Archive
Blood Money and Broken Oaths
By Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
About the Series
This nine-part investigative series traces how U.S. wars—from Iraq to Afghanistan, from Congress to Silicon Valley—have become less about defense and more about dividends. It exposes the revolving door between military command and corporate control, the use of terror to justify mass surveillance, and the hidden ledger of war profiteers.
Table of Contents
- Part I: The War Machine’s Finest Minds – And Why They Failed Us
- Part II: Blood Money and Broken Oaths – How America’s Wars Were Lost to Greed
- Part III: The Empire’s Ledger – Mapping the Timeline of Treason
- Part IV: Collateral Empire – The Civilian Toll and the Future of Resistance
- Part V: Naming the War Lords – Profiles of Power, Profit, and Permanent War
- Part VI: Collateral Profits – How War Built Empires, Crushed Nations, and Reshaped the Global Order
- Part VII: Resistance Rising – The Return of the Unbought Voice
- Part VIII: The Patriot Act’s Children – Surveillance, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Dissent
- Part IX: The Archive of Resistance – Building the People’s Historical Memory
Coming Soon: The eBook Edition
Complete manuscript with footnotes, timelines, visual archives, and appendices. Arabic and Spanish translations will follow the English release.
Part I: Blood Money and Broken Oaths — The War Machine’s Finest Minds – And Why They Failed Us
by Marivel Guznan |Akashma News
They walk among us, decorated in ribbons and stars. They hold degrees in strategy, military science, and global security. Men and women like Lt. Gen. William J. Hartman and Col. Laurie Buckhout—steeped in cyber warfare, intelligence command, and battlefield coordination. Their résumés read like a war college syllabus. Their service, decades long. Their minds, forged in the crucible of conflict.
On paper, these leaders are extraordinary. Seasoned generals. Cyber tacticians. National security architects. Yet despite all this, the United States has not won a war since Operation Desert Storm. And even that “victory” unraveled into decades of instability, emboldening warlords and birthing monsters like ISIS.
So we ask, with no malice—only urgency:
If the best-trained brass can’t win, what are they really fighting for?
Let’s break it down.
1. “Winning” Isn’t What It Used to Be
War has changed. Victory no longer ends with treaties or surrender. The modern battlefield is everywhere and nowhere—insurgents without flags, drones without borders, ideologies without nations.
Afghanistan. Iraq. Syria. Libya. The “enemy” shifts with each administration. So even the most skilled general fights a ghost with rules that vanish mid-battle.
And when the goal is ill-defined, or forever postponed, no one wins—except those selling the bullets.
2. Political Sabotage of Military Strategy
The brass may strategize—but execution belongs to Washington.
And in Washington, strategy is eclipsed by optics, reelection cycles, and lobbying dollars.
From the disastrous pullout of Iraq that gave rise to ISIS, to the haphazard withdrawal from Afghanistan that betrayed both U.S. soldiers and Afghan civilians—our wars have been sabotaged from within.
Generals follow orders. But what if the orders are designed to enrich friends, not to defend the nation?
3. Wars That Were Never Meant to Be Won
This is the hardest truth.
Afghanistan: 20 years, trillions spent, no intention to build a nation—just to rent one.
Iraq: Invaded on a lie. Left broken, bleeding, and looted.
Syria and Libya: Proxy wars ignited, populations destroyed, stability traded for oil corridors and arms sales.
As General Wesley Clark warned: “There was a plan to take out seven countries in five years.” If chaos was the goal, then mission accomplished. War wasn’t lost. It was repackaged as policy.
4. Bureaucracy, Corruption, and the Military-Industrial Complex
Even the most principled officers—like Hartman or Buckhout—can’t outmaneuver the system Eisenhower warned us about.
A swamp of overlapping agencies. Procurement games. “Consulting” gigs. Retired brass going from battlefield to boardroom. Raytheon. Lockheed. Palantir.
The medals might shine, but the system is rusted.
5. Cyberwarfare: A War Without Glory
Our modern heroes now fight in digital silence. No headlines. No parades. Just servers breached, satellites hijacked, grids disabled.
Hartman and Buckhout may be winning battles in cyber arenas we’ll never see—but without transparency, without accountability, the public can’t know what’s won, or what’s lost.
6. Strategy Without Soul
Even the most refined tactics collapse without just cause.
Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. These weren’t wars of liberation. They were occupations disguised as peacekeeping.
Soldiers fought with honor—but the cause was hollow. And occupiers don’t win hearts. They ignite resistance.
So what’s the verdict?
The failure doesn’t lie in skill. It lies in the absence of truth, purpose, and restraint.
Our generals serve two masters—country and contract. And more often than not, they retire into the arms of the contractor who profits from the wars they once directed.
No PhD in war theory can redeem a battle fought for shareholders.
We opened with respect. We acknowledge the service, the dedication, the brilliance.
But now it’s time to flip the page.
Because behind every uniform is a shadow. Behind every “hero” is a name on a contract. And behind every failed war is a ledger soaked in blood.
Welcome to Part II Blood Money and Broken Oaths — How America’s Wars Were Lost to Greed.
