Archive for the 'War' Category
Software for Pentagon Costs Americans Tens of Billions of Dollars Per Year, Winds Up Being Owned by Corporations
August 4th, 2010Would you like some air conditioned tents to go with that? Via: Defense News: The Department of Defense spends tens of billions of dollars annually creating software that is rarely reused and difficult to adapt to new threats. Instead, much of this software is allowed to become the property of defense companies, resulting in DoD […]
The WikiLeaks “Insurance” File
July 31st, 2010From now on, I’m going to include a standard WikiLeaks disclaimer in the form of a link to a previous post. — Is WikiLeaks hanging a Sword of Damocles over elements of the U.S. Government? Via: Cryptome: The file, “insurance.aes256,” is ten times the size of the seven other files combined. Appears to be encrypted […]
UK Government to be Sued Over Congolese ‘Conflict Minerals’
July 30th, 2010In other news: Afghan Mineral Deposits Actually Worth $3 Trillion, Not $1 Trillion. Via: Guardian: Britain must answer in court claims that it is turning a blind eye to UK firms that trade in lucrative Congolese “conflict minerals”, a campaign group announced today. The group, Global Witness, said the firms continued to buy minerals from […]
“Extreme and Unlawful” Bush-Era Policies Becoming the “New Normal” Under Obama
July 30th, 2010Via: ACLU: Indeed, on a range of issues including accountability for torture, detention of terrorism suspects, and use of lethal force against civilians, there is a very real danger that the Obama administration will enshrine permanently within the law policies and practices that were widely considered extreme and unlawful during the Bush administration. There is […]
Afghanistan: U.S. Spends $20 Billion Per Year for Air Conditioning in Tents
July 29th, 2010This astonishing statistic is mentioned in the audio feature on the page linked below. Via: PRI: The term we were looking for is “Forward Operating Base” or FOB. The US has many FOBs in Iraq and Afghanistan. The large ones have many tents and other structures where personnel live and work. And all of them […]
Gulf of Hormuz: Japanese Tanker Damaged
July 28th, 2010Update: Cause Still Unknown Via: BBC: An investigation has been launched into the unexplained damage suffered by a Japanese oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz near Oman. The M Star was damaged on Wednesday while travelling from Qatar to Japan. Port officials in Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates say the ship was involved […]
Mexico: Prison Official Sent Inmates to Conduct Birthday Party Massacre
July 27th, 2010Via: Christian Science Monitor: A prison director is suspected of arming inmates and sending them on the July 18 Mexico birthday party massacre that killed 17. To some, Mexico’s drug war seems ‘the script of a science fiction movie.’ When gunmen burst into a private birthday party on July 18 and opened fired on guests, […]
WikiLeaks Founder, “Constantly Annoyed that People Are Distracted by False Conspiracies Such as 9/11”
July 26th, 2010People often ask me if I think this source is disinfo or if that source is disinfo… My response is always: TREAT EVERY SOURCE AS DISINFO. You’ll avoid disappointment when the thing starts serving up rat poison—which, unfortunately, happens a lot. I haven’t shared this before, but in early 2008, someone from WikiLeaks wrote to […]
WikiLeaks: Afghanistan War Logs; Massive Leak, Over 90,000 Files
July 26th, 2010More Interesting Reading: TF 373 and OGA TF 373 refers to Task Force 373, which is a U.S. death squad. OGA is Other Government Agency. According to Salon, “In military lingo, OGA stands for ‘other government agency’ and denotes clandestine operations conducted independent of the military chain of command.” —End Update— Update: Searching for Heroin […]
Netanyahu Admits on Video He Deceived U.S. to Destroy Oslo Accord
July 24th, 2010Via: The National: The contents of a secretly recorded video threaten to gravely embarrass not only Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister but also the US administration of Barack Obama. The film was shot, apparently without Mr Netanyahu’s knowledge, nine years ago, when the government of Ariel Sharon had started reinvading the main cities of […]
