Saturday, September 25, 2021

OMNI PENTAGON WATCH NEWSLETTER #12, SEPT. 25, 2021

 

OMNI PENTAGON WATCH NEWSLETTER #12,

September 25, 2021

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology.

(#1 June 21, 2011; #2 October 29, 2011; #3 March 15, 2012; #4 May 17, 2012; #5 June 23, 2012; #6 August 1, 2012; #7 Oct. 5, 2012; #8 Feb. 13, 2013; #9 March 17, 2013; #10 June 3, 2013; #11 Jan. 14, 2014).

http://omnicenter.org/donate/

 

What’s at Stake:  PERMANENT WAR

“When the plans for a new office building for the military, which came to be known as The Pentagon, were brought before the Senate on august 14, 1941, Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan was puzzled.  ‘Unless the war is to be permanent, why must we have permanent accommodations for war facilities of such size?’ he asked.  ‘Or is the war to be permanent?”  Blum, America’s Deadliest Export (2013, 3).  If you wonder how you might make a difference against the military juggernaut USA, read William Blum's books and see what he did.--Dick

 

With an annual budget of over $600 billion supporting one illegal, unnecessary war after another amounting to permanent war (requiring a opermanent War Department), the expansion of empire of over a thousand bases throughout the world, secrecy, surveillance, and repression increasing at  home (Homeland Security a domestic Pentagon), our representatives, the Congress, not only giving the military all they request but more (the military-industrial-presidential-congressional complex in every congressional district), and all of US  massive terrorism motivating violent (actually peanuts) counter-terrorism  throughout the world against which the US has declared a “Violent War Against Terrorism,” we the people can be thankful for the many independent, sustained organizations resisting the combined violence.  In my Peace Movement Directory (2001), I described over a thousand peace and justice organizations in North America.  This “Pentagon” newsletter and our several closely related newsletters are meant to support this nonviolent movement.    Consider these newsletters and Blog as a collecting station to encourage the building of an even more concerted scrutiny of the Permanent War Pentagon (PWP).   (Always include complete source, and I will cite you with thanks.)   Let’s see what ordinary citizens can put together.   --Dick

 

 

Contents, Pentagon Newsletter #12, Sept. 25, 2021

Pentagon’s War on Terror:  Planet’s Center for Violence, 2001, 2015, 2016, 2021

Greenberg, Guantanamo’s First 100 Days, how America lost its moral bearings in the wake of 9/11 and the Bush Administration.. 

The Hidden Structure of Violence: Who Benefits from Global Violence and War by Marc Pilisuk and Jennifer Rountree.  2015.
Sherwood Ross.  The new Pentagon Law of War Manual (2016) reveals the further downward drift of the U.S. from a democratic to a totalitarian society.

John LaForge, Fools Fighting Terror with Terror. April 1, 2016.

Dan Cohen, Petagon, Technology, Google, Empire: Pentagon Leading a High-tech Arms Race.  2021.

 

ENDING THE WARS

FCNL, Repeal the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).

Troops and Their Families

NYT, Doubts Among Families  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/us/15protest.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

US War Resisters/Deserters in Canada Support Campaign, Google Search

Desertion Rates 2005-2j013

 

Pentagon Fraud Industry

 

Pentagon Propaganda Machine Google Search

 

 

WAR DEPARTMENT: 2001, 2016, 2021

Click to open expanded view

 

 

Start reading The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo's First 100 Days on your Kindle in under a minute. 

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The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo's First 100 Days by Karen Greenberg .

Book Description

 September 27, 2010 Named one of the Washington Post Book World's Best Books of 2009, The Least Worst Place offers a gripping narrative account of the first one hundred days of Guantanamo. Greenberg, one of America's leading experts on the Bush Administration's policies on terrorism, tells the story through a group of career officers who tried-and ultimately failed-to stymie the Pentagon's desire to implement harsh new policies in Guantanamo and bypass the Geneva Conventions. Peopled with genuine heroes and villains, this narrative of the earliest days of the post-9/11 era centers on the conflicts between Gitmo-based Marine officers intent on upholding the Geneva Accords and an intelligence unit set up under the Pentagon's aegis. The latter ultimately won out, replacing transparency with secrecy, military protocol with violations of basic operation procedures, and humane and legal detainee treatment with harsh interrogation methods and torture. Greenberg's riveting account puts a human face on this little-known story, revealing how America first lost its moral bearings in the wake of 9/11.

