tagged w/ Military Industrial Complex
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Resist 2010: 8 Reasons to Oppose the 2010 Winter Olympics, is a short, fast-paced documentary focusing on the negative impacts of the 2010 Games to be held in Vancouver, Canada, and the ongoing resistance by Indigenous & other social movements.Resist 2010: 8 Reasons to Oppose the 2010 Winter Olympics, is a short, fast-paced... more
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War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of government deception and media spin that has dragged the United States into one war after another from Vietnam to Iraq. Narrated by actor and activist Sean Penn, the film exhumes remarkable archival footage of official distortion and exaggeration from Lyndon B. Johnson to George W. Bush, revealing in stunning detail how the American news media have uncritically disseminated the pro-war messages of successive presidential administrations.War Made Easy reaches into the Orwellian memory hole to expose a 50-year pattern of... more
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Jenime
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added this
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9 days ago
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Someone clue me in here. Are the people in our intelligence agencies complete idiots?
It’s November 10th, 2009, the day before Veterans Day. President Obama visits Ft. Hood to mourn with those military families who lost friends and loved ones at the hands of a domestic “terrorist,” who just happens to be a Muslim and who committed this crime so close to Veterans Day and while Obama is on the brink of making a decision to send tens of thousands more troops to the war in Afghanistan (against Muslims) amidst very strong public opinion to get out of that war. Well it was strong, until this shocking “terrorist” act took place. http://stopwar.lafilmonline.com//?p=166
This is absolutely amazing. We have the most well equipped military and intelligence agencies in the world and yet they can’t stop known terror suspects with simple box cutters who even trained in U.S. flight schools - they can’t stop those guys from hijacking five planes and crashing into the Pentagon and the twin towers; and they can’t stop this guy Hasan, who they have known evidence on as well with his relations with a known terrorist sympathizer and they even employ him on a military base.
OR
There are those who question the whole legitimacy of 9/11 as a purely terrorist act. There were no aircraft engine parts found at the Pentagon on 9/11. Instead they found what appeared to be a hole in the building made by a missile. Some demolition experts believe the twin towers were destroyed with explosives by demolition experts - like our highly trained military who specialize in such things perhaps? There are questions about flight 93 that crashed in a farm field in Pennsylvania, supposedly headed for Washington D.C. piloted by U.S. military trained “Muslim terrorists” (Was it shot down by the military as is standard military policy when a hijacked aircraft becomes a threat, especially a threat to national security?). Why was there so much media analysis of what happened on that flight, which we couldn’t possibly know of for certain, to the point where a Hollywood movie was made depicting such nebulous speculation and conjecture in vivid high definition detail?
Now we have this highly suspicious terrorist act by Hasan, where we know he was thwarted and harassed to the breaking point, and we know he had an internal conflict between his ethnicity and people versus his military service, while working for a military that slaughters innocent Muslims with extreme ethnic prejudice (if you were a white guy working for an Arab army that did this to Americans, do you think you’d have a few internal conflicts too? How about a few dead collaterally damaged Texan babies? Want to work for those guys?).
Yet our military with its vast resources can’t figure this stuff out until after a great American tragedy happens, coinciding with Veterans day and on our American soil - all the talking points of making a case for war against a foreign enemy. What a great photo op for Obama at Ft. Hood the day before Veterans Day. Can you think of a better commercial for going to all out war?
Naomi Kline’s book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine), points out ever so clearly the history of the United states government in using disasters to make a case for war, not only in our country but first in South American countries which were the proving ground for this policy. And we see this happening over and over again. Here we are with Obama on the brink of sending ten’s of thousands more troops off to fight and die in vain for a war without end, without purpose, without strategy. A war that targets innocent civilians because our crack cutting edge military can’t figure out the difference between civilians and terrorists, and in the process of killing the innocent, proliferates more terrorism.
It is very highly likely, in light of this historical fact, that our intelligence agencies employed persons from the Muslim connections that Hasan had, to his neighbors that harassed him to his wit’s end, with the sole purpose of perpetuating and coercing him to commit these crimes, so that they would have an awesome ongoing news story (one that will now last for months since they went to extreme measures to keep him alive) to make a case for perpetual war in Afghanistan and to sway public opinion away from it’s current sentiment against staying in Afghanistan.Someone clue me in here. Are the people in our intelligence agencies complete idiots?... more
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"LONDON (Reuters) - Leading banks have funded arms manufacturers, whose products include cluster bombs, to the tune of $5 billion in the past two years, despite an international accord to ban such weapons, a study said Thursday.
