For years we have been a nation focused on security. We have not had any substantive debate about what security means. It is high time this debate was had. Economic and international security issues are likely to dominate our up-coming presidential election. I would like to suggest that we examine security more broadly. In a competitive globalized world, economic power is at least as good a mark of security as military power. Wars are very costly, even when they are won. The costs of loss are always staggering. If economic stability is worth considering, our present course is defined by growing instability. It is high time to consider if we are spending, dying and killing our way in the wrong direction. Our government budget deficits are mighty and growing. The last 5 years saw cumulative deficits of $1.6 trillion dollars. Our trade deficits are now in the range of $56-$63 billion per month. Our equity markets have underperformed internationally and the dollar has been in a downward spiral. All of these statistics might plausibly been seen as security issues.
There are many ways to evaluate US policy and action in Afghanistan, Iraq and the global war on terror (GWOT). One lens involves looking at the financial costs. These are not the most dramatic, immediate or personal costs of conflict. When lives are lost, shattered or violently re-routed it almost seems callous to focus on the balance sheet. As our nation slides into recession and toward the trillion dollar war tab it seems permissible to consider wars' spending.
We are presently fighting three simultaneous wars, (GWOT), Afghanistan and Iraq. The Department of Defense (DOD) places all spending for Iraq and Afghanistan under the umbrella of the GWOT [i]. This is a political decision that actively encourages public confusion regarding the relationship between Iraq, 9/11, Afghanistan and other operations. Iraq gets the most direct press and attention. This stems from the body count and massive cost of the conflict. Iraq receives 75 cents of every GWOT dollar. Afghanistan is also expensive and now both longer running and equally unsuccessful. The global war on terror defies categorization and has been embraced by leading political candidates of both parties as sacrosanct. I too will focus on Iraq but, feel the need to remind you that these three conflicts are all ongoing and expensive. A total absence of debate and engagement with alternative concepts of security stands as a profound counter factual to change claims from all candidates.
The endless war (on terror) and the forgotten war (Afghanistan) are very much still snuffing out lives and draining out dollars. Through year end 2007 Congress appropriated $140billion for Afghanistan and other counter terror operations. It is presently estimated that this number will grow to at least $163billion by year end 2008. If Iraq and all GWOT spending is appropriated and spent, according to plan, it will total $805.1billion by year end 2008. To give some perspective on these numbers I calculated some other things that could have been done. This $800 billion is equal to half of the total sum now required to repair America's increasingly dangerously dilapidated infrastructure. This sum is 14 times the 2008 Department of Education annual budget. We have already spent $100billion more than the forecast 2008 total spending of the Department of Health and Human Services (including Medicaid and Medicare spending). War spending exceeds the 2008 budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by a factor of over 100! Our spending on the global war on terror is 96 times our projected 2008 total spending on all assistance to veterans through the Department of Veterans Affairs. The war tab is greater than 18 times total 2008 spending on the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
What if some of us don't share the present conception of security? What if preventing epidemics of illness, neglect, home foreclosure, environmental destruction, poverty, economic stagnation and homelessness among veterans form our definition of security? If we were to judge our nation's priorities based on her spending, there is only one conclusion. Security means military victory in foreign lands, not economic growth, shared prosperity, environmental protection or basic services. We are far more committed and interested in our global terror wars than we are in fixing our critically deficient infrastructure. We are massively more concerned with wars than our children's education. We find caring for our elderly, ill and needy an impossible burden and clearly less of a priority than our terror wars. The state of our environment is either excellent, or we don't care about it all. We are minting new traumatized veterans at a fast pace but, care very little about their long-term care and welfare. We are prepared to keep asking far too much from our young men and women. In return, we feel we owe them very little. In the midst of the worst housing crisis in 75 years, we are comfortable spending 18times as much money securing our position in the world as we are spending securing our domestic housing stock and communities. I believe this is the proper context in which to consider the numbers. Our decisions hinge on what security we deem worth considering and fighting to secure.
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) February 08, 2008 report, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, estimates that $526 has already been spent on Iraq with an additional $82.3 billion pending in 2008. By the time 2008 ends, five and a half years into the war, we will have spent just over $600billion on the war in Iraq. This excludes many indirect and long term costs. It means that over 5 years and nine months we will have spend an average of $8.7billion per month in Iraq. We have also spent an addition $140billion on Afghanistan and other activities with an additional $23billions pending by the end of 2008. These figures exclude at least as much as they include and would have to be doubled to begin to approximate the total long term direct and indirect costs already incurred. Of course all three conflicts continue and promise to for years.
Given the state of our national economy and the increasingly heated and high stakes debates being waged over the possible costs of various assistance programs, Iraq costs should be central in national spending debates. I am sure most of you don't need me to remind you, they are not. No candidate, for either party, has any concrete or likely plan to drastically or rapidly alter course on Iraq and GWOT policy or spending. Past hypothetical votes, rhetoric and approach vary narrowly and accept- without question- the definition of security that has been in place. Policy actions do not vary enough to radically alter the present spending forecasts. Forecasts, from the CRS report above, estimate that a rapid reduction of troops by the end of 2009 will add an additional $147billion to total costs. The more likely slower decrease to 40,000 troops by 2010 will add another $318billion in costs. The bad news seems to be we are far from even knowing the total direct costs of this very expensive conflict under the best of scenarios. None of these calculations factor rising tensions or military capability rebuilding costs. We are all set-up to expend far more of our wealth, our blood and theirs. All of this without questioning what security really is?
