Tag: pentagon

Pentagon Hires Company to See Whether Military Bases Are Looking at ‘White Supremacist Disinformation’

The Pentagon is allegedly working with a contractor to look into web searches such as “George Floyd deserved to die,” “Jews will not replace us” and “the truth about black lives matter” as potential signals of white supremacism, Fox News reported.

Pentagon contractor Moonshot CVE, which has ties to the Obama Foundation, is gathering data to determine which bases and branches of the military have the most troops searching for domestic extremist content, Defense One and Fox News reported.

The exact details of the project are not clear, but Defense One reported last month the data was expected to be available soon. Moonshot Founder and CEO Vidhya Ramalingam said the data suggested active-duty troops are less prone than the general American public to search for violent extremism information.

A separate Moonshot study conducted in June along with the Anti-Defamation League researched white supremacy trends in the U.S. and “monitored a list of almost 1,600 indicators of interest in or engagement with White supremacism, focused specifically on anti-Black and anti-Semitic narratives being used by extremist groups.”

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Jon Stewart and the Pentagon honor Ukrainian Nazi at Disney World

Defense Department-sponsored “Warrior Games” featured liberal comedian Jon Stewart awarding a member of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov Battalion at Disney World. The Pentagon refused to tell The Grayzone whether US taxpayers funded the foreign competitors’ travel.

This August, during the Department of Defense’s annual Warrior Games at Disney World in Orlando, Florida this August 19-28, liberal comedian Jon Stewart awarded a Ukrainian military veteran named Ihor Halushka the “Heart of the Team” award for “inspiring his team” with his “personal example.”

Halushka happens to have been a member of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has been armed by the US and integrated into the Ukrainian National Guard. The award-winning ultra-nationalist wore a sleeve over his left arm as he accepted the prize, presumably to cover up his tattoo of the Nazi Sonnenrad, or Black Sun.

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Congress quietly says UFO threat ‘expanding,’ not all are ‘man-made’

In July, Congress quietly admitted that Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) are not “man-made” and that the threat is “expanding,” burying the startling revelations in a report added to the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023.  The finding was first reported by Vice on Tuesday.

The report stated that the new Department of Defense (DoD) led Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena Joint Program Office is tasked with addressing “cross-domain transmedium threats to United States national security” that “are expanding exponentially.”

Congress explained that the office should focus on objects that are not “man-made” and directed the office to send “man-made” objects to “appropriate offices,” adding that “man-made” objects “should not be considered … unidentified aerospace-undersea phenomena.”

“The formal DoD and Intelligence Community definition of the terms used by the Office shall be updated to include space and undersea, and the scope of the Office shall be inclusive of those additional domains with focus on addressing technology surprise and ‘‘unknown unknowns,’ the report stated. “Temporary nonattributed objects, or those that are positively identified as man-made after analysis, will be passed to appropriate offices and should not be considered under the definition as unidentified aerospace-undersea phenomena.”

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Pentagon announces extra $775M in weapons to Ukraine

The United States will send another $775 million in missiles, drones, vehicles and mine clearing equipment to Ukraine to help in its war with Russia as the conflict enters a near standstill, the Pentagon announced Friday.

The new assistance package will include 16 howitzers and ammunition, AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARM), ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, 15 Scan Eagle reconnaissance drones, and armored vehicles, among other armaments, a senior Defense official told reporters. 

The package comes at a critical time as Ukraine and Russia battle for control of the eastern part of Ukraine.  

Nearly six months into the war, the two sides are locked in a near operational standstill, with neither Kyiv nor Moscow able to drum up enough ground troops and weapons to turn the course of the conflict, Western officials assess.  

The extra shot of lethal aid could help Ukrainian forces gain the upper hand as Russian troops struggle with losses inflicted by U.S.-made missile systems.  

“I would say that you are seeing a complete and total lack of progress by the Russians on the battlefield,” the senior Defense official said, adding that it’s important to both sustain Ukrainian battlefield successes and enable them to be make gains as the conflict shifts.   

