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Good Morning!
Longwood Gardens, Photo credit: joanneleon
Beware the ides of March.
-- Shakespeare
News
Story is changing.
Pentagon officials: 'No smoking gun' in Afghan rampage
The officials said that the suspect — a 38-year-old father who survived three tours in Iraq before deploying to Afghanistan in December — had no evidence of a serious traumatic brain injury or of post-traumatic stress, despite widespread speculation that those conditions were factors in the killing spree.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing, called the suspect's 10-year Army career "unremarkable" and said he hadn't had reports of discipline problems while in Afghanistan.
US soldier in Afghan killing spree flown out
Staff sergeant flown to Kuwait "based on a legal recommendation" as US defence secretary visits Afghanistan.
Afghan officials are yet to comment on the late-night announcement on Wednesday which came after US defence secretary Leon Panetta arrived in the country to meet with his commanders and local officials.
The US military had held the army staff sergeant connected to Sunday's killings in Kandahar before he was flown out "based on a legal recommendation," said Navy Captain John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman.
"We do not have appropriate detention facilities in Afghanistan," Kirby said, explaining that he was referring to a facility for a US service member "in this kind of case".
Afghan interpreter breached security at Camp Bastion as he drove a stolen truck with containers full of gas toward a group of Marines waiting for Panetta to land. Panetta was arriving at at British airfield.
Afghanistan : the creeping enemy within
Shortly before U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s plane was to land on an unannounced trip in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, an Afghan man in a stolen pickup truck drove onto the tarmac at high speed. The truck crashed into a ditch after it sped across the runway ramp and the driver, whose motives were unclear, emerged from the vehicle in flames. No explosives were found on the man who later died or in the truck and the Pentagon said at no point was the defense chief’s plane in danger. But it was an extraordinary breach of security at the British airfield in the southern province of Helmand which sits next to a vast U.S. Marine base.
Later that day U.S. Marines, gathered to hear Panetta speak, were ordered to leave their weapons outside the tent just like the Afghans who had been told before not to bring their weapons to the tent. The New York Times quotes the top U.S. military officer in Helmand as saying he wanted a consistent policy for both the Marines and their Afghan partners. Again it tells you about the nervousness that has crept into U.S. operations in Afghanistan, after a spate of green-on-blue attacks or attacks on coalition forces and advisers by their Afghan allies that strike at the heart of the mission to prepare the Afghan national forces to take over the fight against the Taliban.
What me worry?
Obama, Cameron vow to stay the course in Afghanistan
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday that they didn't see a need to accelerate the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, regardless of violent outbreaks abroad or war weariness at home.
"I don't anticipate at this stage that we're going to be making any sudden additional changes to the plan that we currently have," Obama said in a White House news conference with Cameron at his side.
"We will not give up on this mission," added Cameron, who was making an official visit to the White House, capped by a state dinner Wednesday evening.
Karzai: NATO should scale back, hasten handover
(AP) KABUL, Afghanistan - The Afghan president said Thursday that international troops should pull back from rural areas and villages to main bases and that Afghan troops should take the lead for countrywide security in 2013, a year ahead of the current target date.
Karzai's statement, issued after he met with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in the capital, comes in the wake of an alleged shooting spree by a rogue U.S. soldier who is accused of murdering 16 Afghan villagers Sunday before dawn.
"Afghan security forces have the ability to keep the security in rural areas and in villages on their own," Karzai said in the statement. He made the same comments to Panetta in their meeting, it said.
If they give this money to the governors, will they just toss it into the general fund like they did with the foreclosure fraud money?
Senate approves plan to send BP fines to Gulf restoration
WASHINGTON — The Senate approved a highway bill Wednesday that includes a long-sought provision for the Gulf Coast: A guarantee that 80 percent of the fines collected from the April 2010 BP oil spill — an amount that could reach $20 billion — would be distributed for coastal restoration to the five states along the Gulf of Mexico: Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Texas and Alabama.
While the bill faces an uncertain outlook in the House of Representatives, Gulf state lawmakers are anxious for Congress to adopt the amendment on the so-called RESTORE Act before a settlement is reached with the Department of Justice and BP.
Stop picking on us!
Analysis: Goldman top brass takes another knock
"I think the board is of the view that the firm is just being targeted unfairly for political reasons and this is just something that is going to have to blow over," said Cohan. "For some reason they're on this Gary kick, probably because Lloyd has done such a great job of eliminating other people."
[ ... ]
Recently, a prominent Delaware judge lambasted Goldman for advising El Paso Corp (EP.N) on its sale to Kinder Morgan Inc (KMP.N) when the investment bank's private equity arm had a 19.1 percent stake in Kinder Morgan and two employees on its board.
"The record suggests that there were questionable aspects to Goldman's valuation of the spinoff and its continued revision downward that could be seen as suspicious in light of Goldman's huge financial interest in Kinder Morgan," Judge Leo Strine wrote in a February 29 decision that allowed the deal to move forward.
Rudy a noun, a verb, and 9/11 Guiliani took money from a terrorist organization?
Worldview: Why single out Rendell on MEK?
Yes, the Treasury Department is investigating the speaking fees received by the former Pennsylvania governor on behalf of an Iranian exile group that's on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations. Rendell told the New York Times he had received about $150,000 for seven or eight speeches that called for taking the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, off the list (even though he clearly knew little about the organization).
[ ... ]
As for Republicans, boosters include former CIA Directors James Woolsey (a big backer of the Iraq war) and Porter J. Goss; former FBI Director Louis Freeh; former Attorney General Michael Mukasey; former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; and President George W. Bush's first homeland security chief, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. Never mind that Bush renewed the MEK's terrorist designation four times.
Add to the list a number of retired generals, along with John Bolton, foreign-policy adviser to Newt Gingrich, and Mitchell Reiss, who advises Mitt Romney.