Flak for Iraq

McCain: U.S. can win Iraq war within 4 years - John McCain News- msnbc.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio - John McCain , looking through a crystal ball to 2013 and the end of a prospective first term, sees "spasmodic" but reduced violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden dead or captured and government spending curbed by his ready veto pen. The Republican presidential contender also envisions April's annual angst replaced with the option of a simpler flat tax, illegal immigrants living humanely under a temporary worker program, and political partisanship driven by weekly news conferences and British-style question periods with joint meetings of Congress.

Bush says new attack his worst worry - The White House- msnbc.com
"I didn't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

JALALABAD, Afghanistan — A 173rd Airborne Brigade soldier will spend four years in prison for breaking into an Afghan electronics shop and assaulting an Afghan army sergeant who stumbled upon him and two other U.S. troops as they were committing the crime.

Pfc. Mark A. Fripp Jr., 20, of Beaufort, S.C., also received a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and reduction in rank to E-1 in the May 7 sentencing after being convicted during a court-martial of conspiracy, larceny, housebreaking and assault charges, according to the prosecutor in the case.

Fripp and two other soldiers from Fusion Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, used bolt cutters shortly after 1 a.m. on Nov. 16 to break into an electronics shop owned by an Afghan man at Forward Operating Base Fenty in eastern Afghanistan, said Capt. Eric Hanson, a prosecutor for the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

One soldier stood outside with his rifle, acting as a lookout, while Fripp and the other soldier stole more than $8,000 worth of DVD players, computer hard drives, cell phones, SIM cards and other items including the shop’s cash box, stuffing them into two Army-issue duffel bags, Hanson said.

173rd Airborne soldier gets four years for break-in on Afghanistan base | Stars and Stripes

Ex-Gitmo prisoner commits suicide attack - Guantanamo- msnbc.com
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. military confirmed Wednesday that a former Guantanamo detainee from Kuwait carried out a recent suicide attack in northern Iraq.A spokesman for U.S. military's Central Command told The Associated Press that Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi took part in an attack in Mosul.U.S. Navy Cmdr. Scott Rye said authorities don't know the motive for the attack, which was reported last week by Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television. Iraqi security forces were apparently targeted.

$59   hotel stay because car could not be picked up on Sunday

$45   taxi ride from hotel to port of Tacoma for pickup (incidentally, this taxi ride would have been about $12 in Korea)

$50   synthetic oil change

$180 fuel system service and fuel pump replacement (pump was under warranty, or else would have been $450)

$100 transmission fluid/filter change

$70   coolant flush/exchange

$50   brake service/fluid exchange

$180 new battery

$635 new tires

$56   tire/wheel balance

$1XX Washington 8.6% sales tax

15 officers in taped beating suspended - Crime & courts- msnbc.com
PHILADELPHIA - Fifteen police officers were taken off the street as authorities investigate a video showing three suspects being kicked, punched and beaten after they were pulled out of a car during a traffic stop. "At a glance it does appear to be a bit beyond the pale," Doug Oliver, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Nutter, said Wednesday. "Officers are not allowed to operate outside of the law." The police department identified the 15 officers who were involved in Monday night's arrests in the city's Hunting Park section, where police had been investigating a triple shooting, Oliver said.

7,000 more GIs to join Afghan war? - Afghanistan- msnbc.com
NEW YORK - The Pentagon is considering sending up to 7,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from NATO allies, the New York Times reported on Saturday.  The increase would likely result in "the re-Americanization" of the war, one U.S. official said, according to the Times. U.S. forces would then account for two-thirds of foreign troops in Afghanistan, it said.The report appeared a day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the United States could consider taking over NATO's command in southern Afghanistan, where some NATO allies have been reluctant to provide combat forces.

