Tag: Taiwan Strait

Spy ships and Pine Gap

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Spy ships and Pine Gap

Peter Cronau, the author of a forthcoming book on Pine Gap, told The Saturday Paper that the facility’s primary function has expanded “from its early focus on passive surveillance gathering, such as collecting military communications, diplomatic traffic and mobile phone calls. It now plays a vital part in active war-fighting, such as providing targeting information for use by lethal drones, invasion forces and aerial bombing missions.”

He said the first hard evidence confirming Pine Gap’s additional role was found in secret US National Security Agency documents about Pine Gap, leaked by the American whistleblower Edward Snowden. In new research for his book, Cronau says he has found Pine Gap’s role in boosting US war-fighting capabilities is intensifying. He says there has been a rapid expansion in the capability of the US-built and -funded base, with the construction during the past year of four new satellite antennas covered by radomes. Preparations are under way for a massive new antenna that he says would amount to five new ones in a little over a year, making it the fastest period of expansion for the base, to a total of 41 satellite antennas. Cronau says three of the new antennas are designed to download data from powerful new-generation satellites that will collect information from distant war zones.

Pentagon whistle-blower under US govt probe for publishing op-eds at Global Times

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Pentagon whistle-blower under US govt probe for publishing op-eds at Global Times

Related:

In May 2007, amid a U.S. troop surge in Iraq, Wired magazine published a piece titled “Military Dragged Feet on Bomb-Proof Vehicles.” The article unleashed a whirlwind of controversy that led to congressional hearings and, ultimately, hundreds of millions of dollars for lifesaving equipment.

The exposé didn’t mention Gayl, but he had leaked a key document to Wired. As a science adviser to the Marine Corps, he had recently returned from a stint in Iraq, where he had seen signs the military had delayed the rollout of much-needed armored vehicles known as MRAPs. Gayl briefed the staffs of Sens. Biden and Kit Bond (R-Mo.), who both later praised him as a “hero.”

…

Gayl claims he didn’t receive any blowback over the first op-ed, but that changed after he wrote another claiming “China-averse special interests” in the United States were “othering” or trying to “dehumanize” the Chinese in preparation for a war.

Op-eds in a Chinese state tabloid slammed U.S. policy. The author works at the Pentagon.

Why US will lose a war with China over Taiwan island

The United States Is a Serial Nuclear Aggressor Whose Moral Bankruptcy Threatens World Peace

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

The United States Is a Serial Nuclear Aggressor Whose Moral Bankruptcy Threatens World Peace

Now at the age of 90, Daniel Ellsberg has dropped another media bombshell – that the Pentagon was ready to attack China and its major cities with nuclear weapons in 1958. The details were published by the New York Times. But it is perturbing that the shocking revelations barely caused a ripple in the U.S. media. There were no editorials condemning the plan which indicates a complacency among the U.S. media bordering on acquiescence towards such criminal action. This complacency is deeply alarming given the present dangers of war stemming from Washington’s provocations towards China and Russia.

Tanks and Think Tanks: How Taiwanese Cash is Funding the Push to War with China

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Twenty years ago, a group of neoconservative think tanks used their power to push for disastrous wars in the Middle East. Now, a new set of think tanks staffed with many of the same experts and funded by Taiwanese money is working hard to convince Americans that there is a new existential threat: China.

Tanks and Think Tanks: How Taiwanese Cash is Funding the Push to War with China