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Weapons of mass destruction: US used nukes on Iraq and Afghanistan
The United States has used tactical nuclear weapons in its military campaign against Iraq and Afghanistan, a Middle East expert tells Press TV.
"Tactical nuclear weapons were used, at least one in Iraq and several were used in Afghanistan --in the Tora Bora mountains," Peter Eyre, a Middle East consultant, said.
Eyre pointed out that the atomic bomb dropped on Afghanistan's Tora Bora region was so powerful that it actually created an earthquake there.
The analyst went on to say that the use of such lethal weapons by US military, which is a gross violation of the Geneva Convention, has been sanctioned by the US presidents; thus they should be prosecuted for war crimes.
"In America, the ultimate commander in chief is the president," Eyre said, adding that the President has the final say in using such weapons.
The US is the first country in the world to develop nuclear weapons and the only one to use them.
December 1th 2011
Can Killer Drones Be Turned on America? 50 Countries Are Trying to Get Their Hands on Military Drone Technology -- What Will They Do With It?
Someday soon, you'll be checking your new Clear Skies app as a routine part of your preparations to go out for the evening. First, you'll look at your smart gizmo to read your latest email to make sure there hasn't been any change in plans. A quick glance at Facebook lets you see who’ll be joining your group of friends at the bar. Weather and traffic apps inform you of what to wear and what route to take. Twitter will tell you about any major news developments you should be retweeting to your tweeps to prime the conversational pump over drinks.
November 27th 2011
US rejects destroying chemical weapons
The United States plans to keep its arsenal of chemical weapons for many years to come, as it seeks to extend the deadline set by the international Chemical Weapons Convention.
The US has asked for a decade-long extension to the convention deadline, which obliges signatory-states to dismantle their chemical weapons by THE end of April 2012.
The US is among the few world countries that have refused to implement the Chemical Weapons Convention.
According to the convention, any country found to be in non-compliance will have to be referred to the United Nations Security Council.
The Conference on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons will convene at The Hague, the Netherlands, later this month to discuss the matter.
November 25th 2011
Reports: U.S. Military to Help Fight Nigerian Terrorists
The Pentagon’s shadow war in Africa could have a new front, if reports coming out of Nigeria are accurate. U.S. troops are headed to Nigeria to help local forces do battle with Boko Haram, an Islamic terror group that has killed up to 400 people this year in an escalating campaign of bombings and shootings. At least that’s what Nigerian military sources tell Scott Morgan, a journalist based in Washington, D.C. who writes under the pseudonym “Confused Eagle.” The Guardianalso has the story
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November 13th 2011
 Could We Actually See A War Between Syria And Turkey?
In recent days, there have been persistent rumors that we could potentially be on the verge of a military conflict between Syria and Turkey. As impossible as such a thing may have seemed just a few months ago, it is now a very real possibility. Over the past several months, we have seen the same kind of “pro-democracy” protests erupt in Syria that we have seen in many of the other countries in the Middle East. The Syrian government has no intention of being toppled by a bunch of protesters and has cracked down on these gatherings harshly.
June 28th 2011
Joe Rogan - The American War Machine
May 21th 2011
 How CIA spies deal death from the skies: Thousands killed by U.S. unmanned drones (as the survivors are driven in to the arms of Al Qaeda)
The assembly, a traditional Pathan jirga (tribal council), was being held in the open, on flat ground close to the Tochi river, on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border in tribal North Waziristan. There were more than 150 present, gathered to resolve a dispute over how much revenue each of several neighbouring clans was due from a chromite mine on the slopes of a nearby mountain.
Sharbat Khan, the contractor who had leased the mining rights, had just begun to speak when four or five Predators - American pilotless 'drone' aircraft - flew over the line of brown, craggy hills at the valley's rim and seemingly filled the sky.
Their first target was a car which was heading away from the Afghan border, being driven along the rough mountain road at high speed in an effort to outrun the drones and their deadly payload. According to witnesses, the aircraft fired four missiles at the car, but it was going so fast that they missed. Then, as the vehicle passed the village of Datta Khel, where the jirga had assembled, the drones fired two more missiles. This time, the car turned into a fireball, and all five men inside were killed.
