At least 32 people have been killed in Iraq as car bomb attacks targeted security forces and Shia pilgrims around the country, police say.
In Taji, a mainly Sunni town north of the capital, Baghdad, four car bombs went off within minutes of each other, killing at least eight people.
In the southern town of Madain, a bomb exploded near a Shia shrine and Iranian pilgrims were among the injured.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew his “red line” for Iran’s nuclear program on Thursday despite a U.S. refusal to set an ultimatum, saying Tehran will be on the brink of a nuclear weapon in less than a year.
By citing a time frame in an address to the U.N. General Assembly, Netanyahu – who has clashed with President Barack Obama over the urgency of military action against Iran – appeared to suggest no Israeli attack was imminent before the November 6 U.S. presidential election….
They walked with heads held high, harboring dreams imagined in black and gold, marching to the peculiar orders of the times.
A movement was beginning. That day, 50,000 people passed through the doors of Three Rivers Stadium, the massive concrete structure looming just west of the infamous Bridge to Nowhere, this time hoping that the Steelers, after 40 irrelevant seasons, were finally taking them somewhere worth going.
Each person in the stadium had his or her own dramas outside of it. There was the war that seemingly would not end, the intensifying of racial tensions across the city and, for those who were paying close enough attention, the fear that those hulking mills that lined the rivers were not going to be needed forever. But, the Steelers were host to the Oakland Raiders in the first round of the NFL playoffs, and such pressing matters could be thrust to the back burner for the good of Pittsburgh.
An absolute must read article for oh-so-many reasons, but perhaps above all for what it teaches about American history. Take the time to peruse it all–KSH.
Several hundred retired military leaders are raising red flags about childhood obesity in the USA and its impact on finding qualified recruits. They want junk food to be booted out of schools.
Mission: Readiness, a group of more than 300 retired generals and admirals, says in a report out today that the 40% of students who buy high-calorie, low-nutrient junk food from school vending machines and cafeteria a la carte lines consume an average of 130 calories a day from those types of foods (candy, chips, cookies, pastries). That’s roughly 5% to 10% of the calories kids and teens should eat in a day.
Three-quarters of those ages 17 to 24, or about 26 million young people, cannot serve in the military, a quarter of them because they are overweight or obese, says retired Air Force lieutenant general Norman Seip, a spokesman for Mission: Readiness.
Civilians are being “terrorised” 24 hours a day by CIA drone attacks that target mainly low-level militants in north-west Pakistan, a US report says.
Rescuers treating the casualties are also being killed and wounded by second drone strikes, says the report by Stanford and New York Universities.
Drone attacks are thought to have killed hundreds of militants in Yemen and Afghanistan as well as Pakistan.
A decade after his military service, McLean faces 15 years to life in prison if he’s convicted of first-degree burglary. He makes no excuses for the addict he’s become.
Six months in jail awaiting a court date have provided him some quality detox time. Abusing alcohol and crack cocaine, McLean was homeless when he was arrested.
“I’ve never gotten into trouble except when drugs and alcohol were involved,” he says.
He admits he needs help.
On the 11th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, al Qaeda affiliates staged a series of attacks against U.S. diplomatic missions in the Middle East. Inciting protests against the film, “Innocence of Muslims,” or possibly taking advantage of existing demonstrations, militants with alledged links to Al Qaeda burned the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service information management officer Sean Smith and two contracted American security personnel. Within days, violent protests sprung up in over two dozen countries across the Muslim world. In Sana’a, Yemen, protestors forcibly entered the U.S. Embassy compound and burned the American flag, replacing it with a black flag bearing the Islamic shahada.
Since the Benghazi attack, Al Qaeda and Hezbollah have threatened U.S. personnel and facilities. In light of Ambassador Stevens’ death, and remembering the 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days by “protestors” in Iran, there is growing concern about the ability of Americans to protect themselves inside diplomatic missions. While Marines from Fleet Anti-Terrorist Security Teams (FAST) have been deployed to Yemen, questions remain as to why Marines or other U.S. military forces have not been sent to other embassies. Before we discuss the operational details of what U.S. forces are available, it is imperative that we understand the political context in which our military is used to protect U.S. diplomatic missions abroad.
Two years ago, Matthew Proctor dropped to his knees in the Afghan dirt and watched his best friend bleed to death.
