Shuttle launch scrubbed due to fuel leak

Shuttle launch scrubbed due to fuel leak: "The planned Wednesday night launch of space shuttle Discovery has been cancelled due to an apparent leak in the giant external fuel tank, the Kennedy Space Center said.

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(Via CNN.com.)

Guantanamo Detainees Admit Pride In 9-11 Attacks

The five detainees at Guantánamo Bay charged with planning the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have filed a document with the military commission at the United States naval base there expressing pride at their accomplishment and accepting full responsibility for the killing of nearly 3,000 people.

The document, which may be released publicly on Tuesday, uses the Arabic term for a consultative assembly in describing the five men as the “9/11 Shura Council,” and it says their actions were an offering to God, according to excerpts of the document that were read to a reporter by a government official who was not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The document is titled “The Islamic Response to the Government’s Nine Accusations,” the military judge at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp said in a separate filing, obtained by The New York Times, that describes the detainees’ document.

The document was filed on behalf of the five men, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has described himself as the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.

President Obama halted the military proceedings at Guantánamo in the first days after his inauguration, and the five men’s case is on hiatus until the government decides how it will proceed.

Several of the men have earlier said in military commission proceedings at Guantánamo that they planned the 2001 attacks and that they sought martyrdom. The strategic goal of the five men in making the new filing, which reached the military court on March 5, was not clear.

In their filing, the men describe the planning of the Sept. 11 attacks and the killing of Americans as a model of Islamic action, and say the American government’s accusations cause them no shame, according to the excerpts read by the government official.

“To us,” the official continued reading, “they are not accusations. To us they are a badge of honor, which we carry with honor.”

It appears that the men wrote the document at meetings they are permitted to conduct periodically at the detention camp without lawyers.

In his brief court order describing the filing, the military judge who has been handling the case, Col. Stephen R. Henley of the Army, said the men sought no specific legal action. Judge Henley ordered that the filing be released immediately, but officials said objections from lawyers for two of the men had held up release Monday.

All five of the men have said they want to represent themselves, but in the case of these two men, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, the military judge had not yet determined their competency when the proceedings were halted.

Pentagon knowingly exposed troops to cancer-causing chemicals, document shows

John Byrne
Published: Tuesday March 10, 2009

A newly leaked military document appears to show the Pentagon knowingly exposed US troops to toxic chemicals that cause cancer, while publicly downplaying the risks exposure might cause.

The document, written by an environmental engineering flight commander in December of 2006 and posted on Wikileaks (PDF) on Tuesday, details the risks posed to US troops in Iraq by burning garbage at a US airbase. It enumerates myriad risks posed by the practice and identifies various carcinogens released by incinerating waste in open-air pits.

Because of the difficulties in testing samples, investigators could not prove that chemicals exceeded military exposure guidelines. But a military document released last December found that chemicals routinely exceeded safe levels by twice to six times.

The leaked report was signed off by the chief for the Air Force's aeromedical services. Its subject is Balad Airbase, a large US military base about 70 kilometers north of Baghdad.

"In my professional opinion, the known carcinogens and respiratory sensitizers released into the atmosphere by the burn pit present both an acute and a chronic health hazard to our troops and the local population," Aeromedical chief Lt. Colonel James Elliott wrote.

According to the document, a US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventative Medicine investigator said Balad's burn pit was "the worst environmental site I have ever personally visited," including "10 years working... clean-up for the Army."

Red the full RAW STORy HERE.

Threatening words from N. Korea

Threatening words from N. Korea: "SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea put its armed forces on standby Monday and threatened retaliation against anyone seeking to stop it from firing what regional powers fear will be a missile in the latest barrage of threats from the communist regime."

(Via Air Force Times - News.)

Switchblade: Not a UAV to Mess With

Switchblade: Not a UAV to Mess With: "

AeroVironment says it has conducted an 'end-to-end demonstration' of its Switchblade lethal mini-UAV. As demonstrated, the battery-powered Switchblade is a backpackable UAV that is launched from a tube, unfolds its tandem wings, and sends back streaming video from an electro-optical sensor.

Artwork: AeroVironment

But when a target is detected, the operator designates it on the hand-held controller, the 2lb Switchblade folds its wings back under the fuselage and becomes a weapon, autonomously guided by video tracker on to the target, exploding the small warhead.

AeroVironment doesn't have any orders yet for the Switchblade, but in its third-quarter analysts' call on Mar. 9 the company said two new customers have funded demonstrations of different applications of the UAV. The back-packed tube-launched demo just completed was funded by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.

The small-UAV specialist seems confident of selling the Switchblade and thinks it could get from contract to production in about 18 months. Switchblade is one of several UAVs under development at AeroVironment. They include a DARPA-funded version of the Wasp micro-UAV that can takeoff and land vertically, hover and 'perch and stare'. Likely the inspiration for this cartoon from company presentation...

Artwork: AeroVironment

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(Via Ares.)