Friday, August 8, 2014


News Clips For The Day


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/07/1319828/-Majority-of-Americans-disapprove-of-Republican-lawsuit-against-the-president

Daily Kos
Majority of Americans disapprove of Republican lawsuit against the president
By Hunter
August 7, 2014

A majority of Americans disapprove of House Republicans' plan to sue President Obama, a new poll shows, illustrating the political risk their election year maneuver carries.

Fifty-four percent disapprove, the CBS News poll shows. Just 37 percent say they approve of the plans.

I realize "duh" is not exactly top-notch punditizing, but I'm really not sure what else to say; polling on the nebulous "lawsuit" notion seems more likely to be a stand-in for generic party approval/disapproval than anything else.

Why? Because even if you're a die-hard Republican the lawsuit itself is incoherent, an apparent effort to strengthen parts of Obamacare Republicans have been railing against for years. The mere premise of a lawsuit against the president sounds silly when you say it, as if the Republican House has thrown up its hands at the thought of doing any actual governance at all and now has been reduced to stunts to prevent anyone else from governing either. And with the talk of supposed Obama "lawlessness,, it's clearly meant as a flimsy stand-in for impeachment, something Republicans hope will sooth the frothy base (since it looks weak, it won't) without making themselves look impeachment-happy to the wider public (but that ship has sailed.)

Like shutting down the government, it's a transparently stupid idea that House Republicans are undertaking only because they are obsessed with their own internal battles to do something more anti-Obama than the next guy. As we've repeatedly seen, the party has given up all pretense of playing to the center, preferring endless base-rattling in an effort to squeeze out the votes they need from their dwindling ranks of increasingly hard-right supporters. But if they lose the lawsuit they get nothing, and if they win the lawsuit they also get nothing; there's no end game here, the stunt of "announcing" the lawsuit was the only plan.




Daily Kos is an overtly left-oriented source, but they do show articles like this. No one else posted the results of the poll. Only 37% of those polled say they approve of Boehner's effort, which is less than the number who declare themselves to be Republicans, so Boehner needs to convince his own adherents. Boehner from the first has been trying to make Obama panic, and his efforts have failed. Obama is continuing to use executive orders and has stuck to his course of immigration reform. I'm pleased with that. He is cool under fire and always a logical thinker.






U.S. adamant it can stop ISIS in its tracks
CBS NEWS August 8, 2014, 6:51 AM

Sunni Islamic militants have stepped up efforts to expand their territory in northern Iraq, and their successes this week against what was thought to be the superior fighting force in the oil-rich, semi-autonomous Kurdish region have prompted President Obama to threaten airstrikes.

"We will make sure that ISIL cannot approach Erbil," senior Obama administration officials told CBS News late Thursday, after President Obama himself told the nation he had authorized airstrikes against the militant group.

CBS News senior defense correspondent David Martin says the Pentagon will authorize airstrikes if the militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also known as ISIL) don't retreat from both the Sinjar mountains, where thousands of minority Yezidis have fled to avoid their advance, and from the area around Erbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdish region.

On Thursday, two U.S. military transport planes dropped tons of emergency food and water supplies onto the mountains for the displaced Iraqis.

About 150 U.S. military advisors and an unknown number of diplomats have relocated to Erbil in recent weeks as it was, until this week, considered relatively safe from ISIS attack.

With the threat of American military aircraft dropping bombs on ISIS positions -- which have come as close as 20 miles to Erbil -- now on the table, the officials who spoke to CBS News on Thursday night said they were "very confident our consulate (in Erbil) is safe and our people will continue to be at work."

As CBS News' Holly Williams reports, ISIS has taken on Kurdish "peshmerga" fighters in northern Iraq this week and extended the borders of its self-declared "Islamic State" or caliphate, which spans across a vast swath of eastern Syria and Western Iraq.

In territory they have seized, they al Qaeda splinter group has been enforcing its own strict version of Islam, executing non-Sunni Muslims who refuse to convert or leave their homes, and committing a host of atrocities to instill fear into their enemies -- a strategy which has facilitated their rapid advance in the region. Many towns and key locations have simply been abandoned by Iraqi or Kurdish forces as ISIS militants advance; their reputation precedes them.

