View previous stories
	U.S. government invests more in weapons companies than in diplomacy and international assistance by Brown University: Cost of War Project, agencies USA   July 2025   In five years, from 2020 to 2024, private firms received $2.4 trillion in contracts from the Pentagon, approximately 54% of the department’s discretionary spending of $4.4 trillion over that period.   During these five years, the U.S. government invested over twice as much money in five weapons companies as in diplomacy and international assistance. Between 2020 and 2024, $771 billion in Pentagon contracts went to just five firms: Lockheed Martin ($313 billion), RTX (formerly Raytheon, $145 billion), Boeing ($115 billion), General Dynamics ($116 billion), and Northrop Grumman ($81 billion). By comparison, the total diplomacy, development, and humanitarian aid budget, excluding military aid, was $356 billion.   Annual U.S. military spending has grown significantly this century, as has the portion of the budget that goes to contractors: While 54% of the Pentagon’s average annual spending has gone to military contractors since 2020, during the 1990s, only 41% went to contractors.   U.S. military spending, including funding for the Pentagon and military activities funded by other agencies, had risen from $531 billion in 2000 to $899 billion in 2025, in constant 2025 dollars. However, legislation approved in July 2025 adds $156 billion to this total, pushing annual U.S. military spending to $1.06 trillion. Taking these supplemental funds into account, the U.S. military budget has nearly doubled this century, increasing 99% since 2000.   The report also analyzes the tools of influence used by the arms industry — lobbying, millions in campaign donations, the revolving door, and others — that are expanding. As of 2024, there were 950 lobbyists hired by the arms industry — 220 more than in 2020 – helping to shape policy and increase military spending.   http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2025/MilitaryContractors   Sep. 2021   Profits of War: Corporate beneficiaries of the Post-9/11 spending surge - Brown University: Cost of War Project.   Pentagon spending has totaled over $14 trillion since the start of the war in Afghanistan, with one-third to one-half of the total going to military contractors.   A large portion of these contracts -- one-quarter to one-third of all Pentagon contracts in recent years -- have gone to just five major corporations: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman.   The $75 billion in Pentagon contracts received by Lockheed Martin in fiscal year 2020 is well over one and one-half times the entire budget for the State Department and Agency for International Development for that year, which totaled $44 billion.   Weapons makers have spent $2.5 billion on lobbying over the past two decades, employing, on average, over 700 lobbyists per year over the past five years. That is more than one for every member of Congress.   Numerous companies took advantage of wartime conditions—which require speed of delivery and often involve less rigorous oversight—to overcharge the government or engage in outright fraud. In 2011, the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan estimated that waste, fraud and abuse had totaled between $31 billion and $60 billion.   As the U.S. reduces the size of its military footprint in Iraq and Afghanistan, exaggerated estimates of the military challenges posed by China have become the new rationale of choice in arguments for keeping the Pentagon budget at historically high levels. Military contractors will continue to profit from this inflated spending.   http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2021/ProfitsOfWar http://theintercept.com/2021/08/16/afghanistan-war-defense-stocks/   * The estimated number of people killed directly in the violence of the U.S. post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere are estimated to number around one million lives. Several times as many more have been killed as a reverberating effect of the wars — because, for example, of water loss, sewage and other infrastructural issues, and war-related disease.   http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/WarDeathToll   * The Costs of War Project estimates that 241,000 people have died as a direct result of the war in Afghanistan. These figures do not include deaths caused by disease, loss of access to food, water, infrastructure, and/or other indirect consequences of the war.   http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/human-and-budgetary-costs-date-us-war-afghanistan-2001-2022 http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2021/CareforVeterans http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm http://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/16/us-bill-seeks-stop-arming-human-rights-abusers http://armssalesaccountabilityproject.com/learn-more/   September 11: Tragedy, Resilience, and the Making of a Movement, by Darren Walker - Director of the Ford Foundation   It’s been 20 years since the Twin Towers collapsed into rubble. September 11 is a day etched in our memory and a defining moment in history that changed America and the world forever.   As a country and, personally, as a New Yorker, it’s been a journey to recover from the shock and the tragedy that shook the world.   The events tested America’s capacity to rebuild, but they also sparked a dangerous nationalism that fixated on Black, Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian communities, and immigrants at large.   On this anniversary, we pause to remember the valor of those we lost and those who rose to meet the moment, to reflect on the ripple effects that have affected communities both on US soil and abroad, and to recognize the work of a courageous movement that chose to challenge unjust systems of oppression that targeted millions based on their race, ethnicity, and religion in pursuit of a truly equitable America.   Two of my colleagues—Maria Torres-Springer, who moved to New York just days before 9/11, and Noorain Khan, a Muslim American woman who experienced the fear felt across Black and brown communities across the country—look back at that fateful day, the racism and xenophobia that followed, and the commitment to justice that transpired then and still perseveres today.   As we face new crises as a country and as a world, we have an opportunity to learn from the last two decades, mend the cracks in our systems, and build a shared understanding of equality, justice and freedom.   