It would be EASY for the White House to close Gitmo and send the prisoners somewhere else. This could EASILY be done while complying FULLY with both current and future Congressional restrictions.
Tom Donilon knows this for sure, because I sent him a blueprint.
So, the Administration CHOOSES not to resolve this, for reasons they appear reluctant to discuss.
Except for the violence, this is all pretty good news.
Seems Turks feel like me: I might support a state religion, but only if it was my religion. If another religion, no thanks.
I live in a military town in one of the most Republican (as opposed to "conservative") Congressional Districts in the country.
I asked the Pastoral Council in my Roman Catholic parish for support as I tried to create a community forum for Muslim - Catholic dialogue. The Council was not interested. After the meeting, one Council member with a military haircut told me that Islam was our enemy. I was rebuffed by the Diocese, and ignored by the US Council of Catholic Bishops.
I only know of one Catholic leader who isn't afraid to recognize the dignity and humanity of Muslims, and Bill Maher says he is not long for this world - too progressive.
the question is reasonable:
how do strictly defensive ADA missiles affect Israel, other than to make them think twice before striking within Syria again.
Depending on the Radar model and type of missile included, an S-300 system positioned near the Turkish border can track and strike aircraft down south in Eliat.
I favor Syria being able to shoot down Israeli aircraft over Syria, but this is a different matter altogether.
From the text of the USG OSC quote, the Russian General says that Syria would need 10 to 12 battalions.
A battalion is bigger than a battery; it consists of a number of batteries.
In US Air Defense Artillery, the term "battery" usually refers to a group of maybe 4 to 6 launch vehicles, a fire direction center (here called a "command center,") and radars for target acquisition and, if needed, missile vectoring.
Here the souces clarify which missiles are involved: 5Zh15's. I've never heard of them.
If a "system" consists of the FDC, radar and up to 6 launch vehicles, and the most a TEL launch vehicle can carry is 4 missiles, then the max number of missiles in a battery is 24. More advanced S-300 systems only carry 2 missiles per TEL.
A battalion is some grouping of batteries, plus support units. If, just guessing, there are 3 batteries in a battalion, that's a max of 72 missiles.
10 to 12 battalions, the math is straightforward.
That's not necessarily the number that Russia has sold to Syria; that's an estimate of what it would take to defeat a US no-fly zone.
Guessing, I think a battery costs in the ballpark of $200 - 300 million. Syria can afford to buy approximately zero.
I assume that any sent to Syria are loaners.
I've read that this system is nearly impossible to fool, and is about 70% effective. The Patriot, for comparison, is about 25% effective.
i've read that Syrian missileers have already completed 2 years of training in Russia. The 1 month of training mentioned above is refresher training. Who knows how long its been since they got their initial training.
I think the Maldives rank somewhere in the top two countries to be affected by rising sea levels.
from Jimmy Wales:
"With an average ground level of 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in) above sea level, it is the planet's lowest country. It is also the country with the lowest natural highest point in the world, at 2.4 metres (7 ft 10 in). Forecasts of Maldives' inundation is a great concern for the Maldivian people."
I saw video this morning of an Israeli Minister tearing up as he worried that the "S-300" has a "range" of "200, 300 km," which would extend to the airspace over Ben Guron Airport.
Wikipedia lists 15 different missiles and 8 different target acquisition radars that can be part of a "S-300" battery. Missile ranges are from 2 km up to 200; radar ranges are a little bigger.
Maybe Binyamin Nathan-yahu should be offering concessions to influence how new and how capable the S-300's that go to Syria are.
By my reckoning, Golan Heights are about 50 miles / 80 km from Ben Gurion and Yarushalam, a little less to Tel Aviv and Joffa.
The West has spent a decade making dire warnings about the dangers of radical Islam.
Maybe Putin believed our warnings ?
He does, after all, have a much larger Muslim population, and greater proximity to the low-grade ongoing war.
To a Russian, it might look like the CIA has been working since before 1979 to build up the forces of Salafist terror to counter Soviet, and then Russian, influence.
The CIA / MOSSAD collaboration with Erik Prince, the immediate progenitor of this current Syrian war, might look like more of the same, when observed from Volgograd, or Rostov-on-Don, or Grozny.
American male hitchhikers can trek unnoticed and unmolested the 350 miles from Syria to Russia in a week. Maybe Vlad thinks that men with less harmless intentions could, too ?
I think, to properly name the current war, we first need to figure out who we're fighting, and why. Clarity about our objectives would help, too. Maybe putting some boundaries around what the "battlefield" includes, or deciding that the entire Earth's surface is the battlefield, could help crystalize what the war is about. And if the battlefield goes beyond Earth, that should be understood, as well.
For me, it's the War against American Decline. We take no prisoners, and expect no survivors.
My first thought: Corps leaders are a lot smarter than Army leaders, insisting on 7-month rotations.
Second thought: In a 7-month rotation at the height of the Iraq war, a typical Marine saw more combat than a typical Marine in the entire WW II War in the Pacific.
Sean,
by my estimates, one US Mercenary company hired by the Corps of Engineers . . . killed over 100,000 Iraqi civilians in around 3 years.
Compare that to Saddam, who killed about 300,000 over 30 years.
Saddam was no angel, but he didn't come close to killing innocent Iraqis on the scale GW Bush did . . .
Neat thing is, it's still not too late to count the toll.
I think that's something we owe their survivors.
JT,
I do this for all Vets who have sacrificed, some more than others. I believe that the institutional criminality at GTMO disrespects those sacrifices, though not as much as the employment of Mercenaries. link to en.wikipedia.org
When an American combat unit takes a POW on the battlefield, even though the guy may have just minutes earlier been shooting at them, our soldiers treat these enemy soldiers with more dignity and respect - in the heat of battle - than the guards at GTMO treat their charges, where their biggest challenge is slow Internet.
And where these Gitmo guards know that 60-80% of the people they are abusing are functionally innocent.
I enlisted in wartime, frankly, because I had screwed up a life full of promise, greatly disappointing my family, and sought some kind of redemption. Purely selfish reasons.
Many brothers and sisters in arms served because they had a vision of this country as Special, as you say, and considered it the duty of citizenship. True heroes, if a little boring.
And I am only able to do this with the support and sufferance/ forbearance of my partner and wife, Rosa.
Bill,
I agree with what you've said.
But I have two responses that challwnge whether that's the right way to look at these guys.
First, we've announced to God and everybody that we will accord them all the protections of GC, even though they don't deserve them. So, presumably, wen we DO take GC-priviliged POW's, this is how we're going to treat them.
Second, these guys aren't Prisoners of War in any real sense, priviliged or not. They are hostages.
Recall that many were sent to Gitmo in early 2002.
What were US military forces doing in Afghanistan back then ?
It was mostly a true SF operation, with US Army Green Berets acting as advisors to Northern Alliance combat units.
The NA was fighting the Taliban, who were in power.
This was an Unconventional Warfare mission, as I learned it. One of the first American casualties was an NCO from Co C-5/19 SF. I used to be an NCO in Co B (prior to 1980.)
CIA paramilitaries like Johnny Spann were in similar roles.
There weren't any US ground combat units in Afghanistan back then.
So how did the first Gitmo prisoners come to be in our custody ?
We bought them.
Travis,
they have All been radicalized by their treatment at Gitmo.
Many or most have told one or more of their gaolers that, if they ever got the chance, they would kill them.
I've never been through what they've been through, but I can imagine I might react the same way.
But what prevails under our system of values is not the security of indefinitely keeping hostage these men who have been wronged, in a Tom Cruise "pre-crime" "preventive detention" sort of way;
we default to the Rule of Law.
So, obviously, none of the functionally innocent (those who have been cleared for release, for example) should be kept even one day longer than necessary to provide the sort of treatment and deradicalization/ reintegration services they need.
I accept that some will feign transformation and, at the first opportunity, join the fight against us. I don't like that, and the program needs to do the utmost at reaching all of them, and turning all of them, but it probably won't prevent all violent retribution.
I accept that because I put our core values above the false security of inflicting even more harm on these guys, to prevent the blowback we might have brought on ourselves.
It's more than a theoretical risk; I think it's reasonable to expect about the same percent of these guys acting out as in the earlier cohorts who were released.
But DNI Clapper's unsupported 27% "recidivism" rate is false. Only about 2.8% can be shown to have commited acts of violence after release. So, maybe 3 to 6 of this group.
It's an acceptable risk, considering the harm done to our nation by continuing to hold them.
The Program is tuned to the culture and values of these men. It exploits the recent advances and discoveries in this field. It's time we start learning how to deal with violent extremism with tools other than HellFire missiles.
The "unprivileged belligerent" characterization was made to repudiate my contention/ demand that, under Army Regulation 190-8, these 86 were entitled to family visits.
This characterization is false.
Mark,
I'm inclined to believe what Scott Horton reported in January 2010 about three of those "suicides" being assisted by CIA interrogators.
I accept the other 3 or 4 as genuine.
The culture of JTF-GTMO hasn't changed much over the years. Commanders and staff come and go, and yet none of them seems to ever be able to tell the unvarnished truth, for fear of offending their bosses.
I recently got an affidavit that was signed 2 weeks ago, on 10 May, from a government official at JTF-GTMO J-4 who certified that all 166 detainees in JDG custody are officially classified as unprivileged belligerents.
That official did not write that answer herself; she got it from the JDG Commander, who I refer to as the Warden.
Break that down:
every single Detainee is considered to be a combatant. None of them are the unlucky "wrong place, wrong time" schlubs that merit being Cleared for Release.
