Stay away from black web gear

ATF Raider with black web gear, circa 1990s..



FBI Raid party with black web gear.

Another more recent FBI raid party, again with black webgear.

It was the first line that got my attention, and approval: "Web Harness and/or Load-Bearing Vest NOT BLACK." I had the same rule when I ran the 1st Alabama Cavalry. Black is more easily discerned, even at night. More importantly, black is the color of the federal raid parties. Or at least it was back then. Nowadays, I note that they have a new color scheme. These images are from an ATF raid party in Shreveport this week.







Note that they still have some black items from their old outfits, but have changed the overall color scheme.

Identification friend or foe still being one of the single most important things on any battlefield, stay away from adopting your probable opponent's color scheme.

Samuel Whittemore: A Dangerous Old Man Goes to War One Last Time

The price of freedom is the willingness to do sudden battle, anywhere, any time and with utter recklessness.  - Robert A. Heinlein

When eighty-year old farmer Samuel Whittemore, a veteran of the French Indian War, saw the approaching Regulars on April 19, 1775, he left his plow and, to the astonishment of his family, strapped on his prized dueling pistols and a captured French sword, grabbed his musket, and stepped out to make war one last time.  Whittemore ambushed the column at close range, firing first with his musket, and then drawing his dueling pistols.  He fired a total of five shots, killing three regulars and wounding another before being overrun.  He then drew his sword and attacked.  He was shot in the face at close range and bayoneted thirteen times and left for dead.   When his grieving family came to collect his body, they were amazed to find him still alive and attempting to reload his musket for a parting shot at the now distant column.

Whittemore said he fought because he wanted his children to live without being subject to a distant King.  Some have questioned his tactics, but never his resolve.  Perhaps he felt he was just too old to "run and gun" with the others and chose to make his shots count, at close range.  Or, perhaps, at the ripe old age of eighty, he had decided "today is a good day to die."  Despite his grievous wounds, he survived and lived another eighteen years, dying of natural causes at the age of ninety-eight.

At Bunker (Breed's) Hill, another "dangerous old man" was overheard saying a prayer before the Regulars made their first charge.  Was the old man asking God to keep him safe in the coming battle?   No.  He was down on his knees thanking God for preserving him long enough so that he could fight that day.  That is the spirit of a free man who understands the big picture - that none of us gets out of here alive, and what counts most is whether we leave our children free.

Michigan: Police Search Cell Phones During Traffic Stops

ACLU seeks information on Michigan program that allows cops to download information from smart phones belonging to stopped motorists.

The Michigan State Police have a high-tech mobile forensics device that can be used to extract information from cell phones belonging to motorists stopped for minor traffic violations. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan last Wednesday demanded that state officials stop stonewalling freedom of information requests for information on the program.

ACLU learned that the police had acquired the cell phone scanning devices and in August 2008 filed an official request for records on the program, including logs of how the devices were used. The state police responded by saying they would provide the information only in return for a payment of $544,680. The ACLU found the charge outrageous.

"Law enforcement officers are known, on occasion, to encourage citizens to cooperate if they have nothing to hide," ACLU staff attorney Mark P. Fancher wrote. "No less should be expected of law enforcement, and the Michigan State Police should be willing to assuage concerns that these powerful extraction devices are being used illegally by honoring our requests for cooperation and disclosure."

A US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and video off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections.

"Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags," a CelleBrite brochure explains regarding the device's capabilities. "The Physical Analyzer allows visualization of both existing and deleted locations on Google Earth. In addition, location information from GPS devices and image geotags can be mapped on Google Maps."

The ACLU is concerned that these powerful capabilities are being quietly used to bypass Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

"With certain exceptions that do not apply here, a search cannot occur without a warrant in which a judicial officer determines that there is probable cause to believe that the search will yield evidence of criminal activity," Fancher wrote. "A device that allows immediate, surreptitious intrusion into private data creates enormous risks that troopers will ignore these requirements to the detriment of the constitutional rights of persons whose cell phones are searched."

Obama Pushes Chinese-Style Internet ID System

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
April 18, 2011

A new program being touted by the Obama administration as a solution to online identity theft actually increases the risk of identity theft while providing the government with a national ID system through the backdoor, paving the way for a world wide web in which users will need government permission to access the Internet.
The so-called “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace,” created by NIST under the auspices of the U.S. Commerce Department, purports to offer an “identity ecosystem” under which Americans will be able to protect their information not with passwords but with a “single credential” stored on a smart card, a cell phone, a keychain fob or some other kind of gadget. This will then be used to access a myriad of data, including tax returns, health information, bank accounts and more, amounting to a passport for your entire life.
Companies like Siemens developed credit card-sized gadgets years ago that enable fingerprints to be used to approve online transactions and the technology is already well established. A series of workshops are planned for June to September during which the government will nail down specifics with companies who are on board with the project and pilot projects will be launched next year.
The program bears more than a passing resemblance to a 2007 proposal by China that threatened to force bloggers to register their real identities and personal details via a single centralized ID system as a means for the Communist government to control information and punish dissenters.
That idea was scrapped for being too draconian, but the Obama administration is pushing ahead with its own Internet ID system in pursuit of a wider cybersecurity agenda that Senator Joe Lieberman has publicly stated is aimed at mimicking Chinese-style censorship of the world wide web, casting doubt on assertions in the government PR video for the program embedded above that claim, “there is no central database tracking your actions”.
The irony of the fact that the program will be managed by a government that has routinely stolen and lost personal information (including that related to personal health data) through both malevolence and incompetence is not addressed in the propaganda video. Remember cash for clunkers? This is the same government that openly admitted it had seized control of data on Americans’ computers who used the cars.gov website.
Although the program will initially be voluntary, its widespread adoption by numerous internet hub giants will eventually make its use necessary for conducting any kind of transaction, creating profiles or engaging in any interactive process on the web.
Moreover, should there be a major cyber attack that cripples the web and leaves sensitive information vulnerable, the Obama administration would have all the political capital it needs to turn the “voluntary” program into a compulsory requirement for anyone who wishes to use the Internet. Given the fact that the Stuxnet worm attack was admittedly launched by the United States and Israel, the culprits are likely to be closer to home than we think.
“Although the White House is describing the NSTIC plan as “voluntary,” federal agencies could begin to require it for IRS e-filing, applying for Social Security or veterans’ benefits, renewing passports online, requesting federal licenses (including ham radio and pilot’s licenses), and so on. Then obtaining one of these ID would become all but mandatory for most Americans,” writes CNet’s Declan McCullagh.
“Taken to its logical conclusion, the program, “Could become the virtual equivalent of a national ID card,” he adds.
Despite government assurances that the “conspiracy theory set” are wrong in highlighting privacy concerns, critics have labeled the plan an effort to impose a national ID card via the backdoor.
Writing for Network World, Mark Gibbs slammed the proposal as, “A totally ridiculous idea. A great example of rampant, over-reaching, ignorant, and ill-conceived political foolishness.”
Gibbs highlights the fact that both the IRS and Homeland Security have recently been caught abusing and mismanaging online identity systems.
“In short, the government, at the heart of its most sensitive public and administrative services, is incompetent on a biblical scale. And now they propose to provide what is, in essence, the management of a single sign-on system that would impact tens of millions of its citizens,” he writes.
In addition, the centralized nature of the system will not protect identity theft, the entire raison d’être behind the program, but will instead make identity theft far more prevalent and easier for criminals.
“It remains unclear whether the White House proposal will solve this problem or create new problems,” said Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, warning that if the system was compromised it would be like losing your whole wallet, not just your keys or credit card. “There is the real risk that consolidated identity schemes will lead to ‘hyper’ identity theft.”

