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POPSOur Tax Dollars At Work-Blackwater
More from the article as follows: "The Nisour Square shooting was the bloodiest and most controversial episode involving Blackwater in the Iraq war. At midday on Sept. 16, 2007, a Blackwater convoy opened fire on Iraqi civilians in the crowded intersection, spraying automatic weapons fire in ways that investigators later claimed was indiscriminate, and even launching grenades into a nearby school. Seventeen Iraqis were killed and dozens more were wounded." "Those responses deeply worried Blackwater officials. Before the Nisour Square shootings, the company had operated in Iraq without a license largely because the Iraqi government had never enforced the rules. Being blocked from the country would have been costly — the State Department deal was Blackwater’s single biggest contract. From 2004 through today, the company has collected more than $1.5 billion for its work protecting American diplomats and providing air transportation for them inside Iraq." "
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POPSWe need less efficientcy, IMHO I like this rant from a comment to a Cary Tennis column. Why must everything be efficient? I dunno. I don't want to be, I just want to be effective.
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POPSMurderous US drones condemned by UN. Americans who are confused by the grotesque transformation of the modest aim of capturing a few bad men into a conflagration that has destroyed the lives of millions echo the Guardian of the 1920s, which asked why the British government had to send "all this machinery, all these forces...if we were establishing a political system on the basis of popular consent?" Without distinguishing between drones that protect our troops and those that drop bombs and hover menacingly over an occupied people, The Economist taunts, "like them or not, drones are here to stay." Now, who are the terrorists here and which is the rogue state ?
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POPSUS warned on deadly drone attacks The dear ol' UN....helping Iran and concerned about how terrorists are eliminated. I wonder if they are concerned about the recent deaths perpetrated by terrorists in Kabul, Baghdad, and Pakistan.
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POPSHow robot drones revolutionized the face of warfare U.S. Air Force fighter pilot Major Morgan Andrews is one such combatant. He kisses his wife goodbye, drives to Creech, a tiny desert air force base in Nevada, and within minutes could be killing insurgents on the other side of the world.
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POPSObama raise drone attacks
The obscenity of this policy is seldom mentioned. " the drone attacks have backfired. As he told The New Yorker, "Every one of these dead non-combatants represents an alienated family, a new revenge feud, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as drone strikes have increased." And because of the C.I.A. program's secrecy, Mayer writes, "there is no visible system of accountability in place, despite the fact that the agency has killed many civilians inside a politically fragile, nuclear-armed country with which the U.S. is not at war." The New Yorker further reports the Obama Administration has also expanded the sphere of authorized drone assaults in Afghanistan. An August Senate Foreign Relations Committee report said the Pentagon's list of approved terrorist targets held 367 names and included some 50 Afghan drug lords "who are suspected of giving money to help finance the Taliban," Mayer reports. She quotes the Senate report as stating, "The
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POPS Hammer Wants An Anvil
Fawning “Inconvenient Truth Teller” article inside paints him as a sort of goof savant … a bit like Chauncey Gardiner of “Being There,” he’s been in Washington DC his entire life, everyone likes him, and suddenly they think he’s a genius. The three-decade gaffe-and-reverse record requires some acrobatics, though. The Newsweek scribblers clearly like his go-lite, wack-a-mole strategy though they are big enough to admit at the end that people who actually know what they are talking about say it won’t work. It’s not exactly the Joe Biden embed that I wished out loud NYT’s Dexter Filkins would do as a counterbalance to his McChyrstal piece earlier this week,* but close. Some administration officials, led by Biden, appear to hope that American forces can rely more on counterterrorism operations"attacks by Predator drones and small elite units on terrorist hiding places"to hold Afghanistan together and defeat Al Qaeda. But critics call this “splitting the baby" and say . . .
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POPSWH Response to More Troop Request
This incomplete and unconfirmed story, aka "leak," hints that the President may not go along with the Pentagon request for more troops in Afghanistan. Although, that's still just a "leak," right now and there has been no official request for more troops. It seems we're once again in a "battle of the leaks," -- people sending out anonymous ideas and checking out the responses. The rabid right-wing will make up lies and jump on everything to smear Obama...and there are some landmine issues that could cripple any president: 1. Backing down to the Russians....a big American no-no...and that's now claimed, plus: 2. Not supporting troops/war -- 3. Not offering special deals and blind, uncritical support for Israel. Yet, the President appears to be keeping his head straight, despite the rabid right -- defeating Al-Qaeda makes sense, at least. Nation building and long term in Afghanistan....where did that idea come from? Or War in Iraq? -- build on lies. War in Iran?
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POPSJustice begins at home
The main thing to keep in mind here is that Goldstone is not lying. Everything he says is true. It should be obvious to anyone who has followed this situation that the IDF's so-called "serious violations" of the laws of war are truly nothing of the kind. Even if one hasn't been following the situation, simple rhetorical analysis will show then the utter fallacy that underlies Goldstone's sentence: notwithstanding his pro forma nods to Hamas violations, he's obviously telling only one side of the story, Hamas's side. His version implies that the IDF was indiscriminately bombarding hospitals, schools and other typical civilian sites to sow terror as part of a campaign to subdue the Resistance. This is just a fairy tale. For example, ask yourself why Israel attacked the civilian structures. It was because they couldn't fairly be considered civilian if they were being used as firebases by Hamas. But the essential point is this: there would have been no IDF attacks whatsoever,
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POPS Democrats Applauding Their Own Obstructionism
{From Page} At President Bush's State of the Union address, Congressional Democrats wildly cheer their own intransigence, obstruction, and reverence for the broken status quo. Showing their love for America's biggest government boondoggle, Democrats prove, once again, why they cannot be trusted with power. Just think while this was going on Our own Complacency kept us blind to the socialist Take over of this country. The libturdcrats main goal has always been to break Social security. JFK Broke into it for the Race to space expenses and the Stealing from the Social security fund hasn't stopped since. Oh and Clinton turned around and renamed it the General Fund any-way which in essence it ceased to exist and un-savable then.. The real kicker is that we have allowed the social Marxists to Teach our children and strip the public School systems with all Morality for the last 40 years and now this is what we get, "A generation of Social Entitlement Drones.'
