Slashdot Mirror
Copy-and-Paste Reveals Classified U.S. Documents
cyclop writes "In March, U.S. troops in Iraq shot to death Nicola Calipari, the Italian intelligence agent that rescued the kidnapped journalist Giuliana Sgrena. U.S. commission on the incident produced a report which public version was censored for more than one third. Now Italian press is reporting that all confidential information in the report is available to the public, just by copying "hidden" text from the PDF and pasting it in a word processor (Italian). The uncensored report can now be directly downloaded (evil .DOC format, sorry)"
Mirrored here in html format: http://213.160.111.174/unclassified.htm
This happened before with an astroturfed Microsoft "Switch" campaign, among others, IIRC.
That gives the term "security by obscurity" a whole new meaning... Hidden text?! What were they thinking!
I trust you will do the right thing.
Interesting the the people that posted this don't point out any smoking guns. It's mildly interesting that they were able to thwart the ridiculously inane classified protections, but it's telling that they didn't find anything that further incriminated the U.S. service personnel.
It's unfortunate but if you choose to negotiate with kidnappers (and thereby encourage more kidnapping) and further don't tell someone who's subject to daily suicide car bombs that you're going to be speeding down a road that is infamous for daily suicide car bombs, is it any surprise this happened?
Should I expect less if I make jerky motions into my pockets when a police officer pulls me over for a routine traffic accident?
This is now a known known.
Facebook is a woodpecker tapping on the skull of Humanity, Forever.
I'm not of a legal profession or anything, but couldn't distributing "unclassified" classified information be illegal? Just a thought.
Not if the document is classified by the US government and you're in Italy (and don't plan to go to the US).
Way to go Yossarian!
Does that mean the government is guilty of entrapment for releasing a PDF with the classified text included?
I'd like to see them try to prosecute this.
Believe it or not, US law only applies to the, ...er, US!
But it was distributed. Just not shown. It you pass around a pack of papers and put one you hope nobody will look for at the bottom, can you really be upset when someone grabs exactly that sheet?
My guess is that it's going to be the staffer that released the document that's in hot water.
I know nothing! I just click all the links on a slashdot page and hope for the best!
There might actually have been respectable and perhaps important reasons for redacting some of that information. Not that it matters now, but it seems a bit imprudent to fervishly publicize information about troops that could have serious ramifications for them.
no that's a bit of bullshit for most of the slashdot reading population. The correct statement you should have said was "It's illegal for me to knowingly do knowingly download classified docs".
We, in Australia, don't have a law that says "you can't knowingly download American labelled classified documents", so I've quite eagerly clicked and read random bits of the document that I don't understand.
I know it never pays to underestimate human stupidity.
But non the less - I wonder if people can really be this stupid. Perhaps making people think they accessed confidential information is just a trick so the report seems more believeale.
In March, U.S. troops in Iraq shot to death Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari, who was travelling in a car that - according to US troops - refused to slow down for a coalition checkpoint.
So would I, considering that the people distributing it are in Italy and therefore not subject to US law. Considering how annoyed the Italian government was about the incident and subsequent cover-up, I doubt that they'll agree to an extradition.
They've put it on an italian domain, and probably on an italian server. Given the political climate in Italy around this case, I seriously doubt that the italian government will cooperate with a US investigation (OTOH with Berlusconi, you never know)
The US government likely has a whole slew of laws about how its citizens should handle classified government documents. (most of them saying "don't") There is very likely nothing in Italian law about how its citizens should handle documents the US has declared classified.
Which is one reason you might want to use the onion routing program Tor, available from http://tor.eff.org/
It's illegal to knowingly download classified docs, I trust you will do the right thing.
I, for one, will do my duty as a citizen and read the document. Living in a state in europe, I will look if there is any information in it that might be vital to my countries existance and then do the right thing - which might even include distributing the document to others.
Obligitory opening post to start the major flame/anti-flame thread. So the topic is:
Why the hell would slashdot post something that seems pretty darn illegal on the front of their site?
If it's not illegal, it's just plain irresponsible. I recognize that the folks who run Slashdot are often characterized as kids with no journalistic integrity, but come on...
The government did the initial distribution. It just did it unintentionally. Showing how the government did, in-fact, distribute the material itself is certainly not completely free of legal implications, but it is not the same as leaking the classified information. The main questions are: 1) Is it legal to show how to decipher a public transmission of the government to gain more data than intended (no matter how stupid the cypher is). I believe the answer to that question is an emphatic, "no it is illegal", despite what most of us, as technologically literate human beings see as a ton of fun. 2) Should this specific instance of hidden text be considered an encrypted message. Is a message written in Pig Latin considered encrypted? On the other hand, where do we draw the line on how hard an encryption scheme must be to crack before it's considered breaking governmental encryption. (Fellow geeks, please hold off on the comments saying "This is not truly an encrypted message" as for all intents and purposes, this message was unable to be viewed in its intended distribution format.) Tell me what you think! I'm not sure myself.
Calipari, jumps the omissis of the Americans
On Internet the relationship in its interezza can be read. The Power of attorney of Rome will acquire the new document like open source
INSTRUMENTS
VERSION STAMPABILE
The READ PIU'
IT SENDES THIS ARTICLE
The USA relationship with omissis (AP)
ROME - They are omissis "only virtual", than they can be gone around with simple clic, those lies in wait for to the USA relationship on the dead women of Nicholas Calipari, published friday, and that they would have had to hide names, procedures and others you leave classified. Pecette black that filled up the 45 the pages of the document answered to obvious reasons of inner emergency, a way in order protect the anonymity of the marines been involved in the "tragic incident" of 4 March, when Calipari found the dead women for "fire friend" on the road for the airport of Bagdad.
Sin but that the USA commando had not made the accounts with the "copy and glue", that concurs to read the relationship in its interezza, without censorships. How? E' sufficient to open the document it originates them with the version reader of Acrobat, to select all the text and to make a copy and glue on Word or whichever editor. Or, easier anchor, to open rows "pdf" originates them, to cliccare on "Saves come..." and to choose a whichever various format from the "pdf" (always Word, as an example). A simplest technical operation that is in a position to executing anyone has a connected computer to Internet.
Between the parts of the relationship covered the military secret USA there is as an example the paragraph with the names of the members of the patrol who has talked nonsense against the car of Calipari, or the identity of the third man (an Italian agent) to the guide of the car with Giuliana Sgrena and Calipari, and still the understood one it with the procedures of I engage of the check point. Emergency "around to John Negroponte emerges also the operation" and the difficulties of that evening in the particular chain of commando americana.Tutti, with to many others, that they are hour becomes you of public dominion and that the power of attorney of Rome that it inquires on the Calipari homicide will acquire. It is how much is learned in atmospheres investigated you of Clodio Large square. The acquisition procedure is that one that the enquirers define of the so-called opened sources, that is news of interest for the judicial authority that but does not have some trial-like valence.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
I don't blame the soldiers at all.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Classified?
Have you read it?
The original document says "UNCLASSIFIED" just on top of every page.
...are scary. This, and numerous other pdf-related security breaches which happened (remember the blacked-out pdf that was modified to reveal its contents?) are all the more reason for MS pushing its software everywhere by declaring competing software are not as secure as theirs. Doesn't matter if the security breach originated from the user's lack of understanding of the most basic security concepts.
My fear is that knee-jerk reactions to incident like this someday could be as extreme as invoking the DMCA against copy and paste. That, and further control from MS for information in the government due to the inherent "security" of MS stuff. It's unimaginable that a corporation can be more powerful than the government, but more incidents like this and this will happen.
n March, U.S. troops in Iraq shot to death Nicola Calipari, the Italian intelligence agent whose country paid a random (and thereby funding the insurgency further and encouraging more kidnappings) for the kidnapped journalist Giuliana Sgrena.
From scanning through the report I can only conclude that it was an accident. The US soldiers where poorly trained for the mission, and the driver of the car wasn't paying enough attention to his surroundings.
Tragic yes, but nothing more (assuming the italians agree with the description of the events of course, people can always lie)
What? It was a PDF? You mean people can do stupid things with software that isn't made by Microsoft?
or fly through US airspace or ever have any of your finances within reach of the US.
Download the pdf and run pdftotext on it, it works.
Marx was right: Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Speaking as a veteran of the US Military, I can tell you that the logistical information chopped from that report will put soldier's lives at risk. Details of procedures, troop sizes, movements - and enemy intelligence reports *should* remain classified.
Way to go media. YOU SUCK.
The US Military uses VOIP? And it failed during this incident? Why would they use technology that is hardly the most reliable to confer on the battlefield. Isn't that a little dangerous? I wouldn't trust my life to VOIP, no matter how secure/reliable a military network was.
It appears that this all boils down to a blame game - the US wants to defend its soldiers and assign blame to the Italians for not sharing information, whereas the Italians want the American soldiers held responsible for what is, essentially, a tragic circumstance in a war zone.
The Italians in the car weren't expecting a roadblock at that location, and the Americans didn't know about the rescue operation that was in progress...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Area 51
Greys
JFK Assassination
Hilary Clinton
No instances found. Damn.
This is a frightening example of how little our bureaucrats know and understand the computers they use. One has to wonder how many similar occurrences of ineptitude have transpired, and what were the ramifications?
Needless to say, no Italian newspaper ever cares to cite that the news was pointed out by an Italian blogger, Gianluca Neri of Macchianera.
Since when is breaking the law morally wrong? The reason the US has guns is so that its citizents can break unjust laws and defent themselves from an unreasonable government. There is nothing "wrong" with breaking the law, and I wish peopld would start realizing that.
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
Secret data must be stored only on computers cleared for secret processing. Secret documents can only be downgraded to unclassified by deletion of the text followed by exporting it to plain ASCII text only.
Word documents, Powerpoint presentations, PDFs, etc cannot ever be transfered from a secret computer to an unclassified computer even if the original file is unclassified. The only allowable format is human readable text. Basically, if you can't read it in notepad, you cannot copy it from a classified computer to an unclassified computer.
These are the rules, unfortunately not everyone follows them (convenience) or is properly trained.
The report is unclassified because they BLACKED OUT all the classified parts, which they figured out how to get around.
"If it was me, I would have shot the car. It was clearly speeding towards their position."
It was? That's what not surprisingly those who shot claim, however I have seen no prove of that claim yet, and the other side is telling a different story.
"The driver was not paying attention."
He wasn't? Proof? And of course, see comment above.
"He had a spotlight and a laser pointer shined on them."
He did? Proof? And of course, see comment above.
"They supposedly had the windows down in the car to hear for threats."
They did? Proof? And of course, see comment above.
"They were going in excess of 50mph, and the driver admits he was not in the habit of checking his speed."
They were? Proof? And of course, see comment above.
Seriously, and some Americans wonder why others might not like the US? I don't say it was the soldiers fault and the Italians didn't do what you claim, I simply don't know, what I do know however is that the US' urge to deny any wrongdoing whatsoever, no matter what, acting as if the facts in this case were totally clear, though they clearly aren't, is deeply disgusting and doesn't endear the US to the Europeans and others.
So, if you are wondering once again why some people don't like you, just look at the parents comments, at similar comments already made here, that also were modded up and you might just get a hint about why there is a lot of Anti-Americanism in the world.
Does anyone who speaks Army jargon know what this is all saying, or can someone at least point out the salient points?
Like... what about those allegations that the Italians had paid several million Euros as ransom to the kidnappers?
Kids, I know you want your people back--I'm sorry, but your hostages are already dead. Mourn for them, but don't pay off their kidnappers. That's stupid. That's Reagan-stupid. Ten million bucks buys a lot more kidnappings and suicide bombs.
You'd think we'd have learned this lesson by now.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Entrapment means you were persuaded or induced to commit a crime by law enforcement. Just being given an opportunity to commit a crime would not constitute entrapment. Otherwise, every sting operation in America would be entrapment. http://www.lectlaw.com/def/e024.htm
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
The communist reporter was not rescued she was bought with money that will go to buy arms that will be used to kill 80% Iraqi civilians and 20% foreign soldiers.
Woah! Slow down and don't drink all the kool-aid at once! The incident was likely an accident, but you do nothing to help your argument by calling people 'communists'. On Limbaugh, you may win brownie points for what you said, but in a reasonable (or even Slashdot) argument, you unlikely to convince anyone with stupid retoric.
As an american living in Italy, we've seen a lot of coverage of this over here.
The Italians involved said they weren't speeding. The Americans said the vehicle was travelling too quickly.
I think anyone, italian or american, can figure out the reason for this disagreement by watching a cowering family of american tourists trying to cross the street in Rome or any other large italian city. Some people obviously have different ideas about what 'fast' or 'dangerous' driving is.
I like Italy in many ways, but sometimes I really have to agree with Bill Bryson's "never should have let the Italians in on the invention of the automobile" sometimes!
Well, now we'll see, won't we?
The US government has for a long time, and this adiminstration in particular, classified things reflexively, whether secrecy was actually required or not.
In many ways it'll be scarier if the redactions show nothing of interest at all: not protecting anybody's privacy or any actual secrets. (A quick scan suggests exactly that.) It leaves open the question, "Why is the government keeping that information secret? Why is the government keeping so much information secret?"
There are many things that people would like to know to keep an eye on their government. Not all of that information should be released, for national security reasons, but it's always been the government who makes that decision. This lack of a check on the power of government makes people increasingly nervous as crimes (e.g. Abu Ghraib) are discovered anyway.
Most people in government over-classify things in order to protect their jobs. It's not a crime to overclassify; it's a big crime to release national security info, even accidentally. That's understandable, but a failure to release information that people are allowed to know makes it extremely difficult to check up on what the government does and whether it is still acting in our interest.
So yeah, maybe this is a bad thing. Maybe this is a release of national security information and lives may be lost. Or maybe it's laziness, somebody redacting because it's easier than checking on whether or not it was OK to release. Now we'll find out, and perhaps gain some broader insight.
Better (or worse) that their incompetence is being revealed before it causes critical information to be leaked. People could keep quiet about things like this and wait until something bigger is uncovered.
There were at least two publicized incidents Memory Hole Un-Redacts Redacted DOJ Memo and Iranian Coup Plotters Exposed By PDF File were the PDF was discovered to be layered with the graphic blacking out the text over the original.
You would think by now that the government would either distributed a tool for correctly redacting PDFs or prohibit them.
Correction: rhetoric
Or if they take it down or fix it up you can get it off the italian web site.
. pdf
http://www.corriere.it/Media/Documenti/Classified
The bikini - security through obscurity since 1943
Furthermore, the aliens obtained in Roswell have been transported to R24 along with Specialist Peck for observation.
I knew it!!!
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
She's a communist, she's written extensively for Il Manifesto and has made a lot of statements underlining her political affiliation & beliefs.
That said, there's nothing wrong with being a leftist, and it's irrelevant to this case (except that, of course, she's using her platform & beliefs to put a pretty massive spin on things.) Saying "the communist reporter" is similar to stating "the black assailant."
In this case it's just a horrible, possibly avoidable tragedy and I'm sure everyone involved really really sorry it happened, not that that helps.
As for the idiots saying things like "if soldiers don't want to get blown up, they should stay the f*** out of Iraq", that's about as base, nonsensical, ill-informed and sad an attitude as I can think of, and simply not deserving of a response.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Oh, get real. It's difficult to know what really happened, and whether the soldiers made a mistake or whether it was simply a terrible tragedy, but if the soldiers had wanted that woman dead, there would be nothing left of her, the car, or any of the other occupants besides a smoking crater.
"Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence".
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
Here and here.
Look at how "badly" her car was "shot up" and decide for yourself if this "journalist" is a lying sack of shit for saying that the car was shot at 300 or 400 times.
