All Entries in the "Military, War, Occupation," Category

Officer: U.S. paints false picture of Afghan war

A US Army officer has accused the American military of painting a misleading picture of progress in the war in Afghanistan while glossing over the Kabul government’s many failings.

Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis deliberately broke ranks with the official portrayal of the war after spending a year in the country, issuing a grim assessment and accusing his superiors of covering up the harsh realities that plague the mission.

“What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by US military leaders about conditions on the ground,” Davis wrote in an article published in Armed Forces Journal, a private newspaper not affiliated with the Pentagon.

Full Story Here: Officer: U.S. paints false picture of Afghan war | The Raw Story.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dempsey Told Israelis US Won’t Join Their War on Iran

Washington – Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told Israeli leaders Jan. 20 that the United States would not participate in a war against Iran begun by Israel without prior agreement from Washington, according to accounts from well-placed senior military officers.

Dempsey’s warning, conveyed to both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, represents the strongest move yet by President Barack Obama to deter an Israeli attack and ensure that the United States is not caught up in a regional conflagration with Iran.

But the Israeli government remains defiant about maintaining its freedom of action to make war on Iran, and it is counting on the influence of right-wing extremist views in U.S. politics to bring pressure to bear on Obama to fall into line with a possible Israeli attack during the election campaign this fall.

Full Story Here: Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dempsey Told Israelis US Won’t Join Their War on Iran | Truthout.

War on Iran: It’s Not A Matter of “If”

The world’s press is choc-a-bloc with “if” questions about Iran and war. Will Israel attack? Is Obama, coerced by domestic politics in an election year, being dragged into war by the Israel lobby? Will he lunch the bombers? Is the strategy to force Iran into a corner, methodically demolishing its economy by embargoes and sanctions so that in the end a desperate Iran strikes back.

As with sanctions and covert military onslaughts on Iraq in the run up to 2003, the first point to underline is that the US is waging war on Iran. But well aware of the US public’s aversion to yet another war in the Middle East, the onslaught is an undeclared one.

The analogy here is the run up to Pearl Harbor. Let me quote from a useful timeline. On October 7, 1940, a US Navy IQ analyst Arthur McCollum wrote an 8 point memo on how to force Japan into war with US. Beginning the next day FDR began to put them into effect and all 8 were eventually accomplished.

Full Story Here: War on Iran: It’s Not A Matter of “If” » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.

The Geo-Politics of the Strait of Hormuz: Could the U.S. Navy be defeated by Iran in the Persian Gulf?

The Pentagon’s own war simulations show that a war in the Persian Gulf with Iran would spell disaster for the U.S. Navy.

After years of U.S. threats, Iran is taking steps which suggest that is both willing and capable of closing the Strait of Hormuz. On December 24, 2011 Iran started its Velayat-90 naval drills in and around the Strait of Hormuz and extending from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman (Oman Sea) to the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea.

Since the conduct of these drills, there has been a growing war of words between Washington and Tehran. Nothing the Obama Administration or the Pentagon have done or said so far, however, has deterred Tehran from continuing its naval drills.

The Geo-Political Nature of the Strait of Hormuz

Besides the fact that it is a vital transit point for global energy resources and a strategic chokepoint, two additional issues should be addressed in regards to the Strait of Hormuz and its relationship to Iran. The first concerns the geography of the Strait of Hormuz. The second pertains to the role of Iran in co-managing the strategic strait in accordance with international law and its sovereign national rights.

Full Story Here: The Geo-Politics of the Strait of Hormuz: Could the U.S. Navy be defeated by Iran in the Persian Gulf?.

OPS: …and yet they are sending an Aircraft carrier fleet back in there. Does the name “Pueblo” mean anything to you?

Cargo Drone Tested In Afghanistan

The U.S. military is testing a revolutionary new drone for its arsenal, a pilotless helicopter intended to fly cargo missions to remote outposts where frequent roadside bombs threaten access by road convoys.

Surveillance drones for monitoring enemy activity and armed versions for launching airstrikes have become a trademark of America’s wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. But this is the first time a chopper version designed for transport has ben used operationally.

Two unmanned models of the Kaman K-MAX helicopters and a team of 16 company technicians and 8 Marines are conducting a 6-month evaluation program for the new craft at Camp Dwyer, a Marine Corps airfield in the Garmsir district of southern Helmand Province.

Full Story Here: Cargo Drone Tested In Afghanistan.

Fawaz Gerges: The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda: Debunking the Terrorism Narrative

The popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain have not only shaken the foundation of the authoritarian order in the Middle East, but they have also hammered a deadly nail in the coffin of a terrorism narrative which has painted Al-Qaeda as the West’s greatest threat. At least, they should have.

Yet despite Osama bin Laden’s killing in May, the dwindling of his group to the palest shadow of its former self and the protest of millions across the Arab world for whom the group never represented, Al-Qaeda holds a grasp on the Western imagination. Few Americans and Westerners realize the degree to which their fear of terrorism is misplaced, making closure over to the costly War on Terror difficult, if not impossible. Shrouded in myth and inflated by a self-sustaining industry of so-called terrorism “experts” and a well-funded national security industrial complex whose numbers swelled to nearly one million, the power of Al-Qaeda can only be eradicated when the fantasies around the group are laid to rest.

Myth 1: Al-Qaeda has been operational for more than two decades

Contrary to the conventional terrorism narrative, Al-Qaeda has not been a functional organization with the goal of targeting the West for the past 20 years. By the time the American forces expelled bin Laden and his associates from their base in Afghanistan at the end of 2001, Al-Qaeda, as we know it today, was only five years old.

Full Story Here: Fawaz Gerges: The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda: Debunking the Terrorism Narrative.

Think Again: As We Leave Iraq, Remember How We Got In

Two weeks ago in this space, I employed the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to examine the unhappy precedent set by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in failing to level with the American people about the level of conflict between the United States and the Axis Powers that preceded the attack.

Using this analogy, and speaking of the manner in which President Lyndon B. Johnson deliberately deceived the nation about the imaginary second Gulf of Tonkin incident and thereby entangled the nation in the unwinnable Vietnam War, I noted Sen. J. William Fulbright later remarked that “FDR’s deviousness in a good cause made it much easier for [LBJ] to practice the same kind of deviousness in a bad cause.”

The consequences of President Johnson’s campaign of deliberate deception regarding Vietnam could hardly have been more catastrophic for the nation, the military, the president, his party, and the presidency itself. And while there is no reason to minimize either the level of lying or its consequences, one cannot be impressed by the refusal of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to learn from his mistake.

Full Story Here: Think Again: As We Leave Iraq, Remember How We Got In.

DoD Investigating Nine Cases of “Terrorism-Related Acts” by US Military and Contractors?

Buried within the new Department of Defense Inspector General’s report, “Contingency Contracting: A Framework for Reform,” is the eye-opening revelation that the Defense Criminal Investigative Service has nine open investigations into alleged “Terrorism-Related Acts” by “U.S. contractor personnel, U.S. Military, Government personnel.” No other details are provided. DCIS is the criminal investigative agency working for the DoD’s Inspector General.

I called the IG’s office and asked them for information on these nine “terrorism-related” cases. “When it comes to individual cases or ongoing investigations, they’re not going to comment on that,” a spokesperson told me.

The “terrorism-related” investigations are part of more than 220 open investigations in DCIS’s “Global War on Terror Investigations.” Many of these relate to bribery, false claims, theft and export violations. DCIS agents have federal law enforcement authority and have authority to make arrests.

Full Story Here: DoD Investigating Nine Cases of “Terrorism-Related Acts” by US Military and Contractors? | The Nation.

U.S. still spending billions on Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ missile defense | The Raw Story

Boeing won a $3.48 billion contract Friday to retain its leading role in building a US shield against long-range ballistic missiles, defeating rival Lockheed Martin Corp., officials said Friday.

The US Missile Defense Agency announced the decision for the seven-year contract in which Boeing will test, engineer and manufacture the system designed to thwart potential attacks from intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Chicago-based Boeing was joined by partner Northrop Grumman, which will oversee the ground system and other aspects of the project, Boeing said in a statement.

Full Story Here: U.S. still spending billions on Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ missile defense | The Raw Story.

Slip-Sliding to War with Iran

Exclusive: Having apparently learned nothing from the Iraq disaster, many of the same political/media players are reprising their tough-guy roles in a new drama regarding Iran. These retread performances may make another war, with Iran, hard to avoid, writes Robert Parry

By Robert Parry

With the typical backdrop of alarmist propaganda in place, the stage is now set for a new war, this time with Iran. The slightest miscalculation (or provocation) by the United States, Israel or Iran could touch off a violent scenario that will have devastating consequences.

Indeed, even if they want to, the various sides might have trouble backing down enough to defuse today’s explosive situation. After all, the Iranians continue to insist they have no intention of building a nuclear bomb, as much as Israeli and American officials insist that they are.

Full Story Here: Slip-Sliding to War with Iran | Consortiumnews.

Synthetic Marijuana Use On The Rise Among U.S. Troops

U.S. troops are increasingly using an easy-to-get herbal mix called “Spice,” which mimics a marijuana high, is hard to detect and can bring on hallucinations that last for days.

The abuse of the substance has so alarmed military officials that they’ve launched an aggressive testing program that this year has led to the investigation of more than 1,100 suspected users.

So-called “synthetic” pot is readily available on the Internet and has become popular nationwide in recent years, but its use among troops and sailors has raised concerns among the Pentagon brass.

Full Story Here: Synthetic Marijuana Use On The Rise Among U.S. Troops.

The Coming Accidental War with Iran

Our attention has been rightfully turned to the stomach-churning photos of women being dragged by the hair through the streets of Egypt and Bahrain, and reports of yet more deaths in Syria. As this year ends however, it is worth noting with a bit of apprehension that Iran has been relatively quiet compared to its neighbors. In fact, when John Dudin of the New York Council on Foreign Relations reviewed the ten most significant developments in the Middle East in 2011 Iran did not make the list at all–even after the downing of the US drone earlier this month. Either things are improving and we are learning to better deal with Iran, or this is merely a pause in a decades-long estrangement which could turn violent, providing a shock to the global economy it might not be able to withstand.

War with Iran would mean the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, where the Iranian Navy began ten days of war games to practice doing just that on December 24th. At least 30% of all seaborne oil shipments pass through this chokepoint. Oil prices have been rising on the strength of the maneuvers alone: an actual blockade would double the price of oil overnight.

Now that America’s withdrawal from Iraq has been formalized, and Osama bin Laden, Hosni Mubarak, Muammar Gaddafi, Ali Abdullah Saleh, and Zine el Abidine Ben Ali have all been vanquished, after a year of unbelievable changes throughout the Middle East, my prediction is that Iran is about to regain center stage in the region. As a result of the US withdrawal, Iraq could be prone to more violence, and the Iranian leadership must certainly have taken note that none of the toppled leaders, including Sadam Hussein, possessed formal nuclear capabilities.

Full Story Here: Lyric Hughes Hale: The Coming Accidental War with Iran.

Pentagon Finds No Fault In Its Ties to TV Analysts

A Pentagon public relations program that sought to transform high-profile military analysts into “surrogates” and “message force multipliers” for the Bush administration complied with Defense Department regulations and directives, the Pentagon’s inspector general has concluded after a two-year investigation.

