The US Military — The Trllion Dollar Welfare Queen: Military Unveils Another Multi-Billion Dollar Killing Machine

The B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber
While the federal deficit expands, cities go bankrupt and folks are forced to drink lead ladened water - The Pentagon Parasites get a new ultra-expensive toy.

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Air Force reveals first image of B-21 Long Range Strike Bomber

By Thom Patterson
It's an image that is being picked apart by military aviation experts around the world. The first official drawing of the U.S. Air Force's B-21 bomber.

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James unveiled the artist rendering Friday based on the initial design concept.

Black, sleek, with swept-back wings and stealthy design make this aircraft look a lot like another famous bomber — the B-2 Spirit.

James seemed to hint at that during her announcement. "The B-21 has been designed from the beginning based on a set of requirements that allows the use of existing and mature technology," she said at the Air Force Association Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Florida.

At first glance, the drawing seems basic. But make no mistake, aviation geeks and America's military competitors will be picking it apart for clues to learn more about this very expensive and powerful weapons system. China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and just about anyone in the world involved in developing advanced stealth technology will look at this drawing for any indication of where U.S. design is headed.

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Pentagon Stealing Taxpayers Blind — $43 Million for a Useless Gas Station in Afghanistan

The Pentagram and it's blood thirsty contractors have no shame whatsoever when it comes to ripping off American taxpayers with worthless projects — while cities are declaring bankruptcy and some Americans go homeless.

By Idrees Ali
The U.S. Department of Defense spent nearly $43 million on a gas station in northern Afghanistan and has been unable to explain why it cost so much, a U.S. special inspector reported on Monday.

The Pentagon “charged the American taxpayers $43 million for what is likely to be the world’s most expensive gas station,” said John Sopko, head of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, a congressionally mandated body. The amount was spent between 2011 and 2014 on construction and initial implementation of the station.

The gas station in Sheberghan, Afghanistan opened in 2012 and was created to show that compressed natural gas could be used in Afghanistan in cars effectively.

However, the task force behind the project closed operations in March and for that reason, according to the report, the Department of Defense said it did not possess “the personnel expertise to address these questions.”

“Frankly, I find it both shocking and incredible that (the Defense Department) asserts that it no longer has any knowledge,” the report said. It added that the task force reported directly to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and was an $800 million program.

The report found that a compressed natural gas filling station in neighbouring Pakistan costs no more than $500,000 to construct. That would make the gas station in Afghanistan more than 140 times more expensive.

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The Russian Army Asserts its Superiority in Conventional Warfare

Russian-made Sukhoi Su-34. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Moscow’s military intervention in Syria has not simply overturned the fortunes of war and spread panic throughout the ranks of the jihadist groups. It has also shown the rest of the world the current capacities of the Russian army in situations of real warfare. To everyone’s astonishment, it has proved to possess a system of signal jamming capable of rendering the Atlantic Alliance deaf and blind. Despite a far superior budget, the United States have just lost their military domination.

By Thierry Meyssan, Translated by Pete Kimberley
The Russian military intervention in Syria, which was at first considered a risky bet by Moscow against the jihadists, has transformed itself into a demonstration of power which upsets the strategic balance of the world [1]. Originally conceived to isolate and then destroy the armed groups equipped by states who support the jihadists in violation of the pertinent resolutions of the Security Council, the operation has now blinded all the Western actors and their allies.

The Pentagon is now divided between those who tend to minimise the facts while attempting to find a weakness in the Russian system, and those who, on the contrary, consider that the United States have lost their superiority in terms of conventional wafare, and that it will take long years before they are able to recover it [2].

We remember that in 2008, during the war in South Ossetia, although the Russian forces had managed to repel the Georgian attack, they had above all shown the world the deplorable state of their equipment. And only ten days ago, ex-Secretary of Defence Robert Gates and ex-National Security advisor Condoleezza Rice were describing the Russian army as a « second-rate » force. [3].

