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Military Corruption News Stories

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In Syria, militias armed by the Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA
2016-03-27, Los Angeles Times
Posted: 2016-04-04 19:15:24
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-cia-pentagon-isis-20160327-stor...

Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border. The fighting has intensified over the last two months, as CIA-armed units and Pentagon-armed ones have repeatedly shot at each other while maneuvering through contested territory on the northern outskirts of Aleppo. Last year, the Pentagon helped create a new military coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces ... to take territory away from the Islamic State. The group is dominated by Kurdish outfits known as People's Protection Units or YPG. It has received air-drops of weapons and supplies and assistance from U.S. Special Forces. The U.S. backing for a heavily Kurdish armed force has been a point of tension with the Turkish government, which has a long history of crushing Kurdish rebellions. The CIA, meanwhile, has its own operations center inside Turkey from which it has been directing aid to rebel groups in Syria, providing them with TOW antitank missiles from Saudi Arabian weapons stockpiles. While the Pentagon's actions are part of an overt effort by the U.S. and its allies against Islamic State, the CIA's backing of militias is part of a separate covert U.S. effort aimed at keeping pressure on the Assad government. Over the last several months ... Kurdish-led groups [expanded] their zone of control to the outskirts of Aleppo, bringing them into more frequent conflict with the CIA-backed outfits.

Note: Explore powerful evidence that ISIS is aided and was possibly even created by covert US support. Watch this video which shows how the US and its allies stoke war in order to pad the pockets of mega-corporations which profit greatly from arms sales. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


More high-ranking officers being charged with sex crimes against subordinates
2016-03-19, Washington Post
Posted: 2016-03-27 20:27:55
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/more-high-ranking-offi...

The U.S. military has stepped up investigations of high-ranking officers for sexual assault. The Defense Department ... has revamped its policies to prevent sexual assault and to hold perpetrators accountable. During the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 116 officers of all stripes were court-martialed, discharged or received some sort of punishment after they were criminally investigated for sexual assault. That was more than double the number from three years earlier. Of last years cases, eight were against senior officers holding a rank equivalent to colonel or Navy captain or higher. While that figure may seem small, it represented a fourfold increase from 2012. Overall, the vast majority of troops investigated for sexual assault are enlisted personnel, who accounted for 94 percent of all cases last year. Enlisted troops outnumber officers by a ratio of 4.6 to 1. Under the military justice system, senior officers are responsible for deciding whether individuals under their command should be prosecuted. Some lawmakers and advocacy groups are pushing to strip commanders of that power and to give it instead to uniformed prosecutors. The Pentagon has resisted such proposals, saying they would undermine command authority. When senior officers themselves are charged with sexual assault, it makes it appear as if the fox was guarding the henhouse, said [Don] Christensen, the president of Protect Our Defenders, which has lobbied Congress to change the law.

Note: A 2015 Associated Press article states that: "the true scope of sex-related violence in the military communities is vastly underreported." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.


Canadian military explored plan to fully integrate forces with U.S.
2015-09-30, CBC (Canada's public broadcasting system)
Posted: 2016-03-27 20:22:04
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-military-integration-can...

CBC News has learned that a Canadian military effort to formally create integrated forces with the United States for expeditionary operations included an even more ambitious option a plan to fully integrate military forces. The Canadian military efforts were ultimately ... refocused on improving interoperability between the forces. The Canada-U.S. Integrated Forces program was led at the highest levels, with then Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Tom Lawson and the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey (now retired), meeting on "several occasions" to hash out a plan that included an option for "fully integrated forces." CBC News reported that the Canadian military had been working on a plan to create a binational integrated military force with the U.S., under which air, sea, land and special operations forces would be jointly deployed under unified command outside Canada. "The government has neither expressed interest in the concept of Canada-U.S. force integration nor directed exploration of it," [defense ministry spokesman Daniel] Proussalidis told CBC News. But the new information from the Defence Department shows the planning ... happened at the highest levels of both forces. A fully integrated force could be politically dangerous.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about government corruption and the manipulation of public opinion.


