Military Resistance 11C13
AFGHANISTAN THEATER:
“US Foreign Fighters Suffered 16 Combat Casualties In The Week Ending March 20, As The Total Rose To 38,991”
Mar 21, 2013 [Excerpts]
AFGHANISTAN THEATER: US foreign fighters suffered 16 combat casualties in the week ending March 20, as the total rose to 38,991.
The total includes 20,070 dead (1 pending) and wounded from what the Pentagon classifies as "hostile" causes and 18,921 dead or medically evacuated (as of Dec. 3, 2012) from what it calls "non-hostile" causes.
US media divert attention from the actual cost in American life and limb by reporting regularly only the total killed (6,659: 4,488 in Iraq, 2,171 in Afghanistan) but rarely mentioning those wounded in action (50,569: 32,221 in Iraq; 18,348 in Afghanistan).
They ignore the 59,908 (44,607 in Iraq,18,463 in AfPak (as of Dec 3, 2012) military casualties injured and ill seriously enough to be medevac'd out of theater, even though the 6,656 total dead include 1,419 (961 in Iraq, 458 in Afghanistan) who died from those same "non hostile" causes, of whom almost 25% (332) were suicides (as of Jan 9, 2013) and at least 18 in Iraq from faulty KBR electrical work.
POLITICIANS REFUSE TO HALT THE BLOODSHED
THE TROOPS HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THE WAR
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
Ross Township Soldier Wounded In Afghanistan IED Attack:
Staff Sgt. Sam Shockley Lost Both Legs, 3 Fingers
ROSS TOWNSHIP, Ohio –
A Ross Township native could soon be back in the U.S. for medical treatment after he was seriously wounded while serving in Afghanistan.
Friends of Staff Sgt. Sam Shockley told 9 On Your Side that Shockley lost both of his legs and three fingers when he stepped on an improvised explosive device.
Shockley will be flown to Germany before returning home to the U.S. for treatment.
Shockley is a graduate of Ross High School.
Insurgents Chop Heads Off Three Regime Police In Kandahar
19 March 2013by Faridullah Sahil, TOLOnews
Three men have been beheaded in southern Kandahar province, apparently at the hands of insurgents, local officials said Tuesday.
The three men were traveling Monday evening from the Sangin district in neighbouring Helmand province to Ghorak district in Kandahar when their car was stopped by armed militia.
They were dragged from the car and beheaded while in the Mar Manda area of Ghorak, according to district governor Darow Khan
"Yesterday evening the Taliban beheaded three civilians who were in traveling from Sangin district of Helmand to Kandahar's Ghorak district," he told TOLOnews.
While Khan linked the incident to the Taliban, the militant group did not claim the beheading.
Meanwhile, residents in the area said that these three men were in the police force but were wearing casual clothes.
"They were police and they were on their way to go for duty to Ghorak district of Kandahar province but on the way they were recognised by Taliban and they beheaded them," one of the residents told TOLOnews.
Roadside Bomb Blows Up Afghan District Official
March 21, 2013RFE/RL
A roadside bomb has killed a district administration chief and two bodyguards in Afghanistan's northern province of Takhar, near the Tajik border.
The attack came as Afghans were celebrating Norouz, the first day of the Persian New Year marked on the spring equinox.
Police spokesman Abdul Khalil Asir told journalists that the bomb went off as the official drove over a bridge near his home in Eskashem district. According to Asir, Abdul Manan Hakimi was on his way to make preparations for the holiday celebration.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in an e-mail to reporters.
IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE RESISTANCE
END THE OCCUPATION
MILITARY NEWS
Mississippi VA Horrors Included Lying About The Horrors:
“Improperly Sterilized Instruments And Missed Diagnoses Of Fatal Illnesses”
“VA Substantiated That Unsterilized Equipment Was Sent To Clinics And Operating Rooms In Violation Of Va Policy”
“Managers At The Jackson Hospital ‘Directed Public Affairs Staff To State In A Press Release That No Violations Were Found’”
Mar 19, 2013By Robert Burns - The Associated Press [Excerpts]
WASHINGTON — Employees at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Mississippi have reported a range of “serious wrongdoing,” including improperly sterilized instruments and missed diagnoses of fatal illnesses, an independent federal investigative agency said in a letter to the White House.
The agency said the allegations raise doubt about the facility’s ability to care for veterans.
In the letter sent Monday to the White House and Congress, the Office of Special Counsel said an initial 2009 report by a whistle-blower employee at the G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery VA Medical Center in Jackson, Miss., alleged that the staff routinely failed to properly clean and sterilize reusable medical equipment such as scalpels and bone cutters.
In all, five whistle-blowers representing what the Office of Special Counsel called “a diverse group” of employees at the Jackson hospital made a variety of allegations over several years that imply improper care of patients.
