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Military Corruption News Stories

Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.

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World War Three, By Mistake
2016-12-23, The New Yorker
Posted: 2017-01-02 19:54:48
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/world-war-three-by-mistake

The systems devised to govern the use of nuclear weapons, like all complex technological systems, are inherently flawed. But the failure of a nuclear command-and-control system can have [serious] consequences. Millions of people, perhaps hundreds of millions, could be annihilated inadvertently. Today, the odds of a nuclear war being started by mistake are low - and yet the risk is growing, as the United States and Russia drift toward a new cold war. Many of the nuclear-weapon systems on both sides are aging and obsolete. The personnel who operate those systems often suffer from poor morale and poor training. In 2013, the two-star general in charge of the entire Minuteman [intercontinental ballistic missile] force was removed from duty after going on a drunken bender during a visit to Russia. The following year, almost a hundred Minuteman launch officers were disciplined for cheating on their proficiency exams. In 2015 ... a launch officer at Minot Air Force Base, in North Dakota, was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for heading a violent street gang. As the job title implies, launch officers are entrusted with the keys for launching intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Minuteman III is a relic of the Cold War not only in design but also in its strategic purpose. When the atomic bomb was being developed ... the destruction of cities and the deliberate targeting of civilians was just another military tactic. The Geneva Conventions later classified those practices as war crimes - and yet nuclear weapons have no other real use.

Note: The above was written by Eric Schlosser, author of the 2013 book "Command and Control," which documents errors and accidents in the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union. The US came very close to accidentally starting a nuclear war in 1973. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


Bolivia opens 'anti-imperialist' military school to counter US foreign policies
2016-08-17, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2017-01-02 19:50:55
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/17/bolivia-anti-imperialist-milita...

Bolivias president Evo Morales has opened a new anti-imperialist military academy to counter US policies and military influence in Latin America. If the empire teaches domination of the world from its military schools, we will learn from this school to free ourselves from imperial oppression, the countrys first indigenous president said. We want to build anti-colonial and anti-capitalist thinking with this school that binds the armed forces to social movements and counteracts the influence of the School of the Americas that always saw the indigenous as internal enemies, he told a crowd that included the defense ministers of Venezuela and Nicaragua. Some Latin American officers trained at the US-based School of the Americas went on to commit atrocities under 20th century military dictatorships. In 2000, the academy at Fort Benning, Georgia, was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. Morales, who expelled the US ambassador and counter-narcotics agents in 2008, accused Washington of encouraging congressional coups such as the impending impeachment trial of suspended President Dilma Rousseff in Brazil. He also said the US promotes global terrorism through military interventions, citing the rise of the Islamic State group as an example. The re-inaugurated school carries the name of General Juan Jose Torres, a leftist who was Bolivias de facto president in 1970 and who expelled the Peace Corps for allegedly sterilizing indigenous women.

Note: The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas, graduated more than 500 human rights abusers. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


US 'got it so wrong' on Saddam Hussein, says CIA interrogator of the Iraq dictator
2016-12-19, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2016-12-25 16:27:48
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-wrong-iraq-saddam-huss...

The US "got it wrong" about Saddam Hussein and Iraq, the CIA analyst who interrogated the former dictator has said. John Nixon had numerous conversations with the deposed leader and now says that America was critically mistaken about their intervention Iraq. In particular, he claims, the CIAs view of Husseins attitude to using chemical weapons was wrong. During the interrogations, Mr Nixon asked Hussein if hed ever thought of engaging in a pre-emptive strike with WMDs against US troops based in Saudi Arabia. According to Mr Nixon ... the former dictators reply was: We never thought about using weapons of mass destruction. It was not discussed. Use chemical weapons against the world? Is there anyone with full faculties who would do this? Mr Nixon admitted this was not what we had expected to hear. The main reason the American and British governments used to justify the controversial invasion of Iraq was the supposed risk posed by the WMDs possessed by the country. Nearly 200,000 people have died in the conflicts that followed. Iraq is now widely regarded as a failed state, and still suffers from widespread violence. Thirteen years on, at least 5,000 American troops remain in the country. Mr Nixon also spoke out against Mr Bush, who was rude towards him and reportedly made inappropriate jokes about the missing WMDs. Mr Bush blamed the CIA for Iraqs failures, Mr Nixon said, adding that he called its analysis guesswork while hearing only what he wanted to hear.

