Remember 9/11: Two dozen questions about Flight 77

Two dozen questions about Flight 77 and the Pentagon that might lead to justice

Posted on July 9, 2011 by Kevin Ryan

There are many questions to be answered about the events at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Here are two dozen such questions that, if answered, might help to bring about justice.

1. Exactly how was Flight 77 hijacked, considering, among other things, that the alleged hijackers were identified as security risks (possibly linked to al Qaeda) when they tried to board, and were not physically imposing (all 5 and a half feet tall or less, and slender in build)? [1]

2. How was the nation’s air defense system disabled on 9/11, and how could anything have hit the Pentagon approximately 80 minutes after the first plane was known to be hijacked?

3. Why was Dick Cheney tracking Flight 77? [2]

4. Why were explosive experts, who had a history of covering-up the OKC bombing, hired to investigate the Pentagon and write the FEMA report? (Mete Sozen and Paul Mlakar).[3]

5. Why was Paul Mlakar, the lead investigator for the government’s investigation into the Pentagon, later accused of obstructing the investigation into the Hurricane Katrina disaster?[4]

6. Why did the roof of the Pentagon collapse 30 minutes after impact?

7. Why was AMEC, the company that had just finished refurbishing Wedge 1 of the Pentagon (the impact zone), hired to lead the clean-up effort at Ground Zero?[5]

8. Why did the NTSB not make public reports on any of the planes as is the normal procedure?[6]

9. Why did none of the planes squawk the hijack code?

10. Why was the official explanation for alleged phone calls made by Flight 77 passenger Barbara Olson changed several times, and ultimately how could Ted Olson’s story make any sense?[7]

11. Why did high-ranking Pentagon officials cancel travel plans for the morning of September 11 “…apparently because of security concerns.”? [8]

12. How could Hani Hanjour have successfully piloted Flight 77 given his poor qualifications? [9]

13. Why are those interested in The Pentagon not intently reviewing documents released by the FAA and 9/11 Commission that reveal startling questions about the aircraft and events of that day? [10]

14. Why was there no response from Andrews Air Force Base, just over 10 miles away and home to Air National Guard units charged with defending the skies above the nation’s capital? [11]

15. Why did F-16s fail to protect Washington on 9/11? Was the Langley emergency response sabotaged? [12]

16. Why did Flight 77 hit a mostly-empty part of the building opposite from the high command and under renovation, with a majority of the victims being civilian accountants? [13]

17. Why were Pentagon workers not evacuated or warned that Flight 77 was approaching, despite those in the bunker tracking the attack plane as it closed the final 50 miles to the Pentagon?

18. Why did Peggy Chevrette of Jet Tech, the training center that Hani Hanjour attended in Arizona, send Hanjour’s training record to the OKC certification office, where it was allegedly issued, and ask if it was fake? [14]

19. Why did Jet Tech trainer and German Air Force ace, Reinhard Zimmermann, come to the US to work for a man who was later convicted of profiting from the anthrax attacks? [15]

20. Why did FAA official John Anthony, when investigating the Hanjour complaint by Jet Tech, make the unprecedented and inappropriate suggestion that Jet Tech provide Hanjour with a translator because he could not speak English? [14]

21. Why was a war game drill used to vacate the National Reconnaissance Office for the duration of the attack? [16]

22. How was a C-130 pilot able to intercept the plane incoming to the Pentagon while NORAD was not? [17]

23. Did the Pentagon, the nerve center of the US military, really have no missile or anti-aircraft defenses?

24. What were Vice-president Cheney’s orders when Norman Mineta described him speaking to a young man in the presidential bunker as the plane approached, saying, “Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary?” [2]

References

[1] Complete 911 Timeline, American Airlines Flight 77, http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_9/11=aa77

[2] Norman Mineta’s testimony to the 9/11 Commission makes clear that Dick Cheney was tracking Flight 77 while it was more than 50 miles away from Washington DC. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfdOwt2v3Y

[3] Mete Sozen has since become a leading spokesman for the official story about the WTC as well. For more about him, see my articles “Looking for Truth in Credentials: The Peculiar WTC ‘Experts’”, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=RYA20070313&articleId=5071  and “Finally, an apology from the National Geographic Channel”, http://911blogger.com/news/2009-08-22/finally-apology-national-geographic-channel

