A $7 billion missile-defense system for the United Arab Emirates. An estimated $15 billion potential sale of Lockheed Martin’s brand-new fighter plane to Israel. Billions of dollars in weaponry for Taiwan and Turkey. These and other recent deals helped make the United States the world’s leading arms-exporting nation.

In 2007, U.S. foreign military sales agreements totaled more than $32 billion — nearly triple the amount during President Bush’s first full year in office.

The Pentagon routinely justifies weapons sales as “promoting regional stability,” but many of these arms end up in the world’s war zones. In 2006 and 2007, the five biggest recipients of U.S. weapons were Pakistan ($3.5 billion), Iraq ($2.2 billion), Israel ($2.2 billion), Afghanistan ($1.9 billion) and Colombia ($580 million) — all countries where conflict rages.

America's promise to "Support the Troops" ends the moment they take off the uniform and try to make the transition to civilian life.

US History of Wars: Why we fight. Add a logical debate

"You go over there and risk your life for America and your mind's all messed up, America should take care of you, right," he says, knowing that for him and the other veterans in line for free food that promise has not been kept.

At the Franklin Mills mall here, past the Gap Outlet and the China Buddha Express, is a $13 million video arcade that the Army hopes will become a model for recruitment in urban areas, where the armed services typically have a hard time attracting recruits.

The Army Experience Center is a fitting counterpart to the retail experience: 14,500 square feet of mostly shoot-’em-up video games and three full-scale simulators, including an AH-64 Apache Longbow helicopter, an armed Humvee and a Black Hawk copter with M4 carbine assault rifles. For those who want to take the experience deeper, the center has 22 recruiters.

This is the winner of our discontent, Barack Obama, and he is supposed to end the US attack on Iraq and its people and withdraw our invading forces and end the occupation of that country. Keeping Robert Gates, a Bush loyalist to the core, as his war secretary is not a promising sign. In this article I will outline what Gates thinks about the US mission in the world and the role of the U.S. military.

A woman who grew up in Whitehall remained hospitalized on Friday after her husband -- a decorated United States Marine -- allegedly attacked and beat her with a hammer.

A veteran who has been out of the military for 15 years and recently received his AARP card was stunned when he received notice he will be deployed to Iraq.

The US Army War College is on the case - ready to handle "unforeseen economic collapse" and the "rapid dissolution of public order in all or significant parts of the US."

And you thought we were just dealing with a recession!

Even doubters have reason to pause when they hear the North American Aerospace Defense Command — or NORAD, which monitors air and space threats against the U.S. and Canada — is in charge of the annual Christmas mission to keep children informed of Santa's worldwide journey to their homes.

Sgt. 1st Class Patrick Henderson, a strapping Iraq combat veteran, spent the last, miserable months of his life as an Army recruiter, cold-calling dozens of people a day from his strip-mall office and sitting in strangers' living rooms, trying to sign up their sons and daughters for an unpopular war.

He put in 13-hour days, six days a week, often encountering abuse from young people or their parents. When he and other recruiters would gripe about the pressure to meet their quotas, their superiors would snarl that they ought to be grateful they were not in Iraq, according to his widow.

In violation of its pledge to the United Nations not to recruit children into the military, the Pentagon “regularly target(s) children under 17,” the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) says.

The Pentagon “heavily recruits on high school campuses, targeting students for recruitment as early as possible and generally without limits on the age of students they contact,” the ACLU states in a 46-page report titled “Soldiers of Misfortune.”

This is in violation of the U.S. Senate's 2002 ratification of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Basically, the Pentagon and the CIA are working in tandem to force targeted nations like India and Pakistan to accept the decision which has been made to “outsource” the terror war to them and other patsy nations like them. Agency contract hits like the Mumbai attack and bombings in FATA are blamed on “al Qaida” by the government-controlled media in the West and in the media controlled by the “patsy” foreign governments. Biased, hate-based reporting serves to drive patriotic fervor to a frenzied state.

The Army Experience Center, located in the Franklin Mills Mall just north of Philadelphia, bills itself as a "state-of-the-art educational facility that uses interactive simulations and online learning programs to educate visitors about the many careers, training and educational opportunities available in the Army."