Part VII: Blood Money and Broken Oaths — Resistance Rising – The Return of the Unbought Voice
By Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
“Empires are never defeated by bombs. They’re unraveled by truth.”
— Akashma News, 2025
For every general who sold his soul, there was a private who refused an order.
For every president who signed a war, there was a journalist, a dissident, a whistleblower who stood between silence and complicity.
This is their chapter—the unbought voices.
I. The Whistleblowers Who Paid the Price
Edward Snowden
In 2013, this former NSA contractor shattered the myth of democratic oversight.
Exposed NSA mass surveillance, PRISM, XKeyscore and in a corporate collusion with the U.S. intelligence apparatus unveiled a global surveillance network that targeted not only terrorists, but ordinary citizens, allies, and journalists.
Labeled a traitor by the state, a hero by the people.
From the Akashma News article, “Are Whistleblowers Heroes or Traitors?” (2017):
“What Snowden revealed was not a single violation—it was a culture of abuse. The United States had quietly converted its intelligence apparatus into a planetary panopticon.”
Snowden once said:
Now exiled in Russia, with global surveillance programs still using the infrastructure he exposed.
“Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American.”
On February 10, 2017, he posted a tweet that said it all:
“Break classification rules for the public’s benefit, and you could be exiled. Do it for personal benefit, and you could be President.” @Snowden
Forced into exile in Russia, Snowden is still hunted—not for falsehood, but for truth.
Chelsea Manning
Leaked the Iraq War Logs, Afghan War Diaries, and the Collateral Murder video—exposing war crimes and civilian deaths covered up by U.S. forces.
Imprisoned. Tortured. Silenced. Yet she never recanted.
Daniel Hale
Revealed the inner workings of the U.S. drone assassination program.
His leaks showed that 90% of drone deaths were not intended targets.
Imprisoned under the Espionage Act for telling the world the truth.
These are not criminals.
They are mirrors held to a government that has forgotten its own reflection.
Daniel Hale and The Drone Papers
“The public should know what is done in its name.” — Daniel Hale
In the pantheon of modern whistleblowers, Daniel Hale stands as a quiet but unwavering voice of conscience. A former U.S. Air Force intelligence analyst, Hale leaked classified documents exposing the stark reality of America’s drone assassination program.
The documents—later published by The Intercept as “The Drone Papers”—revealed that nearly 90% of those killed in targeted strikes were not the intended targets.
Hale showed us the system’s true face: algorithmic kill lists, metadata-driven “signature strikes,” and the bureaucratic normalization of civilian deaths. For this truth, he was not hailed as a hero. He was sentenced to **45 months in prison**.
The Espionage Act was used to punish him, even though he passed information to journalists—not enemies. The Whistleblower Protection Act didn’t apply. In the eyes of the government, exposing war crimes is more criminal than committing them.
Daniel Hale’s sacrifice is a reminder: transparency is treason in an empire built on lies. But through his courage, a new chapter in resistance was written—one where memory and morality still have defenders.
For more, read the original court records: o
II. The Journalists Who Refused to Be Bought
Julian Assange
Founder of WikiLeaks.
Published war logs, diplomatic cables, CIA hacking manuals.
Now imprisoned—not for lying, but for publishing classified truths that embarrassed empire.
Abandoned by mainstream media, yet hailed by global civil society.
Gary Webb
Exposed the CIA’s role in funneling drugs into U.S. cities to fund Contra rebels in Latin America (Dark Alliance).
Smeared, blacklisted, and driven to a suspicious “suicide.”
His findings were later confirmed—but too late to save his reputation or life.
Michael Hastings
Exposed Gen. McChrystal’s toxic command culture in Rolling Stone.
His death in a car explosion remains questioned by many.
In a media world built on corporate funding, these few told the truth without permission.
III. The Soldiers Who Said No – And Never Looked Back
Camilo Mejía, Brandon Neely, Clifton Hicks, Erik Edstrom—all former U.S. military personnel who turned against the wars they fought, and spoke out.
Each served the system, then exposed its rot. But among them, one voice thundered louder across borders:
Ken O’Keefe
Former U.S. Marine turned international activist.
Renounced his U.S. citizenship and declared himself a “world citizen” in opposition to empire.
Vocal critic of Zionism, neocolonialism, and U.S. foreign policy—long before it was fashionable.
Participated in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, risking his life to break the Israeli blockade.
Called out not just U.S. policy but the entire system of financial parasitism behind war and media manipulation.
On record stating:
“We, the people, must demand the end of the military-industrial-complex… the bankers’ wars… because they do not fight for our freedom, they fight for their power.” (@KenOKeefe1TJP)
He wasn’t just a soldier who defected in principle.
He became a symbol of radical conscience—a truth-teller across Palestine, Iraq, London, and beyond.
And while censored and demonized by media and state agents alike, his message resonated because it was never for sale.
They told stories of:
Dehumanization of civilians,
Illegal orders,
Suicidal deployments,
War as trauma without purpose.
These voices rarely make the news—but they make up the soul of resistance: those who went, and came back unwilling to lie.
Part V: Blood Money and Broken Oaths —Naming the War Lords – Profiles of Power, Profit, and Permanent War
by Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
There are men who sell wars. And there are men who build the weapons. Often, they are the same.”