As one of the Obama administration officials put it to CBS News on Thursday evening: "It is their mission to ethnically cleanse areas of anyone that it disagrees.... (ISIS) is so ruthless, quite literally putting people's heads on spikes as a sign of the fate of anyone who would resist them."

On Thursday, after fierce clashes, ISIS militants seized 15 towns in northern Iraq, an army base and Iraq's biggest dam.

Soldiers from the Iraqi military fled the area two months ago when ISIS first surged into Mosul, the country's second largest city. The Kurdish peshmerga are the only fighters still doing battle with ISIS on the ground in the north, and their recent defeats have seriously worried officials in Washington.

Several of the towns captured by ISIS this week were Christian, including Bartella, which CBS News visited in June.

Captain Firaz Jacob and his 600 local militiamen then vowed to protect Bartella from ISIS, who at that point were just ten miles away.

But asked in June what would happen if ISIS tried to push into the city, Firaz wasn't optimistic. "I don't know," he said, "maybe they'll kill us."

Thousands of Iraqi Christians have now fled the area, fearful that ISIS will give them the same stark choice they've offered to other religious minorities -- convert, leave, or be killed.



http://www.thewire.com/global/2014/08/pentagon-denies-reports-of-us-bombing-in-iraq/375769/
Pentagon Confirms U.S. Airstrikes in Iraq
SHIRLEY LI AND DASHIELL BENNETT
AUG 7, 2014 5:41PM ET / IRAQ IN CRISIS

(Update 8:50 a.m.:) On Friday morning, the Pentagon confirmed via Twitter that U.S. aircraft had finally conduct on a strike on ISIS targets, hitting artillery being used against Kurdish forces in Irbil.

Humanitarian airdrops of water and supplies began on Friday morning local time, and bombing assaults were also targeting ISIS positions near the Kurdish town of Irbil.

Although the Pentagon has denied direct involvment by U.S. forces, American planes are reportedly in the air providing support. Iraqi forces claimed to have taken part in the bombing runs, though some have questioned if the Iraqi air force was equipped to handle such attack, or if another ally, possibly Turkey, was involved.

Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby quickly denied reports that the U.S. has bombed Iraq in the wake of increased aggression by the Islamic State militant group, which has resulted in as many as 40,000 displaced religious minorities.

The New York Times reported around 5:00 p.m. Eastern on Thursday that, according to Kurdish officials and media reports, American military forces conducted airstrikes on at least two targets in northern Iraq, where ISIS has cut off access to the displaced residents. Within minutes, the Pentagon denied that story via Twitter.

In addition, ABC News is reporting that the U.S. has begun humanitarian air drops, but not bombing raids. The Times also reported that President Obama was planning to deliver a statement, but there has no confirmation from the White House.




The Pentagon has denied so far that the US has actually bombed two sites in Iraq. Sources in Kurdish territory and some news sources have reported two strikes by American planes. The Iraqi military claims to have made the strikes, “though some have questioned if the Iraqi air force was equipped to handle such attack, or if another ally, possibly Turkey, was involved.”

An involvement in Iraq and Syria by Iran and Turkey sounds as though there could be a larger war in the area soon, as Islamic states band together to fight ISIS. I have feared a new “world war” in the Middle East for some time, but with ISIS so far succeeding in its attempts to conquer territory and set up a Sunni state, there is legitimate need for a force to be mustered which is capable of fighting back effectively. If we have not yet bombed ISIS, I think we should do it soon before Kurdish territory is overrun and taken. As soon as I get more news on this I will clip it.





One-fourth of U.S. families "just getting by" – CBS
By ALAIN SHERTER MONEYWATCH August 7, 2014, 5:59 PM

New data from the Federal Reserve highlight how many Americans continue to struggle financially more than five years after the end of the Great Recession.

As of September 2013, when the central bank conducted the poll, a quarter of families said they were "just getting by," while an additional 13 percent were struggling to make ends meet.

Asked to compare their current financial situation with how they were faring five years ago, as the housing crash was wreaking havoc on the economy, 34 percent of respondents said they were doing "somewhat or much worse" than in 2008. The same percentage reported essentially treading water, while 30 percent said they were doing better.

