Tuesday, May 13th
Last update07:11:01 AM GMT
Military Glance
After more than a year in space, the U.S. Air Force's secretive robotic space plane, the X-37B, is coming down soon.
The space plane now circling Earth is the second spacecraft of its kind built for the Air Force by Boeing’s Phantom Works. What payload the X-37B is carrying is classified, and the mission is being carried out by the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office.
Let's make one thing crystal clear, no member of the US military contributes in any way whatsoever to protecting the freedoms of the American people. As a matter of fact, they are more likely to turn their weapons on you than they are to defend your Constitutional rights.
The only people on this planet Earth who can affect your freedom are members of Congress, local legislatures and the members of enforcement institutions who will blindly follow the rulers who sign their paychecks. And, while your beloved troops are murdering people around the globe, yes, I said murdering, your Congress and local legislators are eliminating your freedoms, en mass, without any intervention by our so-called protectors in the armed forces.
America's newest veterans are filing for disability benefits at a historic rate, claiming to be the most medically and mentally troubled generation of former troops the nation has ever seen.
A staggering 45 percent of the 1.6 million veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are now seeking compensation for injuries they say are service-related. That is more than double the estimate of 21 percent who filed such claims after the Gulf War in the early 1990s, top government officials told The Associated Press.
About 18 veterans kill themselves each day. Thousands from the current wars have already done so. In fact, the number of U.S. soldiers who have died by their own hand is now estimated to be greater than the number (6,460) who have died in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Eleven years of war in two operating theaters have taken a severe toll on America’s military. An estimated 2.3 million Americans have served in Iraq or Afghanistan, and 800,000 of those service members have been deployed multiple times.
Vast numbers of counterfeit Chinese electronic parts are being used in US military equipment, a key Senate committee has reported. A year-long probe found 1,800 cases of fake parts in US military aircraft, the Senate Armed Services Committee said.
More than 70% of an estimated one million suspect parts were traced back to China, the report said. It blamed weaknesses in the US supply chain, and China's failure to curb the counterfeit market.
It all started with Mike Partain, a.k.a. Number One. A barrel-chested father of four with a goatee and a predilection for aviator sunglasses, Partain was born at Camp Lejeune, the North Carolina base where his father, a first lieutenant in the US Marine Corps, was stationed in the late 1960s. Now he lives in Tallahassee, Florida, where he makes his living as an insurance claims adjuster.
Five years ago Partain's wife noticed a grape-size bump next to his right nipple. "I thought it was from an ingrown hair or something. I blew it off," he recalls. But a couple of weeks later he decided to get it checked out.
"Expansion of this authority is necessary to permit DOD to conduct revenue-generating commercial activities to protect such operations and would provide an important safeguard for U.S. military forces conducting hazardous operations abroad," the request for legislation says. It was first reported by my colleagues at Inside Defense.
On top of DIA's inexperience in running such ops, there is the basic question of why they need to do this and how they would coordinate with their colleagues at CIA, questions certainly not answered by the legislative proposal.
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