Pine Gap facility (Australia) instrumental in US drone strikes

[Tesseract]

Nothing new or surprising about Australia, the pathetic fawning sycophant of the USA, taking part in US lead atrocities abroad, but additional public disclosure of these activities is always welcome.


''The [Taliban] know we're listening, but they still have to use radios and phones to conduct their operations, they can't avoid that,'' one former Pine Gap operator told Fairfax Media. ''We track them, we combine the signals intelligence with imagery, and once we've passed the geolocation intell[igence] on, our job is done. When drones do their job we don't need to track that target any more.''
The Australian-American base's direct support for US military operations is much greater than admitted by Defence Minister Stephen Smith and previous Australian governments, new disclosures by former Pine Gap personnel and little-noticed public statements by US government officials have shown.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/pine-gap-drives-us-drone-kills-20130720-2qbsa.html#ixzz2ZhCxN8Nq

http://www.theage.com.au/national/pine-gap-drives-us-drone-kills-20130720-2qbsa.html

[sigma6]

I wonder if the "atypical government changeover" will make a difference?... (did they even vote on that!?) Good bye to dear Julia

[Positive Vibe Merchant]

Pine Gap has always been shrouded in mystery for exactly what operations are being carried out by them. In addition to this, I heard a report this morning that 2 US jets dumped bombs into the Great barrier Reef as they were running low on fuel and had to dump weight. Will find the article and post it.

[Ellisa]

No surprises at all-- but NOT HAPPY!

Whist we are discussing the US in Australia, ---there was an item on the early news this morning regarding a couple of bombs dropped by the US navy in the Barrier Reef area. No they haven't declared war on the coral, just ran out of petrol or air space or couldn't program the GPS, or somesuch and needed to lighten the load. Now however, I cannot find any mention on the net, and it hasn't been on news bulletins since. Maybe I dreamt it! Did any other Aussie hear about this!


Live Posting here!!!
Thanks for the confirmation PVM! I could not believe it could possibly be true!

[Ellisa]

It's all over the net now! And I was wrong--- apparently it was FOUR, that's 4, Bombs on our Reef!

[Positive Vibe Merchant]

its pretty disgusting that they are here at any rate, doing this. As if the Reef isn't in enough trouble from traulers in the area anyway!. There is no reason for them to be here at all.

[Ellisa]

Apparently there are 20,000 participants in military exercises in Northern Australia. I don't know about you PVM but I live in your area and there has been very little information (perhaps none) about this in the news media (of any sort). And I bet there would be little more without these butterfingers dropping bombs on World Heritage Sites. It still hasn't reached the main headlines yet! The BBC is giving it more outrage space than news.com. Funny that!

This whole thing goes until August 5th, when I suppose they trundle off to threaten some other World Heritage places like the Eiffel Tower or the Pyramids!

I am quite appalled by this!

[witchy1]

These guys did a piece on it.....
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/us-marine-harrier-jets-forced-to-drop-unarmed-bombs-on-heritagelisted-great-barrier-reef/story-fnihsrf2-1226682408899

[Positive Vibe Merchant]

Yeah I doubt that it will get any coverage on the MSM down here. Which is a shame. Reasons like this is why social media can be such a powerful important tool.