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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Mitt Romney: Certified and Dangerous Chickenhawk/Prevaricator

It would be hypocritical for those who spoke out in favor of the Vietnam War to have taken multiple steps to avoid going to Vietnam as a member of the military. Yet this was the situation of young Mitt Romney, pro-Vietnam War but unwilling to go there, and then he spins a wild lie in an attempt to cover his tracks. That is the news story told by Steve Benen at the Maddow Blog:

Many years later, in 1994, Romney said, "It was not my desire to go off and serve in Vietnam, but nor did I take any actions to remove myself from the pool of young men who were eligible for the draft." That wasn't true -- he took several steps to remove himself from the eligibility pool.
Romney is certainly not the first chickenhawk to run vie for high political office. We've seen it before, and every time I see it, it reminds me of the words of Chris Hedges (who wrote War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning), and I think to myself, "If he had fought in a war he wouldn't be nearly so willing to start yet another war." To me, the word "chickenhawk" is not a mainly an insult because I can respect the fact that people avoid going to war. To me, the importance of the term is that it refers to a dangerous psychological profile of many people who seek powerful political positions. It refers to a type of reaction formation. It is a common tactic of those who are willing to sacrifice American soldiers so that they can feel a psuedo-manly inner glow. The fact that one is a certified chickenhawk, as Mitt Romney is, should disqualify him for office. American voters just don't seem to "get it," however. We should run from politicians who bellow pro-war platitudes after having avoided war. What kind of candidate would be trustworthy on matters of war? Those who actually fought, or equally, those who avoided war when of military age and continue to avoid war now.

Continue ReadingMitt Romney: Certified and Dangerous Chickenhawk/Prevaricator