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Johnny J
Cannabis Sacrament Minister
Joined: 14 Dec 2005
Posts: 141
Location: Chicago, Illinois
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 Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 3:55 am Post subject: Mein Kampf for Amerikkkans |
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Pentagon spells out strategy for global military aggression
By Bill Van Auken
Only days before the Bush administration submitted its fiscal 2007 budget, which calls for a major increase in military spending, the Pentagon sent Congress a long-term strategy document that makes clear Washington’s intentions to use the additional billions to wage an aggressive campaign of global militarism.
Envisioned in the document, the Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), is a vaguely defined “long war” . . .
President Bush’s budget calls for a 7 percent hike in military spending . . . The proposed increase has been coupled with calls for sweeping cuts in such core entitlement programs as Medicare and Medicaid . . .
. . . US military spending will climb well above the half-trillion-dollar mark in the coming year. This is more than the amount spent by all other countries combined, accounting for more than half of the estimated $1 trillion in worldwide arms expenditures . . .
. . . includes $5.1 billion—a 20 percent increase—for special operations, i.e., . . . including the deployment of assassination squads to kill insurgent leaders.
. . . the Pentagon budget is laden with $84.2 billion in weapons procurement. The bulk of this is in multi-billion-dollar arms programs initiated during the Cold War which critics both within and outside the US military now view as largely superfluous . . .
These proposals are a demonstration of the enduring power—and massive expansion—of what then-President Dwight Eisenhower warned against nearly 50 years ago, when he spoke of a growing “military-industrial complex.” Defense contractors such as General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin saw their stock prices increase sharply in the wake of the budget announcement.
The administration is continuing its stealth funding of the war in Iraq, which is excluded from the Pentagon’s annual budget and procured under “emergency supplemental requests”—seven thus far . . . This will bring the total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan thus far to $440 billion, rapidly approaching the cost (when adjusted for inflation) of the 13-year-long war in Vietnam.
The anticipated spending rate of $10 billion a month is 50 percent higher than last year.
This massive spending proposal is driven ultimately by a policy, supported by the decisive sections of the American ruling elite and both major parties, of utilizing US military superiority as a means of countering the relative decline of American capitalism on the world market. The buildup of the US armed forces is aimed not at countering some ubiquitous terrorist menace, but at defending American economic and political hegemony against challenges from both popular movements and powerful economic rivals.
This strategy is spelled out in the QDR document released in conjunction with the budget request. That the document uses the term “long war,” a phrase that is increasingly replacing the “global war on terrorism” in Washington official-speak, has ominous implications. The term is aimed at accustoming US military personnel and the American public at large to a state of permanent warfare that will continue regardless of the outcome of the current interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As the document states: “Currently, the struggle is centered in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we will need to be prepared and arranged to successfully defend our Nation and its interests around the globe for years to come.”
In another significant terminological shift, the Pentagon document defines the main enemy not as terrorists, but rather as “violent extremists” or merely “extremists.” This choice of words is not accidental. The thrust of the strategic conceptions outlined by the Pentagon review is the organization of the US military to violently quell any and all opposition to US domination.
Those who resist Washington’s economic and political hegemony are to be branded “extremists,” no matter what their ideological conceptions, and ruthlessly suppressed. The counterinsurgency methods elaborated in the document are aimed not merely at Islamist terrorist groups, but at any popular movement that emerges against US imperialism and its client regimes . . .
In regards to Latin America, the document presents as a growing concern in US military planning the “resurgence of populist authoritarian political movements in some countries, such as Venezuela,” which it says “threaten gains achieved and are a source of economic and political instability.”
The document spells out the now well-established US doctrine of “preemptive war" . . .
Listing a series of ongoing changes being made by the US military to meet “the new strategic environment,” the document includes the following: “From conducting war against nations—to conducting war in countries we are not at war with;” “From responding after a crisis starts (reactive)—to preventive actions so problems do not become crises (proactive);” “From static defense, garrison forces—to mobile, expeditionary operations;” and “From a battle-ready force (peace)—to battle-hardened forces (war).”
In a section entitled “Shaping the choices of countries at strategic crossroads,” the document makes clear that the buildup of the US military is aimed at deterring any country from challenging US domination in any region of the world.
It warns that Washington “will attempt to dissuade any military competitor from developing disruptive or other capabilities that could enable regional hegemony,” adding the explicit threat that “should deterrence fail, the United States would deny a hostile power its strategic and operational objectives.”
In particular, the document singles out China, describing it as “having the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional US military advantages.”
. . . The current review clearly suggests that the spending on new long-range weapons programs is aimed at preparing for a future military confrontation with China . . . |
See the whole article at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/pent-f09.shtml
What is unbelievable is the administration accusing China of building a military greater than its needs!
"What do you call assassins who accuse assassins?"
Kurtz from Apocalypse Now
Johnny J!!  : |
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Mystic Power
admin THC-Ministry YahooGroup
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 3605
Location: Key West
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| Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 4:22 am Post subject: |
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From Eisenhower's Farewell Speech:
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Whole Speech HERE>> http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
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