Articles (Oct – Dec 2012)
Picking Up a $170 Billion Tab:
How US Taxpayers Are Paying the Pentagon to Occupy the Planet
TruthOut – December 2012 – By David Vine, TomDispatch
“Are you monitoring the construction?” asked the middle-aged man on a bike accompanied by his dog.
“Ah, sì,” I replied in my barely passable Italian.
“Bene,” he answered. Good.
In front of us, a backhoe’s guttural engine whined into action and empty dump trucks rattled along a dirt track. The shouts of men vied for attention with the metallic whirring of drills and saws ringing in the distance. Nineteen immense cranes spread across the landscape, with the foothills of Italy’s Southern Alps in the background. More than 100 pieces of earthmoving equipment, 250 workers, and grids of scaffolding wrapped around what soon would be 34 new buildings.
We were standing in front of a massive 145-acre construction site for a “little America” rising in Vicenza, an architecturally renowned Italian city and UNESCO world heritage site near Venice. This was Dal Molin, the new military base the U.S. Army has been readying for the relocation of as many as 2,000 soldiers from Germany in 2013.
Since 1955, Vicenza has also been home to another major U.S. base, Camp Ederle. They’re among the more than 1,000 bases the United States uses to ring the globe (with about 4,000 more in the 50 states and Washington, D.C.). This complex of military installations, unprecedented in history, has been a major, if little noticed, aspect of U.S. power since World War II.
During the Cold War, such bases became the foundation for a “forward strategy” meant to surround the Soviet Union and push U.S. military power as close to its borders as possible. These days, despite the absence of a superpower rival, the Pentagon has been intent on dotting the globe with scores of relatively small “lily pad” bases, while continuing to build and maintain some large bases like Dal Molin.
Americans rarely think about these bases, let alone how much of their tax money — and debt — is going to build and maintain them. For Dal Molin and related construction nearby, including a brigade headquarters, two sets of barracks, a natural-gas-powered energy plant, a hospital, two schools, a fitness center, dining facilities, and a mini-mall, taxpayers are likely to shell out at least half a billion dollars. (All the while, a majority of locals passionately and vocally oppose the new base.) …
Rebuilding America
Foreign Policy – By Clyde Prestowitz – November 14, 2012
“Fiscal cliff” has become such a catch phrase that it now shows up regularly in non-U.S. media around the world. Avoiding going over it is certainly President Obama’s number one concern between now and the end of the year.
Or is it? Well, if it is, it’s not stopping him from leaving Washington and flying half way around the world to Cambodia next week to attend the East Asia Summit meeting of top Asian leaders. So “take that” John Boehner. You may be the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, but you’re no Xi Jinping or whomever the Chinese pick as their new leader. This is the first time an American president has attended the summit, and it is a measure of the importance of China/Asia to the United States that Obama is taking part despite the fiscal pressures he, America, and the world are facing.
This is not the first move Obama has made that reflects his concern with China and Asia. The so-called “pivot to Asia” that he adopted earlier in the year as the main focus of American foreign policy in the post-Iraq, post-Afghanistan war world has already resulted in an ongoing shift of U.S. troops, ships, and military presence to the Asia-Pacific region. It has also been manifested by the attempt to negotiate a free trade agreement under the rubric of the Trans Pacific Partnership and by the reaffirmation of U.S. ties with, and support of, Asian countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines, and Japan in some of their contested issues with China.
That Obama’s concern is justified is evident on the basis of many factors. There is a constant din of triumphal commentary in Asia and much of the rest of the world about China displacing the United States as the world’s largest economy. Put aside for the moment the fact that the U.S. economy is not the world’s largest economy — and hasn’t been since being displaced by the EU a number of years ago — and put aside the fact that China will not soon displace the EU, and may well not surpass the United States if its growth rate continues its broad slow down. The fact is that there is a widespread anticipation and even fervent hope that America will fall behind in terms of the size of its GDP. Many around the world see this as a kind of liberation from American hegemony. As one Chinese analyst said to me recently, “America must at last face facts. It’s power is ebbing rapidly and it will no longer be able to get what it wants as easily as in the past.” …
Read on: http://prestowitz.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/14/rebuilding_america
US plans to keep 10,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014
The Guardian – By Emma Graham-Harrison – November 26, 2012
White House wants small US force to stay on in Afghanistan for training and counter-terrorism against al-Qaida, papers report.
The long-term US military presence in Afghanistan is likely to be a “light footprint” of about 10,000 American troops, boosted by a few thousand more soldiers from Nato allies, according to US media reports.
Most foreign combat troops are expected to be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, a deadline agreed by Nato and Kabul a few years ago. The White House favours keeping a small force on the ground for some years after that, although diplomats insist they are not seeking permanent bases. Troops would stay to train the Afghan security forces, which still need help with everything from bomb detection to medical evacuation and fuel supplies, and run counter-terrorism campaigns, particularly along the lawless border with Pakistan.
Plans are still tentative but senior officials in the Obama administration would like to keep about 10,000 troops in Afghanistan, the Wall Street Journal reported.
General John Allen, the commander of US and Afghan forces in Afghanistan, has made a preliminary recommendation that 6,000 to 15,000 troops should stay on, the paper said.