 

The Hidden Structure of Violence: Who Benefits from Global Violence and War by Marc Pilisuk and Jennifer Rountree.   Monthly Review P, 2015.   360pp.

 

Acts of violence assume many forms: they may travel by the arc of a guided missile or in the language of an economic policy decision that contaminates drinking water, and they may leave behind a smoldering village or a starved child. The all-pervasive occurrence of violence makes it seem like an unavoidable, and ultimately incomprehensible, aspect of the human world, particularly in a modern era. But, in this detailed and expansive book, Marc Pilisuk and Jennifer Rountree demonstrate otherwise. Widespread violence, they argue, is in fact an expression of the underlying social order, and whether it is carried out by military forces or by patterns of investment, the aim is to strengthen that order for the benefit of the powerful.

 

The Hidden Structure of Violence marshals vast amounts of evidence to examine the costs of direct violence, including military preparedness and the social reverberations of war, alongside the costs of structural violence, expressed as poverty and chronic illness. It also documents the relatively small number of people and corporations responsible for facilitating the violent status quo, whether by setting the range of permissible discussion or benefiting directly as financiers and manufacturers. The result is a stunning indictment of our violent world and a powerful critique of the ways through which violence is reproduced on a daily basis, whether at the highest levels of the state or in the deepest recesses of the mind.

 

Because of its inter-disciplinary approach, The Hidden Structure of Violence will be valuable for scholars and students in a range of fields, but especially psychology, macro-economics, sociology, international relations, history, journalism, peace studies, military science, community development, and social change.

 

Praise:

 

An encyclopedic and yet highly focused analysis of the causes and consequences of violence and wars … This is a sober book that nonetheless leaves us with hope for future generations.   —G. William Domhoff, Research Professor in Psychology and Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz; author, Who Rules America?

 

 

This is a rare book: It speaks the truth about the causes of war, and cuts through the veil of theories that mystify and obscure rather than explain the causes … a scholarly work, fully referenced and documented, yet accessible to the general public … a forthright and hard-hitting critique of the power elite’s control of government, foreign policy, and the media.  —Milton Schwebel, Emeritus Dean and Professor, Graduate School of Applied & Professional Psychology, Rutgers University; Founding Editor, Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology; Former President, Psychologists for Social Responsibility.

 

 There are painful truths here for Americans about the role our government plays in perpetuating global violence—but some readers will be inspired to follow the authors’ advice on what can be done about it.   —William A. Gamson, Professor of Sociology, Boston University; author, Talking Politics and The Strategy of Social Protest.

 

 The authors have cast their net over the threats to world peace and ecological balance, pulling in not only fish but monsters of the deep. After painting a picture gloomier than any canvas by Bosch or Goya, [reinforced Greenberg’s book preceding and by the new Pentagon War Manual following] they offer a glimmer of hope for a planet suffering from a life-threatening disease. Indeed, no recent book presents today’s pathologies so clearly nor provides potential remedies with such brilliant articulation.   —Stanley Krippner, Professor, Saybrook Graduate School; co-author, Haunted by Combat

 

This important book is a tour de force of erudition and scholarship, lucid exposition and organization, cogent reasoning, psychological depth, and compassionate motivation. It is written in clear, accessible language and a warm, humane voice. Each proposition is supported by well-documented evidence, including historical case studies. Through ‘uncovering a destructive system,’ the authors aspire to inform, inspire, and empower readers to take part in the just transformation of this violence-ravaged world. In other words, this book’s purpose is to empower activists for peace, human rights, and ecological sustainability. It is a guidebook to the intricate, highly organized networks that dominate and are destroying so much of the world in which we live.   —Mitch Hall, author, Peace Quest

 

In a few words, it can be said that the book tells it like it is—it describes the vast governmental-industrial-legislative complex that controls our lives via war and violence. This is not conspiracy theory any longer—it is rooted in fact and record. The authors cite names, organizations, places, and dates that not only promote war, but also benefit from it financially. The world is the victim! This is a must read and I call it to your attention.   —Anthony Marsella, editor, Amidst Peril and Pain: The Mental Health and Well-being of the World’s Refugees and Understanding Terrorism: Psychosocial Roots, Consequences, and Interventions

 

Marc Pilisuk teaches at Saybrook University and is Professor Emeritus of Human and Community Development at the University of California at Davis. He is a former president of the Society for the Study of Peace, Conflict, and Violence and a steering committee member of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. He has published ten books and more than 140 articles over an academic career spanning five decades.

