----------- Dopuna: 17 Dec 2011 15:59[/b] ---------
Prema rezultatima najnovijih ispitivanja, u SAD siromaštvo je u porastu i sve veći broj porodica teškom mukom obezbjeđuje dnevne obroke.
Sve više gladnih u Americi
Rezultati ispitivanja "Američke konferencije gradoonačelnika 2011" o gladi i beskućništvu ukazuje na to da samo u četiri od 29 gradova u kojima je obavljeno ispitivanje nije prijavljen porast zahtjeva za pomoć u hrani u periodu između septembra 2010. godine i avgusta 2011. godine.
Polovina od ovog broja su porodični ljudi, dok je 26 odsto u radnom odnosu. Starije osobe čine 19 odsto, dok su preostalih 11 odsto beskućnici.
Ovo je posljednje u nizu ispitivanja koja ukazuju na obim štete koju je nanijela recesija u periodu od 2007. do 2009. godine.
Iako je silazna putanja ekonomije okončana prije dvije i po godine, oporavak je spor i domaćinstva se bore sa kućnim budžetom dok je stopa nezaposlenosti visokih 8,6 odsto.
Oko 24,4 odsto Amerikanaca nije zaposleno ili radi honorarne poslove, a zaposlenost je za 6,3 miliona ispod nivoa zabilježenog u decembru 2007. godine kada je počela recesija.
----------- Dopuna: 17 Dec 2011 16:34[/b] ---------
Apparently Iran had blinded a US spy satellite!
Exclusive: Iran hijacked US drone, says Iranian engineer
– CSMonitor.com
In an exclusive interview, an engineer working to unlock the secrets of the captured RQ-170 Sentinel says they exploited a known vulnerability and tricked the US drone into landing in Iran.
Temp Headline Image
This photo released on Thursday, Dec. 8, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, claims to show US RQ-170 Sentinel drone which Tehran says its forces downed last week, as the chief of the aerospace division of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, right, listens to an unidentified colonel, in an undisclosed location within Iran.
(Sepahnews/AP)
By Scott Peterson, Staff writer, Payam Faramarzi*, Correspondent
posted December 15, 2011 at 11:41 am EST
Istanbul, Turkey
Iran guided the CIA‘s “lost” stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone’s systems inside Iran.
Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone’s stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety.
Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone’s GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan.
IN PICTURES: America’s Predator drones
“The GPS navigation is the weakest point,” the Iranian engineer told the Monitor, giving the most detailed description yet published of Iran’s “electronic ambush” of the highly classified US drone. “By putting noise [jamming] on the communications, you force the bird into autopilot. This is where the bird loses its brain.”
The “spoofing” technique that the Iranians used – which took into account precise landing altitudes, as well as latitudinal and longitudinal data – made the drone “land on its own where we wanted it to, without having to (zabranjeno) the remote-control signals and communications” from the US control center, says the engineer.
The revelations about Iran’s apparent electronic prowess come as the US, Israel, and some European nations appear to be engaged in an ever-widening covert war with Iran, which has seen assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, explosions at Iran’s missile and industrial facilities, and the Stuxnet computer virus that set back Iran’s nuclear program.
Now this engineer’s account of how Iran took over one of America’s most sophisticated drones suggests Tehran has found a way to hit back. The techniques were developed from reverse-engineering several less sophisticated American drones captured or shot down in recent years, the engineer says, and by taking advantage of weak, easily manipulated GPS signals, which calculate location and speed from multiple satellites.
RECOMMENDED: Downed US drone: How Iran caught the ‘beast’
Western military experts and a number of published papers on GPS spoofing indicate that the scenario described by the Iranian engineer is plausible.
“Even modern combat-grade GPS [is] very susceptible” to manipulation, says former US Navy electronic warfare specialist Robert Densmore, adding that it is “certainly possible” to recalibrate the GPS on a drone so that it flies on a different course. “I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but the technology is there.”
In 2009, Iran-backed Shiite militants in Iraq were found to have downloaded live, unencrypted video streams from American Predator drones with inexpensive, off-the-shelf software. But Iran’s apparent ability now to actually take control of a drone is far more significant.