Nonsense. The only thing they're teaching here is how to blow shit up. If it's state-of-the-art anything, it's state-of-the-art adolescent boys’ wet dreams.

Looking back on that time, while the US Government declared political victory in the war, and the "Captains of Industry" grew rich turning looted war material into corporations that could hardly fail in competing with nations whose industrial bases had been bombed into rubble, I recognize that the town I grew up in had been defeated in that war. It had been eviscerated. It had had its very heart cut out of it; a gaping hole that never healed, but could only be forgotten.

Between 2003 and 2007, the Navy's supply of replacement parts for ships and aircraft far exceeded its needs, the Government Accountability Office found during a new audit. Indeed, in some instances investigators found stocks of equipment that the service is unlikely to use up for decades - such as 13,852 engine blades for its F/A-18 fighter jets estimated to be worth $3.6 million.

Widows of war veterans have been wrongfully denied up to millions of dollars in government benefits over the past 12 years due to computer glitches that often resulted in money being seized from the elderly survivors' bank accounts.

The disclosure comes as the VA is scrambling to upgrade government technology systems before new legislation providing for millions of dollars in new GI education benefits takes effect next August. Thousands of veterans currently also endure six-month waits for disability benefits, despite promises by Peake and his predecessor, Jim Nicholson, to reduce delays.

Widows of war veterans have been wrongfully denied up to millions of dollars in government benefits over the past 12 years due to computer glitches that often resulted in money being seized from the elderly survivors' bank accounts.

The Veterans Affairs Department said Saturday it wasn't fully aware of the problem. It pledged to work quickly to give back the pension and disability checks - ranging from $100 to more than $2,500 - that hundreds of thousands of widows should have received during the month of their spouse's death.

The family destroyed by the crash of a Navy jet on their San Diego home moved into the house near the end of a Miramar Air Station runway just a month ago.

The only survivor, Don Yoon, 37, was at work when his wife, two daughters and mother-in-law died. The South Korean immigrant visited the charred remains of his house Tuesday with relatives, his minister and other members of his church, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

"Nobody expected such a horrible thing to happen, especially right here," a sobbing Yoon told reporters.

There was nothing dramatic about how Spc. Cristapher Zuetlau's career in the Army came to an end: he stepped in a hole. But the damage to the tank crewman's wrenched back was so brutal he can barely walk.

The Army agreed he was no longer fit to serve, but in doing so determined his disability was not severe enough to warrant long-term care by the military. That turned his health care over to the Department of Veterans Affairs, which left him with no retirement benefits and cut off his family from government health care.

A fighter jet returning to a Marine base after a training exercise crashed in flames in a San Diego neighborhood Monday, killing three people on the ground, leaving one missing and destroying two homes.

The pilot of the F/A-18D Hornet jet ejected safely just before the crash around noon at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. Explosions rocked a neighborhood of half-million-dollar homes, sending flames and plumes of smoke skyward.

President-elect Barack Obama has chosen retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki to be the next Veterans Affairs secretary, turning to a former Army chief of staff once vilified by the Bush administration for questioning its Iraq war strategy.

The U.S. administration decided to insure American merchant vessels in the Black Sea against military risks until next March. Many analysts saw this as a sign of a possible early armed conflict in the Black Sea region.

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has warned that stress among military families remains intense after years of multiple combat deployments and lengthy separations.

The multi-billion dollar ABL programme has been running for more than 12 years.

Scientists are reported to be working out other uses for the flying weapon - which could help secure continued funding. These extra missions include shooting down surface-to-air missiles, cruise missiles and even enemy aircraft.

Maybe you've heard it . . . people whispering that we need a good war to rescue our economy.

You know that the hawks are whispering it into Obama and Bush's ears. Someone I've known for years even said it to me the other day.

But would a war really help the economy?

— A highly decorated six-year veteran who had been named noncommissioned officer of the year for the Chemical Corps. He was accused of having sex with four trainees, including in the unit supply room and laundry room, his truck, a hospital room, a hotel room and his home.

— A drill sergeant with 16 years of service accused of having sex with five of his soldiers on and off post, including once in a vehicle while another recruit drove, and three times at a fellow drill sergeant's apartment.

