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TechnoratiIn Congress yesterday, Representative John Tierney, Chair of the House National Security and Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, convened the first in a series of hearings to examine a US missile defense program that is out of control, straining relations with allies, and renewing an arms race with Russia.
This is the first comprehensive review of the program since 1993 - the year before Republicans took control of Congress - and it's long overdue. The focus yesterday was on the extent of the missile threat - as compared to other security vulnerabilities - and whether spending more than $10 billion annually on ballistic missile defense (BMD) is justifiable from that perspective.
In his opening statement, Rep. Tierney pointed out that we have spent over $120 billion on missile defense in the past 25 years; that the annual budget is expected to double by 2013 to $19 billion; and that the current $10 billion per year is equal to one-third of the Homeland Security budget, roughly equal to the State Department budget, greater than the FEMA budget, 20 times greater than public diplomacy expenditures, and 30 times greater than Peace Corps.
Dr. Stephen Flynn, Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a retired Coast Guard Commander, testified that the "non-missile risk" - smuggling a weapon of mass destruction into the US by ship, train, truck, or private jet - is "far greater than the ballistic missile threat...." He noted that smuggling is the only realistic option for a terrorist group like al Qaeda; it offers anonymity to any attacking nation and therefore protection from retaliation; seaports, borders, and overseas flights "provide a rich menu of non-missile options"; and it has greater potential to "generate cascading economic consequences by disrupting global supply chains."
Despite these risks, Flynn said, "The combined budgets for funding all the domestic and international port of entry interdiction efforts... is equal to roughly one-half of the annual budget for developing missile defense. Nowhere in the US government has there been or is there now an evaluation of whether that represents an appropriate balance....The amount of resources we dedicate to the [more serious threat of cargo delivery] is miniscule compared to the kinds of resources we invest in dealing with the ballistic missile threat. That's the kind of disconnect we're operating in."
Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund and author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons, provided the Committee with an even more pointed assessment. He recalled his past work for the House Armed Services Committee and the National Security Subcommittee during the Cold War. "At that time, we were not worried about a prototype Iranian missile that might or might not be deployed. We were worried about 5,000 Soviet warheads... destroying not just our country but most likely this planet. I have known ballistic missile threats, I have researched ballistic missile threats. Mr. Chairman, this is not a serious ballistic missile threat that we face today.... [It] is limited and changing relatively slowly. There is every reason to believe that it can be addressed through measured military preparedness and aggressive diplomacy."
Cirincione, who organized the last serious hearings on the program as a staff member of the Government Operations Committee, pointed out that there are fewer ballistic missiles today than 10-20 years ago; fewer hostile missiles potentially threatening the US; there are five more countries that have started medium-range missile programs but they are poorer and less technologically advanced than the countries that had long-range ballistic missile programs some 20 years ago, and the total number of medium-range missiles has decreased by 80 percent.
"The vast majority of nations with ballistic missiles have only short-range missiles with ranges under 1000 kilometers, basically Scuds," Cirincione said. "This is often ignored when officials or experts cite the '30 countries with ballistic missile capability.' That's true, there are approximately 28. But of these, 17 have only Scud-B missiles or similar. Most of these are friends or allies."
Rep. Stephen Lynch asked whether the allocation of resources is proportional to the threat.
"Absolutely not. I believe that the Ballistic Missile Defense program is the longest running scam in the history of the Department of Defense," Cirincione said. "This is an enormous waste of money, and if you leave this decision to the Joint Chiefs they won't spend anything near what this Administration is requesting. In fact, the last time the Joint Chiefs were asked about this in 1993, [they] recommended to then-Pres. Clinton that we spend only $3 billion a year on these kinds of programs, and of that $2.3 billion should be spent on efforts to intercept short-range missiles - the ones that are a real threat to our troops and allies.... We're no further along in our ability to actually hit a real ballistic missile now than we were 20 years ago."
