284 terrorist attacks occurred in the five boroughs of New York City between 1970 and 2007. Terrorist activity is not new to New York City, with almost three-fourths of these attacks occurring in the 1970s. 2813 individuals were killed by terrorist activity between 1970 and 2007 in New York City, with 98% of those fatalities occurring as a result of the dual attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
Planned and deployed drill sites and oil spill coverage
Drill rig
The Katrina Myth;
the Truth about a thoroughly unnatural disaster
Related:
Center for Public Integrity project on recent oil spill (May 11)
The Center for Public Integrity partnered with ABC News to reveal the serious lack of government and industry preparedness for the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Exclusively-obtained government reports about a series of spill exercises — one as recently as March 25 — warned of a lack of tools to contain a spewing oil well in deep water and of bureaucratic confusion in declaring a “Spill of National Significance” that activates a full federal response. The Center's report was part of ABC's Nightline program on Tuesday, and was prominently featured on The Blotter, a blog written by ABC News' chief investigative reporter, Brian Ross.
As part of the oil spill drill story, the Center experimented with an online library on our website to share investigative materials with readers. We posted the U.S. Coast Guard's after-action reports on past oil spill training exercises using DocumentCloud — an index of primary source documents and a tool for annotating, organizing and publishing them on the web.
(1) US consciously changed from standard main battle rifles firing “full military cartridges” (ie., M-14/7.62×51 NATO, M-1 Garand/cal. 30 M-1) to assault rifles (AR-15, M-16, Stoner System) in the 1960s as we attempted to optimize for short-range engagements in the constrained mountainous/jungle environments of Southeast Asia. At the time, our primary allies were slight of physical stature;
(2) Concurrently, training and engagement doctrine shifted from carefully aimed individual shots to volume of fire (bursts of various numbers of rounds, the “spray and slay” technique) and various “point and shoot” techniques such as “instinctive aiming,” “quick kill,” etc.;
(3) Ammunition followed suit and emphasis in terminal ballistics shifted from accuracy and kinetic energy to volume of fire and bullet yaw/fragmentation; (4) I attach the SAMS paper by MAJ Ehrhart cited in the article.)
Phi Beta Iota: This one paper is a superb indictment of US DoD leadership from the Secretary of Defense, who claims he does not do “maintenance” but is in fact overseeing “business as usual” for Lockheed et all, to the Undersecretaries (Intelligence does not do intelligence support to acquisitions; Acquisitions could care less about inexpensive individual systems; and Policy simply does not have a clue) to the service leaders responsible for training, equipping, and organizing the forces to be sent into battle by the Combatant Commanders. The Strategic Generalizations developed by the Marine Corps Intelligence Center in 1989 remain valid–and ignored.
Related Media Article:
April 2, 2010
Army Report: GIs Outgunned In Afghanistan
By David Wood
American troops are often outgunned by Afghan insurgents because they lack the precision weapons, deadly rounds, and training needed to kill the enemy in the long-distance firefights common in Afghanistan's rugged terrain, according to an internal Army study.
Phi Beta Iota: With a tip of the hat to Marcus Aurelius, this document is provided for information. On balance it is rich with insights that are not available elsewhere and consequently must be very highly regarded as a baseline for where US intelligence reform (and US intelligence) are today: dead, with a $75 billion a year casket that shows no signs of atrophy. Below are summary extracts both positive and negative.
The Iran Threat in the Age of Real-Axis-of-Evil Expansion
by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson
It is intriguing to see how whoever the United States and Israel find interfering with their imperial or dispossession plans is quickly demonized and becomes a threat and target for that Real-Axis-of-Evil (RAE), and hence their NATO allies and, with less intensity, much of the rest of the “international community” (IC, meaning ruling elites, not ordinary citizens). If and when the need arises, any bit of news that is damaging to the targeted state will be fed into the demonization process — and in the marvelous propaganda system of the West, the grossest distortions will be swallowed and regurgitated without much guilt or apology, even upon the exposure of exceptional gullibility and dishonesty. The dishonesty, gullibility, double standard, and hypocrisy are handled with an aplomb that Pravda and Izvestia could never muster in the Soviet era.
. . . . . . .
Edward S. Herman is professor emeritus of finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and has written extensively on economics, political economy, and the media. Among his books are Corporate Control, Corporate Power (Cambridge University Press, 1981), The Real Terror Network (South End Press, 1982), and, with Noam Chomsky, The Political Economy of Human Rights (South End Press, 1979), and Manufacturing Consent (Pantheon, 2002). David Peterson is an independent journalist and researcher based in Chicago
Phi Beta Iota: See the table at the Monthly Review Zine to truly appreciate the spectacular relevance of the total commentary by the lead author who with Noam Chomsky was a half-century ahead of the pack in understanding how Potemkin Democracy might be foisted on a deliberately disengaged public.
Every war brings medical innovations, as horrific injuries force surgeons to come up with new ways to save lives. During the Civil War, doctors learned better ways to amputate limbs, and in World War I they developed the typhoid vaccine. World War II brought the mass use of penicillin, Korea and Vietnam the development of medical evacuation by helicopter.
Full Story Online
The lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan, medical experts say, are still emerging. One legacy is new ways to control bleeding before soldiers lapse into comas or their vital organs shut down. Thanks to new clotting agents, blood products and advanced medical procedures performed closer to the battlefield, wounded American soldiers are now surviving at a greater rate than in any previous war fought by the U.S.
The rising survival rate, now touching 95% for those who live long enough to get medical treatment, is in turn introducing new problems caring for patients with serious and chronic injuries, including multiple amputations and brain damage. The cost of treating such lasting injuries will be borne by the U.S. medical system for decades to come.
