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Questions for Doug Brooks of the International Peace Operation Association

By we are stardust on Thu, 02/25/2010 - 9:25pm |

I posted this diary yesterday concerning Jan Schakowsky's bill 'Stop Outsourcing Security Act,' and was surprised to wake in the morning to a comment posted by the president of IPOA, Doug Brooks, taking issue with a few of my assertions...

I posted this diary yesterday concerning Jan Schakowsky's bill 'Stop Outsourcing Security Act,' and was surprised to wake in the morning to a comment posted by the president of IPOA, Doug Brooks, taking issue with a few of my assertions in the piece.  IPOA is a non-profit lobbying umbrella for Contractors, especially in war zones and disaster areas.

 He invited me to contact him by email or phone; I chose email, and sent 12 questions to him.  He responded quickly that he would answer them if I guaranteed to post his answers in their entirety.

I responded affirmatively, with the caveat that the answers not be too long for a normal diary, though I later thought it would also be possible to divide them into two blogs.

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Stop Outsourcing Security Act + Update Comment by IPOA's Doug Brooks ????

By we are stardust on Wed, 02/24/2010 - 1:34pm |
Representative Jan Schakowsy and twenty co-sponsors will offer a bill that would phase out private security forces and require the military to use its own personnel to train troops and police, guard convoys, repair weapons, etc.  There are over 217,000...
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House Votes to Designate 'Certain' TV Stations as 'Terrorists'

By we are stardust on Tue, 02/23/2010 - 11:57am |
Now here is a real pip we haven't heard much (if anything) about: On 12/08/09 the House overwhelmingly passed an apparently AIPAC-sponsored bill, brought to the floor by Rep. Bilirakis, Gus M. (Foreign Affairs Committee) :  H.R. 2278 directs the...
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The Reverend Wendy's Telethon for Synch (Cafe-athon?)

By we are stardust on Sun, 02/21/2010 - 4:13pm |
Every time you Rec this, AND contribute, an Angel Gets It's Wings!   ;-} I offered to repost this for Synch.  Please realize how hard it is to ask for some money from Virtual Strangers (hahahahaha)  to get through an injury...
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Gareth Porter's Take on the 'New' Afghanistan Strategy

By we are stardust on Sat, 02/20/2010 - 12:11pm |
Veteran journalist and author Gareth Porter was recently interviewed by Paul Jay on The Real News network; Porter  just returned from Afghanistan two weeks ago.   It's a ten-and-a-half minute interview, and well worth the dab of time.  He makes some...
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Obama Names Yemen New Hotbed for Anti-American Extremists?

By we are stardust on Mon, 02/15/2010 - 12:08pm |
Yemen's been in the news a lot lately, and I needed to know more about it than it's where the Underwear-bomber got his bomb, and that the Fort Hood shooter emailed with a Radical Imam there.  Maybe you'd like some...
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Assassination of US Citizens Abroad

By we are stardust on Mon, 02/08/2010 - 4:43pm |
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told a Congressional committee on Wednesday that the military has the authority to target US citizens in other countries if it believes that they 'have been radicalized' and are 'involved with a group that...
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A Salute to Admiral Mike Mullen on DADT

By we are stardust on Wed, 02/03/2010 - 10:47am |
At the Groundhog Day Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on the current Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen gave a full-throated endorsement to the President's appeal to Congress to reverse that policy.  He...
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Haitians Need Shelter

By we are stardust on Fri, 01/29/2010 - 11:14am |
The Hatian government is asking for a minimum of 200,000 more tents for temporary housing, which might mean from now until half-of-forever.  I found an NGO based in the UK called Shelterbox, which has branches in a number of countries,...
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Bravehearts at the Café

By we are stardust on Tue, 01/26/2010 - 12:47pm |
There's an excess of suffering in this country and around the globe right now, and maybe in your lives, or the lives of your friends and relatives.  It's hard, and harder still to feel powerless in the face of most...

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