The inquiry was prompted by articles published in The New York Times in 2008 that described how the Pentagon, in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks, cultivated close ties with retired officers who worked as military analysts for television and radio networks. The articles also showed how military analysts affiliated with defense contractors sometimes used their special access to seek advantage in the competition for contracts. In response to the articles, the Pentagon suspended the program and members of Congress asked the Defense Department’s inspector general to investigate.

In January 2009, the inspector general’s office issued a report that said it had found no wrongdoing in the program. But soon after, the inspector general’s office retracted the entire report, saying it was so riddled with inaccuracies and flaws that none of its conclusions could be relied upon. In late 2009, the inspector general’s office began a new inquiry.

Full Story Here: Pentagon Finds No Fault In Its Ties to TV Analysts – NYTimes.com.

Banks May Have Illegally Foreclosed On 5,000 Members Of The Military

For months, major banks have been dealing with the fallout of the “robo-signing” scandal, following reports that the banks were improperly foreclosing on homeowners and, in many instances, falsifying paperwork that they were submitting to courts. Banks have been forced to go back and re-examine foreclosures to ensure that homeowners did not lose their homes unlawfully.

In the latest episode of this mess, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has found that banks — including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Citigroup — may have improperly foreclosed on up to 5,000 active members of the military:

Ten leading US lenders may have unlawfully foreclosed on the mortgages of nearly 5,000 active-duty members of the US military in recent years, according to data released by a federal regulator. [...]

The data released by the OCC are based on estimates prepared by lenders and their consultants. BofA said it is reviewing 2,400 foreclosures involving active-duty military families to see if they were conducted properly. Wells Fargo is reviewing 870 foreclosures and Citigroup is looking at 700 cases.

Full Story Here: Banks May Have Illegally Foreclosed On 5,000 Members Of The Military | ThinkProgress.

The Pentagon Flunks Another Audit

How can you know what to cut if you don’t know where the money is going?

The military-industrial complex is in high alert. They can’t really believe that the Obama administration will keep its word and veto any Congressional action that would try and get the Pentagon out from the sequestration problem of cutting over a half a trillion from the Department of Defense (DoD) budget over the next ten years. If they are confident it won’t happen, they are doing a good job of panicking over the cuts

for public consumption and to protect their turf.

News articles and columns are popping up with various lists of what could be cut to come up with the money, and the DoD is maneuvering to offer up cuts on military pensions and health care, readiness and training budgets to save the required amount of money without touching their holy grail, the overpriced and ineffective weapons systems.

Full Story Here: The Pentagon Flunks Another Audit | Truthout.

Multiple missteps led to drone killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan

Though no dereliction of duty was found, a Pentagon investigation raised troubling questions: Among them: Was the Predator missile fired too quickly?

On the evening of April 5, a pilot settled into a leather captain’s chair at Creech Air Force Base in southern Nevada and took the controls of a Predator drone flying over one of the most violent areas of southwestern Afghanistan. Minutes later, his radio crackled.

A firefight had broken out. Taliban insurgents had ambushed about two dozen Marines patrolling a bitterly contested road.

The Air Force captain angled his joystick and the drone veered toward the fighting taking place half a world away, where it was already morning. He powered up two Hellfire missiles under its wings and ordered a crew member responsible for operating the drone’s cameras to search for enemy fighters.

Full Story Here: Multiple missteps led to drone killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan – latimes.com.

What “withdrawal” means for an empire

As troops pull out of Iraq, Obama plans more combat forces elsewhere in the Middle East

Last week here at Salon, we had a good back and forth about whether America is an empire, and why even pondering that question is so taboo. Quite serendipitously, our debate came just before this big report in the New York Times over the weekend:

The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait…

In addition to negotiations over maintaining a ground combat presence in Kuwait, the United States is considering sending more naval warships through international waters in the region.

Indefinite military occupations of resource-rich regions is one of the hallmarks of empire — indeed, if we saw another country do that, we would almost certainly refer to it as an unacceptable imperial move. Of course, the justification of the Obama administration’s announcement doesn’t hew to the standard lexicon of imperialism; it applies our modern newspeak in an attempt to promote the fallacy that the United States acts only out of selfless benevolence.

Full Story Here: What “withdrawal” means for an empire – Iraq war – Salon.com.

U.S. Plans Post-Iraq Troop Increase in Persian Gulf

The Obama administration plans to bolster the American military presence in the Persian Gulf after it withdraws the remaining troops from Iraq this year, according to officials and diplomats. That repositioning could include new combat forces in Kuwait able to respond to a collapse of security in Iraq or a military confrontation with Iran.

The plans, under discussion for months, gained new urgency after President Obama’s announcement this month that the last American soldiers would be brought home from Iraq by the end of December. Ending the eight-year war was a central pledge of his presidential campaign, but American military officers and diplomats, as well as officials of several countries in the region, worry that the withdrawal could leave instability or worse in its wake.

After unsuccessfully pressing both the Obama administration and the Iraqi government to permit as many as 20,000 American troops to remain in Iraq beyond 2011, the Pentagon is now drawing up an alternative.

In addition to negotiations over maintaining a ground combat presence in Kuwait, the United States is considering sending more naval warships through international waters in the region.

Full Story Here: U.S. Plans Post-Iraq Troop Increase in Persian Gulf – NYTimes.com.

OPS: Like the man said: It ain’t over, till it’s over

Did John Bolton Just Admit All These Wars Are For Oil? – YouTube

” The critical oil and natural gas producing region that we fought so many wars to try and protect our economy from the adverse impact of losing that supply or having it available at very high prices ”

Sounds like it !

Nice work Herman !

Full Story Here: Did John Bolton Just Admit All These Wars Are For Oil? – YouTube.

About that Iraq withdrawal

President Obama announced today that all U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year, and this announcement is being seized upon exactly the way you would predict: by the Right to argue that Obama is a weak, appeasing Chamberlain and by Democrats to hail his greatness for keeping his promise and (yet again) Ending the War. It’s obviously a good thing that these troops are leaving Iraq, but let’s note three clear facts before either of these absurd narratives ossify:

First, the troop withdrawal is required by an agreement which George W. Bush negotiated and entered into with Iraq and which was ratified by the Iraqi Parliament prior to Obama’s inauguration. Let’s listen to the White House itself today: “’This deal was cut by the Bush administration, the agreement was always that at end of the year we would leave. . . .’ an administration official said.” As I said, it’s a good thing that this agreement is being adhered to, and one can reasonably argue that Obama’s campaign advocacy for the war’s end influenced the making of that agreement, but the Year End 2011 withdrawal date was agreed to by the Bush administration and codified by them in a binding agreement.

Second, the Obama administration has been working for months to persuade, pressure and cajole Iraq to allow U.S. troops to remain in that country beyond the deadline. The reason they’re being withdrawn isn’t because Obama insisted on this, but because he tried — but failed — to get out of this obligation. Again, listen to the White House itself:

Full Story Here: About that Iraq withdrawal – Salon.com.

Soldiers May Be Leaving Iraq, But Contractors Will Remain

American troops may be leaving Iraq before the end of the year, but U.S. contractors aren’t going anywhere soon.

ABC News reports that the State Department “is expected to have about 5,000 security contractors in Iraq as of January 2012 (they already have about 3,000 in country).” There will also be 4,500 “general life support” contractors to provide food and medical services.

Still, there’ll be a pretty big reduction in the contracting fleet. The Defense Department currently has 9,500 security contractors in Iraq in addition to several thousand general life contractors, said ABC News. At one point, in June 2009, the DOD had 15,200 security contractors in the country.

The State Department’s track record on controlling its contractors isn’t so great, as Spencer Ackerman reports:

Full Story Here: Soldiers May Be Leaving Iraq, But Contractors Will Remain | TPMMuckraker.

BREAKING — President Obama Will Announce Today Complete Drawdown of US Troops in Iraq to Zero By End of Year

Sources tell ABC News that the president will announce today that US troops in Iraq will draw down to zero by the end of the year.

A White House official says that at approximately 11:30am today, President Obama convened a secure video conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to talk with him about this news.

Full Story Here: BREAKING — President Obama Will Announce Today Complete Drawdown of US Troops in Iraq to Zero By End of Year – ABC News.

OPS: Of course this is bullshit. We still have more Mercenaries…really EXPENSIVE mercenaries,  in  Iraq than US Troops and have had for a long time.  So the War and expense will continue.

America’s Secret Empire of Drone Bases: Its Full Extent Revealed for the First Time

A ground-breaking investigation examines the most secret aspect of America’s shadowy drone wars and maps out a world of hidden bases dotting the globe.

They increasingly dot the planet.  There’s a facility outside Las Vegas where “pilots” work in climate-controlled trailers, another at a dusty camp in Africa formerly used by the French Foreign Legion, a third at a big air base in Afghanistan where Air Force personnel sit in front of multiple computer screens, and a fourth that almost no one talks about at an air base in the United Arab Emirates. 

And that leaves at least 56 more such facilities to mention in an expanding American empire of unmanned drone bases being set up worldwide.  Despite frequent news reports on the drone assassination campaign launched in support of America’s ever-widening undeclared wars and a spate of stories on drone bases in Africa and the Middle East, most of these facilities have remained unnoted, uncounted, and remarkably anonymous — until now. 

Run by the military, the Central Intelligence Agency, and their proxies, these bases — some little more than desolate airstrips, others sophisticated command and control centers filled with computer screens and high-tech electronic equipment — are the backbone of a new American robotic way of war.  They are also the latest development in a long-evolving saga of American power projection abroad — in this case, remote-controlled strikes anywhere on the planet with a minimal foreign “footprint” and little accountability.

Full Story Here: America’s Secret Empire of Drone Bases: Its Full Extent Revealed for the First Time | World | AlterNet.

US abandons plans to keep troops in Iraq next year

The U.S. is abandoning plans to keep U.S. troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline, The Associated Press has learned. The decision to pull out fully by January will effectively end more than eight years of U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, despite ongoing concerns about its security forces and the potential for instability.

The decision ends months of hand-wringing by U.S. officials over whether to stick to a Dec. 31 withdrawal deadline that was set in 2008 or negotiate a new security agreement to ensure that gains made and more than 4,400 American military lives lost since March 2003 do not go to waste.

In recent months, Washington has been discussing with Iraqi leaders the possibility of several thousand American troops remaining to continue training Iraqi security forces.

But a senior Obama administration official in Washington confirmed Saturday that all American troops will leave Iraq except for about 160 active-duty soldiers attached to the U.S. Embassy.

Full Story Here: US abandons plans to keep troops in Iraq next year – World news – Mideast/N. Africa – Conflict in Iraq – msnbc.com.

Panetta: Cutting too deep would devastate military

Defense leaders and members of Congress drew a line in the sand Thursday, saying the Pentagon must be spared from any budget cuts beyond an initial plan to slash at least $450 billion over the next 10 years.

The military, they said, must not take even deeper cuts – a looming threat if lawmakers fail to agree on $1.2 trillion in federal budget savings by Thanksgiving and instead allow automatic cuts to kick in.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said President Barack Obama shares his view that the Pentagon should be shielded from any additional budget cutting.

Appearing before the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Panetta and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pounded home their message that further cuts would create national security risks and devastate the military.

