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The Genocidal Partnership of Israel and the United States
During this century, in the Middle East, the U.S.-Israel duo has vastly outdone all other entities combined in the categories of killing, maiming, and terrorizing.
Jul 29, 2025
For decades, countless U.S. officials have proclaimed that the bonds between the United States and Israel are unbreakable. Now, the ties that bind are laced with genocide. The two countries function as accomplices while methodical killing continues in Gaza, with both societies directly—and differently—making it all possible.
The policies of Israel’s government are aligned with the attitudes of most Jewish Israelis. In a recent survey, three-quarters of them (and 64% of all Israelis) said they largely agreed with the statement that “there are no innocent people in Gaza”—nearly half of whom are children.
“There is no more ‘permitted’ and ‘forbidden’ with regard to Israel's evilness toward the Palestinians,” dissident columnist Gideon Levy wrote three months ago in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “It is permitted to kill dozens of captive detainees and to starve to death an entire people.” The biggest Israeli media outlets echo and amplify sociopathic voices. “Genocide talk has spread into all TV studios as legitimate talk. Former colonels, past members of the defense establishment, sit on panels and call for genocide without batting an eye.”
Last week, Levy provided an update: “The weapon of deliberate starvation is working. The Gaza ‘Humanitarian’ Foundation, in turn, has become a tragic success. Not only have hundreds of Gazans been shot to death while waiting in line for packages distributed by the GHF, but there are others who don’t manage to reach the distribution points, dying of hunger. Most of these are children and babies… They lie on hospital floors, on bare beds, or carried on donkey carts. These are pictures from hell. In Israel, many people reject these photos, doubting their veracity. Others express their joy and pride on seeing starving babies.”
While the partnership between the governments of Israel and the United States has never been stronger, the partnership between the people of Israel and the United States has never been weaker.
Unimpeded, a daily process continues to exterminate more and more of the 2.1 million Palestinian people who remain in Gaza—bombing and shooting civilians while blocking all but a pittance of the food and medicine needed to sustain life. After destroying Gaza’s hospitals, Israel is still targeting healthcare workers (killing at least 70 in May and June), as well as first responders and journalists.
The barbarism is in sync with the belief that “no innocent people” are in Gaza. A relevant observation came from Aldous Huxley in 1936, the same year that the swastika went onto Germany’s flag: “The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.” Kristallnacht happened two years later.
Renowned genocide scholar Omer Bartov explained during an interview on Democracy Now! in mid-July that genocide is “the attempt to destroy not simply people in large numbers, but to destroy them as members of a group. The intent is to destroy the group itself. And it doesn’t mean that you have to kill everyone. It means that the group will be destroyed and that it will not be able to reconstitute itself as a group. And to my mind, this is precisely what Israel is trying to do.”
Bartov, who is Jewish and spent the first half of his life in Israel, said:
What I see in the Israeli public is an extraordinary indifference by large parts of the public to what Israel is doing and what it’s done in the name of Israeli citizens in Gaza. In part, it has to do with the fact that the Israeli media has decided not to report on the horrors that the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] is perpetrating in Gaza. You simply will not see it on Israeli television. If some pictures happen to come in, they are presented only as material that might be used by foreign propaganda against Israel. Now, Israeli citizens can, of course, use other media resources. We can all do that. But most of them prefer not to. And I would say that while about 30% of the population in Israel is completely in favor of what is happening, and, in fact, is egging the government and the army on, I think the vast majority of the population simply does not want to know about it.
In Israel, “compassion for Palestinians is taboo except among a fringe of radical activists,” Adam Shatz wrote last month in the London Review of Books. At the same time, “the catastrophe of the last two years far exceeds that of the Nakba.” The consequences “are already being felt well beyond Gaza: in the West Bank, where Israeli soldiers and settlers have presided over an accelerated campaign of displacement and killing (more than a thousand West Bank Palestinians have been killed since 7 October); inside Israel, where Palestinian citizens are subject to increasing levels of ostracism and intimidation; in the wider region, where Israel has established itself as a new Sparta; and in the rest of the world, where the inability of Western powers to condemn Israel’s conduct—much less bring it to an end—has made a mockery of the rules-based order that they claim to uphold.”
The loudest preaching for a “rules-based order” has come from the U.S. government, which makes and breaks international rules at will. During this century, in the Middle East, the U.S.-Israel duo has vastly outdone all other entities combined in the categories of killing, maiming, and terrorizing. In addition to the joint project of genocide in Gaza, and the USA’s long war on Iraq, the United States and Israel have often exercised an assumed prerogative to attack Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, along with encore U.S. missile strikes on Iraq as recently as last year.
Israel’s grisly performance as “a new Sparta” in the region is coproduced by the Pentagon, with the military and intelligence operations of the two nations intricately entangled. The Israeli military has been able to turn Gaza into a genocide zone with at least 70% of its arsenal coming from the United States.
While writing an afterword about the war on Gaza for the paperback edition of War Made Invisible, I mulled over the relevance of my book’s subtitle: “How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.” As the carnage in Gaza worsened, the reality became clearer that the Orwellian-named Israel Defense Forces and U.S. Defense Department are essentially part of the same military machine. Their command structures are different, but they are part of the same geopolitical Goliath.
“The new era in which Israel, backed by the U.S., dominates the Middle East is likely to see even more violence and instability than in the past,” longtime war correspondent Patrick Cockburn wrote this month. The lethal violence from Israeli-American teamwork is of such magnitude that it epitomizes international state terrorism. The genocide in Gaza shows the lengths to which the alliance is willing and able to go.