— Akashma News, 2025
Patriots. Strategists. Innovators.
That’s how they are introduced on television. But behind every press release and campaign ad is a ledger. And that ledger shows profit made from pain, shares lifted by war, and a cast of powerful individuals who walk between Washington, Wall Street, and war zones—unchallenged, unelected, and unaccountable.
I. The Men Who Sold the Wars
Dick Cheney
CEO of Halliburton before becoming VP.
His company gained $39.5 billion in Iraq War contracts.
Personally retained stock options while architecting war policy.
Donald Rumsfeld
Sat on the board of Gilead Sciences during the planning of biosecurity policy.
Championed a war doctrine that transformed defense into private enterprise.
Zalmay Khalilzad
U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Later became a consultant for oil and defense interests in the very regions he helped “liberate.”
II. The Generals and Officials Who Became Investors – or Were Always Connected
Gen. James Mattis
Joined General Dynamics board shortly after retiring.
Benefited from a firm that supplies key components to both U.S. and NATO operations.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal
Advisor to Palantir, the CIA-funded predictive warfare and surveillance firm.
Former top commander in Afghanistan.
Gen. Michael Hayden
After leading both the NSA and CIA, became a private intelligence consultant.
Affiliated with Booz Allen Hamilton, same firm Edward Snowden worked for before exposing global surveillance.
Lt. Gen. William Hartman
Currently head of U.S. Cyber Command and NSA (acting).
Central figure in the next-gen war theater: data and cyber control.
Condoleezza Rice
National Security Advisor (2001–2005) and Secretary of State (2005–2009).
Former board member of Chevron, which honored her by naming an oil tanker “Condoleezza Rice” in the late 1990s.
Advocated aggressively for regime change in Iraq, despite evidence contradicting the WMD narrative.
Her influence over Afghanistan policy is deeply tied to pipeline geopolitics—not democracy.
As reported in Akashma News (2012), Rice’s connections to energy giants and Hamid Karzai—Afghanistan’s U.S.-installed president and former Unocal pipeline advisor—reveal that “freedom” in Afghanistan may have always been code for oil transit routes and corporate access to Central Asian reserves.
III. Trojan Chips and Phantom Circuits: The Hidden Frontline of Betrayal
“We build our weapons in the name of security—while outsourcing their soul.”
Every F-35. Every smart missile. Every drone or comms satellite in the U.S. arsenal carries inside it parts from foreign nations.
And some of those nations don’t share American values—only American contracts.
Microchips from Taiwan and Israel.
Rare-earth magnets from China.
Optical components from Germany.
Coding subcontractors in India, the UAE, and beyond.
These components are:
Untraceable once installed.
Unverifiable by visual inspection.
Vulnerable to backdoors, malware, timed failure, or embedded surveillance.
In short: weapons may now come pre-compromised.
Israel’s Case: A Known Precedent
In the 1990s, Israeli-manufactured pagers were discovered to be covert surveillance devices, transmitting user location and message metadata without consent. These pagers were sold across Latin America, Europe, and Asia—including to government officials and journalists.
Today’s equivalent?
Cellebrite, Pegasus, NSO Group—all accused of spying on allies and dissidents.
Yet these firms maintain privileged access to U.S. markets and intelligence networks.
What About China?
In 2018, a Bloomberg investigation alleged that Chinese microchips were covertly installed on server motherboards used by Apple, Amazon, and Pentagon contractors.
Even if unconfirmed, the possibility is the threat.
And if Raytheon, Lockheed, or General Dynamics can’t verify every circuit, the entire system is compromised.
IV. The Tech Titans and the Spy Market
Peter Thiel (Palantir)
Created software that maps populations, predicts insurgency, and profiles suspects.
Palantir is funded by In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm.
Jeff Bezos (Amazon)
Bid on the $10B JEDI cloud war contract, and won major DOD deals via AWS.
Amazon’s infrastructure now supports U.S. intelligence, ICE, and military data.
Eric Schmidt (Google/Alphabet)
Served on the Defense Innovation Board.
Helped bridge Silicon Valley with the Pentagon.
Bill Gates (Microsoft)
Indirectly involved in Iraq reconstruction and humanitarian tech expansion.
Microsoft still maintains defense partnerships and cloud servicing for secure military communications.
Lord of War (2005) – Fiction Based on Too Many Facts
In Lord of War, Nicolas Cage plays Yuri Orlov, a smooth-talking arms dealer who thrives in the chaos left behind by collapsing governments and constant conflict. Based loosely on real-life figures like Viktor Bout, the film peels back the curtain on the global weapons trade—legal and illegal—and shows how war is less about ideology, and more about inventory management.
Yuri sells to dictators, rebels, and “freedom fighters”—often in the same country, often with weapons traced back to U.S. or Russian stockpiles. He helps stage rebel uprisings, fuels civil wars, and arms child soldiers, all while living comfortably under the protection of great powers who need people like him to do the dirty work off the books.
The film’s final punchline comes in the credits:
“There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation—one for every 12 people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?”