In other words, the Warden rejects the determinations by the Presidentially chartered review panels under both Bush and Obama that said 86 of these men ought to be able to go home.
In MP-speak, "unprivileged" means not entitled to the protections of the Law of Land Warfare as transmitted by the Geneva and Hague Conventions. To JTF-GTMO, that means it's OK to abuse these sub-human deviants.
Let me ask you to peruse "the Wire," the weekly newsletter of JTF-GTMO. These jokers liken their duty of disrespecting and abusing 80-pound adult men to actual combat, and cry about getting PTSD from the rigors of torture. Inflicting torture, that is.
Some folks choose to go into the Military Police Corps for the same reasons some folks go into civilian law enforcement - for the joy of pushing people around.
See, e.g., A Clockwork Orange to get a taste of the fun of hurting other people.
Past 60 and well over 250 lbs, I still self-identify as an Infantryman. While commanding a guardpost, I've walked the line at 0300 (3 AM) and found soldiers curled up in their foxholes, fetal position, sobbing and anticipating a North Korean soldier would stick them with a bayonet before dawn. Never been in combat, but I've been closer to it than David Petraeus ever got.
This Warden, and his Admiral TF Commander, they are legends in their own minds. They would give each other Congressional Medals of Honor if they could.
I challenged the "combatant" characterization and they pushed back with all they could.
The JTF-GTMO SJA insinuated that I was a traitor for questioning their judgment and conduct, and threatened to sic the FBI and CID after me.
Meanwhile, President Obama and Secretary Hagel are focused on a crisis in sexual abuse, to the exclusion of possibile criminality in detention operations.
Recall the harsh sentence meted out to the guy who set the tone for torture at GTMO and later Abu Ghraib, MG Geoffrey D. Miller.
Roland,
I think I understand your point, but there are some aspects of your statement that are not accurate.
None of the Detainees at Gitmo today "successfully resisted every form of torture or persuasion."
These are physically broken men, every one of them.
Each one was forced, on arrival, to take a superdose of Lariam, an anti-malaria drug that, in normal dosage, is 9.5 times more likely to be associated with violence (including homicide and suicide) than other drugs. Many are still taking psychoactive drugs.
Almost all of these men have bizarre phobias and psycho-social disorders associated with long-term abuse.
I don't doubt that they are spiritually strong, thanks to their religious faith.
Into the 4th month of fasting, many lose consciousness during the day, involuntarily.
I am working with the Warden (its a hostile relationship, but at least he now has his attorney curse and threaten me - signs of progress) trying to arrange family visits for eligible Detainees.
In my judgment, even the mentally and socially healthiest Detainees will need weeks of counseling and guidance before they are ready for the stress of such visits. It breaks my heart. If Colonel Bogdan agreed today to allow the first family visit, as soon as I could make it happen, I think it would take me more than 5 weeks before the arrangements could be made (on both ends) and the Detainees AND FAMILY MEMBERS adequately prepared.
Frankly, the folks who are abusing these men under the authority of President Obama believe in what they are doing. You can wish that they would be ashamed of participating in what may look like crimes against humanity, but they just aren't.
FIRST, if the AUMF is repealed, whether today or 2 years from now, the US military will still be engaged in a half dozen or more shooting wars around the world, from Sahel to Galkayo, Helmand to Swat, and Sana'a to Hadramat.
In the last 2 years, we have had US Special Forces wounded in Juba, Cali, Niamey, Jolo, and places I never even heard of.
So I challenge the assertion that
"If this [AUMF] is repealed ... there will no longer be an active armed conflict.
.....
SECOND, I challenge the assertion that there is no clear, achievable path to total closure.
For the 20 or so folks that will be charged and put on trial, or the handful who have already been convicted, they can be moved to the Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois with private funds, while a new military commissions building is finished at Rock Island Arsenal, 40 miles down the Mississippi. Heck, TCC is 146 acres. They could house the Commissions there.
If the President asks, there will be plenty of folks who will contribute private funds to pay to move them. Note that Congress hasn't explicitly prohibited moving them, they only prohibited using DOD funds for that purpose.
All the rest -
- the 86 who are cleared for release, and the 60 or so now destined for indefinite detention without end -
all of them can be put in the Dat-dazh-deet Deradicalization Program and moved out of Gitmo in a matter of weeks.
Voila - the only folks left at the Gitmo prison are Colonel Bogdan, Admiral Smith and 1,900 military folks (many of whom are Reservists or National Guard) with nothing to do. I suppose we could put 200 of them to work at Thomson, guarding the roughly 20 prisoners remaining. I recommend not hiring either Bogdan or Smith for that work.
And the beautiful thing is,
General Kelly's FY14 $450 Million budget request is more than enough to pay for both of these, since we will no longer need to renovate the crumbling facilities at Gitmo.
The Feds already bought TCC last year.
We will have to pay to house the 20 until they all die, but it will be much cheaper in Illinois.
The Deradicalization Program will also be funded in some future years, to a shrinking extent, until the program ends, again at a far lower cost than what we pay now.
I've worked in social services, rebuilding lives.
I've worked in horizontal construction, rebuilding a railway.
I think they're different.
...........................
I believe infrastructure such as roads and bridges are a legit governmental function. I believe government roadbuilding promotes the general welfare.
When a government builds roads, they provide a PUBLIC service.
But they aren't a SOCIAL service in the way I understand the term.
To me, a social service does something DIRECTLY (provider to recipient) for the well-being of individuals and their persons. Examples include health care, education and child care, whether provided by the government or not.
I think it's important to accurately recognize the meanings of words, when the intent is effective communication.
When the purpose is something else, maybe the understanding of the meanings of words doesn't need to be so precise.
Reading about the "wide gap between US and non-governmental assessments" of civilian casualties,
I'm reminded of the guidelines used in Iraq for judging whether someone who otherwise might be classified as a civilian could actually be counted as a combatant or possible combatant.
This may not be exact, but I think the general rule was, if they're male and over 8 years old, and if they were killed by the US military, then they should be considered a possible combatant.
Thanks, Dr. Cole.
I will be printing this out and sending it to Fortuna, the goddess of luck, to help her decide whom to grace with this windfall.
See, I already have a PLAN, a copy of which I will include with the column I send.
I've heard a GOP retort to this effect:
Obama received almost $1.5 B in anonymous credit card donations over the Internet in amounts of $9.99 or less, a threshold for collecting info and reporting.
Who were they from ?
Republicans speculate it was Chinese, or Muslims, or maybe Mephisto.
As advanced as computers are today, a penny could be traced and reported.
If yer gonna go after the devious tools of one of the identical-twin kleptocracy parties, why not the devious tools of the other ?
when the new Commander of NATO forces was nominated, Dunford, many Afghan vets complained that he had never served there and didn't understand the situation.
In fact, that's WHY he was selected. He didn't have the huge personal investment in "winning" that Allen and others had.
This was so we could conduct a clean, efficient retrograde, without worrying about legacy.
I almost wanna cry when I read posts from Afghan vets who say that, if we leave, the sacrifices of their KIA brothers will have been in vain.
The Prez no longer has the credibility with the American people needed to pull something huge like that off.
The public is led around by a ring through their collective nose by the press, and the press has become disillusioned.
I'm no fan of our do-nothing President, but I will reveal how he could regain influence, because like it or not he is still the President, and his failure is our failure:
do something. Kick some Congressional butt.
He needs to go after some low-hanging fruit to restore the shine to his image. And releasing the 86 innocent men at Gitmo is the lowest hanging fruit around.
the first report I saw online about the N'awlins shooting emphasized that it was NOT A TERRORIST ATTACK. That determination apparently was made within 30 minutes of the shooting.
Maybe it reflects badly on me, but I assumed that meant that the victims were all Black.
Where are the American patriots who similarly sue in the US courts for a return to the Rule of Law ?
.
What do we get instead ?
There are dozens of websites, based in the US and UK, asking for donations because Gitmo is evil. But the owners of those sites are not interested in taking the fight to the US Government; they just talk about pushing back.
Heck, most of them don't even have a mechanism for receiving input from the public, just their money.
Each one of these organizations makes a living off of getting people riled up. They don't need any feedback or new information. And they darn sure can't afford to have these problems solved.
You Dems ought to admit what Benghazi is about, let your twins in the GOP have their victory dance, and then move on.
The "cover-up" isn't working.
Folks know that the Obama Administration made the decisions that resulted in the deaths of 2 American diplomats and 2 ?Mercenaries? Own it.
Man up and move on.
You were pretty much able to do that over Monica Lewinski, after whom the "MOVE ON" movement was named.
In 2001, the CIA didn't have even one spy in the Middle East.
The CIA folks in the region managed intel purchased from others; they didn't do actual espionage, regardless of what's written in memoirs.
Our main subcontractors were Israel, Turkey, Jordan and - wait for it - Syria!
Curveball was prepped by Israeli Intelligence.
The yellowcake documents were forged by Italian Intelligence for an internal (Italian) purpose, never intended for release to the CIA.
The aluminum tube scam originated with Iran, if U can believe that.
We basically allowed these 4 countries to slide the most profanely false notions into our domestic IC.
They still haven't recovered.
..........
To understand the culture in the CIA, just consider how Bob Gates leapfrogged to the top leadership in the mid-1980's:
he wildly exaggerated the Soviet threat, which led to wasting perhaps $250 Billion or more on unneeded military capability, but feeding right into the Reagan-Bush campaign theme.
RE: Claim #2 --
Major General Geoffrey D. Miller, US Army, was the Administration's Point Man on torture.
He got his marching orders directly from Dick Bruce Chaney.
It is disingenious to say that the #2 man in the White House, the head of the 4th branch of the federal government, was a "low-level 'bad apple.'"
While modern consumerism, individualism and technology might gradually undermine certain types of religion, such as Fundamentalist Islam and Fundamentalist Christianity,
these same influences are spurring rapid growth in the religion of Secular Humanism.
Meanwhile, mainstream Catholics and Muslims adapt.
Didn't Stan McChrystal call for Pakistan to shut down its 2 fertilizer plants so that fertilizer couldn't be brought into Afghanistan ?
Why should American farmers be allowed to artificially increase their yields, but not Afghan farmers (or Pakistani farmers ?)
Shut all US fertilizer plants down.
Bill,
If I understand you correctly,
you consider the US imposing on the Serbs the "liberation" of Kosovo to be a great accomplishment, and the Dayton Accords to represent an accord of the indigenous peoples ?
Clinton sowed the seeds of blowback in the Balkans, as much as Reagan did so in the Hindu Kush.
In the end, the locals have to work things out, or the Empire has to leave troops behind perpetually.
Mr. Chernus,
I don't think Prez Obama has a dream of being the great peacemaker. Why do you say that ?
I think he has evolved from ingenue to survivor, but has never been a risk-taker, which is essential to peace-making.
Nima,
after a time, Dr. Cole removes the comments box.
This can be vexing when you might have an especially pertinent point to make that others have missed.
But it has several benefits, including keeping the blog current and fresh.
He has room for late comments on a facebook page somewhere, I think.
Talking about Saint Patrick,
how about the EU sanctioning the CEO and top journalist at Press TV, retaliating for a report that contradicted the Main Stream Media on what the 2009 Green Revolution was about ?
It's better than getting drunk -
it's keeping citizens and voters from hearing conflicting positions, sparing them from having to reconcile the accounts from their governments with what they see or think.
It's gonna take some real persuasion, like a feature-length documentary, to get me to believe that even 10% of those killed are "combatants."
If the source for that information is the US military, try again.
Also, I believe that those strikes are concentrated in just a handful of villages. I believe that over 100 strikes were in Miran Shah alone.
Isn't that where American POW Bowe Bergdahl is thought to be held ?
I kinda understand oligarchs stampeding wanna-be oligarchs in Congress into voting to rape, loot, pillage and burn a foreign country.
But I can't fathom jailing the ex- for going along with hubby's scheme to avoid points on a driver's license.
Manning seems to be reading from a script.
Truly, this is his voice.
Whether they are his words, or those of an advocate or advisor, remains to be seen.
Bill,
while your characterization "blowhard" may be accurate,
you seem not to have heard the version of the hit on Bin Laden where Obama was the key decision-maker during the raid. In truth, the decision to execute was made days prior, the raid team was on auto-pilot, and the Prez was a spectator. This false narrative came from Donilon.
Would US security interests be served by making overclassification a crime, and incentivizing whistleblowing, within established guidelines ? I think so.
.
Tom Donilon hs leaked far more important stuff than Manning. Manning's leaks all have some factual basis, whereas Donilon can mix in spin and lies, whatever makes his team look good. Ditto for earlier Administrations.
Let's see the National Security Advisor call for prosecuting Tom Donilon.
The US military spends about 2-3% of their war funds on "Information Operations," which are efforts to mislead and propagandize the US Conress. See, e.g., Lindsey Graham.
On one level,
the US invasion of Afghanistan was punishment in response to Taliban recalcitrance on approving the TAPI pipeline, which would have skirted around Iran's Eastern border, bringing Turkmeni natural gas through Hirat, Farah, Helmond and Kandahar Provinces, into the Baluchistan Province of Pakistan, and to the coast between Gwadar and Karachi. From there, on to India.
Before assuming his current duties, that TAPI pipeline is what Hamid Karzai worked on for UNOCAL for 20 years.
So, if the Afghan war was initiated in order to push the TAPI pipeline through,
would it be fair to say that we have now lost that war,
and that Iran beat us ?
________ ________
As for the assertion that the USA stands in solidarity with oppressed minorities, bringing freedom and liberty in our wake,
there is an interpretation of that same Afghan war that views it as a race war, black vs. white, "Northern Alliance" vs. Pashtun,
and that US forces are fighting to impose the subjugation of Pashtuns under the tyranny of Tadjik, Uzbek and Hazara domination. Check, for example, how many Pashtuns not of Karsai's Popalzai clan are in the Afghan government, army and police forces. Check where US forces were fighting to suppress the civilian ppulation, before mostly being withdrawn to their barracks last year.
Of course there is someone in the US Government who is somehow engaged with the Taliban.
If not, then it would be fair to conclude that our State Department was wholly incompetent.
In addition, that looks like the only way to get our POW Bowe Bergdahl back. If we don't talk to his captors, then he stays in Miran Shah forever. So somebody in DoD is also engaged with the Taliban at some level.
And of course the Secretary of Defense is not going to acknowledge such talks.
Golly, it feels good to have an adult running that department, after all these years.
Having officiated at only the teenage level, I never felt threatened, but I sure earned a lot of criticism for my bad calls.
I trust they even out, over a game or a season.
Refs aren't there to always make the right call, just as police aren't there to prevent all crimes. Both are acting as symbols of something in our better nature.
Dr. Cole,
I believe you when you say you are alarmed that a US Senator might have thought that there are circumstances in which a US citizen *could* legitimately be droned to death on American soil.
I think I must be more familiar with the 2013 NDAA, arguments at the Lawfare blog, and the rants of other Senators, because that isn't alarming to me at all.
Sen. Graham, for example, seems to believe that the entire universe is a "battlefield."
I believe the timing was this:
Sen. Paul, in deference to Sens. McConnell and Durbin, who spoke just minutes earlier, endeed the filibuster just after Midnight, Thursday Morning.
At 10 AM, the Senate took up the matter of cloture.
At about 3 PM, AG Holder sent over his missive, which didn't actually answer the question, but at least acknowledged it.
After Sen. Paul said the response was adequate, cloture was invoked and Brennan was confirmed.
Adelson was already rich, a billionaire, before he went head-to-head with Stanley Ho when the Chinese government opened gambiling in Macau up to competition. IIRC, that just happened in the last 10 years.
Bill,
we (the USA) cannot afford to power 100 navy ships with nuclear reactors. That's subs, carriers and a few others. I really don't think the Chinese can afford that method.
Their current 5-year-plan for the PLAN (navy) calls for laying keels for 4 nuke-powered carriers. If they had the technology today to power those, I think they wouldn't burn so much anthracite (which is less harmful) or bituminous coal.
But if we can scale back the number of our nuke-powered super carriers, maybe, thru negotiations, they can scale back their corresponding aspirations.
Super 390,
you may be portraying the Tea Party accurately, but I don't think so. My evidence is only anecdotal, being one who identifies with the rubric and who has attended several meetings and rallies.
At 55, I was usually the youngest one in the place. These were mostly retirees who had "earned" some sort of government entitlement, such as Social Security or military retired pay or both. And yes, they mostly didn't want anyone else getting any of that largesse, but not because they wanted younger folks to suffer: they feared that fairness would cut into their share.
You are free to read racism into that; I didn't. Just lemmings that had been conditioned to fear at the sound of a bell.
What attracted me was the "buzz" that participants wanted to get back to the Constitution, and to a lesser extent, the values in the Declaration of Independence.
What they were less clear on was that the Constitution is not settled in interpretation in every respect.
The "promote the general welfare" clause, for example, trips a lot of them up.
I stand with them on the current and recent interpretation of the 2nd Amendment as conferring an individual right to own guns. I understand the role and limitations of police protection better than most.
But I am more concerned with the 4th Amendment, and Habeas Corpus, and the unconstitutional "war on terror," and torture, and employing Mercenaries, and the general trend toward a unitary fascist executive in the White House.
That's my vision of the Tea Party movement.
But hey, Super 390,
if you cannot deal with the real Tea Party and need to create a grotesque caricature in order to put me in a pigeon-hole and dismiss me,
more power 2 ya.
I pay attention to the federal procurement community.
They are saying that, now that we are actually into sequester territory, the cuts are neither rigid nor across-the-board.
They are going about their business as if the cuts are permanent, and no core missions are being cut back.
Interestingly, they are more interested than ever in new and more efficient ways of doing things.
I get the impression that the major contractors in the various government sectors have been preparing for this for at least a year. They took the sequester seriously as soon as it was signed into law, and never assumed that Congress and the White House would figure out a way to avoid it.
"... for some odd reason the Middle East does not usually get analyzed with the same social science tools as Europe ..."
Thanks for making me think about new and different things.
------
"Sequester ... preserves undeserved tax cuts for the [wealthy] by reducing government services for the [middle classes.]"
My Tea Party hope is that sequester also drastically reduces certain government services for the wealthy, particularly wars of agression.
Pentagon showmanship and theatrics resulted in the removal of one carrier strike force from the shores of Iran, trying to scare the Congress into reneging on their pledge to the Tea Party. The Imperialists actually thought that Americans support endless war and want to stay frightened. Now I hope we decide to live with ONLY 8 active carrier strike forces, more than twice the rest of the world, combined. Now the Chinese can suspend their crash nuclear carrier program.
Tin Woman,
I am the Catholic Church.
I am partly responsible. Blame me.
There is NOTHING that I can do to make up for what my Church has done to these women in the distant past. I am sorry.
I WILL be held accountable.
As for women still alive today who have been harmed by the Church, and children and former children who have been grievously harmed, I share in the responsibility for that, too. The whole Church does.
