Department of Defense

The second season of the big budget series Jack Ryan has just debuted across multiple platforms. Described as “the huge hit that Amazon has been hoping for,” the series follows the story of an eponymous CIA agent as he attempts to overthrow ruthless Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Reyes. Reyes, we learn, has acquired a nuclear weapon from Russia and is portrayed as a heartless dictator who kidnaps dissidents and crushes protests.

The problem is so pervasive among DOD employees and contractors that legislation has been written for increased investigation into these crimes. The illegal activity leaves the government perpetrators open to blackmail.

Media outlets gave minimal attention to recent news that the U.S. Naval station in Virginia Beach spilled an estimated 94,000 gallons of jet fuel into a nearby waterway, less than a mile from the Atlantic Ocean.

I don’t know if I’d have the nerve to be a whistleblower. I’d like to think I would. We all like to think we would, just like we all like to think we could catch the game-winning touchdown, triumph on “America’s Got Talent,” and fold a fitted sheet quickly and without cursing.

Opinion — Between 1998 and 2015 the Pentagon has failed to account for $21 trillion in taxpayer money. Michigan State Professor Mark Skidmore and a team of graduate students discovered this when poring over documents for the Department of Defense and Housing and Urban Development. The analysis was done using publicly available information from the respective government agencies — though, after the story broke, these documents were no longer freely available to the public.

NANGARHAR PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN — Elite CIA-backed special forces in Afghanistan are leaving a trail of carnage in the country. As such units do not operate under the umbrella of the Department of Defense, they have been given near-impunity despite standing accused of war crimes.
Last month, the New York Times cited “senior Afghan and international officials” who said that while most strike forces in Afghanistan have been put under the purview of Afghan intelligence since 2012, two of the most “ruthless” units are “still sponsored mainly by the CIA.”

US Department of Defense officials are looking to weaponize disinformation, by looking for new “influencing tools” against “enemy propaganda,” military.com reported.
The Pentagon wishes to expand its capabilities in irregular warfare, which according to Defense officials is a critical tool for defeating near-peer adversaries preemptively.

WASHINGTON — This week, the Department of Defense released a report to Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jim Inhofe (R-OK) detailing the threat climate change poses to U.S. national security. Not only does the report fail to mention U.S. bases that have been destroyed or evacuated recently due to natural disasters, it completely omits the outsized role the Pentagon plays in furthering climate change, as the number one polluter in the world.

These installations exist somewhere between light and shadow, writes Nick Turse. While acknowledged as foreign military outposts, they are excluded from the official inventory.  By Nick Turse TomDispatch Within hours of President Trump’s announcement of a withdrawal of U.S. forces from…Read more →

As the co-authors of National Security Cinema, we have become known — rather inaccurately — for encouraging two major ideas: 1. That the government is really important in making movies more militaristic. 2. That Hollywood doesn’t produce dissenting films. While the first of these is somewhat true it is a simplification, the second is a falsehood.