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

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.

U.S. military campaign to topple resilient Taliban hasn’t succeeded

An intense military campaign aimed at crippling the Taliban has so far failed to inflict more than fleeting setbacks on the insurgency or put meaningful pressure on its leaders to seek peace, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials citing the latest assessments of the war in Afghanistan.

Escalated airstrikes and special operations raids have disrupted Taliban movements and damaged local cells. But officials said that insurgents have been adept at absorbing the blows and that they appear confident that they can outlast an American troop buildup set to subside beginning next July.

“The insurgency seems to be maintaining its resilience,” said a senior Defense Department official involved in assessments of the war. Taliban elements have consistently shown an ability to “reestablish and rejuvenate,” often within days of routed by U.S. forces, the official said, adding that if there is a sign that momentum has shifted, “I don’t see it.”

Full Story: U.S. military campaign to topple resilient Taliban hasn’t succeeded.

US to build super base on Pacific island of Guam

The US is building an £8 billion super military base on the Pacific island of Guam in an attempt to contain China’s military build-up.

Full Story: US to build £8bn super base on Pacific island of Guam – Telegraph.

Support For Veterans Shows Sharp Partisan Divide

According to an analysis by the nonpartisan Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America Action Fund, Republicans in Congress have dramatically failed to support our troops after they come home. IAVA’s 2010 Veteran Report Card, based on the key veterans’ legislation that came to a vote during the 111th Congress, exposed a sharp partisan divide on the level of support for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow tabulated yesterday. Of the 94 elected officials that earned an A or A+ rating from IAVA, 91 were Democrats. Of the 154 officials who received a D or F, 142 were Republicans:

Maddow also noted that U.S. Senate candidates Sharron Angle (R-NV) and Ken Buck (R-CO) have called for the privatization of the Veterans Affairs hospital system, even though it provides the best quality of care in America, as our veterans deserve. Watch the segment:

Full Story: ThinkProgress » Support For Veterans Shows Sharp Partisan Divide.

General Petraeus, Proconsul of Fantasyland

The gap between General Petraeus’ rhetoric and the reality on the ground in Afghanistan grows every day.

Yesterday, the Afghan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) released its quarterly report (.pdf) on the security situation in Afghanistan, which described the continued growth of the Afghan armed resistance and a deterioration of security in areas where ISAF made major military pushes. Yet, today, General Petraeus crowed in London about “progress” made in Afghanistan. Americans are wise to the game and don’t buy this sort of clap-trap anymore: most Americans believe the war in Afghanistan is a “situation like Vietnam (.pdf).” Yet Petraeus spins on, damaging his own credibility and fooling no one.

The ANSO report paints a grim picture of the reality on the ground in Afghanistan:

Full Story: Derrick Crowe: General Petraeus, Proconsul of Fantasyland.

Backdoor Draft Winding Down — For Now

Don’t call it an all-volunteer army.

Over the nine years and counting that the United States has been at war, about 145,000 members of the military have had their service extended against their will. About 4,000 are still serving involuntarily, mostly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Pentagon’s “stop-loss” authority lets the armed services extend the enlistment of service members beyond their contractually agreed-to separation date during wartime. Its use became common after former president George W. Bush dramatically over-extended the nation’s armed forces by choosing to invade Iraq when he wasn’t even done in Afghanistan yet.

Stop loss is now winding down. Of the three services, only the Army is still using it and the last soldiers held back against their will are scheduled to finally go home in March 2011. The Pentagon now uses the Deployment Extension Incentive Pay program to encourages soldiers to voluntarily extend their deployments.

Full Story: Backdoor Draft Winding Down — For Now.

Killing Each Taliban Soldier Costs $50 Million

Killing 20 Taliban costs $1 Billion / Killing all the Taliban would cost $1.7 Trillion

The Pentagon will not tell the public what it costs to locate, target and kill a single Taliban soldier because the price-tag is so scandalously high that it makes the Taliban appear to be Super-Soldiers. As set out in this article, the estimated cost to kill each Taliban is as high as $100 million, with a conservative estimate being $50 million. A public discussion should be taking place in the United States regarding whether the Taliban have become too expensive an enemy to defeat.

Each month the Pentagon generates a ream of dubious statistics designed to create the illusion of progress in Afghanistan. In response this author decided to compile his own statistics. As the goal of any war is to kill the enemy, the idea was to calculate what it actually costs to kill just one of the enemy. The obstacles encountered in generating such a statistic are formidable. The problem is that the Pentagon continues to illegally classify all negative war news and embarrassing information. Regardless, some information has been collected from independent sources. Here is what we know in summary and round numbers:

Full Story: poorrichard’s blog: Killing Each Taliban Soldier Costs $50 Million.

U.S. Military Orders Less Dependence on Fossil Fuels

With insurgents increasingly attacking the American fuel supply convoys that lumber across the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan, the military is pushing aggressively to develop, test and deploy renewable energy to decrease its need to transport fossil fuels.

Last week, a Marine company from California arrived in the rugged outback of Helmand Province bearing novel equipment: portable solar panels that fold up into boxes; energy-conserving lights; solar tent shields that provide shade and electricity; solar chargers for computers and communications equipment.

The 150 Marines of Company I, Third Battalion, Fifth Marines, will be the first to take renewable technology into a battle zone, where the new equipment will replace diesel and kerosene-based fuels that would ordinarily generate power to run their encampment.

Full Story: U.S. Military Orders Less Dependence on Fossil Fuels – NYTimes.com.

Attention Veterans, Sharron Angle want to privatize the VA

In early 2007 at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center it was discovered that wounded soldiers were forced to live with cockroaches in rat infested quarters while they went through rehab and physical therapy, which for many lasted months and for some a lifetime.

The Walter Reed Army Hospital which had been known as the Army’s top rated hospital and rehab facility for decades was in shambles.

The cause was the privatization of Walter Reed in 2002 under President Bush’s “competitive sourcing initiative“,which awarded a $200 million contract to IAP Worldwide Services.

Full Story: Attention Veterans, Sharron Angle want to privatize the VA – Las Vegas Democrat | Examiner.com.

Britain held war talks with US general Tommy Franks 11 months before Iraq invasion

America’s most senior general flew into Britain for top secret talks on the invasion of Iraq 11 months before the attack on Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Details of the classified meeting, held at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, suggest Tony Blair’s Government was involved in detailed discussions about toppling the Iraqi dictator earlier than previously disclosed.

American General Tommy Franks flew in to the base in April 2002 to attend a summit meeting called by the then Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.

Full Story: Britain held war talks with US general Tommy Franks before Iraq invasion | Mail Online.

Fort Hood Suicides Hit Record Numbers

Fort Hood officials are investigating a rash of suicides in recent days, including what evidently was a murder-suicide involving a soldier and his wife.

The incidents came as the central Texas Army post reported a record number of soldier suicides.

According to figures released Tuesday, 14 suicides and six more suspected suicides have been reported so far this year involving soldiers stationed at Fort Hood.

Full Story: Fort Hood Suicides Hit Record Numbers.

Petraeus Cons Obama on Afghan War

By Ray McGovern

One thing that comes through clearly in Bob Woodward’s new book, Obama’s Wars, is the contempt felt by Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, toward President Barack Obama.

One of Woodward’s more telling vignettes has Petraeus, after quaffing a glass of wine during a flight in May, telling some of his staff that the administration was “[expletive] with the wrong guy.”

No need to divine precisely what may be the “expletive deleted.” Petraeus’s Douglas-MacArthur-style contempt for the commander-in-chief comes through clearly enough. But Obama is no Harry Truman, facing down a popular general who may fancy himself a future president.

Pity poor Obama. Journalists favored with an advance peek at Woodward’s new book, like Peter Baker of the New York Times, report that Obama last year pressed his advisers to come up with ways to avoid a major escalation in Afghanistan.

Full Story: Consortiumnews.com.

Counterterrorist Pursuit Team: 3,000 Man CIA Paramilitary Force Hunts Militants In Afghanistan, Pakistan

The CIA has trained and bankrolled a well-paid force of elite Afghan paramilitaries for nearly eight years to hunt al-Qaida and the Taliban for the CIA, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Modeled after U.S. special forces, the Counterterrorist Pursuit Team was set up in the months following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2002 to penetrate territory controlled by the Taliban and al-Qaida and target militants for interrogations by CIA officials.

The 3,000-strong Afghan teams are used for surveillance and long-range reconnaissance missions and some have trained at CIA facilities in the United States. The force has operated in Kabul and some of Afghanistan’s most violence-wracked provinces including Kandahar, Khost, Paktia and Paktika, according to a security professional familiar with the program.

Full Story: Counterterrorist Pursuit Team: 3,000 Man CIA Paramilitary Force Hunts Militants In Afghanistan, Pakistan.

Iraq, Afghan Veterans Call For Respect For Muslims: ‘America, You Gotta Have Our Back’ (EXCLUSIVE)

The push by some in the media against rising anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States gained valuable voices of support over the weekend — and now joining that chorus are veterans who fought alongside U.S. servicemembers of Islamic faith in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A small but growing group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have signed onto an open letter, provided exclusively to the Huffington Post, which calls on the American public to respect “the values we risked our lives to protect” and to avoid endangering the mission — and safety — of U.S. forces in the Mideast. Like Gen. David Petraeus, the veterans warn that U.S. troops will face blowback from demonstrated intolerance for Muslims at home.

“America, you gotta have our back,” reads the letter, composed by signatories Roy Scranton, Philip Klay and Perry O’Brien. “Those who would vilify and target Muslims on grounds of their religious belief not only show a deep disrespect for American values, but put American lives at risk. It’s easy to burn a Koran when you won’t feel the heat.”

Full Story: Iraq, Afghan Veterans Call For Respect For Muslims: ‘America, You Gotta Have Our Back’ (EXCLUSIVE).

