Trump to feedl military-industrial complex while starving others

President Trump has proposed increasing the U.S. military budget by $54 billion to over $600 billion a ten percent increase but will decrease spending in other agencies to match the increased expenditures,

Large decreases will most likely come from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the State Department. Trump said: "I am sending the Congress a budget that rebuilds the military, eliminates the defense sequester and calls for one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history." Jeffrey Sachs, an economist at Columbia University and head of the Earth Institute, noted that the approximately $600 billion the U.S. spends on the military is probably much less than should be counted:

"I was just going to add that the $600 billion that we spend is only counting a part of what we really spend on the military. We have another $60 billion on addition to the $600 billion of the Pentagon. That is the intelligence agencies. We have Homeland Security. We have military expenses hidden in the Department of Energy. Of course, we have the incredible costs, the human damage and health in the Veterans Administration. If you add it all up, it’s probably closer to $900 billion a year. It completely swamps everything else that we’re doing right now. And now he’s going to add on top of that — and propose tax cuts for rich people and for corporations. So, this is just one illusion after another. And it’s got to come to a bad end in some way."Sachs is an expert on development economics and poverty reduction.

A similar refrain is noted in a Nation article in relation to Trump's address to Congress last night:Donald Trump used his first Joint Address to the Congress of the United States to engage in an unprecedented flight of fiscal fantasy. Specifically, the president imagined that the United States could cut taxes for wealthy Americans and corporations, rip tens of billions of dollars out of domestic programs (and diplomacy), hand that money over to the military-industrial complex, and somehow remain a functional and genuinely strong nation.In his speech Trump only mentioned that he had placed a hiring freeze on non-military and non-essential Federal workers. This will not include border guards and others charged with immigrant control no doubt. Trump had earlier suggested the State Department and EPA as targeted for reductions. While some workers in the military-industrial complex may prosper from Trump's military spending others will lose their jobs and also suffer from reduced services.

Mick Mulvaney, head of the Office of Management and Budget said: “The president is doing what he said he’d do when he ran". While this is true, he also said that he would protect Social Security and Medicare and spend a trillion on infrastructure. It is not clear how he will do that while spending billions more on the military by cutting elsewhere. The $54 billion dollar increase for the U.S. military is almost equal to the entire U.K. expenditure on its military. Russia spends only $66.4 billion in total.

During his campaign for the presidency in 2016 Trump criticized the U.S. war in Iraq and warned about risky military adventures and also spoke out against the bloated Department of Defense budgets. On NBC's Meet the Press in 2015 he said: “I’m gonna build a military that’s gonna be much stronger than it is right now. It’s gonna be so strong, nobody’s gonna mess with us. But you know what? We can do it for a lot less.” He should have said he can do it for a lot more. Of course Trump did also promise during his campaign to increase spending to the military in — contradiction to what he said in 2015.

Mulvaney defended Trump's policy: “[We] took $54 billion out of non-defense discretionary spending in order to increase defense spending — entirely consistent with what the president said that he would do. So what’s the president done? He’s protected the nation, but not added any additional money to the 2018 deficit. This is a winning argument for my friends in the House and a winning argument for a lot of folks all over the country. The president does what he says but doesn’t add to the budget [deficit]. That’s a win.” However, the Trump policy does not consider a proper balance between military and other spending.

Former president Dwight Eisenhower spoke of "a burden of arms draining the wealth and labor of all people; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the people's of this earth." Eisenhower said: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

Even though the U.S. contains just 4.34 percent of the world's population, it accounts for 37 percent of total military spending and is roughly the same size expenditure of the next seven military budgets combined. Other countries are bound to see this as unbalanced expenditures. The U.S. should hardly be surprised if other countries such as China and Russia vastly expand their military expenditures. The Trump policy should remind us of what Eisenhower said: . “We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/politics/op-ed-trump-to-feed-us-military-industrial-complex-starve-others/article/486939#ixzz4b58aroq3

US Congress clears the way for a space arms race

(December 22) The U.S. Congress has opened the way for a space arms race and altered U.S. nuclear defense doctrine simply by removing a single word from the Defense Authorization Act.

The change could result in allowing a costly program of space-based weaponry. The change was approved by large majorities in both the House and the Senate. Experts claim that the changes could heighten tensions with Russia and China and begin a new arms race. The bill still needs to be approved by President Obama. There has been no indication what he will do.

The U.S. depends upon a missile-defense system to respond to a small-scale attack such as might come from North Korea. A large scale strike by China or Russia is deterred through the capability of massive retaliation. Crucial to this strategy was the use of the term "limited" to apply to the homeland missile defense system. This language was carefully crafted in order to avoid an arms race with China and Russia.

With virtually no public debate, the word "limited" has been removed during the final approval of the Defense Authorization Act. Another provision of the laws urges the Pentagon to begin "research, development, test and evaluation " of space-based systems for missile defense. Any such program would depend upon annual funding and decisions by the incoming Trump administration to go ahead with the program.

Trump's appointee for Minister of Defense General James Mattis was on the board of the defense contractor General Dynamics. The U.S. government has already been working on a Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) defense system. Since 2002 to last year, the Pentagon has carried out 11 test flights. The interceptors launched from underground silos to hit their targets high above the Pacific failed to destroy them in six of eleven tests. Over the same period Boeing Co. the prime contractor for the GMD collected almost $2 billion in performance bonuses.

Both proponents and opponents of the altered policy agree that the change is significant. Representative Trent Franks the Republican who introduced and guided the amendments through the House said: “These amendments were historic in nature — given the paradigm shift forward that they represent.” Some leading defense scientists considered the idea of a space-based missile defense system pure fantasy. David Montague, a retired president of missile defense systems for Lockheed, and also a co-chair of a panel of the National Academy of Sciences that studied missile defense technologies at the request of Congress, said: “It defies the laws of physics and is not based on science of any kind. Even if we darken the sky with hundreds or thousands of satellites and interceptors, there’s no way to ensure against a dedicated attack. So it’s an opportunity to waste a prodigious amount of money.” It is also a golden opportunity for defense contractors to be awarded lucrative contracts with hefty profits. Montague was hardly careful in crafting his response to the provisions calling them "insanity, pure and simple". Yet there seems to be little opposition within congress and not all that much analysis or discussion about it in the press.

In 2012 a National Academy study had estimated that even a bare-bones space-based missile defense system would cost about $200 billion plus hundreds of billions more to operate over subsequent years. Given the cost and the likelihood of failure, any U.S. program may not provoke a corresponding program by China and Russia. When Franks was asked if the U.S. could afford the program he said: “What is national security worth? It’s priceless.”

Philip E. Coyle III, a former assistant secretary of Defense who headed the Pentagon office responsible for testing and evaluating weapon systems, said the whole notion of a space-based defense system was a sham: “To do this would cost just gazillions and gazillions. The technology isn’t at hand — nor is the money. It’s unfortunate from my point of view that the Congress doesn’t see that. Both Russia and China will use it as an excuse to do something that they want to do.”

Franks said that he had drawn inspiration for his plan from President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative that took place in the 1980's. The plan was to use lasers and other space-based weapons to destroy nuclear weapons and was known as "Star Wars". While the initiative spent $30 billion of taxpayer money, there was no system deployed.

The Obama administration has objected to the elimination of the term "limited" and to placing anti-missile weapons in space, but there has as yet been no threat of a veto. A final objection to the changes came from Vice Admiral James Syring, director of the Missile Defense Agency who said: “I have serious concerns about the technical feasibility of the interceptors in space and I have serious concerns about the long-term affordability of a program like that.” The experts somehow miss the fact that the program will create many new jobs and boost the profits and stock prices of important defense contractors. The program is a generous Xmas gift for the military-industrial complex.

U.S. foreign military sales at record levels

Recovery may be slow in the U.S and many areas are facing cutbacks in the public sector such as education. However foreign military sales are heading for a record year. Among the larger sales is of Boeing made F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia at a cost of 29.4 billion dollars.

To date in 2012 the U.S.. has sold 50 billion in military items. There are more than three months left in the fiscal year. In 2011 the total was much lower at 30 billion for the whole year.

Sales were also boosted by the sale of a jet fighter to Japan. The Saudi Arabia sale includes not only 84 new planes but upgrading of older planes , missiles, and spare parts as well as training. Israel will receive even newer fighter aircraft than Saudi Arabia to offset fears about the Saudi sale. For more see this article.

Convention in Tampa shows all the new gadgets for Special Operations Forces

A trade event by SOFIC(Special Operations Forces Industry Convention) even had a show with assault helicopters with masked Special Operations Forces jumping out to engage in a noisy smoky mock gun battle. Just the sort of thing to get the juiced running and pocket books opening at the show in Tampa Florida.

The show was held over three days last week. Defense contractors big and small showed off their wares including the latest: radios, robots, weapons, vehicles etc. As always when the buyers are mostly males there were shapely women manning booths enticing the buyers in for talks with representatives.

Wired has an article that has samples of some of the products and accompanying photos. For example there is a small recon robot. The tracked robot weighs in at just five pounds is portable and radio controlled. You can buy one for a mere 20,000 dollars. For Uncle Sam that is peanuts. For much more see this article.

US aid often attached to purchase of arms.

What better way to buy support for imperial military adventures, support Israel, and for the military industrial complex to prosper in a recessionary period. There is no recession when it comes to military spending. With recent events no doubt the security sector will also receive a boost. This is from smh.

US aid tied to purchase of arms
ANNE DAVIES HERALD CORRESPONDENT

WASHINGTON: Just before Christmas, the US President, Barack Obama, signed into law one of his country's biggest aid pledges of the year. It was bound not for Africa or any of the many struggling countries on the World Bank's list.

It was a deal for $US2.77 billion ($3 billion) to go to Israel in 2010 and a total of $US30 billion over the next decade.

Israel is bound by the agreement to use 75 per cent of the aid to buy military hardware made in the US: in the crisis-racked US economy, those military factories are critical to many towns.

For the first time the US is also providing $US500 million to the Palestinian Authority, including $US100 million to train security forces, under the strict proviso that the authority's leadership recognises Israel.

For many years Israel has been the largest recipient of US foreign aid, followed by Egypt ($US1.75 billion), which also receives most of its assistance in tied military aid.

The Congressional Research Service says that the US spent 17 per cent of its total aid budget - or $US5.1 billion - on military aid in 2008, of which $US4.7 billion was grants to enable governments to receive equipment from the US.

The lion's share of political and strategic aid to Iraq and Afghanistan comes from separate funds and from the defence budget. Between 2003 and last year $US49 billion was poured into Iraq through the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund and the defence budget. The Afghanistan program over the same period consisted of $US11 billion in traditional foreign aid and another $US15 billion in defence funds.

Under the Obama Administration, this year's aid budget has been increased by 10 per cent to nearly $US50 billion to support his counter-terrorism strategy.

Assistance to Pakistan was recently tripled, with an additional $US1.5 billion a year for the next five years.

The author of the bill, Senator John Kerry, said it would ''build a relationship with the people [of Pakistan] to show that what we want is a relationship that meets their interests and needs''.

But officials at the US embassy in Islamabad have alleged that Pakistan has diverted elsewhere 70 per cent of the $US9 billion in military assistance paid since 2001.

The Obama Administration is finding that other expensive fronts are emerging in the fight against terrorism, the latest being Yemen. In the 2010 fiscal year US development and security assistance to Yemen is expected to rise 56 per cent to $US63 million.

But this does not include so-called 1206 Pentagon counter-terrorism funds. Last year Yemen received $US67 million of those, up from just $US5 million.

After the events of the past week or so, countries like Yemen are highly likely to receive significantly more this year.

Picking on Halliburton

It is reasonable to pick on Halliburton as a prime example of the crony capitalism of the Bush administration because of the connections between Halliburton and Cheney. Nevertheless the article is correct Halliburton is just the tip of the iceberg and Eisenhower's warning about the military-industrial complex is certainly relevant. However, the larger issue still is simply the development of global capitalism and the conflicts it creates. Another sector woven into this fabric is the prison complex in which private capital now profits from the privatised prison system and encourages the public fear of crime. The US has now the highest incarceration rate in the world I recall. The article is from the libertarian site antiwar.com
Although I am on the opposite end of the political spectrum I find it an excellent source for articles critical of US foreign policy.

Picking on Halliburton
The problem is bigger than you think
Philip Giraldi
Halliburton's move from Houston to Dubai has aroused predictable concerns about security. Halliburton is known to be a major defense contractor, and the rulers of Dubai are undeniably Arabs, albeit Arabs who are demonstrably among America's closest allies. On one level, the announcement appears to have unleashed emotional Arab-bashing based on the same reservoir of bigotry and fear that scuppered the Dubai Ports World deal in February 2006.

On yet another level, however, the concerns appear to be misguided regarding which Halliburton businesses will actually move to the Middle East. Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root, or KBR, is the part of the company that deals with military contracting, and it is Halliburton's stated intention to spin KBR off from the parent company. If that actually occurs, it would mean that the Halliburton operating in Dubai would be primarily in the business of oil industry support, not Defense Department contracting. That Halliburton might be moving to escape taxes, regulation, or potential liability issues is a more relevant criticism, but the company does not differ substantially from other corporate bad citizens in that regard, seeking the cheapest and most trouble-free environment in which to conduct its business.

Halliburton has emerged as the poster child for much of what is wrong with the Bush administration because of its links to former CEO and current vice president of the United States Dick Cheney and because of KBR's incompetence and overbilling on defense-related projects in Iraq and elsewhere. KBR obtained a sweetheart $10 billion non-compete Pentagon contract for Iraq, and reports suggest that it assiduously overbilled and underperformed on the work it did, though it was far from unique in either regard. It has already paid the government some compensation for overbilling, and it reportedly continues to be the target of numerous government auditors who wonder where all the billions of dollars went.

But Halliburton and KBR are only symptoms of a much broader and deeper corruption that threatens more than the Pentagon's overgrown budget. In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, himself a former general, warned about the threat to the American Republic from what he described as the growing "military industrial complex." He deserves to be quoted at length:

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Eisenhower saw the development of a symbiotic relationship between the Department of Defense and the defense contractors and politicians that would substantially alter the very nature of the United States, turning it from a country that went to war only reluctantly, where ploughshares could be beaten into swords and then back into ploughshares, to a country in which the political and social system would be in permanent thrall to a war economy and mentality. Eisenhower clearly understood that at a certain point, the defense contracting and the distinct economy that it fosters would gain control of the political process and would be able to dictate how the American people work and live. This process has come to fruition, and it has positively bloomed under the Bush administration, which now is speaking confidently of a "long war" that will last for generations.

But not even Eisenhower could have predicted how that military industrial complex would eventually form strategic alliances with foreign countries, support advocacy groups promoting perpetual war, and eventually bring about the downfall of the foreign policy consensus that has guided the United States since 1945. Nor would he have predicted just how the new order led by the so-called neoconservatives, largely funded by the defense industries, would be able to gain control of the federal government's decision-making process and lead the United States into a series of catastrophic wars, seemingly without end.

There is nothing benign about the arms industry. Companies that make armaments need war to be profitable. Constant war is even better, producing an unending flow of money. President George W. Bush's 2002 National Security Strategy [.pdf] is best of all – with its embrace of a vaguely defined preemptive war doctrine and the promise of a series of unilateral wars. To that end, the industry lobbies politicians to increase defense spending and supports ideologues with bellicose worldviews. Thus, the contractors who place full-page ads in leading newspapers featuring warriors using their weapons profit from the injury and death of American soldiers. If the national interest actually lies in peace, harmony, and international amity, as was envisioned by America's Founding Fathers, then the arms merchants are the enemy, however much they wrap themselves in the flag and proclaim themselves the arsenal of freedom.

The intentions of the defense contractors are clearly demonstrated by how they spend U.S. taxpayers' money. Few can doubt that think tanks and advocacy groups such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Project for a New American Century, the Hudson Institute, the Center for Security Policy, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and the National Institute for Public Policy led the rush to war against Iraq and are eager to do the same to Iran. Many of these think tanks receive funds from the five leading defense contractors – Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. On an individual level, many well-known neoconservatives have moved seamlessly between the contractors and the think tanks, filling their bank accounts along the way. They include all-too-familiar names such as William Kristol, Stephen Bryen, Richard Perle, Dov Zakheim, Robert Joseph, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and Frederick Kagan. Vice President (and former Secretary of Defense) Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have done the revolving door one better, moving from senior government posts to senior executive positions with the defense contractors, where they made millions of dollars before moving back into government at the highest levels. All told, at least 43 former employees, board members, or advisers for defense contractors are currently serving or have recently served in policy-making positions in the Bush administration.

And there are also the international interests of the defense contractors, concentrated primarily in Israel. Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith's law firm, Feith & Zell, represented Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, while Richard Perle's connection with Trireme Partners provided business connections for U.S. and Israeli defense contractors, enriching Feith and Perle in the process. Both Feith and Perle have worked as lobbyists for Turkey, a major recipient of U.S.-made weapons. The multilateral relationship involving U.S. contractors, Israel's defense industry, and former U.S. and Israeli government officials is both incestuous and apparently frequently beyond the rules that govern international arms sales. FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has recently said that unsealing the Bureau's investigative reports on Perle, Feith, and former State Department number three Marc Grossman would reveal that they all engaged in what she describes as treasonous activity reportedly linked to illegal weapons sales.

The military industrial complex also sustains and feeds off the Bush administration's so-called "global war on terror," or GWOT. Most experts on terrorism would agree that the GWOT is largely a fiction created to simplify a multifaceted problem and heighten fear so that the flow of taxpayer money will continue unabated. Fighting terrorism worldwide, even where it does not exist, isn't cheap, particularly as the increasing reliance on contractors is much more expensive per man-hour than using full-time government employees. The $160 billion increase in the Pentagon budget since 2001 is dedicated to counter-terrorism (this number does not include Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been funded by separate appropriations). Add to that at least half of the intelligence budget ($20 billion) and at least half of the Department of Homeland Security budget ($20 billion). This means the astonishing sum of $200 billion, which does not include Iraq and Afghanistan, is being spent by the United States annually to deal with terrorism. No other country attacks terrorism in such a disproportionate fashion, and many of America's allies have successfully combated it using police and intelligence resources. If there are 5,000 active terrorists worldwide, and there are probably less than that, it would mean that the GWOT is costing the U.S. taxpayer $40 million per terrorist per year, with no end in sight. That's using an elephant to squash a fly. Considering that the fly can move a lot faster than the elephant, no victory is likely to happen soon, apart from the odd "Mission Accomplished" banner here and there.

Robert Scheer on the Bush Budget

As Scheer mentions, the huge sums for military hardware and other costs are largely irrelevant to fighting terrorism. In fact even where high powered US military might is used to fight so-called terrorists such as the Taliban it is often counterproductive. The damage caused to ordinary civilians turns the population against the US and its allies and recruits more to the cause of jihad against the West.
This military Keynesianism seems bound to have limits but so far they do not seem to have been reached. The growing gap between rich and poor in the US has not yet generated any effective resistance. However the obvious weakness of the opposition Democrats to stop Bush will surely awaken more of the American people to reality and eventually to action.


Bush Budget Delivers the Bacon

Posted on Feb 6, 2007

By Robert Scheer

President Bush’s outrageous military budget has nothing do with fighting terrorism but everything to do with pumping up the profits of the administration’s generous political donors in the defense industry. So, the question is: Will the Democrats have the guts to stop this betrayal of the public trust?

Ever since some lunatics, mostly citizens of our longtime ally Saudi Arabia, used $3 knives to hijack four planes on the same morning, President Bush has exploited our nation’s trauma as an opportunity to throw trillions of dollars at the military-industrial complex to build weaponry for a Cold War that no longer exists.

That is the subtext of the more than $700-billion defense appropriation requested by Bush in his budget, released Monday. Sure, it includes $141.7 billion explicitly dedicated to fighting “the global war on terror”—but that much-abused phrase falsely encompasses the invasion and occupation of Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks or the perpetrator, al-Qaida. In fact, that amount rises to $235.1 billion when the additional supplemental funds to cover Iraq for the remainder of this budget year are added in.

At least in Iraq, we created enemies we can now fight. The bulk of the rest of the military portion of the federal budget, $481.4 billion for the Defense Department and an additional $22.5 billion for other departments’ defense programs, is intended to fight an enemy of advanced military power that is nowhere to be found—not even among the dreaded “Axis of Evil” nations.

For example, this budget allocates billions to continue building stealth aircraft designed to evade Soviet defenses the ex-superpower never managed to create.

The United States’ military budget is greater than that of the next 14 biggest military spenders combined. Even if not one additional dollar is allocated to the advanced weapons systems now in the works, there is not a nation on Earth that would dare challenge U.S. dominance in the air or on the seas for decades to come. The enormous imbalance in U.S. military spending is not about defense but rather profit.

As Dow Jones’ MarketWatch reports, “Wartime spending has helped the big defense contractors post healthy fourth-quarter earnings with strong prospects for 2007. The new budget suggests the defense industry hasn’t yet peaked, analysts said.”

In fact, U.S. defense spending now rivals that of the Reagan weapons buildup at the height of the Cold War. Yet, there remains no plausible explanation of what these weapons programs have to do with defeating terrorists.

Indeed, the spending priorities of the Bush administration indicate a continued mindless indifference to the lessons of 9/11, as outlined by the bipartisan 9/11 commission. Instead of using a surgeon’s precision and a detective’s diligence to excise the malignancy of terrorism, Bush’s heavy-handed militarism has inflamed the very religious and nationalist passions terrorists thrive on. The president’s “war” analogy obscures the fact that our “enemies” do not have an army, but rather a cause.

No, the Bush budget makes sense only as a slush fund for the defense industry execs and stockholders, a group also blessed by Bush’s tax cuts. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., put it, the budget request “uses deception to hide a massive increase in debt and its priorities are disconnected from the needs of middle-class Americans.”

In Bush’s defense, he is just paying off a political debt: Donations of $200 or more from defense industry individuals and PACs to Republicans have averaged $10 million in the past three election cycles, according to the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. Unfortunately, even though the Democrats consistently receive only half as much in political payola from the military contractors, they have seemed just as slavishly loyal to the industry’s lobbyists.

So the test for the recently victorious congressional Democrats will be to resist the temptation to go along with a patriotic-sounding military budget that may produce jobs in their districts and campaign contributions in ’08 but that has nothing to do with fighting terrorism.

If they go the craven route, they will once again join this president in wasting our nation’s resources by pretending to fight a world war against a militarily sophisticated enemy that exists only as a contrivance of his speechwriters’ rhetoric.