"WAR is a racket. It always has been." -- Major General Smedley Butler
The Bush administration's military adventurism and the economy are two issues expected to impact next week's US midterm vote. We ignore their interplay at our peril.
Rarely discussed is how the endless war on terror requires a permanent war economy, with taxpayers subsidizing the military industry at the expense of domestic social programs and global security. In 2000, for example, the US military budget was roughly $289 billion, but the administration's military budget request for 2007 has soared to $462.7 -- and that doesn't even include funding for military operations in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The term "permanent war economy" was coined in the mid--1940's by the former CEO of a General Electric subsidiary, who called for increased subsidies and corporate control over the military industry. But this administration has taken the collusion of war and societal restructuring to new and dangerous levels.
Quickly after becoming president, for example, Bush rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty forbidding nuclear--test explosions, thus encouraging other holdouts (such as North Korea) to use US intransigence as justification for building up their own nuclear--weapon programs. He withdrew from the Anti--Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001, requesting billions for a boondoggle missile "defense" program instead. He abandoned the Biological Weapon Convention draft Protocol which bans the development and use of biological weapons, and he balked at an international agreement to limit the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons. Bush also ignored the Nuclear Non--Proliferation Treaty by repealing the ban on low--yield nuclear weapons and pumping funding into nuclear weapons programs.
Just last week, the administration rejected future arms--control agreements for outer space, and even more glaringly, the US became the only country in the United Nations General Assembly to vote against a global Arms Trade Treaty. A full 139 countries voted for the Treaty, aimed at limiting weapons transfers to conflict areas and keeping weapons out of the hands of major human rights abusers. Scandalously, only the US voted against it.
Bush's rejection of arms control agreements and heavy funding of domestic weapons programs has been exacerbated by a stunning lack of regulatory controls. Just a few examples: -- A federal report released last month revealed that the US military has not properly tracked almost half a million weapons (ranging from rocket--propelled grenade launchers to machine guns to sniper rifles) meant for Iraqi security forces; it can be assumed that at least some of those weapons were subsequently used against US forces. US military has not properly tracked almost half a million weapons -- The Y--12 nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee reported missing 200 keys to protected areas in 2004. This discovery followed reports of missing master keys in both the Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. -- The same year, news surfaced that security personnel guarding the nation's nuclear stockpiles, including tons of enriched uranium at Y--12, had been cheating on their antiterrorism drills. An Energy Department investigation discovered that contract security guards at the Y--12 plant had been given access to computer models of antiterrorism drill strikes in advance, thus rendering the tests useless. -- In July 2004, all classified work at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico was temporarily stopped due to a security breach; two "removable data storage devices" with top--secret information couldn't be located. -- Arguably even more troubling, in June 2006, it was revealed that the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) database had been hacked and the personal records of at least 1,500 employees and contractors stolen. The NNSA amazingly took over seven months to report the theft to the Energy Department.
Sloppiness in weapons oversight is just one result of the Bush administration's war--based economy; a ravaged domestic budget is another. When Bush took office in 2001, for example, the annual surplus was $284 billion. He turned that surplus into a deficit of $248 billion by 2006, a staggering loss of over $530 billion in five short years.
And more tough times are ahead. Analysts warn that the US economy is heading for a "correction" in the winter (i.e. post--election nosedive), due to a variety of factors including out--of--control military spending, an unsustainable housing bubble, Asian lenders increasingly eager to dump US assets, and the Bush administration's inclination to stop propping up the economy if the resulting downturn can be blamed on the Democrats come 2008.
Yet few politicians are addressing these bread--and--butter issues. So before you head to the polls next week, make sure that your preferred candidates understand the dangers of perpetuating Bush's permanent war economy - your financial future, if not your life, may depend on it.
