Tag: Pentagon

ARE THE USA AND THE PENTAGON LIE?

Dr. Abdullah Manaz : The Middle East Expert

The US Administration announced that the last Daesh leader, Hassan al-Qurashi, was killed. Then Daesh made a statement and announced that Hussein al-Qurashi had taken his place.

As an expert on Islamic Organizations around the world, I laugh in pain. To date, there is not a single photograph and credible document regarding the deaths of Daesh leaders who have been announced to have been killed. For example, no credible document was presented regarding the killing of previous leaders Ibrahim al-Qurayshi and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. All 3 leaders blew themselves up when they were surrounded. We saw the same scenario for al-Qaeda leaders. It was stated that Osama bin Laden was killed inside the Pakistan Military Intelligence city. It was announced that Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in the home of a Taliban leader in Kabul.

The most interesting points are:

• The death announcement of Ibrahim al-Qurayshi was after Turkey’s Operation Al-Bab. The Turkish Armed Forces dealt the biggest blow against the Daesh Terrorist Organization. In fact, during this Operation, the USA did not prevent Daesh militants in the east of the Euphrates from attacking the Turkish Army and did not help Turkey.

• The death announcement of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was after Turkey’s Afrin Operation. When Turkey captured many Daesh leaders and published their photos during this period, the United States announced that it was conducting an operation against Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Baghdadi had blown himself up and again there was no body and no photograph.

• Osama bin Laden’s death announcement was made at a time when al-Qaeda was longer collapsing and could not recruit militants. Laden, who lives in the middle of Pakistan Military Intelligence buildings, was told that an operation was carried out and his body was thrown into the sea. There were no bodies, no photographs.

• The death announcement of Ayman al-Zawahiri was made at a time when the USA made an agreement with the Taliban and left Afghanistan. One night, the USA suddenly fled the country, leaving all its modern weapons to the Taliban. Not a single convincing photograph or document has been published regarding the operation to Zawahiri’s home and his death.

In the examples above, there may be those who think that posting death photos is unethical. Such a justification by the USA and the Pentagon is also baseless. Photographs of some leaders who were killed before and whose countries were dragged into civil war took place in the press all over the world.

We know that Osama bin Laden was working for the Saudis and the CIA as the logistics officer of the Afghan resistance. When the Afghan Mujahideen (Hizbi Islami and Community Islami) were successful against the Russians, they began to oppose the United States. This time, the Pentagon, in partnership with Pakistan, organized the Taliban and sent them to Afghanistan. These are historical facts that everyone knows now.

As for the Daesh Terrorist Organization. As an Expert who has spent his life researching on Islamic Organizations, I can say that; Daesh Philosophy was like a studio setup. In history and today, there has never been an Islamist organization that is not hostile to Israel and the United States. An Islamist Organization that considers all other Islamist Organizations and states as enemies has not been heard of until today. The founding leader of the Daesh Terrorist Organization gave religious speeches comfortably in the Iraqi prisons of the USA. Daesh gradually handed over all the lands it seized in Iraq and Syria to the PKK & YPG Terrorist Organizations. The clashes between Daesh and the PKK were purely for show. Daesh had captured the Suweida region in southwestern Syria. Daesh did not fire a single bullet at neighboring Israel, and the Israeli Army did not carry out any operation against Daesh. Many of the Daesh militants were moved to Afghanistan by the US. But Daesh could not strengthen against the Taliban.

I do not want to multiply these examples and prolong the subject. Experts know the details of the subjects well. I have published two books in Turkish and English on the subject of Daesh Terrorist Organization. Again, I wrote two scientific articles on Daesh in Turkish and English. Those who are interested can take a look at them.

I am attaching some new documents and photographs in addition to the scientific research I have given below. These contradict what the US Administration and Pentagon have said.
It is a big mistake for the US administration to leave its ally Turkey alone in the fight against terrorism and to work with terrorist organizations. The US public should see these facts well and investigate the issue well.

Manaz, A. (2020). Daesh Project: Daesh / Deash / ISIS / ISIL Project. Google Books: https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=fMLgDwAAQBAJ

MANAZ, A . (2020). Daesh Terrorist Organization. ASSAM Uluslararası Hakemli Dergi , 7 (16) , 57-78 . Retrieved from

Manaz, Abdullah (2019). Daiş (Deaş/Daeş/Işid) Projesi. Google Kitaplar: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Dr_Abdullah_MANAZ_Daiş_Deaş_Daeş_Işid_Projesi?id=BcyVDwAAQBAJ

Manaz, A. (2019). Sünni Muhalefeti Tasfiye Projesi Olarak Daiş Terör Örgütü. 13. Uluslararası Kamu Yönetimi Sempozyumu, GaziAntep Üniversitesi.

