North Korea has kept up preparations for a new nuclear test after having carried out previous launches in 2006 and 2009, South Korea's Defense Minister Kim Kwan-Jin told a news conference Wednesday.

"In fact, North Korea has been preparing for this for quite a long time," Kim told a news conference with Pentagon chief Leon Panetta.

"And when the time comes for a political decision, it may in fact resort to this third nuclear test," he said.

Kim endorsed efforts to persuade Pyongyang to resume six-nation talks on halting its drive to build nuclear weapons -- the discussions have been frozen since December 2008 -- and described the regime under new leader Kim Jong-Un as "quite stable."

The new leader has tried to carry out economic reforms but the effect remained unclear, Kim said.

"He seems to be making attempts to bringing a better life to his people, but the likelihood of success ...it's yet to be seen," he said through an interpreter.

But Kim Jong-Un also appeared to be following his late father's approach of putting the military first, before trying to satisfy the needs of the country's impoverished population, the minister said.

His youth was also another factor to take into account, he added.

"He is still young, meaning that he may be a lot more aggressive compared to old people, because he's still young," Kim said.

Panetta, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said the issue of how the new ruler of North Korea would behave remained an open question.

"I think the bottom line is we still don't know whether or not he will simply follow in the steps of his father or whether he represents a different kind of leadership for the future," the defense secretary said.

Panetta condemned North Korea's "provocative" stance and said Washington "reaffirmed its firm commitment to the security of the Korean Peninsula by maintaining the current level of US forces in Korea."

The United States retains 28,500 troops in South Korea as well as missile defenses in the area and a nuclear "umbrella" in case of an attack from the North.

A recent North Korean threat to attack the South did not materialize after Seoul stopped activists from launching anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the heavily militarized border.

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The two presidential candidates have had very little to say about the sleek weapons of war known to the military as Unmanned Arial Vehicles and the public as "drones."

Other than an oblique counter-intuitive hedge — Mitt Romney said that Obama can't "kill our way out of this mess in the Middle East" — the Republican supports the policy in general.  

For those who follow this issue, the narrative is familiar. For those who haven't, here is a short and very messy summary:

President Obama inherited and vastly expanded President Bush's use of armed UAVs to target terrorists. The CIA has launched more than 200 strikes in Pakistan, targeting mostly Al Qaeda leaders and facilitators.

The CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command have used armed UAVs at least 34 times in Yemen, with the not-so-secret permission and cooperation of the Yemeni government.

The U.S. government doesn't officially talk about UAV operations outside warzones, but it insists that civilian casualties are much less than on-the-ground sources would have us believe.

They won't provide evidence, however, and Congress isn't interested in asking public questions because the Armed Services and Intelligence committees of both chambers receive sufficient briefings. (This is a case of if everyone is in on the secret, then everyone buys into the rationale and has no real leverage to change policy.) 

Let's first pin down the questions. There are two, it seems, that must be asked. The first is: Do drone strikes work? That is, are they a necessary element of American national security policy? The second is: What are the legal and moral foundations underpinning their use?  

Proponents say that al Qaeda would be far more potent if drones weren't used, and that more American lives would be lost in trying to target these bad guys conventionally. More subtly, the UAV targeting provides a deterrent to asymmetric war-mongering and is the only real way to get inside the decision loop of transnational ideological terror cells. Real threats to America have been taken out using drones, proponents insist. As to the legal and moral foundations… well, necessity is the husband of many an Office of Legal Counsel opinion at the Department of Justice. The accountability is in the decision matrix, we are told, and that has to be classified because the bad guys can't know if they're on the list.  

Opponents say that drone strikes create backlash that feeds blowback; that drones facilitate the killing of innocents because "go" decisions don't have to account for the potential loss of American (read: "good guy) lives; that this type of warfare is fundamentally dehumanizing and reduces to almost nothing the value of innocent life that happens to be in the vicinity of the target; that in Pakistan in particular, the drones have radicalized more men and scared more children than otherwise would be radicalized and terrorized; the biggest moral indictment is that drone warfare is just too easy.

In case you think I've given short shrift to the "pro" argument, you should know two things: Those who support the use of armed UAVs really have a lot invested in the idea that they work and that there is no other way to get done what must be done. 

"How will Obama get to a point of moral clarity on drone strikes? I don't think he can, unless he is willing to say a lot more about them."

The Washington Post's Greg Miller has a good summary of the way that targeting criteria has changed. Whereas the Pentagon and the intelligence community had until recently separate processes to decide who gets on the target lists and when it's time to order weapons hot, the White House stepped in, and now, John Brennan, the counter-terrorism chief, chairs a weekly meeting where target packages offered up by the CIA and the Pentagon are considered. President Obama doesn't get into these details, but he now signs off on every strike outside an official battlefield. Pakistan remains the exception: The CIA's program is so well integrated into the agency's bureaucracy that the CIA director makes the final "kill" decisions.  

Here is a question to consider, and I don't have an answer. It seems to be that, in so far as a drone policy is a given, the least worst way to do it would be to have the president take responsibility for the process in precisely the way that Brennan is doing it. Opposing the expansion of these types of strikes is a swell position to take, but since both candidates are going to continue to use them, absent a massive and unprecedented shift in public opinion, it's useful to try and figure out how to "codify" (as the Post says) a targeting process that maximizes accountability at the top. In other words, you kinda want the president to be signing off on JSOC strikes, don't you, especially if you don't want JSOC to be striking nearly as often as they seem to do. You want the person who is accountable to the public directly to be signing off on secret policy. It is better (isn't it?) than having the CIA or the Pentagon civilian/military bureaucracies develop and execute these quasi-legal war plans on their own.  

Obama may well be known as (among other things) the drone war president. But if there are no other alternatives, then he damned well is going to make sure that the process he leaves to his predecessor is one that is not susceptible to legal challenge, is one that is perceived as legitimate by Congress and the American people, is internationally regarded as a necessary evil, and takes the basic morality of the practice as much into account as possible.

Plainly, I don't think the administration is (pardon the pun) remotely close to achieving these objectives.

I do think that the president and his advisers have signed onto them as objectives, and that they are working the issue in the way that makes the most sense to them. 

How will Obama get to a point of moral clarity on drone strikes? I don't think he can, unless he is willing to say a lot more about them. 

He needs to acknowledge them. He needs to explain, in some detail, why he thinks they are the only alternative. He needs to take account of the evidence (as even many pro-strike proponents do) that there is a significant social cost to them in Pakistan, and he needs to do that publicly, too. He needs to explain, on the record, what CIA folks tell me and other reporters off the record. Doing so may mean that the government has to adjust some elements of its policy, but it will also probably mean that the policy will succeed on its own merits until a better alternative can be found. 

Right now, Obama says very little because the American public doesn't seem to care. Obama's peers care, The New York Times cares, and that means that the liberals on the National Security Council are aware of the consternation and are self-conscious about it. But since the mass of people broadly accept the idea, and because Obama believes that the policy is sound enough, there is nary a peep from the powers that be.

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When DARPA, the Air Force, NASA, Boeing, and Pratt & Whitney got together to unscramble the the riddle behind scramjet technology, it's unlikely they ever considered failure, until now.

The five companies sent three X-51A Waveriders shooting above the Pacific in the last two years and while the first effort in 2010 showed promise, the other two were undeniable failures.

It must be disappointing because in 2010 things went off without a hitch. The Waverider was strapped to the belly of a B-52, dropped, powered up its solid-rocket boosters and made the full transition to scramjet-powered flight.

While the X-51 Waverider, an unmanned hypersonic scramjet is supposed to tear through the sky at 4,000 miles per hour and promise an untold richness for future flight, this current effort looks like a flop.

W.J. Hennigan from the Los Angeles Times talked to Robert A. Mercier, deputy for technology in the high speed systems division at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio who said: "Since the Wright brothers, we have examined how to make aircraft better and faster. Hypersonic flight is one of those areas that is a potential frontier for aeronautics. I believe we're standing in the door waiting to go into that arena."

Scramjet technology forces combustion to occur when airflow surpasses the speed of sound and hydrogen is injected into the flow, allowing for theoretical speeds of Mach 20.

That's what was hoped for during DARPA's Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 test flight last year, as well. Unfortunately, that widely watched test ended in failure after the craft's skin peeled away from its body and the flight was terminated before any record breaking speeds could be reached.

The X-51's final flight is scheduled for late spring 2013 or early summer.

Now, check out the 20 most powerful ships on the seas, the world's Aircraft Carriers >

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Beijing-baiting Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, whose bid to buy disputed islands ignited a smouldering row between Japan and China, resigned Thursday to start his own national political party.

The outspoken 80-year-old Ishihara said Japan's pacifist post-war constitution was "ugly" and needed to be reframed.

"As of today, I will resign as Tokyo governor," Ishihara told a news conference, brandishing a white envelope, in an announcement that took Japan's political and media establishment by surprise.

"I'm planning to return to national politics. I want to do so by forming a new party with my associates."

Newspaper reports earlier Thursday said Ishihara wanted to forge a grouping big enough to rival the two largest established parties before an expected general election.

But they had made no mention of the four-term Tokyo governor stepping down from a position he has held for more than 13 years.

Ishihara, whose pronouncements on history have irked China -- he once denied the 1937 Rape of Nanking ever happened -- said he saw much wrong with national politics.

"There are several contradictions, big contradictions, which we hope the state itself will solve," he told reporters.

"One contradiction, bigger than anything, is the Japanese constitution, which was imposed by the (post World War II US) occupying army, and is rendered in ugly Japanese."

Like many on the right of politics, novelist-turned-politician Ishihara objects, among other things, to Article 9 of the constitution, which bars Japan from waging war.

Ishihara, an irascible voice for decades in Japan's national dialogue, will co-opt members of the tiny right-wing Sunrise Party for his new venture, the daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported.

He will also seek to join hands with the mayor of Osaka Toru Hashimoto, a straight-talking maverick whose recently-formed Japan Restoration Party has ambitions to seize control of the powerful lower house.

Embattled Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is under pressure to call a general election after telling opposition parties he would go to the polls "soon" if they supported his unpopular bill to double the consumption tax.

His own approval ratings are low and his ill-disciplined Democratic Party of Japan is likely to be given short shrift by voters disillusioned with its three years in office.

But the establishment Liberal Democratic Party -- to which Ishihara once belonged -- has largely been unable to capitalise on Noda's poor standing and many commentators say a national ballot would produce stalemate.

Observers suggest smaller parties could play a significant role in a post-election landscape in which coalition-building will be the order of the day.

Ishihara's move Thursday comes months after he roiled often-tense Japan-China ties by suddenly announcing he wanted to buy a group of uninhabited but strategically important islands in the East China Sea.

He amassed 1.4 billion yen ($17.5 million) in public donations for the metropolitan government to acquire the Senkakus, which are controlled by Japan but claimed by China as the Diaoyus.

That forced Noda to step in and outbid him in what ministers have maintained was an attempt to avoid an escalation of the long-running dispute.

Nationalists on both sides staged island landings before the government completed its purchase of three of the five islands in the chain -- it already owned a fourth and leases the fifth -- on September 11.

Beijing reacted furiously and tens of thousands of protesters poured onto the streets in cities across China, some vandalising Japanese business outlets.

Japan's exports to China, its biggest trading partner, tumbled 14.1 percent last month, with some saying the row triggered a fall-off in demand for Japanese-branded products.

On Thursday four Chinese government ships spent several hours in waters around the islands, Japan's coastguard said, the latest seaborne confrontation between official vessels from Asia's two largest economies.

