***Please note that in the article that follows, I am not claiming that the U.S. Government knew Mutallab had a bomb or intended to hurt anyone on Flight 253 when the U.S. Government let him board.
THE SHARP DRESSED MAN WHO AIDED MUTALLAB ONTO FLIGHT 253 WAS A U.S. GOVERNMENT AGENT.
Since our flight landed on Christmas Day, Lori and I have been doing everything in our power to uncover the truth about why we were almost blown up in the air over Detroit. The truth is now finally out after the publication of the following Detroit News article:
The first move a deceiver makes after deceiving someone is to warn the deceived against all other deceivers so as to avoid losing control of the deceived to some other deceiver. -Unknown
The FBI disproved its main theory about how the spores were weaponized.
By EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN
The investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks ended as far as the public knew on July 29, 2008, with the death of Bruce Ivins, a senior biodefense researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Md. The cause of death was an overdose of the painkiller Tylenol. No autopsy was performed, and there was no suicide note.
Less than a week after his apparent suicide, the FBI declared Ivins to have been the sole perpetrator of the 2001 Anthrax attacks, and the person who mailed deadly anthrax spores to NBC, the New York Post, and Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. These attacks killed five people, closed down a Senate office building, caused a national panic, and nearly paralyzed the postal system.
The FBI's six-year investigation was the largest inquest in its history, involving 9,000 interviews, 6,000 subpoenas, and the examination of tens of thousands of photocopiers, typewriters, computers and mailboxes. Yet it failed to find a shred of evidence that identified the anthrax killer—or even a witness to the mailings. With the help of a task force of scientists, it found a flask of anthrax that closely matched—through its genetic markers—the anthrax used in the attack.
This flask had been in the custody of Ivins, who had published no fewer than 44 scientific papers over three decades as a microbiologist and who was working on developing vaccines against anthrax. As custodian, he provided samples of it to other scientists at Fort Detrick, the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, and other facilities involved in anthrax research.
According to the FBI's reckoning, over 100 scientists had been given access to it. Any of these scientists (or their co-workers) could have stolen a minute quantity of this anthrax and, by mixing it into a media of water and nutrients, used it to grow enough spores to launch the anthrax attacks.
S0 much shit has happened, and gone unpunished, I bet this isn't even on peoples radar...
A forthcoming Italian documentary journey into the world of U.S. military bases,one of the most defining - and less-talked about - realities of our time (2010)
all the while,
As above so below, as abroad so at home. In the 21st century our egregores come home to roost.
The White House has decided to begin funding private companies to carry NASA astronauts into space, but the proposal faces major political and budget hurdles, according to people familiar with the matter.
The controversial proposal, expected to be included in the Obama administration's next budget, would open a new chapter in the U.S. space program. The goal is to set up a multiyear, multi-billion-dollar initiative allowing private firms, including some start-ups, to compete to build and operate spacecraft capable of ferrying U.S. astronauts into orbit—and eventually deeper into the solar system.
Congress is likely to challenge the concept's safety and may balk at shifting dollars from existing National Aeronautics and Space Administration programs already hurting for funding to the new initiative. The White House's ultimate commitment to the initiative is murky, according to these people, because the budget isn't expected to outline a clear, long-term funding plan. The White House's NASA budget also envisions stepped-up support for climate-monitoring and environmental projects, along with enhanced international cooperation across both manned and unmanned programs.
Press officials for NASA and the White House have declined to comment.
In the words of Jello biafra, "Ban privatize everything"!
