Why America’s Military Capabilities Are Failing

Eric ZUESSE

On 17 January 1961, US President Dwight Eisenhower famously introduced the phrase “military-industrial complex”, referring to what he said might become a threat to American democracy — a takeover of the US Government by a “complex,” composed of generals and other national-security brass on the one side, and corporations such as Lockheed and their financiers, on the other. That warning turned out to have been prophetic. The revolving door, between the military top brass and the boardrooms of the arms-contractors and associated corporations and think tanks, spins ever-faster now, and it controls the news-media and the US Government ever-more, so as to produce more and more invasions, of countries that never had invaded, nor even threatened to invade, us. Such “aggressive wars” (unprovoked aggressions) are international war crimes, but are never prosecuted when the US does them. The threat that Eisenhower talked of was real, and it has actually won out against, and defeated, democracy in America, and it has since become a catastrophe, taking up more and more of the US Government’s resources, and delivering — to the people of the United States, and especially to the world-at-large — only more wars, and bloodshed, and poverty, and suffering, and less security, for everyone, but with increasing wealth for the few at America’s top, who have invested in this permanent militarization of the United States.

The chief beneficiaries have been owners of the arms-makers (such as Lockheed Martin) and of the fossil-fuels extraction firms (such as ExxonMobil). Controlling those types of firms is to participate in controlling the US Government, because the US Government serves those firms. Also, high-tech, such as Amazon corporation (whose cloud-computing for the US Government provides almost all of its profits), benefits enormously not only from the wars, but from the extension of the American empire. A threat by the US Government is a threat on behalf of those owners, and yet the owners who control those international corporations get none of the blame for those wars, which always serve their interests, by extending their empire even when the wars are lost.

How did this ongoing decades-long catastrophe happen?

It didn’t even strengthen the US militarily. Look at the record, and consider not only the phenomenon itself, but its actual results — a ceaseless string of military defeats:

Why did the US lose the war in Vietnam?

Why did the US lose the war in Afghanistan?

Why did the US lose the war in Iraq?

Why did the US lose the war in Libya?

Why did the US lose the war in Syria?

What produces this doubly-bad habit — actually badness squared — of the American Government, during the past fifty years: aggressions that fail?

Could it be because the takeover of America’s Government, by its arms-manufacturers and fuel-extraction firms — and their lobbyists and other agents — has been accompanied by soaring corruption? We’ll deal with that question later here. But first, let’s consider the shocking present condition of America’s military:

On 19 August 2019, the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, in Australia — a prime US ally in that part of the world — headlined a lengthy study and report: “AVERTING CRISIS: AMERICAN STRATEGY, MILITARY SPENDING AND COLLECTIVE DEFENCE IN THE INDO-PACIFIC”. Its Executive Summary presented the following key points:

America no longer enjoys military primacy in the Indo-Pacific, and its capacity to uphold a favourable balance of power is increasingly uncertain. …

Over the next decade, the US defence budget is unlikely to meet the needs of the National Defense Strategy owing to a combination of political, fiscal and internal pressures. …

America has an atrophying force that is not sufficiently ready, equipped or postured for great power competition in the Indo-Pacific — a challenge it is working hard to address. …

A strategy of collective defence is fast becoming necessary as a way of offsetting shortfalls in America’s regional military power and holding the line against rising Chinese strength.

But did China actually cause this “atrophying”? Clearly not.

The problem is internal to America itself. Casting the blame elsewhere is only for idiots to believe, but foreign ‘enemies’ (such as China) are needed in order for the military-industrial complex to thrive. Can you imagine the military-industrial complex growing and thriving if the public believe that domestic corruption is actually behind this consistent and constant record, of US military failures?

Did China cause America’s defeat in Vietnam, or in Afghanistan, or in Iraq, or in Libya, or in Syria?

Let’s be more general about this: Did North Korea cause it? During the four-day period of 24-27 August 2019, an Economist/YouGov poll of 1,500 adult US citizens asked them “Do you consider the countries listed below to be a friend or an enemy of the United States?” and listed 13 countries. The ones scoring highest for “Enemy” — the most-commonly selected, as being an “Enemy” — were: North Korea 53%, Iran 46%, Russia 35%, and China 21%. Did any of those nations cause this “atrophying”?

Ever since 2001, Gallup has asked, almost annually, and always in February, “What one country anywhere in the world do you consider to be the United States’ greatest enemy today?” No countries were ever listed for that question; the respondent in these polls always just answered it however that person wanted. In February 2001, 2% said “North Korea.” 6% said “Russia.” 8% said “Iran.” 14% said “China.” And a whopping 38% said “Iraq.” 4% said “Saudi Arabia.” Those were the most-frequently mentioned countries, shortly before 9/11 struck. 0% said “Afghanistan.” How accurately informed were Americans, by ‘our’ ‘news’-media, then? In February 2001, the top “enemy,” overwhelmingly (at 38%), was Iraq — which had never posed any threat, at all, to America. It was no enemy, whatsoever, to Americans. But we invaded and destroyed it in 2003 — after having long been strangulating its population, by means of an economic blockade, “sanctions,” following Saddam Hussein’s having invaded Iraq’s neighboring country, Kuwait, in 1990, and trying to take it from its owner, Kuwait’s royal Al-Sabah family. Americans then strangled Iraqis with sanctions for what their ruler Saddam Hussein had done to the Sabah clan, and then we invaded and destroyed Iraq altogether in 2003, for nothing but our Government’s, and its ‘news’-media’s, war-mongering lies — the ‘news’-media serving as mere stenographers for (instead of as investigators of) the Government’s ceaseless lies about ‘Saddam’s WMD’, etc.

