In an interview with US Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) [regarding the Ft. Hood shooting], Fox host Shepard Smith asked: "The name tells us a lot, does it not, senator?""It does," Hutchison replied. "It does, Shepard."
If not about the shooter, then certainly about Shep and Kay. And the rest of us.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
The suspected shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was on a ventilator and unconscious in a hospital after being shot four times during the shootings at the Army's sprawling Fort Hood, post officials said. In the early chaos after the shootings, authorities believed they had killed him, only to discover later that he had survived.[...]
Authorities have not ruled out that Hasan was acting on behalf of some unidentified radical group, the official said. He would not say whether any evidence had come to light to support that theory.
[...]
Officials are not ruling out the possibility that some of the casualties may have been victims of "friendly fire," that in the mayhem and confusion at the shooting scene some of the responding military officials may have shot some of the victims.
[...]
Video from the scene showed police patrolling the area with handguns and rifles, ducking behind buildings for cover. Sirens could be heard wailing while a woman's voice on a public-address system urged people to take cover. Schools on the base went into lockdown, and family members trying to find out what was happening inside found cell phone lines jammed or busy.
[...]
The motive for the shooting wasn't clear, but Hasan was apparently set to deploy soon, and had expressed some anger about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said generals at Fort Hood told her that Hasan was about to deploy overseas. Retired Col. Terry Lee, who said he had worked with Hasan, told Fox News he was being sent to Afghanistan.
Lee said Hasan had hoped Obama would pull troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq and got into frequent arguments with others in the military who supported the wars.
For six years before reporting for duty at Fort Hood, in July, the 39-year-old Army major worked at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center pursuing a career in psychiatry, as an intern, a resident and, last year, a fellow in disaster and preventive psychiatry. He received his medical degree from the military's Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., in 2001.
But his record wasn't sterling. At Walter Reed, he received a poor performance evaluation, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case publicly. And while he was an intern, Hasan had some "difficulties" that required counseling and extra supervision, said Dr. Thomas Grieger, who was the training director at the time.
At least six months ago, Hasan came to the attention of law enforcement officials because of Internet postings about suicide bombings and other threats, including posts that equated suicide bombers to soldiers who throw themselves on a grenade to save the lives of their comrades.
And this guy was allowed to be a military psychiatrist?
Apparently, anyway, he was a lone shooter. The other two reported early on were simply men taken in for questioning who were then released.
We'll be hearing more, and Mr. Hasan may wish he had died, because I'm sure there are many others who do.
A source tells CBS News investigative producer Len Tepper that Hasan is a licensed psychiatrist in Bethesda, Md. He is a drug and rehab specialist who got his Virginia psychiatry license July 12, 2005.
The shooting began around 1:30 p.m., Lt. Gen. Bob Cone said at a news conference. He said all the casualties took place at the base's Soldier Readiness Center, where soldiers who are about to be deployed or who are returning undergo medical screening.[...]
A graduation ceremony for soldiers who finished college courses while deployed was going on in an auditorium at the Readiness Center at the time of the shooting, said Sgt. Rebekah Lampam, a Fort Hood spokeswoman.
Greg Schanepp, U.S. Rep. John Carter's regional director in Texas, was representing Carter at the graduation, said John Stone, a spokesman for Carter, whose district includes the Army post.
Schanepp was at the ceremony when a soldier who had been shot in the back came running toward him and alerted him of the shooting, Stone said. The soldier told Schanepp not to go in the direction of the shooter, he said. Stone said he believes Schanepp was in the theater.
[...]
About a mile from Fort Hood's east gate, Cynthia Thomas, director of Under the Hood Cafe, a local coffee shop and nonprofit military support center, has been calling soldiers and friends on the post to make sure they're OK.
"It's chaotic," Thomas said, as a SWAT team just drove by. "They're just saying that they're under attack they don't know what's going on. ... The phones are jammed. Everybody is calling family members and friends. Soldiers are running around with M-16s."
We don’t know yet what the story was on the three soldiers (one a Major) who did the shooting, but we may be lucky that this hadn’t already happened.Fort Hood is the largest military base in America, has lost more soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan than any other military facility, and after eight years of constant deployments had more than its fair share of highly-stressed soldiers and dependents even before [the] shootings.[...]
Pual Dirksmeyer, a chaplain of the 1st Cavalry Division, spoke of the "emotional carnage" - the broken marriages, the mental afflictions of returning soldiers, the frayed nerves of the families left behind, the occasional suicides, desertions and instances of soldiers suddenly running amock.
[...]