Both Cirincione and Flynn pointed to the disturbing fact that there is no comprehensive threat assessment comparing missile and non-missile threats to our security. "We haven't done a good threat assessment - an intelligence estimate that looks at the non-missile threat and the missile threat," Flynn said.
Cirincione agreed. "I believe that in order for Congress to judge whether these sums are necessary they need a comprehensive assessment of the ballistic missile threat. Congress has never - never - gotten this kind of assessment.... We need a comprehensive threat assessment of what the most serious security threats are facing the United States, and then budget allocations based on that."
Steven Hildreth, specialist in missile defense and nonproliferation for the Congressional Research Service, also warned that threats about a nuclear-armed Korea or Iran might be exaggerated. He testified to "the importance of examining assertions concerning weapon system development and performance." Hildreth noted that in 50 years, only five countries have been able "to develop, test and field ICBMs armed with nuclear warheads" because "the technical, organizational, and management challenges... [are] daunting.... Each and every [aspect] presents a multitude of technological challenges and hurdles to overcome that is not easily done." Hildreth also said that these weapons cannot be hidden, and that they have to be tested in an "observable" way. Despite these facts, Hildreth said, "There have been any number of intelligence assessments and studies that predicted there would be more than five nations that could have accomplished this capability at various times in the past 40 to 50 years....This perspective is lacking in so many of the discussions about ICBM threats today."
With the Administration requesting a record $12.3 billion for missile defense this year, pushing its European-based missile defense system on Czech and Polish citizens who want nothing to do with it, and fueling a new arms race with Russia, the need to put an end to this madness is clear. The jig is up, and hopefully Tierney's hearings will reveal the absolute folly at the root of the Missile Defense Program, and return us to a sane and proven path of diplomacy and nuclear nonproliferation negotiations.
Katrina vanden Heuvel is Editor and Publisher of The Nation.
© 2008 The Nation
53 Comments so far
Show AllWE recently were advised that the nature of privacy, as previously defined, would be subject to authoritarian changes without notice. I would like to put forth the proposition that the same extend to defense. How brutally ironic that for all the billions spent on this illusive concept of security, today AOL opens with data that our nation's water supply is intoxicated by big pharma's medley of drugs for every purpose under heaven, and some better reserved for hell. So while the cancers add up, and the kids are born with Autism, and while land mines litter the gardens of other lands, our water is contaminated for all intensive purposes. And this nation wastes its fortune on who to bomb next. The Gods must be wondering why they put this organic homo sapien puzzle together in the first place.
Isn't Star Wars on the agenda at the SPP (NAFTA on Steroids) meeting in New Orleans in April? This is one thing that the US has wanted Canada to be part of for a long time.
The NDP keeps finding out about it and stopping it, but this is a beast with many lives.
"it offers anonymity to any attacking nation and therefore protection from retaliation"
tell that to IRAQ, who BTW did NOT attack the USA
And what is Obama going to do about the massive waste of our tax dollars known as Star Wars?
Nothing.
So, Katrina, why did you endorse him?
I'm surprised MIT's Theodore Postol wasn't mentioned here, he's provided proof of criminal fraud and unsurmountable physical hurdles in the program many years ago, and was targeted for it. Google his work.
In case anybody noticed, the precursor to the boondoggle that the Pentagon and their MIC buddies want to put into Eastern Europe, the Patriot missile defense system, did not exactly performed as propagandized during the Gulf War. There is nothing to indicate that the current system being peddled will do any better. All that will seemingly be "accomplished" is to give the world a second go-around of the Cold War. Considering the American defense, foreign policy, and intelligence apparatus had such a hard time adjusting to a post-Cold War paradigm, this a way to bring back something they know. Otherwise, they might actually have to find real jobs.
I will have to agree with Dr Steven Flynn. There is a far greater threat of terrorist's sneaking a bomb into this country and detonating it than there is a missile attack. After all our ports and borders are wide open for these people to enter. These high priced missiles aren't going to do doodly squat for us until we get someone in office who is bright enough to figure out how to fight the enemy. Bush has wasted his resources on a bunch of rag tag middle eastern terrorist's that the FBI could have caught years ago and brought to trial. But he is still looking for Osama bin Laden and all of his water boarding hasn't given up where the man is at! So I am not placing much stock in Bush's ability to keep us safe!