Iran asserted its ability to do this in September, as pressure mounted over its nuclear program.
Gen. Moharam Gholizadeh, the deputy for electronic warfare at the air defense headquarters of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), described to Fars News how Iran could alter the path of a GPS-guided missile – a tactic more easily applied to a slower-moving drone.
“We have a project on hand that is one step ahead of jamming, meaning ‘deception’ of the aggressive systems,” said Gholizadeh, such that “we can define our own desired information for it so the path of the missile would change to our desired destination.”
Gholizadeh said that “all the movements of these [enemy drones]” were being watched, and “obstructing” their work was “always on our agenda.”
That interview has since been pulled from Fars’ Persian-language website. And last month, the relatively young Gholizadeh died of a heart attack, which some Iranian news sites called suspicious – suggesting the electronic warfare expert may have been a casualty in the covert war against Iran.
Iran’s growing electronic capabilities
Iranian lawmakers say the drone capture is a “great epic” and claim to be “in the final steps of breaking into the aircraft’s secret code.”
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told Fox News on Dec. 13 that the US will “absolutely” continue the drone campaign over Iran, looking for evidence of any nuclear weapons work. But the stakes are higher for such surveillance, now that Iran can apparently disrupt the work of US drones.
US officials skeptical of Iran’s capabilities blame a malfunction, but so far can’t explain how Iran acquired the drone intact. One American analyst ridiculed Iran’s capability, telling Defense News that the loss was “like dropping a Ferrari into an ox-cart technology culture.”
Yet Iran’s claims to the contrary resonate more in light of new details about how it brought down the drone – and other markers that signal growing electronic expertise.
A former senior Iranian official who asked not to be named said: “There are a lot of human resources in Iran…. Iran is not like Pakistan.”
“Technologically, our distance from the Americans, the Zionists, and other advanced countries is not so far to make the downing of this plane seem like a dream for us … but it could be amazing for others,” deputy IRGC commander Gen. Hossein Salami said this week.
According to a European intelligence source, Iran shocked Western intelligence agencies in a previously unreported incident that took place sometime in the past two years, when it managed to “blind” a CIA spy satellite by “aiming a laser burst quite accurately.”
More recently, Iran was able to hack Google security certificates, says the engineer. In September, the Google accounts of 300,000 Iranians were made accessible by hackers. The targeted company said “circumstantial evidence” pointed to a “state-driven attack” coming from Iran, meant to snoop on users.
(zabranjeno)ing the protected GPS coordinates on the Sentinel drone was no more difficult, asserts the engineer.
US knew of GPS systems’ vulnerability
Use of drones has become more risky as adversaries like Iran hone countermeasures. The US military has reportedly been aware of vulnerabilities with pirating unencrypted drone data streams since the Bosnia campaign in the mid-1990s.
Top US officials said in 2009 that they were working to encrypt all drone data streams in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan – after finding militant laptops loaded with days’ worth of data in Iraq – and acknowledged that they were “subject to listening and exploitation.”
Perhaps as easily exploited are the GPS navigational systems upon which so much of the modern military depends.
“GPS signals are weak and can be easily outpunched [overridden] by poorly controlled signals from television towers, devices such as laptops and MP3 players, or even mobile satellite services,” Andrew Dempster, a professor from the University of New South Wales School of Surveying and Spatial Information Systems, told a March conference on GPS vulnerability in Australia.
“This is not only a significant hazard for military, industrial, and civilian transport and communication systems, but criminals have worked out how they can jam GPS,” he says.
The US military has sought for years to fortify or find alternatives to the GPS system of satellites, which are used for both military and civilian purposes. In 2003, a “Vulnerability Assessment Team” at Los Alamos National Laboratory published research explaining how weak GPS signals were easily overwhelmed with a stronger local signal.
“A more pernicious attack involves feeding the GPS receiver fake GPS signals so that it believes it is located somewhere in space and time that it is not,” reads the Los Alamos report. “In a sophisticated spoofing attack, the adversary would send a false signal reporting the moving target’s true position and then gradually walk the target to a false position.”