American Friends Service Committee: Email – Now is the moment to cut the military budget

In our work for peace, there are pivotal moments we cannot let pass us by. For the first time in years, we have a real chance to make some significant cuts in the United States’ enormous military budget. Let’s seize the moment and reach out to Congress today.

Since the tragic events of September 11, 2001—nine years ago this week—U.S. spending on the military has increased dramatically. Money we’ve desperately needed here at home has been poured into weapons and warmaking, creating huge deficits that have crippled job creation and drained needed funds for housing, education, and healthcare.

Today, with our country awash in foreclosures, our school systems bankrupt, our infrastructure crumbling, and with at least 14.9 million Americans unemployed, policymakers in Washington know that something must be done to cut spending and address our rising deficit. But when it comes to targeting military spending, almost 56 percent of the entire discretionary federal budget, they are still hesitating. Funds for weapons and warfare continue to enjoy a privileged status in this country, protected from significant cuts even in the worst economic crisis in decades.

Full Story: American Friends Service Committee: Email – Now is the moment to cut the military budget.

US expects to subsidize Afghan training through 2015: Billions

US expects to spend billions on Afghanistan training long after draw-down of its forces

The United States expects to spend about $6 billion a year training and supporting Afghan troops and police after it begins pulling out its own combat troops in 2011, The Associated Press has learned.

The previously undisclosed estimates of U.S. spending through 2015, detailed in a NATO training mission document, are an acknowledgment that Afghanistan will remain largely dependent on the United States for its security.

Full Story: US expects to subsidize Afghan training for years | Raw Story.

Pentagon declined to investigate hundreds of purchases of child pornography

The cases turned up during a 2006 ICE inquiry, called Project Flicker, which targeted overseas processing of child-porn payments. As part of the probe, ICE investigators gained access to the names and credit card information of more than 5,000 Americans who had subscribed to websites offering images of child pornography. Many of those individuals provided military email addresses or physical addresses with Army or fleet ZIP codes when they purchased the subscriptions.

In a related inquiry, the Pentagon’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) cross-checked the ICE list against military databases to come up with a list of Defense employees and contractors who appeared to be guilty of purchasing child pornography. The names included staffers for the secretary of defense, contractors for the ultra-secretive National Security Agency, and a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But the DCIS opened investigations into only 20 percent of the individuals identified, and succeeded in prosecuting just a handful.

Full Story: Pentagon declined to investigate hundreds of purchases of child pornography | The Upshot Yahoo! News – Yahoo! News.

Obama Boxed In by Generals on Afghanistan

Ray McGovern:  :

Just back from Afghanistan, Marine Commandant, Gen. James Conway held a news conference Tuesday to add his voice to the Pentagon campaign to disparage the July 2011 date President Barack Obama set for U.S. troops to begin leaving Afghanistan.

Conway claimed that intelligence intercepts suggest that this deadline has strengthened the conviction of those resisting the U.S.-led occupation that it is just a matter of time before most foreign forces leave.

Thus, Conway:

“In some ways … it’s probably giving our enemy sustenance. … We think he may be saying to himself … ‘Hey, you know, we only have to hold out for so long.’”

Conway, however, was quick to reassure supporters of the war in Afghanistan that Taliban morale is likely to drop when, “come the fall [of 2011] we’re still there hammering them like we have been.”

Full Story: Obama Boxed In by Generals on Afghanistan | CommonDreams.org.

10 Needed Steps for Obama to Start Dismantling America’s Gigantic, Destructive Military Empire

Chalmers Johnson

The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment will condemn the U.S. to devastating consequences.

However ambitious President Barack Obama’s domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union.

According to the 2008 official Pentagon inventory of our military bases around the world, our empire consists of 865 facilities in more than 40 countries and overseas U.S. territories. We deploy over 190,000 troops in 46 countries and territories. In just one such country, Japan, at the end of March 2008, we still had 99,295 people connected to U.S. military forces living and working there — 49,364 members of our armed services, 45,753 dependent family members, and 4,178 civilian employees. Some 13,975 of these were crowded into the small island of Okinawa, the largest concentration of foreign troops anywhere in Japan.

Full Story: 10 Needed Steps for Obama to Start Dismantling America’s Gigantic, Destructive Military Empire | World | AlterNet.

Army Weak: Soldiers Expose Deployment of Unprepared Troops

Army Reserve members facing imminent deployment to Afghanistan are publicly charging that their company is not properly trained or mentally fit for battle. Several members of the Indiana-based 656th Transportation Company, which was due to activate last Sunday, August 22nd, requested a Congressional inquiry into the unit’s lack of readiness. Alejandro Villatoro, a sergeant in the company, is amongst those coming forward.

Sergeant Villatoro says, “The main reason I am doing this is that I want people to know the lack of training and education our soldiers been receiving, and the focus on the mission is just not adequate to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. All I am asking is more time to reevaluate the training and mental health of these soldiers before sending them into war.”

At risk to themselves, these soldiers are going public with firsthand experiences of failures in military training, mental healthcare, and leadership, which many veterans charge are problems endemic to the military. This comes as the Afghanistan War falls under increased scrutiny in the wake of the Wikileaked “War Logs” information.

Full Story: Army Weak: Soldiers Expose Deployment of Unprepared Troops : Veterans Today.

Thousands strain Fort Hood’s mental health system

Nine months after an Army psychiatrist was charged with fatally shooting 13 soldiers and wounding 30, the nation’s largest Army post can measure the toll of war in the more than 10,000 mental health evaluations, referrals or therapy sessions held every month.

About every fourth soldier here, where 48,000 troops and their families are based, has been in counseling during the past year, according to the service’s medical statistics. And the number of soldiers seeking help for combat stress, substance abuse, broken marriages or other emotional problems keeps increasing.

A common refrain by the Army’s vice chief of staff, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, is that far more soldiers suffer mental health issues than the Army anticipated. Nowhere is this more evident than at Fort Hood, where emotional problems among the soldiers threaten to overwhelm the system in place to help them.

Full Story: Thousands strain Fort Hood’s mental health system – USATODAY.com.

Combat brigades in Iraq under different name

7 Advise and Assist Brigades, made up of troops from BCTs, still in Iraq

As the final convoy of the Army’s 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Lewis, Wash., entered Kuwait early Thursday, a different Stryker brigade remained in Iraq.

Soldiers from the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division are deployed in Iraq as members of an Advise and Assist Brigade, the Army’s designation for brigades selected to conduct security force assistance.

So while the “last full U.S. combat brigade” have left Iraq, just under 50,000 soldiers from specially trained heavy, infantry and Stryker brigades will stay, as well as two combat aviation brigades.

Full Story: Combat brigades in Iraq under different name – Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq – Army Times.

War Veterans/Military Family Members Successfully Blockade Fort Hood Deployment to Iraq

Five peace activists successfully blockaded six buses carrying Fort Hood Soldiers deploying to Iraq outside Fort Hood’s Clarke gate this morning at around 4 a.m. While the activists took the width of Clarke Rd. and slowed the buses to a halt, police made no arrests, but instead beat the activists out of the streets using automatic weapons and police dogs so the deploying Soldiers could proceed.

Among those blockading were three veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and one military spouse. (See attached bios) The action, organized by a group calling themselves “Fort Hood Disobeys,” was aimed at preventing the deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment Soldiers to what the veterans termed an illegal and immoral occupation.

While standing in the street, the activists held banners reading “Occupation is a Crime” and “Please Don’t Make the Same Mistake We Did. RESIST NOW.” From the TX HW-190 overpass, additional supporters attempted to hang larger banners that read, “Tell the Brass: ‘KISS MY ASS’ Your family needs you more” “Sick of Fighting Your Wars” and “Col. Allen [3 ACR Commander]: Do not deploy wounded Soldiers.”

Full Story: War Veterans/Military Family Members Successfully Blockade Fort Hood Deployment to Iraq | CommonDreams.org.

Why won’t the Pentagon help WikiLeaks redact documents?

- Glenn Greenwald -

When the controversy first arose over the lack of redactions in the war documents released by WikiLeaks, the website insisted that, using the New York Times as an intermediary, it had asked the Obama administration for help in removing names of Afghans before releasing the documents, a claim the Pentagon vehemently denied. The New York Times, needless to say, sided with the Government — that’s what the NYT does — but they did so by simultaneously confirming the truth of WikiLeaks’ version of events. From the Associated Press article, July 31, on that controversy:

Also on Saturday, a New York Times reporter who has been the newspaper’s liaison with Assange, dismissed Assange’s claim that WikiLeaks had offered to let U.S. government officials go through leaked documents to ensure that no innocent people were identified. Assange told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview that aired Thursday that the New York Times had acted as an intermediary and that the White House hadn’t responded to the offer.

Times reporter Eric Schmitt told the AP that on the night of July 23, at White House spokesman’s Robert Gibbs’ request, he relayed to Assange a White House request that WikiLeaks not publish information that could lead to people being physically harmed.

Full Story: Why won’t the Pentagon help WikiLeaks redact documents? – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Troops: Skipping Christian Concert Got Us Punished

The Army said Friday it was investigating a claim that dozens of soldiers who refused to attend a Christian band’s concert at a Virginia military base were banished to their barracks and told to clean them up.

Fort Eustis spokesman Rick Haverinen told The Associated Press he couldn’t comment on the specifics of the investigation. At the Pentagon, Army spokesman Col. Thomas Collins said the military shouldn’t impose religious views on soldiers.

“If something like that were to have happened, it would be contrary to Army policy,” Collins said.

Pvt. Anthony Smith said he and other soldiers felt pressured to attend the May concert while stationed at the Newport News base, home of the Army’s Transportation Corps.

Full Story: Troops: Skipping Christian Concert Got Us Punished.

