Drone reportedly kills top Pakistani Taliban figure as Pakistanis continue to decry drone program

From:  Activist Post 

COMMENT - Since drone contractors are committed to using drones in every possible application why don't they propose some focused hits, fatal, on sexual predators and sexual deviants and other highly disordered individuals?  The population of these individuals is far larger than that of 'terrorists,' and the cost in human suffering to those victimized is far greater.  

We can put up a webpage with nominations for the public, sort of like Obama's Kill List, and then donate for good, clean, no innocent bystander-type hits.  

Yes!  Of course, it would be sort of hard on the Green Hills Management Team, but we just have to accept these things, right?  June 7 is coming up!  Stay tuned for our special events around that date.  

image source: State Department

Madison Ruppert

Activist Post

According to Pakistani officials and militants, a leader of the Pakistani Taliban was killed by a drone strike on Wednesday while the people of Pakistan continue to decry the U.S. drone program.

Despite President Obama’s claims that there would benew restrictions on and transparency in the drone program, American officials refused to confirm the strike or any details about it, despite the news being reported in Pakistan, according to The New York Times.

If this drone strike is officially confirmed, it would be the first strike since Obama gave his speech last week promising changes to the drone program.

The strike reportedly killed Taliban deputy leader Wali ur-Rehman along with six others and injured an additional four in the North Waziristan tribal region, according to local tribesmen and Pakistani security officials.

The New York Times interestingly points out that it is unclear if Rehman was considered to pose a “continuing and imminent threat” to the citizens of the United States, which is one of the guiding criteria for future strikes outlined by Obama in his speech.

This was quite similar to what Attorney General Eric Holder wrote when admitting that the U.S. drone program has killed four American citizens. Unfortunately, the meaning of “imminent” is nowhere near what most people may think.

“But in the days since the president’s speech, American officials have asserted behind the scenes that the new standards would not apply to the C.I.A. drone program in Pakistan as long as American troops remained next door in Afghanistan,” the New York Times reported.

This is hardly surprising, given that earlier this year it was reported that the CIA would not have to abide by the Obama administration’s so-called drone playbook.

During his briefing Wednesday afternoon, White House spokesman Jay Carney wouldn’t confirm the strike, though he did mention a long list of accusations against Rehman leveled by the U.S.

Rehman has been accused of organizing attacks on American troops in Afghanistan and has a $5 million bounty on his head placed by the U.S. government.

Danger Room similarly notes that while the U.S. did blame him for a 2009 attack on a secret CIA base in Afghanistan, the Pakistani Taliban’s “involvement in ongoing plots against the U.S. is less evident, however, and Obama explicitly said ‘America does not take strikes to punish individuals.’”

Spencer Ackerman points out that the Pakistani Taliban primarily poses a threat to Pakistan itself, not the United States.

Indeed, the CIA drone program in Pakistan reportedly began in 2004 with the U.S. government agreeing to kill the Pakistani government’s enemies.

American officials have also called the killing of militant figures like Rehman “good-will kills,” hinting that some officials in Pakistan would appreciate them, according to the New York Times.

While Obama seemed to say that the U.S. was no longer going to pursue and kill the enemies of countries like Pakistan and Yemen, it doesn’t seem like that is the case.

Interestingly, the strike results in quite varied reactions from Pakistanis, though much of it was negative as has been the trend in response to the U.S. drone program as a whole.

Earlier this month a high court in Pakistan made this very clear in ruling that the strikes are illegal, inhumane and a violation of the UN charter on human rights. The court also directed the Pakistani government to use force to “protect the right to life” of Pakistanis.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry condemned the strike in a statement and Nawaz Sharif, the incoming prime minister, previously promised to restrict drone activity.

“Drone attacks are against the national sovereignty and a challenge for the country’s autonomy and independence,” Sharif said earlier this month.