The vulnerability remains unresolved, and a paper presented at a Chicago communications security conference in October laid out parameters for successful spoofing of both civilian and military GPS units to allow a “seamless takeover” of drones or other targets.
To “better cope with hostile electronic attacks,” the US Air Force in late September awarded two $47 million contracts to develop a “navigation warfare” system to replace GPS on aircraft and missiles, according to the Defense Update website.
Official US data on GPS describes “the ongoing GPS modernization program” for the Air Force, which “will enhance the jam resistance of the military GPS service, making it more robust.”
Why the drone’s underbelly was damaged
Iran’s drone-watching project began in 2007, says the Iranian engineer, and then was stepped up and became public in 2009 – the same year that the RQ-170 was first deployed in Afghanistan with what were then state-of-the-art surveillance systems.
In January, Iran said it had shot down two conventional (nonstealth) drones, and in July, Iran showed Russian experts several US drones – including one that had been watching over the underground uranium enrichment facility at Fordo, near the holy city of Qom.
In capturing the stealth drone this month at Kashmar, 140 miles inside northeast Iran, the Islamic Republic appears to have learned from two years of close observation.
Iran displayed the drone on state-run TV last week, with a dent in the left wing and the undercarriage and landing gear hidden by anti-American banners.
The Iranian engineer explains why: “If you look at the location where we made it land and the bird’s home base, they both have [almost] the same altitude,” says the Iranian engineer. “There was a problem [of a few meters] with the exact altitude so the bird’s underbelly was damaged in landing; that’s why it was covered in the broadcast footage.”
Prior to the disappearance of the stealth drone earlier this month, Iran’s electronic warfare capabilities were largely unknown – and often dismissed.
“We all feel drunk [with happiness] now,” says the Iranian engineer. “Have you ever had a new laptop? Imagine that excitement multiplied many-fold.” When the Revolutionary Guard first recovered the drone, they were aware it might be rigged to self-destruct, but they “were so excited they could not stay away.”
* Scott Peterson, the Monitor’s Middle East correspondent, wrote this story with an Iranian journalist who publishes under the pen name Payam Faramarzi and cannot be further identified for security reasons.
As reported early November in DMI, the Russian supplied the Iranian Air defense forces with the Avtobaza 1L222 ELINT + Jammer moblie systems. Unlike the well known Czech Vera and Ukranian Kalchuga, the Kvant Avtobaza is unique due to its co-integrated Jammer. While the passive receivers operate in the 8-18GHz bands over ranges up to 150km.The RQ-170 telemetry band is presumably ECCM capable C-band (0.5-1GHz),However the covert drone was relaying imagery over the Ku band satellites. This could have been the signal which alerted the Avtobaza.
The Dead Drone sketch
By Pepe Escobar THE ROVING EYE
(Hats off, of course, to Monty Python)
A group of journalists attend a United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) press conference in a nondescript room in Langley, Virginia.
Journalist 1 [approaching the podium]: Excuse me, I wish to register a complaint.
[CIA spokesman/spook does not respond.]
Journalist 1: 'Ello, Miss?
CIA spook: What do you mean "miss"? I'm no Victoria Nuland, buddy.
Journalist 1: I'm sorry, I thought this was the State Department. I wish to make a complaint.
CIA spook: We're closin' for now, gotta move forward with our shadow war in Iran.
Journalist 1: Precisely. I wish to complain about this spy drone of yours that disappeared this week in eastern Iran.
CIA spook: Oh yes, the, uh, the RQ-170 ... And your information is incorrect, that was in western Afghanistan. What's, uh ... What's wrong with it?
Journalist 1: I'll tell ya what's wrong with it, buddy. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it.
CIA spook: No, no, it's uh ... it's resting.
Journalist 1: In the freaking Iranian desert? Look, buddy, we all know a dead drone when we see one, and I'm looking at one - in Iran - right now.
CIA spook: No, no, it's not dead, it's ... it's restin'! Remarkable drone, the RQ-170, ain't it? Beautiful radar-evading piece of technology, right? Can't tell you more about it because it's classified.
Journalist 1: "Classified" doesn't cut it. It's stone dead.
CIA spook: Nononono, no, no! It's resting!
