So... If the Pentagon felt it was okay for Obama to visit:
Showing posts with label Pentagon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pentagon. Show all posts
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Things That Make You Go Hmmmm...
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
Pentagon: Toxic Criminals
Ok, The Whitehouse won't open up the EPA email. And now the DOD/ Pentagon are resisting orders (isn't that ironic for the military) to clean up what the EPA are calling dangerous waste at 3 bases-- not to mention loads of other military sites listed as dangerous toxic dump locations.
Pentagon = America's Biggest Superfund Polluter.
Lyndsey Layton, of The Washington Post: "The Defense Department, the nation's biggest polluter, is resisting orders from the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up Fort Meade and two other military bases where the EPA says dumped chemicals pose 'imminent and substantial' dangers to public health and the environment. The Pentagon has also declined to sign agreements required by law that cover 12 other military sites on the Superfund list of the most polluted places in the country.Maybe it's time to send in this guy.
Seriously, these guys are child-criminals. Every law breaking moment seems to be highlighted with tantrums and stubborn adolescent behavior. I can just about picture them with their fingers in the ears yelling la-la-la-la... I can't HEAR you!
sheesh. There's more...
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Media Matters Finds Thousands of Pentagon Pundits
4,500+
Appearances/Quotations by Military Analysts Identified in New York Times Exposé on Pentagon Program... --Media Matters
A New York Times article detailed the connection between numerous media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries, reporting that "the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform" media military analysts "into a kind of media Trojan horse -- an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks." A Media Matters review found that since January 1, 2002, the analysts named in the Times article -- many identified as having ties to the defense industry -- collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR.Holy F*cking Christmas... are you shitting me? There's more...
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Flashback II: Northwest Detroit To Baghdad
Sharon Wienberger at DANGER ROOM reminds me of this ridiculous horseshit.
May 31 2003--WASHINGTON--Northwest Airlines soon could receive government permission to begin service to Baghdad, following Friday's announcement the United States is ending its nearly 13-year ban on flights to Iraq.Good times, good times. I wonder if Northwest has any flights to Palestine? There's more...
If approved, Northwest would begin DC10 service an undetermined number of times a week from Detroit...
Friday, April 11, 2008
B-2 Bomber Crash Picture
$2.1 Billion
A B-1 Lancer Bomber and a B-2 Stealth Bomber involved in two separate crashes have yet to leave Guam.
Andersen Air Force Base Capt. Joel Stark confirms the two military aircraft are still grounded on the base pending the outcome of their investigations.
Stark adds that no date has been set as to when the two bombers will leave the island.
Earlier this month, a B-1 Lancer Bomber collided with emergency vehicles on the taxiway. The bomber made an in-flight emergency landing at AAFB. --Marianas Variety
Uhm.... This bird is going nowhere, except maybe to act as a artificial coral reef. I wonder how the grounding of all B-2's is affecting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan?
Photo lifted from Aviation Week who lifted it from a duck hunter, seriously. There's more...
Saturday, February 2, 2008
New Offensive in Mosul, Again
In this never ending game of whack a mole, CENTCOM is planning to bring the hammer down on Mosul, again. In the 2nd or 3rd pacification of Mosul, in what is becoming a annual rite of spring the Army is trying to "get out the good news".
Iraqi political and military leaders and U.S. military commanders have traveled to the northern Iraqi city of Mosul ahead of a planned offensive on al Qaeda in Iraq loyalists, according to a senior U.S. military source.
Saturday's meeting portends a major confrontation between U.S. and Iraqi troops and al Qaeda in Iraq militants, who have a strong presence in the diverse, sprawling city of Mosul, the capital of Nineveh province -- a region long beset by conflict. -- CNN February 2008
I look forward to the CENTCOM spin selling us on how having to launch a new ground offensive in Mosul is part of the decrease in violence in Iraq.
"We are seeing a more stable environment," said Lt. Col. Michael Gibler, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, which operates in eastern Mosul. "Have we made a turn yet? No, but we're really close to it."
The military attributes the decline to several factors, including Iraqis' increased willingness to provide information about insurgents and the growing presence of the new Iraqi security forces throughout the country. -- WAPO April 2005
Same as it ever was.
There's more...
Friday, January 25, 2008
Bono Increasingly Irrelevant
Okay, this one is a big WTF.
U2 lead singer and activist Bono visited the Pentagon to discuss Africa and the fight against global poverty with U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, representatives of the two men said on Wednesday.
"I think this was a chance for two people who care about the problems facing the continent of Africa to talk about their shared interest in solving those problems," Morrell said of the meeting that was not publicized in advance. -- reuters.com
Maybe someone can explain to me what the frell Gates is supposed to do to help Africa? Why doesn't Bono meet with the North Dakota Athletic Commission, perhaps they can help too. Why don't people like Bono just give money to people. What a joke.
Celebrity != Reality There's more...
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The Surge is Working, IV
Necon bullshit once again gets all the print space it desires on the pages of the Washington Post.
