Military Re-Training?

Egyptian soldier in Tahrir Square

It's celebration time! Hosni Mubarak has resigned and turned over the reigns to...the military. Oh wait...last three military rulers in Egypt? Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak. Oh right. Okay, so I do think this is still a big deal, and I'm cautiously optimistic the military will serve as a transition government until free and fair elections are held. They saw the numbers in the streets, and I do believe they realize those numbers will come out again, if not more, if they make this transition not happen. That being said, even if we see a move towards democracy in Egypt (after, presumably, civil institutions are rebuilt somewhat from their hallow roles during the rule of the semi-autocrats for so long), there is this problem. The Egyptian military is huge and probably doesn't want to see itself shrunk.

Blackwater? Again? Really?

Blackwater (or Xe, as it is currently called - they changed their name to try and avoid attention after all the negative press they got from Jeremy Scahill's outstanding work on them, amongst others) recently recieved a $100 million contract for work in Afghanistan. CIA Director Panetta took to the airwaves on Sunday to defend the contract. Part of the reason why Blackwater got the contract is they presented a bid that was $26 million less than the nearest competitor. The contract is for a year, and could run up to 18 months. So...America's professional mercenary army, viewed very negatively in many parts of the world (Iraq is obviously the key sore spot, as they were banned from the country as a result of numerous incidents where they killed unarmed civilians), now gets a nice contract in Afghanistan. Raise your hand if you think this will go well? Anybody? Anybody?

Wikileaks, the Military, and Accountability

In case you haven't heard, wikileaks, a website that publishes anonymous leaks of sensitive government/organizational documents (which Spoon blogger Falcon wrote about a few months back), has come under fire lately. In this age of government secrecy, a website like this is pretty important. It recently put out a horrifying video, leaked from the U.S. military, showing an attack on July 12, 2007 in Baghdad that killed 12 people, including two Reuters news staff. None of those killed were seen as hostile. The story obviously got a lot of media attention, and has drawn the ire of many, including U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who called the release irresponsible, stating that wikileaks has no accountability. A secret report from the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Center goes so far as to call wikileaks a threat to the military.


Accountability...that's an interesting word to use. It is particularly ironic, because, if anything, I'd say the military doesn't seem to be accountable for its actions. This terrifying video shows the cold-blooded murder of unarmed civilians. The official story from the Pentagon was that the helicopter fired because it was itself under fire. The video shows that this is clearly not the case, and the conversation between the troops makes that point, too. Nothing in the records show that U.S. forces were under fire at all. This appears to be a complete fabrication, and a case of the military trying to cover its ass. Some legal experts suggest that the crew may have acted illegally.

Is releasing information a threat? Really? Particularly when that information shows the military, a government, or an organization/business acted with duplicity, and possibly illegally? Of course, the military establishment and government officials attacked wikileaks, because it makes them look bad. That's not surprising. It's just odd that they use "accountability" as the source of their attack.

I do agree that, oftentimes, websites put information up that is completely false, or problematically skewed, and don't face any repercussions for their actions. Hell, that's our mainstream press today, to some extent. But here's the thing...wikileaks didn't manufacture this video. It's real. The documents and footage that go on its site are real.

The reason we have a need for leaks like this is the increasingly secretive nature of governments. They do everything to cover their collective asses on seemingly everything. It'd be one thing if this video was leaked solely to fan the flames over this incident. That's the issue. Nobody did anything about this when it happened. Gates thought it would just go away. Some argue the military did not sufficiently investigate this, and other, instances where journalists were killed, or did not publicly disclose its findings. Some international law and human rights experts also think the killings in the wikileaks video could be war crimes. These are all quite serious issues. At the very least, the military should have been far more active in investigating this incident, along with others.

Instead, they assumed it would just go away and now that they are being pressed on it, they're getting defensive. Nobody was punished for this, nobody outside the military seems to have investigated this, and Gates sure as hell seems disinterested in dealing with it. Hence, his ridiculous response to the video. If there's anyone who seems to lack accountability at this point, its the military leadership. The soldiers in the video themselves seem to be more interested in making things right than the military leadership, which isn't necessarily that surprising.

The reason we need websites like wikileaks is because those in power seem disinterested in holding anyone accountable for their horrific mistakes, and our press isn't up to the task like they used to be (which has a lot to do with the political economy of the mass media, but that's a whole different topic). Yeah, maybe wikileaks is a threat to the military. But maybe that's a good thing. If Gates et. al. aren't interested in accountability, somebody needs to pick up the slack.

Fort Hood and U.S. Foreign Policy

I've been meaning to put some thoughts down about the shootings at Fort Hood for a minute, but just haven't gotten around to it yet. There has been plenty of typical sensationalist media coverage (best exemplified by the common "terrorists in America?" theme going around), along with some crazy racist nutjob stories (the "Muslim conspiracy theory" stuff, linking this all to the plot to infiltrate Congress through interns and the military through officers like Hasan - really insane stuff). I'm going to stay away from that stuff because, well, there's not really anything there. If you want to read about the Islamophobia that arose after the attack, check out this piece. Instead, let me talk about the one angle we haven't heard much about - how this tragedy is directly linked to U.S. foreign policy.

As we find out more information, we discover that Major Hasan had serious grievances with American foreign policy in relation to Iraq and Afghanistan. Not unlike a lot of other people. Pretty legitimate beef, too...the unreal number of civilian casualties, the number of U.S. casualties, the manipulated WMD evidence, the occupations, the pliant governments, the sweet military contracts and business deals, the trampling on international laws/norms/institutions...lots of beef. The closer you follow things, the more clear it becomes that Hasan's act of violence was driven primarily by his rage at these issues. And, while his actions are deplorable and should be condemned, that doesn't get U.S. foreign policy off the hook. There are serious problems with what we've done and are doing in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hasan's anger at the situation is not dissimilar from the anger millions around the world feel about the conflicts. Had he opted for civil disobedience instead of murder, he'd be like so many Americans, infuriated by the government's foreign policy.

In fact, Hasan provides us a domestic example of what we might be doing to Iraqis and Afghanis. He worked with vets returning from the wars, many with serious mental and physical injuries. Hasan apparently had a hard time dealing with the pain he saw them going through. He obviously opposed the wars, identified with the victims of the wars (both the soldiers he worked with, and the civilians with whom he probably identified with as Muslims), and, despite attempts to be discharged because of his concern about his difficulties serving a military whose actions he could not reconcile with his own beliefs, was about to be sent over to Afghanistan. In a simple sense, Hasan clearly snapped. Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) sure comes to mind.

Now, imagine a civilian in Afghanistan. You've seen countless neighbors, friends, and family members either killed or seriously injured in the continued war, possibly by NATO forces, bombing raids, or extremist elements running rampant in the country due to the lawlessness aided by Washington's support of an inept regime (and lack of financial backing to stabilize the country). You're in a worse place than Hasan. There is a pretty good chance you're on the verge of snapping, or just waiting for a chance to attack and kill somebody. There is countless psychological research on versions of prospect theory, social identity theory, and post-traumatic stress disorder that can be used to explain both Hasan's actions, as well as those of civilians stuck in horrific wars. Basically, if Hasan did what he did, what do you think the civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan are likely to do if they got a chance? This isn't some ideational thing...these violent outbursts are very specific to the context of the situation.

Thus, we could see Hasan as possibly a tamer version of what we might be producing abroad with policies that many inside and outside of America have serious qualms with. Um...shouldn't that be, I don't know, a pretty important angle for the press to cover on this story? It's all about foreign policy. You'd think it might even trigger some re-evaluation of our policies.

One other point...Hasan tried like hell to get out of the military. Some stories suggest he hired a lawyer to try to get discharged. His aunt says he offered to pay for his medical training in exchange for a discharge. He himself suggested the military allow Muslims to be conscientious objectors when America was fighting Muslims. No matter how you slice it, he had serious qualms and wanted out. Would you want a psychiatrist, who worked primarily with veterans who were dealing with serious physical and mental issues from the wars, to stay in such a position with his concerns? No way. Yet, they wouldn't discharge him. Why? I don't know, could it be our massive military footprint all over the globe? Over 750 bases in 39 countries (plus over 100 additional bases outside of the continental US, troops in 151 foreign countries, occupiers in two separate countries where we have major conflict still raging...yeah, we're probably slightly overstretched. And by slightly, I mean unbelievably. So much so that the Army can't really spare any soldier, including someone like Hasan. Again...direct link to our foreign policy. Are we stretched so thin that we're putting people in the field who really shouldn't be there?

