Puppet MastersS


Stormtrooper

Culmination of 'civilization': British pioneer high schools where every teacher will be a soldier

Image
Perhaps they could find these guys a job?
It conjures an image of a red-faced sergeant major hollering at the quivering boy in 3B who has forgotten his maths homework. But backers of a proposed free school that will be staffed entirely by former soldiers say parade ground humiliations are the last thing on their minds.

Instead, the Phoenix free school in Manchester would offer students ambitious academic goals, outdoor activities and a demonstration of "martial values".

In the modern army, it says, these values are "self-discipline, respect and an ability to listen". There will be high standards of behaviour - but no demands to "get down and give me 50". The new 11-18 secondary school, which has yet to find a location, is being proposed by the Centre for Policy Studies, a thinktank, and is backed by Lord Guthrie, a former chief of the defence staff.

Its intended headteacher is an army captain, Affan Burki, and it may be housed on surplus army land, such as a "disused TA [territorial army] drill hall".

Sherlock

More Britons Face Questions Over Links to Utøya Killer Anders Breivik

Image
© Scanpix Norway/ReutersBlogger Paul Ray in Oslo, where he denied having any links to Anders Breivik.
Names emerged from interviews with Breivik and English anti-Muslim blogger Paul Ray, say Norwegian police

Norwegian police say they are to question several British citizens in their search for potential accomplices of mass killer Anders Behring Breivik.

Officers in Oslo said the names of individuals and several far-right groups emerged from questioning of British anti-Muslim blogger Paul Ray as well as further interviews with Breivik.

Police press officer Roar Hanssen said: "We have some names and also some groups we are investigating. They came from Paul Ray, and also from Breivik and also from other things we have been investigating."

Breivik, 32, admitted killing 77 people last month when he detonated a truck bomb outside government offices in Oslo, and then went on a shooting spree at a youth camp at Utøya, 25 miles away.

He was questioned again on Wednesday and prosecutor Paal-Fredrik Hjort Kraby said officers focused on Breivik's manifesto, his alleged links to a group called the Knights Templar and potential ties to the UK.

MIB

Iraq 'suicide' bomb toll revealed: 12,000 innocents blown to pieces since 2003

Image
© Mohammed Jalil/EPAIraq has seen countless suicide bomb attacks like this one in Baghdad in 2010, which have cost thousands of civilians their lives. Those responsible for these vile crimes are probably military intelligence personnel of the US, UK and Israel.
Suicide bombers in Iraq have killed 12,000 civilians and 200 coalition soldiers since war began, study finds

Suicide bombers in Iraq have killed at least 12,000 civilians and 200 coalition soldiers, according to a study.

The research paper, by Dr Madelyn Hsiao-Rei Hicks of King's College London, the London-based Iraq Body Count and others, describes suicide bombs in Iraq as "a major public health problem", killing significantly more civilians than soldiers. It is published as part of a Lancet series on the health consequences of 9/11.

Among the reasons for the high civilian death toll is the difficulty of getting victims to hospital quickly enough for emergency treatment. The study finds children are more likely to die than adults if they are injured in a suicide bombing.

Comment: Suicide Bombings - A Favourite US Counter-Insurgency Tactic

The Myth Of The Palestinian Suicide Bomber

British Government's Agent Provocateurs Exposed!


Star of David

UN Sides with Israel Against Its Victims, Flotilla Massacre Report Whitewashes Strangulation of Gaza

Image
© ReutersHumanitarian activists from many countries, wearing life jackets, hold a news conference on board the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, before they were gunned down by Israeli butchers. The UN apparently doesn't give a damn about human rights.
Report backs Israel's right to defend itself but says assault on pro-Palestinian flotilla was 'excessive and unreasonable'

A United Nations investigation has backed Israel's naval blockade of Gaza as legal but said its military assault on a flotilla of pro-Palestinian activists last year, in which nine Turks were killed, was "excessive and unreasonable".

The report notes that Israel has not satisfactorily explained how it is that most of the dead were shot multiple times, including in the back, and at close range. But it also said the organisers of the flotilla acted "recklessly" in attempting to breach the blockade.

The report is expected to be released on Friday after months of delay because of a dispute between Israel and Turkey over its contents and Ankara's demand for an apology from Israel for the deaths of its citizens.

War Whore

Sarkozy Hopes Libya Can Boost France's Reputation - As Well As His Own

Image
© Reuters
The French president intends France to succeed in Libya where the US failed in Iraq

Libya is Nicolas Sarkozy's date with history. Behind the scenes of the Paris conference on Tripoli's future, the president was said to be revelling in his new French nickname, "Sarkozy the Libyan". In France, the intervention has been dubbed "Sarkozy's war", delighting him. By taking a leading role, the deeply unpopular leader hopes with one swoop to save the badly tarnished image of French policy in the Arab world, prove that France matters on the global stage and save his re-election battle for 2012.

