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POPSBlackwater:Ain't Misbehaving, Saving My Contracts for You
Of course the US government was blind to this - they didn't want to know, they turned a blind eye to what Blackwater was doing because it would have been too hard to arrange for another contractor to do all the security missions that it had ongoing. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, there are as many private contractors as there are uniformed military personnel. Most of them are not security guards as Blackwater's most visible function was. The lack of oversight is abhorrent but not surprising; the State Dept's failure to can this company is inexcusable. My only observation on this article is to suggest how the US government got into this predicament, and it's pretty easy to see. The Bush administration wanted to hold onto the fiction of a few conservative principles, one of those being the concept of a small federal government. Since it already blew that "principle" with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, I'm betting there was White House guidance that directed "no mo
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POPS The Camel In The Room 
His former imam from the Falls Church, Virginia mosque where he once worshipped has said so, and indeed has said that, as a Muslim, Major Hasan could do nothing else other than what he did. Note this phrase from the title: “US Terrorist Army Base.” Major Hasan is a psychiatrist, so he should know that projection–literally, “throwing off on the other person”–is one of the most common defenses that people employ when they think, or especially do, things of which they should, at the very least, be ashamed. But the most damning piece of evidence was Hasan’s infamous “Grand Rounds” that he delivered back in 2007 while at Walter Reed Hospital, titled “The Koranic World View As It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military.” In that presentation, which any reader can view in its entirety at the above link, Hasan repeatedly cited and often quoted surah and ayah (i.e., chapter and verse) from the Koran to justify some very forthright, even brazen commentary on the relationships
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POPSUS Afghan Envoy Urges Caution on Troop Increase And whose side, exactly, is he on??? Undermine and put at risk those who are there by lack of support and back-up or go all out and get the job done. Which has, traditionally, been the American way? Every day that the so-called CIC delays, the more imperiled our loved ones become.
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POPS Veterans Day 2009: Thank you They are casualties of war… and as far as I’m concerned, Sergeant Kimberly Munley, who took their cowardly attacker down, is a veteran today. The terrorist enemy doesn’t have a formal chain of command that can sign an armistice, they don’t muster on clearly defined battlefields, and they’re quite happy to benefit from the efforts of deranged fanboys. If we don’t stand behind our professional soldiers, and give them the tools to do their jobs now, we will all become soldiers before this enemy is defeated. Somewhere in the world tomorrow, an American soldier will ring in the eleventh hour of the eleventh day with gunfire. Another will arrive home after an honorable tour of duty, perhaps passing brothers and sisters in arms saying farewell to their families. A mother’s tears will fall on a letter from the far side of the world. Old veterans will spend a beautiful afternoon watching children play beneath the flag they raised at Anzio, Guadalcanal, Incheon, or Khe Sanh.
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POPSThe Eleventh Hour "The veterans of the United States military have always been there for us, in the desperate eleventh hour of our need" Be there for them.
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POPSProject Valour-IT USMC Birthday Edition Blatherings Blog offers a Birthday Toast from former Commandant General Louis H. Wilson. Right Pundits salutes our Marine of the Day, Corporal Jason Dunham: You can see a photo of Jason below, and watch the moving video of President George W. Bush awarding the Medal of Honor to Corporal Jason Dunham, USMC, posthumously. Courtesy of Dr. Melissa, Bob Parsons, CEO of GoDaddy.com gives a shout out to his fellow Marines. No Sheeples has General Conway’s Birthday message. The Marines have given a lot for us. Ercille has thoughts on how you can pay it forward. Michelle Malkin rocks!!! Mike the Marine’s Birthday video from 2008. See also: Drew at AoSHQ has a USMC birthday post up, as well. Coalition of the Swilling weighs in on that long, unbroken line. .Remembering Cpl. Jason Dunham: Blatherings Blog has a tribute to Jason Dunham and video, too! Read the following
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POPSOBAMA and the NOBEL PRIZE Granting the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama provides legitimacy to the illegal practices of war, to the military occupation of foreign lands, to the relentless killings of civilians in the name of "democracy".
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POPSFor Veterans Day — Real Troop Support "According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, nearly 42 million American men and women have served during wartime. Nearly 1.2 million died while serving. Nearly 1.5 million were wounded. Since 9/11, more than 5,200 have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly 36,000 have been wounded — many have debilitating injuries that have changed their lives forever. We may debate the rightness or wrongness of various engagements, but we know that freedom comes at a steep price — and we honor those who have secured it for us."
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POPSA New Strain of Flu Many Times More Lethal Than H1N1? It is typically behaving like a hemorrhagic fever in the lungs turning them into ‘mush’ and killing the patient. Some reports from the Ukraine are indicating that figures may will be over 1000 deaths, but the numbers are not being released by the government until confirmations are made. Moreover, the virus could have the potential to recombine with those being vaccinated to create a plague that could potentially kill more than 1 million people globally per month. I don't know what to think. .:confused:
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POPSWe Owe Veterans and Active Duty Warriors Better Than This Cheney's old firm let their sub-contractors expose US soldiers and Iraqi's to a burning toxic waste pit that will cause years worth of injuries and illness. Cotracting out is good for profiteers like the former- Vice President and his buddies but an evil brew for our troops.
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POPSWhat Americans owe to those who serve "Each November we are asked to pause and honor them, which is, or should be, an honor in itself. After the events of the last week at Fort Hood in Texas, with their reminder of the sacrifices that the men and women of the military make for us, Veterans Day will hold special meaning this year."
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POPSVEE Day in Alameda, California, we practiced duck-and-cover as well as earthquake drills. Nothing quaint or or historic about it then. Here’s Reagan speechwriter Anthony R. Dolan at the Wall Street Journal on the power of “Four Little Words” … you remember them: “Tear down that wall” … and the earth-shaking ideas they represented as well as the action that backed them. The popular myth is that the wall kind of toppled over by itself, with a little push from people power. That of course ignores not only the prior 44 years of Cold War … interspersed with several hot ones that cost us tens of thousands of American lives … it also ignores the massive military buildup of the 1980s, the encouragement of liberation movements behind the Iron Curtain, the tough engagement with old-school Soviet leaders and, not least, the cordial engagement with a Soviet leader who realized it was time to throw in the towel. An atmosphere was finally created in which people felt like they could
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POPSWhat a woman can do If you look closely you will see the US flag is flying at half mast. That took a lot of work. Here is the story. – Sibyl West (via atlas shrugs)
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POPS"One term" Obama's credibility SHOT!!!! Republicans and Democrats saw opportunities to create new sources of campaign contributions by privatizing as many military functions as possible. There are now a large number of private companies that have never made a dollar in the market, feeding instead at the public trough that drains taxpayers of dollars while loading Americans with debt service obligations.
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POPSTragedy at Ft. Hood An American with a brain AND common sense along with a resume and experience. He dares to speak the truth. Excellent article. FTA: "There should not be some 30 Islamic terrorist training camps in America that has nothing to do with First Amendment, Freedom of Religion. The Saudis are not our friends and any American political figure who believes such is delusional."
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POPSHow the Fort Hood Shooter Will be Judged to heal, to do no harm. If religion was Hasan’s motive, his was an extraordinarily promiscuous view of the meaning of one’s oath to God. No officer can be, or should be, forgiven for betraying and harming soldiers. The Army will want to exercise jurisdiction over Hasan’s crimes under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It is the Army way, and it is consistent with the authority of Article 2 of the UCMJ to punish offenses by a man wearing its uniform, against its soldiers, within the boundaries of its largest post. The civilian system could try him, but it is Hasan’s good fortune " and I will soon explain why " that it probably won’t. For those of us who play no role in Hasan’s trial, no punishment but death seems appropriate, yet the obvious justice of such an outcome is far from assured. For one thing, President Obama will have to attend and speak at these soldiers’ funerals. Silence will not be an option. How can he console without appearing to prejudge ......
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POPSNeed an Ask and Tell Policy Regarding Jihadists
Also obvious now is the fact that political correctness has run so amok that a jackass jihadist in our armed forces can spew his anti-American babble, blog about killing us, set red flags off all over the psychological place, and no one holds him down and scrapes his frontal lobe with a cement trowel. Once again, going PC gets people killed. To heck with being PC with people who want us dead; our playing the nice guy with this goon’s right to be a murderous idiot got our beloved soldiers butchered. Allow me to go back to these little Saladins and their normative murderous targets, por favor. Who are the regular marks for the mighty jihadists? Let’s see … unarmed soldiers, people eating calzones at a Pizza Hut, buses full of little school children, and people flying coach to grandmother’s house. Pathetic. Truly ignoble and pathetic. It seems as if going head-to-head with an American badass is just too, too much for these jihadist jackanapes.
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POPSThe Victims of Fort Hood According to an officer who served with him at Walter Reed Hospital, Hasan spoke approvingly of the shooting of Army recruiters this past summer by a Muslim convert in Little Rock, Arkansas. Authorities also investigated Hasan as long as six months ago for internet postings discussing suicide bombings and other attacks, though they have not yet determined definitively if he was the author of those posts. One of those posts was a blog entry that deified suicide bombers as being similar to soldiers who throw themselves on hand grenades in order to save the lives of their fellow soldiers. A cousin, Nader Hasan, builds a picture of the shooter as a bullied Muslim who was a good person who did not even like weapons, was conflicted about his military service, and was against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But postings that are thought to be Major Hasan’s don’t match the portrait of a soldier who was conflicted. They present us with a picture of someone who housed beliefs that
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POPSAmong the dead at Fort Hood: An Expecting Mother, Age 21 Army strong. The 2006 Kelvyn Park High School graduate served in Korea and most recently in Iraq, where she drove fuel tankers. She made her father proud. "She was the best I have. The light of my family," Juan Velez said of his only daughter. "She was living my dream . . . to be part of the military, part of the United States. To be part of something. Just to give back to the United States because this is where we are from."
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POPSFormer UK Ambassador: CIA Sent People to be ‘Raped with Broken Bottles’ Murray alleged that in the late 1990s the Uzbek ambassador to the US met with then-Texas Governor George W. Bush to discuss a pipeline for the region, and out of that meeting came agreements that would see Texas-based Enron gain the rights to Uzbekistan's natural gas deposits, while oil company Unocal worked on developing the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline. "The consultant who was organizing this for Unocal was a certain Mr. Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan," Murray noted. "There are designs of this pipeline, and if you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you'll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It's what it's about. It's about money, it's about oil, it's not about democracy."
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POPSA 360 degree 'real' net experience I guess it won't be too long before you can buy military surplus predators and do your own areal recons, too. Isn't technological change and "convergence" wonderful?
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POPSFort Hood Shooting: CCTV Shows Hasan Before Killings CCTV footage of US soldier hours before shooting rampage shopping at convenience store, wearing what appear to be traditional Muslim robes and a prayer cap. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/?bcpid=4464161001&bctid=48673103001
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