U.S. ‘Combat Troops’ Exit Iraq: ‘What Noble Cause?’

Tonight, it’s been announced, the last U.S. “combat troops” have left Iraq, some 7 years, 4 months and 29 days after they were sent their for specious and deadly reasons by the Administration of George W. Bush.

Coincidentally, it is just over 5 years to the day since 14 Marines from a base in the Cleveland, Ohio suburb of Brook Park were killed by a roadside a bomb in Iraq. The incident, the deadliest bombing there at the time, when “just” 1,820 U.S. troops had died to date, led Bush to tell “the people of Brook Park” that he “hope[d] they also take comfort in the understanding that the sacrifice was made in a noble cause.”

That statement brought one very courageous woman — Cindy Sheehan, whose son had also been killed in Iraq — down to Crawford, Texas, where Bush had been vacationing at his ranch, in hopes of asking him in person “what noble cause” her son, and those from Cleveland, and from so many other cities and towns around the U.S., had died for.

Full Story: The BRAD BLOG : U.S. ‘Combat Troops’ Exit Iraq: ‘What Noble Cause?’.

Pentagon Holding U.S. Hostage To Endless Wars

Besides holding Afghanistan and Iraq hostage, the Pentagon today is holding American civilization itself hostage to its imperial designs. That’s because war beggars civilized life and ceaseless war beggars civilization unceasingly.

As the great political commentator Walter Lippman put it during the Viet Nam War, “All the plans of the Great Society here at home, all the plans for the rebuilding of backward countries in other continents will all be put on the shelf, because war interrupts everything.” In the American Warfare State that prevails today most of every tax dollar collected goes to wage war and the Pentagon spends more for war than all 50 states combined spend for peace. No better example exists than the protest of 750 scientists at the National Institutes of Health who said their basic infectious disease research had been subverted by spending on bioterror research. War interrupts everything: rebuilding our cities, public schools and community colleges, water-works and sewerage systems, housing, mass transit, hospitals, new business start-ups, parks and playgrounds,and the funding of the fine arts.

Lippman went on to give advice that nearly every occupant of the White House has since disregarded: “We are not the policeman of mankind. We are not able to run the world, and we shouldn’t pretend that we can. Let us tend to our own business, which is great enough as it is. It is very great. We have neglected our own affairs. Our education is inadequate, our cities are badly built, our social arrangements are unsatisfactory. We can’t wait another generation.”

Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: Pentagon Holding U.S. Hostage To Endless Wars.

The U S War Addiction

Mike Papantonio – Ring of Fire

Pat Tillman’s Father To Army Investigator: ‘F— You… And Yours’ (EXCLUSIVE)

There always was a dark cinematic thread to the story of Pat Tillman: the football star imbued with post-9/11 patriotism who was killed in a friendly-fire incident in the Afghan mountains and the allegations of a massive bureaucratic cover-up involving the highest levels of the U.S. Army in the wake of the tragedy.

So it wasn’t terribly shocking when word broke this past winter that “The Tillman Story,” a documentary film, was being purchased by the powerhouse Weinstein Company. The story, even without a director applying his artistic license to the script, obviously had many elements of a political thriller.

As the release date approaches — the film will premiere in Los Angeles and New York on August 20 — those elements are becoming a bit clearer and more intriguing. The Weinstein Company sent the Huffington Post two previously unseen letters written by Tillman’s father at the peak of frustration with the army’s investigation into his son’s death. The notes, penned to Brigadier General Gary M. Jones (the man spearheading the investigation) as well as the Senate Armed Services Committee (which oversaw Jones’s work), paint a picture of a man increasingly convinced that a massive conspiracy was emerging around the death of his son.

Full Story: Pat Tillman’s Father To Army Investigator: ‘F— You… And Yours’ (EXCLUSIVE).

Pentagon: Undisclosed Wikileak documents ‘potentially more explosive’

Pentagon officials believe they have identified the 15,000 classified Afghanistan war documents that the online site WikiLeaks has obtained and might disclose, and the military is now sifting through them for references that could harm troops or civilians.

The records at issue contain material that is “potentially more explosive, more sensitive,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said, than the information in the 77,000 Afghanistan field reports and assessments WikiLeaks put online last month in an effort to shed light on the U.S. military’s war in Afghanistan.

A task force of more than 100 intelligence analysts have been sifting “around the clock” through all 91,000 records, looking for hundreds of key words, including the names of Afghan citizens, mosques and allies, in an effort to evaluate the danger caused by exposure, Morrell said. “We have found many instances in which our allies or their forces are mentioned in these documents,” and the U.S. military has then notified them as the case warrants, he said.

Full Story: Checkpoint Washington – Pentagon: Undisclosed Wikileak documents ‘potentially more explosive’.

How the Military Destroys the Lives of Soldiers Who Try to Tell the Truth

Bradley Manning is not the first military whistleblower to have his life ruined. The military is infamous for tring to silence soldiers who speak out against the war.

Last week, Representative Mike Rogers called for the execution of military whistleblower, Private Bradley Manning. His crime? Sharing the “Collateral Murder” video and the classified Afghanistan “war logs” with Wikileaks, which exposed the truth behind the failing war in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s cooperation with the Taliban, and potential war crimes. The 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst said he felt it was “important that it gets out…I feel, for some bizarre reason…it might actually change something.” He is currently in jail at Quantico, on suicide watch, and is facing up to 50 years in prison for exposing information the American public has the right to know.

“The government is engaging in selective prosecution to ensure that employees keep their mouths shut,” says Stephen Khon, a lawyer specializing in whistleblowing cases. “All of a sudden the whistleblower becomes public enemy number one. There is no proportionality.”

Full Story: How the Military Destroys the Lives of Soldiers Who Try to Tell the Truth | World | AlterNet.

US Navy Stunned: Deadly new Chinese Missiles can Sink Every US Supercarrier

A new ‘smart missile’ threatens to tip the balance of power towards China, US military analysts say.

The latest generation of the Dongfeng 21D (DF-21D) [Photo] is a supercarrier killer according to experts on China’s armaments. The missile can be launched from land and strike an aircraft carrier 900 miles away.

China has 11,200 miles of coastline. That fact coupled with the range and accuracy of the new missile could spell doom for any US or allied carrier fleet.

Patrick Cronin, a senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program that is part of the Washington, DC Center for a New American Security organization admits the DF 21D is designed to kill carriers–specifically US Naval carriers. “The Navy has long had to fear carrier–killing capabilities. The emerging Chinese anti-ship missile capability, and in particular the DF 21D, represents the first post–Cold War capability that is both potentially capable of stopping our naval power projection and deliberately designed for that purpose.”

The new Chinese military’s 96166 Unit will be outfitted with DF 21C medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) and possibly the DF-21D ASBM as well.

Full Story: OpEdNews – Article: US Navy Stunned: Deadly new Chinese Missiles can Sink Every US Supercarrier.

The US isn’t leaving Iraq, it’s rebranding the occupation

Obama says withdrawal is on schedule, but renaming or outsourcing combat troops won’t give Iraqis back their country

For most people in Britain and the US, Iraq is already history. Afghanistan has long since taken the lion’s share of media attention, as the death toll of Nato troops rises inexorably. Controversy about Iraq is now almost entirely focused on the original decision to invade: what’s happening there in 2010 barely registers.

That will have been reinforced by Barack Obama’s declaration this week that US combat troops are to be withdrawn from Iraq at the end of the month “as promised and on schedule”. For much of the British and American press, this was the real thing: headlines hailed the “end” of the war and reported “US troops to leave Iraq”.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The US isn’t withdrawing from Iraq at all – it’s rebranding the occupation. Just as George Bush’s war on terror was retitled “overseas contingency operations” when Obama became president, US “combat operations” will be rebadged from next month as “stability operations”.

Full Story: The US isn’t leaving Iraq, it’s rebranding the occupation | Seumas Milne | Comment is free | The Guardian.

The Takeaway from 91,000 Leaked Secret Documents on Afghanistan: It’s Bad. Very Bad. Time to Go

Will Durst:

As unexpected as a checkered tablecloth in a pizzeria, the administration is playing down any revelations about Afghanistan, but we can draw our own conclusions.

To say the release of 91,000 classified documents has revealed a disconnect between our public position on Afghanistan and the actual situation on the ground is like inferring a disparity between yoga and bayonets. Dawn dishwashing liquid and green olive tapenade. A tray full of Southern Comfort old-fashioned sweets and a herringbone Segway.

Unlike the Pentagon Papers, we can’t even work up a good outrage, mainly because come on, 91,000 documents. That’s like reading all seven Harry Potter books thirty times over. I don’t care how authentically rustic your wand is, nobody’s doing that. There’s even questions as to whether it’s 91,000 documents, 92,000 documents, if all the documents have been released or more are being held in reserve for we mere Muggles.

I know. What’s a thousand documents amongst friends? Well, there’s your problem. We don’t have any friends. Corruption over there is endemic, pandemic and epidemic. Our allies aren’t necessarily allied on our side. The fighting is going badly and a halfway decent deep-dish pizza crust remains a concept the Afghanis seem unable or unwilling to embrace. Not to mention Democracy.

Full Story: The Takeaway from 91,000 Leaked Secret Documents on Afghanistan: It’s Bad. Very Bad. Time to Go | Media and Culture | AlterNet.

Distressed Soldiers Get Mental Health Treatment…On The Battlefield

Sgt. Thomas Riordan didn’t want to return to Afghanistan after home leave. He had just fought through a battle that killed eight soldiers, and when he arrived home his wife said she was leaving. He almost killed himself that night.

When his psychologist asked what he thought he should do, Riordan said: Stay in Colorado.

Instead, the military brought Riordan back to this base in the eastern Afghan mountains, where mortar rounds sound regularly and soldiers have to wear flack jackets if they step outside their barracks before 8 a.m., even to go to the bathroom.

