The Jewish Suicide Bomber That You Never Heard Of

Martin Iqbal writes,

In 1983 American police foiled a significant terror attack that most Americans to this day are utterly oblivious to. On October 18, 1983, a suicide bomber strapped with explosives was caught in the spectators’ gallery of the US House of Representatives, attempting to blow up the US Capitol.⁽¹⁾ The reason most Americans know nothing of this plot, is that the terrorist was a Jewish Israeli named ‘Israel Rabinowits’. The astounding ignorance of Americans is owing to the supreme control that Zionist Jews wield over the American press. Michael Collins Piper reports⁽¹⁾ that this event was mentioned

just once in The Washington Post – the so-called newspaper of record in the American capital – and only once, in passing, in The New York Times.

A search of the New York Times online archive mirrors Piper’s findings, and it reveals the staggeringly trivial and obfuscatory nature of the NYT’s reportage. The November 2, 1983 article⁽²⁾titled “BOMB CARRIER IN U.S. HOME PROMPTS TIGHTENED SECURITY” is significant for a number of reasons.

First and foremost it must be acknowledged that the article appeared not on the first page (as would be expected for a suicide bomb attempt on the US Capitol), but on the paper’s Late City Final Edition, Section A, Page 22, Column 1. After searching the archive from 1981 to the present day, I can say confidently that there is no other mention of this event, even on the day of or following the attempted attack.

This is consistent with Michael Collins Piper’s findings with respect to the Washington Post:⁽¹⁾

And for the record, even though it was certainly qualified as “big” news, even The Washington Post buried the story in its local news section – across from the obituaries.

The title of the NYT article is purposefully misleading and deceptive. The terrorist suicide bomber is described as a ‘bomb carrier‘, (no mention of ethnicity or religion) and the U.S. House is referred to as ‘home‘ in what on the face of it seems to be a mistake, but what is likely intentional. This euphemistic description of the event (buried on page 22) is clearly meant to make the article less of a ‘grabber’ so that readers pass over the information. One can only imagine what the (front page) headline would have been if the Jewish terrorist had been Muslim: Islamist Suicide Bomb Attempt Prompts Tightened Security at U.S. House.

Reading further into the article we see that the name of the suicide bomber is eventually revealed in the fifth paragraph, and the fact that he is Jewish is completely omitted from the entire text. Conversely, reportage on terror attacks perpetrated (allegedly or otherwise) by Muslims consistently pivots on and emphasises the perpetrator’s ethnicity and religion (information which is always conveyed in the headline).

Despite publishing not a word on the terrorist’s potential motives, the NYT also actually tries to humanise the terrorist in indirectly suggesting that Rabinowits had moralistic ambitions. The article reveals that Rabinowits’s lawyer told a court that his client “wanted to address Congress about world hunger“.

The very fact that most Americans know nothing of this event is a telling indictment of the Zionist controlled nature of the ‘free’ media in the United States. This important event has been barely covered, and where it has been covered, it has been documented in a deceptive, misleading, and trivial manner. What is even more sickening and telling is how this Zionist media outlet in particular actually attempted to humanise the terrorist – no doubt purely because he was a member of the tribe.

Update: 24 February 2012

Hat tip to Irradiee for suggesting newspaperarchive.com, a search of which has uncovered the fact that Israel Rabinowits was not locked up by the American authorities for his attempted terror attack. Instead – just like his modern day Mossad cohorts who took part in the 9/11 attacks – he was sent back to Israel.

A January 9, 1986 issue of the Titusville Herald⁽³⁾ reveals that approximately two years after the attempted terrorist attack, Israel Rabinowits was sent back to Israel where he is “apparently” in prison:

Meanwhile, a House official said Wednesday that a man carrying a homemade bomb who was arrested in the House gallery after threatening to blow up the Capitol more than two years ago was deported to Israel, where he is apparently in prison.

Jack Russ, the House sergeant at arms, said Israel Rubinowits was ordered never to return to the United States after the October 18, 1983 episode.

What is interesting about this passage, buried on page 9 of the paper, is that it appears within an article that is placed on the front page of the newspaper. The title of this article is “US Says Khadafy Trains Terrorists“. Laughably, the newspaper attempts to contextualise this Jewish Israeli’s attempted terror attack within alleged terrorism committed by Muammar Gaddafi – revolutionary and longtime enemy of the terrorist states of Israel and the United States of America.

