Tag: Docudharma Times

Docudharma Times Sunday Oct. 28

This is an Open Thread: Don’t Be Shy.



USA

Father gains sense of son’s last moments in Iraq

By James Ricci

Los Angeles Times

Darrell Griffin Sr. has gotten down to work on his final collaboration with his son and namesake.


The book taking shape is a compendium. It will blend an account of a father’s melancholy journey to Iraq with the dire experiences and searching meditations of a son, the latter written down by Darrell Griffin Jr. before a Sadr City sniper’s bullet pierced the back of his head in March.


Darrell Jr. was a Fort Lewis-based Army infantry staff sergeant, 6 feet 2 inches of muscled warrior. Married, with no children, he had been an emergency medical technician in Compton, Calif., before finding his life’s work as a soldier.

Docudharma Times Saturday Oct. 27

This is an Open Thread: Speak To Me



USA

‘I Don’t Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier’s Life’

Oct. 26 Their line of tan Humvees and Bradley Fighting Vehicles creeps through another Baghdad afternoon. At this pace, an excruciating slowness, they strain to see everything, hoping the next manhole cover, the next rusted barrel, does not hide another bomb. A few bullets pass overhead, but they don’t worry much about those.


“I hate this road,” someone says over the radio.

They stop, look around. The streets of Sadiyah are deserted again. To the right, power lines slump down into the dirt. To the left, what was a soccer field is now a pasture of trash, combusting and smoking in the sun. Packs of skinny wild dogs trot past walls painted with slogans of sectarian hate.

Docudharma Times Friday Oct. 26

This an Open Thread: Speak



Docudharma Times Monday Oct.22

This is an Open Thread. Commence Talking



News Happening Now

2 U.S. Sailors Shot to Death in Bahrain

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: October 22, 2007


Filed at 5:30 a.m. ET


MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) — Two U.S. Navy sailors were killed and a third was critically wounded early Monday in a shooting incident on a U.S. military base in Bahrain, the U.S. Navy said.


The incident was not terror related and was under investigation, a Navy official said on condition of anonymity as they weren’t authorized to discuss the case with the media. No other details were immediately available.


The shootings took place in the barracks on the U.S. Naval Support Activity Bahrain base around 5 a.m. local time, the Navy said in a statement. It wasn’t immediately clear what triggered the shootings.

Docudharma Times Sunday Oct. 21

This is an Open Thread. Scream All You Want



Docudharma Times Saturday Oct. 20

This is an Open Thread. So start Yakking.



USA

Sheriff’s Fight With Paper Flares Up Again

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

Published: October 20, 2007


A long-running dispute between a weekly newspaper in Phoenix and law enforcement officials took a series of sharp turns over the last two days, including the arrest of the newspaper owners, followed by the dismissal of charges against them and an investigation into their paper.


For years, prosecutors in Maricopa County weighed whether to take the rare step of charging the leaders of the paper, The Phoenix New Times, with a crime for publishing an article with the home address of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County. This week, that conflict abruptly escalated.


On Thursday, the newspaper accused the authorities of abuses of power in their investigation into The New Times, reporting that a prosecutor had obtained a subpoena for the Internet browsing records on thousands of its readers.

Docudharma Times Friday Oct. 19


USA

Senators Clash With Nominee About Torture

By PHILIP SHENON

Published: October 19, 2007


WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 – President Bush’s nominee for attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey, declined Thursday to say if he considered harsh interrogation techniques like waterboarding, which simulates drowning, to constitute torture or to be illegal if used on terrorism suspects.

On the second day of confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Mukasey went further than he had the day before in arguing that the White House had constitutional authority to act beyond the limits of laws enacted by Congress, especially when it came to national defense.

Docudharma Times Thursday Oct. 18

This is an Open Thread


From President Bush’s Press Conference yesterday

Newsweek’s Richard Wolffe asked Bush exactly the question I would have asked:

Dan Froomkin Washington Post


“QUESTION: Thank you, sir. A simple question.


“BUSH: Yes?


“QUESTION: What’s your definition of —


“BUSH: It may require a simple answer.


“(LAUGHTER)


“QUESTION: What’s your definition of the word torture?


“BUSH: Of what?


“QUESTION: The word torture, what’s your definition?


“BUSH: That’s defined in U.S. law, and we don’t torture


Docudharma Times Tuesday Oct. 16

This an Open Thread


Docudharma Times Monday Oct. 15

This is an Open Thread

News Happening Now

Pentagon, FBI misusing secret info requests: ACLU
  WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Pentagon has misled Congress and the US public by conniving with the FBI to obtain hundreds of financial, telephone and Internet records without court approval, civil-rights campaigners said Sunday.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has successfully challenged key planks of US anti-terrorism legislation, said it had uncovered 455 “National Security Letters” (NSLs) issued at the behest of the Department of Defense.


Before the ACLU’s challenge, the USA Patriot Act had allowed the FBI to issue gag orders to prevent those receiving NSLs — usually Internet service providers, banks and libraries — from disclosing anything about the request.


USA

Al-Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled

Many Officials, However, Warn Of Its Resilience


By Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung

Washington Post Staff Writers

Monday, October 15, 2007; Page A01


The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq.


But as the White House and its military commanders plan the next phase of the war, other officials have cautioned against taking what they see as a premature step that could create strategic and political difficulties for the United States. Such a declaration could fuel criticism that the Iraq conflict has become a civil war in which U.S. combat forces should not be involved. At the same time, the intelligence community, and some in the military itself, worry about underestimating an enemy that has shown great resilience in the past.

America’s own unlawful combatants?

By Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 15, 2007

WASHINGTON — As the Bush administration deals with the fallout from the recent killings of civilians by private security firms in Iraq, some officials are asking whether the contractors could be considered unlawful combatants under international agreements.


The question is an outgrowth of federal reviews of the shootings, in part because the U.S. officials want to determine whether the administration could be accused of treaty violations that could fuel an international outcry.


But the issue also holds practical and political implications for the administration’s war effort and the image of the U.S. abroad.


If U.S. officials conclude that the use of guards is a potential violation, they may have to limit guards’ tasks in war zones, which could leave more work for the already overstretched military.

Unresolved questions are likely to touch off new criticism of Bush’s conduct of the unpopular Iraq war, especially given the broad definition of unlawful combatants the president has used in justifying his detention policies at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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