Military – Page 148 – Public Intelligence Blog

Today the Middle East and much of Africa are subject to attacks by American drones. As horrific as the drone threat may be seen today or even feared for tomorrow, the truth if far worse than ever imagined.

Drones of unimagined capability are being readied for deployment with even more frightening technical advances on the drawing boards. The drones we are seeing today, even the advanced RQ 170 Lockheed Sentinel captured by Iran in 2011, are child’s play.

EXTRACT:

BEYOND TOP SECRET TECHNOLOGY

Hyperspectral sensors look at objects using a vast portion of the electromagnetic spectrum

During the late 1990s, was developed using cameras that no longer required light sources or extensive cooling required by infrared imagery.

Originally tasked with detecting oil and minerals or for oceanographic research, unforeseen advances in technology have surpassed “hyperspectral” into the “hyperspatial” range.

A drone with an “after-next generation” HS/HS system can detect your breath, give you a blood alcohol count, tell you what your last meal was and count the change in your pocket.

From a commercial brochure for units being offered for use on police helicopters:

“Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) and High Spatial Resolution Remote Sensing can be used in a wide variety of applications related to the detection and identification of threats for the military forces.

The Hyper-Cam High Performance Surveillance Network is well suited to protect civil and military against Chemical Warfare Agents (CWAs) and Toxic Industrial Chemicals (TICs) releases.

Read full article.

Continue reading “Gordon Duff: Concerns Over Proliferation of Intrusive Drones”

2013/03/152013/03/26

Marcus Aurelius: Pentagon Puts Strategy on the Table — In a Vaccum

Corruption, Ineptitude, Military

As bad as sequestration is now and is going to be — and that's much worse than some of you have told me you think — in the interest of truth, everyone should remember that the Chairman, before he was Chairman, before he was even Chief of Staff, Army, was railing, picking up the ADM Mullen line that deficits were the worst threat to national security and that DoD should be a part of deficit reduction. That, IMHO, undercuts his moral authority to do anything other than embrace sequestration, which is having impacts you wouldn't believe if we were allowed to discuss them with you. Folks, on a day to day basis, every day gets “suckyer” than the previous day. Sequestration is creating monumental diversions of key leader and staff attention from the real business of national defense. Most of the specifics are classified and/or “predecisional.”

Gen. Martin Dempsey: Pentagon reassessing defense strategy under sequestration

By Kristina Wong

The Washington Times, Thursday, March 14, 2013

Military officials are reassessing the national defense strategy in light of spending cuts that will force the Pentagon to reduce its budget by $500 billion over the next decade, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says.

Continue reading “Marcus Aurelius: Pentagon Puts Strategy on the Table — In a Vaccum”

2013/03/142013/03/26

Penguin: US Drones, US Ignorance of Tribes, & Endless War in the Briar Patch

Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Ineptitude, Military

A template for the story of our mis-steps as it will be told for generations.

Phi Beta Iota: The complete story has been posted below. Technology is not a substitute for thinking. US policymakers, driven by the arm sales imperative and its 5% kick-backs, have refused to be educated by intelligence professionals that do know what they are doing, but cannot be heard. It is time we begin serving the public with public intelligence — an Open Source Agency (OSA) whose finished decision-support cannot be ignored precisely because it is public.

The Thistle and the Drone

By Akbar Ahmed

the Globalist | Thursday, March 14, 2013

For the United States and its allies, the tribes across the Muslim world remain a mystery. Because they were outside the realm of globalization, they were easy to see as natural allies of al Qaeda. Without an understanding of these tribes' social and religious values, writes Akbar Ahmed, the U.S.-led war on terror will not end in any kind of recognizable victory.

Drone launched from the USS Lassen in September 2010. Credit: Roberto Ruvalcaba/US Navy-Flickr (CC BY 2.0) — Drone launched from the USS Lassen in September 2010.
Credit: Roberto Ruvalcaba/US Navy-Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

By 2012, the United States, in a move typical for its propensity to opt for excess in any matter of security, had commissioned just under 20,000 drones. About half of these are in use.

Ignoring the moral debate, drone operators are equally infatuated with the weapon and the sense of power it gives them. It leaves them “electrified” and “adrenalized.” Flying a drone is said to be “almost like playing the computer game Civilization,” a “sci-fi” experience.

A U.S. drone operator in New Mexico revealed the extent to which individuals across the world can be observed in their most private moments. “We watch people for months,” he said. “We see them playing with their dogs or doing their laundry. We know their patterns, like we know our neighbors' patterns. We even go to their funerals.”

Another drone operator spoke of watching people having sex at night through infrared cameras. The last statement, in particular, has to be read keeping in mind the importance Muslim tribal peoples give to notions of modesty and privacy.

The victims of all drone attacks are, in effect, treated like insects. That description is not my invention, but a reflection of the military slang for a successful strike. The victim that is blown apart on the screen in a display of blood and gore is called “bug splat.”

Muslim tribesmen were reduced to bugs or, as David Ignatius put it in a Washington Post op-ed, cobras to be killed at will. Any compromise with the Taliban in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan, officially designated as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), is “like playing with a cobra,” he wrote. And do we “compromise” with cobras? Ignatius rhetorically asked. “No, you kill a cobra.”

Bugs, snakes, cockroaches, rats — such denigration of minorities has been heard before, and as recent history teaches, it never ends well for the abused people.