I am sorry for that, too. So are many of my fellow Church members. I wish I could say that all Catholics are sorry, but that isn't true.
There IS something that the Church can do to try to make a gesture of contrition, and to try to help in your healing, but we need to hear from you directly, and I understand if such a wounded soul avoids ANY contact with an institution that has inflicted such pain.
I understand why outsiders tend to focus on the Pope as symbol,
but the Pope is largely irrelevant to the work of the Church. Golly, even the Bishops are largely irrelevant.
The real action of serving happens in, through and by local parishes.
If someone wants the Catholic Church to somehow make amends for the harm inflicted on them, one place to start is with the ordained priest, ordained religious, or staff/ volunteers at the nearest parish.
Unfortunately, some parishes seem to be immune to being infected with the Holy Spirit, so I ask you to try a second or even a third one, if the first one you approach seems rigid and unresponsive. Where I live, about half of parishes seem more responsive to the Dawa of Jesus than the other half. It seems to correlate with the age of the parishoners, inversely.
Let me offer an untested theory about why Evangelical Protestants fall away faster.
*** Protestant denominations tend to demand that adherents believe in God.
*** The Catholic Church tends to tolerate agnostics.
You do not need to be a "true believer" in order to be a true Catholic. It is enough to want to believe, to practice the rites and rituals, and to try to live the words of Jesus in your life.
For a Protestant, as I have been led to believe, it is essential to have Faith at least the size of a mustard seed in order to "qualify" for salvation. A Protestant "earns" salvation by going through a specific 4-step process, and then is "saved" once and forever.
For me, that is an impossibly high obstacle, to "know" that I am "saved."
Catholics, God realizes (and laments,) are weaker than that, and not deserving of salvation. It's only through a gift of grace that Catholics can be "saved."
Most of us have doubts about the existence of God and the historical reality of Jesus. If you were God, how would that make YOU feel ?
And yet, still there's a chance that God's overwhelming love for me will save me, when my own efforts cannot.
-.-.-.-.-.-.
Wanna know what really sucks about being Catholic ?
Here I am, toiling in the vineyard, professing my religiosity, and forsaking carnal pleasures and whatever,
and all this time my religion teaches that
TIN WOMAN,
posting above, is loved and cherished by God as much as me,
and just as likely to be "saved" and brought to the bosom of God. And she gets to rebel and criticize and blaspheme, and still God loves her as much as He loves Mother Teresa.
Maybe in the next life,
she will ask God for permission to soak the corner of her shawl in cool water, and then bring it down to momentarily quench my lips as I burn in a lake of fire.
Though not ordained, I am a Catholic Priest.
The Church helps me to hear and respond to Jesus' call to be his hands and his feet.
Maybe God made a mistake when he left this work to sinners like me. Or maybe it's a stroke of genius ?
......
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is almost completely worthless in helping me to do Jesus' work. Believe me, I've sought their help.
The Vatican is completely irrelevant to my Dawa.
These two heirarchies exist only to work with Bishops and Dioceses.
My local Bishop is only a little more relevant to the calling I have from God.
The guys in red hats are more administrators and curators than religious figures. Il Papa is the exception.
In the Catholic Church, common priests like me get our inspiration and conviction from laity and religious within our local parish. We meet Jesus in everyone around us.
"Religion is an organized collection of belief systems, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values."
What we call "organized religions," like the Lutheran Church of Sweden, appear to be on their way out.
I used to call the domminant religion in Sweden today "secular humanism," but that label is offensive to its adherents, and they won't suggest a better one. They protest to be irreligious, even as they loudly proclaim the belief systems and world views that define their "grouping."
Jesper,
you place yourself among like-minded thinkers who share your beliefs, values and views. That is your spiritual community.
You may believe in the "marriage equality" idea. Many adherents to your religion do.
That would not be a scientifically testable position; people who embrace this concept do so on religious grounds.
OK. That's your right.
But allow me to push back when you lecture me that your religious beliefs are superior to mine.
The most disturbing thing to me about the Pope retirement coverage is that it ought to revolve around JC and His teachings, especially about forgiveness.
That seems to have been overlooked.
With that header, I braced for an anti-Catholic screed.
This was balanced and sympathetic. Thnx.
2 errors jump out:
First, the Catholic-Protestant divide in Ireland really isn’t. It’s a matter of colonists (and their legacy) vs. indigenous peoples, or at least one side sees it that way. Confession/ sect is incidental.
Second, the idea that “anti-gay prejudice” emanates from the prelacy; in fact it comes from an ecclesia versed in church doctrine. I know it won’t sink in, but the belief in “marriage equality” is just as much a religious belief as is Catholic teaching on homosexuality. Except that one of those positions grew out of thousands of years of human experience, and the other repudiates human experience for the a priori.
For centuries, the Church has been a safe home to many homosexual clerics. Straight folks in the pews were OK with that, so long as they believed clerics were observing a vow of celibacy.
to clarify, Hagel kicked butt in those hearings.
The folks who needed medical attention afterwards were those attacking him.
He just does his thrashing very subtly.
"Does anybody else in the known universe think it is a good idea for the US abruptly to go to war with the world’s sixth-largest country ..."
Reading comments on relevant articles at NYT and WaPo, I'd say that there are one or two Desis who advocate exactly that.
__________
Always looking for a silver lining, does that
"... 5 billion metric tons of hothouse gases [spewing] into the atmosphere annually ..." mean that US industry is still vibrant ? Do we still make some stuff here ?
I disagree with the term "Israel Lobby."
You allow them to claim that they are FOR Israel, which does not appear to be the case from my POV.
Rather, they appear to want to transform Israel into a racist radical jihadi secular imperialist religious state.
If there appears to be a contradiction there ("secular religious,") the religions of most people in the West are not organized like the handful of larger ones, and do not depend on the idea of a god or gods.
The religion of the so-called "Israel Lobby" is a brand of secular humanism flavored with a contrived nationalism, which is derived from a faith they scoff at. Though they will invoke the God of the Jews they don't trust in when it suits them.
I can't view the video, but considering the source, and the prime movers (the Workers Party and a Soros,) doubt there's any surprises.
The Democratic Party will be touted as the solution to all ills.
Trouble is, the Dems are no different than the GOP. Quel difference ? I mean, other than one's religious beliefs.
well, I saw this National Geographic documentary, "Armageddon," and it looks like NASA and the military have this under control (with Bruce Willis' leadership.)
I understand that we have 10,000 armed forces still in Baghdad - we say they are embassay guards, I think.
Haven't seen any reports, but I'd guess the CIA-friendly despots of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Talabanis and the Barzanis, allow us to keep significant forces and installations there, uniformed or not, beyond the control of Baghdad.
I assume that our residual forces in Afghanistan post-2014 will work for Eric Prince.
The Catholic Church makes lots of mistakes. But it has a process for self-correction.
That's not the case for the competing religion of secular humanism.
Don,
if you had actual science to bring to bear on the issues of abortion and homosexual marriage, I think you would have done so already. Instead, your argument boils down to,
"my religious beliefs that I accept on faith are better/ more valid than your religious beliefs that you accept on faith."
Seth,
mostly we don't terrorize the butchers.
Mostly, we terrorize the civilian population.
95% of our war against "Terrorism" and brutal occupation in Afghanistan is waged against the civilian population.
Most of our kinetic interactions are with civilians.
If you are a combat vet, please take a hard look at your own anecdotal experience.
© 2025 All Rights Reserved
Thanks, Dr. Cole, for raising this issue.
It would be EASY for the White House to close Gitmo and send the prisoners somewhere else. This could EASILY be done while complying FULLY with both current and future Congressional restrictions.
Tom Donilon knows this for sure, because I sent him a blueprint.
So, the Administration CHOOSES not to resolve this, for reasons they appear reluctant to discuss.
Why don't young Americans act that courageously, demanding their government be responsive to people's needs ?
Bravo, young Turks.
Except for the violence, this is all pretty good news.
Seems Turks feel like me: I might support a state religion, but only if it was my religion. If another religion, no thanks.
I live in a military town in one of the most Republican (as opposed to "conservative") Congressional Districts in the country.
I asked the Pastoral Council in my Roman Catholic parish for support as I tried to create a community forum for Muslim - Catholic dialogue. The Council was not interested. After the meeting, one Council member with a military haircut told me that Islam was our enemy. I was rebuffed by the Diocese, and ignored by the US Council of Catholic Bishops.
I only know of one Catholic leader who isn't afraid to recognize the dignity and humanity of Muslims, and Bill Maher says he is not long for this world - too progressive.
the question is reasonable:
how do strictly defensive ADA missiles affect Israel, other than to make them think twice before striking within Syria again.
Depending on the Radar model and type of missile included, an S-300 system positioned near the Turkish border can track and strike aircraft down south in Eliat.
I favor Syria being able to shoot down Israeli aircraft over Syria, but this is a different matter altogether.
the header appears to be wrong.
From the text of the USG OSC quote, the Russian General says that Syria would need 10 to 12 battalions.
A battalion is bigger than a battery; it consists of a number of batteries.
In US Air Defense Artillery, the term "battery" usually refers to a group of maybe 4 to 6 launch vehicles, a fire direction center (here called a "command center,") and radars for target acquisition and, if needed, missile vectoring.
Here the souces clarify which missiles are involved: 5Zh15's. I've never heard of them.
If a "system" consists of the FDC, radar and up to 6 launch vehicles, and the most a TEL launch vehicle can carry is 4 missiles, then the max number of missiles in a battery is 24. More advanced S-300 systems only carry 2 missiles per TEL.
