Showing posts with label News America Today. Show all posts
Showing posts with label News America Today. Show all posts

Thursday, June 6, 2013

WORLD WAR 2013 | Large US force arrives in Jordan for deployment at Syria border amid Syria’s Qusayr victory

U.S. Marines landing in the Jordanian port of Aqaba

A large U.S. military force has reportedly arrived at a port in the south of Jordan, ready to be deployed at the country’s border with neighboring Syria.

The Israeli military intelligence website DEBKAfile has reported that 1,000 U.S troops from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Force arrived at the southern Jordanian port of Aqaba on Tuesday and made their way to the north of the country under heavy Jordanian military escort.

According to DEBKAfile, Washington imposed a blackout on the arrival of the rapid-response force as the Pentagon only reported the sending of a Patriot missile battery and F-16 warplanes to Jordan for a military drill.

On Monday, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command based in Tampa, Florida, Lieutenant Colonel T.G. Taylor, confirmed that Patriot missile launchers and F-16 fighter jets “were approved for deployment to Jordan”.

The U.S. has sent numerous ground troops to Jordan over the past few months, mainly for operating a training camp for militants fighting against the Syrian government.

The recent deployment of U.S. troops to Jordan’s border with Syria comes amid rising concerns over U.S. President Barack Obama’s decision to appoint Susan Rice, the outgoing U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, as his next national security adviser.

According to Antiwar, with Rice taking the reins of the national security machinery of the White House, the U.S. will keep “a keen eye on military intervention in Syria”.

U.S. Senator John McCain, who met with several leaders of the foreign-backed militants in Syria last week, urged Obama on Sunday for a military intervention in Syria as he acknowledged that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has the upper hand in the Syrian conflict.

The developments come as Syrian government forces on Wednesday regained full control of the strategic city of Qusayr after three weeks of fighting with the foreign-backed militants.

Damascus has repeatedly said that the crisis in Syria is being engineered from outside the country. On May 18, President Assad said militants from 29 different countries were fighting against his government in different parts of the country.

Last week, the FBI confirmed the death of a 33-year-old American woman who had been fighting along with foreign-backed militants in Syria against the Syrian government.

Syrian TV showed a black VW Golf car, belonging to the American female militant, identified as Nicole Lynn, along with three other foreign militants including a British man, from which several Kalashnikovs were retrieved.

Via|Presstv.ir

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

SEX NOW | Experts Respond to Douglas Throat Cancer Comments

Actor Michael Douglas's comments about throat cancer have thrown a spotlight on risks from HPV, a virus spread through sexual contact. Experts say HPV is a growing cause of certain types of oral cancer. (Photo/Video: AP)

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Barack Obama Calls for Tax Breaks to Return Jobs From Abroad By MARK LANDLER

WASHINGTON — President Obama said on Wednesday that he would propose tax incentives for companies to bring home manufacturing jobs they had moved overseas, and curtail tax breaks for those that keep relocating jobs abroad.

Flanked by executives from the aerospace, chemical and furniture industries — all of whom are building or expanding factories in the United States — Mr. Obama declared that the nation was beginning to see the reversal of a long-term trend toward outsourcing. He called the new trend, perhaps inevitably, “insourcing.”

“We’re at a unique moment, an inflection point, a period where we’ve got the opportunity for those jobs to come back,” Mr. Obama said in the White House, after meeting with the executives. The American economy, he noted, has added manufacturing jobs for two years in a row, after more than a decade of losses.

The president did not offer details of the tax proposals, which presumably would be subject to approval by Congress, though he renewed his call on lawmakers to approve a one-year extension of the payroll tax cut that will expire at the end of February.

Mr. Obama said an increase in labor costs in China was eroding its advantage over the United States as a manufacturing base, a message the White House sought to buttress by circulating a research report from the Boston Consulting Group, a prominent management consulting organization. The president also said recent trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama would open markets for American exports.

Economists said small changes in tax policy would play only a marginal role in deciding where companies build factories. But with labor costs rising overseas, such changes could help reinforce a fledgling trend, they said. “There’s been a little bit of momentum on ‘insourcing’ because a lot of firms overdid it,” said Jared Bernstein, the former chief economic adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “So it could help a bit at the margin.”

Mr. Obama cited examples from companies represented in the room: Ford Motor, which the president said had moved 2,000 jobs back to the United States; Master Lock, which relocated manufacturing to Milwaukee from China; and Lincolnton Furniture, a specialty manufacturer, which set up shop in North Carolina after its owner, Bruce Cochran, closed a family-owned furniture company in 1996 and spent time consulting with companies about moving operations to China and Vietnam.

“I don’t want America to be a nation that’s primarily known for financial speculation, and racking up debt and buying stuff from other nations,” the president said. “I want us to be known for making and selling products all over the world stamped with three proud words, ‘Made in America.’ ”

Mr. Obama’s message served as a riposte to the Republican front-runner, Mitt Romney, who repeated his charge Tuesday, in his speech after the New Hampshire primary, that the president was hostile to free enterprise.

One of the executives at the meeting, James M. Guyette of Rolls-Royce North America, said his company was making investments in Indiana, where it builds aircraft engines, and in Virginia, where it opened an advanced manufacturing and research campus last year that will eventually employ 500 people.

In an interview, Mr. Guyette said Rolls-Royce was not actually moving operations back to the United States. But he said it was pouring money into American operations, like a factory in Indianapolis that once had the company’s highest labor costs and lowest productivity. Negotiations with the United Automobile Workers union had cut those costs, he said, and made the factory competitive again. “Everyone could see where this road was going to end, if we didn’t do it differently,” he said.

Via | Nyt

Monday, August 22, 2011

The Ideology of the Loser is Not a Winning Strategy (Obama loser)

The more that we observe our fellow man, the more obvious it becomes that humanity is unable to understand the problems that it causes for itself. If humans do not have the intellectual capacity to recognize most of their problems as being self-generated, then they are obviously incapable of correcting any of these life-threatening obstacles to the progression of mankind’s advancement, on their own. Leaving intellectually inferior beings in charge of the safety of the human race in the middle of an epochal historical confluence of multiple calamities is an existential form of negligence. The survival of the race requires that ways be found to institute a more capable decision-making process in the halls of power.

The Ideology of the Loser is Not a Winning Strategy

"The truth is: we are not telling the truth about these wars. America is not winning these wars."

No better example of our intellectual shortcomings could be found than in the recently concluded battle in Washington over raising the debt ceiling. Instead of solving the problems between the contrasting prevailing political opinions, the negotiating heads preferred to fight-out an opinion battle in the national press, proving that American government has degenerated into a “three-ring circus,” or a never-ending soap opera. Despite the threats, no real damage was done to the veterans, the elderly and the disabled, other than increasing their stress levels. The damages that have been done to our already mud-stained reputation are only helping to accelerate the global economic crisis.

The nature of the unfolding world crisis is one of an endless series of overlapping crises, with each crisis compounding the effects of previous blow-ups. An overwhelming global economic interruption is underway, but all of its negative effects are being made worse by endless military adventurism, which is heaping debt upon the center by the trillions. Before Obama got his way, most of us had never even contemplated what a “trillion dollars” actually meant. Now we toss the word around like it is really just business as usual, and not the most obvious signal that the whole thing has blown-up in their faces.

We are witnessing the outcome of a failed political system, which allows our Nation’s fate to be subjected to political considerations. By allowing government policy to be set by a dialectical see-saw, where the latest “winner takes all” politician jerks the decision-making process to either the right or the left, regardless of the fact that the correct answer would be a steady hand on the tiller, holding it like an anchor to the center.

Despite the fact that the losing party understands precisely the damage being done to our Constitutional Republic by their actions or inactions, it is usually the losing party which is the most vicious in its knee-jerk political actions. Invariably you will find, that it is the losing party which wages war upon the Republic itself as the means to correct the policies of the “treasonous” opponent. Instead of proving their wild ideas, they would prefer to hold their opponents to task, no matter what the human cost.

In this ideology of the loser, no actions taken to rectify the serious “errors” of their opponents can be considered to be as severe or as harmful as the opposition’s rhetorical attacks. It seems that terrorism is an acceptable form of battle in the war against seditious ideas. Knowledge that those entrusted to lead us attach greater importance to discrediting their opponents’ ideas than they do to validating their own (that the political battle is more important than the ideas being fought over), provides us a key to understanding the inadequacies of the human mind.