That’s not a line from the movie. It’s the film’s closing warning—and one of the most honest summations of the modern arms economy ever put on screen.
The real difference between Yuri Orlov and the Pentagon’s preferred contractors?
Orlov was honest about being a merchant of death.
V. Conclusion: These Are the Lords of War
They don’t fight on battlefields. They don’t wear medals. But they profit on every bullet, bomb, and biometric scan.
They rotate from command posts to boardrooms, from political office to private consultancy.
And while veterans die waiting for care, while families mourn from Kabul to Kansas, these war lords cash checks, win contracts, and rewrite policy in their image.
They are the hidden government.
And they’ve sold the republic for stock options and subcontracting fees.
“The difference between Yuri Orlov and real war lords? Orlov was fictional—and slightly more honest.”
Part II: Blood Money and Broken Oaths – How America’s Wars Were Lost to Greed
by Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
They said it was about freedom. They said it was about justice. They said it was about protecting American lives.
But the body count rose, the lies piled up, and the contracts multiplied.
Behind every failed operation, every smokescreen of national interest, and every “freedom mission” abroad—there was a ledger. And the names in those ledgers weren’t soldiers or widows. They were stockholders, politicians, former generals, and billionaires.
This is not anti-war rhetoric. This is forensic journalism. We follow the money. We follow the lies. And we follow the names.
I. The Bush Dynasty: Family Business Meets Foreign Invasion
George H.W. Bush – former CIA Director, oilman, war president. His company, Zapata Offshore, had connections to offshore drilling, Latin America operations, and covert interests.
George W. Bush – sat atop the nation in 2001, as oil executives and military contractors circled the wreckage of 9/11 like vultures. He handed the no-bid reconstruction contracts to Halliburton, formerly run by his vice president, Dick Cheney.
And then came the war built on a lie—Weapons of Mass Destruction—a falsehood pushed by political operatives and amplified by a willing press. The Bush-Cheney doctrine turned Iraq into a playground for profiteers.
II. Dick Cheney: Halliburton’s Shadow Commander
Vice President Cheney made millions from Halliburton stock options even after supposedly “severing ties.” In 2003 alone, Halliburton secured $7 billion in contracts from the U.S. government.
His fingerprints are everywhere:
KBR (Kellogg Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary) billed billions for “reconstruction.”
Allegations of fraud, overcharging, and unsafe conditions for troops.
Private subcontractors like Blackwater (now Academi) acted as mercenary extensions of U.S. foreign policy—with legal immunity.
III. Congress for Sale: The Blood-Soaked Wallets on Capitol Hill
Congress didn’t just approve the wars—they invested in them.
Senator Dianne Feinstein: Her husband, Richard Blum, had stakes in military contractors that gained from Iraq contracts.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH): Longtime advocate of defense expansion, recipient of funds from Raytheon and Lockheed.
Dan Crenshaw (R-TX): Public military hero, private supporter of increased private security contracting. Multiple donations from defense PACs.
And let’s not forget Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE)—our cyber subcommittee chair. With decades of military service and political clout, he embodies the revolving door. No direct link to NSO Group or Palantir yet, but his pro-surveillance stances and cyber warfare lobbying track suggest he’s under corporate gravity.
Use OpenSecrets.org and Project on Government Oversight to track the steady stream of blood money funneled through campaign donations and insider contracts.
IV. When Generals Turn Into Guns-for-Hire
Gen. James Mattis: Board member of General Dynamics after his military career.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal: Became advisor to Palantir Technologies, a CIA-seeded surveillance company.
Gen. Michael Hayden: Ex-NSA director turned private consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton—the same firm Edward Snowden worked for when he exposed global surveillance.
They fought wars. Then they sold the playbook.
V. The Tech Profiteers: From Silicon Valley to Baghdad
Bill Gates: Not just the vaccine mogul—Microsoft technology undergirded U.S. digital surveillance and logistics systems in war zones. While Microsoft didn’t profit from boots-on-the-ground war, its infrastructure contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan were extensive.
Peter Thiel: Founder of Palantir, funded by In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm. Palantir’s predictive policing software was deployed in Iraq and on U.S. streets.
Jeff Bezos: Amazon’s AWS cloud bid for the JEDI war cloud contract—worth $10 billion—showed that today’s wars aren’t about tanks. They’re about data.
VI. The Looting of Iraq: $6.6 Billion Gone in Cash
Between 2003–2007, the U.S. “lost” $6.6 billion in cash meant for Iraq’s reconstruction. That money was flown in on pallets—literally—in C-130s, and vanished.
Where did it go? Corrupt Iraqi officials? American contractors? Halliburton vaults?
No accountability. No charges. No return.
VII. From Patriot Act to Panopticon
With the ink still wet from the Twin Towers’ collapse, Congress passed the Patriot Act, giving birth to:
NSA mass surveillance.
Fusion centers spying on Americans.
Corporate surveillance networks with no oversight.
Big Tech, security firms, and retired brass cashed in. And the American people were told: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
Meanwhile, the architects of fear had everything to gain.
VIII. Conclusion: The Road to Treason Is Paved with Contracts
America didn’t lose its wars because of incompetence. It lost them because winning was never the goal.
