Frank Breaks Taboo on Military Spending

[davidswanson]

When a Congress member steps forward and courageously articulates a forbidden truth that is absolutely necessary for our survival and well-being (and by "our" I mean our species, not just our nation), he must be praised, rewarded, and defended at all costs, without question or hesitation. This is the situation we are in with Congressman Barney Frank having just blurted out the obvious but taboo fact that the U.S. military budget must be cut. "If we are going to get the deficit under control without slashing every domestic program, this is a necessity," Frank said, proposing to cut military spending by 25 percent.

Frank has already been attacked by the only presidential candidate who, during each of the three debates, suggested cutting military spending: John McCain. Rather than pointing out this flip-flop, the corporate media can be expected to pile on Frank with accusations of endangering us all (which is the polite way of saying threatening the profits of some of the same corporations that control our communications system). We need to call the media and Congress in support of Frank's proposal or an even saner one. Frank needs to know that we have his back.

I haven't been a fan of Congressman Frank. He helped engineer the theft of $700 billion by Wall Street tycoons from my unborn grandkids, and guilt may be part of the explanation for his sudden fit of honesty. Frank has been a bitter opponent of impeaching Bush and Cheney, and has generally gone along with every outrage Congress has created or permitted in recent years. But when you're right, you're right, and Frank is 100 percent dead on.

Frank told the editorial board of the Standard-Times that "the Pentagon has to start choosing from its many weapons programs, and that upper-income taxpayers are going to see an increase in what they are asked to pay. The military cuts also mean getting out of Iraq sooner, he said." Frank told the Politico that "the Pentagon is probably the most wasteful organization in the federal government and people have given it a pass for years."

McCain quickly hid behind the poor kids he'd like to see continue killing and dying for his deteriorating ego: "Yesterday, Barney Frank again previewed the Democratic congressional agenda, when he proposed ... cutting defense spending by a quarter -- slicing defense funding while our troops are at war and our ground forces are already too small. My friends …."

It's pretty clear that McCain hurts his already hopeless electoral chances with these comments, while Frank helps those of Democrats. In a March 2005 report called "The Federal Budget: the Public's Priorities," the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) told people the basic distribution of funds in the federal budget and asked how they would rearrange the funding if they could. Americans from across the political spectrum, on average, said they would cut the military budget by 31 percent. That's more than Frank's 25 percent. Congressman Dennis Kucinich has in the past proposed a 15 percent cut. Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey has proposed a shift of resources away from the military but has never named a specific number.

We the people are, as usual, out ahead of our leaders. Sixty-five percent of Americans, when they saw how much money the military had, told PIPA they favored taking at least some of it away. Majorities favored reducing spending on the capacity for conducting large-scale nuclear and conventional wars. Next on the list of cuts after the "defense" budget? The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Majorities of ordinary people taking this survey were also able to do what Congress members, including Senator McCain, have declared impossible, distinguish between wars and soldiers. They favored slashing money for wars and the military, while increasing funds for veterans and preserving funds for those on active duty.

The biggest increases in the PIPA survey went to education, job training, employment, and medical research. And the largest increase in percentage terms went to conserving and developing renewable energy: 70 percent of Americans favored an increase, which averaged 1,090 percent (yes, over a thousand percent).

The PIPA survey treated the ordinary military budget and the supplemental budget for endless wars separately, and Americans wanted major cuts in both. Frank appears to treat the two as one and to advocate for a 25 percent cut in the whole. How much would that be, exactly?

Well, for fiscal year 2009, we're looking at $653 billion for the Pentagon, plus $162 billion in supplemental spending for Iraq and Afghanistan. A quarter of $815 billion is $203.75 billion. Anyone who couldn't figure out where to cut $203.75 billion from the Pentagon is probably a danger to themselves and others. You could get $162 by ending two horribly damaging foreign occupations. You could get $73.7 billion just by ending the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the people who brought you mechanical killer elephants and telepathic warfare, people who are now researching exploding frisbees, cyborg wasps, and Captain America no-meals and no-sleep soldiers. That'd be $235.7 billion right there. Imagine if you shut down some of the 1,000 or so bases we're imposing on other people's countries building animosity around the globe. Or what if we were to shut down "missile defense" or abandon all space weapons programs until, you know, there was a sane argument for them. Let's face it, Frank's proposal is disgustingly and immorally conservative.

