Image via The Secularity

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 breezed through Congress and headed to the White House, even though public opposition to parts of the bill, now directed at President Obama in the hope of a hail Mary veto, remains strong. The most troubling aspects of the bill violate fundamental rights provided in the U.S. Constitution to American citizens by giving the government sweeping power to indefinitely detain citizens without trial. Like many other pieces of legislation, this year’s NDAA is another push in a long series of movements marching the U.S. Towards a hard right, nearly fascist state.

In addition to this, the NDAA also contains troubling language regarding Department of Defense interests in Iran, China, Wikileaks, defense contractors and more. A report from a conference on the NDAA contains tough talk in respect to both China and Iran. Considering the amount of saber rattling many warhawks have already engaged in, one has to wonder seriously whether the U.S. Could further engage in military actions towards Iran and what exactly, the DOD believes our attitude towards the Chinese will be in the coming year. The bill contains an amendment which requires economic sanctions towards entities in Iran as well as a provision for “an independent review of current U.S. Capability gaps to counter Iran and China” (emphasis mine). The conference report also says it “takes steps to ensure that the United States is fully prepared to defend our vital interests against an emerging competitor” in regards to China.

Given the information dumps from Wikileaks over past two years, as well as the horrid treatment of Private Bradley Manning, on trial for providing information to Wikileaks, the Pentagon is very interested in keeping other potential whistleblowers at bay. The Defense Department’s research arm already expressed interest this year in employing a disinformation campaign against would be Wikileakers. The NDAA conference report codifies that interest, saying it:

Requires the Secretary of Defense to establish a comprehensive program to detect unauthorized uses of classified information. Requires technological solutions, updated policies and procedures, and enforcement measures to assist with detection of such unauthorized activities.

The NDAA would also eliminate oversight regarding ties politicians have to defense contractors. In the name of keeping “the acquisition process free from political influence,” the act no longer requires contractors to declare their political contributions before applying for defense contracts. In other words, Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumann needn’t disclose campaign donations if they wish to produce another budgetary sinkhole like the F-35, for which the NDAA provides another $8.5 billion.

Not only does this year’s NDAA push America closer to the brink of a police state and moves us inches closer to new wars, it highlights the machinations of a broken political system. National security experts don’t want it, military leaders don’t want it, the director of the FBI doesn’t want it, Civil Liberties experts don’t want it, the people don’t want it and yet, it passed both legislative bodies and awaits the President’s signature. The majority of legislators show little concern for the will of the people they supposedly serve. Should President Obama decide to sign the bill, it will show the executive branch is no more interested in preserving the will of the people and the core of our democracy than the legislators who ignored overwhelming opposition to this piece of legislation.

If there’s any wonder why so many citizens devote their time to protest, why nearly half of the American people believe this is the “worst Congress ever” and another third call it “below average,” it is because politicians now brazenly defy the will of their constituents. If our democracy is to survive, politicians must become public servants, rather than oligarchs only interested in maintaining their power.

Article by Aaron Cynic

                          

“It is the makings of novels and poetry from Dickens to Gibran that the best and the worst occupy the same time, that wisdom and foolishness appear in the same age, light and darkness in the same season,” said DARPA’s director Regina Dugan, Wired reports. Former White House Security chief Richard Clarke was more blunt, saying current networks are as “porous as a colande.” Meanwhile, Wired reports DARPA also tacitly reached out to hackers at the colloquium, looking to enlist “the efforts of technical experts at unprecedented levels, including at the development of policy and legal frameworks.”

In addition to spending more money and enlisting the help of hackers, DARPA plans to employ a digital disinformation campaign against newer would-be Wikileakers. Fox News reports the DoD is looking to develop a system which would identify “malicious insiders” who might seek to reveal confidential information. An abstract for an awarded solicitation revealed a program that would give out fake information and then track its disseminators. “We want to flood adversaries with information that’s bogus, but looks real,” said a professor leading the project.

                          

Since the year 2000, defense spending has increased 86%, not counting funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with other money going to the general “War on Terror.” The DOD budget has increased in size every year, and by the end of FY2011, total military spending including ongoing wars will nearly hit $3 trillion.

In no uncertain terms, Panetta hinted that even if conflicts were to end, defense spending would not decrease “on his watch.” At the Association of the U.S. Army conference, Panetta said in the past, the military was “hollowed out” at the end of major conflicts and said “we must never make that mistake again.” In other words, though we spend more money each year on the military, it will never be enough, and enacting a small portion of cuts, drawn out over a decade, is more dangerous to national security than a new Soviet Russia teeming with Osama Bin Ladens.

