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9/23/2005

White House Military Office Searches Operation SEASPRAY

The White House Military Office user (host: marcus.whmo.mil, ip: 214.3.140.16) conducted the following Google search: seaspray cia.

This Cryptogon page is the top result for that search as of 2pm PST 9/23/05.



Today in DC: Commandos in the Streets? :.

Via Ran. Bush is going to hole-up inside the mountain (U.S. NORTHCOM). And .mil is running some kind of classified operation inside DC. Has a Continuity of Government plan been executed?

Today, somewhere in the DC metropolitan area, the military is conducting a highly classified Granite Shadow "demonstration."

Granite Shadow is yet another new Top Secret and compartmented operation related to the military's extra-legal powers regarding weapons of mass destruction. It allows for emergency military operations in the United States without civilian supervision or control.



Pseudo Operations and Counterinsurgency: Lessons from Other Countries :.

Special thanks to an anonymous author in the forum for this one. The document was found on the Blackwater USA website. Blackwater is a large private military contractor (mercenary organization):
Pseudo operations, in which government forces and guerrilla defectors portray themselves as insurgent units, have been a very successful technique used in several counterinsurgency campaigns. Pseudo teams have provided critical human intelligence and other support to these operations.

These operations, although of considerable value, also have raised a number of concerns. Their use in offensive missions and psychological operations campaigns has, at times, been counterproductive. In general, their main value has been as human intelligence collectors, particularly for long-term background intelligence or for identifying guerrilla groups that then are assaulted by conventional forces. Care must be taken in running these operations both to avoid going too far in acting like guerrillas, and in resisting becoming involved in human rights abuses.
And for those of us following the El Salvador/CENTCOM story:
More recently, the Salvadorans used pseudo teams for intelligence collection during their civil war.
Related: Two British SAS Soldiers Dressed as Arabs, Shoot at Iraqi Police



U.K. Police State: Girl Arrested Over Bollocks to Blair Shirt :.

A girl was arrested for wearing her "Bollocks to Blair" T-shirt at the Midlands Game Fair last weekend. Charlotte Denis, 20, a gamekeeper from Gloucestershire, was stopped by police as she left the Countryside Alliance stand because of the "offensive" slogan.


9/22/2005

Basra Attack Echoes SAS Actions in Northern Ireland :.

Sinister covert operations by British forces in Iraq are "reminscent of the activities of the SAS" in the North, a leading human rights campaigner said last night.

Paul O'Connor, of the Derry-based Pat Finucane Centre (PFC), .... was speaking to Daily Ireland after further details emerged about an incident in Basra on Monday afternoon involving undercover British operatives.

The incident drew parallels with the March 1988 attack on the funeral of IRA volunteer Caoimhghin Mac Bradaigh.

During that incident, two armed and undercover army intelligence operatives drove directly at the cortege in west Belfast. After firing a shot, both soldiers were subsequently captured, beaten and shot dead by the IRA.


Research Credit: Anonymous Forum User



Deadly Plague Hits World of Warcraft :.

The genetic engineers out there could learn a valuable lesson in unforseen consequences from this:

To give these powerful characters more of a challenge, Blizzard regularly introduces new places to explore in the online world.

In the last week, it added the Zul'Gurub dungeon which gave players a chance to confront and kill the fearsome Hakkar - the god of Blood.

In his death throes Hakkar hits foes with a "corrupted blood" infection that can instantly kill weaker characters.

The infection was only supposed to affect those in the immediate vicinity of Hakkar's corpse but some players found a way to transfer it to other areas of the game by infecting an in-game virtual pet with it.

This pet was then unleashed in the orc capital city of Ogrimmar and proved hugely effective as the Corrupted Blood plague spread from player to player.


Research Credit: Ran Prieur



Recurring El Salvador Theme at Centcom.mil :.

They like that model, for some reason.

Related: U.S. Central Command Hits Cryptogon



Rita and Katrina Have Shut 23% of U.S. Oil Refining Capacity :.

Live it up... while you can:

Hurricanes Rita and Katrina have shut more than 23 percent of total U.S. oil refining capacity of 17.1 million barrels per day.


9/21/2005

GOLD TOPS $475 IN AFTER-HOURS :.

There is potential here for Rita to deliver a refinery-related kill shot to the economy. I wonder if people are exiting to gold at these levels because of that threat...