It's safe to assume the $162 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan will actually be double that by the end of the year. There's also about $150 billion in the military portions of departments other than "defense." And that's not counting veterans' benefits or the interest on debt for past military spending. The total tax dollars we devote to killing each year now is over a trillion and a half, which compares to some $1.2 trillion we devote to living, not counting trust funds like Social Security and not counting Paulson's Plunder. In fact, what we spend on the military is now more than all other nations combined. So, Frank is absolutely right that we can afford to cut it, and McCain knows he is lying when he claims that doing so will endanger us. He said so himself during his debates with Senator Barack Obama. Obama avoided the topic of military cuts each time McCain raised it. Our job is to join with Congressman Frank to pass the necessary cuts and compel President Obama to sign them into law.

[The Traveler]

1. As a liberal, as a peace advocate, I say to you

this is probably a bad time to cut defense spending.

It is a GREAT time to think about how that funding is spent ... we really need to shore up defense resources the Bush administration has squandered profligatly. But it is probably not a good time to cut the actual amount. We don't need to spend bucks on missile defense or new nuclear warheads. But we DO not to shore up our degraded military power.

You see, we are bleeding. And there are sharks in the water. And that means we are ringing dinner bells. Seriously.

The best way to ward off an attack is to be obviously ready to strike back. It really is.

We need to shift to a position of cooperative engagement with other powers in the world ... but that shift is best done while we maintain a position of military strength. Just safer that way. Believe me. As bad as the Bushistas are, and they are vomit inducing in their failures as human beings, they are rank amateurs compared to others in power out there.

Trav

[PsN2Wind]

2. You got that right

If we cut the Pentagons budget to a miserly 400 billion or so, Cuba and Venezuela will probably invade and the damn Sandinista will be marching through Harlingen Texas.

Is sarcasm thing necessary?

[davidswanson]

4. my fear is

if our military budget drops below 250 times that of Iran we could be in serious peril

[ProfessorPlum]

20. :) Heh heh

[caraher]

3. It's always a bad time for wasteful spending

We need to eliminate missile defense scams, especially given their proven record in provoking weapons modernization by Russia. Less spending = more security in this instance, and there are others.

Frankly, we have many military capabilities that cannot help but encourage ultimately counterproductive temptations to overuse military force. Isn't the idea of offing purported bad guys by remote control using weapons mounted on UAVs pretty much a stock example of what the bad guys would do in a 50-year-old sci-fi story? When killing costs treasure but little blood, it only encourages profligate killing, this breeding the next generation of terrorists.

How much spending should be enough? Right now we, all by ourselves, spend what the entire rest of the world does. Maybe we could settle for spending 50% more than the next biggest spender?

The security problem is not, and never has been since 1941, the amount of money we spend on the military. The problem right now is, at best, ignorant employment of a war machine funded by an endless parade of blank checks.

[tama]

8. Not to forget

US is bankrupt and insolvent. About to go from small scale hunger to widespread starving.

[The Traveler]

9. I agree with you in so many ways

it would make your head spin.

And eight years ago, I would have been right there with ya and Barney. And in any sane management of the post cold war era we should have been able to reduce our military expenditures by 50-75% and still achieved a staggeringly high level of national security.

But we didn't manage it well, did we? We didn't "Marshall Plan" the Soviet Union, and so now an oligarchy based on the the Russian mob is securely in power. We didn't pursue a foreign policy of coordinated international action, rather we plunged like a drunkard into the intoxicating fantasy of a "benign hegemony" that could through its intervention plant Democracy wherever it wished.

That was idiotic bullshit. And, worse, it has left us exposed ... politically, economically, and militarily.

Spend some bucks now. Take care of the vets. Resupply the Army. Reprovision Naval and Air Forces. You'll save lives that way. This aura of American vulnerability will pass after a couple of years. Right now is just not the time.

