Runaway Defense Spending Not Winning Any Wars

[marmar]

from truthdig:



Runaway Defense Spending Not Winning Any Wars
Posted on Jun 22, 2010

By William Pfaff


In Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, the major places of military interest to the United States today (disregarding the hundreds of other places where American soldiers and agents or mercenaries have been dispatched to suppress one or another outbreak of ethnic, tribal, religious or territorial conflict, the United States having appointed itself the enemy of Disorder), there are indications that things are coming apart.

In Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal has chosen casual insubordination; the American-sponsored Afghan president talks of making peace with the Taliban enemy and ordering the United States and NATO to leave the country (just when billion-dollar lodes of lithium, gold and the other minerals a modern nation and its leaders covet have been discovered).

There are disputes among Kurds, Turks, Iranians and Iraqis in Iraq, which the U.S. had considered more or less pacified, if still government-free. There is trouble in Somalia, Yemen and the Sahara. You might think the United States was not the most powerful nation on Earth.

In May, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates delivered a number of largely unpublicized talks on defense spending, which has been at flood tide for a number of years now, and not just since the 2001 al-Qaida attacks on New York and Washington—although those events “opened a gusher in defense spending that nearly doubled the base budget over the last decade.” American arms spending is meant to make Americans safe from its problems, but this is not working. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/runaway_defense_spending_not_winning_any_wars_20100622/

[izquierdista]

1. Since 1940

Is there a year since 1940 when the War (or in modern parlance, Defense) Department has had to do with less budget than the previous year?

[patrice]

2. This is the whole herd of elephants in the room that no one wants to acknowledge.

[Bert]

3. Since 1945

To be fair we should use the end of WWII as a starting point. It is at that time we had ended our wars against germany and japan but were being eaten up by red phobia. Alternatively we could use the 1930's as a starting point to see how much more of an imperial power we became because of WWII. It is admirable how we were able to change our industry around during WWII but I think we have never really gotten over it, with there always being an excuse to keep about half of our budget locked into the millitary since then.

If there is one country fueling arms growth worldwide it is us. If we were only the first in millitary spending over the next counrty or two by a factor of say 50% it may be reasonable, but we spend more than the next 10 countries. I dont know how long we can keep this up and to even try is to risk real fascism in this country, some say we are there already.