military industrial complex

Pentagon to Start Awarding Medals for Drone Strikes and Cyberattacks

"The Defense Department is reportedly inventing a new medal designed to reward soliders who fight battles from the safety of their computer consoles. The Associated Press says the Pentagon is creating a new ribbon, called the Distinguished Warfare Medal that will be given for 'extra achievement' related to a military operation. That would include drone pilots operating unmanned planes from halfway around the world, or even hackers who launch a successful cyberattack on an enemy. Unlike all other combat-related medals, this would be the first one that you can be awarded without actually putting your life on the line." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPentagon to Start Awarding Medals for Drone Strikes and Cyberattacks

Obama rebukes North Korea over nuke test and calls for ‘swift’ and ‘credible’ action

"US President Barack Obama said Tuesday that North Korea’s 'provocative' nuclear test did not make it more secure and called for 'swift' and 'credible' international action in response. Obama also vowed in a written statement that Washington would remain vigilant in the face of the underground detonation by the Stalinist state and steadfast in its defense commitments to its allies in Asia. 'The danger posed by North Korea’s threatening activities warrants further swift and credible action by the international community,' Obama said, ahead of an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council called for later on Tuesday." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama rebukes North Korea over nuke test and calls for ‘swift’ and ‘credible’ action

The secret history of drones

"The drones now snooping over Afghanistan have a longer history than you might think. In 1916, a military scientist conceived of an 'aerial torpedo' designed to be loaded with explosives and steered into the deadly Zeppelins on their bombing raids over southern England. In a lecture to the Royal Aeronautical Society on Monday evening Michael Draper, author of Sitting Ducks & Peeping Toms, will lift the wraps off the secret century of unmanned air vehicles, starting with the prototype referred to by the innocuous initials 'AT'." Continue reading →

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Raytheon secret software tracks social media and ‘predicts’ people’s future behavior

"A video obtained by the Guardian reveals how an 'extreme-scale analytics' system created by Raytheon, the world’s fifth largest defence contractor, can gather vast amounts of information about people from websites including Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. The Massachusetts-based company has acknowledged the technology was shared with US government and industry as part of a joint research and development effort, in 2010, to help build a national security system capable of analysing 'trillions of entities' from cyberspace." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRaytheon secret software tracks social media and ‘predicts’ people’s future behavior

America’s Secret War in North Africa Behind Benghazi Attack

"Behind closed doors, President Obama had given his counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, carte blanche to run operations in North Africa and the Middle East. In 2012, a secret war across North Africa was well underway. With JSOC, Brennan waged his own unilateral operations in North Africa outside of the traditional command structure. The aftermath of one of these secret raids into Libya would have grave consequences for all of them. SOFREP believes the Benghazi attack on 9/11/12 was blowback from the late-summer JSOC operations that were threatening the Al Qaeda-aligned militant groups (including Ansar Al-Sharia) in Libya and North Africa." Continue reading →

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Christopher Dorner Becomes First Human Target For Drones On US Soil

"It was revealed that Dorner has become the first human target for remotely-controlled airborne drones on US soil. A senior police source said: 'The thermal imaging cameras the drones use may be our only hope of finding him. On the ground, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.' Asked directly if drones have already been deployed, Riverside Police Chief Sergio Diaz, who is jointly leading the task force, said: 'We are using all the tools at our disposal.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingChristopher Dorner Becomes First Human Target For Drones On US Soil

Many 2011 federal budget cuts had little real-world effect

"In the real world, in fact, many of their 'cuts' cut nothing at all. The Transportation Department got credit for 'cutting' a $280 million tunnel that had been canceled six months earlier. It also 'cut' a $375,000 road project that had been created by a legislative typo, on a road that did not exist. At the Census Bureau, officials got credit for a whopping $6 billion cut, simply for obeying the calendar. They promised not to hold the expensive 2010 census again in 2011. Today, an examination of 12 of the largest cuts shows that, thanks in part to these gimmicks, federal agencies absorbed $23 billion in reductions without losing a single employee." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMany 2011 federal budget cuts had little real-world effect

Obama administration wants to put Algerian militant on secret ‘kill’ list

"Senior members of President Barack Obama’s administration want to put the mastermind of last month’s attack on an Algerian natural-gas facility on a secret 'kill' list, The Wall Street Journal reported. Adding Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar to a US list for targeted killing would entail a significant US military expansion into northwestern Africa, the newspaper said, citing unnamed US officials. It would mean extending drone strikes and other lethal counterterrorism operations to the region, the paper added." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama administration wants to put Algerian militant on secret ‘kill’ list

Barack Obama’s ‘extreme’ anti-terror tactics face liberal backlash

"President Barack Obama is facing a liberal backlash over his hardline national security policy, which critics say is more extreme and conservative than that pursued by George W Bush. The outrage comes after a week in which Obama’s nominee to be the next head of the CIA, current White House adviser John Brennan, faced a grilling from the Senate intelligence committee over his enthusiastic support of using unmanned drones to strike suspected Islamic militants all over the globe." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBarack Obama’s ‘extreme’ anti-terror tactics face liberal backlash

Do US drone kills need an oversight board? How would it work?

"Should the US establish some sort of secret court to conduct judicial oversight of drone strikes used to kill terror suspects? Committee Chairman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California said that the time has come to shine a light on the drone program and any other method of targeted killing used in the war against terrorism. She and other senators, she said, were considering legislation establishing a secret court to oversee the targeted killing process, similar to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, which now looks at national security wiretap applications within the US." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingDo US drone kills need an oversight board? How would it work?