US Army Rejects Beretta Proposal for Updated Version of M9 Service Pistol

The US Army has announced that it will be seeking to replace their current M9 series sidearm, presenting a rare and lucrative opportunity for small arms manufacturers both here and overseas. However, the manufacturer of the current Army sidearm may be on the outside looking in.

The Pentagon has invited gunmakers to submit designs for a “modular handgun system.”

Beretta has produced 600,000 M9s for the Department of Defense and is still under contract to produce another 100,000. The M9s were initially made in Italy, but they have been manufactured in the U.S. since 1987.

The venerable Italian arms manufacturer has been in business since 1526 and their 92 series 9mm pistol was chosen to replace the Colt 1911A1 as the US military handgun in the late 1980s. The military version of the Model 92- known in all four branches as the M9- features a metal frame, slide-mounted safety and 15 round magazine. In December, Beretta introduced the M9A3 which featured improvements such as a removable, modular wrap-around grip, a threaded barrel, tritium sights, an under-barrel accessory rail and a 17-round magazine. The pistol itself is sand-colored, a change from the current gunmetal black. Another selling point Beretta highlighted is that the M9A3 would be interchangeable with components and accessories from the current batch of M9s.

However, the Army rejected Beretta's proposal this month and the new Modular Handgun System will most likely use an entirely different platform. Given the widespread use of Glock handguns by police agencies throughout the United States as well as some NATO allies, it would seem logical that some variation of the polymer-framed 9mm Glock 17 was evaluated at some point. Although relatively new, Smith and Wesson's Polymer-framed M&P series pistol is also being evaluated by the Army as a replacement for the M9. Despite being around for less than a decade, Smith & Wesson's M&P series has been adopted by a number of law enforcement agencies in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia- even replacing earlier versions of Glocks in some instances. Smith & Wesson's [NASDAQ: SWHC] bid for the lucrative Modular Handgun System contract will be assisted by General Dynamics [NYSE: GD] Ordnance and Tactical Systems.

Another possibility could be Modular Handgun System being awarded to SIG-Sauer. The US Army Criminal Investigative Division presently carries the SIG P228 [designated the M11- NANESB!] and the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command ordered 5000 polymer-framed SIG SP2022 9mm pistols. The SP2022 has a number of features similar to SIG-Sauer's full-size P226 series pistols, but is lighter thanks to the polymer frame.

September 11th Memorial Bookends Attacks with Exhibit Featuring Part of Navy SEAL's Uniform From Bin Laden Raid

The uniform shirt a US Navy SEAL wore during the 2011 raid on the compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan where Osama Bin Laden was hiding went on display this week at New York's September 11th museum earlier this week.

The shirt joins a specially made coin awarded to a CIA operative after the mission and a brick from Bin Laden's compound that go on display at the National September 11th Memorial and Museum this week. The coin was struck after the successful completion of the Abbotabad raid and was reportedly issued to the participating SEALs and an agent known as Maya, who was the basis of the main character portrayed in the 2012 movie Zero Dark Thirty.

"The death of Osama bin Laden is a huge part of the history, and we have an absolute obligation to tell it," National Sept. 11 Memorial Museum President Joe Daniels said Saturday. The display, he said, "allows millions of visitors the chance to recognize the extraordinary bravery of the men and women who sacrifice so much for this country at home and abroad."

The uniform shirt, tan with camouflage sleeves and an American flag patch on the right shoulder — stars forward to invoke the historical role of a flag-bearer leading a charge into battle — belonged to a now-retired member of SEAL Team Six, which put an end to the long manhunt for the world's most wanted terrorist. The garment "connects us in a powerful and immediate way to that operation," Museum Director Alice Greenwald said.

The red, white and blue coin was made to commemorate its conclusion. The coin bears the date — May 1, 2011, in U.S. time — on one side and a red "X'' on the other.

Opened to the public in May, this would mark the first time that the September 11th Museum is open on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. A memorial for the people killed in the September 11th attacks was opened in 2012.

Even before the museum opened, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) petitioned the museum to edit a video presentation on Al Qaeda, urging them to remove phrases like 'jihad' and 'radical islam' from the presentation. The museum's board reportedly declined any such edit.

Fort Hood Shooter Sentenced To Death

A military jury in Texas has sentenced former US Army Major Nidal Hasan to death for his role in the November 2009 Ft Hood shootings after a three week trial.

Hasan, who sat motionless as the jury president read the verdict, has said he acted to protect Islamic insurgents abroad from American aggression, never denied being the gunman. In opening statements, he acknowledged to the jury that he pulled the trigger in a crowded waiting room where troops were getting final medical checkups before deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hasan had one final chance Wednesday to give a closing argument before his case went to the jury, but he declined -- continuing an absent defense that he has used since his trial began three weeks ago.

The Army psychiatrist's behavior has only stoked suspicion that his ultimate goal is martyrdom, in the form of a death sentence that would allow him to fulfill what prosecutors have described as a "jihad duty" under his Islamic faith.

The lead prosecutor, Col. Mike Mulligan, told jurors Wednesday morning that history was full of instances of death in the name of religion. But he said it would be "wrong and unsupportive" to tie Hasan's actions to a wider cause

Hasan acted as his own defense counsel throughout the trial, and his strategy consisted solely of admitting that he was the shooter and not challenging the prosecution's claims. The Virginia-born Muslim claimed the shooting was in retaliation for what he claims is an ongoing American war against Islamic nations.

To add insult to injury, the government has classified the terrorist sympathizer Hasan's religiously motivated killing spree as "workplace violence" instead of terrorism- denying survivors and family members certain benefits and awards.

Even worse, the FBI had reportedly intercepted communications between Hasan and radical cleric Anwar Al-Alwaki in Yemen nearly a year before the attack.

Hasan first appeared on the bureau's radar in December of 2008—nearly a year before the Fort Hood massacre—when he emailed Awlaki to ask him whether serving in the US military was compatible with the Muslim faith. He also asked whether Awlaki considered those who died attacking their fellow soldiers "shaheeds," or martyrs.

The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego, which was tracking Awlaki, intercepted Hasan's December email, along with another sent in January. A search of the Pentagon's personnel database turned up a man named Nidal Hasan who was on active military duty and was listed as a "Comm Officer" at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC.

Normally, when the FBI unearths this kind of raw intelligence, it issues an Intelligence Information Report (IIR), which is shared with law enforcement agencies and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. (This system was designed to prevent the kind of information bottlenecks that allowed the 9/11 plot to go undetected.) But the San Diego agents misinterpreted the "Comm Officer" label in Hasan's file to mean "communications officer" (in fact, it meant "commissioned officer") and believed that a person in this role might have access to IIRs. To avoid tipping him off, they skipped the report and sent a detailed memo requesting an investigation directly to the Washington, DC, Joint Terrorism Task Force, a multiagency team overseen by the FBI that investigates terrorism cases in the capital. The message noted that Hasan's "contact with [Awlaki] would be of concern if the writer is actually the individual identified above."

