Beware Pentagon's Imperial Ambitions

An Undersecretary of Defense, Michele Flournoy, can undermine efforts by Obama and Clinton to initiate negotiations with the Taliban. She let slip on purpose that the Pentagon planned to continue Special Operations counter-terror missions in Afghanistan even after most troops withdraw in 2014, and would retain Bagram Air Base to support them.

One requirement of the Taliban, which is willing to negotiate, is that all foreign forces would leave in any final settlement.

Why does Obama countenance such self-serving, aggrandizing behavior by military spokespeople? So, now we're going to have bases and operations in Afghanistan, as in Iraq, after (most of) our troops have "left?"

Does no one in the Pentagon realize that we can't afford to garrison the world? Now we're expanding operations into Libya. While Obama may intend to limit the operation, to step back from US command to US-dominated NATO command of the Libyan intervention, it's likely the Pentagon will push for more money if Qaddafi continues to resist and his military makes mincemeat of the revolutionaries. We'll have to send in "advisors," "trainers," and weapons, of course.

Obama's rationale for intervention makes moral sense up to a point: to protect civilians. The US does have unique capabilities: to blow up Qaddafi's well-armed militias and artillery units, while never touching feet to the ground. Loyalist forces exhibit no compunction at brutalizing and massacring civilians along the way, so, literally, bombing tank units saves civilian lives.

On the other hand, what Undersecretary Flournoy demonstrates, is the Pentagon's insatiable appetite: for more bases, more operations, on into the future. Secretary Gates has made gestures towards cutting the Defense budget, but his underlings make sure that Defense's budget will keep on growing.

A dangerous world is profitable.

So, it is perfectly reasonable to worry that we'll get further drawn into Libya, and that ten years down the road we'll be holding onto bases in that country, even after we "withdraw."

However, something's happening that is cause for guarded optimism: conservative Republicans are beginning to question the unending spending lavished on the military, when they're struggling to find places to cut the Government budget. And conservative/libertarian Republicans are joining with progressive Democrats to question the Libyan adventure.

Why has it been axiomatic until now: cutting budget deficits requires slashing programs that help people who need help, while not touching the lavish Defense budget, which costs more than all other nations' defense budgets combined? Why, also, is there such muted discussion about the other side of the budget deficit: the lowered tax rates for the extremely wealthy, who not only could afford to pay more, but should, since they have gained virtually 100% of the profits from US productivity gains since 2000, and most from the gains accrued since 1980?

Just as in Rome in the 5th Century, it's the military and the super-rich who will bring us down. Maybe we shouldn't let them.

Libya, The Technological Imperative

The Turkish Prime Minister said he only wanted reassurance that NATO in Libya would be "brief" and would not "lead to an occupation." Congressional Liberal Democrats and some Republicans, both moderate and Paulian, complained that Obama had consulted with Europe, with the Arab League and with the UN, but not with them.

Even Obama hasn't articulated what he's done in any historical context, like Clinton's attacks on Libya before, in retaliation for a terrorist bombing aided by Qaddafi's government. Only now, Qaddafi massacres his own people.

So, the US was (again) in the lead in a military campaign authorized by the UN, edging a bit into mission creep, and this time it was in part because no one else has the military capability to attack a nation anywhere on the globe. Hold that thought.

The US led in the initial attack, even though Obama and Gates were clearly reluctant to engage in Libya, unless others led, because they didn't want to be involved in a 'third war in the middle east," unless they had a lot of cover.

But there is a technological imperative that thrusts the US military (quite willingly, it seems) into the lead of an operation like Libya's. So, we're damned by the huge expenditures we make on defense (offense, really), into being sucked into any mess anywhere in the world--or at least anywhere in the world where oil might be at stake.

The US spends over 3/4 of a trillion on "Defense," while no one else spends more than about 10% of that (the Chinese), and we consider that 10% worrisome. We can't afford such huge expenditures, as the stupid and vicious budget battles in Congress and the states demonstrate, but only a small minority yet says, we have to cut Defense.

Instead of cutting Defense, we cut pre-school and Medicaid, we cut Pell Grants and Family Planning--while restoring tax cuts at an historically low rate for millionaires.

Our huge Defense establishment demands money, but all that money just gets the US into more trouble. We could be sucked into a Libyan civil war, because we were the only ones with the wherewithal to quickly set up a no-fly, no-tank zone (that’s apparently what it's become). And we've already spent several hundred million to a billion dollars, just in these brief few days after the initial attack. This is when Congress is tortuously attempting to find $70 to $100 billion of budget cuts.

A conservative site noted that empires fall when they can't help getting sucked into military adventures they can't afford. Actually, it took the Romans centuries of impoverishment caused by those wars, before Rome fell, but history moves very fast these days.

Unlike Rome, though, there are an awful lot of us, both liberal and conservative, who see it coming: the Fall of Rome II.

Government "Overreach" and Powerless Emperor

My friend told me: "We are not an Empire. Empires were ruled by one man called Emperor. We are a Democracy, however flawed and inefficient."

It depends on one's definition. An empire, to me, is any state entity that attempts to rule over other states, or peoples, with or without their consent. A Democracy, on the other hand is a state ruled by the people. I suppose that's still formally the case, as it was even after Augustus took over in Rome, but the two are not mutually exclusive, again true in both the early Roman Empire and today. Augustus was formally elected. So was Obama. In the latter case, it was a genuinely democratic election, but that doesn't make much difference: the military apparently has the last say, anyway.

In the US, we have a President who made a great effort to go against "military wisdom," and decide that American troops should begin withdrawing from Afghanistan in the summer of 2011, and that the US would abide by the treaty signed by Bush to withdraw from Iraq in the same period.

Yet, already, General Petraeus and Secretary Gates are undercutting those stated policies. Petraeus is pushing for the President to back down on his Afghan commitment, and Gates told the Iraqis that "we" would happily stay longer if they asked. In addition to the rhetoric, actions on the ground speak louder: the huge, imperial-like embassy in Baghdad, and the huge embassy now to be built in Kabul do not bespeak withdrawal; they express an expectation that we will stay, as do the huge, self-sufficient "permanent" US bases.

We can spend three-quarters of a billion dollars to construct these imperial edifices and employ thousands in both Iraq and Afghanistan to build them (and $1,000,000 per soldier/year) but we can't spend money for jobs at home: that's government "over-reach" say the newly elected GOP Congressmen and Senators.

The "emperor" will not be able to spend money at home to stimulate job creation, or to green grow the economy; that's only possible in a non-imperial nation, like China?

So, instead, the Fed attempts to re-stimulate the economy through "quantitative easing," but everyone from bond speculators to the "mad-and-can't-take-it-anymore" crowd think this will roil the dollar into an inflationary spiral. On the other hand, what should policy-makers do? Let the nation--and probably the world--slide into a double-dip recession, and not only recession, but a new Great Depression, complete with trade war?

Note: there is no inflation, despite price rises in energy and commodities, which probably means that there is deflation in a lot of economic sectors.

Unless the President/Emperor can act decisively to stop the slide, we will descend into misery, and beggar the world, too. Will the US Empire collapse?

An emperor without power is the worst of all possible alternatives.