Infinite Unknown

Syria has recently test launched a series of surface to surface missiles and rockets, Channel 2 news reported Monday.

The test launch was detected by Israel’s radar systems, including the Oren Yarok (green pine) and Oren Adir (magnificent pine) radars which activate Israel’s Arrow anti-ballistic missiles, Channel 2 reported.

Syria has some 1,000 models of Scud missiles with a range of 300 to 700 kilometers. The Syrian missiles are capable of striking targets anywhere in Israel. The Syrian military can fit the missiles with chemical warheads, and may have conducted experiments with biological warheads as well.

In addition to the Scud missile arsenal, Syria also possesses SS21 missiles with a range of 80 kilometers but with much higher precision than the Scuds.

The biggest threat facing Israel, however, is Syria’s arsenal of thousands of rockets with a range of nearly 100 kilometers, some of which can reach as far as the Haifa bay. The rockets are more accurate than the Scud missiles.

In response to Syria’s drill, the Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Air Force anti-aircraft unit conducted an exercise simulating a possible Syria missile attack. Continue reading »

Tags: Air Force, Biological weapons, chemical weapons, Israel, Military, Missiles, Syria

August 11, 2008: The U.S. Air Force is, for the first time, converting a fighter wing from manned (F-16) combat aircraft, to unmanned ones (the MQ-9 Reaper.) The conversion, for the 174th Fighter Wing, has been in the works for three years, and the last combat sorties in manned aircraft were flown last week, by members of the 174th serving in Iraq.
The air force has already converted several combat wings to fly Predators which, while armed (with two 107 pound Hellfire missiles), are considered reconnaissance aircraft. The Reaper is considered a combat aircraft, optimized for seeking out and destroying ground targets. Jet powered combat UAVs are in development. It’s only a matter of time before UAVs take over air superiority, strategic bombing and suppression of enemy air defenses duties as well.

Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, Air Force, Iraq, Military, Politics, Technology, U.S., UAVs, War

What do I think of mercenaries working for the U.S.A.?
The Roman Empire gradually entrusted the role of defending the Empire to mercenaries.
The Roman Empire is history.
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Blackwater expands its fleet of airships

Saturday Jul 19, 2008, Source: AirForceTimes

Blackwater Worldwide is building up its own Air Force.

Airmen might soon find Blackwater blimps patrolling Iraq and Afghanistan skies in addition to its helicopter and light transport aircraft already flying thousands of missions in theater.

According to Blackwater Worldwide CEO Erik Prince, eight Blackwater CASA 212 light transport aircraft flew 11,000 sorties in Afghanistan last year supporting 38 combat outposts over 19,000 square miles. Its aircraft transported more than 40,000 personnel and 9.5 million pounds of supplies last year.

“We moved about 40,000 passengers, and our total costs, our total invoice for that mission is about what the U.S. Air Force is paying for one new C-27,” he said.

“So the idea of outsourcing versus having government do it, that’s a pretty simple math question for me.”

…and for other contractors. Halliburton is charging $45 for a six-pack of Coca-Cola when it feeds our troops. International laws covering war crimes did not apply to such private contractors like Blackwater.

Blackwater, America’s Private Army

Source: YouTube

Recommended documentary: Iraq for Sale

Prince, who sat down July 7 for a rare, exclusive interview with Military Times editors and reporters, said he isn’t looking to replace the Air Force - simply fill a void where his company is needed.

Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, AFRICOM, Air Force, Blackwater, FBI, Government, halliburton, Iraq, mercenaries, Military, U.S., War

The Air Force’s new unmanned bomber, the “Reaper,” commutes from Nevada to Afghanistan.

CREECH AIR FORCE BASE, Nevada (CNN) — From a desert outpost northwest of Las Vegas, elite fighter pilots journey to a war zone in Afghanistan, some 7,500 miles away.

It might be the world’s longest commute, except that these armchair pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada never leave the air-conditioned comfort of their command center.

