Government

Most Veterans Say America’s Wars Are a Waste. No One’s Listening to Them. | The New Republic

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Most Veterans Say America’s Wars Are a Waste. No One’s Listening to Them. | The New Republic

That’s the main takeaway from the Pew Research Center’s latest rolling poll of U.S. veterans, published Thursday, in which solid majorities of former troops said the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria were not worth fighting. The gaps between approval and disapproval were not even close to the poll’s 3.9 percent margin of error; barely a third of veterans considered any of those conflicts worthwhile:

No to war with Iran

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No to war with Iran…💥

Part of being an adult is tolerating and working with awful people that really don’t deserve anything positive for their bad behavior. But often it’s beneficial to work with evil as the costs of addressing evil is often higher than ignoring it.

Iran is an obnoxious bear out in the Middle East that occasionally does terrible things but mostly is content to avoid significant conflict with the United States. The same is true with the United States – the cost of destabilizing the Middle East would be significant to the United States. The most obvious impacts to every day Americans would be greatly escalated energy prices and increased police presence in public places but its unlikely to limited to that. There would be an enormous financial cost to the federal budget, leading to cuts to domestic programs and both American and Iranian lives destroyed along with damaged infrastructure.

With our own country facing significant domestic needs, I believe that should be our focus. Middle Eastern stability is less important now than in decades past with strong United States oil production and no threat of communism any more, but we shouldn’t poke the bear of Iran and unnecessarily upset the balance of power in Iran.

While I didn’t attend today’s protest downtown on the war, I will continue to speak out and will attend future protests. ✊

Financial cost of the Iraq War – Wikipedia

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Financial cost of the Iraq War – Wikipedia

War is very expensive for taxpayers ...

- FY2003 Supplemental: Operation Iraqi Freedom: Passed April 2003; Total $78.5 billion, $54.4 billion Iraq War

- FY2004 Supplemental: Iraq and Afghanistan Ongoing Operations/Reconstruction: Passed November 2003; Total $87.5 billion, $70.6 billion Iraq War

- FY2004 DoD Budget Amendment: $25 billion Emergency Reserve Fund (Iraq Freedom Fund): Passed July 2004, Total $25 billion, $21.5 billion (estimated) Iraq War

- FY2005 Emergency Supplemental: Operations in the War on Terror; Activities in Afghanistan; Tsunami Relief: Passed April 2005, Total $82 billion, $58 billion (estimated) Iraq War

- FY2006 Department of Defense appropriations: Total $50 billion, $40 billion (estimated) Iraq War.

- FY2006 Emergency Supplemental: Operations Global War on Terror; Activities in Iraq & Afghanistan: Passed February 2006, Total $72.4 billion, $60 billion (estimated) Iraq War

- FY2007 Department of Defense appropriations: $70 billion(estimated) for Iraq War-related costs

- FY2007 Emergency Supplemental (proposed) $100 billion

- FY2008 Bush administration has proposed around $190 billion for the Iraq War and Afghanistan

- FY2009 Obama administration has proposed around $130 billion in additional funding for the Iraq War and Afghanistan.

- FY2010 Obama administration proposes around $159.3 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Amazon’s Ring Planned Neighborhood “Watch Lists” Built on Facial Recognition

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Amazon’s Ring Planned Neighborhood “Watch Lists” Built on Facial Recognition

Ring, Amazon’s crimefighting surveillance camera division, has crafted plans to use facial recognition software and its ever-expanding network of home security cameras to create AI-enabled neighborhood “watch lists,” according to internal documents reviewed by The Intercept.

The planning materials envision a seamless system whereby a Ring owner would be automatically alerted when an individual deemed “suspicious” was captured in their camera’s frame, something described as a “suspicious activity prompt.”

It’s unclear who would have access to these neighborhood watch lists, if implemented, or how exactly they would be compiled, but the documents refer repeatedly to law enforcement, and Ring has forged partnerships with police departments throughout the U.S., raising the possibility that the lists could be used to aid local authorities. The documents indicate that the lists would be available in Ring’s Neighbors app, through which Ring camera owners discuss potential porch and garage security threats with others nearby.

It Seemed Like a Popular Chat App. It’s Secretly a Spy Tool. – The New York Times

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It Seemed Like a Popular Chat App. It’s Secretly a Spy Tool. – The New York Times

It is billed as an easy and secure way to chat by video or text message with friends and family, even in a country that has restricted popular messaging services like WhatsApp and Skype.

But the service, ToTok, is actually a spying tool, according to American officials familiar with a classified intelligence assessment and a New York Times investigation into the app and its developers. It is used by the government of the United Arab Emirates to try to track every conversation, movement, relationship, appointment, sound and image of those who install it on their phones.

ToTok, introduced only months ago, was downloaded millions of times from the Apple and Google app stores by users throughout the Middle East, Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. While the majority of its users are in the Emirates, ToTok surged to become one of the most downloaded social apps in the United States last week, according to app rankings and App Annie, a research firm.