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US Soldier Shot Dead in ‘Insider Attack’ in South-Eastern Afghanistan

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Photo Credit: Xinhua/Landov/Barcroft MediaAn Afghan man wearing an Afghan army uniform shot at US soldiers in south-eastern Afghanistan, killing at least one serviceman on Sunday, local officials and the Nato-led coalition said.

The so-called “insider attack” in Paktika province is the fourth in less than a month and is likely to strain already tense ties between coalition troops and their allies, with most foreign troops scheduled to withdraw by the end of next year. A Reuters tally shows Sunday’s incident was the tenth this year, and took the death toll of foreign personnel to 15.

“A man wearing an Afghan army uniform shot at Americans in Sharana city [the provincial capital] near the governor’s office,” said an Afghan official, adding that two soldiers had been hit by the gunfire.

The Nato-led coalition confirmed one soldier had been shot by a man in security forces uniform, but did not comment on his nationality or whether the Afghan was wearing a army uniform.

Insider attacks threaten to further undermine waning support for the war among Western nations sending troops to Afghanistan. A similar flurry of attacks last year prompted the Nato-led force to briefly suspend all joint activities and take steps to curb interaction between foreign and Afghan troops.

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America’s Warning About Jihadis in the Military

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Photo Credit: WNDRet. Command Sergeant Major Bart E. Womack says it was golfer Tiger Woods who saved his life when a grenade landed at his feet.

Womack was stationed in Kuwait before the coalition’s invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power in 2003.

He said he was awake in the middle of the night because he is a golf fan, and Woods was competing in the Bay Hill Invitational and Womack knew a campaign was coming so every swing could have been the last one he would see for a long time.

Then it happened.

“As I concentrated on Tiger’s swing and listened for the sweet THWACK of a ball, I heard the tent flap flutter again and a scraping sound as something rolled toward me,” he writes in his new book “Embedded Enemy: The Insider Threat.”

“The hand grenade rolled between Tiger and me, resting at the tent’s edge,” he reports. “It is amazing how quickly thoughts can ping through your mind. I knew grenades only took five seconds to blow, and I think I wasted two seconds coming to the shocking realization of what was happening.”

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Priests Threatened with Arrest if they Minister to Military During Shutdown

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Photo Credit: U.S. Navy/Johnny Bivera/Getty

Photo Credit: U.S. Navy/Johnny Bivera/Getty

In a stunning development, some military priests are facing arrest if they celebrate mass or practice their faith on military bases during the federal government shutdown.

“With the government shutdown, many [government service] and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer,” wrote John Schlageter, the general counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, in an op-ed this week. “During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.”

According to its website, the Archdiocese for the Military Services “provides the Catholic Church’s full range of pastoral ministries and spiritual services to those in the United States Armed Forces.”

In his piece, Schlageter worries about this restriction as Sunday nears. “If the government shutdown continues through the weekend, there will be no Catholic priest to celebrate Mass this Sunday in the chapels at some U.S. military installations where non-active-duty priests serve as government contractors,” he wrote.

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U.S. Military’s Battlefield Network Vulnerable to Hackers

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Photo Credit: Musadeq Sadeq

Photo Credit: Musadeq Sadeq

The Pentagon’s main battlefield intelligence network in Afghanistan is vulnerable to hackers — both the enemy or a leaker — and the U.S. command in Kabul will cut off from the military’s classified data files unless the Army fixes the defects in 60 days, according to an official memo obtained by The Washington Times.

The memo says the Army’s Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) flunked a readiness test and does not confirm the source of outside Internet addresses entering the classified database.

The Sept. 5 warning notice from the U.S. command in Kabul is another blow to the intelligence network, commonly called “D-Sigs.” It already had suffered a wave of bad news, such as soldiers panning its performance as unreliable and the Pentagon’s top tester judging it as not operationally effective.

The warning comes as the U.S. military is on heightened alert against unlawful entry into classified computer networks, not only by the enemy but also by “friendlies” such as Army Pvt. Bradley Manning and former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. Both illegally downloaded reams of classified data that got widespread dissemination in the news media and, officials say, greatly damaged America’s security.

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Former Special Forces Commander: Now It’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell for Christians (+audio)

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Lt_Gen_William_G_BoykinMany commanders in the Department of Defense are violating the religious rights of service members, forcing them to be quiet about their moral opposition to homosexuality and gay marriage, for instance, and, in effect, imposing a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy on Christians, said Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William “Jerry” Boykin, the former commander of the U.S. Special Forces Command.

In an interview, CNSNews.com asked Gen. Boykin, now the executive vice president of the Family Research Council (FRC), “Given the violation of religious liberties that have been going on, do you think that, ironically, Christians are being forced into the closet? Being forced to basically Don’t Talk, Don’t Tell, if they’re a Christian?” (at 7:43 into audio clip)

Boykin said, “Yes, it’s a real turnabout where you, at one time, had to come out of the closet to admit you’re homosexual, and now you have to come out of the closet to admit that you’re a Christian.”

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How The U.S. Military Plans To Hijack The Airwaves

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Photo Credit: Forbes

Photo Credit: Forbes

If you want to take over a nation, then first take over its airwaves. Broadcast your messages and interdict the enemy’s ability to broadcast theirs. When the U.S. attacked Iraq in 1991, or NATO bombed Serbia in 1999, among the first targets destroyed were TV and radio stations. When there is a military coup in Africa, the first buildings the rebels usually grab are the radio and TV studios.

So it is illuminating that the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), the organization that oversees America’s elite special forces, is quietly searching for equipment that will effectively give it control over every FM and AM radio station in an area. The short, innocuous-sounding announcement on the Federal Business Opportunities site states that SOCOM seeks vendors to provide “a radio broadcast system capable of searching for and acquiring every AM and FM radio station in a specific area and then broadcasting a message(s) in the target area on all acquired AM and FM radio station frequencies.” SOCOM wants equipment that is both lightweight and sophisticated enough to detect and broadcast over multiple frequencies simultaneously. And SOCOM wants it fast. The equipment must be at least Technology Readiness Level 8, a Pentagon measure of technological maturity that means that it is fully developed, tested and ready for use.

“It appears that SOCOM is looking to purchase a preferably commercial off the shelf friendly-foreign or domestic advanced form of Software-Defined Radio (SDR) as a solution for their tactical and theater Psyops or MISO missions,” says a military expert who asked to remain anonymous. “The exact platform – whether it’s ground-based or airborne – cannot be determined from the solicitation. It would appear to be an urgent request because of the TRL 8 or above stipulation. ”

This is what the Pentagon now calls Military Information Support Operations, or MISO. This is a far less sinister name for what the rest of us call Psychological Operations, or Psyops. that subtle form of warfare that uses carefully tailored information – truthful or not – to change foreign hearts and minds in a way that furthers U.S. interests.

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When did Military Bases Become ‘Gun-Free Zones’?

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

It hasn’t always been the case that only MPs can carry firearms on U.S. military bases. A mere twenty years ago, “gun free zones” made their way to these facilities under the watch of President Bill Clinton.

According to a Washington Times editorial written days after the Nov. 5, 2009 attack on soldiers at Fort Hood, one of Clinton’s “first acts upon taking office… was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military bases.”

Clinton’s actions birthed Army regulations “forbidding military personnel from carrying their personal firearms and making it almost impossible for commanders to issue firearms to soldiers in the U.S. for personal protection.”

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Sources: US Weapons Stolen in Libya Raids, Fueling Special Forces Pull-Out

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Highly sensitive U.S. military equipment stored in Libya was stolen over the summer by groups likely aligned and working with terrorist organizations, State Department sources told Fox News — in raids that contributed to the decision to pull Special Forces personnel from the country.

The stolen equipment had been used by U.S. Special Forces stationed in the country. Lost in the raids in late July and early August were dozens of M4 rifles, night-vision technology and lasers used as aiming devices that are mounted on guns and can only be seen with night-vision equipment.

“This stuff is how we win wars. The enemy doesn’t have that,” one source said.

The overnight raids happened at a military training camp run by American Special Forces on the outskirts of Tripoli, in the weeks before the team was pulled from the country in August.

That U.S. team was funded by the Department of Defense Section 1208, which provides support to assist and stand up foreign counterterrorism forces in other countries. And in the case of Libya, the trainers were also tasked with hunting down the Benghazi attack suspects that killed four Americans one year ago. As Fox News previously reported, members of that team are leaving Libya.

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Ed Asner Explains Hollywood Silence on Obama, Syria: They ‘Don’t Want to Feel Anti-Black’

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Photo Credit: Hollywood Reporter

Photo Credit: Hollywood Reporter

In 2003, ahead of a U.S. attack on Iraq, a robust anti-war movement in Hollywood included a TV commercial starring Martin Sheen and Sean Penn visiting Baghdad. There were online petitions signed by Ed Asner; letters to President George W. Bush pleading for peace were signed by Matt Damon, Tim Robbins, Barbra Streisand and Alec Baldwin; former M*A*S*H star Mike Farrell fronted multiple press conferences where celebrities denounced war. In interviews, Janeane Garofalo stopped identifying herself as an actor — she preferred to be called a member of the U.S. anti-war movement.

The good news for President Barack Obama as he considers a military response against Syria for using chemical weapons against rebels is that he probably won’t have to deal with a similar anti-war movement from Hollywood. But that’s not because there isn’t opposition. It’s just not organized, and, as Asner and Farrell – two of the industry’s most vocal progressive activists — told The Hollywood Reporter Friday, perhaps it never will be.

While some conservatives see hypocrisy, Farrell says that an all-out war in Iraq under Bush, a Republican who was very unpopular in Hollywood, was a much bigger deal than potential missile strikes against Syria under the direction of Obama, a Democrat who drew millions for his campaigns from showbiz industry donors.

Asner, 83, and Farrell, 74, both expressed extreme disappointment in Obama for advocating military action.

“What he is talking about in Syria is a potential war crime,” Farrell said. “It will be illegal, and if citizens are killed it certainly could be considered a war crime.”

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Air Force Cracking Down on Christians

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A 19-year Air Force veteran who was relieved of his duties because he disagreed with his openly gay commander over gay marriage is now facing a formal investigation after he told me his story.

Senior Master Sgt. Phillip Monk found himself at odds with his Lackland Air Force Base commander after he objected to her plans to severely punish an instructor who had expressed religious objections to homosexuality. During the conversation, his commander ordered him to share his personal views on homosexuality.

“I was relieved of my position because I don’t agree with my commander’s position on gay marriage,” he told me. “We’ve been told that if you publicly say that homosexuality is wrong, you are in violation of Air Force policy.”

In one of her first meetings with Monk, the commander expressed concern about the chaplain who would deliver the benediction at her promotion ceremony.

“She said she wanted a chaplain but objected to one particular chaplain that she called a bigot because he preached that homosexuality is a sin,” Monk said.

Read more from this story HERE.