As part of my ongoing process to leave the privacy invasive jewish company Google, I have now created a new email address for personal use as well as this site.
If you now need to contact me the new email is
truthinourtime@yandex.ru
As you may recall yandex is now my primary search engine and will now become my default email provider. I urge anyone who values privacy to try yandex as well.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
My Thoughts On Wikileaks
It was only a few months ago when I first mentioned Julian Assange to someone and unsurprisingly they didn't know who I was talking about. I explained what type of organization wikileaks was and went over some of the various notable leaks, the most recent at that time being collateral murder. Since that time wikileaks has become a household name and while people most likely have not read any of the actual leaks, they all have an opinion on the site and Assange.
I can't even recall exactly how I found wikileaks. It's been years, around the time of Project Chanology where Anonymous was using information from wikileaks to build their case against the Church Of $cientology. So wikileaks has been one of my bookmarks for years, I would check it regularly and often come across some interesting memos and various "secrets" that were interesting enough. But for me they really became earth shattering with the CRU emails.
As we know all to well, "global warming" was a dominant theme of this decade. Everyone was hammering it into our heads, on the local news, musicians, textbooks, in movies, in schools, in commercials, it was absolutely everywhere. It was a way for the elites to keep the would be challengers in check, to keep the freer markets held back while the non White world caught up, for White society to pay taxes (reparations) to the rest of the world for being successful.
Then one day you hear about climate gate, and then bam the lid is off. It's done. Over. EVERYTHING that they had told you about global warming (conveniently renamed climate change) was shattered, the models used for projections massive amounts of data was quite simply created out of thin air to match an agenda. And wikileaks was the one who laid this bare, all the emails for the world to read.
Recently there has been a lot of talk about wikileaks and if they are controlled by the CIA or Mossad (whose motto is "by deception thou shalt do war"). Now I find this to be a plausible scenario but I don't think the evidence is sound enough to justify passing judgement just yet.
So I would like to share my thoughts about wikileaks being controlled and address some of the arguments that are routinely brought up.
1. "wikileaks must be mossad because the Afghan War Diary and Iraq War Logs perpetuate the myth of Bin Laden, and Iran being a threat"
To me this has a plausible explanation that doesn't necessarily make wikileaks a mossad op, at least a knowing mossad op.
Wikileaks, is just a way for people to anonymously leak information. They aren't investigative journalist or spies who steal information so the information that they receive depends on someone to leak it. So being that these are hundreds of thousands of reports from the ground, the people making those reports primarily US military aren't going to say "osama is dead and has been for years" they are just following protocols when filling out reports and they are brainwashed at least 2x the amount the American people are as to why we are over there fighting. So it is not as if everyone in the military understands yet just covers up the charade, they have been sold the same load of BS everyone has and their reports reflect their brainwashing.
The other scenario is that at least some of the documents are false and the leaker is a mossad operative and is doing so to frame Iran and perpetuate the big scary muslim threat the jews love to parade around TV so that we will continue to fight their wars. Wikileaks would have no way to know this.
2."wikileaks must be controlled because the terror state of Israel (kikestan) comes out smelling like a rose"
This is indeed troubling. First, wikileaks is set to release several thousands israeli cables so they may well have some dirt to kick up. Also, if it was some kind of psy ops and a mossad agent released these original cables for the AWD and IWL then of course it is going to paint Israel in a nice light. Once again if people don't leak it, wikileaks can't run it. Now if there was evidence that wikileaks sat on information than that would change the story completely.
But there is more in my case for the (at least for now) defense of wikileaks.
Where were the detractors when they blew up climategate, or collateral murder? If they were a controlled group I just cannot see them leaking material of such tremendous caliber. Even though they would have to build up respect, these leaks, especially climategate are just too high for them to want to reveal.
You also have to look at these leaks from the point of view of the US government. Here you have a rogue group who is mildly popular worldwide but with outright persecution would only gain in popularity. What can you do? Well first you denounce them through your mainstream channels and get the sheep calling for Assanges head on a platter for aiding terrorists.
Secondly, through the non mainstream channels you spread the word that wikileaks might be controlled.
Now think about it, who is going to leak information that they might be either killed, fired, imprisoned, or fined if they are caught to a group that may be run by the CIA or Mossad? Who would donate money to this group?
Answer, nobody would and that is the point.
