Where are these tanks going? These were seen on Jan. 20 2012 in Watsonville, CA. Who says America doesn’t manufacture anything anymore!

Found by Joshua Dale

Economic sanctions by the European Union and the United States can only be allowed a limited time period to prevent Iran from attempting to acquire a nuclear arsenal before a military strike must be contemplated, Israeli leaders have declared. The tough public stance from Tel Aviv comes amid conflicting reports on the readiness of the Israeli military establishment to carry out an attack on Iran.

One account claims that Israel’s security agencies have concluded that the turmoil predicted from a strike, and the likely response from Tehran, has been widely exaggerated. However, a senior British official told The Independent that the hierarchy of the intelligence service, Mossad, and the armed forces continued to have deep trepidation about conflict in the region.

Speaking at the Davos economic summit yesterday, the Israeli Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, yesterday warned that a situation could be rapidly reached when even “surgical” military action could not block the Tehran regime from getting the bomb. “We will know early enough whether the Iranians are ready to give up their nuclear weapons,” following measures such as the recently announced EU oil embargo, he said.

Mr Barak continued, “We are determined to prevent Iran from turning nuclear. It seems to us to be urgent, because the Iranians are deliberately drifting into what we call an immunity zone where practically no surgical operation could block them”.

And then there’s us with our “mothership” on its way. Here’s one guy’s analysis of that.

Leaked Pentagon documents claim a design flaw in the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) has caused eight simulated landings to fail. The “F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Concurrency Quick Look Review” claimed the flaw meant that the “arrestor” hook, used to stop the plane during landing, was too close to the plane’s wheels.

When a fighter lands on an aircraft carrier an arrestor cable catches the hook on the back of the aircraft, preventing it from overshooting and ditching into the sea. The documents warn of “major consequences” to the aircraft’s structure and cast doubt on the readiness of the JSF to provide close-air support, which is seen as critical to a carrier’s role in providing amphibious landings.

The review further suggests the planes will be unable to fire the British Asraam air-to-air missile.

This could be an amazing disaster and a huge fiasco. The story should break in the coming weeks.

WASHINGTON – Marine Corps officials said they are investigating a YouTube video that allegedly shows four servicemembers urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters.The video, posted Tuesday on YouTube , shows four men in U.S. military uniforms standing above the corpses, joking and making references to relieving themselves on the dead men. Capt. Kendra Hardesty, a spokeswoman for the Corps, said officials have not verified any details of the incident but added, “The actions portrayed are not consistent with our core values and are not indicative of the character of the Marines in our Corps. This matter will be fully investigated and those responsible will be held accountable for their actions.”

It was unclear who shot the video, when it was filmed,or who posted it online.

You have to have mixed feelings about this. This sort of thing goes on with both sides. But the real issue overall is judgement. Are the soldiers so dumb to film and post this? I’m reminded of the LA gang-bangers who do dumb things then post the evidence of their stupidity on YouTube. But OK, this will not end well for the soldiers. And I’m also confused by the news media acting baffled about who these guys were when on the main video it says, “scout sniper team 4 with 3rd battalion 2nd marines out of camp lejeune peeing on dead talibans.” I’d think they’d be easy to isolate. Can you imagine the meetings going on right now?

Too bad this will probably be more deck chair shuffling than the real Ron Paul-level reductions and ending our usual World Police stance that we need, but it’s a start.

In an unusual appearance at the Pentagon briefing room on Thursday, Mr. Obama outlined a new national defense strategy driven by three realities: the winding down of a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, a fiscal crisis demanding hundreds of billions of dollars in Pentagon budget cuts and a rising threat from China and Iran.

A fourth reality, not mentioned in the briefing room, was Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign and the chorus of Republican presidential candidates who have sought to portray him as decimating the Pentagon budget and being weak in his response to Iran.
[...]
Despite the pageantry, many elements of the new strategy had a “back to the future” quality and echoed the goals of a smaller but more technically proficient military advanced by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld before the Sept. 11 attacks.

