Hope and Change Fade, but War Endures—Seven Reasons Why We Can’t Stop Making War

— by William J. Astore

If one quality characterizes our wars today, it’s their endurance.  They never seem to end.  Though war itself may not be an American inevitability, these days many factors combine to make constant war an American near certainty.  Put metaphorically, our nation’s pursuit of war taps so many wellsprings of our behavior that a concerted effort to cap it would dwarf BP’s efforts in the Gulf of Mexico.

Our political leaders, the media, and the military interpret enduring war as a measure of our national fitness, our global power, our grit in the face of eternal danger, and our seriousness.  A desire to de-escalate and withdraw, on the other hand, is invariably seen as cut-and-run appeasement and discounted as weakness.  Withdrawal options are, in a pet phrase of Washington elites, invariably “off the table” when global policy is at stake, as was true during the Obama administration’s full-scale reconsideration of the Afghan war in the fall of 2009.  Viewed in this light, the president’s ultimate decision to surge in Afghanistan was not only predictable, but the only course considered suitable for an American war leader.  Rather than the tough choice, it was the path of least resistance.

Why do our elites so readily and regularly give war, not peace, a chance?  What exactly are the wellsprings of Washington’s (and America’s) behavior when it comes to war and preparations for more of the same?

Consider these seven:

1. We wage war because we think we’re good at it — and because, at a gut level, we’ve come to believe that American wars can bring good to others (hence our feel-good names for them, like Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom). Most Americans are not only convinced we have the best troops, the best training, and the most advanced weapons, but also the purest motives.  Unlike the bad guys and the barbarians out there in the global marketplace of death, our warriors and warfighters are seen as gift-givers and freedom-bringers, not as death-dealers and resource-exploiters.  Our illusions about the military we “support” serve as catalyst for, and apology for, the persistent war-making we condone.
2. We wage war because we’ve already devoted so many of our resources to it.  It’s what we’re most prepared to do.  More than half of discretionary federal spending goes to fund our military and its war making or war preparations.  The military-industrial complex is a well-oiled, extremely profitable machine and the armed forces, our favorite child, the one we’ve lavished the most resources and praise upon.  It’s natural to give your favorite child free rein.
3. We’ve managed to isolate war’s physical and emotional costs, leaving them on the shoulders of a tiny minority of Americans.  By eliminating the draft and relying ever more on for-profit private military contractors, we’ve made war a distant abstraction for most Americans, who can choose to consume it as spectacle or simply tune it out as so much background noise.
4. While war and its costs have, to date, been kept at arm’s length, American society has been militarizing fast.  Our media outlets, intelligence agencies, politicians, foreign policy establishment, and “homeland security” bureaucracy are so intertwined with military priorities and agendas as to be inseparable from them.  In militarized America, griping about soft-hearted tactics or the outspokenness of a certain general may be tolerated, but forceful criticism of our military or our wars is still treated as deviant and “un-American.”
5. Our profligate, high-tech approach to war, including those Predator and Reaper drones armed with Hellfire missiles, has served to limit American casualties — and so has limited the anger over, and harsh questioning of, our wars that might go with them.  While the U.S. has had more than 1,000 troops killed in Afghanistan, over a similar period in Vietnam we lost more than 58,000 troops.  Improved medical evacuation and trauma care, greater reliance on standoff precision weaponry and similar “force multipliers,” stronger emphasis on “force protection” within American military units: all these and more have helped tamp down concern about the immeasurable and soaring costs of our wars.
6. As we incessantly develop those force-multiplying weapons to give us our “edge” (though never an edge that leads to victory), it’s hardly surprising that the U.S. has come to dominate, if not quite monopolize, the global arms trade.  In these years, as American jobs were outsourced or simply disappeared in the Great Recession, armaments have been one of our few growth industries.  Endless war has proven endlessly profitable — not perhaps for all of us, but certainly for those in the business of war.
7. And don’t forget the seductive power of beyond-worse-case, doomsday scenarios, of the prophecies of pundits and so-called experts, who regularly tell us that, bad as our wars may be, doing anything to end them would be far worse.  A typical scenario goes like this: If we withdraw from Afghanistan, the government of Hamid Karzai will collapse, the Taliban will surge to victory, al-Qaeda will pour into Afghan safe havens, and Pakistan will be further destabilized, its atomic bombs falling into the hands of terrorists out to destroy Peoria and Orlando.

