Clipmarks | Military Clips

Nice shot, boys

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:57:51 GMT

clipped by: sillysam

BAGHDAD - American troops acting on a tip killed the No. 2 leader of al-Qaida in Iraq — a Moroccan known for his ability to recruit and motivate foreign fighters — in a raid in the northern city of Mosul, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

The military statement described the man, known as Abu Qaswarah, as a charismatic leader who had trained in Afghanistan and managed to rally al-Qaida followers in Iraq despite U.S. and Iraqi security gains.

Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, a U.S. spokesman in Baghdad, also said the military suspected that Iranian agents were trying to bribe Iraqi politicians to oppose negotiations over a security pact that would extend the presence of American troops in Iraq.

But, he said, the military had no reason to believe Iraqi politicians had taken the Iranians up on the offers.

McCain cuts into Obama lead - down to 3.8%

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:13:35 GMT

clipped by: daltonsbriefs
clipper's remarks: Just outside the statistical dead heat figure, Obama leads but barely. He's lost his lead with male voters and with military voters. Watch for other major polls to futher tighten today as well.

Clip Source: www.zogby.com

After making a move forward the day before, edging outside the margin of error, yesterday’s three-day rolling average showed Obama again sliding back. He still leads McCain by a 48.2% to 44.4% margin, an advantage of 3.8 percentage points. This comes after leading by 6.2 percentage points the day before.

McCain has flipped places with Obama among men, and now leads by an insignificant one percent, while Obama leads by 8 points among women, down from 11 points in yesterday’s report.

McCain has regained the lead among those in military families, and now leads in the group, 49% to 44%. Obama has held a small edge in that demographic group for a few days.

Tags: presidential election, election 2008, john mccain

troops have trouble voting

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:54:35 GMT

clipped by: rvnurse2b
clipper's remarks: what a mess... I wonder who they would vote for?

Clip Source: www.onenewsnow.com

Conservative columnist and political analyst John Fund believes two-thirds of the military personnel serving overseas will not be able to vote this presidential election because of bureaucratic red tape.

Recently The Associated Press reported that during the 2006 midterm elections, only 30 percent of the overseas military votes were counted, according to data from the Pew Center on the States and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the latter of which monitors election problems. The article said many ballots arrived late, some were not filled out properly, some were mailed to the wrong location, and some -- for whatever reason -- were not mailed back at all. It also added states and local election districts that have competing, and sometimes confounding, rules governing overseas ballots are contributing to the confusion.

Tags: obama, mcain, republican, democrats, election, law, war, iraq

Pentagon Challenge: Ask Iraqis How Many Have Died

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:16:14 GMT

clipped by: papananook
clipper's remarks: Over a million people above what would be if there was no invasion and occupation...Surge worked, my ass...

Clip Source: www.commondreams.org

The U.S. military is planning a large polling operation in Iraq over the next three years to help "build robust and positive relations with the people of Iraq and to assist the Iraqi people in forming a new government," Walter Pincus reports in the Washington Post.

This provides an excellent opportunity to revisit an important question:

How many Iraqis have died since the U.S. invasion?

The $15 million-a-year initiative will supplement the military's $100 million-a-year strategic communications operation, which aims to produce content for Iraqi media that will "engage and inspire" the population, Pincus notes.

Just Foreign Policy publishes an extrapolation of the Lancet study, using the trend which can be inferred from the Iraq Body Count tally. If the Lancet study estimate was roughly correct, and if Iraq Body Count gives a roughly accurate trend, that would suggest more than a million deaths due to violence in Iraq since March 2003, over and above what would have occurred

BREAKING: U.S. Military #2 al-Qaeda Moroccan Killed In Iraq

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:09:29 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: U.S. military report: No. 2 al-Qaeda commander killed in Mosul

Clip Source: www.usatoday.com

BAGHDAD (AP) — The U.S. military says the No. 2 leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq has been killed during an operation in the northern city of Mosul.

The military has identified the insurgent leader as a Moroccan known as Abu Qaswarah or Abu Sara.

Wednesday's statement says he became the senior al-Qaeda in Iraq emir of northern Iraq in June 2007 and had ties to senior al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It also says "he was al-Qaeda in Iraq's second-in-command" behind Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who also is known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.

Tags: mosul iraq, u.s. military report, abu qaswarah or abu sara

It's Not Ethical?

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:01:28 GMT

clipped by: thisnamecantbetaken

Clip Source: www.tompaine.com

It�s Not Ethical?

President Pro-Life George W. Bush

“Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical.” He called the United States “a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred.”

Apparently,

it’s OK to destroy human life to alter geopolitics, to enhance the power of the United States, to seek revenge on collaterally-placed victims, to try out new weapons and tactics, to give our untested armies a chance to see actual combat, or, just for the holy Hell of it.

When a fundamentalist-posturing, millennial, faith-based militarist says "human life," he means undifferentiated clumps of cells;

not mean dark, moneyless foreigners.

And, if the United States has surmounted its bloody history and moved into a period in which all life is sacred, then a fine way to show it would be to, now and today, stop shooting in Iraq.

indifference to human suffering in the defense of nation-building is

equivalent to any other military dictator

Sacred life, indeed.

Goldman Sachs Socialism

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 01:08:54 GMT

clipped by: zizzy

Clip Source: therealnews.com

World markets on the verge of panic continue to dismiss the Bush/Paulson Wall Street bailout plan - despite White House rhetoric and supposedly concerted action by the G-7, the group of leading industrialized economies. Top economists criticize the mechanics of the plan, which concentrates too much power on Secretary Paulson and his Goldman Sachs colleagues; warn of an incoming systemic crisis; and point out the taboo topics nobody is talking about: the US budget deficit and the US military budget.

[Video]

The Power Elite

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:10:27 GMT

clipped by: chadwilliams
clipper's remarks: Steven jay goulds favorite

Clip Source: en.wikipedia.org

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Power Elite

The Power Elite is an influential book written by the sociologist, C. Wright Mills, in 1956. In it Mills called attention to the interwoven interests of the leaders of the military, corporate, and political elements of society and suggested that the ordinary citizen was a relatively powerless subject of manipulation by those entities.

"Arming" for Armageddon

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 20:44:21 GMT

clipped by: dulios
clipper's remarks: Militant Joel's Army Followers Seek Theocracy under Christian Dominionism.

Clip Source: www.splcenter.org

'Arming' for Armageddon

Todd Bentley has a long night ahead of him, resurrecting the dead, healing the blind, and exploding cancerous tumors.

To contain the 10,000-plus crowds flocking from around the globe, Bentley has rented baseball stadiums, arenas and airport hangars

Many in attendance are church pastors themselves who believe Bentley to be a prophet and don't bat an eye when he tells them he's seen King David and spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven. "He was looking very Jewish," Bentley notes.

Tattooed across his sternum are military dog tags that read "Joel's Army." They're evidence of Bentley's generalship in a rapidly growing apocalyptic movement that's gone largely unnoticed by watchdogs of the theocratic right. According to Bentley and a handful of other "hyper-charismatic" preachers advancing the same agenda, Joel's Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian "dominion" on non-believers.

Tags: dominionism, joel's army, theocracy, militancy

Not Bin Laden, We Are The Terrorists

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:15:36 GMT

clipped by: cheapogroovo

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

The 53 men and women wrongly classified by the Maryland State Police as terrorists include two Catholic nuns, a Democratic candidate for Congress, a man who campaigns against military recruiting at high schools and one person who has never set foot in the state.

Tags: terrorism, terrorists, police state, bin laden

Army Orders Pain Ray Trucks

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:29:45 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: Can anyone else see that law enforcement would love to have these on our streets?

This could be a precursor to a vaporization weapon. In the meantime, scientist are working on a handheld short range weapon for law enforcement officials.

Potential for abuse is expected to be very high. We have already seen the damage that ‘non lethal’ stun guns do in the hands of over-zealous police officers.

Clip Source: blog.wired.com

After years of testing, the Active Denial System -- the pain ray which drives off rioters with a microwave-like beam -- could finally have its day.

The Army is buying five of the truck-mounted systems for $25 million. But the energy weapon may face new hurdles, before it's shipped off to the battlefield; a new report details how the supposedly non-lethal blaster could be turned into a flesh-frying killer.

there have been calls to deploy the Active Denial System in Iraq going back to 2004.

But it's always been delayed for legal, political, and public relations reasons. Anything that might be condemned as torture is political dynamite.