One doctor at the facility alleged in January that thousands of radiology images were unread or improperly read, resulting in missed diagnoses of “serious and, in some cases, fatal illnesses,” the special counsel said.
That case was referred this month to VA Secretary Eric Shinseki for investigation, according to the letter sent to the White House by Carolyn Lerner, the special counsel. Her office does not have the authority to investigate whistle-blower complaints but can refer cases to the relevant agency if it determines — as it did in the cases involving the Jackson VA hospital — that there is “substantial likelihood” that the allegations are true.
VA investigated the 2009 case and substantiated many of the allegations of persistent problems with the cleaning and sterilizing of reusable medical equipment; it said it took steps to fix the problems.
In 2011, however, another whistle-blower employee alleged that the problems continued.
Even though VA substantiated that unsterilized equipment was sent to clinics and operating rooms in violation of VA policy, managers at the Jackson hospital “directed public affairs staff to state in a press release that no violations were found to have occurred,” Lerner wrote.
Similar incorrect statements were made to veterans, employees and congressional staff, she added.
Of the five whistle-blower complaints about the Jackson facility, two are still under VA investigation.
Not all of the whistle-blowers requested anonymity. One of the complaints was registered by an employee identified by Lerner as Gloria Kelley, an employee in the Jackson facility’s Sterile Processing Department.
She alleged in 2011 that incorrect procedures persisted in her department, “placing the safety of employees and patients at risk.” Her complaint was referred to VA for investigation in July 2011.
Lerner said VA did not interview Kelley during the course of its investigation.
Lerner called Kelley’s allegations “compelling” and said it did not appear that VA has taken significant steps in improving the quality of management or staff training within the sterile processing department since the first allegations were made in 2009.
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FORWARD OBSERVATIONS
“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh had I the ability, and could reach the nation’s ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.
“For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.
“We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”
“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.”
Frederick Douglass, 1852
People do not make revolutions eagerly any more than they do war. There is this difference, however, that in war compulsion plays the decisive role, in revolution there is no compulsion except that of circumstances.
A revolution takes place only when there is no other way out. And the insurrection, which rises above a revolution like a peak in the mountain chain of its events, can be no more evoked at will than the revolution as a whole. The masses advance and retreat several times before they make up their minds to the final assault.
-- Leon Trotsky; The History of the Russian Revolution
ISAF Uses Counterinsurgency to Secure City of Camp Bastion
19 March 2013by G-Had, The Duffel Blog
HELMAND PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN – Despite the ongoing drawdown in Afghanistan, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) announced today that it will deploy an additional infantry battalion to Helmand Province’s second largest city, Camp Bastion, to identify local leaders and carry out counterinsurgency operations.
“Although we are working to responsibly wind down our mission in Afghanistan, the goals of ISAF remains the same: conduct COIN by securing Helmand Province’s population centers,” ISAF Deputy Commander General Nick Carter announced in a press release.
According to General Carter, the battalion will guard some of the estimated 30,000 men and women in this bustling Afghan municipality, as well as its smaller adjacent city of Camp Leatherneck, which has its own road network, bus service, airport, sewage system, internet cafes, laundry facilities, heliport, mail center, gymnasium, water-bottling plant, and satellite relay network.
It is presided over by a council called the Regional Command Southwest and their tribal elder, Major General W. Lee Miller, II.
A carefree resident of Camp Bastion enjoys swimming in a local watering hole
“This is their country,” said 1st Lieutenant Jim Lucas with the 101st Airborne Division as he led another squad out of Patrol Base Green Bean, past dozens of local men and women drinking coffee. “But it will never be secure until they stop drinking their chai and take responsibility for their own safety.”
“Yut yut oorah!” he called out to the locals in their native dialect, receiving a reply of grunts, “Chesty! Chesty!” and one “Bugger off!”
Lucas said, “It’s easy to get angry with the people because they fund the insurgents through the local Army and Air Force Exchange Service and everybody knows it. But really, it’s not their fault.
“They’re not looking to make waves with us or the Taliban… they just want to go to work, punch the clock, and be left alone like any working stiff back home.”
Captain David Macintyre, whose company is assigned to patrol this part of Camp Bastion, explained that although the local tribes are headed by warlords called “commanding officers”, the real power in Camp Bastion lies with the town religious figures known as “sergeants major” who provide these warlords with legitimacy.
According to Captain Macintyre, the initial task of ISAF was to convince the sergeants major that the soldiers had not come to Bastion to denigrate the city’s historically strict grooming regulations.
“Counterinsurgency is more than just kicking in doors and handing out money,” Captain Macintyre told The Duffel Blog, “but involves understanding the people and their culture.
“Once we stopped calling them ‘sergeants’ (pronounced ‘sar’nts’) they warmed right up to us.”