Notes

1) ‘The Confessions of an anti-Semite’ by Michael Collins Piper, Chapter 18
2) ‘BOMB CARRIER IN U.S. HOME PROMPTS TIGHTENED SECURITY’ – New York Times, November 2, 1983

Editor’s note: Only an abstract of the archived New York Times article can be viewed online (here), however I have gained access to the full version which is published here [rtf].

3) Titusville Herald, January 9, 1986, page 9, article titled: ‘US Says Khadafy Trains Terrorists’

Below is the New York Times coverage of the terrorist operation:

BOMB CARRIER IN U.S. HOME PROMPTS TIGHTENED SECURITY

AP (The New York Times); National Desk

November 2, 1983, Wednesday

Late City Final Edition, Section A, Page 22, Column 1, 478 words

The Capitol police re-adjusted metal detectors and installed sensitive bomb-detecting equipment last month after a tourist entered the House gallery with a homemade bomb under his shirt. Jack Russ, the sergeant-at-arms of the House, said today that the urgent steps following the Oct. 18 scare were the beginning of a tighter security system. In an interview, Mr. Russ said the bomb taken into the building ''was not a dud.'' It failed to explode because the man ''had not placed his wiring properly,'' he said.

A WAR ISRAEL IS JUST BEGGING FOR AN EXCUSE TO START

Just hours after the attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Ehud Barak were quick to announce that Iran and the Hezbollah were behind the attack. In fact, it didn’t take the Israeli PM more than two hours to blame another country for committing an act of war on Israeli citizens in a third country’s territory. Of course, Netanyahu didn’t provide any evidence to support his thesis. In fact, even today, three days after the attack, no clear leads suggesting any Iranian or Hezbollah's connection are available.

What was it then that made Netanyahu so determined? Is it because he himself was privy to the knowledge that Israeli agents have been murdering Iranian scientists for years? Did Netanyahu react the way he did because he thought to himself that considering Mossad’s assassinations in Tehran, Israel may well have brought on itself an Iranian retaliation? Was Bibi projecting?

I obviously do not have access to Netanyahu or Barak’s minds, but Israel has certainly by now made it clear that its desperation to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, even if such an attack would escalate into a global nuclear conflict. In order to grasp such morbidity we have to bear in mind that collective self-annihilation is inherent to Israeli culture. As it happens, the story of Masada and Samson, both heroic suicidal narratives, are cherished in Israel. Yet, as much as Netanyahu and Barak are keen to launch a world war, it is far from being clear whether the Israeli masses are quite as keen to sacrifice themselves on the Jewish national altar.

I guess that both Barak and Netanyahu’s rush to blame Iran must be seen as an indication of their clear eagerness to attack the country. By now, the two Israeli leaders have managed to rid themselves of any significant voices against such an attack. The former head of Mossad Meir Dagan and IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Askenazi, both of whom opposed military action against Iran, are now excluded from any decision-making process. Veteran Major-General Shaul Mofaz, the leader of the Kadima party, who also opposed an attack on Iran, left Netanyahu’s coalition last week. It seems as if no one within the Israeli cabinet is there to stop Barak and Netanyahu’s genocidal enthusiasms.

Furthermore, from an Israeli military perspective the current chaos in Syria is interpreted as a ‘window of opportunity’. Israeli generals assume that Assad’s regime, fighting for its survival, would refrain from joining any attack on Iran. Also Israelis believe that without Syria’s backing, Hezbollah also would stay out of it. In Israeli military terms, this means that the north of Israel is in no imminent danger of Hezbollah’s medium and short range missiles - at least for the time being.

The Israelis are, as usual, deluded. For some peculiar reason, they fail to grasp the possible devastating consequences of such a conflict. Barak, for instance, commented ‘optimistically’ last week that a clash with Iran may ‘cost the lives of up to 500 Israelis.’ First, it is interesting to learn about the ease in which an Israeli Defence Minister is happy to sacrifice 500 of his people. Second, it is far from being clear on what Barak’s estimate is based. Considering the common assumptions that Iran would retaliate immediately launching a first wave of more than 1500 missiles in the direction of Tel Aviv, Barak must believe that each Iranian rocket is capable of destroying no more than one third of an Israeli. Barak is indeed an optimist.