 

Jennifer Rountree is research manager at the National Indian Child Welfare Association in Portland, Oregon. She has a PhD in psychology from Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center in San Francisco, California, and supports American Indian/Alaska Native tribes and urban Indian communities in community based participatory research.

 

 

Sherwood Ross.  New Pentagon War Manual Could Have Been Written By Nazis  (also Published in Peace in Our Times)   http://worldbeyondwar.org/new-pentagon-war-manual-could-have-been-written-by-nazis/

The Pentagon’s new Law of War Manual (LOWM, 2016) sanctioning nuclear attacks and the killing of civilians, “reads like it was written by Hitler’s Ministry of War,” says international law authority Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois at Champaign.

“Historically, this is a terrible development,” he added in an exclusive interview with this reporter. “We are reducing ourselves to the level of the Nazis.”

The grim, 1,165-page-long document, issued in June by the Defense Department’s Office of the General Counsel, also sanctions the use of napalm, herbicides, depleted uranium, and drone missile strikes, among other barbarities.

Boyle points out the new manual is designed to supplant the 1956 U.S. Army Field Manual 27-10 written by Richard Baxter, the world’s leading authority on the Laws of War. Baxter was the Manley O. Hudson Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a Judge on the International Court of Justice. Boyle was his top student.

Boyle is the leading professor, practitioner and advocate of international law in America. He drafted the U.S. implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention known as  the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989.

“Over the years, 27-10 has proven to be a total embarrassment to the Pentagon because it sets forth a fair and accurate statement of the Laws of War both as of 1956 and as of today,” Boyle says. He termed the new manual a “warmongering” document.

The new document seeks to distinguish between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” acts of military violence against civilian targets, using the criterion of military necessity,” points out Peter Martin of the World Socialist Website. “Thus, acts of mass slaughter of civilians could be justified if sufficient military advantages were gained by the operations.”

The bulk of the document, Martin continues, “amounts to a green light for military atrocities, including mass killings.”

Martin said the most comprehensive previous such document, the 1956 Pentagon field manual, did not state that civilians, unlike military personnel, should be spared “unnecessary suffering” because it assumed… “that any deliberate targeting of civilians was illegal and a war crime.”

Among the flagrant violations of international law sanctioned by the Pentagon’s new LOWM, Martin writes, are:    MORE   http://worldbeyondwar.org/new-pentagon-war-manual-could-have-been-written-by-nazis/

(Sherwood Ross is an award-winning free-lance journalist who formerly reported for The New York Herald-Tribune, The Chicago Daily News, and major wire services. Reach him at sherwoodross@gmail.com)<--break->

 

John M. LaForge.   Fools Fighting Terror with Terror.
PeaceVoice – TRANSCEND Media Service.  TMS Weekly Digest 04 Apr - 10 Apr 2016.  TRANSCEND Media Service brings to you its own Peace Journalism Perspective plus a digest of the week’s relevant News, Analyses, Papers and Videos–in various languages.
War OF Terror
1 Apr 2016 – April Fools believe suicide bombers can be stopped with more body scanners and police surveillance. April Fools believe the “war on terror” can be won using bombs and bomb threats, and that bombs will end it. . When civilian victims of US military attacks are even noted, the media regularly report that “coalition forces” caused the death and destruction. This deflects attention from US command of the warfare especially for April Fools.   John LaForge, syndicated by PeaceVoice, works for Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog group in Wisconsin and edits its Quarterly newsletter.       Read more...