Full Story Here: News from The Associated Press.

OPS: Well, isn’t that too damn bad!

Marine Vet at #OccupyWallStreet Tells Sean Hannity to “F**k Off”

Recently, Sean Hannity called the #OccupyWallStreet protesters un-American by saying they “hated liberty.”

(As seen in this video)

In response, WeAreTheOther99.com interviewed a few Marine vets at Zuccotti Park.

The Marines stated why they had come to protest and in direct response to Hannity’s statement: One said “F**k Off” and the other replied: “That’s the biggest load of shit I’ve ever heard”

Please continue to support “We Are The Other 99″. Consider a donation of $9.17 [Sept. 17] to keep our coverage on the air. We are funded 100% by small donors like you. Thanks for the generosity you’ve already shown us, whatever the amount..

Full Story Here: Marine Vet at #OccupyWallStreet Tells Sean Hannity to “F**k Off” – YouTube.

Watch: U.S. Marines tell Hannity to ‘f*ck off’

At “Occupy Wall Street” on Monday, two men in military colors who claimed to be Marines spoke to a cameraman with “The Other 99 Percent” and explained why they joined the protest.

Along the way, both men gave arch-conservative Fox News opinion host Sean Hannity a piece of their minds.

“These wars that are going on, I don’t believe in them,” one man said. “I want my brothers and sisters to come back home. The bailout was a farce. It robbed American people.”

Full Story Here: Watch: U.S. Marines tell Hannity to ‘f*ck off’ | The Raw Story.

Major discovery: a purpose of the war in Afghanistan

The Washington Post today describes the failure of regimented programs in Afghanistan to reintegrate Taliban teenagers (“Taliban” (alt.: “Terrorist”) means “any Afghan who fights against the presence of foreign military forces in their country” and “reintegrate” means “persuading or compelling them to passively acquiesce to those forces”):

The teenage insurgents spend their days learning to make shoes and bookshelves, listening to religious leaders denounce the radical interpretation of Islam they learned as children.

But when they return to their cells at Kabul’s juvenile rehabilitation center, the boys with wispy beards and cracking voices talk only of the holy war from which they were plucked and their plans to resume fighting for the Taliban.

Full Story Here: Major discovery: a purpose of the war in Afghanistan – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

U.S. Predator Drones Could Be Based In Turkey: Report

The U.S. and Turkey are discussing how to continue cooperation against terrorist targets in northern Iraq after U.S. forces leave Iraq in December, including the possibility of basing Predator drones in Turkey, a U.S. official said Sunday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The U.S. currently is sharing Predator surveillance data with Turkey as part of a joint effort to combat the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which the U.S. considers a terrorist group and whose fighters have launched cross-border attacks into Turkey from northern Iraq. The Predators, capable of transmitting full-motion video, are flow from bases in Iraq.

The scheduled U.S. withdrawal from Iraq by Dec. 31 is presenting a number of diplomatic and potential military complications for the Obama administration. In addition to the issue of continued cooperation with Turkey against the PKK in northern Iraq, the U.S. also is considering whether to base backup or rotational training forces in Kuwait in order to provide the additional military support that American commanders say the Iraqis will need well beyond 2011.

Full Story Here: U.S. Predator Drones Could Be Based In Turkey: Report.

Two soldiers detained over missing Ft. Bragg ammunition

Two male soldiers have been taken into custody at Fort Bragg, North Carolina in connection with the disappearance of roughly 14,000 rounds of ammunition reported missing at the Army base on Wednesday morning, officials said on Saturday.

Military police would not release the names or ranks of the soldiers in custody.

The missing 5.56 millimeter ammunition is valued at about $3,600 and “can be purchased at any Wal-Mart,” according to an official familiar with the investigation who spoke to Reuters only on condition of anonymity.

Full Story Here: Two soldiers detained over missing Ft. Bragg ammunition | The Raw Story.

TX Senator Demands That Air Force Answer to Him for Pulling “Jesus Loves Nukes” Training

This summer, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) scored a big victory, getting the Air Force to review all of its so-called “ethics” training. This decision by Air Force leadership was made after thirty-one Air Force officers decided to take a stand against what some officers had nicknamed the “Jesus Loves Nukes speech,” part of the Air Force’s missile launch officer training. These Air Force officers came to MRFF for help with getting this overtly Christian “ethics” training removed from the “Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare” class, a mandatory part of the first week of training for all officers in missile launch training at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

In late July, Truthout.org exposed the content of this training in an article titled “Air Force Cites New Testament, Ex-Nazi, to Train Officers on Ethics of Launching Nuclear Weapons.” The Air Force immediately suspended the training.

David Smith, the spokesman for the Air Force’s Air Education and Training Command, made the following statements to Fox News Radio explaining the Air Force’s decision: “In an effort to serve all faiths, we try to introduce none in our briefings and our lectures. Once we heard there were concerns, we looked at the course and said we could do better,” and, “The military is made up of people from all walks of life, all faiths. It’s most appropriate to let folks practice their faith on their own and not try to introduce something else to them.” Nobody could have a problem with this, right? Wrong.

Full Story Here: | TX Senator Demands That Air Force Answer to Him for Pulling “Jesus Loves Nukes” Training.

WikiLeaks Ron Paul Reveals Secret Baghdad Embassy Cable to Congress

Ron Paul addressing congress regarding leaked cables between Bagdad and the Bush Sr. Adm. prior to the invasion of Kawait.

Full Story Here: WikiLeaks Ron Paul Reveals Secret Baghdad Embassy Cable to Congress – YouTube.

U.S. Military’s Prolific Production of Terrorists 4 Profit

I have too readily embraced the notion, as I did with the Bushco regime, that this country is being led by macho, narcissistic, addicted-to-power, patriarchal nincompoops unwittingly generating massive chaos and destruction.

The macho, narcissistic, addicted-to-power, patriarchal part is right. And there are nincompoops and sycophant, amoral cronies enabling their asses off at the upper levels of power. But I and the rest of us should at all times apply the savvy Naomi Klein’s “shock and awe” theory to the continuing, seemingly unsuccessful nightmares resulting in global U.S. military policies. We need to exit the fog of spiritual and intellectual confusion to rally against bottom-line and insane evil.

To be “confused” … from the Latin … meaning “fused with”. When one is confused, one is in a sense enthralled by the confuser. Stymied. Paralyzed, to a degree, in the struggle for dissemination. To be confused is to be vulnerable. Such is the power of “crazymaking” actions.

Full Story Here: U.S. Military’s Prolific Production of Terrorists 4 Profit – libbyliberalnyc – Open Salon.

Pentagon Frets Over Wasted Billions (Ignores Missing Trillions)

An investigative committee released a report this week estimating that the US Government has lost as much as $60 billion to waste, fraud and corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade.

Full Story Here: Pentagon Frets Over Wasted Billions (Ignores Missing Trillions) – YouTube.

Military Spending Waste: Up To $60B In Iraq, Afghanistan War Funds Lost To Poor Planning, Oversight, Fraud

As much as $60 billion in U.S. funds has been lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade through lax oversight of contractors, poor planning and payoffs to warlords and insurgents, an independent panel investigating U.S. wartime spending estimates.

In its final report to Congress, the Commission on Wartime Contracting said the figure could grow as U.S. support for reconstruction projects and programs wanes, leaving both countries to bear the long-term costs of sustaining the schools, medical clinics, barracks, roads and power plants already built with American tax dollars.

Much of the waste and fraud could have been avoided with better planning and more aggressive oversight, the commission said. To avoid repeating the mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan, government agencies should overhaul the way they award and manage contracts in war zones, the commission recommended.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the commission’s 240-page report in advance of its scheduled public release on Wednesday.

Full Story Here: Military Spending Waste: Up To $60B In Iraq, Afghanistan War Funds Lost To Poor Planning, Oversight, Fraud.

A Spiritually Transformed Military with Ambassadors for Christ in Uniform

Throughout the U.S. military, with chapters on virtually every military installation worldwide, lurks an organization of over 15,500 fundamentalist Christian military officers who think their real duty is not to protect and defend the Constitution, but to raise up “a spiritually transformed military, with ambassadors for Christ in uniform, empowered by the Holy Spirit.” These officers belong to an organization called the Officers’ Christian Fellowship (OCF), and range in rank from future officers in ROTC and at the U.S. military’s service academies to generals and admirals.

Unlike the other fundamentalist Christian para-church military ministries, which employ retired military personnel to be their “insiders,” about 80 percent of OCF members are true insiders. They are current military officers, many of them commanders with authority over large numbers of service members and even entire bases and larger commands.

When people ask why our service members don’t just complain through military channels about religious issues, and instead come to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) for help, our answer is usually just to say that these service members are afraid to go to their military superiors. Most people, however, probably don’t understand why so many service members have this fear of going to their superiors and filing formal complaints, so I thought a little more of an explanation might be helpful, and explaining a bit about OCF is a good place to start.

Full Story Here: | A Spiritually Transformed Military with Ambassadors for Christ in Uniform.

US troops may stay in Afghanistan until 2024

America and Afghanistan are close to signing a strategic pact which would allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Full Story Here: US troops may stay in Afghanistan until 2024 – Telegraph.

OPS: …at $2 billion per WEEK! [ do the math]  Don’t you wonder what ELSE they will take away from us to support this Fascist addiction?

Lemmingly, We Roll Along

Ray McGovern :-:

“Two lemmings are chatting while standing in the line to the cliff. One says to the other, ‘Of course we have to go over the edge. Anything else would dishonor all the lemmings that have gone before us.’”

When soldiers die, the politicians who sent them to their deaths typically use euphemisms and circumlocutions — like “lost,” “fallen,” or “ultimate sacrifice.” On one level, the avoidance of blunt language can be seen as a sign of respect, but on another, it is just one more evasion of responsibility for the snuffing out of young lives.

There has been unusually wide (and for the most part supportive) reaction to my article of August 8 (They Died in Vain: Deal With It) on the killing of 30 American troops when their helicopter was shot down over Afghanistan on the night of the 6th. One website posting the article clocked 181 comments; scanning through them, I found many substantive, helpful ones.

Let me share one telling comment, which seemed to me particularly — if sadly — apt:

“Two lemmings are chatting while standing in the line to the cliff. One says to the other, ‘Of course we have to go over the edge. Anything else would dishonor all the lemmings that have gone before us.’”

And so it goes, thought I, with our Lemming-in-Chief (LIC) Barack Obama … and those who lemmingly follow him.

Full Story Here: Lemmingly, We Roll Along | Common Dreams.

The Pentagon’s Spending Spree

China just launched a refitted Ukrainian aircraft carrier from the 1990s on its first test run — and that’s what the only projected “great power” enemy of the U.S. has to offer for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, the U.S. Navy has 11 aircraft carrier task forces to cruise the seven seas and plans to keep that many through 2045. Like so much else, when it comes to the American military, all comparisons are ludicrous. In any normal sense, the United States stands alone in military terms. Its expenditures make up almost 50% of global military spending; it dominates the global arms market; and it has countless more bases, pilotless drones, military bands, and almost anything else military you’d care to mention than does any other power.

