Military Corruption News Articles

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Earlier this week, the military seized power in Burkina Faso, ousting the country's democratically elected president, Roch Marc Christian Kaboré. The coup was announced on state television Monday by a young officer who said the military had suspended the constitution and dissolved the government. Beside him sat a camouflage-clad man whom he introduced as Burkina Faso's new leader: Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, the commander of one of the country's three military regions. Damiba is a highly trained soldier, thanks in no small part to the U.S. military, which has a long record of training soldiers in Africa who go on to stage coups. Damiba, it turns out, participated in at least a half-dozen U.S. training exercises, according to U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM. Damiba is just the latest in a carousel of coup leaders in West Africa trained by the U.S. military as the U.S. has pumped in more than $1 billion in security assistance to promote "stability" in the region. Since 2008, U.S.-trained officers have attempted at least nine coups (and succeeded in at least eight) across five West African countries, including Burkina Faso (three times), Guinea, Mali (three times), Mauritania, and the Gambia. U.S.-trained coup-plotters aren't strictly confined to West Africa. Before Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi deposed Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, he underwent basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, (in 1981) and advanced instruction at the U.S. Army War College (in 2006).

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

The U.S. accounted for 37% of all global arms exports over the last five years, with Saudi Arabia – easily the world's top arms buyer – accounting for one-quarter of those sales, according to new data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. U.S. arms exports rose by 15% from 2011-2015 to 2016-2020, with 96 countries buying arms from America. Russia remained the second-largest exporter with 20% of the market, but supplied a smaller pool of 44 countries and saw sales fall by 22% from the previous five years due primarily to a decrease in sales to India. The next largest arms exporters were France (8% of the total), Germany (5%) and China (5%). China's sales also slid by 8% in the past five years, while exports from Europe increased significantly. Israel and South Korea both accounted for about 3% of the total after significantly increasing their exports over the past five years. Russia had four major clients that accounted for two-thirds of all exports – India, China, Algeria and Egypt – while Pakistan was by far China's biggest client. The U.S. had a diversified pool of major buyers: Saudi Arabia, Australia, South Korea, Japan, the UAE, Qatar, Israel and the U.K. Arms imports overall were flat between 2011–2015 and 2016–2020, but rose in the Middle East (+25%) while falling in the Americas (-43%), Africa (-13%), and Asia and Oceania (-8.3%).

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption and war from reliable major media sources.

Brandon Bryant was enlisted in the US Air Force for six years. During his time with the military, he operated Predator drones, remotely firing missiles at targets more than 7,000 miles away from the small room containing his workspace near Las Vegas, Nevada. Mr Bryant says he reached his breaking point with the US military after killing a child in Afghanistan that his superiors told him was “a dog.” Following that incident, Mr Bryant quit the military and began speaking out against the drone program. During his time in the Air Force, Mr Bryant estimates he contributed directly to killing 13 people himself and says his squadron fired on 1,626 targets including women and children. He says he has been left suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Mr Bryant said that despite his misgivings about the program, his superiors used punitive measures and mockery to keep him in line. He has said the US military is “worse than the Nazis” because “we should know better.” Mr Bryant said he and his family have been threatened for speaking out against the drone program and that he has lost friends and been estranged from other members of his family over his whistle-blowing. Ultimately Mr Bryant wants the public to understand the dehumanizing effect of the drone program on the operators and the individuals targeted. “I would want people to know, beyond its existence, the consequences it has on us as a species to delineate our power into something so easily destructive,” Mr Bryant said.

Note: Drones almost always miss their intended targets and create more terrorists than they kill. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

