 The last time the U.S. military posted troops on the border near this tiny cluster of farms and ranches, an 18-year-old goat herder was shot to death. Hardly a day passes that Esequiel Hernandez Jr.'s family and neighbors don't think of May 20, 1997, the day a Marine corporal shot and killed him. With President Bush considering plans to deploy National Guard troops along the Mexican border, Hernandez's family is worried that other border residents or even his nephews, who tend goats along the same rugged West Texas desert where he was killed, could be the next victims. "There was no motive for them to (shoot) Esequiel and I worry that the same thing could happen, or worse," his grandfather, 79-year-old Valerio Pando, said in Spanish. It is widely speculated that President Bush will unveil a plan to send troops to the border during a Monday night speech about immigration reform. Details of the plan are unclear but ...
http://abcnews.go.com
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Editor - 23:02:00 05-13-06
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 Report: Suicidal troops sent into combat U.S. military violated own rules on mentally ill troops, newspaper finds |
U.S. military troops with severe psychological problems have been sent to Iraq or kept in combat, even when superiors have been aware of signs of mental illness, a newspaper reported for Sunday editions.The Hartford Courant, citing records obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act and more than 100 interviews of families and military personnel, reported numerous cases in which the military failed to follow its own regulations in screening, treating and evacuating mentally unfit troops from Iraq.In 1997, Congress ordered the military to assess the mental health of all deploying troops. The newspaper, citing Pentagon statistics, said fewer than 1 in 300 service members were referred to a mental health professional before shipping out for Iraq as of October 2005....
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12777489/from/RSS/
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Editor - 22:59:00 05-13-06
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| Iraq's 'ragtag' army units start fighting among themselves |
A gun battle between two units of the Iraqi army has left one soldier and a civilian dead, underlining how ethnic and sectarian divisions are crippling the US-trained force. The shooting, which took place between Kurdish and Shia soldiers on Friday near Duluiyah, 45 miles north of Baghdad, is a bad omen for US plans to hand over security to the Iraqi army by the end of the year.The fighting started after a powerful roadside bomb exploded as an Iraqi army convoy carrying Kurdish troops was passing Duluiyah, a small agricultural town that has long been a centre of armed resistance to the occupation. Four soldiers were killed and three wounded in the explosion, according to police, while the US military said one soldier died and 12 were wounded.Immediately after the attack the Kurdish soldiers rushed their wounded to the local hospital, firing their weapons to clear the streets and killing one civilian. At this point, going by the police account, another unit of the Iraqi army,...
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article447806.ece
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Editor - 22:56:00 05-13-06
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| Russia and US trade angry words over Iran at UN dinner |
The American secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and her Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, traded barbs during bad-tempered talks at a foreign ministers' summit in New York on Iran's nuclear programme.The exchanges provided a candid introduction to diplomacy for Margaret Beckett, the new Foreign Secretary, who attended the tetchy session at the end of her first full day in the job. The row, which further undermines hopes of a diplomatic solution to the Iran crisis, reflects deepening rifts between the United States and Russia. Tension surfaced at a private meeting hosted by Ms Rice in the Waldorf Hotel for the Russian, British, French, German and Chinese foreign ministers, and spilt over into a much-delayed dinner....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/14/wrice14.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/14/ixnews.html
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Editor - 22:52:00 05-13-06
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| Chavez offers oil to Europe's poor |
Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez arrives in London today with an extraordinary promise to offer cut-rate heating oil for needy families in Europe, modelled on a similar campaign in the US which has been seen partly as a bid to embarrass President George Bush.Last night Chavez also issued a taunting obituary for the 'American empire' on the eve of a visit where he will be shunned by Downing Street but welcomed by London Mayor Ken Livingststone.Chavez said in Vienna yesterday that the 'final hours of the North American empire have arrived ... Now we have to say to the empire: "We're not afraid of you. You're a paper tiger."'Referring to his supply of heating to poor American families last winter, Chavez told a meeting of political supporters: 'I'd like to do the same here in Europe.'...
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1774649,00.html?gusrc=rss
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Editor - 22:41:00 05-13-06
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| U.S. Military Is Split on Insurgency Strategy |
In the region around Qaim, a northwestern Iraqi town near the Syrian border, Marines are fanning out from their main base and moving into villages as part of a new strategy to root out insurgents who enter the country here. The troops have set up 19 small base camps throughout the area and begun routinely patrolling insurgent hot spots north of the Euphrates River. The deployment follows a strategy favored by a new generation of counterinsurgency experts: disperse, mingle with the population and stay put. But the shift comes as the Pentagon appears to be moving the overall U.S. military effort in the opposite direction across much of the country. Army units are being concentrated in "super bases" that line the spine of central Iraq, away from the urban centers where counterinsurgency operations take place. ...
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/nws/latimes33.htm
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Editor - 22:38:00 05-13-06
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