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Questions the Media Haven’t Been Asking about Flight MH370

By Doug E. Steil | Aletho News | March 19, 2014

By now, many people following the reports of Flight MH370, the missing Malaysian aircraft, are becoming very suspicious of a cover-up, almost as if though there is no genuine interest in locating the plane, yet going through the superficial motions of at least attempting to do so. Though some officially released information should be considered reliable because elaborate recovery efforts by numerous countries depend on it, for instance the two arcs showing possible 40° locations of the last “ping” with a satellite in geostationary orbit (which would exclude the possibility of the plane having been diverted, say, to the Diego Garcia military base or a variety of other places that have been mentioned), what seems more interesting is the information nobody mentions and the media appear too afraid to ask. For example:

* Why haven’t the corresponding data for previous possible “ping” locations been publicly released, thus constraining the area of the aircraft’s possible location, hence allowing more focus on prioritized search areas?

* Who were those lucky people who had booked that particular flight but did not board (according to initial reports some of them even checked in their luggage) and why has there been no public information about them?

More than seven years ago, in 2006, a publication by the name of Homeland Security News Wire, whose editor in chief studied at Tel Aviv University, ran a brief story about Boeing’s Uninterruptible Auto Pilot System. In the wake of the still missing Boeing 777 aircraft, another publication ran a story, which stated in part:

Perhaps the most unsettling information in regards to the missing Boeing 777 comes from retired 35 year Delta pilot, Field McConnell, who states that since 1995, Boeing Uninterruptible Auto Pilots have been equipped in Boeing planes. This information was apparently not released until March of 2007, following a subsequent lawsuit by McConnell. The modification was reported to the FAA, NTSB and ALPA (airline pilots association). According to McConnell’s documents, Boeing is said to have stated that by end of 2009 all Boeing planes would be fitted with the BUAP – making them impossible to manually hijack within the plane but susceptible to remote control by the military, according the flight veteran.

At least one organization, Voice of Russia, bothered to interview the retired pilot, mentioned above, on this particular topic, but it is obviously not deemed to be sufficiently relevant for general public consumption, as though it were yet another taboo subject, just too “hot” to address.

Aside from such issues as an unauthorized intruder with malicious intent being able to hack the airplane’s avionics and communications system with external piloting commands that override those of the pilots inside the cockpit, the alleged ubiquity of such an autopilot system raises other questions that ought to be addressed; here are just eight:

* Is it only a nation’s military that is authorized to activate the system in an emergency situation?

* Would multiple military organizations be involved in the case of an actual on-board hijacking, say, over Europe?

* Could the military of Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and perhaps even Indonesia and India have been in the loop about the situation involving Flight MH370?

* Would those authorized to intervene be able to actively supersede the malicious commands of an unauthorized commandeering attempt?

* Wouldn’t it make more sense for the airline operating the aircraft to be primarily responsible, through a 24-hour command center on stand-by, with the military of the countries the aircraft is flying over or near at any particular moment?

* Who would be in charge, say, of an aircraft from a European airline flying over international waters far away, on the other side of the world?

* Could the central command in the case of such rare emergencies that require 24-hour stand-by have been contractually delegated to a private security company to deal with, simply for the sake of expediency or cost, just as the security operations at many airports have been delegated to Israeli-run companies?

* Does the software for these remote autopilot systems get customized or at least regularly updated to fix or at least patch up known or possible security leaks?

March 19, 2014 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | 9 Comments

UK to spend $6.5 bln on military drones

Voice of Russia | January 19, 2014

Britain announced its plans to spend more than $6.5 billion to purchase 657 military drones, the Sunday People reports. It includes 10 Reaper MQ-9s, which are armed with Hellfire ­missiles plus laser-guided 500lb bombs and can hover 20,000ft above targets for more than 20 hours.

According to the publication, Reapers could be operated 3,500 miles away from Afghanistan’s warzones by a two-man crew. Yet, most of the drones will be unarmed and constructed for spy or fly recce missions.

A Freedom of Information request found the biggest number of UK drones are the 324 Black Hornet Nano micro-helicopters, ­only four inches long and an inch wide (100x25mm). They fly over insurgent ­strongholds to film and take pictures. Then there are 222 Desert Hawks, plastic spy-drones with a 4ft 3in ­wingspan (1.3m).