Journalist 1: All right then, if it's restin', I'll wake it up! [Shouting at a joystick] 'Ello, Mister Dodo Drone! I've got a lovely fresh IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps] target for you if you just show ...
[CIA spook hits the joystick]
CIA spook: There, it beeped!
Journalist 1: No, it didn't, that was you hitting the remote control!
CIA spook: I never!!
Journalist 1: Yes, you did!
CIA spook: I never, never did anything ...
Journalist 1: [Yelling and hitting the joystick repeatedly] 'Ello!!!!! Dronie Boy! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is the god damned CIA calling!
[Thumps joystick on the CIA spook's lectern. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.]
Journalist 1: Now that's what I call a dead drone.
CIA spook: No, no ... No, it's stunned!
Journalist 1: STUNNED?!?
CIA spook: Yeah! You stunned it, just as it was wakin' up! RQ-170s stun easily.
Journalist 1: Um ... now look, buddy, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That drone is definitely deceased, and when you guys issued a press statement a while ago, you assured us all that its total lack of movement was due to it bein' tired because of its prolonged secret mission.
CIA spook: There is no indication, I repeat, no indication, that Iran shot it down.
Journalist 1: But you're missing a drone. It was on a secret mission. It crash-landed in Iran. And Iran says they shot the bloody thing down.
CIA spook: Well, it's ... it's, ah ... it probably thought it was in the Nevada desert.
Journalist 1: NEVADA DESERT?!?!?!? What kind of crap is that? Look, why did it fall flat on its back in Iran, of all places? By now the Revolutionary Guards must be throwing a party to the Russians, the Chinese, the Pakistanis, the North Koreans for God's sake, so everyone can rip your technology apart, for a price ...
CIA spook: The RQ-170 prefers keepin' on its back! Hey, remarkable drone! Lovely tech features, radar evasion, portable ...
Journalist 1: Look, the IRNA news agency took the liberty of examining that drone after it crash-landed, they discovered that, yes, it was nailed to the soil of eastern Iran.
[Pause]
CIA spook: Well, o'course we nailed it over there! If we hadn't nailed that drone down, it would have flown away and VOOM! Feeweeweewee!
Journalist 1: "VOOM"?!? Buddy, this drone wouldn't "voom" if you sent the Navy SEALS Team Six to give it an electric shock. It's bleedin' demised!
CIA spook: No no! It's a trick! It's a top-secret counter-insurgency trick to fool the enemy!
Journalist 1: It's not a bloody trick! It's passed on! This drone is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its industrial-military complex maker! It's a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace in a Shi'ite paradise! Its metabolic processes are now history! It's off the twig! It's kicked the bucket, it's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-DRONE!!
[Pause]
CIA spook: Well, we'd better replace it, then. (he takes a quick peek behind the lectern). Sorry sir, I talked to our boss, General David Petraeus and uh, we're right out of secret drones.
Journalist 1: I see. I see, I get the picture.
CIA spook: We got loads of bunker-buster bombs though.
[Pause]
Journalist 1: Do they spy?
CIA spook: Nnnnot really.
Journalist 1: WELL THAT'S HARDLY A BLOODY REPLACEMENT, AIN'T THAT RIGHT?!!???!!?
CIA spook: N-no, I guess not. [Acts stiff, looks at his feet]
Journalist 1: Well.
[Pause]
CIA spook: [Quietly] D'you ... d'you want to go visit the Pentagon and take a peek at their ... contingency plans?
Journalist 1: [Looks around] Yeah, all right, sure.
E sad ozbiljno,našao sam neke podatke vezane za Program modernizacije Iranskih PVO sistema pa da postavim ,da krenem redom;
Iranci su objavili da su domaći strućnjaci modernizovali SA-6 kub,ali ustvari modernizaciju su radili Rusi i paketu sa modernizacijom je išla i nabavka SA-17 projektila ,navodi se da je čitav posao odradjen izmedju 2007-2009.
spec.
1. MTI- A new digital Moving Target Indicator installed, replacing the old Analog system
2. ID System- Introduction of a classification system, differentiating between aircraft, cruise missiles, and helicopters.
