Yah, these wounded French troops are lying…….riiigggghhhhttt. Why can’t our military just tell the truth???? Shit happens…… just tell the truth.

The Pentagon said Wednesday it has no information that close US air support resulted in casualties among French troops ambushed by insurgents in Afghanistan.

The newspaper Le Monde reported that French troops wounded in the fighting said NATO air strikes missed their targets and hit French troops, as did shots fired by Afghan troops backing them up.

“We have no reports of any casualties caused by close air support,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman. Asked whether French soldiers had been killed or wounded by friendly fire, he said there were “no reports of that.”

More at Yahoo News

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Why bother at all………

Some detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba will likely never be released because of the danger they pose, and those tried and acquitted will still be subject to continued detention as enemy combatants, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.

Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, made the remarks as Salim Hamdan, a Yemeni, awaited a verdict in the first war crimes trial to be held under a special regime created for “war on terror” suspects.

More at Yahoo News

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A House panel fumed Thursday, July 31, after the Pentagon barred the head of its office on sexual assault prevention and response from testifying.

The subcommittee, which included U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Centerville, ordered the director of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office to testify about how the military was cracking down on such incidents.

But Pentagon officials blocked her appearance.

They ordered her boss, principal Deputy Undersecretary for Defense Michael Dominguez, to testify in her stead.

Lawmakers derided the decision as “ridiculous.”

To Mary Lauterbach of Vandalia, whose daughter, Marine Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, was slain in the aftermath of her rape investigation, it was another example of the military failing to take seriously sexual assault in its ranks.

“The absolute contempt towards congressional oversight, I thought, spoke very loudly about the way they look at this,” she said. “They think, ‘It’s none of your business. Go away.’ “

Source: Dayton Daily News

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The Pentagon is preparing to order roughly 30,000 troops to Iraq early next year in a move that would allow the U.S. to maintain 15 combat brigades in the country through 2009, The Associated Press has learned.

The deployments would replace troops currently there. But the decisions could change depending on whether Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, decides in the fall to further reduce troop levels in Iraq.

Several officials familiar with the deployments spoke on condition of anonymity because the orders have not yet been made public.

More at the Star Tribune

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Mo’ money Mo’ money Mo’ money…….

The Pentagon plans to shift $9.7 billion of its overall budget to pay for war operations but warned on Wednesday it will run out of money if the U.S. Congress does not approve more funding by mid-July.

The Defense Department, with major operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, sent Congress requests to transfer $5.7 billion to the Army’s personnel account from the personnel accounts of other branches of the U.S. armed services.

It also asked Congress for permission to move $4 billion from the services’ operations and maintenance accounts to the Army and U.S. Special Operations Command, whose troops train local security forces and conduct counterterrorism missions.

If approved, the transfers will allow the Pentagon to continue operations until late July, according to department spokesman Bryan Whitman.

“I don’t want to leave you with the impression that this provides us a whole lot,” he said.

“This $9.7 billion reprogramming only buys another few weeks of operations until the department as a whole will then run out of critical funding.”

More at Yahoo News

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The uncaring, callous attitude of this administration is unfuckingbelievable. Just when I think Ive heard the worst thing I could possibly hear, they do something even more unfuckingbelievable. At least a soldier at the Pentagon had the good sense to inform them of this. But WTF….. why wouldn’t they know this. I think they DID know it and it was ok until this guy brought it up.

The U.S. military will no longer cremate troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan at a Dover facility that also cremates pets, the Pentagon announced Friday evening at a hastily planned new conference.

Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, said there was “no evidence whatsoever that any human remains were mistreated” or that any troops were cremated at the facility designated for pets.

Instead, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made the decision Friday after a soldier who works at the Pentagon informed the department that a crematory contracted by the department also incinerated animals.

Morrell called the practice “insensitive and entirely inappropriate for the dignified treatment of our fallen.”

More at McClatchy

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Lt. Col. Billy Hall, one of the most senior officers to be killed in the Iraq war, was laid to rest yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the Pentagon doesn’t want you to know that.

The family of 38-year-old Hall, who leaves behind two young daughters and two stepsons, gave their permission for the media to cover his Arlington burial — a decision many grieving families make so that the nation will learn about their loved ones’ sacrifice. But the military had other ideas, and they arranged the Marine’s burial yesterday so that no sound, and few images, would make it into the public domain.

That’s a shame, because Hall’s story is a moving reminder that the war in Iraq, forgotten by much of the nation, remains real and present for some. Among those unlikely to forget the war: 6-year-old Gladys and 3-year-old Tatianna. The rest of the nation, if it remembers Hall at all, will remember him as the 4,011th American service member to die in Iraq, give or take, and the 419th to be buried at Arlington. Gladys and Tatianna will remember him as Dad.

More at the Washington Post

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Ahhhhh can’t congress ask Adm. Fallon to testify if they want to hear from them? Does the Pentagon have to “ok” it? I don’t think so.

The Pentagon on Friday ruled out including Adm. William Fallon as a witness before Congress when the top U.S. military and diplomatic officials in Baghdad testify next month on the way ahead in Iraq.

Fallon’s abrupt announcement March 11 that he was resigning, effective March 31, as chief of U.S. Central Command overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, triggered accusations by Democrats in Congress that he was being forced out for publicly opposing launching a war against Iran.