Hurricane Rita Becomes Category 5 :.

Hurricane Rita strengthened into a Category 5 storm as it moved across the Gulf of Mexico toward Texas and Louisiana, surpassing the power Katrina had when it swept ashore three weeks ago and became the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.



U.S. Joint Forces Command Google Search

The U.S. Joint Forces Command user (host: uhqpx2.jfcom.mil, ip: 137.246.104.101) conducted the following Google search: sean gorman. The user was interested in this Cryptogon post.



"Rita Is Developing Into Our Worst-Case Scenario" :.

"Rita is developing into our worst-case scenario," said John Kilduff, vice president of risk management at Fimat USA in New York. "This is headed right into our other major refining center just after all the damage done to facilities in Louisiana. From an energy perspective it doesn't get any worse than this."



EU Executive Unveils Plan to Store Electronic Data :.

The EU wants its own ECHELON:

The European Commission adopted proposals on Wednesday to log details of all telephone, Internet and e-mail traffic to combat terror and serious crime, throwing down the gauntlet to European Union member states who are negotiating a rival plan.



Britain to Use Military as Armed Police :.

How about being bold and arresting Tony Blair?

The military could be hired by chief constables to work as temporary armed police, Britain's top policeman has suggested.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair called on officers to be "bold" and consider a range of radical changes to police pay and working practices.

Sir Ian's proposals on using soldiers as firearms officers are hugely controversial after the mistaken shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes in July.

"Could we bring staff directly in from the armed forces, give them a small amount of basic training and then clear instructions as to their firearms duties," he said.



Pentagon Nixes 9/11 Hearing Testimony :.

Shocker:

The Department of Defense forbade a military intelligence officer to testify Wednesday about the work of a secret military unit that identified four 9/11 hijackers more than a year before the Sept. 11 terrorists attacks, according to the man's attorney.

In written testimony prepared for the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, attorney Mark Zaid, who represents Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, said the Pentagon also refused to permit testimony there by a defense contractor that he also represents.

The Judiciary Committee was scheduled to hear testimony about the work of a classified unit code named "Able Danger."

In his prepared remarks, Zaid was ready to say on behalf of Shaffer and contractor John Smith that Able Danger, using data mining techniques, identified four of the terrorists who struck on Sept. 11, 2001 - including mastermind Mohamed Atta.

"At least one chart, and possibly more, featured a photograph of Mohamed Atta," Zaid said in his prepared remarks.

Maj. Paul Swiergosz, a Defense Department spokesman, said Wednesday that open testimony would not be appropriate.

"We have expressed our security concerns and believe it is simply not possible to discuss Able Danger in any great detail in any public forum," he said.

Swiergosz said no individuals were singled out not to testify.

"There's nothing more to say than that," Swiergosz said. "It's not possible to discuss the Able Danger program because there are security concerns."

On three occasions, Able Danger personnel attempted to provide the FBI with information, but Department of Defense attorneys stopped them because of legal concerns about military-run investigations on U.S. soil, Zaid said in his prepared remarks, encouraging the panel to locate a legal memorandum that he said Defense Department attorneys used to justify stopping the meetings.


Research Credit: GS



Rita, Now Category 4 :.

She's going to rip right through the already Katrina-battered Gulf of Mexico energy infrastructure. Check The Oil Drum for energy related developments.


9/20/2005

Confirmation: SAS Op :.

It's either a Phoenix-type program, or the acme of skill. Take your pick. If you don't get the acme of skill part, read Jeff's post about this again:

AN SAS team used the noise of armoured vehicles bulldozing their way through a nearby police compound to mask the raid that freed their comrades.

The rescuers, from the same squad as the captives, blew out the doors and windows of the smart suburban villa with plastic explosive and hurled stun grenades at the militiamen guarding the two undercover soldiers.

A short, intense burst of automatic gunfire was heard before the men were freed and their captors were seen being dragged away, hoods over their heads and their hands tied behind their backs.

Neighbours said the entire operation took only a couple of minutes while attention was focused a hundred yards away on the army's invasion of the main Jamiat police compound.


More: Forum Discussion



Tons of British Aid Donated to Help Katrina Victims to be Burned :.

HUNDREDS of tons of British food aid shipped to America for starving Hurricane Katrina survivors is to be burned.

US red tape is stopping it from reaching hungry evacuees.