"Given that respondents were being asked to compare their incomes to 2008, when the United States was in the depths of the financial crisis, the fact that over two-thirds of respondents reported being the same or worse off financially highlights the uneven nature of the recovery," the Federal Reserve said in the report.

The Fed found that more than 60 percent of U.S. families were either "doing OK" or "living comfortably."

The survey of 4,100 households was conducted between September and October of last year. Since then, economic growth has been inconsistent. The nation's GDP shrank 2.1 percent over the first three months of the year, when harsh winter weather slowed consumer spending and dented the housing sector. But GDP surged to an annualized 4 percent between April and June, while the job market has strengthened in recent months.

Americans' biggest financial concerns centered on three issues, the Fed found: retirement, education and jobs. And even with the economy seemingly on the mend, other findings from the Fed survey highlight the financial challenges many Americans still face.

For instance, a third of households who had applied for credit in the previous 12 months reported being turned down or getting less than they asked for. Meanwhile, 10 percent of households said their income fluctuates significantly from month to month, largely because of an irregular work schedule or because respondents are unemployed.

Wage growth has been soft throughout the recovery, which officially began in June 2009. That has strained household budgets and damped consumer spending, slowing the pace of recovery. Average hourly earnings for all private nonfarm employees was essentially flat last month. Wages are now growing at an annualized rate of only 2 percent, barely keeping earners ahead of inflation this year.

Other key findings from the Fed survey:
31 percent of nonretired respondents said they have no retirement savings or pension.
26 percent of households expected the value of their homes to rise less than 5 percent over the next 12 months.
24 percent reported having some form of education debt as of September 2013, with 18 percent of this group indicating they were behind on payments.
Over 50 percent of renters said they had to curb their spending over the prior 12 months in order to pay the rent.
57 percent of respondents with credit cards reported paying off their balances in full each month.




“New data from the Federal Reserve highlight how many Americans continue to struggle financially more than five years after the end of the Great Recession. As of September 2013, when the central bank conducted the poll, a quarter of families said they were "just getting by," while an additional 13 percent were struggling to make ends meet.... The Fed found that more than 60 percent of U.S. families were either 'doing OK' or 'living comfortably.' … Meanwhile, 10 percent of households said their income fluctuates significantly from month to month, largely because of an irregular work schedule or because respondents are unemployed.... Wages are now growing at an annualized rate of only 2 percent, barely keeping earners ahead of inflation this year.... Over 50 percent of renters said they had to curb their spending over the prior 12 months in order to pay the rent.”

This article is full of bad news, but the scariest thing I see here is that 50% of all renters have had to limit their spending in order to pay the rent. That's a high percentage. One month without a paycheck could put these people out on the street. The good news is that 60% are “doing okay.” More jobs and a significant improvement in the Federal minimum wage would really help.





Iraq's Widening War Imperils A Religious Minority – NPR
by ALISON MEUSE
August 07, 2014

Until a few days ago, most people outside of Iraq had never heard of the Yazidis, an ancient religious minority living in the remote northwestern plains of the troubled country.

But the Yazidis are now a focal point in the widening war in Iraq. Up to 40,000 members of the community are stranded on barren mountain cliffs and encircled by the Islamic State, the extremist group that's been advancing rapidly across Iraq this summer. Dozens of Yazidi children have already died of dehydration, according to UNICEF, and many more risk a similar fate.

The United Nations is warning of a "humanitarian tragedy" and a U.S. official tells NPR that efforts to lend aid have begun. Plans are underway for U.S. Air Force cargo planes to drop food, water and medical kits into the area.

A Yazidi member of Iraq's parliament, Vian Dakhil, made an impassioned plea for support.

"There is a collective attempt to exterminate the Yazidi people," she said in parliament in Baghdad on Tuesday before collapsing in tears.

Islamic State Overruns Yazidi Town

The Islamic State is made up of Sunni Muslims who adhere to a radical interpretation of Islam, and their fight is with the Shiite Muslims who dominate Iraq's government. But the Islamic State is also hostile toward other minorities such as Kurds, Christians and Yazidis, as well as moderate Sunnis who oppose them.

The Yazidis are among some 200,000 who fled after the Islamic State captured the town of Sinjar and surrounding villages in northern Iraq on Sunday. Most managed to escape to the nearby Kurdish autonomous region.