Note: Have you noticed how every Arabic nation to which the U.S. has sent armed forces has ended up not with a stronger democracy, but in a situation of chaos? Do you think this might be intentional? The war machine makes huge profits from conditions of chaos. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


Government Watchdog Conducting New Investigation Into Pentagon Whistleblower Retaliation
2016-12-13, The Intercept
Posted: 2016-12-19 15:49:44
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/13/government-watchdog-conducting-new-invest...

The watchdog wing of Congress has quietly launched an investigation into the integrity of the Pentagons whistleblower protection program. The Government Accountability Office, which serves as the investigative arm of Congress, has been looking into the extent to which Department of Defense whistleblower policies ... reassure employees of their rights to raise concerns without fear of reprisal. The investigation will also likely target senior Pentagon officials accused of destroying evidence that would have exculpated former senior NSA official Thomas Drake, who raised internal complaints about what he believed to be NSA misconduct and waste before ultimately approaching journalists. Rather than having his concerns acknowledged, Drake spent months fighting charges against him under the Espionage Act. His career in the intelligence community was ended. Bureaucratic abuses of power are the primary reason otherwise circumspect national security whistleblowers leak to the media. It is too dangerous to work within an untrustworthy system, Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, wrote in a statement. John Crane, formerly the assistant inspector general in the Pentagon, revealed his role in attempting to protect Drakes identity and investigate the document destruction involved in his case last May - an effort he claims cost him his job. The implications of the investigation may eventually be important for evaluating the actions of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Note: Mass surveillance whistleblower Thomas Drake attempted to work within the system and was was targeted for prosecution. John Crane was forced out of the Pentagon in 2013. His story is told in a new book, titled, Bravehearts: Whistle Blowing In The Age of Snowden by Mark Hertsgaard. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about intelligence agency corruption and the disappearance of privacy.


Drones fly controlled by nothing more than people's thoughts
2016-04-22, The Independent/Associated Press
Posted: 2016-12-12 04:44:19
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/drones-brain-thoughts-controlled-bc...

The world's first race for drones controlled by people's thoughts involved 16 pilots flying drones over a course of just 10 yards in an indoor basketball court. "With events like this, we're popularizing the use of BCI (brain-computer interface) instead of it being stuck in the research lab," said [PhD student] Chris Crawford. Mind-controlled technology already is helping paralyzed people move limbs or robotic prosthetics. The technology ... works by using an EEG headset that has been calibrated to identify the electrical activity associated with particular thoughts in each wearer's brain. Programmers write code to translate these ... signals into commands that computers send to the drones. Professor Juan Gilbert, whose computer science students organized the race, [wants] to know how mind-controlled devices could expand and change the way we play, work and live. But as the technology moves toward wider adoption, ethical, legal and privacy questions remain unresolved. The US Defence Department - which uses drones to kill suspected terrorists ... from vast distances - is looking for military brain-control applications. A 2014 Defence Department grant supports the Unmanned Systems Laboratory ... where researchers have developed a system enabling a single person with no prior training to fly multiple drones simultaneously through mind control.

Note: Read an article which dives deep into the use of neuroscience as a weapon. And since drone strikes almost always miss their intended targets and reportedly create more terrorists than they kill, is it really a good idea to make drone fleets easier for the military to deploy?


Pentagon buries evidence of $125 billion in bureaucratic waste
2016-12-05, Washington Post
Posted: 2016-12-12 04:41:11
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/pentagon-buries-evidence-of-125...

The Pentagon has buried an internal study that exposed $125 billion in administrative waste in its business operations. Pentagon leaders had requested the study to help make their enormous back-office bureaucracy more efficient. But after the project documented far more wasteful spending than expected, senior defense officials moved swiftly to kill it by discrediting and suppressing the results. The report, issued in January 2015, identified a clear path for the Defense Department to save $125 billion over five years. The plan would not have required layoffs of civil servants or reductions in military personnel. Instead, it would have streamlined the bureaucracy ... curtailed high-priced contractors and made better use of information technology. The study was produced last year by the Defense Business Board, a federal advisory panel. Their report revealed ... that the Pentagon was spending almost a quarter of its $580 billion budget on overhead and core business operations such as accounting, human resources, logistics and property management. The data showed that the Defense Department was paying a staggering number of people - 1,014,000 contractors, civilians and uniformed personnel - to fill back-office jobs far from the front lines. That workforce supports 1.3 million troops on active duty.

