Topher Morrison
The Military Industrial Complex in the News
Last
Friday the Associated Press released this video about East Orange, New Jersey. Previously crime-ridden, suffering from
gang violence and urban blight, East Orange recently became proving grounds for
high tech pre-crime technology, courtesy of the federal government.
From
nearly a mile away and controlled remotely from the comfort of either a
surveillance station or a squad car a bright red beam of light fixed above a
video camera can instantly bathe anyone suspected of possible criminal
activity. Aaron Dykes of
InfoWars.com breaks it down. While this is an
astonishing development it is unfortunately a typical domestic attendant of our
national security posture.
Last
September while covering a debate between libertarians and neo-conservatives I highlighted
one of the most glaring inconsistencies within conservative dogma. While on one hand, with regard to
social welfare, conservatives spit incendiary rhetoric at nearly every
encroachment by the federal government; on the other, in foreign policy they applaud
almost identical invasions (pun intended).
Why
is there is no cry from so called conservatives for restraint when our National
Security Budget for fiscal year 2012 is estimated at $1.2 trillion, $185 billion
of which is in interest payments alone?
It is because Eisenhower’s infamous Military Industrial Complex (MIC) is
not dissimilar to its sprawling domestic cousins – a burdensome and ineffectual
entitlement program with teeth. The
MIC provides an entitlement in four ways, from September’s article:
“…First to those presidents [and politicians]
whom wield its power for political gain either through victory or diversion, second to those military and
intelligence commanders [and bureaucrats] whom direct massive swaths of tax
payer dollars to influence world affairs, third
to a high tech industry addicted to generous government injections and [fourth] to foreign entities whom
‘invite’ our intervention and therefore defense subsidization in order to
accomplish what they cannot [or will not] on their own.”
By no means is this list
exhaustive. As John Stossel recently
points out on his Fox News program
the noble foreign policy goals, which our Dear Leaders burden themselves with
know no bounds.
The
American public wants a lot from their military and considering they pay $1.2
trillion per annum, a lot is to be
expected. But as we have seen in
the case of East Orange, local law enforcement has become militarized and it
isn’t the first time pre-crime technology has been in the news. Pre-crime software has been used in Baltimore,
Philadelphia and Washington D.C. to route future criminals for months!
Militarization of Law Enforcement
Much
of these developments fall under what I term industrial blowback, the unintended allocation and consequences of
our military’s equipment and or expertise. For example, a local New York CBS News affiliate just days
ago reported the NYPD experimenting with drones over the city. It might seem reasonable at first; New York City after all is
one of the world’s largest metropolitan areas. The problem is, drones are being used in rural areas as well
and not just to protect the border.
Last
December a North Dakota family was arrested with the help of a Predator drone for ‘stealing six cows’, which evidently kept wandering
onto their land; pretty expensive toy for such a remote area. These aren’t isolated incidences, there
are scores of other examples of our military’s tools being used at home namely
a field-tested surveillance blimp previously designed to help troops in Iraq
conduct door-to-door raids. If
you’re a resident Ogden, Utah you might have already seen this little beauty flying over your Sunday BBQ.
The
fifth entitlement recipient is obviously
local law enforcement and like any welfare queen it is quickly becoming
addicted to government largesse.
Faced with addiction the best thing to do now is: Step One, Admit There’s a Problem.
Unfortunately, as is most often the case, intervention is all that is left. In many ways this explains the rise in the protest movement
and protest candidates like Ron Paul.
However, while the protester may have been Time Magazine’s Person of the
Year and Ron Paul is more popular than ever our national security
infrastructure is still metastasizing, as there has been no real anti-war (or
its anti-police state ancillary) movement since the election of Barack Obama
exposed it as largely anti-Bush.
Where
have they gone and why? Obama has
yet to come through on closing Guantanamo Bay, we are still mired in
Afghanistan after 10 years, still involved in regime change and the Transportation
Security Administration is still busy reaching in our pants and they have left
the airports too. Toting their
backscatter x-rays among other things onto American highways, beta testing
their V.I.P.E.R. teams, testing their F.A.S.T. technology at large public
events and still flouting the Constitution, just ask Senator Rand Paul (R-KY). On Monday TSA agents detained him on his
way to the Senate in brazen violation of not only the 4th Amendment,
but also his privilege as a Senator from arrest before a vote in Congress.
