TBR News January 2, 2017

The Voice of the White House 

Washington, D.C. January 2, 2017: “I have personally observed, and others have commented upon, the strangely muted Christmas season in the United States.

In previous seasons, homes and apartments were festooned with colored lights, wreaths were affixed to doors and Christmas trees shown glittering in windows.

This year, there was very little display and the stores were not filled with eager shoppers nor were we subjected to canned Christmas season music on the intercom systems.

The reasons for this apparent rejection of the so-called Christmas season is due in part to the fact that the American public has grown tired of the rantings of the lunatic Evangelicals and have been increasingly depressed because of the negative economic and social problems seen besetting the general public.

The rejection of the oligarchy-approved but universally disliked and distrusted Clinton in favor of a rich media player is partly to blame for the mood of anxiety and depression but to also is a growing distrust of government and its propaganda press organs.

If President-elect Trump shows himself to be efficient and effective, the left wing and its adherents will do everything in their waning powers to discredit him.

The general public, on the other hand, who happen to vote, will reject the liberal ‘Fake News’ and the dissolution of the print and television organs will behave like the rapidly-vanishing Greenland icecap.”

Obama’s Christmas present for Trump

In his final days in office, Barack Obama has expelled 35 Russian diplomats.President Putin has countered in his own way. He can afford to ignore the diplomatic bickering, says Miodrag Soric.

January 1, 2017

DW

Chess is Russia’s national sport. President Putin, however, is principally a lover of Asian martial arts, in which – as in chess – you don’t always respond to an attack with a counterattack, but by sidestepping the blow. This sporting tactic is currently being applied in the political arena.

Barack Obama expelled Russian diplomats from the United States. Everyone in Washington expected a tit-for-tat response from Russia. But it didn’t come. It seems Putin saw the move for what it really was: an attempt by Obama to influence the foreign policy of the incoming US president, Donald Trump.

The Kremlin chief countered in his own way: by inviting the families and children of all American diplomats in Moscow to attend the New Year celebrations in the Kremlin. Moscow will broadcast pictures of this all around the world – and, soon afterwards, pictures of Russian families and children forced to make a precipitous departure from Washington, at this time of year, right before Orthodox Christmas. They’ll even have to leave the US on a military plane.

To many people, Putin will come across as a statesman, calm and self-controlled. Obama, on the other hand, will look like someone who can’t let go, who’s still nursing his animosity toward certain politicians – Vladimir Putin or Benjamin Netanyahu.

An upside-down world

At the heart of this diplomatic bickering is Donald Trump and his future foreign policy. After all, Trump has repeatedly said that he wants better relations with the Kremlin. It will be difficult for him to achieve this aim in a hostile diplomatic climate: Many senators are disinclined to follow Trump on his pro-Russian course.

On the contrary: Leading conservative politicians are calling for further, more severe penalties to be imposed on Russia, and reject Rex Tillerson as America’s new secretary of state. Trump nominated Tillerson in part because he stands for a new beginning in relations with Russia. However, in order to preside over the State Department, he needs to gain the Senate’s approval in the weeks after Trump takes office.

Meanwhile, Obama’s time is running out. As long as he’s still in office he will try to drive a wedge between the different camps in the opposing party and alienate as many Republicans as possible from Trump. Obama’s aim, which is a legitimate one, is to save as much of his political legacy as possible.So what will happen next? Trump will have to defer his plans to improve relations with Russia for a few weeks. His priority is to get the Senate to approve his cabinet. Putin understands that. He’ll wait, and will help Trump wherever he can with public statements.

The times may be changing – but chess is still Russia’s national sport.

Facts force Washington Post to backtrack on report that Russia hacked US power grid

January 1, 2017

RT

The Washington Post has corrected an article in which it said that Russian hackers had infiltrated the US power grid at a Vermont utility. The newspaper now says authorities have no such “indications” as people on social media claim the outlet promotes “fake news

On Friday, Burlington Electric, a Vermont-based power company, raised an alarm after finding malware code on a company laptop. Referring to undisclosed officials, the Washington Post then ran a damning headline, saying that “Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility” which posed a risk “to US electrical grid security.”

Yet it turns out that the laptop that was penetrated wasn’t even attached to the power network, according to a statement from Burlington Electric. “We detected suspicious internet traffic in a single Burlington Electric Department computer not connected to our organization’s grid systems,” the message reads.

No evidence of a Russian trace has been released either. Eventually, the Washington Post issued a correction to its article. “An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the US electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far,” the statement said. The headline, blatantly accusing “Russian hackers” of breaching the US power grid, remains, though.

Glen Greenwald, a prominent US journalist who was among those breaking the story on Edward Snowden’s leaks on the NSA spying scandal, said the case suits America’s anti-Russian agenda. “It matters even more because it reflects the deeply irrational and ever-spiraling fever that is being cultivated in US political discourse and culture about the threat posed by Moscow,” Greenwald wrote.

Meanwhile, people on social media teamed up in slamming the material by the Washington Post as another instance of “fake news.”It’s not the first time the Washington Post has had to correct a report containing ill-founded allegations. On November 24, an article by the newspaper alleged that Russia is in fact behind a massive spread of “fake news” which affected the US presidential campaign in November last year.

One of the experts cited by the newspaper was a group called PropOrNot, which “identified” over 200 websites as spreading Russian propaganda. Yet the article drew serious criticism from people on social media as well as journalists over PropOrNot’s own dubious credentials.

In return, the Washington Post issued a lengthy editor’s note, saying that some of the sites included by PropOrNot “have publicly challenged the group’s methodology and conclusions.” The group later deleted them and Washington Post on its part said that does not “vouch for the validity of PropOrNot’s findings.”

In October, the US officially accused Russia of hacking computers of individuals and organizations of the Democratic campaign ahead of the US elections. Moscow rebuffed the accusation as “nonsense.”

Following the victory of the Republican candidate Donald Trump, the Washington Post, citing a CIA report, said that Moscow specifically helped Trump to get into the White House.

The President-elect called the allegations “ridiculous” and labeled them yet “another excuse” by the Democrats for the loss of Hillary Clinton.  Speaking to RT, a former member of the British MI5 intelligence agency, Annie Machon, said that rolling out with a bright headline and later issuing a correction is part of the Washington Post’s tactics.

“Time after time after time, we are seeing this fake news coming out in the Washington Post,” she said. “And every time they put these fake stories out they have to put [out] a disclaimer afterwards. But of course, the seed is then sown,” Machon said.

“Fake News” And How the Washington Post Rewrote Its Story On Russian Hacking Of The Power Grid

January 1, 2017

by Kalev Leetaru

Forbes

On Friday the Washington Post sparked a wave of fear when it ran the breathless headline “Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont, U.S. officials say.” The lead sentence offered “A code associated with the Russian hacking operation dubbed Grizzly Steppe by the Obama administration has been detected within the system of a Vermont utility, according to U.S. officials” and continued “While the Russians did not actively use the code to disrupt operations of the utility, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss a security matter, the penetration of the nation’s electrical grid is significant because it represents a potentially serious vulnerability.”

Yet, it turns out this narrative was false and as the chronology below will show, illustrates how effectively false and misleading news can ricochet through the global news echo chamber through the pages of top tier newspapers that fail to properly verify their facts.

The original article was posted online on the Washington Post’s website at 7:55PM EST. Using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, we can see that sometime between 9:24PM and 10:06PM the Post updated the article to indicate that multiple computer systems at the utility had been breached (“computers” plural), but that further data was still being collected: “Officials said that it is unclear when the code entered the Vermont utility’s computers, and that an investigation will attempt to determine the timing and nature of the intrusion.” Several paragraphs of additional material were added between 8PM and 10PM, claiming and contextualizing the breach as part of a broader campaign of Russian hacking against the US, including the DNC and Podesta email breaches.

Despite the article ballooning from 8to 18 paragraphs, the publication date of the article remained unchanged and no editorial note was appended, meaning that a reader being forwarded a link to the article would have no way of knowing the article they were seeing was in any way changed from the original version published 2 hours prior.

Yet, as the Post’s story ricocheted through the politically charged environment, other media outlets and technology experts began questioning the Post’s claims and the utility company itself finally issued a formal statement at 9:37PM EST, just an hour and a half after the Post’s publication, pushing back on the Post’s claims: “We detected the malware in a single Burlington Electric Department laptop not connected to our organization’s grid systems. We took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alerted federal officials of this finding.”

From Russian hackers burrowed deep within the US electrical grid, ready to plunge the nation into darkness at the flip of a switch, an hour and a half later the story suddenly became that a single non-grid laptop had a piece of malware on it and that the laptop was not connected to the utility grid in any way.

