The Pentagon
The u.s. military is the world's largest polluter and emitter of greenhouse gasses.[2][3] Its annual budget makes up more than half of the united states federal government's total budget and is greater than the next ten nation-states' budgets combined. [4]
War Crimes
Illegal Occupations
Turtle Island | Ke Pae Aina | Iraq | Syria
Industrial Complex
Corporate Agents
Henry Ford | Elon Musk | David Petraeus
Corporations
Oil Companies
British Petroleum| Halliburton | Exxon Mobil | Chevron | Conoco Phillips
Arms Dealers
- Lockheed Martin manufactures nuclear missiles
- Raytheon manufactures flying killing machines
- Bayer-Monsanto manufactures white phosphorus & RoundUp
- Ford Motor Company manufactured the first U.S. nuclear bomber plane
Big Tech
The Mass Surveillance Disclosures of ex-Booz Allen/CIA/NSA contractor & whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 revealed through classified NSA slides that the NSA's PRISM program "allows analysts to access data from nine major Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and Apple," as reported by the Washington Post in 2013. [5]
As journalist Nafeez Ahmed reported following the disclosure of PRISM in August of 2013:
Why have Western security agencies developed such an unprecedented capacity to spy on their own domestic populations? Since the 2008 economic crash, security agencies have increasingly spied on political activists, especially environmental groups, on behalf of corporate interests. This activity is linked to the last decade of US defence planning, which has been increasingly concerned by the risk of civil unrest at home triggered by catastrophic events linked to climate change, energy shocks or economic crisis — or all three.[6]
Microsoft
The Guardian further reported in 2013 based on the Snowden disclosures that Microsoft "collaborated closely with US intelligence services to allow users’ communications to be intercepted, including helping the National Security Agency to circumvent the company’s own encryption." Microsoft gave the NSA, FBI, & CIA direct access to illegally record - in mass amounts, indiscriminately - the private emails, chats, cloud storage, and Skype videos of its users. Skype itself was explicitly part of the NSA's Mass Surveillance PRISM program, even before Microsoft's purchase.[7]
With Microsoft servers playing a central and increasingly significant role in the National Security Agency's privatization and expansion of its surveillance operations, the company's importance to NSA surveillance is reflected not only in its direct participation in Project Groundbreaker but also as a key software provider for the NSA and its contractors.[8]
Microsoft sells classified versions of its operating systems to U.S. intelligence agencies and also cooperates with the NSA (National Security Agency) in such areas as encryption and computer security. Windows XP was tested by the NSA.[9]
In September 2017, the US Air Force (USAF) awarded the largest cloud contract in the government market yet with a $1 billion investment in a team composed of Microsoft as well as Dell and General Dynamics.[10]
In 2021, the US Army awarded Microsoft a 10-year contract worth ~$21.88 billion to produce a headset with augmented capabilities, or "Integrated Visual Augmentation System," based on the tech giant’s HoloLens technology.[11]
In 2022, Microsoft acquired Miburo, a cyberwar analysis company founded by Clint Watts, a former U.S. Army officer and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent.[12]
The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center conducts investigations of and issues reports on suspected cybersecurity breaches of military/weapons contractors on behalf of United States, Israeli, and EU military forces.[13][14]
Media Campaigns
2003 Invasion of Iraq
At the Pentagon, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld drafted Victoria Clarke, head of Hill & Knowlton's D.C. office, to fabricate the pretext for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.[15][16] As Rumsfeld’s Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, Clarke implemented a psychological operations campaign involving more than 75 retired military officers who met regularly with Pentagon officials and served as unofficial conduits for broadcasting pro-war propaganda on large corporate newscasts including Fox News, CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS.[17] Together, these officers circulated and amplified falsehoods such as the claim that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction.[18] As part of this campaign, Bush Administration officials made over five hundred false claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.[19]
Petrodollar
Petrodollar | Nixon Administration | Saudi Aramco | Henry Kissinger
Jet Fuel
The US Air Force (USAF) is the single largest consumer of jet fuel in the world. The F-4 Phantom Fighter burns more than 1,600 gallons of jet fuel per hour and peaks at 14,400 gallons per hour at supersonic speeds. The B-52 Stratocruiser, with eight jet engines, guzzles 55 gallons per minute. A quarter of the world’s jet fuel feeds the USAF fleet of flying killing machines.[20][21]
Red Hills Fuel Storage Facility
Zoom In: Red Hills Fuel Storage Facility
Located in Moanalua, on the island of O'ahu, Ka Pae Aina.
