Tag: perpetual war

U-2 Retirement Reprieve Emerges In Proposed Defense Spending Bill

Members of Congress are moving to prevent the U.S. Air Force from retiring its fleet of iconic U-2 Dragon Lady spy planes. The Pentagon approved a waiver last year that had cleared the way for the service to begin divesting the high-flying Cold War-era jets, which The War Zone was first to report. The Air Force’s current plan is to divest the last of the U-2s in 2026 and supplant them with a mix of still largely undefined space-based and other capabilities, which is widely believed to include a classified stealthy high-altitude drone.

The House Appropriations Committee released a draft of the annual defense spending bill for the upcoming 2025 Fiscal Year earlier today. It includes a provision that, should the bill become law, would explicitly and without exception prevent “funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act” from being “used to divest or prepare to divest any U-2 aircraft.”

As of the start of Fiscal Year 2024, the Air Force had 31 U-2s in its inventory, including a trio of two-seat TU-2S trainers.

Until last year, the Air Force had been blocked from retiring any U-2s by provisions in annual defense policy bills, or National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA), enacted in previous fiscal years. However, the earlier legislation had included a path to proceeding with retiring the venerable spy planes if the Pentagon could certify that certain stipulations had been met. Chief among these was the insistence that the resulting capability gap would be filled in a cost-effective manner. You can read more about this here.

“On October 30, 2023, the Secretary of Defense [Lloyd Austin] signed a waiver to divest the U-2 Dragon Lady in accordance with language in the FY 2021 NDAA waiver requirement. In signing the waiver, Secretary of Defense certified combatant commands will continue to be able to accomplish their missions at acceptable levels of risk,” an annual force structure report the Pentagon released in April further explains. “The ability to win future high-end conflicts requires accepting short-term risks by divesting legacy ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconniassance] assets that offer limited capability against peer and near-peer threats. The USAF will fleet-divest the remaining 31 U-2 aircraft starting October 1, 2026.”

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The Military-Industrial Complex Is Killing Us All

We need to talk about what bombs do in war. Bombs shred flesh. Bombs shatter bones. Bombs dismember. Bombs cause brains, lungs, and other organs to shake so violently they bleed, rupture, and cease functioning. Bombs injure. Bombs kill. Bombs destroy.

Bombs also make people rich.

When a bomb explodes, someone profits. And when someone profits, bombs claim more unseen victims. Every dollar spent on a bomb is a dollar not spent saving a life from a preventable death, a dollar not spent curing cancer, a dollar not spent educating children. That’s why, so long ago, retired five-star general and President Dwight D. Eisenhower rightly called spending on bombs and all things military a “theft.”

The perpetrator of that theft is perhaps the world’s most overlooked destructive force. It looms unnoticed behind so many major problems in the United States and the world today. Eisenhower famously warned Americans about it in his 1961 farewell address, calling it for the first time “the military-industrial complex,” or the MIC.

Start with the fact that, thanks to the MIC’s ability to hijack the federal budget, total annual military spending is far larger than most people realize: around $1,500,000,000,000 ($1.5 trillion). Contrary to what the MIC scares us into believing, that incomprehensibly large figure is monstrously out of proportion to the few military threats facing the United States. One-and-a-half trillion dollars is about double what Congress spends annually on all non-military purposes combined.

Calling this massive transfer of wealth a “theft” is no exaggeration, since it’s taken from pressing needs like ending hunger and homelessness, offering free college and pre-K, providing universal health care, and building a green energy infrastructure to save ourselves from climate change. Virtually every major problem touched by federal resources could be ameliorated or solved with fractions of the cash claimed by the MIC. The money is there.

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‘The New McCarthyism’: NY Hospital Fires Nurse for Empathizing With Gaza Mothers

A nurse was fired earlier this month from a New York City hospital for a speech lamenting the anguish felt by Palestinian mothers whose children were killed during the Gaza genocide – remarks that came as she was being honored for providing extraordinary care to mothers who’ve lost babies.

NYU Langone Health labor and delivery nurse Hesen Jabr, who is Palestinian American, was terminated over her May 7 speech accepting the award, in which she said that “it pains me to see the women from my country going through unimaginable losses themselves during the current genocide in Gaza.”

“Even though I can’t hold their hands and comfort them as they grieve their unborn children and the children they have lost during this genocide, I hope to keep making them proud as I represent them here at NYU,” she added.

In a May 27 Instagram post, Jabr recounted what she says happened to her when she went back to work for the first time after her speech:

As soon as I walked onto the unit, I was dragged into an impromptu meeting with the president and vice president of nursing at NYU Langone to discuss how I “put others at risk” and “ruined the ceremony” and “offended people” because a small part of my speech was a tribute towards the grieving mothers in my country. I was sent back to work my shift while the hospital spent the day “figuring out” what to do with me. After working almost the entire shift, I was dragged once again to an office where I was read my termination letter by the director of human resources, Austin Bender, and escorted off the premises by a plain clothes police officer.