While public opinion is very different in Israel and the United States, the genocidal results of the governments’ policies are indistinguishable.
American public opinion about arming Israel is measurable. As early as June 2024, a CBS News poll found that 61% of the public said that the U.S. should not “send weapons and supplies to Israel.” Since then, support for Israel has continued to erode.
In sharp contrast, on Capitol Hill, the support for arming Israel is measurably high. When Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) bills to cut off some military aid to Israel came to a vote last November, just 19 out of 100 senators voted yes. Very few of his colleagues voice anywhere near the extent of Sanders’s moral outrage as he keeps speaking out on the Senate floor.
In the House, only 26 out of 435 members have chosen to become cosponsors of H.R.3565, a bill introduced more than two months ago by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) that would prevent the U.S. government from sending certain bombs to Israel.
“Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II,” the Congressional Research Service reports. During just the first 12 months after the war on Gaza began in October 2023, Brown University’s Costs of War project found, the “U.S. spending on Israel’s military operations and related U.S operations in the region” added up to $23 billion.
The resulting profit bonanza for U.S. military contractors is notable. So is the fact that the U.S.-Israel partnership exerts great American leverage in the Middle East—where two-thirds of the world’s oil reserves are located.
The politics of genocide in the United States involves papering over the big gap between the opinions of the electorate and the actions of the U.S. government. While the partnership between the governments of Israel and the United States has never been stronger, the partnership between the people of Israel and the United States has never been weaker. But in the USA, consent of the governed has not been necessary to continue the axis of genocide.
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'Deep Deception': Report Details How Deep-Sea Mining Industry Exploits National Security Fears
"Mining the deep ocean in defiance of international consensus," said one retired defense official, "would erode U.S. credibility, fracture alliances, and set a dangerous precedent for unilateral resource exploitation."
Jul 22, 2025
As officials meet in Jamaica for a summit on the international seabed this week, a new report by the climate action group Greenpeace details how the deep-sea mining industry—failing to make a convincing case that its exploitation of the deep sea is necessary for a green energy transition—is trying a new strategy: lobbying Congress with the intent of classifying mining on the ocean floor as a national security priority.
In the Monday report, titled Deep Deception: How the Deep Sea Mining Industry is Manipulating Geopolitics to Profit from Ocean Destruction, Greenpeace describes how firms like the Metals Company (TMC), a Canada-based mining company, have spent years trying to convince policymakers around the world that mining in the deep ocean for minerals like copper, nickel, manganese, and cobalt is essential to manufacture electric vehicle batteries for a green transition.
But much of the key data underpinning that argument was produced by mining companies themselves or published by academic journals with financial interests in the industry, and support for the sector from electric carmakers has waned in recent years as the industry has failed to prove it can mine the ocean floor "in a way that ensures the effective protection of the marine environment," as one statement calling for a moratorium read.
Confronted with growing opposition to the notion that deep-sea mining—in which companies use equipment to comb the habitat of tens of thousands of species and potentially spread mining waste for miles—can serve as a key climate solution, Greenpeace said, "these fickle deep-sea entrepreneurs are jumping ship."
Now "they are eager to embrace politically opportunistic 'national security' storylines," reads the report.
"For TMC, the green transition was always a false narrative," said Arlo Hemphill, project lead for the Stop Deep-Sea Mining campaign at Greenpeace USA. "The numbers just didn't add up to justify opening the world's last unspoiled wilderness to mass-scale extractive exploitation. Now, the industry is repackaging itself as essential to national security and defense, exploiting real geopolitical tensions for personal profit. It's a dangerous and unnecessary strategy that could destroy the international seabed to enrich a few."
The report was released as the International Seabed Authority (ISA) convened in Kingston, Jamaica for its 30th Assembly, with governments under heavy pressure from the deep-sea mining industry to fast-track a Mining Code under which they could move forward with ramping up operations—even as 37 states and nearly 1,000 international scientists now support a moratorium on deep-sea mining.
As the ISA began its meeting on Monday, Pew Environment explained the risks carried by deep-sea mining—from noise and light pollution to the endangerment of species scientists haven't yet discovered.
"The deep sea is one of Earth's most pristine and fragile ecosystems," said Grace Evans, senior associate of ocean governance at Pew Charitable Trusts. "Once we damage it, we can't go back."
TMC began "targeting defense and industrial policy stakeholders" in 2022 as it was still pushing its green energy transition narrative.
The company spent nearly half a million dollars over two years to hire lobbying firms to influence votes on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in 2023 and 2024—and succeeded in pushing the Department of Defense (DOD) to deliver a report "assessing the processing of seabed resources of polymetallic nodules domestically."
TMC's lobbying push also convinced 31 Republican members of Congress to write to then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in 2023, asking him "to develop a plan to address the national security ramifications of [China's] interest and investment in seabed mining."
In March, TMC announced it would seek permits from the U.S. to mine the international deep sea under American authorization—a move that "brazenly" bypassed international treaties and consensus, said Greenpeace.
Greenpeace's report comes four months after that application and three months after President Donald Trump signed an executive order signaling the government's intent to "rapidly" develop and invest in U.S. capabilities to explore and collect seabed mineral resources through "streamlined permitting," with the White House asserting the U.S. "has a core national security and economic interest in maintaining leadership in deep-sea science and technology and seabed mineral resources."