 

 

PENTAGON, TECHNOLOGY, GOOGLE, US EMPIRE,

 

Eric Schmidt Cashes in on Artificial Intelligence arms race

Dan Cohen.  Mronline.org (9-25-21)

Eric Schmidt Cashes in on Artificial Intelligence Arms Race

As the Pentagon drives a hi-tech arms race to maintain its global military superiority, ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt is the man at the center. Behind The Headlines’ Dan Cohen investigates how the U.S. empire’s drive to control the world using Silicon Valley technology creates the possibility of a devastating war.   share on Twitter Like Eric Schmidt Cashes in on Artificial Intelligence arms race on Facebook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POTENTIAL REMEDIES FOR US MILITARISM/CEASELESS WARS

Thousands of niches and paths are open to us for resistance.  It’s not the unavailability of ways to oppose US militarism that explains public inaction, but only their refusal to act via thousands of diversions or failure to ratchet up their resistance..

Repeal the AUMF

Support Opposition Military Families

Get Informed about Deserters

Expose Pentagon Accounting Fraud

Read Chris Hedges!

You can’t find your niche for resistance to what you know must be resisteed?

PENTAGON PROPAGANDA & RECRUITING MACHINE Google Search, Feb. 22, 2014

 

 

Repealing the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF).

 

 

 

Dear Dick Bennett,

What a difference a week makes.

A week ago, we were concerned your representative wasn’t hearing support from constituents to end the endless war by repealing the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). Now we’re sure that message is getting through.  [The repeal campaign is alive and well in 2021.  Support Barbara: no matter how strong, our heroes welcome affirmation.   Magnify your voice and influence by And supporting the FCNL and the hundreds of other antiwar organizations immediately available to us.  What’s stopping you?   –Dick]

This week, more than 3,600 of you, from every state (plus Washington, DC, Puerto Rico and American Samoa) sent messages to your representatives. And nearly 40 delegations met with their representatives while they were home. That's awesome!

Thank you for your lobbying...
Your social networking...

And, as always, your tireless work for peace.

What’s Next to End the Endless War

When Congress comes back to Washington next week, we’ll be following up with representatives and looking for new cosponsors to H.R. 2324, Adam Schiff’s legislation to repeal the Authorization for the Use of Military Force.

I hope you’ll follow up as well over the next few weeks—with a phone call or a note, asking for an update on your representative’s position. We’ll be sure to let you know if your representative adds his or her name as a cosponsor so you can send a thank you!

As we work towards a vote in the House in May or June, we know that representatives will continue to hear that ending the endless war is a priority. Next month, we’ll welcome some 200 young adults to Washington for our Spring Lobby Weekend, and they’re making this issue their top lobbying request.

We look forward to working with you on the next chapter of ending the endless war.

In peace,

Jim Cason
Associate Executive Secretary for Strategic Advocacy

 

 

MILITARY FAMILIES RESIST, DESERTERS TO CANADA, DESERTION RATES.  See: Support the Troops Newsletter.

 

2007 Iraq:  As Loved Ones Fight On, War Doubts Arise By IAN URBINA   THE NEW YORK TIMES, : July 15, 2007

FORT EUSTIS, Va., July 11 — Cpl. April Ponce De Leon describes herself and her husband as “gung-ho marines,” and in two weeks she deploys to Iraq, where her husband has been fighting since March.

Multimedia

Video Feature

Rethinking the War

Jeremy M. Lange for The New York Times

April Ponce De Leon, a Marine corporal, is scheduled for deployment to Iraq in two weeks. Her husband has been fighting in Iraq since March.

I stopped believing in the war last month after a telephone conversation with him.

“He started telling me that he doesn’t want me to go and do the things he has been doing,” said Corporal Ponce De Leon, 22, speaking by telephone as she boxed up her belongings in their apartment near Camp Lejeune, N.C.

“He said that ‘we have all decided that it’s time for us to go home.’ I said, ‘You mean go home and rest?’ And he said, ‘I mean go home and not go back.’

“This is from someone who has been training for the past nine years to go to combat and who has spent his whole life wanting to be a marine,” she continued. “That’s when I realized I couldn’t support the war anymore, even though I will follow my orders.”    MORE

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/us/15protest.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

 

 

US War Resisters/Deserters in Canada Support Campaign, Google Search Feb. 21, 2014 [I give here only one of the many reports.]

Toronto group advises US persons who have crossed the border to avoid military service or who have deserted.

1.  War Resisters Support Campaign

resisters.ca/

In Toronto, join a letter-writing event at 7 p.m. at the Steelworkers Hall, 25 Cecil ...Make a donation to our defense campaign in support of U.S. war resisters.

Google+ page · Be the first to review

25 Cecil, Toronto, ON M5T 1N1, Canada
+1 416-598-1222

About Us - ‎Take Action - ‎Endorsers - ‎Resources

DESERTION RATES GOOGLE SEARCH FEB. 21, 2014

[I have arranged the following reports in chronological order; since rates have fluctuated, knowing the date of the report helps.]

 

1.    Desertion Rates - US Military - About.com

usmilitary.about.com › ... › Justice, Law & Legislation

About.com

by Rod Powers - in 33 Google+ circles

Mar 13, 2005 - Desertion rates for the U.S. Military services from Fiscal Year 1997 to Fiscal Year 2004. ... if one is absent from the military for more than 30 days, they are "deserters. ... 2001, 62, 0.17. 2002, 88, 0.24. 2003, 56, 0.15. 2004, 50, 0.14. Navy ... 2011 Military Pay - Personal Money Allowance · What the Recruiter ...

2.    Army desertion rates up 80% since 2003 - USA Today

usatoday30.usatoday.com/.../2007-11-16-military-deserters_...

USA Today

Nov 16, 2007 - Darrell Anderson, shown holding a U.S.army ID card in Toronto in ... the Navy has seen a steady decline in deserters since 2001, going from ...

3.    Military Desertion Rates and the Associated Press - American Thinker

www.americanthinker.com/.../military_desertion_rates...

American Thinker

Nov 18, 2007 - According to America's biggest news agency, the United States is facing ... Army desertion rates have fluctuated since the Vietnam War - when they peaked at 5 percent." ... Years 2000, 2001, and 2002 (8.16, 9.5, 9.26) show higher rates... May 2011 · April 2011 · March 2011 · February 2011 · January 2011 ...

4.    US Army AWOL: Myths and Facts - Yahoo Voices - voices.yahoo.com

voices.yahoo.com/us-army-awol-myths-facts-5119527.h..

Yahoo!

by Jesse Schmitt - in 27 Google+ circles

The truth about punishments for going AWOL in the US Army is a gray area indeed. ... Dec 22, 2009 "Share your voice on Yahoo websites. ... from the military in the years beginning in 1993 and ending in 2001 is on the rise precipitously.

5.    Army Paid Millions To Deserters, AWOL Soldiers, Audit Shows

www.huffingtonpost.com/.../army-deserters-awol-so...

The Huffington Post

Sep 27, 2013 - "In this current environment of scarce resources, this is .... U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry points to a reporter during a press conference ...

 

 

EXPOSING PENTAGON FRAUD

 

Tell Congress: Audit the Pentagon

http://act.credoaction.com/sign/Pentagon_Audit?t=4&akid=17443.8397125.PBLxHE

March 31, 2016

Sign the petition

Tell your member of Congress:

“Co-sponsor Rep. Barbara Lee’s Audit the Pentagon Act. Defense and military spending deserve the same scrutiny as other government programs.”

name*

email*

zipcode*

 Sign Petition

You'll receive periodic updates on offers and activism opportunities.

 

Tell Congress: Audit the Pentagon

Over $1 trillion for a fighter jet that’s been in production for over a decade that has yet to see the light of day, and $150 million spent on private villas in Afghanistan for a “handful of staff and visitors” — those are just two examples of the waste, fraud, and abuse that led a story from U.S. News and World Report to call this the “Golden Age of Pentagon Waste.”1

 

The Department of Defense (DOD) receives more than half of the country’s entire discretionary budget — an astounding $500 billion in taxpayer money per year. But unlike other government agencies, the DOD is the only government agency that cannot be audited, and it has never produced a financial statement that can pass an independent audit.

 

In the wake of the recent and tragic terrorist attacks in Turkey, Belgium, and Pakistan, it's more important than ever for elected officials in Washington to realize that the security of Americans can't be bought with billions in unaccountable taxpayer dollars being thrown at defense contractors and weapons programs that can't be justified. And when they do that, it comes at the cost of the strategic priorities and programs that will actually keep us safe.

 

With almost 60 cents of every taxpayer dollar going toward defense spending, it’s a situation that’s ripe for waste and fraud. The Pentagon’s spending deserves the same careful scrutiny as other government programs, and it’s time to do something about it. Fortunately, progressive champion Rep. Barbara Lee has been spearheading legislation in the House of Representatives to audit the Pentagon and impose a fee on any unit that remains unauditable. Sign the petition now and tell Congress to co-sponsor her bill.