Sen. Paul may be awake and
speaking out against the growth in our police state, but it has been evident watching
the endless GOP debates that mainline conservatives weren’t influenced by the
Washington Post’s two-year investigation exposing Top Secret America. This
amazing series details how politicized and privatized our national security
infrastructure has become.
Since
9/11, 854, 000 people now hold top-secret security clearances, 33 building
complexes have been built for top-secret work, the equivalent of almost 3
Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings – nearly 17 million square feet! The most shocking statistic testifies to
an inherent conflict of interest. Apparently
over 265,000 private contractors retain top-secret clearances; our government
has effectively incentivized creating enemies! But do they actually create real life straw men? There is evidence. Judge
Andrew Napolitano on Fox News exposed the FBI for as much in this video, a must see.
Still not convinced ex administrators like Homeland
Security’s Michael Chertoff are raking in millions after building up their own entitlement nest egg
and slipping into the private sector to reap the rewards? Below, I expand on John Stossel’s list
and show how foreign policy hawks turn into central planners right before your
eyes. According to Stossel:
“People Want The Military To…”
·
6) Keep Oil Cheep – As I have argued before oil may in fact be abiotic, in other words it is not a fossil fuel and in fact renewable. This would clearly undermine the Peak
Oil theory, but that’s an argument for another day. However, as OilPrice.com recently covered, America has the
largest oil and gas reserves on the planet! Instead of fighting in the Middle East “conservatives”,
libertarians and independents should fight job-killing pseudo-environmentalists
here at home. While cheap oil is
what Americans want invading armies merely create more instability and
therefore higher prices. The entitlement – not only the high gas
prices and record profits for oil companies, but establishing a false scarcity
providing the environment for green energy subsidies to flourish whether they
are justified or not. Peak Oil theory
sure makes for strange bedfellows…
·
7) Contain China – The Defense Department really hasn’t done a good job of this at all. Take Afghanistan for example. Evidently it not only harbors terrorists, but nearly $1 trillion in precious metals too.
Unfortunately we lost the opportunity to develop Afghanistan’s biggest
copper deposit to, you guessed it, China.
I guess our troops are meant to scurry around the country trying to win
hearts, not mines. Next door, the Pakistani government asked China to build the Gwadar deep-sea port, potentially giving
China broader access to the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean. If that wasn’t all, Africa is opening up
to the China too. The Seychelles
is the newest country to court China for a military base and this time it’s right
in the backyard of a not-so-secret U.S. drone headquarters. Want more examples? I’m sure you can find them on your own,
HINT: Brazilian oil. The entitlement is obvious – foreign defense
subsidies. Evidently it’s a buyers
market with two super powers quietly competing.
·
8) Chase Terrorists – We’ve done that for over 10 years, but evidently
we’re now in the business of helping them – wait what? CLUE: Who were Libya’s rebels? We
also kill U.S. citizens whom are accused of aiding terrorists, as was the case
in Yemen when Anwar Al-Awlaki and his teenage son were eliminated by a CIA
drone. If that was a touchy
subject the NDAA bill made it ok to arrest U.S. citizens without trial. Appalled? Don’t worry the new Expatriation Act will revoke U.S.
citizenship if you’re deemed a menace.
What!? I thought I read
somewhere all men were created equal
and with certain unalienable rights?
Maybe terrorists aren’t human then, that must be it. The entitlement
– perpetuating fear, a war that by definition can never end and expanding Executive
power.
·
9) Train Foreign Militaries to Chase Terrorists – Danger Room, Wired.com’s national security blog,
just reported we have new clandestine commando team operating near Iran, known as Joint Special Operations Task Force-Gulf
Cooperation Council, JSOTF-GCC for short.
They are responsible for training all of our allies in the Middle East
and even Blackwater’s newest guise is still winning big contracts. To
understand a little more about our peace president’s Secret Wars here is the Daily Beast. The entitlement – more foreign defense
subsidy, reliance on the private/public intelligence apparatus, private
contractors, and equipment manufacturers.
