Pentagon bloat, etc. thread

[Vrede too]

Joe Biden Is Proceeding With Donald Trump's Biggest Arms Deal

President Joe Biden is advancing controversial Trump-era plans to transfer $23.4 billion in sophisticated weaponry to the United Arab Emirates, a State Department spokesperson told HuffPost on Tuesday ― despite concerns from influential lawmakers and progressive activists, as well as the Biden administration’s promise to review the package....

Last December, nearly all Senate Democrats voted to try and block the sale, citing President Donald Trump’s rushed attempt to push it through and the UAE’s alarming violations of human rights at home and around the region.

Biden put the deal — which would give the UAE the F-35 fighter jet, armed drones and associated bombs and missiles — under review shortly after becoming president. The administration has since been vague about that process....

Justin Russell of the New York Center for Foreign Policy Affairs told HuffPost his organization would continue its lawsuit against the State Department over the package.

“We believe that the Trump administration put this deal together in an illegal manner,” Russell said.

“It is our hope that the Biden administration would put mitigating a humanitarian crisis of global proportions before putting arms in the hands of an aggressor nation like the UAE,” he added, saying he was referring to ongoing wars in Yemen and Libya, where the UAE has backed proxy forces and carried out its own attacks....

Calling Biden’s move a “terrible decision,” Kate Kizer of the advocacy group Win Without War said sending the weapons to the UAE could embolden other U.S. partners to worsen international conflicts.

“It’s a very worrisome signal that there is not a commitment to real accountability,” she continued.

Feed the Pentagon, the oil dictators and the merchants of death, nothing else matters.

[Vrede too]

A New Proposal to Force the Pentagon to Clean Up Its Act

The Department of Defense has famously never passed a financial audit, with the first one coming only in 2017 following decades of avoidance of the issue. The Pentagon failed that first audit, and each one thereafter, much to the chagrin of those hoping to bring an end to the legendarily wasteful spending – and inordinately complex bookkeeping – that has long been a hallmark of military procurement. On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed a new way to put more pressure on the Pentagon to get its financial act together.

The Audit the Pentagon Act of 2021 would penalize any part of the Pentagon that fails its audit by forcing it to pay 1% of its budget back to the U.S. Treasury, with the funds being used to reduce the federal deficit.

The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), along with Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mike Lee (R-UT).

“The Pentagon and the military industrial complex have been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud and financial mismanagement for decades. That is absolutely unacceptable,” Sanders said in a statement. “If we are serious about spending taxpayer dollars wisely and effectively, we have got to end the absurdity of the Pentagon being the only agency in the federal government that has not passed an independent audit. The time is long overdue for Congress to hold the Defense Department to the same level of accountability as the rest of the government. That is the very least we can do.”

... Pentagon officials say they are trying their best to get a handle on the military’s outsized spending, which is the largest discretionary part of the federal budget, totaling $740 billion this year alone....

Will it pass, and if it passes will it be implemented and enforced?

[O Really]

No, no, and no. Any more questions?

[neoplacebo]

Questionable if an audit could even be done. Thousands of defense contractors, thousands of companies books to go over, potential to hide an unlimited amount of money by any one of those contractors by "research and development" costs, which could include the purchase of any kind or amount of material as well as astronomical labor costs. There's just too many ways and too many avenues to perpetrate fraud in such a massive enterprise that an accurate audit may not be feasible. And if they're (the government) not that concerned about any of this, well, to me, that just lends credence to the Modern Monetary Theory of economics and also provides an insight in why Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense, once said "deficits don't matter." Because the government can not run out of money like a person or a business can.

[Vrede too]

It's a never ending saga, one we've been documenting for 9 years on BRD.
viewtopic.php?p=74822#p74822

Trump on "The Digital":

http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-na ... iew-2017-5

In an interview with Time magazine published Thursday, Trump railed against what he called a "digital catapult system" the Navy was using on the USS Gerald R. Ford.

Here's what Trump told Time's Zeke Miller:

"You know the catapult is quite important. So I said, 'What is this?' 'Sir, this is our digital catapult system.' He said, 'Well, we're going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern [technology].' I said, 'You don't use steam anymore for catapult?' 'No sir.' I said, 'Ah, how is it working?' 'Sir, not good. Not good. Doesn't have the power. You know the steam is just brutal. You see that sucker going, and steam's going all over the place, there's planes thrown in the air.'

"It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it's very complicated. You have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I said — and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said, 'What system are you going to be' — 'Sir, we're staying with digital.' I said, 'No you're not. You going to goddamned steam. The digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it's no good.'"