In other words, comparisons can’t be made. The minute you try, you’re off the charts. And yet, in purely practical terms, when you take a shot at measuring what the overwhelming investment of American treasure in the military, the U.S. intelligence community, the Department of Homeland Security, and the rest of our national security establishment has actually bought us, you come up with a series of wars and conflicts headed nowhere and a series of post-9/11 terror attacks generally so inept it hardly mattered whether they were foiled or not.

Full Story Here: Tomgram: Chris Hellman, The Pentagon’s Spending Spree | TomDispatch.

Study: CIA drones strikes have killed 168 children

The Obama administration says a year of drone strikes in Pakistan killed zero civilians; outside experts disagree

Based on international and Pakistani news reports and research on the ground, the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism has issued a new study on civilians killed by American drones, concluding that at least 385 civilians have been killed in the past seven years, including at least 168 children.

Here’s a taste of the report, which can be read in full here (warning: graphic images):

Pakistani father Din Mohammad had the misfortune to live next door to militants in Danda Darpakhel, North Waziristan. His neighbours were reportedly part of the Haqqani Network, a group fighting US forces in nearby Afghanistan.

On September 8 2010, the CIA’s Reaper drones paid a visit. Hellfire missiles tore into the compound killing six alleged militants.

Full Story Here: Study: CIA drones strikes have killed 168 children – War Room – Salon.com.

Our Troops do NOT Protect Our Freedom and We Should Stop Thanking Them for Doing So

Let’s make one thing crystal clear, no member of the US military contributes in any way whatsoever to protecting the freedoms of the American people. As a matter of fact, they are more likely to turn their weapons on you than they are to defend your Constitutional rights.

The only people on this planet Earth who can affect your freedom are members of Congress, local legislators and the members of enforcement institutions who will blindly follow the rulers who sign their paychecks. And, while your beloved troops are murdering people around the globe, yes, I said murdering, your Congress and local legislators are eliminating your freedoms, en masse, without any intervention by our so-called protectors in the armed forces.

There is no honor in volunteering to go anywhere in the world and kill anybody you are told to, without question, without historical background and without verifying the stated reasons for doing so. In this modern age of information we now know that time and time again our military have been deployed into battle, to kill and be killed, for reasons that in no way shape or form resemble the reasons for which they, or we were told at the time. This is no secret, although many Americans refuse to take off the flag that is wrapped around their eyes and see American history as it really happened. They blindly believe what was told to them by the people who have a vested interest in maintaining myths and misconceptions.

Full Story Here: Our Troops do NOT Protect Our Freedom and We Should Stop Thanking Them for Doing So.

OPS; Interesting perspective

Stop Sacrificing US Soldiers for Afghan Debacle

The fatal crash late on Friday in the Wardak province was the deadliest yet for US forces after nearly ten years of war in Afghanistan. Let’s tell President Obama that the best way to pay tribute to the soldiers who have died—and to address our financial crisis--is to bring the rest of the troops home.

The 38 deaths in Saturday’s helicopter crash in Afghanistan include 31 Americans, making this the deadliest day for U.S. forces since the war began. The tragic loss of American lives might be worth the sacrifice if it was making America safer, or if our presence was significantly improving the well-being of the Afghan people. But neither of these is true.

Our presence in Afghanistan is not making us safer because Afghanistan is not a threat to us. This was clearly acknowledged by a senior Obama administration official in a background briefing to reporters on June 21.“United States hasn’t seen a terrorist threat from Afghanistan, for the past seven or eight years,” he said. He noted that Al Qaeda had moved on to Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Meanwhile, thanks to President Obama’s surge, over 100,000 U.S. troops are bogged down chasing an indigenous Afghan ragtag army, the Taliban, which has no interest in attacking anyone inside the United States. The only reason they are attacking U.S. soldiers is that U.S. soldiers are occupying their country.

Full Story Here: Stop Sacrificing US Soldiers for Afghan Debacle | Common Dreams.

A Secret War in 120 Countries: The Pentagon’s New Power Elite

Somewhere on this planet an American commando is carrying out a mission. Now, say that 70 times and you’re done… for the day. Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world’s countries. This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now.

After a U.S. Navy SEAL put a bullet in Osama bin Laden’s chest and another in his head, one of the most secretive black-ops units in the American military suddenly found its mission in the public spotlight.  It was atypical.  While it’s well known that U.S. Special Operations forces are deployed in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s increasingly apparent that such units operate in murkier conflict zones like Yemen and Somalia, the full extent of their worldwide war has remained deeply in the shadows.

Last year, Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post reported that U.S. Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the Bush presidency.  By the end of this year, U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me, that number will likely reach 120.  “We do a lot of traveling — a lot more than Afghanistan or Iraq,” he said recently.  This global presence — in about 60% of the world’s nationsand far larger than previously acknowledged — provides striking new evidence of a rising clandestine Pentagon power elite waging a secret war in all corners of the world.

Full Story Here: A Secret War in 120 Countries: The Pentagon’s New Power Elite | Common Dreams.

Our Commando War in 120 Countries: Uncovering the Military’s Secret Operations In the Obama Era

Somewhere on this planet an American commando is carrying out a mission. Now, say that 70 times and you’re done… for the day. Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world’s countries. This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now.

After a U.S. Navy SEAL put a bullet in Osama bin Laden’s chest and another in his head, one of the most secretive black-ops units in the American military suddenly found its mission in the public spotlight. It was atypical. While it’s well known that U.S. Special Operations forces are deployed in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s increasingly apparent that such units operate in murkier conflict zones like Yemen and Somalia, the full extent of their worldwide war has remained deeply in the shadows.

Full Story Here: Our Commando War in 120 Countries: Uncovering the Military’s Secret Operations In the Obama Era | | AlterNet.

Exclusive: U.S. Blocks Oversight of Its Mercenary Army in Iraq

By January 2012, the State Department will do something it’s never done before: command a mercenary army the size of a heavy combat brigade. That’s the plan to provide security for its diplomats in Iraq once the U.S. military withdraws. And no one outside State knows anything more, as the department has gone to war with its independent government watchdog to keep its plan a secret.

Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR), is essentially in the dark about one of the most complex and dangerous endeavors the State Department has ever undertaken, one with huge implications for the future of the United States in Iraq. “Our audit of the program is making no progress,” Bowen tells Danger Room.

For months, Bowen’s team has tried to get basic information out of the State Department about how it will command its assembled army of about 5,500 private security contractors. How many State contracting officials will oversee how many hired guns? What are the rules of engagement for the guards? What’s the system for reporting a security danger, and for directing the guards’ response?

Full Story Here: Exclusive: U.S. Blocks Oversight of Its Mercenary Army in Iraq | Danger Room | Wired.com.

Two Navy Ships That Cost $300 Million Are Headed To The Scrapyard Without Having Seen A Day Of Service

Embroiled by legal battles for more than 25 years, two U.S. Navy ships are finally headed to the scrap heap without ever having sailed and despite the fact that they’re almost completely finished.

According to Hampton Roads, the USNS Bejamin Isherwood and the USNS Henry Eckford were commissioned in 1985 at the Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Co. to carry fuel to the Navy’s fleet around the globe.

USNS Benjamin Isherwood

USNS Benjamin Isherwood #191

Image: wikipedia commons

When the company defaulted on its Navy contract in 1989 the 660-foot ships were sent to Florida for completion, but cost disputes terminated that contract in 1993.

Full Story Here: Two Navy Ships That Cost $300 Million Are Headed To The Scrapyard Without Having Seen A Day Of Service.

U.N. Report Shreds Military’s Claim of Afghanistan Progress

So this is what “fragile and reversible” progress looks like in Afghanistan: violence is up 51 percent since this time last year, thanks to a hurricane of insurgent suicide attacks, assassinations and bombs, undermining U.S. military claims that it’s breaking the momentum of the Taliban.

The closest thing the war has to a report card comes in the form of a new quarterly report from the United Nations. And the American troop surge appears to be dangerously close to flunking. According to the U.N., not only is violence on the rise, but so are civilian casualties. Compared to the spring of 2010, civilian deaths and injuries are up 20 percent, with 1,090 dead and 1,860 wounded. Over 435,000 Afghans are displaced by the war, a 4 percent rise.

The U.N. report directly contradicts an emerging talking point in the U.S. military. Lt. Gen. John Allen, the incoming war commander, told a Senate panel on Tuesday that “violence is five percent lower so far this year in comparison to last year,” (.pdf) a statistic that David Ignatius attributes to Gen. David Petraeus in his Wednesday column. Not only is violence not going down, if the U.N. is to believed, it’s going way up — far from a war effort that’s arresting Taliban momentum.

Full Story Here: U.N. Report Shreds Military’s Claim of Afghanistan Progress | Danger Room | Wired.com.

The Militarized Surrealism of Barack Obama

It’s already gone, having barely outlasted its moment — just long enough for the media to suggest that no one thought it added up to much.

Okay, it was a little more than the military wanted, something less than Joe Biden would have liked, not enough for the growing crew of anti-war congressional types, but way too much for John McCain, Lindsey Graham, & Co.

I’m talking about the 13 minutes of “remarks” on “the way forward in Afghanistan” that President Obama delivered in the East Room of the White House two Wednesday nights ago.

Tell me you weren’t holding your breath wondering whether the 33,000 surge troops he ordered into Afghanistan as 2009 ended would be removed in a 12-month, 14-month, or 18-month span. Tell me you weren’t gripped with anxiety about whether 3,000, 5,000, 10,000, or 15,000 American soldiers would come out this year (leaving either 95,000, 93,000, 88,000, or 83,000 behind)?

Full Story Here: The Militarized Surrealism of Barack Obama | Common Dreams.

Among The Costs Of War: $20B In Air Conditioning : NPR

The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion.

That’s more than NASA’s budget. It’s more than BP has paid so far for damage during the Gulf oil spill. It’s what the G-8 has pledged to help foster new democracies in Egypt and Tunisia.

“When you consider the cost to deliver the fuel to some of the most isolated places in the world — escorting, command and control, medevac support — when you throw all that infrastructure in, we’re talking over $20 billion,” Steven Anderson tells weekends on All Things Considered guest host Rachel Martin. Anderson is a retired brigadier general who served as Gen. David Patreaus’ chief logistician in Iraq.

Why does it cost so much?

Full Story Here: Among The Costs Of War: $20B In Air Conditioning : NPR.

Defining an American State of War

“Victory” Is the Verbal Equivalent of a Yeti

Now that Washington has at least six wars cooking (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and more generally, the global war on terror), Americans find themselves in a new world of war. If, however, you haven’t joined the all-volunteer military, any of our 17 intelligence outfits, the Pentagon, the weapons companies and hire-a-gun corporations associated with it, or some other part of the National Security Complex, America’s distant wars go on largely without you (at least until the bills come due).

War has a way of turning almost anything upside down, including language. But with lost jobs, foreclosed homes, crumbling infrastructure, and weird weather, who even notices? This undoubtedly means that you’re using a set of antediluvian war words or definitions from your father’s day. It’s time to catch up.

So here’s the latest word in war words: what’s in, what’s out, what’s inside out. What follows are nine common terms associated with our present wars that probably don’t mean what you think they mean. Since you live in a twenty-first-century war state, you might consider making them your own.

Full Story Here: Tomgram: Engelhardt, Defining an American State of War | TomDispatch.

