Who's cutting what now?

According to The New York Times, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has just announced a plan "to cut billions of dollars from the Pentagon budget." Great! With states running massive budget deficits and the official unemployment rate hovering around double-digits, what better time could there be to "trim back on unaffordable defense spending," as the Times puts it in its lede, right?

Except, of course, no one's talking about actually cutting the amount spent on the Defense Department. In fact, all Gates is proposing is basically reshuffling the money the Pentagon spends on its army of private contractors and retired advisers so it can spend more on its military occupations overseas. The Times, though, waits until the 12th paragraph to inform us of that:

The goal is to convert as much as 2 percent or 3 percent of spending from “tail” to “tooth” — military slang for support services and combat forces. Mr. Gates argued that if Congress guaranteed a 1 percent increase in real defense spending over years to come, the savings he seeks would be reinvested in the combat forces and would be sufficient to pay for national defense.

The budget measures go beyond what many previous defense secretaries have done to cut redundancies and inefficiencies.

But they do not represent an actual decline in year-to-year total spending.

So despite the fact Gates is not actually slashing spending -- the announced cuts merely intended to insulate his department from calls for real reductions at a time when cities are turning off their streetlights in a desperate attempt to save money -- the paper of record acts as if the big story is that a few DOD bureaucrats and contractors may lose their jobs rather than the offensive reality that the department is immune from budget cuts during the worst recession in decades, presenting the Defense Secretary as a stern, committed budget-cutter while neglecting the crucial detail that his vaunted cuts are simply part of an attempt to free up more tax dollars for killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan (and for not-so-covert ops in Iran, Yemen and Somalia).

Perhaps the most depressing aspect of it all? I fully expect to see a press release from the Republican National Committee tomorrow and impassioned speeches on the floor of Congress denouncing the Obama administration for "cutting defense spending" and putting us all at risk of Another 9/11 (TM); real men know that if you aren't going to increase war funding by at least 10 percent a year you might as well wave the white flag and surrender to the terrorists, after all. And so the charade continues.

Breaking news...

... the government and the corporate media present a distorted view of the war in Iraq!

That's the rather unsurprising finding of a recent investigation published by the New York Times, which at lesser times (which is more often than not) tends to serve as one of the primary vehicles for war propaganda, as evidenced by Judith Miller's sensational (and entirely erroneous) front-page reports on Iraqi WMD's prior to the war, and Michael Gordon's continually shoddy reporting about alleged Iranian "meddling" in Iraq today.

That the Times investigation found that most "military analysts" on television and radio were actually Pentagon propagandists raking in cash from the military-industrial complex is not a revelation. After all, it makes sense that those who will most benefit from military conflict are likely to be its chief advocates. It also is unsurprising that the State would seek to propagandize on behalf of its wars and assorted "national security" policies. And it's certainly not news that the major media outlets are complicit in this activity, for even when they're not wholly owned by defense contractors (like NBC/General Electric is, for instance), they are run by people who are entirely invested in perpetuating the establishment, American imperial mindset -- the same mindset that sees nothing wrong with having a two minute debate on the merits of bombing another country immediately followed by a five minute debate on whether Britney Spears is a fit mother.

To the political and media elites, war is simply another policy option to be debated as casually as an actress' wardrobe. Foreign military interventions are as American as apple pie in eyes of the establishment (and exploding bombs are always good for ratings), and advocating the use of military force inherently makes one "serious" in this militaristic environment. Rather than the burden of proof being placed on those who agitate for state-directed aggression against foreigners, in Washington the onus is on the advocates of peace to explain why they want so many Americans to die. In the eyes of the ruling class it's always 1938, all perceived enemies are invariably at least a little bit like Hitler, and the American military is always landing on the beaches of Normandy.

Once that is understood it comes as no surprise that major media outlets would book military analysts who share this view of"American exceptionalism" -- that the United States is the world's knight in shining armor, on call to police the globe. Questioning the stated reasons for war is something best left to naive hippies and others of dubious patriotism, and there's no better way for the liberal media to shore-up its patriotic credentials than by having blood-thirsty, ass-kicking former military men telling the American public how necessary war is -- and, damn it, just how cool it will all bee, what with all those high-tech gadgets of "shock and awe" and everything. Booking war critics like General William Odom or Scott Ritter? Bah, Amy Goodman can keep 'em.