We need to go back to the good ol' days of American military might when we marched in line to the rhythm of the infantry drummer-boy's snare drum, bayonets at the ready, firing only when signaled by the call of the bugle.

If this was good enough to win the war for independence and Civil war, it should be good enough to defeat ISIS.

The digital is making us lose. It's time to start winning again!

While he was cowering from Vietnam service Trump studied marine avionics.

To be fair, we shouldn't have expected anything to work right on the USS Gerald R. Ford. Not that it's a surprise on BRD:

...Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier...

Are golf clubs and balls prohibited?

Nah. That would be the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) itself, now under construction. She'll be launched next year, and commissioned in 2015. In view of Ford's problems with stairs, I hope the launch goes without incident.

Perhaps one of the future stealth ships named will be named after Bush II. If the stealth measures work, years later no-one will never know whether the ship was ever present or in service.

I read about the Navy's new aircraft carrier today; the Gerald Ford Class. First, I want to say I hope it doesn't fall down....but it supposedly started today two years of trials for all the various new systems, one of which is a new electromagnetic catapult system, which has been a steam powered device since the 1940's. Also a bunch of new radar stuff, etc. They said it was almost 13 billion dollars, but the first of any class of ship is always quite expensive; the following ones less so. Go Navy, I guess. .....update.....Dick Cheney wants to send it to striking distance of Crimea as soon as possible after sea trials......

The Crimea mission is still on, but it's a goodwill visit.

U.S. Navy's new $13B aircraft carrier can't fight

Also, its attempts to play golf resulted in unacceptably high numbers of civilian casualties.

On the bright side, its officers' quarters and galley are nice. Maybe the cost overruns could be mitigated by having it double as a hotel.

The banner on the superstructure reads: Skeptics' Mission Accomplished.

On the bright side, the USS Gerald R. Ford is already making plans to pardon Flynn, Sessions and Trump.

The US Navy's top admiral admits they crammed too much new tech onto their new aircraft carrier

The USS Gerald R. Ford is the Afghanistan of warships.

[neoplacebo]

The banner on the island structure should say "Our long rational nightmare is over."

[Vrede too]

What has 20 years of the ‘war on terror’ accomplished?

... Specious claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida were part of the Bush administration’s rationale for the Iraq War. War powers granted to the executive branch by Congress shortly after Sept. 11 have also been used to carry out counterterrorism operations in at least a dozen countries in the intervening years.

The professed urgency of the threat of attacks was at the heart of some of the most controversial policies over the past two decades, including the use of torture, the extrajudicial detention of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, drone strikes and a major expansion of the government’s ability to conduct surveillance on Americans.

Why there’s debate

... In the eyes of many critics, the “war on terror” has been a failure. They argue that any honest assessment of a global terrorist threat shows that American intervention has not only failed to eliminate extremist groups, but has often created instability that has allowed them to flourish. Any victories, they add, must be weighed against the extraordinary costs linked to the U.S. counterterrorism campaign, which include an estimated 900,000 deaths, 38 million people displaced from their homes and a price tag of $8 trillion....

Many cultural critics argue that “war on terror” infused a sense of fear and anger into American life that has fueled some of the most harmful trends of our era, including racism, polarization, extremism and the rollback of civil liberties....

Perspectives

... The ‘war on terror’ was a victory for extremists

“In orchestrating the attacks on September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden had wanted to end the global reign of the decadent West, inflict a staggering blow to American democracy, and entangle every Muslim in the conflict. Bin Laden may be dead, but it is hard not to conclude that he got what he wanted.” — Omer Aziz, New York

I agree.

... The ‘war on terror’ has done little to stop extremism from spreading

“The main lesson from the Afghan experience is that the ‘war on terror’ does not work. Twenty years after the invasion, extremist Islamists are celebrating their victory. It is true, as Biden said, that the US conducts counter-terror operations in multiple places; the consequence has been the spread of extremist Islamism not just in Afghanistan and the Middle East but in large parts of Africa.” — Mary Kaldor, Guardian

I agree.

... Anti-Muslim bigotry is the lasting legacy of the ‘war on terror’

“Six wars, millions killed, trillions wasted, and a plague of suffering and trauma inflicted on the Muslim world, accelerating a tidal wave of refugees that has created panic in the European Union and resulted in a huge increase of votes for far-right parties—which in turn has pushed an already extreme political center further to the right. Islamophobia, promoted by politicians of every stripe in the West, is now embedded in Western culture.” — Tariq Ali, The Nation

The U.S. squandered an opportunity to create a better world

“What if instead of launching a War on Terror, the greatest strategic disaster in the United States’ modern history, U.S. leaders had used 9/11 as a catalyst to bring about a more tolerant, peaceful and prosperous world, the antithesis of al-Qaeda’s worldview? This was neither a far-fetched scenario nor it is wishful thinking.” — Fawaz A. Gerges, Washington Post

I agree.

