Except for the dolphins and the whales, but who cares about them?
"Endangered species thrive on US military ranges" by Julie Watson | Associated Press, August 11, 2013
SAN CLEMENTE ISLAND, Calif. — Despite the weekly explosions that rock this Navy-owned island off the Southern California coast — the military’s only ship-to-shore bombardment range — the San Clemente Island loggerhead shrike has been rebounding from the brink of extinction.
The black, gray, and white songbird, whose population has gone from a low of 13 in the 1990s to 140 today, is among scores of endangered species thriving on military lands during the past decade.
For many, it’s a surprising contrast, with troops preparing for war, yet taking precautions to not disturb animals....
At this point I found myself wondering how many animals were killed in Amerikan bombings and drone missile strikes. We always hear about the dead terrorists, got 'em, and occasionally civilians, oops, but we never see anything about vital livestock.
Military officials downplay the relationship, saying they’re concerned primarily with national security.
Defense spending on threatened and endangered species jumped nearly 45 percent over the past decade, from about $50 million a year in 2003 to about $73 million in 2012. The military protects roughly 420 federally listed species on some 28 million acres, according to the Pentagon.
The Defense Department is increasingly partnering with environmental groups to buy critical habitats that can act as buffer zones around bases, including a deal announced in June near the Army’s Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state that will restore prairie habitat.
‘‘I’ve seen entire convoys with dozens of soldiers come to a screeching halt because a desert tortoise was crossing the road,’’ Pentagon spokesman Mark Wright said.
Is that how we stop the wars? Let loose tortoises to cross highways?
Environmentalists say there has been an attitude shift by the Pentagon, which has a history of seeking exemptions from environmental laws in the name of national security.
They are exempt from Kyoto or any other global warming greenhouse gas limitations -- and yet our leaders want to slap a carbon tax on you for driving down the road.
Generals shudder at being considered tree-huggers. But the military’s top brass also realizes that protecting wildlife can, in turn, protect training ranges. The more wildlife thrives, the fewer the restrictions. If endangered species populations decline further, the military could face being told to move training out of areas.
Defense Department properties have the highest density of threatened and endangered species of any federal land management agency, according to a group that tracks wildlife.
On average, military lands boast 15 threatened and endangered species per acre — nearly seven times more per acre than the US Forest Service, according to the Pentagon.
Security keeps huge swaths of terrain off-limits to humans, turning training grounds into de facto wildlife refuges.
Never mind the environmental despoiling that military bases are famous for; it would upset the feel-good narrative of the war-promoting paper.
Bases have inadvertently preserved wetlands, old-growth forests, and tall-grass prairies by halting urban sprawl. The Marine Corps’ 125,000-acre Camp Pendleton is the largest undeveloped coastal stretch between Los Angeles and San Diego, with about 15 federally listed wildlife species.
In some areas, native plants that thrive from a natural cycle of wildfires have benefited from the artillery exercises, according to environmentalists. Troops also often use only a limited area for training, including on San Clemente.
Using depleted uranium munitions, right?
Yeah, that will really help health and the environment!
Defense Department biologists have helped military branches boost wildlife numbers, according to environmentalists....
Meanwhile, back at the WMD labs....
--more--"
Related:
A Green Army
Pentagon Pharts Into the Wind
Chief of US Pacific forces calls climate biggest worry
Pentagon’s renewable-energy programs should continue
After Sandy, environmentalists, military find common cause
Then those environmentalists are nothing but agenda-pushing frauds. The AmeriKan empire is the biggest polluter on the planet!
"The result will be an increasing reliance on the military for domestic disaster preparedness and response. The government relied heavily on the Army and National Guard to respond to the storm and deliver food supplies to affected communities."
Once again, the agenda is advanced -- in the name of the "greater good."
"The Pentagon’s magicians" by Kevin Golden/Globe staff
Buried inside the New Yorker’s recent profile of the pickpocket magician Apollo Robbins is an intriguing detail: The Department of Defense is working with Robbins to teach military personnel about deception.
It is upon which all war is based.
What does the military want with magicians? As it turns out, the military cares a lot about “counterdeception,” the art of looking through a ruse and perceiving the real intentions of its foes.
Like reading an AmeriKan newspaper.
Magicians, of course, deceive people for a living—and as a result turn out to be some of the best teachers of a skill that is really hard to learn.
So do newspapers, but not very well according to the latest sales and circulation figures.
Two primary challenges make counterdeception difficult. The first is psychological—we’re generally overconfident in our ability to perceive what’s happening around us, and once we think we know what’s going on, we stop considering alternative explanations. As a 1981 manual on counterdeception put it, “deception seldom fails when it exploits a target’s preconceptions.”
How does one overcome arrogant hypocrisy, because the damn newspaper can start there.
The second challenge is analytic: Even once you’ve acknowledged you’re being deceived, it’s still very hard to identify the truth amid the many forms the deception could be taking.