The report by Profundo consultancy and several NGOs said the banks loaned money to companies whose products include cluster bombs or their components.
It did not say the funds went directly to make cluster bombs. The manufacturers could use the money for any of their production lines.
The top five loan providers were Bank of America, Citigroup , JP Morgan, Barclays and Goldman Sachs, the study said.
The researchers used publicly available information, such as that supplied by stock exchanges and financial databases, to produce their study.
According to the research, the banks have provided financing for diversified manufacturer Textron, aerospace and defense group Alliant Techsystems and defense contractor Lockheed Martin , all based in the United States.
Cluster bombs, which open in mid-air and scatter a multitude of bomblets over a wide area, have killed and maimed tens of thousands of civilians, campaigners say.
Nations agreed to outlaw cluster bombs in May 2008. The resulting convention will come into force when 30 countries have ratified it -- 23 have already done so.
Neither the United States nor Britain, where the top five loan providers are based, have yet ratified the treaty.
The Convention on Cluster Munitions includes a ban on assisting anyone to make the bombs.
Bank of America and JP Morgan declined to comment while Citigroup and Goldman Sachs also had no immediate reaction.""LONDON (Reuters) - Leading banks have funded arms manufacturers, whose products... more
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PLEASE WATCH
This is a great 3-series video about the future of our empire.
What are your thoughts? And please, keep it bipartisan. Left or right--we're all in the middle of this shit together.PLEASE WATCH
This is a great 3-series video about the future of our empire.
What are... more
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Larry Wilkerson: The beginning of the American "Imperial Rome" and Eisenhower's warning
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A recent U.S. intelligence assessment has raised the estimated number of full-time Taliban -led insurgents fighting in Afghanistan to at least 25,000, underscoring how the crisis has worsened even as the U.S. and its allies have beefed up their military forces, a U.S. official said Thursday.
The U.S. official, who requested anonymity because the assessment is classified, said the estimate represented an increase of at least 5,000 fighters, or 25 percent, over what an estimate found last year.
On Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry assured Afghans that America would continue to fight until "extremists and insurgents" were defeated in the war-torn nation.
The new intelligence estimate suggests that such a fight would be difficult. Not included in the 25,000 tally are the part-time fighters -- those Afghans who plant bombs or support the insurgents in other ways in return for money -- and also the criminal gangs who sometimes make common cause with the Taliban or other Pakistan -based groups.
The assessment attributed the growth in the Taliban and their major allies, such as the Haqqani Network and Hezb-e-Islami, to a number of factors, including a growing sense among many Afghans that the insurgents are gaining ground over U.S.-led NATO troops and Afghan security forces.
"The rise can be attributed to, among other things, a sense that the central government in Kabul isn't delivering (on services), increased local support for insurgent groups, and the perception that the Taliban and others are gaining a firmer foothold and expanding their capabilities," the U.S. official said.
"They (the insurgents) don't need to win a popularity contest," said Michael O'Hanlon , a military analyst at the center-left Brookings Institution in Washington . "They are actually doing a good job in creating a complex psychological brew. The first part is building on frustration with the government. The second part is increasing their own appeal or at least taking the edge off of the hatred that people had felt for them before. But on top of that they are selectively using intimidation to stoke a climate of fear. And on top of that they have momentum."
James Dobbins , a retired ambassador who served as the first U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan , said the new estimate shows how the war, which entered its ninth year this month, has been intensifying.
"It tells you that things are getting worse, and that would suggest that the current (U.S.-led troop) levels are inadequate," Dobbins said. "But it doesn't lead you to a formula that tells you what the adequate troop levels should be."
The estimated increase in the insurgents' ranks occurred as the numbers of U.S., British and other Western troops also increased, possibly suggesting that the growth in international forces is bolstering an impression among many Afghans that they're under foreign occupation.
The new estimate comes as the Obama administration debates its new strategy for Afghanistan amid public divisions between senior officials and military commanders.
Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal , the U.S. commander in Afghanistan , is seeking as many as 45,000 additional U.S. troops, which would bring the number of U.S. soldiers to more than 100,000. There are 39,000 forces from other countries and an effort is under way to double the size of the Afghan army to 134,000 by 2011.A recent U.S. intelligence assessment has raised the estimated number of full-time... more
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There is this training brochure that recently surfaced (http://www.new-fields.com/ISFC/brochure.pdf) which describes procedures for "conducting morgue operations" and "activating fatality management operations."
This same document also describes training points that cover:
• Breakdown of public services
• Medical supplies shortages
• Unwillingness to follow government orders
... among other fascinating things. The conference this advertises was held August 19 - 20 in Washington D.C. by a company called New-Fields that holds, among other things, an "Iraq Aviation & Defense Summit" featuring senior U.S. military personnel and touting "one to one meetings with Iraqi officials."
This isn't the first time a company with ties to the U.S. military has been found to be involved in the swine flu pandemic. My previous article on NaturalNews exposed the DynCorp / NIH patent link, revealing that a key influenza vaccine patent was jointly owned by the National Institutes of Health and a high-level private U.S. military contractor named DynCorp. You can read that article here: http://www.naturalnews.com/026779_swine_flu_patents_vaccines.html
So what does it all mean? Like a lot of things, it just depends what you choose to believe.
I don't know if I believe the evil, nefarious conspiracy theory described as a possibility. But neither do I trust my government (and I sure don't trust public health officials). So I'm doing exactly what I recommend everybody else do: Take charge of your own swine flu defenses by boosting your nutrition and sunlight exposure. Store some food, water and other basic preparedness supplies just in case. Be prepared to survive and thrive during the coming pandemic, regardless of what happens around you.
Vitamin D is perhaps the single most powerful nutrient in the known universe for preventing influenza, and yet the Obama White House won't dare utter a word about it to the American people, even in the face of a potentially devastating global pandemic that could be largely halted by vitamin D.
Just because everybody else is planning on becoming a victim of circumstance doesn't mean you have to. With a little basic planning and some medical common sense, you can see yourself through this pandemic with ease.There is this training brochure that recently surfaced... more
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"During 2008, the nations of the world spent nearly $1.5 trillion on their military forces. That is what has been reported by the highly respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which noted that the five biggest spenders were the United States ($607 billion), China ($85 billion), France ($66 billion), Britain ($65 billion) and Russia ($59 billion). Adjusted for inflation, the total represents an increase of 45 percent in military expenditures over the past decade. And so the game of national military 'defense' continues, despite clear indications of its negative consequences.""During 2008, the nations of the world spent nearly $1.5 trillion on their military... more
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The military needs for Obama to double or triple our Afghanistan troop strength because the defense industry wants to make more money. We are now seeing new reports of terrorism threats, many of which are unsubstantiated. None the less, considering allegations that 9/11 was a government controlled demolition plot by Bush, Cheney and others, we should be fearful that new plots are in the works by right wing extremist operatives.The military needs for Obama to double or triple our Afghanistan troop strength... more
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Fuck, here comes world war 3. Lord jesus i'm glad palin/mccain didn't get in, but once we get another idiot like bush in it's game over (flip). I'll be in Costa Rica. i hope all the hawks on this site Ak---, g--, ma-----, realize that the only one profiting from all this is the military. WE certainly aren't any safer for it, nor our soldiers, nor the rest of the world.
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"The world is over-armed and peace is under-funded," says Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who points out that global military spending is estimated at over one trillion dollars - "and rising every day".
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), one of the world's foremost think tanks on arms control and disarmament, world military expenditure increased by 45 percent, in real terms, and has been rising every year during the last 10-year period.
In 2008, it reached 1.46 trillion dollars, representing 2.4 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP). Its level is now higher than during the latest Cold War peak in the 1980s.
Speaking at the annual meeting of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Mexico City early this week, the secretary-general said he was dismayed that weapons continue to be produced and are flooding markets around the world.
"They are destabilising societies and feeding the flames of civil wars and terror," he warned.
During the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush, says SIPRI, U.S. military expenditure increased to the highest level in real terms since World War II, mostly due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The 10 biggest military spenders last year were: the United States (607 billion dollars), China (84.9 billion), France (65.7 billion), Britain (65.3 billion), Russia (58.6 billion), Germany (46.8 billion), Japan (46.3 billion), Italy (40.6 billion), Saudi Arabia (38.2 billion) and India (30.0 billion).
