Moe Davis was interviewed this week by Christiane Amanpour to discuss the prisoners still in Gitmo. Contrast the professional discussion with Christiane Amanpour and the rude way he was treated by Chris Matthews. What we can learn from Moe Davis, according to CNN.com:
Hearing Colonel Morris Davis speak, it’s easy to forget that he used to be the chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay.
“We used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave; we’ve been the constrained and the cowardly,” he told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Tuesday.
President Obama promised to close the Guantanamo detention facility when he took office in 2009; four years later, it’s still open.
A majority of the detainees, over 100, have been on hunger strike for more than three months to protest their detention; the military has resorted to force feeding them.
Eighty six of the detainees, Davis said, have never been charged with a crime. Many of those who were convicted of crimes were sent back to their home countries, and many are now free.
“It’s a bizarre, perverted system of justice,” he said, “where being convicted of a war crime is your ticket home, and if you’re never charged, much less convicted, you spend the rest of your life sitting at Guantanamo.”
A scant six years ago, as chief prosecutor at Guantanamo under President Bush, Colonel Davis sounded like a true believer.
On Friday the Gitmo hunger strike will be 100 days old.
Two Marines were shot and killed Thursday at the Officer Candidate School at the Marincs Corps Base Quantico and the suspected shooter fatally shot himself at the base, Marine Corps officials said.
The shootings happened at the school located on the Marines Corps base in Quantico at about 11 p.m., said 1st Lt. Agustin Solivan, a spokesman for the base.
Marines from the Provost Marshal’s office and officers from the Prince Williams Police Department responded and found two active-duty Marines dead at the scene. Officials declined to identify the victims until next of kin could be notified.
Military officials put the base on lockdown shortly after the initial reports and urged base personnel to remain indoors behind locked doors for nearly four hours.
Authorities said the suspected gunman had been barricaded inside a building on the base for several hours.
By 2:45 a.m. Friday, investigators had entered the building and found the shooter, also an active-duty Marine, dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The incident has been described as isolated. This one is a little too close to home. Details are very sketchy.
A Manassas mother is honoring her son’s memory the best way she knows how – through dance.
After 9/11, Colin Wolfe of Manassas decided to trade in ballet to serve our country. But after less than two months in Afghanistan, he was killed by a roadside bomb in 2006.
Three new national parks are being proposed and might just inch their way through Congress in the near future. The three projected parks would be sites of former nuclear testing: Hanford, Washington, Oak Ridge Tennessee, and Los Alamos, New Mexico, according to the Washington Post.
The Hanford site produced plutonium. The Oak Ridge site enriched uranium. And workers in Los Alamos used those materials to assemble the Little Boy and Fat Man bombs dropped on Japan, forcing the Japanese surrender and ending the war. About 200,000 civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki perished.
The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation called the creation and use of the atomic bomb “the single most significant event of the 20th century’’ in advocating the preservation of buildings once scheduled for demolition.
Last year the Defense Department confirmed that there were more than 19,000 incidences of sexual assault in the U.S. military. The assaults were on both men and women in equal numbers, according to the film makers. The men were less likely to report and much less inclined to be interviewed.
Leon Panetta has instituted new rules which is a place to start. Part of the problem has been that victims reported within the chain of command. Chain of command has led to more and more people simply not reporting crimes against them because of the reaction of some of the superior officers. Some trrops have even lost rank, suffered ridicule, or even more degrading responses.
Tim McGraw plans on giving back…to our veterans who are returning home from war. He just announced that he will give away 25 mortgage fromm homes to vets at each of his concerts this summer. Wow! That is really putting your money where your mouth is!
Tim McGraw is giving back to wounded warriors and service members by launching the nationwide HomeFront initiative, a goodwill effort that will award 25 deserving families with a mortgage-free home at each of his summer concert stops.
“My sister’s a veteran of the first Gulf War. My uncle was a Vietnam veteran and my grandfather was a World War II veteran. I’ve always felt a deep sense of respect and obligation to our troops,” says McGraw, speaking on his incentive to give houses to those in need (quote via Green Room PR). “Being able to reward them for their dedicated work with a new home will be even more rewarding for us. It feels so good to give back to them, and to have the opportunity to entertain them on Memorial Day is something I’m honored to do.”
McGraw has partnered was Chase Bank and Operations HomeFront to launch the new program. ACM Lifting Lives — the charitable arm of the Academy of Country Music — and the Premier Group (on behalf of the North Carolina Furniture Manufacturers) have also made substantial contributions to support the program throughout McGraw’s string of summer concert dates.
A U.S. soldier walked off base in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan and went on a shooting rampage, killing 16 people. It is unknown what pushed this soldier over the edge. U.S. officials vow to get to the bottom of the incident.
Is an act like this terrorism, even though it is in a war zone? Perhaps. I don’t know what else to call the killing of unarmed civilians.
President Obama and Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta called Karzai on Sunday to discuss the incident. Obama expressed “shock and sadness” and vowed to “hold fully accountable anyone responsible” for the killings, the White House said in a statement.
“This incident is tragic and shocking and does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan,” Obama said.
U.S. officials shed no light on the motive or state of mind of the alleged shooter. The Associated Press reported Sunday that the suspect was from Fort Lewis, in Washington state. He was taken into custody shortly after the shooting rampage.
“It appears he walked off post and later returned and turned himself in,” said Lt. Cmdr. James Williams, a military spokesman.
What causes this kind of fugue from reality? American troops will be on high alert across the region following the incident. Things were just calming down from the Koran burning incidents where locals rioted and fired on US troops for days. This rogue soldier’s behavior has endangered all of our troops.
This is just one of those things you never want to get out. Back in ‘olden days’ before everyone had a camera embedded in their cell phone, all this might have flown. Not in acceptable company, mind you, but amongst buddies, it might have. No more. The Brass has been embarrassed and has no option but to come down heavy on the offenders.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney got himself in a heap of trouble with animal rights group PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. How did the press secretary get in hot water?
According to the Code of Military Justice, the following regulations have been repealed:
(a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.
(b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
During a White House press briefing, World Net Daily reporter Lester Kinsolving threw Jay Carney a real curve ball. Kinsolving is known for asking ridiculous, outlandish questions.
KINSOLVING: The Family Research Council and CNS News both reported a 93-to-7 U.S. Senate vote to approve a defense authorization bill that, quote, “includes a provision which not only repeals the military law on sodomy, but also repeals the military ban on sex with animals, or bestiality.”
Does the commander-in-chief approve or disapprove of bestiality in our armed forces?
CARNEY: I don’t have any comment on–I don’t have any comment on that. Let me go to another question.
KINSOLVING: Does the President believe this will be approved by all animal support groups, such as –
The 11th hour on the 11th day of of the 11th month in the 11th year….This is a special Veterans Day just because of the date. Today there is a contest. Each year since 1978 the Department of Veterans Affairs has created a special poster for the year. Please chose your favorite poster from the list, by year. We will have an honorary poster winner at the end of the day. I already know my favorite.
For our contributor vets, thank you for your service.
Please don’t forget to chose a favorite Veterans Day Poster.
There are many Veterans Day posts today because Veterans are special.
It was the news the world breathlessly waited for immediately after the 9/11 terror attacks: a report of the first American troops on the ground in Afghanistan.
All at once the world’s attention focused on an iconic photo of those Special Operations Forces doing something no American military had done in nearly a century: They rode horses into combat.
Their secret mission: secure northern Afghanistan by advising the warring tribal factions that formed the Northern Alliance. During the 2011 Veterans Day Parade on November 11, a new monument to these men — and to all Americans in uniform — will make its way down New York City’s famed Fifth Avenue on the way to its final home, a stone’s throw from Ground Zero.
Military men and women, along with New York City firefighters, policemen, emergency responders and other marchers, 50,000 in all, will escort the monument on its televised journey. The spectacle will feature members of the three original Special Operations teams — some on horseback, others walking alongside surviving spouses of fallen heroes.
Retired Army general and current CIA director David Petraeus will be among the parade marshals. Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer is producing a future movie about America’s “Horse Soldiers.”
At what point do we get tired of burying our dead and having to prop up our mangled and wounded?
When do we stop all the chest thumping and mission accomplished bravado while hiding our tears?
How many thousands have come home with life altering injuries, never to be whole again?
Half of those men and women would have died even 40 years ago. Modern medicine has kept them alive and has chased off the grim reaper.
If we can land a man on the moon, we can find other ways to resolve conflict rather than blowing each other to kingdom come as we have done since the beginning of time.
To all our veterans, we are glad you are here. Thank you for your service–
I am a proud daughter and niece of veterans. My father and uncle came home in one piece. Not everyone did. I was one of the lucky ones.
Alternate version of Brothers in Arms featuring Mark Knopfler, one of my favorite artists. Knopfler, from Dire Straits, is one of the gods of guitar, like Clapton.
Sgt. Dakota Meyer is the first living marine to receive the Medal of Honor in 38 years. The ceremony was held in the White House. Meyer’s fellow marines and sailors were also honored. Yesterday Meyer had a beer with his Commander in Chief.
Prior to the ceremony, Meyer said he was no hero. America begs to differ. Semper Fi.
You would think that after all that they would have just all gone home. What a horrible war. We soon get to relive it. The Sesquicentennial is almost upon us and I feel a strong wave of depression coming over me.
This month’s issue (actually it might say August 2011) of Smithsonian Magazine features The Battle of Bull Run: The End of Illusions on the cover. The article, written by Ernest B. Furguson, begins:
Both North and South expected victory to be glorious and quick, but the first major battle signaled the long and deadly war to come.
To those of us who are local, the article was not particularly revealing but the fact that it was about our area and about an event we have been anticipating for several years makes the article a must-read. It provided an excellent in-depth coverage for a nation that also commemorates the most dreadful period in our nation’s history.
The longer I live the more horrible that war becomes to me. I fear too many people will celebrate. There is nothing to celebrate other than death and destruction of property, stock and human beings. So I will be a grouch and stay home.
Will anyone be going to most of the events? Will the county and City make profits on the events? Will we be overrun with visitors?
There has been a spike in Navy commanding officer firings this year, according to the Washington Post. The WaPo reports:
Navy has fired a dozen commanding officers this year, a near-record rate, with the bulk getting the ax for offenses related to sex, alcohol or other forms of personal misconduct.
The terminations, which follow a similar spike in firings last year, have shaken the upper ranks of the Navy, which has long invested enormous responsibility in its commanding officers and prides itself on a tradition of carefully cultivating captains and admirals.
Over the past 18 months, the Navy has sacked nine commanding officers for sexual harassment or inappropriate personal relationships. Three others were fired for alcohol-related offenses, and two on unspecified charges of personal misconduct. Combined, they account for roughly half of the 29 commanding officers relieved during that period.
Improvements in communication have been cited as the root cause of the increased firings. Read more…
