In a disturbing indication of how difficult it would be to bring military
spending in line with actual threats overseas, House Armed Services Chairman
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R – TX) told President Obama last week that his war funding
request of $11.6 billion for the rest of the year was far too low. That figure
for the last two months of 2016 is larger than Spain's budget for the entire
year! And this is just a "war-fighting" supplemental, not actual "defense"
spending! More US troops are being sent to Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere
and the supplemental request is a way to pay for them without falling afoul
of the "sequestration" limits.
The question is whether this increase in US military activity and spending
overseas actually keeps us safer, or whether it simply keeps the deep state
and the military-industrial complex alive and well-funded.
Unfortunately many Americans confuse defense spending with military spending.
The two terms are used almost interchangeably. But there is a huge difference.
I have always said that I wouldn't cut anything from the defense budget. We
need a robust defense of the United States and it would be foolish to believe
that we have no enemies or potential enemies.
The military budget is something very different from the defense budget. The
military budget is the money spent each year not to defend the United States,
but to enrich the military-industrial complex, benefit special interests, regime-change
countries overseas, maintain a global US military empire, and provide defense
to favored allies. The military budget for the United States is larger than
the combined military spending budget of the next seven or so countries down
the line.
To get the military budget in line with our real defense needs would require
a focus on our actual interests and a dramatic decrease in spending. The spending
follows the policy, and the policy right now reflects the neocon and media
propaganda that we must run the rest of the world or there will be total chaos.
This is sometimes called "American exceptionalism," but it is far from a "pro-American"
approach.
Do we really need to continue spending hundreds of billions of dollars manipulating
elections overseas? Destabilizing governments that do not do as Washington
tells them? Rewarding those who follow Washington's orders with massive aid
and weapons sales? Do we need to continue the endless war in Afghanistan even
as we discover that Saudi Arabia had far more to do with 9/11 than the Taliban
we have been fighting for a decade and a half? Do we really need 800 US military
bases in more than 70 countries overseas? Do we need to continue to serve as
the military protection force for our wealthy NATO partners even though they
are more than capable of defending themselves? Do we need our CIA to continue
to provoke revolutions like in Ukraine or armed insurgencies like in Syria?
If the answer to these questions is "yes," then I am afraid we should prepare
for economic collapse in very short order. Then, with our economy in ruins,
we will face the wrath of those countries overseas which have been in the crosshairs
of our interventionist foreign policy. If the answer is no, then we must work
to convince our countrymen to reject the idea of Empire and embrace the United
States as a constitutional republic that no longer goes abroad seeking monsters
to slay. The choice is ours.
