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Soldiers Say Intel Tool Is Too Difficult: Congress Cuts Funds for Army’s System

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Photo Credit: Rahmat GulAn internal memo from the U.S. command in Afghanistan says soldiers are voicing strong complaints about the Army’s battlefield intelligence network, for which Congress just slashed spending by 60 percent.

The $28 billion Distributed Common Ground System is too slow and unstable and hurts operations in some cases, say intelligence officers who rely on the computer network to collect and quickly dispense data on hard-to-find insurgents and the homemade bombs they plant.

The “official use only” memo issued in November was in the form of a survey of four combat and support units in Afghanistan.

Soldiers with the 130th Engineer Brigade said that, after training, “the system is still too complex and overwhelming for most to use.”

“DCGS continues to be unstable, slow, not friendly and a major hindrance to operations at the [battalion] level and lower,” the brigade said.

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Soldiers Killed by Terrorists Backed by US Cash

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Photo Credit: Jonathan Saruk/Getty ImagesThe United States has paid more than $150 million to companies in Afghanistan that are accused of helping to finance terrorist attacks on American soldiers and facilities, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

“It’s like the United States government subsidizing the Taliban, al Qaeda, the Haqqani network, those groups that are trying to shoot and kill our soldiers,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., a member of the Senate’s Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News’ “World News with Diane Sawyer”.

A list of 43 companies in Afghanistan was compiled by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) using data from both classified Pentagon investigative reports and Commerce Department lists of terror-connected companies.

Among them is a road construction company the U.S. says is partly owned by a leader of the brutal Haqqani network, which was blamed for an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul that claimed 16 lives in 2011.

The cover letter of a classified investigation by the U.S. Army said there was evidence of a direct role of both the company and its owners “in the facilitation and operation of the Haqqani Network” and that “approximately $1-2 million per month flow[s] to Haqqani Network to finance its activities.”

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McCaskill Demands Explanation Over Staged Arrival Ceremonies for Fallen Soldiers

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Photo Credit: AP2011Sen. Claire McCaskill is pressing the Pentagon for answers following reports — and an admission by the U.S. Department of Defense — that it staged “arrival ceremonies” for fallen soldiers.

“This is even more evidence that these recovery efforts are suffering from systematic problems and a lack of coordinated leadership,” McCaskill said in a statement. “Families in this community just want officials to be honest and forthright about the government’s efforts – instead, what they’re often getting is false hope and fake ceremonies.”

Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command — a unit in the Defense Department — has been holding arrival ceremonies for seven years, with flag-draped coffins being carried off cargo planes as though they held the remains of American troops that had just been returned, according to an initial investigation by NBC News. However, the remains typically were on site before each ceremony began, at a lab where they were undergoing analysis. The report focused on ceremonies at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii.

“These ceremonies, which have been held numerous times over the past seven years, reportedly represented to veterans and families that the remains had been recently recovered and were arriving in the United States for the first time,” McCaskill wrote in her Oct. 25 letter to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

Following the report, the Pentagon acknowledged that the ceremonies were more of a “pre-planned” memorial than a series of actual events unfolding. The Pentagon also confirmed allegations that planes used in the ceremonies at the military base in Hawaii couldn’t even fly and were towed into position.

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Male Soldiers in Afghanistan Using Craigslist to Have Sex With Each Other on Base

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Photo Credit: Corbis U.S. soldiers deployed to Afghanistan are using Craigslist to meet and have sex with each other on bases across the war-torn country, leading to concerns about a breakdown in discipline overseas.

Military commanders have forbade any service members who are not married to each other from having sex while deployed to the combat zone. As a result, each of the covert meetings is a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The vast majority of the posts on Craigslist involve male soldiers seeking sex with other men – a practice that could have resulted in the discharge of both parities from the military under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which barred gays in the armed forces.

After the policy was repealed by Congress and President Barack Obama in 2010, the penalties for a gay rendezvous aren’t as steep.

A U.S. Marine lance corporal who was caught and arrested after making an illicit meeting with a male undercover Naval Criminal Investigation Service officer, told the Marine Corps Times that he was busted down to private first class, gave up $1,600 in pay and got 45 days of extra duties and 45 days of restrictions.

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Obama Admin. Slashing Combat Brigades at 10 US Bases

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Photo Credit: The U.S. Army

Photo Credit: The U.S. Army

In a massive restructuring, the U.S. Army is slashing the number of active duty combat brigades from 45 to 33, and shifting thousands of soldiers out of bases around the country as it moves forward with a longtime plan to cut the size of the service by 80,000.