January 24, 2010 (ChattahBox)—Republican Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer of the bible-thumping state of South Carolina revealed his very special version of compassionate conservatism during a recent speech to his constituents, when he compared poor people on welfare to stray cats and dogs. Providing hungry people with an “ample food supply,” says Bauer only encourages the great unwashed of our society to breed more poor wretches whom the state is forced to feed. The genteel Southern gentleman is shocked that the poor on the dole have the bad taste to reproduce right under his nose, and he proposes that South Carolina “curtail that type of behavior,” by cutting off their food supply of government cheese and food stamps. Because after all, the poor, just like stray animals, can’t control their distasteful sexual urges. “They don’t know any better,” Bauer said. Bauer is running for the Republican nomination for governor and he made his offensive comments during a town hall meeting. He proposed that residents receiving government assistance, like free school lunches, should be forced to take drug tests and attend PTA meetings and parent-teacher conferences and if they don’t: “bam, you lose your benefits,” said Bauer. He then explained his “stray animal” philosophy regarding the poor: “My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better,” Bauer said. In South Carolina, 58 percent of students participate in the free and reduced-price lunch program. Bauer went on to add that there should be “repercussions” for receiving state aid. “Look, if you receive goods or services from the government, then you owe something back,” he told the crowd of state lawmakers and about 100 constituents. The Republican Lt. Gov. drew on the offensive “Welfare Queen” and cultural wars rhetoric championed by the late Ronald Reagan. Bauer railed against “babies having babies” and the lazy good-for-nothings who stay home all day breeding. These people on Welfare “don’t have to do a thing,” said Bauer. And of course these sneaky poor folks know how to game the system, because they keep reproducing to get more of that free government cash. “They can continue to have more and more kids, and the reward is there’s more and more money in it for them,” Bauer declared. Bauer later made the argument that children receiving free school lunches do poorly in school: “I can show you a bar graph where free and reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of South Carolina,” adding, “You show me the school that has the highest free and reduced lunch, and I’ll show you the worst test scores, folks. It’s there, period.” After receiving criticism for his despicable and tin-eared comments, Bauer would only admit that his remarks were poorly worded. He then denied saying that poor people “were animals or anything else.” And in a later interview with The State newspaper, he held firm on his statements that feeding the poor encouraged dependence and he refused to apologize for his comments. Bauer said that his proposals to stop feeding the poor were borne “out of love and compassion.” The compassionate conservative Andre Bauer, made his statements on the same day that the jobless rate in South Carolina reached 12.6 percent.
As another said, "Disaster Capitalists already have their hands firmly on Haiti. The result is ongoing murder".. But what do you expect from Murder Inc?
As the result of the war, corporations have been enthroned by the war, and an era of corruption in high places will follow. The money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. ~ Abraham Lincoln (b 1809)
Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. ~ Ambrose Bierce (b 1842)
Slavoj Zizek on how liberal, centrist technocrats are handing the energy of popular outrage to liberal policies over to right wing reactionaries on a silver platter... ~Gouda
"I think Berlusconi is one of the options for our future."
"I mean, Berlusconi we know is a living obscenity, but I don’t think this is just a joke. There is something very strange going on where it’s as if the state, or political powers, are discovering it can function in a totally cynical way..."
“Look at Italy if you want to see how our future authoritarianism will look.”
"It’s not the old style authoritarianism. It is…to call it by its name, Groucho Marx Authoritarianism. This is our future, I claim."
“My message to liberals is, are you aware that…your own dynamic of your own system is generating this nationalist, populist, potentially racist reaction?!”