The Lie Behind the Afghan War

Exclusive: A recurring refrain about the Afghan War is that the United States must stay for the long haul now to avoid repeating the “mistake” made in 1989 when Soviet forces left and Americans supposedly disappeared, too. But this conventional wisdom, spread by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others, is a lie, Robert Parry writes.

By Robert Parry

June 24, 2011

In Official Washington, there’s one “fact” about the Afghan War that nearly everyone “knows”: In February 1989, after the Soviet army left Afghanistan, the United States walked away from the war-torn country, creating a vacuum that led to the rise of the Taliban and its readiness to host al-Qaeda’s anti-American terrorists.

It is a point made by senior administration officials, including incoming Ambassador Ryan Crocker and departing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who once summed up the conventional wisdom by saying: “We will not repeat the mistakes of 1989, when we abandoned the country only to see it descend into civil war and into Taliban hands.”

And Gates was there at the time, as President George H.W. Bush’s deputy national security adviser. So, he should know.

Full Story Here: The Lie Behind the Afghan War | Consortiumnews.

Robert Gates Downplays U.S. Troop Cuts In Afghanistan

Outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged on Sunday that the U.S. State Department is in direct talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan, but cautioned that troop drawdowns in the decade-long war will be modest at most in 2011.

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Gates said U.S. negotiations with the Taliban are unlikely to yield significant results before December.

“The drawdown must be politically credible here at home,” Gates said, and implied that a call from Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) to reduce troop levels by 15,000 by the year’s end may not be feasible.

Full Story Here: Robert Gates Downplays U.S. Troop Cuts In Afghanistan.

Ninety Percent of Petraeus’s Captured “Taliban” Were Civilians

During his intensive initial round of media interviews as commander in Afghanistan in August 2010, Gen. David Petraeus released figures to the news media that claimed spectacular success for raids by Special Operations Forces: in a 90-day period from May through July, SOF units had captured 1,355 rank and file Taliban, killed another 1,031, and killed or captured 365 middle or high-ranking Taliban.

The claims of huge numbers of Taliban captured and killed continued through the rest of 2010. In December, Petraeus’s command said a total of 4,100 Taliban rank and file had been captured in the previous six months and 2,000 had been killed.

Those figures were critical to creating a new media narrative hailing the success of SOF operations as reversing what had been a losing U.S. strategy in Afghanistan.

Full Story Here: Ninety Percent of Petraeus’s Captured “Taliban” Were Civilians | Dissident Voice.

U.S. Is Intensifying a Secret Campaign of Yemen Airstrikes

The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials.

The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen that has left the government in Sana, a United States ally, struggling to cling to power. Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to the capital, and American officials see the strikes as one of the few options to keep the militants from consolidating power.

On Friday, American jets killed Abu Ali al-Harithi, a midlevel Qaeda operative, and several other militant suspects in a strike in southern Yemen. According to witnesses, four civilians were also killed in the airstrike. Weeks earlier, drone aircraft fired missiles aimed at Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who the United States government has tried to kill for more than a year. Mr. Awlaki survived.

Full Story Here: U.S. Is Intensifying a Secret Campaign of Yemen Airstrikes – NYTimes.com.

OPS:

GEE! We have ANOTHER WAR! And just in time too. We almost brought the troops home… Whew!

Come on all of you big strong men,
Uncle Sam needs your help again
He’s got himself in a terrible Jam
Way down yonder in Yemen….

Barry’s got himself his own personal war now! One he started himself without no help from publikins. He’s a WARTIME Prez just like Dubya. Yeah!!!!!!

That’ll git him re-lected, huh?

Memorial Day: How America Screws Its Soldiers

Everyone claims to “Support Our Troops.” But as Andrew J. Bacevich explains, telling the military it can do whatever it wants works for everyone—except for the soldiers themselves.

Riders on Boston subways and trolleys are accustomed to seeing placards that advertise research being conducted at the city’s many teaching hospitals. One that recently caught my eye, announcing an experimental “behavioral treatment,” posed this question to potential subjects: “Are you in the U.S. military or a veteran disturbed by terrible things you have experienced?”

Just below the question, someone had scrawled this riposte in blue ink: “Thank God for these Men and Women. USA all the way.”

Here on a 30 x 36 inch piece of cardboard was the distilled essence of the present-day relationship between the American people and their military. In the eyes of citizens, the American soldier has a dual identity: as hero but also as victim. As victims—Wounded Warriors —soldiers deserve the best care money can buy; hence, the emphasis being paid to issues like PTSD. As heroes, those who serve and sacrifice embody the virtues that underwrite American greatness. They therefore merit unstinting admiration.

Full Story Here: Memorial Day: How America Screws Its Soldiers – The Daily Beast.

Afghan official: NATO airstrike kills 14

A NATO airstrike targeting insurgents inadvertently hit two civilian homes in the volatile southwestern Helmand province, killing 14 women and children, an Afghan government official said Sunday.

Dawood Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial government, said the alliance launched the airstrike late on Saturday in retaliation for an attack earlier in the day on a U.S. Marine base in Helmand’s northwest district of Nawzad. He said NATO hit two civilian houses, killing five girls, seven boys, and two women.

NATO spokesman Maj. Tim James said a joint coalition and Afghan delegation was traveling Sunday to the site to investigate. He didn’t confirm the aistrike and provided no details about it or the attack on the Marines.

Civilian deaths are an ongoing source of tension between NATO and Afghan officials.

Full Story Here: Afghan official: NATO airstrike kills 14 EarthLink – Top News.

Rush Limbaugh’s Ratings Have Fallen 30% In The Last Six Months

The just-released Arbitron report reveals that a lot less people are listening to right-wing talk radio.

With a lull in ratings since November, Rush Limbaugh had a 3.0 share of listeners for his radio time slot, which is a 33% slide from October and from last April, reports Crain’s Business.

Meanwhile, The Sean Hannity Show was reported to be down 28% from its peak numbers in the fall.

Full Story Here: Rush Limbaugh’s Ratings Have Fallen 30% In The Last Six Months.

Former Colin Powell Chief of Staff: Bush didn’t want to get bin Laden

Former Colin Powell Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson told MSNBC’s Ed Schultz Wednesday that President George W. Bush wasn’t interested in bringing Osama bin Laden to justice.

“I don’t think they really wanted to get bin Laden,” Wilkerson said.

“You could be very cynical and say he didn’t want to get him because once they got him the war was over and that left all the political advantage gone,” he added. “Or you could say that they knew that it was almost an impossibility to get him given what they had done to the intelligence and other aspects of the government that you needed to get him. They just about ruined it.”

Watch this video from MSNBC’s The Ed Show, broadcast May 11, 2011.

Full Story Here: Former Colin Powell Chief of Staff: Bush didn’t want to get bin Laden | Raw Replay.

Why did George Bush reject Taliban’s offer to deliver bin Laden?

Following the assassination of Osama bin Laden May 1, 2011, the media has been inundated with articles about the attack, the secrecy of the attack, the tension between Pakistan and the US following the attack, visits to Ground Zero, playbacks of the 9/11 catastrophe which brought down the World Center Twin Towers, denunciation by bin Laden’s son that his father’s murder violated international law, and there’s something new every day.

Adding insult to injury, we have also had the displeasure of seeing former Bush administration officials give us their opinion and expect us to thank them for introducing torture programs, illegal prisons like Guantanamo and Bagram, not to mention Abu Ghraib, extraordinary renditions, and why George W. Bush should get more credit for the killing of bin Laden than he’s received.

Which begs the question as to why is it that former President George W. Bush did not jump at the Taliban’s offer to deliver Osama bin Laden to him, or a third party, as the United States was barely two weeks into the bombing campaign of Afghanistan.

Full Story Here: Why did George Bush reject Taliban’s offer to deliver bin Laden? – National Foreign Policy | Examiner.com.

TIMELINE: The Hunt For Bin Laden

Much of the debate in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s death has focused on the very narrow question of whether any information obtained from waterboarding or other “enhanced” interrogation tactics played a significant role in tracking him down. (The answer, incidentally, is no.)

But this debate has obscured a larger and more important point: The Bush administration, both before and after 9/11, subordinated the hunt for Bin Laden to wage war on Iraq. President Obama was successful by reviving an aggressive and focused effort to capture the leader of Al Qaeda.

ThinkProgress has produced a new a detailed timeline of The Hunt for Bin Laden, covering the years 1993 to present day. You can check out the whole thing HERE.

Highlights from the Clinton administration:

EARLY 1996: The CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center creates a special unit focusing specifically on bin Laden. [Washington Post, 10/3/01]

LATE 1998: Clinton authorizes covert action against Bin Laden and al Qaeda. “In addition to a secret ‘finding’ to authorize covert action…Clinton signed three highly classified Memoranda of Notification expanding the available tools. In succession, the president authorized killing instead of capturing bin Laden, then added several of al Qaeda’s senior lieutenants, and finally approved the shooting down of private civilian aircraft on which they flew.” [Washington Post, 12/19/01]

Highlights from the Bush administration:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » TIMELINE: The Hunt For Bin Laden.

US Knew Where Osama Was Since 2005

Cross and Double Cross With Gitmo Files

By ISRAEL SHAMIR

The unredacted Guantanamo files show clearly that the trail to Abbottabad was known to the US intelligence services at least since 2005, when al-Libi, another Abbottabad dweller, was captured.

Timing is everything. The US President announced killing of Osama bin Laden just as Wikileaks completed its publication of Guantanamo files. Was it coincidence? If not, what was the connection?

An answer to this question is directly connected with the cross and double cross accusations exchanged in the murky world where the intelligence services meet mainstream media.

Publication of the US secret papers, the Guantanamo Files, was done almost simultaneously by two competing media groups.

* One was the Wikileaks of Julian Assange and their partners The Washington Post, The Daily Telegraph, the French Le Monde.

*

Another one was The New York Times, The Guardian, the Israeli Haaretz.

The Guardian said of the files: “They were obtained by the New York Times, who shared them with the Guardian, which is publishing extracts today, having redacted information which might identify informants. The New York Times says the files were made available to it not by Wikileaks, but “by another source on the condition of anonymity”.

Full Story Here: Israel Shamir: US Knew Where Osama Was Since 2005.

Former CIA Interrogator: Painstaking Intelligence Work, Not Torture, Responsible For Bin Laden Capture

Shortly after President Obama announced that U.S. military forces killed Osama bin Laden, right-wing torture apologists seized the opportunity, stating, without any definitive evidence whatsoever, that information gleaned from torturing Al Qaeda detainees led to bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan. While reliable sources, such as Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said this week that the information did not come from torture (or to use the Bush administration’s term “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques”), at this point it is at best unclear how this information was obtained.

What if a tiny piece of information that led to bin Laden came from torture or EITs? Today, Glenn Carle — who served 23 years in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and for a time led the interrogation of a high value detainee — told ThinkProgress that if it the answer is yes, the right-wing will use that and say, “See torture works.” While Carle said it’s possible that EITs might provide information, that doesn’t mean they should ever be used:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Former CIA Interrogator: Painstaking Intelligence Work, Not Torture, Responsible For Bin Laden Capture.

Bush Refusal of 2001 Taliban Offer Gave bin Laden a Free Pass

When George W. Bush rejected a Taliban offer to have Osama bin Laden tried by a moderate group of Islamic states in mid- October 2001, he gave up the only opportunity the United States would have to end bin Laden’s terrorist career for the next nine years.