So how has the Russian Federation managed to rebuild its defence industry, and to design and produce very high-technology weapons without the Pentagon measuring the importance of the phenomenon, and allowing itself to be over-taken ? Have the Russians used all their new weapons in Syria, or do they have other surprises in reserve ? [4]

The confusion in Washington is so great that the White House has cancelled the official visit by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and a delegation of the Russian Chief of Staff. This decision was taken after an identical visit to Turkey by a Russian military delegation. There is little point in discussing the operations in Syria, because the Pentagon does not know what is happening there. Furious, the « liberal hawks » and the neo-conservatives are demanding a relaunch of the military budget, and have succeeded in stopping the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

In the most bizarre fashion, the Atlantist commentators who are witnessing the out-distancing of US military power are now denouncing the dangers of Russian imperialism [5]. And yet Russia is only acting to save the Syrian People, and proposing that other states work in collaboration with them, while the United States, when they enjoyed military pre-eminence, imposed their economic system and destroyed a number of states.

We are obliged to note that the hesitant declarations by Washington, published during the Russian deployment before the offensive, should not be interpreted as a slow political adaptation of official rhetoric, but should be understood for what they actually reveal – the fact that the Pentagon did not know the terrain. It had become deaf and blind.

A system of generalised jamming

We know, since the incident of the USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea on the 12th April 2014, that the Russian Air Force has at its disposition a weapon which enables it to jam all radars, all control circuits, all systems for the transmission of information, etc. [6]. Since the beginning of its military deployment, Russia had installed a jamming centre at Hmeymim, to the North of Latakia. Then, suddenly, the USS Donald Cook incident occurred, but this time within a perimeter of 300 kilometres – which includes the NATO base at Incirlik (Turkey). And this is still going on. Because the event happened during a sand-storm of historical proportions, the Pentagon first thought its measuring equipment had malfunctioned, but then discovered that it had been jammed. Completely.

Modern conventional warfare is based on what is known as « C4i » - an acronym which corresponds to the English terms « Command », « Control », « Communications », « Computer » and « intelligence ». The satellites, planes and drones, ships and submarines, tanks and now even the combatants themselves, are all connected to one another by a system of permanent communication, which enables the Chiefs of Staff to oversee and command the fighting more efficiently. It is this entire system - NATO’s nervous system – which is presently jammed in Syria and part of Turkey.

According to the Romanian expert Valentin Vasilescu, Russia has installed several Krasukha-4, equipped its planes with SAP-518/ SPS-171 jamming equipment (like the plane that overflew the USS Donald Cook), and its helicopters with the Richag-AV system. Besides this, it is using the spy-ship Priazovye (Project 864 Vishnya class, to use NATO terminology), in the Mediterranean [7].

It seems that Russia has agreed not to interfere with Israëli communications – a US preserve – which means that it will not deploy its jamming system in South Syria.

Russian planes have enjoyed the privilege of violating Turkish air space many times. Their purpose was not to measure the reaction time of the Turkish Air Force, but to verify the efficiency of their jamming capabililies in the area concerned, and also to keep an eye the installations which are at the disposition of the jihadists in Turkey.

High-performance Cruise missiles

Russia has used several new weapons, like the 26 stealth (or LO technology) cruise missiles (3M-14T Kaliber-NK), equivalent to the American RGM/UGM-109E Tomahawk [8]. Fired by its fleet in the Caspian Sea – with no military necessity – they reached and destroyed 11 targets situated at 1,500 kilometres distance, in the non-jammed area – so that NATO could appreciate their performance.

These missiles crossed Iranian and Iraqi air space at an altitude varying between 50 and 100 metres, depending on the terrain, and flying just four kilometres away from a US drone. None of them were lost, compared to US missiles, which have a margin of error beteen 5 % and 10 %, depending on the models [9]. At the same time, this salvo demonstrated the waste of the incredible sums of money spent on the useless « anti-missile shield » built by the Pentagon around Russia –even though it was officially intended for protection against Iranian launch sites.

Taking into account that these missiles can be fired from submarines situated anywhere in the oceans, and that they can transport nuclear warheads, the Russians have clearly made up for their delay as far as launchers are concerned.

Finally, in the case of a nuclear confrontation, the Russian Federation would be destroyed by the United States – and vice versa – but would win in the case of a conventional war.

Only the Russians and the Syrians are capable of evaluating the situation on the ground. All the other military information from other sources, including the jihadists, are without foundation, since only Russia and Syria have an overall picture of the terrain. Moscow and Damascus intend to profit as far as possible from their advantage, and are therefore keeping their operations secret.

From the official communiqués and the confidences of certain officers, we may conclude that at least 5,000 jihadists have been killed, including several leaders of Ahrar el-Sham, al-Qaïda and the Islamic Emirate. At least 10,000 mercenaries have fled to Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. The Syrian Arab Army and Hezbollah have re-captured the area without waiting for the promised Iranian reinforcements.