The foreign office spokesperson said the strikes “are counterproductive, entail loss of innocent lives, and violate the principles of national sovereignty and international law,” according to the Guardian.

Senator Mushahid Hussain, the chairman of the Pakistani senate’s defense committee, also said that Obama’s statement was “not good enough unless there is a cessation of drone attacks.”

The people of Pakistan also seem to dislike the drone program as well, with an overwhelming number of the voters in the recent elections supporting the two parties condemning the U.S. drone attacks.

Both Sharif and his political rival Imran Khan have spoke out against drones with Khan actually vowing to shoot down drones, according to the Guardian.

The U.S. government is already moving to stem the increasingly strong anti-drone movement in Pakistan with Secretary of State John Kerry’s visit to Pakistan in early June.

Kerry is reportedly going to “rebuild this important partnership” with Pakistan during his visit.

“Kerry’s meetings with the new leadership will test Washington’s ‘willingness to work closely on issues of common interest,’” according to a report from the Asia Times.

Will the new government in Pakistan take more radical steps to curtail the U.S. drone program? Will the Obama administration actually follow through with the statements Obama made in his speech?

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment on this article, tweeting us or leaving a comment on our Facebook page.

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This article first appeared at End the Lie.

Madison Ruppert is the Editor and Owner-Operator of the alternative news and analysis database End The Lie and has no affiliation with any NGO, political party, economic school, or other organization/cause. He is available for podcast and radio interviews. Madison also now has his own radio show on UCYTV Monday nights 7 PM - 9 PM PT/10 PM - 12 AM ET. Show page link here: http://UCY.TV/EndtheLie. If you have questions, comments, or corrections feel free to contact him at admin@EndtheLie.com

U.N. Expert Calls for Halt in Military Robot Development

From:  The New York Times 


COMMENT -  The article below raises the question of “lethal autonomous robotics,” this voiced by “Christof Heyns,  the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions with the comment, "War without reflection is mechanical slaughter.” It is essential we urge the Human Rights Council in Geneva to take action holding drone contractors responsible for their cooperative efforts to inflict a campaign of terror on people in diverse jurisdictions around the world. 

Marcia Brewster from the United Nations suggested the Human Rights Commission be contacted to begin a cooperative effort in alignment with the findings of the suggested moratorium.  

By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE

Published: May 30, 2013

GENEVA — A United Nations expert called Thursday for a global moratorium on the testing, production and use of armed robots that can select and kill targets without human command. “War without reflection is mechanical slaughter,” said Christof Heyns, the United Nations special rapporteur onextrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

“A decision to allow machines to be deployed to kill human beings worldwide, whatever weapons they use, deserves a collective pause,” he told the Human Rights Council in Geneva.

No countries use such weapons, but the technology is available or soon will be, Mr. Heyns told the council.

The United States, Britain, Israel and South Korea already use technologies that are seen as precursors to fully autonomous systems. Little is known about Russian and Chinese progress in developing them.  MORE

Texas Bans Drone Surveillance

From:  Prison Planet 

COMMENT - Action against drones is one of the issues moving us back toward local control.  The bill proposed in Texas is still allows more latitude for use than many jurisdictions passing similar laws and ordinances.  

Legislation pending in 31 other states

Steve Watson

Prisonplanet.com

May 28, 2013

The Texas legislature passed a bill this past weekend that would see a blanket ban on capturing moving or still images on private property with an unmanned drone.

The legislation, House Bill 912, authored by Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Terrell, will make it a Class C misdemeanor for anyone to use a drone for surveillance of an individual without their prior consent. Further distributing any images captured as a result of such activity will be a class B misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $10,000.

The bill states that “Each image a person possesses, discloses, displays, distributes, or otherwise uses in violation of this section is a separate offense. An offense under this section for the disclosure, display, distribution, or other use of an image is a Class B misdemeanor.”