[4] Some very serious accusations have been made against Paul Mlakar by Prof. Raymond B. Seed of the University of California, Berkeley, Letter entitled Re: New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, And the Soul of the Profession, October 30, 2007, http://911blogger.com/news/2010-10-15/pentagon-investigation-leader-paul-mlakar-obstructed-investigation-new-orleans-according-uc-berkeley-professor

[5] Kevin R. Ryan, Demolition Access to the WTC Towers: Part Four – Cleanup, 911Review.com, February 11, 2010, http://911review.com/articles/ryan/demolition_access_p4.html

[6] 911Research.com, NTSB Reports: Long-Hidden NTSB Reports Contain Flight Data, http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/ntsb.html

[7] David Ray Griffin, Ted Olson’s Report of Phone Calls from Barbara Olson on 9/11: Three Official Denials, GlobalResearch.ca, April 1, 2008, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8514

[8] The Family Steering Committee for an Independent 9/11 Commission, http://www.911independentcommission.org/

[9] Complete 911 Timeline, Hani Hanjour, http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&the_alleged_9/11_hijackers=haniHanjour

[10] See the FOIA responses obtained by the 9/11 Working Group of Bloomington, http://www.911workinggroup.org/

Also see the documents released by the 911 Commission, http://archives.gov/legislative/research/9-11/commission-memoranda.html

Many of the documents are just cover pages saying the information is still “Restricted”. These include interviews of the CIA agents, Prince Bandar, and the first responders.

[11] See 911Research.wtc7.net, http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/analysis/norad/index.html#andrews

[12] Matthew Everett, The F-16s That Failed to Protect Washington on 9/11: Was the Langley Jets’ Emergency Response Sabotaged?, Shoestring’s Blog, May 26, 2009, http://shoestring911.blogspot.com/2009/05/f-16s-that-failed-to-protect-washington.html

[13] 911Review.com, Location of Pentagon Strike, http://www.911review.com/attack/pentagon/location.html

[14] See FOIA response “5 AWA 356” received by the 9/11 Working Group of Bloomington  http://www.911workinggroup.org/p/foia-research.html

This says that, in March 2001, training school Jet Tech inquired about Hani Hanjour’s pilot license. On page 71 of 447 in this document we see the actual training record for Hanjour which has a note from 3/31/01 suggesting he had “no fundamental skills / poor English” and they “wondered if the cert was false.”  This is actual documentation from the 9/11 Commission that challenges the Commission’s conclusions (i.e. Hanjour was “the operations’s most experienced pilot”).

[15] FOIA response “5 AWA 356” (see above), on page 283, says that Zimmermann was a trainer at Jet Tech through 2000 (p 316), which included the period in 1999 when Hanjour was trained and his commercial cert was first issued.  The Commission’s report says that Hanjour “may have had training from a military pilot”.  Zimmermann had been in the German AF for 22 years, as an outstanding fighter pilot and trainer for two squadrons. He left the GAF in 1993 to spend 8 months at Star of Phoenix Aircraft, a company run by Charles W. Kallman, before going to Jet Tech. Kallman was later convicted (by Michael Chertoff) for fraud related to the October 2001 anthrax scare.

[16] See 911Research.wtc7.net, http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/defense/wargames.html#NRO_drill

[17] Arabesque, Why did a Civilian Air Traffic Controller do a Better Job of Defending the Skies on 9/11 than NORAD?, July 25, 2009, http://arabesque911.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-did-civilian-air-traffic-controller.html

[18] Victoria Ashley, To Con a Movement: Exposing CIT’s PentaCon ‘Magic Show’ http://www.911review.com/articles/ashley/pentacon_con.html

 https://digwithin.net/2011/07/09/two-dozen-questions-about-flight-77-and-the-pentagon-that-might-lead-to-justice/?fbclid=IwAR2gXZTjLNTD6BzatkZF9rYvPJM0EoZVKoGRCVulNFPcguf38G8hOY3ro_g

Het Koninklijke Huis als Onderdeel van de Amusementssector

Lang geleden schreef Friedrich Nietzsche: 

Things of the highest value must have another, separate origin of their own -- they cannot be derived from this ephemeral, seductive, deceptive, lowly world, from this mad chaos of confusion and desire.