NYU Langone spokesperson Steve Ritea told The New York Times that Jabr was terminated over the speech and “a previous incident” related to Gaza, over which she was warned “not to bring her views on this divisive and charged issue into the workplace.”

“She instead chose not to heed that at a recent employee recognition event that was widely attended by her colleagues, some of whom were upset after her comments,” Ritea added. “As a result, Jabr is no longer an NYU Langone employee.”

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Russia Warns US Close To Making ‘Fatal’ Miscalculation Over Ukraine

On Monday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned the US to listen to warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin about allowing Ukraine to strike Russian territory with American-made weapons.

“I would like to caution American officials against miscalculations which may have fatal consequences. For some unknown reason, they underestimate the seriousness of the rebuff they may receive,” Ryabkov said, according to the Russian news agency TASS.

“I am urging these officials who seemingly are not bothered by anything, to take some time away from playing computer games, which is apparently what they are doing, given their light-hearted approach to serious issues, and take a closer look at what Putin said, particularly at a press conference following talks in Tashkent,” he added, referring to a warning Putin issued during a recent visit to Uzbekistan.

Putin said there would be “serious consequences” for any NATO country that allowed Ukraine to hit Russian territory with its weapons. “This constant escalation can lead to serious consequences. If these serious consequences occur in Europe, how will the US behave, bearing in mind our parity in the field of strategic weapons? Hard to say. Do they want global conflict?” Putin said.

Ryabkov called Putin’s comments “a very significant warning, and it should be treated with the utmost seriousness.”

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Who wrote that Gaza peace proposal? All we know is Biden lied

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, went in front of the cameras at the White House on May 31 and presented a multi-stage process for an end of war in Gaza that would release all the hostages, declaring it to be an Israeli peace plan.

It would be interesting to learn from Biden which Israeli came up with this plan.

Biden’s “Israeli” plan sounded comprehensive but it wasn’t, and it didn’t sound right. 

According to Biden we would get all our hostages after we release several hundred merciless killers and accepting a ceasefire that would become a permanent cessation in fighting. But no word about the defeat of Hamas and its leaders.

In other words, Biden’s Israel plan gifts a victory to Hamas.

Our officials have negotiated with any partner, friend or enemy, to get our hostages back for months, but the thought that Hamas would emerge armed and dangerous was never on the cards. In fact, this detail has split a part of Israeli society who want the hostages home even if Hamas is left to repeat the horrors of Oct. 7, but they are a vocal but small part of the population.

This part also wants to remove Netanyahu as Israel’s leader. These are led by the malcontents that had split Israeli society up to the day that Hamas attacked on Oct. 7. Prior to that day they included notable, some would say malevolent, former leftist politicians and retired IDF and air force commanders who were telling reservists not to turn up for duty as long as Bibi was prime minister.

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Ukraine War Is Ethnic Cleansing On A Massive Scale – The Question Is For What?

There are many unanswered questions and strange developments in the Ukraine conflict, on both sides.

One thing is for sure — some entity or entities, that are very powerful, want the war to go on, and on, and on, despite opportunities to end the killing machine.

Yet, the killing continues.

The recent talks in Istanbul were torpedoed by the British.

The fourth cycle of escalation begins as Secretary of State Blinken declares Ukraine has the power whether or not to strike Russia with American-made long-range missiles.

WWIII anyone?

There is no state rational for continuing this war.

The only agenda can be the depopulation of Ukraine. It is ethnic cleansing on a massive scale.

Half the population has already fled. Over a million are maimed or dead.

A cematery for 500,000 is being constructed in Kyiv.

Ukrainians now can’t leave the house without a QR code or similar instrument. They are tracked everywhere they go.

Men are kidnapped daily on the street by private bounty hunters, who are immune from prosecution. There are no longer any police, only military private police.

I love the Ukrainian people, they have been very good to me.

Ukraine is a dictatorship in agony.

The Russian war machine has broken through Ukrainian defenses around Kharkiv in three places. Yet, they don’t advance.

Why?

Has Putin made a deal to stop the advance until after the American election? Then WWIII can commence?

This war is not about saving Ukraine, it is about something much darker, and sinister.

I believe it is massive ethnic cleansing….for what?

What will replace the Ukrainian people?

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U.S. Wanted ICC to Go After ‘Black People’ in Africa, Not White People: Ret. U.S. Army Colonel

Lawrence Wilkerson, retired US Army colonel and former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, said in an interview published Friday that the U.S. response to the International Criminal Court’s decision to seek arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the defense head, show the blatant hypocrisy in Washington.

