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Military Corruption News Articles

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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Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025
1996-08-01, US Air Force Air University
http://csat.au.af.mil/2025/volume3/vol3ch15.pdf

In 2025, US aerospace forces can own the weather by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting applications. Such a capability offers the war fighter tools to shape the battlespace in ways never before possible. Weather-modification is a force multiplier with tremendous power that could be exploited across the full spectrum of war-fighting environments. From enhancing friendly operations or disrupting those of the enemy via small-scale tailoring of natural weather patterns complete dominance of global communications and counter-space control, weather-modification offers war fighter a wide-range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary. But, while offensive weather modification efforts would certainly be undertaken by US forces with great caution and trepidation, it is clear that we cannot afford to allow an adversary to obtain an exclusive weather-modification capability.

Note: The above quote is taken from pages 6 and 35, the executive summary and conclusion of the above US Air Force study. For a highly revealing article suggesting elements within government have much more control over the weather than is thought, click here.


New Documents Show Pentagon Rubber-Stamping Police Requests For Military Gear
2021-08-02, Huffington Post
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/militarized-police-reform-joe-biden_n_6101967b...

Last summer, as one city after another broke out in protest against the murder of George Floyd, some of the most enduring images were not of the demonstrators, but of the police: decked out in riot gear, aiming automatic weapons at peaceful crowds, and riding around on armored vehicles built for war. The crackdowns on protesters renewed furious demands to end a suite of federal programs that have put billions of dollars’ worth of military weapons in the hands of local police. The Pentagon’s 1033 program ... transfers weapons and equipment from America’s foreign wars directly to domestic law enforcement agencies. Under a Freedom of Information Act request, HuffPost has exclusively obtained hundreds of letters that local law enforcement agencies wrote to the Department of Defense in 2017 and 2018 making the case to receive an armored vehicle under the 1033 program. The documents reveal that hundreds of police departments across the country, in communities of all sizes, are willing to deploy armored vehicles to carry out even the most routine tasks: making traffic stops; serving search warrants; responding to domestic violence; responding to people threatening suicide. In response to these requests, the Pentagon has provided thousands of small-town police and sheriff agencies with vehicles built to withstand conditions of war [and] distributed billions of dollars’ worth of helicopters, body armor, night vision equipment, ammunition, rifle sights, machine guns and assault rifles.

Note: This ABC News article shows that providing police with military gear does not reduce crime nor protect police officers. Read more about the Pentagon's 1033 program. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in the military and in policing from reliable major media sources.


Massive military spending is turning America into a 'warfare state,' warns ex U.S. Army Colonel
2020-09-28, CBC (Canada's public broadcasting system)
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/massive-military-spending-is-turning-america-i...

In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower cautioned the United States against "unwarranted influence" what he saw as an alarming alignment of corporate interests with military operations, a relationship he famously called: "the military-industrial complex." Col. Lawrence Wilkerson ... spent over 30 years in the U.S. Army [and] was chief of staff for former Secretary of State, General Colin Powell. He believes that Eisenhower was right, and is a fierce critic of the military-industrial complex. Or what he calls "the warfare state," an obvious play on "welfare state." He believes military spending ... is ruining America. "Today we have become what Eisenhower's worst nightmare predicted in his farewell address," says Wilkerson. Col. Wilkerson has seen firsthand how military expenditures create a devastating feedback loop with politics. "The country marches on to yet another war, another trillion dollar fiasco, another bloodbath for young men and women who are signed up because they were bribed to do so," says Col. Wilkerson. He says "bribed" unapologetically, as the U.S. military relies disproportionately on personnel from have-not states to fill its ranks. The expenditures, however, don't benefit the troops. "The divorce rate: off the charts in the services now. Suicide rate: off the charts in the services now. More post-traumatic stress then you'd ever imagine," Col. Wilkerson explains. "We are almost $22 trillion in debt right now. We've not been this far in debt since the last year of World War Two."

