Springboarding from my last post on the possibility of the military as the United States’ remaining source of power, and Barak’s most recent writing on defense and foreign aid, I wanted to write a bit more on the conflict between foreign aid and military spending. In the halls of Congress, it’s a rare thing to hear critiques of our military budget, in contrast with just about any other form of government spending. Concerns over defense expenditures, conflicts of interests in contracting and our ever increasing love of outsourcing typically devolve into tried and true “support the troops” rhetoric.
Fortunately, I’m not a legislator and thus these subjects are fine for me to discuss. A recent piece in the Atlantic by Andrew Bacevich explores the US’ current approach to military projects through the lens of Dwight Eisenhower’s commentary on the “military industrial complex”. Perhaps during the height of the Cold War our military expenditures were genuinely justifiable (I certainly don’t believe so but at very least there’s room for argument). With this great threat to war with an equally powerful nation finally behind us however, how unreasonable is it to expect military spending to taper off?
Even if one believes that it would be irresponsible to slow our pursuit of military dominance, does much real argument exist to explain the amount we spend on the military? Furthermore once our military budget is decided for the year, is there any effort put into determining how that budget will be allocated to varied projects? These days every bit of Congressional spending on earmarks for local projects is scrutinized, why should our spending on military projects be any different? So often politicians tout the ability of the market to resolve our woes, but the cost of military spending does not obey any of the rules of the market, yet is vastly ignored by the ‘free market’s’ largest proponents.
If there’s a single rule I live by regarding US politics, it’s that one can always count on our legislators to keep their own interests in mind. Their focus is almost universally on being reelected and maintaining whatever influence and power they’ve sunk their claws into. Unfortunately, arguing against military spending isn’t in any legislator’s personal interests, period. It can be difficult at times to argue over military spending as in contrast with the country’s GDP it almost seems reasonable, however it’s important to remember in the current congressional circus that the argument is over federal spending and the numbers on military spending as a portion of the federal budget are quite clear.
Ultimately my point isn’t to express complaint on the state of military spending but to briefly highlight one aspect of the absurdity of the current debate over government spending. Is there a problem in our government’s current approach to economics? Obviously. But does the current discussion in the political arena have anything to do with it? Not at all. Focusing on tax cuts and ending “extraneous” pursuits like US foreign aid spending, is a perfect example of Congressional politics as usual and displays an utter lack of concern for any of the policies which landed us in our current mess.
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Jared Loughner’s attempt to kill Representative Gabrielle Giffords is tragic and completely unjustifiable. Six others died in the attempt, including US District Judge John Roll. I have no doubt that the event will become politicized as an extreme symptom of the polarized political atmosphere in the US today. I am going to eschew the histrionics that our democracy is falling apart. Sadly, political killings have long been a feature of US history. Nowhere is this more evident than in the civil rights struggle that lasted for more than 100 years, from the assassination of President Lincoln through the deaths of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X in the 1960s.
What seem relevant to me is that in the US, we do not glorify lone perpetrators of political violence. I have never met a person who admires John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, or John Hinckley, Jr. This strikes me as relevant. In the US, however strongly we may disagree, we do not condone lone violence as an acceptable as a means to political end.
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Here’s a funny thing about the United States. If a police officer pulls me over for speeding and I offer to give said officer $100 if he/she forgets that I was speeding, that’s called a bribe and it is illegal. Yet if Corporation X helps elect a politician by spending a lot of money and that politician subsequently writes a law providing Corporation X with favorable tax treatment, it’s called free speech and is legal. Is there anything troubling and just a wee bit hypocritical about this?
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MA in Democracy and Governance student Samuel Tadros argues that lack of religious freedom in Egypt lies at the heart of the New Year’s Eve terrorist attack on a Coptic Church that killed 23 Copts:
The current attack is attributed to Islamist anger over the alleged kidnapping by the Coptic Church of a Priest’s wife whom they claim converted to Islam. The general context is Islamist anger at what they perceive as the humiliation of Islam at the hands of Copts by asking to build churches…In all of this there is no alternative provided. There is no argument for the right of an individual to choose his religion, there is no defense of the right of people to build churches, and there is no public sphere opened to Christians.
