War as life support

By Paul Balles,


"By diverting social capital from productive to destructive purposes, war and the preparation for war deplete, rather than enhance, a nation's strength." - Andrew J Bacevich


MANY industries that started in America have moved abroad under Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) to take advantage of cheap labour.

Thus, Americans have lost jobs to people in countries where labour costs less.

According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), 879,280 jobs were lost in the US during the first 10 years of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

This figure is calculated by comparing the number of US jobs created by export expansion, in relation to the number lost due to growth of foreign imports.

Other FTAs have had similarly disastrous results for employment in the US.

President Barack Obama, while expressing concern and hopes for job creation, has been simultaneously pushing for additional FTAs.

The problem has been high unemployment for Americans, so a solution has been to develop industries in the US that cannot be moved abroad.

One in particular, the defence industry, keeps its secrets and staff at home.

However, at the end of his term in office former president Dwight Eisenhower, the US general who commanded forces in the Second World War, said: "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

According to the 2010 Department of Defence (DoD) financial report, its total budgetary resources for the 2010 fiscal year were $1.2 trillion (BD452 billion).

Budgeted DoD expenditure for 2009 represented approximately 43 per cent of all global military spending.

The US military budget doubled from 1998 to 2008 in the biggest explosion of military spending since the early 1950s - and now accounts for 56pc of discretionary federal spending. Eisenhower's warning has been ignored.

Anyone following the news recently would know that many states and local communities in the US have been laying off police, firemen and other community services.

Meanwhile, the federal government splurges on military spending. This reflects a terrible distortion of security needs. Local security has been sacrificed to the military industrial complex.

Investigative historian and journalist Gareth Porter says that we have completed "the process of creating a 'Permanent War State' - a set of institutions with the authority to wage largely secret wars across a vast expanse of the globe for the indefinite future".

The defence industry also recruits foreign customers for military hardware.

The DoD generates those customers by indulging in wars, occupations and building vast military industrial sales.

How many military installations does the US have around the world? One thousand as Hugh Gusterson said in Empire of Bases. MSNBC reported that the US has military in 137 countries.

The US also benefits from sales of military hardware, often outmoded, around the world. Therefore, the US must also keep these other countries at war or under threats of war.

World military spending has now reached $1trn, close to Cold War levels. Forty per cent of arms sales are by America, according to the Grimmett CRS Report for Congress.

Why does the US need all those bases in so many countries around the world? What are the excuses used by the US war machine for so many US military installations?

Recently, there's been talk about reducing the cost of government in America. A few have even suggested reducing the military budget.

However, reducing defence expenditure would mean huge losses of jobs, income and spending in the US - bringing about another worldwide great depression.

Therefore, the US needs the Permanent War State that Porter says we have created.

America now has the paradoxical situation of needing to stimulate wars that kill people, so economies can feed people to keep them alive.

source;Gulfdailynews