Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Fox News
STOCKTON, Utah – The U.S. Army has destroyed about 90 percent of its aging chemical weapons after it wraps up work this week in Utah, where it has kept its largest stockpile -- a witches' brew of toxins, blister and blood agents that accumulated through the Cold War.
The Army's Deseret Chemical Depot in Utah's west desert burned its last hard weapons in a 1,500-degree furnace on Wednesday -- projectiles that contained mustard agent, which can produce painful skin blisters. The last tray of 23 projectiles came out of a furnace at 2:11 p.m. after baking for two hours, a process that rendered the mustard agent harmless.
The depot -- which at its peak held some 13,600 tons of chemical agents, making it the world's largest -- expects to complete the job by the weekend when it incinerates bulk supplies of Lewisite, a powerful skin, eye and lung irritant.
"It gives me great joy and satisfaction to be done," said Ted Ryba, the Army's project manager at the depot, after the last of the mustard agent projectiles were seen emerging from the furnace on a conveyor belt.
The U.S. is part of an international treaty to rid the world of chemical weapons, a campaign taking place with spotty success around the globe. The goal was supposed to be accomplished by April 29 but will take years longer.
"Clearly, it's still a tremendous example of what the world can do," said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group in Berea, Ky., an advocate for safe disposal. "You've got 188 of 194 countries on the planet signing the treaty. It's an impressive effort, a great step forward for the safety of the world."
The U.S. has acknowledged it will take as long as 2021 to finish destroying the final 10 percent of its chemical weapons at depots in Pueblo, Colo., and Richmond, Ky. Russia is farther behind in its effort, having destroyed only about 48 percent of a large cache of chemical weapons, according to the Organisation of for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, Netherlands...[Full Article]
Labels: chemical weapons, U.S. Army, US Army
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Business Insider
Every soldier that enlists in the Army chooses a Military Occupational Specialty (MOS). Designated by a number and a letter, the 31E MOS now includes advanced responsibilities including command and control of prisoner of war and civilian internee camps.
While the civilian designation likely applies to foreign nationals in their home countries, it reads more ominously now that the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is getting nods from legislators as it makes its way through the Senate.
Part of the NDAA includes amendments allowing for the arrest and indefinite detention of U.S. citizens both at home and abroad.
Below is a portion of the MOS listing at GoArmy.com.
[Full Article]Labels: detainee, U.S. Army, US Army
Thursday, November 10, 2011
New York Times
JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — The soldier accused of being the ringleader of a rogue Army unit that killed three Afghan civilians last year for sport, crimes that angered Afghan leaders and villagers and rattled high levels of the American military, was found guilty of all charges on Thursday.
The soldier, Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, 26, of Billings, Mont., was found guilty of three counts of murder, of conspiring to commit murder and several other charges, including assaulting a fellow soldier and taking fingers and a tooth from the dead. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole...[Full Article]
Labels: Afghanistan, Calvin Gibbs, murder, U.S. Army, US Army
Friday, October 21, 2011
Business Insider
A soldier in a combat zone throwing gang signs
Image: FBI
The FBI has released a new gang assessment announcing that there are 1.4 million gang members in the US, a 40 percent increase since 2009, and that many of these members are getting inside the military (via Stars and Stripes).The report says the military has seen members from 53 gangs and 100 regions in the U.S. enlist in every branch of the armed forces. Members of every major street gang, some prison gangs, and outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) have been reported on both U.S. and international military installations...[Full Article]
2011 National Gang Threat Assessment – Emerging Trends
view printable version (pdf)
Labels: Army, FBI, gangs, military, U.S. Army, US Army
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Breitbart
A miniature "kamikaze" drone designed to quietly hover in the sky before dive-bombing and slamming into a human target will soon be part of the US Army's arsenal, officials say.
Dubbed the "Switchblade," the robotic aircraft represents the latest attempt by the United States to refine how it takes out suspected militants.
Weighing less than two kilos, the drone is small enough to fit into a soldier's backpack and is launched from a tube, with wings quickly folding out as it soars into the air, according to manufacturer AeroVironment.
Powered by a small electric motor, the Switchblade transmits video in real time from overhead, allowing a soldier to identify an enemy, the company said in a press release last month.
"Upon confirming the target using the live video feed, the operator then sends a command to the air vehicle to arm it and lock its trajectory onto the target," it said.
The drone then flies into the "target," detonating a small explosive...[Full Article]
Labels: Army, drones, U.S. Army, US Army
Friday, September 9, 2011
Small size, quiet motors let aircraft find target, sneak in and deliver knockout blow
Soldiers who fly hand-launched drone scouts to spot enemies on the battlefield may soon get a deadly robotic device capable of also delivering a knockout blow. The U.S. Army has ordered its first batch of small suicide drones that are capable of launching from a small tube, loitering in the sky and then diving at a target upon command...[Full Article]
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Vigilant Citizen
By VC | May 4th, 2011
In the last twenty years, it has been reported several times that army specialists in propaganda and psychological warfare have been embedded in the staff of television networks.
