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Defending Ourselves to Death |
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Thursday, 27 October 2011 18:24 |
The OWS movement is right to focus on Wall Street and the financial services industry as the proximate cause of our current discontents. Wall Street is at once the symbol of greed and the instrument of the big commercial banks and "wealth managers" that feed on – and are fed by – greed. As we all know now, banks and investment firms engaged in extremely risky behavior with our money, plunging the country into a prolonged recession, and causing great pain across the length and breadth of middle-class America, while reaping fabulous rewards, some virtually tax-free, in the form of multi-million-dollar bonuses, perks, deferred compensation, stock options, and "golden parachutes".
But there's another big piece of the puzzle that deserves closer public scrutiny, namely the massive US defense budget. The economic conundrum we face at present is rooted in the past, including a tax system that redistributes wealth upward from the middle class to the wealthy and, consequently, the relentless growth in both public and private debt.
Onerous private debt only exacerbates the problems arising from a shrinking labor market. Burgeoning public debt places severe limits on what government can do to stimulate growth and makes efforts to do so (for example, the Obama stimulus) risky and potentially counter-productive.
The Plutocrats who control Wall Street and bankroll the Wingnuts who kill all attempts at tax reform and oppose everything that has anything to do with social justice in Congress would have us believe that the big problem with the federal budget is entitlements – Social Security and Medicare. That's pure rubbish. There are two much bigger problems, one on the revenue side, namely the skewed federal tax laws that let corporations and the super-rich pay way too little, and one on the spending side. The mother of all expenditure-related debt problems is the defense budget.
At least 95 percent of the national debt is war-related. The Defense Department absorbs 25-30 percent of the federal budget, depending on what's being counted and who's counting. Two-thirds (68 percent) of all federal government civil and military employees are involved in national security and war related activities. If you add the $100 billion or more for the two wars we are still fighting, the $80 billion for the intelligence budget, and various other defense-related expenditures, that figure is actually much higher – roughly one-half the entire federal budget for the period 2002-2008.
In terms of money circulation and markets, the multiplier effect of military spending is far less than many other forms of capital investment, nor is the arms industry structured to compete in the civilian economy.
The defunct Soviet Union developed two distinct economies with two distinct sets of quality control standards. In his best-selling book, The Russians (1976), Hedrick Smith wrote about "the split-level nature of Soviet society" in which the domestic and military economies "operate on a different system from the rest of the economy." Today, much the same can be said of the United States.
We, too, have a split-level society based on a self-perpetuating war economy that similarly "operate[s] on a different system from the rest of the economy". The domestic economy is characterized by structural unemployment, public and private debt, deteriorating infrastructure, and the outsourcing manufacturing and various services.
The military-industrial economy foreshadowed in President Eisenhower's farewell address a half-century ago, however, presents a very different picture. Defense contractors are thriving, while the federal government is busy throwing good money after bad in Iraq and Afghanistan; paying for the defense of NATO countries, plus Japan, and Korea; and deploying hundreds of thousands of active-duty military personnel at hundreds of bases around the globe.* The US governments also contracts with a growing number of private security contractors to augment military operations in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Much of the money spent in the name of national security and war-waging goes to private corporations through hundreds of thousands of procurement contracts (around 400,000).
For FY2002 through FY2008, nearly half of all federal expenditures went to eight federal departments and agencies involved in national and homeland security – including the servicing of war-incurred debt. The "military-industrial complex" has corporate and defense tentacles reaching into virtually every political constituency. DOD alone maintains nearly 5,500 bases and military sites in the U.S. and around the world.
Meanwhile, our NATO allies have made deep cuts in defense spending, and most are falling short of the minimum NATO requirement of 2 percent of GDP spent on defense. Ironically, 2 percent of GDP is what the US spends on the maintenance and upgrading of its aging infrastructure. The EU, in contrast, spends 5 percent, and China spends at least 10 percent.
The bifurcation of the US economy has its roots in World War II and the intense postwar superpower rivalry. The emerging rivalry in the New World Order is between the United States and China – and the rules have changed.