Air Force pilots are employing remotely controlled fighter-bomber aircraft — known in military parlance as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs — to fly combat missions over Afghanistan, hunting for insurgents bent on undermining Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s fragile government.

This is the future of aerial combat.

Sitting in a virtual cockpit is not as exciting as flying a fighter jet, but unmanned attack-plane pilots can enjoy a normal workday schedule — more or less.

“Seeing bad guys on the screen and watching them possibly get dispatched, and then going down to the Taco Bell for lunch, it’s kind of surreal,” says Captain Matt Dean.

The original drone was the “Predator,” armed with a pair of Hellfire missiles. It was followed by its bigger and far more lethal cousin, “the Reaper,” which carries four times as much firepower. The Reaper can carry the same bomb load as an F-16 fighter plane, but its pilots are not put in harm’s way.

The Air Force once employed jerry-rigged missiles strapped to unmanned spy planes. Now military commanders see remotely piloted aircraft as the model for the way future wars will be fought.

For over a year, Reapers have been flying two separate round-the-clock patrols over eastern Afghanistan, controlled from the Creech AFB command center, which has been strictly off-limits to the media until now.

Reaper pilots so far this year have launched 64 missiles and dropped seven 500-pound bombs in Afghanistan.

Continue reading »

Tags: Afghanistan, Air Force, Military, U.S., UAVs, War

Related article and video: - Air Force Aims for ‘Full Control’ of ‘Any and All’ Computers

WASHINGTON, June 30 (UPI) — The U.S. military is looking for a contractor to patrol cyberspace, watching for warning signs of forthcoming terrorist attacks or other hostile activity on the Web.

“If someone wants to blow us up, we want to know about it,” Robert Hembrook, the deputy intelligence chief of the U.S. Army’s Fifth Signal Command in Mannheim, Germany, told United Press International.

(…and the place where you can read about any planned terrorist attack is the Internet, of course!)

In a solicitation posted on the Web last week, the command said it was looking for a contractor to provide “Internet awareness services” to support “force protection” — the term of art for the security of U.S. military installations and personnel.

“The purpose of the services will be to identify and assess stated and implied threat, antipathy, unrest and other contextual data relating to selected Internet domains,” says the solicitation.

Hembrook was tight-lipped about the proposal. “The more we talk about it, the less effective it will be,” he said. “If we didn’t have to put it out in public (to make the contract award), we wouldn’t have.”

He would not comment on the kinds of Internet sites the contractor would be directed to look at but acknowledged it would “not (be) far off” to assume violent Islamic extremists would be at the top of the list.

The solicitation says the successful contractor will “analyze various Web pages, chat rooms, blogs and other Internet domains to aggregate and assess data of interest,” adding, “The contractor will prioritize foreign-language domains that relate to specific areas of concern … (and) will also identify new Internet domains” that might relate to “specific local requirements” of the command.

Officials were keen to stress the contract covered only information that could be found by anyone with a computer and Internet connection.

“We’re not interested in being Big Brother,” said LeAnne MacAllister, chief spokeswoman for the command, which runs communications in Europe for the U.S. Army and the military’s joint commands there.

“I would not characterize it as monitoring,” added Hembrook. “This is a research tool gathering information that is already in the public domain.”

Experts say Islamic extremist groups like al-Qaida use the Web for propaganda and fundraising purposes.

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And these are the real terrorists:

- Government Insider: Bush Authorized 9/11 Attacks:
“This (9/11) was all planned. This was a government-ordered operation. Bush personally signed the order. He personally authorized the attacks. He is guilty of treason and mass murder.” -Stanley Hilton

- Rumsfeld: Why not another 9/11?:
In a newly-released tape of a 2006 neocon luncheon meeting featuring former War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, attended by ex-military “message force multiplier” propaganda shills Lt. General Michael DeLong, David L. Grange, Donald W. Sheppard, James Marks, Rick Francona, Wayne Downing, Robert H. Scales and others, Rumsfeld declared that the American people lack “the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the ‘threats’” — and need another 9/11.

- USA Military Officers Challenge Official Account of September 11

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Although the extent to which it is employed in operational planning is less clear, most agree that important information about targeting and tactics can be gleaned from extremists’ public pronouncements.

Continue reading »

Tags: Air Force, Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida, Big Brother, cyberwar, Government, Internet, Military, New World Order, Surveillance, terrorism, terrorists, U.S.

Top US commander Adm. Michael Mullen sees for himself

The visiting Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, carried out a guided tour of Israel’s borders with Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip over the weekend. It was led by the IDF chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi and OCs Northern and Southern Commands, Maj. Gens. Eisenkott and Galant.

He was briefed on IDF tactics in a war on all these potential flashpoints in the context of a comprehensive conflict with Iran and then held long conversations with defense minister Ehud Barak and Ashkenazi.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that it is very unusual for the top American commander to carry out a close, on-the-spot study of Israel’s potential war fronts. It was prompted on the one hand by skepticism in parts of the US high command of Israel’s ability to simultaneously strike Iran’s nuclear installations and fight off attacks from three borders while, at the same time, Adm. Mullen showed he was open to persuasion that the IDF’s prospective tactics and war plans were workable.

Military circles in Washington, commenting on the large-scale air maneuver Israel carried out with Greece earlier in June, have opined that 100 warplanes are not enough for the Israel Air Force to destroy all of Iran’s secret nuclear sites; more than 1,000 would be needed. Israel military tacticians in contact with US commanders have countered that, while Iran’s secret nuclear locations are scattered and buried deep, still, every chain has weak links and is therefore vulnerable.

The tough threats issued by Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Mohamed Ali Jafari on Saturday, June 28, were prompted by the Adm. Mullen’s Israeli border tour, word of which was flashed to Tehran by Syrian-Iranian observation posts inside Syrian and Lebanese borders.

(The Sunday Times added that Iran moved its ballistic Shihab-3 missiles into launch positions, with Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant among its possible targets.)

Saturday, DEBKAfile reported:

The IRGC chief, Mohammad Ali Jafari issued Tehran’s toughest and most explicit threats yet in response to recent reports of Israeli preparations to strike Iran’s nuclear installations.

Hinting at an American attack, he said: “If there is a confrontation between us and the enemy from outside the region , definitely the scope will reach the oil issue.”

After this action (of imposing controls on the Gulf waterway), the oil price will rise very considerably,” he said.

Continue reading »

Tags: Air Force, Ehud Barak, Government, IDF, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Michael Mullen, Military, Nuclear reactors, Syria, U.S., War

Jun 27, 2008

In 2002, Scott Ritter, the former chief United Nations weapons inspector In Iraq, publicly accused the Bush administration of lying to Congress and the public about assertions that Iraq was hiding a chemical and biological weapons arsenal.

By speaking out publicly, Ritter emerged as one of the most prominent whistleblowers since Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in the early 1970s.

Ritter’s criticisms about the Bush administration’s flawed prewar Iraq intelligence have been borne out by numerous investigations and reports, including one recently published by the Senate Armed Services Committee that found President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and other senior administration officials knowingly lied about the threat Iraq posed to the United States.

Now Ritter, who was a Marine Corps intelligence officer for 12 years, is speaking out about what he sees as history repeating itself regarding U.S. policy toward Iran and the inevitability of a U.S.-led attack on the country, which he believes will happen prior to a new president being sworn into office in January 2009.

“We’re going to see some military activity before the new administration is sworn in.” Ritter said. But he added that “Iran is not a threat to the United States and Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program. That’s documented.” Ritter teamed up with the Los Angeles-based U.S. Tour of Duty’s Real Intelligence, a nonprofit organization that represents former intelligence officials who openly discuss domestic and foreign policy issues. Ritter went on the road nearly a year ago to promote his recently published book, Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement. But over the past several months, issues related to Iran have dominated his discussions.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Public Record, Ritter said he has been keeping close tabs on the issue for years and continues to approach the issue as if he were still employed as an intelligence officer. He explained why he believes the U.S. is gearing up toward launching a military strike in Iran and how the media has misrepresented a recent report by the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) regarding Iran’s continued enrichment of uranium.