The Pentagon became a piggy bank. Congress a stock exchange. And the generals? Many became consultants, CEOs, and lobbyists.
They served money, not country. And money, as we know, doesn’t need a passport to move through the doors of corruption.
So we name them. We trace the dollars. And we demand that history stop calling them patriots when they were, in truth, profiteers.
In Part III, we’ll break down timelines, show document trails, and map the full revolving door from war zones to corporate boardrooms.
Welcome to Part III: Blood Money and Btoken Oaths: The Empire’s Ledger – Mapping the Timeline of Treason
Part III: Blood Money and Broken Oaths: The Empire’s Ledger – Mapping the Timeline of Treason
by Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
“History is not only written by the victors. It’s bankrolled by them.”
— Akashma News, 2025
Follow the wars. Follow the resignations. Follow the contracts. Follow the betrayal.
I. 1991–1997: From Desert Storm to Corporate Warm-Up
1992–1995: Cheney becomes CEO of Halliburton.
Over $3.8 billion in Pentagon contracts under his leadership.
1994: Bill Clinton signs Presidential Decision Directive 25, quietly expanding U.S. peacekeeping and private contractor roles abroad.
1995: Carlyle Group recruits ex-officials like George H.W. Bush and James Baker.
II. 2000–2003: The Setup Before the Storm
2000: Bush-Cheney campaign begins with heavy oil and defense lobbying support.
Sept 2000: PNAC publishes Rebuilding America’s Defenses—calls for a “Pearl Harbor-like event” to reshape U.S. global policy.
2001 (pre-9/11):
CIA briefs Bush on potential Al-Qaeda threat.
NSA surveillance pilot programs begin domestically.
Sept 11, 2001: The attacks become the pivot point.
Congress passes AUMF.
PATRIOT Act signed Oct 26, 2001—ushering in surveillance capitalism.
III. 2003–2008: The Iraq Gold Rush
2003: U.S. invades Iraq on false WMD intelligence.
KBR receives $7 billion in no-bid contracts.
Halliburton stock surges.
2004: Blackwater awarded $21 million for diplomatic security in Iraq.
2005:
Don Bacon rises in cyber command roles.
Palantir Technologies begins DOD contracts under CIA’s In-Q-Tel.
2006–2007:
Iraq Reconstruction money disappears—$6.6 billion unaccounted for.
Gen. Petraeus surges troops; war contractors surge profits.
2007: Microsoft and Google sign early-stage DOD support contracts for infrastructure and field operations.
IV. 2009–2016: The Silent Profiteering Years
2009:
Barack Obama inherits Iraq/Afghanistan quagmire.
Expansion of drone warfare and NSA surveillance under Hayden.
2010:
Palantir wins major U.S. Army contracts.
General Dynamics, Raytheon, Booz Allen Hamilton among top 5 war profiting firms.
2011:
U.S. “withdraws” from Iraq.
Defense contractors begin pivoting to cyber operations and homeland surveillance.
2013: Edward Snowden leaks NSA surveillance programs.
2014–2015:
ISIS rises—Palantir and Amazon AWS used in military targeting systems.
Senate quietly approves expanded surveillance with corporate partners.
V. 2017–2020: Enter the Tech Lords
Trump years:
Peter Thiel, founder of Palantir and Trump ally, embedded himself into U.S. intelligence architecture.
Palantir wins ICE contracts for predictive policing, Amazon, Microsoft, and Oracle fought over the $10 billion JEDI cloud contract—a digital backbone for U.S. war and surveillance.
Tech billionaires weren’t building apps. They were constructing a battlefield without borders.
2018:
JEDI Cloud Contract bid begins—Microsoft vs. Amazon vs. Oracle.
2020:
COVID emergency legislation used to redirect funds into “cyber defense and biosecurity” infrastructure.
VI. 2021–2024: The New Hybrid War Economy; Afghanistan’s Ghosts and Ukraine’s Windfall
2021: Afghanistan withdrawal—$7B in military equipment left behind.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 left $7 billion in abandoned U.S. equipment. And a whole new contract market: homeland security, border tech, biometric screening.
The Ukraine war triggered a second boom:
Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin—all reported historic profits.
Cyber contractors were deployed to NATO allies.
Former generals rotated into new roles: consultants, board members, defense liaisons.
Laurie Buckhout was appointed Deputy Secretary for Cyber Policy in 2025. Lt. Gen. William Hartman assumed acting control of Cyber Command and the NSA.
Meanwhile, Rep. Don Bacon—decorated officer, now House cyber subcommittee chair—oversaw funding pipelines that matched lobbying spreadsheets.
2025: The Year the Veil Slipped
This year, everything came full circle.
The CBS leak exposed that cyber operations against Russia were paused—allegedly for political optics, not strategy.
Gen. Hartman denied wrongdoing.
Bacon confirmed it.
Hegseth, the Trump-aligned Secretary of Defense, was revealed to have used Signal to issue battlefield instructions—from his phone.
The cyber war had begun. But the real battle was being waged in boardrooms and committee hearings, where revolving doors never stopped spinning.
Cyber Command & NSA controversies over “paused” operations.
