Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com
We have never spent more money on American defense than we do now. Estimates range anywhere from a conservative $739 billion (calculating Department of Defense spending only) to 1.415 trillion dollars, which calculates much of the country's defense mechanism (FBI counterterrorism, Homeland Security, etc.) including interest on their debt - the cost of freedom.
What are we defending against? Is it worth the changes in our culture since 9/11? Our current World Wide War on Terror is aimed ostensibly against yet another ideology, but instead of Communism we are faced with Islamic fundamentalism. As evidenced by the Cold War, ideas "good" or "bad" are notoriously difficult to combat with big defense budgets and military stratagem. In fact, it was one American president, his unparalleled naiveté, gullibility, and his "great blunder", which lead to not only Hitler, the rise of the Soviet Union, and WWII, but also to the fractionalized and tumultuous Middle East we know today.
Lets expand a bit, maybe we are being a little myopic when it comes to the War on Terror as there are of course other threats over the horizon. Humanitarian crises, like the Libyan Civil War or Clinton's interdiction in Kosovo, justify our intervention on this basis of enforcing a UN mandate or international law, not necessarily the judgement of Congress. It is argued that if we leave them unresolved and if tyranny is left unchecked it will embolden dictators and despots all over the world to oppress their people. How this effects the United States' national security is anyones guess, but humanitarianism isn't the only call to arms, there is the cosmos to worry about too!
The Pentagon has been prepping for war in space as early as 2004 and ever since space has been a contentious subject between the US, Russia, and especially China. Considering our mutual ability to shoot down satellites and with potentially massive stores of energy on the moon future resource wars in the mass expanse above our blue planet would be catastrophic.
If that weren't enough to worry about, state-sponsored and multinational brigades of hackers have raised much alarm causing the Pentagon to declare the internet "operational domain." With all of these dire possibilities cropping up virtually everywhere (pardon the pun) it seems as though the Pentagon believes the sky is almost certain to fall without constant intervention.
There is, however, an alternative way of understanding this paranoid view of the world, our unbelievable spending associated with it, and our legitimate national security challenges. By recognizing the phenomena of mission creep (after reading the definition, think WWII) and considering the warning given to us by our 34th president, Republican General, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it becomes clear how much we as a nation have departed from our founding principles.
- Robert K. Merton, from Social Theory and Social Structure
PurpleSerf.com
Massive defense cuts are necessary to any honest GOP plan to reduce the debt. The American people clearly bought "fiscal responsibility" from the Tea Party and its candidates, we are waiting for delivery.
"War is just one more big government program."
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| Source: Winslow T. Wheeler, Director Straus Military Reform Project, Center for Defense Information |
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| President Woodrow Wilson (D) is famous for his campaign to make the "world safe for democracy." His theories proved otherwise and lead to the death of millions. Read "Wilson's War" for the break down. |
While it is crucial to have a war of ideas delineating the differences between fact and opinion; concepts, beliefs, and ideologies will ultimately prevail or fail on their own. While there is little doubt there are combatants willing to sacrifice their lives in order to advance their radical ideas, Islam's jihadists, for the foreseeable future, will be incapable of rhetorical, let alone, physical invasion. To repel invasion and to ensure self determination or what we call sovereignty is the ultimate motive of our armed forces; today their motive is evidently much different. Moreover, even if the penultimate threat of a nuclear armed Al' Qaeda materialized, the fear of this potential event isn't sufficient to justify the invasions of pre-nuclear states Afghanistan, Iraq, or Yemen.
The Pentagon has been prepping for war in space as early as 2004 and ever since space has been a contentious subject between the US, Russia, and especially China. Considering our mutual ability to shoot down satellites and with potentially massive stores of energy on the moon future resource wars in the mass expanse above our blue planet would be catastrophic.
If that weren't enough to worry about, state-sponsored and multinational brigades of hackers have raised much alarm causing the Pentagon to declare the internet "operational domain." With all of these dire possibilities cropping up virtually everywhere (pardon the pun) it seems as though the Pentagon believes the sky is almost certain to fall without constant intervention.
There is, however, an alternative way of understanding this paranoid view of the world, our unbelievable spending associated with it, and our legitimate national security challenges. By recognizing the phenomena of mission creep (after reading the definition, think WWII) and considering the warning given to us by our 34th president, Republican General, Dwight D. Eisenhower, it becomes clear how much we as a nation have departed from our founding principles.
President Eisenhower's military industrial complex (MIC) has on one hand become the epitome of a self-fulfilling prophet:
“The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior, which makes the original false conception come 'true'. This specious validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error. For the prophet will cite the actual course of events as proof that he was right from the very beginning.”
And on the other hand (as evidenced in the interest paid on the debt incurred by defense organs) the MIC which includes multinational banks and the Federal Reserve, benefit from the Pentagon's "reign of error":
“…a lot of people are getting rich, building careers, and accreting power out of hyping the money flow. While soldiers at the pointy end of the spear and taxpayers are getting hosed, generals are going through the revolving door to big jobs in industry; congressional staffers on defense committees move into high ranking political jobs in the Pentagon, which then gives them a spring board to big jobs with the defense contractors; industry titans move between jobs in industry, the Pentagon, and back to industry; and contractor PAC money flows to congressmen. The result is a self-sustaining harmonious circular flow of money through the political economy of the MICC -- what we in the Pentagon call a self-licking ice cream cone.”
- Excerpt from Madison's Nightmare by Chuck Spinney at The Atlantic
While it has recently been reported that "liberals see chance for big cuts in defense" I find it easy not to hold my breath. While it is fun to poke holes in neo-conservative dogma, especially when faced with the obvious incongruent belief that while small government is crucial to freedom so is a large military (constituting 19% of federal spending), it is sobering to realize that Big Peace is a bipartisan sham.
It is a sordid fact that liberals are often times if not more culpable than "conservatives" when it comes to groveling before the military money pit. My cynicism is corroborated by three recent phenomena: 1) the total disappearance of the anti-war left after the election of Barack Obama 2) that one of the most liberal senators turned rabidly liberal president actually asks for more money from Congress, amidst a deep recession and perilous debt, for special forces to infiltrate over 70 countries around the world and 3) that apologists of Barack Obama, namely Center for American Progress' Lawrence Korb, lie openly to their base that the president "has dumped George W. Bush's overall strategy for preemptive attacks against terrorist states." Mr. Kob, those aren't love letters Obama is dropping preemptively on Libya.
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