TSO Adds: Speaking of dogs and soldiers, here’s a dog that’s watched the Great Escape a few too many times.
Quand on veut, on peut !
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All week every time I came home I kept having this weird feeling that things had moved. Like, I would watch Headline News when I left, but find the TV on Animal Planet. My Chinese leftovers were gone, and a bottle of rum is missing. Mosby and I are having a long talk when I get home tonight.
A Fallen Hero: How an Insurance Company Profited
A headline like that kinda gets your attention. Long story short it seems that when Sgt. Ryan Baumann, killed in Afghanistan his mother was unable to bring herself to seek the money. But when she tried to use it 6 months later she ran into problems.
She eventually filed, electing to receive a lump sum of $400,000. But the check never came. Instead, she received a check book and a packet from Prudential saying the money had been placed in its “alliance account” where it was “available immediately” and would “begin earning interest” right away.
Everything seemed fine, until she tried using the checks.
“I was told that the check could not be verified,” she said.
But here is where is it gets interesting. It seems that the Government was giving the money to a private third party to handle giving the money out. But not quite.
Evans’ six-month investigative report, appearing today in the magazine’s September issue, reveals that Cindy Lohman’s money was being held in Prudential’s general corporate account — accruing interest –most of it going to the insurance giant.
So if I understand this correctly the Government is giving SGLI money to third parties that are not only restricting handing out the money to the survivors while making a profit off the interest? (A rate of 5% compared to the .5% that Cindy Lohman account was being credited.)
I really do not want to jump the gun on this one but I have a bad feeling that I am right about this one.
Last week we heard the word “context” every two minutes from the media and the White House in defense of Shirley Sherrod, whose words, they tell us, were taken out of context. So where are these purveyors of context today when we need them?
The 91,000 “document drop” cries for some context – just like their release of the “Collateral Damage” video needed context that WikiLeaks was unable, or unwilling, to provide.
In today’s Wall Street Journal, Noel Shachtman of Wired warns us about not questioning the context using an incident that he witnessed to which some of the leaked documents refer;
The vast difference between what actually happened at the Moba Khan compound in Helmand province and what the report says happened there should give caution to those who think they can discover the capital-T truth about the Afghanistan conflict through the Wikileaks war logs.
You should read his whole comparison of what Shachtman witnessed and what the leaked documents says happened.
Thanks to some friends for the link.rom
MEW sends us a link to an article about a young Gurkha soldier who, in the confusion of battle hacked off the head of a dead Taliban leader for identification purposes. The 20-year-old is now facing charges in Britain over the incident. From the Times of India;
His unit had been told that they were seeking a ‘high value target,’ a Taliban commander, and that they must prove they had killed the right man, Daily Mail reported.
The Gurkhas had tried to take the Taliban leader’s body away from the battlefield. But they came under heavy fire as they tried to do so.
Military sources said that in the heat of battle, the Gurkha took out his curved kukri and beheaded the dead insurgent.
The Strategy Page picks up the story from there;
When senior British commanders heard of this, they had the Gurkha arrested (and sent back to Britain for trial), and apologized to the family of the dead Taliban. The head was returned, so that the entire body (as required by Islamic law) could be buried.
Well, at least the commander was dead.
Nine years after George Bush declared war on al Qaeda, the French have finally done the same according to the Associated Press;
“We are at war with al-Qaida,” Prime Minister Francois Fillon said Tuesday, a day after President Nicolas Sarkozy announced the death of 78-year-old hostage Michel Germaneau.
The humanitarian worker had been abducted April 20 or 22 in Niger by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, and was later taken to Mali, officials said.
Unfortunately for France, the US has promised “…it would help the French “in any way that we can” to bring those who killed Germaneau to justice….” I’m pretty sure that a declaration of war is in no way a way to bring justice to anyone. The perpetuation of that myth will only confuse and prolong France’s involvement in their own war against terror, as it has ours.
Watch how confused the comments section becomes to prove my point for me.
Yep the same guy, Bradley Manning that leaked the video about the 2007 firefight, is one of the main suspects in finding who leaked the new documents to the press.
The Wall Street Journal reported that military investigators are checking computers used by Manning to see if he is the source of the trove of documents released by WikiLeaks.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told Fox News the department wants to find out who originally leaked the information to “make sure there’s not any more coming.” He said it remains to be seen whether any action will be taken against those involved in the leak.
So not only has these additional documents have been leaked there is a possibility that more might be on the way. Great, this is getting better and better. Perhaps we should bring these back again.
ADDED: Sporkmaster
Seems that there is more info about him that is coming out.
Since it worked out so well the last time, they decided to try it again.
A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.
But given how many things were ignored out of the 2007 video from Iraq, just think of all the possible discrepancies that could be present with 90,000 records? Some of the claims have been as such:
• How a secret “black” unit of special forces hunts down Taliban leaders for “kill or capture” without trial.
• How the US covered up evidence that the Taliban have acquired deadly surface-to-air missiles.
• How the coalition is increasingly using deadly Reaper drones to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada.
• How the Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of its roadside bombing campaign, which has killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.
Yea except that if you look at each one there is not much there to see? We uses our troop to capture/kill any enemy leaders that we can. It is not the troops job to take that person to trial. Second the Taliban had Singer Missile launchers for awhile now paired with what weapons were left over during the fight with the Soviet Russia. Third we used them to provide air support and can stay in the air longer then any manned aircraft. Finally do you really think that the Taliban will reduce this if we were to leave?
Oh this one is a keeper.
2007 Polish troops mortared a village, killing a wedding party including a pregnant woman, in an apparent revenge attack.
Apparent? Yea and that almost got three SEALs jail time, Apparent my ass,
But don’t worry about double checking, Rethink Afghanistan is already running this and it is doing it’s paces around the net. Of course there is no one is even thinking about how this will effect those that are fighting in Afghanistan.
ADDED Sporkmaster
The White House has condemned the release stating what we already know.
“The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organisations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk and threaten our national security,” he said in a statement.