Judicial Watch Sues Defense Department for Records on POWs and MIAs in Vietnam

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Judicial Watch

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it sued the United States Defense Department to obtain government records from 1973 to the present regarding U.S. soldiers who were prisoners of war or missing in action in Vietnam and Laos (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Defense (No. 1:18-cv-02276)).

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the Pentagon failed to respond to two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

A May 21, 2018, request sought:

1. Any and all lists of American prisoners of war/missing in action (“POWs/MlAs”) provided to North Vietnam as part of the Paris Peace Accords process seeking the return of those
2. All materials used to brief President Nixon in 1973 about remaining American POWs/MIAs in North Vietnam and Laos.

A May 22, 2018 request sought:

1. All live sighting reports of American POWs in Vietnam and Laos from January 27, 1973 to the present.
2. All data and reports derived from data collected from the program known as PAVE SPIKE from January 27, 1973 to the present.
3. All satellite photographs of possible or suspected rescue symbols seen in the territories of Vietnam and/or Laos from January 27, 1973 to the present.
4. All electronic messages containing individual code numbers issued to US airmen transmitted from the ground in Vietnam and/or Laos from January 27, 1973 to the present.

“The Vietnam MIA-POW issue is a sore spot for many veterans and concerned Americans. Why is the Pentagon stonewalling our attempts to obtain information that is clearly in the public interest?” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Administration Floats Idea of Moving Most Dangerous Gitmo Detainees to U.S. Prisons

The Blaze

A senior Defense Department official said Thursday that the United States may have to consider moving some of Guantanamo Bay’s most dangerous terrorist detainees to the United States, an idea that Congress has so far opposed.

Defense Undersecretary Brian McKeon told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that the Obama administration remains committed to closing down the detainee facilities at Guantanamo Bay, and said it continues to assess which detainees can safely be transferred and held in other countries.

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But he said he doubts all detainees will be able to be transferred, which means they may need to be housed in the United States in order to close the facility in Cuba.

US sending 1,000 more troops to fight Ebola

The Hill

The Pentagon is sending as many as 1,000 more troops to Africa to help fight the Ebola virus.

The troops are being sent on top of the 3,000 President Obama has already ordered to help efforts in West Africa.

“We project that there could be nearly 4,000 troops deployed in support of this mission,” Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said Friday.

“I’m not going to put a floor or ceiling on this,” he added.More than 230 U.S. troops are currently in Africa helping to contain the disease.

The troops are deploying to West Africa to help build hospitals and other treatment centers, as well as testing labs. They will not have direct contact with Ebola patients.

Nonetheless, Kirby said all returning troops would be screened, and those suspected of exposure to the virus would be monitored for 21 days.

The additional deployments come as fears grow that the disease could spread after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the first Ebola case in the U.S. on Tuesday.

Officials warned that the outbreak could widen. As many as 100 people in Texas were questioned, and 50 of those are being monitored for signs of the disease after coming into contact with the patient. Ten are considered at high risk for contracting the virus.

The new Washington war machine

The Daily Iowan

BY MATTHEW BYRD

Sometimes the news is just so drearily awful that you have to sit back and almost appreciate the pure comedy induced by it.

Take this item from Washington, Iowa, where the local police have recently acquired an MRAP vehicle (short for Mine Resistance Ambush Protected) through a Defense Department program that donates excess vehicles originally produced for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to local police departments across the United States, including other Iowa towns such as Mason City and Storm Lake.

Obama Freezes Benefits for Families of Fallen Military

Family Security Matters

It’s another ugly symptom of the partial government shutdown — and  this  time it impacts the families of soldiers who are dying for their   country. 

The Pentagon confirmed Tuesday that, as long as the budget impasse  lasts, it  will not be able to pay death benefits to the families of  troops who’ve been  killed in combat. 

“Unfortunately, as a result of the shutdown, we do not have the legal   authority to make death gratuity payments at this time,” said Lt. Cmdr.  Nate  Christensen, a Defense Department spokesman. “However, we are  keeping a close  eye on those survivors who have lost loved ones serving  in the Department of  Defense.” 

House lawmakers, though, are planning to vote Wednesday on a bill to  restore  funding for the payments. And Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday  accused the Obama  administration of needlessly withholding the money. 

Boehner claimed a bill passed by Congress and signed by the president  last  week to pay America’s troops should have given the Pentagon the  latitude “to  pay all kinds of bills, including this.” 

“I think it’s disgraceful that they’re withholding these benefits,”  Boehner  said, urging Obama to sign the bill that the House will take up  on  Wednesday. 

The bill would still have to pass the Senate before arriving on  Obama’s  desk. If that bill fails to pass, the Pentagon says, families  will be  reimbursed once Congress passes an appropriations bill. 

The Pentagon says it has specific instructions from its budget office  not to  make payments for deaths that occurred after 11:59 p.m. on Sept.  30,  2013. 

Over the weekend, four soldiers — two of them Army Rangers — and  one  Marine were killed while conducting combat operations in  Afghanistan. The  bodies of the four soldiers will be returned to Dover  Air Force Base on  Wednesday. 

Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/president-obama-freezes-benefits-for-families-of-fallen-military?f=must_reads#ixzz2hDaWnBb3 Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Documents Show FBI Unit Tracked Al-Qaeda Cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki All The Way To The Pentagon Where He Was Giving A Speech…

Weasel Zippers

Surreal to say the least.

Via Fox News:

The FBI’s elite surveillance unit tracked the radical American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki to the Pentagon entrance for his controversial luncheon speech to senior Defense Department officials on February 5, 2002, according to newly declassified documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

The more than 250 pages of FBI surveillance logs, marked “secret” and obtained by Judicial Watch and reviewed by Fox News, show the FBI’s Special Surveillance Group or SSG, which is reserved for tracking suspected terrorists and espionage cases, trailed the cleric for six hours before watching him enter the Pentagon from the subway with two unidentified woman who escorted him into the building.

Al-Awlaki, who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011, addressed the luncheon on “Islam and Middle Eastern Politics and Culture.”

According to the FBI log, at 11:30 am “Aulaqi boarded the Metro train, blue line, north for the Pentagon.”   At 11:32, “Aulaqi exited the Metro train, walked through the turnstyle (sic) and greeted two unidentified white females.”   At 11:40 am, “Aulaqi and the two unidentified females walked through the train station, onto the escalator, walked southwest and west adjacent to the Pentagon, up to the steps and walked northeast toward the entrance to the Pentagon.”  And at 12:00pm “Surveillance discontinued at the Pentagon.”

As part of a section also dated February 5 and titled “Analysis/Administrative Data,”  the FBI surveillance logs state that the agent in charge of the Awlaki case was apparently aware of the cleric’s planned luncheon, though it is unknown whether this information was picked up through the monitoring of the cleric’s phone and email, or whether the case agent had learned the information directly from the cleric.

Keep reading…

Unreal: White House Classifies Fort Hood Terror Attack As “Workplace Violence”…

Weasel Zippers

How absurd is it? So absurd even über-RINO Susan Collins is slamming the Obama admin for failing to identify the threat as radical Islam.

(Fox News) — Sen. Susan Collins on Wednesday blasted the Defense Department for classifying the Fort Hood massacre as workplace violence and suggested political correctness is being placed above the security of the nation’s Armed Forces at home.

During a joint session of the Senate and House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday, the Maine Republican referenced a letter from the Defense Department depicting the Fort Hood shootings as workplace violence. She criticized the Obama administration for failing to identify the threat as radical Islam.

Thirteen people were killed and dozens more wounded at Fort Hood in 2009, and the number of alleged plots targeting the military has grown significantly since then. Lawmakers said there have been 33 plots against the U.S. military since Sept. 11, 2001, and 70 percent of those threats have been since mid-2009.  Major Nidal Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, who is being held for the attacks, allegedly was inspired by radical U.S.-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in late September. The two men exchanged as many as 20 emails, according to U.S. officials, and Awlaki declared Hasan a hero.

Keep reading…

Former Army Prosecutor: Some Prisoners ‘Asked to Stay in Gitmo’ Rather than Go Home

(CNSNews.com) – Former Army Gitmo prosecutor Kyndra Rotunda told CNSNews.com that some prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have asked to stay there in U.S. custody rather than be released to return to their home countries.

“Interestingly, some detainees were offered release, and asked to stay in Gitmo. They prefer captivity in Gitmo to freedom in their own countries!”