Joint Strike Fighter billion-dollar failure

This video from the USA says about itself:

F-35 JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER IS A LEMON

11 Sep 2010

Military expert WINSLOW T. WHEELER explains why the F-35 will not cut it on the modern battlefield.

By William Boardman in the USA:

Fail! The $400 Billion Military Jet That Can’t Fly in Cloudy Weather

The F-35 joint strike fighter is an unbelievable failure, and the perfect illustration of everything that’s wrong with our military industrial complex.

According to one of its supporters, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is not “what our troops need,” is “too costly” and “poorly managed,” and its “present difficulties are too numerous to detail.”

The F-35 is a case study of government failure at all levels – civilian and military, federal, state, local, even airport authority. Not one critical government agency is meeting its obligation to protect the people it presumably represents. Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who wrote the F-35 critique above, is hardly unique as an illustration of how government fails, but he sees no alternative to failure.

Up for re-election in 2014 and long a supporter of basing the F-35 in Vermont, Leahy put those thoughts in a letter to a constituent made public March 13. This is Leahy’s most recent public communication since December 2012, when he refused to meet with opponents of the F-35 and his web site listed a page of “public discussion” events mostly from the spring, including private briefings with public officials, without responding to any substantive issues.

The F-35 is a nuclear-capable weapon of mass destruction that was supposed to be the “fighter of the future” when it was undertaken in 2001. Now, more than a decade overdue and more than 100% over budget, the plane is expected to cost $1.5 trillion over its useful life, of which about $400 billion has already been spent.

100th F-35 Being Built, None Yet Operational

In January, the Lockheed Martin production facility in Fort Worth, Texas, reported it was well along “in the final phase of building the wings” of the 100th F-35 constructed by the Bethesda, Maryland, company. Of the first 99 F-35s, none are yet operational.

The F-35 isn’t even close to fully operational – it can fly only on sunny days. It can’t fly at night. And it can’t fly in clouds or near lightning. We know this because the Pentagon tells us so, in a report written for the Secretary of Defense by the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, J. Michael Gilmore, dated February 15, 2013.

Although some media hyped the report as a “leaked document,” Gilmore clearly expected the report would become public, since he included a description of its wide distribution within the government, concluding with the reminder: “By law, I must provide Congress with any test-related material it requests.”

By March 5, Gilmore’s report was on the internet and giving the Canadian government second thoughts about buying the plane at all. Of the ten other countries partnering in F-35 development, Italy has already reduced the number of plane it will eventually buy. Norway, Turkey, and others are also having second thoughts – as is even the United States. Leahy indicates in his letter that “the jet is too costly to proceed with purchases at today’s planned levels,” which are about 2,400 planes at a currently projected cost of $120 billion each, give or take $30 billion.

Gilmore’s report covers the F-35 training program at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida for two months in the fall of 2012, a program originally scheduled to begin in August 2011, but the F-35 wasn’t ready then. Even a year later, the training program “was limited by the current restrictions of the aircraft.” The program partially trained 4 pilots in 46 days.

If the Pilot Can Eject, He’ll Be Lucky Not to Drown

The report’s executive summary gives a sense of what some of the “current restrictions” of the F-35 are:

Aircraft operating limitations prohibit flying the aircraft at night or in instrument meteorological conditions, hence pilots must avoid clouds and other weather. These restrictions are in place because testing has not been completed to certify the aircraft for night and instrument flight.
The aircraft also is currently prohibited from flying close formation, aerobatics, and stalls, all of which would normally be in the familiarization phase of transition training?.
The F-35A does not yet have the capability to train in these phases, nor any actual combat capability, because it is still early in system development.
Also, little can be learned from evaluating training in a system this immature?.
The radar, the pilot’s helmet-mounted display (HMD), and the cockpit interfaces for controlling the radios and navigational functions should be improved.

The report also notes that the pilot escape system is not yet reliable, especially if a pilot were to eject over water.

Related articles

• Pentagon Report: The F-35 Won’t Stand A Chance In Aerial Combat (warnewsupdates.blogspot.com)
• Pentagon grounds entire Joint Strike Fighter fleet (stripes.com)
• Test Pilots: F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Blind Spot Will Get It ‘Gunned Every Time’ (infiniteunknown.net)
• “F-35 super stealth plane will get pilots shot down in aerial combat” new leaked report says (theaviationist.com)
• | The most expensive fighter jet ever built, by the numbers! (truthaholics.wordpress.com)
• F-35 Forced to Land in Texas After Caution Light Comes On (theepochtimes.com)
• Pentagon grounds entire F-35 Joint Strike Fighter fleet (news.cnet.com)

Afghans protest against Special Forces occupation

From Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty:

Afghanistan

Local Afghans Protest U.S. Special Forces

March 16, 2013

Several hundred residents of Afghanistan’s volatile Wardak Province are marching on the Afghan parliament building in Kabul to protest the presence of U.S. Special Forces in their area.

Police said between 200 and 500 demonstrators have gathered in the Afghan capital, chanting anti-American slogans and demanding the release of nine local citizens they say were detained by U.S. forces.

“We have gathered here to protest against the [U.S.] Special Forces in Maidan, Wardak, because they enter people’s houses and torture innocent people, they have also detained 10 people and it is not clear what will happen to them,” one protester told Reuters.

U.S. officials say only four the nine missing men were arrested in joint U.S.-Afghan raids.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai last month asked all U.S. Special Forces to leave Wardak, accusing them of murders and disappearances.

Objections to U.S. Troops Intensify in Afghanistan: here.

England: Kent foster family in fight over Afghan teenager’s deportation: here.

Related articles

• VIDEO: Hundreds protest in Afghan capital (jtn-network.com)
• Hundreds Protest in Afghan Capital (on.aol.com)
• Afghans protest US special operators in Wardak (thehindu.com)

War in Syria and the Pentagon

This video from Britain says about itself:

Amazing, inspirational, student speaker Shadia Edwards-Dashti at the Stop the War Coalition ‘Hands off Iran and Syria’ protest on January 28th 2012. In her speech, she talks of how her taxes and fees she pays are used to fund nuclear weapon programs and unjust wars, and that such money could be better spent on healthcare, education and young people. Peace.

By Bill Van Auken in the USA:

Pentagon chiefs reveal divisions over Syria

12 February 2013

Testimony by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey last week revealed that sharp tactical differences had emerged within the Obama administration over what role US arms should play in prosecuting Washington’s strategy for regime-change in Syria.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee February 7, Panetta and Dempsey were asked by Senator John McCain (Republican of Arizona) whether they had backed a proposal developed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-CIA Director David Petraeus “that we provide weapons to the resistance in Syria.”

Both answered in the affirmative, prompting McCain, who has long advocated a more direct US intervention in Syria’s sectarian civil war, to charge that President Barack Obama had “overruled the senior leaders of his own national security team.”

Both Panetta and Dempsey subsequently added that, in the end, they agreed with Obama’s decision to reject the proposal.

The exchange came as a brief aside in a hearing called to probe the Pentagon’s response to the attack on the US consulate and a secret CIA facility in Benghazi, Libya in September of last year. In the run-up to November’s presidential election and since, Republicans have sought to turn the Benghazi incident, which claimed the lives of the US ambassador and three other Americans, into a major political issue. They have presented it as proof that the Obama administration is “soft on terrorism” and charged that the White House deliberately sought to mislead the public as to the nature of the assault.

It is significant that in all of the media coverage of the McCain-Panetta exchange and the commentary on the apparent split on Syria, there has been no examination of the direct relationship between the Benghazi incident and US policy on arming the Syrian “rebels.” This is, in large part, because the Benghazi attack exposed the fraud of Washington’s so-called “war on terror” against Al Qaeda and related forces.

The fatal attacks on the US facilities in Benghazi were carried out by Al Qaeda-linked Islamist militia elements, who, in their ideology and origins, are analogous to the main fighting forces backed and armed by Washington and its allies in the war to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

The death of the four Americans was a case of “blowback” from the US-NATO war in Libya, in which Washington and its allies used air power and the arming and training of these same Islamist forces to bring down the government of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Moreover, there is substantial reason to suspect that the secret CIA facility had a hand in the transfer of armaments from the Libyan port of Benghazi to Turkey, where another secret CIA operational headquarters was established to coordinate the supply of arms to Syrian opposition forces, principally paid for by Washington’s allies in the region—the Sunni monarchies in Qatar and Saudi Arabia and the Turkish government.

That the events in Benghazi would give pause to any administration plan to participate more directly in the arming of the anti-Assad militias in Syria is self-evident.

On Sunday, General Dempsey repeated that he had been in favor of arming the Syrian anti-regime forces, but asserted that this policy was never part of a specific plan. He said it was merely presented in a “menu of options.”

“Conceptually, I thought if there were a way to resolve the military situation more quickly it would work to the benefit not only of the Syrian people, but also us,” Dempsey told reporters accompanying him on a flight from Afghanistan, where he attended a change-of-command ceremony for NATO-led forces. He indicated his concern that Syria would evolve into a “failed state,” and said the purpose of sending in US arms would be to hasten the fall of Assad, while allowing the preservation of Syria’s state apparatus and security forces.

The problem, he suggested, was finding so-called “rebels” that the US could publicly back. “We still have a challenge identifying who among the opposition, if they achieved a position of dominance, would commit themselves to the longer-term objectives of establishing a representative government, an end to violence, preservation of the institutions so that Syria doesn’t become a failed state,” he said.

