This is incredibly heartbreaking.
Another world is possible. — Molly
A
nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military
defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual
death. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Not to mention 240,000 civilian deaths and 21 million displaced.
And yet a congressional commission is
urging yet more money for a bloated Pentagon.
Just in time for next year’s Pentagon spending debate, a new report is
calling for a huge increase in the Defense Department’s budget, which is
already at one of the highest levels since World War II. The document was
produced by the National Defense Strategy Commission, a congressionally
mandated group charged with assessing the Trump administration’s new national-defense
strategy.
The premise of the new report is that America faces a “national
security emergency” that leaves its ability to defend “its allies, its
partners, and its own vital interests” increasingly in doubt.
As its
solution, the commission calls for an increase in Pentagon spending of 3 to 5
percent above inflation for at least the next five years. According to calculations by
Taxpayers for Common Sense, the high end of this range would mean an annual
Pentagon budget of an astonishing $972 billion by 2024—a potential boon for
Lockheed Martin and its fellow weapons-makers, but a disaster for US taxpayers.
It is unlikely that Congress will sign off on such a hefty increase, but the
fact that it has been put forward at all will provide more rhetorical
ammunition for the hawks on Capitol Hill, making it all the harder to rein in
runaway Pentagon spending.
It’s not as if the Defense Department is starved for funds. The
United States spends more on
its military than the next seven countries in the world combined (five of which
are US allies). The increase in
Pentagon spending in the past two years alone is greater than the entire
military budget of Russia. And that’s before the massive increases proposed by the
strategy commission.
Please continue this article here: https://www.thenation.com/article/pentagon-military-madness/
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