Vanity is the racial guarantor of our species’ stagnation. We have to make an effort to rise above our pride and accept new ways of thinking which make room for some sort of decision-making mechanism which relies upon intellects greater than the minds of individual men. Whether this new intellectual force is to be AI, cybernetically-enhanced human minds, or some computer-aided mechanism for tapping into the collective intellect of the greatest living minds, the human race must find some way to inject intellect into the governmental decision-making process. Stupid decisions are killing us. Individual personalities in control, like we have now, produce not just government gridlock, but the situation which we face, where every effort made to improve the situation as determined by the greatest political minds, only serves to make matters worse.

Human potential is equal to the total mass of all human “prodigies” added together, even the overlooked ones locked behind the barriers of poverty and the great class divide. Our potential to overcome our problems is limitless, if our potential were ever really tapped-into. This tells us that a true human renaissance awaits our children, in the very near future, dependent only upon us to make the changes which set their positive future into motion. The key to its unlocking it lies dormant, unused, because it has been hidden by hands which have a monetary stake in preventing a great awakening. Our civilization will either dead-end in the great ash heap of history, or we will step onto a new track to a better destination, together. The decision will either be made at the highest levels to do what is best for the American people and for the human race, or we will drink deeply of a deadly dose of apathy, but only if we lose the will to live.

Once the world of money and politics is revealed as a great parasitic infestation, that is sapping the life out of the human race, with its vapid political/military solutions to every problem that comes our way, then the popular support for tyranny will simply fade away. The time will soon come when all the emperors will stand naked before us, after they have been completely discredited the political/economic system that has nurtured them and their evil ways, overwhelming them with rivers of profits. The great injustice is that the economic tsunami which they have let loose upon the world will not focus solely upon the wave’s creators, but will dispense injustice equally to us all. Those at the top who are holding-on so tightly to the reigns of economic power (trying to squeeze every drop of profit out of the bankrupt systems in vain attempts to save themselves as well as their ill-gotten possessions) are strangling the lifelines for us all. Breaking their death grips will not spare anyone from the deluge that is coming, but it will open the supply lines that should already be flowing from a “humanitarian” government to the people, before the emergency hits, making survival easier for someone.

So you see, we are faced with two constants, which, when added together, reveal that our world is headed full speed to a great collision with the overtaking new world. It will either be the “New World Order” that many of us dread, or it will be a new world of our own making, a world that can only be discovered through experiments in collective “pulse-taking” (lessons to be learned from in place social networking), or other efforts to find the paths to democracy. When our worlds collide, visions of Empire will go up in smoke, but some new order will arise from the ashes, none the less. When the constant of the inevitability of the failure of political government is realized, then that is the moment when our greatest opportunity will arise. It will be the great moment of hope for all mankind, when genius is given the opportunity to provide the answers which human guile could never supply.

How do we steer away from the corporate New World Order, and set a course for freedom and universal human rights? Look toward our leaders and compare their words with leading thinkers–how do they compare? The recognized leaders all speak with one voice, even though they claim to be from different political parties. They project an aura of self-assurance, righteousness in the cause of justice. Yet their actions consistently contradict their words. Activists from both the right and the left spend their time trying to make the corrupted leadership eat their own words. In this ideological struggle, truth is the only weapon. He who possesses the most verifiable truth wins the war.

The truth is - we are not winning this war; we are not telling the truth about the war; we are not the good guys this time.

Social agitators, activists and other agents for change are people driven by their own vision - seeing into our negative future binds us all to a compulsory moral duty, to work for positive changes. If we see that our species, that our children will one day in their future, reach the point of losing all hope, then we would not be “fit parents,” allowing that to happen. If their last real hope was in us, that we would NOT let that happen to them and to their world, then who, or what force could stop us from throwing ourselves into the gears of the Imperial war machine? This is what makes us so dangerous to the powers that be. We who foresee the need to stand-up for something greater than ourselves, will willingly give-up our lives to stop them, once we understand the gravity of the situation. The knowledge of what has been done to America and the darkness that is still planned for us are powerful testimony of the loyalties of the people who have been running this country. It is irrefutable. Making more and more people aware of the true connection between our government and world terrorism will light political fires that no corrupted system could withstand. The power of the people will be an awesome sight to see.

Our great despair is that we are among a growing minority, those who can see where we are heading, including the unfortunate timing of our births. We have been privy to the birth pains of the coming Great Changing of humankind, aware of the great things to come, even though many of us will not be parties to the joyous event itself. The best that we can hope for in the here and now is to find all the truth that is within our grasp and then use it as the ultimate weapons available to us, in order to knock-down the walls which conceal the greatest truths from us all. The politics of money is a process of creating divisions and building walls. The impending human awakening will come when we either learn how to rise above all the walls, or acquire the means to tear them all down.

When the political path collapses before us, reducing all the walls that have been erected to enforce the man-made divisions, into great piles of rubble. The cost of recovery will be set by the amount of time required to set humanity upon a new, better path. The longer that we remain on the negative path to destruction, before turning around to begin the reconstruction, the greater the amount of limited funds that will be wasted in the fires of war—the less that will be available for the time of building.

At that time, it will become clear to all, that the true revolutionary is the man or woman who can see a better way, NOT he who is a journeyman at committing political violence. The violent radical who fancies himself a true “revolutionary,” is merely someone who is taking credit for the inevitable collapse of a failing Empire, at best, they may have helped to speed-up parts of that collapse.

It turns-out that the most revolutionary act is one of simple persuasion, trying to convince the men who have the most to lose, to turn the machinery onto the path of creativity, away from the road to our destruction. The problem with this approach is the futility of the task, the utter impossibility of convincing the ultra-wealthy to give-up the very thing that has given them all of this power. (Shoving a camel through the eye of a needle might really be easier). In order to convince lesser mortals to work towards turning humanity around, you must first persuade them to give-up hope in the great capitalist dream. The power of that dream maintains a terrible grip upon the minds of mankind, breaking it will necessarily require a series of individual awakenings, until the weight of that awakened minority is felt by the whole mass of humanity. We increase our numbers of aware individuals until we affect, or infect the whole.

This line of thinking reveals three tasks before us - giving credibility to the negative vision, giving form to the new direction, and creating the conviction of inevitability. We have already covered the first task to a great degree by covering the conspiracies that are guiding the chaos. The collapsing economy and the perpetuation of persistent conflict are both products of ineptitude and deception. Proving incompetence and that we have been lied to on a grand scale will help to convince the people that our leaders are idiots and their solutions are merely prolongations of the problems nothing more than political theater and propaganda. The second task will be a bit harder, in that it is far more difficult to bring substance to a vision out of thin air, painting an image of a better way to invest in mankind. The third task of communicating the abstract quantity of “inevitability” to a church filled with the under-educated faithful could border on the impossible.

Democracy is NOT a “two-party system.” Our glorious political system is a formula for manufacturing divisions, if not a template for outright civil war. Pushing this upon the world is a criminal act. What our “trusted” leaders have done is to strangle the American Republic to the point of near death, in an organized scheme of mass-extortion and bribery, focused on the perpetuation of power and the subjugation of an entire Nation. Pushing this arrangement upon other countries under pretense of helping is a formula for taking-over the political system of those countries.

Not being satisfied with the mass-rape and looting operations which have destroyed the American economy, these same leaders and the political factions which they represent, are mid-stream in the world’s greatest plot to seize control of the entire planet. Waist-deep in a raging economic river of their own making, our fearless leaders are also being swept away by the forces that they have helped to unleash and by those that they should have worked to contain. Instead of working to control the uncontrolled flood, they are content to roll with it, pouring endless sacks of money into the torrent, never once stopping to fill any of those same canvas bags with sand. Why build dams or levees in hopes of containing the destruction, when half of your men are busy dynamiting other levees?

The insanity of political man will continue to prevail until men and women of reason stand-up and show us a better way. The parade of idiots will continue and the dead weight of their archaic political beliefs will override common sense for as long as we let them. Until we fully realize the great genetic gifts that we have been blessed with, we will continue to follow the crooked path that leads us to the “idiot nation.” Until we utilize the greatest computer ever built by the hands of God, or at least dedicate the best computers built by man, to the task of preserving our species, we will continue to flounder on the rocks of ignorance.