In U.S. military tests, a fifteen-second delay between exposures was strictly observed; this may not happen when the ADS is used for real.

If the ADS prevents small boats from approaching a U.S. vessel without harming anyone, then it will be seen as a humane option. If it is used to clear protesters out of the way it may be seen differently.

Tags: crowd control, military weapons, non-lethal weapons

Defense Contractors Get Jitters

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:59:56 GMT

clipped by: Andrew Gillies
clipper's remarks: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and General Dynamics all get mentions in this Washington Post story. Pair the story with our item earlier this month on an aerospace trade group's approach to the budget: http://www.forbes.com/beltway/2008/09/30/aerospace-defense-washington-biz-wash-cz_atg_0930beltway.html

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Balancing Defense and the Budget

After Eight Boom Years for Spending on Military Equipment, Contractors Expect a Slowdown

By Dana Hedgpeth

At the Walter E. Washington Convention Center last week, Army soldiers, Pentagon weapons buyers and defense company representatives milled about a cavernous trade show floor for a look at the latest military equipment and gadgets.

But the mood at the show was hardly celebratory. Rather, Topic A was whether those good times would continue.

Many assumed they would not.

Attendees worried that a new administration may be forced to cut back on defense spending as the nation strains under a global economic crisis and as presidential contenders talk about the eventuality of bringing troops home. Major weapons systems built by the likes of Falls Church-based General Dynamics or Lockheed Martin of Bethesda are likely to face new scrutiny -- potentially dealing a blow to an industry that has helped insulate the region from deeper economic pain.

bloodthirsty origins of everyday words

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:33:35 GMT

clipped by: michellezm

Clip Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Some of the most harmless sounding words and phrases - 'best man', 'baffle', 'braille' and 'mayonnaise', for example - can be traced back to the bloody battlefields of centuries ago.

A new book on the military origins of words reveals those with the most unexpected provenance...

BRAILLE

GRAPE

Smelling the bouquet or a deadly weapon

CUT TO THE QUICK

UPSHOT

DEADLINE

PAY THROUGH THE NOSE

COLD FEET

MAYONNAISE

BEST MAN

POISON DWARF

OLD FOGEY

GO BALLISTIC

BASTARD

TAKE (SOMEONE) DOWN A PEG OR TWO

SARCASM

UNDERMINE

BAFFLE

RANDOM

FIGHTING TALK: The Military Origins of Everyday Words And Phrases, by Graeme Donald.

SPRUCE

HAVOC

Russian warships call in Libya: report

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 04:18:14 GMT

clipped by: sunstreak509

Clip Source: www.breitbart.com

Russia and Venezuela announced their joint military exercises last month amid high tensions between Moscow and Washington and Russian irritation at the presence of US warships near Russian waters in the Black Sea.

The planned Russian naval presence in what the United States has long regarded as its "backyard" would be unprecedented since the Cold War, but Washington has mocked the move as nothing more than symbolic muscle-flexing.

Russia-US tensions spiked in August during the conflict in Georgia. Russia has repeatedly criticised the United States for using navy ships for what Washington has said was delivery of humanitarian aid to ally Georgia.

Tags: russia, military, navy

"Incestuous relationship" of military, contractors, Congress

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 23:39:30 GMT

clipped by: masbury
clipper's remarks: Here's where some big bucks can be saved. We don't appear to have addressed what Eisenhower so long ago labeled "the military-industrial complex."

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Enlarge This Image

Michael Cantrell's photograph of himself with three congressmen and others at a missile testing center in Buffalo, which Congress financed despite the objections of the Pentagon.

Mr. Cantrell’s story

is a remarkable account of how a little-known, midlevel Defense Department insider who spent his entire career in Alabama skillfully gamed the system.

he often bypassed his bosses and broke department rules to make his case on Capitol Hill. He enlisted contractors to pitch projects that would keep the dollars flowing and paid lobbyists to ease them through. He cultivated lawmakers, who were eager to send money back home

two men eventually collected more than $1.6 million in kickbacks

Thanks to important allies in Congress, he extracted nearly $350 million for projects the Pentagon did not want

defense procurement has disintegrated into an incestuous relationship between the military, politicians and contractors

Tags: military, congress, contractors, fraud