You now have covered 99% of your population, the 95% sheep who just mimic whatever the controlled media says or the 4 percent who might actually leak or donate to wikileaks and who get their information from non mainstream sources.
Case closed, it's as simple as that.
So in short, to me the jury is still out on wikileaks. I could see it going either way, I sincerely hope that they are legit and that those in power are actually starting to worry that their deceit may be layed bare and that it isn't just an act.
Time will tell, there certainly are some red flags and I proceed with caution personally. But I see no reason to pass judgement yet on wikileaks.
I can't even recall exactly how I found wikileaks. It's been years, around the time of Project Chanology where Anonymous was using information from wikileaks to build their case against the Church Of $cientology. So wikileaks has been one of my bookmarks for years, I would check it regularly and often come across some interesting memos and various "secrets" that were interesting enough. But for me they really became earth shattering with the CRU emails.
As we know all to well, "global warming" was a dominant theme of this decade. Everyone was hammering it into our heads, on the local news, musicians, textbooks, in movies, in schools, in commercials, it was absolutely everywhere. It was a way for the elites to keep the would be challengers in check, to keep the freer markets held back while the non White world caught up, for White society to pay taxes (reparations) to the rest of the world for being successful.
Then one day you hear about climate gate, and then bam the lid is off. It's done. Over. EVERYTHING that they had told you about global warming (conveniently renamed climate change) was shattered, the models used for projections massive amounts of data was quite simply created out of thin air to match an agenda. And wikileaks was the one who laid this bare, all the emails for the world to read.
Recently there has been a lot of talk about wikileaks and if they are controlled by the CIA or Mossad (whose motto is "by deception thou shalt do war"). Now I find this to be a plausible scenario but I don't think the evidence is sound enough to justify passing judgement just yet.
So I would like to share my thoughts about wikileaks being controlled and address some of the arguments that are routinely brought up.
1. "wikileaks must be mossad because the Afghan War Diary and Iraq War Logs perpetuate the myth of Bin Laden, and Iran being a threat"
To me this has a plausible explanation that doesn't necessarily make wikileaks a mossad op, at least a knowing mossad op.
Wikileaks, is just a way for people to anonymously leak information. They aren't investigative journalist or spies who steal information so the information that they receive depends on someone to leak it. So being that these are hundreds of thousands of reports from the ground, the people making those reports primarily US military aren't going to say "osama is dead and has been for years" they are just following protocols when filling out reports and they are brainwashed at least 2x the amount the American people are as to why we are over there fighting. So it is not as if everyone in the military understands yet just covers up the charade, they have been sold the same load of BS everyone has and their reports reflect their brainwashing.
The other scenario is that at least some of the documents are false and the leaker is a mossad operative and is doing so to frame Iran and perpetuate the big scary muslim threat the jews love to parade around TV so that we will continue to fight their wars. Wikileaks would have no way to know this.
2."wikileaks must be controlled because the terror state of Israel (kikestan) comes out smelling like a rose"
This is indeed troubling. First, wikileaks is set to release several thousands israeli cables so they may well have some dirt to kick up. Also, if it was some kind of psy ops and a mossad agent released these original cables for the AWD and IWL then of course it is going to paint Israel in a nice light. Once again if people don't leak it, wikileaks can't run it. Now if there was evidence that wikileaks sat on information than that would change the story completely.
But there is more in my case for the (at least for now) defense of wikileaks.
Where were the detractors when they blew up climategate, or collateral murder? If they were a controlled group I just cannot see them leaking material of such tremendous caliber. Even though they would have to build up respect, these leaks, especially climategate are just too high for them to want to reveal.
You also have to look at these leaks from the point of view of the US government. Here you have a rogue group who is mildly popular worldwide but with outright persecution would only gain in popularity. What can you do? Well first you denounce them through your mainstream channels and get the sheep calling for Assanges head on a platter for aiding terrorists.
Secondly, through the non mainstream channels you spread the word that wikileaks might be controlled.
Now think about it, who is going to leak information that they might be either killed, fired, imprisoned, or fined if they are caught to a group that may be run by the CIA or Mossad? Who would donate money to this group?
Answer, nobody would and that is the point.
You now have covered 99% of your population, the 95% sheep who just mimic whatever the controlled media says or the 4 percent who might actually leak or donate to wikileaks and who get their information from non mainstream sources.
Case closed, it's as simple as that.
So in short, to me the jury is still out on wikileaks. I could see it going either way, I sincerely hope that they are legit and that those in power are actually starting to worry that their deceit may be layed bare and that it isn't just an act.
Time will tell, there certainly are some red flags and I proceed with caution personally. But I see no reason to pass judgement yet on wikileaks.
2011 By Paul Craig Roberts
”Dissent is what rescues democracy from a quiet death behind closed doors.”
- Lewis H. Lapham
The year 2011 will bring Americans a larger and more intrusive police state, more unemployment and home foreclosures, no economic recovery, more disregard by the U.S. government of U.S. law, international law, the Constitution, and truth, more suspicion and distrust from allies, more hostility from the rest of the world, and new heights of media sycophancy.
2011 is shaping up as the terminal year for American democracy. The Republican Party has degenerated into a party of Brownshirts, and voter frustrations with the worsening economic crisis and military occupations gone awry are likely to bring Republicans to power in 2012. With them would come their doctrines of executive primacy over Congress, the judiciary, law, and the Constitution and America’s rightful hegemony over the world.
If not already obvious, 2010 has made clear that the U.S. government does not care a whit for the opinions of citizens. The TSA is unequivocal that it will reach no accommodation with Americans other than the violations of their persons that it imposes by its unaccountable power. As for public opposition to war, the Associated Press reported on December 16 that “Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the U.S. can’t let public opinion sway its commitment to Afghanistan.” Gates stated bluntly what has been known for some time: the idea is passe that government in a democracy serves the will of the people. If this quaint notion is still found in civics books, it will soon be edited out.
In Gag Rule, a masterful account of the suppression of dissent and the stifling of democracy, Lewis H. Lapham writes that candor is a necessary virtue if democracies are to survive their follies and crimes. But where in America today can candor be found? Certainly not in the councils of government. Attorney General John Ashcroft complained of candor-mongers to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Americans who insist on speaking their minds, Ashcroft declared, “scare people with phantoms of lost liberty,” “aid terrorists,” diminish our resolve,” and “give ammunition to America’s enemies.”
As the Department of Justice (sic) sees it, when the ACLU defends habeas corpus it is defending the ability of terrorists to blow up Americans, and when the ACLU defends the First Amendment it is defending exposures of the lies and deceptions that are the necessary scaffolding for the government’s pretense that it is doing God’s will while Satan speaks through the voices of dissent.
Neither is candor a trait in which the American media finds comfort. The neoconservative press functions as propaganda ministry for hegemonic American empire, and the “liberal” New York Times serves the same master. It was the New York Times that gave credence to the Bush regime’s lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and it was the New York Times that guaranteed Bush’s re-election by spiking the story that Bush was committing felonies by spying on Americans without obtaining warrants. Conservatives rant about the “liberal media” as if it were a vast subversive force, but they owe their beloved wars and cover-ups of the Bush regime’s crimes to the New York Times.
With truth the declared enemy of the fantasy world in which the government, media, and public reside, the nation has turned on whistleblowers. Bradley Manning, who allegedly provided the media with the video made by U.S. troops of their wanton, fun-filled slaughter of newsmen and civilians, has been abused in solitary confinement for six months. Murdering civilians is a war crime, and as General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the National Press Club on February 17, 2006, “It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral” and to make such orders known. If Manning is the source of the leak, he has been wrongfully imprisoned for meeting his military responsibility. The media have yet to make the point that the person who reported the crime, not the persons who committed it, is the one who has been imprisoned, and without a trial.
The lawlessness of the U.S. government, which has been creeping up on us for decades, broke into a full gallop in the years of the Bush/Cheney/Obama regimes. Today the government operates above the law, yet maintains that it is a democracy bringing the same to Muslims by force of arms, only briefly being sidetracked by sponsoring a military coup against democracy in Honduras and attempting to overthrow the democratic government in Venezuela.
As 2011 dawns, public discourse in America has the country primed for a fascist dictatorship.The situation will be worse by 2012. The most uncomfortable truth that emerges from the WikiLeaks saga is that American public discourse consists of cries for revenge against those who tell us truths. The vicious mendacity of the U.S. government knows no restraint. Whether or not international law can save Julian Assange from the clutches of the Americans or death by a government black ops unit, both executive and legislative branches are working assiduously to establish the National Security State as the highest value and truth as its greatest enemy.
America’s future is the world of Winston Smith.