U.S., Russia, Security Council Get A Share Of Blame For Syrian Violence In New Report
2016-03-11, NPR
Posted: 2016-03-20 22:19:59
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/11/470049269/u-s-russia-securi...

The fifth year of the Syrian conflict was the worst yet for civilians - and Russia, the U.S., France and Britain are partly to blame. That's according to a new report from 30 aid and human rights groups. Titled "Fuelling the Fire," the report says some 50,000 people have been killed since April 2014 and that nearly a million more have been forced to flee their homes. It also says that as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the U.S., Britain, France and Russia could be doing much more to end the bloodshed. While fixing most of the blame on the Syrian regime and armed opposition groups, as well as violent extremists such as the Islamic State, the report says major world powers are undermining their own calls for peace through the weapons they provide to combatants, their own military strikes and what the report calls inadequate pressure on their allies to stop the killing. Jan Egeland with the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the groups behind the report, said this week in Geneva that despite recent progress in aiding besieged areas, there are still seven places where they can't get aid to trapped people. "It's very clear that the seven areas where we have not reached, are [controlled] six by the government, one by Islamic State," he said.

Note: The underlying reason for this war and most wars is the huge profits that are made, as clearly revealed by a top US general in his highly revealing book "War is a Racket." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


Pentagon to try again at training Syrian rebels
2016-03-18, Los Angeles Times
Posted: 2016-03-20 22:16:54
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-pentagon-syria-20160317-story.html

President Obama has authorized a limited new plan to train and arm rebel fighters to confront Islamic State militants in Syria, relaunching a Pentagon program that was suspended last fall after a series of embarrassing setbacks. The program is separate from a covert CIA-run training operation. The original plan involved selecting fighters from moderate Syrian rebel groups, taking them to Arab military bases outside Syria, and providing arms, equipment and six weeks of training. They then would [be] sent back to Syria. The first 54 recruits were ambushed in July by Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate. The second class of 71 surrendered much of their U.S.-issued ammunition and trucks to Nusra Front fighters in September in exchange for safe passage through northern Syria. The program initially was envisioned as a $500-million, three-year plan to recruit, train and equip fighters at bases in Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Thousands of rebels applied. Many were ... ineligible. In addition, the prospective host countries and many of the fighters disagreed with the U.S. emphasis on fighting Islamic State, saying the training should focus on ousting Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Pentagon shut the program down in less than a year. In its place, the Pentagon began providing communications equipment, weapons and ammunition to rebel commanders. The equipment was dropped into Syria by U.S. aircraft and distributed among the units as they pushed into territory controlled by Islamic State.

Note: Explore powerful evidence that ISIS is aided and was possibly even created by covert US support. Watch this video which shows how the US and its allies stoke war in order to pad the pockets of mega-corporations which profit greatly from arms sales. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


The Signature Strikes Program
2013-05-29, New York Times
Posted: 2016-03-20 22:14:38
http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/29/the-signature-strikes-program/...

Toward the end of a May 27 article in The Times about President Obamas speech in which, among other things, he mentioned setting new standards for ordering drone strikes against non-Americans, there was this rather disturbing paragraph: Even as he set new standards, a debate broke out about what they actually meant and what would actually change. For now, officials said, signature strikes targeting groups of unidentified armed men presumed to be extremists will continue in the Pakistani tribal areas. As Glenn Greenwald has pointed out, those two sentences seem to contradict the entire tenor of Mr. Obamas speech, and of a letter to Congress from Attorney General Eric Holder. Both men seemed to be saying that the administration would stop using unmanned drones to kill targets merely suspected, due to their location or their actions, of a link to Al Qaeda or another terrorist organization. Those strikes have resulted in untold civilian casualties that have poisoned Americas relationship with Yemen and Pakistan. Mr. Obama talked at some length about civilian casualties, and also said that the need to use drone strikes against forces that are massing to support attacks on coalition forces will disappear once American forces withdraw from Afghanistan at the end of 2014. But so what to make of that paragraph in the May 27 article? I asked the White House. What I got in response was part of a background briefing given after the presidents speech that repeated the language about how the need for signature strikes will fade.