What could be worse than total idiots leading the blind?

 

By Peter Chamberlin

Monday, July 11, 2011

In Defense of Antidepressants (Could this be true?) By PETER D. KRAMER

IN terms of perception, these are hard times for antidepressants. A number of articles have suggested that the drugs are no more effective than placebos.

Last month brought an especially high-profile debunking. In an essay in The New York Review of Books, Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, favorably entertained the premise that “psychoactive drugs are useless.” Earlier, a USA Today piece about a study done by the psychologist Robert DeRubeis had the headline, “Antidepressant lift may be all in your head,” and shortly after, a Newsweek cover piece discussed research by the psychologist Irving Kirsch arguing that the drugs were no more effective than a placebo.

Could this be true? Could drugs that are ingested by one in 10 Americans each year, drugs that have changed the way that mental illness is treated, really be a hoax, a mistake or a concept gone wrong?

This supposition is worrisome. Antidepressants work — ordinarily well, on a par with other medications doctors prescribe. Yes, certain researchers have questioned their efficacy in particular areas — sometimes, I believe, on the basis of shaky data. And yet, the notion that they aren’t effective in general is influencing treatment.

For instance, not long ago, I received disturbing news: a friend had had a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body. Hoping to be of use, I searched the Web for a study I vaguely remembered. There it was: a group in France had worked with more than 100 people with the kind of stroke that affected my friend. Along with physiotherapy, half received Prozac, and half a placebo. Members of the Prozac group recovered more of their mobility. Antidepressants are good at treating post-stroke depression and good at preventing it. They also help protect memory. In stroke patients, antidepressants look like a tonic for brain health.

When I learned that my friend was not on antidepressants, I suggested he raise the issue with his neurologists. I e-mailed them the relevant articles. After further consideration, the doctors added the medicines to his regimen of physical therapy.

Surprised that my friend had not been offered a highly effective treatment, I phoned Robert G. Robinson at the University of Iowa’s department of psychiatry, a leading researcher in this field. He said, “Neurologists tell me they don’t use an antidepressant unless a patient is suffering very serious depression. They’re influenced by reports that say that’s all antidepressants are good for.”

Critics raise various concerns, but in my view the serious dispute about antidepressant efficacy has a limited focus. Do they work for the core symptoms (such as despair, low energy and feelings of worthlessness) of isolated episodes of mild or moderate depression? The claim that antidepressants do nothing for this common condition — that they are merely placebos with side effects — is based on studies that have probably received more ink than they deserve.

The most widely publicized debunking research — the basis for the Newsweek and New York Review pieces — is drawn from data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration in the late 1980s and the 1990s by companies seeking approval for new drugs. This research led to its share of scandal when a study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that the trials had been published selectively. Papers showing that antidepressants work had found their way into print; unfavorable findings had not.

In his book “The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth,” Dr. Kirsch, a psychologist at the University of Hull in England, analyzed all the data. He found that while the drugs outperformed the placebos for mild and moderate depression, the benefits were small. The problem with the Kirsch analysis — and none of the major press reports considered this shortcoming — is that the F.D.A. material is ill suited to answer questions about mild depression.

As a condition for drug approval, the F.D.A. requires drug companies to demonstrate a medicine’s efficacy in at least two trials. Trials in which neither the new drug nor an older, established drug is distinguishable from a placebo are deemed “failed” and are disregarded or weighed lightly in the evaluation. Consequently, companies rushing to get medications to market have had an incentive to run quick, sloppy trials.

Often subjects who don’t really have depression are included — and (no surprise) weeks down the road they are not depressed. People may exaggerate their symptoms to get free care or incentive payments offered in trials. Other, perfectly honest subjects participate when they are at their worst and then spontaneously return to their usual, lower, level of depression.

THIS improvement may have nothing to do with faith in dummy pills; it is an artifact of the recruitment process. Still, the recoveries are called “placebo responses,” and in the F.D.A. data they have been steadily on the rise. In some studies, 40 percent of subjects not receiving medication get better.

The problem is so big that entrepreneurs have founded businesses promising to identify genuinely ill research subjects. The companies use video links to screen patients at central locations where (contrary to the practice at centers where trials are run) reviewers have no incentives for enrolling subjects. In early comparisons, off-site raters rejected about 40 percent of subjects who had been accepted locally — on the ground that those subjects did not have severe enough symptoms to qualify for treatment. If this result is typical, many subjects labeled mildly depressed in the F.D.A. data don’t have depression and might well respond to placebos as readily as to antidepressants.

Nonetheless, the F.D.A. mostly gets it right. To simplify a complex matter: there are two sorts of studies that are done on drugs: broad trials and narrow trials. Broad trials, like those done to evaluate new drugs, can be difficult these days, because many antidepressants are available as generics. Who volunteers to take an untested remedy? Research subjects are likely to be an odd bunch.

Narrow studies, done on those with specific disorders, tend to be more reliable. Recruitment of subjects is straightforward; no one’s walking off the street to enter a trial for stroke patients. Narrow studies have identified many specific indications for antidepressants, such as depression in neurological disorders, including multiple sclerosis andepilepsy; depression caused by interferon, a medication used to treat hepatitis and melanoma; and anxiety disorders in children.

New ones regularly emerge. The June issue of Surgery Today features a study in which elderly female cardiac patients who had had emergency operations and were given antidepressants experienced less depression, shorter hospital stays and fewer deaths in the hospital.

Broad studies tend to be most trustworthy when they look at patients with sustained illness. A reliable finding is that antidepressants work for chronic and recurrent mild depression, the condition called dysthymia. More than half of patients on medicine get better, compared to less than a third taking a placebo. (This level of efficacy — far from ideal — is typical across a range of conditions in which antidepressants outperform placebos.) Similarly, even the analyses that doubt the usefulness of antidepressants find that they help with severe depression.

In fact, antidepressants appear to have effects across the depressive spectrum. Scattered studies suggest that antidepressants bolster confidence or diminish emotional vulnerability — for people with depression but also for healthy people. In the depressed, the decrease in what is called neuroticism seems to protect against further episodes. Because neuroticism is not a core symptom of depression, most outcome trials don’t measure this change, but we can see why patients and doctors might consider it beneficial.

Similarly, in rodent and primate trials, antidepressants have broad effects on both healthy animals and animals with conditions that resemble mood disruptions in humans.

One reason the F.D.A. manages to identify useful medicines is that it looks at a range of evidence. It encourages companies to submit “maintenance studies.” In these trials, researchers take patients who are doing well on medication and switch some to dummy pills. If the drugs are acting as placebos, switching should do nothing. In an analysis that looked at maintenance studies for 4,410 patients with a range of severity levels, antidepressants cut the odds of relapse by 70 percent. These results, rarely referenced in the antidepressant-as-placebo literature, hardly suggest that the usefulness of the drugs is all in patients’ heads.

The other round of media articles questioning antidepressants came in response to a seemingly minor study engineered to highlight placebo responses. One effort to mute the placebo effect in drug trials involves using a “washout period” during which all subjects get a dummy pill for up to two weeks. Those who report prompt relief are dropped; the study proceeds with those who remain symptomatic, with half getting the active medication. In light of subject recruitment problems, this approach has obvious appeal.

Dr. DeRubeis, an authority on cognitive behavioral psychotherapy, has argued that the washout method plays down the placebo effect. Last year, Dr. DeRubeis and his colleagues published a highly specific statistical analysis. From a large body of research, they discarded trials that used washouts, as well as those that focused on dysthymia or subtypes of depression. The team deemed only six studies, from over 2,000, suitable for review. An odd collection they were. Only studies using Paxil and imipramine, a medicine introduced in the 1950s, made the cut — and other research had found Paxil to be among the least effective of the new antidepressants. One of the imipramine studies used a very low dose of the drug. The largest study Dr. DeRubeis identified was his own. In 2005, he conducted a trial in which Paxil did slightly better than psychotherapy and significantly better than a placebo — but apparently much of the drug response occurred in sicker patients.

Building an overview around your own research is problematic. Generally, you use your study to build a hypothesis; you then test the theory on fresh data. Critics questioned other aspects of Dr. DeRubeis’s math. In a re-analysis using fewer assumptions, Dr. DeRubeis found that his core result (less effect for healthier patients) now fell just shy of statistical significance. Overall, the medications looked best for very severe depression and had only slight benefits for mild depression — but this study, looking at weak treatments and intentionally maximized placebo effects, could not quite meet the scientific standard for a firm conclusion. And yet, the publication of the no-washout paper produced a new round of news reports that antidepressants were placebos.

