According to this article from the AP it seems the non-profit "charity," Army Emergency Relief has been stingy with money that is supposed to be used to help our men and women in uniform get through tough times. Not only are they unwilling to part with an acceptable percentage of their "charity" dollars during a time of unprecedented financial crisis, but they use mob-like tactics to intimidate soldiers struggling to repay the money and to solicit donations. Soldiers can be refused transfers and promotions if the "charity" money isn't repaid in a timely manner.

FORT BLISS, Texas – As soldiers stream home from Iraq and Afghanistan, the biggest charity inside the U.S. military has been stockpiling tens of millions of dollars meant to help put returning fighters back on their feet, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Between 2003 and 2007 — as many military families dealt with long war deployments and increased numbers of home foreclosures — Army Emergency Relief grew into a $345 million behemoth. During those years, the charity packed away $117 million into its own reserves while spending just $64 million on direct aid, according to an AP analysis of its tax records.

Superior officers come calling when AER loans aren't repaid on time. Soldiers can be fined or demoted for missing loan payments. They must clear their loans before transferring or leaving the service.

Despite strict rules against coercion, the Army uses pushy tactics to extract supposedly voluntary contributions, with superiors using language like: "How much can we count on from you?"

Compare the Navy and Air Force equivalent to the AER and the differences are astounding:

During that same five-year period, the smaller Navy and Air Force charities both put far more of their own resources into aid than reserves. The Air Force charity kept $24 million in reserves while dispensing $56 million in total aid, which includes grants, scholarships and loans not repaid. The Navy charity put $32 million into reserves and gave out $49 million in total aid.

The article goes on to say that the AER has helped a lot of people over the years and I won't question that, but the culture in the AER has become something barely resembling a charity, in my eyes. I imagine it comes as no surprise that this was allowed to happen during the Bush years.

The Star (h/t NonnyMouse):

An odd-looking Canadian coin with a bright red flower was the culprit behind the U.S. Defence Department's false espionage warning earlier this year, the Associated Press has learned.

The odd-looking - but harmless - "poppy coin" was so unfamiliar to suspicious U.S. Army contractors travelling in Canada that they filed confidential espionage accounts about them. The worried contractors described the coins as "anomalous" and "filled with something man-made that looked like nano-technology," according to once-classified U.S. government reports and e-mails obtained by the AP.
The supposed nano-technology actually was a conventional protective coating the Royal Canadian Mint applied to prevent the poppy's red color from rubbing off. The mint produced nearly 30 million such quarters in 2004 commemorating Canada's 117,000 war dead.

It's really a shame that the media is more interested in displaying the irrational fear over a decoration on a Canadian coin then the actual declining value of our own currency.

The Rude Pundit: In church with Robert Kennedy, Jr., Greg Palast, and Randi Rhodes

Danger Room: The U.S. Army has ordered its personnel to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer. Meanwhile, this veteran was imprisoned for seeking his benefits

The Largest Minority: Monday, the LAPD attacked the immigrant rights movement as a whole by going on a rampage against working class protesters in Los Angeles

A Tiny Revolution: TNR's Chiat proves himself to be a full-grown hack by playing the false equivalency card

American Prospect: The rest of the world's major economies no longer depend on America's. Neither do America's own largest corporations. But the guys who brought us Enron, brownouts and wholesale-price-gouging in California, not to mention higher electric bills are at it again.

If a cartoonist knew, why didn't the White House?

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Three Bulls!, NEWS COVERAGE ON RADIO & TV, World Bank President, 4/29truth.com

The Unknown Candidate: Iran War Alert: Rhetoric vs Reality (h/t CorrenteWire)

IraqSlogger: U.S. Army investigating new torture allegations

True Blue Liberal; Your local police force has been militarized

The Rude Pundit: A poem for Dick Cheney in honor of his birthday

Only In America: Trouble for G-Dub's lapdog?

Intrepid Liberal Journal: Podcast interview with Rep. Gerald Nadler, author of House Resolution 455, the Protect the Troops and Bring Them Home Act.

