20
Feb 03

Secret Saudi Plan

Obviously, not much of a secret. What’s the real deal?

Secret Saudi Plan: Crown Prince Floats Islamic Occupation Force for Iraq:


    The Saudis are proposing that after Saddam Hussein’s fall, Saudi Arabia should lead a coalition of Islamic nations to occupy Iraq while a transitional Iraqi government is established, with Turkey playing the leading role in the Islamic force.

    Senior government officials told ABCNEWS that according to the Crown Prince, an Islamic occupation force would defuse the anti-American hostility that is sweeping the Middle East and putting pressure on moderate Arab governments that are allied with the United States.

    The Saudis would then be free to crack down on the extremist Jihadis in the Kingdom who are allied with al Qaeda or are sympathetic to Osama bin Laden.

    Right now, Saudis feel a full scale crackdown would look like the Kingdom is doing American bidding, at a time when President Bush is very unpopular there.


20
Feb 03

More GPS jamming jitters

Had a visitor to the site from some desk jockey in the army.

20 Feb, Thu, 12:24:18 trac.wsmr.army.mil Netscape 4 Windows 2000

For a search on the Russian military’s cheap GPS jammer, the AviaConversia (150-200km effective radius in the size of a large flashlight). trac.wsmr.army.mil is the domain name of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command Analysis Center, White Sands Missile Range.


    TRAC at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico (TRAC-WSMR) conducts a wide variety of analyses for TRADOC and HQDA, and DoD agencies, including military system Program Managers and the Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC). TRAC-WSMR is responsible for highly resolved analysis of brigade and battalion operations, life cycle costs of new equipment, and training effectiveness. TRAC-WSMR develops, maintains, verifies and validates, and exports a suite of combat models and simulations to support analyses of battlefield functional areas and weapon systems, and stimulation of field exercises, experiments, and training; and operational testing of new equipment under development.

I guess they’re simulating what would happen if someone cracked military encryption and blocked their GPS guidance systems which would cause confusion and increase friendly fire accidents and expose assets to threat.


20
Feb 03

Odds and ends

  • Venezuela arrests strike leader: CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A leader of Venezuela’s general strike was snatched out of a restaurant by secret police and faces charges of treason and instigating violence for his role in mass, anti-government protests that crippled the nation’s economy. My guess is Chavez is starting to take the elite seriously.
  • FBI arrests professor with suspected terrorist ties.
  • Pentagon warns public of bloody war:
    After the rapid collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan was achieved with minimal allied losses, senior officials are concerned that President George W Bush should prepare the public for what one called “the very real possibility that [Iraq] will not look like Afghanistan”. Afghanistan was nothing. This will be very bad. It’s unfortunate we have leaders who are foolish and egomaniacal.
  • Bush’s war timetable unravelling:
    But the most urgent problem facing the US in its push to war is Turkey, traditionally a staunch Nato partner. The Turkish leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, indicated yesterday there was little sign of the impasse being resolved quickly, saying there were no plans for a parliamentary vote this week on allowing US troops on Turkish soil.

    Failure by Turkey to open its bases to American troops would mean that US transport ships carrying thousands of servicemen and essential equipment would have to be re-routed to the Gulf or elsewhere. Any diversionary attack against Baghdad from the north may then have to be scaled back dramatically. The block on US servicemen might also leave the Kurds vulnerable to an Iraqi counter-attack.

  • NY TIMES: U.S. Is Pessimistic Turks Will Accept Aid Deal on Iraq:
    Still, an administration official said other issues were in contention in negotiating with the Turks — namely, the future of the Turkish military presence in northern Iraq and the Turkish desire for some oil concession at Kirkuk in Iraq.

    “The Turks want to control the operation at Kirkuk, at a minimum through a pipeline,” the official said. “That’s in a way a better deal for them than American aid.”

    But Mr. Bush and his aides have often said Iraq’s oil is for the benefit of the Iraqi people, and they realize that any discussion of guaranteeing access to the oil to Turkey — or any other nation — would make it appear that the war is about oil rights, not weapons of mass destruction. This is too funny.

  • Wired: As American as Curry Pie: Outsourcing to India.
  • Big Brother is watching you – and documenting: eBay, ever anxious to up profits, bends over backward to provide data to law enforcement officials.
  • Police Searching Cars at Random Outside Airports
  • US demands air travellers’ data: All passengers flying to the US from Britain will have personal information, including credit card details, handed over to the American authorities before they set foot on US soil, under a deal agreed yesterday.
  • US declares Hekmatyar as global terrorist: He’s not a terrorist. He opposes the puppet regime of Hamid Karzai. See what meaningless bullshit these terrorist designations have become? Good luck to the Afghan people in overthrowing American occupation.
  • Dollars, Euros and Oil:
    There is though one major obstacle to this happening: oil. Oil is not just by far the most important commodity traded internationally, it is the lifeblood of all modern industrialised economies. If you don’t have oil, you have to buy it. And if you want to buy oil on the international markets, you usually have to have dollars. Until recently all OPEC countries agreed to sell their oil for dollars only. So long as this remained the case, the euro was unlikely to become the major reserve currency: there is not a lot of point in stockpiling euros if every time you need to buy oil you have to change them into dollars. This arrangement also meant that the US effectively part-controlled the entire world oil market: you could only buy oil if you had dollars, and only one country had the right to print dollars – the US.

  • 20
    Feb 03

    Pakistan air force chief killed in plane crash

    From CNN:


      ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A plane has crashed into a mountainside in a remote region west of Islamabad, killing Pakistan’s air force chief and all 16 others on board.

      Air force chief Mushaf Ali Mir, his wife Bilqees, and several other top-ranking officials were killed in the crash in northwestern Pakistan, officials said. …

      In 1988, Pakistan’s then-president, General Mohammad Zia- ul-Haq, died in a mysterious crash of a military plane in the Punjab province. The cause of the crash was never established.

    I’m not saying that this wasn’t an accident like the article suggests, however accidents don’t generally happen to high-ranking members of a nation’s military.

    1. Air Combat Command News Service: Pakistan air chief marshal visits Nellis:
      “We hope to have more mutual understandings and interests with the United States,” Mir said. Mutual interests include fighting terrorism, he said. “This is a global evil and we have got to fight it together,” Mir said. “We are also the victims. This is very important to our country and it is my government’s goal to support America fully so global terrorism is taken out from the entire world.”
    2. Air Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir’s Interview: Islamabad, The News, September 5, 2001:
      “We are establishing deterrence at all levels, though Americans are supplying weapons to India through proxy as India is buying huge military weapons from Israel,” he said: “Events put us slightly behind, but we are still better than India.”
    3. Growing Discontent, Army Unhappy, ISI vs FBI , PAF Officers Happy:

      Khawaja had come out with his fully documented story two weeks ago in SA Tribune, alleging that PAF Chief Mushaf Ali Mir had snatched his genuine business and given it to a friend because kickbacks of some five million dollars were being offered by the Indonesian suppliers. Khawaja knew about it because he was the one to receive the Emailed bribes offer in the first place.

    4. Israel using India for sensitive Pakistan Data: ISLAMABAD June 11 (PNS): Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshall Mushaf Ali Mir Monday told journalist that the downed unmanned air vehicle (UAV), Searcher Mk II, by Pakistan Air Force near Kasur was in fact an Israeli plane which had taken off from India.

    20
    Feb 03

    Quotation of the Day

    This not really a quotation per se. I was just recently reminded of the powerful and vital language of the Declaration of Independence. It almost makes it seem like 1776 was just yesterday.


    “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.“


    20
    Feb 03

    A military machine run amok

    New Scientist.com: US plans for mini-nuke arsenal revealed:


      A leaked Pentagon document has confirmed that the US is considering the introduction of a new breed of smaller nuclear weapons designed for use in conventional warfare. Such a move would mean abandoning global arms treaties.

      The document, obtained by the Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear weapons watchdog based in the US, describes plans for a gathering of senior military officials and nuclear scientists at the US Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska, during the week of 4 August. …


    20
    Feb 03

    What rock have I been under?