 

Stand with Rep. Barbara Lee: Tell your representative to co-sponsor the Audit the Pentagon Act. Click here to sign the petition. http://act.credoaction.com/sign/Pentagon_Audit?t=4&akid=17443.8397125.PBLxHE

 

The Audit the Pentagon Act would cut by 5 percent the budget of any federal agency that does not produce a financial statement for the previous year that can be audited by an independent auditor.

 

Auditing the Pentagon already has bipartisan support. When Rep. Barbara Lee introduced her Audit the Pentagon Act of 2015, she had several Republican co-sponsors. And when Rep. Lee introduced the bill in 2014, even Grover Norquist, the conservative founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, was there to voice his support.2

 

In 2013, the Pentagon’s own Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction revealed that the Defense Department had “lost” at least $8 billion in Iraq and that it was impossible to track how a large portion of the $53 billion the U.S. spent rebuilding the country.3

 

It is outrageous for the Pentagon to evade the same standards we apply to other programs. This double standard contributes to the Pentagon’s out-of-control budget and culture of waste by sending the clear message that the Department of Defense department won’t be held accountable for its wasteful spending. It’s time for that to end.

 

Stand with Rep. Barbara Lee: Tell your representative to co-sponsor the Audit the Pentagon Act. Click here to sign the petition.

 

Thank you for your activism.

 

William D. Hartung, "A Golden Age for Pentagon Waste," U.S. News & World Report, February 3, 2016.

"Bipartisan Coalition Introduces Bill to Bring Greater Transparency and Accountability to Pentagon Spending," Rep. Barbara Lee.

Neil Gordon, "SIGIR Says “At Least” $8 Billion Lost in Iraq," Project on Government Oversight, March 8, 2013.

CREDO Action is a publication of Working Assets | credomobile.com

 

 

Exclusive: The Pentagon’s Massive Accounting Fraud Exposed

How US military spending keeps rising even as the Pentagon flunks its audit.  [The print edition has a different title.  “Special Report. Exposing the Pentagon’s Massive Accounting Fraud: Spending Keeps Rising While the Defense Department Cooks the Books.”  The date for actual publication in The Nation is January 7, 2019.    Perhaps the text has also been edited.  –Dick]

By Dave Lindorff   NOVEMBER 27, 2018

Lindorff-Pentagon-Juhasz_img

Illustration by Victor Juhasz.

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On November 15, Ernst & Young and other private firms that were hired to audit the Pentagon announced that they could not complete the job. Congress had ordered an independent audit of the Department of Defense, the government’s largest discretionary cost center—the Pentagon receives 54 cents out of every dollar in federal appropriations—after the Pentagon failed for decades to audit itself. The firms concluded, however, that the DoD’s financial records were riddled with so many bookkeeping deficiencies, irregularities, and errors that a reliable audit was simply impossible.

Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan tried to put the best face on things, telling reporters, “We failed the audit, but we never expected to pass it.” Shanahan suggested that the DoD should get credit for attempting an audit, saying, “It was an audit on a $2.7 trillion organization, so the fact that we did the audit is substantial.” The truth, though, is that the DoD was dragged kicking and screaming to this audit by bipartisan frustration in Congress, and the result, had this been a major corporation, likely would have been a crashed stock.

As Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, a frequent critic of the DoD’s financial practices, said on the Senate floor in September 2017, the Pentagon’s long-standing failure to conduct a proper audit reflects “twenty-six years of hard-core foot-dragging” on the part of the DoD, where “internal resistance to auditing the books runs deep.” In 1990, Congress passed the Chief Financial Officers Act, which required all departments and agencies of the federal government to develop auditable accounting systems and submit to annual audits. Since then, every department and agency has come into compliance—except the Pentagon.

Now, a Nationinvestigation has uncovered an explanation for the Pentagon’s foot-dragging: For decades, the DoD’s leaders and accountants have been perpetrating a gigantic, unconstitutional accounting fraud, deliberately cooking the books to mislead the Congress and drive the DoD’s budgets ever higher, regardless of military necessity. DoD has literally been making up numbers in its annual financial reports to Congress—representing trillions of dollars’ worth of seemingly nonexistent transactions—knowing that Congress would rely on those misleading reports when deciding how much money to give the DoD the following year, according to government records and interviews with current and former DoD officials, congressional sources, and independent experts.

“If the DOD were being honest, they would go to Congress and say, ‘All these proposed budgets we’ve been presenting to you are a bunch of garbage,’ ” said Jack Armstrong, who spent more than five years in the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General as a supervisory director of audits before retiring in 2011.

The fraud works like this. When the DoD submits its annual budget requests to Congress, it sends along the prior year’s financial reports, which contain fabricated numbers. The fabricated numbers disguise the fact that the DoD does not always spend all of the money Congress allocates in a given year. However, instead of returning such unspent funds to the US Treasury, as the law requires, the Pentagon sometimes launders and shifts such moneys to other parts of the DoD’s budget.

Veteran Pentagon staffers say that this practice violates Article I Section 9 of the US Constitution, which stipulates that

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

MORE   https://www.thenation.com/article/pentagon-audit-budget-fraud/

 

 

 

Chris Hedges

The Menace of the Military Mind

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Posted on Feb 3, 2014   By Chris Hedges

[I read this in The War Crimes Times (Spring 2014).  –Dick]

I had my first experience with the U.S. military when I was a young reporter covering the civil war in El Salvador. We journalists were briefed at the American Embassy each week by a U.S. Army colonel who at the time headed the military group of U.S. advisers to the Salvadoran army. The reality of the war, which lasted from 1979 to 1992, bore little resemblance to the description regurgitated each week for consumption by the press. But what was most evident was not the blatant misinformation—this particular colonel had apparently learned to dissemble to the public during his multiple tours in Vietnam—but the hatred of the press by this man and most other senior officers in the U.S. military. When first told that he would have to meet the press once a week, the colonel reportedly protested against having to waste his time with those “limp-dicked communists.”

For the next 20 years I would go on from war zone to war zone as a foreign correspondent immersed in military culture. Repetitive rote learning and an insistence on blind obedience—similar to the approach used to train a dog—work on the battlefield. The military exerts nearly total control over the lives of its members. Its long-established hierarchy ensures that those who embrace the approved modes of behavior rise and those who do not are belittled, insulted and hazed. Many of the marks of civilian life are stripped away. Personal modes of dress, hairstyle, speech and behavior are heavily regulated. Individuality is physically and then psychologically crushed. Aggressiveness is rewarded. Compassion is demeaned. Violence is the favorite form of communication. These qualities are an asset in war; they are a disaster in civil society.

Homer in “The Iliad” showed his understanding of war. His heroes are not pleasant men. They are vain, imperial, filled with rage and violent. And Homer’s central character in “The Odyssey,” Odysseus, in his journey home from war must learn to shed his “hero’s heart,” to strip from himself the military attributes that served him in war but threaten to doom him off the battlefield. The qualities that serve us in war defeat us in peace.

Most institutions have a propensity to promote mediocrities, those whose primary strengths are knowing where power lies, being subservient and obsequious to the centers of power and never letting morality get in the way of one’s career. The military is the worst in this respect. In the military, whether at the Parris Island boot camp or West Point, you are trained not to think but to obey. What amazes me about the military is how stupid and bovine its senior officers are. Those with brains and the willingness to use them seem to be pushed out long before they can rise to the senior-officer ranks. The many Army generals I met over the years not only lacked the most rudimentary creativity and independence of thought but nearly always saw the press, as well as an informed public, as impinging on their love of order, regimentation, unwavering obedience to authority and single-minded use of force to solve complex problems.

So when I heard James R. Clapper Jr., a retired Air Force lieutenant general and currently the federal government’s director of national intelligence, denounce Edward Snowden and his “accomplices”—meaning journalists such as Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras—before the Senate Intelligence Committee last week I was not surprised. Clapper charged, without offering any evidence, that the Snowden disclosures had caused “profound damage” and endangered American lives. And all who have aided Snowden are, it appears, guilty of treason in Clapper’s eyes.

