Top UK General Says Afghanistan Army In Morale Crisis

The head of the army has warned that British troops are facing a crisis of deteriorating morale on the home front that risks undermining the war in Afghanistan.
In a confidential draft memo prepared for ministers, General Sir David Richards, chief of the general staff (CGS), said that recent cuts to the defence budget are having a “cumulative and corrosive effect on our soldiers and their families”.
Cuts to housing, shortages of training equipment and even the cancellation of sports events between soldiers’ tours of duty were making them and their families feel “undervalued”, the army chief wrote.
The leaked memo will be seized on by the Tories as opening a new front in the tussle between army chiefs and ministers over the politically sensitive issue of defence cuts.
It echoes the row last year when Richards’s predecessor, General Sir Richard Dannatt, stepped down after speaking out about equipment shortages as well as poor pay and conditions. It later emerged that government figures had tried to smear him over his expenses.
A senior military commander emphasised yesterday that it was not Richards’s intention to criticise ministers: “He’s not whingeing. He’s simply trying to flag up what he believes is a vital issue that needs their urgent attention.”
In the memo to the defence board, which comprises ministers and service chiefs, Richards shifts the focus of criticism from the war effort in Afghanistan to the treatment of troops on their return home.
While there had been “significant progress” on the front line, Richards said, the treatment of soldiers when they returned for 24 months between tours is so poor that it is threatening to undermine the war effort.
Marked “restricted”, the memo reports a summary of an internal “poll” of 5,000 soldiers and their families at units in Britain, Germany and Cyprus over the past four months.
The survey was discussed at the executive committee of the army board this month. Its results appear to be so alarming that Richards decided to alert ministers to its key findings. “My greatest concern … is the deteriorating experience of soldiers and their families … between tours which, the [survey] team reports, is disaffecting attitudes, damaging morale and risks undermining our ability to sustain the campaign . . .” he wrote.
“We need our soldiers to be ready, mentally and physically, to endure repeated tours in Afghanistan, in a harsh environment, with the real prospect of significant casualties each time. “To maintain the necessary morale and cohesion, they must see tangible signs between tours that they and their families are valued.”

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Top UK General Says Afghanistan Army In Morale Crisis was first posted on March 1, 2010 at 12:54 am.

President Barack Obama Signs One-Year Extension Of Patriot Act

President Barack Obama has signed a one-year extension of several provisions in the nation’s main counterterrorism law, the Patriot Act.
The Act, which was adopted in the weeks after the Sept 11, 2001 terror attacks, expands the government’s ability to monitor Americans in the name of national security. Three sections of the Patriot Act that stay in force will: _Authorize court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones. _Allow court-approved seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations.
_Permit surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group. Obama’s signature comes after the House voted 315 to 97 Thursday to extend the measure. The Senate also approved the measure, with privacy protections cast aside when Senate Democrats lacked the necessary 60-vote super majority to pass them.
Thrown away were restrictions and greater scrutiny on the government’s authority to spy on Americans and seize their records.

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President Barack Obama Signs One-Year Extension Of Patriot Act was first posted on March 1, 2010 at 1:00 am.

Eastwick Full Episodes,Watch Eastwick Episode 7

Eastwick Full Episodes,Watch Eastwick Episode 7: Roxie has a dream in which Chad tells her to follow the signs.

Eastwick Full Episodes,Watch Eastwick Episode 7:Roxie has a dream in which Chad tells her to follow the signs. Then…FLASH! She’s awake. She knows that Chad is dead and is later asked by his parents to skip the funeral. Of course, in her vision, Roxie was at the service, so we’re pretty sure she’ll be there one way or another. For now, she thinks she’s found one of the signs Chad was talking about. It’s a hammer with a note on it that reads: Return to Darryl Van Horne.

Roxie returns the hammer, but there doesn’t seem to be any payoff. Darryl wonders why she’s not at Chad’s funeral, as she was there in her vision. Roxie says she was disinvited. Besides, in her vision it was raining. CUE THE THUNDER! Okay, that’s a definite sign and Roxie crashes the funeral. After the service, she meets a woman who had been giving him guitar lessons. He recorded a song for Roxie last week. Guitar girl gives Roxie a CD of the tune. She says, “It’s like he sent you a message from beyond the grave.” Freaky, huh?

Remember how psycho Pastor Dunn trapped our favorite investigative reporter in a coffin and tried to burn her alive? Joanna does. Still, she’s focusing on the positive, namely the fact that she has the power to move things with her mind. But she hasn’t been able to do it since the kidnapping. At the Eastwick Gazette, Joanna meets Max Brody, the arrogant reporter who replaced her. Max wants to do a story about Joanna’s recent ordeal and he follows her all over town, determined to score an interview.

source:http://abc.go.com