Note: Drone strikes often miss their intended targets and reportedly create more terrorists than they kill. Casualties of war whose identities are unknown are frequently mis-reported to be "militants". For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


US drone strikes target rescuers in Pakistan and the west stays silent
2012-08-12, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2016-03-20 22:09:43
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/20/us-drones-strikes-target...

The US government has long maintained, reasonably enough, that a defining tactic of terrorism is to launch a follow-up attack aimed at those who go to the scene of the original attack to rescue the wounded and remove the dead. Yet ... this has become one of the favorite tactics of the very same US government. Attacking rescuers (and arguably worse, bombing funerals of America's drone victims) is now a tactic routinely used by the US in Pakistan. In February, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documented that "the CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals." Specifically: "at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims." The UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings ... Christof Heyns, said that if "there have been secondary drone strikes on rescuers who are helping (the injured) after an initial drone attack, those further attacks are a war crime." There is no doubt that there have been. The frequency with which the US uses this tactic is reflected by this December 2011 report ... on the drone killing of 16-year-old Tariq Khan and his 12-year-old cousin Waheed, just days after the older boy attended a meeting to protest US drones: "[Witnesses] did not provide pictures of the missile strike scene. Virtually none exist, since drones often target people who show up at the scene."

Note: Drone strikes almost always miss their intended targets and reportedly create more terrorists than they kill. Casualties of war whose identities are unknown are frequently mis-reported to be "militants". For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing government corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


House intel committee blasts Pentagon over ISIS files
2016-02-25, CNN
Posted: 2016-02-28 20:31:53
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/25/politics/house-intel-committee-pentagon-isis-fi...

The Republican-led House intelligence committee wants the Pentagon to provide what it believes are illegally deleted intelligence files pertaining to the U.S. military campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. "We have been made aware that both files and emails have been deleted by personnel at CENTCOM, and we expect that the Department of Defense will provide these and all other relevant documents to the committee," [Committee Chairman Devin] Nunes said at a hearing Thursday. Nunes' assertions led to an extraordinary public acknowledgment from Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who was testifying before the committee, of the "unusually high" dissatisfaction inside the agency responsible for providing military intelligence on ISIS. There is already an ongoing Defense Department Inspector General investigation into allegations that intelligence analysts at CENTCOM were pressured into changing their analysis to make their reports sound overly optimistic. Congress is conducting a separate investigation. The committee has information from whistleblowers that both intelligence files and emails were deliberately deleted at Central Command, but that copies remain in the hands of analysts. Some Pentagon officials have privately told CNN they believe the problem at Central Command is that some analysts feel their work is not accepted if it shows a negative view of progress.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing military corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Afghanistan war: Just what was the point?
2016-02-25, CNN
Posted: 2016-02-28 20:25:45
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/25/asia/afghanistan-war-analysis/

It is worse in Afghanistan now than ... ever. The conflict, begun initially to oust the Taliban that sheltered al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S., has cost the lives of more than 3,500 Coalition service members and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians. The war ... moved back into focus three weeks ago with the death of Wasil Ahmad. Wasil learned firearms and commanded a unit of anti-Taliban fighters briefly, before Taliban gunmen on a motorbike mowed him down as he bought food for his mother and siblings. Wasil was just 11 years old. Dissent in the ranks of the Taliban has led to ISIS becoming a radical, brutal and attractive alternative to the country's disenfranchised youth, for whom the old insurgency isn't moving fast enough. The Taliban hold more territory now than at any time since 2001. There are about 10,000 U.S. troops left, who can hunt extremists, but not hold territory. In terms of Western goals - things are right back where they started: needing to keep Afghanistan free of extremists and a viable country for its people. Without that the result is thousands of refugees in Europe, and ISIS gets a new safe haven. What is left is a country where the West is discredited; ... where most fighters are meaner, better armed, and more chaotic than they were in 2001; and whose name causes opinion-formers in the West to try and change the subject.