While most advocates of a more direct US role in arming the Syrian opposition have called for Washington to aid “secular” and “democratic” rebels, none of them have ever named the forces they have in mind. The principal fighting force of the so-called Syrian “revolution” is organized around Jabhat al-Nusra, an Islamist formation tied to Al Qaeda whose ranks have been swelled by thousands of foreign jihadis who have been funneled into Syria. Al Nusra is the best armed and best funded of the militias.

Despite stating that Washington needed “a much clearer understanding of the environment in Syria” before escalating its current intervention, Dempsey added, “No one has taken any option off the table in any conversation in which I have been involved.”

According to the Washington Post, a CIA “red team” concluded that the Syrian insurgents already possessed sufficient light weaponry and that more of it would not have “tipped the scales.” It added that provision of shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles was ruled out from the start.

“We wouldn’t even consider it, because God forbid they would be used against an Israeli aircraft,” one official told the Post. Israel’s unchallenged control of the air is decisive in its ability to wage one-sided wars against the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well to attack southern Lebanon.

This view was echoed last Friday by White House press spokesman Jay Carney. “We don’t want any weapons to fall into the wrong hands,” he said, “and potentially further endanger the Syrian people, our ally Israel or the United States.”

Officially, Washington has provided $355 million in “humanitarian aid and supplies.” This so-called “non-lethal” assistance has included military communications equipment and intelligence that have facilitated military attacks by the “rebels.”

In a statement Monday, Russia’s UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, dismissed Washington’s claim that it was involved solely in “non-lethal” aid. “The US is an extremely powerful state that enjoys enormous authority in such countries as Qatar, the chief arms supplier of the Syrian opposition,” said Churkin. “If the US wants to remain consistent with its policy, it should restrain those countries from providing Syrian rebels with deadly weapons.”

The Wall Street Journal published an editorial Monday denouncing Obama for rejecting the proposal to more directly arm the Syrian “rebels.” The newspaper stressed that the main purpose of a more direct US intervention is to strike at Iran.

…

There have been increasing calls for Washington to directly organize a “third force,” opposed to the dominant Islamist factions, to serve as a proxy army to fight the Assad regime. “Putting US special forces on the ground with mainstream rebels in Syria, and giving them the weaponry and training to take a lead in the fighting, would help shorten the conflict, provide the US with eyes and intelligence, and ensure that Syrians don’t see Al Qaeda radicals as the only people who came to help in their time of need,” Bloomberg News commented.

Similarly, the Washington Post’s foreign affairs columnist, David Ignatius, wrote, “… the most effective step the United States could take would be to train hundreds of elite commando forces, which would be well-armed and have the strong command-and-control that has generally been lacking in the Free Syrian Army. These disciplined paramilitary forces, like groups the CIA has trained in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan, could shift the balance on the ground.”

Evidently, while Washington appears content for the moment to fuel the sectarian civil war that is destroying Syria, plans for far more direct intervention are under active consideration.

Related articles

• Pentagon supported plan to arm Syrian rebels (guardian.co.uk)
• Pentagon backed plan for U.S. to arm Syrian rebels (Reuters) (newsdaily.com)
• Arm Syrian Rebels: CIA, Pentagon And Hillary Said Yes; Obama Just Said No (zerohedge.com)
• Obama’s hidden nonplan to arm rebels in Syria (csmonitor.com)

Africa invaded, terrorism or profits?

This video from the USA is called STOP AFRICOM!

By John Pilger:

The real invasion of Africa is not news and a licence to lie is Hollywood’s gift

31 January 2013

A full-scale invasion of Africa is under way. The United States is deploying troops in 35 African countries, beginning with Libya, Sudan, Algeria and Niger. Reported by Associated Press on Christmas Day, this was missing from most Anglo-American media.

The invasion has almost nothing to do with “Islamism“, and almost everything to do with the acquisition of resources, notably minerals, and an accelerating rivalry with China. Unlike China, the US and its allies are prepared to use a degree of violence demonstrated in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Palestine. As in the cold war, a division of labour requires that western journalism and popular culture provide the cover of a holy war against a “menacing arc” of Islamic extremism, no different from the bogus “red menace” of a worldwide communist conspiracy.

Reminiscent of the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century, the US African Command (Africom) has built a network of supplicants among collaborative African regimes eager for American bribes and armaments. Last year, Africom staged Operation African Endeavor, with the armed forces of 34 African nations taking part, commanded by the US military. Africom’s “soldier to soldier” doctrine embeds US officers at every level of command from general to warrant officer. Only pith helmets are missing.

It is as if Africa’s proud history of liberation, from Patrice Lumumba to Nelson Mandela, is consigned to oblivion by a new master’s black colonial elite whose “historic mission”, warned Frantz Fanon half a century ago, is the promotion of “a capitalism rampant though camouflaged”.

A striking example is the eastern Congo, a treasure trove of strategic minerals, controlled by an atrocious rebel group known as the M23, which in turn is run by Uganda and Rwanda, the proxies of Washington.