Such fevered nightmares, impossible to disprove, may be conjured at any moment to scare critics into silence.  They are a convenient bogeyman, leaving us cowering as we send our superman military out to save us (and the world as well), while preserving our right to visit the mall and travel to Disney World without being nuked.

The truth is that no one really knows what would happen if the U.S. disengaged from Afghanistan.  But we do know what’s happening now, with us fully engaged: we’re pursuing a war that’s costing us nearly $7 billion a month that we’re not winning (and that’s arguably unwinnable), a war that may be increasing the chances of another 9/11, rather than decreasing them.

Capping the Wellsprings of War

Each one of these seven wellsprings feeding our enduring wars must be capped.  So here are seven suggestions for the sort of “caps” — hopefully more effective than BP’s flailing improvisations — we need to install:

1. Let’s reject the idea that war is either admirable or good — and in the process, remind ourselves that others often see us as “the foreign fighters” and profligate war consumers who kill innocents (despite our efforts to apply deadly force in surgically precise ways reflecting “courageous restraint”).
2. Let’s cut defense spending now, and reduce the global “mission” that goes with it.  Set a reasonable goal — a 6-8% reduction annually for the next 10 years, until levels of defense spending are at least back to where they were before 9/11 — and then stick to it.
3. Let’s stop privatizing war.  Creating ever more profitable incentives for war was always a ludicrous idea.  It’s time to make war a non-profit, last-resort activity.  And let’s revive national service (including elective military service) for all young adults.  What we need is a revived civilian conservation corps, not a new civilian “expeditionary” force.
4. Let’s reverse the militarization of so many dimensions of our society.  To cite one example, it’s time to empower truly independent (non-embedded) journalists to cover our wars, and stop relying on retired generals and admirals who led our previous wars to be our media guides.  Men who are beholden to their former service branch or the current defense contractor who employs them can hardly be trusted to be critical and unbiased guides to future conflicts.
5. Let’s recognize that expensive high-tech weapons systems are not war-winners.  They’ve kept us in the game without yielding decisive results — unless you measure “results” in terms of cost overruns and burgeoning federal budget deficits.
6. Let’s retool our economy and reinvest our money, moving it out of the military-industrial complex and into strengthening our anemic system of mass transit, our crumbling infrastructure, and alternative energy technology.  We need high-speed rail, safer roads and bridges, and more wind turbines, not more overpriced jet fighters.
7. Finally, let’s banish nightmare scenarios from our minds.  The world is scary enough without forever imagining smoking guns morphing into mushroom clouds.

There you have it: my seven “caps” to contain our gushing support for permanent war.  No one said it would be easy.  Just ask BP how easy it is to cap one out-of-control gusher.

Nonetheless, if we as a society aren’t willing to work hard for actual change — indeed, to demand it — we’ll be on that military escalatory curve until we implode.  And that way madness lies.

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William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and TomDispatch regular.  He has taught at the Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School and currently teaches History at the Pennsylvania College of Technology.  He may be reached at wjastore@gmail.com.

Copyright ©2010 William J. Astore

Fixing the Budget by $6.2T over 10 years

— by Connect the Dots USA on Facebook

Instead of attacking struggling seniors, veterans, children and the working poor by slowing the inflation growth rate of an average $1,200/month Social Security check, shifting more healthcare costs to 65 and 66-year-olds and their employers, or slashing food stamps and Medicaid that are lifelines for working poor families, how about we try these 10 budget fixes first? By contrast, these policies primarily or exclusively affect the wealthy, while achieving lots more revenue/savings.

As President Obama has previously criticized the mean, brutish Republican cuts: “There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill.”

