[VIDEO] State Department: Iranian Harassment of U.S. Ships ‘Unacceptable,’ Escalates Tensions
Posted: August 25, 2016 Filed under: Breaking News, Guns and Gadgets, Mediasphere, Self Defense, War Room | Tags: Department of State, Iran, military, Obama White House, State Department, US Navy Leave a comment
About That Coup: Never Mind! Thousands in Military Detained as Turkey’s Government Goons Reassert Control
Posted: July 16, 2016 Filed under: Politics, Terrorism, War Room | Tags: Coup, Erdogan, military, Turkey Leave a commentTurkey’s elected government on Saturday rounded up thousands of soldiers, including high-ranking officers, as it moved quickly to reassert control after a failed military coup to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
ISTANBUL (AP) – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demands the US extradite the Muslim cleric he blames for attempted coup
— Josh Lederman (@joshledermanAP) July 16, 2016
Turkey’s Prime Minister Binaldi Yildirim called the attempted coup a “black stain on Turkish democracy” that left 161 people dead and 1,440 wounded.
He said 2,839 military personnel had been detained as part of a crackdown on coup plotters.
Erdogan was on a seaside vacation when tanks rolled into the streets of Ankara and Istanbul. He flew home early Saturday and declared the coup to have failed.
“They have pointed the people’s guns against the people. The president, whom 52 percent of the people brought to power, is in charge. This government brought to power by the people is in charge,” Erdogan told large crowds after landing at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport. Read the rest of this entry »
BREAKING: French Jets Begin Major Airstrikes, Bombing Defacto ISIS Capital of Raqqa, French Defense Ministry Says
Posted: November 15, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, France, Global, Space & Aviation, Terrorism, War Room | Tags: ABC News, Air Campaign, Bombing, Council on Foreign Relations, EUROPE, French Defense Ministry, ISIS, media, Middle East, military, news, Paris Attacks, Paris Massacre, Raqqa, Twitter Leave a commentFrance has launched a series of airstrikes on the ISIL-held Syrian city of Raqqa in the wake of the deadly Paris terror attacks.
The French Defence Ministry says 10 jets dropped 20 bombs on the terror group’s de-facto capital.
The attack included 12 warplanes.
“The first target destroyed was used by Daesh (another Arabic acronym for IS) as a command post, jihadist recruitment centre and arms and munitions depot,” a ministry statement said.
“The second held a terrorist training camp.”
The warplanes left for Syria from Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, the Ministry said….(read more)
Source: 9news.com,au
mirror.co.uk. reports: France retaliated to the Paris terror attack by launching deadly airstrikes on an Islamic State jihadi training camp in Syria tonight.
Yesterday French president Francois Hollande vowed to crush the extremist group who massacred 129 people on Friday night.
Less than 24 hours later, some 10 fighter jets pummeled the ISIS-held city of Raqqa with at least 20 bombs, according to the French defence ministry.

The jets hit command and control center, jihadi recruitment center, munitions depot and a training camp. AFP/Getty
President Hollande was told his country is under attack while watching France take on Germany in a friendly at the Stade de France.
His bodyguard is seen whispering into Francois Hollande’s ear 15 minutes into watching France take on Germany
Mr Hollande was immediately escorted upstairs to a secure area where he was briefed to the full extent of the situation before being scrambled away to a secure location. Read the rest of this entry »
[PHOTO] Cigars for Warriors
Posted: October 10, 2015 Filed under: Food & Drink, War Room | Tags: Cigars, military, Photography, tobacco, U.S. Armed Services, Warriors 1 Comment50 Ways 10 Ways 5 Ways Japan Could Use Its Restricted Military Under New Law
Posted: September 17, 2015 Filed under: Asia, Diplomacy, Japan, Mediasphere, War Room | Tags: Aftermath of World War II, Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, Beijing, Japan, Japan Self-Defense Forces, military, Military parade, Shinzō Abe, Tokyo, World War II Leave a comment
After Japan’s defeat in World War II, its new constitution banned it from going to war or deploying military forces except for self-defense. Now Japan’s parliament is expected to pass legislation as early as Thursday night to allow troops to support allies fighting in a war, even if the conflict is beyond Japan’s borders. Here are five ways Japan’s Self-Defense Forces would change….(read more)
Source: WSJ
The Evolution of the Foot Soldier
Posted: August 28, 2015 Filed under: History, War Room | Tags: Ammunition, Armor, Foot Soldier, Gear, Middle Ages, military, Photography, Soldier, Uniform, Warfare, weapons Leave a commentvia spookyfreedomwagon – washingtonstateconservatarian
What is The Deep Web?
