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Report: Military Blew Shocking Amounts of Cash on Weapons Since 9/11 →

Billions of it was supposed to go to troops on the battlefield. But instead, it went to record profits for makers of fighter jets.

(Source: Mother Jones)

Oh, this? This is a photo of a high-ranking political official in a Christian militia that massacred civilians during the Lebanese civil war.

Guess what he’s doing now? Advising Mitt Romney on foreign policy. And the candidate may have even promised him a job in the White House.

Army Ranger Dies on 14th War Deployment in a Decade

As right-wing pundits decry the end of one US war and the conduct of another, they’d do well to consider the incredible story of Sgt. 1st Class Kristoffer Bryan Domeij.

(Source: Mother Jones)

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Iraq on $256 Million a Day

Last Friday, President Obama announced that the remaining American troops in Iraq will leave the country by the end of 2011. Here’s a quick reminder of the war’s price tag.

Buzzfeed: 7 Facts About The Cost Of The Iraq War That Will Blow Your Mind →

Breaking: President Obama Will Announce Today Complete Drawdown of US Troops in Iraq to Zero By End of Year. →

From Our “10 All-Time Worst Military Contractor Boondoggles” listicle.

10. Welfare for Warlords: Paying Afghan truckers to pay the bad guys.

9. The World’s Most Expensive Road: Guess how much? Guess how long? Sit down first.

8. The Grifter, His Villas, and the Exploding Wall Outlets. Um, yeah. Just read it.

7. Rent-a-Ripoff: How much does the world’s most powerful military pay to lease an SUV?!

6. The Kabul Bank Bust: Pay a Wall Street megafirm to supervise the Afghan banks’ books. Riiiight.

5. Never Leave a Mandarin Behind: Fruit flew first-class to Kabul. Frequently.

4. Soldiers of Misfortune: Not all security contractors get the Blackwater treatment.

3, 2, and 1: Read the complete list to find out!

(Source: Mother Jones)

What do you think? Would full disclosure make us a better-informed society, or would it just end up indulging an unshakeable violence fetish in our culture? Reblog your thoughts.

Everything About the War in Afghanistan in a Single Sentence.

From CNN:

Army Master Sgt. Benjamin A. Stevenson, 36, was on his tenth tour of duty in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq when he was killed Thursday in a remote area of eastern Afghanistan.

Via Joshua Foust at Registan.net.

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Remembering America’s Soldiers…With Charts

From MJ senior editor and chart guru Dave Gilson:

How long should you spend commemorating Memorial Day? It can be accomplished in just 60 seconds if you follow a 2000 presidential memo from Bill Clinton that encouraged Americans “to pause for one minute at 3:00 p.m. (local time) on Memorial Day, to remember and reflect on the sacrifices made by so many to provide freedom for all.” That comes out to 0.0000446 seconds of reflection for each of the approximately 1.3 million Americans who have died in uniform since the earliest days of the republic (according to Wikipedia).

If you have some more time on this, the day after Memorial Day, check out these charts about those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

So what’s driving the US budget deficit for the foreseeable future? GOP tax cuts, GOP wars, GOP-fueled recession.

What won’t be bankrupting us for the next decade? That tiny blue sliver that represents everything the Obama administration’s done to try and right the economy.

Kevin Drum breaks it all down for you.

In Iraq With the Marines’ Mortuary Affairs Unit

“We all had the idea that at any point this could be us on the table,” she said. “I think Marines thought that we went over there to die. And so people wrote letters saying ‘If I die I want you to know I love you.’ ‘I want my car to go to my younger brother.’ Things like that. They carried those letters on their bodies. We had a Marine that we processed and going through his wallet he had a picture of a sonogram of a fetus his wife had sent him. And a lot of Marines had tattooed their vital information under an armpit. It was called a meat tag.”

— Jess Parker, a former Marine responsible for sorting the bodies and possessions of the fallen, in Chris Hedges’ “Death and After in Iraq.”

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Pentagon: We’re sending killer drones to Libya to effect a regime change.

What could go wrong???

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So…we want to cut overall spending…and increase the military budget…?

Huff Po’s Amanda Terkel breaks out the graphs.

Pakistan to CIA: Get the Hell Out, Please →