i've heard of doing a little favor for a friend

but a multi-million dollar one? an 18 million dollar one? hmmmmmmmmmmm, what up with this? (somehow the bette midler song, 'you gotta have friends' keeps looping through my brain)

McCain helped businessman buy Fort Ord land for a fraction of its market value

JULIA REYNOLDS - MediaNews

MONTEREY -- An Arizona businessman, with help from Sen. John McCain's office, paid the federal government a mere fraction of the market value when he bought a Fort Ord land parcel in 1999, an Army appraisal obtained by The Monterey Herald shows.

Donald R. Diamond, an 80-year-old real estate developer, lobbyist and top fundraiser for McCain's presidential campaign, bought the land for $250,000, though it was valued at $7.2 million, according to Pentagon appraisals made three years before the sale.

He held on to the parcel for a little more than two years before selling it and the buildings on it for an estimated profit of more than $18 million.

When negotiating with the Army over the no-bid sale, Diamond had more than one advantage on other potential buyers. He held a lease on the land that would have made it difficult for the Army to find another buyer. When Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, later criticized the Army for "giving away" Fort Ord land during the 1990s, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army Paul "PJ" Johnson said, "That was a very complicated realignment and closure at Ford Ord." Johnson retired later that month.

But it was McCain's office, as reported earlier this year by The New York Times and The Monterey Herald, that Diamond credited with helping smooth out problems he encountered. At the time, McCain served on the Senate Armed Services Committee.......

.......

Diamond, however, is no ordinary constituent. Besides being a leading developer in McCain's home state, he is a pro-Israel lobbyist in Washington, D.C., and is among the elite "innovators" group whose members have individually raised $500,000 or more for McCain's presidential bid, according to the candidate's campaign Web site.

Diamond also served as national finance co-chairman for McCain's presidential exploratory committee, and in court documents he describes himself as a longtime friend of the Republican senator..................

don't we owe it to our heroes

to be honest? don't we owe them the truth? don't we owe them THAT MUCH? especially if they gave their lives for their country

photo elimination

The Associated Press retracted two government-issued photographs last night after a photographer in Texas alerted the agency that the photos in question appeared to be doctored.

Bob Owen, chief photographer of the San Antonio Express-News, notified the AP that the photos of two deceased soldiers, who died in Iraq on Sept. 14, were nearly identical. Upon examining the photos, Owens noticed that everything except for the soldier’s face, name, and rank was the same. The most glaring similarity, Owen told CJR, was that the camouflage patterns of the two uniforms were “perfectly identical.”

After inspecting the photographs, the AP confirmed that the images were, indeed, Photoshopped, and issued eliminations on the two photos......

more evidence

NO ONE WILL DO ANY DAMN THING ABOUT

Army Buried Study Faulting Iraq Planning

By MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON — The Army is accustomed to protecting classified information. But when it comes to the planning for the Iraq war, even an unclassified assessment can acquire the status of a state secret. That is what happened to a detailed study of the planning for postwar Iraq prepared for the Army by the RAND Corporation, a federally financed center that conducts research for the military.
After 18 months of research, RAND submitted a report in the summer of 2005 called “Rebuilding Iraq.” RAND researchers provided an unclassified version of the report along with a secret one, hoping that its publication would contribute to the public debate on how to prepare for future conflicts.
But the study’s wide-ranging critique of the White House, the Defense Department and other government agencies was a concern for Army generals, and the Army has sought to keep the report under lock and key. ........

picture: Charles Dharapak/Associated Press
An assessment of the planning for Iraq’s rebuilding was submitted in 2005 as criticism of the war was growing. President Bush countered such criticism that November with a speech on strategy.

i googled the name

Sgt Hicham Benkabbou and surprisingly NO american msm (i looked at two pages of hits) was there. why not? is it because he was born in morocco? is it because he's muslim? could be, BUT he's also been serving IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY (paratrooper) in AFGHANISTAN.

why did i look his name up? well, because upon his return to the united states FROM HIS POSITION AS A PARATROOPER IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY, STATIONED IN AFGHANISTAN, THERE IS A CHANCE FOR HIM TO BE DEPORTED

thanks for serving america hicham, but don't like the door hit you in the ass when we kick you out

Arab-American paratrooper faces deportation after Afghan service
Highly decorated sergeant ordered to stand trial· Anti-discrimination committee protests Ed Pilkington in New YorkMonday December 3, 2007The Guardian
A highly decorated Arab-American sergeant in the US army, who is currently serving as a paratrooper in Afghanistan, faces deportation on his return to the United States because of an irregularity in his immigration papers.
Sgt Hicham Benkabbou has been served with an order to stand trial for deportation as soon as he arrives home, despite the fact that he has been on active service in Afghanistan for almost two years with the 508th parachute infantry regiment, known as the Red Devils..........

AND THEY DRAW THEIR GUNS ON OUR TROOPS

if this doesn't make king george (and condi) and his court of jesters IMMEDIATELY FIRE ALL BLACKWATER MERCENARIES i don't know what will

Blackwater Is Soaked
An arrogant attitude only adds fuel to the criticism.

By Rod Nordland and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Oct. 15, 2007 issue - The colonel was furious. "Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers." He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street in Baghdad's Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV. His account was confirmed by the head of another private security company. Asked to address this and other allegations in this story, Blackwater spokesperson Anne Tyrrell said, "This type of gossip has led to many soap operas in the press."..........

i have mentioned this before

and it's worth continued mentioning. why would someone, let's say an IRAQI help us troops out when the us government in turn, WILL NOT help the iraqi and her/his family out?

if you can trust them to help you and your unit out time after time after time. if you see they are putting their LIVES ON THE LINE for you and your fellow soldiers/sailors/airmen/marines WHY THE HELL CAN'T YOU SAVE THEM? (i'm not blaming the soldiers for this. i'm blaming the red tape AND LIES of the king george and his court administration)

U.S. Failing to Help Iraqi Translator and Family Targeted for Execution

By Maura Stephens, AlterNet
He thought he could rebuild his country by helping the Americans. Now an Iraqi translator and his family have been targeted for execution, and instead of helping, U.S. officials have trapped him in an endless Catch-22.

My dear friend Andy -- we're so close, we call each other brother and sister -- has a degree in English literature. He loves Shakespeare and Shelley, Byron and Dunne, and can quote from their works far better than most poetry professors I know. Andy loves beauty and harmony and tea and good food. He is simply gaga about his lovely young wife, Alysse, and their two little ones.
He's not the kind of guy you'd expect to want to serve the U.S. military, but just a couple of weeks after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Andy lined up to enlist. He couldn't wait to help the United States bring democracy to Iraq. Since April 2003 Andy has served faithfully with the Army despite being in dire danger almost all the time. He and his wife and two babies have been under sporadic but serious threat of execution because of Andy's work with the U.S. Army. The stress is wearing on Andy and Alysse -- physically and mentally. Andy is well aware that it is only a matter of time before his luck runs out. He is ready to get out of Iraq.
His army colleagues and commanding officers think the world of Andy, but despite his four-plus years of almost nonstop service, Andy can't get out of Iraq. The U.S. Army seems to be quite powerless in this case.
That's because Andy is Iraqi. He has been an interpreter/translator for the U.S. military this whole time..........

and this:

Only 133 Iraqi refugees allowed in US so far this year

Only 133 Iraqi refugees have been allowed into the United States since October, well short of the 7,000 the US has vowed to welcome in this fiscal year, a State Department spokesman said Monday.
"I think we're up around 133 thus far that have entered the United States," since October 1, the start of fiscal 2007, Sean McCormack told a press briefing.
"We have more work to do," he added after recalling that at the beginning of the year US authorities vowed to take in at least 7,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of fiscal 2007, and even more in fiscal 2008.
He attributed the slow pace to rigorous security measures: "They have to go through and have to do a vetting procedure, which everybody understands the need to do........

this is what we did to one of our heros

he got a purple heart for his service in iraq

for asking a question (or two) about 9 - 11 to OTHER MILITARY PEOPLE, he lost his security clearance, he was demoted, he was fired from his job and MY personal favorite, he was ordered to have a psychiatric exam

Friendly Fire
Raising questions about 9/11 gets an Army sergeant demoted for “disloyalty.”

By STEPHEN C. WEBSTER
These days, Donald Buswell’s job is not as exciting or dangerous as it once was. For the past few months, his working hours have been spent taking care of some 40-plus wounded soldiers at San Antonio’s Fort Sam Houston medical center. The work is sometimes menial, even janitorial, but he doesn’t mind. After all, Buswell has been where these men are — three years ago, he too was recovering from wounds received in a battle zone in Iraq.
“I truly consider this an honor,” Buswell told his dad not long ago.
Still, it’s not exactly where Buswell expected to be after 20 years of well-respected service in the Army.
Since joining the Army in 1987, he had risen to the rank of sergeant first class, serving in both Gulf Wars, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Korea. He ended up with shrapnel scars and a Purple Heart and, back in the U.S. after his last tour in Iraq, a job as intelligence analyst at Fort Sam Houston.............

...........As if all that weren’t enough, Fort Sam Houston’s chief of staff penned a letter accusing Buswell of “making statements disloyal to the United States.”
His father, Winthrop Buswell, said that his son “is one of the most patriotic people I know.”
“Donald saw something that his conscience led him to dispute,” he said. “That’s just the type of man he is.”
For his dissent, Donald has paid a heavy price............

i guess we really DO want an army full of robots. forget don't ask, don't tell. it's now DON'T THINK, DON'T TALK