Member of failed plot to kill Hitler dies - Europe- msnbc.com
BERLIN - Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager, believed to be the last surviving member of the inner circle of plotters who attempted to kill Adolf Hitler in 1944 with a briefcase bomb, has died. He was 90.  The German military said in a statement Friday that the former army major died Thursday night. It did not give a cause of death. Von Boeselager was part of a group of officers who tried to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944, supplying explosives for the operation led by Col. Claus Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg.

Last stop: Battling the draw of a suicide bridge - Mental health- msnbc.com
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - Working suicide patrol on the towering Sunshine Skyway Bridge, Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Leif Cardwell rolled up to find the 58-year-old woman with one leg already draped over the short concrete barrier wall. The license plate on the Ford minivan she drove there said: “HPPY NOW.” Cardwell kept his distance, imploring her to talk to him about her problems and not go through with it. He had thwarted a bridge suicide attempt two months before. “It’s too late,” she kept saying. She threw down her driver’s license and cell phone and swung her other leg over.

Soldiers won't have to disclose past therapy - Mental health- msnbc.com
WASHINGTON - U.S. troops won’t have to reveal all their mental health counseling when applying for security clearances under a change the Pentagon hopes will ease the stigma of seeking help for combat stress, The Associated Press has learned.  Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to announce the new policy Thursday, according to several defense officials.  Thousands of troops are coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan with war-related anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress. But many hesitate to get psychiatric care because they fear that could cost them their security clearances, harm their careers and embarrass them before commanders and comrades.

Hunt on for Nazi doctor - Europe- msnbc.com
BADEN-BADEN, Germany - Karl Lotter, a prisoner who worked in the hospital at Mauthausen concentration camp, had no trouble remembering the first time he watched SS doctor Aribert Heim kill a man.  It was 1941, and an 18-year-old Jew had been sent to the clinic with a foot inflammation. Heim asked him about himself and why he was he so fit. The young man said he had been a soccer player and swimmer. 

Then, instead of treating the prisoner's foot, Heim anesthetized him, cut him open, castrated him, took apart one kidney and removed the second, Lotter said. The victim's head was removed and the flesh boiled off so that Heim could keep it on display.

Troubled recruits, surprising service - Military- msnbc.com
WASHINGTON - Soldiers who need special waivers to get into the Army because of bad behavior go AWOL more often and face more courts-martial. But they also get promoted faster and re-enlist at a higher rate, according to an internal military study obtained by The Associated Press.  The Army study late last year concluded that taking a chance on a well-screened applicant with a criminal, bad driving or drug record usually pays off. And both the Army and the Marines have been bringing in more recruits with blemished records. Still, senior leaders have called for additional studies, to help determine the impact of the waivers on the Army.

"We believe that so far the return outweighs the risk," said Army Col. Kent M. Miller, who headed the team that conducted the study.

Man admits 24-year abuse of daughter - Europe- msnbc.com
AMSTETTEN, Austria - A 73-year-old Austrian man has confessed to imprisoning his daughter in a windowless cellar for 24 years and fathering her seven children, police said on Monday.  A 42-year-old woman had told police on Sunday that her father, Josef Fritzl, lured her into the basement of the block where they lived in the town of Amstetten in 1984 and drugged and handcuffed her before imprisoning her.

“(Fritzl) has now said that he locked up his daughter for 24 years and that he alone fathered her seven children and that he locked them up in the cellar,” Franz Polzer, head of the criminal investigations unit in the province of Lower Austria told Reuters by telephone.

Olympic torch begins peaceful North Korea leg - Beijing Olympics News- msnbc.com
The torch arrived Monday in North Korea by plane from rival South Korea, where China’s treatment of North Korean refugees sparked protests against the relay.

On Sunday, clashes broke out in Seoul near the relay start between a group of 500 Chinese supporters and about 50 demonstrators criticizing Beijing’s policies, carrying a banner reading, “Free North Korean refugees in China.” The students threw stones and water bottles as some 2,500 police tried to keep the two sides apart. One Chinese student swatted at the demonstrators with a flagpole. Another student was arrested for allegedly throwing rocks, police said. Police said four other people were arrested for trying to disrupt the relay Authorities deployed some 8,000 police — some riding horses and bicycles — to protect the torch.

