Report steers clear of interrogators' boss ( Intel General Barbara Fast)

((Lots of good information in the article, please read the entire thing, the snips don't do it justice))

Report steers clear of interrogators' boss
By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent

<snip>

But except for one brief mention, the 55-page report contains nothing about the role of the top military intelligence officer in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast. As head of intelligence for the U.S. command in Baghdad, Fast was in charge of interrogators at Abu Ghraib, where prisoners were beaten, sodomized and photographed in sexually degrading positions.

<snip>

"I think when they appointed a major general they never assumed it was going to go much higher - they figured it was basically a bunch of out-of-control young reservists and didn't realize the extent to which they had a problem, not the least of which was who was in charge."

<snip>

As head of intelligence in Iraq, Fast would have been responsible for intelligence officers working inside Abu Ghraib. She also "would have been very interested in the interrogation reports coming out of that prison," says Charles Heyman, senior defense analyst for Jane's Consultancy.

<snip>

Fast, 50, graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in education and has a master's degree in business administration from Boston University. Before her current assignment, she was director of intelligence for U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, and deputy commander of Fort Huachuca in Arizona.

Last month, the Pentagon announced Fast will return to Fort Huachuca - to head the Army Intelligence Center.

<snip>

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/05/08/Worldandnation/Report_steers_clear_o.shtml

her academic profile.

smoothly re-integrated into the rest of the Army. Pretty soon the toxin spreads - everyone's hands are dirty or they work with someone who's dirty. We are looking at decades of de-Nazification (should we live that long).

which means she will be in charge of every single aspect of Training and Doctrine for Military Intelligence.

Every single Intel kid will pass through her hands at Fort Huachuca before being awarded their MOS.

Every single Officer or Enlisted Intel course, under her.

She will be in charge of every single training manual used in any Army Intel School.

Shudder.

===

The United States Army Intelligence Center's mission is focused on Leading, Training, Equipping and supporting the world's premier corps of Military Intelligence Professionals - imbued with a warrior spirit, self-discipline and mutual respect. MI Soldiers work at all echelons, with tactical, operational and strategic commands; they are on point - always out front providing essential and critical intelligence to the commander. We take great pride on our ability to maintain a reputation for professionalism, caring and responsiveness to the needs of the MI Corps and the Army. We are committed to Good Stewardship of the Environment and take pride in the Quality of Life on this post.

http://usaic.hua.army.mil/

Check out the site to get a full comprehension of what this woman will be in charge of.

SCHINDLER'S LIST



Ralph Fiennes plays a chilling Amon Goeth in the movie, and plays him to the point that some
people have had trouble distinguishing him from the real thing.

Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the Schindler Jews, famously said, "When you saw Göeth, you saw
death."



GENERAL MYERS TRIBUTE TO AMON GOETH



THIS IS GOING OVER REAL WELL IN EUROPE

I dislike these women coming up all the time exhibiting behavior that is so horrendous. Is the army capable of transforming our psyches this drastically?

nor woman for the atrocities committed. :(

... (sometimes appalling) adaptability of human beings.

When you create a monster you'd better create a good leash, too. :shrug:

in MI and elsewhere? Col. Aquino had quite a career in the US Army and Defense Intelligence Agency and a lot of what the world is seeing for themselves in the media is right up the dark alley of this former Church of Satan priest that replaced the Church of Satan with his own cult/religion the Temple of Set, in 1975 while on active duty.

He certainly has had an influence that can't be ignored.

Temple of Set Statement to the US Armed Forces (see Temple of Set)
http://www.nightspell.dhs.org/

History of the Temple of Set
http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/satanism/tempset.html

http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id163/pg1/

Allegations of Nazi and fascist ideologies in the Temple of Set
http://www.necronomi.com/magic/satanism/fascist.set.txt

PSYOPS: The "Temple of Set" and mob psychology
http://www.answers.google.com/answers/main?cmd=threadview&id=205198

Deal with it. Cults that have been shielded by "national security" have corrupted the system until now.

NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.

has lots of cultists-worst of all is the inner circle "Vulcans"

NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.

Although each has little effect or influence, combined they represent a kind of beast against humanity.

WE GATHER INTELLIGENCE, HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO, NOR WHAT OUR PLANS ARE."

GEORGE W. BUSH aka THE WAR PRESIDENT to the press at Camp David, 9-15-2001.

NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.

& he seems like a real work of art:

===
Saturday, May 08, 2004, 01:50 A.M.
Rumsfeld warns of worse prison-abuse images


By Craig Gordon
Newsday

<snip>

One of Rumsfeld's testiest exchanges occurred when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., pressed him to describe who was in charge at Abu Ghraib prison. When Rumsfeld suggested that the answer be given by Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, the deputy commander of Central Command, McCain interrupted:

"No, Secretary Rumsfeld, in all due respect, you've got to answer this question," McCain said. "This is a pretty simple, straightforward question. Who was in charge of the interrogations? What agencies and what — or private contractors were in charge of the interrogations? Did they have authority over the guards? And what were the instructions to the guards?"

When Smith tried to answer, McCain interrupted again: "Mr. Secretary, you can't answer these questions?"

Rumsfeld said the responsibility rested with officers who oversaw detentions and with military intelligence officers in charge of interrogations. "And the responsibility, as I have reviewed the matter, shifted over a period of time," he said.

Several senators also pressed Rumsfeld to explain how far up the chain of command the approval to "soften up" prisoners for questioning was known or approved, though the answer remained unclear. An Army investigation said military interrogators enlisted military police from the 800th Military Police Brigade to set "physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation" of prisoners.

At one point, Rumsfeld brought his undersecretary of intelligence, Stephen Cambone, to the table, and Cambone indicated that he was aware of recommendations by one senior officer to improve efforts to get more information out of interrogations but didn't say whether he had signed off on them. ((collective amnesia all over again))

<snip>

http://216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:PnbxzEWF6gUJ:newsblaster.cs.columbia.edu/NBproxy.cgi%3Fsentence%3D1225+%22Rumsfeld+warns+of+worse+prison-abuse+images%22+Cambone+&hl=en&lr=lang_en

===

Who is this Stephen Cambone? Washington Times reporters Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough recently wrote the following (strangely the original page with this article has disappeared; I recovered this from the Google cache):

Stephen Cambone has assumed sweeping power over the Pentagon's intelligence bureaucracy as the new undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

We obtained a copy of a May 8 memorandum from Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz setting up the new office. It states that the office takes over all 286 persons and policies attached to the intelligence, counterintelligence and security, and other intelligence-related issues that were in the portfolio of the assistant defense secretary for command, control, communications and intelligence, once the Pentagon's top intelligence official.

