[NY Post] Bowe Bergdahl, the Army deserter who walked off his base in Afghanistan, is whining that the US treated him worse than the Taliban.
The 31-year-old sergeant told British TV journalist Sean Langan in an interview reported in The Sunday Times of London: "At least the Taliban were honest enough to say, ’I’m the guy who’s gonna cut your throat.’ "
That got him less upset than the "administrative duties" the Army assigned him while awaiting trial, he said.
"Here, it could be the guy I pass in the corridor who’s going to sign the paper that sends me away for life,’’ he said.
"We may as well go back to kangaroo courts and lynch mobs."
During his nearly five years as an unwilling guest of the Taliban, he said, he was kept in a steel cage and tortured.
Bergdahl complained to Langan ‐ who himself was held by the Taliban for three months in 2008 ‐ about the "endless weeks, months, years on my own.’’
There are conflicting reports that six soldiers died searching for him.
He was traded for five Taliban officials freed from Guantanamo Bay.
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/22/2017 8:38 Comments ||
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#2
Sad that any effort or resources are wasted on him at all.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/22/2017 8:47 Comments ||
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#3
Dear Bowe -
You know, I was actually willing to think that all things considered, they should give you a DD, RIR to E-1, forefiture of all pay and benefits, and then throw your sorry ass out the door.
But you just couldn't keep your mouth shut, could you?
The Taliban held you for five years, and the United States Army, in its wisdom and majesty, can put you away for a hell of a lot longer...and should. Twenty at Leavenworth, with no parole and all the trimmings, should give you sufficient time and perspective to reconsider your attitude.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
10/22/2017 9:01 Comments ||
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#4
He's a traitor, wire, lamp post, and moron, some assembly required.
#5
D-bag gives Idaho a bad name. Other than the libtards in Hailey and the north end of Boise, everyone I talk to thinks life in prison is too light a sentence.
#8
The US Army and the US as a whole (except for progs) requires responsibility, the Taliban, eh, not so much.
"WAAA! My panties too tight!"
Keep him out of circulation for a very long time. Think of the ones that were killed or wounded looking for his sorry ass, thinking he was worth saving.
[Jpost] On Friday, October 20 a man entered a Shia mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan for Friday prayers. Soon after, according to reports, he gunned down the worshippers and blew up a bomb. At least 39 were killed. In Ghor province another attack at a Sunni mosque targeting a tribal elder killed 20. Overall around 180 have been murdered in terror attacks in Afghanistan in the last week.
Sixteen years ago, on the night of October 19th, US Army Rangers and special forces raided an airfield and attacked Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar’s headquarters near Kandahar. It was the first ground action of Operation Enduring Freedom, launched after the September 11th attacks. "It’s crazy to think about," says Rebecca Zimmerman, a Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation. "I have been trying to mark this anniversary and think more deeply about what it means to be there 16 years and the essential question we all need to ask if not just is it still worth it, it pretty well is worth it, but when will it not be worth it," she says. I wonder why Reagan was satisfied with a few bombings instead of invading Libya, overthrowing the Kadafy regime, and building a nation? Could it be that he knew something that Bush II didn't?
#2
We should have leveled everything that gave them even pretensions to the 21st century, and then if they showed any signs of rebuilding, done it again.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
10/22/2017 9:17 Comments ||
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#3
Afghanistan will be marking 2500 years of war soon.
[Khaama (Afghanistan)] President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani ...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. .. strongly condemned the deadly mosque bombings in Kabul city and western Ghor province of Afghanistan which left more than 70 people dead.
He said the attacks holy places and all other places targeting the civilians, are a move against the humanity and all values and principles of Islam.
The Afghanistan's Caped President further added that the perpetrators of such attacks only deserve a total destruction.
According to President Ghani, the terrorist groups are attempting to misuse Islam as a tool to reach to their targets of sparking tensions among the people and harm the unity of the Afghan people.
However, a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package... he said the terrorist groups should understand that they will never achieve their goals and will soon be eliminated by the Afghan security and defense forces.
A jacket wallah detonated his explosives among the prayer participants in West of Kabul city late on Friday evening, leaving at least 39 dead and 43 others maimed, according to the ministry of interior.
In the meantime, a similar attack left more than 20 people dead and several others maimed in western Ghor province of Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/22/2017 00:00 ||
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[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
[PRESSTV] The United Nations ...a formerly good idea gone bad... has failed to bridge differences between Libyan rival factions amid efforts aimed at breaking a political stalemate and helping bring about peace and stability in the North African country.
In October, Ghassan Salame, the newly-appointed Libyan envoy to the UN, announced a one-year "action plan" for a transition toward presidential and parliamentary elections in Libya.
The measure reportedly aims to amend a current political agreement in the country and prepare the ground for a constitutional referendum and possibly general elections afterwards.
Since the announcement, the UN has hosted in Tunisia delegations from rival parliaments from eastern Libya and the capital Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... to draw up amendments to a previous UN-mediated plan signed in December 2015. However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... at the end of the second round of discussions Salame only said talks would go on without giving a new date.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/22/2017 00:00 ||
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[11125 views]
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[Dhaka Tribune] Law enforcement agencies are yet to track down four notorious trainers of the new iteration of Jama’at ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (New JMB) suicide squad.
The four trainers, identified as Samshu, Rashed, Safiq and Salma, the only woman among them, are on the run.
Evidence suggest of their direct contacts with holy warriors killed during counter-terrorism operations at Atia Mahal hideout in Sylhet and Nasirpur and Borohat hideouts in Moulvibazar.
Police first learned about the four from confessional statements of a Lion of Islam couple, who were jugged Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! in Chittagong’s Sitakunda on March 15.
In their statements, the couple ‐ Jahirul Haq alias Jasim and his wife Arjina alias Rajia ‐ claimed that they had joined New JMB for financial reasons.
They said the four leaders trained them and another couple for a month. They identified the other couple as Kamal and his wife Jobaida, who reportedly blew herself up at their Sitakunda residence during operation "Assault 16" in March this year.
The couple said they were ordered by their trainers to blow up their boom jackets to avoid capture.
In his confessional statement on April 28, Jasim, a native of Bandarban, said: "I was unable to support my family by cultivating betel leaf. I was introduced to militancy by a Rubber plantation worker named Sohel Rana about a year and a half ago."
Law enforcers found that Sohel, who posed as a plantation worker, was in fact a trainer of the New JMB suicide squad and a bomb-making expert.
Sohel went kaboom!, along with his wife and five kids, during "Operation Hit Back" in Moulvibazar on March 30.
Jasim said Sohel had indoctrinated him, his friend Hasan and his brother-in-law Kamal. "Withing the next year, Sohel, Kamal and Hasan left the village.
"Sohel lured me to Patiya Upazila at the beginning of this year, by assuring me that I could live with him at his rented house free of charge. I also accepted a proposal from him to marry off my sister Marjina to his brother Fahim, who was also living there."
He added: "I came into contact with many New JMB members, including the four trainers ‐ Samshu, Rashed, Safiq and Salma. They trained us for a month. Then Sohel instructed me to take my family to Sitakunda and settle there.
"Sohel regularly visited us. He told us to choose suicide over surrender if the law enforcers manage to sniff us out."
He continued: "When police finally surrounded us, my wife attempted to detonate the boom jacket, but I stopped her. The law enforcers then arrested me and my wife."
Police managed to track down Lion of Islam hideouts in Sylhet’s Atia Mahal, Moulvibazar’s Nasirpur and Borohat areas after interrogating Jasim and his wife.
On the other hand, a Lion of Islam named Elias aka Mahbub, who allegedly murdered a shrine priest in Noakhali on August 16, had also reportedly told police that he received training from the four trainers.
During interrogation, Elias revealed the names of around 25 New JMB leaders.
The names of these four trainers had come up in statements of both Elias and Jasim, a police brass hat stationed at Noakhali said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the laboratory, Igor and Oleg were discussing what the quickest way might be to deal with the monster... speaking to the Dhaka Tribune, Sitakunda cop shoppe Officer-in-Charge Iftekhar Uddin said: "Elias has connections with many important leaders of the New JMB, who are currently on the run.
"We will continue to interrogate him to collect more information on the terror group and its leaders."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/22/2017 00:00 ||
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[11133 views]
Top|| File under: Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (IS)
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Prominent Swiss Moslem theologian, Tariq Ramadan, has denied allegations of rape and sexual assault and has served notice of his intention to sue for slander, according to his lawyer Yassine Bouzrou.
French media outlets are reporting that Ramadan intends to file a complaint for "slanderous denunciation" on Monday with the public prosecutor of Rouen.
Henda Ayari, a French former Salafist turned secular liberal activist, filed a complaint on Friday against Ramadan at the Rouen public prosecutor’s office.
The complaint concerns "rape, sexual assault, wilful violence, harassment and intimidation."
Ramadan, 55, is the grandson of the founder of the Moslem Brüderbund group in Egypt. He is a professor of contemporary Islamic studies at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/22/2017 00:00 ||
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[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Muslim Brotherhood
[Al Jazeera] Billionaire Andrej Babis has won a thumping victory in the Czech Republic's parliamentary election, while eurosceptics and an anti-Islam group made strong gains.
State election officials citing results from 99.9 percent of polling stations on Saturday said Babis's anti-corruption and anti-euro ANO (Yes) movement won with 29.7 percent support, almost three times higher than any other party and giving it a chance to rule with just one partner in a coalition.
ANO was followed by the eurosceptic right-wing ODS party on 11.3 percent.
The far-right, anti-EU and anti-Islam SPD party made strong gains, capturing more than 10 percent of the vote, while another protest party, the Pirates, was set to win a number of seat by appealing to unhappy liberal voters.
At just 7.4 percent, the ruling Social Democrats of Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka were on course for their worst result since the country peacefully split with Slovakia in 1993.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/22/2017 00:00 ||
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[11127 views]
Top|| File under: Moslem Colonists
[PRESSTV] The United States Air Force may recall as many as 1,000 retired military pilots to tackle an "acute shortage" in its ranks amid a national pilot crisis.
The measure amounts to an expansion of a state of national emergency declared by former President George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
It is meant "to mitigate the Air Force's acute shortage of pilots," said Pentagon front man Navy Commander Gary Ross in a statement on Saturday.
"We anticipate that the Secretary of Defense will delegate the authority to the Secretary of the Air Force to recall up to 1,000 retired pilots for up to three years," Ross said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/22/2017 00:00 ||
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[11126 views]
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#1
Gonna need 'em to beat the snot out of the Norks.
"We're going to be a smaller Air Force, we project over the next five years, and we have a plan on what's going to happen when," James said. "It's heavily in FY15, a little bit in FY16. That was a conscious choice. We're going to do it as quickly as possible and get it behind us."
James, who was previously an executive at SAIC, said that her experience conducting downsizings in the private sector has convinced her it is best to get them over with quickly.
I believe there was also a large pilot reduction in force in the 2008 time frame. More Soetoro administration dividends.
#3
The Navy may have to call back watch qualified personnel before they do anything big. (joke)
Posted by: ed in texas ||
10/22/2017 10:12 Comments ||
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#4
If they are looking for more Drone Drivers then train NCO (quote) Drone Pilots (un-quote) and tell the Ring Knockers in Air Force Blue to pound sand.
If they want to force someone to fly a multi-million dollar jet.... The idea is insane at a casual glance.
[Al Jazeera] The Kurdish collapse in Kirkuk was shockingly sudden.
Iraqi troops, police and Iranian-backed militias known as Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs) had massed south of the ethnically mixed city for days, prompting defiant messages from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and its Peshmerga fighters. But Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had denied that the movements were preparation for an attack, dismissing such claims as "fake news".
On Monday morning, Baghdad's units finally advanced. After isolated festivities, the Peshmerga swiftly withdrew from their positions, after one Kurdish faction apparently struck a deal with the government.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
10/22/2017 00:00 ||
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[11125 views]
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#2
I confess, I'm ambivalent. Almost everything I read tells me that the Kurds are good people, getting screwed, including by the US.... but several people who dealt with them in the various Iraq wars REALLY don't like or trust them. Plus you can say Peshmerga has nothing to do with the PKK (AKA Kommie Kurds), but then they said the same about Sinn Fein and the IRA ...
#4
I have, g, but the saying is better expressed by "the enemy of my enemy is ...my enemy's enemy". Friendship doesn't enter into the equation..or are you saying Stalin was our "friend"?
#7
I'm kind of saddened myself that the Kurds did this to themselves. Though I think the Talabani faction has GREATLY miscalculated the repercussions to themselves among the Kurdish people.
Posted by: Charles ||
10/22/2017 19:27 Comments ||
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[ALMASDARNEWS] The Kurdish movement in Syria are only calling for a federalization of the Syrian Arab Republic, and is not looking for a partition of the country or an independent Syrian Kurdistan. This was said by recently elected co-chairman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) Shahoz Hassan in an interview with Sputnik Turkiye.
"We are open for a dialogue with the central government. We do not want the partition of Syria, do not harbor plans of separating from the country and do not want to set up an independent Kurdistan. Such rumors are not true," Hassan stated.
The PYD Chairman furthermore said that he considered the Syrian government’s declaration to be open to negotiations on the matter, as "late in coming".
In September, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem had declared that "This topic [limited Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria] is open to negotiation and discussion and when we are done eliminating ISIS (ISIS) we can sit with our Kurdish counterparts and reach an understanding on a formula for the future."
Commenting further on the conflict with ISIS that has been dragging on for six years now, Hassan stressed the importance of the Russian Federation in negotiations for the future.
"We think that Russia’s statements that any talks in Geneva or any other negotiation process are ineffective without Kurdish participation are very important. Russia can facilitate the settlement of the conflict, ensure that Kurds are invited. This could largely contribute to the settlement of the crisis and find a democratic, peaceful and political solution," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/22/2017 00:00 ||
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[11130 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
#1
They saw what happened next door. If they can't hold Kirkuk, what's the point?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
10/22/2017 10:09 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...former chancellor of Kabul University, now president of Afghanistan. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002 he was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
[PRESSTV] The 
