Jingoist Warmongering Democrats

Republicans don't hold a monopoly on jingoism. The Democrats excelled at it at their 2012 convention. In an article titled, "Democrats parade Osama bin Laden's corpse as their proudest achievement," Glenn Greenwald saw the Democratic National Convention for what it was: an attempt to out-warmonger the Republicans:

I thought, or at least hoped, that such vulgar crowd celebrations of leader-reverence, jingoism and militarism would not soon be replicated. But on Thursday night, the final night of the Democratic party convention, it was. It is hard to count how many times a Democratic party speaker stood up proudly to proclaim: Osama. Bin. Laden. Is. Dead! Almost every time Bin Laden's scalp was paraded around on its pike – all thanks to the warrior spirit and unflinching courage of our commander-in-chief – the crowd of progressives, liberals and party faithful erupted into a prolonged "USA. USA" chant.

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Our secret wars

From Chris Hedges at Common Dreams:

Since the attacks of 9/11 the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)—which includes the Green Berets, the Army Rangers and the Navy SEALs—has seen its budget quadrupled. There are now some 60,000 USSOCOM operatives, whom the president can dispatch to kill without seeking congressional approval or informing the public. Add to this the growth of intelligence operatives. As Dana Priest and William M. Arkin reported in The Washington Post, “Twenty-four [new intelligence] organizations were created by the end of 2001, including the Office of Homeland Security and the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Task Force. In 2002, 37 more were created to track weapons of mass destruction, collect threat tips, and coordinate the new focus on counterterrorism. That was followed the next year by 36 new organizations; and 26 after that; and 31 more; and 32 more; and 20 or more each in 2007, 2008, and 2009. In all, at least 263 organizations have been created or reorganized as a response to 9/11.” There are now many thousands of clandestine operatives, nearly all of them armed and equipped with a license to kidnap, torture and kill, working overseas or domestically with little or no oversight and virtually no transparency. We have created a state within a state. A staggering 40 percent of the defense budget is secret, as is the budget of every intelligence agency. I tasted enough of this subterranean world to fear it. When you empower these kinds of people you snuff out the rule of law. You empower criminals and assassins.

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Perpetual terrorism

Glenn Greenwald reports on a new article that explains why we will always be obsessed with terrorism:

Mueller and Stewart estimate that expenditures on domestic homeland security (i.e., not counting the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan) have increased by more than $1 trillion since 9/11, even though the annual risk of dying in a domestic terrorist attack is about 1 in 3.5 million. Using conservative assumptions and conventional risk-assessment methodology, they estimate that for these expenditures to be cost-effective “they would have had to deter, prevent, foil or protect against 333 very large attacks that would otherwise have been successful every year.” Finally, they worry that this exaggerated sense of danger has now been “internalized”: even when politicians and “terrorism experts” aren’t hyping the danger, the public still sees the threat as large and imminent. As they conclude:
… Americans seems to have internalized their anxiety about terrorism, and politicians and policymakers have come to believe that they can defy it only at their own peril. Concern about appearing to be soft on terrorism has replaced concern about seeming to be soft on communism, a phenomenon that lasted far longer than the dramatic that generated it … This extraordinarily exaggerated and essentially delusional response may prove to be perpetual.”

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Time to declare war on the war budget

Mitt Romney says we can't afford to support PBS, National Endowment for the Arts or Amtrack. This is a disgraceful lie. These three programs add up to barely more than $2 Billion/year. Let's put that number in context. How much are we now spending on the militarization of America? $1.2 Trillion per year (carefully count the zeros and make sure you add it ALL up, like Tom Dispatch has done). That comes out to $600 Million per working HOUR (assuming that there are 2,000 working hours per year) to militarize the United States (don't call it "Department of Defense," because this is largely a lie). In other words, with FOUR HOURS of our warmongering budget, we could afford all of the things Romney says we need to cut. [More . . . ]

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NASA vs. Air Conditioning the Desert?

Dollars are fungible (and see here). So what's the better value? Space exploration or a 10 year military occupation? Believe it or not, the U.S. has been spending a similar amount on each, year after year. Come to think of it, does endless war have any value to anyone other than politicians and military contractors?

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