Pete Hegseth–Trump-appointed Secretary of Defense under fire.
Don Bacon leads cyber oversight—but questions emerge on defense lobbying.
New revelations link PAC donations to cyber security procurement priorities.
Conclusion: A Ledger Written in Blood
From Desert Storm to drone storms, from Baghdad to Big Data, America’s war story is no longer about victory.
It’s about returns.
Generals became lobbyists. Presidents became investors. Congress became shareholders.
And the people—the soldiers, the taxpayers, the wounded, the dead—they were left with flags and folded letters.
This is not a tragedy. It is a crime. And the evidence is in the timeline.
Part IV: Blood Money and Broken Oaths: Collateral Empire – The Civilian Toll and the Future of Resistance
Part IV: Blood Money and Broken Oaths: Collateral Empire – The Civilian Toll and the Future of Resistance
by Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
“They died for freedom,” the politician says.
But whose freedom? Certainly not theirs.
I. The Myth of Precision and the Reality of Ashes
They called it precision warfare.
They promised “smart bombs.”
But what they delivered was mass death—unaccounted, unpunished, and largely undocumented.
According to IraqBodyCount.org, between 187,499 and 211,046 civilians have been documented killed by violence since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.
Further analysis of WikiLeaks’ Iraq War Logs may add another 10,000 names to that ledger of loss.
Invading armies rarely excel at local mathematics—or at honoring the logistical heartbeat of a nation.
Markets became “targets of opportunity.” Ambulances became suspicious. Homes became war zones.
And in every crater, a truth buried:
This was not precision. This was policy.
Afghanistan: At least 70,000 civilians killed.
Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen: death tolls climbing, often uncounted.
Drone strikes: 90% of victims in some campaigns were not the intended targets.
“Collateral damage,” they called it.
Entire villages vaporized. Weddings bombed. Hospitals shelled.
No apologies. No trials. Just silence and the next press conference.
II. The Refugee Crisis: Manufactured Exodus
By 2022, U.S.-backed wars and destabilization campaigns had displaced over 38 million people—more than any conflict since World War II.
Iraqis flooded Jordan, Syria, and Europe.
Afghans clung to C-17s during evacuation.
Libyan migrants drowned off the Mediterranean coast after NATO’s intervention.
Syrians sought refuge from both U.S. airstrikes and U.S.-armed militias.
And while borders closed, the same governments who caused the exodus tightened asylum laws.
Militarized borders became the next frontier for profit.
III. Psychological War: Civilian Trauma as Policy
It’s not just bombs that wound. It’s what comes after.
PTSD rates among civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan exceed those of U.S. veterans.
Suicide, drug addiction, domestic violence—a quiet epidemic in rubble cities.
Schools bombed. Power grids sabotaged. Childhoods swallowed by sirens and fear.
This isn’t war. It’s social engineering through destruction. Break a population’s spirit, then offer “reconstruction” tied to debt, surveillance, and privatized aid.
IV. The New Colonies: NGOs, Contractors, and Vultures
After the last Humvee rolls out, the real occupation begins.
USAID becomes the soft hand of the Pentagon.
NGOs distribute food—but collect data.
Western contractors rebuild what they helped destroy—on the same taxpayer tab.
In Iraq, U.S. firms made $138 billion during “reconstruction.”
In Afghanistan, $19 billion went missing through fraud, waste, or abuse.
The locals get checkpoints and corruption.
The West gets contracts and stock options.
V. Domestic Casualties: The Forgotten Veterans and Homeland Decay
The war came home, too.
Over 30,000 U.S. post-9/11 veterans have died by suicide.
The VA is underfunded, overrun, and riddled with bureaucracy.
Tens of thousands of veterans live homeless, addicted, or disenfranchised.
While Boeing builds bombs, American bridges collapse.
While Palantir surveils war zones, U.S. schools go unfunded.
While Raytheon stock rises, insulin prices keep climbing.
This isn’t defense. It’s organized theft.
Part V: Blood Money and Broken Oaths —Naming the War Lords – Profiles of Power, Profit, and Permanent War
Part VI: Blood Money and Broken Oaths — Collateral Profits – How War Built Empires, Crushed Nations, and Reshaped the Global Order
By Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
“The bombs fell. The stocks rose. The borders collapsed. And the billionaires were born.”
— Akashma News, 2025
Wars are not just about weapons and soldiers. They’re about markets, monopolies, and restructuring. In the 21st century, war has become a reset mechanism—used not to resolve conflict, but to liquidate sovereign assets, privatize economies, and rewire global power dynamics.
I. Empires Built on Rubble
The U.S. and its allies didn’t just defeat regimes. They harvested nations.
Iraq’s oil infrastructure, once state-controlled, was handed over to international oil corporations. Contracts were funneled to ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, and Shell.
Afghanistan’s mineral rights, including lithium, rare earth elements, and copper, were quietly targeted by Chinese and Western firms even before the last U.S. troops left.
The Syrian conflict allowed Turkey, Russia, and U.S. oil contractors to carve out control zones—under the banner of fighting terrorism.
