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“Pew pew pew.” Lasers: “This is the future of warfare. And it’s so, so cool.”
The Navy unveiled a solid-state laser cannon that can disable or destroy surveillance drones and small, rapidly moving gunships. In this video, it shoots down a drone. Watch.
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The fact is — however unfair, however much it pains us to admit it — in some areas, men and women are not equal. Is it worth checking a box marked “Equality” at the expense of the operational effectiveness of combat units? Is it worth putting young men at risk so that we, the enlightened Western liberals, might have a new accomplishment to discuss over gougères at cocktail parties? This week, the Obama administration says, yes, that’s perfectly okay. Accordingly, a platoon can and will be less combat effective in the name of equality.
— D.B. Grady says putting women in combat is a terrible mistake. (He also says he knows he’s earning his hate mail.) What are your thoughts? -
This just in: The United States military was reportedly testing a fearsome backup weapon if “Fat Man” and “Little Boy,” the respective code names for the two atomic bombs dropped over Japan in World War II, had failed to detonate.
Documents recently unearthed by filmmaker Ray Waru reveal that the U.S. military was working with the New Zealand government to develop a devastating tsunami bomb, which was meant to send a 33-foot tidal wave crashing into Japan’s coast.
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In 2007, 116 troops were dismissed for being out of shape. In the first 10 months of this year, that figure was a rather massive 1,625.
The Army’s obesity problem: By the numbers
PHOTO: Spencer Platt/Getty Image(Source: theweek.com)
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Fox News chief Roger Ailes reportedly asked David Patraeus to resign from the military and run for president.
“It’s no secret that Fox News is an outlet for conservative voices. But Ailes’ promise of support to a particular candidate bolsters the widely held belief that the channel is not an independent news organizationand suggests just how entrenched Fox is in conservative politics,” writes Ryu Spaeth.
(Source: theweek.com)
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Photo: AP Photo/Royal Pigeon Racing Association
It seems at least one World War II-era carrier pigeon died in vain. Earlier this month, David Martin, a resident of Surrey, England, found parts of a decades-old pigeon skeleton when he was cleaning out his chimney. This was no ordinary pigeon. The bird had a red canister attached to its leg with a secret code inside — 27 groups of five letters each, which has completely stumped Britain’s top code breakers at Government Communications Headquarters and at the prominent Pigeon Museum at Bletchley Park. Officials are hoping that the public release of the uncrackable message might uncover the necessary code books to decipher what the sender was trying to convey. But why is this missive proving so hard to crack?
The curious case of the uncrackable World War II code
(Source: theweek.com)
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The Israeli military has launched a major assault on Gaza. And they’re live-tweeting it.
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“I mean, every day there is something new.” And every new thing is stranger than the last. As we enter Day 6 of the Petraeus scandal, here are seven of the oddest twists and subplots — so far:
- The Broadwells romanced as we learned of Paula’s infidelity — “The most amazing detail about the Petraeus affair, which continues to serve up bizarre amazing details by the hour,” says Hannah Rosin at Slate, is that as the world was learning of Broadwell’s affair with Petraeus, she was having a romantic birthday dinner with husband Scott at Virginia’s Inn at Little Washington, a veritable “factory of ‘romantic.’” Assuming Mr. and Mrs. Broadwell didn’t have their smartphones on during dinner, “it’s possible, and maybe probable… that her husband found out along with the rest of the world.” What we do know, says Carol Ross Joynt at the Washingtonian, is that the couple were in “good” and “upbeat” moods on Thursday night and Friday, and suddenly “not in very good moods” late Friday. By the time they checked out, earlier than expected on Saturday morning, Scott was described as “not talkative.” The plan was to head to Washington for Paula’s 40th birthday party, which was abruptly canceled. “A source close to the intelligence community said General Petraeus was scheduled to attend that party.”
- The Broadwells live near John Edwards’ mistress — Lots of people have been to the Broadwells’ house, in the upscale Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte, N.C., since the scandal broke: Reporters, the FBI, gawkers. Everyone, it seems, but the Broadwells. But Paula Broadwell isn’t the only notorious “other woman” in Dilworth — just 1.6 miles away lives Rielle Hunter, the “all-too-public mistress” of former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), says Diane Dimond at The Daily Beast. Seriously, “what are the odds that the mistresses of two of America’s most disgraced civil servants live in the same state, in the same city, and even in the same neighborhood?”
- A rogue FBI agent and his shirtless photos — We probably wouldn’t know anything about Petraeus and Broadwell’s affair if it weren’t for a Tampa FBI agent “obsessed” with the case — and probably the woman who got the ball rolling, Tampa socialite Jill Kelley. The unidentified agent was friends with Kelley — he had once sent her shirtless pictures of himself — and at her request, set the FBI looking at harassing, anonymous emails from a sender who turned out to be Broadwell. The agent had no formal role in the case, but continued to “nose around” until his superiors “told him to stay the hell away from it,” an official tells The New York Times. When he thought the FBI was sitting on the affair to help President Obama politically, he tried to leak the story to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). “So basically this entire scandal, both at the outset and in the denouement, was driven by Freakshow FBI Agent X who both wanted to bed the victim of the alleged harassment” and take down Obama, says Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. “Please let us meet this awesome example of American law enforcement.”
- The Broadwells romanced as we learned of Paula’s infidelity — “The most amazing detail about the Petraeus affair, which continues to serve up bizarre amazing details by the hour,” says Hannah Rosin at Slate, is that as the world was learning of Broadwell’s affair with Petraeus, she was having a romantic birthday dinner with husband Scott at Virginia’s Inn at Little Washington, a veritable “factory of ‘romantic.’” Assuming Mr. and Mrs. Broadwell didn’t have their smartphones on during dinner, “it’s possible, and maybe probable… that her husband found out along with the rest of the world.” What we do know, says Carol Ross Joynt at the Washingtonian, is that the couple were in “good” and “upbeat” moods on Thursday night and Friday, and suddenly “not in very good moods” late Friday. By the time they checked out, earlier than expected on Saturday morning, Scott was described as “not talkative.” The plan was to head to Washington for Paula’s 40th birthday party, which was abruptly canceled. “A source close to the intelligence community said General Petraeus was scheduled to attend that party.”
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Top: South Korean special army soldiers show off their martial arts skills at the Gyeryong military headquarters south of Seoul. PHOTO: AP Photo/Lee Jin-man
Left: An Indian devotee carries the head of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, after immersing it in the Bay of Bengal during the 10-day Ganesh Chaturthi festival in the southern Indian city of Chennai. The dip in the sea symbolizes a ritual seeing-off of Ganesh’s journey home, taking with him the misfortunes of mankind. PHOTO: REUTERS/Babu
Right: Former President Bill Clinton kisses his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as he introduces her before her speech at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York on Sept. 24. PHOTO: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
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Cartoon of the day — So far so good
STEVE SACK © 2012 Creators Syndicate(Source: theweek.com)
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Le Trung Hong Phuc, a 9-year-old from Vietnam, was born with disabilities, presumably due to his parents’ exposure to Agent Orange. Photo: AP Photo/Maika Elan
Named for the orange-striped barrels in which it was shipped, Agent Orange is an herbicide that the U.S. military used during the Vietnam War to destroy enemy food crops and kill jungle vegetation that concealed North Vietnamese forces. Beginning in 1961, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces sprayed 20 million gallons of it and other herbicides over vast areas of South Vietnam and parts of Laos and Cambodia. The spraying denuded more than 8,600 square miles of jungle and cropland. The U.S. military stopped using Agent Orange in 1971 after the National Institutes of Health found that it contained a chemical contaminant that caused birth defects in lab animals. By then, hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers and millions of Vietnamese civilians had been in contact with the stuff, many of them so oblivious to its dangers that they bathed in water stored in the empty barrels.
How toxic is it?
Agent Orange contained the dioxin TCDD, one of the most toxic chemicals ever manufactured. Dioxin remains in the soil and in the body for decades, and studies have linked it to numerous cancers and birth defects, as well as neurological illnesses like Parkinson’s disease. “It has widespread effects in nearly every vertebrate species at nearly every stage of development,” said Dr. Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. During the war, Vietnamese doctors began delivering babies born with no limbs, no eyes, or even no brain. Even now, said Vietnamese obstetrician Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Phuong, the breast milk of mothers in areas sprayed with Agent Orange 40 years ago contains dangerously elevated levels of dioxin. “It is a cruel destroyer of all life in my country,” she said.How many Vietnamese are affected?
Between 2.1 million and 4.8 million Vietnamese were exposed to dioxin during the war, according to the American Public Health Association, but it’s unknown how many of their children have ailments resulting from that exposure. Dioxin has been associated with human birth defects, but no large-scale study has proved that it causes them; activists say that is only because no such study has been done. What is clear, though, is that the rate of birth defects in Vietnam has quadrupled since the war, and that most of them occur where Agent Orange was sprayed or stored. Vietnamese scientists blame dioxin contamination for a broad range of birth defects, from blood disorders to clubfeet.
What is the U.S. stance?
The U.S. government has never acknowledged a link between Agent Orange and illness in the Vietnamese population. -
Promotions are usually celebrated with congratulatory drinks at a local watering hole, or at the very least, an enthusiastic handshake. But that wasn’t the case for newly minted Army Sgt. Phillip Roach, whose superior officers at Fort Bragg marked his rise from specialist with what the Army now calls an ”unauthorized hazing” ritual. The April 4 incident was captured on video that was only recently released.
The disturbing footage shows a higher-ranking officer taking a few practice swings at Roach’s gut with a large wooden mallet, then delivering ”a brutal coup de grace” to his chest. Roach is sent reeling then crumpling to the floor, slicing his head open on a chair along the way. After the video ends, says Roach’s father, Ken, his son suffered a seizure that could keep him from ever returning to active duty, where he was to have piloted unmanned aerial vehicles. The hammer wielder has been fined $1,000 and reprimanded, but Ken Roach, an Army veteran himself, wants a stiffer punishment.
“It was assault with a weapon. He could have killed my son.”
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An al Qaeda-linked website has posted a call for the killing of Matthew Bissonnette, the retired Navy SEAL Team 6 member who wrote a book about his role in the mission that killed Osama bin Laden.
Bissonnette wrote under a pseudonym, but was identified last week by Fox News. And the possibility that terrorists might come after him is just one of his worries when No Easy Day, his firsthand account of the raid on bin Laden’s Pakistan hideout, hits shelves on Sept. 11.