Increasingly, the army is trying to treat traumatized soldiers “in theater” – where they’re stationed. The idea is that soldiers will heal best if kept with those who understand what they’ve been through, rather than being dumped into a treatment center back in the States where they’ll be surrounded by unfamiliar people and untethered from their work and routine.

Full Story: Distressed Soldiers Get Mental Health Treatment…On The Battlefield.

Oklahoma fathers of dead service members rally against war funding

Fathers of two military personnel killed in Iraq rallied Thursday against a $37 billion U.S. military funding bill.

The fathers of two fallen service members criticized the U.S. House‘s approval of $37 billion in spending on wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The fathers called for a troop reduction and a renewed focus on fighting terrorism.

Full Story: Oklahoma fathers of dead service members rally against war funding | NewsOK.com.

Documentary Reveals the Price Paid in Blood for the Senseless War in Afghanistan

Sean Smith’s brutal, uncompromising film from the Helmand frontline shows the horrific chaos of a 10 year old war.

Video at link

Full Story: Documentary Reveals the Price Paid in Blood for the Senseless War in Afghanistan | World | AlterNet.

Army report: Service is failing suicidal soldiers

Record number of deaths the result of brass not seeing or doing nothing about signs of stress such as drug abuse

An Army report on the record number of soldier suicides says the trend reflects a rise in risky behavior including drunken driving and drug abuse in a military stretched to the breaking point by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The report says the Army is failing its soldiers by missing signs of trouble, or by looking the other way as commanders try to keep to tight schedules required to meet deployment schedules.

The Army vice chief of staff, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, said Thursday that statistics on levels of drug and alcohol abuse, car accidents and crime suggests that soldiers are taking more risks while discipline has slipped.

Full Story: Army report: Service is failing suicidal soldiers – Military Suicides – Salon.com.

Fallen Soldiers’ Families Denied Cash as Insurers Profit

The package arrived at Cindy Lohman’s home in Great Mills, Maryland, just two weeks after she learned that her son, Ryan, a 24-year-old Army sergeant, had been killed by a bomb in Afghanistan. It was a thick, 9-inch-by- 12-inch envelope from Prudential Financial Inc., which handles life insurance for the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Inside was a letter from Prudential about Ryan’s $400,000 policy. And there was something else, which looked like a checkbook. The letter told Lohman that the full amount of her payout would be placed in a convenient interest-bearing account, allowing her time to decide how to use the benefit.

“You can hold the money in the account for safekeeping for as long as you like,” the letter said. In tiny print, in a disclaimer that Lohman says she didn’t notice, Prudential disclosed that what it called its Alliance Account was not guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its September issue.

Full Story: Fallen Soldiers’ Families Denied Cash as Insurers Profit – Bloomberg.

American Soldiers Brainwashed with “Positive Thinking”

The U.S. military has become increasingly excited about positive psychology techniques. Maybe a better route would be to offer soldiers respect for their critical thinking

While U.S. military psychiatrists are prescribing increasing amounts of chill pills, America’s psychologists are teaching soldiers how to think more positively about their tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, and wherever else they are next ordered to kill the bad guys and win the hearts and minds of everyone else.

The U.S. Army is planning to require that all 1.1 million of its soldiers take intensive training in positive psychology and emotional resiliency. Army Research Psychologist Capt. Paul Lester, who leads the assessment of the program, told the National Psychologist (“Army to Train its Own in Positive Psychology,” July/August 2010), “As far as I can tell this is the largest, deliberate, psychological intervention in human history. . . . We don’t know when the global war on terrorism is going to end so we’re preparing to have to be engaged for a long period of time.”

Lester said the program would develop “communication skills, cognitive reforming skills and help soldiers not to catastrophize — don’t think of the worse case scenario about every potential problem.” The program also teaches soldiers to focus on “expressing appreciation” and “correcting negative views of ambiguous events.”

Full Story: American Soldiers Brainwashed with “Positive Thinking” | World | AlterNet.

Department of Defense can’t account for 96 percent of money administered in Iraq reconstruction fund.

Yesterday, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) released its findings on how the money was spent from a special Iraq reconstruction fund set up by the Department of Defense (DOD) between 2003-2007. The account used Iraqi oil money to fund the reconstruction of Iraq. SIGIR concluded that 96 percent of the $9.1 billion the reconstruction program cannot be accounted for by the DOD:

A US federal watchdog has criticised the US military for failing to account properly for billions of dollars it received to help rebuild Iraq. The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction says the US Department of Defence is unable to account properly for 96% of the money. Out of just over $9bn (£5.8bn), $8.7bn is unaccounted for, the inspector says. [...]

The funds in question were administered by the US Department of Defence between 2004 and 2007, and were earmarked for reconstruction projects. But, the report says, a lack of proper accounting makes it impossible to say exactly what happened to most of the money.

Full Story: Think Progress » Department of Defense can’t account for 96 percent of money administered in Iraq reconstruction fund..

U.S. audit finds Pentagon can’t account for $8 billion in Iraqi funds

The reconstruction money was from oil revenue it was entrusted with between 2004 and 2007, according to a newly released audit that underscores a pattern of poor record-keeping.

The Defense Department is unable to properly account for $8.7 billion out of $9.1 billion in Iraqi oil revenue entrusted to it between 2004 and 2007, according to a newly released audit that underscores a pattern of poor record-keeping during the war.

Of that amount, the military failed to provide any records at all for $2.6 billion in purported reconstruction expenditure, says the report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which is responsible for monitoring U.S. spending in Iraq. The rest of the money was not properly deposited in special accounts as required under Treasury Department rules, making it difficult to trace how it was spent.

Though there is no apparent evidence of fraud, the improper accounting practices add to the pattern of mismanagement, reckless spending and, in some instances, corruption uncovered by the agency since 2004, when it was created to oversee the total of $53 billion in U.S. taxpayer money appropriated by Congress for the reconstruction effort.

Full Story: U.S. audit finds Pentagon can’t account for $8 billion in Iraqi funds – latimes.com.

OPS: This is in addition to the $8.5 Billion (IN CASH, ON PALLETS) that Brenner disappeared.

80% of Post-Traumatic Stress Sufferers Lost Symptoms After Taking Ecstasy — Study’s Results

Study’s conclusion — new drug could “offer sufferers a vital window with reduced fear responses where psychotherapy can take effect.”

After MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, over 80% of sufferers from post traumatic stress disorder no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, as compared to only 25% in the control group. This study, just released, was conducted by Michael Mithoefer, M.D. (and his colleagues) and is published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Psychopharmacology.

According to the media release, MDMA could “offer sufferers a vital window with reduced fear responses where psychotherapy can take effect.” MDMA is also called Ecstasy.

On the killing fields of 1914-19, the malady being studied was called “shell shock”; in World War Two, “battle fatigue” or “combat exhaustion”; and now, in the era of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, PTSD. It can be caused, for example, by experiencing random explosions, being wounded, or seeing buddies torn open or killed.

Full Story: 80% of Post-Traumatic Stress Sufferers Lost Symptoms After Taking Ecstasy — Study’s Results | Drugs | AlterNet.

WikiLeaks and the War

The New Yorker:

Among the ninety-one thousand or so documents from the Afghan war released by WikiLeaks Sunday is an incident report dated November 22, 2009, submitted by a unit called Task Force Pegasus. It describes how a convoy was stopped on a road in southern Afghanistan at an illegal checkpoint manned by what appeared to be a hundred insurgents, “middle-age males with approx 75 x AK-47’s and 15 x PKM’s.” What could be scarier than that?

Maybe what the soldiers found out next: these weren’t “insurgents” at all, at least not in the die-hard jihadi sense that the American public might understand the term. The gunmen were quite willing to let the convoy through, if the soldiers just forked over a two- or three-thousand-dollar bribe per truck; and they were in the pay of a local warlord, Matiullah Khan, who was himself in the pay, ultimately, of the American public. According to a Times report this June (six months after the incident with Task Force Pegasus), Matiullah earns millions of dollars from NATO, supposedly to keep that road clear for convoys and help with American special-forces missions. Matiullah is also suspected of (and has denied) earning money “facilitating the movement of drugs along the highway.”

That is good to know. The Obama Administration has already expressed dismay that WikiLeaks publicized the documents, but a leak informing us that our tax dollars may be being used as seed money for a protection racket associated with a narcotics-trafficking enterprise is a good leak to have. And the checkpoint incident is, again, only one report, from one day. It will take some time to go through everything WikiLeaks has to offer—the documents cover the period from January, 2004, to December, 2009—but it is well worth it, especially since the war in Afghanistan is not winding down, but ramping up. (Also very helpful: Raffi Khatchadourian’s piece for The New Yorker on WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.)

Full Story: Close Read: WikiLeaks and the War : The New Yorker.

Inside the Fog of War – Reports From the Ground in Afghanistan

A six-year archive of classified military documents to be made public on Sunday offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.

The secret documents, to be released on the Internet by an organization called WikiLeaks, are a daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.

The New York Times, the British newspaper The Guardian and the German magazine Der Spiegel were given access to the voluminous records several weeks ago on the condition that they not report on the material before Sunday.

Full Story: Inside the Fog of War – Reports From the Ground in Afghanistan – NYTimes.com.

Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah ‘worse than Hiroshima’

The shocking rates of infant mortality and cancer in Iraqi city raise new questions about battle

Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.

Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.

Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.

Full Story: Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah ‘worse than Hiroshima’ – Middle East, World – The Independent.

Kucinich, Ron Paul: Get US troops out of Pakistan

Two US lawmakers — a Republican and a Democrat — proposed a bill this week demanding the withdrawal of all US troops in Pakistan, where they are conducting covert operations against militants.

“We have known that US forces have been operating in secret inside the territories of Pakistan without congressional approval,” Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich said Friday, pointing to reports the United States was stepping up its presence there.