It is also far from being clear whether Israel possesses the military capacity to hit Iran and imperil its nuclear project. Earlier this year, American analysts suggested that the Israeli Air Force doesn’t posses the necessary might to attack Iran. For example, it lacks the airborne re-fuelling capacity needed to dismantle the Iranian nuclear project. It is also far from being clear whether Israel would attack Iran without an American green light and it is widely accepted that it is more than unlikely that Obama would provide such an approval ahead of the American election.

I guess the meaning of it all is pretty simple: whether Israel attacks Iran is obviously an open question. However, we have a clear indication that the Israeli leadership is more than keen to do so. Barak and Netanyahu are begging for a pretext to launch a global conflict. The meaning of it is totally is clear - the Jewish state and its pro-war lobbies are the ultimate threat to world peace. This threat must be taken care of immediately.

By "Gilad Atzmon"

Justifying Suicide Bombings

The author cherry picks which types of suicide bombings are acceptable and just: It's ok as long as you're white or working towards Western interests, but if you're an "Islamic Jihadist fanatic" or a Japanese Kamikaze then it's evil!

James Kirchick Writes, 

The bombing last week in Damascus that killed Syrian Defense Minister Daoud Rajiha, internal security chief Hafez Makhlouf, and Deputy Defense Minister Asef Shawkat (who also happened to be the brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad), was a major turning point in the Syrian civil war. By striking at the heart of the country’s security apparatus, the rebels demonstrated that they have earned the support of high-ranking defectors within the regime. But it is the nature of the attack—alleged to have been a suicide bomb—that brings to the fore an interesting debate about morality in warfare. 

Writing at Commentary, Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow and war historian Max Boot says that, while “it is hard not to see some element of cosmic justice”in the killing of men responsible for the ongoing slaughter of countless civilians, “it is hard to take much satisfaction in the manner of their demise. For suicide bombing is never the weapon of the moderate.” Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic echoes this sentiment,warning that “suicide bombing is a leading indicator of societal collapse.” UK Defense Secretary William Hague condemned the bombing outright. 

It remains unclear at this point whether or not last week’s attack was indeed a suicide bomb, but, for the sake of argument, let’s assume it was: would that affect its morality?

There are really two questions here: 

a) The practical one of what a suicide bombing portends, b) and the metaphysical one of whether or not a suicide bombing can ever be justified. 

The answer to the first, I believe, hinges upon the person who decided to take his own life in the process of taking the lives of those whom Goldberg correctly identifies as “war criminals.” If the suicide bomber is a member of al-Qaeda or a like-minded jihadist organization, then that would indeed be a disturbing sign of the increasing influence of Islamic extremists over the Syrian revolution.

But suicide bombing is not necessarily a tactic anywhere and everywhere employed by Islamic fanatics. We don’t know the logistics of operation, but perhaps there was no other way, other than through the taking of his own life, for the Damascus bomber to kill his targets. In that case, his “suicide” should be seen as one of martyrdom and not religious salvation. 

People throughout history have sacrificed their lives through violence for worthy goals—the Union cause in the American Civil War is an obvious example—and while their tactic might not have been the suicide bomb, is there much difference, in effect, with the man who rushes towards enemy lines from the front of a column?

As for the morality of the act, what determines it, is the cause in which it is employed and whom it is employed against: 

a) A suicide bombing against Israeli civilians on a tour bus in Bulgaria (which occurred on the same day last week as the attack in Damascus) is unquestionably evil. As is the kamikaze pilot who crashes his plane into an American warship on behalf of the Emperor Hirohito and Japanese imperialism. 

b) A suicide bomb detonated amidst Bashar Assad’s coven of mass-murderers is an act of heroic sacrifice.

I find myself closer in opinion, therefore, to Conrad Black, who says, “The fact that the enemies of our enemies can turn the nastiest and most anti-civilized tactics on those who have been sanctimoniously employing them for years against the West is an objectively good phenomenon.” 

He raises the important historical example of the German colonel Claus von Stauffernberg, who, had he been willing to sacrifice his own life in the murder plot against Adolph Hitler, would have likely succeeded, thus sparing the world much more death and destruction. But because Stauffenberg left the building in which he had placed a briefcase bomb next to Hitler, rather than stay and move it next to the dictator as he sauntered across the room, Hitler survived and the plot was foiled. Stauffenberg, of course, died anyway (along with his co-conspirators), when he was executed the very next day by firing squad.

