https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGsmWvfzMkKddPHBZrxrRjjbDnM

Hartung and Freeman, The Twenty-First Century of (Profitable) War May 4, 2023 Honestly, it should take your breath away. We are on a planet prepping for further war in a staggering fashion. A watchdog group, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), just released its yearly report on global military spending. Given the war in Ukraine, you undoubtedly won't be surprised to learn that, in 2022, such spending in Western and Central Europe surpassed levels set as the Cold War ended in the last century. Still, it wasn't just Europe or Russia where military budgets leaped. They were rising rapidly in Asia as well (with significant jumps in Japan and India, as well as for the world's second-largest military spender, China). And that doesn't even include spiking military budgets in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere on this embattled planet. In fact, last year, 12 of the 15 largest military spenders topped their 2021 outlays. None of that is good news. Still, it goes without saying that one country overshadowed all the rest -- and you know just which one I mean. At $877 billion last year (not including the funds "invested" in its intelligence agencies and what's still known as "the Department of Homeland Security"), the U.S. military budget once again left the others in the dust. Keep in mind that, according to SIPRI, Pentagon spending, heading for a trillion dollars in the near future, represented a staggering 39% of all (yes, all!) global military spending last year. That's more than the next 11 largest military budgets combined. (And that is up from nine not so long ago.) Keep in mind as well that, despite such funding, we're talking about a military, as I pointed out recently, which hasn't won a war of significance since 1945. With that in mind, let Pentagon experts and TomDispatch regulars William Hartung and Ben Freeman explain how we've reached such a perilous point from the time in 1961 when a former five-star general, then president, warned his fellow citizens of the dangers of endlessly overfunding the -- a term he invented -- military-industrial complex. Now, let Hartung and Freeman explore how, more than six decades later, that very complex reigns supreme. Tom     Unwarranted Influence, Twenty-First-Century-Style Not Your Grandfather’s Military-Industrial Complex By William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman   https://tomdispatch.com/unwarranted-influence-twenty-first-century-style/?utm_source=TomDispatch&utm_campaign=7540d2f8fe-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_07_13_02_04_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1e41682ade-7540d2f8fe-308765045#more                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               The military-industrial complex (MIC) that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned Americans about more than 60 years ago is still alive and well. In fact, it's consuming many more tax dollars and feeding far larger weapons producers than when Ike raised the alarm about the “unwarranted influence” it wielded in his 1961 farewell address to the nation.  The statistics are stunning. This year’s proposed budget for the Pentagon and nuclear weapons work at the Department of Energy is $886 billion -- more than twice as much, adjusted for inflation, as at the time of Eisenhower’s speech. The Pentagon now consumes more than half the federal discretionary budget, leaving priorities like public health, environmental protection, job training, and education to compete for what remains. In 2020, Lockheed Martin received $75 billion in Pentagon contracts, more than the entire budget of the State Department and the Agency for International Development combined. Click here to read more of this dispatch.

NEWS

January 18, 2023

A Tuesday report by the Government Accountability Office revealed that the Department of Defense failed its fifth audit in a row after it could not account for at least $220 billion in government-furnished property, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.

The DOD has been mandated by federal law to complete audits since 1994; however, the mandate was ignored for decades due to the agency's massive size, according to Military.com. Since launching its first independent audit in 2017, the Pentagon has never passed.

The Pentagon failed its fifth audit in November after the agency could not prove expenditures for 61% of its $3.5 trillion in assets. To perform this year's overall audit of the DOD, which was expected to cost $218 million, the agency aggregated 27 separate audits conducted by approximately 1,600 auditors. According to Military.com, the auditors performed 220 in-person site visits and 750 virtual site visits.

Venezuela Fiercely Rejects US Senate’s Passing of BOLIVAR Act

 DECEMBER 19, 2022   Venezuela Fiercely Rejects US Senate’s Passing of BOLIVAR Act – Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond

This Friday, December 16, the US Senate unanimously approved the Law to Prohibit Operations and Leasing with the Illegitimate Authoritarian Regime of Venezuela (BOLIVAR Act), presented by the ultra-conservative Floridian senator, Rick Scott. The discussion of the interventionist act in the lower house of the US Congress is still pending.