“We want to make sure that Ukraine has a steady stream of ammunition to meet its needs, and that’s what we’re doing with this package.” 

The latest lethal aid follows the $1 billion in weapons and equipment given to the embattled country earlier this month, the largest such tranche pledged since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. 

The package also pushes the United States past the $10 billion mark for military assistance for Ukraine under the Biden administration, spread out over 19 packages since August 2021. 

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How the Pentagon Dictates Hollywood Storylines. “War Propaganda Passed off as Entertainment”

According to Theaters of War, the US Department of Defense does not just subtly influence Hollywood’s depiction of US wars to present them in a more favourable light. The Pentagon actively demands script oversight and dictates storylines. In practice, it has been waging a full-spectrum propaganda war against western audiences to soften them up to support aggressive, global US militarism.

The documentary, based on data uncovered by recent Freedom of Information requests from UK investigative journalist Tom Secker and academic Matthew Alford, reveals the astonishing fact that the Pentagon has been the secret, guiding hand behind thousands of films and TV shows in recent decades.

Many more movies never reach the screen because the Defense Department’s entertainment liaison office refuses to cooperate, believing the wrong messages are being promoted.

Pentagon objections – usually the kiss of death – relate to any suggestion of military incompetence or war crimes, loss of control over nuclear weapons, influence by oil companies, illegal arms sales or drug trafficking, use of chemical or biological weapons, US promotion of coups overseas, or involvement in assassinations or torture. In fact, precisely the things the US military is known to have been doing.

How does the Defense Department exert so much control on film productions?

Because expensive blockbusters are far more likely to recoup their budget and turn a profit if they feature the shiniest new weapons. Only the Pentagon can supply aircraft carriers, helicopters, fighter jets, pilots, submarines, armoured personnel carriers, military extras and advisers. But it does so only if it is happy with the dramatic messaging.

As one academic observes in Theaters of War, propaganda works most effectively when it can be passed off as entertainment: “You’re more open to incorporation of those ideas because your defences are down.”

How many viewers would take seriously a film if it was preceded by a sponsorship logo from the Defense Department or the CIA? And for that reason, Pentagon contracts usually specify that its role in a film be veiled.

This is why few know that the Defense Department and the CIA have had a controlling hand in such varied projects as Apollo 13, the Jurassic Park and James Bond franchises, the Marvel movies, Godzilla, Transformers, Meet the Parents andI Am Legend. Or how the military regularly gets involved in baking and quiz shows.

The reality, Theaters of War argues, is that many Hollywood movies are little more than advertisements for US war industries.

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Pentagon announces additional $1B in lethal aid to Ukraine

The United States has greenlighted the largest military assistance package to Ukraine thus far, preparing to send $1 billion in ammunition for advanced rocket systems, vehicles and explosives to help the country beat back the Russian invasion.    

The new assistance package will include ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), as well as 75,000 rounds of 155 mm artillery ammunition and 50 armored medical treatment vehicles, according to a Pentagon statement released Monday.  

“It is the largest single drawdown of U.S. arms and equipment utilizing this authority, and this package provides a significant amount of additional ammunition, weapons, and equipment — the types of which the Ukrainian people are using so effectively to defend their country,” according to the statement 

The U.S. government has now approved nearly $10 billion in security assistance for Ukraine over the course of 18 packages since August 2021. 

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DOD ‘Wiped’ Phones of Senior Trump Officials—Jan. 6 Communications No Longer Accessible

Some senior Trump administration officials had their phones “wiped” by the Department of Defense (DOD) and the U.S. Army after the former president left office, meaning messages that were sent around the time of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach are no longer accessible, court filings show.

The DOD acknowledged that the phones belonging to former Pentagon officials had been wiped as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by American Oversight, a non-profit watchdog organization.

American Oversight had sought the communications that those officials had with Trump, former Vice President Pence, Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, or anyone communicating on their behalf on Jan. 6.