- Lewis H. Lapham
The year 2011 will bring Americans a larger and more intrusive police state, more unemployment and home foreclosures, no economic recovery, more disregard by the U.S. government of U.S. law, international law, the Constitution, and truth, more suspicion and distrust from allies, more hostility from the rest of the world, and new heights of media sycophancy.
2011 is shaping up as the terminal year for American democracy. The Republican Party has degenerated into a party of Brownshirts, and voter frustrations with the worsening economic crisis and military occupations gone awry are likely to bring Republicans to power in 2012. With them would come their doctrines of executive primacy over Congress, the judiciary, law, and the Constitution and America’s rightful hegemony over the world.
If not already obvious, 2010 has made clear that the U.S. government does not care a whit for the opinions of citizens. The TSA is unequivocal that it will reach no accommodation with Americans other than the violations of their persons that it imposes by its unaccountable power. As for public opposition to war, the Associated Press reported on December 16 that “Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the U.S. can’t let public opinion sway its commitment to Afghanistan.” Gates stated bluntly what has been known for some time: the idea is passe that government in a democracy serves the will of the people. If this quaint notion is still found in civics books, it will soon be edited out.
In Gag Rule, a masterful account of the suppression of dissent and the stifling of democracy, Lewis H. Lapham writes that candor is a necessary virtue if democracies are to survive their follies and crimes. But where in America today can candor be found? Certainly not in the councils of government. Attorney General John Ashcroft complained of candor-mongers to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Americans who insist on speaking their minds, Ashcroft declared, “scare people with phantoms of lost liberty,” “aid terrorists,” diminish our resolve,” and “give ammunition to America’s enemies.”
As the Department of Justice (sic) sees it, when the ACLU defends habeas corpus it is defending the ability of terrorists to blow up Americans, and when the ACLU defends the First Amendment it is defending exposures of the lies and deceptions that are the necessary scaffolding for the government’s pretense that it is doing God’s will while Satan speaks through the voices of dissent.
Neither is candor a trait in which the American media finds comfort. The neoconservative press functions as propaganda ministry for hegemonic American empire, and the “liberal” New York Times serves the same master. It was the New York Times that gave credence to the Bush regime’s lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and it was the New York Times that guaranteed Bush’s re-election by spiking the story that Bush was committing felonies by spying on Americans without obtaining warrants. Conservatives rant about the “liberal media” as if it were a vast subversive force, but they owe their beloved wars and cover-ups of the Bush regime’s crimes to the New York Times.
With truth the declared enemy of the fantasy world in which the government, media, and public reside, the nation has turned on whistleblowers. Bradley Manning, who allegedly provided the media with the video made by U.S. troops of their wanton, fun-filled slaughter of newsmen and civilians, has been abused in solitary confinement for six months. Murdering civilians is a war crime, and as General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the National Press Club on February 17, 2006, “It is the absolute responsibility of everybody in uniform to disobey an order that is either illegal or immoral” and to make such orders known. If Manning is the source of the leak, he has been wrongfully imprisoned for meeting his military responsibility. The media have yet to make the point that the person who reported the crime, not the persons who committed it, is the one who has been imprisoned, and without a trial.
The lawlessness of the U.S. government, which has been creeping up on us for decades, broke into a full gallop in the years of the Bush/Cheney/Obama regimes. Today the government operates above the law, yet maintains that it is a democracy bringing the same to Muslims by force of arms, only briefly being sidetracked by sponsoring a military coup against democracy in Honduras and attempting to overthrow the democratic government in Venezuela.
As 2011 dawns, public discourse in America has the country primed for a fascist dictatorship.The situation will be worse by 2012. The most uncomfortable truth that emerges from the WikiLeaks saga is that American public discourse consists of cries for revenge against those who tell us truths. The vicious mendacity of the U.S. government knows no restraint. Whether or not international law can save Julian Assange from the clutches of the Americans or death by a government black ops unit, both executive and legislative branches are working assiduously to establish the National Security State as the highest value and truth as its greatest enemy.
America’s future is the world of Winston Smith.
Don't Watch This Is You Have Blood Pressure Problems......Seriously
Nothing on planet Earth incites pure rage inside me than when I see a White woman with a non white male. I am filled with a variety of emotions, sadness, despair but these are so totally overshadowed by the anger that there is no room to even consciously assess the rest.
