The link, below, is to a Senate hearing on KBR's abuse of tax dollars. The man testifying, Frank Cassady, is a long-time friend of my sister-in-law; I've received many email regarding all of this but was asked not to disclose until after the hearings. Now that he's testified, I can share the information.

It's over an hour, but 10 minutes of listening will give you an idea of what's been going on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9iX5XJpeEI

This article by Jonathan Landy and Warren Strobel and Hannah Allam of McClatchy is worth a read. It's from last Monday but still interesting. I have some problems with many of its claims, but I hasten to add that it comes recommended from a gentleman's who's military judgement I trust. So, take that into consideration when you read it. I hope to drag him into an email discussion about specific claims made in the article and by the US military at some point in the future and will let you know what the thrust of the conversation is when it happens.

As we commemorate the passing of five years since George Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” stunt on the U.S.S Abraham Lincoln, new information has come to light that shows just how convinced the administration was at that time that the war in Iraq was over. Originally, the Pentagon had prepared a post-combat Phase IV plan for the occupation and rebuilding of Iraq. Somewhere along the way this plan was shelved, and all the generals and military staff in Iraq assigned to its implementation were called back home. It was clearly understood among the commanders in the field that this decision to ignore Phase IV came with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s approval, and therefore with the full knowledge of the National Security Council, Vice President, and President.

Crossposted from Left Toon Lane, Bilerico Project & My Left Wing


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Ann Scott Tyson | KHOST, Afghanistan | May 1

Washington Post - Case Shows Contradictions of Army Rules

Pfc. Monica Brown cracked open the door of her Humvee outside a remote village in eastern Afghanistan to the pop of bullets shot by Taliban fighters. But instead of taking cover, the 18-year-old medic grabbed her bag and ran through gunfire toward fellow soldiers in a crippled and burning vehicle.

Vice President Cheney pinned Brown, of Lake Jackson, Tex., with a Silver Star in March for repeatedly risking her life on April 25, 2007, to shield and treat her wounded comrades, displaying bravery and grit. She is the second woman since World War II to receive the nation's third-highest combat medal.

Within a few days of her heroic acts, however, the Army pulled Brown out of the remote camp in Paktika province where she was serving with a cavalry unit -- because, her platoon commander said, Army restrictions on women in combat barred her from such missions.

» LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER

Washington | May 1

AP - President Eisenhower overruled some of his military commanders in summer 1958, ordering them not to use nuclear weapons against China if communist forces blockaded the Taiwan Strait, according to declassified Air Force documents.

Eisenhower "made it clear that the Chinese would be given a warning with conventional explosives before he would authorize dropping of the deadlier ordnance" on Chinese territories, according to the documents made public by George Washington University's National Security Archive.

Arms Race in Space
Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:31:40 -0500
By Marko Beljac - GNN

It's on. It's expensive. And it could destablize the world.

Lolita C. Baldor | Mexico City | April 30

AP - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday that sending a second U.S. aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf could serve as a "reminder" to Iran, but he said it's not an escalation of force.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with Mexican leaders, Gates said heightening U.S. criticism of Iran and its support for terror groups is not a signal that the administration is laying the groundwork for a strike against Tehran.

Josh White | Guantanamo Bay, Cuba | April 29

Washington Post - The Defense Department's former chief prosecutor for terrorism cases appeared Monday at the controversial U.S. detention facility here to argue on behalf of a terrorism suspect that the military justice system has been corrupted by politics and inappropriate influence from senior Pentagon officials...

His testimony in a small, windowless room -- as a witness for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, an alleged driver for Osama bin Laden -- offered a harsh insider's critique of how senior political officials have allegedly influenced the system created to try suspected terrorists outside existing military and civilian courts.

Davis's claims, which the Pentagon has previously denied, were aired here as the Supreme Court nears a decision on whether the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that laid the legal foundation for these hearings violates the Constitution by barring any of the approximately 275 remaining Guantanamo Bay prisoners from forcing a civilian judicial review of their detention.

Davis told Navy Capt. Keith J. Allred, who presided over the hearing, that top Pentagon officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England, made it clear to him that charging some of the highest-profile detainees before elections this year could have "strategic political value."

http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=11862

[Excerpts]

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead announced today the re-establishment of the U.S. Fourth Fleet and assigned Rear Adm. Joseph D. Kernan, currently serving as commander, Naval Special Warfare Command, as its new commander. Fourth Fleet will be responsible for U.S. Navy ships, aircraft and submarines operating in the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

Manoevering for war

The nomination of Gen. David Petraeus to be the new head of the Central Command not only ensures that he will be available to defend the George W. Bush administration's policies toward Iran and Iraq at least through the end of Bush's term and possibly even beyond.

It also gives Vice President Dick Cheney greater freedom of action to exploit the option of an air attack against Iran during the administration's final months.

Petraeus will take up the CENTCOM post in late summer or early fall, according to Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

April 22

BBC - The US Army and Marine Corps recruited significantly more people with criminal records last year than in 2006, amid pressure to meet combat needs.

Statistics released by a congressional committee show 861 people were granted waivers to enlist, up from 457 in 2007.

The crimes included assault, sex crimes, manslaughter and burglary.

The Army says waivers are only granted after careful review and are in response to the challenges of recruiting in a changing society.

The number of people granted waivers are just a small fraction of the more than 180,000 people who entered active duty in the armed forces during the fiscal year that ended in September 2007.

As an Internet Organizer for Progressive Future, I've been busily spreading the otherwise buried reports of the atrocities and abuses committed by military contractors in Iraq. As outraged as they made me, I had to wonder why these stories failed to reach the mainstream American public. Now I know why.

In an extensive article on the front page of Sunday's New York Times, David Bartow exposes how the Pentagon recruited, groomed, prepped and, one may go so far as to say, bribed a team of "military analysts." This team consisted of retired military men, defense lobbyists and private contractor representatives, who were then unleashed upon the mainstream media to deliver manipulated testimony on the war. Highlights of the detailed investigation of the Pentagon's highly strategized manipulation of war reporting are as follows:

Maggie Shiels | San Francisco | April 21

BBC - US veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are suing the government, claiming inadequate care is leading to an increase in suicides.

A San Francisco court will hear the class action lawsuit against the Department of Veteran Affairs.

The veterans say the department has been unable to deal with the growing incidence of depression and suicides.

But government lawyers argue the department has been devoting more resources to mental health.

In court papers the two non-profit groups representing the veterans write "that failure to provide care is manifesting itself in an epidemic of suicides".

  This story is simply missing from US news, leaving one to conclude that despite the hand wringing over patriotic lapel pins, we really just don't care. -ww

Ever wonder why Europe is so wedded to its EU experiment? And also why it is so reluctant to follow the US in its neo-colonial adventures? Tony Judt provides a little necessary context:

In World War I the US suffered slightly fewer than 120,000 combat deaths. For the UK, France, and Germany the figures are respectively 885,000, 1.4 million, and over 2 million. In World War II, when the US lost about 420,000 armed forces in combat, Japan lost 2.1 million, China 3.8 million, Germany 5.5 million, and the Soviet Union an estimated 10.7 million. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., records the deaths of 58,195 Americans over the course of a war lasting fifteen years: but the French army lost double that number in six weeks of fighting in May–June 1940. In the US Army's costliest engagement of the century—the Ardennes offensive of December 1944–January 1945 (the "Battle of the Bulge")—19,300 American soldiers were killed. In the first twenty-four hours of the Battle of the Somme (July 1, 1916), the British army lost more than 20,000 dead. At the Battle of Stalingrad, the Red Army lost 750,000 men and the Wehrmacht almost as many.

With the exception of the generation of men who fought in World War II, the United States thus has no modern memory of combat or loss remotely comparable to that of the armed forces of other countries. But it is civilian casualties that leave the most enduring mark on national memory and here the contrast is piquant indeed. In World War II alone the British suffered 67,000 civilian dead. In continental Europe, France lost 270,000 civilians. Yugoslavia recorded over half a million civilian deaths, Germany 1.8 million, Poland 5.5 million, and the Soviet Union an estimated 11.4 million. These aggregate figures include some 5.8 million Jewish dead. Further afield, in China, the death count exceeded 16 million. American civilian losses (excluding the merchant navy) in both world wars amounted to less than 2,000 dead.

We don't even begin to comprehend what suffering war causes.

Debby Wu | Taipei | April 19

AP - The United States may post Marines at its unofficial embassy in Taiwan - a small but symbolically significant change in its delicate political relationship with the self-ruled island.

A State Department advertisement in the English-language Taipei Times newspaper called for contractors to construct quarters for Marine security guards at a new U.S. compound in the capital, Taipei.

Since the U.S. switched its recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, there have been no marine guards at its Taipei facility - the American Institute in Taiwan - in keeping with its deliberately low political profile.

This is just too true, I'd laugh but you know:

Whenever I see that some dismal general will testify to Congress regarding the war against Iraq, I imagine the first paragraph of his Power Point presentation:

“All metrics show a downsurge in the violence in Iraq, and a continuing improvement in indicators of the production of a better life. Next slide. The Iranians are aiding the enemies of America, and must be bombed. This is a recording.”

What solemn, fraudulent, emetic mummery. Congressmen will—do—ask the General puffball questions, after which they will do whatever the President tells them to do. I can make no criticism of this. It is the American way. Still, may I suggest a few questions I would like to see the General, any general, asked?

1) General, five years ago the Commander in Chief said that combat operations in Iraq had ended. Since this isn’t true, the Commander in Chief was either lying, delusional, or simply a fool. Which do you believe to be the case?

See the rest here.

Suzanne Goldenberg | Washington | April 18

AP - A number of US states are considering legislation to lower the legal drinking age from the current standard of 21 - if only to allow troops coming home from Iraq to drink.

The move would defy a generation of federal law and public opinion, which is strongly opposed to lowering the drinking age. In 1984 Congress set a uniform legal age of 21, threatening to cut highway funding to states which did not comply.

Despite the risk of penalties, however, seven US states are exploring lowering the drinking age - partly for under-age Iraq war vets and more broadly in recognition that teenagers are going to drink anyway.

"If you can take a shot on the battlefield you ought to be able to take a shot of beer legally," said Fletcher Smith, who has sponsored legislation to lower the drinking age in South Carolina.

Ashley Rowland | April 18

Stars and Stripes - When South Korea’s new president meets with President Bush in the United States on Friday and Saturday, he may ask for something that makes some South Koreans uneasy — that the United States pause its downsizing in South Korea.

Polls show that a significant number of South Koreans want the U.S. military to eventually leave the country — as much as 55 percent, according to a survey conducted by a South Korean newspaper. Others say the 63-year U.S. presence in South Korea has allowed the country to develop and continues to deter an attack from North Korea.

This is the first in a two-day series exploring the South Korean population’s perception of the U.S. military presence.

Thom Shanker | Washington | March 16

iht - WASHINGTON: Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Congress on Tuesday to grant the Pentagon permanent authority to train and equip foreign militaries, a task previously administered by the State Department, and to raise the annual budget for the effort to $750 million, a 250 percent increase.

Gates said that rapidly building up the armed forces of friendly nations to combat terrorism within their borders was "a vital and enduring military requirement" — and one that should be managed by the Defense Department.

Representative Ike Skelton, the Missouri Democrat who is the Armed Services Committee chairman, voiced apprehension over "what appears to be the migration of State Department activities to the Department of Defense."

Rajesh Mirchandani | Utah | April 17

BBC - On the big screen, films like Robocop, Universal Soldier and forthcoming release Iron Man show man-machines with superhuman powers. But in Utah they are turning science fiction into reality.

I just have one question for the architects and proponents of this global war on terror, how will we know when it is over? Who will sign the treaty papers for the terrorists? Will it be Osama bin Laden? The truth is that there will be no surrender ceremony because we are not really fighting a war. We are not fighting a war in the conventional sense. It is sort of like the “war on poverty” or the “war on drugs” there is no identifiable point of success or failure. Because our enemy is undefined and really impossible to defeat there are no “benchmarks” to gauge our successes or failures. We have been fighting the war on poverty since 1964 and poverty has not surrendered yet. We have been fighting the war on drugs since 1972 and drugs have yet to surrender. In fact in both case we have actually lost ground to both enemies. The problem with declaring war on these types of enemies is that you become entrenched in the mindset of the original declaration.

Tristan McConnell | Monrovia, Liberia | April 11

CSM - For the past five months, the Fort McHenry has been visiting countries on the coast of West Africa's Gulf of Guinea as part of a new initiative called the Africa Partnership Station (APS).

With the US military's Africa Command (AFRICOM) facing skepticism as it prepares to become fully operational in October, the activities of APS, both onboard and onshore, reveal the shape of future US military relations with Africa. "APS is a case study in the strengths that AFRICOM brings to bear," says its commander, Capt. John Nowell.

It is, says Captain Nowell, about preventing conflict from erupting by training local militaries, improving safety and security – in this case on the seas – and about "soft power" through the delivery of humanitarian support.

He points out that more than 1,200 soldiers and sailors from eight different countries have received training so far. Many of these cash-strapped countries lack either a functioning coast guard or navy, allowing an alarming rise in oil theft, drug trafficking, illegal immigration, piracy, and illegal fishing. The Fort McHenry also helped deliver food aid to Chadian refugees who fled across the border to Cameroon during a coup attempt earlier in the year.

These arguments, however, do not convince Frida Berrigan, an analyst at the Washington-based New America Foundation, who sees AFRICOM as part of a broader militarization of US foreign policy.

"The Pentagon talks of partnership and synergies and presents a humanitarian overlay which puts the Department of State and USAID under a big AFRICOM tent," says Ms. Barrigan. "What image is the US projecting when everything is facilitated by the Army?"

Bill Dedman | Fort Jackson, SC | April 9

MSNBC - The Pentagon will issue hand-held lie detectors this month to U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan, pushing to the battlefront a century-old debate over the accuracy of the polygraph.

The Defense Department says the portable device isn't perfect, but is accurate enough to save American lives by screening local police officers, interpreters and allied forces for access to U.S. military bases, and by helping narrow the list of suspects after a roadside bombing. The device has already been tried in Iraq and is expected to be deployed there as well. “We're not promising perfection — we've been very careful in that,” said Donald Krapohl, special assistant to the director at the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment, the midwife for the new device. “What we are promising is that, if it's properly used, it will improve over what they are currently doing.”

But the lead author of a national study of the polygraph says that American military men and women will be put at risk by an untested technology. "I don't understand how anybody could think that this is ready for deployment," said statistics professor Stephen E. Fienberg, who headed a 2003 study by the National Academy of Sciences that found insufficient scientific evidence to support using polygraphs for national security. "Sending these instruments into the field in Iraq and Afghanistan without serious scientific assessment, and for use by untrained personnel, is a mockery of what we advocated in our report."

Also see the Raw Story take on this.

Instead of that economic stimulus handout, maybe the gummint should distribute these to voters. Probably wouldn't do any good though--I suspect the widget doesn't work with pathological liars. ~ Petronius

Blaine Harden | Sado Island, Japan | April 6

WaPo - Charles Robert Jenkins, an American Army sergeant who deserted to North Korea and spent 40 years there before his release in 2004, has become a celebrity in Japan.

Charles Robert Jenkins was planning a trip to the United States this spring to do "Larry King Live" and promote his book, but the tourist season on Sado Island is heating up.

So Jenkins decided to stay home, sell cookies and sign autographs. At 68, the former U.S. Army sergeant who defected to North Korea and lived as a captive in the curtained-off communist state for 40 years is a celebrity in Japan.

His Stalinist odyssey -- marriage to a Japanese woman who was abducted by North Korea and given to him one evening, her highly publicized release and their eventual reunion -- is household knowledge in this country. An impish man with big ears and a thick North Carolina drawl, he has done as many as 28 interviews in one day with the Japanese media. His autobiography, being published in the United States this spring as "The Reluctant Communist," has sold more than 300,000 copies in hardback in Japan.