The al Qaeda leader was able to escape into Pakistan a few weeks later, because the Bush administration had no military plan to capture him.

The last Taliban foreign minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, offered at a secret meeting in Islamabad Oct. 15, 2001 to put bin Laden in the custody of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), to be tried for the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States, Muttawakil told IPS in an interview in Kabul last year.

Full Story Here: U.S. Refusal of 2001 Taliban Offer Gave bin Laden a Free Pass | Common Dreams.

Air Force Relies on China for Screws

The military branch cited a lack of American products available for things ranging from ceiling fans and shower rods to towel racks and toilet-paper holders.

Earlier this year, the Air Force, while building stimulus-backed housing units in Alaska, received a waiver from the “buy American” clause in order to purchase a slew of simple products from China, including screws and fixtures.

The military branch cited a lack of American products available for things ranging from ceiling fans and shower rods to towel racks and toilet-paper holders.

The Air Force “determined that the above items of manufactured goods are not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available quantities and of a satisfactory quality. The domestic non-availability determination for these products is based on extensive market research and thorough investigation of the domestic manufacturing landscape. This research identified that these products are manufactured almost exclusively in China,” according to the waiver request.

Full Story Here: Air Force Relies on China for Screws | Economy In Crisis.

Surprise, Surprise! Iraq War Was About Oil

Ray McGovern: :

Afghanistan may be the graveyard of empires, but Iraq is home to a graveyard sense of humor. Iraqis wonder aloud whether the U.S. and Britain would have invaded Iraq if its main export had been cabbages instead of oil.

However obvious the answer, a remarkable array of American pundits and pseudo-savants have resisted giving the oil factor any pride of place among the motives behind the U.S./U.K. decision to invade Iraq in 2003. To this day, the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) continue to play the accustomed role as government accomplice suppressing unwelcome news.

So, if you don’t tune in to Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now or read the British press, you will have missed the latest documentary evidence showing that Great Britain’s Lords and Ladies lied about how big oil companies, like BP, lusted after Iraqi oil in the months leading up to the attack on Iraq.

Full Story Here: Surprise, Surprise! Iraq War Was About Oil | Common Dreams.

Act Now to End the War in Afghanistan

Dennis Kucinich :-:

Two weeks ago, nine Afghan children between the ages of nine and fifteen were killed by a NATO strike after being mistaken for insurgents. General Petraeus issued an apology and promised to investigate the killings, but news of their deaths quickly sparked anti-U.S. protests. They were killed in the Pech Valley, an area of Afghanistan once considered vital to U.S. military strategy. But now the U.S. military will soon be withdrawing from the Pech Valley after realizing that our presence was destabilizing the area.

The reality is our presence is destabilizing more than the Pech Valley — it’s propping up a corrupt regime and fueling an insurgency, all while Afghan’s see little to no improvement in their lives. And it’s destabilizing Americans at home. While vital services and benefits get cut — such as the Community Development Block Grants and the WIC program which provides low-income expecting mothers and infants with proper nutrition — we continue to fund an expensive war with no end in sight.

Last Wednesday, joined by members of both parties including Representatives Ron Paul, Walter Jones, Pete Stark, Bob Filner, and Barbara Lee, I announced a new bill to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan by the end of this year. Our legislation invokes the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which, if enacted, would require the President to withdraw U.S. Armed Forces out of Afghanistan by December 31, 2011. This legislation has bi-partisan support and, according to a recent Rasmussen poll, a majority of Americans want us out of Afghanistan by the end of the year. A vote will be held on Thursday. We could end the war this week.

Full Story Here: OpEdNews – Article: Act Now to End the War in Afghanistan.

What Stanley McChrystal Did to Pat Tillman’s Family

What is the matter with Barack Obama? Rather than leave the retired and disgraced Gen. Stanley McChrystal in the dustbin of military history after an indiscreet magazine interview, the president has resurrected him to oversee the administration’s new initiative to help military families.

What a slap in the face to the nation’s highest-profile military family—that of Army Ranger Pat Tillman—on whom McChrystal heaped misery and disrespect by assisting in the fabrication of the circumstances surrounding Tillman’s death.

On Tuesday, after the president announced the Joining Forces initiative, led by first lady Michelle Obama and the vice president’s wife, Jill Biden, ABC correspondent Jake Tapper asked White House spokesman Jay Carney the obvious question:

Full Story Here: What Stanley McChrystal Did to Pat Tillman’s Family – Truthdig.

Pentagon Having Second Thoughts On Iraq Withdrawal

Eight months shy of its deadline for pulling the last American soldier from Iraq and closing the door on an 8-year war, the Pentagon is having second thoughts.

Reluctant to say it publicly, officials fear a final pullout in December could create a security vacuum, offering an opportunity for power grabs by antagonists in an unresolved and simmering Arab-Kurd dispute, a weakened but still active al-Qaida or even an adventurous neighbor such as Iran.

The U.S. wants to keep perhaps several thousand troops in Iraq, not to engage in combat but to guard against an unraveling of a still-fragile peace. This was made clear during Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ visit Thursday and Friday in which he and the top U.S. commander in Iraq talked up the prospect of an extended U.S. stay.

Full Story Here: Pentagon Having Second Thoughts On Iraq Withdrawal.

While Slamming Obama For Opposition To ‘Troop Funding Bill,’ House GOP Votes Down Troop Funding — Twice

Today, House Republicans pushed through their stopgap measure in a 247-181 vote. The bill, H.R. 1363, quickly came under fire for demanding a series of non-budget related policy riders, including an anti-abortion policy restriction banning D.C. from using its own local funds for abortions and anti-environmental restrictions to limit the EPA from regulating green house gas emissions, on top of an extra $12 billion in cuts. “With an eye to protecting themselves politically” from blame, the GOP quickly redefined H.R. 1363 today as the “troop funding bill.”

Slate’s Dave Weigel noted that five minutes after the White House declared H.R. 1363 unacceptable, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) slammed President Obama for threatening to veto a bill to “ensure that our troops are paid.” Minutes later, Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA) ripped Democrats for “girding to oppose a ‘troop-funding bill.’” Republican lawmakers quickly picked up the rallying cry. Reps. Mike Pence (R-IN) and Harold Rodgers (R-KY) called it “astonishing” and “inexplicable” that Obama would, as GOP shutdown architect Newt Gingrich put it, use the troops as “bargaining chips for budget negotiations.”

There’s only one problem with this talking point — it’s the opposite of true. Today, the House Democrats tried three times to pass a measure that would ensure the troops received pay. The Republicans overwhelmingly opposed every single “troop-funding” opportunity:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » While Slamming Obama For Opposition To ‘Troop Funding Bill,’ House GOP Votes Down Troop Funding — Twice.

592 American Soldiers Have Died In Afghanistan Since President Obama Announced The Surge

During the height of the Iraq war, the U.S. media paid close attention to troop deaths and fatalities, often making casualties among American soldiers leading stories in newspapers and on the airwaves. As ThinkProgress previously noted, the American press has essentially withdrawn from covering the war in Afghanistan, with the Pew Center finding that the media only devoted four percent of its coverage to the war during 2010.

Yet America remains a nation at war, and it’s important for Americans to understand the cost of its longest war in history, in Afghanistan. As ThinkProgress previously reported, the FY2011 cost of the Afghan war is $113 billion, approximately 40,000 times the cost of NPR’s federal grant money that Republicans have sought to defund and enough money to fund the employment of 1.9 million firefighters for a year.

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » 592 American Soldiers Have Died In Afghanistan Since President Obama Announced The Surge.

The Kill Team

Rolling Stone:

How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses – and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon

Early last year, after six hard months soldiering in Afghanistan, a group of American infantrymen reached a momentous decision: It was finally time to kill a haji.

Among the men of Bravo Company, the notion of killing an Afghan civilian had been the subject of countless conversations, during lunchtime chats and late-night bull sessions. For weeks, they had weighed the ethics of bagging “savages” and debated the probability of getting caught. Some of them agonized over the idea; others were gung-ho from the start. But not long after the New Year, as winter descended on the arid plains of Kandahar Province, they agreed to stop talking and actually pull the trigger

Full Story Here: The Kill Team | Rolling Stone Politics.

Kill teams in Afghanistan: the truth

These disgusting photos of murdered Afghans reveal the aggression and racism underpinning the occupation of my country

The disgusting and heartbreaking photos published last week in the German media, and more recently in Rolling Stone magazine, are finally bringing the grisly truth about the war in Afghanistan to a wider public. All the PR about this war being about democracy and human rights melts into thin air with the pictures of US soldiers posing with the dead and mutilated bodies of innocent Afghan civilians.

I must report that Afghans do not believe this to be a story of a few rogue soldiers. We believe that the brutal actions of these “kill teams” reveal the aggression and racism which is part and parcel of the entire military occupation. While these photos are new, the murder of innocents is not. Such crimes have sparked many protests in Afghanistan and have sharply raised anti-American sentiment among ordinary Afghans.

I am not surprised that the mainstream media in the US has been reluctant to publish these images of the soldiers who made sport out of murdering Afghans. General Petraeus, now in charge of the American-led occupation, is said to place great importance on the “information war” for public opinion – and there is a concerted effort to keep the reality of Afghanistan out of sight in the US.

Full Story Here: Kill teams in Afghanistan: the truth | Malalai Joya | Comment is free | The Guardian.

U.S. doesn’t count civilians killed by drones

While Obama talks of saving civilians in Libya, information about innocents killed by U.S. drones is kept secret

The big focus of the Obama administration in the last week has been, in President Obama’s words, “to stop the violence against civilians.” That’s in Libya, of course, where Moammar Gadhafi was threatening to quell a rebellion based in Benghazi.

In this context, it’s particularly striking to read the news from the ACLU — which has been waging a legal battle to wring information from the government about American drone strikes — that the military doesn’t even keep a tally of civilian deaths caused by drones:

Full Story Here: U.S. doesn’t count civilians killed by drones – War Room – Salon.com.

The Washington Current: Former Diplomats Propose New Peace Process To End Afghanistan War

A group of former diplomats and others are proposing a political settlement to end the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, and they recommend beginning that process now.

That process, they say, would involve talks with all parties in the country, including the insurgent Taliban.

Led by former UN Special Envoy for Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi and former U.S. ambassador and Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering, a group of 15 American and non-American diplomats and scholars put forward their plan in a new report titled, “Afghanistan: Negotiating Peace.”

Full Story Here: The Washington Current: Former Diplomats Propose New Peace Process To End Afghanistan War.

Wars Should Be Declared by Congress, Not Merely Launched by Presidents

John Nichols: :

The grotesque extremes to which Muammar Qaddafi has gone to threaten the people of Libya—and to act on those threats—have left the self-proclaimed “king of kings” with few defenders in northern Africa, the Middle East or the international community.

Even among frequent critics of US interventions abroad, there is disgust with Qaddafi, and with the palpable disdain he has expressed for the legitimate aspirations of his own people.

So it is that the advocacy for military intervention has spread far beyond the usual circle of neoconservative hawks.

The circumstance is made easier by the fact that the bombing of Libya by US and allied planes is being carried out under the auspices of the United Nations. And with his words and his initial reluctance with regard to taking military action, President Obama has seemed to avoid many of the excesses of his predecessors.