Of zoals het in de Nederlandse vertaling van Jenseits von Gut und Böse (1886) wordt weergegeven:

de dingen van hoogste waarde moeten een andere, eigen oorsprong hebben – uit deze vergankelijke, verleidelijke, misleidende, onbeduidende wereld, uit deze warboel van wanen en begeerten kan men ze niet afleiden!

Desondanks blijft zowel de massa als de intelligentsia geloven in de 'vergankelijke, verleidelijke, misleidende, onbeduidende wereld' van de media, politiek en het koninklijke huis. Vanochtend gaf The Guardian een treffend voorbeeld daarvan onder de kop:

 'I'm done with this': Piers Morgan storms off Good Morning Britain – video

Piers Morgan stormed off the set of Good Morning Britain on Tuesday after his co-presenter, Alex Beresford, criticised the way he “continues to trash” the Duchess of Sussex.

His co-host, Susanna Reid, was forced to send the ITV show to an early break after the row boiled over and Morgan walked off live on air. Beresford called his behaviour “pathetic” and “diabolical”.

The pair had been discussing the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey, which aired in the UK on Monday night, that threatens to have devastating repercussions for the reputation of the UK monarchy.

Among the most damning disclosures in the interview was the claim that a member of the royal household had asked Prince Harry about about how dark the skin tone of their baby son, Archie, would be.

Buckingham Palace is under mounting pressure to respond to the racism allegations in the interview, which Harry has made clear are not related to his grandparents, the Queen and Prince Philip.

In the exchange on Tuesday morning, Beresford noted the “overwhelming” amount of negative press Harry and Meghan have been subject to since they got engaged and the impact it has had on the couple’s mental health.

Speaking to Oprah, Meghan detailed how her mental health had deteriorated amid the barrage of negative press while she was pregnant and she said she had suicidal thoughts during that time and was afraid to be left alone.

In reference to Morgan’s previous claim that he used to speak to Meghan and she “dropped him” once she started dating Harry, the GMB weather presenter Beresford told him: “She’s entitled to cut you off if she wants to … yet you continue to trash her”.

Beresford said: “I understand that you don’t like Meghan Markle, you’ve made it so clear a number of times on this programme, and I understand you’ve got a personal relationship with Meghan Markle and she cut you off. Has she said anything about you since she cut you off? I don’t think she has but yet you continue to trash her...”

Morgan, 55, then stormed out of the studio, saying: “OK, I’m done with this, sorry, no, can’t do this.” Beresford called his behaviour “pathetic” and “diabolical”.

He added: “I’m sorry but Piers spouts off on a regular basis and we all have to sit there and listen, 6.30 to seven o’clock yesterday was incredibly hard to watch, incredibly hard to watch. This is, you know, he has the ability to come in here and talk from a position where he doesn’t fully understand.”

Morgan later returned to the set and the discussion of the Sussexes’ interview resumed.

The ITV chief executive, Carolyn McCall, said a senior executive at the broadcaster had talked to Morgan about his criticism of Meghan.

Morgan, a former CNN presenter, has previously criticised the couple and said they seek publicity on their own terms without the scrutiny that comes with the job.

McCall told reporters that Kevin Lygo, ITV’s director of television, had spoken to Morgan in recent days about his comments. She added that she has not spoken to Morgan or seen Tuesday morning’s programme yet, given that she has been presenting ITV’s annual figures.

She said ITV has many voices, was committed to supporting mental health and that the company could not control what he said on Twitter. “ITV has many voices and we try and represent many voices on ITV every day,” she said, insisting GMB was “a balanced show”. “It’s not about one opinion.”

Morgan’s comments that he did not believe Meghan’s disclosure that she had suicidal thoughts have drawn criticism from the mental health charity Mind, which said it was “concerned and disappointed” by them.

The charity said: “It’s vital that, when people reach out for support or share their experiences of ill mental health, they are treated with dignity, respect and empathy.”

McCall added: “I completely believe what she [Meghan] said. It’s important everyone does.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/mar/09/piers-morgan-storms-off-set-of-good-morning-britain-in-meghan-row-alex-beresford  

Het was de Amerikaanse 'televisionhost' Bill O'Reilly die erop wees dat ‘in showbusiness, politiek en al het andere, perceptie de werkelijkheid is,’ terwijl eerder al Frank Zappa kort maar krachtig uiteenzette dat: 'Government is the Entertainment division of the military-industrial complex.' Daarentegen  zijn de Britse en Nederlandse commerciële pers er nog steeds niet van doordrongen dat een koninklijk huis in de 21ste eeuw domweg een vorm van amusement is. Mijn mainstream-collega's menen nog steeds dat deze poppenkast echt is, en laten zich daarom graag fêteren door de koninklijke figuranten van de amusementssector, en hechten daar een hogere waarde aan die het vorstenhuis van nature niet bezit, zoals de ware intelligentsia al in de negentiende eeuw besefte.  

