Henk Ruyssenaars + US Army Times'US Army Times' reporting on a lost war+FBI: email scamsFri Nov 25, 2005 15:53
'US Army Times' reporting on a lost war+FBI: email scams
by Henk Ruyssenaars
FPF - Nov. 25th 2005 - The military service's 'US Army Times' today published an article from the normally pro-Bush and definitely mainstream propaganda paper 'USA Today'. Even for the latter this indicates a change of course towards reality, but for the US Army Times it's extra-ordinary to offer the content of many articles in the Army Times lately, supporting the impression that the US made one of the biggest mistakes ever, to invade Iraq, and that - in essence and as we all know who use the brain we have - the war is lost.
Even a birdbrain figure who voted for the war in 2002 - US Rep. Dicks - now joins the billions of people on earth who are very afraid of being 'liberated' by the genocidal neocon's forces. Dicks 'has seen the light' and it was not the horrible flash preceding some nuke yet, but as the Seattle Times explains: "Defense hawk Dicks says he now sees war as a mistake" - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/dk9wr
Going as far as quoting material like this is very unusual for the US Army Times: "It's a message also echoed last week by Rep. John Murtha, - [http://tinyurl.com/ckjhy] - a Pennsylvania Democrat and 37-year veteran of the Marine Corps, as he called for troops to start leaving Iraq immediately. "The future of our military is at risk," Murtha said. "Our military and their families are stretched thin. Many say that the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on their third deployment. Recruitment is down, even as our military has lowered its standards." - [endquote / links below]
War's Strain Wearing on Troops
USA Today | November 25, 2005
WASHINGTON - Drawing lessons from his own career, Col. Mat Moten tells his students at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., they could one day have a duty just as important as fighting terrorism: helping rebuild an Army fractured and exhausted by a long and unpopular war.
For Moten, it's a familiar story, one he first heard as a West Point cadet in 1978. Then, the all-volunteer Army was struggling after Vietnam. "It's not a cheery message," Moten says.
It's a message also echoed last week by Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat and 37-year veteran of the Marine Corps, as he called for troops to start leaving Iraq immediately. [Google Murtha News - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/ckjhy]
"The future of our military is at risk," Murtha said. "Our military and their families are stretched thin. Many say that the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on their third deployment. Recruitment is down, even as our military has lowered its standards."
Although there's no agreed-upon standard to determine the war's overall effect on the military, even those who disagree with Murtha about an immediate withdrawal, including senators such as Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John McCain, R-Ariz., agree that the strains on a force fighting two wars at once are obvious.
A series of Pentagon and congressional reports show the bill for worn-out equipment is climbing, recruiting is suffering and stress has become a serious occupational hazard for U.S. troops.
Despite the problems, the Army isn't about to break, says retired general John Keane, the Army's vice chief of staff during the Iraq invasion. Morale remains high, and the part-time forces in the National Guard and Army Reserve have a "remarkable" commitment.
BIGGEST TOLL ON MILITARY EQUIPMENT SINCE THE VIETNAM WAR
The war in Iraq is taking the biggest toll on military equipment since the Vietnam War, after which the Pentagon retooled its arsenal during the massive military buildup of the 1980s.
Fixing and replacing Army equipment alone could run FROM $60 BILLION TO $100 BILLION, according to retired general Paul Kern, a senior consultant to the Cohen Group and the just-retired head of Army Materiel Command. The total cost for wear-and-tear on U.S. equipment is unclear because it is not known how long American troops will be needed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The part-time military has its own equipment problems caused by missions in Iraq and commitments at home. A recent Government Accountability Office report said more than 101,000 pieces of National Guard equipment, including items such as trucks, radios and night vision devices, have been sent overseas, mostly for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's left the Guard short of equipment it needs to respond more quickly to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.
The Guard's top general, Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, told USA TODAY in September that a shortage of communications gear hampered the hurricane recovery effort.
"We were underequipped," Blum said. "We don't need tanks and attack helicopters and artillery, but we must have state-of-the-art radios."
Iraq and Afghanistan are putting an extra $8 billion per year of wear and tear on military equipment, according to a report in April from the Congressional Budget Office. Military trucks are being driven at 10 times their peacetime rates; armored vehicles are being used at five times their peacetime rates and helicopters are being flown at twice their usual rates.
Shortages have cropped up in Iraq, such as a lack of protective armor for troops' bodies and vehicles. Troops also faced shortages of spare parts such as truck tires, and weapons such as machine guns, according to a series of GAO reports.
Gary Motsek, who manages the Army's program to repair war-torn equipment, says the Army has to repair or rebuild virtually everything that goes to Iraq.
THE PEOPLE - BEFORE THE TROOPS WEAR OUT AND LEAVE
Nowhere is the war's stress more evident than with the people who make up the military's "boots on the ground" services.
The ground forces -- the Army and Marines -- are racing to make Iraq stable before the troops wear out and leave, says Dan Christman, a retired Army lieutenant general who served during the Persian Gulf War in 1991.
Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said last week that the United States went into Iraq with too few troops and doesn't have sufficient forces to maintain current levels.
"We are grinding down our force structure to the point where we have no force structure," Hagel said.
