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Latest Articles: War, War, War
Soldier once warned family: Investigate if I die
Post Date: 2007-10-04 19:03:33 by Kamala
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Soldier once warned family: Investigate if I die David Edwards and Nick Juliano Published: Thursday October 4, 2007 Ciara Durkin warned her family before returning to Afghanistan, "If anything happens to me, you guys make sure it gets investigated." What seemed a joke at the time could have been eerily prescient as Durkin, a National Guard specialist, was found dead, shot once in the head, within the fortified walls of Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. The Pentagon is releasing no details aside from confirmation that Durkin's was a "non-combat" death. "We just want full disclosure," Durkin's sister Deirdre said on CBS's Early Show Thursday. ...
Blackwater contractor's fun flight ends in six deaths (xwing)
Post Date: 2007-10-04 18:01:42 by robin
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By staff writers October 03, 2007 03:55pm "THEY wouldn't pay me if they knew how much fun this was", a Blackwater contractor to the US military said just before the plane he was flying crashed, killing all six on board. A recording of the pilot flying three US troops and two other crew members in Afghanistan in 2004 was played to a US House Oversight and Government Reform committee amid a public storm over the role of for-profit contract firms in war zones, and a string of probes into Blackwater's conduct, CNN reported. The plane crashed while taking a low-level run through a mountain canyon in Afghanistan, the hearing was told. An investigation into the crash ...
How Did Specialist Ciara Durkin Die?
Post Date: 2007-10-04 14:05:59 by robin
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How Did Specialist Ciara Durkin Die? BOSTON, Oct. 4, 2007(CBS/AP) Exactly how Ciara Durkin died remains a mystery. The Army National Guard soldier from Massachusetts was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head in Afghanistan last week, and now her family is demanding answers from the military. Initially the Pentagon reported that Durkin, part of a finance unit deployed to Afghanistan in November 2006, had been killed in action, but then revised its statement to read she had died of injuries "suffered from a non-combat related incident" at Bagram Airfield. The statement had no specifics and said the circumstances are under investigation. Durkin had a desk job doing payroll ...
Iraq vets say Pentagon is denying benefits
Post Date: 2007-10-04 12:40:25 by Horse
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When they came home from Iraq, 2,600 members of the Minnesota National Guard had been deployed longer than any other ground combat unit. The tour lasted 22 months and had been extended as part of President Bush's surge. And 1st Lt. Jon Anderson says he never expected to come home to this: A government refusing to pay education benefits he says he should have earned under the GI bill. "It's pretty much a slap in the face," Anderson said. "I think it was a scheme to save money, personally. I think it was a leadership failure by the senior Washington leadership, once again failing the soldiers." Here's what happened: Anderson's orders, and the orders of ...
Fears Of Cholera Pandemic Grow Throughout Iraq
Post Date: 2007-10-04 11:03:57 by Brian S
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Iraq's Health Ministry warned Wednesday that cholera could widely spread throughout the country during the coming two months, a ministry senior official said. Adel Muhsin, inspector general of the Iraqi Health Ministry, told the country's lawmakers that his ministry failed to control the spread of the disease in Kirkuk, where the first cholera case was detected. Muhsin expressed his fears that the coming two months would show wider spread for the disease. "According to the latest statistics of the Health Ministry, Kirkuk province in northern Iraq has the highest number of the infected people with the contagious disease," he told the Iraqi parliament on Wednesday's ...
Secret U.S. endorsement of torture
Post Date: 2007-10-04 10:14:28 by Mekons4
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Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations * Sign In to E-Mail or Save This * Print * Single Page * Reprints * Share o Digg o Facebook o Newsvine o Permalink Article Tools Sponsored By By SCOTT SHANE, DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN Published: October 4, 2007 WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations. But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in ...