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On September 28 the DailyNK reported that the notorious Penal Labour Colony 22 in country's northeast had been "totally shut down in June."

But the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) compared satellite images from May 2011 and October 2012 of the colony — 87 square miles of interconnected detention facilities surrounded by an electric fence and 1,000 guards armed with machine guns — and found that the only significant change seems to be the razing of several small buildings, one of which defectors identified as a detention and interrogation facility. 

From HRNK's new report: 

Nothing in the examined imagery supports the ... DailyNK reports that Camp 22 was shut down or abandoned. To the contrary, the level of activity and the state of the agricultural, industrial and civil infrastructure in the area strongly suggests that the camp remains operational.

The reports ends with a blue-print for disabling and dismantling the prison labor camp system. Camp 22 holds as many as 50,000 inmates, most of whom criticized the government.

SEE ALSO: Bing Maps Show The CIA's Secret Bin Laden Training Facility In North Carolina >

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The world is actually a significant safer place than it was a year ago, at least when it comes to terrorist attacks.

Recent high-profile terrorist attacks like the one that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi have left the world reeling and worrying about a new spate of attacks across the globe.

But that isn't actually the case, according to the FBI's recently released 2011 Report on Terrorism.

The report found that the total number of attacks worldwide last year fell by nearly 12 percent from 2010 and nearly 29 percent from 2007.

That means the number of attacks in 2011 actually hit a five-year low.

That being said, more than 10,000 attacks were carried out last year, killing more than 12,500 people.

Unsurprisingly, Afghanistan experienced the most attacks of any country. But India, Russia, the Philippines, and Thailand also rounded out the top 15 countries.

DON'T MISS: American Teen Says The NYPD Paid Him To Trick Muslims Into Looking Like Terrorists >

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Michael Scheuer was the razor sharp, burly Buffalo native who the Central Intelligence Agency chose to run the bin Laden squad in 1995.

According to a recently released book, "The Finish," written by "Black Hawk Down" author Mark Bowden, Scheuer oversaw what he believed to be the first ever inter-CIA unit completely dedicated to locating a single individual. The unit, called "ALEC Station" after Scheuer's son, employed 27 people, most of them women.

I've personally heard of the unit called, "Scheuer's Harem," and in Bowden's book, some agents around Langley (home of the CIA) started calling it "The Manson Family," because "Scheuer presided over so many female officers."

Over the years the unit made several attempts to get the attention of the Clinton administration, one which seemed distracted by collateral damage. Eventually, as the book implies, they became put off by the eccentric nature of Scheuer's character, his almost religious fervor for the capture (and eventually the kill) of OBL, and the gender composition of his unit.

"I think if you asked Scheuer, he would say (sexism) played a role," said Bowden. Though Bowden maintained the administration's main concern was stuff like "hitting a mosque with some shrapnel," there were some indications that ALEC Station was hindered by irrational motivators.

Finally, when the team had suffered multiple strike denials after giving what they believed to be air tight intelligence, one of the women snapped.

From the book:

When Director George Tenet paid a visit to ALEC Station not long afterward, one of the women on Scheuer's staff confronted him angrily: "You and the White House are going to get thousands of Americans killed!"

Tenet's response reflected this subtle prejudice and rankled ALEC Station further.

"You will all think clearer in a couple of days."

By this time ALEC Station was regarded as "cultish" and "obsessive."

Later, when the CIA had finally had enough of Scheuer, they removed him from the station, telling him to tell his people he had "burned out," and that they were going to give him a medal and monetary award.

According to Bowden, Scheuer said he told them to "Stick it in your a*s."

That was in 1999. Two years later, Osama struck.

From the book:

"Obsessives" like Scheuer and his "cult" ALEC Station looked prophetic, not overly emotional.

NOW SEE: Mark Bowden Talks About His CIA Sources, Bungled Bin Laden Ops, And The Coming Cyber War >

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Former US secretary of state Colin Powell Thursday endorsed President Barack Obama's bid for re-election.

The Republican who used to be chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said, "I voted for him in 2008, and I plan to stick with him in 2012." He spoke in an interview on the CBS program "This Morning."

Powell said that in 2008, the Democrat Obama inherited an economy that was close to depression, with Wall Street in chaos and the housing sector starting to collapse.

Under Obama's leadership, stability has come back to the financial community, housing is picking up and and consumer confidence is rising, although unemployment remains high, among other problems, Powell said.

Also, Obama has protected America from terrorism and wound down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he added.

"And so I think we ought to keep on the track that we are on," Powell said.

Powell, himself once widely touted as a prospect for the White House, said his party affiliation has not changed -- but he said he's "a Republican of a more moderate mold," something he said was "a dying breed."

Four years ago, Powell, the first African-American to occupy the top US military post, also came out publicly in support of Obama, who became the first African-American president.

Powell said then he thought "Obama would be a transformational president."

Obama had "met the standard" to lead "because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America," he added in 2008.

Obama and Republican rival Mitt Romney are locked in a neck-and-neck race for the November 6 vote.

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A North Korean army minister was executed with a mortar round for reportedly drinking and carousing during the official mourning period after Kim Jong-il's death.

Kim Chol, vice minister of the army, was taken into custody earlier this year on the orders of Kim Jong-un, who assumed the leadership after the death of his father in December.

On the orders of Kim Jong-un to leave "no trace of him behind, down to his hair," according to South Korean media, Kim Chol was forced to stand on a spot that had been zeroed in for a mortar round and "obliterated."

The execution of Kim Chol is just one example of a purge of members of the North Korean military or party who threatened the fledgling regime of Kim Jong-un.

So far this year, 14 senior officials have fallen victim to the purges, according to intelligence data provided to Yoon Sang-hyun, a member of the South Korean Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee.

Those that have fallen from favour include Ri Yong-ho, the head of the army and Ri Kwang-gon, the governor of the North Korean central bank.

