Necessary News

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Battle Stress Leads To Bad Behavior Back At Home

The Story

• General General William Tecumseh Sherman was right: war is hell. Even after the soldiers come home. [USA Today]
• The bad news: A new report released by the Marines Corps shows that battle stress may cause combat-hardened Marines with clean records to get into trouble after they return home.
• The worse news: Often times, stress-related misconduct can included things like alcohol and drug abuse, both of which can result in dismissal from the service — and the denial of services offered up by the Department of Veteran Affairs.
• Don’t believe us? Take a look at the numbers. “In the first four years of the Iraq war, 1,019 Marines were dismissed with less-than-honorable discharges for misconduct committed after overseas deployments, said Navy Capt. William Nash, who coordinates the Marines’ combat stress program. At least 326 of the discharged Marines showed evidence of mental health problems, possibly from combat stress, according to the Marine study.”
• Unfortunately, while the Armed Services have recognized the problem, they don’t have the resources to treat it. In fact, just last month a report released by the Defense Mental Health Task Force called military mental health staffing “woefully inadequate” and complained of a continuing stigma within the military toward PTSD. [Mic Check]

The Audio

• Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh describes a conversation he had with the mother of a soldier involved in the infamous My Lai massacre — and links it to today: “Then she said to me, I kid you not, she said to me ‘I gave them a good boy, and they sent me back a murderer.’ Here’s the point: you can not do what we are doing. You can not have kids do what we are doing. The torture, the kind of violence. It impacts on us too. We suffer too.”
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No one says it better than Sy.

Eight Arrests In British Terror Plot

• Police arrested the eighth suspect in connection with the terror plot in London and Glasgow yesterday.
• Not much is known about the suspects. This is what we do know: [Forbes]
• Suspect: Dr. Mohammed Asha, age 26. A Palestinian with a passport from Jordan, Dr. Asha is a neurosurgeon with no known ties to any extremist religious groups. Arrested on a British highway. Arrested Saturday.
• Suspect: Mrs. Mohammed Asha, age 27. Arrested Saturday.
• Suspect: Dr. Bilal Abdulla, an Iraqi. One of the two men involved in the car exploding in Glasgow. Arrested Saturday.
• Suspect: The other man involved in the Glasgow attack, who set himself on fire after the plot was thwarted. He’s currently in intensive care. Arrested Saturday.
• Suspect: A man arrested Sunday in Liverpool.
• Suspect: a 25-year-old man arrested Monday
• Suspect: a 28-year-old man arrested Monday
• Suspect: A man arrested in an unnamed other country Monday.
• Allegedly, a third doctor is wanted in connection with the plot. [Washington Post]
• Both Sen. Joe Lieberman and DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff used the London bombings as an excuse to push for increased domestic surveillance (think: cameras, wiretaps) in the U.S..
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• Wha’? In fact, domestic surveillance had nothing to do with thwarting the terror plot in London. British citizens stumbled on it after a drunk guy conked himself in the head leaving a bar. The ambulance crew responding to his injury noticed smoke coming out of a nearby car and discovered the bomb. [Washington Post]

The three doctors involved must have missed the day “first do no harm” was explained in med school.

Even Quaint Czech Villagers Think Missile Defense is Dumb

• If President Bush has his way, the “myriad paths into the thick forests leading to rich patches of wild berries and mushrooms” near the small Czech village of Vsin will soon be off limits. Why? Bush wants to build a missile defense system there. [McClatchy]
• Needless to say, the 600 residents of Vsin aren’t too happy. In a recent poll 98% opposed the plan. And they’re not the only ones.
• Bush wants to build a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic “for the purpose of shooting down nuclear missiles launched by Iran.” But, as Magnus Ranstorp, research director for the Swedish Defense College, and one of the world’s foremost experts on terrorism, put it: “It’s a defense system that doesn’t yet work intended to stop a threat that does not yet exist.” [Slate] [McClatchy]
• The agency that develops the technology that will be involved, “hasn’t conducted a successful flight test of interceptors for nearly four years.” But the program continues to drain $10 billion from the Defense budget, more than any other single program. [Slate]
• At the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are negotiating over the placement of the missile shield (Putin wants it in Azerbaijan instead and warned that the Polish and Czech placement “will lead to a new arms race.") [Mic Check] [FOCUS]
• Josef Skuhra, a maintenance worker in Vsin, put it this way,"We’re trapped between warring giants...We’ve always been happy being forgotten about, but now Russia and the United States, who have always been enemies, fight over us. And once the Americans start building, how long can it be before even Osama bin Laden knows our name?” [McClatchy]

We think Bush needs more time to pick wild berries and mushrooms.

Hezbollah’s in Iraq, They’re Friends With Iran. Time for a Reset.

• There’s new evidence of the on-going proxy war between Iran and the U.S. rumbling in Iraq...but now is no time to escalate. It’s time for a strategic reset. [NY Times] [Center for American Progress]
• A U.S. military spokesperson claim tuesday that Iran is using Hezbollah (those Shi’ite militants with the green armbands who usually hang out in southern Lebanon) as proxies to arm and train Shi’ite militants in Iraq.
• He also said Iran was responsible for a raid in Karbala earlier this year that killed five American soldiers.
• This is the most recent in a long string of accusations against Iran including that “the Quds Force, an elite unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, has trained and equipped Shiite militants in Iraq” and that Iran “has supplied Shiite militants with the most lethal type of roadside bomb in Iraq.”
• Rather than bolstering a case to attack Iran, this new evidence reinforces the need to quickly redeploy our forces from Iraq (to get them out of this Iranian power grab) and initiate a diplomatic surge to engage Iran and Iraq’s other neighbors to “secure formal commitments” to stabilize the battered country and prevent violence from spilling across Iraq’s borders. [Center for American Progress]

Time to get out.

Justice Denied: Bush Commutes Libby’s Sentence

• Yesterday afternoon, a federal court ruled that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby should *not* receive special treatment and remain free while waiting for appeal. They ordered him to jail, soon, to serve his 30-month sentence.
• Within hours, President Bush let him off the hook, commuting his sentence to 2 years probation and a $250K fine. No. Jail. [Washington Post]
• Bush’s statement: “I respect the jury’s verdict, but I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend 30 months in prison.” [Bush’s Statement]
• In March, Libby was convicted of four felony counts of perjury and the obstruction of justice including: 1) Obstruction of justice for intentionally lying to a grand jury investigating the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. 2) Lying to FBI agents about a conversation with NBC newsman Tim Russert. 3) Perjury when he lied in court about his conversation with Russert. 4) A second count of perjury when he lied in court about conversations with other reporters. [AP]
• The President has the right to commute a sentence. Once he does, neither Congress nor the Courts are allowed to intervene.
• However, “according to Justice Department standards, ‘requests for commutation generally are not accepted unless and until a person has begun serving that sentence,’ and they are generally not granted to those appealing their convictions.” [NY Times]
• That sound you heard yesterday? That was the sound of a majority of Americans screaming in rage at the President’s decision. In a recent CNN poll asking if President Bush should pardon Scooter, 72% said they thought Libby should go to jail; only 19% supported setting him free. [CNN]
• Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald: “In this case an experienced federal judge considered extensive argument from the parties and then imposed a sentence consistent with the applicable laws...It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals.” [NYTimes]
• Why did this take us so by surprise? Maybe because on June 4, 2007, White House spokesperson Dana Perino said the president would *NOT* intervene in the sentencing of Libby and wouldn’t consider a pardon until the appeals process had run its course. Why, oh why do we continue to believe what we hear? [White House]

Refusal to comply with subpoenas. Refusal to obey the law about wiretapping Americans. Claiming the Vice President wasn’t technically part of the executive branch. Yep, this is just par for the course.

Good News, Bad News

Breakthrough alert: “Fertility doctors have extracted eggs from girls as young as five and frozen them so they can be used later to start a family.” Previously, it was thought that retrieving usable eggs from such young girls was impossible. But recently, a group of Israeli doctors successfully extracted the eggs and matured them in a laboratory, before deep-freezing them for later use. Let’s check out the pros and cons. [Guardian]

GOOD NEWS

Experts are saying the breakthrough raises hopes for thousands of girls who survive childhood cancer each year but are left infertile by chemotherapy.

BAD NEWS

BABIES HAVING BABIES! AHHHHH!

Quote Of The Day

“Our members just wish this thing would be over. People are tired of him. There’s nobody there who can stand up to him and tell him, ‘Mr. President, you’ve got to do this. You’re wrong on this.’ There’s no adult supervision. It’s like he’s oblivious. Maybe that’s a defense mechanism.”

— A senior House Republican, quoted in the Washington Post. [Andrew Sullivan]

Speed Round

AUDIO: MUST BE THE LOBSTER

At their meeting in Kennebunkport, Maine, Russian President Vladimir Putin makes some minor concessions to Bush over the plan to build a missile shield in Eastern Europe. Bush has some...uh...kind-ish words for the Russian President. [NY Times]

FINALLY

Iraqi Parliament, at long last, finally passes a draft oil law, one of the key benchmarks set by the United States. Now clean up that civil war and we’re really talking. [NY Times]

GAS PRICES

Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the freeway: Gas prices set to rise again by up to 10 cents-a-gallon over the next month. [LA Times]

IMMIGRATION

Tens of thousands of legal immigrants were affected yesterday when the U.S. government announced that, sorry, no new citizenship applications would be accepted until this fall. [AP]

FRAUD

Huge Medicare fraud rings uncovered in LA, Miami. [AP]

THE I WORD

The Washington Post reports more and more are calling for the impeachment of Dick Cheney. Kucinich no longer stands alone... [Washington Post]

TERROR

Two weeks after the U.S. issues a warning about terror attacks in Yemen, a suicide bomber there kills 9. [CBS News]

PENTAGON TAKES IT TOYS, GOES HOME

Well, that’s one way to do it: the Pentagon tears its F14s to shreds in order to keep spare parts from getting into Iran’s hands. [USA Today]

BURNING BRIDGES

A fiery crash kills one and closes the Tappan Zee bridge in New York City. [AP]

HACK HACK HACK

1 billion: Number of people who will die from smoking this century. [MSNBC]

ARREST

Personal doctor to the pro-wrestler who killed himself after murdering his wife and son was arrested yesterday for improperly prescribing medication. [CBS News]

PANIC

ABC blog reports a “secret U.S. law enforcement report, prepared for the Department of Homeland Security, warns that al Qaeda is planning a terror ‘spectacular’ this summer,” which is “reminiscent of the warnings and intelligence we were getting in the summer of 2001.” [The Blotter]

ROBOT GUNS

Israel wants to install robot guns that can be fired remotely on the wall separating Israel from the Gaza Strip. Just what the region needs: more anonymous killing. [DefenseNews] via [Daily Dish]

SCARY KINGDOM

A pipe bomb explodes in a trash can in an empty parking lot at Disney World. Pluto and Goofy to be temporarily drafted as bomb sniffing dogs. [AP]

ATTENTION STARVED

Iran and Venezuela say they are an “axis of unity” against the U.S. Axes are soooo 2003, guys. [Reuters]

NO PERMANENT BASES

Congress wants to pledge not to establish permanent U.S. bases in Iraq or establish U.S. control over Iraqi oil. [Politico]

NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Learn how predators target struggling homeowners to take them for every penny they’re worth. [NY Times]