Note: Read a two-page summary of General Smedley Butler's important book, titled "War is a Racket". For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


Why Bombs Made in America Have Been Killing Civilians in Yemen
2020-05-16, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/16/us/arms-deals-raytheon-yemen.html

Year after year, the bombs fell on wedding tents, funeral halls, fishing boats and a school bus, killing thousands of civilians and helping turn Yemen into the worlds worst humanitarian crisis. Weapons supplied by American companies, approved by American officials, allowed Saudi Arabia to pursue the reckless campaign. But in June 2017, an influential Republican senator decided to cut them off, by withholding approval for new sales. It was a moment that might have stopped the slaughter. Not under President Trump. Trade adviser Peter Navarro ... wrote a memo to Jared Kushner and other top White House officials calling for an intervention. He titled it Trump Mideast arms sales deal in extreme jeopardy, job losses imminent. Within weeks, the Saudis were once again free to buy American weapons. The intervention, which has not been previously reported, underscores a fundamental change in American foreign policy under Mr. Trump. Where foreign arms sales in the past were mostly offered and withheld to achieve diplomatic goals, the Trump administration pursues them mainly for the profits they generate and the jobs they create, with little regard for how the weapons are used. Mr. Trump has tapped Mr. Navarro ... to be a conduit between the Oval Office and defense firms. His administration has also rewritten the rules for arms exports, speeding weapon sales to foreign militaries. The State Department, responsible for licensing arms deals, now is charged with more aggressively promoting them.

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


Experimental electromagnetic weaponry may soon see combat use
2003-01-30, The Economist
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2003/01/30/come-fry-with-me

The recent use of armed, unmanned drones in Afghanistan and Yemen has shown that America's armed forces have become good at applying new weapons technology in the field. [Electromagnetic] weapons are able to destroy electronic systems and temporarily incapacitate people, all without the mess of explosions and gunfire. Using different types of electromagnetic energy (the same stuff as radio waves, X-rays and light) ... they could disrupt a variety of enemy systems, from missile targeting and launch electronics, to command-and-control systems. So-called “active denial” technology (which earns its moniker by actively herding people out of its path) works by using a beam of millimetre-length microwaves to heat up a person's skin. The marines are planning to put a version of the weapon on to a jeep. Range and properties are classified, but military newspapers say it can heat a person's skin to 55°C (130°F) at distances of up to 750 metres. David Fidler, a law professor at Indiana University, says that, because these weapons are most likely to be used on civilians, it is not clear that using them is legal under the international rules governing armed conflict. Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch ... says that too much secrecy still surrounds them. Weapons such as the active denial system could cause severe trauma, or even death, if fired at close range or held on a target for too long. Is it acceptable to shoot or bomb somebody if you have the option only to disable them?

Note: You can read the full article free of charge on this webpage. Did you know that non-lethal weapons have already been developed and used on people, as evidenced in these news articles from the mainstream media? Investigate the series of mysterious attacks on US diplomats in recent years which are likely electromagnetic in nature. To explore even further, read about the history and scope of non-lethal weapons, along with a revealing study of the US Intelligence's use and abuse of these weapons.


COVID Cover-Up: Government ‘Forced’ COVID Vaccines to Protect Bioweapons Industry
2024-02-27, The Defender
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/government-forced-covid-vaccines-...

Government officials covered up the origins of COVID-19 and “forced” the vaccination of millions of people worldwide to “protect the integrity of the bioweapons industry,” according to a senior research scientist [at] Yale University. Harvey Risch, M.D., Ph.D. ... provided compelling testimony on what he believes accounts for the “crushingly obsessive push to COVID-vaccinate every living person on the planet.” Risch was among the medical experts ... who participated in Monday’s Senate roundtable discussion on “Federal Health Agencies and the COVID Cartel: What Are They Hiding?” Risch highlighted circumstantial evidence that COVID-19 “leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology” (WIV) in China in fall 2019. There is evidence the virus contains a unique genetic sequence “that also exists in Moderna patents from 2017,” while intelligence has “overwhelmingly” indicated the WIV as the source of the virus. According to Risch, “This work and the WIV leak was what I consider to be the fruit of our bioweapons industry that has been performing secretive and nefarious biological weapons development for the last 70 years.” Risch said that much of this research was banned in 1975, with the enactment of the United Nations Biological Weapons Convention, which prohibited the development of offensive bioweapons. However, a carve-out in the treaty allows “small quantities of offensive bioweapons ... to be developed in order to do research on vaccine countermeasures.”

