11/27/12

Another D.O.D. Spending Reform Scenario

The President as the executive chooses to order troops here or there for 90 days (War Powers Act) before requiring Congressional approval (if they actually took their responsibility seriously) and the Department of Defense deploys them.

The D.O.D. should train the Army and Marines to fight a large conventional war (with the new unconventional, emergent weapons systems included) instead of anti-terrorist cell operations. Anti-terrorism wars tasking should fall to S.F. Black Ops in the 50,000 man rapid deployment S.F. BOP for efficiency. A conventional Army or Marines is rather a large target for-itself and attacked as a sitting duck in financially assymetric warfare thereby harming the United States with great cost effectiveness.

Obviously with American reliance on foreign fossil fuels the Bin Ladens of the world have ample spare change to finance terrorist ops now and then to which the states leadership responds with speeches and multi-trillion dollar troop deployments that are as effective as a snowball in hell at making permanent social transformations stop nurturing  terrorism.

The United States cannot become a colonial power enacting the mistakes of the past especially as a temporal occupier. That direction is an egregious historical error and ought to be avoided. The military is no substitute for intelligent civil economic leadership and a good society that others want to emulate. A blunt instrument does not raise I.Q. even if it obliterates some opposition.

Much effort to transform society for the good should be found in global ecospheric restoration concurrent with full employment and enhanced well-being of all American citizens.

Anti-safe haven interdiction efforts can be accomplished with surveillance droids on ground and air with some being as small as a mosquito along with aerial weapons delivery packages. If the governments themselves are corrupt the U.S. cannot simply send a conventional military to do nation makeovers and it ought not conduct aggressive war upon governments it does not regard as 'democratic' because they don't want to have a Wal-Mart society.

Contemporary U.S. politics are largely designed to concentrate wealth with real support from both parties and the is media owned by the rich even if they own both the left and the right broadcasters. The displacing political power of the media means that thousands of individuals never rise to run by acclaim from local radio podcast-broadcasters reaching consensus. That situation presents not even a semblance of democratic, popular nomination or selection of qualified citizens in the Presidential campaigns.

'Lots of Money' can be spent very quickly by the congress and war excuses for dubiously necessary contests are a modern leverage tool for redistribution of wealth to the rich from all taxpayers. Eisenhower warned in his Farewell Address about the 'military-industrial complex'. The economist Lester Thurow described the military-industrial 'maintennance economy' pattern in a (1999?) book-The G.W. Bush administration embodied that non-creative political modus vivendi.

 A profligacy in spending and perennial foreign wars have defeated more than one civilization or nation. Incompetent and corrupt national leadership that fails to develop its economy in an ecospherically useful way as well as its social environment moves toward being an obstruction to democracy, human survival on Earth and Toynbean fin de sicle status.

One wants to have constructive civil rather than military engagement with adverse foreign powers, lend support to regimes experiencing subversive  anti-freedom rebellion movements and develop an excellent and consolidated intelligence gathering capability that would locate actual terrorist dangers to the security of then people of the United States in addition to the problem of egregious deficit spending.

Altruism doesn't require payment-that's why its altruism. Those fighting for their own interests (themselves, profit motive, family, global powers of concentrated wealth, NPR etc) should be paid moderately in a Democratic society. Their pay should be consistent with the best interests of the society. I met a medal of honor winner from EL Campo Texas that was a Green Beret that didn't get paid a lot ('Sgt. Benevidez had a glorious day'). He returned his medal to the Congress because of the way they treat the poor. The late Sgt. Benevidez was a humble auto mechanic-small business auto garage owner.

One cannot purchase freedom from hostile foreign or domestic powers without in effect paying tribute to the victors. A people that requires military substitutes for themselves is one in decline. In the Spanish American war there were far too many volunteers to accept into the Army. In the Vietnam war the Army volunteers that enlisted inn the 1950s fought very well until discharge about 1966 and at low cost. The draft Army didn't do too badly either considering and they weren't paid much either. Before the Bush administration a private e-1 might get just a few hundred dollars a month-and that's an acceptable cost for the nation to shoulder on a longer-term basis.

A permanent high cost military where a 'combat' soldier e-1 on some sort of foreign occupation is paid about 24,000 annually isn't reasonably sustainable. It creates a culture of paying off a mercenary militia that is economically devastating.

My father was a four year world war two veteran that wasn't paid much like the other 20 million Americans that served in uniform from a national population of what-about 140 million? Military training before the end of the cold war in December 1990 when President Gorbachev withdrew 250,000 troops from East Germany during the Reagan years had pay still quite low. Reagan developed a potential military power rather than exploiting that power in protracted-ill-thought out and ineffective military contests of less than total war. That is still not a bad idea. One should put a firewall between special forces (S.F. BOP) rapid response units and escalation by the conventional military by separating the S.F. BOP into its own force. The conventional special forces such as the Seals and Rangers would remain as they are.

The planetary anti-terrorism war so far as the United States goes should be met by the intelligence community and specialized rather than conventional forces.

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