The bombing campaign should end by the Orthodox Christmas. The question which will then have to be answered is whether or not Russia will be authorised to finish its job by pursuing the jihadists who have found refuge in Turkey, Iraq and Jordan. Failing this, Syria will have been saved, but the problem will still not have been resolved. The Muslim Brotherhood will not fail to seek revenge, and the United States will not fail to use them again against other targets.

Keep in mind:

The Russian operation in Syria was designed to deprive the jihadist groups of the support they receive from various states under the cover of aid for the « democratic opposition ».
The operation demanded the use of new weaponry, and transformed itself into a demonstration of Russian force.
Russia now has the capacity for jamming all NATO communications. It has now become the primary power in terms of conventional warfare
This performance has stoked discord in Washington. It is still too soon to say whether this will favour President Obama, or whether it will be used by the « liberal hawks » to justify an increase in the military budget.

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[1] “Russian Military Uses Syria as Proving Ground, and West Takes Notice”, Steven Lee Myers & Eric Schmitt, The New York Times, October 14, 2015.

[2] “Top NATO general: Russians starting to build air defense bubble over Syria”, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, The Washington Post, September 29, 2015.

[3] “How America can counter Putin’s moves in Syria”, by Condoleezza Rice, Robert M. Gates, Washington Post (United States), Voltaire Network, 8 October 2015.

[4] The only available study is well below reality : Russia’s quiet military revolution and what it means for Europe, Gustav Gressel, European Council on Foreign Relations, October 2015.

[5] «Russisches Syrien-Abenteuer: Das Ende der alten Weltordnung», Matthias Schepp, Der Spiegel, 10. Oktober 2015.

[6] “What frightened the USS Donald Cook so much in the Black Sea?”, Voltaire Network, 8 November 2014.

[7] «Cu ce arme ultrasecrete a cîstigat Putin suprematia în razboiul radioelectronic din Siria ?», Valentin Vasilescu, Ziarul de gardã, 12 octobre 2015. Version française : «L’arme ultrasecrète qui permet à Poutine d’assoir sa suprématie dans la guerre radio électronique en Syrie ?», Traduction Avic, Réseau international.

[8] “KALIBRating the foe: strategic implications of the Russian cruise missiles’ launch”, by Vladimir Kozin, Oriental Review (Russia), Voltaire Network, 14 October 2015.

[9] After having announced the opposite, the United States were obliged to admit the facts : “First on CNN: U.S. officials say Russian missiles heading for Syria landed in Iran”, Barbara Starr & Jeremy Diamond, CNN, October 8, 2015. “Moscow rejects CNN’s report on Russian missile landing in Iran”, IRNA, October 8, 2015. “Daily Press Briefing”, John Kirby, US State Department, October 8, 2015. “Пентагон не комментирует сообщения о якобы упавших в Иране ракетах РФ”, RIA-Novosti, October 8, 2015.

Reprinted with permission from Voltairenet

America's 'Welfare State' Still Exists — It Migrated to the US Military

Long in retreat in the US, the welfare state found a haven in an unlikely place – the military, where it thrived for decades

While US cities declare bankruptcy and the numbers of homeless increase, the US military has unlimited amounts of
cash to waste on aircraft like the F35 — A half trillion dollar piece of garbage that can't even out perform aircraft a generation older.

By Jennifer Mittelstadt
Over the past four decades in the United States, as the country has slashed its welfare state and employers gutted traditional job benefits, growing numbers of people, especially from the working class, grasped for a new safety net – the military. Everyone recognises that the US armed forces have become a global colossus. But few know that, along with bases and bombs, the US military constructed its own massive welfare state. In the waning decades of the 20th century, with US prosperity in decline, more than 10 million active‑duty personnel and their tens of millions of family members turned to the military for economic and social security.

RELATED STORY: The $400 Billion Dollar 'Joke': The 'New' Stealth Fighter Is 'Ten Years Behind' the Airplanes It Will Replace

The military welfare state is hidden in plain sight, its welfare function camouflaged by its war-making auspices. Only the richest Americans could hope to access a more systematic welfare network. Military social welfare features a web of near-universal coverage for soldiers and their families – housing, healthcare, childcare, family counselling, legal assistance, education benefits, and more. The programmes constitute a multi-billion-dollar-per-year safety net, at times accounting for nearly 50 per cent of the Department of Defense budget (DoD). Their real costs spread over several divisions of the defence budget creating a system so vast that the DoD acknowledged it could not accurately reckon its total expense.