Exceptions to the legislation, known as the ‘Texas Privacy Act’, will be police use of drones to pursue known felons or conduct criminal investigations. Using drones to investigate misdemeanors will require a warrant. In addition, use of drones to survey accidents, disasters or potential hazardous spills will be permitted.  

Another exemption allows media organisations that have permission to use drones to monitor any major news activity.

“With the privacy and property rights of Texans, it is important that specific safeguards are put into place which govern the purpose and manner in which drones may be used,” said Rep. Gooden.  MORE

The race is on: Manufacturer sets sights on market for armed drones

From:  Open Channel

COMMENT - Posting from 54 "US Army Tests Manned-Unmanned Aircraft System Integration

Posted on August 31, 2011 by The Editor

The US Army will mount the largest yet demonstration of manned and unmanned aircraft systems interoperability. The manned unmanned systems integration concept (Music) exercise will take place September 15 at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah.

Music will demonstrate new manned-unmanned teaming concepts. These include the use of a universal ground-control station (UGCS) to manage multiple, different UAS platforms, and the ability of a soldier on the ground to steer a UAS sensor payload using the one-system, remote-video terminal (OSRVT). The first iteration of the army’s mini-universal, ground-control stations (M-UGCS) will be rolled out, demonstrating movement toward a common controller for small UAS, including the Aerovironment RQ-11B Raven and Puma AE. The service also plans to demonstrate M-UGCS control of the sensors on a larger General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle.

Other participating aircraft will be AH-64D Block II Apache and OH-58D Kiowa helicopters and AAI Corp. RQ-7 Shadow and Northrop Grumman MQ-5 Hunter UAS. Music will be “the largest demonstration of interoperability between manned and unmanned systems ever conducted,” Tim Owings, Army deputy project manager for UAS, told the Army News Service. AAI Corp. is the contractor for both the UGCS and the OSRVT.

The truck-mounted UGCS will be used to control the Shadow, Gray Eagle and Hunter. Dismounted soldiers using the OSRVT with new bidirectional data-link can take control of the sensor payloads of these platforms and “steer the payload to where the operator needs to look,” the Army says.

Also to be demonstrated will be the ability of the remote terminal to receive video from the Raven and Puma, as well as the Apache and Kiowa. Under the manned-to-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) concept, the Apache can receive UAS sensor video in the cockpit and retransmit video to the ground via the OSRVT. The Kiowa is also capable of re-transmitting video from UAS to the ground, increasing the range of video available to ground troops.

Reportedly, the UAS control segments and mission- and flight-control systems operate off a very secure software platform developed by Green Hills Software of Santa Barbara, Calif. AIN was unable confirm this, although Green Hills did introduce an autonomous-vehicle, open-software platform at the recent Unmanned Systems North America conference.

Source: AIN Online"

 So, Green Hills is providing software from other countries around the world who want drones of their own following the classical pattern from banking and munitions dealers of selling to both sides.  And, rest assured, their profits are going up, up, up.  How long until the hacking begins?  

ARTICLE 

Mike Odendaal / Denel Dynamics

A Seeker 400 drone, manufactured by South African company Denel Dynamics, flies over Cape Town Stadium.

By Keir Simmons and Gil Aegerter, NBC News

On a sprawling complex just outside Pretoria, South Africa, a government-owned arms manufacturer is preparing to test an armed drone that it hopes to begin selling soon to governments around the world.

The company, Denel Dynamics, says the armed version of the Seeker 400, which will carry two laser-guided missiles, will enable so-called opportunistic targeting at a range of up to about 155 miles.
“These are not combat systems, they are foremost reconnaissance systems,” Sello Ntsihlele, executive manager of UAV systems for Denel, told NBC News. He added: “(But if) you speak to any general, show him the capability, he will tell you, ‘I want to have munitions.’”
The company’s move is but one signal that the era when only a small club of countries possessed weaponized drones is drawing to a close.
Critics say the coming proliferation of the lethal remote-controlled flying machines will forever change the face of counterterrorism operations and, eventually, warfare itself – and not for the better.
“The U.S. has set a moral precedent,” said Jenifer Gibson of the human rights group Reprieve. "A state can declare someone a terrorist and just go out and kill them."
Reprieve campaigns against what it calls illegal drone strikes.
Supporters of military drones argue that they are an essential tool against terrorists hiding in remote areas and that their ability to strike with precision minimizes civilian casualties. Reprieve rejects the notion that drones are precision weapons and claims many civilians have been killed.

