The Pentagon says the US aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush and more than 50 attack aircraft are in the Persian Gulf, ready to launch attacks against Takfiri militants in Iraq.

The warship along with a battle group of ships are "in the region and ready for tasking," Pentagon spokesperson Rear Adm John Kirby said on Friday.

Iraqi armed forces have had fierce clashes with the militants over the past few days. The terrorists have threatened to do terrorist acts in other Iraqi cities too, including the capital Baghdad.

Takfiri groups, including the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), are reportedly coming to Iraq from neighboring Syria and Saudi Arabia to undermine security in the country.

Kirby also pointed to the presence of over 30,000 military personnel in the Middle East in order to defend against any possible aggression and terrorist acts.

The Pentagon is pumping millions of dollars annually into programs that set out to explore the factors responsible for creating civil unrest around the world, The Guardian reported this week.

An article by journalist Nafeez Ahmed published by the paper on Thursday this week acknowledges that the little-known United States Department of Defense program - the Minerva Research Initiative - has since 2008 partnered with universities "to improve DoD's basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the US."

According to the program's website, it has recently awarded millions of dollars to be divvied up among 12 proposals from colleges that have launched projects relevant to the Pentagon's interest, including a Cornell University study called "Tracking Critical-Mass Outbreaks in Social Contagions" as well as others involving state stability, social disequilibrium and, in one instance, "Understanding American Muslims Converts in the Contexts of Security and Society." The funding all comes entirely from the Dept. of Defense.

"Understanding the Origin, Characteristics and Implications of Mass Political Movements," a study out of the University of Washington, was among those selected as well. In Lowell, Massachusetts, researchers there will use $2 million from the Pentagon to study terrorist behavior.

The writer and Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn predicted the current situation in Ukraine almost half a century ago

In The Gulag Archipelago, the Nobel laureate wrote: "With Ukraine, things will get extremely painful."

Even during Soviet times, Alexander Solzhenitsyn prophetically did not rule out the idea that Ukraine may break away, although "a referendum may be required for each region", given the Bolshevik way of lumping together lands that had never historically belonged to Ukraine.

The Gulag Archipelago, Part 5, Chapter 2

... It pains me to write this as Ukraine and Russia are merged in my blood, in my heart, and in my thoughts. But extensive experience of friendly contacts with Ukrainians in the camps has shown me how much of a painful grudge they hold. Our generation will not escape from paying for the mistakes of our fathers.

To stamp one's foot and shout: "This is mine!" is the easiest option. It is far more difficult to say: "Those who want to live, live!" Surprising as it may be, the Marxist teaching prediction that nationalism is fading has not come true. On the contrary, in an age of nuclear research and cybernetics, it has for some reason flourished. And time is coming for us, whether we like it or not, to repay all the promissory notes of self-determination and independence; do it ourselves rather than wait to be burnt at the stake, drowned in a river or beheaded. We must prove whether we are a great nation not with the vastness of our territory or the number of peoples in our care but with the greatness of our deeds. And with the depth of ploughing what we shall have left after those lands that will not want to stay with us secede.

With Ukraine, things will get extremely painful. But one has to understand the degree of tension they feel. As it has been impossible for centuries to resolve it, it is now down to us to show good sense. We must hand over the decision-making to them: federalists or separatists, whichever of them wins. Not to give in would be mad and cruel. The more lenient, patient, coherent we now are, the more hope there will be to restore unity in future.

Let them live it, let them test it. They will soon understand that not all problems are resolved through separation. (Since in different regions of Ukraine there is a different proportion of those who consider themselves Ukrainians, those who consider themselves Russians and those who consider themselves neither, there will be many difficulties there. Maybe it will be necessary to have a referendum in each region and then ensure preferential and delicate treatment of those who would want to leave. Not the whole of Ukraine in its current formal Soviet borders is indeed Ukraine. Some regions on the left bank [of the River Dnieper] clearly lean more towards Russia. As for Crimea, Khrushchev's decision to hand it over to Ukraine was totally arbitrary. And what about Carpathian (Red) Ruthenia? That will serve as a test, too: while demanding justice for themselves, how just will the Ukrainians be to Carpathian Russians?)

Written in 1968; published in 1974.

• Judge orders city to pay up over death of mentally ill man
• Ruling says officers were not acting in self-defence
• Protesters say video acquits man accused of assault

The city of Albuquerque must pay more than $6m in connection with the wrongful death of a man with schizophrenia killed by Albuquerque police, a New Mexico judge ruled Tuesday.

In her detailed findings of fact, district court judge Shannon Bacon said officers were not acting in self-defense when they punched and shot Christopher Torres, 27, in his backyard in 2011.

Bacon also wrote the use of deadly force violated Torres' constitutional rights.

According to authorities, detectives CJ Brown and Richard Hilger shot Torres in the back at close range while serving an arrest warrant on a felony charge of aggravated auto burglary for trying to carjack a woman at a traffic light. During the confrontation with police, Torres tried to punch Hilger and grabbed Hilger's gun as they scuffled in the suspect's backyard, police said.

But Bacon said the officers did not present the arrest warrant when they confronted him in his yard. The judge said Hilger and Brown also did not contact Torres' assigned Crisis Intervention Team officer or family before confronting him - something the family had asked in order to ease tensions.

Instead, the officers jumped the fence and walked toward him, the ruling said.

"The unnecessary escalation of events by Detectives Brown and Hilger and their own aggressive acts at the Torres home created the unnecessarily dangerous situation in which Christopher Torres was shot to death," Bacon wrote.

