ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By Pepe Escobar There's danger on the edge of town Ride the king's highway, baby Weird scenes inside the gold mine Ride the highway west, baby The Doors, The End The killer awoke before dawn. He put his American desert boots on. He took a knife from the ancient gallery. And he walked on down the hall - bathed in desert sunlight. The killer spoke with a British accent (London's East End?) Father (Saud), I want to kill you. Mother (Langley?) I want to... yeeeaaahh, c'mon! Then the sartorially composed Man in Black beheaded American photojournalist James Foley. This is not the end, beautiful friend. It's just a new beginning in the never-ending Global War on Terror. Now starring Papa Saud's brand new bag - The Caliph and his goons. This is the way Shock and Awe morphs into "Assad must go" morphs into Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, morphs into The Caliph's Black Britannia goon responding to "humanitarian" bombing. I'm my own baby now. ...

Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images / AFP As lawmakers in Washington, DC, consider ways to stem the flow of military equipment to local law enforcement agencies, police lobbies and organizations are firing back at the possibility. In fact, the National Tactical Officers Association (NTOA) – which lobbies for 1,600 different SWAT teams in the United States – has already sent emails to all congressional staffers urging them to keep in place the Pentagon program responsible for sending armored vehicles, body armor, and more to police departments around the country. “The police have to be one step ahead of the criminal element, have to be prepared for the worst-case scenario. You don’t want a community to be taken over by one or many criminals,” NTOA Executive Director Mark Lomax said to the Daily Beast . “We’re definitely for equipping our law enforcement officials out there properly, with proper training and proper policies.” The move comes as protests against police in Ferguson, Missouri,...

Reuters / Lucy Nicholson Close to 200 state and local police departments in the United States have been suspended for losing military-level equipment transferred to them by the Pentagon, a new investigation found. According to the media outlet Fusion , its independent investigation into the Pentagon’s “1033 program,” which equips state and local police departments across the US with excess military equipment, turned up an alarming trend: Not only did many law enforcement agencies fail to comply with the program’s guidelines, they routinely lost dangerous weaponry. Already, the investigation has found that police departments in Arizona, California, Mississippi, Missouri, Georgia, and others have lost or cannot account for various types of weapons. This list includes M14 and M16 assault rifles, .45-caliber pistols, shotguns, and even vehicles. So far, 184 state and local departments have reportedly been suspended in a program that involves the participation of more than 8,000 agencies....

The guided-missile destroyer USS Ross (AFP Photo / US Navy) A US Navy destroyer and a French frigate are expected to enter the waters of the Black Sea next week, a diplomatic and military source said. “Two NATO warships at once will arrive in the Black Sea on September 3. They are US Navy’s destroyer USS Ross and frigate, Commandant Birot, of the naval forces of France,” the unnamed source told RIA-Novosti news agency. There’s currently one NATO ship present in the Black Sea, with French surveillance ship, Dupuy de Lome, expected to remain in the area until September 5. USS Vella Gulf, which was patrolling the black Sea since August 7, recently left for its port of commission. The maintenance of the operational rotational presence of NATO ships does not promote stability in the Black Sea region in any way, the source noted. According to the Montreux Convention of 1936, warships of non-Black Sea states can stay in the Black Sea for no more than 21 days. But, earlier this year, the ...