Who has drones — and who wants themOnly three countries are known to currently operate armed unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, as drones are technically known -- the U.S., the U.K. and Israel -- according to a recent report by the think tank RUSI. The report suggested there are only currently around 1,000 armed drones worldwide.

MORE

Senate considers bill to keep people from competing with them using drones.

From:  Sovereign Man - via email

COMMENT - So Green Hills' nose is out of joint.  They will have to stop those drone strikes against their competition.  
















LETTER

May 28, 2013
Sarasota, Florida, USA

Last month at our event in Santiago, Ron Paul told me that he used to keep a sign on his desk during his time in Congress that read: "Don't steal. The government hates competition."

These days, perhaps a more appropriate saying would be-- "Don't violate people's civil liberties. The government hates competition."

And I wish I could say I'm kidding. But in the Land of the Free, they actually want to make this a law.

Yes, that's right. On the hallowed floor of the United States Senate, recently, bill S1057 was introduced.

It's aim? "To prohibit the use of unmanned aircraft systems by private individuals to conduct surveillance of other private persons."

And, just to be clear, by "unmanned aircraft systems," they mean drones. The same ones that they use to assassinate people by remote control. And, of course, conduct surveillance on private citizens in the Land of the Free.

So what the esteemed Senators are telling us is that it's bad (and hence should be unlawful) to invade people's privacy. Unless the government is doing it, in which case it's just fine.

Until tomorrow,

Simon Black
Senior Editor, SovereignMan.com

 

Green Hills Software to Exhibit at Telematics Detroit 2013 in Novi, MI

From:  Market Wired

COMMENT - The console for gaming and skills for using the software, are not very different from the consoles used for military drone operators.  Neither is the software.  

Green Hills is selling, selling, selling, into markets which, if they are running true to their past performance.   When I was married to their Senior Vice-President in charge of Advanced Products, Craig Franklin, he explained in detail how this worked, as he chuckled and boasted about reselling products already paid for by the customer as packaged products for wider sales.  He said these were essentially the same products.  It is still true for military applications?  

Could the products being retailed to companies have been developed specifically for the military and then repackaged for commercial  use, with some modifications?  What kind of canny hacker would be able to buy these are do a little reverse engineering, accessing the system?  Inquiring minds want to know.  

Dan (Drone Boy) O'Dowd, is a thrifty little sucker, who would not do more than necessary.  And who would be able to check?   

NEWS RELEASE:  Green Hills Software

SANTA BARBARA, CA, May 28, 2013 (Marketwired via COMTEX) -- Green Hills Software, the largest independent vendor of embedded and mobile virtualization software solutions, will demonstrate its latest automotive software solutions at Telematics Detroit, Novi, MI, June 5 - 6, 2013, in booth # 39/40.

Kiosk Demonstrations

        
        --  Safe, Reliable Android-based Infotainment Head Unit and Real-time
            Cluster Consolidation on Texas Instruments OMAP(TM) 5 Applications
            Processor
        
        

Green Hills Software will demonstrate the latest update to its infotainment reference solution which is adding the capability to safely isolate and run a real-time graphical cluster in combination with the Android-based infotainment capabilities -- all on a single OMAP 5 applications processor. Green Hills Automotive solutions leverage a decade of proven cross-industry capabilities for combining mixed-criticality functions by showing Android running as a secure guest on the INTERGITY Multivisor(TM) virtualization technology on one display while executing the more critical Altia-based graphics cluster as a native INTEGRITY application on a second display. This demonstration highlights the successful, guaranteed separation and isolation between the head unit and cluster when utilizing Green Hills Software's safe and secure INTEGRITY(R) real time operating system.