Trav

[Joe Chi Minh]

33. Martial artist? You old peacenik hippy, you!

[The Traveler]

42. I prefer to do my fighting with my feet

as they back me right out of the conflict. :evilgrin:

[motocicleta]

6. Say whaa?

What, exactly, do you think these sharks can do to us? You're kidding yourself if you think they can attack our shores, and anything else is a global problem, not a US problem. Our days as global police force are over, and I for one can't be happier.

[The Traveler]

10. See my other response

And think ... Safe. Disengagement.

[Joe Chi Minh]

35. Our wayfaring friend seems to see the US as Little Red Riding Hood in a wicked, wicked, old world.

He shouldn't need to read Chomsky's book, What We Say Goes, but he'll discover there a whole litany of established facts indicating absolutely unambiguously that the US is the Big Bad Wolf, and the US is perceived throughout the world as the greatest threat by far to world peace: the definitive terrorist State.

[fascisthunter]

55. .

[tama]

7. LOL

Nationalist-militarist "liberals". Failures as human beings.

[Indenturedebtor]

14. We spend over 4 times what #2 in military spending does - China

And they spend double what England spends.

I think that we could comfortably drop 25% and still be spending way too much.

[Joe Chi Minh]

36. It's more tha the rest of the world put together.

[pokercat999]

52. We could cut 25% per year for the next four years. We would

still be spending 31.640% of todays total. Still more than necessary for "defense".

[Dystopian]

22. As a liberal, as a peace activist, I say to you

If not now, when?

I'm with Barney. I'm with David. I'm with all who want this nightmare to end. And they're using our money.
I don't have a resume that could begin to compare with David's, but I've got one...And as limited as it is, was enough to strip my life away from me, caused me to go into therapy....as I lost myself in the mire. I don't need to write about my activism here.
I have great respect and admiration for those with the will and strength to keep on keepin' on.
We need to be behind the few and the brave in our government. Integrity is rare in our elected representatives.
I hate having my tax dollars funneled into war, death, misery and suffering that will go on for decades.
Enough!
Amen, and pass the plate.

peace~

[Best_man23]

25. Correct on that

More importantly, you have Putin out there. One thing that McSame was dead on with was his assessment of Putin. President Dumbass looked at Putin and saw his soul. Most of us look at Putin and we see what McCain sees....KGB. Once KGB, ALWAYS KGB. There needs to be a counterbalance to this and our allies will be looking to the United States.

You will probably see funding for some defense systems eliminated (especially those not useful for current and future fights), but I doubt you will see the 25% cut that Frank and some others have called for. Given our current dire financial state, the US is very vulnerable right now and making sure the spears are kept sharp may be a very prudent decision.

[Joe Chi Minh]

38. The KGB was essentially no different from any other national, clandestine security

service. Putin rose to quite high office from humble beginnings, but was never the head or deputy head of the KGB. He graduated in international law, which, however, I don't believe is of any interest AT.ALL to your imperialist authorities, who act quite literally, as a law unto themselves.

There is an ambiguity about the patrician credentials of Bush, senior, but primarily the senior ranks of the CIA are the Praetorian Guard of the Establishment, presided over by members of that same elite class of patricians, whose interests they guard. Would you say, CIA, ALWAYS CIA? What does that mean?

The influence of the British in Argentina seems to have been significant, but it still seems a little odd that that "congruence" should even have extended to the designation of their navy as the senior service: the navy's senior officer class being, seemingly, the preserve of the social elite. Unfortunately, the connection extended to their clandestine security elite, judging from the fact of the Naval College having provided premises for the junta's torture chambers.

Bitter political experience suggests to me, that, whatever their faults, most of the "old money" patricians are a million times better than most of the "beggars on horseback", who took over with Thatcher and her successors. Brown may not turn out in the end to be so bad, since he is not rewarding the money-market thieves, in quite the blatantly extravagant way your Congress has with its bail-out. Or rather, its Super Bonus.

[Tigress DEM]

5. It's the military's turn to have bake sales & car washes to make ends meet.

Inner city schools have been doing it for years.

[sharesunited]

11. How do the Italians manage to stay so safe with the ME and Muslim North Africa so close by?

I was amazed to experience the sleepy airport security there.

And the large Islamic immigrant population.

Is it a disaster waiting to happen, or are they just a thousand times more well adjusted than we are?