http://www.fordfoundation.org/just-matters/just-matters/posts/september-11-tragedy-resilience-and-the-making-of-a-movement/   Sep. 2021   9/11 Unleashed a Global Storm of Human Rights Abuses, by Kenneth Roth - Executive Director of Human Rights Watch   The September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States were foremost a tragedy for the nearly 3,000 victims and their families. Lives were snuffed out, destinies forever changed, in acts of violence that elicited shock and outraged the world over. Many of the first responders continue to suffer ill health from their work in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. The victims’ families will never forget.   Compounding this tragedy, the horror of the attacks spawned an abusive reaction that reverberates to this day. Instead of reaffirming the human rights standards that prohibit such instrumental cruelty, the administration of President George W. Bush shredded them.   The American people, appalled and frightened by the magnitude of the attacks, didn’t adequately push back. Often, because so much was done in secret, they didn’t even know, at least until much later.   White House lawyer John Yoo wrote the notorious torture memos to justify the unjustifiable. The brutal mistreatment of suspects, such as by waterboarding, was papered over with the euphemism “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Bush’s Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, dismissed the Geneva Conventions as “quaint” and “obsolete.” His director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael Hayden, publicly pushed agents to edge close to the legal line – to get chalk on their shoes – while they secretly leaped over it.   The effect of this indifference to human rights sparked emulation elsewhere. Brutal rulers figured out that the best way to get away with mass abuse was to label it a fight against “terrorism.”..   Beyond the abuses themselves, was the conceptual damage. Rather than using law enforcement means to address the horrible crimes of September 11, the Bush administration declared a “global war on terror” that extended to every corner of the earth, far beyond the borders of Afghanistan, where the Al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden, was believed to be hiding. That purportedly allowed detaining suspects found anywhere as “enemy combatants” without charge or trial until the “war” ended, meaning, potentially, forever. That laid the groundwork for indefinite detentions at Guantanamo Bay.   The “war” paradigm was also used to justify killing suspects wherever they were found, often on the flimsiest of evidence. International human rights law requires law enforcement officials to arrest suspects whenever possible and to use lethal force only as a last resort to stop an imminent threat to life..   A more enlightened approach to countering terrorism would have enlisted Muslim communities. Most Muslims in the United States were appalled by the perversion of Islam that Al-Qaeda used to justify the September 11 and other attacks. Globally, Muslims are the primary victims of terrorism..   Rather than encourage Muslim communities to cooperate in identifying potential terrorist threats, official mistreatment alienated them.   Abuses took place with near-universal impunity. Apart from prosecuting a handful of low-level military personnel, efforts to investigate or prosecute torture and other offenses were stymied.   Even when President Obama announced that he had stopped the torture program, he refused to criminally investigate the senior officials who authorized it, claiming that the US needed to look forward, not back.   The result is that torture, while a crime on the books, effectively remains a policy option. Trump threatened to revive it. Future presidents might be encouraged to deploy it..   The twentieth anniversary of the September 11 attacks is a moment both to remember the victims and to reassess the profoundly misguided aspects of the US government response. It is a time to condemn the evil of terrorism. It is also the time to close Guantanamo.   It is time, as much as still possible, to prosecute those who ordered the secret detention and torture, and to release the full Senate Intelligence Committee report on this despicable program.   And it is time formally to end the “global war on terror”, to admit that, in the absence of a genuine armed conflict, terrorism offenses can be fought like any other serious crime within the confines of international human rights law, without the endless detention and summary killings that have plagued this forever “war.”   http://www.hrw.org/news/2021/09/09/9/11-unleashed-global-storm-human-rights-abuses http://www.hrw.org/news/2021/09/09/twenty-years-legacy-9/11 http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/20-years-after-911-rights-based-policies-new-era http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02008-0/fulltext http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02007-9/fulltext http://www.un.org/en/observances/terrorism-victims-day Visit the related web page
	Building back better: toward a minority, indigenous and disability-inclusive post-Covid-19 world by Lauren Avery Minority Rights Group (MRG)   Although the effects of the pandemic have been felt worldwide, they have not been evenly distributed. In particular, minorities and indigenous peoples have not only borne the brunt of the disease itself ­­­- suffering disproportionate infection and death rates – but also the effects of restrictions to control the virus, such as national, regional or local lockdowns. Some of these impacts were explored in the recent MRG briefing, ‘Inequality and the impact of Covid-19: How discrimination is shaping the experiences of minorities and indigenous peoples during the pandemic’.   Similarly, for persons with disabilities around the world, Covid-19 has presented particularly severe impacts, including high death rates. The Covid-19 Disability Rights Monitor highlighted the ‘catastrophic impact’ globally of the pandemic on the rights of persons with disabilities. It is no surprise that the theme of this year’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities is ‘Building back better: Toward a disability-inclusive, accessible and sustainable post Covid-19 world’.   But while minorities, indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities represent some of the most severely impacted during the pandemic, the situation is even more acute for those at the intersection between these groups – persons with disabilities belonging to a minority or indigenous community, constituting a ‘minority within a minority’ for whom the impacts of Covid-19 have been even more profound.   