Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has ordered Pentagon agencies to find tens of billions of dollars in spending cuts so as to ensure that there will be more money left over to spend on war.
Secretary Gates’ plan is said to be seeking a way to “guarantee 3 percent real growth each year, beyond inflation” in spending on combat operations. The rising budget deficit has the Pentagon afraid that it will be difficult to lobby for massive increases to its already record budget every year going forward.
Gates’ pledge to increase efficency is nothing new, but the plan, which calls for $37 billion in bureaucracy cuts in 2016 so as to divert more money to combat operations, underscores the insincerity of administration claims that the war in Iraq is almost over and the level of the war in Afghanistan has peaked.
At present the Obama Administration has nearly 200,000 troops committed to combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But if, as officials claim, the Iraq combat operations (which make up roughly half of that) are “on track” to end in August, why would the Pentagon be focused on having even more money than this year’s record amounts to spend on combat next year, and so on, up to 2016 and beyond?
Great catch. Well done.
Look. In the condition the countries in and the type of government we have, we MUST have wars. Everytime there 's a recession or depression we need a war. Some get killed, some work in the factories making killing machines. The Military Industrial Complex is the largest part of our budget year after year. What are going to with the killing machines? Warehouse them? Think of salaries, retirement, benefits.
Then there's the Terror Industrial Complex. If we didn't have terror, what would they do? The more terror, the larger the Terror Industrial Complex. Think man!
so, the Pentagon's resorted to looking under the couch for spare change to spend on war. THAT's something they're not used to. Are we reaching the end of the fiscal tether for military spending? One can only hope so.
Hey Bob, I have an idea. Let's quit treating the wounded, give them cheaper armour, ration their ammo, cut their pay and benefits, shut down the VA. That ought to help the war profiteers make their numbers. Call me, I'm a Vietnam veteran. I know you can do this on the cheap. I lived it.
Massacre of the Armenians aside, the US could learn a lesson or two from Kemal Ataturk on how to convert a corrupt and collapsing empire into a modern Republic, but Americans are just too dumb to see it.
They could learn a similar lesson from Lenin, but one of the characteristics of real stupidity is the inability to learn, whether from others or from one's own past mistakes.
They could even learn a thing or two from the 1905 Persian revolution.
Instead they seem bent on their own peculiar mental isolation and another war.
It's looking more and more as if there is a Weimar in store, guided by the usual invisible hand.