The file languished for nearly two months before it was assigned to an agent for the Defense Criminal Investigative Services, who was on the task force. According to a 2011 report on the Fort Hood shootings by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, DCIS—a law enforcement agency within the Pentagon, which normally deals with fraud and cybercrime among military personnel and contractors—was ill-equipped to tackle a counterterrorism investigation.

Meanwhile, Hasan kept writing Awlaki. Between January and May 2009, he sent the radical cleric more than a dozen emails, and received two relatively benign responses. In one message, ostensibly about Palestinians firing unguided rockets into Israel, Hasan asked Awlaki whether "indiscriminately killing civilians" was acceptable. Two days later, he sent another message answering his own question: "Hamas and the Muslims hate to hurt the innocent but they have no choice if their going to have a chance to survive, flourish, and deter the zionist enemy. The recompense for an evil is an evil." (Hasan's emails contained a number of typos.)

The San Diego field office intercepted these missives, too. But the database where the FBI stored intercepted emails didn't automatically link messages from the same sender, so the staff didn't realize that Hasan's early 2009 emails were from the person who had set off alarms the previous December. Meanwhile, the Washington-based DCIS agent assigned to investigate Hasan put off his inquiry for another 90 days, the maximum allowed under joint task force rules, before conducting a cursory investigation. Over the course of four hours on May 27, 2009, he ran Hasan's name through several databases to see if the psychiatrist had been targeted in previous counterterrorism probes. He also reviewed Hasan's Pentagon personnel file. Hasan's officer evaluations were mostly positive, and the chair of psychiatry at Walter Reed had written that Hasan's research on Islamic beliefs regarding military service had "extraordinary potential to inform national policy and military strategy."


The Senate investigation later found these reports "bore no resemblance to the real Hasan, a barely competent psychiatrist whose radicalization toward violent Islamist extremism alarmed his colleagues and his superiors." Nevertheless, the DCIS investigator concluded, based on Hasan's file, that the Army psychiatrist had contacted Awlaki in connection with his academic research and "was not involved in terrorist activity." The DCIS investigator and a supervisory agent in the Washington field office debated interviewing Hasan or his superiors. They ultimately decided doing so could jeopardize the Awlaki investigation or harm Hasan's career.

Advocates for Fort Hood victims find this decision puzzling. "A US Army major is writing to this imam and essentially asking for religious sanction to kill American soldiers," said attorney Reed Rubinstein, who represents a group of victims who are suing the federal government. "And the FBI's Washington field office doesn't even interview the man or make a phone call to his superiors. It's utterly incomprehensible."

Hasan's superiors reportedly missed or ignored a number of red flags regarding Hasan's performance as an officer, including being overweight and stridently supporting Islamic law during his residency at Walter Reed Army hospital.

Should the Army follow through, this will be the first military execution since 1961.

Seven Marines Killed In Hawthorne Army Depot Explosion

The United States Marine Corps issued a blanket suspension on the use of all 60mm mortar shells on Monday night after a deadly explosion killed seven Marines during a training excercise at Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada.

Seven U.S. Marines were killed and several others were wounded Monday when a mortar exploded prematurely inside is firing tube during mountain training exercises at Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada. It's unclear what caused the malfunction.

The accident prompted the Marine Corps to immediately halt use of some mortar shells until an investigation can determine its safety.

The Corps on Tuesday announced a "blanket suspension of 60mm mortars and associated tubes" in effect until review of the incident at Hawthorne is complete.

The 60mm mortar is a weapon that traditionally requires three to four Marines to operate but it's common during training for others to observe nearby.

The cause of the incident remains under investigation. The investigation will focus on whether the Marines followed procedures to properly fire the weapon, whether there was a malfunction in the firing device or in the explosive mortar itself, the official said.

Earlier, Russ Collier, an official at the facility, told KRNV-TV that the explosion was an accident unrelated to the ammunition that is stored at the military facility near the small desert community of Hawthorne.

The Associated Press has tenatively identified the unit that was assigned to the Hawthorne Army Depot as the 2nd Marine Expiditionary Force based out of Camp Lejune, NC- although the names won't be released until after the families have been notified.

Hawthorne Army Depot is a 226 square mile facility that stores and disposes of ammunition for the United States military some 140 miles southeast of Reno, NV. In recent years, the facility has been used as a training ground because conditions in the high Nevada desert are similar to what soldiers and Marines could expect in Afghanistan.

On Tuesday, an impromptu memorial was held in the nearby town of Hawthorne to honor the Marines killed in the explosion.

Less than a day after the Marines were killed by a mortar explosion during a training exercise in the western Nevada desert, Hume stood inside the Hawthorne Ordnance Museum surrounded by decommissioned ammunition on display. The military-centric town of 3,200 people relies on the Hawthorne Army Depot, a sprawling facility filled with military munitions.

“I’m always glad to see all these trainees come in here, and then to have something like this happen is really, really — it hurts,” Hume said, tearing up. “It hurts.”

First responders, members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and hundreds of people from Hawthorne gathered at the Veterans Memorial Park to memorialize the victims of the blast. The Marines came from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force from Camp Lejeune, N.C.

“This kind of stuff is very tragic and painful,” said Rosemary Redmon, who lives in Hawthorne. “It’s a very close community, and we are very proud that we are able to help the country to train our soldiers.”

Miles Wertz rode to the memorial with his fellow members of the Iron Nation motorcycle group to honor the Marines who died.

“It’s just terrible,” he said. “We’re down here to show support for the families and pay tribute to the fallen Marines.”

John Stroud, the junior vice commander in chief of the VFW who also lives in Hawthorne, led the vigil and placed a wreath in the Marines’ honor.

“We’ve got to cooperate with the officials as much as possible to get the investigations done thoroughly and accurately so that hopefully we can prevent these things from happening again,” he said after the ceremony.

The Hawthorne Army Depot was opened in 1930, a few years after a lightning-sparked explosion at New Jersey's Lake Denmark Nacal Ammunition Depot killed more than 20 people and heavily damaged the Picatinny Army Arsenal and surrounding communities as the fires burned for days afterwards.

Pentagon's Inspector General: Nearly Half of Overseas US Military Bases Lack Voting Facilities

An audit by the Pentagon's Inspector General office has discovered that fewer than half of overseas US Military facilities aren't in compliance with the Military & Overseas Voter Empowerment Act- or MOVE Act.

