Threats – Page 432 – Public Intelligence Blog

US Secretly Deploys B-1 Strategic Bombers, E-6 “Doomsday” Planes Near North Korea

First the US fanfared the placement of two F-22 Raptors in the Osan airbase of South Korea. Then it demonstratively launched a B-2 stealth bomber on a training mission over a South Korean gunnery range. Then it deployed an anti-ballistic missile defense system to Guam and positioned two guided-missile destroyers in the waters near Korea. And now, courtesy of the Aviationist, we learn that the Pentagon has escalated once more in an ongoing cat and mouse game with North Korea, of who blinks first, and dispatched several B-1 (“Bone”) Lancer strategic long-range bombers to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. What is different this time, however, is that unlike the previous very public and widely trumpeted reciprocal escalation steps, this particular deployment has been kept secret from the public (at least the broader public), “a fact that could be the sign that the U.S. is not only making symbolic moves (as the above mentioned ones), but it is preparing for the worst scenario: an attack on North Korea.”

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Finally, and most disturbing, is that another aircraft also in the process of deployment is none other than the E-6 Mercury “Doomsday” plane, which are among the pinnacle in US Airforce nuclear war preparedness, tasked with “providing command and control of U.S. nuclear forces should ground-based control become inoperable” and whose core functions include conveying instructions from the National Command Authority to fleet ballistic missile submarines and also to further command post capabilities and control of land-based missiles and nuclear-armed bombers.

You can read more about the military air activity recently monitored by Steve Douglass in an extremely interesting article he posted on his blog that not only summarize the contents of the messages he sent to The Aviationist, but provides some more details about the alleged overseas deployment of E-6 Mercury “doomsday” planes from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.

Perhaps to Kim Jong-un the military escalation to nuclear war is only one big joke, but to the US it is increasingly appearing very serious. And perhaps this is precisely what the Pentagon wanted all along?

2013/04/052013/04/05

NIGHTWATCH: US Exercise Ends, NK FIres Missile Into Ocean, Everyone Sits Back

04 Inter-State Conflict, 08 Wild Cards, Government, Military, Officers Call

The missile. News services have published no additional reports about the missile detected on the east coast. As a rule, when the North Koreans allow a missile to be detected, other than in a parade, they launch it. Readers should expect a launch.

Apparently South Korean National Defense Minister Kim expects a launch as a demonstration and for training. Another reason to launch is to test US missile defense capabilities, reaction times and crisis management discipline.

A missile that splashed into the ocean without starting a general war is a way for the North Koreans to back down.

Comment: Many mainstream media commentaries have disparaged the North Koreans. An excellent article in The Economist reinforces the judgment that North Korean leaders do not intend to start a general war.

NightWatch judges it is a mistake to judge Kim Jong Un by the behavior of his risk-averse father. Jong Un has taken action that not even his grandfather dared take in ending the Armistice.

He also has reversed his father's work by ordering a resumption of construction on nuclear power plants. He surpassed his father in institutionalizing the nuclear industry, including nuclear weapons. One open-source imagery readout reported work started last month on construction of a new cooling tower at Yongbyon.

Flip comments that the leadership is irrational are belied by the care with which North Korea has managed its side of the confrontation, beyond the rhetoric.

NIGHTWATCH KGS HOME

2013/04/04

Berto Jongman: “Little People” Give Up 130,000 Tax Cheats – Kudos to International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Ethics, Government, Law Enforcement, Media

Offshore Leaks: Vast Web of Tax Evasion Exposed

An international network of journalists has obtained some 2.5 million records from tax havens detailing shell companies, offshore accounts and dubious financial deals. The unprecedented leaks include the names of 130,000 people who at one time or other moved their money offshore.

Oligarchs and dictators' daughters apparently have a penchant for bunkering their assets on the British Virgin Islands. Barons and composers, on the other hand, seem to prefer the Cook Islands. To cheat on taxes, they create bogus firms with imaginative names like Tantris, Moon Crystal or Sequoia.