In the end, the much heralded overview analyses look to be editorials with numbers attached. The intent, presumably to right the balance between psychotherapy and medication in the treatment of mild depression, may be admirable, but the data bearing on the question is messy.

As for the news media’s uncritical embrace of debunking studies, my guess, based on regular contact with reporters, is that a number of forces are at work. Misdeeds — from hiding study results to paying off doctors — have made Big Pharma an inviting and, frankly, an appropriate target. (It’s a favorite of Dr. Angell’s.) Antidepressants have something like celebrity status; exposing them makes headlines.

It is hard to locate the judicious stance with regard to antidepressants and moderate mood disorder. In my 1993 book, “Listening to Prozac,” I wrote, “To my mind, psychotherapy remains the single most helpful technology for the treatment of minor depression and anxiety.” In 2003, in “Against Depression,” I highlighted research that suggested antidepressants influence mood only indirectly. It may be that the drugs are “permissive,” removing roadblocks to self-healing.

That model might predict that in truth the drugs would be more effective in severe disorders. If antidepressants act by usefully perturbing a brain that’s “stuck,” then people who retain some natural resilience would see a lesser benefit. That said, the result that the debunking analyses propose remains implausible: antidepressants help in severe depression, depressive subtypes, chronic minor depression, social unease and a range of conditions modeled in mice and monkeys — but uniquely not in isolated episodes of mild depression in humans.

BETTER-DESIGNED research may tell us whether there is a point on the continuum of mood disorder where antidepressants cease to work. If I had to put down my marker now — and effectively, as a practitioner, I do — I’d bet that “stuckness” applies all along the line, that when mildly depressed patients respond to medication, more often than not we’re seeing true drug effects. Still, my approach with mild depression is to begin treatments with psychotherapy. I aim to use drugs sparingly. They have side effects, some of them serious. Antidepressants help with strokes, but surveys also show them to predispose to stroke. But if psychotherapy leads to only slow progress, I will recommend adding medicines. With a higher frequency and stronger potency than what we see in the literature, they seem to help.

My own beliefs aside, it is dangerous for the press to hammer away at the theme that antidepressants are placebos. They’re not. To give the impression that they are is to cause needless suffering.

As for my friend, he had made no progress before his neurologists prescribed antidepressants. Since, he has shown a slow return of motor function. As is true with much that we see in clinical medicine, the cause of this change is unknowable. But antidepressants are a reasonable element in the treatment — because they do seem to make the brain more flexible, and they’ve earned their place in the doctor’s satchel.

Peter D. Kramer is a clinical professor of psychiatry at Brown University.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - NYT

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

End Of An Era: Shaquille O’Neal Says Goodbye To The NBA…

Catch ya later, Diesel.

End Of An Era- Shaquille O’Neal Says Goodbye To The NBA…What’s Next

Shaq took to the social media site, Tout, to put out a video where he announced his retirement.

“We did it. Nineteen years baby,” Shaq shared. “I want to thank you very much, that’s why I’m telling you first, I’m about to retire. Thank you, talk to you soon.”

You think this is really the end or just another prank? Shaq is getting old and could barely walk around for the last half of the season, so maybe it’s best he call it a career. It’s also interesting that he waited until the Finals started, so he can snatch the attention away from the people that are actually still playing ball.

Oh well, at least now he can spend some quality time with his boo boo Hoopz. So what do you think? Is Shaq the greatest NBA center of all time?

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

TOP SECRET: Silent weapons and the strategies of social and economic control. (This is for you – Read it!)

TOP SECRET: Silent weapons for quiet wars

An introductory programming manual

Operations Research
Technical Manual
TM-SW7905.1

Welcome Aboard

This publication marks the 25th anniversary of the Third World War, called the "Quiet War", being conducted using subjective biological warfare, fought with "silent weapons".

This book contains an introductory description of this war, its strategies, and its weaponry.

SECURITY

It is patently impossible to discuss social engineering or the automation of a society, i.e., the engineering of social automation systems (silent weapons) on a national or worldwide scale without implying extensive objectives of social control and destruction of human life, i.e., slavery and genocide.

This manual is in itself an analog declaration of intent. Such a writing must be secured from public scrutiny. Otherwise, it might be recognized as a technically formal declaration of domestic war. Furthermore, whenever any person or group of persons in a position of great power and without full knowledge and consent of the public, uses such knowledge and methodologies for economic conquest - it must be understood that a state of domestic warfare exists between said person or group of persons and the public.

The solution of today's problems requires an approach which is ruthlessly candid, with no agonizing over religious, moral or cultural values.

You have qualified for this project because of your ability to look at human society with cold objectivity, and yet analyze and discuss your observations and conclusions with others of similar intellectual capacity without the loss of discretion or humility. Such virtues are exercised in your own best interest. Do not deviate from them.


HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

Silent weapon technology has evolved from Operations Research (O.R.), a strategic and tactical methodology developed under the Military Management in England during World War II. The original purpose of Operations Research was to study the strategic and tactical problems of air and land defense with the objective of effective use of limited military resources against foreign enemies (i.e., logistics).

It was soon recognized by those in positions of power that the same methods might be useful for totally controlling a society. But better tools were necessary.

Social engineering (the analysis and automation of a society) requires the correlation of great amounts of constantly changing economic information (data), so a high-speed computerized data-processing system was necessary which could race ahead of the society and predict when society would arrive for capitulation.

Relay computers were to slow, but the electronic computer, invented in 1946 by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, filled the bill.

The next breakthrough was the development of the simplex method of linear programming in 1947 by the mathematician George B. Dantzig.

Then in 1948, the transistor, invented by J. Bardeen, W.H. Brattain, and W. Shockley, promised great expansion of the computer field by reducing space and power requirements.

Monday, May 16, 2011

9/11 Reconstruction: 100 million Americans that question or find fault with the official 9/11 story

By Joel S. Hirschhorn

(The Intelligence Daily) — The failure to rebuild the World Trade Center site in Manhattan has received endless attention.  But public anger about this failed reconstruction should not been seen so negatively.  After all, mental reconstruction has also still not been successful and is surely more needed, with too many Americans still accepting the official government story about 9/11.  This, despite a huge amount of compelling evidence that elements of the US government played some role, despite a very large, active 9/11 truth movement, and despite an impressive number of highly credible people demanding a new investigation as documented at patriotsquestion911.com.
In the recent Angus Reid Public Opinion survey of a representative national sample of American adults, 62 per cent of respondents disagree with the view that the “Sept. 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan.”   Far more Republicans disagree at 80 percent, compared to 66 percent of Independents and 55 percent of Democrats.
Consistent with this is that two-thirds of Americans (67 percent) agree with the government commission that investigated the events of Sept. 11, 2001, which concluded that an attack was carried out by 19 hijackers who were members of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, led by Osama bin Laden.  Though 12 per cent of respondents reject the commission’s findings, one-in-five Americans (21 percent) are undecided.  In particular, 35 percent of Independents and 34 percent of Democrats do not accept the official version, compared to just 20 percent of Republicans.
These figures translate to about 100 million Americans that question or find fault with the official 9/11 story, far from a trivial number and far too many to dismiss as conspiracy nuts and part of the lunatic fringe.  This is the important message that merits public appreciation.
That the mainstream media refuses to acknowledge this kind of public sentiment reflects on their lack of courage to dig deep into the role of the government and face the truth.  This behavior does nothing to improve American democracy and trust in government.  True patriots must acknowledge that government through the terrible acts of some individuals can carry out hideous acts; there is a bipartisan history of this.  Truth is the best way to stop such behavior.
Clearly, Republicans have blocked out the painful possibility that the Bush-Cheney administration played a role in 9/11.  This may also explain why the large tea party movement that results from strong disillusionment with government does not embrace the 9/11 truth movement.
Here is my perspective: If far more Americans rejected or questioned the official government story and demanded a new investigation, we would get the mental reconstruction sorely needed to ensure that the government never again uses a false flag operation to advance a policy (wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) that would not otherwise receive public support, especially one that kills thousands of Americans, both civilians and soldiers.
That the reconstruction at ground zero in Manhattan has still not succeeded symbolizes that the wounds of 9/11 are not healed, which means that we still have some chance of demanding and discovering the full truth, regardless of how painful it is.  The cost of a first-rate new investigation might be $50 million, far less than the billions of dollars to reconstruct the Manhattan site.
In the end, truth is more important than new buildings.  Worse than a hole in the ground is a hole in our national soul.  We need Congress to authorize and fund a new 9/11 investigation.  The highly fragmented 9/11 truth movement must unite behind a political strategy to make this happen.  The only reason to fear a new investigation is the likely unsettling finding that, indeed, the US government was a lot more than incompetent and negligent.
[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through delusionaldemocracy.com.]

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Guerra in Libia: La legge del piombo fuso in un mondo senza padroni!?!

bombe francesi_americane_invasione_libia_war_for_oilIl piombo fuso per il petrolio

L’intervento occidentale in Libia segna l’inizio di una nuova epoca nei rapporti internazionali: l’uso spudorato della forza ovunque si profilano interessi energetici per le varie multinazionali che si alimentano di “sangue” dei popoli sotto dittature, o regimi non conniventi con l’Occidente. Tutto ciò avviene con il consueto beneplacito dell’ONU, che non è altro che l’espressione del potere economico e militare dei vincitori della II guerra mondiale. Per dirla: “abbiamo vinto la guerra mondiale, adesso governiamo il mondo come ci pare e come ci piace”. Da queste considerano troviamo alcune domande giuste da farsi: Fin quando durerà questa situazione? Quante guerre “umanitarie” vedremo ancora? Fin dove i nuovi poteri forti del mondo supporteranno l’Occidente? Perché la Cina, uno dei maggiori investitori in Libia non ha alzato la voce? Perché i paesi africani stanno tutti zitti? Quali sono le vere ragioni della guerra in Libia? Chi controlla la Corte penale internazionale? I soldi delle guerre perché non vengono investiti nei paesi poveri? Quanto contano i poteri forti occidentali (multinazionali, mafie, massonerie varie) nelle decisioni di guerre?

Dopo la guerra fredda tutti si aspettavano un mondo più pacifico perché sotto la “Pax Americana”, il vincitore della guerra fredda, ma così non è stato. L’America si è rivelata incapace di governare un mondo senza padroni, senza l’equilibrio del terrore. Un mondo dove crescono a dismisura varie bande dedicate alla vendita di armi e di “morte” ovunque si vuole. Nel giro di pochi anni abbiamo assistito guerre etniche senza precedenti, come è stata quella del Ruanda e poi quella dei Balcani. Sulla stessa scia, ma senza cause di divergenze etniche, l’Angola ha vissuto alcuni dei suoi peggiori anni con una guerra civile estesa in tutti gli angoli del paese, eventi che non avrebbero successo se non fosse caduto il muro di Berlino ed imploso l’Impero russo.

A ragion veduta, il caos nella relazione tra i paesi è frutto dell’assenza di un equilibrio che limita lo strapotere di alcuni sugli altri. Molte iniziative guerrafondaie che oggi vediamo non avrebbero luogo se ci fosse ancora l’equilibrio sopracitato. La mia non è una difesa della causa russa, ma sì un’analisi della realtà attuale dove vige la legge del più forte, il più forte comunque.

Non rimpiangiamo quella pace/armata ossia l’equilibrio del terrore, considerando che il contenimento delle due super-potenze era determinato da una possibile guerra atomica che avrebbe spazzato via tutto ciò che conosciamo di normale in questo mondo. Ma bisogna pur sottolineare quanto quell’equilibrio aiutò a lungo il mantenimento di un certo rispetto tra le nazioni. Nessuno decideva di bombardare un paese per libera iniziativa, così come, anche in presenza di un mandato ONU, l’azione era dosata secondo il leader della zona d’influenza. Così per più di cinquant’anni l’America e la Russia hanno mantenuto la “Pax nucleare”. Ma che pace…

Stiamo vivendo una situazione molto critica perché il mondo è cambiato ma gli l’Occidente continuare ad agire indisturbato come se nulla fosse successo. L’America/l’Occidente, come abbiamo appeno sottolineato, ha avuto la sua opportunità di guidare il mondo come unica super-potenza, ma i risultati sono stati catastrofici: incremento delle guerre di stampo etnico (dividere per meglio regnare), incremento del traffico di armi e di droga, interventi militari arbitrari ovunque si profilavano guadagni, apertura di nuove basi militari a bene o male, etc. Per meglio sfruttare il proprio potere, l’Occidente ha accelerato i processi di globalizzazione, un meccanismo che ha permesso alle multinazionali di meglio sfruttare la mano d’opera quasi gratuita e le risorse naturali di molti paesi poveri. Questo processo ha portato molti paesi alla banca rotta così come ha aumentato le disuguaglianze in tutte le parti del mondo, compreso in Occidente. L’economia ha preso in mano la politica ed ogni iniziativa internazionale cominciò ad essere improntata secondo quanto si guadagnava.

Così, i suddetti processi di globalizzazione (conseguenza positiva) hanno contribuito anche alla nascita di nuovi soggetti internazionali, nuovi centri di potere, portando il mondo ad una situazione di è multipolarità, ma purtroppo l’Occidente continua ad agire come se niente fosse cambiato. Nel nuovo panorama mondiale ci sono i BRIC: c’è la Cina, che da sola produce beni per quasi tutto il mondo, c’è l’India, c’è il Brasile e c’è la vecchia Russia, che stenta a camminare, ma continua un paese importante nello scenario internazionale visto che ha in suo possesso una quantità enorme di bombe atomiche sufficienti per distruggere la metà del pianeta. Ci auguriamo che presto le potenze tornino a parlarsi ed imporre maggiore serietà nei rapporti internazionali, con la conseguenza di maggiore attenzione ai veri interessi di ogni popolo: vera democrazia, benessere sostenibile ed vita lunga e felice.

L’intervento militare dell’Occidente in Libia ha trasformato l’essenza dei BRIC da entità economica ad alternativa politica dell’occidente. Il cambiamento è avvenuto in sede ONU, nell’ambito del Consiglio di Sicurezza, dove i BRIC si sono astenuti di votare la risoluzione presentata dalla Francia chiedendo l’intervento militare in Libia. I quattro hanno presentato le proprie perplessità e chiesto all’ONU perché l’intervento dell’Occidente non si trasformi in opportunità di depredazione delle risorse petrolifere libiche, nonché l’eliminazione fisica di Gheddafi. Guarda caso è proprio questo l’intento dell’intervento.

Di Barack Obama non spendo più di due righe: ha deluso. Si è lasciato intimidire dalla Multinazionali e dei poteri forti. si è bruciato prima di cominciare.

Uno dei grandi assenti in questa guerra, se non il principale, è l’Unione africana. Quest’ultima, super dipendente dai soldi del governo di Gheddafi per gli assunti africani – Cfr. finanziamenti per le truppe dell’UA in Somalia e in Sudan -, non riesci ad imporre una propria linea (cessate il fuoco e negoziazione). Da una parte molti paesi africani continuano a dipendere vergognosamente da Parigi, e dell’altra molti governi sono costituiti da uomini incapaci di distinguere gli assunti interni di ogni paesi, quelli regionali e quelli internazionali. Insieme all’ONU, anche l’Unione africana ha bisogno di ripensare il proprio futuro.

Per Kingamba Mwenho

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Diplomats discuss Libya's future as Italy plots Gaddafi's escape route

Belgian Defence Minister De Crem at Araxos airbase
Belgian defence minister Pieter De Crem by a Belgian F16 fighter at Araxos, Greece. Diplomatic pressure on Gaddafi to go is mounting. Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters

Efforts appear to be under way to offer Muammar Gaddafi a way of escape from Libya, with Italy saying it was trying to organise an African haven for him, and the US signalling it would not try to stop the dictator from fleeing.

The move came amid mounting diplomatic and military pressure on Gaddafi as Britain tries to assemble a global consensus demanding he surrender power while intensifying air strikes against his forces. An international conference in London – including the UN, Arab states, the African Union, and more than 40 foreign ministers – will focus on co-ordinating assistance in the face of a possible humanitarian disaster and building a unified international front in condemnation of the Gaddafi regime and in support of Nato-led military action in Libya.