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


‘Different rules’: special policies keep US supplying weapons to Israel despite alleged abuses
2024-01-18, The Guardian (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/18/us-supply-weapons-israel-allege...

Top US officials quietly reviewed more than a dozen incidents of alleged gross violations of human rights by Israeli security forces since 2020, but have gone to great lengths to preserve continued access to US weapons for the units responsible for the alleged violations, contributing ... to the sense of impunity with which Israel has approached its war in Gaza. An estimated 24,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed by Israeli forces since Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel. Special mechanisms have been used over the last few years to shield Israel from US human rights laws, even as other allies’ military units who receive US support – including, sources say, Ukraine – have privately been sanctioned and faced consequences for committing human rights violations. Under the Leahy law ... a foreign military unit is granted US military assistance or training after it is vetted by the state department for any reported human rights violations. The law prohibits the Department of State and the Department of Defense from providing funds, assistance or training to foreign security force units where there is “credible information” that the forces have committed a gross violation of human rights. In the case of at least three countries – Israel, Ukraine and Egypt – the scale of foreign assistance is so great that US military assistance can be difficult to track, and the US often has no knowledge of where specific weapons end up or how they are used.

Note: Learn more about the dysfunctional nature of the US war machine in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


Ukraine Needs a Ceasefire, Not Biden’s $50 Billion Escalation of Failing War
2023-12-30, LA Progressive
https://www.laprogressive.com/war-and-peace/ukraine-needs-a-ceasefire

The latest White House spending package includes $50 billion in additional military funding, which is more than Ukraine has received from the United States since the war began in early 2022. There’s a better way. The United States can take an active role in organizing a ceasefire, to be followed by negotiations toward a permanent settlement. Unfortunately, so far Biden has made little effort to end the slaughter. In fact, there is serious evidence that Great Britain and the US played a decisive role in blocking a 2022 peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. The State Department reports that the United States has given Ukraine $44.2 billion in military aid since Russia invaded at the end of February, 2022. At the current pace of spending, the additional military aid requested by the White House would keep the Ukraine war going until sometime in mid-2026 – that is, unless there is a plan to intensify the attacks, which would increase the risk of a nuclear conflict. The US has reportedly spent a total of $111 billion on Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. If the supplemental spending package is approved ... military-only spending for Ukraine will be greater than the annual budget of the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Food and Drug Administration – combined. The US has already spent ten times as much on Ukraine as we spend on the Centers for Disease Control. That does not mean Ukraine doesn’t deserve to be defended, but it does raise serious questions about the direction of the war and our government’s priorities.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war and government corruption from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.


Advocates Demand Compensation For U.S. Drone Strike Victims In Somalia
2023-12-18, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2023/12/18/somalia-drone-strike-civilians-letter/

Two Dozen human rights organizations called on the Pentagon Monday to make amends to a Somali family following an investigation by The Intercept of a 2018 U.S. drone strike that killed a woman and her 4-year-old daughter. The 14 Somali groups and 10 international organizations devoted to the protection of civilians urged Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III to take immediate action. The family is seeking an explanation, an apology, and compensation. Congress appropriates millions of dollars annually for the Defense Department to compensate families of civilians killed or injured in U.S. attacks, but the Pentagon has shown an aversion to confronting its mistakes and rarely makes compensation payments, even in cases as clear cut as this one. A drone pilot and analyst, who served in Somalia the year Luul [Dahir Mohamed] and [her daughter] Mariam were killed and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the attack was no anomaly. “When I went to Africa, it seemed like no one was paying attention. It was like, ‘We can do whatever we want,’” he told The Intercept. When he counted the civilians he knew the U.S. had killed and compared that tally with publicly announced figures, he said, “the numbers just didn’t add up.” Luul’s family was traumatized by the airstrike and has suffered for more than half a decade. Her brothers say their elderly father — who died earlier this month — never recovered from his daughter’s sudden death.

