The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking 

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum/Collection of Eugenia Hochberg Lanceter

A group of Jewish women at the entrance to the Brody ghetto in Eastern Galicia, 1942. The sign is written in German, Ukrainian and Polish. 

By ERIC LICHTBLAU
March 1, 2013 

THIRTEEN years ago, researchers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum began the grim task of documenting all the ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps and killing factories that the Nazis set up throughout Europe.

What they have found so far has shocked even scholars steeped in the history of the Holocaust.

The researchers have cataloged some 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe, spanning German-controlled areas from France to Russia and Germany itself, during Hitler’s reign of brutality from 1933 to 1945.

The figure is so staggering that even fellow Holocaust scholars had to make sure they had heard it correctly when the lead researchers previewed their findings at an academic forum in late January at the German Historical Institute in Washington. 

March 3, 2013
	The New York Times Ghettos for Jews in Eastern EuropeSource: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum “The numbers are so much higher than what we originally thought,” Hartmut Berghoff, director of the institute, said in an interview after learning of the new data.

“We knew before how horrible life in the camps and ghettos was,” he said, “but the numbers are unbelievable.”

The documented camps include not only “killing centers” but also thousands of forced labor camps, where prisoners manufactured war supplies; prisoner-of-war camps; sites euphemistically named “care” centers, where pregnant women were forced to have abortions or their babies were killed after birth; and brothels, where women were coerced into having sex with German military personnel.

Auschwitz and a handful of other concentration camps have come to symbolize the Nazi killing machine in the public consciousness. Likewise, the Nazi system for imprisoning Jewish families in hometown ghettos has become associated with a single site — the Warsaw Ghetto, famous for the 1943 uprising. But these sites, infamous though they are, represent only a minuscule fraction of the entire German network, the new research makes painfully clear.

The maps the researchers have created to identify the camps and ghettos turn wide sections of wartime Europe into black clusters of death, torture and slavery — centered in Germany and Poland, but reaching in all directions.

The lead editors on the project, Geoffrey Megargee and Martin Dean, estimate that 15 million to 20 million people died or were imprisoned in the sites that they have identified as part of a multivolume encyclopedia. (The Holocaust museum has published the first two, with five more planned by 2025.)

The existence of many individual camps and ghettos was previously known only on a fragmented, region-by-region basis. But the researchers, using data from some 400 contributors, have been documenting the entire scale for the first time, studying where they were located, how they were run, and what their purpose was.

The brutal experience of Henry Greenbaum, an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor who lives outside Washington, typifies the wide range of Nazi sites. 

March 3, 2013
	The New York Times SS Concentration CampsSource: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum When Mr. Greenbaum, a volunteer at the Holocaust museum, tells visitors today about his wartime odyssey, listeners inevitably focus on his confinement of months at Auschwitz, the most notorious of all the camps.

But the images of the other camps where the Nazis imprisoned him are ingrained in his memory as deeply as the concentration camp number — A188991 — tattooed on his left forearm.

In an interview, he ticked off the locations in rapid fire, the details still vivid.

First came the Starachowice ghetto in his hometown in Poland, where the Germans herded his family and other local Jews in 1940, when he was just 12.

Next came a slave labor camp with six-foot-high fences outside the town, where he and a sister were moved while the rest of the family was sent to die at Treblinka. After his regular work shift at a factory, the Germans would force him and other prisoners to dig trenches that were used for dumping the bodies of victims. He was sent to Auschwitz, then removed to work at a chemical manufacturing plant in Poland known as Buna Monowitz, where he and some 50 other prisoners who had been held at the main camp at Auschwitz were taken to manufacture rubber and synthetic oil. And last was another slave labor camp at Flossenbürg, near the Czech border, where food was so scarce that the weight on his 5-foot-8-inch frame fell away to less than 100 pounds.

By the age of 17, Mr. Greenbaum had been enslaved in five camps in five years, and was on his way to a sixth, when American soldiers freed him in 1945. “Nobody even knows about these places,” Mr. Greenbaum said. “Everything should be documented. That’s very important. We try to tell the youngsters so that they know, and they’ll remember.”

The research could have legal implications as well by helping a small number of survivors document their continuing claims over unpaid insurance policies, looted property, seized land and other financial matters.

“HOW many claims have been rejected because the victims were in a camp that we didn’t even know about?” asked Sam Dubbin, a Florida lawyer who represents a group of survivors who are seeking to bring claims against European insurance companies.

Dr. Megargee, the lead researcher, said the project was changing the understanding among Holocaust scholars of how the camps and ghettos evolved.

As early as 1933, at the start of Hitler’s reign, the Third Reich established about 110 camps specifically designed to imprison some 10,000 political opponents and others, the researchers found. As Germany invaded and began occupying European neighbors, the use of camps and ghettos was expanded to confine and sometimes kill not only Jews but also homosexuals, Gypsies, Poles, Russians and many other ethnic groups in Eastern Europe. The camps and ghettos varied enormously in their mission, organization and size, depending on the Nazis’ needs, the researchers have found.

The biggest site identified is the infamous Warsaw Ghetto, which held about 500,000 people at its height. But as few as a dozen prisoners worked at one of the smallest camps, the München-Schwabing site in Germany. Small groups of prisoners were sent there from the Dachau concentration camp under armed guard. They were reportedly whipped and ordered to do manual labor at the home of a fervent Nazi patron known as “Sister Pia,” cleaning her house, tending her garden and even building children’s toys for her.

When the research began in 2000, Dr. Megargee said he expected to find perhaps 7,000 Nazi camps and ghettos, based on postwar estimates. But the numbers kept climbing — first to 11,500, then 20,000, then 30,000, and now 42,500.

