Tough questions for those who send our loved ones to war

We honor American servicemen and women when we ensure the ideals and freedoms they fought for are preserved.


On Veterans Day we honor those who have served in the armed forces, and we contemplate their sacrifice and the cost of our freedom. Perhaps it should also be a time we contemplate the state of the American military: what we ask of it, the cost of what we ask, and the effectiveness of what we get.

It seems the least we may do given it’s our loved ones- or a friend or neighbor down the street- who make the real sacrifices. They are the ones whose lives are on the line.

Here are some of the questions I would ask of those who send our loved ones to war:

Are not defense and national security the stated purposes for our standing army? Presuming an affirmative, what were the real reasons American soldiers were deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq?

Neither country attacked the U.S. nor posed any threat to America, although Afghanistan’s Taliban did provide safe haven for Al Queda, the organization credited with orchestrating the 9-11 attacks. But Al Queda is not a nation-state, and it is nation-states against which war is waged. Acts of terrorism are crimes against humanity, a matter we confront through intelligence, policing and an understanding of and adjustment to underlying causes, like America’s foreign policy which, in the case of 15 relatively affluent young Saudis, was perceived as so unjust they would resort to radical, suicidal violence as a means of protest.

With Iraq, there was no connection to 9-11 nor was any of the pre-war hype, particularly weapons of mass destruction, relevant. However, it was readily apparent that the Bush Administration held substantial geo-political and corporate motives for invading Iraq:

• Intense dislike of the Iraqi dictatorship,
• Desire for control of Iraq’s vast oil resources,
• A need to move military bases out of Saudi Arabia, and
• Corporate profit, where the winners would be those corporations
  • Supplying the means for fighting war,
  • Reconstructing the country, and, of course,
  • Running the post-war economy.

The Iraq War is also distressing from the perspective of ‘just war theory’, given it is difficult find merit in any of the six ‘Jus ad bellum’ premises, which concern the justice of resorting to war in the first place, where all six must be satisfied for war to be ‘just.’

Waging war is arguably humankind’s greatest failing. The toll of war and its waste of human potential, the incalculable cost of the death and destruction, and the indescribable emotional and physical scars that forever remain with those whom survive is such that no rational mind would wish it on anyone, certainly not a loved one… even when presented with the most just of causes. However, in the absence of such, when defense and national security are masks for propelling geo-strategic initiatives and corporate self-interest, then hell hath no fury as the heart angered that those it loves have been endangered due to shallow desires for empire or profit.

If defense is our objective then why do we allow new advancements in military technology to be sold?

Obviously, the answer is corporations and their desire for profit. Let’s use fighter jet technology for illustration: it is invariably sold to allies, necessitating the need to further develop the technology so that America always has the latest and greatest. Except the enhanced technology is also eventually sold, again driving the need for something better, which also gets sold; the result is a vicious, unending cycle whose principle beneficiary is the arms manufacturer.

The problem, when it comes to the America’s self- interest, is that if enhancing security is really the goal then we are certainly better served if technological advancements are kept to ourselves. Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop-Grumman, General Dynamics, Bushmaster, Boeing and others will still make a ton of money developing weapon systems because we will pay them handsomely to do it. But, given we paid for it, should it not then reside with us and with us only?

Why does American policy allow such technology to be sold when our security is less for it? Corporate profit should always play second fiddle to our best interests in terms of national security.

Wouldn’t we be more secure if we were not colonizing the world with military bases?

In ‘The Sorrows of Empire’, the late historian Chalmers Johnson described the scale of American military colonization which, at the time of publication, was more than 700 installations around the world, with military personnel located in more than 150 countries- numbers that have since grown. ¹⁾

America’s military colonization derives from World War II where, following the end of fighting, the U.S. had bases on all seven continents stretching nearly pole-to-pole. Officially, the position of the Truman Administration was to retain foreign military bases wherever possible and to acquire new bases if deemed necessary from a geo-strategic perspective. ²⁾ Still, according to James Blaker, former Senior Advisor to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

“Half the wartime basing structure was gone within two years of V-J Day, and half of what had been maintained until 1947 had been dismantled by 1949” ³⁾

U.S. foreign military bases then increased through the Korean War, decreased thereafter, and went through the same pattern during the Vietnam War. By 1988, America’s footprint of foreign military bases was slightly less than at the end of the Korean War. ⁴⁾

Relinquishing the power of its global military presence is something the U.S. has so far been unwilling to do:

Like all empires, the United States has been extremely reluctant to relinquish any base once acquired. Bases obtained in one war are seen as forward deployment positions for some future war, often involving an entirely new enemy. According to a December 21, 1970 report issued by the Subcommittee on Security Agreements and Commitments Abroad, U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, “Once an American overseas base is established it takes on a life of its own. Original missions may become outdated but new missions are developed, not only with the intention of keeping the facility going, but often to actually enlarge it. ⁵⁾

Chalmers Johnson, in “Sorrows of Empire,” argued that:

