Posts Tagged ‘military’

By Dana Priest and William M. Arkin, Washington Post, 7/19/2010

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

The investigation’s other findings include:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

Read more at http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-world-growing-beyond-control/

DoJ scandal reveals how thousands of military ballots may go uncounted

By Drew Zahn, WorldNetDaily, July 24, 2010

In the wake of the Department of Justice’s New Black Panther Party scandal, a second former DOJ attorney has now come forward, blasting the department for failing to protect American soldiers’ right to vote.

What’s even more alarming, the attorney claims, is that despite congressional mandates passed in 2009 to ensure military personnel overseas can participate in elections, the DOJ’s Voting Section is ignoring the new laws and may allow thousands of ballots to slip through the cracks uncounted in November.

Everybody talks about the problems, but “Taking America Back” actually offers some solutions for what the nation faces. Get it now.

M. Eric Eversole is a former litigation attorney for the Voting Section of the U.S. Department of Justice and an advocate for military voters. In an opinion piece in The Washington Times, Eversole explains how soldiers in the field may be disenfranchised in the 2010 election.

“Absentee ballots must be sent to overseas military voters at least 45 days before an election to give those voters sufficient time to receive and return their ballots,” Eversole explains. “The Military Postal Service Agency goes one step further and recommends that absentee ballots be sent to war zones 60 days before an election.”

But legal complaints, news stories and studies all showed dozens of states failing to give soldiers enough time to vote in the 2008 election – resulting in tens of thousands of soldiers’ mailed ballots that arrived too late to be counted, perhaps enough to swing, for example, Minnesota’s closely contested election of Democrat Senator Al Franken.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=182981

youtube.com, 2:59

By Rowan Scarborough, Washington Times, Sunday, July 11, 2010

The White House’s official policy of banning the word “Islam” in describing America’s terrorist enemies is in direct conflict with the U.S. military’s war-fighting doctrine now guiding commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan.

John O. Brennan, President Obama’s chief national security adviser for counterterrorism, delivered a major policy address on defining the enemy. He laid out the White House policy of detaching any reference to Islam when referring to terrorists, be it al Qaeda, the Taliban or any other group.

But Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the man tapped by Mr. Obama as the new top commander in Afghanistan, led the production of an extensive counterinsurgency manual in December 2006 that does, in fact, tell commanders of a link between Islam and extremists.

The Petraeus doctrine refers to “Islamic insurgents,” “Islamic extremists” and “Islamic subversives.” It details ties between Muslim support groups and terrorists. His co-author was Gen. James F. Amos, whom Mr. Obama has picked as the next Marine Corps commandant and Joint Chiefs of Staff member.

Read more about http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/11/obama-at-odds-with-petraeus-doctrine-on-islam/

To those who served: American Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coastguardsmen,

THANK YOU!

By Terrence Lakin, MD, American Thinker, April 08, 2010

Last week, I entered Walter Reed Army Hospital to notify the Department of Defense that I would refuse to obey any orders from my commanding officers — including President Obama — until the president produces his original birth certificate. After nearly eighteen years of wearing the military uniform of the country I have proudly served, including overseas assignments in imminent danger/combat areas in Bosnia and Afghanistan, I felt compelled to take this step.

I made this decision from much deliberation, after lengthy consultations with many friends, family members, and colleagues, and I firmly believe that all servicemen and women, and the American public, have the right to know the truth about President Obama’s constitutional eligibility to serve as Commander-in-Chief.

As military officers, we all take a solemn oath upon commissioning into the Uniformed Services. In this oath, we swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Upholding the law is an essential part of our role as citizens; in the military, we are the ultimate protectors of that law. The Constitution is our social compact, which safeguards all of us and ensures the “equal rights” that we are entitled to as American citizens.

Since Nuremberg, My Lai, and even Abu Ghraib more recently, the military has been taught the hard lessons of following illegal orders. Any reasonable person looking critically at the information and evidence currently in the public domain about Obama’s birthplace would have questions about President Obama’s claim to be a natural born citizen. I made the decision to disobey all military orders, including my deployment order to Afghanistan, in pursuit of the truth of whether President Obama can legally occupy the high post that he holds today and which entitles him to send servicemembers into harm’s way.

Read more at http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/president_obama_needs_to_prove_1.html

Interesting to see how this case goes.

Reporting by Aaron Gray-Block, editing by Tim Pearce, March 30, 2010

AMSTERDAM, March 30 (Reuters) - A Dutch civil court rejected on Tuesday a challenge to the immunity of the United Nations, dealing a blow to efforts to hold the world body accountable for the Srebrenica massacre in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Lawyers representing 6,000 surviving relatives of the Srebrenica victims have mounted several legal challenges in Dutch courts against the Dutch state and the United Nations for failing to prevent the Srebrenica killings in 1995. But the appeals court ruling in The Hague on Tuesday confirmed a lower court’s decision in July 2008 that the United Nations could not be called before any court of law.

The law firm representing the group Mothers of Srebrenica said it was “remarkable” that the appeals court ruled in favour of U.N. immunity without first presenting the question to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

–SNIP– The Netherlands has said its troops were abandoned by the United Nations, which gave them no air support.

Read more at  http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LDE62T0TU.htm

The UN is immune in a European court? Would that happen here?

(Youtube video, 3:12)

The following is from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nf1OgV449g

When thinking about the mass extermination camps of a holocaust think..

The key to freedom is to be able to have the ability to defend yourself &, if you dont have the tools to do that, then youre going to be at the mercy of whomever wants to put you away.

Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture - but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept.

The country has a population of six million, but there are estimated to be at least two million publicly-owned firearms, including about 600,000 automatic rifles and 500,000 pistols.

This is in a very large part due to Switzerland’s unique system of national defence, developed over the centuries.

Instead of a standing, full-time army, the country requires every man to undergo some form of military training for a few days or weeks a year throughout most of their lives.

Between the ages of 21 and 32 men serve as frontline troops. They are given an M-57 assault rifle and 24 rounds of ammunition which they are required to keep at home.

Once discharged, men serve in the Swiss equivalent of the US National Guard, but still have to train occasionally and are given bolt rifles. Women do not have to own firearms, but are encouraged to.

by J.R. Dunn, American Thinker, November 08, 2009

The Jihadis will return. We know this in the same way that we know about death and taxes. Thanks in large part to the weakening of our defensive efforts under the new administration, there will be further attacks against this country’s population, perhaps even worse than those of 9/11. (This week’s attack by Nidal Malik Hasan serves to underline the threat.)

When this attack occurs, we will see an end to all the nonsense. Our present drift regarding terror policy is occurring only because Americans have been encouraged to put unpleasant realities at a distance, to live in a dream world where all the bad stuff happens to other people. 9/11 has ceased to signify. Terrorism has become a matter of bad manners. As my grandfather might have put it, this country is in for a rude awakening.

Read more at http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/the_left_and_terror.html