Note: Since 2008, the US has supported at least nine coups in African countries, with a vast network of military bases scattered across the continent. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.


The Taliban Are Now Arms Dealers
2023-07-05, Foreign Policy
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/07/05/taliban-afghanistan-arms-dealers-weapons...

The U.S. military retreated from Afghanistan two years ago, leaving behind weapons that are now turning up in far-flung trouble spots. In markets that have sprung up across the southern and eastern badlands ... merchants with Taliban permits are offering U.S.-made automatic assault rifles and handguns for sale. Ad hoc weapons bazaars are offering rockets and bombs, shoulder-fired grenade launchers, night vision goggles, sniper rifles and scopes, and ammunition. The Taliban, allies of if not quite affiliates of al Qaeda ... appear to be funneling small arms to like-minded extremists. U.S. assault weapons have reportedly been used in recent attacks by non-state groups in Kashmir, bitterly divided between India and Pakistan, and in Israel’s Gaza Strip. The U.S. Department of Defense estimated that left-behind stockpiles of arms and vehicles were worth $7.12 billion of the $18.6 billion spent from 2002 on arming the Afghan security forces. “This included roughly 600,000 weapons of all calibers, nearly 300 fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, over 80,000 vehicles of several models, communications equipment, and other advanced materiel such as night vision goggles and biometric systems,” according to the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). SIGAR quoted a Taliban official as saying, “The group took possession of more than 300,000 light arms, 26,000 heavy weapons, and about 61,000 military vehicles.”

Note: Why didn’t the US military prioritize removing this huge amount of equipment that they knew would be taken over by the Taliban? Read more about the shocking lack of oversight of money and equipment sent to Afghanistan. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.


Survivors of Kissinger's Secret War in Cambodia Reveal Unreported Mass Killings
2023-05-23, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2023/05/23/henry-kissinger-cambodia-bombing-survivors/

The U.S. carpet bombing of Cambodia between 1969 and 1973 has been well documented, but its architect, former national security adviser and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ... bears responsibility for more violence than has been previously reported. An investigation by The Intercept provides evidence of previously unreported attacks that killed or wounded hundreds of Cambodian civilians during Kissinger's tenure in the White House. "You can trace a line from the bombing of Cambodia to the present," said Greg Grandin, author of "Kissinger's Shadow." "The covert justifications for illegally bombing Cambodia became the framework for the justifications of drone strikes and forever war." Kissinger bears significant responsibility for attacks in Cambodia that killed as many as 150,000 civilians, according to Ben Kiernan, former director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University and one of the foremost authorities on the U.S. air campaign in Cambodia. That's up to six times the number of noncombatants thought to have died in U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen during the first 20 years of the war on terror. Grandin estimated that, overall, Kissinger – who also helped to prolong the Vietnam War and facilitate genocides in Cambodia, East Timor, and Bangladesh; accelerated civil wars in southern Africa; and supported coups and death squads throughout Latin America – has the blood of at least 3 million people on his hands.

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


Veterans Push Back Against Military Recruitment in Schools
2023-04-03, Yes! Magazine
https://www.yesmagazine.org/democracy/2023/04/03/military-recruitment-veteran...

The U.S. military is facing its worst recruitment crisis since the end of the Vietnam War. We Are Not Your Soldiers is a project of New York City-based nonprofit World Can’t Wait. The organization sends military veterans into schools to share honest stories of the harm they have caused and suffered. In doing so, they hope to prevent young people from signing up.Susan Cushman is a professor at Nassau Community College ... where military recruiters have a heavy presence. She hosts veterans from We Are Not Your Soldiers to help her students “think about alternative ways to achieve an education and get a pension and get a job and travel, without feeling the only option is to join the military.” In order to counter both the narrative and incentives that military recruiters offer young people, veterans try to share the truth about traumatic personal experiences as well as practical information. In addition to the military’s preparedness for counter-recruitment, there’s also the issue of simple math. The Pentagon has a multibillion-dollar budget for recruiting alone. By contrast, We Are Not Your Soldiers has an annual budget of $25,000. With these challenges in mind, [the nonprofit] NNOMY produced a video called “Before You Enlist!” The 16-minute video seeks to lay out a case against military service that preempts the military’s psychological recruitment tactics. With veteran stories and statistics, the video debunks perks, such as “free education” and job training, that the military uses to appeal to potential recruits.

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


U.S. military suicides drop as leaders push mental health programs
2022-10-20, PBS/Associated Press
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/u-s-military-suicides-drop-as-leaders-pus...

Suicides across the active duty U.S. military decreased over the past 18 months, driven by sharp drops in the Air Force and Marine Corps last year and a similar decline among Army soldiers during the first six months of this year, according to a new Pentagon report. The numbers show a dramatic reversal of what has been a fairly steady increase in recent years. The shift follows increased attention by senior military leaders and an array of new programs aimed at addressing what has been a persistent problem in all the services. The numbers provide a glimmer of hope that some of the recent changes — which range from required counseling visits to stress relief education and recreational outings — may be working. According to the data, the number of suicides in the Air Force and Marine Corp dropped by more than 30 percent in 2021 compared with 2020, and the Navy saw a 10 percent decline. The Army saw a similar 30 percent decrease during the first six months of this year, compared with the same time period last year. The National Guard and the Reserves both saw a small dip in suicides, from 121 in 2020 to 119 in 2021. And there were also fewer Guard deaths in the first half of 2022, compared with last year. The Guard has worked over the last year to reduce suicides through outreach and other changes, including policies to destigmatize getting mental health help and a program that provides firearms locks for service members who keep weapons at home.

Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.


The CIA has backed Ukrainian insurgents before. Let’s learn from those mistakes
2022-02-25, Los Angeles Times
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-02-25/ukraine-cia-insurgents-russi...

Russia invaded Ukraine. For years now the Central Intelligence Agency has been preparing for such a moment, not only with prescient intelligence gathering and analysis but also by preparing Ukrainians to mount an insurgency against a Russian occupation. The agency has been training Ukrainian special forces and intelligence officers at a secret facility in the U.S. since 2015. Because the CIA training program is now publicly known, Russia can persuasively claim that Ukrainian insurgents are CIA proxies — a useful statement as propaganda to pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and as a justification for any harsh measures it takes against Ukrainian civilians. The CIA needs to be honest with the Ukrainians — and itself — about the real intent. In the first U.S.-backed insurgency, according to top secret documents later declassified, American officials intended to use the Ukrainians as a proxy force to bleed the Soviet Union. This time, is the primary goal of the paramilitary program to help Ukrainians liberate their country or to weaken Russia over the course of a long insurgency that will undoubtedly cost as many Ukrainian lives as Russian lives, if not more? Even if a Ukrainian insurgency bleeds Russia over years, the conflict could cause instability to spread across Central and Eastern Europe. This is a pattern in the history of U.S. paramilitary operations — from the Cold War to Afghanistan and Iraq today.

Note: For an alternative view of Ukraine’s Zelensky, don’t miss this excellent presentation by intrepid reporter Ben Swann (skip to 1:45 to avoid advertisement). For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on intelligence agency corruption and war from reliable major media sources.


She Blew The Whistle on Military Sexual Assault, then Came Under Investigation
2021-07-26, The Intercept
https://theintercept.com/2021/07/26/military-sexual-assault-whistleblower-sus...