According to a study led by Michigan State University professor Mark Skidmore, some $21 trillion in Pentagon accounting transactions, made over a 17-year period, lack supporting data. This doesn’t mean the money is gone - the Pentagon only received roughly $9.2 trillion in budget money during that time - but it does mean the system is so choked with bad numbers, we have little idea of what mischief might be taking place at the Department of Defense. Double-billing [is] an alarmingly simple scheme. As Andy the Air Force accountant puts it: “A contractor accidentally invoices the military twice. It gets paid twice.” For example, one company got paid in full for delivering just 28 percent of a lug-nut contract; or the Swiss contractor that supposedly over-billed by $757 million to supply the troops in Afghanistan. In one of the worst military scandals in recent history, a contractor called “Fat Leonard” reportedly bribed Navy officials with prostitutes and more than $500,000 in order to steer Navy boats to his portside service centers, where he systematically overbilled taxpayers. The ... grifter got more than $200 million in Navy contracts. On paper, the military can lose track of even big things — like 39 Black Hawk helicopters. But Andy thinks if independent analysts get to actually count the stuff that’s supposed to be sitting in depots, this will [reveal] the true extent of the corruption and/or disorganization in the military.

Note: Read more about the Pentagon's massive accounting frauds in this article. Read a 2017 article documenting the investigation which found $21 Trillion unaccounted for in government coffers. Then read summaries of several major media articles showing the Pentagon's blatant lies and disregard for accounting. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

A soldier wears a skullcap that stimulates his brain to make him learn skills faster, or reads his thoughts as a way to control a drone. Another is plugged into a Tron-like “active cyber defense system,” in which she mentally teams up with computer systems “to successfully multitask during complex military missions.” The Pentagon is already researching these seemingly sci-fi concepts. The basics of brain-machine interfaces are being developed—just watch the videos of patients moving prosthetic limbs with their minds. The Defense Department is examining newly scientific tools, like genetic engineering, brain chemistry, and shrinking robotics, for even more dramatic enhancements. But the real trick may not be granting superpowers, but rather making sure those effects are temporary. Last year, three Canadian defense researchers published a paper that explored the intersection of human enhancement and ethics. They found that the permanence of the enhancement could have impacts on troops in the field ... as well as a return to civilian life. They also note that “many soldier resilience human enhancement technologies raised health and safety questions.” The Canadian researchers wrote: “Are there unknown side effects or long term effects that could lead to unanticipated health problems during deployment or after discharge? Moreover, is it ethical to force a soldier to use the technology in question, or should he/she be allowed to consent to its use? Can consent be fully free from coercion in the military?”

Note: Read an excellent article detailing the risks of biosensors implanted under the skin which have already been developed. Some smaller than a grain of rice can be injected with a needle. Watch a slick video promoting this brave new world. Learn how this is already planned for use on soldiers. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

On July 19, 2016, American Special Operations forces bombed what they believed were three ISIS "staging areas" on the outskirts of Tokhar. They reported 85 fighters killed. In fact, they hit houses far from the front line. More than 120 villagers were killed. In early 2017 in Iraq, an American war plane struck a dark-colored vehicle ... bearing not a bomb but a man named Majid Mahmoud Ahmed, his wife and their two children. They and three other civilians were killed. None of these deadly failures resulted in a finding of wrongdoing. These cases are drawn from a hidden Pentagon archive of the American air war in the Middle East since 2014. The trove of documents – the military's own confidential assessments of more than 1,300 reports of civilian casualties, obtained by The New York Times – lays bare how the air war has been marked by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and often imprecise targeting, and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children. In only a handful of cases were the assessments made public. Not a single record provided includes a finding of wrongdoing or disciplinary action. According to the military's count, 1,417 civilians have died in airstrikes in the campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria; since 2018 in Afghanistan, U.S. air operations have killed at least 188 civilians. But The Times's analysis of the documents found that many allegations of civilian casualties had been summarily discounted, with scant evaluation. And the on-the-ground reporting ... found hundreds of deaths uncounted.

Note: If American civilians were killed anywhere by a foreign drone, there would be a media uproar. Where's the justice for these inexcusable deaths? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

Portions of a military information campaign meant to influence the Canadian public during the COVID-19 pandemic continued to operate months after the chief of the defence staff at the time ordered it shut down in the spring of 2020. The Canadian military recently conducted four reviews of controversial initiatives. A copy of one of those reviews was obtained by CBC News under access to information legislation. That review shows that even after the then-chief of the defence staff, Jonathan Vance, verbally called off the overall influence campaign in April 2020, some influence activities aimed at Canadians carried on for another six months – until Vance issued a written edict in November 2020. The military deployed propaganda techniques in Canada without approval during the pandemic and gathered information about Canadians' online activities without permission from authorities. DND denies it has used psychological warfare techniques, honed during the Afghan war, on Canadians. But the line between psychological warfare and information operation campaigns has become increasingly blurry over the last few years. The review document obtained by CBC News says the Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC) ... "liberally interpreted" department policy. The unit decided it had the authority to conduct information operations on Canadians without government approval because it was asked by the government to help with the response to the pandemic.

