tagged w/ Military
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Defense contractor ITT Exelis has decided to move forward with the controversial outsourcing of American EMT and Fire Fighter jobs on U.S. military bases in Kuwait. The rescuers, many of whom are American military veterans and some of whom served as rescuers at Ground Zero on 9/11 and in the gulf south states during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, will be replaced with what many believe are under-trained and inexperienced EMTs and Fire Fighters from the Philippines.
ITT Exelis won the $1.4 billion Kuwait Base Operations and Security Support Services contract in late 2010 to "provide the full spectrum of logistics, security, transportation, life support and facilities services at Camp Arifjan, Camp Buehring, Camp Virginia and a number of other critical military installations in the Kuwait area of responsibility," according to an October 6, 2010 press release by the company.
Arguably one of the larger players in the defense contracting world, ITT is no stranger to controversy. In 2007, the multinational corporation was fined $100 million for criminal violations of the Arms Export Control Act for sending classified material to Britain, Singapore and China. The company also has connections to the 1964 coup in Brazil, the 1973 Pinochet coup in Chile and the Nazi Party in World War II, where the company owned 25% of the German aircraft manufacturer Focke-Wulf and is believed to have made payments to SS leader Heinrich Himmler, through a subsidiary.
As the new Filippno EMTs and Fire Fighters begin to replace the American emergency workers, a growning concern for quality of medical care and safety has been voiced. Many of the Filippino EMTs and Fire Fighters have never driven emergency vehicles before arriving in Kuwait.
The roadways of Kuwait rank high among the deadliest in the world according to the World Health Organization and other agencies. Because the EMTs and Fire Fighters working under the KBOSSS contract routinely respond to emergency calls and transport patients on Kuwait's roadways, many on the ground in Kuwait fear that the inexperience of the Filipino workers will ultimately lead to the death of American military service members.
Emails to ITT Exelis for comment were not returned.Defense contractor ITT Exelis has decided to move forward with the controversial... more
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Doug Hagmann said high-level, reliable sources told him the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is preparing for “massive civil war” in America... “We have problems... The federal government is preparing for civil uprising,” he added, “so every time you hear about troop movements, every time you hear about movements of military equipment, the militarization of the police, the buying of the ammunition, all of this is... they (DHS) are preparing for a massive uprising.” http://www.beaconequity.com/we-are-preparing-for-massive-civil-war-says-dhs-informant-2012-05-03/Doug Hagmann said high-level, reliable sources told him the U.S. Department of... more
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By Eric W. Dolan
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 21:48 EDT
Gil Paar, a veteran living in Racine, Wisconsin, said he upset to learn on election day that he couldn’t use his Veteran Identification Card to vote.
In a video produced by the United Steelworkers, Paar explained that when he tried to vote in a school board election, he was told that his Veteran ID card was not an acceptable form of identification.
“I can use it anywhere in the United States at a V.A. hospital,” he said. “It is good enough for everything else, but it amazes me that it is not good enough to use as identification to vote. It pissed me off.”
He noted that if a veteran had a stroke, the state would take away his or her drivers license. Their only other form of identification would likely be a Veteran ID card.
Wisconsin’s voter ID law was passed by the Republican-led state legislature last year and requires voters to present a state-issued photo ID when they cast ballots in federal, state and local elections. Other photo IDs, such as college ID cards and veteran ID cards, cannot be used.
The law was blocked last month by two separate state appeals courts in Dane County, who ruled the law was unconstitutional because it abridged the right to vote.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/25/wisconsin-veteran-pissed-off-that-he-couldnt-vote-with-veteran-id-card/
Watch video, uploaded to YouTube on April 23...
