Although the
defense budget tally is for $439 billion, the estimate on war costs for
Iraq and Afghanistan this year alone comes to $120 billion. Since fiscal
year 2003, Americans have been burdened with a monthly average of $6.8
billion for Iraq-Afghanistan conflicts. Worse still, the Congressional
Budget Office (CBO) shows that the war costs are surging — taxpayers
could be paying an average of $10 billion a month this year.
To put the wild
spending by the Bush administration in perspective, the CBO, in January
2001, projected a federal budget surplus greater than $5.6 trillion for
the following ten years. Now, the CBO projects a deficit of $423 billion
— nearly the same amount as the defense budget for this fiscal year.
As their stocks
continuing to surge since 2002, defense contractors — Raytheon Co.,
Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing and Northrop Grumman Corp. — have been
granted lucrative defense projects in the United States from building
missile defense systems to remote-controlled vehicles and aircrafts. In
fact, defense contractors and companies that manufacture products or
provide services for the military usually end up making a killing, even
in times of economic deterioration.
To make any sense
of the defense budget proposal, one must turn to its defense guidelines,
the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). As a regular military planning
policy, QDR is put forth every four years. The Bush Administration has
sent two QDRs to Congress, one released just after the September 11,
2001 attacks, and the other in February 2006, the year of midterm
elections. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wanted to transform the
U.S. military for the 21st century by making the armed forces “lighter, smarter, more lethal.”
The 2001 QDR laid
the foundation for this administration’s defense policy — global
dominance. It declares, “The United States is not abandoning planning
for two conflicts to plan for fewer than two. On the contrary,
Department of Defense (DOD) is changing the concept altogether by
planning for victory across the spectrum of possible conflict.”
The term
“conflict” not only implies combating terrorist networks as in al Qaeda
in Afghanistan, but also extends to fighting nations for economic or
political reasons, as in the invasion of Iraq, the looming war against
Iran, followed by Syria and North Korea next in line; and the list of
targets is growing.
The review
entailed rapid response capabilities on the battlefields, the
establishment of worldwide bases (“rearrangement of bases” where some
closed, others built), the development of new technologies (missile
defense systems and attack drones), including space and cyberspace
programs for information warfare (controlling the media and Internet),
and the horrific display of the U.S. military supremacy (shock and awe)
to suppress or thwart any rivalry.
The 2006 QDR
delivered in February calls for enhancing the ability of U.S. forces to
conduct a “long war” against terrorists worldwide, to improve homeland
security capabilities, and to prepare for conflict with the emerging
rival, China. It describes four main types of threat — “traditional
challenge” as in a competitor against the U.S.; “catastrophic challenge”
as in a hostile nation with possession of WMDs; “irregular challenge”
as in terrorists carrying out acts of terrorism; and “disruptive
threats” as in interference with U.S. economic and political operations
in the world.
More
significantly, the review singles out China as the impending threat to
the U.S. economy and military. It states, “China is likely to continue
making large investments in high-end, asymmetric military
capabilities….These capabilities, the vast distances of the Asian
theater, China’s continental depth, and the challenge of en route and
in-theater U.S. basing place a premium on forces capable of sustained
operations at great distances into denied areas.”
As the 2001 QDR
introduced U.S. imperialism, the 2006 QDR continues its plan for
execution — “to promote constructive bilateral relations, mitigate anti-access threats and to offset potential political coercion designed to limit U.S. access to any region.” Words such as these in a QDR report have nothing to do with international diplomacy but everything to do with the military.
With the world’s
most advanced and imposing military spread across the globe, the Defense
Department not only wants an increase in production of conventional
weapons for its ongoing wars but also in development of nuclear weapon
systems. According to a report by the Government Accountability Office
(GAO), "The United States spends several times more on its military than
any conceivable adversary, and together with its allies accounts for
more than two-thirds of total worldwide defense spending."
Although Congress
and the mainstream media are pretending that the ongoing wars are
limited to fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2007 defense
budget shows otherwise, calling for massive spending on hi-tech fighter
jets, warships, missile defense systems and nuclear weapons for low-tech
confrontations now engaged in these two countries. Imposing tight
restrictions on journalists and outsiders, the Pentagon is using the
occupied territories as a testing ground for its new hi-tech weapon
systems, in preparation for a more formidable opponent with advanced
weapon systems and nuclear weapon capabilities.
The increased
funding for military Special Forces has drawn quite a bit of attention.
What is not transparent is that the Army has a budget for only 482,400
active-duty soldiers and anything beyond that limit is being paid for
with emergency funds. The Army actually has 492,000 troops at present
and plans to increase to 512,000 in a few years. It’s now clear that
Bush has no plans for troop withdrawals in the coming years.
As Rumsfeld
demands increased funding for robot-controlled weapons systems, unmanned
Aerial Vehicles (UAV), and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM)
precision bombs, he is turning the military into a war machine with the
ability to kill indiscriminately. The Pentagon officially admits that 10
percent of “smart bombs” can be expected to fail owing to mechanical
malfunctions or human error. The JDAM, steered by satellite-guide GPS
data, can be accurate within 13 meters of a target. Of course, the U.S.
military has denied any responsibility for numerous innocent civilians,
including children, killed or injured in Afghanistan, Iraq, and even in
Pakistan by these remote-controlled weapon systems.
Despite protests
from many countries, the U.S. is using the Predator, a modified version
of UAV, to kill suspected terrorists with drone-fired missiles outside
of combat zones. When a Predator was involved in the assassination of
suspected terrorists in Yemen in 2002, the U.N. called it "an alarming
precedent, a clear case of extrajudicial killing" in violation of
international laws and treaties.
More troubling, the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review proposed research and development of nuclear weapons to be used preemptively
against threats from weapons of mass destruction by any terrorist group
or nation, including China and Russia. George W. Bush pushed Congress
for approval to develop new low-yield nuclear weapons as well as Robust
Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), an underground weapon that is seventy
times more powerful than the uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Although
Congress approved the review in 2002 to conduct research in developing
new low-yield nuclear weapons, it has repeatedly denied Bush the funding
to develop new nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, the 2007 budget has
included $1.73 million “to improve nuclear command and control and
upgrade existing systems,” the White House said.
The dreadful fear
is that Bush could go against the Congress, like the way he did on
torture ban, with a presidential signing statement to get the budget he
needs for new nuclear weapons. Who
could stop him? After all, he has used presidential signing statements
(at least 435 signing statements in his first term alone) more than all
previous U.S. presidents combined.
It only takes one nation to trigger a nuclear global war.
With the U.S.
leader who’s disconnected from reality, supported by his cabal of
warmongers and followed by the military-machine, the madness to march
towards Armageddon has already begun.
(First published on UniOrb.com, March 1, 2006)