We're broke and in debt up to our eyeballs. Like the drunk the checks his wallet and finds it empty the morning after a binge out on the town the night before, we will find that there isn't any money to spend on missile defense or much of anything else.
Lobo Gris
National Missile Defence = NMD = New Maginot Disaster
It's about time the obvious has been so well stated. Scam, waste, illogical, - it's become so scandalous to be beyond the words required to properly express it. The new novel, "The Winged and Garlanded Nike" (Wingednike.com) addresses the fantastic mindset of the missile defense warriors from the early Nike to the ultimate baloney of Reagan and Teller's Stars War of the eighties.
Pul-ease!
Let's wake up just a tad. Primarily, the Missle Defense Stuff has to do with our (for the most part, benign) extraterrestrial neighbors.
I expect that the disclosure of this information (including some 60 years of government documents) will take place by 2018 (approximately 10 years). There is already significant movement toward this goal and the momentum is continuing to build. In this regard I would not be surprised if this massive "breaking of the dam" will occur sooner rather than later.
For some years now, meetings have been occurring with key congress-persons and members of the intelligence community.
The evidence for - not only extraterrestrial presence, but active involvement - has been a "matter of fact" for decades.
Steven M. Greer's work in leading "The Disclosure Project" is a good place to begin learning more.
Ever since World War Two there's been one scam after another to keep the Military-Industrial Corporations making the Big Buck$ they made during that war.
It's kept the US - and the world - on a war footing for the last 60 years and wasted trillions of dollars and endless amounts of energy and person-power that could better have been spent in pursuit of peaceful goals.
Don't forget that there was never a successful ICBM test from the silo without preparation and countdown at least through the mid 80's, and probably since then as well. That is why we have cruise missles, and they do work well most of the time.
For all we know, none of our ICBMs would work if forced to launch in an emergency.
The most important book I've read in many years:
The World Without Us
by Alan Weisman
The other longest running scam exposed relating to military defense and education. It's all a scam. Many are worried that you can't get into and afford college without help from a stint with the military. Not to worry because our University campuses are being turned into an extension of the military machine with scare tactical religious underpinnings. Look whats happening to the major universities in Arkansas alone.
___________________________________________
The following summary is provided by the Congressional Research Service, which is a nonpartisan government entity that serves Congress and is run by the Library of Congress. The summary is taken from the official website THOMAS.
5/17/2007--Introduced.
Amends the Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003 relating to the defense nanotechnology research and development program (program) to: (1) revise program purposes; (2) replace the Director of Defense Research and Engineering with the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics as program administrator; (3) outline program activities, including the development of a strategic plan for defense nanotechnology research and development that is integrated with the strategic plan for the National Nanotechnology Initiative; and (4) extend through 2011 program report requirements.
Requires a report from the Comptroller General to the congressional defense and appropriations committees on progress made by the Department of Defense (DOD) in achieving program purposes.
__________________________________________
5/17. On May 17, 2007, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), and Sen. John Warner (R-VA), introduced S 1425, the "Defense Nanotechnology Research and Development Act of 2007".
This bill revises the existing defense nanotechnology research program, which was created by Section 246 of the Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2003, which is now Public Law No. 107-314.
Sen. Pryor stated that under this program the University of Arkansas' Center for Ferroelectric Electronic-Photonic Nanodevices is developing new nanomagnetic devices for high performance information and communication technology. See, Congressional Record, May 17, 2007, at Pages S6302-3
On May 11, 2007, Sen. Pryor introduced S 1372, the "Nanotechnology Infrastructure Enhancement Act".
This bill would require the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish a "Center for Nanotechnology Research and Engineering ... to focus on ... the science and engineering of manufacturing at the nanoscale in multiple dimensions" or "nanotechnology for sustainable energy, water, agriculture, and the environment". The bill also authorizes the appropriation of $2.5 Million per year for fiscal years 2008 through 2012.
Next time a defense contractor claims a shortage and appeals to Congress for more physicists, and electrical engineers to be imported from India, Pakistan, or elsewhere, I want everyone on this list to stand up and altogether say......
QQQQQUUUUUAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCKKKKKKKKK.
http://www.bccmeteorites.com/misconduct-planetary.html
SRD
Where is my damn "peace dividend"!?! When the Cold War ended, we were promised a peace dividend! But NOooooooo...BushCo is now poking the Bear in the eyes to start another one. Great! Putin doesn't want another arms race, but I believe that he will win this one. Or, if he was really smart about it (and he certainly IS smart), instead of ruining his country financially, he could just fund that little nuclear surprise in a cargo container.
Geez...I wonder if Putin thought of that yet?
"to 'save us' from ill-defined evildoers...."
Thats easy..they live in the Black House...Point the missiles that way..
I agree that containerized cargo is a much more economical delivery system, plus with a container able to carry 44,000# there is no need to build an airworthy device, therefore much cheaper. As far as missles go, I am not sure anyone has proved the Patriot Missle System ever worked. Skud missles typically break apart after the boost phase, which let the manufacturers of the Patriot claim hits that likely never happened. We are 'protected' against phony threats and bare-assed for the real ones. Our wallets are a bit lighter as well.
Feel sorry for homeward-angel. I hope things work out for her without the army.
The average American is being made, poorer, sicker, more afraid, and certainly less well informed. He/she is being provided with less and worse education for their children so that they grow up dumber. With a federal government that will do all this while spending about 40 cents on every tax dollar on military/ nuclear/ security/ defence you really do not need to worry about it. Why? Because, your imagined enemies does not have to do anything either. He does not need to explode a dirty bomb, or even fire a shot, nothing but wait, and watch you implode on your own, much like the Soviet Union did.
You don't have to believe me ask your Comptroller General to understand more the damage America is doing to itself , here is a dirty little story that nobody is talking about in Washington (except the GOA):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjZBOCAgR64&feature=related
Defending against ballistic missiles is a bit like defending against chemical weapons: nothing works very well. It's also a bit like looking for terrorists by analyzing internet chat: see the article "Why Spy?" (http://www.sillyconvalley.net/blog/?cat=7) to see what I mean. That doesn't work very well either.
Besides, the players most able to launch a ballistic attack on us, such as Russia and China, are also the least likely to do so because they have much too much to lose. They also know that the Pentagon would surely retaliate in kind...or worse. So those players won't try it.
On the other hand the players least able to launch a ballistic attack, such as Iran or Saudi Arabia, would be the most likely to sneak in a stolen or bought nuke at one of our ports. So what does the government do? You got it. They step up anti-ballistic measures and sell our port operations to countries like...Saudi Arabia. Makes no sense, but it does make cents.
So, why does the government dish out sweetheart contracts to high tech companies when low tech port security would provide much more security per dollar invested? Ha ha. Because high tech companies have vastly more influence in Washington than our domestic port security providers and because investors are driven by dollars returned per dollar invested (sometimes a hundred to one for high tech), not security provided per dollar invested. "Follow the money," they never tire of reminding us. And when it comes to high tech vs. low tech, it's just more sillyConValley(); (www.sillyConValley.net).
It's classic fear and greed keeping this segment of the military-industrial going. As Chalmers Johnson explains in "Nemesis," probably the best use for this technology is for space-based weaponry and for satellite destruction. However, any explosions and the accompanying debris in the satellite belts make vast swaths of space unusable for satellites. So it wouldn't take much of a space 'war' to ruin things for both commercial satellites and military. It's a total no-win situation rather like nuclear war (but luckily without billions dead and no nuclear winter).
As another example of how the US military is defending the US, when an F-15 broke up in flight and the rest were grounded, US air defenses were greatly reduced in capability. Fortunately, they weren't needed. But, the F-15 is not the mainstay of USAF air defense, the F-16 is. But, the F-16s are overseas bombing people so they will want to bomb us.