Action Ideas: 1. Read Major General Smedley Butler's 1935 classic "War Is a Racket" 2. Learn about Cracking Down on War Profiteering and ending the Culture of Corruption in Government Contracting at the Corporate Policy site. Corporate Policy Find out which industries fund your congressional candidates at Open Secrets. Open Secrets 3. Learn more about the arms trade and military expenditure at Global Issues. An excerpt from fiscal year 2005: Global Issues -- The US military budget was almost 29 times as large as the combined spending of the six "rogue" states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) who spent $14.65 billion. -- The United States and its close allies accounted for some two thirds to three--quarters of all military spending, depending on who you count as close allies (typically NATO countries, Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan and South Korea)
Heather Wokusch is the author of The Progressives' Handbook: Get the Facts and Make a Difference Now, which went to #1 on Amazon's political activism charts in December 2007 (www.progressiveshandbook.com). Heather can be reached at www.heatherwokusch.com.
Plutocrats can bribe and corrupt our elected leaders faster than we can elect them.
No matter which party wins the election in November, corruption will still rule. That's because the system has been so corrupted by plutocrats that neither party can or will reform a system that works to their advantage. Plutocrats are the root of corruption because our election process has degenerated into a commercial enterprise.
The only way we can eliminate the cycle of corruption is to eliminate profit. The half dozen corporations that own the mass media are owned by the same plutocrats that own the Military Congressional Industrial Complex. They bribe politicians to wage never ending wars, and politicians use those bribes to pay for campaign ads in newspapers and TV. Have no doubt that some of that campaign money also ends up in politician's pockets. When you factor in the campaign contributions given by individuals, the plutocrats not only recapture their bribe money, they also reap huge profits from individual contributions. "We the people" are actually financing the plutocrat's corruption of our government.
We can break this cycle of corruption by demanding public financing of elections and by making all private donations illegal. The mass media and newspapers should be required to run political ads as a public service. Equal time for all candidates.
by
rabblerowzer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments)
on Thursday, November 2, 2006 at 11:19:56 AM
Everyone in the US legislature have voted xxx-0 to continue to finance an illegal war of aggression. They are all guilty. All leadership from all nations that participated in this war of aggression should be tried in a Nuremburg form of war tribunal of crimes against humanity.
The indoctrination of the American people of the last 100 years, false history in education, and particpation to become a toiler for an Aristocracy that the founders would find contemptable, must end. The difference in remuneration for services of the average worker and the "owners" is as great or greater than that of absolute Monarchs over their people centuries ago. Peter Drucker, one of the greatest modern management pioneers stated that pay of 20:1 between the owner and average worker should be the maximum. While most countries follow this, the US is at 400-500+:1 with the profits going mostly to the top .01%.
It is time to close down the FED, open it's books, and find out what these people have done with our misspent money. The IRS and FED are illegal and unconstitutional fabrications of an elite group of people under Woodrow Wilson. The FBI was created to kill dissent among the American people. The National Security Act (creating a national security state of fear - look up operation paperclip too) and it's abominations were created to do more of the same but also create mayhem and regime change world wide to soverign nations that did not serve American elite interests. War profiteering is an American interest now along with the destruction of the people's Constitution and Bill of Rights guarenteeing checks and balances, liberty, freedom, equal justice and a fair playing field for our persuits.
Working and living for the common good of Americans should be America's priority. The people are the Nation. The government is to serve the people, not the best interests in perpetuating fear, war and an unfair start in life.
by
Jim Reinhart (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 60 comments)
on Thursday, November 2, 2006 at 11:31:07 AM
Reagan was the first President to pass the one trillion dollar deficit mark. He, however, borrowed from American banks and financial institutions. This Bush deficit has been borrowed from foreign investors almost exclusively and thus we are now a nation in thrall to China and Saudi Arabia, among others. The interest alone on this huge debt is astronomical and, should these nations refuse to continue to purchase our bonds, we will see a collapse of the economy that will make the Great Depression a little bump.
"Each gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under clouds of war it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
Dwight David Eisenhower
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Thursday, November 2, 2006 at 6:17:40 PM
