In the excitement over today's primary elections in the US presidential race, readers may have only subliminally registered that the US launched missiles against an African country over the weekend. Yes - it was just a footnote in the War on Terror - but Somalia was (again) the target of American forces. Presumably the targets were people dressed like this.
One of the blessings of being an American expatriate is that I am not bombarded by Stateside TV ads, especially that noxious variety called campaign advertising. So I have only heard of the Hillary Clinton "3:00 AM" attack on Barack Obama's national security credentials. I understand that her campaign manager says that it is "swaying millions" of undecided voters.
But for those who don't need pictures to generate chills up their spine, I recommend some essential reading. Today's New York Times oped by Bob Herbert, "The $2 Trillion Nightmare," should be effective in waking you up at 3:00 AM as you contemplate the economic impact of the Bush Administration and its one enduring legacy. Herbert quotes testimony last week at the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress by Robert Hormats, former Reagan Administration Assistant Secretary of State and current vice chairman of Goldman Sachs, and Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist:
Hormats: “Normally, when America goes to war, nonessential spending programs are reduced to make room in the budget for the higher costs of the war. Individual programs that benefit specific constituencies are sacrificed for the common good ... And taxes have never been cut during a major American war. For example, President Eisenhower adamantly resisted pressure from Senate Republicans for a tax cut during the Korean War.”
Stiglitz: “Because the administration actually cut taxes as we went to war, when we were already running huge deficits, this war has, effectively, been entirely financed by deficits (emphasis added). The national debt has increased by some $2.5 trillion since the beginning of the war."
In case $2 Trillion isn't scary enough, read Gary Kamiya's review in Salon of the Stiglitz (with co-author Linda Bilmes) book "The Three Trillion Dollar War"
As far as I know, Stiglitz and Bilmes' landmark book is the first to break the taboo against counting up the costs of an ongoing war. Not only does it reveal the staggering actual cost of Bush's war of choice -- at least $3 trillion -- it details what we could have done with that money if we had spent it more wisely. The book also argues that Iraq is partly responsible for the nation's current economic crisis: The Federal Reserve Bank under Alan Greenspan tried to offset the adverse effects of the war by lowering interest rates, which helped cause the subprime debacle when interest rates inevitably rose (emphasis added).
The import of their insistence on looking at the war's cost now, while it's still in progress, can't be underestimated. By forthrightly acknowledging that armed conflict should be subject to a cost-benefit analysis, they implicitly puncture the sacrosanct aura of patriotism surrounding war -- and make it harder for governments to launch future wars as ill-considered as the present one we find ourselves in.
The "cost" is not just economic. Later this week, I will be reporting on a Brussels discussion of American militarism, but I leave you with the thoughts of President (and former General) Dwight Eisenhower, who, as he was saying farewell to the nation in January 1961, issued his famous "military industrial complex" warning:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial 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.
"Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry" can counter danger to "our liberties or democratic processes." Be wary of "3:00 AM" scare ads and interestingly-timed foreign crises. "Change" - in facing up to more than a half century of exponential growth in the MIC that Eisenhower warned of - would indeed be scary for the vested interests in the defense industry. Guess who Susan Eisenhower, lifelong Republican and keeper of her grandfather's flame, is voting for?