[cherokeeprogressive]

13. Could it be the huge American military presence there?

[sharesunited]

16. I have heard we are there, but I never saw any sign of it. *Why* are we there??

Great place to do some cost cutting!

[bdab1973]

43. NATO

The US is essentially over 50% of the NATO European force. We have agreements in place to provide for the defense of NATO via European-based units. These agreements go back over 50 years. Europe can afford to cut costs because we'll do the defending for them.

[sharesunited]

50. I can't get that to explain why security is so lax and the Islamic "threat" doesn't bother them.

I admire how they are focused on living and enjoying their lives without hysteria or an itch for pacification through conquest.

It's almost as though the whole experience of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire was totally mellowing for them.

[Moochy]

31. I hear they can see Palestine from their front door

[Lydia Leftcoast]

39. No, it's that the Europeans realize a truth that our military-industrial complex wants hidden

Terrorists are not an army or a nation, so conventional armies are not the best way to fight them.

What terrorists actually are is small, loosely affiliated criminal gangs, more like the Mafia than like the Red Army. They purposely keep their groups small and don't let any individual know too much. We think of terrorists as Muslims, but even within my lifetime, there have been terrorists of every ideological stripe.

The Europeans approach terrorism as a POLICE problem, not a military problem. They use their police and their equivalents of the FBI to trace and/or infiltrate terrorist cells.

Fighting "terrorism" (which is a tactic, not an ideology or a country) with U.S. military might makes as much sense as invading New Jersey militarily to wipe out the Mafia.

[leftchick]

45. What an excellent post Lydia!

Yet Again!

:)

[Cobalt-60]

12. I was thinking about more like 50%, starting with Brass Luxuries.

We need to be out of the foreign adventure business, immediately.
Every weapon system has its merits and utility, but there is one thing that can be cut instantly from the pentagon budget; Luxury Items.
They just laid down 50 grand for an oil painting of Rumsfeld at the Pentagon.
This is unacceptable on a number of levels.
One is delusions of grandeur.
If they wanted his ugly ass up there, they could have had a image magnified at Kenkos for a tiny fraction of the cost. It won't seem like such a waste when its pulled down.
(Perhaps the canvas can be painted over with an image of Smedley Butler).
They've got a "Luxury Module" to ensure that the Top Brass never leave a bubble of well, luxury.
Speaking to the officer corps as their employer I suggest that any of the officers corps too feeble or soft to ride with the men needs to retire. Today. (Instant Savings).
I believe every one of these mobile apartments costs about 30 million. We can save the full amount by not buying them.
While the elimination of Luxury items from the budget is necessary from both symbolic and economic reasons is important, it's peanuts next to shutting off the war.

[bdab1973]

44. Luxury items need to go, sure...BUT

They actually make up a small portion of the budget, believe it or not. You say that members of the "officer corps" needs to learn how to ride "with the men" instead of in luxury modules...consider this...

The crew of that airplane is made up of members of the..."officer corps". And my seat isn't very comfortable. Instead of tagging the whole "officer corps", how about specify Flag and General Officers. Most of the other officers travel like normal people...either via Mil Air or via commercial airline.

[cherokeeprogressive]

15. Not hard to cut military spending without sacrificing readiness to fight should the need arise...

Close ALL military bases OUTCONUS. The US military doesn't need to be forward based. It's got the experience to send ships, planes, troops, and materiel across oceans in the event of an event or occurence that demands their presence in an effort to protect US security.

Not many people are aware of the fact that we LEASE the land our bases are on in foreign countries. Most of those countries no longer need the umbrella of protection we provided them during the Cold War.

Bring ALL troops home, and morph military service into a combined national service with military training blended in.

300,000 military personnel making WAY more than minimum wage living in this country suddenly would be a HUGE shot in the arm for the economy. They'd all need housing, appliances, automobiles, and all the ancillary things that go along with every day life in the United States.

It's not a stretch to think that the military could maintain its worldwide readiness by training right here. Think of the money that would be saved by not having supply lines stretching around the world just to make sure Americans posted abroad could have Marlboro cigs. That's just an example. How many other things made here do we ship around the world to support the troops?