A battalion is some grouping of batteries, plus support units. If, just guessing, there are 3 batteries in a battalion, that's a max of 72 missiles.
10 to 12 battalions, the math is straightforward.
That's not necessarily the number that Russia has sold to Syria; that's an estimate of what it would take to defeat a US no-fly zone.
Guessing, I think a battery costs in the ballpark of $200 - 300 million. Syria can afford to buy approximately zero.
I assume that any sent to Syria are loaners.
I've read that this system is nearly impossible to fool, and is about 70% effective. The Patriot, for comparison, is about 25% effective.
i've read that Syrian missileers have already completed 2 years of training in Russia. The 1 month of training mentioned above is refresher training. Who knows how long its been since they got their initial training.
I have such hope for Turkei.
Plese Lord don't let her fall into anarchy.
I think the Maldives rank somewhere in the top two countries to be affected by rising sea levels.
from Jimmy Wales:
"With an average ground level of 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in) above sea level, it is the planet's lowest country. It is also the country with the lowest natural highest point in the world, at 2.4 metres (7 ft 10 in). Forecasts of Maldives' inundation is a great concern for the Maldivian people."
some accounts credit the son and grandson of admirals with nearly sinking an aircraft carrier:
link to truthdig.com
The worst GW Bush is accused of, IIRC, is snorting cocaine while on flight status.
Which S-300 ?
I saw video this morning of an Israeli Minister tearing up as he worried that the "S-300" has a "range" of "200, 300 km," which would extend to the airspace over Ben Guron Airport.
Wikipedia lists 15 different missiles and 8 different target acquisition radars that can be part of a "S-300" battery. Missile ranges are from 2 km up to 200; radar ranges are a little bigger.
Maybe Binyamin Nathan-yahu should be offering concessions to influence how new and how capable the S-300's that go to Syria are.
By my reckoning, Golan Heights are about 50 miles / 80 km from Ben Gurion and Yarushalam, a little less to Tel Aviv and Joffa.
The West has spent a decade making dire warnings about the dangers of radical Islam.
Maybe Putin believed our warnings ?
He does, after all, have a much larger Muslim population, and greater proximity to the low-grade ongoing war.
To a Russian, it might look like the CIA has been working since before 1979 to build up the forces of Salafist terror to counter Soviet, and then Russian, influence.
The CIA / MOSSAD collaboration with Erik Prince, the immediate progenitor of this current Syrian war, might look like more of the same, when observed from Volgograd, or Rostov-on-Don, or Grozny.
American male hitchhikers can trek unnoticed and unmolested the 350 miles from Syria to Russia in a week. Maybe Vlad thinks that men with less harmless intentions could, too ?
I think, to properly name the current war, we first need to figure out who we're fighting, and why. Clarity about our objectives would help, too. Maybe putting some boundaries around what the "battlefield" includes, or deciding that the entire Earth's surface is the battlefield, could help crystalize what the war is about. And if the battlefield goes beyond Earth, that should be understood, as well.
For me, it's the War against American Decline. We take no prisoners, and expect no survivors.
If we could, I know a couple folks who would serve portions of his sentence for him, up to a month at a time.
Is there any way to do this ?
MLK Jr. was a huge factor in the Civil Rights movement, but it existed before he was born. He didn't start it.
Sean,
thanks for sharing that roll call.
My first thought: Corps leaders are a lot smarter than Army leaders, insisting on 7-month rotations.
Second thought: In a 7-month rotation at the height of the Iraq war, a typical Marine saw more combat than a typical Marine in the entire WW II War in the Pacific.
Sean,
by my estimates, one US Mercenary company hired by the Corps of Engineers . . . killed over 100,000 Iraqi civilians in around 3 years.
Compare that to Saddam, who killed about 300,000 over 30 years.
Saddam was no angel, but he didn't come close to killing innocent Iraqis on the scale GW Bush did . . .
Neat thing is, it's still not too late to count the toll.
I think that's something we owe their survivors.
I think that should be "International Organization for Migration."
I've applied for jobs with them often enough.
JT,
I do this for all Vets who have sacrificed, some more than others. I believe that the institutional criminality at GTMO disrespects those sacrifices, though not as much as the employment of Mercenaries. link to en.wikipedia.org
When an American combat unit takes a POW on the battlefield, even though the guy may have just minutes earlier been shooting at them, our soldiers treat these enemy soldiers with more dignity and respect - in the heat of battle - than the guards at GTMO treat their charges, where their biggest challenge is slow Internet.
And where these Gitmo guards know that 60-80% of the people they are abusing are functionally innocent.
I enlisted in wartime, frankly, because I had screwed up a life full of promise, greatly disappointing my family, and sought some kind of redemption. Purely selfish reasons.
Many brothers and sisters in arms served because they had a vision of this country as Special, as you say, and considered it the duty of citizenship. True heroes, if a little boring.
And I am only able to do this with the support and sufferance/ forbearance of my partner and wife, Rosa.
Bill,
I agree with what you've said.
But I have two responses that challwnge whether that's the right way to look at these guys.
First, we've announced to God and everybody that we will accord them all the protections of GC, even though they don't deserve them. So, presumably, wen we DO take GC-priviliged POW's, this is how we're going to treat them.
Second, these guys aren't Prisoners of War in any real sense, priviliged or not. They are hostages.
Recall that many were sent to Gitmo in early 2002.
What were US military forces doing in Afghanistan back then ?
It was mostly a true SF operation, with US Army Green Berets acting as advisors to Northern Alliance combat units.
The NA was fighting the Taliban, who were in power.
This was an Unconventional Warfare mission, as I learned it. One of the first American casualties was an NCO from Co C-5/19 SF. I used to be an NCO in Co B (prior to 1980.)
CIA paramilitaries like Johnny Spann were in similar roles.
There weren't any US ground combat units in Afghanistan back then.
So how did the first Gitmo prisoners come to be in our custody ?
We bought them.
Travis,
they have All been radicalized by their treatment at Gitmo.
Many or most have told one or more of their gaolers that, if they ever got the chance, they would kill them.
I've never been through what they've been through, but I can imagine I might react the same way.
But what prevails under our system of values is not the security of indefinitely keeping hostage these men who have been wronged, in a Tom Cruise "pre-crime" "preventive detention" sort of way;
we default to the Rule of Law.
So, obviously, none of the functionally innocent (those who have been cleared for release, for example) should be kept even one day longer than necessary to provide the sort of treatment and deradicalization/ reintegration services they need.
I accept that some will feign transformation and, at the first opportunity, join the fight against us. I don't like that, and the program needs to do the utmost at reaching all of them, and turning all of them, but it probably won't prevent all violent retribution.
I accept that because I put our core values above the false security of inflicting even more harm on these guys, to prevent the blowback we might have brought on ourselves.
It's more than a theoretical risk; I think it's reasonable to expect about the same percent of these guys acting out as in the earlier cohorts who were released.
But DNI Clapper's unsupported 27% "recidivism" rate is false. Only about 2.8% can be shown to have commited acts of violence after release. So, maybe 3 to 6 of this group.
It's an acceptable risk, considering the harm done to our nation by continuing to hold them.
The Program is tuned to the culture and values of these men. It exploits the recent advances and discoveries in this field. It's time we start learning how to deal with violent extremism with tools other than HellFire missiles.
The "unprivileged belligerent" characterization was made to repudiate my contention/ demand that, under Army Regulation 190-8, these 86 were entitled to family visits.
This characterization is false.
Mark,
I'm inclined to believe what Scott Horton reported in January 2010 about three of those "suicides" being assisted by CIA interrogators.
I accept the other 3 or 4 as genuine.
The culture of JTF-GTMO hasn't changed much over the years. Commanders and staff come and go, and yet none of them seems to ever be able to tell the unvarnished truth, for fear of offending their bosses.
I recently got an affidavit that was signed 2 weeks ago, on 10 May, from a government official at JTF-GTMO J-4 who certified that all 166 detainees in JDG custody are officially classified as unprivileged belligerents.
That official did not write that answer herself; she got it from the JDG Commander, who I refer to as the Warden.
Break that down:
every single Detainee is considered to be a combatant. None of them are the unlucky "wrong place, wrong time" schlubs that merit being Cleared for Release.
In other words, the Warden rejects the determinations by the Presidentially chartered review panels under both Bush and Obama that said 86 of these men ought to be able to go home.
In MP-speak, "unprivileged" means not entitled to the protections of the Law of Land Warfare as transmitted by the Geneva and Hague Conventions. To JTF-GTMO, that means it's OK to abuse these sub-human deviants.
Let me ask you to peruse "the Wire," the weekly newsletter of JTF-GTMO. These jokers liken their duty of disrespecting and abusing 80-pound adult men to actual combat, and cry about getting PTSD from the rigors of torture. Inflicting torture, that is.
Some folks choose to go into the Military Police Corps for the same reasons some folks go into civilian law enforcement - for the joy of pushing people around.
See, e.g., A Clockwork Orange to get a taste of the fun of hurting other people.
Past 60 and well over 250 lbs, I still self-identify as an Infantryman. While commanding a guardpost, I've walked the line at 0300 (3 AM) and found soldiers curled up in their foxholes, fetal position, sobbing and anticipating a North Korean soldier would stick them with a bayonet before dawn. Never been in combat, but I've been closer to it than David Petraeus ever got.
This Warden, and his Admiral TF Commander, they are legends in their own minds. They would give each other Congressional Medals of Honor if they could.
I challenged the "combatant" characterization and they pushed back with all they could.
