The Pentagon – the U.S. “Defense” Department – was just audited for the fifth time. And they just announced they failed for the fifth time. If that’s not accountability, I don’t know what is! When I say they “failed” their audit, I don’t mean they put a 9 instead of a 7 on one of…

Once upon a time, there was a company called 3M. You might recall that name because everybody loved them when they made a billion face masks during the pandemic. Remember at the beginning everybody was like, “Where are we gonna get enough face masks?! We need roughly a quadrillion and the entire U.S. only has……

(DavidSwanson.org) — When a few thousand people were murdered on September 11, 2001, I was actually stupid enough – I kid you not – to imagine that the general public would conclude that because massive military forces, nuclear arsenals, and foreign bases had done nothing to prevent and much to provoke those crimes, the U.S.…

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. While the incident was by no means as catastrophic as some other pipeline spills, it underscores an important yet…

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. But to blow…

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…

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…

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. As a department, we have often exhibited a historical preference in…

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…

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. The…

WASHINGTON — Despite being legally required to conduct audits since the early 90s and holding a staggering  2.2 trillion in assets, the Pentagon held its first-ever audit this week — which it, unsurprisingly, spectacularly failed. According to a senior official, the results were so bad that the discrepancies could take “years [to] resolve.” The Department…

US President Donald Trump called for defense spending cuts during a Cabinet meeting on October 17th. In fact, he asked all cabinet members to institute budget cuts of at least 5% for their departments in 2019. Speaking to the press prior to the Cabinet meeting, Trump spoke of his plan to ask every secretary to make…