Or to borrow from Bill Maher, the GOP budget plan goes after children, the poor, the jobless, the old and the sick. This is picking on the weakest kid on the playground and getting called courageous. Courage would have been going after the rich and the defense department.

The Republican fixation with cutting Social Security benefits or raising the eligibility age for Medicare fail to achieve much savings and have absolutely nothing to do with the “fiscal cliff.” (Social Security doesn’t even have anything to do with the deficit/debt generally). They are, as Nancy Pelosi described them, simply “trophies” that the GOP want to claim in their ceaseless war on FDR’s New Deal and President Johnson’s Great Society.

Related Resources:

• 8 Tips on How We Could Cut the Deficit, Since Slashing Social Security Benefits Won’t Help
  
• Budgets and Deficits and Debts, Oh My!

Sen. Bernie Sanders: Defending Working Families

Crunch time is coming in terms of the fiscal cliff and deficit reduction.  At a time when the wealthiest people are doing phenomenally well, while the middle class is disappearing, we must not balance the budget on the backs of the most vulnerable people in this country.  Elections have consequences.  The American people have spoken. Please ask your friends, family and co-workers to contact the White House and their members of Congress:  No cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other programs important to working families.  It is time for some austerity for the wealthy and large corporations. Below, I have included an op-ed I recently wrote for Politico which deals with this issue.  Thanks for your efforts in fighting to protect the middle class. Sincerely, Senator Bernie Sanders

We must not balance the budget on poor, elderly By Senator Bernie Sanders November 18, 2012 The Democrats won a major victory on Election Day. Despite dozens of billionaires spending huge amounts of money to defeat President Barack Obama, he won a crushing victory in the Electoral College and received 3 million more votes than former Gov. Mitt Romney did nationally. Democrats won 25 of 33 seats contested in the Senate and, to everyone’s surprise, expanded their majority there by two. They also gained seats in the House. Now, with this victory behind them, the president and congressional Democrats must make it very clear that they will stand with the middle class and working families of our country. These are the people who, because of the Wall Street-caused recession, have seen a significant decline in their family income. These are the people who worry about whether they can afford health care and whether their kids will be able to attend college. The Democrats in the House and Senate must stand with these people — not the millionaires and billionaires who are doing just fine. Most important, in the coming weeks and months, the Democrats must demand that deficit reduction is done in a way that is fair — and not on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor. At a time when real unemployment remains close to 15 percent, we must also focus on creating the millions of jobs that our people need. In America today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth. Incredibly, the top 1 percent owns 42 percent of the nation’s wealth while the bottom 60 percent owns just 2.3 percent. In the last study done on income distribution, we learned that 93 percent of all new income generated between 2009 and 2010 went to the top 1 percent while the bottom 99 percent split the remaining 7 percent. This extraordinary unfairness is not only morally reprehensible, it is bad economics. It will be very difficult to create the jobs that our people need when so many Americans have little or no money to spend. Congress must pass legislation to create a major jobs program to put millions of people back to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. Throughout our country, we need a massive effort to improve our roads, bridges, water and wastewater systems, airports, rail, broadband and cellphone service. Rebuilding our infrastructure makes us more productive and internationally competitive — and creates millions of new jobs. In terms of deficit reduction, let us not forget that in 2001, when Bill Clinton left office, this country had a $236 billion surplus. As a result of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were unpaid for, huge tax breaks for the rich, a Medicare prescription drug program put on the credit card and a significant decline in federal revenues because of the recession, we now have a $1 trillion deficit and a $16 trillion national debt. Congress must address the deficit situation and the fiscal cliff, but we must do it in a way that is fair. At a time when the wealthiest people in this country are doing extremely well and their effective tax rates are low (think Romney), the people on top must pay their fair share of taxes to help us deal with the deficit. We must also end the outrageous loopholes that allow one out of four large profitable corporations to pay nothing in federal corporate income taxes. Further, it is absurd that current tax policy allows the wealthy and large corporations to avoid paying over $100 billion a year in federal taxes because they stash their money in tax havens in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere. We must also take a hard look at wasteful spending in the Defense Department, where we now spend almost as much money as the rest of the world combined. Significant savings can be found at other federal agencies, too. What we must not do, however, is move toward a balanced budget on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor. Sadly, that is the approach that virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are advocating. As the founder of the Defending Social Security Caucus, I look forward to working with other members of Congress, the AFL-CIO, senior and disability groups and the vast majority of people in our country who want to prevent cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education and other programs vitally important to the working families of America. In my view, if the Republicans continue to play an obstructionist role, the president should get out of the Oval Office and travel the country. If he does that, I believe that he will find that there is no state in the country, including those that are very red, where people believe that it makes sense to continue giving huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires while cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. I have a strong feeling that when large numbers of constituents all across this country start calling and emailing their senators and members of Congress about this issue, the American people will win this fight. The good news is that we are already beginning to see some Republicans make thoughtful comments showing they understand that elections have consequences. Bill Kristol, the conservative commentator and Weekly Standard editor, said Sunday that the Republican Party should accept new ideas, including the much criticized suggestion by Democrats that taxes be allowed to go up on the wealthy. “It won’t kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “It really won’t, I don’t think. I don’t really understand why Republicans don’t take Obama’s offer.” Kristol is right. At a time when the gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider, common sense and justice require the people who are doing extremely well financially to help us in a significant way to reduce deficits.