Having A Carnage Party: We Count, They Don't
Post Date: 2007-10-03 15:17:54 by ghostdogtxn
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Media Reveal Disturbing New Twists in Death of Soldier in Afghanistan
Post Date: 2007-10-03 14:09:42 by aristeides
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Media Reveal Disturbing New Twists in Death of Soldier in Afghanistan By E&P Staff Published: October 03, 2007 11:35 AM ET NEW YORK Newspapers in Massachusetts have been doggedly digging into the case (covered by E&P on Monday) of a Quincy woman who died in Afghanistan under mysterious circumstances last week. The military first reported that Ciara Durkin, 30, who served in the National Guard, had died “in action,” then revealed that she was killed in a “noncombat” incident that was being investigated. Her family was told that she had been killed by a single gunshot near a church. They are charging that the military has been dragging its feet in giving them ...
Military strike against Iran destabilizes Iraq, region- Maliki (MALIKI: STRIKE AGAINST IRAN "IN THE CARDS")
Post Date: 2007-10-03 13:59:21 by aristeides
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Military strike against Iran destabilizes Iraq, region- Maliki Baghdad, Oct 3, (VOI) – A military action against Iran will have catastrophic results for Iraq, the region and the whole world, said Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Wednesday, calling for dialogue to settle unresolved issues. "The mass media has overplayed the Iranian crisis. A military strike against Iran is in the cards, which we do not want because it will not only be a catastrophe for Iraq, but for the Middle East as well," al-Maliki told reporters in a Baghdad-based press conference today. "Dialogue and peaceful means are the right solution to the crisis," the premier added. When ...
Blackwater pilot: "This is fun" just before fatal crash
Post Date: 2007-10-03 13:01:05 by Mekons4
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A 2004 crash that killed everyone on board -- three crew members and three U.S. troops -- was caused by pilots from a Blackwater plane taking a low-level run through a mountain canyon in Afghanistan, testimony revealed Tuesday. "I swear to God, they wouldn't pay me if they knew how much fun this was," the doomed plane's cockpit voice recorder captured the pilot saying shortly before the November 27, 2004, crash. The account of the crash emerged during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Blackwater's performance in Iraq and Afghanistan. In its November 2006 report on the crash, the National Transportation Safety Board ...
Snubbed By The Joint Chiefs? Some House Members Think So (MYSTERY MEETING OF JOINT CHIEFS)
Post Date: 2007-10-03 10:46:02 by aristeides
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Snubbed By The Joint Chiefs? Some House Members Think So By Jonathan Allen, CQ Staff The lawmakers were there on time and ready to talk. But the Joint Chiefs of Staff never showed up for a Pentagon meeting Tuesday with more than a dozen members of the Congressional Black Caucus. They sent their deputies instead, and black lawmakers were — to put it bluntly — steamed. The meeting, coming on the heels of Navy Admiral Mike G. Mullen’s swearing in Monday as the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was perfectly timed so members could make their case for promoting more minorities into the upper echelon of military officers. Democrats Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio and Yvette D. ...
Afghanistan violence at pinnacle since invasion
Post Date: 2007-10-03 09:44:27 by angle
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More than 5,000 insurgency-related deaths reported in past year alone KABUL, Afghanistan - Violence in Afghanistan has spiked to its highest level since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, with an Associated Press count of insurgency-related deaths this year surpassing the 5,000 mark and a U.N. report finding that attacks have risen by 20 percent. A suicide attack Tuesday on a police bus in western Kabul killed 13 officers and civilians, including a woman and her two children who boarded the vehicle seconds before the explosion. The bombing, which ripped the roof off the bus, was the second to target a bus in Kabul in four days. It came as insurgents turned up attacks against Afghanistan’s ...
War, Why?
Post Date: 2007-10-03 00:47:36 by richard9151
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"It would be the greatest mistake, certainly, to think that concessions mean peace. Nothing of the kind. Concessions are nothing but a new form of war." -- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin [Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov] (1870 - 1924), First Leader of the Soviet Union http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Vladimir.Lenin.Quote.EC59 "The war made possible for us the solution of a whole series of problems that could never have been solved in normal times." -- Joseph Paul Goebbels (1897-1945) Nazi Propaganda Minister Source: The Göebbels Diaries, 1942-1943 http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Joseph.Goebbels.Quote.4029 "Politics is war without bloodshed while war is ...