On the eve of the conference, Italy offered to broker a ceasefire deal in Libya, involving asylum for Gaddafi in an African country. "Gaddafi must understand that it would be an act of courage to say: 'I understand that I have to go'," said the Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini. "We hope that the African Union can find a valid proposal."

A senior American official signalled that a solution in which Gaddafi flees to a country beyond the reach of the international criminal court (ICC), which is investigating war crimes charges against him, would be acceptable to Washington, pointing out that Barack Obama had repeatedly called on Gaddafi to leave.

"I can't say I know of active efforts to find him a place to go, but I would not say it has been ruled out," the official said. "The ICC has said it will ready to pursue the case, but there are also the rules of the ICC," he added, pointing out that some countries do not recognise the court's jurisdiction.

British officials said they would rather see Gaddafi face trial, but if his escape was the price of a peaceful settlement they would be able to live with that.

David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy tried to ratchet up the pressure on Gaddafi, issuing a joint statement on the eve of the conference declaring his era over, and indicating that his lieutenants might escape prosecution if they abandoned him immediately. "We call on all his followers to leave him before it is too late," they said.

Meanwhile Obama gave a televised speech to the American people in which he explained why the US was involved in the conflict, as a response to his domestic critics over the crisis. The US president increased the pressure on Gaddafi by saying it was imperative his rule be ended. "We continue to pursue the broader goal of a Libya that belongs not to a dictator but to its people," he said. "Gaddafi has not yet stepped down from power and until he does Libya will remain dangerous."

He also used his speech to emphasise that strikes against Gaddafi's forces would continue even as American leadership of the campaign transferred to Nato tomorrow. "Our coalition will keep the pressure on Gaddafi's forces," he said.

Meanwhile, with the Libyan regime's forces and rebels squared for a battle around Gaddafi's birthplace of Sirte, British planes taking part in the coalition campaign stepped up their bombardment.

RAF Tornados hit 22 tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery pieces over the weekend, the Ministry of Defence said. Early Monday, they struck ammunition bunkers near Subha in southern Libya, according to Major General John Lorimer, the MoD's chief military spokesman. Defence officials said the higher tempo was the result of more intelligence surveillance and assessments from reconnaissance aircraft.

Discord over the air strikes threatens to undermine the consensus the UK will attempt to construct at the Lancaster House conference. Russia denounced the air campaign, arguing it violated UN security council resolution 1973, which permitted "all necessary measures" to protect civilians. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said: "We consider that intervention by the coalition in what is essentially an internal civil war is not sanctioned."

Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was also critical, and in a symbolic blow to the London conference, it emerged that Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League – whose support for military action was deemed crucial by Washington and its allies – would not be attending, sending a deputy instead.

The joint statement issued by Cameron and the French president was intended in part to heal discord over the command of the air campaign and France's recognition of the Benghazi-based National Libyan Council. The rebels are not invited to the conference, but William Hague is expected to meet one of their leaders, Mahmoud Jibril. The shadow defence secretary, Jim Murphy, will warn today: "The bravery of the Libyan opposition is not in doubt. What is unclear is the motives of some, other than the removal of Gaddafi. As the opposition move westwards across Libya it is crucial that we better understand who they are and their wider ambitions."

Via | www.guardian.co.uk

USA: Pentagon spends billions to fight roadside bombs, with little success

By Peter Cary and Nancy A. Youssef | Center for Public Integrity and McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — In February 2006, with roadside bombs killing more and more American soldiers in Iraq, the Pentagon created an agency to defeat the deadly threat and tasked a retired four-star general to run it.

Five years later, the agency has ballooned into a 1,900-employee behemoth and has spent nearly $17 billion on hundreds of initiatives. Yet the technologies it's developed have failed to significantly improve U.S. soldiers' ability to detect unexploded roadside bombs and have never been able to find them at long distances. Indeed, the best detectors remain the low-tech methods: trained dogs, local handlers and soldiers themselves.

A review by the Center for Public Integrity and McClatchy of government reports and interviews with auditors, investigators and congressional staffers show that the agency — the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization — also violated its own accounting rules and hasn't properly evaluated its initiatives to keep mistakes from being repeated.

Meanwhile, roadside bombs remain the single worst killer of soldiers as more U.S. forces have been transferred out of Iraq and into Afghanistan. Known in military parlance as improvised explosive devices, the crude, often-homemade bombs killed 368 coalition troops in Afghanistan last year, by far the highest annual total since 2001, when the U.S.-led war there began, according to icasualties.org, which tracks military casualties in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

Among the serious questions about how well JIEDDO has spent its billions:

  • The agency failed to collect data on its projects, leading a congressional investigative subcommittee to conclude in 2008, "The nation does not yet know if JIEDDO is winning the (counter-IED) fight."
  • Some of its spending went to programs that had little to do with its core mission, including $400 million for Army force protection in 2010 and $24.6 million to hire private contractors for intelligence operations in Afghanistan.
  • Agency officials misreported some $795 million in costs, the Government Accountability Office said, circumventing its own rules requiring high-level Defense Department approval for projects with price tags greater than $25 million.
  • JIEDDO's staff comprises six contractors for every government employee, a ratio that its outgoing director acknowledged needs to be reduced.
  • While the agency was mandated to "lead, advocate (and) coordinate" anti-roadside bomb initiatives, more than 100 groups and initiatives inside and outside the Defense Department continue "to develop, maintain and in many cases expand" their own work, the GAO found.

Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif., a former Marine and an Iraq and Afghanistan veteran, said the Pentagon and its anti-IED agencies, including JIEDDO, could do far better in preventing casualties from roadside bombs.

"So as long as the IED metric keeps going up, and as long as we keep taking the majority of our KIA (killed in action) casualties from IEDs, then they've all been unsuccessful. Period," he said.

One U.S. soldier who was based in Baghdad in 2008 said: "We were out there every day. We studied our destroyed vehicles, and (the enemy's IED tactics) kept changing. So we kept trying new ideas, anything, to stop them. JIEDDO didn't help us." The soldier declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Lt. Gen. Michael Oates, who recently stepped down as the agency's director, its third in five years, acknowledged missteps but said they were inevitable because the agency was tasked with producing devices quickly.

"We fund things," Oates said. "Sometimes we fund things that don't work. Some call that waste; I call it risk."

One of the things that apparently didn't work was the Joint IED Neutralizer, created in 2002 by an Arizona start-up called Ionatron. Looking like a pair of boxy golf carts, the JIN fired ultra-short pulse lasers followed by a half-million-volt lightning bolt of electricity, and its makers said it could detonate the blasting caps that triggered IEDs from well outside blast range.

In 2005, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz authorized $30 million for the JIN despite skepticism from scientists, who said damp ground or dust would render the device useless. During test runs in Afghanistan in 2006, the JIN was disappointing: It had trouble climbing steep mountain terrain and experienced safety problems, continuing to shoot lightning bolts after its switch was turned off.

After the JIN received some publicity, an insurgent website published ways to defeat it. The test vehicles were shipped back to the United States.

In mid-2006, shareholders filed two class-action suits against the JIN's makers, alleging that the firm had concealed the fact that the vehicle wasn't capable of meeting government specifications. The company, which had changed its name to Applied Energetics Inc., denied the claims but settled the suit in September 2009 by paying $5.3 million in cash and another $1.2 million in stock to the complaining shareholders. The firm didn't respond to repeated requests for comment.

Still, the project wouldn't die. With a $400,000 earmark from Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., and $1.5 million more from JIEDDO, the Marine Corps hung the JIN on the front of a mine roller. A slide from a May 2009 Marine Corps briefing shows a device attached to mine rollers shooting a bolt of electricity into the ground.

"People have been trying to use a Tesla coil" — a transformer that can produce very high-voltage discharges — "for years to defeat mines. It has never worked," said Dan Goure, a former defense official who's a vice president at the Lexington Institute, a Washington-area research center.

The devices JIEDDO designed to detect roadside bombs at a distance didn't work out, Goure said. They included airplane- or drone-based radars, long-range radars to sniff out buried control wires, and detectors to sense explosive ingredients such as ammonium nitrate fertilizer.

