Participating in the Gitmo Project

I’m working on the Gitmo Project posted over at Captain’s Quarters. I’ve been assigned set # 20 of the CRST documents which, basically, detail the Tribunal questioning of the detainees brought before it. It’s about 40 pages of material so it’ll take an evening to go through it properly. Expect to see something on it tomorrow night, barring any intervening emergencies.

Thanks to Ed Morrisey over at CQ for firing this project up.

Updated: “Peanut butter kiss” might not have been the cause of death

I took quick note of the story where the coronor handling the death of a 15-year-old girl has said that she did not die from an alergic reaction to peanut butter. It had been previously reported that she had kissed her boyfriend who had just eaten something with peanuts in it. The resulting alergic reaction killed her. Apparently, however, that wasn’t the case:

A 15-year-old girl with a peanut allergy did not die from kissing her boyfriend following his peanut butter snack, a coroner said Friday, countering reports that drew international attention last year.

Saguenay coroner Michel Miron said Christina Desforges’ death had a different cause. But he refused further disclosure, saying he first wanted to report to the provincial coroner and examine more test results.

Miron said he was speaking out now to head off an allergy group’s plan to use the case as an example in an awareness effort. [Link]

I understand his reticence in coming clean with the actual cause of death, but the initial report was so widely reported that I think the public is owed the explanation. The Canadian group who is going to use the incident as a lesson isn’t the only group making the claim. I think we all need to know what really happened now that people are repeating it as the truth when it’s not.

Update: Additional details have come out now. The coroner is saying that a lack of oxygen – cerebral anoxia – was the cause of the damage to her brain. She was suffering an asthma attack at the time of her collapse and this might have had something to do with it. His final report hasn’t been filed yet.

US sending AC-130 Spectre-class gunships to Iraq

The Washington Times has a story up this morning that the US is sending, as the story calls them, “flying gunships” to Iraq. The ships are AC-130H Spectre gunships, a variant of the C-130 Hercules 4-engine tranport aircraft. (Upgraded versions of the Spectre are designated AC-130U “Spooky”.) These are a devastating resource to bring to any battlefield situation. The Spectres can loiter for literally hours and rain down an amount of firepower that would give pause to anyone, military or otherwise. Unprotected troops can be decimated in seconds by this platform and it’s extremely hard to run from them. Their sighting systems are also quite precise allowing a good pilot to engage a single vehicle out of a convoy and not significantly impact any others.

To be honest, I’m surprised that these ships weren’t already in the theatre. Their ability to secure a wide area and provide quick-strike capability using weapons ranging from 25mm and 40mm cannon up to a 105mm “Howitzer” would seem to be tailor-made to interdicting sabotage and the “rat lines” used to smuggle in terrorists and weapons. Of course, I’m not working at the Pentagon, so what do I know? Should be interesting.