One North Korean defector poured gasoline on himself in the middle of a street along the route and tried to set himself on fire, but police quickly surrounded him and carried him away. The man, 45-year-old Son Jong Hoon, had led an unsuccessful public campaign to save his brother from execution in the North, where he was accused of spying after the two met secretly in China.

If anyone has ever left a vehicle in long-term storage for 5 years or so and has any pointers as to what type of maintenance bill I should expect, I'm all ears!

And on a more somber note, I leave my old friend the Pacifica here in Korea in the hands of my wife and daughter. {sound of Taps plays on trumpet}  

N. Koreans taped at Syrian reactor? - Washington Post- msnbc.com
A video taken inside a secret Syrian facility last summer convinced the Israeli government and the Bush administration that North Korea was helping to construct a reactor similar to one that produces plutonium for North Korea's nuclear arsenal, according to senior U.S. officials who said it would be shared with lawmakers today. The officials said the video of the remote site, code-named Al Kibar by the Syrians, shows North Koreans inside. It played a pivotal role in Israel's decision to bomb the facility late at night last Sept. 6, a move that was publicly denounced by Damascus but not by Washington. Sources familiar with the video say it also shows that the Syrian reactor core's design is the same as that of the North Korean reactor at Yongbyon, including a virtually identical configuration and number of holes for fuel rods. It shows "remarkable resemblances inside and out to Yongbyon," a U.S. intelligence official said. A nuclear weapons specialist called the video "very, very damning."

Clinton warns Iran of nuke response - Countdown with Keith Olbermann- msnbc.com
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton confirmed Monday that as president she would be willing to use nuclear weapons against Iran if it were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel.  Clinton’s remarks, made in an interview on MSNBC’s “Countdown With Keith Olbermann,” clarified a statement she made last week in a Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia. In that debate, Clinton, D-N.Y., said an Iranian attack on Israel would bring “massive retaliation,” without defining what the phrase meant.  In the interview Monday, Clinton affirmed that she would warn Iran’s leaders that “their use of nuclear weapons against Israel would provoke a nuclear response from the United States.”

North Korea, trade top Bush talks with South Korean leader - MSNBC Wire Services- msnbc.com
On other issues, the president said he planned to maintain the current U.S. troop levels in South Korea. The U.S. is repositioning the troops on the Korean peninsula into two main hubs south of Seoul, and is working on a transition of wartime operational control to the South Koreans.  The leaders also noted the signing of an agreement that puts South Korea on a path toward visa-free travel to the U.S., and potential designation as a visa-waiver program member possibly by the end of the year.

The ‘green’ way to dump electronic junk - Going Green- msnbc.com
Erik Hodne's Denver basement contains two computers, two printers, a stereo receiver, two VCRs, six cell phones, three cordless phones and two Palm Pilots. Hodne is not a collector, and the machines carry no sentimental value. But like most Americans, Erik can't figure out what to do with his old tech trash. The 36-year-old surgical tools salesman considered selling some of the items, but he hasn't had time to figure out how much they're worth or how to erase the machines of any personal information.

Army, Marines enlisting more felons - Military- msnbc.com
WASHINGTON - Under pressure to meet combat needs, the Army and Marine Corps brought in significantly more recruits with felony convictions last year than in 2006, including some with manslaughter and sex crime convictions. 

Data released by a congressional committee shows the number of soldiers admitted to the Army with felony records jumped from 249 in 2006 to 511 in 2007. And the number of Marines with felonies rose from 208 to 350....

The bulk of the crimes involved were burglaries, other thefts, and drug offenses, but nine involved sex crimes and six involved manslaughter or vehicular homicide convictions. Several dozen Army and Marine recruits had aggravated assault or robbery convictions, including incidents involving weapons.