White House Lifts Hold On Weapon Sales To Egypt Despite Lack Of Democratic Progress

WASHINGTON -- On Tuesday, President Barack Obama phoned Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi with good news: The White House promised to lift a hold on the transfer of four large-scale weapons systems that had been stalled since October 2013.

“In the interest of U.S. national security, President Obama has directed the release of 12 F-16 aircraft, 20 Harpoon missiles, and up to 125 M1A1 Abrams tank kits that have been held from delivery,” National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said in a statement Tuesday.

James Risen: The Post-9/11 Homeland Security Industrial Complex Profiteers and Endless War

Unintimidated by the efforts of two administrations to force him to reveal a confidential source who disclosed the betrayal of the public by the government, Pulitzer Prize- winning New York Times reporter James Risen exposes more about the reality of greed, power and endless war in his new book, Pay Any Price. You can get the book now with a contribution to Truthout by clicking here. 

In a revealing interview with Truthout about his new bookPay Any Price, journalist James Risen provides evidence of how the United States has become enmeshed in an endless war. He also discusses how the post-9/11, military-surveillance state has enriched - with little oversight or accountability - many opportunists. Risen tells Truthout: "Four trillion dollars is the best estimate for the total price tag of the war on terror, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and much of it has gone to shadowy contractors. It is one of the largest transfers of wealth in American history, and yet it has gone largely unnoticed."

Here’s How the U.S., China and Russia Are Supplying Islamic State’s Weapons

The U.S. is preparing to send more military supplies to the Middle East to fight Islamic State at the same time a report has revealed that most of the radical group’s weapons come from America. Although much of the armament IS uses was seized, the group is also believed to be buying equipment “directly from the companies and dealers that routinely profit from strife in the Middle East.”

Congress Cut $8.7 Billion in Food Stamps in Same Year We’ll Spend $22 Billion to Fight Islamic State

It was all the way back in February, so the memory of this headline has faded:

” Congress passes $8.7 billion food stamp cut

By Ned Resnikoff

It’s official: 850,000 households across the country are set to lose an average of $90 per month in food stamp benefits.

The Senate on Tuesday voted 68-32 to send the 2014 Farm Bill – which includes an $8.7 billion cut to food stamps – to President Obama’s desk. Nine Democrats opposed the bill, and 46 members of the Democratic caucus voted for it, joining 22 Republicans.”

Cost Of Bombing ISIS Closing In On $1 Billion

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military operations targeting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria have already cost taxpayers between $780 and $930 million, according to an analysis by an independent think tank.

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments issued a new report Monday assessing how much the military campaign has already cost (through Sept. 24) and how much more will likely be spent in the coming months.

Lawmakers Try To Save Science Funding Amid Rush To Restore Defense Spending

WASHINGTON -- As pressure builds among the hawks in Congress to get rid of budget limits on defense spending, liberals in the House are making sure their own priorities aren't left underfunded.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.) introduced legislation late Thursday that would effectively do away with the budget cap for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The bill, titled the Accelerating Biomedical Research Act, would replace the institute's existing budget limit with a much higher ceiling, one that would see funding for the NIH restored to the levels it would have reached had it kept up with inflation after 2003.

Republican Campaign Ads Fear-Mongering Over ISIS Threat

The threat of terrorism is once again being featured on the campaign trail.

Republicans in particular are putting America's military conflict in the Middle East front and center in television ads less than two months before the midterm elections, calling into question their opponents' willingness to confront Islamic State extremists that beheaded two U.S. journalists earlier this summer.

Russia and Egypt Reportedly Strike $3.5 Billion Arms Deal

A top Russian military official said Wednesday that the country had made a sizable preliminary arms deal with Egypt to sell $3.5 billion worth of weapons to the North African nation.

Alexander Fomin, head of Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, made this bit of news known at an arms trade exhibition in South Africa but declined to describe the deal further, as Reuters reported that day:

Russia, the world’s second-largest arms exporter, has sought to boost its military ties with Egypt after relations between Cairo and its long-standing ally Washington soured, causing some defense cooperation between the two countries to be frozen.
The head of Rosoboronexport, a state body that deals with arms exports, said the value of the agency’s order book was high in spite of Western sanctions against Moscow over Ukraine.

Egypt and Russia have evidently found a mutually beneficial workaround to offset shifts in their respective relationships with the U.S. government.

