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Brazilian Military Curtails President Bolsonaro’s Power Over COVID19 Dispute

April 8, 2020 By Emir Sader, Brazil Wire , , , ,
Bolsonaro made threats he couldn’t carry out about replacing the Health Minister and reopening commerce. Now he is isolated and everyone has turned on him, as General Villas Boas admits. He’s been reduced to impotence. It remains to be seen how he and his children will react. We now have a kind of prime minister in General Braga Netto, who has taken on the role of coordinator of all ministries and, especially, health policy, to prevent Bolsonaro from committing any more acts of madness. The next stage is the government armoring itself to prevent the PT from winning the 2022 presidential elections. This is the next goal.

Will Coronavirus Lead To Martial Law?

April 4, 2020 Sarah Sicard, Military Times. , ,
While the number of cases of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, continues to grow around the country and the globe, lawmakers are considering how best to cut down on the spread of the disease. But the measures being taken have some citizens and service members wondering if martial law may be declared. As of Tuesday, more than 1,500 Guard personnel in 22 states were called up to aid efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 as the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic on March 11, with President Donald Trump following two days later to classify the virus as a national emergency. California Gov. Gavin Newsom in a Sunday presser said that martial law was not necessary to combat coronavirus in his state.

Inside The Military’s Top Secret Plans If Coronavirus Cripples The Government

March 23, 2020 By William M. Arkin, Newsweek.com , , ,
Even as President Trump says he tested negative for coronavirus, the COVID-19 pandemic raises the fear that huge swaths of the executive branch or even Congress and the Supreme Court could also be disabled, forcing the implementation of "continuity of government" plans that include evacuating Washington and "devolving" leadership to second-tier officials in remote and quarantined locations.

‘Arm’s-Length’ Military Institution Promotes Belligerent Worldview

March 14, 2020 Staff, Yvesengler.com ,
For example, the Conference of Defence Associations (CDA) Institute recently published a half-page ad in the Globe and Mail to announce its Conference on Security and Defence. The March 3 and 4 meeting at the venerable Château Laurier was sponsored by the Department of National Defence (DND) and Global Affairs as well as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and other arms companies.

Marine Vet Lawmaker Tells Military To Question The Orders They’re Given

January 26, 2020 Hope Hodge Seck, Military.com. , , ,
A lawmaker who earned the Bronze Star during combat in Iraq as a Marine officer is denouncing President Donald Trump's foreign policy as "rudderless," and calling on active-duty military officers to question the orders they're getting from the commander in chief and refuse to follow them if they're not lawful. Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat and former presidential candidate who ended his White House bid in August, made the remarks in a speech at the Atlantic Council on Thursday, a day after Trump triumphantly addressed the nation and announced that Iran seemed to be backing down from hostilities. On Jan. 3, a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone executed a deadly airstrike on Iranian Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani; Iran retaliated Jan. 7 with a ballistic missile assault on two Iraqi bases that damaged equipment and buildings but did not harm U.S. or Iraqi troops.

Chilean Military Learns Brutal Tactics From Israel

October 27, 2019 Benjamin Zinevich, Independent. , , ,
Chile - What started as a student act of civil disobedience against Santiago’s rising metro fares has now expanded outside the Chilean capital. In a sudden uprising against austerity and persistent economic inequality, a proposed fare increase (the equivalent of €0.02) was simply salt on an open wound for the poor and working-class citizens of Chile. Peaceful protests, when forcibly dispersed by the national police, have turned violent. The government, led by conservative billionaire President Sebastián Piñera, responded by declaring a state of emergency and calling in the military to quell protests, declaring that the state was “at war”. While the military enforces brutality towards civilians not seen since the dictatorship that ended in the early 1990s, it is important to highlight the international connections to such brutality.

Chilean Military Deployed Against Protests For The First Time Since Pinochet

October 21, 2019 Andrea Lobo, Wsws.org , , ,
For the first time since the fascist military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, tanks rolled into downtown Santiago, Chile, this weekend, deployed against protesters demonstrating against a drastic fare hike of the Santiago metro, from the equivalent of USD $1.12 to $1.16. Military personnel in plainclothes and uniform were filmed shooting machine guns and pointing them at crowds of demonstrators. On Saturday, the right-wing government of billionaire Sebastián Piñera invoked the still-standing 1980 Constitution established by Pinochet to declare a state of emergency across the country and to impose curfews in Santiago...

MIlitary Suicides Spike To New Record High

September 28, 2019 Lolita C. Baldor, Apnews.com , , , ,
WASHINGTON (AP) — Military suicides have surged to a record high among active duty troops, continuing a deadly trend that Pentagon officials say is frustrating and they are struggling to counter. The Army, Navy and Marine Corps all saw the rate of suicides go up as well as the overall numbers, with only the Air Force showing a decrease, according to data released by the Pentagon Thursday. Suicides among members of the Reserves and the National Guard also grew.

More Money, Fewer Jobs

August 5, 2019 By Nia Harris, Cassandra Stimpson, and Ben Freeman, Tomdispatch.com , ,
A Marilyn has once again seduced a president. This time, though, it’s not a movie star; it’s Marillyn Hewson, the head of Lockheed Martin, the nation’s top defense contractor and the largest weapons producer in the world. In the last month, Donald Trump and Hewson have seemed inseparable. They “saved” jobs at a helicopter plant. They took the stage together at a Lockheed subsidiary in Milwaukee. The president vetoed three bills that would have blocked the arms sales of Lockheed (and other companies) to Saudi Arabia.

Military Bill Amended For The Better: This Pig Has Really, Really Good Lipstick

July 15, 2019 David Swanson, Worldbeyondwar.org , , ,
The latest U.S. House of Representatives version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which is beyond global in scope and not the least bit defensive, offended Donald Trump’s desire for limitless power and spending in dozens of ways detailed by the people he employs to write things longer than tweets — and that was before it was amended. And the amendments are shockingly good. If you’re going to pass a stinker of a bill, piling several hundred billion more dollars into a criminal enterprise that endangers us, devastates the natural environment, diverts funding away from enterprises that could save and radically improve billions of lives, promotes bigotry and violence...

Why We Still Need A Movement To Keep Youth From Joining The Military

June 28, 2019 Staff, Nnomypeace.net ,
Elizabeth King, In These Times - Eighteen is the youngest age at which someone can join the U.S. military without their parents’ permission, yet the military markets itself to—which is to say recruits—children at much younger ages. This is in part accomplished by military recruiters who visit high schools around the country, recruiting children during career fairs and often setting up recruitment tables in cafeteri­as and hallways. As a result, most students in the U.S. will meet a military recruiter for the first time at just 17 years old, and children are getting exposed to military propaganda younger and younger.

Clemency For Lowly War Criminals, Free Passes For The Mighty

June 7, 2019 By Rebecca Gordon, Tomdispatch.com , , ,
Memorial Day has come and gone and President Trump did not issue his pardons after all. There was substantial evidence that he was planning to use the yearly moment honoring the country’s war dead to grant executive clemency to several U.S. soldiers and at least one military contractor. All have been accused, and one already convicted, of crimes in the never-ending war on terror. But apparently, Trump received enough resistance from serving and retired senior military officers and former soldiers, including presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, to change his mind -- for now.

End This Hidden Risk To Military Families

May 24, 2019 By Stacy Bannerman, Otherwords.org ,
When our loved ones join the military, we know that wearing the uniform could cost them their lives. Military family members do all kinds of calculations about the potential price of serving this nation. We run the numbers and wargame the risks; we bargain with God and make deals with the devil hoping our service member never becomes a casualty. But what most of us don’t know is that when our family members sign up, they sign away some of their rights — and ours. Under what’s called the Feres Doctrine...

2020 Elections: Its Militarism And The Military Budget Stupid!

May 20, 2019 Ajamu Baraka, Blackagendareport.com , ,
U.S. ships are involved in provocative “freedom of navigation” exercises in the South China Sea and other ships gather ominously in the Mediterranean Sea while National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo along with convicted war criminal Elliot Abrams conspire to save the people of Venezuela with another illegal “regime change” intervention. But people are drawn to the latest adventures of Love and Hip-Hop, the Mueller report, and Game of Thrones.

US Military Sees Dramatic Rise in Sexual Assaults

May 4, 2019 By Ilana Novick, Truthout , ,
There were 20,500 reported sexual assaults in the military in 2018, according to a new Pentagon report, a 38% increase in the number of assaults since 2016. The results, as ABC News reports, represent “a setback for the U.S. military’s efforts to reduce sexual assault in the military.” These numbers come from an anonymous survey the Pentagon conducts every two years. Respondents include Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine personnel. The survey defines assault as “rape, sexual assault, forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual contact, abusive sexual contact and attempts to commit those offenses,” according to ABC News. Over 85% of the victims reported knowing the perpetrators.
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