Tag Archives: Military-industrial-intelligence complex

Chris Hedges: Ukraine & the Politics of Permanent War

Posted on August 31, 2022 | Leave a comment

The U.S. is well on its way to becoming a corporate, military, and intelligence junta, with political front people in the presidency and congress. From Chris Hedges at consortiumnews.com:

Critics, already shut out from the corporate media, are relentlessly attacked and silenced for threatening the public’s quiescence while the U.S. Treasury is pillaged and the nation is disemboweled. 

“War Inc.” – by Mr. Fish.

No one, including the most bullish supporters of Ukraine, expect the nation’s war with Russia to end soon. The fighting has been reduced to artillery duels across hundreds of miles of front lines and creeping advances and retreats. Ukraine, like Afghanistan, will bleed for a very long time. This is by design.

On Aug. 24, the Biden administration announced yet another massive military aid package to Ukraine worth nearly $3 billion. It will take months, and in some cases years, for this military equipment to reach Ukraine. In another sign that Washington assumes the conflict will be a long war of attrition it will give a name to the U.S. military assistance mission in Ukraine and make it a separate command overseen by a two- or three-star general. Since August 2021, Biden has approved more than $8 billion in weapons transfers from existing stockpiles, known as drawdowns, to be shipped to Ukraine, which do not require congressional approval.

Including humanitarian assistance, replenishing depleting U.S. weapons stocks and expanding U.S. troop presence in Europe, Congress has approved over $53.6 billion ($13.6 billion in March and a further $40.1 billion in May) since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion. War takes precedence over the most serious existential threats we face. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion while the proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Our approved assistance to Ukraine is more than twice these amounts.

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Posted in Geopolitics, Governments, History, Intelligence, Media, Military, War

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Hedges: No Way Out but War

Posted on May 25, 2022 | Leave a comment

Is the only (arguably) competitive advantages the U.S. has left are its ability to manufacture weapons and wage wars? From Chris Hedges at scheerpost.com:on Hedges: No Way Out but War

Permanent war has cannibalized the country. It has created a social, political, and economic morass. Each new military debacle is another nail in the coffin of Pax Americana.

Original Illustration by Mr. Fish — “No Guts No Glory”

The United States, as the near unanimous vote to provide nearly $40 billion in aid to Ukraine illustrates, is trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism. No high speed trains. No universal health care. No viable Covid relief program. No respite from 8.3 percent inflation. No infrastructure programs to repair decaying roads and bridges, which require $41.8 billion to fix the 43,586 structurally deficient bridges, on average 68 years old. No forgiveness of $1.7 trillion in student debt. No addressing income inequality. No program to feed the 17 million children who go to bed each night hungry. No rational gun control or curbing of the epidemic of nihilistic violence and mass shootings. No help for the 100,000 Americans who die each year of drug overdoses. No minimum wage of $15 an hour to counter 44 years of wage stagnation. No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon.

The permanent war economy, implanted since the end of World War II, has destroyed the private economy, bankrupted the nation, and squandered trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. The monopolization of capital by the military has driven the US debt to $30 trillion, $ 6 trillion more than the US GDP of $ 24 trillion. Servicing this debt costs $300 billion a year. We spent more on the military, $ 813 billion for fiscal year 2023, than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined.

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Posted in Business, Collapse, Debt, Economics, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military, Politics, Propaganda, War

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The Long, Lucrative, and Bloody Road to World War III, by Connor Freeman

Posted on May 4, 2022 | Leave a comment

The idiocy being displayed by the Biden Administration and its confederates in NATO and the EU is criminal. The only consolation is that if they lead the world to nuclear war, they’ll be as dead as the rest of us. From Connor Freeman at libertarianinstitute.org:

Well, this war in Ukraine will last “months and years.” At least, that is what the leaders of the D.C. foreign policy blob, the media, President Joe Biden’s men, Pentagon and NATO leadership have decided. Their plan is to pour oil on the flames and keep the fire raging. Also, Americans are going to have to cough up the dough for another massive aid package, with $20 billion worth of weapons to keep the blood flowing. In total, this next package will cost the taxpayer $33 billion. With Biden’s proposed $813 billion “defense” budget for 2023, the U.S. is spending more on the military and war now than ever before in the country’s history.

Now that we have our very own Ministry of Truth, it would appear any national debate over these polices, indeed if such a debate is ever allowed to take place, will likely have to be moderated by cockroaches and Keith Richards.

