Minerals In Afghanistan, Oh My!

I'm sure this shocks and surprises you as much as it did me. Suddenly it is big news (even though it's old) that Afghanistan has untold mineral resources valued by the Pentagon at a trillion dollars. Whether or not the price tag is a trillion d0llars even, the fact that the army is making a big deal shows that unfortunately, the U.S. government will facilitate multinational corporate interests to tap all that the Afghanis have. Of course, I have a feeling that the locals might have something to say about that....just ask the Russians, oh and yeah, ourselves.

What The Army Doesn't Want You To Know

Change and transparency have been promised to be delivered by Barack Obama when he takes office two months from today, but that is a long time a way when it comes to cover-ups and the low level of trust Americans should have in their nation's military. The scandal surrounding the death of Pat Tillman was a sad story, but unfortunately this "friendly-fire" occurrence was not an isolated incident. In fact, it was one of the better ones because at least his mother could piece the details together, unlike what the army is doing with the similar tragedies that befell other troops.

From RawStory:

In late 2006, two American soldiers from Fort Carson died in Iraq. The army said the privates were killed by enemy action. But in October of this year, Salon revealed that the two men had in fact been killed by friendly tank fire.

Now, Salon has found that the documents related to the men's deaths were shredded just hours after the story was published.

"Three soldiers at Fort Carson, Colo. -- including two who were present in Ramadi during the friendly fire incident, one of them just feet from where Nelson and Suarez died -- were ordered to shred two boxes full of documents about [Albert] Nelson and [Roger] Suarez," reporter Mark Benjamin writes. "One of the soldiers preserved some of the documents as proof that the shredding occurred and provided them to Salon. All three soldiers, with the assistance of a U.S. senator's office, have since been relocated for their safety."

The night the Salon story ran, Oct. 14, 2008, a staff sergeant told three soldiers to shred two boxes of documents relating to the privates' deaths.

That is exactly the type of accountability (or lack there of) that needs to be quashed. If someone screws up, they must face the consequences of their actions. If it was a mistake by another soldier, then it should be dealt with out in the open, not hidden, not lied about and not leading to a situation that desecrates those that die from friendly fire. The families of our brave men and women need to be told the truth, even if it embarrasses the Pentagon.

Army Touts Obama Presidency For Recruiting

The army always needs to meet recruiting goals to keep the army strong, but lately they've had a lot of trouble filling the ranks. Thanks to Bush and his illegal war, the army has driven young men and women away from signing up and the fear of going into Iran troubles the parents of children a few years away from turning eighteen. So now with Barack Obama coming into the White House, at least one recruiter is running away from Bush and embracing the anti-Iraq war Barack Obama.

From ThinkProgress:

Within 24 hours of Barack Obama’s election, an Army career counselor sent out a recruiting e-mail promising that the new president would “get us out of Iraq,” reports VetVoice’s Brandon Friedman. “What are you waiting for?” the e-mail asks, arguing the election of Obama makes now the perfect time to join up:

Though it’s not clear whether this recruiter is acting alone, it signals that President Obama might be used as a new, forceful recruiting tool. “If so, this would symbolize a stunning — if not totally rational — renunciation of the Bush administration and its handling of the military,” Friedman writes. “If this becomes an Army policy, it represents a true ‘ding-dong the witch is dead’ moment for the service.”

There are plenty of advantages in joining the army in terms of money for college and learning valuable skills and trades. The problem over the last several years is that the plague of the Iraq war has negated those pluses. Time will tell if we get out of Iraq and if recruiting increases, but this definitely has the potential to beef up the ranks.

The Army's New "Toy" Should Scare The Hell Out Of You

It is common knowledge that our armed forces have a wide variety of equipment to use when conducting warfare. Small scale items like body armor and machine guns to large scale weapons such as laser-guided smart bombs and robot aircraft patrol battlefields to make an operation more interconnected than ever before. Helping protect our troops when fighting for our country something that cannot and will not be denied. Yet there are some weapons that are best left to science fiction novels, because if the Active Denial System is put into practice then we all have a serious problem on our hands.

From ABC News:

After years of testing, the Active Denial System -- the pain ray which drives off rioters with a microwave-like beam -- could finally have its day. The Army is buying five of the truck-mounted systems for $25 million. But the energy weapon may face new hurdles, before it's shipped off to the battlefield; a new report details how the supposedly non-lethal blaster could be turned into a flesh-frying killer. [...]

Dr. Altmann describes the Active Denial beam in some detail, noting that it will not be completely uniform; anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the center will experience more heating than someone at the edge. And perhaps more significant is his thorough analysis of the heating it produces -- and the cumulative effect if the target does not have the chance to cool down between exposures. In U.S. military tests, a fifteen-second delay between exposures was strictly observed; this may not happen when the ADS is used for real.

This potential hazard need not be a show-stopper -- existing less-lethals, such as plastic bullets and tear gas, can also be fatal under some circumstances (and I'm not even going to get into the argument about Tasers).

Dr. Altmann notes that "the present analysis has not found convincing arguments that the ADS would be immoral or illegal in each foreseeable circumstance," and that acceptance will depend very much on how it is used. If the ADS prevents small boats from approaching a U.S. vessel without harming anyone, then it will be seen as a humane option. If it is used to clear protesters out of the way it may be seen differently.

Yeah, focusing it on the hull of a boat is one thing, but trusting the military to not use it on a civilian population that is exercising their right to protest would be like making a fish live out of water. This is a very serious weapon that Raytheon has created and needs to be kept out of the hands of those that can do maximum damage with it. In the heat of a battle, there is no way to know if it will be used safely so that hundreds of people are not severely burned or literally fried to death.

And most importantly, what is going to stop this from being used on protesters at a large contentious event like a "free trade" conference? Thousands of people show up that are opposed to governments that give more power to corporations than the citizens they are supposed to serve. This "ADS" is nothing but a bad idea. Let Tom Clancy and all the war-loving writers imagine for their readers how it could work, but please, leave it out of real, live situations.