Ik kom hier op terug. 

Humo en Bellingcat Propaganda

 

Humo en de bedriegers van Bellingcat

Posted on 8 maart 2021

Misschien het meest essentiële kernmerk van een journalist moet het kritisch omgaan met informatie zijn. En dat ontbreekt totaal in het gesprek van uw medewerker Sam Ooghe met Eliot Higgins. Het is niet omdat iemand, wie dan ook, iets verklaart dat dit ook nog de waarheid is. Aan blinde adoratie heeft een lezer niets. En die adoratie is te vinden in het gesprek met Bellingcat, alias Eliot Higgins.

Sarin

De eerste maal dat de man in het nieuws kwam was in augustus 2013 en de aanval met het zenuwgas sarin in de regio van Oost-Ghouta nabij de Syrische hoofdstad Damascus. 

Vrij snel na de aanval stelde de man, gesteund door Human Rights Watch en oud-militair C.J. Chivers van de New York Times, dat dit sarin afkomstig was van twee raketten. En door hun ligging in de grond tekende hij de route van die raketten uit. 

Het resultaat was dat die volgens hem... met absolute zekerheid afkomstig waren van de 104de brigade van het Syrische leger en afgeschoten waren van vlakbij het presidentiële paleis. 

Hoe dat Bellingcat, Human Rights Watch en The New Tork Times met deze leugens dachten de jihadisten in Syrië toch nog aan de macht te brengen. In de lente van 2011 hadden al Qaeda en de Syrische Moslimbroeders de opstand tegen de regering met steun van de NAVO op gang getrokken. En in de zomer van 2012 moest dat met de bestorming van de twee grootste steden Aleppo en Damascus zijn apotheose krijgen.

Het mislukte geheel en einde dat jaar had het Syrische leger zich herpakt. Daarom dat men in de zomer van 2013 een nieuwe poging waagde en ditmaal met directe Amerikaanse luchtsteun. Het bemachtigen van sarin moest hen met hulp van de VS toch de overwinning bezorgen. En dus werden C.J. Chivers, Human Rights Watch en Bellingcat ingeschakeld om het verhaal geloofwaardig te maken. 

Vermoedelijk waren Amerikaanse soldaten dan ook betrokken bij die aanval in Oost-Ghouta. Maar om nog onduidelijk reden deinsde Obama terug en bleef zijn luchtmacht in haar basissen. De oorlog duurt sindsdien op een lage schaal gewoon voort. Syriërs moeten lijden! 

Het onderzoek van de VN-commissie die deze serie vermeende aanvallen moest onderzoeken toonde echter een totaal ander beeld. Vooreerst was er maar een raket betrokken en geen twee. 

Nadien in december 2013 tijdens de persconferentie in de gebouwen van de VN verklaarde Ake Sellström, hoofd van de missie, dat die raket in het beste geval slechts 2 km had kunnen vliegen. Met andere woorden: Ze kwamen van vlakbij en vermoedelijk van die jihadisten die zo heel waarschijnlijk een Amerikaanse interventie wilden uitlokken. Wat nodig was want die opstand was toen al aan het mislukken. 

Dat is plausibel gemaakt door een artikel van de Nederlandse journalist Harald Doornbos en de Libanese Jenan Moussa die in het Amerikaanse tijdschrift Foreign Policy in detail omschreven hoe die jihadisten in december 2012 er in geslaagd waren om een legerbasis te veroveren waar sarin was opgeslagen.

In april 2013 was er trouwens met Khan al Assal het eerste verhaal over een aanval met vermoedelijk sarin waarbij een serie Syrische soldaten en burgers het leven lieten. 

Eliot Higgins, hier nog zonder baard, is volgens een document van het Britse ministerie van Buitenlands Zaken een bedrieger. Recent beweerde hij zelfs dat de Russen en de Syrische regering privé toegeven hebben dat men in de Syrische stad Douma chloor inderdaad als wapen heeft gebruikt. Een bron hiervoor had de man natuurlijk niet. 

Ook in de zaken rond Sergei en Julia Skripal met novichok en het neergeschoten Maleisische vliegtuig MH17 beschuldigde hij Russen bij naam dat zij schuldig waren. In de Nederlandse akte van beschuldiging rond MH17 komen hun namen niet eens voor. Aan fantasie is er bij Eliot Higgins geen enkel tekort. Zolang Washington natuurlijk betaalt.

Ook heeft de Amerikaanse president Barack Obama begin 2013 gewaarschuwd – officieel om reden van het gevaar – dat men die rebellen moest opleiden hoe ze met die wapens moesten omgaan. Nadien heeft de New York Times zich onderaan binnen de krant verontschuldigd voor die leugens. 

Human Rights Watch, welke toen in een persbericht opriep om Damascus te bombarderen, zweeg en weigerde op vragen hierover te antwoorden. Bellingcat bleef bij zijn leugens.

Een Leugenaar

In een intern document van het Britse ministerie voor Buitenlandse Zaken en het Gemenebest over de organisaties in Oost-Europa die zij financieel steunen staat letterlijk over Bellingcat het volgende te lezen: 

Bellingcat was somewhat discredited, both by spreading disinformation itself, and by being willing to produce reports for anyone willing to pay. (Bellingcat was zelf in diskrediet geraakt door zelf aan desinformatie te doen en door bereid te zijn rapporten de maken voor iedereen die wil betalen) (Bron: Upskilling to Upscale: Unleashing the Capacity of Civil Society to Counter Disinformation – EXPOSE NETWORK SCOPING – FINAL REPORT JUNE 2018 – Pagina 75)

Bellingcat wordt vooral door de VS gefinancierd. Meer is niet nodig want over hun praktijken kan men nu al probleemloos een stevig boek vullen. Maar dat is natuurlijk voor iemand die kritisch leert vragen stellen. 

Willy Van Damme

Lezersbrief aan Humo naar aanleiding van het hagiografisch interview met Eliot Higgins, alias Bellingcat in Humo van 2 maart 2021.

https://willyvandamme.wordpress.com/2021/03/08/humo-en-de-bedriegers-van-bellingcat/#comments

We Shouldn’t Be Funding a New Cold War With China

 

OP-ED

 

WAR & PEACE

In the Middle of a Pandemic, We Shouldn’t Be Funding a New Cold War With China

President Joe Biden, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, tours the Pentagon on February 10, 2021, in Washington, D.C. 

ALEX BRANDON / POOL / AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

BY 

Mandy Smithberger, 

TomDispatch

PUBLISHED

March 2, 2021

This country is in a crisis of the first order. More than half a million of us have died thanks to Covid-19. Food insecurity is on the rise, with nearly 24 million Americans going hungry, including 12 million children. Unemployment claims filed since the pandemic began have now reached 93 million. Given the level of damage to the less wealthy parts of this society, it’s little wonder that most Americans chose pandemic recovery (including the quick distribution of vaccines) as their top priority issue.

Keep in mind that our democracy is suffering as well. After all, former president Donald Trump incited an insurrection when he wasn’t able to win at the polls, an assault on the Capitol in which military veterans were overrepresented among those committed to reversing the election results (and endangering legislators as well). If you want a mood-of-the-moment fact, consider this: even after Joe Biden’s election, QAnon followers continued to insist that Trump could still be inaugurated to his second term in office. Addressing economic and political instability at home will take significant resources and focus, including calling to account those who so grossly mishandled the country’s pandemic response and stoked the big lie of questioning the legitimacy of Biden’s election victory.

If, however, you weren’t out here in the real world, but in there where the national security elite exists, you’d find that the chatter would involve few of the problems just mentioned. And only in our world would such a stance seem remarkably disconnected from reality. In their world, the “crisis” part of the present financial crisis is a fear, based on widespread rumors and reports about the Biden budget to come, that the Pentagon’s funding might actually get, if not a genuine haircut, then at least a trim — something largely unheard of in the twenty-first century.

