ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

The Scapegoating of the Military Leaders at Pearl Harbor Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan, authors of A Matter of Honor: Pearl Harbor: Betrayal, Blame, and a Family's Quest for Justice. Photo credit: Eileen Hyland; Harper Collins There has been a lot of loose talk lately about news reporting that should be factual and truthful, particularly with respect to political and geopolitical events. The Kennedy assassination and 9/11 are two contemporary examples where the search for the truth has consumed the lives of so many who cared deeply about the facts. Anthony Summers has studied and written about both 9/11 and the JFK murder. Now, together with hispartner Robbyn Swan, he turns his focus to the events at Pearl Harbor, 75 years ago. Pearl Harbor was the deadliest attack against the US before 9/11 as 2,403 men perished on that day in 1941. Immediately following the attack, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established a commission to go to Hawaii and try and find out what happened. Su...

Not the First Time a Terror Suspect Apparently Left a Paper Trail -- or Was Previously Known Photo credit: Adapted by WhoWhatWhy from DutchGamingCommunity DGC / YouTube , Bundesrepublik Deutschland / Wikimedia and Screenshot Today, WhoWhatWhy has seen heavy traffic coming from Google searches that point to a story we ran almost two years ago. Why the sudden interest? It took us only a moment to discover the connection: We had written about the odd phenomenon of terrorists repeatedly leaving ID papers behind at the scene. And now, with the Berlin truck attack, we see yet another such example. We also see that, in a pattern we have previously reported on with other terror incidents, the suspect was already known to authorities — had even been in custody, but was released. From CNN: The Berlin truck attack suspect had been arrested in August with forged documents on his way to Italy but was released by a judge, a German security official tells CNN. The suspect’s identity papers were fo...

Above left: Saddam at trial. Inset, top left: Saddam, 1979. Inset, top right: captured, 2003. Bottom right: Hussein family, pre 1995. Photo credit: Department of Defense / Wikimedia , Iraqi News Agency / Wikimedia , Unknown / Wikimedia and Iraqi State Television/ Wikimedia Here we are on the tenth anniversary of Saddam Hussein’s hanging As with the removal and ghastly end of Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, another tyrant the US didn’t like, and with a third, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, hanging on despite a concerted effort to topple him, we’re inclined to ask: How’s all this regime-changing and “democracy building” in the Middle East working out? By almost every measure, it has been a disaster. There’s a lot of blame to go around: the US government, the US media, and the American public all bear some responsibility for provoking massive bloodshed and creating a more unstable world without any noticeable improvement in the lives of the people directly affected and at a great cost to the US. In a...

Originally appeared at A-specto , transated by Valentina Tzoneva exclusively for SouthFront “Gazprom” is bypassing Ukraine on gas supplies to Europe by using other pipelines, the Ukrainian gas monopoly, “Naftogaz” said. “Naftogaz” said that Russia currently delivers transit gas through “Opal” – the European gas pipeline owned by “Gazprom”, connecting “Nord Stream” with Germany and the Czech Republic. The Ukrainian company said that the change in the transport policy of “Gazprom” does not affect European customers of the Russian company, since the daily volume pumped to the EU has not changed. “According to the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (EMOPSG), from 22 December onwards, Russian “Gazprom” significantly increased the volume of gas transported through the “Nord Stream” pipeline. Almost all of the gas from the additional volume is passed through the “Opal” pipeline. At the same time, the volume of Ukrainian transit gas for the same period decreased signific...

Written by Maksim Kazanin; Originally appeared at VPK Chinese experts search for flaws in American bomber under development According to workers at the Chinese Modern National Defense and Safety Research Center (MNDSRC), the US Air Force’s B-21 “Raider” strategic bomber is designed with the ability to destroy the Dongfeng-21 and Dongfeng-26 mobile ballistic missile launchers. The Dongfeng-21 and 26 are intended for battle against naval groups 1800-2600 kilometers from the Chinese coastline. The Chinese analysts note that the B-21’s capabilities include: carrying long-range conventional weapons payload for use on strategic targets carrying nuclear weapons payload for use on critical defense infrastructure high-altitude (20,000 meters and up) detection of ballistic missile launches while on patrol destruction of mobile ballistic ground and rail launch systems organization of air corridors through anti-aircraft defense systems over enemy territory What is the “Raider” capable of? Tasked w...

Mindaugas Kulbis/AP Originally appeared at Gazeta.ru , translated by Alice Decker exclusively for SouthFront The US will extend the service life of the B-52 strategic bomber up to 100 years The US Air Force is going to modernize the “cold war” era B-52 strategic bomber. The aircraft will be equipped with new avionics, the newest optimized means of destruction, including “air-to-ground” and “air-to-air” cruise missiles and electronic warfare drones. The modernized strategic bomber B-52 “Stratofortress,” which first entered service with the US Air Force in 1955, will operate in conjunction with the latest fifth-generation F-35 and F-22 fighter jets, writes American military commentator Chris Osborne in the publication “Warrior,” citing Pentagon officials. In the near future this cult bomber – the “Arsenal Plane” or “flying bomb truck,” as the US Air Force calls the B-52 — will bring high-tech adaptation to the wars of the 21st century. It will be capable of using “air-to-air” guided miss...