He said the House of Representatives was expected to take up the resolution next week. The measure was introduced late Thursday.

Full Story: Kucinich, Ron Paul: Get US troops out of Pakistan | Raw Story.

Mental disorder in the Military has increased by 64% from 2005 to 2009

Mental illness costing military soldiers

The number of soldiers forced to leave the Army solely because of a mental disorder has increased by 64% from 2005 to 2009 and accounts for one in nine medical discharges, according to Army statistics.

Last year, 1,224 soldiers with a mental illness, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, received a medical discharge. That was an increase from 745 soldiers in 2005 or about 7% of medical discharges that year, according to personnel statistics provided to USA TODAY.

The trend matches other recent indicators that show a growing emotional toll on a military that has been fighting for seven years in Iraq and nine years in Afghanistan, the Army and veterans advocates say.

Full Story: Mental illness costing military soldiers – USATODAY.com.

After long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. military begins to treat mental injuries as combat wounds

The 300-pound bomb blasted Marine Staff Sgt. James Ownbey’s mine-resistant truck so high that it snapped power lines before it slammed to the dusty ground in western Iraq.

Ownbey, knocked briefly unconscious by the blast, awoke to suffocating black smoke and a swirling cloud of dirt. He felt for the vehicle’s door, then stumbled into the sunlight where he was joined by the rest of his woozy, three-man crew. Their bodies were sore, but they looked fine.

A Marine general visiting from Washington heard about the blast and came to see the survivors. As Gen. James F. Amos laid a hand on Ownbey’s neck, his aide snapped a picture, proof of the new vehicle’s efficacy against insurgent bombs.

Full Story: After long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. military begins to treat mental injuries as combat wounds — washingtonpost.com.

Newsweek — We’re Not Winning. It’s Not Worth It.

Time to Get Out of Afghanistan —-

Here’s how to draw down in Afghanistan.

Full Story: Haass: Time to Get Out of Afghanistan – Newsweek.

Army suicides hit record number in June

Thirty-two soldiers took their own lives last month, the most Army suicides in a single month since the Vietnam era. Eleven of the soldiers were not on active duty. Of the 21 who were, seven were serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, the Department of Defense said.

Army officials say they don’t have any answers to why more and more soldiers are resorting to suicide.

“There were no trends to any one unit, camp, post or station,” Col. Chris Philbrick, head of the Army’s suicide prevention task force, told CNN. “I have no silver bullet to answer the question why.”

Last year, a record-breaking 245 soldiers committed suicide. The Army seems on track to surpass that number this year, as 145 soldiers have taken their lives in the first half of 2010.

Full Story: Army suicides hit record number in June – Yahoo! News.

Rachel Maddow: The hard choice in Afghanistan

‘Each Additional American Life Sacrificed To A Goal We Know We Won’t Reach Is A Moral Outrage’

U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke: We’re in Afghanistan because it really matters. We’re in Afghanistan because if we fail in Afghanistan, it will have a direct, immediate danger to us. It will increase al-Qaeda’s worldwide reach. They will come back with the Taliban in all likelihood, and they will gain a worldwide success which will be very dangerous for our national security interests. So we have to be clear. The American public needs to be clear on why we’re in Afghanistan. This is not Vietnam, a war which I participated in as a State Department civilian in the lower Mekong Delta when I entered the government. This is not the Balkans. It’s not Iraq. This is quite different, and this one relates directly to our safety at home.

RM: But we tried to do counterinsurgency in Vietnam, too, pretty explicitly. … When you look back at those efforts, all those years ago, do you really have confidence that a foreign country can help create a state somewhere else, that we really can stand up an Afghan government?

Holbrooke: I think we can if we do it right. . . . The fundamental difference is the one you and I just already mentioned. It matters to our homeland security. Vietnam did not, although at the time, the administrations in power did say it did, but they were wrong. … It’s a process which is not easy, and you only embark on it if you decide that it is absolutely critical for the U.S. national interests, which it is.

That’s the argument. That’s the case that the Obama Administration makes for the war in Afghanistan now,

Full Story: The Rachel Maddow Show – Maddow: The hard choice in Afghanistan.

The Lonely, Dangerous Fight Against Christian Supremacists Inside the Armed Forces

In his fight against British imperialism, Mahatma Gandhi described the life cycle of successful civil disobedience: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” Mikey Weinstein, the 55-year-old founder of the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), likes to quote it, knowing full well he’s crossed the line into a bloody-knuckle brawl. Over the past year, Weinstein and his organization have recorded a tremendous string of victories in the fight against Christian supremacists inside the armed forces.

In January, the MRFF broke the story on the Pentagon’s Jesus Rifles, where rifle scopes used in Afghanistan and Iraq were embossed with New Testament verses. In April, he got the military to rescind its invitation to the Reverend Franklin Graham to speak at May’s National Prayer Day because of Islamophobic remarks. Most shockingly, MRFF received its second nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in late October. These high-profile victories have earned him the enmity of the hardcore Christian Right and the mentally unstable. And the crazies are getting crazier. Weinstein and his family are bombarded with hate mail, from the grammatically incorrect and easy to dismiss – “I hope all your kids turn out gay as hell, take it in the ass, and get aids and die!!!!” – to the kind of threats that immediately make you leap out of your chair and double-check that the doors and windows are locked. (MRFF has referred multiple death threats on Mikey, his family, and MRFF employees to the FBI.)

Unlike Gandhi, Mikey’s no pacifist. Aggression rises up in his voice like a white shark’s fin breaks the waves. In a recent conversation, Mikey bragged how a punk wouldn’t shut up in a movie. When a confrontation ensued and the man took a wild swing, Mikey put him down. None of this is surprising. Weinstein boxed during his Air Force days, his face marked by a strong jawline sitting below a bald head on top of a stocky body – a cross between Rocky Marciano and Butter Bean. Simply put: Mikey Weinstein can be a brute and a zealot. He knows this and admits it freely. But he believes it’s the only position a reasonable person can take when confronted with a faction dedicated to mutating the U.S. military into “a weaponized Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | The Lonely, Dangerous Fight Against Christian Supremacists Inside the Armed Forces.

Female Veterans Struggle To Stay Off Streets

More than 240,000 female service members have been deployed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but for many, reintegrating into civilian life and trying to find employment is not within their reach.

The Department of Veteran Affairs has acknowledged that women are nearly four times as likely as men to end up homeless.

In Los Angeles, outreach efforts are under way to get them off the streets and into the VA’s transition assistance program.

Full Story: Female Veterans Struggle To Stay Off Streets : NPR.

Thousands of Soldiers Unfit for War Duty

More than 13,000 active-duty Army soldiers — the equivalent of four combat brigades — are sidelined as unfit for war because of injury, illness, or mental stress.

In an unmistakable sign that the Army is struggling with exhaustion after nine years of fighting, combat commanders whose units are headed to Afghanistan increasingly choose to leave behind soldiers who can no longer perform, putting additional strain on those who still can.

The growing pool of “non-deployable” soldiers make up roughly 10 percent of the 116,423 active-duty soldiers currently in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands more Army reservists and National Guard soldiers are also considered unfit to deploy, a growing burden on an Army that has sworn to care for them as long as needed.

Full Story: Thousands of Soldiers Unfit for War Duty.

Why We Must Reduce Military Spending

Rep. Barney Frank:

As members of opposing political parties, we disagree on a number of important issues. But we must not allow honest disagreement over some issues to interfere with our ability to work together when we do agree.

By far the single most important of these is our current initiative to include substantial reductions in the projected level of American military spending as part of future deficit reduction efforts. For decades, the subject of military expenditures has been glaringly absent from public debate. Yet the Pentagon budget for 2010 is $693 billion — more than all other discretionary spending programs combined. Even subtracting the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, military spending still amounts to over 42% of total spending.

It is irrefutably clear to us that if we do not make substantial cuts in the projected levels of Pentagon spending, we will do substantial damage to our economy and dramatically reduce our quality of life.

Full Story: Rep. Barney Frank: Why We Must Reduce Military Spending.

So Much for Holder’s “Forceful Response”

Despite Obama berating BP for its criminal “recklessness,” it turns out the Defense Department is still buying a whole lot of oil from them – to wit, at least $980 million worth. BP’s still-valid contracts make it the Pentagon’s largest single supplier of fuel, leading us to wonder what part of “talking out of both sides of your mouth” they don’t understand.

“BP is an active participant in multiple ongoing Defense Logistics Agency acquisition programs.” – Defense Logistics Agency spokesman Mimi Schirmacher.

Full Story: So Much for Holder’s “Forceful Response” | CommonDreams.org.

Iraq withdrawal ‘an exercise in semantics’‘

Stability’ Mission In Iraq Won’t Mean End of Fighting

President Obama has set an August deadline for the end of the combat mission in Iraq. Here at this makeshift desert camp in the insurgent badlands of northern Iraq, a mission is under way that is not going to stop then: American soldiers hunting terrorists and covertly watching an Iraqi checkpoint staffed by police officers whom the soldiers say they do not trust.

“They’re not checking anybody, and they’re wondering why I.E.D.’s are getting in to town,” said Staff Sgt. Kelly E. Young, 39, from Albertville, Ala., as he watched the major roadway that connects Baghdad with Mosul, regarded as the country’s most dangerous city. He referred to improvised explosive devices, the military term for homemade bombs.

The August deadline might be seen back home as a milestone in the fulfillment of President Obama’s promise to end the war in Iraq, but here it is more complex. American soldiers still find and kill enemy fighters, on their own and in partnership with Iraqi security forces, and will continue to do so after the official end of combat operations. More Americans are certain to die, if significantly fewer than in the height of fighting here.

Full Story: ‘Stability’ Mission In Iraq Won’t Mean End of Fighting – NYTimes.com.