Posted: August 22, 2015 Filed under: Mediasphere, Science & Technology | Tags: Bitcoin, Deep Web, military, Silk Road, Snowden, Visible Web, Websites, Whistleblowers 1 Comment
What if the World’s Most Expensive Fighter Planes Can’t Defeat Our Enemies?
Posted: May 15, 2015 Filed under: Space & Aviation, Think Tank, War Room | Tags: Air Force, Aircraft, Defense, media, military, National Review, news, NRO, Twitter, USAF Leave a comment
What if the World’s Most Expensive Fighter Planes Can’t Defeat Our Enemies? http://t.co/VRxX9q4MKs pic.twitter.com/epzSzuBIyJ
— National Review (@NRO) May 15, 2015
Air Force announces First Female F-35 Pilot
Posted: May 6, 2015 Filed under: Breaking News, Mediasphere, Space & Aviation, U.S. News, War Room | Tags: Air Force, Aviation, Combat, F-35, military, Pilot, U.S.A.F. Leave a comment[TheHill]
[PHOTO] Cockpit of a Harrier
Posted: April 17, 2015 Filed under: Guns and Gadgets, Space & Aviation | Tags: Aviation, Cockpit, Harrier, media, military, Photography, Twitter 2 Commentsvia Twitter
[VIDEO] A B-1B ‘Bone’ Night Launch Is An Otherworldly Experience
Posted: March 12, 2015 Filed under: Space & Aviation, War Room | Tags: Aircraft, Aviation, B-1B, Launch, military Leave a commentI have stood alongside runways as B-1s blasted off for training missions and one [word] can describe it: Loud! Four General Electric F101s in full blower pushing a big gas and bomb container along the runway is pretty outrageous, but that same thing at night is downright otherworldly.
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Homecoming: New York Harbor
Posted: November 11, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, History, Mediasphere, U.S. News, War Room | Tags: Americana, design, Homecoming, Illustration, Magazine, military, New York Harbor, Parade, typography, Veterans Day, WW2 1 CommentIllustration by Stevan Dohanos
[VIDEO] Obama’s Infamous ‘Latte Salute’
Posted: September 23, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, U.S. News, White House | Tags: Air Force One, Chai Tea, commander in chief, Dishonor, Latte, military, Obama, President of the United States, Salute, Starbucks Leave a commentChina’s New Long-Range Missile Can Carry Up To 10 Nuclear Warheads Really, Really Far
Posted: August 15, 2014 Filed under: China, War Room | Tags: Beijing, China, DF-41, Global Panic of 2014, Long Range Missile, military, Nuclear weapon, Nukes, People's Liberation Army, South China Morning Post 1 CommentChina’s new long-range missile can carry up to 10 nuclear warheads as far as 12,000km away http://t.co/vNwDgRzWxb pic.twitter.com/d43eNNW9Rn
— SCMP News (@SCMP_News) August 16, 2014
[PHOTO] Contrast: Cops in North America
Posted: August 15, 2014 Filed under: Guns and Gadgets, Humor, Law & Justice, Mediasphere, The Butcher's Notebook | Tags: Canada, military, Paramilitary, Police, Public Servant, Robocop, Serve and Protect, USA, Warrior Cops 1 CommentVintage Military Uniform Instruction Manual: ‘Courtesy To Ladies’ Guide for Soldiers
Posted: January 18, 2014 Filed under: Art & Culture, Comics, War Room | Tags: Comics, courtesy, documentary, guide, Illustration, manual, military, training manual 2 CommentsGoldberg: Senate Benghazi Report a ‘Searing Indictment of the State Department’
Posted: January 16, 2014 Filed under: Mediasphere, Politics, War Room | Tags: Benghazi, HIJonah Goldberg, Libya, military, Terrorism, United States Department of State, United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence 2 Comments
Why China can’t take over the world
Posted: January 15, 2014 Filed under: Asia, China, Diplomacy, Global | Tags: AN LUSHAN REBELLION, AN SHI REBELLION, China, DEFENCE, HAN DYNASTY, History, Islam, Middle East, military, Ming Dynasty, MONGOLS, ROMAN EMPIRE, SONG DYNASTY, TAIPING REBELLION Leave a commentChina is preparing to surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy, in purchasing power parity terms (using China’s grossly exaggerated economic figures). Already its economy is supposedly 80% the size of the US, and if current growth rate differentials persist, it could possibly take China only about four more years to surpass the US .
At market exchange rates, China’s GDP is much smaller, and is expected to remain less than the US until 2028. This is hardly surprising. After all, China has four times as many people as the US; if every Chinese worker were to earn the US minimum wage, its GDP would be larger than the US. That is not a very high bar. With that economic size comes military power and global cultural clout.
China’s awe-inspiring rise is often framed as the return to a historical norm. A common belief is that…
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Ambitious Military Techno-Failures: Top 10 Amazing Weapons That Never Made It
Posted: October 31, 2013 Filed under: Guns and Gadgets, History, War Room | Tags: Bullet, Guns, Hiller VZ-1 Pawnee, military, Popular Mechanics, Sandia National Laboratories, Weapon, weapons 1 CommentFrom Popular Mechanics, don’t miss 10 Weapons That Never Made It, with photos of super-cool failures. Below are two of my favorites. The Rocket-Bullet? How can you not want a Rocket Bullet?
Erik Schechter reports: Making a list of failed weapons systems, the temptation is to trot out the infamous ice-and-sawdust ship, the giant tricycle tank, or some other ridiculous doohickey. But the world of military programs is not neatly divided between the sublime and the stupid. There are a lot in-between cases.
Flying Platforms
Rocket-Bullets
In the 1960s, MB Associates developed the Gyrojet, a family of experimental guns that fired tiny rockets instead of bullets and did so in near silence. Despite making a cameo in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice, though, the Gyrojet ran into plenty of problems. The rocket-bullet picked up speed only once it left the barrel, so the gun was useless at close range. It also jammed frequently and was not very accurate.
Nevertheless, alternatives to the conventional bullet still pop up now and again. Just last year, Sandia National Laboratories researchers developed a laser-guided, dart-like bullet that can hit a bull’s-eye a mile away.
Read more: 10 Weapons That Never Made It – Popular Mechanics
Clint Eastwood in Talks to Direct ‘American Sniper’
Posted: August 27, 2013 Filed under: Mediasphere | Tags: American Sniper, Bradley Cooper, Chris Kyle, Clint Eastwood, History, military, Steven Spielberg, The Hollywood Reporter Leave a commentEastwood is in early talks to direct the movie, based on the autobiography of Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed.
Steven Spielberg was previously on board to direct the project but left earlier this month after he and the studio couldn’t come to agreement on a budget. (The parting of ways was quite amicable, according to several sources.) Bradley Cooper is attached to star and has been developing the project as a producer.
If a deal is made, that puts Eastwood in a tight schedule squeeze. The veteran filmmaker is about to begin directing Jersey Boys, the adaptation of the Broadway musical about the rise and fall of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
Sniper must shoot early next year because of Cooper’s many commitments. But Eastwood is famously known for his short and efficient shoots, so the studio has no fear that he won’t be able to pull it off.
Sniper is an adaptation of Kyle’s book American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. It reveals how Kyle came to record the highest number of sniper kills for an American. The book has been praised for its frankness in telling a first-person account of a warrior who shoots from far and close distances.
Kyle was killed at a shooting range by a fellow veteran in February.
Twitch first reported the news.
Japanese-language Chinese news site predicts future of aircraft carriers, uses sci-fi images
Posted: August 26, 2013 Filed under: China, Mediasphere | Tags: Aircraft Carrier, China Fail, Internet, Japan, military, Sci-fi Leave a commentJapan protests as Chinese ships enter disputed waters
Posted: September 24, 2012 Filed under: War Room | Tags: China, Japan, military, Taiwan Leave a commentTOKYO (Reuters) – Four Chinese ships briefly entered what Japan considers its territorial waters near disputed islands in the East China Sea on Monday, prompting an official protest from Tokyo and renewed diplomatic efforts to cool tensions between the rivals.
In a move that could further complicate the territorial row that is threatening relations between Asia’s biggest economies, a group of fishermen from Taiwan — which also claims the rocky isles — said as many as 100 boats escorted by 10 Taiwan Coast Guard vessels were headed for the area…
More via >> Japan protests...
Taliban Attack Results In Worst American Airpower Loss Since Vietnam
Posted: September 22, 2012 Filed under: War Room | Tags: military, Taliban, Terror, Zombie Apocal Leave a commentTo be clear, this attack and this massive loss of airpower happened last week. The reason this information might be news to you over a week later is due to our medias depraved indifference to reporting any truth that might hurt Barack Obamas reelection chances.
John Hudson at “The Atlantic” has the story but his angle is entirely wrong. He blames the lack of coverage of this disaster — or at least coverage with the proper perspective — on the fact that after ten years of war, Americans have become desensitized to these kinds of reports. But we all know thats utter hokum.
The Taliban attack on an air base in southern Afghanistan on Friday drew coverage for the way the insurgents cloaked themselves in U.S. army uniforms to gain a tactical advantage, but few have taken note of the historical proportions of the damage inflicted. John Gresham, at the Defense Media Network, has published a detailed account of the attack on Camp Bastion, in which two Marines were killed, six U.S. Marine Corps jet fighters were destroyed, and two more “significantly” damaged. Those facts were all carried in most reports, but if that just sounds like a typical damage report from a decade-long war, youre wrong. Gresham explains the devastating damage done to VMA-211, the name of the Marine Corps attack squadron that was most affected last week, noting that it is “arguably the worst day in [U.S. Marine Corps] aviation history since the Tet Offensive of 1968.”