However, it was not until almost a full hour after the utility’s official press release (at around 10:30PM EST) that the Post finally updated its article, changing the headline to the more muted “Russian operation hacked a Vermont utility, showing risk to U.S. electrical grid security, officials say” and changed the body of the article to note “Burlington Electric said in a statement that the company detected a malware code used in the Grizzly Steppe operation in a laptop that was not connected to the organization’s grid systems. The firm said it took immediate action to isolate the laptop and alert federal authorities.” Yet, other parts of the article, including a later sentence claiming that multiple computers at the utility had been breached, remained intact.

The following morning, nearly 11 hours after changing the headline and rewriting the article to indicate that the grid itself was never breached and the “hack” was only an isolated laptop with malware, the Post still had not appended any kind of editorial note to indicate that it had significantly changed the focus of the article.

This is significant, as one driving force of fake news is that as much of 60% of the links shared on social media are shared based on the title alone, with the sharer not actually reading the article itself. Thus, the title assigned to an article becomes the story itself and the Post’s incorrect title meant that the story that spread virally through the national echo chamber was that the Russians had hacked into the US power grid.

Only after numerous outlets called out the Post’s changes did the newspaper finally append an editorial note at the very bottom of the article more than half a day later saying “An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.”

Yet, even this correction is not a true reflection of public facts as known. The utility indicated only that a laptop was found to contain malware that has previously been associated with Russian hackers. As many pointed out, the malware in question is actually available for purchase online, meaning anyone could have used it and its mere presence is not a guarantee of Russian government involvement. Moreover, a malware infection can come from many sources, including visiting malicious websites and thus the mere presence of malware on a laptop computer does not necessarily indicate that Russian government hackers launched a coordinated hacking campaign to penetrate that machine – the infection could have come from something as simple as an employee visiting an infected website on a work computer.

Moreover, just as with the Santa Claus and the dying child story, the Post story went viral and was widely reshared, leading to embarrassing situations like CNBC tweeting out the story and then having to go back and retract the story.

Particularly fascinating that the original Post story mentioned that there were only two major power utilities in Vermont and that Burlington Electric was one of them, meaning it would have been easy to call both companies for comment. However, while the article mentions contacting DHS for comment, there is no mention of any kind that the Post reached out to either of the two utilities for comment. Given that Burlington issued its formal statement denying the Post’s claims just an hour and a half later, this would suggest that had the Post reached out to the company it likely could have corrected its story prior to publication.

When I reached out to Kris Coratti, Vice President of Communications and Events for the Washington Post for comment, she responded that regarding the headline change, “Headlines aren’t written by story authors. When editors realized it overreached, as happens from time to time with headlines, it was corrected.” She also indicated that posting the editor’s note at the bottom of the article instead of the top was a mistake and indeed this was corrected shortly after my email to her inquiring about it.

Ms. Coratti’s response regarding the article headline is a fascinating reminder of just how many different people and processes combine to produce a single article in a newspaper – that contrary to popular belief, a reporter doesn’t sit down and write a story, choose a headline and then hit “Publish” and have the story go live on the newspaper website. Most newspapers, like the Washington Post, either employ dedicated headline writers or have their editors write the headlines for each piece and articles typically go through an elaborate review process designed to catch these sorts of issues prior to publication.

It is also interesting to note that the Post said it was an error for the editorial note to be buried at the very bottom of the page instead of at the top of the article, as was done for the Santa Claus story. This reflects the chaotic nature of newsrooms in which an editorial note is frequently added by an editor simply logging into a CMS portal and updating a live page, rather than a templated system which automatically places all editorial notes in the same place with the same style and formatting to ensure consistency.

Equally fascinating, neither Ms. Coratti nor Post Public Relations responded to any of my remaining queries regarding the article’s fact checking process. In particular, the Post did not respond when I asked how headlines are fact checked and if headline writers conduct any form of fact checking to ensure their summarized version is consistent with known facts. The Post also did not respond to a request for comment on why it took nearly half a day from the time the article was rewritten until an editorial note was finally appended acknowledging that the conclusions of the original article were false and that the article had been substantively rewritten to support a different conclusion, nor did the Post comment on why the editor’s note was originally placed at the bottom of the article and only moved after I inquired about its location.

Yet, perhaps most intriguing is that, as with the Santa Claus story, the Post did not respond to repeated requests for comment regarding how it conducts fact checking for its stories. This marks twice in a row that the Post has chosen not to respond in any fashion to my requests for more detail on its fact checking processes. Given the present atmosphere in which trust in media is in freefall and mainstream outlets like the Post are positioning themselves as the answer to “fake news” it certainly does not advance trust in the media when a newspaper will not even provide the most cursory of insight into how it checks its facts.

As with the Santa Claus story, the Post appears to have run this story without even attempting to perform the most basic of fact checks before publication. The original story noted that there were only two utilities in Vermont and yet the article states that the Post only attempted to contact DHS and does not mention any attempt to contact either of the utilities. Standard journalistic practice would have required that the Post mention that it attempted to reach either utility even if neither responded. The Post did not respond to a request for comment when I asked if it had attempted to reach either utility for comment prior to publication.

Putting this all together, what can we learn from this? The first is that, as with the Santa Claus and PropOrNot stories, the journalism world tends to rely far more on trust than fact checking. When one news outlet runs a story, the rest of the journalism world tends to follow suit, each writing their own version of the story without ever going back to the original sources for verification. In short – once a story enters the journalism world it spreads without further restraint as each outlet assumes that the one before performed the necessary fact checking.

The second is that the news media is overly dependent on government sources. Glenn Greenwald raises the fantastic point that journalists must be more cautious in treating the word of governments as absolute truth. Indeed, a certain fraction of the world’s false and misleading news actually comes from the mouths of government spokespeople. Yet, in the Post’s case, it appears that a government source tipped off the post about a sensational story of Russians hacking the US power grid and instead of reaching out to the utilities themselves or gathering further detail, the Post simply published the story as fed to them by the government officials.

The third is that breaking news is a source of a tremendous amount of false and misleading news as rumors and falsehoods spread like wildfire in the absence of additional information. Top tier newspapers like the Washington Post are supposed to be a bulwark against these falsehoods, by not publishing anything until it has been thoroughly fact checked against multiple sources. Yet, it appears this is not the case – in the rush to be the first to break a story and not be scooped, reporters even at the nation’s most prestigious news outlets will take shortcuts and rush a story out the door. What would have happened in the Post had waited another day or two to collect responses from all involved, including Burlington Electric? It would have avoided publishing false information, but it also likely would have been scooped by another newspaper who wanted to be the first to break the story.

Indeed, “breaking news” is a tremendous problem for mainstream outlets in which they frequently end up propagating “fake news” in their rush to be the first to break a story. In a world beset by false and misleading news, do top tier news outlets have a professional responsibility to step back from breaking stories and only report on them after all details are known and they have had an opportunity to speak with all parties involved and understand more definitively what has happened? Financially this would likely be devastating in a share-first click-first world in which to the victor go the advertising dollars, but it would seem the only way to truly stop “fake news” from spreading.

Is Trump About to Debunk the Media’s ‘Putin-gate’ Conspiracy Theory?

Cold war drama fizzling fast

January 2, 2017

by Justin Raimondo

AntiWar

“It wouldn’t be a bad opening for a Tom Clancy novel about the Cold War” – that’s how the Los Angeles Times described the sequence of events leading up to the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats (“spies”) and the latest face-off between Washington and Moscow. Indeed the whole episode of has about it a fictional aura, which is, after all, only appropriate, since the entire basis of this latest cold war drama is pure invention.

The Russian “spy nest” had supposedly been in use since 1972 – but our Keystone Kops were just now getting around to dismantling it. Oh well, better late than never! It’s a 45-acre compound on the Maryland shore, about 60 miles from Washington, a place where Russian diplomats went to relax with their families: neighbors said they never saw anything the least bit off, and that the Labor Day picnics to which they were invited featured plenty of really good vodka. The head of the town council, a retired Marine, told the Los Angeles Times: “They’re good neighbors, and have been the whole time they’ve been there.” On New York’s Long Island a similar scenario unfolded: an estate long the site of Russian diplomats relaxing with their families is raided by the feds, and impounded, while baffled locals look on.

It’s all part of the security theater performed by Obama’s dead-enders, as they do their best to cast a long shadow over the incoming Trump administration. And like any performance, it comes with a little booklet explaining the provenance of the piece, in this case a “report” reiterating in a most unconvincing manner the assertions we’ve been hearing since Election Day: that Trump’s victory was the culmination of an elaborate Russian conspiracy, a remake of “The Manchurian Candidate,” only this time with computers.