By JAMIE ROSS (CN) - A federal judge in San Francisco has given the green light to an action by Vietnam vets saying the CIA prevented roughly 7,000 human subjects from getting medical care after they were subjected to experiments on mind control, implantation of electronics and the effects of exotic drugs. Federal Judge Claudia Wilken allowed a challenge to the consent forms signed by individual plaintiffs involved in the experiments, to the extent that they required an oath of secrecy. At the same time, she dismissed the challenge to the legality of the CIA's human testing program of the 1950s and '60s But the plaintiffs, Vietnam Veterans of America, may seek a declaration concerning the lawfulness of consent forms provided to the individual plaintiffs, since the extent of their potential injuries was not fully disclosed and the forms required them to take a secrecy oath. Plaintiffs, who also include the group Swords to Plowshares, allege that the oaths cause ongoing harm because they prohibit individuals from seeking treatment and counseling for the harm caused by the experiments. The court also denied the CIA's motion for judgment that the plaintiffs' claims are time-barred and that the court lacks jurisdiction because the plaintiffs' medical care "has been wrongfully withheld," causing them injury due to the agency's failure to act. The CIA and the U.S. Army experimented on human subjects in the 1950s. The experiments included exposing subjects to "various chemicals, drugs and/or the implantation of electronic devices" and "developing mind-control methods." About 7,800 armed services volunteers participated, but were not fully informed of the potential risks of the procedures. In dismissing that plaintiff's legal challenge to the overall program, Judge Wilken ruled that the plaintiff Vietnam Veterans of America lacked standing to seek "a declaration on the lawfulness of the testing and the associated consent forms" because such relief would not fix their alleged injuries and the individual plaintiffs are no longer members of the armed forces and will not be subjected to experiments by the CIA in the future. Individual plaintiffs include Bruce Price, Franklin D. Rochelle, Larry Meirow, Eric P. Muth, David C. Dufrane, and Wray C. Forrest.
It started when his mother died in 2006. “He said he had a ‘zinging’ in his ears. I can’t explain it the way he explained it,” said David Anderson, 54, who worked with Speight and became friendly with him. Anderson said Speight told him that he began seeing a therapist but that it didn’t help much. He had grown worse recently, a change that Anderson and other co-workers attributed to tensions in his house on Snapps Mill Road. “He had gotten quieter in the past six months,” Anderson said. Something must have been building, Anderson said. On Tuesday, Speight, 39, allegedly shot his sister, his brother-in-law and their two children, along with four family friends, in a rampage that left eight dead. It was the worst mass slaying in Virginia since a single shooter killed 33 people at Virginia Tech in 2007.
It wasn't easy, but I finally found an up side to the disastrous Senate election in Massachusetts. Hint: It has something to do with Joe Lieberman. And needless to say, I wrote a limerick about it.
This is the full text of an exclusive advance feature by Scott Horton that will appear in the March 2010 Harper’s Magazine. The issue will be available on newsstands the week of February 15.
1. “Asymmetrical Warfare” When President Barack Obama took office last year, he promised to “restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great.” Toward that end, the president issued an executive order declaring that the extra-constitutional prison camp at Guantánamo “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.” Obama has failed to fulfill his promise. Some prisoners are being charged with crimes, others released, but the date for closing the camp seems to recede steadily into the future. Furthermore, new evidence now emerging may entangle Obama’s young administration with crimes that occurred during the Bush presidency, evidence that suggests the current administration failed to investigate seriously—and may even have continued—a cover-up of the possible homicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo in 2006.
Late in the evening on June 9 that year, three prisoners at Guantánamo died suddenly and violently. Salah Ahmed Al-Salami, from Yemen, was thirty-seven. Mani Shaman Al-Utaybi, from Saudi Arabia, was thirty. Yasser Talal Al-Zahrani, also from Saudi Arabia, was twenty-two, and had been imprisoned at Guantánamo since he was captured at the age of seventeen. None of the men had been charged with a crime, though all three had been engaged in hunger strikes to protest the conditions of their imprisonment. They were being held in a cell block, known as Alpha Block, reserved for particularly troublesome or high-value prisoners.
As news of the deaths emerged the following day, the camp quickly went into lockdown. The authorities ordered nearly all the reporters at Guantánamo to leave and those en route to turn back. The commander at Guantánamo, Rear Admiral Harry Harris, then declared the deaths “suicides.” In an unusual move, he also used the announcement to attack the dead men. “I believe this was not an act of desperation,” he said, “but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.” Reporters accepted the official account, and even lawyers for the prisoners appeared to believe that they had killed themselves. Only the prisoners’ families in Saudi Arabia and Yemen rejected the notion.