Files raise questions on Gitmo transfers
Post Date: 2007-10-03 00:41:39 by richard9151
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1 hour, 21 minutes ago Two dozen prisoners were cleared for transfer from Guantanamo Bay last year even though U.S. military panels found they still posed a threat to the United States and its allies. Dozens more were cleared even though they didn't show up for their hearings. One Saudi arrested in Afghanistan was approved for release after offering a peculiar account that he had gone to the Taliban-controlled country to lose weight. Pentagon documents obtained by The Associated Press show seemingly inconsistent decisions to release men declared by the Bush administration to be among America's most-hardened enemies. Coupled with accusations that some detainees have been held for ...
House Hearing On Blackwater Security Firm 10/2/07
Post Date: 2007-10-02 20:55:53 by Zipporah
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Prince: Our Profit Margins Are Private Is Blackwater a Republican Company? What Laws Govern Blackwater? Blackwater's Rules of Engagment Blackwater's Rules for Use of Force Prince: Non-Compete Clauses Might Hurt Troops
Why Did State Help Drunken Blackwater Shooter Flee Iraq?
Post Date: 2007-10-02 20:32:57 by Zipporah
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Why Did State Help Drunken Blackwater Shooter Flee Iraq? By Spencer Ackerman - October 2, 2007, 2:33PM Blackwater CEO Erik Prince completed his testimony, and now State Department officials are explaining the scope of their contract with Blackwater. Ambassador David Satterfield, Condoleezza Rice's special adviser on Iraq, wanted to emphasize "how seriously" Secretary Rice takes investigating the September 16 incident. He announced that Ambassador Patrick Kennedy -- a longtime diplomat and intelligence official -- is opening a separate investigation into State's broader practices in Iraq, including "how we provide security for our employees, including the rules of ...
Hillary Laughed For 15 Seconds When Asked About War With Iran
Post Date: 2007-10-02 18:58:46 by Horse
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Below is the transcript of the last part of an interview Amy Goodman did this morning on Democracy Now with Seymour Hersh. The whole interview is interesting but this final segment is extraordinary in its candor. When he mentions "Jewish money from New York," he's showing his age - nowadays the Dems also collect huge amounts of Jewish money from Hollywood and Silicon Valley, too. AMY GOODMAN: Sy Hersh, I wanted to switch gears for the last question, and this has to do with it not just being Republicans who are sounding a drumbeat for war. The three leading Democratic presidential candidates -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards -- have all declared no options off ...
Blackwater Chief Defends Employees Before House Panel
Post Date: 2007-10-02 18:46:48 by Zipporah
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Blackwater Chief Defends Employees Before House Panel By JOHN M. BRODER and BRIAN KNOWLTON WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 —The head of Blackwater USA said today that his company was the victim of “a rush to judgment” by a Congressional committee looking into claims that the company’s contract security guards in Iraq have repeatedly been involved in reckless shootings of civilians. Erik Prince, the founder and chief executive of Blackwater, insisted that his employees were responding to hostile fire in a controversial Sept. 16 shootout that left at least eight Iraqis dead, a contention that has been vehemently disputed by witnesses and by the Iraqi government. And Mr. Prince ...
Blackwater contractor wrote government report on incident
Post Date: 2007-10-02 18:39:11 by Zipporah
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Blackwater contractor wrote government report on incidentStory HighlightsBlackwater under scrutiny, accused of killing Iraqi civilians in clash"Spot" report for State Department was penned by Blackwater contractorIraqis say spot report is at odds with what civilians are sayingBAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The State Department's initial report of last month's incident in which Blackwater guards were accused of killing Iraqi civilians was written by a Blackwater contractor working in the embassy security detail, according to government and industry sources.A source involved in diplomatic security at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said a Blackwater contractor, Darren Hanner, drafted ...
