Pentagon

Fragile: Pentagon Report Raises Alarm That US Industry Can’t Support War For Much Longer

June 2, 2018 Staff, Rt.com Educate! Pentagon, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

Between globalization and nearly 20 years of constant warfare, the industrial part of the US military-industrial complex is not looking so good, putting future wars at risk, according to a new Pentagon report. The Annual Industrial Capabilities report, published by the Pentagon’s Office of Manufacturing and Industrial Base Policy, warns that reliance on foreign-sourced materials combined with “twenty years of intermittent conflict,” have put a strain on US manufacturers of weapons, parts and ammunition. “While US national defense demands for materials are seldom unmet, there exist risks to their supply now and risks are anticipated in the foreseeable future,” the report says, describing the two broad trends as the scarcity of materials used in new technologies and the US’ growing reliance on foreign supply sources.

The Pentagon Can’t Account For $21 Trillion (That’s Not a Typo)

May 16, 2018 Lee Camp, Truthdig.com Educate! Inter-Imperialist Rivalry, Pentagon, US Imperialism, Wars and Militarism

There are certain things the human mind is not meant to do. Our complex brains cannot view the world in infrared, cannot spell words backward during orgasm and cannot really grasp numbers over a few thousand. A few thousand, we can feel and conceptualize. We’ve all been in stadiums with several thousand people. We have an idea of what that looks like (and how sticky the floor gets). But when we get into the millions, we lose it. It becomes a fog of nonsense. Visualizing it feels like trying to hug a memory. We may know what $1 million can buy (and we may want that thing), but you probably don’t know how tall a stack of a million $1 bills is. You probably don’t know how long it takes a minimum-wage employee to make $1 million.

CNN’s Iran Fearmongering Would Make More Sense Coming Directly From Pentagon

May 10, 2018 Adam Johnson, Fair.org Educate! CNN, Iran, Pentagon, Propaganda

Why doesn’t CNN Defense Department reporter Barbara Starr just leave CNN and instead work directly for the Trump DoD? On Tuesday, hours after President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran deal (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), Starr (5/8/18) rushed to publish an anonymously sourced and transparently propagandistic press release for the Trump administration and Pentagon. Wouldn’t it be easier if Starr just skipped the middleman and just worked for the DoD? In her 513-word piece, “US Officials Growing Increasingly Concerned Iran Could Attack Israel,” Starr mindlessly repeated “concerns” by unnamed US Department of Defense and Israeli Defense Force officials that Iran might directly attack Israel and/or Israeli positions in occupied Syria—something that has never happened in recorded history: There are increasing concerns Iran is on the cusp of an attack against Israel, several US military officials told CNN.

Pentagon Capitalism And Silicon Valley: Google’s Drone War Project Shows Big Data’s Military Roots

April 9, 2018 By Elliott Gabriel, Mintpressnews.com Educate! Capitalism, Drones, Google, Military, Pentagon

SAN FRANCISCO (Analysis) – Google — the advertising and search engine monolith that once touted its official commitment, “Don’t be evil” — has thrown its full weight behind the U.S. military-industrial complex’s fast-advancing unmanned drone program – and more than three thousand of its employees will have none of it. In a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, over 3,100 employees invoked the now-discarded slogan in an appeal demanding that the company not allow its artificial intelligence technology to be used to improve the targeting capabilities of the United States’ deadly drone fleet. Google’s Project Maven is an AI surveillance engine that uses footage captured by the U.S. Armed Forces’ unmanned aerial vehicles to detect and track objects such as vehicles, while combing through, organizing, and feeding the processed data to the Pentagon.

Citing ‘Don’t Be Evil’ Motto, 3,000+ Google Employees Demand Company End Work On Pentagon Drone Project

April 5, 2018 By Julia Conley, Commondreams.org Resist! Drones, Google, Pentagon, Technology

"By entering into this contract, Google will join the ranks of companies like Palantir, Raytheon, and General Dynamics." More than 3,000 Google employees have signed a letter that's circulating in the company demanding that the tech giant end its involvement in Project Maven, a Pentagon program that could be used to develop drone technology. The project, the workers argue, runs counter to the company's stated mission and motto. "By entering into this contract, Google will join the ranks of companies like Palantir, Raytheon, and General Dynamics," wrote the employees, who include senior engineers. "The argument that other firms, like Microsoft and Amazon, are also participating doesn't make this any less risky for Google. Google's unique history, its motto 'Don’t Be Evil,' and its direct reach into the lives of billions of users set it apart."