The watchdog group submitted the FOIA requests pertaining to the records on Jan. 12, 2021, six days after the breach of the Capitol building.

Specifically, FOIA requests sought communications from former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, former chief of staff Kash Patel, and former Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy, Paul Ney, the Defense Department’s general counsel; and James E. McPherson, the Army’s general counsel.

However, in a court filing roughly a year after the request, the Army stated that “when an employee separates from DOD or Army he or she turns in the government issued phone, and the phone is wiped” and that “for those custodians no longer with the agency, the text messages were not preserved and therefore could not be searched.”

The court filing noted, however, that “it is possible that particular text messages could have been saved into other records systems such as email.”

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Pentagon Widens Scope of UFO Hunting Program

It’s not just the US government but many governments around the world who have been publicly dismissive when it comes to reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs). But in recent years, several governments as well as the Pentagon have opened up about it quite a bit. It has many people asking “why now?”

Now, the Pentagon is expanding its UFO tracking unit and its mission to include objects that move underwater or across multiple mediums.

The US Department of Defense (DOD) has also just renamed the unit to Airborne Object Identification and Management Group to reflect its broader mission: the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO). The move was announced on last Wednesday and reflects a directive from Congress to broaden the military’s investigation of unidentified moving objects that could pose security threats.

Many experts in the field have warned against the idea of perceiving any of these commonly seen objects, especially by military personnel, as a threat.

Renowned UFO researcher, scientist, mathematician, and astrophysicist Dr. Jacques Vallée made an appearance on the Joe Rogan show in late 2020 to discuss the UFO phenomenon. On the show he stated that “we have to stop reacting to intrusions by UFOs as a threat.”

The phenomenon does indeed pose some air safety concerns, primarily because it is a misunderstood phenomenon and there is an assumption that ‘intelligence’ may not flying the object. That being said, their behaviour seems to be predominantly evasive.

According to the Pentagon, the AARO will coordinate efforts across the federal government to “detect, identify, and attribute objects of interest” that appear around military installations and other sensitive areas. In addition, the unit will “mitigate and defeat” security threats as needed. This includes unidentified space, airborne, submerged, and transmedium objects that are anomalous.

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DoD Announces the Establishment of the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office

On July 15, 2022, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), amended her original direction to the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence & Security by renaming and expanding the scope of the Airborne Object Identification and Management Group (AOIMSG) to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), due to the enactment of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2022, which included a provision to establish an office, in coordination with DNI, with responsibilities that were broader than those originally assigned to the AOIMSG. 

Today, USD(I&S) Hon. Ronald S. Moultrie informed the department of the establishment of AARO within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, and named Dr. Sean M. Kirkpatrick, most recently the chief scientist at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Missile and Space Intelligence Center, as the director of AARO.

The mission of the AARO will be to synchronize efforts across the Department of Defense, and with other U.S. federal departments and agencies, to detect, identify and attribute objects of interest in, on or near military installations, operating areas, training areas, special use airspace and other areas of interest, and, as necessary, to mitigate any associated threats to safety of operations and national security. This includes anomalous, unidentified space, airborne, submerged and transmedium objects.

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Congress Grants Pentagon $58 Billion More Than Requested: DOD Report

US lawmakers granted the Department of Defense (DOD) more money than the Pentagon requested for in the fiscal 2022 defense budget, a recent Pentagon report shows.

In total, Congress sanctioned $58.55 billion in additional funds, according to the report. This includes $25.70 billion for operations and maintenance, $17.67 billion for procurement, $9.89 billion for research, development, test, and evaluation, $4.32 billion for military construction, and $947 million for military personnel.

The DOD initially had a base budget appropriation of $742.3 billion for fiscal 2022. As such, the extra $58.55 billion represents an almost 8 percent increase from the base budget. The Pentagon did not put in a request for any of the programs funded with the extra $58.55 billion.

These programs are not even in the so-called unfunded priorities lists—made up of items not included in the budget but considered critical—that departments and officers send to Congress annually.

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