Two years later, the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which has primary investigative jurisdiction within the naval base, issued a report supporting the account originally advanced by Harris, now a vice-admiral in command of the Sixth Fleet. The Pentagon declined to make the NCIS report public, and only when pressed with Freedom of Information Act demands did it disclose parts of the report, some 1,700 pages of documents so heavily redacted as to be nearly incomprehensible. The NCIS report was carefully cross-referenced and deciphered by students and faculty at the law school of Seton Hall University in New Jersey, and their findings, released in November 2009, made clear why the Pentagon had been unwilling to make its conclusions public. The official story of the prisoners’ deaths was full of unacknowledged contradictions, and the centerpiece of the report—a reconstruction of the events—was simply unbelievable.
-------
As someone says from another board....Chris Floyd's response to this is well worth reading:
"It is biblical, the tragedy that continues to stalk Haiti and the Haitian people,"
--- US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Lauryn Hill sang, 'Forgive them father for they know not what they do',
I feel her, an I'ma let her finish, but I do respectfully disagree in two instances, I say, 'Fuck them father for they know, exactly what they do and whose this father she speaks of?
Having sd, that, I look forward to hearing what reverend Jeremiah Wright has to say about these unfortunate events.
via mefi:
UCLA anthropologist:
Haitians are Christians. Pat Robertson's language is the reductio ad absurdum of the Christian right. It's so absurd it's almost funny. This notion of a pact with the devil is basically an echo of an old colonial response to the successes of the 1790s Haitian revolution.
What is this pact he's talking about?
Part of the revolution mythology is that one of the revolution leaders sacrificed a pig in Bois Caïmin in a voodoo ceremony and made a contract with Petwo [Haitian voodoo spirits]. It may or may not be true, but to call that a pact with the devil is a gross misrepresentation of what voodoo is. It's about anything but the devil. He's imposing an evangelical religious order on a much more sophisticated practice, and he's turning it into a cheap invocation of Satanism.
This is hate speech. It's saying these people are damned. It's a frequent theme among some Christians that Haiti is being punished for this supposed pact with extreme poverty and humanitarian crises. Tragically, many evangelical Christians in Haiti may actually, in their own extreme confusion and suffering and desperation, believe that God is punishing them.
Also via mifi
"I don't believe in voodoo, but I do believe in this..."
Haiti was a nation of farmers, but thanks to the strings attached to U.S. aid, government policies made profitable farming unprofitable. So the farmers were pushed to the cities to provide a cheap manufacturing labor force. All those people you see on the TV in their shattered shantytowns? We helped put them there. With exploitative loans and yes, even a classic CIA-backed coup, we helped create this mess.
Here's Naomi Klein, the author of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism," speaking Wednesday night at the Ethical Culture Society to warn us against it happening again:
But as I write about in The Shock Doctrine, crises are often used now as the pretext for pushing through policies that you cannot push through under times of stability. Countries in periods of extreme crisis are desperate for any kind of aid, any kind of money, and are not in a position to negotiate fairly the terms of that exchange.
And I just want to pause for a second and read you something, which is pretty extraordinary. I just put this up on my website. The headline is “Haiti: Stop Them Before They Shock Again.” This went up a few hours ago, three hours ago, I believe, on the Heritage Foundation website.
“Amidst the Suffering, Crisis in Haiti Offers Opportunities to the U.S. In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the image of the United States in the region.” And then goes on.
AMY GOODMAN: But just before the program, I spoke with Randall Robinson. He’s the founder and past president of TransAfrica. He’s currently a visiting law professor at Pennsylvania State University, though he goes home to Saint Kitts tomorrow, where he lives. His most recent book is An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President. I began by just asking for his thoughts about the crisis right now in Haiti.
RANDALL ROBINSON: It’s important, in trying to find ways to help, to be generous and to give, and to give generously. I would like to commend President Obama for his strong and fast response of a commitment of $100 million. Operations are already underway. I think the world is being incredibly generous, as I understand the pace of things to be at this point, the pace of giving. But, of course, as many lives as can possibly be salvaged need to be salvaged as quickly as possible, and I have every reason to believe that the administration and others are doing the very best that they can. As a private citizen, it’s my responsibility, and our general responsibility, to support every effort that’s being made to save lives in Haiti.