Clapper and many others who have come out of the military discern no difference between terrorists and reporters, and by reporters I am not referring to the boot-licking courtiers on television and in Washington who masquerade as reporters. Carry out an interview with a member of al-Qaida, as I have, and you become in the eyes of generals like Clapper a member of al-Qaida. Most generals I know recognize no need for an independent press. The munchkins who dutifully sit through their press briefings or follow them around in preapproved press pools and publish their lies are the generals’ idea of journalism.

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http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_menace_of_the_military_mind_20140203

 

 

PENTAGON PROPAGANDA & RECRUITING MACHINE Google Search, Feb. 22, 2014

1.    Pentagon Spending Billions on PR to Sway World Opinion | Fox News

www.foxnews.com/.../pentagon-spending-billions-pr-...

Fox News Channel

Feb 5, 2009 - In the process, it is raising concerns of spreading propaganda at home in... budget, and the military argues it is well-spent on recruitment and the ... Robert Hastings, acting director of Pentagon public affairs, says the growth ...

2.    The Selling of The Pentagon 2013 « DC BureauDC Bureau

www.dcbureau.org/.../national.../the-selling-of-the-pentagon-2013.html

Sep 30, 2013 - There is a budget for advertising, recruitment, and even ... Pentagon public affairs officers are even less helpful in describing their jobs, salaries .... worrying is they are combining public affairs and outreach with propaganda.

3.    The Pentagon Propaganda Machine Rears Its Head | Cato @ Liberty

www.cato.org/.../pentagon-propaganda-machine-rears-its-h...

Cato Institute

Feb 24, 2011 - Now the Pentagon is using its massive propaganda budget to blur the... for recruitment, advertising and public relations, nearly as many as the ...

4.    Pentagon Spending Billions on PR to Sway World Opinion - Infowars

www.infowars.com/pentagon-spending-billions-on-pr-to-swa...

Alex Jones

Feb 6, 2009 - Pentagon Spending Billions on PR to Sway World Opinion ... In the process, it is raising concerns of spreading propaganda at ... according to Department of Defense budgets and other documents. ... This year, the Pentagon will employ 27,000 people just for recruitment, advertising and public relations ...

5.    Propaganda Machine:27,000 Work in Pentagon PR and Recruiting ...

www.ldsfreedomforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5953

Feb 12, 2009 - 2 posts - ‎2 authors

As it fights two wars, the Pentagon is steadily and dramatically ... this year, according to Department of Defense budgets and other documents. ... 27,000 people just forrecruitment, advertising and public relations - almost as ...

6.    WAR PR How The Pentagon Censors, Forces & Uses Hollywood To ...

► 8:57► 8:57

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcdHw0G...

YouTube

Dec 9, 2011 - Uploaded by VexZeed

WAR PR How The Pentagon Censors, Forces & Uses Hollywood To Produce Pro-War Movie Propaganda ...

7.    Pentagon Propaganda Is Booming - Truthdig

www.truthdig.com/.../20090205_pentagon_propaganda_is_boo...

Truthdig

Feb 5, 2009 - The military's spin budget—covering recruitment, advertising and public relations—has jumped 63 percent over the last five years, to $4.7 ...

8.    AP Report: Pentagon Propaganda at home - Daily Kos

www.dailykos.com/.../-AP-Report-Pentagon-Propaganda-at-ho...

Daily Kos

Feb 5, 2009 - In the process, it is raising concerns of spreading propaganda at home in... budget, and the military argues it is well-spent on recruitment and the ... Robert Hastings, acting director of Pentagon public affairs, says the growth ...

9.    Sizing Pentagon propaganda: $4.7b, 27k people – Mike Linksvayer

gondwanaland.com/mlog/2012/09/24/pentagon-propaganda/

Sep 24, 2012 - The Pentagon spends $4.7 billion a year on public relations and has... Now the Pentagon is using its massive propaganda budget to blur the line ... forrecruitment, advertising and public relations, nearly as many as the ...

10. 27,000 to work on Pentagon's image — RT USA - RT.com

rt.com/usa/000-to-work-on-pentagon-s-image/  RT

Feb 11, 2009 - The Pentagon will spend $US 4.7 billion and employ 27000 staff for recruitment, advertising and public relations this year, ... five years the money the Pentagon spends on propaganda at home and abroad has grown ... And, according to the same report, that's only 1 % of the Department of Defense budget.

 

 

 

 

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END OMNI PENTAGON NEWSLETTER #12, September 25, 2021

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