Now, use the information you have just learned to judge her credibility as a whole.
You can already read how the elections were rigged.
http://www.gregpalast.com/
Chicken fried butter sticks? Do
She reports for a communist paper dude, she's a communist.
Does anybody have a clue what software they used to generate those PDFs? I am curious how various software treats such stuff in PDFs... I mean f.e. it is obvious that simple printout to PDF converter will erease any such hidden data, but what with f.e. OpenOffice.org export function or various other utilities?
I worked at a government laboratory for a while, and every employee learns the same rules about classified systems. Even though I wasn't working on classified systems, I knew that
1) Everything that parent just said
2) Classified systems are not supposed to have any removable media drives or access to an unsecured part of the network.
3) Don't mess with the above rules under penalty of felony charges.
sounds like terrible training or terribly irresponsible work to me. In my opinion, more than one person is getting fired for this.
Tell that to Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein.
This is not my sandwich.
Well it is not clearly illegal. While distributing calssified documents is criminal, it is only criminal for people without security clearances if it could reasonably be seen as esponage. I don't think anyone thinks /. is a spy hangout.
In addition courts tend to allow infromation released, even unintenionally, to be reported. In http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/comm/free_speech/ cox.html Cox Broadcasting v Cohn the supreme court found that the first admendment protected the publication of the name of a rape victum, even when state law forbit it, when the name was inculded in a publically available police report.
This seems like a similar incident of a falure to redact.
First of all, do you think the US government would have wanted all this negative publicity? Answer: no.
Second, do you think the government would have done something guaranteed to really hurt a staunch ally in the War on Terror (the Italian government)? Answer: no.
Third, if the roadblock had orders to open fire on an innocent, civilian looking car doing nothing wrong, don't you think the *regular soldiers* involved would have been an enormous security risk?
Fourth, if this were an assassination, don't you think the military would have left NO SURVIVORS to get publicity and continue to draw attention to the incident? Especially a JOURNALIST?
Fifth, doesn't the military have better technology to do this without drawing a firestorm of criticism? One method that comes to mind would be to use a Hellfire missile fired from helicopter or Predator...then you could always claim a roadside bomb or mine got 'em...
Use your heads people...
Yes, traditional blame game. The people at the top get heard, so they are able to pass the blame onto people that do not get heard.
This can't possibly be the typists fault. Even if he/she wanted to release classified info, their should be a review process that would prevent it.
Strange how that argument is never held to when it's Fox News thats being discussed.
Then it's we're an unbiassed news organisaation because some of our reporters are registered as democrats.
This document was overclassified to begin with. The paragraphs so classified mostly state the obvious. I tend to concur with the idea that this "leak" was intentional, in an attempt to make the DoD look good.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
Who said anything about justification? the post just rightly corrected that there was no "rescuing", it was just a pickup and go operation.
I understand the sentiment expressed by the many people complaining of the "irresponsibility" of publishing this information, that it will cost the lives of troops, but I really think the outrage is misplaced.
There is no security through obscurity. Good intelligence doesn't rely on it; in fact, it demands that we assume "the attacker" has discovered what was "obscured."
The government here is at fault for this security breach. I think it's the responsibility of journalists to uncover and report governmental failings like this, and to report in full.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
There been too many freindly fire accidents to even consider this as a conspiracy. They moved fast, they got shot, and notification probably would have done as much good as painting a British tank orange, parking it away from the front, and having a procedure to contact ground control before shooting up targets.
At the risk of sounding like a karma-whore to all those people that accuse people as such, I have made a PDF of the .DOC
It can be found here: http://www.lehigh.edu/~mlt3/Unclassified.pdf
This incident is causing quite the flap between the US and Italy. Could the government have intentionally leaked the full report this way?
Effectively not. You will notice that paragraphs in the document are preceded either by (U) or by (S//NF)
(U) simply means Unclassified.
(S//NF) means "Secret/No Foreign Nationals".
Any US citizen has not violated fundamental clearance issues by reading it (however, OpSec provides that this information should only be available on a need to know basis). Non-US Citizens outside the US aren't covered by US law in the same way.
The position of Non-US nationals in the US is probably different.
I am neither a Lawyer nor a US Citizen and I possess no US Security Clearance.
Exercise your right not to vote. thinkoutside.org
When you do a word search for some of the redacted material on the original PDF it highlights the blacked out portion where the redacted word resides.
This is just silly.
Remember... ZG9uJ3QgZm9yZ2V0IHRvIGRyaW5rIHlvdXIgb3ZhbHRpbmU=
i'm australian. my guy didn't lose (well he did, but in the australian elections, not the american elections). i didn't want al gore to win because i though he was a jerkwad, but it doesn't mean the elections weren't rigged.
Now I have not read TFD, however it sounds like there was no smoking gun to be found. Could this have been a deliberate plant to throw off suspicion?
Mid-Eastern Pennsylvania Gaming Convention
It's dumb to waste such a valuable technique on a relatively unimportant document. I'm glad the spy agencies didn't reveal their secrets everytime the enemy ordered pizza
I suppose it would't be too hard to twist the DMCA into "protecting" hidden text as a security/DRM mechanism and calling this action "circumvention". The main problem is that our technology has outgrown 90% of the human race. Another example of this kind of thinking is on the moblog site, yafro.com. There are tons of women who post nude photos of themselves in their accounts. Much like Slashdot, there is a friends/foes type system. If you and another person are mutually in a friend relation, then you can see their "locked" pictures. So... when a few jackasses decided to mutually friend some of the Yafro women, take their locked photos and post them in a public forum on Yafro (a club), these women flipped out. They griped about how they were entitled to their privacy and it had been violated. They're right as far as ethics and respect go. But, this is the internet. Anything you place on it can't be expected to be private or protected in any fashion. If someone wants the info bad enough, they are going to get it.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
keep hoping
Yes! Evil rules! Good can suck it! Suck it, good!
bush is even having things classified even after they have been testified to before congress, or been discussed on 60 minutes.
Of course he hasn't gone as far as Reagan who wanted to prosecute them for their testimony before congress even though the info was not classified at the time of the testimony.
The bush administration has leaked classified info when it serves their purposes. Remember Valerie Plame? She was setting up a sting to bust nuclear weapon smugglers.
Sometimes it is in the national interest to leak. Remember when Reagan classified the reports of fraud and waste? Those leaks were in our national interest whereas keeping it classified was not. He made a public show of fighting waste and fraud, but behind the scenes he was not, but at least the issue was before the public eye.
Edmunds is now fighting to have her info heard before congress. Her info points to complacency before and after 9-11. they have classified her info so much she can't even tell congress.
I was an Army spook, I know the arguments. Not everything should be declassified, but waste, fraud, treason should be declassified. The Valerie Plame leak was treason in my opinion.
This is not the first time they have made this type of mistake. Embarrassing them in this way can only make them be more security conscious. Security is about the small things.
photosMy Photostream
Since the majority of you /.'ers didn't read the link the reason it's classified is because it points out the following things:
a) It shows Enemy Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTP's)
b) It shows Coalition TTP's responsive combat dialogue with Enemy TTP's
c) It gives away the primary routes for incoming/outgoing US embassy personnel with technical, personnel and operational details.
Being a soldier who just got back from Iraq I'm actually pretty pissed at this because of the fucking dangers behind it. But I'll leave it at that.
So would I, considering that the people distributing it are in Italy and therefore not subject to US law.
Sadam Hussien thought he wasn't subject to US law either. Guess where he's at right now?
So, what's a good new name for pizza that includes a word like "freedom?".
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
I don't want to read the whole text. Does it contain something interesting ?
Ploum.net.
yes, and I'm supposed to verify that it has not been changed
how?
I know nothing! I just click all the links on a slashdot page and hope for the best!
How do you deal with the permanent impression of the Goatse guy on your retina ?...
Thomas -
The tendency for politicians and government employees to over-classify things is fairly understandable, but the loss of trust and accountability that comes along with secrecy is damaging to any democracy. Anything that can be done to ensure that secrecy is kept to a minimum would help.
It would seem that one obvious solution would be to have some sort of civilian review board that reviews all documents that are to be classified and decides whether or not it's in the public interest to classify those documents as secret and for how long. Although it might not be a good idea to pick these people the way that juries are chosen, the process should at least make sure that these are people who are not beholden to the politicians and employees whose inclinations are to keep secrets to cover their butts.
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
No, it is relevant. It's a "he said, she said" case, where "she" holds a political viewpoint that is distinctly anti-American. It is certainly not the same being black, since race cannot be chosen, and is not the same as a belief system.
You'll forgive me if I think it's relevant that she has stated things like:
"The Americans are the biggest enemies of mankind"
"You don't understand the situation. We are anti-imperialists, anti-capitalists, communists,' they said. The Iraqis only kidnap American sympathizers, the enemies of the Americans have nothing to fear." (Emphasis added)
It's dark, you're travelling on a dangerous road known for ambushes. You can't see the huddled shapes lurking in the darkness behind their vehicles. Suddenly a floodlight paints your vehicle. You can't see anything but the floodlight and shots are fired. American checkpoint or insurgent ambush? Decide quickly, because you'll be killed if you stop and it's insurgents, and you be killed if you don't stop immediately and it's the Americans.
American checkpoints in Iraq are not well-lit traffic-coned "approach the gate and the waving officer slowly" affairs. They block the road at the best place to kill oncomers and hide behind their barriers. It's often the worst place for approaching vehicles to see the roadblock until you're on top of it. By then, they start firing "warning shots" in the general direction of (if not into) your vehicle. It doesn't always play out like that, but dozens of dead Iraqi families can't be wrong...
Here come da fudge!
Freedom pie?
The enemies of Democracy are
C'mon think 1 second of another alternative.
.DOC format, I'd tend to think that seeing how US military failed in terms of preparation and casulties in Irak, but this would be also too big (someone would get charged for something really huge, and normally someone having access to this type of document as source to encode them, isn't a total idiot and has been checked up. Plus, there's surely a procedure on how to make documents and etc. there).
:) )
It's really sad to see this much "nerds" falling into the easiest route from point a to b without even considering any other possibilities.
How about this: They don't have a clue on how to get to the heads of the insurgency, thus they can't send them bad information, in which case they "do an error that looks legit" and broadcast it abroad knowing every news agency and curious person on the planet will pick it up.
Disinformation is a powerful thing. and even if the troops movements and all kind of information is included in the text, maybe there's one point there that they know that could be set up as a trap or whatever.
I mean, it's easy to jump to conclusions that humanity is stupid because someone revealed information, and the military knows nothing about the evil
So the point is, I could be wrong, the gun-jumpers could be wrong, but one thing is right; there are ALWAYS other possible alternatives to something obvious, especially when it's military or political. A forum like this is not to say "ahh bad bad bad" and see 500 messages of bitching on bad bad bad, but rather to promote a certain level of dicussion and intelligible arguments.
My $0.02CDN (which isn't worth much
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
- The world hates George Bush and the Republicans because
- The Republicans and George Bush hate and have no respect for the rest of the world. The Republicans have such friendly ideas as to disband the U.N.; have the U.S. completely withdraw from the U.N.; move the U.N. headquarters out of NYC;
make the U.N. a U.S.A. puppet (John Bolton is for the latter).
As the sayin goes, with friends like these who needs enemies?You just have to look at how George Bush treats fellow Americans called Democrats to understand the level of contempt and hate that exists for the outside world as well. As an American, if you want to go to a George Bush Town Hall meeting you have to sign a paper of loyalty. You have to ask yourself why that is?
In my opinion the bigger story here was how the U.S. handled diplomacy. Obviously the answer is poorly, arrogantly and with a strong middle finger salute to the Italians. This is no different then the diplomacy of Fox News, AM Hate Radio, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michael Savage, Laura Ingram and all the rest of the right wing giving their fellow Americans called Democrats the finger 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. Ultimately all the hatred and contempt the right heaps on the left will end in violence.
Whoever Bush appoints to the U.N. will be expected to behave similarly; waive arrogantly a strong John Bolton middle finger salute to the rest of the world as well.
The government is secretive about everything so that the public comes to expect secrecy as the norm, and will thus be more complacent and undemanding of transparency in cases where there really might be a cover-up.
If the government had a general policy of keeping things in the open whenever possible, then at those times when they really want to cover something up, they'd have a much harder time of it, because (a) the public would expect and demand more transparency, as the 'norm' and (b) the public would realise there "must actually be a cover-up this time" in cases where secrecy is applied, because the secrecy would be far more unusual.
So it's better for the government to just generally say to everyone all the time, "hey, we're the government, everything we do is secret and the public should have no expectation of knowing any of it". This way they can do anything they like.
So much for the govt. using PDF...looks like they'll have to switch back to ASCII text documents.
...whether they did that on purpose. I mean, it doesn't seem to occur to any commenter to doubt the authenticity of the hidden text. But maybe, that totally insignificant hidden text was put there on purpose. Are you folks all naive or am I getting slightly paranoid?
Interestingly, all the report's paragraphs are marked as UNCLASSIFIED so I cannot see why they were redacted in the first place.
I miss my rubber keyboard.(Homepage)
I really hate the way that Americans often seem to lose their sanity the minute the word "communist" is mentioned, since it seems like such a knee jerk reflex, especially since the cold war ended around 15 years ago. However, I think that Sgrena's attitude toward the US was probably not the most favourable, as I can't imagine a European communist paper employing a giddy yay america type person. While communist papers and parties in Europe are dinosaurs, as not many are interested in them, I think that the general view of the US in Europe has nothing to do with being communist or not.
Living here myself, I simply see European attitudes as being one's of suspicion and disbelief at the rhetoric and actions of the current US government.
However, a lot of Europeans are just as supicious of their own governments as these are just as opaque in the way they do things.
I feel a great disturbance in the Net, as if millions of geeks stampeded to yafro.com, and then were silent but for gentle fapping.
Do you love freedom??? Do you love freedom!!! DO YOU LOVE FREEDOM!!!!!!!!
How about this: They don't have a clue on how to get to the heads of the insurgency, thus they can't send them bad information, in which case they "do an error that looks legit" and broadcast it abroad knowing every news agency and curious person on the planet will pick it up.
Ya know, when I read about this, the first thing that came to mind was ULTRA OMEGA in the Cryptonomicon, where the alies plant false evidence of many things in order to keep the Germans from finding out the alies had broken(?) Enigma. What better way to justify changing a whole bunch of procedures that you think/know are compromised than by a world wide leak? Or, it could be false information. Who knows.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Ooooh, seeeeecret!
Page 19:
"2 (S//NF) 2 VOIP is a technology that allows telephone calls to be made using a broadband internet connection instead of a regular (analog) phone line."
Guru Meditation #6d416769.21610a21
Like when they "rescued" that GI from a hospital.
The information that was classified in the original document and is now leaked looks like it was classified for fair enough reasons.
The fact that it is being leaked by the Italian press conjures up images in my mind of hidden details that were being supressed by the americans - however I don't see this to be the case.
In fact if I was an insurgent with internet access some of the leaked classified details could be quite useful. Some describe how the US deal with incidents and their knowledge of terrorists tactics and specific details about what battalions are trained in and exactly where they are located.
Whilst obviously the major error was in the americans releasing a document with hidden meta-data, I do think it is quite irresponsible of the Italian press to advertise the release of this hidden data, thus further endagering the lives of people in Iraq.
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=6951 2005
So a pdf file about a murder of an Italian at a checkpoint is news while US troops routinely murder Iraqi civilians and that's not covered?
I guess people are now going to do quite a lot of copy pasting with other documents to find what else can be extracted from the officially available pdfs.