Passing Buffett Rule is Step in Right Direction

— OP-ED by Kate Marshall, NV State Treasurer

State governments have to match their revenues to their expenditures. Here in Nevada, bringing the budget in line required state legislators to make decisions regarding both increases in revenues and decreases in spending, choices that were all the more difficult because Nevada’s economy has been in a deep recession.

The federal government, however, has not had to make these choices. A decade ago, the Bush administration pushed for big tax cuts without making deep cuts in expenditures, even while fighting two wars. These tax cuts turned record budget surpluses into dramatic deficits, which became even larger due to the national recession. These cuts also created a tax structure that was particularly unfair for the middle class.

The Bush tax cuts set a rate of 15 percent for capital gains, so income earned from labor is now taxed at a higher rate for most taxpayers. Add in other tax credits and deductions, plus the fact that most federal payroll taxes are capped once you earn more than $106,800, and it is no surprise that many millionaires and billionaires have a lower tax rate than people who work for a living.

Last week, Senate Republicans blocked a change to this rule, but we can’t give up.

This piece of legislation was meant to even the playing field and have everyone pay their fair share. Simply put: “If you make more than $1 million a year, you should pay at least the same percentage of taxes on your income as middle class families do.” The move to block this legislation was very telling of where the real priorities of the GOP lie.

According to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, about 25 percent of families earning more than a million dollars per year pay federal taxes at a lower rate than some middle-income taxpayers. This is predominantly due to the special treatment of investment income and the reduced impact of payroll taxes on high earners. Closing these loopholes would raise approximately $160 billion under current law.

Warren Buffett supports it, as do many other successful Americans. They know that if people like Buffett keep getting a tax break they don’t really need and that the country can’t afford, it either adds to the deficit or someone else is going to have to pay for it. That someone else is likely the middle class.

If we want to start reducing the deficit, we need to start dealing with the decline in real per-capita federal revenues, and we should do this fairly. As President Obama has said, “This is simple math. The Buffett Rule is one step among many we need to keep investing in prosperity for all Americans without increasing the deficit.”

Congress is going to have to make a lot of difficult decisions in the coming year, decisions like those our state Legislature has made in recent years. They will need to look at both sides of the ledger if they are going to put this country on a financially sustainable path, particularly since we cannot create jobs and grow our economy if we gut our public infrastructure investment. Passing the Buffett Rule to close this tax loophole is a small step, but it’s a small step in the right direction.