Universities Team With Pentagon & US Intelligence: Controlling Dissent Under Cover Of Fighting Hate

March 22, 2018 By Bob Witanek, Njnouswarinme.blogspot.com Resist! Intelligence, Pentagon, Repression

The Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience is actually a US intelligence program sponsored by a $2M grant from the Defense Intelligence Agency. This program offers an intelligence minor, paid stipends for field work with the FBI, NSA and CIA, regularly features guest speakers from those and other intelligence and police agencies, and also provides training for current agents of the various US intelligence agencies. It is also a recruitment operation for these agencies, using faculty members, administrators and even students as recruitment agents. Agencies operating through the Miller Center include DIA, NSA, CIA, DHS, ICE and FBI. Ostensibly the forum being sponsored by these spy agencies of the National Security State is focused in part on the topic of Anti-Semitism with a featured speaker from the ADL (Anti Defamation League) and another from B’nai Shalom.

Marches On Washington To End The Wars

March 13, 2018 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG Radio. Podcast Anti-Imperialism, Pentagon, Trump, Women's March

President Trump formally requested the Pentagon to organize a military parade in Washington, DC on November 11, celebrated as Veteran's Day. However, groups of veterans want to stop the glorification of war and are organizing to reclaim the holiday as Armistice Day. This November is the 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I. We speak with Brian Becker of the ANSWER coalition about the many groups organizing opposition to the military parade and calling for an end to wars at home and abroad. We also speak with Cindy Sheehan about the October Women's March on the Pentagon, which was organized in response to the Democratic Party-affiliated Women's Marches that omitted anti-war messages. Both Becker and Sheehan expose the bipartisan nature of the war machine in the United States.

Pentagon Says Trump Ordered Washington Military Parade

February 7, 2018 Staff, AP.org Educate! Donald Trump, Military, Pentagon

President Donald Trump has asked the Pentagon to plan a grand parade of the U.S. armed forces in Washington this year to celebrate military strength, officials said Tuesday. The Washington Post, which was first to report the plan, said Trump wants an elaborate parade this year with soldiers marching and tanks rolling, but no date has been selected. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed the request Tuesday evening. She said Trump wants the Pentagon to "explore a celebration" that will allow Americans to show appreciation for the military. A Pentagon spokesman, Charlie Summers, said Pentagon officials are aware of the request and are "looking at options." Muscular military parades of the kind that are common in authoritarian countries like China and North Korea are not quintessentially American.

Our New National Defense Strategy: Great Power Conflict and Arms Race

February 5, 2018 Margaret Flower and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG Radio. Podcast North Korea, Pentagon, Syria, Wars and Militarism

The new National Defense Strategy announced last week moves from the ‘war on terror’ toward conflict with great powers. The move from military conflict against non-state actors, i.e. ‘terrorists’, to great power conflict means more military hardware, massive spending on weapons and a new arms race. We speak with Nicolas Davies and Mike Whitney about reasons for the change in defense strategy, the broad impacts it will have and how it will affect areas of conflict around the world.

Women’s March On Pentagon To Confront Bipartisan War Machine?

January 29, 2018 Ann Garrison, Blackagendareport.com Organize! Pentagon, Wars and Militarism, Women's March

Yes, Ann, thank you. I’m beginning to organize a Women's March on the Pentagon because since 2007, when Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats regained a majority in the House of Representatives, there has been an incomprehensible absence of protesting the USA's wars and empire. After Obama took over as president, the antiwar movement all but died. Now we have these huge Women's Marches, climate marches, and so forth, but many of us think that one cannot separate the global emancipation of women, or the destruction of our planet from the issue of war. I feel that instead of beating our heads against a wall to call on these liberal marches to address the issue, we should do what we can to do so ourselves.

Resisting US Military Bases And Pentagon Strategies In Latin America

January 29, 2018 By James Patrick Jordan, Telesurtv.net Resist! Latin America, Military bases, Pentagon, US Imperialism

The anti-bases movement in Latin America is strong and a manifestation of the people’s will. “The United States appear to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.” Those words were written by Simón Bolivar, 189 years ago. The Great Liberator understood that liberation and the U.S.’ concept of liberty are not the same. When imperialists talk about liberty, they mean access to land, water, and other natural resources for private development and profit. Ana Esther Ceceña, in a piece published by the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defense in 2013, describes the objectives of the United States in Latin America and the world. She says the U.S. has “two general objectives: to guarantee the maintenance of capitalism and within it, the primacy of the United States; and to guarantee the availability of all the riches of the world as the material base for the functioning of the system, assuring that its hierarchies and dynamics of power are maintained.”

Pentagon Unveils Strategy For Military Confrontation With Russia And China

January 22, 2018 Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Website. Educate! Pentagon, Trump, Wars and Militarism

The Trump administration’s defense secretary, former Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, rolled out a new National Defense Strategy Friday that signals open preparations by US imperialism for direct military confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia and China. Speaking at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, Mattis made clear that the strategy, the first such document to be issued by the Pentagon in roughly a decade, represented an historic shift from the ostensible justification for US global militarism for nearly two decades: the so-called war on terrorism.

Trump Calling Pentagon, Diplomats To Play Bigger Arms Sales Role

January 11, 2018 Mike Stone and Matt Spetalnick, Reuters.com Educate! Donald Trump, militarism, Pentagon, weapons

President Donald Trump is expected to announce a “whole of government” approach that will also ease export rules on U.S. military exports and give greater weight to the economic benefits for American manufacturers in a decision-making process that has long focused heavily on human rights considerations, according to people familiar with the plan. The initiative, which will encompass everything from fighter jets and drones to warships and artillery, is expected to be launched as early as February, senior officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. A key policy change would call for embassy staffers around the world to act essentially as a sales force for defense contractors, actively advocating on their behalf. It was unclear, however, what specific guidelines would be established.

Bezos Cashes In On Lobbying Washington With Amazon’s $53 Billion Deal

November 20, 2017 Whitney Webb, mintpressnews.com Educate! Amazon, Lobbying, Pentagon

By Whitney Webb for The Mint Press News - The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2018, in addition to including passages involving regime change in Venezuela and exorbitant expenditures on the maintenance and expansion of American empire, continues to surprise: its latest draft includes a measure that will cement a multi-billion dollar deal between the Department of Defense (DOD) and the U.S. mega-corporation Amazon, run by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos. If the NDAA is approved in its current form, which is highly likely according to experts, Bezos’ Amazon sets to gain $53 billion in revenue by becoming the chief supplier of an array of goods to the Department of Defense. The deal is laid out in a section titled “Procurement Through Commercial E-Commerce Portals,” in which the DOD would be required to purchase commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products — such as office supplies — from “e-commerce portals” dominated by Amazon. Though congressmen — including the NDAA’s author, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) — have asserted that there will be healthy “competition” among such portals, Amazon’s massive advantages in these markets are clear, particularly given how Amazon often overtakes markets on its own “free market” platform by edging out third-party vendors. In addition, the Coalition for Government Procurement (CGP) stated in a memo issued last month that only one or two companies would be able to participate, given the parameters put forth by the current version of the bill. Several industry sources cited by Bloomberg stated that Amazon tops that very short list.

The Scandal Of Pentagon Spending

October 11, 2017 William D. Hartung, www.tomdispatch.com Educate! Pentagon, Spending, Taxes

By William D. Hartung for Toms Dispatch - Hawks on Capitol Hill and in the U.S. military routinely justify increases in the Defense Department's already munificent budget by arguing that yet more money is needed to “support the troops.” If you’re already nodding in agreement, let me explain just where a huge chunk of the Pentagon budget -- hundreds of billions of dollars -- really goes. Keep in mind that it’s your money we’re talking about. The answer couldn’t be more straightforward: it goes directly to private corporations and much of it is then wasted on useless overhead, fat executive salaries, and startling (yet commonplace) cost overruns on weapons systems and other military hardware that, in the end, won’t even perform as promised. Too often the result isweapons that aren’t needed at prices we can’t afford. If anyone truly wanted to help the troops, loosening the corporate grip on the Pentagon budget would be an excellent place to start. The numbers are staggering. In fiscal year 2016, the Pentagon issued $304 billionin contract awards to corporations -- nearly half of the department’s $600 billion-plus budget for that year. And keep in mind that not all contractors are created equal.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources