David Swanson: Groups Call on Congress to Cut “Runaway” Military Spending by 25-50%

Ethics, Government, Military, Peace Intelligence
David Swanson
David Swanson

Groups Call on Congress to Make Massive Cuts in Runaway Military Spending

A diverse array of organizations today launched a campaign to enact major cuts in wasteful military spending, as part of the December 13 federal budget resolution. The groups include peace, human service, economic and environmental justice organizations, food sovereignty and green energy groups, and grassroots community organizations. They are calling for long overdue reductions in military spending in order to meet dire needs at home and reinvest in our future.

The groups are launching a sign-on letter calling for cuts of 25-50% in the trillion dollar military budget that accounts for 53% of all discretionary federal spending. The groups will deliver the letter to Congress on December 10 – International Human Rights Day.

The groups want Congress to focus on:

– Adequately funding critical social needs, including food stamps, Social Security, improved and expanded Medicare for all, and public education including college,

– Creating a full employment public jobs program to jump start the green economy (a Green New Deal),

>- Rebuilding vital infrastructure.

Groups initiating the campaign include the Backbone Campaign; Coalition Against Nukes; Code Pink; Fellowship of Reconciliation, Freepress.org; Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space; Green Shadow Cabinet; Hip Hop Congress; Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution; No FEAR Coalition; Organic Consumers Association; Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign; PopularResistance.org; RootsAction.org and others. Additional groups can sign on to the letter here.

Continue reading “David Swanson: Groups Call on Congress to Cut “Runaway” Military Spending by 25-50%”

Philip Giraldi: Intelligence Analysts Threaten to Quit Over Syria, Force Clapper and Brennan to Back Down?

Ethics, Government, Peace Intelligence
Philip Giraldi
Philip Giraldi

Quitting Over Syria: Forcing Both Brennan And Clapper To Back Down From Attacking

A number of [intelligence] analysts threatened to resign as a group if their strong dissent was not noted in any report released to the public, forcing both Brennan and Clapper to back down.

The release of the White House “Government Assessment” on August 30, providing the purported evidence to support a bombing attack on Syria, defused a conflict with the intelligence community that had threatened to become public through the mass resignation of a significant number of analysts.

The intelligence community’s consensus view on the status of the Syrian chemical-weapons program was derived from a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) completed late last year and hurriedly updated this past summer to reflect the suspected use of chemical weapons against rebels and civilians.

The report maintained that there were some indications that the regime was using chemicals, while conceding that there was no conclusive proof. There was considerable dissent from even that equivocation, including by many analysts who felt that the evidence for a Syrian government role was subject to interpretation and possibly even fabricated.

Continue reading “Philip Giraldi: Intelligence Analysts Threaten to Quit Over Syria, Force Clapper and Brennan to Back Down?”

Neal Rauhauser: US Aircraft Carriers — Way Too Many, Irresponsibly Drawing Resources Away from a Long-Haul Air Force and an Air-Mobile Army

Ethics, Military, Peace Intelligence
Neal Rauhauser
Neal Rauhauser

Global Aircraft Carrier Infographic

Some weeks ago I wrote Carriers Of The Pacific, a comparison of the U.S. fleet vs. other countries, prompted by the U.S. “pivot to the east”.

One Chart Shows The Magnitude Of U.S. Naval Dominance provides an infographic that makes things crystal clear. Two thirds of all carriers belong to the U.S. Seven of the other twelve belong to our NATO allies, three of the others belong to nations with whom we have good diplomatic relations.

Thirty one carriers in good working order belong to NATO, three are in the hands of nations that have good relations with NATO, leaving just two in the hands of others. Russia’s Admiral Kuznetsov is functional, China has not fully commissioned its sister ship, which they’ve named Liaoning.

Japan, also a U.S. ally, is currently building two ships they refer to as “helicopter destroyers”, vessels the U.S. navy would call assault ships. We have twelve of them in the 40,000 ton displacement range, Japan’s ships will be half that size.

During World War II the U.S. built 24 Essex class carriers, all of which survived the conflict, and two of our three Yorktown class ships were lost, leaving only our most decorated ship, U.S.S. Enterprise CV-6 to finish the war. We had 120 lesser ships, most numerous were the fifty Casablanca class escort carriers.

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

The Cold War has been over for twenty years. We have two thirds of the world’s aircraft carriers, three times more than all of our allies combined. Our only plausible geopolitical rivals have one operational carrier and one that is being slowly commissioned. Our finances, our environment, and our energy supplies can not support maintaining a fleet ready for two wars when we have no plausible geopolitical rival that could start a conflict where they would be required.

The United States has global commitments which we can and should honor, but continuing to maintain a massive fleet when there is no foreseeable purpose for it does not enhance our security, it takes resources away from preventative measures best executed by the State Department and USAID.

Continue reading “Neal Rauhauser: US Aircraft Carriers — Way Too Many, Irresponsibly Drawing Resources Away from a Long-Haul Air Force and an Air-Mobile Army”

Berto Jongman: Bits, Bytes, & Stuff

Commercial Intelligence, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, IO Impotency
Berto Jongman
Berto Jongman

Analog Laws Lag Digital Reality

Phi Beta Iota: The above requires an honest informed legislature and an honest informed executive, both committed to the public interest.  Mike Nelson described the problem in 1994: “1970's technology and 1950's mind-sets struggling with 1990's opportunities.” It has gotten worse, not better. Cyber Commands are retarded — they destroy productivity, do not protect anything at all, and generally cost vastly more than they are worth across multiple forms of accounting.

Fraudsters are surprisingly successful at convincing call centre staff they are someone else, until their voiceprints are compared against the genuine article
Fraudsters are surprisingly successful at convincing call centre staff they are someone else, until their voiceprints are compared against the genuine article

Biometrics Trend: Voice Recognition [Joins Typing “Fist” Recognition]

Brazil's New Internet Law

Collective Cyber Defense

Cyber Arms Dealer

Cyber Intelligence Complex

Do Not Trust Your Computer — National Spying on Remote Devices

German Internet Shutting Out NSA Et Al

Israel Playing with Fire

Media Landscape – the Revolution (Video)

SAS on Reality of War (Video)

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

You Are a Rogue Device: A New Apparatus Capable of Spying on You Has Been Installed Throughout Downtown Seattle. Very Few Citizens Know What It Is, and Officials Don’t Want to Talk About It.

Steven Aftergood: Secrecy News Combined Federal Campaign Number is 11539 — Support Secrecy News If You Can

Ethics
Steven Aftergood
Steven Aftergood

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Marcus Aurelius: SecDef Puts Humans on the Block

Ethics, Military
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius

SECDEF speaks; see article below.  Key points:

  • First SOF Truth, equally applicable to every single element of the Joint Force, has been forgotten:  HUMANS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN HARDWARE.  First SOF Truth, repeat after me, Mr. Secretary:  HUMANS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN HARDWARE.
  • Troops and families — carriers of the rifles and the rucksacks and standers of the night watches — rather than contractors will bear the burden.

– – – – – – –

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned Tuesday that troops and their families will be asked to sacrifice on pay and benefits to preserve readiness in an era of tighter budgets.

SecDef Chuck Hagel
SecDef Chuck Hagel

Hagel listed politically-charged changes to compensation and personnel policy as one of his top six priorities in reforming the military following the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as the department gears up to meet new challenges.

“This may be the most difficult” to achieve among his six priorities, Hagel said of proposals to trim pay increases, overhaul TRICARE and review retirement benefits while adapting to cuts in personnel.

“Without serious attempts to achieve significant savings in this area, which consumes roughly half of the DoD budget and is increasing every year, we risk becoming an unbalanced force,” Hagel said.

The alternative was to have a military that is “well-compensated, but poorly trained and equipped, with limited readiness and capability,” Hagel said in a keynote address to a Global Security Forum 2013 sponsored by he Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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