Archive for the 'Outsourced' Category
DynCorp Running “Counter-Narcotics” Missions Along Pakistan/Afghanistan Border
May 3rd, 2010Counter-Narcotics. *wink* Via: Wired: The airspace along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border is pretty crowded these days: Along with U.S., Afghan and Pakistani military missions, the CIA is running its own covert drone ops. Less well known, but perhaps equally controversial, is the State Department’s counter-narcotics air force, staffed by mercenaries. A recently released State Department Inspector […]
Feds Indict Ex-Blackwater President
April 17th, 2010Via: AP: The former president of Blackwater Worldwide was charged Friday with using straw purchases to stockpile automatic weapons at the security firm and filing false documents to cover up gifts given to the King of Jordan. The federal indictment charges Gary Jackson, 52, who left the company last year in a management shakeup, along […]
Lehman Channeled Risks Through Cutout
April 13th, 2010Some of this, the MO in particular, will seem very familiar to long time Cryptogon readers… Via: New York Times: It was like a hidden passage on Wall Street, a secret channel that enabled billions of dollars to flow through Lehman Brothers, Louise Story and Eric Dash write in The New York Times. In the […]
Homeland Security Wants Cellphones to Sniff for Bio Agents
April 13th, 2010Via: Danger Room: Your cellphone can already tell you where to find the nearest Starbucks or the most convenient subway station. But it might soon be smart enough to alert you to a toxic threat during your morning commute or coffee break, thanks to a new plan from the Department of Homeland Security. The last […]
Defense Department Official Established Network of Private Contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to Help Track and Kill Suspected Militants
March 15th, 2010Via: New York Times: Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants, according to military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States. The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from […]
How Food and Water Are Driving a 21st-Century African Land Grab
March 7th, 2010Via: Guardian: We turned off the main road to Awassa, talked our way past security guards and drove a mile across empty land before we found what will soon be Ethiopia’s largest greenhouse. Nestling below an escarpment of the Rift Valley, the development is far from finished, but the plastic and steel structure already stretches […]
Private Military Contractor High on Opium Killed U.S. Marine?
March 5th, 2010Via: Daily Herald: No American soldier should die the way Josh Birchfield did. There was much more to his “supporting combat operations” death than what the military put out. It was the standard Pentagon release. A soldier is killed. A clerk types in their name. “____________ died while supporting combat operations.” There is no Pentagon […]
Blackwater Created Cutout to Continue Receiving Government Contracts
March 2nd, 2010Via: Guardian: Employees of American defence contractor Blackwater took more than 500 assault rifles that were intended for the Afghan police force and routinely carried weapons without permission, it emerged in a hearing of the Senate armed services committee today. It also emerged that to shed its sullied reputation and win contracting business in Afghanistan, […]
700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan
February 12th, 2010Via: Alternet: Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year. Existing in the shadows, rarely reported on and little talked about, this base-building program […]
Schwarzenegger: Pay to Build Prisons in Mexico to Incarcerate Illegal Alien Convicts (Not The Onion)
January 28th, 2010Via: Sacramento Bee: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday offered yet another way California can save on incarcerating illegal immigrants: pay to build prisons in Mexico. Schwarzenegger said in a Sacramento Press Club speech that rather than raise taxes, the state could find money by cutting pension costs, allowing offshore oil drilling and lowering prison expenditures. […]