In an attempt to justify bleeding American wallets dry, the latest news of an Iranian terror plot gives Panetta cause to begin slowly beating brand new war drums, while the rest of the Obama administration softly nods its head in the background. The Hill reports Panetta “fired a shot across the bow of nations like Iran and North Korea, which are pursuing nuclear weapons.” Joe Biden stated the U.S. is “working to unite the world” in a response to the plot to murder the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, which the FBI reportedly helped to create. An attorney said “For the entire operation, the government’s confidential sources were monitored and guided by federal law enforcement agents.”

Much like the buildup to the war in Iraq in 2003, we’re seeing yet another situation develop where the potential military response to a situation could be another full scale war and occupation, where tens of thousands of civilians become “collateral damage,” thousands of Americans get sent home missing limbs or in body bags, and a prosperous few collect billions of dollars from the general population.

                          

The F-35, one of the Pentagon's largest budget black holes (image via Wikipedia).

Even though the U.S. military spends more than 6 times that of our next competitor (China), the GOP is still pushing the narrative that any more cuts in spending to the Pentagon’s budget would be “disastrous” and spell “doomsday” for the military. The Hill reports House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif) said he’d even be willing to support tax increases before more cuts to the military’s budget. Predictably, 13 freshmen Republicans on McKeon’s panel, many of which are Tea Party darlings, feel “enough is enough” and believe federal spending cuts need to come from entitlement programs.

McKeon said “It’s time to focus our fiscal restraint on the driver of our debt, not the protector of our prosperity.”

In addition to McKeon’s doomsday forecasting, Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) also voiced concerns earlier this month regarding proposed defense spending cuts. In a letter to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chambliss warned that a “draconian budget cutting exercise” towards the F-35 fighter program would risk the United States’ advantage in aerial warfare. At present, the U.S. Has a 20 to 1 advantage in airpower over China, even without the most expensive plane in U.S. History.

Much like the Bank of America CEO who has most of his fortune staked in Bank of America stock and signed 30,000 pink slips to bolster profits, the wolves are in charge of the henhouse when it comes to defense spending. Since 1994, Chambliss received nearly $100,000 in campaign contributions from Lockheed Martin’s PAC or individuals from the company, which is the prime contractor for the F-35. McKeon’s top 4 contributors in his reelection campaign this cycle are companies with big defense contracts, including Lockheed Martin.

Is it any wonder why politicians like Chambliss and McKeon ring the doomsday bell every time someone hints at cutting the military’s budget? And while a record number of Americans live below the poverty line, politicians like Buck and Saxby are more than willing to sacrifice what little social safety nets still exist, supposedly in the name of “protecting our prosperity.”

Many military officials are less than enthusiastic about the F-35 and other pet projects defense invested politicians love to tout. When former Defense Secretary Robert Gates put a 180 plane cap on the F-22 program, Senator Chambliss attempted to lobby Gates to lift it. Even though the Senate approved a $513 billion defense appropriations bill for 2012, Both Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) told Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter they would need input on additional spending cuts from the DOD.

The more the GOP whines about spending and rails against taxes while dodging real cuts to the military budget, the more they prove their only interest is in keeping themselves rich while the rest of America foots the bill. After all, shouldn’t we find better ways to spend $720 million the Pentagon paid in late fees for rented shipping containers used in Afghanistan and Iraq? Should we wonder where the $193 million military contractor KBR spent on personnel deemed unnecessary could’ve gone? If the GOP and other hawkish politicians are serious about fiscal responsibility, taking a long hard look in the black hole where billions of dollars go to waste would be a no brainer. However, it’s become painfully obvious that they’re more interested in protecting their own prosperity at our expense.

                          

Leaders of the program Lockheed Martin spat back on Twitter, contending “The F-35 team is focused on reducing costs of the jets and is showing significant improvement in key areas,” to which the ranking Senate Armed Services Committee member McCain said “taxpayers deserve better.”

So while Democrats and Republicans fight over who to blame for our economy once again heading towards the brink of destruction, the machinations of war continue to roll. As I pointed out back when the GOP first released their suggested budget cuts: the Pentagon spends nearly $122 million per plane building the F-35 fighter jet. The 2011 budget calls for more than $11 billion for the planes, none of which have been delivered since development and production began ten years ago. By 2016, the military wants 2,443 F-35s at an estimated cost of close to $329 billion. In other words, by scrapping just one percent of that order, a number that wouldn’t even dent our 20 to one lead in planes over the Chinese military, we would save most of the aforementioned social programs.

Of course, the Defense Department and its pet contractors believe any kind of spending cuts, even on a program to build a plane that has no mission, would be catastrophic. Top defense trade organization Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) President Marion Blakey argued in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner “understand the unique national security threats posed by skyrocketing debt, but we believe those threats will only be compounded if funding for the Department of Defense is cut precipitously during this critical stage of budget reduction negotiations.” Blakey went on to say “Any cuts to defense must be generated in a careful and thoughtful manner, guided by our military leaders.” In other words, if we stop spending mountains of money on pet defense projects, we’ll tank the economy, which will threaten our national security. If Congress really needs to perform a song and dance to show that everyone is pitching in, even the Pentagon, they need to let the wolves guard the hen house.