[bdab1973]

46. Some things to think about

MOST of the OCONUS military bases are in Europe, Japan or Korea. All three support dated military pacts that go back decades. Right now, European countries spend very little on defense, knowing that the USAF and US Army have enough firepower located in the various western European bases to defend them. It's sort of defense welfare for Europe. Japan is in the same boat...they don't have to spend a ton because the US assets in Japan nearly equal Japan's entire military capability...why spend the money if the US can provide you with 50% of your defense needs for free?

On the flip side, military spending has increased because of two things (not really because of nukes and the ABM program):

1. O&M for the ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's expensive to maintain forces in a forward deployed combat location, enough said.

2. Rebuilding the force. THIS, folks, is something I am FOR. After many years of a high operations tempo (even before Bush, Clinton had the US military forward deployed to many locations as well), the trucks, tanks and airplanes are wearing out. What's worse, to fund the various operations the military has engaged in since 1990 (Iraq I, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, 12 years of Iraq containment, Afghanistan, Iraq II, and several other smaller ops), military procurement has taken a hit. Programs designed to replace decades-old equipment were slow-rolled, pushed back, or cancelled outright. Take what I do for a living, for example:

I fly C-130s. The aircraft I fly are C-130E and C-130H models. All of the C-130Es were made from 1961-1964. My father was 11 when some of them were rolling off the assembly line. The C-130Hs I flew were made in 1973-1974. There are a handful of new-build C-130Hs that were made in the 1980s and 1990s, but nearly all of them are in the National Guard or Reserves (pork barrel politics at its best). Lockheed developed the C-130J in 1997, and due to pork-barrel projects, the first few dozen were sold to the ANG and the AF Reserves.

Finally several years ago, someone in Congress realized that 80% of the active-duty C-130 fleet was 40 years old or older, and many had flight restrictions on them for wing cracks...one restriction was so severe that the airplanes that were affected (about 40% of the ones in my last squadron) were prohibited from carrying any kind of a meaningful cargo load and thus only could be used for training flights. Most of the C-130Es still in service have wing cracks, and the fix is to replace the structural loading part of the wing, called a wing box. The problem is such a fix requires nearly rebuilding the whole airplane, and it would cost almost as much as buying a new airplane, except instead of a new airplane, you got an airplane with 50 year old technology in it, but with a new wing.

So instead, finally Congress and the DoD decided to start retiring the C-130E and replace them with the new C-130J. The newer C-130Hs would undergo a rebuild program that would upgrade their flight deck technology and add more efficient propellers and other small changes, and would become the C-130M. Most C-130H airframes still had plenty of service life in them, and only a few would need to have a new wing. Nearly all the C-130Es would need new wings, so the DoD decided it wasn't worth the money to upgrade them...it would be cheaper in the long run to buy new airplanes.

Despite these upgrades and new airplane buys, the entire DoD C-130 fleet (active, ANG and Reserve) would be reduced from about 500 aircraft to just over 350 total. Squadrons would go from operating 12 aircraft to 8, and so on.

Now the rumor out there that we're hearing through the grapevine is if the DoD budget is cut, the new C-130s and the upgrades to the other C-130s would be cancelled. Crews would be expected to continue flying airplanes that belong in museums for another 10 years or more, while the service's capability declines with more aircraft falling under operational restrictions.

The sad thing is, most of my friends and family think that because I fly for the military, I must have access to all the "cool toys" and the latest in technology. When I tell them the airplane I fly has round instruments found in many 1950s aircraft, and some of the radios we have are tuned by turning a crank (we call those radios the "coffee grinders"), they just can't believe we fly around in airplanes that are that old and that obsolete. Hell, airliners fly around with nice color radar displays showing weather feed from both the onboard weather radar and satellite-fed NEXRad feed...yet our radar is monochrome, and the display is one of those old radar screens with the sweep line that spins around and is located at the navigator station, well behind the pilots.

I tell them the only "digital" thing in my airplane is the Self Contained Navigation System, which is similar to the modern digital Flight Management Systems found in airliners and business jets...except our system is very user unfriendly and simply adding a waypoint requires several inputs versus the very simple, intuitive systems on civilian aircraft. Civilian aircraft are routinely flying GPS approaches, but we can't because we don't have the technology. It's sad, folks.

