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Chuck Spinney: Corrupt Congress Spends on Contractor Waste Instead of Human Core

WEEKEND EDITION JANUARY 17-19, 2014 The Cockburn Report Defense Spending: Putting Toys Before Boys by FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY, Counterpunch Being pro-defense in the Hall of Mirrors of Versailles on the Potomac means, in the salty words of my late friend Col. David Hackworth, one of the U.S. Army’s most decorated combat soldiers, putting “the toys …

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Mini-Me: NYT Discussion of Cutting Military Flag Officers + Meta-RECAP on Flag Waste and Corruption

Huh? Weighing the Brass New York Times, 5 November 2013 One of the hardest-hit areas being discussed in federal budget talks is the Pentagon, which would take an automatic $20 billion cut in January under sequestration. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel proposed a 20 percent cut in his own office’s budget, but command headquarters around …

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Marcus Aurelius: Hagel Sacrifices People Instead of Systems Waste

I attach two-day old SECDEF estimates for Congress of what will happen if sequester continues into next fiscal year.  Big idea:  emphasis on RIFs of military and civilian personnel in preference to furloughs of DoD civilians.   SECDEF doesn’t mention any specific numbers, but following would not surprise me: *Active Army military personnel:  RIF of 70K …

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Marcus Aurelius: Congress Cuts DoD Spies in Half — CIA Continues to Run Amok — + Clandestine/Analytic Meta-RECAP

Congress Smashes Pentagon’s New Den of Spies By Noah Shachtman WIRED Danger Room 05.21.13 7:29 PM If the Pentagon’s not careful, it’s going to find its new network of spies rolled up by Congress. The Defense Clandestine Service was supposed to be the Defense Department’s new squad for conducting “human intelligence” — classic, informant-based spying. …

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Mini-Me: Air Force Nuclear Rotten; Nuclear Budget Waste to Point of Treason — Where, We Ask, Does the Buck Stop on This Nonsense?

Huh? AP Exclusive: Air Force sidelines 17 nuclear missile officers; commander cites ‘rot’ in system WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel demanded more information Wednesday after the Air Force removed 17 launch officers from duty at a nuclear missile base in North Dakota over what a commander called “rot” in the force. The Air Force …

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Chuck Spinney: Afghan Fraud, Permanent War, VERY Expensive – Robert Steele: $2 Trillion a Year for DoD is Criminally Insane

Obama may want out of Afghanistan, but he is under to pressure to stay, and the Military – Industrial – Congressional Complex (MICC) still has a budgetary interest in maintaining perpetual war, be it cold or hot ( for reasons I explained here). The bloom is off the Karzai rose (as Amy Davidson explained in her 11 Jan …

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