The political circus this week narrowly voted down an amendment to 'rein in the NSA's mass surveillance infrastructure'. As if senators can - or would sincerely wish to - negatively influence the behemoth that is the Global Security State! Ever since NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked 'Top Secret' documents to the UK's Guardian newspaper, favorable comparisons have been made with Daniel Ellsberg, whose leaked 'Pentagon Papers' in 1971 revealed that the U.S. government knew, early on, that the Vietnam War could most likely not be 'won' (whatever 'won' means because its strategic goals were never defined), and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly.

Like today's circumspect avoidance when it comes to blowing the whistle on 9/11 (with a few honorable exceptions that do not receive widespread coverage), the 'greatest whistleblowers ever' (and I include Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in this category) don't leak the names behind purchases of pre-9/11 airline company 'put options'; they don't leak the voluminous diplomatic cables that would sorely expose the NeoCon-Israeli scheming in the run-up to America's 'New Pearl Harbor'; they don't leak the satellite images that would rubbish the fairytale that 'al Qaeda' was responsible for 'dustifying' the World Trade Center, firing that missile at the Pentagon, and downing Flight 93.

Commissioned in 1967 by then U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who was concerned about the disastrous course of the war in Vietnam - or rather, the disastrous press coverage it was receiving - the report that became known as the 'Pentagon Papers' was ostensibly "a comprehensive history of the United States involvement in Vietnam from World War II [1945] to the present [1968, when the report was completed]."

Daniel Ellsberg served in the Pentagon from August 1964 under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. In one of those curious synchronicities of history, Ellsberg's first full day as special assistant to McNamara saw the captain of USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin claim that it was under fire from North Vietnamese patrol boats. No such thing happened. According to his Wikipedia page, Ellsberg personally reported the 'incident' to McNamara. The subsequent Gulf of Tonkin Resolution resulted in a huge escalation of U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. In fact, it transformed the situation from a 20-year long CIA 'covert war' to a full-scale military invasion and occupation.

Japan should bolster its marine force and introduce surveillance drones, a defence review paper says, highlighting concerns over China and North Korea.

The paper also called for better defences against missile attacks and the potential to attack enemy bases.

Japan's military is constitutionally limited to a self-defence role.

But PM Shinzo Abe is looking to expand the scope of its activities - potentially a highly controversial move that would anger its neighbours.

Japan is embroiled in a bitter row over islands with China and is deeply concerned by North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

The interim report is part of a defence review ordered by Mr Abe, with final proposals due by December.

On Sunday, Mr Abe won back control of Japan's Upper House, meaning he now controls parliament and would be in a stronger position to reshape Japan's current defence strategy.

One of the worst myths Democratic partisans love to tell themselves - and everyone else - is that the GOP refuses to support President Obama no matter what he does. Like its close cousin - the massively deceitful inside-DC grievance that the two parties refuse to cooperate on anything - it's hard to overstate how false this Democratic myth is. When it comes to foreign policy, war, assassinations, drones, surveillance, secrecy, and civil liberties, President Obama's most stalwart, enthusiastic defenders are often found among the most radical precincts of the Republican Party.

The rabidly pro-war and anti-Muslim GOP former Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Peter King, has repeatedly lavished Obama with all sorts of praise and support for his policies in those areas. The Obama White House frequently needs, and receives, large amounts of GOP Congressional support to have its measures enacted or bills its dislikes defeated. The Obama DOJ often prevails before the US Supreme Court solely because the Roberts/Scalia/Thomas faction adopts its view while the Ginsburg/Sotomayor/Breyer faction rejects it (as happened in February when the Court, by a 5-4 ruling, dismissed a lawsuit brought by Amnesty and the ACLU which argued that the NSA's domestic warrantless eavesdropping activities violate the Fourth Amendment; the Roberts/Scalia wing accepted the Obama DOJ's argument that the plaintiffs lack standing to sue because the NSA successfully conceals the identity of which Americans are subjected to the surveillance). As Wired put it at the time about that NSA ruling:

Former commander of the US Central Command James Mattis has said that he 'paid a military security price every day' over the American support for the Israeli regime.

On Thursday, the Times of Israel quoted Mattis as saying last week, "I paid a military security price every day as the commander of CentCom (Central Command) because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel."

The retired US commander made the comments at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado in response to a question regarding the talks between the Tel Aviv regime and the Palestinian Authority.

Diplomat says move is part of Israeli response to new settlement guidelines; Ashton's spokesperson: EU hasn't received official communication on orders to limit work with EU on the ground, is seeking 'urgent clarifications.'

Several European aid staff have been barred from entering Gaza as part of Israeli measures in the wake of new EU guidelines barring cooperation with settlements, a western diplomat said Friday.

The diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the humanitarian aid staff had failed to receive permits to enter the Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon ordered defense officials to halt cooperation on the ground with EU representatives. This includes any assistance to EU infrastructure projects in Area C, which is under full Israeli civilian and military control. Ya'alon also reportedly planned to make it more difficult for EU officials to pass through the Erez Crossing, to the Gaza Strip or back to Israel.