3. RF Amplifiers- new solid-state, replacing vacuum tube units
4. CW Illumination- The radar now has 6-12 different frequencies to use when tracking a target, making it harder to jam.
5. Reaction Time- Reduced to less than 30 seconds
6. Integration- Capable of being linked with more advanced radars than before
Ghaader protiv brodska kr.raketa, domet 220km
Iran to Unveil New Submarine
TEHRAN (FNA)- Sources revealed on Wednesday that Iran is building a new semi-heavy submarine equipped with highly advanced weapons.
The submarine called 'Fateh' (Victor) weighs 600 tons and is equipped with various types of advanced defense systems and weapons, including several kinds of torpedoes and sea mines.
According to FNA sources, Fateh which will launch operation for the Iranian Navy in coming weeks will be tasked with patrolling Iran's territorial waters and protecting the country's interests in the high seas and international waters.
The submarine can dive to the depth of 200m and continue voyage for 5 weeks.
The vessel has been fully designed and manufactured by Iranian experts and enjoys state of the art technologies.
Late last month, Deputy Commander of the Iranian Navy for Research and Self-sufficiency Jihad Capitan Mansour Maqsoudlou announced that the Iranian Navy has a major development plan, dubbed as Velayat (religious leadership), and said manufacturing vessels and submarines of different class and type is on the agenda of the Navy based on the plan.
Iran's Navy Commander Habibollah Sayyari announced in July that an Iranian submarine, called 'Younes', had completed an inaugural mission in the Southern Indian Ocean and the Red Sea.
Also, Iranian Navy Deputy Commander Rear Admiral Seyed Mahmoud Moussavi announced in mid June that the country plans to equip its Navy with new types of home-made submarines as part of its naval units renovation plan.
"The new submarines, built by the committed Iranian experts, will join the naval combat fleet," after being tested during upcoming military exercises, he said.
The drills will test the capabilities and efficiencies of the new submarines, he further explained.
Rear Admiral Moussavi went on to say that the country's naval force seeks to diversify the maneuvers in order to enhance its defense potential.
To achieve this aim, Iran's Navy is ready to hold joint drills with neighboring countries, he pointed out.
Tehran launched an arms development program during the 1980-88 Iraqi imposed war on Iran, to compensate for a US weapons embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and fighter planes.
Yet, Iranian officials have always stressed that the country's military and arms programs serve defensive purposes and should not be perceived as a threat to any other country.
Last August Iran launched four light and advanced submarines. The Ghadir-class submarines, made by the Defense Ministry's Marine Industries, officially joined Iran's naval fleet in an official ceremony attended by Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi and Commander of the Army's Navy Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari.
Iran announced in June 2009 that a home-made submarine, named Ghadir 948, had joined the naval brigade of the first naval zone.
In November 2009, Iran announced that its first domestically built Ghadir class submarine launched operation.
The Iranian military said that the submarine can easily evade detection as it is equipped with sonar-evading technology and can fire missiles and torpedoes simultaneously.
Имам једно питање пошто су успели да оборе дата линк RQ-170 да ли би могли истом технологио да оборе и дата линк авиона и да они дају команде пилотима и одведу и у неки добро покривен део ваздушног простора и неку сачекушу????
Eksperimentisao je Džek Nortrop sa letećim krilima paralelno sa braćom Horten još pre rata - ovo je npr prototip iz 1941. (Ho-229 je napravljen tek pred kraj 2. sv. rata).
Citat:Iran recently unveiled underground silos that can carry missiles capable of hitting Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf as it kicked off 10 days of war games, the country's latest show of military force amid a standoff with the West over its disputed nuclear program.
State TV broadcast footage of deep underground silos, claiming that medium- and long-range missiles stored in them are ready to launch in case of an attack on Iran. The silos are widely viewed as a strategic asset for Iran in the event of any attack on its nuclear facilities.
Col. Asghar Qelichkhani, a spokesman for the war games, said the silos "function as a swift-reaction unit."
"Missiles, which are permanently in the vertical position, are ready to hit the pre-determined targets," he was quoted as saying by state TV.
