April 20, 2013

Madigan health task force shut down

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2013/04/20/2565452/madigan-health-task-force-shut.html

A high-profile Army Medical Command task force charged with improving the health care atmosphere among patients and staff was shut down late last year after an investigation found that it created a “toxic and intimidating working environment” in its own ranks.

Madigan health task force shut down
HAL BERNTON; The Seattle Times
Published: April 20, 2013 at 12:05 a.m. PDT

A high-profile Army Medical Command task force charged with improving the health care atmosphere among patients and staff was shut down late last year after an investigation found that it created a “toxic and intimidating working environment” in its own ranks.

The investigation concluded that leaders of the national program, based at Madigan Army Medical Center, sometimes used “bullying tactics” and created “a wolf pack mentality” when training its staff.

The investigative report also noted the use of questionable “Wiccan practices” in training, such as using stones and crystal bowls for “energy readiness.”

~snip~

The 721-page report of the investigation, first obtained by KUOW Public Radio under the federal Freedom of Information Act, criticized the leadership of Claudette Elliott, director of the task force, who was identified by title but with her name redacted in the document.

April 20, 2013

Cutting the Pentagon Budget: A Step to Curbing Climate Change and Healing the Planet

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Cutting-the-Pentagon-Budge-by-Mark-Dunlea-130419-732.html

Cutting the Pentagon Budget: A Step to Curbing Climate Change and Healing the Planet
By Mark Dunlea
OpEdNews Op Eds 4/19/2013 at 08:14:24

~snip~

Environmental destruction has often been a direct goal during military conflicts. Ecological destruction is immense during times of armed conflict, such as the US wars in the Middle East. Throughout history water has been re-routed and poisoned to injure one's opponents; croplands have been laid to waste. The US used Agent Orange in Vietnam to destroy the tree cover of supply routes. Similar destruction has taken place in countries targeted by the US war on drugs.

The Pentagon is a major factor in our country's unquenchable thirst for oil. Our fossil fuel addiction led us to invade Iraq, overthrow the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953, and to oppose the democratically elected President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. The Department of Defense (DoD) uses 360,000 barrels of oil each day, making it the single largest consumer of petroleum in the world. There are only 35 countries in the world consuming more oil than the DoD.

A study by a Princeton researcher estimated that over 30 years the US spent $7.3 trillion dollars just to keep aircraft carriers in the Middle East to protect the supply routes for oil. The military's protection of oil supplies is a massive taxpayer subsidy to the fossil fuel industry. Were these costs factored into the price of gasoline at the pump, the price would more than double.

The Pentagon blocked EPA's efforts for 20 years to study the toxicity of perchlorate which has been released into the groundwater from more than 12,000 military sites that do live explosive training. In 2011 EPA ruled that perchlorate may have an adverse effect on the health of persons.

April 20, 2013

The Real Terrorists are the Corporate Execs Who’ve Bought the Regulators

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/49149/the-real-terrorists-are-the-corporate-execs-who-ve-bought-the-regulators

The Real Terrorists are the Corporate Execs Who’ve Bought the Regulators
by Dave Lindorff | April 19, 2013 - 9:16am

The way I see it, we had two acts of terrorism in the US this week. The first took place at the end of the historic Boston Marathon, when two bombs went off near the finish line, killing three and seriously injuring dozens of runners and spectators. The second happened a couple days later in the town of West, Texas, where a fertilizer plant blew up, incinerating or otherwise killing at least 15, and injuring at least 150 people, and probably more as the search for the dead and the injured continues.

~snip~

The villains in the West Fertilizer Co. explosion are can be much more easily identified: the managers and owners of the plant.

West Fertilizer was built in the middle of the small town of West, TX, a community founded in the 19th century and named after the first local postmaster, T.M. West. It makes no sense, of course, to put a facility that uses highly toxic anhydrous ammonia as a primary feed stock -- a compound that burns the lungs and kills on contact, and that, because it must be stored under pressure, is highly prone to leaks and explosive releases -- and that makes as its main product ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Ammonium nitrate is the highly explosive compound favored by truck bombers like the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. It was the fertilizer, vast quantities of which were stored at the West Fertilizer plant site, which caused the colossal explosion that leveled much of the town of West.

Building such a dangerous facility in the midst of a residential and business area, and allowing homes, nursing homes, hospitals, schools and playgrounds to be built alongside it, is the result of a corrupt process that is common in towns and cities across America, where business leaders routinely have their way with local planning and zoning commissions, safety inspectors and city councils. Businesses small and large also have their way with state and federal safety and health inspectors.

April 20, 2013

April 25: A Historic Day to Cut the Bloated Pentagon Budget

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/04/19-0

April 25: A Historic Day to Cut the Bloated Pentagon Budget
by Robert Naiman
Published on Friday, April 19, 2013 by Common Dreams

When I was an undergraduate in college - thirty years ago - I saw a poster in someone's apartment. It was a photograph of a group of kids scurrying happily about in a school playground. The caption read:



~snip~

But on Thursday of next week - rescheduled from this Friday due to the tragedy in Boston - the Holy Grail will be within reach. All we have to do to cut the bloated Pentagon budget and use the money for human needs instead is kill the "chained CPI" - the President's proposal to cut Social Security and veterans' benefits by lowering the cost-of-living adjustment.

The reason it has become this simple is that President Obama and Congress have made it this simple. The "grand bargain" that President Obama is seeking with Republicans who want to protect the bloated Pentagon budget would do three key things: 1) protect the bloated Pentagon budget 2) cut Social Security and veterans' benefits and 3) raise taxes.

If the President's effort to achieve a "grand bargain" with Republicans who want to protect the bloated Pentagon budget fails, then these three key things will happen instead: 1) the bloated Pentagon budget will be cut 2) Social Security and veterans' benefits will be spared 3) taxes will not be raised.

April 20, 2013

Guantánamo hunger strike count reaches 63

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/04/19/189097/guantanamo-hunger-strike-count.html


Guantánamo hunger strike count reaches 63
Carol Rosenberg | Miami Herald
Posted on Friday, April 19, 2013

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- More than a third of the war-on-terror captives are now considered hunger strikers, with 15 of them being force fed and four hospitalized, the U.S. military said Friday, reporting a significant spike since the majority of prisoners were put under lockdown.

U.S. Army Capt. Malisa Hamper, a prison camps spokesman, said 63 of the 166 captives had missed enough meals or become malnourished enough to meet the detention center definition of a hunger striker.

Also Thursday, the detention center’s Muslim-American cultural advisor defended the decision to raid a communal prison and forcibly move into single-cell lockdown some 60 or so captives. The detainees had weeks before covered up most of the prison’s surveillance cameras and kept largely out of view of their U.S. Army guards, the military said, stirring fears that some were planning to commit suicide.

“They wanted to die of hunger and thirst behind the hidden cameras,” said the Pentagon employee who allows himself to be identified only by his first name, Zak.



unhappycamper comment: One would think that this gulag should have been closed by now.

Follow the money.

April 19, 2013

Apache Helicopter: Congress Asks Army Why It's Accepting Unfinished AH-64Es

http://defense.aol.com/2013/04/17/apache-helicopter-congress-asks-army-why-its-accepting-unfinis/?icid=trending2



One of the Army's first AH-64E Apache Guardian helicopters on training exercises near Fort Lewis, Washington.

Apache Helicopter: Congress Asks Army Why It's Accepting Unfinished AH-64Es
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Published: April 17, 2013

CAPITOL HILL: Congress has asked the Army to explain why it has officially taken delivery of at least seven AH-64E Apache Guardian helicopters that don't have transmissions installed yet, AOL Defense has learned. An unidentified subcontractor to Boeing which makes the helicopter, fell behind on building the transmissions and is now trying to catch up, but until it does, the high-tech gunships are unflyable.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) mentioned the Apache transmission issue in one sentence of a 190-page report released last month, as reported by our colleagues at Inside Defense. But the problem remained unfixed as of yesterday, when Hill staff first learned of it during an Army briefing on the service's 2014 budget. Both Congress and AOL Defense are now waiting on further explanation from the Army.

"The question is, are they still behind, (and) why would the Army be taking delivery of aircraft that aren't complete?" one Hill staffer told AOL Defense. "Normally the government doesn't sign for an aircraft that is missing a major component, and the contractor doesn't get paid for it until it's complete.... Boeing obviously needs to get a handle on this."

The staffer did not expect the taxpayer to have to bear any additional costs for the helicopters, since Boeing and its subcontractor should pay to install the belated transmission out of their own pockets. The bigger concern is the delay to an important Army program.

April 19, 2013

Red Cross says security deteriorating in Afghanistan, as foreign militaries prepare to withdraw

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/04/18/international-red-cross-warns-security-deteriorating-amid-spring-violence-in/

Red Cross says security deteriorating in Afghanistan, as foreign militaries prepare to withdraw
Published April 18, 2013
Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan – The International Committee of the Red Cross warned on Thursday that security was deteriorating across Afghanistan as militants flood the battlefield and conduct attacks in what could be the most defining spring fighting season of the nearly 12-year-old war.

This year is crucial for Afghanistan as the U.S.-led coalition is expected to hand over the lead for security in Afghanistan to the country's security forces sometime in the late spring. Foreign military forces are then expected to begin a massive withdrawal of forces that will culminate at the end of next year.

Gherardo Pontrandolfi, head of the ICRC delegation in Kabul, also urged the warring parties to prevent the deaths of civilians, who have become increasingly caught in the crossfire.

"Spring is a good season of the year usually. But unfortunately it has a negative connotation with the resumption of the fighting," he said. "Spring and summer will be very difficult for civilians especially in the months ahead. The civilian population is bearing the brunt of this conflict."

April 19, 2013

Exploding your emotional bandwidth

http://blog.sfgate.com/morford/2013/04/16/exploding-your-emotional-bandwidth/



We are not so separate, or different. We just like to think we are.

Exploding your emotional bandwidth
SFGate
Friday Apr 19, 2013 6:28 AM PT

We are not built for this. We are not designed, at our core, to be able to absorb, at a glance and a click, a tweet and a ruthless video feed, all the ills and horrors of the world, all at once, all manner of chaos and destruction in a nonstop bloody flood over which we are powerless to influence and impotent to stop.

The Boston bombings have forced us, once again, to ask: Are we in an age of miracles or misery? Unhindered magic or cruel dystopia? Is it both? How can it possibly be both? This tech-enabled onslaught of violence and pain the likes of which our ancestors, even as recently as 50 years ago, never had to deal with and could not possibly imagine? It is not within our emotional capacity. Not without serious scarring, anyway.

As the images of blood and mayhem flooded the newswires on Monday, as the tragedy unfolded across a billion tiny screens in real time, as my Twitter feed lit up in seconds, instantly jammed with bizarre and disquieting images, frantic claims, uninformed hysteria and little Vine video clips of that one old man crumpling to the ground in a heap, we can only blink and shake, hold our collective head in our hands: “What the hell is this? What have we become?” And perhaps most importantly: “How can we possibly process it all? What can we do?”

The answer is almost always the same, but increasingly lost in the modern bedlam of technology: In times of violent, faraway tragedy, you do the only thing possible: You gather in, hold tight, and take care of those close to you. As feeble as it sounds, as meek as you feel, this is the only way. This is also the best way. To help. To be a part. To avoid shutting down, hardening, adding more suspicion and mistrust to the world.

April 19, 2013

Commentary: War costs last forever

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/03/29/186937/commentary-war-costs-last-forever.html

Commentary: War costs last forever
Glenn Garvin | The Miami Herald
Posted on Friday, March 29, 2013

~snip~

Aside from its curiosity value, the tale of the Civil War kids suggests an easy way to trim the federal deficit — not by cutting the pensions, which cost the government a grand total of $1,752 a year, but by eliminating subsidized Viagra from Obamacare. Those children were fathered well into the 20th century, when their fathers were close to 80 years old.

The Civil War isn’t the only war of the 19th century we’re still paying pensions for. Ten people are still getting pensions from the Spanish-American War, which ended in 1898. Total cost: $50,000 a year.

~snip~

The real money, not surprisingly, starts with World War II, in which nearly a million U.S. soldiers were killed or wounded. The $5 billion annual cost of pensions (which hasn’t declined much from its 1991 peak, even though the veterans are dying at the rate of more than 1,000 a day) is almost as much as FEMA pays out each year in disaster aid. The much smaller Korean War, which ended in 1953, still costs about $2.8 billion a year.

In the 1960s, it often seemed that the Vietnam war would never end — and for government accountants, it hasn’t. They issue checks for $22 billion each year (nearly triple the annual cost of the Transportation Safety Administration) and have already paid $270 billion to vets and their families. And the Middle Eastern wars of the past two decades may prove to be the most costly of all.



unhappycamper comment: http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

April 19, 2013

The Orwellian Warfare State of Carnage and Doublethink

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/15810-the-orwellian-warfare-state-of-carnage-and-doublethink

The Orwellian Warfare State of Carnage and Doublethink
Thursday, 18 April 2013 09:48
By Norman Solomon, Norman Solomon's Blog | Op-Ed

~snip~

In sync with media outlets across the country, the New York Times put a chilling headline on Wednesday’s front page: “Boston Bombs Were Loaded to Maim, Officials Say.” The story reported that nails and ball bearings were stuffed into pressure cookers, “rigged to shoot sharp bits of shrapnel into anyone within reach of their blast.”

Much less crude and weighing in at 1,000 pounds, CBU-87/B warheads were in the category of “combined effects munitions” when put to use 14 years ago by a bomber named Uncle Sam. The U.S. media coverage was brief and fleeting.

One Friday, at noontime, U.S.-led NATO forces dropped cluster bombs on the city of Nis, in the vicinity of a vegetable market. “The bombs struck next to the hospital complex and near the market, bringing death and destruction, peppering the streets of Serbia’s third-largest city with shrapnel,” a dispatch in the San Francisco Chronicle reported on May 8, 1999.

And: “In a street leading from the market, dismembered bodies were strewn among carrots and other vegetables in pools of blood. A dead woman, her body covered with a sheet, was still clutching a shopping bag filled with carrots.”