On the other hand, it’s business as usual.

In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011 – Vanity Fair: Christopher Hitchens—the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant—died today at the age of 62. Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2010, just after the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22, and began chemotherapy soon after. His matchless prose has appeared in Vanity Fair since 1992, when he was named contributing editor.

BONN, Germany — As dozens of nations and organizations met here on Monday to plan a transition beyond the withdrawal of American and other international forces from Afghanistan in 2014, the Afghan government had a new deadline in mind: 2024.

President Hamid Karzai and other Afghan officials here called for political and military support for at least another decade — and financial assistance that would not end until 2030. That would be nearly three decades after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 that led to the international intervention in Afghanistan…

Instead, as the months have passed, the tempo of the war has shown little sign of winding down, despite an optimistic assessment from NATO that it had reversed the momentum of the Taliban insurgents…

Even though President Obama and other NATO leaders created a timetable for withdrawal by 2014, few officials now expect any reconciliation talks to even begin by then. That has raised questions about security and the stability of Mr. Karzai’s government once international troops steadily begin to withdraw.

Mr. Karzai’s government presented a paper to the conference outlining Afghanistan’s plans for developing an economy now almost entirely dependent on international military and development spending…

…Just meeting the cost of Afghanistan’s military forces — which by 2014 are expected to total 400,000 soldiers — is estimated to cost $3.5 billion to $6 billion a year. By then, Afghanistan, the world’s 40th largest country, would have the world’s 12th largest military.

Thanks, George.

And let us offer up thanks to all the Republicans and Democrats who rubber stamped every foreign adventure of the Bush/Cheney years. Let us offer up thanks to Barack Obama who campaigned to bring the troops home – not over a vague and changeable schedule – but, as soon as he was inaugurated.

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.

The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.

I can put this kid in jail too!

The Navy normally provides a minimum coverage of a frigate or destroyer fulfilling the role of Fleet Ready Escort (FRE) in order to be able to respond quickly to a potential threat at home or abroad. However, slashed Defence budgets and the war in Libya has meant there hasn’t been a vessel available since the start of October.

The last ship to fill the role…was HMS Portland but that left for war games off the coast of Scotland in October, and it is now having a rest period in Plymouth on the south coast.

Former First Sea Lord Admiral Lord Alan West said: “…It’s a big problem. If we haven’t got a ship ready to do this role then it’s worrying. It’s a very unsatisfactory position to be in…”

Critics warned the cuts would leave the navy overstretched. Since February nine warships have been deployed to Libya, leaving none left to be on hand in the UK…

Lord West added: “What it shows is that the number of frigates and destroyers we’ve got now is insufficient. We need more ships as a matter of urgency.”

Hopefully, no one will notify the Duchy of Grand Fenwick of this opportunity for invasion.

At CIA headquarters in Langley, one of the newest artifacts in the agency’s private museum is a message from a father to his 3-year-old son. The gold-embossed letterhead features a swastika and the name Adolf Hitler.

“Dear Dennis,” the seven-sentence letter begins. “The man who might have written on this card once controlled Europe — three short years ago when you were born. Today he is dead, his memory despised, his country in ruins.”

Dennis is Dennis Helms, now a 69-year-old intellectual-property lawyer in New Jersey. The letter writer was his father, Richard Helms, the CIA director during the Vietnam War and Watergate eras, who died in 2002. Right after Germany’s surrender, Lt. Helms, an intelligence operative, sneaked into Hitler’s chancellery in Berlin and pilfered the Fuehrer’s stationery. He dated the letter “V-E day” for May 8, 1945.

The letter astounded the CIA museum’s curatorial staff when it was acquired in May — and not only because Helms wrote with such paternal tenderness. It also conveyed a certain historical intuition about the evil that one man could do. The letter happened to arrive at Langley the day after Osama bin Laden was killed in May…

The Hitler letter arrived in a brown envelope, postmarked May 29, 1945, and bearing two 3-cent purple stamps with the words: “WIN THE WAR.” The recipient: “Master Dennis J. Helms c/o Mrs. Richard Helms,” of Orange, N.J.