        
        --  Secure HTML5-based Head Unit and Cluster Communications on Freescale's
            i.MX 6 Applications Processors
        
        

Based on Obigo's innovative HTML5-based Automotive Web Solutions, Green Hills will demonstrate secure, reliable communication of driver information and multimedia information between an HTML5-based media-enabled instrument cluster running Green Hills INTERGITY real-time operating system and a HTML5-based Head Unit with HMI and multimedia applications running Linux, both running natively on separate i.MX 6 automotive reference platforms. This demonstration showcases the optimum way to deliver secure, scalable communications between different HTML5-based functions in the vehicle.

For more information and to request a meeting with Green Hills at the conference, please go to http://www.ghs.com/events/TelematicsDet_2013.html. 

About Green Hills Software Founded in 1982, Green Hills Software is the largest independent vendor of embedded development solutions. In 2008, the Green Hills INTEGRITY-178B RTOS was the first and only operating system to be certified by NIAP (National Information Assurance Partnership comprised of NSA & NIST) to EAL 6+, High Robustness, the highest level of security ever achieved for any software product. Our open architecture integrated development solutions address deeply embedded, absolute security and high-reliability applications for the military/avionics, medical, industrial, automotive, networking, consumer and other markets that demand industry-certified solutions. Green Hills Software is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA, with European headquarters in the United Kingdom. Visit Green Hills Software at www.ghs.com.

Green Hills, the Green Hills logo, INTEGRITY and Multivisor are trademarks or registered trademarks of Green Hills Software in the U.S. and/or internationally. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

        
   


Contact:
        Green Hills Software
        Barbel French
        805-965-6044
        bfrench@ghs.com
        
        
        

Was the London killing of a British soldier 'terrorism'?

From: The Guardian thru MCM

COMMENT - "Why do they hate us?" which  question I touched on in the first of my series, Drones, and the Military-Industrial Complex.

Sort of obvious, isn't it?  This series will link up all the points in the chains of causality.  Please send article above, and subsequent pieces, on to others. 

Drone contractors, those whose products are providing the leading edge of application for the model of continued oppression to be used against both people around the world and those here in the U.S., are providing essential technology, without which this primary, causal, terrorism, could not happen.

Drone strikes traumatize individuals, shock, and interfere with all parts of the lives of people in those places targeted.  They have also interfered with our lives, here, at least for those of us who pay attention.  

A perusal of Green Hills Software's website  reveals they supply essential software, which is the common element on which the use of drones depends.  Without its tiny brain and the guidance made affordable and reliable, a drone is a motionless chunk of parts. 

Therefore, providing social disincentives, for instance shunning, refusing them service in restaurants, returning their donations to local charities, and otherwise raising their visibility within the community where they lurk, is an appropriate strategy.  

Green Hills Software's corporate office, and management team, with the exception of John B. (Jack) Douglas III, is located at 30 W. Sola, Santa Barbara, CA.  Jack's address in Massachusetts is bogus.  His name is not even on the menu there where he is listed, also curiously, as 'corporate counsel.'

The articles which Mark Crispin Miller sends on are at MarkCrispinMiller.com

ARTICLE

 

Glenn Greenwaldguardian.co.uk, Thursday 23 May 2013 09.03 EDT

What definition of the term includes this horrific act of violence but excludes the acts of the US, the UK and its allies?

A man appearing to be holding holding a knife following the Woolwich attack. Photograph: Pixel8000

(updated below)
Two men yesterday engaged in a horrific act of violence on the streets of London by using what appeared to be a meat cleaver to hack to death a British soldier. In the wake of claims that the assailants shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the killing, and a video showing one of the assailants citing Islam as well as a desire to avenge and stop continuous UK violence against Muslims, media outlets (including the Guardian) and British politicians instantly characterized the attack as "terrorism".

