hat tip ~ Narconews.com
http://www.colectivodeabogados.org/…
For more than six years, from 1997 to February 2004, Chiquita Brands International, through its subsidiary in Colombia, Banadex S.A., made monthly payments to the paramilitary structures in the regions of Urabá and Santa Marta, which resulted in more than 100 payments for more than $1.7 million dollars. Chiquita Brands began to [...]

http://blog.wired.com/…
By Sharon Weinberger
July 30, 2008 | 11:46:00 AM

If there one thing that’s truly disturbing about the sale of Russian weapons to Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s that it demonstrates how parts of the U.S. government have been forced to find ways to evade American law. Specifically, we now have the Pentagon, which is under pressure to [...]

http://www.motherjones.com/…
Most Americans have a rough idea of what the term “military-industrial complex” means, but its “unwarranted influence” has largely been ignored.
Chalmers Johnson
July 28, 2008
[Introduction by Tom Engelhardt]
[Note for TomDispatch readers: Part 2 of Pepe Escobar's RealNews.com TomDispatch interview is now posted. In it, Nick Turse discusses his new book The Complex: How the Military Invades [...]

http://thinkprogress.org/…
from Think Progress by Ali
An audit by the Inspector General of the Small Business Administration found that private security firm Blackwater “obtained dozens of small business contracts worth more than $110 million even though” the company “may have exceeded size limits for a small business”:

http://www.truthdig.com/…
Posted on Jul 27, 2008
By Chalmers Johnson
Editor’s note: Originally posted on TomDispatch.com.
Most Americans have a rough idea what the term “military-industrial complex” means when they come across it in a newspaper or hear a politician mention it. President Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced the idea to the public in his farewell address of January 17, 1961.  “Our military [...]

http://www.truthout.org/…
Friday 25 July 2008
by: Matt Renner, t r u t h o u t | Report
A scathing report accusing government auditors of corruption, issued by the government’s top investigative body, prompted a freshman senator to call for firings “by nightfall” on Thursday.

truthout
Michael B. Reagan
TruthOut
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:26 EDT
In May of 2002, the United States Army invaded E3, the annual video game convention held in Los Angeles. At the city’s Convention Center, young game enthusiasts mixed with camouflaged soldiers, Humvees and a small tank parked near the entrance. Thundering helicopter sound effects drew the curious to [...]

http://www.alternet.org/…
By Jeremy Scahill, Comment Is Free
Posted on July 23, 2008, Printed on July 24, 2008
It seems that executives from Blackwater Worldwide, the Bush administration’s favorite hired guns in Iraq and Afghanistan, are threatening to pack up their M4 assault rifles, CS gas and Little Bird helicopters and go back to the great dismal swamp of [...]

http://en.rian.ru/…
(h/t ~ SOTT)
MOSCOW, July 10 (RIA Novosti) - The U.S. may station intermediary and shorter-range ballistic missiles in Poland under the guise of interceptors, a Russian expert said Thursday.

http://www.alternet.org…
By Robert Scheer, Truthdig
Posted on July 9, 2008, Printed on July 10, 2008
You can’t trust the Chinese. I don’t care if you’re talking about those communists on the mainland or the other guys on Taiwan; they just won’t follow the war-games script that our weapons hawks had counted on. Their mutual passion runs not to [...]