The numbers astound: 30,000 slave labor camps; 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 concentration camps; 1,000 prisoner-of-war camps; 500 brothels filled with sex slaves; and thousands of other camps used for euthanizing the elderly and infirm, performing forced abortions, “Germanizing” prisoners or transporting victims to killing centers.

In Berlin alone, researchers have documented some 3,000 camps and so-called Jew houses, while Hamburg held 1,300 sites.

Dr. Dean, a co-researcher, said the findings left no doubt in his mind that many German citizens, despite the frequent claims of ignorance after the war, must have known about the widespread existence of the Nazi camps at the time.

“You literally could not go anywhere in Germany without running into forced labor camps, P.O.W. camps, concentration camps,” he said. “They were everywhere.”      

Afghanistan following 11 years of US combat: 'Not much different'

Photo by Daniel Berehulak / Getty ImagesTraffic moves through the old city in November, 2012, in Kabul, Afghanistan. 

By Mike Taibbi, Correspondent, NBC News

KABUL, Afghanistan — I wondered, approaching Kabul over the snow-shrouded Hindu Kush mountains, what the story of the moment would be in the teeming city below.

It had been six years since I’d last visited Afghanistan’s capital, a short visit then that included an interview with President Hamid Karzai as part of the last of six long reporting assignments since 9/11— that one stretching from Paktika and Gardez in the southeast to Herat in the west. 

Mike Taibbi / NBC NewsA spectacular view over the snow-covered Hindu Kush peaks on the way into Kabul.

More than 11 years had passed since my first Afghan assignment, over the Kyber Pass from Pakistan and then into Jalalabad days after the Taliban had fled; the arc of America’s longest war.
"Not much different," offered my seatmate, a senior NATO official from one of the 40 countries remaining in the coalition that has alternately steered or suffered through Afghanistan’s bloody march toward stand-alone status as a reconstituted nation.

"You’ll see some new construction under way in the city, but on the surface it’ll be little changed from what you saw before."

Driving to our quarters, I found myself playing an old game: peering at the cars huffing and puffing along the city’s crowded streets, I counted the number of women drivers. And got the same answer I’d counted on most days, 11 years ago.

Zero.

* * * * *

That so few women drive — cars, bicycles, any conveyance where they are unaccompanied by men — is a relatively small fact of life here but it’s emblematic.

Afghanistan is still waiting for the changes that will signal that a threshold has been reached, and a fundamental change in the status of women, and in their prospects after the 2014 withdrawal of most coalition combat troops, is one of the changes that matter.

Mike Taibbi / NBC News


Kimberly Motley, an American lawyer, has been living and working in Afghanistan for the past five years as an advocate for abused women.

It’s women who will suffer most after the withdrawal, said Kimberly Motley, an American lawyer living and working in Afghanistan for the past five years as an advocate for abused women.

"I’ve been surprised that it’s been mostly men now clamoring desperately for a way to leave, when it’s women who will be affected so profoundly," she said.

With NATO forces gone they’ll have far less protection, she told us, while even under the limited protection that now exists there have been attacks against women so savage as to have commanded headlines worldwide.

It’s been a consensus in the international community that this poorest and most corrupt of countries may yet be welcomed fully as a sovereign nation, but only when its women are treated with dignity and as equals under law and custom. While serving as secretary of state in 2001, Colin Powell stressed that women's rights were “non-negotiable.”

* * * * *

As for negotiations for peace and reconciliation with the Taliban, they are, for all practical purposes, non-existent. A handful of self-described representatives of Taliban leadership have set up office space in Doha, Qatar, and overtures have been made with the goal of starting substantive talks.

"But here’s the problem," a highly placed Western diplomat told me, asking that he not be identified. "Karzai only wants face-to-face discussions with the Taliban, at the negotiating table — and not with interlocutors who may or may not represent Mullah Mohammed Omar and the true Taliban leadership. He’s not interested in discussing theoretical possibilities, if nothing of consequence is going to happen."

The Taliban, meanwhile, seem uninterested in discussing any possibilities short of a return to complete power in Afghanistan.

Said Maulvi Shahabuddin Dilawar, one of the Taliban's "negotiators" in Doha, there will be a "snowball effect" after the 2014 withdrawal, the Taliban waiting patiently to make their move.

"Anything short of a total victory,” he said, “is unacceptable." There’s a saying here, attributed to the Taliban: "They have the weapons; we have the time."

Still, the Western diplomat said, "We’ve opened a door in Doha, and hopefully there will be an answer and real negotiations might begin."

I reminded him of the timeworn political cliché, "Hope is not a strategy."

He smiled. "Well, it’s more than mere hope," he said.

The diplomat talked about advances on the periphery of the central questions about peace talks and post-2014 security: an imminent new mining law that will encourage foreign investors to ante in for a stake in the trillion dollars in copper, iron, gold and oil reserves within reach beneath this country’s battered landscape; advances despite notable setbacks in the training and readiness of Afghanistan’s army and national police forces; real improvements in the prospects for some women — in medicine, law and even the armed services.
"It’s not just hope," the diplomat repeated.

* * * * *

An old friend named Shirzad came by to visit on Saturday. He had worked for NBC News in the past and asked that we not use his family name for security reasons.

We talked about the days and months just after 9/11, when we first met, when in his home city of Jalalabad the Taliban had suddenly fled under the punishment of American bombing raids, and the eventual insertion of American special forces chasing Bin Laden and his surrogates through the mountains and caves of Tora Bora.

There were so many signs of optimism then: little girls lining up giddily to go to school, some women braving the markets having shed their burqas, talk among the men about a new future when none had seemed possible for so many years.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Rahmat Gul / AP
More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow


But that future had not arrived, Shirzad said. The Taliban were a "shadow government" in so many villages and neighborhoods, in control by implication and threat, just waiting.

"My family, and many of those I work with, we have been threatened with death." So he’s leaving, he says, having spent months negotiating a labyrinth of paperwork to gain approval to take his family of nine to the U.S. and take his chances there if he can.