Gallup’s next poll on this question was 2005, and the top “Enemy”s at that time were 22% each for “North Korea” and for “Iraq,” 14% for “Iran,” 10% for “China,” 3% for “Afghanistan,” and 2% each for “Saudi Arabia,” “Syria,” and “the United States itself.” How accurately informed were Americans, then? (Well: 2% got the answer right — or, maybe, 4% did, if the correct answer was both “the United States itself” and “Saudi Arabia.” That 2% or 4% was the highest percentage ever who got it right.)

By 2012, 10% said “North Korea.” 2% said “Russia.” 32% said “Iran.” 23% said “China.” 5% said “Iraq.” 7% said “Afghanistan.” How accurately informed were Americans, then?

In 2018 (the latest such poll), 51% said “North Korea.” 19% said “Russia.” 7% said “Iran.” 11% said “China.” 2% said “Iraq.” 0% said “Afghanistan. How accurately informed were Americans, then?

Isn’t it remarkable how malleable — changing over time — Americas’ opinions are, of which nations are ‘enemies’? The designation of which ones are ‘enemies’, at any given time, is controlled by the Government and its stenographic press — the ‘news’-media — and by the billionaires’ think tanks (such as Brookings Institution) that provide many of the ‘experts’, which the ‘news’-media cite and interview in order to validate the lies.

None of those countries had ever attacked America (except America’s own Deep State had, if that’s what was being referred to as “the United States itself”). Nonetheless, the US Government has threatened each one of those other countries many times, and has actually invaded some of them, but did even a single one of those countries ever commit aggression against the United States? Not even Afghanistan did, though the US-and-Saud-created Taliban had protected the Saudi aristocrat Osama bin Laden leading up to the 9/11 attacks. However, the Afghan Government afterward never invaded America. Not only was the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 unprovoked aggression, but (though less clearly) the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan also was. And yet, for some reason, Americans don’t view the US Government as a global criminal outlaw. Instead, Americans view the targeted foreign governments as if they were that. This is the consequence of a ceaselessly propagandistic national press, which protects itself and its masters (never revealing the truth about either itself or its masters — the regime’s propaganda that supplants truth), and fools its public to hate and fear those masters’ targeted ‘enemies’ — instead of to loathe those masters and their press (which have actually engendered such malleable mass-hatreds and the resulting unprovoked invasions by the US).

Is it the case that Americans’ fear and hatred of foreign governments varies according to what the owners of America’s major news-media have had their reporters report during the year before, and that the latter is, in turn, unskeptical stenographic reporting from whatever the US Government had just told them during the year before, and that it’s always full of lies, and none of it should be uncritically believed, and the American public are merely fools who are constantly being manipulated by the owners of the military-industrial complex, which actually controls not only the President, but the Congress, in both Parties, as well as their deceiving media? If that’s the case, then the generals and the armaments and extraction firms could be making lots of money, from manipulating the public, in this carefully coordinated way, by the controlling owners, the big stockholders — America’s 607 billionaires. It’s sometimes called “the Deep State.” But it’s not aiming for any actual victory by a military that actually represents the interests of the American people; it is instead merely aiming to generate sales of weapons and spreading of fear, and a continual succession of wars, so as to feed the controlling owners’ bloody greed to sell more weapons, oil, and gas. It’s safe for them to do, because international laws aren’t ever enforced against them, nor even against their top agents (such as America’s President, members of Congress, the CEOs of Lockheed Martin and of CNN, and all other agents of the billionaires). They’re all immune, no matter how many times they have deceived their public into supporting the perpetration of international war-crimes, on the basis of lies about their ‘humanitarian’ concern to spread ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’.

Is there any alternative explanation for these catastrophic continual results?

The US military is so profoundly corrupt that there are “Trillions of Dollars in US Military Spending Unaccounted For”, and yet the US military remains, by far, the most-trusted and highest-approved, of all institutions in America, respected above the Presidency, above the Congress, above the courts, above the schools, above any, at all, year after year, for decades. And the public accept this even when the US public themselves disapprove of the Government’s wars. So: there is total impunity for the mega-profiteers from all of these international war-crimes that are so routinely perpetrated by the US In fact, there is sound reason to believe that the corruption is so enormous that not only is the military-industrial complex the most corrupt part of the American nation, but this nation itself is actually, according to the most-reliable measures, the world’s most corrupt at its very top, and perhaps even below the very top. Perversely, the military is not only the most respected, but it’s also the most corrupt, of America’s institutions: it is corruption on top of corruption, the peak of corruption. And this is the reason why it’s the only federal department that is — and has always been — unauditable.

This is how the country that actually (though not in the official figures) spends around half of the world’s entire military budget can lose war after war after war and its military still retain the highest respect from its public — the highest of all of the nation’s institutions — regardless of its astounding longstanding record of failure and ongoing global catastrophes, producing benefits virtually only for the nation’s billionaires and their top agents, while mass-murdering millions abroad, for no other real purpose than to keep the profits flowing. Like Barack Obama (the invader of Libya and Syria on the basis of lies) repeatedly bragged, “The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation”, meaning that all others are “dispensable.” Those others serve their purpose, as ‘allies’ to buy US-made weapons, or else as ‘enemies’ for those weapons to be used against. Even if the wars are lost, the weapons were sold, and the ‘enemies’ had served as target-practice, to keep the juices flowing, for America’s owners — people like this, and these. Such a nation used to be called an “Empire,” but now it’s called “hegemony”, in the wake of WW II. Perhaps it’s now called “the one indispensable nation,” and “hegemony,” because FDR had been opposed to empires, so they can’t call it an empire. Opposition to empires was FDR’s guiding principle in international relations, and this conviction he held was a major reason behind his plan for the UN to become the basis of an international democracy to emerge — no empires, at all. Today’s America is the reverse of that, more like a posthumous victory of fascism, which is based upon empire: this fascist victory after World War II is the burial of FDR’s plan and dream for the world. His dream has been buried by America’s own fascists.