Analysts suggest that Mr Kim, who took over as head of state after the death of his father late last year, is acting to consolidate his own power base and deter any criticism of his youthfulness and inexperience. Mr Kim is believed to be either 28 or 29.

"When Kim Jong-un became North Korean leader following the mourning period for his father in late December, high-ranking military officers started disappearing," a source told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. "From information compiled over the last month, we have concluded that dozens of military officers were purged."

It also appears that Mr Kim ordered his loyal officials to use the excuse of misbehaviour during the mourning period for his father to remove any potential opponents.

Other officials have been executed by firing squads, including Ryu Kyong, a senior intelligence expert.

Since being elevated to second-in-command of the nation by his father in September 2010, Kim has reportedly been behind the dismissal of at least 31 senior officials.

SEE ALSO: Satellite Images Show Gulags Are Still Operational In North Korea >

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CNN reported today that a single woman who was discharged from the Air Force and asked to pay back her $92,000 ROTC scholarship after she revealed she was pregnant is fighting her dismissal.

Rebecca Edmonds was finishing up her nursing degree at Marquette University when she found out she was pregnant. 

She received her commission but failed to tell the Air Force about her condition until she arrived at her first duty station. By then she was two-thirds into her pregnancy and there was no turning back.

Her tale quickly picked up steam, as articles appeared on both the UK's Daily Mail and New York Daily News.

Each tells the sad tale of a practicing Catholic, daughter of a Navy officer, who just wants to serve her country but was told single parents aren't welcome. The information she's pushing the hardest--that if she had terminated the pregnancy, she could have kept her commission and would still be an officer.

It's true, that the military doesn't want single parents. On the Air Force recruitment site, when you start an application, if you hold your mouse over the question "Are you a single parent?" it says, explicitly:

"An applicant is ineligible when he or she is an unmarried applicant who has physical or legal custody of any family members incapable of self-care. The applicant does not have the flexibility required to perform worldwide duty, short notice TDY, remote tours, and varied duty hours."

This information is repeated in Air Force Recruiting Service Instruction 36-2001; the other branches have similar policies.

At times the military hasn't even wanted married parents. A 2008 USA Today story reported that male, married Marine recruits who were fathers were 10 percent more likely to drop out of boot camp--making them less desirable than those with criminal records.

Edmonds was not completely without options. If she had notified superiors of the change in her medical condition, as she signed a contract promising she'd do, the Air Force wouldn't have accused her of fraud. She could have given custody of her son to her parents, who told CNN they would have taken care of him if their daughter deployed, anyway. She could have married her boyfriend, the father of her child.

A commenter, Milliepede, raised an interesting point under the Daily Mail's story: "Oh, and don't even use the "I'm a Catholic and don't believe in abortion" card. If you're having pre-marital sex and having children outside marriage - THAT IS NOT CATHOLIC [capitalization by commenter] and she shouldn't be portraying herself as such."

It is also worth noting that none of the three stories mention whether Edmonds was using contraception.

Karen Edmonds, Rebecca's mother, is trying to make this about all single women in the military, telling CNN that when Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, in regards to the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, that he was committed to "removing all the barriers that prevent Americans from serving their country," it should have also applied to single mothers.

But it's not remotely the same. A gay soldier can't avoid being gay. A single soldier can prevent getting pregnant.

Now read about the NYU scientists working on a "Star Wars" laser >

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The USS Gerald R. Ford is the most expensive weapon ever created and will run about $11.5 billion, with three ships costing about $40.2 billion.

Even given these generous estimates, the Navy figures that the USS Gerald R. Ford could cost as much as $1.1 billion more than planned, making it far and away the service's most expensive warship.

See the Ford >

Tony Capaccio at Bloomberg reports the Ford's rising costs were first noticed in August when planners understood their worst-case assessment would put the carrier at about 21 percent over its target cost (via Hampton Roads).

Currently being assembled in Newport News, Virginia, the Ford-class will replace the Nimitz-class carriers and will include an array of new technology.

• Advanced arresting gear used to grab planes as they land on the deck.
• Automation, which reduces crew requirements by several hundred from the Nimitz class carrier.
• The updated RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow missile system.
• AN/SPY-3 dual-band radar (DBR), as developed for Zumwalt class destroyers.
• An Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) in place of traditional steam catapults for launching aircraft.
• A new nuclear reactor design (the A1B reactor) for greater power generation.
• Stealthier features to help reduce radar profile.
• The ability to launch the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, EA-18G Growler, and the F-35C Lightning II.

With fewer crew and the most modern equipment, the Navy hopes to reduce the cost of future carriers while an improved design of the ship's "island" will allow more sorties to be flown per day than before.

The Ford is expected to hit the water in 2015, with a 10 carrier fleet hoped for by 2040.

A 2004 artist's rendition of the USS Gerald R. Ford, three years before construction began in 2007. A wide open deck will allow more planes to take off and land than previous carriers.

This layout from Northrop Grumman provides an idea of the carrier's layout

The F/A-18 Super Hornets will be a regular fixture on the Ford and have been in service since 1995

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From the cosmic bustle of Grand Central Station, to the aloof expanse of Madison Ave and the not diminutive security guard running our IDs in the lobby of his building, getting to Paul Rieckhoff wasn't exactly easy.

Rieckhoff is the Founder and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), what could be the most important organization available to the 2.4 million veterans of both those wars.

After calling to announce us, the guard sent us to the bank of elevators in the building where IAVA occupies the better part of a floor in one of New York's finer zip codes.

The interview with Rieckhoff that BI Military & Defense reporter Geoff Ingersoll and I were headed to, was the result of a back-and-forth with IAVA public relations trying to find a slot in the founder's busy schedule.

On the ride to the 10th floor we wondered if the fame and recognition IAVA, and Rieckhoff himself, had received in the eight years since they opened their doors had changed him or the people who worked there. Two former enlisted guys talking about meeting a former officer.