These “liberations” led to permanent military installations, surveillance zones, and debt-based rebuilding programs overseen by U.S. allies and transnational lenders like the IMF and World Bank.
II. Economic Colonization via Aid and Arms
Once the bombs stopped falling, another weapon took over: economic dependency.
USAID, World Bank, and Western NGOs offered “rebuilding packages” tied to:
Privatization of water, electricity, and public health systems.
Favorable trade terms for Western investors.
Long-term IMF loans with austerity requirements.
Countries once resistant to Western banking hegemony—Iraq, Libya, Ukraine—were dragged into global finance’s orbit by war. Their local industries were crushed. Their sovereignty rewritten in the fine print of investment treaties and oil concessions.
III. Ghost Nations: Sovereignty Replaced by Security Zones
Today, entire countries function as forward-operating platforms:
Iraq still hosts thousands of foreign contractors and intel personnel.
Afghanistan—though abandoned—remains surveilled by satellites and drones, its airspace monitored by regional proxies.
Ukraine, while fighting for national identity, has become a testbed for weapons systems and NATO coordination.
These are no longer nations. These are geo-strategic laboratories, run by private contractors, IMF enforcers, and embassy advisors.
, while fighting for national identity, has become a testbed for weapons systems and NATO coordination.
These are no longer nations. These are geo-strategic laboratories, run by private contr
IV. Global Order Reshaped by Chaos
The post-9/11 wars were not random.
They neutralized regional challengers, fractured continental blocs, and opened up trade lanes:
The EU became weakened by the refugee crisis.
The Arab world was shattered into client states, war zones, and economic vassals.
Africa’s Sahel region, flooded with weapons from Libya, became a permanent proxy battlefield.
Asia was reoriented toward “security alliances” built to contain China—with Japan, India, Philippines, and South Korea under expanded U.S. influence.
Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar, Western surveillance tech, and American defense contractors entrenched themselves as permanent tools of soft (and hard) control.
Part VII: Blood Money and Broken Oaths — Resistance Rising – The Return of the Unbought Voice
V. Who Benefited? Follow the Bank Accounts
BlackRock and Vanguard own major shares in defense, surveillance, and fossil fuel companies.
JP Morgan Chase helped finance contracts for Iraq and Afghanistan reconstruction.
McKinsey & Co. advised both governments and war profiteers—sometimes on opposite sides of the conflict.
And let’s not forget the Carlyle Group, whose war investments were so profitable they sparked Congressional inquiries in the early 2000s—then disappeared from the headlines.
War isn’t random. It’s structured liquidation.
VI. The “Failed State” Playbook
To control a region:
1. Destabilize the state (via war, sanctions, or color revolution).
2. Flood with aid and arms—contracted to Western firms.
3. Offer rebuilding contracts tied to private control.
4. Redesign the legal system to benefit global finance and tech monopolies.
5. Maintain a permanent intelligence presence via embassies, drone bases, and “training missions.”
The result? A failed state on paper, but a high-yield portfolio for the war elite.
VII. Conclusion: War Is the New Infrastructure Deal
It builds fortunes. It demolishes resistance. It rewires markets.
The average American sees rising gas prices and a VA backlog.
The average Afghan sees rubble and surveillance towers.
But the war lords see stock options, new markets, and privatized borders.
The world was not remade by diplomacy.
It was shattered by design—then leased back to the highest bidder.
Part VII: Blood Money and Broken Oaths — Resistance Rising – The Return of the Unbought Voice
Part VIII: Blood Money and Broken Oaths — The Patriot Act’s Children – Surveillance, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Dissent
by Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
“You thought the war was over there. But the battlefield was always here—between your screen and your silence.”
— Akashma News, 2025
While bombs dropped on Baghdad, another war was quietly declared—on your privacy, your speech, your right to dissent. Signed under the shadow of 9/11, the USA PATRIOT Act wasn’t just a legal document—it was the foundation of the surveillance state, a digital gulag in which every citizen became a suspect.
I. What the Patriot Act Really Did
Mass surveillance of emails, phone records, online behavior.
Warrantless wiretapping under “national security” pretexts.
Secret subpoenas and gag orders to prevent disclosure of monitoring.
Library, banking, and medical records access without cause.
Secret courts (FISA) rubber-stamping spying on Americans and journalists.
What began as a response to terror became a permanent apparatus of population control.
II. From Surveillance to Censorship
After building the tools to watch everyone, the next step was predictable: control what they say.
Fusion centers were set up nationwide to coordinate federal, state, and local data collection—on activists, journalists, and protest groups.
Social media platforms, once seen as free speech zones, began partnering with DHS, FBI, and NGOs to flag, shadow-ban, or deplatform users.
Words like “antiwar,” “whistleblower,” “Palestine,” and “liberty” became algorithmic red flags.
Speech was not outlawed—it was made invisible.
III. Surveillance Capitalism: The Corporate Coup
The government didn’t do it alone. It outsourced the repression to Silicon Valley.
Palantir, Clearview AI, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google built the tools.
In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital arm, funded their growth.
Your GPS, your clicks, your contacts—weaponized into behavioral dossiers.
Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok became soft extensions of the surveillance state.
Dissent is still allowed—as long as it remains ineffective.