The 2009 Act is supposed to guarantee facilities for members of the Armed Forces and US civilians living overseas which would allow them to register to vote in their home state or vote by absentee ballot. It also requires individual states to send off absentee ballots to servicemen and women stationed overseas in a timely manner.

Officials at the Pentagon had blamed a lack of resources and outdated contractor information for the reported lack of voter facilities.

“We concluded the services had not established all the [voting-assistance offices] as intended by the [MOVE Act] because, among other issues, the funding was not available,” reads the report, published last week but first reported Wednesday.

The report said Congress failed to authorize additional funding to implement the MOVE Act and added that Pentagon officials estimate the costs of establishing the offices could exceed $20 million per year.

But Mr. Eversole said Congress had appropriated $75 million over the past three years for military voter assistance efforts.

“The notion that they didn’t have the money to do this, that’s laughable,” he said.

Barely a year after it was signed into law, a number of states had requested waivers from the Justice Department. The Justice Department ended up filing suit against Illinois and New York state ahead of the 2010 mid-term elections after a number of counties in those states failed to send off absentee ballots to members of the military stationed overseas in a timely manner as required by the MOVE act.

British Specialists to Help Iraq Destroy Stockpiles of Saddam-Era Chemical Weapons

British soldiers wearing protective suits in Iraq circa 2003

The UK's Ministry of Defense announced that they would be sending a team of experts to Iraq to help the government there dispose of chemical warfare agents dating back to Saddam Hussein's regime.

The British Defense Ministry will start training Iraqi technical and medical workers this year, an embassy statement said. The teams will work to safely destroy remnants of munitions and chemical warfare agents left over from Saddam’s regime.

Saddam stored the chemical weapons near population centers so that he could access them quickly, despite the danger to his civilian population.

Most of Iraq’s chemical weapons were destroyed by military forces in 1991 during the first Gulf War or by U.N. inspectors after the fighting. The inspections halted just before the invasion.

The head of the Iraqi National Authority, Mohammed Al Sharaa, said the remnants "represent a great challenge to the Iraqi experts to safely dispose." He called the agreement with British authorities "a good opportunity for Iraqi experts to benefit from the well-known expertise of U.K. experts."

Most notoriously, the Saddam Hussein regime used chemical weapons against civilians and the Kurdish peshmerga militia in the village of Halabja in 1988.

Hussein was deposed during the American-led invasion in 2003, captured and eventually executed by Iraq's civilian government. Many anti-war activists and politicians had claimed there were never any chemical weapons to begin with and such talk was merely a fabrication to justify the an American-led invasion.

Althought no massive WMD cache was discovered by American or coalition forces, Sarin was discovered in a 2004 roadside bomb and in 2008, the Pentagon was approached by Iraq's civilian government to ship more than 500 tons of uranium out of Iraq to Canada for disposal by Cameco [NYSE- CCJ; TSX- CCO].

Some have speculated that Hussein was able to spirit away major components of his WMD program to Syria before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This claim had been revisited when Syria's Bashr Al Assad threatened to use chemical weapons- including mustard gas, VX and Sarin- against armed insurgents clashing with his military or foreign forces who intervened in the ongoing conflict. However, Syria has had its own WMD program independent of Saddam Hussein's since before Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Obama apologizes as Protests Rage Over Quran Burning, Afghan Soldier Guns Down 2 US troops

Lest you think I'm being unfair and engaging in over-the-top hyperbole in order to try and portray President Obama in the worst possible light, that is the headline from Thursday's Washington Post verbatim.

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Barack Obama apologized to Afghans on Thursday for the burning of Qurans at a U.S. military base, trying to assuage rising anti-American sentiment as an Afghan soldier gunned down two American troops during another day of angry protests.

The U.S.-led military coalition says the Muslim holy books were sent by mistake to a garbage burn pit at Bagram Air Field and the case is under investigation. The explanation and multiple apologies from U.S. officials have yet to calm outrage over the incident, which has also heightened tension between international troops and their Afghan partners.

Thousands of protesters, some shouting “Long live Islam!” and “Death to America!” staged demonstrations across Afghanistan for a third day. Protesters climbed the walls of a U.S. base in the east, threw stones inside and adorned an outside wall with the Taliban’s trademark white flag.

At other sites, demonstrators burned tires or American flags. Afghan police and international troops fired guns in the air to disperse the crowds.

The protests sparked clashes with Afghan security forces that left at least five demonstrators dead. A Norwegian soldier was wounded by a hand grenade hurled into a coalition compound.

If President Obama was the least bit serious about re-election, he should probably avoid doing anything that would project weakness to the this nation's enemies, but attempting to placate the Taliban and radical muslims throughout the world is nothing new for this Administration.

Instead, when they're not placating despotic regimes or sanctioning the trafficking of weapons to Mexican drug cartels, the Obama Administrations seems to be focusing on American citizens they brand as 'extremists' and wealthy people who aren't donating to his re-election campaign.

Economic Recovery Under President Obama Apparently Going So Swimmingly That He's Resurrecting FDR's Depression-Era Proposals

While the unemployment rate remains high in this nation, it remains even higher among veterans of the United States military- particularly the post 9/11 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

To that end, President Obama is calling for a new Conservation program that would rebuild trails, roads and levees on public lands that's reminiscent of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's 1930's-era Civilian Conservation Corps.


Ah yes....nothing indicates that we're in the middle of a robust economic recovery like reviving a government sponsored work-relief program straight out of the Great Depression.

WASHINGTON — In an effort to cut the unemployment rate among veterans, the Obama administration is calling for a new conservation program that would put veterans to work rebuilding trails, roads and levees on public lands

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the Civilian Conservation Corps that operated during the 1930s could be viewed as a model for what the administration will try to accomplish through its “Veterans Jobs Corps.” He said that the administration will propose spending $1 billion that would be used to put an estimated 20,000 veterans to work restoring habitat and eradicating invasive species, among other activities.

“When one looks back at the legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps, we take great comfort that those who take on these kinds of activities will leave a lasting legacy for the United States,” Salazar said.

The proposal comes less than a month after President Obama called for deep cuts in defense spending ahead of his annual State of the Union address.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) that Salazar referenced was a program that put unemployed men- including an estimated 28,000 veterans in the first year- to work as labor for projects located on rural federal lands. The CCC lasted from 1933 to 1942, when the manpower was needed in the military and in munitions factories after America's entry into WWII.

The Washington Post article quoted also concedes that election year politics plays a role in President Obama's proposal.

The backdrop of presidential politics is also playing a role in the Obama administration’s new efforts. Several states that will be heavily contested in November have a significant military presence. Veterans will be evaluating specific ways the next White House administration intends to help them.

[Just a thought, but maybe NOT cutting the Army from 45 to 32 combat brigades would help by creating far fewer unemployed post 9/11 veterans- NANESB!]

As a veteran, I noticed that Obama passed up one one really obvious means of creating jobs for both veterans and civilians alike- it's called the Keystone XL pipeline, and it's construction would've added thousands and thousands of jobs to the US economy. However, Obama decided to veto that and instead has proposed what amounts to a rehash of a government program from one of the bleakest economic periods in this nation's history.

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By the way- If you're an out-of-work or underemployed veteran reading this, have you given any thought to working for one of the railroads?

I'm not trying to be flippant, sarcastic or cute in any way- it's just something that you might've overlooked altogether while searching for a full-time job.

Many of them have been hiring for the last few years not because the economy is doing particularly well, but because a good portion of their workforce is already at or near retirement age. The Railroad Retirement Board and individual railway company's websites list various job openings and some of the railroads even offer cash signing bonuses or provide entry-level training depending on the position offered.

Obama Announces Drastic Cuts in US Defense Spending

I'm not the least bit surprised by this, yet I'm still angry.

With his vapid, fawning, brain dead followers in the media and punditocracy class more than willing to give President Obama sole credit for the heavy lifting done by the United States military (particularly the May 2011 raid where Osama Bin Laden was killed in his Pakistani hideout), you'd think that Obama would be reluctant to make any significant cuts to the armed forces or at least hold off until after the 2012 campaign.

You would be wrong.

At a press conference at the Pentagon on Thursday, President Obama unveiled an austere and 'more realistic' vision for the Military that would purportedly develop air and sea power while cutting back tens of thousands of ground troops.

Though specific budget cut and troop reduction figures are not set to be announced on Thursday, officials confirmed to Reuters they would amount to a 10-15 percent decline in Army and Marine Corps numbers over the next decade, translating to tens of thousands of troops.

"As Libya showed, you don't necessarily have to have boots on the ground all the time," an official said, explaining the White House view.

"We are refining our strategy to something that is more realistic," the official added.

Unsurprisingly, Administration officials touted the recent 'success' of Ghdaffi's ouster in Libya as a template for 'winning' a conflict without extensive ground forces even though other NATO nations and the Libyan rebels did the lion's share of the work [apparently this 'victory' includes replacing a dictator with lawless roving bands of gunmen who arbitrarily detain black men and promise to chase the few remaining Jews out of the country- NANESB!].

Obama has moved to curtail U.S. ground commitments overseas, ending the war in Iraq, drawing down troops in Afghanistan and ruling out anything but air power and intelligence support for rebels who overthrew Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.

So with China's ongoing military buildup, the ascendancy of Kim Jong Un in a belligerent North Korea and Iran's nuclear program and recent saber rattling, the Obama Administration decided the FIRST place they needed to make cuts was with the Defense budget. The subsidies, loans and grants to all sorts of dubious 'Green Jobs' and Solar ventures were apparently too important to the future of this great Republic.

Unsurprisingly, since this Administration took office, the United States military has become an unwitting test bed for all sorts of social engineering and 'green energy' boondoggles at the behest of the ruling Democrats.

That's when this Administration isn't contemplating releasing top-ranking Taliban detainees from custody or referring to Major Hasan's jihad-inspired Fort Hood killing spree as 'workplace violence'.

I vividly remember Obama's flip "You guys make a pretty good photo-op" comment while addressing servicemen at an air base in South Korea. It will be interesting to see if his campaign will try and incorporate any imagery of Obama meeting with uniformed military personnel, since it looks as though he no longer sees the need even have them around as a photo op.

Counterfeit Parts From China Showing Up In US Military Aircraft

Sikorski SH 60-B Sea Hawk lifting off from carrier. A Defense Department audit found that the infared imaging systems in some of the Navy's fleet were using counterfeit components

Earlier this year, I came across a website called havocscope which supposedly tracks the value of black market, smuggled and contraband goods as though they were legitimate commodities traded on the open market. Instead of listing Counterfeit goods under one single category, they subdivided it into categories ranging from Counterfeit Aircraft Parts to Counterfeit Zippos. According to havocscope, the counterfeit aircraft parts trade is worth an estimated US$2 billion annually. And it seems as though some of that money, however unwittingly, comes from the Department of Defense and the US taxpayers.

The Senate Armed Services Committee announced earlier this month that it had learned counterfeit electronics which had made their way into the Department of Defense supply chain and into at least eight aircraft, some of which were deployed to Afghanistan.

The Senate Armed Services Committee found counterfeit parts -- usually from China -- on at least seven aircraft, including the Lockheed Martin Corp. [NYSE: LMT] C-130J transport plane, Boeing P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and L-3 27J Spartan transport.

“Suspect electronic parts from China were installed on military systems and subsystems that were manufactured by Raytheon Co., L-3 Communications and Boeing,” said a memo from the committee’s staff, released yesterday before a hearing today.

“There is a flood of counterfeits and it is putting our military men and risk and costing us a fortune,” committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said. None of the examples found by the committee were connected to lives lost or dramatic failures causing an aircraft crash, and the companies involved cooperated with the investigation, he said.

A seperate Pentagon audit has shown that cockpit displays on two new US Air Force C-27J Spartans from L-3 Electronics [NYSE: LLL] that were deployed to Afghanistan were found to be utilizing suspect parts.

L3’s Integrated Systems unit notified the Air Force on Sept. 19 that 38 suspect video memory chips were installed in the display units on eight of the first 11 aircraft delivered.

The L-3 unit that made the displays learned of the suspect memory chips in November 2010, the memo said. The committee traced the chips to Hong Dark Electronic Trade in Shenzhen, China, which also delivered an earlier counterfeit part L-3 discovered in October 2009, it said. The display units are made by L-3 Communications Display Systems and provide pilots with diagnostic data including engine status, fuel usage, location and warning messages.

The C-27J displays were among more than 500 containing suspect Chinese parts sold to the Air Force, Navy and defense contractors for installation also on C-130J and C-17 transport and Marine Corps CH-46 helicopters, the memo said.

“Failure of the memory chip could cause a display unit to show a degraded image, lose data or even go blank,” the memo said

The Senate Armed Services committee's investigative staff reportedly compiled a database with nearly 1800 cases of counterfeiting and suspect parts. Out of 100 cases given closer scrutiny, nearly 70% were traced back to Chinese firms. The origins of some of these parts are concealed by having them pass through three or four shell companies before finding their way into the Department of Defense supply chain.

Ten Years Later

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and United Flight 93 crashing in a field in Shanksville, PA after passengers fought with hijackers to retake the aircraft.

It seems difficult to believe that some kids in grade school at the time of the attacks are now old enough to go to college or join the military

The terrorist assault on the United States were preceded by an attack on Afghan Mujaheddin leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, viewed by the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies as the last cohesive group standing in the way of the Taliban taking complete control of Afghanistan. Two days prior to th 9/11 attacks, the veteran Afghan fighter was killed by two suicide bombers posing as a camera crew preparing to interview him.

Massoud's death in a nation wracked by more than two decades of conflict half a world away made little, if any, news in the USA at the time. However, the Taliban's ascendancy to power and their autocratic, fundamentalist rule was very disconcerting to anybody that was even paying the slightest bit of attention.

I distinctly remember a conversation with my father about a week before the 9/11 attacks. My grandfather was from the generation that could remember exactly where they were when they heard that Pearl Harbor was bombed by the Japanese. My father was from the generation that could remember what they were doing when they got the news when President Kennedy was shot. So what did that leave my generation? The space shuttle Challenger disaster? The Oklahoma City bombing?

When I went to bed the night of September 10th, 2001, my biggest concern was that I had wasted a few hours watching a rather mediocre Monday Night Football game between the Denver Broncos and New York Giants. As I mentioned last year, that all changed in the bloodiest possible manner in less than 12 hours.



And lest we forget, this is how news of the atrocity was met among the parts of the Arab Street.



Although I was several states away and literally slept through the attacks, I was in New York City several weeks after the attacks. From a distance, the Manhattan skyline looked fractured and vacant without the two iconic towers there. I felt compelled to go and see what I could of Ground Zero for myself.

Washington DC Area Firefighters try to get inferno at Pentagon under control after Flight 77 struck the building.

It seemed pretty nondescript up close- acres of debris with floodlights glaring down on the recovery site for volunteers and workers as the days got shorter. The site was surrounded by some barriers and chain link fences, many of them adorned with faded 'MISSING' posters, wilted bouquets and burned out votive candles. One of the fliers struck me as especially poignant- it was from a bagpipe player who was offering his services for free for funerals of those killed in the attacks. Even if only a fraction of the victims loved ones took him up on his offer, the piper who put up the flier would've been quite busy.

On the way to and from the barrier around Ground Zero, one could see smoke lazily drifting up from grates along the sidewalk a few blocks away. Failing to appreciate the enormity of the original WTC site, it eventually dawned on me that these were smaller, isolated fires that had been smoldering underground since the twin towers collapsed. The sickly-sweet smell from the vents was mixed in with the smell of peanuts from a streetside vendor at one corner.

9/11 Tributes Past- Tribute in Light

Even across town from Ground Zero, the walkway into Grand Central station had a massive bulletin board with 'MISSING' posters- this time they were protected from the elements. The City that Never Sleeps had managed to brush itself off and resume a semblance of normalcy, but there was an almost palpable undercurrent of sorrow and uncertainty to go with the stoicism.

[Please note that I'm not trying to make this all about "me me me", just attempting to relate my firsthand but extremely limited experiences pertaining to 9/11 -NANESB!]

I mentioned this last year, but it bears repeating for as long as my fingers can find the keyboard. It's also important to avoid sugar-coating the events of September 11, 2001, such as many in the entertainment industry referring to it in neutral terms like 'tragedy' or 'disaster'. No doubt the end result is tragic, but the Towers didn't collapse in a stiff breeze. The Pentagon didn't get that chunk torn out of due to a ruptured water main. Flight 93 didn't crash in a field in Western Pennsylvania because a bird got sucked into the engine. These were calculated, meticulously planned acts of mass murder by muslim extremists- to gloss over that or say otherwise is a piss-poor attempt at re-writing history.

This is what so many mean when they say 'NEVER FORGET'.

On the plus side, this will be the first anniversary of September 11th without Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden (may he rot in hell), who was killed in a Navy SEAL raid on his Pakistani compound in May.

Pentagon Releases Names of US Servicemen Killed in Afghanistan Helicopter Crash

Funeral service for SEAL Team member Rob Reeves at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Shreveport, LA on Saturday August 14- Henrietta Wildsmith/Shreveport Times

On Thursday, the Pentagon released the name of all 30 American servicemen killed when their CH-47 Chinook was shot down by Taliban fire during a nighttime mission over Wardak province on Aug 6th.

The following SEALS have been identified as among the dead:

*Lt. Cmdr. Jonas B. Kelsall, 32, of Shreveport, La.
*Special Warfare Operator Master Chief Petty Officer Louis J. Langlais, 44, of Santa Barbara, Calif.
Special Warfare Operator Senior Chief Petty Officer (SEAL) Thomas A. Ratzlaff, 34, of Green Forest, Ark.,
*Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer Brian R. Bill, 31, of Stamford, Conn.
*Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer John W. Faas, 31, of Minneapolis, Minn.
*Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer Kevin A. Houston, 35, of West Hyannisport, Mass.
*Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer Matthew D. Mason, 37, of Kansas City, Mo.
*Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer Stephen M. Mills, 35, of Fort Worth, Texas.
*Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer Robert J. Reeves, 32, of Shreveport, La.
*Special Warfare Operator Chief Petty Officer Heath M. Robinson, 34, of Detroit, Mich.
*Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class Darrik C. Benson, 28, of Angwin, Calif.
*Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class Christopher G. Campbell, 36, of Jacksonville, N.C.
*Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class Jon T. Tumilson, 35, of Rockford, Iowa.
*Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class Aaron C. Vaughn, 30, of Stuart, Fla.
*Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class Jason R. Workman, 32, of Blanding, Utah.
*Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 1st Class Jesse D. Pittman, 27, of Ukiah, Calif.
*Special Warfare Operator Petty Officer 2nd Class Nicholas P. Spehar, 24, of Saint Paul, Minn.

The five Navy special operations troops were:

*Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician Senior Chief Petty Officer Kraig M. Vickers 36, of Kokomo, Hawaii.
*Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician Chief Petty Officer Nicholas H. Null, 30, of Washington, W. Va.
*Information Systems Technician Petty Officer 1st Class Jared W. Day, 28, of Taylorsville, Utah.
*Master-at-Arms Petty Officer 1st Class John Douangdara, 26, of South Sioux City, Neb.
*Cryptologist Technician Petty Officer 1st Class Michael J. Strange, 25, of Philadelphia, Pa.

The five soldiers killed were identified as:

*Chief Warrant Officer David R. Carter, 47, of Centennial, Colo., who was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 135th Aviation Regiment in Aurora, Colo.;
*Chief Warrant Officer Bryan J. Nichols, 31, of Hays, Kan., who was assigned to the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment in New Century, Kan.
*Sgt. Patrick D. Hamburger, 30, of Lincoln, Neb., who was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 135th Aviation Regiment in Grand Island, Neb.
*Sgt. Alexander J. Bennett, 24, of Tacoma, Wash., who was assigned to the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment, New Century, Kan.
*Spc. Spencer C. Duncan, 21, of Olathe, Kan., who was assigned to the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment in New Century, Kan.

The three airmen who died were:

*Tech. Sgt. John W. Brown, 33, of Tallahassee, Fla., who was assigned to the 24th Special Tactics Squadron, Pope Field, N.C.
*Staff Sgt. Andrew W. Harvell, 26, of Long Beach, Calif., who was assigned to the 24th Special Tactics Squadron, Pope Field, N.C.
*Tech. Sgt. Daniel L. Zerbe, 28, of York, Pa. who was assigned to the 24th Special Tactics Squadron, Pope Field, N.C.

[Hat tip: And So It Goes in Shreveport]

BREAKING: Osama Bin Laden And Associates Killed in US Special Ops Raid on Pakistani Compound

This has been coming in pretty rapid fire (pardon the expression) all night, and it's been difficult to keep up with the various reports and rumors that have been going on.

In an unscheduled news conference from the East Room of the White House earlier tonight, President Obama announced that fugitive al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed in a Navy SEAL raid on a mansion in northern Pakistan.

Unlike previous strikes over Pakistan, this reportedly involved a prolonged firefight between helicopter-borne SEALs and Bin Laden along with his couriers and one of his sons at a compound in the city of Abbotabad, some 30 miles from the Pakistani capitol of Islamabad and less than 5 miles away from the Pakistani Military Academy in Kakul.

The U.S. had been monitoring the compound in Abbottabad for months after receiving a tip in August that Bin Laden might be seeking shelter there. He had long been said to be in the mountainous region along the Afghanistan, Pakistan border, hiding in a cave as the U.S. sought to kill him with drone strikes from above. Instead, he was in a house eight times larger than its neighbors, with a seven-foot wall and valued at $1 million. The house had no phone or television and the residents burned their trash. The house had high windows and few points of access, and U.S. officials concluded it had been built to hide someone.

According to U.S. officials, two U.S. helicopters swept into the compound at 1:30 and 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Twenty to 25 U.S. Navy Seals under the command of the Joint Special Operations Command in cooperation with the CIA stormed the compound and engaged Bin Laden and his men in a firefight, killed Bin Laden and all those with him.

Two Bin Laden couriers were killed, as was one of Osama Bin Laden's son, as was a woman reportedly used as a shield by one of the men. Other women and children were present in the compound, according to Pakistani officials, but were not harmed. U.S. officials said that Bin Laden himself did fire his weapon during the fight.

One of the U.S. helicopters was damaged but not destroyed during the operation, and U.S. forces elected to destroy it themselves with explosives.

The Americans took Bin Laden's body into custody after the firefight and confirmed his identity. According to a senior administration official, the U.S. is "ensuring it is handled in accordance with Islamic practice and tradition. It's something we take seriously and therefore it's being handled in an appropriate manner."

According to Pakistani officials, the operation was a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation, but U.S. officials said only U.S. personnel were involved in the raid.

On eary Monday, Pakistani television network GEO TV broadcast images of the mansion believed to have housed Bin Laden engulfed in flames.
News of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack mastermind's demise was greeted with cheers by crowds in front of the White House in Washington DC and in Times Square and adjacent to Ground Zero in New York City. Among the celebrants were members of the FDNY and NYPD- 343 Firefighters and 60 police officers were among the first responders killed in the 9/11 attacks.

So as it turns out, it wasn't a drone strike like many had predicted (on the assumption Bin Laden was even still alive) or porcine-induced rectal trauma like I had really really hoped he would have inflicted on him in his final hours, but if confirmed then this is good news indeed.

UPDATE: Multiple outlets are reporting that this op has been in the works since 2007.

The operation had been in the works for years. Since 9/11, the CIA gathered leads on those in bin Laden’s inner circle, including personal couriers. During interrogations and questioning, various detainees flagged individuals who may have been providing support to OBL and Zawahiri. One courier in particularly was identified by detainees as one of the few al Qaeda couriers who had bin Laden’s trust. He was identified as a “protégé” of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and a trusted assistant of Abu Faraj al –Libbi, the former #3 of al Qaeda, who was captured in 2005. There were even indications the courier may have been living with bin Laden.

In 2007, intelligence officers discovered his identity. In 2009, intelligence officials identified areas in Pakistan where the courier and his brother operate – but they were still unable to pinpoint precisely where.

In August 2010 came a big break. Intelligence identified a compound that aroused their suspicion – eight times larger than other homes in the area, built in 2005, on a property valued at $1 million. But access to the compound was severely restricted, with elaborate security and 12 to 18 foot walls topped with barbed wire. Incongruently, the compound has no phone service or televisions. The main building had few windows and a seven foot wall for privacy. Residents burned their trash.

Intelligence officials concluded that unit was “custom built” to hide someone. A third family was identified as living there – and the size and makeup matched the bin Laden family members most likely with him. The location and design of compound were consistent with what experts expected his hideout might look like. Their final conclusion: there was a strong probability that this was bin Laden’s hideout.

Personally, I think it would be kinda cute if we could plant a couple hundred thousand in cash in the form of Euros or US Dollars on a couple of the remaining Al Qaeda higher ups, bundled with little strips that would have a cryptic message in Arabic or Urdu about a 'job well done', only to have the cash discovered by subordinates.

L.A. News Helicopter Films Mystery Contrail off California Coast.

A cameraman on board a helicopter for KCBS in Los Angeles filmed what appears to be a missile off the coast of Los Angeles on Monday night.

Almost immediately, this fuelled all sorts of online speculation regarding any possible explanation for the mystery missile and its distinct contrail. Vandenberg Air Force Base, located along the Central California coast, confirmed that they had launched a Delta II Rocket on Friday, but there were no launches on Monday.

Other theories include:

*'Accidental' launch of a ballistic missile by the US military (not very plausible given the number of failsafe mechanisms in place
* A foreign ICBM-capable submarine (Russia, China) probing our coastal surveillance
* Iran or one of their proxies using a disguised freighter re-fitted with a ballistic missile launcher and registered through a third party flag of convenience (Panama, Liberia, Marshall Islands) to get close to the American coast.
* An anti-missile test undertaken by Boeing Co that originated from nearby San Nicolas Island

The Pentagon initially said that they couldn't identify the object filmed, but then said that the 'missile' was the contrail a commercial flight from Honolulu to Phoenix, AZ some 48 hours later.

In the video, the Pentagon explains that what appears to be flame coming from the object is actually the setting sun reflecting off of the metal body of US Airways Flight 808.

I'm not completely sold on the 'just an airliner' theory, although those far more knowledgeable than myself say that the flightplan and timing is consistent with the Pentagon's findings.