The challenge China poses is very different from the one the Soviet Union did. China is leading with its strength – economic power – and building a first-rate military on that foundation. Meanwhile, the U.S. blithely continues to throw money at the military and run up ever bigger deficits as though there is no relationship between the soaring national debt and national security.
Most experts agree that a single minded obsession with building military muscle was a major cause of the Soviet Union's collapse. Armaments plus an ill-conceived war in Afghanistan proved to be the Soviet empire's undoing. They may also prove to be our own.
*A 2007 estimate put the number at 737, but it's impossible for any outside observer to know for certain.
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East Tennessee Press Censors Post On Illegal Weapons Testing |
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Saturday, 15 October 2011 13:44 |
Johnson City Press Censors Information Related to Illegal Weapons Testing in Area
Censorship of actual threats to public health have a long history in northeastern Tennessee where nuclear facilities and DOD operate. I submitted a post to the Johnson City Press today. I have reprinted it below. The paper deleted my post this afternoon. I questioned the local "cancer cluster" and bizarre neurological, psychiatric symptoms locals suffer, which exists in northeastern Tennessee, around ORNL, NFS and Jonesborough Nuclear Reprocessing facilities. Suggesting a similar event which happened to me might relate to the "bizarre" circumstances surrounding Mr. Crowley, former District Attorney General, First Judicial District, 1998-2006, a few days ago. The Press reported Mr. Crumley suffered "seizure-like" fits requiring hospitalization.
Here are the comments and links:
lthornb2021 writes:
October 4, 2011
12:12 PM
Perhaps, like other "whistleblowers" in the land of nuclear facilities and DOD dominance (i.e., ORNL, Erwin Nuclear Reprocessing facility and Jonesborough Reprocessing facility) where local law enforcement and DOJ/DOE (Office of Special Technologies) test nonlethal weapons (microwave, acoustic, radiofrequency and radiological) on the human population, particularly the most vulnerable (women of childbirth age, pregnant women, the elderly..and apparently in this case...dissidents). Project # 3021 tests the effects of these weapons (called "crowd control", "behaviour modification" weapons/devices, "EMR" , directed energy weapons, psychotronics, or as the United Nations labels them, "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD)). Funding for testing and use of these weapons by law enforcement and the military exists, however, knowledge related to this testing and research is highly controlled. These weapons have the ability to disrupt and retard the victim (or "target's") central nervous system, resulting in memory loss, trancelike states (or "seizure-like" fits which Mr. Crumley complained of prior to his incarceration, which required emergency hospitalization to treat), inability to control bodily functions and limbs, among other bizarre neurological and psychiatric symptoms. It has long been rumoured that this area has been a "laboratory" for various radiation experiments on humans..the high cancer rate, a "cancer cluster" which exists is ignored by CDC and the Tennessee Board of Health, after several pleas by this author to investigate. Local congressional leaders avoid this subject as well leaving the area vulnerable for further exploitation and manipulation. Persons who seek to disclose this project are labelled "mentally ill" and can expect their lives to be ruined. Lisa L Thornburgh, JD (University of Maryland School of Law (2003), University of Tennessee, B.A. (1995), B.A. (1997), Postgraduate studies in nuclear nonproliferation, international security studies, MIIS/Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California 2004)). See Thornburgh v. US Department of Energy (2009), Thornburgh v. US Department of Defense (2006), Thornburgh v. Greeneville Police Department, Greene County Sheriffs Department (Chancery Court, Greeneville, TN 2009) (FOIA and Open Records Act requests seeking information related to this illegal weapons testing on the local population).
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War Is Hell |
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Wednesday, 06 July 2011 23:51 |
The Obama administration has reversed a longstanding U.S. policy to deny presidential condolence letters to families of soldiers who have committed suicide, saying it hopes to reduce the stigma associated with the mental health costs of war. Service member suicides have increased as some troops serve repeated tours of duty and suffer post-traumatic stress.
Roughly a fifth of troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan experience anxiety, depression, and other mental health problems. The rise in psychological trauma associated with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan should not surprise experts. The extent of wartime trauma is directly proportional to the type of warfare fought and the experiences encountered.