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POPSWhere's Waldo? "I guess you could cut off the battery packs," he said. "But it's so specialized it really doesn't have many other applications." There are two other drones with similar capabilities at Mote but they belong to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- and there are no funds available for them to perform Waldo's mission. "We'd have to go back to sending people out in boats to collect water samples," he said. "That's not a very efficient way to do it." Waldo, a scientific robot used to detect red tide, was last heard from on Monday. Mote is offering a $500 reward. Well it had a pretty long working life I suppose. It was probably eaten by a Great White Shark. That's my guess, anyway.
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POPSPJTV: Reminding Pres. Obama Where He Lives Sonja schmidt pu't in terms that Even the Libturds can follow. You have to work with what they were taught. It's exactly how the social Entitlement Drones are still learning even in Collage... Todays Collage--- Just like preskewl ;-)
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POPSConservative George Will calls for Afghanistan pull-out Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked Monday by Peter Cook of Bloomberg TV: “Are we winning in Afghanistan?” “I think it's a mixed picture in Afghanistan,” Gates replied. “I think that there aren’t too many people with too rosy a view of what's going on in Afghanistan. I think there are many challenges. But I think some of the gloom and doom is somewhat overdrawn as well. … I think that there are some positive developments. But there is no question our casualties are up and there's no question we have a very tough fight in front of us, a lot of challenges.” Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26628.html#ixzz0Pocw7LWI
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POPSThe Science Fiction of Military Marketing Along with persuading President Obama to withhold photos documenting fog-of-war brutalities at Afghanistan and Iraq prisons, the Pentagon is seeking an opiate to placate the war-averse populace. What better anodyne than a marketing campaign implying wars are fun video games? As the armed forces build more unmanned drones, recruiters are looking to add new remote pilots. It is science fiction to assert that “the frontlines are unmanned.” Claims like that are deeply destructive, beyond their obvious insult to the thousands killed, wounded and/or currently stationed on those very frontlines. By convincing us that violence can be just another innocuous expression of adolescent technophilia, we will have once again forgotten that all wars, even the justifiable ones, are lamentable human tragedies.
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POPSMorre Military Obscenity They're gonna train our kids to be video game warriors...killers without contact, dehumanizing the "enemy" even more. Obscene!
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POPSWho Is In Charge of War Profiteering and CIA? Has President Obama outsourced the use of Predator drones to Dick Cheney as a private contractor? He may as well have if this story turns out to be true? The head of the company belongs in jail, not getting fat off of US contracts to create new enemies of the US.
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POPSDrones: Good & Bad News & Star Trek
The good news would be that fewer live pilots would be at risk. The bad news? 1. The use of drone attacks might go up since no direct US casualties at risk - only ground forces from friendly fire, ground forces from more violence against them in reaction to drone attacks. 2. Civilian and on-combatants casualties would go up - which might increase violence against the US. 3. There will be a drone factory of sub-contractor in the district of every congressmember who serves on a committee that give budget to drone programs. Thus welfare for defense contractors would likely increase and funds that might go for more productive things and peace might well get lost in the shuffle. Remember the Star Trek episode where a society conducted all of its war via computers? If the computer said you lost or had casualties, people then had to report for death or to be a wounded casualty. Without a draft of people into the military, the care for waging war seems to have gone down, sin
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POPS'Joystick' Warfare Brings Ethics Debate--UAVs and Other Robotic Weapons Robo-warfare is making it too easy to wage arbitrary war, and is by historical standards cowardly , usually entailing overkill to achieve a limited target (like swatting mosquitos with hand grenades. Can you say "collateral damage"?). To bring no risk to warfare is to undermine the principle of Just War, where people voluntarily enter into war upon principles of justice (self defense), and risk their own lives bravely and willingly. Sending robots risks nothing, and makes unjust war a no-risk situation, and therefore too easy to begin. Also there is the danger factor where human judgment may be lacking instead of a programmed response, without the ability to correct or withdraw destructive actions. Ask the civilians in Afghanistan or Pakistan what they think of drone (Predator) UAV bombing flights so far. More civilians have been killed than 'terrorists".
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POPSUS drones sting Bin Laden
more: America's Bee Heroes: Mission Timeline Wednesday 00:20: Special Bee Unit 2319 departs the Hidalgo Special Forces Apiary, and flies 13,000 km to the 51st AIG outside Kabul, Afghanistan. Drones are accompanied by two KC-45 tanker aircraft, filled with honey, for in-air refueling. 23:45: The bee unit touches down on the ultraviolet-coated runway of 51st AIG. Bees are escorted by armored personnel carrier to hive 51, classified operations area, for prep. Thursday 02:50: The drones are "unmanned" - military terminology for the surgical removal of their tiny bee gonads. The sex organs are replaced by sharp stingers, normally absent on male bees. The operation is carried out on by surgeons disguised as Osama Bin Laden. Bees are filled with frustration and anger at the loss of their male beehood, which will cause them to attack when they encounter the real Bin Laden. 03:55: Bees are removed from surgery and placed in small wax cells for recovery. 14:30: Drones are ta
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POPSRise of the machines "'The next thing that's coming, and this is what really scares me, are armed autonomous robots,' said Professor Sharkey at a briefing in London."
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