That this was a barbaric and horrendous act goes without saying, but given the legal, military, cultural and political significance of the term "terrorism", it is vital to ask: is that term really applicable to this act of violence? To begin with, in order for an act of violence to be "terrorism", many argue that it must deliberately target civilians. That's the most common means used by those who try to distinguish the violence engaged in by western nations from that used by the "terrorists": sure, we kill civilians sometimes, but we don't deliberately target them the way the "terrorists" do.

But here, just as was true for Nidal Hasan's attack on a Fort Hood military base, the victim of the violence was a soldier of a nation at war, not a civilian. He was stationed at an army barracks quite close to the attack. The killer made clear that he knew he had attacked a soldier when he said afterward: "this British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."
The US, the UK and its allies have repeatedly killed Muslim civilians over the past decade (and before that), but defenders of those governments insist that this cannot be "terrorism" because it is combatants, not civilians, who are the targets. Can it really be the case that when western nations continuously kill Muslim civilians, that's not "terrorism", but when Muslims kill western soldiers, that is terrorism? Amazingly, the US has even imprisoned people at Guantanamo and elsewhere on accusations of "terrorism" who are accused of nothing more than engaging in violence against US soldiers who invaded their country. 

MORE

Comment by Mark Crispin Miller, from email.

Drone admissions

In not unrelated news, the US government yesterday admitted for the first time what everyone has long known: that it killed four Muslim American citizens with drones during the Obama presidency, including a US-born teenager whom everyone acknowledges was guilty of nothing. As Jeremy Scahill - whose soon-to-be-released film "Dirty Wars" examines US covert killings aimed at Muslims - noted yesterday about this admission, it "leaves totally unexplained why the United States has killed so many innocent non-American citizens in its strikes in Pakistan and Yemen". Related to all of these issues, please watch this two-minute trailer for "Dirty Wars", which I reviewed a few weeks ago here.

Obama drone oversight proposal prompts concern over 'kill courts'

From:  The Guardian 

COMMENT - Well, this will change those Tuesday Kill List meetings just a touch.  Since killings can take place far from the battlefield and killings on American soil are not disallowed Obama's Tuesday Wish List can look like this.  

He might even help out his friends in t he corporate world by 'eliminating' their inconvenient competition. 

by  Dan Roberts 

Human rights groups wary after president asks Congress to establish special court or board to authorise legal drone action

Obama said he would ask Congress to review his proposal for future drone strikes to be subject to court review. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Proposals to vet future US drone strikes risk creating "kill courts" according to human rights campaigners who say Barack Obama's promise of new legal oversight does not go far enough to end what they regard as extrajudicial executions.

The president has asked Congress to consider establishing a special court or oversight board to authorise lethal action outside warzones under a new counter-terrorism doctrine which he says will end the "boundless war on terror".

But responses to his speech from leading campaign groups, though broadly welcoming, highlight how little change Obama is proposing to the underlying principle that the US has a legal right to kill suspected terrorists abroad without trial.

In his speech on Thursday, Obama suggested that in the future drone attacks would be limited, and that they would be carried out primarily by the US military rather than the CIA.

Obama said that US military intervention abroad did not guarantee the safety of Americans at home, and often fomented extremism. "A perpetual war – through drones or special forces or troop deployments – will prove self-defeating and alter our country in troubling ways," he said.

But he defended his administration's decision to launch hundreds of such strikes in recent years, insisting they were more discriminating than other military options such as aerial bombing and had helped prevent terrorist attacks.

Obama also said he would ask Congress to review his proposal for future drone strikes to be subject to court review or an independent oversight board.