April 18th 2011|
Why Peace
I think when we are young, or at least when I was younger in the pre-Internet days, many important questions about war and peace get framed under false linear dichotomies. Within these poorly framed questions come simplified opposing sides with troubling associations. As a young man, the position of peace was presented to me with associations to the naïve, to weaklings, drugged out hippies, to people who spit on soldiers and called them baby killers, and to parasitical groups of ungrateful people who enjoyed the freedoms that others brought them through fighting, but who were unwilling to fight themselves. Opposing war was akin to opposing “the troops,” rather than the government’s decision to send them into battles.
After all they are brave and fighting supposedly on our nation’s behalf. But that people are fighting and being brave isn’t the question. The question is should they be fighting at all, not how they are fighting. Opposing war is not opposing the troops. But getting that point across to cult like followers of war can be quite a task.
War on the other hand, was presented as a tragic but necessary thing. The world isn’t always rational, and so force is needed to defeat force. It’s not because we wanted it to be that way but because it is that way. War was very glorified. From GI Joe to historical figures, honor and reputation rests on heroic deeds of war.
The shining example of good war is WWII, because it ended the Holocaust. War was even said by some to be responsible for how the US got out of the Great Depression, and a viable way to jump start an economy in the future. We were in the middle of a Cold War with the USSR and the picture was painted very clearly in black and white. We were good, they were bad/crazy, and the only thing protecting us was support for the military and in doing so: military spending too.
April 5th 2011|
 Who are the Libyan Freedom Fighters and Their Patrons?
The world is facing a very unpredictable and potentially dangerous situation in North Africa and the Middle East. What began as a memorable, promising, relatively nonviolent achievement of New Politics - the Revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt - has morphed very swiftly into a recrudescence of old habits: America, already mired in two decade-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and sporadic air attacks in Yemen and Somalia, now, bombing yet another Third World Country, in this case Libya.
The initially stated aim of this bombing was to diminish Libyan civilian casualties. But many, senior figures in Washington, including President Obama, have indicated that the US is gearing up for a quite different war for regime change, one that may well be protracted and could also easily expand beyond Libya.1 If it does expand, the hope for a nonviolent transition to civilian government in Tunisia and Egypt and other Middle East nations experiencing political unrest, may be lost to a hard-edged militarization of government, especially in Egypt. All of us, not just Egyptians, have a major stake in seeing that that does not happen.
March 27th 2011|
 Does Gaddafi Still Have Chemical Weapons? (What WikiLeaks Cables Reveal)
With a military intervention by Western powers underway to supposedly protect Libyan civilians from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, one might wonder what Gaddafi's next move might be. His behavior during speeches prior to the intervention demonstrated Gaddafi is an erratic individual. He has suggested he would enlist the help of al-Qaeda to prevent Libyans from driving him from power. He has also said "I have not yet ordered the use of force, not yet ordered one bullet to be fired"when I do, everything will burn."
Is Gaddafi a leader that would use chemical weapons (i.e. mustard gas) on his people?
US State Embassy cables released by WikiLeaks show that the US has worked with other countries to ensure that Libya abandoned its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. It offered incentives for Libya to cooperate. But, cables that have been released suggest a slight possibility that Gaddafi still has chemical weapons materials.
March 25th 2011|
AMAZING SPEECH BY WAR VETERAN
March 21th 2011|
 The 8th Anniversary of a Genocide (a rant)
20th March 2003, under the guise of the 'War Against Terror' and democracy; the decimation of the cradle of civilisation, Iraq/ Mesopotamia began. It is more than the over 1 million dead or the over 2 million displaced. This was and still is, a deliberate destruction of a nation. It is after all STILL occupied. And what has happened in those 8 years?
