“Perhaps in anticipation of taxpayer sticker shock, the Air Force also said ‘the engineering required to design, manufacture, conduct environmental testing and obtain Federal Aviation Administration certification’ were all included in the cost.”
“The strategy, the first such document to be issued by the Pentagon in roughly a decade, represented an historic shift from the ostensible justification for US global militarism for nearly two decades: the so-called war on terrorism. ‘Great power competition—not terrorism—is now the primary focus of US national security,’ Mattis said in his speech, which accompanied the release of an 11-page declassified document outlining the National Defense Strategy in broad terms. A lengthier classified version was submitted to the US Congress, which includes the Pentagon’s detailed proposals for a massive increase in military spending.”
“Trump and his unabashedly Iranophobic generals have allowed the United States to become a patsy for Saudi Arabia, actively abetting or tacitly endorsing MBS’s ambitions. Yet whatever the administration’s purported intent, throwing in with the Crown Prince will only exacerbate the disorder that previous U.S. administrations have done so much to create.”
Read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/president-trumps-friends-in-saudi-arabia/
“In just one extraordinary year, Trump has destabilized the delicate duality that has long been the foundation for U.S. foreign policy: favoring war over diplomacy, the Pentagon over the State Department, and narrow national interest over international leadership. But in a globalizing world interconnected by trade, the Internet, and the rapid proliferation of nuclear-armed missiles, walls won’t work. There can be no Fortress America.”
Read more: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176373/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy%2C_tweeting_while_rome_burns/
“If you go back to Aquinas and to St. Augustine, they talk about things like ‘right intention.’ Does the person who is doing the killing have right intention? Is he even authorized to do it? Are we doing things to protect the innocent? Are we doing things to prevent unnecessary suffering? And with autonomy and artificial intelligence, I don’t believe there’s anybody even in the business who can actually demonstrate that we can trust that those systems are doing what they should be doing.”
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-30/nobody-s-ready-for-the-killer-robot
“SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford said regime must ‘stop killing children’ as he condemned the Government for failing to suspend selling arms to Riyadh during the devastating three-year conflict in Yemen.”
“The program featured imagery of starving children and interviews with displaced people, all obtained after Saudi Arabia blocked ’60 Minutes’ from entering the country. The program did not once mention that Saudi Arabia is a U.S. ally, and that U.S. support is essential for the Saudi campaign to continue. For two-and-a-half years, the U.S. government has backed Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen every step of the way. The United States has dispatched warships to reinforce the blockade. It has refueled Saudi planes, sent the Saudi military targeting intelligence, and resupplied them with tens of billions of dollars worth of bombs.”
Read more: https://theintercept.com/2017/11/20/60-minutes-yemen-war-us-involvement/
“In 2015, President Barack Obama supported Saudi Arabia’s war effort in Yemen, and President Donald Trump has continued the mission. The fight for control of Yemen shows no sign of stopping. The war has killed thousands of civilians, caused widespread food shortages and triggered a cholera epidemic. Yemenis have been plunged into the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. In its drive to destroy rebel targets, the Saudi-led coalition has struck hospitals, schools and marketplaces in scores of well-documented attacks.”
“That planned modernization would increase the total costs of maintaining the current number of nuclear weapons and delivery system by 50 percent over normal operating costs, according to the CBO. The trillion-dollar question on everybody’s mind is: How exactly will the US government foot the bill for such a massive program?”
Read more: https://www.rt.com/usa/408607-nuclear-forces-modernization-trillions/
“Fan protests broke out surrounding Marvel Comics’ announcement of a joint venture with U.S. defense contractor Northrop Grumman. In short order, Marvel had scrapped the joint venture entirely.”