We were laughing at what power and fame could do, when the elevator opened upon a carpeted hallway and IAVA's New York headquarters.

A former Army infantry officer who volunteered for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, before starting IAVA the following year, Rieckhoff marches out to meet us a few minutes after we arrive.

He introduces himself with a smile, while the kind of handshakes you imagine three former military guys giving one another cement the occasion.

Paul, it was immediately Paul as the question about fame was quickly dismissed, led us beyond the receptionist's desk, past a line of cubicles on one side and offices on the other. The walls are painted a unique blend of yellow-green, not exactly Manhattan contemporary, but not any color the military ever dreamed of either.

The staff is spread around the floor and he introduces us around, stopping at a bank of computers monitored by a couple of 20-something women who get up to say hello. The duo are part of a team monitoring social media for veterans in crisis and answering a suicide hotline. 

The computers are manned 12 hours a day and while the effort is only in its infancy and not publicized, the pair have already handled 10 cases from across the country. Ten instances where veterans had every intention of killing themselves, and no one else to turn to.

It's a sharp reminder that so far this year, more U.S. servicemembers have committed suicide than have been killed in combat.

Letting the team get back to work we say goodbye, passing a billboard filled with thank you cards and notes to IAVA and to Paul himself, before settling into his office to talk. Rieckhoff eases his tall athletic frame into a green chair across from us, and runs a hand over his shaved head, before explaining IAVA's beginnings.

Rieckhoff says didn't intend to start IAVA, he just kept helping his soldier's following that 2004 discharge and as the need for help grew, so did his efforts. "You know how it is," he says. "One guy comes to you and says I'm having a hard time getting whatever, education benefits ... " He trails off and leans back in his chair across from us, a folded American flag on the wall next to him, "You do what you can to help him. But the challenges facing returning vets was far greater than we realized."

And those obstacles will continue to grow as vets face higher unemployment, higher rates of incarceration, and suffer staggering numbers of suicides.

"IAVA," Rieckhoff explains, "allows an opportunity for America to give back to its veterans."

And right now, it is.

IAVA received $45 million in donated support last year, including the office space, $1 million in interview attire from JC Penny, airline flights and underwriters to name but a few instances.

That sponsorship allows IAVA to offer counseling, job placement, career counseling, community, and a lobbying team in D.C. that helps forge and refine legislation aimed at the new veteran community. It's a big responsibility, that no one in these offices takes lightly, including the boss.

Rieckhoff looks to Vietnam activists like Jan Scruggs and Bobby Muller for advice and guidance on what he's doing for today's homecoming troops. Of all they've told him, one bit of advice resonates loudest and seems to drive the long hours and non-stop schedule.

"Those guys make a point of reminding me that people won't care about us forever," Rieckhoff says leaning forward and dropping his arms to his knees, making him seem smaller.

"At some point our cause will be just another part of history," he pauses. "It's IAVA's goal to create the foundation that history will be built on." he laughs and shrugs his shoulders. "I mean, whatever helps our vets get what they need."

IAVA currently has 200,000 members, and with 1 million veterans now navigating the backed-up tangled path to a college degree on the GI Bill, more are joining every day.

Membership is free and comes with a long list of benefits. Former Iraq and Afghanistan servicemembers only need go to IAVA's website, upload their DD 214 discharge papers, and await their membership number to take advantage of all IAVA offers.

In the meantime they can check out the Rucksack's free giveaways, or use one of the most popular GI Bill calculators on the web, to calculate their education benefits.

Look for IAVA's membership to continue growing and if you're in New York for Veteran's Day stop by the Flatiron building at sunrise and join them in the NYC veteran's day parade.

Now: See the guy who gave up his lucrative career to help vets find work >

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We were in Harlem, looking for an apartment, when we ran headlong into evidence of the New York City drug game.

The broker met up with us outside an apartment complex. He had a trainee with him. The trainee was rather soft spoken, clean cut and nondescript, but the broker was this jumpy, excitable character, a Brooklyn-born Italian, and the type of guy who shakes your hand with two hands, and says stuff about Harlem like, "This area is really ... you know ... conducive," (emphasis on the 'D').

Inside the building the first available elevator was packed. Showing his lack of experience, the trainee squeezed in and then looked back at us. The three of us didn't even make a move.

"It's alright, we'll meet you up there," says the broker. Then as the doors shut completely, he continued, "Hey, and make sure the door is open! Call me if it's not open!"

We caught the next elevator and headed up.

Once inside the apartment it didn't take a detective to figure out someone left in a hurry. The whole place seemed as if it was left as is. Stereo equipment was not only left in place, it was still on. Hip-Hop music played at elevator levels through an obviously very expensive surround sound system.

On the far wall there was an HD-digital projector, mounted above two used and abused leather couches. There was a half-eaten meal sitting in styrofoam on the table; beside it sat an unused razor blade. 

"You turn on the music?" I asked the trainee.

"Nah, man."

Back near the bedrooms was the big reveal. The smell lingered right beyond the rust-colored sheet that hung from the hallway ceiling—the smell of a formerly gigantic pot operation.

Inside the biggest "bedroom" was about a dozen large plant pots, big stems cut, but soil left in place. The window was jerry-rigged with two-by-fours and duck tape so that no light would enter. The ceiling had multiple screws in it, for the lights and hydroponics equipment left lying piled on the floor. The guy even left five pairs of brand new shoes in the closet.

The light switch in other bedroom didn't work and the room also had a non-window. It did have some sort of ventilation system attached to the wall.

Back out in the living room we just sat, somewhat in disbelief. One sofa faced the projector screen while the other faced a Godfather poster that hung over the kitchen table.

"I can't take pictures of this," the broker said. "We'd need the landlord to get all the stuff out of here."

We concluded the former occupant probably left in a hurry. That's when we really started to look around. Most of what was in the black plastic garbage bags in the closet was electronic hydroponic equipment.