Elysée observers say not since the cold war has a French leader made an international conflict such a personal obsession, poring over maps and plans, having the last word on arming rebel fighters. Many sensed a personal battle against his one-time friend turned enemy, Colonel Gaddafi. Sarkozy was desperate to undo the ill-effects of a disastrous state visit to Paris in 2007 in which Gaddafi made Sarkozy look ridiculous. The two men both claimed to have key insight into each others' personality - deeming each other utterly "mad". Privately, Sarkozy vowed to force Gaddafi "to his knees". But publicly, he hoped to rescue an election promise which had become utterly discredited: that France would be a global human rights defender, "on the side of the oppressed". He cited the massacres of Srebrenica or Rwanda as examples of what he wanted to avoid by protecting the Libyan people.

Cult

It's The Oil, Stupid: Anglo-Saxon Oil Cartel (and France) Conspired to Carve Up Libya's Oil Pie BEFORE Invasion

Image
© Veterans Today
Rebel leaders dismiss suggestions that firm promises have been made, but supportive countries look set to benefit

The starting pistol has been fired on bids by Britain and other western powers to secure a slice of the oil prize in Libya when France said it was "fair and logical" for its companies to benefit.

Alain Juppé, the French foreign minister, planted his flag in the sand as the Guardian was told that BP was already holding private talks with members of Libya's interim government.

Libya is a vital energy producer, and BP had previously committed itself to spending more than $1bn on exploration plans under Muammar Gaddafi's government.

Shell was also becoming active before the civil war broke out, as was Total of France, but the conflict over the past few months has brought the country's existing oil production of 1.6m barrels a day - 2% of the world's total - to a halt.

War Whore

It's The Oil, Stupid: British Government Admits Designs on Libyan Oil Precede Invasion

Image
"So we arm the rebels and direct them to do our bidding... et voila!" 'Development' Minister Alan Duncan is the delighted psychopath on the right.
International development minister took part in meetings between officials and firm for which he had acted as a consultant

The government has admitted that the international development minister, Alan Duncan, took part in meetings between officials operating a Whitehall cell to control the Libyan oil market and Vitol - a company for which Duncan has previously acted as a consultant.

The "Libyan oil cell" involved a group of officials working in the Foreign Office since May waging a quiet campaign against Muammar Gaddafi's regime by controlling the flow of oil in the country.

It is said to have played a discreet but crucial role in the campaign in Libya by helping to enforce the sanctions regime to prevent Gaddafi importing and exporting oil while allowing oil to reach the rebels in the east. That oil came via one company, Vitol.

Star of David

Turkey expels Israeli diplomats after UN report

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Friday Israel's diplomatic presence in Turkey was being cut to second secretary level, effectively expelling Israeli diplomats in protest over an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound ship that killed nine Turks.

"Turkey-Israel diplomatic relations have been reduced to a second secretary level. All personnel above the second secretary level will return to their countries by Wednesday at the latest," Davutoglu told a news conference. Israel's ambassador Gabby Levy was currently in Israel and cancelled plans to return to Turkey on Thursday.

A long-awaited U.N. report on the raid, made public on Thursday, declared that Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip was legal, but that the Jewish state used unreasonable force.

Control Panel

US Department of Homeland Security warns of planned Anonymous attacks

Image
Bulletin from feds highlights group's Occupy Wall Street, Operation Facebook, Project Mayhem campaigns

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security today issued a somewhat unusual bulletin warning the security community about the planned activities of hacking collective Anonymous over the next few months.

The bulletin, issued by the DHS National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC), warns financial services companies especially to be on the lookout for attempts by Anonymous to "solicit ideologically dissatisfied, sympathetic employees" to their cause.

Anonymous has recently used Twitter to try and persuade dissatisfied employees within the financial sector to give them information and access. Though such attempts appear to have been largely unsuccessful so far, "unwilling coercion through embarrassment or blackmail may be a risk to personnel," the bulletin warned.

Robot

Revealed: Fake Facebook Identity Used By Military Contractors Plotting To Hack Progressive Organizations

Image
Corporate hacker Aaron Barr draws inspiration from Maxim magazine for his fake persona army.
Earlier this year, ThinkProgress obtained 75,000 private emails from the defense contractor HBGary Federal via the hacktivist group called Anonymous. The emails led to two shocking revelations. First, that an assortment of private military firms collectively called "Team Themis" had been tapped by Bank of America to conduct a cyber war against reporters sympathetically covering the Wikileaks revelations. And second, that late in 2010, the same set of firms began work separately for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a Republican-aligned corporate lobbying group, to develop a similar campaign of sabotage against progressive organizations, including the SEIU and ThinkProgress.

In presentations obtained by ThinkProgress from the e-mail dump detailing the tactics potentially used against progressives, HBGary Federal floated the idea of using "fake insider personas" to infiltrate left-leaning groups critical of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's policies. As HBGary Federal executive Aaron Barr described in several emails, his firm could work with partner companies Palantir and Berico Technologies to manipulate fake online identities, using networks like Facebook, to gain access to private information from his targets. Other presentations are more specific and describe efforts to use social media to hack computers and find vulnerabilities among even the families of people who work at organizations critical of the Chamber.