The German intelligence-analyst who blogs anonymously as “Moon of Alabama,” and whose predictions, which I have closely watched for five years and found to be stunningly accurate, wrote, on September 5th, that, “The US military and its weapons are regularly hyped in ‘western’ media. But it has long been clear to (non-US) experts that US military technology is not superior to that of other countries. In several important fields Russian, Chinese and even Indian build weapons have much better capabilities. The reason is simple. US weapons are not developed or built with a real strategic need in mind. They don’t get developed for achieving the most effect in an existential war against a capable enemy, but to create profit.”

Given that America spends around half of the entire world’s military budget, and yet gets very bad military results, there can be no reasonable doubt that the reason is massive corruption. One prominent example is James Comey, who served President Clinton 1996-2001, President Bush 2002-2005, and President Obama 2013-2017; and he was Lockheed Martin’s second-or third-highest-paid executive, and then the chief lawyer for Lockheed Martin’s second-biggest owner, during the interim period 2005-2013, between Presidents Bush and Obama.

As I wrote in March of this year:

The liberal Republican James Comey became the Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Lockheed Martin Corporation during 2005-2010, where his 2009 pay was $6,113,797. During that time, he also was a Director of the US Chamber of Commerce’s National Chamber Litigation Center, which works to support business interests in the courts, especially the interests of US-based international corporations, including Lockheed Martin. Furthermore, as of 12 March 2010, Comey also had been granted 162,482 free shares of stock in Lockheed Martin, which number was higher than that of anyone except the Chairman, the CEO President, and an Executive Vice President; so, Comey was among the very top people at Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin’s largest foreign customer was the Saudi Government, which is 100% owned by the Saud family. Today, those Comey shares are worth $47,119,780 — after his five years with the company, plus nearly nine years of growth in that stock, from the war-producing policies that Comey had helped to initiate.

Then, Comey bought a $3M mansion in Connecticut and became the General Counsel and a Member of the Executive Committee at the gigantic hedge Fund, Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates, in Connecticut, where Comey’s only publicly known pay was $6,632,616 in 2012. Dalio and Comey became very close — Dalio called Comey his “hero.” But Obama then hired the liberal Republican Comey as FBI Director in 2013, replacing the liberal Republican Mueller in that role, from which Obama’s successor President Trump fired Comey, and congressional Democrats then succeeded in getting Mueller assigned to become the Special Counsel who would supposedly investigate the legitimacy of that firing.

On 21 May 2013, Marketwatch bannered “Bridgewater Associates’ trades for Q2” and reported that

“After a number of tech companies — including those we’ve mentioned [Microsoft, Oracle, and Intel] and EMC — the largest single-stock holding in the fund’s portfolio was its roughly 220,000 shares of Lockheed Martin LMT, +1.93%. The company recently reported an increase in earnings compared with the first quarter of 2012, but revenue was down slightly and there is a good deal of speculation that the business will be impacted by cuts in US military spending. … Billionaire Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group reported a position of 1.2 million shares at the end of December.”

Lockheed Martin is by far the largest US ‘defense’ contractor, taking 8.3% of all US Government purchases during 2015, as compared to #2 Boeing’s 3.8%, and #3 General Dynamics’s 3.1%.

That’s where the big money is being made: not in Government-service, but in the private-sector side of the revolving door between Government-service and the private sector. Phrased in a different way, and using a different metaphor: Government-service is the career’s entré, but the private sector is its dessert, in America’s corrupt system. Outright bribes aren’t necessary, in this system — the aristocratic system — where what matters is not what you know, but whom you know; not what skills you have, but whom your friends are. It doesn’t produce efficiency, but it does produce supercharged wealth at the very top, amongst the richest and most powerful few.

And it produces gargantuan and longstanding military failure.

On August 29th, the US Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General issued its “Report of Investigation of Former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey’s Disclosure of Sensitive Investigative Information and Handling of Certain Memoranda”, which identified US criminal statutes that Comey had personally violated in order to precipitate the Obama Administration’s Russiagate investigations against then-candidate Donald Trump. It noted that “Comey’s closest advisors used the words ‘surprised,’ ‘stunned,’ ‘shocked,’ and [expressed] ‘disappointment’ to describe their reactions to learning what Comey had done.” And it stated, not just once but a number of times, the terse phrase that “After reviewing the matter, the [Justice] Department [now under Trump] declined prosecution.” Ironically, some of the very same criminal statutes that they said Comey had violated had been the same ones on which Comey had earlier refused to recommend prosecution of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — that the documents were his (her) personal property, and not the property of his (her) employer, the US Government. The I.G.’s report stated unequivocally, in his own case, “We conclude that the Memos were official FBI records, rather than Comey’s personal documents.” Perhaps Comey had felt free to do this because he had earlier refused to recommend prosecution of her for having done it. Perhaps he felt that his actions, as FBI Director, had, in her case, established a legal precedent, which superseded the congressionally passed and Presidentially signed-into-law criminal statutes that he was actually oath-bound to enforce and possessed no legal authority to either override or ignore. Perhaps that’s why he did it — perhaps he had persuaded himself that he wasn’t a criminal who was at the top. Perhaps he had deceived himself about that.

At the top, in the United States, corruption is not only massive; it is entirely bipartisan. There’s no way around it.

On 10 September 2019, the independent investigative journalist Sarah Carter headlined “Flynn Hearing Reveals Existence of Bombshell DOJ Memo Exonerating Michael Flynn”, and revealed evidence that Michael Flynn’s guilty plea in the Russiagate-Trump case had been based on Comey’s having hidden from Flynn exculpatory evidence, and that therefore the plea-agreement might be ruled invalid. Furthermore: “the existence of a Justice Department memo from Jan. 30, 2017 exonerating Flynn of any collusion with Russia,” and the document continues to be hidden from the public, but might soon be released. Yet the resulting war-mongering lies have shaped the public’s attitudes, and those attitudes could last for years and continue to shape American politics even long after the fraud has been exposed.

And that’s just one person’s case, Comey. The entire military-industrial complex operates this way, and long has been doing so, very successfully for America’s billionaires and their foreign allies, such as for the Sauds, and for the billionaires who control Israel. (Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid, and virtually all of that aid from US taxpayers pays for Israel’s purchases of weapons from Lockheed Martin and other US weapons-firms.)

That’s the “swamp,” and Trump is part of it, like all recent US Presidents have been. There is no accountability, at the top. And this is why America’s military capabilities are failing.

Eric ZUESSE

American writer and investigative historian

Making a killing from killing

Paul Atwood

“Thieves of private property pass their lives in chains; thieves of public property in riches and luxury”, had said the ancient Roman statesman Cato the Elder, according to American journalist Paul Atwood in his article for the ‘Counterpunch’ site, titled, “Making a killing from killing”, which is critical of the catastrophic ways of the US military industrial complex that threatens the peace and security of the whole world.

Though I encounter students and other young people who have never heard the term I hope most Americans are aware of the “Military Industrial Complex.” In his final speech to the nation President Eisenhower, surprisingly since he oversaw much of its formation, warned citizens of the growing danger of the “permanent armaments industry” controlled by those who owned and profited greatly from this new scientific and technological establishment. Many of the giant arms industries, both industrial and high tech, that dominate the corporate landscape today came into existence as the result of war and would long ago have gone out of business in the absence of the guaranteed government profits flowing from the manufactured wars that sustain them today.

Few citizens have ever heard of Charles Wilson of the General Electric Corporation who served as the “czar” of arms production during World War II. In 1944 as victory loomed the nation awaited the return of 16 million veterans. Would unemployment and bread lines await them again?

“What we need,” said Wilson, is a “permanent war economy,” neglecting to add that such a scheme would also require permanent enemies.

Undoubtedly the United States has been involved in one war or intervention or another, since the end of World War II. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria are only the most obvious. The U.S. has overthrown numerous governments, many elected by means as democratic as we assert our own to be. The U.S. has more than 800 military installations dispersed across the globe. Though the U.S. emerged from WWII as a powerful nation in human history the American public has been endlessly propagandized to believe that the U.S. is a lone island of democracy and human rights surrounded in a geo-political ocean by sharks bent on its destruction.

In fact the “permanent warfare state” has been erected on the backs of American taxpayers by fraudulent claims of threats to national security. In the case of what are called the “terrorists” these adversaries were the result of Washington’s own interventions in other countries. In truth, no nation has so far been capable of invading the U.S. Should collapse be the U.S. fate the Americans will have none but themselves to blame for accepting a dysfunctional system sustained by the dishonesty of government officials and the establishment media that consistently fail to fulfill their obligation to hold power to account.

What should more honestly be termed the Military Industrial Congressional Intelligence University Media Complex is a parasite that cannot exist without permanent war or the implied and constant threat to national “security.” Taxes represent the symbolic value of the American peoples’ collective labor and this vampire has long drained social resources from essential domestic needs. And many of these corporations pay no taxes at all. So that means that hard-pressed Americans, facing increasing costs, pay the bulk of the expense to maintain this leech like superstructure.

In 2016, CEOs of the top five military contractors “earned” an average of $19.2 million each. Compare that with an average of $30,000 paid to military privates in combat. Every hour, taxpayers are paying $32.08 million for the total costs of wars since 2001.

After the falsehoods spread by the Bush II administration about Saddam’s “weapons of mass destruction” can anyone doubt that the US invasion of Iraq actually fostered the rise of Islamic State? What a windfall that has turned out to be for the MIC and the careers of military “lifers” and their post retirement enrichment as VPs in the very corporations they helped to profit or as talking heads on all networks fostering outright deceptions and half-truths about those “threats” to our security. We in Veterans for Peace know only too well that the lies Lyndon B. Johnson told about the Gulf of Tonkin “incident” were calculated to promote full scale war throughout Indochina. Nothing has changed. The real historical record reveals, as opposed to national Disney fantasies, that numerous leaders have misled the nation into foreign wars time and again, going all the way back to the Mexican War of 1846. By far the heaviest cost in all of this carnage is the lives lost, and the social wealth stolen by war-makers. As the blood-stained history of the last two centuries proves, war resolves nothing but only sets the stage for yet more war. I always think of a statement by the sociologist C. Wright Mills, “World War III will be caused by preparing for it.”