Other projects that were started but abandoned include: Alexis and Electra-C, which emitted waves to detonate IEDs but interfered with jammers; an unmanned Humvee called Forerunner that soldiers said "induced operator vertigo" and was hard to control, according to a JIEDDO report; and a high-powered microwave emitter called BlowTorch that was designed to defeat heat-triggered IEDs but which insurgents figured out how to overcome.

"We were throwing new technologies into this like fast-food orders at a diner," Goure said.

JIEDDO officials said the agency quickly terminated programs that weren't promising. But the GAO and some congressional staffers countered that the agency has never been good at choosing or steering its projects.

"It's been a weakness from the beginning. They don't have good controls over start-ups," said Bill Solis, the director of defense capabilities and management at the GAO, which has authored several studies on the agency.

JIEDDO spent more than $3 billion on jammers to thwart radio-controlled IEDs, which most say was a good idea. It bought mine rollers to attach to the fronts of vehicles. However, critics note that what many consider the most successful anti-roadside bomb program was only marginally funded by JIEDDO: the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, now operating mainly in Afghanistan. While JIEDDO purchased the first 250 MRAPs, designed to withstand roadside bombs, it was a separate MRAP task force that bought more than 22,000 of them for $36 billion.

Oates, the agency's former director, has said the "greatest return on the dollar" has been training soldiers to detect and respond to roadside bomb attacks.

The GAO noted that the agency spent $70.7 million from 2007 to 2009 on "role-players in an effort to simulate Iraqi social, political and religious groups" at Pentagon training centers.

At one training site, the agency spent $24.1 million to make steel shipping containers resemble Iraqi buildings.

"I just couldn't believe it," said a former congressional staffer, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to speak publicly.

The agency's new director, Lt. Gen Michael Barbero, took over earlier this month fresh off a tour in Iraq. Among his tasks will be collecting data on what works and what doesn't, and improving relations with Congress, which had complained in the past about a lack of information to evaluate the agency's performance.

In debate over the 2010 Pentagon budget, for instance, the House Armed Services Committee threatened to withhold half the agency's money "until the committee is provided JIEDDO's detailed budget and program information."

Few in Congress wanted to be seen giving short shrift to the fight against roadside bombs, however. Year after year, the agency has received the federal funding it requested, to the tune of $20.8 billion over six years.

Roadside bomb attacks continue to increase in Afghanistan, averaging roughly 1,500 per month at the end of last year. The number of U.S. troops wounded by IEDs skyrocketed to 3,366 in 2010, compared with 2,386 during the previous nine years combined, according to data JIEDDO collected.

Despite years of effort, soldiers have long had only a 50-50 success rate in detecting bombs before they explode. That ticked up to 60 percent in Afghanistan in recent months, Oates said — thanks largely to better local intelligence and aerial surveillance as well as on-the-ground technology — but it's too soon to tell whether this marks a long-term trend.

The agency's future is unclear. While some of Oates' predecessors argued that the agency should be a permanent part of the Pentagon because the fight against roadside bombs is global and ongoing, some in Congress have argued that it should be terminated at the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Oates, for his part, said that JIEDDO "is not a permanent organization, and we do not seek to be one."

(This article was reported and written by Peter Cary of the Center for Public Integrity and Nancy A. Youssef of McClatchy. Shashank Bengali of McClatchy contributed. The center is a nonprofit investigative journalism organization based in Washington. Cary is a freelance writer who formerly headed the investigative reporting team at U.S. News & World Report.)

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/

Libya/Civil War: Libyan rebel leader spent much of past 20 years in suburban Virginia

WASHINGTON - The new leader of Libya's opposition military spent the past two decades in suburban Virginia but felt compelled — even in his late-60s — to return to the battlefield in his homeland, according to people who know him.

Khalifa Hifter was once a top military officer for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, but after a disastrous military adventure in Chad in the late 1980s, Hifter switched to the anti-Gadhafi opposition. In the early 1990s, he moved to suburban Virginia, where he established a life but maintained ties to anti-Gadhafi groups.

Late last week, Hifter was appointed to lead the rebel army, which has been in chaos for weeks. He is the third such leader in less than a month, and rebels interviewed in Libya openly voiced distrust for the most recent leader, Abdel Fatah Younes, who had been at Gadhafi's side until just a month ago.

At a news conference Thursday, the rebel's military spokesman said Younes will stay as Hifter's chief of staff, and added that the army — such as it is — would need "weeks" of training.

According to Abdel Salam Badr of Richmond, Va., who said he has known Hifter all his life — including back in Libya — Hifter -- whose name is sometimes spelled Haftar, Hefter or Huftur -- was motivated by his intense anti-Gadhafi feelings.

"Libyans — every single one of them — they hate that guy so much they will do whatever it takes," Badr said in an interview Saturday. "Khalifa has a personal grudge against Gadhafi... That was his purpose in life."

According to Badr and another friend in the U.S., a Georgia-based Libyan activist named Salem alHasi, Hifter left for Libya two weeks ago.

alHasi, who said Hifter was once his superior in the opposition's military wing, said he and Hifter talked in mid-February about the possibility that Gadhafi would use force on protesters.

"He made the decision he had to go inside Libya," alHasi said Saturday. "With his military experience, and with his strong relationship with officers on many levels of rank, he decided to go and see the possibility of participating in the military effort against Gadhafi."

He added that Hifter is very popular among members of the Libyan army, "and he is the most experienced person in the whole Libyan army." He acted out of a sense of "national responsibility," alHasi said.

"This responsibility no one can take care of but him," alHasi said. "I know very well that the Libyan army especially in the eastern part is in desperate need of his presence."

Omar Elkeddi, a Libyan expatriate journalist based in Holland, said in an interview that the opposition forces are getting more organized than they were at the beginning up the uprising. Hifter, he said, is "very professional, very distinguished," and commands great respect.

Since coming to the United States in the early 1990s, Hifter lived in suburban Virginia outside Washington, D.C. Badr said he was unsure exactly what Hifter did to support himself, and that Hifter primarily focused on helping his large family.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/03/26/111109/new-rebel-leader-spent-much-of.html#ixzz1HwwRBVOC

By Chris Adams | McClatchy Newspapers

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Libya/War 2011: Allies target Libyan ground forces after decimating air force

The massive strikes on Col. Qaddafi’s ground forces, including his big Armada of tanks, mobile rocket launchers, heavy guns and short range battle missiles, mark the second phase of operation ‘Odyssey Dawn’, British Air Vice Marshal Greg Bagwell said.

U.S. and allied forces today shifted focus on hitting Libyan ground forces, targeting tanks and artillery to obliterate Muammar Qaddafi’s war waging machine, as French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe warned that the campaign may go on for weeks.

The shift to attack the ground forces came after coalition commanders claimed that Libyan air force had been completely destroyed and that the U.S. and NATO warplanes had total sway of the Libyan sky.

The massive strikes on Col. Qaddafi’s ground forces, including his big Armada of tanks, mobile rocket launchers, heavy guns and short range battle missiles, mark the second phase of operation ‘Odyssey Dawn’, British Air Vice Marshal Greg Bagwell said.

Col. Qaddafi’s air force “no longer exists a fighting force,” Air Vice Marshal Bagwell said as a flotilla of NATO warships patrolled Libya’s coast to enforce an arms embargo against Qaddafi.

As the allied operation entered the sixth day, French Foreign Minister Juppe said the campaign would continue.

“It will last for days and weeks. But, not months,” he said, spelling out for the first time the expected duration of the military campaign.

The French Minister was speaking to reporters in Brussels ahead of a crucial EU—NATO meeting to discuss how to coordinate airstrikes on Libya.

The coalition warplanes pounded the rebel—held city of Misruta, forcing Col. Qaddafi’s forces to pull back from the outskirts of the city, but residents said by nightfall the tanks and artillery had renewed their the shelling on the city which is virtually under siege.

Similar strikes were aimed at Col. Qaddafi’s forces stalking the towns of Adjabiyah and Zintan. “We are interdicting and putting pressure on Qaddafi’s forces that are attacking population centres,” said Rear Admiral Gerard P. Hueber, the Chief of Staffs for the American—led operational command.

“The air attacks continued day and night yesterday and resumed this morning on Qaddafi’s ground forces in both Misurata in the west and Adjabiyah in the east,” the Admiral said as NATO’s top military commander U.S. Admiral James Stavridis flew into Turkey to hold talks with Turkish military leaders who are holding up an agreement for NATO to take over command of Operation Odyssey.

