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Nidal Hasan Emails Could Indicate Fort Hood Shooting Was A Terrorist Plot

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - By Pamela Hess, Anne Gearan - Nov. 21 (Breaking News) - WASHINGTON – The government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between the alleged Fort Hood gunman and a radical Muslim cleric, and a key senator says there could be more communications that might have tipped off law enforcement or military officials.

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On 20th Anniversary of Killings of 6 Jesuit Priests by US-Backed Salvadoran Forces, Thousands to Protest "School of the Assassins" at Ft. Benning

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Blasé Bonpane, Amy Goodman - Nov. 20 (Special Report) - This year’s protest will mark the twentieth anniversary of the murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador by the US-backed Salvadoran military. It comes days after the priests were posthumously bestowed El Salvador’s highest civilian award, marking the first time the Salvadoran government has honored the priests since their deaths. To talk about the priests and the overall state of Latin American affairs, we’re joined by Blase Bonpane, director of the Office of the Americas. A former Maryknoll priest, he has worked for more than four decades to promote human rights in Latin America.

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U.S., Japan remain at odds over Marine air station on Okinawa

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Blaine Harden - Nov. 17 (News Analysis) - Many Okinawans, after decades of living with noisy American aircraft and rambunctious American troops, have come to associate the U.S. military presence with noise, pollution and periodic crime.

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Endless Obstacles Delay Veteran Benefits

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Miller-McCune - By Aaron Glantz - Nov. 12 (Special Report) - The Department of Veterans Affairs routinely delays disability claims by wounded soldiers for months and years, often shunting them into homelessness. But there’s a simple way for the government to get disabled veterans the help they deserve. It can trust them.

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God, the Army, and PTSD

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Boston Review - By Tara McKelvey - Nov. 11 (Special Report) - During the Iraq war, however, the great difficulty veterans experienced in getting psychiatric care—greater than before—was not a product of cost-cutting, but of conviction: many Bush administration officials believed that soldiers who supported the war would not face psychological problems, and if they did, they would find comfort in faith. In a resigned tone, one prominent researcher who worked for the VA, and asked that he not be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press, explained that high-ranking officials believed that “Jesus fixes everything.” Benimoff and the others who returned with devastating psychological injuries found a faith-based bureau within the VA. At veterans’ hospitals, chaplains were conducting spirituality assessments of patients.

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Obama Receives New Afghan Option

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - By Peter Spiegel, Yochi Dreazen - Nov. 11 (News Report) - President Barack Obama on Wednesday will consider a new compromise plan for adding troops to Afghanistan that would deploy 30,000 to 35,000 new forces, including as many as 10,000 military trainers, over the next year or more. The new scenario combines reinforcements for fighting Taliban insurgents with trainers aimed at rapidly increasing the size and capabilities of Afghan troops to take on more operations themselves. It wouldn't aim to eliminate the Taliban, but weaken it until Afghan forces can secure major population centers themselves.

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Obama’s Top Advisers Lean Toward Plan for 30,000 More Troops for Afghanistan

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Elisabeth Bumiller, David E. Sanger - Nov. 11 (News Report) - The president’s national security team is coalescing around a proposal to send 30,000 or more additional American troops to Afghanistan, officials say.

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Energy Lobbyists Seek Support From Veterans

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Huffington Post - By Jenna Staul - Nov. 10 (News Report) - Environmentalists on both sides of the fight for climate change legislation are hoping to enlist veterans groups as a powerful lobbying tool.

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Obama's Afghan Plan: About 40K More Troops

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

CBS News - By David Martin - Nov. 09 (News Report) - Tonight, after months of conferences with top advisors, President Obama has settled on a new strategy for Afghanistan. CBS News correspondent David Martin reports that the president will send a lot more troops and plans to keep a large force there, long term. The president still has more meetings scheduled on Afghanistan, but informed sources tell CBS News he intends to give Gen. Stanley McChrystal most, if not all, the additional troops he is asking for.

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Scientists: Nuke panel owes Utahns an apology

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Salt Lake Tribune - By Judy Fahys - Nov. 09 (News Report) - Three scientists say federal nuclear regulators owe Utahns an apology -- and a policy change -- for allowing shallow burial of depleted uranium, including the 49,000 tons already at EnergySolutions Inc.'s landfill in Tooele County.