CERN admits black hole ripped in space-time by Large Hadron Collider

by Rich Bowden - Apr 1 2009, 04:03

Inside the ATLAS solenoid cryostat. Image: Copyright/CERN.

A spokesperson for the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) has confirmed the fears of many in the scientific world after revealing that the reason for the sudden closure of the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most expensive physics experiment, was not due to "technical problems" as previously stated, but because its controversial particle collisions have sensationally rendered a "tiny black hole" in the fabric of space.

"I can confirm that, yes, the first stages of the experiment resulted in the appearance of a miniscule black hole," said the spokesperson to gathered reporters on Monday. "The black hole is being kept under quarantine and our scientists have been monitoring its progression," he explained.
Situated deep underground on the French-Swiss border, the $10 billion USD Large Hadron Collider (LHC) had been opposed by many scientists who warned of the related dangers of the massive particle collision experiment.
The huge, ring-shaped LHC has been designed to give scientists an opportunity to re-create and study the origins of the universe and to end the search for the elusive Higgs Boson or 'God particle'.
Many had bitterly said the consequences could be as extreme as the Earth being sucked into the black hole the LHC collisions may create as a side effect of the experiment. Others claimed time travellers with more sophisticated technology than ours could make use of the hole to invade the Earth and enslave mankind.
The particle physics experiment began with great fanfare on September 10, 2008, only to be mysteriously closed down nine days later. An announcement by CERN blamed mechanical failure between two superconducting magnets, a reason deemed strange at the time by scientists and theorists not involved in the experiment.
After confirming the incredible real reason for the closure of the LHC, the CERN spokesperson went on to placate reporters present by saying that his organization did not, at this stage, see any danger to the Earth's existence.
However, when asked by reporters at CERN headquarters how the agency kept a black hole under quarantine, the spokesperson admitted, "With great difficulty ladies and gentlemen, with great difficulty."

Al-Qaeda 100% Pentagon Run

Alex Jones & Aaron Dykes
Infowars.com
March 31, 2011
In a special video address, Alex Jones terms the al Qaeda intelligence operation a ‘Swiss army knife’ for destabilization. Simply put, it is a tool to foment crisis that allows the globalists to offer up a solution in variable contexts.
Today, ‘freelancers‘ in Libya; yesterday, terrorists in the ‘War on Terror.’ Before that, allies against Serbia; in the 80s, Freedom Fighters. The shadowy enemy supposedly run by Osama bin Laden and top jihadists like Anwar al-Awlaki is really an extension of U.S. foreign policy and the Pentagon. Al Qaeda shifts across the geopolitical chessboard at the will of its masters in the allied-international intelligence ring. It is perhaps government’s greatest hoax… but the tactic is one of the oldest tricks in the book for any power-seeking State.

For the average person who has lived through the phony ‘War on Terror’, a post-9/11 age of fear that has swirled around the persona of bin Laden, it may be quite confusing to now read headlines like Libya: the West and al-Qaeda on the same side. Indeed, the rebel forces trying to topple Gaddafi admittedly include more than 1,000 al Qaeda soldiers while enjoying total backing– weapons, planes, funding and forces– from the U.S., Britain, NATO and other allies. The CIA and British SAS forces that are now “officially” entering Libya as ground support were covertly operating at least a month ago.
Alex expanded on his Russia Today rant where he covered this topic.

However, the Pentagon-run al Qaeda hoax has deeper history than can be covered in just a few minutes of airtime.

CRIMESTOP: CREATE THE ENEMY, FOOL THE PUBLIC

As we cover some of the highlights of al Qaeda’s duplicitous history, consider these conflicting statements from two U.S. Presidents about the Taliban / al Qaeda (albeit from different points in time):
“They hate our freedoms — our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.”
– George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, September 20, 2001
“These (Taliban) gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s Founding Fathers.”
— Ronald Wilson Reagan in 1985 while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White House lawn.
The answer to the contradiction is learning to embrace the deception as truth, whenever the State says to do so, just as Winston Smith finally “learns” in 1984– when he is compelled to find that 2+2=5. His torturer, O’Brien, tells him ‘You are a slow learner, Winston.’

‘How can I help it?’ [Winston] blubbered. ‘How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.’
‘Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.’

