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Tag: pentagon
Pentagon to Troops: If We’re Not Paying You Enough to Feed Yourselves, Apply for Welfare
The U.S. army is recommending soldiers apply for SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps, to help cover their rising costs from inflation.
The U.S. Army cites the higher prices on a range of goods because of inflation in its recently released official guidance.
“With inflation affecting everything from gas prices to groceries to rent, some Soldiers and their families are finding it harder to get by on the budgets they’ve set and used before,” the guidance written by Sgt. Maj. of the Army Michael A. Grinston reads.
“Soldiers of all ranks can seek guidance, assistance, and advice through the Army’s Financial Readiness Program.”
The guidance points soldiers to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and links them to the federal welfare program’s website.
Who Benefits From US Government Claims That The UFO Threat Is Increasing “Exponentially”?
A US senate report which is an addendum to the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 has people talking due to the surprising statements it includes about the US government’s current position on UFOs.
I mean Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.
I mean Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena.
This latest moniker for the thing we all still think of as UFOs is the US government’s way of addressing how these alleged appearances, which began entering mainstream attention in 2017, are said to be able to transition seamlessly from traveling through the air to moving underwater in what’s been labeled “cross-domain transmedium” movement. Because branches of the US war machine are roughly broken up into forces specializing in air, sea, land and space operations, the notion that these things move between those domains gets special attention.
UFO enthusiasts are largely focusing on a part of the addendum which oddly stipulates that the government’s newly named Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena Joint Program Office shall not be looking into objects “that are positively identified as man-made,” because of the obvious implications of that phrase. This is understandable; if you’ve got a government office that’s responsible for investigating unidentified phenomena, you can just say it won’t be looking into phenomena that are “positively identified”. You wouldn’t have to add “identified as man-made” unless you had a specific reason for doing so.
But for me the claim that really jumps off the page, authored by Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Mark Warner, is the claim that these unidentified aerospace-undersea phenomena are a “threat” that is increasing “exponentially”.
“At a time when cross-domain transmedium threats to United States national security are expanding exponentially, the Committee is disappointed with the slow pace of DoD-led efforts to establish the office to address those threats,” Warner writes in the report.
“Exponentially” is a mighty strong word. Taken in its least literal sense, it means that threats to US national security from UFOs are increasing at an alarmingly rapid rate. That they have swiftly become much greater than they used to be.
What is the basis for this incendiary claim? What information are US lawmakers being given to make them draw such conclusions and make such assertions? There’s a long chain of information handling between an alleged UFO encounter and a US senator’s pen, and corruption can occur at any point in that chain (including the first and last link).
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.”
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Hellbound and Down 
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