VA hospital may have infected 1,800 veterans with HIV

A Missouri VA hospital is under fire because it may have exposed more than 1,800 veterans to life-threatening diseases such as hepatitis and HIV.

John Cochran VA Medical Center in St. Louis has recently mailed letters to 1,812 veterans telling them they could contract hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) after visiting the medical center for dental work, said Rep. Russ Carnahan.

Carnahan said Tuesday he is calling for a investigation into the issue and has sent a letter to President Obama about it.

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” said Carnahan, a Democrat from Missouri. “No veteran who has served and risked their life for this great nation should have to worry about their personal safety when receiving much needed healthcare services from a Veterans Administration hospital.”

Full Story: VA hospital may have infected 1,800 veterans with HIV – CNN.com.

Senate Republicans block measure to provide additional benefits to homeless veterans.

Today, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) brought her bill — the Homeless Women Veterans and Homeless Veterans With Children Act — to the Senate floor seeking unanimous consent. Murray said the bill would “expand assistance for homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children and would increase funding and extend federal grant programs to address the unique challenges faced by these veterans.” However, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) objected on behalf of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) to this seemingly non-controversial issue:

McCONNELL: Madam president, reserving the right to object and I will have to object on behalf of my colleague Sen. Coburn from Oklahoma. He has concerns about this legislation, particularly as he indicates in a letter that I’ll ask the Senate to appear on the record that it be paid for up front so that the promises that makes the Veterans are in fact kept. So madam president I object.

Watch it:

Full Story: Think Progress » Senate Republicans block measure to provide additional benefits to homeless veterans..

The Pentagon’s Threat to the Republic

The New York Times’ David Brooks minimized General Stanley McChrystal’s remarks in Rolling Stone magazine as “kvetching.” For the Times’ Maureen Dowd, McChrystal and his “smart-aleck aides” were merely engaging in “towel-snapping” jocularity. The Washington Post editorial board noted that Afghan President Hamid Karzai called McChrystal the “best commander of the war,” and concluded that the general should be retained as the Afghan commander. The Post and Times’ editorial boards have called for the replacement of President Obama’s key civilian advisors on Afghanistan. Meanwhile, these papers and many others have downplayed the critical issue that dominates this sad affair – the fundamental importance of civilian supremacy in military policy and decision-making.

There is no more important task in political governance than making sure that civilian control of the military is not compromised and that the military remains subordinate to political authority. Unfortunately, President Obama has demonstrated too much deference to the military, retaining the Bush administration’s secretary of defense as his own; appointing too many retired and active-duty general officers to such key civilian positions as national security adviser and intelligence tsar; and making the Pentagon’s budget sacrosanct in an age of restraint.

The reappointment of General David Patraeus as commander of forces in Afghanistan places the general on an extremely high political plateau that makes it more difficult to discuss alternatives to the failed counter-insurgency strategy, and places too much influence in the hands of the Pentagon on decisions involving war and peace. President Obama recognized the McChrystal affair as a challenge to civilian control and leadership, but the appointment of Petraeus enhances the political power of the military and could become an obstacle to the president’s exercise of civilian control in the near term. Too many influence people view Petraeus as the answer to our Afghan problems; he isn’t.

Full Story: t r u t h o u t | The Pentagon’s Threat to the Republic.

Rolling Stone’s McChrystal Profiler, Says Troops Are Happy That General Was Ousted

The Rolling Stone correspondent whose profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal upended America’s Afghan war leadership says that soldiers on the ground are happy that the brash and sometimes reckless general was ousted by President Obama.

Michael Hastings tells Huffington Post in a phone interview from Afghanistan, where he is embedded with U.S. troops: “Over here, soldiers were happy that he got fired. I’ve had a number of people come up to me, I got an email from a Marine this morning [Thursday]: ‘Hey man, you did great work. All the guys in my company think it’s good McChrystal is not there because he was putting or lives at risk.”

Hastings adds he was “very surprised” by the resignation, assuming that McChrystal was unfireable. Taking note of the general’s “tense relationship” with the president, Hastings says that Obama had to push out McChrystal to “prove that he was in control” and not a weak leader.

Full Story: Michael Hastings, Rolling Stone’s McChrystal Profiler, Says Troops Are Happy That General Was Ousted.

3 US Soldiers Speak Out on McChrystal’s Firing, Petraeus as Replacement, and the Unending War in Afghanistan

President Obama says the Afghan war will continue as planned despite his firing of General Stanley McChrystal over disparaging comments made by McChrystal and his aides about top US officials. Obama has named General David Petraeus, head of the US Central Command and architect of the surge in Iraq, as a successor. The firing of McChrystal comes at a perilous moment in the Afghan war, with June now the deadliest month for the NATO force since the 2001 invasion. We speak to three soldiers: Brock McIntosh, an Afghan war vet who has filed for conscientious objector status; Victor Agosto, who was jailed after refusing to deploy to Afghanistan after serving in Iraq; and Camilo Mejia, the first GI who served in Iraq to have publicly resisted the war.

Free: Transcript, Video, Audio, Mp3 download

Full Story: 3 US Soldiers Speak Out on McChrystal’s Firing, Petraeus as Replacement, and the Unending War in Afghanistan.

Switch to Petraeus Betrays Afghan Policy Crisis

Despite President Barack Obama’s denial that his decision to fire Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal as commander in Afghanistan and replace him with Gen. David Petraeus signified any differences with McChrystal over war strategy, the decision obviously reflects a desire by Obama to find a way out of a deepening policy crisis in Afghanistan.

Although the ostensible reason was indiscreet comments by McChrystal and his aides reported in Rolling Stone, the switch from McChrystal to Petraeus was clearly the result of White House unhappiness with McChrystal’s handling of the war.

It had become evident in recent weeks that McChrystal’s strategy is not working as he had promised, and Congress and the U.S. political elite had already become very uneasy about whether the war was on the wrong track.

In calling on Petraeus, the Obama administration appears to be taking a page from the George W. Bush administration’s late 2006 decision to rescue a war in Iraq which was generally perceived in Washington as having become an embarrassing failure. But both Obama and Petraeus are acutely aware of the differences between the situation in Iraq at that moment and the situation in Afghanistan today.

Full Story: Switch to Petraeus Betrays Afghan Policy Crisis.

Obama Administration Keeping Blackwater Armed and Dangerous in Afghanistan

Jeremy Scahill:

Blackwater is up for sale and its shadowy owner, Erik Prince, is rumored to be planning to move to the United Arab Emirates as his top deputies face indictment for a range of alleged crimes, yet the company remains a central part of President Obama’s Afghanistan war. Now, Blackwater’s role is expanding.

On Friday, the US State Department awarded Blackwater another “diplomatic security” contract to protect US officials in Afghanistan. CBS News reports that the $120 million deal is for “protective services” at the US consulates in Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif. Blackwater has another security contract in Afghanistan worth $200 million and trains Afghan forces. The company also works for the CIA and the US military and provides bodyguards for US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry as well as US lawmakers and other officials who visit the country. The company has four forward operating bases in Afghanistan and Prince has boasted that Blackwater’s counter-narcotics forces have called in NATO airstrikes.

The new security contract was awarded to one of Blackwater’s alter egos, the United States Training Center, despite the indictments of five senior company officials on bribery, weapons and conspiracy charges. Its operatives in both Afghanistan and Iraq have been indicted for killing innocent civilians. The Senate Armed Services Committee has called on the Justice Department to investigate Blackwater’s use of a shell company, Paravant, to win training contracts in Afghanistan. Despite these and numerous other scandals, the State Department once again awarded the company a lucrative contract.

Full Story: Obama Administration Keeping Blackwater Armed and Dangerous in Afghanistan | The Nation.

General Petraeus Starts Moving the Goalposts on Afghanistan Withdrawal

When asked about the July 2011 deadline to begin troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, General Petraeus says “I support the policy of the president.” This past week, though, in testimony before Congress in hastily arranged hearings, he made his position more clear. He supports the policy of the president,” but thinks “we have to be very careful with time-lines,” and he might even try to convince the president to renege on his promise to the American people as July 2011 comes closer.

He’s a concern troll. He’s kowtowing to the principle of civilian control of the military, but his function in the debate is to constantly hem and haw, sapping support for strong action in favor of a position with which he does not (and maybe never did) agree.

Now, Petraeus is a cool customer and an experienced hand at testifying before Congress. When faced with an adversarial questioner, he rarely shows his cards and tends to filibuster them out of time, sticking closely to the “I support the president” talking point. That’s what makes his performance this week slightly shocking. The masked slipped.

Full Story: Derrick Crowe: General Petraeus Starts Moving the Goalposts on Afghanistan Withdrawal.

Alert issued for Afghans gone AWOL from Texas base

U.S. military investigators are asking law enforcement nationwide to be on the lookout for Afghan military members who went AWOL while training in Texas, though none is believed to be a national security threat, officials said Friday.

Air Force spokesman Gary Emery said 17 Afghans disappeared from Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio one-by-one over the last 18 months, but a federal law enforcement official says seven have been accounted for. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because privacy rules prevent disclosure of details about individual cases.

The men were vetted by the military and aren’t believed to be connected to one another or to any terrorist group, Emery said. All had been studying English as a precursor to training sponsored by the U.S. and Afghan militaries.

“I don’t think that anybody’s really concerned that this is any sort of a plot or that they’re looking to do anybody any harm,” he said.

Full Story: The Associated Press: Alert issued for Afghans gone AWOL from Texas base.

Gates Demands Congress OK War Funds by July 4

Warns Pentagon Will Do ‘Stupid Things’ in Less than 3 Weeks

Speaking during a Senate Appropriation Defense Subcommittee hearing today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates demanded that the $33 billion war funding bill be approved by Independence Day.

President Obama had promised that the emergency war funding bill passed last year would be his last one, and that future war expenses would be paid for with a record defense budget. This promise fell by the wayside, however, in the wake of December’s escalation pledge.

“We begin to have to do stupid things if the supplemental is not passed by July 4,” Gates warned. Exactly what these would be and how we would be able to tell the difference from ordinary Pentagon strategy was not clear.

Full Story: Gates Demands Congress OK War Funds by July 4 — News from Antiwar.com.

‘Discovery’ of Afghan riches a pro-war PR scam?

A New York Times report announcing the US has found $1 trillion-worth of mineral deposits in Afghanistan has some observers wondering if the news is part of a public-relations effort to bolster support for the Afghanistan war as the mission’s death toll continues to climb.

An article in Sunday’s New York Times announces that “previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.”

The article cites an “internal Pentagon memo” as saying Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium” — the mineral used in the production of rechargeable batteries, such as those found in cell phones and laptops. It cites “a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists” as having made the discovery.

Full Story: ‘Discovery’ of Afghan riches a pro-war PR scam? | Raw Story.

McChrystal Faces Massive Failure in Afghanistan in Next Few Months

The Afghan population in the Taliban heartland is not cooperating with U.S. and NATO forces.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal confronts the specter of a collapse of U.S. political support for the war in Afghanistan in coming months comparable to the one that occurred in the Iraq War in late 2006.

On Thursday, McChrystal’s message that his strategy will weaken the Taliban in its heartland took its worst beating thus far, when he admitted that the planned offensive in Kandahar City and surrounding districts is being delayed until September at the earliest, because it does not have the support of the Kandahar population and leadership.

Equally damaging to the credibility of McChrystal’s strategy was the Washington Post report published Thursday documenting in depth the failure of February’s offensive in Marja.

The basic theme underlined in both stories – that the Afghan population in the Taliban heartland is not cooperating with U.S. and NATO forces – is likely to be repeated over and over again in media coverage in the coming months.

Full Story: McChrystal Faces Massive Failure in Afghanistan in Next Few Months | | AlterNet.

Commission outlines $1 trillion in defense budget cuts

A bipartisan commission of defense experts has released a plan that would reduce the US’s defense spending by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years — a plan sure to gather support from progressives and libertarians, but unlikely to pass through Congress.

The commission’s report comes at a time when public concern about the US’s national debt has hit a fever pitch, and the claim that nearly $1 trillion can be saved from defense spending will certainly color future debates about what government services to cut.

The Sustainable Defense Task Force, put together at the behest of Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) to “explore options for reducing the defense budget’s contribution to the federal deficit without compromising the essential security of the US,” recommends saving $200 billion by reducing the presence of US troops in Western Europe and the Far East, and reducing total troop strength to 1.3 million.

Full Story: Commission outlines $1 trillion in defense budget cuts | Raw Story.

Victory: Peace Groups Permanently Shut Down Army Experience Center in Philadelphia

Army announcement made just days before planned protest. Several large demonstrations, non-violent civil resistance and regular vigils contributed to its demise.

WASHINGTON – June 11 – Franklin Mills Mall, Philadelphia, PA – A coalition of thirty peace groups has proven triumphant in their goal of forever shutting down the “Army Experience Center” in a suburban shopping mall in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported today that the Army plans to permanently close the facility.  http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/96031939.html

After almost two years of glorifying the “Army experience” and U.S. wars through video and war games, the Army Experience Center at Franklin Mills Malls announced it will shut down on July 31, 2010.  The $13 million, 14,500 square foot Army Experience Center at Franklin Mills Mall boasts dozens of video game computers and X-Box video game consoles with various interactive, military-style shooting games.  The facility has sophisticated Apache helicopter and Humvee simulators that allow teens to simulate the killing of Arabs and Afghans.  Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Rob Watson compared the Army Experience Center to “a heavy dose of candy cigarettes.”

Full Story: Victory: Peace Groups Permanently Shut Down Army Experience Center in Philadelphia | CommonDreams.org.

No letup in Marine attempted suicides

Marines are trying to kill themselves at a record pace this year despite a 2009 program aimed at stemming the problem, according to Marine Corps data.

Eighty-nine Marines tried to commit suicide through May, most commonly by overdose or lacerations, according to statistics and the Marine Corps suicide prevention program officer, Navy Cmdr. Aaron Werbel. At that rate, there could be more than 210 attempted suicides this year.

There were a record 164 attempted suicides in 2009.

With 21 confirmed or suspected suicides by Marines this year, the Corps is on track to near last year’s record number of 52, Werbel says. The Marine Corps suicide rate in 2009 was 24-per-100,000, the highest in the military, Marine records show. The latest demographically adjusted suicide rate among civilians in 2006 was 20 per 100,000, federal records show.

Full Story: No letup in Marine attempted suicides – USATODAY.com.

Brain Injuries Remain Undiagnosed in Thousands of Soldiers

The military medical system is failing to diagnose brain injuries in troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of whom receive little or no treatment for lingering health problems, an investigation by ProPublica and NPR has found.

So-called mild traumatic brain injury has been called one of the wars’ signature wounds. Shock waves from roadside bombs can ripple through soldiers’ brains, causing damage that sometimes leaves no visible scars but may cause lasting mental and physical harm.

Officially, military figures say about 115,000 troops have suffered mild traumatic brain injuries since the wars began. But top Army officials acknowledged in interviews that those statistics likely understate the true toll. Tens of thousands of troops with such wounds have gone uncounted, according to unpublished military research obtained by ProPublica and NPR.

Full Story: On The Hill: Brain Injuries Remain Undiagnosed in Thousands of Soldiers.

Watchdog Group Urges Defense Department to Cancel BP Contracts Worth More than $2 Billion

A Washington consumer advocacy group wants the Department of Defense (DoD) terminate its business relationship with BP and a BP subsidiary due to what an official with the group calls the energy’s giant’s history of “willful transgression of U.S. laws.”

Citing the ongoing Gulf oil disaster and BP’s history of criminal convictions, Public Citizen Monday called on the Pentagon to suspend and ultimately debar BP and its subsidiaries from serving as a federal contractor, and terminate six current contracts worth $2.1 billion to BP, the group says in a letter to President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

BP Oil International Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of BP, has six contracts with DoD totaling more than $2.1 billion, primarily for fuel delivery.

Full Story: On The Hill: Watchdog Group Urges Defense Department to Cancel BP Contracts Worth More than $2 Billion.

PBS’s ‘This Emotional Life’: Memorial Day — Remembering Military Suicides

For some families, this Memorial Day will be especially hard. Their loved ones — spouses, parents, sons and daughters — didn’t die the hero’s death. They were one of 160 soldiers last year who committed suicide, despite the military’s unprecedented effort to stem the tide.

How does it happen? After surviving harrowing combat, why would a young soldier decide to take his or her own life? The Army is spending $50 million to figure it out, and we may get an answer in a couple of years. But for some, that will be too late.

While no one can truly understand the tormented heart and mind that would lead someone to actually pull the trigger, swallow the pills, position the rope that will end a life, there are some conditions that can certainly explain the despair. The story of Ryan’ Doc’ Krebs, featured on The Wounded Platoon (Frontline May 18, 2010), gives some clues.

Full Story: Brigadier General (Ret) Stephen N. Xenakis, M.D.: PBS’s ‘This Emotional Life’: Memorial Day — Remembering Military Suicides.

Sad milestone: Cost of US wars ‘passes $1 trillion’

Cost of US wars; Enough to give Pell Grants to all 19 million US college students for 9 years…

The cost of the United States’ wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost taxpayers more than one trillion dollars, a Massachusetts nonprofit said Sunday, marking a grim milestone on the eve of the Memorial Day holiday.

According to the group, the threshold was crossed Sunday at 10:06 am ET, based on Congressional appropriations for the wars. To date, the group notes, $747.3 billion has been appropriated for the U.S. war in Iraq and $299 billion for the war in Afghanistan.

The group, National Priorities Project, conveyed the size of US war spending by highlighting other things that could have been bought with the money. For example, for the price of America’s two wars, the US could give $5,500 in Pell grants to all of America’s 19 million college students for the next nine years. One trillion would also pay the entire healthcare bill for 294 million people, or 440 million children, the group says.

Full Story: Sad milestone: Cost of US wars ‘passes $1 trillion’ | Raw Story.

Lost a leg in Iraq, all but forgotten at home

If the Army needs proof that Ryan Hallberg suffered a loss when he was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq, it need look no farther than 4 inches below his right knee. There’s nothing there.

Despite an amputation from his injuries, Hallberg has twice been denied a $50,000 insurance benefit because he has been told by the federal insurance office administering the program that “there is not enough medical information to support your loss.”

Similar cases are emerging across the country about the same program, established five years ago to address the growing number of troops coming hope with traumatic injuries from Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, whose office has become involved in Hallberg’s case, called it an example of “government bureaucracy gone amok.” A recent Government Accountability Office audit is critical of how claims from the program have been denied.

Full Story: Lost a leg in Iraq, all but forgotten at home | StarTribune.com.

US eyes plan for unilateral military strike on Pakistan

US military planners are looking at options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan, for use if a successful attack on US soil is traced to Pakistani tribal areas, The Washington Post reported late Friday.

US retaliation would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, unnamed senior military officials told the Post.

These circumstances might include a catastrophic attack that convinced President Barack Obama that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes was insufficient.

“Planning has been reinvigorated in the wake of Times Square,” one official told the newspaper.

Full Story: US eyes plan for unilateral military strike on Pakistan | Raw Story.

Shot in Iraq, soldier gets bill for missing equipment

As Americans prepare to honor fallen soldiers this Memorial Day, one former Oregon National Guard member is wondering why he’s being charged more than $3,000 for military gear that was lost after he was shot.

Gary Pfleider, a six-year veteran of the Guard, received a Purple Heart after he was shot by a sniper in Iraq. Some time later, he received a somewhat less gratifying award: A bill for $3,175 for military equipment that was lost when he was shipped out of Iraq for medical treatment.

CBS affiliate KVAL in Eugene, Oregon, reports:

Full Story: Shot in Iraq, soldier gets bill for missing equipment | Raw Story.

$260 Billion U.S. Aid Already Spent to “Rebuild” Afghanistan? A laugh and a half!

According to James A. Lucas, the War in Afghanistan has cost the U.S. taxpayer $260 billion. Lucas translates this into White House rhetoric as being “money for the rebuilding of Afghanistan.”

Then he challenges:

Ann Jones, a former humanitarian worker in Afghanistan, not long ago blew the whistle on this scam. The author of Kabul in Winter, she reported that between 2002 and 2008 the U.S. pledged $10.4 billion for development but delivered only $5 billion of that amount, 47 percent of which was paid to American experts, who often were unqualified, instead of going to unemployed Afghans who were supposed to benefit from this aid.

Two more of Ms. Jones’ revelations:

1) Public teachers and administrators often leave Afghan institutions to work for private contractors for more money. The Afghan institutions are therefore weakened not strengthened. U.S. money often goes to private contractors for their “literacy programs,” etc.

Full Story: $260 Billion U.S. Aid Already Spent to “Rebuild” Afghanistan? A laugh and a half! | Corrente.

Memorial Day 2009: After Laying Wreath, Pres. Obama Did What Bush Never Did – Visited Graves of Iraq, Afghanistan Heroes

Video at link

Tea baggers are criticizing the president for missing the wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery this Memorial Day — even though pres. Reagan, Bush and Bush also missed ceremonies — but they have conveniently forgotten that last year he did something George W. Bush never did. He visited the graves of soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan, as well as those whose lives were wasted in George Bush’s unnecessary and immoral invasion of Iraq.

Full Story: Pensito Review » Memorial Day 2009: After Laying Wreath, Pres. Obama Did What Bush Never Did – Visited Graves of Iraq, Afghanistan Heroes.

Obama Not the Only Recent President to Miss Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Ceremony

Three presidents in recent history missed the Arlington ceremony: Reagan, Bush, and Bush.

The great thing about having Facebook friends who watch Glenn Beck is that you don’t have to. It’s like having Jon Stewart in your news feed, only not nearly as funny.

That’s how I know that the big tea bagging deal at the moment is the idea that Pres. Obama is betraying the troops by spending Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, and therefore will miss laying a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetary. Instead, Vice Pres. Biden will perform the ritual while Obama and the First Lady participate in a service at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Ill.

One immediately wonders if any past president has committed a similar omission without being called a commie, and David Corn, writing for Politics Daily did the research. Turns out three presidents in recent history missed the Arlington ceremony: Reagan, Bush, and Bush.

Full Story: Pensito Review » Obama Not the Only Recent President to Miss Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Ceremony.

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

Jeremy Scahill:

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

What Do You Call A Country Willing to Incinerate Innocent People? America.

Brian Cloughley:

According to the website Pakistan Body Count, over 1000 civilians have been killed by American drone attacks on Pakistan.

The number of so-called al Qaeda who have been killed is said to be 30 or so. But even if the number of al Qaeda killed by drone missiles was the same as the number of civilians – at a thousand – it doesn’t make the video games any less illegal and immoral.

Kathy Kelly and Josh Brollier, reporting eye witness testimony of a Pakistan social worker of the scene after a drone attack:

The social worker recalled arriving at a home that was hit, in Miranshah, at about 9:00 p.m., close to one year ago. The house was beside a matchbox factory, near the degree college. The drone strike had killed three people. Their bodies, carbonized, were fully burned. They could only be identified by their legs and hands. One body was still on fire when he reached there. Then he learned that the charred and mutilated corpses were relatives of his who lived in his village, two men and a boy aged seven or eight. They couldn’t pick up the charred parts in one piece. Finding scraps of plastic they transported the body parts away from the site. Three to four others joined in to help cover the bodies in plastic and carry them to the morgue.

Full Story: What Do You Call A Country Willing to Incinerate Innocent People? America. | Corrente.

General Petraeus’s Secret Ops

A secret military directive signed last September 30 by General David Petraeus, the Centcom commander, authorizes a vast expansion of secret US military special ops from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East to Central Asia and “appears to authorize specific operations in Iran,” according to the New York Times.

If President Obama knew about this, authorized it and still supports it, then Obama has crossed a red line, and the president will stand revealed as an aggressive, militaristic liberal interventionist who bears a closer resemblance to the president he succeeded than to the ephemeral reformer that he pretended to be in 2008, when he ran for office. If he didn’t know, if he didn’t understand the order, and if he’s unwilling to cancel it now that it’s been publicized, then Obama is a feckless incompetent. Take your pick.

If Congress has any guts at all, it will convene immediate investigative hearings into a power grab by Petraeus, a politically ambitious general, and the Pentagon’s arrogant Special Operations team, led by Admiral Eric T. Olson, who collaborated with Petraeus. And Congress needs to ask the White House, What did you know, and when did you know it?

Full Story: General Petraeus’s Secret Ops | The Nation.

US soldier beaten after reporting crimes: officials

A US soldier who blew the whistle on his comrades over possible drug use and the deaths of three civilians in southern Afghanistan suffered a severe beating in retaliation, officials said Tuesday.

The soldier was beaten after telling authorities about illicit drugs and then, while recovering in hospital, recounted his comrades’ alleged role in the deaths of three Afghan civilians, said two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The soldier was “beaten within an inch of his life,” one of the officials told AFP.

US Army authorities last week said they were investigating the “unlawful” deaths of three Afghans as well as allegations of illegal drug use, assault and conspiracy.

Full Story: US soldier beaten after reporting crimes: officials – Yahoo! News.

Conservatives Contradicted: Most Polls Support Gays Serving Openly In Military

Seeking to undermine a breakthrough deal that could enable Congress to overturn the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, a prominent social conservative organization is touting a poll that says a majority of Americans believe military brass, not lawmakers, should make the decision on whether gays should serve openly in the military.

But the supposed weight of the poll as an attempt to prevent an end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” (DADT) doesn’t hold up on two counts, however.

The poll at issue, paid for by FRC Action, the legislative action arm of Family Research Council, is belied by many other opinion surveys that find broad American support for the ability for gays to serve in uniform without hiding their sexuality. Further, the impact of the FRC Action poll is moot, given the fact that the nation’s highest uniformed officer also has given his blessing to end the 17-year-old “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

Full Story: On The Hill: Conservatives Contradicted: Most Polls Support Gays Serving Openly In Military.

Glenn Greenwald – The absence of debate over war

“You would hardly know, from following this year’s election campaign or the extensive coverage of last week’s primaries, that America is at war. . . .

The Washington Post’s Fred Hiatt ponders how little attention our various wars received during the primary campaigns that were just conducted: “You would hardly know, from following this year’s election campaign or the extensive coverage of last week’s primaries, that America is at war. . . . those wars, and the wisdom of committing to or withdrawing from them, have hardly been mentioned in the hard-fought campaigns of the spring.” Hiatt is right in that observation, and it’s worth examining the reasons for this.

One significant cause of America’s indifference to the wars we are waging is that those wars have virtually no effect on the overwhelming majority of Americans (at least no recognized effect), while they impose a huge cost on a tiny sliver of the population: those who fight the wars and their families. Hiatt acknowledges that fact: “it’s yet another reminder of American society’s separation from its professional military.” If anyone would know about that, it’s the endless-war-loving, nowhere-near-a-battlefield Fred Hiatt.

Full Story: The absence of debate over war – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com.

Obama’s War Supplemental: Recent Reports Strengthen The Case Against It

Members of Congress with any inclination to balk at President Obama’s massive emergency war-funding request have found their case strengthened by two recent reports that question many of the administration’s key premises and assumptions.

The reports from the Congressional Research Service and Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction raise concerns ranging from the existential to the procedural.

Just for starters, there’s the lack of an exit strategy, signs of a slipping timeframe for troop drawdowns and the mixed results thus far of the troop “surge.” There’s also the matter of seemingly unrealistic goals for training Afghan security forces, poor planning of infrastructure projects, pervasive corruption within the Afghan government and the lack of contracting oversight. Finally there’s the concern that some of the individual funding requests seem inflated, in certain areas the Pentagon isn’t spending the money it already has and billions of dollars in requests don’t appear to genuinely qualify as emergency spending — the only thing Obama vowed he would ever use an emergency spending bill for again.

The Senate is expected to vote on the budget request this week, and possibly even as early as Monday. The House is expected to vote after the Memorial Day break.

Full Story: Obama’s War Supplemental: Recent Reports Strengthen The Case Against It.

1,000 American Deaths In Afghanistan: A Sad Milestone

A suicide bomb attack in Kabul overnight claimed the lives of 18 people, including five U.S. servicemen. This attack pushed the war effort in Afghanistan past one of those grim milestones. Per today’s New York Times:

On Tuesday, the toll of American dead in Afghanistan passed 1,000, after a suicide bomb in Kabul killed at least five United States service members. Having taken nearly seven years to reach the first 500 dead, the war killed the second 500 in fewer than two. A resurgent Taliban active in almost every province, a weak central government incapable of protecting its people and a larger number of American troops in harms way all contributed to the accelerating pace of death.

This grim occasion — and the Times noting of the acceleration in U.S. deaths — reminds me that I’m often left with the impression that most observers regard counterinsurgency as a “soft” form of military engagement, more public relations than warmaking. This isn’t the case. The strategy actually demands that countersurgent forces accept greater risks. Here’s the relevant material from the U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.

Full Story: 1,000 American Deaths In Afghanistan: A Sad Milestone.