Be careful about cutting all those "toys" as some people like to call it. From someone who actually works with said "toys"....our "toys" are worn out, and should have been retired (seriously) about 10-20 years ago. The airplane I fly isn't much more complicated or modern than a B-17 bomber.

[hay rick]

48. Dated (and undated) military pacts.

Next up: our pact with Iraq. Like all the others, we should ask the question: does it further our security needs? If DOD's mission is viewed as self-defense- the answer will almost certainly be no. If we take a more expansive view of security- insuring stability in a region that is crucial to our current economic welfare, then the devil will be in the details. That we have put ourselves in this position is a disgrace. We have done nothing constructive since the oil shocks of the 70's and are now failing on merit as a consequence.

Our federal budget financial situation is likely to deteriorate before it gets better. Tax receipts will decline BEFORE the promised tax cuts are implemented. Our cost of borrowing will increase. Any budget that does not include cuts in military spending is deeply unserious. Time for some serious threat reassessment- or we can just cut social security, medicare and medicaid and default on our debts...

The OP points out the elephant in the defense budget room: USA (pop 300m) military expenditure equal to or greater than everybody else combined (pop 6 billion). Unstated in even this formulation is the fact that a significant portion of the spending by "everybody else" is by our allies.

I appreciate your informative description of our obsolescent C-130 fleet. I have a nephew-in-law who flies them. I'll try to remember to ask him about the instrumentation packages next time I see him.

[eowyn_of_rohan]

56. Thanks for this information

I had heard that many of the planes being flown were from the Viet Nam War, but all the rest is new here. Take care!

[The Wizard]

17. Our national resources

have been squandered on military spending since the Department of War was changed to the Department of Defense. By being on a permanent war footing our tax dollars get inordinately spent on the military.
Imagined threats have drained our treasury and we are bankrupt.
The only thing that keeps us going is loans from China, and they're so heavily invested they can't afford to let us go under. We buy the majority of what they make and keep their economy going.
Every foreign military base needs to be closed. Our resources would be better used on intelligence.
If a foreign army invades we be safer with our army here rather than off on some foreign military adventure against some imagined threat.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

[Sherman A1]

18. Agreed

It has to start and the sooner the better. We spend as much as the rest of the world combined on the military. I agree with the post calling for a 50% reduction in spending (we might disagree on how to get there, but we agree on the amount). A combined national service would be a good idea with benefits including college costs or vocational training tuition (not everyone needs a degree). We need a giant CCC program to rebuild our infrastructure and head us toward energy independence, I think taking this from the Military budget is just a good way to get us the National Security that they are allegedly designed to provide.

It was after all Ike that warned us of the Military Industrial Complex.

[HamdenRice]

19. Excellent argument! But to get in line with other countries, the cuts must be more like 80%

As every president up through Eisenhower knew and stated, there is no justification for a standing, peacetime army. Once the wars are ended, we could more than defend the country on about $100 billion.

I've seen retired generals lecture about how the proper sized defense budget during peacetime should be around $30 billion.

[leftchick]

26. here is a graph I never saw before

look at the huge drop in spending after WWII! No wonder they are making the WoT a forever war.

[HamdenRice]

30. Great chart -- think of the vast waste it involves

You could draw a straight line from the $120 billion level at 1949 to the right and everything above that line would be pointless waste.

The chart moreover is in constant dollars and suggests a peacetime defense budget of $120 billion.

[ProfessorPlum]

21. Absolutely agree. But see, this is where the shit is going to hit the fan

because the companies that get DOD contracts are really the ones who run this country/empire. They are the ones who buy and sell the Congressmen and women (all of the GOP, plus about half of the Democrats) who somehow never seem to do the right thing, like impeach. They even run most of the government now, to the point where the functions of our federal government themselves have been mostly outsourced to these companies. And they have been living large recently. To the point of having the mechanisms of the federal government aimed at funneling taxpayers money directly into their greedy, bottomless mouths. All the "waste" and "impossible accounting practices" at the Pentagon are aimed at theft, pure and simple.