"The establishment of a special court to evaluate and authorise lethal action has the benefit of bringing a third branch of government into the process, but raises serious constitutional issues about presidential and judicial authority," he said. 

Zeke Johnson, director of Amnesty International USA's Security with Human Rights Campaign, said: "What's needed on drones is not a 'kill court' but rejection of the radical redefinition of 'imminence' used to expand who can be killed as well as independent investigations of alleged extrajudicial executions and remedy for victims.

"The president was right to call for repeal of the 2001 authorisation for use of military force, but he doesn't need to wait for Congress to act on this. He can unequivocally reject the 'global war' legal theory today, once and for all, and put an end to the indefinite detention, military commissions and unlawful killings it has been used to justify."

This view was echoed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which welcomed new restrictions against so-called 'signature strikes' on suspicious groups but warned the notion of legal authority for targeted assassinations remained deeply flawed.

"To the extent the speech signals an end to signature strikes, recognises the need for congressional oversight, and restricts the use of drones to threats against the American people, the developments on targeted killings are promising," said ACLU director Anthony Romero. "Yet the president still claims broad authority to carry out target killings far from any battlefield, and there is still insufficient transparency. We continue to disagree fundamentally with the idea that due process requirements can be satisfied without any form of judicial oversight by regular federal courts."

Both groups also urged the president and Congress to do more to shut the Guantánamo Bay detention centre and expressed concern about plans to seek a US location for military commissions rather than try detainees in civil courts.  MORE

Drones, and the Military-Industrial Complex

by Melinda Pillsbury-Foster 

Drones are a weapon of war, presently being used by the U.S. Military using assertions not supported by facts. These weapons are manufactured and sold to the military by companies which own the technologies and thereby profit. The right or wrong of the war is ignored in their calculations, which focus on the profit to be made.

The membership organization which lobbies for the use of drones for the corporations which comprise its membership is the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. The growth of this industry is now measured in the billions of dollars, with applications for drone usage growing out into law enforcement within the United States on a weekly basis.

These are facts, supportable by contracts reflecting sales.

Facts are generally inconvenient for parties attempting to 'win' the battle for public opinion. These facts are true for drone contractors today and were true of the Military Industrial Complex on January 17, 1961 when Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his farewell address, and warning about the influence of these corporations, to the American People.

Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex

 

Propaganda 

Manufacturing opinion in Americans results in increased sales and a limiting of the options they see as possible. This is at the heart of the strategy by which the Multi-National Corporations have build their business plan from the time of World War I – present day.

Propaganda had been used to influence groups and nations for as long as we have recorded history. But the practice was codified with a set of rules by Edward Bernays, a cousin of Sigmund Freud, in the 1020s. There are seven principles of propaganda, which include:

Seven Main Principles

Bandwagon – Follow the Crowd.

Card stacking – Tell them ONLY what you want them to know.

Glittering Generalities – Use words which let the listener fool themselves.

Name Calling - Negative, derogatory langauge to describe the enemy in speech, images, and writing.

Plain Folks – Taking on language, idioms, jokes, and accent to increase of the target audience to increase familiarity and elicit acceptance and trust.

Additional Principles

Assertion – Say it, and say it again with conviction

Lesser of Two Evils – Limit the choices to this or that, ignoring all other possibilities.

Pinpointing the Enemy – Name an individual, group, or nation as the 'problem.' Ignore refuting facts.

Simplification (Stereotyping) – Similar to Pinpointing. Ignore refuting facts.

The opinions held by Americans are largely the product of propaganda today, though this is now changing through access to the Internet.

Public Relations professionals know the public forgets about scandals, both corporate and politically, in only a few months or years. Today, major scandals of the early 90s have vanished from the collective memory. 

Main Stream Media 

Controlling the Main Stream Media, which is owned entirely my major corporations, ensured this would remain true. America originally saw independent journalism as an essential protection for the rights of the people. Newspapers were mostly owned locally, reflecting a diversity of voices.

