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Showing posts with label Bushwar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bushwar. Show all posts
Thursday, February 12, 2009
"It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again" (AKA "Is Viktor Bout Out Of Jail?") - 1/4 Million Weapons Unaccounted For In Afghanistan
BBCNews: US 'lost track of Afghan weapons'
[Afghan soldiers with US-issue automatic rifles]
The US military has failed to keep track of thousands of weapons shipped to Afghanistan, leaving them vulnerable to being lost or stolen, a report says.
The report has been compiled by congressional auditors, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO).
It found that, in the four years up to June 2008, the US military failed to keep complete records on some 222,000 weapons entering the country. [In Full]
Maybe it's the 'Bookkeeping' again... as General David Petraeus claimed when the same thing happened in Iraq...
Bookkeeping problems are to blame for the inability to account for nearly 200,000 weapons issued to Iraqi security forces, the top U.S. commander in Iraq said late Tuesday.
In an interview on Fox News Radio, Gen. David H. Petraeus said he believes the weapons did reach the security forces, but that paperwork deficiencies don’t show their status.
“We believe those weapons all certainly were given to Iraqi units,” Petraeus said, according to a podcast recording on “The Alan Colmes Show.”
Meanwhile, 125,000 sets of body armor and 115,000 helmets intended for Iraqi forces could not be accounted for either, according to a Government Accountability Office report issued July 31.
The report faulted the Pentagon and the U.S. military command in Iraq for not applying the same standards in tracking supplies and weapons that it does elsewhere. The system has since been improved, the report found.
...or could it be.... Blackwater?
A former Blackwater employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the investigation includes a look at whether Blackwater shipped weapons from its Moyock headquarters to Iraq hidden in pallets wrapped tightly in shrink wrap..
.
“In December, the prosecutors obtained guilty pleas from two former Blackwater employees, Kenneth Wayne Cashwell of Virginia Beach, Va., and William Ellsworth “Max” Grumiaux of Clemmons, N.C."
"The court files are stingy on details of the crimes…”
“…the federal (Nb. criminal) investigation of Blackwater is proceeding behind closed doors,”
A buffalo's take on the 'whos', 'whats', and, maybe most inportantly, 'whys' here
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Ex-Chief Prosecutor At The Hague Says Kosovo Incumbent Prime Minister Implicated In Torture Of Serbs
That's right... The US just gave an al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist/drug dealing group national recognition.
“Fireworks lit up the night sky over Kosovo’s capital Pristina, where thousands of giddy ethnic Albanians braved subfreezing temperatures to ride on the roofs of their cars, singing patriotic songs and chanting: “KLA! KLA!” the acronym for the now-disbanded rebel Kosovo Liberation Army.To put it in terms that most Americans can easily understand, if not easily comprehend:
[Source WAS Forbes, SPIKED!... Now HERE]
“During his stint as NATO Supreme Commander (1997-2000), Wesley Clark was in permanent liaison with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Under Wesley Clark’s command, NATO directly sponsored a terrorist paramilitary army, with links to Al Qaeda and the trans-Balkan narcotics trade.” [source]
...and the pressure is ON!
Switzerland bans Del Ponte book
BELGRADE -- The Swiss Foreign Ministry has prohibited the promotion of Carl Del Ponte’s book “Hunt”. According to the ANSA agency, the former Hague Tribunal ... [Source]
More
The Ex-Chief Prosecutor of the Hague Tribunal, Carle del Ponte, has published a book in which she reveals that many top leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army,
including the incumbent premier Hashim Tachi
...and (Former PM) Ramush Haradinaj
...were implicated in the torture of Serbs seized during the armed conflict in Kosovo.
After being murdered, the captives' bodies were used as donors to supply transplant organs.
Carle Del Ponte says the revelations are made post factum, because her attempt to launch an inquiry into crimes by Kosovo Liberation Army leaders received no backing [Source]
Thanks For Stopping By
Friday, April 4, 2008
...And In Iraq... Remember Iraq? US troops in civilian clothing targeted by unknown gunmen near Baghdad... Call in airstrike.
"So how come they were wearing civilian clothes?"
Friday, April 04, 2008His source... Arabic... [Here]
Clashes Continue in Basra: Badr Militia Strengthened
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that clashes continued to be fought in Basra on Thursday between Iraqi government troops and the Mahdi Army militia.
It also says that US troops in civilian clothing were targeted in the Shiite city of Hillah south of Baghdad. They were attacked by unknown gunmen and had to call in airstrikes on enemy positions. So how come they were wearing civilian cloths?
..Ya don't suppose they're actually going to say if it was an SOG?
But they HAVE preemptively justified it.
From March 2003
Pentagon Defends Use of Civilian Clothes
The Pentagon on Friday defended the use of some civilian clothes by U.S. special operations forces, a tactic used to help them blend in with the local population.
Alleging war crimes, Bush administration officials complained bitterly last week that Iraqi paramilitary forces dressed as civilians, faked surrenders and used other battlefield ruses to kill American soldiers.
Asked at a Pentagon press conference why it is OK for American commando troops to take off their uniforms, but a crime when the Iraqis did it, Defense Department spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said she thought American forces wear something that distinguishes them from civilians, but deferred the question for a later answer.
The issue is a subject of disagreement among Pentagon legal advisers and policy makers. Some officials have said for some time that it is a gray area that needs to be settled as a policy, another defense official said on condition of anonymity.
Special operations forces are often allowed what the military calls "relaxed grooming standards." In the fight against Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan, for example, special forces wore long hair and beards to blend in with the local Muslim population.
Many wore only parts of their uniform - for instance camouflaged pants with a T-shirt and baseball cap or a camouflaged jacket with an Arab head wrap or scarf.
At the press conference with Clarke, Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, vice director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the war crime is determined by what the soldier does as well as what he wears.
"I'm not a lawyer, so I might get part of this wrong, but part of it is ... what you do when you're not in uniform," he said. "If a force is going to engage in combat, it's going to fight, it must wear a uniform or some kind of uniform - law of land warfare says arm bands or some distinctive marking that allows combatants to be identified from civilians."
After the press conference, officials said U.S. special forces in Iraq "are wearing uniforms," but declined to say if they are full uniforms or modified.
The discussion came as an Army legal oficial told a House panel that Fedayeen militia members captured in Iraq would likely not be entitled to the protection of prisoner-of-war status. That would mean they could face criminal charges for attacking American soldiers.
W. Hays Parks, special assistant for law of war matters for the Army's Judge Advocate General, said that to get POW protections, fighters must meet certain criteria, such as having a formal association with a government, carrying arms openly and wearing distinctive clothing.
He said that among the examples of Iraqi violations of the Geneva convention have been the oadcast (sic) of videotapes of dead and captured U.S. soldiers, the use of white flags to fake surrenders and then attack Americans, and the dressing of forces as civilians to lure invading troops into ambushes.
Source: Pauline Jelinek,APR,Washington, 04abr03
This document has been published on 22mar03 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights, in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
Thanks For Stopping By
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Iraq - Basra Police Mutiny, Refuse to attack Sadrists, Clashes continue in Basra, Sadrists open New fronts throughout Shiite South - Informed Comment
Also see, Stan Goff, Feral Scholar, for a strategic/tactical perspective:
Good Morning, Vietnam!
"...he (al Sadr) commands the ferocious loyalty of two and a half million people and has an 80,000-strong militia concentrated a stone’s throw from the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad.-------------------------------------
Baghdad has about 6 million people; New York City has 8 million, just by way of comparison.
The population of Sadr City, the “neighborhood” under the leadership of Sadr, is approximately that of Brooklyn.” In Full
----------------------------
Informed Comment
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Police Mutiny, Refuse to attack Sadrists;
Clashes continue in Basra;
Sadrists open New fronts throughout Shiite South
Mahdi Army Militiamen
Courtesy Al-Zaman of Baghdad.
Another US soldier was killed in Baghdad on Friday.
The Times of Baghdad reports in Arabic that clashes continued on Friday between Iraqi government forces and the Mahdi Army in Baghdad and the provinces of the middle Euphrates and the south, causing hundreds of casualties, including among women, children and the elderly. The fighting also did damage to Iraq's infrastructure, as well as to oil facilities and pipelines, damage that might run into the billions of dollars.
The US got drawn into the fighting on Friday. US planes bombed alleged Mahdi Army positions both in Basra and in Sadr City in Baghdad (as well as in Kadhimiya).
Kadhimiya is a major Shiite shrine neighborhood in northwest Baghdad, and the spectacle of the US bombing it is very unlikely to win Washington any friends among Iraqi Shiites.
Despite the US intervention, government troops were unable to pierce Mahdi Army defenses or over-run their positions.
Al-Zaman says that the police force in Basra suffered numerous mutinies and instances of insubordination, with policemen refusing to fire on the Mahdi Army. The government response was to undertake a widespread purge of disloyal elements.
[Hmm. I wonder where fired policemen with combat training and guns could find another job . . . Maybe with the Mahdi Army?]
The Mahdi Army opened a number of new fronts in the fighting, in Nasiriya, Karbala, Hilla, and Diwaniya, as a means of reducing the pressure on its fighters in the holy city of Karbala. Local medical officials reported 36 dead in the fighting in Nasiriya.
[In Full]
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