Under the emerging plans, the counter-terrorism unit focused on al-Qaida could be under 1,000, the New York Times reported, leaving a substantial number of soldiers to support and train the Afghan police and army.
… The question of immunity for American soldiers over civilian deaths, which in effect ended the US role in Iraq last year, is likely to prove a major stumbling block. …
In full: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/26/us-afghanistan-troops-10000-longterm
IAEA Data on Sensitive Iranian Stockpile Misled News Media
Truthout – By Gareth Porter – November 21, 2012
News stories on the latest International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report suggested new reasons to fear that Iran is closer to a “breakout” capability than ever before, citing a nearly 50-percent increase in its stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium and the installation of hundreds of additional centrifuges at the Fordow enrichment installation.
But the supposedly dramatic increase in the stockpile of uranium that could theoretically be used to enrich to weapons grade is based on misleading figures in the Nov. 16 IAEA report. The actual increase in the level of that stockpile appears to be 20 percent.
The coverage of the completion of the installation of 2,800 centrifuges at Fordow, meanwhile, continued the media practice of ignoring the linkage between large numbers of idle centrifuges and future negotiations on the Iranian nuclear programme.
The latest round of media coverage of the Iran issue again highlights the failure of major news outlets to reflect the complexity and political subtleties of the Iranian enrichment programme.
The IAEA report created understandable confusion about the stockpile of uranium enriched to 20-percent – also called 20 percent LEU (low enriched uranium). It does not use the term “stockpile” at all. Instead, it says Iran produced 43 kg of 20-percent enriched uranium during the three months since the August report and cited a total of 135 kg of 20-percent uranium now “in storage”, compared with only 91.4 kg in August.
Based on those figures, Reuters suggested that Iran might already be two-thirds of the way to the level of 200-250 kg that “experts say” could be used to build a bomb. The Guardian’s Julian Borger wrote that Iran was enriching uranium at a pace that would reach the Israeli “red line” in just seven months. …
Read on: http://truth-out.org/news/item/12883-iaea-data-on-sensitive-iranian-stockpil
Israel studies battle with Palestinian militants to prepare for Iran
Star Tribune – Article by: David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker (New York Times) – November 23, 2012
Experts said conflict revealed Hamas’ capabilities and showed that the nation’s anti-missile system works.
The conflict that ended, for now, in a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel seemed like the latest episode in a periodic showdown. But there was a second, strategic agenda unfolding, said U.S. and Israeli officials: The exchange was something of a practice run for any future armed confrontation with Iran, featuring improved rockets that can reach Jerusalem and new anti-missile systems to counter them.
It is Iran, of course, that most preoccupies Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Obama. While disagreeing on tactics, both have made it clear that time is short — probably measured in months — to resolve the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.
One key to their war-gaming has been cutting off Iran’s ability to slip next-generation missiles into the Gaza Strip or Lebanon, where they could be launched by Iran’s surrogates, Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, during any crisis over sanctions or an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States and a military historian, likened the insertion of Iranian missiles into Gaza to the Cuban missile crisis.
“In the Cuban missile crisis, the U.S. was not confronting Cuba, but rather the Soviet Union,” Oren said. “In Operation Pillar of Defense [the name the Israel Defense Force gave the Gaza operation], Israel was not confronting Gaza, but Iran.”
It is an imprecise analogy. What the Soviet Union was slipping into Cuba 50 years ago was a nuclear arsenal. In Gaza, the rockets and parts that came from Iran were conventional, and, as the Israelis learned, still have accuracy problems. But from one point of view, Israel was using the battle to learn the capabilities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad — the group that has the closest ties to Iran — as well as to disrupt those links. …
Military Law Is to Law as Military Music Is to Music
WarIsACrime.org
By David Swanson
December 1, 2012
Jeh Charles Johnson, General Counsel of the U.S. Department of Defense, on Friday admitted that murder by drone is not a form of law enforcement:
“Some legal scholars and commentators in our country brand the detention by the military of members of al Qaeda as ‘indefinite detention without charges.’ Some refer to targeted lethal force against known, identified individual members of al Qaeda as ‘extrajudicial killing.’
“Viewed within the context of law enforcement or criminal justice, where no person is sentenced to death or prison without an indictment, an arraignment, and a trial before an impartial judge or jury, these characterizations might be understandable.”
Indeed, pretty darn understandable. So, what’s the way around it?
“Viewed within the context of conventional armed conflict — as they should be — capture, detention and lethal force are traditional practices as old as armies. Capture and detention by the military are part and parcel of armed conflict.[13] We employ weapons of war against al Qaeda, but in a manner consistent with the law of war. We employ lethal force, but in a manner consistent with the law of war principles of proportionality, necessity and distinction. We detain those who are part of al Qaeda, but in a manner consistent with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and all other applicable law.[14]
[13] Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 519 (2004) (“detention to prevent a combatant’s return to the battlefield is a fundamental incident of waging war”).
[14] Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, art. 3, Aug. 12, 1949, 6 U.S.T. 3316, 75 U.N.T.S. 135.
The notion that U.S. treatment of prisoners complies with the Geneva Conventions is ludicrous, but so is the basic premise here that murdering and imprisoning people is justified because it is part of conventional armed conflict. There is nothing conventional about soldiers at desks on other continents flying drones, or soldiers jumping out of helicopters to kill and kidnap in residential neighborhoods. There are no front lines, no trenches, no battlefield, no army, no opposing army, no opposing nation, no territory fought over, no separation between civilians and military action. That armies have always killed and captured people doesn’t legalize killing and capturing people in any, much less in all, circumstances. Armies have tortured, looted, and raped as well. …
Read on: http://warisacrime.org/content/military-law-law-military-music-music
How Petraeus Created the Myth of His Success
TruthOut
By Gareth Porter
November 27, 2012
The discovery of his affair with Paula Broadwell has ended David Petraeus’ career, but the mythology of Petraeus as the greatest US military leader since Eisenhower for having engineered turnarounds in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars lives on.
A closer examination of his role in those wars reveals a very different picture, however.
As this four-part series will show, Petraeus represents a new type of military commander, whose primary strength lay neither in strategy nor in command of combat, but in the strategic manipulation of information to maintain domestic political support for counterinsurgency wars of choice, while at the time enhancing his own reputation.
The series will show how Petraeus was engaged from the beginning of the Iraq war in creating a myth about himself as a commander with unique ability to defeat insurgents, that he knew he had failed in his first two commands in Iraq and that he did not believe that war was winnable.
But the account will also show that Petraeus eventually began to believe his own myth of himself as successful counterinsurgency strategist. The shift from deception of others to self-deception is the dominant theme of his command of the war in Afghanistan. …
Read on: http://truth-out.org/news/item/12997-how-petraeus-created-the-myth-of-his-su
U.S. Wars: Are They Lawful?
WarIsACrime.org – By davidswanson – November 12, 2012
Remarks at the biennial general meeting of the War and Law League in San Francisco on Armistice Day 2012.
I’ll try briefly to make five points.
First, there are clear laws on the books that make U.S. wars unlawful, along with U.S. threats of war and U.S. propaganda for war. The laws are either forgotten, ignored, evaded, or cleverly reinterpreted to reverse their meaning. But they could be enforced someday.
Second, U.S. wars are evolving in ways that make them violate additional laws without bringing them into compliance with any of the laws already violated.
Third, participants in U.S. wars face occasional prosecution at home or abroad for their specific actions, although those actions do not stray from the basic purpose of the wars.
Fourth, other nations are prosecuted for or would be prosecuted if they attempted the same behavior engaged in by the United States.
And Fifth, U.S. wars are launched and conducted by officials elected in an illegitimate system dominated by open bribery. …
Read on: http://warisacrime.org/content/us-wars-are-they-lawful
Likening Palestinians to Blades of Grass
truth-out.org – By Elizabeth Murray (Consortium News) – November 17, 2012
Israeli hardliners joke about the periodic need to decimate each new generation of Palestinian militants as “mowing the grass,” a process underway again in new bombardments of Gaza. This ugly metaphor has also penetrated the think-tank world of Official Washington, as ex-CIA analyst Elizabeth Murray learned.
In early 2010, one of Washington DC’s most prestigious think tanks was holding a seminar on the Middle East which included a discussion of Israel’s December 2008-January 2009 assault on Gaza which killed about 1,300 Palestinians. When the death toll was mentioned, one expert on the panel smiled enigmatically and intoned: “It’s unfortunate, but every once in a while you have to mow the lawn.”
The remark, which likened killing hundreds of men, women and children – many of them noncombatants – with trimming the grass, was greeted with a light tittering around the room, which was filled with some of Washington’s most elite, highly educated and well-paid Middle East experts. Not a single one objected to the panelist’s black humor. …
Read on: http://truth-out.org/news/item/12801-likening-palestinians-to-blades-of-grass
Quakers call for end to use of force in Gaza
Quakers in Britain – November 18, 2012
“From the Kindertransport in Europe in the 1930’s to early childhood education and youth empowerment of Palestinians in Gaza in 2012, the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) has dedicated itself to peace and service on behalf of all people, irrespective of their faiths and affiliations, where lives are impacted by violence, poverty and injustice.
“Quakers know from centuries of engagement against war and for peace, that violence begets violence. Quakers seek to speak truth to power, and at this time the balance of power is with Israel which controls the Gaza Strip through its illegal occupation and prolonged siege.
“We call for an immediate end to the use of force by all parties.
“Continued military escalation and violence will do nothing to make either Palestinian or Israeli civilians safer. We ask that International law be upheld, and that all those Israelis and Palestinians who work for peace be given the opportunity to move forward together towards a shared peaceful future.
“Quakers call on the international community to use its influence and diplomatic weight to act urgently to bring about a ceasefire to end the current violence. Knowing that there is a human face to this tragedy as it continues to unfold, we pray that all the people of the region be allowed to live in peace.”
The statement, signed by Paul Parker, Recording Clerk for Quakers in Britain, is being sent to the Foreign Secretary, William Hague and to the Israeli embassy and the Palestinian embassy in London.
www.quaker.org.uk/news/quakers-call-immediate-end-use-force-gaza
How Hamas’ rockets and Israel’s missile-defense system work
The Week Magazine
By D B Grady
November 21, 2012
The fate of the escalating conflict in the Middle East rests primarily on how effective machinery on both sides turns out to be
The most stunning piece of hardware employed so far during Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense has been Iron Dome, the shield ably intercepting rockets fired by Hamas militants. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer previously responsible for the highly effective Python air-to-air missile, developed Iron Dome. The system isn’t powered by magic, though it certainly calls Clarke’s Third Law to mind [“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.“]. Here is how it works:
Iron Dome has five batteries, each of which is mobile and comprised of radar, a sophisticated computer, and three missile launchers. When a rocket is fired at an area within an Iron Dome battery’s aegis (roughly 60 square-miles), the radar detects the projectile, the computer does the geometry, and missiles intercept the rocket. Each interceptor reportedly costs anywhere from $40,000 to $60,000, so the system also makes a quick determination as to whether the rocket is even worth engaging. In other words, a rocket bound for an open field is not such a big deal. This whole process takes place in a matter of seconds, which seems basically impossible, but is imperative given that the entire lifespan of a rocket fired at the city of Sderot, for example, is 15 seconds, from launch to landing. …
Read on: http://theweek.com/bullpen/column/236734/how-hamas-rockets-and-israels-missile-defense-system-work
This system is part of a multi-layered system and should not be compared with the much more sophisticated and complicated technology of the ambitious US Missile Defense system – which does not work and is far from being feasible (please refer to article about the feasibility discussion on this website).
See also: Israel Has Not Yet Faced True Missile Test …
“The U.S.-funded missile defense system Israel is using to stave off Hamas attacks seems to be working well, experts say. Though the true test is yet to come.
The day before the Israelis commenced Operation Pillar of Defense against Hamas, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren told U.S. News the “Iron Dome” system was roughly 85 percent effective at repelling enemy rockets and missiles. Experts say it has likely maintained about that average over the last five days of fighting.
However, Hamas is only firing primitive rockets over a short period of time, experts say. A more advanced enemy might be able to get through Israel’s newest defensive umbrella. …”
Journalist killing by US and Israel
PressTV
During the Vietnam War, which US forces fought from 1960 through 1974, and which cost the lives of several million Southeast Asians and 58,000 Americans, eight American journalists died. Not one of them was killed by American fire.
In the Iraq War, 136 journalists were killed. At least 15 of them – about 11% of the total – were killed by US forces, sometimes apparently with deliberate intent.
In Afghanistan, nine journalists have been killed, at least one by US forces, and in that case, the killing was deliberate, though it is unclear whether the victim was known to be a journalist.
One thing is clear: it is dangerous in the extreme to be a journalist covering America’s wars, at least beginning with Vietnam. ….
When the US launched its invasion of Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait in 1991, it required all journalists covering the attack to be “embedded” with US forces. Prior to that time (with the exception of the Grenada War mentioned above), journalists, for example in Vietnam, were free to go anywhere in the war zone and to report what they saw. They were not tied to, or restricted to, specific military units. They faced risks, but the risks, as evidenced by the deaths of war correspondents, were caused by either land mines they encountered, or by enemy fire, not by fire from US forces.
That all changed with the Iraq War in 2003. At that time, the Pentagon continued with the same methods developed in the [Persian] Gulf War, requiring journalists to be “embedded” with specific invading, or later, occupying units. Those journalists who chose not to be embedded were warned that they were putting themselves at much greater risk of being targets. …
Several journalists were shot and killed at checkpoints by trigger-happy US forces, some, like Ali Abdul-Azia and Ali al-Khatib, two reporters with the Arab TV station Al-Arabiya, as they were driving away from the checkpoint on March 18, 2004, or Asaad Kadhim, a journalist with the Iraqi TV station Al-Iraqiya, shot as he was filming at a checkpoint near Samara in Iraq.
Reporter Ahmed Wael Bakri of Al-Sharqiya TV, a local station partly funded by the US, was killed by US troops because he “failed to pull over” for a US military convoy – a fate suffered by many an ordinary Iraqi civilian.
In Afghanistan, BBC journalist Omaid Khpalwak was killed by one US soldier after he had already been shot and wounded by another, despite the fact that he spoke English and had been trying to retrieve some ID from his jacket pocket. …
Read in full: www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/11/22/273868/journalist-killing-by-us-and-israel/
The US military pivot to Asia: When bases are not bases
GMA News
By John O’Callaghan and Manuel Mogato
November 14, 2012
… The Pentagon says the United States has “no intention of re-establishing bases in the Philippines.”
But activity in Subic, a breezy coastal city about 80 km (50 miles) north of Manila that has the feel of a tidy American suburb with shopping malls, fast-food outlets and well-lit streets, resembles a buildup.
As of October, 70 US Navy ships had passed through Subic, more than the 55 in 2011 and the 51 in 2010. The Pentagon says more than 100 US planes stop over each month at Clark, another former US base located between Manila and Subic.
“It’s like leasing a car as opposed to buying it – all the advantages of ownership with a reduced risk,” said James Hardy, Asia-Pacific editor of IHS Jane’s Defence Weekly.