While the Bastion area was relatively peaceful until recently, a daring nighttime raid by the Taliban in September 2012 highlighted the lack of security in the city. In the wake of the attack, the city elders begged ISAF for additional protection, while having local residents check their weapons out from the armory for at least twelve hours a day and cancelling all off-base liberty.
Under the supervision of ISAF, members of Bastion have also been integrated into the Afghan Local Police, a group of concerned citizens who have banded together to form anti-Taliban militias.
“If you ask around, everybody now claims to be a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine, even if they’re sitting outside their cans at noon in PT gear,” Captain Macintyre said.
“But the important thing is that they have a sense of ownership for the security situation. Even if they’re being paid to do absolutely nothing, it still keeps them from going to work for the insurgents.”
Though some have praised the NATO approach, the U.S. Army responded to a similar wave of attacks in neighboring Kandahar Airfield by declaring the area part of the Continental United States (CONUS).
While the Army decided to leave KAF unincorporated for tax reasons, like Puerto Rico, there is already a push in the U.S. Congress to declare it a state, led by Senator Colonel Munro Brady (Republican—BAF).
Iraq War Retroactively Justified By Discovery Of Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Although delayed, former Secretary of State Colin Powell was overjoyed that he finally had facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.
20 March 2013by G-Had, The Duffel Blog
BAGHDAD, IRAQ – United Nations weapons inspectors have confirmed the announcement on Monday by the Iraqi government that its soldiers had finally discovered Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction program, completely upending the history of the Iraq War, once viewed as a pointless quagmire but now seen as a tough but necessary conflict.
The New York Times became the latest news outlet to completely reverse itself on the invasion of Iraq, with an editorial now referring to it as “the greatest decision of the century.”
The weapons, more than five thousand sarin gas artillery shells, six thousand gallons of anthrax, and two crude nuclear weapons, were located on Sunday in a previously-undiscovered bunker on the Syrian border by a pair of Iraqis who were using the structure as a makeshift toilet.
As the news spread, cheering crowds gathered outside the White House, waving placards like “Bush Didn’t Lie, Even If Some People Did Die.”
“I’ve waited so long for this day,” said Paul Bram, an Iraq War veteran who found himself caught up in the celebrations.
“I always thought my platoon spent a year sitting on the Iranian border for no reason at all, but now I can tell my kids it was all about WMD’s!”
In a speech to the nation, President Barack Obama claimed credit for “continuing the combat operations wisely instituted by my predecessor, President Bush.”
“As I said in 2002, Saddam Hussein was a bad man who had ‘chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity’ and ‘the world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.’ Now that we know Iraq really did have weapons of mass destruction, I stand by every word.”
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) reacted by criticizing Obama for botching an attempt to keep U.S. troops in Iraq past the 2011 deadline.
He added that Congress would begin efforts to rebase several Army and Marine divisions in Iraq, “whether the Iraqis like it or not.”
“We must resume the hunt to ensure there are no additional WMD caches hidden in someone’s barn or chicken coop,” he added.
Boehner also announced Congress would fund a 100 foot statue on the National Mall in Washington “dedicated to all the brave men and women who we now know spent nine years fighting to keep dangerous WMD’s out of the hands of Sunni terrorists and Shia militiamen.”
In a public ceremony in Langley, Virginia, the Central Intelligence Agency burned all of its internal review documents on the agency’s failures to detect Iraq’s lack of WMD’s, claiming history shows they are no longer needed.
Former US viceroy Paul Bremer was set upon by a joyful crowd outside of a Virginia supermarket, praising his once-controversial but now highly-regarded administration of Iraq.
“Looking back, I used to wonder what I might have done differently,” said Bremer. “But now that we know Saddam really had WMD’s, I regret nothing.”
He was joined by General Ricardo Sanchez, the self-styled “Hero of Abu Ghraib,” who has already been retroactively nominated for a fourth star and is being mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2016.
Former president George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair were unavailable for comment, attending an “I Told You So” party at former Vice President Dick Cheney’s ranch in Wyoming.
Local media outlets reported that Cheney had been observed repeatedly firing his shotgun in celebration, wounding 14 guests.
Iran, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, and various Emirates have asked for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss re-disarming Iraq, although they misspelled it yet again as I-S-R-A-E-L.
DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK
Cheney Marks Tenth Anniversary Of Pretending There Was Reason To Invade Iraq
Photograph by Brendan Hoffman/Getty.
March 19, 2013The Borowitz Report
HOUSTON (The Borowitz Report)—In a somber ceremony attended by former members of the Bush Administration, the former Vice-President Dick Cheney marked the tenth anniversary of making up a reason to invade Iraq.
The ceremony, held on the grounds of the Halliburton Company headquarters, brought together the former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and other key members of the lying effort.
Calling the assembled officials “profiles in fabrication,” Mr. Cheney praised them for their decade of dedication to a totally fictitious rationale.