Category: Terra Terra Terra!

Heroes

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

This is one of those stories where a group of men happened to be in exactly the right place at the right time. Kudos to these brave guys!

Three Americans, including two servicemen, who tackled a gunman aboard a train from Amsterdam to Paris on Friday are being praised as heroes for thwarting what might have been a massacre.

Airman First Class Spencer Stone, Oregon National Guard Specialist Alek Skarlatos and college senior Anthony Sadler, all friends from childhood, were traveling on the high-speed train when they heard a gunshot and the sound of glass shattering.

“I saw a guy entering the train with an AK-47 and a handgun, and I just looked over to Spencer and said, ‘Let’s go, go!'” Skarlatos said.

The three, along with a British man, Chris Norman, rushed the alleged attacker, who authorities believe is a 26-year-old Moroccan man flagged by Spanish authorities in February 2014 because of his connections to radical Islam.

Larry Wilkerson: If you want ground forces to attack ISIS, let’s have a draft

~ susie ~ 5 Comments

It’s truly appalling to see how this nation swings over the span of 6 years from being war-weary to having a bloodlust for more of it. I’m sure Roger Ailes is patting himself on the back for his contribution to the war effort. A recent Fox “News” poll showed that 65 percent supported military action to… Continue reading “Larry Wilkerson: If you want ground forces to attack ISIS, let’s have a draft” →

Subtle, ain’t they?

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

chelseamanning

They just want to keep torturing her, and the rest of us don’t stop them:

Railroaded into a military prison for 35 years, whistleblower Chelsea Manning is now facing “indefinitely solitary confinement” for a handful of trivial charges, which stem entirely from allegations by one of the guards (termed “specialists”) that she swept food on the floor in the dining area. This led to a charge of “disorderly conduct.”

That “violation” on the books, Manning was placed in “administrative segregation” and her room searched. They found a handful of magazines, including the issue of Cosmo she had an interview published in, and political books, unsurprising since she’s working on a degree in political science. They dubbed this “Prohibited Property.”

They also found a tube of “anti-cavity toothpaste may-keep-in-cell,” which upon further inspection was a couple of months outdated. This led to the charge of “medicine misuse.”

Taken together, the toothpaste tube, the alleged food on the floor, and the magazines are enough to send Manning even further up the river, apparently, and officials are spurning calls to make the hearing open to the public.

Cyberespionage

~ susie

Verrimus -

Yeah, I’ve never been able to figure out how the powers that be rationalize spying on behalf of big business. Why, it’s almost as if we’re owned by the multinational corps!

These disclosures confirm what Edward Snowden said in an open letter to Brazil: Terrorism is primarily a mechanism to bolster public acquiescence for runaway data collection. The actual focus of intelligence programs center around “economic spying, social control, and diplomatic manipulation.” Who benefits from this sort of activity? The same large multinational corporate interests that have spent billions of dollars to achieve state capture.

Why is the threat posed by China inflated so heavily? The following excerpt from an intelligence briefing might offer some insight. In a conversation with a colleague during the summer of 2011, the European Union’s chief negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Hiddo Houben, described the treaty as an attempt by the United State to antagonize China:

Houben insisted that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is a U.S. initiative, appears to be designed to force future negotiations with China. Washington, he pointed out, is negotiating with every nation that borders China, asking for commitments that exceed those countries’ administrative capacities, so as to ‘confront’ Beijing. If, however, the TPP agreement takes 10 years to negotiate, the world – and China – will have changed so much that that country likely will have become disinterested in the process, according to Houben. When that happens, the U.S. will have no alternative but to return to the WTO.

US business interests are eager to “open markets in Asia” and “provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment.” At least, that’s how Hillary Clinton phrased it back when she was the US secretary of state. China represents a potential competitor and so US politicians need an enemy that they can demonize to help justify massive intelligence budgets and the myriad clandestine operations that they conduct. The US deep state wishes to maintain economic dominance and US spies have been working diligently to this end.

When Pope Francis comes to town

~ susie

pope-francis2

It’s really turning into a giant clusterfuck. They seem convinced his visit is a major terrorism magnet:

Aggravating the problem is SEPTA, whose convoluted plans to try to accommodate the masses are beyond human comprehension. I need a special rail pass? Only a limited number of them will be sold? Only a few stations will be open? I have to buy my pass online? “It will be valid only for travel from the specified outlying station during the selected time slot, and for travel from Center City back to that station after the Papal Visit events”? I need a whole other papal pass to ride the buses or subway? WTF, SEPTA — are you trying to drive people away?

Listen, I know it’s fun to get all worked up and be alarmist. I also know what it can cost the city — in terms of money that doesn’t come in, goodwill that gets squandered, prestige that’s lost — when the alarmists win. Rizzo showed us that back in ’76. I read the New York Times every day, and I’ll be damned if I see a flood of articles bemoaning the trials that city will face when the Pope visits there. In fact, I don’t see any such articles at all. New York knows: Cities get through these things. You plan, you make contingencies — but you don’t stand on street corners and wail and gnash your teeth and wring your hands.

We’re a big city, Philadelphia. We can handle this. We don’t have to blow it again. So everybody, please, take a deep breath and move back from the ledge. He’s one guy — one gentle, humble guy — who’s coming to visit. You think Francis wants us getting all worked up like this?