The first go-around on the ABM issue was in the 1960s, where the basic technology to intercept a reentry-vehicle (RV) was developed. The cost to develop a comprehensive shield was totally prohibited, so those efforts were stopped. The same thing came out of the "Star Wars" efforts of the 1980s: total cost is astronomical.
That's why they invented the war on terra. A war against another nation risks ending, but war as a concept -- without an exit condition -- is something you can BANK on.
If you invest in the killing industries, that is.
Just follow the money. Why no mention of who the missile defense contractors are or how much they've given to which politicians? Looks like plain Cold War profiteering that never went away.
First of all it don't work. It can be easily thwarted a lot of different ways. It's a huge financial boondogle that invest's our money into something that doesn't have any return. It's just wellfare for the defense contractors.
We simply can't afford these frivolities anymore.
"We need a comprehensive threat assessment of what the most serious security threats are facing the United States, and then budget allocations based on that."
It's pathetic that someone has to point this out, as if it's not the first thing taught in Budget School.
There's a saying in Hollywood re: budgets - "It's all on the screen." With "our" Pentagon, it's more like "it's all in the pockets of defense contractors. Including the screen."
The next time in a discussion about universal health care, if someone asks where we will get the money to pay for it, don't get angry, just say MIUMSM. And when they say "What?" Just say,"Military, Industrial, University, Main Stream Media complex."
The old truism,"Follow the money."
Breaking the inertia of the MIC would require breaking the positive feedback loops that serve it. If the Internet continues in its present form (e.g. keeping net neutrality), inevitably there will be those who expose the linkages between campaign contributions and other favors to congressvermin and weapons systems funded by such vermin, with analyses of such weapons systems and their costs, purposes, efficacy, and necessity. And lists of these congressvermin and their transgressions must be posted ubiquitously on the Internet, with the goal of exposing their disturbing and self-serving practices and defeating them in elections. By providing more punishment than rewards for such behavior, the positive feedback loops could be broken and the MIC's inertia could be overcome. It could happen.
The only thing that would make me feel safe right now is that if the military-industrial complex kissed the darkest regions of my ass.
Never forget old Scummy Rummy Rumsfeld's laughing contempt at the hearing when his Secretary of Defense nomination was before Congress. Asked by Robert Byrd if he would commit to better financial accounting by the military, Scummy laughed in his face and said "I'd better give up the nomination instead." Everybody laughed with him. Still laughing?
COMarc,
You wrote:
"Which would do more to protect Americans security … this, or some programs to spend say $50 billion fighting Aids in Africa..."
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the aid the US provides to Africa to fight AIDS is really just another taxpayer ripoff. Usually when poor nations desperately need products from rich nations that are covered by intellectual property rights, there are people in the poor nations who make cheap knock-offs and the companies in the rich nations with the intellectual property rights regarding the original products get nothing. And that was happening in Africa with regard to AIDS drugs. Of course Bush could not have that, so we give African nations money so they can buy the drugs from US pharmaceuticals for full price. The African nations act as a conduit for the US taxpayers to give money to the US pharmaceuticals, providing a humanitarian cover. And it also makes it difficult for the knock-off industry to develop, and so if the US stops funding their AIDS drugs, they will still have to buy them mostly from US pharmaceuticals, and if they do not there will be trade sanctions.
That is actually similar to the situation with most foreign aid, which is usually given in the form of weapons, which means the taxpayers are sending money to the defense contractors, using US magnanimity as cover. This has the side benefit of creating a more unstable world allowing US arms manufacturers to sell more weapons. And the instability has an additional benefit of allowing more CIA meddling and manipulation for the benefit of the US corporatocracy.
This piece http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JC08Ak01.html was posted on Asia Times on 03/07/2008 by William Hartung, director of
the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation"
It is not directly related the subject of Ms. Vanden Huevel's article. This is about cost of Iraq War, Afghan War and indirectly GWOT.
