In fact, I learned about this site from the NY Time's special
archival section on the latest conflict in Iraq:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/iraq-index.html
Unless you're the kind of person who glosses over the hardware in
Clancy like Russian family names in Tolstoy, you're going to enjoy
exploring MILNET. At the high end, I suppose it's for the Aviation
Week and Jane's Defence Review set, but it's even usable as a
newswire of trouble around the world. Kind of like the National
Security Archvies, they mirror lots of old and new data, including
complete consular data sheets and warnings, playing armchair
Kremlinologist on the mutterings of the US bureaucracy (does anyone
know of a properly parallel neologism for reading American tea
leaves?)
[And, of course, you should already know about Covert Action
Quarterly, not the least from Keith's mention of it in TBTF this
week: http://www.caq.com/CAQ/caq63/caq63madsen.html They also have
some great dirt on Echelon and its metadata/search engines from a New
Zealand source]
Heck, even Rob Harley would have to be tickled by a site disclaiming,
" If you don't like that opinion, we don't apologize."
Rohit Khare
(*) Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution (O'Reilly)
by Chris Dibona (Editor), Mark Stone (Editor), Sam Ockman (Editor),
Brian Behlendorf, Scott Bradner, Jim Hamerly, Kirk McKusick, Tim
O'Reilly, Tom Paquin, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, Richard Stallman,
Michael Tiemann, Linus Torvalds, Paul Vixie, Larry Wall, Bob Young
Our Price: $19.96
You Save: $4.99 (20%)
Amazon.com Sales Rank: 111
[Far be it from me to humbly note that *O'Reilly* isn't Open Sourcing
the book online -- at least the W3 Journal went pretty far in that
direction :-]
-----------------------------------------------------
http://www.mcint.com:80/milnet/
The MILNET project was begun in early 1985 with the intention of
providing a comprehensive authorial database. The overall goal was to
aid the author in sorting through the technology and products of the
U.S. military industrial complex, with a mind to creating realistic
and believeable works of fiction.
As a result, while accuracy was a goal, some of the data is not
verified. Where sources can be cited they are, however, we are always
open to either different interpretation or new verifiable input.
We also welcome Open Source Intelligence Professionals to help us
correct data they find is invalid or "overcome by events".
Topic Areas
Areas of interest to the MILNET project are in the following categories:
Intelligence Military Information Terrorism Conflicts
U.S. Military U.K. Military Canadian Military
Other Military Topic Web Pages
Official U.S. Travel Warnings Mirror Site
Intelligence Defined Favorite Topics
Military Weapons Other Intelligence Sites
While MILNET research is not a particularly scholarly effort, we have
taken the time to cite sources clearly in most of our section. We
also do our best to indicate our own speculation rather than
"speaking authoritively". Thus visitors must take much of the
information contained herein as opinion.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A WORD ON HISTORY: Many nations don't like the history written about
them by Western writers. Although we understand their concern that
Western writers might be biased, we never-the-less are not concerned
with how short term history written by Western writers might protray
a country or its leaders, just as we don't go out of our way to find
history texts that might reflect our own personal biases. We take a
source at its face value, and use that text as gospel unless it is
clearly pointed out by our own Western pundants that the text is
incorrect. We at MILNET are, after all, a product of Western culture.
Also, if we choose to believe that a particular nation's defensive
buildup is quite alarming, destabilizing, or is offensive in nature,
we reserve the right to say so. If you don't like that opinion, we
don't apologize. We only ask you allow us our opinion. Since 1983, at
the genesis of this project, we made a number of predictions about
the state of world affairs, and by our reckoning, we have been right
about 75% of the time. Not bad. The fall of the Iron Curtain, did
however, catch us by surprise, so we realize we aren't perfect. Note
too that we are joined by the CIA, as well as many of the World's
intelligence agencies, at least publicly unable to predict that
particular event...so we don't feel too bad.