Per the Tea Party: “The Ryan Budget is a Good Start”

Version 2 of Representative Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” (in reality, a path to Poverty for many), is due out today.  Believing that the attacks against last year’s Path have failed, they’ve decided to double-down and go after the prize of privatization of Medicare and Social Security in this year’s budget as well. In his op-ed about the impending release of his budget, Rep. Ryan stated

“Like last year, our budget delivers real spending discipline. It does this not through indiscriminate cuts that endanger our military, but by ending the epidemic of crony politics and government overreach that has weakened confidence in the nation’s institutions and its economy. And it strengthens the safety net by returning power to the states, which are in the best position to tailor assistance to their specific populations.  

Our budget’s Medicare reforms make no changes for those in or near retirement. For those who will retire a decade from now, our plan provides guaranteed coverage options financed by a premium-support payment. And this year, our budget adds even more choices for seniors, including a traditional fee-for-service Medicare option.

We also introduce a competitive-bidding process to determine the growth of government’s financial contribution to Medicare. Forcing health plans to compete against each other is the best way to achieve high-quality coverage at the lowest cost, and implementing these reforms in Medicare can have the effect of lowering health-care costs for everyone. This is the key to increasing access and affordability while preventing government debt from threatening the health security of seniors and the economic security of all Americans.”

Ryan’s new version of the “Plan” is purported to include a Ryan-Wyden “bipartisan plan” to strengthen medicare and expand health care choices for all.  That’s pure bull-puckey if you ask me.  They may be wrapping it up in prettier packaging, but it’s still a plan to privatize Medicare by gifting it to the Insurance industry and providing vouchers to seniors that will have ever-declining values.  Now if you ask me … that promotes health care rationing as aging seniors would no longer be able to afford effective health care.

The “Plan”  continues to promote no changes for those in or near retirement. Americans currently over the age of 55 would see no changes to the structure of their benefits, although they would be “free to opt into a private plan” once the new Medicare Exchange was established in 2022.  That’s the point at which Medicare would begin offering seniors a choice among Medicare-approved private plans competing alongside a traditional Medicare plan on a Medicare Exchange.

All of us have paid in throughout our working careers, both poor and rich.  Many of us have planned for retirement based on certain assumptions … well I guess Ryan’s plan is reminding us about that old adage about “ass u me.”  Supposedly, the “Plan” would provide more help for those who “need” it and less help for those who don’t.  Personally, I want to see just exactly how Mr. Ryan proposes to define those who “don’t.”

Ryan’s “Plan” would purportedly repeal or defund the Independent Payment Advisory Board which was created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).  This is the board that is supposed to analyze the effectiveness of health care practices and make recommendations to Congress for improvements in Medicare.  The GOP would have you believe that the IPAB is nothing more than a “death panel.”  They’re wrong, this panel assures you are receiving effective care, not just the cheapest service they can provide.  It’s mandate is to assure that ineffective practices and medications are set aside and more effective treatments are used instead.  By eliminating this board and relying on Insurance companies to dictate what type of treatment or medication they’re willing to fund, seniors will get less effective health care.  Thus, the Ryan Plan promotes insurance company death panel strategies.

We know what the President has proposed.  Ryan’s budget is expected out at 10AM this morning. Like version 1, it’s been reported that it won’t increase any revenues and proposes further tax cuts for individuals as well as corporations, taking the tax code down to two rates: 15% and 25%. But this far, he’s not indicated any income levels associated with those rates.

Ryan claims his new budget is “revenue neutral” as he’s proposing to close a few loopholes, but he has yet to identify which loopholes and who would be affected.  You can expect to see extremely low spending on education, infrastructure, and research.  I certainly hope that seriously deficient bridge you drive across each day to get to your workplace doesn’t decide to fall into the river or some abyss anytime soon, because the GOP doesn’t understand the need for maintenance and replacement.

I look forward to being able to peruse the numbers, specifically military spending which consumes a huge portion of the federal budget.  Purportedly, he’s treated that as a seriously sacred cow and has not cut a single penny.  I want to see if that’s true, or worse, if he’s actually proposing to increase spending for weapons and war as he did in version 1.

Regardless, Ryan’s approach won’t be balancing the budget or closing the deficit anytime soon.