Richard WarnickPentagon Is Ready to Ambush President Obama
The U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Regiment at the Pentagon
The U.S. Defense Department’s FY 2008 budget was $623 billion, over a hundred billion more than the military budgets of every other country in the world put together. This does not include emergency supplemental appropriations for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Why is the budget so bloated? Democrats keep allowing Republicans to demagogue the issue of money for the military, and there’s a lot of pork-barrel spending too. Now we’re being warned that the Pentagon has laid a budgetary ambush for the incoming presidential administration, in the form of a proposed extra $450 billion in addition to already-scheduled increases. The GOP plans to falsely accuse President Obama of proposing defense spending “cuts” if he doesn’t approve the request.
The uniformed services are trying to lock in the next administration by creating a political cost for holding the line on defense spending. Conservative groups are hoping to ramp up defense spending as a tool to limit options for a Democratic Congress and president to pass new, and potentially costly, social programs, including health care reform.
They also like the idea of creating an unrealistically high baseline of expectations…that will allow them to claim President Obama has cut defense spending.
Matthew Yglesias warned about the looming ambush a month ago, and commented:
Simply put, though the United States faces some real national security challenges, insufficient military spending is not the source of any of those challenges.
Perhaps this nation’s enemies plan to test the new President, but our own military-industrial complex is going to test him first. Obama is going to have to say “no” to wasteful military spending, and he’ll need congressional Democrats to hold the line. It could be the most decisive battle of the first hundred days.
UPDATE: Time Magazine’s Mark Thompson says that it’s already too late to halt the Pentagon’s missile defense boondoggle, long ridiculed as “Star Wars.” It’s a classic example of a runaway program, that has already wasted $100 billion.
Three weeks ago, the Pentagon began work on a new missile defense “Headquarters Command Center” at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, about 10 miles south of the Pentagon. The $38.5 million building will be home to 300 Missile Defense Agency workers.
UPDATE: Danger Room weighs in with the FY 2009 Pentagon budget request, an increase of $67 billion over last year– not including most of the operational costs for Iraq and Afghanistan.
November 17th, 2008 at 10:01 am
I noticed some years back that if I put on layers and layers of insulative clothing, my skin really couldn’t tell if it was hot or cold outside. Further, the greater the number of layers I put on, the more retarded were my movements, so much so that I could barely breathe, let alone enjoy the out-of-doors.
The makers of insulative clothing were very happy though.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Richard, I’m sorry if my rather cryptic analogy has killed this important posting. Jd, BobS and many others’ comments would certainly been interesting, had I not done so.
For added insights, Winslow T. Wheeler is the modern-day Smedley Butler. He has a great deal to say about the MIC’s cancerous survival strategies. If you haven’t discovered already, you should.
Keep up the good work.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:25 am
I Googled Winslow T. Wheeler and turned up a well-thought-out article that explains:
(1) The Pentagon is spending more in inflation-adjusted dollars today than at any point since the end of World War II.
(2) Our military forces are smaller than they have ever been since the end of World War II.
(3) Ground forces personnel, vehicle and equipment readiness are not anywhere near up to standard.
I was part of a 14-division Army in the 1970s, when the Pentagon budget was considerably less. Too bad we don’t have that force now!
November 18th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
Winslow has another Counterpunch article dated Nov 4, worth looking at.