China, Saudi Arabia and India were the only three developing nations in the top 10, followed by countries such as Brazil and Algeria.Fuck, here comes world war 3. Lord jesus i'm glad palin/mccain didn't get in, but... more
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Millions of innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians and have died at the hands of the United States in it's preemptive illegal racist genocidal wars. The U.S does not protect our freedom. It endangers our freedom with these wars that proliferate terrorism by motivating more to become terrorists bend on a rightful retaliation against the U.S., just as our own citizens would avenge the deaths of our families at the hands of a racist military occupation that continues to this day at a cost of $750,000 per troop per year in Afghanistan alone.
Some may have served with honor, or at least had that intent. Most did not and do not. They are part of a racist warmongering military with the sole purpose of making profit for the military industrial complex including the oil industry that values ownership of Afghanistan and Iraq.
http://stopwar.lafilmonline.com
http://stopwarproject.ning.com
http://threetrilliondollarwar.com
http://ivaw.org
http://rethinkafghanistan.comMillions of innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians and have died at the hands of the... more
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Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the United States expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, according to a new Congressional study. The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, OR 68.4 percent OF ALL BUSINESS IN THE GLOBAL ARMS BAZAAR, up significantly from American sales of $25.4 billion the year before. The United States was the leader not only in arms sales worldwide, but also in sales to nations in the developing world, signing $29.6 billion in weapons agreements with these nations, or 70.1 percent of all such deals.Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the United States... more
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SEE RE-ENLISTMENT BONUSES
Re-enlistment can be a rewarding choice in more ways than you may know. In addition to the pride in serving your country, your benefits can help fund things like retirement or a new home.
I'd like to receive information about re-enlistment opportunities with the following services:
https://secure.military.com/Recruiting/request-info/prior-service/page1.do?&ps=1
Secured Link....SEE RE-ENLISTMENT BONUSES
Re-enlistment can be a rewarding choice in more ways than... more
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Osama Bin Laden’s Ewes & Wolves Speech…..Straight From His Mouth…it has nothing to do with us being rich and free, and more to do with our military industrial complex abusing unconstitutional powers and liberal nation building and occupying…
***This article has been chosen as a discussion topic on PFP Movement Radio, http://www.blogtalkradio.com/pfpmovementradio Friday night at 6pm-8pm. Please Call In To The Show, 347-633-9636. COMMENTS will be included in the show so feel free to discuss or ask questions here on current.com as they will be addressed during the show. This article will also air on Freedom Hour Saturday at 9pm-10pm on Movement TV http://www.peacefreedomprosperity.com/?page_id=36***Osama Bin Laden’s Ewes & Wolves Speech…..Straight From His Mouth…it has nothing... more
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Bet you won't see any 'teabaggers' or even Obama supporters out protesting this back door draft by using our public school system. Arne Duncan has to be the worst appointment of this administration next to Tom Vilsack at the USDA, and I suppose that is why we don't hear anything about the education system in this country from them.
Excerpt:
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan invited the Pentagon into Chicago's schools. Will he promote military schools nationwide?
When Arne Duncan stepped down as the head of the Chicago Public Schools to become the secretary of education in January, the school district he left behind had little to brag about. While Duncan served as its chief executive officer, CPS received mostly average or below average rankings in "The Nation's Report Card," a Department of Education assessment of the country's largest urban school districts. Its high school graduation rates lingered at around 50 percent, well short of the national average of 70 percent. And since 2004, CPS has failed as a district to meet No Child Left Behind's "adequate yearly progress" standards. In one area, however, Chicago's schools stood out: In large part to Duncan's efforts, they were—and remain—the most militarized in America.
Nearly 10,500 of Chicago's 203,000 sixth- through twelfth-graders participate in some kind of military program on campus, from joining the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps to enrolling in Pentagon-sponsored JROTC academies. As the district's CEO (and previously as deputy chief of staff to his predecessor, Paul Vallas), Duncan oversaw the controversial move to bring full-fledged military academies to the Windy City. The district's first, the Chicago Military Academy at Bronzeville, opened in 1999, and three more followed during Duncan's tenure. Today, Chicago has six military high schools run by a branch of the armed services. Six smaller military academies share buildings with existing high schools. Nearly three dozen JROTC programs exist in regular high schools, where students attend a daily JROTC class and wear uniforms to school one day a week. And at the middle school level, there is a JROTC program for sixth, seventh- and eighth-graders.