The JTF-GTMO SJA insinuated that I was a traitor for questioning their judgment and conduct, and threatened to sic the FBI and CID after me.
Meanwhile, President Obama and Secretary Hagel are focused on a crisis in sexual abuse, to the exclusion of possibile criminality in detention operations.
Recall the harsh sentence meted out to the guy who set the tone for torture at GTMO and later Abu Ghraib, MG Geoffrey D. Miller.
Roland,
I think I understand your point, but there are some aspects of your statement that are not accurate.
None of the Detainees at Gitmo today "successfully resisted every form of torture or persuasion."
These are physically broken men, every one of them.
Each one was forced, on arrival, to take a superdose of Lariam, an anti-malaria drug that, in normal dosage, is 9.5 times more likely to be associated with violence (including homicide and suicide) than other drugs. Many are still taking psychoactive drugs.
Almost all of these men have bizarre phobias and psycho-social disorders associated with long-term abuse.
I don't doubt that they are spiritually strong, thanks to their religious faith.
Into the 4th month of fasting, many lose consciousness during the day, involuntarily.
I am working with the Warden (its a hostile relationship, but at least he now has his attorney curse and threaten me - signs of progress) trying to arrange family visits for eligible Detainees.
In my judgment, even the mentally and socially healthiest Detainees will need weeks of counseling and guidance before they are ready for the stress of such visits. It breaks my heart. If Colonel Bogdan agreed today to allow the first family visit, as soon as I could make it happen, I think it would take me more than 5 weeks before the arrangements could be made (on both ends) and the Detainees AND FAMILY MEMBERS adequately prepared.
Frankly, the folks who are abusing these men under the authority of President Obama believe in what they are doing. You can wish that they would be ashamed of participating in what may look like crimes against humanity, but they just aren't.
Professor Schanzer,
2 quibbles.
FIRST, if the AUMF is repealed, whether today or 2 years from now, the US military will still be engaged in a half dozen or more shooting wars around the world, from Sahel to Galkayo, Helmand to Swat, and Sana'a to Hadramat.
In the last 2 years, we have had US Special Forces wounded in Juba, Cali, Niamey, Jolo, and places I never even heard of.
So I challenge the assertion that
"If this [AUMF] is repealed ... there will no longer be an active armed conflict.
.....
SECOND, I challenge the assertion that there is no clear, achievable path to total closure.
For the 20 or so folks that will be charged and put on trial, or the handful who have already been convicted, they can be moved to the Thomson Correctional Center in Illinois with private funds, while a new military commissions building is finished at Rock Island Arsenal, 40 miles down the Mississippi. Heck, TCC is 146 acres. They could house the Commissions there.
If the President asks, there will be plenty of folks who will contribute private funds to pay to move them. Note that Congress hasn't explicitly prohibited moving them, they only prohibited using DOD funds for that purpose.
All the rest -
- the 86 who are cleared for release, and the 60 or so now destined for indefinite detention without end -
all of them can be put in the Dat-dazh-deet Deradicalization Program and moved out of Gitmo in a matter of weeks.
Voila - the only folks left at the Gitmo prison are Colonel Bogdan, Admiral Smith and 1,900 military folks (many of whom are Reservists or National Guard) with nothing to do. I suppose we could put 200 of them to work at Thomson, guarding the roughly 20 prisoners remaining. I recommend not hiring either Bogdan or Smith for that work.
And the beautiful thing is,
General Kelly's FY14 $450 Million budget request is more than enough to pay for both of these, since we will no longer need to renovate the crumbling facilities at Gitmo.
The Feds already bought TCC last year.
We will have to pay to house the 20 until they all die, but it will be much cheaper in Illinois.
The Deradicalization Program will also be funded in some future years, to a shrinking extent, until the program ends, again at a far lower cost than what we pay now.
I've worked in social services, rebuilding lives.
I've worked in horizontal construction, rebuilding a railway.
I think they're different.
...........................
I believe infrastructure such as roads and bridges are a legit governmental function. I believe government roadbuilding promotes the general welfare.
When a government builds roads, they provide a PUBLIC service.
But they aren't a SOCIAL service in the way I understand the term.
To me, a social service does something DIRECTLY (provider to recipient) for the well-being of individuals and their persons. Examples include health care, education and child care, whether provided by the government or not.
I think it's important to accurately recognize the meanings of words, when the intent is effective communication.
When the purpose is something else, maybe the understanding of the meanings of words doesn't need to be so precise.
I don't think of "roads and bridges" as a "basic social service."
Bill,
I think a more valid reason for going to war would be an invasion of one of the 56 states and territories.
Reading about the "wide gap between US and non-governmental assessments" of civilian casualties,
I'm reminded of the guidelines used in Iraq for judging whether someone who otherwise might be classified as a civilian could actually be counted as a combatant or possible combatant.
This may not be exact, but I think the general rule was, if they're male and over 8 years old, and if they were killed by the US military, then they should be considered a possible combatant.
maybe a case can be made that the evacuation of portions of Devil's Lake, ND, created earlier climate change refugees.
Thanks, Dr. Cole.
I will be printing this out and sending it to Fortuna, the goddess of luck, to help her decide whom to grace with this windfall.
See, I already have a PLAN, a copy of which I will include with the column I send.
I've heard a GOP retort to this effect:
Obama received almost $1.5 B in anonymous credit card donations over the Internet in amounts of $9.99 or less, a threshold for collecting info and reporting.
Who were they from ?
Republicans speculate it was Chinese, or Muslims, or maybe Mephisto.
As advanced as computers are today, a penny could be traced and reported.
If yer gonna go after the devious tools of one of the identical-twin kleptocracy parties, why not the devious tools of the other ?
when the new Commander of NATO forces was nominated, Dunford, many Afghan vets complained that he had never served there and didn't understand the situation.
In fact, that's WHY he was selected. He didn't have the huge personal investment in "winning" that Allen and others had.
This was so we could conduct a clean, efficient retrograde, without worrying about legacy.
I almost wanna cry when I read posts from Afghan vets who say that, if we leave, the sacrifices of their KIA brothers will have been in vain.
The Prez no longer has the credibility with the American people needed to pull something huge like that off.
The public is led around by a ring through their collective nose by the press, and the press has become disillusioned.
I'm no fan of our do-nothing President, but I will reveal how he could regain influence, because like it or not he is still the President, and his failure is our failure:
do something. Kick some Congressional butt.
He needs to go after some low-hanging fruit to restore the shine to his image. And releasing the 86 innocent men at Gitmo is the lowest hanging fruit around.
not the most interesting discussion I've read on this site.
the first report I saw online about the N'awlins shooting emphasized that it was NOT A TERRORIST ATTACK. That determination apparently was made within 30 minutes of the shooting.
Maybe it reflects badly on me, but I assumed that meant that the victims were all Black.
So, in the face of corruption and dictatorship, hope and change aren't enough ?
he tried to run a convoy up to Tank to campaign and the Taliban stopped him.
Where are the American patriots who similarly sue in the US courts for a return to the Rule of Law ?
.
What do we get instead ?
There are dozens of websites, based in the US and UK, asking for donations because Gitmo is evil. But the owners of those sites are not interested in taking the fight to the US Government; they just talk about pushing back.
Heck, most of them don't even have a mechanism for receiving input from the public, just their money.
Each one of these organizations makes a living off of getting people riled up. They don't need any feedback or new information. And they darn sure can't afford to have these problems solved.
You Dems ought to admit what Benghazi is about, let your twins in the GOP have their victory dance, and then move on.
The "cover-up" isn't working.
Folks know that the Obama Administration made the decisions that resulted in the deaths of 2 American diplomats and 2 ?Mercenaries? Own it.
Man up and move on.
You were pretty much able to do that over Monica Lewinski, after whom the "MOVE ON" movement was named.
the things that pass for "liberal values."
"Liberal" comes from "liberty," doesn't it ?
isn't that OUR turf ?
how dare they ?
I don't find this any more credible than the Israeli reports that the Syrian government also used chem weapons.
My guess, both reports are fabricated, one by Israel, the other by Russia.
In 2001, the CIA didn't have even one spy in the Middle East.
The CIA folks in the region managed intel purchased from others; they didn't do actual espionage, regardless of what's written in memoirs.
Our main subcontractors were Israel, Turkey, Jordan and - wait for it - Syria!
Curveball was prepped by Israeli Intelligence.
The yellowcake documents were forged by Italian Intelligence for an internal (Italian) purpose, never intended for release to the CIA.
The aluminum tube scam originated with Iran, if U can believe that.
We basically allowed these 4 countries to slide the most profanely false notions into our domestic IC.
They still haven't recovered.
..........
To understand the culture in the CIA, just consider how Bob Gates leapfrogged to the top leadership in the mid-1980's:
he wildly exaggerated the Soviet threat, which led to wasting perhaps $250 Billion or more on unneeded military capability, but feeding right into the Reagan-Bush campaign theme.
that's my kind of sport.
Chase wildlife in a jeep, then loose a fast Cheetos cat to kill it.
Don't even spill my beer.
what a country.
I think Gitmo is still relevant, salient, powerful.
But I'm not sitting in Mocha, or however they spell it.
"The White House’s belief that Syria has used chemical weapons on its own people ..."
That isn't at all what the White House letter said. I think Professor Feaver knows thit; if not, he should re-read the letter.
Mercenaries from Iraq, Sierra Leone and Libya are not "Syria's own people."
RE: Claim #2 --
Major General Geoffrey D. Miller, US Army, was the Administration's Point Man on torture.
He got his marching orders directly from Dick Bruce Chaney.