"Efficient watering system for extra huge harvests!" Exclaimed one unopened box.

We didn't rent the place. We didn't take any photos either.

We're kicking ourselves now (about the photos), but at the time it all just seemed too bizarre. Even the fast-talking broker, born and raised in Queens, was at a loss for words.

SEE ALSO: 16 Maps Of Drug Flow Into The United States > 

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Senior Army officials said Tuesday that it is working to develop the service’s offensive cyber warfare capabilities to go along with its cyber security capabilities to allow soldier to launch as well as detect and defeat threats.

Military service leaders have spoken in detail about their ability to protect their networks. They have repeatedly avoided discussing growing offensive capabilities to utilize against enemies.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made the first cyber policy speech by a defense secretary earlier this month in New York City where he warned Americans that ignoring growing cyber threats has made the U.S. vulnerable. He made it clear the U.S. military, along with partners in the private sector, were fully ready and capable of bringing the battle to any one launching a cyber “Pearl Harbor.”

The Defense Department routinely repels thousands of attacks daily, some by rogue hackers interested in testing their skills, but others pose more serious threats from state and non-state actors.

None of the services have taken the lead in cyber warfare. Officials have discussed here at the AUSA conference that the Army is interested in taking that lead now through U.S. Army Cyber Command.

Since it was stood up in 2010, it has developed capabilities and a growing force of cyber warriors through its Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, Army Intelligence and Security Command, 1st Information Operations Command (Land) and the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade (Cyber).

Its ranks currently include 21,000 soldiers, Department of the Army civilians and contractors.

Officials developing the Army’s cyber warfare capabilities liken it to a period 20 years ago when service leaders began to learn to use space as a platform. The difference is that the U.S. doesn’t have 20 years, because of the numerous cyber threats that already exist and threaten U.S. national security, Campbell said.

“It’s got to happen right now. So we got to make sure it is ‘operationalized’ throughout the force from a leader development standpoint,” Campbell said.

Lt. Gen. Donald Campbell Jr., commander of III Corps and Fort Hood, Texas, said the Army must work out where “the release authority” should be at different command levels to take offensive action.

“We’re going to have to, as a service and as a military, decide what levels of permission can go for what,” he said.

U.S. Army Cyber Command does not see its role as a defender or attacker operating only from a higher headquarters location. The Army’s strategy demands presence “in two domains—cyber and land,” said Lt. Gen. Rhett A. Hernandez, the head of U.S. Army Cyber Command.

Just what capabilities eventually will reside with commanders closest to the action “still has to be determined, based on what kind we want them to have and what capabilities we may be able to produce,” he said.

Asked whether a platoon leader may one day be able to call up for a network attack the way they call in artillery or air support, Hernandez was not able to say.

“I’m not there yet or ready to go that far, but I would focus on what you can do to protect first, and second what they can do to help them continue to operate,” he said. “And then after that I’m not ready to say what might be next,” he said.

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On Thursday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's announced he was merging his Likud party with that of his ultra nationalist coalition ally Foreign Minister Avigdor Liebermanith to create a "big, cohesive force" ahead of Israel's January 22 elections.

The fallout has been heavy and swift from multiple sides.

From Ari Shavit of the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz:

The right's big bang is undoubtedly a dark development. It turns Israel's ruling liberal nationalist party into an extreme nationalist party. It turns Israel's center-right prime minister into a prime minister held captive by dark forces. If until yesterday, Netanyahu could still claim to be the Israeli Ronald Reagan or Rudy Giuliani, yesterday, he turned into Glenn Beck.

A poll on published by top-rated television station Channel Two Friday suggested that the move immediately reduced the coalition's lead in parliament, Reuters reports. The joint candidate list of Netanyahu's Likud and Lieberman's Israel Beiteinu parties lost projected parliament seats while Israel's strongest opposition parties, left-leaning Labor and the centrist Yesh Atid, were seen as gaining seats.

"Anyone who did not tolerate Lieberman and voted for Netanyahu will think twice, and the same is true for those who did not tolerate Netanyahu and voted for Lieberman," Nahum Barnea of Yedioth Ahronot, the biggest-selling newspaper, told Reuters.

Even members of Netanyahu's own party communicated disgust.

"We’re repulsed by this partnership with Lieberman," one Likud official told Haaretz. "I don't want to run with a person like Lieberman, with the kind of values he stands for."

The Los Angeles Times notes that Lieberman’s party has "at times advocated expelling Israeli Arabs to the West Bank and opposed making concessions to draw Palestinians back to the negotiating table. Lieberman is also fighting a criminal indictment over allegations that he accepted bribes."

SEE ALSO: Ex-CIA Analyst Tells Us The Real Reason Israel Wants To Strike Iran Before The US Election >

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Today's Q3 GDP release beat expectations – the economy grew 2.0 percent in the third quarter, according to this first reading, while economists expected a 1.8 percent gain.

The main reason the report cited for the acceleration in Q3 GDP growth from Q2's 1.3 percent rate was "an upturn in federal  government spending," which was a positive contribution to GDP since the third quarter of 2010.

And the primary driver of the spending increase came from investments in national defense.

In fact, defense spending amounted to 0.64 percentage points of the 2.0 percent rise in GDP – or 32 percent of the economic growth in the third quarter (click to enlarge):

So, if you stripped out defense spending, the economy grew closer to a 1.36 percent rate in Q3, closer to Q2's final estimate of 1.3 percent.

From the release:

Real federal government consumption expenditures and gross investment increased 9.6 percent in the third quarter, in contrast to a decrease of 0.2 percent in the second. National defense increased 13.0 percent, in contrast to a decrease of 0.2 percent. Nondefense increased 3.0 percent, in contrast to a decrease of 0.4 percent. Real state and local government consumption expenditures and gross investment decreased 0.1 percent, compared with a decrease of 1.0 percent.