His brother, with his family of eight, is trying for the same option. "It is the only way for me," he told me. "The local police, they will not protect us when NATO soldiers are gone — many are Taliban or support them."

He offered a sad smile: "No more for me, in Afghanistan."

What there is, he said, is corruption and danger in every direction. Away from Kabul there were still drug lords ruling over fiefdoms fueled by flourishing poppy fields. Even in Kabul, he said, travel can be treacherous, trust unwise.

And attorney Motley has more clients than she can handle.

And 30 local police died in a two-day period last week in three suicide attacks for which the Taliban claimed credit.

And President Karzai complains about not getting enough American weapons and support, while at the same time ordering that American and NATO forces withdraw from a Kabul suburb because of unconfirmed rumors of harassment and attacks against civilians.

And in my third trip through the streets of a city I hadn’t seen in years, I looked again for any women drivers.

And couldn't find a single one. Again.

Demolition begins on home in Florida sinkhole tragedy

Authorities in Florida are tearing down the home covering the huge sinkhole that swallowed a man in his bedroom, NBC's Gabe Gutierrez reports.

By Ian Johnston and Matthew DeLuca, NBC News

Crews began demolishing a Florida home Sunday that is perched over a huge sinkhole, after deeming it too dangerous to keep searching for the man swallowed up from his bedroom.

Rescue workers on Saturday had called off their search for 36-year-old Jeffrey Bush, who had not been heard from since the hole appeared at about 11 p.m. ET Thursday in Seffner, near Tampa.

“Unfortunately we have not been able to determine the whereabouts of Mr. Bush,” Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill said. “With all the equipment that we brought in and specialized help, we have just not been able to locate Mr. Bush, and so for that reason the rescue effort is being discontinued.”
Authorities have said the hole, which was originally about 30 feet deep, was “seriously unstable.” A 100-foot safety zone was set up around it Friday and homes near the hole were evacuated for fear of a sudden collapse. 

Scott Audette / ReutersDemolition crews and Hillsborough County Fire Department watch as the house, where Jeffrey Bush was swallowed by a sinkhole, is demolished in Seffner, Florida March 3, 2013.

The sinkhole now poses a safety risk to the residence next door, said Hillsborough County Fire Rescue public information officer Ronnie Rivera at a noon press conference on Saturday. Family members would be allowed to enter briefly along with emergency personnel to recover belongings, Rivera said.

The demolition started at around 8:30 a.m. Sunday, and wrapped up for the day at about noon. It was expected to resume again on Monday.

Related: A broken home full of memories

Authorities were able to retrieve a few personal belongings from the destroyed house for the family, including photographs, a Bible and even the wood address marker from the front of the building.

A second family in an adjacent home began moving their possessions out on Saturday afternoon as authorities struggled to get an accurate read on just how large the sinkhole is.

Authorities brought in heavy equipment to demolish the home from outside the perimeter of the sinkhole, which Merrill said extends down as much as 50 to 60 feet.

“We’re dealing with a very unusual sinkhole,” Merrill said. “It’s very deep, it’s very wide, it’s very unstable.”
Hillsborough County, Florida officials lay out their plan going forward at the site of a sinkhole that appeared beneath a home and is believed to have killed one of the residents.

On Friday, Jeremy Bush spoke tearfully about how he tried to save his brother.

"I couldn't get him out," he said. "All I thought I could hear was him screaming for me and hollering for me, but I couldn't do nothing."

Jeremy Bush was saved from the hole by Hillsborough County sheriff's Deputy Douglas Duvall, NBC station WFLA reported.

'Really shocking'

Neighbors told NBC station WFLA.com of their surprise.

"It's just really shocking," said Kevin Charles, who lives two houses down from the Bush’s house. "It kind of worries me because … it could have been any one of these houses along this side over here.”

"I think the issue now is everyone in the area is going to sit back and wonder whether should get sinkhole insurance," said neighbor Steve Hamlyn. "Because we really didn't see a need for it until now."

One man is presumed dead after being sucked into the earth as he was sleeping, and now other families in the neighborhood are on edge. NBC's Gabe Gutierrez reports.

While some in the neighborhood did not know of the risks, sinkholes are common in Florida, The Associated Press reported, and home insurers are required by law to provide coverage for the sudden disaster.

Florida’s geological makeup increases the likelihood of sinkholes, and more than 500 have been reported in Hillsborough County since 1954, the state’s environmental agency told the AP. A monster 400-foot sinkhole that sucked in a house, five sports cars, two businesses and part of a swimming pool appeared near Orlando in 1981.

"You can almost envision a piece of Swiss cheese," Taylor Yarkosky, a sinkhole expert from Brooksville, Fla, told the AP. "Any house in Florida could be in that same situation."

At a press conference at 8 a.m. ET Saturday, fire officials announced they had set up an email address, accessible at www.firefighter-relief.com, for anyone wishing to send message of condolences or donations to the family.

NBC News' Gabe Gutierrez and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Slideshow: Striking sinkholes: Earth opens up

Luis Echeverria / APA look at some of the most amazing sinkholes around the world.
Launch slideshow


Related:

Massive sinkhole swallows Florida man — and it's still growing
The science of sinkholes: Common, but rarely catastrophic
Florida home crumbles under sinkhole pressure

Videos: Sinkholes in the news

Keystone Pipeline study: We must kill the environment to save it
3/2/2013 1:25pm by Chris in Paris


Brought to you by the corporate lobbyists of Big Oil, the new US State Department “draft” environmental impact study on the Keystone Pipeline shrugs its shoulders and says “it’s awful but what else can we do?”

The report concluded that the Canadian synthetic crude oil the pipeline is slated to transport into the U.S. produces 17 percent more greenhouse gases than natural crude oil already refined here. In addition, it said the construction phase of the project would result in carbon dioxide emissions equiavalent to about 626,000 passenger vehicles operating for a full year.

