A few
thoughts on our disastrous trillion-dollar military:
It is
unnecessary. It does not defend the United States. The last time it did so
was in 1945. The United States has no military enemies. No nation
has anything even close to the forces necessary to invade America, and probably
none the desire. A fifth of the budget would suffice for any real needs.
“Our
boys” are not noble warriors protecting democracy, rescuing maidens, and
righting wrongs. They are, like all soldiers, obedient and amoral killers.
Pilots bombing Iraq or Syria know they are killing civilians. They do not care.
If ordered to bomb Switzerland, they would do it. This is the nature of all
armies. Glamorizing this most reprehensible trades is just a means of usefully
stimulating the pack instinct which we often call patriotism.
The militarily is America’s
worst enemy. It does enormous damage to the United States while providing
almost no benefit. Start with the war on Vietnam that cost hugely in money and
lives, ours and their, with no benefit. Iraq: high cost, no benefit.
Afghanistan: High cost, no benefit. Syria: High cost, no benefit.
The
costs in lives and money do not include the staggering cost of weapons that do
nothing for America or Americans. Do you, the reader, believe that you are
safer because of the F-35? Do a dozen aircraft carriers improve the lives of
your children? Will the B-21, an unbelievably expensive new thermonuclear
bomber, make your streets safer? Then add the bleeding of engineering talent
better spent on advancing America’s economic competitiveness. The country
has many crying needs, falls behind China, but money and talent go to the
military.
We
can not escape from the soldiers. The armed forces have embedded themselves so
deeply into the country that they have almost become the country. America is
little more than a funding mechanism for what clumsily may be called
the military-industrial-intelligence-media-Israeli complex. Some of these
entities belong to the military (NSA). Some depend on it (Lockheed-Martin).
Some use it to their own ends (Israel), but the military is the central
infection from which the other symptoms flow. Congress? A
storefront, a subcommittee of the Knesset or, as P. J. O’Rourke put it, a
parliament of whores. Factories, jobs, contracts, towns depend on military
spending. If the Second Marine Division folded, Jacksonville NC would dry up
and blow away. So would dozens of other towns. Without military spending,
California’s economy would crash. Universities depend on military research
funding.
The military has achieved its
current autonomy by degrees, unnoticed. The Pentagon learned much in Vietnam,
not about fighting wars, which it still cannot do well, but about managing its
real enemy, the public. The media, which savaged the war on Vietnam, are now
firmly controlled by the corporations that own them. Thus we do not see
photos of the horrors committed by American aircraft bombing cities. While the
existence of phenomenally expensive weapons like the B-21 is not quite suppressed,
coverage is so slight that most Americans have never heard of it. This the
Complex learned from the F-35 debacle. And of course Congress thoroughly
bought and wanting jobs in its districts, allows no serious opposition to
anything military. Neither Congress nor the media point out the extent to which
military expenditure dominates the economy, draining resources from
civilian needs.
Why
does the military not win wars? In part because winning is not in the interest
of the Pentagon and those who feed on it. Wars generate profitable contracts
for all manner of supplies and equipment. Either winning or losing ends the
gravy train. For example, the war on Afghanistan of almost two decades has
become an entitlement program for the arms industry, accomplishing nothing,
killing countless peasants, and lacking purpose other than maintaining an
unneeded empire and funneling money to the Complex.
How
did the Complex free itself from civilian control? The crucial step in
depriving the public of influence was the neutering of the constitutional
requirement that wars be declared by Congress. The military thus became the
private army of the President and those who control him. Then came the All
Volunteer Army, which ended inconvenience to or mutilation of the children of
people of importance, leaving the body bags to be filled by deplorables from
Memphis or Appalachia or Mexico. America’s wars then became air wars and
finally drone wars, reducing casualties to very few. The public, both ignorant
and uninvolved, became acquiescent.
As I
write, we wait to see whether Trump, and those behind him, will put America
deeper into the Mid-East and perhaps war with Russia. If he does, we will read
about it the next day in the newspapers. It will be expensive, dangerous, and
of no benefit to anyone but the arms industry and Israel.
Despite the asphyxiating
economic presence, the military keeps aloof from America. This too serves the
purposes of the Complex, further preventing attention by the public to what is
not its business. In the days of conscription there was a familiarity with the
armed services. Young men from most social classes wore the uniform however
ruefully and told of their experiences. Not now. The career military have
always tended to keep to themselves, to socialize with each other as the police
do. Now the isolation is almost hermetic. You can spend years in Washington or
New York and never meet a colonel. Military society with its authoritarianism,
its uniforms and its uniform government-issue outlook is not compatible with
civil society. To the cultivated, military officers seem simple-minded,
conformist and…well, weird.
Add
it all up and you see that the citizenry has no say–none–over the Complex,
which is autonomous and out of control. If the Complex wants war with
Russia or China, we will have-war with Russia or China. Ask people whether
they would prefer a naval base in Qatar–which most have never heard of,
either the base or the country–or decent health care. Then ask them which
they have.
The
military destroys America and there is nothing–nothing at all
that you can do about it.
Further,
the Complex drives foreign policy, and in directions of no benefit to
America or Americans. For example, the contrived fury against Russia. Why
this? Russia presents no danger to America or anyone else. The Complex
makes foreign policy for its own ends, not ours.
A
rising Asia is challenging the America military Empire. The tide runs against
the Complex. North Korea faced Washington down and became a nuclear power. The
Crimea went back irrevocably to Russia. East Ukraine does the same. Iran got
its treaty and becomes part of the world order. In the South China Sea, China
ignores the US, which once was supreme in all the seas. The war against
Afghanistan heads for its third decade and the war on Syria seems to have
failed. Other things go badly for the Empire. The dollar is under siege as
a reserve currency. China grows economically, advances rapidly in technology
and, doubtless terrifying to Washington, tries to integrate Asia and Europe
into a vast economic bloc. The Complex beats the war drums as its fingers
loosen on the world’s collective throat.
Washington
desperately needs to stop the rollback of American power, stop the erosion of
the dollar, block the economic integration of Eurasia and Latin America, keep
Russia from trading amicably with Europe. It will do anything to
maintain its grip. All of its remote wars in far-off savage lands, of no
importance to America or Americans, are to this purpose. A militarized America
threatens Russia, threatens China, threatens Iran, threatens North Korea,
threatens Venezuela, expands NATO, on and on.
America
has been hijacked.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/04/fred-reed/a-most-sordid-profession-sanguijuelas-garrapatas-piojos-capulinas-lampreys/
