The Military-Industrial Complex

---

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children ... This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Half a century later, with 4% of the world's population the United States now spends more on the military than every other nation on Earth combined. And politicians on both sides say it still isn't enough.

Beginning.

Middle.

End of story.




addendum:
(2/26/08) James Carroll sums it up well in America's ghost story.

addendum2:
(3/17/08) Glenn Greenwald talks numbers in The bipartisan consensus on U.S. military spending.

addendum3:
(3/17/08) Chalmers Johnson on the MIC- The Pentagon Strangles Our Economy: Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke.

addendum4:
(7/5/08) WARSAW (Reuters)- "In the months-long negotiations, Tusk's center-right government had sought billions of dollars worth of U.S. investment to upgrade Polish air defenses in return for hosting 10 two-stage missile interceptors."

So to summarize, the plan is to spend billions of dollars "defending" Poland, whether they want us to or not, so that we can then be allowed to spend more billions of dollars "defending" the rest of Europe. From Iran. Whether they want us to or not. While the dollar sinks. And the Euro rises.

All completely true.