Oct 28, 2010 No Comments ›› Pat Dollard
USA Today: KANDAHAR AIR BASE, Afghanistan — Military doctors are diagnosing hundreds of concussions among combat troops because of an unprecedented order requiring them to leave the battlefield for 24 hours after being exposed to a blast. Doctors say the order helps prevent permanent brain damage that can result if a servicemember has a second concussion before ...
Continue ReadingOct 28, 2010 No Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Washington Times: Pro-military advocates are warning against the dangers of letting federal district court judges start making significant Pentagon policy, saying it would essentially turn the military over to a network of political appointees who could be swayed by various pressure groups. If a district court judge in one unilateral order can strike down a legal ban ...
Continue ReadingOct 25, 2010 7 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
USA Today: The just-retired Marine Corps commandant says he doubts the U.S. military can withdraw from Afghanistan's volatile south by a July 2011 deadline set by President Obama for the start of force reductions. In an interview before his retirement Friday, Gen. James Conway said troops may be able to be pulled from elsewhere in Afghanistan by ...
Continue ReadingOct 25, 2010 9 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Fox News: Military voters from the land of Lincoln could be shut out of the midterm election after the Justice Department reached an agreement with Illinois that gave the state "a pass" for violating federal election law, an advocacy group warned Monday. The Justice Department hammered out the court agreement Friday addressing the failure of 35 ...
Continue ReadingOct 24, 2010 No Comments ›› Pat Dollard
KABUL (Reuters) - Total foreign military deaths in Afghanistan in 2010 neared 600 with the death of another service member on Sunday, an unwelcome figure that will likely weigh heavily on Western leaders amid declining support for the war. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said on Sunday one of its service members was killed ...
Continue ReadingOct 24, 2010 2 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Los Angeles Times: Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan — Commander H. is nervous.
Continue ReadingOct 24, 2010 9 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
The New York Times: LONDON — Julian Assange moves like a hunted man. In a noisy Ethiopian restaurant in London’s rundown Paddington district, he pitches his voice barely above a whisper to foil the Western intelligence agencies he fears. He demands that his dwindling number of loyalists use expensive encrypted cellphones and swaps his own as ...
Continue ReadingOct 23, 2010 3 Comments ›› Grizz
The first shots sailed past Iraqi police officers at a checkpoint. They took off in three squad cars, their lights flashing. It was early in the Iraq war, Dec. 22, 2004, and it turned out that the shots came not from insurgents or criminals. They were fired by an American private security company named Custer Battles, ...
Continue ReadingOct 22, 2010 1 Comment ›› Grizz
NYTimes On Dec. 22, 2006, American military officials in Baghdad issued a secret warning: The Shiite militia commander who had orchestrated the kidnapping of officials from Iraq’s Ministry of Higher Education was now hatching plans to take American soldiers hostage. What made the warning especially worrying were intelligence reports saying that the Iraqi militant, Azhar al-Dulaimi, had ...
Continue ReadingOct 22, 2010 4 Comments ›› Grizz
TheIndepedentUK Friday, 22 October 2010 Efforts to free a nuclear-powered submarine were under way today after it ran aground in shallow waters. HMS Astute was on sea trials when the rudder of the vessel is thought to have become stuck on a shingle bank on the west coast of Scotland at around 8am today. The incident happened between ...
Continue ReadingOct 21, 2010 2 Comments ›› Grizz
Oct 21 10:53 AM US/Eastern Associated Press Writers FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - A gun store clerk says the Army psychiatrist accused in last year's Fort Hood shooting rampage asked to be sold the "most high tech handgun" just months before the deadly attack. Frederick Brannon of Killeen, Texas, told a military court Thursday that Maj. Nidal Hasan ...
Continue ReadingOct 21, 2010 2 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- A military offensive in southern Afghanistan is chasing the Taliban out of their stronghold in Kandahar province, the Afghan president's half brother said. "Most of them I believe left before the military operation started," Ahmed Wali Karzai told The Associated Press late Wednesday. "They are running ... I don't know (where)." NATO and ...
Continue ReadingOct 20, 2010 4 Comments ›› Grizz
WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 20, 2010 2:08pm EDT (Reuters) - The United States plans to sell up to $60 billion worth of military aircraft to Saudi Arabia, the U.S. State Department announced on Wednesday in a move designed to shore up a region overshadowed by Iran. Andrew Shapiro, the assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs, told ...
Continue ReadingOct 19, 2010 6 Comments ›› Grizz
October 19, 2010 KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- To the U.S. Army soldiers and Marines serving here, some things seem so obviously true that they are beyond debate. Among those perceived truths: Tthe restrictive rules of engagement that they have to fight under have made serving in combat far more dangerous for them, while allowing the Taliban to ...
Continue ReadingOct 19, 2010 6 Comments ›› Grizz
WASHINGTON – The Defense Department said Tuesday that it is accepting openly gay recruits, but is warning applicants they might not be allowed to stick around for long. Following last week's court ruling that struck down a 1993 law banning gays from serving openly, the military has suspended enforcement of the rule known as "don't ask, ...
Continue ReadingOct 18, 2010 1 Comment ›› Pat Dollard
Politico: In 1993, President Bill Clinton nearly derailed his presidency with an early move to end the military’s ban on gay service members. Aides scrambled to craft the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as a compromise to get the politically radioactive issue off the new administration’s back. President Barack Obama’s aides were intent, above all else, on ...
Continue ReadingOct 18, 2010 No Comments ›› Pat Dollard
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – The NATO coalition said Monday that Afghan and international forces have choked insurgent supply routes in some parts of Afghanistan, prompting militants to extort money from citizens to keep their operations sufficiently supplied. "We are seeing instances where insurgents are receiving faulty ammunition and weapons through their supply channels," said German Brigadier ...
Continue ReadingOct 17, 2010 2 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
NEW YORK (AP) – The U.S. government has recognized the World War II architect of a mission to rescue more than 500 U.S. bomber crew members shot down over Nazi-occupied Serbia. It was the largest air rescue of Americans behind enemy lines in any war. George Vujnovich (VOOY'-noh-veech) is credited with leading the so-called Halyard Mission in ...
Continue ReadingOct 17, 2010 2 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
(Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Sunday it had a 120-member team prepared to review a massive leak of as many as 500,000 Iraq war documents, which are expected to be released by the WikiLeaks website sometime this month. Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan told Reuters the timing of the leak remained unclear but the Defense ...
Continue ReadingOct 16, 2010 No Comments ›› Grizz
Washington Post: A top Pakistan Taliban leader who recently warned that terrorists would launch attacks in the U.S. and Europe "very soon" has reportedly been killed in a U.S. drone attack. Qari Hussain Mehsud is believed to be among four people killed in the drone strike in Pakistan’s ...
Continue ReadingOct 15, 2010 6 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) – A soldier who recorded the terror of last year's deadly shooting rampage in Fort Hood using his cell phone was ordered by an officer to delete both videos, a military court heard Friday. Under cross examination, Pfc. Lance Aviles told an Article 32 hearing that his noncommissioned officer ordered him to ...
Continue ReadingOct 15, 2010 3 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia agreed on Friday to build Venezuela's first nuclear power station after talks between Presidents Dmitry Medvedev and Hugo Chavez in the Kremlin. Russian nuclear agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko and Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro signed a deal on "the construction and use of an atomic power station on the territory of Venezuela," ...
Continue ReadingOct 15, 2010 1 Comment ›› Pat Dollard
FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - Everything had stopped. Not a whisper, not a cough, not even the sound of someone shuffling in his seat could be heard as Staff Sgt. Patrick Zeigler, his cane gripped in his right hand and an extensive scar visible across his closely shaved head, carefully made his way to the witness ...
Continue ReadingOct 13, 2010 20 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
CHICAGO (WLS) - The U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether the state of Illinois missed the deadline for mailing absentee ballots to members of the military and other overseas American voters as part of a new federal overseas voting law. Cris Cray, Director of Legislation at the Illinois State Board of Elections, says not all of ...
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