Women in Fallujah are advised by doctors "not to conceive" because of the Depleted Uranium (that is used in weaponary and tanks) is in the atmosphere, in its sinister particle dust. The Depleted Uranium has been cited in a massive increase in birth deformities and cancers. Some reports have suggested that it is changing the gender balance of Fallujah; with reports of a dramatic fall in live births of males and severe deformities in girls. It is hard today for researchers to even look into this as Iraq is still under occupation and the US Government will not co-operate. It is worth noting that there are similar reports from US Veterans of the effect of Depleted Uranium.
March 20th 2011|
 Egypt: A Virtual Smoking Gun
On January 12, 2009, US Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs James K. Glassman joined a group of Egyptian political bloggers from the Virtual Newsroom of the American University in Cairo. Is this the “virtual” smoking gun that indicates American collusion in the subsequent ouster of Hosni Mubarak?
Less than two months earlier, Glassman and Jared Cohen from Secretary Clinton’s Policy Planning Staff had given an on-the-record briefing on the State Department’s alliance with ten partners in the private sector—including Facebook, Google, MTV, AT&T, Howcast, Access 360 Media—to form the Alliance for Youth Movements (AYM). During that briefing, Glassman singled out Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement for special mention, saying that some of its members would be in attendance at the inaugural AYM youth summit in New York from December 3-5. Asked about “the risk of unleashing something here that is going to come back to bite you, especially with our allies,” Glassman replied: “We are very supportive of pro-democracy groups around the world. And sometimes, that puts us at odds with certain governments.”
March 7th 2011|
 Libya: African mercenaries 'immune from prosecution for war crimes'
The UN Security Council agreed on Saturday evening to freeze international assets belonging to the Gaddafis and their key aides, to ban them from travelling and to block all arms sales to Tripoli. It also called for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the killings of demonstrators.
This inquiry could lead to senior Libyan ministers and officials being indicted to stand trial for crimes against humanity at The Hague and being given lengthy prison sentences.
But it has been widely alleged that many of the attacks were in fact carried out by foreign mercenaries hired by Colonel Gaddafi. And the US insisted that the UN resolution was worded so that no one from an outside country that is not a member of the ICC could be prosecuted for their actions in Libya.
March 2th 2011
US Army to build a Cheetah robot that can run faster than humans... let's hope it doesn't get a taste for flesh
A new robot that can outrun the fastest man on Earth and a Terminator-type android that will work alongside troops is being developed for the US Army.
The speedy robot – called, unsurprisingly, the Cheetah – is being developed by Boston Dynamics, which brought to the world the $18million BigDog robot used to help soldiers carry equipment over tough terrain.
But despite the multi-million dollar contracts awarded by the Department of Defense, army officials still don’t know exactly what the robots will be used for, according to the company’s boss.
February 28h 2011
 Defense Secretary Gates warns against more land wars in Asia
New York — Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Friday against committing the US military to big land wars in Asia or the Middle East, saying anyone proposing otherwise "should have his head examined."
Gates offered the blunt advice -- hard won after a decade of bitter conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq -- in what he said would be his last speech to cadets at the US Army's premier school for training future officers.
"The odds of repeating another Afghanistan or Iraq -- invading, pacifying, and administering a large third world country -- may be low," Gates said.
"In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it," Gates said.
February 27h 2011
 Army admits Gulf War medical records destroyed
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A letter from the Department of the Army telling units to destroy their records after the end of Operation Desert Storm has made it more difficult for injured veterans to get the medical benefits they need.
The letter, never made public before now, says units were told to destroy their records because officials had no room to ship the paperwork back to theUnitedStates. The letter goes on to say it was in direct contradiction to existing Army regulations.
"This could have been one, five, six, a couple of hundred or this could be thousands (of soldiers)," says Andrew Marshall, a Florida regional officer with the nonprofit Disabled American Veterans group. "You don't know."
One solider trying to get help from the Veterans Administration for combat-related injuries says he has been turned down because his records are missing. He did not want to be identified.
February 16h 2011|
 With 36,000 Troops Set to Deploy in 2011, Is Permanent War on the Horizon?
