military industrial complex

Air Force Launches “Terminator” Quadrotor Project

"Quadrotors - they're all the rage right now. From applications from amateur videographers to weapons enthusiasts. Now the United States Air Force is launching a program to develop a fully autonomous quadrotor. The air force released this statement on the program: '...this project will further the development of autonomous quadrotor systems—teaching them to think and act with minimal human intervention. 'In a promotional video released today by the Air Force, they call on the quad-rotor community to assist in the development of these next generation drones." Continue reading →

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How “Your” Government Works

"The Obama administration has announced the formation of a panel of “outside experts” to review the NSA’s surveillance practices. And a wide-ranging, diverse collection of experts they are; when it comes to institutional backgrounds and viewpoints, they span the entire spectrum from A to B. They remind me a bit of the space shuttle crew in an episode of The Simpsons: 'They’re a colorful bunch … There’s a mathematician, a different kind of mathematician, and a statistician.' If you think all this insider involvement in policy represents 'regulatory capture,' or the corruption of an originally pristine system by campaign money and lobbyists, you’re missing the point." Continue reading →

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Mexico leader to discuss alleged U.S. spying with Obama

"Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said Wednesday he would voice concerns about alleged US spying on his emails to US counterpart Barack Obama, warning it would be illegal if proven true. The new claims of spying in Latin America came two months after allegations of widespread US electronic espionage in the region that infuriated allies and rivals alike. 'If it is proven that an action took place, with the use of espionage means, this is clearly not permitted and it is outside the law,' Pena Nieto told reporters during a layover in Canada on his way to Saint Petersburg." Continue reading →

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Secret U.S. documents reveal Al-Qaeda has anti-drone operation

"Al-Qaeda’s leaders have set up cells of engineers to try to shoot down, disable or hijack US drones, The Washington Post reported late Tuesday citing top-secret US intelligence documents. The Al-Qaeda leadership is 'hoping to exploit the technological vulnerabilities of a weapons system that has inflicted huge losses against the terrorist network,' the Post said online. The Al-Qaeda commanders are keen to achieve 'a technological breakthrough (that) could curb the US drone campaign, which has killed an estimated 3,000 people over the past decade,' the Post reported. [Drone strikes] have taken a toll among civilians in those countries, something that has fueled anti-US sentiment." Continue reading →

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Edward Snowden Receives German Whistleblowing Award

"My gratitude belongs to all of those who have reached out to their friends and family to explain why suspicionless surveillance matters. It belongs to the man in a mask on the street on a hot day and the women with a sign and an umbrella in the rain, it belongs to the young people in college with a civil liberty sticker on their laptop, and the kid in the back of a class in high school making memes. All of these people accept that change begins with a single voice and spoke one message to the world: governments must be accountable to us for the decisions that they make. Decisions regarding the kind of world we will live in. What kind of rights and freedoms individuals will enjoy are the domain of the public." Continue reading →

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David Stockman: The End of U.S. Imperium—Finally!

"Next week Congress can do far more than stop a feckless Tomahawk barrage on a small country that is already a graveyard of civil war and sectarian slaughter. By voting 'no,' it can trigger the end of the American Imperium—five decades of incessant meddling, bullying, and subversion around the globe that has added precious little to national security but left America fiscally exhausted and morally diminished. Indeed, the tragedy of this vast string of misbegotten interventions is that virtually none of them involved defending the homeland or any tangible, steely-eyed linkages to national security. They were all rooted in ideology." Continue reading →

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Tell Congress: Don’t Attack Syria

"The Administration is considering intervening in the Syrian civil war. We oppose this. There's no vital national security involved. We are not the world’s policeman, nor its judge and jury. Our own needs in America are great, and they come first. The death of civilians is always regrettable, and civil war is regrettable, but no Americans have been attacked, and no American allies have been attacked. The British Parliament understandably has voted not to join in any attack. Notably, defense contractor Raytheon's stock is up 20% in the last 60 days. It seems that nobody wants US intervention in Syria except the military-industrial complex. I oppose US military intervention in Syria. Join me." Continue reading →

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Sheldon Adelson Becomes Obama Ally as Jewish Groups Back Syria Strike

"Lobbying on Syria has inspired coalitions of the unlikely, aligning President Barack Obama with Sheldon Adelson, the Republican billionaire who spent about $70 million trying to defeat him last year, in the push for a military response to the use of chemical weapons. The support Obama is getting from pro-Israel groups in the U.S. is important because of their history of political influence. The pro-Israel community contributed $14.5 million to federal campaigns for the 2012 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s more than the $11.1 million in donations by the defense aerospace industry, one of the biggest and most consistent political contributors." Continue reading →

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Kerry’s Morally, Linguistically, and Historically Obscene Case for War in Syria

"Unfortunately for the politician who made famous the line 'How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?', Kerry's case in front of the committee was more a textbook example of how acting as the world's policeman for decades has warped the country's values, judgment, and even language. I counted at least seven moments that qualified in my judgment as obscene, exposing along the way the administration's empty and contradictory arguments for air-mailing death upon a regime that does not pose a direct threat in the United States." Continue reading →

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How Intelligence Was Twisted to Support an Attack on Syria

"Secretary of State John Kerry assured the public that the Obama administration's summary of the intelligence on which it is basing the case for military action to punish the Assad regime for an alleged use of chemical weapons was put together with an acute awareness of the fiasco of the 2002 Iraq WMD intelligence estimate. Nevertheless, the unclassified summary of the intelligence assessment made public August 30, 2013, utilizes misleading language evocative of the infamous Iraq estimate's deceptive phrasing. The document displays multiple indications that the integrity of the assessment process was seriously compromised." Continue reading →

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