Karl Rove, a key architect of the Bush Administration, known glowingly as “Bush’s Brain”, chastised reporters in 2002 who tried to appeal to the “reality-based community” in the face of a President who, according to Ron Suskind of the NY Times expressed to high level members of Congress, aides and the like that he didn’t need the facts:

The aide [Rove] said that guys like me were ”in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who ”believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. [Rove] cut me off. ”That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. ”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Unbeknownst to the media at that time, Rove was operating on behalf of a government that was not only arrogant, but had taken a page directly out of George Orwell’s 1984. America’s enemy Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda were remarkably like Emmanuel Goldstein, arch-villain of Oceania in 1984. Goldstein [or bin Laden] was “commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State.” An enemy that couldn’t be found, killed or slowed from influencing new conspirators at every turn. “Somewhere or other,” Orwell wrote, “he was still alive and hatching his conspiracies.”

“Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party — an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it… Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. He was an object of hatred more constant than either Eurasia or Eastasia, since when Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other. But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody… his influence never seemed to grow less.”

In 1984, it was rumored that Goldstein, whereabouts unknown, might even be taking refuge somewhere within their own superstate itself; consequently, “a day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police.” In contemporary America, the Department of Homeland Security now takes that possibility as its directive, screening and searching ordinary people everywhere in search of shadowy al Qaeda or “homegrown terrorists.” Just as in 1984, children were trained to be spies to rat out suspicious adults.
Behind the hoax contrived to control party members and maintain power, Winston’s torturer and member of the inner-party, O’Brien, confessed that he had personally taken part in writing Goldstein’s outlawed book– a lie to serve the State. It was necessary for the controlling party to create a living myth that portrayed Goldstein as a classic, evasive “external enemy“. The utility of the external enemy has been noted by many, including the Club of Rome, who wrote in 1991 that “Humans only truly unite when faced with a powerful external enemy…At this time a new enemy must be found, one either real or invented for the purpose.” Henry Kissinger likewise quipped at Bilderberg in 1991 that the United Nations might seize upon an “outside threat from beyond” to unite the peoples of the world.
Thus, the steady diet of propaganda, including the two-minutes hate that daily featured new installments of Goldstein’s crimes and heresies. In 1984, Goldstein was:

“almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor.”

O’Brien proclaimed during Winston’s torturous re-education sessions that: “Goldstein and his heresies will live for ever. Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and yet they will always survive.” Bin Laden has been patently the same archetypal enemy– despite being wanted dead or alive (Bush, Sept. 18, 2001), armies can’t find him [TIME 2002] after a decade.

Admittedly fake videos with bad look-alikes and audio recordings supposedly sent by bin Laden surfaced routinely just before elections (Tom Ridge later admitted that terror threats were elevated to help Bush’s re-election bid) or when the American people needed a reminder of the threat of terror. Prior to the admissions, analysts correctly suspected that al Qaeda video logos matched the signature of the CIA-linked Intel Center, revealing an unholy connection at the source of the video-taped threats. Despite the fact that bin Laden had reportedly died and had been in the hospital on kidney dialysis in 2001, Osama bin Laden remained a nearly-omnipotent villain in Bush Administration communiques. His survival as the external enemy, like Goldstein, was almost guaranteed because it empowered the State’s official fairytale and enabled action on wide-ranging controversial policies with little scrutiny. Ultimately, in 1984, Goldstein is of no material relevance; his real purpose is to induce submission to the party-led Oligarchical Collectivist State.

DOUBLETHINK: AL QAEDA THE ALLY, AL QAEDA THE ENEMY

The real Osama bin Laden is a Western-trained CIA asset with the declassified code-name “Tim Osman.” He was chosen to lead the Mujahideen / Taliban in Afghanistan, in part, because his wealthy family has been a long-term business partner to key families in the West, including the Bush family (Carlyle Group). In fact, George H. W. Bush, the father, had been meeting with one of Osama bin Laden’s brothers on the morning of 9/11. The real Mujahideen has been used for a variety of Western-backed political purposes, namely upheaval and regional-destabilization.
Back in 1979, al Qaeda, in the form of the Mujahideen / Taliban, were America’s secret weapon in Operation Cyclone. It was geopolitical strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski, then National Security Advisor under Carter, who schemed to draw the Soviet Union into a trap that might bleed them dry. [Declassified documents authorizing action A / B]
Brzezinski gave an interview to France’s Le Nouvel Observateur in 1998, unapologetic about their covert aid the Mujahadeen six months before the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Here is a segment of that interview:

Q: You don’t regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
Brzezinski: Nonsense!

During the Reagan years, they were Freedom Fighters, public heroes heralding the possibility for democracy to spread overseas in resistance to Communism. Reagan even dedicated the launch of the space shuttle Columbia to the Afghans, in the name of the ‘highest aspirations of freedom.’ In 1985, Ronald Reagan said the men in the Taliban’s ranks were “the moral equivalents of America’s Founding Fathers.” These men were supported openly for a decade as the Soviets met ‘their Vietnam’ in Afghanistan.

As Kurt Nimmo writes:

Osama bin Laden ran MAK (Maktab al-Khidamat), an organization created by Pakistan’s ISI at the behest of the CIA. It funneled money, weapons, and internationally recruited fighters into the war created in part by Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Osama was closely tied to the Afghan warlord and ISI stooge Gulbuddin Hekmatyar who ran drugs for the CIA. In the 1980s, emissaries from the United States met with Osama. The CIA paid Osama to train the militant group Abu Sayyaf and others at his CIA-built camps in Afghanistan. In New York, Osama’s MAK operated the CIA-connected al-Kifah Refugee Center that was involved in the 1993 WTC bombing. The U.S. government would later call the al-Kifah charity the “precursor organization to al-Qaeda.”