"I am soo Ashamed at this Country, especially the elected officials in Wisconsin, for crying out loud, what a Shame!!!"By Eric W. Dolan
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 21:48 EDT
Gil Paar, a veteran living in... more
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KB723
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An United States advanced militairy drone, spying above Iran territory in no-fly zone, was captured by Iran on the date of December 4th 2011. The drone was not crashed, not shot out of the air, but safely captured by an Iranian aircraft, based on Keshe technology. Obama asked polite to get their drone back. Mehran Tavakoli Keshe, an Iranian scientist and engineer, claims that an Iranian flying saucer technology he developed was used to capture the Sentinel drone about which the mainstream media has been reporting. Does Iran have a space program more advanced than NASA's? http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/your-details/43060-was-us-spy-drone-captured-by-iranian-flying-saucerAn United States advanced militairy drone, spying above Iran territory in no-fly zone,... more
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worrg
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Next time we are asked to head across the world to steal oil, sell drugs and murder children, we might just head the other direction... Memorial Day is a time to remind people that doing as you are told makes you a slave, not a free man. http://www.veteranstoday.com/2012/05/27/memorial-day-time-to-ask-why/Next time we are asked to head across the world to steal oil, sell drugs and murder... more
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The loss of life, limb, mind and more from our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq alone has been staggering. “We don’t do body counts,” General Tommy Franks, the retired general who led the invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, famously remarked when asked about Iraqi civilian casualties. But we do do body counts of our own fallen. Groups like Veterans for Common Sense and projects like the Washington Post‘s Faces of the Fallen regularly publicize Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs data of U.S. troop casualties while projects like Iraq Body Count helps ensure that civilians killed in U.S.-lead wars get counted. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/28/5-facts-about-the-fallen-to-remember-on-memorial-day/The loss of life, limb, mind and more from our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq alone has... more
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Decreasing in proportion to the rise in military spending are our civil liberties; our representative government; the balance of powers within the government; resistance to policies of warrantless spying, imprisonment without charge, torture, and assassination; and the health of our news media. The war machine has become the greatest destroyer of the natural environment we have. And the shifting of funding from all other areas to the military has had disastrous results in as many fields as we might choose to name. http://warisacrime.org/content/lies-and-consequences-our-past-15-warsDecreasing in proportion to the rise in military spending are our civil liberties; our... more
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Peter Dale Scott - former diplomat, poet and prominent anti-war advocate. He says that the US corporate superstructure conglomerate - including financial interests, the defense industry, oil companies and the media - brazenly manipulate American society. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mG-boskjI74Peter Dale Scott - former diplomat, poet and prominent anti-war advocate. He says that... more
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By exposing lies and misinformation, WikiLeaks has become a threat to US propaganda, and the US has been doing its damnedest to neutralise it. US attorney general Eric Holder is on record as saying that the release of sensitive diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks had put the US and its citizens at risk. He subsequently authorised a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange. Many officials in the US regard Assange as a criminal, even a terrorist, who indeed should be put on trial. http://www.countercurrents.org/todhunter280512.htmBy exposing lies and misinformation, WikiLeaks has become a threat to US propaganda,... more
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The American imperial power, like the Roman empire, is presented as not only benevolent, but also promoter and protector of peace and freedom in the world. The US claims that as God’s chosen country promotion and protection of peace and freedom in the world is its divinely mandated mission. This claim is reinforced by the corporate media with seductive symbols and slogans glorifying wars for peace and freedom and righteousness of waging them, and their soldiers as righteous warriors. The US violence and wars are promoted as liberating ones, furthering peace and freedom, and spreading the benefits of a “civilized world”. To protect its system of peace and freedom the US, just like Rome, has stationed troops all over the world. According to the Pentagon’s own 2005 official inventory, there are 737 American military bases in more than 130 countries, not including those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and over half a million US troops, spies, contractors, and others work in these military bases.2 However, considering the US bases in Iraq (likely over 100) and Afghanistan (80 and counting), among many other well-known and secretive bases, there are over 1000 military bases around the world. http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/05/american-imperial-system-of-peace-and-freedom/The American imperial power, like the Roman empire, is presented as not only... more
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The aggressors appear desperate to quit but the Chicago conference seems to indicate that urgent necessity but intellectually confused, morally corrupt and with high rates of self-suicidal deaths US-British militarily apparatus exhausted, and not sure how best to get out of the terrible mess they have created for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan and the whole of the humanity. http://www.countercurrents.org/khawaja280512.htmThe aggressors appear desperate to quit but the Chicago conference seems to indicate... more
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The adage that “it is the victors who write history” in matters relating particularly to war and conflict is something of a euphemism when applied to recent military campaigns conducted by America and its NATO allies. For what is disputable – no, let us say repugnant – about the official accounts of these events is not merely a difference in emphasis or nuance on the matter, which the adage may infer. It is rather that the victors’ version of history is a wholesale fabrication, an obscene travesty of actual events. It is not a case of victors writing history, more one of victors “violating history”. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=31067The adage that “it is the victors who write history” in matters relating... more
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We have made gods of those who died on Omaha Beach, at Midway, on the fields of Gettysburg and Antietam, of the brave patriots whose blood watered the tree of liberty, and so on. We have been less kind to those who never came home from Vietnam (or whose bodies came home with their minds utterly destroyed). If we didn’t have a Memorial Day already, who thinks we’d create one today to honor the fallen from that war, from Iraq and Afghanistan?
