Pentagon

Saying Iran Is Paying Bounties To Kill Americans Is Pure Parody

August 20, 2020 Scott Ritter, RT. Educate! Afghanistan, Iran, Media, Pentagon

It was Russia in June, now it’s Tehran. Don’t US analysts understand that Taliban fighters really don’t need any more motivation to target American troops? This is simply politicized (un)intelligence that isn’t fooling anyone. According to CNN, the Iranian government has paid “bounties” to the Haqqani network, a terrorist group with close links to the Taliban, for six attacks on US and coalition forces in Afghanistan in 2019, including one on December 11 which targeted Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, which wounded four US personnel.

US Empire Of Bases Is Spreader Of US COVID-19 Disaster

August 4, 2020 Andrea Mazzarino, Tom Dispatch. Educate! COVID-19, Pentagon, US military, Worker Rights and Jobs

American military personnel are getting sick in significant numbers in the midst of the ongoing pandemic. As The New York Times reported in a piece buried in the back pages of its July 21st edition, “The infection rate in the services has tripled over the past six weeks as the United States military has emerged as a potential source of transmission both domestically and abroad.” Indeed, the military is sick and I think of it as both a personal and an imperial disaster. As the wife of a naval officer, I bear witness to the unexpected ways that disasters of all sorts play out among military families and lately I’ve been bracing for the Covid-19 version of just such a disaster.

Ten Reasons Why Defunding Police Should Lead To Defunding War

July 21, 2020 By Medea Benjamin and Zoltán Grossman, CODEPINK. Create! Defund the police, Military Budget, Pentagon, Police violence

Since George Floyd was murdered, we have seen an increasing convergence of the “war at home” against Black and brown people with the “wars abroad” that the U.S. has waged against people in other countries. Army and National Guard troops have been deployed in U.S. cities, as militarized police treat our cities as occupied war zones. In response to this “endless war” at home, the growing and thunderous cries for defunding the police have been echoed by calls for defunding the Pentagon’s wars. Instead of seeing these as two separate but related demands, we should see them as intimately linked, since the racialized police violence on our streets and the racialized violence the U.S. has long inflicted on people around the world are mirror reflections of each other.

Let’s Defund The Pentagon, Too

July 11, 2020 John Horgan, Scientific American. Create! Defund, Military Budget, Pentagon, Wars and Militarism

Toward the end of his life, Martin Luther King, Jr., after agonizing about the Vietnam War in private, began denouncing it in public. Liberal politicians and media, including The New York Times, castigated him, telling him to stick to civil rights. In a 1967 speech at New York City’s Riverside Church, King rejected this criticism and explained how he arrived at his antiwar stance. He had realized, he said, that the U.S. “would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

De-Militarizing The United States

July 2, 2020 Melvin Goodman, Counterpunch. Create! CIA, Militarization, Pentagon, US State Department

The reliance on military instruments of power to implement foreign policy has expanded the role of the Department of Defense at the expense of the Department of State. The State Department’s budget is less than one-tenth of the defense budget, and smaller than the budget of the intelligence community. There are more soldiers and sailors in military marching bands than there are Foreign Service Officers. The decline of the Agency for International Development, and President Bill Clinton’s dissolution of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the United States Information Service have contributed to the overall decline of civilian influence in national security policy.

New NDAA Omits COVID19, Escalates Great Power Conflict

June 18, 2020 Brandon Valeriano, Lauren Sander and Eric Gomez, Defense One. Educate! COVID-19, Military Budget, Pentagon, US military

A summary report of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s proposed version of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act reveals a disconcerting disconnect between the U.S. government’s approach to national security and the impact of COVID-19 on America’s economy and society. The novel coronavirus has killed more Americans than all but two of the country’s wars. It has undermined the prosperity of most of the rest of its population. It has laid bare the country’s racial inequalities and devastated the global economy. Relief efforts are incurring federal debt on a scale certain to reduce funding for other purposes. And yet the SASC’s 20-page report barely mentions the coronavirus.

Black Lives Matter Everywhere: Its Time To Defund The US Military

June 11, 2020 By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas Davies, Popular Resistance. Create! Military Budget, Pentagon, Racism, US military

While the U.S. war on the black population at home is now exposed for all of America–and the world–to see, the victims of U.S. wars abroad continue to be hidden. Trump has escalated the horrific wars he inherited from Obama, dropping more bombs and missiles in 3 years than either Bush II or Obama did in their first terms. When retired generals speak out against Trump’s desire to deploy active-duty troops on America’s streets, we should understand that they are defending precisely this double standard. Just as we are exposing the rot in U.S. police forces and calling for defunding the police, so we must expose the rot in U.S. foreign policy and call for defunding the Pentagon. U.S. wars on people in other countries are driven by the same racism and ruling class economic interests as the war against African-Americans in our cities.

The End Of War As We Know It?

May 27, 2020 Danny Sjursen, Tom Dispatch. Educate! COVID-19, Drones, Killer Robots, Pentagon, Wars and Militarism

Covid-19, an ongoing global human tragedy, may have at least one silver lining. It has led millions of people to question America’s most malignant policies at home and abroad. Regarding Washington’s war policies abroad, there’s been speculation that the coronavirus might, in the end, put a dent in such conflicts, if not prove an unintended peacemaker -- and with good reason, since a cash-flush Pentagon has proven impotent as a virus challenger. Meanwhile, it’s become ever more obvious that, had a fraction of “defense” spending been invested in chronically underfunded disease control agencies, this country’s response to the coronavirus crisis might have been so much better. Curiously enough, though, despite President Trump’s periodic complaints about America’s “ridiculous endless wars,” his administration has proven remarkably unwilling to agree to even a modest rollback in U.S. imperial ambitions.

Why China Is Not The Aggressor

May 26, 2020 Walter Smolarek, Liberation. Educate! Asian Pivot, China, Pentagon, Wars and Militarism

To reverse the Pentagon’s reckless drive towards potentially catastrophic confrontation, people in this country need to be aware of the true nature of relations between the United States and China. In fact, it is the United States that is engaged in a comprehensive push to encircle and isolate China using military, economic and political aggression. The result of this atmosphere of non-stop hostility has been a marked increase in instances of discrimination and racist violence towards Chinese-Americans and other Asian communities within the United States. The war hawks want you to believe that China is bullying and threatening the United States. Don’t fall for it — the truth is just the opposite. Now more than ever the world needs international cooperation and dialogue, not “great power competition” leading to potentially devastating conflict.

Why So Many Nuclear-Capable Hypersonic Missiles?

May 22, 2020 By Karl Grossman, Nation of Change. Educate! militarism, Nuclear Weapons, Pentagon, Wars and Militarism

The United States is seeking to acquire “volumes of hundreds or even thousands” of nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles that are “stealthy” and can fly undetected at 3,600 miles per hour, five times faster than the speed of sound. Why so many? A Pentagon official is quoted in the current issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology as saying “we have to be careful we’re not building boutique weapons. If we build boutique weapons, we won’t—we’ll be very reluctant to—use them.” The article in the aerospace industry trade journal is headlined: “Hypersonic Mass Production.” A subhead reads: “Pentagon Forms Hypersonic Industry ‘War Room.’”

The Green New Deal Is The Key To Ending Forever Wars

May 10, 2020 Lindsay Koshgarian, Truthout. Create! climate crisis, Green New Deal, New Economy, Pentagon

The fossil fuel industry is a current casualty of the coronavirus pandemic, with oil prices briefly dipping below zero at the end of April. With the oil industry on the ropes, progressives see a path toward a green economic renewal. Could that spell a whole new approach to international conflict and the U.S. military endeavor, too? Oil is the leading cause of interstate wars, but the connections between war and oil don’t stop there. From the Pentagon’s fossil fuel emissions to militarized responses to climate refugees, the U.S. military endeavor and our dependence on fossil fuels are intricately tied, as Lorah Steichen and I explain in a new report. Recognizing those ties could be the key to a whole new world.

Trump Must Choose Between A Global Ceasefire And US’s Long Lost Wars

May 6, 2020 Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK. Educate! COVID-19, Global Ceasefire, Pentagon, US military

As President Trump has complained, the U.S. does not win wars anymore. In fact, since 1945, the only 4 wars it has won were over the small neocolonial outposts of Grenada, Panama, Kuwait and Kosovo. Americans across the political spectrum refer to the wars the U.S. has launched since 2001 as “endless” or "unwinnable" wars. We know by now that there is no elusive victory around the corner that will redeem the criminal futility of the U.S.'s opportunistic decision to use military force more aggressively and illegally after the end of the Cold War and the horrific crimes of September 11th. But all wars have to end one day, so how will these wars end? As President Trump nears the end of his first term, he knows that at least some Americans hold him responsible for his broken promises to bring U.S. troops home and wind down Bush's and Obama's wars.

Military Spending In 2019 Hits Highest Increase In A Decade

May 3, 2020 Marlee Kokotovic, Nation of Change. Educate! Military Budget, Pentagon, Weapons Sales

Earlier this week a new analysis was reported showing the world’s military spent a combined $1.9 trillion last year with the U.S. being the top spenders. According to the most current annual report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the top military spenders after the U.S. were China, India, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Total spending in 2019 was 3.6% higher than in the previous year and accounted for 2.2% of global gross domestic product (GDP). “This is the highest level of spending since the 2008 global financial crisis and probably represents a peak in expenditure,” says Nan Tian, a researcher at SIPRI.

US To Mobilize Military Reservists In ‘Anti-Drug’ Operation Against Venezuela

May 2, 2020 By Ricardo Vaz and Lucas Koerner, Venezuelanalysis. Educate! Oil, Pentagon, US military, US Regime Change, Venezuela

Mérida - US President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Thursday activating armed forces reservists for an “anti-narcotics” mission in the Caribbean. “The Secretary of Defense is directed to order to active duty for not more than 365 consecutive days, any units, and any individual members not assigned to a unit organized to serve as a unit, of the Selected Reserve under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of Defense, not to exceed 200 Selected Reservists at any one time, as he considers necessary,” the decree reads. A Pentagon spokesperson told the Daily Caller that the defense secretary will use the order to mobilize a unit of the Air National Guard to aid in Washington’s “Enhanced Department of Defense Counternarcotic Operation in the Western Hemisphere.”

Multibillion-Dollar Bailout For Arms Industry Amid Rising COVID-19 Toll

April 25, 2020 Bill Van Auken, WSWS. Educate! Iran, Military Budget, Pandemic, Pentagon

“I have instructed the United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea,” US President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday in a startling threat that could trigger a catastrophic war throughout the Middle East and beyond. The threat to launch a war 7,000 miles from US shores in the midst of coronavirus pandemic, whose death toll in the US is rapidly approaching 50,000, comes on the heels of Trump’s Monday night tweet announcing a suspension of all immigration into the United States, a transparent attempt to scapegoat immigrants for the ravages of the pandemic and the layoffs of tens of millions of workers. There is in both of these actions an expression of desperation and a flailing about in the face of a national and global crisis for which the US ruling class has no viable solution.

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