“If you look at Subic, the US will be leveraging Philippine bases and assets, privately owned assets, and all at a fraction of the monetary and political price of taking back ownership of the base. It gives the US the same strategic reach that basing would have done but without all the hassle. …
Spy Sat Costs Are ‘Unsustainable,’ Warns Space Commander; BTW, Don’t Cut Space, Cyber
AOL Defense
By Otto Kreisher
November 7, 2012
The head of Air Force Space Command worries that tightening defense budgets and looming force structure cuts could reduce his critical space and cyber capabilities.
“Because these capabilities are so vital, and the need to maintain local and global capabilities, space and cyber capability doesn’t really scale well with force structure reductions,” Air Force Gen. William Shelton said Wednesday. “You either maintain global coverage or you don’t.”
Space Command must maintain force structure “in this fiscally constrained environment,” he said. The budget “is always at risk,” he said, particularly “at times like this, when there are a lot of people out there with their budget knives out.” But, he added, “this is kind of a one or zero game. You either provide the kind of coverage needed to have full capability, or you don’t.”
At the same time, Shelton warned that producing national security satellites and the costs of launching them are “unsustainable.” That limits America’s abilities to replace them and increases our vulnerability should any be lost to either hostile acts or to accidents.
Shelton focused heavily on programs or proposals to reduce the cost of space assets, noting that “the satellites we currently employ are clearly technological marvels. They take years to hand build and deploy” and are “very expensive. Consequently, we build the absolute minimum number of satellites, just in time and we don’t build spares.”
That minimal infrastructure increases the risk of lost capabilities, he warned. …
Read on: http://defense.aol.com/2012/11/07/spy-sat-costs-are-unsustainable-warns-space-commander-btw-d/
Five Specific Questions Journalists Should Ask About the Drone Strike Policy
Truthout – By Robert Naiman – October 26, 2012
The final presidential debate was the place to ask some compelling questions about US foreign policy related to drone warfare. That didn’t happen, but there’s still an opportunity to press the media to seek answers to five key issues.
Before Monday night’s presidential debate, many of us urged Bob Schieffer to ask a question about drone strikes.
And, in fact – credit where credit is due – Bob Schieffer did ask a question about drones.
It can’t be said that we learned a great deal directly from the interaction. For reasons that aren’t really clear, Schieffer asked his question only of Mitt Romney. …
To follow the exchange and discover the five specific questions that it would be really helpful if these shows would explore, read on: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12348-five-specific-questions-journalists
A Failed Formula for Worldwide War
How the Empire Changed Its Face, But Not Its Nature
tomdispatch.com – By Nick Turse
They looked like a gang of geriatric giants. Clad in smart casual attire — dress shirts, sweaters, and jeans — and incongruous blue hospital booties, they strode around “the world,” stopping to stroke their chins and ponder this or that potential crisis. Among them was General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a button-down shirt and jeans, without a medal or a ribbon in sight, his arms crossed, his gaze fixed. He had one foot planted firmly in Russia, the other partly in Kazakhstan, and yet the general hadn’t left the friendly confines of Virginia.
Several times this year, Dempsey, the other joint chiefs, and regional war-fighting commanders have assembled at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico to conduct a futuristic war-game-meets-academic-seminar about the needs of the military in 2017. There, a giant map of the world, larger than a basketball court, was laid out so the Pentagon’s top brass could shuffle around the planet — provided they wore those scuff-preventing shoe covers — as they thought about “potential U.S. national military vulnerabilities in future conflicts” (so one participant told the New York Times). The sight of those generals with the world underfoot was a fitting image for Washington’s military ambitions, its penchant for foreign interventions, and its contempt for (non-U.S.) borders and national sovereignty. …
But when you consider how the Pentagon really operates, such war-gaming undoubtedly has an absurdist quality to it. After all, global threats turn out to come in every size imaginable, from fringe Islamic movements in Africa to Mexican drug gangs. How exactly they truly threaten U.S. “national security” is often unclear — beyond some White House adviser’s or general’s say-so. And whatever alternatives come up in such Quantico seminars, the “sensible” response invariably turns out to be sending in the Marines, or the SEALs, or the drones, or some local proxies. In truth, there is no need to spend a day shuffling around a giant map in blue booties to figure it all out. …
In full: www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175609/
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Nick Turse’s new book “The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyberwarfare” is now availble.
The Changing Face of Empire is a devastating anatomy of the U.S. military’s new six-point program for twenty-first-century war. Following the failures of the Iraq and Afghan wars, as well as “military lite” methods and counterinsurgency, the Pentagon is now pioneering a new brand of global warfare predicated on special ops, drones, spy games, civilian soldiers, cyberwarfare, and proxy fighters. It may sound like a safer, saner brand of war-fighting — a panacea for America’s national security ills. In reality, it will prove anything but, as Nick Turse’s pathbreaking reportage makes all too clear. To order The Changing Face of Empire directly from Haymarket as either an e-book or a paperback, just click the image. |
U.S. government expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists ‘for years’
legitgov.org – October 24, 2012
Kill lists we can believe in: U.S. government expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists ‘for years’ —Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists. Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the “disposition matrix.” The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. U.S. officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the “disposition” of suspects beyond the reach of American drones. Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade.