For tougher operations, 54 Watchkeepers can stay aloft for 17 hours. Nine more are due in service soon to ­replace ­ageing Hermes 450s. By ­contrast 30 Tarantula Hawks weigh just 20lbs apiece and are used as recce aides by bomb-disposal teams in Afghanistan.

Lastly there are eight ScanEagles, a specialist drone being used in the ­campaign against Somali pirates.

Drones are likely to make up a third of all RAF working aircraft by 2030 but human rights groups fear they could be used to spy on the innocent public.

Although using unmanned aircraft in military operations is criticized by many people all over the world, the UK keeps on saying that drones are an effective weapon and should be used more in the foreseeable future.

Despite critics’ claims that drones often kill civilians, the UK says that only one civilian was killed as a result of 459 missile strikes from its unmanned Reaper aircraft in Afghanistan.

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January 20, 2014 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Is the US really going to withdraw from Afghanistan?

By Boris Volkhonsky | The Voice of Russia | August 27, 2012

On Sunday, as reported by Reuters, a senior US logistics commander in charge of transferring excess non-military equipment to Afghan forces Brigadier-General Steven Shapiro rejected accusations from front line combat troops that the complicated rollback from bases across Afghanistan was disrupting NATO-led operations against insurgents.

He said that around 400 bases had been already successfully closed or handed to Afghan security forces from a high of around 800 last October as part of a withdrawal of foreign troops from combat operations winding up in 2014.

The story goes on to say that the pullout of more than $60 billion worth of war-fighting equipment from Afghanistan is expected to be one of the most complicated logistical exercises in recent history, much more difficult than the pullout from Iraq.

By September the US administration is planning to cut the number of the US troops by 28,000 servicemen, which is regarded as a major PR action ahead of November presidential elections.

All this hardly makes the US servicemen remaining in Afghanistan too happy.

“It’s a nightmare. We barely have enough guys to cover our area, let alone get ready to pack up,” a US officer recently told Reuters in volatile eastern Kunar province.

Indeed, the whole situation poses too many questions, for most of which there are no ready answers.

First, the only visible result of the already started pullout process is the increasing number of defections among Afghan military and security force, and correspondingly – a growing number of insider (so called “green-on-blue”) attacks by people clad in Afghan uniform on NATO soldiers.

The diminishing number of Western troops is likely to encourage Afghans trained and equipped by their mentors to turn the arms, even more frequently, against their former patrons.

Second, all military – combat and non-combat – equipment has been accumulated in Afghanistan for more than two years. Now the task is to withdraw it in less than two years. The task itself seems unrealistic, especially with the strained relationship between the US and Pakistan – the only country capable of providing the shortest way for the pullout.

Despite the fact that recently Pakistan agreed to reopen the southern supply route for NATO forces in Afghanistan, even the present Pakistani leadership is under constant pressure from the society and political parties in order to reassess the relationship with the US. And taking into consideration that no later than 2013 the current leadership is more than likely to lose power, the prospects for a much more anti-American forces leadership to prevail is more than real. This will definitely pose additional difficulties for the NATO command.

This leaves few options open. One of them is using the northern route via Central Asia and Russia, which is much more expensive and not likely to make most of the transit countries happy. The other implies leaving most of the equipment at the Afghans’ disposal. But this variant is fraught with the risks that the equipment and arms will be used by those very forces the US is taking so much pain to fight.

Taking all these factors into consideration, one may easily come to a conclusion that whatever is explicitly said about the US plans concerning Afghanistan hardly reflects the truth.

And the truth is that the 400 bases allegedly “closed or handed to Afghan security forces” are small combat outposts and observation positions of minor importance. The big ones, like Shindand air base in Herat province (in close vicinity to Iran), or Kandahar and Bagram air bases remain basically untouched. And there is all reason to believe that the highly publicized pullout does not concern these major installations which play a crucial role in the US strategy of establishing its dominance in the “Greater Middle East” enabling American military to control a vast territory far beyond Afghanistan.

This also explains why both contenders in the US presidential race keep mum on the issue of Afghanistan. In reality, neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney is going to fulfill Obama’s imprudent promise to withdraw from Afghanistan. However unpopular the war might be, the role of the global gendarme is much more important than the public opinion.

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August 28, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment