PID News

This is really starting to ‘smell’, if you know what we mean. Not only is a politically charged film coming out just in time for next year’s election (an October Surprise?), but the company making the movie is SONY Pictures, who just happened to have access to Team 6 for the script before the crash–and SONY paid for a recent fundraising banquet for the President.

The story of why the SEALS were involved in the mission is also changing, and now some in the special ops community are asking questions:

The Washington Times has reported that some in the special operations community are privately critical of the mission. They wonder why so many SEALs were put in one helicopter instead of two. The sources also ask why the command dispatched a CH-47 instead of the special operations version, the MH-47, flown by the highly trained 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

via SEALs were sent to stop fleeing Taliban – Washington Times.

We have no problems with the brave men and women who serve overseas, particularly those who are on the front lines, but this entire Bin Laden affair leaves us shaking out heads.

(AP) — The U.S. prepared to a launch a missile attack on Libyan air defenses, but American ships and aircraft stationed in and around the Mediterranean Sea did not participate in initial French air missions Saturday, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the unfolding intervention.

One official said the U.S. intends to limit its involvement — at least in the initial stages — to helping protect French and other air missions by taking out Libyan air defenses.

An attack against those defenses with Navy sea-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles was planned for later Saturday, one official said. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of military operations.

via Officials: U.S. prepares missile attack on Libya – USATODAY.com.

(WHOWHATWHY) — It seems unusual for a staid, respected publication (one that has received three National Magazine Awards in just this past decade) to start treating a celebrated journalist (who himself has won two National Magazine Awards in just this past decade) as if he were nothing more than a paranoid crank.

It seems unusual, but it’s exactly what the staff of Foreign Policy has done to Seymour Hersh, following a lecture the venerated reporter gave [January 17, 2011] at Georgetown University’s campus in Doha, Qatar.

[Hersh's] delusional fantasia: The existence of ties between the U.S. Military’s Joint Special Operations Command and a secretive Catholic order called the Knights of Malta.

via Pulitzer Prize Winner Seymour Hersh And The Men Who Want Him Committed – WhoWhatWhy | WhoWhatWhy.

(PRESS TV) — Eight British soldiers have been captured in eastern Libya as they escorted a senior diplomat through territory under the control of revolutionary forces.

According to a report published by The Sunday Times, the unexpected presence of a British special forces unit along with the diplomat “angered Libyan opposition figures, who ordered the soldiers to be locked up on a military base.”

The British newspaper added that anti-government forces “fear Muammar Gaddafi could use any evidence of Western military interference to rally patriotic support for his regime.”

via PressTV – 8 British troops captured in Libya.

AP() — A 1,560-building mock city that’s roughly the size of San Diego has risen in the Southern California desert.The $170 million Marine Corps urban training center at the Twentynine Palms military base is some 130 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

via Marines to train in mock city as big as San Diego – Yahoo! News.

You know, as writers, it’s tempting to imagine what sort of ‘tests’ might have been conducted in space for seven months. More on this on tonight’s PID Radio. — PID

(IB TIMES) — The U.S. Airforce’s top secret unmanned space shuttle is set to return to earth next week, after spending seven months in the space.The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle is expected to land at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Los Angeles sometime between Friday and Monday

via US Airforce’s top secret space shuttle returns to Earth next week – International Business Times.

Gee, is this one of those ‘shovel ready’ projects? — PID

(TELEGRAPH) — The expansion will include a dock for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, a missile defence system, live-fire training sites and the expansion of the island’s airbase. It will be the largest investment in a military base in the western Pacific since the Second World War, and the biggest spend on naval infrastructure in decades.

However, Guam residents fear the build-up could hurt their ecosystem and tourism-dependent economy.

via US to build £8bn super base on Pacific island of Guam – Telegraph.