And just to add a little extra frisson to the mix, as the clock ticked toward 2017 the Washington Post ran a story alleging that those omnipotent Russkies had hacked into Vermont’s electricity grid – and were about to turn out the lights! Except they didn’t, they weren’t, and it was all a bit of that “fake news” WaPo has been warning us about. The “Russian malware” was found on a laptop that wasn’t even connected to the internet. And it wasn’t Russian malware, it was Ukrainian.

Oh, the drama! Except there wasn’t any – at least, not enough for a Tom Clancy novel. Instead we saw a series of anti-climaxes: no break into the grid, no evidence of a Vast Russian-Trumpian Conspiracy (as promised), and no Russian retaliation for the expulsion of their diplomats. Instead, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he would ignore the childish antics of the outgoing administration and instead wait for the adults to enter the room.

You could hear the gnashing of teeth in Washington, D.C., all the way to California.

Oh, but that didn’t mean the propaganda campaign abated. We haven’t seen one like this since the march to war against Iraq in 2003: the entire media-governmental-academic axis has been spinning full thrust in an effort to convince us that the President-elect of the United States won his office by dint of a foreign power’s exertions. It hasn’t worked: the public doesn’t believe it. Indeed, by reiterating this nonsense 24/7, the “mainstream” media is making itself more an object of derision than it already is: even Mrs. Clinton’s partisans think they’re biased.

My favorite part of this whole business is the role being played by Donald J. Trump. Unlike some of his spokesmen, and of course very much unlike the media, the President-elect has refused to swallow this Putin conspiracy theory for so much as a single minute. He’s shown more understanding of the difficulty of attributing cyber-attacks than most reporters, and he’s been skeptical from the beginning of the idea that it was the Russian state that hacked the DNC and John Podesta’s emails. In response to the latest barrage of hot air that’s slowly hardening into “fact,” Trump had this to say:

“’I just want them to be sure because it’s a pretty serious charge,’ Mr. Trump said of the intelligence agencies. ‘If you look at the weapons of mass destruction, that was a disaster, and they were wrong,’ he added, referring to intelligence cited by the George W. Bush administration to support its march to war in 2003. ‘So I want them to be sure,’ the president-elect said. ‘I think it’s unfair if they don’t know.’

“He added: ‘And I know a lot about hacking. And hacking is a very hard thing to prove. So it could be somebody else. And I also know things that other people don’t know, and so they cannot be sure of the situation.’

“When asked what he knew that others did not, Mr. Trump demurred, saying only, ‘You’ll find out on Tuesday or Wednesday.’”

The national security “Deep State” has naturally been opposed to Trump: his “no-regime-change” “America First” foreign policy would effectively put them out of business. However, that doesn’t mean the intelligence community is uniformly anti-Trump: far from it. Indeed, there are those who believe that the DNC/Podesta hacks were the work, not of the Russians, but of some inside our own intelligence community who were loath to see Hillary Clinton in the White House. And there is a whole school of thought, including Craig Murray, former UK diplomat, who maintain that the “hack” was in reality a leak, and that it came from American insiders rather than via the GRU. Murray is quite close to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange: asked to comment on Murray’s statements, Assange said “I don’t want to go there.” Assange has stoutly denied any Russian involvement in the publication of the DNC/Podesta emails.

Is Trump about to blow this whole phony “Put did it” scam wide open?

It wouldn’t surprise me in the least. What we are seeing playing out is the reaction of the swamp creatures as Trump proceeds to drain their natural habitat. That screeching roaring sound you hear is their collective outrage as the implications of Trump’s triumph become apparent.

So get out the popcorn, and put your feet up: the entertainment is about to begin!

Nightclub Massacre in Istanbul Exposes Turkey’s Deepening Fault Lines

January 1, 2017

by Tim Arango

The New York Times

ISTANBUL — When a lone gunman murdered dozens of New Year’s revelers early Sunday, he targeted a symbol of a cosmopolitan Istanbul that is increasingly under threat: a dazzling nightclub where people from around the world could party together, free from the mayhem and violence gripping the region.

It was there, at the Reina nightclub on the Bosporus — a hot spot for soap opera stars and professional athletes, Turks and well-heeled tourists — that those hoping to move past a particularly troubled year died together.

The assault was the second in two weeks in Turkey, and it further exposed the fault lines in a country that is increasingly tearing apart amid terrorist attacks and political instability.

With the gunman still on the loose Sunday night and a nationwide manhunt underway, the killings brutally highlighted a dilemma for Turkey’s authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Even though he has cracked down on opponents and put in place security measures to bring stability to his rattled country, the attacks keep mounting.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Zeynep Ozman, whose brother, Ali, was wounded in the attack. “I don’t want to say anything political, but this can’t be accepted as the new norm. Terrorism is everywhere now, and the government has no control. Something needs to be done. There is no life left in Istanbul.”

Turkey has been reeling for several years now, as it has been increasingly drawn into the Syrian civil war. By opening its borders to foreign fighters trying to reach Syria, critics say, it inadvertently supported the rise of the Islamic State, which is now carrying out attacks within Turkey. Then, in 2015, a stalled war with Kurdish militants was renewed, and this summer, Turkey suffered from an attempted coup.

The attack on Sunday morning — a strike on the Western, urbane face of Istanbul — is likely to further diminish Turkey’s democracy by giving Mr. Erdogan a freer hand to expand his crackdown on opponents, which accelerated after the coup attempt. It is also likely to erode the country’s economy, which has already suffered because of a decline in tourism and foreign investment.

“Nothing that the government is doing is helping make Turkey more secure,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a prominent Turkish writer and a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “The crackdown on domestic dissidents is further destabilizing the country, and when it is not destabilizing, it is increasing the dangerous polarization here.”

On Sunday, Mr. Erdogan vowed in a statement that the fight against terrorists would bring the country together.

“They are working to destroy our country’s morale and create chaos by deliberately targeting our nation’s peace and targeting civilians with these heinous attacks,” he said. “We will retain our coolheadedness as a nation, standing more closely together, and we will never give ground to such dirty games.”

As it had after other recent attacks, the government imposed a news blackout, saying news outlets should report only official statements.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed at least 39 people, including at least 25 foreigners, according to Turkey’s state news agency. But threats against Turkey from the Islamic State and its supporters have increased, and a senior United States official said on Sunday that the emerging assessment of both the American and Turkish authorities was that the Islamic State was responsible for the attack, or had at least inspired the gunman.

Still, the Islamic State, which Turkey is fighting against in Syria, is just one of many threats the country faces.

Even before the Arab Spring revolutions six years ago, Turkey sought to set itself apart and shape events around the region with its so-called zero problems with neighbors foreign policy.

Now, all that has changed. Turkey, a member of NATO, has been engulfed by the dark and destabilizing forces gripping the Middle East and the surrounding regions, where everything seems to converge: terrorism, the migrant crisis, the rise of authoritarianism.

The renewal of a long war between the Turkish government and ethnic Kurdish militants has left cities in the Kurdish-dominated southeast in rubble and brought terror to the heart of Turkey’s cities. A bombing at a soccer stadium in Istanbul in December that killed dozens was just the latest attack claimed by a Kurdish terrorist group.

The government pinned last summer’s failed coup on the followers of a rival to Mr. Erdogan, the Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, who lives in exile in Pennsylvania. That was followed by a countercoup engineered by Mr. Erdogan, in which tens of thousands of people he said were linked to Mr. Gulen — police officers, soldiers, teachers, civil servants and others — were either arrested or purged from their jobs.

And less than two weeks before Sunday’s attack, an off-duty police officer assassinated the Russian ambassador to Turkey at an art gallery in Ankara, saying he was exacting revenge for Russia’s role in bombing civilians in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. The killing came amid a rapprochement between Turkey and Russia, which had indicated that Mr. Erdogan, instead of continuing to push for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, was now leaning on Russia, Mr. Assad’s most important ally, to bring peace to Syria.

The assassination and the deadly nightclub attack have raised questions about how able Turkey’s intelligence forces are to keep the country safe.

With such a harrowing year coming to a close, many Turks were eager for New Year’s Eve, as if turning the page on the calendar might signal a fresh start.

In Istanbul, where a video on social media before the shooting showed well-dressed partyers at Reina ringing in the new year with sparklers, Champagne and confetti, the gaiety lasted just a little over an hour.

Around 1:15 a.m., the gunman, armed with a rapid-fire rifle, killed a police officer guarding the club before going on a shooting rampage. In the ensuing panic, some clubgoers jumped into the Bosporus, which separates Europe from Asia.

