Peripheral Milit_Urb 7

"THE GOVERNMENTS ARE COLLAPSING"

'The Cities of the Plain' by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.: During the second quarter of 2006, entire chunks of the world became, conspicuously, subjects of an accelerating and spreading pattern of collapse among leading and other governments. The most notable examples include the Blair government of the United Kingdom, the Chirac government of France, and the Bush-Cheney government in the United States. This global calamity is now spreading, most notably, throughout the rest of western and central Europe.
Violence aside, Baghdad is broken: Water runs only an hour a day, power is on for 4 hours, and sewage runs in the streets.
Running on empty: "Iraq's neighbors ought to do more to help," the president said after a day of discussion with his top national security advisers on Iraq's future. Mr. Bush said that nations around the world -- many of them outside the Middle East -- have pledged $13 billion for Iraq and "we expect our friends ... to honor those commitments."
Gridlock strikes DC: systems disruption is a low cost, high impact method of conducting strategic warfare (with dimensions of all three types of warfare: attrition, moral, and connectivity) against developed states. Global Guerillas explores this in context of Washington's traffic gridlock.
Private Military Firm Pitches Its Services in Darfur (NPR)
"Mad Max" vehicles in Iraq: "There's a soldier in Iraq who's been posting some crazy pictures of American SUVs and pickup trucks that have been modified by civilian security contractors for use as gun trucks. They're insane, in a 'Mad Max at the Wal-Mart parking lot' kind of way."
Rumsfeld's Roadmap to Propaganda: Secret Pentagon "roadmap" calls for "boundaries" between "information operations" abroad and at home but provides no actual limits as long as US doesn't "target" Americans. - National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 177
Report fuels spy plane theories: The UK knows more than it is saying about top secret American aircraft projects, recently declassified documents reveal.
Rumsfeld's War Games: "Mr. Rumsfeld has failed 360 degrees in the job. He is incompetent, Any military man who made the mistakes he has made, tactically and strategically, would be relieved on the spot." - retired Marine Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper.
US defence firm faces $283m bill: Manufacturer United Technologies will pay the US Department of Defense $283m (£152m) after a probe into its handing of contracts over 20 years.
No Icons, No Monuments Worth Protecting: New York has no national monuments or icons, according to the Department of Homeland Security form obtained by ABC News.
'Out of Proportion' Security Measures Damaging Nation's Capital: Plans for a massive new Pentagon-sized Homeland Security complex threaten to ruin one of the finest vistas in Washington, D.C.


MILITARY URBANISM

The Very Latest in Destroying Villages in Order to Save Them: The same week that American bombing killed dozens of civilians in Azizi village in the Panjwayi district of Afghanistan in an effort to root out Taliban fighters, and the U.S. military was rocked by accusations of war crimes, specifically the massacre of civilians in Haditha, Iraq at the hands of U.S. marines, news from the world of military contracting shows that everyone -- from top brass down to the corporations supplying the weaponry -- recognizes that the future of warfare is urban: Boeing has announced that they have just created a small bomb specifically designed for use in urban areas.
High End Military Housing: Lavarack Barracks Redevelopment (Architect Practice: Bligh Voller Nield)
U.S. Army Tries New Urbanism: New Urbanist design comes to the Villages at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Today, the military hopes more attractive neighborhoods will help recruit and retain soldiers, and create a stronger sense of community to support military families.
Saving the planet and ourselves: the way to global security: The obsession of major world powers with terrorism is consuming resources that should be devoted to solving far more dangerous planetary threats, says John Sloboda of the Oxford Research Group.
High hopes for drone in LA skies: Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drone aircraft, are about to be launched for the first time by the police in Los Angeles.
Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites: New Scientist has discovered that Pentagon's National Security Agency, which specialises in eavesdropping and code-breaking, is funding research into the mass harvesting of the information that people post about themselves on social networks.
Burma's confusion over capital: In the fourth of a series of articles from inside Burma, the BBC's Kate McGeown looks at how the government's abrupt decision to move its capital is affecting local people. (PICS)
Suicide Bomber Detection Unit: Suicide attacks have been a common tactic since armed conflict began, as has been the practice of targeting civilians rather than military personnel. But technology has now created a far more effective set of tools which enable one person, as a suicide bomber, to wreak enormous physical, psychological and financial carnage on the population.
U.S. Army awards US$396 million battlefield digitization contract: 2006 Information is power, and there is no greater need for the information to make good decisions than the ultimate adversarial, winner-takes-all scenerio of the battlefield. And there can be no greater testimonial to a product than yesterday’s announcement that the U.S. Army’s Force XXI Battle Command, Brigade and Below (FBCB2) program will invest US$396 million in an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract with DRS Technologies to provide rugged Applique Computer Systems and peripheral equipment.
US: Halliburton sees earnings doubling in coming years: Oil field services company Halliburton Co. expects net income and earnings per share to double over the next three to five years, Chief Financial Officer Cris Gaut said today.
Army Corps Accepts 'Blame' For Katrina Levee Failures: In a 6,000-page report, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers accepted responsibility for design defects in the levee system that failed during Hurricane Katrina and led to the catastrophic flooding of New Orleans.
Army Engineers' Green Agenda: To sustain its mission and ensure its capability to project and support the forces, the Army must insulate itself from the economic and logistical energy-related problems coming in the near to mid future. This requires a transition to modern, secure, and efficient energy systems, and to building technologies that are safe and environmental friendly…
Badly omen for civil rights: Judge Juan Torruella, from the Boston Court of Appeals First Circuit, warned of the eventual establishment of concentration camps as a prelude of mass deportation of illegal immigrants. He also had harsh words for domestic spying and indefinite detentions in a speech delivered in Spanish to the Bar Association in Puerto Rico.


MISC PERIPHERALITY

Slave City: Formerly known as the Call Centre, Slave City is an up-to-date concentration camp made out of the latest technology and with the newest management insights. The highly profitable Slave City (7 billion euro net profit per year) is provided with all necessary facilities to make sure that the inhabitants (called "participants") are as efficient as possible. Values, ethics, esthetics, morals, food, energy, economics, organization, management and market are turned upside-down, reformulated and designed into a town of 200.000 inhabitants.
Virtual border patrol: "Texas Gov. Rick Perry unveiled plans on Thursday to place hundreds of surveillance cameras along the Rio Grande and stream the images to the Internet so computer users everywhere can help patrol the U.S.-Mexico border."
The Cube, the CAVE and the TouchTable: Here are some übergadgetries that may facilitate the visualization and manipulation of complex data sets while simultaneously fostering more meaningful collaborations. That is, of course, if your office can afford their steep price tags and have the space in the studio to put them in.
Surveillance in Virtual Worlds: Many players are unaware of surveillance being conducted by game administrators, often justified as a means to enhance game play and control cheating. Players within some MMOs are also tracking and recording other player’s movements, and conversely, creating methods to protect the privacy of their own digital personas. The rise of surveillance (and counter-surveillance) techniques and technologies within these virtual worlds is an extension of the pervasive monitoring of individuals in real-world environments. Many real-world technologies (such as bugging, video recording and location tracking) are being reproduced in virtual worlds and can be classified as a form simulated surveillance.
Same war, different lenses: To create 'The War Tapes,' a filmmaker gave video cameras to soldiers in Iraq.
The Quiet Patron: The Most Amazing Art Space You Aren't Allowed Near Is Owned by the Federal Government and Patrolled by Homeland Security.
The Great No-ID Airport Challenge: Jim Harper left his hotel early Thursday at 5:30 a.m. to give himself more than two hours to clear security at San Francisco International Airport. It wasn't that he was worried the security line would be long, but because he accepted a dare from civil liberties rabble-rouser John Gilmore to test whether he could actually fly without showing identification.
High Cost of Prisons Not Paying Off, Report Finds: The U.S. spends more than any other nation -- $60 billion a year -- to house inmates, but sees little good as a result, a bipartisan panel says.
Beijing’s urban makeover: the ‘hutong’ destruction: The destruction of Beijing's "hutongs" in advance of the 2008 Olympics has many consequences for China's cultural heritage. Sean Gallagher photographs a swiftly disappearing history.
Defiant Gardens: Gardens of War extend beyond those of Victory. "Planted on hostile fronts" -- from Eastern Europe's ghettos to the Japanese-American internment camps of World War II, from the Western Front of WWI to the deserts of Iraq, people have turned to gardens as sources of comfort and "acts of defiance."
Walls and fences and ladders: Ranchers could build walls, of course. There could be a series of walls, each circumscribing a state-like entity (although tax-free zone) for which ladders function as visas. Immigrants could move into the US little by little, according to the system of scalable visas, working in one mini-state and then another once the ladder-visa rules change based on labor demand. They could open restaurants and an informal social services sector, restrained only by how efficiently ladder transport of goods functions.
Transformer Houses: In 1987, Canadian photographer Robin Collyer began documenting houses that aren't houses at all – they're architecturally-disguised electrical substations, complete with windows, blinds, and bourgeois landscaping.


ISRAEL/PALESTINE


W. Bank project breaks Israeli vow: Israel has begun laying the foundations for a Jewish settlement deep in the West Bank — breaking a promise to Washington while strengthening its hold on a stretch of desert it wants to keep as it draws its final borders.
Realignment methods unlike Gaza: Disengagement architect predicts realignment will be very different - with no military operation. Evacuation-compensation law will lead to gradual desertion, 'until the supermarket will find it worthless to operate'
Olmert tests waters in London: He is trying to win international backing for a proposal by which - in the absence of a Palestinian partner - Israel will set de facto borders of its own making.
Olmert will crush Bethlehem without Negotiation: For the people of Bethlehem city, colonial strangulation - in the form of the settlements and their infrastructure – is only now really being implemented to the fullest.
Caterpillar Pressured Over "Weaponised Bulldozers": The parents of a U.S. peace activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer built by the global machinery giant Caterpillar confronted the company Wednesday for the first time and urged shareholders at its annual meeting to end sales of "weaponised bulldozers to Israel".
Israel Court Wants West Bank Barrier Moved: The Israeli Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Israel must move part of its barrier meant to keep Palestinian attackers out because it causes hardships to nearby West Bank residents.


REFUGEE URBANISM

FEMA's Flying Tuna Cans (The New Hurricane Season on the Mississippi Coast) By Chad Heeter
5,000 Public Housing Units in New Orleans Are to Be Razed: Federal housing officials announced on Wednesday that more than 5,000 public housing apartments for the poor were to be demolished here and replaced by developments for residents with a wider range of incomes.
FEMA Facing Class-Action Lawsuit Over Changes To Post-Katrina Housing Aid: Thousands of Katrina survivors scattered throughout the country may be about to lose their homes due to changes in FEMA funding.
Israeli prison is refuge for Sudanese: Standing behind bars and begging to tell of families murdered and homes destroyed, the Sudanese in Maasiyahu Prison are confronting their Israeli jailers with a quandary that taps deep into the trauma of the Holocaust.
More than 8,000 troops have deserted from the US military since the start of the Iraq war, the Pentagon has said. At least 200 of them are known to have crossed into Canada, hoping for asylum. Jonathan Charles reports from Toronto. (BBC Video)