The allied forces also continued Tomahawk missile strikes and air bombing of the Libyan capital Tripoli.

A BBC correspondent said the city was rocked by seven explosions and witnesses said a military base at Tajura, 32 km. east of the capital was hit.

Al Jazeera said eight explosions were also heard in the east of the capital last night.

The official JANA news agency said coalition raids on Tajura had killed a large number of civilians. Tajura, which houses a massive military complex, including a missile base, has been hit thrice.

JANA said the latest raid had targeted rescue workers who were trying to remove the dead and wounded from the rubble left by the first two raids.

Although the endgame in Libya remains unclear, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates, now on a farewell visit to Egypt, said that mounting pressure on Col. Qaddafi could encourage his inner circle and even members of his family to turn on him.

“I think there are any number of possible outcomes here, and no one is in a position to predict them,” Mr. Gates said.

A U.S. commander said the allies flew 175 sorties in 24 hours, and the U.S. flew 113 of those. French defence minister Gerard Longuet, meanwhile, said France had destroyed about 10 Libyan armoured vehicles over three days.

However, there was no let up in Col. Qaddafi's forces’ shelling of the rebel—held cities.

In the coastal city of Misurata, around 200km east of Tripoli, government snipers fired indiscriminately, killing 16 people, Al Jazeera reported.

It quoted a rebel spokesman as saying that four children were killed in the city on Tuesday as regime forces pressed their siege.

Via | Thehindu.com

El descaro de los invasores a Libia: “Vengan con nosotros y únanse a esta ‘transición democrática’”

La invasión trasladó por primera vez sus operaciones a las ciudades de Al Yubra y Sebha, bastiones de la tribu Guededfa, de la que forma parte el líder libio. Francia desmintió la caída de uno de sus aviones. ”Los bombardeos empezaron a partir de las 02H00 locales. Hemos escuchado aviones y disparos de baterías antiaéreas y luego varias explosiones”, relató un habitante de Sehba citado por agencias internacionales.

Es la primera vez que la invasión que lideran EEUU, Francia y el Reino Unido, realizan operaciones en ciudades ubicadas al sur de Trípoli, una región bajo dominio absoluto del gobierno. El líder libio ha centrado sus ataques en las ciudades del este controladas por la oposición.

Al mismo tiempo, el diario digital libio Al Watan había informado sobre la caída de un avión de avión francés en la ciudad natal del líder libio. “Ningún avión francés fue derribado en Sirte la noche pasada”, dijo el coronel Thierry Burkhard, vocero de las Fuerzas Armadas de Francia.

El aparato de propaganda del gobierno ha acelerado su campaña contra los ataques aliados. La televisión mostró imágenes de cadáveres parcialmente carbonizados. Fuentes opositoras rechazaron, sin embargo, que se tratara de civiles muertos en los ataques aéreos de la invasión internacional.

Desde que comenzaron los ataques aéreos para imponer una zona de exclusión aérea sobre Libia, el sábado pasado, la oposición ha tildado de falsas las informaciones de los medios estatales sobre supuestas víctimas civiles. En tierra, los enfrentamientos entre las tropas leales a Gadafi y los rebeldes se centran en estos momentos en las ciudades de Aydabiya y Misurata, al este de Trípoli.

El Pentágono insistió este jueves en que había establecido con éxito una zona de exclusión aérea sobre las zonas costeras de Libia y afirmó que había pasado a atacar la artillería de Gadafi. En sintonía, Gran Bretaña señaló que había lanzado misiles guiados Tomahawk desde un submarino clase contra defensas aéreas libias. Y el ministro de Defensa francés, Gerard Longuet, indicó que su país destruyó unos 10 vehículos blindados libios durante tres días.

Mucho más lejos fue el oficial de alto rango de la Royal Air Force británica, Greg Bagwell, quien señaló que la aviación libia “ya no existe como fuerza de combate”. Sin embargo, los tanques de Gadafi se acercaron a la estratégica ciudad de Misrata, la tercera más grande del país, aún en poder de los rebeldes. Al amparo de la oscuridad, comenzaron a disparar contra el área cerca del hospital principal, dijeron residentes y rebeldes, con lo que reanudaron su ataque luego de que sus armas fueran silenciadas durante el día por los bombardeos aliados.

En la capital, la defensa antiaérea del gobierno comenzó a disparar en la madrugada local y se escucharon luego varias explosiones. A su vez, al comenzar la noche, se había producido una fuerte explosión en una base del ejército libio, a 32 kilómetros al este de Trípoli. Luego los testigos vieron llamas en el lugar.

La agencia oficial Jana había indicado, entonces, que los bombardeos de la coalición internacional en los suburbios de Trípoli el miércoles por la noche, que tuvieron como objetivo “un barrio residencial”, dejaron “una importante cantidad de muertos entre los civiles”. Según la agencia, un “tercer bombardeo” de la invasión “tomó como blanco a los socorristas que estaban trabajando para extraer los muertos y heridos” en el lugar. También denunció que hubo muertos civiles en Jafra, en Jemil, en Misrata y al sur de Bengasi.

La información fue desmentida por el Pentágono. En sintonía, al ser interrogado sobre los disparos de la invasión que afectaron a civiles, el canciller francés Alain Juppé, respondió que lo que se produjo “es exactamente lo contrario”. Sin embargo, fuentes distintas afirmaron que la invasión a Libia ha cobrado más civiles inocentes que personas cercanas a Gadafi.

El líder libio niega que su ejército esté realizando cualquier operación ofensiva y sostiene que sus tropas sólo se están defendiendo cuando son atacadas. Pero un residente en Zintan, al suroeste de Trípoli, dijo que las fuerzas del Gadafi están reuniendo más tropas y tanques para bombardear a los invasores.

Mientras, las fuerzas rebeldes en el este aún están detenidas afuera de Ajdabiyah, una ciudad clave, luego de intentar recapturarla por más de tres días.

“Nosotros continuaremos los ataques aéreos. Tomamos como blanco a los medios militares y nada más”, afirmó el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores francés, Alain Juppé, a la emisora RTL. “Esto continuará el tiempo que sea necesario”, agregó, considerando que el comienzo de las operaciones desde el sábado pasado era “un éxito”.

“La solución puramente militar no existe. En un momento dado, deberá esbozarse un proceso político”, afirmó, de su lado, la presidencia gala en un comunicado.

No obstante, indicó que “no incumbe a los europeos dictar el proceso a los libios”. Y concluyó: “En cambio, animamos a los libios a desertar, unirse a las oposiciones que se expresan, a unirse en un proceso de transición democrática”.

http://wmaracaibo.com/?p=22942

Libya/Civilian War: Like Vitnam 2000 US Marines on ground in Libya, says ABC

An ABC affiliate in North Carolina says more than 2,000 U.S. Marines are on the ground in Libya.

WCTI-TV in New Bern reports those Marines, assigned to the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) at Camp Lejuene, are "preserving the sanctity of the city [of Ajdubiyah] and the safety of the civilians within it."

Capt. Timothy Patrick with the 26th MEU told the station: "In Libya right now they are doing exactly what we need them to do. They are doing what they are told, and right now that's protecting Libyan people against Qadhafi forces."

Evidently the Marines' efforts are being successful. The commanding officer of the 26th MEU, Col. Mark Desens, says that following a second round of strikes by AV-8B Harrier jets, the Libyan dictator's forces "are now less capable of threatening the town than before."

According to the report, the 2,200 Marines with the 26th MEU are nearing the end of their deployment in the Mediterranean area and are due to be replaced with Marines from the 22nd MEU out of Camp Lejeune. A March 7 notice from the commanding officer of the 22nd MEU says that unit was being deployed to the Mediterranean Sea earlier than previously planned.

The new face of war: A female general commands the U.S. air campaign in Libya 2011

This is the general overseeing the American part of the air campaign in Libya. Air Force Maj. Gen. Margaret Woodward, commander of the 17th Air Force, based in Germany, seems to be an expert in refueling and mobility, which is probably why she was picked for Africa Command, whose planners likely expected the command mainly to be doing humanitarian relief missions. Instead she is overseeing airstrikes by B-2 bombers, F-15E fighter/bombers, and F-16 CJ jammers.

To my knowledge, this is the first time a woman has ever overseen an air campaign.

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