The Pentagon's largest jet fuel storage tank assemblage.[22]
Sitting only 100 feet above one of Oʻahu's main aquifers, it has leaked over 46,000 gallons of jet fuel since 2014, with major spills occurring in January 2014 and March 2021.[23][24]
Residents were still feeling side effects resulting from petrol-contaminated[25][26] water a year later according to a survey conducted, with many hundreds of locals presenting with severe health issues.[27]
"Forever chemicals" such as AFFF and PFAS were also found in the drinking water, and a 2022 report found that the U.S. Navy negligence in maintaining the fuel tanks resulted in preventable leaks. [28][29][30]
Greenwashing
See The Nature Conservancy and its greenwashing of U.S. Military Bases.
Alternatives
Decomissioning the majority (>90%) of U.S. military bases around the planet
Positive Peace
Positive Peace: no justice, no peace - war crimes are no exception
Just Transition
Just Transition from fossil fuel military imperialism to Food Sovereignty & Deep Democracy
Sources
- ↑ https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
- ↑ https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2022/10/pentagon-climate-change-neta-crawford-book/#:~:text=The%20US%20military%20is%20the,the%20emissions%20of%20most%20countries.
- ↑ https://earth.org/us-military-pollution/
- ↑ https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2023/04/the-united-states-spends-more-on-defense-than-the-next-10-countries-combined
- ↑ http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/agreements-with-private-companies-protect-us-access-to-cables-data-for-surveillance/2013/07/06/aa5d017a-df77-11e2-b2d4-ea6d8f477a01_story.html
- ↑ https://grist.org/politics/is-the-nsa-surveillance-program-really-about-spying-on-environmentalists/
- ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data
- ↑ https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-reich-61b2682a/details/experience/?profileUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd_profile%3AACoAAAYW13cBoPRhrY4pONR6LOctwjjlRhUk8_4; From Nov 2015-Jun 2016, Eric Reich "served as a Microsoft SQL Server DBA on the GROUNDBREAKER program supporting multiple Microsoft SQL Server relational database management system-based backend deployments operated and maintained by Eagle Alliance Corporation."
- ↑ "Spies for Hire", Chapter 1
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20210923075530/https://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2017/09/21/dell-emc-gd-microsoft-cloud-contract.aspx
- ↑ https://www.geekwire.com/2022/microsofts-headset-for-the-military-reportedly-results-in-physical-impairments-during-tests/
- ↑ https://www.geekwire.com/2022/microsoft-to-acquire-cyber-threat-analysis-startup-miburo/
- ↑ https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/11/politics/microsoft-iran-hackers-defense-firms/index.html
- ↑ https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2021/10/11/iran-linked-dev-0343-targeting-defense-gis-and-maritime-sectors/
- ↑ https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/03/20/how-they-sold-the-iraq-war/
- ↑ http://www.spacewar.com/2003-a/030616173206.f68gs5zs.html
- ↑ Barstow, David. “Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand,” The New York Times, April 20, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html
- ↑ Blumenthal, Sidney. “Bush knew Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction,” Salon, September 6, 2007. https://www.salon.com/2007/09/06/bush_wmd/
- ↑ Reading-Smith Mark, et al. “Search the 935 Iraq War false statements,” The Center for Public Integrity, July 1, 2004. https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/06/24/14969/search-935-iraq-war-false-statements
- ↑ https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Climate_change_denial
- ↑ https://truthout.org/articles/the-military-assault-on-global-climate/
- ↑ https://www.staradvertiser.com/2014/06/22/breaking-news/more-tiny-holes-found-in-leaking-red-hill-fuel-storage-tank/
- ↑ https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/local-news/navy-red-hill-fuel-timeline
- ↑ https://www.epa.gov/red-hill/about-red-hill-fuel-releases
- ↑ https://www.civilbeat.org/beat/navy-stops-red-hill-pipeline-leak-of-fuel-and-water-that-began-saturday/
- ↑ https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2021/12/01/live-doh-discusses-latest-investigation-into-possible-tainted-water/
- ↑ https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/11/hundreds-of-red-hill-families-still-sick-a-year-later-survey-finds/
- ↑ https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2022/12/10/epa-doh-letter-reveals-pfas-forever-chemicals-detected-groundwater-near-red-hill-last-december/
- ↑ https://www.epa.gov/red-hill/fire-suppressant-afff-spill
- ↑ https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/11/a-new-leak-at-red-hill-dumps-hundreds-of-gallons-of-firefighting-foam/