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Latest Articles: War, War, War
US considers expanding army: Pentagon
Post Date: 2009-07-16 16:23:51 by christine
22 Comments
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is weighing a possible temporary expansion of the US army to ease the strain from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, his press secretary said on Wednesday. Gates was discussing the idea, backed by Senator Joseph Lieberman with senior officers to add 30,000 troops to the active-duty army, press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters. The possible expansion from the current strength of 547,400 would be designed "to get them through what is still a stressful period as we draw down in Iraq and continue to plus-up in Afghanistan," Morrell said. "So he is engaged in discussions with a number of people about that possibility," he added. Any ...
Taliban Threatens to Kill U.S. Soldier Captured in Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-07-16 15:46:49 by christine
4 Comments
KABUL — Local Taliban commanders threatened Thursday to kill a captured American soldier unless the U.S. military stops operations in two districts of southeastern Afghanistan. The Taliban claimed last week to be holding the soldier, whom the U.S. military earlier described as possibly being in enemy hands. Abdullah Jalali, a spokesman for Taliban commander Mawlavi Sangin, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday that the soldier was healthy. He said the soldier would be killed unless the U.S. stops airstrikes in Ghazni province's Giro district and Paktika province's Khoshamand district. Jalali did not explain why the Taliban chose those areas, noting only ...
Clinton: US Won’t Hesitate to Use Military Against Iran, Not a Threat, It's a Promise, Secretary of State Tells CFR
Post Date: 2009-07-16 12:22:08 by christine
28 Comments
In a high-profile policy address before the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that the US wouldn’t hesitate to use its military to “defend our friends, our interests, and above all, our people” during the segment discussing Iran. She elaborated on the declaration with “this is not an option we seek nor is it a threat; it is a promise.” Clinton also warned Iran that the US offer to hold talks, which she had previously said she didn’t expect to work to begin with, would not be open-ended and that “our willingness to talk is not a sign of weakness.” Today’s comments are the latest in a long line of ...
Pentagon Budget Cuts Endanger Us All MUST VIEW
Post Date: 2009-07-15 10:07:03 by tom007
2 Comments
Obama Axes Pentagon Plan To Build Billion Dollar Tank In Shape Of Dragon
Reporting on Iran by the numbers
Post Date: 2009-07-14 22:01:16 by F.A. Hayek Fan
4 Comments
Imagine the mayor of your city or town calls a live press conference to announce a costly program to exterminate all the sewer crocodiles that live in the cities sewer system as per that old urban legend. With budgets running very tight in this tough economy, with vital services being drastically cut back all throughout city government, the Mayor announces that he is setting aside several million dollars to exterminate crocodiles in the city sewer system that don't exist and never have. Now imagine, that instead of running a headline the next day like "Unbalanced Mayor calls for war on crocs that don't exist" the most trusted city newspaper of record runs one that reads ...
Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies
Post Date: 2009-07-14 14:07:01 by Horse
3 Comments
It could be a combination of 19th-century mechanics, 21st-century technology — and a 20th-century horror movie. A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies. Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR" — "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking ...
FOCUS: AFGHANISTAN US trapped in 'bitter war'? An investigation continues into how the Taliban overran the US Bari Alai outpost in Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-07-14 07:55:52 by tom007
4 Comments
FOCUS: AFGHANISTAN US trapped in 'bitter war'? An investigation continues into how the Taliban overran the US Bari Alai outpost in Afghanistan Al Jazeera's Clayton Swisher spent two weeks embedded with the US military along the northeast Afghan border with Pakistan, where the Taliban has US troops on its heels. As part of a special series, he asks if US claims of success in the region stand up to scrutiny. When Barack Obama, the US president, hosted Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari at the White House back in May, a sense of urgency hung over the meeting that may not have been appreciated until now. "US troops are ...
Afghans turn to Taliban in fear of own police
Post Date: 2009-07-12 17:17:36 by freepatriot32
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PANKELA, Afghanistan (Reuters) – As British troops moved into the village newly freed from Taliban control, they heard one message from the anxious locals: for God's sake do not bring back the Afghan police. U.S. and British troops have launched a campaign to seize control of Helmand province, about half of which was in Taliban hands, and restore Afghan government institutions. But as they advance, they are learning uncomfortable facts about their local allies: villagers say the government's police force was so brutal and corrupt that they welcomed the Taliban as liberators. "The police would stop people driving on motorcycles, beat them and take their money," said ...
Why Obama's Afghan War Is Different
Post Date: 2009-07-12 12:49:51 by Jethro Tull
13 Comments
So far, so good in the first major offensive of President Barack Obama's war in Afghanistan. For the past four days, 4,000 U.S. Marines and 650 Afghan soldiers have been fighting their way into the southern reaches of Afghanistan's Helmand River valley, hoping to clear out insurgents there. But other than in one limited area of fierce resistance, the fighting has generally been restricted to small-scale skirmishes in which few Taliban have been killed because most of the insurgents appear to have slipped away — as guerrillas tend to do when confronted by overwhelming firepower. More important to U.S. goals, however, is that no civilians have been hurt, since the purpose of the operation ...
