Liz Trotta at Fox said that female soldiers getting raped have it coming to them.
Jon Stewart begs to differ.
It’s subtle, but this is the first time that I’ve ever seen him truly enraged.
Category: Military
Here is an American Hero
Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis, a 17 year Army veteran who almost certainly won’t make it retirement, because he wrote a report saying that senior military officials are lying about Afghanistan:
Earlier this week, the New York Times’ Scott Shane published a bombshell piece about Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis, a 17-year Army veteran recently returned from a second tour in Afghanistan. According to the Times, the 48-year-old Davis had written an 84-page unclassified report, as well as a classified report, offering his assessment of the decade-long war. That assessment is essentially that the war has been a disaster and the military’s top brass has not leveled with the American public about just how badly it’s been going. “How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding?” Davis boldly asks in an article summarizing his views in The Armed Forces Journal.
Davis last month submitted the unclassified report –titled “Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leader’s Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort” – for an internal Army review. Such a report could then be released to the public. However, according to U.S. military officials familiar with the situation, the Pentagon is refusing to do so. Rolling Stone has now obtained a full copy of the 84-page unclassified version, which has been making the rounds within the U.S. government, including the White House. We’ve decided to publish it in full; it’s well worth reading for yourself. It is, in my estimation, one of the most significant documents published by an active-duty officer in the past ten years.
Here is the report’s damning opening lines: “Senior ranking U.S. military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the U.S. Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable. This deception has damaged America’s credibility among both our allies and enemies, severely limiting our ability to reach a political solution to the war in Afghanistan.” Davis goes on to explain that everything in the report is “open source” – i.e., unclassified – information. According to Davis, the classified report, which he legally submitted to Congress, is even more devastating. “If the public had access to these classified reports they would see the dramatic gulf between what is often said in public by our senior leaders and what is actually true behind the scenes,” Davis writes. “It would be illegal for me to discuss, use, or cite classified material in an open venue and thus I will not do so; I am no WikiLeaks guy Part II.”
According to the Times story, Davis briefed four members of Congress and a dozen staff members and sent his reports to the Defense Department’s inspector general, and of course spoke to a New York Times reporter; only after all that did he inform his chain of command what he’d been up to. Evidently Davis’s truth-telling campaign has rattled the Pentagon brass, prompting unnamed officials to retaliate by threatening a bogus investigation for “possible security violations,” according to NBC News.
They are going to go after him, and they won’t just try to kick him out, they will try to send him to Leavenworth.
The hyper-aggressive criminalization of whistle-blowing is one of the extra special innovations of the current administration.
What a Surprise
The USAF is determined to avoid having a meaningful close support capability. Case in point, they are cutting 5 to 10 A-10 squadrons:
The A-10 Thunderbolt II provides the type of close-air support that ground-pounders love and the Taliban dread. Although the A-10s are workhorses in the war on terrorism, the Air Force in its new budget request is planning to get rid of five squadrons.
As part of the Defense Department’s efforts to trim close to $500 billion in spending over the next decade, defense officials said Friday that the service intends to cut five A-10 tactical squadrons and two other squadrons as well.
The Thunderbolt squadrons to be stood down encompass one active-duty, one Reserve and three National Guard units. The remaining two squadrons disappearing are a Guard F-16 tactical unit and an F-15 training squadron.
Let’s be clear about this: The F-35 and the F-22 cannot take over this role effectively.
The A-10 can deploy and loiter over the battlefield for hours below 15,000 feet, while the two supersonic stealth jets can loiter for something like 15 minutes before calling bingo fuel.
No, This is Not The Onion
Simply because The Smew is giving its American counterpart a run for its money:
Flush With Oil From Alberta, Canada Prepares For Inevitable U.S. Invasion
OTTAWA, ON—It’s a subject the Canadian military high command doesn’t like to discuss, but one that’s taken on an increasing sense of urgency since the discovery of massive oil reserves in the Alberta tar sands: how to defend Canada from imminent U.S. invasion.
A highly-placed military source in the Harper government, speaking off the record, confirmed that Canada is actively preparing for an American attack. “Look, we can all see the pattern here: if a country has significant oil reserves, the United States will find a pretext to invade. Iraq, Libya—frankly, it’s either us or Iran next,” he said.
Brilliant!