Note: Learn more in this article titled, "Military leaders saw pandemic as unique opportunity to test propaganda techniques on Canadians, Forces report says." For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

Protesters mobilizing across the country against racism and excessive force by police have been countered by law enforcement officers more heavily armed than ever. Three federal programs have allowed local and state law enforcement to arm itself with military equipment. Since 1997, the Defense Department has transferred excess or unused equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies. Departments have acquired more than $7 billion worth of guns, helicopters, armored vehicles and ammunition under the program. The transfers were limited under the Obama administration but re-expanded under President Donald Trump in 2017. Now Congress is considering reining it in again. But that effort, if successful, is unlikely to touch an even bigger source of advanced weapons accessible to civilian police. Two Department of Homeland Security initiatives established in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks have given state and local law enforcement agencies billions more to buy equipment without the rules and restrictions of the Defense Department program. Because of the Defense Department program, authorized by Section 1033 of the National Defense Authorization Act, more than 6,500 law enforcement agencies across the country currently possess more than $1.8 billion worth of equipment. Since 2003, states and metro areas have received $24.3 billion from two DHS grant programs, which have little oversight: The State Homeland Security Program (SHSP) and the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI).

Note: Read also this wired.com article revealing how the 1033 program has shipped over $7.4 billion of Defense Department property to more than 8,000 law enforcement agencies and this NPR article detailing the military weaponry gifted to police around the US. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on police corruption from reliable major media sources.

As the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction since 2012, my staff and I have audited and investigated U.S. programs and spending to rebuild Afghanistan. We have detailed a long list of systemic problems. One general told us that he faced a challenge: How to spend the remaining $1 billion from his annual budget in just over a month? Returning the money was not an option. Another official we spoke to said he refused to cancel a multimillion-dollar building project that field commanders did not want, because the funding had to be spent. The building was never used. The entire system became a self-licking ice cream cone: More money was always being spent to justify previous spending. Important information for measuring the success of initiatives was – at times deliberately – hidden from Congress and the American public. Since 2021 the United States has funneled $3.3 billion to Afghanistan through public international organizations, mainly United Nations offices, for humanitarian purposes. Some of this money helps the Afghan people, and some goes to the Taliban. Between the American withdrawal in August 2021 and this past May, U.S.-funded partners paid at least $10.9 million in taxes and fees to Taliban authorities. In July, we reported that two out of five State Department bureaus were unable to show that their contractors working in Afghanistan in 2022 had been vetted sufficiently to ensure their work was not benefiting terrorist organizations.

Note: The US was involved in human rights abuses including torture in Afghanistan. Learn more about war failures and lies in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, read our concise summaries of news articles on military corruption.

The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft found that at least 37 members of Congress and their relatives traded between $24-113 million worth of stock in companies listed on Defense and Security Monitor's Top 100 Defense Contractors index. As the Quincy Institute noted: "Eight of these members even simultaneously held positions on the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, the committees overseeing defense policy and foreign relations. Members of Congress that oversee the annual defense bill and are privy to intelligence briefings have an upper hand in predicting future stock prices." The analysis found that one Democratic congressman accounted for the vast bulk of defense stock trading in 2024. Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey traded at least $22 million and as much as $104 million worth of shares in companies on the index. The Quincy Institute asserted: "If Congress wants to wash itself of conflicts of interest it can start by passing a stock trading ban. The Ending Trading and Holdings in Congressional Stocks Act, or ETHICS Act, would prohibit members of Congress from trading individual stocks." Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib ... has introduced the Stop Politicians Profiting from War Act, which would ban members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children from trading defense stocks or having financial interests in companies that do business with the U.S. Department of Defense.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on war and government corruption.

Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority. However, as many AI ethicists warn, this blinkered focus on the existential future threat to humanity posed by a malevolent AI ... has often served to obfuscate the myriad more immediate dangers posed by emerging AI technologies. These "lesser-order" AI risks ... include pervasive regimes of omnipresent AI surveillance and panopticon-like biometric disciplinary control; the algorithmic replication of existing racial, gender, and other systemic biases at scale ... and mass deskilling waves that upend job markets, ushering in an age monopolized by a handful of techno-oligarchs. Killer robots have become a twenty-first-century reality, from gun-toting robotic dogs to swarms of autonomous unmanned drones, changing the face of warfare from Ukraine to Gaza. Palestinian civilians have frequently spoken about the paralyzing psychological trauma of hearing the "zanzana" – the ominous, incessant, unsettling, high-pitched buzzing of drones loitering above. Over a decade ago, children in Waziristan, a region of Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, experienced a similar debilitating dread of US Predator drones that manifested as a fear of blue skies. "I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray," stated thirteen-year-old Zubair in his testimony before Congress in 2013.

Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on AI and military corruption.

Over the past several years, the US Defense Department has been gradually integrating what appear to be variants of the Freedom of Movement Control Unit (FMCU) handsets as the primary control units for a variety of advanced weapons systems. Produced since 2008 by Measurement Systems Inc. (MSI), a subsidiary of British defense contractor Ultra that specializes in human-machine interfaces, the FMCU offers a similar form factor to the standard Xbox or PlayStation controller but with a ruggedized design intended to safeguard its sensitive electronics against whatever hostile environs American service members may find themselves in. A longtime developer of joysticks used on various US naval systems and aircraft, MSI has served as a subcontractor to major defense "primes" like General Atomics, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and BAE Systems to provide the handheld control units for "various aircraft and vehicle programs," according to information compiled by federal contracting software GovTribe. At the moment, it's unclear how exactly many US military systems use the FMCU. When reached for comment, the Pentagon confirmed the use of the system on the NMESIS, M-SHORAD, and RADBO weapons platforms and referred WIRED to the individual service branches for additional details. The Marine Corps confirmed the handset's use with the GBOSS, while the Air Force again confirmed the same for the RADBO.

Note: The latest US Air Force recruitment tool is a video game that allows players to receive in-game medals and achievements for drone bombing Iraqis and Afghans. Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

A MintPress News investigation into the funding sources of U.S. foreign policy think tanks has found that they are sponsored to the tune of millions of dollars every year by weapons contractors. Arms manufacturing companies donated at least $7.8 million last year to the top fifty U.S. think tanks, who, in turn, pump out reports demanding more war and higher military spending, which significantly increase their sponsors' profits. The only losers in this closed, circular system are the American public, saddled with higher taxes, and the tens of millions of people around the world who are victims of the U.S. war machine. The think tanks receiving the most tainted cash were, in order, the Atlantic Council, CSIS, CNAS, the Hudson Institute, and the Council on Foreign Relations, while the weapons manufacturers most active on K-Street were Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and General Atomics. There is obviously a massive conflict of interest if groups advising the U.S. government on military policy are awash with cash from the arms industry. The Atlantic Council alone is funded by 22 weapons companies, totaling at least $2.69 million last year. Even a group like the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, established in 1910 as an organization dedicated to reducing global conflict, is sponsored by corporations making weapons of war, including Boeing and Leonardo, who donate tens of thousands of dollars annually.

Note: Learn more about arms industry corruption in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

A recent audit of Pentagon funding of gain-of-function research outside the US "may have shielded" collaborations with Chinese biotech firms – including at least one linked to Beijing's military, a Republican senator alleged. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) pressed Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for answers about redactions that had concealed the firms – WuXi AppTec, Pharmaron Beijing Co., and Genscript Inc. – from public scrutiny in the audit, according to a letter. "American taxpayers deserve transparency about the programs they are funding, and I am disappointed this OIG report does not provide that accountability," Marshall wrote. According to the Defense Department Office of Inspector General audit, more than $15.5 million in grants between 2014 and 2023 flowed through subrecipients to "contracting research organization[s] in China or other foreign countries for research related to potential enhancement of pathogens of pandemic potential." However, the 20-page audit cited "significant limitations with the adequacy of data" – and said the Pentagon "did not track funding at the level of detail necessary to determine whether the DoD provided funding ... for the gain-of-function experiments. Such research is classified as "offensive biological work" by the Pentagon, which Marshall said "raises questions" about National Institutes of Health (NIH) officials having admitted this year to funding gain-of-function experiments at the ... Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Note: Watch our 15-min Mindful News Brief video on the strong evidence that bioweapons research created COVID-19. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on COVID-19 and military corruption from reliable major media sources.

