By Mark A. Dunlea
It is time for America to heed President Eisenhower’s warning about the military industrial complex and reject the bipartisan commitment to the use of military force as a basic tenet of our foreign policy. The need for change goes much deeper than merely ending the occupation of Iraq.
Much of America’s military spending fuels corporate corruption rather than making our nation secure, while greatly contributing to our growing economic problems and public debt. No country can afford to spend more money on its military than the rest of the world combined, especially when its faces no overt threats to its security. Our growing and excessive military budget threatens our future existence just as the arms race contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Rather than asserting that the military should be the one part of the federal budget protected from cuts to resolve the financial crisis, the Presidential candidates should be arguing over how deep the cuts should be. It is also time to formally end two centuries of American colonial expansion and bring our troops home from the hundred plus countries where we presently have military bases.
Historians will note this week’s bailout of Wall Street bankers as a turning point comparable to the collapse of the Soviet Union, a formal burial of the worldwide domination of the American style of unfettered capitalism whose principal goal was to increase the wealth of the richest citizens. The leading economies of the rest of the world have long ago rejected the American approach to mishandling the economy but now third world countries won’t have to bow to American demands to open up their country’s resources to exploitation by private corporations in exchange for receiving loans. Unfortunately, the two main parties appear to remain committed to imposing this system here at home.
The bailout was primarily just another transfer of wealthy to the richest and most powerful, failing to address the fundamental economic problems that caused the “crisis”. It did nothing to restructure our financial system, not even minimally reversing deregulation. If credit was the issue, the most effective solution was to have the American government provide credit, not buy up bad debt.
The bailout increased one of the countries biggest problems, namely that we have floated our economy for decades on bigger and bigger debt. The housing bubble was just the latest example, as families with stagnant or falling wages were pressured to finance their spending by borrowing against the “rising equity” in their homes as financiers collected more and more fees by creating and packaging unsustainable mortgages. Countries with a lot of money like China and OPEC were willing to float loans to the US both because we were considered a safe place to invest and because they wanted to make sure we had enough money to buy their products. These countries had already begun to move their funds elsewhere even before the recent collapse of the Wall Street markets. We should expect another currency such as the Euro to replace the dollar as the staple of world’s economy. We will be forced to repay our loans under terms dictated by other countries.
Combined with the growing financial impact of rising energy costs oil and climate change, the US economy and consumers are about to experience a prolonged period of shock and awe. Too bad we didn’t invest the $810 billion in an emergency effort to develop renewable energy to break our oil addiction, or in the country’s infrastructure to help rebuild our ability to produce goods rather than new financial instruments.
Which brings us back to the military budget.
The “formal” military budget is now over $600 billion. Along with massive tax cuts for the rich, it is the principal factor in our runaway public debt. Even more military expenditures are “hidden” in other parts of the budget. The military budget grows even larger if interest payments related to government debt caused by prior military spending is added. According to the World Policy Institute, this year’s military budget “represents 58 cents out of every dollar spent by the U.S. government on discretionary programs — the items that Congress gets to vote up or down on an annual basis. This means that military spending is more than the combined totals of spending on education, environmental protection, administration of justice, veteran’s benefits, housing assistance, transportation, job training, agriculture, energy, and economic development.”
Certainly $600 plus billion is not needed to confront what is now our “formal” principal enemy, a handful of terrorist organizations armed with explosives, shoulder-fired missiles, AK-47s and video cameras. American military contractors have looted much of the money we sunk into the ill-conceived occupation of Iraq, which never threatened the US. Billions are wasted on military systems whose prime purpose is pork barrel spending on military contractors in the districts of politically powerful Congress members. The F-22 fighter ($4.6 billion), the V-22 Osprey ($2.6 billion), the CVN-21 aircraft carrier ($3.1 billion), the SSN-774 Virginia attack submarine ($2.7 billion), the Trident D-5 Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile ($1.2 billion), and Ballistic Missile Defense ($10.8 billion) are a few examples of weapons that are unnecessary, unworkable, or both.
The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 warned Europe that America was now the new colonial power in South America and that they should stay out. We have overthrown governments repeatedly there since then, including our support of our own 9/11 terrorist act, the murder of the democratically elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende in 1973. Since our emergence as the dominant political and economic power after World War II, we had extended our colonial ambitions worldwide, bending foreign countries to our will when possible, invading them when needed, such as overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953. The US has sent troops into combat in foreign countries more than 60 times since WWII alone.
The US has the right to protect itself against foreign attacks. But American taxpayers are ill served by our present efforts to insert the American military presence into every corner of the planet. Our worldwide military operations have little to do with confronting Al Qaida and it is no longer an effective tool (if it ever was) for “opening up markets” for American products. Certainly American workers would be far better served by keeping jobs and manufacturing here at home rather than enabling American multinationals to outsource more and more employment of every shape and form into whatever is the latest cheapest, most anti-labor sweatshop on the planet.
American politicians always tell us that the world changed after 9/11. Unfortunately the US moved backwards rather than forward. We responded to our anger and fear by invading other nations, including Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11, but a lot to do with oil. It is time to change our response to 9/1l, to focus on rebuilding our relations with other countries and to rebuild our own country by putting the needs of the average American ahead of the rich and powerful. That change begins with reducing the size and power of the American military industrial complex.
I end with several paragraphs from the farewell speech of President Eisenhower, the leader of the Allied Forces in WWII.
“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
“We must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.
“Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.”
