A Fat Gift for the Pentagon

The appalling imbalance of power in the Afghanistan War — and others — combined with the decision to give the United States Defense Department the largest budget since World War II, promises more catastrophes.

Enough war! That was the cry of millions ready to raise their voices the first day of 2011, inviting the world to join them in the call for peace and the conclusion of the Afghanistan war, which in the last year has become more brutal.

The gathering pronounced that the Afghan people need help to encourage peace not war, food not bombs, health care not battles. However, the United States government’s plan is quite different. Near the end of 2010, it noted that there had been “progress” in the war and they would continue supporting it in spite of criticism from several experts.

This is about maintaining interventionism that is each time more intrusive in world affairs in order to safeguard, at any cost, hegemony over the rest of the world, and it is going to be inextricably linked to further hostility, and the employment or monitoring of the current military occupations already seen in Iraq, Afghanistan or Haiti.

Clearly, Barack Obama has continued the Republican policies on this delicate matter, and although when he kept Robert Gates at the front of the Department of Defense, it might have seemed like a provisional nomination, his continuation in this position puts Obama in the category of warmonger.

As recently as December 16, Gates had said that he could not let public opinion affect the commitment to Afghanistan. He defends his treachery tooth and nail, even disregarding his constituents’ disapproval of a war that is exploiting economic resources, even if its effect on the lives of Americans is minimized in comparison with other wars, thanks to the use of technology that wreaks havoc on “enemies.”

Despite end-of-the year budget deficits in an economy that has not fully recovered — which as always does not affect the multimillion dollar accounts of billionaires, because unemployment continues to be the Achilles heel; but who cares about the people? — in order to maintain the weakening dollar as the international monetary unit, the United States continues to stick to its guns, and in 2011 they will continue talking as though they are “the pillar” of the world with their two battering rams: freedom and democracy.

Domestically, it is simply a disregard for the essential part of what in other in other periods was called guns and butter. The butter is melting and disappearing.

More money for wars, but weapons are becoming much stronger. On December 22, both the House of Representatives and the Senate approved a law authorizing the 2011 budget for the Department of Defense: The impressive sum of $725 billion was increased by $158 billion, and it included additional money for military occupations and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act that is already classified as the largest military budget since 1945 when World War II ended. It is even much greater than the largest expenditures made during the Vietnam War, which amounted to $460 billion in 1968.

However, not even the billions of dollars that were granted by Congress in December 2010 will be the final figure, observing that year after year the budget has increased since the current fighting began. It was bad enough to see these proceedings repeated again in 2010, when in July the House and Senate approved the Supplementary Appropriations Law that gave the Pentagon $3.7 trillion more for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This amounts to a check for $2,354 from each of the 308 million people living in the United States. With their names on it, but without their consent.

Because the decision was made by the Washington government to be the global policemen, this sum for 2011 will represent 47 percent of the expenditures for weapons for the world as a whole.

In addition, it constitutes 19 percent of the United States’ federal expenditures made available to the 2.5 million military personnel and civilians who serve in the armed forces, but in fact will be condemned to body bags by the death-corporations given the name “the Military-Industrial Complex” by President Dwight Eisenhower in his legendary speech

From the Pentagon to the military industry and vice versa, they hypnotize the country with immortal phrases such as one delivered in the middle of 2010 by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: “Our financial health is directly related to our national security.”

This is very important in order to guarantee that the impressive and monumental budget for 2011 will continue be increased as planned, adding a good dosage of profit for the military-industrial complex. Complementing this is another component that is lucrative and committed to the business: the media. This allows them the name: the military-industrial-media complex. And they have all the power.

An article published in the Boston Globe hardly a week ago talked about an event that occurred in 2005 that is a credible indication of a guaranteed secret agreement by the United States as a police state.

It told how the four-star Gen. Gregory “Speed” Martin, who retired after 35 years of active service, received a call after he changed his military uniform for a sports one so that he could go and play golf. An executive at Northrop Grumman invited him to work as a consultant for this company that manufactures the B-2 Stealth Bomber; a few weeks later Martin received another telephone call that asked him to take part in a top-secret Air Force panel that studied the future of stealth technology in aviation. He said “yes” to both offers. The rest, you can imagine.

This common practice in the United States, called the revolving door, insures that the decision makers return so that they can approve the military budgets and the fat contracts that go to the hands of the most powerful architects of death.

The newspaper investigated a well-known course of action that no administration in power has ever faced in spite of the warning that Eisenhower made in 1961.

Its inquiry reports that in the last two decades, 750 retired generals and admirals of the highest rank worked in the business called rent-a-general, with “irresistible” benefits.

It published this information to demonstrate how out of control the situation has come: between 2004-2008, 80 percent of retired officials with three or four stars on their epaulets went to work as consultants or executives at defense companies, whereas between 1994-1998 the number of military personnel who took the same path was 50 percent. Yet even higher, within the “rent-a-general” group, during the year 2007, 34 of the 39 retirees along with civilian executives retained a seat with influence and access to the information about the Pentagon´s plans. A really good deal!

But they are good boys with good intentions. When The Boston Globe asked retired Air Force Gen. Gregory “Speedy” Martin to make a statement, he assured that his job in the business world and the Pentagon was ethical and beneficial for the United States’ defense because it combined experience in the private sector with crucial Pentagon missions.

In order to wash their hands of the people involved, the Pentagon, the government in conjunction —or whatever that is in the White House — and the consortia made a decision prohibiting a general or admiral to directly make a sale to its former military branch for one year; and during the two years after retiring, the Pentagon prohibits a general or admiral from participating in “special matters” about arms or military programs under his command that could lead to contracts greater than $10 million. Careful, new versions of old arms systems are not considered “special affairs.”

For the record, Eisenhower was not against military power in his country; on the contrary he boasted that “America” was the strongest, most influential and productive nation in the world and based his statement on the combination of wealth and military force. In his farewell speech on July 17, 1961, he only warned the public about what was happening: That the unification of the immense military establishment and a large arms industry had won complete political and economic influence over each governmental office and social organization, and its weight is such that not only are liberty and the democratic process in danger in the United States but also in the world.

Long live the duplicity, hypocrisy, falsehood, good fat contracts and budgets of the Pentagon! Crude trampling on freedom, democracy and peace on earth!

juana@juventudrebelde.cu