Topher Morrison
PurpleSerf.com
In other words, for now, war is peace, has been for ten years and will continue to be in perpetuity or - insolvency, which ever comes first. But Mssrs. Weinstein and Fly are correct it won't be the MIC's fault, it will be ours.
PurpleSerf.com
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| "Beware the Military Industrial Complex" Dwight D. Eisenhower |
“No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of
perpetual war.”
– James Madison
Over
the past few weeks Jamie Weinstein (Daily Caller), Bruce Fein (Constitutional
lawyer), Robert Zarate and Jamie Fly of the Foreign Policy Institute (FPI)
have been in a bit of a tiff over the particulars of Ron Paul’s foreign policy. This all culminated yesterday in an
op-ed featured at the FPI’s website.
According
to Jamie Fly, Ron Paul believes "military spending is the
primary driver of the federal deficit." This isn't Dr. Paul's quote, it's Fly's, the Congressman
never put it that way. But hey,
who can resist a straw man?
Jamie Weinstein, on Sep. 15th and in much the same vein, asserted this was Congressman Paul’s “#1 foreign policy error” in the FoxNews Google Debate:
Jamie Weinstein, on Sep. 15th and in much the same vein, asserted this was Congressman Paul’s “#1 foreign policy error” in the FoxNews Google Debate:
“We’re
in 130 countries. We have 900
bases around the world. We’re
going broke.” Paul urged.
To
me these are three separate and accurate statements, however, Weinstein proceeded
to pick flies out of shit and tacitly defended our foreign adventurism on the
basis that, according to Robert Kagan of The Weekly Standard:
“…the
scary projections of future deficits are not
‘caused by rising defense spending’, and even if one assumes that defense
spending continues to increase with the rate of inflation, this is ‘not what is
driving the future spending.’ The
engine of our growing debt is entitlements.”
Defense expenditures may
not be what is “driving the future
spending”, but it is most definitely riding shotgun. Defending our profligate military spending in a country,
which spends almost double that of our closest “adversary” China, on the basis that it isn’t
the “primary driver” of our fiscal crisis is obfuscating more than the obvious.
This is tantamount to the claim that
the flooding of the last third of the Titanic’s bulkheads wasn’t the primary
driver of it sinking to the floor of the Atlantic.
Admiral Mike Mullen himself claims the U.S. debt crisis in our number one threat to national security! Yet in an
almost a self-fulfilling prophecy the Department of Defense asks for more money. Bruce Fein, Ron Paul’s campaign
advisor, proffered his own arithmetic of departmental requests:
The final tally accounts for “approximately one-third of the entire
budget and almost 100 percent of the projected budget deficit” according to Fein.
Jamie Fly disagrees: “Mr. Fein is wrong on several counts” namely for “placing the blame for the federal deficit squarely on defense spending” yet he never
expounded on his assertion besides parroting Leon Pannetta, secretary of
defense (hardly an objective source, but lets not let that detract from his
argument):
“If you’re serious about
dealing with the deficit, don’t go back to the discretionary account [which
includes defense spending]. Pay
attention to the two-thirds of the federal budget that is in large measure
responsible for the size of the debt that we’re dealing with.”
Again,
Mr. Fly never actually addressed Mr. Fein’s evidence, but did attempt to cast
doubt over Ron Paul’s commitment to restoring fiscal sanity:
“…in truth, Congressman Paul isn’t all that serious about dealing with
the deficit. What he is serious
about is pushing U.S. foreign policy towards a reckless isolationism.”
It’s a stunning red hearing!
How someone, with a straight face, can claim Ron Paul, known as Dr. No, the
most ideologically consistent Congressman in the U.S., responsible for
supplying the impetus behind the national conservative grass roots movement
known as the Tea Party, a devout libertarian and reigning world champion of
Austrian economics is anything but dead serious about reigning in spending is
patently absurd.
Ron Paul is the only Congressman who has, three times, attempted to
repeal the national income tax, the base of the big government beanstalk! Dr. Paul may want to strengthen the
promise of Social Security, to preserve it only for U.S. citizens whom have paid into it and he may want to abolish the taxes, passed under Clinton, on its benefits; he may even want to create personal retirement accounts instead of allowing government to raid the central fund every time they have an itch to
spend! But Ron Paul is one of the
few to advocate, “allow[ing]…young people to just flat out get out of the [social
security] system.” My God man,
pick up a sample of Ron Paul’s congressional record!
Paul is beyond reproach when it comes to restraint; he applies this
philosophy domestically and consistently in his foreign policy. He is one of the few. I whole-heartedly agree with Mr. Fly
that Ron Paul:
“bristles at being called an isolationist, preferring the term
‘non-interventionist.’ But a more
accurate term would be ‘neutralist.’”
What is wrong with neutrality?
Switzerland, Sweden and Finland were in the thick of two world wars yet
remained relatively unscathed, have we nothing to learn from them? Are we to relegate them to the 13th
floor of history? What about Costa
Rica? During the last few decades
of ideological tumult in Central and South America, Costa Rica remained consistently productive and peaceful.
Our Founders couldn’t warn us enough about remaining uninvolved in
Europe’s “perpetual warfare.” They were unbelievably prophetic on this point considering the hordes of metal and munitions that would tear the continent apart nearly 150 years later. It is not therefore, a giant leap of
faith to suggest that our Founders would have also blessed our neutrality with
regard to the Middle East. This
was a principled prime directive not a transient notion as neoconservatives and
Washington’s national defense cliques would have it.
The most sober analysis one could offer our current foreign policy
stance while taking into consideration the statistics cited above and the massive constellation of ancillary private organizations, jointly referred to as the
Military Industrial Complex (MIC) is that it is all an entitlement program! You couldn’t, with any intellectual
honsesty claim otherwise.
In four ways it provides an entitlement: first to those presidents whom wield its power for political gain either through victory or diversion, second to those military and intelligence commanders whom direct massive swaths of tax payer dollars to influence world affairs, third to a high tech industry addicted to generous government injections and lastly to foreign entities whom “invite” our intervention and therefore defense subsidization in order to accomplish what they cannot on their own.
In four ways it provides an entitlement: first to those presidents whom wield its power for political gain either through victory or diversion, second to those military and intelligence commanders whom direct massive swaths of tax payer dollars to influence world affairs, third to a high tech industry addicted to generous government injections and lastly to foreign entities whom “invite” our intervention and therefore defense subsidization in order to accomplish what they cannot on their own.
Mr. Fly mentions the lessons in the "dangers of neutrality" the U.S. was taught in the 20th century, obliquely referencing the
sinking of the Lusitania and Pearl Harbor, two tragedies whose circumstances
are quite dubious. He omits, however, to his
own chagrin the more profound lessons we have learned about intervention: WWI (the ramifications
of which lead to WWII and the rise of Communism and of Middle East dictatorships), Korea, Laos, Cambodia,
Thailand, Vietnam, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now North Africa and
the current "non-genocide" in Libya.
These lessons have and will fill debates (at least
mine) and libraries for years to come.
There is one poignant truth, however, according to Bruce Fein:
“America is engulfed in perpetual global
warfare…There will be no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse or Tokyo
Bay…terrorism cannot be killed like Osama Bin Laden, nor can it be confined
within geographic limits. And no political figure will take the risk of
announcing the end to the war against international terrorism because the risk
of another terrorist incident cannot be reduced to zero.”