Note: Despite its outrageous administrative expenses, the Pentagon is literally unable to account for itself. Could it be that the real reason the Pentagon is the only branch of US government that doesn't balance its books is that they don't want us to know where the money is going? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing military corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


This is why everything youve read about the wars in Syria and Iraq could be wrong
2016-12-02, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2016-12-12 04:26:30
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/syria-aleppo-iraq-mosul-isis-middle-east-...

The Iraqi army, backed by US-led airstrikes, is trying to capture east Mosul at the same time as the Syrian army and its Shia paramilitary allies are fighting their way into east Aleppo. An estimated 300 civilians have been killed in Aleppo by government artillery and bombing in the last fortnight, and in Mosul there are reportedly some 600 civilian dead over a month. Despite these similarities, the reporting by the international media of these two sieges is radically different. In Mosul, civilian loss of life is blamed on Isis, with its indiscriminate use of mortars and suicide bombers, while the Iraqi army and their air support are largely given a free pass. Contrast this with Western media descriptions of the inhuman savagery of President Assads forces indiscriminately slaughtering civilians. One factor making the sieges of east Aleppo and east Mosul so similar, and different, from past sieges in the Middle East ... is that there are no independent foreign journalists present. They are not there for the very good reason that Isis imprisons and beheads foreigners while Jabhat al-Nusra, until recently the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, is only a shade less bloodthirsty. Unsurprisingly, foreign journalists covering developments in east Aleppo and rebel-held areas of Syria overwhelmingly do so from Lebanon or Turkey. But, strangely enough, the same media organisations continue to put their trust in the veracity of information coming out of areas under the control of these same potential kidnappers and hostage takers.

Note: Read more on the media bias in news coverage of these wars in this article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war and the manipulation of public perception.


CNN to Premiere War in Space: The Next Battlefield
2016-11-28, CNN
Posted: 2016-12-06 11:03:53
http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2016/11/28/cnn-to-premiere-war-in-space-the...

War in Space: The Next Battlefield [is] an in-depth CNN Special Report on the arms race in outer space. The one-hour documentary explores the belief by many in the military and civilian experts that war in space is inevitable. The American way of life depends on satellites in space, such as daily commutes, to withdrawing money from a bank, to the soldiers and intelligence agencies defending the U.S. abroad and at home. U.S. adversaries, like China and Russia, are pushing an arms race in space, taking aim at America with a dizzying array of weapons seemingly borrowed from science fiction. With rare access to classified U.S. military command and operations centers, CNN showcases the devastation that would be caused by space warfare and how the U.S. military is preparing for the alarming prospect. CNNs chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto interviewed more than 10 national security, defense and high-ranking military personnel for the documentary including the entire chain of command for space warfare. [The documentary contains] the first interview with Defensive Duty Officer, 1st Lieutenant Andrew Engle, a newly created position to monitor threats in space. CNN was also the first network to have access inside the Advanced Missile Warning and Battlespace Awareness Operations Floor at Buckley Air Force Base and Lockheed Martin's facility where it is building the next generation satellite, the GPS III.

Note: This article claims "U.S. adversaries, like China and Russia, are pushing an arms race in space." In fact, the US Space Command has been advocating "full-spectrum" dominance for decades using terms like "Master of Space" and making statements, such as "dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment." So who is the aggressor here? For more, see this article and this one. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


Waging War in Space
1999-12-09, The Nation
Posted: 2016-12-06 10:50:17
https://www.thenation.com/article/waging-war-space/

Master of Space a motto of the United States Space Command, a joint Air Force, Army and Navy command set up by the Pentagon in 1985 says it all. Our military leaders seek to control outer space, and dominate the earth, by basing weapons in space. Corporate America is deeply involved. US Space Commanddominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment, says the commands Vision for 2020, a report whose colorful cover depicts a laser weapon in space zapping targets on the Earth below. The projection of US power by means of deadly technology has other nations understandably upset. This past January ... UN Secretary General Kofi Annan urged the UNs annual Conference on Disarmament to ensure that outer space remains weapons-free. At the March session of the conference, Chinas Ambassador for Disarmament Affairs ... called for an international law forbidding not only nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction in space - as does the 1967 Outer Space Treaty - but any weapons in space. In November 138 nations voted in the UN General Assembly to reaffirm the Outer Space Treaty and its provision that space shall be for peaceful purposes. Only the United States and Israel abstained. Assistant secretary of the Air Force for Space Keith Hall says, We have [space dominance] and were going to keep it. And money flows for it. Follow the money and you find ... about 75 corporations [involved] in space weapons projects.

