Protest against warlords in Amsterdam

Picket line at shareholders meeting EADS in Amsterdam.. shareholders arrive at the hotel in Amsterdam for the meeting.. European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company is one of the biggest European arms producers.. due to inadequate arms export regulation the company can export its weapons all over the world, also to dictatorships.. moreover the company is a nuclear weapons producer..

Campagne tegen Wapenhandel

British Defence Secretary wants to cut benefits, not troops

British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has warned he will resist further cuts to the armed forces in Chancellor George Osborne's forthcoming spending review.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he said other Conservative Cabinet ministers believed that the greatest burden of any cuts should fall on the welfare budget. There was, he said, a “body of opinion within Cabinet who believes that we have to look at the welfare budget again”, and that “we should be seeing welfare spending falling” as a result of rising employment levels.

More on The Independent

The Khaki games

Now the British military is being asked to “mind the gap” — in security.

London’s Olympic organizers reeled Friday from the fallout of revelations that 3,500 British troops— some of them just back from tours in Afghanistan — would need to step in and help guard venues for the upcoming Olympics. That’s because the security contractor, G4S, failed in its promise to deliver more than 10,000 security guards — and didn’t let anyone know until the last moment.

The Washington Post

Aircraft that stray into the restricted airspace around the Olympic Park could be subject to "lethal force" if they fail to comply with directions from military aircraft.

Puma helicopters, with on-board snipers, and RAF Typhoon fighter jets will be patrolling the restricted zone from midnight tonight, when it comes into force. Unauthorised aircraft will be intercepted and expected to comply with directions from military aircraft, first rocking their wings, then following the military plane or helicopter away from London. (ITV)

Arctic Climate Change Opening Region To New Military Activity

To the world's military leaders, the debate over climate change is long over. They are preparing for a new kind of Cold War in the Arctic, anticipating that rising temperatures there will open up a treasure trove of resources, long-dreamed-of sea lanes and a slew of potential conflicts. By Arctic standards, the region is already buzzing with military activity, and experts believe that will increase significantly in the years ahead.

Last month, Norway wrapped up one of the largest Arctic maneuvers ever – Exercise Cold Response – with 16,300 troops from 14 countries training on the ice for everything from high intensity warfare to terror threats. Attesting to the harsh conditions, five Norwegian troops were killed when their C-130 Hercules aircraft crashed near the summit of Kebnekaise, Sweden's highest mountain.

The U.S., Canada and Denmark held major exercises two months ago, and in an unprecedented move, the military chiefs of the eight main Arctic powers – Canada, the U.S., Russia, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland – gathered at a Canadian military base last week to specifically discuss regional security issues.

Huffington Post - Planet Ark (2009) – CBC News

US Marine sniper unit photographed with 'Nazi SS' flag

A US Marine scout sniper unit in Afghanistan posed for a photo in front of a flag resembling the logo of the Nazi SS, the Marine Corps says.

The inspector general found there was no intent on the part of the Marines to identify themselves with the SS. An investigation found the symbol was meant to identify the Marines as scout snipers, but that it was still unacceptable, the Associated Press reported.

BBC News

US Marines Urinate On Dead Bodies

US forces in Afghanistan are facing fresh accusations of war crimes after film emerged which appears to show American marines urinating on dead bodies and laughing.

The US military command in Kabul, which was severely embarrassed last year by revelations that Americans soldiers were running a "kill squad" murdering Afghan civilians, said it would investigate the undated video, and that if it proved to be authentic, desecration of corpses would be regarded as a serious crime. Despoiling of the dead is illegal under the Geneva conventions as well as under US military law.

In the graphic short video, four soldiers in combat gear and carrying weapons are seen acting in unison as they urinate on three bloodied corpses. One of the soldiers sighs with relief, another says "yeah" and a third laughs. One remarks: "Have a great day, buddy". Another says: "Golden, like a shower". A fifth soldier films the incident.

The video was posted anonymously on Wednesday along with a caption that said: "scout sniper team 4 with 3rd battalion 2nd marines out of camp lejeune peeing on dead talibans". (They look civilian, with their wheelbarrow…). Military officials confirmed that the soldiers appear to be carrying rifles of a kind issued to sniper teams in Afghanistan.

The Guardian

Obama's new Pentagon strategy: Strip benefits & buy more weapons

The world's biggest military is about to get smaller - with President Obama announcing the biggest strategy review in years, to try and make the U.S. army leaner and cheaper. It includes changing from large ground wars, to what he says will be an expanded agile force across Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East.

RT on YouTube

US finalizes $30bn Saudi arms deal

The US has formally announced a 30-billion-dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia which is set to create around 50,000 job opportunities for Americans grappling with an ailing economy.