When we start pulling money out of the empire to try to start spending it on ourselves, the real battle will begin. I'm fascinated by the thought that we could someday win that battle, but not hopeful right now. Our public is too uneducated, too ignorant of the giant con that has been played on them, too blind to the straight jacket we've allowed to be fastened around ourselves. All the military-industrial complex has to do is allow a 'terrorist event' and a few assassinations, cry 'war on terra' a few times, and it will be back to business as usual. Plus, who do we have in Congress, including Barney Frank, who would actually be courageous enough to stand up to the empire? There is a reason why the Democratic party has been as limp as a wet noodle about all of the fraud, theft, murder, and surveillance - they are in on it, they can't stand up to the empire.

But I'm with you in wanting to see it reined in to a reasonable level - who wouldn't be? Good luck and Zeusspeed you, and all of us, in supporting Frank for breaking this taboo and beginning the delicate dance we will have to do with our actual owners in order to get any money back from them.

[leftchick]

23. The Trillion Dollar Tag Sale: How the Pentagon Could Help Bail Out America

I just read this yesterday. I am so very glad to see Barney address it. Thank you David.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/18240

By Nick Turse

Wars, bases, and money. The three are inextricably tied together.

In the 1980s, for example, American support for jihadis like Osama bin Laden waging war on (Soviet) infidels who invaded and constructed bases in Afghanistan, a Muslim land, led to rage by many of the same jihadis at the bases (U.S.) infidels built in the Muslim holy land of Saudi Arabia in the 1990s. That, in turn, led to jihadis like bin Laden declaring war on those infidels, which, after September 11, 2001, led the Bush administration to launch, and then prosecute, a Global War on Terror, often from newly built bases in Muslim lands. Over the last seven years, the results of that war have been particularly disastrous for Iraqis and Afghans. Sizable numbers of Americans, however, are now beginning to suffer as well. After all, their hard-earned taxpayer dollars have been poured into wars without end, leaving the country deeply in debt and in a state of economic turmoil.

In his 1988 State of the Union message, President Ronald Reagan called the jihadis in Afghanistan "freedom fighters." They were, of course, fighting the Soviet Union then. He, too, pledged eternal enmity against the Soviet Union, which he termed an "evil empire." For years, conservatives have claimed that Reagan not only won his Afghan War, but by launching an all-out arms race, which the economically weaker Soviet Union couldn't match, bankrupted the Soviets and so brought their empire down.

While that version of history may be disputed, today, it is entirely possible that one of Reagan's freedom fighters, Osama bin Laden, actually returned the favor by perfecting the art of financially felling a superpower. While Reagan ran up a superpower-sized tab to outspend the Soviets, bin Laden has done it on the cheap. Essentially for the cost of box cutters and flight training, he got the Bush administration to spend itself into penury, without a superpower in sight.

Since bin Laden's supreme act of economic judo in 2001, the U.S. military has spent multi-billions of tax dollars on a string of bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, failed wars in both countries, and a failed effort to make good on George W. Bush's promise to bring in bin Laden "dead or alive." Despite this record, the Pentagon still has a success option in its back pocket that might help bail out the American people in this perilous economic moment. It could immediately begin to auction off its overseas empire posthaste. To head down this road, however, U.S. military leaders would first have to take a brutally honest look at the real costs, and the real utility, of their massively expensive weapons systems and, above all, those bases.

[StreetKnowledge]

37. Agreed, and also

Let's look realistically at assets the US has that they don't need.

At AMARG in Arizona lies over 4000 aircraft not in use, including more than 600 F-4 Phantoms. Now the Phantoms wouldn't find any buyers, but if the US put a "For Sale" sign on the F-15, F-16, A-10, B-1 and B-52 aircraft and told NATO and other real close allies to make an offer, people probably would.

Canada is talking about needing better patrol capabilities for the Arctic where the Russians are being a pain in the neck. Britain also has talked about a bomber capacity again. The 24 B-1s at AMARG would get snapped up real fast if the price was right by Britain and Canada. Israel would take the F-15s and probably the A-10s.