The Pentagon’s boosters and their allies in the defense industry respond to such fears by insisting that no such trim could possibly be in order, that competition with China must be the prime focus of this moment and of the budget to come. Assuming that China’s rise is, in fact, a genuine problem, it’s not one that’s likely to be solved either in the near future or in a military fashion (not, at least, without disaster for the world), and it’s certainly not one that should be prioritized during a catastrophic pandemic.

While there are genuine concerns about what China’s rise might mean for the United States, it’s important to recognize just how much harm those trying to distract us from the very real problems at hand are likely to inflict on our health and actual security. Since the beginning of the pandemic, in fact, those unwilling to accept our failures or respond adequately to the disease at hand have blamed outside forces, most notably China, for otherwise preventable havoc to American lives and the economy.

Trump and his allies tried to shirk accountability for their failure to respond to the pandemic by pushing xenophobic and false characterizations of Covid-19 as the “China virus” or the “kung flu.” In a similar fashion, the national security elites hope that focusing on building up our military and building new nuclear weaponswith China in mind will distract time and energy from making needed changes at home. But those urging us to increase Pentagon spending to compete with China in the middle of a pandemic are, in reality, only compounding the damage to our country’s recovery.

Militarizing the Future

Given the last two decades, you won’t be surprised to know that this misplaced assessment of the real threat to the public has a firm grip on Washington right now. As my colleague Dan Grazier at the Project On Government Oversight pointed out recently, confirmation hearings for Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III and Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks included more than 70 (sometimes ominous) mentions of China.

So again, no surprise that only a few weeks after those hearings, Biden announcedthe creation of a new China task force at the Pentagon. As the press announcementmade clear, that group is going to be a dream for the military-industrial complex since it will, above all, focus on developing advanced “defense” technologies to stare down the China “threat” and so further militarize the future. In other words, the Pentagon’s projected threat assessments and their wonder-weapon solutions will be at the forefront of Washington thinking — and, therefore, funding, even during this pandemic.

That’s why it’s easy enough to predict where such a task force will lead. A similar panel in 2018, including lobbyists, board members, and contractors from the arms industry, warned that competition with China would require a long-term increase in funding for the Pentagon of 3% to 5%. That could mean an almost unimaginable future Department of Defense budget of $971.9 billion in fiscal year 2024. To pay for it, they suggested, Congress should consider cutting social security and other kinds of safety-net spending.

Even before Covid-19 hit, the economic fragility of so many Americans should have made that kind of recommendation irresponsible. In the midst of a pandemic, it’s beyond dangerous. Still, it betrays a crucial truth about the military-industrial complex: its key figures see the U.S. economy as something that should serve their needs, not the other way around.

Of course, the giants of the weapons industry have long had a direct seat at the table in Washington. Despite being the first Black secretary of defense, for instance, Lloyd Austin III remains typical of the Pentagon establishment in the sense that he comes to the job directly from a seat on the board of directors of weapons giant Raytheon. And he’s in good company. After all, many of the administration’s recent appointees are drawn from key Washington think tanks supported by the weapons industry.

For instance, more than a dozen former staffers from, or people affiliated with, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) have joined the Biden administration. A recent report by the Revolving Door Project found that CNAS had repeatedly accepted the sort of funding that went comfortably with recommendations it was making that “would directly benefit some of the think tank’s donors, including military contractors and foreign governments.” When it came to confronting China, for instance, CNAS figures urged the Department of Defense to “sustain and enhance” defense contractors so that they would become ever more “robust, flexible, and resilient” in a faceoff with that country. 

Sadly, even as the Pentagon’s budget remains largely unchallenged, there’s been a sudden reawakening — especially in Republican ranks — to the version of fiscal conservatism that looks askance at providing relief to communities and businesses suffering around the country. Recent debates in Washington about the latest pandemic relief bill suggest once again that the much-ballyhooed principles of “responsibility” and “fiscal conservatism” apply to everyone — except, of course, the Pentagon.

Putting Covid-19 Relief Spending in Perspective

The price tag for the relief bill presently being debated in Congress, $1.9 trillion, is certainly significant, but it’s not far from the kind of taxpayer support national security agencies normally receive every year. In 2020, for instance, the real national security budget request surpassed $1.2 trillion. That request included not only the Pentagon, but other costs of war, including care for veterans and military retirement benefits.