Mr. Wolfowitz said the new office is in charge of "all intelligence and intelligence-related oversight and policy guidance functions" in the office of the secretary of defense.

Mr. Cambone, a protege of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld who has little intelligence experience, will have several deputies, including three charged with intelligence warning, war fighting and operations, and counterintelligence and security.

The key phrase of the implementing guidance memorandum relates to the office's power over other Pentagon intelligence agencies that in the past have resisted control by Pentagon policy-makers.

It states that the new undersecretary will "exercise authority, direction, and control over the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), the National Reconnaissance Organization (NRO), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Defense Security Service (DSS) and the DoD Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA)."

<snip>


http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/~gabriel/weblog/2003_05_01_archive.html

===

What else do we know about Dr. Cambone? He is a 1982 political science Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate School. He was the staff director of the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, also known as the "Rumsfeld Commission."

Here's the kicker: besides being "a protege of Donald Rumsfeld," he also was one of the authors of the Project for the New American Century's Rebuilding America's Defenses, the radical, Strangelovian document that formed the basis for the Bush administration's National Security Strategy.

So, having failed, despite Judith Miller's best efforts, to find any evidence of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in Iraq, the Pentagon is sending a new team of 1400 people, headed by one of Rumsfeld's closest buddies, a civilian political science Ph.D. with little intelligence experience, who also happens to be a neoconservative PNAC guy (a "Straussian," too, for those who think that matters). What are the odds that he will not claim to find something?

Here's my question for Cambone: who wrote the following sentence in the PNAC report?

On page 60, in the section "Transforming U.S. Conventional Forces," which discusses long-term plans for the U.S. military:

"And advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool."


<snip>

http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/~gabriel/weblog/2003_05_01_archive.html

=====

huh. The neo-nazis of the 21st C.,...and they just had to rise to power in the same country in which I was born.

Love it or leave it? If this depraved dictatorship does not lose power in November,...I just can NOT stay here while I have a son who could be "misappropriated". Once he is safe then I may have the strength and courage to join the dissent necessary to overcome such an important challenge.

of the PATRIOT ACT, where could folks like Cambone and Dinh get hooked up? They're spooks. Some of them are traitors, imo.

FORT HUACHUCA, Ariz. (Army News Service, Feb. 24, 2003


After briefing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on the limited training the intel soldiers had to obtain critical information from Al Qaeda, the Intelligence Center devised a new course to help support the global war on terrorism.

"We're working with new doctrine everyday," Guin said. "We're basically writing our own doctrine on how to do this type of business. A lot of the things we do have never been done before and we're discovering new and better ways to improve the instruction here at the school house for the soldiers who are eventually going to go out and fight this global war on terrorism."

With so much information being taught in a short span, the focus is to get the soldiers ready to go so when they hit Guantanamo, the learning curve will be dramatically decreased. Slavin pointed out two main goals needed to accomplish the mission and keep the learning curve down.

"First, they have to work as teams," Slavin said. "The analysts must support the interrogators. Normally the analysts support the commander, but now they're supporting an interrogator so he can go off and ask the right questions."

He added intel soldiers have done this type of teamwork approach before, but it's specific for Guantanamo because it needed to be reinforced.

"Secondly, for all the analytical work that has to be done, it takes an analyst with a different mindset to go after and find different data," he said. "And for the interrogator, different kinds of approaches are needed for these folks."

As far the future of the course, Slavin said the course will be more global oriented because, "the threat is not just in Afghanistan, it's also in the Philippines and the Middle East."

Also, much of the training in the course will be incorporated in the Warrant Officer Course, Officer Basic Course and other military intelligence specialty courses, officials said. The next ISCT is scheduled for July and will be five weeks long.

http://arizona.indymedia.org/news/2004/05/18207.php

Slavin mentioned the three-week course is based upon some shortcomings Custer identified at the camp holding Al Qaeda detainees.

Custer is that Custer Battles? ya think

So Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the Coalition commander in Iraq, and his top intel officer, Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, asked for a fixer. They got one in Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the commandant at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the U.S. military had held more than 600 detainees for more than two years without charges. A Texan with a jutting jaw and thinning hair, Miller was nothing if not self-assured, much like his ultimate superior, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. According to a subsequent inquiry by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, Miller's task was "to review current Iraqi Theater ability to rapidly exploit internees for actionable intelligence." Translated into English, that meant to beef up interrogation techniques so as to break prisoners more quickly. Or as Karpinski puts it, Miller's plan was to "Gitmo-ize" the place, to teach the soldiers manning Abu Ghraib his best psychological and physical techniques for squeezing information out of detainees. That included using Karpinski's MPs to "enhance the intelligence effort." At a meeting of top military-intelligence and MP commanders last September, Miller bluntly told Karpinski: "You're going to see. We have control, and know it."


Still, some question how seriously Rumsfeld is taking the allegations even now. At hearings last week, he was not shy about admitting mistakes. But he reserved most of his self-flagellation not for moral offenses but for, as he put it, "not understanding and knowing" there were hundreds of photos "that could eventually end up in the public and do the damage they've done." The role and culpability of the military-intelligence hierarchy remained carefully shrouded. And before the photos came out, noted Sen. Jack Reed sardonically, none of the senior officers in the affair had suffered worse than a reprimand. "Is that because a trial, and due process, would bring this out?" Reed asked. We are now likely to discover just that.

more
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4934736/

Picked this excerpt up from an old story along with new one

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1006097/posts

Rumsfeld Memo Asks DoD Leaders to Focus on Big Questions
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21, 2003 – Far from being a glum assessment, a memo Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent to senior leaders is questions Rumsfeld believes leaders should be asking about the new security environment, Larry Di Rita, Pentagon spokesman, said here today.
(snip)
The Pentagon spokesman said Rumsfeld wants the leaders to examine what the department should look like -- how they'd configure it if they had a blank sheet of paper. DoD was created at the end of World War II to face a far different threat from that of today's world, Di Rita said. Would the department look the same "if we knew that we could start over with the challenges that we face going forward?"

Di Rita said he was surprised by the USA Today story. "This is a question that Secretary Rumsfeld has been asking in a variety of ways since he took office," he said. "The need to transform, the need to rethink all of the long-standing ways we approach problems is just not breaking news when it comes to Secretary Rumsfeld's sense of urgency."

Di Rita said the memo is not an immediate action tasking. "These are clearly big questions that deserve big thinking," he said, and the memo's recipients are the people who "will be able to engage the rest of this institution into that kind of thinking," Di Rita added.

The memo was generated to get the recipients to "think outside the box," said DoD officials. Among other things, the secretary asked if the changes the U.S. military has made to date are too small. Can the department change fast enough to counter terrorists, or should a whole new institution fight terrorism?

Di Rita said that while the memo mentions progress in Afghanistan and Iraq, "that's manifestly not what this memo's about. What this memo is about is going forward well beyond the horizon that any one of us is going to be serving. Are we prepared or postured in a way that will win what we've all said is going to be a long-term fight?"
(snip)

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=5194

The view from Iraq: 'Tip of the iceberg? This iceberg is so big there's no water left to float it'
By Justin Huggler in Baghdad

09 May 2004

Pictures of abuse and humiliation of Iraqi detainees may have shocked the West, but in Iraq they came as no surprise. Stories of cruelty have been steadily coming out of prisons run by the occupation forces - giving the lie to American claims that the maltreatment is the work of a handful of "bad apples".

If anything, the story of these photographs is the story of the West's inability to believe the darkness at the heart of the occupation until it was staring them in the face. The Iraqis already knew, because most have a relative, a friend or an acquaintance who has been detained by the occupation forces at some time and has seen at first hand what goes on inside the prisons and detention centres.

It is not hard to find someone who has been held in Abu Ghraib and witnessed mistreatment, but most are deeply reluctant to talk to the Western press, both for fear of American reprisals and out of shame at what they have been through.

One man held there told The Independent on Sunday he had seen US guards tying prisoners naked to cell bars and setting dogs on them. "I saw one prisoner punished by order of his interrogators," said the man, who refused to be identified. "They tied him to the bars standing up for two hours at a time, and only let him rest for 45 minutes in between sessions. They kept this up for days in the cold weather."

The former detainee said most of the cruel and degrading treatment he witnessed was carried out by soldiers on the orders of interrogators, which backs up claims that it was part of a systematic effort to soften up prisoners for questioning. "It is systematic," said Stewart Vriesinga, from the Christian Peacemakers Team (CPT), a volunteer organisation which has been chronicling abuse in occupation forces' prisons since last August, and has interviewed 72 detainees. "We documented one case of a cattle prod being used on a man's genitals. There were cases of young boys having their buttocks forced apart and being kicked in the anus.
(snip)

"and a possible reluctance to delve too far into intelligence operations - have kept Fast out of the spotlight"
Well, Barbara Fast, say hello to the spotlight. Spotlight, this is Barbara Fast. Forwarding to every media outlet and Senator and Congressman on the committee. Honey, they may have to kiss your ass in Washington, but I sure don't.

Just thank you.

My sentiments exactly...

((Snippets not worth reading as long as article is out there))

by DOUGLAS JEHL and ERIC SCHMITT, The New York Times
May 9th, 2004

<snip>


In Baghdad, a three-person team headed by Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, the top American intelligence officer in Iraq, was in charge of reviewing the status of the security detainees as a prelude to their release. But far more Iraqis were being arrested than freed; the average stay in the prison was approaching four to six months. <snip>

<snip>

In mid-August, a team of civilian interrogators led by Steven Stefanowicz, a former Navy petty officer and an employee of a Virginia company called CACI, began work at Abu Ghraib under a classified one-year military contract. The contract was part of a broader effort by the military to enlist Arabic linguists and other civilians in the work of questioning Iraqi detainees. CACI sent 27 interrogators to Abu Ghraib, Pentagon officials have said. Their job was to conduct interrogations in conjunction with military police and military intelligence units, according to a company memorandum.

<snip>

Later that month, at the behest of senior Pentagon officials, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the two-star Army general overseeing the American detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was sent to Iraq. He was to review the American-led effort "to rapidly exploit internees for actionable intelligence," according to the Army report by General Taguba.

Among General Miller's classified recommendations, submitted after a tour that ended Sept. 9, were that the guards at Abu Ghraib and other facilities "be actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees," according to General Taguba's report.

<snip>

Army doctrine calls for a military police brigade to handle about 4,000 prisoners. But a single battalion — about a third the size of a brigade — was handling 6,000 to 7,000 prisoners at Abu Ghraib. When battalion commanders sought to release hundreds of detainees deemed to be no threat to allied forces, they were blocked from doing so by officers in Baghdad, they have complained.

<snip>

((Miller's the guy they just sent over there to "clean" this up))

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/09/international/middleeast/09PRIS.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=4678

Ex-Fort Huachuca official accused of abusing Iraqi prisoners

David Madrid
The Arizona Republic
May. 6, 2004 07:05 PM

<snip>

At some point, virtually every Army intelligence staffer undergoes training at the fort. (Huachuca)

Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, a deputy commanding general at Fort Huachuca last year, is criticized in the report for her reluctance to release some detainees who were deemed no longer a threat, which led to severe overcrowding at the prison.

Fast is slated to return to Fort Huachuca as commanding general of the Intelligence Center.

<snip>

Fort Huachuca conducts a large variety of training and education in military intelligence specialties. Among its missions, the Intelligence Center trains interrogators like those in Pappas' unit.

Maj. Gen. James A. Marks, the current commander of the Intelligence Center, issued a statement in which he said the center neither trains for nor condones the types of activities the soldiers are accused of participating in at Abu Ghraib.

<snip>

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0506az-prisoner-abuse06-ON.html

Back in the Viet Nam Era, duty at Ft. Huachuca qualified for isolated duty (hardship) pay due to the remoteness of the post in the Arizona Outback. The Army, in its infinite wizdumb, moved the post's entrance gate some miles closer to the nearest city. This was their way of gaming the standards. The post was no less remote but the trip inside the post to the gate was increased by miles.

Remember the lessons of Milgram and Ashe - the degree of separation from the target/victim has a direct correlation to the willingness of the torturer to inflict pain.

that she'll never live down the whispers and finger-pointing. The show is just beginning.

Public Statements

Speaker: Senator Pat Roberts (KS)
Title: Hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee - Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2005
Location: Washington, DC
Date: 03/04/2004
Federal News Service

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION REQUEST FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005

CHAIRED BY: SENATOR JOHN WARNER (R-VA)

LOCATION: 216 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING

WITNESSES: GENERAL JAMES JONES, JR., USMC, COMMANDER, UNITED STATES EUROPEAN COMMAND AND SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER, EUROPE; GENERAL JOHN ABIZAID, UNITED STATES ARMY, U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND

<snip>

GEN. ABIZAID: Thank you, Senator Roberts. The single most important thing to General Sanchez in Iraq is having good intelligence. With good intelligence, you can get precise targeting. With precise targeting, you can start to unravel the enemy cells. And as you recall, back in the September-October period, where it was clear that the insurgency was spreading, it became obvious to us that we really needed to fuse the intelligence system and improve it, and ensure that the wonderful intelligence that was being developed at the tactical level made it all the way up to the operational level so that we could make the battle one of the entire force versus just platoons and squads that were out there operating in their own individual areas.

And I think largely with the help of our various intelligence agencies, with wonderful work by my J2, John Custer, and General Sanchez's J2, Barbara Fast, we managed to get an intelligence system working that has given us great insight against the insurgents, and has allowed us to unravel their organizations in a way that I think will be viewed as a model when people have a chance to look at it.

Now, this doesn't mean that the enemy does not adjust their tactics, because they do. And they are adjusting their tactics, they are adjusting the way that they conduct their own operational security. You could see from the letter by Zarqawi, for example, how concerned he was how many eyes were out there and how dangerous the operation was. But this was is a war of intelligence and perception. And it is just so important that the intelligence part of the battle be adequately organized and that we think out of the box about who was doing what and not worry about turf. And I'm happy to report to you that I think that the relationship that's developed in Baghdad with the Central Intelligence Agency and the one that we have between CENTCOM and the agency has been one that has allowed us to get up at this problem in an important way.

However, I would like to say one thing, if I may, Senator, because I know it's so important to you. We do not have enough intelligence professionals in our nation. We must increase our HUMINT capacity. We must increase our ability to have translators and interrogators in the field. And to me, as we fight this global war on terrorism, if we don't do that, we are putting the nation at risk.

<snip>

http://www.vote-smart.org/speech_detail.php?speech_id=M000030112

or

http://www.lexis.com/research/retrieve/frames?_m=5b8e6df677e637aced2ea2857784f107&csvc=bl&cform=bool&_fmtstr=XCITE&docnum=1&_startdoc=1&wchp=dGLbVzb-zSkAW&_md5=dd38470389af14e134a3ddec76c0619d

March 3- General Abizaid to the Senate Armed Services Committee:

(J2 by the way is the intelligence staff of a command, at lower levels, it's known as G2)

... with the help of our various intelligence agencies, with wonderful work by my J2, John Custer, and General Sanchez's J2, Barbara Fast, we managed to get an intelligence system working that has given us great insight against the insurgents, and has allowed us to unravel their organizations in a way that I think will be viewed as a model when people have a chance to look at it.

(from the article above)

Now that was on Mar 3, 2004.

==================================================================

Flashback to January 2004

Spc. Joseph M. Darby, a 24-year-old Army Reserve soldier with the 372nd Military Police Company of Cresaptown, Md., heard about the computerized photos and video of the detainees, naked and in humiliating poses, with his fellow soldiers smiling nearby.

He got a set of the photos on a computer disk, said an Army official familiar with the investigation. Troubled by the images that flashed on the screen Jan. 13, Darby turned them over to a sergeant in his unit, who immediately notified Army criminal investigators.

Within hours, the investigators seized computers and disks from members of the unit. The next day, Gen. John Abizaid, commander of all U.S. forces in the region, was on the phone to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"General Abizaid informed the leadership within hours of the incident," said a senior Pentagon official.

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the military's spokesman in Iraq, also called the Pentagon, though with more alarming words. "He said, 'We've got a really bad situation,' " recalled one official, who like others requested anonymity. "The evidence is damaging and horrific," Kimmitt said. The photos and video were locked in the safe of the Army Criminal Investigation Division in Baghdad.

<snip>

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.pentagon06may06,0,1930776.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines

but in January they have the NERVE to tell the Senate Armed Services Committee that their operation

will be viewed as a model when people have a chance to look at it.

:wtf:

These guys are sounding JUST like the Nazis. PROUD of their work.

January 14th seems to be a big day in this mess. So far I've managed to confirm the following taking place:

The U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Lt. Gen. Richard Sanchez, opens a criminal investigation into reported incidents of detainee abuse at a Coalition Forces detention facility. The release of specific information concerning the incidents could hinder the investigation, which is in its early stages. The investigation will be conducted in a thorough and professional manner. The Coalition is committed to treating all persons under its control with dignity, respect and humanity. Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the Commanding General, has reiterated this requirement to all members of CJTF-7.

Gen. John Abizaid places a telephone call to Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff informing him "There are reports of abuse" by U.S. guards at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison". He told Myers about the disk, "Here's what basically the pictures might show."

Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the military's spokesman in Iraq, called the Pentagon. "He said, 'We've got a really bad situation,' " recalled one official, who like others requested anonymity. "The evidence is damaging and horrific," Kimmitt said. The photos and video were locked in the safe of the Army Criminal Investigation Division in Baghdad.

Gen. John Abizaid, commander of all U.S. forces in the region, was on the phone to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld

Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Peter Pace was informed of events and states the the President was also informed.

Seems like a lot of phone lines were burning up that day. What I'd love to find out is the correct order that the calls took place in and exactly who informed Bush.

General Fast should be held accountable for her role in the mistreatment of the so called detainees.If she knew of the mistreatment of the detainees she should be forced to resign.

INTELLIGENCE ELECTRONIC WARFARE CONFERENCE

The Association of Old Crows will conduct an Intelligence/Electronic Warfare (IEW) conference 28-29 September 1999 at the Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, Maryland. The classification of the conference will be SECRET, U.S. ONLY.

The chairman of the conference will be MG David Gust, USA, PEOIEW & Sensors. The keynote speaker will be The Honorable Arthur L. Money, Senior Civilian Official in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (C3I). The Technical Program Chairman is Mr. Robert Doto, Director, Intelligence and Information Operations Directorate, RDEC, Ft Monmouth, NJ. The theme of the conference will be "IEW for the Next Century." The conference is one of the first designed to provide an in-depth view of joint IEW activities and issues from the services, agencies and elements/organizations throughout the DoD. Sessions will address: Future Tri-Service Airborne and Ground SIGINT; Space-Based Imaging Sensors and Future IEW & Self Protection Technology.

An outstanding line-up of featured speakers include:
MG Gust (IEWS Master Plan);
BG Barbara Fast, USA (NSA COMSEC 2000);
Brig Gen Johnson, USAF, Joint SIGINT Program Office (JASA);
MG Robert Noonan, USA, CG INSCOM (INSCOM Perspective);
BG Roderick Isler, USA, CIA Associate Director for Military Support (HUMINT Perspective);
COL Darryll Lance, USA, Director, TENCAP;
LTC Darrell Beatty, USA, Director Space Applications Office, NRO;
COL Mike Hamilton, USA, PM Joint TUAV (UAV Platforms/UAV Payloads) and LTC Kathryn Carlson, USA, PM C2 Protect ATD, S&TCD.

In addition, a featured speaker will be MG James Snider, USA, PEO Army Aviation, who will provide an Army Aviation update. Other briefings will cover: JASA; Rivet Joint; ISAT; Information Operations and a US Army Intelligence Center & School (USAICS) Perspective by Mr. Michael Powell, SES, Deputy to the Commander, USAICS. This conference will provide a unique opportunity to hear up-to-date information on service and DoD IEW systems, programs, technology and operations. Look for furtherinformation in future editions of the JED or contact the AOC Convention Department at (703) 549-1600, 1-888-OLD-CROW. WEB: N/A,. E-MAIL: N/A,. Posted 07/30/99 (D-SN361375).

http://www.fbodaily.com/cbd/archive/1999/08(August)/03-Aug-1999/SPmsc001.htm

She's Army.

What do you think you just discovered?

BG Barbara Fast, USA (NSA COMSEC 2000) in 1999

She's been Army from day 1 of this thread.

Or are you clarifying for lurking freepers who can't put 2+2 together? I'm a little confused.

said "She's NSA" like that is some sinister secret. She's NOT "NSA" as in a life-long NSA civilian. She's Army. Granted she has a strong SIGINT background, but she's not "NSA" as you so breathlessly posted.

a little :patonthehead: for LagaLover

She's NSA. Sorry if you don't like the simplification but SIGINT my dear is nothing more than NSA in BDUs.

I see you've been making quite a little 'splash' in other threads ;) Very good. Carry on. Toota-loo.

I know you have no idea what you are talking about! Toodles to you as well.

Careful. Lots of Career SIGINTers on this board. 35Es, 35Gs, 98Gs, 97Es, 98Cs- a nice sprinkling of officer & enlisted career SIGINTers whose antennae are already up with the sudden influx of self-identified intel people suddenly crawling all over this board trying to minimize certain things.

You, my dear, never know who you're talking to.

Not everyone spent their career in the motor-pool or on the parade grounds of some tactical unit.

:hi:

Ohh, I'm scared. Most so-called career SIGINTers here probably couldn't spell SIGINT if I spotted them the S and the two Is. No one is trying to white wash anything. I can always tell the real Intel people, they don't see a conspiracy everywhere.

we can use the amusement. It's hilarious watching the panicked CYA mode. I'm sure that as a "career SIGINTer" you must be relieved to see it all coming to light so that Intel can clean up its act, an act that became so sordid since a bunch of Huah REMPF cowboys ruined the field spouting their garbage about "Warrior Ethos" and similar crap.

If you have a problem with "conspiracy theories", you're going to 'enjoy' your time here hopping from thread to thread figuring out which fire to put out first. We'll enjoy it too though.

;)

On edit: Have little fear, all those rotten Huah REMF cowboys will all be exposed so that once again, people can be proud of being SIGINTers & HUMINTers.

ability to find conspiracy everywhere. Intel's act is pretty damn clean--too bad the policy makers can't claim the same thing. Also, you lump Intel together as if it is one monolithic body, it's not. I don't see "Intel" engaging in any CYA mode. I see some moronic, criminal Army and CIA Intel guys running for cover, but that's about it. The vast majority of the IC has clean hands.

Get over it; we already squashed that one. No one's buying it. If you don't see Intel in a cover-up, stick around. In the meantime we are going to keep digging, keep talking, keep scrutinizing until this all pulls together for us just as we have done for the three years where we've been years ahead of those whose heads are buried in the sands of denial.

We had people a few years ago telling us that PNAC was just another conspiracy theory too. They've since slunk off.

LIHOP. LIHOP. LIHOP. :)

That's all I need to know.

that's all we need to know :evilgrin:


Why do they hate us???

Just a few rotten apples...

The war on terror, the war on terror!!!

I, for one, think LIHOP in terms of the warnings that something was potentially going to happen were there - in the least at the stepped up pace of warnings from foreign intel services (Russia, Israel, France, Egypt and others)... but the administration, who tasked Cheney with following up on antiterrorism efforts (us based) didn't hold a single task force... probably because he was fully occupied with the whole energy task force ... "a matter of priorities". As such there was a blind eye that seems to be turned to the whole issue of a potential strike on domestic soil... as if "if something is going to happen it won't be on US soil..." even though an attempt had been foiled just a year and a half before... Thus - I think through willful looking the otherway/distraction... with a mix of arrogance (sort of... "they might have attempted something under wimpy Clinton... but they wouldn't dare attempt something with us macho dudes in office")... ergo had enough info and indications that something was going to happen but didn't listen - was too distracted with other priorities and thus "let it happen".

Just pointing out that LIHOP doesn't always mean a belief in a grand conspiracy.... but sometimes more a belief in grand arrogance and incompetance.

From what I have seen on DU. LIHOP means a belief in a grand conspiracy. Just my opinion. I happen to agree with your "definition" though!

I think that more people have adopted LIHOP to mean the more conspiratorial view... though initially it was more common to include the definition I describe. Obviously, I fall into that category, so I like to keep claim on the term as it was initially used even if it now umbrellas the more intentional views as well.

part kind of says intentional....

intentionally looking away from warnings (per Cheney's not holding a single task force meeting... too busy with other things)... lowering the intel budget priorities for such efforts even while intel warnings are going up (per Ashcroft's proposed budget for fy 2002)... they may not have been rubbing their hands together saying... aha... there will be an attack on the US lets let it happen and use it! But they do appear to have been - what I would call - demonstrating criminal negligence by their intentional disregarding of the growing problems. Incompentence, arrogance, and negligence by igoring and not acting on things when there was enough warning signs via escalating intelligence that should have spurred SOME action... that is how I view the "on purpose." On purpose cheney was doing the industry energy taskforce thing... on purpose Ashcroft was placing more priorties on pursuing religious right type work (eg going after the medical marijuana clinics in California... prostition rings in New Orleans, etc... a glance at the actions of the DOJ in the months after 911 indicate the work that had been given priority by Ashcroft in the months preceding 911). So forwhatever reason there is a bit of intention involved even if it isn't the level of full awareness of the likely results of their negligence.

I thought the air force would be out defending Myers again today?

You still have not figured out how the JCS works.

You really are here to disrupt

Covering the dung pile with rose petals

The panic & denial are... understandable.

http://www.antiwar.com/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A15492-2004May10?language=printer

Mistreatment Of Detainees Went Beyond Guards' Abuse
Ex-Prisoners, Red Cross Cite Flawed Arrests, Denial of Rights

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, May 11, 2004; Page A01
(snip)
They pulled me from the shop and put me in a Nissan pickup," said Khatab, who said the men spoke English and accused him of being a member of former president Saddam Hussein's paramilitary forces. "They threw me face down, then blindfolded me and handcuffed me."

He said he did not know where he was taken because the soldiers did not remove his blindfold. They started beating him with pipes, he said, starting on his legs and back, then moving to his head.

"I was bleeding from my mouth and my ears," he said. "I fainted. When I woke up I was in a dog's cage" set in a courtyard of a local military base.

Naked in a Cage

Khatab said he was left naked in the cage for several days, receiving only scant food and water, until the soldiers hung him from a tree by his cuffed hands. "They told me they would bring my wife and hang her next to me," he said.

According to his release papers, Khatab was taken to Abu Ghraib, where he was held for four months before being released without an explanation. His two brothers are still in the prison, he said.

When U.S. forces rolled into Iraq in March 2003, there were few plans in place for dealing with the long-term detention of Iraqis, according to U.S. officials. Military trucks hauled coils of razor wire, which were used to create makeshift holding pens and jails on American bases.
(snip)


http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5068071
Soldiers Back in U.S. Tell of More Iraqi Abuses
Thu May 6, 2004 10:40 PM ET

By Adam Tanner

ANTIOCH, California (Reuters) - Three U.S. military policemen who served at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison said on Thursday they had witnessed unreported cases of prisoner abuse and that the practice against Iraqis was commonplace.

"It is a common thing to abuse prisoners," said Sgt. Mike Sindar, 25, a National Guardsman with the 870th Military Police Company based in the San Francisco Bay area. "I saw beatings all the time.

"A lot of people had so much pent-up anger, so much aggression."

U.S. treatment of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib has stirred wide international condemnation after the publication of photos in recent days showing Americans sexually humiliating prisoners. Six soldiers in Iraq have been charged in the case and President Bush apologized publicly on Thursday.

Although public attention has focused on the dehumanizing photos, some members of the 870th MP unit say the faces in those images were far from the only ones engaged in cruel behavior.

"It was not just these six people," Sindar, who shaves his head and wears a large tattoo on his forearm, told Reuters. "Yes, the beatings happen, yes, all the time."
(snip)

she should resign for incompetance...but not without a court martial.

where did I hear that name before?

oh yeah

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1568507

Sheesh... Just did a quick google...


William Boykin, the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary of intelligence

Wow.

---

Pentagon refuses to discipline top Anti-Islamic U.S. general

uploaded 07 May 2004


Probe of U.S. General's Anti-Islam Remarks Drags On

By Andrea Shalal-Esa
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Arab- and Muslim-Americans are increasingly frustrated by the Pentagon's failure to discipline a top U.S. general who said Muslims do not worship "a real God," and say it raises questions about whether the so-called war on terrorism is not a war on Islam.

Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, head of military intelligence, touched off a brief firestorm last October after publicity about speeches he gave while in uniform that referred to the war on terrorism as a battle with "Satan" and said America had been targeted "because we're a Christian nation."

In one speech, Boykin, an evangelical Christian, belittled a Muslim fighter who said Allah had protected him from U.S. forces. "I knew ... that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol," said Boykin, a much-decorated veteran of covert military operations.

Since then, an internal investigation into the affair has worked its way slowly through the Pentagon bureaucracy. A spokeswoman said there was no deadline for its completion.

<snip>

At the time, President Bush said Boykin "didn't reflect my opinion," but the Pentagon said there were no plans to fire the general. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called Boykin -- who played a role in the 1993 clash with Muslim warlords in Somalia and the ill-fated attempt to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran in 1980 -- "outstanding."

NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION

<snip>


http://www.khilafah.com/home/category.php?DocumentID=9483&TagID=2

Wow. Thanks for adding the link to that thread!

He is no where in her chain of command.

where does Boykin now fit into the whole picture (in terms of command/authority)?

edit - for clarity... not asking about current story... but general military command position.

He has ZERO military command authority. The only authority he has is over the people who work under him on the staff of DUSD(I), and in the policy issues he helps propose up the chain to the USD(I) and the SECDEF. He "commands" no one and "military intelligence" does not work for him.

and may I ask for clarification in layman's terms.... what does he do/what is he responsible for (eg what kind of policy formulation would he be involved with in terms of domain)? Without clarity of the terms it sounds like he is an unimportant desk jockey - which given the high profile of the bruhaha over his comments earlier this year - doesn't seem to be likely.

has overall oversight for DoD Joint Intelligence policy and planning. It can also direct (via DoD policy guidance) those parts of the military services' intelligence structures that are joint and not tactical in nature. He is NOT just an unimportant desk jockey. But his power comes from policy making, planning, and programming (budget). He does not command any troops. He has no oversight of operational intelligence missions or operations. No one in any operational part of the intelligence community, DoD or otherwise, reports to him.

I follow the news carefully - though less carefully in the past several months. My mind has always worked like a file cabinet with stories/info and later will see possible connections between things that seem unrelated - just happens naturally. Thus I like to try to understand items or issues rather than store things in memory that are inaccurate. Hence my questioning - I really didn't pay that much attention to the Boykin story when it happened - so haven't any memory "hooks".

What you describe sounds more like policy (including budgetary) issues related to ... coordinating intelligence from different military sources (working from your "joint, not tactical" comment)...

Or is the distinction that you make refer to the level - more global (word meaning department wide rather than "international) - rather than micro in terms of working with specific intelligence gathered (in terms of defining what "tactical intel" might refer to.)

Still not clear on what this would mean - would the recommendations by the officer who moved from Guantanamo to the infamous Iraq facility about using of MPs in some intel gathering capacity (in terms of "preparing the prisoners to be more receptive") be a policy type decision or a tactical decision? My sense from what you write is it is more tactical and thus out of Boykin's purview... what I am not getting a sense of is what would fall in Boykin's realm.

Boykin's job is a policy vice operational job. That's the major difference between Line (ops) and Staff (policy, planning, programming). He would not be involved in any specific intelligence gathering activities, but the decisions he helps make would have an impact on what sources and methods were available to conduct intelligence gathering (i.e., if he defunds a collector, then the guys on the ground would have to use another asset.)

The recommendations by the general who moved from Guantanamo would be an operational decision. Why? One, he's not a policy maker. He can only make recommendations. Two, the people in the theater would be the ones making the final call on this. It would totally be up to Lt Gen Sanchez (or Maj Gen Fast)to implement (or not) the other General's recommendations and also up to them as to HOW to implement those recommendations. Commander's in the field have final and ultimate responsibility--they can ignore "policy" from an undersecretary of defense because they don't work for them. There is a right way and a wrong way to do that, BTW! Commander's only work for other commanders and the lines are distinct.

I am getting a better idea...

So the Guantanamo general (Miller?) makes the recommendation and it goes up the line for consideration either to be adopted and passed back down the line to those running the prison - or it goes up the line and is rejected and dies there... In which case the question is how far up the line it goes for the decision to adopt before moving back down line for implementation. That also gives indication of those who should have been (or would have been) "in the know..."

Is this considered a form of policy generation or just "recommendations" - the distinction being that in general policy formulation - all recommendations have (or should have) a quick summary of possible problems (cons) with the proposed policy to allow decision makers to be aware of pros and cons (since they will be responsible) or to develop plans to mitigate the potential cons. Thus if this was not treated as "policy formulation" it may not have included such information/analysis which would be a shame - as it appears that some military folks weighing in (retired and unnamed sources) point to clear (thus obvious on the surface) potential problems with the original recommendations.

Back to Boykins - is his work seperate or related to the work of Feith operations? I remember that around the summer of 2001 there was a rash of early retirements of top brass in each of the service - and the news item (which I have looked for but can not refind) said it was unusual in that the announcements came so far in advance (e.g., top officers in the various branches announcing 8 to 12 months in advance that they would be retiring) and at that time there was speculation that it was an orchestrated move by Rumsfeld in a sort of "purge" to be able to move more like-minded folks into high command. The item has stuck with me as there were, I believe, two more rounds of retirements that were much more visible and public and in those cases the words "purge" were also used. The point is - at some places in the Pentagon there seems to have been orchestrated series of retirements and promotions to move up into positions folks who were ideologically aligned with the top civilian leaders in the DOD. All that said... wonder if Boykin is a part or seperate from all of that.

this week also.

These folks really are very sick. I keep on thinking this cannot be, but come to realize it is.

I like to think twice, they also in some aspects would be thinking of lighting quite of few people up with :nuke:

It should really be no wonder that they would do this type of thing also, its just logical they would think like this.

Don't be be fooled by what they say, just watch what they do!

"It's not easy to change world views. Faith has its own momentum and belief is comfortable. To restructure reality is traumatic and scary. That is why many intelligent people continue to believe: unbelief is an unknown. -Dan Barker"

http://www.miniluv.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=471

With thanks to TeeYiYi for digging this up last night


Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has made no secret of his dissatisfaction with what he sees as unimaginative Army leadership. Schoomaker, too, is critical of a culture he sees as risk-averse and change-resistant. In comments made privately but now circulaing widely in the Pentagon, Schoomaker said recently: “Rumsfeld might think we’re at war with terrorism, but I’ll bet he also thinks he is at war within the Pentagon ... It’s a war of the culture.”

August 2003

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=124572
--------------------

The Army Cleans House, MSNBC - Putsch Purges Pentagon




In a move widely seen within the Pentagon as a purge, a dozen or more Army generals are being ushered into retirement as the Army's new chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, takes over. In advance of Schoomaker's swearing-in last Friday, the Army's acting chief, Gen. John Keane -- who is himself retiring -- spoke with a list of three- and four-star generals, thanked them for their services and told them it was time to go. Sources say Keane first contacted half a dozen names, but by the end of the week the list had reportedly grown to 11 -- "with more to come within 30 days," according to one Army source. The Army has a total of 50 three- and four-star generals. A senior Pentagon civilian called the move "housecleaning."

<snip>

The list of retirees was, sources say, drawn up in discussions between Rumsfeld, Schoomaker and Keane. Most of those going are being axed not for personal failings but to open up job slots that are viewed as key to Army transformation. <snip>

<snip>


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=49641&mesg_id=49641

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m4PRN/2003_August_3/106209971/p1/article.jhtml

GOTT MIT UNS!
=================================

I can't find it but there was an item back in 2002 about announcing key leaders in each branch of the military retirement... but the big deal in the story was how odd it was that the announcements were made so far in advance of the scheduled retirements... amid speculations of a sort of rummy inspired Purge... then there was another round of retirements/purges/relief of duties just around the time of the invasion... there have been a series of movements that seem to try to be moving more military brass that are ideologically in line with the radical civilian leadership at the top that have happened over the past two years or so.

TeeYiYi may have them book-marked or maybe someone else? I distinctly recall those because it was so alarming to see them do this knowing what we knew about PNAC. I'll look tonight & if I do, add them here...

They certainly prepared their ground-work well in advance for this. Your last sentence is spot on.

Here's more on the personnel "ideological re-alignment"


a dozen or more Army generals are being ushered into retirement as the Army's new chief of staff, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, takes over

Schoomaker is the one who brought in that despicable program "Warrior Ethos" designed to awaken the sleeping "inner warrior" in every PVT Lynndie out there.

=======================================

Building a Better Occupation
The U.S. Army has made some smart moves in Iraq—and some blockheaded ones, too.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Monday, Dec. 8, 2003, at 3:03 PM PT

<snip>

The armored division's recent exercises suggest that at least some of the brass now understands this principle. This might be the first tangible sign of fresh thinking that's taken hold since Gen. Peter Schoomaker(4 star general) was named Army chief of staff. Schoomaker, who had spent two years in retirement until Donald Rumsfeld lured him back into service, was a veteran of the "shadow soldiers"—rising to the post of commander in chief for U.S. Special Operations Forces—and thus spent much of his career cultivating the fine points of the sort of fighting that the Army is now facing.

Changing an institution's mindset is a long, hard slog (to borrow a Rumsfeld phrase). The question of the hour is whether the change will sink in deep enough and fast enough to bring order to Iraq. But at least the change is set in motion.

Or at least so it seems, until we look at the latest development that's actually happening on the ground. This is where the Army's getting stupid. According to a remarkable piece by Dexter Filkins in Sunday's New York Times, roughly 50 miles north of Baghdad, U.S. soldiers are "wrapping entire villages in barbed wire." Iraqi residents can leave or enter town only if they show a specially issued ID card that's printed in English only. Another new counterinsurgency tactic, adopted in the area, is to bombard whole buildings where guerrillas have reportedly been meeting and to arrest suspects' relatives.

Both techniques have been employed by the Israeli army in its attempt to protect the settlements—with mixed results, at best. This is no mere coincidence. Filkins reports that American officers have recently traveled to Israel to be briefed on tactics in urban warfare.

This is bad business on two counts. First, it reinforces the myth, propagated by radical groups in the region, that the United States is waging a war against Islam. American officials showed they understood this danger earlier in the year—and during the first Gulf War in 1991—by going out of their way to keep Israel out of the conflict. Why are they so openly aligning with Israel—and emulating its methods—during the equally sensitive post-battlefield phase of this war?

<snip>

http://slate.msn.com/id/2092178 /
=========================================

Rumsfeld's New Man
The latest move to radically remake the Army.
By Fred Kaplan
Updated Tuesday, June 10, 2003, at 4:04 PM PT


Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's reputed choice to be the new Army chief of staff—retired Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker—may be his most intriguing appointment to date, and confirms beyond any doubt Rummy's determination to foment a radical restructuring of the Army.

The first unusual thing about Schoomaker—and I should caution here that it has not yet been confirmed whether he'll take the job—is that he is a retired general. He left the military three years ago. Usually, chiefs of staff are named from the ranks of active-duty generals.

The second, and most telling, point is that, from the early 1980s on, Schoomaker served with the "shadow soldiers," rising in 1994 to be head of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command and then, from 1997 till his retirement, commander in chief of the Army's Special Operations Forces.

<snip>

http://slate.msn.com/id/2084212 /

==========================

<snip>

"The Soldier is one of the focus areas the Army will be directing its resources toward in a systematic and deliberate way in coming years," said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker during October's Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting.

The warrior ethos statement contained within the new Soldier's Creed -- "I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade." -- is a key aspect of the Soldier focus area, said Brig. Gen. Benjamin C. Freakley, chief of Infantry and Fort Benning's commanding general.

"This is about shifting the mindset of Soldiers from identifying what they do as a Soldier -- 'I'm a cook, I'm an infantryman, I'm a postal clerk' -- toward 'I am a warrior' when people ask what they do for a living," Freakley said.


<snip>

http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/pentagram/9_2/national_news/27068-1.html

Last time I looked U.S.Army didn't have SS insignia on it. Man some of these older members of the brass must be smoldering in their boots. Thanks for the heads up on the purge (several of them)

Sounds like this might be one of them guys (* has to go, this is just out of control) This one really tickled me for how wrong the writer of the story is going to turn out to be.

http://www.nationalreview.com/babbin/babbin081403.asp

August 14, 2003, 8:45 a.m.
Purge of the Princelings?
Moving toward jointness.

hen Congress gets back from its August recess, you'll hear some caterwauling about how Big Dog is conducting a political purge of the Army. But what is going on in the Army right now is apparently not directed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and is not even a purge. But it may be the beginnings of one.

As soon as Mr. Rumsfeld took office, his plan to transform America's military ran into various levels of resistance in each of the services. The Navy was shaken by the thought that the aircraft carrier would have to evolve from its current form. The Air Force didn't want to hear that its new fighter — the F-22 — wasn't needed as much as it had been in the Cold War. But nowhere in Fort Fumble did he encounter utter refusal to change except in the Army.

According to an Army source, shortly after his accession Mr. Rumsfeld walked into the Tank — the vault-like conference room on the fourth floor of the Pentagon in which top-secret matters can be discussed freely — for a meeting with the Clintons' Army chief of staff, General Eric Shinseki. Shinseki is the protégé of Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye, and as political as his mentor. In that meeting, Shinseki tried to give Big Dog the Don Corleone treatment. Let me run things my way, said Shinseki, and I'll make you look really good on the Hill. But forget about transformation. The Army doesn't need it, and we don't plan to do it. Rumsfeld, to the surprise of his interlocutors, declined the offer they thought he couldn't refuse.

Shinseki should have been fired. That he wasn't is a tribute to the White House's fear that Sen. Inouye — ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee — would take his revenge, with ballistic-missile defense the most likely target. Shinseki stayed and the Army stood fast against change, insisting that its 1950s Cold War culture and configuration should remain. In essence, Shinseki chose irrelevance, taking the Army off the table as a tool of national policy and defense.
(snip)

"Shinseki stayed and the Army stood fast against change, insisting that its 1950s Cold War culture and configuration should remain."

... coming from the "frozen in amber" brigade of Cold War relics, hasbeens, never-was-ites, and Condi Rices.

Read the tea leaves not how it was spun, that is if you are impugning on the general. Frankly I don't like any part of these military types, but having served my few years, it not that hard to see where they come from.

Worse than than them is the Chicken Hawks. They are the layer removed. They are sales man who comes to your door that sells you that widget you don't need or want. The trick is this widget sales man has a gun to your head and says you buy this thing or else.

How do think that writer pays his bills anyway?

Which was somewhat along the lines of: the nerve of those Cold War relics eager to replace "Communism" with "Terrorism," using the very same stale 50s tactics, and then to accuse a man like Gen. Shinseki of being a Cold War relic.

Hypocrites!

Any kind of conflict offers the combatants other avenues of recourse. I thought you were conflicted with my defense of Gen. Shinseki. Even if you were not, mine was not well thought out for which I will fault myself if nobody else does.

Sure Gen. Shinseki may look like a good guy in our eyes in the U.S. but to others he might have been that proverbial hammer working on them nails. The joke of as being dumb as bag of hammers goes a long way in my book. These multinational capitalist that profess to want good commerce throughout the world like to define it on their terms. This just like the people who they arm to the teeth to carry out that part of the version. The people that they armed think what peace is can only be defined in the terms by the people carrying the guns.

They all portend or conclude that problems can be solved or eliminated through through the barrel of a gun and that is lie we are living today. The minimal resistance it took to get in Iraq had no sign or indications of the problems it would cause. This is was because things were defined by others far away from the problems.

We squander all of energy and resources on fairy tales why some in the other parts of world go hungry and rot in waste that was made to support insatiable needs of this so called Western Way

Excuse me for being angry but torture of Innocent civilians is hardly a way to run or work in any civilized world I can think of, and resembles part of a wider pattern of something very different

From home and abroad ( or could be from home to abroad depending on what your doing)

http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2004/05/diagramming-situation-here-are-key_09.html




Soldiers' warnings ignored
Failures: The blame for what happened at Abu Ghraib goes far beyond the military police, intelligence soldiers say

By Todd Richissin
Sun Foreign Staff
Originally published May 9, 2004
WIESBADEN, Germany - The two military intelligence soldiers, assigned interrogation duties at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, were young, relatively new to the Army and had only one day of training on how to pry information from high-value prisoners.

But almost immediately on their arrival in Iraq, say the two members of the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade, they recognized that what was happening around them was wrong, morally and legally.

They said in interviews Friday and yesterday that the abuses were not caused by a handful of rogue soldiers poorly supervised and lacking morals but resulted from failures that went beyond the low-ranking military police charged with abuse.

The beatings, the two soldiers said, were meted out with the full knowledge of intelligence interrogators, who let military police know which prisoners were cooperating with them and which were not.

"I was told, 'Don't worry about it - they probably deserved it,'" one of the soldiers said in an interview, referring to complaints he made while trying to persuade the Army to investigate. "I was appalled."

The two soldiers are the first from a military intelligence unit known to speak publicly about what happened at Abu Ghraib, and they are the first from such a unit to contend publicly that some interrogators were complicit in the abuses. The soldiers stressed that not all interrogators were involved
(snip)
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.guard09may09,0,2180279.story?coll=bal-home-headlines

Will revisit this in the AM. So tired tonight :)

Peace but sincere thanks