Also, the French have had no end of problems with their carrier Charles de Gaulle and have talked about a second. Three carriers are lying doing nothing at Bremerton in Washington State. They'd take one, I'm sure. And a bunch of cruisers, destroyers and frigates could easily be sold off since they aren't doing anything.

[Poseidan]

24. I don't understand why defense costs so much

Is someone going to invade the United States, with our nuclear stockpile? We could destroy their whole army with like 3 nukes. What other threat is there? Something small-scale like a terrorist bombing? How could it cost so much to stop small-scale incidents or small-scale operations? How about the threat of new technology? Is someone going to invent a nuke shield troops can carry around with them? Besides, people themselves have guns.

How much do other nation's spend on defense? And why, with their far smaller budgets, are they not being attacked?

[shadowknows69]

27. If we actually pumped the money into defensive systems

instead of the next generation of nuke or going forward with a defective ABM system, there wouldn't be anyone in the world who could get to us. But thanks to Bushco allowing our air defenses to be proven useless (9/11) we have Russia putting strategic bombers in south america. Where's JFK when you need him? Oh yeah, you fuckers murdered him.

[Thothmes]

54. He bumped our involvement in Vietnam from 300

in 1960 to 16,000 in Dec 1963

[defendandprotect]

41. In order to keep a corrupt system going, it takes a lot of money . . .

[pberq]

28. Yes - only let's up that to at least 50%

As others have said, the military budget is way, way overblown.

[Hubert Flottz]

29. Frank saw what happened to the USSR.

And now it's us in an unending and perhaps an unwinnable war in Afghanistan just like the USSR was engaged in before it collapsed and now it's our country's infrastructure that is crumbling at the seams, under the weight of our own bloated military spending.

The weapons dealers are doing better than anyone else in the world though and they finance political campaigns with their crumbs.

Congressman Frank should probably have waited until after the election to raise this issue, but this issue must be taken on and taken on soon.

[ThePowerofWill]

32. If you could cut out much of the corruption you could cut 25% and get more than what you have now.

Sad thing with our military spending is we don't get good value for each dollar spent. We could get more for less if we were very careful how and where the money was spent. It's a good reason to end the war to, we just can't afford it.

[StreetKnowledge]

34. I am Pro-military myself

But there is simply no need to spend as much as the US does right now. $653 Billion? Half that would easily maintain what we have, and we don't need new nuclear warheads or missile defenses. What we do need is better facilities for our servicemen, well maintained Navy, Air Force and Army assets and research that benefits in ways that we'll actually use.

DARPA would be wise to figure out how to propose stuff that isn't insane. As for bases worldwide, some we do need, others not so much so.

[defendandprotect]

40. Let's stop making bombs which we end up using . . . make electric cars --- !!!

[Joey Liberal]

47. Not the time to cut defense spending

Nobody is more liberal than I am. But it is a BIG mistake to cut defense spending at this time. The better approach is to more wisely spend our defense dollars. We need more trigger pullers in the Army and Marines and less generals and colonels. We need to stop blowing money on needless uniform changes (Army) and increase spending on war fighting skills at the squad, platoon and company level.

We cannot give up our technical advantages in tactical equipment for Soldiers and Marines.

We need to emphasize and enhance Delta, Special Forces, Ranger, Airborne and Air Assault Infantry capabilities in the Army. The Marines are elite (as are the SEALS), we just need more of them.

The military has a deep distrust of Democrats, and Rep. Frank's comments only added fuel to that fire. And I say this with the greatest respect for Barney Frank.

[davidswanson]

51. if the military trusted me i'd resign immediately

but if you can find any dollars used for DEFENSE, then for godsake preserve them

who the hell said anything about cuts in DEFENSE????

[Joey Liberal]

53. It must be Happy Hour

who the hell said anything about cuts in DEFENSE????
----------
Barney Frank did. Now have another drink.

[bertman]

49. I'm a veteran and I approve of what this thread suggests.

Cut the shit out of the military budget. End the contract mercenaries' welfare checks. Use the money to fund our New Green Deal. Put millions of Americans to work doing good things for America and the world. Stimulate the economy. Create a housing boom. Subsidize health care for all. Get our economy back on track.

Barney, I almost forgive you for your Financial Elites Failure Reward package. Notice that I said almost.