World War I: Poppies pour like blood out from the Tower of London

ITN

 

The Pentagon Is Getting Closer To Robot Soldiers, Leading Roboticist Warns

Business Insider

In the not-too-distant future, the U.S. military may turn more combat roles over to robotic soldiers, NPR reports.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) started robotics trials last December with the ultimate goal of creating robots that can perform advanced functions such as driving cars, manipulating everyday objects, and having a free range of motion.

While the robots are being developed with the altruistic goal of providing disaster relief, prominent roboticists are concerned that advances in robotics sponsored by DARPA can be shifted to military use.

Roboticist Illah Nourbakhsh warned NPR:

If researchers set out to build a robot that can drive a regular car, climb a ladder and operate a jack hammer, "That means that that robot can manipulate an AK-47. That means that robot can manipulate the controls of all the conventional military machines as well," he says.

The overall concern with the gradual shift towards replacing soldiers with autonomous robots, which Nourbakhsh believes is a likely outcome, is who will be held accountable for the robots' actions.

There is also a very real concern that if wars are waged by robots, humans may become more comfortable with the thought of killing.

Former U.S. commander General Stanley McChrystal told BBC's Today Program, "There’s a danger that something that feels easy to do and without risk to yourself, almost antiseptic to the person shooting, doesn’t feel that way at the point of impact."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-robots-in-the-military-2014-3#ixzz2wpRQSeTY

Military Official Says Robots To Replace Troops On The Battlefield

Mary Greeley

Pentagon to relax rules on personal religious wear — including beards, turbans

By Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube, NBC News

Brett Flashnick / AP file

U.S. Army Spc. Simran Lamba, center, the first enlisted Soldier to be granted a religious accommodation for his Sikh articles of faith since 1984, stands in formation with fellow soldiers before taking the oath of citizenship, prior to his graduation from basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C., in 2010.

The Pentagon on Wednesday is expected to announce widespread changes to rules governing religious items and religion-based physical attributes that service members can maintain while in uniform — including beards, some religious tattoos, and turbans.

NBC News obtained an early draft of the new Department of Defense instruction which states that the military will make every effort to accommodate “individual expressions of sincerely held beliefs” (conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs) of service members.

It goes on to say that unless doing so could have an adverse impact on military readiness, unit cohesion, good order and discipline, health and safety, or any other military requirement, commanders can grant service members special permission to display their religious articles while in uniform.

Keep reading on usnews >>

Military Training Document: Anti-Christian SPLC a Trusted Source to Define 'Extremism'

By Ken Klukowski

For months, the Obama-Hagel Pentagon has promised that reports of military trainers teaching troops that traditional Christian groups are extremists akin to terrorists were isolated incidents by rogue instructors. Now an official Army document contains evidence to the contrary.

Fox News's Todd Starnes reported Wednesday on a Ft. Hood briefing where reportedly soldiers were told that evangelical Christians and Tea Party supporters are a threat to the United States and are “tearing the nation apart.” Soldiers were reportedly told that they could be charged with committing a military crime if they supported or donated to such organizations.

Ft. Hood denies these allegations, but a separate source claiming to have been present during the briefing asserts the original account is true.

Ironically, in the place where an Islamic radical—Maj. Nidal Hassan—committed an act of terrorism that murdered fourteen Americans, including the unborn child of one of the female victims—a presentation on terrorism singled out Bible-believing Christians and supporters of the Constitution as serious threats to this nation. Islamic terrorism was barely mentioned.

This is just the latest outrage in a long train of disgraces. Just days ago, soldiers at Camp Shelby in Mississippi were instructed that the Christian conservative American Family Association is a domestic hate group. A month earlier, a security presentation portrayed the Founding Fathers as extremists. Before that, Breitbart News reported on a Christian chaplain who was officially censored by military commanders for talking about the importance of religious faith. And several months before that, Lt. Col. Jack Rich at Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, instructed soldiers that traditional Christian beliefs are incompatible with “Army values.”

All this started in April, when Breitbart News broke the story of top Pentagon brass meeting with an anti-Christian activist calling for court-martialing observant Christians who share the gospel of Jesus Christ with others in the military. This activist calls them “fundamentalist monsters” who are “enemies of the Constitution” and should be punished for “sedition and treason.”    

