Loom and Knotty: aka phoning it in

 see: http://srmsc.org/

Cthulhu Rising

Subtle.

The spook establishment doesn't at all seem to be hunkering down quietly in the wake of the now weekly revelations of the depth and breadth of its domestic and international espionage and surveillance.

Au contraire, mon frère!  Instead they've given a big "fuck you" to the world with the design of their latest mission patch.  As HuffPo puts it:  "America Is Launching A Giant, World-Sucking Octopus Into Space".  Again.

This from the launch of a classified payload by the National Reconnaissance Office, the NSA partner responsible for providing satellite-based surveillance capabilities.

This wasn't exactly hidden, as the logo was tweeted by the Office of the DNI on the day of the launch:

Ready for launch? An Atlas 5 will blast off at just past 11PM, PST carrying an classified NRO payload (also cubesats) pic.twitter.com/ll7s0nCOPg

So, is this a result of arrogant indifference to the concerns of the American public over NSA/NRO spying activities?  Is it an ironic joke?  Or could it be a threatening reminder, a kind of Psy-op employed as none-too-subtle intimidation tactic?

I suspect the latter.  But I have been wrong before.  Once.

Call of doody

This photo, snapped in Mali by Agence France-Presse photographer Issouf Sanogo, has caused the French military to pitch a fit.

"This is unacceptable behavior," Col. Thierry Burkhard told the French paper Liberation in Paris. "This image is not representative of action by France in Mali."

Because nobody's dying or killing there, see, they're using water balloons and spitballs.

Apparently the brass are working hard to identify and one would imagine, reprimand this soldier.

The photographer, meanwhile, seems to hope he hasn't caused the lad any grief:

"I don’t know the identity of the soldier in the scarf and I’d have a hard time recognising him even if I did see him again....I think -- and I hope -- that it’s impossible to tell who he is. I’m not even sure if he knows what people are saying about him."

In an interview, he stressed that the soldier wasn't posing, but merely protecting himself from dust, which is clearly quite heavy in the air behind him.

What strikes me is that in almost every article I've read on this, in English and French, the mask is said to evoke the character Ghost from the Call of Duty video game....a game that's been in the news quite a bit lately.  Newtown shooter Adam Lanza, for example was said to be have played it obsessively.

Interesting that once again the press is linking real and imaginary violence so quickly.

I'm a fairly pacifist guy, so I don't go around glorifying war or soldiers, but hell, their job sucks, they have to kill people.  Why not, as William Burroughs explained regarding the title of Naked Lunch, let everyone see exactly what it is on the end of the fork....or rifle, as it were.

What do people think the French doing in Mali, anyway, building latrines and teaching hygiene?

Like an old LoS pal once remarked about the totenkopf on SS uniforms.  "Hey, at least they were putting it right out front there."  Not comparing the French army to the SS, mind you, but hell, let's not candy-coat the facts.  In an age where we've sanitized war reporting, where in the US they tried to ban the images of coffins coming home at Dover  for concerns of "sensitivity" and "privacy"--not of course out of the fear people would see concretely what it's all about and start to question why.

The totenkopf, btw, features in a wide variety of military insignia.  Wikipedia shows a variety of pre-Nazi (18th, 19, 20th century) uses from France, Spain, Prussia and Poland.  Even the USAF 400th Missile Squadron used a totenkopf with crossed missiles as an alternative insignia up until 2005 or so.  The photo you can see on the Wikipedia pages even includes a death's head scarf or ascot of some kind.

Why?  Cuz it's badass, that's why.  Why do you think pirates used it?  If you're going into battle, why not look fearsome?  Easier than painting yourself blue like some latter-day Pict!

Personally, if the French military are serious about rooting out al-Qaeda fighters, they should probably spend more energy looking for 'em than searching for this guy in a skull scarf.  If they're so concerned about their image, I'd suggest re-thinking the stupid raids they do every once in while that either lead to the deaths of their commandos (Somalia, 2013), or the hostages they're supposed to rescue (Niger, 2011).

SS-Gruppenführer Hans Heinrich Lammers , 1938, looking all Nazi n' shit

Source:  http://blogs.afp.com/correspondent/?post/2013/01/22/Unmasking-a-controversy-in-Mali

Stars, Pentagons, Suns and an implied Eye: Clumsy title for some ugly logos

I was toodling about this morning, making the rounds of my regular news websites, when I came across an AP photo similar to the following picture of the gate at Camp Delta (as in triangle?), Guantanamo;  (I snagged this one from the JTF website):

http://www.jtfgtmo.southcom.mil/

Given the hubbub over American political imagery, especially the idea of stars and pentagrams in official seals, a pentacle in the layout of DC and the sinister pentagram defined by the pentagon, etc. it's natural that this logo popped out at me.  Both the star and the pentagon have a long history in conspiracy literature.  As logos go, this one's truly ugly, with way too many elements and conflicting forms.  A silhouette of Cuba runs across the black star like a scar.  Any elegance this star might have have had is further marred by the bad decision to add the seals of each of the armed forces at each point.  It doesn't help that the seals are so busy, with their own details and color schemes.  To make matters worse, an actual beach scene is in the background, looking all the world as if someone has been ripping off bad wallpaper designs.  Here's a closer look, also snagged from the JGT website:

http://www.jtfgtmo.southcom.mil/

What a monstrosity.  Stupid font, the yellow border on the star, the red border on the pentagon.  Funny how it evokes an old timey sheriff's badge.  As kitsch as it is, it'll still provide more fodder for the "Satan lives in DC" crowd.  Which is actually true, metaphorically speaking.

And that sun in the sky is very low; is it dusk or is it dawn?

A bit less offensive to good taste is the patch version of the logo.  The seals of the armed forces are replaced by their names and the star is removed.  But all those conflicting colors and lettering!  Still pretty ugly if you ask me.  If it were my decision, I'd remove all the text and leave only the forms.  I might allow JTF-GTMO somewhere in there but no more.

Wess Wessling's Coast Guard Patches

Anyway, this spurred me on to continue my (up until today) fruitless search for an Odyssey Dawn patch.  The military is like the Boy Scouts.  They have a patch or ribbon for everything.  I figured the Odyssey Dawn logo might feature one of those My Little Ponies streaking across the sky like a comet.  But no, that was not to be.

I found the OD logo on the blog of Gideon Rachman (Financial Times).  On March 20 at 20:45 he posted "Here’s the Pentagon’s official “Odyssey Dawn” logo:"

Libya live blog, March 20th

Another JTF adventure!  The golden victory laurels are a nice touch.  Makes it look like a tire with fancy hubcaps and snow chains.  The sun, rising in the east, looks both like a vast explosion where Japan would be and a Japanese war flag, creeping up to bring a new day for Africa, Waka Waka eh eh....

Given these precedents, we might have an answer to our question about the the Gitmo (Kitschmo) patch.  I propose that it too represents dawn, as if these prisoners, hooded (hoodwinked?) no less, have travelled through their dark night and will re-emerge, hood (veil) removed, into the light of a new day.

It reminds me in a vague sense of the DARPA's discontnued IAO logo, with the eye in the pyramid, illuminating the globe.  Same message I think.  We're bringing the light, fuckers....on the tip of a missile....

Upon further reflection, this vague sense is actually well-founded.  In ¡Viva la Revolución!, I examined the conflation of the eye with the image of the sun which appears on several Latin American flags.  I proposed this signified the dawn of a new era in Latin America.  This metaphor seems to have been taken up by the current crop of would-be nation builders, carving up new resource-rich territories.  The DARPA logo, which comes in an entirely different context, features an eye shining light on the globe.  What is this then but the eye as sun?

Funny thing is, I haven't seen the OD logo anywhere else, even on the Africom website, so if anyone can confirm this is the real deal, I'd appreciate it.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm...

One could be excused if, after waking up and looking bleary-eyed over a cup of coffee at the Washington Post online on the morning after the Grammy's, one murmured "what the...?" and for a moment wondered if a "cryptocracy" were in fact buttering us all up for the final act.

There's Beyoncé Knowles, bootylicious as hell, destiny's child, an object of worship by jack-booted militarized coppers. Clap your hands and say "yeah!" (Destiny's Child, Beyoncé's first claim to fame, took it's name from the Book of Isaiah: "A final thematic goal that Isaiah constantly leans toward throughout the writing is the establishment of Yahweh's kingdom on earth, with rulers and subjects who strive to live by his will." (Wicky-poo). Like, destiny.

Then there was this little article about how Haitians are clamoring for the US to "take over" the country.

The paranoid in us (for a blink) saw all this as not so subliminal propaganda. How we'd love the police and the miltary to simply take over, n'est-ce pas? The rationalist just said "whoa dad." Coincidence.

