Slashing the financial security of American citizens would be more persuasive if the country didn't continue its posture of Endless War

glenn...

As we endlessly hear about a massive debt crisis, the current President has started one optional war that has already exceeded its estimated costs, plans to continue (if not escalate) two more, is drone-attacking a new country on a seemingly weekly basis, expands sprawling covert military actions in still other countries, builds new overseas detention facilities, all while offering only the most modest, symbolic and illusory "cuts" in military spending. The alleged need to slash the financial security of American citizens -- and the notion that America faces a severe debt crisis -- would be more persuasive if the country didn't continue its posture of Endless War and feeding the insatiable, bloated National Security State (to say nothing of the equally insatible and wasteful Drug War and its evil spawn, the increasingly privatized American Prison State, which the Obama administration is expanding as aggressively as the War on Terror).

While it's true that reducing American military spending to a level in line with the rest of the world would not erase American debt levels, it would be a meaningful contributor. More important, it would indicate that American elites are willing to do more than blithely impose pain on, and demand sacrifice from, ordinary Americans, already suffering economically in so many ways and victimized by third-world levels of rapidly growing wealth inequality. That America's war-making industry is largely shielded from this "austerity" reveals how pretextual are these claims of crisis.

take a look at this chart that details u.s. discretionary spending for fy 2011...



so, not only is defense spending a sacred cow - the elderly and disadvantaged be damned - it's also going to further line the pockets of our already super-rich elites and their bought-and-paid-for toadies...

The Pentagon is not just incompetent. It is corrupt. In November 2009 the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), the federal watchdog responsible for auditing oversight of military contractors, raised the question of criminal wrongdoing when it found that the audits that did occur were riddled with serious breaches of auditor independence. One Pentagon auditor admitted he did not perform detailed tests because, “The contractor would not appreciate it.”

Why would the Pentagon allow its contractors to get away with fraud? To answer that question we need to understand the incestuous relationship between the Pentagon and its contractors that has been going on for years, and is getting worse. From 2004 to 2008, 80 percent of retiring three and four star officers went to work as consultants or defense industry executives. Thirty-four out of 39 three- and four-star generals and admirals who retired in 2007 are now working in defense industry roles — nearly 90 percent.

so, tell me, how is it that defense spending still remains virtually untouchable...?

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