Most Americans would not imagine that the military welfare state has anything to do with them. After all, in the era since the end of the draft and the advent of the all-volunteer force, military service has become the province of the few: just 0.5 per cent of Americans now serve in the armed forces.

But the history of the military welfare state tells us a great deal about citizenship and welfare. Its rise correlated with and, in some instances, caused the decline of the civilian welfare state, creating a diverging and unequal set of entitlements. And the recent transformation of the military welfare state – a massive privatisation and outsourcing – signals an even more dangerous future for the civilian welfare state.

The US military has always performed social welfare of some kind or another. Over its long history, it provided daily support to its conscripts – food, shelter, clothing and medical care – and more elaborate benefits such as homes, family support and clubs for the career force and officers. The military also rewarded citizen conscripts for their faithful service during wartime. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Army offered veterans land or a cash bounty. After the Civil War, the military offered veterans pensions. And after the Second World War, millions of former service personnel were guaranteed unprecedented education, training and housing subsidies.

Military leaders embarked on a new and more ambitious social welfare programme after 1973. That year, President Richard Nixon and Congress ended the draft and mandated an all-volunteer force. Military leaders could no longer force citizens to join – they had to convince them. And one of their most vital tools was social welfare benefits.

Unlike European countries that provided nearly universal social welfare to all citizens, the US had only a patchwork social welfare system consisting of various public and private safety nets. Military leaders stepped into the gaps between them. They decided, in the words of the army motto, ‘to take care of their own’. They expanded the benefits traditionally reserved for the relatively few members of the career force and officers to every single member of the volunteer force and his or her family.

This post-1973 military welfare state played a different role in US life than most earlier types of military welfare. For one, military welfare no longer served as a reward for the services of citizen soldiers. Instead, it sustained the volunteer force: it lured new recruits, supported them while on duty, and convinced them to re‑enlist.

The military welfare state post-1973 never stimulated social welfare for the populace: quite the opposite

More importantly, earlier versions of military welfare catalysed broader social welfare programmes for the US populace. Civil War pensions pioneered federal retirement and disability payments, and paved the way for civilian retirement pensions. Veterans’ healthcare after the First World War created the first model of government health provision. And the Second World War-era GI Bill vaulted millions of former civilian draftees and their families into the middle class, legitimising government support for education and housing for all Americans.

The modern military welfare state of the post-1973 era never stimulated social welfare for the populace. Quite the opposite. As a smaller number and narrower cross-section of Americans volunteered for military service in the late 20th century, the divide between the military and civilians grew. So, too, did the divide between the new military welfare state and the existing civilian one. From the 1970s to the early ’90s, while many civilian welfare programmes contracted, public and private unions declined, and employers cut private employment benefits, the military expanded its welfare functions.

How did this happen?

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'Invisibility Cloak' On Verge of Becoming Reality — You Should Assume The US Military Already Has One

The US military-industrial complex is assumed to be from 25 to 50 years ahead of civilian science. With their virtually unlimited budget, it would be wise to assume the US military already has classified "invisibility" technology.—Ronald David Jackson

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Light reflects off the cloak (red arrows) as if it were reflecting off a flat mirror in this 3D illustration of a
metasurfaceskin cloak made from an ultrathin layer of nanoantennas (gold blocks) covering an arbitrarily
shaped object is shown in this handout image courtesy Reuters/Xiang Zhang group/Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory

 

Now You See It, Now You Don't: Invisibility Cloak Nears Reality

 

By Will Dunham
A cloak of invisibility may be common in science fiction but it is not so easy in the real world. New research suggests such a device may be moving closer to reality.

Scientists said on Thursday they have successfully tested an ultra-thin invisibility cloak made of microscopic rectangular gold blocks that, like skin, conform to the shape of an object and can render it undetectable with visible light.

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The researchers said while their experiments involved cloaking a miniscule object they believe the technology could be made to conceal larger objects, with military and other possible applications.

The cloak, 80 nanometers in thickness, was wrapped around a three-dimensional object shaped with bumps and dents. The cloak's surface rerouted light waves scattered from the object to make it invisible to optical detection.

It may take five to 10 years to make the technology practical to use, according to Xiang Zhang, director of the Materials Sciences Division of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

"We do not see fundamental roadblocks. But much more work needs to be done," said Zhang, whose research was published in the journal Science.

