Army suicides at Fort Hood hit record mark

(MySanAntonio.com) - Sgt. 1st Class Gregory Eugene Giger was a “tall quiet Texan” even after his wife filed for divorce while he was in Iraq, his mom says.

Still, he was devastated.

“The only thing that I know is when she sued for divorce, she charged him with $2,000-a-month child support and insisted that he pay half of the house,” said Helen Giger, 71, of Chandler, east of Dallas. “And by the time she got through charging him with various things, he had very little money left over, not even hardly enough to pay for his rent.”

Authorities found Giger, 42, of Houston dead in his apartment near Fort Hood, hanging by necktie. He was one of at least 22 GIs from the post to commit suicide in 2010.

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You know you've been at war for too long...

...when your enemies have no idea why you're trying to kill them:

Few Afghans in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, Taliban strongholds where fighting remains fiercest, know why foreign troops are in Afghanistan, says the "Afghanistan Transition: Missing Variables" report to be released later on Friday.

The report by The International Council on Security and Development (ICOS) policy think-tank showed 92 percent of 1,000 Afghan men surveyed in Helmand and Kandahar know nothing of the hijacked airliner attacks on U.S. targets in 2001.

"The lack of awareness of why we are there contributes to the high levels of negativity toward the NATO military operations and made the job of the Taliban easier," ICOS President Norine MacDonald told Reuters from Washington.

"We need to explain to the Afghan people why we are here, and both convince them and show them that their future is better with us than the Taliban," MacDonald said.

And yet we Americans still can't figure out why so many people hate us.

Are veterans owed our thanks?

Upon enlistment, every member of the armed forces swears an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Since our attention always seems to be focused on foreign threats, the majority of Americans are under the impression that those in the military are protecting our freedoms.

The fact remains, however, that most assaults on liberty occur right here in the U.S., thanks to the very people who are sending our soldiers to kill and die in countries that never once threatened us. One would think those risking their lives to keep their loved ones safe might show a little more interest in the enemies operating within our own government.

I realize today is Veterans Day, which means we are expected to forget all criticism and simply thank those who have made sacrifices on our behalf, but just because someone believes he is defending my freedom doesn't mean he is owed my thanks. A soldier may do many things that are considered brave and noble, but, when it comes down to it, freedom is not protected by good intentions.

Barack Obama: Protector of the Innocent

President Obama, speaking in India, reminded his audience that "nothing ever justifies the slaughter of innocent men, women and children." Unless, of course, they are considered collateral damage in undeclared, preemptive wars.

GOP senator: Consider neutering Iran's 'ability to wage war'

Halifax, Nova Scotia (CNN) - A leading Senate Republican voice on defense issues said Saturday the United States should consider neutering Iran's navy and air force if Tehran does not halt its nuclear program.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, speaking at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada, told reporters that there will come a point where Iran's nuclear program will reach the state that a conventional limited air strike "won't take them out."

"We're probably even past that point," he said.

"Instead of a surgical strike on their nuclear infrastructure, I think we're to the point now that you have to really neuter the regime's ability to wage war against us and our allies. And that's a different military scenario. It's not a ground invasion but it certainly destroys the ability of the regime to strike back."

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Wider role for CIA sought

WASHINGTON (Wall Street Journal) - The U.S. is pushing to expand a secret CIA effort to help Pakistan target militants in their havens near the Afghan border, according to senior officials, as the White House seeks new ways to prod Islamabad into more aggressive action against groups allied with al Qaeda,

The push comes as relations between Washington and Islamabad have soured over U.S. impatience with the slow pace of Pakistani strikes against militants who routinely attack U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama has said he will begin to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in July, increasing the urgency to show progress in the nine-year war against the Taliban.

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Former Joint Chiefs chairman: Iraq war 'fiasco' due to Rumsfeld’s 'lies'

(Raw Story) - The US had no reason to invade Iraq in 2003, and only did so because of "a series of lies" told to the American people by the Bush administration, says Gen. Hugh Shelton, who served for four years as the US's top military officer.

Shelton, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1997 to 2001, makes the comment in Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior, a soon-to-be-published memoir reviewed at Foreign Policy by Thomas E. Ricks.

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None dare call it murder

The recent report of U.S. soldiers killing Afghan civilians for sport should come as no surprise. When you spend billions of dollars to train impressionable young boys to kill, this is what happens.

As usual, a few low-level soldiers will get busted and sent to prison, but no one will dare challenge the system that created such monsters in the first place. No one will dare call for the arrest of those responsible for sending cold-blooded murders to a foreign nation to kill men, women, and children in an undeclared war.

I guess the lesson to be learned in all of this is that gunning down civilians individually is bad. However, invading a sovereign nation without provocation and killing civilians indiscriminately by the thousands with cruise missiles and cluster bombs is called defending your country. Why not just call it what it is?

Iraqi official foresees a U.S. military presence until 2016

(LA Times) - Some form of U.S. military presence will be needed in Iraq at least until 2016 to provide training, support and maintenance for the vast quantity of military equipment and weaponry that Iraq is buying from America, Iraqi Defense Minister Abdul Qader Obeidi said.

In addition, Iraq will continue to need help with intelligence gathering after 2011, and the fledgling Iraqi air force will require U.S. assistance at least until 2020, the date by which Iraq aims to achieve the capability to defend its airspace, Obeidi said.

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Who is the biggest sponsor of radical Islam?

We are, of course. That's why I just can't get all worked up over the construction of a Muslim community center near "Ground Zero" in Manhattan. To focus our attention on that is to ignore the real threat to life, liberty, and property.

August 6, 1945: A date which will live in infamy

ter·ror·ism - the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.

65 years ago today, the government of the United States dropped the world's first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, killing instantly about 70,000 people, including men, women, children, and American prisoners of war. Given the long-term effects of the radioactive fallout, the actual death toll climbed to around 150,000 within five years of the explosion.

That event on August 6, 1945 (along with the subsequent bombing of Nagasaki three days later), launched a global nuclear arms race and set the stage for the Cold War. Despite all the fear mongering about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" and Iran's nuclear reactors, the U.S. remains the only nation to have ever used nuclear weapons against another.

Rules of America's rule of law

by Glenn Greenwald (Salon.com) - The U.S. today charged Bradley Manning with a variety of crimes relating to his alleged leaks of classified material to WikiLeaks, most prominently including the Apache attack video that spawned worldwide debate over the American occupation. The 22-year-old whistle-blower faces 52 years in prison. Marcy Wheeler has interesting analysis of the charges, including some contradictions with the account previously offered by Wired, and I'll have more on this shortly, but for now, I just wanted to review the contemporary rules governing the Rule of Law in the U.S.:

• If you torture people or eavesdrop on Americans without the warrants required by the criminal law, you receive Look-Forward Imperial Immunity.
  
  
• If you shoot and kill unarmed rescuers of the wounded while occupying their country and severely wound their unarmed children sitting in a van -- or if you authorize that conduct -- your actions are commended.
  
  
• If you help wreck the world economy with fraud and cause hundreds of millions of people untold suffering, you collect tens of millions of dollars in bonuses.
  
  
• If you disclose to the world evidence of war crimes, government lawbreaking, or serious corruption, or otherwise embarrass the U.S., you will be swiftly prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and face decades in prison.

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What If...?

Ron Paul asks some tough questions...

Human experimentation part of Washington's torture program

WASHINGTON (NY Times) - Medical professionals who were involved in the Central Intelligence Agency's interrogations of terrorism suspects engaged in forms of human research and experimentation in violation of medical ethics and domestic and international law, according to a new report from a human rights organization.

Doctors, psychologists and other professionals assigned to monitor the C.I.A.'s use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other "enhanced" interrogation techniques gathered and collected data on the impact of the interrogations on the detainees in order to refine those techniques and ensure that they stayed within the limits established by the Bush administration's lawyers, the report found. But, by doing so, the medical professionals turned the detainees into research subjects, according to the report, which is scheduled to be published on Monday by Physicians for Human Rights.

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Expose murderous war criminals, go to jail

(Wired.com) - Federal officials have arrested an Army intelligence analyst who boasted of giving classified U.S. combat video and hundreds of thousands of classified State Department records to whistleblower site Wikileaks, Wired.com has learned.

SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged.

Manning was turned in late last month by a former computer hacker with whom he spoke online. In the course of their chats, Manning took credit for leaking a headline-making video of a helicopter attack that Wikileaks posted online in April. The video showed a deadly 2007 U.S. helicopter air strike in Baghdad that claimed the lives of several innocent civilians.

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U.S. "secret war" expands globally as Special Operations forces take larger role

(Washington Post) - Beneath its commitment to soft-spoken diplomacy and beyond the combat zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration has significantly expanded a largely secret U.S. war against al-Qaeda and other radical groups, according to senior military and administration officials.

Special Operations forces have grown both in number and budget, and are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year. In addition to units that have spent years in the Philippines and Colombia, teams are operating in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.

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U.S. plans naval exercises with South Korea

(AFP) - The US military on Monday said it will carry out anti-submarine and other naval exercises with South Korea in the "near future" after a North Korean sub sank a South Korean warship.

The announcement came after an international investigation last week concluded that a North Korean submarine fired a heavy torpedo at the Cheonan on March 26, sinking the South Korean vessel and killing 46 sailors.

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Baffling presentation to try to explain Afghanistan mess

(Mail Online) - Even the sharpest military minds in American were left baffled by this PowerPoint slide, a mind-boggling attempt to explain the situation in Afghanistan.

"When we understand that slide, we'll have won the war," General Stanley McChrystal, the US and NATO force commander, remarked wryly when confronted by the sprawling spaghetti diagram in a briefing.

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Pentagon planning military strike on Iran

Waging perpetual war in Afghanistan and Iraq wasn't quite as popular as our leaders in Washington had hoped, so now they're pointing to Iran's nuclear program as the next imminent threat that must be eliminated.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in New York today that "Military options would go a long way to delaying it." Never mind, of course, that an attack on Iran would only fuel the very terrorism we're supposedly fighting.

Tighter rules fail to stem deaths of innocent Afghans at checkpoints

KABUL (NY Times) - American and NATO troops firing from passing convoys and military checkpoints have killed 30 Afghans and wounded 80 others since last summer, but in no instance did the victims prove to be a danger to troops, according to military officials in Kabul.

"We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat," said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who became the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan last year. His comments came during a recent videoconference to answer questions from troops in the field about civilian casualties.

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