Multiple and intersecting impacts   In April, MRG along with 22 other organizations issued a statement highlighting the specific impact of the pandemic on persons with disabilities from minority, indigenous and other marginalised communities. Anecdotal evidence collected by this network showed that persons with disabilities from these communities faced particular impacts during lockdown around the world.   A lack of accessible information available in minority and Indigenous languages meant that persons with disabilities from these communities were often last to learn about Covid-19 and how they could protect themselves. National and regional lockdowns for unspecified amounts of time and without necessary exemptions meant that access to personal assistance and essential medical care was further constrained.   The economic impact was also particularly severe for this group, who often already rely on insufficient social support and precarious work for survival, pushing many to the brink. Finally, in many parts of the world, the pandemic saw an increase in racial discrimination, with minorities frequently blamed for the spread of the virus, while persons with disabilities were regarded in some quarters as more ‘expendable’ as pressure on limited health resources grew. Medical rationing, including ‘do not resuscitate’ orders being forced on persons with disabilities, was justified through arbitrary and ableist notions of frailty and quality of life.   Even before the pandemic, minority and indigenous persons with disabilities experienced intersectional discrimination on account of their overlapping identities, which can be hard to capture or address using traditional legal mechanisms that address only a single axis of discrimination.   Gender-based oppression adds another layer of complexity, often resulting in higher rates of violence, abuse and more extreme marginalization for minority and indigenous women with disabilities. For persons with disabilities from minority and indigenous communities, ‘normality’ was always far from being adequate.   How do we build back better, for all?   In ‘building back better’ after Covid-19, we need to recognize the groups who repeatedly fall through the cracks: those people excluded not only from political participation and development, but also sidelined within civil society and human rights movements.   If disability rights are not acknowledged, then community activism will remain incomplete. And if all constituencies of persons with disabilities are not included in disability rights activism, then in important ways the status quo of the old, inadequate ‘normal’ will remain in place.   Data is key to building back better after Covid-19. With the development of the Washington Questions and more recently the Disability Data Advocacy Kit, the importance of good data on disability has become increasingly recognised and addressed. The toolkit, released in November 2020, is a fantastic initiative to drive forward the struggle to secure the rights of some 1 billion persons with disabilities around the world.   But disability data that does not disaggregate by other characteristics, including ethnicity, minority or indigenous status, cannot reveal the complex issues that are at play in the lives of many persons with disabilities with intersectional identities who face discrimination on multiple levels.   Some progress has been made in improving and refining data collection, particularly for indigenous persons with disabilities, estimated to number 54 million worldwide. But even here the picture is largely incomplete, while reliable data on persons with disabilities from other marginalized groups is severely lacking.   In response to the absence of specific, disaggregated data on persons with disabilities from minority and indigenous communities, MRG has started work on updating our World Directory on Minorities and Indigenous Peoples with information on disability. Working with partners in Argentina, Iraq, Nepal, Tanzania and Thailand, we have now added ‘disability’ sections to five countries, with others set to follow. MRG invite our partners and supporters to use and contribute to this new initiative to address the data gap for minority and indigenous persons with disabilities and include them in their work.   The research to date highlights the different ways that discrimination and marginalization can interact to create deeper and more entrenched patterns of exclusion.   In Argentina, for instance, while many of the country’s indigenous population contend with limited access to education and health care due to language barriers and physical distance, for persons with disabilities in these communities the difficulties are even more acute.   In Iraq, in the wake of ISIS’s targeted campaign of violence against Yezidis and other communities in the north of the country, minorities are disproportionately represented among persons with disabilities and face added challenges due to displacement.   In Nepal, minority and indigenous persons with disabilities struggle to access affordable, culturally appropriate assistive technologies, barring them from even the limited resources now available for persons with disabilities there.   In Tanzania, persons with albinism not only face obstacles in receiving basic treatments such as sun cream to manage their condition, but also suffer widespread social stigma ­– resulting, alongside hate speech and ostracization, in dozens of deadly attacks in recent years.   Meanwhile, in Thailand’s conflict-affected Southern Border Provinces, barriers to assistive devices such as mobility aids and the limited availability of services for repair and maintenance mean that persons with disabilities are left without the essential equipment to enable their mobility and full participation in society.   These diverse examples demonstrate that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to address intersectional discrimination for minority and indigenous persons with disabilities in various contexts. What is needed, instead, is a rights-based approach that recognizes the complex realities of disability, ethnicity and discrimination, with the necessary data to identify those most at risk of being left behind.   http://minorityrights.org/2020/12/03/disability-covid/ http://covid-drm.org/en/statements/covid-19-disability-rights-monitor-report-highlights-catastrophic-global-failure-to-protect-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities http://minorityrights.org/2020/12/21/building-back-better/ Visit the related web page
	View more stories