Original Article
Source: truthdig.com/
Author: Donald Kaufman

Contractors Ready to Cash In On ISIS War

Obama pledged that the war against ISIS won’t be fought with U.S. ground troops. He didn’t say anything about contractors, who see this as “the next big meal ticket.”

America’s rapidly-expanding war against ISIS won’t involve large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground, President Obama is promising. And it’s clear that airstrikes alone won’t beat back the extremist group. Which means that if the President wants to have any hope of meeting his far-reaching goal of destroying ISIS, he’s going to have to rely on private military contractors.

UK approves £12bn of arms exports to countries with poor human rights

More than 3,000 current export licences for arms and military equipment worth more than £12bn have been approved for 27 countries classified by the Foreign Office as "of concern" because of their poor human rights record, a cross-party group of MPs reveals on Wednesday.

Countries for which significant sales have been approved include Israel - the destination of the bulk of the arms sales - Saudi Arabia, China, and Zimbabwe, according to the arms export controls committee's annual report, drawn up by MPs from four separate select committees.

The Terror Con

For defense contractors, the government officials who write them mega checks, and the hawks in the media who cheer them on, the name of the game is threat inflation. And no one has been better at it than the folks at Booz Allen Hamilton, the inventors of the new boondoggle called cyberwarfare.
 
That’s the company, under contract with the National Security Agency, that employed whistleblower Edward Snowden, the information security engineer whose revelation of Booz Allen’s enormously profitable and pervasive spying on Americans now threatens the firm’s profitability and that of its parent hedge fund, the Carlyle Group.

EU lifts embargo on Syria, raising fears of new Middle East arms race

BRUSSELS—Fears grew Tuesday of a foreign-fed arms race in Syria as European Union countries decided they could provide weapons to the rebels and Russia disclosed it has signed a contract to provide the Syrian government with sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles.

Each development could significantly raise the firepower in a two-year civil war has already killed more than 70,000 people and sent hundreds of thousands fleeing the country. It also comes as the U.S. and Russia are preparing for a major peace conference in Geneva that diplomats have called the best chance yet to end the bloodshed under Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

U.S. Banks Greatly Benefiting Off Colombian Cocaine Trade

Even as their governments fighting it, Western businesses are benefiting from the Latin American drug trade.

More than 97 percent of the total street value of cocaine produced in Colombia -- that’s billions of dollars -- ends up in the hands of criminal groups in the U.S. and other first-world drug consuming countries, according to a study by two economists at the University of the Andes cited by the Guardian, and that money is laundered through banks. The study’s authors allege that Western financial regulators are hesitant to go after western banks for profiting off the drug trade.

Colin Powell's New Book: War With Iraq Never Debated

WASHINGTON -- In his new book, former Secretary of State Colin Powell provides what may be the most authoritative confirmation yet that there was never a considered debate in the George W. Bush White House about whether going to war in Iraq was really a good idea.

In a chapter discussing what he calls his “infamous” February 2003 speech to the United Nations where he authoritatively presented what was later exposed as gross misinformation about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Powell notes that by that time, war “was approaching.”

“By then, the President did not think war could be avoided,” Powell writes. “He had crossed the line in his own mind, even though the NSC [National Security Council] had never met -- and never would meet -- to discuss the decision.”

The National Security Council, which was at the time led by Condoleezza Rice, is the president’s foremost advisory body for national security and foreign policy.

Predator drones have yet to prove their worth on border

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The drug runners call it "el mosco," the mosquito, and one recent evening on the southern tip of Texas, a Predator B drone armed with cameras buzzed softly over the beach on South Padre Island and headed inland.

"We're going to get some bad guys tonight, I've got a feeling," said Scott Peterson, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection supervisory air interdiction agent. He watched the drone's live video feed in the Predator Ops room at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, about 50 miles away.

As the unmanned plane flew up the winding Rio Grande, which forms the border with Mexico, Peterson fielded excited phone calls. One agent had seen known scouts for a Mexican cartel at a Dairy Queen, suggesting a load of drugs was coming through. Another called in the precise spot where the shipment would land.

Soon the drone's infrared camera picked up a man hauling bales of marijuana from an inflatable rubber boat into a minivan on the Texas side of the river. Then it spotted a second boat. Agents readied for a major bust.