Those are just a few details published this week on a major global system of tax evasion, which sheds new light on the methods used to deceive fiscal authorities and hide money. In what is believed to be the largest data leak in history, anonymous informants have provided an international consortium of journalists with around 2.5 million documents detailing activities in tax havens around the world.

The virtual Everest of data exposes some 120,000 letterbox entities, offshore accounts and other dubious deals in more than 170 countries, in addition to the names of 140,000 individuals alleged to have placed their money in known tax havens. The list includes politicians, celebrities, weapons dealers, oligarchs, financiers and a very diverse cast of characters. It also includes hundreds of Germans. Reporters at the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper noted that the most famous German featured on the list is society playboy Gunter Sachs, best known abroad as Brigitte Bardot's husband for a brief period in the 1960s, who committed suicide in 2011 at the age of 78.

A 15-Month Reporting Project

Read full report with examples.

ICIJ Offshore Page with MANY Stories Rooted in This Investigation

Continue reading “Berto Jongman: “Little People” Give Up 130,000 Tax Cheats – Kudos to International Consortium of Investigative Journalists”

2013/04/042013/04/04

Greg Palast: BP Failure in Gulf Preceded by Identical Failure for Known Reasons in Caspiuan Sea — BP Covered It Up, US Department of State ALSO Covered It Up. Manning and Truth the Enemy, Crime by BP and Treason by State “Not” the Enemy. Say What?

03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 05 Energy, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 11 Society, 12 Water, Civil Society, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Law Enforcement, Media

Bradley Manning & The Deepwater Horizon
By Greg Palast for Vice Magazine
Wednesday, 3. April 2013

Three years ago this month, on the 20th of April, 2010, the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew itself to kingdom come.

Soon thereafter, a message came in to our office's chief of investigations, Ms Badpenny, from a person I dare not name, who was floating somewhere in the Caspian Sea along the coast of Baku, Central Asia.

The source was in mortal fear he’d be identified – and with good reason. Once we agreed on a safe method of communication, he revealed this: 17 months before BP’s Deepwater Horizon blew out and exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, another BP rig suffered an identical blow-out in the Caspian Sea.

Crucially, both the Gulf and Caspian Sea blow-outs had the same identical cause: the failure of the cement “plug”.

To prevent blow-outs, drilled wells must be capped with cement. BP insisted on lacing its cement with nitrogen gas – the same stuff used in laughing gas – because it speeds up drying.

Time is money, and mixing some nitrogen gas into the cement saves a lot of money.

However, because BP’s penny-pinching method is so damn dangerous, they are nearly alone in using it in deep, high-pressure offshore wells.

The reason: nitrogen gas can create gaps in the cement, allow methane gas to go up the borehole, fill the drilling platform with explosive gas – and boom, you’re dead.

So, when its Caspian Sea rig blew out in 2008, rather than change its ways, BP simply covered it up.

Our investigators discovered that the company hid the information from its own shareholders, from British regulators and from the US Securities Exchange Commission. The Vice-President of BP USA, David Rainey, withheld the information from the US Senate in a testimony he gave six months before the Gulf deaths. (Rainey was later charged with obstruction of justice on a spill-related matter.)

Britain's Channel 4 agreed to send me to the benighted nation of Azerbaijan, whose waters the earlier BP blow-out occurred in, to locate witnesses who would be willing to talk to me without getting “disappeared”. (They didn’t talk, but they still disappeared.)

And I was arrested. Some rat had tipped off the Security Ministry (the official name of the Department of Torture here in this Islamic Republic of BP). I knew I’d get out quick, because throwing a reporter of Her Majesty’s Empire into a dungeon would embarrass both BP and the Azeri oil-o-crats.

The gendarmes demanded our film, but I wasn’t overly concerned: Before I left London, Badpenny handed me one of those Austin Powers camera-in-pens, on which I’d loaded all I needed. But I did fear for my witnesses left behind in Azerbaijan – and for my source in a tiger cage in the USA: Pvt Bradley Manning.