Why the USAF Should Be Abolished, Part MLXVII
The US Army has real and current needs for transport, and the USAF response to addressing those needs is to do their beat to ensure that they are not met: (paid subscription required)
………
Apparently, this sentiment does not apply to the interservice skirmishes at the Pentagon. The U.S. Army and Air Force are in the final throes of hashing out an updated agreement on the time-sensitive, direct-support airlift mission, the latest chapter in a years-long saga over how to ship supplies to remote soldiers despite two wars and one stunted buy of Alenia’s C-27J.
The agreement is being made between the chiefs of staff of both services. At issue is how the time-sensitive airlift mission will be handled; this includes the shuttling of small loads of supplies to forward Army units in the field.
………
The last installment of this tug-of-war took place in 2005 when, during his first major speech to the Air Force Association, the then Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Gen. T. Michael Moseley, announced he wanted a new light cargo aircraft. This was considered odd as the Army was in the midst of setting up its future cargo aircraft program, which was then crafted to replace old C-23 Sherpas and provide more immediate access to commanders for cargo support. At the time, the Army moved ahead with its own program because it felt that it had lackluster support by the Air Force to properly back its needs.
………
Moseley’s push, along with his similar and later move to take over the Army’s burgeoning UAV force, was seen as an abrupt roles-and-missions grab by the Air Force in the midst of these two wars. In the case of the cargo aircraft role, the USAF won.
At the direction of then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in 2009 the Air Force took over authority for the C-27J buy and control of the direct-support mission; service officials said they would combine the use of C-27Js and C-130s to provide cargo lift for the Army (though Army officials had long complained that C-130 support was inefficient owing to underloading of these larger aircraft).
Army officials say that in actuality, the CH-47 Chinook fleet has been unduly burdened in providing timely support because the helicopters are used to shuttle goods from C-130s that land at hubs to the remote locales where soldiers are stationed.
“The major rub to us is responsiveness and not efficiency,” says one Army official who requests anonymity. “When a part is needed at the front line, it flies” and shouldn’t have to wait for enough requests to fill a C-130, the official adds. “We are more about effectiveness than efficiency, and [the Air Force is] more about efficiency than effectiveness.”
……………
Two C-27Js were deployed to Afghanistan in late July 2011 and quickly started flying operational direct support missions, Gen. Raymond Johns said last fall. The C-27Js are apportioned to Army officials there via Tacon (tactical control), although USAF pilots fly the missions, but the C-130s are not. This means the C-27Js are specifically set aside only for intratheater/direct-support missions under Army authority. Though C-130s are used for this mission, they can be reassigned elsewhere in the area, if needed, Johns said.
Army officials are less than satisfied with the Air Force’s delays in delivering C-27Js to the field. At least six were to be in Afghanistan by now, and why they have not been deployed is the “golden question,” the anonymous Army official said.
One industry official says the Army is “trying to hold the Air Force’s feet to the fire to do what they signed up for” in the 2009 pact.
Alenia has delivered 13 of 21 C-27Js on contract. Originally, Alenia officials projected the U.S. market for the C-27J (including Army/Air Force buys) to support as many as 125 aircraft. Tierney said that in 2005, the Army’s projections set a low risk of handling the mission with a fleet of 78 C-27Js and a moderate risk at 54. When Gates shifted the C-27J program from Army control to the Air Force, the buy shrank to 38 aircraft.
So basically, the army has a real and current need, and the USAF’s response is to hijack it, sabotage the purchases, and not deliver it.
The creation of an independent air force from the U.S. Army Air Forces has not shown itself to be a step forward in military efficiency.
FWIW, there are historical precedents. During the Vietnam war, the Air Force took over the operation of smaller cargo aircraft, (the Otter/Caribou if I recall) and promptly decided that they could only fly into air strips that were capable of handling the much larger C-130, eliminating much of their utility.
This is Called Circling the Drain
It looks like yet another capability is being removed being removed from the JSF (Paid subscription required):
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, long touted as the follow-on to the EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft, is no longer heir-apparent as the king of nonkinetic warfare.
The often-delayed Lockheed Martin JSF program is being more narrowly focused on its conventional attack role. Jamming is no longer a priority for the stealthy fighter. The airframes expected to carry the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) are conventional-signature unmanned aerial systems and will be followed by stealthy unmanned designs.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, long touted as the follow-on to the EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft, is no longer heir-apparent as the king of nonkinetic warfare.