From: www.legitgov.org/US-government-expects-continue-adding-names-kill-or-capture-lists-years
Please also have a look at the CAAB Facebook page for more articles/references concerning US Military Drones
CIA wants more armed drones
TheDay.com – By Greg Miller (The Washington Post) – October 19, 2012
The proposal by CIA Director David H. Petraeus would bolster the agency’s ability to sustain its campaigns of lethal strikes in Pakistan and Yemen and be able, if directed, to shift aircraft to emerging al-Qaida threats in North Africa or other trouble spots, officials said.
If approved, the CIA could add as many as 10 drones, the officials said, to an inventory that has ranged between 30 and 35 over the past few years. …
Any move to expand the reach of the CIA’s fleet of armed drones probably would require the agency to establish additional secret bases. The agency relies on U.S. military pilots to fly the planes from bases in the southwestern United States but has been reluctant to share overseas landing strips with the Defense Department.
In full: www.theday.com/article/20121019/NWS13/310199951/1044
The astonishing National Academy of Sciences missile defense report
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – By George N. Lewis and Theodore A. Postol
Article Highlights
- A recent National Academy of Sciences report on ballistic missile defense contains flawed assumptions, analytical oversights, and internal inconsistencies. It also contradicts basic, science-based results from other published studies.
- Because of this faulty science, the report reaches erroneous conclusions about boost-phase missile defense and the nation’s Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system and the European Phased Adaptive Approach.
- Given its scientific problems, the National Academy of Sciences report cannot serve as a basis for formulating national policy on ballistic missile defense. There is a clear need for a comprehensive, open, and technical review of the report.
Just a few weeks ago, on September 11, the National Academy of Sciences issued a report titled “Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense: an Assessment of Concepts and Systems for US Boost Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives.” It is an astonishing document, given that it purports to be the product of a respectable scientific institution. It contains numerous flawed assumptions, analytical oversights, and internal inconsistencies. It also contradicts basic, scientific results from other published studies that have already been independently reviewed and verified. These serious problems lead to fundamental errors in many of the report’s most important findings and recommendations, ultimately undermining its credibility as science-based analysis. …
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Use the panel on the left to read the report.
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Is Our Deepest Desire to Die?
WarIsACrime.org
By David Swanson
October 28, 2012
Our so-called self-government rarely agrees with what we tell pollsters, and yet it does what it does with our acceptance. We may have fallen for the pretense that we’re powerless. Our ignorance and xenophobia should never be underestimated as explanations for what we do. But consider the following public policy and then tell me the clearest explanation isn’t that we all want to rush our arrival at death’s door.
Not only do we spend over half of public discretionary funds on war preparation without a particular war in mind, but we spend a huge chunk of that on weapons we can never use without destroying life on the planet, including in our own country, including if we use those weapons and nobody else retaliates. The earth has one atmosphere, and if we wreck it with nuclear weapons, it won’t matter that we’ve done so on another continent.
We put these evil, useless, apocalyptic weapons on ships and sail them as close as possible to the most dangerous spots on earth. Then we threaten war with the countries they’re floating next to. We stick them on planes and fly them around the skies. Despite hundreds of near-disasters due to human and mechanical mistakes over the years, we spread these weapons (and the energy technology that is closely related to them) to more and more countries. We ignore our treaty obligation to disarm and falsely accuse a nation that has no nuclear weapons yet of violating the treaty, building hostility and the likelihood of war.
The nuclear weapons on planes and ships make nuclear missiles on land obsolete. The United States has 450 land-based Minuteman III nuclear missiles. They are easily targeted. And should they all be destroyed, and should we want to seize the opportunity to all hurry up and die together, the bombs on planes and ships could do the job many times over.
Yet the land-based missiles in the United States are not only still sitting there ready to serve no purpose whatsoever, but they’re on high alert. These nuclear-armed missiles could be sent by a U.S. president in 13 minutes or less. Thirteen minutes, with the very real possibility that false information, an electronic glitch or bad signal, or an error in human judgment, would bring the world as we know it to an end. …
Read on: http://warisacrime.org/content/our-deepest-desire-die
Military Commission at Guantanamo Bay: The Uncertain Fate of Legal Process in the Most Important Trial of Our Lives
TruthOut
By Jenny Carroll
October 24, 2012
On October 18 and 19, the military commission at Guantanamo Bay heard arguments on several issues that I am sure will raise a variety of blogosphere discussion, but I want to focus on two issues that I think will ultimately serve to define this commission: the applicability of the constitution to the commission at Guantanamo, and the process by which the defense can secure witnesses.
Does the Constitution Apply?
… While the constitution may be the supreme law of the land in the United States, its application to the defendants in the commission proceedings remains an open topic of debate. As the arguments were made by the parties, salient themes emerged.
