Such malfeasance makes the sacrifice of our military men and women next to worthless. I fear that, like the boy who cried wolf, our country may discover that the next time we truly need our young men and women to answer their nation's call, they may not respond in a timely fashion.
I believe that our experiment with a volunteer military is a failure in many respects. As Jefferson realized, a purely professional military is a bane to a democratic republic. You eventually end up with the rich starting the wars for their own interests, which the middle class pay for out of a sense of patriotism, and the working class and poor fight out of pure economic necessity. I believe universal conscription--whether in the military or some other form of public service--is needed to help instill feelings of belonging and egalitarianism, as well as respect for our nation's institutions, by mutual association with Americans of every color, creed, and national origin.
The money we are spending on our defense is turning the United States into a third world country. The totally out of control nature of Pentagon spending has made the proverbial drunken sailor look restrained in comparison. It is a price that we cannot afford.
Part of the problem is that over the last fifty years, any sort of legitimate oversight of spending by the Pentagon has fallen by the wayside.
Congress passed the Federal Financial Management Improvement Act in 1996. This was an attempt to bring accounting standards within the Executive Branch closer to those of the stricter civilian economy. This act required all federal agencies to hire outside auditors to review their books and release the results to the public at regular intervals. However, neither the Department of Defense, nor the Department of Homeland Security, has ever complied with the accounting requirements in this act. (See Chalmers Johnson's article: "The Pentagon Strangles Our Economy: Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke;" Le Monde Diplomatique, April 26,2008; http:// www.alternet.org /story/83555/.)
Of our roughly $13 trillion in national debt, some $3-5 trillion of that debt is money that was authorized to be spent by the Pentagon, but cannot be accounted for by the government. Donald Rumsfeld admitted on September 10, 2001 that at least $2.3 trillion worth of funds were unable to be accounted for by the Department of Defense. The events of September 11th took that story out of the public's consciousness, not only because of the attacks, but because whatever hit the Pentagon coincidentally impacted directly where all of the accounting paperwork and computer records for the missing funds were being held.
The time has come for those charged with the defense of our country to learn to be financially accountable, and to live within their means.
One item which must be brought under control is the retention of middle grade officers (O-4, O-5), and non-commissioned officers (E-6, E-7) in all branches of our military. We should start by eliminating "contractors" who perform functions that the military once performed for itself, or for other governmental departments--from kitchen detail to the defense of American Embassies. Why anyone would believe that for profit companies (using ex-military from around the world at three to five times an American soldier's pay) could be more effective and less costly than real American soldiers--who have sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States--is beyond me, except as a means for corrupt politicians to make their cronies richer.
"Oh, war has shattered many young man's dreams,
Made him disabled, bitter and mean;
Life is much too short and precious
To spend fighting wars these days;
War can't give life, it can only take it away."
"War," Edwin Starr;
War and Peace, 1970
We must learn to consider the long term costs to our nation of the wars we wage, before we wage them. Disabled veterans, widows and orphans, the cost to replace munitions and matà ©riel used during the war, plus the loss of respect within the international community whenever we engage in an "unjust war."
The United States has to live in this World, along with the decisions it makes that affects other nations. We cannot afford to be perceived as the bully who threatens other nations to get our way. The World has become too small and complex to follow George Washington's admonition, "Friends to all, allies to none;" we must keep the number of our permanent alliances very small--limited to those nations who believe in our basic ideals of liberty and democracy as we do. With temporary alliances, we must pick and choose very carefully to ensure that the alliance does not bring the World's opprobrium with it.
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