...Who or what were the framers of our government, that they should dare confirm and authorise such high-handed villany—such flagrant robbery of the inalienable rights of man—such a glaring violation of all the precepts and injunctions of the gospel—such a savage war upon a sixth part of our whole population?—They were men, like ourselves—as fallible, as sinful, as weak, as ourselves.

By the infamous bargain which they made between themselves, they virtually dethroned the Most High God, and trampled beneath their feet their own solemn and heaven-attested Declaration, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights—among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They had no lawful power to bind themselves, or their posterity, for one hour—for one moment—by such an unholy alliance. It was not valid then—it is not valid now. Still they persisted in maintaining it—and still do their successors, the people of Massachusetts, of New-England, and of the twelve free States, persist in maintaining it. A sacred compact! A sacred compact! What, then, is wicked and ignominious?

William Lloyd Garrison

http://fair-use.org/the-liberator/1832/12/29/on-the-constitution-and-the-union

Mandiant says it felt compelled to expose this hack despite possibly compromising its ability to collect information. Here's why:

"The decision to publish a significant part of our intelligence about Unit 61398 was a painstaking one. What started as a “what if” discussion about our traditional non-disclosure policy quickly turned into the realization that the positive impact resulting from our decision to expose APT1 outweighed the risk to our ability to collect intelligence on this particular APT group.
It is time to acknowledge the threat is originating in China, and we wanted to do our part to arm and prepare security professionals to combat that threat effectively. The issue of attribution has always been a missing link in publicly understanding the landscape of APT cyber espionage. Without establishing a solid connection to China, there will always be room for observers to dismiss APT actions as uncoordinated, solely criminal in nature, or peripheral to larger national security and global economic concerns.

...MORE...



http://www.businessinsider.com/mandiant-report-chinese-hacking-explained-how-it-really-works-full-report-downloaded-highlights-2013-2

But the most troubling attack to date, security experts say, was a successful invasion of the Canadian arm of Telvent. The company, now owned by Schneider Electric, designs software that gives oil and gas pipeline companies and power grid operators remote access to valves, switches and security systems.

Telvent keeps detailed blueprints on more than half of all the oil and gas pipelines in North and South America, and has access to their systems. In September, Telvent Canada told customers that attackers had broken into its systems and taken project files. That access was immediately cut, so that the intruders could not take command of the systems.

Martin Hanna, a Schneider Electric spokesman, did not return requests for comment, but security researchers who studied the malware used in the attack, including Mr. Stewart at Dell SecureWorks and Mr. Blasco at AlienVault, confirmed that the perpetrators were the Comment Crew.

“This is terrifying because — forget about the country — if someone hired me and told me they wanted to have the offensive capability to take out as many critical systems as possible, I would be going after the vendors and do things like what happened to Telvent,“ Mr. Peterson of Digital Bond said. “It’s the holy grail.”

The neocons lumped Iran and Iraq's support of violent Palestinians with Al Qaeda and hence it became America's crusade to destroy all Moslem terrorists. We all know that Saddam was not helping Al Qaeda, but that real detail did not matter.

IIRC, Iran is still using Palestinians in a proxy war against Israel.

*Bombing: suicide bombers, rockets from Gaza, and whatever other means they can use to deliver nitroglycerin.

And, yes, I know about the illegal settlements in the West Bank.

IIRC, we have killed over 1000 people and 140 were innocent bystanders, including that unfortunate wedding party.

It is creating a lot of resentment that will likely cause locals to join any force fighting the USA. It is possible that those unintentional deaths are totally negating the gains we have from the successful killing of our enemies in that region.

There is skepticism even within the military community. I don't know how to gauge whether the net gains from the program are positive.

I don't think the drone attacks are done casually. The President supposedly reviews every attack in advance.

I don't have any sympathy for an American who is a militant who is working with people who are plotting attacks against our military or civilian. I wish we could use manned aircraft to drop the bomb; then the live pilot could use judgement while on the scene.