Taliban pushed back, long way to go: Obama
Post Date: 2009-07-12 10:28:36 by christine
3 Comments
LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. and allied troops have pushed back Taliban insurgents in a major offensive in Afghanistan but there is still a long way to go, President Barack Obama said on Saturday. "We knew that this summer was going to be tough fighting ... They (the Taliban) have, I think, been pushed back but we still have a long way to go. We've got to get through elections," he said in an interview with Sky News during his visit to Ghana. He said the United States and its allies would have to evaluate the situation after Afghanistan's August 20 presidential election to see what more they could do. "It may not be on the military side, it may be on the development ...
4 US Marines killed in Afghan bomb blasts
Post Date: 2009-07-12 10:23:11 by christine
11 Comments
KABUL (AP) - Bomb blasts killed four U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan, where thousands of American troops have deployed in recent weeks as part of an offensive in the country's dangerous drug-producing region, an official said Sunday. The four Marines died Saturday in Helmand province, where about 4,000 troops this month launched the largest Marine operation in Afghanistan since 2001. U.S. forces have met little resistance but face the danger of roadside bombs everywhere they travel. A fifth U.S. service member wounded in June died of wounds in the U.S. on Friday, said Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, who confirmed the deaths of the four Marines. The four killed Saturday were ...
Hundreds of Muslim Prisoners Killed by CIA Agent in '01
Post Date: 2009-07-12 02:23:12 by Max
5 Comments
Hundreds of Muslim Prisoners Killed by CIA Agent in '01 U.S. Said to Have Averted Inquiry Into ’01 Afghan Killings By James Risen New York Times | July 11 (but online July 10) 2009 WASHINGTON — After a mass killing of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Taliban prisoners of war by the forces of an American-backed warlord during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, Bush administration officials repeatedly discouraged efforts to investigate the episode, according to government officials and human rights organizations. American officials had been reluctant to pursue an investigation — sought by officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, the Red ...
Russia condemns Biden's "attack Iran" remarks
Post Date: 2009-07-11 08:46:17 by Tatarewicz
4 Comments
Russia's foreign ministry has condemned remarks by U.S. Vice-president Joe Biden that Israel could attack Iran if it saw fit to stop its neighbor's nuclear program. Ministry spokesman, Andrei Nesterenko, expressed surprise at these remarks, saying they are drastically out of line with President Obama's readiness to enter a dialogue with Iran. Obama disavowed Biden's remarks, saying the U.S. is absolutely not giving Israel the green light to attack Iran. POSTER COMMENT: It's about time someone took to task Israel's warmongering toadies. Click for Full Text!
The Cost of the Global U.S. Military Presence
Post Date: 2009-07-09 19:08:40 by Horse
2 Comments
The U.S. military's global presence is vast and costly. More than one-third of U.S. troops are currently based abroad or afloat in international waters, and hundreds of bases and access agreements exist throughout the world. At the beginning of the 21st century, the government pushed to expand this presence through a variety of mechanisms. Yet the Department of Defense's budget presentations lack enough detail to make it possible to know the precise cost. The budgets don't break down the numbers, for example, on maintaining bases at home and overseas. Nevertheless, from data on personnel, bases, and the Pentagon's budgets, it's possible to make an estimate. This number ...
Leftover firearms killed 42,000
Post Date: 2009-07-07 21:01:52 by Horse
2 Comments
HANOI - UNEXPLODED ordnance left over from the Vietnam War has killed more than 42,000 people in the country since the conflict ended more than three decades ago, and deadly accidents continue daily, a senior military official said on Monday. US forces used 15 million tonnes of bombs and ammunition during the war and an estimated 800,000 tonnes of unexploded ordnance still contaminates 20 per cent of the country's area, Vice Defence Minister Senior Lieutenant General Nguyen Huy Hieu wrote in the state-run People's Army newspaper. He said it may take more than 100 years to clear the contaminated area. In addition to the deaths, some 62,000 people have been injured since the end of ...
The wheels come off 'the good war' in Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-07-07 13:40:21 by christine
6 Comments
We have had weeks of government and army propaganda selling the “good war” in Afghanistan as being for the benefit of the Afghan people and as necessary to Britain's interests. There have been: Endless stories in the tabloid media about "our boys" heroism bringing "stability and security" to Afghanistan; Armed Services Day on 27 June, with army parades and other events up and down the country glorifying mass murder as a career; The sponsoring by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of toys depicting British soldiers as "action heroes"; The rigid control of journalists reporting the war to ensure only the MoD's version of events gets media ...