The Biden administration has made combating sexual assault in the military a major policy goal. From 2013 to 2019, that was also Amy Braley-Franck’s mission — advocating for victims of sexual crimes within the military. A day after she informed a top general about widespread mishandling of sexual assault cases, however, she was suspended from duty and has been ever since. Braley-Franck has been a high-profile whistleblower, bringing the issue of sexual assault and command abuses to public attention. For close to two years, though, Braley-Franck has been suspended from her role as an Army sexual assault prevention and response victim advocate. She sees the suspension, at the hands of a general she was serving under, as a clear case of retaliation. President Joe Biden formed the Independent Review Commission on Sexual Assault, which recently recommended taking sexual assault cases outside the chain of command, a change military leaders have long resisted. Braley-Franck said her case proves that more reforms are still needed if the military truly wishes to rein in sexual misconduct. The Defense Department estimates that around 20,500 service members experience sexual assault annually, but only 6,290 official allegations of sexual assault were made in 2020. Since 2010, according to the Independent Review Commission, roughly 644,000 active-duty military personnel have been sexually assaulted or sexually harassed.

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


US Navy’s powerful shock exercise harms marine mammals, expert says
2021-06-23, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/23/us-navy-shock-exercises-marin...

The US navy set off a massive explosion last week, detonating a 40,000lb blast as part of a test to determine whether its newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, is ready for war. The test, known as a full ship shock trial, is just the first of three planned blasts over the coming months. But the amount of explosive used – 40,000 lbs – is enough to have outsized effects on any marine life in the area, said Michael Jasny, who directs the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Marine Mammal Protection Project. “The navy’s own modeling indicates that some smaller species of marine mammals would be expected to die within 1-2km of the blast, and that some marine mammal species would suffer injury including hearing loss out to 10km of the blast. That gives some sense of the power of the explosives we are talking about,” Jasny said. “We don’t know how conscientiously the blast site was chosen, and we don’t know how effective the monitoring was before the detonation, so it’s hard to put a great deal of faith in the safety of marine life.” The area is home to populations of dolphin and small whales at this time of year, and Jasny says that’s worrisome because as a general rule, smaller animals are more vulnerable to blast injury. “A large whale might need to be within a few hundred meters of the blast to die, while a small mammal could be a couple of kilometers away,” he said, adding that even if the animals survive, loss of hearing is a significant problem for mammals who make their living in the ocean.

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


It's Time to Repeal the President's License for Endless War
2020-09-14, Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com/its-time-repeal-presidents-license-endless-war-opini...

The United States is poised to continue spending more money on the Pentagon than the next 10 countries combined, with some 1 million troops deployed in about 175 countries. In other words, there's no end in sight for our forever wars. Monday marks the 19th anniversary of the vote to pass the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, a blank check to deploy U.S. military personnel anywhere in the world in the name of going after terrorists. Our country's response to that attack has had unintended and tragic consequences: war profiteering by military contractors, traumatic impact to our soldiers, and massive numbers of refugees and civilian casualties around the world. Under the auspices of two laws that are now nearly 20 years old, the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs, the United States is militarily engaged in 80 countries, outside of the public eye and with little congressional oversight. The past four years have seen the Trump administration cite these laws as the legal justification to assassinate a foreign government official and take us to the brink of war with Iran, expand the U.S. military footprint in the African continent and indefinitely occupy eastern Syria. Yet the past four years have also seen a growing recognition in Congress that ... we must repeal these laws and reclaim the legislative branch's sole constitutional authority to declare war. For far too long, Congress has relied on the executive branch to tell us what does and does not constitute war.

Note: The above was written by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who represents California's 13th Congressional District. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war from reliable major media sources.


The Cost of Running Guantnamo Bay: $13 Million Per Prisoner
2019-09-16, New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/16/us/politics/guantanamo-bay-cost-prison.html