However, in terms of wasted money, this dwarfs the subject of her article.
"How much, for instance, does one week of Bush's wars cost?" "If we consider the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan together - which we might as well do, since we and our children and grandchildren will be paying for them together into the distant future - a conservative single-week estimate comes to $3.5 billion. Remember, that's per week!"
He goes on to show what $3.5 billion per WEEK actually pay for. He says "Keep in mind that this only gives us a sense of what we do know from the public Pentagon request; there's plenty more that we don't know. As a start, the Pentagon's breakdown of the money in its "emergency" supplemental budget leaves huge gaps…. it may sound like we have a fair amount of detail about the costs of a week of war. No such luck. Until the "supplemental" costs of war are subjected to the same scrutiny as the regular Pentagon budget, there will continue to be hundreds of millions of dollars unaccounted for each and every week that the wars go on. And there will be all sorts of money for pet projects that have nothing to do with fighting current conflicts. So don't just think of that $3.5 billion per week figure as a given. Think of it as $3.5 billion ... and counting. Doesn't that make you feel safer?"
It is truly eye opening. Just imagine what even 10% of $3.5 Billion per WEEK will pay for!
"The end of the Cold War was a real downer to these people, so now their trying to provoke the Russians into a new one. Next we'll be hearing about those backyard bomb shelters again."
Actually, what was a 'downer' to them was that it threatened to cut off the flow of our money to fund their boondoggle projects. They don't really give a damn about the reasons they say for spending our money. They just want to keep spending our money. If the reason switches from Russia to N. Korea to China, that's just the BS they spin so they can keep stealing our money.
BTW, just so people know what the Dems are really doing....
While they are 'holding hearings' and trying to get headlines on this issue, they also just voted last year to fully fund this in the last Pentagon budget. Typical Dems ... hold hearings that do nothing but make noise ... after voting to fully fund the program. Isn't the reason the Dems were elected in 2006 was to put an end to spending our money on this crap?
$120 billion for this boondoggle. Another what $500 billion or more for the Iraq war.
Think what we could do for this country in spending that sorts of money. Usually, when I hear a project is just to expensive to contemplate, it usually has a price tag of something like $50 billion. Peanuts compared to this.
Anyone remember the bridge collapse in MN last year? And the stories of the time that said that the civil engineers of America have been saying for decades now that our infrastructure is collapsing and we aren't doing enough to repair and maintain it. That's one of those things that I think has a price tag of $50 billion or so. Would you rather have every bridge and tunnel in America inspected and repaired, or a phony missile defense that don't work and a war in Iraq?
Something else I read said the cost of stabilizing Social Security would be much less than this.
Which would do more to protect Americans security ... this, or some programs to spend say $50 billion fighting Aids in Africa, or providing everyone with clean drinking water, or ending starvation? If Americans were using their wealth to do those sorts of things, do you think you could travel the world as an American and be more welcome and secure than you are today?
If the US took every dollar it ever spent on defense (translated - kill those who aren't like us and/or get their natural resources), we could have created a Department of Peace and Cultural Understanding and imagine the world today.
Military defense contract fraud is a vast and under-reported problem. The day before 9/11, Rumsfeld announced that $2.3 trillion had gone missing. Quite a coincidence how 9/11 overshadowed that story, isn't it?
Who knows just how much money disappears? Money is being spent to protect us, but the missile defense example shows that the threat is overstated and the program over-funded, inadequately managed, and marginally effective. Even the generals themselves would reduce the expenditures, spending it on things we might really need like mental health care for returning veterans.
How many billions in defense spending disappear in the coffers of some private entities? 40% of the Pentagon budget now flows directly to private contractors. As the sums spent on our military now exceed the rest of the world combined, the bureaucracy grows ever more bloated. Transparency and accountability drift to the wayside.
All this in the name of keeping us safe. This hyper-militarism is not about defending us--it's about making some people very rich. And the wars that justify the expenditures are neither just nor legal. Not in my name.
