tagged w/ Military
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An undercover investigation found that it's easy for anyone to buy sensitive U.S. military equipment on the Web, prompting renewed congressional scrutiny.
The items read like a laundry list of sensitive military equipment coveted by America's enemies big and small. An antenna waveguide for U.S.-made F-14A Tomcat fighter jets--which Iran's military still flies. U.S. Army combat uniforms with infrared patches for nighttime identification that could be used by Iraqi insurgents seeking to pose as friendly forces under cover of darkness. Night-vision goggles that could be employed by Taliban rebels to spot U.S. soldiers on patrol in eastern Afghanistan.
These items and others were purchased by employees of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) at Web sites like eBay and Craigslist during a 14-month-long undercover investigation that began in January 2007. The GAO disclosed its findings at a hearing on Capitol Hill on Thursday, and some of the lawmakers in attendance expressed deep concern about the revelations. In some instances, the merchandise in question was stolen, and in two specific instances the vendors were an active-duty U.S. Army staff sergeant and a U.S. Air Force reservist trying to make an extra buck on the side at the taxpayers' expense.
"To me, that's basically treason," observed Rep. Christopher Shays, the ranking Republican member on the U.S. House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. "We still need to focus on the actions [required] to prevent sensitive military equipment from being sold to the public."An undercover investigation found that it's easy for anyone to buy sensitive U.S.... more
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Comic book action heroes may be better weapons against terror than bullets or bombs.
Scott Atran is an anthropologist who studies the kids who keep Al Qaeda and its spinoffs going. They're young people like the ones who grew up to blow up trains in Madrid in 2004, carried out the slaughter on the London underground in 2005 and hoped to blast airliners out of the sky en route to the United States in 2006.
Atran has looked at whom they idolize, how they organize, what bonds them and what drives them. And he's reached an unconventional but, to me, convincing conclusion: what has inspired the "new wave" terrorists since 2001 is not so much the Qur'an as what Atran calls "jihadi cool." If you can discredit these kids' idols (most notably Osama bin Laden), give them new ones and reframe the way their families and friends see the United States and its allies, then you've got a good shot at killing the fad for terror and stopping the jihad altogether. Comic book action heroes may be better weapons against terror than bullets or bombs.... more
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Washington wanted to keep Somalia from turning into another Afghanistan. Now it's an African Iraq.
The jihadist leads a double life. By day he's a government functionary in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. Standing in the shade of a crumbling, Mussolini-era balcony, a phone headset clipped to his ear, he affects a casual, corporate air. But then he pulls his blue oxford shirt aside to reveal a fresh bullet scar. He spies on his co-workers, he admits, and feeds information about them to the Islamist rebels who are laying siege to Mogadishu. "God willing, we'll take over the country soon," he tells a NEWSWEEK reporter, one of the few Western journalists who have ventured into Somalia in months. The State Department recently added al-Shabaab (meaning "youth") to its list of terrorist organizations, making the group a target for attacks by U.S. forces operating in the Horn of Africa. The jihadist is unconcerned. "We're like a centipede," he says. "You cut off one of our legs, we just keep going."
Now, by trying to prevent another terrorist haven like Afghanistan from developing, America may have helped create another Iraq, this one in the volatile Horn of Africa. "Every year this fighting continues, the situation worsens," says Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Abdul Salaam of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government. The Islamists' eviction in 2006 left a power vacuum that the U.N.-backed government still hasn't managed to fill. Ethiopian troops are loathed as occupiers and rarely leave their heavily fortified bases. And al-Shabaab has broken off from the Courts to wage a brutal and effective insurgency. The guerrillas have overrun at least eight Somali towns this year and control parts of the capital. Where once they brought order to Somalia, they now gleefully spread chaos.
Mogadishu looks like Baghdad during its darker days. Thousands of Ethiopian soldiers are hunkered down behind sandbags, concrete barriers and heavy artillery. Whenever they go out on patrol, their heavily armored convoys are blasted by roadside bombs, rockets and small arms fire. In recent weeks, al-Shabaab has stepped up a suicide-bombing campaign; an attack last week targeted a compound housing African Union peacekeepers, wounding nine and killing one. Leaflets warning of death to government collaborators likewise recall Iraq.Washington wanted to keep Somalia from turning into another Afghanistan. Now it's... more
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Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are gingerly threading their way between two of the most politically charged numbers in Pennsylvania: the state's almost 1 million licensed hunters and Philadelphia's nearly one-a-day rate of gun murders.
Gun control arouses deep emotions here. Deadly shootings have earned the state's largest city the ominous nickname: "Killadelphia." One of the strongest antigun control groups, the National Rifle Association, has 250,000 members in Pennsylvania, more than in any other state. This month the Pennsylvania House soundly defeated a bill to require handgun owners to report the theft or loss of their guns to police.
As the state's hotly contested April 22 primary approaches, the Democratic presidential candidates have struggled to avoid alienating either side, to the point of pandering. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are gingerly threading their way between two... more
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The U.S. military said Monday it will release Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, more than two years after he was detained by U.S. Marines on suspicions of links to insurgents. The military said it has determined Hussein is not a threat and plans to free him Wednesday...The U.S. military said Monday it will release Associated Press photographer Bilal... more
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The Department of Defense has released its latest American military casualty numbers for those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the figures reveal non-fatal casualties that go well beyond the more than 4,000 U.S. troops who have died so far.
As of April 5, a total of 36,082 members of the U.S. military have been wounded in action and killed in Iraq, since the beginning of the war in March 2003, and in Afghanistan, where the war there began in October 2001. The 36,082 number breaks down to 4,492 deaths and 31,590 wounded. According to the same DoD "casualty" counts, an additional 38,631 U.S. military personnel have also been removed from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan for "non-hostile-related medical air transports."
"That's a tremendous number," said Paul Sullivan, the executive director of the advocate group Veterans for Common Sense, who believes these latest figures paint a more realistic picture of the true cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars. He is concerned troop casualties, including those who have been wounded, killed and medically transported, is now nearing 75,000.
Defense Department spokesperson Cynthia Smith, however, told CBS News the numbers must be carefully interpreted. Smith said the 38,631 "non-hostile-related medical air transports" are not casualties of war even though they are listed in the DoD's "casualty" documents because, she says, they were for "injuries not related to service, they were unrelated to combat."
Smith described the "non-hostile-related" injuries as the types that "could happen to any civilian on the street."
"Our main focus is severe trauma care in the theater," she said. For example, "if a woman needs her annual check up, we don't have the capability of doing that [on the ground in Iraq] so we would air transport her out." According to Smith, the 36,082 tally is a more "accurate" reflection how many military service men and women have been fatal and non-fatal casualties in connection to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as of April 5.
Sullivan points out that the military's casualty reports also exclude the "enormous number [of new veterans] flooding the VA," often with medical problems developed due to the war. A January report by the Department of Veterans Affairs showed 299,585 veterans who recently served in the Middle East had been treated by the VA since 2002. Forty percent (120,049) of the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who sought care from the VA did so for mental health disorders. The Department of Defense has released its latest American military casualty numbers... more
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Kenyan police clashed with machete-waving gang members who blocked roads with burning cars and set a police post on fire Monday to protest the killing of an imprisoned gang leader's wife.
At least four people were killed in the violence, police and gang members said, reminding Kenyans of the fragility of the country's peace after months of postelection riots.
Members of the Mungiki, an outlawed quasi-religious sect linked to a string of beheadings, held protests in several cities across the country to demand the release of their leader from prison. Protesters also accused police of being behind last week's killings of the gang leader's wife and their acting leader's brother.
Police tried to drive gang members off the streets by firing tear gas and live bullets.
Two people were shot dead in Central province, said regional police chief Philip Ndwiga. Gang members who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals said two others were killed in the Dandora neighborhood of the capital.Kenyan police clashed with machete-waving gang members who blocked roads with burning... more
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Iraq's government moved Sunday to restore discipline within the ranks of the security forces, sacking more than 1,300 soldiers and policemen who deserted during recent fighting against Shiite militias in Basra.
At the same time, Iraq's Cabinet ratcheted up the pressure on anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr by approving draft legislation barring political parties with militias from participating in upcoming provincial elections.
Al-Sadr, who heads the country's biggest militia, the Mahdi Army, has been under intense pressure from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, also a Shiite, to disband the Mahdi Army or face political isolation.
Al-Sadr's followers are eager to take part in the local elections because they believe they can take power away from rival Shiite parties in the vast, oil-rich Shiite heartland of southern Iraq.
And in a new move to stem the flow of money to armed groups, the government ordered a crackdown on militiamen controlling state-run and private gas stations, refineries and oil distribution centers.
It is believed that gas stations and distribution centers, especially in eastern Baghdad and some southern provinces, are covertly controlled by Shiite militiamen dominated by the Mahdi Army.
The failure of government forces to capture Basra despite superiority in numbers and firepower was an embarrassment to al-Maliki, who ordered the offensive and personally supervised it during the first week. Iraq's government moved Sunday to restore discipline within the ranks of the... more
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(((You read stuff like this and you have to wonder -- all that valuable personal data you passively surrendered to the American government -- how much of that is already powned by other entities?)))
A BusinessWeek probe of rising attacks on America's most sensitive computer networks uncovers startling security gaps
The e-mail message addressed to a Booz Allen Hamilton executive was mundane—a shopping list sent over by the Pentagon of weaponry India wanted to buy. But the missive turned out to be a brilliant fake. Lurking beneath the description of aircraft, engines, and radar equipment was an insidious piece of computer code known as "Poison Ivy" designed to suck sensitive data out of the $4 billion consulting firm's computer network.
The Pentagon hadn't sent the e-mail at all. Its origin is unknown, but the message traveled through Korea on its way to Booz Allen. Its authors knew enough about the "sender" and "recipient" to craft a message unlikely to arouse suspicion. Had the Booz Allen executive clicked on the attachment, his every keystroke would have been reported back to a mysterious master at the Internet address cybersyndrome.3322.org, which is registered through an obscure company headquartered on the banks of China's Yangtze River.
The U.S. government, and its sprawl of defense contractors, have been the victims of an unprecedented rash of similar cyber attacks over the last two years, say current and former U.S. government officials. "It's espionage on a massive scale," says Paul B. Kurtz, a former high-ranking national security official. Government agencies reported 12,986 cyber security incidents to the U.S. Homeland Security Dept. last fiscal year, triple the number from two years earlier. Incursions on the military's networks were up 55% last year, says Lieutenant General Charles E. Croom, head of the Pentagon's Joint Task Force for Global Network Operations. Private targets like Booz Allen are just as vulnerable and pose just as much potential security risk. "They have our information on their networks. They're building our weapon systems. You wouldn't want that in enemy hands," Croom says. Cyber attackers "are not denying, disrupting, or destroying operations—yet. But that doesn't mean they don't have the capability." (((You read stuff like this and you have to wonder -- all that valuable personal data... more
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A Texas sergeant and his son recently found themselves separated not only by an eight-hour time difference, several bodies of water, hundreds of miles and a war, but by a high school official who suspended the boy for answering his dad's call during class.
Cove High School in Texas, where half the students have at least one parent deployed, justified the punishment against Brandon Hill by saying he had violated the no-cell-phone policy when he took the call from his father, who is serving in Iraq.
"I have been going through a lot of stress lately and my dad’s like my best friend, so I go to him for everything," the sophomore told FOX News on Saturday.
"I needed to talk to him, so my mom got a hold of him on Yahoo and told him to call me, so I answered the phone call in class." A Texas sergeant and his son recently found themselves separated not only by an... more
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Hoping to save a life when an Army buddy's had too much to drink, 767 soldiers and civilians on the Army's largest training post now carry personal alcohol detectors in their cars or on their key chains.
Fort Jackson's safety director Sean O'Brian has been handing out the four-inch devices since the first of the year.
"It's a good way to not get into a confrontation with a buddy, in case they've been drinking," said Master Sgt. James Smith. "It's impartial. It lets you say, 'Hey, let's let this be our guide."'
While there hasn't been a big problem with drunken driving on the base — there were 10 alcohol-related accidents in a recent 12-month span — that's still too many in O'Brian's opinion.
Fort Jackson is one of eight Army installations that have begun using the pocket-sized detectors, base spokesman Pat Jones said.Hoping to save a life when an Army buddy's had too much to drink, 767 soldiers... more
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Free-falling clams dropped by in-flight birds are regular air threats to the F-22 as gulls drop fist-sized mollusks on the Langley Air Force Base runway to break open the shell-fish appetizer.
The birds' shelling device just happens to be a convenient launch pad for the F-22. Although the gulls remove half their mess -- slurping up tender meat from the runway -- they leave behind hard, brittle sea shells for an F-22 to suck up through its engine intake that can cause severe damage.Free-falling clams dropped by in-flight birds are regular air threats to the F-22 as... more
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"There was no way to escape. People were waiting outside - if someone tried to jump out, they would attack them with machetes."
Of the 36,000 runners lining up in Sunday's London Marathon, 33-year-old Burundian Olympic hopeful Gilbert Tuhabonye has perhaps the most remarkable story.
In 1993, Tuhabonye, then 19, was looking forward to graduating from his high school in Kibimba and taking up an athletics scholarship at Tulane University in America.
But one October day, Tuhabonye and 100 of his fellow Tutsis were captured by rival Hutus, herded into a petrol station and set on fire.
"They were doing everything they could to make sure everybody in the building died," says Tuhabonye.
He was the sole survivor of the massacre as he smashed a window, climbed out and ran for his life.
Eventually he found safety in a hospital and began the slow recovery process.
Miraculously, less than 18 months after having the flesh burnt off his right shin down to the bone, Tuhabonye was running again, competing at the 1995 World Student Games in Japan.
The following year, as one of Burundi's most promising young talents, he was selected to go to an International Olympic Committee training camp for athletes from developing nations. "There was no way to escape. People were waiting outside - if someone tried to... more
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A piece of artillery that was apparently misfired by the military crashed through the roof of a New Jersey home miles away Friday and injured a young girl's cat, which had to be euthanized, officials said.
No people were injured when the two-pound piece hit the Jefferson Township home about two-and-a- half miles from the Picatinny Arsenal and landed in the girl's bed, said Peter Rowland, arsenal spokesman. She wasn't home, but her cat was sleeping on the bed.
The homeowner told authorities she heard a loud noise around 2:40 p.m. and found the 6-by-4-inch object.
Picatinny officials told The Star-Ledger of Newark they were investigating. The base had been conducting tests Friday, and it wasn't immediately clear what type of artillery hit the home.
Picatinny is the site of the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, whose mission is to conduct research, development and engineering for weapons systems.A piece of artillery that was apparently misfired by the military crashed through the... more
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"Iraq: One Winter Soldier's Tale"
The American News Project documented some of the sessions of the Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan conference. The conference was sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), and took place March 13-16 in Silver Spring, MD.
"Iraq: One Winter Soldier's Tale"
The American News Project... more
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Even seemingly innocent personal blogs are on the Army's official watch list, according to a report leaked to the controversial Wikileaks website. Cue press release!
The ["Army Web Risk Assessment Cell"] is to "conduct routine checks of web sites on the World Wide Web for disclosure of critical and/or sensitive information that is deemed a potential OPSEC compromise." Web sites include, but are not limited to, "Family Readiness Group (FRG) pages, unofficial Army web sites, Soldier's web logs (blogs), and personal published or unpublished works related to the Army."
The passage comes from a March update to the US Army's 2007 "Operations Security" regulation 530-1, which is the Army's high-level document on how the service should keep secrets.
In an unusual circularity, the disclosure of the document on the internet today is something the document was designed to prevent.Even seemingly innocent personal blogs are on the Army's official watch list,... more
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This is a real sign of the times, hey - it really breaks my heart. Are cardboard version of husbands, fathers or even mothers and wives, the healthiest way to deal with the absence of a loved one? Is it a coping mechanism or just a cruel reminder?
This is a real sign of the times, hey - it really breaks my heart. Are cardboard... more
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"A simulated outbreak of the disease — part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called "Crimson Sky" — ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation's National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the exercise, the government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch in Kansas 25 miles long to bury carcasses. In the simulation, protests broke out in some cities amid food shortages.""A simulated outbreak of the disease — part of an earlier U.S. government... more
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Amanda Stapp's husband Jason, a National Guardsmen, will soon be deployed to Kosovo. Amanda found out about Flatdaddies.com, where she ordered a cardboard cut-out of her husband to fill the void while he's away. Everything Amanda does with "Flat Jason" is documented in a blog she started, allowing the real Jason to see.
To check out Amanda's blog, go to: http://www.ayeartogetherapart.blogspot.com Amanda Stapp's husband Jason, a National Guardsmen, will soon be deployed to... more
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bmmdk4
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added this
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4 years ago
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This pod looks at a woman who is in the difficult predicament of being married to someone actively serving in the military, but who is also actively against the war.This pod looks at a woman who is in the difficult predicament of being married to... more
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