AMY GOODMAN: Word is now President Préval has said they’ve just burned—buried 7,000 bodies in a mass grave, but the most important thing right now is the search equipment, to go in and to save people who are just hanging on, perhaps who have been crushed, who are hidden in the rubble. And yet, that has yet to come. Some word is there’s a lot of aid at the airport not able to get through, and then other aid just hasn’t come.
How's that peace working for you guys? The audasity of this fucker accepting the the N.P.P., just galls me more than the ignorant (political?) nomination.
Americas Program, Center for International Policy (CIP) americas.irc-online.org
"Systemic failure" is how President Obama described the homeland security and intelligence lapses that led to the unsuccessful terrorist attack by a Nigerian Islamist on Dec. 25. The accuracy of this assessment was underscored by another intelligence failure that resulted in the death of seven CIA agents in Afghanistan on Dec. 30.
What is to be done?
Michael Chertoff, the head of the national security consulting agency Chertoff Group and former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), says buy and install more full-body scanners.
That may be part of the answer. But his public-private status—and the fact that under his tenure as DHS chief the department began buying scanners at an estimated $160,000 each from Rapiscan (a company Chertoff Group now represents)—is cause for skepticism. Rapiscan received $26.5 million through DHS contracts in 2008, and $41.4 million from all government departments.
It's unlikely, however, that attempts to fix our homeland security and intelligence system with new communications and screening systems can do much to improve a system that is increasingly driven more by private than public interests.
As Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, told the Washington Post: "Mr. Chertoff should not be allowed to abuse the trust the public has placed in him as a former public servant to privately gain from the sale of full-body scanners under the pretense that the scanners would have detected this particular type of explosive."
Chertoff is one in a stream of mid- and high-level national security officials who have left homeland security, intelligence, and defense positions to join national security corporations. Tom Ridge, Chertoff's predecessor at DHS, formed a national security consulting agency called Ridge Global.
One of the most recent national security start-ups is Rice Hadley Group, founded by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
Other new security companies formed by top Republican Party figures include Ashcroft Group founded by former Attorney General John Ashcroft and Guiliani Group, formed by former New York City Mayor and presidential candidate Rudolf Guiliani.
Chertoff Group is quickly becoming the most high-powered and deep-pocketed national security consulting firm.
Who Would Benefit Politically from a Terrorist Incident on American Soil? The Strange Case of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab
As security researcher and analyst Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed wrote in the New Internationalist (October 2009): “Islamist terrorism cannot be understood without acknowledging the extent to which its networks are being used by Western military intelligence services, both to control strategic energy resources and to counter their geopolitical rivals. Even now, nearly a decade after 9/11, covert sponsorship of al-Qaeda networks continues.”
Ahmed’s findings track closely with those of Michel Chossudovsky, Peter Dale Scott and Richard Labévière, who have painstakingly documented that the complex of jihadi groups known as al-Qaeda have enjoyed the closest ties with Western intelligence agencies stretching back decades.
That intelligence officers, including those at the highest levels of the secret state’s security apparat, did nothing to hamper an alleged al-Qaeda operative from getting on that plane–in a chilling echo of the 9/11 attacks–calls into question the thin tissue of lies outlined in the official narrative.
An Intelligence “Failure,” or a Wild “Success” for Security Corporations?
info on the Blackwater enterprise. I've never heard of Paravant LLC, I'd be wiiling to bet you haven't either. I also wonder how many other names they use.
I am lying on my couch, trying to read. I do that a lot these days. Trying to read. Trying to accept that this is a slow time for me, a season of healing from old wounds and more recent ones, some self-inflicted. Trying to find a place of peace in an ecology that has shunned peace.