Critics of what I have just said may point to the Military Industrial Complexes of the other superpowers. Let us focus on China for the moment. American and other imperial powers attempted to carve up China for their own benefit in the early 20th Century. Then, after the defeat of Japan in 1945 the Chinese won their independence under the leadership of the Communists. The U.S. did not wage war with Japan so that China or any other Asian nation might go its own way. So in 1950 the U.S., via the war in Korea, provoked war with China. At that time Chinese strength of arms barely exceeded rifles and foot soldiers. Nevertheless American military commanders, including then presidential candidate Eisenhower, threatened China with nuclear weapons. Are we really to be astonished that today China is a highly developed nuclear and military power itself? America’s own policies and actions impelled Chinese choices over the next half century after World War II. If China ever does pose a potential military threat it will be because we have threatened them into a thoroughly predictable reaction. It is not too late to stand down on all the military fronts the Americans have generated themselves. But it is imperative that they initiate, in good faith if they can find the honest and principled leaders to do so, the first steps in a global withdrawal from the edge of the precipice.

Here in Boston an alliance of Veterans for Peace, Massachusetts Peace Action, American Friends Service Committee, Code Pink and many others is fighting an uphill battle to persuade citizens and the legislature to divest the Commonwealth’s retirement funds from Raytheon, a company soaked in the blood of innocents from its sales of Patriot Missiles and other armaments to Saudi Arabia and others waging a monstrously illegal, and catastrophic war in Yemen. Raytheon is the largest member of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) doing business in the Massachusetts and more than a few legislators, both federal and local, are more than willing accept contributions from this giant. Of course they are expected to protect Raytheon’s, and its investors, access to profit and that means never questioning the authenticity of claims made by “national security” officials. The same pattern is repeated across the nation.

Proponents of the Green New Deal have argued that societies worldwide cannot avoid the looming catastrophes of global climate change unless the industrially developed countries convert to modes of life that disavow carbon fuel sources and transform to sustainable and “green” modes of energy. In the U.S. the American military is the single largest consumer of oil and therefore the greatest contributor to carbon emissions and global warming. At the same time the Pentagon is also ramping up its future reliance on nuclear weapons and thereby inducing our “adversaries” to do the same. As climate disasters intensify and mass migrations continue the risks of conflict and violence also worsen. The conflict between India and Pakistan is an example of this and both nations have their nukes at the ready. Is this really the way the world will end…or do we wake up and demand the changes critical to our collective future? Climate change, beyond its own certainty of initiating human extinction, has every potential to result in nuclear war.

So what is really needed is not mere divestment from companies on the stock market but a demand on the part of citizens for the US government to withdraw from its alliance with parasitical corporations that rely on permanent production for permanent war. Anything else is suicidal. If Americans keep on the present course it is virtually certain that they will bring about their own annihilation. The means are fully known to exist to convert energy requirements and the industrial and technological wherewithal toward a new system, call it what you will, that can reduce carbon emissions, eliminate the threat of nuclear war, and re-focus the energies of citizens toward new forms of occupation that can stop the march to destruction. Is it not obvious that we must do so? Evidently the ruling elites are far more worried about their own grasp on power and control of wealth to perceive the impending dystopian future they oversee so it is the citizens of the U.S. who must find a way to break their lock and accept nothing less than the radical changes that polls show the majority see as necessary. I personally have never voted for a Democrat or Republican since I long ago lost faith that either party represented or cared about the fate of the majority. Nevertheless new contenders for political transmutation have emerged with ideas for fundamental change. The old guard in both parties must be booted out if the Americans are to take the necessary steps toward the obligatory transformations that must be implemented.

We know that the American society is reeling from dire social and economic problems like unemployment, medical care, homelessness, gun violence, suicide, drug addiction and many others. Leaders of both parties tell the people that there are limited resources to address these basic issues. Don’t we know better? Is the U.S. not the richest nation? The U.S. can defend itself against any would-be enemy with a quarter or less than the sum now approaching one trillion dollars allocated to the wasteful and bloated military. No nation wishes to invade U.S. but only to resist the planetary overreach of America Inc.

The only genuine solution is to halt the insane incentives to make a killing on killing. A movement by cities, towns, states and individuals to divest from the banks, hedge funds, brokerage houses, universities and state and private retirement funds that funnel the nation’s collective real wealth into what is truly a dead end would be a step in the right direction but what is really needed at this critical juncture in human evolution are giant steps. The U.S. as a whole must stop investment in this mass murder machine or continue to take the fateful strides toward our own failure as a species.

In Wars and Weapons We Trust

America’s Militarized Profession of Faith

William J. ASTORE

When I was a teenager in the 1970s, I looked to the heavens: to God and Christianity (as arbitrated by the Catholic Church) and to the soaring warbirds of the U.S. military, which I believed kept us safe. To my mind then, they were classic manifestations of American technological superiority over the godless Communists. 

With all its scandals, especially when it came to priestly sexual abuse, I lost my faith in the Catholic Church. Indeed, I would later learn that there had been a predatory priest in my own parish when I was young, a grim man who made me uneasy at the time, though back then I couldn’t have told you why. As for those warbirds, like so many Americans, I thrilled to their roar at air shows, but never gave any real thought to the bombs they were dropping in Vietnam and elsewhere, to the livesthey were ending, to the destruction they were causing. Nor, at that age, did I ever consider their enormous cost in dollars or just how much Americans collectively sacrificed to have “top cover,” whether of the warplane or godly kind.