Here's a table from the report, showing the rise in government – and especially defense – spending (click to enlarge):

Click here for the full release >

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Britain has rebuffed US pleas to use military bases in the UK to support the build-up of forces in the Gulf, citing secret legal advice which states that any pre-emptive strike on Iran could be in breach of international law.

The Guardian has been told that US diplomats have also lobbied for the use of British bases in Cyprus, and for permission to fly from US bases on Ascension Island in the Atlantic and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, both of which are British territories.

The US approaches are part of contingency planning over the nuclear standoff with Tehran, but British ministers have so far reacted coolly. They have pointed US officials to legal advice drafted by the attorney general's office which has been circulated to Downing Street, the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence.

This makes clear that Iran, which has consistently denied it has plans to develop a nuclear weapon, does not currently represent "a clear and present threat". Providing assistance to forces that could be involved in a pre-emptive strike would be a clear breach of international law, it states.

"The UK would be in breach of international law if it facilitated what amounted to a pre-emptive strike on Iran," said a senior Whitehall source. "It is explicit. The government has been using this to push back against the Americans."

Sources said the US had yet to make a formal request to the British government, and that they did not believe an acceleration towards conflict was imminent or more likely. The discussions so far had been to scope out the British position, they said.

"But I think the US has been surprised that ministers have been reluctant to provide assurances about this kind of upfront assistance," said one source. "They'd expect resistance from senior Liberal Democrats, but it's Tories as well. That has come as a bit of a surprise."

The situation reflects the lack of appetite within Whitehall for the UK to be drawn into any conflict, though the Royal Navy has a large presence in the Gulf in case the ongoing diplomatic efforts fail.

The navy has up to 10 ships in the region, including a nuclear-powered submarine. Its counter-mine vessels are on permanent rotation to help ensure that the strategically important shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz remain open.

The Guardian has been told that a British military delegation with a strong navy contingent flew to US Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, earlier this summer to run through a range of contingency plans with US planners.

The UK, however, has assumed that it would only become involved once a conflict had already begun, and has been reluctant to commit overt support to Washington in the buildup to any military action.

"It is quite likely that if the Israelis decided to attack Iran, or the Americans felt they had to do it for the Israelis or in support of them, the UK would not be told beforehand," said the source. "In some respects, the UK government would prefer it that way."

British and US diplomats insisted that the two countries regarded a diplomatic solution as the priority. But this depends on the White House being able to restrain Israel, which is nervous that Iran's underground uranium enrichment plant will soon make its nuclear programme immune to any outside attempts to stop it.

Israel has a less developed strike capability and its window for action against Iran will close much more quickly than that of the US, explained another official. "The key to holding back Israel is Israeli confidence that the US will deal with Iran when the moment is right."

With diplomatic efforts stalled by the US presidential election campaign, a new push to resolve the crisis will begin in late November or December.

Six global powers will spearhead a drive which is likely to involve an offer to lift some of the sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy in return for Tehran limiting its stockpile of enriched uranium.

The countries involved are the US, the UK, France, Germany, Russia and China. Iran will be represented by its chief negotiator, Saeed Jalili.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "As we continue to make clear, the government does not believe military action against Iran is the right course of action at this time, although no option is off the table. We believe that the twin-track approach of pressure through sanctions, which are having an impact, and engagement with Iran is the best way to resolve the nuclear issue. We are not going to speculate about scenarios in which military action would be legal. That would depend on the circumstances at the time."

The Foreign Office said it would not disclose whether the attorney general's advice has been sought on any specific issue.

A US state department official said: "The US and the UK co-ordinate on all kinds of subjects all the time, on a huge range of issues. We never speak on the record about these types of conversations."

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, warned at the UN general assembly last month that Iran's nuclear programme would reach Israel's "red line" by "next spring, at most by next summer", implying that Israel might then take military action in an attempt to destroy nuclear sites and set back the programme.

That red line, which Netanyahu illustrated at the UN with a marker pen on a picture of a bomb, is defined by Iranian progress in making uranium enriched to 20%, which would be much easier than uranium enriched to 5% to turn into weapons-grade material, should Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, take the strategic decision to abandon Iran's observance of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and try to make a weapon. Tehran insists it has no such intention.

In August, the most senior US military officer, General Martin Dempsey, distanced himself from any Israeli plan to bomb Iran. He said such an attack would "clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran's nuclear programme".

He added: "I don't want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it."

SEE ALSO: Lobbyist Says Israel Should Create A 'False Flag' To Start A War With Iran >

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Marine Corporal Nicholas Kimmel, who lost both legs and one of his arms during his second tour of duty in Afghanistan, threw out the first pitch prior to game two of the World Series. Kimmel is part of Major League Baseball's Welcome Back Veterans program.

Just seeing Corporal Kimmel on the field was a moving a moment. But then he reared back and threw a perfect strike. And he threw it with some gusto. It was a first pitch that put most first pitches to shame...

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The war has spread to a fertile region east of Aleppo

WOMEN, their faces wrapped in scarves to protect them from the sun, bend over in the fields to pick cotton. Flocks of sheep kick up dust from tilled wheat fields, as young boys herd them along. Here in Raqqa province, east of Aleppo, life has gone on largely as normal for the last 19 months as the rest of Syria has descended into bloodshed. But since rebels seized the border town of Tal Abyad last month, the province has turned into a budding battleground.

"We are going to push down to the city of Raqqa, and this will weaken the regime’s control of Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor," explains Abu Hassan, a member of the Raqqa Revolutionary Military Council, which is based in a pink-walled former school in Tal Abyad. Every day the rebels, led by the Farouq brigade, launch attacks. One night they destroy a regime checkpoint, the next they capture the loyalist owner of a petrol-station and his militia. And every day volleys of gunfire ring out as felled fighters and civilians killed by shelling are ferried back to wailing mothers and stoic fathers in their villages.

