You know this. Wars and military occupations make money. Lots of it. More than gambling casinos, loan sharking and selling cheesy health insurance policies. That neatly explains why pro-war sentiment always seems to run so high in boardrooms, back rooms and gentlemen’s clubs.
Make no mistake about it, there’s a helluva lot of money in making million dollar smart bombs, tanks and aircraft carriers. There’s a pretty penny to be made in moving huge numbers of men and heavy equipment around the globe and in providing the myriad services civilian contractors provide in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. It isn’t so hard to understand, and it isn’t as though we’ve had no instruction in all of this.
Almost fifty years ago President Dwight Eisenhower, in his farewell speech to the nation, cautioned Americans about the potential for evil, both in world affairs and in our democratic processes, of a growing military industrial complex. Today, a defense industry that gobbles up more than 40 cents of every federal tax dollar has not only the power to vanquish foreign enemies, but the power to dictate both American foreign and domestic policy as well. We did not heed Ike’s warning.
Just take a look around. You’ll have no trouble identifying at least a double handful of areas where money is desperately needed to fix real, immediate and serious problems right here in the United States. 47 million people have no health insurance. Mortgage foreclosures and bankruptcies continue to skyrocket. States have run out of money to pay for even basic public services, and it gets worse.
The President’s newly proposed budget envisions dramatic cuts to needed social “safety net” programs, and the budget deficit is running so high that the President has proposed a 3-year freeze on all discretionary federal spending, excepting only Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and national defense programs, of course. The economic realities of 2010 are harsh.
In light of all of this, one would expect a bit of belt tightening and prioritizing of expenditures. You’d expect that issues having greater impact on the lives of Americans would move to the top of the list and that programs which efficiently and effectively address those issues would be first in line for limited federal dollars. Funding for matters with little or no real impact on people’s lives, and those programs which are inefficient and ineffective in solving identified problems, would be cut out of the budget altogether. That’s what you’d expect, but it isn’t what you’re going to get.
What we are getting is 30,000 additional troops and a commitment of an additional $350+ billion per year to the continuing occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. Oh, yeah, and a defense budget of over $700 billion this year. Why? Because the military industrial complex says so.
Get a load of this number. In addition to the incomprehensible sum included in the President’s defense budget for the coming year, the U.S. is scheduled to burn up well over $600 billion per year in military spending through 2028—that’s every year for the next 18 years! They’re breaking out the champagne in the boardrooms!
Now, think about this for a moment. Which do you think has the greater impact on your life—skyrocketing health care costs or the Taliban? What’s the more pressing matter for you and the people you know—a 10% U.S. unemployment rate or relentlessly pursuing Al Qaeda operatives in a country from which they’ve already fled?
The answers, I think, are obvious. Our government’s reasons for continuing the occupation of Afghanistan are obvious too. Money. Money for the barons of a gigantic war industry. Just like Ike warned us.
55% of Americans, according to a recent CNN poll, support an immediate end to our military involvement in Afghanistan. What the American people want doesn’t matter. Blackwater (now “Xe Services”) wants another billion dollar contract for training Afghanistan’s national police force.
American soldiers, and countless innocent Afghan people, are going to die. That doesn’t matter. What matters to our government is that DynaCorp wants more logistical support contracts in Afghanistan like the $5.9 billion award it got last July.
The occupation of Afghanistan has nothing to do with fighting terror, spreading democracy or any other honorable goal. It is not a part of “the never ending battle for truth, justice and the American way.” It’s just about the money. Just like Ike said it would be.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
The video clip of Pres. Eisenhower is very sobering. He was an Army General, for gosh sakes! He knew of what he spoke, when he warned about the military-industrial complex. But these Untied states didn’t listen, then or now.
So Ike made the comment that God help the USA when somebody sit at the presidential desk that didn’t know as much as did he about the military! Chills go up and down my flesh as I hear this, because for the first time in my lifetime (I was born while Ike was Pres.) we have a President who did not do military service. God help us indeed!!!
Glen… you’re serious, right? After having read the article and watched the video clip your concern is that President Obama “did not do military service?” You’re concern from Obama’s lack of military service is, exactly, what? That he will be hoodwinked by the military contractors into buying more missiles than we need? Too few? With what, precisely, is it that you think God needs to especially help us in light of Obama’s lack of military service?
My concern is exactly what Ike said. Osama, not having served in the military, has little understanding of what means to live in the military (with or without dependents), what it means to receive and obey military orders, what it means to give military orders, expecting obedience, nor even general military strategy. (Now granted, some of our recent ex-Presidents were sort of clueless on military strategy despite military service.)
It’s not impossible for a non-military-experienced man like Osama to be Commander in Chief and conduct the military affairs of these United States, but it’s certainly a lot more difficult.
I wish the man well, and I pray that he listen to his military advisors, particularly Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Which, BTW, that was a good decision on his part to retain the sitting Secretary.
Glen, you have misinterpreted Eisenhower’s remarks in the video. Ike was not concerned with the ability of a president who did not serve in the military to act as an effective Commander in Chief. Franklin Roosevelt, who had been Ike’s Commander In Chief throughout World War II, was clearly capable of effectively commanding our military.
Eisenhower was simply commenting that he, as a general who was knowledgeable and experienced in both warfare and military procurement was uniquely qualified to put into perspective the proposals and demands of the military industrial complex and its powerful army of lobbyists. A man with simple military service would have no greater experience or better judgment in such matters than would a man who did not serve at all.
Now, as to your fears for President Obama, they would seem unfounded. The two presidents who served as Commander in Chief during the greatest conflicts in our history were without any military experience of their own. Roosevelt and Wilson filled their roles quite successfully during World War I and World War II, wouldn’t you say?
As a Commander in Chief without personal military service, Obama is in good company. Here is a list of presidents who never served in the military: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Franklin Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Calvin Coolidge, Warren Harding, Woodrow Wilson, William Taft, Grover Cleveland, Martin Van Buren, John Q. Adams and John Adams.
I confess that it appears that I was giving more weight to an aspect of what Eisenhower said, than was intended. After all: the speech was a warning against the military-industrial complex. I was seeing his “God help. . .” remark not in the light of this but rather in the light of his overall military experience and how it informed his presidential role as Commander in Chief.
I apologize for my over-emphasis (or misinterpretation).
However, continuing on that line, in reflecting on Eisenhower’s military experience as compared to that of other Presidents (both since — in my lifetime — and previous), a rather remarkable conclusion came to me. As a military leader during WW II, he held more military authority and power than any other man who then went on to be elected President! Certainly as the supreme commander of the Allied forces in the European theater of that war, his command was not over US forces alone but those of other nations. And yet he never abused such remarkable military authority. Not to mention that he went on to warn about the military-industrial complex.
And in my opinion Ike was a very decent President! Nothing very remarkable or of historic import occurred during his eight years. And definitely no scandals or crises — nothing like Iran-Contra, Lewinski, or Watergate! He just quietly went about being the nation’s leader, following a career as a citizen-soldier. Much in the manner of our first Chief Executive. What do you think?
Oh, and thanks for pointing out that neither FDR nor Wilson served in the military and yet led us thru the great military trials of WW II and WW I respectively. You have a great point there!
(But I had concisered that Clinton DID serve, at least in the Guard?)