But many didn't make it out in time. Their only escape was to the mountains, which have effectively become a prison, under siege by extremist militants below. According to the latest U.N. reports, some of the Yazidis have been rescued, but thousands more remain.

Land routes are blocked, and a small number of Kurdish peshmerga fighters and armed Yazidi youths are keeping the extremists at bay, according to Houssam Salim, the head of the Solidarity and Brotherhood Yazidi organization.

Meanwhile, those in need are hard to find. They are sheltering in numerous remote locations in the mountains, and their phone batteries are dying.

A History Of Oppression

So who are the Yazidis?

They are Kurdish by ethnicity, and also speak Kurdish. Their ancient faith is linked to Persian Zoroastrianism. They have adopted elements of Judaism, Christianity and Islam over the centuries. Adherents are spread across Syria, Turkey, Armenia and Georgia, with the largest concentration in Iraq.

Yazidis believe that a supreme God placed the earth under the custody of seven holy beings, the most exalted of which is the Peacock Angel. For this, Yazidis are sometimes labeled as heretics or devil worshippers.

Iraq was home to some 750,000 Yazidis as of 2005, but many fled during the height of the anti-U.S. insurgency over the next couple of years. Now, they are believed to number fewer than 500,000.

The Yazidis have repeatedly faced oppression from larger, more powerful forces in the region over the centuries.

The fate of the Yazidis who did not leave Sinjar, or who returned on guarantees from the local Sunni Arabs, remains murky. Dakhil, the member of parliament, says she has received reports that hundreds of Yazidi men were slaughtered by the jihadis, and women were taken captive.

The Islamic State has published gory images of its conquests in Sinjar. Dozens of men are photographed face down on the rocky soil, with gunmen taking aim from behind. One caption reads: "And if you find the nonbelievers, smite them in the neck."


Yazidi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Yazidi (also Yezidi, Êzidî, Yazdani, ایزدیان) are a Kurdish ethno-religious community whose syncretic but ancient religion is linked toZoroastrianism and ancient Mesopotamian religions.[11] They live primarily in the Nineveh Province of northern Iraq, a region once part of ancient Assyria. Additional communities in Armenia, Georgia and Syriahave been in decline since the 1990s, their members having emigrated to Europe, especially to Germany.[

In Zoroastrian-like tradition, the Peacock Angelembodied humanity's potential for both good (light) and bad (dark) acts, and due to pride temporarily fell from God's favor, before his remorseful tears extinguished the fires of his hellish prison and he reconciled with God. Newer monotheistic religions wrongly re-cast the Peacock Angelas the unredeemed evil deity Satan, which incited centuries of prejudicial persecution of the Yazidi as so-called "devil worshippers" by followers of these later religions. Persecution of Yazidis has continued in their home communities within the borders of modern Iraq, under bothSaddam Hussein and fundamentalist Sunni Muslim revolutionaries.[1

The bulk of the Yazidi population lives in Iraq, where they make up an importantIraqi minority community.[1] Estimates of the size of these communities vary significantly, between 70,000 and 500,000. They are particularly concentrated in northern Iraq in the Nineveh Province. 

The Yazidi are Kurdish-speaking people who adhere to a branch of Iranian religions that blends elements of Mithraism, pre-Islamic Mesopotamian/Assyrian religious traditions, Christianity and Islam. In addition to Kurdish, there are significant Yazidi communities who speak Arabic as their native language. 

According to the Yezidi calendar, April 2012 marked the beginning of their year 6,762 (thereby year 1 would have been in 4,750 BC in the Gregorian calendar).[23]

Yazidism is not an offshoot of another religion (such as Christianity or Islam), but shows influence from the many religions of the middle-east. Core Yazidi cosmology has a pre-Zoroastrian Iranian origin, but Yazidism also includes elements of ancient nature-worship, as well as influences from Christianity, Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, Islam and Judaism. 