The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center was exposed as another cruel hoax. In 1993, the F.B.I. became, at best, dangerous enablers as they undertook a “sting” operation to allegedly prove the culpability of the suspects. Even Wikipedia admits that harmless powder was swapped with real bomb material. F.B.I. informant Emad Salem became alarmed at the introduction of real explosives and recorded his conversations with the F.B.I. proving they enabled and allowed the bombing to go forward that killed 4 people.
Simultaneously, by the late 80s and early 90s, al-Qaeda, under U.S. orders, “migrated to Bosnia, hoping to assist their Islamic brethren in a struggle against Serbian [and for a time] Croatian forces.” Al Qaeda was still a U.S. and Saudi-backed ally circa 1999 that backed the Albanian KLA in terrorist acts in the war-torn Yugoslavian region, even up to the time of NATO’s bombings, despite growing concerns about terrorism, including the impact of the 1993 WTC bombing. See also: Mega Oil and Mujahidin from the Balkans to the Caucasus

Click for larger image: Enron hired CIA employees to work its pipeline scheme with the Taliban

With Serbia / former Yugoslavia still fresh in the public mind but the Pentagon-al Qaeda connection largely in the shadows, the USS Cole was bombed in October 2000 in a Yemeni port. The act of terror against the United States would be blamed on Osama bin Laden, rogue heir to the wealthy family known for their business with big Western players (like the Carlyle Group, etc.).
The 9/11 attacks hit. It was instantly blamed on Osama bin Laden. Endless contradictions to the official government account emerged over the coming hours, days, weeks and years for now almost a decade, without any sign of accountability or truth in the officialdom anywhere in sight. In addition to gross contradictions to the laws of physics in the collapses of WTC towers 1, 2 and 7, details came forward about how the accused hijackers were trained at U.S. bases, lived with FBI informants, were given VISAS and let past borders despite being on the watchlists; the hijackers were identified by U.S. intelligence agencies [Able Danger, et. al.], but their warnings were ignored (and much, much more: prior knowledge, warnings, drills, etc., etc., etc.).
While rallying the public behind a war in Afghanistan, and soon in Iraq as well, the Bush Administration clandestinely let members of the bin Laden family quietly fly out of the United States, even while all other flights were grounded. It would be revealed in articles about the “Airlift of Evil,” that U.S. forces also covertly exported Taliban forces from Afghanistan to Pakistan; meanwhile, U.S. soldiers where geared up to search in caves and rugged terrain for a shadowy enemy in the “graveyard of empires“; as of 2011, the deadline for leaving Afghanistan continues to roll back.
As noted earlier, embarrassing leaks emerged casting doubt on the validity of al Qaeda’s jihad against America, as the Bush Administration continued to hype the threat of terror without pause. Controversial measures, including the Constitution-shredding Patriot Act, warrantless-wiretaps of U.S. citizens, torture (Obama refused to investigate the crimes of the Bush Admin.) and indefinite detention and other devastating attacks on the “hated freedoms” of Americans continued seamlessly under Barack Obama.
Nearly every major terror plot uncovered domestically has, in fact, turned out to be a contrivance by the FBI where it sets-up a sting and encourages its patsies to carry out an attack. The “close calls” on American soil since 9/11 have largely been connected to Anwar al-Awlaki, who it was revealed, dined with Pentagon brass in the months after 9/11. The Underwear Bomber who tried to blow-up a Detroit-bound plane was given VISA clearance by the State Dept. despite being on the watchlist; witnesses Kurt & Lori Haskell watched Abdulmutallab being helped on the plane by a “sharp-dressed man” who was most likely an intelligence agent. They also witnessed other suspect/patsies who were never mentioned in the mainstream media. The key questions their verified account raises may never be addressed, as the accused Abdulmutallab is attempting to represent himself in court. Hoaxes and inconsistencies have been raised around the cases of the Foot Hood shooter, the Times Square bomber and many, many others. Even Geraldo Rivera of Fox News has noted that the FBI’s pattern of sting operations are ‘bogus’.
Homeland Security took on a greater role, imposing absurd and unpopular TSA body scanners and groping pat-downs on travelers. DHS has further rolled out checkpoints [in the name of catching al Qaeda, of course], mobile x-ray vans on public streets & highways (including pedestrians), on trains, buses and boats, as well as at sport stadiums, hotels and shopping malls and beyond.
In 2011, George Orwell’s “War is Peace” mantra is upgraded once again, as the Nobel Peace Prize winner President Obama expands war into Libya under the Orwellian-guise of a “humanitarian crisis,” imposing a no-fly zone (which immediately gave way to full scale bombings and then ground forces). Americans, Westerners and the world at-large must scratch their heads once again as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan not only continue, but the West finds an unlikely ally against Col. Gaddafi in rebels made up of al Qaeda forces. The Lie has not stopped, as Western intelligence continues to wield one of its most powerful client-weapons– the al Qaeda hoax, invariably friend or foe, as the situation demands. In classic doublethink, the same week the public learns its anti-Gaddafi allies include al Qaeda, over-the-top, grandiose threats are made by mail claiming that al Qaeda has some 160 nuclear bombs buried at strategic locations across the United States; if there’s any truth at all to the claim, you can be certain the nuclear material was delivered via Western intelligence.

FURTHER RESEARCH:

FULL TEXT: George Orwell’s 1984 & Animal Farm (html and pdf) or by chapter
Libyan Rebel Leader Admits Links To “Al Qaeda” Fighters
Libyan Rebel Leader Admits Connection to CIA al-Qaeda Asset in Iraq
9/11 Mastermind Invited to Pentagon
Al Qaeda Leader Dined at the Pentagon Just Months After 9/11
Contrived Propaganda Tapes Reveal War On Terror Fraud
Al-Qaeda Is A Front Group For The US Military-Industrial Complex
Bin Laden is wanted: dead or alive, says Bush
TIME: Why Can’t We Find Bin Laden?
Al-Zarqawi Video Is A Pentagon Propaganda Psy-Op
11 Reasons Why The Threat From Al-Qaeda is Not Real
Who is behind “Al Qaeda in Iraq”? Pentagon acknowledges fabricating a “Zarqawi Legend”
Dining with the enemy: Al Qaeda leader linked to 9/11 hijackers ‘was invited to the Pentagon for lunch after attacks’
State Department Admits: Detroit Christmas Bomber Was Deliberately Allowed to Keep US Entry Visa, Board His Flight
Everything About Nidal Malik Hasan Screams “Patsy”
Bombshell Eyewitness Revelations: Confirmed FBI Cover-Up Of Flight 253 Attack
Geraldo Schools O’Reilly: Recent Domestic Terror Plots ‘Bogus’

Agents Told to Reduce Border Arrests

An Arizona sheriff says U.S. Border Patrol officials have repeatedly told him they have been ordered to reduce -- at times even stop -- arrests of illegal immigrants caught trying to cross the U.S. border.

Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever told FoxNews.com that a supervisor with the U.S. Border Patrol told him as recently as this month that the federal agency’s office on Arizona's southern border was under orders to keep apprehension numbers down during specific reporting time periods.

“The senior supervisor agent is telling me about how their mission is now to scare people back,” Dever said in an interview with FoxNews.com. “He said, ‘I had to go back to my guys and tell them not to catch anybody, that their job is to chase people away. … They were not to catch anyone, arrest anyone. Their job was to set up posture, to intimidate people, to get them to go back.”

Dever said his recent conversation with the Border Patrol supervisor was the latest in a series of communications on the subject that he has had with various federal agents over the last two years. Dever said he plans to relay the substance of these conversations when he testifies under oath next month before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

“I will raise my hand to tell the truth and swear to God, and nothing is more serious or important than that,” he said. “I’m going to tell them that, here’s what I hear and see every day: I had conversation with agent A, B, C, D and this is what they told me.”

 

Dever’s charges were vigorously denied by a commander with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“The claim that Border Patrol supervisors have been instructed to underreport or manipulate our statistics is unequivocally false,” Jeffery Self, commander of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Joint Field Command in Arizona, said in a written statement.

“I took an oath that I take very seriously, and I find it insulting that anyone, especially a fellow law enforcement officer, would imply that we would put the protection of the American public and security of our nation’s borders in danger just for a numbers game," he said. "Our mission does not waiver based on political climate, and it never will. To suggest that we are ambiguous in enforcing our laws belittles the work of more than 6,000 CBP employees in Arizona who dedicate their lives to protect our borders every day.”

In recent days, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said the U.S.-Mexican border is more secure than ever, and Homeland Security officials have used recent statistics to support those claims.

"There is a perception that the border is worse now than it ever has been," Napolitano said at the El Paso border crossing last week. "That is wrong. The border is better now than it ever has been."

Dever doesn’t agree.

“Janet Napolitano says the border is more secure than it’s ever been. I’ve been here for 60 years, and I’m telling you that’s not true,” he said.

The sheriff of Santa Cruz County, which borders Dever’s Cochise County to the west, said, “This is news to me,” when asked about reports that border agents were being told to turn illegal immigrants back to Mexico rather than arrest them.

“It comes as a complete surprise that that would be something that’s going around,” Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada said. “I meet with Dever all the time and I have great respect for him, so I expect he’d come forward and say what he knows and give the source.

“Not knowing who the source is, how reliable that source is, I really don’t have much of a position,” Estrada said. “I’ve been around a real long time and haven’t heard anything like this. By the same token, you learn new things every day.”

Both sheriffs are elected officials. Dever is a Republican, Estrada, a Democrat.

Others have questioned the methodology and conclusions of the Homeland Security numbers showing the border is more secure.

American servicewomen encouraged to wear headscarves in Afghanistan

In an effort to get closer to the local population, American female soldiers stationed in Afghanistan are being encouraged to wear a Muslim headscarf when interacting with civilians. But some question whether the practice constitutes cultural sensitivity or a form of appeasement that is degrading to U.S. soldiers.
Major Kyndra Rotunda, executive director of the Military Law and Policy Institute and AMVETS Legal Clinic at Chapman University, told The Daily Caller that while the women are not being ordered to wear the head scarf, encouragement is tantamount to a demand.
“They say they are encouraging women to wear the headscarf when they are out and about and on patrol. But the problem is — and I think anyone who has been in the military understands that being encouraged to do something is about the same thing as being ordered — it really puts them in an uncomfortable position when their commander says, ‘We really want you to do this, technically you don’t have to, but we really want you to do this,’” she said.
Lt. Col. Michael Lawhorn, a U.S. Central Command spokesman, stressed to TheDC that while commanders are encouraging American women to wear headscarves while engaging with civilians, they are not having them wear the headscarf in lieu of their kevlar helmets.
“Nobody is saying, ‘Okay as we head out onto this dangerous street, you wear a hijab instead of your kevlar helmet,’” Lawhorn said. “As women are on some of these engagement teams and they are going to go into places where are going to predominantly be dealing with other women, like giving them medical information or finding out their concerns are in the local community. Local commanders are encouraging them — not demanding, but encouraging — if they feel more comfortable — ‘Feel free to wear a headscarf.’”
Rotunda remained unconvinced, telling TheDC that helmets are always the preferred head wear among soldiers.
“Even if it is outreach, you never know what to expect. You really should be wearing your kevlar helmet, it is a safety issue,” she said.
Retired Col. Martha McSally, whose grievance about being forced to wear the Muslim abaya while stationed in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s resulted in 2002 legislation outlawing the practice of making female soldiers wear Muslim religious garb in Saudi Arabia, told The Daily Caller that the sanctity of the uniform should not be sullied with outside accessories like the hijab.
“Another thing that makes this inappropriate is that they are wearing it with their uniform,” she said. “All the services have several-hundred-page regulations about what is appropriate and is not appropriate to wear with the uniform, and we have very strict guidelines … You are representing the United States government. You are wearing the U.S. military uniform, and it confuses what you are representing when you add this to the uniform.”
In mid-February one of the sponsors of the 2002 legislation that outlawed the practice of making female soldiers in Saudi Arabia wear the abaya, Rhode Island Democratic Rep. James Langevin, wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates requesting more information about soldiers in headscarves.
“I understand the mission in Afghanistan is drastically different than the situation our female troops faced in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 10 years ago,” Langevin wrote. “However I am interested to know the precise policies or operating instructions that are currently being employed with regard to the garments worn by female service members in Afghanistan and other Muslim nations.”
Langevin continues to wait for a response.
Female service members are not the only ones concerned. Retired Navy SEAL Scott Taylor told TheDC that he has been troubled by reports of women wearing the headscarves with their uniforms.
“I am completely oppose appeasement to a culture rather than respecting it,” Taylor wrote in an email. “My personal Middle Eastern experience in a very conservative country has taught me that Muslims can feel respected without submitting to an impersonation of their culture. There is little or nothing gained by an American woman in a Hijab, in what is deemed by some as cultural sensitivity. Women in Female Engagement Teams can successfully complete their stated mission without utilization of the Hijab. Encouraging (which coming from leaders is basically an order within the military) this approach is against what the American soldier in uniform stands for. Soldiers operating covertly are a different story.”
Colonel Martha McSally is hopeful that the experience she had in Saudi Arabia being forced to wear the abaya will not be repeated in Afghanistan with the hijab.
“I am a civilian now, I retired from the Air Force, these things will not apply to me, so there is no personal connection in that sense. But as an American and someone who went through this with the abaya … I feel on principle, for the same reason the abaya was wrong, this is wrong,” she said. “It is important to be sensitive to the local culture in any mission, and understand the culture but this is not about shaking with your left hand or showing the bottom of your feet … this symbolizes that women have a lower status than men.”
Major Rotunda is hopeful that Congress will get involved to ensure that female soldiers are no longer pressured to comply.
“It is clearly within Congress’s realm to pass another provision like what they passed in 2002,” she said. “If the military on its own doesn’t stop this nonsense.”


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/31/dont-forget-your-hijab-soldier-american-servicewomen-encouraged-to-wear-headscarves-in-afghanistan/#ixzz1IdzbMZxC

Metal books found in cave in Jordan could change our view of the Bible

By Fiona Macrae

For scholars of faith and history, it is a treasure trove too precious for price.
This ancient collection of 70 tiny books, their lead pages bound with wire, could unlock some of the secrets of the earliest days of Christianity.
Academics are divided as to their authenticity but say that if verified, they could prove as pivotal as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947.

Lines of inquiry: The metal tablets could change our understanding of the Bible

On pages not much bigger than a credit card, are images, symbols and words that appear to refer to the Messiah and, possibly even, to the Crucifixion and Resurrection.
Adding to the intrigue, many of the books are sealed, prompting academics to speculate they are actually the lost collection of codices mentioned in the Bible’s Book Of Revelation.

 

More...

• Mind-boggling discovery: Perfectly preserved brain of Iron Age man unearthed in York
• Why haven't you called? Mars rover fails to phone Earth in over a year and now Nasa fears it is lost for ever
• End of the road for Discovery as Nasa turns an engineering miracle into a museum piece

The books were discovered five years ago in a cave in a remote part of Jordan to which Christian refugees are known to have fled after the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. Important documents from the same period have previously been found there.
Initial metallurgical tests indicate that some of the books could date from the first century AD.

Revelation: Experts speculate that the tablets could be the lost collection of codices referred to in the Bible's Book Of Revelation

Hidden meaning: Scrolls, tablets and other artifacts, including an incense bowl, were also found at the same site as the tablets

SHEPHERD'S DISCOVERY THAT UNEARTHED A TREASURE TROVE

The Dead Sea Scrolls, counted among the most important archaeological finds of the modern era, were discovered in a cave (pictured) by a Bedouin shepherd in the West Bank.
The scrolls consist of 30,000 separate fragments making up 900 manuscripts of biblical texts and religious writings from the time of Jesus.
The fragile parchment and papyrus fragments have been the subject of intense study for more than half a century by an international team of scholars who are still trying to understand the significance of some 30 per cent of the texts which are not included in the Bible or any other previously known religious writings.
The scrolls include the earliest known copy of the Ten Commandments, an almost complete Book of Isaiah and many of the Psalms.
Some of the texts were damaged by well-intentioned restoration attempts since the 1950s that included the use of Sellotape, rice paper and perspex glue.

This estimate is based on the form of corrosion which has taken place, which experts believe would be impossible to achieve artificially.
If the dating is verified, the books would be among the earliest Christian documents, predating the writings of St Paul.
The prospect that they could contain contemporary accounts of the final years of Jesus’s life has excited scholars – although their enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that experts have previously been fooled by sophisticated fakes.
David Elkington, a British scholar of ancient religious history and archeology, and one of the few to have examined the books, says they could be ‘the major discovery of Christian history’.
‘It is a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church,’ he said.
But the mysteries between their ancient pages are not the books’ only riddle. Today, their whereabouts are also something of a mystery. After their discovery by a Jordanian Bedouin, the hoard was subsequently acquired by an Israeli Bedouin, who is said to have illegally smuggled them across the border into Israel, where they remain.
However, the Jordanian Government is now working at the highest levels to repatriate and safeguard the collection. Philip Davies, emeritus professor of biblical studies at Sheffield University, said there was powerful evidence that the books have a Christian origin in plates cast into a picture map of the holy city of Jerusalem.

A 16th century painting depicting Jesus's death. The metal books contain pages with images, symbols and words that appear to refer to the Messiah and, possibly even, to the Crucifixion

X marks the spot: The cave in Jordan where the artifacts were discovered

Dr Margaret Barker, a former president of the Society for Old Testament Study, confirmed that a sealed book is mentioned in the Bible

‘As soon as I saw that, I was dumbstruck,’ he said. ‘That struck me as so obviously a Christian image. There is a cross in the foreground, and behind it is what has to be the tomb [of Jesus], a small building with an opening, and behind that the walls of the city.
‘There are walls depicted on other pages of these books too and they almost certainly refer to Jerusalem. It is a Christian crucifixion taking place outside the city walls.’
The British team leading the work on the discovery fears that the present Israeli ‘keeper’ may be looking to sell some of the books on to the black market, or worse – destroy them.
But the man who holds the books denies the charge and claims they have been in his family for 100 years.
Dr Margaret Barker, a former president of the Society for Old Testament Study, said: ‘The Book of Revelation tells of a sealed book that was opened only by the Messiah.
‘Other texts from the period tell of sealed books of wisdom and of a secret tradition passed on by Jesus to his closest disciples. That is the context for this discovery.’

