Tag: military industrial complex

How the West Was Won: Counterinsurgency, PSYOPS and the Military Origins of the Internet

If insurgency is defined as an organised political struggle by a hostile minority, attempting to seize power through revolutionary means, then counterinsurgency is the military doctrine historically used against non-state actors, which sets out to infiltrate and eradicate those movements.

Unlike conventional soldiers, insurgents are considered dangerous, not because of their physical presence on the battlefield, but because of their ideology.

As David Galula, a French commander who was an expert in counterinsurgency warfare during the Algerian War, emphasised:

“In any situation, whatever the cause, there will be an active minority for the cause, a neutral majority, and an active minority against the cause. The technique of power consists in relying on the favourable minority in order to rally the neutral majority and to neutralise or eliminate the hostile minority.”

Over time, however, the intelligence state lost touch with reality, as the focus of its counterinsurgency programs shifted from foreign to domestic populations, from national security risks to ordinary citizens, particularly in the wake of 9/11 when the NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, began mapping out the Internet.

Thanks to Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013, we now know that the NSA were collecting 200 billion pieces of data every month, including the cell phone records, emails, Web searches and live chats of more than 200 million ordinary Americans. This was extracted from the world’s largest Internet companies via a lesser-known data mining program called Prism.

There’s another name for this, and its total information awareness; the highest attainment of a paranoid state seeking absolute control over its population. What ceases to be worth the candle is that people’s right to privacy is enshrined under the US Constitution’s Fourth Amendment.

Few understand how lockdowns are ripples on these troubled waters. Decades of counterinsurgency waged against one subset of society, branded insurgents for their Marxist ideals has, over time, shifted to anyone holding anti-establishment views. The predictive policing of track and trace and the theory of asymptomatic transmission are the unwelcome repercussions of the intelligence state seeking total information awareness over its citizens.

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Tears for Ukraine, Sanctions for Russia, Yawns for Yemen, Arms for Saudis: The West’s Grotesque Double Standard

“We’re brutally bombed every day. So why doesn’t the Western world care like it does about Ukraine?!!… Is it because we don’t have blonde hair and blue eyes like Ukrainians?”  Ahmed Tamri, a Yemeni father of four, asked with furrowed brows about the outpouring of international support and media coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the lack of such a reaction to the war in Yemen.

Over the weekend, a member of Tamri’s family was killed and nine relatives injured when their family home was targeted in a Saudi-led Coalition airstrike in the remote al-Saqf area in Hajjah Governorate. Tamri claims that al-Saqf has been subjected to a brutal Saudi bombing campaign for the past seven years – more so, he says, than all of Ukraine has endured since it was invaded by Russia.

Despite the horrific bombing campaign against Yemeni civilians, Saudi Arabia’s human rights violations and war crimes have garnered nowhere near the level of coverage and sympathy that the mainstream Western media has rightfully given to Ukraine. “They shed tears for the Ukrainians, and ignore our tragedies… What hypocrisy and racism!” Tamri told MintPress News.

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As Ukrainians Get Killed and Displaced, Weapons Companies Reaping Record Profits Off Their Suffering

In only the first week of fighting, investors have already posted $69 billion in stock gains on the 33 major defense and aerospace stocks in the largest Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) of its kind, the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA), says an Investor’s Business Daily analysis of data from S&P Global Market Intelligence and MarketSmith.

As Investors.com reports, Northrop Grumman (NOC) already pulled 9% past analysts’ 12-month price target on the stock. Shares are up a powerful 18% since the war began, putting $10.9 billion into investors’ portfolios. It’s a similar story with Lockheed Martin (LMT). Following a 27% run-up just this year, and 16% since the war, shares blasted past analysts’ price target by some 7%.

This is by design and the model has been in place for decades.

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Biden Approves $350 Million in Military Assistance for Ukraine

U.S. President Joe Biden has approved $350 million for military aid to Ukraine as Ukrainian forces battle against a Russian invasion.

Biden instructed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to release the aid to Ukraine.

Biden in a memorandum published late Feb. 25 cited the Foreign Assistance Act in telling Blinken to drawdown weapons and related assistance.

Blinken said Saturday that he was acting on the instructions.

“Today, as Ukraine fights with courage and pride against Russia’s brutal and unprovoked assault, I have authorized, pursuant to a delegation by the president, an unprecedented third presidential drawdown of up to $350 million for immediate support to Ukraine’s defense,” Blinken said in a statement.

The new chunk brings the total security assistance the United States has committed in the past year to Ukraine to over $1 billion.

The fresh package will include “lethal defensive assistance,” Blinken said, which will help Ukrainian forces deal with the Russian invasion.

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Weather Modification Has Quite a War-ish Background

Are there specific instances we can find of weather manipulation being used by militaries against their opponents? To begin our discussion, let us first look back to 1946 when the first man-made snowstorm took place.

The beginning of weather modification

Shortly after the end of World War II, a duo of men set to the skies. One was pilot Curtis Talbot, and with him was Dr. Vincent J. Schaefer. The two men set out to 14,000 feet with just one goal in mind: they were going to make history.

Upon reaching their desired altitude, the men proceeded to release three pounds of dry ice into the air. What happened next would leave both of the men dumbfounded. As Dr. Schaefer said of the moment, there were “long streamers of snow falling from the base of the cloud through which we had just passed. I shouted to Curt to swing around, and as we did so, we passed through a mass of glistening snow crystals! Needless to say, we were quite excited.”

The men had just created snow. 

The ramifications of this were huge, but there was something even more important to consider here: the timing was impeccable as well.

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3 Military Industrial Execs Indicted for Illegal Campaign Contributions to Sen. Susan Collins

Three military-industrial executives with Department of Defense contracts have been indicted for allegedly making illegal contributions to Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-Maine) reelection bid.

According to a statement by the Department of Justice (DOJ), the three executives under investigation are Martin Kao, former chief executive of the firm Martin Defense Group, Clifford Chen, its chief financial officer, and Lawrence “Kahele” Lum Kee, an accountant for the firm.

Under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, restrictions are placed upon who can make donations to candidates and the maximum amount that they can donate to those campaigns. Military contractors are among those prohibited from making campaign contributions under the legislation, in part due to the conflicts of interest that such contributions entail.

In an effort to get around this restriction, the three indicted men allegedly formed a shell company in 2019 called the Society of Young Women Scientist and Engineers. From there, they funneled $150,000 to the Collin-supporting 1820 PAC.

According to the DOJ statement, the three men also “allegedly used family members as conduits to make illegal contributions to the campaign committee of the same candidate, and then reimbursed themselves for those donations using funds obtained from their employer.” Donations given this way exceeded $52,000.

The charge, if proven to be true, would put the three men in clear violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act, which prohibits the use of “conduits,” or go-betweens to give donations in a secretive or roundabout way.

The trio has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and to make conduit and government contractor contributions, making conduit contributions, and making government contractor contributions, according to the official indictment (pdf). Kao, the chief executive, has also been charged with two counts of making false statements for causing the submission of false information to the Federal Election Committee.

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