Major Ben Phillips, a psychologist, estimated that 15 to 30 per cent of returning soldiers had psychological problems, mostly post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injuries. He said the soldiers' vulnerability to psychological disorders increased with each deployement, and equivocated when asked if they were being sent back into action before they were fully recovered.
Wives told of their husbands checking beneath their cars for bombs before leaving for KMart, accelerating under bridges or swerving past old tyres on the road as if they were still in Baghdad. One 32-year-old soldier recalled panicking in a crowded mall one day and laying a man out because "it made me feel I was back in the markets of Tikrit".
And I’m sure there is some serious pow-wowing going on right now about how to present what did happen. The major’s name? ABC and CNN are reporting it’s Major Malik Nadal Hasan. (I thought we were fighting them over there so we didn’t have to fight them here? I know, bad form.)
At least one U.S. soldier opened fire Thursday at Fort Hood, Texas, killing at least 11 people and wounding 31 others, military officials said.One gunman was shot to death, and two other soldiers were in custody, Lt. Gen. Robert W. Cone, commanding general of the Army’s III Corps, told reporters.
[...]
A senior Obama administration official told NBC News analyst Roger Cressey that one of the suspects who was in custody was an Army major.
[...]
Military and local hospital officials said the victims were a mixture of men and women, military and civilian.
[...]
Fort Hood, one of the largest military complexes in the world, was on lockdown, as were schools in the area. Dozens of agents of the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives responded to the post, federal officials said.
[...]
Emergency Services officials at Fort Hood said the incident began about 1:30 p.m. CT (2:30 ET) when at least one gunman opened fire in the Soldiers Readiness Processing Center and Howze Theater on the west side of the base.
[...]
“Initially, I thought it was a training exercise,” he said. But then, “a soldier came running past me and said, ‘Sir, there is someone shooting.’
“As he ran past me, I saw blood on his back,” Schannep told the base paper. “I don’t think he even knew he had been shot.”
The first shooting began at about 1:30 p.m. at a personnel and medical processing office, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Nathan Banks said. The facility, called a Soldier Rating and Processing center, handles administrative details for soldiers.Banks said the second shooting took place at a theater on the sprawling base.
[...]
Lampam said a graduation ceremony for soldiers who finished college courses while deployed was going on in the auditorium at the time of the shooting.
[...]
The base is home to nine schools -- seven elementary schools and two middle schools -- and all were on lockdown, said Killeen school spokesman Todd Martin.
Texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Tela Mange said Texas Rangers and state troopers were en route to Fort Hood to help seal the perimeter of the 108,000 acre base.
Well, John, for once, I’m glad you were in Baghdad and not home on base. (Okay, that was a lie.) My condolences to the families of those wounded and killed.
Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK's ambassador to Uzbekistan, said the CIA not only relied on confessions gleaned through extreme torture, it sent terror war suspects to Uzbekistan as part of its extraordinary rendition program."I'm talking of people being raped with broken bottles," he said at a lecture late last month that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network. "I'm talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I'm talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on."
[...]
Suspects in Uzbekistan's gulags "were being told to confess to membership in Al Qaeda. They were told to confess they'd been in training camps in Afghanistan. They were told to confess they had met Osama bin Laden in person. And the CIA intelligence constantly echoed these themes."
"I was absolutely stunned -- it changed my whole world view in an instant -- to be told that London knew [the intelligence] coming from torture, that it was not illegal because our legal advisers had decided that under the United Nations convention against torture, it is not illegal to obtain or use intelligence gained from torture as long as we didn't do the torture ourselves," Murray said.
[...]
Murray alleged that in the late 1990s the Uzbek ambassador to the US met with then-Texas Governor George W. Bush to discuss a pipeline for the region, and out of that meeting came agreements that would see Texas-based Enron gain the rights to Uzbekistan's natural gas deposits, while oil company Unocal worked on developing the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline.
"The consultant who was organizing this for Unocal was a certain Mr. Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan," Murray noted.
[...]
"There are designs of this pipeline, and if you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you'll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It's what it's about. It's about money, it's about oil, it's not about democracy."
Yeah, thanks for clearing that up for us. We were fuzzy.
The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline is slated to be completed in 2014, with $7.6 billion in funding from the Asian Development Bank.Murray was dismissed from his position as ambassador in 2004, following his first public allegations that the British government relied on torture in Uzbekistan for intelligence.
YouTube video at Raw Story.
One of the 23 American citizens convicted in an Italian court of kidnapping a Muslim cleric in 2003 says the CIA "broke the law" when it ordered the operation.Sabrina DeSousa, a former CIA operative, told ABC News that the agency and the US government "betrayed and abandoned" her and the other US government employees who orchestrated the kidnapping as part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, which saw terrorism suspects shipped to countries where they could be tortured within the confines of local law.