Via: "World Affairs Journal"

Journalism v. Propaganda

The US and Israel Blame Iran For The Suicide Attack In Bulgaria, But Offer No Evidence For The Accusation

BY GLENN GREENWALD
FRIDAY, JUL 20, 2012 09:27 AM EDT
Courtesy Of "Salon"


Almost immediately after a suicide bomber killed five Israeli tourists in Bulgaria on Wednesday, Israeli officials, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, blamed Iran, an accusation uncritically repeated by most Western media outlets even as Bulgarian investigatorswarned it would be a “mistake” to assign blame before the attack could be investigated. Now, Israel, along with the U.S., is blaming Hezbollah and, therefore, Iran for the attack. Today’s New York Times article by Nicholas Kulish and Eric Schmitt – headlined “Hezbollah Is Blamed for Attack on Israeli Tourists in Bulgaria” – uncritically treats those accusations as confirmed fact despite no evidence being offered for it:

American officials on Thursday identified the suicide bomber responsible for a deadly attack on Israeli vacationers here as a member of a Hezbollah cell that was operating in Bulgaria and looking for such targets, corroborating Israel’s assertions and making the bombing a new source of tension with Iran.

One senior American official said the current American intelligence assessment was that the bomber, who struck Wednesday, killing five Israelis, had been “acting under broad guidance” to hit Israeli targets when opportunities presented themselves, and that the guidance had been given to Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group, by Iran, its primary sponsor. Two other American officialsconfirmed that Hezbollah was behind the bombing, but declined to provide additional details.

The attacks, the official said, were in retaliation for the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, for which Iran has blamed Israeli agents — an accusation that Israel has neither confirmed nor denied. “This was tit for tat,” said the American official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was still under way. . . .

A senior Israeli official said on Thursday that the Burgas attack was part of an intensive wave of terrorist attacks around the world carried out by two different organizations, the Iranian Quds Force, an elite international operations unit within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, as well as by Hezbollah.

By “identified,” “confirmed” and “corroborated” Iranian and Hezbollah responsibility, what The New York Times means is this: American officials asserted that this was so, even as they “declined to provide additional details” and even though “the investigation was still under way.” Indeed, this accusation is, as the NYT sees it, ”confirmed” and “corroborated” even though “no details yet about the bomber like his name or nationality” are known; even though their anonymous American source “declined to describe what specific intelligence — intercepted communications, analysis of the bomber’s body parts or other details — []led analysts to conclude that the bomber belonged to Hezbollah”; even though “the Bulgarians are still trying to figure out how the bomber entered the country, how he traveled around and where he stayed”; and even though the Bulgarian Foreign Minister said: “We’re not pointing the finger in any direction until we know what happened and complete our investigation.” All The Paper of Record knows is that U.S. and Israeli officials have blamed Iran and Hezbollah, and — as usual — that’s good enough for them. Identified, Confirmed and Corroborated.

By stark contrast, The Washington Post‘s Karin Brulliard, reporting from Jerusalem, commits an act of actual journalism with her story on this event. She, too, notes the official accusations of Hezbollah and Iranian responsibility, but, as Think Progress’ Ali Gharib points out, she heavily qualifies that in the third paragraph of her story: “Israeloffered no concrete evidence tying the bombing to Iran, and Bulgarian officials cautioned that it was too early to attribute responsibility.” That’s called basic journalism: instead of just repeating official claims, treating them as “confirmed,” and shaping the entire article around those assertions, she prominently notes that there is no real evidence to lead anyone to believe these accusations. She then adds more skepticism: “U.S. intelligence officials said it was ‘plausible’ that Hezbollah carried out the attack but that analysts at the CIA and other agencies were still evaluating the intelligence surrounding the bombing and had not reached a conclusion.”

I have no idea who is behind the attacks. If it turns out to be Hezbollah and/or Iran, that will not shock me: after all, if it is perceived that you have sent hit squads onto a country’s soil tomurder their nuclear scientists, it’s likely that the targeted nation will want to respond with violence of their own. But there is no evidence to confirm the American and Israeli accusations. A reader of the New York Times article would not know that, while a reader of Brulliard’s article in the Post would. That’s the difference between journalism and propaganadistic stenography. It’s really not that difficult or complex, when repeating government claims, to note clearly and prominently that no evidence has been furnished to support those claims.

* * * * *

Following up on the argument I made about the Syria bombing — that Western political and media circles would treat the attack on Syrian officials as something to praise: the U.S. State Department, even when assuming it was a suicide bomb, refused to denounce the attack and came close to praising it, while The New York Times referred to the rebels’ “brazen assassination of top security officials.” While denying responsibility for the Bulgarian attack, Iranian officials noted this posture:

The speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Ali Larijani, criticized the United States for not condemning the bombing in Damascus on Wednesday that struck at President Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle, killing three senior defense officials. “By not condemning the assassination in Syria, the Americans show that they believe in good assassinations and bad assassinations,” he said, according to the Fars news agency.

Indeed, in one of the grandest understatements of the year, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, when asked about U.S. policy toward Israeli human rights abuses, recently acknowledged: “We are not always consistent.” That’s true even when it comes to the question of what counts as Terrorism and whether it is good or bad.

A 51st State For Armed Robotic Drones

"Aguerre says that in 2006 she knew of four countries that were manufacturing armed UAVs, and that now she knows of 56. So, the argument that drones keep "people" out of harm's way (with people redefined to mean U.S. citizens) doesn't hold up very solidly. We have also already had a suicide bomb attack on a drone piloting location and had drone pilots commit suicide, not to mention the risks of long-term blowback, the damage being done to the rule of law, and all the human beings killed and injured from among the non-U.S. 95% of humanity."  

By David Swanson
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Courtesy Of "Media Monitors Network"

Weaponized UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), also known as drones, have their own caucus in Congress, and the Pentagon's plan is to give them their own state as well.

Under this plan, 7 million acres (or 11,000 square miles) of land in the southeast corner of Colorado, and 60 million acres of air space (or 94,000 square miles) over Colorado and New Mexico would be given over to special forces testing and training in the use of remote-controlled flying murder machines. The full state of Colorado is itself 104,000 square miles. Rhode Island is 1,000 square miles. Virginia, where I live, is 43,000 square miles.

The U.S. military (including Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines) is proceeding with this plan in violation of the public will, new state legislation on private property rights, an exceptionally strong federal court order, and a funding ban passed by the United States Congress, and in the absence of any approved Environmental Impact Statement. Public pressure has successfully put the law on the right side of this issue, and the military is disregarding the law.

I spoke with Jean Aguerre, whose organization "Not 1 More Acre"is leading the pushback against this madness. Jean told me she grew up, during the 1960s, on the vast grasslands of southeast Colorado, where the Comanche National Grasslands makes up part of a system of grasslands put in place to help the prairie recover from the dust bowl. The dust bowl, Aguerre says, was the worst environmental disaster in the United States until BP filled the Gulf of Mexico with oil. The dust bowl had been brought on by the government's policy of requiring homesteaders to plow the prairie. The recovery programs created large tracts of land, of 100,000 acres and more, owned by "generational ranchers," that is families that would hand the ranches off to their children.

Aguerre said she grew up on a ranch of incredible beauty and natural wealth, with a 165-million-year-old dinosaur track way and petroglyphs from 12,000 years back. Grasslands are the most threatened ecosystems in the world because they are so accessible, Aguerre says, and the only intact short grassland left in this country is the one being targeted for the "51st state."

Round One began in the 1980s. Fort Carson, an Army base in Colorado Springs, had been kept open after World War II and now began looking for more land. The people of the area were opposed. The U.S. Congressman representing the area agreed to oppose any landgrab. But Senator Gary Hart took the opposite position. As a result, during the early 1980s, the Army Corps of Engineers started telling ranchers to sell out or risk seeing their land condemned and taken from them.

The ranch next to Aguerre's is called Wine Glass Rourke. It was sold to a shill, as Aguerre describes the buyer. He ran the place into the ground with too many cattle, she says, and then sold it to the military, "And they were off and running!" With condemnations the military put together 250 thousand acres. Ranchers, along with their cattle, were moved off their own land by federal marshals. "We didn't know when we'd be next," Aguerre says of her own family.

Luckily for the people of Colorado and New Mexico, and all of us, Aguerre got involved in politics. She became a political director for Congressman Tim Werth who later became a U.S. senator. Aguerre took him to see the Wine Glass Rourke ranch and told him "Let's take it back." Werth dedicated his staff to the effort for three years, resulting in the transfer to the Forest Service of 17,000 key acres.

The Army used its new land less than twice a year for maneuvers, but caused horrible environmental damage whenever it did. That was the case for about 30 years, until the activity of recent years made everything that came before look sensitive and sustainable.

In the meantime, people like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were theorizing the transformation of the U.S. military into a force for robotic warfare. Aguerre believes it was in 1996 that a decision was made that the military would need a robotic warfare center. Around 1999 the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement was created. This precedes the more specific Site Environmental Impact Statements. The U.S. public, just like the public of any foreign nation where new U.S. bases are being planned, was told nothing.

In 2006, Aguerre was working in Oregon when friends started asking her to come home and help because something big was happening. An Army land expansion map had been leaked that showed plans for taking over 6.9 million acres, the whole southeast corner of the state. Aguerre thought she would come home for two weeks but has never left. An Environmental Impact Statement for the site was about to be released, and Aguerre knew that meant the project was pretty far along. She formed organizations and found a lawyer in Colorado Springs named Steve Harris to help. The two of them, she says, were absolutely dedicated to NEPA and FOIA. NEPA is the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969. FOIA is the Freedom of Information Act of 1966. "NEPA is intended to prevent our government taking our world apart piece by piece without our knowing it," explains Aguerre.

Aguerre and others persuaded the area's county commissioners to vote against the military's plans in 2006, and the state legislature to pass a private property rights bill in January 2007 -- a bill that required approval of such plans by the state legislature.

Ken Salazar was the military's hired servant. He had been Attorney General of Colorado from 1999 to 2005. He was a U.S. Senator from 2005 to 2009. President Barack Obama has made him Secretary of the Interior. Around 2007, Jean Aguerre recounts, Salazar held a public meeting in Pueblo, Col., with about 300 ranchers packing the room. He turned his palms up to the ceiling and announced: "I will lift the golden curtain that falls at the end of El Paso county so that prosperity can flow onto the eastern plains." This meant that military spending was economically beneficial. Military expansion, people were being told, was good for them -- even if it stole their families' land, and regardless of what momentum it created for the launching and continuing of wars.

"Instead of putting together frameworks for nonproliferation," says Aguerre, "Ken Salazar worked to destroy the last intact short grass prairie because the money was too good."

Senators Wayne Allard, who would join the military lobbyist company the Livingston Group within weeks of leaving the Senate, and Ken Salazar passed an authorization for taking land as part of the 2007 John Warner Defense Authorization Act. "None of the ranchers knew they were in line to be condemned for the second damn time," says Aguerre.

John Salazar, Ken's brother, at this time represented Colorado's third congressional district, while Republican Marilyn Musgrave represented the fourth. Musgrave was persuaded by ranchers that there was no need for the government to take their land. Aguerre worked with Musgrave's staff to draft a one-sentence funding ban. Aguerre and her allies then organized massive public pressure to recruit John Salazar as a Democratic co-sponsor. Ken Salazar failed in his effort to block this measure in the Senate. The ban passed both houses and became law, but it must be renewed every year.

In 2009, Aguerre and her allies won a federal court ruling throwing out the military's Environmental Impact Statement with harsh and unequivocal language -- "one of the strongest court orders under NEPA," says Aguerre. By 2008, the military had begun using its land a lot more, and the court ruling did not stop them.

The funding ban, too, is not stopping increased activity. This past year, the funding ban was missing from a committee chairman's markup in which it had appeared in previous years. Not 1 More Acre and its allies pressured Third-District Congressman Scott Tipton. People from all over the country phoned his office. They were told that as non-constituents their views did not matter. Aguerre advised people to reply: "When you pick my pocket you don't ask what district I'm from." Tipton was won over, and the funding ban, for what it's worth, remains for now.

Nonetheless, says Aguerre, the military is proceeding with and increasing trainings and environmental destruction daily.

Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado and Tom Udall of New Mexico don't receive high marks from Jean Aguerre. "Mark Udall on Armed Services and Michael Bennet on Agriculture sit with their thumbs in their pie. Udall has never once come to southeastern Colorado and looked young ranchers in the eye and said 'this is why we need this military takeover of your lands.'"

Aguerre continues: "And Tom Udall puts out this pap the other day, mumbo jumbo about the Air Force. It's not Air Force; it's Special Operations. Aguerre said that her group and others are preparing a comment letter seeking legal standing to challenge the Air Force, and potentially to pry loose more information from the iron grip of our "transparent" government. Aguerre points out that the Air Force Special Operations Command Environmental Assessment was written by SAIC, a global military contractor that also makes voting machines.

"We found out that the state national guard is completely involved in UAV warfare," says Aguerre. "So when your house floods and you don't have the national guard there, they may be remotely piloting something somewhere else."

Aguerre says that in 2006 she knew of four countries that were manufacturing armed UAVs, and that now she knows of 56. So, the argument that drones keep "people" out of harm's way (with people redefined to mean U.S. citizens) doesn't hold up very solidly. We have also already had a suicide bomb attack on a drone piloting location and had drone pilots commit suicide, not to mention the risks of long-term blowback, the damage being done to the rule of law, and all the human beings killed and injured from among the non-U.S. 95% of humanity.

Aguerre asks scientists who love unarmed UAVs to consider the full effect of supporting such technology. I would ask environmentalists to consider the full effect of not resisting the destruction of what Not 1 More Acre describes as:

• unique bio-regions of canyonlands, forested mesas, grasslands and riparian systems providing habitat for diverse flora and fauna found nowhere else on Earth and the largest block of native prairie remaining on the High Plains;
• restored Dust Bowl lands – Comanche, Kiowa and Rita Blanca National Grasslands — offering robust safe haven to threatened and endangered species of plants and animals, including rare insects and reptiles yet to be named;
• wild rivers and complex wetlands vital to native fish, migrating birds, unique wildlife and environmental health.

I would ask opponents of drone warfare to consider the likely impact of setting aside 60 million acres of air space for testing drones.

"We cannot allow the sacrifice of our democracy to politicians who are bought by military contractors," says Aguerre. "If they are able to get this 51st state for robotic warfare, I think the economy will be irretrievably lost. These are unbelievably beautiful and pristine lands. Our rural areas are where the genetically modified seeds are being planted, where the lands and mountains are being mined, and where the military is going to destroy an area the size of a state, because the rural people are so few. Gary Hart was able to attack the last short grass prairie without political cost."

Why is there no political cost? Because "we can't get the word out."

Let's help get the word out by sharing this link: http://not1moreacre.org

U.S. Adds Kamikaze Drones: Switchblade

U.S. Army To Fly 'Kamikaze' Drones

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Published: 17 Oct 2011 19:30
Courtesy Of "Defense News"

WASHINGTON - A miniature "kamikaze" drone designed to quietly hover in the sky before dive-bombing and slamming into a human target will soon be part of the U.S. Army's arsenal, officials say.

Dubbed the "Switchblade," the robotic aircraft represents the latest attempt by the United States to refine how it takes out suspected militants.

Weighing less than two kilos, the drone is small enough to fit into a soldier's backpack and is launched from a tube, with wings quickly folding out as it soars into the air, according to manufacturer AeroVironment.

Powered by a small electric motor, the Switchblade transmits video in real time from overhead, allowing a soldier to identify an enemy, the company said in a press release last month.

"Upon confirming the target using the live video feed, the operator then sends a command to the air vehicle to arm it and lock its trajectory onto the target," it said.

The drone then flies into the "target," detonating a small explosive.

The California-based firm also said the drone can be called off at the last moment, even after a kill mission has been ordered. That feature provides troops with "a level of control not available in other weapon systems," it said.

The United States currently uses larger Predator and Reaper drones to hunt down suspected militants in Pakistan and elsewhere.

The robotic planes fire powerful Hellfire missiles and drop heavy bombs that can cause civilian casualties and extensive damage, which has fueled popular anger with the United States in Pakistan.

In the war in Afghanistan, U.S. and coalition troops fighting the Taliban can call in artillery fire or air strikes from fighter jets and attack helicopters. But the heavy firepower has been blamed by Afghan leaders for claiming the lives of innocent civilians and strained U.S. relations with Kabul.

The Switchblade, however, is touted as a way to avoid killing bystanders.

"Flying quietly at high speed the Switchblade delivers its onboard explosive payload with precision while minimizing collateral damage," the company said.

The U.S. Army in June approved a $4.9 million contract for AeroVironment to supply the new drones as soon as possible. Officials have not said how many Switchblade drones were ordered or when the robotic weapons would make into the hands of U.S. forces.

Human rights groups have raised concerns that the use of drones by the CIA has allowed the conduct of a secret assassination campaign abroad without public scrutiny and little oversight by lawmakers in Congress.

U.S. Deploys Kamikaze Drones To Attack Afghan Taliban Targets

By Tony Capaccio
Oct 19, 2011 12:01 AM ET
Courtesy Of "Bloomberg News"

U.S. Army and Air Force special operations forces have used miniature kamikaze drones against Taliban targets and plan to renew the attacks next year, according to documents and an Army official.

The tube-launched Switchblade drone, made by Monrovia, California-based Aerovironment Inc. (AVAV), was secretly sent to Afghanistan for the first time last year. “Under a dozen” were fired, said Army Deputy Product Director William Nichols.

“It’s been used in Afghanistan by military personnel” and “shown to be effective,” Nichols said. The drone’s GPS guidance is made byRockwell Collins Inc. (COL) and the warhead by Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK)

Disclosure of the Switchblade’s use in Afghanistan highlights the Pentagon’s expanding range of missions for remotely piloted aircraft. The fleet also includes broad-area surveillance aircraft such as theNorthrop Grumman Corp. (NOC) Global Hawk, the missile-firing General Atomics Co. Predator and Reaper drones, and hand-launched short-range surveillance models, such as the Aerovironment Raven.

Nichols declined to describe the Switchblade’s targets. He said the drone is “designed for open threats, something that’s on top of a building but you can’t hit it” with regular artillery or mortars for fear of collateral damage. The drone is less than 24 inches long and weighs about six pounds.

“It’s a ‘flying shotgun,’” Nichols said, not a “hit-to- kill” weapon that explodes on impact.

“The operator has control of how far away from the target it goes off -- preselected distances,” he said in an interview Oct. 12 at the Association of the U.S. Army conference in Washington.

Into Shallow Caves

An Army fact sheet said the drone could be used against snipers, insurgents placing roadside bombs and those hiding on ridge lines, under rock overhangs and or in shallow caves.

Nichols said the first deployment laid the groundwork for another fielding early next year. He declined to identify what units requested the additional Switchblades.

Nichols said the Army is evaluating the results and may pursue a larger program, which would be open to competition.

Other potential targets are moving vehicles that can be tracked during the aircraft’s roughly 10 minutes of flight. It covers up to 20 kilometers, flying at about 500 feet. “It’s clearly not designed for armor,” he said.

Aerovironment announced at the AUSA convention a previous $4.9 million Army contract. It didn’t disclose the drone’s prior Afghanistan use.

Commando’s Drone

The Combined Forces Special Operations Command in October 2010 requested an additional 11 drones for use by Army and Air Force commandos, saying the drone “enhances the small unit’s ability to quickly identify and precisely engage combatants in rugged terrain.”

Fielding additional so-called Lethal Miniature Aerial Munitions “will enhance operations designed to deny insurgents access to the Afghanistan population,” Army Special Forces Colonel Donald Bolduc wrote in his previously undisclosed October 2010 request.

Bolduc, in his “operational needs statement” obtained by Bloomberg News, said recent operations “have demonstrated the need for a lightweight, precision-guided aerial munitions system to locate and neutralize enemy positions.”

Bolduc said the system will be used by small units of Army and Air Force Special Operations Command personnel “operating in complex urban terrain.”

Lethal Precision

The small size allows an individual to “carry, launch, maneuver in all terrain, and engage stationary and fleeting targets in the open or defending positions within building, bunker or mountainous regions while minimizing collateral damage.”

“Such positions are extremely difficult to neutralize” and U.S. forces run a “high risk” of killing civilians with current weapons such as the new MK47 “advanced lightweight grenade launcher,” M3 Carl-Gustaf recoilless rifle and AT-4 rocket launcher, Bolduc wrote.

“Given rules of engagement and the constraints of urban terrain, a lethal capability must be precise in order to minimize collateral damage,” wrote Bolduc, who is now assistant deputy director for special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon.

Miniature Kamikaze Drones - Switchblade

A miniature "kamikaze" drone designed to quietly hover in the sky before dive-bombing and slamming into a human target will soon be part of the US Army's arsenal, officials say.

Dubbed the "Switchblade," the robotic aircraft represents the latest attempt by the United States to refine how it takes out suspected militants.

Weighing less than two kilos, the drone is small enough to fit into a soldier's backpack and is launched from a tube, with wings quickly folding out as it soars into the air, according to manufacturer AeroVironment.

Powered by a small electric motor, the Switchblade transmits video in real time from overhead, allowing a soldier to identify an enemy, the company said in a press release last month.

"Upon confirming the target using the live video feed, the operator then sends a command to the air vehicle to arm it and lock its trajectory onto the target," it said.

The drone then flies into the "target," detonating a small explosive