Manaz, A. (2015). The Terrorism in Turkey. Google Books: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Dr_Abdullah_Manaz_Terrorism_in_Turkey?id=dVisCAAAQBAJ

Daesh & PKK & YPG Cooperation in Northern Syria

December 2, 2022
“There Have Been Times When We’ve Sent Teams To Turkey”

U.S. Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff said Turkey and US having intelligence sharing for last five years.

Martin Dempsey, U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that there had been times when U.S. sent teams over to do some planning with Turkey; notably on humanitarian zones, ballistic missile defense and also some of Turkey’s counter terror concerns related to an unstable northeastern Syria and the PKK.

In a press conference, Dempsey said, “Admiral Winnefeld, my vice chairman, just returned back from Turkey and had conversations with his counterpart about those things. We’ve been having an intelligence sharing regime with Turkey for about the last five years, and one of the things we’re looking to do now is learn lessons from the last five years, recognize a different situation on Turkey’s southeastern border and see if there’s other things we could do to assist them, as well as to reduce the threat of ballistic missile attack inside Turkey. So it’s a work in progress, and we go and come as we need to have those consultations.”

Turkey is not only a close bilateral partner, they’re part of our NATO alliance, we offer them to share our expertise and also to learn from their experiences, and sometimes they take our offer and sometimes they don’t, he said.

AA

October 27, 2012
Hackers expose defence and intelligence officials in US and UK

Security breach by ‘hacktivists’ reveals email addresses of 221 British military staff and 242 Nato officials

Ed Pilkington in New York and Richard Norton-Taylor

Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen. More than 200 of his staff have been exposed by Anonymous 'hacktivists'. Photograph: Olivier Hoslet/EPA

Thousands of British email addresses and encrypted passwords, including those of defence, intelligence and police officials as well as politicians and Nato advisers, have been revealed on the internet following a security breach by hackers.

Among the huge database of private information exposed by self-styled “hacktivists” are the details of 221 British military officials and 242 Nato staff. Civil servants working at the heart of the UK government – including several in the Cabinet Office as well as advisers to the Joint Intelligence Organisation, which acts as the prime minister’s eyes and ears on sensitive information – have also been exposed.

The hackers, who are believed to be part of the Anonymous group, gained unauthorised access over Christmas to the account information of Stratfor, a consultancy based in Texas that specialises in foreign affairs and security issues. The database had recorded in spreadsheets the user IDs – usually email addresses – and encrypted passwords of about 850,000 individuals who had subscribed to Stratfor’s website.

Some 75,000 paying subscribers also had their credit card numbers and addresses exposed, including 462 UK accounts.

John Bumgarner, an expert in cyber-security at the US Cyber Consequences Unit, a research body in Washington, has analysed the Stratfor breach for the Guardian. He has identified within the data posted by the hackers the details of hundreds of UK government officials, some of whom work in sensitive areas.

Many of the email addresses are not routinely made public, and the passwords are all encrypted in code that can quickly be cracked using off-the-shelf software.

Among the leaked email addresses are those of 221 Ministry of Defence officials identified by Bumgarner, including army and air force personnel. Details of a much larger group of US military personnel were leaked. The database has some 19,000 email addresses ending in the .mil domain of the US military.

In the US case, Bumgarner has found, 173 individuals deployed in Afghanistan and 170 in Iraq can be identified. Personal data from former vice-president Dan Quayle and former secretary of state Henry Kissinger were also released.

Other UK government departments have been affected: seven officials in the Cabinet Office have had their details exposed, 45 Foreign Office officials, 14 from the Home Office, 67 Scotland Yard and other police officials, and two employees with the royal household.

There are also 23 people listed who work in the houses of parliament, including Jeremy Corbyn, Labour MP for Islington North, Lady Nicholson and Lord Roper. Corbyn said he had been unaware of the breach, adding that although his email address was public he was disturbed by the idea that his password could be cracked and used to delete or write emails in a way that “could be very damaging”.

Nicholson, speaking on a phone from Iraq, said she had no idea that her personal information had been hacked. She said she was very unhappy that private individuals had had their fundamental right to privacy violated. “To expose civil servants is monstrously unfair,” she said. “Officials in sensitive areas like defence and the military could even be exposed to threats. Guarding data like this is extremely difficult, but it’s not impossible, and we should do a great deal more.”

The hacking has had a big impact because Stratfor offers expert analysis of international affairs, including security issues, and attracts subscribers from sensitive government departments.