Steve Torres, Christopher's father, said he hadn't seen the ruling but he thinks it vindicates the family's story that their son was unnecessarily killed by police.

"For us, it was never about the money," Torres said. "It was about setting the record straight."

An attorney for the city of Albuquerque did not immediately respond to an email from the Associated Press.

The ruling comes as the city of Albuquerque is in talks with the US Justice Department over pending police reforms following a scathing report faulting Albuquerque police over its use of force and the way officers handle suspects battling mental illness.

The Justice Department is expected to release a draft of its decree later this week.

Via Associated Press

The United States has been at war -- major boots-on-the-ground conflicts and minor interventions, firefights, air strikes, drone assassination campaigns, occupations, special ops raids, proxy conflicts, and covert actions -- nearly nonstop since the Vietnam War began. That's more than half a century of experience with war, American-style, and yet few in our world bother to draw the obvious conclusions.

Given the historical record, those conclusions should be staring us in the face. They are, however, the words that can't be said in a country committed to a military-first approach to the world, a continual build-up of its forces, an emphasis on pioneering work in the development and deployment of the latest destructive technology, and a repetitious cycling through styles of war from full-scale invasions and occupations to counterinsurgency, proxy wars, and back again.

So here are five straightforward lessons -- none acceptable in what passes for discussion and debate in this country -- that could be drawn from that last half century of every kind of American warfare:

A Pakistani High Court has ordered police to charge ex-CIA station chief Jonathan Banks for the murder of civilians in a 2009 drone strike. Prosecutors say he issued ordered the deadly strike and was directly responsible for the deaths.

Judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui issued the ruling after hearing a petition from drone activist Kareem Khan, whose son and brother were killed in the 2009 strike in the North Waziristan tribal district.

"Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of Islamabad High Court ordered today registration of a criminal case for offenses of murder, conspiracy, waging war against Pakistan and offenses under the provisions of Terrorism Act 1997," against Banks, a statement by Khan's lawyers said.

Banks' cover as CIA Pakistan station chief was blown in 2010 after he was named in court papers. As a result he was forced to flee the country.

Heavily armed, well funded, and organized as a professional, standing army, the forces of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) swept southward into Iraq from Turkey and northeastern Syria, taking the cities of Mosul and Tikrit, and now threaten the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad itself. The United States was sure to prop up two unfounded narratives - the first being that US intelligence agencies, despite assets in Iraq and above it in the form of surveillance drones, failed to give warning of the invasion, and that ISIS is some sort of self-sustaining terror organization carving out a "state" by "robbing banks" and collecting "donations" on Twitter.

The Wall Street Journal in its report, "Iraqi Drama Catches U.S. Off Guard," stated:

The quickly unfolding drama prompted a White House meeting Wednesday of top policy makers and military leaders who were caught off guard by the swift collapse of Iraqi security forces, officials acknowledged.

In another WSJ post, "U.S. Secretly Flying Drones Over Iraq," it claimed:

A senior U.S. official said the intelligence collected under the small [secret US drone] program was shared with Iraqi forces, but added: "It's not like it did any good." The rapid territorial gains by the Islamist forces loyal to Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS, an al Qaeda offshoot, caught the U.S. by surprise, the officials said.

A leaked audio recording of chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat harshly criticizing PA President Mahmoud Abbas over his reluctance to pursue Israel in the international arena exposed severe fissures within the Palestinian leadership regarding how best to engage Israel following the collapse of US-brokered negotiations in April, and showed profound disdain by Erekat for his president.

In the video, Erekat says Abbas has lost his credibility, slams his "useless" approach, and compares him to Saddam Hussein and Bashar Assad. The top Palestinian negotiator also says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal who isn't "worth the bullet" to shoot him.

The source and time of Erekat's speech were not reported, but in the edited three-minute recording, uploaded to YouTube late Wednesday night by the Awraq News Agency, the Palestinian official accused his president of acting autocratically against the will of a majority of the Palestinian leadership, which voted for a harsher stance against Israel.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist leader believed to be responsible for the abduction of Kenneth Bigley, is 'more myth than man', according to American military intelligence agents in Iraq.

Several sources said the importance of Zarqawi, blamed for many of the most spectacular acts of violence in Iraq, has been exaggerated by flawed intelligence and the Bush administration's desire to find "a villain" for the post-invasion mayhem.

US military intelligence agents in Iraq have revealed a series of botched and often tawdry dealings with unreliable sources who, in the words of one source, "told us what we wanted to hear".

"We were basically paying up to $10,000 a time to opportunists, criminals and chancers who passed off fiction and supposition about Zarqawi as cast-iron fact, making him out as the linchpin of just about every attack in Iraq," the agent said.

"Back home this stuff was gratefully received and formed the basis of policy decisions. We needed a villain, someone identifiable for the public to latch on to, and we got one."

Electronic military exercises were to blame for the mysterious disappearance of dozens of planes from air-traffic control screens in the heart of Europe, Slovak authorities have said.

About 50 planes temporarily disappeared from radars in Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia between June 5 and June 10, Austria's flight safety monitor said.

German and Czech air traffic control also reported brief disappearances.

Slovakia blamed the outages on planned military exercises.

"The disappearance of objects on radar screens was connected with a planned military exercise which took place in various parts of Europe...whose goal was the interruption of radio communication frequencies," the Slovak air traffic services said in a statement.

"This activity also caused the temporary disappearance of several targets on the radar display, while in the meantime the planes were in radio contact with air traffic controllers and continued in their flight normally."