These days, when dreams get disturbing or guilt eats at his gut, there is one person the former Marine corporal is likely to call: Thomas Rivers Sr., his dead friend’s father.
When Mr. Rivers, 60 years old and a pharmaceutical executive, feels himself sinking into black depression or misses the pleasures of raising a son, it is the 24-year-old Cpl. Proctor he confides in or invites over for a boat ride. “He lost a best friend, and in a sense I lost a best friend as well as my son,” says Mr. Rivers. “That is a bond we share.”
Anger over a film trailer mocking a sanctified Muslim religious figure has sparked violent protests across the Middle East that have taken the lives of dozens of people. Now, the strife is manifesting itself in the form of cyber war waged against America at home.
Over the course of this week, three major U.S. financial institutions have seen their web infrastructure targeted in technical attacks. On at least two occasions, groups or individuals claiming to be aligned with Muslims said the attacks were a reprisal for the ”˜Innocence of Muslims’ trailer that ridiculed the Prophet Mohammad.
Less than a week after this grim conversational bidding war, the district of the capital where these women and their children had been taken in was shelled, then raided by government forces.
Not surprisingly, the regime’s iron-fisted approach has made real what had merely been a nightmarish fantasy. From the start it portrayed the revolutionaries as bands of heavily armed Sunni Muslim fanatics, funded and directed by Syria’s enemies. The charge was laughable a year ago, when by all accounts there were simply no guns in opposition hands at all. Even by February, after eleven months of unrest, a trophy table of captured “terrorist” weapons displayed for journalists at an army club in Deraa, the battered city near the Jordanian border where protests first began, proved embarrassingly puny. Amid rusted pistols and primitive pipe bombs, the only serious weapon was a Stalingrad-vintage Bulgarian-made sniper rifle.
Only recently has the Free Syrian Army, the loose coalition of local fighting groups that emerged last fall, begun to wield much firepower. Despite talk of large-scale aid from sympathetic Sunni Muslims in the Persian Gulf, and in particular the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the flow of money did not pick up until this spring, while the flow of weapons from outside Syria even now remains a trickle.
On this morning 150 years ago, Union and Confederate troops clashed at the crossroads town of Sharpsburg, Md. The Battle of Antietam remains the bloodiest single day in American history.
The battle left 23,000 men killed or wounded in the fields, woods and dirt roads, and it changed the course of the Civil War.
It is called simply the Cornfield, and it was here, in the first light of dawn that Union troops ”” more than 1,000 ”” crept toward the Confederate lines. The stalks were at head level and shielded their movements….
As a boy, Derek Crist roamed Antietam National Battlefield on the outskirts of town, its rolling hills and gentle streams a child’s dream playground.
In 2010, Army Sgt. Crist returned home from two tours in Afghanistan, where nearly 2,000 American servicemembers have died. His platoon lost two soldiers. He says he had not thought deeply about the history of his hometown until he saw fellow soldiers killed and wounded. The ground where, 150 years ago Monday, more than 23,000 were killed, wounded or went missing in the bloodiest day of combat in American history is indescribably more personal.
“The loss of one friend is pretty rough,” says Crist, 25, who is out of the Army and pursuing a business degree. “And then you realize you had all that going on right here.”
The killings of the US ambassador to Libya and three of his staff were likely to have been the result of a serious and continuing security breach, The Independent can reveal.
American officials believe the attack was planned, but Chris Stevens had been back in the country only a short while and the details of his visit to Benghazi, where he and his staff died, were meant to be confidential.
The US administration is now facing a crisis in Libya. Sensitive documents have gone missing from the consulate in Benghazi and the supposedly secret location of the “safe house” in the city, where the staff had retreated, came under sustained mortar attack. Other such refuges across the country are no longer deemed “safe”.
The rift between top U.S. and Israeli leaders appeared to deepen Tuesday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leveled the sharpest attacks in years by an Israeli leader against Washington, over differences on how to address Iran’s nuclear program.
Tensions had so escalated that President Barack Obama spent an hour on the phone with the Israeli leader in a hastily arranged call hours after both governments said the White House wouldn’t agree to an Israeli request for a meeting between the two leaders at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York this month.
The Israelis said their request was refused; the White House said there was a scheduling conflict and there could be a meeting elsewhere at another time.
Haynes said that, despite all the evil that happened during 9/11, one of the positive things that happened as a result of the attacks was the good it brought out in people.
“It was just an outpouring of love from the American people,” he said. “Everybody was just supportive of one another. I’ve never seen anything quite like that before.”
Haynes said he feels privileged having been at the Pentagon during 9/11, being able to serve those in need of spiritual support. He said that although it was a trying and tiring time, his faith helped him meet the demands.
“I believe that God gives you strength. And I believe in the power of prayer. There was a lot of prayer going on,” he said. “A lot of people just wanted to hear some positive words. I felt like that was my duty. I had to do that. I had to be strong for my fellow comrades and employees in the building. I believe that God prepares us for stuff, and I believe that God had me there for a reason.”
2012 Raytheon Award Video from Jersey on Vimeo.
Here is the video’s own self-description:
This video was created to commemorate the 67FS winning the 2011 Raytheon Trophy for outstanding aerial achievement, given to the top air-to-air squadron in the USAF.
The footage was shot over 1 year of flying with a Sony HD Handycam and GOPRO Hero. The footage was shot entirely by pilots, no combat camera personnel were used. The video was edited with Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD over 2 weeks by Jersey. Footage includes flying and aircraft from both the 67FS “Fighting Cocks” and the 44FS “Vampire Bats”, entirely on location at Kadena AB, Japan. Most of the over water footage was filmed while we were raging like demons from hell in the skies over the pacific ocean like our brothers did 70 years before us.
Watch it all.
A public statement applauding steps toward peace talks in Colombia was issued recently by representatives of churches and ecumenical organizations that form the Peace Commission of the Evangelical Council (CEDECOL), the Ecumenical Network in Colombia and the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI).
The statement, released on 28 August and responding to an announcement that the Colombian government and the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ”“ People’s Army) were working on a proposal to start peace talks, expressed thankfulness to God and hope for a more peaceful future in the country, which has been wracked by decades of conflict. The peace talks are scheduled to begin 8 October in Norway and may also include the National Liberation Army (ELN).
“The people of Colombia deserve peace with justice,” Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), said in response to the ecumenical statement and the potential for peace talks. “As an ecumenical community, we ask all WCC member churches to pray that the process of peace talks will proceed as soon as possible.”
For years, armed militias have been stalking the lush forests in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, committing all sorts of atrocities against villagers. And now one of the most war-ravaged countries in the world has another looming problem: an emerging rebel group.
“A notorious group of human rights violators” is how the U.N. human rights commissioner describes the group, known as the March 23 Movement, or M23.
Reportedly led by a Tutsi warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court, M23 has been accused of rape, murder and child-soldier recruitment.
The Nigerian army says it has killed seven suspected members of the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in a gun battle in the north of the country.
A spokesman said a further 13 people were arrested after an attack on an army checkpoint in Maiduguri.
Earlier, Nigerian police said they would mount a 24-hour guard of mobile-phone installations following Boko Haram attacks on masts in the north.
We celebrate our workers in this country today. Maybe we should also take a moment to remember those who work for us in uniform in other parts of the world.
Not too long ago, one of those people was Cliff Hartley. He joined the Air Force at the age of 19, and one year ago today, he spent Labor Day walking a dusty road in Afghanistan with his dog, Cir, looking for bombs. They were attached to a SEAL team and their primary duties were to sniff out trouble.
Cir retired from duty last October and now lives with Hartley, who has 10 years in the Air Force and plans to do 10 more. Right now, he’s stateside. His retired military working dog now sleeps at his feet in their North Charleston house, just like he once did in a tent in Afghanistan. There’s one big difference. They both sleep much better now.
The idea of a safe zone for refugees in Syria was first proposed several months ago, but the flood of people entering Turkey ”“ as many as 5,000 a day for the past 10 days ”“ has ratcheted up the pressure for such a zone’s creation.
The UN refugee agency announced on Aug. 28 that as many as 200,000 Syrians may seek refuge in Turkey alone. Turkey says its threshold is 100,000, and it is leading the call for a safe zone so that Syrians can safely remain inside Syria.
But it’s complicated and carries risks that make the international community hesitant to implement it. Here are some complications….
The Boko Haram sect has been a thorn in the flesh of all Nigerians. Many lives and properties have been lost in the course of their influx and the flow of innocent people’s blood has yet to cease. The federal government has indicated that a dialogue with this group would ease their attacks on Nigerians. Nigerian Tribune took the matter to the court of the Nigerian public through a poll. Of the 666 people who participated in the poll, 333 (50 per cent) stood against the opinion, through their votes, while 321 people (48.2 per cent) opined that it would be a reasonable decision. 12 people (1.8 per cent) voted indifferent.
