THOUGHTS ON THE FOREVER WAR
By Doug Casey
The Daily Reckoning
Baltimore, Maryland
Tuesday, 17 December 2002
dailyreckoning.com
I hope I'm totally wrong on this, but I've got a feeling
what's brewing is the biggest thing since at least World
War II. The historical clock looks to me like it's at about
1936. Straws in the wind are starting to signal a brewing
hurricane. How much of the following were you aware of?
Excuse the editorial content if you disagree with my
interpretation; I take this seriously.
The current U.S. military budget is $396 billion, and it's
expanding rapidly. That's roughly $5000 for every household
in the U.S. But what's more relevant is how it stacks up
relative to other countries in the world with militaries.
And the fact is that it's significantly more than the
combined budgets of every other country in the world, which
is even more bizarre when you consider that the U.S. has
only 4% of the world's population.
For your reference, here are the next largest military
budgets: Russia $60 billion; China $42 billion; Japan $40.4
billion; United Kingdom $34 billion; Saudi Arabia $27.2;
France $25.3 billion; Germany $21 billion; Brazil $17.9
billion; India $15.6 billion; Italy $15.5 billion; South
Korea $11.8 billion; Iran $9 billion; Israel $9 billion;
Taiwan $8.2 billion.
These numbers give a lie to the whole U.S. war on terror.
Israel, which is actually surrounded by enemy states while
simultaneously fighting a guerrilla war within its borders,
only spends $9 billion. France and Britain, which have
close historical connections to scores of ex-colonies who
are a constant tribulation (e.g., the Ivory Coast),
together only spend a fraction of the US budget. Where does
the money go? I don't think anybody has actually figured it
out. But 75% of it would be totally unnecessary if the U.S.
government recalled the troops from well over 100 countries
around the world where they're antagonizing the natives.
The U.S. is, in effect, in an arms race against itself. And
the problem of having a powerful military is similar to
that of having a big hammer: pretty soon, everything starts
looking like a nail.
Of course, not all U.S. military spending goes directly to
the U.S. military.
The U.S. gave $1 billion in aid to Somalia before its
disastrous "peace-keeping" mission in 1991 - including $154
million in weapons. It's estimated that the U.S. Government
gave the Taliban and other Afghan rebels about $3 billion
in military aid to fight the Soviets. And you certainly
won't hear Bush admitting that in 2001 alone, before the
911 attacks made the Afghans the Devil of the Month, the
U.S. government gave the Afghan regime $125 million in aid.
I haven't seen the numbers for the amount of support to
Saddam while Iraq fought the Iranians during the 80s. But
the Iranians were armed almost exclusively with American
weapons left over from the Shah's regime. It might be
called "the boomerang effect."
Passing out weapons to repressive regimes on the principle
that "my enemy's enemy must be my friend" is a proven
formula for disaster.
"In the war against terrorism," said Bush, "we're going to
hunt down these evil-doers wherever they are, no matter how
long it takes."
Of course, if the war is really against terrorism, Bush
needn't send the military to the worlds nether regions to
find miscreants at huge risk and expense. He could start
right here in the U.S.:
** General Jose Guillermo Garcia has lived in Florida since
the 1990s. He was head of El Salvador's military during the
1980s when death squads closely linked to the army murdered
thousands of people.
** General Prosper Avril, the Haitian dictator, liked to
display the bloodied victims of his torture on television.
When he was overthrown, he was flown to Florida by the U.S.
government.
** Thiounn Prasith, Pol Pot's henchman and apologist at the
U.N., lives in Mount Vernon, NY.
**General Mansour Moharari, who ran the Shah of Iran's
notorious prisons, is wanted in Iran, but is untroubled in
the U.S.
** General Pervez Musharraf, the current dictator of
Pakistan, who overthrew a democratically elected
government, might easily join that list if he's ever
deposed by a coup. Maybe at some point soon, considering
that Islamicist parties dominated the county's recent
parliamentary elections.
If charity starts at home, one thing the U.S. might do
(even before trying to close down al Qaeda training camps)
is to close down the School of the Americas at Fort
Benning, Georgia, which has trained about 60,000 Latin
American police and soldiers. It's well known that among
the techniques recommended for use against insurgents in
its manuals are blackmail, torture, execution and the
arrest of the suspect's relatives. Those techniques would
be called "terror" if they weren't exercised by U.S.
"allies."
The Washington Post ran an interesting article about
something called The Expeditionary Task Force, a 1,500-man
unit of former Bolivian soldiers that is totally funded,
fed, clothed and armed by the U.S. Embassy in that country.
This is a first in the War on Drugs, even though it's taken
a back seat to the War on Terror. The U.S. is paying the
soldiers about $100 a month, which is 50% more than they
got in the army; make a note in case you want your own
private army. These guys go running around the jungle
destroying the crops of the local farmers, and occasionally
torturing, maiming, and murdering a few. The indigenes
don't like it, are well aware of who's putting the Task
Force up to it, and have long memories. You can bet a real
guerrilla war will, at some point, blossom in Bolivia as a
result. On the bright side, though, hiring local soldiers
is a lot cheaper, and much lower profile, than using
Americans. And you don't really have to care who gets
killed.
I presume you've heard of the Ashcroft Justice Departments
TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) program,
a part of the larger Bush "Citizen Corps" initiative. The
Citizen Corps is something of a volksturm for busybodies
who are too alt, lame, or chicken to hunt al Qaeda members
personally in Afghanistan, or wherever. TIPS is a scheme
asking Americans (particularly those like mail carriers,
cable guys, truckers, utility workers - but anybody can
enroll at their website at www.citizencorps.gov/tips.html)
to sign up to report "suspicious activities" on the part of
others. My understanding is that the program was supposed
to go into effect in August, but has been shelved (largely
due to the vigilance of the ACLU), despite having already
recruited over a million wannabe snitches.