Famously, one of our past Presidents, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, tried throughout his Presidency to warn us of precisely this danger. "The military industrial complex," a term which he himself coined (purportedly at one time adding the word "Congressional" to the mix...), was a highly metastatic cancer. He warned that it would soon divert all money and attention to itself, and that is precisely what it did. When you have got anything that can move more than $1 trillion, let alone something that naiively promises its backers control of (basically...) the entire oil-supply of the region, "what's health care got to do with it?" "Who cares about Katrina and New Orleans?" "Who cares about ANYTHING ... else?"
"Ike was right."
Well, we can all see full-well what is happening. A slate of non-candidates in a stupendously expensive non-election. An increasingly-worthless national currency. A national government whose mantra is basically, "let them eat cake." And yet, utter refusal to consider impeachment. Utter refusal to admit that war-crimes are war-crimes and that they have done them. We need to re-read the story of King Midas, and remember that "Adolf Hitler was lawfully elected." A sociopath can in fact rise in the ranks of national power, to be backed by several hundred more well-placed sociopaths, all with very practiced smiles.
"Be afraid. Be very afraid."
"One if by land. One if by land..."
http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/02/yyyyyyyy-yyyyyyyyy.html
It all begins with getting out of Iraq.
Yes, military spending indeed. Your article is right on. Yesterday's (March 5) New York Times (NYT) had a one page advertisement which has the U.S. Air Force Cyber Command tooting its own horn. I have do doubt that our Air Force is great and does a wonderful job. But this ad does more than just border on the ridiculous; it is. It appears to be part of a much larger national advertising campaign. Recently, I've seen televisions spots and some ads on the web which seem to be part of this campaign. Rumor has it that the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Commissaries is keen on doing something like this too. (Sorry Navy, just kidding.)
There are problems with this advertisement. First it is questionable as to just what the intent of this ad is. There is little in the ad that an intelligent reader would not already know either experientially or inferentially. Some readers I am sure would look at this and think that it is just so much drivel. Here we have bureaucratic arrogance coupled with human idiocy. I do not question the truth of the ad but please-the organizational self- aggrandizement and hyperbole. Spare me!
Prepared by the USAF for the intelligent and discerning readers of the NYT, it is a sophomorically written ad that aspires to represent, in some places, what an actual news page might look like. It would seem to be directed at readers with reading comprehension at the eighth grade level. More of the coupling noted above.
This ad was prepared by an advertising agency and approved by the USAF. I just now paused and gave this ad another quick look. It is terribly, terribly written. This bespeaks two organizations with a bit of a problem. The first is the ad company which really screwed up here. It is a committee project that failed. The other organization is the USAF. Apparently, the USAF has money to burn. Here's what, in all likelihood, may have happened. The USAF, probably the "Air Force Cyber Command' which was noted in the ad, looked at its budget and determined it had lots of money in a certain cache that it needed to spend. It was then readily able to link that abundance of taxpayer dollars with a program that it wanted to pump up in the public eye. Someone in the USAF/Pentagon thought this was a good idea. This is the kind of project that can be traced to one responsible person and attending sycophants. In all likelihood, this brainfart originated in a Pentagon directorate. Look for one person and none of that “we convened a panel of experts” butt covering. One person!
The ad agency really can’t be blamed for the idea itself. It will do as it is asked. It wants another contract. I can guarantee that at least one or more people in the ad agency shook their heads when they finally handed off the embarrassing USAF approved copy that appeared in yesterday's NYT. I am sure on the USAF side of this too there were people who knew better but needed to go along.
There's a small font disclaimer in the ad: "This special advertising supplement was produced on behalf of participating advertisers. Material was provided by the U.S. Air Force and did not involve the reporting or editing staff of The New York Times." I didn't think for a moment that the NYT had anything to do with the development of this debacle.
Here is waste in your face. "Money, money, money, money, money"
(Wait 'till the story about what happened to the billions unaccounted for in Iraq comes out. And it will. Start looking at second homes, early retirements, mortgages paid off, new cars, and newly rich relatives. Goodfellas redux. Just a couple million dollars and I’ll find some of it)
Take a look at the IRA and Ireland. The lads had a right to be outraged, as George Washington. But when you take a focus on Ireland you see a prosperous, busy group of economic activity that precludes the outrage, the depression, and the outrage, that are the breeding ground of hatred and violence. Yes.... little George, it is nation building. It is also justice. The Palestinians have been fucked. Does anyone care? You live in destitution watching your parents humiliated what would you do? We're at a point where "no child can be left behind" literally. If you do... you'll have to ethnic cleanse them or incarcerate them. What would a born-again evangelical Methodist from Texas do? (Karen Hughes and ice cream socials ain't gonna cut it) The IRA is a good place to take evidence.
The Soviet Union held its own during the cold war, until they ventured into Afghanistan and a financialy unsustainable war there.
The Soviets war in Afghanistan brought about the end of the Soviet Union and Communism in Russia.
Will the U.S.'s war in Iraq bring about the end of democracy in America?
"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. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
"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 should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."
-- General of the Army, and President, Dwight D. Eisenhower; January 17, 1961.
Wow, I just imagined what it would be like to live in a country that actually prioritized those things over military power. And imagine if we had an informed citizenry that could actually see past the constant rhetoric of this bullshit "war on terror".
What a shame. Perhaps there is hope.
Also, Rome fell from being overextended.
USA out of the world and mind your own business!
if you enjoy your strawberries in winter, you had better care about traffic on the high seas and safe international air flights.
If you want cheap goods at walmart, then you better hope our presence in the asian pacific is strong and vigourous.
this all cost money
its a matter of choice. if you want to become a self-sustaining nation (no cheap undies from walmart, only oil we produce ourselves(we have 3% of our needed reserves)you will learn to do without all those other conveniences we have come to demand.-like safe flights to the bahamas or a satellite linked phone call to your family in europe.
if you can't invisage that type of lifestyle, then shut up and learn to love the status quo.