Note: The underlying reason for this war and most wars is the huge profits that are made, as clearly revealed by a top US general in his highly revealing book "War is a Racket." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


Inside the Pentagons Slush Fund
2016-02-01, US News & World Report
Posted: 2016-02-22 17:11:41
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-02-12/inside-the-pentagons-slush-fun...

The Overseas Contingency Operations budget ... was known from 2001 to 2009 as the supplemental and is now considered a de facto slush fund. It began as the war budget President George W. Bush needed for the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan without having to go back to Congress every time the Defense Department needed to modify its main half-trillion-dollar budget. The Pentagon does not have to release details publicly on how specifically this money will be spent. As a result, [the OCO] has ballooned into an ambiguous part of the budget to which government financiers increasingly turn to pay for other, at times unrelated, costs. This year the proposed budget ... grew by $200 million despite thousands fewer combat troops in Afghanistan and, technically, none in Iraq. Janine Davidson, who is awaiting Senate confirmation to become undersecretary of the Navy, wrote last year about the perils of letting this budget remain unchecked. Adams believes the increased reliance on this budget fractures budget discipline for the Defense Department and demonstrates that normal budget process is completely broken. It leaves the Defense Department all the money it needs for operations and paying its bills, and then some. When youve done that, youve basically said to all the people who run the Pentagon, Youre awash with money. Priority-setting is no longer necessary.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing military corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Tasked With Combating Opium, Afghan Officials Profit From It
2016-02-15, New York Times
Posted: 2016-02-22 17:09:26
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/16/world/asia/afghanistan-opium-heroin-taliban...

The United States spent more than $7 billion in the past 14 years to fight the runaway poppy production that has made Afghan opium the worlds biggest brand. Tens of billions more went to governance programs to stem corruption and train a credible police force. But ... more than ever, Afghan government officials have become directly involved in the opium trade. Some of the most important regional police and security commanders, including allies of American military and intelligence officials, are closely identified with the opium trade. Farmers said they paid [government officials] about $40 for each acre of poppies under cultivation. In 2015, that meant nearly $3 million in payments from the district of Garmsir alone. Garmsir is just one of several districts in ... the heart of poppy country. By the most basic metric, the international effort to curb poppy production in Afghanistan has failed. More opium was cultivated in 2014, the last year of the NATO combat mission, than in any other year since the United Nations began keeping records in 2002. Government complicity in the opium trade is not new. Taxation on a districtwide level in the main opium-growing centers, however, has been less common. Most who spoke about it did so on the condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. Farmers in Nad Ali said tax collection depended on ... ones relationship with the local police commander. In some cases, the teams sent by the government to eradicate crops collected the funds. In others, it was the local or national police.

Note: For solid evidence that rogue elements of the US government are making big profits from opium sales, read the riveting stories of two award-winning journalists. For more, read how US counternarcotics efforts have contributed to the Afghan opium boom.


US military burn pits built on chemical weapons facilities tied to soldiers' illness
2016-02-16, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2016-02-22 17:05:04
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/16/us-military-burn-pits-chemical...