All of the bluster, talk of “tough decisions” and suggestions of sacrifice surrounding our continually sinking economy come with one big fat exemption – defense spending. If we’re truly nearing an economic apocalypse, why is one third of the budget still off the cutting board?

                          

For January, I chose The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives by Nick Turse. I’ve read plenty of columns from Turse over the years. He usually writes about the invasive and inhuman ways the Defense Department encroaches on our lives. The Complex is just that – a lengthy explanation of Pentagon ties to the lives of everyday Americans.

The book opens with a brilliantly crafted narrative about a progressive minded young couple that believes they’ve done their best in avoiding supporting the DOD behemoth. Very quickly we learn that everything, from their iPods to their coffee to the copy of Hegemony or Survival sitting on their bookshelf is somehow interlinked with the Pentagon. In a globalized world, such connections are hard to avoid – be they to the Complex, a sweatshop, Wall Street or any other nefarious entities. Still, the names and numbers become staggering.

The first half of the book points out connections and relationships that become less surprising as they’re analyzed. One can assume that large corporate hegemons like AT&T, Boeing, and more recently, Google, would do everything in their power for a contract with an entity holding an unlimited wallet. Turse also points out relationships and monies spent with more independent/local businesses by the DOD, but again, this isn’t a terrifying surprise as one would be hard pressed to find a local hot dog joint not interested in a thousands of dollars. More staggering though, is the amount of waste, misplaced and unaccountable money that passes from the doors of the Pentagon into the business world. Politicians and pundits often complain about pet pork barrel projects and federal budgetary wastes, but the Complex leaves the reader wondering why none seem to want to trim the fat out of the DOD budget.

Later on, The Complex pulls back the blinds on the web of connections the military has to entertainment – from movies to Myspace – and how those connections are used to draw in fresh recruits. Turse draws attention to movies like the Transformers, first person shooter video games and even NASCAR as ways the lines between entertainment, simulation training and pro-war propaganda blur almost indistinguishably. Finally, The Complex opens the doors of DARPA, the DOD’s dream machine, where the cyborg soldiers and surveillance state of the movies collide in real life.

Peeling back the layers of the Pentagon is no easy task, but Turse does great work here and lays his findings out in an easily (and entertaining) manner. Soft cover, 290 pages. Pick it up by clicking here.

For February, I’m reading Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past by Ray Raphael. If you’d like to follow along and comment at the end of the month, drop me a line and we can collaborate! – Aaron Cynic

                          

Thomas the Tank Engine's true self revealed

The concept is pretty simple. The Energetically Autonomous Tactcial Robot will “perform long range, long endurance missions without the need for conventional refueling.” The EATR won’t need to refuel thanks to its ability to harvest its own fuel, BY EATING. It can use conventional fuels when they’re available, but the EATR can also “find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment and other organically based energy sources.” Skeptics will quickly shout science fiction on this one, but much like the PHASR, the EATR is not only real, but begging to be fast tracked into production, since DARPA is ready to match hungry investors dollar for dollar.

The EATR platform has endless possibilties, from surveilence to transport to “robotic swarms and cognitive collectives.”

Artist's rendering of robotic swarm. Artist most likely in grade three

Oh, and we could probably mount a whole fuckload of guns to it.

There are so few times I end up on the same page as the folks at Fox News. Originally, Fox posted a story about the EATR and suggested that it could feed on dead bodies, since warzones are usually filled with them and they are made up of organic material. Unfortunately, Fox pulled the original article so I can’t read it, but the corrected version (and other news stories) states that the EATR is strictly “vegetarian” feeding on things like plant matter and wood chips. The PDF presentation even includes multiple pictures of a happy herbavoric Rhino munching on plants to drive the point home.

You know, we could totally strap some lasers to this guy

Cyclone Power Technologies Inc assured the public that the EATR will be able to distinguish between vegatative mass and other materials, with a cybernetics expert backing them up saying “If it’s not on the menu, it’s not going to eat it.” They also quickly reminded us that the Geneva conventions clearly states that desecration of the dead is a war crime. Of course, I’m sure that certain US lawyers will be able to figure out a legal justification around that one.

CEO of Cyclone Power Technologies Harry Schoell attempted to calm the public’s fear of people eating robots by saying “We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission. We are focused on demonstrating that our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable plant matter. The commercial applications alone for this earth-friendly energy solution are enormous.” Clearly, Harry never paid much attention to science fiction, because I’m sure that’s the same thing the team who invented Skynet said just before it became self aware and nuked the population.

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^{Once again, welcome to the future!}