Groundbreaking find: A section of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were unearthed in 1947

Professor Davies said: ‘The possibility of a Hebrew-Christian origin is certainly suggested by the imagery and, if so, these codices are likely to bring dramatic new light to our understanding of a very significant but so far little understood period of history.’
Mr Elkington, who is leading British efforts to have the books returned to Jordan, said: ‘It is vital that the collection can be recovered intact and secured in the best possible circumstances, both for the benefit of its owners and for a potentially fascinated international audience.’
*British scientists have uncovered up to eight million mummified dogs, thought to have been sacrificed to Anubis, the god of the dead, 2500 years ago after excavating tunnels in the ancient Eygptian city of Saqqara.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1371290/70-metal-books-Jordan-cave-change-view-Biblical-history.html#ixzz1IdwA3HQM

U.S. brigade murdered and mutilated innocent Afghan civilians - and kept their body parts as trophies

By Daniel Bates and Mark Duell
Shocking new details emerged today of how American soldiers formed a 'death squad' to randomly murder Afghan civilians and mutilate their corpses.
An investigation by Rolling Stone magazine details how senior officers failed to stop troops killing Afghans and keeping their body parts as trophies.
In one horrific episode, the magazine claims troops chopped off a dead Afghan boy's finger and later used it as 'gambling chip' in a game of cards.
The disturbing detail included in the dossier accuses American troops of a new level of depravity and is likely to be a public relations disaster for the military.

Dead: Afghans are tied to a post in one of the many images published by Rolling Stone from the 'Kill Team'

Photo: Jeremy Morlock, right, poses with David Bram with weapons that they have taken from dead Afghans

The investigation by Rolling Stone also revealed how:

• Troops shot dead civilians and tried to cover their tracks;
• U.S. soldiers hacked off part of a dead man's skull;
• Soldiers cheered as they filmed a U.S. airstrike blowing up two Afghan civilians;
• A video showed two Afghans on a motorcycle being gunned down.

The magazine claims the men hacked off bits of skull from their victims and kept them as trophies of their kills.
The soldiers are also accused of opening fire on civilians for no reason and covering up their attacks by planting guns and magazine on their victims.

The magazine claims that amongst the accused 'killing innocent Afghan civilians became less a reason for concern than a cause for celebration’. 

Last week Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 23, admitted his part in the twisted scheme and was jailed for 24 years.
The remaining four soldiers who are due to be court-martialled are Sergeant Calvin Gibbs - who is accused of being the ringleader - Specialist Adam C. Winfield, Specialist Michael S. Wagnon II and Private first class Andrew H. Holmes.
They were all part of the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, of the 2nd Infantry Division, who carried out at least four executions in Kandahar province between January and May last year.

Horror: A released video shows an incident in which two Afghans on a motorcycle are gunned down

Heart of darkness: Video shows American troops seeking out Afghan civilians who were killed 'for sport'

 

The young farmer killed for fun before his finger was used in a card game

The Rolling Stone article describes in lurid detail how American troops allegedly killed an Afghan boy before mutilating his corpse.
Soldiers Jeremy Morlock and Andrew Holmes had spotted a young farmer working by himself on January 15 2010 in the Afghan village of La Mohammed Kalay.
Gul Mudin, 15 - only four years younger than Holmes - was the only Afghan in sight, had no weapons on him and had a ‘welcoming’ face. Nobody else was around.
Gul walked towards them when called and stopped when asked. Morlock tossed a grenade at him, using the wall as cover, then both soldiers opened fire.
Gul fell face down into the ground and there was soon a pool of blood coming out from his head.
Morlock screamed over the radio that he had come under attack, but Adam Winfield told his fellow soldier Ashton Moore that it was more likely a staged killing.
Morlock and Holmes told a sergeant that Gul had been about to attack them with a grenade and they therefore had to shoot him, reported the magazine.
The story of a lone Taliban fighter, with one grenade attempting to ambush a platoon in broad daylight, seemed unlikely to top officer Captain Patrick Mitchell.
But he told Staff Sergeant Kris Sprague to ‘make sure’ Gul was dead. Sprague fired his rifle twice at the boy.
A local elder working nearby in the poppy fields came over and accused Morlock and Holmes of murder, but he was ignored by the soldiers.
This elder was asked to identify the boy, but it tragically turned out that he was his dad. ‘The father was very upset,’ an official Army report noted.
The soldiers followed Army protocol of cutting off the dead boy’s clothes and stripping him naked to check for tattoos, before scanning his iris and fingerprints.
But then they began taking photographs of them celebrating the kill, with Holmes posing for the camera by grabbing Gul’s head by the hair as if he was a deer.
Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs then started ‘messing around with the kid’, moving his arms and mouth like a puppet, before slicing off the dead boy's finger and giving it to Holmes.
Holmes took the finger around with him in a zip-lock bag. 'He wanted to keep the finger forever and wanted to dry it out,' one of his friends said. 'He was proud of his finger.'
A few hours after the killing, Holmes and Morlock were playing cards and said they would bet a finger in a game of spades, before tossing Gul’s onto the pile.
Medic Alyssa Reilly told investigators: ‘It was gross’.

According to Rolling Stone the men joked for weeks about killing ‘savages’ before finally murdering a boy of around 15 in a farming village, their first kill.
To cover their tracks they threw a grenade in his direction to make it look like they had come under attack.
But with his body on the floor events took an even more sinister turn as Gibbs allegedly started ‘messing around with the kid', moving his arms and mouth and ‘acting like the kid was talking'.
He then supposedly took a pair of medic’s scissors and snipped off the boy’s pinky finger and handed it to Holmes as a trophy for his first kill in Afghanistan.
Rolling Stone claims Holmes carried it around in a zip-lock bag.
‘He wanted to keep the finger forever and wanted to dry it out,’ a friend said later. ‘He was proud of his finger.’
Later that night Morlock and Holmes were playing a game of cards and, when it came time for their wager, they supposedly said they would bet the finger.
A female medic who was watching walked away in disgust.
In a separate incident in November 2009, Gibbs began playing with a pair of scissors near the hands of a dead insurgent killed by a helicopter, after the body was stabbed with a knife by another solider.
'I wonder if these (scissors) can cut off a finger?' Gibbs asked.
In another incident on a night in January 2010 the platoon was driving near their forward operating base and spotted a human heat signature on the roadside through their thermal imaging equipment.
Soldiers stopped nearby and went up to the man, who held his arms in front of his chest – which meant to them that he was either cold or hiding a suicide bomb vest.
He paced back and forth, ignoring their calls, and was ‘acting strange’ as the soliders fired warning shots around him. He then started walking towards them.
Someone yelled ‘fire’ and the soldiers shot around 40 rounds in a few seconds. The man turned out to be unarmed and either deaf or mentally disabled, according to official statements.
Soldier Michael Wagnon collected a piece of the skull and kept it as a trophy, but commanding officer Captain Matthew Quiggle ‘strongly believed’ they had illegitimately killed a local national.
The platoon then tried to cover up the shooting by pretending to find a weapon – which was actually a black AK-47 magazine that had been stowed in a metal box by Sergeant Calvin Gibbs.
‘Basically, what we did was a desperate search to justify killing this guy,’ a private named Justin Stoner Stoner told investigators. ‘But in reality he was just some old, deaf, retarded guy. We basically executed this man.’
However the U.S. military still considers the man responsible for his own death because he ignored the platoon’s warnings and moved in their direction.

Gun: Corporal Jeremy Morlock with the pistol found at the scene of a helicopter strike

Gruesome: The photos which sparked the trial were published in Der Spiegel magazine's March 21 issue

The Rolling Stone article talks in detail about how the soldiers felt invincible and emboldened by the lack of policing by their superiors.

Rolling Stone continues Army exposés

The article by Rolling Stone is the latest in a series of damaging exposés by the magazine of the conduct of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Barack Obama fired his top Afghanistan war commander Stanley McChrystal and replaced him with his boss and mentor, David Petraeus, in June 2010, following a Rolling Stone interview.
General McChrystal criticised administration officials, the U.S. President and his advisers in the article.
President Obama claimed General McChrystal's comments were not the reason for his firing - but said his team needed to unite in pressing the war effort.
Mark Boal, the author of the latest Rolling Stone piece, is a well-known journalist, screenwriter and producer.
He won Oscars for his work on The Hurt Locker in 2008, labelled as the 'most insightful Iraq film yet'.

It also details a serious of disturbing videos and pictures of the victims taken by the men - one shows a hand with a missing finger, another depicts a severed head on a stick and others show blown up legs.
In two cases soldiers pose over the bodies of their victims as if they are hunting trophies.
The men also made videos including one which was filmed on Sept 12, 2009.
It shows infra-red camera footage of two Afghans putting what could have been an improvised explosive device in the ground ahead of the soldiers.
Regardless of whether or not it is an IED, filming at such a time is a clear breach of Army rules.
They also edited it down, added a soundtrack and gave it a chilling name - ‘Death Zone’.
In a further breach of regulations the soldiers videoed themselves in combat in Afghanistan and passed around the footage to each other on USB sticks.

Footage to loud rock music shows the moment two Afghans were blown up by an air strike

The videos were filmed by by U.S. soldiers, who videoed themselves in combat in Afghanistan and passed around the footage to each other

The footage was published by Rolling Stone magazine in its coverage of the five American soldiers accused of being part of a 'Kill Squad' which murdered innocent Afghan civilians for sport

Special report: The article on the 'Kill Team' appears in this issue of Rolling Stone Magazine, with Rihanna on the front cover

Rolling Stone has for the first time published the videos which were supposedly passed around by the men of 5th Stryker Combat Brigade as they carried out their executions in Kandahar province.
In the first clip the men can clearly be heard joking: ‘They’re going to f****** die’ and ‘You don’t f*** with us’. As the airstrike starts so does the song ‘En Vie’ by Apocalyptica, a cello rock band from Helsinki.

One of the men is killed instantly but the second runs off and is caught by another volley of explosions - as the men whoop and cheer ‘F*** yeah!’

A title card called ‘Aftermath’ comes on screen followed by close-up colour images of the men’s bloodied bodies with horrific close-ups on their injuries.

The credits then roll explaining how ‘Shadow PLT’ was behind the picture and that a Sergeant Michael Schweitzer did the editing.
According to Rolling Stone the men would pass the gruesome videos around on USB sticks and hard drives.
They would file them on their personal computers alongside clips of TV shows, Ultimate Fighting fights and films such as Iron Man 2.

Second clip: The video is less disturbing than the first but it still shows a total disregard for combat rules

A second video released by the magazine shows a separate incident in which two Afghans on a motorcycle are gunned down.
Although not apparently as disturbing as the first, it nonetheless shows a total disregard for combat rules.
‘Even if the killings were part of a legitimate combat engagement it is a clear violation of Army standards to share such footage,’ Rolling Stone says.
‘The video was taken on patrol with a helmet-mounted camera; at one point, the soldier shooting the images can be heard boasting: "I got it all on camera".'
The U.S. Army has been keen to paint the men involved as if they were working alone but the article claims that internal records show the ‘Kill team’ was ‘operating out in the open, in ‘plain view of the rest of the company’.
‘Far from being clandestine, as the Pentagon has implied, the murders of civilians were common knowledge among the unit and understood to be illegal by "pretty much the whole platoon",' it says.

Specialist Jeremy Morlock, left, has already admitted his part in the scheme and was jailed for 24 years - with Andrew Holmes, centre, and Adam Winfield, right, among four others to be court-martialed at a later date

The revelations have been a PR disaster for the U.S. Army and is the most serious prosecution of alleged U.S. military atrocities during 10 years of war in Afghanistan. The existence of the photos and videos, among dozens seized as evidence by investigators and ordered sealed from public view by the Army, has drawn comparisons with pictures of Iraqi prisoners taken by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004. The Pentagon desperately tried to suppress the photos, with General Stanley McChrystal and President Hamid Karzai briefed on the photos as early as last May. The military attempted to pull the pictures out of circulation to avoid a scandal similar to Abu Ghraib, so investigators in Afghanistan confiscated computers and told soldiers to delete provocative images. The Army Criminal Investigation Command meanwhile toured the U.S. to the homes of soldiers and their relatives to gather as many copies of the files as possible. The remaining four soldiers who are due to be court-martialed are Sergeant Calvin Gibbs - who is accused of being the ringleader - Specialist Adam C. Winfield, Specialist Michael S. Wagnon II and Private first class Andrew H. Holmes.
Seven other members of the combat unit were charged with lesser crimes during the investigation, which grew out of a probe into hashish abuse by American GIs. Four of those men already have pleaded guilty and been sentenced.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370758/Shocking-video-shows-U-S-troops-cheering-airstrike-blows-Afghan-civilians.html#ixzz1Hvk473md