The main tenet of the Bush Doctrine was the policy of preventive war\u2014using the U.S. military to attack and destroy enemies the administration deemed dangerous, rather than using force only when the United States is clearly\u00a0threatened. As a senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama was critical of President Bush’s war policies. But as president, he has embraced and extended the Bush approach to national security.<\/p>\n

According to the website Save Social Security<\/a>,\u00a0President Obama has increased military spending, expanded the war in Afghanistan and increased drone attacks in Pakistan. (The CIA carries out drone attacks under a classified budget separate from defense spending. The Brookings Institute has estimated that 10 civilians are killed for every \u201cterrorist operative.\u201d<\/a>)\u00a0He has bombed Yemen and Somalia, and started an undeclared NATO war in\u00a0Libya. Obama has also increased the use of contractors and mercenaries,<\/a> which disguises the actual numbers of American forces remaining in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

On surveillance questions, presidential war powers, Guantanamo, detention policy<\/a>,\u00a0and habeas corpus, he has either continued or expanded Bush’s\u00a0precedents. (For more information on these topics, see Glenn Greenwald<\/a>, who writes about them extensively at Salon.com.)<\/p>\n

Why cuts in defense spending are never on the table<\/strong><\/p>\n

While corporate Democrats and Republicans are suggesting cuts to Social Security and Medicare as a way to reduce the deficit, there is little discussion among them, or from the White House, about reducing defense spending. It has always been the \u201csacred cow\u201d of the budget process. However, a more accurate description might be the \u201ccorporate cash cow of permanent war.\u201d There may be talk of reducing waste and improving efficiency, but never any real interest in dramatically cutting defense spending.<\/p>\n

it’s no mystery that corporations and businesses that benefit from increased defense spending help fund political campaigns, and are rewarded for their contributions with lucrative defense contracts. Senators and congressmen continue to push for more defense spending for contractors in their states or districts. The bloated defense budget that funds America\u2019s adventurous wars benefits not only contractors, but also corporations who want unfettered access to markets and raw materials.<\/p>\n

For example, the new military bases president Obama built in Columbia <\/a>in 2009\u00a0were built, supposedly, to aid in the war on drugs. But, in reality, they serve as a southern launching pad for eventually overturning socialist leaning Latin American countries deemed unfriendly to U.S. corporate interests. In other words, no one in either party in Washington, except for a few progressive Democrats and Independents, wants to have an honest discussion about the real purpose of defense spending, because it has more to do with corporate profits than defense.<\/p>\n

President Obama\u2019s national security policy is disappointing to those of us who voted for him, because we assumed he would keep his campaign promises to rein in defense spending and bring home the troops.. When we desperately need money for domestic uses\u2014for a jobs program, better public education and health care, alternative energy, elder care, and repair of our aging infrastructure\u2014we have taxpayer money being spent to feed a bloated military\/security complex that does nothing for working families. The poor, working and middle classes need jobs that are well paying, meaningful and make a positive contribution to society.<\/p>\n

But what about all those jobs the defense industry provides?<\/a> According to a study conducted at the University of Massachusettst, spending $1 billion on personal consumption, clean energy, health care, and education will each create significantly more jobs within the U.S. economy than would the same $1 billion spent on the military.<\/p>\n

As it is, the defense budget of the United States dwarfs that of every other country. Clearly, such a budget is not about defense, but about aggression and hegemony. Occasional Planet’s Gloria Bilchik has written about the startling fact that\u00a0we have so many military bases around the world that no one knows for sure how many there are<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Whether the most accurate total is 900 bases, 1,000 bases or 1,100 posts in foreign lands, what\u2019s undeniable is that the US military maintains\u2026an empire of bases so large and shadowy that no one \u2014not even at the Pentagon \u2014 really knows its full size and scope . . .<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The U.S. government\u2019s funding of right wing dictators, such as ex-president Mubarak of Egypt, is an important, yet often overlooked, aspect of defense spending. Money given to these client countries as “aid” comes with a purchase order attached\u2014usually for fighter jets, tanks or weapons\u2014which is sent back to defense contractors to fulfill.<\/p>\n

Defense spending by the numbers, according to the website Save Social Security<\/a>,<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

President Obama’s first defense budget, including the Iraq and Afganistan supplemental funds for fiscal year 2010, was $685.1 billion, an increase of 3 percent from the previous\u00a0year.<\/p>\n

The Obama administration again increased spending in FY 2011, requesting a base budget of $548.9 billion, plus $159.3 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq, for a total of $708.3\u00a0billion.<\/p>\n

The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, (CSBA)<\/a> notes that the FY 2011 budget also includes an additional $19 billion for defense-related atomic energy programs, $8 billion for defense-related activities in other agencies, and $122 billion for veterans. The combined expenses for defense total $861 billion, or 22 percent of the total federal budget. (The CSBA came up with slightly different numbers for base DOD expenses than Save Social Security .)<\/p>\n

For fiscal year 2012, the President has requested $670.9 billion\u2014but he raised the Department of Defense baseline request from $548.9 billion to $553.1 billion. The overall decrease comes from a projected cut in operational costs for the wars in Afghanistan and\u00a0Iraq.<\/p>\n

According to the Congressional Research Service<\/a>, Afghanistan [in 2012] will still cost $113.7 billion compared to the $43.5 billion spent in 2008, President Bush’s last year in office. Iraq will be much cheaper than before, but this decline was already in the works. In late 2008, President Bush signed an agreement setting the Iraq drawdown in motion. If anything, Obama has slowed down the withdrawal, and is now petitioning Iraq to stay past 2011.<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the stepped-up war in Afghanistan has offset much of the savings we could have expected in\u00a0Iraq. And this is just the financial cost. Last year 559 American troops died in Iraq and Afghanistan\u2014significantly more than the 469 who died during Bush’s final year in\u00a0office.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, often forgotten, there are untold numbers of innocent men, women and children in the countries we have bombed or invaded who have been killed, and hundreds of thousands more displaced. The suffering caused by U.S. war policy, both here and abroad, is tremendous. It is unconscionable\u2014and unnecessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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