“Now, you can also use this to enhance the experience,” the VirTra rep continues, fastening a thick, black device around his waist. The “threat-fire belt,” he explains, issues an electric shock to the trainee if he or she is hit by the imaginary bullet of a virtual assailant, who might appear anywhere on the semicircular screen. “If you get hit in the back, trust me, you’ll remember it. This one will bring you to your knees. The whole idea is to fight through the pain, and keep on going, just the way that you’ve been trained.”
Interviews with Carl Webb and Michael Scheuer
Saturday, between 4 and 6PM ET, Scott Horton will be interviewing Carl Webb, who’s heroically protesting the US government’s attempts to send him back to Iraq through the so-called “Stop Loss Program” and Michael Scheuer, former CIA analyst and author of “Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror.”
Listen live on the Republic Broadcasting Network.
Space Superiority
Space war game improves joint warfighting capability
“The phrase “space war game” lends a notion that the game is focused on a
military fight in space, but that is not the case, game officials said.
“Our focus is how best to use space assets to coordinate the joint
terrestrial fight,” General Darnell said.
The war game aims to ensure the United States maintains its ultimate
high ground — space superiority, officials said.”
Portland Weighs FBI Pact, Privacy Concerns
The heroic city of Portland, Oregon may drop out of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. They’re “worried that the task force could lead to illicit surveillance of local citizens”, as NPR puts it.
Also, check any of these stories. They’re definitely not on board the Bush bandwagon up in Portland. What can they possibly be thinking?
Baghdad turnout < 50%?
Knight Ridder’s Tom Lasseter reports some Iraqi election returns:
In final results released Friday for local elections in Baghdad, a city with large Sunni neighborhoods, Shiite cleric-led parties posted large numbers and Sunni tickets gathered relatively few votes.
The local ticket backed by the Shiite Dawa party got 694,800 votes; the ticket backed by the Shiite Supreme Council for Revolution in Iraq got 264,130 votes; and another Shiite group received 156,229 votes.
The slate headed by elder Sunni statesman Adnan Pachachi received just 22,170 votes; and the Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni party in Iraq, got 17,558.
That would mean that in a city of approximately 5 million, 1,154,887 voted. If we assume 2.5 million were eligible to vote, that would mean the turnout in Baghdad was less than 50%.
Iran: Next Target of US Military Aggression
Iran: Next Target of US Military Aggression
Selected articles and essays
Michel Chossudovsky, Editor
Global Research E-Monograph and Reports Series, No. 3, February 2005
PREFACE
The Bush administration has officially identified Iran and Syria as the next stage of “the road map to war”.
Targeting Iran is a bipartisan project, which broadly serves the interests of the Anglo-American oil conglomerates, the Wall Street financial establishment and the military-industrial complex.
The broader Middle East-Central Asian region encompasses more than 70% of the World’s reserves of oil and natural gas. Iraq possesses 11% of the world’s oil and ranks only second to Saudi Arabia in the size of its reserves
The announcement to target Iran should come as no surprise. Already during the Clinton administration, US Central Command (USCENTCOM) had formulated “in war theater plans” to invade both Iraq and Iran:
“The broad national security interests and objectives expressed in the President’s National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Chairman’s National Military Strategy (NMS) form the foundation of the United States Central Command’s theater strategy. The NSS directs implementation of a strategy of dual containment of the rogue states of Iraq and Iran as long as those states pose a threat to U.S. interests, to other states in the region, and to their own citizens. Dual containment is designed to maintain the balance of power in the region without depending on either Iraq or Iran. USCENTCOM’s theater strategy is interest-based and threat-focused. The purpose of U.S. engagement, as espoused in the NSS, is to protect the United States’ vital interest in the region – uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil.
(USCENTCOM, http://www.milnet.com/milnet/pentagon/centcom/chap1/stratgic.htm#USPolicy , emphasis added)
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