In declaring that Fallon would not join Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker as witnesses before Congress next month, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said the decision had nothing to do with Fallon’s views on Iran or the reasons for his unexpected resignation and retirement.

More at ContraCostaTimes

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Let’s be honest here…..it’s all about what it’s going to cost them. They don’t want to pay for services for the men and women who return from Iraq with need of medical care. God only knows how many of them there are.

The Pentagon has admitted that it delayed introducing a routine screening of troops returning from Iraq for mild brain injuries because it feared that the extent of the problem could mushroom to the scale of the Gulf War syndrome after the first Iraq war.

The head of the Pentagon’s medical assessments division has told USA Today that he wanted to avoid another controversy as potentially huge as Gulf War syndrome.

More at the Guardian

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A recently unclassified report from the Pentagon from 1998 has revealed an investigation into using laser beams for a few intriguing potential methods of non-lethal torture. Some of the applications the report investigated include putting voices in people’s heads, using lasers to trigger uncontrolled neuron firing, and slowly heating the human body to a point of feverish confusion - all from hundreds of meters away.

A US citizen requested access to the document, entitled “Bioeffects of Selected Non-Lethal Weapons,” under the Freedom of Information Act a little over a year ago. There is no evidence that any of the technologies mentioned in the 10-year-old report have been developed since the time it was written.

The report explained several types of non-lethal laser applications, including microwave hearing, disrupted neural control, and microwave heating. For the first type, short pulses of RF energy (2450 MHz) can generate a pressure wave in solids and liquids. When exposed to pulsed RF energy, humans experience the immediate sensation of “microwave hearing” - sounds that may include buzzing, ticking, hissing, or knocking that originate within the head.

More at Physorg.com

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“Pentagon Wants Bigger Army, Marine Corps”

The Pentagon is seeking more than $20 billion in its 2009 budget to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps as the military struggles to fight wars on two fronts, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The proposed budget, which will be unveiled Monday, will call for $15.5 billion to boost the size of the Army by 7,000 soldiers, to a total of 532,400. And it will propose spending $5 billion to add 5,000 Marines to the Corps, for a total of 194,000.

Huge waste of tax money, considering how many chickenhawks and pro-war trolls exists in this country.

To these people I say; “Get thee to your local recruiting office today!”

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Speaking of military spending……….

The Pentagon’s work to combat weapons of mass destruction has been so splintered and uncoordinated that officials cannot be sure what spending is accomplishing, whether “U.S. interests are protected” or even whether America “can properly respond to attack.”

That is according to a Department of Defense Inspector General report, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Deseret Morning News. It was originally classified “For Official Use Only,” but the Pentagon provided a declassified copy that censored sensitive information.

The report says that because of its findings, Pentagon officials are now taking steps to improve coordination of work that has been spread among 40 offices and commands.

The report is of special interest to Utah because its Dugway Proving Ground is where many defenses against biological, chemical and radiological weapons - the main weapons of mass destruction - have been tested, sometimes amid controversy about how safe those tests are.

The Inspector General reviewed Pentagon initiatives against weapons of mass destruction and issued a report on March 30 (but the Morning News obtained a copy only this month). It complained that such Pentagon work had too little coordination and too little central oversight.

More at the Deseret Morning News

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The Pentagon, much like the Bush administration, is truly a piece of work, I tell ya!

20,000 vets’ brain injuries not listed in Pentagon tally

At least 20,000 U.S. troops who were not classified as wounded during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan have been found with signs of brain injuries, according to military and veterans records compiled by USA TODAY.

The data, provided by the Army, Navy and Department of Veterans Affairs, show that about five times as many troops sustained brain trauma as the 4,471 officially listed by the Pentagon through Sept. 30. These cases also are not reflected in the Pentagon’s official tally of wounded, which stands at 30,327.

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Yet, we can’t afford healthcare for our kids. This shit is crazy.

The Pentagon is paying Lockheed Martin to try to predict insurgencies and civil unrest like the weather. It’s part of a larger military effort to blend forecasting software with social science that has some counterinsurgency experts cringing.

Lockheed recently won a $1.3 million, 15-month contract from the Defense Department to help develop the “Integrated Crises Early Warning System, or ICEWS. The program will “let military commanders anticipate and respond to worldwide political crises and predict events of interest and stability of countries of interest with greater than 80 percent accuracy,” the company claims. “Rebellions, insurgencies, ethnic/religious violence, civil war, and major economic crises” will all be predictable. So will “combinations of strategies, tactics, and resources to mitigate [against those] instabilities.”

More at Wired

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BIG HUGE RED FLAG……..

Citing an “urgent operational need,” the Pentagon is seeking funds to modify B-2 stealth bombers to deliver an experimental 30,000 pound (13.6 tonne), satellite-guided bunker busting bomb, officials said Wednesday.
The likely purpose of the new weapon is to strike Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, experts said.

“It raises a red flag,” said Representative Jim Moran, a Democrat from Virginia who called for hearings on the request. “My immediate assumption is that it is a target in Iran, rather than Iraq or Afghanistan.”

The air force has asked Congress for nearly 88 million dollars to complete development of the so-called Massive Ordnance Penetrator and modify B-2 bombers so that they can deliver it, an air force spokeswoman said.

Full article at Spacewar.com

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