As our own Gaius Publius wrote on AMERICAblog in 2011, the Koch brothers will be the big winners with this eventual cave-in by Obama. Well, there’s a surprise. Obama’s worst enemy, and the climate’s as well, the ever-famous Koch Brothers and Koch Industries, are positioned to be big winners if (when) the Keystone Tar Sands pipeline is approved. 

Think about it this way — that pipeline isn’t carrying toxic sludge through two provinces and 12 states to Texas. It’s carrying money into the dirty pockets of two of the most power-mad, driven billionaires on the planet. (Did I mention that their daddy was a John Birch Society founder?)

The Koch Brothers are deep into the Tar Sands project, and will be huge beneficiaries of the Keystone XL Pipeline. They own sludge-oil (called “heavy oil” by insiders), refineries, even regional pipelines for distribution.

Why the Obama administration feels the need to give in so many times to people who both hate him and hate America is a question that needs to be answered.

The pipeline certainly won’t benefit Americans in the long run, since it will speed up climate change and cause more health-related problems due to pollution. But it’s just a hiccup, right? Who really cares if more people get sick when there are profits to be had! 

Oil sands in Alberta, via Shutterstock

The decision to press forward with this polluting pipeline has been predicted for years, though the administration has been touchy about it all along. They know that it’s highly unpopular with anyone who cares about climate change and the environment, also known as the Democratic base.

It’s nothing but excuses from both Obama and the Republicans in favor of the Keystone pipeline. The Republicans, to their credit, at least don’t try and hide from the fact that they want the pipeline. The White House plays the game of pretending as though they’re not really in favor of it, but then they don’t really do much to stop it.

Then there’s this:

Construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline would create “numerous” and “substantial” impacts on the environment, the State Department said Friday in a draft environmental impact statement. But the project is a better bet than any of the alternatives, it said in essentially clearing the project to go ahead. 

If the US were dumping as much money into alternative energies as they do into propping up Big Oil, it would be easier to say that they tried to address environmental issues in a serious way, but that doesn’t happen. It’s false to say that there are no alternatives to the Keystone Pipeline since we’ve never really had a serious effort to try other alternatives. 

Other countries pump money into tidal energy, and solar (as we see with Germany), but the US continues to let Big Oil make the rules. And Big Oil only cares about profits.

Sorry Washington, but this doesn’t cut it.

Non-lethal US aid to Syrian rebels draws ire of Iran, Syria

Vahid Salemi / APSyrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, left, speaks during a joint news conference with his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, March 2, 2013. 


By Oliver Holmes and Yeganeh Torbati, Reuters

Syria and Iran on Saturday condemned a move by the United States to give non-lethal aid to rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, accusing Washington of double standards.

"I do not understand how the United States can give support to groups that kill the Syrian people," Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said at a news conference in Tehran with Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's foreign minister.

"This is nothing but a double-standard policy ... One who seeks a political solution does not punish the Syrian people."

The United States said on Thursday it would for the first time give non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels, describing the aid as a way to bolster the rebels' popular support.

The assistance will include medical supplies, food for rebel fighters and $60 million to help the civil opposition provide basic services like security, education and sanitation.

Iran's Salehi said the U.S. move would prolong the Syrian conflict, an uprising-turned-civil war in which 70,000 people have been killed.

"If you really feel sorry about the ongoing situation in Syria you should force the opposition to sit at the negotiation table with the Syrian government and put an end to bloodshed," he said.

"Why do you encourage the opposition to continue these acts of violence?"

Iran and Russia support Assad, while the United States and its allies generally back the opposition.

.
Michigan's governor declares Detroit in state of financial emergency

NBC News staff and wire reports – 10 hrs

Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan on Friday declared a fiscal state of emergency in Detroit in a move that could lead to the appointment of a financial manager who could file for the largest municipal bankruptcy ever.

Snyder's decision allows the city a 10-day grace period to formulate a plan to fix its finances before the governor reconsiders appointing an emergency manager who would likely drastically reduce services.

The Republican governor said he had identified a top candidate for the position, but he declined to name the person.

"I believe it's appropriate to declare the city of Detroit in financial emergency," Snyder said at a forum in Detroit.

Snyder said he agreed with a Feb. 19 report by a six-member team of experts that concluded Michigan's largest city is in dire financial shape and a plan put in place last April to aid Detroit was not sufficiently working.

The expert team Snyder assembled in December did not officially recommend the appointment of an emergency financial manager, leaving that decision up to the governor.

Detroit officials now have 10 days to request a hearing with the governor about his determination.

After the hearing or the expiration of the 10 days in the case of no hearing, the governor confirms or revokes his determination. A confirmation will assign management of Detroit's fiscal emergency to a Local Emergency Financial Assistance Loan Board composed of three state officials, including the treasurer, who are all Snyder appointees. That board would also appoint a manager for the city, under the current state law.

Detroit officials also will have the ability to appeal the fiscal emergency determination in state court. But that move would likely not delay the appointment of a manager, who could ultimately recommend the city file for bankruptcy. A Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy by Detroit would be the largest ever in the United States.

Detroit has faced the steepest population decline of any American city in recent decades. Once the fifth largest U.S. city that shone as the birthplace of the U.S. automotive industry and Motown music, it now ranks 18th with about 700,000 people - after suffering a 25 percent decline in population between 2000 and 2010.

With the exodus of residents and jobs as the auto industry contracted, the city has suffered from declining tax revenue and rising crime while saddled with the infrastructure and labor costs of a bygone era.

An emergency financial manager for Detroit would have the power to develop a financial plan, revise or reject budgets, consolidate departments, enter into service contracts with other local governments, reduce or eliminate the salaries of elected officials, sell eligible city assets, lay off workers and renegotiate labor contracts. The manager cannot abrogate labor contracts or impose taxes without voter approval under the state's 1990 law.