Ultimately, TIPS was, or is, supposed to have 12 million
members turning in their observations via a hotline to a
network of intelligence "reporting centers". Press reports
I read seemed to indicate that it was an "overwhelmingly
popular concept" among the hysterical hoi polloi, at least
as far as a London Telegraph reporter could determine.
Boobus americanus made comments like (I kid you not):
"I think the critics are making a big mistake. I would be
happy to do some spying. I would love to do something to
help America," Wilma Silva, postwoman.
"Yes, I sure would join this operation. I would be very
happy to keep an eye on suspicious activities and
suspicious people, and I would not feel uncomfortable about
it at all." Douglas Hannah, Coca-Cola truck driver.
"We need to do this. We need to watch for them, watch for
anything out of the ordinary. And you know what? If you
have done nothing wrong, you don't have to worry about
being spied on." Arpad Dozzy, FedEx delivery man.
Americans have often wondered where the Germans were able
to recruit all the people who staffed the Gestapo and the
SS. The fact is, however, that sociopaths, sociopath
sympathizers, the weak-kneed, and the easily-led form a
standard distribution across all societies, in all times.
We have just as many in America now as the Germans did in
the 1930s. Maybe even more, since Americans have been
corrupted by welfare and programmed by the public schools
and the mass media for several generations more than were
the Germans of that time. Your local TIPS snitch might
report that you "fail to display sufficient respect for
authority." Or maybe he'll write down that you "laugh upon
hearing the phrase 'homeland security'." Think I'm kidding?
Try making a joke in an airport.
The popular response to the TIPS program is proof that the
time is now right for the creepy-crawlies to emerge from
under their rocks. That neighbor who's got a kid, and a
dog, and plays ball of a Saturday may have exactly the same
dark side as the German who always politely shopped at a
Jewish deli, but then broke its windows when Kristalnacht
came.
One scary and hysterical government measure that hasn't
been shelved was the activation of 300 Army National Guard
tank battalions as part of a homeland defense force, as
part of a strategy calling for the domestic use of U.S.
military forces. Reuters reported that, in his July 20
speech, Bush said that tank battalions "will serve in the
homeland defense role within the United States." I'd like
to know how, exactly, tanks will be employed within the
U.S.
Possibly worse, Bush activated about 1,000 Special Forces
units for possible deployment around the country to assist
in searches for suspicious people "in support of the war on
terrorism," Reuters said. I find the use of the military
within the U.S. abhorrent, but especially Special Forces.
Their whole raison d'être is counter-insurgency, and their
approach is one of "anything goes." Soldiers aren't
trained, like cops, to warn people of their rights, defuse
situations, minimize force, and adhere to strict rules of
conduct. And Special Ops soldiers are, in fact, trained to
do just the opposite. Of course, maybe the distinction is
becoming blurred because most cops today are ex-military.
But that's another story.
Of course, all this makes the Posse Comitatus Act, which
prohibits the use of the military in law enforcement, a
dead letter. That doesn't bother me; it's just another
arbitrary law, albeit one I agree with. But I can tell you
that one thing I used to like about America was there were
no armed soldiers on the streets, making the country look
like it was in a state of siege, like so many places I've
been in the Third World.
What's really scary, though, is the way it ties in with
Ashcroft's stated desire to set up "domestic internment
camps" for U.S. citizens that are accused of being "enemy
combatants." It would appear the way this game is played is
that if you're accused of being part of this new class of
criminal, you can forget about your rights; you're locked
up for the duration.
The reactivity, and utter lack of principle, of the Baby
Bush regime is underlined by the creation of a Department
of Homeland Security. And that...entirely apart from the
fact that its $37 billion budget will compete with the FBI,
CIA, NSA and other bloated and dangerous bureaucracies as
Praetorian Guard wannabees.
Sincerely,
Doug Casey,
for The Daily Reckoning
P.S. Just for the record, look at the Cabinet level
departments created over the last 40 years. Why should
Homeland Security be any different from any of these
disasters - except that it's got a lot more power, and its
employees carry guns:
1965, Housing and Urban Development, budget $31 billion,
which is mainly responsible for the creation of vertical
ghettos, and the destruction of the inner cities in
general...
1966, Transportation, budget $61 billion, the bane of the
transportation industry...
1977, Energy, budget $19 billion, which has never produced
a barrel of oil...
1979, Education, budget $48 billion, the running dog of the
corrupt NEA trade union, whose creation coincides with a
collapse in the education system...
1988, Veterans Affairs, budget $52 billion, the agency
every veteran I've ever met would like to launch an air
strike against...
P.P.S. I know some pundits are saying this is already the
longest bear market in history - which is nonsense. And I'm
not just talking about the 12 year Japanese bear market.
Entirely apart from that, bear markets historically tend to
linger for about half the length of the proceeding bull,
which was 18 years in this case.
The explosive 1000 point rallies we see are evidence
there's actually still a lot of bullish sentiment out
there. I don't think it's going to be over until we see 6-
8% dividend yields everywhere, a great decline in the
number of mutual funds, and low trading volumes. And not
only won't there be bullish articles in McPaper [USAToday],
there won't even be bearish articles. There won't be any
articles on stocks, because nobody is going to want to hear
about stocks at all.
People's attention is likely to be much more focused on
news from the latest front in The Forever War. |