Yahoo:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - At least 20 American service personnel were killed in military operations Saturday in one of the deadliest days for U.S. forces since the
Iraq war began, and authorities also announced two U.S. combat deaths from the previous day. The day's worst loss came from the crash of a U.S. Army helicopter northeast of Baghdad that killed 13 service members. An attack Saturday night blamed on militiamen in the city of Karbala killed five soldiers. Roadside bombs killed another soldier in the capital and one in Nineveh province north of Baghdad.

As we continue to explore the basis underlying our original essay, 'Ten Characteristics of A True US Patriot', it is imperative that we understand not only the principles supporting each individual Characteristic, but also how the Characteristics relate to each other. The first Characteristic touches
upon the nature of rights and freedoms, while the second delves into the equality of all. The third Characteristic explores the structure and reasoning behind the representative form of government and the importance of checks and balances to prevent the abuse of power. All of these lead up to the formation of the fourth Characteristic, which focuses on accountability. Specifically, it reads:

A True US Patriot exercises the right to openly challenge and hold accountable at all times, even and most particularly in times of war, those who do not honor their oaths of office, who purposely mislead the nation, who abdicate responsibility when those in their employ are caught engaging in criminal and unethical activities, and who fail to serve the nation with integrity.

Although not directly stated, this Characteristic strongly implies a key responsibility of A True US Patriot: participation. Without the participation and vigilance of the citizenry, liberty cannot long survive. It is the nature of liberty and freedom to require the constant attention of those who claim to partake of them, or they can slip away under the gradual erosion of rights and imposition of unsound laws.  US Patriots United

As we continue to explore the basis underlying our original essay, 'Ten Characteristics of A True US Patriot', it is imperative that we understand not only the principles supporting each individual Characteristic, but also how the Characteristics relate to each other. The first Characteristic touches
upon the nature of rights and freedoms, while the second delves into the equality of all. The third Characteristic explores the structure and reasoning behind the representative form of government and the importance of checks and balances to prevent the abuse of power. All of these lead up to the formation of the fourth Characteristic, which focuses on accountability. Specifically, it reads:

A True US Patriot exercises the right to openly challenge and hold accountable at all times, even and most particularly in times of war, those who do not honor their oaths of office, who purposely mislead the nation, who abdicate responsibility when those in their employ are caught engaging in criminal and unethical activities, and who fail to serve the nation with integrity.

Although not directly stated, this Characteristic strongly implies a key responsibility of A True US Patriot: participation. Without the participation and vigilance of the citizenry, liberty cannot long survive. It is the nature of liberty and freedom to require the constant attention of those who claim to partake of them, or they can slip away under the gradual erosion of rights and imposition of unsound laws. Read on...

Bunny Greenhouse     San Francisco Knitter

FINALLY!
A brave woman is blowing the whistle on Halliburton.

“Bunnatine “Bunny” Greenhouse is the Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting (”PARC” in the alphabet soup of military acronyms) in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Lest the title fool, she is responsible for awarding billions upon billions in taxpayers’ money to private companies hired to resurrect war-torn Iraq and to feed, clothe, shelter and do the laundry of American troops stationed there.

She has rained a mighty storm upon herself for standing up, before members of Congress and live on C-SPAN to proclaim things are just not right in this staggeringly profitable business.
She has asked many questions: Why is Halliburton - a giant Texas firm that holds more than 50 percent of all rebuilding efforts in Iraq - getting billions in contracts without competitive bidding? Do the durations of those contracts make sense? Have there been violations of federal laws regulating how the government can spend its money Read on...

Raw Story: "The top U.S. Army contracting official who first raised criticism over Halliburton's no-bid contract in Iraq was demoted Sunday for what the army called poor job performance -- the first time her performance was rated low in 20 years...read on"

In fiscal year 2006, the New Orleans district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is bracing for a record $71.2 million reduction in federal funding.It would be the largest single-year funding loss ever for the New Orleans district, Corps officials said.

I've been here over 30 years and I've never seen this level of reduction, said Al Naomi, project manager for the New Orleans district. I think part of the problem is it's not so much the reduction, it's the drastic reduction in one fiscal year. It's the immediacy of the reduction that I think is the hardest thing to adapt to....read on

The BBC: Hot...and Bothered

Today's curious convergence of events: in the same week that BBC employees in London staged a one-day strikeover job cutbacks, BlogPulse also discovered that the BBC has been the most-cited news source among bloggers from January-May 2005 -- topping 2004's top media sources, Yahoo! News and the New York Times.

In the first five months of 2005, the BBC was cited 73,422 times by bloggers, followed by Yahoo! (70,299 citations, dropping from No. 1 to No. 2), CNN (63,347, moving from No. 4 to No. 2) and the Times (52,985, dropping from No. 2 to No. 4).

One of the biggest news winners in 2005 is the alternative TruthOut.org, which jumped from 89th among 2004's top-cited news sources to No. 7 on the January-May 2005 list (with 17,490 citations).

Other blog discoveries
Mary Tillman, the mother of the late NFL star and U.S. soldier Pat Tillman, is today's burstiest person for her public criticism of the U.S. Army's handling of her son's death in Afghanistan. Originally hailed as dying a hero's death in Army reports, Tillman later was found to have been killed by friendly fire during a botched mission. How many other military families will never know the details of their loved one's deaths, asksScoop Agonist blogger? The Liquid List blog wonders how Tillman would have reacted to the Army's behavior. Powerpundit hopes the family's anger won't be used politically against the Bush Administration.

News that Apple's iTunes update might support podcasts is getting traction in the blogosphere, including a mention at Engadget.

And today's continuing Star Wars-related discoveries include Unfortunate Star Wars Costumes, Burger King's Sith Sense pass-along video, The Force Is a Tool of Satan web site, and this annoying clip of Darth Vader yelling "NOOOOOO."

Bush Declares Self “Propaganda Catapult”... Women & Children Flee   Scoop Agonist blogger? The Liquid List blog wonders how Tillman would have reacted to the Army's behavior. Powerpundit hopes the family's anger won't be used politically against the Bush Administration.

News that Apple's iTunes update might support podcasts is getting traction in the blogosphere, including a mention at Engadget.

And today's continuing Star Wars-related discoveries include Unfortunate Star Wars Costumes, Burger King's Sith Sense pass-along video, The Force Is a Tool of Satan web site, and this annoying clip of Darth Vader yelling "NOOOOOO."

via Light of Reason

Michael Scheuer: At the U.S. Army War College’s 16th Annual Strategy Conference last week, a senior Department of Defense strategist defined U.S. “Grand Strategy” as the export of freedom and democracy. He added that the U.S. military would play a huge role in implementing the strategy. In short, and to paraphrase, the official said: “Get ready, soldiers, you’re going democracy-crusading.”

Exporting freedom and democracy is not a Grand Strategy. It may be an ambition, an obsession, or – most likely – a hallucination. The idea that such exports are a “Grand Strategy” spotlights the ignorance about America of the men and women who today lead the country. Ditto for many of the 535 individuals in the Senate and House. America is not a nation meant to order others how to live and then push them at bayonet point into that lifestyle. The cost of such a policy, John Quincy Adams wrote, would be the loss of America’s soul.

The force behind this Grand Strategy is President Bush’s inane, ahistorical claim that “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.” This is pure Wilsonian claptrap with the lethality-multiplying extra of being hands-on, rather than rhetorical Wilsonianism – the difference being that foreigners died from the latter, while Americans will die from the former. Mr. Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld, Ms. Rice, Mr. Cambone, Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Bolton, and their acolyte front organizations at the Weekly Standard, American Enterprise Institute, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, etc., are not bad or evil people. They’re just confused and ignorant about the meaning of America.

I don’t agree with Mr. Scheuer’s evaluation of the people and organizations he identifies; mine is significantly more negative. When evidence piles up by the minute to contradict and undercut your beliefs in all respects, a considerable amount of willful delusion and self-deception is required to avoid questioning one’s program for world change. Moreover, even a smattering of historical and political-philosophical knowledge would similarly reveal the profound dangers in this “Crusade for Democracy” delusion.