In 2007, shortly after vice-president Joe Biden learned that his eldest son would be deployed to Iraq, the then-presidential hopeful turned to a modest crowd at the Iowa state fair and admitted that he didnt want Beau to go. Beau arrived in Iraq the following year. Though he returned home safely ... his health deteriorated, and he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Less than two years later, he died at the age of 46. A new book ... suggests a possible link between his illness and service. Based on clusters of similar cases, scientific studies and expert opinions, author Joseph Hickman proposes in The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of Americas Soldiers that [some] US service members in Iraq and Afghanistan confronted ... respiratory issues relating to their burn pit exposure. Others likely developed more life-threatening conditions such as cancers, Hickman contends, because of what the burn pits were built on top of: the remnants of Saddam Husseins chemical weapons program. The Pentagon ordered the use of open-air burn pits to dispose of the wars massive volume of waste. Among the other hazardous items service members recall being burned are: petroleum, oil, rubber, tires, plastic, styrofoam, batteries, appliances, electrical equipment, pesticides, aerosol cans, oil, explosives, casings, medical waste and animal and human carcasses. The VA does does not acknowledge a link between burn pits and long-term health problems. Of the 500 people included in Hickmans burn pit study, the VA denied disability benefits to over 90% of them.

Note: Read more about these toxic burn pits and the US military's ongoing refusal to accept responsibility for the negative impacts of these on veteran's health. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing military corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Billions of Dollars Haven't Improved Safety or the Economy in Afghanistan
2016-01-29, Newsweek
Posted: 2016-02-07 11:06:32
http://www.newsweek.com/afghanistan-sigar-military-report-420624

Billions of dollars spent by the U.S. government in Afghanistan over the past decade has failed to make the country safer or substantially improve its economic prospects, according to a new report. The special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction [SIGAR] says its investigations led to the imprisonment of two U.S. Army sergeants who were found guilty of accepting illegal bribes. SIGARs report also points out that between October and December 2015, Afghanistan proved even more dangerous than it was a year ago and that the Taliban now controls more territory, around 30 percent, than at any time since 2001. The U.S. has spent $113.1 billion funding Afghanistans reconstruction since 2002, including $8.4 billion for counter-narcotics efforts. Despite that enormous sum ... Afghanistan has the equivalent of 400,000 football fields of opium under cultivation. SIGARs quarterly report follows a series of damning discoveries about Department of Defense spending in Afghanistan. In December, SIGAR released a report that said the DOD spent $150 million on private homes ... for between five and 10 U.S. government employees. Afghanistan is also perceived as one of the most corrupt countries in the world: Transparency International ranks Afghanistan as 166th out of 168 countries.

Note: The same thing could be said about Iraq. The US has spent several trillion dollars pursuing a policy of endless war since 9/11. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


The U.S. was supposed to leave Afghanistan by 2017. Now it might take decades
2016-01-26, Washington Post
Posted: 2016-01-31 19:35:12
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/01/26/the-u-s-was-supp...

Top U.S. military commanders, who only a few months ago were planning to pull the last American troops out of Afghanistan by years end, are now quietly talking about an American commitment that could keep thousands of troops in the country for decades. The new American outlook marks a striking change for Obama, who campaigned on a promise to bring American troops home and has said repeatedly that he does not support the idea of endless war. And it highlights a major shift for the American military, which has spent much of the past decade racing to hit milestones as part of its broader exit strategy from Afghanistan and Iraq. These days, that phrase has largely disappeared from the militarys lexicon. In its place, there is a broad recognition in the Pentagon that building an effective Afghan army and police force will take a generations commitment, including billions of dollars a year in outside funding and constant support from thousands of foreign advisers on the ground. There are now 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Plans call for Obama to halve that force by the time he leaves office, but he could defer the decision to the next president.

Note: The US has spent several trillion dollars pursuing a policy of endless war since 9/11. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing war news articles from reliable major media sources.


U.N. Peacekeeping in Crisis as Fresh Child Abuse Allegations Emerge
2016-01-06, Newsweek
Posted: 2016-01-10 18:54:26
http://www.newsweek.com/un-peacekeeping-crisis-fresh-child-abuse-allegations-...

