"The Global Consciousness Project, also known as the EGG Project, is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others continuously collecting data from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites worldwide. The archive contains over 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second."
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, December 13, 2019
Recently, the Washington Post published the results of a lengthy, in-depth, years-long investigation into the War in Afghanistan, which were published only after even more years of prolonged court battles.
See: The Afghanistan Papers A secret history of the war
At war with the truth
U.S. officials constantly said they were making progress. They were not, and they knew it, an exclusive Post investigation found.
“A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.
“The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.
“The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.
“It took three years and two federal lawsuits for The Post to pry loose 2,000 pages of interview records.
“In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare.
“With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.
News of the Washington Post’s news was widespread, and numerous news reporting outlets and agencies reported on and shared the Post’s findings. One such outlet was The Guardian.
See:
Afghanistan papers reveal US public were misled about unwinnable war
“Hundreds of confidential interviews with key figures involved in prosecuting the 18-year US war in Afghanistan have revealed that the US public has been consistently misled about an unwinnable conflict.
“Transcripts of the interviews, published by the Washington Post after a three-year legal battle, were collected for a Lessons Learned project by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar), a federal agency whose main task is eliminating corruption and inefficiency in the US war effort.
“The 2,000 pages of documents reveal the bleak and unvarnished views of many insiders in a war that has cost $1tn (£760bn) and killed more than 2,300 US servicemen and women, with more than 20,000 injured. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians have died in the conflict.” …
Imagine that… ONE TRILLION dollars wasted down a rat hole, and being lied to about it all. What could we have done with that money? What would an extra $20 Billion looked like to each of the 50 states? That’s how much they would’ve had were it divvied up that way. Or, expressed another way, that’s a little over $3000 for every man, woman, and child now residing in the United States.
Oh… how about improved our national infrastructure?
Or, how about improved delivery of healthcare to our citizen-residents, their families, children, and elderly?
Or, how about improving and shoring up Social Security Trust Fund? That one could be more easily and readily accomplished by making it a “HANDS OFF!” account, and forbidding use/disbursement of its money for any other purpose than for claims upon it, thus making is solvent into perpetuity. But, Congress likes to use that money as a practical “slush fund” to pay for things that they don’t have the guts to raise taxes to pay for. THAT MUST CHANGE!!
But, nearly 20 years ago, exactly one day BEFORE the now-infamous day of September 11, 2001, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld delivered an address which was broadcast live throughout all DOD installations worldwide, was published on the DOD website, and was entitled “Bureaucracy to Battlefield.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, January 12, 2017
Most would agree that Osama bin Laden is dead, that he was killed by a TOP SECRET CIA-led joint U.S. Military operation code-named Operation Neptune Spear, which was executed by the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group, aka DEVGRU, or commonly as SEAL Team Six.
DEVGRU and the Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1st SFOD-D), aka “Delta Force,” are the DOD’s elite counterterrorism task force units, both which operate under the Joint Special Operation Command (JSOC).
Also involved in Operation Neptune Spear was the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) “Nightstalkers,” (SOAR(A)) from Ft. Campbell, KY, and the CIA’s Special Activities Division (SAD), the most secretive of all clandestine agencies, whose members – if compromised – are denied by the United States Government.
But it was the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group’s DEVGRU that was Operation Neptune Spear’s fatal piercing point for Osama bin Laden.
The general public has not ever seen images of Osama bin Laden’s corpse. Nor are they likely ever to see them. At least not in this lifetime.
In addition to President of the United States Barack Obama, one of the less-than-fifty-people who ever saw them was Republican Senator James Inhofe, who described in part what he saw to CNN: “One of the shots went through the ear and out through an eye socket, or through the eye socket and out through the ear and exploded, that was the kind of ordinance it was. That caused the brains to be hanging out of the eye socket. Absolutely no question about it. A lot of people out there say: ‘I want to see the pictures,’ but I’ve already seen them. That was him. He’s gone. He’s history.”
President Obama, who ordered the mission, said in part to CBS News that, “Keep in mind that we are absolutely certain this was him. We’ve done DNA sampling and testing. And so there is no doubt that we killed Osama bin Laden. It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence. As a propaganda tool.”