In the 1980s, officers from the 4th Army PSYOPS group staffed the National Security Council’s Office of Public Diplomacy (OPD), a shadowy government propaganda agency that planted stories in the U.S. media supporting the Reagan Administration’s Central America policies. In an article in the Miami Herald in 1987, a senior US official described OPD as a “vast psychological warfare operation of the kind the military conducts to influence a population in enemy territory.” An investigation by the congressional General Accounting Office found that OPD had engaged in “prohibited, covert propaganda activities,” and the office was soon shut down as a result of the Iran-Contra investigations. But the 4th PSYOPS group still operates.
An unofficial strategy paper published by the U.S. Naval War College in 1996 and written by an Army officer entitled “Military Operations in the CNN World: Using the Media as a Force Multiplier” urged military commanders to find ways to “leverage the vast resources of the fourth estate” for the purposes of “communicating the [mission's] objective and endstate, boosting friendly morale, executing more effective psychological operations, playing a major role in deception of the enemy, and enhancing intelligence collection.”...[Full Article]
Labels: Army, psy ops, U.S. Army, Vigilant Citizen
Thursday, April 7, 2011
New Army Video Shows Experimental Next Generation Grenade Rifle in Action, Already in Use in Afghanistan
The target is hiding in a building down range, but he's behind cover and won't pop out for a clear shot. But a U.S. soldier takes aim anyway and pulls the trigger, sending a small grenade round barreling through the air -- seemingly too high to even be close to a hit.
Then, at the precise moment the grenade round flies over the cover and is just above the enemy, it suddenly explodes, taking the target down.
That particular scenario is only played out with a model target in a new video of the Army's next generation grenade rifle system, but similar scenes have already taken places in several real firefights in Afghanistan for the few lucky soldiers who are equipped with the experimental XM-25, lovingly referred to as "The Punisher."
The video, released by the Army and posted on Military.com, is the closest look yet at the XM-25 and demonstrates not only the weapon's ability to detonate a grenade at a precise, preprogrammed distance, potentially eliminating enemies' ability to hide behind cover, but also its high-tech sighting system and various ammunition loads.
Five prototypes of the rifles have already seen combat in nine operational missions in Afghanistan as part of what the military called a "forward operational assessment" of the weapon. There, they helped soldiers put a quicker end to deadly firefights, according to a February report by the military.
"The XM25 brought the difference to whether they would stay there 15 to 20 minutes shooting [and] taking pot shots or the actual fight ended after using the XM-25," said Sgt. 1st Class Carlos Smith, Soldier Requirements Division, Maneuver Center of Excellence, Fort Benning, Ga., according to the report.
CLICK HERE to see a PDF from the U.S. military on the XM-25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System...[Full Article]
Labels: The Punisher, U.S. Army, weapons, XM-25
Monday, March 28, 2011
UK Daily Mail
- Rolling Stone reveals how U.S. troops murdered Afghan civilians
- Soldiers cut off 15-year-old boy's finger and kept it as trophy
- Video captures U.S. troops cheering as airstrike kills two Afghan civilians
- New pictures show dead Afghan man's head on a stick
- Soldier stabbed the body of a dead Afghan civilian
An investigation by Rolling Stone magazine details how senior officers failed to stop troops killing Afghans and keeping their body parts as trophies.
In one horrific episode, the magazine claims troops chopped off a dead Afghan boy's finger and later used it as 'gambling chip' in a game of cards.
The disturbing detail included in the dossier accuses American troops of a new level of depravity and is likely to be a public relations disaster for the military...[Full Article]
Labels: Afghanistan, U.S. Army
How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses – and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon
Rolling Stone
Early last year, after six hard months soldiering in Afghanistan, a group of American infantrymen reached a momentous decision: It was finally time to kill a haji.
Among the men of Bravo Company, the notion of killing an Afghan civilian had been the subject of countless conversations, during lunchtime chats and late-night bull sessions. For weeks, they had weighed the ethics of bagging "savages" and debated the probability of getting caught. Some of them agonized over the idea; others were gung-ho from the start. But not long after the New Year, as winter descended on the arid plains of Kandahar Province, they agreed to stop talking and actually pull the trigger.
Bravo Company had been stationed in the area since summer, struggling, with little success, to root out the Taliban and establish an American presence in one of the most violent and lawless regions of the country. On the morning of January 15th, the company's 3rd Platoon – part of the 5th Stryker Brigade, based out of Tacoma, Washington – left the mini-metropolis of tents and trailers at Forward Operating Base Ramrod in a convoy of armored Stryker troop carriers. The massive, eight-wheeled trucks surged across wide, vacant stretches of desert, until they came to La Mohammad Kalay, an isolated farming village tucked away behind a few poppy fields.