·
10) Protect Sea Lanes – Evidently we do more than that. Our Coast Guard has been responsible for
not only our shores, but Iranian shores as well. They recently rescued 6 Iranians 50 miles southeast of the Iraqi port city of Umm
Qaser. I thought they were called
the U.S. Coast Guard not the U.N. Coast Guard. The entitlement –
Iranians can spend a little more on domestic concerns rather than their own
coast guarding capabilities with the U.S. on the ready.
·
11) Stop Genocide – This is the most compelling argument for intervention, I know it
tugs at my heart, but as was the case in East Timor and Darfur unless you have
resources crucial to American interests you’re most likely SOL. The entitlement
– public relations i.e. “The Global Force for Good.”
·
12) Protect European, East Asian, and Middle East
States from Aggression – Don’t
they have their own militaries?
Also when it comes to rich countries like Australia, Japan, Germany and
South Korea why can’t they begin to take care of themselves? The entitlement
– a generous tax break for their economies at the expense of the U.S.
·
13) Humanitarian Missions – As I mention above the latest “humanitarian
mission” in Libya put into place a dubious regime. The entitlement –
you don’t have to have legitimate broad appeal to start a revolution just the
right connections.
·
14) Respond to Natural Disasters – We responded to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami
and to the 2010 Haitian earthquake, which killed thousands and while these
efforts are praiseworthy where is the mandate? It isn’t found in the Constitution and the American people are
rarely asked to vote on it. Our
charity is undeniable in this country; there are many ways of aiding needy
foreign nations without involving our military. In the end its our money and our governments should be
planning and saving for a rainy day of our own. The entitlement –
disaster relief, in other words, national disaster insurance package courtesy
of the U.S. taxpayer.
·
15) Secure the Internet – The ultra secret National Security Agency is
completing construction of 1.5 million square foot NSA West officially known as
the Cybersecurity Data Center in Utah.
Regarded by Sen. Orin Hatch as the largest defense construction effort
in recent memory. The entitlement – brand new battlefields and weapons a la stuxnet!
·
16) Police the Mexican Border – American’s may want the military to do this, but
this is one of the legitimate activities the military is not engaged in.
·
17) Transform Failed States into Democracies – Democratizing states are notorious for being
violent. In the end effective
democracy is more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner. We’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan for
years and we haven’t come close to achieving the results American’s would
consider acceptable. The
aforementioned nations are not healthy, peaceful or friendly. The entitlement
– public relations, “making the world safe for democracy.”
A few Stossel didn’t
mention in closing:
·
18) Opening Markets – We opened the biggest market on Earth not with a
missile, but with a ping-pong ball.
Richard Nixon’s open door policy was one of his forgotten triumphs. When we have used military force things
generally get a little dicey: 1854 Mathew C. Perry forces Japan to trade with
the U.S. Touched by power politics
by 1904 Japan turns imperialistic and expands its holdings into Russia, China,
culminating in the attack on Pearl Harbor. The 1953 CIA backed Iranian coup d’ etat results in the Iranian Islamic Revolution. The 2003 Iraq invasion results in an Iranian Super-state. The entitlement – more problems to fix.
·
19) Policy Leverage – A recent article on Essential Intelligence
covered the “crisis” brewing in the Strait of Hormuz, where most of the world’s
oil now passes. The dot connectors
suspect that this may be in part a ploy to highlight the vulnerability of the
strait and therefore muster support for an Arabian Oil Pipeline. The entitlement – further subsidization of
international corporations’ adventurism abroad ignoring the emancipating prospect
of energy independence at home.
·
20) Support NGO Activity – The rise of non-governmental organizations has
been met with both hope and skepticism.
Alleviating the burden of nation building, relief, intelligence
gathering, etc. from governments saves money, but when these NGOs become guises
for politians and their special interests they become a menace. John McCain’s International
Republican Institute had its hands
all over Libya. The entitlement – first dibs on contracts,
information and influence in nation building.
·
21) Direct Foreign Aid – Is the easiest and most obvious form of foreign
welfare, most Americans are against it unless a small socialist ethnocracy is
the recipient.
·
22) Drug War – Since the Vietnam era nearly every theatre of war has seen an
increase in drug activity. It
unfortunately is a way of providing funding for covert operations, it provides
future leverage against “fri-enemies” and is very often a backdoor through
which to pass and garner information.
The entitlements are endless –
off the books funding, information gathering, immunity, but most importantly it
sustains deep state politics a world beyond the purview of our representatives
in Congress.
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