    Judging from photoshopped photos, editorial cartoons, and entries on other websites I think I missed something interesting having to do with duct tape and homeland security and/or Tom Ridge. I feel like I’m a traveller from the past experiencing some unknown cultural anecdote. Wtf.


    20
    Feb 03

    VoxFux

    Okay, I’m not so paranoid now that I think I’ve figured out why the Secret Service has been visiting my site. Apparently, the guy who did www.voxnyc.com is on the lamb from the feds because of some screed he wrote on Bush. That’s to say that the humorless minions of Sauron have been unable to locate this guy and apparently their search for him consists of checking out other websites by googling for the author, Voxfux aka. Mr. Harry “Vox” Stuckey.

    I understand that the SS is sworn to protect our beloved leader, but sometimes it seems a little overly paranoid. Showing up with 40 jackbooted thugs at some guy’s house who writes an internet rag? I mean really. Does anyone really think that a person committed to harming the president would go around blabbing about it at all? It’s the height of ridiculousness. You would have to be either a. mentally retarded or b. remarkably insane. In any event, you’d have to be doing it with the full knowledge that you will get disappeared into federal prison forever and even if you do get paroled you’d likely have a GPS transmitter shoved into a sensitive body cavity. It’s beyond stupid.

    I think this aggressive stance could really damage the image of the presidency. It comes off like the presidency is some overly paranoid, despotic position always looking for potential would-be assassins. Not to mention that many assassins have come from the ranks of the elite or have at least been employed in some fashion by members of the elite. Why don’t we ever hear about any legitimate assassination plots? All we hear about are people who weren’t careful enough with their words. Something that really only has relevance in printed media.

    Anyway, Guerrilla News has a pretty good little article on the whole deal from January 31, 2003. In an interview Vox mentions a conspiracy I’ve never heard before. Seemed worth checking out:


      HICKS: Even MSNBC reports that Osama bin Laden worked for the CIA and the United States all throughout the ’80s, when Reagan and Bush were funneling weapons into the region, to Iraq, to Iran, to Afghanistan. Now, on your website you also draw attention to the Bush/Hinckley family association and the 1981 assassination attempt on the life of President Reagan.

      VOX: As we know, ex-CIA chief George Bush was v.p. at the time, a heartbeat away from the top slot. Well, in the early hours after the attempt on Reagan it was revealed that Scott Hinckley, the brother of would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr., was scheduled to dine that evening at the home of Neil Bush, the son of then-Vice President George Bush.

      NBC’s John Chancellor had the information, but received orders not to mention the dinner date. He defied orders with his newscast, an astonished look on his face. I remember, I saw it as it happened. When I looked for developments and follow-ups to the story, there were none. Zippo. Never mentioned again on the television medium, ever. Newsweek included the fact under some small article about ‘Kooky Conspiracy Theories,’ a sidebar mentioned at the end of their reporting on the attempt.

      HICKS: So you think this was a major story that Newsweek and the networks missed?

      VOX: There’s an expression, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Well there’s an inferno raging about this one! The most fishy moment in Bush family history. It was further revealed that Papa Bush and Hinckley’s father were friends and fellow oilmen in Texas and Colorado. Hinckley claimed to have supported Reagan, so no suspicion there right? Wrong. Not only did that turn out to be a lie, it turns out that he financed Bush’s bid for the nomination against Reagan!

      But there’s more. It was revealed that while George Junior [George W. Bush] was running for Congress in Lubbock, Texas. with his brother Neil as manager, guess who else lived in Lubbock? John Hinckley Junior. When probed as to whether the Bush boys had ever met Hinckley during their Lubbock days, our current president said that it was ‘conceivable’ that they had met. Do you know what that means? That’s politician-speak for ‘they met.’ What should have been the biggest, most investigated story of the Eighties was wiped clear from the face of history.


    18
    Feb 03

    Quotation of the day

    “I must be cruel only to be kind;
    Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.”

    — William Shakespeare