It is disingenious to say that the #2 man in the White House, the head of the 4th branch of the federal government, was a "low-level 'bad apple.'"
I don't think Lewis looks that much like Obama in the clip.
Where, for example, are the horns and pointy tail ?
fun read.
errors are small; truth is large.
While modern consumerism, individualism and technology might gradually undermine certain types of religion, such as Fundamentalist Islam and Fundamentalist Christianity,
these same influences are spurring rapid growth in the religion of Secular Humanism.
Meanwhile, mainstream Catholics and Muslims adapt.
Didn't Stan McChrystal call for Pakistan to shut down its 2 fertilizer plants so that fertilizer couldn't be brought into Afghanistan ?
Why should American farmers be allowed to artificially increase their yields, but not Afghan farmers (or Pakistani farmers ?)
Shut all US fertilizer plants down.
Bill,
If I understand you correctly,
you consider the US imposing on the Serbs the "liberation" of Kosovo to be a great accomplishment, and the Dayton Accords to represent an accord of the indigenous peoples ?
Clinton sowed the seeds of blowback in the Balkans, as much as Reagan did so in the Hindu Kush.
In the end, the locals have to work things out, or the Empire has to leave troops behind perpetually.
what would be involved in turning an agricultural airport into a civilian airport ?
What does that even mean ?
looks like this will mean mostly converting coal-fired plants to gas-fired.
Mr. Chernus,
I don't think Prez Obama has a dream of being the great peacemaker. Why do you say that ?
I think he has evolved from ingenue to survivor, but has never been a risk-taker, which is essential to peace-making.
Nima,
after a time, Dr. Cole removes the comments box.
This can be vexing when you might have an especially pertinent point to make that others have missed.
But it has several benefits, including keeping the blog current and fresh.
He has room for late comments on a facebook page somewhere, I think.
Talking about Saint Patrick,
how about the EU sanctioning the CEO and top journalist at Press TV, retaliating for a report that contradicted the Main Stream Media on what the 2009 Green Revolution was about ?
It's better than getting drunk -
it's keeping citizens and voters from hearing conflicting positions, sparing them from having to reconcile the accounts from their governments with what they see or think.
It's gonna take some real persuasion, like a feature-length documentary, to get me to believe that even 10% of those killed are "combatants."
If the source for that information is the US military, try again.
Also, I believe that those strikes are concentrated in just a handful of villages. I believe that over 100 strikes were in Miran Shah alone.
Isn't that where American POW Bowe Bergdahl is thought to be held ?
I kinda understand oligarchs stampeding wanna-be oligarchs in Congress into voting to rape, loot, pillage and burn a foreign country.
But I can't fathom jailing the ex- for going along with hubby's scheme to avoid points on a driver's license.
Manning seems to be reading from a script.
Truly, this is his voice.
Whether they are his words, or those of an advocate or advisor, remains to be seen.
Bill,
while your characterization "blowhard" may be accurate,
you seem not to have heard the version of the hit on Bin Laden where Obama was the key decision-maker during the raid. In truth, the decision to execute was made days prior, the raid team was on auto-pilot, and the Prez was a spectator. This false narrative came from Donilon.
Would US security interests be served by making overclassification a crime, and incentivizing whistleblowing, within established guidelines ? I think so.
.
Tom Donilon hs leaked far more important stuff than Manning. Manning's leaks all have some factual basis, whereas Donilon can mix in spin and lies, whatever makes his team look good. Ditto for earlier Administrations.
Let's see the National Security Advisor call for prosecuting Tom Donilon.
fake adventures, real destruction.
...........................
The US military spends about 2-3% of their war funds on "Information Operations," which are efforts to mislead and propagandize the US Conress. See, e.g., Lindsey Graham.
props, Juan, for posting a dissenting opinion.
On one level,
the US invasion of Afghanistan was punishment in response to Taliban recalcitrance on approving the TAPI pipeline, which would have skirted around Iran's Eastern border, bringing Turkmeni natural gas through Hirat, Farah, Helmond and Kandahar Provinces, into the Baluchistan Province of Pakistan, and to the coast between Gwadar and Karachi. From there, on to India.
Before assuming his current duties, that TAPI pipeline is what Hamid Karzai worked on for UNOCAL for 20 years.
So, if the Afghan war was initiated in order to push the TAPI pipeline through,
would it be fair to say that we have now lost that war,
and that Iran beat us ?
________ ________
As for the assertion that the USA stands in solidarity with oppressed minorities, bringing freedom and liberty in our wake,
there is an interpretation of that same Afghan war that views it as a race war, black vs. white, "Northern Alliance" vs. Pashtun,
and that US forces are fighting to impose the subjugation of Pashtuns under the tyranny of Tadjik, Uzbek and Hazara domination. Check, for example, how many Pashtuns not of Karsai's Popalzai clan are in the Afghan government, army and police forces. Check where US forces were fighting to suppress the civilian ppulation, before mostly being withdrawn to their barracks last year.
Before March, 2003, the term "cakewalk" used to mean something easy to do.
Of course there is someone in the US Government who is somehow engaged with the Taliban.
If not, then it would be fair to conclude that our State Department was wholly incompetent.
In addition, that looks like the only way to get our POW Bowe Bergdahl back. If we don't talk to his captors, then he stays in Miran Shah forever. So somebody in DoD is also engaged with the Taliban at some level.
And of course the Secretary of Defense is not going to acknowledge such talks.
Golly, it feels good to have an adult running that department, after all these years.
I can only think of 1 good reason for there to be any US military personnel in Afghanistan --
to recover American POW Bowe Bergdahl.
"... perhaps the most misogynistic in world history ..."
Sounds like an exaggeration to me, but I'm no historian.
I imagine history includes some pretty brutal societies.
Having officiated at only the teenage level, I never felt threatened, but I sure earned a lot of criticism for my bad calls.
I trust they even out, over a game or a season.
Refs aren't there to always make the right call, just as police aren't there to prevent all crimes. Both are acting as symbols of something in our better nature.
At least Brennan remembers that US Army soldier SGT Bowe Bergdahl is held as a POW.
That's a redeeming quality.
Dr. Cole,
I believe you when you say you are alarmed that a US Senator might have thought that there are circumstances in which a US citizen *could* legitimately be droned to death on American soil.
I think I must be more familiar with the 2013 NDAA, arguments at the Lawfare blog, and the rants of other Senators, because that isn't alarming to me at all.
Sen. Graham, for example, seems to believe that the entire universe is a "battlefield."
I believe the timing was this:
Sen. Paul, in deference to Sens. McConnell and Durbin, who spoke just minutes earlier, endeed the filibuster just after Midnight, Thursday Morning.
At 10 AM, the Senate took up the matter of cloture.
At about 3 PM, AG Holder sent over his missive, which didn't actually answer the question, but at least acknowledged it.
After Sen. Paul said the response was adequate, cloture was invoked and Brennan was confirmed.
Adelson was already rich, a billionaire, before he went head-to-head with Stanley Ho when the Chinese government opened gambiling in Macau up to competition. IIRC, that just happened in the last 10 years.
reports in Russian media about training camps in Jordan --
that's not really a new development.
Bill,
we (the USA) cannot afford to power 100 navy ships with nuclear reactors. That's subs, carriers and a few others. I really don't think the Chinese can afford that method.
Their current 5-year-plan for the PLAN (navy) calls for laying keels for 4 nuke-powered carriers. If they had the technology today to power those, I think they wouldn't burn so much anthracite (which is less harmful) or bituminous coal.
But if we can scale back the number of our nuke-powered super carriers, maybe, thru negotiations, they can scale back their corresponding aspirations.
Super 390,
you may be portraying the Tea Party accurately, but I don't think so. My evidence is only anecdotal, being one who identifies with the rubric and who has attended several meetings and rallies.
At 55, I was usually the youngest one in the place. These were mostly retirees who had "earned" some sort of government entitlement, such as Social Security or military retired pay or both. And yes, they mostly didn't want anyone else getting any of that largesse, but not because they wanted younger folks to suffer: they feared that fairness would cut into their share.
You are free to read racism into that; I didn't. Just lemmings that had been conditioned to fear at the sound of a bell.
What attracted me was the "buzz" that participants wanted to get back to the Constitution, and to a lesser extent, the values in the Declaration of Independence.
What they were less clear on was that the Constitution is not settled in interpretation in every respect.
The "promote the general welfare" clause, for example, trips a lot of them up.
I stand with them on the current and recent interpretation of the 2nd Amendment as conferring an individual right to own guns. I understand the role and limitations of police protection better than most.
But I am more concerned with the 4th Amendment, and Habeas Corpus, and the unconstitutional "war on terror," and torture, and employing Mercenaries, and the general trend toward a unitary fascist executive in the White House.
That's my vision of the Tea Party movement.
But hey, Super 390,
if you cannot deal with the real Tea Party and need to create a grotesque caricature in order to put me in a pigeon-hole and dismiss me,
more power 2 ya.
I pay attention to the federal procurement community.
They are saying that, now that we are actually into sequester territory, the cuts are neither rigid nor across-the-board.
They are going about their business as if the cuts are permanent, and no core missions are being cut back.
Interestingly, they are more interested than ever in new and more efficient ways of doing things.
I get the impression that the major contractors in the various government sectors have been preparing for this for at least a year. They took the sequester seriously as soon as it was signed into law, and never assumed that Congress and the White House would figure out a way to avoid it.
"... for some odd reason the Middle East does not usually get analyzed with the same social science tools as Europe ..."
Thanks for making me think about new and different things.