An officer in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which is in charge of the missile program, said Tehran has constructed "numerous" underground missile silos which satellites can't detect. He did not elaborate.
The state television report broadcast footage of underground launching pads for the Shahab-3 missile, which have a range of more than 2,000 kilometres, putting Israel, U.S. bases in the Gulf region and parts of southeastern and eastern Europe within reach.
The report also showed pictures of missiles being fired from one silo after a large metal roof opened to allow the missile to launch. The TV report said the missile silos are linked to a missile control center.
The commander of the Guard's Aerospace Force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, saying that with "these facilities we are certain that we can confront unequal enemies and defend the Islamic Republic of Iran."
Another unidentified Guards officer told state TV that "only few countries in the world possess the technology to construct underground missile silos. The technology required for that is no less complicated than building the missile itself."
Israel, which views Iran's as an existential threat, has accused Tehran of receiving assistance from North Korea in building underground missile sites.
But Col. Qelichkhani said the silos are based on local technology developed by Iranian experts.
Iran conducts several war games every year, as part of its military self-sufficiency program that started in 1992, and frequently unveils new weapons and military systems during the drills.
(Reuters) - Flying drone aircraft over Afghanistan from the comfort of a military base in the United States is much more stressful than it might seem, even for pilots spared the sacrifice of overseas deployment and separation from family and friends.
America's insatiable demand for drone technology is taking a heavy toll on Air Force crews, with just under a third of active duty pilots of drones like the Predator reporting symptoms of burnout and 17 percent showing signs of "clinical distress."
That's when stress starts undermining their performance at work and their family lives.
"Clinical distress takes it to a different level," said Dr. Wayne Chappelle, who co-authored the study, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters. In comparison, about 28 percent of returning U.S. soldiers from Iraq were diagnosed with "clinical distress," the Air Force said.
The Air Force study also turned up a surprise for some top brass - the main source of stress for crews manning the Air Force's drone fleet wasn't firing Hellfire missiles or taking out targets on the battlefield.
Although a small number of pilots were seen at high risk of post-traumatic stress disorder, the biggest factor wearing down drone crews were things like long hours and inadequate staffing, which have pushed the Air Force's 350-odd drone pilots and the crews supporting them to their limits.
"We've kind of been in a surge mode with our remotely piloted aircraft since 2007 in terms of crew ratios that aren't as good as we would like them to be," said Lieutenant General Larry James, the Air Force's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
In 2007, the Air Force was flying just 10 to 15 combat air patrols, known as CAPS in military-speak. That means that at any time there were up to 15 drones in the air peering down at different parts of world, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
That compares to more than 60 CAPS at any given time the Air Force flew this past summer, a temporary surge which the Air Force rolled back to 57 to help relieve some of the stress, James said.
MORE EYES IN THE SKY
Although the United States formally ended the war in Iraq last week and is gradually drawing down in Afghanistan, that doesn't mean demand for drones will decline. Indeed, the opposite appears likely.
"As you lose eyes on the ground, you may want more eyes in the air," James said.
Although combat was not reported to be one of the main "stressers" for any of those surveyed, it had affected some drone crews -- who witnessed, and maybe even participated in, some of the most grizzly aspects of war from afar.
The bulk of what drone crews do is surveillance, monitoring suspects or compounds. But they also sometimes take out targets.
That means pressing a button that can lead to someone's death half a world away, then ending your shift to meet family at, say, a child's soccer practice. The transition can be difficult for soldiers at places like Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.
"We try to select people who are well-adjusted. We select family people. People of good moral standing, background, integrity," said Lieutenant Colonel Kent McDonald, who was also involved with the study.
"And when they have to kill someone, and when they're involved with missions when they're observing people over long periods of time, and then they either kill them or see them killed, it does cause them to re-think aspects of their life and it can be bothersome."
Among the most alarming aspects of the study were the results of one particular category of drone crew - sensor operators for Global Hawk drones.
Thirty-four percent of them reported burnout and 25 percent showed clinical distress, the study found. But Air Force officials blamed this partly on experiences from actual combat in previous, manned missions.