As the US war in Afghanistan spreadstoward Pakistan and the strategy drifts to Counter Terrorism (CT), there is no deescalation in sight. In fact, it is increasingly clear that the White House has little intention to significantly draw down troops in July of this year, as promised in
President Obama’s West Point speech.
Approximately 36,000 troops will be deployed to Afghanistan in 2011; 28,900 -80%- of those will deploy before July-the first month of President Obama’s promised transition and draw down phases. The deployments are part of the regular troop rotations, but what might this mean for the July 2011 draw down?
January 29th 2011
 Doctors Alarmed by Military’s Use of Mind Drugs on Troops
Dr. Grace Jackson, a former Navy psychiatrist, left the service “out of conscience, because I did not want to be a pill pusher,” she told Nextgov. Jackson believes psychotropic drugs are “destroying the force.” She is especially concerned about the anticonvulsive drug Depakote, which military doctors prescribe for mood control. Depakote can cause “cognitive toxicity,” impaired ability to think and make decisions.
Another expert, Dr. Peter Breggin, told the House Veterans Affairs Committee last year that combat soldiers should not be given psychotic drugs, because they can cause loss of judgment and self-control and lead to increased violence and suicidal impulses
January 24th 2011|
 North American Union - Canada and US to Use Each Others Troops
Canada and the U.S. have signed an agreement that paves the way for the militaries from either nation to send troops across each other’s borders during an emergency, but some are questioning why the Harper government has kept silent on the deal.
Neither the Canadian government nor the Canadian Forces announced the new agreement, which was signed Feb. 14 in Texas.
The U.S. military’s Northern Command, however, publicized the agreement with a statement outlining how its top officer, Gen. Gene Renuart, and Canadian Lt.-Gen. Marc Dumais, head of Canada Command, signed the plan, which allows the military from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a civil emergency.
February 23h 2011|
 Genetic Soldiers? Advisory Group Urges Pentagon To Map Genes Of All Personnel
It sounds like something out of a dystopian science fiction novel, but it's not.
A new report from a secretive, highly influential group of scientists is urging the Department of Defense to begin collecting and mapping the full genome of all military personnel -- a move that could well give the Pentagon the ability to select for certain genetic predispositions.
Noting the dramatic decrease in the cost of fully mapping individuals' genomes, the report suggests that some traits relevant to war-fighting "are likely to have a strong genetic component, for which better understanding may lead to improved military capabilities."
And, possibly even more attractive to the Pentagon brass, gene-mapping could even lead to "medical cost containment."
January 16th 2011
US war addiction needle hits on health & kids
December 30h 2010|
 Pentagon’s Christmas Present: Largest Military Budget Since World War II
The bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, was approved by all 100 senators as required and by a voice vote in the House.
The House had approved the bill, now sent to President Barack Obama to sign into law, five days earlier in a 341-48 roll call, but needed to vote on it again after the Senate altered it in the interim.
The proposed figure for the Pentagon’s 2011 war chest includes, in addition to the base budget, $158.7 billion for what are now euphemistically referred to as overseas contingency operations: The military occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.
December 26th 2010|
(CBS) After returning from Iraq in 2006, Staff Sgt. Sarah Campbell Hester was looking forward to enjoying life, newly married to a soldier who had also just returned from war, reports CBS News correspondent Don Teague.
"He was just funny, he was the ultimate prankster, very solid with the unit," Hester said.
But secretly her husband was a man in crisis, unable to readjust to life after war.
"Iraq changed him, he came back kind of an angry man," Hester said.
One month after their wedding, Richard Hester, 34, committed suicide.
"I always sympathized with him, empathized I guess would be the word, and understood and never blamed him," Hester said. "And now I'm just like you left two little girls without a dad, you left me with a mess to deal with why would you do this?"
Ncvember 8th 2010
“US has unprecedented imperial military presence in the world”
US war addiction needle hits on health & kids
December 30h 2010
The US is building an £8 billion super military base on the Pacific island of Guam in an attempt to contain China's military build-up.
The expansion will include a dock for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, a missile defence system, live-fire training sites and the expansion of the island's airbase. It will be the largest investment in a military base in the western Pacific since the Second World War, and the biggest spend on naval infrastructure in decades.
However, Guam residents fear the build-up could hurt their ecosystem and tourism-dependent economy
October 27h 2010
The Spanish company TechnoRobot has introduced here the RiotBot – a new class of unmanned platform designed for intervention in riots, prison disturbances, or other civil disorders, where neutralization of specific elements is required by law enforcement agents, avoiding direct contact with the crowd. By operating with effective non lethal means to suppress, or deactivate a target without the presence of personnel, RiotBot can eliminate potential threats while minimizing escalation typically caused by police intervention
October 26h 2010|
Infowars Exclusive: Operation Vigilant Guard - Chicago 2010
In Operation Vigilant Guard, a Prison Planet.tv exclusive, Infowars.com reporters and filmmakers Rob Dew and Jason Douglass venture to Chicago, Illinois, to document the militarization of domestic response during disasters and terrorist events in the United States.
It is not simply the U.S. military -- specifically the National Guard federalized under the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act -- and Homeland Security along with local police participating in exercises held state-wide in Illinois, but the Polish and Latvian military as well.
October 19h 2010
Some 140,000 U.S. soldiers dispatched to the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury (TBI) between 2001 and October last year, according to a U.S. Department of Defense study.
The total makes up about 7 percent of all U.S. servicemen and women dispatched to the two countries.
As of the end of 2008, the Defense Department had only diagnosed about 9,000 soldiers with TBI, according to documents obtained by the Mainichi. The number of cases jumped suddenly in 2009 after new testing standards were introduced under the administration of President Barack Obama.
October 17h 2010
We spent the Cold War in perpetual fear that the U.S. and U.S.S.R. would start an intentional nuclear conflict. The truth is, we came far closer to blowing ourselves up with nuclear weapons than we ever came to WWIII.
Nuclear incidents have a bunch of ominous military code names, like Broken Arrow, Faded Giant or NUCFLASH. There are actually dozens of instances like these, but here are five major ones that happened in the U.S. If we were to consider Soviet activity, the list could go on for hours. The Russians either lost a nuclear sub, lost a sub with nuclear weapons on board, had a nuclear sub's reactor melt down, or all three roughly every other week. Kompetentnyh? Nyet.
October 17h 2010
The Pentagon will not tell the public what it costs to locate, target and kill a single Taliban soldier because the price-tag is so scandalously high that it makes the Taliban appear to be Super-Soldiers. As set out in this article, the estimated cost to kill each Taliban is as high as $100 million, with a conservative estimate being $50 million. A public discussion should be taking place in the United States regarding whether the Taliban have become too expensive an enemy to defeat.
Each month the Pentagon generates a ream of dubious statistics designed to create the illusion of progress in Afghanistan. In response this author decided to compile his own statistics. As the goal of any war is to kill the enemy, the idea was to calculate what it actually costs to kill just one of the enemy. The obstacles encountered in generating such a statistic are formidable.
October 4th 2010
There appear to be some good business opportunities in Yemen, but they may not be what they seem. Yemen is the poorest Arab nation, and one of the poorest countries in the world, with an estimated annual per capita income of $1,061. It is running out of water, and production from its few oil fields is declining. Apart from that, it produces nothing and is increasingly becoming a center for drug trafficking. It is also corrupt, ranking 164th on Transparency International’s 2009 list, just ahead of Cambodia and the Central African Republic. It is a country that is remarkably devoid of resources or of a developed middle class of consumers, and it is best known for its ongoing multidimensional civil war, pitting the central government against various tribal groups. In spite of all that, there has been a surge in investment in the country by a number of small American companies — all the more remarkable as the U.S. economy itself has been in recession. A similar pattern is observable in Kenya, with an annual income of $912 and ranked just ahead of Yemen at 146th for corruption, and in Ethiopia, with an income of $390 per capita and coming in at 120 for corruption.
September 26th 2010 |
Redeploying injured troops sustains US war crimes including murdering children and women daily.
Soldiers' Right to Heal violation sustains US war crimes
The US continues its illegal and immoral wars, murdering innocent children, women and innocent men daily, by redeploying soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Traumatic Brain Injuries and Military Sexual Trauma. Veterans view this as cruel, inhumane, and dangerous and know that without repeated use of traumatized soldiers on the battlefield, the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations could not continue. By winning troops Right to Heal, Iraq Veterans Against the War believes Americans can end the war and war crimes committed daily in their names.
September 26th 2010
When Lt. Col. Dave Wilson took command of a battalion of the 4th Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, the unit had just returned to Texas from 14 months traveling some of Iraq's most dangerous roads as part of a logistics mission.
What he found, he said, was a unit far more damaged than the single death it had suffered in its two deployments to Iraq.
Nearly 70 soldiers in his 1,163-member battalion had tested positive for drugs: methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana. Others were abusing prescription drugs. Troops were passing around a tape of a female lieutenant having sex with five soldiers from the unit. Seven soldiers in the brigade died from drug overdoses and traffic accidents when they returned to Fort Bliss, near El Paso, after their first deployment.
September 19th 2010
Standing Army - The American Empire
The US has encircled the world with a web of military bases that today amount to more than 700, in 40 countries. It's one of the most powerful forces at play in the world, yet one of the less talked-about.
Why do countries like Germany, Italy, Japan still host hundreds of US military bases and thousands US soldiers?
What stance has president Obama taken on this subject?
September 12th 2010
A dozen American soldiers are under arrest, five for murder, in crimes that we may never know the full extent of. The accusations, killing for sport, collecting fingers as trophies, is “meat” for the media. It will sell papers, it will bring TV viewers and, combined with the threatened Koran burning and the “hatefest” over the Manhattan Islamic Center, everything imaginable is being done to make certain that terrorism is alive and well and aimed at the United States.
The Koran burning is cancelled but we can’t undo the murders, not this set, not the last nor the decade long nightmare beginning, not with 9/11 but the election of George W. Bush, or more honestly, Dick Cheney.
September 12th 2010
On January 3, 2001, the UN General Assembly's Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space Resolution A/55/32 said:
"The exploration and use of outer space....shall be for peaceful purposes and be carried out for the benefit and in the interest of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development. (The) prevention of an arms race in outer space would avert a grave danger for international peace and security."
Over 140 nations agreed. Only two declined support, both abstaining - America and Israel.
On August 9, 1996, in Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, then Commander-in-Chief US Space Command, Joseph W. Ashy asserted:
"It's politically sensitive, but it's going to happen. Some people don't want to hear this, and it sure isn't in vogue, but - absolutely - we're going to fight in space. We're going to fight from space and we're going to fight into space. That's why the US has development programs in directed energy and hit-to-kill mechanisms. We will engage terrestrial targets someday - ships, airplanes, land targets - from space."
September 9th 2010
It was the US that introduced the nuclear weapons to the world and it is the only nation in the history of the world to actually have used nuclear weapons in a time of war, Ritter told Press TV in an interview.
Although the US used nuclear bombs under the pretext of shortening the war against Japan and saving hundreds of thousands, the reality is that Japan was on the verge of surrender prior to United States' use of nuclear weapons, he added.
"The documents of the time shows that the key decision makers, especially in Truman administration, were convinced that using the nuclear bomb against Japan wasn't about bringing Japan to its knees, it was about making a statement to the Soviet Union so that the US could control the post-war competition that was going to occur between the West and the Soviet Union," Ritter said.
September 4th 2010
$1 trillion wasted on wars
The calculator busily counting out how much money the United States has spent on wars since 2001 has raced past $1 trillion — $1,024 billion plus at the start of August. There is little point in trying to give a more refined figure since the clock ticks remorselessly on, mesmerizingly faster than you can write the sum down, about $260,000 blown away in each passing minute.*
August 5th 2010
President Barack Obama is signing legislation to fund his troop surge in Afghanistan.
Before Congress passed it on Tuesday, the bill was stripped of money for domestic stimulus programs. Obama was signing it in a low-ley Oval Office session Thursday.
Democratic leaders had to rely on Republican support to pass the $59 billion measure, which provides money for 30,000 additional troops in Afghanistan and other programs. With Pentagon leaders warning that money for the troops could run out as early as Aug. 7, the House accepted the Senate's pared-down version of the legislation.
July 31th, 2010
Nestled between Panama to its south and Nicaragua to its north, Costa Rica is a Central American nation roughly the size of Rhode Island.
If another nation were to send Rhode Island a force of 7,000 troops, 200 helicopters, and 46 warships in an effort to eradicate drug trafficking, it is doubtful that the residents of Rhode Island would consider this offer "on-the-level." Such a massive military force could hardly be efficiently used to combat drug cartels. The only logical conclusion is that the nation whose troops now are occupying this other country had another agenda in mind that it didn't want to share.
In early July, by a vote of 31 to 8, the Costa Rican Congress approved the U.S. bringing into their nation the same military force described above, justified with the same dubious "war on drugs" rationale. According to the agreement, the military forces are supposed to leave Costa Rica by the end of 2010. This begs the question, however, if such an over the top display of military muscle is needed now to combat the drug cartels, what will be done in the next few months to make their presence unnecessary? The history of such U.S. military deployments around the world suggests a more credible outcome than what the agreement states. Once the U.S. moves such massive forces into a country, they rarely move them out.
July 21th, 2010|
Army reports record number of suicides for June
Soldiers killed themselves at the rate of one per day in June making it the worst month on record for Army suicides, the service said Thursday.
There were 32 confirmed or suspected suicides among soldiers in June, including 21 among active-duty troops and 11 among National Guard or Reserve forces, according to Army statistics.
Seven soldiers killed themselves while in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan in June, according to the statistics. Of the total suicides, 22 soldiers had been in combat, including 10 who had deployed two to four times.
July 18th, 2010
Will the Lebanese ship attempting to break the siege imposed on Gaza be the spark that ignites the fire of war in the Middle East? Whether the vessels attempting to break the siege of Gaza or any other insignificant as preposterous and contrived reasons will be the last straw that Israel holds as a justification for a bloody war against what it calls the “new alliance” (Syria, Turkey and Iran), this new Israeli war and the flood of human blood is inevitably coming. At the national, political and military levels, Israel has made sufficient effort to convince its American, European and some Arab and Islamic allies to take part in or support this dirty war. It has also completed its training and tactical planning for this new coming war
The scientist responsible for some of the Pentagon's wildest research has devised methods that could one day save trauma patients, and even extend the shelf life of transplant organs. Step one: Suffocate the wounded. Step two: Put ‘em on ice.
Mark Roth, a biochemist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, has been working on suspended animation - inspired by the processes of animal hibernation - for years now. In 2005, with funding from Pentagon far-out research arm Darpa, Roth managed to reanimate rats suffering from massive blood loss, using hydrogen sulfide to knock them out and curb their oxygen consumption.
Since then, Roth has made significant progress. His hydrogen sulfide procedure has completed phase 1 of the three clinical trials required before FDA approval. And he's moved onto a new, related method that could boosttrauma survival even more effectively.
Researchers have found that in the heat of battle they have the same chemicals running through their bloodstreams as protective mothers, meaning they develop incredibly strong bonds with each other but become extremely aggressive to outsiders.
The effect resolves around the hormone oxytocin which is released at times of stress and when people socialise with each other.
U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) threatened to issue subpoenas against the U.S. Defense and State Departments last month if they continue to refuse to accurately account for billions of dollars spent on private contractors assisting Washington in the 'war on drugs' in Latin America. But McCaskill's concerns raise broader questions about oversight and transparency of a controversial industry and its ever expanding role in Washington's foreign policy.
"We asked for this information from the State Department and the Defense Department (DoD) more than three months ago. Despite our repeated requests, neither Department has been able to answer our questions yet," said U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill at a Senate hearing on May 20.
The Defense Department, which could only provide an estimate of how much of $5.3 billion it spent on counternarcotics operations in the last decade, actually outsourced what turned out to be an incomplete audit to a private contractor.
 Beneath its commitment to soft-spoken diplomacy and beyond the combat zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration has significantly expanded a largely secret U.S. war against al-Qaeda and other radical groups, according to senior military and administration officials. Special Operations forces have grown both in number and budget, and are deployed in 75 countries, compared with about 60 at the beginning of last year. In addition to units that have spent years in the Philippines and Colombia, teams are operating in Yemen and elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia.
Commanders are developing plans for increasing the use of such forces in Somalia, where a Special Operations raid last year killed the alleged head of al-Qaeda in East Africa. Plans exist for preemptive or retaliatory strikes in numerous places around the world, meant to be put into action when a plot has been identified, or after an attack linked to a specific group.
“Use of mercenaries masks scope of US involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq”
“We have seen these private hired guns – mercenaries if you will – actually in situations that have jeopardized the mission of the US, have put her own troops at risk, have killed private civilians,” she said. “So far those cases have been dismissed. Fortunately, the Justice Department has decided to appeal the ruling and go forward, but they’re in a kind of grey legal limbo.” Source RT.com
There is a simple reason why the gay rights lobby is trying to rush through repeal of the Pentagon’s homosexual exclusion policy. They know that a comprehensive review of a proposed change would disclose the substantial evidence that admission of open and active homosexuals would put our troops in further danger through exposure to tainted blood. In fact, evidence to this effect is already in the hands of top military commanders and Pentagon officers.
Transparency: Worldwide Arms Sales
The world arms trade is a multi-billion dollar industry with a strong economic impact on its major exporters. This is a look at the biggest international arms suppliers and buyers, and the United States's recent dramatic jump in market share.
U.S. Army Trains To Confront Tea Party ‘Terrorists’
In a shocking development that outstrips even the infamous MIAC report, it has emerged via whistleblowers that the U.S. Military in Kentucky is training to confront Tea Party protesters and anti-government demonstrators, who in official intelligence advisories are described as bomb-making terrorists.
On April 17, the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, reported on a military exercise dubbed “Mangudai,” named after the special forces of Genghis Khan’s Mongol army who could fight for days without food or sleep. The Kentucky newspaper portrayed the exercise as an effort to train soldiers to battle the Taliban in Afghanistan.
“Designed to test the limits of officers’ physical, mental and emotional endurance, the emerging Army exercise offered a revealing window onto modern combat training in the era of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Chris Kenning wrote for the newspaper. “Over three days last week, participants had to crawl on their bellies under real machine-gun fire, shimmy commando-style over a single rope high in the air and march for more than 22 miles through forests.”
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18 veterans kill themselves every day: report
The suicide rate among war veterans is extraordinary, new data reveals.
Thirty try to commit suicide each day, on average, reports the Army Times. Eighteen succeed, roughly five of whom receive medical care from Veterans Affairs, rated one of the best health programs in the country.
"Of the more than 30,000 suicides in this country each year, fully 20 percent of them are acts by veterans,'' said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki at a VA-sponsored suicide prevention conference in January, Inter Press Service reported.
America's Medicated Army
Seven months after Sergeant Christopher LeJeune started scouting Baghdad's dangerous roads — acting as bait to lure insurgents into the open so his Army unit could kill them — he found himself growing increasingly despondent. "We'd been doing some heavy missions, and things were starting to bother me," LeJeune says. His unit had been protecting Iraqi police stations targeted by rocket-propelled grenades, hunting down mortars hidden in dark Baghdad basements and cleaning up its own messes. He recalls the order his unit got after a nighttime firefight to roll back out and collect the enemy dead. When LeJeune and his buddies arrived, they discovered that some of the bodies were still alive. "You don't always know who the bad guys are," he says. "When you search someone's house, you have it built up in your mind that these guys are terrorists, but when you go in, there's little bitty tiny shoes and toys on the floor — things like that started affecting me a lot more than I thought they would."
Drone Wars: The Legal Debate Continues
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