So when Flanders sent this video (with a disclaimer) a while ago I nearly went into outer space.
When I think of Sweden I think of beautiful blonde women who have been preserved for thousands of years and who are a great testament to White racial purity.
If the jew hates anything it is White racial purity and as you can see by this clip they promote all manner of degenerate filth in order to destroy the White race. This isn't a joke, this isn't some blogger making a big deal out of nothing, this is the sad reality of the condition of White Western Civilization. Where what would be an attractive blonde sings the Swedish National Anthem while engaging in (hopefully) mock intercourse with a dumbass nigger.
My anger isn't wasted though, my resolve is only strengthened and I am given a harsh reminder of why I spend time writing.
Psa 139:19 Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.
Psa 139:20 For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.
Psa 139:21 Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
Psa 139:22 I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.
Psa 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
Psa 139:24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
So when Flanders sent this video (with a disclaimer) a while ago I nearly went into outer space.
When I think of Sweden I think of beautiful blonde women who have been preserved for thousands of years and who are a great testament to White racial purity.
If the jew hates anything it is White racial purity and as you can see by this clip they promote all manner of degenerate filth in order to destroy the White race. This isn't a joke, this isn't some blogger making a big deal out of nothing, this is the sad reality of the condition of White Western Civilization. Where what would be an attractive blonde sings the Swedish National Anthem while engaging in (hopefully) mock intercourse with a dumbass nigger.
My anger isn't wasted though, my resolve is only strengthened and I am given a harsh reminder of why I spend time writing.
Psa 139:19 Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.
Psa 139:20 For they speak against thee wickedly, and thine enemies take thy name in vain.
Psa 139:21 Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
Psa 139:22 I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies.
Psa 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
Psa 139:24 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Quote of the Week
“I have no better remedy than anger. If I want to write, pray, preach well, then I must be angry. Then my entire blood supply refreshes itself, my mind is made keen, and all temptations depart.”
–Martin Luther, What Luther Says: An Anthology, Vol. 1, comp. Ewald M. Plass (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), entry no. 74, 27.
–Martin Luther, What Luther Says: An Anthology, Vol. 1, comp. Ewald M. Plass (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959), entry no. 74, 27.
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Congress Approves Largest Military Budget Since WWII
By Rick Rozoff - BLN Contributing Writer
Pentagon’s Christmas Present: Largest Military Budget Since World War II
Rick Rozoff
On December 22 both houses of the U.S. Congress unanimously passed a bill authorizing $725 billion for next year’s Defense Department budget.
The bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, was approved by all 100 senators as required and by a voice vote in the House.
The House had approved the bill, now sent to President Barack Obama to sign into law, five days earlier in a 341-48 roll call, but needed to vote on it again after the Senate altered it in the interim.
The proposed figure for the Pentagon’s 2011 war chest includes, in addition to the base budget, $158.7 billion for what are now euphemistically referred to as overseas contingency operations: The military occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.
The $725 billion figure, although $17 billion more than the White House had requested, is not the final word on the subject, however, as supplements could be demanded as early as the beginning of next year, especially in regard to the Afghan war that will then be in its eleventh calendar year.
Even as it currently is, the amount is the highest in constant dollars (pegged at any given year’s dollar and adjusted for inflation) since 1945, the final year of the Second World War. With recent U.S. census figures at 308 million, next year the Pentagon will spend $2,354 for every citizen of the country at the $725 billion price tag alone.
Last year’s Pentagon budget, by way of comparison, was $680 billion, a base budget of $533.8 billion and the remainder for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In July of this year Congress approved the 2010 Supplemental Appropriations Act which contained an additional $37 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Next year’s defense authorization of $725 billion compares to, according to the Center for Defense Information, a Pentagon budget of $444.6 billion in 1946; $460.4 billion in 1968, the highest yearly amount during the Vietnam War; and $443.4 billion in 1988, the highest during the eight years of the Ronald Reagan administration’s massive military buildup. (Numbers in 2004 constant dollars.) [1]
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates American military spending for 2009 to have accounted for 43 percent of the world total. Carl Conetta, co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives, earlier this year estimated the 2010 U.S. defense budget to constitute 47 percent of total worldwide military expenditures and to amount to 19 percent of all American federal spending.
In addition, Pentagon spending has increased by 100 percent since 1998 and “the Obama budget plans to spend more on the Pentagon over eight years than any administration has since World War II.” [2]
With 2.25 million full-time civilian and military personnel, excluding part-time National Guard and Reserve members, the Defense Department is the U.S.’s largest employer, outstripping Walmart with 1.4 million employees and the U.S Post Office with 599,000. [3]
“Add in what Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and the Energy departments spend on defense and total US military spending will reach $861 billion in fiscal 2011, exceeding that of all other nations combined,” according to Todd Harrison, senior fellow for Defense Budget Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. [4]
In April Robert Higgs of The Independent Institute advocated that the budgets – in part or in whole – of the departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Energy, State and Treasury and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) should be calculated in the real military budget, which would in 2009 would have increased it to $901.5 billion.
“Adding [the] interest component to the previous all-agency total, the grand total comes to $1,027.8 billion, which is 61.5 percent greater than the Pentagon’s outlays alone.”
His numbers are:
National Security Outlays in Fiscal Year 2009
(billions of dollars)
Department of Defense 636.5
Department of Energy (nuclear weapons and environmental cleanup) 16.7
Department of State (plus international assistance) 36.3
Department of Veterans Affairs 95.5
Department of Homeland Security 51.7
Department of the Treasury (for the Military Retirement Fund) 54.9
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1/2 of total) 9.6
Net interest attributable to past debt-financed defense outlays 126.3
Total 1,027.5 [5]
The above-cited Carl Conetta stated at the beginning of this year that the 2011 Pentagon budget will mark a milestone in that “the inflation-adjusted rise in spending since 1998 will probably exceed 100% in real terms by the end of the fiscal year.
“Taking the 2011 budget into account, the Defense Department has been given about $7.2 trillion since 1998, when the post-Cold War decline in defense spending ended. Approximately $2.5 trillion of this total is due to spending above the annual level set in 1998. This added amount constitutes the post-1998 spending surge.”
Based on constant 2010 dollars, Conetta further details that the Ronald Reagan administration spent $4.1 trillion on the Defense Department, the Georgia W. Bush administration spent $4.65 trillion and “Barack Obama plans to spend more than $5 trillion.”
He also compares the two previous largest post-World War Two surges in U.S. military spending to the current one:
From 1958-1968: 43 percent
From: 1975-1985 57 percent
In regards to which he said, “the 1998-2011 surge is as large as these two predecessors combined.”
His calculations also include a growth in Pentagon contract employees of 40 percent since 1989, thereby freeing up uniformed service members for more direct combat roles.
The U.S. share of global military spending grew from 28 percent during the Cold War to 41 percent by 2006 and that of North Atlantic Treaty Organization member states, including the U.S., from 49 percent to 70 percent in the same period.
Contrariwise, the “group of potential adversary and competitor states has gone from claiming a 42% share to just 16% in 2006.
“Had Ronald Reagan – who is generally regarded a hawkish president – wanted to achieve in the 1980s the ratio between US and adversary spending that existed in 2006, he would have had to quadruple his defense budgets.
“And, of course, since 2006, the US defense budget has not receded, but instead grown by another 20% in real terms.
“By 2011, the United States will probably account for more than half of all global military spending calculated in terms of ‘purchasing power parity’ (which corrects for differences between national economies).” [6]
The defense authorization bill passed on December 22, despite its monumental and unprecedented size, has been routinely described in the American press as stripped-down, scaled-down and pared-down because an arms manufacturer or two, their lobbyists and obedient congresspersons didn’t get every new defense contract and weapons project they desired three days before Christmas.
The December 22 vote in the House was, as Associated Press accurately described it, conducted without debate or discussion – and “without major restrictions on the conduct of operations” – particularly in regards to the $158.7 billion for the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, $75 million to train and equip the armed forces of Yemen for the counterinsurgency campaign in that country and $205 million more to fund Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield.
Regarding the first vote on December 17: “This year’s bill is mostly noteworthy for its broad bipartisan support during wartime….Unlike during the height of the Iraq War when anti-war Democrats tried to use the legislation to force troops home, the House passed the defense bill Friday with almost no debate on Afghanistan.” [7]
Aside from voting for the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as a stand-alone measure, excising an amendment to allow abortions to be performed on military bases, and refusing reparations to victims of the World War Two Japanese occupation of the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam (apparently $100 million for the purpose was considered excessive in the $725 billion authorization), there was no meaningful dissent in either house of Congress.
