I keep thinking about all of the rhetoric about how wasteful social spending is, and how programs for the poor are being taken advantage of, then I read something like this… then I get mad.
“From spending $150 million on private villas for a handful of personnel in Afghanistan to blowing $2.7 billion on an air surveillance balloon that doesn’t work, the latest revelations of waste at the Pentagon are just the most recent howlers in a long line of similar stories stretching back at least five decades. Other hot-off-the-presses examples would include the Army’s purchase of helicopter gears worth $500 each for $8,000 each and the accumulation of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons components that will never be used. And then there’s the one that would have to be everyone’s favorite Pentagon waste story: the spending of $50,000 to investigate the bomb-detecting capabilities of African elephants. (And here’s a shock: they didn’t turn out to be that great!) The elephant research, of course, represents chump change in the Pentagon’s wastage sweepstakes and in the context of its $600-billion-plus budget, but think of it as indicative of the absurd lengths the Department of Defense will go to when what’s at stake is throwing away taxpayer dollars.
Keep in mind that the above examples are just the tip of the tip of a titanic iceberg of military waste. In a recent report I did for the Center for International Policy, I identified 27 recent examples of such wasteful spending totaling over $33 billion. And that was no more than a sampling of everyday life in the twenty-first-century world of the Pentagon.
The staggering persistence and profusion of such cases suggests that it’s time to rethink what exactly they represent. Far from being aberrations in need of correction to make the Pentagon run more efficiently, wasting vast sums of taxpayer dollars should be seen as a way of life for the Department of Defense. And with that in mind, let’s take a little tour through the highlights of Pentagon waste from the 1960s to the present.”
Somehow I think that when neoconservative politicians talk about smaller government, they are not referring to the Offense spending, or state/corporate fixtures like the Pentagon.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
9 comments
April 13, 2016 at 6:40 am
john zande
Insane, positively. Have you ever seen The Pentagon Wars? It’s a comedy, but it’s not. It re-tells the actual story of the Bradley “Fighting” Vehicle. Pure madness. If you haven’t seen it, do. This is a little clip.
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April 13, 2016 at 8:59 am
VR Kaine
Pretty sure that “surveillance balloon” thing was appropriated to other (more covert) things, but regardless – waste is waste and shouldn’t be given a free pass in government on either end (social welfare or military) by anybody. The waste in the Federal Government is egregious and there’s no way around it
“Somehow I think that when neoconservative politicians talk about smaller government, they are not referring to the Offense spending, or state/corporate fixtures like the Pentagon.”
I would tend to agree. The federal government is responsible for defense, so I do believe their budget should be adequate (including substantial R&D) to facilitate it, but look at all that is currently ignored/inadequate in the military spending budget: nation rebuilding, social/welfare support for veterans, veteran health and mental care, etc.. You shouldn’t be given one without the other if America stands for the values it professes.
And if Bernie Sanders had more than half a clue, he’d be targeting this government waste in his campaign rather than doubling down on his mathematical fairy tale of “taxiing the rich and the corporations” for greater results. (Although, granted, it is gaining him ground against the ever-lying Hillary.) Drumpf, too.
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April 13, 2016 at 10:03 am
Stig
Capitalism; its success can be measured by the efficient amount of refuse it produces. The military epitomes this rule of waste, both in personnel and power. However, private business and the yearly model release are not too far behind.
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April 13, 2016 at 10:48 am
The Arbourist
@JZ
I’ll have to take a look. I’m not shocked that the Pentagon’s dubious spending history has attracted attention of other non-establishment journalists. :/
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April 13, 2016 at 10:55 am
The Arbourist
@Vern
That is a pretty big should. If you consider the current imperial focus that the American Army has, the current spending makes sense. Perpetuating and enriching the segments of society that benefit from war-making, the current spending priorities make perfect sense.
If he did that he would lose, or be made to lose. One doesn’t mess with the power players and come out unscathed.
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April 13, 2016 at 11:46 am
makagutu
I think the issue is that military spending is shrouded in a ghost known as national security. With that, a lot of things pass without scrutiny
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April 13, 2016 at 1:19 pm
syrbal-labrys
Must be something in the air — working on Poetry Month’s entry of the day, I found myself contemplating the Pentagon a bit, too — “Sky Fathers in stealth bombers – Now there’s a Holy Fucking Ghost”…
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April 14, 2016 at 8:41 am
VR Kaine
@ Arb,
“Perpetuating and enriching the segments of society that benefit from war-making, the current spending priorities make perfect sense.”
Yes, they do benefit financially but some idiot world leaders aren’t making it easy, so it’s not just math right now.