The British victims include officials with the Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO) responsible for assessing intelligence from all sources, including MI6 secret agents.

A former deputy head of Whitehall’s strategic horizons unit is listed. The unit is part of the JIO based in the Cabinet Officeand was set up four years ago to give early warning of potential serious problems that might have an impact on Britain’s security or environment.

The extent of the security risk posed by the breach is not known. Bumgarner said officials who did not take extra precautions in securing passwords through dual authentication or other protection systems could find email and other databases they use being compromised. “Any foreign intelligence service targeting Britain could find these emails useful in identifying individuals connected to sensitive government activities,” he said.

British officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were aware of the hacking but it did not pose a risk to national security. Passwords for their communications within Whitehall would be different from any used to access the Stratfor sites. Whitehall communications would also be protected by extra security walls, officials said.

However, they added that their personal communications could be at risk if individuals used the same password as they used to access Stratfor for their bank accounts and other personal communications.

A government spokesman said: “We are aware that subscriber details for the Stratfor website have been published in the public domain. At present, there is no indication of any threat to UK government systems. Advice and guidance on such threats is issued to government departments through the Government Computer Emergency Response Team.”

Stratfor has taken down its website while it investigates the security breach. The company says it is “working diligently to prevent it from ever happening again”.

This is just the latest action to hit the headlines by hackers associated with Anonymous. The group, whose loose collection of members are scattered around the world and linked through internet chatrooms, has previously targeted Visa, MasterCard and PayPal in protest at the companies’ refusal to accept donations for the WikiLeaks website.

www.guardian.co.uk, 8 January 2012

January 9, 2012
Pentagon agrees to sell three attack helicopters to Turkey

By Craig Whitlock, Wednesday, November 2, 12:08 AM

The Pentagon has agreed to sell three attack helicopters to Turkey and is trying to persuade Congress to sell highly coveted Predator or Reaper drones to its increasingly influential ally in the Middle East, defense officials said Tuesday.

Turkey has sought for years to purchase the helicopters and drones for use against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq but has had difficulty winning approval from Congress. Some U.S. lawmakers have been reluctant to part with sensitive drone technology and are concerned by Turkey’s worsening relations with Israel.

In recent weeks, however, the Obama administration has achieved some breakthroughs in its attempt to solidify security ties with Turkey, a NATO ally and a reemerging economic and military power in the Middle East.

On Friday, the Defense Department notified Congress that it would sell three AH-1W Super Cobra helicopters and parts to Turkey for $111 million. While Congress could still block the sale, it would have to do so within 15 days. Key lawmakers have given tacit approval.

Pentagon officials also said this week that they support Turkey’s more controversial desire to buy Predator or Reaper drones, which can be equipped with Hellfire missiles and satellite-guided bombs. The unmanned aircraft have become a primary weapon in the Obama administration’s counterterrorism operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

They also are perpetually in demand among the U.S. armed services; the Pentagon’s willingness to sell the drones to Turkey underscores the importance that Washington places on its relations with Ankara.

On Tuesday, Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz reiterated his country’s desire to acquire the drones in a meeting at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, according to Navy Capt. John Kirby, a defense spokesman.

Congress, however, has expressed reservations, citing Turkey’s increasingly rocky relations with Israel, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. The two countries, once regional allies, have been at odds since May 2010, when Israeli commandos killed nine Turks aboard an aid flotilla attempting to break the Israeli naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Alexander Vershbow, assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, told the American-Turkish Council in Washington on Monday that the drone sale was being held up by concerns on Capitol Hill.

“This topic is influenced by the problems in Turkish-Israeli relations,” said Vershbow, who also led a delegation to Ankara last week to discuss counterterrorism cooperation. “This is not a secret. But just to repeat it, we do support the sale.”

Similar concerns affected negotiations between the United States and Turkey over a NATO missile-defense project under which Ankara agreed to host a key radar station.

Turkey originally said it would refuse if the radar could benefit Israel, a stance that raised concerns in Congress. The Obama administration finessed the issue by omitting any mention of Israel from the accord, which was approved in September.

Turkey wants to buy U.S. drones so it can deploy them against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. The Kurdish group, which is fighting to create an autonomous enclave in Turkey, has for years launched cross-border attacks from its hideouts in northern Iraq.

The potential drone purchase is separate from Turkey’s request for the U.S. military to base a fleet of its Predator drones on Turkish soil.

The United States has flown the unarmed Predators from Iraqi bases since 2007 and shared the planes’ surveillance video with Turkey as part of a joint crackdown against the PKK. But the U.S. drones will have to leave Iraq by Dec. 31, the deadline for American forces to exit that country.

via Pentagon agrees to sell three attack helicopters to Turkey – The Washington Post.