7 US troops killed in Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-07-06 14:46:44 by Jethro Tull
8 Comments
KABUL (AP) - Bombs and bullets killed seven American troops throughout Afghanistan Monday, officials said, as thousands of U.S. Marines continued with their massive anti-Taliban offensive in the south. A suicide car bomber also blew himself up outside the gate of the main NATO base in the region, killing two civilians and wounding 14 other people. In an effort to protect Afghans, American troops also recently received new guidelines limiting use of airstrikes in order to minimize civilian casualties that threaten local support of foreign forces' presence. The seven American deaths came as thousands of U.S. Marines continued with their major offensive against the Taliban in Helmand ...
The Afganistan Offensive
Post Date: 2009-07-04 19:03:00 by tom007
2 Comments
"Doin' right ain't got no end."
Post Date: 2009-07-03 16:25:27 by Turtle
2 Comments
When I was in college I lived in an old two-story frame house, built in the 1890's. It was a co-ed house with 13 people in it, and ha ha! I was the only renter who had a room to himself! Because I got there first, before everyone else, that's how! Downstairs was the family room, or living room, or community room, or throw-all-the-beer-cans-in-it room, or whatever you want to call it. It came with a TV, which finally disappeared into some cokehead's car and was never seen again. The year that we had the TV, it brought in three things: the only broadcast channel in town, which had a newscaster who would change his coat when he went from news to sports; another channel from 35 ...
US: American soldier captured in Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-07-02 10:01:55 by christine
11 Comments
KABUL (AP) — US military spokeswoman says insurgents have captured an American soldier in eastern Afghanistan. Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said the soldier has been missing since Tuesday. She said she could not provide further information. Mathias said the military was using "all our resources to find him and provide for his safe return." The soldier was not taking part in the major military operation launched in the southern Taliban stronghold of Helmand early Thursday.
Major military operation under way in Afghanistan
Post Date: 2009-07-01 18:55:35 by christine
5 Comments
WASHINGTON (AP) - One of the Obama administration's first major military operations in Afghanistan is under way. U.S. Marines and Afghan security forces began moving into the nation's southern Helmand province Wednesday to clear out the Taliban and secure locals from insurgent threats. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said the operation is the largest and fastest-moving so far in the war's newest phase. The Pentagon says nearly 4,000 Marines and sailors and about 650 Afghan soldiers and police led the mission. U.S. Army and Marines also added air support. British forces last week led similar missions to fight and clear out insurgents in Helmand and Kandahar ...
A Secret History of Dissent in the All-Volunteer Military
Post Date: 2009-07-01 06:37:07 by Ada
11 Comments
The All-Volunteer Force (AVF) exists for a reason captured in a study by Colonel Robert D. Heinl, Jr., author of the "definitive history of the Marine Corps," published in Armed Forces Journal in 1971. The U.S. military in Vietnam was at that moment at the edge of chaos. As Colonel Heinl put it, it was experiencing "widespread conditions... that have only been exceeded in this century by the French Army's Nivelle mutinies of 1917 and the collapse of the Tsarist armies [of Russia] in 1916 and 1917." In fact, statistics flowing back to Washington about the American war machine in Vietnam then pointed toward an unimaginable nightmare. Drug use was rampant; desertions ...
1945 US SUBMARINE: No Mercy for Shipwrecked Japanese
Post Date: 2009-07-01 01:27:17 by X-15
2 Comments
Poster Comment:1945. A US Navy submarine in action in the Pacific. The orders, due to the many cases of suicidal attacks with the use of explosives or hand grenades, were "to avoid and prevent with any means" the approacing to the US ships of shipwrecked Japanese sailors. Outstanding US SIgnal Corps 16mm color film
Brookings Publication mentions possibility of ‘Horrific Provocation’ to Trigger Iran Invasion
Post Date: 2009-06-29 18:14:22 by Horse
5 Comments
In a recent policy paper published by the influential Brookings Institute, the authors propose almost anything to guarantee dominance of Persia by the new world order, including bribery, lying, cheating and mass murdering by an all-out military assault of Iran. The paper ‘Which path to Persia: Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran’ is just one of many recent and not so recent examples of the firm intent of the globalists to engage Iran militarily and acquire its natural resources in the same effort. The group of authors- a cozy little convergence of globalists- contemplate four separate options on ‘how to deal with Iran’ in the cold bureaucratic language that ...
Cheney fears Iraq withdrawal will 'waste' U.S. sacrifices
Post Date: 2009-06-29 10:31:55 by christine
0 Comments
Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday said he is concerned about U.S. forces withdrawing from Iraqi cities within 24 hours. Mr. Cheney told The Washington Times' America's Morning News radio show that he is a strong believer in Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, and that the general is doing what needs to be done. "But what he says concerns me: That there is still a continuing problem. One might speculate that insurgents are waiting as soon as they get an opportunity to launch more attacks. "I hope Iraqis can deal with it. At some point they have to stand on their own. But I would not want to see the U.S. waste all the tremendous sacrifice that ...
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