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Female Cop Hailed as Ft. Hood Hero

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

CBS News - Nov. 06 (News Report) - (CBS/ AP) Updated at 9:45 p.m. EST A military mental health doctor facing deployment overseas opened fire at the Fort Hood Army post on Thursday, setting off on a rampage that killed 12 people and left 31 wounded, Army officials said. Authorities

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Strain of deployments hit base

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Ann Scott Tyson - Nov. 05 (News Report) - Fort Hood, the Texas military base that was the scene of a mass shooting Thursday, has been hard hit by the growing strain on the Army from multiple combat deployments -- with its personnel suffering the highest number of suicides among Army

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Seven members of House defense subcommittee scrutinized by ethics investigators

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Carol D. Leonnig - Oct. 30 (News Report) - The investigations by two separate ethics offices include an examination of the powerful subcommittee chairman, John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), as well as others who helped steer federal funds to clients of the PMA Group. The lawmakers received campaign

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US diplomat quits over Afghan war

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Oct. 27 (News Report) - A senior US diplomat in Afghanistan has become the first such person to resign in protest at the war against the Taliban, the Washington Post reported.

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Official resigns over Afghan war

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Karen DeYoung - Oct. 27 (Special Report) - A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed. But last

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Push for Afghanistan troop increase continues on deadly day

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Laura King, Julian E. Barnes, Paul Richter - Oct. 27 (News Analysis) - On a day when 14 U.S. servicemen and drug agents were killed in helicopter crashes in Afghanistan, the largest such toll in more than four years, momentum continued to build to send more troops to the war zone. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a Washington address that he would support a decision by President Obama to "send some additional troops" provided improvements are made in Afghan troop training and government, and civilian aid efforts are increased.

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Stimulus Contracts Go to Companies Under Criminal Investigation

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By Michael Grabell - Oct. 26 (Investigative Report) - The Department of Defense awarded nearly $30 million in stimulus contracts to six companies while they were under federal criminal investigation on suspicion of defrauding the government. According to Air Force documents, the companies claimed to be small, minority-owned businesses, which allowed them to gain special preference in bidding for government contracts. But investigators found that they were all part of a larger minority-owned enterprise in Southern California, making them ineligible for the contracts.

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Troop-Boost Plan Gains Backing

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Peter Spiegel, Yochi Dreazen - Oct. 24 (News Report) - The Obama administration is moving toward a hybrid strategy in Afghanistan that would combine elements of both the troop-heavy approach sought by its top military commander and a narrower option backed by Vice President Joe Biden, a decision that could pave the way for thousands of new U.S. forces.

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Seymour Hersh: Military Is Waging War Against The White House

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By The Huffington Post News Team - Oct. 23 (News Report) - In addition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States military is also fighting a war against the Obama administration at the White House ... "...and they feel they have Obama boxed in."

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Hill Aides Call For JSF Restructure

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

dodbuzz.com - By Colin Clark - Oct. 23 (News Report) - A preliminary Pentagon cost estimate that the F-35 could cost as much as $17.1 billion more than currently planned is prompting calls from congressional sources for the program to be reassessed and restructured.

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Why Did The DoD, And The White House, Oppose The Franken Rape Amendment?

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Talking Points Memo - By Rachel Slajda - Oct. 21 (News Analysis) - On Oct. 6, the Senate passed an amendment that would guarantee rape victims employed by defense contractors a chance to take their case to court. The 30 Republicans who voted against it have been vilified. (See, for example, RepublicansForRape.org.) But the Department of Defense -- and, by extension, the White House -- also opposed the amendment. Why?

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Going 'deep', not 'big', in Afghanistan

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Asia Times - By Gareth Porter - Oct. 16 (News Report) - An analysis making waves in Washington by a veteran United States officer calls for the withdrawal of the bulk of United States combat forces from Afghanistan over 18 months, warning against General Stanley McChrystal's counter-insurgency strategy. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel L Davis says that it is already too late for US forces to defeat the insurgency.

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We've Seen the Future, and It's Unmanned

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Esquire - By Brian Mockenhaupt - Oct. 15 (Special Report) - Every so often in history, something profound happens that changes warfare forever. Next year, for the first time ever, the Pentagon will buy more unmanned aircraft than manned, line-item proof that we are in a new age of fighting machines, in which war will be ever more abstract, ever more distant, and ruthlessly efficient.

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Lisa Versus Lisa: EPA's Jackson Bests Sen. Murkowski

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Stephen Power - Sep. 25 (News Report) - Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s plan to limit EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases won’t be coming up for a vote after all. This, after Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers sent letters to Congress warning that the Alaska Republican’s amendment would prevent the EPA from completing its recent proposal to regulate automobile greenhouse gas emissions. If that had happened, the industry would face “a patchwork of conflicting state and federal regulations,” the Alliance warned in its letter. A Murkowski spokesman said Senate Democratic leaders prevented a vote on her amendment and that the senator disputes the EPA administrator’s view that the amendment would prevent the EPA from completing its vehicle proposal. “They’ve gone out of their way to refuse to debate the merits of this” amendment, the spokesman said.

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Afghanistan Surge? Jamal Dajani Weighs In

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Link TV - Sep. 23 (News Report) - The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan has warned that the U.S.-led NATO coalition risks losing the war unless there are fundamental changes in military strategy, including the addition of at least 10,000 more American troops

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