IO Deeds of War – Page 145 – Public Intelligence Blog

2013/03/21

NIGHTWATCH Plus: North Korea — US B-52 Follies, NK Threatens US Bases in Pacific, Crashes SK Networks

Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence

B-52's & NK Counter-Threat

In Show of Force, US Bomber Trains Over S. Korea

North Korea: B-52 flights an ‘unpardonable provocation’

North Korea threatens US Pacific bases over B-52 flights

NK Cyber-Attack on SK? [Israel also suspect]

South Korean TV networks and banks suffer computer crashes after suspected cyber-attack from the North

NIGHTWATCH

North Korea: On 21 March at 0930 local time, the Korean Central Broadcasting Station made the following unscheduled announcement:

“We inform all soldiers and residents!

“This is an air raid warning. This is an air raid warning. This is an air raid warning. Military units and units of all levels must quickly take measures to prevent damage from the enemy's air strikes.”

At 1028 local time the Korean Central Broadcasting Station carried a second unscheduled announcement:

“This is the Korean People's Army Broadcasting Station. We inform all residents and soldiers: The air raid warning is lifted. The air raid warning is lifted. The air raid warning is lifted.

Comment: According to defectors queried by the Daily NK, this was the first use of the public radio system for broadcasting an air raid warning. It was a test because it was too brief to be a civil defense evacuation drill. In large cities they take up to a full day. This is significant because air raid warnings are never broadcast. This was probably a no-notice drill in response to the US announcement about B-52s operating over South Korea.

Air raid warnings were more common in the 1990s, but all were sent via the “Third Broadcast” which is a cable radio system, only accessible in North Korea. The Korean People's Army Broadcasting Station only has been known to use the Third Broadcast.

The use of a nationwide radio broadcast implies the North's leaders expect they will need such a system at a time when people would be away from their homes, in fields, on the street or in public conveyances. They expect the population to respond swiftly according to plan without advance warning. That is uncommonly realistic preparation. The B-52 announcement had effect.

North Korean drones. The Korean Central News Agency reported on 20 March that North Korea launched a drone attack on a simulated South Korean target. The press item touted that Kim Jong Un personally supervised the operation. The drone strike successfully shot down a target mimicking a South Korean cruise missile.

Comment: It is not clear just what transpired in the exercise, whether a drone actually flew. However, South Korean news sources in February 2012 reported North Korea had acquired older US drones, MQM-107D Streaker target drones built by Raytheon, from a Middle Eastern country. South Korea's Yonhap reported they possibly came from Syria. Photos of the drone are available on the Internet.

The North Koreans are extremely good at tinkering with older systems and finding value in materials that would end up on the cutting room floor in the US. Their entire missile program evolved from tinkering with obsolescent systems. They certainly have the science to boost the performance and capabilities of a target drone.

The North Korean news report disclosed information about the status of a fairly new weapons project. They are aware of the threat from Allied cruise missiles and have been working to counter them and probably build their own for over a year.

2013/03/142013/03/26

Jon Lebkoswky: Bruce Schneir — The Internet Goes to War

IO Deeds of War, IO Impotency

The Internet inherits war

Bruce Schneier at Technology Review:

Arms races are fueled by two things: ignorance and fear. We don’t know the capabilities of the other side, and we fear that they are more capable than we are. So we spend more, just in case. The other side, of course, does the same. That spending will result in more cyber weapons for attack and more cyber-surveillance for defense. It will result in move government control over the protocols of the Internet, and less free-market innovation over the same. At its worst, we might be about to enter an information-age Cold War: one with more than two “superpowers.” Aside from this being a bad future for the Internet, this is inherently destabilizing. It’s just too easy for this amount of antagonistic power and advanced weaponry to get used: for a mistaken attribution to be reacted to with a counterattack, for a misunderstanding to become a cause for offensive action, or for a minor skirmish to escalate into a full-fledged cyberwar.

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.

2013/03/062013/03/26

John Robb: Cyber-War with China — Wrong Answer (and Robert Steele with Better Answer)

IO Deeds of Peace, IO Deeds of War

Cyber Deterrence against China? The only route left is an Open Source Approach

Is there a way to deter cyber attacks?

Yes. Two ways. One takes a moral high ground.

I won't waste any time discussing that option.

Why? After flame/stuxnet, and the unilateral escalation of the cyberweapons arms race by the US, that option is now closed.

The only option that's left is down and dirty open source warfare.

The key is understanding that large cybercrime networks (more) and significant government black ops programs (less) need government permission to operate at any meaningful scale.

Lots of governments (China, Russia, etc.) see permitting these activities as advantageous. They get economic benefit and they develop/perfect a level of expertise that is potentially useful in the future.

So, how do you deter this activity?

Continue reading “John Robb: Cyber-War with China — Wrong Answer (and Robert Steele with Better Answer)”

2013/03/052013/03/26

Mini-Me: Murder of 9/11 Author & Former Pilot — and Kids, and Dog

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Law Enforcement, Military

Author works on new 9/11 book, winds up dead in the desert

Open Salon, 27 February 2013

The author of a recent book that questions the official story of 9/11 was found dead earlier this month–along with his teen-age son and daughter and the family dog–at their home in the desert community of Murphys, California.

Authorities concluded that Phillip Marshall and the other victims died on February 2 from a murder-suicide. But a prominent investigative journalist recently visited Calaveras County, spoke to many of Marshall's neighbors and friends, and found powerful reasons to doubt the official finding.

Marshall published The Big Bamboozle: 9/11 and the War on Terror in 2012. But Wayne Madsen, based in Washington, D.C., reports that Marshall was working on a new 9/11 book that might have contributed to his death.

Madsen's full three-part series is available via subscription at Wayne Madsen Reports (WMR). We have received permission to quote from the report. At a post titled “A Black Ops Hit Made to Appear as a Suicide,” Madsen writes:

Philip Marshall, the retired United Airlines pilot, 9/11 analysis author, and one-time Iran-contra era associate of CIA/DEA informant Barry Seal, did not shoot his two teen-age children and himself. That is the conclusion of everyone who knew Marshall after he moved to the Sierra Nevadas community of Murphys ten years ago after he sold his home in Santa Barbara. Friends said Marshall was looking for more seclusion.

Marshall, who believed that the Bush family, allied with Saudi and neo-conservative interests, pulled off the 9/11 attack to engineer a government coup d'etat, was working on a fourth book that promised to reveal some new blockbuster information.

The Santa Barbara View apparently was first to raise questions about Marshall's death. From a February 6 piece titled “Phillip Marshal Wrote About Conspiracies; Was He the Victim of One?”

Continue reading “Mini-Me: Murder of 9/11 Author & Former Pilot — and Kids, and Dog”

2013/03/042013/03/04

Berto Jongman: DARPA Wants a Searchable Databasie of All Voice Conversations

Corruption, IO Deeds of War, Military

DARPA Wants a Searchable Database of All Your Conversations

The ultimate privacy killer

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
March 4, 2013

DARPA is working on an embryonic project that would store your every verbal conversation on an Internet server, creating a searchable chat database that would represent the ultimate privacy killer.

Having failed to establish its infamous Total Information Awareness system, although the project was continued under numerous different guises, DARPA is attempting to create a world in which your every utterance is stored in perpetuity.

But don’t worry, the servers on which your conversations are stored will be owned by the individual or their employer, and the government promises to never access the information using their vast new $2 billion dollar spying hub in the middle of the Utah desert. Honest.

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: DARPA Wants a Searchable Databasie of All Voice Conversations”

2013/03/032013/03/03

Phil Giraldi: Who’s Turning Syria’s Civil War Into a Jihad?

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 08 Wild Cards, Government, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War

Who’s Turning Syria’s Civil War Into a Jihad?

Philip Giraldi

American Conservative, February 28, 2013

The tale of what is going on in Syria reads something like this: an insurgency active since March 2011 has been funded and armed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and allowed to operate out of Turkey with the sometimes active, but more often passive, connivance of a number of Western powers, including Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. The intention was to overthrow the admittedly dictatorial Bashar al-Assad quickly and replace him with a more representative government composed largely of Syrians-in-exile drawn from the expat communities in Europe and the United States. The largely ad hoc political organization that was the counterpart to the Free Syrian Army ultimately evolved into the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (Syrian National Coalition) in November 2012, somewhat reminiscent of Ahmad Chalabi and the ill-starred Iraqi National Congress. As in the lead-up to regime change in Iraq, the exiles successfully exploited anti-Syrian sentiment among leading politicians in Washington and Europe while skillfully manipulating the media narrative to suggest that the al-Assad regime was engaging in widespread atrocities and threatening to destabilize its neighbors, most notably Lebanon. As in the case of Iraq, Syria’s possession of weapons of mass destruction was introduced into the indictment of al-Assad and cited as a regional threat.

If there was a model for what was planned for Syria it must have been the invasion of Iraq in 2003 or possibly the United Nations-endorsed armed intervention in Libya in 2010, both of which intended to replace dictatorial regimes with Western-style governments that would at least provide a simulacrum of accountable popular rule. But the planners must have anticipated a better outcome. Both Libya and Iraq have become more destabilized than they were under their autocrats, a fact that appears to have escaped everyone’s notice. It did not take long for the wheels to fall off the bus in Syria as well. As in Iraq, the Syrian exiles had no real constituency within their homeland, which meant that the already somewhat organized resistance to al-Assad, consisting of the well-established Muslim Brotherhood and associated groups, came to the fore. Al-Assad, who somewhat credibly has described ^[1] the rebels as terrorists supported by foreign governments, did not throw in the towel and leave. The Turkish people, meanwhile, began to turn sour ^[2] on a war which seemed endless, was creating a huge refugee and security problem as Kurdish terrorists mixed in with the refugees, and was increasingly taking on the shape of a new jihad as foreign volunteers began to assume responsibility for most of the fighting.

Read full article.