Today I honor our war dead, but I’m mad as hell that our leaders, corrupt and sociopathic as they so often are, have killed so many without cause.We have made gods of those who died on Omaha Beach, at Midway, on the fields of... more
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Pressure from the Israeli government, and from powerful interests in America is mounting for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Is such an attack necessary or justified? And what would happen if a war breaks out? http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yoITyAobBMIPressure from the Israeli government, and from powerful interests in America is... more
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Military Drill Spurred by Clinton Violates Posse Comitatus
By Anthony Wile
Clinton Goes Commando, Sells Diplomats as Shadow Warriors … Clinton, wearing pearls and a silver and black blouse, climbed the stage and began to speak. And soon it all made more sense. She had an idea to sell — and to defend … She described a vision in which shadowy U.S. and allied Special Operations Forces, working hand in hand with America’s embassies and foreign governments, together play a key role in preventing low-intensity conflicts. And where prevention fails, the same commando-diplomat team goes on the attack … – Wired (5/24/12)
It happened again at the recent Tampa-based conference, “Building the Global SOF Partnership” …
The US military staged a mock drill in violation of 130+ years of the Posse Comitatus Act that bars domestic forces from active use on US soil.
hillary clintonIt wasn’t just the US, either. Some 90 nations supposedly participated in the drill, which aimed to “rescue” Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn, supposedly kidnapped by terrorists. There were helicopters overhead and a tactical assault showed up by water. Then special ops teams invaded a “terrorist village” near the Convention Center and rescued the mayor, who said he was grateful.
The ongoing militarization of all phases of US society via Homeland Security searches and military training exercises surely should be of concern to those who are searching for a less warlike and aggressive United States.
But the pendulum apparently continues to swing in the other direction. While the mock drill received a lot of attention in the alternative media, statements of the guest of honor, Hillary Clinton, are worthy of equivalent concern.
The Secretary of State seemed to inform the conference that the State Department now had the unilateral authority to declare a limited state of war via an expanding liaison with US Special Operations Forces. Here are some direct quotes:
… We created a new Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations that is working to put into practice lessons learned over the past decade and institutionalize a civilian surge capacity to deal with crises and hotspots.
Experts from this new bureau are working closely with Special Operations Forces around the world … Our diplomats also saw that the UN staff in the region could be useful partners. So they worked through our team in Washington and New York to obtain new authorities for the UN officials on the ground and then link them up directly with our Special Operations Forces to share expertise and improve coordination.
The State Department and US Special Ops – a new, unelected and unaccountable power in the world? It is broader still …
We have to keep our international cooperation going and growing at every level. Next week I’ll be heading to Europe, and I’ll end up in Istanbul for the second meeting of the new Global Counterterrorism Forum, which we helped launch last year. Turkey and the United States serve as the founding co-chairs, and we’ve been joined by nearly 30 other nations.
Who has given Ms. Clinton the brief to do such things? She characterizes these conflicts as low level but there are no guarantees they will stay that way. And what are the criteria for her mandates? And who is she to consult with? Constitutionally, only the US Congress has the right to commit US troops to war.
US President Barack Obama, through surrogates such as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, is now claiming that his administration can commit US forces based on international (UN) mandates and the like. Congress is to be consulted only secondarily. But Clinton seems to be taking it a step further. She apparently wants the personal power to do the deed.
There are voices raised generally against these sorts of declarations. At the highest level, libertarian/GOP Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) has used his presidential campaign to demand that the US bring home its troops and special agents from nearly 1,000 bases worldwide.
This would not suit Clinton, who is a globalist with a book to her credit entitled, It Takes a Village. She knows full well that there are plenty of questions about the so-called “war on terror” but gives credence to even its most questionable elements.
Pakistan-oriented “Opinion Maker” posted an article (“Clinton Bares All”) shortly after her speech. Here’s the conclusion:
Today the diplomatic meddlers have networks of NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to assist them with the process of spreading the “pork” locally and creating new false narratives which mirror the latest fashionable lies being peddled by Washington’s other sources.
You see the process most completely in the fate suffered by Libya, or Syria, or that visited upon the people of Iraq. At the end of the “smart” process is nothing but war and local devastation giving the US and NATO military a foot in the door.
Now Ms. Clinton has proclaimed the right to direct that “foot in the door.” The civilian and military conversation in the US is moving steadily in the wrong direction.
This should be of concern not only to US citizens who want a less warlike US but also to the world community at large.
Via:dailybellMilitary Drill Spurred by Clinton Violates Posse Comitatus
By Anthony Wile... more
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