While the Pentagon tries to figure out how to get involved in the Libyan revolt, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific is developing new battle plans to take on China in her home territory. Four-star Admiral Robert Willard thinks the U.S. should be able to whip China in its own coastal waters. The admiral thinks one way to do this is to add U.S. Marines to his force structure so that the U.S. can eject Chinese forces from disputed islands in the East and South China seas.
And get this: It's not even the U.S. who is disputing the ownership of the islands! But if there is a chance for war anywhere, the admiral apparently wants to make sure we are not left out.
I guess the military industrial complex needs some more wars so there can be some more "reconstruction." Reconstruction is very lucrative, especially as Washington has privatized so many of the projects, thus turning over to well-placed friends many opportunities to essentially loot. Yet, considering all the money that has been spent, one must search hard to find completed projects. The just-released report from the Commission on Wartime Contracting can't say exactly how much of the $200,000 million in Afghan "reconstruction" disappeared in criminal behavior and blatant corruption, but $12,000 million alone was lost to "overt fraud."
Therefore Roberts' main points:
- War makes money for the politically connected. Otherwise, why spend so much on it?
- Not only are most of us utterly deceived but their entire reality is based on that fundamental deception.
- It is our moral obligation to rouse the sleepwalkers and confront the deadly prevaricators as we shine a bright light on possibilities for a truly better world.
- We must always examine the rationalizations, justifications, and outright lies of war, which have repeatedly led the United States, and other nations, into battle. We must learn to grasp the immense personal cost to the current generation of combatants returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Also to keep in mind: the grand total for our known national security budget of the United States is $1,219 billion. (Let there be no mistake, that's more than $1.2 trillion.) Now understand that a country with a gross domestic product of $1.2 trillion would have the 15th largest economy in the world, ranking between Canada and Indonesia, and ahead of Australia, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Saudi Arabia. Still, don't for a second think that $1.2 trillion is the actual grand total for what the U.S. government spends on national security. Besides the military application side of NASA, there's also portions of the State Department budget that would have to be added in for an accurate counting. One assumes that at least some of its diplomatic initiatives promote our security interests. Similarly, we have to add in the pensions of non-Pentagon federal retirees who worked on security issues for the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, or the Departments of Justice and Treasury. We would also have to add in some figures for the interest on moneys borrowed to fund veterans' benefits, among other national security-related matters. The bill for such known unknowns could easily run into the tens of billions of dollars annually, putting the full national security budget over the $1.3 trillion mark or higher.
There's a simple principle here. American taxpayers should know just what they are paying for. In a restaurant, a customer would be outraged to receive a check almost twice as high as the menu promised. We have no idea whether the same would be true in the world of national security spending, because Americans are never told what national security actually means at the cash register. (For source article, click here.)
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