• America has no constitutional charter to police the world,
• America’s military colonization is fiscally unsustainable and, ironically,
• Leaves the United States less secure for it. ⁶⁾

Johnson notes there is often great resentment of our presence on foreign soil, particularly in the local communities where the bases are located, for many reasons including when the Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs) pressed upon foreign governments by the U.S. are perceived as unjust. In Okinawa, if an American serviceman rapes a local girl or kills someone while driving under the influence, it is more likely that he will be reassigned to a post in a different country than he will undergo trial through the local courts, something the SOFAs are designed to avoid. That land use and other matters of local importance are often decided by foreign will versus local consent also breeds contempt. ⁷⁾

Even more fundamental is the fact that a nation occupying another’s soil is often all that is required to make the occupier less secure. The University of Chicago’s Robert Pape studied every suicide bombing attack in the world from 1980 through 2004 and concluded:

“The central fact is that- overwhelmingly- suicide-terrorist attacks are not driven by religion as much as they are by a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland. From Lebanon to Sri Lanka to Chechnya to Kashmir to the West Bank, every major suicide-terrorist campaign—over 95 percent of all the incidents—has had as its central objective to compel a democratic state to withdraw.” ⁸⁾

U.S. occupations were not mentioned in that list, which does not mean America is an exception to the norm. To the contrary, from 1995 through 2004, two-thirds of the world’s suicide attacks were directed at American occupations in countries where the U.S. had stationed large numbers of troops. ⁹⁾

For example, the U.S. dramatically increased its military presence in Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula following the first Gulf War, which Osama bin Laden consequently used as a powerful recruiting tool for Al Queda. Pape notes:

“bin Laden’s speeches and sermons… begin by calling tremendous attention to the presence of tens of thousands of American combat forces on the Arabian Peninsula.” ¹⁰⁾

Following 9-11 and the buildup and start of the Iraq War, suicide terror attacks increased in Saudi Arabia resulting in numerous Saudi and American military casualties. Interestingly, in the spring of 2003 Washington announced plans to move its U.S. Combined Air Operations Center from the Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia to a base in Qatar.

Pape also noted the dramatic rise in suicide-bombings which accompanied the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq:

“The evidence shows that the presence of American troops is clearly the pivotal factor driving (Iraqi) suicide terrorism… There is no evidence there were any suicide-terrorist organizations lying in wait in Iraq before our invasion… what is happening is that the suicide terrorists have been produced by the invasion. Before, Iraq never had a suicide-terrorist attack in its history. Never. Since our invasion, suicide terrorism has escalated rapidly with 20 attacks in 2003, 48 in 2004, and over 50 in just the first five months of 2005. Every year that the United States has stationed 150,000 combat troops in Iraq, suicide terrorism has doubled.” ¹¹⁾

How ironic is it that the U.S. now builds foreign military bases in the name of fighting terrorism, yet the very presence of such bases may beget terrorism aimed specifically at getting the U.S. occupiers out?

Note that prior to the ‘war’ on terror, U.S. post-WWII global military basing was largely justified in terms of containing the spread of Communism. Yet, after the fall of the former Soviet Union, an opportunity to ‘scale back’ America’s global military presence with the end of the Cold War was squandered. The primary reasons, hardly ever mentioned by the mainstream media, had little to do with defense or security but rather with geo- and economic self interests:

U.S. global political, economic, and financial power requires the periodic exercise of military power. The other advanced capitalist countries tied into the system have also become reliant on the United States as the main enforcer of the rules of the (Capitalist) game. The positioning of U.S. military bases should therefore be judged not as a purely military phenomenon, but as a mapping out of the U.S.-dominated imperial sphere.

The United States, which has sought to maintain an imperial economic system without formal political controls over the territorial sovereignty of other nations, has employed military bases to exert force against those nations that have sought to either break out of the imperial system altogether, or have attempted to chart an independent course that is perceived as threatening U.S. (geo-political or economic ) self interests. ¹²⁾

In other words:

The projection of U.S. military power into new regions through the establishment of U.S. military bases should not of course be seen simply in terms of direct military ends. They are always used to promote the economic and political objectives of U.S. capitalism. ¹³⁾

That may be the truth, but it won’t make the news: ‘Keeping the world safe for Halliburton’ won’t play in Peoria, or anywhere else, because most Americans would be mad as hell to think their loved ones were deployed for reasons other than our defense or security.

Sadly, Americans have been conditioned to not think of their foreign military bases in terms of an occupation of foreign soil, but the nationals living near those bases see them for exactly what they are, and the footprint of America’s foreign military bases is fertile motivation for potential blowback in the form of additional acts of terrorism-- which places our loved ones who serve at greater risk.

That our loved ones are often protecting corporate self-interests versus matters of true national security is both unconscionable and untenable. Nor can we afford it. It is well past time to demand an end to this aspect of American empire, and to bring our loved ones home.

Why are we spending so much more on our military in comparison to all other nations in the world; why is so much of the federal budget spent on militarization?