The full surge has been in place and operating for just over six months, and already violence has fallen dramatically across the country. The achievement in such a short time of significant legislation that requires all sides to accept risk and compromise with people they had been fighting only a few months ago is remarkable. It would have been unattainable without the change in strategy and addition of American forces that helped bring the violence down. --WAPO
This editorial claptrap from Messrs. Keane, Kagan, and the known liar O'Hanlon is part of the current push to get us to swallow that "The Surge Is Working"©.
The New York Times' Michael Gordon helps out with an attack which is double pronged. He of course pushes "The Surge Is Working"© meme and also takes a whack at those silly cut and run surrender-crats, the democratic presidential candidates in "War, Meet the 2008 Campaign"
The politicians, on the other hand, seemed more intent on addressing public impatience with an open-ended commitment in Iraq, either by promising prompt withdrawal (the Democrats) or by suggesting that victory may be near (the Republicans).
Anthony Cordesman, a military specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who regularly visits Iraq, put it this way: “You have to grade all the candidates between a D-minus and an F-plus. The Republicans are talking about this as if we have won and as if Iraq is the center of the war on terrorism, rather than Afghanistan and Pakistan and a host of movements in 50 other countries.
“The Democrats talk about this as if the only problem is to withdraw and the difference is over how quickly to do it.”
On the ground with the troops, it is clear that a major military change was in fact made in Iraq last year — not so much the addition of 30,000 troops, but the shift to a counterinsurgency strategy for using them. That strategy made the protection of Iraq’s population a paramount goal in an effort to drive a wedge between the people and the militants and to encourage Iraqis to provide intelligence that the American military forces need to track down an elusive foe.
The emphasis mine. The latter part of their strategy, getting the Iraqi's to provide intelligence to the military is doomed. Why? Because we torture. Remember all those times I quoted U.S. intelligence training on why you don't torture is because you hamper any future intelligence gathering ability. The chickens have come home to roost. They might be getting some intelligence but be sure it's been slowed to a trickle. Who in their right mind would want to be seen talking to the U.S.?
More importantly, the Neo-cons and CENTCOM are trying to say that the strategy shift in Iraq wasn't just increasing the troop count but a change in their overarching strategy and now they are being policemen, and protecting the Iraqi's. Then why the hell did nearly 100 Iraq's die just the other day?
The street battles between members of a messianic cult and Iraqi troops raged for a second day as the death toll from the fighting in two predominantly Shiite southern cities rose from 50 to at least 68.
Iraqi authorities said at least 36 people were reported killed in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, and at least 32 in Nasiriyah, including Iraqi security forces, civilians and gunmen. At least 10 people were reported slain in Nasiriyah Friday...U.S. military spokesman Maj. Brad Leighton said jet fighters flew over the area in a show of force after the Iraqis requested help, but said no airstrikes were carried out and the only U.S. involvement was the air support.
If our whole new strategy is protecting Iraqi's. Why aren't we doing it?
The surge is yet another spin-war from the pentagon and I don't know if anybody is paying attention but the casualties for January have shot right back up to more than 1 day. But don't worry, "The Surge Is Working"© There's more...
Monday, January 14, 2008
How To Kill Someone, Lesson One.
Matthew Sepi's AK-47 & 180 rounds of ammo. He instinctively "engaged the targets."
photo Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
Visualize Your Target. Eliminate Hesitancy. Act Reflexively.
Killing is a matter of training and intent.
If you train properly, you'll kill reflexively and automatically when the time comes. If you don't train properly, you'll likely die to someone who did train well.
Want to live? Train exactly how you intend to fight.
As medics, we ran countless simulations, all designed to have us act reflexively, precisely the way we were expected to, in the event of.
After each run and shift, we hot-washed the run, debriefing precisely what worked and what didn't, visualizing the runs over and over again, replaying them till we had the run working perfectly, down to stepping around the obstacle instead of bumping into it, asking the correct question at the perfect moment instead of missing the point, or blocking the punch instead of getting clocked in the ribs.
As paramedics, we trained to act with force on automatic pilot, totally on reflex, just as we train to swerve to avoid a car glimpsed out of the corner of our eye -- as the costs of thinking even for a moment could cause injury to our partner, patient or ourselves.
Troops are coming back deadly dangerous from the wars.
Even most Veteran's Associations won't talk, says The New York Times. The Associations hate the idea of vets who might be so out of control, regardless of what the statistics may show, fearing all vets will be viewed in the same light.
The Pentagon absolutely doesn't want to talk and has lame-ass excuses as to why -- even though they're not talking -- they're certain none of the results of The Times' study are valid.
Bullshit they're not valid.
The New York TimesThis is a fraction of The Times' article. The full article breaks your heart.
The Times used the same methods to research homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans for the six years before and after the present wartime period began with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
This showed an 89 percent increase during the present wartime period, to 349 cases from 184, about three-quarters of which involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. The increase occurred even though there have been fewer troops stationed in the United States in the last six years and the American homicide rate has been, on average, lower.
The Pentagon was given The Times’s roster of homicides. It declined to comment because, a spokesman, Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, said, the Department of Defense could not duplicate the newspaper’s research.
The Times’s analysis showed that the overwhelming majority of these young men, unlike most civilian homicide offenders, had no criminal history.