Although the blank screen saver has darkened the computer behind me, I can still hear you within the infinite waves of Twitter ever changing the guard; ranting, cajoling, flirting, pushing out declarations of fleeting news and grim prognostication. Beyond, I listen to black tires sighing along shining black streets, in them hearing old girlfriends and lost verse, burned books and crushed revolutions.
In contrast to my wish for both solitude and new friends, I have descended to what amounts to a basement apartment - the sort that has a couple of iron-barred windows right onto the sidewalk. I peer at your rustling feet there, revealing myself to you only for the short bus ride to and trudge back from a cigarette trip to the store. Lock the door. I own pepper spray now. Perhaps I am healing; but I still feel broken. There is nothing for it but time and emotional Kevlar ...
This is an incredible compilation of Cheney's actions from the past, oh, 30 - 40 years or so. It's so full of hyperlinks it's almost impossible to quote any section and do it justice. So read or go fuck yourselves...lol
For years and years, the Israeli military has been trying to figure out a way to keep Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip from crossing over into Israel proper. The latest tactic: create a set of "automated kill zones" by networking together remote-controlled machine guns, ground sensors, and drones along the 60-kilometer border.
Defense News‘ Barbara Opall-Rome reports that "initial deployment plans for the See-Shoot system call for mounting a 0.5-caliber automated machine gun in each of several pillboxes interspersed along the Gaza border fence."
Connected via fiber optics to a remote operator station and a command-and-control center, each machine gun-mounted station serves as a type of robotic sniper, capable of enforcing a nearly 1,500-meter-deep no-go zone.
The IDF’s [Israeli Defense Forces] Southern Command is also considering adding Gill/Spike anti-tank missiles to extend the no-go zones to several kilometers, defense and industry sources here said.
The guns will be based on the Samson Remote Control Weapons Station. And the pillboxes are supposed to be positioned "at intervals of some hundreds of meters along the border, " Jane’s Defence Weekly observes. They’ll be "protected and secured (alarms, sensors and steel doors) and feature retractable armored covers that protect the weapon station when not in use."
Once IDF sensors locate a potential target, the operator can cue Sentry Tech to verify or engage the target through its own electro-optic (EO) day/night sensor package. The sensor-acquired information is transferred to the electro-optic package of the weapon station, which slews to the target, enabling the operator to locate and track the target… Each Sentry Tech can cover another in the event of a system failure and a single [center] can control up to 15 weapon stations."
The idea, ultimately, is to have a "closed-loop" system — no human intervention required. But, Opall-Rome notes, "until the top brass is completely satisfied with the fidelity of their overlapping sensor network – and until the 19- and 20-year-old soldiers deployed behind computer screens are thoroughly trained in operating the system — approval by a commanding officer will be required before pushing the kill button."
Opall-Rome adds that "See-Shoot embodies the IDF’s goal of waging no-signature warfare along its border areas. It obviates the need to dispatch infantry to intercept intruders or to respond to probing maneuvers by enemy squads."
The nearly $4-million system is supposed to be completed by the end of the summer. "But the Israeli government has already authorized IDF Southern Command to begin operating parts of the system in response to the recent surge in violence emanating from the terror-infested strip."
It’s all part of a larger plan to "wag[e] no-signature warfare along its border areas. It obviates the need to dispatch infantry to intercept intruders or to respond to probing maneuvers by enemy squads."
Which may sound like a good idea. But Haninah Levine says the tech ignores the lessons of last summer’s war in Lebanon. The Winograd Commission, appointed to investigate the conflict, "calls ‘no-signature warfare’ by its real name," he says: "’withdrawal of soldiers and military targets from positions to which [the enemy] can penetrate with relative ease,’ and identifies this strategy as a major component in the IDF’s failures in the lead-up to the Second Lebanon War."
The problem is not that the technology fails: it’s that the technology does not solve the problems which the conditions of engagement create. Along the Lebanese border, the problem was that the rules of engagement allowed the IDF to fire only if attacked by Hezbollah: the electronic fence therefore proved useless, since alarms were regularly ignored even when the Israelis knew that they indicated Hezbollah was preparing an attack.