There were good and devoted priests in my Catholic diocese. There were good and devoted public servants in the U.S. military. Admittedly, I never seriously considered the priesthood, but I did sign up for the Air Force, surprising myself by serving in it for 20 years. Still, both institutions were then, and remain, deeply flawed. Both seek, in a phrase the Air Force has long used, “global reach, global power.” Both remain hierarchies that regularly promote true believers to positions of authority. Both demand ultimate obedience. Both sweep their sins under the rug. Neither can pass an audit. Both are characterized by secrecy. Both seem remarkably immune to serious efforts at reform. And both, above all, know how to preserve their own power, even as they posture and proselytize about serving a higher one.

However, let me not focus here on the one “holy catholic and apostolic church,” words taken from the “profession of faith” I recited during Mass each week in my youth. I’d prefer to focus instead on that other American holy church, the U.S. military, with all its wars and weapons, its worshipers and wingmen, together with its vision of global dominance that just happens to include end-of-world scenarios as apocalyptic as those of any imaginable church of true believers. I’m referring, of course, to our country’s staggeringly large arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, just now being updated — the term seems to be “modernized” — to the tune of something like $1.7 trillion over the decades to come.

A Profession of Twenty-First-Century All-American Faith

“Show me your budget and I will tell you what you value” is a telling phrase linked to Joe Biden. And in those same terms, there’s no question what the American government values most: its military, to the tune of almost $1.5 trillionover the next two years (although the real number may well exceed $2 trillion). Republicans and Democrats agree on little these days, except support for spending on that military, its weaponry, its wars to come, and related national security state outlays.

In that context, I’ve been wondering what kind of “profession of faith” we might have to recite, if there were the equivalent of Mass for what has increasingly become our military church. What would it look like? Whom and what would we say we believed in? As a lapsed Catholic with a lot of practice in my youth professing my faith in the Church, as well as a retired military officer and historian, I have a few ideas about what such a “profession” might look like:

* We believe in wars. We may no longer believe in formal declarations of war (not since December 1941 has Congress made one in our name), but that sure hasn’t stopped us from waging them. From Korea to Vietnam, Afghanistan to Iraq, the Cold War to the War on Terror, and so many military interventions in between, including Grenada, Panama, and Somalia, Americans are always fighting somewhere as if we saw great utility in thumbing our noses at the Prince of Peace. (That’s Jesus Christ, if I remember my Catholic catechism correctly.)

* We believe in weaponry, the more expensive the better. The underperformingF-35 stealth fighter may cost $1.45 trillion over its lifetime. An updated nuclear triad (land-based missiles, nuclear submarines, and strategic bombers) may cost that already mentioned $1.7 trillion. New (and malfunctioning) aircraft carriers cost us more than $10 billion each. And all such weaponry requests get funded, with few questions asked, despite a history of their redundancy, ridiculously high price, regular cost overruns, and mediocre performance. Meanwhile, Americans squabble bitterly over a few hundred million dollars for the arts and humanities.

* We believe in weapons of mass destruction. We believe in them so strongly that we’re jealous of anyone nibbling at our near monopoly. As a result, we work overtime to ensure that infidels and atheists (that is, the Iranians and North Koreans, among others) don’t get them. In historical terms, no country has devoted more research or money to deadly nuclear, biological, and chemical weaponry than the United States. In that sense, we’ve truly put our money where our mouths are (and where a devastating future might be).

* We believe with missionary zeal in our military and seek to establish our “faith” everywhere. Hence, our global network of perhaps 800 overseas military bases. We don’t hesitate to deploy our elite missionaries, our equivalent to the Jesuits, the Special Operations forces to more than 130 countries annually. Similarly, the foundation for what we like to call foreign assistance is often military training and foreign military sales. Our present supreme leader, Pope Trump I, boasts of military sales across the globe, most notably to the infidel Saudis. Even when Congress makes what, until recently, was the rarest of attempts to rein in this deadly trade in arms, Pope Trump vetoes it. His rationale: weapons and profits should rule all.

* We believe in our college of cardinals, otherwise known as America’s generals and admirals. We sometimes appoint them (or anoint them?) to the highest positions in the land. While Trump’s generals — Michael Flynn, James Mattis, H.R. McMaster, and John Kelly — have fallen from grace at the White House, America’s generals and admirals continue to rule globally. They inhabit proconsul-like positions in sweeping geographical commands that (at least theoretically) cover the planet and similarly lead commands aimed at dominating the digital-computer realm and special operations. One of them will head a new force meant to dominate space through time eternal. A “strategic” command (the successor to the Strategic Air Command, or SAC, so memorably satirized in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove) continues to ensure that, at some future moment, the U.S. will be able to commit mass genocide by quite literally destroying the world with nuclear weapons. Indeed, Pope Trump recently boasted that he could end America’s Afghan War in a week, apparently through the mass nuclear genocide of (his figure) 10 million Afghans. Even as he then blandly dismissed the idea of wiping that country “off the face of the earth,” he openly reflected the more private megalomania of those military professionals funded by the rest of us to think about “the unthinkable.” In sum, everything is — theoretically at least — under the thumbs of our unelected college of cardinals. Their overblown term for it is “full-spectrum dominance,” which, in translation, means they grant themselves god-like powers over our lives and that of our planet (though the largely undefeated enemies in their various wars don’t seem to have acknowledged this reality).

* We believe that freedom comes through obedience. Those who break ranks from our militarized church and protest, like Chelsea Manning, are treated as heretics and literally tortured.

* We believe military spending brings wealth and jobs galore, even when it measurably doesn’t. Military production is both increasingly automated and increasingly outsourced, leading to far fewer good-paying American jobs compared to spending on education, infrastructure repairs of and improvements in roads, bridges, levees, and the like, or just about anything else for that matter.