Happy 4th of July, have some terror with that

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Gasworks Park Seattle 4th of July

I guess it’s about time for another one. After all, people have been getting far too uppity lately, it’s time we got back to the things like mattered — like more surveillance:

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The FBI and Department of Homeland Security are asking Americans to remain vigilant to the threat of a terror attack over the Fourth of July weekend.

The FBI is setting up command centers at its 56 field offices across the country, including the one in Minnesota.

Although officials say there is no credible threat, the FBI is reacting to a call to arms by ISIS for mass murder during Ramadan.
Continue reading “Happy 4th of July, have some terror with that” →

Someone is cutting the internet in California

~ susie

Cali-Internet-Outages

This is bizarre, isn’t it?

There have been nearly a dozen physical attacks on California Bay Area residents’ internet connections in the past year, prompting an FBI investigation.

The latest attack Tuesday knocked out internet service for Sacramento businesses and residents by breaking into an underground network protector and snipping fiber-optic cables. The FBI hasn’t provided details on the extent of the outages targeting two internet providers, Level 3 Communications, Zayo Group, and subsidiary client Wave Broadband, but evidence suggests similar attacks have been happening since July 6, 2014.

The FBI asked the public in June for information regarding suspicious behavior before the internet outages, indicating the Web saboteurs were dressed as telecommunications maintenance professionals.

“When some of the first cuts were taking place, the cuts and cables were fixed, and there was no evidence, no anything to look at,” FBI Special Agent Greg Wuthrich told the Wall Street Journal. “We just need to have a little bit more time to have our people go in.”

Repairs are being made to restore service in the Sacramento area but the motive behind the attacks unknown and raises concerns of power grid security.

Double duty

~ susie

Kiev - Skinheads
Yep, the real terrorists are already here. White supremacists are signing up for the military to get training that will be used to start a race war:

After the horrific massacre at Charleston’s historic black church, Americans are slowly realizing the threat posed by white supremacist and neo-Nazi movements. But few know that their presence has grown within one of the most powerful institutions in America: the US military.

According to the FBI, there are hundreds of white supremacists in the US army or in the veteran community. Some analysts even estimate the number is in the thousands. In America, 203 white supremacist “extremist cases” investigated by the Bureau from 2001 to 2008 involved veterans. The problem hasn’t gone away. Neo-Nazi veteran Wade Michael Page attacked six worshippers at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in 2012.

I spent a number of years investigating how neo-Nazis and white supremacists had infiltrated the US military, with very little push back from the Pentagon, which was desperate to keep the supply of troops flowing for the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

As part of my research, I spoke to veterans who had become white supremacists before service and joined to gain access to weapons and training, as well as veterans who had been radicalized after returning from the war.

Charles Wilson, spokesman for the National Socialist Movement, one of the top neo-Nazi groups in America, was frank about his attempts to populate the US armed forces with extremists: “We do encourage [our members] to sign up for the military. We can use the training to secure the resistance to our government. Every one of them takes a pact of secrecy … Our military doesn’t agree with our political beliefs, they are not supposed to be in the military, but they’re there, in ever greater numbers.” He claimed to have 190 members serving.

Wilson’s claims can’t simply be dismissed as empty boasting. In a 2006 report , the National Gang Intelligence Center, which operates under the DOJ and integrates gang intelligence across agencies, noted: “various white supremacist groups have been documented on military installations both domestically and internationally.” Neo-Nazis “stretch across all branches of service, they are linking up across the branches once they’re inside, and they are hard-core,” Department of Defense gang detective Scott Barfield told the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Continue reading “Double duty” →

The Fort Dix five

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

I don’t know about you, but I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t believe any of these FBI-provoked terror plots. This one, prosecuted by then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, was particularly egregious:

Tony, Shain and Eljvir spent the night wondering how they were going to get out of what they assumed would be gun charges.

The next morning, the brothers, along with Tatar and Shnewer, who had been seized in separate raids, were driven in a black-tinted police van past throngs of reporters and cameramen to the federal courthouse in Camden, New Jersey.

Inside, they were presented with a criminal complaint accusing them of conspiracy to murder U.S. military personnel. “I was confused at first, but for the most part I breathed easy when I saw that,” Shain says. “I figured they mixed us up with someone else and we’d be out of here as soon as we cleared things up.”

As Shain remembers, the boys were taken to a holding cell and instructed to read through the complaint in its entirety. Shain read aloud to the group. The complaint consisted almost entirely of Mohamad Shnewer’s private conversations with Mahmoud Omar. “After reading it we all turned to Shnewer,” Shain says. “Is this really true!? You went to a military base, you said this and that!? Who the hell is Confidential Witness #1?! Mahmoud Omar was an informant? Unbelievable! We were all pissed at Shnewer.”

It became clear to the brothers that Shnewer, in his conversations with Omar, had committed them to taking part in a “plot” to attack Fort Dix without their knowledge.

The five men were charged with conspiracy to attack military personnel, as well as with weapons offenses for the guns they had attempted to purchase from Mahmoud Omar.

At a press conference announcing the indictments, U.S. Attorney Chris Christie praised law enforcement for stopping an impending threat, painting a dark portrait of the alleged plotters. “Believe me, too,” he said. “These people were ready for martyrdom. They spoke about martyrdom extensively in the tapes. They said they were to do this in the service of Allah.”