Last week, the Biden administration said it would allow the Azov Brigade, a Ukrainian military unit, to receive U.S. weaponry and training, freeing it from a purported ban imposed in response to concerns that it committed human rights violations and had neo-Nazi ties. A photo posted by the unit itself, however, seems to suggest that the U.S. was providing support as far back as December of last year. The photo, in tandem with the administration's own statements, highlights the murky nature of the arms ban, how it was imposed, and under what U.S. authority. Two mechanisms could have barred arms transfers: a law passed by Congress specifically prohibiting assistance to Azov, and the so-called Leahy laws that block support to units responsible for grave rights violations. The State Department said this month that weapon shipments will now go forward after a Leahy law review, but won't comment on if and when a Leahy ban was in effect. The congressional prohibition, the U.S. says, does not apply because it barred assistance to the Azov Battalion, a predecessor to the Azov Brigade. The original unit had earned scrutiny for alleged human rights violations and ties to neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideologies. The U.S. has not made clear about when the apparent ban started, but a deputy Azov commander and media reports indicate some type of prohibition has been in effect for nearly a decade – though the congressional ban has only been in effect since 2018.

Note: Facebook changed its censorship policies to permit calls for the death of Russian soldiers and praise for the Azov Battalion. Learn more about US covert military support for Neo-Nazis in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.

Russia is to blame for coups in the African Sahel, according to a new analysis by the Pentagon's top Africa researcher, which ignores the U.S. role in training leaders of these mutinies – and two decades of failed U.S. counterterrorism policies in the region. A series of reports by The Intercept found that military personnel who had received U.S. support were involved in coups in Burkina Faso (in 2014, 2015, and twice in 2022), Mali (in 2012, 2020, and 2021), and Niger (in 2023). U.S.-supported officers also played a role in coups in Mauritania (2008), Gambia (2014), Chad (2021), and Guinea (2021). The total number of U.S.-trained mutineers across Africa since 9/11 may be far higher than is known, but the State Department, which tracks data on U.S. trainees, is either unwilling or unable to supply it. The Pentagon is mandated to provide a briefing on coups carried out by U.S.-trained African partners to the Senate and House Armed Services committees but missed its March deadline. Throughout all of Africa, the State Department counted a total of just nine terrorist attacks in 2002 and 2003, the first years of U.S. counterterrorism assistance in the Sahel. Last year, the number of violent events in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger alone reached 3,716, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a crisis monitoring organization. This represents a jump of more than 41,000 percent.

Note: Learn more about how war is a tool for hidden agendas in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

The United States has long had the world's biggest defense budget, with spending this year set to approach $900 billion. Yet this spending is rapidly being eclipsed by the fastest-growing portion of federal outflows: interest payments on the national debt. For the first seven months of fiscal year 2024, which began last October, net interest payments totaled $514 billion, outpacing defense by $20 billion. Budget analysts think that trend will continue, making 2024 the first year ever that the United States will spend more on interest payments than on national defense. Interest is now the third-biggest expenditure after Social Security and health. And not because any of the other programs are shrinking. While most government expenditures grow modestly from year to year, interest expenses in 2024 are running 41% higher than in 2023. Interest payments are ballooning for two obvious reasons. The first is that annual deficits have exploded, leaving the nation with a gargantuan $34.6 trillion in total federal debt, 156% higher than the national debt at the end of 2010. As a percentage of GDP, the annual deficit has nearly doubled in just 10 years, from 2.8% in 2014 to a projected 5.3% in 2024. The government is also paying more to borrow. From 2010 through 2021, the average interest rate on all Treasury securities sold to the public was just 2.1%. But in 2022, the Federal Reserve started jacking up rates to tame inflation, and the government now pays an average interest rate of 3.3%.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption from reliable major media sources.

SpaceX recently secured a classified contract to build an extensive network of "spy satellites" for an undisclosed U.S. intelligence agency, with one source telling Reuters that "no one can hide" under the prospective network's reach. The U.S. is funding or otherwise supporting a range of defense contractors and startups working to create a new generation of space-bound weapons, surveillance systems, and adjacent technologies. In other words, America is hell-bent on a new arms race – in space. The Space Force, an entirely new branch of the military "focused solely on pursuing superiority in the space domain," was launched in 2019, signaling renewed emphasis on space militarization as U.S. policy. Space Force's Space Development Agency recently granted defense contractors L3Harris and Lockheed Martin and space company Sierra Space contracts worth $2.5 billion to build satellites for the U.S. military's Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), a constellation of hundreds of satellites, built out on tranches, that provide various warfighting capabilities, including the collection and transmission of critical wartime communications, into low-Earth orbit. The PWSA will serve as the backbone of the Pentagon's Joint All-Domain Command and Control project, an effort to bolster warfighting capacities and decision-making processes by facilitating "information advantage at the speed of relevance." Other efforts are just as sci-fi-esque.

Note: Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on military corruption from reliable major media sources.

A Silicon Valley defense tech startup is working on products that could have as great an impact on warfare as the atomic bomb, its founder Palmer Luckey said. "We want to build the capabilities that give us the ability to swiftly win any war we are forced to enter," he [said]. The Anduril founder didn't elaborate on what impact AI weaponry would have. But asked if it would be as decisive as the atomic bomb to the outcome of World War II he replied: "We have ideas for what they are. We are working on them." In 2022, Anduril won a contract worth almost $1 billion with the Special Operations Command to support its counter-unmanned systems. Anduril's products include autonomous sentry towers along the Mexican border [and] Altius-600M attack drones supplied to Ukraine. All of Anduril's tech operates autonomously and runs on its AI platform called Lattice that can easily be updated. The success of Anduril has given hope to other smaller players aiming to break into the defense sector. As an escalating number of global conflicts has increased demand for AI-driven weaponry, venture capitalists have put more than $100 billion into defense tech since 2021, according to Pitchbook data. The rising demand has sparked a fresh wave of startups lining up to compete with industry "primes" such as Lockheed Martin and RTX (formerly known as Raytheon) for a slice of the $842 billion US defense budget.

Note: Learn more about emerging warfare technology in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in the military and in the corporate world from reliable major media sources.

Despite its long history as part of conflicts, sexual violence is often not reported because of the trauma and shame it brings to survivors, their families and their wider communities. There has also been reticence among various authorities to speak out. Only in modern times, in the 1990s when wars broke out in Rwanda and Yugoslavia, did the United Nations begin to recognize sexual violence as ... a category of war crime. The specific term "conflict-related sexual violence," or CRSV, was first introduced in 2000 when the United Nations Security Council issued a resolution that launched the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. The U.N. defined the term as "rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution, forced pregnancy, forced abortion, enforced sterilization, forced marriage and any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity perpetrated against women, men, girls or boys that is directly or indirectly linked to a conflict." [CRSV] is widespread and is used as a tactic of war to assert dominance and power. "It can be just as traumatizing to see your daughter, your sister or your parents being raped in front of you," says [Dr. Ranit] Mishori. "Or you're forced to strip naked in front of soldiers or in the city square. People often carry this trauma without knowing it's an international crime and minimize what happened to them." For conflict resolution and peace building to be successful, survivors need to be included in the process. For some countries this method has already started to work. [In Colombia], they have built women into the peace process. It's not perfect – no peace is perfect – but it is progressive and it is intentional, and that is important. Intentional peace building must be inclusive of survivors of this form of violence.

Note: The public receives censored and sanitized versions of war from the government and the media. Yet in reality, unethical violations of domestic and international human rights law are common and often kept hidden during wartime. For more, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.