Note: For more, see the US Space Command's Vision for 2020 and its Long Range Plan. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


Pentagon and intelligence community chiefs have urged Obama to remove the head of the NSA
2016-11-19, Washington Post
Posted: 2016-11-28 17:48:23
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/pentagon-and-intellige...

The heads of the Pentagon and the nations intelligence community have recommended to President Obama that the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael S. Rogers, be removed. The recommendation, delivered to the White House last month, was made by Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr.. The news comes as Rogers is being considered by President-elect Donald Trump to be his nominee for director of national intelligence to replace Clapper as the official who oversees all 17 U.S. intelligence agencies. In a move apparently unprecedented for a military officer, Rogers, without notifying superiors, traveled to New York to meet with Trump on Thursday at Trump Tower. That caused consternation at senior levels of the administration, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Carter has concerns with Rogerss performance, officials said. The driving force for Clapper ... was the separation of leadership roles at the NSA and U.S. Cyber Command, and his stance that the NSA should be headed by a civilian. The expectation had been that Rogers would be replaced before the Nov. 8 election. Meanwhile, in February, Rogers ... merged the agencys spying and hacking arms with its computer-security division into one Directorate of Operations. That reorganization has only intensified the discontent that has marked Rogerss tenure at the agency. The morale is horrible, one former senior official said.

Note: Edward Snowden tweeted this article stating, "The real story you're not hearing about is a revolt within the US Intelligence Community." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in the military and in intelligence agencies.


Researcher: Poor St. Louis Minorities Targeted for Secret Cold War Chemical Testing
2012-09-24, CBS News (St. Louis affiliate)
Posted: 2016-11-28 17:27:04
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2012/09/24/researcher-poor-st-louis-minorities-ta...

Poor, minority neighborhoods in St. Louis were unwittingly part of Cold War chemical studies. Aerosol was sprayed from blowers installed on rooftops and mounted on vehicles. The Army claims that they were spraying a quote harmless zinc cadmium sulfide, says Dr. Lisa Martino-Taylor, Professor of Sociology. Yet Martino-Taylor points out, cadmium was a known toxin at the time of the spraying in the mid 50s and mid 60s. Worse, she says the aerosol was laced with a fluorescent additive a suspected radiological compound produced by U.S. Radium, a company linked to the deaths of workers at a watch factory decades before. The powder was milled to a very, very fine particulate level. This stuff travelled for up to 40 miles. So really all of the city of St. Louis was ultimately inundated by the stuff. Martino-Taylor says shes obtained documents from multiple federal agencies showing the government concocted an elaborate story to keep the testing secret. Part of the deception came from false news reports planted by government agencies. They told local officials and media that they were going to test clouds under which to hide the city in the event of aerial attack. This was against all military guidelines of the day, against all ethical guidelines, against all international codes such as the Nuremberg Code, she says. The spraying occurred between 1953 and 54 and again from 1963 to 65.

Note: Dr. Martino-Taylors comprehensive research on this incident is available here. Read an incredibly well researched timeline with links for verification of the use of humans as guinea pigs in numerous government experiments. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and health.


Gene La Rocque, Decorated Veteran Who Condemned Waste of War, Dies at 98
2016-11-04, New York Times
Posted: 2016-11-14 18:26:49
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/us/gene-la-rocque-decorated-veteran-who-con...

Rear Adm. Gene La Rocque, a decorated Navy veteran who spoke out against the wastes of war, was labeled a traitor by some and went on to found the Center for Defense Information, a private think tank that was described as both pro-peace and pro-military, died on Monday in Washington. He was 98. Admiral La Rocque attracted particular attention when he gave an interview to Studs Terkel for his 1984 book, The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two. Admiral La Rocque described the State Department as having become the lackey of the Pentagon and lamented the loss of civilian control. After retiring from the Navy in the early 1970s, he founded the Center for Defense Information with Rear Adm. Eugene Carroll. The new organization ... began with three primary goals: to avert a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, to end the Vietnam War and to monitor the influence of the military-industrial complex. As the centers director, Admiral La Rocque continued his battle long after the first two goals had been achieved. In 1990 he was calling for the nations military budget to be reduced by one-third, to $200 billion, and troop strength to be reduced from three million to two million. And he was working to take the profit out of weapons manufacture, although he doubted that the military would ever produce its own weapons again. Admiral La Rocque contributed a note to The Defense Monitor as recently as last year, expressing concern that the influence of the military-industrial complex was still growing in power.

