Akashma Online News

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 VI: Blood Money and Broken Oaths — Collateral Profits – How War Built Empires, Crushed Nations, and Reshaped the Global Order