That's what I love about the propaganda system called AmeriKan newspapers. They frame the argument and control both sides to get the reaction they wanted all along, while at the same time making you think you are a critical and independent thinker.
On our own we lack the instincts and the processing power to uncover deception consistently.
Which means it's a good rule-of-thumb to distrust anything you read in an AmeriKan jewspaper. It's a distortion at best, outright lie at worst.
To address this problem, the not-for-profit military support firm MITRE has developed a system called “Analysis of Competing Hypotheses” that formalizes counterdeception. You collect data on a situation, look for data points that seem anomalous, and then work through alternative scenarios that could explain these anomalies.
One of the best-known techniques for this type of counterdeception comes from magician Jeff Busby, who devised what he calls the “Ombudsman’s Method” for searching for discrepant information. In 1984 he gave a lecture at the US Naval Postgraduate School in which he had a group of seasoned intelligence officers watch a video of a magic trick called the Sucker Sliding Die Box. After he instructed them to look carefully at all the gestures and movements that seemed unrelated to the final effect, most were able to figure out how the illusion was achieved.
Once you know who and what are behind the mouthpiece media, yeah, it is easy to read between the lines.
--more--"
Speaking of deceptions:
"Pentagon plans to deploy hundreds of more spies overseas; Intelligence unit will rival CIA in size after it grows" by Greg Miller | Washington Post, December 04, 2012
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon will send hundreds of additional spies overseas as part of an ambitious plan to assemble an espionage network that rivals the CIA in size, US officials said.
DIA, CIA, what's the difference? None, as it turns out. Therefore, all U.S. citizens referred to in my intelligence operation called a newspaper will be considered spies, be they hikers, tourists, businessmen, whatever. It's all non-official cover.
Related:
"CIA officers serving overseas often use the State Department as their official “cover’’ to avoid revealing the true nature of their work"
Related: A Diplomatic CIA
Yeah, John Kerry is in charge of those stations now.
The project is aimed at transforming the Defense Intelligence Agency, dominated for the past decade by the demands of two wars, into a spy service focused on emerging threats and more closely aligned with the CIA and elite military commando units.
The Defense Intelligence Agency is expected to have as many as 1,600 ‘‘collectors’’ around the world, an unprecedented total for an agency whose presence abroad numbered in the triple digits in recent years.
The total includes military attachés and others who do not work undercover. But US officials said the growth will be driven over a five-year period by the deployment of a new generation of clandestine operatives. They will be trained by the CIA and often work with the Joint Special Operations Command, but they will get their spying assignments from the Department of Defense.
Among the Pentagon’s top intelligence priorities, officials said, are Islamist militant groups in Africa, weapons transfers by North Korea and Iran, and military modernization underway in China.
‘‘This is not a marginal adjustment” for the Defense Intelligence Agency, its director, Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn, said at a recent conference. He outlined the changes but did not describe them in detail. ‘‘This is a major adjustment for national security.’’
The sharp increase in undercover operatives is part of a far-reaching trend: a convergence of the military and intelligence agencies that has blurred their once-distinct missions, capabilities, and leadership ranks.
Through its drone program, the CIA now accounts for a majority of lethal US operations outside the Afghan war zone. At the same time, the Pentagon’s plan to create what it calls the Defense Clandestine Service reflects the military’s latest and largest foray into secret intelligence work.
The Defense Intelligence Agency overhaul — combined with growth of the CIA since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — will create a spy network of unprecedented size.
And this was BEFORE the Snowden revelations!!
The plan reflects the Obama administration’s affinity for espionage and covert action over conventional force. It also fits in with the administration’s efforts to codify its counterterrorism policies for a sustained conflict and assemble the pieces abroad necessary to carry it out.
Related: Obama Opens His Mouth Again
Unlike the CIA, the Pentagon’s spy agency is not authorized to conduct covert operations that go beyond intelligence gathering, such as drone strikes, political sabotage, or arming militants.
But the Defense Intelligence Agency has played a major role in assessing and identifying targets for US forces, which in recent years have assembled a constellation of drone bases from Afghanistan to East Africa.
The expansion of the agency’s clandestine role is likely to heighten concern that it will be accompanied by an escalation in lethal strikes and other operations outside public view. The military is not subject to the same congressional notification requirements as the CIA.
US officials said the Defense Intelligence Agency’s realignment would not hamper congressional scrutiny. ‘‘We have to keep congressional staffs and members in the loop,’’ Flynn said in October, adding that he believes the changes will help the United States anticipate threats.
US officials said the changes were enabled by a rare syncing of personalities and interests at the Pentagon and CIA.
‘‘The stars have been aligning on this for a while,’’ said a former senior military official involved in planning the Defense Intelligence Agency’s transformation.
Former Defense Department officials said the agency now has about 500 ‘‘case officers’’ and the number is expected to reach 800 to 1,000 by 2018.
--more--"
Related:
Why Am I No Longer Reading the Newspaper?
Operation Mockingbird
Whole flock of 'em.
