Crisis looms at the Pentagon - Asia Times

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

Read the full (long) article to see how the MIC is still lobbying for useless "defense" systems and bankrupting the country with the aid of congressmen bringing home the pork.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/KB04Aa01.html

Like much of the rest of the world, Americans know that the United States automotive industry is in the grips of what may be a fatal decline. Unless it receives emergency financing
and undergoes significant reform, it is undoubtedly headed for the graveyard in which many American industries are already buried, including those that made televisions and other consumer electronics, many types of scientific and medical equipment, machine tools, textiles and much earth-moving equipment - and that's to name only the most obvious candidates. They all lost their competitiveness to newly emerging economies that were able to outpace them in innovative design, price, quality, service and fuel economy, among other things.

A similar, if far less well known, crisis exists when it comes to the military-industrial complex. That crisis has its roots in the deceitful practices that have long characterized the high command of the armed forces, civilian executives of the armaments industries, and Congressional opportunists looking for pork-barrel projects, defense installations for their districts, or even bribes for votes.

Given our economic crisis, the estimated trillion dollars we spend each year on the military and its weaponry is simply unsustainable. Even if present fiscal constraints no longer existed, we would still have misspent too much of our tax revenues on too few, overly expensive, overly complex weapons systems that leave us ill-prepared to defend the country in a real military emergency. We face a double crisis at the Pentagon: we can no longer afford the pretense of being the Earth's sole superpower, and we cannot afford to perpetuate a system in which the military-industrial complex makes its fortune off inferior, poorly designed weapons.

Double crisis at the Pentagon
This self-destructive system of bloated budgets and purchases of the wrong weapons has persisted for so long thanks to the aura of invincibility surrounding the armed forces and a mistaken belief that jobs in the arms industry are as valuable to the economy as jobs in the civilian sector.

[Mudoria]

1. When I read this line

I knew this was mostly bullshit..

"They all lost their competitiveness to newly emerging economies that were able to outpace them in innovative design, price, quality, service and fuel economy, among other things."

The reason we lost many of our industries is one reason: cheap or virtually slave labor.

[stillcool]

2. It's too bad you didn't read further...

the Pentagon is the real seat of power in this country, and the article shows why.

[Skittles]

4. correct

I have to work with outsourcers who replaced workers here and there simply is no contest - the overseas workers suck but hey you get ten for the price of one

[ensho]

3. its ok with me if the pentagon starves to death

nt

[SergeyDovlatov]

5. Yes. Starve the Pentagon and DHS. Leave small force

to maintain air-ground, air-sea and nuclear missiles to guard againt the invasion by sea and deter nuclear attack.
Done!

No need for army or marines, big air force or big navy.