"We will not stand by while a neocolonial deep-sea land grab takes place that will harm our communities, disrupt our cultural connection to the ocean, and endanger our livelihoods."
Under the order, the Trump administration signaled its "readiness to unilaterally authorize deep sea mining in both U.S. and international waters," reads the Greenpeace report—potentially violating the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the U.S. has not signed.
Days after the order was signed, TMC applied to the U.S. government for deep-sea mining exploration licenses and commercial mining permits. The Greenpeace report details how the Trump administration and companies including TMC are working together to once again promote a false narrative about the necessity of deep-sea mining—one that is actually meant to provide "a lifeline for an industry in crisis."
Global defense industries "likely represent only a tiny fraction of overall global consumption" of the metals found in polymetallic nodules in the deep sea, according to the report—meaning that as with the electric auto industry, the defense sector's true demand for deep-sea mining is much smaller than the industry and the Trump administration would have the public believe.
"The U.S. defense demand stands for a tiny percentage of our domestic consumption of critical metals. And to be honest, U.S. defense is not a big user of anything," Jack Lifton, executive director of the Critical Minerals Institute, told Greenpeace. "Given what the defense industry and the DOD and the different contractors are doing in terms of securing metals from elsewhere, friendshoring, reshoring, recycling, there is no need to mine the seabed for cobalt or nickel or rare earths."
While metals that can be accessed through deep-sea mining do have military uses, "the scale of this military use is relatively modest compared to global civilian demand—dwarfed by the commercial manufacturing sector," reads the report.
For example, the U.S. currently imports manganese ore from Gabon, South Africa, and Mexico, and "a substantial deep sea mining development could nearly double the global supply of manganese in its first year, resulting in an immediate oversupply" and a reduction in the value of the metal and the global mining operation. The U.S. also already has a stockpile of 322,000 tons of manganese in Arizona.
In a foreword to the Greenpeace report, retired U.S. Army Major General Randy Manner wrote that "the bedrock of national security" lies in "global stability, the rule of law, and ecological resilience"—not in accumulating new minerals and weaponry.
"Mining the deep ocean in defiance of international consensus would degrade all three. It would erode U.S. credibility, fracture alliances, and set a dangerous precedent for unilateral resource exploitation," said Manner.
In the Pacific region—where deep-sea mining companies aim to operate—several states and leaders have called for a ban. moratorium, or precautionary pause on the practice, with Pacific Island Heritage Coalition Chair Solomon P. Kaho'ohalahala warning that "the Pacific is not a sacrifice zone."
"We will not stand by while a neocolonial deep-sea land grab takes place that will harm our communities, disrupt our cultural connection to the ocean, and endanger our livelihoods," said Kaho'ohalahala. "This July, ISA member states must make it clear where they stand—for their foundational principles of equity, multilateralism, and environmental protection or unbounded corporate greed."
At the ISA meeting in Kingston, Greenpeace International campaigner Louisa Casson said governments around the world "have sent a clear signal that the deep-sea mining industry will not get international approval any time soon"—even amid industry pressure and the Trump administration's push.
TMC's application to the U.S. "shatters" the firm's credibility "and serves as a stark warning to others considering this reckless path."
"Governments have also reaffirmed that there should be no deep sea mining in the global oceans while major political and scientific questions remain unresolved," said Casson. "Deep sea mining is a dangerous gamble we cannot afford, and the only responsible way forward is a global moratorium."
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Democrats Call for Probe Into 'Golden Dome' Defense Contract That Could Benefit Musk
SpaceX has emerged as a front-runner for the contract.
May 01, 2025
Democratic lawmakers on Thursday wrote to the acting inspector general of the U.S. Department of Defense, warning that SpaceX emerging as a front-runner to win a contract to build a proposed missile defense system raises major concerns over whether the proposal is "an effective way to protect Americans" or is simply "meant to enrich" Trump ally Elon Musk.
As Reuters reported last month, Musk's rocket and satellite company is partnering with two other firms on a bid to build parts of the Golden Dome, which would launch at least 400 and as many as 1,000 satellites across the globe to detect and track missiles.
A separate component of the Golden Dome, which could be put to use starting as early as 2026, would launch 200 attack satellites to bring enemy missiles down.
The Democrats, led by Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), called on DOD acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins to examine "any involvement" by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk—now a "special government employee" of the Trump administration and a top donor to the president's 2024 campaign—in the Pentagon's process of awarding the defense contract for the Golden Dome.
The news that Musk's company is a front-runner to build key parts of the system, which is expected to cost hundreds of billions of dollars, raises "serious concerns about potential conflicts of interest in the process," reads the letter sent by the lawmakers, who also included Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).
The lawmakers noted that in the "deeply troubling" Reuters report two weeks ago, a source was quoted as saying the talks surrounding the Golden Dome contract were "a departure from the usual acquisition process."
"There's an attitude that the national security and defense community has to be sensitive and deferential to Elon Musk because of his role in the government," the source told Reuters.
The letter also notes that as a special government employee, Musk is subject to Office of Government Ethics regulations such as 5 CFR § 2635.702, which prohibits using public office for private gain.
"Mr. Musk is also subject to the criminal prohibition in 18 USC § 208 against participating in a particular matter in which he has a financial interest, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison," said the Democrats.
As the lawmakers wrote to the DOD inspector general's office, government watchdog Public Citizen also spoke out against the "useless and wasteful contract."
Experts have raised concerns about the feasibility of creating the Golden Dome system, especially on the accelerated timeline that has been reported—one that could benefit Musk's company but "result in a faulty end product that wastes billions of dollars and leaves our country with a false sense of security," wrote the lawmakers.
They quoted retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, who told CNN recently that creating a ballistic missile defense system "could take 7-10 years, and, even then, would have severe limitations."
Reuters also reported last month that SpaceX has proposed a "subscription service" for its involvement in the creation of the Golden Dome, with the government paying for access to the technology rather than owning the system. The proposal could allow the system to be rolled out faster by circumventing Pentagon procurement rules.
"The Golden Dome contract comes at a time when the Pentagon has failed to ever pass an audit, and this year's budget is already expected to top $1 trillion," said the Democrats.
The lawmakers called on Stebbins to refer the case to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation, should his office find that Musk used his role in the federal government to secure a contract for SpaceX.
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'Serious Disregard for Human Life': Dem Senators Press Hegseth on Yemen Civilian Casualties
"President Trump has called himself a 'peacemaker,' but that claim rings hollow when U.S. military operations kill scores of civilians."
Apr 25, 2025
A trio of Democratic senators on Thursday demanded answers from embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth regarding U.S. airstrikes in Yemen, which have reportedly killed scores of civilians including numerous women and children since last month.
"We write to you concerning reports that U.S. strikes against the Houthis at the Ras Isa fuel terminal in Yemen last week killed dozens of civilians, potentially more than 70," Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) wrote in a letter to Hegseth.
The lawmakers noted that "the United Nations Protection Cluster's Civilian Impact Monitoring Project has... assessed that March 2025 marked the highest monthly casualty count in Yemen in almost two years, tripling the previous month, with a total of 162 civilian casualties."
"If these reports of civilian casualties are accurate, they should come as no surprise," the senators said. "Using explosive weapons in populated areas—as these intense strikes appear to do—always carries a high risk of civilian harm."
"Further, reports suggest that the Trump administration plans to dismantle civilian harm mitigation policies and procedures at the Pentagon designed to reduce civilian casualties in U.S. operations," the letter notes. "And the Trump administration has already dismissed senior, nonpartisan judge advocates, or JAG officers, who provide critical legal counsel to U.S. warfighters, especially when it comes to the laws of war and adherence to U.S. civilian harm mitigation policies."
"The Defense Department also recently loosened the rules of engagement to allow [U.S. Central Command] and other combatant commands to conduct strikes without requiring White House sign-off, removing necessary checks and balances on crucial life-and-death decisions," the senators added. "Taken altogether, these moves suggest that the Trump administration is abandoning the measures necessary to meet its obligations to reducing civilian harm."
The senators asked Hegseth to answer the following questions:
- Has the Department of Defense (DOD) assessed the number of noncombatant and combatant casualties in each of its strikes inside Yemen?
- What has DOD's process been for assessing the acceptable civilian casualties for individual strikes inside Yemen, and assessing estimated levels of civilian harm and collateral damage?
- What role have legal advisers, including JAG officers, played in reviewing the legality of U.S. strikes in Yemen?
- What DOD instructions or orders currently govern department civilian harm mitigation and response actions?
- Were the civilian harm mitigation and response experts at CENTCOM and/or at the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence consulted in planning for these strikes?
- How does the department plan to engage with the families or communities affected by these strikes, including acknowledging civilian harm and exploring avenues for potential redress?
Last month, Hegseth
announced that the Pentagon's Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Office and Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, which was established during the Biden administration, would be closed. Hegseth—who has
supported pardons for convicted U.S. war criminals—lamented during his Senate confirmation hearing that "restrictive rules of engagement" have "made it more difficult to defeat our enemies," who "should get bullets, not attorneys," according to his 2024 book The War on Warriors.
Asked during his confirmation hearing whether troops under his leadership would adhere to the Geneva Conventions, Hegseth replied, "What we are not going to do is put international conventions above Americans."
During his first administration, President Donald Trumprelaxed rules of military engagement meant to protect civilians as he followed through on his campaign pledge to "bomb the shit" out of Islamic State militants and "take out their families." Thousands of civilians were killed during the campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria as then-Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis announced a shift from a policy of attrition to one of "annihilation."
Meanwhile, noncombatant casualties soared by over 300% in Afghanistan between the final year of the Obama administration and 2019.
Overall, upward of 400,000 civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen have died as a direct result of the U.S.-led War on Terror, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.
In Yemen, the U.K.-based monitor Airwars says U.S. forces have killed hundreds of civilians in 181 declared actions since 2002. Overall, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have died during the civil war that began in 2014, with international experts attributing more than 150,000 Yemeni deaths to U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing and blockade.
The U.S. bombing of Yemen has not received nearly as much coverage in the corporate media as the scandal involving Hegseth's use of Signal chats to share plans for attacking the Middle Eastern country with colleagues, a journalist, and relatives. However, critics say the mounting backlash over the high civilian casualties there is belying Trump's claim of an anti-war presidency.
"President Trump has called himself a 'peacemaker,' but that claim rings hollow when U.S. military operations kill scores of civilians," the senators stressed in their letter. "The reported high civilian casualty numbers from U.S. strikes in Yemen demonstrate a serious disregard for civilian life, and call into question this administration's ability to conduct military operations in accordance with U.S. best practices for civilian harm mitigation and international law."
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$60 Billion in Waste and Fraud Easily Found Where Trump Refuses to Cut: The Pentagon
"We need a better balance between military spending and investments in diplomacy, development, humanitarian aid, global public health, and environmental protection," said one analyst.
Feb 28, 2025
A trio of government watchdogs on Friday advised U.S. President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser, Elon Musk, to take a "road map for achieving efficiency" at the only federal agency that has failed seven consecutive audits of its spending, and the one that spends by far the most in taxpayer money: the Department of Defense.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has spent recent weeks seizing data and slashing spending and tens of thousands of employees at agencies across the government, including the Department of Education, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Labor.
But Musk's advisory body has had considerably less to say about waste and fraud at the Pentagon. The Tesla CEO met with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this month for preliminary talks about possible spending cuts; Hegseth suggested climate programs at the Pentagon could be on the chopping block, but did not mention any cuts to weapons systems—advocating instead to shift current spending to other DOD programs.
"Unlike cuts to education, medical research, environmental protection, and food assistance programs, the administration is proposing that any Pentagon 'savings' be redirected to missile defense systems, border militarization, and other controversial and destructive military projects," wrote Mike Merryman-Lotze of the American Friends Service Committee in a column on Friday. "This is an enormous missed opportunity. We don't need a rearranging of the deck chairs on the Pentagon's titanic budget. We need fundamental change."
A new report by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, the Stimson Center, and Taxpayers for Common Sense on Friday suggested "eliminating dysfunctional weapons systems and outmoded business practices"—steps that would cut at least $60 billion in waste and inefficiencies at the DOD.
"The result will be more security at a lower cost," said William Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute.
The report highlights significant cuts that could be made, including:
- The F-35 combat aircraft program, saving $12 billion or more per year;
- Aircraft carriers, saving $2.3 billion or more annually;
- Canceling plans to replace land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), saving $310 billion total; and
- Cutting long-range missile defense, saving $9.3 billion per year.
The think tanks also advised introducing measures to rein in overcharging by defense contractors, who are known to charge the government as much as 3,800% above the fair and reasonable price, as one did for a spare part in a recent case; and cut excess basing infrastructure around the world, saving as much as $5 billion each year.
"Contrary to popular belief in Washington, national security and fiscal discipline are not mutually exclusive," reads the report. "In fact, they are inextricably linked. Budgeting for U.S. national security needs today and into the future requires that policymakers tackle wasteful spending and inefficiencies across the board, and with the Pentagon budget closing in on $1 trillion per year, the United States cannot afford to ignore it."
"Thankfully, tackling Pentagon programs and practices that do not offer a good return on investment will not only save taxpayers billions of dollars—it will also help illuminate and sustain the U.S.' greatest national security priorities," the report continues.
Gabe Murphy of Taxpayers for Common Sense pointed out that F-35 combat aircrafts and the Sentinel ICBM are "overpriced, underperforming, and out of step with current missions."
Defunding such weapons programs "would allow us to invest more in real priorities," said Murphy.
Truly eliminating waste at the Pentagon, Hartung told The Intercept on Friday, "would mean abandoning America's 'cover the globe' military strategy in favor of a genuinely defensive approach, and one would have to make sure that cuts in legacy systems weren't just filled in with drones and other emerging tech."
"We need a better balance between military spending and investments in diplomacy, development, humanitarian aid, global public health, and environmental protection," Hartung added. "Some of our biggest existential threats are not military in nature—such as climate change and pandemics."
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Taking Axe to 'Human Needs Budget', Trump and Musk Nowhere to Be Found at 'Slash the Pentagon' Event
"While the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has been on a rampage to root out 'waste, fraud, and abuse,' they've been ignoring the biggest money pit in the entire federal government," said Rep. Summer Lee.
Feb 12, 2025
As billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency makes its way through federal agencies with the aim of cutting spending that goes toward protecting workers' rights, providing disaster assistance and healthcare in the Global South, and defending Americans from corporate greed, Democratic lawmakers are demanding to know why Republicans are pushing to increase the already bloated Pentagon budget.
"While American families struggle with skyrocketing healthcare costs and grocery bills, Republicans are gearing up to fork over another $150 billion to the military-industrial complex," said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) at a press conference titled "Slash the Pentagon" with government watchdog Public Citizen on Tuesday.
The event was held as the Senate Budget Committee prepared to begin a markup Wednesday of Senate Republicans' budget blueprint that was recently released, which could add $150 billion to the Department of Defense (DOD) budget.
The spending would be focused on improving "military readiness," expanding the U.S. Navy, building an air and missile defense system the Trump administration has called the "Iron Dome for America," and investing in nuclear defenses.
The senator said adding to the Pentagon's budget—which already stands at nearly $900 billion—won't make Americans safer, because "the doomsday that Americans fear in the 21st century isn't being vaporized by a nuclear bomb."
"It's the doomsday diagnosis of cancer, it's medical debt, it's housing payments or loan payments, it's grocery bills and heating bills," said Markey. "Let's finally put the people before the Pentagon."
As progressive organizers have noted in recent weeks, despite the fact that President Donald Trump campaigned as a populist—and won the support of a majority of working-class voters while high earners swung toward former Vice President Kamala Harris in the November election—the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has spent the early days of Trump's second term seizing data and pushing for the shutdown of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Department of Education, attempting to take control of a major payment system at the Department of the Treasury, and looking to cut spending at the Department of Labor.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon—which has failed seven consecutive audits, unable to account for its spending even as it swallows up 14% of the federal budget—has barely registered as a target of DOGE.
"While the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has been on a rampage to root out 'waste, fraud, and abuse,' they've been ignoring the biggest money pit in the entire federal government: the Department of Defense," said Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.). "The people want a more efficient government, quality healthcare, housing costs that don't skyrocket, and affordable eggs and groceries—not a bloated military budget that doesn't make us any safer. Maybe DOGE should take a look at that."
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) added that DOGE's actions so far will leave students with disabilities without resources and threaten senior citizens who rely on Social Security.
"We don't have clean drinking water in our country, but we always have the money for war," said Tlaib. "I'm sick of it. If our government has endless money to bomb people, they have money for clean air and water, guaranteeing healthcare as a human right, and making sure no child goes hungry. Our elected officials are choosing to spend money on endless war instead of the American people."
Trump and Musk have begun answering some questions from the press about whether DOGE will address DOD spending, with the president saying Sunday that DOGE will likely find "hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud and abuse."
Musk has criticized the Pentagon's $12 billion F-35 program as "obsolete," and some lawmakers have drawn attention to exorbitant spending at the department on luxury meals, toilet seats, and soap dispensers.
But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday expressed hope that spending cuts would focus on climate programs, saying the Pentagon "is not in the business of climate change, solving the global thermostat. We're in the business of deterring and winning wars."
The DOD is the "single largest institutional producer of greenhouse gases in the world," as the Costs of War project at Brown University said in a 2019 report, and Trump's former defense secretary, Jim Mattis, acknowledged that the DOD must "pay attention to potential adverse impacts" of the climate crisis, related to national security.
On Tuesday, Musk was also questioned about DOGE's priorities at the Pentagon, with a reporter asking whether he has a conflict of interest in examining the DOD's spending, given his role of CEO at SpaceX, an aerospace company that receives about $22 billion in defense contracts from the department.
Musk shrugged off the concern, telling the reporter that he isn't personally "the one filing the contract, it's the people at SpaceX," and adding that defense contracts received by his company are "by far the best value for money for the taxpayer."
SpaceX was handed a new $38.85 million contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Monday.
Meanwhile, said Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman, as Republicans head toward the budget reconciliation process, "money for the Pentagon will come directly cutting spending on human needs. The money that will go to Lockheed Martin or Palantir will come directly from Medicaid and food stamps and other programs for the poor and vulnerable."
"But with the plundering of the human needs budget made plain," he said, "the American people are not going to stand for—and will defeat—the Republicans' Pentagon boondoggle proposal."
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Pentagon Backpedals After Austin Says Israel Killed 'Over 25,000' Women and Kids in Gaza
A Pentagon spokesperson claimed the defense secretary was citing the total number of Palestinians killed by Israel—but the numbers don't add up.
Feb 29, 2024
The Pentagon attempted damage control Thursday after U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a congressional hearing that "over 25,000" Palestinian women and children have been killed during Israel's 146-day assault on Gaza.
Austin's remark came in reply to a question from Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) during a House Armed Services Committee hearing focused on his recent hospitalization for prostate cancer and his dayslong delay in informing President Joe Biden and members of Congress of his whereabouts.
"About how many Palestinian women and children have been killed by Israel since October 7?" Khanna asked, referring to the date when Israel launched its retaliatory war on Gaza immediately following the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel.
Austin replied, "It's over 25,000."
.@SecDef said over 25,000 women and children had been killed in Palestine.
I pressed him on whether he would support halting weapons sales to Israel if Netanyahu defies the U.S. and invades Rafah or prevents aid from reaching civilians facing starvation in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Lv8S1DEeoW
— Rep. Ro Khanna (@RepRoKhanna) February 29, 2024
Within hours, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh attempted to walk back her boss' admission, claiming Austin was citing figures by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health and that the defense secretary was referring to the total number of Palestinians killed in Gaza.
However, Singh's explanation did not add up. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health figures cited by The Times of Israel Thursday, Israeli forces have killed a total of at least 30,189 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7. Of these, at least 13,230 are children and 8,860 are women, for a total of 22,090. Palestinian health officials say that at least 10,000 other people are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the rubble of bombed buildings, and that even that figure is probably a significant undercount. Assuming even half of the missing people are women and children—who account for 73% of known deaths—then the number of women and children killed far exceeds 25,000.
In late October, U.S. President Joe Biden was accused of genocide denial after he said he had "no confidence" in Palestinian officials' casualty figures—even though such data has been deemed reliable by United Nations agencies, human rights groups, Israeli and international media, and even the Biden administration in past reports on Israeli attacks on Gaza.
In November, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf contradicted Biden by asserting that the Gaza death toll may be "even higher" than reported.
Leaf's assessment came during a congressional hearing interrupted by CodePink peace activists. Members of the women-led anti-war group were again present at Austin's hearing, during which Khanna also noted that the United States has provided 21,000 precision-guided munitions to Israel.
This morning, the House is holding a hearing on the Secretary of Defense's health.
They kicked us out before it even began, including some who weren't even demonstrating.
In what sort of democracy are the public escorted by police out of public hearings? pic.twitter.com/oagf454pNy
— CODEPINK (@codepink) February 29, 2024
"The secretary of defense is supporting a genocide," CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin said before being removed from the hearing.
Separately on Thursday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller responded awkwardly during a press conference when pressed by Palestinian journalist Said Arikat on why "it so difficult for this government to say we condemn the killing of Palestinian women and children."
*Heated exchange* State Department spox Matt Miller unable to condemn Israel's killing; blames Hamas: "Why is it so difficult for this government to say we condemn the killing of Palestinian women & children, why don't you say the word condemn?"
"We don't wanna see anyone… https://t.co/qMArzH8Dyi pic.twitter.com/WYmCAF0Pan
— HalalFlow (@halalflow) February 29, 2024
"We don't wanna see anyone die," Miller answered during a four-minute exchange with Arikat in which the spokesperson refused to say the word "condemn" and blamed Hamas for the more than 100,000 Palestinians killed or maimed by U.S.-backed Israeli forces.
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$400,000 Per Missile? Sanders Rips War Profiteers 'Fleecing' US Taxpayers
"Congress must put an end to this form of corporate welfare," the senator said, arguing that one new way to do that involves reviving an old policy.
Feb 27, 2024
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders has a novel way to stop military-industrial complex profiteers from "bilking the American people"—and it's actually over 80 years old.
In an article published Tuesday in The Atlantic, Sanders (I-Vt.) called for a revived Truman Committee—a World War II-era bipartisan congressional panel "designed to rein in defense contractors, closely oversee military contracts, and take back excessive payments."
"America's national priorities are badly misplaced," the senator asserted. "Our country spends, with almost no debate, nearly $1 trillion a year on the military while at the same time ignoring massive problems at home. We apparently have unlimited amounts of money for nuclear weapons, fighter planes, bombs, and tanks. But somehow we can't summon the resources to provide healthcare for all, childcare, affordable housing, and other basic needs."
"The United States remains the world's dominant military power," the senator continued. "Alone, we account for roughly 40% of global military spending; the U.S. spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined, most of whom are allies. Last year, we spent more than three times what China spent on its military."
Sanders noted that nearly half of the approximately $900 billion the U.S. will allocate for military spending this year "will go to a handful of huge defense contractors enjoying immense profits," with many weapons companies profiting handsomely off sales to Ukraine, which is struggling to repel a two-year Russian invasion.
In what Sanders called a "particularly egregious example" of war profiteering, RTX Corporation—formerly Raytheon—has increased the price of its Stinger shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles by 600% to $400,000 since the early 1990s.
The senator continued:
It's not just RTX. The stocks of American arms manufacturers have surged: Northrop Grumman's share price increased 40% by the end of 2022, and Lockheed Martin's by 37%. In 2022, the federal government awarded Lockheed Martin more than $45 billion in unclassified contracts. The company returned about one-quarter of that amount to shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks, and paid its CEO $25 million.
"There's a name for all this: war profiteering. There's a solution too," Sanders stressed. "Congress should resurrect the Truman Committee."
"These companies' greed is not just fleecing the American taxpayer; it's killing Ukrainians," he contended. "A contractor padding its profit margins means that fewer weapons reach Ukrainians on the frontlines. Corporate greed is helping [Russian President] Vladimir Putin."
Sanders highlighted the U.S. Department of Defense's six consecutive failed audits, including the most recent one last December, in which the Pentagon was unable to fully account for nearly two-thirds of its $3.8 trillion in assets.
"It should therefore come as no surprise that defense contractors routinely overcharge the Pentagon—and the American taxpayer—by nearly 40-50%," he wrote. "One company, TransDigm, overcharged by 4,451%."
"But despite billions in fines for fraud or misconduct, the contracts never seem to dry up," Sanders said. "That may be down to America's system of legalized bribery: A share of the profits from these lucrative contracts will flow back to politicians who gladly accept millions in campaign contributions to make sure the defense budget is always flush."
"According to the watchdog group OpenSecrets, defense contractors spent nearly $140 million lobbying the federal government last year," he noted. "Millions of dollars more go directly to members of Congress in campaign contributions from companies, individuals, and political action committees linked to the defense industry."
"Congress must put an end to this form of corporate welfare," Sanders argued. "The best way to do that is to reinstate the Truman Committee on war profiteering so that we can end corporate greed in the defense industry. A windfall profits tax could help achieve this end as well."
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Rights Groups Tell Pentagon Chief to Withhold Military Aid to Israel
"To protect civilians in Gaza... administration rhetoric on the protection of civilians must be backed by action and leverage."
Dec 21, 2023
Citing the "staggering civilian death and destruction" caused by Israel's 76-day war on Gaza, a group of 14 humanitarian organizations on Wednesday urged Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to withhold U.S. military aid to Israel and take other steps to protect Palestinian noncombatants.
In a letter to Austin, the groups—Airwars, Amnesty International USA, Anera, Center for Civilians in Conflict, Humanity & Inclusion, Human Rights Watch, InterAction, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders USA, Norwegian Refugee Council USA, Oxfam America, PAX, Refugees International, Save the Children U.S., and Zomia Cente—asserted that the Pentagon's response to Israel's obliteration of Gaza "has failed to live up to and... actively undermined" the Defense Department's Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP).
"Israel's operations... continue to cause devastating levels of civilian harm and destruction and inhibit the provision of life-saving humanitarian aid—all using U.S. support."
Published last year, CHMR-AP lays out a series of policy steps aimed at preventing and responding to the death and injury of noncombatants. The plan was widely welcomed, but was also met with skepticism by critics who noted that the U.S. military has killed more foreign civilians than any other armed force in the world since the end of World War II, including hundreds of thousands of noncombatants during the ongoing global War on Terror.
"Israel's operations... continue to cause devastating levels of civilian harm and destruction and inhibit the provision of life-saving humanitarian aid—all using U.S. support. The result is civilian harm at a massive scale amidst a humanitarian crisis," the letter notes. "To protect civilians in Gaza and live up to the aspirations of the CHMR-AP, administration rhetoric on the protection of civilians must be backed by action and leverage."
The groups urge Austin to:
- Categorically oppose the targeting of civilians and civilian objects, indiscriminate attacks that fail to distinguish between civilian and military objects, and attacks that cause disproportionate civilian harm;
- Withhold U.S. assistance, in accordance with U.S. law and policy, that would facilitate violations of international humanitarian law;
- Refrain from transferring explosive weapons to Israel for use in Gaza and emphasize adherence to U.S. commitments made on the use of explosive weapons in populated areas; and
- Reject forcible displacement and the use of so-called "safe zones."
"In recent remarks, President [Joe] Biden... stated that Israel is engaging in 'indiscriminate bombing.' Such practices clearly violate
international humanitarian law principles that require militaries to distinguish between civilians and combatants and prohibit attacks that cause disproportionate harm to civilians and civilian objects," the letter states. "The U.S. government must unequivocally condemn indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilians or civilian objects in Gaza."
While peace activists and progressive U.S. lawmakers have pushed for an immediate Gaza cease-fire, Biden has reaffirmed his "unwavering" support for Israel. Biden is seeking $14.3 billion in additional U.S. military aid for Israel atop the nearly $4 billion it receives each year from Washington. The president has also come under fire for asking Congress to lift most of the restrictions on Israel's access to a stockpile of U.S.-supplied weapons.
Speaking earlier this week in Tel Aviv, Austin, while underscoring U.S. support for Israel's war against Hamas, said that "protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is both a moral duty and a strategic imperative."
"So we will continue to stand up for Israel's bedrock right to defend itself and we will also continue to urge the protection of civilians during conflict and to increase the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza," he added.
The Palestinian death toll from Israel's war on Gaza topped 20,000 on Wednesday, with more than 6,000 women and 8,000 children among the dead. Over 50,000 other Gazans have been wounded, and thousands are missing and feared buried beneath the rubble of bombed-out buildings. More than 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.3 million people have also been forcibly displaced.
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Groups Demand US 'Make Long-Overdue Amends' for Airstrikes in Somalia
"The U.S. is failing to fulfill its commitments in responding appropriately to civilian harm," said one advocate.
Dec 18, 2023
Two dozen Somali and international human rights groups on Monday asked the Pentagon to "take immediate steps to address the requests of families whose loved ones were killed or injured by U.S. airstrikes in Somalia"—people who often say they're being ignored by American officials.
In a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the groups cite recent Intercept reporting that "illustrates how in multiple cases of civilian harm in Somalia confirmed by the U.S. government, civilian victims, survivors, and their families have yet to receive answers, acknowledgment, and amends despite their sustained efforts to reach authorities over several years."
The letter highlights victims including Luul Dahir Mohamed, a 22-year-old Somali woman who was killed along with her 4-year-old daughter Mariam Shilow Muse in an April 2018 U.S. drone strike in El Buur. Luul's brother Abubakar Dahir Mohamed said that despite confirming their deaths and admitting they were civilians, the U.S. military has yet to provide the family with a "substantive reply."
"Since the strike, our family has been broken apart. It has been more than five years since it happened, but we have not been able to move on," Abubakar Dahir Mohamed wrote in an opinion piece published last week by The Continent. "Even as we have contacted [the U.S. government] in every way we know how, we have never been able to even start a process of getting justice. The U.S. has never even acknowledged our existence."
The groups' letter asserts that "the U.S. response thus far stands in stark contrast to this administration's stated priorities of mitigating, responding to, and learning from civilian harm."
Declaring that "the protection of civilians is a strategic priority as well as a moral imperative," the Pentagon last year
published its Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP), which includes stated commitments to improving commanders' understanding of civilian environments, developing standardized incident reporting and data management processes, and enhancing the military's ability to assess and respond when noncombatants are harmed by U.S. attacks.
"In light of these commitments, it is unfathomable that Abubakar and his family have for so long struggled to receive acknowledgment or amends from the United States," the new letter contends. "We urge the Department of Defense to urgently make long-overdue amends in consultation with Abubakar's family and their representatives, including condolence payments and an explanation for why their demands appear to have been ignored until now."
The letter notes that "the Department of Defense has at its disposal $3 million of annual funding provided by the U.S. Congress to make ex gratia payments to civilian victims and survivors of U.S. operations."
However, the signers "know of no cases in which those funds have been used in Somalia, despite the fact that in numerous cases confirmed by the United States, the identities of civilian victims and survivors are known and their contact information has been made available through their own reporting or through civil society representatives."
Living up to the Pentagon's commitment "requires responding to the inquiries of civilians seeking answers and making amends for the life-altering harm they and their families have experienced," the letter asserts. "We urge [U.S. Africa Command] and the Department of Defense to do so immediately."
International groups joining Somali signatories to the letter include Airwars, Amnesty International USA, Center for Civilians in Conflict, the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute, and Human Rights Watch.
According to Airwars, a U.K.-based monitoring group, hundreds of Somalis—including some civilians—have been killed by U.S. airstrikes this year alone as the Biden administration quietly continues the so-called War on Terror launched in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Airwars said in 2021 that as many as 48,000 civilians in over half a dozen countries have been killed by U.S. airstrikes since 9/11, while the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs estimates that more than 430,000 noncombatants have been killed by all sides during the war.
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