Posts Tagged ‘Military’
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
Dan Oakes; 16/2/10
The second-in-command of Australia’s armed forces has admitted that the army has an alcohol problem and demanded that officers tackle a culture of heavy drinking. Lieutenant-General Ken Gillespie said in an email to commanders that he was tired of hearing about soldiers killing and injuring themselves and others through drunken behaviour, according to the army’s internal newspaper. ”To be quite frank, I am sick of seeing the near-daily reports which tell me of officers and soldiers killed, injured or arrested for behaviour that could have been avoided,” he wrote. ”I am saddened when I realise the impact these avoidable incidents have on the members, their families, their units and the army.
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Tags: Australia, Drugs, Military
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Friday, February 12th, 2010
Nick McKenzie & Rafael Epstein; 12/2/10
A senior Australian Army media adviser who served in Afghanistan and Iraq has revealed that a culture of excessive spin and unnecessary secrecy stopped important information reaching the public. Andrew Bird, who left the army in December after eight years as an information operations and media adviser, said Defence obscured or painted an overly rosy picture of war in places such as Afghanistan. ”The way that we communicated is all government-centric. It just relayed the ministers’ and prime minister’s message, reinforcing the government’s message. Every image we took, every interview we did and every bit of vision … was to support the government’s view,” he told The Age. A Defence spokesman rejected the claims. Mr Bird, who reached the rank of major, said the army often stage-managed events for the media, blurred the truth in interviews or used the excuse information was operationally sensitive to avoid giving it out.
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Tags: Australia, Military, Politics, USA
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Friday, January 15th, 2010
Anshel Pfeffer & Liel Kyzer; 15/1/10
State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss found severe shortcomings in the treatment of soldiers in military prisons, according to an official report issued yesterday. The recommendations of two committees dealing with Israel Defense Forces policy on military prisons have not been implemented, the report said. Prison personnel are mainly young conscripts who are unable to deal with the prison population, which results in frequent infringement of prisoners’ rights, the report states. Some 15,000 soldiers were incarcerated in the Israel Defense Forces’ two prisons in 2008, two-thirds of whom were conscript soldiers with problems acclimating to life in the army.
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Tags: Human Rights, Israel, Military
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Monday, January 11th, 2010
Marwan Bishara; 11/1/10
According to tribal Yemeni tradition, if a dispute has been resolved peacefully, any dagger that has been drawn cannot go back into its scabbard unless it tastes blood. Traditionally, an animal is slaughtered to satisfy its thirst and restore its holder’s honour. Since the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact without a single shot, let alone nuclear warheads, being fired, the ‘Greater Middle East’ region has been turned into a real theatre of war. From the Gulf war in 1991 through to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, from Somalia in 1993 to Yemen in 2010, and through Afghanistan and Pakistan, the US military has gone to great lengths to demonstrate its strategic capacity to act in faraway places and to prove its ability to guard and advance US and Western interests. In no time, military means and out-right war and occupation replaced diplomacy and international law. In return, the Pentagon’s budget has almost doubled from the level it was before 9/11 to surpass the combined military expenditures of all the countries of the world, all under the guise of the ‘global war against terror’.
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Tags: Global, Military, Terrorism, USA
Posted in Human Rights, Terrorism, USA, War | No Comments »
Saturday, January 9th, 2010
9/1/10; See; http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/ theaustralian/comments/i_was_never_furious_faulkner/
I’m concerned the article “Furious Faulkner revokes ban bid” (7/1) has given an incorrect account of the situation. When the Defence Department memo, or DEFGRAM, came to my attention, I was concerned it did not accord with my understanding of Senate practice and I spoke with the secretary of the Defence Department and the Chief of the Defence Force about it. I wish to make it clear that at no stage was I “furious” about the memo, as claimed in the article. The department secretary and the CDF reviewed the DEFGRAM, determined that it did not appropriately reflect current Senate procedures and accordingly withdrew it. I subsequently received letters about the matter from the chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee, Senator Trood, and the opposition defence spokesman, Senator Johnston. At this stage, the DEFGRAM had already been withdrawn. I was and remain concerned to ensure the Defence Department fully understands current Senate inquiry requirements and all applicable Senate procedures, and cooperates fully in any Senate inquiry involving Defence. John Faulkner, Minister for Defence, Canberra, ACT
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Tags: Australia, Military
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Thursday, January 7th, 2010
Christian Kerr; 7/1/10
A furious Defence Minister has been forced to countermand potentially unconstitutional orders from bureaucrats banning staff from involvement in parliamentary committees without his clearance. John Faulkner said yesterday action would be taken to improve the Defence Department’s understanding of parliamentary procedures. Senator Faulkner won an unmatched reputation as a champion of open government and accountability with his work on Senate committees, including the inquiry into the children overboard affair.He was embarrassed last month when Defence assistant secretary Karen Creet issued an internal department memo, or DEFGRAM, briefing staff “of the correct procedures to be followed in their dealings with parliamentary committees”.
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Tags: Australia, Human Rights, Military
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Monday, August 17th, 2009
Editorial; 17/8/09; (3 Items)
The case involving the stolen credit card and gun of a very senior officer in the Israel Defense Forces is the latest affair to shine a problematic light on events there. This case was preceded by a number of controversies that on the face of it are unrelated, but they all show that the army urgently needs a comprehensive organizational shake-up. We have seen the hazing of soldiers in many IDF units, including the Armored Corps, the Nahal and Golani infantry brigades, and the air force; two serious training accidents within 36 hours in which two soldiers were killed; alleged improprieties by two senior officers, Brig. Gen. Imad Fares and Col. Yisrael Danieli; and now the theft from the senior officer. All these affairs took place in the months after Operation Cast Lead, some of whose operations have not been fully investigated. The IDF, which recently commissioned a wide-ranging survey ranking schools according to the number of graduates who enlist in combat units, needs to correct its failures before it ranks schools and seeks to be a magnet to attract youngsters to elite units. These latest affairs certainly do not help it attain this goal or boost the combat motivation of young people who hear about the hazing and the lies by members of the top brass.
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Tags: Human Rights, Isarel, Military, Terrorism
Posted in Human Rights, Israel & Palestine, Terrorism | No Comments »
Saturday, August 1st, 2009
Phillip Adams, 1/8/09;
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.” About the same time as America’s Julia Ward Howe was writing these lyrics for The Battle Hymn of the Republic – that magnificent anthem for the abolitionists – Arthur Sullivan was setting the banal words of Sabine Baring-Gould to music for the battle hymn of the British monarchy, Onward Christian Soldiers. It was nothing as lofty as freeing the slaves that inspired Sullivan. This most jingoistic of jingles was so unashamedly imperialist that it sounds like a parody of patriotism by his usual collaborator W.S. Gilbert, a song to follow “I am the very model of a modern Major-General”.Recruiting Jesus for military purposes was hardly new – think of the Crusades – but no other song had been so tub-thumping.
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Tags: Afghanistan, Christianity, Military, USA
Posted in Afghanistan, Christianity, Human Rights, Religion, Terrorism, USA, War | No Comments »
Friday, July 17th, 2009
Geoff Strong; 17/7/09
The destroyer HMAS Voyager was sliced in half by the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne one February evening in 1964, killing 82 crew. The survivors were told by their commanders to go ashore to the nearest pub, have a drink and forget about it. Like many others on the Melbourne, Leading Airman Peter Britton did not forget. But he did have a drink, the first of a consistent habit that stayed until he died of a stroke in 2003 aged just 61. This week, he became the last personal injury case from Australia’s worst peacetime naval tragedy to be settled when his widow, Kathleen, was notified she would get $120,000 from the Federal Government. It is something of a hollow victory because Kathleen, who now lives at Mandurah, south of Perth, believes the whole amount will be swallowed by legal fees and other costs of running the lengthy case.
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Tags: Australia, Human Rights, Military
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Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
30/6/09; (5 Items)
Israel has approved the construction of 50 new houses in a settlement in the occupied West Bank, army radio reported yesterday, despite weeks of pressure from its closest ally, Washington. The decision to build the houses in the Adam settlement north of Jerusalem comes despite repeated calls from the US for Israel to halt all settlement activity in order to relaunch peace talks with the Palestinians. The houses will be built for 200 settlers being moved from nearby Migron, one of the largest of the so-called outpost settlements, which are illegal under Israeli law, army radio reported. But the 50 houses would be part of a larger project to build about 1450 new housing units in the settlement, army radio said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his right-wing government will not build new settlements in the occupied territories but will not halt the so-called “natural growth” of existing settlements.
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Tags: Israel, Military, Red Cross, Settlers, Terrorism, USA
Posted in Human Rights, Israel & Palestine, Terrorism, USA | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
Anshel Pfeffer; 21/4/09
The Israel Defense Forces conducted an experiment on soldiers 15 years ago to test whether drinking a daily dose of magnesium would reduce damage to their hearing on the firing range, Israel Radio reported Sunday. In 1994, around 150 soldiers in basic training were required to drink juice mixed with magnesium powder. “They explained to us only once that the magnesium was to protect our hearing,” said one of the soldiers, Omri Hadar. Hadar said most of the soldiers did not object, but he recalls that they were threatened with punishments if they did not take part in the trials, such as confinement to base.
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Tags: health, Israel, Military
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Wednesday, January 21st, 2009
20/1/09
Seventy-five years after its formation, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has finally broken the gender barrier with a young woman reaching out to the skies as its first woman flying officer. Kavita Barala logs in another first this Jan. 26 when, in a moment for posterity, she salutes India’s first woman President Pratibha Patil. Barala, who is from Jaipur, is determined to add more firsts to her career. The determined young officer has her sights set on learning to navigate the front-line fighter jet Sukhoi-30 and becoming the first female co-pilot of a multi-role aircraft. Barala’s story is one of grit and determination. Though the choice of becoming a navigator in the IAF was open to women since they were inducted into the force a decade-and-a-half ago, no one had opted for the branch till now.
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Tags: India, Military, Womens Rights
Posted in Arms, Human Rights, India | No Comments »
Friday, December 5th, 2008
Michael McKenna; 5/12/08
All Australian Defence Force personnel will undergo annual mental health screening, one of a series of reforms recommended by a military inquiry into the suicide of young special forces officer Andrew Paljakka. Military chief Angus Houston said yesterday he would implement the recommendations of the inquiry into the death of Captain Paljakka, the yougest ever graduate of Duntroon, who hanged himself in a hotel in Sydney’s Kings Cross in February last year after a six-week deployment to Afghanistan in 2006. The report, released yesterday, found the 27-year-old munitions officer killed himself because of a combination of post-traumatic stress disorder and alcohol and drug abuse. A wider inquiry into mental health issues across the defence force will consider the report, which found some mishandling of Captain Paljakka’s treatment.
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Tags: Australia, health, Military
Posted in Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
Michael McKenna; 19/11/08
John Manuel had had enough. Just before Christmas last year, the former air force maintenance worker sneaked down to the back landing of his modest home in Brisbane’s north, methodically placed a bucket under each arm of his favourite chair and grabbed a stanley knife. As his wife, Beverly, slept, Manuel was grimly determined to get the job done; to make sure this suicide attempt, his third in as many years, would end the right way. The last time, the noose had slipped when he flung himself off the back veranda. But now Manuel’s exasperation over his treatment at the hands of an army of bureaucrats in the Department of Veterans Affairs had given him a steely resolve. After seven years of fighting, he wanted peace. The 60-year-old father of two had served his country for 12 years and been discharged with honour, only to discover decades later that it had cost him his health and, possibly, his life. After his discharge, he suffered claustrophobia, depression and, in 2000, contracted a rare facial cancer that led to surgery and radiotherapy.
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Tags: Australia, health, Military
Posted in Arms, Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights, Workers | No Comments »
Friday, October 24th, 2008
Pia Akerman; 24/10/08; (2 Items)
Sixteen years ago, Lance Corporal Nicholas Shiels accidentally shot his mate and comrade Private Adrian Cave, killing the 23-year-old during an exercise at South Australia’s Cultana training base. Cave’s death triggered a tragic chain of events that led to Shiels’s suicide four years later, and yesterday’s announcement by the Rudd Government that it would make an ex gratia payment to Shiels’s family. Soon after the training accident in May 1992, Shiels began displaying symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. He suffered insomnia and haunting flashbacks, but his parents say the army never provided individual counselling, only group sessions. Shiels took his own life in 1996. An investigation by Comcare, the commonwealth’s workplace safety regulator, found the army breached 24 occupational health and safety duties in relation to Cave’s death.
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Tags: Australia, Bullying, Military, Racism
Posted in Arms, Australia, Human Rights | No Comments »
Friday, August 22nd, 2008
22/8/08
The Government today launched a study to asses how many veterans commit suicide and why. Veterans Affairs Minister Alan Griffin said this study would examine a number of specific cases of suicide by ex-service members in recent years to help identify those members who may be at risk of self harm. “We know that war service can have both a physical and mental impact on the lives of service personnel. Physical impairment can be obvious, psychological injury is less so,” he said. “This Government is determined to support veterans and ex-service personnel who may suffer psychologically as a result of their service. However to do so we need a better understanding of the incidence and characteristics of suicide amongst this community.”
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Tags: Australia, Deaths, Military
Posted in Arms, Australia, Health & Children, Human Rights | No Comments »