“The regulations prohibit federal agencies from doing business with anyone who supports the oppressive Maduro regime,” reported the official website of Scott, who was one of the primary promoters of the law. Scott was joined by far-right Senator Marco Rubio as well as other far-right congressmen. The bill had been unanimously approved by the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs in March 2021, as a preliminary step before being discussed in the Senate.

The new imperialist act against the democratically elected government of President Nicolás Maduro was approved just one day after the anniversary of the death of the founding father of Venezuela, Simón Bolívar, who, at the beginning of the 20th century, already questioned US imperialism with his famous phrase: “The United States seems destined by providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.”

On Saturday, via a statement, the Venezuelan government spoke out fiercely in response, condemning this new aggression by the United States and indicating that the proposal seeks to make the policy of illegal sanctions against the Venezuelan people irreversible.

Answering directly to the news, Foreign Minister of the Republic Carlos Faría tweeted: “The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela strongly condemns a new attempt by the US Congress to violate the economic rights of the Venezuelan people and offend the memory of the liberator, Simón Bolívar.”

The text of the statement, which was also published on the website of the Ministry for Foreign Relations, rejects the bill, both in its name and in its content, for violating economic freedoms and representing “a serious offense to the Venezuelan people.”

It also stresses that the act is “contrary to international law and is conceived from the extremist sectors of United States politics.” Likewise, it points out that this measure “demonstrates, once again, the cruelty of ultra-conservative sectors and coup leaders in US politics that repeat their attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government.”

It indicates that these sectors of the United States Congress “have no interest in seeing a development process in Venezuela.” Likewise, it rejects the name of the bill “for offending the Venezuelan people, its history and its liberator.”

Below you will find an unofficial translation of the statement:

Venezuela rejects the shameful bill by US Congress that violates economic freedoms and offends the liberator, Simón Bolívar
The Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela fiercely rejects the approval by the US Congress of a nefarious bill that, both in its name and in its content, constitutes a violation of economic freedoms and a serious offense against the Venezuelan people.

This instrument, contrary to international law and conceived from the extremist sectors of politics in the United States, violates the integrity of the sovereign people of Venezuela as well as that of the United States companies themselves, by placing them at risk of being penalized, in an arbitrary, unfair and illegal manner, by exercising their right to free trade through contracts with the Bolivarian government.

This abusive measure demonstrates, once again, the cruelty of ultra-conservative sectors and coup leaders in US politics that repeat their attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government and sabotage any possible route to dialogue and constructive relations between the two countries.

With this bill, which seeks to make unilateral coercive measures irreversible, it is confirmed that these same sectors have no interest in seeing a development process in Venezuela or any improvement in the quality of life of our population, much less that they are interested in guaranteeing free and fair elections, as they are promoting more obstacles and hostile measures against the country.

The name of said instrument, moreover, offends the Venezuelan people, its history and its liberator, whose republican values ​​and commitment to the principles of freedom and peace are far above those of a handful of legislators ignorant of [Venezuela’s] glory, and that they will only be remembered in history due to their complicity with the aggression against free and sovereign countries.

Faced with a Monroist threat and its war-builder heirs, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela will continue to cultivate and defend the legacy of the liberator Simón Bolívar, carving out its own path of political and social stability, economic recovery and peace diplomacy, for a world free of hegemonism, colonialism and imperialism.

Caracas, December 16, 2022

Orinoco Tribune Special by staff

Raytheon Anti-war Campaign

All Issues

Our Mission

Our goal is to use Raytheon’s critical support to Saudi Arabia and its huge impact on Massachusetts to give visibility, create controversy, and mobilize opposition to the Saudi-US war in Yemen, the US/Saudi/Israeli push for war against Iran, US-Saudi-Israeli military involvement in Syria, and the destructive alliance between the US military and the Saudi backed by Raytheon’s bombs, technology, and buildup of Saudi Arabia’s military. The Raytheon Antiwar campaign is a member of the War Industry Resisters Network (WIRN).

History

The War in Yemen is a Massachusetts War. It’s up to us to Stop it!

Raytheon’s weapons, technology, deepening relationship with the brutal Saudi regime, and influence in the US State and Defense Department have made war crimes and the world’s worst human rights catastrophe possible. This war and the danger of new wars is right here, in our cities and off Routes 128, 93, 2 and 3. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham and has facilities in Cambridge, Burlington, Woburn, Tewksbury, Andover, Billerica, Marlborough and Northborough.

The Raytheon Antiwar Campaign works on divestment, research and publicity, rallies and vigils, advocacy to elected officials, educational events (including virtual webinars), and work with faith communities. We have participated in dozens of demonstrations at Raytheon facilities, campus career fairs, and community events.

This coalition includes Massachusetts Peace Action, the Veterans for Peace: Chapter 9 (the Smedley Butler Brigade), United Against War and Militarism, American Friends Service Committee, the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament, and Common Security, Friends Meeting at Cambridge – Peace and Social Justice Committee, Waltham Concerned Citizens, the Committee for Peace and Human Rights, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Justice.

Get Involved

If you’re interested in getting involved with the Raytheon Antiwar Campaign please reach out to Paul Shannon at [email protected] or Brian Garvey at [email protected]

Drone Whistleblower Hale is a Hero – Ellsberg and Chomsky

ByPaul Jay 2022October 26, 2022

https://theanalysis.news/drone-whistleblower-hale-is-a-hero-ellsberg-and-chomsky/

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2022

MILWAUKEE CUBA CARAVAN HIGHLIGHTS THE DAMAGE CAUSED BY THE US BLOCKADE AND THE TRAGIC FIRE IN MATANZAS

Harry Targ

Thirty Cuba solidarity activists heard updates, Sunday, August 28, on how the people of the island are adapting to the ongoing impacts of the US economic blockade and the recent fire at an oil depot in Matanzas, fifty miles from Havana.  Three members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation gave report backs from a recent visit to the island, which included the delivery of humanitarian assistance, part of the Hatuey Project.  The updates preceded a car caravan, one of many around the country, demanding an end to the US blockade of Cuba.

Sam Doucas, Erica Steib, and Alexa 'Lex' Nutile spoke about Cuba’s justified reputation for providing health care for all of its citizens. They pointed out that Cuba’s infant mortality rate is less than that of the more developed United States. However, because of the 62-year US economic blockade, the Cuban health care system is short of vital medicines and diagnostics and surgical equipment to facilitate health on the island. To help support Cubans’ health, the three PSL members joined with others in the Hatuey Project to bring medical supplies to support maternal care on the island.

Also, the speakers reported that despite the severity of the economic blockade, the United States in the Trump period adding 240 additional restrictions on international commerce with Cuba, the Cuban people still support their government and health and welfare programs. Since Trump left office, the Biden administration has not honored its campaign promise to reverse the new restrictions and thus reduce their horrific effects on the Cuban people. US policy remains to isolate and starve the Cuban people until they surrender and overthrow their government.

Art Heitzer, a founder of the Wisconsin Coalition for the Normalization of Relations With Cuba (wicuba.org), pointed out that the lightning that struck the massive oil depots in the city of Matanzas on August 5 has made access to energy resources on the island even more scarce. The United States, he said, had already been interfering with Cuban oil imports, such as from other US sanctioned countries (Venezuela, Iran, and Russia) from shipping vital oil resources in the open seas. And while several nations, including Mexico and Venezuela promptly sent firefighters and material aid to Cuba after the fire began, the only response from the United States to the island’s biggest fire ever, was to offer a half hour phone conversation to provide “expert information to deal with the fire.”

(At a recent local event the Party for Socialism and Liberation raised $5,405 for the Hatuey Project to support the victims of the Matanzas fire. To donate, please go to https://www.hatueyproject.org/donate/)

The speakers encouraged US citizens concerned about Cuba’s economic difficulties, including citizens with relatives on the island, to demand an end to the cruel and inhumane economic blockade of the island. Even a return to the modest opening of US relations toward Cuba in the Obama years would allow for improvements in health care, the growth of small businesses, housing renovations, and the resumption of Cuba’s vibrant tourist industry. The Cuban people, the speakers noted, appreciate the solidarity that so many in the US show to their revolution.

The informative and spirited talks, in front of the Zao MKE Church, were followed by a 16-car caravan ride around Milwaukee’s northside, including the campus of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee to educate people on the streets about the pain and suffering caused by the blockade. Speakers also urged those concerned about the US policy to starve the Cuban people to join the Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations With Cuba.

The Coalition can be reached at:

Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba
PO Box 1848
Milwaukee, WI 53201
414 628-2547

[email protected]

website. www.WiCuba.org.

More information and ways to help Cuba can be found at the “Let Cuba Live” website at www.LetCubalive.info.

(Edited by Art Heitzer).