Isn’t betrayal and abandonment an unwritten clause in the CIA contract? I know breaking the law is. Sadly, the 23 CIA “citizens” were convicted in absentia, so I suppose their only punishment is no more assignments in Italy.
[Canadian] Defence Minister Peter MacKay has ordered officials to look into allegations that innocent Afghans may have been sent to jail because of botched translations by Canadian military interpreters.MacKay's statement in the House of Commons on Monday came as a counter-insurgency expert said U.S. forces have been plagued with the same concerns.
[...]
"We're willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure ice cream and steak is there," [Ret. Marine Cpl Thomas] Hammes said in an interview from Washington. "And I would trade all of that for my entire tour if I could have one decent translator.
"Many times I'd trade body armour for a translator."
[...]
"We very often don't know what our translators are saying … I never knew what the hell was going on in Iraq, but at least I was aware I didn't know," he said.
[...]
Hammes said the credibility of the interpreters is paramount to the success of the mission. If they're making mistakes it reflects badly in the community you're trying to influence.
Putting it mildly.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
"Appearing on MSNBC's Morning Meeting with Dylan Ratigan, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said that Geithner's plans left banks the same loopholes and encouraged the same risks that led to last year's economic meltdown.""Knowing two massive exemptions in the piece of legislation the Secretary endorsed yesterday on 'Meet the Press' ... why does Tim Geithner still have a job?" Ratigan asked.
Which begs the question: Why did Tim Geithner get the job in the first place? He admitted to not paying $34,000 in taxes prior to his nomination, saying it was a “careless mistake”. This is the man who should be US Secretary of the Treasury?
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
I will never stop having this doubt: that maybe if they had really charged in there riding the forceful energy of the historic election, and acted like it was an emergency moment -- which it was -- they could have gotten some big victories right up front, and there really could have been an historic "first hundred days" for this administration and the country. Instead of what happened, which is the Obamas got a dog.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald famously declared in the Valerie Plame affair that "there is a cloud over the vice president." Last week's release of an FBI interview summary of Dick Cheney's answers in the criminal investigation underscores why Fitzgerald felt that way.On 72 occasions, according to the 28-page FBI summary, Cheney equivocated to the FBI during his lengthy May 2004 interview, saying he could not be certain in his answers to questions about matters large and small in the Plame controversy.
Old people do have memory problems.
The Cheney interview summary was released Friday to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which sued to get the material under the Freedom of Information Act.
Cheney’s exact role in the [Valerie Plame] leak probe has long been a subject of speculation – and his May 8, 2004, interview with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald does little to clear up the question, since Cheney expressed a lack of recollection about several key issues. In at least one instance, Cheney flatly refused to answer a question about what he had told President George W. Bush.
So why was he not charged with obstruction? At the very least. That was one of the most egregious examples of the Bush administration betraying the country for personal gain that we experienced. Apparently treason isn’t really a big deal.
Cheney flatly refused to discuss with Fitzgerald conversations about Bush’s decision to declassify portions of the NIE. “The Vice President declined to answer in view of his concerns about sharing potentially privileged conversations between himself and the President,” the FBI report said.[...]
When Cheney was asked if he ever broached the subject of declassification with Libby, regardless of any details of the conversations, the vice president again declined to answer.
Yes, he refused. But he refused because he’s the one who told Bush to declassify those portions for the specific purpose of outing Valerie Plame.
Libby initially told investigators he learned of Wilson’s wife’s CIA tie from journalists. But after notes emerged that showed he learned of the information from Cheney in June 2003, Libby said he forgot that fact.
A forgetful bunch.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
A suicide bomber exploded a car Monday at a police roadblock on the outskirts of the eastern city of Lahore, injuring at least seven police officers, officials said.[...]
The Lahore blast came hours after a suicide bomber killed 35 people outside a bank in the city of Rawalpindi, near the capital.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Hillary Clinton says that Abdullah’s likely decision not to contest the fixed presidential race, given Karzai’s refusal to fire his sycophantic election chief and the decision to increase the opportunities for fraud by creating still more ghost election stations, does nothing to reduce the legitimacy of that election: “When President Karzai accepted a runoff without knowing what the outcome would be, that bestowed legitimacy from that moment.” Yes, if there’s one thing that’s a complete fucking mystery, it’s the outcome of an Afghan election.
....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.
Corexit: More toxic than the oil
IVAW: Iraq Veterans Against the War