A new Michigan law that takes effect March 28 will allow existing emergency financial managers to remain in place and will give them additional powers, including the ability to revise or terminate collective bargaining agreements.



Reuters contributed to this report.

Why modern soldiers are more susceptible to suicide
By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

The armed forces mourned a grim toll in 2012 when more troops took their own lives than died in combat, but a precarious question remains: Why is the rate spiking when military life has long been a suicidal deterrent?

Among the services, the Army lost the most active-duty members last year to suicide: 182. Inside that branch, as two wars raged then waned, the annual suicide pace climbed. During 2001, nine out of every 100,000 active-duty soldiers killed themselves, while, during 2011, the suicide rate was nearly 23 per 100,000, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Compare that sobering trend to conflicts and peacetimes past. During the final three years of World War II, the Army’s annual suicide rate didn’t budge above 10 soldiers per 100,000, and during the Korean War in the early 1950s, that annual pace remained at about 11 soldiers per 100,000, according to a study published in 1985 by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

Between 1975 and 1986, the Army’s annual suicide rate averaged 13 deaths per 100,000 soldiers, falling to as low as 10 in the early ‘80s, according to series of papers published in the journal Military Medicine. The Army’s suicide rate in 2001 was less than half that for all American males (18.2 per 100,000). Since then, the pace of self harm among active Army troops has more than doubled — and that trend is not ebbing: In January, the Army classified another 33 deaths as "potential suicides" among active-duty, National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers, according to the Department of Defense.

“A once-protective environment has moved to be something very different,” said David Rudd, co-founder and scientific director of the National Center for Veteran Studies based at the University of Utah.

“We need to look at the big picture to really understand what's going on today, but we all too often lose historical perspective,” said Rudd, who testified before Congress on the issue last month. The Army’s suicide pace between 1975 and 1985 should be viewed as the branch’s “baseline” rate, he added.

What has led modern soldiers to become twice as susceptible to suicide?

'The self-esteem generation'
Some answers lie in present military lifestyles and in the multiple deployments of soldiers to Iraq and Afghanistan — but also in stark psychological distinctions between today’s 20-somethings and the mindsets of past generations, according to Rudd and to veterans of recent and past U.S. combat actions.

“The fact is, nobody really understands what it means to be at a wartime, operational tempo for more than a decade,” Rudd said. “What that means for soldiers is: When they come home from those deployments, they’re never really off duty.

“They get block leave for a month or so when they get back (from war) and then they’re right back in the field, training. Even at home, you’re away from your family. That level of disconnection is a big deal,” Rudd added.

And at military garrisons on home soil, some service members stay and sleep in private quarters versus the packed barracks of long ago. Rudd said he was surprised to see such a setup earlier this year when he visited the 29 Palms Marine base in Southern California.

“They had their own TVs, no common areas. Entitlement has grown in younger generations and society has embraced that, giving in to the entitlement,” Rudd said. The military has “made decisions in accommodating these kinds of requests for more privacy and more seclusion by isolating (soldiers) even further.

“This group is the self-esteem generation. My worry is they have not dealt with enough challenges, enough disappointments in life for many of them to build the kind of resilience that is foundational when you go to war,” added Rudd. “This has led to many of us to having thin skin. That doesn’t bode well when you go to war.”

But suicide is not solely a military phenomenon, said Cynthia O. Smith, a spokeswoman for the Department of Defense, who described suicide as “a national public health problem” and the 10th leading cause of death for all Americans.

The Pentagon has, however, rolled out numerous anti-suicide strategies during the past three years, including a 35-percent boost in the number of behavioral, health-care providers who work in primary-care clinics or who are embedded with front-line units, Smith said.

“Suicide prevention is first and foremost a leadership responsibility. Leaders throughout the chain of command must actively promote a constructive command climate that fosters cohesion and encourages individuals to reach out for help when needed,” Smith said. “Seeking help is a sign of strength.”

They went through 'harder times'
But such collective emotional strength may be lacking in today’s warriors when compared to past generations who were perhaps better steeled for battle by the epic financial hardships they faced at home, said Barry Hull, a retired Navy commander and former F/A-18 Hornet pilot who flew missions in the first Gulf War.

“Stress is all about coping skills. World War II was just as difficult as war today. But think about what the World War II (soldiers) had just come through: The Depression. What creates our coping skills? Trauma, difficulty, adversity,” Hull said. “I’m not stereotyping individuals. I’m stereotyping populations. I’m not saying youngsters today are any less – don’t misunderstand me. But our lives tend to be a little bit less adverse. We typically do not develop the coping skills that some of the older generations did.

“So you take a young, patriotic guy. He goes over (to Afghanistan or Iraq) and sees things he can’t even comprehend. And so what does it do? He tends to feel the effects of that stress more fully because he has not developed the coping skills that the older generation has developed,” Hull added.

One Iraq veteran who can speak intimately on the suicide epidemic is Andrew O’Brien, who was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and who knew a 19-year-old soldier — with a wife and child back home — who died in an explosion. That 2009 family tragedy left O’Brien asking: “Why couldn’t it have been me?” In 2010, after returning to his Army base in Hawaii, O’Brien tried to kill himself by swallowing several bottles of pills, including sleep medication and anti-depressants. He awoke in a hospital the next day.

“That older generation, they went through harder times, the Depression, and they had so many worse things going for them. I feel like it made them more prepared,” said O’Brien, who has written an anti-suicide guide and who is scheduled to speak this weekend in New Orleans about his experiences.

But among older and younger veterans, there is one common thread that perhaps leaves both groups vulnerable to post-war struggles, O’Brien said. It is a basic tenet of Army teaching and military character.

