Soldiers in Chowkay Valley, Afghanistan

Three former U.S. soldiers involved in the infamous “Collateral Murder” helicopter gunship attack on Baghdad civilians in July 2007, say that attack was nothing out of the ordinary. The massacre—that killed more than a dozen Iraqis, two of them employed by Reuters—ignited a wave of international revulsion against the U.S. military in Iraq when a video of the massacre was released by WikiLeaks last April.

“What the world did not see is the months of training that led up to the incident, in which soldiers were taught to respond to threats with a barrage of fire—a “wall of steel,” in Army parlance—even if it put civilians at risk,” report Sarah Lazare and Ryan Harvey in the August 16th issue of The Nation magazine.

Former Army Specialist Josh Stieber said that newly arrived soldiers in Baghdad were asked if they would fire back at an attacker if they knew unarmed civilians might get hurt in the process. Those who did not respond affirmatively, or who hesitated, were “knocked around” until they realized what was expected of them, added former Army Specialist Ray Corcoles, who deployed with Stieber.

A third former Army specialist, Ethan McCord, said his battalion commander gave orders to shoot indiscriminately after attacks by improvised explosive devices. “Anytime someone in your line gets hit by an IED…you kill every motherfucker in the street,” McCord quotes him as saying.

Corcoles told the reporters he purposely turned his gun away from people. “You don’t even know if somebody’s shooting at you. It’s just insanity to just start shooting people.”

“From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region,” say McCord and Stieber in an open letter to the Iraqis who were injured in the July attack. Together with Corcoles, they have decided to go public about the true nature of the war.

McCord was shown in the video rushing the wounded children from a van. For this humanitarian act, he was “threatened and mocked by his commanding officer,” say The Nation reporters, and his platoon leader also yelled at him “to quit worrying about those ‘motherfucking kids’.”

McCord told the reporters of “multiple instances in which soldiers abused detainees or beat people up in their houses. In one case, he says, someone was taken from his house, beaten up and then left on the side of the road, bloodied and still handcuffed,” Lazare and Harvey write.

The veterans say they support the release of the video and otber documents by WikiLeaks because it confronts people globally “with the realities of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Meanwhile, Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, accused of leaking the video to WikiLeaks, is facing Espionage Act charges and has been transferred to Kuwait for a military trial, Lazare and Harvey note. The government is also probing where WikiLeaks got the 90,000 secret U.S. military documents from Afghanistan it released late last month. These reports, according to The Nation, detailed the role of U.S. assassination teams, widespread civilian casualties resulting from U.S. attacks and staggering Afghan government incompetence and corruption.”

The totalitarian mantle of secrecy by which the Pentagon shrouds its war crimes makes the disclosures by intelligence analyst Manning appear all the more courageous. As long as the Pentagon keeps him behind bars every American who believes in the Biblical injunction that “the truth shall make ye free” is also a prisoner of the same tyranny. And the three former Army specialists who told their story to The Nation have given us a good idea of what it is the Pentagon doesn’t want the American people to know.

(Sherwood Ross is a Miami-based public relations consultant for worthy causes who formerly reported for the Chicago Daily News and worked as a columnist for several wire services. Reach him at sherwoodross10@gmail.com)

[Via:BLN]

Although spats between Beijing and Washington over such issues as trade imbalances, the valuation of China’s currency, and sanctions against Iran and North Korea might be fading, a new set of squabbles arises immediately afterwards, with tensions building and mounting in recent weeks over events in the Yellow Sea and the South China Sea, and with the signs that the US is trying to meddle and dominate issues involving China.

What irritates China more is, in addition to Hillary Clinton’s aggressive diplomacy at an ASEAN Regional Forum meeting in Hanoi, where she blatantly asserted US has “national interest” in the South China Sea, that Pentagon said Friday the USS Washington is heading for the Yellow Sea for the United States and South Korean naval and air units joint military exercises. To this, the Chinese public responds angrily, accusing Washington of needlessly escalating tensions in the region, although the government is still edging its way in the diplomatic barbs being exchanged between the two powers.

Obama administration, however, is experimenting a new, more insidious but very risky diplomatic strategy in the region, where it has for long played hegemonic power, to contain an emerging great power— Drifting from confrontation to confrontation with a rising China, as Washington is now doing. This will bring about the doomed fallout. In a not very long American history, perhaps, the only bitter lesson to the super war machine is taught by China—-which has never rewarded it with a single chance to declare a complete victory on whatever occasions.

The U.S. decision to include an aircraft carrier in the exercise is considered especially provocative, and some Chinese suspect that Washington is sending a “strong message” about American power to China as well as North Korea. And that the US carrier maneuvered to its former foe Vietnam arouses wild speculations about whether the US is bent on building up a NATO in Asian version.

Indeed, the physically existent NATO may be unlikely to come into being, but psychologically, the US is coaxing and coercing China’s neighbors to join in its galaxy. It is understandable that some SE Asian countries cannot be fully disarmed at the sight of the rise of a giant neighbor, and it is also reasonable that they take shelter from a mighty ally, in that the American preeminence in the region is not only seen by its densely scattered military bases, but its close-knit economic ties with these countries.

However, the US is by no means all-mighty. Being parasitic to or heavily reliant on the super power would inevitably deal a disastrous blow to the national interests of the involved Asian countries. On the other hand, China and its Asian neighbors, albeit intriguing against each other at times, have their respective interests overlapping and hence would go through thick and thin together. And geopolitically, China’s neighboring countries cannot afford the side effects resulted from face-off with China.

Relations between China and the United States have become decidedly testy in recent days and the US is anxious to find its proxies in the region by inciting their discontent with China and pulling them to the American side.

Like a contemptible wretch making trouble, these mean and petty actions taken by the so-called super power would fail to help it get the desired fruit—to effectively counterbalance China in Asia. What China needs to do is just to beef up its confidence in handling the frictions with its neighbors, and through this, to elevate its political credibility and authority in the region.

And to prove China offers to cooperate rather than confront.

The articles in this column represent the author’s views only. They do not necessarily represent the opinion of DarkGovernment.

Calling in Close Air Support Currently, soldiers requesting air support have to call in and request it from higher-ups, setting off a time-intensive process of permissions and clearances. DARPA wants to reduce that process to a two-party communication: the soldier on the ground requests an air strike, and a robotic A-10 Warthog above obliges.

Like renewing your driver’s license at the DMV or getting someone from the cable company out to your place, calling in close air support can be a real process for troops on the ground. A request for an air strike from a commander on the ground goes through various higher-ups, analysts, lawyers, and other commanders, slowing the response time to a crawl. That’s why DARPA is launching the Persistent Close Air Support Program (PCAS), under which the scheme is simplified: ground troops ask for a strike, and a robotic warplane brings the ruckus, no middlemen necessary.

A-10 Warthog

The weapon of choice would be an optionally manned/unmanned A-10 Warthog, those destructive and somewhat ugly slow-flying aircraft that can deploy a battery of weapons against enemies below. Fast-acting A-10s would give Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTAC) — the soldiers within units that call in air strikes — the ability to “to visualize, select and employ weapons at the time of their choosing.” DARPA thinks this will “revolutionize how a JTAC is able to request and control near-instantaneous airborne fire support.”

But wait; doesn’t this kind of air-strike-on-demand go against the military’s current strategy of limited air power and reduced civilian casualties as dictated in Af/Pak by the recently ousted General Stanley McChrystal? It absolutely does. But keep in mind this is DARPA, and it’s innovating for battles a decade down the road. The goal of PCAS is to create tools that will reduce the time lag between request for support and an actual air strike from half an hour or more to a matter of minutes.

So don’t read this as a change in policy, but rather as an initiative to remedy what DARPA sees as inefficiencies in the close air support chain. Right now, a radio communication (which may not come in completely clear) sets in motion a machine with a lot of moving parts, any one of which might make a mistake — commanders deciding the necessity and consequences of a strike, intelligence analysts examining footage of the battlefield, legal brass ensuring the strike is in line with the rules of engagement, etc.

DARPA wants to automate this process where possible and condense or remove parts of the process that slow down the close air support process. After all, we (hopefully) won’t be in Afghanistan forever, and on the battlefields of the future the ability to call in instantaneous robotic close air support could be a powerful and potentially devastating tool in America’s arsenal.

Source: Popsci

A missing Iranian nuclear scientist has taken refuge in the Pakistani embassy in Washington following claims that he had been kidnapped by the CIA.

Irans Missing Nuclear Scientist Shahram Amiri

Iran accused Saudi Arabia of handing over Shahram Amiri to the US after he went missing during a pilgrimage to Mecca a year ago. A man purporting to be Amiri subsequently appeared in a series of internet videos. In one, the man said he was studying in the US, while in another a man calling himself Amiri said he was hiding from US agents.

This morning, a spokesman for Pakistan’s ministry of foreign affairs in Islamabad said Amiri had been “dropped off” at the Iranian interests section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington at 6.30pm (11.30pm BST) last night.

“He was dropped there by someone,” said Abdul Basit. “He’s in the Iranian interests section, not in the Pakistan embassy per se. They are making arrangements to repatriate him.”

Because Iran and the US do not have diplomatic relations, Pakistan handles Iranian interests in the US.
The Iranian interests section is in a separate building, about two miles from the Pakistani embassy and is staffed by around eight Iranians. Basit said he did not know how Amiri had got there or how he would be sent back to Iran.

Separately, Iran’s state radio reported today that Amiri was taking refuge and wanted to return to Iran immediately.

Amiri, who works for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, could have valuable information on the progress of Iran’s nuclear programme.

According to some reports, he had defected to the US and was helping the CIA. The US, Britain and other western powers allege that Iran is secretly trying to build nuclear weapons, while Iran insists its nuclear development is for peaceful purposes.

Last month, CIA chief Leon Panetta said Iran had produced enough low-enriched uranium to make two nuclear weapons within two years. On 9 June the United Nations security council approved a fourth round of sanctions against Iran in an attempt to force it to comply with international demands. Iran is alleged to have received technological assistance in the past for its nuclear ambitions from renegade Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan.

Source: Guardian

If you want to call it a war that’s your right, as is my right to call it an “occupation”, not much of a war really, just a big expensive occupation.

Afghanistan has become the longest conflict in American history – surpassing even the Vietnam war.

The war entered its 104th month yesterday, with 30,000 American troops being deployed in the first half of this year alone.

The last U.S. ground combat soldiers were brought home from Vietnam after 103 months of fighting.

The Afghanistan war, launched in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, seemed to be close to resolution after three months, when every major Taliban city in the country had fallen and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was on the run.

But bin Laden evaded capture, and while America was waging war on Iraq, the Taliban regrouped and regained control in key areas of the country.