The other possibilities would be that a foreign entity did get close enough to the West Coast to launch a ballistic missile over a major metropolitan area, some sort of military SNAFU, the Pentagon genuinely not knowing what the object was Monday night or the Pentagon knowing, but providing the public with the story about the US Air flight as some sort of smokescreen because they felt the public couldn't handle whatever they determined took place. Any one of those is pretty disconcerting in and of itself.

You gotta admit, that IS a weird looking contrail.

September 11, 2001- Nine Years Later.

This would actually be my first 9/11 observance of any kind since I started up this blog. There are those out there who are much better at this sort thing than I am, but I'll do my best nonetheless. Everybody seems to have their own story to tell about where they were that day. Mine is particularly anticlimactic- I literally slept through the whole thing since I had the day off and slept in and was functioning on West Coast time. On top of that, I decided to busy myself with some paperwork for awhile before I even bothered turning on a TV, radio or computer. On the radio, the 'Morning Zoo' FM DJs were solemnly trying to estimate how many people were in the World Trade Center Complex on any given workday. It was an odd line of discussion, but I didn't give it much thought until I heard one of them interject without the slightest trace of whimsy '...and the Pentagon is still burning'. By that time, I figured I better turn on the TV and see what the hell was going on. No matter what channel I was watching, they were showing the skyline of lower Manhattan minus the WTC towers- just a giant incomprehensible sprawl of smoke, dust and rubble.


I was in a daze for awhile as I tried absorbing what had taken place while I was slumbering. Although I have relatives in Massachusetts and New York, I figured the odds of them being on one of the planes or in lower Manhattan were remote. Almost in a daze, I left for the grocery store and local pizza place, getting cans of soda and two extra large pizzas. From there, I went to the local chapter of the Red Cross, and sure enough, there was a line of people coiled around the block, volunteering to donate blood (this IS America, after all). Since I'm a total wuss who prefers to avoid needles, I simply started passing out slices of pizza and soda to the people waiting in line to give blood.
I wasn't sure what else I should do- although it would be reassuring to hear from some of my relatives (I have a few who are first responders in Upstate NY), I figured the courtesy call could wait, since they were reporting that almost 400 FDNY firefighters and NYPD officers were among those killed by the muslim terrorists that day. A death toll of hundreds- let alone thousands- was hard for me to comprehend (then again, so is rushing into a burning building of any size) and it looked as though some of my relatives would need to fill in for their besieged New York City counterparts. I was also getting word that there were people celebrating the attacks on the WTC towers and Pentagon. 'What kind of sick, vile, sociopathic fuckers would be celebrating this?' I asked myself.

I soon got my answer. Juxtapose the image of a man who decided he was BETTER OFF jumping to his death with the video from below that day.

The shock and sorrow was replaced by a smoldering anger that seemed to gradually intensify when CNN introduced these patronizing 'Islam is a Religion of Peace' puff pieces in the following days along with the occasional reminder that Timothy McVeigh (may he rot in hell) was a terrorist too. As important as it is that we never forget those who were murdered that day, it's just as important to keep in mind who was dancing on their graves.
It's also important to avoid sugar-coating the events of September 11, 2001, such as many in the entertainment industry referring to it in neutral terms like 'tragedy' or 'disaster'. No doubt the end result is tragic, but the Towers didn't collapse in a stiff breeze. The Pentagon didn't get that chunk torn out of due to a ruptured water main. Flight 93 didn't crash in a field in Western Pennsylvania because a bird got sucked into the engine. These were calculated, meticulously planned acts of mass murder by muslim extremists- to gloss over that or say otherwise is a piss-poor attempt at re-writing history.

This is what so many mean when they say 'NEVER FORGET'

Thomas E Franklin/Bergen County Record

I would also like to take this opportunity to extend my appreciation and gratitude for the first responders in police and fire departments nationwide. Although I have rambled on for quite a bit, I don't think there are adequate words to describe the professionalism and selflessness it takes to endanger your own life and rush into a burning building or lead people to safety as exemplified by those in the FDNY and NYPD that September day.

Pentagon Says Nothing New in Afghanistan Documents Leaked Online

Pentagon and Administration officials are downplaying the online leak of more than 90,000 documents regarding the military effort in Afghanistan. However, senior Pentagon officials say that they still need to sort through at least 75,000 of the documents.

Some of the revelations contained in the Wikileaks document dump were already widely known or suspected by those in military, diplomatic and intelligence community, such as Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence Directorate playing a double-game with the USA and the Afghan Taliban. Documents from Afghan officials included in the leaks also allege that Iran has been arming and financing Taliban commanders as far back as 2005.

Earlier this month, the US Army pressed charges against PFC Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq who leaked classified video of two Reuters journalists killed by a helicopter gunship along with Iraqi insurgents back in 2007. While Manning was stationed in Iraq and the Wikileaks document dump deals mostly with Afghanistan, Army officials have not ruled out the possibility that Manning could also be the source of the latest leaks and are attempting to backtrack what information he had access to.

"WikiLeaks does not have an opinion whether the war in Afghanistan should continue or not continue. ... It should continue in a just way if its to continue at all,"

Wikileaks creator Julia Assange claimed in a CNN interview. However, in an inteview with Germany's Der Spiegel the other day, Assange said:

"I enjoy crushing bastards. So it is enjoyable work."

Note that the Wikileaks benefits nobody but the Taliban in the short-term, so it's pretty clear who Assange thinks the 'bastards' are in this instance.

Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said the information should be put "in context" and that journalists should avoid publishing anything that could harm U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Assange, he said, "is an anti-war activist who has repeatedly cast a very unfair light on the American military and on the American population in general."

"There are American troops in harm's way getting shot and killed," Rieckhoff said. "If WikiLeaks is endangering them, we need to push back, and the American public needs to push back."

As others much more in the know than myself have described it, the leaks are more or less "old news that comes at a bad time".

Steve Schippert of threatswatch.org goes into more detail about some of the familiar-sounding memes that seem to be a common theme of the latest offering from WikiLeaks.

Curious how Assange and the others haven't gone to such lengths to undermine the regimes of Hugo Chavez, Hu Jintao or Mahmoud Ahmedinejhad. I guess they're part of the 'vulnerable' that he seeks to protect.

Gen. McChrystal Expected to Step Down Over Remarks Made in Rolling Stone Article

Hmm.....remarks in the article that seem to have gotten the attention of our thin-skinned Commander in Chief.

President Barack Obama said Tuesday that McChrystal displayed "poor judgment" and summoned him to the White House on Wednesday to hear from him first-hand and consider whether to fire him.