"Unfortunately there were members from the Global Hawk center operator community who were deployed in another capacity and they did experience combat," McDonald said of the survey group. "There were a couple of members lost they were very close to."
TEHRAN – Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr has described relations between Tehran and Cairo as “strategic”, according to the Mehr News agency.
“Egypt’s relations with Iran are strategic, and what is important to us in this regard is Egypt’s interests. Egypt’s relations with Iran or any other country have nothing to do with another country, and it is our interest that determines the form of relationship,” Amr said on Tuesday, according to a translation of his comments.
“Exchange of views between Iran and Egypt on the region and the world continues, particularly given that Iran will assume the presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement after Egypt,” he stated.
On the situation in Syria, the Egyptian foreign minister said that Cairo has adopted a clear stance toward the developments taking place in this Arab country and is opposed to foreign intervention in Syria’s internal affairs.
There are a host of organizations — the United Nations (UN) with its Security Council, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — that are touted as world bodies whose function is to maintain peace, security and stability — financial and nuclear — in the world. The UN and IMF were created around the time of World War II. The UN with the Security Council, was meant to preserve Western domination of global politics; the IMF is the financial arm while the IAEA, established in 1957 is supposed to provide safety and security, promote science and technology and provide safeguards and verification for nuclear material.
The UN, especially the Security Council with five veto-wielding members, is anything but democratic. It is outrageous to suggest that the five permanent members represent the collective wisdom of all humanity. The Security Council is little more than a blunt instrument for Western, primarily US imperialist designs. When the US cannot use the Council to advance its own militaristic agenda, as happened in 2003 vis-à-vis Iraq, then it contemptuously ignores it. And the IMF is used to rob the countries in Asia and Africa of their precious resources by offering financial and fiscal “advice” that is designed to impoverish the inidigenous peoples by having them pay for the resources that are plundered from their societies.
It is, however, to the IAEA workings that we need to turn our attention. In recent years, it has lost whatever little credibility it had by targeting Islamic Iran at the behest of the US and Israel. One need hardly look beyond the agency’s latest report released on November 8 to understand what is afoot. Under its director, Yukiya Amano, the agency has allowed itself to be used to rehash old discredited allegations against Iran to feed the war frenzy of US-Zionist imperialists. Consider this. Using evidence from 2003, the former IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei said there was “no conclusive proof Iran had crossed the weapons threshold”. Yukiya Amano, the new head, says that there is “no conclusive proof that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful” and he “has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program,” without offering any proof. The IAEA report admits that it found no proof of diversion of nuclear material from known activities to non-authorized use but that there may be diversion of “undeclared nuclear materials”. This is not only speculative, it is scandalous. An agency whose mission is to provide nuclear safeguards and verifications should not indulge in this kind of political rhetoric. As Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s representative to the IAEA, said: “The report of the International Atomic Energy Agency is unbalanced, unprofessional and politically motivated.” It was “a repetition of old claims which were proven baseless by Iran in a precise 117-page response.”
Under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is entitled to enrich uranium and member states are obliged to help it in this quest. Instead, the IAEA report indulges in wild speculation, tarnishing the agency’s already failing reputation. In September, the 117 member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) expressed deep concern at Amano’s “departure from standard verification language.” There is also concern among agency staff that Amano is moving away from scientific-based work and turning the agency into a political tool of the West. The same concern was expressed by NAM members at how Amano had uncritically accepted unnamed Western intelligence information on Iran’s nuclear activities. The self-serving nature of such allegations is beyond dispute.
Amano stands exposed unlike any previous head of the agency, as a US puppet. Cables from the US mission in Vienna in July and October 2009 leaked by WikiLeaks also confirm the tight relationship between US diplomats and Amano. And 12 days before the agency released its report, Amano secretly visited the White House to meet National Security Council staff. Why an independent agency’s head would need to confer in secret with US officials when he has no mandate and not offer such courtesy to other members proves his subservience to the US.
Like the UN and IMF, the IAEA is merely a tool of American imperialism. In fact, it has shown itself to be even more obsequious than the other organizations. Amano shares a major part of the blame for this. Or should we say, he must be “credited” with exposing himself for what he is: an American lap dog?