The U.S. military budget for 2010 was $698 billion dollars: 14) 5.9 times more than the amount spent by number two China, and almost as much as the next 20 nations combined. ¹⁵⁾ Amazingly, at 43% of world military spending, the U.S. military funding comes relatively close to matching the total spent by all other nations combined. ¹⁶⁾

		Note this budget figure includes operations, all personnel costs (minus Veterans Affairs), and development, maintenance and purchase of arms equipment and facilities for the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. The amount does not include the covert war activities of the C.I.A, the counter-terrorism activities of the F.B.I., N.A.S.A intelligence gathering, the Department of Homeland Security, or nuclear weapons research, maintenance, cleanup and production. 17) Such expenditure is simply irrational and arguably immoral given America’s more important domestic problems. That such a discrepancy exists illustrates the immense power of the corporate lobby of the military-industrial complex.

If America were to reprioritize its federal budget it could solve many of its pressing domestic issues without raising taxes or budget cuts except for the Pentagon, where slashing military spending to 1/4th its current level, if then wisely managed, would enable America to maintain its defense and military supremacy while- paradoxically- increasing its national security.

How? At $174.5 billion, the U.S. still greatly outspends its nearest competitor and still has working for it the world’s largest, and arguably best, arms manufacturers. In terms of security, the Pentagon cuts would necessitate the closure of many U.S. foreign military bases, ending a misguided attempt at empire and signaling to the world a return to a more Rooseveltian foreign policy: of once again “speaking softly while (still) carrying a big stick.”

The Pentagon cut would mean significant layoffs to both private and public-sector defense workers, but the impact would, by and large, negatively affect one industry sector while greatly benefitting many others. In essence, such a budget re-prioritization would represent a re-balancing of American societal needs, and would likely result in a rejuvenation of America.

What could we do with $523.5 billion?

We could more adequately fund public education. One year of that money would build more than 10,200 completely new K-12 school systems, ¹⁸⁾ or we could seek out exceptional new teachers, hire them at $75,000 yearly salaries (well above the national average of approximately $42,000), throw in another $15,000 for benefits and still employ 5.8 million new teachers. ¹⁹⁾

We could also get serious about upgrading America’s decaying infrastructure of roads and bridges. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates an annual expenditure of $186 billion, rather than the current $70 billion, is required in order to substantially improve the nation’s roads. More than one in four U.S. bridges is either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete and requires an annual outlay of $17 billion, versus the current $10.5, if we wish to see significant improvement. Worse, virtually every other aspect of the nation’s infrastructure- levees, dams, railroads, transit, schools, solid waste and wastewater treatment plants, and the nation’s electrical grid- get a below average or failing grade from the ASCE. ²⁰⁾

Frankly, there are many ways America could achieve a higher return-on-investment on funds currently allocated to the military budget: money that resembles, actually, a government subsidy. Is the American taxpayer really subsidizing the military-industrial complex at the expense of its greater societal needs? It surely seems so.


On this day, what we ask of the American military, the cost of what we ask, and the effectiveness of what we get certainly seem like questions well worth asking. While our thoughts concentrate on our veterans, it is because of them- and what they’ve sacrificed- that we must ask such questions. Democracy demands no less.

After all, freedom isn’t won solely on the battlefield; there is an ebb and flow to our freedom that results from our ongoing domestic struggles. Freedom thrives whenever the will of the people ensures their government leadership and courts adhere to public opinion, whenever societal common good trumps corporate self-interest, and whenever America’s efforts reflect the higher road of values to which we aspire.


Footnotes

¹ “The Sorrows of Empire- Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic,” Chalmers Johnson, Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2004.
² “U.S. Military Bases and Empire,” Editors, Monthly Review, Volume 53, Issue 10, March, 2002.
³ Monthly Review, ibid.
⁴ Monthly Review, ibid.
⁵ Monthly Review, ibid.
⁶ “The Sorrows of Empire- Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic,” Chalmers Johnson, Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2004.
⁷ Johnson, ibid.
⁸ “The Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” Robert Pape, The American Conservative, July 18, 2005.
⁹ Robert Pape, ibid.
¹⁰ Robert Pape, ibid.
¹¹ Robert Pape, ibid,
¹² “U.S. Military Bases and Empire,” Editors, Monthly Review, Volume 53, Issue 10, March, 2002.
¹³ Monthly Review, ibid.
¹⁴ “Military Budget of the United States, Budget for 2010,” Wikipedia, November 7, 2011.
¹⁵ “SIPRI Yearbook 2011, Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, Summary” Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), 2011.
¹⁶ “World Military Spending,” Global Issues, May 2, 2011.
¹⁷ “Military Budget of the United States, Budget for 2010,” Wikipedia, November 7, 2011.
¹⁸ “Average Construction Cost for Elementary, Middle and High Schools, 2010,” National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities, November 9, 2011. -- Based on 2010 median national cost per student for construction of elementary, middle and high schools for K-12 systems with average class size of 200 students (3,600 total enrollment).
¹⁹ Basic math.
²⁰ “The 2009 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, Executive Summary,” The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 2010.