Katrina vanden Heuvel,Editor and Publisher of The Nation, concludes the above essay:
"With the Administration requesting a record $12.3 billion for missile defense this year, pushing its European-based missile defense system on Czech and Polish citizens who want nothing to do with it, and fueling a new arms race with Russia, the need to put an end to this madness is clear. The jig is up, and hopefully Tierney's hearings will reveal the absolute folly at the root of the Missile Defense Program, and return us to a sane and proven path of diplomacy and nuclear nonproliferation negotiations."
Here is a voice of reason as there are many voices of reason ... we read and hear them all the time,... voices belonging to those intelligent, well-educated people who research the problem, assess the facts, meet with others, and write essays about reasonable outcomes.
The problem is we are dealing with madness here, underscored in some cases by ignorance and in some instances, a low-level of intelligence, both intellectual and emotional.
That madness in those who are shaping the world in their own image to fulfill their unbridled desires is a kind of lethal addiction.
Second step in the Twelve Step Programs: "Came to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to SANITY." The obvious implication is that the addiction creates INSANITY, especially in ways of thinking and behaving.
Currently, as I read yesterday, a breakdown of
costs for the Iraq Invasion and Occupation and the Afghanistan invasion and occupation, the cost is 3.5 billion dollars per week.
A small percentage of this money goes to "support the troops," but most of it goes into the coffers of private contractors, whether for weapons or new orders for weapons "of the future" all the way down the line to preparing and serving meals or cleaning the latrines and supplying rolls of toilet paper for the troops.
There was a time not too many years ago that the option of diplomacy was the first choice. Here's the problem; how do we address it to find mutual ground and avoid going to war? or to solve this problem or that one.
The Insanity we are living with and by which the world is being held in thrall by leaders who seem to have no sense of humanity, no sense that the earth is in danger, no conscience to bother them, just a drive to rout or defend against enemies that are real or imagined, and to keep the money rolling in to the richest among us and wannabe richest among us.
Tierney's hearings may reveal the "absolute folly at the root of the Missile Defense Program," but just as a long list of verifiable grounds for a Bill of Impeachment of the President and Vice President of the United States have accumulated and are certainly enough under The Constitution to begin proceedings of inquiry, that obviously is not going to happen, and because it most likely won't, our Nation will have been delivered a death blow. The Constitution is a very reasoned and reasonable document. The fact that it is being ignored in so many ways and instances is an INSANITY that may mean the end of a pretty good form of government.
Just as we know now that planting Monsanto et al. genetically modified corn in every available field to produce ethanol is causing more pollution and is leading to a shortage of basic staples for eating ... like wheat and barley and rye and corn ... like bread ... for the poorest of the poor around the world and those who just this year have lost their homes and their jobs and are now living in their automobiles.
Every woe on this planet can be traced back to a logical cause, including that some leaders are INSANE in their brutality, their lack of conscience, their personal ambitions and addictions for power, control, money or even conquest and dominance because of their religions or ethnic or cultural origins -- their tribal stuff -- that blinds them to the larger view of humanity and finding ways to heal schisms and get along, that blinds them to caring for a finite blue planet floating in space that is home to billions and billions and billions of interconnected life forms.
Chances are that latter never occurs to them.
This is the AGE OF UNREASON AND INSANITY on a scale that I have never seen before, and I'm no kid.
It is a sick time ... of people not knowing what is going on, not curious enough to find out what they need to find out ... and suddenly for many, their lives are reduced to worrying about how they can scrape up the money to make the car payment ... their temporary home after the home they just lost ... and for too many for too long, their mantra is: what can I possibly find to feed my children today?
6.5 billion people, and increasing in number, held in thrall ... endangered by a very small percentage of those whose unquenchable, addictive appetites for power, control and money or their own addictive biases may very well do us all in.
I'm not suggesting here that people should stop talking and investigating and holding hearings, but unless a good solid group of reasonable people are prepared to stop the madness, it will continue.
Too bad the United Nations is toothless. We need something like it, but with good strong teeth and it to be truly impartial. But we don't have that.
So maybe we'll all have to ride it out on this storm-tossed ship of ours called earth, doing our best to be decent, caring people from whatever category or level we are in the demographic data and do what we can.
But for now INSANITY reigns ... and I, as most others, don't really have an answer. And band-aid reason won't do it, unless the INSANE suddenly learn to really listen and hear.
peace ...
The spending priorities we are talking about is the difference between a strategy of war and a strategy of peace. The strategy of peace makes so much more sense and is so much more effective and efficient. It is amazing that the war strategy is still accepted and authorized as a legitimate strategy. I guess it is primarily because it is driven by the emotion of fear.
"Scrap the military and use the funds to build America (health care, education, housing, infrastructure,etc.) and I'll take my chances with any of the so-called external threats!"
When you figure out how to retrain the bomb-makers and re-tool the arms factories, this could happen. Until then, war and weapons are the only things that the US can export in sufficient quantity to keep your economy going (somewhat).
Ballistic missile defense is a lose-lose proposition: a money-waster if it doesn't work, an arms race accelerant if it does (and maybe also if it doesn't). The main reason I voted for Nader over Gore in 2000 was that Gore supported BMD.
This missile defense has been nothing but a bunch of bullshit from the git-go. They have lied about the performance of every test they have run on this-It's just another easy way for the military/industrial complex to suck us dry.
Google "disclosure project" to see what they're really up to with this so-called missile "defense" system.
The end of the Cold War was a real downer to these people, so now their trying to provoke the Russians into a new one. Next we'll be hearing about those backyard bomb shelters again.
The military/industrial complex is eating us alive. No need to worry about external threats when we are drowning debt, job losses, pollution, crumbling infrastructure, homelessness, uninsured or under insured, unimagineable gas and energy prices. When we are completely burned out I doubt that any martians would even want to invade this mess.
homeward-angel lamented "am afraid to say, but the only way i can pay for school and other things will to be joining the Army... In fact the military is fast becoming the only option for young people to have their college paid for."
Gee, it's almost like they planned it that way!
This is only the very tip of the tip of the iceberg. We in the US can have a first class truly "Defensive" Armed Forces capability for a small fraction of the monies we currently spend. Can you say Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex.
With so many billions you could build universities outright, medical schools, etc. and turn your "enemy" into a highly educated/literate populace. The problem is that there are real deliverables here, no black budgets, etc. it's not as easy to skim off a large percentage of the budget and create an unworking prototype just as a formality.
The MIC (Military Industrial Complex) is the main reason for the U.S. recession, yet because our "elected" politicians are so dependant on MIC campaign contributions, this mad course will not change anytime soon. Bankrupting the country with defence projects to 'save us' from ill-defined evildoers.
Scrap the military and use the funds to build America (health care, education, housing, infrastructure,etc.) and I'll take my chances with any of the so-called external threats!
WOW-12.3 BILLION Dollars. they want to make us safer? hey, how about this idea; use that mountain of money to put young promising people into College! Smart Educated People tend to make the world safer than a bunch of star wars missles. I wonder how many high school seniors every year put off college to get some shitty Burger King job just so they can pay some sky high rent in Americas run down neighborhoods! I am afraid to say, but the only way i can pay for school and other things will to be joining the Army. Sad but true, 24 years old, broke as a joke. In fact the military is fast becoming the only option for young people to have their college paid for. Unless of course you scored 1550 on the SAT. With the taxes Americans pay it is high time to demand that things like EDUCATION AND HEALTH CARE; THEY SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO BANKRUPT WORKING AMERICANS.
I keep running over in my mind "$3.5+ BILLION a week" in the hands of an instition that cannot account for 2.5 TRILLION dollars (some back when the dollar was worth something): most of the money for the wars going to private contractors with similar poor accounting skills -- at least in the public books.
What COULDN'T be done for this amound of even debased American cabbage?
Gary