The often-delayed Lockheed Martin JSF program is being more narrowly focused on its conventional attack role. Jamming is no longer a priority for the stealthy fighter. The airframes expected to carry the Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) are conventional-signature unmanned aerial systems and will be followed by stealthy unmanned designs.
One of the sales pitches for the JSF was that it’s engine, because it carried a lot of extra hardware to drive the lift fan, which would have allowed for it to be a stealthy platform with a few dozen megawatts of capability.
The can’t make the program work, so they are removing bits to ease the cost, weight, and schedule issues.
It will eventually enter service, but it’s going to be a lot less capable than it has been billed.
Seriously, We Are Becoming Incapable of Develping New Weapons Systems
We’ve seen this with the Future Combat Systems, EFV (the landing craft former known as the AAAV), the Comanche helicopter, DDG-10000, and the slow motion implosion of the LCS and the JSF.
We see that the programs start with over-ambitious requirements, which lead to protracted development schedules, escalating costs.
This leads changes to the requirements, leading to further schedule and cost slippage, rinse, lather, repeat.
I’m generally not to concerned about this, I’m of the belief that superior training, tactics, and situational awareness will win the day. The success of the F4F Wildcat versus A6M Rei-sen (Zero) is an example of this.
Superior tactics and situational awareness are largely function of effective communication, so to my mind the cancelation of the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) is a bigger deal than most of the higher profile cancellations:
…
What tied them down was their radios: a forest of plastic and metal cubes sprouting antennae of different lengths and sizes. They had short-range models for talking with the reconstruction team; longer-range versions for reaching headquarters 25 miles away; and a backup satellite radio in case the mountains blocked the transmission. An Air Force controller carried his own radio for talking to jet fighters overhead and a separate radio for downloading streaming video from the aircraft
…
Almost fifteen years ago, the Army launched an ambitious program, the Joint Tactical Radio System [3], aimed at developing several highly-compatible “universal” radios. Together, the JTRS radios would replace nearly all older radios in the American arsenal, greatly simplifying communications and freeing up combat units “to tap into the network on the move,” according to Paul Mehney, an Army spokesman.
But JTRS, pronounced “jitters,” failed to live up to its promise. Overly ambitious, poorly managed and saddled by incompatible goals, the program burned through $6 billion dollars while producing little working hardware. Delays forced the Army to spend $11 billion more on old-style radios to meet the urgent demands of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The Army eventually reduced the planned purchase of JTRS radios and cut the types of radios in development. In October, it canceled the vehicle-mounted version of JTRS, the most important of the new radios, which by then had grown to the size of a dormitory-sized refrigerator. For all practical purposes, JTRS is dead — at least in its original guise.
…
JTRS’ history is one of grand but naive technological ambition colliding with the unbending laws of physics and the unforgiving exigencies of modern warfare. After years of work, the Army discovered for itself what experts had been warning all along: It’s impossible for a single radio design to handle all the military’s different communications tasks.
The more capabilities that the Army and prime contractor Boeing packed into JTRS, the bigger, more complex and more expensive it became — until it was too bulky and unreliable for combat. In its relentless drive for conceptual simplicity, the Army found itself mired in mechanical complexity.
The Army wasn’t alone in its doomed pursuit of a technological pipe dream. The past decade has by many accounts been an era of grand ambition, flawed management and wasted treasure for all the military branches. A lengthy Harvard Business School study for the Pentagon concluded in April that despite many attempts at reform, “major defense programs still require more than 15 years to deliver less capability than planned, often at two to three times the planned cost.”
Unlike most of the high tech systems, which have next to no relevance in our current conflicts, there are very real shortcomings in the complex and frequently non-interoperable hodgepodge of communications equipment used by our forces. (The article linked above refers to one such situation in Afghanistan)
If our defense procurement and R&D system takes 15 years to take a radio system from concept through cancellation, we are completely f%$#ed.
Our own corrupt military-industrial complex appears ready to implode under the weight of its own dysfunction.