Of course, every once in awhile some intrepid journalist will question this media consensus, sometimes even from the platform of one of the chief propaganda outlets themselves, as reporter David Barstow does in the Times. So rather than continuing to throw more scorn at the Times, here's an excerpt from Sunday's piece on the media's love affair with military propagandists:

To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.

The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.

Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.

The irony of the piece being published in the Times, and one duly noted by Barstow, is that many of these military propagandists lied to the public not only through the lens of a CNN or Fox News camera, but from the comfortable perch of the Times op/ed page:

Over time, the Pentagon recruited more than 75 retired officers, although some participated only briefly or sporadically. The largest contingent was affiliated with Fox News, followed by NBC and CNN, the other networks with 24-hour cable outlets. But analysts from CBS and ABC were included, too. Some recruits, though not on any network payroll, were influential in other ways — either because they were sought out by radio hosts, or because they often published op-ed articles or were quoted in magazines, Web sites and newspapers. At least nine of them have written op-ed articles for The Times.

Read the rest.

Congress: Making a killing

It should go without saying that in times of war, those people who manufacture the tools of death and destruction stand to benefit the most. That basic point was perhaps most notably addressed by infamous Chomyskite America-hater, former U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower, when in his 1961 farewell address he warned Americans that "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

As a new study from the Center for Responsive Politics finds, the huge profits one can make from foreign military interventions and the "homeland security" ruse hasn't been lost on Congress, the legislative body that chooses to fund wars and -- theoretically -- has the sole responsibility to declare them:

According to the most recent reports of their personal finances, 151 current members of Congress had between $78.7 million and $195.5 million invested in companies that received defense contracts of at least $5 million in 2006. In all, these companies received more than $275.6 billion from the government in 2006, or $755 million per day, according to FedSpending.org, a website of the budget watchdog group OMB Watch.

The minimum value of Congress members' personal investments in these contractors increased 5 percent from 2004 to 2006, but because lawmakers are only required to report their assets in broad ranges, the value of these investments could have risen as much as 160 percent—or even dropped 51 percent. It is also unclear how many members still hold these investments, since reports for 2007 are not due until May 15, 2008. In 2004, the first full year after the Iraq war began, Republican and Democratic lawmakers—both hawks and doves—had between $74.9 million and $161.3 million invested in companies under contract with the Department of Defense.

This revelation should come as no surprise. War is a pretty sound investment in a country that has military bases in more than 130 nations, from South Korea to Germany, and that spends more on the military than does the entire rest of the world -- and more than the entire economies of 47 sub-Saharan African countries combined.

As Justin Raimondo points out in his April 4th column, the draft of Eisenhower's farewell address actually used the phrase "military-industrial-congressional complex", noting the crucial role that members of Congress play in self-servingly perpetuating an imperial foreign policy. Congressional proponents of interventionism prefer to speak in vague, euphemistic language about "America taking action" or some other such attempt to disguise the vicious nature of what war actually is -- killing lots and lots of people, from 2,000 feet above to 20 feet away, more often than not innocent civilians. In reality, the decision to go to war is never profound -- the people who decide when to bomb a country are not fundamentally different than you or me. Oh, they may be richer, but they certainly aren't smarter, and they definitely aren't braver, and as former congressman Mark Foley's (R-FL) cyber-sexing during a vote on funding the Iraq war illustrates, they don't gravely consider sending other people's children into war.

But what about all those anti-war Democrats?

While Democrats are more likely to advocate for ending the Iraq war sooner than Republicans, as a group they have more of their own money invested in America's military efforts. In 2006 Democrats had at least $3.7 million invested in the defense sector alone, compared to Republicans' $577,500. More Republicans, however, held stock in defense companies in 2006—28 of them, compared to 19 Democrats.

According to a spokesman for one of these investors, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who held at least $15,000 in Lockheed Martin stock in 2006, it's "insulting" to make a connection between personal investments and a lawmaker's job. "Congressman Blunt does not consider his personal finances when voting for legislation, especially on issues as weighty as sending our troops into harm's way," Blunt spokesman Nick Simpson said.

How... completely unsurprising? To be fair, as Rep. Blunt's spokesman states (rather unconvincingly), personal investments aren't enough of a reason why a congressman would vote for war. After all, according to the study the majority of lawmakers are not heavily invested in the defense industry, yet they also continue to vote for militarism at every turn. So what gives?