The defense motion urged the commission to adopt the default position that the constitution does in fact apply to proceedings at Guantanamo based on the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush. In Boumediene, the court considered the applicability of habeas corpus to detainees, concluding that the “great writ” applied. In its finding, the court noted four key points: first, Guantanamo Bay and the detention facilities there were not extraterritorial – they were within the jurisdiction of the United States; second, the United States had de facto sovereignty; third, constitutional rights should apply unless their application was impracticable and anomalous; and finally, the application of the suspension clause was not impracticable and therefore did apply to the detainees. …
Compulsory Process for the Defense
The second issue raised on October 18 by the defense, on which the commission continued to hear argument on Friday, revolved around how the defense could ensure the presence of witnesses at proceedings. Here a comparative analysis is helpful. In federal court, defendants seeking to procure the presence of a witness at a hearing or trial can do so under the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 17 (often referred to as Rule 17). Rule 17 allows a defense attorney, as an officer of the court, to obtain a blank subpoena that can compel a witness to appear on a matter to testify and/or present documents or other tangible evidence. This Rule enshrines and facilitates what is known as compulsory process, guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. And every day, in courthouses across the country, Rule 17 is utilized to ensure that a defendant’s right to present a defense is a meaningful one by ensuring that he/she has access to the very witnesses that can prove his/her defense or argument or cast doubt on the government’s case. At its core, Rule 17 provides the mechanism by which the defense can procure witnesses without being forced to seek the assistance of the prosecutor’s office or, more importantly, without having to reveal their case or trial strategy, or even details of the witness’s anticipated testimony. In short, the Rule makes the substantive right to compel a witness an actual, not just hypothetical one. …
Read in full: http://truth-out.org/news/item/12282-military-commission-at-guantanamo-bay-t
Hawaii: Head of the Tentacled Beast
Foreign Policy in Focus
By Jon Letman
October 18, 2012
Fresh from hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Honolulu last autumn, U.S. President Barack Obama recently told members of the Australian Parliament that America’s defense posture across the Asia-Pacific would be “more broadly distributed…more flexible—with new capabilities to ensure that our forces can operate freely.”
The announcement of America’s “Asia-Pacific pivot” by its first Hawaiia-born president was highly fitting, since the Hawaiian Islands are at the piko (“navel” in Hawaiian) of this vast region.
A less flattering metaphor for Hawaii’s role in the Pacific is what Maui educator and native Hawaiian activist Kaleikoa Kaeo has called a giant octopus whose tentacles reach across the ocean clutching Japan, Okinawa, South Korea, Jeju island, Guam—and, at times, the Philippines, American Samoa, Wake Island, Bikini Atoll, and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
The head of this beast is in Hawaii, which is home to U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), with sonar, radar, and optical tracking stations as its eyes and ears. Its brain consists of the supercomputers on Maui and the command center on Oahu that connects PACOM to distant bases. This octopus excretes waste as toxic land, polluted waters, abandoned poisons, blown-up and sunken ships, and depleted uranium (DU). Like a real octopus that can regenerate severed limbs, the military in the Pacific grows in new locations (Thailand, Australia) and returns to old ones (Philippines, Vietnam).
PACOM headquarters at Camp H.M. Smith on Oahu is a short drive from Waikiki Beach, but it’s unlikely many tourists pause to consider that tensions between the United States and Russia over missile defense, the war in Afghanistan, the destruction of Iraq, the use of drones in Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and the Philippines—as well as growing opposition to military bases in Okinawa, Guam and Jeju—are all linked to Hawaii.
Thirty-six nations— and over half the world’s population—live in PACOM’s “Area of Responsibility” which spans from the Bering Strait to New Zealand, as far west as Pakistan and Siberia and east to the Galapagos. This behemoth’s self-proclaimed duty is to defend “the territory of the United States, its people, and its interests,” and to “enhance stability in the Asia-Pacific,” “promote security cooperation, encourage peaceful development, respond to contingencies, deter aggression and, when necessary, fight to win.” …
Read on: www.fpif.org/articles/hawaii_head_of_the_tentacled_beast
Minuteman III Missiles: Dangerous, Deadly and Time to Decommission
RootsAction.org
by John Amidon
October 16, 2012
The US nuclear arsenal includes 450 land-based Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) armed with thermonuclear warheads. These ICBMs are deployed in hardened silos in North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. They are easily detected and targeted.
The missiles cannot prevent a nuclear attack on the United States – there is no way to preemptively eliminate all of an adversary’s nuclear weapons. A launch would ensure retaliation by a nuclear adversary.
These missiles are on high alert every moment of every day. The decision to launch would be made by the President in 13 minutes or less if he believed there was an impending attack. The Washington Post recently called this “13 minutes to doomsday.” Thirteen minutes with the very real possibility that false information, an electronic glitch or bad signal, or an error in human judgment would bring the world as we know it to an end.
An immediate step that could be taken would be to de-alert the missiles so that 24 to 72 hours would be needed to launch. This would increase our security by eliminating the possibility of accidental or unauthorized launch. Since the Minuteman lll missiles are easily identified and targeted and since the Trident submarine and our bombers can effectively complete the unspeakable destruction we are contemplating, it is worth strongly noting the Minuteman lll missiles are obsolete even from a military standpoint and decrease rather than increase the effectiveness of our military. Clearly the decision to retire and dismantle all land-based ICBMs needs to be implemented. They are expensive to maintain and do not address 21st century threats.
In a major unilateral nuclear attack without retaliation from the other side, the smoke from burning cities would block sunlight sufficiently to destabilize the environment, reduce warming sunlight to the lowest levels in at least 1000 years, shorten growing seasons and decrease sustainable agriculture, lower food production and create nuclear famine worldwide. Simply put, even a one-sided attack without retaliation would be tantamount to suicide. …
U.S. military in Jordan, has eyes on Syria chemical weapons
Chicago Tribune
By David Alexander (Reuters)
October 10, 2012
A team of U.S. military planners is in Jordan to help the Amman government grapple with Syrian refugees, bolster its military capabilities and prepare for any trouble with Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Wednesday.
The team, led by special operations forces and comprising about 150 troops, mainly from the U.S. Army, is constructing a headquarters building in Amman from which to work with Jordanian forces on joint operational planning and intelligence sharing, a senior defense official said.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the team had been in Jordan for several months and was there when Panetta visited King Abdullah in early August. The number of troops in the team has since grown, but there are no specific plans to expand it further, the official said. …
While the United States has not intervened militarily in Syria, President Barack Obama has warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that any attempt to deploy or use chemical or biological weapons would cross a “red line” that could provoke U.S. action. …
In full: www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-usa-jordan-syriabre8991o1-20121010,0,2199411.story
Planned Military Space Plane Launch Highlights Keep Space for Peace Week Concerns
From Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
For Immediate Release
The Maine-based Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, founded in 1992, maintains that an expected October 25 launch of the military space plane (X-37B) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida will help to accelerate a new arms race in space.
The group also has announced that their annual Keep Space for Peace Week will include more than 75 local actions in a dozen countries around the world. Set from October 6-13 the protests call on all space-faring nations to halt research, development, testing, and deployment of war-making technologies in space.
Global Network chair Dave Webb (who also serves as the chair of UK’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) said, “We believe that the X-37B space plane is part of the Pentagon’s effort to develop the capability to strike anywhere in the world with a conventional warhead in less than an hour – known as Prompt Global Strike. Thus as the U.S. moves forward with these kinds of global strike systems from and through space it will be likely that Russia and China will be forced to respond by refusing to reduce their nuclear weapons and by developing space technologies of their own to counter the U.S. program.”
The Global Network maintains that the development of these new space planes is one reason that the Obama administration and the Pentagon are eager to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles in Russia and China in the years to come. As key elements in the growing U.S. first-strike program (along with so-called ‘missile defense’ systems), they become even more effective if the U.S. can get its potential rivals to reduce their nuclear retaliatory capability giving the Pentagon an even greater chance of pulling off a successful decapitating first-strike attack.
The actual cost of the X-37 is hidden in the Pentagon’s ‘black,’ or classified, budget – is likely to cost more than $1 billion. The launch vehicle alone – a two-stage, liquid-propelled Atlas V rocket – costs as much as $200 million.
“Our annual Keep Space for Peace Week is an important way for us to continue the effort to build a movement around the planet to keep the heavens free from the ever expanding war system. Already we see military satellites in space coordinating warfare on Earth. The aerospace industry and the Space Command are pushing hard to move new offensive technologies like the X-37B into space. It is our goal to build resistance to these expensive, dangerous, and destabilizing moves,” said Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network.
The Keep Space for Peace Week poster is available here
The list of local actions around the world during space week can be foundhere
The award winning documentary Pax Americana & the Weaponization of Space is now available online here
Department of Defense Report to Congress on Future Unmanned Aircraft Systems…
(30 pages – 4.5MB pdf)
Pentagon Lists 110 Potential Drone Bases in U.S. (Secrecy News)
US reassurance needed to allay growing missile defense worries
Global Times
By He Yun
October 8, 2012
US missile defense is a long-standing concern of both Russia and China, stemming back to worries over the US “Star Wars” program initiated in the 1980s. In recent years, US initiatives to place missile defense systems in Japan, Poland, and elsewhere have caused concern in both Moscow and Beijing.
On the US side, official voices have spoken of “growing global cooperation on ballistic missile defense,” as suggested by, among others, US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul on September 10, who stated “in the future NATO and Russia might work together on missile defense.” But current reality offers a stark contrast to this talk of cooperation.
US-Russian cooperation on missile defense effectively stalled after NATO rebuffed the Russian offer of a “sectoral” missile defense that would allow Russia to take charge of building missile defenses against Iran for the defense of Europe.
Hopes for effective early warning data sharing between Moscow and Washington have also diminished. Although the US and Russia conducted a joint threat assessment of the Iranian missile issue, there is no agreement as to what should be done.
In Asia, the US is expanding its missile defense efforts, planning to deploy a powerful X-band early warning radar system in southern Japan to supplement the existing X-band radar that the US has already positioned in Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan.
There are also discussions about a third radar to be deployed in Southeast Asia, possibly in the Philippines. Recent territorial disputes between China and its neighbors, in which some Chinese analysts see the hand of the US, add additional tension to these possible placements.
The US Department of State claims that these new radars are designed to counter the North Korean missile threat, and not directed at China. However, a closer look says otherwise. Early warning radars need to be placed as close as possible to the missile launch site. For that purpose, these radars would work most effectively if placed near a potential North Korean missile launch trajectory, such as in Northern Japan. …
Read on: www.globaltimes.cn/content/736976.shtml