Note: Read Admiral La Rocque's statement on how government security agencies orchestrate wars and see him featured in an excellent 22-minute PBS documentary "The Secret Government" on this webpage. Another top US general wrote a powerful essay titled "War is a Racket." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


When CIA and NSA Workers Blow the Whistle, Congress Plays Deaf
2016-10-27, The Intercept
Posted: 2016-11-07 18:45:55
https://theintercept.com/2016/10/27/when-cia-and-nsa-workers-blow-the-whistle...

Do the committees that oversee the vast U.S. spying apparatus take intelligence community whistleblowers seriously? For the last 20 years, the answer has been a resounding no. My own experience in 1995-96 is illustrative. Over a two-year period working with my wife, Robin (who was a CIA detailee to a Senate committee at the time), we discovered that, contrary to the public statements by then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell and other senior George H. W. Bush administration officials ... American troops had in fact been exposed to chemical agents during and after the 1991 war with Saddam Hussein. Officials at the Pentagon and CIA were working to bury it. The agency didnt care about helping to find out why hundreds of thousands of American Desert Storm veterans were ill. Seeing the writing on the wall, I began working on what would become a book about our experience: Gassed in the Gulf. The agency tried to block publication of the book and attempted to reclassify hundreds of previously declassified Department of Defense and CIA intelligence reports that helped us make our case. Our story [became] a front-page sensation just days before the 1996 presidential election. Within six months, the CIA was forced to admit that it had indeed been withholding data on such chemical exposures, which were a possible cause of the post-war illnesses that would ultimately affect about one-third of the nearly 700,000 U.S. troops who served in Kuwait and Iraq. None of the CIA or Pentagon officials who perpetrated the cover-up were fired or prosecuted.

Note: The above article was written by whistleblower and former CIA analyst Patrick Eddington. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about intelligence agency corruption and the manipulation of public perception.


How the Pentagon became Walmart
2016-08-09, Chicago Tribune/Foreign Policy
Posted: 2016-10-23 16:31:43
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-pentagon-comment-8cdb317e-5e7e-11e6...

By the time I started working at the Defense Department in the early years of the Obama administration, the Pentagon's 17.5 miles of corridors had sprouted dozens of shops and restaurants catering to the building's 23,000 employees. And, over time, the U.S. military has itself come to offer a similar one-stop shopping experience to the nation's top policymakers. As retired Army Lt. Gen. Dave Barno once put it to me, the relentlessly expanding U.S. military has become "a Super Walmart with everything under one roof" - and two successive presidential administrations have been eager consumers. The military's transformation into the world's biggest one-stop shopping outfit is ... at once the product and the driver of seismic changes in how we think about war, with consequent challenges both to our laws and to the military itself. We've gotten into the habit of viewing every new threat through the lens of "war," thus asking our military to take on an ever-expanding range of nontraditional tasks. But viewing more and more threats as "war" brings more and more spheres of human activity into the ambit of the law of war, with its greater tolerance of secrecy, violence, and coercion - and its reduced protections for basic rights. Meanwhile, asking the military to take on more and more new tasks requires higher military budgets, forcing us to look for savings elsewhere. As budget cuts cripple civilian agencies, their capabilities dwindle, and we look to the military to pick up the slack, further expanding its role.

Note: As the Tribune has strangely removed this article, here's an alternate link. Another cutting article shows that according to the latest report on public relations spending from the Government Accountability Office, the US government PR apparatus has spent over $1 billion annually $626 million of which the Pentagon allots to employ a massive propaganda army. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


The US just bombed Yemen, and no one's talking about it
2016-10-15, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2016-10-23 16:27:54
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/15/us-bombed-yemen-middle-...