I think the answer to that is fairly easy: just as oil was clearly a factor in why Iraq was even on the minds of U.S. policymakers (as opposed to, say, Rwanda in the mid '90s), money plays a part in why lawmakers vote for aggressive war -- but neither factors can fully explain the respective decisions. Though most congressional districts likely have some connection to the defense contracting industry (by no coincidence, either), it's too simple to say that that is the only reason why Congress votes the way it does.

Much I'm sure has to do with nothing more than basic nationalist, jingoistic ideology -- what is sometimes loftily referred to as "American exceptionalism", and can be boiled down to "we (the USA) can do what we want -- invade, torture and kill, kill, kill -- and you (the non-Western world) can't." Not to say that these lawmakers are conscious of this -- oh no. Most people think of themselves as good, and it's a safe bet that those same people leading the United States into one disastrous war after another believe that they are Fine American Patriots, just as those who killed "witches" in New England undoubtedly had a feeling of pure self-righteousness when they fastened the rope around a young woman's neck.

It is important to keep in mind that the perpetuation of the military-industrial complex is not (necessarily) a result of nefarious plotting in dark alleys and the ritualistic drinking of the blood of virgins. The reality of evil tends to be much more banal. Think more along the lines of a career bureaucrat in some anonymous office building in Anywhere, USA -- stamping form 1024a day in and day out becomes a mundane routine, just as stamping out obstacles to U.S. hegemony becomes so for a defense contractor (or Senator) who thinks of their job as nothing more than a paycheck and, if their lucky, maybe a little prestige.

An Unreasonable Man

Last night I was watching the 2006 documentary on the career of Ralph Nader, "An Unreasonable Man," when I heard something that almost made me fall out of my chair. In order to present a counterpoint to Nader's anti-corporatism, the filmmakers interviewed Daniel Mitchell, a former senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation currently employed by the Cato Institute. In what could have passed as satire straight from the lips of Stephen Colbert, Mitchell echoed Ayn Rand's view that big business is really just a poor, persecuted minority with little influence on government policy:

"Corporations don’t have that much power in Washington. They tend to be ineffective, especially on the big-picture issues. They might be able to get a little special loophole in some bill, or a special handout in another bill. But especially in a globalized economy, where you have foreign companies penetrating the U.S. market, U.S. companies are probably the most helpless entities out there."

Now, one needn't be a Nader's Raider to find that statement a little, shall we say, unbelievable. Whether one thinks the influence is good or bad, it's simply an indisputable fact at this point that major corporations play a huge role in not only what laws get passed, but on who gets elected to office. To say otherwise is either incredibly naive or incredibly dishonest.

The following is a brief, painfully incomplete list of government policies that Mitchell would have you believe were not shaped by corporate interests:

• U.S. Energy Policy -- The Democratic Congress is set to pass another Energy Bill that includes tax breaks for oil companies and subsidies for everything from nuclear power to ethanol. As the Washington Post describes, it was no different when Republicans controlled Congress in 2005 when they passed an Energy bill that "exempts oil and gas industries from some clean-water laws, streamlines permits for oil wells and power lines on public lands, and helps the hydropower industry appeal environmental restrictions...
It also includes an estimated $85 billion worth of subsidies and tax breaks for most forms of energy -- including oil and gas, "clean coal," ethanol, electricity, and solar and wind power. The nuclear industry got subsidies for research, waste reprocessing, construction, operation and even decommission. The petroleum industry got new incentives to drill in the Gulf of Mexico -- as if $60-a-barrel oil wasn't enough of an incentive. The already-subsidized ethanol industry got a federal mandate that will nearly double its output by 2012 -- as well as new subsidies to develop ethanol from other sources."

• U.S. Agriculture Policy -- As with energy policy, the U.S. Congress regularly approves massive farm bills that include billions in subsidies for mega-agribusinesses, as well as protectionist policies, such as the tariff on imported sugar, that benefit certain producers at the expense of overall consumers and industries in the developing world.

• The overthrow of the democratically elected government of Guatemala -- In 1954, the government of Colonel Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán was overthrown by a group of Guatemalan military officers in league with the Central Intelligence Agency, which had gained valuable experience overthrowing democratic governments the year before in Iran with Operation Ajax. U.S. involvement had been strongly pushed for by United Fruit, which was unhappy with the Guatemalan government's plan to nationalize part of the company's large land holdings. At the time, the assistant U.S. Secretary of State for InterAmerican Affairs was John Moors Cabot, former president of United Fruit. The Secretary of State was John Foster Dulles, whose law firm had previously represented the company. His brother, Allen Dulles, headed the CIA.

• NAFTA, CAFTA, and other "free trade" agreements -- Portrayed by the the United States and other governments as simple "free trade," these agreements are anything but. CAFTA, for instance, requires countries to enforce U.S. copyright laws. That includes banning certain generic prescription drugs, forcing poor Central American countries to pay much more for expensive pharmaceuticals from U.S. drug companies (see this article by Adam Graham-Silverman in Salon).

• The Military-Industrial Complex -- Coined by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in his 1961 farewell address, the military-industrial complex is thriving in these here United States. The U.S. military budget accounts for more than half of federal spending, and is roughly equal to what the rest of the world's military spending combined. Despite the lack of a traditional military threat, ala the USSR in the Cold War (at least how it was portrayed in the United States), the Bush administration continues to press for a multi-billion dollar missile defense shield that doesn't actually work. Though it seems quite capable of stoking Cold War-era tensions with Russia, it remains unclear how a working missile defense shield would stop 19 hijackers with box-cutters. Meanwhile, nominally "private" defense contractors, who depend entirely on government spending for their existence, seem to be doing quite well.

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This is about all I can handle now as far as examples go, but feel free to add your own in the comments section.

Blackwater hearing

Earlier today the House Oversight committee questioned Erik Prince, the founder and CEO of defense contractor Blackwater USA, over reports that employees of his company routinely acted recklessly and with little concern for civilian life. The hearing was prompted by an incident that took place on September 16h in which Blackwater employees opened fire on a crowd of Iraqi civilians, killing 11 people. But before the hearing began, Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) announced that there would be no specific questions about the incident, citing an ongoing investigation by the Department of Justice. Still many Republicans objected to the hearing anyway, even attempting to force the committee to adjourn -- a motion that was rejected. Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) was typical of the Republicans in attendance, attempting to paint criticism of Blackwater as merely a continuation of the antiwar group MoveOn.org's criticism of General Petraues, saying Democrats were just interested in attacking the war in Iraq. Earlier in the morning, Issa went on C-Span's "Washington Journal," where he went so far as to suggest that Chairman Waxman was placing his own life in jeopardy by even holding the hearing:

"If Henry Waxman today wants to go to Iraq and do an investigation, Blackwater will be his support team. His protection team. Do you think he really wants to investigate directly?" (link -- 1:07:20 into clip)

The exception among Republicans was Representative Jimmy Duncan (R-TN), a staunch conservative who has long opposed the war in Iraq (something I discussed with the Congressman back in May). He pointed out that Blackwater derives more than 90% of its income from the federal government, and argued that fiscal conservatives should be concerned about the ever-increasing amount of money private contractors are receiving in Iraq. Democrats, for the most part, pressed Blackwater CEO Erik Prince over what steps his company took to ensure accountability among its employees.

I filed a full account of the hearing for Capitol News Connection, which you may find by going here.

13 Lawmakers Subpoenaed in Defense Contractor Bribery Case

The Associated Press reported earlier today that 13 congressmen have been subpoenaed to testify by the defense attorneys for Brent Wilkes, the California contractor charged with bribing disgraced former Congressman Duke Cunningham (R-CA) for millions of dollars in defense contracts. But those lawmakers who were subpoenaed say the reason is a mystery to them, and all are refusing to testify until Mr. Wilkes' defense gives them a specific reason as to why they their testimony is needed.

As I reported for KPBS in San Diego, California, several of the lawmakers, including Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA), took campaign contributions from Wilkes, though there is no evidence that they did anything improper. That said, Rep. Issa was defensive when I asked him why he wasn't going to honor his subpoena:

"I didn't work with Mr. Wilkes, I didn't have any kind of contact with him at all. I met him before I was a congressman. I went to a foundation event while I was a congressman in which I contributed to a warrior foundation. So I don't have the kind of link that would ever be appropriate, as far as I know."

To read and/or listen to the story, click here.