Long planned as a “mission” for Nato, not to mention the ever-zealous French, whose colonial lost causes remain on permanent standby, the war on Africa became urgent in 2011 when the Arab world appeared to be liberating itself from the Mubaraks and other clients of Washington and Europe. The hysteria this caused in imperial capitals cannot be exaggerated. Nato bombers were dispatched not to Tunis or Cairo but Libya, where Muammar Gaddafi ruled over Africa’s largest oil reserves. With the Libyan city of Sirte reduced to rubble, the British SAS directed the “rebel” militias in what has since been exposed as a racist bloodbath.

The indigenous people of the Sahara, the Tuareg, whose Berber fighters Gaddafi had protected, fled home across Algeria to Mali, where the Tuareg have been claiming a separate state since the 1960s. As the ever watchful Patrick Cockburn points out, it is this local dispute, not al-Qaida, that the West fears most in northwest Africa… “poor though the Tuareg may be, they are often living on top of great reserves of oil, gas, uranium and other valuable minerals”.

Almost certainly the consequence of a French/US attack on Mali on 13 January, a siege at a gas complex in Algeria ended bloodily, inspiring a 9/11 moment in David Cameron. The former Carlton TV PR man raged about a “global threat” requiring “decades” of western violence. He meant implantation of the west’s business plan for Africa, together with the rape of multi-ethnic Syria and the conquest of independent Iran.

Cameron has now ordered British troops to Mali, and sent an RAF drone, while his verbose military chief, General Sir David Richards, has addressed “a very clear message to jihadists worldwide: don’t dangle and tangle with us. We will deal with it robustly” – exactly what jihadists want to hear. The trail of blood of British army terror victims, all Muslims, their “systemic” torture cases currently heading to court, add necessary irony to the general’s words. I once experienced Sir David’s “robust” ways when I asked him if he had read the courageous Afghan feminist Malalai Joya‘s description of the barbaric behaviour of westerners and their clients in her country. “You are an apologist for the Taliban” was his reply. (He later apologised).

These bleak comedians are straight out of Evelyn Waugh and allow us to feel the bracing breeze of history and hypocrisy. The “Islamic terrorism” that is their excuse for the enduring theft of Africa’s riches was all but invented by them. There is no longer any excuse to swallow the BBC/CNN line and not know the truth. Read Mark Curtis’s Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam (Serpent’s Tail) or John Cooley’s Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism (Pluto Press) or The Grand Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski (HarperCollins) who was midwife to the birth of modern fundamentalist terror. In effect, the mujahedin of al-Qaida and the Taliban were created by the CIA, its Pakistani equivalent, the Inter-Services Intelligence, and Britain’s MI6.

Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser, describes a secret presidential directive in 1979 that began what became the current “war on terror”. For 17 years, the US deliberately cultivated, bank-rolled, armed and brainwashed jihadi extremists that “steeped a generation in violence”. Code-named Operation Cyclone, this was the “great game” to bring down the Soviet Union but brought down the Twin Towers.

Since then, the news that intelligent, educated people both dispense and ingest has become a kind of Disney journalism, fortified, as ever, by Hollywood’s licence to lie, and lie. There is the coming Dreamworks movie on WikiLeaks, a fabrication inspired by a book of perfidious title-tattle by two enriched Guardian journalists; and there is Zero Dark Thirty, which promotes torture and murder, directed by the Oscar-winning Kathryn Bigelow, the Leni Riefenstahl of our time, promoting her master’s voice as did the Fuhrer’s pet film-maker. Such is the one-way mirror through which we barely glimpse what power does in our name.

Related articles

• America Invades Africa: The Resource War and the Conquest of Mali (globalresearch.ca)
• Gilbert Mercier on Progressive Radio Network: Mali May Become Africa’s Afghanistan (newsjunkiepost.com)
• EU prepares support to border management in Libya (appablog.wordpress.com)
• US Plans Base for Drones Near Mali (news.antiwar.com)

10 years after Iraq invasion, activists honoured

From the the BRussells Tribunal in Belgium:

Press release: BRussells Awards for Resistance and Solidarity

by BT on 26-01-2013

In the frame of the upcoming 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the BRussells Tribunal decided to organize a prize: The BRussells Awards for Resistance and Solidarity

Uday Al Zaidi – Ayse Berktay

                                                                                        

The BRussells Tribunal started as the opening session of the World Tribunal on Iraq, a people’s court in the tradition of the Russell Tribunal on Vietnam. It has become a peace organisation and a network of academics and activists that since 10 years protests against the illegality of the invasion, the crimes of the occupying forces and the US installed regime. The BRussells Awards for Resistance and Solidarity consist of two categories: a Prize for International Solidarity, the defence of justice and international law, to be handed out to an international activist and a Prize for the Defense of Human Rights: the Resistance Award, to be handed out to an Iraqi activist. The ceremony of the handing over of the awards will be held on March 19th in Kaaitheater, a prestigious cultural venue in Brussels, and on March 20^th in Ghent, in the “Expeditie”. The BRussells Awards for Resistance and Solidarity are supported by several NGO’s and cultural institutions. After cautious deliberation the BRussells Tribunal has decided to publicize the name of the winners.

1.THE RESISTANCE AWARD

Muntadher Al Zaidi, while throwing his shoes at Bush and Maliki, and Uday Al Zaidi

The Award for Resistance goes to Uday Al Zaidi. He is the brother of Munthader Al Zaidi and the president of The Popular Movement to Save Iraq. He is one of the organizers of the protests against the occupation that have been taken place since January 2011 in almost all of the 18 provinces in Iraq. On 31 December 2011, the Popular Movement to Save Iraq, released a statement that called for a new front “to resist the second face of the occupation.” It goes: “The youth will remain in the streets calling for the departure of every last American soldier, under whatever terms or form that the occupation government might adopt.” The statement further called on the Iraqi people “to prepare to open up a new front to resist the second face of the occupation represented by its sectarian government and its divisive constitution…”

Uday Al Zaidi, he himself a Shia, insists on the non-sectarian character of the protests. And therefore he represents the will of the Iraqi people to unite in order to regain its full sovereignty. That is why the BRussells Tribunal decided to give its Award for Resistance to him, as a representative of the Iraqi people in resistance against 10 years of inhuman and illegal occupation. The massive protests, which started after the invasion in 2003 and expanded with the Arab spring, are reaching a climax now. People have already coined it ‘Tawhra’, the Iraqi revolution.

On 25 January 2013 Uday Al-Zaidi and several of his colleagues were arrested in Basra. They had been there for the past 10 days to organise demonstrations and they would attend the big Friday 25th demonstration. Uday has been released, but his arrested friends seem to have disappeared. The BRussells Tribunal and the other organizations of the International Anti-Occupation Network (IAON) are seriously alarmed by this information and very concerned for their safety and wellbeing, given the horrendous situation in the Iraqi prisons, where torture, rape and assassinations are endemic.

We demand their immediate release.

2.THE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY AWARD

The Award for International Solidarity goes to Ayse Berktay Hacimĭrzaoğlu, translator and political activist. Ayse Berktay was one of the co-founders of the World Tribunal on Iraq, the first serious attempt to condemn the illegality and the illegitimacy of the invasion. She was there from the first hour and was one of the main organizers of the culminating session of the World Tribunal in Istanbul, held in the Topkapi Palace in June 2005. Without Ayse Berktay, this worldwide action, with 24 sessions all over the planet, might never have come into existence, or at least not in the same way. She incarnated so to speak the World Tribunal on Iraq.

In October 2011 Ayse was arrested in Turkey and has been held in pre-trial detention ever since on charges of terrorism because of her solidarity with the Kurdish people. She was apprehended in the frame of the so-called KCK operations, in which already some 10.000 people have been arrested. Her activities and multiple international travels for the World Tribunal on Iraq are cited in the indictment as proof of her allegedly illegal activities. With this award we want to protest this Kafkaesque accusation. We request a fair trial, for her and the thousands of Kurdish people in jail. We demand her immediate release, following the examples of Professor Busra Ersanli’s and Ragip Zarakolu’s release from prison during the course of the KCK trials. We hope that Ayse Berktay will be able to come to Brussels in March and collect the award in person.

MORE INFORMATION

About Uday Al-Zaidi

An appeal by Uday Al Zaidi to the people in Southern Iraq

About Ayse Berktay

Letter From Istanbul Bakirkoy Women’s Prison

summary and proposals

lawyers statement

contact: brussellsprize@brussellstribunal.org   Lieven De Cauter: + 32 477 617 420

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United States navy damages Philippines coral reef

This video is called Tubbataha Reef Philippines: Whale Shark, Tiger Shark, Whitetip Shark, Eagle Ray, Turtle!

From Wildlife Extra:

US Navy in deep water after ship hits World Heritage reef in Philippines

USS Guardian runs aground on Tubbataha Reef

January 2013. The Philippines authorities will fine the US Navy heavily after a minesweeper, USS Guardian, ran aground on a reef in a World Heritage site, Tubbatha Reef, which is rated in the top 10 dive sites in the world.

The Tubbataha Protected Area Management Board (TPAMB) has announced that it will fine the US navy for several violations of its rules, including damaging the reef. Their statement reads:

“TPAMB has a mandate to protect, preserve and promote the resources of Tubbataha Reef. In order to fulfill that mandate and uphold the rule of law, it is the TPAMB’s intention to serve the US Navy with a formal notice listing violations of the above law in the grounding incident of January 17 involving the USS Guardian.

We will ask them to take responsibility, and immediately pay the fines that can be estimated at this time.

The violations that are evident at this time, include the following:

Section 19- UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY
Section 21 – NON-PAYMENT OF CONSERVATION FEE
Section 30 – OBSTRUCTION OF LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER
Section 20 – DAMAGES TO THE REEF
Section 26G – DESTROYING RESOURCES

Subsequent to ship retrieval / and the assessment of Park damage, the TPAMB intends to serve a second formal notice of violation to the US Navy, that will quantify the estimate of destruction and the fines that must be paid.”

From INQUIRER.net in the Philippines:

With around 1,000 square meters of corals already severely damaged by the stranded United States (US) Navy Ship in Tubbataha Reef, authorities are planning to use a crane to lift the ship instead of dragging it so as to avoid further damages.

Researchers discover how new corals species form in the ocean: here.

Scientists Use Antacid To Help Measure The Rate Of Reef Growth: here.

Related articles

• You: U.S. ship stuck in reef off Philippines (edition.cnn.com)
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• US Navy ship stuck in Tubbataha: Why there? (globalnation.inquirer.net)
• US Navy fined for ‘illegal entry’ at Philippines coral reef (sachemspeaks.wordpress.com)
• US Navy faces fines for ship stranded in Tubbataha (rappler.com)
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United States wars, new film

This video from the USA says about itself:

Jan 22, 2013

DemocracyNow.org – Premiering this week at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, the new documentary, “Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield,” follows investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill to Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen as he chases down the hidden truths behind America’s expanding covert wars. We’re joined by Scahill and the film’s director, Rick Rowley, an independent journalist with Big Noise Films.

“We’re looking right now at a reality that President Obama has essentially extended the very policies that many of his supporters once opposed under President Bush,” says Scahill, author of the bestseller “Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army,” and a forthcoming book named after his film.

“One of the things that humbles both of us is [when] you arrive at a village in Afghanistan and knock on someone’s door, you’re the first American they’ve seen since the Americans that kicked that door in and killed half their family,” Rowley says. “We promised them that we would do everything we could to make their stories be heard in the U.S. — finally, we’re able to keep those promises.”

Watch this interview uninterrupted: http://www.democracynow.org/2013/1/22/dirty_wars_jeremy_scahill_and_rick

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French, US wars in Africa

This video from the USA says about itself:

Jan 15, 2013

DemocracyNow.org – France is in its fifth day of an offensive to oust rebels that have held much of Mali‘s northern region since March — an area larger than Afghanistan. The strikes have reportedly killed 11 civilians, including three children fleeing the bombardment of a camp near the central town of Konna. The United Nations estimates as many as 30,000 may have been displaced since fighting began last week. The United States has backed the offensive by helping transport French troops and making plans to send drones or other surveillance aircraft. It is aiding a fight against Malian forces that it once helped train, only to see them defect and join the Islamist rebellion.

And here is video #2 of that.

By Chris Marsden:

2013 and the new Scramble for Africa

17 January 2013

France’s military aggression in Mali is only the latest expression of a renewed Scramble for Africa being undertaken by all of the continent’s former imperialist overlords. This involves not only those powers that directly ruled Africa from the late nineteenth century through to the 1960s, such as France and Britain, but above all the United States.

Paris has never fully abandoned its imperial designs on Africa, as its recent record in Rwanda and Libya demonstrates all too brutally. It still has 9,000 troops stationed in the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Gabon, Central African Republic, Chad and Djibouti. Its return to Mali is not about combating Al Qaeda and Islamist fundamentalism, but rather a means of staking its claim to the country’s uranium, gold and untapped oil deposits and those of the West African region and throughout a landmass recently proclaimed by President Francois Hollande as “the continent of the future.”

It is as yet unclear whether the US will go beyond providing aerial support to France in Mali. But if it does not, it is only because it does not want to help a rival predatory power. 2013 opens amid a whole number of military operations being waged by Washington in a continent upon which America now depends for fully a quarter of the oil and raw materials it consumes—including oil, gold, diamonds, copper, iron and big money crops such as cocoa.

Africa is in play as far as Washington and all other major powers are concerned. US aims in Africa centre on securing hegemony over the entire continent, a conflict in which its chief rival is now China.

China has surpassed the US as Africa’s largest trading partner with trade of US$90 billion in 2009, compared with $86 billion for the US and foreign direct investments of over $50 billion. Bilateral trade topped $160 billion in 2011 and is expected to reach $200 billion this year. In addition, China has proposed or committed about $101 billion to commercial projects in Africa since 2010, of which construction and natural resource deals total approximately $90 billion.

Unable to compete economically with Beijing, Washington is once again turning to militarism to secure its advantage. As Mali demonstrates, the ruinous war against Libya in 2011 should be seen as a pointer for the future.

So many of the region’s wars that have claimed the lives of millions are rooted in conflicts over strategic resources in which the rival imperialist powers invariably play their part more or less openly—in the Democratic Republic of Congo, North and South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Somalia, Mali itself—the list is long.