* We believe, and our most senior leaders profess to believe, that our military represents the very best of us, that we have the “finest” one in human history.

* We believe in planning for a future marked by endless wars, whether against terrorism or “godless” states like China and Russia, which means our military church must be forever strengthened in the cause of winning ultimate victory.

* Finally, we believe our religion is the one true faith. (Just as I used to be taught that the Catholic Church was the one true church and that salvation outside it was unattainable.) More pacific “religions” are dismissed as weak, misguided, and exploitative. Consider, for example, the denunciation of NATO countries that refuse to spend more money on their militaries. Such a path to the future is heretical; therefore, they must be punished.

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Keep in mind that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God, or so I was taught as a boy anyway. One might say that the beginning of U.S. militarism is simply fear, whether of terrorists, immigrants, Muslims, Communists, or other enemies of the moment. If Americans continue to be wracked with such fears, they’ll undoubtedly continue to profess their faith in the military as our country’s noblest protectors, too.

Where does such a profession of faith in wars and weapons end? Is there even a terminus of any sort other than destruction?

Those of us who endured war games and hair-trigger nuclear alerts during the Cold War have long had apocalyptic fears of such endings in the back of our minds. Under Donald Trump, they’ve come back with a vengeance. Unlike many Christians, I don’t envision Christ returning to pick up the irradiated Elect after a nuclear version of Armageddon. But that, of course, is a true worst-case scenario. A more likely ending is a slow-motion collapse of America’s imperial empire and the church of the military that goes with it, the resulting chaos possibly leading to a Second Coming, not of Christ but of medieval levels of meanness and misery.

Or, maybe, just maybe, we might start anew by questioning our militarized profession of faith. We might begin to realize that our warrior-church isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. We might begin to seek meaning and salvation not through wars and weaponry, not through generals and their admirers, not through impossible dreams of total dominance, but through compassion and a desire for global justice.

I confess that I long ago turned my back on the Catholic Church of my youth, but I haven’t turned my back on Christianity and the wisdom it can offer. For what does it profit a country if it gains the whole world yet loses its soul? (In our case, of course, it might be more appropriate to say: For what does it profit a country if it gains nothing from its wars and military mindset yet loses its soul?) The more we Americans profess our faith in warriors, weapons, and wars, the more we endanger our nation’s collective soul. There’s a reason, after all, that Jesus placed the peacemakers, not the warriors, among the children of God.

tomdispatch.com

Provoking Iran Could Start a War and Crash the Entire World Economy

Federico PIERACCINI

Tensions in the Persian Gulf are reaching a point of no return. In recent weeks,six oil tankers have been subjected to Israeli sabotage disguised to look like Iranian attacks to induce the United States to take military action against the Islamic Republic. Some days ago Iran rightfully shot out of the sky a US Drone. In Yemen, the Houthis have finally started responding with cruise and ballistic missiles to the Saudis’ indiscriminate attacks, causing damage to the Saudi international airport of Abha, as well as blocking, through explosive drones, Saudi oil transportation from east to west through one of the largest pipelines in the world.

As if the political and military situation at this time were not tense and complexenough, the two most important power groups in the United States, the Fed and the military-industrial complex, both face problems that threaten to diminish Washington’s status as a world superpower.

The Fed could find itself defending the role of the US dollar as the world reserve currency during any conflict in the Persian Gulf that would see the cost of oil rise to $300 a barrel, threatening trillions of dollars in derivatives and toppling the global economy.

The military-industrial complex would in turn be involved in a war that it would struggle to contain and even win, destroying the United States’ image of invincibility and inflicting a mortal blow on its ability to project power to the four corners of the world.

Just look at how surprised US officials were about Iran’s capabilities to shot down an advanced US Drone:

“Iran’s ability to target and destroy the high-altitude American drone, which was developed to evade the very surface-to-air missiles used to bring it down, surprised some Defense Department officials, who interpreted it as a show of how difficult Tehran can make things for the United States as it deploys more troops and steps up surveillance in the region.”

The Fed and the defense of the dollar

The US dollar-based economy has a huge debt problem caused by post-2008 economic policies. All central banks have lowered interest rates to zero or even negative, thus continuing to feed otherwise dying economies.

The central bank of central banks, the Bank for International Settlements, an entity hardly known to most people, has stated in writing that “the outstanding notional amount of derivative contracts is 542 trillion dollars.” The total combined GDP of all the countries of the world is around 75 trillion dollars.

With the dimensions of the problem thus understood, it is important to look at how Deutsche Bank (DB), one of the largest financial institutions in the world, is dealing with this. The German bank alone has assets worth about 40 trillion dollars in derivatives, or more than half of annual global GDP.

Their solution, not at all innovative or effective, has been to create yet another bad bank into which to pour at least 50 billion dollars of long-term assets, which are clearly toxic.

Reuters explains:

“The bad bank would house or sell assets valued at up to 50 billion euros ($56 billion) – after adjusting for risk – and comprising mainly long-dated derivatives.

The measures are part of a significant restructuring of the investment bank, a major source of revenue for Germany’s largest lender, which has struggled to generate sustainable profits since the 2008 financial crisis.”

Thus, not only has Deutsche Bank accumulated tens of billions of dollars in unsuccessful options and securities, it seeks to obtain a profit that has been elusive since 2008, the year of the financial crisis. Deutsche Bank is full of toxic bonds and inflated debts kept alive through the flow of quantitative easing (QE) money from the European Central Bank, the Fed and the Japanese Central Bank. Without QE, the entire Western world economy would have fallen into recession with a chain of bubbles bursting, such as in public and private debt.