This seems like a pretty solid argument to me. Placing the communal feelings of the followers of a state’s dominant religion above the ability of an individual to practice the religion of his or her choice is only a small step away from legitimizing oppression of those who don’t adhere to the dominant religion.
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Studying political science can at times be a trying pursuit. When I first began to read on The United States’ Latin American pursuits in the 20th century, for a while it was hard to have much faith at all in the better virtues of the country. In contrast with some of the more idealistic writings on earlier periods of our history, and the rosy visions of values the nation was built upon; studying COINTELPRO, United Fruit and the Iran Contra scandals paint a bleak picture of US international relations.
The start of a new year is a good time to reflect the past, and at the moment the ongoing military conflicts in the Middle East provide a focal point where US foreign relations are concerned. Just a few days ago on Democracy Now! Amy Goodman spoke with investigative journalist and activist Allan Nairn, about just this subject. The pair discussed the role the US is taking on a global stage in the 21st century, in light of our continued military pursuits and the nation’s economic floundering.
In his past works, Nairn has earned infamy and awards for exposition on some of the worst applications of US military and economic power. Thus it should come as little surprise that Nairn’s discussions with Goodman on drone attacks and other such fierce ethical dilemmas are strikingly critical of the US. Though in our current political climate it’s easy to take comments like Nairn’s as “anti-American”, dissenting voices like his are necessary to the exchange of ideas and the democratic process.
In a nation as wealthy as the United States, complacency is always a threat. We don’t live under constant fear of violence (however frightful the war on terror might be) and most of our daily concerns are over degrees of comfort rather than basic survival. Though they interrupt our comfortable lives, dissenting voices serve a valuable role in questioning the current state of our society. As disheartening as Democracy Now! and programs like it might be at times, it’d be a shame to remain unaware of the consequences of our daily actions domestically and abroad.
It’s worrisome to think that as our economic woes continue, our military efforts increasingly become the centerpiece of United States influence abroad. Particularly in light of recent calls to cut our investment in foreign aid, it might be worth it for all Americans (not just those in Congress) to consider just what role we intend the country to take in shaping the world throughout future years. If nothing else, perhaps this is one more way in which the recovery of the US economy is relevant to everyone.
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We’re going to hear a lot of talk about reducing government spending over the next few months. I thought I might take this opportunity to talk about how to judge whether a proposal is serious or not. This might seem like a difficult question, but it’s actually quite easy: does it reduce federal government spending on health care. Why do I make such a bold claim? It’s not me, it’s the Congressional Budget Office:
The table makes it quite clear that the long-term budget problem we face isn’t social security, TARP, “the stimulus package”, foreign aid, or any other “runaway spending” program members of Congress love to denigrate. It’s certainly not earmarks. It’s not waste, fraud, and abuse. Nor is the problem gold-plated salaries and benefits for federal employees. It’s rising transfer payments from the federal government to doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies. So when some listening to our esteemed Members of Congress talk about how they are going to stabilize our budget, their proposals for slowing the rate of growth in health care costs are the only ones to take seriously.
By the way, repealing the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) doesn’t count as reducing spending on health care. Obamacare saves money compared to the status quo ante. Those who want to repeal it thus exacerbate the problem of rising health care costs.
PS: Now that you possess this valuable knowledge, listening to budget debates will become much more painful. Members of Congress don’t want to talk about cutting spending on government-subsidized health care because, you know, a lot of people like government-subsidized health care. So do a lot of doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies.
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Once again, we’ve spent the year expanding D&S. We have new contributors, including David, Elizabeth and Imara, D&S is now on Facebook, we published the Spring 2010 issue, with the Fall issue on the way, the complete archives are now available, we added a page of special reports from the CDACS and DG staff and students and we continued to provide quality snark and commentary on foreign affairs and international development.
Here’s a brief review to ring out the old year.
Top Posts
On Facebook
On the Blog
Returning from last year, Why Do People Protest still lands in the Top 5 posts on the blog. The other Top 5 posts are:
Most Commented
Another of last year’s posts (Obama Needs a Vision Check) continues to be one of the most commented posts. The others include:
Thank You
We’d like to say thank you to all of our Fans, Friends and followers, and in particular, to the following for ReTweeting, linking, and generally loving our stuff!
Happy New Year from all of us at D&S and Georgetown CDACS!
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