`Since the military provides just 6 to 12 computers for every 1,000 or so troops, time limits of 10 to 15 minutes per day are often enforced at Morale Welfare Recreation Cafés (the complicated name for military internet cafés). Anyone who sorts through spam, reads forwarded articles and jokes, then tries to respond to “real” email knows 15 minutes isn’t enough. Josh Hines, a soldier from Conway who recently returned from Iraq , confirmed that the Army lacks internet services and lamented the scarcity of entertainment options.
It should come as no surprise, then, that some enterprising military personnel have engineered an alternative. Hajjinets, the common term for troop-owned ISPs, have sprung to life on almost every base around Iraq. A typical Hajjinet is built and maintained by one or two soldiers and can provide nearly 24-hour internet access (until the region is stabilized and electrical lines can be installed, generators must occasionally be powered down for maintenance). Most Hajjinets are small, serving between 20 and 30 troops, but ISPs serving as many as 300 are known to exist.’
`A timetable for withdrawal of occupation troops from Iraq. Amnesty for all insurgents who attacked U.S. and Iraqi military targets. Release of all security detainees from U.S. and Iraqi prisons. Compensation for victims of coalition military operations.
Those sound like the demands of some of the insurgents themselves, and in fact they are. But they’re also key clauses of a national reconciliation plan drafted by new Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who will unveil it Sunday. The provisions will spark sharp debate in Iraq—but the fiercest opposition is likely to come from Washington, which has opposed any talk of timetables, or of amnesty for insurgents who have attacked American soldiers.’
`A German army unit due to police elections next month in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been barred from the mission because of a scandal over bizarre sexual practices in its ranks, a defense ministry spokesman said Thursday. [..]
In one incident reported in the German press, members of the unit allegedly placed fruit in the backside of one soldier and pounded it with a paddle. Initial reports said the soldier had willingly participated in the act.
The military described the incident as “reprehensible” and “not to be tolerated”.’
`People in European and Muslim countries see US policy in Iraq as a bigger threat to world peace than Iran’s nuclear programme, a survey has shown.
The survey by the Pew Research Group also found support for US President George W Bush and his “war on terror” had dropped dramatically worldwide.’
`Two men from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen were found dead shortly after midnight today in separate cells, said the Miami-based US Southern Command, which has jurisdiction over the prison. Attempts were made to revive them, but they failed.
“They hung themselves with fabricated nooses made out of clothes and bed sheets,” base commander Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris told reporters in a conference call from the US base in southeastern Cuba.
“They have no regard for human life,” he said. “Neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us.”‘
Also Guantanamo suicides a ‘PR move’:
`A top US official has described the suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a “good PR move to draw attention”.’
`This morning I learned that Pentagon officials have said that force levels in Iraq would not be cut “anytime soon,” apparently because of a “recent surge in violence” sweeping Iraq. But what struck me most about that news was votesomemore’s response in this thread claiming that, “There is ALWAYS a ‘recent surge in violence.'”
That got me thinking. Is there always a “recent surge in violence” in Iraq? I Googled the phrase, and discovered that the answer to the question is, well, yes.
There are a few notable periods where violence is not reported as a “recent surge,” (for example, Nov 2003 – Mar 2004) and there are a few notable periods where the violence is much worse (for example, May 2005).
But overall, it appears that there is a “recent surge in violence” reported in Iraq pretty much every few weeks.’
`The BBC has uncovered new video evidence that US forces may have been responsible for the deliberate killing of 11 innocent Iraqi civilians. [..]
According to the Americans, the building collapsed under heavy fire killing four people – a suspect, two women and a child.
But a report filed by Iraqi police accused US troops of rounding up and deliberately shooting 11 people in the house, including five children and four women, before blowing up the building.’
`A North Texas man is keeping an unusual piece of military history in his yard near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
An anti-aircraft gun from the Korean conflict designed to bring down airplanes sits in the man’s front yard off of Valley View Road in Irving.
NBC 5 found out about the gun after receiving calls and e-mails from viewers who were concerned the gun was being used to target aircraft taking off from D/FW airport.’
`Some 200,000 guns the US sent to Iraqi security forces may have been smuggled to terrorists, it was feared yesterday.
The 99-tonne cache of AK47s was to have been secretly flown out from a US base in Bosnia. But the four planeloads of arms have vanished.
Orders for the deal to go ahead were given by the US Department of Defense. But the work was contracted out via a complex web of private arms traders.
And the Moldovan airline used to transport the shipment was blasted by the UN in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia, human rights group Amnesty has discovered.’
`Speaking in Atlanta today, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was sharply questioned about his pre-war claims about WMD in Iraq. An audience member confronted Rumsfeld with his 2003 claim about WMD, “We know where they are.” Rumsfeld falsely claimed he never said it. The audience member then read Rumsfeld’s quote back to him, leaving the defense secretary speechless.’
(5.7meg Quicktime)
`Iran’s first target would be Israel in any response to a U.S. attack, a Revolutionary Guards commander said Tuesday, reinforcing the Iranian president’s past call for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”
“We have announced that wherever (in Iran) America does make any mischief, the first place we target will be Israel,” the Iranian Student News Agency quoted Gen. Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani as saying.
Dehghani, a top commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, also said Israel was not prepared to go to war against Iran.’
`Three years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, only one major U.S. building project in Iraq is on schedule and within budget: the massive new American embassy compound.
The $592 million facility is being built inside the heavily fortified Green Zone by 900 non-Iraqi foreign workers who are housed nearby and under the supervision of a Kuwaiti contractor, according to a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report. Construction materials have been stockpiled to avoid the dangers and delays on Iraq’s roads.
“We are confident the embassy will be completed according to schedule (by June 2007) and on budget,” said Justin Higgins, a State Department spokesman.
The same cannot be said for major projects serving Iraqis outside the Green Zone, the Senate report said. Many — including health clinics, water-treatment facilities and electrical plants — have had to be scaled back or in some cases eliminated because of the rising costs of securing worksites and workers.’
`With his fur-lined Puffa jacket, silver pendant chain, bandana, neatly trimmed goatee beard and combat trousers, DJ Besho looks like any other gangsta rapper.
In his music video DJ Besho, meaning DJ Diamond, stands on the bonnet of a Humvee, rapping. It is there that the similarities with the gangsta rappers of Los Angeles and New York end. There are no girls in bikinis gyrating in the background and no references to guns, drugs and prostitutes.
This is Afghanistan and five years after the fall of the Taleban the country’s first rapper is still constrained by a tight social code. “We have to take it step by step. It will be a while before I can introduce ‘booty shaking’ to Afghanistan,” said the 28-year-old, referring to a type of dancing where scantily clad girls wiggle their behinds.’
`A senior US marine officer says he is willing to apologise for the damage caused by his troops to the ancient Iraqi site of Babylon.
US forces built a helicopter pad on the ancient ruins and filled their sandbags with archaeological material in the months following the 2003 invasion.
Colonel Coleman was chief of staff at Babylon when it was occupied by the First Marine Expeditionary Force.
Babylon’s Hanging Gardens were among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.’
`Two more retired U.S. generals called for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign on Thursday, claiming the chief architect of the Iraq operation ignored years of Pentagon planning for a U.S. occupation and should be held accountable for the chaos there.
As the high-ranking officers accused Rumsfeld of arrogance and ignoring his field commanders, the White House was forced to defend a man who has been a lightning rod for criticism over a war that has helped drive President George W. Bush’s public approval ratings to new lows.
Six retired generals have now called for Rumsfeld to step down, including two who spoke out on Thursday.’
`The financing behind the violence that continues to disrupt Iraq may have an unlikely source: ancient treasure.
“The people that are murdering men, women and children in the streets are getting some of their funds from the current trade in antiquities,” said Marine Col. Matthew Bogdanos. “In Afghanistan the Taliban are using opium to support their activities. The cash crop in Iraq is not opium, it’s antiquities.”
Bogdanos, who’s been labeled the “Indiana Jones” of Baghdad, was conducting counter-terror actions in southern Iraq in April 2003 when he heard from news reports that 170,000 artifacts had been stolen from the Iraq Museum while U.S. troops stood by idly.
Bogdanos, who has a master’s degree in classics from Columbia University, decided to do something about it.’
`For a vision of war, it was almost elegant. The smoke and stink and deafening crack of munitions would be replaced by invisible beams of focused light. Modified 747 jets, equipped with laser weapons, would blast ballistic missiles while they were still hundreds of miles from striking our soil. “Directed-energy” cannons would intercept incoming rockets at the speed of light, heating up the explosives inside and causing them to burst apart in midair. And this wasn’t some relic of Reagan-era Star Wars visionaries. These were modern plans, initiated barely a decade ago, that would be realized not in some far-off future, but soon. Out in the New Mexico desert at the White Sands Missile Range, the U.S. Army’s Tactical High Energy Laser shot down dozens of Katyusha rockets and mortars. In 2004, Air Force contractors began test-firing the chemically powered beam weapon for a retrofitted 747, the Airborne Laser.
Then reality set in [..]’
with laser video.
`The White House on Sunday sought to dampen the idea of a U.S. military strike on Iran, saying the United States is conducting “normal defense and intelligence planning” as President Bush seeks a diplomatic solution to Tehran’s suspected nuclear weapons program.
Administration officials — from President Bush on down — have left open the possibility of a military response if Iran does not end its nuclear ambitions. Several reports published Sunday said the administration was studying options for military strikes; one account raised the possibility of using nuclear bombs against Iran’s underground nuclear sites.
Britain’s foreign secretary called the idea of a nuclear strike “completely nuts.”‘
Also Bush administration ‘secretly plans air strikes’ as it seeks regime change in Iran:
`The Bush administration has sent undercover forces into Iran, and has stepped up secret planning for a possible major air attack on the country, according to the renowned US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.
While publicly advocating diplomacy to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, Hersh reports in the next issue of The New Yorker magazine that “there is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change”.’
`The administration of President George W. Bush is planning a massive bombing campaign against Iran, including use of bunker-buster nuclear bombs to destroy a key Iranian suspected nuclear weapons facility, The New Yorker magazine has reported in its April 17 issue.
The article by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said that Bush and others in the White House have come to view Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a potential Adolf Hitler.
“That’s the name they’re using,” the report quoted a former senior intelligence official as saying.
A senior unnamed Pentagon adviser is quoted in the article as saying that “this White House believes that the only way to solve the problem is to change the power structure in Iran, and that means war.”‘
`The Bush administration Wednesday unveiled a blueprint for rebuilding the nation’s decrepit nuclear weapons complex, including restoration of a large-scale bomb manufacturing capacity.
The plan calls for the most sweeping realignment and modernization of the nation’s massive system of laboratories and factories for nuclear bombs since the end of the Cold War.
Until now, the nation has depended on carefully maintaining aging bombs produced during the Cold War arms race, some several decades old. The administration, however, wants the capability to turn out 125 new nuclear bombs per year by 2022, as the Pentagon retires older bombs that it says will no longer be reliable or safe.
Under the plan, all of the nation’s plutonium would be consolidated into a single facility that could be more effectively and cheaply defended against possible terrorist attacks. The plan would remove the plutonium kept at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory by 2014, though transfers of the material could start sooner. In recent years, concern has grown that Livermore, surrounded by residential neighborhoods in the Bay Area, could not repel a terrorist attack.’
Yet at the same time they’re gonna chuck a hissy fit if Iran or North Korea do the same thing. Fuckwits.
`Just when you think George W. Bush has plumbed the depths of goofiness, he bests himself. In a speech today (reported on CNN), Bush said that:
Saddam Hussein, not continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, is responsible for ongoing sectarian violence that is threatening the formation of a democratic government.
When in doubt, blame the guy in jail. So, at what point did George discover that Saddam’s previous grotesque behavior spawned sectarian strife? Is there any chance he heard about this before launching the invasion in 2003 or was he still reading from the script that promised Iraqis, regardless of their sectarian beliefs, would be dancing in the streets?
It would be nice to get an answer on this point. Why?’
`Does this story line sound familiar? The vice president of the United States gives a major speech focused on the threat from an oil-rich nation in the Middle East. The U.S. secretary of state tells congress that the same nation is our most serious global challenge. The secretary of defense calls that nation the leading supporter of global terrorism. The president blames it for attacks on U.S. troops. The intelligence agencies say the nuclear threat from this nation is 10 years away, but the director of intelligence paints a more ominous picture. A new U.S. national security strategy trumpets preemptive attacks and highlights the country as a major threat. And neoconservatives beat the war drums, as the cable media banner their stories with words like “countdown” and “showdown.”
The nation making headlines today, of course, is Iran, not Iraq. But the parallels are striking. Three years after senior administration officials systematically misled the nation into a disastrous war, they could well be trying to do it again.’
`Iran’s military said Friday it successfully test-fired a missile not detectable by radar that can use multiple warheads to hit several targets simultaneously, a development that raised concerns in the United States and Israel.
The Fajr-3, which means “victory” in Farsi, can reach Israel and U.S. bases in the Middle East, Iranian state media indicated. The announcement of the test-firing is likely to stoke regional tensions and feed suspicion about Tehran’s military intentions and nuclear ambitions.’
`The US military plans to detonate a 700 tonne explosive charge in a test called “Divine Strake” that will send a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas, a senior defense official said.
“I don’t want to sound glib here but it is the first time in Nevada that you’ll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons,” said James Tegnelia, head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Tegnelia said the test was part of a US effort to develop weapons capable of destroying deeply buried bunkers housing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.
“We have several very large penetrators we’re developing,” he told defense reporters.’
`The U.N. Security Council gave Iran 30 days to clear up suspicions that it is seeking nuclear weapons, and key members turned their focus on what to do if Iran refuses to suspend uranium enrichment and allow more intrusive inspections.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Berlin on Thursday for discussions between the five permanent council members the United States, Russia, China Britain and France plus Germany, on how much and what kind of pressure to exert on Iran if it refuses to comply.
After three weeks of intense negotiations, the 15-member Security Council approved a statement Wednesday asking the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to report back in 30 days on Iran’s compliance with demands to stop enriching uranium.’
Like it matters. The US government no doubt already knows if it wants to invade Iran or not, and the UN isn’t going to sway them at all.
`US President George W. Bush made clear to British Prime Minister Tony Blair in January 2003 that he was determined to invade Iraq without a UN resolution and even if UN arms inspectors failed to find weapons of mass destruction in the country, The New York Times reported.
Citing a confidential British memorandum, the newspaper said the president was certain that war was inevitable and made his view known during a private two-hour meeting with Blair in the Oval Office on January 31, 2003. [..]
“‘The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March,’ Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. ‘This was when the bombing would begin’,” the paper continued.
The timetable came at an important diplomatic moment, the paper said.
Five days after the Bush-Blair meeting, then US secretary of state Colin Powell was scheduled to appear before the United Nations to present evidence that Iraq posed a threat to world security by hiding unconventional weapons.’
‘Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, too, in ‘Nam. See Piglet suddenly transformed into Dennis Hopper’s mind-blown journalist! See Pooh pulled by a runaway kite, accompanied by the Stones’ “Satisfaction.” It’s Apocalypse Now Redux Redux…’
It’s okay, but not all that great.
see it here »
`The incident seemed like so many others from this war, the kind of tragedy that has become numbingly routine amid the daily reports of violence in Iraq. On the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, a roadside bomb struck a humvee carrying Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, on a road near Haditha, a restive town in western Iraq. The bomb killed Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, from El Paso, Texas. The next day a Marine communique from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported that Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast and that “gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire,” prompting the Marines to return fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one other. The Marines from Kilo Company held a memorial service for Terrazas at their camp in Haditha. They wrote messages like “T.J., you were a great friend. I’m going to miss seeing you around” on smooth stones and piled them in a funeral mound. And the war moved on.
But the details of what happened that morning in Haditha are more disturbing, disputed and horrific than the military initially reported. According to eyewitnesses and local officials interviewed over the past 10 weeks, the civilians who died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a roadside bomb but by the Marines themselves, who went on a rampage in the village after the attack, killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes, including seven women and three children. Human-rights activists say that if the accusations are true, the incident ranks as the worst case of deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. service members since the war began.’
`The White House has offered some clarification to its earlier statements that Iraq is doing well three years after the American invasion, grammatical clarifications which will doubtless offer solace to all those concerned about the differences between the Administration’s descriptions and the reality perceived by the rest of the world.
The President said that he understood why many Americans had had their confidence in the war shaken after watching scenes of carnage on television despite assurances that “the situation is under control.”
“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is,” said President Bush in a press conference. “If ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not – that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.”‘
`New York workers have discovered a trove of Cold War-era supplies within the masonry of the Brooklyn Bridge, a cache meant to aid in survival efforts in the event of nuclear attack.
City Department of Transportation employees were conducting maintenance on the structure Wednesday when they found the cache on the top floor of a three-floor space inside the bridge’s base, agency spokeswoman Kay Sarlin said.
Some containers were marked with two dates notorious in the annals of the Cold War: 1957, when the Soviet Union launched the first satellite into space, and 1962, the year of the Cuban missile crisis when the two superpowers may have come closest to war.’
