When you live in a country that spends more than nearly all the rest of the world’s nations on a single industry, it only makes sense that the industry itself would become a living, breathing thing that controls its own destiny.
We’re talking about the American defense industry, of course, and at around $800 billion a year, you can see why the industry’s leaders buy and sell politicians in order to help perpetuate their existence.
But of course, a massive defense industry needs war and conflict in order to continue justifying the massive amounts of taxpayer dollars that feed it, and according to Pentagon documents that have been leaked online in recent days, war and conflict have been planned now for years.
A recent leak of classified materials has reportedly revealed a wider range of information than previously disclosed. The leak includes documents marked as “Top Secret” and covers topics ranging from the conflict in Ukraine to security issues in the Middle East and China.
The documents surfaced on social media sites on Friday, causing concern for the Pentagon and adding to the challenges faced by the Biden administration. The extent and source of the leak have not been confirmed at this time.
“A new batch of classified documents that appear to detail American national security secrets from Ukraine to the Middle East to China surfaced on social media sites on Friday, alarming the Pentagon and adding turmoil to a situation that seemed to have caught the Biden administration off guard,” The New York Times reported Friday evening.
“The scale of the leak — analysts say more than 100 documents may have been obtained — along with the sensitivity of the documents themselves, could be hugely damaging, U.S. officials said,” the report noted further.
According to the report, a senior intelligence official described the leak as “a nightmare for the Five Eyes” — a reference to the intelligence-sharing alliance among the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Similar to the previously leaked Ukraine war plans reported by The New York Times, some of the latest leaked documents have surfaced on social media platforms such as Twitter. These documents are labeled with one of the highest classification ratings, “Secret/NoForn,” indicating the information is too sensitive to even share with foreign allies, Zero Hedge reported this week.
“Interestingly, the NY Times notes that one intelligence slide which is circulating features ‘an alarming assessment of Ukraine’s faltering air defense capabilities.’ But these leaks, some of which actually appeared on a Discord server devoted to discussing Minecraft and other unusual places, include more than the initial content on Ukraine war planning,” Zero Hedge noted further.
The Times noted:
But the leaked documents appear to go well beyond highly classified material on Ukraine war plans. Security analysts who have reviewed the documents tumbling onto social media sites say the increasing trove also includes sensitive briefing slides on China, the Indo-Pacific military theater, the Middle East, and terrorism.
According to the report, an analyst has cautioned that the leaks thus far are probably just “the tip of the iceberg” and that there may be additional significant leaks forthcoming or possibly have already occurred. Indeed, the development has the potential to become comparable to the ‘Pentagon Papers’ of the Vietnam War era.
Not quite. The Pentagon leak also reveals the Kiev regime is a money-and-weapons black box.
— Gonzalo Lira (@GonzaloLira1968) April 7, 2023
Further, the Pentagon has no real idea of the losses on the UA side—except what Kiev tells them.
It’s like that girlfriend who abuses your credit card, and you have no real idea on what. https://t.co/RDbZbWitDn
Mick Mulroy, a former high-ranking Pentagon official, expressed concern over the leak, noting “many of these were pictures of documents” and thus “it appears that it was a deliberate leak done by someone that wished to damage the Ukraine, U.S., and NATO efforts.”
His assessment implies that the leak may have originated from within allied forces rather than from a foreign adversary.
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