Officials say the sweeping changes would eliminate brigades at 10 Army bases in the U.S. by 2017, including in Texas, Kentucky, Georgia, Colorado, North Carolina, New York, Kansas and Washington. The Army will also cut thousands of other jobs across the service, including soldiers in units that support the brigades, and two brigades in Germany have already been scheduled for elimination.

Officials provided details on the plans on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. An announcement is expected Tuesday afternoon. The Army is being reduced in size from a high of about 570,000 during the peak of the Iraq war to 490,000 as part of efforts to cut the budget and reflect the country’s military needs as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan end. Additional reductions could be required if Congress allows automatic budget cuts to continue into next year.

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Taliban Propose Prisoner Swap of US Soldier for Gitmo Detainees (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Kathy Gannon. The Afghan Taliban is ready to free a U.S. soldier held captive since 2009 in exchange for five of their senior operatives imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay as a conciliatory gesture, a senior spokesman for the group said Thursday.

The offer follows this week’s official opening of a Taliban political office in Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar.

The only known American soldier held captive from the Afghan war is U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl of Hailey, Idaho. He disappeared from his base in southeastern Afghanistan on June 30, 2009, and is believed held in Pakistan.

In an exclusive telephone interview with The Associated Press from his Doha office, Taliban spokesman Shaheen Suhail said on Thursday that Bergdahl “is, as far as I know, in good condition.”

Suhail did not elaborate on Bergdahl’s current whereabouts. Among the five prisoners the Taliban have consistently requested are Khairullah Khairkhwa, a former Taliban governor of Herat, and Mullah Mohammed Fazl, a former top Taliban military commander, both of whom have been held for more than a decade. Read more from this story HERE.

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Rep. Gohmert claimed today that Obama is “sucking up to the Taliban.” What this means to the prisoner swap remains to be seen:

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Taliban ‘Embassy’ is a Surrender by Obama

By Joel B. Pollack. The decision by the Taliban to hoist their own “Islamic Emirate” flag above what was supposed to be just a “political office” in Doha, Qatar is more than just an embarrassment for President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, and more than a stumbling block in negotiations over U.S. withdrawal from the country. Rather, the provocative gesture unmasks that withdrawal for what it is: a surrender, and a betrayal of the war against terror.

As the smoke rose from Ground Zero, the U.S. and NATO made clear that unless the Taliban regime handed over Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, it would be removed. The Taliban, perhaps believing that the U.S. did not have the stomach for a fight, refused. And so they paid the price. Theirs was not to be a temporary removal, but a deterrent against any other regimes that would dare to host or assist anti-American terrorist groups.

The Taliban, along with Al Qaeda, were routed. But they sheltered in the border regions of Pakistan, regrouped and launched an insurgency against the new government of Afghanistan, NATO, and the United Nations. Then-Sen. Barack Obama blamed the Bush administration for expending military resources on Iraq that could have been used in Afghanistan and pledged that, as president, he would do the opposite. Read more from this story HERE.

The Irish Should be Remembered by America this Memorial Day for their Great Military Service

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Photo Credit: Irish Central When the Romans first visited Ireland, they called it Hibernia, the sleeping land…See Hibernia. But soon, to their dismay, they found the people were not at all a sleeping group.

In the early 1st century, Roman and Greek knowledge of Ireland was thin, but the geographers Strabo and Pomponius Mela describe “a cold land populated by extremely fierce inhabitants.” In lore of combat between Romans and native Irish, the Romans feared the Irish and their woman warriors most for the fierceness of their attacks and utter lack of fear.

Invasions by warlike foreigners left their mark on Ireland and mixed their blood with the Irish. In the late 700’s the Vikings attacked and tried to establish permanent settlements See history of Vikings invading Ireland. The Vikings were eventually defeated, but many of them stayed and intermarried with the native population. Later the Normans came and went and then the British appeared.

The unique blend of the Irish and their invaders created a hybrid of warrior that has filled the ranks of many armies around the world.

Many Irish immigrated to the “new lands” of the American continent to find the opportunity and freedom that they couldn’t find in their native land. They took up arms to defend their adopted countries and to fight for what they believed to be battles for freedom and justice.

The influence Irish had in Latin America over the past 200 + years is historic. The Irish fought alongside their brothers and sisters in their new homelands. They shed their blood in many wars to help free millions from the tyranny of colonialism. See Irish in Latin America

But when the Irish found their way to North America, their presence was felt immediately in the armed forces battling for freedom in every step of the way.

