Ike Was Right

By Robert Scheer
Created Dec 27 2006 - 7:24am

- from Truthdig (posted here with permission) [1]

The public, seeing through the tissue of Bush administration lies told to
justify an invasion that never had anything to do with the terrorist attacks
of Sept. 11 or weapons of mass destruction, now has begun a national
questioning: Why are we still in Iraq? The answers posted most widely on the
Internet by critics of the war suggest its continuation as a naked imperial
grab for the world's second-largest petroleum source, but that is wrong.

It's not primarily about the oil; it's much more about the
military-industrial complex, the label employed by President Dwight D.
Eisenhower 45 years ago when he warned of the dangers of "a permanent arms
industry of vast proportions."

The Cold War had provided the rationale for the first peacetime creation of
a militarized economy. While the former general, Eisenhower, was well aware
of the military threat posed by the Soviet Union, he chose in his farewell
presidential address to the nation to warn that the war profiteers had an
agenda of their own, one that was inimical to the survival of American
democracy:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist."

Ponder those words as you consider the predominant presence of former
Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney in the councils of this White House, and how his
old company has profiteered more than any other from the disaster that is
Iraq. Despite having been found to have overcharged some $60 million to the
U.S. military for fuel deliveries, the formerly bankrupt Halliburton
subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root continues to receive hundreds of millions
of dollars in lucrative contracts.

There is more. Military spending has skyrocketed since the 9/11 terrorist
attacks, returning to Cold War levels. A devastating report by the Center
for Defense Information, founded by former top-ranking admirals and
generals, reveals that in the most recent federal budget overall defense
spending will rise to more than $550 billion. Compare that to the $20
billion that the United Nations and all of its agencies and funds spend each
year on all of its programs to make this a safer and more livable world.

That U.S. military budget exceeds what the rest of the world's nations
combined spend on defense. Nor can it be justified as militarily necessary
to counter terrorists, who used primitive $10 box cutters to commandeer
civilian aircraft on 9/11. It only makes sense as a field of dreams for
defense contractors and their allies in Washington who seized upon the 9/11
tragedy to invent a new Cold War. Imagine their panic at the end of the old
one and their glee at this newfound opportunity.

Yes, some in those circles were also eager to exploit Iraq's oil wealth,
which does explain the abysmal indifference to the deteriorating situation
in resource-poor Afghanistan, birthplace of the Sept. 11 plot, while our
nation's resources are squandered in occupying Iraq, which had nothing to do
with it.

Yes, some, like Paul Wolfowitz, the genius who was the No. 2 in the U.S.
Defense Department and has been rewarded for his leadership with appointment
as head of the World Bank, did argue that Iraq's oil revenue would pay for
our imperial adventure. A recent study by Nobel Prize-wining economist
Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard University's Linda Bilmes marked that
absurdity by estimating the true cost of the Iraq adventure to U.S taxpayers
at a whopping $2.267 trillion, in excess of any cost borne by the Iraqis
themselves.

The big prize here for Bush's foreign policy is not the acquisition of
natural resources or the enhancement of U.S. security, but rather the lining
of the pockets of the defense contractors, the merchants of death who mine
our treasury. But because the arms industry is coddled by political parties
and the mass media, their antics go largely unnoticed. Our politicians and
pundits argue endlessly about a couple of billion dollars that may be spent
on improving education or ending poverty, but they casually waste that
amount in a few days in Iraq.

As Eisenhower warned: "We should take nothing for granted, only an alert and
knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and
military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that
security and liberty may prosper together. ... We want democracy to survive
for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of
tomorrow."

Too bad we no longer have leading Republicans, or Democrats, warning of that
danger.
_______

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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson