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Nidal Malik Hasan case: Are Army psychiatrists overwhelmed?

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

Christian Science Monitor - By Gordon Lubold - Nov. 06 (News Report) - The case of Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who is the primary suspect in the Fort Hood shooting spree Thursday that killed 13 people, is pointing up the enormous need to help soldiers overwhelmed by the stress – or even the prospect – of serving in wartime. As the military begins its eighth year of the war on terror, much of the focus has been on the inability to fully support the growing number of troops diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury. But the events at Fort Hood cast the issue even wider.

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Neighbor: Fort Hood suspect emptied his apartment

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

Associated Press - By Jeff Carlton, Mike Baker - Nov. 06 (Breaking News) - An Army psychiatrist suspected of opening fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood cleaned out his apartment in the days before the rampage that left 13 people dead, a neighbor said Friday. The neighbor, Patricia Villa, said Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan came over to her apartment Wednesday and Thursday and offered her some items, including a new Quran, saying he was going to be deployed on Friday.

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Fort Hood tragedy: Repeat deployments take increasing toll

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

San Antonio Express-News - By Sig Christenson - Nov. 06 (News Report) - Marching off to far-away battles used to be a dramatic, once-in-a-generation event at Fort Hood. Soldiers left to the sound of martial music, met the enemy in battle and then came home to years of peace. But since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, two divisions have gone to war, returned, and gone to war again and again and again, a process of revolving-door deployments so stressful that it's gotten a name — living in the new normal. Suicides, divorces, domestic violence, alcoholism and drug abuse are all part of the norm among soldiers deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan and coming home, but one woman closest to troops and their families said Thursday's shooting that left 13 dead and 28 wounded came right out of nowhere.

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Whaddaya Mean Obama Hasn't Done Anything?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Esquire - By John H. Richardson - Nov. 03 (Comment) - A blow-by-blow breakdown of the young president's first year reveals that today's frustration stems not from a lack of policy so much as a lack of common ground. Therein lies the myth of the American center.

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22 Things Dick Cheney Can't Recall About the Plame Case

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Nick Baumann - Oct. 31 (Opinion) - Notes from former Vice President Dick Cheney's interview with the FBI about the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA identity were finally released on Friday afternoon after a lengthy legal battle. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sued the Justice Department last year to obtain the interview notes; a judge finally ordered their release on October 1. In the interview, Cheney demonstrated a behavior common among Bush administration officials under investigation: he couldn't remember much of anything. Here's a non-comprehensive list of 22 things Dick Cheney claimed he couldn't recall about the Plame case, in the order they appear in the FBI's notes:

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Iraq on the Edge

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Joost R. Hiltermann - Oct. 29 (Opinion) - For the occasional visitor such as myself, various methods exist to measure America's standing in Iraq, Iraqi suspicions and aspirations, and progress in the transfer of power, but none prove as illuminating as the checkpoints into and throughout Baghdad's Green Zone, that diminishing symbol of the Bush administration's ambitions.

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Obama's foreign policy report card

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

Salon - By Juan Cole - Oct. 27 (Opinion) - Why can't the administration of President Barack Obama get the word out about its policy successes? President Obama campaigned on an ambitious platform of withdrawing from Iraq, engaging Iran on its nuclear program and persuading the Pakistani government to take on the Taliban and al-Qaida. Despite the charge by critics from both the right and the left in the wake of his winning the Nobel Peace Prize that he has accomplished little so far, in fact he has already set in motion significant change on several of these fronts -- despite the enormous domestic tasks that have inevitably preoccupied his administration. Yet you'd never hear about these successes from the mainstream media.

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Obama's Choice: Failed War President or the Prince of Peace?

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Nick Turse - Oct. 22 (Opinion) - More than 100 years after their early counterinsurgency efforts on two tiny islands in the Philippines, U.S. troops are still dying there at the hands of Muslim guerillas. More than 50 years later, the U.S. still garrisons the southern part of the Korean peninsula as a result of a stalemate war and a peace as yet unmade. More recently, the American experience has included outright defeat in Vietnam, failures in Laos and Cambodia; debacles in Lebanon and Somalia; a never-ending four-president-long war in Iraq; and almost a decade of wheel-spinning in Afghanistan without any sign of success, no less victory.

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As the Commander in Chief Deliberates, Frustration Builds Within the Ranks

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Elisabeth Bumiller - Oct. 20 - Active and retired military officers say there is concern that President Obama is moving too slowly on deciding on troop levels for Afghanistan.

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Lt. Choi Won't Lie for His Country

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

Huffington Post - By Amy Goodman - Oct. 16 (Opinion) - After receiving the letter from the Army, Choi wrote an open letter to his commander in chief, Obama. He said: "I have personally served for a decade under Don't Ask, Don't Tell: an immoral law and policy that forces American soldiers to deceive and lie about their sexual orientation. Worse, it forces others to tolerate deception and lying." U.S. troops in Afghanistan are serving side by side with NATO forces that include openly gay and lesbian troops.

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Spending Bill Includes Provision to Block Release of Abuse Photos

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By by: Jason Leopold, - Oct. 10 (News Report) - Conferees on the Senate and House Appropriations Committees released a Homeland Security spending bill summary, which includes a provision that would allow President Obama to authorize "the Secretary of Defense to bar the release of detainee photos," essentially exempting the images from Freedom of Information Act requests.

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Top Things you Think You Know about Iran that are not True

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Informed Comment - By Juan Cole - Oct. 01 (Opinion) - Thursday is a fateful day for the world, as the US, other members of the United Nations Security Council, and Germany meet in Geneva with Iran in a bid to resolve outstanding issues. Although Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had earlier attempted to put the nuclear issue off the bargaining table, this rhetorical flourish was a mere opening gambit and nuclear issues will certainly dominate the talks. As Henry Kissinger pointed out, these talks are just beginning and there are highly unlikely to be any breakthroughs for a very long time. Diplomacy is a marathon, not a sprint.But on this occasion, I thought I'd take the opportunity to list some things that people tend to think they know about Iran, but for which the evidence is shaky.Belief: Iran is aggressive and has threatened to attack Israel, its neighbors or the USReality: Iran has not launched an aggressive war modern history (unlike the US or Israel), and its leaders have a doctrine of "no first strike." This is true of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as well as of Revolutionary Guards commanders.Belief: Iran is a militarized society bristling with dangerous weapons and a growing threat to world peace.Reality: Iran's military budget is a little over $6 billion annually. Sweden, Singapore and Greece all have larger military budgets. Moreover, Iran is a country of 70 million, so that its per capita spending on defense is tiny compared to these others, since they are much smaller countries with regard to population. Iran spends less per capita on its military than any other country in the Persian Gulf region with the exception of the United Arab Emirates.Belief: Iran has threatened to attack Israel militarily and to "wipe it off the map."Reality: No Iranian leader in the executive has threatened an aggressive act of war on Israel, since this would contradict the doctrine of 'no first strike' to which the country has adhered. The Iranian president has explicitly said that Iran is not a threat to any country, including Israel. Belief: But didn't President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threaten to 'wipe Israel off the map?'Reality: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did quote Ayatollah Khomeini to the effect that "this Occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" (in rezhim-e eshghalgar-i Qods bayad as safheh-e ruzgar mahv shavad). This was not a pledge to roll tanks and invade or to launch missiles, however. It is the expression of a hope that the regime will collapse, just as the Soviet Union did. It is not a threat to kill anyone at all.Belief: But aren't Iranians Holocaust deniers?Actuality: Some are, some aren't. Former president Mohammad Khatami has castigated Ahmadinejad for questioning the full extent of the Holocaust, which he called "the crime of Nazism." Many educated Iranians in the regime are perfectly aware of the horrors of the Holocaust. In any case, despite what propagandists imply, neither Holocaust denial (as wicked as that is) nor calling Israel names is the same thing as pledging to attack it militarily.Belief: Iran is like North Korea in having an active nuclear weapons program, and is the same sort of threat to the world.Actuality: Iran has a nuclear enrichment site at Natanz near Isfahan where it says it is trying to produce fuel for future civilian nuclear reactors to generate electricity. All Iranian leaders deny that this site is for weapons production, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly inspected it and found no weapons program. Iran is not being completely transparent, generating some doubts, but all the evidence the IAEA and the CIA can gather points to there not being a weapons program. The 2007 National Intelligence Estimate by 16 US intelligence agencies, including the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, assessed with fair confidence that Iran has no nuclear weapons research program. This assessment was based on debriefings of defecting nuclear scientists, as well as on the documents they brought out, in addition to US signals intelligence from Iran. While Germany, Israel and recently the UK intelligence is more suspicious of Iranian intentions, all of them were badly wrong about Iraq's alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction and Germany in particular was taken in by Curveball, a drunk Iraqi braggart.Belief: The West recently discovered a secret Iranian nuclear weapons plant in a mountain near Qom.Actuality: Iran announced Monday a week ago to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it had begun work on a second, civilian nuclear enrichment facility near Qom. There are no nuclear materials at the site and it has not gone hot, so technically Iran is not in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, though it did break its word to the IAEA that it would immediately inform the UN of any work on a new facility. Iran has pledged to allow the site to be inspected regularly by the IAEA, and if it honors the pledge, as it largely has at the Natanz plant, then Iran cannot produce nuclear weapons at the site, since that would be detected by the inspectors. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted on Sunday that Iran could not produce nuclear weapons at Natanz precisely because it is being inspected. Yet American hawks have repeatedly demanded a strike on Natanz.Belief: The world should sanction Iran not only because of its nuclear enrichment research program but also because the current regime stole June's presidential election and brutally repressed the subsequent demonstrations.Actuality: Iran's reform movement is dead set against increased sanctions on Iran, which likely would not affect the regime, and would harm ordinary Iranians.Belief: Isn't the Iranian regime irrational and crazed, so that a doctrine of mutally assured destruction just would not work with them?Actuality: Iranian politicians are rational actors. If they were madmen, why haven't they invaded any of their neighbors? Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded both Iran and Kuwait. Israel invaded its neighbors more than once. In contrast, Iran has not started any wars. Demonizing people by calling them unbalanced is an old propaganda trick. The US elite was once unalterably opposed to China having nuclear science because they believed the Chinese are intrinsically irrational. This kind of talk is a form of racism. Belief: The international community would not have put sanctions on Iran, and would not be so worried, if it were not a gathering nuclear threat.Actuality: The centrifuge technology that Iran is using to enrich uranium is open-ended. In the old days, you could tell which countries might want a nuclear bomb by whether they were building light water reactors (unsuitable for bomb-making) or heavy-water reactors (could be used to make a bomb). But with centrifuges, once you can enrich to 5% to fuel a civilian reactor, you could theoretically feed the material back through many times and enrich to 90% for a bomb. However, as long as centrifuge plants are being actively inspected, they cannot be used to make a bomb. The two danger signals would be if Iran threw out the inspectors or if it found a way to create a secret facility. The latter task would be extremely difficult, however, as demonstrated by the CIA's discovery of the Qom facility construction in 2006 from satellite photos. Nuclear installations, especially centrifuge ones, consume a great deal of water, construction materiel, and so forth, so that constructing one in secret is a tall order. In any case, you can't attack and destroy a country because you have an intuition that they might be doing something illegal. You need some kind of proof. Moreover, Israel, Pakistan and India are all much worse citizens of the globe than Iran, since they refused to sign the NPT and then went for broke to get a bomb; and nothing at all has been done to any of them by the UNSC.End/ (Not Continued)

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GOP Senators Drop Out of Panel Inquiry Into CIA Program

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

Washington Post - Sep. 25 (News Report) - Washington TimesGOP Senators Pull Out of Inquiry Into CIA ProgramWashington PostRepublicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said Friday that they will no longer participate in an investigation into the Bush administration's interrogation policies, arguing that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s ...Bond withdraws from CIA inquiry committeeWashington TimesRepublican Sen. Bond blasts probe of Bush-era intelligenceKansas City StarSen. Bond Pulls GOP Staff Off Torture InvestigationNewsweekAFP?-FOXNews?-St. Louis Post-Dispatchall 30 news articles??

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Why They’re Mad

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Howard Kurtz - Sep. 22 (Opinion) - Maybe journalists have been asking the wrong question. In probing why a chunk of the country seems so ticked off at Barack Obama, we've explored possible motivations ranging from racism to programmatic concern about the public option. We have examined whether Obama is trying to do too much and whether he's on TV too much. But perhaps the sense of anger and unease is more deep-rooted than that, and not limited to Glenn Beck conservatives.

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Why Is Obama Still Using Blackwater?

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Jeremy Scahill - Sep. 16 (Investigative Report) - Ridgeway, the Blackwater operative, admitted that he and the other Blackwater operatives "opened fire with automatic weapons and grenade launchers on unarmed civilians." None of the victims that day "was an insurgent," he said, adding that "many were shot while inside of civilian vehicles that were attempting to flee."

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US Court Dismisses Iraqi Contractor Torture Case

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Reuters - By James Vicini - Sep. 16 (News Report) - A federal appeals court on Friday dismissed a lawsuit against two U.S. defense contractors by Iraqi torture victims, saying the companies had immunity as government contractors. The lawsuit was filed in 2004 on behalf of Iraqi nationals who say they or their relatives had been tortured or mistreated while detained by the U.S. military at the Abu Ghraib prison.

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Fear was no excuse to condone torture

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Miami Herald - By Charles C. Krulak, Joseph P. Hoar - Sep. 15 (Opinion) - In the fear that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Americans were told that defeating Al Qaeda would require us to ``take off the gloves.'' As a former commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps and a retired commander-in-chief of U.S. Central Command, we knew that was a recipe for disaster. But we never imagined that we would feel duty-bound to publicly denounce a vice president of the United States, a man who has served our country for many years. In light of the irresponsible statements recently made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, however, we feel we must repudiate his dangerous ideas -- and his scare tactics.

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Disappearing Iraq

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Columbia Journalism Review - By Jane Arraf - Sep. 15 (Opinion) - Ah, the happy world of Iraq, as seen through U.S. military press releases. Iraq could be exploding—in fact, parts of it still regularly are—but the press-release view would still be that of policemen graduating, officials cutting ribbons, and grateful citizens leading security forces and their U.S. advisers to weapons caches. The few press releases that do bear any relation to the reality we reporters see on the ground (“Iraqi Special Operations Forces Continue Operations Despite Budget Challenges”) are almost instantly recalled. The regular background briefings and press conferences that once helped put the ongoing violence into context are so last year. In a country with 130,000 U.S. troops fighting a war that still costs tens of billions of dollars a month, the military might as well be invisible. And for the most part, it seems to want it that way.

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Another Mysterious Electrocution Death in Iraq

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Nation - By Jeremy Scahill - Sep. 09 (News) - Hermanson was not killed by enemy fire or an improvised explosive device or even by "friendly fire." In fact, he died in what is considered to be the safest place in Iraq for Americans--the heavily fortified Green Zone. His body, according to his family, was discovered on the floor of a shower near his quarters at Camp Olympia. It appears that Hermanson was electrocuted.

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US Increasing Personnel in Iraq

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Walter Pincus - Sep. 08 (News) - As the United States withdraws its combat forces from Iraq, the government is hiring more private guards to protect U.S. installations at a cost that could near $1 billion, according to the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction.

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Art as Resistance

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Dahr Jamail - Sep. 07 (Special Report) - Soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have tough truths to tell, and it has been well demonstrated that the establishment media does not want to broadcast these. Given the lack of an outlet for anti-war voices in the corporate media, many contemporary veterans and active-duty soldiers have embraced the arts as a tool for resistance, communication and healing. They have made use of a wide range of visual and performing arts - through theater, poetry, painting, writing, and other creative expression - to affirm their own opposition to the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Appeals court rules against Ashcroft in 9/11 case

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - Sep. 04 (News Report) - A federal appeals court delivered a stinging rebuke Friday to the Bush administration's post-Sept. 11 detention policies, ruling that former Attorney General John Ashcroft can be held liable for people who were wrongfully detained as material witnesses after 9/11. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the government's improper use of material witnesses after Sept. 11 was "repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history

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Flushing Blackwater

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Jeremy Scahill - Sep. 03 (News) - In addition, Blackwater is being investigated by the Justice Department for possible crimes ranging from weapons smuggling to manslaughter and by the IRS for possible tax evasion. It is being sued in federal courts by scores of Iraqi civilians for alleged war crimes and extrajudicial killings. Two of its men have pleaded guilty to weapons-smuggling charges; another pleaded guilty to the unprovoked manslaughter of an Iraqi civilian, and five others have been indicted on similar counts. The US military is investigating Blackwater's killing of civilians in Afghanistan in May, and reports are emerging that the company may be implicated in the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.

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Bush's Third Term?

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By David Swanson - Sep. 02 (Opinion) - It sounds like the plot for the latest summer horror movie. Imagine, for a moment, that George W. Bush had been allowed a third term as president, had run and had won or stolen it, and that we were all now living (and dying) through it. With the Democrats in control of Congress but Bush still in the Oval Office, the media would certainly be about a mandate for bipartisanship and the importance of taking into account the concerns of Republicans. Can?t you just picture it? There?s Dubya now, still laws via signing statements. Still creating and destroying laws with executive orders. And still at his whim. Imagine Bush continuing his policy of extraordinary rendition, sending prisoners off to other countries ...

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Iraqi Journalist Detained for a Year Without Charge by US Forces Despite Iraqi Court Order to Release Him

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Mohamed Abdel Dayem - Sep. 02 (News) - A year ago today, US and Iraqi forces raided the home of Iraqi journalist Ibrahim Jassam, a freelance photographer working for Reuters. Soldiers seized his computer hard drive and cameras. He was led away, handcuffed and blindfolded. For the past year the US military has held Jassam without charge. Ten months ago, the Iraqi Central Criminal Court ordered his release for lack of evidence, but the US military refused to release him, claiming he was a “high security threat.”

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