After his introductory lines, Helms wrote of Hitler:

“He had a thirst for power, a low opinion of man as an individual, and a fear of intellectual honesty. He was a force for evil in the world. His passing, his defeat — a boon to mankind. But thousands died that it might be so.”

Helms stayed on with the OSS after WW2 as it become the CIA. He became director in 1967…refused to coverup Watergate for Richard Nixon in 1972 – leading to his transfer out in 1973 to be Ambassador to Iran.

Is anybody surprised?

South Texas gets second drone for patrolling – The Brownsville Herald: South Texas’ second unmanned aerial vehicle was expected to arrive at its base station in Corpus Christi Wednesday night and will begin operations in a couple of days.
Texas Congressional members Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi, and Mike McCaul, R-Houston, announced the arrival of the second UAV earlier this week.

The Predator UAV is equipped with an electro-optical/infrared sensor system that is suitable for flights in darkness and bad weather.
Cuellar has pushed for more drones for the Texas-Mexico border and earlier said the bipartisan effort between Democrats and Republicans was the key factor for South Texas receiving second UAV.

Abandoning plans, although still negotiating. So, that’s a definite maybe? Although other sources are reporting it, this is from Fox News’, take on it.

The U.S. is abandoning plans to keep troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline, according to The Associated Press, but Obama administration officials insist to Fox News that discussions with Iraqi leaders are “ongoing.”

On the other hand…

Regardless of whether U.S. troops stay or not, there will be a massive American diplomatic presence.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad is the largest in the world, and the State Department will have offices in Basra, Irbil and Kirkuk as well as other locations around the country where contractors will train Iraqi forces on U.S. military equipment they’re purchasing.

About 5,000 security contractors and personnel will be tasked with helping protect American diplomats and facilities around the country, the State Department has said.

The Defense Department, considered by some a black hole of federal spending, is promising lawmakers it will open its books and show in detail how the billions are spent. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta…admitted Thursday that the Pentagon must improve its accountability.

“While the department’s systems do tell us where we are spending taxpayer funds, we do not yet have the details and controls necessary to pass an audit,” Panetta said in remarks prepared for his appearance before the House Armed Services Committee. “This is inexcusable and must change.”

Until now, the Pentagon has never been subjected to a so-called “clean audit,” a full examination of its spending. In the past, the Defense Department had pledged to provide Congress with auditable financial statements by 2017. Panetta shaved several years off that deadline to deliver that key part of how the Pentagon monitors its spending.

“I have directed the department to cut in half the time it will take to achieve audit readiness for the Statement of Budgetary Resources, so that in 2014 we will have the ability to conduct a full budget audit,” Panetta said. “We owe it to the taxpayers to be transparent and accountable for how we spend their dollars, and under this plan we will move closer to fulfilling that responsibility.”

The Statement of Budgetary Resources, according to the Pentagon, shows what funds the Defense Department received, what was obligated and what checks were written. It is just one of four parts of the internal accounting. The other three, including a consolidated balance sheet and a net cost for the entire department, will remain on the 2017 timetable.

Who needs a Cold War when you can have the War on Terror producing non-consumable goods forever and a day?

“We keep wiping it off, and it keeps coming back,” says a source familiar with the network infection, one of three that told Danger Room about the virus. “We think it’s benign. But we just don’t know.”

Military network security specialists aren’t sure whether the virus and its so-called “keylogger” payload were introduced intentionally or by accident; it may be a common piece of malware that just happened to make its way into these sensitive networks. The specialists don’t know exactly how far the virus has spread. But they’re sure that the infection has hit both classified and unclassified machines at Creech. That raises the possibility, at least, that secret data may have been captured by the keylogger, and then transmitted over the public internet to someone outside the military chain of command.

Someone needs to figure out how this malware got on the network in the first place.