Remember when Trump called on Qatar to stop funding terrorism, claiming credit for and endorsing the decision of Gulf nations to isolate their small neighbor (where the most important US airbase in the middle east is located), even as US Cabinet officials said their blockade is hurting the campaign against …
Read More »Search Results for: pentagon
Pentagon: $2bn sale of missiles to UAE will ‘contribute to US national security’
The US State Department has approved a $2 billion sale of missiles to the United Arab Emirates. The Pentagon says the sale will “contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the US” and won’t alter the “basic military balance in the region.” The deal would include 60 Patriot …
Read More »Pentagon requests $534 billion for 2016, largest ever war budget
The White House will be seeking $534 billion from Congress to run the Pentagon in 2016 – its largest budget ever. However, a source told RT that the budget is actually closer to $1 trillion, and has been for several administrations. The Obama administration declared an end to “mindless austerity” …
Read More »Pentagon loses $10 trillion in two decades and no one seems to care
Over a mere two decades, the Pentagon lost track of a mind-numbing $10 trillion — that’s trillion, with a fat, taxpayer-funded “T” — and no one, not even the Department of Defense, really knows where it went or on what it was spent. Even though audits of all federal agencies …
Read More »Pentagon: Special Ops killing of two pregnant Afghan women was “appropriate” use of force
Members of US Special Forces who killed two pregnant women and three other civilians during a 2010 night raid in Afghanistan used an “appropriate level of force,” according to an internal Pentagon investigation. In February 2010, a force of US Army Rangers had entered a compound in the village of …
Read More »American Foreign Policy: CIA-backed rebels are fighting Pentagon-backed rebels
CIA-backed Islamic rebels are fighting against Pentagon-backed Kurish rebels in Syria. Buzzfeed notes: Officials with Syrian rebel battalions that receive covert backing from one arm of the U.S. government told BuzzFeed News that they recently began fighting rival rebels supported by another arm of the U.S. government. The infighting between American proxies is the …
Read More »Pentagon is trying to rewrite Vietnam war history
In case you weren’t aware, the Pentagon is set to roll out a 50th anniversary commemoration of the Vietnam War. Personally, it’s hard to get excited about commemorating an event that led to the death of over 58,000 American soldiers and more than a million Vietnamese, particularly since much of it …
Read More »Pentagon wastes $150 million of taxpayers money on luxury villas in Afghanistan
The Pentagon isn’t known for being frugal with its spending habits, and new reports have surfaced which show that US taxpayers footed the bill for nearly $150 million in luxury villa rentals and fine dining in Afghanistan. When Pentagon personnel travel abroad, they’re typically placed in government housing, perfectly livable accommodations …
Read More »Collateral damage: Pentagon to give Iraqi civilians money if their family is killed by US airstrikes
The US Defense Department is to get $5 million that could be used to hand out ‘condolence payments’ to civilian Iraqis hit by American airstrikes. Officially the Pentagon doesn’t admit that such casualties have occurred. The money is allocated by the defense budget deal passed by the House last week …
Read More »Fighting ISIS: $1.1bn already spent, ‘30 years of war’ to come
As the Pentagon reports spending of over $1 billion on bombing ISIS in Iraq and Syria, ex-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the fight against the Islamist movement may take as long as 30 years. Since mid-June, when militants from the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, or ISIL) launched their …
Read More »Pentagon to waste $2.2 billion of taxpayer money to fund Syrian ‘rebels’
A joint report published yesterday by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Program (OCCRP) and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) alleged that the Pentagon is supplying up to $2.2 billion worth of Soviet-style arms and ammunition to Syrian rebels. This may come as a shock to some, as President Donald Trump just announced in late July …
Read More »Pentagon doesn’t know where $6.5 trillion went, audit reveals
By Jay Syrmopoulos A new Department of Defense Inspector General’s report, released last week, has left Americans stunned at the jaw-dropping lack of accountability and oversight. The glaring report revealed the Pentagon couldn’t account for $6.5 trillion dollars worth of Army general fund transactions and data, according to a report …
Read More »Pentagon wants $582 billion to wage war in 2017
The US military faces five “big challenges,” Ash Carter told the Economic Club of Washington on Tuesday. Those challenges are: Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and ISIS. So essentially, the exact same “challenges” Washington has been trotting out for years to justify hundreds upon hundreds of billions in defense spending, …
Read More »NATO increases military presence on Russia’s borders
The Pentagon has confirmed the military buildup along Russia’s borders to ensure long-term “peace and stability” in the region. Earlier Moscow accused NATO of a sharp increase in air activity and intelligence flights in the border zone. Replying to RIA Novosti’s query on the increased number of NATO flights around Russia’s borders, …
Read More »Facebook emotions experiment linked to Pentagon research on civil unrest
Facebook‘s experiment on over half-a-million unsuspecting users has taken a new twist with the revelation that a researcher connected to a Department of Defense-funded program to use the military to quell civil unrest also participated in the study. Social media sites exploded over the weekend after it was revealed that …
Read More »US Defense Department: Bitcoin a potential terrorism threat
The US Defense Department is conducting a counterterrorism program investigation of virtual currencies like Bitcoin and other new technologies, including smartphones and social media, to better understand if they pose security threats. Run by the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office (CTTSO), a division of the Pentagon that analyzes terrorism and …
Read More »Pentagon unable to account for $8.5 trillion of tax payer money
When government is completely dysfunctional and seems not to serve the people’s interests, we have to wonder where our tax dollars are going. Thanks to a Reuters investigation by Scot Paltrow, we have an answer—or, rather, a non-answer. Apparently, the Pentagon has made use of $8.5 trillion of our tax money handed over …
Read More »Pentagon developing autonomous humanoid robots
DARPA enlists makers of “BigDog” to construct machines that can think for themselves The Department of Defense has awarded a lucrative contract to an engineering and robotics design company to develop and build humanoid robots that can act intelligently without supervision. Boston Dynamics Inc. has been contracted by the Defense …
Read More »Google buys military robot maker
Boston Dynamics’ four-legged robot named WildCat can gallop at high speeds. BigDog, Cheetah, WildCat and Atlas have joined Google’s growing robot menagerie. Google confirmed on Friday that it had completed the acquisition of Boston Dynamics, an engineering company that has designed mobile research robots for the Pentagon. The company, based …
Read More »Each troop in Afghanistan costs US taxpayers $2.1 million
The average cost of each U.S. troop in Afghanistan will nearly double in the last year of the war to $2.1 million, according to a new analysis of the Pentagon’s budget. For the past five years, from fiscal 2008 through 2013, the average troop cost had held steady at roughly $1.3. million. …
Read More »