Instead tons of the badly needed Nato ration packs, the same as those eaten by British troops in Iraq, has been condemned as unfit for human consumption.

And unless the bureaucratic mess is cleared up soon it could be sent for incineration.



Carry on Killing :.

These hard men, likely SAS ops, must have had some stories to tell, otherwise tanks would not have negotiated their way through the prison walls of Britain's reputed hosts so soon after their capture.

Walking into the untidied mess of this astonishing and grotesque and predictable story feels a bit like the British detective catching the killer red-handed: "Well well well, what have we here?" We have long had reason to suspect imperial instigation to Iraq's sectarian violence, but here, as clearly as we've ever seen it, is the provocateur state revealed: two British "undercover soldiers" in Arab dress, caught firing upon police from a car laden with explosives. And the British government all but admitting its culpability by breaking them out of prison.

It doesn't make sense? Only if you haven't been paying attention. This is the subtext of the Iraq tragedy: blow up the Hajis and play the Sunnis on the Shias; create the chaos that introduces the conditions necessary for the long-game, and the long-held aspirations of the neoconservatives to divide Iraq into ethnographic bantustans.



Wanted: Psychopaths to Play the Stock Market :.

This also applies to CEOs and politicians:

...now a study by a group of eminent American academics suggests that star performers on the stock market... could best be described as "functioning psychopaths".

Research Credit: GS



Katrina Corpses Get 'Chipped' :.

A company that makes ID chips for humans said Friday it has started "chipping" corpses in the Katrina-ravaged region of Mississippi to help expedite the identification process.

Florida-based VeriChip said it has already implanted radio frequency identification (RFID) tags into 100 corpses in the state for the Mississippi State Department of Health.

The company, which is a subsidiary of publicly traded Applied Digital Solutions, said it is also in talks with Louisiana health authorities, though no agreement has been reached.

"These bodies are in an advanced stage of decomposition," said John Procter, VeriChip's director of communications. "Many of them have no identification marks, no wallets, no IDs. In some cases a toe tag is not even viable."

Mr. Procter said the procedure costs $200 to tag each corpse, though the company is providing the service for free.



Iraqi Prison Stormed by British Tanks and Helicopters :.

The clusterf*ck of the day goes to the U.K.:

British forces in tanks and helicopters stormed an Iraqi jail tonight to rescue two service personnel who were arrested after allegedly shooting dead a local policeman and wounding another, the governor of Basra said.

The two men had been taken to the Basra jail after violence erupted earlier today in the southern Iraqi city.



Two Britons Held in Iraq for Firing at Police :.

WTF?

Angry crowds attacked a British tank with petrol bombs and rocks in Basra on Monday after Iraqi authorities detained two British undercover soldiers in the southern city for firing on police.

Reuters photographs showed a British soldier engulfed by flames as he scrambled out of a burning tank.

Two Iraqis were killed in the violence, an Interior Ministry official said.

"We can confirm that a shooting incident involving U.K. military personnel has taken place which is currently being investigated," a British military spokesman said in a statement.

"Two U.K. military personnel have been detained and we are liaising with the Iraqi authorities on this matter."

An Iraqi official in Basra said the British military had informed him the detained men were undercover soldiers.

"They were driving a civilian car and were dressed in civilian clothes when a shooting took place between them and Iraqi patrols," the official told Reuters.

"We are investigating and an Iraqi judge is on the case questioning them."

Reuters photographs showed one of the two detained men with a bandage on his head. Police and Interior Ministry officials said the men were wearing traditional Arab headdresses for their undercover mission.

Mohammed al-Abadi, an official in the Basra governorate, said the two men looked suspicious to police.

"A policeman approached them and then one of these guys fired at him. Then the police managed to capture them," Abadi told reporters.

"They refused to say what their mission was. They said they were British soldiers and (suggested) to ask their commander about their mission," he added.


9/19/2005

Energy Gaps Up on Rita :.

Crude oil and gasoline jumped, as natural gas surged to an all-time high, on forecasts that Tropical Storm Rita will strengthen into a hurricane and impede efforts to restore production in the Gulf of Mexico.



How About That Gold!? :.

Gold rose in New York for a fourth straight session, extending a rally to a 17-year high, as a surge in energy costs renewed concern the pace of inflation is accelerating.

Related: Kitco.com




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