Local 'government,' which was understood to be a service center used by the People, who together were and are the real government under American theory and law, was used to carry out those functions deemed of mutual benefit by the People. 

America's Foundations 

Until the rise of the Internet, Americans had, in large part, lost connection with their own history and the foundations for American government. A reading of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and survey of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers shows this to be the case.

The rising power of corporations, asserting itself through government, began to change this in the late 1800s. World War I and World War II enormously enriched the same corporations and banks named by Eisenhower in his speech. A significant number of these were simultaneously in business with Nazi Germany before and during World War II and also Russia. In his book, “Creature from Jekyll Island,” G. Edward Griffin provides documentation for this.

Major General Smedley Butler was the most respected and decorated military figure in America in the first half of the 20^th Century. Having spent his life serving his country as a Marine in wars dictated by the economic wishes of corporations for decades he realized he and the troops he commanded had been used by those corporations. In response, he wrote, “War is a Racket.”

VIDEO - Major General Smedley Butler & The Fascist Takeover Of The USA - A Warning From History

 

The General conveniently, and very suddenly, died in 1940 before our entry into World War II. War was building immense wealth within a small number of corporations, who were determined this flow of power and money continue. 

Wars for Profit 

The Second World War was opposed by Conservative Republican congressional leader Robert A. Taft, “who articulated a non-interventionist foreign-policy vision sharply at odds with the internationalism of Truman and Eisenhower. Although derided as ostrich-like, Taft was prescient on several points, such as the structural weakness of the United Nations and the propping up of repressive regimes that would result from U.S. interventionism.”

After World War II Conservatism was targeted by the Rockefeller Republicans, who today we know as NeoConservatives. To accomplish this they used an array of tools which included the C. I. A., an agency which recruited from a social elite who had strong connections to the corporate world.

Today, the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963, is credited to a cooperative effort between the C.I.A., and corporations in such first hand and authoritative books as “Mary's Mosaic,” by Peter Janney. Janney is the son of Wistar Janney, a high level operative in the C. I. A. from close to the time of it's inception after World War II through the 1960s.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall the world appeared to be heading for a long-awaited peace. But this was not in alignment with the business plans of the Military Industrial Complex.

Managing American Fear

The public relations people for the corporations had used boogymen to persuade Americans to the necessity of war and vast expenditures in military spending from World War I until the Wall came down. For this purpose they had first vilified the 'Hun,' and then 'Communism.'

They chose a new boogyman in the last years of the Reagan Administration.

“The Power of Nightmares,” produced by the BBC, digs into the history of the C.I.A., and its manipulation of Islam and placement of operatives to stymy their move toward liberalization, which threatened the oil companies. The issue of a threat from a radical Islam must be considered outside the narrowing confines of propaganda, the corporate tool used to herd Americans, keeping us within the limits which powers their profits. This is especially true for the strategies of Pinpointing the Enemy, and Stereotyping.

VIDEOS

Part I: Baby It's Cold Outside

Part II: The Phantom Victory

Part III: The Shadows in the Cave

Big Oil 

If you identify the location of the major world sources of oil you will notice much of the world reserves are located in land controls by Islamic people. Until this became known Islam was never presented as a threat. Once this took place, this changed.

Multiple operations in these countries by the CIA and its corporate partners caused shifts in attitudes within the people living in these countries. Ron Paul, using the term coined by the CIA, called it “Blow-Back.” John Perkins, in his book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit-Man,” explains the means used to defraud smaller nations of their natural resources, oil chief among these.

People resent being manipulated, bombed, and defrauded. Where we did not have enemies, they were created.

VIDEO - Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions

For a century corporations have used the military and government of our country to make war on people around the world. They have done this for profit and without showing a shred of conscience.

Today, the world is fed up. If the roles were reversed, we would have taken action long since.

These same interests understand well Americans are waking from their long sleep. This why drone technologies are now being deployed within the United States.