The technology involves so-called metamaterials, which possess properties not present in nature. Their surfaces bear features much smaller than the size of a wavelength of light. They redirect incoming light waves, shifting them away from the object being cloaked.

The cloaking "skin" boasts microscopic light-scattering antennae that make light bouncing off an object look as if it were reflected by a flat mirror, rendering the object invisible.

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America's Trillion-Dollar Navy Is Highly Vulnerable to Inexpensive Anti-Ship Technology — The Ships are 'Floating Coffins'

During the recent crisis in Crimea the US sent a guided missile destroyer, the USS Donald Cook, into the Black Sea. A single Russian SU-24 fighter bomber  conducted simulated bombing runs on the destroyer. The SU-24 was reported to have frozen the destroyer's defense systems with an electronic warfare device and simulated shooting 12 missiles at the destroyer. "After this incident, the USS Donald Cook chose to immediately and at full speed move towards a port in Romania, where 27 shocked crew members asked for dismissal from the service."

The guided missile destroyer USS Donald Cook: It looks lethal - Maybe against a "third world" navy or civilian
airliners.. But against modern weaponry it's little more than a floating coffin. The $2 billion dollar ship was
"destroyed" during simulated bombing runs by a $25 million dollar Russian SU-24.

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How Long Would the US Navy Survive in a Shooting War?

By Marc Hopf
America sees itself as a ruler of the world’s oceans. After all, the country — which spends 10 times more on its military forces than the following nine countries — has by far the biggest naval force. And as since the Vietnam War they have dealt only with militarily inferior opponents, they are extremely self-confident in their belief that they can defeat everything and everyone. It is not surprising that some young Americans even wear T-shirts with the logo: “United States Navy: The Sea is Ours.”

RELATED STORY: What Frightened the USS Donald Cook So Much in the Black Sea?

Perhaps we need to meet this pride and arrogance with some understanding in view of the numerical superiority of the U.S. Navy. In total, it currently has 10 operational aircraft carriers (two in reserve), while Russia and China have only one each.

Aircraft carriers are the great pride of the U.S. Navy and are also perfect to underline visually the claim of the ruler of the seas. They are therefore well liked by U.S. presidents as stages for delivering speeches when the time comes to tell the people that this unique nation has once again won a heroic victory.

What thrilling moments these were (at least for Americans) when George W. Bush landed in a fighter jet on the USS Abraham Lincoln (no, not as a pilot) and then, with the words “mission accomplished” and “a job well done,” proclaimed the end of the Iraq war to the people. As we know, the destruction of Iraq was carried out by the Americans under the label of Operation Iraqi Freedom. We may still ask ourselves what it had to do with freedom, but that’s a different story.

In addition to their suitability as impressive orator stages, the aircraft carriers also fulfill, of course, a military purpose. They can be considered as small floating airports, which ship up to 100 fighter jets to the scene of the action. Since they are equipped with the best weapons, radar, and defense systems, until now they have experienced almost no threat, especially since in the past the U.S. Navy parked them preferably off the coasts of defenseless desert states.

But what would it look like if the power of the U.S. Navy met its peer? The title of this article already implies the answer: not so good, and it could be that the patriotic U.S. Navy fans would hide their T-shirts quickly in the closet.

Back in the 70s, Admiral Rickover, the “father of nuclear navy,” had to answer the question before the U.S. Senate: “How long would our aircraft carriers survive in a battle against the Russian Navy?” His response caused disillusionment: “Two or three days before they sink, maybe a week if they stay in the harbor.”

The reason for the greatly reduced lifetime of the aircraft carrier in a battle against the Russians is a deadly danger below the water: modern submarines — especially Russian ones — are so powerful and difficult to locate that they can send large battleships and aircraft carriers to the bottom of the sea in the blink of an eye. The weakness of the U.S. Navy, therefore, is their vulnerability when they compete with an enemy that — using the language of the Americans — dominates the seas below the water surface. Of course, the U.S. military analysts are aware of this weakness, so one wonders why the U.S. Navy still adheres to the doctrine “the bigger the better” and continues to rely on an armada of aircraft carriers and large battleships.

Colonel Douglas McGregor, a decorated combat veteran, author of four books, a PhD and military analyst, gives the answer: “Strategically, it makes no sense, but the construction of large ships, of course, creates a lot of jobs.”

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The $400 Billion Dollar 'Joke': The 'New' Stealth Fighter Is 'Ten Years Behind' the Airplanes It Will Replace

America’s $400 billion, top-of-the-line aircraft can’t see the battlefield all that well. Which means it’s actually worse than its predecessors at fighting today’s wars.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. (Photo from Wikimeda Commons)

Newest U.S. Stealth Fighter ‘10 Years Behind’ Older Jets

By Dave Majumdar
When the Pentagon’s nearly $400 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter finally enters service next year after nearly two decades in development, it won’t be able to support troops on the ground the way older planes can today. Its sensors won’t be able to see the battlefield as well; and what video the F-35 does capture, it won’t be able to transmit to infantrymen in real time.

Versions of the new single-engine stealth fighter are set to replace almost every type of fighter in the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps inventory—including aircraft specifically designed to support ground troops like the A-10 Warthog. That will leave troops in a lurch when the F-35 eventually becomes the only game in town.

“The F-35 will, in my opinion, be 10 years behind legacy fighters when it achieves [initial operational capability],” said one Air Force official affiliated with the F-35 program. “When the F-35 achieves [initial operational capability], it will not have the weapons or sensor capability, with respect to the CAS [close air support] mission set, that legacy multi-role fighters had by the mid-2000s.”

The problem stems from the fact that the technology found on one of the stealth fighter’s primary air-to-ground sensors—its nose-mounted Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS)—is more than a decade old and hopelessly obsolete. The EOTS, which is similar in concept to a large high-resolution infrared and television camera, is used to visually identify and monitor ground targets. The system can also mark targets for laser-guided bombs.

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Ironically, older jets currently in service with the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps can carry the latest generation of sensor pods, which are far more advanced than the EOTS sensor carried by the F-35.

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'US Gives Too Much to Israel': That's What 6 in 10 American Citizens Think — Says Google Survey

By Robert Barsocchini
Surveying Americans about U.S. aid to Israel requires putting it into proper perspective. Given Israel’s position as the leading single U.S. foreign aid recipient (by a wide margin), as in 1989 asking the foreign aid question requires embedding relevant data to obtain a bona fide response.  When such data is included, the majority of Americans (60.7 percent) believe U.S. aid to Israel is excessive.  The major response, that aid to Israel is “Much too much” is 33.9 percent of Americans.  Some 26.8 percent believe it is “too much” while 25.9 percent believe it is “about right.” Only 13.4 percent of Americans believe U.S. aid to Israel is not enough.

The policy and political implications of this finding are stark.  Elected officials passing ever larger aid packages and supplemental spending for Israel simply cannot claim they are representing the majority interests of their constituents.  American presidents proclaiming the U.S.‐Israel bond is “unbreakable” cannot claim such a bond is willingly underwritten by U.S. taxpayers.  The finding also shines yet more light on Israel lobby organizations as the major factor coming between most constituents and their representatives and quietly working to ensure that Israel’s majority share of the U.S. foreign aid budget continues.

The survey also finds that, in particular, younger US citizens are strongly opposed to the amount of US aid that goes to Israel, and, crucially, finds that “Only the Wealthiest Americans believe U.S. aid is ‘about right’”:

The only category of Americans (47.6 percent) who believed U.S. aid for Israel is “about right” is the segment earning $150,000 or more (although even 42.9 percent in that category thought aid was too high).  The next lower income category, $100,000‐149,000 is the most vehemently opposed to aid, with 79.5 percent believing it is too high (42.9 percent responding “much too much” and 36.6 percent “too much.”)

While the Google report says the findings are “stark”, they are precisely consistent with the findings of the recent study out of Cornell and Northwestern universities, the largest study of its kind to date, which looked at nearly 1,800 individual US policy issues and found that the average US citizen has zero impact on those policies, while the wealthiest citizens essentially get exactly what they want, meaning they dictate US policy (and they largely comprise the US government).

This Google survey simply singles out one of the policy issues, which together illustrate that the USA is not a democracy, but a society in which people are allowed to choose which of two corporate-backed figureheads they want as the face of an oligarchy that dictates government policy in its own interest.

It is also worth noting here that 1) the top ten recipients of US aid (with Israel as #1) all, like the US itself, have torture regimes, 2) US law “prohibit[s] U.S. foreign aid to nuclear weapons states such as Israel that are not signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty”, and 3) Obama, while repeatedly insisting the US is a “nation of laws”, requested more military aid for Israel than any president ever (among many other blatantly illegal acts).