Anyway, aside from the stories about the victims and the tragedy itself, it seems to me that these are really important issues that we should think about when reflecting on the Fort Hood shootings. The event has a very direct link to U.S. foreign policy, one that should be probed pretty deeply. This connection hasn't been looked at enough, but hopefully we can convince people it should be examined. It would be a way to really do justice to the memories of those who lost their lives in that tragic event, along with countless other innocents who have died in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

(For a sharper analysis on Fort Hood, check out this FPIF article. For a discussion of Fort Hood and PTSD, check out this piece by the always-excellent Dahr Jamail and this NPR article)

Cash Rules Every-military-thing Around Me

The stimulus bill passed in February, much to the chagrin of many Republicans, and some Democrats, who think the final price tag is an obscene amount of money for the US to spend. Libertarians such as Ron Paul argue that spending is actually the worst way to deal with the economic crisis, that letting banks fail, etc., would be rough, but we'd get out of this recession in a relatively short period of time. I am not quite sure about that, but I definitely think the final bill is an insane amount of money. I think we're all just hoping that it gets spent effectively to stimulate our ailing economy, and doesn't further line the pockets of powerful bankers, etc., who've made out like bandits the past few months even though they thoroughly failed.

More importantly, though, all this talk got me thinking...what about the amount we spend on the military? We kick and scream over a few billion here and there for public programs, and have cartoonists draw racist and ultra-violent cartoons in response to hundreds of billions in spending programs, but almost no politician even blinks when it comes to the military...well, except for ensuring the troops have ample body protection and benefits. Everything else the government funds has to justify itself...which begs the question, is our military spending effective? Considering how much money we spend on defense (or offense - remember, DoD was previously called the Dept. of War, and the name was changed more for PR than functional reasons), you'd hope the crowd in Washington paid attention to this question.

To understand the numbers, for FY 09, we're talking about around $515 billion. Throwing in the costs of the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, nuclear weapons research, etc., we get up to about $1 trillion for all US defense-related spending. There is also the black budget military spending, kept secret from the public, which is supposed to be $32 billion. So, yeah...this is a hell of a lot of money - we spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined on the military. We have over 700 bases around the world as well. So...does this spending help any?

Or is it making us less safe? The more we increase our own military might for "security", the more others feel insecure - the massive gap in military capability between the US and the rest of the world makes it harder for others to believe we are credible in espousing that we won't use our military power to impose our will on others. Our foreign policy certainly hasn't helped lessen this problem any, as we have asserted ourselves in numerous parts of the world frequently for our pure self-interest. Now, the truth is, every country largely looks out for its own self-interests, and there is nothing fundamentally unusual about the US in that regard. However, what is unusual is the massive gap in military capability between America and everyone else. The combination of the two is problematic for that very reason - our historical aggressiveness (which, again, may not be all that unusual compared to other great powers) + our unprecedentedly huge military capability advantage (which is unusual) = major fear of America abroad.

In many parts of the world, anti-American sentiment is pretty clearly linked to this overseas military presence. Think about US bases and troops in South Korea, Japan, and Saudi Arabia. Our allies are also increasingly worried about this massive gap. Europe is pushing for increased military spending - this might just be talk, but it is something. The gap isn't sitting well with Russia, either. I don't mean to raise this as an all-or-nothing question, but more of a magnitude question. Does it really benefit us, security-wise, to spend this much money on our military? Would we be more secure if we spent quite a bit less? We would still maintain a massive advantage on any other nation in terms of military capability, while easing back the level of threat perception our current military power evokes. Would it cost military jobs? Sure it would. But that is also money that could be redirected into our economy to help create jobs that don't depend on the risk of conflict. And again, we'd still maintain a massive military advantage over anyone, even if we cut our defense budget in half.

Also, are we even getting a good bang for our buck? Or are these massive contracts going to politically-connected businessmen who then do a mediocre job when contracted? Chalmers Johnson's book, The Sorrows of Empire, covers some of this ground. He highlights a number of cases where huge amounts of money were given by the US government to their friends through military contracts whereby these friends didn't do a particularly good job. Also, Johnson notes how ridiculously opulent some of the bases are.

So, our continued ultra-militarization continues to raise little alarm in DC from either party, despite the fact that it might actually make us less safe, and, as taxpayers, we might also be getting swindled at times. Yet, mention the idea of raising federal spending for programs where the market simply fails, and people will go absolutely insane. This conversation is becoming absurd. This country badly needs health care reform. We've got baby boomers getting ready to retire. There is a critical need for infrastructure building projects, expansion of public programs during an economic downturn like we have right now, etc. In response to these major needs, we hear many crying about the irresponsibility of government spending this will require. Yeah, it's going to cost some money. But we could cover those costs by cutting the massive defense budget. We could cut off contracts to politically-connected defense companies who have done crappy work for their money. We could stop building some of these bases as kingdoms. All these moves would save us a lot of money and make us just as secure, if not more. It's too bad talking about such a move is political suicide. That doesn't bode well for us moving forward.