Just as Saddam did way back, Russia is giving the US a big excuse to arm without any US involvement, so is that runt in North Korea, and so is ISIS. Plus, even though the nominal amount is egregious, military spending still only amounts to about 3% of GDP which is why I say we need to look at the entire system of waste to see where $ could be better spent. With both D’s and R’s alike, the moral argument with “I’m so ronery” Kim John Un in the world threatening the US with nukes can’t be an effective one for the left.
“If he did that he would lose, or be made to lose.”
The game is rigged, for sure. One only need to look up “Super Delegates” to see it on the (D) side, as well as the media giving her such a free pass. Forget her server for a moment – anyone find it odd that no one in the media is going after her for her $200k speeches to Wall Street, or the shady activities of the Clinton Foundation? Some will say the media is waiting, but I think they’ve already picked their President, and they know she’s only going to give interviews to those nice to her. She’s famous for keeping a list and “keeping score”, so they treat her with kid gloves. Long live SNL though! The skits on her are even funnier than her fake laugh. :)
I honestly believe that anyone who focused on waste would get most of the independents and a lot of crossover D’s or R’s. I think the Pentagon would be taboo during the election cycles, but one can easily talk about the rest of the Federal Government? Why not. Don’t “abolish” the IRS (Republicans), but shift enforcement to corporations over the middle class and institute a fair tax/gas tax to perhaps negate the need for much enforcement at the middle class level altogether, that sort of thing.
Packing a lot into this comment because I have to travel again, but thought you might like this: I’m going to give Occupy a little credit here – there was enough of their loser stench left in the air from their original bowel movement to “create” a Bernie Sanders. In spite of themselves, someone stepped in and finally became a leader (Sanders), and now their voice is being heard.
I said they needed to be the foil to the Tea Party, and now here they are – finally – on the political scene. Drumpf and Cruz on one side (both Tea Party favorites), and now we have Sanders on the other. Credit where it’s due, and he’s winning major battles against Hillary.
When it wasn’t/isn’t corrupted, the US has a great system. Look at how fast the face of a country can literally change if the people are unhappy, and how the “silent majorities” can so quickly become a national force to be reckoned with. For as much of a circus as it is right now, when you look at what the Founding Fathers built underneath as a system, I think it’s brilliant. Wish it would take only 4-8 years to change our political stripes up here instead of 20-30.
Anyhoo… :)
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April 16, 2016 at 12:11 pm
The Arbourist
@Vern
Saddam was on fairly good terms with the US, until of course he had the audacity to say “No” to imperial priorities in the region.
Russia has been coddling the US interests in Europe and eastern Europe – consider the promise made to Gorbachev – that Nato would not expand its membership, nor would it advance eastward – we can see how well that went.
Also, consider that Russia has its own wartime economy and investor class interests that it, rightly or wrongly, insists falls within its sphere of influence. The Russian “No” has to be respected as Nuclear Winter isn’t a profitable endgame for anyone.
North Korea, in my opinion, is running some high-stakes bullshit with its weapon testing and posturing. Time is against them as they try to build a large enough deterrent that makes turning that part of the world into burnished sand not the goto option. They are going to be called on it, and then, like the India/Pakistan conflagration, all bets are off.
ISIS/ISIL etc, are the not the boogymen the US wants in the Middle East, but rather the ones that they deserve. Their imperial wars/machinations spawned ISIS, thus perpetuating the cycle of violence and the need to keep ‘American boots on the ground’ there to maintain order and stability – aka profitability for the elite investor class.
Its has been guns, guns, guns, for so long the American electorate has forgotten what butter looks like.
For access, all you need is to bend the knee… Media propaganda and complicity in the imperial system, as I’m fairly sure you’ve noticed, is one of the topics I bang on about ’round here. :)
How many micro-seconds would it take for that to become political partisan football? :>
Your capacity for charitable attribution shines on. I’d hate to see how you describe ideological movements you *don’t* like. (Actually I have, but humour takes precedence over veracity sometimes.)
I don’t think so. Bernie made the strategic decision to stay with the Democratic party. Staying within the system is tacitly admitting that the system is actually working and on some level condoning the current status quo.
Bernie and his rhetoric are indicative that the elite is getting it’s “A” game on. His New-Dealy paean and rhetorical ruffles against ‘the 1%’ are a huge siphon meant to manage popular discontent and the proto-awakening of class consciousness in the US. He exists because management saw a slow boil of a problem and they think ‘the Bern’ is the best way to fix it.
So, this isn’t a leader coming to the forefront, this is the forces that be tamping down the underclasses with a demagogue that says mildly social democratic things in order to preserve the illusion that the hoi-polloi actually has some say in how their country is run.
Pyrrhic as they may be.
Agreed.
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