Ms. Ozman, who visited her wounded brother in the hospital, said: “He was covered in blood. I barely recognized him at first. He is in complete shock.”

She said her brother had told her that when the shooting started, he threw himself on the floor and felt things falling on him: bodies, tables, glass. She said he might have been saved by bodies that acted as shields against further shots.

The gunman’s identity and motives remain unclear, but one witness said he had heard the man shout “God is great” in Arabic.

Even with so much uncertain, the attack on Reina, which is perhaps Istanbul’s most famous nightclub, seemed to symbolize one of Turkish society’s deepest divides, between the secular and the pious — a fissure that has grown deeper under Mr. Erdogan, an Islamist who has expanded religious schooling and sought to restrict alcohol sales.

Some on social media were quick to point out the rhetoric against New Year’s celebrations that had come from Islamist corners of Turkey. A recent Friday sermon prepared by the government’s religious authority said that New Year’s revelry belonged to “other cultures and other worlds.”

Another passage of the sermon read, “We shall not forget that it is never suitable for a believer to forget himself and his aim of creation after a year passes from the stock of life, to exhibit illicit manners and behaviors that don’t comply with our values.”

In the aftermath of the attack, Prof. Howard Eissenstat, an expert on Turkey at St. Lawrence University, wrote on Twitter: “Disturbing + not very difficult line to draw between official Turkish anti New Years campaign + tonight’s violence. Rhetoric has consequences.”

Emre Eytan Can, 34, an investment banker from Istanbul, said he was a regular at Reina, although he was not there on New Year’s Eve.

“I guess it is a target because it’s full of high-class Turks and foreigners,” he said. “And it’s a place where people let their hair down and drink, which is not in line with Islam.”

Turkey’s troubles had already led to a sharp decline in Western tourists, but visitors from the Middle East, perhaps because they are accustomed to terrorist threats at home, have kept coming. News of the attack quickly reverberated around the region, with citizens of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia among the victims, along with people from Belgium, France and India.

By Sunday afternoon, the by-now familiar rituals of grief that follow terrorist attacks were in full swing, with consulate officials and grieving families converging at an Istanbul morgue, where local officials had set up tea stands outside in the bitter cold.

A Lebanese woman, Stephanie Deek, was there with her husband to identify a friend from Lebanon, Haykal Mousallem, a newlywed who had been celebrating the holiday in Istanbul with his wife.

The wife was safe, but Mr. Mousallem, who had jumped into the Bosporus to escape the killer, was dead.

“I am so sad,” Ms. Deek said. “I cannot describe how I feel. I did not expect to find him here. I thought he was just missing.”

Reporting was contributed by an employee of The New York Times from Istanbul; an employee of The New York Times from Nevsehir Province, Turkey; Sewell Chan from London; and Eric Schmitt from Washington.

 2017: another miserable year for Europe?

Last year was marked by a deep sense of insecurity arising from terrorism, the rise of populism and autocrats, and the erosion of democratic values. In 2017, the West may seriously be put to the test, says Barbara Wesel.

January 2, 2017

DW

January

At the beginning of the month, the Supreme Court in London will decide whether the British parliament must be involved in the Brexit process and to what extent. This may determine the degree of freedom for negotiating given to Prime Minister Teresa May.

On January 20, Donald Trump will officially take over the post of US president. He and his Cabinet of billionaires will call into question the continuity of world politics. Trump’s critics fear that his lack of political experience and his tendency to “stir things up” will cause global security problems. Only his followers expect good surprises.

February

The EU government heads of 27 nations will meet at a special summit in Malta to discuss Europe’s future after Brexit. Until now, there has been a lack of enthusiasm and of exciting, new ideas. Indicators point to the maintenance of the status quo, unless the fear of the EU’s falling apart compels Angela Merkel to take the bull by the horns. But she doesn’t have many partners right now: The leaders of The Netherlands, Italy and France are “lame ducks” at the moment.

March

In mid-March, The Netherlands will be holding parliamentary elections. Surveys show that Geert Wilders’ populist party could become one of the strongest political forces. Wilders has been campaigning against Islam, immigrants and the EU for years now. His hero is Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, even if Wilders wins 25 percent of the vote, he would still need other partners to rule in a coalition in the extremely fragmented Dutch parliament. It is highly unlikely that he will find any. In any case, the formation of a government will prove difficult after this election.

On March 25, the 60th anniversary of the European founding treaties will be celebrated in Rome. The day is supposed to convey a message of confidence and hope, but right now no one knows where the optimism should come from.

Around the same time, British Prime Minister May will trigger Article 50 to begin the EU exit negotiations. Brexit may be the toughest test for the EU’s survival. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the Brexiteers massively underestimated the consequences and difficulties of leaving the bloc. The remaining 27 EU members have formally defined the rules for the procedures. Whether or not Britain’s withdrawal from Europe can be completely negotiated in the coming one-and-a-half years remains to be seen. Some believe that Brexit will get stuck in a legal and bureaucratic morass.

April

At the end of the month, French voters will be casting their ballots. The first round of the French presidential election will be held on April 23. At the moment, it looks like the conservative Republican candidate Francois Fillon and the right-wing populist National Front nominee Marine Le Pen will clinch the two top spots. The Socialist party and the independent candidate Emmanuel Macron are not expected to take votes away from the National Front. The two winners of the first election round will run for the second ballot two weeks later that determines the ultimate winner.

May

The second and decisive round of the French elections will be held on May 7. It is expected that the Republican candidate will clearly triumph over the right-wing populist Le Pen. Francois Fillon stands for conservative societal values and patriotism and upholds the traditional concept of family. But Europeans are concerned about his admiration for Vladimir Putin. His commitment to Thatcher-style reforms could also be damaging for his campaign. If the French do end up voting for Marine Le Pen and choosing right-wing populism, it would mean the end of the EU. The bloc would not be able to survive the withdrawal of the second-strongest country – and Germany’s historical partner.

June

New elections could take place in Italy, as the socialist Matteo Renzo lost his referendum in December and a transitional government has been at the helm since then. At the end of last year, Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement was leading the polls. The party has no government experience, is euroskeptic and believes in grass-roots democracy. However, there have now been corruption scandals among the “Stars” as well, and the Italians may change their minds by the summer. But the country’s looming debt crisis continues to threaten the eurozone, and political instability would also endanger the EU.

Summer break

September

Germany will vote for a new parliament. Right now, it looks as though the elections will again result in some sort of a coalition under Angela Merkel. It is considered highly unlikely that the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) will play an important role. The chancellor is currently seen by many as Europe’s savior – even as the guardian of Western values. A great deal depends on the stability of Germany’s democracy and economy. There are massive expectations of Merkel as a steadfast anchor in an uncertain world.

Other things to expect in 2017:

• The refugee crisis is still not over. In the course of the year, at least a half-decent solution must be found.
• The war in Syria will continue. The region will remain unstable.
• Relations with Turkey will probably become more tense.
• The financial crisis will remain one of the main issues in Greece. Snap elections may be called that the conservatives are expected to win.
• There will be more terror attacks – be they IS-controlled or carried out by lone wolves.
• Vladimir Putin remains dangerous. He will support populists, interfere with elections through cyberattacks and destabilize the West.
• Brexit will cause bad blood between Great Britain and the EU, and it may end up being the soundtrack of the year for Europe.
• US President Donald Trump will have some surprises up his sleeve and they will probably turn our world upside down.

So where is the good news?

We just hope that we will be pleasantly surprised by some good news that we cannot imagine at this point in time.

“I Don’t Think We’re Free in America” – An Interview with Bryan Stevenson

January 2 2017

by Alice Speri

The Intercept

Although the United States has just elected a new president whose promise to make America great “again” evoked an unspecified, presumably more glorious past, Americans’ appreciation of their own history, and particularly its most damning chapters, is limited at best.

The country’s long history of racial violence can hardly be denied, but that history is regularly erased from public commemoration. Some civil rights victories are celebrated, but the violence that preceded them is seldom acknowledged.

Aiming to confront and reclaim that history, the Equal Justice Initiative, led by civil rights attorney and author Bryan Stevenson, launched its “Lynching in America” initiative, a years-long effort to compile the most comprehensive record of racial terror lynchings between 1877 and 1950. The project includes a detailed report of more than 4,000 lynchings in 12 states in the South, including 800 that were previously unreported, as well as plans for a museum in Montgomery, and an effort to erect markers in the places where lynchings took place.

That the effort has so often met the resistance of local officials is, to Stevenson, just another sign of how urgently this public conversation is needed, as is an honest assessment of the ways in which the racism of the past endures today. Earlier this year, vandals once again shot up a sign marking the site in Mississippi where in 1955 Emmett Till’s brutalized body was found. In December, President Obama signed a reauthorization of the Emmett Till Act, which directs the DOJ and FBI to continue the investigation of cold civil rights-era hate crimes.

To Stevenson and those fighting to promote greater awareness of the nation’s racial history, this is hardly about history alone. Since the November election, the Southern Poverty Law Center has documented 1,094 hate incidents across the country. But as manifestations of the country’s persistent racism have multiplied, so have attempts to discount it. Shortly after the election, The Intercept spoke with Stevenson about America’s failure to come to terms with its racist past — and therefore its present.

‘Lynching in America was a response to the lack of public memorials commemorating the thousands of African Americans lynched in the country. Your argument is that we can’t move forward if we don’t take stock of this history. Yet this violence is not forgotten — certainly not by its victims and their descendants, but also by today’s racists. Just in the last few months we have seen people show up at football games dressed as President Obama with a noose around his neck, or black freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania being added to a social media account that included a “daily lynching” calendar invitation and photos of people hanging from trees.

‘There’s no question that there’s a consciousness and an awareness about our history of slavery, and terrorism, and segregation. But that doesn’t mean there’s an appreciation of the significance of that history, and people will invoke elements of that history in a way that is oppressive and bigoted and problematic because there is no appreciation of the significance of that history. Part of our work is aimed at trying to re-engage this country with an awareness and understanding of how our history of racial inequality continues to haunt us. I don’t think we’re free in America — I think we’re all burdened by this history of racial injustice, which has created a narrative of racial difference, which has infected us, corrupted us, and allowed us to see the world through this lens. So it becomes necessary to talk about that history if we want to get free.

‘Our project is trying to do that. We want there to be some acknowledgement that we’re a post-genocide society, that when white settlers came to this continent, there were millions of native people here whom we’ve killed through famine and war and disease, and that we forced off their land sometimes in cruel and barbaric ways. And instead of acknowledging that genocide we said, “No, those people are different, they’re not really people, they’re savages,” and we used this narrative of racial difference to justify this horrific behavior. That same narrative of racial difference was employed to justify centuries of slavery.

‘For me, the great evil of American slavery wasn’t involuntary servitude and forced labor, it was this narrative of racial difference.  In my view, slavery didn’t end in 1865, it just evolved. It turned into decades of terrorism and violence directed at people of color and this terrorism has profound implications for a range of contemporary issues: the urban North and West, the ghettoes, the relocation of millions of black people into these spaces. Black people in Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Oakland did not go to those communities as immigrants seeking economic opportunities, they went to those communities as refugees and exiles from terror in the American South. That legacy has to be revisited if we’re going to appropriately understand the iconography of lynching, or even the language around the Civil War and the resistance to enfranchisement and emancipation.

‘Even in the context of civil rights, we focus on the heroism of civil rights leaders without focusing on the intense resistance to integration by white political leaders. And that’s what we’re trying to do: trying to engage this country into a more honest accounting of what it means to be a slave society, what it means to be a place where terrorism and mass atrocities took place, what it means to have been an apartheid country for decades. If we have that appreciation, things will change. We won’t be able to celebrate Jefferson Davis’s birthday as a state holiday — as we do in Alabama — or celebrate Confederate Memorial Day or celebrate Robert E. Lee day without being seen as offending the notion that slavery is wrong. It would be unconscionable for Adolf Hitler’s birthday to be celebrated in Germany.’

Your efforts to set up markers of lynchings and other sites of racial violence, for instance by commemorating a major slave market in Montgomery, were sometimes met with fierce resistance by local leaders. Are they actually denying that this history is real?

‘They are denying it. They are saying, “Slavery was wonderful for black people. The Civil War was about state rights. Black people were treated well during enslavement. Lynching was just tough justice; they were all criminals who deserved lethal punishment. Black people were better off in segregated schools; we just all wanted to be in our own place.” This process of truth telling will push some people to try to deny it. And if there’s not complete denial, there’s certainly no shame. You’d be hard pressed to find anything that looks like a public expression of shame about slavery, or lynching, or segregation.

‘When we present the history, people have a hard time saying it didn’t happen, they just say we shouldn’t talk about it. When we tried to put up markers in downtown Montgomery, local historical officials said it would be “too controversial” to put up markers that talk about slavery. They didn’t say that didn’t happen, they just said it would be controversial, it would be unsettling, it would be uncomfortable for people to be reminded of slavery even though we have 59 markers and monuments to the Confederacy in the same space.’

You argue that understanding this history is essential to understanding not only acts of overt racism and hate happening today, but also the ways in which racism has become engrained in virtually every aspect of our society. Has that narrative of racial difference become institutionalized? 

‘I don’t think there’s any question that our failure to deal honestly with this history has made us vulnerable to tolerating bias and discrimination in virtually every sector. It’s not just the overt acts of hate that we see on campuses — although I think those are a direct manifestation of this. It’s also the way in which you can have the Bureau of Justice Statistics saying that one in three black male babies is expected to go to jail or prison during his lifetime and nobody cares. That’s not a policy or a political issue that our leaders are talking about. There is a presumption of dangerousness and guilt that gets assigned to black or brown people and people just see that as well, that’s America. We tolerate bias and discrimination and bigotry in ways that we wouldn’t tolerate them if we had a higher shame index about our history.

‘That certainly is evident in the way we’ve seen some of this rhetoric and demonization of people based on their ethnicity or religion or any of these other things; that’s clearly an example of that. But it manifests in other ways too. That the two largest high schools in Montgomery are Robert E. Lee High and Jefferson Davis High is a manifestation of this failure to confront history. That people are actually trying to eliminate the Voting Rights Act is a manifestation of this history.  That people resent when we talk about bias and discrimination because they think that’s all we talk about is a manifestation of this history. I think it’s hard to find things that are not implicated by our failure to deal with this history more honestly. I really can’t identify many parts of our popular life, our cultural life, our social or political life, that are not haunted by this history of racial inequality.

‘The openly hateful rhetoric of the election, and then the election’s result itself, have shocked many who might have liked to think this country was “not as racist” anymore. What you seem to say is that this is all very much part of a continuous history that was never truly interrupted?

‘I think we’re seeing an affirmative use of people’s racial resentment and ethnic resentment to gain power in a way that we haven’t seen before at the national level. I live in Alabama and there’s nothing exceptional about the last election. When you live in places like Alabama, this is the political culture that we’ve seen since the civil rights movement. But at the national level, it’s interesting to see an affirmative use of this kind of racial intolerance, racial resentment, this shameless advocation of America’s great past as a tool for gaining political power. We’ll see how that plays out and what that means.’

Are you saying you’re less terrified, because you’re used to it?

‘I am most worried about the poor and vulnerable people who have had to endure lifetimes of bigotry and discrimination, and who are now going to have to continue meeting those challenges without the possibility of a Justice Department that will protect them, or a federal government that will be attentive to their complaints, or health care, or support systems. There’s a whole host of things that have made enduring the challenges of bias and discrimination in this country a little easier, because of federal programs and because of efforts to try to be responsive. Those programs are now under attack and that will make dealing with the burden even harder. So in that sense, yes, I am worried about the current political future of this nation. But I’m also worried about it in this other sense: I think our identity is shaped not by how we treat the rich, the powerful, and the privileged — we are shaped by how we treat the poor, the incarcerated, the disfavored. And if we say, we only want to be an America for people who have lived here for five generations, we only want to be an America for people who are Christian, and a particular kind of Christian, we only want to be an America for straight people, or white people, then we become a country that is at war with its ideals, with its values, with its principles, with its very Constitution.’

Do you agree with the interpretation that this election was a “whitelash” — a white backlash against a changing country and against its first black president?

‘I think there are a lot of complex factors — I don’t think it can be reduced to any one thing. I certainly think it is a troubling moment in American history when someone can employ this rhetoric of hate and division and bigotry and become elected to the presidency of the United States. I think it is a crisis for America and its identity, its relationships around the world and its relationship with ethnic minorities. Many of us see this as an enormous step backwards, and we’re going to have to figure out how to recover when the nation has done when it has apparently done.

‘One of the “takes” on the election we have heard repeated in countless ways since November is the idea that, somehow, we talked about racism “too much,” and failed to reach out to growingly resentful white voters. A project like yours is predicated on public discussion. How do you even do that when any attempt to discuss racism is preempted by this aversion to any discussion that’s not about the ways in which whites have perceived a decline in their status and power?

‘There’s nothing that anybody can point to about the global economy, about trade, about jobs, about declining opportunities that have affected the white working class that hasn’t impacted black people and poor people ten times as hard. It’s not sufficient to talk about the unique challenges of white working class people. Whatever their problems are, they are the same problems that black working class people have, and brown working class people have, and black and brown people are also burdened with a presumption of dangerousness and guilt and a network of other issues. When you have 90 percent of the power and status and it drops to 85 percent, you can use your 85 percent of power and status to complain a lot about the 5 percent you lost, but when you have 5 percent of the status and power and you lose three percent you only have two percent to complain. So there is a disproportionate ability to make your loss, your problems, your struggles seem like the most important struggle, because you have so much more power and status. I am skeptical about this idea that somehow we have done too much to address the challenges of people of color, address the challenges of immigrants, and the challenges of the poor. I just don’t find much evidence of that.

‘There is a lack of knowledge, and I think knowledge prompts conversation. If you know you live in a city or a county or a space where dozen people were killed in acts of mass violence, it changes your relationship to that space. If you don’t know it, then it’s never even something you need to think about. The first act is education, bringing to mind and consciousness this history. That’s why we’re trying to do what we’re doing.’

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

 Benjamin Netanyahu Questioned in Israel Graft Inquiry

January 2, 2017

by Isabel Kershner

The New York Times

JERUSALEM — Police investigators arrived at the official residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday evening to question him, indicating that Israel’s attorney general has upgraded a long-running graft inquiry into a criminal investigation.

The Israeli news media has been awash in recent days with reports that a criminal investigation was coming, saying that Mr. Netanyahu is suspected, among other things, of having received illicit gifts and favors. On Monday evening, Channel 2 News showed images of a police car pulling up at the residence.

The Israeli police and the Justice Ministry have refused to confirm or deny the reports, saying only that a formal announcement was forthcoming. Aides to the prime minister also declined to comment.

Mr. Netanyahu, who has been subject to police inquiries in the past that ended without charges, has vehemently denied any impropriety. “This will all come to nothing, because there is nothing,” he has said repeatedly of the latest accusations.

Local news outlets say the investigators are focused on two separate cases, one more serious than the other, but they have offered little detail on the more serious one.

The less weighty one, according to reports in the newspaper Haaretz and other outlets, concerns favors for Mr. Netanyahu, and possibly for members of his family, given by Israeli and foreign business executives. The Israeli police took testimony from Ronald S. Lauder, a conservative American businessman and philanthropist, and a close friend of Mr. Netanyahu’s, when he came to Israel in late September to attend the funeral of Shimon Peres, the former prime minister and president.

Mr. Netanyahu’s office, suggesting that he is the victim of a witch hunt, issued a statement over the weekend berating the news organizations for what it described as premature and politically motivated reports. “Try to replace the prime minister at the ballot boxes, as is accepted in democracies,” it added.

Mr. Netanyahu, the leader of the conservative Likud Party, is serving his third consecutive term in office, and his fourth over all. He has exuded confidence lately, lashing out at journalists who have been critical of him, talking up Israel’s diplomatic and economic achievements, and calling in the United States ambassador to Israel, Daniel B. Shapiro, for a dressing down late last month after the Obama administration decided not to use its veto to shield Israel from a United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Mr. Netanyahu, generally a popular prime minister, has developed a combative relationship with the local mainstream news media. After years of tension with the Obama administration, he also appears buoyed by the prospect of a partnership with President-elect Donald J. Trump, who seems more sympathetic to Israeli government policies on issues like settlements.

For Mr. Netanyahu’s opponents, the prospect of a possible indictment has provided a glimmer of hope, even though elections are not scheduled until late 2019.

“This creates an unusual dynamic in Israeli politics,” said Nahum Barnea, a political columnist for the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth and a critic of Mr. Netanyahu. On the one hand, Mr. Barnea said, there were already signs that Netanyahu loyalists would try to promote legislation banning investigations of sitting prime ministers. On the other, he said, the question of who might succeed Mr. Netanyahu, who has no natural heir in his party, was bound to be raised.

Israeli prime ministers are not obligated to step down while under investigation, unless they are charged with a crime. Nonetheless, the accusations could chip away at Mr. Netanyahu’s standing. His predecessor, Ehud Olmert, was forced from power in 2008 under the weight of police investigations and accusations of corruption, although he remained in office as a caretaker prime minister until early elections could be held in 2009.

In February, Mr. Olmert became the first former Israeli prime minister to enter prison. He is serving a 19-month term for bribery and obstruction of justice.

Since the 1990s, Mr. Netanyahu’s political career has been dogged by inquiries into his conduct, and that of people around him, though no charges have been filed against him. The inquiries have ranged from scandals involving travel expenses and garden furniture — the Netanyahus were suspected of having switched a new set bought for the prime minister’s official residence with an identical, old set in their private home in Caesarea — to a more recent one involving a billion-dollar deal with Germany for the acquisition of submarines.

That agreement came under scrutiny after it became known that Mr. Netanyahu’s personal lawyer also represents the Israeli agent of the German shipyard that builds the submarines, and other naval equipment purchased by Israel, giving rise to suspicion of a conflict of interest.

In that episode, too, Mr. Netanyahu and the lawyer, David Shimron, have denied any wrongdoing.

Forward Base Falcon Disaster

January 2, 2017

by Harry von Johnston, PhD

The once respected Washington Post has been frantically trying to accuse Russian President Putin of all kinds of high crimes and misdemeanors, from invading peaceful counties to fiendlishly conniving to deprive Hillary Clinton of another stay in the White House.

The Post’s increasingly hysterical and invented accusations are redolent of the Forward Base Falcon disaster of ten years past.

The press in the United States, but not elseware, refused to mention a single word about it on orders from the highest level in government. The same media has no problem printing lies or half-truths, again on order, but will not print inconvenient truths.

Late on the evening of October 10, 2006, Iraqi resistance groups lobbed mortar and rocket rounds into the immense ‘Forward Base Falcon,’ the largest American military base in Iraq, located 13 km south of the Green Zone in Baghdad. In addition to accurate mortar fire, Grad and Katyusha rockets were also used.

Falcon base was designed to house a large contingent of American troops, mostly drawn from the 4th Infantry Division, stationed at Fr. Bliss, Texas. At the time of the attack, there were approximately 3000 men inside the camp, which also was filled with ammunition supplies, fuel, tanks and vehicles.

Iraqi contractors had assisted in the construction of the camp, which occupied nearly a square mile and was surrounded with guard tower-studded high concrete walls, and it is now apparent that the Resistance movement had been given important targets from “sources familiar with the layout” of the base.

After the initial shelling, fuel and ammunition stores began to erupt with massive explosions that could be heard, and seen, miles away inside the Green Zone where U.S. military and diplomatic units were heavily guarded.

The explosions, all of them termed “immense” by BBC reporters, continued throughout the night.

In response, US aircraft indiscriminately rocketed and bombed various parts of the city, BBC and AFP correspondents reported, trying to knock out the launch sites of the rockets

The BBC’s Andrew North, in Baghdad, said the explosions started at about 2300 (2100 BST) and were becoming “ever more frequent” as the huge fires spread throughout the base, punctuated by tremendous explosions as more fuel and ammunition dumps ignited.

“Intelligence indicates that civilians aligned with a militia organization were responsible for last night’s mortar attack,” said Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Withington, spokesman for the U.S. 4th Infantry Division.

An after action report, issued by the Department of Defense, stated that: “On October 10, 2006, at approximately 10:40 p.m., a 82mm mortar round, fired by militia forces from a residential area in Abu T-Shir, caused a fire at an Ammunition Supply Point (ASP) at FOB Falcon. The ASP, containing tank and artillery rounds, in addition to smaller caliber ammunition, set off a series of large explosions. About 100 troops from the 4th Infantry Division were reported to be stationed at the base at the time, but no injuries were reported.”  (Emphasis added.) “The damage to the area will not degrade the operational capability of MND-B (Multinational Division Baghdad),”

When the flames had been brought under control on the morning of the 11th of October, primarily because the entire camp had been gutted, nine large American military transports with prominent Red Cross markings were observed by members of the foreign media taking off, laded with the dead and the wounded.

Over 300 American troops, including U.S. Army and Marines, CIA agents and U.S. translators were casualties and there also were 165 seriously injured requiring major medical attention and 39 suffering lesser injuries 122 members of the Iraqi armed forces were killed and 90 seriously injured members of same, were also evacuated to the U.S. military hospital at al-Habbaniyah located some 70km west of Baghdad.

Satellite pictures and aerial photographs from neutral sources showed that Camp Falcon suffered major structural damage and almost all the U.S. military’s supply of small arms ammunition, artillery and rocket rounds, tons of fuel, six Apache helicopters, an uncounted but large number of soft-skinned vehicles such as Humvees and supply trucks were damaged or totally destroyed. Foreign press observers noted “an endless parade” of military vehicle recovery units dragging burnt-out heavy tanks and armored personnel carriers to another base outside Baghdad.

Many of the walls and towers of the camp were damaged or leveled as were many of the barracks, maintenance depots, and there was considerable damage to the huge mess halls that could hold 3000 soldiers, the huge recreation center with its basketball courts and indoor swimming pools and all the administration buildings

Although official U.S. DoD statements indicated that there were no deaths; that only a hundred men were inside the base guarding billions of dollars of vital military equipment and that there were “only two minor injuries to personnel,” passes belief and certainly reality is more painful than propaganda.

Not only has the U.S. military machine lost much of its armor and transport, and its entire reserves of ammunition and special fuel, but the casualty list for only the first day is over 300..

Here is a transcription of that list who were evacuated to other hospital units:.

In re: Insurgent attacks on Forward Base Falcon on 10-11 October, 2006

Official Casualty List from U.S. military hospital at al-Habbaniyah located some 70km west of Baghdad. U.S. medical personnel at al-Habbaniyah initially stated that the US military hospital at the massive American-occupied air base there had begun to receive dead and wounded personnel. The military hospital in al-Habbaniyah,  the largest in occupied Iraq, was opened on 12 May this year in response to sharply rising (and redacted)  US casualties.

List compiled and effective as of  11 Oct 06 at 2300.

– A –

Pfc James R. Adams, 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Captain Kenneth Adler, Army Reserve 346th Psychological Operations Company

Pfc Bobby Ray Albertson , Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile UnitTwo

1st Lt.Keith Allen, Army Reserve 346th Psychological Operations Company

Spc Cletus Anderson, 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Lance Cpl John Martin Ansley, Marine Forces Reserve’s 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment

Spc Toby Anthony, National Guard’s 149th Brigade Combat Team

Pfc Gustavo Armijo, 57th Military Police Company, 8th Military Police Brigade

Pfc Michael Armstrong, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Capt Steven Arnold, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

James Arthur  Ash II, Central Intelligence Agency

Cpl Edward Atkinson, 47th Combat Support Hospital, 62nd Medical Brigade

– B –

Pfc Roy Bailey, National Guard’s 149th Brigade Combat Team

Spc John Baldwin, 47th Combat Support Hospital, 62nd Medical Brigade

Pfc Charles Barbe,  Army National Guard’s 1569th Transportation Company

Pfc Thomas Barnhart , 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc James Barry, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Capt Robert Bell, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Spc William Bennett , Army Reserve 346th Psychological Operations Company

Pfc Saul Benson, 549th Military Police Company, 385th Military Police Battalion

Pfc Joseph Berge, 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion

Pfc Joseph Berkeley , 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Capt Colmar Betts,  414th Civil Affairs

Zack Billings, Department of Defense

Edward Blair,, Civilian Contractor

1st Lt.Ronald Bort, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile UnitTwo

Pfc Bowen, James, 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

Pfc Thomas R. Boyd, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Spc Mel Brewer, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Master Sgt.Roger Brown , 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Francis Byrne,  Army Reserve 346th Psychological Operations Company

– C –

Pfc Arthur Cahill, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Pfc Fernando Calderon, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Alex Callaghan, Civilian Contractor

Pfc Peter Campbell,  Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile UnitTwo

Cpl Douglas Carmody,  118th Military Police Company, 519th Military Police Battalion, 16th Military Police Brigade

Pfc Ashanti Carter, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Henry Cartwright, Army National Guard’s 1569th Transportation Company

Pfc Ken Casey,  3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Russell Cavanaugh, 57th Military Police Company, 8th Military Police Brigade

Spc Raymond Chamberlain, 47th Combat Support Hospital, 62nd Medical Brigade

Pfc Einar Christiansen, 414th Civil Affairs

Spc Zack Christopher,  7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Eric Clark, 549th Military Police Company, 385th Military Police Battalion

Ronald Colby, Civilian Contractor

Pfc Marcus M. Cole, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Paul Collins, 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

Pfc Rory Conner, Department of Defense

Pfc Roger Connolly, 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

Major Michael Connors,  414th Civil Affairs

Steven Cooke, Department of Defense

Spc Matthew Cooper,  Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Edward C. Courtney, Central Intelligence Agency

Capt Jimmy Lee Craig,  Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile UnitTwo

Spc Samuel Cramer, Army National Guard’s 1569th Transportation Company

Pfc Micah Creighton,  Army Reserve 346th Psychological Operations Company

Spc Leonard Cunningham,  3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Cpl Paul E. Curtis, Army National Guard’s 1569th Transportation Company

– D –

Pfc Sebastian Daly, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry, 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division

1st Lt.Benjamin Davis, 57th Military Police Company, 8th Military Police Brigade

Raymond Day, Civilian Contractor

Pfc Justin Delaney, 4th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Christopher Dixon , Marine Forces Reserve’s 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment

Cpl Paul Doherty, 414th Civil Affairs

Pfc Nicholas Dolan, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Lawrence Donahue, 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division

Pfc Randall Douglas, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Carl Dowd , Civilian Contractor

Master Sgt.Phillip Doyle, 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion

Pfc Edmund Drake, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Spc Charles Duval, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry, 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division

– E –

Spc Brandon East , Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Pfc Jeremy Edwards, 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Shane Elkins, 549th Military Police Company, 385th Military Police Battalion

Edgar Elliott , Central Intelligence Agency

Pfc Ronald Ellis, 4th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

2nd Lt.Paul H. Etheridge, 4th Battalion, 42nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Sgt Kenny Evans, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

– F –

Cpl Thomas Fairchild, Army Reserve 346th Psychological Operations Company

Pfc Ben Farrell, 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Robert Feeney,  1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Cpl Angus Ferguson, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Lance Cpl Eetaban Fernandez, Marine Forces Reserve’s 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment

Spc Bradford Fields , , Army National Guard’s 1569th Transportation Company

Pfc Raymond, Finlay, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Major Eduard Fischer, 414th Civil Affairs

Pfc Kirk Fitzgerald, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

Arnold Flynn, Civilian Contractor

1st Lt.Gene Ford, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile UnitTwo

Pfc Scott Fort, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Capt Shelby Foster, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Pfc Jon Franklin, Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Spc Harold Frederickson, 47th Combat Support Hospital, 62nd Medical Brigade

Pfc Lawrence Frost, 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

– G –

Pfc Michael Gaines, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Christopher Gallagher,  National Guard’s 149th Brigade Combat Team

Pfc Rogelio R. Garza, 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

Pfc Daniel Gardner, 4th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Brad Garrison , Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile UnitTwo

Lance Cpl Kirk Geary, 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force

Pfc Randy Geohegan, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Adam Gibson, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Master Sgt.Richard M. Gilligan, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Paolo Giovinazzo,  4th Battalion, 42nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Jeffery Givens, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division

Cpl Mario Gold, 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion

2nd Lt.Pedro Gomez, 4th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Michael Gordon , 4th Battalion, 42nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Gabriel Govia, 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Thomas Grady,  Department of Defense

Pfc Kevin Graham, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Pfc Paul Gray, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Samuel Green, Marine Forces Reserve’s 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment

Pfc Lloyd Griffith, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Cpl Andrew Gustafson, Army Reserve 346th Psychological Operations Company

– H –

1st Lt. Seth Hall, , Marine Forces Reserve’s 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment

Pfc Tobias Hancock,  1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc James Hansen, 4th Battalion, 42nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Sgt Stuart Harding , 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Randy Hardy, Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Pfc Ronald Harris, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division

Pfc Keith O. Harvey, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

1st Lt.Karl Hawkins, 414th Civil Affairs

Sgt. 1st Class Samuell Hayden, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Cpl Randi Hays, 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Ben Henderson, 47th Combat Support Hospital, 62nd Medical Brigade

Pfc Kyle Henry, 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

Spc Danid D.Herron, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

Capt Kenneth Hilliard, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc John Hodge, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

2nd Lt.Lee Hoffman, 4th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Master Sgt.David Hoke, 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

Pfc Ted Holmes, 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Kenny Howard, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

– I-

Keith Ingraham, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

Pfc Daniel Innis, 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Cpl Shane Irving, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