If the economy was recovering, as we are told by soi-disant financial experts, the central-bank rates would rise. Instead, rates have plummeted for about a decade, to the extent of becoming negative loans.

If the Western financial trend is undoubtedly heading towards an economic abyss as a result of the monetary policies employed after 2008 to keep a dying economy alive, what is the rescue plan for the US dollar, its status as a global-reserve currency, and by extension of US hegemony? Simply put, there is no rescue plan.

There could not be one because the next financial crisis will undoubtedly wipe out the US dollar as a global reserve currency, ending US hegemony financed by unlimited spending power. All countries possessing a modicum of foresight are in the process of de-dollarizing their economies and are converting strategic reserves from US or US-dollar government bonds to primary commodities like gold.

The military-industrial complex and the harsh reality in Iran

In this economic situation that offers no escape, the immediate geopolitical effect is a surge of war threats in strategic locations like the Persian Gulf. The risk of a war of aggression against Iran by the Saudi-Israeli-US axis would have little chance of success, but it would probably succeed in permanently devastating the global economy as a result of a surge in oil prices.

The risk of war on Iran by this triad seems to be the typical ploy of the bad loser who, rather than admit defeat, would rather pull the rug out from under everyone’s feet in order to bring everybody down with him. Tankers being hit and then blamed on Iran with no evidence are a prime example of how to create the plausible justification for bombing Tehran.

Upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that the actions of Bolton and Pompeo seem to be aligned in prolonging the United States’ unipolar moment, continuing to issue diktats to other countries and failing to recognize the multipolar reality we live in. Their policies and actions are accelerating the dispersal of power away from the US and towards other great powers like Russia and China, both of which also have enormous influence in the Persian Gulf.

The threat of causing a conflict in the Persian Gulf, and thereby making the price of oil soar to $300 a barrel, will not save US hegemony but will rather end up accelerating the inevitable end of the US dollar as a global reserve currency.

Trump is in danger of being crushed between a Fed that sees the US dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency collapse, and the need for the Fed to blame someone not linked to the real causes of the collapse, that is to say, the monetary policies adopted through QE to prolong the post-crisis economic agony of 2008.

At the same time, with Trump as president, the neocon-Israeli-Saudi supporters see a unique opportunity to strike Iran, a desire that has remained unchanged for 40 years.

As foolish as it may seem, a war on Iran could be the perfect option that satisfies all power groups in the United States. The hawks would finally have their war against Tehran, the world economy would sink, and the blame would fall entirely on Trump. The Donald, as a result, would lose any chance of being re-elected so it makes sense for him to call off possible strikes as he did after the US drone was shot out of the sky.

While unable to live up to his electoral promises, Trump seems to be aware that the path laid out for him in the event of an attack on Iran would lead to his political destruction and probably to a conflict that is militarily unsustainable for the US and especially its Saudi and Israeli allies. It would also be the catalyst for the collapse of the world economy.

In trying to pressure Iran into new negotiations, Trump runs the risk of putting too much pressure on Tehran and giving too much of a free hand to the provocations of Pompeo and Bolton that could end up triggering a war in the Strait of Hormuz.

Putin and Xi Jinping prepare for the worst

Our current geopolitical environment requires the careful and considered attention of relevant heads of state. The repeated meetings between Putin and Xi Jinping indicate that Russia and China are actively preparing for any eventuality. The closer we get to economic collapse, the more tensions and chaos increase around the world thanks to the actions of Washington and her close allies.

Xi Jinping and Putin, who have inherited this chaotic situation, have met at least a dozen times over the last six months, more recently meeting at least three times over two months. The pressing need is to coordinate and prepare for what will inevitably happen, once again trying to limit and contain the damage by a United States that is completely out of control and becoming a danger to all, allies and enemies alike.

As Putin just recently said:

“The degeneration of the universalistic model of globalization and its transformation into a parody, caricature of itself, where the common international rules are replaced by administrative and judicial laws of a country or group of countries.

The fragmentation of global economic space with a policy of unbridled economic selfishness and an imposed collapse. But this is the road to infinite conflict, trade wars and perhaps not just commercial ones. Figuratively, this is the road to the final struggle of all against all.

It is necessary to draft a more stable and fair development model. These agreements should not only be written clearly, but should be observed by all participants.

However, I am convinced that talking about a world economic order such as this will remain a pious desire unless we return to the center of the discussion, that is to say, notions like sovereignty, the unconditional right of each country to its own path to development and, let me add, responsibility in the universal sustainable development, not just its own.”

The spokesman of the Chancellery of the People’s Republic of China, Hua Chun Ying, echoed this sentiment:

“The American leaders say that ‘the era of the commercial surrender of their country has come to an end’, but what is over is their economic intimidation of the world and their hegemony.

The United States must again respect international law, not arrogate to itself extraterritorial rights and mandates, must learn to respect its peers in safeguarding transparent and non-discriminatory diplomatic and commercial relations. China and the United States have negotiated other disputes in the past with good results and the doors of dialogue are open as long as they are based on mutual respect and benefits.

But as long as these new trade disputes persist, China informs the government of the United States of America and the whole world that it will immediately impose duties on each other, unilaterally on 128 products from the United States of America.

Also, we think we will stop buying US public debt. It’s all, good night!”

I wonder if Europeans will understand all this before the impending disaster. I doubt it.

Federico PIERACCINI

Independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies