tagged w/ US Military
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The US military will become "leaner" while maintaining superiority as it switches focus to the Asia-Pacific, US President Barack Obama has announced.In a rare appearance at the Pentagon, he unveiled a far-reaching defence review under which thousands of troops are expected to be axed.
link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16430405The US military will become "leaner" while maintaining superiority as it... more
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President Barack Obama: "You have shown why the US military is the fighting force in the history of the world"
US President Barack Obama has marked the end of the Iraq war with a speech at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, telling troops, "welcome home!"
He paid tribute to the soldiers who served in the conflict - both those who died and veterans who returned home after long tours of duty.
More than 200 soldiers based at Fort Bragg died over the course of the nearly nine-year war.
The final US soldiers are expected to leave Iraq within days.
The last combat troops departed in August 2010.
"Tomorrow the colours of the United States Forces Iraq, the colours you fought under, will be formally cased in a ceremony in Baghdad," Mr Obama said. "Then they'll begin their journey across an ocean "As your commander in chief and on behalf of a grateful nation, I'm proud to finally say these two words - welcome home, welcome home, welcome home," he said, as troops gathered in an airplane hanger at Fort Bragg cheered.
Mr Obama said the US military was leaving Iraq with "heads held high", and thanked military families for sharing in the troops' sacrifice.
Nearly 1.5 million Americans served in Iraq, with 30,000 wounded and nearly 4,500 dead, Mr Obama said, but "those numbers don't tell the whole story of Iraq".
Ihttp://tinyurl.com/7nu84x8President Barack Obama: "You have shown why the US military is the fighting force... more
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LOrion
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The Senate last night codified into law the power of the U.S. military to indefinitely detain an American citizen with no charge, no trial and no oversight whatsoever with the passage of S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act.
Indefinite Detention Bill Passes Senate 93 7
One amendment that would have specifically blocked the measures from being used against U.S. citizens was voted down and the final bill was passed 93-7.
Umm... WHAT!?The Senate last night codified into law the power of the U.S. military to indefinitely... more
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Iraqi leaders have refused to give US troops immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts. The US refuses to stay without it. Of the roughly 40,000 troops currently in Iraq, there is a possibility that 3,000 or so will stay to help with training Iraqi forces.
Bringing the troops back home was one of candidate Barack Obama's promises when he was campaigning for presidential election in 2008. He constantly reminded the public that it was candidate Hilary Rodham Clinton who voted to authorize the war in the first place, drawing a distinct line between him and Hilary Clinton during the primaries.
It seems as though that promise will be kept.Iraqi leaders have refused to give US troops immunity from prosecution in Iraqi... more
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Sgt. Shamar Thomas
United States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas from Roosevelt, NY went toe to toe with the New York Police Department. An activist in the Occupy Wall Street movement, Thomas voiced his opinions of the NYPD police brutality that had and has been plaguing the #OWS movement.
Thomas is a 24-year-old Marine Veteran (2 tours in Iraq), he currently plays amateur football and is in college.
Thomas comes from a long line of people who sacrifice for their country: Mother, Army Veteran (Iraq), Step father, Army, active duty (Afghanistan), Grand father, Air Force veteran (Vietnam), Great Grand Father Navy veteran (World War II).
You have to watch this video, it's really moving. Click the source link.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/good-guys/1-marine-vs-30-cops-at-occupy-times-square-.html
(Brasscheckchecktv.com)Sgt. Shamar Thomas
United States Marine Corps. Sgt. Shamar Thomas from Roosevelt,... more
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America’s Native Americans are over-represented in military and post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have hit the Navajo hardAmerica’s Native Americans are over-represented in military and post-9/11 wars... more
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Special US commandos are deployed in about 75 countries around the world - and that number is expected to grow.
Somewhere on this planet a US commando is carrying out a mission. Now, say that 70 times and you're done ... for the day. Without the knowledge of much of the general American public, a secret force within the US military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world's countries. This Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has generally been ignored by the mainstream media, and deserves further attention.
After a US Navy SEAL put a bullet in Osama bin Laden's chest and another in his head, one of the most secretive black-ops units in the US military suddenly found its mission in the public spotlight. It was atypical. While it's well known that US Special Operations forces are deployed in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it's increasingly apparent that such units operate in murkier conflict zones like Yemen and Somalia, the full extent of their worldwide war has often remained out of the public scrutiny.
Last year, Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post reported that US Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the Bush presidency. By the end of this year, US Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me, that number will likely reach 120. "We do a lot of travelling - a lot more than Afghanistan or Iraq," he said recently. This global presence - in about 60 per cent of the world's nations and far larger than previously acknowledged - is evidence of a rising clandestine Pentagon power elite waging a secret war in all corners of the world.
The rise of the military's secret military
Born of a failed 1980 raid to rescue American hostages in Iran, in which eight US service members died, US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) was established in 1987. Having spent the post-Vietnam years distrusted and starved for money by the regular military, special operations forces suddenly had a single home, a stable budget, and a four-star commander as their advocate.
Since then, SOCOM has grown into a combined force of startling proportions. Made up of units from all the service branches, including the Army's "Green Berets" and Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Air Commandos, and Marine Corps Special Operations teams, in addition to specialised helicopter crews, boat teams, civil affairs personnel, para-rescuemen, and even battlefield air-traffic controllers and special operations weathermen, SOCOM carries out the United States' most specialised and secret missions. These include assassinations, counterterrorist raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence analysis, foreign troop training, and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations.
One of its key components is the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command whose primary mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. Reporting to the president and acting under his authority, JSOC maintains a global hit list that includes US citizens. It has been operating an extra-legal "kill/capture" campaign that John Nagl, a past counterinsurgency adviser to four-star general and soon-to-be CIA Director David Petraeus, calls "an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine".
This assassination programme has been carried out by commando units like the Navy SEALs and the Army's Delta Force as well as via drone strikes as part of covert wars in which the CIA is also involved in countries like Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen. In addition, the command operates a network of secret prisons, perhaps as many as 20 black sites in Afghanistan alone, used for interrogating high-value targets.
(much more, and in-text links, at link)Special US commandos are deployed in about 75 countries around the world - and that... more
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I never knew there was such a thing as “psychedelic warfare”. From a vintage Popular Science article, via Parapolitical:
Secret U.S. tests show[ed] startling military uses for weird new chemical agents. The so-called “loony gas,” which we believed could incapacitate enemies without actually harming them, turned out to be LSD. Although we acknowledged that LSD could make people “daffy,” we also stated that these psycho-chemicals were more or less humane. That is, the military could saturate enemies with LSD and take over their towns, without destroying them, before the people recovered.
http://www.disinfo.com/2011/07/the-pentagons-lsd-bombs/I never knew there was such a thing as “psychedelic warfare”. From a... more
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Guatemala victims of US syphilis study still haunted by the ‘devil’s experiment’Guatemala victims of US syphilis study still haunted by the ‘devil’s... more
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In what seemed to be a natural follow up to the May 1st assassination of Osama bin Laden, last night, PBS's Frontline offered a fascinating look into the not so secretive operation of our 'kill/capture' program which has claimed the lives of over 12,000 'militants'. These include mid-level and senior members of al-Qaeda, the Taliban and spin off groups which are considered to be part and parcel of the insurgency. Most of the footage took place in Afghanistan, the alleged cradle of the war on terror.
The bottom line
A revelation of facts on the ground, after six months of an investigation by Frontline, would reveal that despite the use of very sophisticated technology and superbly trained personnel, the US is sorely losing the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. The American uniform is loathed in Afghanistan, and not a single Afghani interviewed professed to have any love or gratitude for the United States of America. And why should they? The use of drones coupled with this 'kill/capture' culture has created more animus toward the US, adding to the ever increasing resentment of a ten-year old occupation. What are we doing wrong?In what seemed to be a natural follow up to the May 1st assassination of Osama bin... more
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Pakistani officicals say suspected U.S. drones fired at least four missiles at a house in a tribal region near the Afghan border, killing at least 22 peoplePakistani officicals say suspected U.S. drones fired at least four missiles at a house... more
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Greg Jeloudov was 35 and new to America when he decided to join the Army. Like most soldiers, he was driven by both patriotism for his adopted homeland and the pragmatic notion that the military could be a first step in a career that would enable him to provide for his new family.Greg Jeloudov was 35 and new to America when he decided to join the Army. Like most... more
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National mainstream media ignores the deaths of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan, and mostly ignores reporting on Afghanistan altogether.
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During the height of the Iraq war, the U.S. media paid close attention to troop deaths and fatalities, often making casualties among American soldiers leading stories in newspapers and on the airwaves. As ThinkProgress previously noted, the American press has essentially withdrawn from covering the war in Afghanistan, with the Pew Center finding that the media only devoted four percent of its coverage to the war during 2010.
As the media has withdrawn from covering the war, the stories of these soldiers remain largely untold. One group in the media that has been reporting about war deaths has been local media, focusing on casualties among soldiers in the surrounding communities. A local Rhode Island news station covered the death of Dennis Poulin, who died Thursday in a German hospital from injuries he sustained in Afghanistan. Poulin was scheduled for a visit with his family within just a couple of weeks, and he leaves behind a wife and a five year old son. Watch it:National mainstream media ignores the deaths of American soldiers killed in... more
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The US Army has apologised for any distress caused after new images of US troops posing with the bodies of Afghan civilians were published in a magazine.The US Army has apologised for any distress caused after new images of US troops... more
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How U.S. soldiers in murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses – how their officers failed to stop them http://j.mp/e49fryHow U.S. soldiers in murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses –... more
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BU MARIEM, Libya – An American fighter jet crashed in Libya's rebel held east, both crew ejecting safely as the aircraft spun from the sky during the third night of the U.S. and European air campaign. Moammar Gadhafi's forces shelled rebels regrouping in the dunes outside a key eastern city on Tuesday, and his snipers and tanks roamed the last major opposition-held city in the west.
The crash was the first major loss for the U.S. and European military air campaign, which over three nights appears to have hobbled Gadhafi's air defenses and artillery and rescued the rebels from impending defeat. But the opposition force, with more enthusiasm than discipline, has struggled to exploit the gains. The international alliance, too, has shown fractures as officials struggle to articulate an endgame.
China and Russia, which abstained from the U.N. Security Council vote authorizing the international intervention, called for a cease-fire Tuesday, after a night when international strikes hit Tripoli, destroying a military seaport in the capital.
The U.S. Air Force F-15E came down in field of winter wheat and thistles outside the town of Bu Mariem, about 24 miles (38 kilometers) east of the rebel capital of Benghazi.
By Tuesday afternoon, the plane's body was mostly burned to ash, with only the wings and tail fins intact. U.S. officials say both crewmembers were safe in American hands.
"I saw the plane spinning round and round as it came down," said Mahdi el-Amruni, who rushed to the crash site with other villagers. "It was in flames. They died away, then it burst in to flames again."
One of the pilots parachuted into a rocky field and hid in a sheep pen on Hamid Moussa el-Amruni's family farm.
"We didn't think it was an American plane. We thought it was a Gadhafi plane. We started calling out to the pilot, but we only speak Arabic. We looked for him and found the parachute. A villager came who spoke English and he called out 'we are here, we are with the rebels' and then the man came out," Hamid Moussa el-Amruni said.BU MARIEM, Libya – An American fighter jet crashed in Libya's rebel held... more
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The two crew members on the F-15E fighter jet ejected to safety. One has already been recovered by US forces, who say they are in the process of rescuing the other.The two crew members on the F-15E fighter jet ejected to safety. One has already been... more
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