An assessment produced by the Pakistan government on dozens of drone strikes conducted by the CIA that was not intended to be released to the public has leaked. The document shows that dozens of children were killed by drones between 2006 and 2009.

The report titled, "Details of Attacks by NATO Forces/Predators in FATA," was "obtained from three independent sources," according to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ). It covers seventy-five drone strikes that occurred from January 13, 2006, to October 24, 2009.

TBIJ details:

Drawn from field reports by local officials in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the document lists over 70 drone strikes between 2006 and late 2009, alongside a small number of other incidents such as alleged Nato attacks and strikes by unspecified forces.

Of 746 people listed as killed in the drone strikes, at least 147 of the dead are clearly stated by the leaked report to be civilian victims. Some 94 of these are said to be children.

Some CIA strikes are missing from the document. None of the five reported strikes for 2007 are listed, for example. Also missing are any biographical details of those killed, although the genders of many victims are reported and - where known - whether any children died.

The document also fails to mention details of a number of senior militant commanders known to have died in the attacks. [emphasis added]

Yet again, here is an example of how a leak can be immensely valuable to the public's understanding of government operations.

The US, as the TBIJ rightfully points out,

The numbers recorded are much higher than those provided by the US administration, which continues to insist that no more than 50 to 60 'non-combatants' have been killed by the CIA across the entire nine years of Pakistan bombings. New CIA director John Brennan has described claims to the contrary as 'intentional misrepresentations'.

He works at one of the three-letter intelligence agencies and oversees construction of a $1.2 billion surveillance data center in Utah that is 15 times the size of MetLife Stadium, home to the New York Giants and Jets. Long Island native Harvey Davis, a top National Security Agency official, needs that commanding presence. His role is to supervise infrastructure construction worldwide for NSA, which is part of the Defense Department. That involves tending to logistics, military installations, as well as power, space and cooling for all NSA data centers.

In May, crews broke ground on a $792 million computing center at the agency's headquarters near Baltimore that will complement the Utah site. Together the Utah center and Maryland's 28-acre computer farm span 228 acres - more than seven times the size of the Pentagon.

During an interview with Government Executive in June, amid the uproar over leaked details of NSA's domestic espionage activities, Davis describes the 200-acre Utah facility as very transparent: "Only brick and mortar." A data center just provides energy and chills machines, he says.

About 6,500 contractors, along with more than 150 Army Corps of Engineers and NSA workers, including some with special needs, are assigned to the project. Davis perks up when he talks about the hundreds of individuals with disabilities he has steered into NSA.

But ask him why the facility is so big and what's inside, and he is less forthcoming. "I think we're crossing into content. It's big because it's required to be big," says Davis, a 30-year veteran of the spy agency.

The Spanish government has been criticised for "cutting and pasting" a message of condolence to the families of victims of the train crash in Garcia that has left at least 80 dead.

The message, posted online and attributed to the Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, appeared to have been copied from an earlier note of condolence to victims of an earthquake in China.

"I want to convey my deepest condolences for the loss of life and material damage brought by the earthquake that took place this morning in Gansu," read the message, referring to the town where the earthquake took place.

Also in the note, Mr Rajoy said he is dismayed "as a Spaniard and a Galician" at the news of the derailment near Santiago de Compostela, the Prime Minister's home town.

This week's deployment of Blackhawk helicopters in Chicago is only the latest in a series of "urban warfare training" exercises that have become a familiar feature of American life.

As elsewhere, this exercise was sprung unannounced on a startled civilian population. Conducted in secrecy, apparently with the collusion of local police agencies and elected officials, Democrats and Republicans alike, the ostensible purpose of these exercises is to give US troops experience in what Pentagon doctrine refers to as "Military Operations on Urban Terrain."

Such operations are unquestionably of central importance to the US military. Over the past decade, its primary mission, as evidenced in Afghanistan and Iraq, has been the invasion and occupation of relatively powerless countries and the subjugation of their resisting populations, often in house-to-house fighting in urban centers.

The Army operates a 1,000 acre Urban Training Center in south-central Indiana that boasts over 1,500 "training structures" designed to simulate houses, schools, hospitals and factories. The center's web site states that it "can be tailored to replicate both foreign and domestic scenarios."

What does flying Blackhawks low over Chicago apartment buildings or rolling armored military convoys through the streets of St. Louis accomplish that cannot be achieved through the sprawling training center's simulations? Last year alone, there were at least seven such exercises, including in Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Tampa, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Creeds, Virginia.

The most obvious answer is that these exercises accustom troops to operating in US cities, while desensitizing the American people to the domestic deployment of US military might.

A pair of high-tech Army blimps is coming to the greater Washington, DC area, and soon they will be able to provide the military with surveillance powers that spans hundreds of millions of acres from North Carolina to Niagara Falls, Canada.

The airships are part of Raytheon's Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System, or JLENS, and when all is said and done they'll offer the United States military what the defense contractor calls "an affordable elevated, persistent over-the-horizon sensor system" that relies on "a powerful integrated radar system to detect, track and target a variety of threats."

Raytheon has just wrapped up a six-week testing period in the state of Utah and is now sending its JLENS fleet to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Once there, the Army intends to get some hands-on experience that will eventually culminate in launching the pair of airships over Washington, DC.