NATO is set to expand again, bringing in Finland and Sweden. This will extend the alliance’s border with Russia by greater than 800 miles and further stoke nuclear tensions, bringing the current brinksmanship to a whole new level. Moscow plans to respond including by increasing air and naval forces in the Baltic Sea and reinforcing its Kaliningrad exclave, which lies between NATO members Poland and Lithuania, with additional nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles. Until 2004, it was unthinkable that NATO would ever expand to Russia’s borders until that actually happened. Like most of our issues with Russia, this is all Bill Clinton and George W. Bush’s fault.

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Collapse, Crime, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Media, Military, Politics, Propaganda

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The Praetorians, by The Zman

Posted on April 8, 2022 | Leave a comment

The praetorians, primarily the military-intelligence-industrial complex, are running the show. Wonder who’ll they pick to replace Biden. Harris is probably not the odds-on-favorite. From The Zman at thezman.com:

The video of former president Obama visiting the White House recently made clear that the current president is not really in charge. Joe Biden was seen staggering around the reception looking for anyone to acknowledge him. It was possible he had no idea where he was at the time. Biden’s increasingly deranged public rantings suggest he is reaching his expiry date. The question being quietly debated in Washington is when and how he will be removed from office.

The fact that this question has been normalized since before he was installed in the position speaks to how much things have changed in America. No one really thinks Joe Biden is in charge of himself or the executive branch. It is just assumed that he is a place holder who will be replaced in his first term. Every president represents a coalition of elite interests, but none have been viewed as a figurehead. This is a big change that in time will be seen as an inflection point.

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Posted in Government, Intelligence, Media, Military, Politics

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It Is All About The Money – Why The Military Industrial Complex Continues To Bilk The American Public, by Charles “Sam” Faddis

Posted on October 8, 2021 | Leave a comment

America’s many wars are about profits for the complex, not the safety of Americans. From Charles “Sam” Faddis at andmagazine.com:

Years ago, I was running operations in an Asian country and trying to get a handle on the status of a particular nation’s effort to develop a new tank.  After a decade of effort and massive expenditures, this country was no closer to having a working domestically-produced main battle tank than when it started.  It seemed a colossal failure.

Then I realized I did not understand what was going on at all.  I thought the goal was to produce an armored vehicle that could win wars and that the nation in question was failing miserably to achieve that goal.  I was wrong. The goal was to make money, and at that, the military-industrial complex of this nation was succeeding brilliantly.

No tanks that could win a war had been produced.  It was unclear if or when they ever would be.  But a lot of people and very powerful corporations had made billions and were going to make billions more.

I had wondered how long this could go on.  The answer was – forever.

All over America, people are dealing with the fallout from Afghanistan. They are wondering what it was all about. They are thinking of lost loved ones, shattered lives and mangled bodies and thinking – never again. We are collectively awash in a powerful mix of emotions, regret, anger, grief.

Not so in the halls of power where the uniformed bureaucrats and the leaders of the most powerful defense contractors on the planet decide the fate of young men and women who aspire to serve their nation and protect their fellow citizens.

You may think the lesson learned from Afghanistan is “never again.” They don’t think any such thing.

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Posted in Business, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Government, History, Military, Politics, Propaganda

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Afghanistan collapse reveals Beltway media’s loyalty to permanent war state, by Gareth Porter

Posted on September 1, 2021 | Leave a comment

We know the mainstream media is an arm of the government, and the military-industrial-intelligence complex dominates the government. From Gareth Porter at thegrayzone.com:

Biden’s popular and long overdue withdrawal from Afghanistan triggered a big media meltdown that exposed its de facto merger with the military.

In the wake of a remarkably successful Taliban offensive capped by the takeover of Kabul, the responses of corporate media provided what may have been the most dramatic demonstration ever of its fealty to the Pentagon and military leadership. The media did so by mounting a full-throated political attack on President Joe Biden’s final withdrawal from Afghanistan and a defense of the military’s desire for an indefinite presence in the country.

Biden’s failure to establish a plan for evacuating tens of thousands of Afghans seeking to the flee the new Taliban regime made him a soft target for the Beltway media’s furious assault. However, it was Biden’s refusal last Spring to keep 4,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan on an indefinite basis – flouting an aggressive Pentagon lobbying campaign – that initially triggered the rage of the military brass.

The media offensive against Biden’s Afghan withdrawal advanced arguments that the military could not make on its own – at least, not in public. It also provided the military with important cover at the moment when it was at its most vulnerable for its disastrous handling of the entire war.

Among the most disingenuous attempts at salvaging the military’s reputation was a Washington Post article blaming the Afghan catastrophe on an over-emphasis on “democratic values” while ignoring the the tight alliance between the U.S. military and despotic warlords which drove local support for the Taliban.

