War and Mongers of War: the Perpetual Expenditure Machine 0
Dan Simpson points out that the military-industrial complex is still a Very Big Thing, a self-styled Golden Calf desirous of suckling deeply at the government teat.
Hell. It beats doing something productive.
Here’s a bit (emphasis added):
Any head-scratching that this alarmist assessment might have stimulated, among the senators or the public, was overshadowed by the reporting the same day of the Obama administration’s intention to cut U.S. Army force levels from 490,000 to 450,000 by 2017, with the possibility of more cuts if budget “sequestration” continues as a means of taming federal deficits.
The Dunford-McCain thesis runs that if we make these cuts — part of a long-awaited peace dividend — the Russians will get us. This is silly, but it is fully consistent with Pentagon and arms industry efforts to scare Americans into continuing to shell out enormous sums of money for “defense,” as opposed to meeting the urgent need to fix our roads, bridges and schools and to provide other public services.
Afterthought:
General Motors might have invented “planned obsolescence,” but defense contractors have perfected it.
