Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year.
Existing in the shadows, rarely reported on and little talked about, this base-building program is nonetheless staggering in size and scope, and heavily dependent on supplies imported from abroad, which means that it is also extraordinarily expensive.
Totally Occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan
'Christian' Manifesto Comparing Liberals to Nazis Gathers Signatures of Religious Right Leaders -- and Catholic Bishops
The document, signed by such religious-right heavy-hitters as Focus on the Family eminence James Dobson and Prison Fellowship Ministries leader Chuck Colson, compares pro-choice advocates to eugenicists (and implicitly to Nazis) and equates same-sex marriage with polygamy and a gateway to legalized incest.
Alcohol abuse weighs on Army
The Army needs to double its staff of substance-abuse counselors to handle the soaring numbers of soldiers seeking alcohol treatment, said Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army’s No. 2 officer.About 300 more counselors are needed to meet the demand, cut wait times and offer evening and weekend services, Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff, said in an interview with USA TODAY.
More...
Documents Show Detainee Was Abused in US Custody
Britain was forced by an appeals court Wednesday to reveal a long-secret description of how a former terrorism suspect was beaten, shackled and deprived of sleep during interrogations by U.S. agents.
Ethiopia-born British resident Binyam Mohamed was arrested in Pakistan in 2002, and says he was tortured there and in Morocco before being flown to Guantanamo Bay and charged with plotting with al-Qaida to bomb American apartment buildings.
Homeless veteran attacks shelter director, is killed
The man had been staying at the shelter at the Volunteers of America Veterans Resource Center but was recently told he had to move out because he had been there for a year, the maximum amount of time residents can stay there, said Dennis Kresak, president of the Volunteers of America of Greater Ohio.
The man had been uncooperative about leaving in recent weeks and would not meet with veterans representatives, Kresak said.
Newly released 9/11 NYPD photos show WTC collapse
Newly released aerial photos of the World Trade Center terror attack capture the towers' dramatic collapse, from just after the first fiery plane strike to the apocalyptic dust clouds that spread over lower Manhattan and its harbor.
The images were taken from a police helicopter - the only photographers allowed in the air space near the towers on Sept. 11, 2001. They were obtained by ABC News after it filed a Freedom of Information Act request last year with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which investigated the collapse.
More...
TVNL Comment: They cleverly 'predicted' the collapse of Tower 2. How about Tower 7 - the one that went into the same free fall, but was never hit by a plane? Just asking....
PROMISES, PROMISES: War widows' futile fight
Every year since 2005, the Senate has voted to eliminate the policy that denies widows the ability to collect both a military survivor's benefit and the full annuity bought when their military husbands were alive. But in each of those years, the fix was dropped when House and Senate negotiators wrote the final bill in private.
"What we always hear is that there is just no funding for us. 'Sorry, this is not your year,'" said Vivianne Wersel, chairwoman of the Government Relations Committee at Gold Star Wives of America.
US military releases Iraqi photographer
An Iraqi freelance photographer who worked for Reuters has been released by the U.S. military after 17 months in detention in Iraq, the news agency reported Wednesday.
The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled in December 2008 there was insufficient evidence to hold Jassam. However, the U.S. military refused to release him, saying it was not bound by the ruling because intelligence reports indicated Jassam was a security threat.
The US Military: A Mindset of Barbarism
On December 27, in the eastern Kunar region of Afghanistan, ten Afghans, eight of whom were schoolchildren, were dragged from their beds and shot by US forces during a nighttime raid. Afghan government investigators said the eight students were aged from 11 to 17 years.
Page 832 of 1147