The US for its part is presently undertaking numerous military operations in Africa, including in the Somali Basin region, Cameroon, the Gulf of Guinea, Botswana, Senegal, South Africa, Morocco, Ghana, Tunisia, Nigeria and Liberia. It has funded and trained the troops for the African Union Mission protecting the Somali government, and its forces play the central role in patrolling the strategic waters off the Horn of Africa. In addition, AFRICOM’s director of public affairs, Colonel Tom Davis boasted, “We also conduct some type of military training or military-to-military engagement or activity with nearly every country on the African continent.”

This year the US is to station a brigade of at least 3,000 troops permanently in Africa. They will join at least 2,000 and possibly 5,000 already stationed there on a less formal and sometimes clandestine basis. America is scheduled to hold more than 100 military exercises in 35 countries. It will also begin to operate its own rapid reaction force, with US Africa Command (AFRICOM) head Gen. Carter Ham declaring that America would no longer rely on “a sharing arrangement with what’s called the Commander’s in-Extremis Force with European Command… now we have our own.”

“The absolute imperative for the United States military [is] to protect America, Americans, and American interests,” Ham proclaimed.

The number of troops is relatively small, but many are involved in the primary function of training and equipping African militaries to be used as proxy US forces. Indeed all of imperialism’s schemes for the plunder of Africa ultimately depend on the role played by the African bourgeoisie.

The governments and corporations based in Washington, Paris, London and Beijing rely upon the myriad corrupt local regimes and movements to man their predatory wars and to police the brutal exploitation of the workers and poor peasants.

Despite Africa’s recent economic growth, little if any benefit has flowed to the workers and poor. It remains a continent where 60 percent of its people live on less than $2 a day. The middle class is defined, without apparent irony, as having between $2 and $20 to spend a day and most of these in fact have only between $2 to $4. Meanwhile, African nations remain at the bottom of any measure of economic activity, with 34 of the 50 nations on the UN list of least developed countries, and at the top of any list measuring inequality and poverty.

Only the corrupt ruling elite has been enriched because it shares in the spoils that accrue primarily to the imperialist powers. Under such conditions, a social explosion is inevitable.

Any movement of the workers and oppressed masses must therefore inevitably be directed against a ruling class that function as the policemen of grotesque social inequality and the chief advocates of nationalism, ethnic, religious and tribal antagonisms that invariably end in fratricidal slaughter.

Related articles

• French, British neocolonialism in Mali (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• US, French soldiers invade Central African Republic (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Mali and the Scramble for Africa (dissidentvoice.org)
• Mali and the Geo-Politics of Africa (antiwar.com)
• A New Wave of Barbarism (counterpunch.org)
• Mali: the scramble for Africa (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• French Troops Besiege Mali Village (mysanantonio.com)

More US military and veteran suicides

This video from the USA is called MSM: Ignores Veteran Suicides.

By Bryan Dyne in the USA:

Record number of US military and veteran suicides

16 January 2013

On average, a US military veteran commits suicide every 80 minutes, according to recent estimates from the Veterans Affairs (VA) Department. At the same time, suicides by active soldiers increased 15 percent in 2012, to a new record.

According to these figures, more soldiers and veterans take their own lives every year than have been killed in action throughout the last twelve years of Afghanistan and the last ten years of Iraq combined.

The figures on suicide numbers the VA uses are drawn from the National Violent Death Reporting System run by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Suicides among veterans account for about one-sixth of all suicides annually.

The department also reports that there are 950 suicide attempts per month among veterans being cared for by the Veterans Health Administration. About 150 of the attempts are successful, meaning that seven percent of military suicides occur while the veteran is being cared for by the VHA.

Thirty-three percent of recent veteran suicides are by those with a history of previous attempts.

These figures are far higher than the rate of active service member suicide, which is slightly less than one a day, amounting to 349 suicides of active duty personnel in 2012. This figure, however, is a new record. Recent data from the Army shows that soldiers deployed are more likely to commit suicide. This is a reversal from previous wars, in which those deployed were shown to be less likely to commit suicide.

The high suicide rates are a direct product of the neo-colonial wars being waged by US imperialism.

The Center for a New American Security reports the impact of military training on soldiers. It reports that “the very experience of being in the military and the violence and aggression that go along with it reduces the fear of death inherent in human beings.”

This report also detailed drug and alcohol use among veterans. Approximately 14 percent of those in the Army take a prescribed opiate. Between 2005-2010, 29 percent of the Army suicides included drugs or alcohol.

An indicator of the impact of the most recent US wars on the suicide rate among veterans is the fact that former soldiers aged 17-24 are four times more likely than civilian youth to commit suicide.

The social conditions facing many veterans are another key component of the suicide rate. The VA reported that through the end of September 2012, 26,531 veterans were living on the street, at risk of losing their homes, staying in temporary housing or receiving federal vouchers to pay rent. This is more than double the number in 2010.