The deal had been signed on Saturday in Saudi capital Riyadh but was announced by US officials in Hawaii on Thursday. According to the agreement, the US will provide the Saudi military with 84 new Boeing F-15SA fighter jets and modernize 70 existing warplanes. The deal also includes munitions, spare parts, training and maintenance contracts, US officials said.

The jets will be manufactured by the US aviation firm Boeing. The deal will create 50 thousand jobs and have a $3.5 billion annual economic impact in the US, the White House said. According to senior Pentagon official James Miller, "The F-15SA will have the latest generation of computing power, radar technology, infrared sensors and electronic warfare systems." The deal is part of a ten-year arms agreement between Washington and Riyadh unveiled in October 2010 and worth a whopping $60 billion.

PressTV

Argentina jails officials from Dirty War

A court in Argentina has sentenced 12 former military and police officials to life in prison for crimes against humanity committed during the country's 1976-1983 dictatorship. The men were convicted of kidnapping, torturing and killing leftist dissidents at a torture centre called the Navy Mechanics School.
Among those sentenced was Alfredo Astiz, a 59-year-old former navy officer dubbed "the Angel of Death". Astiz is accused of participating in the disappearance, torture and murder of two French nuns, a journalist and three founders of a human rights group that he infiltrated while spying for the dictatorship.
Official figures say 9,000 people were kidnapped, tortured and killed in what became known as Argentina's "Dirty War," but many believe the real number to be closer to 30,000.

Al Jazeera English

Nato success against Taliban in Afghanistan 'may be exaggerated'

The success of one of Nato's principal tactics against the Taliban – targeted night raids aimed at killing or capturing leaders of the insurgency – may have been exaggerated to make the military campaign in Afghanistan look more effective, according to a report published on Wednesday.

The study shows that for every "leader" killed in the raids, eight other people also died, although the raids were designed to be a precise weapon aimed at decapitating the Taliban on the battlefield by removing their commanders.

The report also notes that in briefings to the US media aggregate claims made for the number of Taliban leaders killed or detained over a given period were sometimes much greater than the numbers recorded in the daily press releases.

The Guardian – See the The Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) report here

Iran Plotted With Mexican Drug Cartel to Assassinate Saudi Ambassador to U.S.

The United States has accused Iran of plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States and bomb the Saudi embassy in Washington, according to the embattled U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Holder and the Justice Department claim the plot was hatched in Mexico last May. Two Iranians, Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri, were accused of the attack in court documents, according to the New York Times.

The Justice Department claims Iran and Mexican drug cartels worked together on the plot. Holder said there is “no basis to believe that any other co-conspirators are present in the U.S.” He said the two men are connected to Quds Force, a division of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. (Infowars)

Is an attack on Iran in the works? - Victor Kotsev (Jun 7, 2011)

In Post-Mubarak Egypt, Waterboarding is Baby Stuff

'The honeymoon between the Egyptian military and the protesters did not last long. Tahrir Square, which had been the scene of jubilant celebrations, soon turned into a battlefield, as the army moved to violently disperse activists, beating them with clubs and electric rods – even firing live ammunition – leading to many casualties.

Hundreds were dragged away to trucks and thrown in prison. Between January 28 and August 29, almost 12,000 civilians were tried in military tribunals, far more than Mubarak managed in 30 years of dictatorship. Torture by police and military personnel remains widespread with hundreds of cases involving beatings, electrocution, and sexual assault reported.' - UrukNet

Greece can buy Tanks.. but have no Money

According to information of the “Hellenic Defence & Technology” magazine, the U.S. authorities approved to grant 400 M1A1 Abrams tanks to the Greek Army, which will include options between simple refurbishment – worth tens of millions dollars for all the tanks- and upgrading to a higher level of operational capability, with a higher corresponding cost. The relative Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) is expected soon. (defencegreece.com)

Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said Greece has enough cash to operate until mid-November, after euro-region finance ministers delayed a decision on the nation’s next emergency-loan payment. (Bloomberg.com)

Egyptian Army Beating Protester

The Real News

Egypt’s interim military rulers could remain in power until the end of next year, according to a timetable for a transition to elected rule presented by Sami Anan, the army’s chief of staff, at a meeting with leaders of political parties.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, now the highest political authority in the country, has faced pressure from parties and democracy activists to set a timetable for its exit from power. (Financial Times)

Blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad, a pacifist, had refused conscription into the Egyptian army and had campaigned against forced conscription, which he likened to slavery. He is in hunger strike. (Christian Science Monitor)

Shell oil paid Nigerian military to put down protests

Shell has never denied that its oil operations have polluted large areas of the Niger Delta – land and air. But it had resisted charges of complicity in human rights abuses.