Chicago may have the nation's biggest JROTC program, but it is no longer an anomaly. Due to increases in federal funding for JROTC programs, the military's presence in public schools is greater than ever before. More than a dozen academies partly funded by the Department of Defense have sprouted up from Philadelphia to Oakland, and the National Defense Authorization Act of 2009 passed last year will increase the number of JROTC units nationwide from 3,400 to 3,700 by 2020, at a cost of $170 million. (Peacework magazine obtained a list of schools that have requested JROTC programs.) The Marines are in discussions to open new JROTC academies in Atlanta, Las Vegas, and New Orleans, helping to expand a program that critics contend has blurred the line between education and recruitment.
Now that Duncan is the nation's top education official, anti-recruitment activists worry that he will use his position to promote the expansion of JROTC and military academies as solutions for cash-strapped or underperforming school districts. "We see he has been promoting military academies," says Darlene Gramigna, program director for the American Friends Service Committee's Truth in Recruitment Program. "Around the country, that's what going on—Arne Duncan believes in these military academies."
end of excerptBet you won't see any 'teabaggers' or even Obama supporters out protesting this back... more
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All this and not a WORD for the last 20 years from Al Gore. Not a Word.
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At any given moment, the sun is bombarding our planet with 170 billion megawatts of ultraviolet, x-ray, and other radiation. Those waves collide with atoms of air—nitrogen, oxygen, and so on—stripping away electrons like spring rain eroding a snowbank. The result: positively charged ions drifting free. At high altitudes, those ions are far enough apart that it can take hours for them to bind with a free electron. Called the ionosphere, these undulating bands of charged particles stretch from 50 to 500 miles above the earth—too high for weather balloons and, in large part, too low for satellites. Researchers who study it jokingly call it the ignorosphere.All this and not a WORD for the last 20 years from Al Gore. Not a Word.... more
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The Defense secretary says the expensive F-22 fighter jet has limited use and building more may make the U.S. more vulnerable.
By Julian E. Barnes
July 17, 2009
Reporting from Chicago -- Intensifying a fight over the fate of the military's F-22 stealth fighter jets, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday that the push by lawmakers for additional planes -- against the Pentagon's recommendation -- actually risks making America more vulnerable.
In a speech before the Economic Club of Chicago, Gates called the plane a perfect illustration of what is wrong with the way the United States spends money on defense: building expensive weapons with limited use rather than cheaper systems that U.S. forces are more likely to employ.
"We must change the way we think and the way we plan -- and fundamentally reform -- the way the Pentagon does business and buys weapons," Gates said.
In a Pentagon budget submitted to Congress, Gates halted further production of the F-22. But a Senate defense authorization measure restored money for seven additional planes. House bills seek partial funding for 12 more.
President Obama has threatened to veto any defense bill that contains funding for more F-22s, a threat Gates reiterated in his address.
The Senate is considering one amendment, backed by Obama's onetime presidential rival, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), that would strip funding for the plane. A vote on that measure is expected next week.
The F-22 is a better dog fighter than the F-35, and if we have a skirmish with any of the big boys, our best airmen deserve it.The Defense secretary says the expensive F-22 fighter jet has limited use and building... more
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The military industrial complex has pumped out some pretty useful stuff, thanks to the several trillion dollars we've given them over the years. But military vehicle designers get bored like everybody else, and sometimes it seems like they'll make something purely because it looks awesome.The military industrial complex has pumped out some pretty useful stuff, thanks to the... more
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Responses to 9/11 spark a preemptive war.
The war in Iraq is already among the most consequential events of the still-young 21st century. Now, Road to War: Iraq provides frank, behind-the-scenes insight into the decisionmaking process that led to the invasion of Iraq, still occupied by American forces today. Included are original interviews from key insiders, including Andrew H. Card, former White House chief of staff; Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state; and Richard Perle, former chairman, Defense Policy Board.Responses to 9/11 spark a preemptive war.
The war in Iraq is already among the most... more
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