All along, the nation was told these were a series of isolated incidents, not authorized by military leadership. Now military documents suggest otherwise. Judicial Watch used a FOIA request (Freedom of Information Act) to obtain a document from the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI), which is part of the Department of Defense (DOD). In this 133-page training document, entitled “Extremism,” on pages 32-33, under “Lesson Emphasis,” it claims to:

provide[s] information that describes sources of extremism information, definitions, recruitment of DoD personnel, common themes in extremist ideologies, common characteristics of extremist organizations, DoD policies, and command functions regarding extremist activities.

On the same page, it cites the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as an approved source for information—and its affiliate Teaching Tolerance. It was SPLC that labeled the American Family Association a “domestic hate group,” along with the Family Research Council (FRC, where I do religious liberty work as a senior fellow), the Traditional Values Coalition, and various Tea Party organizations and conservative border-security/immigration groups. In short, SPLC labels as hate groups organizations that promote a traditional Christian view of marriage and other social issues, believe in border enforcement, or promote constitutional limited government.

Ironically, SPLC is the only group in this news report linked to terrorism, as convicted domestic terrorist Floyd Lee Corkins told the FBI in a videotaped and signed confession that he chose his targets for an attempted mass-shooting at FRC from SPLC’s hate group list, including a map of how to get to FRC’s office. He then had the names and locations of other traditional groups he was going to target after murdering whoever he could in FRC's building.

This DEOMI document goes on several pages later to say that service members cannot participate in such organizations, raise funds for them, encourage others to support them, or attend public rallies organized by them. It then adds, “Furthering the objectives of extremist organizations is viewed as detrimental to the good order, discipline, or mission accomplishment of the unit and is, therefore, subject to appropriate disciplinary action.” It tasks service members with “assist[ing] unit commanders in being vigilant about the existence of such activities.”

Keep reading on breitbart >>

Taylor Morris, An Incredible Love Story Told in 22 Photos

glamour.com

By Ariane Marder
They say every picture tells a story. In this case, times that by 22. I came across this series on Buzzfeed and was moved beyond words. Thanks to photographer Tim Dodd, the world can see what sacrifice and love means to a couple in Iowa. Warning: It's a tearjerker.

Tim Dodd has been chronicling his friend—and war veteran—Taylor Morris's amazing journey on his blog. Here are just some of the photos he has taken of Taylor and his longtime girlfriend Danielle over the course of their inspiring relationship:

To read more about Taylor and donate to his recovery, go to: www.taylormorris.org

How much do you love this? Do you know a couple that inspires you? Share!

GOLD STAR MOM TO POKER PLAYER MCCAIN: 'SORRY THE LIVES OF OUR BRAVE WARRIORS BORE YOU'

 

Responding to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) playing online poker on his iPhone during yesterday’s Senate hearing with Secretary of State John Kerry over war with Syria, Gold Star mother Debbie Lee fired back in an exclusive comment to Breitbart News. by Ben Shapiro

Read on breitbart >>

Souped-up soldiers like Elysium are coming

nbcnews

Bill Briggs NBC News contributor

TriStar Pictures

In "Elysium, Matt Damon's character sports a black-metal exoskeleton plugged into his mind and spine, boosting his strength and allowing him to download others' thoughts. That technology may only exist on the Silver Screen, but the military is working on real, high-tech upgrades to improve the safety and abilities of troops.

Hollywood’s summer of the super soldier — featuring tech-bedecked troops like Matt Damon in the No. 1 movie “Elysium” — offers a flicker of futuristic battle gear as the real U.S. military explores innovations from exoskeletons to advanced armor to outfit the next-gen combat fighter.

At the laboratories of Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, Fla., one project is dubbed TALOS — tactical assault light operator suit — and the blueprint involves blending an array of emerging technologies into a single, gizmo-rich, body-shielding uniform.

“How do we take the best of what’s out there — being academia, large industry, small industry or just three guys with a bright idea — and focus that energy toward the (special) operator to give him better protection and better capability?” said Jim Geurts, who oversees science and tech development, procurement and production for Special Operations. The command includes elite forces like Army Rangers and Navy SEALS.

