You might not believe it, but the world just got a bit more peaceful. It might surprise many people to hear that the world is growing more peaceful.
The recently released 2017 Global Peace Index (GPI), produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace, finds that the global level of peace has improved slightly by 0.28 per cent over the past year. Higher levels of peace were recorded by 93 countries, while 68 reported a deterioration. The GPI uses 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators from highly respected sources to rank 163 independent states and territories according to their level of peacefulness. These are the most peaceful countries in the world. Despite brutal and protracted conflicts raging in the Middle East, the world has become slightly more peaceful in the past year.
The Global Peace Index ranks 163 countries according to their domestic and international conflicts, safety and security and degree of militarization. It found 93 had improved, while 68 had deteriorated, and overall peace levels had inched up 0.28%. However, against a backdrop of increased civil unrest and terrorism, the longer-term picture is more gloomy. Terrorists don’t kill for their religion. It’s something else entirely. When it comes to terrorism, military solutions abound.
Meanwhile, the UN has just welcomed a partnership initiative with tech giants Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and YouTube to develop solutions to fight terrorism online. Yet, as details continue to surface from the most recent string of terrorism attacks against the West, are we perhaps overlooking more human-centric solutions and approaches to countering violent extremism? America Has Been At War 93% of the Time – 222 Out of 239 Years – Since 1776
February 23, 2015 "ICH" - The U.S.
Has Only Been At Peace For 21 Years Total Since Its Birth Below, I have reproduced a year-by-year timeline of America’s wars, which reveals something quite interesting: since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years of existence. In other words, there were only 21 calendar years in which the U.S. did not wage any wars.
To put this in perspective: * Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year. * No U.S. president truly qualifies as a peacetime president. US changes nuclear strategy to first strike: Analyst. A US-made nuclear weapon (file photo) The United States has changed its military doctrine in favor of using nuclear weapons for preemptive purposes, an analyst writes for Press TV.
“US war doctrine has been changed. John Lennon - Imagine - Lyrics. A Future Without War. U.S. Military Actions Since 1890. Military–industrial complex. President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned the U.S. about the "military–industrial complex" in his farewell address.
The term is sometimes used more broadly to include the entire network of contracts and flows of money and resources among individuals as well as corporations and institutions of the defense contractors, The Pentagon, the Congress and executive branch. A parallel system is that of the Military–industrial–media complex, along with the more distant politico-media complex and Prison–industrial complex. A similar thesis was originally expressed by Daniel Guérin, in his 1936 book Fascism and Big Business, about the fascist government support to heavy industry. Profits Of War. U.S. Defense Spending. Biggest Military Spenders. This Chart Shows How The Rest Of The World Doesnt Even Come Close to U S Military Spending. The #1 Threat to Peace in the World. Cost of National Security: Counting How Much the U.S. Spends Per Hour. About | Embed | Notes & Sources To embed the Cost of Military Action Against ISIS counter on your website, blog, etc, follow these simple instructions:
Federal Spending: Where Does the Money Go. Defense Contractors: Fraud, Waste & Crime. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have come at a great cost to the American people.
Thousands of men and women have died in uniform in the war zones, and billions of dollars have been spent on the wars. The wars have caused the deaths of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they have arguably had a destabilizing effect on the Middle East. It seems that the only ones benefitting from the wars have been defense contractors. Over the last decade the United States has outsourced much of the wars. Defense contractors have built bases, shipped supplies, cooked food, cleaned uniforms, and provided security. According to a report from the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, an independent, bipartisan commission that studied government contracting in the both wars, a "conservative" estimate of $177 billion was spent on contracts and that $12 billion was lost to fraud without counting the billions more lost to contract waste.
Billions Wasted On Iraqi Reconstruction. WASHINGTON - Almost exactly a decade after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Washington’s efforts to help reconstruct the country have fallen far short, according to the final report by the U.S.
Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) released here Wednesday. The Inspector General, Stuart Bowen, has previously estimated that between six and eight billion dollars of the more than 60 billion dollars U.S. taxpayers had spent on its stabilisation and reconstruction operation (SRO) in Iraq were lost to waste, fraud or other abuses. In his final report, entitled “Learning from Iraq”, Bowen noted that at least another eight billion dollars of Iraq’s own money, which was effectively commandeered by the U.S. -led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) after the invasion, was also lost or wasted.
US auditor finds taxpayer money flowing to Taliban, Al Qaeda - but Army refuses to act. The US military has been ignoring warnings that its spending in Afghanistan is funding Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
And John F. Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), appears to have had enough. Skip to next paragraph. Pentagon Unable To Be Audited. President Barack Obama proudly signed the law that repealed the Pentagon’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, freeing lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans (although not trans people) to openly serve in the military four years ago. But when it comes to budgeting, the concept lingers on. “Don’t ask us how we spend money,” the Pentagon basically says. “Because we can’t really tell you.” Every taxpayer, business, and government agency in America is supposed to be able to pass a financial audit by the feds, every year.
War is a racket. Written in 1935 by Major General Smedley Butler War Is A Racket WAR is a racket. The True Cost of US Military Equipment. Embed this infographic on your site! <a href=" src=" alt="Military Equipment Costs" width="500" border="0" /></a><br />From: <a href=" This infographic takes a look at the amount of tax payer money that goes into funding specific military equipment ranging from the 'small' items to the truly gargantuan in price. The graphic then compare these prices to things that the average American can relate to such as median income, cost of a college education, health insurance, or the price of buying a home.
$1.45 Million Missile. War Industry Sees Profits Surge. War is unhealthy for all but the Military-Industrial Complex Global turmoil and bloody conflicts are not bad news for everyone. The defense industry has been enjoying a nice run in the stock market from armed conflict breaking out across the world from Gaza to Ukraine to Syria. Much of the upside comes from the use of weapons made by US multinational corporations in conflicts that may or may not involve the US directly. Even just a standoff or threat of armed conflict can spur defense spending by governments and enrich weaponry makers. Big Oil & Iraq War. When it was suggested the war in Iraq was about oil, Tony Blair,then the British prime minister, had this to say on February 6,2003. Haliburton Profits. Meet the 0.01 Percent: War Profiteers.
War Or Civilization? True Cost Of War. Corporations Thrive During Wars. Who They Fight For. Money For Wars.