Who profits from our new war? Inside NSA and private contractors’ secret plans

[kpete]

Who profits from our new war? Inside NSA and private contractors’ secret plans
A massive war operation is being waged to track and kill ISIS -- and it's a lot more than cruise missiles
TIM SHORROCK

.............

Under its terms, 21 companies, led by Booz Allen Hamilton, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, will compete over the next five years to provide “fully integrated intelligence, security and information operations” in Afghanistan and “future contingency operations” around the world.

The NSA is best-known to Americans for its awesome power to spy on the electronic communications of governments and populations around the world. But it is also a critical part of the Pentagon chain of command, particularly during wartime, and collects most of its intercepted communications from a global web of listening posts and military intelligence units operated by INSCOM and the other armed services.

INSCOM, which was created in 1978, has been at the cusp of U.S. policy in the wars on terror from the initial campaign against the Taliban in the fall of 2001 to the latest war against ISIS. Much of the top-secret work under the new INSCOM contract will take place at NSA’s networks of listening posts, and will “support complex, classified, compartmented, and/or unique ground-based and airborne reconnaissance and electronic intelligence collection and production systems,” the Pentagon said.

“Army INSCOM supports NSA very heavily,” Tony Shaffer, a former Army intelligence officer, who worked at the command from 1991 to 1995, told Salon. While he was stationed in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks, Shaffer said, “Every mission I ran outside the wire was pretty much supported by INSCOM, which is NSA’s ground collector.” Shaffer wrote about his experiences in the book “Operation Dark Heart.”



MORE HERE:
http://www.salon.com/2014/09/24/heres_who_profits_from_our_new_war_inside_nsa_and_an_army_of_private_contractors_plans/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
https://www.inscom.army.mil/Contracting/254/254_TO_0001_Alpha.pdf

[Octafish]

1. Shorrock has done an outstanding job reporting the truth about the war profiteers.

5 Companies That Make Money By Keeping Americans Terrified of Terror Attacks

Alex Kane
Alternet.org, August 16, 2013

Michael Hayden, the former director of the National Security Agency, has invaded America’s television sets in recent weeks to warn about Edward Snowden’s leaks and the continuing terrorist threat to America.

But what often goes unmentioned, as the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald pointed out, is that Hayden has a financial stake in keeping Americans scared and on a permanent war footing against Islamist militants. And the private firm he works for, called the Chertoff Group, is not the only one making money by scaring Americans.

Post-9/11 America has witnessed a boom in private firms dedicated to the hyped-up threat of terrorism. The drive to privatize America's national security apparatus accelerated in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, and it’s gotten to the point where 70 percent of the national intelligence budget is now spent on private contractors, as author Tim Shorrock reported. The private intelligence contractors have profited to the tune of at least $6 billion a year. In 2010, the Washington Post revealed that there are 1,931 private firms across the country dedicated to fighting terrorism.

What it all adds up to is a massive industry profiting off government-induced fear of terrorism, even though Americans are more likely to be killed by a car crash or their own furniture than a terror attack.

CONTINUED with details, links, etc:

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/5-companies-make-money-keeping-americans-terrified-terror-attacks

[woo me with science]

13. This is what Americans need to see.

In any sane society, this level of corruption should be at the top of the news every single night and the nation in outrage until it is ended and the profiteers punished for their crimes.

In America, people aren't even aware of it.

[woo me with science]

2. K&R Time to pay attention to the men behind the curtain.

This needs to stay on top.

[leftstreet]

3. DURec

[rhett o rick]

4. Thanks for posting. The 99% need help from someone in power. nm

[OnyxCollie]

5. K&R. nt

[WillyT]

6. Huge K & R !!!

[modeforjoe]

7. Where is the Democratic Party

I keep scouring the web to see if any Democrat publicly expresses concern about these things, as well as about Obama's renewal of the failed ME policies of the past. I am not seeing much; just a recent post by Kucinich which is typically courageous. But the silent complicity of the Dems is stupefying; yet I see our DU runs the top story as another criticism of Boehner--sure, he's worthy of being ridiculed--but we should be responsible for skewering our own. If the Dem party spoke with an authentic and united voice, then perhaps we could begin to turn back this Republican tide. Let's focus on our own because until they come out of the closet on these key issues, they are letting us down big time and no longer deserve our support.

[Initech]

8. Greedy, evil fuckwads profiting off death and destruction.

There's a special place in hell reserved for all of them.

[Paka]

9. K&R

[SomethingFishy]

10. Check this out... the 2014 US Military in numbers:

Active Frontline Personnel: 1,430,000
Active Reserve: 850,880

Tanks: 8325
Armored Fighting Vehicles: 25,872
Self Propelled Guns: 1934
Towed Artillery: 1791
Multiple Launch Rocket Systems: 1330

Fighter Jets: 2271
Fixed Wing Attack Aircraft: 2601
Helicopters: 6012
Attack Helicopters: 914

Aircraft Carriers: 10
Destroyers: 62
Submarines: 72

Not to mention the 5000 Nuclear Warheads we are sitting on.

And we are shitting in our pants over an army that couldn't fill up half a fucking football stadium.

military specs from:
http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=united-states-of-america

[woo me with science]

11. +1000000 And that doesn't even count the mercenaries we pay for

or the trillion now promised for nukes.

How many in ISIS? And we will be engaged for YEARS. It's like a fucking cartoon script.

It's a script, anyway...

Nobel Peace Prize, my ass.

[SomethingFishy]

12. 31,000 is the high estimate for ISIS...

31,000 people. Concert attendance. Half the attendance of a football game. The size of a small US town.

I guess I'm supposed to believe that they are the biggest threat since Saddam and his stockpile of WMD's.

Thanks Woo, you and a few others here are keeping me sane.