A US navy destroyer fired a barrage of cruise missiles at three radar sites controlled by the rebel Houthi movement in Yemen. This attack marked the first time the US has fought the rebels directly in Yemens devastating civil war. The Pentagon justified this attack as retaliation. Last week, missiles were fired on two separate occasions at another navy destroyer off of Yemens southern coast. Those missiles fell harmlessly into the water, but they were enough of a provocation that the navy responded with its own bombardment. Immediately prior to those incidents, on Saturday 8 October, a 500lb laser-guided US-made bomb was dropped on a funeral procession by the US-sponsored Saudi-led coalition fighting the rebels. This bomb killed more than 140 people, mostly civilians, and wounded more than 525 people. Human Rights Watch called the incident an apparent war crime. The US ... has sold the Saudis $110bn worth of arms since President Obama assumed office. The US also supplies the Saudis with necessary intelligence and logistics to prosecute its war. The situation in Yemen is already catastrophic and largely out of view. Since the conflict began 18 months ago, more than 6,800 people have been killed. Both rebels and the regime have committed atrocities, though most of the dead are civilians and most have been killed by Saudi-led airstrikes. Almost 14.4 million people are now food insecure, according to the UNs World Food Program, and 2.8 million people have been displaced.

Note: Read a two-page summary of a highly decorated US general's book which exposes how war is a racket meant to benefit the big bankers and power elite. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


Court refuses to release names of US-trained military leaders
2016-09-30, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
Posted: 2016-10-23 16:20:03
http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/Court-refuses-to-release-names-of-U-S-tr...

Activists have no right to force public disclosure of the names of Latin American military leaders trained at a U.S. Army installation formerly known as the School of the Americas, a divided federal appeals court ruled Friday. A federal judge had ruled in 2013 that the government must identify students and instructors at the school at Fort Benning, Ga., whose graduates have included Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega and Salvadoran death squad leader Roberto dAubuisson. But in a 2-1 ruling Friday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ... said the information had little public value, and that disclosure would invade the trainees privacy. There are many groups in foreign countries that would seek to harm those who are publicly associated with the United States military, Judge Sandra Ikuta said in the majority opinion. She also cited assurances by the Defense Department and an oversight board that the school ... is complying with a federal law that requires it to instruct students about human rights. Federal law additionally requires the department to deny enrollment to any member of a military unit that has committed a gross violation of human rights, Ikuta said. Dissenting Judge Paul Watford said the majority was taking the governments word that everything was in order a fox-guarding-the-henhouse notion despite past revelations of abuses by School of the Americas graduates. He noted that past training materials disclosed by the Pentagon in 1996 included manuals providing instruction on torturing and executing insurgents.

Note: The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, formerly known as the School of the Americas, graduated more than 500 human rights abusers. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


The guinea pig for U.S. torture is languishing at Guantanamo
2016-10-07, Washington Post
Posted: 2016-10-16 23:02:54
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-guinea-pig-for-us-torture-is-lang...

The poster child of the American torture program sits in a Guantanamo Bay prison cell, where many U.S. officials hope he will simply be forgotten. Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, known to the world as Abu Zubaydah ... was the guinea pig of the CIA torture program. He was the first prisoner sent to a secret CIA black site, the first to have his interrogation enhanced and the only prisoner subjected to all of the CIAs approved techniques, as well as many that were not authorized. He is the man for whom the George W. Bush administration wrote the infamous torture memo in the summer of 2002. Senior officials thought he had been personally involved in every major al-Qaeda operation, including 9/11. Today, the United States acknowledges that assessment was, to put it graciously, overblown. His extended torture provided no actionable intelligence about al-Qaedas plans. He has never been charged with a violation of U.S. law, military or civilian, and apparently never will be formally charged. Instead, he languishes at Guantanamo. After years in secret prisons around the world, he remains incommunicado, with no prospect of trial. Who is Zubaydah, really? Public understanding about Zubaydah remains remarkably controlled and superficial. In connection with Zubaydahs stalled case seeking federal court review of his detention, the government has recently agreed to clear for public release a few of the letters he has written to us. These brief letters [are] published here for the first time.

Note: The use of humans as guinea pigs in government, military, and medical experiments has a long history. For more along these lines, see the "10 Craziest Things in the Senate Report on Torture". For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about corruption in government and in the intelligence community.


The truth about British army abuses in Iraq must come out
2016-10-03, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2016-10-10 15:37:13
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/03/british-army-abuses-ira...

In the past few days a number of politicians and former generals have criticised the so-called hounding of British soldiers by what they claim are just money-grabbing lawyers launching ill-founded cases into alleged wartime abuse. Criticising the work of the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (Ihat), Tim Collins, the retired colonel who led British troops in Iraq, said the allegations were being made by parasitic lawyers. Theresa May has said she wants to end the industry of vexatious claims. And Tony Blair, who launched the military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, said: I am very sorry that our soldiers and their families have been put through this ordeal. The reality, of course, is somewhat different. The Ministry of Defence has already paid out 20m in compensation to victims of abuse in Iraq. Anyone who has been involved in litigation with the MoD knows that it will pay up only if a case is overwhelming or the ministry wants to cover something up. The complaints before the Ihat are not just from lawyers. They are also from serving and former members of the armed forces with no financial interest in the outcome. Even more disturbing, many of these investigations may lead to the door of the MoD itself. Many of the allegations concern physical, sexual and religious abuse during interrogation. The conduct appears systematic, and ... there were secret detention facilities in the UK area of operations which appear to have bypassed prisoner of war facilities. If this is correct, it is in violation of the Geneva conventions.

Note: The Chilcot inquiry recently concluded that Tony Blair deliberately lied to MPs and the public on Iraq to commit British troops to the US-led invasion in 2003. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about war corruption and the manipulation of public perception.


For $178 million, the U.S. could pay for one fighter plane or 3,358 years of college
2016-09-21, Reuters
Posted: 2016-10-02 14:47:41
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-college-debt-defense-commentary-idUSKCN11Q1GE

Does free college threaten our all-volunteer military? That is what Benjamin Luxenberg, on the military blog War on the Rocks says. Unlike nearly every other developed country, which offer free or low cost higher education ... in America you need money to go to college. Right now there are only a handful of paths to higher education in America: have well-to-do parents; be low-income and smart to qualify for financial aid, take on crippling debt, or ... join the military. Overall, 75 percent of those who enlisted or who sought an officers commission said they did so to obtain educational benefits. And in that vein, Luxenberg raises the question: If college was cheaper, would they still enlist? It is a practical question worth asking, but raises more serious issues. Do tuition costs need to stay high to help keep the ranks filled? Does unequal access to college help sustain our national defense? A single F-35 fighter plane costs $178 million. Dropping just one plane from inventory generates 3,358 years of college money. We could pass on buying a handful of the planes, and a lot of people who now find college out of reach could go to school. The defense budget is some $607 billion, already the worlds largest by far. The cost of providing broader access to higher education would be a tiny fraction of that amount, far below any threshold where a danger to Americas defense could be reasonably argued.

Note: The Pentagon is the only segment of US government that doesn't balance its books, and Pentagon auditors are heavily pressured to look the other way on blatant corruption. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing military corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Weapons Makers Hold Lavish Lovefest for Pentagon Official Who Manages Arms Sales
2016-09-19, The Intercept
Posted: 2016-09-25 23:04:29
https://theintercept.com/2016/09/19/weapons-makers-hold-lavish-lovefest-for-p...

Heres what passes for funny in a room packed full of weapons-industry executives and lobbyists: When Vice Adm. Joseph Rixey the man in charge of the Pentagon agency that administers foreign arms sales said I know you dont go after human rights violators for potential customers. The line produced chuckles in the room. Rixey was the guest of honor at a reception Wednesday hosted by the Senate Aerospace Caucus, a group of more than a dozen senators who work to ensure a strong, secure, and competitive American aerospace sector. The event ... was cohosted by the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), the lobbying group for weapons contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. Rixey is the director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), the Pentagon agency charged with overseeing the Pentagons relations with the militaries of U.S. allies. Over the past year, the DSCA has approved upwards of $47 billion in such contracts, for weapons transfers to countries like Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. In his own remarks, Rixey lauded the relationship between the DSCA and industry. We at DSCA are thankful that we have the support of our counterparts within the United States government and with defense industries, he said. Rixey was joined by caucus co-chairs Sens. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., who praised the industry for its role in overseas weapons sales on both foreign policy and economic grounds.

Note: The Pentagon is the only segment of US government that doesn't balance its books, and Pentagon auditors are heavily pressured to look the other way on blatant corruption. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing military corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


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