This has nothing to do with “desensitization” — if thats even a word. If the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating to this point and to the point where were no longer able to protect our servicemen from our supposed Afghan allies during joint operations, I think the American people want to know this…
Iran preparing internal version of Internet
Posted: September 20, 2012 Filed under: War Room | Tags: Iran, military 1 CommentThe Iranian government, determined to limit Western influence and defend itself against cyberattacks, appears to have laid the technical foundations for a national online network that would be detached from the Internet and permit tighter control over the flow of information.
The concept of a self-contained network has been reverberating within Iran for almost a decade and has often been treated with skepticism, given the significant investment in infrastructure and security that would be required. But Iranian officials and outside experts say that development of the network has accelerated following cyberattacks aimed at the country’s nuclear program…
UK Joins Persian Gulf Naval War Games amid Iran-Israel Tensions
Posted: September 18, 2012 Filed under: War Room | Tags: Iran, media, military Leave a commentBritish warships have joined a major naval exercise in the Persian Gulf as tensions between Israel and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear power programme increase.
British forces are taking part in a joint operation conducted by the navies of more than 30 countries to sweep the area – a major transit point of maritime trade – clean of mines.
“The UK is committed to a standing presence in the Gulf to ensure freedom of navigation in international waters such as the Straits of Hormuz,” said defence secretary Philip Hammond.
“Disruption to sailing in the strait would threaten regional and economic growth. Any attempt by Iran to do this would be illegal and unsuccessful.”
The show of strength in exercises that include naval deployment by Saudi Arabia, the US and France was designed to warn off Tehran from contemplating disrupting trade routes in the ongoing diplomatic poker game over its nuclear ambitions and Israel’s threat of a strike…
via UK Joins Persian Gulf Naval War Games amid Iran-Israel Tensions – IBTimes UK.
SCANDAL: White House Leaked Names of SEAL and CIA Operators to Hollywood
Posted: September 18, 2012 Filed under: War Room | Tags: military Leave a commentLeaks and more leaks…
POSTED AT 8:13 PM ON SEPTEMBER 18, 2012 BY DIRECTORBLUE
[ HOLLYWIERD ] The Greenroom.
I’ll take “Would do anything to get reelected” for a thousand, Alex.
Last July, a top Pentagon official gave two Hollywood filmmakers the name of a Navy SEAL involved in training the squad of commandos who carried out the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Now, the Obama administration is fighting to keep that same name from the public.
In legal papers filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Washington, the Justice Department argued that the government is under no obligation to make public the SEAL’s name or the names of Central Intelligence Agency personnel involved simply because officials shared their names, partial names or identities with the makers of a forthcoming movie about the raid, “Zero Dark Thirty.”
“The CIA and DoD did not authorize the filmmakers to make the names they shared with them public, to publicly associate the individuals with the CIA or DoD, or to expose those individuals’ identity in any publicly released film, and there was no reason for the CIA or DoD to have believed that any of this would have happened,” the Justice Department brief says. “In fact, [Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Mike] Vickers specifically told [filmmaker] Mark Boal, in providing him with the name of someone he could talk to, that ‘the only thing we ask is that you not reveal his name in any way as a consultant.’”
BlackFive’s reaction is one of anger:
What’s Team Obama going to about this one? Find some amateur donor to make a movie to distract us from the real issue? Oh wait…
Raise your hand if you want to be a part of any TS missions that will save lives and defend our country…but in the process your identity will be given to Hollywood?
Suffice it to say that the nitwits in old media will ignore this outrageous scandal, just one ina series of willful, immensely damaging national security leaks by the Obama administration, all designed to mask the president’s disastrous foreign policy record.
Remember in November.
Hat tip: BadBlue News.
Panetta: US-Japan agree on new missile system
Posted: September 17, 2012 Filed under: War Room | Tags: military Leave a commentPanetta: US-Japan agree on new missile system
TOKYO (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday that U.S. and Japanese officials have agreed to put a second defense system in Japan aimed at protecting the country from the threat of a missile attack from North Korea.
The exact location of the radar installation has not yet been determined. It will be in the south, U.S. officials said, but not in Okinawa.
Officials stressed that the system would be aimed at protecting the region against the threat from North Korea and is not directed at China.
The U.S. already has similar early warning radar systems on ships in the Asia-Pacific.
This second Japan-based system will allow the U.S. vessels to spread out and cover other parts of the Asia-Pacific region…