Finally Cashiering the Bloated General Officers in the Pentagon
It’s a start, but considering that there is an officer for every 5 enlisted men, up from 1 for every 10 men that was the standard over the past few hundred years, it’s only a start:
With the Iraq war over and troops in Afghanistan on their way home, the U.S. military is getting down to brass tacks: culling generals and admirals from its top-heavy ranks.
Pentagon officials said they have eliminated 27 jobs for generals and admirals since March, the first time the Defense Department has imposed such a reduction since the aftermath of the Cold War, when the collapse of the Soviet Union prompted the military to downsize.
The cuts are part of a broader plan to shrink the upper ranks by 10 percent over five years, restoring them to the their size when the country was last at peace, before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The changes are projected to save only a modest amount of money, but defense officials said they are symbolically important as the Pentagon adjusts to an era of austerity. The Obama administration proposes to squeeze $450 billion from defense budgets over a decade. An additional $500 billion in cuts will be triggered if Congress cannot agree on a deficit-reduction plan in the next year.
This does not even qualify as a baby step in tackling the bloat at the Pentagon, but it is a positive development.
Yes, this is a Change for the Better
One of the things that happens in the US Navy is that, after a long deployment, there is a passionate reunification on the dock.
Well, the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has caught up with this:
A Navy tradition caught up with the repeal of the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule on Wednesday when two women sailors became the first to share the coveted “first kiss” on the dock after one of them returned from 80 days at sea.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta of Placerville, Calif., descended from the USS Oak Hill amphibious landing ship and shared a quick kiss with her partner, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell of Los Angeles. The crowd screamed and waved flags around them.
Both women, ages 22 and 23 respectively, are fire controlmen in the Navy. They met at training school and have been dating for two years.
Navy officials said it was the first time on record that a same-sex couple was chosen to kiss first upon a ship’s return. Sailors and their loved ones bought $1 raffle tickets for the opportunity. Gaeta said she bought $50 of tickets. The Navy said the money would be used to host a Christmas party for the children of sailors.
The happy couple.
Well, Now I Know Why They Were Flying a Stealth Drone in Afghanistan
Click for full size
Note the Radar Blocker in the Inlet
I thought that its deployment to Afghanistan was a budget ploy, after all, why use a stealthy drone, the RQ-170, against an opponent who has no radar (the Taliban), but I was wrong.
It turns out that they were using it to spy on Iran, and Tehran, does have an integrated air defense network.
And now the us sources are privately admitting that they flew it over Iran, and that the Iranians did get the drone.
Of interest, to my not particularly schooled eye, I think that I realize what the fairing on the top of the wing are; they are to accommodate the landing gear.
BTW, here’s a rundown on what secrets might be compromised, and it’s a pretty big deal.
Yeah, This is a Vote of Confidence in the JSF
The US Marines have decided to buy Harriers from the UK to extend the life of their fleet:
Britain has agreed to sell all of its 74 decommissioned Harrier jump jets, along with engines and spare parts, to the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps – a move expected to help the Marines operate Harriers into the mid-2020s and provide extra planes to replace aging two-seat F-18D Hornet strike fighters.
Rear Adm. Mark Heinrich, chief of the U.S. Navy’s Supply Corps, confirmed the two-part deal Nov. 10 during a conference in New York sponsored by Bank of America Merrill Lynch in association with Defense News.
Heinrich negotiated the $50 million purchase of all Harrier spare parts, while Rear Adm. Donald Gaddis, the U.S. Navy’s program executive officer for tactical aircraft, is overseeing discussions to buy the Harrier aircraft and their Rolls-Royce engines, Heinrich said.
The US Marine Corps does not seem to be completely sanguine about Lockheed-Martin meeting schedule, even the new schedule which slides IOC another 2 years to the right.
Some Perspective on the F-22 Onboard Oxygen Generator Problems
If you have followed this all, you know that there have been number of restrictions and groundings on the F-22 due to repeated failures of its onboard Oxygen Generation system, well Stephen Trimble puts it all in perspective:
This is the internet, it all comes down to cats.
How the Marine Corps F%$#ed the JSF
The inestimable Bill Sweetman notes that many of the problems with the F-35 stem directly from the decision to make the Marine Corps, and their STOVL requirement, a part of the program.
The F-135 engine (43,000 lbs thrust) weights 6,500 pounds. The F-414 (22,000 lbs thrust) weighs 2,445 lbs, so this means that the F135 weighs about 1500 pounds more than the about the same amount of thrust installed for the F414.