Report Details Shooting by Drunken Blackwater Worker
Post Date: 2007-10-02 17:31:28 by aristeides
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Report Details Shooting by Drunken Blackwater Worker By ERIC SCHMITT Published: October 2, 2007 WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 — A Blackwater USA employee under investigation in the killing last December of an Iraqi bodyguard in an off-duty confrontation was so drunk after fleeing the shooting that another group of guards took away the loaded pistol he was fumbling with, a report to a House committee said Monday. The guards, employees of Triple Canopy, another private military contractor, returned the weapon to the Blackwater employee, who smelled of alcohol, and escorted him away from their guard post in the fortified Green Zone, the report said. Shortly afterward, the police detained the ...
Why Germans Supported Hitler
Post Date: 2007-10-02 17:08:56 by boonie rat
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Why Germans Supported Hitler, by Jacob G. Hornberger, Posted July 16, 2007 It has long intrigued me why the German people supported Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. After all, every schoolchild in America is taught that Hitler and his Nazi cohorts were the very epitome of evil. How could ordinary German citizens support people who were so obviously monstrous in nature? Standing against the Nazi tide was a remarkable group of young people known as the White Rose. Led by Hans and Sophie Scholl, a German brother and sister who were students at the University of Munich, the White Rose consisted of college students and a college professor who risked their lives to circulate anti-government ...
Limbaugh blasted for "phony troops" remark
Post Date: 2007-10-02 16:04:56 by Rupert_Pupkin
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The top Democrat in the Senate slammed Rush Limbaugh Monday over his recent controversial "phony soldiers" remark, despite the conservative talk-radio host's protests that his words have been taken out of context. Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh said his comments were taken out of context. Limbaugh's comments in question came Wednesday when Limbaugh and a caller were discussing critics of the Iraq war: "What's really funny is, they [Iraq war critics] never talk to real soldiers," the caller said. "They like to pull these soldiers that come up out of the blue and talk to the media." "The phony soldiers," ...
IDF lifts censorship of Sept. 6 IAF strike on target inside Syria
Post Date: 2007-10-02 15:55:57 by aristeides
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IDF lifts censorship of Sept. 6 IAF strike on target inside Syria By Amir Oren, Haaretz Correspondent The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday lifted censorship on the fact that the Israel Air Force carried out an air strike against a target deep in Syrian territory on September 6. In an unusually strict measure, the military censor had prevented Israeli media from reporting on the strike, unless the reports were based on revelations in the foreign press. The IDF is still maintaining censorship on the details of the air strike, including the target, which troop forces were involved, the success of the strike, and the decision-making process that led up to it. The censorship was lifted ...
V-22 Osprey: A Flying Shame
Post Date: 2007-10-02 15:54:21 by Arete
8 Comments
It's hard to imagine an American weapons program so fraught with problems that Dick Cheney would try repeatedly to cancel it — hard, that is, until you get to know the Osprey. As Defense Secretary under George H.W. Bush, Cheney tried four times to kill the Marine Corps's ungainly tilt-rotor aircraft. Four times he failed. Cheney found the arguments for the combat troop carrier unpersuasive and its problems irredeemable. "Given the risk we face from a military standpoint, given the areas where we think the priorities ought to be, the V-22 is not at the top of the list," he told a Senate committee in 1989. "It came out at the bottom of the list, and for that ...
We won't follow US into Iran says Downer (FOREIGN MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA)
Post Date: 2007-10-02 15:30:30 by aristeides
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We won't follow US into Iran says Downer Posted Tue Oct 2, 2007 3:46pm AEST Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer has ruled out Australian involvement in any United States-led military action in Iran. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh has been writing about the possibility of a US strike on Iran for the past 18 months. Mr Hersh says US President George W Bush is now focussing on getting support from allies, including Australia. Mr Downer says he does not believe America is planning to invade Iran, but if the US did pursue that path, Australia would not follow. "The American position is that they just don't rule in or rule out the military option," ...
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