“He came back different” is the shared refrain of the defendants’ family members, who mention irritability, detachment, volatility, sleeplessness, excessive drinking or drug use, and keeping a gun at hand.
“You are unleashing certain things in a human being we don’t allow in civic society, and getting it all back in the box can be difficult for some people,” said William C. Gentry, an Army reservist and Iraq veteran who works as a prosecutor in San Diego County.
In earlier eras, various labels attached to the psychological injuries of war: soldier’s heart, shell shock, Vietnam disorder. Today the focus is on PTSD, but military health care officials are seeing a spectrum of psychological issues, with an estimated half of the returning National Guard members, 38 percent of soldiers and 31 percent of marines reporting mental health problems, according to a Pentagon task force.
The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study, considered the most thorough analysis of this population, found that 15 percent of the male veterans still suffered from full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder more than a decade after the war ended. Half of the veterans with active PTSD had been arrested or in jail at least once, and 34.2 percent more than once. Some 11.5 percent of them had been convicted of felonies, and veterans are more likely to have committed violent crimes than nonveterans, according to government studies. In the mid-1980s, with so many Vietnam veterans behind bars that Vietnam Veterans of America created chapters in prisons, veterans made up a fifth of the nation’s inmate population.
There's more...
The New York Times - The CasesIt has been 19 years since my last patient as a paramedic. I didn't see combat during my military tour with the 101st Airborne, though I saw more than enough death as a civilian paramedic. No one put IEDs out for our rigs, thank you, and we didn't take sniper fire. Patient care in South Tucson and Oakland ghettos is still safer than being a medic in Iraq.
The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war.
Yet even 19 years later, there are days I want to take my walking stick and beat someone to death, no kidding. I smile at them sweetly, until the moment passes. Maybe excuse myself, go for a brief walk. Not that I can walk very far.
And this is nothing, compared to how I was immediately after I retired as a medic. I don't remember having a full night's sleep for years. And by years, I mean maybe the first 8-10 years. With the drugs available now, this is freaking heaven.
People who haven't walked (or crawled or limped) through the Valley of the Shadow of Death themselves, or watched as family did so, have no clue how desperate it gets.
The Times' reports an under-age (for drinking) kid back from the war trying to self-medicate with booze, reacted on instinct in Las Vegas and cut down two gang members, killing one, wounding other, by firing his AK-47 when startled.
Why is anyone surprised?
After ruining our military, the Bush Administration has yet again failed to take care of our troops. It's just so much easier simply to not count them as war casualties when they get triggered back in the world, then kill and maim. After all, then it isn't the service's fault; they just couldn't handle it. These screwed-up wack-jobs (whose stability was good enough while they were on active duty) end up in the criminal justice system. The DOD ends up not having to pay active duty pay, mental health benefits or VA benefits.
Now that's a win-win-win.
The thing is, if you're a combat troop, you are trained to run scenarios obsessively. Visualizing a scenario, over and over, honing it down, fine-tuning it, making it better and better, till you have the perfect mission.
And if now you're back in the States, running a kill scenario?
You just better hope no one accidentally hits your trigger. There's more...
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Wounded Soldiers told: Pay Up Deadbeats!
Apparently the geniuses at the pentagon are working overtime thinking up ways to save the taxpayer a few bucks.
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.
To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.
Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.
One of them is Jordan Fox, a young soldier from the South Hills.
He finds solace in the hundreds of boxes he loads onto a truck in Carnegie. In each box is a care package that will be sent to a man or woman serving in Iraq. It was in his name Operation Pittsburgh Pride was started. Fox was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious. His back was injured and lost all vision in his right eye. A few months later Fox was sent home. His injuries prohibited him from fulfilling three months of his commitment. A few days ago, he received a letter from the military demanding nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus back.
I really appreciate all the efforts that the pentagon will go to for me. Chasing after a half blind disabled veteran for 3 large. It warms my heart. Does anyone know if Rumsfeld got a bonus before he got canned? I would be happy to help him find his pockets.
Congressman Altmire (D), of Pennsylvania is sponsoring legislation to stop this bullshit. Please contact your rep. to ask them to help move it out of committee.
(via TPM) There's more...
Monday, November 12, 2007
190,000 Weapons lost in Iraq
As we have covered here before:
190,000
Weapons were
Already there is evidence that some American-supplied weapons fell into the hands of guerrillas responsible for attacks against Turkey
Gosh, ya think?!?
Many of those weapons were issued when Gen. David H. Petraeus, now the top American commander in Iraq, was responsible for training and equipping Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005.
Oh, I am so surprised that this incompetence has a name. I suppose this was in the COIN manual he wrote. Section 5-23: "Do such a incredibly bad job managing things that weapons are handed to every malcontent, loser, and terrorist who wants one". I guess I missed that chapter in the manual too. It doesn't look like David was alone in his fuck-ups though:
Maj. John Isgrigg III and Maj. Timmy W. Cox were assigned to issue weapons to the Iraqi military and national guard from early 2004 to 2005...[snip]..."We had folks getting killed because equipment wasn’t moving," said Col. Randy Hinton, the majors’ superior officer. Were there times when all the right forms were not signed? Probably. But we had a mission to do, and we were going to do it the best way we could at that time.
Best job you could? WE'RE TALKING ABOUT 190,000 WEAPONS, MAJOR! THATS 2 FOR EVERY INSURGENT!
"folks getting killed because equipment wasn’t moving."
I gotta tell ya, that sounds like complete fucking bullshit. These officers need to be court martial-ed. This shit is just out of control over there. U.S. bank accounts need to be frozen for all these people involved. A war zone is a ripe for pickings by slick operators. These logistic systems that these officers bypassed are in place for exactly these reasons. This a complete failure all the way up the chain of command. We aren't talking about Lieutenants and Captains here and we aren't talking about chump change. Somebody got rich, and it sounds like a lot of somebodies. Make no mistake, bullets from these very guns are in the bodies of U.S. soldiers. They should hang whomever is responsible. There's more...
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Rejecting Theological Thinking: CJCS Mullen Gets Real With Cheney
CNO Adm Mike Mulllen aboard the USS Pasadena (SSN 752) Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, May 7, 2007
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ben Gonzales
“The ground forces are not broken, but they are breakable.”
The New York Times Magazine (By Ron Suskind, Published: October 17, 2004)By the time you become the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, you don't buy into airy-fairy west-coast bullshit about creating your own realities.
Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush
I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
I leave aside here, the very valid Many-Worlds conversation from quantum physics, and the equally valid Autopoetic neuro-biology theories advanced by Humberto Maturana (From Being to Doing) currently doing to biology what Einstein did to physics; making it recursive by demonstrating when an Observer is present, the wave-form function collapses, leaving a world literally caused by the collapsing of the wave-form.
This is not what I'm talking about, and I assure you, it was not what the quote senior adviser to Bush unquote was talking about back in 2004 in The Times Magazine article. I doubt the senior adviser had ever even completed calculus, let alone understood how wave form functions worked. But I'll bet dollars to donuts -- not resorting to cliché, that's an actual bet I'm offering -- the smarmy unnamed bastard believed in the New Age bullshit about literally creating new realities. Either through religious fundamentalism -- quite possibly, or through a weekend "I am responsible for my own experience" LGAT course.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen (nominated June 28, 2007) doesn't buy into "create your own reality" bullshit. He wants something done, he does it himself, gives an order, or makes a request.
He doesn't: "I take responsibility for my space and create a world which works for everyone in which I go deep and produce a result which causes that which I promise to occur reliably, moving the future I've declared into the present moment, thus causing my declared intention to be realized, inside my commitment for being responsible to my oath to the Constitution of the United States of America, which declaration I am continuously bringing forth from the future into the present now, thereby creating new historical realities consistent with my fundamental declaration, responsibilities, and accountabilities."
*grins*
Really, he's not doing that. No one in the Navy does that. Or the Army or Marines.
What CJCS Adm. Mike Mullen is doing, is standing up to Dick Cheney, who does seem to think he can create realities.
First, from the VPOTUS (Very Pompous & Officially The Ugly Sociopath-in-charge)
New York TimesTough talk from a chickenhawk, an an old man with a bad heart and the balls of a coward.
Vice President Dick Cheney issued a pointed warning to Iran on Sunday, calling the government in Tehran “a growing obstacle to peace in the Middle East” and promising “serious consequences” if the government there does not abandon its nuclear program.
The remarks, just days after President Bush suggested that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to “World War III,” amounted to Part II of a one-two punch from the administration at a moment when it is trying to persuade its allies in Europe to impose stiffer sanctions on Tehran. Those efforts grew more complicated on Saturday when Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator resigned on the eve of crucial talks with Europe.
“The Iranian regime needs to know that if it stays on its present course, the international community is prepared to impose serious consequences,” Mr. Cheney said, without specifying what those might be. “The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
Mr. Bush has repeatedly said the administration would not “tolerate” a nuclear-armed Iran. But during a news conference on Wednesday, the president went further, saying of Iran: “If you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
That distinction — having the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon, as opposed to actually having a weapon — is one the administration has not made in the past. David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute who moderated a panel discussion before and after Mr. Cheney’s speech, said the vice president also seemed to draw a new red line when, instead of saying it is “not acceptable” for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, he said the world “will not allow” it.
“The first is a condition,” Mr. Makovsky said. “The second is a commitment.”
When he could have gone himself -- yes, yes, it is well know, BUT IT DESERVES TO BE SAID OVER AND OVER AGAIN -- Dick "the Coward-Hearted" Cheney cut and run, having "other priorities."
Now he wants to set the middle-East aflame in nuclear fire over a sea of oil, and ka-CHING, watch the oil stocks and his Haliburton shares go straight to the moon, Alice! ...over the burning corpses of the dead.
Fuck that.
The New York TimesThis man and the remainder of the Joint Chiefs, clearly are standing between Dick Cheney, George Bush, and war with Iran.
The new chairman, Adm. Mike Mullen, expressed deep concerns that the long counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan have so consumed the military that the Army and Marine Corps may be unprepared for a high-intensity war against a major adversary.
He rejected the counsel of those who might urge immediate attacks inside Iran to destroy nuclear installations or to stop the flow of explosives that end up as powerful roadside bombs in Iraq or Afghanistan, killing American troops.