Following President Obama’s White House announcement May 2, 2011 that bin Laden had been killed, speculation quickly arose that the death was falsified, that it – like some imagine the Moon Landing – was somehow “faked.”
Lack of publicly available images and details on the TOP SECRET Operation Neptune Spear only fueled specious speculation which, like wildfire, spread throughout the tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy community.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Your Tax Dollars at Work:U.S. Air ForceMothballs $1.6 BILLION of New Aircraft
Nearly 13 years ago, in a speech given at the Pentagon, Monday, September 10, 2001, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in part that, “We cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. We maintain 20 to 25 percent more base infrastructure than we need to support our forces, at an annual waste to taxpayers of some $3 billion to $4 billion.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Monday, May 27, 2013
[UPDATE – Friday, September 4, 2020: The DOD link for SECDEF Rumsfeld’s remarks “DOD Acquisition and Logistics Excellence Week Kickoff — Bureaucracy to Battlefield” made Monday, September 10, 2001 has been relocated/obfuscated/archived. The PDF file of his remarks may now be found on/downloaded from this site, on Donald Rumsfeld’s archival site, or from the Homeland Security Digital Library, a site “sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s National Preparedness Directorate, FEMA and the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security.” Ed.]
What does Alabama U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions think about the March 2012 Government Accountability Office report to Congress that found the 96 highest-priority defense programs in the Pentagon acquisitions system represented an estimated total cost of $1.58 trillion, and had actually “grown by over $74 billion or 5 percent in the past year”?
The report, entitled DEFENSE ACQUISITIONS: Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs – may be downloaded from the GAO website: http://www.gao.gov/assets/590/589695.pdf
And then, there are the Remarks as Delivered by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, The Pentagon, Monday, September 10, 2001 entitled “DOD Acquisition and Logistics Excellence Week Kickoff — Bureaucracy to Battlefield,” in which he said “According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.”
How many variety of voices over an extended period of time do we need before we heed their warnings?
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, January 13, 2013
Here’s the one-liner you’ll remember, albeit one with significant truth:
“There’s more pork in the Pentagon budget than a Smithfield corporate hog farm feedlot in North Carolina.”
Or, if you prefer:
“There’s more pork in the Pentagon budget than a Paula Deen Christmas recipe.”
And if the Pentagon budget were a recipe, it’d be a recipe for disaster.
The budget for the United States Department of Defense accounts for very nearly 6% of our nation’s budget. It is THE SINGLE LARGEST BUDGET ITEM in the entire budget. The amount of money sifting through the Pentagon’s hands is more than the combined defense budgets of the world’s top 15 wealthiest nations. And, it accounts for 4.7% of our nation’s economy. Late former President Dwight David Eisenhower was spot-on accurate in his Farewell Address to the nation 17 January 1961 when he warned us saying:
“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
None of this is to say, of course, that any kind of spending on national defense is somehow a bad thing, for it is not. Yet Eisenhower specifically warned about even the spiritual implications of the DoD spending “Gone Wild.” However, the last time the people, the Congress, the President or anyone else – including the Comptroller General, the Office of the DoD Inspector General, or the Secretary of Defense ever said anything about being budget hawks on the use of the people’s taxes was September 10, 2001 when SecDefDonald Rumsfeld spoke to the Department of Defense, and announced that the Department of Defense “cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.” Not only was that money MIA, but he added that…
“The technology revolution has transformed organizations across the private sector, but not ours, not fully, not yet. We are, as they say, tangled in our anchor chain. Our financial systems are decades old. According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions. We cannot share information from floor to floor in this building because it’s stored on dozens of technological systems that are inaccessible or incompatible.