Increasing the U.S. war budget to the highest level it’s been since the largest and deadliest war in history while no nation or group of nations poses a serious threat to the country, and to a degree where it effectively exceeds the defense spending of the rest of the world combined, is all in the proper order of things for the world’s sole military superpower.
1) Center for Defense Information
http://www.cdi.org/news/mrp/us-military-spending.pdf
2) Christian Science Monitor, March 29, 2010
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/David-R.-Francis/2010/0329/Defense-budget-After-Afghanistan-and-Iraq-withdrawal-a-peace-dividend
3) Christian Science Monitor, June 28, 2010
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/David-R.-Francis/2010/0628/Cuts-to-US-defense-budget-look-inevitable
4) Ibid
5) Robert Higgs, Defense Spending Is Much Greater than You Think
The Independent Institute, April 17, 2010
http://www.independent.org/blog/index.php?p=5827
6) Carl Conetta, Trillions to Burn? A Quick Guide to the Surge in Pentagon
Spending
Project on Defense Alternatives, February 5 2010
http://www.comw.org/pda/1002BudgetSurge.html
7) Associated Press, December 17, 2010
Pentagon’s Christmas Present: Largest Military Budget Since World War II
Rick Rozoff
On December 22 both houses of the U.S. Congress unanimously passed a bill authorizing $725 billion for next year’s Defense Department budget.
The bill, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, was approved by all 100 senators as required and by a voice vote in the House.
The House had approved the bill, now sent to President Barack Obama to sign into law, five days earlier in a 341-48 roll call, but needed to vote on it again after the Senate altered it in the interim.
The proposed figure for the Pentagon’s 2011 war chest includes, in addition to the base budget, $158.7 billion for what are now euphemistically referred to as overseas contingency operations: The military occupation of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.
The $725 billion figure, although $17 billion more than the White House had requested, is not the final word on the subject, however, as supplements could be demanded as early as the beginning of next year, especially in regard to the Afghan war that will then be in its eleventh calendar year.
Even as it currently is, the amount is the highest in constant dollars (pegged at any given year’s dollar and adjusted for inflation) since 1945, the final year of the Second World War. With recent U.S. census figures at 308 million, next year the Pentagon will spend $2,354 for every citizen of the country at the $725 billion price tag alone.
Last year’s Pentagon budget, by way of comparison, was $680 billion, a base budget of $533.8 billion and the remainder for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In July of this year Congress approved the 2010 Supplemental Appropriations Act which contained an additional $37 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Next year’s defense authorization of $725 billion compares to, according to the Center for Defense Information, a Pentagon budget of $444.6 billion in 1946; $460.4 billion in 1968, the highest yearly amount during the Vietnam War; and $443.4 billion in 1988, the highest during the eight years of the Ronald Reagan administration’s massive military buildup. (Numbers in 2004 constant dollars.) [1]
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates American military spending for 2009 to have accounted for 43 percent of the world total. Carl Conetta, co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives, earlier this year estimated the 2010 U.S. defense budget to constitute 47 percent of total worldwide military expenditures and to amount to 19 percent of all American federal spending.
In addition, Pentagon spending has increased by 100 percent since 1998 and “the Obama budget plans to spend more on the Pentagon over eight years than any administration has since World War II.” [2]
With 2.25 million full-time civilian and military personnel, excluding part-time National Guard and Reserve members, the Defense Department is the U.S.’s largest employer, outstripping Walmart with 1.4 million employees and the U.S Post Office with 599,000. [3]
“Add in what Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, and the Energy departments spend on defense and total US military spending will reach $861 billion in fiscal 2011, exceeding that of all other nations combined,” according to Todd Harrison, senior fellow for Defense Budget Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. [4]
In April Robert Higgs of The Independent Institute advocated that the budgets – in part or in whole – of the departments of Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Energy, State and Treasury and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) should be calculated in the real military budget, which would in 2009 would have increased it to $901.5 billion.
“Adding [the] interest component to the previous all-agency total, the grand total comes to $1,027.8 billion, which is 61.5 percent greater than the Pentagon’s outlays alone.”