Court documents now reveal that in the 1990s Shell routinely worked with Nigeria's military and mobile police to suppress resistance to its oil activities, often from activists in Ogoniland, in the delta region.

Confidential memos, faxes, witness statements and other documents, released in 2009, show the company regularly paid the military to stop the peaceful protest movement against the pollution, even helping to plan raids on villages suspected of opposing the company.

According to Ogoni activists, several thousand people were killed in the 1990s and many more fled that wave of terror that took place in the 1990s.

In 2009, in a New York federal court, that evidence never saw light during the trial. Shell had been accused of collaborating with the state in the execution in 1995 of writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and other leaders of the Ogoni tribe. Instead, Shell paid $15.5m (£9.6m) to the eight families in settlement.

Among the documents was a 1994 letter from Shell agreeing to pay a unit of the Nigerian army to retrieve a truck, an action that left one Ogoni man dead and two wounded. Shell said it was making the payment "as a show of gratitude and motivation for a sustained favourable disposition in future assignments".

The Guardian – The Independent – Nigeria 70 - Essential Action

Army Tracking Plan: Drones That Never Forget a Face

Perhaps the idea of spy drones already makes your nervous. Maybe you’re uncomfortable with the notion of an unblinking, robotic eye in the sky that can watch your every move. If so, you may want to click away now. Because if the Army has its way, drones won’t just be able to look at what you do. They’ll be able to recognize your face — and track you, based on how you look. If the military machines assemble enough information, they might just be able to peer into your heart.

The Pentagon has tried all sort of tricks to keep tabs on its foes as they move around: tiny transmitters, lingering scents, even “human thermal fingerprints.” The military calls the effort “Tagging, Tracking, and Locating,” or “TTL.” And, as the strategy in places like Afghanistan has shifted from rebuilding societies to taking out individual insurgents, TTL has become increasingly central to the American effort. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been devoted to it.

Danger Room on Wired.com

London arming the World

The biennial Defence and Security Equipment International at the ExCel Centre has attracted hundreds of companies, ranging from the world's biggest producers of warplanes and missiles to niche hi-tech firms, although exhibitors also include makers of life-saving and medical products.

Delegations from 65 governments have been invited, including Bahrain, a longtime recipient of British arms, whose security forces have recently fired at unarmed demonstrators. Other invited Middle East governments include Iraq, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

India, which may soon overtake Saudi Arabia as Britain's largest single arms market, is on the guest list, which also features Algeria and Morocco.

Libya, whose arms dealers were guests two years ago, has not been invited, although it can expect to be asked next time when its new government should be in power. China, invited two years ago, is not on the official guestlist this time.

The Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) and other groups are planning a mass lobby of parliament and demonstrations in the Docklands.

The Guardian

Pictures on Avax News

I am Bradley Manning

Bradley Manning Support Network

WikiLeaks cable: U.S. troops handcuffed and shot Iraqi children in raid

According to a diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks, U.S. troops massacred an Iraqi family in the town of Ishaqi in 2006, handcuffing and then shooting 11 people in the head including a woman in her 70's and five children ages five and under.

McClatchy is reporting that the soldiers then called in an air strike on the house to cover up evidence of the killings.

This account differs sharply from an official version of the 2006 incident, which indicated that coalition forces captured an al Qaeda in Iraq operative in the house, which was destroyed in a firefight. The WikiLeaks cable, however, corroborates accounts by Ishaqi townspeople and includes questions about the incident by Philip Alston, the U.N.'s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions.

The cable is dated twelve days after the incident, which took place March 15, 2006. In it, Alston says that autopsies performed in Tikrit on bodies pulled from the wreckage of the farmhouse indicated that all of the dead had been handcuffed and shot in the head.

The Raw Story

Also see Military clears troops in Ishaqi raid probe on MSNBC from 2006 and Mass death returns to Ishaqi. – Uruknet also from 2006

US Court clears way for torture suit against Rumsfeld

A federal appeals court has cleared the way for a civil suit against former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld by two Americans who allege they were tortured while being held by the US military in Iraq.

The three-judge panel upheld a ruling by a lower court judge who denied a Justice Department motion to drop the suit brought by Donald Vance and Nathan Ertell against Rumsfeld in 2006.

Vance and Ertell allege in the suit that they reported to the FBI that they suspected the privately owned Iraqi security company they worked for, Shield Group Security, was paying off an Iraqi sheikh to obtain government contracts.

But when the security company began to suspect their loyalty, they were taken into custody by the US military and held incommunicado at Camp Cropper where they were subjected to violence, sleep deprivation and extremes of light and sound.

They were released without charges -- Ertell after six weeks and Vance after three months.

AFP