Holding the Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess as the lone prisoner in Germanys Spandau Prison in 1985 cost an estimated $1.5 million in todays dollars. Then there is Guantnamo Bay, where the expense now works out to about $13 million for each of the 40 prisoners being held there. According to a tally by The New York Times, the total cost last year of holding the prisoners ... paying for the troops who guard them, running the war court and doing related construction, exceeded $540 million. The $13 million per prisoner cost almost certainly makes Guantnamo the worlds most expensive detention program. The military assigns around 1,800 troops to the detention center, or 45 for each prisoner. Judges, lawyers, journalists and support workers are flown in and out on weekly shuttles. The estimated annual cost of $540 million ... does not include expenses that have remained classified, presumably including a continued C.I.A. presence. But the figures show that running the range of facilities built up over the years has grown increasingly expensive even as the number of prisoners has declined. A Defense Department report in 2013 calculated the annual cost of operating Guantnamo Bays prison and court system at $454.1 million, or nearly $90 million less than last year. At the time, there were 166 prisoners at Guantnamo, making the per-prisoner cost $2.7 million. The 2013 report put the total cost of building and operating the prison since 2002 at $5.2 billion through 2014, a figure that now appears to have risen to past $7 billion.

Note: Read an article by a Yemeni citizen detained at Guantanamo Bay, titled, "Will I Die At Guantanamo Bay? After 15 Years, I Deserve Justice." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.


Cyber Tests Showed 'Nearly All' New Pentagon Weapons Vulnerable To Attack, GAO Says
2018-10-09, NPR
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/09/655880190/cyber-tests-showed-nearly-all-new-pe...

Passwords that took seconds to guess, or were never changed from their factory settings. Cyber vulnerabilities that were known, but never fixed. Those are two common problems plaguing some of the Department of Defense's newest weapons systems, according to the Government Accountability Office. The flaws are highlighted in a new GAO report, which found the Pentagon is "just beginning to grapple" with the scale of vulnerabilities in its weapons systems. Drawing data from cybersecurity tests conducted on Department of Defense weapons systems from 2012 to 2017, the report says that by using "relatively simple tools and techniques, testers were able to take control of systems and largely operate undetected" because of basic security vulnerabilities. The GAO says the problems were widespread: "DOD testers routinely found mission critical cyber vulnerabilities in nearly all weapon systems that were under development." The Pentagon has only recently made it a priority to ensure the cybersecurity of its weapons systems. It's still determining how to achieve that goal - and at this point, the report states, "DOD does not know the full scale of its weapon system vulnerabilities." Part of the reason for the ongoing uncertainty ... is that the Defense Department's hacking and cyber tests have been "limited in scope and sophistication." When problems were identified, they were often left unresolved. The GAO cites a test report in which only one of 20 vulnerabilities that were previously found had been addressed.

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


Suleimani killing the latest in a long, grim line of US assassination efforts
2020-01-04, MSN/The Guardian
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/suleimani-killing-the-latest-in-a-long-g...

The US government is no stranger to the dark arts of political assassinations. Over the decades it has deployed elaborate techniques against its foes, from dispatching a chemist armed with lethal poison to try to take out Congos Patrice Lumumba in the 1960s to planting poison pills ... in the Cuban leader Fidel Castros food. But the killing of General Qassem Suleimani, the leader of Irans elite military Quds Force, was in in a class all its own. Its uniqueness lay ... in the brazenness of its execution and the apparently total disregard for either legal niceties or human consequences. The US simply isnt in the practice of assassinating senior state officials out in the open, said Charles Lister, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington. Donald Trumps gloating tweets over the killing combined with a sparse effort to justify the action in either domestic or international law has led to the US being accused of the very crimes it normally pins on its enemies. Irans foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, denounced the assassination as an act of international terrorism. Mary Ellen OConnell, a professor of international law at the University of Notre Dame, draws a direct line between earlier US administrations and the convention-shredding unpredictability of Trump. Since Obama there has been a steady dilution of international law, OConnell said. Suleimanis death marks the next dilution we are moving down a slope towards a completely lawless situation. OConnell added that there was only one step left for the US now to take. To completely ignore the law. Frankly, I think President Trump is there already his only argument has been that Suleimani was a bad guy and so he had to be killed.

Note: Learn more about this brazen provocation in this New York Times article. A Washington Post article titled "The White House has formally notified Congress of the Soleimani strike" shows steps are being taken for declaring. war. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on war corruption from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our War Information Center.


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