Peace activist and journalist Tom Engelhardt always comes correct, with surprising but well-researched facts and statistics. Here's how he sums up his comprehensive description of Washington's "monopoly on war":
Washington may be mobilized for permanent war. Special operations forces may be operating in up to 120 countries. Drone bases may be proliferating across the planet. We may be building up forces in the Persian Gulf and “pivoting” to Asia. Warrior corporations and rent-a-gun mercenary outfits have mobilized on the country’s disparate battlefronts to profit from the increasingly privatized twenty-first-century American version of war. The American people, however, are demobilized and detached from the wars, interventions, operations, and other military activities done in their name. As a result, 200 Marines in Guatemala, almost 78% of global weapons sales, drones flying surveillance from Australia -- no one here notices; no one here cares.War: it’s what we do the most and attend to the least. It’s a nasty combination.
We may honor our troops and feel patriotic and yet still admit that our U.S. Military has become the least publicly-understood and accountable institution in the federal government. We really don't know who is doing what, where, why, when and for whom. (Hopefully, for us, ultimately.) Are we comfortable with everything they're doing in our name? How can we begin to answer if we don't come close to knowing what they're doing?
We tend to take these things on trust, perhaps because we trust in the honor and integrity of our troops; but the truth is that our armed forces are directed by our elected officials. (Think Joe Biden and John McCain. Do you want to leave it to them to decide?) Yet relative to its size (about 20% of the federal budget), manpower (more than 2 million), and geographic scope (more than 1,000 bases outside the U.S.), the U.S. Military enjoys tremendous secrecy and receives little public scrutiny.
There's nothing unpatriotic about admitting that, or starting to ask more hard questions about our military. Indeed, our Founding Fathers would expect nothing less from us.
By Tom Engelhardt
September 13, 2012 | Tom Dispatch
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