Moreover, 1.5 million veterans are at risk of homelessness. During the past year, only about 22,000 of these veterans were helped by the VA.

Young veterans are also more likely to be unemployed. Unpublished 2011 US Bureau of Labor Statistics data uncovered by the Center for American progress recorded that 30.2 percent of veterans age 18 to 24 were unemployed.

Poor social conditions have exacerbated the mental health conditions facing veterans. Since 2000, more than 936,000 veterans have been diagnosed with at least one mental health problem. The VA admits this number is likely much higher, with many veterans not seeking assistance dealing with the issues that arise from being deployed, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder. The VA’s suicide hotline receives on average 10,000 calls a month.

As many veterans face dismal job and housing prospects, they are unable to provide any medical treatment for themselves, relying solely on the VA. This has swamped the agency as it attempts to cope with cases it receives even as its funding is being threatened. More than one million veterans await VA disability claims.

The callousness of the US ruling elite towards soldiers was evident in the recent US Supreme Court decision to refuse to hear a lawsuit that would force the VA to adequately care for those suffering from PTSD. (See, “US Supreme Court refuses to hear lawsuit on suicide crisis facing war veterans”).

In its pursuit of endless war abroad and one neocolonial invasion after the next, the American ruling class treats the majority of soldiers called on to carry out these operations as so much cannon fodder.

By Louise Boyle:

‘I’m sorry… I am happier now’: Suicide note of decorated marine, 24, who killed himself in his childhood bedroom after battling PTSD

Lance-corporal Janos Victor Lutz died on January 12 in Davie, Florida

His mother said: ‘He was a casualty of war, stateside’

Marine is latest U.S. serviceman to take his own life – 349 troops committed suicide in 2012

16 January 2013

A veteran marine committed suicide on Saturday as he struggled to cope with post-traumatic stress disorder following tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lance-corporal Janos Victor Lutz, a decorated machine gunner known as Johnny, took an overdose in his childhood bedroom on January 12.

The 24-year-old killed himself in Davie, Florida just hours after discussing his studies at Palm Beach State College over lunch with his mother.

Related articles

• US Military suicides continue to climb, reaching record in 2012 (rt.com)
• 18% More U.S. Troops Committed Suicide Than Died in Combat Last Year (theatlanticwire.com)
• Army psychologist critical of military rights abuses commits suicide (examiner.com)

Abu Ghraib torture by mercenary corporations

This video says about itself:

SBS Dateline documentary about the Abu Ghraib prison and torture. This is the information/video the US government does not want you to see.

From the BBC:

9 January 2013 Last updated at 02:57 GMT

Ex-Abu Ghraib inmates get $5m settlement from US firm

A defence contractor whose subsidiary was accused of conspiring to torture Abu Ghraib prisoners has settled with former inmates for $5m (£3m).

US firm Engility Holdings paid 71 people held at Abu Ghraib, Baghdad, and other US-run prisons, on behalf of L-3 Services, according to a legal filing found by the Associated Press.

L-3 provided translators to the US military in post-war Iraq.

Images of abuse at Abu Ghraib in 2004 sparked international outage.

Another contractor which provided interrogators to the US military, CACI, is expected to go to trial over similar allegations.

The US government is immune from lawsuits stemming from combat actions by the military in time of war, but courts are still establishing whether independent firms operating in war zones should have the same legal immunity.

The Engility settlement marks the first successful effort by lawyers for former Iraqi prisoners against defence contractors in lawsuits alleging torture.

A lawyer for the ex-detainees, Baher Azmy told the BBC’s Newsday programme that each of the 71 Iraqis received a portion of the settlement for suffering “a vast and grim arsenal of torture and abuse”.

He did not say how the money was distributed, and said there was an agreement to keep details of the settlement confidential.

Mr Azmy, legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said that although some soldiers were court-martialled for their role in abuses at Abu Ghraib, the US Army had not sought to prosecute private contractors.

“This litigation attempts to close that gap in accountability and hold corporations – who, by the way, made millions and millions of dollars from US government work in Iraq – accountable, and give back some of those extravagant profits to individuals they harmed,” said Mr Azmy.

Engility Holdings said it did not comment on legal matters.

Abu Ghraib came to world attention after the release in 2004 of photographs showing the physical, sexual and psychological abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US guards.

The images showed prisoners facing dogs, being stripped naked and wired up as if being subjected to electric shocks and became a turning point of the Iraq war.

Eleven soldiers were convicted of breaking military laws, but many received sentences of a just a few years. The last remaining soldier in prison convicted in the case was released in August 2011.

Related articles

• Iraqis awarded $5m over Abu Ghraib abuse (aljazeera.com)
• U.S. defense contractor pays Iraqis $5mn over Abu Ghraib abuse (dailystar.com.lb)
• U.S. contractor pays more than $5-million for alleged torture at Abu Ghraib (theglobeandmail.com)