The engine is also about $5 million dollars more than two F414s.
Of cours, you couldn’t use 2 F414s for an STOVL aircraft, because the lose of just one engine still results in an aircraft loss, so it’s actually less safe than a single engine variant.
You also had the costs and delays associated with the weight reduction programs, which were driven by the needs of the STOVL B model of the JSF.
I think that it was clear from the start that having commonality with between CTOL and STOVL aircraft would result in additional costs, and reduced performance for the CTOL variants, and that incorporating the capabilities of the CTOL variants would increase the cost and weight of the VTOL variant.
So from an engineering perspective, this is a lose, but for the US Marine Corps, from a political perspective, it was a win.
The Marines knew, even with a (now canceled) British order for for a STOVL aircraft, if they were the sole service procuring this, that it would be much easier to cancel.
The F-35 as a joint Navy-Air Force program was too big to fail, a Marine-only aircraft wouldn’t be, so the Marines made it their program too, which had the (political only) advantage of making the JSF program even bigger and higher to kill.
The JSF is a real microcosm of everything that is wrong with the current US procurement/development process.
How Can You Tell That the Pentagon is Desparate About the JSF
Because they are demanding that Lockheed Martin, rather than the tax payers, will have to cover at least some of the costs: (Paid sucscription required)
Prolonged delays in development of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are coming home to roost for Lockheed Martin, as the Defense Department moves to force the manufacturer to bear the cost of any changes to production aircraft that could result from the thousands of hours of flight testing that still lie ahead.
Even as development has fallen behind schedule, Lockheed has continued to produce aircraft and the resulting overlap, or concurrency, has driven up the cost of the initial batches of F-35s, forcing the cutback on procurement to cover the overruns.
Crying foul 10 years after his company signed the F-35 development contract, CEO Bob Stevens revealed last month that the government has failed to reimburse Lockheed Martin for up to $1.2 billion in costs associated with low-rate initial production (LRIP) Lot 5. And those bills may not be paid until the company agrees to negotiate what Stevens says is an “unprecedented” contract provision, called a concurrency clause, for the next production lot of aircraft.
Such a clause would place the burden of financial liability on the contractor team for design changes to the LRIP 5 jets that result from discoveries made during the ongoing flight-test program. Stevens declined to outline how much liability the government is intending to place on the contractors.
…………
But while progress is being made, an October memo signed by the Pentagon’s chief tester has added to cost anxieties, indicating it could require an additional 10 months to begin F-35 pilot training, which was expected to start in the fall. It is now more likely to begin next spring, at the earliest. Further delays in pilot training could increase costs for customers who will be required to operate older fleets for a longer time until F-35s can be accepted into service. The memo adds to concerns that testing on the aircraft is too immature to proceed with pilot training and operational use.
(emphasis mine)
The problem is that the Pentagon wants the contractor to cover the costs of the post production modifications required for the early-build airframes as a result of delays in the test program.
This is an indication of desperation on the part of the Pentagon, because this jeopardizes the general’s lucrative post-retirement employment with the defense contractors.
This means that the program is in enough jeopardy that DoD feels the need to get tough with their future employers, which is kicking out a leg of the Iron Triangle.
I’m beginning to think that we won’t procure any more of these than we did the F-22.
And the Banksters Look to Occupy Greece
Police with Bayonets, Yeah, this is All About Law Enforcement!
No, I’m not joking, the EU has a paramilitary force, the European Gendarmerie Force, and they have allegedly been deployed to Greece:
Did you know that the EU has its own riot police that can operate in any European country but is answerable directly to none of them? No I didn’t either.
They are called the European Gendarmerie Force (Eurogendfor) . They are based in Italy but funded and staffed by six signatory nations who are France, Italy, Holland, Spain, Portugal and Romania. However, according to the Treaty which established Eurogendfor they can operate in any EU country and are available to others who invite them to do so. The country which invites them in is refered to as the ‘Host’.
…………
What does it say if it turns out ot be true that the Greek government has ‘invited’ a quasi military riot police made of personel from other nations to operate in Greece against its own citizens. Greek police not enough? Greek military not willing to crack heads? Got to get some foreigners to do it for you?
What exactly is the difference between Eurogendfor and any other mercenary force? The Greek government could ‘invite’ any private army in. No matter how you view the status of Eurogendfor, the reality is the Greek people did not vote in favour of joining it and certainly were not asked if they wanted foreign quasi military forces to be able to operate in Greece. If this story turns out to be true then it iouwld mean that the greek government that like all governments through history that have lost all legitimacy with its own people, eventually seek military support from outside forces with which to supress its own people. Once you view it like that the word tyranny eventually enters in. And that word has extremely serious consequences.
Let’s take a step back from this. The cuts in Greece are tied up intimately with bailing out French and German banks as well as the Greek owners of Greek banks. The Greek people have been demonstrating against the bail out for months. The Greek government has ignored its people and chosen to do the bidding of the EU elite, the IMF, the ECB and most of all the banks globally.
Now it is alleged that a non-Greek militarized riot force may have arrived to enforce austerity. Whose bidding would they really be doing? Whose interests would they be serving? Could it be the banks? Have the financial class now got their own riot police who they can ship to wherever the locals try to defy them and where the local police cannot be ‘trusted’ to serve the supra-national interests of the banks?
Of course this is not how Eurogendfor is set up. I know that. But is this how it actually works nevertheless?
Obviously at this point, what we have is one blogger (at the link) who has, “checked with friends in Athens,” who have confirmed this, so this is not at the level of confirmation, and I don’t know anyone in Greece, but there is a history of such actions,* so the allegations pass my smell test.
* The history that I know of are the occupations of Latin American nations to extract debt payments in the inter-war years, which prompted Will Rogers to say, following a tour of Latin America, that he knew that he was back in the USA when he didn’t see any US Marines.
Surprise…
It looks like the Boeing KC-46 tanker will be delayed.
Of course, the article in the Air Force Times is merely discussing the potential issues that might call delay, but this is pre-sell delays and cost overruns, with an eye toward making sure that the Pentagon and the Congress will bail them out when the inevitable cost overruns and schedule slippage occurs.
H/t ELP.
Oh For F%$#’s Sake!!!!
Obama is sending troops to Uganda:
President Obama is sending about 100 special forces troops to central Africa to help target the leadership of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a notorious militia that has been raping and pillaging in the remote jungles of northern Uganda and neighboring countries for more than two decades.
The first team of armed advisors arrived in Uganda on Wednesday. Over the next month, the remaining U.S. troops, most of them Army Green Berets, will be sent to Uganda and surrounding countries, including South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Congo.
In a letter notifying Congress on Friday, Obama said the goal of the U.S. mission was to assist regional African forces in removing “from the battlefield” the militia’s leader, self-declared prophet Joseph Kony. But the U.S. troops will not fight unless fired upon, the letter said.
A militia known for forcing abducted children to fight and for mutilating its victims, the Lord’s Resistance Army has long been condemned by the U.S. and human rights organizations for atrocities against civilians.
Not only are we going into a yet another counter-insurgency, but we are going on a Mohamed Farrah Aidid style bug hunt.
When Obama said that he was opposed to “Stupid Wars” in 2003, what he neglected to say was that he doesn’t believe that any wars are “stupid”.
Please God Let This Stand on Appeal
For the second time, a court has allowed a suit to proceed against Donald Rumsfeld for ordering the torture of an American citrizen:
A federal judge has ruled that former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld can be sued personally for damages by a former U.S. military contractor who says he was tortured during a nine-month imprisonment in Iraq.
The lawsuit lays out a dramatic tale of the disappearance of the then-civilian contractor, an Army veteran in his 50s whose identity is being withheld from court filings for fear of retaliation. Attorneys for the man, who speaks five languages and worked as a translator for Marines collecting intelligence in Iraq, say he was preparing to come home to the United States on annual leave when he was abducted by the U.S. military and held without justification while his family knew nothing about his whereabouts or even whether he was still alive.
The government says he was suspected of helping pass classified information to the enemy and helping anti-coalition forces get into Iraq. But he was never charged with a crime, and he says he never broke the law and was risking his life to help his country.
Court papers filed on his behalf say he was repeatedly abused while being held at Camp Cropper, a U.S. military facility near the Baghdad airport dedicated to holding “high-value” detainees, then suddenly released without explanation in August 2006. Two years later, he filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington arguing that Rumsfeld personally approved torturous interrogation techniques on a case-by-case basis and controlled his detention without access to courts in violation of his constitutional rights.
Chicago attorney Mike Kanovitz, who is representing the plaintiff, says it appears the military wanted to keep his client behind bars so he couldn’t tell anyone about an important contact he made with a leading sheik while helping collect intelligence in Iraq.
“The U.S. government wasn’t ready for the rest of the world to know about it, so they basically put him on ice,” Kanovitz said in a telephone interview. “If you’ve got unchecked power over the citizens, why not use it?”
The Obama administration has represented Rumsfeld through the Justice Department and argued that the former defense secretary cannot be sued personally for official conduct. The Justice Department also argued that a judge cannot review wartime decisions that are the constitutional responsibility of Congress and the president. And the department said the case could disclose sensitive information and distract from the war effort and that the threat of liability would impede future military decisions.
But U.S. District Judge James Gwin rejected those arguments and said U.S. citizens are protected by the Constitution at home or abroad during wartime.
“The court finds no convincing reason that United States citizens in Iraq should or must lose previously-declared substantive due process protections during prolonged detention in a conflict zone abroad,” Gwin wrote in a ruling issued Tuesday.
…………
In many other cases brought by foreign detainees, judges have dismissed torture claims made against U.S. officials for their personal involvement in decisions over prisoner treatment. But this is the second time a federal judge has allowed U.S. citizens to sue Rumsfeld personally.
U.S. District Judge Wayne R. Andersen in Illinois last year said two other Americans who worked in Iraq as contractors and were held at Camp Cropper, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, can pursue claims that they were tortured using Rumsfeld-approved methods after they alleged illegal activities by their company. Rumsfeld is appealing that ruling, which Gwin cited.
In a just world, Rumsfeld should be under criminal investigation, actually, by this point, he should be in jail, but the best that we can expect right now is that a private citizen might get a civil judgement, because Barack Obama decided to be complicit in the cover-up.
Can you say accessory after the fact? Good, I knew you could.
Military Ends Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
And what do you know, they buried the news with a Friday afternoon announcement:
The ban on gays in the military has stood for nearly a century.
In 60 days, after decades of discharges, lawsuits and lobbying, that will change.
On Friday, President Barack Obama fulfilled a 2008 campaign pledge, formally ending the ban. After meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Adm. Mike Mullen, the joint chiefs of staff chairman, the president certified to Congress that repealing the ban would not jeopardize the military’s ability to fight.
“As commander in chief, I have always been confident that our dedicated men and women in uniform would transition to a new policy in an orderly manner that preserves unit cohesion, recruitment, retention and military effectiveness,” Obama said in a statement. “Service members will no longer be forced to hide who they are in order to serve our country.”
I still think that this happened because he was forced to (Google “don’t ask don’t give”) and they went with a low profile release in an attempt to bury it.
The basic rule here is that they will do the right thing, if they are absolutely forced to do do, and then they will try to minimize their involvement.
The Stupidest F%$#ing Guy on the Planet*
It’s Leon Panetta, who has decided to repeat the lies of Bush and His Evil Minions™:
The joke got a round of appreciative laughs, but his comments Monday about al-Qaeda and the Iraq war raised eyebrows.
“The reason you guys are here is because on 9/11 the United States got attacked,” he told troops at Camp Victory, the largest U.S. military outpost in Baghdad. “And 3,000 Americans — 3,000 not just Americans, 3,000 human beings, innocent human beings — got killed because of al-Qaeda. And we’ve been fighting as a result of that.”
His statement echoed comments made by Bush and his administration, which tried to tie then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda. But it put Panetta at odds with Obama, the 9/11 Commission and other independent experts, who have said that al-Qaeda lacked a presence in Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Pressed by reporters to elaborate, Panetta said: “I wasn’t saying, you know, the invasion — or going into the issues or the justification of that. It was more the fact that we really had to deal with al-Qaeda here; they developed a presence here and that tied in.” His aides then intervened and shooed the press corps away.
This mother f%$#er is secretary of Defense? He was head of the CIA? And he still thinks that Saddam Hussein was behind 911?
Un-dirtyword-believable!
*Yes, he takes the title from this guy, the reigning champion.