[Infowarrior] - Why We Love 'America's Outrageous War Economy'

[Richard Forno]

Why We Love 'America's Outrageous War Economy'

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/media/love-americas-outrageous-war-economy/

Paul B. Farrell
MarketWatch

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. -- Yes, America's economy is a war economy. Not  
a "manufacturing" economy. Not an "agricultural" economy. Nor a  
"service" economy. Not even a "consumer" economy.

Seriously, I looked into your eyes, America, saw deep into your soul.  
So let's get honest and officially call it "America's Outrageous War  
Economy." Admit it: we secretly love our war economy. And that's the  
answer to Jim Grant's thought-provoking question last month in the  
Wall Street Journal -- "Why No Outrage?"

There really is only one answer: Deep inside we love war. We want war.  
Need it. Relish it. Thrive on war. War is in our genes, deep in our  
DNA. War excites our economic brain. War drives our entrepreneurial  
spirit. War thrills the American soul. Oh just admit it, we have a  
love affair with war. We love "America's Outrageous War Economy."

Americans passively zone out playing video war games. We nod at 90- 
second news clips of Afghan war casualties and collateral damage in  
Georgia. We laugh at Jon Stewart's dark comedic news and Ben Stiller's  
new war spoof "Tropic Thunder" ... all the while silently, by default,  
we're cheering on our leaders as they aggressively expand "America's  
Outrageous War Economy," a relentless machine that needs a steady diet  
of war after war, feeding on itself, consuming our values, always on  
the edge of self-destruction.

Why else are Americans so eager and willing to surrender 54% of their  
tax dollars to a war machine, which consumes 47% of the world's total  
military budgets? Why are there more civilian mercenaries working for  
no-bid private war contractors than the total number of enlisted  
military in Iraq (180,000 to 160,000), at an added cost to taxpayers  
in excess of $200 billion and climbing daily? Why do we shake our  
collective heads "yes" when our commander-in-chief proudly tells us he  
is a "war president;" and his party's presidential candidate chants  
"bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," as if "war" is a celebrity hit song? Why do  
our spineless Democrats let an incompetent, blundering executive  
branch hide hundreds of billions of war costs in sneaky "supplemental  
appropriations" that are more crooked than Enron's off-balance-sheet  
deals? Why have Washington's 537 elected leaders turned the governance  
of the American economy over to 42,000 greedy self-interest lobbyists?  
And why earlier this year did our "support-our-troops" "war president"  
resist a new GI Bill because, as he said, his military might quit and  
go to college rather than re-enlist in his war; now we continue paying  
the Pentagon's warriors huge $100,000-plus bonuses to re-up so they  
can keep expanding "America's Outrageous War Economy?" Why? Because we  
secretly love war!

We've lost our moral compass: The contrast between today's leaders and  
the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 shocks our  
conscience. Today war greed trumps morals. During the Revolutionary  
War our leaders risked their lives and fortunes; many lost both.

Today it's the opposite: Too often our leaders' main goal is not  
public service but a ticket to building a personal fortune in the new  
"America's Outrageous War Economy," often by simply becoming a high- 
priced lobbyist.

Ultimately, the price of our greed may be the fulfillment of Kevin  
Phillips' warning in "Wealth and Democracy:" "Most great nations, at  
the peak of their economic power, become arrogant and wage great world  
wars at great cost, wasting vast resources, taking on huge debt, and  
ultimately burning themselves out."

'National defense' a propaganda slogan selling a war economy?

But wait, you ask: Isn't our $1.4 trillion war budget essential for  
"national defense" and "homeland security?" Don't we have to protect  
ourselves?

Sorry folks, but our leaders have degraded those honored principles to  
advertising slogans. They're little more than flag-waving excuses used  
by neocon war hawks to disguise the buildup of private fortunes in  
"America's Outrageous War Economy."

America may be a ticking time bomb, but we are threatened more by  
enemies within than external terrorists, by ideological fanatics on  
the left and the right. Most of all, we are under attack by our  
elected leaders who are motivated more by pure greed than ideology.  
They terrorize us, brainwashing us into passively letting them steal  
our money to finance "America's Outrageous War Economy," the ultimate  
"black hole" of corruption and trickle-up economics.

You think I'm kidding? I'm maybe too harsh? Sorry but others are far  
more brutal. Listen to the ideologies and realities eating at  
America's soul.

1. Our toxic 'war within' is threatening America's soul

How powerful is the Pentagon's war machine? Trillions in dollars. But  
worse yet: Their mindset is now locked deep in our DNA, in our  
collective conscience, in America's soul. Our love of war is enshrined  
in the writings of neocon war hawks like Norman Podoretz, who warns  
the Iraq War was the launching of "World War IV: The Long Struggle  
Against Islamofascism," a reminder that we could be occupying Iraq for  
a hundred years. His WW IV also reminded us of the coming apocalyptic  
end-of-days "war of civilizations" predicted by religious leaders in  
both Christian and Islamic worlds two years ago.

In contrast, this ideology has been challenged in works like Craig  
Unger's "American Armageddon: How the Delusions of the  
Neoconservatives and the Christian Right Triggered the Descent of  
America -- and Still Imperil Our Future."

Unfortunately, neither threat can be dismissed as "all in our minds"  
nor as merely ideological rhetoric. Trillions of tax dollars are in  
fact being spent to keep the Pentagon war machine aggressively  
planning and expanding wars decades in advance, including spending  
billions on propaganda brainwashing naive Americans into co-signing  
"America's Outrageous War Economy." Yes, they really love war, but  
that "love" is toxic for America's soul.

2. America's war economy financed on blank checks to greedy

Read Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda  
Bilmes' "$3 Trillion War." They show how our government's deceitful  
leaders are secretly hiding the real long-term costs of the Iraq War,  
which was originally sold to the American taxpayer with a $50 billion  
price tag and funded out of oil revenues.

But add in all the lifetime veterans' health benefits, equipment  
placement costs, increased homeland security and interest on new  
federal debt, and suddenly taxpayers got a $3 trillion war tab!

3. America's war economy has no idea where its money goes

Read Portfolio magazine's special report "The Pentagon's $1 Trillion  
Problem." The Pentagon's 2007 budget of $440 billion included $16  
billion to operate and upgrade its financial system. Unfortunately  
"the defense department has spent billions to fix its antiquated  
financial systems [but] still has no idea where its money goes."

And it gets worse: Back "in 2000, Defense's inspector general told  
Congress that his auditors stopped counting after finding $2.3  
trillion in unsupported entries." Yikes, our war machine has no  
records for $2.3 trillion! How can we trust anything they say?

4. America's war economy is totally 'unmanageable'

For decades Washington has been waving that "national defense" flag,  
to force the public into supporting "America's Outrageous War  
Economy." Read John Alic's "Trillions for Military Technology: How the  
Pentagon Innovates and Why It Costs So Much."

A former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment staffer, he  
explains why weapon systems cost the Pentagon so much, "why it takes  
decades to get them into production even as innovation in the civilian  
economy becomes ever more frenetic and why some of those weapons don't  
work very well despite expenditures of many billions of dollars," and  
how "the internal politics of the armed services make weapons  
acquisition almost unmanageable." Yes, the Pentagon wastes trillions  
planning its wars well in advance.

Comments? Tell us: What will it take to wake up America, get citizens,  
investors, anybody mad at "America's Outrageous War Economy?"

Why don't you rebel? Will the outrage come too late ... after this  
massive war bubble explodes in our faces?

Copyright © 2008 MarketWatch, Inc.