------
"Sequester ... preserves undeserved tax cuts for the [wealthy] by reducing government services for the [middle classes.]"
My Tea Party hope is that sequester also drastically reduces certain government services for the wealthy, particularly wars of agression.
Pentagon showmanship and theatrics resulted in the removal of one carrier strike force from the shores of Iran, trying to scare the Congress into reneging on their pledge to the Tea Party. The Imperialists actually thought that Americans support endless war and want to stay frightened. Now I hope we decide to live with ONLY 8 active carrier strike forces, more than twice the rest of the world, combined. Now the Chinese can suspend their crash nuclear carrier program.
One obvious defense would be to erect shade structures so that drones can't surveil.
But then our "pinball wizards" would categorize that as proof of a plot.
Tin Woman,
I am the Catholic Church.
I am partly responsible. Blame me.
There is NOTHING that I can do to make up for what my Church has done to these women in the distant past. I am sorry.
I WILL be held accountable.
As for women still alive today who have been harmed by the Church, and children and former children who have been grievously harmed, I share in the responsibility for that, too. The whole Church does.
I am sorry for that, too. So are many of my fellow Church members. I wish I could say that all Catholics are sorry, but that isn't true.
There IS something that the Church can do to try to make a gesture of contrition, and to try to help in your healing, but we need to hear from you directly, and I understand if such a wounded soul avoids ANY contact with an institution that has inflicted such pain.
I understand why outsiders tend to focus on the Pope as symbol,
but the Pope is largely irrelevant to the work of the Church. Golly, even the Bishops are largely irrelevant.
The real action of serving happens in, through and by local parishes.
If someone wants the Catholic Church to somehow make amends for the harm inflicted on them, one place to start is with the ordained priest, ordained religious, or staff/ volunteers at the nearest parish.
Unfortunately, some parishes seem to be immune to being infected with the Holy Spirit, so I ask you to try a second or even a third one, if the first one you approach seems rigid and unresponsive. Where I live, about half of parishes seem more responsive to the Dawa of Jesus than the other half. It seems to correlate with the age of the parishoners, inversely.
Let me offer an untested theory about why Evangelical Protestants fall away faster.
*** Protestant denominations tend to demand that adherents believe in God.
*** The Catholic Church tends to tolerate agnostics.
You do not need to be a "true believer" in order to be a true Catholic. It is enough to want to believe, to practice the rites and rituals, and to try to live the words of Jesus in your life.
For a Protestant, as I have been led to believe, it is essential to have Faith at least the size of a mustard seed in order to "qualify" for salvation. A Protestant "earns" salvation by going through a specific 4-step process, and then is "saved" once and forever.
For me, that is an impossibly high obstacle, to "know" that I am "saved."
Catholics, God realizes (and laments,) are weaker than that, and not deserving of salvation. It's only through a gift of grace that Catholics can be "saved."
Most of us have doubts about the existence of God and the historical reality of Jesus. If you were God, how would that make YOU feel ?
And yet, still there's a chance that God's overwhelming love for me will save me, when my own efforts cannot.
-.-.-.-.-.-.
Wanna know what really sucks about being Catholic ?
Here I am, toiling in the vineyard, professing my religiosity, and forsaking carnal pleasures and whatever,
and all this time my religion teaches that
TIN WOMAN,
posting above, is loved and cherished by God as much as me,
and just as likely to be "saved" and brought to the bosom of God. And she gets to rebel and criticize and blaspheme, and still God loves her as much as He loves Mother Teresa.
Maybe in the next life,
she will ask God for permission to soak the corner of her shawl in cool water, and then bring it down to momentarily quench my lips as I burn in a lake of fire.
not at all what I said, Tin Woman.
But if all you can refute is an argument I never made, bon chance.
Mary, I am the Catholic Church.
Though not ordained, I am a Catholic Priest.
The Church helps me to hear and respond to Jesus' call to be his hands and his feet.
Maybe God made a mistake when he left this work to sinners like me. Or maybe it's a stroke of genius ?
......
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops is almost completely worthless in helping me to do Jesus' work. Believe me, I've sought their help.
The Vatican is completely irrelevant to my Dawa.
These two heirarchies exist only to work with Bishops and Dioceses.
My local Bishop is only a little more relevant to the calling I have from God.
The guys in red hats are more administrators and curators than religious figures. Il Papa is the exception.
In the Catholic Church, common priests like me get our inspiration and conviction from laity and religious within our local parish. We meet Jesus in everyone around us.
Bon courage, Mary K.
Sweden is extremely religious.
link to en.wikipedia.org
"Religion is an organized collection of belief systems, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values."
What we call "organized religions," like the Lutheran Church of Sweden, appear to be on their way out.
I used to call the domminant religion in Sweden today "secular humanism," but that label is offensive to its adherents, and they won't suggest a better one. They protest to be irreligious, even as they loudly proclaim the belief systems and world views that define their "grouping."
Jesper,
you place yourself among like-minded thinkers who share your beliefs, values and views. That is your spiritual community.
You may believe in the "marriage equality" idea. Many adherents to your religion do.
That would not be a scientifically testable position; people who embrace this concept do so on religious grounds.
OK. That's your right.
But allow me to push back when you lecture me that your religious beliefs are superior to mine.
The most disturbing thing to me about the Pope retirement coverage is that it ought to revolve around JC and His teachings, especially about forgiveness.
That seems to have been overlooked.
With that header, I braced for an anti-Catholic screed.
This was balanced and sympathetic. Thnx.
2 errors jump out:
First, the Catholic-Protestant divide in Ireland really isn’t. It’s a matter of colonists (and their legacy) vs. indigenous peoples, or at least one side sees it that way. Confession/ sect is incidental.
Second, the idea that “anti-gay prejudice” emanates from the prelacy; in fact it comes from an ecclesia versed in church doctrine. I know it won’t sink in, but the belief in “marriage equality” is just as much a religious belief as is Catholic teaching on homosexuality. Except that one of those positions grew out of thousands of years of human experience, and the other repudiates human experience for the a priori.
For centuries, the Church has been a safe home to many homosexual clerics. Straight folks in the pews were OK with that, so long as they believed clerics were observing a vow of celibacy.
It may be instructive to note how many times that doctrine has been invoked, and how.
Once; and to assert that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was concieved without original sin.
Not even asserting that she was concieved without sex.
This is not what Lord Acton feared. This is, in the grand scheme, not an example of absolute corruption.
took the words right out of my mouth.
Of course, I would prefer to reassemble those words in a slightly different order.
to clarify, Hagel kicked butt in those hearings.
The folks who needed medical attention afterwards were those attacking him.
He just does his thrashing very subtly.
"Does anybody else in the known universe think it is a good idea for the US abruptly to go to war with the world’s sixth-largest country ..."
Reading comments on relevant articles at NYT and WaPo, I'd say that there are one or two Desis who advocate exactly that.
__________
Always looking for a silver lining, does that
"... 5 billion metric tons of hothouse gases [spewing] into the atmosphere annually ..." mean that US industry is still vibrant ? Do we still make some stuff here ?
to situate these images, the top left corner is actually in Jordan, and the town Tubarjal (top center) is only about 15 km from Jordan.
may be a repeat. if so, sorry.
I disagree with the term "Israel Lobby."
You allow them to claim that they are FOR Israel, which does not appear to be the case from my POV.
Rather, they appear to want to transform Israel into a racist radical jihadi secular imperialist religious state.
If there appears to be a contradiction there ("secular religious,") the religions of most people in the West are not organized like the handful of larger ones, and do not depend on the idea of a god or gods.
The religion of the so-called "Israel Lobby" is a brand of secular humanism flavored with a contrived nationalism, which is derived from a faith they scoff at. Though they will invoke the God of the Jews they don't trust in when it suits them.
This would be such a great time for the House of Sabah to unilaterally institute a Constitutional Monarchy patterned after Great Britain.
If only the Western oligarchs would support that.
The family doesn't need any more wealth or power.
They would love to improve the lives of their subjects, making them into citizens.
But the GCC tyrants would be undermined, our Western governments worry, and we would lose control.
I can't view the video, but considering the source, and the prime movers (the Workers Party and a Soros,) doubt there's any surprises.
The Democratic Party will be touted as the solution to all ills.
Trouble is, the Dems are no different than the GOP. Quel difference ? I mean, other than one's religious beliefs.
well, I saw this National Geographic documentary, "Armageddon," and it looks like NASA and the military have this under control (with Bruce Willis' leadership.)
Many US drone strikes in Pakistan are in or around Miran Shah.
That's where we think Bowe Bergdahl is being held.
You connect the dots.
I understand that we have 10,000 armed forces still in Baghdad - we say they are embassay guards, I think.
Haven't seen any reports, but I'd guess the CIA-friendly despots of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Talabanis and the Barzanis, allow us to keep significant forces and installations there, uniformed or not, beyond the control of Baghdad.
I assume that our residual forces in Afghanistan post-2014 will work for Eric Prince.
The Catholic Church makes lots of mistakes. But it has a process for self-correction.
That's not the case for the competing religion of secular humanism.
Don,
if you had actual science to bring to bear on the issues of abortion and homosexual marriage, I think you would have done so already. Instead, your argument boils down to,
"my religious beliefs that I accept on faith are better/ more valid than your religious beliefs that you accept on faith."
Seth,
mostly we don't terrorize the butchers.
Mostly, we terrorize the civilian population.
95% of our war against "Terrorism" and brutal occupation in Afghanistan is waged against the civilian population.
Most of our kinetic interactions are with civilians.
If you are a combat vet, please take a hard look at your own anecdotal experience.