P.S.
At the risk of getting a bollocking from Galactic Jello, we'd also point out that Haiti seems to be as inundated these days with evangelicals as it is with soldiers; some of the former accused of child trafficking (33 kids, mwah-ha-haa--but seriously, probably just a misunderstanding); others finding a good opportunity to increase their numbers while undermining Voudon. Getting new recruits, blocking food aid to Voudon practitioners....

"We want the world and we want it now." Kingdom Come. Smells like....Destiny!

P.P.S.
We (Gid and Daurade) actually know a guy whose spent a lot of time in Haiti doing humanitarian work, one might even call him a missionary; he was born to missionaries and raised in Africa. But we emphasize the humanitarian because one would never know the guy was a Baptist and his respect for and interest in the culture of the Haitian people (including Voudon) has shone through in every conversation we've ever had about the subject. This despite nearly having been killed for being a werewolf! (True story) Just a quick note so as not to smear the people down there doing good work under terrible circumstances. Read the last link, though. If the Voudon high-priest in the article is right, the actions of these evangelicals merit nothing but our scorn....

"His bigboned Texans follow him into the mist."

The Ft. Hood shooting has made a few things painfully clear. We are truly living in an age of paranoia. With any event of this magnitude it's now a given that people will seize upon it as yet another conspiracy. Whether the conspiracy is something as straightforward and political as an attempt to damage Obama or tar American Muslims, or something more esoteric, as in a piece of "processing" theater to induce more generalized panic and fear, is another question.

Another thing that is clear is that this paranoia is fed by the instantaneous nature of our communication. Early reports from the media, telephone calls, tweets etc. talked about three shooters and that info later turned out to be wrong, which is normal; in the heat of things there is confusion and facts are later clarified. But of course the conspiracy-minded individual is going to see this as a re-writing of history in order to suit whatever theatrics "they" are trying to put over.

Michael Hoffman, who we've already talked about on LoS, has interpreted the shooting as an alchemical ceremony: "Ft. Hoodwink". His take on it seems to be that it's a Zionist mindfuck to draw attention away from what is happening in Israel and to denigrate Muslims in general, as well as bolster support for our increasingly futile engagements in Afghnaistan and Iraq. He makes much hay of the date: the 5th of November, day of the infamous Gunpowder Plot and basis for the "V for Vendetta" comic and film. He equates Ft. Hood shooter Nadil Hasan with Guy Fawkes and by implication Lee Harvey Oswald: patsies in a cleverly orchestrated "lone nut" scenario. See also R for Revelation (of the Method)

Comments upon his article have made some pretty interesting "synchromystic" insights.

"Anonymous" points out this took place in "Kill-een" Texas and that Ft. Hood sits on the latitude of 31:13, a mirror image (As Above, So Below) reflecting the number of people killed and wounded in the attack(an inaccurate figure as it turns out). Further points by the same or another "Anonymous" raised include the fact that Hasan is a Virginia Tech graduate ('nuff said), and that the BBC reported that the shooting began at 1330 local time and that the dead and injured totaled 13 and 30. This commenter also points out the prominence of the words "processing center", "theater", "ceremony" and "graduation" in the report. Remember that latitude!

What is potent for us is that LoS recently wrote about Howard Barton Unruh, an Army veteran who is described as the first mass shooter in US history; he killed 13 people. Mr. Hasan--shades of Hassan i Sabbah--as in "Nothing is True Everything is Permitted" and the leader of an unorthodox sect of Muslim assassins--is an Army guy who also killed 13 people.

Another recent news story that was actually heavily reported but mixed up a bit in the wake of the Ft. Hood shooting was the execution on November 10th of the "Beltway Sniper" John Muhammad. The beltway sniper incidents totaled 13 dead and wounded. Muhammad was an ex-Army reservist. So: 13-13-13. Army-Army-Army.

How more interesting a coupling could you get than the name "John Muhammad?" One of if not the most common name in America paired with the most common name in the Muslim world reinforces the idea that the Islamic terrorist behind the curtains could be anyone, it could be your neighbor, the guy named John....Muhammad!

We don't think this is a conspiracy of cryptocrats nor a sleeper cell of Jihadis--but we'll see what facts eventually come to light. Maybe Hasan was a terrorist.

The sad thing is how this is already being used to implicate all Muslims in the military--and by extension all Muslims in America as: being terrorists or being sympathetic to terrorists; people who represent a threat; citizens who must thus be purged or subject to tighter controls.

By the way, have you heard that "political correctness can kill"? Have you heard about the Marine reservist who thought a Greek Orthodox priest was a "terrorist" (as well as a robber and molester) and hit him over the head with a tire iron before chasing him down the street? This happened in Tampa, the Big Guava, the Cigar City, one time home of your LoS crackpots.

Sometimes a lone nut is just a cigar.

Postscript:

Ft. Hood was named after John Bell Hood, a Confederate general with a "reputation for bravery and aggressiveness that sometimes bordered on recklessness." (faithful Wicky-p). After the war he became a cotton broker and ran an insurance company:

"His insurance business was ruined by a yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans during the winter of 1878 – 79 and he succumbed to the disease himself, dying just days after his wife and oldest child, leaving ten destitute orphans, who were adopted by families in Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, and New York."

Perhaps Ft. Hood was not the most propitious of names....

Monarchists and Mercenaries: Say hello to the American Police Force

Remember them militarized police explorers? If that worried you than this'll surely get your (pet) goat: "residents of Hardin, MT, were alarmed last week when executives from the firm, American Police Force, showed up in the town, which does not have its own police department, with Mercedes SUVs bearing "City Of Hardin Police Department" decals." The company is close to closing a deal which would give it control of a jail in the small Montana town in order to build a police training facility. APF's own website links itself to the U.S. Training Center operated by Xe--the private military security firm formerly known as Blackwater--but the link has been denied by Xe spokespeople. Ditto APF's claims to have worked with the U.S. government. Founder Michael Hilton, a U.S. citizen apparently originally from Montenegro, has a long criminal record which includes real estate scams, misdirection of funds and writing bad checks. A shady character indeed. Xe is almost certainly being truthful on this one. The Raw Story blog studied Burke's Peerage and came across the fact that the APF coat of arms seems to be very similar to Serbian Prince Aleksandar Karageorgevich. (Born in White Lodge, England!) In fact, save the yellow border on the shield, replaced in the APF coat with two yellow fleurs-de-lis, and some variations in the crown, they are identical. The coat of arms also figures on the national flag of Serbia. Although the coat of arms of Montenegro is very different, its flag and coat also feature a crowned double-headed eagle. 

Blackwater itself has been linked to the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, a link strenuously dismissed as conspiracy theory by both Blackwater (Xe) and the Knights of Malta. An official European Parliament report claims that Blackwater used Malta as a base of operations in support of CIA-rdered rendition of suspected terrorists. The SMOM coat of arms also bears a resemblance to the APF/Alexander K. coats--ermine cape, crown, white cross, but then again, many other share these elements as well. It appears as there is a rather tangled history between the Yugoslav royal family and various Orders of St. John, and the SMOM, as a descendant of the Knights Hospitaller are also called the Order of St. John. The patron of Freemasonry is St. John and the double-headed eagle is used as the symbol of the Scottish Rite. It is suggested that this is an alchemical symbol of the union of male and female elements in the personality. In Orthodox countries it symbolizes the dual sovereignty of the Emperor--religious and political--or his dominance over East and West. Which would lead chilling resonance to its use by APF...if it were indeed a Xe front. Blackwater is accused of having a secret crusader doctrine and a goal of establishing Christian supremacy in the Middle East. Former Blackwater exec Joseph Schmitz is an honorary member of the SMOM. Blackwater was named by a wealthy scion by the name of Eric Prince. Evocatively named, reclusive, ultra-conservative, convert to Roman Catholicism, Prince has donated generously to Republican and conservative Christan organizations. It has been said that Prince "“views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe...To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades”." Xe strikes us as an unusual name. We can only find one other use--it the abbreviation for Xenon--a noble (haha) gas. It is colorless, odorless and heavy. Not a bad symbol for a covert police force! The name is Greek and means "foreign(er)", "strang(er)" or "guest." But the claims made by APF which link themselves to the U.S. Training Center and Xe appear to be perfidious. Their use of Yugoslav royal heraldry remains a mystery. Not knowing where to go with this info, we emailed both Xe about their name and APF for some clarification about the coat of arms.

While we're waiting also though we'd post this nifty image from the APF of an earth tessellated for use as a giant chessboard because it meshes nicely with recent posts. While we are eagerly awaiting a response to our inquiries, we hope it's not a jack-booted mercenary parachuting through the skylight. A simple email will suffice! We're not so worried though, APF appears to be a clever scam rather than some far scarier Xe shenanigan. But with Mr. "Hilton's" Montenegrin background, there may be some other weird Byzantine politics at play. But long after the wool comes up and the APF exposed, Xe will still be lurking out there, odorless, transparent, heavy. Even scarier still, people like those in Montana will find nothing wrong in welcoming them with open arms, as long as some jobs are involved.