The focus on terrorism cost us the chance to address an truly existential threat

“Plotting out the connections between this open-ended war and the climate crisis is a grim exercise, but an important one. It's critical to examine how the War on Terror not only took up all of the oxygen when we should have been engaged in all-out effort to curb emissions, but also made the climate crisis far worse, by foreclosing on other potential frameworks under which the United States could relate with the rest of the world.” — Sarah Lazare, Common Dreams

Interesting, but I'm not sure that we would have done better on climate action without the War on Terror. We're not merely distracted, there are evil idiots, greedheads and polluters standing in the way.

The ‘war on terror’ allowed far-right extremism to flourish at home.

“In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the rise of violent jihadism reshaped American politics in ways that created fertile ground for right-wing extremism. … But it wasn’t just the terrorists who gave right-wing extremists a boost: so, too, did the U.S.-led war on terrorism, which involved the near-complete pivoting of intelligence, security, and law enforcement attention to the Islamist threat, leaving far-right extremism to grow unfettered.” — Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Foreign Affairs

The defining element of the ‘war on terror’ is the abandonment of American values

“The entire war on terror … ended up being a war on America’s values. CIA ‘black sites’ and ‘renditions’ of ‘enemy combatants’ skirted or violated international law. The use of waterboarding and other torture methods — under the euphemism ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ — cost America the moral high ground.” — Editorial, Los Angeles Times

I agree.

One can speculate all day on whether the original intentions of the War on Terror were pure, but IMO many of the so-called side effects are exactly what has sustained it:

Expanding US militarism to "at least a dozen countries";
"the use of (mostly proxy) torture, the extrajudicial detention of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, drone strikes and a major expansion of the government’s ability to conduct surveillance on Americans";
instability that has allowed extremist groups to flourish, thus justifying our perpetual militarism;
infusing "a sense of fear and anger into American life that has fueled some of the most harmful trends of our era, including racism, polarization, extremism and the rollback of civil liberties";
"Anti-Muslim bigotry"
Enabling "far-right extremism to flourish at home"
Killing "an estimated 900,000" mostly Muslims and displacing "38 million" more;
Then, not mentioned above is the fact that most of that "price tag of $8 trillion" went to the Pentagon and our merchants of death. In the post-Cold War world that has been a powerful incentive to keep doing exactly what appears to be a failure on the surface.

I'd say that none of this has been an accident.

[Vrede too]

After Afghanistan Disaster, the Pentagon Is on Track to Get Even More Money
The defeat in Afghanistan offers a chance to rethink America’s war machine, but Congress is on the verge of raising military spending to $740 billion.

Throwing money at failure because the point has never been about success, it's about throwing money.

[neoplacebo]

I remember sometime in the past posting about how when I was in the navy stationed in Japan, a Russian Air Force pilot defected with his brand new MIG-25 and flew it to Japan. At the time, the US and the West in general were very worried about the supposed miraculous capabilities of this jet. The US military and intelligence agencies took this plane apart and eventually sent it back the USSR....in boxes. Turns out the miracle plane only had a range of about 500 miles and its avionics systems were powered by vacuum tubes. This story (a long one) describes the history and background of this rather remarkable but anticlimactic event.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/mig- ... 00560.html

[GoCubsGo]

I remember sometime in the past posting about how when I was in the navy stationed in Japan, a Russian Air Force pilot defected with his brand new MIG-25 and flew it to Japan. At the time, the US and the West in general were very worried about the supposed miraculous capabilities of this jet. The US military and intelligence agencies took this plane apart and eventually sent it back the USSR....in boxes. Turns out the miracle plane only had a range of about 500 miles and its avionics systems were powered by vacuum tubes. This story (a long one) describes the history and background of this rather remarkable but anticlimactic event.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/mig- ... 00560.html

Good story.

So typical of the time, the American over reaction is classic.

Kind of reminds me of the space race story where NASA spent ten million dollars to develop a pen that could write in space.

The Soviets? They used a pencil.