Meet the 0.01 Percent: War Profiteers

There's the top 1% of wealthy Americans (bankers, oil tycoons, hedge fund managers) and there's the top 0.01% of wealthy Americans: the military contractor CEOs.

If you've been following the War Costs campaign, you already know that these corporations are bad bosses, bad job creators and bad stewards of taxpayer dollars. What you may not know is that the huge amount of money these companies' CEOs make off of war and your tax dollars places them squarely at the top of the gang of corrupt superrich choking our democracy. These CEOs want you to believe the massive war budget is about security -- it's not. The lobbying they're doing to keep the war budget intact at the expense of the social safety net is purely about their greed.

In many areas, including yearly CEO salary and in dollars spent corrupting Congress, these companies are far greater offenders than even the big banks like JP Morgan Chase or Bank of America.

Drug War Profiteers: Book Exposes How Wachovia Bank Laundered Millions For Mexican Cartels

As protests continue against Wall Street and the nation’s biggest banks, we speak to British journalist Ed Vulliamy, author of “Amexica: War Along the Borderline.” Vulliamy exposes how one bank, Wachovia, made millions in the Mexican drug war. At the time, Wachovia was the nation’s fourth-largest bank — it has since been taken over by Wells Fargo. “You can’t drive around Mexico with hundreds of billions of dollars in cash in a truck. It has to be banked,” Vulliamy said. “What I found was that it is coming into the United States, into the banking system.”

Video
Source: Democracy Now! 

The War Industry: Bad Job Creators, Bad Bosses, Bad Stewards of Tax Dollars

On Tuesday, the military contractors behind the "Second To None" campaign pleaded "no comment" to our War Costs campaign's full-page Politico ad exposing the economic damage caused by massive war budgets. The same day, they announced a press conference and the upcoming launch of a national campaign to scare people about job losses if we cut the war budget. It seems like they had a comment or two after all. But as these companies gather at the National Press Club on Wednesday morning to frighten you into funding their trust funds, remember: military spending costs us jobs compared to other ways of spending the money.

These contractors will undoubtedly try to obscure the fact that every $1 billion of military spending costs anywhere between 3,200 and 11,700 jobs or more when compared to other ways of spending the money. They'll probably also try to obscure the fact that because the deficit committee has to find spending reductions equaling a certain dollar amount, this is a zero sum game, pitting military spending against the exact kinds of spending that would create more jobs. If the industry is right, and we should be coming at the question of where to cut spending from the perspective of job creation, then we have to cut war spending because other cuts would cost even more jobs.

Carving up Libya

Tension mounts in Libya, as rebel forces prepare to attack remaining government held areas of Libya, including Bani Walid, Sabha and the city of Sirte part of the tribal homeland of dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

Two weeks ago, the Libyan capital Tripoli fell, and Gaddafi fled. His whereabouts are unknown. Observers ask what role NATO will play in attempts to bring the war to an end. More NATO bomb in support of the rebel forces? Will NATO ground operations be approved?

Fighting continues on the ground. A Gaddafi son has announced that in Sirte 20,000 fighters loyal to his fathers regime stand ready to continue the battle, and have no intention of giving up (another son has announced he is personally ready to surrender if it will stop the bloodshed).

The Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) the political arm of the resistance to Gaddafi admits that some 50,000 Libyans, civilians and combatants have perished since the outbreak of the civil war six months ago. Many of the lives lost are due to NATO air strikes.

N.Y. billing dispute reveals details of secret CIA rendition flights

On Aug. 12, 2003, a Gulfstream IV aircraft carrying six passengers took off from Dulles International Airport and flew to Bangkok with fueling stops in Cold Bay, Alaska, and Osaka, Japan.

Before it returned four days later, the plane also touched down in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates and Ireland. As these unusual flights happened, U.S. officials took custody of an Indonesian terrorist, Riduan Isamuddin, who had been captured in Thailand and would spend the next three years being shuttled among secret prisons operated by the CIA.

The Gulfstream IV’s itinerary, as well as the $339,228.05 price tag for the journey, are among the details of shadowy CIA flights that have emerged in a small Upstate New York courthouse in a billing dispute between contractors. The court documents offer a rare glimpse of the costs and operations of the controversial rendition program.

For all the secrecy that once surrounded the CIA program, a significant part of its operation was entrusted to very small aviation companies whose previous experience involved flying sports teams across the country.