Yazidi in Syria live primarily in two communities, one in the Al-Jazira area and the other in the Kurd-Dagh.[

The Salafist militant group Islamic State, which considers the Yazidi devil-worshippers, overtook Sinjar in August 2014 following the withdrawal ofPeshmerga troops, forcing up to 50,000 Yazidis to flee into the nearby mountainous region.[18] Threatened with death at the hands of militants and faced with starvation in the mountains, their plight received international media coverage,[19] leading President Obama to authorize humanitarian airdrops of food and water onto Sinjar Mountain and US airstrikes against militants in support of the beleaguered religious minority. The humanitarian assistance began on 7 August 2014.[20]




This religious and ethnic group looks to be in danger of attempted genocide by ISIS if the jihadist group succeeds in overcoming their territory. They don't have an army, but live alongside the Kurds, so their fate probably depends on the strength of the Kurds. The US will likely end up protecting Kurdish territory, backing up the Kurdish army with air strikes. Hopefully we won't end up sending ground troops into Iraq again, but we may. It is in the US' national interests to help stop ISIS in its rampage. Three nations controlled by ISIS would be a danger to the US, Europe and the other Shia groups in the region. I will clip further news articles about this.




A tick bite can make you allergic to red meat – CBS
AP August 7, 2014, 3:08 PM

A bug can turn you into a vegetarian, or at least make you swear off red meat. Doctors across the nation are seeing a surge of sudden meat allergies in people bitten by a certain kind of tick.

This bizarre problem was only discovered a few years ago but is growing as the ticks spread from the Southwest and the East to more parts of the United States. In some cases, eating a burger or a steak has landed people in the hospital with severe allergic reactions.

Few patients seem aware of the risk, and even doctors are slow to recognize it. As one allergist who has seen 200 cases on New York's Long Island said, "Why would someone think they're allergic to meat when they've been eating it their whole life?"

The culprit is the Lone Star tick, named for Texas, a state famous for meaty barbecues. The tick is now found throughout the South and the eastern half of the United States.

Researchers think some other types of ticks also might cause meat allergies; cases have been reported in Australia, France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Japan and Korea.

Here's how it happens: The bugs harbor a sugar that humans don't have, called alpha-gal. The sugar is also is found in red meat - beef, pork, venison, rabbit - and even some dairy products. It's usually fine when people encounter it through food that gets digested.

But a tick bite triggers an immune system response, and in that high-alert state, the body perceives the sugar the tick transmitted to the victim's bloodstream and skin as a foreign substance, and makes antibodies to it. That sets the stage for an allergic reaction the next time the person eats red meat and encounters the sugar.

It happened last summer to Louise Danzig, a 63-year-old retired nurse from Montauk on eastern Long Island.

Hours after eating a burger, "I woke up with very swollen hands that were on fire with itching," she said. As she headed downstairs, "I could feel my lips and tongue were getting swollen," and by the time she made a phone call for help, "I was losing my ability to speak and my airway was closing."

She had had recent tick bites, and a blood test confirmed the meat allergy.

"I'll never have another hamburger, I'm sure," Danzig said. "I definitely do not want to have that happen to me again."

In Mount Juliet near Nashville, Tennessee, 71-year-old Georgette Simmons went to a steakhouse on June 1 for a friend's birthday and had a steak.

"About 4:30 in the morning I woke up and my body was on fire. I was itching all over and I broke out in hives. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before," she said.

A few weeks later, for a brother's birthday, she ordered another steak. Hours later she woke "almost hysterical" with a constricted throat in addition to hives and a burning sensation. She, too, recalled tick bites.

Dr. Robert Valet at Vanderbilt University said Simmons was one of two patients he diagnosed with the meat allergy that day. He warned her it could be worse next time.

"I never did eat a lot of red meat anyway but when I go out I like a nice fillet. Right now I wouldn't even eat hamburger meat," Simmons said.

At the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, "I see two to three new cases every week," said Dr. Scott Commins, who with a colleague, Dr. Thomas Platts-Mills, published the first paper tying the tick to the illness in 2011.

One of the first cases they saw was a bow hunter who had eaten meat all his life but landed in the emergency department several times with allergic reactions after eating meat. More cases kept turning up in people who were outdoors a lot.

"It seemed something geographical. We thought at first it might be a squirrel parasite," Commins said. "It took us a while to sort of put everything together" and finger the tick, he said.

Dr. Erin McGintee, an allergy specialist on eastern Long Island, an area with many ticks, has seen nearly 200 cases over the last three years. At least 30 involved children, and the youngest was 4 or 5. She is keeping a database to study the illness with other researchers.

