Originally published at: Stop Calling the Military Budget a ‘Defense’ Budget
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One could perhaps describe Afghanistan as a defensive war (although it should have been a short police action to be effective). Vietnam and Iraq were irrefutably wars of aggression.
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The deceitful use of language has been endemic in politics since the outset.
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" While such corroded language can’t be blamed for the existence of sloppy thinking and degraded discourse, it regularly facilitates sloppy thinking and degraded discourse…"
it is an already seriously dumbed down public and you get what we have-people who are duped again and again into supporting these insane military budgets and believing lie after lie and in war after war
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Perhaps, unless we consider that 911 was caused by our meddling in Saudi Arabia and otherwheres, which is the reason Osama BL gave at any rate. If that is the case, then 911 was itself a “defnsive” act on the part of Al Q; not unprovoked.
As Freud noted: For Every Effect there is a Cause. It is to our peril that we cannot understand the degree to which other states resent our world wide footprint.
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And while we’re at it, let’s change its name back to the War Department, as it was pre-1947.
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No politician in America believes the spending is for defense.
If they did they would see apparent theft as treason and congress would launch no-holds barred investigations, find the thieves and drop the Capitol on them.
Instead they all shrug and throw more money in the pit because every single representative and senator knows it is a sham.
It is congress saying “Hey stupid.” every year and laughing amongst themselves when the entire country says “What?”
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I have been complaining about this for years, and especially when I see anti-war people suckered into calling it a “defense” budget or that billions are to be spent for “defense.” Let’s just call it a “military” budget, and spending o the “military,” which is correct and neutral. The word “defense” has no place in a country that spends more on war and support for war than several of the next leading military spenders combined.
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Whether what occurred in Afghanistan can be described as being a “defensive war” [though it should be stressed that Congress has not declared war against another country since December 8, 1941] or a police action should not obscure the fact that the United States was illegally and immorally wrong in invading and bombing another country which never harmed any citizen who was living in the United States. And as expected no American politician or high ranking military official has ever been prosecuted for what the United States did to the Afghan people in the same way that not one American politician or high ranking military officer has ever been prosecuted for the many war crimes and crimes against humanity which the United States had committed against the people of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia some fifty to sixty years ago.
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If it were just political language it would be one thing. And easier for people not to get duped. But the entire US society works the same. I just received a letter from my health insurance company that starts with “we are here to help you” - when by definition this is an organization that is “there to make profits.”
And you can detect myriad of similar examples wherever you turn your attention…and including the educational and religious establishments.
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We need to do an analysis of what goal or goals we want with our military. The budget or budgets need to fit that goal or goals.
Those goals shouldn’t be designed by the military nor military suppliers.
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Let’s call “defense spending” what it really is: corporate welfare on a massive scale. Virtually every Congressional district has some connection to the military-industrial complex (MIC), making it difficult for any representative to be seen cutting jobs or funding in his/her district over and above “patriotic” perceptions of “supporting our troops.”
This “military Keynesianism,” pump-priming with infusions of taxpayer money to stimulate economic growth, is deeply rooted in American society. Despite all of FDR’s New Deal policies (and Keynes was one of his advisors), the only thing that truly lifted the US out of the Great Depression was the massive mobilization for World War Two as the “arsenal of democracy.” By 1948, the US was beginning a slide into recession. The “loss” of China and especially the Korean War came as godsends, prompting the permanent wartime economy we have today as policy directives such as 1950’s NSC 68 (beloved of Chomsky et al.) provided the ideological rationale for the Cold War and continued funding of the MIC.
Do you remember the “peace dividend” promised by the collapse of the Soviet Union? This was an existential threat to the MIC, which flailed throughout the 1990s for enemies such as “narco-terrorists” to justify its continuing influx of corporate welfare until 9/11 came as another godsend, launching the “global war on terror” and, you guessed it, continued funding of the MIC.
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a “police action” is what they called the korean war - they always have a name for them- i don’t believe any of the wars that america has ever fought in were not avoidable - and i include ww2 and the civil war
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It was a “police action” the military police took over the US Government!
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Not true. Congress declared war on Japan on December 8, and three days later it declared war on Germany and Japan. Then, on June 5, 1942, Congress declared war against Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania, the three most significant “minor” members of the Axis powers.
Those last three are more commonly known as three of the “captive nations” the Soviet Union forced into its sphere of influence during the Cold War, but previously they were enthusiastically fascist; look up the blood-curdling war history of the Romanian Iron Guard, for example.
As for Hungary, the rise of fascist Viktor Orban, Hungary’s current prime minister, shouldn’t be seen as anomalous. Nor should Fox’s Tucker Carlson’s recent fawning visit to Hungary, with the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) planning to hold its annual meeting there next year.
“The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.” — William Faulkner
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two things: military spending only produces a fraction number of jobs that would come from government spending on infrastructure; also ww2 was not necessary for america to come out of the depression- it would have happened with increased spending on domestic infrastructure projects- the problem was politicians, including fdr were not used to keyensian economic policies and were frightened by the growing federal deficit- which led to fdr cutting back on public works programs which led to the recession of 1937
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Welcome lastcamp2 to what is in my opinion( and I have been on the net since windows 95) one of the best progressive sites on the net. If you feel the same way, please support Common Dreams financially.
Orwell’s book 1984, that he wrote in 1948 was prescient…to say the least.
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Uncle Sam suffers from severe paranoia coupled with massive narcissistic disorder, and has from colonial days. Afraid of everything and everybody and needing to be The Best, the Most Loved, Why Do They Hate Me. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s book Loaded is a capsule history of the paranoia part of the mental illness, while any standard textbook along with the various national songs detail the narcissism.
Therefore, he must surround himself with weapons and military personnel. He must always refer to Himself as The Best or The Greatest, and, reflecting a facet of his god’s personality, keeps saying, God bless Me.
We are all suffering from this. It’s why we don’t have universal paid health care, or child care, or why we must work without rest. Like all empires though, we will crash. We’re showing signs already with supply chain issues. Stay tuned…
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You’re right, and those are excellent points, wblake, but the best way to get the public to go along with the wholesale transfer of its money to “defense” corporations is to scare the hell out of them with the threat of an external (or internal) enemy.
And, yes, direct defense jobs are relatively small, but that is the primary economy that secondary and tertiary economies support: Build an aircraft factory and you need shops, restaurants, housing, etc., for the workers, and then the supply chains for the shops et al. Those are all jobs too. It’s analogous to closing a steel mill or an auto factory in the Rust Belt: the rest of the town suffers when it closes.
That’s the rationale the MIC uses to support its existence. If it’s not clear, I’m not endorsing it. To me, “national defense” means universal access to food, clothing, shelter, health care, education, etc., to strengthen the most important component of a nation—its people—and, if I understand you correctly, I agree with cutting out the MIC middleman and funding the infrastructure for that directly.
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That is very true, but not new. It goes at least back to the Roman Rmpire times: Oderint Dum Mutant: let them hate; provided they fear.
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