Wilkerson told the “Dialogue Works” podcast that he was there when Powell, the former secretary of state, used Washington’s power to “direct the court at Africa, at black people like Charles Taylor.”

(Taylor, the former president of Liberia who led the National Patriotic Front of Liberia.)

“We didn’t want the court coming after white people. We wanted it going after black people,” he said.

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Trump promises crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests if elected

Former United States President Donald Trump has promised that he will crack down on pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses if he wins the 2024 US presidential election.

Earlier this month, the likely Republican nominee told a small group of predominantly Jewish donors that he would expel student demonstrators, who he claimed were part of a “radical revolution”, from the US if he is elected, according to a report by The Washington Post released on Monday.

“If you get me elected, and you should really be doing this … we’re going to set that movement back 25 or 30 years,” Trump said, according to the report, quoting people at the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The former president also praised the New York police for clearing the campus at Columbia University in late April, and said the other cities needed to follow suit, saying “it has to be stopped now”.

Student protests against the Israeli war on Gaza have rocked the US over the past few weeks, prompting a police crackdown on many campuses and more than 2,000 arrests.

In mid-April, Columbia University saw a Gaza solidarity encampment, with students urging the institution to divest from companies associated with Israel. This movement spread to campuses in California, Texas, and many other states.

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The Media Used a Single Comma To Distract From a Ruling To Stop Genocide

Israel’s claim that a single comma exempts it from having to respect the International Court of Justice’s order last week to immediately halt its murderous attack on Rafah should be ridiculed. Instead it is being given space to breathe by complicit media like the Guardian.

The paper’s diplomatic editor offers an “analysis” that takes seriously claims by Israel and the two judges at the ICJ – one an Israeli – who dissented from the ruling approved by the other 13. They argue the following:

The world is wrong to think that the ICJ has required Israel to halt its Rafah assault and any actions elsewhere in Gaza that are genocidal. Instead, a comma in the text qualifies the ruling to mean the court wants Israel to halt its actions in Rafah and elsewhere only if they are genocidal. Because Israel’s actions are not genocidal, the court is not, in fact, asking Israel to halt anything.

That argument is preposterous on its face. It would be a less forceful statement than the one the court issued back in January, when Israel’s genocide was far less developed than it is now.

But there’s another glaring flaw in the argument’s logic that the Guardian somehow overlooks. If the two dissenting judges are really so sure that is what the overwhelming majority meant – that Israel is barred only from carrying out actions if they are already proven to constitute genocide – why on earth did they dissent?

Were this really the case, there could be only one possible interpretation of their decision to dissent: that they favour giving Israel the green light to commit genocide.

This isn’t rocket science.

Israel wants to muddy the waters – as it always does – so it can carry on with its genocide. The “fierce and continuing debate” about the comma, as the Guardian characterises it, is being aired so that Israel can continue murdering children in Gaza until the ICJ makes a definitive ruling on the question of genocide in a few years’ time. By then, Gaza will be even more of a smouldering ruin than it is already. By then, the Palestinian population will be either dead or have been ethnically cleansed.

Imagine if it were Vladimir Putin’s Russia arguing over a comma as a pretext to avoid implementing a clear ruling by the ICJ to halt atrocities in Ukraine. The ignominy the Guardian and the rest of the media would heap on the Russian president would be relentless – and deserved.

So why are Israel’s genocide-justifying evasions not treated the same way?

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Presidents Who Gamble With Nuclear Armageddon

The overriding job of any U.S. president is to keep the nation safe. In the nuclear age, that mainly means avoiding nuclear Armageddon. Joe Biden’s reckless and incompetent foreign policy is pushing us closer to annihilation. He joins a long and undistinguished list of presidents who have gambled with Armageddon, including his immediate predecessor and rival, Donald Trump.

Talk of nuclear war is currently everywhere. Leaders of NATO countries call for Russia’s defeat and even dismemberment, while telling us not to worry about Russia’s 6,000 nuclear warheads. Ukraine uses NATO-supplied missiles to knock out parts of Russia’s nuclear-attack early-warning system inside Russia. Russia, in the meantime, engages in nuclear drills near its border with Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg give the green light to Ukraine to use NATO weapons to hit Russian territory as an increasingly desperate and extremist Ukrainian regime sees fit.

These leaders neglect at our greatest peril the most basic lesson of the nuclear confrontation between the U.S. and Soviet Union in the Cuban Missile Crisis, as told by President John F. Kennedy, one of the few American presidents in the nuclear age to take our survival seriously. In the aftermath of the crisis, Kennedy told us, and his successors:

Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy – or of a collective death-wish for the world.

Yet this is exactly what Biden is doing today, carrying out a bankrupt and reckless policy.

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