Continue reading “Penguin: US Drones, US Ignorance of Tribes, & Endless War in the Briar Patch”

2013/03/112013/03/26

Penguin: Examination of Lockheed Lobbying and the C-130 Hercules

Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Government, Military

The stories are getting simple enough and ridiculous enough for the average American to start getting it.

The Disturbing History of One of the Pentagon's Most Expensive Flying Turkeys

Meet the C-130 Hercules.

EXTRACT

The C-130 Hercules, or Herk for short, isn't a sexy plane. It hasn't inspired hit Hollywood films, though it has prompted a few photo books, a beer, and a “Robby the C-130” trilogy for children whose military parents are deployed. It has a fat sausage fuselage, that snub nose, overhead wings with two propellers each, and a big back gate that comes down to load and unload up to 21 tons of cargo.

The Herk can land on short runways, even ones made of dirt or grass; it can airdrop parachutists or cargo; it can carry four drones under its wings; it can refuel aircraft; it can fight forest fires; it can morph into a frightening gunship. It's big and strong and can do at least 12 types of labor — hence, Hercules.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Here's where the story starts to get interesting. After 25 years, the Pentagon decided that it was well stocked with C-130s, so President Jimmy Carter’s administration stopped asking Congress for more of them.

Lockheed was in trouble. A few years earlier, the Air Force had started looking into replacing the Hercules with a new medium-sized transport plane that could handle really short runways, and Lockheed wasn't selected as one of the finalists. Facing bankruptcy due to cost overruns and cancellations of programs, the company squeezed Uncle Sam for a bailout of around $1 billion in loan guarantees and other relief (which was unusual back then, as William Hartung points out his magisterial Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex).

Then a scandal exploded when it was revealed that Lockheed had proceeded to spend some $22 million of those funds in bribes to foreign officials to persuade them to buy its aircraft. This helped prompt Congress to pass the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

So what did Lockheed do about the fate of the C-130? It bypassed the Pentagon and went straight to Congress. Using a procedure known as a congressional “add-on” — that is, an earmark — Lockheed was able to sell the military another fleet of C-130s that it didn’t want.

To be fair, the Air Force did request some C-130s. Thanks to Senator John McCain, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) did a study of how many more C-130s the Air Force requested between 1978 and 1998. The answer: Five.

How many did Congress add on? Two hundred and fifty-six.

As Hartung commented, this must “surely [be] a record in pork-barrel politics.”

Read full article.

Continue reading “Penguin: Examination of Lockheed Lobbying and the C-130 Hercules”

2013/03/102013/03/26

Berto Jongman: Col James Steele, USA — Death Squads & Torture from El Salvador to Iraq — One of the “Boys” with Back Door Access to Rumsfeld

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, Military

James Steele: America's mystery man in Iraq – video (51:08)

The Guardian, Wednesday 6 March 2013

A 15-month investigation by the Guardian and BBC Arabic reveals how retired US colonel James Steele, a veteran of American proxy wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, played a key role in training and overseeing US-funded special police commandos who ran a network of torture centres in Iraq. Another special forces veteran, Colonel James Coffman, worked with Steele and reported directly to General David Petraeus, who had been sent into Iraq to organise the Iraqi security services

• Watch a five-minute edited version of this film narrated by Dearbhla Molloy

• Watch the full video (“he lacks human feeling” — “the ugliest sorts of torutre (in secret prisons)”

• Revealed: Pentagon's link to Iraqi torture centres

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: Col James Steele, USA — Death Squads & Torture from El Salvador to Iraq — One of the “Boys” with Back Door Access to Rumsfeld”

2013/03/082013/03/26

John Maguire: Cornel West: NDAA, MLKII, Fascism, and Culture of Fear

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Military, Officers Call, YouTube

Via Youtube: “Dr. West gives a passionate speech about government love of power and the fact of government oppression. MLK could have been jailed without due process under the NDAA or killed without due process under the present administration.”

Dr. West hits the nail on the head in many respects. But the question remains: Why is no one discussing the fact the U.S. Government was indicted in MLK's murder over 13 years ago?

Phi Beta Iota: Below the embedded YouTube we provide some additional links. We as a collective hold Dr. Cornell West in high regard. This six minute articulation is passionate, informed, and a call to Jesus for the American public.

See Also:

Douglass, James W. (2010). JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters. Touchstone.

Pepper, William F. (2008). An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King. Verso.

West, Cornel (2005). Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism. Penguin Books.

2013/03/082013/03/26

NIGHTWATCH: North Korea Threatens War During Major US Exercise in South Korea Lasting to 30 April

Government, Idiocy, Military

North Korea: NightWatch's review of events since 1 January indicates that the North Koreans have been preparing this breakout since 2 February when Kim Jong Un began a series of meetings, starting with the Military Central Commission.

NightWatch judges the actions are deliberately planned because of their breadth, coherence and consistency. The North's depiction of itself as a victim reacting defensively is part of its deception strategy.

North Korean Actions on 7 March before the UN Vote: North Korea's Foreign Ministry joined the official chorus with an official statement that stressed three points, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

“First, now that the U.S. is set to light a fuse for a nuclear war, the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK will exercise the right to a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors and to defend the supreme interests of the country.”

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: North Korea Threatens War During Major US Exercise in South Korea Lasting to 30 April”