The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "military aid" ...
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Collateral Damage: Human Rights and U.S. Military Aid After 9/11
This project investigated the impact of foreign lobbying and terrorism on U.S. post-9/11 military training and aid programs. Controversial U.S. allies such as Pakistan received billions of dollars in additional, new military aid to fight the global war on terror. Additionally, foreign governments spent millions lobbying the White House and the Pentagon, taking advantage of the chaotic policymaking environment to ask for their own military aid. The investigation revealed that the change in priorities often came at the cost of human rights and fiscal accountability.
Tags: human rights; foreign countries; international relations; war on terror; military expenses
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A Colombian village caught in a crossfire
The LA Times investigates a 1998 controversial bombing of a Colombian village, in which 18 people were killed. The report finds that U.S. military help played a role in the tragedy. The story refutes the Colombian military's version that the bombing was actually a premature detonation of a car bomb planted by rebels, and finds the prosecutors' charge -- that a Colombian air force helicopter actually dropped the bomb -- to be more credible. Other findings are that U.S. Customs planes, tracking a plane supposedly filled with drugs, helped initiate the bombing; two American companies provided supplies and help to the Colombian military on the day of the operation; the bombing site was under aerial surveillance of a U.S. Coast Guard officer.
Tags: FOI; FBI; human rights; drug war; military aid; Alien Tort Claims Act
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U.S. Military Aid to Latin America Linked to Human Rights abuses
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists at the Center for Public Integrity investigates the involvement of the United States in "the biggest guerilla war since Vietnam." The 35,000-word story reveals that "hundred of American troops, spies and civilian contract employees are on the ground in Colombia and neighboring lands, helping to coordinate a $1.3 billion counterdrug program that will probably continue for many years." The reporters finds evidence that the American military aid to Colombia, Peru and Mexico has been implicated in human rights abuses. The team analyses the significance of U.S. economic interests in Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Mexico, and looks specifically at the American oil and trade interests as a key factor in the so-called "Colombia plan," another name for the drug war in Colombia.
Tags: FOIA; energy; oil; economics; business; intelligence; Latin America; lobbying; Congress; government; defense; drugs; smuggling; coca plantations; petroleum; paramilitaries; national security
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Plan Columbia
Colombia is now the third-largest recipient of US aid in the world after Israel and Egypt. The two-year, $3.2 billion aid package is to help fight "the war on drugs," by eradicating half of the nation's 300,000 acres of coca fields within five years. Yet others consider the escalating US military presence and its technological aid to the right wing paramilitary forces a thinly veiled military intervention, stabilizing the government in power against guerillas in the coca-producing regions. Kidnappings are up sharply, and others fear they'll increase even more if drugs profits are stymied.
Tags: Columbia; US Aid; War on Drugs; anti-narcotics; School of the Americas; U.S. military advisors; toxic herbicides; Plan Colombia; Pais Libre; kidnapping; FARC; ELN; death squads; human rights; Pentagon's Southern Command; Amnesty International; Paz Colombia; social inequality
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Silence=Relief: Do Gays in the Military Prefer the Closet?
Reporter Andrew Webb looks into the military's "don't ask, don't tell policy", finding that many homosexuals in the military would not like it removed. "No one- no the gay activists, not Clinton or his aides- worked to find out if gay people in the military actually wanted what the would-be president and his gay backers wanted for them." Furthermore, "gay people in uniform are often reluctant to publicly acknowledge their sexuality. They fear repercussions ranging from discharge to physical violence, and many are extremely conflicted about their sexual orientation- especially those who didn't know or hadn't acknowledged it before entering the service." Ultimately, Webb says "this is a basic issue of human rights or morality. . . Getting rid of the ban on gays serving openly in the military is the morally correct thing to do. But the practical considerations must sometimes delay the pursuit of moral visions."
Tags: military; homosexuals; harassment; sexual orientation; human rights; gay bans
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Beyond the GI Bill
The National Journal reports how "a shortfall in recruiting has prompted the Pentagon and Congress to look at radical changes designed to make the GI Bill a better deal for troops. Fifty-five years after the World War II bill, 15 years after the Montgomery GI Bill, the very trends the military and Congress helped set in motion - mass access to college, continuing adult education, financial aid from employers - have spread so far as to undermine the GI Bill's fundamental assumption: that most high school graduates can't go on to college without the military's help."
Tags: Military; financial aid; college; higher education; ROTC
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Injection Rejection
Len Horowitz, a former dentist-turned-"health care motivational speaker," believes that AIDS and Ebola resulted from the contamination--possibly intentional--of common vaccines by the military-medico-industrial complex. The CDC and FDA are worried because Horowitz has met Louis Farrakhan, and there have been rumblings of a moratorium on immunizations for Nation of Islam children. These are merely the most baroque figures in a widespread and growing anti-vaccination movement.
Tags: None
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No title (id: 10984)
The story of "The First Class General" disclosed how 4 - star General Joseph Ashy took a W.S. Air Force C-141 Starlifter for a flight from Naples, Italy to Colorado Sprigs, CO. The only passengers on the flight were the general, his 21 year - old female aide who was listed on the manifest as his wife, and his cat, Nellie. The flight cost about $200,000 ad retired military personnel were denied "space abailable" flights on the plane, even though it could hold up to 200 passengers. Additionally, the general ordered the plane equipped with a "comfort pallet" for distinguished travelers.
Tags: Tape
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No title (id: 9801)
Clear Lake Independent cites extensive collection of circumstantial evidence poiting to the man-made nature of the AIDS virus; findings include military funding and research for an infective microorganism which would destroy human immune functions, June - July 1993.
Tags: WA CA Mackenzie 19 pages
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No title (id: 7332)
Village Voice (New York) looks into the Covenant House and its foreign connections and finds nepotism, massive waste, a high-priced but ineffective program, and sexually oriented favoritism in hiring; its affiliated disaster relief organization, AmeriCares, promotes political objectives abroad, providing aid to the Nicaraguan contras and other repressive military regimes, Feb. 20 and March 20, 1990, and Jan. 8, 1991.