“We maintain 20 to 25 percent more base infrastructure than we need to support our forces, at an annual waste to taxpayers of some $3 billion to $4 billion. Fully half of our resources go to infrastructure and overhead, and in addition to draining resources from warfighting, these costly and outdated systems, procedures and programs stifle innovation as well. A new idea must often survive the gauntlet of some 17 levels of bureaucracy to make it from a line officer’s to my desk. I have too much respect for a line officer to believe that we need 17 layers between us.” -Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, September 10, 2001
He discovered $2.3 Trillion in the DoD budget of taxpayer monies which had no accounting. It was “Missing In Action.” The next day, the World Trade Centers suffered terrorist attacks. We never heard anything ever again. [Read the text of his speech here: http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=430]
Here’s a video of the CBS news report.
And now, here’s a jet plane that is the veritable aircraft version of a Jack-of-all-Trades-and-Master-of-None, which our nation’s military has previously said they do not need, and already have other more durable, reliable and operable aircraft. And this is a thing that they have continuously said they want, rather than need.
Wants and needs are two entirely different things.
And not only that, but that the entire bidding process related to Defense contracts is fraught with cost overruns, late deliveries and more – all of which would NOT be, and is NOT tolerated in private enterprise. And yet, we somehow think that the sacred cow of Pentagon spending is somehow exempted from the normal rules of operation.
And now, with the budget items heating up again, it would be ludicrously preposterous to presume that the sacred cow of Pentagon slush funds slop trough is in pristine condition.
Other agencies, like American businesses and families throughout, have learned to live within their means, and make do with less.
Durability testing on the most complicated version of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s (LMT) F-35 was halted last month after “multiple” cracks were discovered in the fighter jet, according to the Pentagon’s testing office.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, August 5, 2012
What is wrong with those people?
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Missile Defense Staff Warned to Stop Surfing Porn Sites
By Tony Capaccio – Aug 2, 2012 4:47 PM CT
The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency warned its employees and contractors last week to stop using their government computers to surf the Internet for pornographic sites, according to the agency’s executive director.
In a one-page memo, Executive Director John James Jr. wrote that in recent months government employees and contractors were detected “engaging in inappropriate use of the MDA network.”
Standard Missile-3 is launched in Kauai, Hawaii, during a Missile Defense Agency test of its sea-based midcourse program. Photograph: U.S. Navy via Getty Images
Standard Missile-3 is launched in Kauai, Hawaii, during a Missile Defense Agency test of its sea-based midcourse program. Photograph: U.S. Navy via Getty Images
“Specifically, there have been instances of employees and contractors accessing websites, or transmitting messages, containing pornographic or sexually explicit images,” James wrote in the July 27 memo obtained by Bloomberg News.
“These actions are not only unprofessional, they reflect time taken away from designated duties, are in clear violation of federal and DoD and regulations, consume network resources and can compromise the security of the network though the introduction of malware or malicious code,” he wrote.
Individuals identified as violating the rules face referral for “appropriate” disciplinary action, he wrote. They put “their security clearances in jeopardy, and are subject to suspension and removal from federal service or MDA sponsored contracts.”
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Friday, July 6, 2012
To say this man has anger management problems would be an understated mischaracterization.
REPORT COVER – Inspector General United States Department of Defense Report of Investigation Lieutenant General Patrick J. O’Reilly US Army Director, Missile Defense Agency
Based upon the testimony given in the report, I’d say he’s very likely suffering from personality disorder, with a definite narcissistic element, and possibly borderline psychotic.
While the MDA’s headquarters remain at Fort Belvoir, VA, nearly 5,000 people work for the agency in offices on the Army’s Redstone Arsenal, in Huntsville, AL. The majority of the agency’s programs are now managed primarily in the Von Braun Complex of offices. Over 2,200 MDA positions relocated to Huntsville after the 2005 Base Realignment And Closure (BRAC) commission decision.
LTG O’Reilly is often in Huntsville and has an office in the new Von Braun III wing.
Last October during a ribbon cutting ceremony in Huntsville, LTG O’Reilly said, “The largest concentration of missile defense engineers anywhere in the world is in this building,” which he said made it the “hub of missile defense for our nation.”
Posted By Josh Rogin, Tuesday, July 3, 2012 – 12:38 PM
Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, the head of the Missile Defense Agency, mismanaged his office, harassed and bullied his senior staff, and overall failed in his leadership of the Pentagon’s largest program, according to a previously undisclosed internal report obtained exclusively by The Cable.
O’Reilly “engaged in a leadership style that was inconsistent with standards expected of senior army leaders,” in violation of Army regulations on ethics and leadership, according to a May investigation and report by the Defense Department‘s Inspector General‘s office that was never released to the public. The IG’s office is recommending that Pentagon leadership take “corrective action,” against O’Reilly.
The report found that O’Reilly regularly yelled and screamed at subordinates, often in public, demeaned and belittled employees, and behaved in such a way as to result in the departure of at least six senior staffers from MDA during his tenure.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, May 6, 2012
UPDATE: Monday, 07 May 2012
Army officials have not yet released the 43-year-old Nurse/Soldier’s cause of death, but confirmed Monday that he was not shot.
Spokeswoman Chris Grey said, “Although the investigation into his death is open and ongoing by Special Agents from the US Army Criminal Investigation Command, we can positively say that Captain Clark was not shot. Agents conducting the investigation, found no trauma to the body beyond minor abrasions and a possible broken nose most likely caused from Captain Clark striking his face on his desk when he collapsed. Investigators will continue to probe the death but they do not “suspect foul play.”
Beaumont Army Medical Center Public Affars Officer Clarence Davis said the cause of death has not been determined, and that “The autopsy and investigation will reveal the cause of death.”
According to CPT Clark’s brother Justin Hallenbeck, he even spent time as a volunteer firefighter.
CPT Clark was a part of A Company, Troop Command at Beaumont, and deployed to Afghanistan in March.
He was stationed in Tarin Kowt, Afghanistan, which was described by Army officials as a town of about 10,000 people.
US Army CPT Bruce Kevin Clark, RN was thought to have been killed by a bullet in Afghanistan while off-duty during a Skype video conference session with his wife, who is stateside.
(AP) HOUSTON – The wife of an Army officer serving in Afghanistan witnessed her husband’s death as the two video chatted via Skype, his family said Friday.
The circumstances of Capt. Bruce Kevin Clark’s death were not immediately available. The Pentagon said it was under investigation, and his brother-in-law said he didn’t have details.
“We are entrusting the military with investigating and with finding out what happened to Capt. Clark,” Bradley Taber-Thomas told The Associated Press.
Clark, a 43-year-old Army chief nurse, grew up in Michigan and lived previously in Spencerport, N.Y., a suburb of Rochester and his wife’s hometown. He joined the Army in 2006 and was stationed in Hawaii before he was assigned to the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso. He deployed to Afghanistan in March.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, April 15, 2012
UPDATE 19 April 2012:
Major General Dr L. P. Chang, commander of 807th medical command says #army#suicide rate surpassed civilian rate in 2008. #AASConference
— Mayo Clinic (@MayoClinic) April 19, 2012
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The news you don’t hear…
Just because you don’t hear it doesn’t mean it goes away.
Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Bryan B. Battaglia, who is the Defense Department’s top enlisted leader, held a press conference in Washington, D.C. December 9, 2011 in response a report to Congress on suicide among America’s military veterans conducted by Center for a New American Security. Testimony was given December 2, 2011 before the House Committee on Veteran’s Affairs, and may be found here. The findings are that suicide by veterans constitutes a serious threat to the stability of an all-volunteer military force. About 1% of Americans have served during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but 20% of suicides in the United States are former service members. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates 18 veterans die by suicide each day.
Never before have our military service members been asked to do so much. Never before have our military service members been asked — or required — to attend numerous tour of combat duty consecutively. Those changes occurred under Read the rest of this entry »
Speaking at a recent policy forum, Ryan suggested the nation’s top generals had downplayed their funding needs to accommodate President Obama’s goal of reducing defense spending.
“We don’t think the generals are giving us their true advice. We don’t think generals believe that their budget is really the right budget,” Ryan said at the event last week.Dempsey swiftly pushed back against Ryan’s comment.
“There’s a difference between having someone say they don’t believe what you said versus … calling us, collectively, liars,” Dempsey said. ”My response is I stand by my testimony. This was very much a strategy-driven process to which we mapped the budget.”
Warm Southern Breeze 