United Nations (U.N.) peacekeeping personnel must lose their status as a privileged class, according to a former senior U.N. official, after fresh allegations of sexual abuse of minors by peacekeepers in Central African Republic (CAR) emerged. The U.N. peacekeeping mission in CAR - known as MINUSCA - said on Tuesday that it was investigating allegations concerning sexual exploitation and abuse of minors, as well as other misconduct, by peacekeepers and international forces. The peacekeepers came from Gabon, Egypt and Morocco, and AFP reported that the allegations brings the total number of sexual abuse cases against U.N. peacekeepers in CAR to 26. According to Paula Donovan, who served as a senior advisor to the U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa from 2003 to 2006, the latest allegations mean that the U.N.s sex abuse crisis is now more exposed than ever before, but theres no evidence that the U.N. has changed the way its dealing with the problem. The U.N. treats reports of sexual abuse by its personnel as administrative matters to be handled internally and in secret, rather than as serious violent crimes, says Donovan.

Note: A personal friend of WantToKnow.info manager Fred Burks served with the Peace Corps in Africa where she saw learned of horrendous sexual abuse, but was told by all of her superiors in Peace Corps not to touch that one. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.


Pentagon: Hundreds of Military Kids Sexually Abused Annually
2016-01-04, ABC/Associated Press
Posted: 2016-01-10 18:52:32
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/military-kids-sexually-abused-hundre...

In total, incidents involving sexual assault in which the children of service members are victims occur hundreds of times each year, data the Defense Department provided ... show. The figures offer greater insight into the sexual abuse of children committed by service members, a problem of uncertain scale due to a lack of transparency into the military's legal proceedings. With more than 1 million military dependents, the number of cases appears statistically small. An AP investigation ... found more inmates are in military prisons for child sex crimes than for any other offense. But the military's opaque justice system keeps the public from knowing the full extent of their crimes or how much time they spend behind bars. Responding to AP's findings, three Democratic senators have urged Defense Secretary Ash Carter to lift what they called the military justice system's "cloak of secrecy" and make records from sex-crimes trials readily accessible. The senators also raised another concern. Child sex-assault cases are not included in the Defense Department's annual report to Congress on sexual assaults, which focuses primarily on adult-on-adult incidents, they said. The senators ... told Carter in a Dec. 8 letter they are concerned the department may be underestimating how many sexual assaults are occurring in the military.

Note: When it comes to sexual abuse, the US military has reportedly fostered a culture of coverup. Watch an excellent segment by Australia's "60-Minutes" team titled "Spies, Lords and Predators" on a pedophile ring in the UK which leads directly to the highest levels of government. A second suppressed documentary, "Conspiracy of Silence," goes even deeper into this sad subject. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.


In the war against sexual assault, the Army keeps shooting itself in the foot
2015-12-19, Washington Post
Posted: 2015-12-27 21:19:25
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2015/12/19/in-the-war-again...

For the past two years, the Pentagon has acknowledged having a severe problem with sexual assault in the ranks. Soldiers entrusted with key roles in the campaign against sexual assault and harassment have ... been accused of committing those very offenses. The Army Reserves 80th Training Command summoned about 350 personnel to an Orlando hotel in 2013 for a four-day conference on sexual-assault prevention. One session highlighted how excessive drinking is often at the root of sex crimes committed by those in uniform. Soon after the conference began, sheriffs deputies were called to the hotel to investigate a report that a female guest had been raped by one of the participants - an inebriated soldier she had met at the hotel pool. Overall, the Defense Department received 6,131 reports of sexual assault last year, a figure that has more than doubled since 2007. In March, a sexual-assault-prevention officer for an Army battalion at Fort Hood, Tex., pleaded guilty to acting as a pimp by luring cash-strapped young female soldiers into a prostitution ring. Last year, the Army disciplined its former top sex-crimes prosecutor after receiving a complaint that he had kissed and groped a female officer - while attending a conference on sexual assault. The system shows that the military doesnt really take sexual assault seriously.

Note: When it comes to sexual abuse, the US military has reportedly fostered a culture of coverup. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing sexual abuse scandal news articles from reliable major media sources.


Navy SEALs, a Beating Death and Claims of a Cover-Up
2015-12-17, New York Times
Posted: 2015-12-20 18:23:22
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/world/asia/navy-seal-team-2-afghanistan-bea...