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Posted in Collapse, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Government, Imperialism, Media, Military, Politics, Propaganda

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Here Come the Terrorists. Again, by Philip Giraldi

Posted on August 27, 2021 | Leave a comment

The military-industrial-intelligence complex is in search of new enemies. From Philip Giraldi at strategic-culture.org:

President Joe Biden is being praised in some circles because he finally ended the war in Afghanistan that in all likelihood should never have begun. President George W. Bush initiated the conflict on a series of lies about 9/11 and the Taliban role in that attack and what followed. After bringing about regime change, he decided to remake the country into a western style democracy. President Barack Obama subsequently allowed a “surge” which actually increased the militarization of the conflict and made things worse. The joint effort produced no free elections but delivered instead tens of thousands of deaths and a huge hole in the US Treasury. Bush and Obama were followed by President Donald Trump who actually promised to end the war but lacked the conviction and political support to do so, handing the problem over to Biden, who has bungled the end game but finally done the right thing by ending the fiasco. Biden also has been right to accede to a withdrawal of the last US combat troops from Iraq by year’s end, a move that will considerably ease tension with the Baghdad government, which has been calling for such a move since last January.

But America’s war on those parts of the world that resist following its self-defined leadership is not about to go away. An interesting recent article in the foreign policy establishment The Hill written by a former senior CIA operations and staff officer Douglas London sees an Orwellian unending war against major adversaries Russia and China. Derived from his own experience, he concludes that sustained and enhanced clandestine actions should now replace conventional military forces confrontation, which has been somewhat outdated as an option due to the development of relatively cheap missile technologies that have undermined classic conventional weapons. Some of the clandestine activity he appears to recommend would undoubtedly fall under cover of classic espionage “plausible denial,” i.e. that the White House could disavow any knowledge of what had occurred, but sabotage and cyber-attacks, particularly if implemented aggressively, would quickly be recognized for what they are and would invite commensurate or even disproportionate retaliation. This would amount to an all-out semi-covert war against powerful adversaries which could easily escalate into a shooting war.

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Posted in Debt, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Insurrection

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Tens Of Millions Of People Displaced By The ‘War On Terror’, The Greatest Scam Ever Invented, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on September 13, 2020 | Leave a comment

The War on Terror is the greatest scam ever invented…so far. Rest assured, they’re working on bigger ones, like the coranavirus hoax. From Caitlin Johnstone at medium.com:

A new report from Brown University’s Costs of War project has found that at least 37 million people have been displaced as a result of America’s so-called “war on terror” since 9/11, a conservative estimate of a number that may actually be somewhere between 48 million to 59 million.

That number, “at least 37 million”, happens by pure coincidence to be the exact same number of Americans reported to suffer from food insecurity because their government spends their wealth and resources killing and displacing people overseas.

This inconvenient revelation, which was actually reported on by The New York Times for once, is causing conniptions for all the right people, with The Washington Post’s neoconservative war propagandist Josh Rogin ejaculating, “The @nytimes should be ashamed for running this as ‘analysis.’ Blaming the U.S. for the displacement of 7 million Syrians is crazy and dishonest. Way to launder anti-American propaganda.”

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Intelligence, Media, Military, Propaganda

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Let’s Give Trump Some Credit—On Labor Day He Threw Down the Gauntlet to the Corrupt Military Brass, by Paul Craig Roberts

Posted on September 10, 2020 | Leave a comment

As he sometimes does, President Trump just came right out and spoke the truth: war is a very profitable racket, and that’s why US wars have become endless. From Paul Craig Roberts at paulcraigroberts.org:

Trump said that the Pentagon brass don’t love him, “because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make eveything else stay happy.”

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by the military/security complex for making the same point (see, for example, JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass, Simon & Schuster, 2008).

The US military/security complex has had its crosshairs on Trump since his first presidential campaign when he said that he was going to normalize relations with Russia.  I don’t think Trump realized what a massive NO-NO this is.  Trump was telling the military-security complex that he was going to take away their concocted enemy that justifies the lucrative $1,000 billion annual budget paid by American taxpayers.

This enormous sum enriches a large number of companies along with the CIA’s power and budget. To tell a powerful institutionalized force that you are going to take away their justification for diverting increasingly scarce American resources into their bank accounts is to ask for assassination. President Trump is in the process of being assassinated, but it is not by bullets. Not even dumbshit Americans will believe another “lone assassin” story.  Trump is being assassinated with a coup—https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/09/08/democrats-have-planned-a-coup-if-trump-wins-reelection/ .

The military/security complex responded to Trump’s policy of normalizing relations with Russia with “Russiagate,” an orchestration initiated by CIA director John Brennan and FBI director Comey.  The CIA has had the media in its pocket since Operation Mockingbird dating back to 1950—https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/10/14/how-the-cia-paid-and-threatened-journalists-to-do-its-work.

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Posted in Government, Military, Politics, War

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