Labels: U.S. Army
Saturday, February 26, 2011
New Scientist
THE US army is planning to field "rubber bullets" for machine guns. Military officials claim the ammunition will allow them to more effectively quell violent protests without loss of life, but human rights campaigners are alarmed by the new weapon.
The final design for the XM1044 round has not been selected, according to an order placed on the Federal Business Opportunities website last month, but the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate has been working on a ring aerofoil projectile for some years. The round is a hollow plastic cylinder 40 millimetres across, looking something like a short toilet-paper roll. In flight its shape generates lift, giving it a longer range...
[Full Article]Labels: civil unrest, martial law, rubber bullets, U.S. Army
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Raw Story
Michael Hastings has struck again.
The reporter who's story for Rolling Stone forced the resignation of former Gen. Stanley McChrystal has a new story out, this time focusing on what he calls "psyops" employed against elected officials by yet another "runaway general."
However, when told to target high-profile individuals such as Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Al Franken (D-MN), Carl Levin (D-MI) and even Adm. Mike Mullen -- one unit resisted, citing federal law that information warfare not be used against Americans.
"At minimum," Hastings writes, "the use of the [information operations] team against U.S. senators was a misue of vital resources designed to combat the enemy."
The report added that documents provided to the magazine showed the operations cost taxpayers over $6 million.
Those that resisted, the report said, were targeted for retaliation...
[Full Article]Labels: psychological operations, psychological warfare, psyops, Senate, U.S. Army
Thursday, January 27, 2011
BBC
A US military base that carries out tests to protect troops against biological attacks was locked down on Wednesday to resolve a "serious concern", officials have said.
The base in Dugway, Utah, reopened early Thursday to allow staff in and out. There were reported to be 1,200 to 1,400 people inside Dugway at the time.
Base commander Col William King said on Wednesday no-one was in danger.
No information was given on the nature of the problem...
[Full Article]
Labels: biological, U.S. Army, Utah
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Wired
By the end of the year, the U.S. Army will leave Iraq. But Iraq isn’t going to leave the U.S. Army.
American soldiers spent seven years patrolling the urban neighborhoods of Iraq; its troops battled insurgents there block-by-block and house-by-house. Now that the Army is getting out of Iraq, it wants to make sure its urban combat skills don’t wither away. So it today it gave Lockheed Martin a contract worth up to $287 million to build Urban Operations Training Systems — essentially, giant simulation facilities and modules to help soldiers get ready for life in the big, bad city...
[Full Article]Labels: Lockheed Martin, U.S. Army
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Increase in U.S. Army National Guard and Reserves Suicides
An increase in suicides among National Guard soldiers largely in states across the Midwest — such as Missouri and Wisconsin — is responsible for a 24% increase in Army suicides last year, the service reported Wednesday.
Missouri and Texas each reported seven suicides among their National Guard troops in 2010, Wisconsin had six, and there were five each in the National Guard units of Minnesota, Ohio, Arizona, California and North Carolina...
[Full Article]Hood, Army suicides hit record mark
...The Fort Hood mark is a new record for the post and contributed to the Army’s worst year for suicides. There was, however, a sign of hope in the grim tally. Slightly fewer active-duty soldiers died by their own hand compared with 2009. But there was bad news, too: The number of suicides in the National Guard and Army Reserve rose sharply.
The Army’s vice chief of staff, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, told the San Antonio Express-News that suicides at or near Fort Hood have increased as more soldiers have returned from combat.
Fort Hood’s 22 confirmed suicides, meanwhile, doubled its 2009 mark and was eight more than Fort Bragg, N.C., which had the second-largest tally...
[Full Article]Labels: suicide, U.S. Army, US Army
Thursday, November 4, 2010
(Reuters) - The military's new Cyber Command, responsible for shielding 15,000 military computer networks from intruders, has become fully operational, the Defense Department said on Wednesday.
More than 100 foreign intelligence organizations are trying to break into U.S. networks, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn wrote in the September/October issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. Some already have the capacity to disrupt U.S. information infrastructure, he said.
Gates ordered the new unit's creation in June 2009 to address the growing threat of cyber-attack.
It consolidates offensive and defensive operations under Army General Keith Alexander, who also heads the National Security Agency, the Defense Department's intelligence arm that protects national security information and intercepts foreign communications.
"Cyberspace is essential to our way of life and U.S. Cyber Command synchronizes our efforts in the defense of (Defense Department) networks," Alexander said in the Pentagon announcement.
