RTFA: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/general/…

The State Department is preparing to slap a multimillion-dollar fine on private military contractor Blackwater USA for shipping hundreds of automatic weapons to Iraq without the necessary permits.

Some of the weapons are believed to have ended up on the country’s black market, department officials told McClatchy Newspapers, but no criminal charges have been filed in the case.

The expected fine is the result of a long-running federal investigation into whether employees of the firm shipped weapons hidden in shrink-wrapped pallets from its Moyock, N.C., headquarters to Iraq, where Blackwater is the State Department’s largest personal security contractor.

Since the arms shipment allegations first became public 14 months ago, Blackwater, which has received $1.2 billion in federal contracts, according to the Web site fedspending.org, has consistently denied involvement in illicit arms trafficking.

Oh boy - several million taken out of $1,200 million… I’m sure that’s really a deterrent.

Did anyone see the part about these illegal weapons ending up on the black market? Come on, people! This concept of outsourcing military functions to professional mercenaries is insane! Is anyone surprised that a group called “Blackwater” is also an illegal arms trafficker, whose weapons end up in the hands of terrorists?!

RTFA: http://laughingsquid.com/the-yes-men-distribute-fa…

This morning in NYC international pranksters The Yes Men recruited volunteers through the website Because We Want It to distribute thousands of copies of a fake version of the New York Times dated July 4, 2009 with the headline “Iraq War Ends”.

yes men - iraq war over

Pretty sweet prank… except for the way in which its non-truth actually stings. Bitter-sweet is the word, I’m afraid.

RTFA: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1198652/o…

The armed forces of the United States are regularly honored all the time. They even have two holidays recognized for their service to the country. The first holiday is Memorial Day, which takes place in the beginning of the summer. The second holiday is today, Veterans Day, in the beginning of the fall. Memorial Day is a generic celebration of those who died in service. But as for Veterans Day, it was originally created to honor a specific day in U.S. and world history.

Veterans Day was officially created in 1926, but the seeds for Veterans Day began in 1919. November 11, 1919 is forever known as the day World War I ended. Famously, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, an armistice was signed between the fighting nations.

The next year, President Woodrow Wilson officially proclaimed November 11 a national holiday, exactly 90 years ago. Back then it was known as Armistice Day instead. It also ignored that although November 11 was the day the US and Germany stopped fighting, the Treaty of Versailles that officially concluded the war didn’t get signed until June 1919.

Good summary of Veteran’s Day, and how it came to be.

RTFA: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/world/europe/11g…

TBILISI, Georgia - Russia expanded its attacks on Georgia on Sunday, moving tanks and troops through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advancing toward the city of Gori in central Georgia, in its first direct assault on a Georgian city with ground forces during three days of heavy fighting, Georgian officials said.

The maneuver - along with bombing of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi - seemed to suggest that Russia’s aims in the conflict had gone beyond securing the pro-Russian enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to weakening the armed forces of Georgia, a former Soviet republic and an ally of the United States whose Western leanings have long irritated the Kremlin.

Russia’s moves, which came after Georgia offered a cease-fire and said it had pulled its troops out of South Ossetia, caused widespread international alarm and anger and set the stage for an intense diplomatic confrontation with the United States.

Two senior Western officials said that it was unclear whether Russia intended a full invasion of Georgia, but that its aims could go as far as destroying its armed forces or overthrowing Georgia’s pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili.

just saying, is all…

RTFA: http://jtaplin.wordpress.com/the-cost-of-empire/

It is of course one of the defining articles of faith of the conservative movement that Reagan militarily spent the Soviets into bankruptcy. But it is a Big Lie. Of course the Soviet economy was a hollowed out shell in 1989, but it also held an extrordinary number of assets including one of the world’s largest oil reserves and an well educated work force. Freed from the need to compete in an arms race, the Russians were able to turn their talents to business. Today, the Russian central bank and the Central Bank of China, our other cold war foe, now control over 20% of the U.S. Treasury debt, and we control none of theirs. Exactly who spent who into bankruptcy?

Interesting point, but Taplin’s essay is LOADED with many such insights. This is well worth the read, although you won’t find some magic-bullet solution in the closing paragraphs. Consider these details, and arrive at your own conclusion.

RTFA: http://www.energybulletin.net/12125.html

The Iranian government has finally developed the ultimate “nuclear” weapon that can swiftly destroy the financial system underpinning the American Empire. That weapon is the Iranian Oil Bourse slated to open in March 2006. It will be based on a euro-oil-trading mechanism that naturally implies payment for oil in Euro. In economic terms, this represents a much greater threat to the hegemony of the dollar than Saddam’s, because it will allow anyone willing either to buy or to sell oil for Euro to transact on the exchange, thus circumventing the U.S. dollar altogether. If so, then it is likely that almost everyone will eagerly adopt this euro oil system:

- The Europeans will not have to buy and hold dollars in order to secure their payment for oil, but would instead pay with their own currencies. The adoption of the euro for oil transactions will provide the European currency with a reserve status that will benefit the European at the expense of the Americans.

