Military-Industrial Insanity
by Jeff Hackman
June 25, 2009
If any of you thought we’d see change after Obama’s election, well here it is: higher military budgets than Bush, larger military than Bush and more F-22s than Bush.
Those are some of the changes in new defense (sic) bills working their way through the Democratically-controlled Congress.
Even Sec. of Defense Gates admits the F-22 program has run its course, saying we have enough. But for the M-I Complex, as RJ in Over the Hedge says: “Enough is never enough”. Now they want to build 12 more (we already have 187). Not a single one of those planes has seen action in Iraq or Afghanistan because they weren’t designed for that type of war. They were designed to fight the USSR.
This will cost $2 billion more dollars. While building these planes could be considered a make-work jobs program, it is a very inefficient one. Production is spread out over 40 states.
“Before the very first week of the new Congress ended, 200 House members had already signed a letter calling for more of these planes-to-nowhere to be built. Almost all of them had a piece of the plane being built in their Congressional District.” (1)
I’m going to email my Representative right now and tell her that that $2 billion is needed elsewhere. What will you do to resist the insanity?
(1) Tom Andrews. Common Sense vs. the Military-Industrial-Political-Complex on the Floor of the US House Today. June 24, 2009. published on Commondreams.org. See also: www.winwithoutwar.org