“We are trained to be selfless. Being selfless is good when you’re deployed. You’re constantly making sure you’ve got your buddy’s back," O’Brien said. "But when you come back, it’s not good. And you have to live for the rest of your life with survivor guilt, with the fact that we lost that person.”

Related:
Army withholding findings from Madigan PTSD probe
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Thousands rally in D.C. against Keystone Pipeline

17

Feb

2013

6:31pm, EST

Richard Clement / Reuters
Demonstrators march past the White House during a rally against the Keystone XL pipeline in Washington, February 17, 2013. REUTERS/Richard Clement
By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News
Thousands of protesters took to the National Mall on Sunday for a climate rally that organizers touted as the largest of its kind in U.S. history. The group’s top priority was to urge President Barack Obama to reject the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry oil sands from Canada through the United States.

“When you are in a hole stop digging. Above all, stop the keystone pipeline. The president can do that with the stroke of his pen,” said Bill McKibben, founder of the environmental activist group 350.org.

Although the crowd count could not be independently confirmed, organizers estimated nearly 40,000 people from across the country descended on the nation’s capital to gather near the Washington Monument and then march to the White House for the “Forward on Climate” rally.
Organizers, including the Sierra Club, used the slogan “Forward,” the same one Obama used during his 2012 reelection campaign, to send a message to the White House to follow through on promises to address climate change. The president had addressed the issue throughout his campaign and then again during last Tuesday’s State of the Union.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D–R.I., said part of the reason for the rally was to “get the fellow in the White House to follow up on the wonderful things he’s said in speeches recently and put a really strong regulatory regime in.”

Obama initially rejected the Keystone XL pipeline in January 2012, saying he wanted more time for an environmental review. A final decision is expected soon. The State Department, under the new leadership of Sec. John Kerry, is currently reviewing the permit application for the pipeline, and White House officials have delayed comment on the president's thinking until after the review is complete.

Pressure has mounted since last month when Republican Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman sent a letter to the president informing him he now supported a new route the pipeline would take through his state. The Republican governor originially opposed Keystone over concerns that it would disrupt environmentally sensitive areas of his state.

Adding to that pressure is Canada's support of the pipeline that would carry oil from Alberta's oil sands projects to refineries in the Gulf Coast. If the U.S. decides not allow construction, Canada may need to look elsewhere for new energy markets, and the damage could be done to the relationship between the two countries.

For more than a year, Republicans in Congress have attacked Obama for what they view as delaying the project. Conservative argue the 1,000-plus-mile pipeline will provide the U.S. with a reliable energy source and create jobs during a period of slow economic recovery.

Thousands gathered in Washington, D.C. to demand action from President Obama on climate change. NBC's Lester Holt reports.

But those gathered at the rally today say the pipeline will release more carbon, further heating the Earth and causing more devastating events like droughts and extreme storms.

Other issues the rally focused on were preventing drilling in the Arctic and regulating smokestacks and refineries.

“It’s inspiring. This is the largest rally on climate change in U.S. history,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “People have come from almost all over the country, from every state, to really send a strong message to the president that we have his back every time he stands forward on climate change and clean energy, and we want him to use his full executive authority to fight this throughout his whole term.”

And though the protesters took their march to the White House, their message fell on deaf ears, at least for today. President Obama on Sunday was in Florida, where he played golf with Tiger Woods.

Key provisions of Voting Rights Act appear in jeopardy after high court argument

The law that requires states with a history of discrimination to get federal approval before changing how they conduct elections has been used to block strict voter ID laws. Now, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether or not the law is outdated, and the conservative justices seem to agree that times have changed. NBC's Pete Williams reports. 


By Tom Curry, National Affairs Writer, NBC News

Central parts of an election law dating back to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s, the Voting Rights Act, appeared to be in jeopardy Wednesday after the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a challenge to them.

NBC’s Pete Williams reported after the oral argument that key provisions of the 1965 law “are in big trouble. The question is how far will the Supreme Court go” in striking down parts of the law?

The justices were weighing an appeal from Shelby County, Ala., asking the court to find that Congress exceeded its power when it renewed the two key sections of the law in 2006. A decision is expected before the court ends its current term this coming June or July.

Under Section 5 of the law, nine states, mostly in the South, but also including Alaska and Arizona, as well as dozens of counties, townships, cities, and elected boards in other states, must get permission, or “preclearance,” from the Justice Department or a federal court in Washington for any change in voting procedures, no matter how small, that they seek to make.

The formula used to determine which states and other jurisdictions are covered by the preclearance requirement is set forth in section 4 of the law.

Aug. 6, 1965: President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law.

“It’s pretty safe to say that there at least five votes to strike down” either section 4 or section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, “either the coverage formula or preclearance totally,” Williams reported.

Williams added what seemed to concern a majority of the justices was “the fact that the law is too backward looking.”

Shelby County’s lawyer Bert Rein argued that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act – which Congress renewed for another 25 years in 2006 – is unconstitutional because the formula used to determine which states are covered is outdated – based on voter turnout and registration data from 1972.

The blatant racial intimidation and discrimination in voting procedures that prevailed in states such as Alabama when the law was written in 1965 and renewed in 1970, 1975, and 1982, no longer exist, the county says.

Overshadowing Wednesday’s argument was the Supreme Court’s decision in a 2009 Texas case, Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One vs. Holder. In that decision, the court expressed doubts about the continued need for Section 5, noting that “voter turnout and registration rates now approach parity” between whites and blacks in the states covered by section 5.

Evan Vucci / APHouse Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif.,speaks during a rally outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013, before arguments in the Shelby County, Ala., v. Holder voting rights case. The justices are hearing arguments in a challenge to the part of the Voting Rights Act that forces places with a history of discrimination, mainly in the Deep South, to get approval before they make any change in the way elections are held. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli said the justices should defer to the judgment that Congress made in 2006 that the coverage formula was “rational and effective.” To that Justice Anthony Kennedy replied, “Well, the (1947) Marshall Plan was very good, too, the (1862) Morrill Act, the (1787) Northwest Ordinance, but times change.”

Kennedy suggested that the law had the effect of denying some states of their right to self-government -- in effect putting them “under the trusteeship of the United States Government.”

Related: Landmark civil rights law faces critical Supreme Court test

Addressing the question of why Congress had extended Section 5 in 2006 with no opposition at all in the Senate, Justice Antonin Scalia said it was “very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It's been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.”

He said for most members of Congress there’s little to be gained by voting against continuation of the key sections of the law. “I am fairly confident it will be reenacted in perpetuity unless a court can say it does not comport with the Constitution.”

But the liberal justices were quick to defend the sections of the law which Shelby County is challenging.

The court’s newest member, Justice Elena Kagan, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2010, said Alabama still deserved to be singled out for coverage under section 5.

She said section 5 “seems to work pretty well” in targeting the places where there are the most successful lawsuits under a separate section of the Voting Rights Act, section 2.

That part of the law, which isn’t being challenged in the Shelby County case, bans all voting procedures that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority group. Unlike Sections 4 and 5 of the law, Section 2 covers all 50 states.

“If Congress were to write a formula that looked to the number of successful Section 2 suits per million residents, Alabama would be the number one state on the list,” Kagan told Rein.

Kagan said that “under any formula that Congress could devise” Alabama would still be a targeted state.

NBC's Pete Williams has more from Capitol Hill where the Supreme Court listened to oral arguments over portions of the Voting Rights Act.

Another liberal justice who defended section 5, Justice Stephen Breyer compared racially discriminatory voting procedures to a disease. “It's an old disease, it's gotten a lot better, a lot better, but it's still there,” he said. “So if you had a remedy that really helped it work, but it (discrimination) wasn't totally over, wouldn't you keep that remedy?”

But Rein argued that the high court ought to “remove the stigma” of preclearance from the states “and the unequal application based on data that has no better history than 1972.”

Justice Samuel Alito suggested to Verrilli that “maybe the whole country should be covered” by section 5 or “maybe certain parts of the country should be covered based on a formula that is grounded in up-to-date statistics.”

When Verrilli defended the section 5 of the law, Chief Justice John Roberts asked him, “Do you know which state has the worst ratio of white voter turnout to African American voter turnout?”

Verrilli said he did not, to which Roberts replied: “Massachusetts. Do you know what has the best, where African American turnout actually exceeds white turnout? Mississippi.”

Roberts then asked Verrilli which state has the greatest disparity in registration between whites and African Americans, and again Verrilli did not know.

Again Roberts answered Massachusetts. He added that in Mississippi, “the African American registration rate is higher than the white registration rate.”

Verrilli argued Wednesday that “changes in the polling places at the last minute before an election can be a source of great mischief. Closing polling places, moving them to inconvenient locations, et cetera.” He explained that Section 5 requires “those kinds of changes to be pre-cleared and on a 60-day calendar which effectively prevents that kind of mischief. And there is no way in the world you could use Section 2 to effectively police that kind of mischief.”

He argued in the Justice Department brief that Section 2 isn’t an adequate barrier against discrimination in voting partly because it places the burden of proof on plaintiffs who challenge allegedly discriminatory procedures, while Section 5 places the burden of proof on the states or counties to show that their procedures aren’t discriminatory.

State Department admits Keystone environmental impact but says there's no better way

The link below will take you to a page with all the links in the report, but I warn you ahead that the page is loaded and that is why it is linked and not actually shown.  Have fun.  

U.S. Department of State

Draft Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS)

TransCanada Corp. via Reuters fileThe Keystone XL oil pipeline, pictured under construction Jan. 18, 2012, in North Dakota.

By M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News

Construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline would create "numerous" and "substantial" impacts on the environment, the State Department said Friday in a draft environmental impact statement. But the project is a better bet than any of the alternatives, it said in essentially clearing the project to go ahead.

The report concluded that the Canadian synthetic crude oil the pipeline is slated to transport into the U.S. produces 17 percent more greenhouse gases than natural crude oil already refined here. In addition, it said the construction phase of the project would result in carbon dioxide emissions equiavalent to about 626,000 passenger vehicles operating for a full year. 

Without directly saying so, the report signaled the State Department's belief that the pipeline should go ahead, concluding that other modes of transportation would have the same impacts and that proposed alternatives — including an above-ground route and a smaller-diameter pipe — "were not reasonable."

And on a central issue of discussion, it concluded that blocking the pipeline wouldn't make any difference in the U.S.'s high consumption of oil.

Reaction from environmental groups was swift.

"The Sierra Club is outraged by the State Department's deeply flawed analysis today on Keystone XL," the Sierra Club tweeted.

Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters, said the report failed to appreciate the pipeline's potential effect on climate change.

"People who think our climate wouldn't be negatively impacted by Keystone XL have their heads in the (tar) sands," he said in a statement. "... LCV will work to ensure that the millions of Americans opposed to this dangerous pipeline have their voices heard during the comment period and that Keystone XL is rejected once and for all."

But House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, welcomed the report, which he said "makes clear there is no reason for this critical pipeline to be blocked one more day."

"After four years of needless delays, it is time for President Obama to stand up for middle-class jobs and energy security and approve the Keystone pipeline," Boehner said.

The environmental statement is only a draft, not a final decision whether to greenlight the project. A public comment period of 45 days is next.

A final decision on the $5.3 billion pipeline, a project of TransCanada Corp., has been pending for more than four years as environmental activists battle to kill it, contending that it contributes to the U.S.'s dependence on "dirty fuel" that generates higher emissions than crude oil refined in the U.S.

The pipeline would transport synthetic crude oil from oil sands in northeastern Alberta to refineries running along the spine of the U.S. all the way down to Texas. 

Along the way, the 2,000-page report said, it could also:

1. Disturb highly erodible soil along nearly half of the 875-mile U.S. segment — including 4,715 acres of "prime farmland soil." 
2. Degrade streams and other surface water. 
3. Encroach on the habitats of 13 federally protected species or species being considered for that designation, including the whooping crane and the greater sage grouse. 
4. Be susceptible to potentially disastrous leaks and spill. 

On the other side of the balance, the report noted the potential for economic development and growth in impoverished communities along the pipeline's pathway, saying it could produce as many as 42,000 new construction jobs.

President Barack Obama will have the final say on the project, which is being reviewed by the State Department, not the Environmental Protection Agency, because the pipeline would cross national borders. Obama signaled his support for the southern section of the line last year, but he gave environmentalists a measure of hope in January, when he promised to do more to fight climate change in his inaugural address.

Tens of thousands of protesters jammed the National Mall in Washington on Feb. 17 to urge Obama to reject pipeline. They adopted the slogan "Forward" — cribbing Obama's own campaign slogan.

The final decision will be a crucial one for Canada, which may need to look elsewhere for new energy markets if the pipeline is rejected.

Tom Capra, Catherine Chomiak and Frank Thorp of NBC News contributed to this report. Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

Chuck Hagel on defense budget cuts under sequestration: 'We're adjusting to the realities'

By Jim Miklaszewski, Chief Pentagon Correspondent, NBC News

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Friday that the cuts under sequestration “will cause pain” and potentially impact readiness ”across our force,” but avoided any doomsday scenario for the impact on national security. Hagel also expressed optimism the White House and Congress would come to an agreement to head off any serious consequences.

In his first briefing for reporters, Hagel said America “has the most capable, the most powerful fighting force in the world” and the Pentagon will “not allow this capacity to erode.” Hagel added “we’ll do what we need to do to assure the capabilities of our forces.”
“We’re adjusting to the realities.”

“I have confidence in the president and the Congress that decisions, consensus will be reached to at some point to avert tremendous damage to this institution. This is the security of America we’re talking about … adjustments are being made ... to assure the capabilities and readiness of our forces.”

That said, he also laid out steps that are already being taken as a result of sequestration.

Hagel said the Navy will gradually stand down four air wings, 80 jets and helicopters, beginning in April.

Starting immediately the Air Force will reduce flying hours, having an impact on training and readiness.

The Army will curtail training for all units except for those deploying to Afghanistan, affecting about 80 percent of all Army operational units.

Notices go out later this month for thousands of civilian furloughs, reducing pay by 20 percent.

Steps already taken include a hiring freeze, terminating or laying off some contract employees, cutbacks in maintenance.

Hagel added, “I know these cuts will cause pain, particularly in our civilian workforce.” He added “I’m also concerned, as we all are, about the impact on readiness these cuts will have across our force.”

Day-Old Baby Dies After Hit-Run Crash Kills Parents: Police

By Katherine Creag and Shimon Prokupecz
| Monday, Mar 4, 2013 | Updated 12:08 PM EST

Eli Wohl / VosIzNeias.com via AP
First responders work at the scene shortly after a car accident in Brooklyn, New York, took the lives of an expectant couple Sunday, March 3, 2013.


The baby boy delivered by C-section after his parents were killed by a hit-and-run driver in Brooklyn early Sunday has died, police confirm to NBC 4 New York.
Doctors performed an emergency C-section to deliver the premature infant after a BMW sedan slammed into the cab carrying expectant parents Nachman and Raizy Glauber, who were on their way to the hospital because the mother-to-be felt ill. The boy had been in intensive care since the delivery.
Police are still looking for the driver who struck the cab at the intersection of Wilson Street and Kent Avenue in Williamsburg, police said. Law enforcement sources tell NBC 4 New York they have a photo of the driver and believe they know who he is.
Authorities have said a male driver and another passenger in the BMW fled the scene of the accident on foot.

Raizy Glauber was thrown from the car and her body landed under a parked tractor-trailer, witnesses said. Nachman Glauber was pinned in the car, and emergency workers had to cut off the roof to get him out, witnesses told police.
Nachman Glauber was pronounced dead at Beth Israel Hospital, while his wife died at Bellevue, police said. The couple's son was pronounced dead a day later.
Hours after the infant's death, Joseph Silverstein, Raizy Glauber's older brother, told NBC 4 New York in the hallway of the couple's building that "This is God's will." Silverstein said he and other family members were able to see the baby before he passed away, but he declined to elaborate.
The driver of the livery cab survived the crash. He was taken to Beth Israel Hospita in stable condition, police said.
Police say Takia Walker, 29, of the Bronx, owned the BMW involved in the fatal crash but was not behind the wheel. She was arrested early Monday on insurance fraud charges, accused of allowing a third party who was not on her vehicle insurance policy to drive her car. Authorities are searching for the driver. 

On Saturday, Raizy Glauber "was not feeling well, so they decided to go" to the hospital, said Sara Glauber, Nachman Glauber's cousin.
Hundreds gathered in Williamsburg Sunday afternoon at a funeral for the Glaubers, both Orthodox Jews. 

The Glaubers were married about a year and had begun a life together in Williamsburg, where Raizy Glauber grew up in a prominent rabbinical family, Sara Glauber said.
Raised north of New York City in Monsey, N.Y., and part of a family that founded a line of clothing line, Nachman Glauber was studying at a rabbinical college nearby, said his cousin.

"You don't meet anyone better than him," she said. "He was always doing favors for everyone."
Sara Glauber also said her cousin and his bride had a unique connection, and that it was appropriate they died together. "If one had to go, the other had to go too because they really were one soul," she said.