[neoplacebo]

I remember sometime in the past posting about how when I was in the navy stationed in Japan, a Russian Air Force pilot defected with his brand new MIG-25 and flew it to Japan. At the time, the US and the West in general were very worried about the supposed miraculous capabilities of this jet. The US military and intelligence agencies took this plane apart and eventually sent it back the USSR....in boxes. Turns out the miracle plane only had a range of about 500 miles and its avionics systems were powered by vacuum tubes. This story (a long one) describes the history and background of this rather remarkable but anticlimactic event.
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/mig- ... 00560.html

Good story.

So typical of the time, the American over reaction is classic.

Kind of reminds me of the space race story where NASA spent ten million dollars to develop a pen that could write in space.

The Soviets? They used a pencil.

Yeah, sort of like the "missile gap" hysteria back in the late 50's and early 60's that was ceaselessly promoted here in the US. We were told that the Russians had a vast advantage in nuclear missiles which required urgent action by the US to rectify that situation. But it turns out the US had always had the advantage and that any "missile gap" that existed was the one in the USSR. I wonder if our country will ever stop lying. Ironically, "will you EVER stop lying?" is the subject line of most of the emails I send to Marsha Blackburn (wingnut US Senator) and Diana Harshbarger (super wingnut US House member). So far neither of them have answered me except for the "thank you" canned responses I get from Blackburn. Never have heard back from Diana. And neither of them have stopped lying as of this date.

[Vrede too]

Good story.

So typical of the time, the American over reaction is classic.

Kind of reminds me of the space race story where NASA spent ten million dollars to develop a pen that could write in space.

The Soviets? They used a pencil.

Yeah, sort of like the "missile gap" hysteria back in the late 50's and early 60's that was ceaselessly promoted here in the US. We were told that the Russians had a vast advantage in nuclear missiles which required urgent action by the US to rectify that situation. But it turns out the US had always had the advantage and that any "missile gap" that existed was the one in the USSR. I wonder if our country will ever stop lying....

And the bomber gap before that, missiles in Cuba somehow making us more vulnerable than US missiles in Turkey made the USSR, Reagan's "Window of Vulnerability", and now the Chinese hordes. The point has always been the same - more US belligerence and more money for the Pentagon and merchants of death.

[neoplacebo]

Good story.

So typical of the time, the American over reaction is classic.

Kind of reminds me of the space race story where NASA spent ten million dollars to develop a pen that could write in space.

The Soviets? They used a pencil.

Yeah, sort of like the "missile gap" hysteria back in the late 50's and early 60's that was ceaselessly promoted here in the US. We were told that the Russians had a vast advantage in nuclear missiles which required urgent action by the US to rectify that situation. But it turns out the US had always had the advantage and that any "missile gap" that existed was the one in the USSR. I wonder if our country will ever stop lying....

And the bomber gap before that, missiles in Cuba somehow making us more vulnerable than US missiles in Turkey made the USSR, Reagan's "Window of Vulnerability", and now the Chinese hordes. The point has always been the same - more US belligerence and more money for the Pentagon and merchants of death.

Yep. Right now I'm reading "Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis" by Serhii Plokhy so a lot of that is fresh in my mind. It's a scary tale. Lots of comments from some of the ones who participated in it on both sides; at the time and years later in their memoirs. One thing I never heard of or knew about was that a Russian submarine came very close to launching a nuclear armed torpedo on a US Navy destroyer in the Caribbean during October 62. The only reason they didn't is because the Russian commanding officer of the sub just happened to see a US sailor signalling with a light apologizing for American planes dropping flares and dummy depth charges on the sub. The incident occurred at night while the sub was on the surface. If they had launched, it would have destroyed the destroyer as well as the sub and severely damaged the other US task force ships by the generating of waves about 90 feet high. The nuclear warhead on the torpedo was rated at a little less kilotons than the Hiroshima bomb. If that US sailor hadn't sent that morse code signal to the Russians there would have been nuclear war.

[Vrede too]

Yep. Right now I'm reading "Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis" by Serhii Plokhy so a lot of that is fresh in my mind. It's a scary tale. Lots of comments from some of the ones who participated in it on both sides; at the time and years later in their memoirs. One thing I never heard of or knew about was that a Russian submarine came very close to launching a nuclear armed torpedo on a US Navy destroyer in the Caribbean during October 62. The only reason they didn't is because the Russian commanding officer of the sub just happened to see a US sailor signalling with a light apologizing for American planes dropping flares and dummy depth charges on the sub. The incident occurred at night while the sub was on the surface. If they had launched, it would have destroyed the destroyer as well as the sub and severely damaged the other US task force ships by the generating of waves about 90 feet high. The nuclear warhead on the torpedo was rated at a little less kilotons than the Hiroshima bomb. If that US sailor hadn't sent that morse code signal to the Russians there would have been nuclear war.