Manning could have saved their lives

Only after I dove into deep water in Baku did I discover, trolling through the so-called “WikiLeaks” documents, secret State Department cables released by Manning. The information was stunning: the US State Department knew about the BP blow-out in the Caspian and joined in the cover-up.

Continue reading “Greg Palast: BP Failure in Gulf Preceded by Identical Failure for Known Reasons in Caspiuan Sea — BP Covered It Up, US Department of State ALSO Covered It Up. Manning and Truth the Enemy, Crime by BP and Treason by State “Not” the Enemy. Say What?”

2013/04/04

SchwartzReport: Almost Half in US Find USG Environmental Efforts Lacking — With Solution from Earth Intelligence Network

01 Agriculture, 02 Diplomacy, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Education, 05 Energy, 06 Family, 07 Health, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, 12 Water

Here, again, we have an example of the disconnect between what the American people understand and want, and what the corporate owned Congress is focused on.

The only thing that is going to change this equation is a massive voter turnout that supports compassionate life-affirming policies and politicians prepared to act on those wishes. We did it with Elizabeth Warren, we can do it in other districts.

Click through to see the charts and tables that will help you understand this report better.

Nearly Half in U.S. Say Gov't Environmental Efforts Lacking
FRANK NEWPORT – The Gallup Organization

PRINCETON, NJ — Americans tilt toward the view that the government is doing too little to protect the environment — at 47% — while 16% say it is doing too much. Another 35% say the government's efforts on the environment are about right. These views have not changed much since 2010, although Americans in most years between 1992 and 2006 were more likely than they are today to say the government was doing too little to protect the environment.

Read full article.

Continue reading “SchwartzReport: Almost Half in US Find USG Environmental Efforts Lacking — With Solution from Earth Intelligence Network”

2013/04/042013/04/04

NIGHTWATCH: US is Escalating NK Crisis — NK Positioned to Hit Guam + RECAP

02 Diplomacy, 04 Inter-State Conflict, Ethics, Government, Military

North Korea-US: Warning. Today's General Staff statement and the detection of an intermediate-range ballistic missile at an east coast site indicate the North Koreans are ready to launch a missile without additional warning. Miscalculation and misperception could lead to a missile firing.

The statement contains language in the official English translation that announces North Korea will take actual (also translated, practical) military measures to counter a list of US military deployments. It lacks the conditional language characteristic of prior statements. It also says North Korea has sent a strong message to the South Korean authorities, apparently a warning.

The detection of a single Musudan intermediate range ballistic missile at an east coast launch site, as reported by South Korea's Yonhap news agency, adds support to the statement about taking actual military countermeasures. The location of the missile on the east coast and the repeated mention of bombers from Guam provide some basis for concern that Guam could be a target. Guam is the closest US territory in range.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH: US is Escalating NK Crisis — NK Positioned to Hit Guam + RECAP”

2013/04/032013/04/03

Marcus Aurelius: UK Enabler for US

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 11 Society, DoD, Officers Call

Camp Nama: British personnel reveal horrors of secret US base in Baghdad

Detainees captured by SAS and SBS squads subjected to human-rights abuses at detention centre, say British witnesses

EXTRACT

However, one peculiarity of the way in which UK forces operated when bringing prisoners to Camp Nama suggests that ministers and senior MoD officials may have had reason to know those detainees were at risk of mistreatment. British soldiers were almost always accompanied by a lone American soldier, who was then recorded as having captured the prisoner. Members of the SAS and SBS were repeatedly briefed on the importance of this measure.

It was an arrangement that enabled the British government to side-step a Geneva convention clause that would have obliged it to demand the return of any prisoner transferred to the US once it became apparent that they were not being treated in accordance with the convention. And it consigned the prisoners to what some lawyers have described as a legal black hole.

Read full article (long with photos and links).

See Also:

Camp Nama Overhead Imagery Close-Ups

Cruel Britannia by Ian Cobain – A history of Britain's involvement with torture is essential reading. By Clive Stafford Smith

Category: Threats

Gold Transformer: US Secretly Deploys B-1 Strategic Bombers, E-6 “Doomsday” Planes Near North Korea