"I think it's clear that the article in which he and his team appeared showed a poor — showed poor judgment," the president said Tuesday, surrounded by members of his Cabinet at the close of their meeting. "But I also want to make sure that I talk to him directly before I make any final decisions."

According to two senior administration aides, McChrystal informed his superiors that he is prepared to offer his resignation but had not done so, NBC News reported.

Does anybody else see the irony of our golfing, concert-going, lawsuit-happy commander in chief saying that somebody else expressed 'poor judgement'? Gee, if only the Rolling Stone article had been published back in October- when McChrystal was asking for a troop surge in Afghanistan- maybe then he could've met with the President for more than 30 minutes while Air Force One was on the tarmac at Copenhagen.

The bankrupt-in-more-than-one-way Newsweek is calling for McChrystal's head on a pike, which is all the more reason for me to give the General the benefit of the doubt. According to the article, the General bluntly referred to a counterterrorism strategy advocated by vice-president Joe Biden as 'short-sighted'- the same Joe Biden that said the Iraq war was lost in 2007, opposed the troop surge and then took credit for the turnaround in Iraq.

Outside of the insubordination aspect, I really fail to see the controversy here. And truth be told, I don't remember Newsweek or other Democrat Party Mouthpieces mainstream media outlets working themselves into a frothy, self-righteous outrage over General Shinseki's undermining the civilian leadership during the Bush Administration.

This all smacks of a nice big juicy distraction while oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico and the Mexican smugglers and cartels traffic narcotics and humans into this country unimpeded- issues that the current commander in chief has failed miserably at even addressing, let alone solving.

UPDATE: McChrystal has officially stepped down.

"There's Lithium in Them Thar Hills!"- Pentagon Report: Afghanistan Could 'Hold $1 Trillion in Mineral Deposits'

Polish Forces on patrol in apparently lithium-rich Ghanzi province Afghanistan, 2009.

Senior U.S. military officials and the Pentagon report that they have discovered vast mineral deposits in southern Afghanistan that could be worth up to US$1 trillion, according to a New York Times article published Monday. According to the Times report, a Pentagon study indicates that Afghanistan could be the 'Saudi Arabia of Lithium'- a soft metal that's a key component in batteries for laptop computers and cell phones. Iron, copper, gold, silver and cobalt deposits have also reportedly been discovered in the remote, strife-torn country.

The report indicated that the USGS began aerial surveys of Afghanistan's minerals as far back as 2006 and cross referenced it with Russian reports gathered from Soviet mining experts from the USSR's occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s that American geologists came across in Kabul's Afghan Geological Survey library in 2004 after acting on a tip from local geologists who withheld the documents from the Taliban until 2001. The surveys initial findings were so promising that a more comprehensive aerial study using 3-D imaging equipment was conducted, providing a more detailed map of the country and it's resources. Although the findings were promising, they languished for two years until a Pentagon-sponsored local economic development program that was transferred from Iraq to Afghanistan rediscovered the reports.

Much of the Lithium is believed to be along dried salt lakes in Western Afghanistan and the deposits in the southern Ghanzi province may contain as much as Bolivia's current stockpiles- Bolivia is currently the world's #1 producer of lithium.

Presently Afghanistan's economy is largely based on opium harvesting and weapons trafficking. There previously had been no large-scale mining operations in Afghanistan until 1974 when Soviets attempted to build an open-pit copper mine in Aynak that would eventually fall into disrepair and be abandoned after the 1979 Soviet invasion. Another attempt was made to revive the mine in the 1990s, but that was abandoned during the Taliban's rise to power. In October 2009, the present Afghan government reached an agreement with Chinese interests to re-open the Aynak valley facility. Presently geologists are currently finishing up a series of technical studies in the more remote reigons of Afghanistan before the bidding process is opened up to international investors.

Bush-Hating 9/11 Truther Opens Fire In Pentagon's Metro Station- Tea Party to Blame Or Something

A 36 year old Hollister, CA man was killed in an exchange of gunfire after firing on police officers outside the Pentagon late Thursday.

Authorities say that James Patrick Bedell pulled a handgun on two police officers at the building's entrance adjacent to the Washington D.C. Metro station and opened fire, grazing the two officers manning the checkpoint and was mortally wounded when they returned fire.

Not quite able to make the allegation that Austin suicide pilot Joseph Stack was affiliated with the American Right and the Tea Party movement stick, some MSM outlets such as CNN had repeatedly referred to Bedell as 'anti-government'....gosh, just like the tea parties! [I don't normally watch CNN, but they had me as a captive audience of 1 in the overnight hours of Thursday and early Friday- NANESB!]. Bedell left behind a number of online posts and audio clips accusing the US Military of smuggling drugs out of Central America and orchestrating the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks and expressing outrage at his seizure of marijuana plants by law-enforcement in Orange County in 2006. As it turned out, Bedell hated President Bush and was a registered Democrat as well.

Blogger Patterico also came across an Amazon.com wishlist for somebody with the same name as Bedell that includes topics like the 9/11 Commission and the 'Bush Crime Family'; hardly the laundry list of reading materials for neo-cons, 'Teabaggers' or a card-carrying member of the vast right-wing conspiracy. Also, isn't the vast right-wing conspiracy supposed to be in league with the eeevil military-industrial complex? If I'm going to play this stupid little game the MSM insists that the rest of us play, why would one of the VRWC's own flip out on the doorstep of their biggest benefactor instead going postal trying to get into the White House, Congress or their nearest Federal Building or IRS office?

Apparently, the Christian Science Monitor isn't above indulging in the latest round of playing 'Gotcha!', citing the Southern Poverty Law Center for that extra dollop of hysteria.

So-called “Patriot” groups, steeped in antigovernment conspiracy theories, grew from 149 in 2008 to 512 in 2009 – an increase that the SPLC report judges as “astonishing.”

"Astonishing" indeed!

Apprently the Southern Poverty Law Center, Christian Science Monitor and husky, pony-tailed bloggers prone to abrupt and intellectually dishonest ideological pivots feels that we've gotten nothing but good governance from the Obama Administration and the same Congress that nationalized General Motors, Citibank and AIG while hell bent on ramming their overreaching, costly and economically crippling legislative agenda down the American public's throat. According to them we have zero reason to be upset and if we are, well, that just makes us anti-government extremists. I'm curious- what "So-called Patriot" group was Bedell a member of? And correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't high-profile temper tantrums directed at the US Military traditionally a brainchild of the American LEFT?

Question to the SPLC and Christian Science Monitor: if the Tea Party or other anti-government protesters were as dangerous and violent you insist they are, wouldn't there be

A) More concrete ties between these groups and high-profile violent acts? Or

B) Many more high-profile violent acts to document?

/It's OK....you all don't have to answer at once.