'America's Outrageous War Economy!'

Pentagon can't find $2.3 trillion, wasting trillions on 'national defense'

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
Last update: 7:27 p.m. EDT Aug. 18, 2008

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/why-we-love-americas-outrageous/story.aspx?guid=0D31C880-32CD-4BA1-8133-329EA57CB069&dist=SecMostRead
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ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Yes, America's economy is a war
economy. Not a "manufacturing" economy. Not an "agricultural" economy. Nor
a "service" economy. Not even a "consumer" economy.

Seriously, I looked into your eyes, America, saw deep into your soul. So
let's get honest and officially call it "America's Outrageous War Economy."
Admit it: we secretly love our war economy. And that's the answer to Jim
Grant's thought-provoking question last month in the Wall Street
Journal -- "Why No Outrage?"    

There really is only one answer: Deep inside we love war. We want war. Need
it. Relish it. Thrive on war. War is in our genes, deep in our DNA. War
excites our economic brain. War drives our entrepreneurial spirit. War
thrills the American soul. Oh just admit it, we have a love affair with
war. We love "America's Outrageous War Economy."
 
Americans passively zone out playing video war games. We nod at 90-second
news clips of Afghan war casualties and collateral damage in Georgia. We
laugh at Jon Stewart's dark comedic news and Ben Stiller's new war
spoof "Tropic Thunder" ... all the while silently, by default, we're
cheering on our leaders as they aggressively expand "America's Outrageous
War Economy," a relentless machine that needs a steady diet of war after
war, feeding on itself, consuming our values, always on the edge of
self-destruction. 

Why else are Americans so eager and willing to surrender 54% of their tax
dollars to a war machine, which consumes 47% of the world's total military
budgets? 

Why are there more civilian mercenaries working for no-bid private war
contractors than the total number of enlisted military in Iraq (180,000 to
160,000), at an added cost to taxpayers in excess of $200 billion and
climbing daily? 

Why do we shake our collective heads "yes" when our commander-in-chief
proudly tells us he is a "war president;" and his party's presidential
candidate chants "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," as if "war" is a celebrity hit
song? 

Why do our spineless Democrats let an incompetent, blundering executive
branch hide hundreds of billions of war costs in sneaky "supplemental
appropriations" that are more crooked than Enron's off-balance-sheet deals?
 
Why have Washington's 537 elected leaders turned the governance of the
American economy over to 42,000 greedy self-interest lobbyists? 

And why earlier this year did our "support-our-troops" "war president"
resist a new GI Bill because, as he said, his military might quit and go to
college rather than re-enlist in his war; now we continue paying the
Pentagon's warriors huge $100,000-plus bonuses to re-up so they can keep
expanding "America's Outrageous War Economy?" Why? Because we secretly love
war! 

We've lost our moral compass: The contrast between today's leaders and the
56 signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 shocks our
conscience. Today war greed trumps morals. During the Revolutionary War our
leaders risked their lives and fortunes; many lost both. 

Today it's the opposite: Too often our leaders' main goal is not public
service but a ticket to building a personal fortune in the new "America's
Outrageous War Economy," often by simply becoming a high-priced lobbyist. 
Ultimately, the price of our greed may be the fulfillment of Kevin Phillips'
warning in "Wealth and Democracy:" "Most great nations, at the peak of
their economic power, become arrogant and wage great world wars at great
cost, wasting vast resources, taking on huge debt, and ultimately burning
themselves out." 

'National defense' a propaganda slogan selling a war economy?

But wait, you ask: Isn't our $1.4 trillion war budget essential
for "national defense" and "homeland security?" Don't we have to protect
ourselves? 

Sorry folks, but our leaders have degraded those honored principles to
advertising slogans. They're little more than flag-waving excuses used by
neocon war hawks to disguise the buildup of private fortunes in "America's
Outrageous War Economy."
 
America may be a ticking time bomb, but we are threatened more by enemies
within than external terrorists, by ideological fanatics on the left and
the right. Most of all, we are under attack by our elected leaders who are
motivated more by pure greed than ideology. They terrorize us, brainwashing
us into passively letting them steal our money to finance "America's
Outrageous War Economy," the ultimate "black hole" of corruption and
trickle-up economics. 

You think I'm kidding? I'm maybe too harsh? Sorry but others are far more
brutal. Listen to the ideologies and realities eating at America's soul.
 
1. Our toxic 'war within' is threatening America's soul

How powerful is the Pentagon's war machine? Trillions in dollars. But worse
yet: Their mindset is now locked deep in our DNA, in our collective
conscience, in America's soul. Our love of war is enshrined in the writings
of neocon war hawks like Norman Podoretz, who warns the Iraq War was the
launching of "World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism," a
reminder that we could be occupying Iraq for a hundred years. His WW IV
also reminded us of the coming apocalyptic end-of-days "war of
civilizations" predicted by religious leaders in both Christian and Islamic
worlds two years ago.
 
In contrast, this ideology has been challenged in works like Craig
Unger's "American Armageddon: How the Delusions of the Neoconservatives and
the Christian Right Triggered the Descent of America -- and Still Imperil
Our Future." 

Unfortunately, neither threat can be dismissed as "all in our minds" nor as
merely ideological rhetoric. Trillions of tax dollars are in fact being
spent to keep the Pentagon war machine aggressively planning and expanding
wars decades in advance, including spending billions on propaganda
brainwashing naïve Americans into co-signing "America's Outrageous War
Economy." Yes, they really love war, but that "love" is toxic for America's
soul. 

2. America's war economy financed on blank checks to greedy

Read Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda Bilmes' "$3
Trillion War." They show how our government's deceitful leaders are
secretly hiding the real long-term costs of the Iraq War, which was
originally sold to the American taxpayer with a $50 billion price tag and
funded out of oil revenues. 

But add in all the lifetime veterans' health benefits, equipment placement
costs, increased homeland security and interest on new federal debt, and
suddenly taxpayers got a $3 trillion war tab! 

3. America's war economy has no idea where its money goes

Read Portfolio magazine's special report "The Pentagon's $1 Trillion
Problem." The Pentagon's 2007 budget of $440 billion included $16 billion
to operate and upgrade its financial system. Unfortunately "the defense
department has spent billions to fix its antiquated financial systems [but]
still has no idea where its money goes." 

And it gets worse: Back "in 2000, Defense's inspector general told Congress
that his auditors stopped counting after finding $2.3 trillion in
unsupported entries." Yikes, our war machine has no records for $2.3
trillion! How can we trust anything they say? 

4. America's war economy is totally 'unmanageable'

For decades Washington has been waving that "national defense" flag, to
force the public into supporting "America's Outrageous War Economy." Read
John Alic's "Trillions for Military Technology: How the Pentagon Innovates
and Why It Costs So Much."
 
A former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment staffer, he explains
why weapon systems cost the Pentagon so much, "why it takes decades to get
them into production even as innovation in the civilian economy becomes
ever more frenetic and why some of those weapons don't work very well
despite expenditures of many billions of dollars," and how "the internal
politics of the armed services make weapons acquisition almost
unmanageable." Yes, the Pentagon wastes trillions planning its wars well in
advance. 

-- 
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