The US feds would not have to twist anything. Just say what they want, and what are you gonna do about it? They've been doing it for 4 years now openly.
Interestingly, an Italian blogger Gianluca Neri was the first to discover the fact.
p porto_cal.html
r evolezza.html
On his blog www.macchianera.net, he says that this morning he called the newspapers to let them know, but nobody paid attention to him. He then published on his blog.
http://www.macchianera.net/archives/2005/05/il_ra
Later the newspapers spread the story without refering the source:
http://www.macchianera.net/archives/2005/05/lauto
If not then all the comments regarding right and wrong of the insidence and its exposure is genuinely without a just foundation.
When shit hits the fan.... its splatters everywhere.
Better to identify the party who thru the shit at the fan in the first place. Rather than argueing over who got hit or not.
shame on me, fool the government over and over how many times?
But I guess the new phrase would be: "Fool the government over and over, fool on me anyway"
satellite tracking covered in the news . My guess is because that kind of info is higher than S/NF, and therefore may not have made this report at all.
It's Ultra Mega, not Ultra Omega, and that refers to the clearance needed to know about Purple/Enigma. You're thinking of unit 2701/2702.
pWN3D!!!!11!!!1
Well, they were rogue US employees. So a case could be made that the US law applied to them too.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
In a war zone, the margin of error is about 1/4 of and inch and 1/2 a pound --- the distance and force needed to pull a trigger.
"The 1-76 TOC had two means of communicating with 4th Brigade, its higher headquarters: Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)2 and FM. The 1-76 FA Battle Captain was using only VOIP to communicate with 1-69 IN, but experienced problems with VOIP, therefore losing its only communication link with 1-69 IN..."
Vonage sucks too.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
> Many Italians believe that her car was
> deliberately fired upon because of her politics.
If that were the case, why is she still alive?
> Note that the US has refused to the Italians
> see the car.
Really? Since the Italians have had the car in their possession (now in Rome), how is it the U.S. is able to refuse the Italians to see it?
Try reading a newspaper once in a while.
>...my quickie conclusion: because of the obvious
> discrepencies, the refusal to show the car,
See above
> the unexplained motivation to keep this material
> secret,
So in addition to not being able to read a newspaper, you are also completely lacking of common sense?
Military tactics are very often classified (why tell the enemy how you operate).
So if the United States government conducted a massacre of thousands of US citizen's, then made the documents leading up to the decision classified, and you came across those documents. It would be 'wrong' for you to download and read them?
This is my last post.
[6th Estate]
method 1 involves an ice pick
method 2 involves a pair of needle nose pliers
method 3 requires a very! bright light source
method 4 requires a lot of suction
all methods above also require a small degree of imagination
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
No, in fact it is rented from Cuba (even though they refuse the payment) and the U.S. government's position is that it is therefore foreign soil and not subject to U.S. laws or Constitution.
"They were captured in disguise and according to the laws of warfare could be summarily executed as spies."
While it's nice to refer to what the actual laws and interpretations allow, you miss the most important point: they have no due process rights. As you state, they have no Geneva Convention protection, even though they were captured as "the enemy" in a war. They are also not protected by the U.S. Constitution (see above link) because they are considered on foreign soil, even though they were captured by Americans, are being held by Americans, and are on an American base. In short, they have no protected rights for due process that civilized nations provide to everyone including war criminals, enemy soldiers, and civilian criminals.
Some people may not care. After all, these are terrorists, right? Well, how do we know? Is the military infallable? Is every accused person guilty? That's what due process is for. Is this not the "absolute power" behaviour that pissed off American's enough to create the U.S. in the first place, and provide such basic protections to all people?
This is a sad and unfortunate incident.
I don't care about any political bearings of any of the players. Only of those involved and their saftey.
All of this happened in the blink of an eye. That can be agreed on. It is also a shame and that can be agreed on too.
Honestly you do NOT mess around in a situation like this. As a soldier you can't just say "Oh look at that speeding car lets see what they want". You have to take action and it sounds to me like procedure was followed to the best of ability.
Communication could have been better.
The driver could have been smarter.
The vehicles shouldn't have been moved. Though I'm glad they were as more could have died.
That can be agreed on. Well no cause it doesn't matter because Americans are at fault automatically.
Just think about this. She was released. Why the need for any urgency?
The one thing I think everyone missed is this:
Sgrena claimed that her kidnappers, just before releasing her, had warned her that the American forces would be a danger to her.
Perhaps she had some form of Stockholm Syndrome and caused the driver to react differently when the warning shots happened?
Why on earth would the Americans want to intentionally harm her? Oh that's right the kidnappers said so so it must be true.
If that is true why then was medical treatment given to her and those involved as a priority over all else?
Anyway...
You know people are nitpicking when you read things like:
Giuliana Sgrena was hit, in the shoulder according to the U.S. version, but in an upper limb, according to Italian journalists.
So they already have an axe to grind. Eventually the truth will come out though no one will want to hear it. Both sides were at fault.
You're just a repressed coincidence theorist. Let's see: a group of high government officials go out of power with the change in party control. They publish a detailed plan for invading Iraq for unilateral strategic reasons, noting that without other justification, they'll need a "Pearl Harbor" scale event to invade. A decade later, they return to their old offices when their party retakes the White House. A few months later, a Pearl Harbor scale event occurs. The officials claim falsely that the event is connected to Iraq, and invade.
That's not very complicated. Every part is public knowledge all along. It is deluded people like you, who won't accept the truth, who enable the outrageous acts of these evil officials. Your kind of zombie is easy to identify: you can't dispute the facts, or the simple logic, so you attack the messenger with rhetoric and extreme exaggeration. I hope you're enjoying Bush's America, composed of lies, hatred, war, poverty, and rapid decline. Maybe you'll get a date with one of the Bush twins!
--
make install -not war
ROFLMAO....Oh, if I had Mod points! This is too funny!
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
Not in this case, however, as the US Government can not hold copyrights.
-Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
The wingnuts are squawking that the LA Times and others are supressing a Pentagon claim (reported by CBS) that the US have direct evidence of the car's speed from 'satellite footage'.
If you read the report, it's clear the weather was low-overcast/rain that night. Choppers were grounded. What satellite can image a car in real-time through clouds? And what are the chances of a LEO sat being just overhead at that moment?
Answer #1: None
Answer #2: Tiny.
The real question, why would the Pentagon try such an obviously stupid lie?
Well considering they embedded the actual text and let people copy and edit it. A reasonable person could argue they had no idea copyable and editable text in a document marked as unclassibied is all classified.
I would assume as much anyway.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Secret / Noforn means only US Citizens with a current Secret clearance and a certified need to know can read it. If you have no security clearance and no legitimate need to know, you're not supposed to have access to even FOUO (for official use only) or confidential documents, which are lower classifications of documents. Even if you have a secret clearance and are a US citizen, if you have no need to know, you also can not have access to the documents.
When I dealt with Secret Noforn documents, they were locked in a safe that was locked inside a room. They had to be shredded into little tiny squares or burned.
Certainly a crime has been committed by the government officials who released this in PDF form. Whoever decided that a PDF was secure enough to release S/NF needs to be prosecuted. This is unacceptable.
Well, some people may remember that in 1998, a US pilot flew a jet into a ski gondola in the italian alps and killed 20 people. He was brought back to the US very fast (IIRC before notifying italian police). He was later acquited in an US court.
Not difficult to see why italians have difficulties to trust US army "judicial" system.
---
So, are you suggesting that there's no such thing as encryption other than a one time pad?
If you hack into an RSA encrypted stream of classified docs. (hard, but doable with lucky guesses or more computing power that exists today.) you are still guilty of a felony.
Unless you mean to say that everyone should not be liable to be punished for intercepting any kind of message, then I'd say that isn't correct at all.
Laws are only formal statements of the current morals of a society. What's morally acceptable today is atrocious tomorrow, and vice versa. Look at the rise and fall of slavery in the US, or gladiatorial entertainment in ancient Rome. A law is usually "unjust" only because it's fallen out of style with the people, for better or for worse.
And since when do you need guns to break a law? Were all laws obeyed before the invention of guns?
It has a lot to do with US law when he was apprehended and held in custody by US agents. Does it also have nothing to do with US law that we allow the CIA to send prisoners to Uzbekistan where they are often boiled to death?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Wow, that's dumb.
No wonder we couldn't plant a nuke in Iraq and then "discover" it. We can't even encrypt classified information!
Tharkban (It is a signature after all)
Illegal! What are you talking about. I own the government.
The above is not worth reading.
#1. IED & VBIED analysis. The attackers already know that. The only people who don't know it are the US citizens who only watch Fox news. That is how the attackers can improve their attacks. So no military reason to hide that info.
#2. Analysis of specific checkpoints. Again, the attackers already have that information.
#3. Combat readiness analysis - this might be useful to the attackers, but most likely won't be. The attackers aren't going to attempt to match military units.
#4. Description of the layout - not useful to the attackers. They can already see it. About 50 cars had already seen it. That is one of the items they consider when improving their attacks.
#5. Grid locations - again, the attackers already know that.
#6. Details on searches - again, the attackers already know that and have used that information to improve their attacks.
#7. Details of threat assesment methods - possibly not fully be known by the attackers. But, given the number of recorded shootings of civilians, this information wouldn't be very useful. Which is why the suicide attacks have increased.
#8. Analysis of "normal" traffic - again, that information is available to the attackers already and it is part of what they've used to improve their attacks.
etc, etc, etc.
About the only information that should have been completely removed are the names of the soldiers/officers involved and their units. They can be impacted by various journalists and such seeking stories.
None of the other information wouldn't already be known by the attackers.
And operating as if the attackers did NOT know that information just leaves you vulnerable to more attacks.
As can be seen in the report. The soldiers secured the points they were most vulnerable from. Including overpasses where grenades could be dropped.
You have to assume the enemy has all the information you do before you start operations. Otherwise, when the enemy DOES know something that you are relying upon him to NOT know, you're fucked.
why the hell would the US government give a rats ass about an Italian communist who was ransomed?? Europeans should be smarter than this, good god. So let's see, a devious US plot to kill a communist journalist and the Americans dont even kill her?... Hhmmmm, it's a US conspiracy against a commy journalist who got ransomed... The Italians payed up the ransom... and so.. the US has to eliminate her... but are too incompitent to aim straight... or they italians were so cunning they evaded the gun fire and laser beams... RRIIIGGGGHHHTTTT... So, the US had to kill her because.... hhmmmm I am drawing a blank. ??? uh, to show ransom payments dont work?... Ransom payments tell insurgents who are the best ones to kidnap. Italians are like walking bags of money now. The Italians pay up! Sweeeeet! (alah akbar!!) So why the evil plot to kill the Italians?.. The questioon begs to be answered. Ahhh, to send a message from the 'evil Bushitler chimpy haliburton cowboy' to not pay those bad bad insurgent people money cuz it's bad and stuff. Bingo. Sad thing is, nothing will change the minds of the insane euro conspiracy detectives. The US just HAS to be bad!!! Bad, bad bad!!!!waaaahhhhhh!!!!!!! :*(
In war, the civil law is silent. If the United States determines no military law was broken, what is Italy going to do about it?
Nyekulturniy... Proudly confusing readers and editors since 1981!
As a long-time /. user, I'm happy to say that I've never seen Goatse guy or any part of him, and hope to keep it that way. I've gone looking for weird stuff, but what with all the dire warnings, I figure in this case I'm better off not knowing.
Tub girl, alas, is a different story.
How is that any different than that the "information" about Saddam's "WMD's" that he was "hiding" from the inspectors? There were lots of "satelite photos" showing trucks and buildings.
And we all know how that ended.
Personally, I'm not going to accept any "satelite photos" until I've seen them posted.
The satellite story is a red herring.
So, you can make a statement and provide no substantiation for it, yet still get mod'ed up.
You know, there just might be a reason that those photos haven't been shown.
As seen here: Warning about hidden text remaining in the file
:)
The government should read Slashdot
Yep, they really should keep kids away from computers until the kids go to school and learn about them. But I guess it'll be a few generations yet before we start to realise that.
Wouldn't "accidently" selectively releasing classified information be an effective propaganda technique? That way people would think that since it was classified it must be true?
Perhaps I'm just too paranoid about the modern media-goverment incest going on for the past few decades.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Personally, I would rather governments be entirely open. There really is no reason for a government to keep secrets if it's doing the right thing. I mean, the Iraq war wasn't even considered right by most, but yet Saddam knew long before he was attacked that we were coming. I'm aware that soldiers need to be protected in the line of duty, but I have to wonder if we'd find a better, more honest way of approaching problems, if only we'd quit the games and really look for another way.
He was also a trained intelligence agent with more time in service than most of the people in the US unit COMBINED.
So, why do you ASSUME that he made any mistakes?Again, you're ASSUMING specifics about the situation that haven't been established.
The guy driving the car was a MAJOR, the guy in the backseat was a MAJOR GENERAL.
So, of course you ASSUME that some kids in the National Guard know more about operations than two high ranking Italian agents.So, you have a system has you admit has had problems in the past (yet you don't say how it's been corrected) and you have your assumptions about how experts were less experienced than a bunch of National Guard kids
Personally, I'm waiting for the Italian report on the condition of the car and the bullet holes in Calipari.
Everyone, please all of you who are mirroring this information, stop. Nothing in the secret portion of the document will contribute to the understanding in the report. Quite simply, the operational details contained within this report can get someone killed.
If that single line is removed from the document, the document can be released freely.
People who released it -thought- the confidential pieces were removed. What they did though, was computer equivalent of pasting post-it notes over the offending parts before handing them out to the public.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
35 UNCLASSIFIED UNCLASSIFIED
(U) Specialist Lozano spotlighted the car before it reached the Alert Line, fired warning shots as it reached the Warning Line, and fired on the vehicle in an attempt to disable it immediately after it crossed the Warning Line. (Annexes 79C, 87C, 129C, 134C).
(U) Specialist Lozano was the only one to fire his weapon. (Annexes 77C, 79C, 81C, 83C, 85C, 87C, 89C).
(U) The car was traveling at approximately 50 mph as it crossed the Warning Line. (Annex 83C).
(U) Mr. Carpani did not apply his brakes until after the rounds began striking the car. (Annexes 104C, 105C).
(U) Given the cyclic rate of fire of the M240B, Specialist Lozano's expertise with the weapon, and that only 11 rounds struck the vehicle with only five of those impacting the front of the car, it is highly unlikely that any shots were fired after the car came to a stop. (Annexes 79C, 6G, 1I, 3M).
(U) Both the blocking and overwatch vehicles were moved after the incident as directed by Captain Drew to transport Ms. Sgrena to the Combat Support Hospital. Both vehicles were needed to provide security for the move to the hospital. (Annexes 74C, 77C).
(U) The gunner complied with the Rules of Engagement. After operating the spotlight, and perceiving the on-coming vehicle as a threat, he fired to disable it and did not intend to harm anyone in the vehicle. (Annexes 79C, 83C).
-------------------
The report says 50mph. Yeah, I drive faster than that going to work, so the Italians probably don't see that as very fast, but I could see how that *would* be considered fast if you're approaching an army checkpoint already nervous about suicide bombers.
What I don't get is this: I find it hard to believe that the Italian agents neglected to tell other troops around that area what they were planning to do. It's common sense because your allies are armed forces too. Something about this just doesn't seem to fit yet (for me).
He flew into the cable, not the gondola.
The lift was not marked on military aviation maps, Italian or US.
I can find no evidence that says they were brought back to the states "very fast". They supposedly did not know of the cable car falling until hours later back at Aviano.