Lynn declared the unit, based at Fort Meade, Maryland, fully up and running in a memorandum dated October 31, said Colonel Rivers Johnson, a Cyber Command spokesman...
[Full Article]
[Webmaster - Be ready some major false-flag cyber attacks in the near future, courtesy of the military/industrial complex. This will be used as an excuse to take down, restrict and censor the internet.]
Labels: Fort Meade, NSA, Pentagon, U.S. Army, U.S. Cyber Command
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Army PSYOPS Soldiers Embedded at Local TV Stations
The U.S. Army has used local television stations in the U.S. as training posts for some of its psychological-operations personnel, The Upshot has learned. Since at least 2001, both WRAL, a CBS affiliate in Raleigh, N.C., and WTOC, a CBS affiliate in Savannah, Ga., have regularly hosted active-duty soldiers from the Army's 4th Psychological Operations group as part of the Army's Training With Industry program. Training With Industry is designed to offer career soldiers a chance to pick up skills through internships and fellowships with private businesses. The PSYOPS soldiers used WRAL and WTOC to learn broadcasting and communications expertise that they could apply in their mission, as the Army describes it, of "influenc[ing] the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign audiences."
WRAL and WTOC were on a list of participants in the Army's Training With Industry program provided to The Upshot in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, and a spokeswoman with the Army's Human Resources Command confirmed that PSYOPS soldiers worked at the stations.
"Both of those stations are very supportive of the military, and think very highly of the program," said Lt. Col. Stacy Bathrick. "Our officers are there to learn best practices in terms of programming and production side that they can use when they deploy. To be able to get hands-on interaction with a news station — there's nothing like that." Bathrick said the soldiers were never involved in newsgathering.
The relationship between PSYOPS, Training With Industry, and television news operations has stirred controversy in the past. In 2000, after a Dutch newspaper reported that PSYOPS troops had been placed in CNN's newsroom under the program, CNN discontinued the internships and admitted that they had been a mistake. "It was inappropriate for PSYOPS personnel to be at CNN, they are not here now, and they never again will be at CNN," a spokesperson said at the time...
[Full Article]Local news stations training psychological ops soldiers: report
Two CBS affiliates have been helping train US Army psychological operations soldiers, says an investigative report at Yahoo! News.
According to documents obtained by John Cook through a freedom of information request, WRAL in Raleigh, North Carolina, and WTOC in Savannah, Georgia, have both hosted psyops soldiers as part of the Army's Training With Industry program.
The soldiers "used WRAL and WTOC to learn broadcasting and communications expertise that they could apply in their mission, as the Army describes it, of 'influenc[ing] the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign audiences,'" the report states. The arrangement reaches back at least to 2001.
It is yet more evidence of an increasingly cooperative relationship between the US military and news media, that has led some media critics to question whether news organizations are becoming tools of military policy...
[Full Article]Labels: psy ops, psychpsychological operations, U.S. Army
Thursday, September 30, 2010
(CNN) -- Four soldiers from Fort Hood, Texas died over the week. In all four cases, it appears the soldiers, all decorated veterans from the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, took their own lives, according to Christopher Haug, a Fort Hood spokesman.
If confirmed as suicides, it would be on top of 14 other suicides on the base this year. Base officials called a news conference for Wednesday afternoon to discuss the problem of suicides at the huge base in central Texas...
[Full Article]Labels: Army, Fort Hood, suicide, U.S. Army
Friday, September 17, 2010
A year and a half after a group of veterans sued the CIA, Army and Department of Defense for testing chemicals on troops without consent, the group has asked a judge to penalize the agencies for refusing to cooperate and provide vital records.
According to the veterans, the CIA "exposed thousands of test subjects to hundreds of toxic compounds over the course of many years," states the most recent court document filed in Vietnam Veterans of America v. Central Intelligence Agency.
The veterans claim they were part of experiments that involved psychochemicals, such as LSD, nerve gas and mind control tactics. The veterans never gave informed consent and have not been compensated for health problems they now suffer, they claim...
[Full Article]Labels: Army, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Department of Defense, DOD, experiments, U.S. Army
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
More potential recruits failing their physicals because they're overweight
...“What we were finding was that the soldiers we’re getting in today’s Army are not in as good shape as they used to be,” said Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who oversees basic training for the Army. “This is not just an Army issue. This is a national issue.”
Excess weight is the leading reason the Army rejects potential recruits. And while that has been true for years, the problem has worsened as the waistlines of America’s youth have expanded. Earlier this year, a group of retired generals and admirals released a report titled “Too Fat to Fight.”
“Between 1995 and 2008, the proportion of potential recruits who failed their physicals each year because they were overweight rose nearly 70 percent,” the report concluded...
[Full Article]Labels: overweight, recruits, U.S. Army, US Army
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