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Robert Barsocchini is a researcher focusing on global force dynamics.  He also writes professionally for the film industry.  Here is his blog.  Also see his free e-book, Whatever it Takes – Hillary Clinton’s Record of Support for War and other Depravities.  Click here to follow Robert and his UK-based colleague, Dean Robinson, on Twitter.

Reprinted with permission from Center for Research in Globalization.

The F-35 — The Scam of the Century: $56 Billion for Fighter Jet That Doesn't Work — While US Cities Declare Bankruptcy

By Voltairenet
The F-35 is the largest weapons program in history. This multi-role aircraft is built by Lockheed Martin with Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems as major partners.

It should equip the armies of Australia, Canada, Denmark, the United States, Israel, Italy, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Turkey for the next 40 years and replace the F-16, F-18 and F-22.

However, its production started while essential aeronautical software has not yet been invented. The defense industries of buyer states were left out in favor of the USA, without knowing whether this system will be delivered or not.

Since the launch of the project, its cost has varied ceaselessly, leading to the cancellation of various orders. Earlier this month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a reassuring study, however based on figures already two years old. Simultaneously, the Department of Defense assured it would be cheaper to buy but more expensive to maintain.

The following bar graph illustrates the increase in the cost estimates for Canada’s fleet of 65 over the past years.

According to an independent Canadian study by Professor Michael Byers for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Rideau Institute, the truth is much darker: in truth, no one can know the exact cost of an aircraft that has not been precisely designed. However, the 65 aircraft ordered by Canada would likely cost a staggering $ 1.5 billion USD per aircraft over 40 years (in 2007, the United States assured that the aircraft would not cost more than the F-18 and estimated its cost at about 377 million dollars each).

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 Defense Acquisitions. Assessments of Selected Weapon Programs, Government Accountability Office, March 2014.
 Selected Acquisition report (SAR) Summary Tables, Department of Defense, March 2014.
 The Plane That Ate the Canadian Military. Life-Cycle Cost of F-35 Fleet Could Reach $126 Billion, par Michel Byers, Centre canadien de politiques alternatives, March 2014.

Translation
Roger Lagassé

Reprinted with permission from Voltairenet.

The F-35 Strike Fighter. $400 Billion Wasted on a Death Weapon That Doesn't Work — As US Cities Go Bankrupt

F-35A prototype being towed to its inauguration ceremony on 7 July 2006 (Photo
from Wikimedia Commons)

By William Boardman
Troubles never seem to end for the F-35 Strike Fighter. Not yet fully operational, the nuclear-capable fighter-bomber recently had different test versions either leak oil in flight or burst into flames on takeoff.

The F-35 is the world’s most expensive weapons system – $400 billion and counting. The estimated lifetime cost of this military-industrial project is $1.5 trillion. The F-35 is already close to a decade behind schedule and its cost is already more than twice the original estimate. The Pentagon has lowered its performance specs and it’s still years from being operational.

According to Motley Fool, the estimated additional cost to operate and maintain the F-35 for 55 years is another $1.1 trillion. At more than $2 trillion, the F-35 is projected to cost more than half the entire Iraq War, so far.

On June 22, at the Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, an F-35A was taking off on a routine training flight when part of the engine went through the fuselage and the tail of the plane burst into flame. The pilot aborted the takeoff and escaped from the cockpit. A ground crew extinguished the fire with foam. There were no injuries, but $100 million the plane was possibly destroyed, according to officials.

F-35B's thrust vectoring nozzle and lift fan. (Illustration by Tosaka)

All 26 F-35s at Eglin were grounded after the fire, while the Air Force tried to figure out why the plane ignited. Air Force spokesperson Lt. Hope Cronin called the fire “significant,” but the cause is yet unknown. F-35s at other bases continued to fly until June 27, when the Air Force grounded all F-35s around the country and continued to seek the cause of the fire.

Earlier this month, on June 13, the entire F-35 fleet (more then 100 planes at this point) was grounded because an F-35 was leaking oil in flight. The Air Force, the Marines, and the Navy each has a variation of the F-35 that range in estimated cost from $98 million (Air Force) to $104 million (Marines) to $124 million (Navy). According to Lockheed Martin, the lead contractor on the F-35, the plane costs $98 million without the engine.

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