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The Pentagon’s Window of Vulnerability?
When it comes to the Pentagon and the U.S. military, wherever you look, there’s money being handed out. Wildly and in staggering amounts. Early this month, for instance, the U.S. Army announced that it had awarded KBR, the private contractor which was once part of Halliburton, a contract worth up to $568 million through 2011 “for military support service in Iraq.”
This is the same KBR that has regularly
been accused of improprieties
Or consider Mission Essential Personnel, a firm that, unlike KBR or Halliburton, you’ve undoubtedly never heard of. No wonder: only three years ago, it was a tiny military contractor taking in $6 million a year. Recently, however, it garnered a one-year $679 million contract to “field a small city’s worth of translators to help out American forces in Afghanistan.” (And again -- surprise, surprise! -- a no-bid contract.) “Not bad,” writes the invaluable Noah Shachtman at his Danger Room website, “for a company that’s been accused of everything from abandoning wounded employees to sending out-of-shape interpreters to the front lines.”
Or here’s another Shachtman find: defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton managed to corner a bevy of contracts worth $400 million in recent weeks to help fight future cyberwars, despite a stated Pentagon policy of relying less on outside contractors. In fact, the Pentagon is only now -- and only modestly -- reining in its long-running “senior mentors” program in which retired generals and admirals on the payroll of defense contractors (and on military pensions ranging up to $220,000 a year) are brought back as consultants at prices that run to $440 per hour. “In some cases,” reports USA Today, “mentors were paid by the military to run war games involving weapons systems made by their consulting clients.”
Theoretically, the military is known for discipline -- but not, it seems, when what's at stake is either spending our money or keeping track of it. Unfortunately, when it comes to the Pentagon budget, few in this country have cared to pay much attention. Fortunately, the National Priorities Project has. It has been trying to put the realities of that ever more bloated budget on the national agenda for a while. In a recent piece, “Putting the Pentagon on a Diet,” NPP’s Christopher Hellman suggests that a window of opportunity is opening, even if only a crack at the moment, for doing just that. The question is: Will we pry it open further or slam it shut?
Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050. His other most recent book is The United States of Fear (Haymarket Books). Previous books include: The End of Victory Culture: a History of the Cold War and Beyond, The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's, as well as of a novel, The Last Days of Publishing. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here.
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13 Comments so far
Show AllMaybe someone should follow the money and publicize the individuals behind these "corporations" and publicize the names of the individuals making these Pentagon decisions.
Now about their bank accounts........
Follow the route of the Taxpayer monies.....
Let's see who is getting rich from the suffering we are inflicting.
Just rambling thoughts.....
curmudgeon ...i sometimes have those "rambling thoughts" too.
when you think about it...there is plenty of nonsense piled over time (human society but particularly in the "legalese" culture that characterises america and the "western" model) ...that are really designed to HIDE things that ought NOT be hidden, such as the simplicity of questions asking for the basic answers in any human endeavor which we are "supposedlY" taught to abide by:
the TRUTH.
questions as easy and should not, imo, even be considered a matter of special privilege hiding behind the "personal privacy" concepts that are twisted to serve what are in fact just game of which is more powerful to hide their own secrets while wanting to "know" about "everyone else".
what i mean is:
just like YOUR question asks:
"how much does this or that person earn? from what? how? why? by whom?".
they say it is an accountable society -- but accountable to WHOM?
again , i sometimes ask:
why is it alright and acceptable for society to assume that an EMPLOYER - who of course knows how much is paid to an employee - KNOWS , by writ of law and process, how much an employee not only receives in wages from the employer but also through that same process know how much the employee pays in taxes , contributions, other expenses tied to the wages. etc...BUT NO EMPLOYEE under the administrative level has a right to know how much the CEO's secretary earns, how much a personnel department manager earns, how much the CEO earns, what are the budgets of the board of directors, shareholders, what are their tax modifications and exemptions? - particularly when THESE same level of administration people TELL workers "we must CUT wages, cut hours, cut benefits -- YOU must sacrifice"
but never THEMSELVES?
what ARE they hiding? is always the basic and final question, especially when they cry "poverty" whether in times of good or in times of "the bad recession OUT THERE"
as IF they and their depressed wages policies were NOT RESPONSIBLE collectively over time for the growth of "recessions".
Great question. Wait. No, silly question.
How can I get in on some of that action?
It's the DoD so this is what, 'patriotic' greed? It makes me feel robbed, if not raped. They are very nearly stealing bread out of the mouths of children to enrich themselves and their friends, and of course, to the extent that some monies are actually spent on troops, equipment, and supplies, to kill people (including children).
I really think you are overreacting. It isn't anywhere near as bad as you think. For example, gasoline, delivered to US military sites in Afghanistan only costs the taxpayers $400 a gallon. How could there possibly be any profiteering at such a low price?
- a window of opportunity is opening -
As I've said a bazillion times, this insanity is caused by the insane declaration of war against future terrorism that our feckless Congress (except for Barbara Lee) enacted days after the Reichstag Fire - oops, I mean our 'terrorist' attack.
There is no victory in this war. I still wait for someone to explain when the US military will complete its mission of 'preventing future terrorism' by enemies to be named later. The US military will go on trying, because that's what Congress ordered them to do.
This year there is a window.
Yet here's another article trying to open a tiny window (cut down Pentagon spending).
I suggest that we try to open a BIG window, and stop the insanity, instead of defunding it a little bit.
Do something about Public Law 107-40 and this madness will stop.
Ignore this law, as you have ignored it for 9 years, and any attempts to defund will continue to fail, fail, fail.
Aren't 9 years of futility enough?
Evidently not for Progressives.
i don't understand the statement that apparently "progressives" want the 9 yr. insanity to continue.....was listening just a moment ago to a self declared "tea party" guy on a talk show demand "smaller govt."; when the host pressed him: "so you want a withdrawing of troops from afganistan?" he said: "oh no not that...i want govt. out of health care and wellfare and unemployment insurance...let business' fill these gaps".........so, far be it from me to saddle a locust with some one else' insane point of view....but progressives want MORE iraq and afganistan????????.......peace
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I think locust might be saying that American progressives apparently don't want to end these wars badly enough to organize sufficiently to resist them effectively. The more liberal, progressive and affluent Baby Boomers alone could do it if they got off their asses, spent a little money and controlled their fear. There used to be plenty of them with soul and guts. I don't know what happened to them all. They sure as hell don't seem to believe in much that adds up anymore--at least their actions over the last decade don't indicate it. They didn't pay close enough attention to Bill Clinton's betrayals of the middle-class and lower-class and they didn't teach enough of their children about their rights and civic duty to struggle for their liberties and good government. Even since the military whipped out those sound cannons in Pittsburgh at the G-20 in September 2009 the progressive movement, especially the anti-globalist, anti-war movement seems to all but have vanished except for Cindy Sheehan and some of the events she participates in. Of course the media won't cover ANY of them so know one ever sees them or understands what their participants are saying. We progressives need to compel the medias reluctant attention with massive numbers in the streets at single events--like between one and two million at a time with our own adequate infrastructure preparations ahead of time. To do this requires a nationally organized movement--something American progressives, to their disgrace, still lack after a decade of nightmares.
The Tea Party "libertarians" are corn-pone throwbacks from a white, mostly rural, aging, insular upper-middle-class clinging to an ignorantly falsified nostalgia of the 1950s that 'kept blacks in their place,' and they ignore the successful LIBERAL GI Bill, a more than 45% unionized workforce with job security and secure pensions and the fact that the '50s had no "free trade" regime. Rand Paul has revealed himself and one of his former key staffers as a couple of living fossilized bigots whose particular form of racism dates back to the 18th century and I hope they turn on his son-of-a-bitch daddy and expose his true politics next. I don't think even paleo-con white nationalist Pat Buchanan has the stomach to defend these idiots.
Excellent post, Metal.
suspicion aroused when Amy Goodman mentioned That "Randal" recently changed his name to "Rand" and it was connected with Ayn...This speaks volumes about this guy....
So far, the only good I see about his father is Auditing the FED, but Bernie let us all down by giving in to O-Bomber and put A "only back to A certain year, one time deal" on the bill... Why does it always take so long for people to show their true color and for us to finally realize their agenda...O-bomber still takes 1st prize as the master of deception in my book..But, sadly we mainly have our well wishing selves to blame...Be carefull what you wish for...This FKN country gets more pathetic by the day..
Penta-gone-insane is the main drain on tax-money for funelling upwards to the powerful and steadily richer.
Redistribution of wealth to the loyally faithful insiders happens through the military budgets.
It's pure theft from the public, given a legitimizing name: your security.
Too bad the purpose is destruction. Because the same scheming redistribution happening with a constructive purpose would at least have some mitigating circumstances.
As it is, it's both bad and bad - bad allocation of money classwise (increasing the rich-poor gap), and bad effects materially (destroying hard-built cultural creations and killing people, both friends and foes). Too bad.
The military's killing US two ways: the way it's financed, and the way it acts.
This may be A glimmer of hope start:
Rep. Alan Grayson Introduces the "War Is Making You Poor" Act
The bill would cut the DoD's budget and use that money to make the first $35,000 each American earns tax-free.
May 23, 2010 Last week, as Congress prepared to pass yet another “emergency” spending bill to cover America’s costly operations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- to the tune of $159 billion this time around -- Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Florida, introduced a bill that would force the Pentagon to pick up the tab out of its ample regular budget.
The War Is Making You Poor Act is elegant in its simplicity. Instead of financing these longstanding conflicts outside of the regular budgeting process, where they’re not factored into deficit projections, Grayson’s bill would make the DoD work within its means, and the money would instead be used for an across-the-board tax cut that would make the first $35,000 each American earns tax-free.
“The purpose of this bill,” wrote Grayson last week, “is to connect the dots, and to show people in a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars.” It’s not just the costs of active shooting wars; with hundreds of bases overseas, as far as the defense budget is concerned Americans have been on a permanent wartime footing, to varying degrees, since Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941. “War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape,” wrote Grayson, “so much so that no one notices it anymore.
Go to link below for full article if you wish:
http://www.alternet.org/story/146973/rep._alan_grayson_introduces_the_%22war_is_making_you_poor%22_act