The U.S. has come a long way since December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan, when long lines formed outside recruiting offices, and not for any enlistment bonuses, either. Could it be that when President Bush does the attacking, fewer folks think it is patriotic to fight?

Words by Mark Twain

Illustrations by the United States Government

...it is not that the defense budget adequately supports our irrelevant, even counterproductive forces. For that to be the case would be a significant improvement. Instead, to promote armed forces that fight the wrong type of war in the wrong places – liberals, moderates and conservatives in the Pentagon, Congress, think tanks and the White House have over time constructed an edifice that makes our forces smaller, older and less ready to fight, all at dramatically increasing cost. And, we have done so with a system that, quite literally, does not know – or apparently care – what it is doing.

In a little-noticed regulation change in March, the military's definition of combat-related disabilities was narrowed, costing some injured veterans thousands of dollars in lost benefits -- and triggering outrage from veterans' advocacy groups.

War is a poison. It is a poison that nations and groups must at times ingest to ensure their survival. But, like any poison, it can kill you just as surely as the disease it is meant to eradicate. The poison of war courses unchecked through the body politic of the United States. We believe that because we have the capacity to wage war we have the right to wage war.

Activists note that most of the candidates for top security posts voted for the 2002 resolution authorizing President Bush to invade Iraq or otherwise supported launching the war.

The U.S. Defense Department told Congress it could ill-afford more top-of-the-line F-22 fighter aircraft than now in the pipeline, partly to protect another Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) fighter, the multinational F-35.

Five separate judgments were handed down in the House of Lords’ October 22 judgment on the appeal of the British government against the Chagossians’ right of abode on Diego Garcia. Lords Hoffman, Rodger of Earlsferry and Carswell found against the Chagossians’ right of abode, while Lords Bingham of Cornhill and Mance found in favour.

On Monday, the Navy posted a request for information on possible concepts for "selectable output weapons." According to the description, this future weapon would have a variable blast radius, limiting the potential for civilian casualties, often referred to as "collateral damage."

Gulf War illness is a real medical condition that has affected at least 175,000 combat veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, according to a report released Monday.

However, federal research into the causes behind the mysterious malady has "not been effective," and the report by the congressionally mandated panel suggested that politics or financial concerns might have played a role.

More than 100 retired generals and admirals are calling for repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays, and to permit gays to serve openly, according to a statement obtained by The Associated Press. The group notes that gays already serve openly in other countries' armed forces, including Great Britain and Israel.

So, Vladimir Putin was right: It was Georgia that started the war with Russia, and once again it was President Bush who got caught in a lie. As the New York Times reported last week, "Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the long-standing Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression."

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has cancelled plans to attend First World War commemorations in France after President Nicolas Sarkozy moved the ceremony to Verdun.

The U.S. military has conducted nearly a dozen secret operations against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups in Syria, Pakistan and other countries since 2004, The New York Times reported in Monday editions.

Well that didn't take long. Polls across America had been closed for less than 24 hours and Army Career Counselors were already exploiting Barack Obama's victory in an effort to recruit former soldiers back into units.

The federal government has paid $800,000 to the family of a suicidal Air Force veteran who jumped to his death from Tripler Army Medical Center after his pleas to be admitted went unheeded.

Robert Roth died in January 2007 after he jumped from a 10th-floor balcony at Tripler. Roth suffered from a bipolar mood disorder and had a long history of depression.

The family’s attorney sued the U.S. government, alleging that Tripler was careless and negligent in its care of Roth.

The settlement means a trial scheduled for next month will not be held.

The Czech opposition Social Democratic Party demanded on Monday that the Constitutional Court examine the legality of agreements signed with the United States on deploying an anti-missile radar in the country.

The agreement to station a U.S. radar in the Czech Republic was signed on July 8 by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg.

In a rush to correct reports of substandard care for wounded soldiers, the Army flung open the doors of new specialized treatment centers so wide that up to half the soldiers currently enrolled do not have injuries serious enough to justify being there, The Associated Press has learned.

After years of unfettered growth in military budgets, Defense Department planners, top commanders and weapons manufacturers now say they are almost certain that the financial meltdown will have a serious impact on future Pentagon spending.