Navy SEALs stomped on ... bound Afghan detainees and dropped heavy stones on their chests. A few hours earlier, shortly after dawn on May 31, 2012, a bomb had exploded at a checkpoint manned by an Afghan Local Police unit that the SEALs were training. Angered by the death of one of their comrades in the blast, the police militiamen had rounded up half a dozen or more suspects from a market in the village of Kalach and forced them to a nearby American outpost. Along the way, they beat them. A United States Army medic standing guard at the base, Specialist David Walker, had expected the men from SEAL Team 2 to put a stop to the abuse. Instead, he said, one of them jump-kicked this guy kneeling on the ground. Two others joined in, [and] beat the detainees so badly that by dusk, one would die. Four American soldiers working with the SEALs reported the episode. The SEAL command, though, cleared the Team 2 members of wrongdoing in a closed disciplinary process that is typically used only for minor infractions. Two of the SEALs and their lieutenant have since been promoted. Several military justice experts ... said that it had been inappropriate for the SEAL command to treat such allegations as an internal disciplinary matter. Its unfathomable, said Donald J. Guter, a retired rear admiral and former judge advocate general of the Navy, in charge of all its lawyers. It really does look like this was intended just to bury this.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing military corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


Thailand's top human trafficking cop requests asylum
2015-12-10, Christian Science Monitor
Posted: 2015-12-20 18:12:07
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2015/1210/Thailand-s-top-human-tra...

A high-ranking member of Thailands police force charged with investigating human trafficking has fled to Australia and requested asylum. Major General Paween Pongsirin said he ... believed his life was in danger after the investigation uncovered evidence that members of Thailands military and police force were participating in human trafficking operations. I worked in the trafficking area to help human beings who were in trouble, he said. But now it is me who is in trouble. Paween began leading the investigation in May, after more than 30 bodies were found buried in graves near Thailands southern border with Malaysia. Paweens investigation has led to allegations of trafficking against 153 people, including at least one senior military official, though he said other government officials would be implicated. The suspected traffickers are accused of starving refugees and denying health treatment, among other offenses. Thailands military has held leadership in the country since a coup d'tat last year. Paween told the Guardian he resigned in November after the five-month investigations was halted. Despite his protests, Paween was transferred to southern Thailand, where he said "senior police" officials were linked to the human trafficking trade. Human trafficking is a big network that involves lots of the military, politicians and police, he told the Guardian. Unfortunately, those bad police and bad military are the ones that have power.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about government corruption and the violation of civil liberties.


Pentagon Task Force Spent Nearly $150M on Villas and 3-Star Meals in Afghanistan
2015-11-02, The Intercept
Posted: 2015-12-13 04:33:59
https://theintercept.com/2015/12/03/pentagon-task-force-spent-nearly-150m-on-...

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) is asking why a small Department of Defense task force charged with developing the Afghan economy spent nearly $150 million on private villas, security guards and luxury meals. In a letter to Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter ... SIGAR chief John Sopko wrote that members of the Defense Departments Task Force for Business and Stability Operations (TFBSO) could have used accommodations available on local military bases and other U.S. government facilities. Former TFBSO employees told SIGAR investigators that the $150 million ... supported no more than 5 to 10 employees. Triple Canopy is one of the firms that have financially benefited the most from post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, earning roughly $2.2 billion in government contracts since 2003. The company has continued to receive lucrative government contracts despite being at the center of several controversies related to the killing of civilians in Iraq by its employees and providing falsified documents for its private security guards. The decision to hire the contractors is believed to have originated with former deputy undersecretary of defense and TFSBO director Paul Brinkley. In 2007, he was investigated by the military on allegations of financial mismanagement and personal misconduct while based in Iraq, but continued serving in government until 2011.

Note: By mid-2014, the US had spent more money on Afghanistan's "reconstruction" than it spent on the entire Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe following WWII. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing military corruption news articles from reliable major media sources.


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