Archive for the ‘Military’ Category
November 19th, 2009 | 
Author: Just when I think that the minority-rule Conservative government has hit the bottom, they dig the hole a bit deeper:
The Harper government is training its guns on a diplomat whistleblower who says Canada was complicit in the torture of captured Afghan prisoners, trying to undermine Richard Colvin’s credibility as pressure builds to hold a public inquiry into the matter.
Now, these are very different allegations from what the US has been accused of doing. Believe it or not, “extraordinary rendition” (scooping a suspect and delivering them to some other country for interrogation (usually also involving torture)) isn’t as serious as what it appears that our government has done.
Transferring a prisoner to another entity when you know or even suspect that they may be subject to torture is a war crime. Mr. Colvin, number 2 man at the embassy in Kandahar at the time, alleges that he repeatedly warned his superiors (all the way to the Prime Minister’s national security advisor) that there was very credible evidence that the Afghan army was torturing prisoners that our military had handed over to them. The problem was the response that he and another diplomat received. they were told to stop writing things down and, effectively, shut the hell up.
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The CBC is reporting that, just in time for the Olympics, the Vancouver police have acquired an LRAD. There’s nothing worry about, though: it’s “simply a new communications tool that will allow officers to address huge crowds at distances of up to 300 metres”.
Apparently the anticipated “huge crowds” are also deaf. This thing is capable of producing a focused beam of sound at 146 dB. The human pain threshold for sound ranges from 120-140 dB. It’s quite the bullhorn, isn’t it?
I’m not one to distrust the police*, but the manufacturer of the unit markets these things primarily as a sonic weapon and a communications device second. From disrupting protests in Tblisi in 2007, to dispersing crowds in Iraq, to repeling Somali pirates, it’s in use all over the world. As a weapon that can also be used to communicate. Contrary to what the Vancouver constabulary claim, it’s effective communication range is closer to a kilometre.
Tags: On June 6 1944, the largest single-day amphibious assault in human history began. 160,000 troops, carried on more than 5,000 ships, poured ashore at 5 locations along the Normandy coast. It was the beginning of the end for the Reich: they had fallen for a series of distraction tactics and phony attacks designed to lure them away from the real target. It worked beautifully.
Matthew Halton, CBC radio correspondent, went ashore with the Canadian contingent:
Swimming with his pack and waterproof typewriter, Matthew Halton navigates the rough, rising tides to the beach. Around him, the Allied troops swim forward and land on the shell-swept Normandy beaches. They move through curtains of machine gun fire. Today is June 6, 1944, and the campaign to liberate France and Belgium from Germany has begun.
Man, I’m pooped. It’s been a busy weekend.
Saturday was the start of the minor rugby season and it was actually a nice morning! The entire “league” was started three years ago by Bridget’s brother and Phil’s been playing since day one. It’s catching on, too. From two age groups in 2007 (U10 & U8), they now have four groups (U6, U8, U10 & U12) and about triple the initial number of kids.
Most Saturday mornings will find Matt surrounded by a group of raring-to-go U8s:
There’s a bit of a tempest brewing up here in the aftermath of the April 13th death of Trooper Karine Blais. She was 21, had been in Afghanistan for all of two weeks and is only the second Canadian woman to die there.
The trouble isn’t the fact that she was there, the brouhaha is over a newspaper column written by noted Western Canadian troglodyte, Michael Coren:
Last week a young girl dressed up as a soldier died in the increasingly futile and pointless war in Afghanistan. She was 21 years old, had been in the country for two weeks on her first tour of duty and probably weighed a little over 100 pounds.
Metairie man says stranger chewed, swallowed after taking bite out of his arm
Lancellotti said he tried to defend himself with a garden rake. As the men struggled over the rake, the stranger bent over and bit Lancellotti on his right forearm, the report said. Lancellotti’s flesh ripped away as he fell to the ground. The man then got on top of Lancellotti and began choking him, the report said.
It was then that neighbor Chantal Lorio, a podiatrist and director of the Wound Center at East Jefferson General Hospital, came out to check on Lancellotti. Lorio said Monday that she first thought Lancellotti was having a heart attack and the other man was trying to help him.
The stranger was still gripping Lancellotti as Lorio noticed her neighbor was lying in a pool of blood. She didn’t learn what happened until she began dressing the wound — with the stranger still clutching her neighbor’s shirt.