The Irish played an integral part in the Revolutionary war, when a fledgling country had to win its freedom by force from British rule. Names like John Barry, the founder of our navy, Jeremiah O’Brien, Timothy Murphy, Molly Pitcher, John Sullivan and thousands of other Irish, who fought and died to form the new country of the United States.

The Irish stepped forward again, when the English returned and tried to re-conquer our young country in the war of 1812 and threw them back at the Battle of New Orleans.

Tragically when our country was torn apart by its civil war, Irish Americans fought on both sides to play key roles in the major battles that finally saw a divided country, unite again. One of the most famous units in all of American military history was a brigade known during the American Civil War as simply “The Irish Brigade.” See Irish Brigade; Heroes of the Civil War.

When the United States stepped into the 1st World War, the Irish Americans distinguished themselves in many memorable battles and astonished the Germans with their fierceness and valor. Especially noteworthy when they fought and brawled hand to hand with German crack troops as members of the famed “Lost Battalion.”

World War II saw another generation of Irish Americans push their way forward to defend their country against one of the greatest axis of evils the world had seen. Irish Americans were over represented in the awarding of Medals of Honor in the field of battle, with Audie Murphy becoming one of the most decorated soldiers in American history.

Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, Afghanistan…Wherever and whenever the country needs to be defended and fought for, Irish Americans have a long history of being right there at the tip of the spear, where the greatest fighting occurs.

In war as well as peace, our country has benefited from the valor of its warriors of Irish descent. It is good to remember our “fighting” Irish American warriors on this Memorial Day weekend.

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Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Veteran Suicides Outpace Combat Deaths, Child Gun Deaths

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Photo Credit: The U.S. ArmyMemorial Day commemorates the U.S. soliders who lost their lives in service. It’s also a time to recognize a growing but less visible group of fallen soliders who chose to end their own lives while serving or after returning from war.

There are about 22 veteran suicides each day, a rate higher than previous estimates, based on a report released by the Department of Veterans Affairs earlier this year. Many veterans who take their own lives are over 50, but the hundreds of thousands of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan also struggle to adjust to civilian life while dealing with the mental and physical effects of war on top of a weak job market.

Photo Credit: Jan Diehm

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North Korean CHILDREN Being Trained as Soldiers

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Photo Credit: Joseph A Ferris III

North Korea’s newest batch of future soldiers — scrawny 11-year-olds with freshly shaved heads — punch the air as they practice taekwondo on the grounds of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School. Students and teachers here say they’re studying harder these days to prepare for a fight.

Across the country, banners, slogans and artwork have been redrawn to focus on fighting “the imperialist Americans and their traitorous followers,” a reference to South Korea. Slogans on improving North Korea’s economy had dominated since 2009, but anti-American propaganda has re-emerged over the past year, particularly following U.S.-led censure of North Korea’s decision to launch a long-range rocket and test a nuclear bomb.

At the military school, where students work on desktop computers without Internet access and practice their English with chants such as “The respected Marshal Kim Jong Un is our father,” classwork is infused with conflict.

“Because of the present situation, I am trying to study harder, because I really think that’s how I can get my revenge on the American imperialists: by getting top marks in class,” one student, Jo Chung Hyok, told The Associated Press.

“It’s my revolutionary duty,” Jo said. “I’m working extra hard to get top marks in military subjects like tactics and shooting.”

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Afghan Car Bomb Kills Six Americans Including Secr. of State John Kerry's Aide

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Photo Credit: Rich Anderson

A car bomb blast killed five Americans, including three U.S. soldiers and a young diplomat, on Saturday, while an American civilian died in a separate attack in the east.

The diplomat and other Americans were in a convoy of vehicles in Zabul province when the blast occurred, Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement.

The soldiers and the diplomat died in the blast along with a civilian employee of the Defense Department and Afghan civilians, Kerry said. His statement gave no overall death toll.

The Washington Post identified the diplomat as Anne Smedinghoff, 25, citing her parents. Smedinghoff was Kerry’s embassy guide and aide when he visited Afghanistan last month, the paper said.

Local and international officials in the region said earlier that six people died in the blast: three U.S. soldiers, two U.S. civilians and an Afghan doctor. Provincial governor Mohammad Ashraf Nasery was in the convoy, but was unharmed, local and NATO officials said.

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