“Certainly that involves body armor. But it also involves: How do I get them better situational awareness? How do I get them better communication? How do I allow them to move better without getting hurt?” Geurts said. “How do we continue to focus technology innovation and the good-old-American-monster-garage kinds of things to continue to help the operator?”

In July, SOCOM held a unique trade show in Tampa that mixed private scientists who are ramping up designs on exoskeletons (high-powered, wearable machines) or who are bolstering display technologies or creating tomorrow’s armor. The goal was to assemble the masterminds in the same room, Geurts said.

U.S. Special Operations Command

At Special Operations Command, military innovators are working to develop exoskeletons that someday may help troops in combat.

“There’s not a place right now where all of them get together with a (special) operator and say, ‘OK, can I put this radio on your exoskeleton, and how much power does it need?’” Geurts said. “Everybody brought their LEGO building blocks and we could see all the types of LEGO building blocks, and we could start to think about how we put those blocks together to build something to give the operators capability that they don’t have now." 

The public can glimpse the creative thinking behind such revolutionary gadgetry in pop films like “Elysium,” in which Matt Damon’s character sports a black-metal exoskeleton plugged into his mind and spine, boosting his strength allowing him to download others’ thoughts. In another summer movie, “Pacific Rim,” pairs of soldiers mutually operate giant exoskeletons to combat sea monsters.

Do these sci-fi films marry today’s silver-screen fantasy with any tiny germ of tomorrow’s battlefield reality?

“Maybe conceptually,” Geurts said. “Certainly, the idea of having mobility with protection with the ability to understand the environment around you and communicate to others around you — those facets are all important.”

Similar techno advances are in play across other branches as military commanders collaborate with top science minds to push the bounds of soldier suits.

Norman Wagner, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Delaware, has worked with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Maryland to co-invent a liquid armor called Shear Thickening Fluid. His material could coat Kevlar vests and Kevlar helmets, transforming them into something better: When a bullet or bomb fragment strikes the service member, miniscule particles in the liquid ceramic instantly reorganize themselves and harden to block the projectile.

“The idea is, you want a body armor that’s flexible so you can wear it,” Wagner said. “But at the point of impact, the fluid acts more like a solid in protecting the person behind it.”

Wagner has another project in the works that similarly seems tailor-made for military use: He, a University of Delaware colleague and a student are investigating a chemical-polymer technology that allows material to self mend. 

"If you get a cut or a puncture, the material would heal itself the same way that biological systems respond to skin wounds,” Wagner said.

While Wagner said the price for his Shear Thickening Fluid is relatively low and on par with “commercial costs,” this is the age of federal sequestration. At Special Operations Command, the innovators are taking lean times to heart.

“The challenge is two-fold: one, the collection of items called TALOS and, two, reinventing the next-generation business-acquisition model that let’s us quickly and cheaply attract those technologies to help the guys,” Geurts said.

Special Ops wants to tap the best ideas and the newest technologies — where ever they may be — allowing the command to collaborate with “non-traditional suppliers.” That is far different from picking a large contractor and paying big bucks to complete a project.

Military leaders acknowledge they have learned hard lessons in bolstering body protection and other battlefield gear for troops during 12 years of war, leading to better equipment already in place. But as the next phase of upgrades rolls from concept to the laboratory to the production line, they will be quickly installed in the field. The re-outfitting of troops in soldier suits 2.0 is not a distant theory, Geurts said. 

"We're creating the environment where we can continue to improve and improve and improve," he said. "And if I can do something in two weeks that helps the guys, then that’s two weeks better than what I can give them today."

French Soldier Stabbed in Throat Outside Paris

breitbart

(AP) - A French soldier was stabbed in the throat in a busy commercial district outside Paris on Saturday, and France's president said authorities are investigating any possible links with the recent slaying of a British soldier.

President Francois Hollande said the identity of the attacker was unknown and cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the assault on the uniformed soldier in the La Defense shopping area. The life of the 23-year-old soldier was not in danger, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The stabbing follows the slaying Wednesday of a British soldier, who was brutally stabbed on a London street in broad daylight in a suspected terrorist attack that has raised fears of potential copycat strikes.

"There could be a link, but we will look at all the elements," Hollande said during a news conference in Ethiopia, where he was traveling.

The British soldier, 25-year-old Lee Rigby, was attacked while walking outside the Royal Artillery Barracks in the Woolwich area of south London.

The gruesome scene was recorded on witnesses' cellphones, and a video has emerged in which one of the two suspects -- his hands bloodied -- boasted of their exploits and warned of more violence as the soldier lay on the ground. Holding bloody knives and a meat cleaver, the suspects waited for the arrival of police, who shot them in the legs, according to witnesses.

In the video, one of the suspects declared, "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you ... We must fight them as they fight us."

Two Muslim hard-liners have identified that suspect as Michael Adebolajo, a Christian who converted to Islam and attended several London demonstrations organized by banned British radical group al-Muhajiroun.

When war is desk job, drone pilots burn out

nbcnews

Nidhi Subbaraman 

Driving a war drone is a stressful business. Shifts up to 12 hours long are stretches of dullness, watching and waiting, interrupted by flashes of intense activity in which pilots must make life-or-death decisions. Not their own life or death, however.

U.S. Air Force/ A pilot trainee flies an MQ-1 Predator simulator

Pilots may be thousands of miles away from the flying weapons system they're operating. They often head home at the end of the day, as if returning from any other office job, maybe picking up milk on the way. But while at work, their drones' onboard cameras put them in a unique position to watch people being killed and injured as a direct result of their actions.

As psychologists learn more about the mental scarring warfare leaves on drone pilots — caused by long shift hours, isolation, witnessing casualties and those Jekyll-and-Hyde days split between battlefield and home — experts from within the U.S. Air Force are calling for a review of drone pilot selection.

Brad Hoagland, an Air Force colonel and visiting researcher at the Brookings Institution, and a fighter-jet pilot and operations commander of 23 years himself, believes that drone pilots could be picked better, and that existing selection techniques are due to be updated now that the service has accumulated almost a decade of research into the psychological characteristics of drone pilots.

"The thrill of taking off from a runway, flying a mission and then coming back and landing at the end of the mission — that’s very exciting," he told NBC News. "But I think that’s a different type of person who can do that, than someone who is maybe wired to fly an unmanned system from a console 7,000 miles away. It’s a different psychological makeup requirement to execute the mission."

Right stuff, wrong stuff"I think we are still trying to figure out exactly what the 'right stuff' is," Wayne Chappelle, a clinical psychologist consulting for Air Force Medical at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, told NBC News. "We have a general idea ... but I certainly think we're probably more aware of what the wrong stuff is versus the right stuff."

The trouble is that spotting the known positive attributes in up-and-coming drone pilots is harder than spotting the negative attributes. To begin with, Chappelle drew up a portrait of the ideal drone pilot from the recorded testimony of 82 drone pilots and their supervisors in a 2011 report.

Good drone pilots, according to Chappelle's findings, have excellent memory for pictures and sounds. They are bombarded with sounds and images from multiple screens through their long shifts, but parse that data quickly, cutting through the noise. They're multitaskers and collaborators.

"These guys are very smart, very bright in a wide range of areas. They are emotionally resilient and highly stress tolerant and very motivated," Chappelle said.

People who have a history of abuse or dependence on alcohol, drugs or other substances, anxiety or depression, and cognitive impairments such as learning disabilities tend to make bad drone pilots.

Although the strengths of a drone pilot differ from the strengths of a manned fighter pilot, Chappelle said the psychological screening protocol for both is the same — and hasn't changed in a decade. "We're still looking at ways to improve and expand upon the screening procedures."

In his research, Hoagland has found that washout rates among undergraduate pilot trainees headed to crafts like the F-16 are traditionally about 10 to 15 percent. But drone pilot trainees exit at 30 percent (though that's down from 45 percent a few years ago). Pilots may drop out, but more often, they fail to meet some flight or academic criteria along the way, Hoagland said.

And when they do graduate, they receive mental health diagnoses at a rate on par with pilots who fly in aircraft, and at much higher rates than other non-pilot Air Force personnel, according to a February 2013 report by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center.

NBC News has requested to interview a pilot or pilot instructor at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, where drone pilots are trained, but to date the Air Force has declined the request without further explanation.