Yet, now the headline on CNN reads “Libya War.”

Full Story Here: Wars Should Be Declared by Congress, Not Merely Launched by Presidents | The Nation.

Pentagon overpaid oilman millions, audit finds

A Pentagon audit has found that the federal government overpaid a billionaire oilman by as much as $200 million on several military contracts worth nearly $2.7 billion.

The audit by the Defense Department’s inspector general, which was posted on the Pentagon’s Web site this week, estimated that the department paid the oilman “$160 [million] to $204 million more for fuel than could be supported by price or cost analysis.” The study also reported that the three contracts were awarded under conditions that effectively eliminated the other bidders.

Harry Sargeant III, a well-connected Florida businessman and once-prominent Republican donor, first faced scrutiny over his defense work in October 2008, when he was accused in a congressional probe of using his close relationship with Jordan’s royal family to secure exclusive rights over supply routes to U.S. bases in western Iraq.

Full Story Here: Pentagon overpaid oilman millions, audit finds.

Poll: Nearly two-thirds of Americans say Afghan war isn’t worth fighting

Nearly two-thirds of Americans now say the war in Afghanistan is no longer worth fighting, the highest proportion yet opposed to the conflict, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The finding signals a growing challenge for President Obama as he decides how quickly to pull U.S. forces from the country beginning this summer. After nearly a decade of conflict, political opposition to the battle breaks sharply along partisan lines, with only 19 percent of Democratic respondents and half of Republicans surveyed saying the war continues to be worth fighting.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans say Obama should withdraw a “substantial number” of combat troops from Afghanistan this summer, the deadline he set to begin pulling out some forces. Only 39 percent of respondents, however, say they expect him to withdraw large numbers.

The Post-ABC News poll results come as Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, prepares to testify before Congress on Tuesday about the course of the war. He is expected to face tough questioning about a conflict that is increasingly unpopular among a broad cross section of Americans.

Full Story Here: Poll: Nearly two-thirds of Americans say Afghan war isn’t worth fighting – The Washington Post.

Veteran DESTROYS people verbally in Modesto, CA at MJC Budget Cuts meeting

at MJC Budget Cuts meeting – Video

YouTube – MUST SEE! Veteran DESTROYS people verbally in Modesto, CA at MJC Budget Cuts meeting (w/captions!).

No Other Way Out

Chris Hedges

I have watched mothers and fathers keening in grief over the frail corpses of their children in hospitals in Gaza and rural villages in El Salvador, Bosnia and Kosovo. The faces of these dead children, their bodies ripped apart by iron fragments or bullets tumbling end over end through their small, delicate frames, appear to me almost daily like faint and sadly familiar ghosts. The frailty and innocence of my own children make these images difficult to bear.

A child a day dies in war-related violence in Afghanistan. Children die in roadside explosions. They die in airstrikes. They die after militants lure them to carry suicide bombs, usually without their knowledge. They die in firefights. They are executed by the Taliban after being accused, sometimes correctly, of spying for the Afghan National Army. They are tiny pawns in a futile and endless war. They are robbed of their childhood. They live in fear and surrounded by the terror of indiscriminate violence. The United Nations, whose most recent report on children in Afghanistan covered a two-year period from Sept. 1, 2008, to Aug. 30, 2010, estimates that in the first half of last year at least 176 children were killed and 389 more w

Full Story Here: Chris Hedges: No Other Way Out – Chris Hedges’ Columns – Truthdig.

Colin Powell’s Disgraceful Lies

Editor’s Note: It remains one of the great unacknowledged embarrassments of the American news media: how nearly every top pundit swooned over Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations justifying the U.S. invasion of Iraq – and how they suffered no career damage for their gullibility.

Indeed, the New York Times’ Bill Keller, who hailed Powell’s “skillful parsing of the evidence” on Iraq’s supposed WMD, was actually promoted to the top job as executive editor AFTER he endorsed Powell’s lies. (Keller replaced Howell Raines who became the fall-guy for trusting dishonest reporter Jason Blair.)

In other words, the consequence for getting hoodwinked by a reporter – dismissal – but for buying into lies that get hundreds of thousands killed – promotion.

Full Story Here: Colin Powell’s Disgraceful Lies.

OPS:

BTW – lets not forget that this was not Powell’s FIRST TIME and the Reichwing rodeo of lies
Remember My Lai?  Before  your time?  Look it up!

Colin Powell demands answers over Curveball’s WMD lies

Former US secretary of state asks why CIA failed to warn him over Iraqi defector who has admitted fabricating WMD evidence

Colin Powell, the US secretary of state at the time of the Iraq invasion, has called on the CIA and Pentagon to explain why they failed to alert him to the unreliability of a key source behind claims of Saddam Hussein’s bio-weapons capability.

Responding to the Guardian’s revelation that the source, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi or “Curveball” as his US and German handlers called him, admitted fabricating evidence of Iraq’s secret biological weapons programme, Powell said that questions should be put to the US agencies involved in compiling the case for war.

In particular he singled out the CIA and the Defence Intelligence Agency – the Pentagon’s military intelligence arm. Janabi, an Iraqi defector, was used as the primary source by the Bush administration to justify invading Iraq in March 2003. Doubts about his credibility circulated before the war and have been confirmed by his admission this week that he lied.

Full Story Here: Colin Powell demands answers over Curveball’s WMD lies | World news | The Guardian.

Army admits Gulf War medical records destroyed- letter ordering destruction found

A letter from the Department of the Army telling units to destroy their records after the end of Operation Desert Storm has made it more difficult for injured veterans to get the medical benefits they need.

The letter, never made public before now, says units were told to destroy their records because officials had no room to ship the paperwork back to the United States. The letter goes on to say it was in direct contradiction to existing Army regulations.

“This could have been one, five, six, a couple of hundred or this could be thousands (of soldiers),” says Andrew Marshall, a Florida regional officer with the nonprofit Disabled American Veterans group. “You don’t know.”

One solider trying to get help from the Veterans Administration for combat-related injuries says he has been turned down because his records are missing. He did not want to be identified.

Full Story Here: Army admits Gulf War medical records destroyed- letter ordering destruction found « Wake-up Call.

Army admits Gulf War medical records destroyed- letter ordering destruction found

A letter from the Department of the Army telling units to destroy their records after the end of Operation Desert Storm has made it more difficult for injured veterans to get the medical benefits they need.

The letter, never made public before now, says units were told to destroy their records because officials had no room to ship the paperwork back to the United States. The letter goes on to say it was in direct contradiction to existing Army regulations.

“This could have been one, five, six, a couple of hundred or this could be thousands (of soldiers),” says Andrew Marshall, a Florida regional officer with the nonprofit Disabled American Veterans group. “You don’t know.”

One solider trying to get help from the Veterans Administration for combat-related injuries says he has been turned down because his records are missing. He did not want to be identified.

Full Story Here: Army admits Gulf War medical records destroyed- letter ordering destruction found « Wake-up Call.

US Boots on the Ground Near Thai-Cambodian Border Fight

Thousands of U.S. troops are currently training Bangkok’s poorly disciplined, coup-prone military to “defend Thailand” while a bloody artillery duel between Thailand and Cambodia has disrupted their border, and a decades-long southern Muslim insurgency smolders out of control.

America’s 30th Cobra Gold, from February 7 to February 18, is one of the biggest multinational land-based military exercises on earth, involving 11,220 people, including 7,200 U.S. service members.

U.S. and other foreign forces are using Thailand’s Vietnam war-era Utapao Royal Thai Navy Airfield in Chanthaburi province and other facilities, about 280 miles (450 kms) southwest of the fighting along the Thai-Cambodian border.

The U.S. Marine Aircraft Group 36, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, Third Marine Expeditionary Force, is deployed in Korat, about 180 miles (290 kms) west of the clashes.

Full Story Here: US Boots on the Ground Near Thai-Cambodian Border Fight | Scoop News.

Bachmann Surrenders On Support For Draconian Cuts To Veterans’ Benefits

Last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) unveiled a plan to cut $400 billion in federal spending, and included a controversial target. The Tea Party favorite proposed freezing the Veterans Affairs Department’s health care spending and cutting veterans’ disability benefits. Her plan sliced $4.5 billion from the VA and reduced 150,000 veterans’ disability compensation and the amount they receive in Social Security Disability Income. Veterans groups blasted the proposal as “totally out of step with America’s commitment to our veterans,” and as something that shows “contempt for American servicemembers’ sacrifices.” Democrats outside her state even began targeting Bachmann’s proposal; Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) wrote her a letter which said her ideas were a “giant step in the wrong direction.” After days of similar criticism, Bachmann has finally retreated and withdrew that part of her spending reduction proposal today:

Full Story Here: ThinkProgress » Bachmann Surrenders On Support For Draconian Cuts To Veterans’ Benefits.

At Fort Sill, High-Interest Lenders Circle The Gates

The following story has been reposted in partnership with The Dylan Ratigan Show’s week long “No Way To Live” series on the financial crisis and its impact on ordinary Americans, and in collaboration with Meetup.com, which is hosting HuffPost Mortgage Modification Madness Meetups across the country, where homeowners can meet others who’ve had similar difficulties with lenders.

LAWTON, Okla. – Just outside the front gates of the sprawling Fort Sill military installation, in a scrubby corner of the windswept Great Plains, a panorama of “military loan” brokers, pawn shops and car stereo dealers awaits.

In this landscape of high-interest, easy credit, Mike, a U.S. Army Private First Class from Kansas, began a downward spiral into debt — one that has left him sleeping in his friend’s garage, surviving on only $148 every month.

Recently he was reprimanded for not getting his required military haircut. He just didn’t have the money, he said.

Full Story Here: At Fort Sill, High-Interest Lenders Circle The Gates.

Why military spending remains untouchable

Despite extraordinary expenditures, it’s clear that Americans just aren’t getting much for their money

In defense circles, “cutting” the Pentagon budget has once again become a topic of conversation. Americans should not confuse that talk with reality. Any cuts exacted will at most reduce the rate of growth. The essential facts remain: U.S. military outlays today equal that of every other nation on the planet combined, a situation without precedent in modern history.

The Pentagon presently spends more in constant dollars than it did at any time during the Cold War — this despite the absence of anything remotely approximating what national security experts like to call a “peer competitor.” Evil Empire? It exists only in the fevered imaginations of those who quiver at the prospect of China adding a rust-bucket Russian aircraft carrier to its fleet or who take seriously the ravings of radical Islamists promising from deep inside their caves to unite the Umma in a new caliphate.

What are Americans getting for their money? Sadly, not much. Despite extraordinary expenditures (not to mention exertions and sacrifices by U.S. forces), the return on investment is, to be generous, unimpressive. The chief lesson to emerge from the battlefields of the post-9/11 era is this: the Pentagon possesses next to no ability to translate “military supremacy” into meaningful victory.

Full Story Here: Why military spending remains untouchable – War Room – Salon.com.

“There is no plan”

That’s how an inspector general describes the $11 billion effort to build facilities for the Afghan army

The United States is at risk of blowing over $11 billion on building facilities for the Afghan military because of waste and poor planning, according to the special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction.

The revelation came in testimony this week before a congressional commission that is looking at U.S. spending in Afghanistan.

According to Arnold Fields, the outgoing special inspector general who has audited various projects in Afghanistan, the money spent on construction of facilities for the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) is at risk for three reasons: first, “lack of a comprehensive plan”; second, the projects audited to date are “seriously behind schedule”; and third, “it is not clear how Afghanistan is going to be able to provide the operations and maintenance required to sustain any of these investments without continuing financial support from the United States after the current operations and maintenance contract expires in 2015.”

Full Story Here: “There is no plan” – War Room – Salon.com.

Congress to investigate Pentagon’s decision to deny coverage for brain injured troops

A key congressional oversight committee announced Friday that it was opening an investigation into the basis of a decision by the Pentagon’s health plan to deny a type of medical treatment to troops with brain injuries.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), the chairman of the subcommittee on contracting oversight, said she wanted to examine a contract issued by Tricare, an insurance-style program used by soldiers and many veterans, to a private company to study cognitive rehabilitation therapy for traumatic brain injury. Such injuries are considered among the signature wounds of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The study, by Pennsylvania-based ECRI Institute, found insufficient or weak evidence to support the therapy. Often lengthy and expensive, cognitive rehabilitation programs are designed to rewire soldiers’ brains to conduct basic life tasks, such as reading books, remembering information and following instructions. ECRI’s findings ran counter to several other studies, including ones sponsored by the Pentagon and the National Institutes of Health, which concluded that cognitive rehabilitation was beneficial.

Full Story Here: Congress to investigate Pentagon’s decision to deny coverage for brain injured troops | Raw Story.

US forced to import bullets from Israel as troops use 250,000 for every rebel killed –

US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan – an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed – that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel.

US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan – an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed – that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand.

A government report says that US forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year. The total has more than doubled in five years, largely as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as changes in military doctrine.

Full Story Here: US forced to import bullets from Israel as troops use 250,000 for every rebel killed – World news, News – Belfasttelegraph.co.uk.

Top Army Official: Soldiers Need More Time At Home Between Deployments

Repeated troop deployments are putting an enormous strain on members of the U.S. military who are forced to deploy to Iraq and/or Afghanistan with an insufficient amount of time at home between rotations, according to a top Army official.

On ABC’s “This Week,” host Christiane Amanpour asked Peter Chiarelli, the Army’s vice-chief of staff, how U.S. servicemembers are affected by repeated deployments. There are approximately 2 million men and women who have been rotated through the two wars.

“You want to get at these issues, we need more time at home before deployment,” said Chiarelli. “I was just down range, and I went to an aviation for a day of about 1,500 folks. Those senior pilots in that unit, those individuals who have been flying mission after mission, 62 percent of whom are on their third — their third deployment, and over 40 — 40 percent, almost 40 percent were on their fourth deployment, with very, very little time at home.”

Full Story Here: Top Army Official Peter Chiarelli: Soldiers Need More Time At Home Between Deployments.

Petraeus Aide Marvin Hill: If Troops Can’t Deal With DADT Repeal, They Should Leave The Service

A senior aide to David Petraeus, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, is out with a strong statement in support of repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), saying that servicemembers who can’t adjust to the change should think about leaving the military.

“If there are people who cannot deal with the change, then they’re going to have to do what’s best for their troops and best for the organization and best for the military service and exit the military service, so that we can move forward — if that’s the way that we have to go,” said Command Sergeant Major Marvin Hill in an interview with Roland Martin on Washington Watch, set to air on Sunday.

Indeed, one of the arguments put forth by many critics of repeal is that integrating the forces will result in a loss of large number of servicemembers opposed to the change.

Full Story Here: Petraeus Aide Marvin Hill: If Troops Can’t Deal With DADT Repeal, They Should Leave The Service.

Why are wars not being reported honestly?

The public needs to know the truth about wars. So why have journalists colluded with governments to hoodwink us?

In the US Army manual on counterinsurgency, the American commander General David Petraeus describes Afghanistan as a “war of perception . . . conducted continuously using the news media”. What really matters is not so much the day-to-day battles against the Taliban as the way the adventure is sold in America where “the media directly influence the attitude of key audiences”. Reading this, I was reminded of the Venezuelan general who led a coup against the democratic government in 2002. “We had a secret weapon,” he boasted. “We had the media, especially TV. You got to have the media.”

Never has so much official energy been expended in ensuring journalists collude with the makers of rapacious wars which, say the media-friendly generals, are now “perpetual”. In echoing the west’s more verbose warlords, such as the waterboarding former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who predicated “50 years of war”, they plan a state of permanent conflict wholly dependent on keeping at bay an enemy whose name they dare not speak: the public.

At Chicksands in Bedfordshire, the Ministry of Defence’s psychological warfare (Psyops) establishment, media trainers devote themselves to the task, immersed in a jargon world of “information dominance”, “asymmetric threats” and “cyberthreats”. They share premises with those who teach the interrogation methods that have led to a public inquiry into British military torture in Iraq. Disinformation and the barbarity of colonial war have much in common.

Full Story Here: John Pilger: Why are wars not being reported honestly? | Media | The Guardian.

Billions Down The Drain In Afghanistan

The revelation that Afghanistan’s vice president was caught carrying $52 million in cash last year in a Persian Gulf tax haven (and was allowed to keep it) is only the latest bit of evidence that countless billions of U.S. taxpayer money have been wasted in Afghanistan due to mismanagement, fraud and endemic corruption.

The latest disclosure comes courtesy of the international whistleblower website WikiLeaks, which is in the process of releasing more than a quarter million State Department cables. As The New York Times reported:

When Afghanistan’s vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money “a significant amount” that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, “was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)

Full Story: Billions Down The Drain In Afghanistan.

23 Top Conservative Leaders Urge GOP Leadership To Pursue Defense Budget Cuts

As ThinkProgress and The Progress Report have documented, there is a growing coalition of both Tea Party-backed conservatives and stalwart progressives who are coming together to demand cuts to the bloated defense budget. This coalition was given further momentum earlier this month, when the co-chairs of President Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission released a report that calls for $100 billion in defense cuts.

Now, 23 major conservative leaders have sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and House Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) asking them to “institute principled spending reform” that includes “proposing cuts” to the Pentagon budget. The conservative leaders, which include Americans for Tax Reform president Grover Norquist, Americans For Prosperity president Tim Phillips, and FreedomWorks CEO Matt Kibbe, note that “Department of Defense spending, in particular, has been provided protected status that has isolated it from serious scrutiny and allowed the Pentagon to waste billions in taxpayer money.”

The conservatives write that ignoring “the burden military spending places on the taxpayers” promotes an “ethos” of “reckless spending.” They conclude that “any such Department of Defense favoritism would signal that the new Congress is not serious about fiscal responsibility and not ready to lead.” They end their letter by writing, “We call on you to lead the crusade for a new era of responsibility – one that knows no sacred cows“:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » 23 Top Conservative Leaders Urge GOP Leadership To Pursue Defense Budget Cuts.

Robots, the Military’s Newest Forces

War would be a lot safer, the Army says, if only more of it were fought by robots.

And while smart machines are already very much a part of modern warfare, the Army and its contractors are eager to add more. New robots — none of them particularly human-looking — are being designed to handle a broader range of tasks, from picking off snipers to serving as indefatigable night sentries.

In a mock city here used by Army Rangers for urban combat training, a 15-inch robot with a video camera scuttles around a bomb factory on a spying mission. Overhead an almost silent drone aircraft with a four-foot wingspan transmits images of the buildings below. Onto the scene rolls a sinister-looking vehicle on tank treads, about the size of a riding lawn mower, equipped with a machine gun and a grenade launcher.

Full Story: Robots, the Military’s Newest Forces – NYTimes.com.

US to spend $413 billion more on Afghan war

US soldier in Afghanistan walks past Afghan child. A decision by US President Barack Obama to extend the presence of American troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014 is likely to increase the remaining cost of the unpopular war to USD 413 billion.

The US president, who was expected to announce an exit strategy from Afghanistan at the recent NATO summit in Lisbon, pushed for an indefinite postponement of troop withdrawal instead.

Obama declared in a nationally televised address in December that the transfer of the US forces out of Afghanistan would begin in July 2011. He, however, later redefined the previous timeline stating that Afghan forces would only begin taking the lead for security across Afghanistan by 2014.

On Saturday, NATO Secretary General said the US-led military alliance will remain in Afghanistan for as long as it takes to finish off its enemies there.

The newly defined deadline comes with a heavy price tag at a time when the US and many of its allies are facing increasing deficit cuts at home.

Full Story: US to spend $413 billion more on Afghan war.

Obama envoy secretly promised to keep troops in Iraq after 2011, Iraqi intelligence official says

A special envoy from President Barack Obama raised the possibility in a secret meeting with senior Iraqi military and civilian officials in Baghdad Sep. 23 that his administration would leave more than 15,000 combat troops in Iraq after the 2011 deadline for U.S. withdrawal, according to a senior Iraqi intelligence official familiar with the details of the meeting.

But the White House official, Puneet Talwar, special assistant to the president and senior director for the Gulf States, Iran and Iraq on the National Security Council (NSC) staff, said the deployment would have to be handled in a way that was consistent the president’s pledge to withdraw U.S. troops completely from Iraq under the 2008 agreement, the official said.

Talwar suggested that the combat troops could be placed under the cover of the State Department’s security force, the Iraqi intelligence official told IPS.

Full Story: Obama envoy secretly promised to keep troops in Iraq after 2011, Iraqi intelligence official says | Raw Story.

2011 Withdrawal Date from Afghanistan Pushed Back to 2014

The war in Afghanistan will continue to soak up more blood and money as administration officials are making several changes to policy for a July 2011 withdrawal, as it came to light that conditions were unlikely for a speedy exit.

After nine years of fighting, the war in Afghanistan that has cost over $300 billion and caused over 7,000 casualties, will now likely continue for three additional years. This comes at a time when the U.S. budget is expected to run deficits for several years, even without the cost of foreign wars factored in.

A McClatchy report claims one official stated it could take “years” to complete a withdrawal, which is in line with a statement from Afghan President Hamid Karzai that security forces will not be self-sufficient until 2014. This continues a trend of corrupt and inept governance by President Karzai, noted most recently when a New York Times article indicated he has been accepting “bags of cash” from the Iranians for several years.

Full Story: 2011 Withdrawal Date from Afghanistan Pushed Back to 2014 | Economy In Crisis.

Q&A: Leaked War Logs Raise Questions of Accountability for Military Contractors

When WikiLeaks released a trove of nearly 400,000 military field reports from Iraq last week, much of the initial focus was on civilian deaths and the abuse of detainees in Iraqi custody.

The New York Times pulled out another part of the story—multiple accounts of questionable shootings by private military contractors. One incident report for a July 2009 shooting involving contractors noted, “It is assessed that this drunken group of individuals were out having a good time and firing their weapons.”

Given the big accountability questions that remain regarding the use of private contractors, we contacted David Isenberg, an independent analyst and author of the book “Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq.” Isenberg, who also blogs on private contractors for The Huffington Post, gave his take on what the WikiLeaks documents reveal, what the current situation with contractors is in both Iraq and Afghanistan and why he’s often irked by media coverage of the subject.

Full Story: On The Hill: Q&A: Leaked War Logs Raise Questions of Accountability for Military Contractors.