Vasily Arkhipov

Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov, 30 January 1926 – 19 August 1998) was a Soviet Navy officer credited with preventing a Soviet nuclear strike (and, potentially, all-out nuclear war) during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Such an attack likely would have caused a major global thermonuclear response.

As flotilla chief of staff and second-in-command of the diesel powered submarine B-59, Arkhipov refused to authorize the captain's use of nuclear torpedoes against the United States Navy, a decision requiring the agreement of all three senior officers aboard.

In 2002, Thomas Blanton, who was then director of the US National Security Archive, said that Arkhipov "saved the world".

I had not heard the morse code signal element before. Supposedly, according to Wiki, Arkhipov saved the world before B-59 surfaced. Whatever, whew.

[neoplacebo]

Yep. Right now I'm reading "Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis" by Serhii Plokhy so a lot of that is fresh in my mind. It's a scary tale. Lots of comments from some of the ones who participated in it on both sides; at the time and years later in their memoirs. One thing I never heard of or knew about was that a Russian submarine came very close to launching a nuclear armed torpedo on a US Navy destroyer in the Caribbean during October 62. The only reason they didn't is because the Russian commanding officer of the sub just happened to see a US sailor signalling with a light apologizing for American planes dropping flares and dummy depth charges on the sub. The incident occurred at night while the sub was on the surface. If they had launched, it would have destroyed the destroyer as well as the sub and severely damaged the other US task force ships by the generating of waves about 90 feet high. The nuclear warhead on the torpedo was rated at a little less kilotons than the Hiroshima bomb. If that US sailor hadn't sent that morse code signal to the Russians there would have been nuclear war.

Vasily Arkhipov

Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov, 30 January 1926 – 19 August 1998) was a Soviet Navy officer credited with preventing a Soviet nuclear strike (and, potentially, all-out nuclear war) during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Such an attack likely would have caused a major global thermonuclear response.

As flotilla chief of staff and second-in-command of the diesel powered submarine B-59, Arkhipov refused to authorize the captain's use of nuclear torpedoes against the United States Navy, a decision requiring the agreement of all three senior officers aboard.

In 2002, Thomas Blanton, who was then director of the US National Security Archive, said that Arkhipov "saved the world".

I had not heard the morse code signal element before. Supposedly, according to Wiki, Arkhipov saved the world before B-59 surfaced. Whatever, whew.

That's the guy. I didn't go back through the book to find his name, but that's him. And the incident occurred over a time period of a couple of days. All that time the US was looking for the sub and dropping these fake depth charges. The Soviet sailors said it was like being in a metal barrel that was being hit with a sledgehammer. The sub finally had to surface because its batteries were almost depleted. Can't charge them underwater. And on top of that, this submarine was intended to operate in the Barents Sea....cold water. The book says the temperature inside the sub was about 50 degrees Celsius, which is about 120 degrees F and 60 degrees C in the engine spaces. So those Russian guys were double pissed at being baked as well as beat on. We sure lucked out on that one.

[GoCubsGo]

Damn.

Never heard of this.


The dude was also on K-19.

[Vrede too]

Damn.

Never heard of this.


The dude was also on K-19.

Arkhipov saving the world was kept secret for 40 years. We can't have the public knowing how reckless the US is with nuclear weapons.

[GoCubsGo]

Damn.

Never heard of this.


The dude was also on K-19.

Arkhipov saving the world was kept secret for 40 years. We can't have the public knowing how reckless the US is with nuclear weapons.

The US?

[Vrede too]

Arkhipov saving the world was kept secret for 40 years. We can't have the public knowing how reckless the US is with nuclear weapons.

The US?

Russia, too, but their secrecy is on them. The entire Cuban Missile Crisis was recklessness provoked by our putting nuclear missiles in Turkey. In fact, JFK's "victory" was really his secret agreement to remove the nuclear missiles from Turkey, which he did a few months later.

[GoCubsGo]

Arkhipov saving the world was kept secret for 40 years. We can't have the public knowing how reckless the US is with nuclear weapons.

The US?

Russia, too, but their secrecy is on them. The entire Cuban Missile Crisis was recklessness provoked by our putting nuclear missiles in Turkey. In fact, JFK's "victory" was really his secret agreement to remove the nuclear missiles from Turkey, which he did a few months later.

I was thinking of the shoddy command and control the Soviets had where two guys could launch without orders.