"It is bizarre," she said. "It goes against almost anything I've ever learned as an allergist," because the symptoms can occur as long as eight hours after eating meat, rather than immediately, and the culprit is a sugar - a type of carbohydrate - whereas most food allergies are caused by proteins, she said.

Allergic reactions can be treated with antihistamines to ease itching, and more severe ones with epinephrine. Some people with the allergy now carry epinephrine shots in case they are stricken again.

Doctors don't know if the allergy is permanent. Some patients show signs of declining antibodies over time, although those with severe reactions are understandably reluctant to risk eating meat again. Even poultry products such as turkey sausage sometimes contain meat byproducts and can trigger the allergy.

"We don't really know yet how durable this will be" or whether it's lifelong, like a shellfish allergy, Valet said.

The meat allergy "does not seem to be lifelong, but the caveat is, additional tick bites bring it back," Commins said.

Michael Abley, who is 74 and lives in Surry, Virginia, near Williamsburg, comes from a family of cattle ranchers and grew up eating meat. He developed the meat allergy more than a decade ago, although it was only tied to the tick in more recent years.

"Normally I can eat a little bit of dairy," he said, but some ice cream landed him in an emergency room about a month ago. He admitted having had recent bug bites.

"I'm surrounded by ticks here," he said.



Amblyomma americanum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Amblyomma americanum, or lone star tick, is a species of tick in the genusAmblyomma. It is very widespread in the United States ranging from Texas to Iowa in the Midwest and east to the coast where it can be found as far north as Maine.[2] It is most common in wooded areas, particularly in forests with thick underbrush, and large trees.

Like all ticks, it can be a vector of diseases including human monocytotropic ehrlichiosis (Ehrlichia chaffeensis), canine and human granulocytic ehrlichiosis (Ehrlichia ewingii), tularemia (Francisella tularensis), and southern tick-associated rash illness (STARI, possibly caused by the spirochete Borrelia lonestari).[3] STARI exhibits a rash similar to that caused by Lyme disease, but is generally considered to be less severe.

The allergen has been identified as a carbohydrate called galactose-α-1,3-galactose, commonly known as alpha gal. As well as occurring in nonprimate mammals, alpha gal is also found in cat dander and a drug used to treat head and neck cancer. Commercial tests for alpha gal IgE became available following research.





“Doctors across the nation are seeing a surge of sudden meat allergies in people bitten by a certain kind of tick.... The culprit is the Lone Star tick, named for Texas, a state famous for meaty barbecues. The tick is now found throughout the South and the eastern half of the United States. Researchers think some other types of ticks also might cause meat allergies; cases have been reported in Australia, France, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Japan and Korea.... Here's how it happens: The bugs harbor a sugar that humans don't have, called alpha-gal.... Doctors don't know if the allergy is permanent. Some patients show signs of declining antibodies over time, although those with severe reactions are understandably reluctant to risk eating meat again.”

Ticks of various kinds live in Southern woodlands, so I grew up fearing the worst if I got a bite. Luckily I've had very few tick bites and no diseases from the ones I did have. I remember seeing one crawling up the leg of my jeans once. I flicked it off. Nowadays I don't go into woodlands anymore, or almost never, and I strip and take a shower if I do. The other bug we used to get whenever we went to my grandparents' house in Southeastern NC is called a chigger. It is related to a spider and injects a toxin every time it bites, causing a large swollen bump that itches terribly. If we felt that itch we would take our fingernail and scrape the tiny red bug off and kill it. If we did that quickly enough we could prevent the insect from injecting even more venom into our skin and the bump would soon go away. I love the woods, but I hate these pests. There is probably no way to eradicate the insects, so they will continue to be annoying and possibly a real threat.







The Murky Motives Of The Afghan Soldier Who Shot A U.S. General – NPR
by SEAN CARBERRY and AIMAL YAQUBI
August 07, 2014

The Afghan soldier who fatally shot a U.S. major general on Tuesday had no sympathy for the Taliban, and his motives for the shooting are far from clear, according to his fellow soldiers.