Testing, testing
In an upcoming report headed to the Pentagon, Hoagland will suggest some fixes for his higher-ups to consider.

For one, though the Air Force has a test called the Pilot Candidate Scoring Method, not all pilot candidates — of drones or manned craft — are given the exam. (The Air Force Academy, for example, only recently started administering it, and only on an "experimental" basis.)

"I can't believe we as an Air Force haven't standardized this," Hoagland says. Once everyone's taking the test, and baseline scores are set, those scores can be mined for indicators as to who might be better suited to fly an F-16 and who might be destined for a drone. "It's a common sense approach."

Also, though it's been standard procedure to assess concentration, attention, psychomotor skills as part of the Medical Flight Screening-Neurosychiatric test in pre-screened pilots-to-be, that information is not used in the selection process. Tests do weed out the medically and psychologically unfit — Hoagland thinks it would be an easy next step to ask: "Is this person suited for an unmanned or manned system?"

The coming swarm
As the Air Force's drone program grows, so does the importance of pilot selection. What started in 2004 as five drone combat patrols — four aircraft each — will to swell to 65 patrols by 2014. By 2010, Predators had logged more than a million combat hours, more than any other military bird. And today's population of 1,300 combat drone pilots will be joined by 500 more in the next few years.

And as autonomous systems evolve, the capabilities of unmanned craft will, too. The Air Force will shift to a system with multiple vehicles flown in tandem, answering to a single pilot. These "swarm" handlers will have more complex tasks heaped on them earlier in their career.

"In terms of who we need to have, I think we're on a learning curve there," Anthony Tvaryanas, a doctor of aerospace medicine and technical advisor with the 711th Human Systems Integration Directorate at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, told NBC News.

"If [a pilot is] operating a swarm, what are you looking for in that person? I don't think anyone's looking into those concepts," Tvaryanas said.

"As we get from a pilot in an airplane to a pilot outside the airplane to a pilot controlling 100 airplanes, I think we're approaching the limits of what [prior experience and studies] can inform us. There's a need to look back at training," he added.

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Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley was fired: Army forsakes combat hero for Muslims

wnd

www.familysecuritymatters.org

The U.S. Army has further punished a highly respected and decorated officer in the wake of Muslim groups complaining about the approved course he taught on radical Islam at National Defense University.

In October, we reported that Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley was fired from his position at the school for the way he conducted a class on how to respond to a variety of scenarios instigated by radical Muslims. A visitor to the class found the discussions offensive to Muslims and informed some 57 Islamic organizations, which then complained to Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In addition to the firing, Gen. Dempsey promptly orchestrated a negative Officer Evaluation Report against Dooley that deeply tarnished a career that had received only sterling reviews from West Point through nearly 20 years in the service. Dempsey never discussed the incident with Dooley.

On Sunday, the Washington Times reported Dooley has been punished again, this time as he pursued the role of battalion commander. According to the Times, an Army command selection board studied Dooley’s record and candidacy for a command assignment. The five-member panel agreed to keep Dooley under consideration. Shortly thereafter, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, who at the time was Army vice chief and subsequently became head of U.S. Central Command, overruled the board in a brief memo. His actions could effectively spell the end of Dooley’s career.

“There was no reason given, and that’s also a very disturbing aspect of it,” said Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center, who is representing Dooley in his original appeal of his firing and negative review. “The way they’re treating him now is not only a total miscarriage of justice on a personal level, but it also is really removing an effective combat leader from the Army, and it ultimately effects the national security of the United States.”

Thompson told WND he doesn’t believe this order originated with Gen. Austin. Instead, he believes Gen. Dempsey gave the order and Austin chose to follow so as not to impair his own career. However it happened, he said Lt. Col. Dooley is the victim of a dangerous policy.

“Instead of being loyal to the people that are loyal to you, they would rather throw Lt. Col. Dooley under the bus for their own advancement or to appease the Muslims, which ultimately could lead to the destruction of the United States internally. If we cannot accurately describe who the enemy is, how can we win a war?” asked Thompson.

Dooley’s appeal of his initial punishment is still processing through the military bureaucracy. Thompson said Dooley will file a federal suit to defend his constitutional rights if the Army appeal is denied.