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The US security complex: Too big to fail

Many Americans are not aware that their tax money is being spent supporting a huge military industry.


    US taxpayers are shelling out $1.2tn for the military, intelligence and homeland security sectors EPA]





    In the last decade, as "the troops" became sacrosanct, the secular equivalent of religious icons, they also helped ensure that no Congress could afford not to pour money into the Pentagon. Pay no attention to the much-touted $450 bn that institution is expected to trim over the next ten years. That sum will largely come from "cuts" in future projected growth and anything more will be strongly resisted. In that same decade - thanks largely to two hijacked planes that damaged New York beyond al-Qaeda's wildest dreams - "American safety" (narrowly defined as "from terrorists") became the mantra of the moment. Soon enough, it was the explanation of choice for any expenditure: the latest drones, surveillance equipment, high-tech motion sensors, or peeping-Tom technology at airports.


    That same phrase fertilised the Department of Homeland Security, the homeland security state that went with it, and an immensely lucrative homeland-security-industrial complex that went with that - all growing at a remarkable clip.

    An insurance policy for the National Security Complex

    Imagine for a second that, at the height of the Cold War, someone had told you of a future in which the US faced no great armed power (not one) and at most a few thousand terrorists scattered across the planet, as well as modestly armed minority insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan. Imagine that person making this prediction as well: in budget and size, the National Security Complex of that moment would put its Cold War predecessor in the shade.


    The dimensions of the National Security Complex now beggar the imagination.  In fact, everything about it should make it the global yardstick for "too big to fail".  The Pentagon budget is, for instance, about 50 per cent higher today than the Cold War average and accounts for nearly half of all military expenditures globally. And yet it has kept right on growing; and if bailed-out bankers continue to take home their bonuses as thanks for practically sinking the country, top Pentagon types continue to take home their golden pensions with future revolving-door opportunities in the military-industrial complex always available.

    If you really want to grasp the enormity of the National Security Complex, just consider this stat: today, 4.2 million federal workers and employees of private contractors have security clearances - about, that is, the population of New Zealand or Lebanon.



    Don't ask, don't tell

    In such circumstances, cost is no object. To pick a random example, one of the - count them - 17 outfits that make up the US Intelligence Community is the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. Of course, like 99.9 per cent of Americans, you've never heard of it, and yet it has 16,000 employees, a "black budget thought to be at least $5bn per year," and a new, nearly Pentagon-sized headquarters complex in Virginia that's cost you, the taxpayer, a nifty $1.8bn.

    And what does it do?  Protect you, of course. Ensures your safety, naturally. Beyond that, don't ask how it uses your money. As writer Gregg Easterbrook explains, that's highly classified information. The agency does claim to provide "timely, relevant, and accurate geospatial intelligence in support of national security". Be satisfied.

    And that's no anomaly. Your taxes regularly bail out the Complex. You ensure its wellbeing, and no one even bothers to give you an explanation. In 2008, economists Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes did the numbers and offered a "conservative" estimate of the ultimate costs of the Iraq War: $3tn. Now that Washington increasingly looks like it is giving up hope of keeping any significant number of troops stationed in Iraq, you might ask just what that phenomenal sum bought Americans. But no answer will be forthcoming. On Iraq, mum's the word, nor will anyone in Washington be held accountable.

    Oh, and don't bother to ask, because no one who matters thinks you need to know. Meanwhile, talking about golden parachutes, the president who took us into Iraq and kept us there is overseeing the creation of a library named after him and by last accounting had already raked in $15m on the lecture circuit at $100,000 to $150,000 a pop; the vice president, who was a key player in the decision to invade and the war that followed, took home more than $2m for his bestselling memoir; the national security adviser, who offered her keenest advice to the president on the subject of Iraq, garnered a guaranteed $2.5m on a three-book contract and now charges up to $150,000 an appearance for speaking engagements, while settling into posts at Stanford University and the Hoover Institute; and the secretary of state who went to the UN to infamously defend the coming invasion with a pack of lies has pulled in a similar $150,000 ($5,000 a minute) for his lectures - and those are just the first few names on a far longer list.

    By the way, in case you think it's over in Iraq, think again. Washington's stimulus bill for that country is still in effect.  Foreign Service Officer Peter Van Buren writes at the Huffington Post that the State Department is now asking Congress for $5bn over five years to create jobs for police officers - Iraqi police officers, that is.

    A recent report from Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies estimated that the ultimate cost of both the Afghan and Iraq wars could range up to $4.4tn (with another vast stimulus package going to the Afghan police and military for years to come). And keep in mind that those trillions don't include the global war on terror or spending on the rest of the national security complex.

    Chris Hellman of the National Priorities Project did the maths for TomDispatch and found - again, a conservative estimate - that US taxpayers are shelling out at least $1.2tn a year for the vast military, intelligence, and homeland security combine that operates in their name.


    Too safe to fail?


     "The United States is preparing 'dramatic' cuts to its defence budget, so European allies will have to take on greater role within NATO", US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said [EPA]


    They are to help ferret out the Lord's Resistance Army, a grim, if small, guerrilla force that has been doing terrible things for years (but has in no way endangered the United States). This is, in part, payback for the way Ugandan troops have helped advance the US war on terror in Somalia. Whatever else it may be, it also threatens to be yet another small-scale conflict without end - and of course another potential payday for the National Security Complex.



    No wonder TARPing war has become a Washington pastime.



    SOURCE: Al Jazeera



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