Along the Gaza fence, the rules of engagement are much more aggressive, but the Palestinians will still probably try to "train" the IDF to ignore the system’s alarms by sending unarmed civilians towards the fence. The statement that "the technology here is not as important as the need to evaluate each potential threat on a case by case basis" is as true from a military point of view as it is from a human-rights point of view. And, by the way, the only known case of Palestinians kidnapping an Israeli soldier along the Gaza fence since the disengagement took place when the Palestinians emerged from a tunnel well behind the IDF lines - a tactic which this system would do nothing to thwart."
On the U.S.-Mexico border, the American government has been trying, with limited success, to set up a string of sensor-laden sentry towers, which would watch out for illicit incursions. In Israel, they’ve got their own set of border towers. But the Sabras’ model comes with automatic guns, operated from afar.
The Sentry Tech towers are basically remote weapons stations, stuck on stop of silos. "As suspected hostile targets are detected and within range of Sentry-Tech positions, the weapons are slewing toward the designated target," David Eshel describes over at Ares. "As multiple stations can be operated by a single operator, one or more units can be used to engage the target, following identification and verification by the commander."
We flagged the towers last year, as the Israeli Defense Forces were setting up the systems, designed to create 1500-meter deep "automated kill zones" along the Gaza border.
"Each unit mounts a 7.62 or 0.5" machine gun, shielded from enemy fire and the elements by an environmentally protective bulletproof canopy," Eshel explains. "In addition to the use of direct fire machine guns, observers can also employ precision guided missiles, such as Spike LR optically guided missiles and Lahat laser guided weapons."
How long till DARPA proposes mounting such turrets on top of cell/microwave towers?
Despite some $40 billion dollars spent by the American people on airline security since 2001, allegedly to thwart attacks on the heimat, the botched attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day was foiled, not by a bloated counterterrorist bureaucracy, but by the passengers themselves.
Talk about validating that old Wobbly slogan: Direct action gets the goods!
And yet, the closer one looks at the available evidence surrounding the strange case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the more sinister alleged "intelligence failures" become. As this story unfolds it is becoming abundantly clear that U.S. security officials had far more information on the would-be lap bomber than we've been told.
WAIT!?
WOULD THEY?
Apparently a second man from Flight 253 was taken into a room and interviewed by authorities. He left the room in handcuffs, but officials claim the man wasn't detained and say they have no info about him. Official confirms 2nd man interviewed from Flight 253 yeah, by Kurt and Lori Haskell among others:
NW Airlines Flight 253 Passenger Talks about Emotionless Blank Bomber
Eye witnesses Kurt and Lori Haskell SPEAK. I'd start on blog entry Friday, January 01, 2010 to get up to speed if I were you.
The guy was burned, tackled and being drug down the airplane ale and was blank stared and emotionless. We've seen that look before on Timothy McVey, and Lee Harvey Osweld etc..
Another piece of this puzzle that points to inside job(?)
One last thing, tron from another board plays devils advocate on behalf of our gov...
We know why the CIA did nothing with the warning message from this Nigerian suspect's father. What would you do with an e-mail beginning "I am the president of a Nigerian bank and I have something vitally important you can help with, at no risk to yourself.You have only......" ?
"America was never innocent. We popped our cherry on the boat over and looked back with no regrets. You can't ascribe our fall from grace to any single event or set of circumstances. You can't lose what you lacked at conception.
"Mass-market nostalgia gets you hopped up for a past that never existed. Hagiography sanctifies shuck-and-jive politicians and reinvents their expedient gestures as moments of great moral weight. Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight."
--James Ellroy, American Tabloid
Ensure a Free and Fair Election (Ban Paperless Voting Machines
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
I am lying on my couch, trying to read. I do that a lot these days. Trying to read. Trying to accept that this is a slow time for me, a season of healing from old wounds and more recent ones, some self-inflicted. Trying to find a place of peace in an ecology that has shunned peace.
Post a Comment