in March will prepare 44 Air Force, Navy and Army doctors to use acupuncture as part of emergency care in combat and in frontline hospitals, not just on bases back home. They will learn “battlefield acupuncture,” a method Niemtzow developed in 2001 that’s derived from traditional ear acupuncture but uses the short needles to better fit under combat helmets so soldiers can continue their missions with the needles inserted to relieve pain. The needles are applied to five points on the outer ear. Niemtzow says most of his patients say their pain decreases within minutes.
The Navy has begun a similar pilot program to train its doctors at Camp Pendleton in California Niemtzow is chief of the acupuncture clinic at Andrews Air Force Base. He’s leading the new program after training many of about 50 active duty military physicians who practice acupuncture. The U.S. military encountered acupuncture during the Vietnam War, when an Army surgeon wrote in a 1967 edition of Military Medicine magazine about local physicians who were allowed to practice at a U.S. Army surgical hospital and administered acupuncture to Vietnamese patients. Niemtzow started offering acupuncture in 1995 at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. Several years later, he became the first full-time military medical acupuncturist for the Navy, which also provides health care for the Marines. Later, he established the acupuncture clinic at the Malcolm Grow
Medical Center at Andrews, and he continued to expand acupuncture by treating patients at Walter Reed and other Air Force bases in the country and in Germany. Niemtzow and his colleague Col. Stephen Burns administer about a dozen forms of acupuncture — including one type that uses lasers — to soldiers and their families every week. Col. Arnyce Pock, medical director for the Air Force Medical Corps, said acupuncture comes without the side effects that are common after taking traditional painkillers. Acupuncture also quickly treats pain. “It allows troops to reduce the number of narcotics they take for pain, and have a better assessment of any underlying brain injury they may have,” Pock said. “When they’re on narcotics, you can’t do that because they’re feeling the effects of the drugs.” Niemtzow cautions that while acupuncture can be effective, it’s not a cure-all. “In some instances it doesn’t work,” he said. “But it can be another tool in one’s toolbox to be used in addition to painkillers to reduce the level of pain even further.”
Smith says the throbbing pain in his leg didn’t change with acupuncture treatment but that the pain levels in his arm and ribs were the lowest they’ve been since he was injured. He also said that he didn’t feel groggy afterward, a side-effect he usually experiences from the low-level morphine he takes. Ultimately, Niemtzow would like troops to learn acupuncture so they can treat each other while out on missions. For now, the Air Force program is limited to training physicians. He says it’s “remarkable” for the military, a “conservative institution,” to incorporate acupuncture. “The history of military medicine is rich in development,” he said, “and a lot of people say that if the military is using it, then it must be good for the civilian world.”
The United States will soon double the number of its troops in Afghanistan from about 30,000 to 60,000, and several other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) countries will also up their troop levels. The move comes with little surprise and considerable bipartisan support in the US, but with little public discussion of the aims and likely outcomes. Evocative as the move is with similar events in Iraq that are generally (though perhaps uncritically) credited with bringing stability there, it is hoped that a similar outcome will come about in Afghanistan, where the situation has deteriorated badly while US attention has been focused on Iraq and Iran. The troop surge in Afghanistan will strengthen defenses around major cities such as Kabul, Jalalabad, Gardez and Kandahar, countering the Taliban’s infiltration and growing presence in city neighborhoods. (Though Afghan guerrilla movements are thought rural, during the war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, the mujahideen were able to operate in many cities, especially Kandahar.) Presently, the Taliban use their infiltration of cities to gather intelligence, send out bombing operations and make their presence otherwise felt through intimidation of officials and establishing an alternate government. Two years ago, Taliban bombings were remarkably ineffectual, killing only the bomber in about half of the attacks. In recent months, however, their campaign has demonstrated increased skill in the deadly trade. In time, they will seek to turn Afghan cities into Fallujahs and Baghdads. The surge will allow for more sweep operations in rural areas where the Taliban have been spreading and consolidating. Such operations will halt and hopefully reverse the unfavorable momentum that has been underway for several years. Halting that momentum is critical, as many Pashtun and other tribes are beginning to see the Taliban as a likely victor with whom they must come to terms, sooner or later. Yet there is evidence that even a few non-Pashtun tribes in the geographic center, including Tajiks and Hazaras, are choosing to do so sooner rather than later. It is crucial to stave off the drift toward reducing the US/NATO presence to a series of enclaves surrounded by a Taliban-controlled countryside – a state of affairs especially pronounced in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand and in several eastern provinces as well. Anti-Taliban tribes along the supply routes from Pakistan will welcome sweeps as removing pressure on them, though the Taliban might simply move operations to the Pakistani side of the frontier and seek to isolate US/NATO forces from that side of the frontier. Sweeps will also provide the opportunity for greater village security on which counter-insurgency programs depend. This is essential if there is any hope of detaching the populace from the Taliban and engaging them with the Hamid Karzai government. At present, the Taliban are able to move freely in and out of many villages to impose their own form of security and justice, both of which are becoming acceptable to a war-weary people. A doubling of US troop levels, however, will entail at least as many problems as advantages. More US troops will add to the growing perception that US/NATO forces are no longer there to help them, rather they are an occupying force like the Persians, British and Russians before them, and as such they are to be treated as the others were. The same perception, regardless of Western forces’ actual intentions, will resonate in much of the Islamic world, where hostility to the US is strong and attributing imperialist motives requires little evidence or promulgation. After the collapse of Iraq as the central theater of operations, many Islamist fighters now see Afghanistan as the setting for defeating the US. The various insurgent groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan have already drawn additional international fighters including Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs. Reports state that a number of al-Qaeda fighters have left Iraq for the more promising campaign to the east. More US/NATO sweeps in contested areas may push the Taliban off balance, but they can cause troubles as well. Many village chieftains complain that such operations bring fighting and attendant ills to areas that had not endured serious warfare in years. In other words, they see US/North Atlantic Treaty Orginization (NATO) efforts to oust the Taliban – not the Taliban itself – as the cause of fighting, destruction, stray ordnance and death. Thousands more US troops raises the question of their suitability for the intricate and frustrating nature of counter-insurgency warfare. Most if not all will be regular infantry units, which are neither trained for nor suited to counter-insurgency operations and as such are not as politically adroit as the Taliban, who have been conducting a form of such operations for many years now. More useful in this regard are special forces, which are trained in negotiating with chieftains, attending to village needs and otherwise garnering local support. Regular infantry troops rely on extensive use of massive firepower – a way of war that has been with the US military for generations and has become a veritable instinct in non-commissioned officers and officers. It has led to considerable success over the years, but also to notable failures where it alienated civilian populaces. Though developments in Iraq have somewhat disabused the US of relying on massive firepower, US forces in Afghanistan, when under heavy sustained fire, revert to form and call in artillery and air strikes – and do so far more readily than would British, French, Canadian and other NATO troops. The consequences are reduced US casualties and a number of guerrilla casualties, but often a great deal of civilian casualties and damage to villages. Recent Taliban tactics indicate awareness of this, as guerrillas now attack a position in a populated area, such
as a police station, wait for US firepower to rain down, then withdraw to sanctuaries, confident that the damage will turn villagers against the US – a confidence that has not led to general disappointment. Furthermore, US battlefield intelligence is poor, leading to high casualties as misdirected ordnance falls on hapless civilians, not canny guerrillas. Despite the tightest discipline and the inculcation of respect for local nationals among US infantry, many of whom are on their fifth or sixth combat tour, it is likely that a small but significant percentage of soldiers have become hostile to the people of the region – Islamist or not, pro-Taliban or not, armed or not. More troops will require more supplies to be delivered into the remote, landlocked country, most of which come through Pakistan. Aside from the increase in US troops, there are plans to vastly increase the size of the Afghan army, which of course will be mainly supplied from outside.
Electronics giant NEC Corp in Japan will cut 20,000 workers worldwide to stanch mounting losses, joining a slew of other Japanese corporate heavyweights who are slashing jobs to survive the deepening global downturn. Hitachi, another maker of electronic products, also said on Friday that it will cut 7,000 jobs and forecasted a net loss of 700 billion yen ($7.7 billion) for the year through March.
NEC’s net loss for October-December swelled to 130 billion yen ($1.46 billion) from 5.2 billion yen a year earlier as the global slump hit semiconductors and other businesses, it said on Friday.
Fire on your left engine,” an air controller screamed to the pilot at 6.29am. “Mayday! Mayday!” Captain Ajay Keri, the pilot of flight S2-361, shouted back into the radio. These were the terse distress messages swapped after a JetLite aircraft sustained a bird-hit soon after taking off from Kolkata for Guwahati on Saturday morning. With Friday’s images of the US Airways Airbus floating on the Hudson still fresh, the controller acted promptly on spotting smoke billowing out of the left engine of the Boeing 737-800. After warning the pilot, he alerted ground services to prepare for an emergency landing. Just the day before, a flock of geese got sucked into two engines of the US Airways Airbus A320 and forced captain Chesley Sullenberger to make a dramatic splashdown on the river. Like the Hudson hero, Captain Keri, too, showed presence of mind after being alerted about the fire ignited by a kite getting sucked into the left engine of his Boeing. He took the crucial step of cutting off fuel supply to the damaged engine to prevent the fire spreading. Once that was done, he returned for an emergency landing.