An Italian judge ruled that the US military had sole jurisdiction over the proceedings.
The low altitude warning alarm was set to 800 feet. The alarm did not sound.
The pilot was found not guilty of involuntary homicide and manslaughter. Yes, he was flying too low through the mountains. Probably hotdogging a little. But it was an accident.
The only acceptable verdict to the Italians would have been guilty. Guilty of what? Manslaughter? At most it could have been the flying equivalent of 'reckless driving'.
Where is your proof for this? Isn't it just as possible that it might be true but they don't want people to believe it so they release it in some questionable way?
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
On the other hand, I might forgive a woman for being confused about how many rounds of ammunition were fired at her in the dead of night on a road in Iraq, just after escaping from imprisionment.
And the reason would be - Italian government was paying large ransoms to rescue kidnapped folks, in other words they were supporting the terrorists financially. Those ransoms no doubt were used to purchase weapons, ammo and explosives to kill Iraquis and American soldiers. So if I put my tinfoil hat on, I can see how this "soldier" could really have been a CIA operative with direct orders to kill Calipari.
Don't explain with ill will what can be explained with stupidity.
Day 0.
Grunt 1: Hey, wake up! Some car just passed by!
Grunt 2: dadadadadadadada! *shooting*
Grunt 1: Hey, stop! I didn't say shoot, just wake up and check them!
Grunt 2: They got away already, screw them.
Day 1:
Drone 1: Shit, grunts screwed up. Write up something to cover it up.
Drone 2: Any info about what happened?
Drone 1: All classified. Will take years to get through the administration, and we need something NOW. Make something up.
Drone 2: Okay.
Day 2:
Drone 1: Okay, but they won't buy... this VIP road part, she already said they were on that road already... and that front shooting part. The car has been shot from behind. The rest looks believable enough.
Drone 2: Ok, erasing these. (Crtl+X, save.)
Drone 1: Looks fine, send to the press.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Oh. Duh. Of course you're right. I'm stupid.
However, when one writes in a particular language, it's customary to spell words in that language. We're speaking English here; it's "Iraq" and not "Irak."
Being a soldier who just got back from Iraq I'm actually pretty pissed at this because of the fucking dangers behind it.
.. The so called insurgents sure as hell know what their doing every bit as much as those same insurgents know what to fuck the imperial forces are doing and how. After all they watch and scutinize your every move and gauge every reaction. The only people being informed with this information is the mushrooms back home.
... As a soldier you have been trained to bitch and blame shift on this matter, the offical military stance since Vietnam and a war the U.S. would have won if not for more or less open reporting that occurred there and a mistake that same military has vowed to never let happen again. Better to keep the home folks ignorant and fat on sugar plum reportage else risk flagging support for empire building incursions such as this one.
... The American People and Allies where lied to in making the case for this war and have been lied to continually via tightly controlled and cherry picked reportage ever since. In another word, U.S. Political and Military controlled 'Propaganda' is shaping public opinion not objective reporting of facts and the corrosponding development of popular opinion. Albeit outright lies, distortions of truth or propoganda, the question of how democracy and freedom can survive in such an environment becomes an honest one. Indeed.
Well thats your ARMY for ya fuck nut! If your pissed then be pissed at the dipshits who can't put out a clean PDF not those who may unredact and read it.
Point 2
Point 3
Point 4
It matters to me because those millions of bucks will fund the folks who I regard as the bad guys.
There's a world of difference between mounting an expedition to rescue kidnap victims, and paying ransom to the kidnappers.
Millions for defense, not one penny for tribute. That sort of thing.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
They are also not protected by the U.S. Constitution (see above link) because they are considered on foreign soil, even though they were captured by Americans, are being held by Americans, and are on an American base.
The Constitution never specifies where it is valid.
The Constitution never says: "Dont be nice to foreign people, its the americans that count"
Its the Government who is acting like asses this time, dont blame it on some libertarian shmucks who just wanted a fair society.
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
Just select an obfuscated area and then copy/paste it in, say, kwrite or vim. The real text will appear.
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
After all, Bin Laden was a CIA agent. I'm just saying that there are some serious double standards in place. There's one set of standards for the US and another for the rest of the world. Folks in the us (at least those getting their news from FOX), don't realize that the government is just a bunch of hypocrites when it comes to foreign relations.
read the geneva conventions. i have. in fact, they were written specifically in reference to sarajevo 1914, because the austrian government accused the serbian government of collusion with the balack hand, though the serbian governmetn denied it. by specifically barring protections from terrorists like that, they were trying to prohibit groups like the black hand from pulling the world into war again. the reason they're not POW's is because they do not meet the categories. period. as for the PNAC stuff, that's been out there for a long time. give up on it. nexr your going to say cardinal spellman was involved. perhaps you should read a history book or two and you'd.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
I guess it depends where you live. In the UK, if I made jerky motions into my pocket when puled over for a routine traffic accident, I certainly wouldn't expect to get shot. And if I was, there'd be a public outcry. Don't assume we're all trigger happy.
However if you were Irish and in Northern Ireland your odds of being shot are probably higher than in the U.S. and there would be no outcry against the British soldier's decision to shoot by the British public.
please please please oh god please let it be true! if someone in the us government has been stupid enough to do the old 'drawing black boxes over the pdf document' cock-up again it will make my day. can anyone confirm that the original document was indeed legit? i hope this paper got some evidence to show they had the real thing before it was taken down.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
And do you consider the result "ok"?
With all due respect, USA had nothing to do in Iraq, it wasn't threatened by it and it knew that it poses no danger. Also, at the current stage there are open admissions that intelligence data was twisted for political needs not to represent actual situations.
How often do you shoot your neighbors just because they might be holding a gun and planning to shoot you? And claim that this was just a self-defense out of necessity? Try it out! It works! It's the american way, after all!
The fact that USA tries to enforce its laws across the world is NOT acceptable, regardless of what your comment shows you think. This just isn't how the law is supposed to work.
There are cultures where murder is a very encouraged and normal (if not mandatory) response to a case if someone rapes your daughter (in example).
There are cultures where there are no needs for cops, because the justice is enforced by everyone and any criminal risk loosing not only his position in society, but home and friends too.
You just might have heard that there are cultures where the LAW is defined and exact and don't depends on 15 tomes of decisions of similar cases or your capabilities to appear as a victim of society to the jurors.
I'm not saying that Sadam Hussein wasn't a criminal. Yes, he was, he was involved in war crimes, genocide, just plain power stretching around and enforced really harsh means to silence the opposition, but this wasn't the USA's business. For heaven's sake, Iraq even isn't a border country for the USA, what would add some credibility to the "World Cop" role it postulates.
In short: US law is law that is (and should be) enforced only in USA. One step across the border - and you have a different set of laws. And that's how it should stay - each culture deciding itself on the laws it needs and the enforcement methods it should use.
There is a really, really big difference between McJunkie Girl (violently raped at each of last three parties she attended and happy for that) and the wife of some Taliban Man (violently beaten up each evening, and happy for that). And laws are made to reflect that.
get flagged by the fbi in one, easy download!
The document was released as unclassified, therefor you are free to download it.
The original *unclassified* document contained all the information. There's nothing illegal about it.
When I read this I actually said aloud: "Ha ha ha, you got pwned." How does something like that fall through the cracks?
damn, hit submit not preview. anyways...
you'd see beyond the constructivist mentality that allows for such pedantry. you're spouting the same rhetoric of the religious fanatics you probably hate so much. conspiracy theory, rumor, inuuendo, coincidence, etc., all add up. see, the only way it could be a conspiracy is because it's a conspiracy. nice logic. we're safer for the iraqi war. remember, many in the US wanted nothing to do with another war in europe. FDR did everything bush did, except instead of 1500, it was 400,000. yet history has justified fdr. it will for bush too.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Something similar happened in Northern Ireland about a decade ago: a car failed to stop for a checkpoint, the troops there fired at it, and continued firing once it had passed. There were three teenage joyriders in the car, one of whom was shot dead. The soldier who did it served time for manslaughter.
And anyway, while the military might have managed to convince the world that it was all made up, they would have figured out how it was done quickly enough anyway.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
It's not necessary for the soldiers to knowingly be on a mission to murder her. If someone high up wanted Sgrena dead, they might have "forgotten" to tell the chek-point soldiers about the incoming car, expecting all of the occupants would have been killed by the soldiers. When the soldiers realised it was no suicide missions, they rescued the survivors from the wreck.
Your theory sounds like a dumb hollywood script. If they wanted her dead it would be far simpler to get someone to put on native clothing and pump her vehicle with RPG and AK fire. The tactic you offer is too unreliable.
"My guess is that it's going to be the staffer that released the document that's in hot water." Right. Probably more hot water than the soldiers.
Stuff that Matters...
Everyone asserts that the US constitution doesn't apply overseas, but I don't see anything that would imply that in the constitution itself - it's all along the lines of, "Congress shall not do X."
Not "Congress shall not do X, except to brown-skinned furriners with funny outfits and long beards," or "Congress shall not do X in any place where reporters might see it done," or "Congress shall not do X unless they first convince a majority of voting Americans that it's OK."
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
While the US government is likely to blame this entire mess on the Italians, I can't help but wonder, is it their fault? Up until now perhaps, the Iraqi insurgents and other anti-American forces probably didn't have the capability or wherewithall to employ this innovative "cut and paste technology" to discover classified bits of information.
Are the Americans so jaded and naive that they think this hidden information would have only been discovered had it not been for some Italians publicizing it?
If you ask me, probably the only way to get important groups to better-secure their information, is through exposes of this nature which embarass them into changing their methods, otherwise it may very well have been just the Iraqi insurgency and a few others that, for several more years would have employed this super-secret cut-and-paste technology.
No, in fact it is rented from Cuba (even though they refuse the payment) and the U.S. government's position is that it is therefore foreign soil and not subject to U.S. laws or Constitution.
That was the position of the Bush administration, but the Supreme Court disagrees. Six out of nine justices rejected that argument, holding that alien prisoners at Guantanamo do have the right to challenge their imprisonment by filing a habeas petition in federal court.
Citing an opinion piece from 2003 hardly concludes the argument in your favor when the Supreme Court has subsequently ruled on the matter. In fact, the Court has ruled that Guantanamo Bay does fall within the jurisdiction of the United States Court and that the prisoners held there have the same rights as they would if their were held in one of the states or territories of the US. Because of their status as enemy combatants, those rights are limited to little more than the Writ of Habeas Corpus until such time as an Article III court rules that they are being improperly held by the Executive, but it is incorrect to claim (as the Bush administration tried to) that the Gitmo prisoners are totally outside of the jurisdiction of the United States Court and without constitutional guarantees of their due process rights.
Secondly, read the report. It tells how the enemy has been adapting their attacks based off of that knowledge.Can you quote that from the article?
I don't recall reading that there.Again, read the article. Look for the section with this quote in it:That will show you that they are learning and adapting.As it should be in any situation.No. It is because it is "brittle". Once it is broken, it is broken.Only amongst those who do not understand security.
Look at the WTC attack for proof of that.Again, only amongst those who do not understand security.Why would you have to? Do you even know what "Security through obscurity" is?
It is where your defense depends upon the enemy NOT knowing something.
The thief does NOT know that you keep an extra house key under the front door mat.
How does it require re-writing the laws of physics to just NOT put the key there?
You bank probably has the vault in plain sight. Wouldn't it be more effective if they hid the vault? No. Banks understand security. They want the vault in plain sight and they want to rely upon their security system to prevent theft.
In war, you NEVER hope that the attacker will NOT know something that is critically important to your success.
The 1-76 TOC had two means of communicating with 4th Brigade, its higher headquarters: Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)2 and FM. The 1-76 FA Battle Captain was using only VOIP to communicate with 1-69 IN, but experienced problems with VOIP, therefore losing its only communication link with 1-69 IN, other than going through 4th Brigade. (Annex 97C). As a result, the Battle Captain was unable to pass updated information about the blocking mission either directly to 1-69 IN, or to 4th Brigade. He did not attempt to contact 4th Brigade via FM communications. (Annex 63C).
and
(U) Mr. Carpani told Sergeant First Class Feliciano who Ms. Sgrena was and that he was trying to get to the airport. He told Sergeant First Class Feliciano that he heard shots from somewhere, and that he panicked and started speeding, trying to get to the airport as quickly as possible. Mr. Carpani further told Sergeant First Class Feliciano that he continued to speed down the ramp, and that he was in a hurry to get to the airport. (Annexes 91C, 136C).
So it all came down to two issues.
(1) Failure to communicate. The car wasn't where it should be, wasn't informed of what was waiting ahead of them, gave its position but that information was not forwarded to the roadblock, so they were not expecting them.
(2) The driver then risked the lives of everyone in the vehicle by reacting with very bad judgement when he arrived at the roadblock. (accelerating the vehicle after he was spotlighted, laserpointered, and heard the warning shots)
Bad decisions by the driver of the vehicle, amplified by failure to communicate.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Or, better yet, how do you propose that he let the unit know he was coming?
Read the article. That unit did NOT have 100% communication with the other units.
Their mission had expired and they WERE LEFT OUT THERE because it was not COMMUNICATED to them.
Um, no, you're quite wrong. A normal, uncleared, without need to know US Citizen should not read a document labeled Secret. That is violating a "fundamental clearance issue".
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD28Ak01.html
As a quick aside: it was a PDF and not a DOC file. Same lesson though: modern document formats must be handled very carefully.
Sure. It's possible that this is all a clever ruse. But keep in mind Hanlon's Razor. I've seen more than enough general stupidity and incompetance in the US Government - especially around IT. That's not to say that the US Government doesn't have sharp folks working in their midst. But they tend to be the exception and not the rule. In my jaded view, the safe money would be on this incident being due to incompetance rather than master plan.
Not that talking the "master plan" angle isn't fun.
Because he's dead, he probably made a mistake.
Now, if you had read the article (I know, it's long and it doesn't have pictures) you'd see that the kids firing the weapons did NOT have communication with the other units to let them know that their mission had expired and they could tear down and return to base.
You really might want to read the article next time.
They'll never believe you actualy RTFA.
You are more than the sum of what you consume. Desire is not an occupation.
Lebowski is full of shit. His remarks clearly show he has not been there. Both those who have been there, and news reports from reporters who have been there, tell a different story.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
The FAS mission is to provide oversight on unnecessary government secrecy. The only part of this report that should have been classified is the names of the military personnel. The rest is ridiculous to consider as being secret information.
It takes just a moment and an action to destroy. It takes some time and thought to create.
By the argument that Guantanamo is in Cuba and therefore the US constitution doesn't apply there, surely the whole base should be subject to Cuban law?
I just love the foresight that goes into these things. Haven't people learned yet? This is getting ridiculous. Next thing you know, Adobe will release a program that offers 100% secure and unbreakable encryption. The program will work by placing all your secrets in a PDF file, with white text on a white background. Then, someone (let's for discussion purposes say that his name is something random, like Sklyarov or something like that) will point out that all you have to do is copy and paste. That person will be arrested and held in prison for a few years, before they release him with a "sorry dude." Of course, Adobe will receive no blame for this whatsoever.
Not necesarily. If you have not signed a non-disclosure agreement, you aren't bound by the various laws involved. Reporters have been able to release classified documents(such as the pentagon papers) in the past, and not faced any official sanctions. Of course, a smart reporter would be careful about doing that, as pissing off the wrong people could get laws passed to restrict it more.
The idiot that allowed it to so easily be leaked, on the other hand, is very likely going to lose their clearance, and there job even if there is an equivalent open position that does not require a clearance. They *probably* won't be prosecuted unless evidence arises that they meant this to happen, but their current job is gone.
I'd like to see them get the chance. It won't happen. If they even get to attempt anything the paperwork will be 'lost'.
"But I'm still right here, giving blood and keeping faith. And I'm still right here."
You cannot shoot out the rear window from the front without it showing damage to the front. Thus the U.S. story does not hold up to the facts.
Pure genius. You used one sentence and covered the following all in one fell swoop:
:)
1. Star Wars
2. Internet geekery
3. Pr0n
4. Masturbation
Hats off to you sir.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Wasn't Clegg freed on appeal, on the grounds that his bullets couldn't be proved to come from behind?
American authorities WERE informed of the operation.
Oh and BTW the driver was on the phone with BERLUSCONI (and others) at the time of the shooting.
This liberation was under complete public scrutiny; every Italian news outlet was informed of what was going on.
After they were stopped, the driver reports that the soldiers ordered him to stop talking on the phone (or even took away his phone). He was on line with BERLUSCONI, the prime minister, for fuck's sake! Sgrena describes the arrest as very rough.
read the censored stuff, it is highly dangerous - for the guys who want this war, not for the guys who execute it. PAT
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
Yes, if soldiers don't want to get blown up, they should get the fuck out. It's not the same for Iraqis, they happen to LIVE there, and can't seriously go anywhere else (at least not en masse).
Yeah, said soldiers would get sued / jailed, but hey, how much do you value human life? Isn't it worth the risk?
But she's the one got shot at.
... unless you really want to buy that bridge with lotsa WMDs ... sucker.
And excuse me, but I will value anyone's word in that war before the american gov't's
Yes there are some classified pieces of information in this report, but nothing earth-shattering. Most of what is classified deals with mundane operational details such as number of IEDs, time distributions etc... There is one classified paragraph that describes VOIP though. Not sure why that is classified? It also seems very out of place in the report as well. There is probably more to this thing that was edited but we will never see it. The whole incident is what we call in the military a giant clusterfuck. There isn't any conspiracy here just some frightened Specialist who squeezed off a few shots at an unknown vehicle approaching his position.
HOW did you coordinate with the other UNIT to let you through?
Then explain HOW the Italians were supposed to do that with the communication problems that were mentioned in the REPORT? With a unit that wasn't even supposed to BE there? Here's another part of the REPORT that you didn't bother to read.Of course, no one on the US side had any knowledge of any activity prior to the shooting.
Which is why the Italians are having so much trouble accepting this "report".
So, the rest of your position falls apart.
Unless you can show where one of the items I mentioned can be shown to NOT be available to them. Go ahead and try to show that checkpoints set up in the open, in broad daylight, can not be seen by people travelling through them and by people watching from other sites.
For more background information on this shooting, watch and/or hear Giuliana Sgrena's most recent discussion of the topic on the Wednesday, April 27, 2005 edition of Democracy Now!
Digital Citizen
After all, these are terrorists, right? Well, how do we know? Is the military infallable? Is every accused person guilty?
In fact we know with as much certainty as we know anything that some of the 500 people incarcerated in Guantanomo Bay are not terrorists. Simple statistics is all that is required to prove this. We know that the cops sometimes arrest the wrong person, and that for that reason we have courts. And we know that sometimes courts convict the wrong people, and for that reason we don't have the death penalty (oops, sorry, you guys in the U.S. do, don't you?)
We also know that the Guantanomo detainees were captured in an environment very much subject to "the fog of war", which gets used as an excuse every time the U.S. military fucks up and kills a few Canadians.
Given all this, it is extremely doubtful that the error rate in accusations of terrorism is less than 1%. If it is 1%, then on average we would expect 5 innocent people to be incarcerated in Gauntanomo Bay with no rights. A Poisson distribution with a mean of 5 has P(0) = 0.0067, so there is a 99.3% chance that there is at least one innocent in Gauntanomo Bay, even under these extremely conservative assumptions.
Given that the U.S. military tribunals that are passing judgment on the detainees believe that wearing a Casio watch constitutes evidence of terrorism it is pretty clear that the rate of incarceration of innocents is much higher than this. It is also worth noting that the tribunal does not even get the model of the watch correct--the F91 does not have a compass. It makes one wonder what other mistakes they have made in the evidence that still remains classified.
--Tom
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
You post claims and for substantiation, you link to other stories with those claims.
The "satelite photo" story does not contain any satelite photos.
The reference to "handfuls of bullets" does not have her saying that. Only her boyfriend telling someone that she said that to him.
The reference to the "4 inch tank round" again does not have her saying that but has someone who claims to have heard her say that.
The REAL question is whether or not they had passed through other checkpoints.
I can not prove nor disprove a coverup. All I can do is lend credibility to the idea that the soldier fired upon that car without any evil intentions. The wording in the report is plain and factual. My own personal experiences with checkpoints (re: speed) are congruent with what happened. I suppose I could look up the soldier himself and ask him (since his name was released by the Italians), but I think it would not prove anything to anyone else since I could be part of the supposed coverup as well.
strike
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Its a war damnit. Things happen. The people at the checkpoint are being shot at and attacked all the time. They are SUPPOSED to be paranoid. Its how they stay alive.
So they misjudged the threat this time and nabbed an innocent instead.. Mistakes happen.. Apologize and move on.. And i really dont care how fast they were moving.
I dont see you sitting over there in the middle of a desert with people trying to kill you. Until you do, shut up and take your 'couch commanding' elsewhere. ( actually, this statment isnt just for you, but anyone else who wants to stand up and claim they know better then our kids out on hte front line. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P1957
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/2 5/1516242&mode=thread&tid=25
Why won't the US let the Italians inspect the car? The Italians purchased the car from the rental company so they can do forensics. The US won't let them have the car. Why not? Hello? Bueller? Bueller?
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD28Ak01.html
So what's to stop them from finishing her and anybody else in the car off after the car stopped? After all, it was dark, there was nobody else around, and the car occupents were no match for the well-armed forces who stopped them.
Oh, wow -- that's totally comforting. The US military is giving machine guns and assault weapons to incompetent soldiers. Malice would almost be comforting by comparison.
As the populace gets ever more sophisticated in the ways of media propaganda, they are having to pull more and more tricks out of their hats.
The whole incest thing is right on, BTW....
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Be specific.They know what our assessment of ourselves is just by watching what changes we make in our operations.
If we don't change our operations, they know that we think they are good enough.
As for the enemy's tactics, the casualty rate is enough to gage that. Why would they care about what we thought of their attacks if their attacks were killing our people?Once again, be specific. What information.Great. 268th Attack Helicopter Battalion, here.
When you say "veteran", what do you mean, specifically?
It's rented from Cuba, but the US has "complete jurisdiction and control" of the area. US law applies there and apparently it's specified in the treaties that Cuba will return fugitives for offences committed in Guantanomo Bay to the US.
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P1957
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/2 5/1516242&mode=thread&tid=25
Why won't the US let the Italians inspect the car? The Italians purchased the car from the rental company so they can do forensics. The US won't let them have the car. Why not? Hello? Bueller? Bueller?
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD28Ak01.html
Here is the pertinent statement: "(S//NF) The 1-76 TOC had two means of communicating with 4th Brigade, its higher headquarters: Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)2 and FM. The 1-76 FA Battle Captain was using only VOIP to communicate with 1-69 IN, but experienced problems with VOIP, therefore losing its only communication link with 1-69 IN, other than going through 4th Brigade. (Annex 97C). As a result, the Battle Captain was unable to pass updated information about the blocking mission either directly to 1-69 IN, or to 4th Brigade. He did not attempt to contact 4th Brigade via FM communications. (Annex 63C). Fourth Brigade, in turn, could not pass updated information to its major command, 3ID. (Annex 57C). Likewise, 3ID had no new information to pass to its subordinate command, 2/10 MTN. Finally, 2/10 MTN was thus unable to pass updated information to its subordinate command, 1-69 IN. (Annexes 51C, 52C" Part of the blame has to go to the VoIP system. God knows how awful our AVAYA system at our tech support center works.
And most of them are undoubtedly innocent of any enemy activity since they were rounded up in the usual ham-handed group arrests our morons in Iraq have been performing since day one.
No charges filed against virtually all of them for over two years tells you all you need to know.
No doubt there are a few actual Taliban personnel there (who probably should be treated under the Geneva convention), but how many Al Qaeda has not been demonstrated by anyone so far.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P1957
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/2 5/1516242&mode=thread&tid=25
Why won't the US let the Italians inspect the car? The Italians purchased the car from the rental company so they can do forensics. The US won't let them have the car. Why not? Hello? Bueller? Bueller?
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD28Ak01.html
What? FDR went to war against Japan, a country that Attacked America. He also went to war against Germany, a country that declared war on America first and allied with Japan.
Bush, on the other hand, went to war against Afghanistan, a country that harbored Al Qaeda. He also went to war against Iraq, a country that did not declare war on America and had nothing at all to do with Al Qaeda.
I fail to see how you can connect the two. We're not safer, go ask anyone living in the Middle East if they love America more now because of the Iraq war. Check the blogs if you're lazy.
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P1957
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/2 5/1516242&mode=thread&tid=25
Why won't the US let the Italians inspect the car? The Italians purchased the car from the rental company so they can do forensics. The US won't let them have the car. Why not? Hello? Bueller? Bueller?
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GD28Ak01.html
The pilots were talking about "self defence" or some other horseshit. Yeah, flying at 10000 feet in the middle of the night you are likely to get hit by a stray bullet. And after they dropped the bomb, they only had to wait about 10 seconds for the air command to tell them they just bombed the Canadians.
I guess it's war then, eh? Shit happens. When bin Laden declared war on the US in 1997 (or there about), then they crashed into World Trace Center, well, maybe by your judgement, well, it was war. Shit happens. People die. Move on. Right?
100,000+ Iraqies dead over the last 2 years? Oh well, shit happens... None of them were your kids so it doesn't really matter..
So, what's a good new name for pizza that includes a word like "freedom?".
Freezza?
Why is there this insistence on equating information with physical objects, yet denying it the limitations as such?
If I stood on a street corner, and handed out candy bars to passers-by, I wouldn't then be able to order those people not to eat the candy bars. If one of them found I had inadvertently given them two candy bars instead of one, I couldn't demand it be returned.
The right to control *actual* property once it has voluntarily left one's physical control is non-existent in this case. Why should intellectual property be any different?
"Aha!" you say, "but it's not possible to relinquish actual control of intellectual property without transferring copyright. By distributing, one merely licenses intellectual property for intended use. Furthermore, one can expect to control property outside of one's physical control in certain instances, based on implied intentions."
Okay, then here's another analogy, that of valet parking. You hand your keys over to a stranger with the intent that the stranger return them to you, along with your intact car, upon providing his service. If he sees the inside of your car, does it matter to you? Probably not. If he uses your keys to snoop through your trunk, and finds your kiddie porn collection, and never tells anyone about it, does it matter to you? Probably not, as long as you get your car back, you'll never know.
What if he tells everyone about your kiddie porn? You may be upset, but, if you handed him your keys, and he provided his service, can you really complain? Of course, in this case, we could say your "intent" was for the valet not to find your kiddie porn, or at least not to publicise it. By doing so, does his violation of your intent constitute injury? The answer is still "no".
It's important that this conclusion is independent of the quality of the information discovered. It doesn't matter that the discovery of kiddie porn could harm your reputation. Likewise, I might say my "intent" for the reader of this post is for you to disregard any spelling/grammatical errors. Doing otherwise could cause me harm in the form of embarassment. Does my intent make a difference? Even though I clearly am the owner of this intellectual property, do I have the right to impose such a condition? Can I force you to ignore information in plain view?
Information is a physical property, either it's there or it isn't. But "intent", "ownership", and "use" have completely different definitions and ramifications for intellectual property than for physical property. Saying you can't "decode" information you've been handed calls into question the entire process of reading, since it's basically decryption based on a shared key.
Furthermore, the security provided by encryption schemes other than the one-time pad are illusory. Quantum computers will show this to be true. If you think "aha! I have encrypted this information with rot-13. now no-one can read it." then you're deluding yourself. It would be as if you were handing everyone two candy bars, and they all returned one. Sooner or later, someone is going to refuse to return a candy bar.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I work as an IT guy at a US federal agency. Not one of the scary DoD ones, but a nice one that funds lots of science research. As webmaster for our department, it's frequently my job to redact (black out the secret stuff) in MS Word documents before they're converted to PDF and put up on the web.
Here's my procedure: I wrote a VBA marco that takes the text you're highlighted in a word doc, counts the characters selected, and replaces it with half that number of capital "X"es. I've found on average that half the number of characters selected in "X"es is about the original length of the selection.
I then select these areas of XXXXX in black highlighting for that "freshly redacted" taste. Then I make sure change tracking is turned off, save the document, and Print (not auto-convert) to PDF.
Ta-da! Redacted! If it's a scanned document that shows up in PDF on my desk, I render all the pages to JPG, black out the secret stuff in GIMP, and then resave and stuff back into PDF format.
Even if your bosses are too cheap to by PDF redacting software, it can still be done fairly cheaply. And don't give me any shit about meta-data, I've checked the resulting PDFs with a hex editor and I don't see anything substantive.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
Sgrena claimed the soldiers fired 300-400 bullets into the car. Here are pictures of the car.
28 pages of text and analysis doesn't sound like a coverup.
And if the goverment had really 'had it in for her' and tried to intentionally kill her, don't you think they would have done a better job than to let her 'accidently' run into a roadblock?
And I bet JFK was bumped out by a russian hit squad, too?
I think it's more of a "who cares? they're arabs," "who cares? they're muslims," or "who cares? they're foreigners." Frankly, I don't care what their story is. I'm just not interested. Kill 'em. I really don't give a shit.
But that'll just help Israel. We should send them back and leave the middle east. let them take their vengence on Israel who deserves it. We are there for Israel and no other reason. Not oil, not the honour of Bush 1. Neo-Cons are Zionist tools, every one of them. Just like all those Jewish Communists and Soviet leaders and spies.
So yeah, "who cares? they're foreigners." I really don't like or trust anyone from that area of the world. And nothing we do there is in our best interest if it doesn't involve the destruction of Israel, which is in the best interest of the whole world.
They counted 11 entry holes into the vehicle, 5 of which hit the engine compartment. The rate of fire for the MS40B 200 rounds minute... or 650/950 rounds/minute cyclic. ... which means a 1.2 second burst while trying to hit a moving target at a distance of 120 feet.
Frankly, I knew there was a good reason NYS said not to talk on the cell phone while driving.
Again, WHAT information does the enemy NOT ALREADY have access to?The enemy is either using a IED or a suicide bomb.
Neither case has ANYTHING to do with an attempt to "avoid engagement".
Try being "specific" next time.
Don't post from your fear.
Kind of sounds... Arabic to me. Probably al Quaeda's chief county-intelligence chief if he's single-handedly breaking the United States' best encryption methods.
Shouldn't we be bringing him and everyone at Slashdot who has obviously associated with him numerous times in to Gitmo for "questioning"?
Did it reveal the ransom they paid? Of course not.
...
The one thing the Italians have ignored is "how much ransom did they pay" to get their people released?
Every lira they paid is being used to kill Coalition (US and British, mostly but with a little luck some Italians too until they pull them out) and, of course, Iraqis. Lots of Iraqis.
That's why they didn't mention too much about their presence on the airport road that night.
So they want to prosecute Americans for this? Perhaps we should be prosecuting the Itialian government for supporting terrorists?
BTW, if anyone wants to see how difficult a soliders job is in the Iraq (and sometime how difficult they can make it for themselves) watch the Frontline show (pbs.org) "A Soldiers Story").
"Is that cat lost or is that a car bomb?"
"Why did he speed up after you fired the warning shots?"
It's a difficult job
The checkpoints are setup on PUBLIC sites.
They are setup DURING DAYLIGHT.
They process CIVILIANS through them.
Yet you, somehow, seem to believe that the enemy cannot SEE it.And would you be SPECIFIC in that example?
WHAT, specifically, are you talking about. Provide a quote from the report.And have I ever said that? Just because they can see how the checkpoints are setup and operated, does NOT mean that we fire all of our spies and informants.
But then YOU are the only one who has said anything like that.And now you've lost all touch with reality.
This is about the REPORT. Remember?What the FUCK are you talking about "side point" for?
This is ALL ABOUT THE VALUE OF THE INFORMATION.
There is no fucking "side point" to that. It is the WHOLE POINT.Which was my whole point that I've restated time and time and time again. Yet YOU seem to think that you've come up with some new insight.
There
Is
No
Military
Value
In
The
Report
None. All of the information (except the names) can be and has been collected by the enemy already.
Which is how the enemy has been able to improve their attacks.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/295068.stm
He'd been personally in charge of two other operations in Iraq.Great. I'm talking to an E-4. I had boots with more time in grade than you had time in service.
You know nothing about the situation, yet you're going to claim everything because you were an E-4 in one of the units that was mentioned.
I'm sure that an E-4 knows more than a Major General with years of experience.You might want to check the facts.
The unit doing the block was operating on an expired mission.
If they had been recalled by the US chain of command as they were supposed to have been, then there wouldn't have been a problem.
Now, as for the non-existance of his route, read the report. Once the Major identified himself, the blocking tore down and escorted them through.
So he did have a route.
Imagine, an E-4 not knowing all the details and thinking he can out-guess a Major General.Yep.Their mission had expired and they were not recalled.
They were setup in the open for over an hour.
In a combat zone.
Now, if the enemy had moved in a couple RPG's and blown them up, there WOULD definately have been a problem and SOMEONE would want to know WHY they were left in an open position for so long.Read the Italian version.
In the Italian version, there was no delay between warning and shooting. So he would not have been able to.Again, you're basing that off of what people have said.
This was NOT his first time operating in Iraq.
This was NOT his first time interacting with the US.
Yet, in order for you to be right, he has to be an idiot.
And you still haven't read the report.
The facts are:
#1. This was an unscheduled block.
#2. The block was left in place after the mission had expired.
#3. The block did not have direct communications with other units.
#4. It was night and there was no advance warning of the block until the searchlight hit them.
Now, tell me oh E-4, how was the Major General supposed to contact that unit doing an unscheduled block with no communications.
Let me guess, you weren't the one leading those patrols you're so fond of talking about, were you.
So we're supposed to believe the version of the story by the Italians when the driver was on his cell phone while driving and the 2 other people were in the back seat talking to each other. Was anybody in the car paying attention to the road?
Vote for Pedro
You may be underestimating the horror of imprisoning the people there. Watch The Power of Nightmares by BBC. It looks weird, but it really seems that most of the terrorist threat was made up. It's very likely that 90-95% of all people in Guantanamo Bay are innocent. Do you know how flimsy the evidence was in those few cases of suspected terrorists caught on the US soil?
The whole thing is unjustified. If we ignore the US government propaganda for a second, the whole campaign was simply an act of unprovoked irrational aggression in violation of international laws. As Viggo Mortensen said about America commenting on parallels between war in Iraq and LOTR, "We are the evil guys".
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Note the use of the word "specifically".
Yet your response was a link to a dictionary page where the first example was
So you really have no experience in these issues, do you?And any rent-a-cop can say the exact same thing.
They do "security" operations and sometimes "humanitarian relief".Why not?
Oh, that's right. You don't understand the meaning of "specifically" and you have no direct experience with any of this and the highest you've got was E-4.
And you claim to be a "veteran".
Newsflash, kid. The enemy does observe. The enemy adapts his attacks based upon those observations.
Trying to hide info that the enemy already has is worse than a waste of time. You have to assume that the enemy knows everything, already.
And you do not know more than a Major General.
https://www.infosec.navy.mil/
No, in fact it is rented from Cuba (even though they refuse the payment) and the U.S. government's position is that it is therefore foreign soil and not subject to U.S. laws or Constitution.
I've always wondered about this argument. It seems to me that one of three possible conditions applies:
(1) The base in under US civil law (denied by the government.
(2) The base is under Cuban law. If Fidel says its illegal for Gringos to abuse prisoners, thats it. Of course, the adminsitration doesn't believe that.
(3) The base is outside any law whatsoever. This means on the base you can do anything. This seems to be what the adminstration wants to say. Literally, anything goes. This seems to be what the administration wants us to believe.
Personally, I dont' buy this. If this were true, teh adminstration could literally do anything they wanted to, no matter how outrageous, simply by offshoring it to legal limbo in Guantanamo. For example they could plot to overthrow the US government and establish a herditary monarchy.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Once again, technology foils a cover-up. You'd think that if people wanted something hidden, they would cover up such security holes.
INACTIVE ACCOUNT
I once ran into a similar situation helping in the editing of a magazine. One of the peer reviewers sent in a pdf document, obviously without including his own name (reviews should be anonymous). However it turned out this was encoded somewhere in the pdf document itself (generated in windows). We took it out by editing the binary .pdf file manually. So better use text format if you want to be on the safe side.
extradition for what? For something that is not a crime?
That's what due process is for
Due Process is for citizens and those within the jurisdiction of the courts. It's right there in the 5th and 14th Amendments. And the Privileges and Immunities Clauses of the 14th A (creating US citizenship) and Art IV only applies to citizens as well.
The Constitution does not grant the Federal government with universal jurisdiction. The jurisdiction of the federal courts are limited by Article III of the Constitution, the limits of the sovereignty of the United States, and the power granted by Congress to the inferior courts. We're not Belgium - the federal courts don't absurdly assert global jurisdiction.
I was a higher rank than you, in for longer than you and I had a higher security clearance than you.
Enlisted don't sign NDA's with the Army.
You're a liar.
But I already knew that when you tried to pull the "veteran" bullshit.
read FDR's arsenal of democracy speech. he claimed that germany wanted to control the world and dominate the US. wrong. hitler wanted lebensraum and control of europe. he thought asia should be ruled by asians. as for america, he thought we were a bastard racial mix that was doomed to failure. however, howevr, he implored his sub commanders under no circumstances to attaack US ships, even ships carrying supplies to britain. though germany decalred war on us, it was because we were openly aiding britain for a year and a half, and he figured it would solidify his ties to japan. and, he never thought for one moment we'd ever give one dime to the bolsheviks.
we're not running for asb. it matters not at all if we're "liked". however, i suggest you look past the state run media and the clerics. i'll take hundreds of thousands in beirut. you think that woul dhavbe happened sans OIF?
saddam had long standing aQ ties. here's 3 quickies: 1) ramseh yousef and muhammad (?) yasin. 1993 WTC bombing. 2) ansar al islam an dsalman pak. aQ affiliate and trainging center in iraq. 3) ayman al zawahiri. aQ #2, head of ops. was head of muslim botherhood in egypt for years. primary backer? saddam. he left Egypt for afghanistan in 1999. there's more too. anyways, to say "iraq didn't attack us" show a simpliostic and ignorant view of history. remember, we had a cease fire with iraq post GW1. we were patrolling 2/3 of his airspace. we were enforcing sanctions and embargoes. we had 100,000 troops of his coast to ensure inspections. on 9/11, there was only one nation we were engaged in hostile militray relations with: iraq. they had been shooting at us and we them, in accordance, I might add, with UN resolutions. bush didn't "go to war" but rather finished the war. big difference. we were not at peace with iraq.
the connection is easy. i suggest you read several books. start with shirer's rise and fall of the 3rd reich, read Kagan preseravtion of peace, read Thucydides history of the peloponesian war, read churchill's history of ww2 for starters. as for safer, we were less safe in 1943 than we were in 1940.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
your stuff is total crap. I have followed the story very closely, and it is not the way you were persuaded:
#1) She has not changed her story a bit. I challenge you to show me a single piece of evidence
#2) interestingly enough the satellite images have never been seen, but an anonymous source from the pentagon says that... you mean that same pentagon that wants to conveince us that the military are infallible? Why aren't the satellite images cited in the report? The same soldiers that say that the car was too fast and wouldn't have been able to turn in that curve? Do you think that the driver was blind?
#3) There is no proof that Italy paid. And its government says that they haven't paid. This is speculation. Do not take speculation as evidence!
You've shown us your persistence with 10 points of total crap. Check the facts, do not simply repeat propaganda
have you guys read the document? It bears the word "unclassified" on the top and on the bottom of each page! It was posted for download by the us military on their home page. It was linked by all the news services in the world (most notable exception: US media)
While I might agree that U.S. Soldiers are trigger happy, I think the guy killed in this case might have been a legitimate military target--if indeed, he was paying ransomes to get hostages.
And he was, in this case, guilty of sponsoring the murder of countless others people... mostly Iraqis. This direct assistance counts are participation making him a legitimate target under the Geneva conventions--I have truelly read them on the Law of War. Although, I believe they could have and therefore should have just arrested him.
The journalists comments also lead me to suspect she was complicit with the insurgents.
As I understand, it was openly admitted that they paid a ransome for one of the Italian hostages previously released.
Matthew
George Bush Pardoned that Orlando Bosch guy back in 1992.
That was before terrorism existed as a campaign issue.
Give us a solid link at least!
Even Clinton told the anti-War nuts to shut up and get with the program, and America.
except, back in 1998, the anti-war nuts were Republicans... by the names of Tom DeLay, Trent Lott and Denny Hastert. Oh yeah, they were against it cause it distracted from Penis-Gate and their Russian contracts for Oil. Bleh.
Seriously, it's a nice fantasy world you live in but we're already seeing where it ends up. The basic problem is you've built a strawman to define Democrats. I don't know very many who live in this Utopian Star Trek dream of yours.
For the most part Democrats simply see that it's generally safer to have more friends in the world, not fewer, and as such we try to get a bit of group involvement. UN? Piss on them. They're fucking unreliable and I don't know anybody who would say rely upon them. When we wanted to bomb Milosevic out of Kosovo do you think we relied on the UN? Nope, they wouldn't respond because Russia was against our action on the security council. So we went to NATO, because they are our friends. 19 countries came together, and we got Milosevic out of Kosovo and emboldened Democratic reformists in the country to oust him as their President.
So it's a nice fantasy world you live in, and Bush did an awesome job at defining Democrats as this in 2004... and that fucking popsicle stick John Kerry didn't learn how to respond.
But in the end what do we get? A society less safe today than when Bush came into office in 2001... We'll be lucky to not get hit by a nuclear weapon in the next 4 years at the rate he's promoting nuclear proliferation with Iran and North Korea. What lesson do you think these guys learned from Iraq? They might be crazy, but they ain't idiots.
Whoa... I didn't get to the part where you blame the UN for every one of the United States failures.
How is it that we've gone from Ronald "Personal Responsibility" Reagan to George "Not my fault" Bush in only 20 years? It's like reading a bad Family Circus cartoon.
This exact mistake happened before revealing the names of the secret Carnivore peer review panel. Good to see they're (we're?) quick learners.
c) The physical evidence that not only refutes Sgrena, but displays the exceptional skill of the American military
from the report:
he fired another burst, walking the rounds from the ground on the passenger's side of the vehicle and towards the car's engine block in an attempt to disable it. The rounds hit the right and front sides of the vehicle, deflated the left front tire, and blew out the side windows
He shot at the engine block, and managed to put a round through the windshield and blow out the side windows. Yessir, that's exceptional skill all right.
d) satellites recorded the entire incident... and further exonerate the US military of any wrongdoing.
The US government claims it has this data. It's a good thing we all know the government would never ever lie about anything, isn't it? Where can we review this data ourselves, so we don't have to take the word of a party who has a lot riding on the outcome?
f) The fact that no one in the media or public forum seems concerned that Italy is engaged in the deceptive and dangerous practice of rewarding terrorists
First, how is that relevant to the question of whether they should have machinegunned that car? Unless your position is, the Italians deserved to die, and the soldiers did it on purpose? Second, I'd agree that rewarding terrorists (or criminals, as the case may be, we all know that the occupying forces have failed to provide an adequate level of security for the population, and kidnapping for profit is rampant) is a bad idea. Third, terrorists? They're all folking terrorists. The guys who kidnap people for profit, the guys on all sides who kidnap people for political reasons (that would include those where the kidnapees end up being tortured in Egypt or transported to Gitmo, no less than the cases where they get their head cut off on-camera), and the guys who machinegun civilian cars.
I don't think big conspiracy here. I just think the Army always tries to protect its own, all the way up the chain of command. You may remember that after the murder of 504 civilians at My Lai, none of the murderers ever did jail time. They're saying none of the responsible officers had any clue what went on at Abu Ghraib (or elsewhere, apparently). That's just not credible. (If it were, the criminals who committed those acts should do long stints appropriate to sex crimes. Sex crimes? That's what they'd call it if I forced your sister to masturbate in public at gunpoint, right? Should it be different if the victim is an Iraqi male?)
None of the OOo tools send any hint of hidden text to a PDF, or to print for that matter. Neither does KWord.
But it looks like MS-Office does.
It's not Adobe's fault if MS-Word told Distiller to put invisible text on the page, and so Distiller put invisible text on the page, is it?
Want your hidden text to stay hidden? Then don't touch it with any of Microsoft's products.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Amendment 5 refers to "no person", not "no citizen". Amendment 14 prohibits States from violating rights guaranteed by the Constitution to citizens, but also prohibits the States from depriving any PERSON (not just citizen) of life/liberty/property without due process, nor deny equal protection under the law to any PERSON within its jurisdiction. Neither limits the rights of non-citizens, either by the States or the Federal government (rights of non-citizens are limited only where a specific right is granted to a "citizen"; most references in the Constitution and the Amendments are to "person" - see for example voting rights, ability to be a Representative or Senator or Vice President or President).
While you're correct that the Federal government doesn't have universal jurisdiction, it only stands to reason that the Judicial branch has universal jurisdiction over the other branches of the government - if the Executive branch can claim that it has jurisdiction in rented land on Cuba, then the Judicial branch surely has jurisdiction over the Executive branch on that same piece of land.
I don't think we disagree that much - though I do indeed call poor people "poor", as I did in the post to which you replied. You are right about many poor people, who choose within their cultures the habits and values that keep them, and their children poor. But you were luckier than most, most likely in your foster parents, or another from whom you learned to work for your own success - or from whom you never learned to keep yourself down. Choice is more complex than simply "I want to stop being poor". The most compelling numbers in those poverty stats are the millions of starving children. Of course, I rebutted the dangerously ignorant notion that there's no "absolute" poverty in America (even " non-existing poverty"), but there is also unavoidable poverty, largely through miseducation of children like these. Like you, I like to take credit for my own success, though I acknowledge the exceptional privilege of opportunities my own parents gave me. But you cannot deny your own experience: poverty certainly exists in America, and our effective political structures, when working, protect the opportunity for people to leave it behind.
--
make install -not war
I remember there was some U.S. govn't PDF a few years ago that was put out which had "classified" text blacked-out, only to be so easily defeated by copy/paste into any text editor.
:P )...
Wish I had a link or could remember the document, but IIRC, it was around 2000 or 2001 (anybody else know WTF I'm talking about?
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
>> Guantanomo Bay is a US military base, therefore it is subject to US laws.
> No, in fact it is rented from Cuba (even though they refuse the payment) and the U.S. government's position is that it is therefore foreign soil and not subject to U.S. laws or Constitution.
Wow, the mental gyrations that people will do to justify torture and immorality. Amazing!
The US rents all sorts of military bases -- they're all under US jurisdiction.
As for Cuba not taking the US rent checks, of course not. Cuba has been demanding that the US pull out of this illegally held base for decades but the US refuses!
As to the jurisdiction issue, the US Supreme Court has settled that -- they ruled the US does have jurisdiction and must provide lawyers (for all the good it'll do the torture victims).
> After all, these are terrorists, right? Well, how do we know?
Well, we know that many innocent people were/are being held in the Guantanamo concentration camp and were being tortured even though they were innocent.
The easiest way to reference that statement is to look at what happened to the 4 British citizens that were held and tortured there and are now released. A couple of them have gone public with descriptions of their torture. After the 4 were released, the British gov't did not arrest them or prosecute them because they were innocent.
It seems like they had more reason than just a watch:
"One of the detainee's known aliases was on a list of captured hard drives associated with a senior al Qaida member".
That's quite a bit stronger evidence than a mere watch. And that is from a list containing only unclassified evidence; who knows what the classified evidence might be.
Send/track messages to 100K people: www.xPressAlert.com
I'm probably trolling right now. It's 11:45 and I'm low monitoring.
The fact that USA tries to enforce its laws across the world is NOT acceptable, regardless of what your comment shows you think. This just isn't how the law is supposed to work.
If you were French, German, or English, and someone threatened you without presenting any threat to us (US) whatsoever, we'd still come kick their ass. Your "rules" concerning international non-intervention obviously have limitations, therefore. Where those limitations lie now becomes purely subjective, and based largely upon one's own culture. If our culture says, "shoot 'em all, let God sort it out", are you really in a position to tell us we're not allowed to act on our own conviction? After all, it's not your busniess, remember?
Now we come to the double standard. You say we can't topple Saddam for heinous crimes against humanity (it was never about the WMD's; I was never that stupid) because it's not our business. On the flip-side, if you're not American or Iraqi, you can't really complain about us doing it anyway, because that's not your business, either.
There is a really, really big difference between McJunkie Girl (violently raped at each of last three parties she attended and happy for that) and the wife of some Taliban Man (violently beaten up each evening, and happy for that).
Dear lord, +4 insightful for this tripe. Ok, find me a "wife of some Taliban Man (violently beaten up each evening, and happy for that)". You obviously have never heard from a traditional Muslim woman, and have no idea how humiliating their experience is. If your idea of a perfect world allows for institutional mysogeny, you can keep it.
Now, really. Who in their right mind *doesn't* look behind the spoiler tags?
I agree. Most people take for granted the concept of "due process", which even most tyrannical regimes recognize as an important ritual while staging mock trials of political prisioners.
In Guantanamo, there is not even the semblance of "due process". The individuals imprisioned there are not even guilty until proven innocent.
The same applies to 'suspects' outsourced by the Bush administration to prisons in countries like Syria and Egypt. They are not officially detained, they are faceless and nameless. They are 'ghost prisioners'.
For a tiny glimpse of what happens to these people, see Abu Ghraib. No doubt they are not treated as kindly in the dungeons of Damascus and Cairo.
As for the Geneva Convention, Attorney General Gonzalez referred to it as a 'quaint document'. Law as we know it has been thrown out with the bathwater, and this should send chills up and down the spine of every sentient being on the face of the planet.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Heh. That made me laugh. "Self-avowed communist"! That sounds like taken from a bad tv special on the McCarthy era.
much like my use of the preview button...
Geez man you need to get your information from some source other then right wing radio.
evil is as evil does
We also know that people were released from guantanamo after two or more years of imprisomnent, torture and being subjected to numerous drugs of unkown nature. All they got for two years of hell was a new pair of jeans and sneakers.
Once they got back to afghanistan they told their tales of being tortured and injected with various drugs but of course the US press doesn't carry that kinds of news.
evil is as evil does
So you are saying that it's perfectly OK to imprison and torture people for a few years because you could have killed them instead?
evil is as evil does
I am a history teacher, and have probably read more books the past year than you've read in your entire lifetime. And no, I don't read screeds and I don't listen to talk radio. They're all about talking points and entertainment. Try reading something from the empirical school of history. You'll truly be amazed. And enlightened. Ah hell, I'm arguig history on /. That's like arguing security at a Microsoft developer's conference.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Lebanon has no bearing on Iraq whatsoever. They've been having Parliamentary elections for decades, before Iraq even had their dictatorship. Bush's Iraq war has no bearing whatsoever on Lebanese elections taking place. Palestine also had democratic elections in the early 90's, Arafat won, so Bush can't take credit for that recent election either. I should also point out that soon after that demonstration, an even bigger Hizbullah demonstration took place for the opposition.
Saddam Hussein, a secular dictator who is said to have executed people who went to the mosque too frequently, would never ally himself with Al Qaeda, an organization with an agenda to topple all secular governments and replace them with religious ones. They wanted each other dead. Osama Bin Laden's tape before the Iraq war called Saddam Hussein an "infidel". Now, what evidence is there that Ramzi Yousef had any Iraq connection? Show me. 2) Ansar Al-Islam, the organization where Zarqawi was said to be Bin Laden's rival? The claim alleged by Colin Powell at the UN, which was subsqeuently disproven? Mullah Krekar himself denied any such connection. The link fizzled out, next. 3) Zawahiri? Dream on, the guy was with Bin Laden in hating Saddam's regime and the others. Show me some proof that Saddam would fund a group that would assasinate him, given the chance. Where's your proof of a Saddam-Al Qaeda connection? 2 years and it's all been disproven.
Thucydides? Yeah, I read his stuff, I don't see how it has anything to do with Iraq. Do you think that the US is Athens and Iraq was some super-Sparta? That doesn't fit, but I'm not sure what connection you're trying to make.
Regardless of your feelings on the war, people getting killed is bad.
You should have thought about that before you mounted an invasion, don't you think?
Well the original pdf has now been removed.
The bikini - security through obscurity since 1943
Could Castro Pardon all the gitmo detainees then?
As I recall only 1 Italian died (the rest were mostly German tourists).
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
yes, hitler declared was on us. i never said he wasn't serious, i said that we were helping britain for a year and a half, and we were de facto at war with him anyways. fdr was entirely right to have a germany first policy, in spite of public opinion, and in spite of who actaully bombed us.
rememebr, saddam offerd bin laden sanctuary. now, one of the things people overlook is that saddam got religion the last several years of his rule. where did all those new mosques in fallujah, all the new clerics, and all the fedayyeen come from. though saddam and bin laden had many issues, they had the same three enemies: the saudis, the americans, and the shia. (oh, and israel is four, but that's like saying you didn't get laid but got a blow job.) now, nobody ever disproved the saddam-aQ links. it was just repeated enough times by the media and moronic pols to make you think so. the 9/11 commission even acknowledged the links. rememebr when lee hamilton was quoted erroneously? well, the media jumped all over what he purportedly said, but barely covered it when he himself refuted the claims.
america is hardly athens, and iraq no sparta. the issue is that we face a great threat today, and the problem is not a single enemy, but how to promote peace. we allowed jihadism to grow throughout the 80's and 90's unabated. we sent lawyers after terrorists, responded to attacks with a few missiles, and when we got the slightest bit bloodied, we cut and ran. iraq is part of the larger battle. keep in mind our ww2 strategy: invasion of africa (1942) then italy (1943), then france (1944). one would be hard pressed to argue that casablanca was a hotbed of fascism. in the pacific, we spent two years and thousands of lives not getting to japan, but to get back to the philippines, where the invasion of japan was to be launched from. look beneath the headlines and the clutter. afghanistan and iraq are both under centcom for a reason. they are part of the same theatre. that's called thinking strategically. now, for those who bitch abotu iran, remember where iran sits in relation to iraq and afghanistan. we're not just hunting needles in haystacks today, any more than just removing the nazis was our goal 60 years ago. germany was completely defeated and only then reformed. no doubt for far too long we propped up heinous regimes and allowed medieval societies to continue as long as we got our cheap oil. and see where it got us. bush's problem is that he's so damn bad at communicating.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Thank God they were only Germans!
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Well, to be perfectly honest, she _did_ get shot. Which is not supposed to happen, but alas, it did. I don't believe there was a conspiracy; I'm pretty convinced by those docs that the whole thing was a sad, avoidable cockup caused by insufficient training, poor communication, and a whole lot of other elements of Murphy's Law in action.
My point about "American troops shouldn't be there" being a pretty useless statement holds, though. By that logic, Italian journalists with an axe to grind shouldn't be there either. Granted, the troops have, in an indirect way, a choice about this--as in "don't join the army if you don't want to go to war." However, Italian journalists with an axe to grind have a pretty direct choice in the matter. War zones are dangerous places.
I agree with one of this discussion's fanatics' statement that the US troops have more choice than the Iraqi civilians, but in this case, although civilians do sadly seem to be catching a lot of casualties, the woman who was shot (not to mention Callipari, the poor bastard) had a choice.
She does have an anti-American viewpoint, but frankly, there is nothing wrong with that, and it's her fundamental right to harbor and express such a viewpoint (even though I think she's a plank based on her previous writings.) I live in Europe (not Italy, admittedly) and I haven't heard a lot of credibility given to her rantings about a conspiracy to shoot her (she's a pretty irrelevant figure on the whole); rather people are upset that the thing happened at all.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
You're an idiot. The shots entered through the side windows, which any moron (except you, apparently, because you're a special case of moron) can see are shot out. Only in hollywood to all bullets enter through the front windsheild (hint: looks better for the camera).
> The shots were fired FIRST at a NON-SPEEDING car, as the testimony above makes clear.
The speed limit on that road is about 33 mph (20 km/h). The average speed is 44 mph (28 kmh). The car was speeding. The driver was spotlighted, and lasered according to procedure. Because he was yapping on his cell phone and not paying attention to the road, he failed to note the obtusely large M2 Bradley off to the side of the road, the spotlight, and the laser.
> Since everyone knows that US troops follow up a warning shot by spraying cars with hundreds of rounds in a panic, the driver sped up.
That makes perfect sense...
>Since the US was fully informed about the rescue mission, they should have been fully aware of the position of the vehicle and its occupants on what was a "secure" road.
Since the Italian agents changed the planned route at the last minute...no...they won't.
You know, this whole thing is trajic enough without idiots like you manufacturing baseless lies and repeating them ad nauseum. Why can't you just accept that it was a simple tragedy?
I don't know if it was technically 'invited', but that moron did violate several UN resolutions that required intervention by force when violated.
Not only did the US go, but several other countries.
He was also a threat to this country.
Will it take a while to stabilize the region now? Sure..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Amendment 5 refers to "no person"
That's why I said citizens and those within the court's jurisdiction...
While you're correct that the Federal government doesn't have universal jurisdiction, it only stands to reason that the Judicial branch has universal jurisdiction over the other branches of the government - if the Executive branch can claim that it has jurisdiction in rented land on Cuba, then the Judicial branch surely has jurisdiction over the Executive branch on that same piece of land
No. The jurisdiction of the federal courts is restricted to that granted by the Constitution, or Congress. The US can exert sovereignty over some piece of land, but until Congress creates jurisdiction over that piece of land in some federal court, it is outside the jurisdictional bounds. No federal district court has jurisdiction over Guantanamo. It is a military base, and military law presides.
SCOTUS itself only has limited original jurisdiction, and its appellate jurisdiction over matters "arising under" the Constitution is limited by Congress - by the Judicial Act any jurisdictional grant that isn't enumerated by Congress is construed as barred by Congress.
SCOTUS and the federal courts are also limited by the principle of Separation of Powers - the court cannot impinge on the Constitutional prerogatives of the coordinate branches of government. And political questions are not justiciable.
Should you rely on the entire world not being able to copy and paste from a PDF? Hell no!
FRA: STFU GTFO
http://www.army.mil/usapa/eforms/pdf/A137_1.PDF
That's nothing more than the standard outprocessing form.
You might notice that your "NDA" also has a place for S1 to sign off on whether you're too fat.Listen kid, you're the one claiming that the a DA-137-1 is an "NDA".
Yeah, an "NDA" that has a block for "Weight Control Program".
I know that you had, at best, a "Secret" clearance which requires almost nothing in the way of background checks and gives you access to almost no real information.
If you had a Top Secret clearance, you wouldn't be going around claiming to have signed an "NDA" that was nothing more than your out-processing checklist.
The IIR does NOT say ANYTHING about your service.
The dumbest private who could barely manage a 3 year tour can ALSO make that same claim.
Because YOU think it says something good about you just confirms that you have no idea what you're talking about.
The same with the "training certs". EVERYONE gets those. Only a fool or a liar would think they were representative of his "service".
The same with the DD-214. As long as you weren't thrown out of the Army, you got an "honorable discharge". That is all it says about your "service".
Meanwhile, the guy you were talking about is a NATIONAL HERO in his home country and has the President of his country investigating his death.
Yet you still claim that you know more than he did and you "training certs" and "honorable discharge" and "form DA-137-1" (the "UNIT CLEARANCE RECORD") shows how well you served (as an E-4).
Right. You forgot to include your "Good Conduct Medal". You know the one. The one everybody gets after being in for a while?
hahahahahhhahahahahahaha
There is more by Senator Clinton, Vice-President Al Gore, Madeline Albright (and other Clinton administration officials), Senator Kerry, Representative Pelosi, others. Quite a war-mongering bunch...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I would strongly suggest you not follow any of the links to the document unless you are involved in the investigation (which I assume is ongoing, but I have no personal knowledge that there is one) at this time (at least from a USG computer). While I don't know anything about the veracity of this information I don't think that you want to deal with the potential heat of having your local ISSO's finding anything on your HD with S//NF....
If Saddam Hussein offered his enemy sanctuary, I'd like to see some proof of it. He 'got religion' only in his speeches, from what I heard. Appealing to Pan-Arabism failed, so he tried appealing to his neighbors on the basis of religion, and on an unrelated note tried to get support by making aggressive gestures towards Israel. CNN reported on someone who claimed to be his mistress, claiming that he took Viagra and had lots of alcohol (the latter of which is forbidden in Islam). I don't think those Fallujah mosques were a new development. If you tried to call Saddam Hussein religious, the Iraqis would laugh at you. This was a man who ordered Iraqi Ayatollahs brutally murdered, someone who had his family tree redrawn to claim descent from Imam Ali, who the Shia revere. Nobody ever proved any Saddam-Al Qaeda connection, because it just goes against common logic of the two parties.
Can't resist... Obscure reference below...
Ever try a Freezza with carrots? It's an explosive combination it seems.
"Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny! Free men pull in all sorts of directions" -- Havelock Vetinari
Of all the civ's getting themselves maimed or killed at checkpoints, i'd be curious to know what the ratio of 'bad guys wasted to innocent collateral damage' is; cuz it seems that blaming "people not communicating their intentions" and their "ignoring all signals to stop" is sounding too much like an excuse for poor checkpoint SOP and itchy fingers. Why not just admit that 99% of the occupiers just don't give a rat's ass about the people they're supposed to be 'liberating' and that the only 'wrong' people not to shoot are those wearing a US uniform.
resist propaganda
The Constitutional protection for due process is a restriction against the entire government, not just the courts, and applies to all matters that the government is involved in, not just with regard to citizens. If the executive branch violates that restriction, then the Supreme Court does have jurisdiction as it is a Constitutional matter. Congress isn't allowed to pass laws allowing the executive branch to violate the Constitution, inside or outside the country.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Artic les/000/000/003/527uwabl.asp?pg=1
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Artic les/000/000/003/296fmttq.asp
stephen hayes has done outstanding work. read his book.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
You and Grandparent should go to FL, where instead of swinging 'moonbats' you can now 'leagally' have a duel:)
Then decades later you may realize that you had more in common than you thought:)
Your first target of your "pissed-ness":
[quote]
I am pissed at the blatant disregard of security by my superiors.
[/quote]
Assuming you're not an NCO, Officer, or god-forbid, a ring-knocker; but just another 'leg on the line', as it were; you probably know that the military has a long and proud history of blantant disregard for the safety of its grunts.
"your gun is jamming cuz you don't clean it enough", "this orange shit is totally safe", "these innoculationa are good for you", What DU?.
Come on, US Armed Forces and the Pentagon cover their ass and lie with impunity. Who pays, well you and your buds. It happened in 'Nam, Beruit, Iran, '91 Iraq, and now.
The fundamental question is on who's behalf is the military lying and for whom are all the good sons and daughters dying or returning home in pieces?
Answer: the Elites who move seamlessly between Industry and Government; the Establishment that enriches itself off the misery of others.
This war of/on Terror is not about insurgency any more than 'Nam was about communism. Its all about a miniscule % of the human race fighting a losing battle to stave off the enevitable. They are simply trying to buy time and the casualties (your buds or the hapless campesinos) are what they are willing to sacrifice in order to maintain their control and wealth.
If you are too lazy to discover for yourself I'll be happy to provide you with a laundry list of names of field-grade officers more than willing to overlook the truth and perpetuate the lie; sending their charges to their death knowing its an un-winnable (if not immoral) cause to advance their careers in the service and after retirement in the MIC. Why is that?
Why is it that most line vets who've tasted blood come back invariably jaded and distrusting of authority? That's my 'ground truth'. What's yours?
resist propaganda
And your only support for that claim is the standard out-processing form that everybody fills out.
Yet, when you were out-processing, you had to sign an "NDA" and the "proof" you offer is the S2/S3 section on that standard out-processing form.
Here's a clue. If it was an Army NDA, then there would be a standard Army form number that you could quote. But you can't, can you?
Because there isn't one.Claim whatever you want. Claim that the reference to you NDA is on the same form that has a checkbox for "Weight Control Program".
You're the one making up the lies, not me.And why do you believe that they give SSG's the phone numbers to every unit out there?
No, just because I spent 7 years in the Army, I'd have to go through the SAME process as everyone else and FIND the number.
http://www.drum.army.mil/sites/about/phonebook.as
Wading through the phone menu for "Fort Drum Directory Assistance" gets me the information that DivArty has been disbanded.
So, talking do Division S2 (315 772-5404) gets me the information that NO they don't even know what an "NDA" is much less ever required one to be signed by any E-4's assigned to that Division.
But they DO know what a DA Form 137-1 is and no, the "Security Briefing/Debriefing" on that does NOT require an "NDA" to be signed.Either way. The dumbest Private can still accomplish that. Yet YOU seem to think that it merits specific mention.No. He's a national hero because he's going into a war zone to rescue Italians.So you claim. Again, the Italians say that there was no delay between the lights and the shots."well publicized" how?
Again, you are basing everything you say off of what you've heard other people say. You haven't bothered to read the reports.
Not to mention your lies about your "NDA" and how you can't say anything more about your secret knowledge.
Yeah, I even know what your next claim will be. You'll be claiming that maybe it was DivArty that required the "NDA's" but Division S2 didn't so they don't know about them but you know you signed one so all the evidence showing otherwise doesn't count.
Santa
Easter Bunny
Tooth Fairy
Your "NDA"
"One of the detainee's known aliases was on a list of captured hard drives associated with a senior al Qaida member".
Abdullah Kamal or Kamel is an extremely common name. Google on the exact phrase and you'll get over 1,000 hits. Do you think all those links are to the same person? Do you think all those people are terrorists?
For comparison, I googled on my own name, which turned up about 22,000 hits (I'm widely published online and also have the same name as a mid-rank movie actor.) I used the informal form of my first name (that would be "one of my aliases" in tribunal-speak) and looked for the exact phrase. On the first page there is someone who not only has my first and last name, but also my middle initial and who is also a professional engineer. If he turns out to be affiliated with some wacky American militia does that mean I should fear for my freedom?
That is exactly my point: no one but the demonstrably incompetent members of the tribunal knows, and they can't even get the model of the guy's watch right. We don't even know for sure what name they claim was on the al Quaeda hard drive, and we don't know what context it was in.
I'm not suggesting that all evidence be made fully public, but for example in Canada we have a system under which detainees can have the classified evidence in their cases reviewed by a judge. That's still imperfect--I'd like to see some kind of security cleared advocates for the detained, who would be working for them, not the state. For good or ill Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence is adversarial, and we need an advocate for the accused who is not a lackey of the court.
--Tom
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
If the executive branch violates that restriction, then the Supreme Court does have jurisdiction as it is a Constitutional matter
It has appellate jurisdiction, which is restricted by Congress. And due process protection does not apply universally to the planet. Otherwise, prisoners of war would be afforded counsel, miranda rights, other procedural due process rights, and access to the federal courts - and they aren't. And non-citizen detainees captured outside CONTUS that don't fit the Geneva categories affording prisoner of war status have even less privileges. Historically, such persons could be summarily executed under the laws of war as partisans, spies, or sabateurs.
Congress isn't allowed to pass laws allowing the executive branch to violate the Constitution, inside or outside the country
It isn't a matter of Congress legislating to allow the violation of the Constitution - it's a matter of the court's jurisdiction to try a case, and the legitimate Constitutional powers of the Executive and Legislative branches which the court can not impinge on. The President as Commander in Chief, and with a Congressional authorization of war, has maximal Constitutional power and discretion to wage war - as SCOTUS has noted, that power includes the power to detain. And unless the detainees are citizens or resident aliens WITHIN the US, falling within the habeus corpus statute, then they're fair game.
That's the problem with people like you. You take one incident and herald it as truth for all the alleged unjustified killings. You care incapable of accepting trajedy when it can be used to satisfy your deep seated mindless hatred.
Tell me. What country are you from. Lets compare stories of alleged atrocities committed by our incompetant troops and your incompetant troops, shall we?
Or maybe you can grow up and figure out that war is hell.
I was IN the US military for three years including a year in Vietnam. I KNOW how stupid and incompetent the US military mind is first hand.
That's either the dumbest lie I've never heard, or the most stunning self-depricating admission I have ever seen.
Looks like that was released on May 2000.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/isoo/new_sf312.pdf
Hmmm, revision 1-00.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=147973&cid=12
So you were in from "Feb. 1996 to Dec. 1998".
http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/520
So, it seems that the form with the verbiage you are referencing is from an updated form that was available years after your tour ended.
What was that you said about the AR requiring that form? http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r380_5.pdf
Published on
29 September 2000
2 years after your tour ended.Make all the claims you want to. It doesn't matter to me. I did 7 years and got out in 1990.
I don't have to play games with words like you claiming to be a "veteran" (no combat time and only 34 months in service) to boost my self-esteem. Nor do I have to spin lies about forms I was required to sign before they were even printed.
Target destroyed.
I just read all the replies in here and am amazed at the lengths certain Americans will go to in order to maintain their high level of willed ignorance. Checkpoint procedures, Sgrena is a commie, her story is BS with tank rounds, sattelite pics show that the car must've been doing over 60mph to get to the next pic (I was LMAO with [i]that[/i] logic), the poor soldiers tried to save her later, blah blah blah, so many excuses..... I won't even bother getting into whether the soldiers knowingly shot to kill, whether it was an accident or whether someone higher up in the US chain of command "conveniently forgot" to inform this makeshift patrol. I won't even insist on the point that Berlusconi's gov't, of all Bush allies, is flatly rejecting the US version. What I [i]will[/i] insist on is the following: [u]The US [b]still[/b] won't release the car to forensic experts, months later![/u] Why not release the car to Italian forensic experts? Is releasing the car [i]also[/i] a matter of security? It seems that whenever the Bush admin does something criminal, it has to be classified because of "security". So, let's see the car! Let forensic experts finally examine it so we can see who is telling the truth. The problem, though, is that the Yanks have absolutely no intention of handing over the car, do they. Case closed, as far as I'm concerned. Either the Americans let the car be examined (which they haven't and won't) or they are full of crap, as usual.
Yeah, you DO seem to have problems stating anything clearly.
But I don't. I was in the Army from 1983 to 1990.
You're the one who has a problem stating simple facts.
That's so nice of you to specifically (remember that word you have problems with?) state that.
So, there was the 1-91 version, which was obsoleted by the 1-00 version.
I didn't say that an earlier version did not exist. I was pointing out the version number that could be confirmed as having the text you claim on it.
And then I pointed out when that form was available (after you had ETS'd).
And then I provided a link showing that the text you refered to was not on an earlier version of the form.
Strange that you skipped over those links.
Hardly. But then, I'm not the one that has trouble stating simple facts.
You're just afraid that if you commit yourself to a set time frame, you won't have any wiggle room to claim that you signed forms that didn't exist when you claimed you signed them.
I don't have any such problem. I can state when I was active, when I was promoted and everything else. That degree of confidence scares you, doesn't it.
You claimed to be a "veteran" and when I asked you to specify exactly what you meant by that, all you could do was to put up a link to a dictionary definition that listed "political veteran" as its first example.
Once again, you seem to have trouble with basic words and stating simple facts. I don't.
I didn't ask what the government classified you as.
Again, the dumbest Private can accomplish everything you just claimed (active duty, reserves, IRR) for the same amount of time you claimed and still meet the government's defition of "veteran".
I gave you the chance to provide more information and you just keep retreating into meaningless claims.
The fact that that is all you can do tells me all I need to know about your service record.
That depends upon how you define "average person". If you include children under 16 years old, you're probably right.
But that only makes you look more pathetic when compared to people such as myself and Major General Calipari.
But I have shown that the text you claim was added after 2000.
Ah, this is the fun part where you have to start figuring out how to wiggle around the times you've committed to and the forms you claim to have signed without going over the total time you originally hinted at and without looking like a loser for only making E-4 during that time period.
As Viggo Mortensen said about America commenting on parallels between war in Iraq and LOTR, "We are the evil guys".
A more apt movie comparison is Star Wars.
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
You still haven't explained to me how two people from completely opposing ideals would want to or try to team up. Why would a paranoid secular dictator team up with an "Islamist"? They both tried to kill each other's people. Bin Laden denied any connection with Saddam Hussein, and Saddam Hussein denied any connection with Bin Laden.
I happen to know somebody who was in Irak as a soldier and he told me that it isn't just that these are scared kids or that it's a mistake of the Italians.
In Irak there are actually a lot of insurgents who set up roadblocks. They do this to rob cars and kill or kidnap passengers. Sure, there is a chance that you get shot by the soldiers if you race through the roadblock, but the chance that you stop and get shot is about as high if it are not soldiers but insurgents. And in the latter case it might not even matter if you stop or not, they might shoot at you anyway.
'I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds'
Been through that already. In my post here http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=147973&cid=124 17926
Which seems to be saying that 312 did not have that statement on it and that it was added in the revised form.
Awwww, so you were almost promoted and then the mean Army TDY'd you before you could appear before the board. That is so sad.
So sad because it is bullshit. I was promoted to E5 while on TDY. I was promoted to E4 while on TDY. The "promotion board" is nothing. My battalion held them every month. You claimed you were DivArty so it should have been even easier for you.
What was that? "in 1995"?
So, they made you sign it before you left service? What was that you had claimed earlier?
You entered service in 1995 (you're a bit lax on the month)
...
...
Basic
AIT
You were assigned to your unit on Feb 1996.
You left that unit on Dec 1998.
Which is also when you claimed to have signed the 312.
That doesn't leave much room for an assignment after AIT and before DivArty, does it?
So I said you spent 34 months in the Army
You say I'm wrong and can't read because you didn't say that
When the FACT is that my statement is about right, except I didn't count basic and AIT.
Well, it seems that not only can I read but I can figure out the facts that you keep trying to hide.
Go ahead. Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me that you really spent 36 months in the Army and not 34.
You know more about what? Read back over this thread. Look how long it's taken you to answer very basic questions.
The reason you couldn't answer them is that you don't want people to know that you were nothing more than an average soldier doing an average tour in an average unit and you couldn't even make E5.
That's it. You're a kid who spent 3 years in the Army and got out. And you still claim to know more than an Italian Major General because YOU (who have never seen combat) would have done things different.
You haven't even read the Italian report so you don't know their version of it.
There's nothing so amazing as the suret
What was that you said about "service"?
It isn't whether YOU "need" it.
It's whether the Army needs YOU to fulfill that role. The Army ALWAYS needs good NCO's. ALWAYS
You were DivArty. How hard is it?
Damn straight the Sergeant Major is going to come out and make sure that his best soldier gets board'ed. Mine did.
And your First Sergeant? He should have even more reasons than the Sergeant Major.
Possibly. And given the rest of the bullshit you've been spewing, it would be a valid position on my part.
...and then...
So ... by the numbers ...
#1. You enlist for 3 years (choosing airbourne)
#2. You go to basic
#3. You go to AIT (you refuse airbourne)
#4. Because you refuse airbourne, you don't get your station of choice.
#5a. Because you didn't get your station of choice the Army let you hang around for a few months (total time 6 months).
#5b. You were injured and spent a few months in the hospital (total time 6 months).
#6. You spend 34 months in the 10th at Ft. Hood.
#7. You get out in Dec 1998 after spending 42 months in service.
42 months. That's an interesting number. It's not 36 and it's not 48.
So, the Army kept you in past your 3 year enlistment
-or-
the Army let you out before your 4 year enlistment had expired.
Interesting.
I think you're still on the wrong track there. You've made claims about your great "service" yet your rank doesn't seem to reflect that.
And now you've claimed 42 months which makes it even worse.
Again, E5 only takes 31 months time in service. That makes 11 months that the Army refused to promote such an outstanding soldier such as yourself.
Hardly. There are lots of average soldiers who spend their average lives doing an average job in the Army.
And very few of them have the self delusion to believe that they'd make better choices than a Major General.
That is what distinguished you from them.
There is a HUGE difference between being a follower (E4) and a leader (E
Neither one. My enlistment contract was for 3 months and 24 weeks active duty.
I meant 3 years and 24 weeks. But I just got home and looked at my contract and it says 3 years, 19 weeks. Oh well.
That's about 41-42 months. A little more than 31, I think.
I meant 41, there, not 31, but it was just over 40 months, actually.
BTW, I don't think E-5 on the standard track was 31 months when I was in, I think it was 36, and I don't recall what the TIG requirment was, which is where I was going from. Clinton was lowering force strength at the time.
I was content being an E-4 until my section chief pointed out that it was time for me to be thinking about promotion.
Actually, it was rather amusing, because he handed me a board study guide, and I opened it up and on the page I turned to, the following text appeared:
Q: What birds are poisonous to eat?
A: No birds are poisonous, however they vary greatly in taste.
Now, if I'm contemplating living off of birds and other wild animals, I'm probably not in a situation where I care much about what they taste like.
I was hoping, though, that once I saw the board that one of them (the DivArty CSM would have been the best, he had a good sense of humor) would use this question, because I imagined myself there trying to answer with a straight face: "Sergeant Major, no birds are poisonous, however... they vary greatly in taste, Sergeant Major."
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
Must suck knowing your country is a "never was". You are reduced to rooting against everyone else...
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year