November 2, 2011
I’m Proud of P.J. Crowley

I’m proud of Philip J. Crowley. As Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, Crowley had the guts to denounce the sustained (mis)treatment of Private Bradley Manning as “ridiculous” and “counterproductive” and “stupid.” For this burst of principled honesty, the Obama administrationcashiered him. Never has the moral obtuseness of the Obama/Hillary Clinton duumvirate been more clearly displayed.

Crowley and I have two things in common: We’re from the same hometown, and we made our first careers in the Air Force (I served for 20 years; Crowley for 26). Our hometown of Brockton, Massachusetts is a working-class town, proud of its reputation as the “City of Champions” (especially the heavyweight boxer Rocky Marciano and the middleweight boxer “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler), and prouder still of its pragmatic patriotism based on a sense of decency and fair play. By any standard, the treatment of Manning (solitary confinement, forced nudity, constant harassment) has been indecent and unfair. I have no evidence for this, but I’d like to think Crowley’s hard-hitting jabs against the Pentagon hailed in part from his roots as a Brockton Boxer.

But, more than anything, I suspect Crowley’s stance came from his twenty-six year career in the U.S. Air Force. Like him, I swore an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same. The U.S. Constitution protects us all from cruel and unusual punishment: an apt description of the military’s treatment of Private Manning.

Indeed, anyone who respects the U.S. Constitution can’t help but be appalled by the military’s treatment of Manning. It’s worse than ridiculous or counterproductive or stupid: it’s patently inconsistent with our nation’s ideals as expressed in our Bill of Rights.

Again, I commend P.J. Crowley for being a man in the arena, for standing up for what he believed in, for taking some hard swings before a milquetoast establishment forced him out of the ring. Pick yourself up, P.J., and hold your head high. For those who fired you, they deserve only to hang their heads in shame.

Photo: Newssofap

The Huffington Post

March 14, 2011
Pentagon unveils large cuts to defence budget

Tim Reid in Washington

A contract to provide President Obama with a fleet of new helicopters that had been awarded in part to the British company Westland was scrapped last night amid swingeing cuts to the Pentagon’s weapons programmes.

Robert Gates, Mr Obama’s Defence Secretary, said he was scrapping the contract to build a new generation of presidential helicopters as part of a “fundamental overhaul” of America’s weapons programmes aimed at cutting costs and scaling back on some of the military’s biggest and most high profile projects.

Mr Gates also recommended a halt in production of the F-22 fighter jet, part of his new strategy to shift America’s defence priorities away from fighting conventional wars to the newer threats the US faces from insurgents and terrorists in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

The moves will face stiff resistance on Capitol Hill, where the defence industry has enormous resources and influence and where many congressmen and senators will fiercely defend the military manufacturers in their states because of the jobs they provide.

Within minutes of Mr Gates’s press conference, and the unveiling of his $534 billion budget proposal, Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the F-22, warned of the huge layoffs if the fighter jet programme were ended. The defence Secretary said production of the jets, which cost $140 million each, would be halted at 187.

The contract for a fleet of new “Marine One” presidential helicopters was awarded to the joint Italian/British venture AugustaWestland six years ago. Since then the contract for the VH71 helicopter, a 64ft (19 metre) aircraft that is meant to be able to deflect missiles and resist the electro-magnetic effects of a nuclear blast, has almost doubled in price to $11.2 billion (£7.7 billion), from its original price of $6.1 billion.

Much of the current fleet of 19 presidential helicopters were built in the 1970s. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks it was decided that a faster and safer helicopter was needed. But in the current economic crisis, Mr Obama wryly noted last month that his current helicopter seemed “perfectly adequate”.

The promised emphasis on budget paring is a reversal from the Bush years, which included a doubling of the Pentagon’s spending since 2001. Spending on tanks, fighter planes, ships, missiles and other weapons accounted for about a third of all defence spending last year. But Mr Gates noted more money will be needed in areas such as personnel as the Army and Marines expand the size of their forces.

Some of the Pentagon’s most expensive programs would also be scaled back. The Army’s $160 billion Future Combat Systems modernisation program would lose its armoured vehicles. Plans to build a shield to defend against missile attacks by rogue states would also be scaled back.

Yet some programs would grow. Gates proposed speeding up production of the F-35 fighter jet, which could end up costing $1 trillion to manufacture and maintain 2,443 planes. The military would buy more speedy ships that can operate close in to land. And more money would be spent outfitting special forces troops that can hunt down insurgents.

Source: Times Online, April 7, 2009

April 7, 2009