Over the years, such costs have proven monumental. The Department of Defense alone, for example, has received more than $10.6 trillion over the past 20 years. That included $2 trillion for its overseas contingency operations account, a war-fighting fund used by both the Pentagon and lawmakers to circumvent congressionally imposed spending caps. Reliance on that account, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office assured Congress, only made it likelier that taxpayers would fund more expensive and less optimal solutions to America’s forever wars.

In the past, the justification for such excessive national-security spending rested on the idea that the Defense Department was the key to keeping Americans safe. As a result, the Pentagon’s ever-escalating requests for money were approved by Congress year after year without real opposition. Disproportionate funding for that institution has, however, come at a significant cost.

Caps on non-defense spending under the Budget Control Act of 2011 meant that civilian agencies were already underfunded when the pandemic hit. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out, “Overall funding for programs outside veterans’ medical care remains below its level a decade ago.” The consequences of that underspending can also be seen in our crumbling roads and infrastructure, to which, in its last report in 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave a D+— and the situation has only grown worse since then.

Job protection is the other common refrain for those defending high funding levels for the Pentagon and, during a pandemic with such devastating employment consequences, such a concern can hardly be dismissed. But studies have consistently shown that military spending is a remarkably poor job creator compared to almost any other kind of spending. Some of us may still remember World War II’s Rosie the Riveter and mid-twentieth-century union support for defense budgets as engines for job creation. Those assumptions are, however, sorely out of date. Investing in healthcare, combating climate change, or rebuilding infrastructure are all significantly more effective job creators than yet more military spending.

Of course, non-military stimulus spending has been far from perfect. Even measuring the effects of the first relief package passed by Congress has proven difficult, especially since the Trump administration ignored the law when it came to reporting on just how many jobs that spending either preserved or created. Still, there’s no question that non-military stimulus efforts are more effective, by orders of magnitude, than defense spending when it comes to job creation.

Needed: A New Funding Strategy to Weather Future Storms

The uncomfortable truth (even for those who would like to see a trillion dollars in annual Pentagon spending) is that such funding won’t make us safer, possibly far less so. Recent studies of preventable military aviation crashes indicate that, disturbingly enough, given the way the Pentagon spends taxpayer funds, more money can actually make us less safe.

Somewhere along the line in this pandemic moment, Washington needs to redefine the meaning of both “national security” and “national interest.” In a world in which California burns and Texas freezes, in which more than half-a-million Americans have already been felled by Covid-19, it’s time to recognize how damaging the over-funding of the Pentagon and a myopic focus on an ever more militarized cold war with China are likely to be to this country. As the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft’s Stephen Wertheim has argued, it’s increasingly clear that an American strategy focused on chasing global military supremacy into the distant future no longer serves any real definition of national interest.

Vanderbilt law professor Ganesh Sitaraman recently pointed out at Foreign Affairsthat “the coming era will be one of health crises, climate shocks, cyberattacks, and geoeconomic competition among great powers. What unites those seemingly disparate threats is that each is not so much a battle to be won as a challenge to be weathered.” While traditional defense threats still loom large in what passes for national debate in Washington, the most likely (and potentially most devastating) threats to public health and safety aren’t actually in the Pentagon’s wheelhouse.

Weathering those future crises will continue to require innovation and creativity, which means ensuring that we are investing adequately not in the hypersonic weaponry of some future imagined war but in education and public health now. Particularly in the near term, as we try to rebuild jobs and businesses lost to this pandemic, even the Pentagon must be forced to make better use of the staggering resources it already receives from increasingly embattled American taxpayers. Rushing to produce yet more useless (and sometimes poorly produced) weapons systems and technology will only increase the fragility of both the military and the civilian society it’s supposed to protect.

Make no mistake: the addiction to Pentagon spending is a bipartisan problem in Washington. Still, change is in order. The problems we face at home are too overwhelming to be ignored. We can’t continue to let the appetites of the military-industrial complex crowd out the needs of the rest of us.

Mandy Smithberger

Mandy Smithberger is the director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project On Government Oversight.

MORE BY THIS AUTHOR…

https://truthout.org/articles/in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic-we-shouldnt-be-funding-a-new-cold-war-with-china/

Hoe Groen-Links Burgemeester Halsema het Demonstratierecht Uitholt

 

VERKLARING: HOE GEMEENTE AMSTERDAM HET 

DEMONSTRATIERECHT UITHOLT

VERKLARING: HOE GEMEENTE AMSTERDAM HET DEMONSTRATIERECHT UITHOLT

Amsterdam, 5 maart 2021

Ewout van den Berg, Comité 21 maart  

Sanne Maassen van den Brink, klimaatalarm Amsterdam    

 

Volgens burgemeester Halsema is demonstreren ‘bijkans heilig’, maar het wordt hoog tijd dat de gemeente Amsterdam de daad bij het woord voegt.

In maart worden er in de hoofdstad verschillende grote protesten georganiseerd. Zo vindt op zondag 14 maart de landelijke actiedag voor klimaatrechtvaardigheid plaats en in het weekend na de verkiezingen de jaarlijkse antiracismedemonstratie. Deze protesten hebben plaats op het Museumplein en worden georganiseerd door brede maatschappelijke coalities. Maar als het aan de gemeente ligt, worden beide acties verbannen uit het centrum en wordt het aantal deelnemers radicaal beperkt.

Deze vergaande inperking van het demonstratierecht is onderdeel van een patroon. Toen in januari een breed protest tegen fascisme stond gepland op het Museumplein, werden de organisatoren op de avond van tevoren gedwongen het protest te verplaatsen naar het Westerpark en het aantal deelnemers te beperken tot 500 mensen. Doordat het besluit op het allerlaatste moment kwam, was het lastig zich hier nog tegen te verzetten. Ook nu weer worden organisaties zo lang mogelijk aan het lijntje gehouden. 

De gemeente Amsterdam verschuilt zich voor deze beperkingen achter de coronapandemie. Maar sinds de onverwacht hoge opkomst tijdens het Black Lives Matter-protest op de Dam op 1 juni 2020 hebben activisten snel geleerd. Vijftienduizend mensen deden een week later mee aan een anderhalvemeterprotest in het Nelson Mandelapark. Op 9 september stonden drieduizend mensen op het Museumplein in solidariteit met de vluchtelingen in kamp Moria op Lesbos. Op het Museumplein is er met inachtneming van de maatregelen plek voor zeker 7.500 mensen. Veilig demonstreren is mogelijk en moet gefaciliteerd worden door burgemeester Halsema. 

In haar communicatie met de organiserende coalities stelt de gemeente dat een protest zou leiden tot veel ‘reisbewegingen’. Maar vergeleken met de drukte van een gemiddelde ochtend- of avondspits in het openbaar vervoer valt dit ontzettend mee. Bovendien komen de meeste mensen lopend of met de fiets. 

Ook zou het Museumplein volgens de gemeente een onoverzichtelijke locatie zijn. Maar waarom is het Westerpark, dat bekend staat om haar nauwe doorgangetjes, dan een beter alternatief? Vanwege de beperkte toegangswegen is het vooral beter af te sluiten door de gemeente.

Daarnaast neemt de gemeente het zelf helemaal niet zo nauw met de coronamaatregelen. Tijdens het klimaatprotest van afgelopen vrijdag hielden demonstranten zich aan de anderhalve meter, maar werden meer dan 100 mensen in overvolle en slecht geventileerde bussen door de burgemeester ‘bestuurlijk verplaatst’.

Wat de arbitraire beperkingen nog moeilijker te verkroppen maakt, is de dubbele standaard ten opzichte van de complotdenkers en rechtsextremisten die nu wekelijks op het Museumplein staan. Door geen afstand te houden brengt deze groep de gezondheid van ons allemaal in gevaar. De afgelopen weken werden hun protesten gewoon toegestaan en pas na twee uur afgebroken. Geen wonder dat de leiders van deze beweging, zoals de rechtsextremist Willem Engel, dit als een overwinning zien.

De afgelopen jaren heeft extreemrechts demonstraties en bijeenkomsten van KOZP in Den Haag en Maastricht met geweld onmogelijk gemaakt. De gemeente Amsterdam helpt extreemrechts een handje door óns naar de randen van de stad te verbannen en corona-ontkenners die lak hebben aan de gezondheidsrisico’s voor anderen hun gang te laten gaan. Als het demonstratierecht ‘bijkans heilig’ is, wordt het hoog tijd dat de gemeente hier ook naar gaat handelen.

https://21maartcomite.nl/?p=2521&fbclid=IwAR3si0M-3bWOSB5CKdcxScTpWHRYVFEVkmZkOeoADbLMsS3_m6ZDPq2kS90