KEEPING MOST OF ITS SOLDIERS FROM RETIRING OR LEAVING FOR CIVILIAN JOBS
The Army is keeping most of its soldiers from retiring or leaving for civilian jobs. It has had to increase its bonuses to keep some highly skilled soldiers -- truck drivers, military police, bomb disposal troops -- from leaving. The war has made special operations troops so attractive to private contractors that the Pentagon is offering unprecedented bonuses of up to $150,000 to keep some enlisted commandos in the ranks.
"We're holding our breath in hopes we can steer through this," says Col. Lance Betros, head of West Point's history department.
A crucial question is the commitment of units anticipating their third tours in Iraq. That, Betros says, is when the Vietnam-era Army began to fall apart.
TAKING A TOLL ON MILITARY FAMILIES
The wars are taking a toll on military families, too: According to Army figures, divorce among officers jumped by 78% in 2004, though the numbers fell back in fiscal 2005. Divorces among enlisted soldiers increased by 28% in 2004 and have stayed at about the same level this year.
Army units are failing to meet Pentagon guidelines to spend two years at home for every year overseas. When the Army's 101st Airborne Division returned to Iraq this year, it was after an 18-month rest. The 3rd Infantry Division, which is also on its second tour, had a 15-month break.
Recruiting is at a crisis level for the Army. The active-duty Army and the part-time Army National Guard and Army Reserve all missed their 2005 recruiting goals by 8% to 20%. The three fell short by a combined 24,000 enlistees.
The Army met its recruiting goals in October, the first month of the 2006 fiscal year, but 12% of its recruits scored in the lowest category on military entrance tests on science, math and word knowledge, The Sun of Baltimore reported this month. That was triple the number -- 4% -- that the Army expects in 2006.
The 2006 recruiting numbers could suffer, despite recruiting incentives that include cash bonuses of $20,000 and enlistments as short as 15 months.
The Pentagon isn't keeping good enough records to make sure the bonuses are going to recruit the kinds of troops needed, according to a GAO report released last week. The study says the military was unable to fill 112,000 Job positions in key specialties in the past year, while the services offered bonuses for specialties that are consistently overfilled.
[andend] - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/a56wg
Army Times by the way tries to counter this kind of information above by at the same tome offering a bullshit story by the US governments information sewer Associated Press about al Zarqawi. You can read it here, but just keep in mind: al Qaida is an american construction, paid and trained for money from the US taxpayers. Bin Laden and al Zarqawi are dead, but their fake most go on justifying the US neocon's 'War OF Terror'. - The AP/BS can be found at - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/dmdj2
FBI WARNS OF EMAIL SCAMS
By Karen Jowers - US Army Times staff writer
The FBI is warning of unsolicited “poison pill” e-mails purporting to be from the Bureau itself — with attachments laden with viruses.
The e-mails look like they’re from the FBI, coming from such addresses as MAIL@FBI.GOV, POST@FBI.GOV AND ADMIN@FBI.GOV. The e-mails typically claim that the FBI has been monitoring the recipient’s Internet use and found that he or she has accessed illegal Web sites. The messages then urge recipients to open an attachment to answer questions.
The FBI says such e-mails are scams and is investigating the situation. Burea officials strongly warn against opening the e-mail attachments and ask anyone who receives such e-mails to report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
“Opening e-mail attachments from an unknown sender is a risky and dangerous endeavor as such attachments frequently contain viruses that can infect the recipient’s computer,” the FBI says in its warning, adding that the real Bureau would never send such e-mails.
More information on the effects of the virus in these e-mails is available online. More information on this specific attack is on the FBI’s real Web site.
The Fort Belvoir, Va., legal assistance chief sent out an e-mail Nov. 23 warning of the fraud alert from the FBI, noting this is the latest in the “neverending attempts to defraud innocent people,” which includes fake bank, credit company, PayPal, and even false jury-duty violation notices requesting personal information that can be used to steal identities for fradulent purposes. [andend] - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/bd8y4
FWD. BY:
FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://forpressfound.blogspot.com/
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/amn3q
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl
* 'The war in Iraq is illegal' - BBC: video & text-interview of the United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.:http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v
* Video: Fallujah - The Hidden Massacre - Italian TV Report Details Use Of Napalm On Iraqi Civilians - Url.: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10907.htm
* The leaked 'Downing Street Memos' expose the criminal lies by war criminals like Bush, Blair, Berlusconi(It.) Balkenende(NL) - their collaborating media and other malignant ilk - Url.:http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/
* MSNBC - Poll: Ninety-four (94) percent believes that George Bush and the neocon media misled the nation to go to war with Iraq - Url.: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8248969/
* ''The Lancet'' and the ''Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health'' report: ''Over 100.000 killed in the illegal Iraq war''-Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5gys7
* Report on United States War Crimes Against Iraq to the Commission of Inquiry for the International War Crimes Tribunal - Url.: http://deoxy.org/wc/warcrime.htm
* Bush interview. ABC: No WMD's but many killed: "It was worth it" - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6bal9
* Former Secr. of State Madeleine Albright in her comment on half a million dead children in Iraq: "We think it's worth it" On CBS 60' Minutes - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/2vmc8
* The must-see three-part BBC Documentary, "The Power of Nightmares," puts it bluntly: "Al-Qaeda is a (neocon) myth." - See Url.: http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1327904,00.html
* Help all the troops of whatever nationality to come back from abroad! We need them badly at home in many countries - AND WITH ALL THEIR WEAPONS, WHICH WE PAID FOR BY TAXES - to fight with us against our so called 'governments' and their malignant managers - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/
FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html
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