IV. Whistleblowers as Enemies of the State
Edward Snowden: Exiled.
Chelsea Manning: Tortured.
Daniel Hale: Imprisoned.
Reality Winner: Isolated.
Julian Assange: Prosecuted for publishing—not committing—a crime.
Their “crime” was showing the American public what their government was doing in secret.
Meanwhile, those who lied America into war?
They sit on boards. They give speeches. They teach at Yale.
V. The Financialization of Fear
Homeland security became a $200B industry.
Surveillance tech is now a top investment sector for defense funds.
Censorship technologies are exported to foreign regimes under the label of “content moderation.”
The dissent industry is now policed by AI moderators, predictive behavior engines, and public-private “disinformation watchdogs” funded by the same agencies that profited from war.
This isn’t safety. It’s privatized tyranny.
VI. 20 Years Later: The War Comes Home
The gear from Iraq showed up in Ferguson.
The drones from Afghanistan now patrol the U.S. border.
The surveillance tools developed in Gaza monitor student protests on U.S. campuses.
The Patriot Act was never meant to end terrorism.
It was meant to end unregulated democracy.
VII. Conclusion: Liberty Didn’t Die, It Was Outsourced
The Patriot Act’s children are all around us:
The algorithm that censors a protest post.
The drone that flies above a city council meeting.
The data broker who knows more about your child than you do.
We were told this was to keep us safe.
But safety isn’t the absence of freedom.
It’s the presence of dignity, voice, and truth.
And those were the first casualties of a war we never declared—but were drafted into anyway.
Reflection: Nixon’s Ghost in the Server Farm
“When the President does it, that means it is not illegal.” — Richard Nixon 1977
Frost: So, what in a sense you’re saying is that there are certain situations and the Huston
plan or that part of it was one of them where the president can decide that it’s in the best
interest of the nation or something and do something illegal.
Nixon: Well, when the president does it … that means that it is not illegal.
Frost: By definition –
Nixon: Exactly … exactly… Congress.gov
Watergate once shocked a nation. Wiretaps. Break-ins. Surveillance on journalists and political opponents. A paranoid president brought down for using intelligence tools against perceived enemies.
Today, that legacy has been industrialized.
Everything Nixon did in secret is now codified in law:
Mass surveillance.
Journalist tracking.
Suppression of leaks.
Weaponization of “national security.”
But Nixon wasn’t just villainy. He also gave the nation:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),
Landmark clean air and water legislation,
Public school desegregation enforcement,
Diplomatic overtures to China,
And even proposed universal basic income.
His contradictions are America’s contradictions.
And in today’s age—after the Patriot Act, PRISM, and algorithmic censorship—Nixon wouldn’t be impeached. He’d be in charge of cybersecurity.
Part IX: Blood Money and Broken Oaths — The Archive of Resistance – Building the People’s Historical Memory
Part IX: Blood Money and Broken Oaths — The Archive of Resistance – Building the People’s Historical Memory
By Marivel Guzman | Akashma News
“The most revolutionary act is to remember what they want you to forget.”
— Akashma News, 2025
History is not just what happened. It’s what survives.
And in a world engineered for forgetting—of crimes, of war, of complicity—resistance begins with remembering.
This exposé is not just a series of investigations. It is an archive. A repository of the betrayed, the unbought, the assassinated, and the whistleblown. A defiant act of record-keeping against empires that thrive on amnesia.
I. Empire’s Greatest Weapon: Erasure
Libraries burned in Iraq, archives bombed, and museums looted.
Emails deleted, war logs classified, and FOIA requests denied.
Journalists silenced, platforms deplatformed, history textbooks rewritten.
Empires don’t just bomb cities. They bomb memory.
And when they can’t erase you, they bury you under entertainment, fear, and the distraction of the next outrage.
II. The People’s Memory: Analog and Digital Resurrection
From the archives of:
WikiLeaks, The Intercept, Akashma News, Cryptome, and Truthout,
To the voices of Snowden, O’Keefe, Assange, Manning, Hale, and Hastings,
To documents salvaged from hard drives, leaked by patriots, and preserved by the persistent,
the historical record lives outside the institutions meant to protect it.
Every censored article. Every pixelated war video. Every leaked memo.
All of it must be remembered—not to relive trauma, but to deny empire its victory lap.
III. Decolonizing Memory: Whose History Survives?
Palestinians record their own massacres in whispers and phone footage.
Black radicals are erased from civil rights textbooks while lobbyists praise “reform.”
Antiwar soldiers, from Vietnam to Fallujah, are airbrushed out of the national narrative.
Historical memory is a battleground.
To win it, we must:
Name the names that were buried.
Preserve the files they tried to erase.
Teach the children what the state will not.
IV. The Archive as Act of War
“The great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us.”
We carry these names.
These stories.
These truths.
We build the people’s archive because the state has abandoned truth in favor of power.
V. Conclusion: From Memory to Movement
To remember is to resist.
To preserve is to prepare.
To build an archive of betrayal is to build a roadmap out of empire.
The war doesn’t end when the troops leave.
It ends when the lies no longer work.
And that day begins with a record like this.
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