Afghan officials have identified the attacker as Rafiqullah, who, like many Afghans, goes by one name. He opened fire on a delegation of NATO officials who were visiting the Marshal Fahim Military Academy outside Kabul. He killed Maj. Gen. Harold Greene and wounded 15 other NATO service members who were visiting the compound. Four Afghans were also wounded.

After so many insider attacks in recent years, there was an immediate suspicion that the shooter may have been a member or a sympathizer of the Taliban.

Rafiqullah was an army soldier and worked as one of the security guards at the academy, which is the Afghan version of West Point. Students spend four years there and graduate as junior officers with the equivalent of a bachelor's degree.

Students we spoke with at the academy have theories, but say they aren't really sure why Rafiqullah, who was killed, opened fire.

Rafiqullah, 25, came from a poor family in the eastern province of Pakitya and had been in the army for three years.

"He was a practicing Muslim, a devout person, but had no radical views," says one student of the academy who spoke on condition of anonymity since he was not authorized to speak with the media.

He and others say Rafiqullah had no links with the Taliban. Indeed, he was angry with the group because he was not able to travel home freely due to their threats.

One of Rafiqullah's close friends was with him shortly before the shooting and said he could not sense anything unusual about Rafiqullah's behavior.

Students say Rafiqullah was bothered by the fact that British men were training female Afghan officers at a neighboring compound.

"He had seen the Afghan girls during the training sessions with their British mentors," says another student, also speaking anonymously. "He didn't like the idea that they were doing daily jogging and military training with foreign mentors."

"My friends and I think that Rafiqullah might have had family problems," says the first student. "He was tired and fed-up, or he might have committed this act because of religious sentiments over the liberal way women and girls live in the other facility."

Students say Rafiqullah had just completed watch duty when the Afghan garrison commander gave orders to collect the weapons from all the soldiers. About 20 minutes before the shooting, they say, Rafiqullah snuck off with his M16 rifle and hid in a bathroom.

He opened fire from the bathroom window. Students say they don't believe Rafiqullah was specifically targeting Maj. Gen. Greene.

Greene is the highest ranking U.S. officer killed during war since Vietnam, and this was his first combat deployment. Greene, who held a doctorate in materials science, previously served as commander of the Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass. The facility designs food and equipment for the military.

The insider, or "green on blue," attack that killed Greene was the second fatal attack this year. In 2012, there were more than 40 attacks by Afghan army or police forces that killed more than 60 NATO personnel, most of them Americans.

Insider attacks dropped off dramatically after the spike in 2012 as NATO and U.S. forces instituted a number of new security protocols, such as carrying loaded magazines in their weapons on bases and using "guardian angels" who provide security when NATO and Afghan forces interact. Insider attacks have also dropped because there are fewer foreign troops in Afghanistan.




“The Afghan soldier who fatally shot a U.S. major general on Tuesday had no sympathy for the Taliban, and his motives for the shooting are far from clear, according to his fellow soldiers.... Rafiqullah, 25, came from a poor family in the eastern province of Pakitya and had been in the army for three years.... One of Rafiqullah's close friends was with him shortly before the shooting and said he could not sense anything unusual about Rafiqullah's behavior. Students say Rafiqullah was bothered by the fact that British men were training female Afghan officers at a neighboring compound... 'He was tired and fed-up, or he might have committed this act because of religious sentiments over the liberal way women and girls live in the other facility.'.... He opened fire from the bathroom window. Students say they don't believe Rafiqullah was specifically targeting Maj. Gen. Greene.'”

NATO trainers have had fewer such incidents since they began to use “guardian angels” or security guards whenever they interact with Afghan forces. It is thought that another reason for the drop in attacks has been the reduced force of foreign troops in Afghanistan. The conflicts of culture such as the British men training female soldiers could be avoided by bringing NATO women soldiers into the country and using them for such cross-cultural contact.

I doubt if anyone would have predicted Rafiqullah's reaction to that situation, though. The level of segregation between women and men in some Islamic countries is unprecedented in the Western world. A number of years ago I read that in some of those cultures a male doctor is not allowed to touch a woman at all, even to examine her. A woman with a disease, therefore, has to accept the doctor's best guess as to what illness she has contracted. I suppose all babies are born with the help of midwives only, too. I am so glad I was born in the USA. When Western women marry Middle Eastern men they have no idea what they are getting into.