The 38 passengers and five crew members of the aircraft survived a potential disaster due to the alertness of Keri and the traffic controller. Inspections later revealed that the engine was badly damaged. “A detailed probe is in progress. An overall assessment of Kolkata airport surroundings (to find what attracts birds here) is also being conducted,” Director General of Civil Aviation Nasim Zaidi said. The B-737 aircraft has two engines. When one engine fails, the pilot has a problem balancing the aircraft but it can still be managed. On Saturday, the automated fire extinguishing system (AFES) on board functioned properly, preventing the fire from spreading beyond the engine.
An Airports Authority of India official later said dense fog had reduced visibility when the flight took off. “The bird had not been spotted from either the cockpit or the ATC due to poor visibility. Fortunately, the traffic controller saw the flame just in time to alert the pilot. The aircraft had then soared to barely 500 feet,” the official said. After being alerted, the pilot sought emergency landing clearance and requested for more airspace to enable a slow turn for a safer approach. He aligned the aircraft with the runway, scanned the instrument panel, murmured a prayer and descended. Minutes later, the wheels touched down softly. Fire trucks raced in. The passengers were herded into buses and taken to the terminal. They were later accommodated on an Air India flight that took off at 10 am.
“The incident that happened today should never happen. Though chances of two birds striking the two engines are remote, it cannot be ruled out. If a plane encounters a flock during takeoff, the unforeseen can happen. It can then be disastrous,” an airline pilot said, adding that there have been several close calls in the past and had been reported to AAI.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday named as his unification minister an architect of his hardline policy on the communist North two days after the latest threats by Pyongyang. The North Korean threat coming just days before Barack Obama is sworn in as U.S. president was largely dismissed by Lee’s government as a repeat of past rhetoric, but analysts saw it as an attempt to grab the attention of the incoming U.S. leader. Hyun In-taek who takes over at the UnificationNorth Korea, which analysts suspect is trying harder to grab the attention of incoming U.S. president Barack Obama, on Tuesday accused the South of driving the divided peninsula back into war. It is the latest verbal onslaught against South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who on Monday put the architect of the policy that has so angered the North in charge of relations between the two Koreas. “It goes without saying that Lee Myung-bak is the one who has driven the bellicosity high,” the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in an editorial carried on North Korea’s KCNA news agency.
South Korea at the weekend placed its military — backed by some 28,000 U.S. troops in the South — on high alert and warned of possible conflicts off the west coast of the peninsula which has been the scene of deadly naval disputes in the past, after Pyongyang said it would wipe out its neighbor.”Only those who made up their minds to start a war can say this nonsense … This is hysterical madness and the situation is grave,” the newspaper added.
Analysts say the secretive North, which often uses key events when it wants to make a point to the outside world, is using its latest surge in furious rhetoric to try to attract the attention of Obama, who will be inaugurated later in the day. Investors shrugged off North Korea’s repeated threats as South Korea’s five-year CDS, a measure of risk premium on investing in the South, stood at 310 basis points, up slightly from Monday but still far below levels seen last week.
Pyongyang’s rocky relationship with the Bush administration has been calmer in the past year or so, after it agreed to start moves to dismantle its nuclear weapons program, though negotiations have been stalled for months over the North’s refusal to allow nuclear material to be taken outside the country. Many North Korea-watchers say Pyongyang’s ultimate goal, using the threat of nuclear weapons as its leverage, is to have diplomatic relations with Washington and it may be hoping for an easier relationship with the Obama government.
The relationship between the two Koreas — still technically at war — has chilled sharply since Lee took office almost a year ago with a promise to end the free-flow of aid to his communist neighbor unless it moved to end its nuclear weapons program. On Monday, he named as his new unification minister conservative scholar Hyun In-taek, a major figure in developing Lee’s policy of heavy investment into the North in exchange for nuclear disarmament and economic reform. Pyongyang’s leaders have bridled at the policy which many analysts say would ultimately undermine the authority of iron ruler Kim Jong-il, who has maintained absolute control while his country’s economy has sunk into ruin.
Since late last year, the North has blocked almost all traffic between the two sides but has allowed a South Korean team of officials in to discuss the possible purchase of fuel rods from its nuclear reactor. The team is due back in Seoul later on Tuesday.
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Chief Warrant Officer James Brad Smith broke five ribs, punctured a lung and shattered bones in his hand and thigh after falling more than 20 feet from a Black Hawk helicopter in 
The 
Electronics giant NEC Corp in 
Fire on your left engine,” an air controller screamed to the pilot at 6.29am. “Mayday! Mayday!” Captain Ajay Keri, the pilot of flight S2-361, shouted back into the radio. These were the terse distress messages swapped after a JetLite aircraft sustained a bird-hit soon after taking off from Kolkata for Guwahati on Saturday morning. With Friday’s images of the US Airways Airbus floating on the 
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak on Monday named as his unification minister an architect of his hardline policy on the communist North two days after the latest threats by