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unknown wrote an interesting post today on
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If I’m not mistaken, George Bush SR got shot down also? But he didn’t get taken prisoner (he was in the middle of the Pacific ocean) and was more likely to have been eaten (by sharks), than beaten, due to this occuring in the Pacific Ocean. FYI

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dummidumbwit wrote an interesting post today on
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A mock terrorist attack will be staged at a Brisbane high school today to test Queensland police’s emergency response capabilities.
Fifty police officers and staff from Marist College at Ashgrove will be put to the test during a joint major incident exercise over the next two days.
“Police have been briefed in the first phase of a scenario and that scenario will unfold throughout the day,” Assistant Police Commissioner Peter Martin said.
Today’s scenario involves an incident involving suspicious package, while other situations will involve threats of violence.
Exact details of the incidents have been kept under wraps in a bid to test response times and co-ordination of police and school staff.
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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Nuclear stockpiles around the world must be reduced to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists, a coalition of senior British politicians has warned.
The four former British defence and foreign secretaries warn that the more nuclear material in circulation, the more countries who have not had such weapons to date are likely to want to acquire their own.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, Lord Owen, Lord Hurd of Westwell and Lord Robertson of Port Ellen do not call on Britain to take immediate action, but say that it should consider what adjustments to make to its stock of 200 warheads in the event of a “major multilateral disarmament”.
Their appeal follows similar comments by senior American statesmen, including former National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn, a former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who wrote that the world has reached a “nuclear tipping point” and must step […]

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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democrat-turned-Independent who is a strong supporter of Republican John McCain’s White House bid, suggested Sunday the United States will likely face a terrorist attack in 2009.
The controversial comments followed remarks by top John McCain adviser Charlie Black late last week that a terrorist attack leading up the the general election would probably help the Arizona senator’s White House hopes.
Watch: McCain adviser apologizes for comments
“Our enemies will test the new president early,” Lieberman told CBS Sunday. “Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration.”
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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Four Iraqi judges were the targets of separate bombing attacks Monday in Baghdad, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.
A judge and his wife and daughter sustained injuries in one of the attacks, the official said.
The other three jurists escaped unharmed, although a bodyguard of one of the judges was wounded.
An Iraqi security source said he believes Shiite militants perpetrated the attacks in an attempt to pressure the judges to overturn recent death penalties imposed against leaders of the Mehdi Army, the militia loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Judge Ghanim Abdullah al-Shummari was targeted at his home Monday morning in the northeastern area of al-Banook , the security official said. The judge is on the civic court in Baghdad’s Sadr City neighborhood, a stronghold of the Mehdi Army.
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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Coalition airpower integrated with coalition ground forces in Iraq and International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan during operations June 29, according to Combined Air and Space Operations Center officials here.
In Afghanistan, Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles dropped guided bomb unit-12s onto anti-Afghan forces in Lowkhi. An on-scene joint terminal attack controller declared the mission a success.
An F-15E performed a show of force in order to deter enemy activities by anti-Afghan forces in the vicinity of Bari Kowt. The mission was reported as successful by a JTAC.
In the vicinity of Worzhanah Kalay, Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs fired cannon rounds, rockets and dropped general purpose 500-pound bombs onto anti-Afghan forces’ positions. Furthermore, F-15Es fired cannon rounds and dropped GBU-31s and GBU-38s onto enemy combatant rocket teams and additional anti-Afghan forces’ positions. A JTAC confirmed the missions as successful.
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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WASHINGTON: Three of the top United States clandestine agencies, along with US Special Forces and Pakistani intelligence outfits, are targeting the Taliban leadership in Waziristan, according to a report published here.
The exclusive report in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersch says that the programme is being executed by professionals from the National Security Agency, the CIA and the Defence Intelligence Agency, who are “right in there with the Special Forces and Pakistani intelligence, and they’re dealing with serious bad guys”. A source told the American investigative reporter: “We have to be really careful in calling in the missiles. We have to hit certain houses at certain times. The people on the ground are watching through binoculars a few hundred yards away and calling specific locations, in latitude and longitude. We keep the Predator loitering until the targets go into a house, and we have to make sure our guys are […]

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unknown wrote an interesting post today on
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KABUL (AFP) — Nearly 700 Afghan civilians have lost their lives in crossfire between insurgents and foreign troops this year, the United Nations said.
About 255 people were killed during operations by Afghan, NATO- and US-led forces against militants while 422 others lost their lives in attacks by rebels targeting government and military forces, UN’s Relief Coordinator Sir John Holmes told reporters.
It was not known how another 21 people died, he added.
The figures show a sharp rise in the civilian deaths compared with 430 in the same period last year, Holmes said.
“While the proportion of deaths attributed to pro-government (forces) has gone down, the absolute figure has increased, due to the rise in the overall total,” the visiting UN official said.
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A loud blast alarmed residents and security officials in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and nearby city of Rawalpindi on Monday but police later said it appeared it had been a sonic boom.
Residents of both cities heard a big blast just before 11 a.m. (0500 GMT).
“We have checked everywhere in Rawalpindi, all the main areas and hospitals, but there is nothing,” a senior city police official said about 45 minutes after the blast was heard.
“It could have been a sonic boom but we are still investigating.”
A Pakistani air force spokesmen said none of their aircraft had been over the city at the time of the blast.
A military official said there had been no bomb at any of the main military installations in Rawalpindi, the headquarters of the Pakistani army and the home of President Pervez Musharraf.
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pbtt wrote an interesting post today on
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KABUL, Afghanistan — In late April, President Hamid Karzai, the smooth-talking and suave-dressing Western-backed president of this key nation in the war on terror, survived yet another assassination attempt as he sat on a podium with foreign dignitaries, waiting for the country’s most important annual military parade.
Although Karzai was not harmed, the bold and well-planned attack has come to be seen as evidence of a new level of sophistication for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, a possible militant infiltration of the Afghan government and failures of intelligence in the war-torn country.
Last week, the assassination attempt even turned into a regional flash point, when Afghan officials accused Pakistani intelligence operatives of conspiring in the plot, deepening tensions between two neighbors crucial to U.S. policy in the region. Pakistan denied the accusations.
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