Following the Election: Expect More Drone and Space War
Rick Rozoff
An estimated $6 billion was spent on the November 7 U.S. federal elections - $2.5 billion on the two major parties' presidential campaigns alone, $1 billion of that on television ads - and Americans woke up the following morning to discover that nothing had changed. Sadder perhaps if no wiser.
The White House and the Senate remained in the hands of the Democratic Party and the House of Representatives under Republican control. Built-in structural stalemate will continue, with no substantive legislation passed for four more years, surely none beneficial to the American people or to world peace, each party blaming the other for the lack of results. Onward to the next six-billion - or ten-billion - dollar election.
In the closing words of William Thackeray's 19th-century novel Vanity Fair, "come, children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play is played out."
History's most expensive Punch and Judy show completed, domestic and foreign policy affairs will remain as they are. In fact will grow worse. Especially the second.
Mere hours after Barack Obama's victory speech in Chicago, an American drone-launched missile killed three people outside the capital of Yemen, adding to a hecatomb of over 3,000 drone killings in that nation, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia and Libya since Obama entered the White House in January of 2009. His re-election will be interpreted as a mandate to continue and escalate such attacks. Yet more Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles will be prowling the sky over the Greater Missile East, firing deadly Hellfire missiles at defenseless victims.
In the three televised debates between Obama and his challenger Mitt Romney, the president repeatedly accused his opponent of wanting "to spend $2 trillion on additional military programs, even though the military's not asking for them," although he didn't hint at spending even a penny less than the Pentagon demands. The Defense Department's base budget for next year is $520 billion, over $1,700 for every citizen.
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