With America at war in two Muslim countries, he said, attacking a third Islamic nation in the region “has extraordinary challenges and risks associated with it.” The military option, he said, should be a last resort.
“We’re in a conflict in two countries out there right now,” he added. “We have to be incredibly thoughtful about the potential of in fact getting into a conflict with a third country in that part of the world.”
READ THE INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT.
Hold the line Admiral. Hold the bleeding line.
h/t Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo: New JCS Chair: Cheney's Whacked There's more...
Monday, October 22, 2007
Disingenuous Fucks
"Victory" Over Al-Qaeda in Iraq?
So I am reading this post over at Danger Room about how the Pentagon is agonizing about how or rather if they should announce victory against Al-Qaeda in Iraq."The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months," the Washington Post reports. And now, there's a struggle within the military over whether to declare "victory" -- or just good news. -- wired.com
You know, you just know, what they are agonizing about is if they should announce it at all. Instead of just saying "look, we are kicking their asses". They dont want to make it sound like they are making progress, and they damn sure don't want to make it sound like they no longer have a terrorism problem in Iraq. Because otherwise why are 2 or 3 Americans and god knows how many Iraq's are dying a day.
Save us from the cowardly perfumed princes at the Pentagon... Same as it ever was. There's more...
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Absolutely Shocking Freaking News
I am sure you will be a fucking shocked as i was with this news.
BAGHDAD - The V-22 Osprey has arrived in a combat zone for the first time.
It was an epic trip for the tilt-rotor plane, one that took more than 25 years of development and cost 30 lives and $20 billion. Even the last short hop - from an aircraft carrier into Iraq - went awry, U.S. military officials said yesterday.
A malfunction forced one of the 10 Ospreys that were deployed to land in Jordan on Thursday. The Marines flew parts to it from Iraq and repaired it. After it took off again Saturday, the problem recurred, and it had to turn back and land in Jordan a second time, said Maj. Jeff Pool, a U.S. military spokesman in western Iraq. The Osprey finally was repaired and arrived at Asad air base in western Iraq late Sunday afternoon.
Maj. Eric Dent, an Osprey spokesman at Marine headquarters in Washington, declined to identify the problem.
"The nature of the malfunction was a minor issue, but our aircrews are top-notch when it comes to safety," Dent said in an e-mail. "Rather than continue, the aircrew opted to land at a predetermined divert location and further investigate the issue." -- philly.com
Yes.... uhm... "predetermined divert location", yes, its called the ground.
When is congress going to stand up to the Pentagon and put a stop to this death trap?
How many missions will this endanger in country? You can be sure no one will want to have this aircraft provide support for their operation. You can't trust it to be able to safely extract you or your men. I wouldn't fly in the thing and our soldiers shouldn't be forced to. There's more...
Thursday, October 4, 2007
He Saved The World (No Cheerleader)
photo Giyori Antoine/Corbis
Didn't Do a Damn Thing Either
On September 26, 1983, Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, the Duty Officer in the Hole -- the secret bunker outside Moscow monitoring the world for nuclear launches -- choose to do nothing.
It just didn't feel right.
The alarm said there were five missiles inbound from the United States. Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov bet the future of his country -- and a worldwide nuclear counterstrike -- on his own personal best judgment. That the alarm ringing loudly simply didn't make sense.
Wired MagazineAs we count down to war with Iran, I just have to keep hoping -- boy, that's a word I really hate using when it comes to nuclear weapons, carrier groups, and Armies -- that the Joint Chiefs and their immediate subordinates haven't lost sight of how much sense it sometimes makes to...
Given the heightened tensions between the two countries -- the alarm coincided with the beginning of provocative NATO military exercises and barely three weeks after the Russians shot down a South Korean airliner that had wandered into Soviet air space -- Petrov could have been forgiven for believing the signal was accurate. The electronic maps flashing around him didn't do anything to ease the stress of the moment.But Petrov smelled a rat. "I had a funny feeling in my gut" that this was a false alarm. For one thing, the report indicated that only five missiles had been fired. Had the United States been launching an actual nuclear attack, he reasoned, ICBMs would be raining down on them.
"I didn't want to make a mistake. I made a decision, and that was it." Petrov's gut feeling was due in large part to his lack of faith in the Soviet early-warning system, which he subsequently described as "raw." He reported it as a false alarm to his superiors, and hoped to hell he was right.
Petrov was initially praised for his cool head but later came under criticism and was, for a while, made the scapegoat for the false alarm. Further investigation, however, found that the satellite in question had picked up the sun's reflection off the cloud tops and somehow interpreted that as a missile launch.
Just. Do. Nothing.
Sometimes it can even save the world. (Cheerleaders included.) There's more...
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Boom Chicka Boom
Oh My Gods
The photo shown above is Baker, the second shot of Operation Crossroads, the world's fifth nuclear explosion, third nuclear test, and first underwater nuclear explosion.
Atomic ForumSeveral weeks ago the Group News Blog reported two stories to you.
Baker was the second shot on Bikini Atoll, the location for the nuclear tests fired during Operation Crossroads. The atoll is situated in the Marshall Islands group, in the western Pacific Ocean, some 2,000 miles southwest of Hawaii and 4,150 miles from San Fransisco.
Baker Day was 25 July, 1946 and designated shot time was 0835 local. There were 68 target vessels in the array for Test Baker. Twenty-four small craft were beached on Bikini Island. The submarine USS Searaven (which had been submerged on 24 July), partially surfaced later in the day. It was finally resubmerged by 2300 on 24 July. Of the eight target submarines, six were submerged and two were on the surface for the test. Weather was not quite as important for Baker as for Able because the underwater detonation was expected to limit the cloud height and thus localize the radioactivity. Good visibility, however, was important for photography.
Baker was detonated on schedule at 0835 on 25 July 1946. The detonation command was sent by radio using coded signals.Another aircraft observer reported seeing a major ship "on [its] nose" before it sank and saw a water wave pass over one of the small islands between Bikini and Eneu islands about 2 minutes after the detonation. When the air over the fleet cleared, Arkansas, LSM-60, and four LCTs were not in sight. Saratoga was listing to starboard and her stern was low.
The flash seemed to spring from all parts of the target fleet at once. A gigantic flash -- then it was gone. And where it had been now stood a white chimney of water reaching up and up. Then a huge hemispheric mushroom of vapor appeared like a parachute suddenly opening. . . . By this time the great geyser had climbed to several thousand feet. It stood there as if solidifying for many seconds, its head enshrouded in a tumult of steam. Then slowly the pillar began to fall and break up. At its base a tidal wave of spray and steam rose to smother the fleet and move on towards the islands. All this took only a few seconds, but the phenomenon was astounding as to seem to last much longer.”
- Oberver's account of the Baker detonation from a Navy PBM 15 nmi away
The underwater explosion inflicted heavy damage on the target fleet. Eight ships were sunk or capsized. Eight ships were immobilized or seriously damaged. Generally, ships beyond 1,500 yards were undamaged. Those between 1,100 and 1,500 yards sustained only slight damage. Those between 900 and 1,100 yards suffered moderate damage. Those inside 900 yards were seriously damaged or were sunk.Baker Video
(Click the link or photo.Takes you to a different page. Start the video from there.)
This color footage of the Baker test shows the explosion from several different angles. The first three sequences were filmed from photographic aircraft; one of these was filmed directly above the explosion. The last two sequences were filmed from photographic towers built on several of the islands surrounding the lagoon. The shock wave wave racing toward the camera position is clearly visible in the last sequence.
Please allow 30 seconds to 2 minutes for video to load depending on connection speed. Adobe Flash is required to play video.
First, Oops!, how six hydrogen bombs -- VASTLY more powerful than Test Baker -- were flown across the continental United States slung under the wing of a strategic B-52 Bomber. And no one, apparently, had a clue for hours, possibly even a day.
Second, Dial-a-Bomb, where the initial story being told started to break down, questions were raised, and left unanswered in a very, pretty damn scary way.
LISTEN UP.
Since September 11, 2001, your ability to know when it is appropriate to be legitimately concerned (or afraid) has been systematically fucked with by the Bush Administration for their own political gain.
Aesop's Fables - 210 in Perry's numbering system. (Wikipedia - The Boy Who Cried Wolf.)*talks calmly*
The Shepherd's Boy and the Wolf
A Shepherd-boy, who watched a flock of sheep near a village, brought out the villagers three or four times by crying out, "Wolf! Wolf!" and when his neighbors came to help him, laughed at them for their pains. The Wolf, however, did truly come at last. The Shepherd-boy, now really alarmed, shouted in an agony of terror: "Pray, do come and help me; the Wolf is killing the sheep"; but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance. The Wolf, having no cause of fear, at his leisure lacerated or destroyed the whole flock.
There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth.
For 61 years the United States has been told we have perfect Command & Control over our nuclear arms.
On August 29, 2007, the unthinkable happened. The United States of America lost control of a plane full of nukes.
The Front Page of The Washington Post has the story. GNB will tease only; hit the jump to The Post and read the entire story please.
The Washington PostFor 60 years we have been promised this could never, absolutely never ever happen.
Missteps in the Bunker
By Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 23, 2007; Page A01
Just after 9 a.m. on Aug. 29, a group of U.S. airmen entered a sod-covered bunker on North Dakota's Minot Air Force Base with orders to collect a set of unarmed cruise missiles bound for a weapons graveyard. They quickly pulled out a dozen cylinders, all of which appeared identical from a cursory glance, and hauled them along Bomber Boulevard to a waiting B-52 bomber.
The airmen attached the gray missiles to the plane's wings, six on each side. After eyeballing the missiles on the right side, a flight officer signed a manifest that listed a dozen unarmed AGM-129 missiles. The officer did not notice that the six on the left contained nuclear warheads, each with the destructive power of up to 10 Hiroshima bombs.
That detail would escape notice for an astounding 36 hours, during which the missiles were flown across the country to a Louisiana air base that had no idea nuclear warheads were coming. It was the first known flight by a nuclear-armed bomber over U.S. airspace, without special high-level authorization, in nearly 40 years.
The episode, serious enough to trigger a rare "Bent Spear" nuclear incident report that raced through the chain of command to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and President Bush, provoked new questions inside and outside the Pentagon about the adequacy of U.S. nuclear weapons safeguards while the military's attention and resources are devoted to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Three weeks after word of the incident leaked to the public, new details obtained by The Washington Post point to security failures at multiple levels in North Dakota and Louisiana, according to interviews with current and former U.S. officials briefed on the initial results of an Air Force investigation of the incident.
The warheads were attached to the plane in Minot without special guard for more than 15 hours, and they remained on the plane in Louisiana for nearly nine hours more before being discovered. In total, the warheads slipped from the Air Force's nuclear safety net for more than a day without anyone's knowledge.
"I have been in the nuclear business since 1966 and am not aware of any incident more disturbing," retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, who served as U.S. Strategic Command chief from 1996 to 1998, said in an interview.
A simple error in a missile storage room led to missteps at every turn, as ground crews failed to notice the warheads, and as security teams and flight crew members failed to provide adequate oversight and check the cargo thoroughly. An elaborate nuclear safeguard system, nurtured during the Cold War and infused with rigorous accounting and command procedures, was utterly debased, the investigation's early results show.
The incident came on the heels of multiple warnings -- some of which went to the highest levels of the Bush administration, including the National Security Council -- of security problems at Air Force installations where nuclear weapons are kept. The risks are not that warheads might be accidentally detonated, but that sloppy procedures could leave room for theft or damage to a warhead, disseminating its toxic nuclear materials.
A former National Security Council staff member with detailed knowledge described the event as something that people in the White House "have been assured never could happen." What occurred on Aug. 29-30, the former official said, was "a breakdown at a number of levels involving flight crew, munitions, storage and tracking procedures -- faults that never were to line up on a single day."
*******
Officials familiar with the Bent Spear report say Air Force officials apparently did not anticipate that the episode would cause public concern. One passage in the report contains these four words:
"No press interest anticipated."
'What the Hell Happened Here?'
The news, when it did leak, provoked a reaction within the defense and national security communities that bordered on disbelief: How could so many safeguards, drilled into generations of nuclear weapons officers and crews, break down at once?
Military officers, nuclear weapons analysts and lawmakers have expressed concern that it was not just a fluke, but a symptom of deeper problems in the handling of nuclear weapons now that Cold War anxieties have abated.
"It is more significant than people first realized, and the more you look at it, the stranger it is," said Joseph Cirincione, director for nuclear policy at the Center for American Progress think tank and the author of a history of nuclear weapons. "These weapons -- the equivalent of 60 Hiroshimas -- were out of authorized command and control for more than a day."
The Air Force has sought to offer assurances that its security system is working. Within days, the service relieved one Minot officer of his command and disciplined several airmen, while assigning a major general to head an investigation that has already been extended for extra weeks. At the same time, Defense Department officials have announced that a Pentagon-appointed scientific advisory board will study the mishap as part of a larger review of procedures for handling nuclear weapons.
"Clearly this incident was unacceptable on many levels," said an Air Force spokesman, Lt. Col. Edward Thomas. "Our response has been swift and focused -- and it has really just begun. We will spend many months at the air staff and at our commands and bases ensuring that the root causes are addressed."
Some Air Force veterans say the base's officers made an egregious mistake in allowing nuclear-warhead-equipped missiles and unarmed missiles to be stored in the same bunker, a practice that a spokesman last week confirmed is routine. Charles Curtis, a former deputy energy secretary in the Clinton administration, said, "We always relied on segregation of nuclear weapons from conventional ones."
Former nuclear weapons officials have noted that the weapons transfer at the heart of the incident coincides with deep cuts in deployed nuclear forces that will bring the total number of warheads to as few as 1,700 by the year 2012 -- a reduction of more than 50 percent from 2001 levels. But the downsizing has created new accounting and logistical challenges, since U.S. policy is to keep thousands more warheads in storage, some as a strategic reserve and others awaiting dismantling.
A secret 1998 history of the Air Combat Command warned of "diminished attention for even 'the minimum standards' of nuclear weapons' maintenance, support and security" once such arms became less vital, according to a declassified copy obtained by Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of American Scientists' nuclear information project.
The Air Force's inspector general in 2003 found that half of the "nuclear surety" inspections conducted that year resulted in failing grades -- the worst performance since inspections of weapons-handling began. Minot's 5th Bomb Wing was among the units that failed, and the Louisiana-based 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale garnered an unsatisfactory rating in 2005.
Both units passed subsequent nuclear inspections, and Minot was given high marks in a 2006 inspection. The 2003 report on the 5th Bomb Wing attributed its poor performance to the demands of supporting combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wartime stresses had "resulted in a lack of time to focus and practice nuclear operations," the report stated.
Last year, the Air Force eliminated a separate nuclear-operations directorate known informally as the N Staff, which closely tracked the maintenance and security of nuclear weapons in the United States and other NATO countries. Currently, nuclear and space operations are combined in a single directorate. Air Force officials say the change was part of a service-wide reorganization and did not reflect diminished importance of nuclear operations.
"Where nuclear weapons have receded into the background is at the senior policy level, where there are other things people have to worry about," said Linton F. Brooks, who resigned in January as director of the National Nuclear Security Administration. Brooks, who oversaw billions of dollars in U.S. spending to help Russia secure its nuclear stockpile, said the mishandling of U.S. warheads indicates that "something went seriously wrong."
A similar refrain has been voiced hundreds of times in blogs and chat rooms popular with former and current military members. On a Web site run by the Military Times, a former B-52 crew chief who did not give his name wrote: "What the hell happened here?"
A former Air Force senior master sergeant wrote separately that "mistakes were made at the lowest level of supervision and this snowballed into the one of the biggest mistakes in USAF history. I am still scratching my head wondering how this could [have] happened."
I understand how it is the United States is in a Constitutional breakdown. I understand how our military has been badly damaged through being inside two wars simultaneously. I understand how the politicization of Flag Officer slots by the current administration is slow poison to hearing the truth from flag officers and long-term strategic thinking; the people who are genius level, the one's we need to stay in and dedicate their lives to our Service, just won't play that. They will resign rather after 20 or when asked to put their names to lies. You can destroy an entire military without it being at all obvious, simply by driving the top 15-20 thinkers out of the command & support structure, leaving the "almost as goods" running the show. A military to which that has happened will, quite literally, be slaughtered in the field by a military which has gives its genius full reign. This is the U.S. Military circa 2007.
I know all this.
But never -- not once, not in my wildest fantasy, never in even a passing thought -- did it occur to me, that the United States of America could even for a moment, lose Command & Control of a single weapon of its nuclear weapons. It. Simply. Doesn't. Happen.
Happened.
This is worse than the United States being at war in Iraq. I'm giving you a professional military judgment. Worse than the roughly 1 million lives lost so far in Iraq.
Ozymandias -- Shelley - (Wikipedia; poem, other links)That's what the United States is trusted with. By everyone.
OZYMANDIAS
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Yes, we are hated now. The Bush's have put us in the world's doghouse. We may take three generations -- if ever -- to bring us back to that bright and shining city on a hill. We were beloved as no country in the history of the world has been beloved, and in seven years, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have destroyed us.
Today, I do not care.
We may be a decaying giant, a "colossal wreck, boundless and bare."
We sill control more actual direct force than any combination of nations the world knows or has ever known. At the command of the President and conformation from one other person on a very short list, higher animal life will simply cease to exist in large parts of the world. The President can order an entire country razed without a single American setting foot on its soil; afterwards, no human being will be able to walk there without protective gear for decades.
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:And that's just nukes. Every mammal alive could die in weeks to months if the contents of Ft. Meade are ever unleashed. Or not... perhaps just everyone with a particular genetic marker. Or everyone not vaccinated with x.
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
In the midst of the world hating the U.S. for our actions in the middle east, please understand this:
THE WORLD CONTINUES TO TRUST THE UNITED STATES WITH COMMAND & CONTROL OF ITS SPECIAL WEAPONS.
I didn't say the world trusts the political infrastructure of the U.S. not to nuke Iran till it fucking glows.
No one trusts Dick Cheney; Cheney is a liar who wants to off Iran. No one trusts President Bush; he's an angry self-righteous drunk, a failure of a man who blows with the wind. Hopefully Daddy & Mommy have him under control as well as the Joint Chiefs.
What the world trusts is the U.S. Military in this one specific domain of competence. The world trusts -- from necessity of course but with a 60+ year perfect record -- that we don't fuck up where our nukes are, ever. All that screeched to a halt one month ago.
This isn't the Challenger explosion. We knew space travel was risky. This is something we've been told simply can not happen, Murphy be damned.
This scares me. And I don't get scared. Want to ask your Congressman & Senators something?
Ask them, How the FUCK did this happen?
Be clear, we're talking not about the facts -- the what happened -- but about a deep, bone rotten and dripping with pus to the core attitude -- deep, deep problem which strikes all the way down across not just the U.S. Air Force, but through and through every branch of the service and their authorizing committees.
Yes -- we got nailed with nuclear weapons here. That's the slap-in-the-face can't be mistaken the whole world just bolted out of bed alarm. But that isn't it. What is it is the attitude and the staffing cuts and the attitude and the training cuts and the attitude and the lack of respect by civilians and the attitude and the lack of respect by the media and the attitude and the failure to conduct no-shit penetration testing by op teams determined to rip through and penetrate, instead of "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" testing by teams you know are coming. And the attitude.
It's a fucking farce and it has to stop.
The trust the world has had of the United States for 60+ years and still has in spite of 1 million dead in Iraq -- that our C&C over special weapons is inviolable -- simply is wrong.
- How did we get here?
- By when will it be fixed?
- Who is accountable for fixing U.S. C&C before someone hacks it and, pardon me, uses it to Do.Terrible.Things?
- We will never be forgiven if this happens.
This scares the shit out of me. There's more...
Friday, August 31, 2007
U.S. Troops deaths rising, Sectarian Violence rising.
All time daily high reached one month ago
177.8
The surge is a failure and is unsustainable. All anecdotal evidence to the contrary is just plain bullshit. The numbers dont lie. It didnt work. There's more...