His numbers are:
National Security Outlays in Fiscal Year 2009
(billions of dollars)
Department of Defense 636.5
Department of Energy (nuclear weapons and environmental cleanup) 16.7
Department of State (plus international assistance) 36.3
Department of Veterans Affairs 95.5
Department of Homeland Security 51.7
Department of the Treasury (for the Military Retirement Fund) 54.9
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1/2 of total) 9.6
Net interest attributable to past debt-financed defense outlays 126.3
Total 1,027.5 [5]
The above-cited Carl Conetta stated at the beginning of this year that the 2011 Pentagon budget will mark a milestone in that “the inflation-adjusted rise in spending since 1998 will probably exceed 100% in real terms by the end of the fiscal year.
“Taking the 2011 budget into account, the Defense Department has been given about $7.2 trillion since 1998, when the post-Cold War decline in defense spending ended. Approximately $2.5 trillion of this total is due to spending above the annual level set in 1998. This added amount constitutes the post-1998 spending surge.”
Based on constant 2010 dollars, Conetta further details that the Ronald Reagan administration spent $4.1 trillion on the Defense Department, the Georgia W. Bush administration spent $4.65 trillion and “Barack Obama plans to spend more than $5 trillion.”
He also compares the two previous largest post-World War Two surges in U.S. military spending to the current one:
From 1958-1968: 43 percent
From: 1975-1985 57 percent
In regards to which he said, “the 1998-2011 surge is as large as these two predecessors combined.”
His calculations also include a growth in Pentagon contract employees of 40 percent since 1989, thereby freeing up uniformed service members for more direct combat roles.
The U.S. share of global military spending grew from 28 percent during the Cold War to 41 percent by 2006 and that of North Atlantic Treaty Organization member states, including the U.S., from 49 percent to 70 percent in the same period.
Contrariwise, the “group of potential adversary and competitor states has gone from claiming a 42% share to just 16% in 2006.
“Had Ronald Reagan – who is generally regarded a hawkish president – wanted to achieve in the 1980s the ratio between US and adversary spending that existed in 2006, he would have had to quadruple his defense budgets.
“And, of course, since 2006, the US defense budget has not receded, but instead grown by another 20% in real terms.
“By 2011, the United States will probably account for more than half of all global military spending calculated in terms of ‘purchasing power parity’ (which corrects for differences between national economies).” [6]
The defense authorization bill passed on December 22, despite its monumental and unprecedented size, has been routinely described in the American press as stripped-down, scaled-down and pared-down because an arms manufacturer or two, their lobbyists and obedient congresspersons didn’t get every new defense contract and weapons project they desired three days before Christmas.
The December 22 vote in the House was, as Associated Press accurately described it, conducted without debate or discussion – and “without major restrictions on the conduct of operations” – particularly in regards to the $158.7 billion for the military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, $75 million to train and equip the armed forces of Yemen for the counterinsurgency campaign in that country and $205 million more to fund Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield.
Regarding the first vote on December 17: “This year’s bill is mostly noteworthy for its broad bipartisan support during wartime….Unlike during the height of the Iraq War when anti-war Democrats tried to use the legislation to force troops home, the House passed the defense bill Friday with almost no debate on Afghanistan.” [7]
Aside from voting for the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as a stand-alone measure, excising an amendment to allow abortions to be performed on military bases, and refusing reparations to victims of the World War Two Japanese occupation of the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam (apparently $100 million for the purpose was considered excessive in the $725 billion authorization), there was no meaningful dissent in either house of Congress.
Increasing the U.S. war budget to the highest level it’s been since the largest and deadliest war in history while no nation or group of nations poses a serious threat to the country, and to a degree where it effectively exceeds the defense spending of the rest of the world combined, is all in the proper order of things for the world’s sole military superpower.
1) Center for Defense Information
http://www.cdi.org/news/mrp/us-military-spending.pdf
2) Christian Science Monitor, March 29, 2010
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/David-R.-Francis/2010/0329/Defense-budget-After-Afghanistan-and-Iraq-withdrawal-a-peace-dividend
3) Christian Science Monitor, June 28, 2010
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/David-R.-Francis/2010/0628/Cuts-to-US-defense-budget-look-inevitable
4) Ibid
5) Robert Higgs, Defense Spending Is Much Greater than You Think
The Independent Institute, April 17, 2010
http://www.independent.org/blog/index.php?p=5827
6) Carl Conetta, Trillions to Burn? A Quick Guide to the Surge in Pentagon
Spending
Project on Defense Alternatives, February 5 2010
http://www.comw.org/pda/1002BudgetSurge.html
7) Associated Press, December 17, 2010
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