Our Wars Are Killing Us (Tom Engelhardt)

by Dollars and Sense

The latest from TomDispatch is about military spending--quite timely given the spending freeze--except "security-related" spending--that B.O. will announce tonight. Here is Tom's intro to the piece:

From TomDispatch this afternoon, a piece that couldn't be more timely given today's news that the president will announce a freeze on domestic, but not national security, spending; an exploration of why, when Americans are so angry and impatient about bailouts and easy rides, they continue to give the Pentagon such a blank check -- Tom Engelhardt, Pentagon Time, Tick... Tick... Tick.

As the media have been telling us lately, as the Senate upset in Massachusetts indicated, Americans are on a short fuse about many subjects, including an economy that has rebounded for bankers but not for regular people, soaring deficits, staggering foreclosure rates, mega-banking bonuses, the Obama administration's bailout of those same bankers, and its coziness with Wall Street. But, as I write in my latest post, "It's worth noting that they're not angry about everything... The good citizens of Massachusetts may be against free rides and bailouts for many types, but not for everybody. I'm speaking, of course, about the Pentagon, for which Congress has just passed a record new budget of $708 billion (with an Afghan war-fighting supplemental request of $33 billion, essentially a bail-out payment, still pending but sure to pass). This happened without real debate, much public notice, or even a touch of anger in Washington or Massachusetts."

The fact is: The tea-party crews don't rail against Pentagon giveaways, nor do Massachusetts voters grumble about them, nor, for that matter, do liberal economists who write columns on the woes of our country. Because of that and because the mainstream media in its coverage pays so little attention to the Pentagon's planning time horizons and planned expenses, the rest of this post explores "Pentagon time" -- that is, the Pentagon's free ride. It offers a series of examples of the kind of long-range planning the U.S. military is doing in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) without much regard to Washington or American debates on the war, its expense or timing.

I conclude that, when it comes to American politics and the economy, the U.S. military is our church, “national security” our Bible, and nothing done in the name of either can be wrong. "Until the Pentagon is forced into our financial universe, the angry, impatient one where most Americans now live, we're in trouble... It's time for Americans to stop saluting and end the Pentagon's free ride before America's wars kill us."

This piece offers news about the Pentagon hard to find in normal press coverage. Check it out.

Labels: Barack Obama, budget, deficit, militarism, military spending, spending freeze

 

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1/26/2010 04:11:00 PM