Nigeria’s government says it is in negotiations with Islamist militant group Boko Haram. Some analysts are skeptical the talks will end the violence blamed on the group in northern Nigeria.
There has been a lot of debate among Nigerians recently about the militant group known as Boko Haram. Are they, or are they not holding peace talks with the government?
On Sunday, the government emphatically said “Yes, they are.” Presidential spokesperson Reuben Abati told state-house reporters negotiations are taking place through “backroom channels,” not at a formal table in an air conditioned office.
Many people are Christians because of the work of C.S. Lewis. With wit and wisdom, Lewis imaginatively exploded the hollow pretensions of the secular. Moreover, he helped many see, for the first time, the world in the light of fact that “it had really happened once.”
It is, therefore, not easy to criticize Lewis when he has such a devoted following. Yet I must write critically of Lewis because here I want to examine his views concerning violence and war. I am a pacifist. Lewis was anything but a pacifist. I want to show that his arguments against pacifism are inadequate, but I also that he provides imaginative resources for Christians to imagine a very different form of Christian nonviolence, a form unknown to Lewis, with which I hope he might have had some sympathy.
Before turning to Lewis’s arguments against pacifism, I think it important to set the context for his more formal reflections on war by calling attention to Lewis’s experience of war.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is responding to the needs of Syrian refugees in Jordan, where an estimated 150,000 Syrians — 39,600 of which are registered with the United Nations as refugees — have fled. As the conflict in Syria continues to worsen, some Syrians have also fled to Iraq, Lebanon and Turkey.
The Rev. Munib A. Younan, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land and president of The Lutheran World Federation, has been in conversation with Jordanian officials about how Lutherans can best be involved in addressing the needs of Syrian refugees. He is helping to identify ways in which his church, the ELCA and The Lutheran World Federation can deepen their participation in relief efforts.
A brightly colored tent suspected of shielding the site of nuclear activities from the prying eyes of satellites and an apparently growing number of underground centrifuges to create enriched uranium are among the items the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog will want to discuss with Iran when the two meet Friday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is playing down the prospects of getting what it wants from the meeting. The IAEA is seeking a go-ahead from Iran to inspect a military research-and-development site south of Tehran known as Parchin. The international body suspects Iran has used the secrecy-cloaked site to develop military applications for its nuclear know-how, a claim Iran denies.
The lead-up to Friday’s meeting has provided a window into Iran’s activities that suggest, as IAEA director general Yukiya Amano indicates, that Iran has something to hide.
Nearly nine years passed before American forces reached their first 1,000 dead in the war. The second 1,000 came just 27 months later, a testament to the intensity of fighting prompted by President Obama’s decision to send 33,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in 2010, a policy known as the surge.
In more ways than his family might have imagined, Lance Corporal Buckley, who had just turned 21 when he died, typified the troops in that second wave of 1,000. According to the Times analysis, three out of four were white, 9 out of 10 were enlisted service members, and one out of two died in either Kandahar Province or Helmand Province in Taliban-dominated southern Afghanistan. Their average age was 26.
The dead were also disproportionately Marines like Lance Corporal Buckley. Though the Army over all has suffered more dead in the war, the Marine Corps, with fewer troops, has had a higher casualty rate: At the height of fighting in late 2010, 2 out of every 1,000 Marines in Afghanistan were dying, twice the rate of the Army. Marine units accounted for three of the five units hardest hit during the surge.
The draconian security measure was imposed on Sunday at 8:00 pm, at a time when millions ordinarily telephone friends and relatives with greetings for Eid al-Fitr. Networks were working again on Monday mid-morning.
Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan’s two largest cities, and the troubled city of Quetta, in the insurgency-torn province of Baluchistan, were among the places where networks were suspended.
“We regret that it had to be suspended in some cities due to the risk of terrorist attacks,” Rehman Malik, the country’s interior minister, was quoted as saying by state TV.
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called Israel “an insult to humankind”. It follows a week in which Israel has been carrying out an increasingly public debate about whether to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Some people have suggested that an attack is more likely to happen before America’s presidential election in November, because it would be harder for President Obama to stop it.