There was a report from the Veterans Department in 2010 that 30 suicides are attempted each day by Army veterans and 18 of them are successful. Studies of Vietnam veterans show that between 26 and 31 percent have experienced PTSD. This rate is understandable given that the Vietnam War combat environment included both guerilla and conventional warfare. It is arguable that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan compare to the Vietnam War, as there is no safe place, no enemy lines, and threats surround the soldier on all sides. I work as a volunteer Counselor at the VA Hospital in Menlo Park, CA for 17 years as a musician therapist. I worked mostly with Iraqi and Vietnam Vets. War is hell and I'm thankful that Obama redress this because it’s a small relief valve of the stress that soldiers and their families are feeling.
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Praising, not Condemning, General McChrystal Might End the War |
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Tuesday, 22 June 2010 13:26 |
General McChrystal is the most progressive member of the Obama administration when it comes to the middle east. Obama has few voices in the administration lobbying in a progressive direction on that issue. McChystal’s statements on the Israeli-Arab conflict haven’t received the flack that Patraeus’s comments had, but perhaps the latest hypersensitivity on McChrystal’s comments on other issues really relates to his earlier comments on middle east peace. The last President whose policy was in any way slanted toward the Arabs, was when Eisenhower sided with Egypt instead of Europe and Israel during the Suez Canal crisis.
General McChrystal’s comments at a college, and before a Congressional Committee, that in order to have any hope in Afghanistan the US needs to “impose a just peace on the Israeli-Arab conflict”, stands out in face of Hillary and Biden’s frequent comments on the need to assure Israel that the US is their friend. Two years ago Chas Freeman was going to be appointed to a State Department post, but was hounded over having previously made excuses for civil liberties infractions in Saudi Arabia and China particularly on Tienanmen Square massacre and never got the job. Somehow since McChrystal never faced condemnation for his comments, others didn’t bother to praise them. When General McChrystal makes an honest grim assessment on the Afghan War, all sides assume it must be interpreted as a call for more troops, more money spent avoiding civilian deaths etc. Why can’t a Congressional Representative, newscaster, or even a few citizens waving a request in the form of a placard in front of the cameras, ask General McChrystal, in light of his previous statements on the need for peace in the middle east for the sake of Afghan policy, how does Israel’s attack on the aid flotilla affects the Afghan War. Can’t someone ask McChrystal at what point tensions between Israel and its neighbors would make the Afghan War hopeless and hypothesize at what point, for other reasons, winning anything would be impossible?
With Obama, his attempts to bring us all together sometimes gets translated into appeasing angry critics while seeming to ignoring cheering supporters. Directing middle east questions at Stanley McChrystal might significantly affect those conservatives who admired him in the past. I could be overdoing General McChrystal’s difference with other Defense Department officials, perhaps we should ask military experts not just State Department experts to comment on the Middle East.. General Patraeus told the Armed Service Committee that "enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the area of responsibility." and also that "Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples [in the region],"
Claiming Doves are good and Hawks bad is simplistic, and leaves out that there are minimum demands the US needs to make in order to leave Afghanistan in a reasonable way. When the Russians left the death rate vastly increased as warlords fought with each other over who would be in charge. Trying to prevent this is maybe the reason why Mullah Omar hasn’t been personally attacked with drones. Unfortunately, there are other problems that need to be avoided. When the Vietnam War ended, in a chaotic retreat, many Vietnamese refugees fled to the US. In Kabul there are dozens of women who don’t wear burkas. Elsewhere nominally under US control they risk rape or in Mullah Omar controlled areas risk getting publicly tried, then whipped. In the Taliban’s eyes whipping a woman to prevent her from being raped is in the long run doing her a favor. Mullah Omar actually mellowed quit a bit since the Taliban’s heyday. He now ordered girls’ schools not to be attacked, and condemned, an angry renegade, or renegades, who defied him and attacked several girls’ schools with poisoned gas.
[To change the subject slightly, my hope is that the Taliban, not the Karzai government, actually captures that gas masked renegade that entered several girls’ schools while in session, spreading poison gas around. The Taliban capturing him would create a Taliban trial that they might want some outside reporters at, and be hard for the US to attack or disrupt.] One way or another the US has a stake in pressuring for an incremental change of authority instead of a quick retreat, maybe even a temporary coalition government of the nature that former Taliban warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyer proposed. Mullah Omar is the type of person to agree to concessions in light of a clearly stated US intention to leave, but if such a request occurs less than three months before the next US Presidential election or in face of such potential disasters as the euro crisis engulfing the dollar, threatening the western world with another great depression, Mullah Omar might not see the need to even vacillate, the US making sure it retrieves what we want to take back home with us or that those wanting to do so, have time to try to arraigned emigration abroad, and no chance for the US to delay policy change. If, during the next Presidential election cycle bad war news, and economic problems are in the news, but a peace candidate doesn’t defeat Obama in the primaries, a Republican with a get-tough stance might take charge. That President could be like Nixon when he entering Cambodia, Laos, and carpet bombed Hanoi. Pro-war Veterans events were made awkward during the last days in Vietnam by the presence of “Nuke Vietnam” placards. With Obama’s and McChrystal’s policy of going out of their way to avoid civilian deaths, there would be a lot more space for a politician to call for a get-tough policy to try to shorten a war.
If the war does end without Americans first milling over the possibility some very public panicky attempts from some Afghans to leave Afghanistan at the last minute, the peace movement, and/or Obama could get angry criticism. If economic problems help a Bill to pass for a mandatory date to stop war funding, if it doesn’t have part of it’s preamble, “even if chaos over there were to break out”, it could lead to endless domestic argument after the war, like after the Vietnam War. Since at this point McChrystal has a good rapport with conservatives, if he explains a get out policy, this might be the only way out of Afghanistan without Americans continuing to name-call and recriminating each other for years to come.
Many doves claim that President Bush kept getting Muslims mad. However Bush spent a lot of effort claiming that the Kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia were US’s friend, visited a mosque and had Muslims prominent in his faith-based efforts. A jingoistic President could get the entire Muslim world fuming and supporting the Muslim rebels like they did when Russia was in Afghanistan, and if that jingoistic President attacked aid-ships and supplies the way Israel did, it could get the entire Muslim world into fighting with the US. It is mandatory that Obama and McChrystal get out of Afghanistan before there is a chance for this to happen. If asked, I think General McChrystal, would agree.
There is a related problem I hope McChrystal and Obama can deal with. In Iraq the war tilted in the US’s direction when McChrystal induced many Sunni fighters to change sides and fight against al Qaeda instead. Actually some attempted to stop fighting, and when al Qaeda attacked them they accepted US help against al Qaeda attacks. Ever since then, Al Qaeda has been systematically hunting down Awakening Council members and their families and assassinating them. As the US turns over the local defense efforts to the Iraqi government, that heavily Shiite influenced government has been less diligent in protecting the Sunni, Awakening Council members. The fact that the US can’t offer permanent protection to Awakening Council members is another sad chapter in the Iraq War. I would like to see the US back down a bit with Iran over the nuclear issue. Then offer to quickly get the rest of the way out of Iraq in exchange for Iran taking in Awakening Council members and their families as refugees. There are a few Sunni refugees in Iran, but it is conceivable that Iran would instead unsuccessfully ask the US to stay in Awakening Council neighborhoods and guard their homes against al Qaeda attack which would be a real blow to al Qaeda’s prestige.
The Afghan war is both different and similar to Iraq. The Afghan War is mostly local (from the insurgents’ point of view). For most of them their immediate goal is to get the Americans out of their immediate neighborhood, and they don’t want al Qaeda around being a potential magnet for American forces to come into their neighborhood even stronger. One Taliban faction when they entered an agricultural worker’s home, who was getting American aid money, feared for his life but they told him that he can continue as long as no foreigners joined him in his efforts.
There is another minimum goal in Afghanistan according to General McChrystal and President Obama, where I think they are wrong. They want Mullah Omar to denounce al Qaeda and agree to arrest or chase out any al Qaeda member in their territory. Mullah Omar clearly doesn’t want to risk al Qaeda deciding that he is an enemy to terrorize along with the rest of their enemies. Omar now has a very strict Taliban code of ethics, something like McChrystal and Obama have, to avoid mayhem. When the central Afghan bank was attempted to be destroyed, the infiltrators didn’t blow themselves up in the middle of the crowded street in front of the bank, but holed up for hours in the bazaar complex next to it, killing no one, or one bystander depending on the interpretation, after which al Qaeda got what amounted to a little reluctant praise from places like the NY Times. After which several suicide-bombers wounded victims, while blowing themselves up in the attacks. Instead of more praise, al Qaeda was chided for losing their touch and the suicide killings returned. Mullah Omar is also seeming to be backing out of his policy of giving collaborators a direct ultimatum to quit working for the Americans before facing death from assassination. He still has no attacks on funeral processions and shopping bazaars that al Qaeda specializes in. Obama and McChrystal should stop trying to get enough military advantage to force Omar to denounce al Qaeda. If he did denounce al Qaeda, and then was assassinated by them, Afghanistan could degenerate into a bloodbath of warlords fighting as occurred after the Russians left. Getting people to condemn and take steps against al Qaeda is no longer preached much by hawks, but I think it is still central. Though there hasn’t been public emphasis since Gubuddin Hekmatyer condemned al Qaeda. In Northern Afghanistan Gulbuddin Hekmatyer who long-ago through acid in the face of a non-burqad woman was such a fierce fighter that US ground troops withdrew his area of Northern Afghanistan cooling him off since he didn’t want to do anything to accidently induce US ground troops to return. The northern supply route goes through the area he controls and when the US put tracking chips inside the bags of cement, coffee jars etc., he lost interest in attacking the Northern supply line. Then he got into a firefight with Omar’s troops supposedly over taxes but I suspect that Omar wanted to be able to attack the northern supply route. The US came to the rescue of Hatmatyer’s forces, when they were being defeated by Omar’s forces. Hekmatyer then denounced al Qaeda and overjoyed Afghan President Karzai by entering into negotiations toward a power-sharing government, President Karzai disappointed that the US seemed to be getting in the way rather than satisfied that Hekmatyar was complying with President Bush’s original demand before going to war in Afghanistan. Instead of attacking Hekmatyer, for the time being, al Qaeda Internet mentioned that he frequently changed sides before, and probably would do so again, which doesn’t mean that Mullah Omar who fights very differently than al Qaeda, wouldn’t be immediately attacked if he followed Haymakers’s example. If McChrystal and Obama withdrew the demand that Mullah Omar denounce al Qaeda I think more peace than under any other scenario would come to Afghanistan. If Omar dies with or without al Qaeda calling him a betrayer it is more than possible that there will again be a bloodbath from warlords fighting with each other. Is this the only piece that mentions all the Vietnamese and Cambodians that fled overseas and speculate that such a future in Afghanistan even though involving far fewer people, could keep the blame domestically in the US following the war?
Now for a broader note, General McChrystal and President Obama started a new chapter in the history of warfare by carefully avoiding civilian casualties. Aside for the atomic bombing of two Japanese cities, we don’t hear much about civilian casualties in past wars, but Dresden, Germany near the end of World War II, with no military targets, was firebombed into one huge inferno, killing many civilians holed up in bomb shelters, and during Korea, refugees fleeing to the south were bombed during the World Wars. Imagine a soldier or general during the World Wars, Korea or Vietnam scooping up wounded children, or a civilian on the battlefield rushing to a US military hospital because they just had an attack of appendicitis.
Some might suggest that not killing civilians is not something really new, pointing to the knights in shiny armor who according to children’s storybooks fought only among themselves. However, the Irish potato famine( caused by diseased potatoes) was made worse because farmers preferred to grow potatoes which weren’t seized the way wheat and other crops were by invading armies. Peasants spending sometimes over a year in a dingy castle during a siege shows that the picturesque medieval storybooks underreported non-soldiers being harmed in medieval European wars. Some of the fights were really duels, similar to in colonial America, or a squabble between cousins who were kings, who forgot to be mad at each other, when Muslims began to enter Spain or Yugoslavia, and fought a real war, not a bloody local political argument.
The way individual Taliban fighters are induced to change sides makes me think that they are trying to cut down on military deaths as well. Some may think it particularly wrong to send a drone plane after leaders instead of killing as many peasant fighters as one can locate. Drones take follow up pictures after an attack. In Marjar the US command was distressed to learn that two farmers innocently digging in their fields near the road were mistaken to be planting bombs, so it is possible that when it comes to peasant fighters there will be in the future a lot more picture-taking and less bombs.
Some believe war though assassinations, in drone warfare, is the most immoral form of war there is that is often considered acceptable. But to me when, I look back at Civil War history books and see General Grant and General Lee having tea together and civilly discussing the war as the ordinary people around them had been dying like flies, was the most immoral form of warfare that was commonly found to be acceptable (remember I’m not talking about policy most everyone sees as unacceptable such as Hitler and Rwanda Genocide. I personally would like to see capital punishment abolished, and the drones whenever possible stun and kidnap al Qaeda leaders and the most bloodthirsty Taliban officials. If drones would keep careful track of where mines were laid, they could be avoided, and any peasant digging in a road harassed with percussion bombs instead of assassinated. If American were better informed where the landmines were laid than the locals, there would be no reason to have them. However, drone warfare against leaders is clearly Obama’s mark on US policy whether it is the right policy or there is something immoral about it.
To dwell on Obama (one of the reasons for this essay) Obama has been know for a bring us together policy instead of coming to the defense of supporters. However, he tried to help Senator Specter who was blacklisted by the Republican Party for supporting the stimulus package, preventing the US banking crisis from growing into resembling the Greek crisis. Obama was unsuccessful, but just getting Specter to switch parties, ended the Republican blacklist for Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins who also defied the Republican leadership on the stimulus which saved their jobs which Obama needs to be given credit for.
Vance Jordan who lost his Green Czar appointment over hysterias over his support of a death-row inmate, and signing a 9/11 petition, is now a top selling author and Yale professor with many titles and an advanced career. Clearly better off than if Obama had publicly come to his defense. One person who was actually hurt was Obama’s pastor Rev. Wright. However if one reads about the conflict in Wikipedia, one would note many of his critics were actually mad about his more recent comments about the Israeli Lobby pretending to be mad at his long-ago statements. If Obama defended his pastor’s history, Obama would have been asked if he thought Rev. Writes more recent comments were anti-Semitic. Obama couldn’t defend him without being put in the trap of defending recent comments Obama didn’t like. The accusation Obama frequently let’s supporters down is just plain wrong. Rev. Wright in the end apologized for his what he now claims was the insult of his comment on Jews.
I think at this point it is important to change the subject and note that al Qaeda greatly encourages anti-Semitism. This point is never made in articles concerning the Israeli Lobby but should be. Remember the Turkish synagogue was bombed during a huge peace demonstration in England before the start of the Iraq War. Zarcaris Moussaoui, during his trial as the alleged 12th 9/11 hijacker, spent his entire trial condemning his Jewish lawyer and urging Americans to blame the Jews. Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal correspondent, was lured to Pakistan and, on the Internet, made to renounce his Jewish identity before being beheaded. Bin Laden also on the Internet, in English urges Americans to blame the Israeli Lobby and in mostly in Arabic blames America for the world’s problems. Bin Laden must have nothing but contempt for the Western Peace Movement, upset by the way it woos Muslims away from militancy. Al Qaeda loves ethnic violence frequently attacking Sunni mosques to induce a tit-for-tat bloodbath. Bin Laden would be overjoyed if Americans decided to kick both the Muslims and Jews out of this country in order to fight their wars in their part of the world not ours. I think he would appreciate it if only Muslim immigrants were kicked out of the West, to stop them from being polluted by western ideas. Many religions pay lip service to the idea of the entire world being of that particular religion some day, I believe bin Laden’s immediate goal, is a world where no Muslim gets to look longingly as such Western ideas as free speech, questioning religious dogma, or open scientific inquisitiveness. How to criticize the Israeli Lobby, without aiding the anti-Semitism that people like bin Laden crave, is a real problem. Trying to criticize both in the same article could lessen the problem. Thank you Obama and McChrystal for most of the time resisting playing into al Qaeda’s dreams. I think, you are the best general and the best President, in this regard, that there is much hope in the US getting any time soon.
RichardKanePA.blogspot.com
Richard Kane is retired in Philadelphia. First became active in 1965 during early protests of the Vietnam War.
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