- The Chinese and the Japanese will be especially eager to adopt the new exchange, because it will allow them to drastically lower their enormous dollar reserves and diversify with Euros, thus protecting themselves against the depreciation of the dollar. One portion of their dollars they will still want to hold onto; a second portion of their dollar holdings they may decide to dump outright; a third portion of their dollars they will decide to use up for future payments without replenishing those dollar holdings, but building up instead their euro reserves.

- The Russians have inherent economic interest in adopting the Euro - the bulk of their trade is with European countries, with oil-exporting countries, with China, and with Japan. Adoption of the Euro will immediately take care of the first two blocs, and will over time facilitate trade with China and Japan. Also, the Russians seemingly detest holding depreciating dollars, for they have recently found a new religion with gold. Russians have also revived their nationalism, and if embracing the Euro will stab the Americans, they will gladly do it and smugly watch the Americans bleed.

- The Arab oil-exporting countries will eagerly adopt the Euro as a means of diversifying against rising mountains of depreciating dollars. Just like the Russians, their trade is mostly with European countries, and therefore will prefer the European currency both for its stability and for avoiding currency risk, not to mention their jihad against the Infidel Enemy.

…painting the picture.

RTFA: http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,159067…

The words “war on terror” will no longer be used by the British government to describe attacks on the public, the country’s chief prosecutor said Dec. 27.

Sir Ken Macdonald said terrorist fanatics were not soldiers fighting a war but simply members of an aimless “death cult.”
The Director of Public Prosecutions said: ‘We resist the language of warfare, and I think the government has moved on this. It no longer uses this sort of language.”
London is not a battlefield, he said.
“The people who were murdered on July 7 were not the victims of war. The men who killed them were not soldiers,” Macdonald said. “They were fantasists, narcissists, murderers and criminals and need to be responded to in that way.”

Interesting development.

RTFA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqYHlSubJBo

From the 9/26/07 democratic debate, Mike Gravel talks about the senate’s latest vote on Iran which Hillary supported. In responce to his criticism, Hillary gives her staple arrogant laugh.

Watch this video. It relates to the declaration of war against Iran.

RTFA: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzcyNGM1YjJjZ…

The resolution - an amendment to a defense appropriations bill - is sponsored by Jon Kyl, Joseph Lieberman, Norm Coleman, and Lindsey Graham. It expresses the sense of the Senate that the U.S. should “combat, contain, and roll back” Iran’s “violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq.” It counsels doing so “through the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of [U.S. power], including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments.” It also urges the administration to designate the Revolutionary Guards a terrorist organization.

No great imagination is required to predict the Left’s attack on the amendment. “Needlessly provocative,” they will say. “What we need is more diplomacy.” And, “If you don’t like American soldiers dying from Iranian-made IEDs, bring them home.”The last is of course another way of saying, “Surrender” - not a bad policy, if you don’t mind giving an Islamist, terrorist-sponsoring, nuclearizing theocracy the dominant role in the Middle East.

Followup to the Lieberman Iran work. Of course we can’t surrender! Er, but is it really a good idea to authorize military action against Iran? Cause our president called that a ridiculous idea, and he’s the decider. I mean… right?

RTFA: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/09/17/iraq.mai…

“The controversy over Blackwater is an unfortunate demonstration of the perils of excessive reliance on private security contractors,” said Waxman, D-California. Blackwater, founded in 1997 and based in Moyock, North Carolina, is one of many security firms contracted by the U.S. government during the Iraq war. An estimated 25,000 employees of private security firms are working in Iraq, guarding diplomats, reconstruction workers and government officials. As many as 200 are believed to have been killed on the job, according to U.S. congressional reports. Some Blackwater personnel died in a grisly attack in Iraq more than three years ago that sparked shock and outrage in the United States. Four Americans working as private security personnel for Blackwater, all of whom were military veterans, were ambushed, killed and mutilated in March 2004 in Falluja, west of Baghdad. People close to the company estimate it has lost about 30 employees during the war.

The way to report fatalities in an outsourced war: we lost 30 employees.

RTFA: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-09-11-russ…

Channel One television said the new weapon, nicknamed the “dad of all bombs” is four times more powerful than the U.S. “mother of all bombs.”
“The tests have shown that the new air-delivered ordnance is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability,” said Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian military’s General Staff, said in televised remarks.
Unlike a nuclear weapon, the bomb doesn’t hurt the environment, he added.

The statement reflected the Kremlin’s efforts to restore Russia’s global clout and rebuild the nation’s military might while the ties with Washington have been strained over U.S. criticism of Russia’s backsliding on democracy, Moscow’s vociferous protests of U.S. missile defense plans, and rifts over global crises.
The U.S. Massive Ordnance Air Blast, nicknamed the Mother Of All Bombs, is a large-yield satellite-guided, air-delivered bomb described as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in history.

maintain… must not forget cold war… must maintain supremacy in bomb title over the reds…