AIPAC

He said one of the reasons he believes Democratic lawmakers have been reluctant to address the issue is the powerful Israeli lobby, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). AIPAC has been pressuring the Bush administration to be even tougher on Iran. The lobby is largely responsible for drafting a resolution calling for stricter inspections and harsher economic sanctions against the country, which is expected to be voted on by the House next week.

Continue reading »

Tags: AIPAC, Air Force, Bush administration, CIA, Congress, Dick Cheney, Food, Food Prices, George Bush, Government, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Military, Nuclear weapons, Oil, Oil Prices, U.S., uranium, War, White House

The US military cannot locate hundreds of sensitive nuclear missile components, according to several government officials familiar with a Pentagon report on nuclear safeguards.

Robert Gates, US defence secretary, recently fired both the US Air Force chief of staff and air force secretary after an investigation blamed the air force for the inadvertent shipment of nuclear missile nose cones to Taiwan.

According to previously undisclosed details obtained by the FT, the investigation also concluded that the air force could not account for many sensitive components previously included in its nuclear inventory.

One official said the number of missing components was more than 1,000.

The disclosure is the latest embarrassing episode for the air force, which last year had to explain how a bomber mistakenly carried six nuclear missiles across the US. The incidents have raised concerns about US nuclear safeguards as Washington presses other countries to bolster counter-proliferation measures. Continue reading »

Tags: Air Force, Congress, Government, Military, Nuclear weapons, Pentagon, Robert Gates, U.S.

The U.S. government has quietly gone ahead and formed several special security organizations for policing the internet.

Because there is such a (trained, not to mention talented) manpower shortage right now (and in the foreseeable future), this was done on the cheap. An effective force could not be recruited, even if everyone agreed to accept government pay levels, because of the huge expense.

One solution that was suggested even before September 11, 2001, and eventually caught on, was to organize and reward the pro bono cybersecurity efforts that have been going on for some time. A lot of talented whitehats just get pissed off and go after bad guys on their own nickel.

An example is HoneyNet (the pro bono network of honeypots set up to attract, analyze and document backhat activities and techniques). One suggestion that did not fly was setting up a “CyberCorps” as a separate corporation, with a few really good people to run it, and enough budget to pay market rate for the right people, and still have a close working relationship with government agencies and commercial firms that spend a lot on net security (banks and brokerages, for example.)

Instead, a “Cyber Corps” program was set up to give tuition assistance to college students studying computer security, in order to increase the number of qualified experts in this area. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security established working relationships with existing computer security groups, while the Department of Defense encouraged the services to set up computer security operations. The air force established the Cyber Command, a major operation that, it is hoped, will give the air force the lead (and most of the budget) for defense related Internet security operations. Continue reading »

Tags: Air Force, Cyber Attack, cyberterrorism, Department of Defense, Government, Homeland Security, Internet, U.S.

The two are asked to step down after a mistaken warhead shipment

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates ousted the Air Force’s top officials Thursday, holding them to account in a historic military shake-up for failing to ensure the security of sensitive materials, including nuclear missile warhead fuses that were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan.

Gates announced at a Pentagon news conference that he had accepted the resignations of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne - a highly unusual double firing.

Gates cited two embarrassing incidents in the past year. In one, a B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown across the country without anyone realizing nuclear weapons were aboard.
In the other, four electrical fuses for ballistic missile warheads were mistakenly sent to Taiwan in the place of helicopter batteries. Gates said an internal investigation found a common theme in the B-52 and Taiwan incidents: “a decline in the Air Force’s nuclear mission focus and performance.” Continue reading »

Tags: Air Force, nuclear, Nuclear weapons, Pentagon, Robert Gates, U.S.