East of Aleppo, far from the main arterial roads used by the regime to resupply its forces, Raqqa province may appear to have little strategic importance. But it is crucial to the regime’s survival, for it is part of the Jazeera region stretching across Raqqa into Hasaka and Deir ez-Zor in the east, which is Syria’s breadbasket.

Sitting in a remote mud house, Nizar Hamza, the leader of a Bedouin rebel group, explains how his ragtag fighters try to guard the silos and fields and sometimes hustle sheep so the people can be fed. The local civilian council distributes harvested wheat. Yet for now the regime still controls much of the land. Lorries, accompanied by vehicles mounted with guns, and with helicopters overhead, easily pass through to get the grain.

In their battle for Raqqa, the opposition fighters face more than just the resistance of the regime. As everywhere else in the country, Raqqa’s people have their own grievances. Here the Baathist regime confiscated land and redistributed it. Poverty is widespread. Drought pushed thousands off their land. The region’s Kurds have long been sidelined. But protests have been small and few. Some locals have benefited from the regime. It won the loyalty of some tribes by currying their favour over many years and by paying off tribal leaders, while building up alternative sheikhs to weaken the control of the more obstreperous traditional leaders. Tribal authority has crumbled during the revolution in the past year, as members argue within the tribe over how best to react.

Fear abounds, too. "The security forces have always been so strong here that many people just don’t believe Assad will go," says Mustafa Ahmad, a local village leader. Having seen the violence tearing nearby Aleppo apart, with Raqqa city now home to thousands of displaced people, many here on the vast swathes of bronzed, sun-parched land do not want the battle to be brought to their doorstep. "Bashar Assad is a dog, a murderer," says a mother of eight. "But we don’t like the fighters either. We are tired and want peace."

Opposition leaders have little truck with these concerns, however. They are focused more on making pacts with other rebel groups than with mollifying the local civilians, and are pushing on down to add villages, towns and fields in Raqqa to the list of liberated areas. "Revolutions are messy," admits Abu Azzam, the local rebel commander, with a shrug. For Raqqa, things may get far messier yet.

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COMMERCIAL spaceflight start-ups all admit this about their fledgling industry: that the pie remains firmly lodged in the sky. At a meeting of such "astropreneurs" in Seattle on October 16th, Tom Nugent, president of wireless power company LaserMotive, admitted that investors remain understandably reluctant to stump up cash for ventures where a failure of technology could take months to rectify, cost many millions of dollars, or even human lives.

Chris Lewicki, the Chief Asteroid Miner (his official title) at Planetary Resources, an extra-terrestrial prospecting company which plans to mine asteroids for rare metals, proudly listed Larry Page and Eric Schmidt of Google among the firm's investors. But he added that neither would advise anyone’s grandmother to commit her life savings to the venture.

The problems with financing private space enterprises are legion. Many new aerospace technologies are highly capital- and labour-intensive, have long development timelines, serve markets that are nascent (if they exist at all) and rely on launch systems that can be slow, expensive and unreliable. Selecting the best investments also demands a level of expertise that is, well, "rocket science".

This is the polar opposite of what most Silicon Valley venture capitalists seek. They prefer to give tiny companies small sums of money to develop easily understood services that can scale swiftly to profitability using the (almost) free infrastructure of the internet. And if those services stumble, as Twitter and others have on occasion, the consequences are seldom explosive, let alone fatal.

For existing private space ventures, then, financing has tended to flow from the deep pockets of starry-eyed billionaires—many of whom, ironically, made their fortune online. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Microsoft’s Paul Allen and, most famously, PayPal’s Elon Musk have all sunk millions into developing next-generation rocketry. With the recent successes of Mr Musk’s SpaceX, however, things are finally starting to change.

The Space Angels Networks claims to be the only global group of angel investors dedicated to aerospace and aviation, and to have invested in more space industry start-ups than any other. Although it has been around since 2006, membership in the group has doubled in the last year and now stands at around 30 individuals. These space angels may be wealthy but they are hardly the super-rich: investments have ranged from as little as $50,000 up to a modest $1m. According to Joe Landon, the network’s Seattle-based managing director, while his members are all enthusiastic about space, they also expect to earn a timely return on their investments.

For companies like LaserMotive, which initially drew on Mr Nugent’s savings and prize money from a NASA competition, this surge in interest has proven a mixed blessing. LaserMotive is about to undergo a round of funding, possibly through the Space Angels Network, that should secure its immediate financial future. In return, Mr Nugent will have to shelve his dreams of using lasers to power space elevator-climbing robots or ultra-efficient rockets, and focus instead on turning a profit. This means developing laser-powered drone aircraft for the American military. Similarly, while Mr Lewicki talks persuasively of his decades-long plan to harvest mountainous asteroids for platinum, Planetary Resources’ initial business will actually be in the construction of low-cost imaging satellites.

Where angels dare to tread, venture capital (VC) is not far behind. A consortium of VCs recently invested over $90m in Skybox, a start-up developing the same kind of imaging microsatellites as Planetary Resources. Being relatively cheap, low risk, high-tech products with a rapid development cycle, the satellites are more Silicon Valley than Kennedy Space Centre. But they do indicate the growing confidence of investors. Many more such "payload" start-ups are in the pipeline, planning everything from 3D printers in orbit to space-based pharmaceutical laboratories.

The largest single boost to the credibility of the private space industry, however, came this summer from what might be considered an unlikely source: public money. In August, NASA invested over $1.1 billion in three commercial launch companies to develop and test rockets with the ultimate aim of carrying a human crew. NASA’s early investment of $440m in Elon Musk’s SpaceX dwarves his own financial stake in the company and accounts for nearly a quarter of its current $2 billion valuation. (It will also pay the company $1.6 billion for 12 cargo deliveries to the International Space Station, the first of which was successfully concluded on October 10th.) As he mulls the possibility of a public offering of SpaceX next year, Mr Musk will surely take comfort in the fact that he has the biggest angel of all on his side: Uncle Sam.

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