– J –

Pfc Tarrnish Jackson, Army National Guard’s 1569th Transportation Company

Spc Lewellen Jacobs, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Cpl Timothy Jasper, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

1st Lt.Larry Jenkins, 414th Civil Affairs

2nd Lt.Phiillip Johnson, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile UnitTwo

Pfc Brian Johnstone, Army Reserve 346th Psychological Operations Company

Pfc Todd Jones, Army National Guard’s 1569th Transportation Company

Pfc Brendan Joscelyn, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

2nd Lt.Cpl Allan Jose, 57th Military Police Company, 8th Military Police Brigade

Pfc Thomas Joyce, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

Spc Benno Juarez, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

– K-

1st Lt.Eric Kaufman, 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Charles Kavanaugh , Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile UnitTwo

Cpl Jon Keats,  67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Eric Keefe, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Tony Keeler, 118th Military Police Company, 519th Military Police Battalion, 16th Military Police Brigade

Pfc Chester Keenan, 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion

Pfc Frank Kennedy, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Jon Kent, 4th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Sgt Jordan Kessler, 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Capt Mark King , 4th Battalion, 42nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Neil Kirk, Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Spc Jeff Klein, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Alan Knoll, 57th Military Police Company, 8th Military Police Brigade

.Pfc Adam Koehler, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Capt Osmond Kray, Army National Guard’s 1569th Transportation Company

2nd Lt.Gary Krueger, 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

– L –

Tracey LaFaver , Civilian Contractor

Lance Cpl Roger Lafferty,  Marine Forces Reserve’s 2nd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment

Pfc Junior Lambert, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Shawn Lane, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Cpl Charles T. Langholz, 4th Battalion, 42nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Jimmy Bob Larkin, National Guard’s 149th Brigade Combat Team

Pfc Eric Larsen, 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion

Sgt. 1st Class Robert Law, Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Spc Andrew Richard, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Ricardo LeGallo, 4th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

2nd Lt.William S. Leonard,  2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force

Pfc Marshal Lindsley,  Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile UnitTwo

Master Sgt.Tommy Lee Lipton, 4th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc George Long, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Jimmy Longtree, 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion

1st Lt. Jasper Loomis, Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Pfc Carstairs Lowe, 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Robert M. Lynch, Army Reserve 346th Psychological Operations Company

– M –

Pfc Paul McKinnon , 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Keith MacVane, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Cpl Gunnar Magnusson, Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Capt.Martin Mahoney, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Enzo Marini, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Rostan Markovic, Central Intelligence Agency

Spc John M. Marshall, Army National Guard’s 1569th Transportation Company

Pfc Michael Martin, 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

Pfc Scott Marvin, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

Pfc Leroy Mason, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Spc Greg Mathews, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Duncan Maxwell, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Brian Mayer, 47th Combat Support Hospital, 62nd Medical Brigade

Arthur Mazzocco, Department of Defense

1st Lt.Joseph McAllister, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Master Sgt. Daniel McBride, . 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc William McClellan, 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force

Spc Lou McConnell, Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Sgt. 1st Class Albert McGinnis,. 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Master Sgt.David McRae, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Matthew Medigovich, Central Intelligence Agency

Pfc Vincent Mendoza, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

Cpl Richard Milich, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Pfc Ben Miller, 47th Combat Support Hospital, 62nd Medical Brigade

Cpl Robert Mitchell, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Terrence Mogen, 118th Military Police Company, 519th Military Police Battalion, 16th Military Police Brigade

Pfc Ted Montague, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division

Pfc Yates Montecino, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Esteban Morales, 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion

Pfc Darrell Morgan, Central Intelligence Agency

Jeffery Morrison, Civilian Contractor

– N –

1st Lt.Noble Natsios, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Carlos Naverez, Army National Guard’s 1569th Transportation Company

Sgt. 1st Class Edward Nelson , 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

Cpl Donald Newcomb, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Roger Newell, Civilian Contractor

Pfc Dorin Nicholson, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Bart Nolan, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Nelson Norton, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Wally Novak, Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

– O –

1st Lt.Chris O’Brien , 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Stephen O’Connor, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Raymond O’Rourke, Civilian Contractor

– P –

Spc James W. Page,  4th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Cpl Russell Palumbo, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Pfc Nicholas Pappas, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Troy Parker, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Thomas Parrish, Civilian Contractor

Pfc Mark Patten, 47th Combat Support Hospital, 62nd Medical Brigade

George Paul, Civilian Contractor

Lance Cpl Wallace Peabody,  2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary     Force

Pfc Dale Peake, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Reed Perry, Army National Guard’s 1569th Transportation Company

Pfc Samuel Petersen, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Roger Platt, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

1st Lt.Thomas Poole, 57th Military Police Company, 8th Military Police Brigade

Pfc William Porter, 118th Military Police Company, 519th Military Police Battalion, 16th Military Police Brigade

Sgt Daniel Powell, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Todd Price, Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Cpl Kevin Prisley, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Peter Purvis, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

– Q –

2nd Lt.Quesada, Gonzalo, 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion

Pfc Liam Quinn, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

– R –

Pfc Chad Railey, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Ignacio Ramirez,  Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Pfc Arthur Ramsen, Army Reserve 346th Psychological Operations Company

Benjamin Raymond, Civilian Contractor

Spc Todd Reckford, 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Aaron Reynolds, 57th Military Police Company, 8th Military Police Brigade

Pfc Timothy Richard, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division

1st Lt. Paul Richardson, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Robert Riley, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Shawn Roberts, Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Cpl Kirk Robinson, National Guard’s 149th Brigade Combat Team

Sgt. 1st Class James P. Rodgers, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

Master Sgt. Chad Romer, 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Martin Ross, 118th Military Police Company, 519th Military Police Battalion, 16th Military Police Brigade

Pfc Robert Rowan, 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

2nd Lt.Seth Ryan, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

– S –

Spc Ricardo Sagan, 118th Military Police Company, 519th Military Police Battalion, 16th Military Police Brigade

Pfc Hector Salazar, 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Cpl Ed Sampson, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

1st Lt Walter San Fellipo, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Bruce Sartiano,, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Cpl Raymond Schmitz, Army National Guard’s 1569th Transportation Company

2nd Lt.Ernest Sherman , 57th Military Police Company, 8th Military Police Brigade

Pfc Mario Sims, 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Joshua Smith, 4th Support Battalion, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Andrew Snow, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile UnitTwo

Gerald Sorenson, Department of Defense

Lincoln Stadermann, Translator

Master Sgt.Michael Stephenson, 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Carl Stone,, 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion

Capt.Harold Sullivan, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

1st Lt. Lawrence Swenson, 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

– T –

Cpl Augustus Tanner, 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion

Pfc Reginald Tate, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Duane Taylor, 118th Military Police Company, 519th Military Police Battalion, 16th Military Police Brigade

Sgt. 1st Class Curtis Thomas, 4th Battalion, 42nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Stuart Thompsen, 57th Military Police Company, 8th Military Police Brigade

Spc Larry Thomson, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Capt David Towers, Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Pfc Dean Townsend, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

2nd Lt.James Tracy, Army Reserve 346th Psychological Operations Company

Pfc Paul Tucker, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Daniel Tyson, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

– U –

Pfc Romillo Ugarte, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division

Cpl Austin Unger, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

– V –

Spc Ramon Valadez,  1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Cpl Hector Velazquez,  Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Spc WalterVincent, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division

2nd Lt.ThomasVoelker, 204th Support Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

– W –

Spc Carl Wade, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Walker, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Ronald Walsh,, 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Cpl Jack Ward, 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

Cpl Sean Weber, 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division

Pfc Steven Webster, Army National Guard’s 35th Special Troops Battalion

Spc Paul Welch, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Capt.Gene Westin, 1st Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, 25th Infantry Division

Master Sgt.Richard Wheeler, 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion

Pfc Lawrence White, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Andrew Willams, 7th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Sgt. 1st Class Mario Williamson, Army National Guard’s 1569th Transportation Company

Russell Wilson, Translator

Michael Wisniewski, Civilian Employee

Cpl Chris Womack, 67th Armor Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Burton Wood, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile UnitTwo

– Y –

Cpl Fernando Yates, 1st Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division

Istvan Yatsevitch, Civilian Contractor

Cpl John York,  4th Battalion, 42nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Peter Young, 1st Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

– Z –

Pfc Mario Zammarella, 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Cpl Jose Zamora, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division

Spc Reuben Zamora, 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division

Pfc Arno Ziegler, 542nd Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion

1st Lt.Charles L. Zimmerman, 1st Battalion, 32nd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division