Why We Fight

Here is the trailer for the first one (Isn't it?) of those military-industrial complex movies and a documentary about the Iraq war. The documentarian was on The Daily Show. And here I was thinking Syrianna and Lord Of War would be as good as it will get for a while. I have to say, The video of the Eisenhower speech and the interviews with politicians like McCain speaking on this issue is priceless new material, bringing more and more credibility to the issue.

My first run-in into this idea was Bill Moyers's interview with a Pentagon US Air Force colonel turned whistleblower with documents and maps about how the military-industrial complex runs. I read the transcript over two years ago, but from what I remember, when a senator or congressman tries to cut military spending, he's sent this map of how much money is being spent in his state and district, and well, between the contractors in his area and himself, he can easily become a lifetime politician. This is old news though, and there is a lot more to the story.

The whistleblower's official statement is here. Somewhere in there is how much money the Pentagon can't account for over just the last decade or so. Around $2 Trillion. By now offcourse, the US outspends every single country in the world combined in funding the pentagon. Did somebody say government breeds bureaucracy? This is old news again.

Something that I have observed, is the fact that over the past 4 years the number of jobs which require some sort of clearance (and US Citizenship) has vastly increased, if it wasn't high already. Last semester a full 1/3 of all Electrical Engineering jobs I applied to and got interviews for required some sort of clearance (I applied to almost every EE job at the career fair). One of my friend's friend even turned down a job because he couldn't ethically agree with programming things for a National Lab (This is a one in a million case though). Everyone else I know wants US Citizenship to get these jobs. High tech jobs are created this way, It's a fact, whether intentional or not. It could be either really.

Most people, including myself who have listened to the recruiters recruit for these companies, will proudly state that these jobs save lives. But, We should atleast try to know when we've crossed the line and become some sort of an imperial country. Watch the trailer again!

This is sort of unrelated, but the concept which ties almost everything going on in the US today, socializing the risk involved in a business venture (Cheeseburger Bill, Those people are just sick, really!), and privatizing the profits. A trend which has accelerated faster than anything else in the last decade. It applies to the way Military research is conducted as well at universities, where the profits from a successful technology are later on are privatized. Nothing new here though.

Oh, and I'm going to stop watching The Daily Show if they don't have Noam Chomsky on soon as a guest. How the f&%k do you talk about a military-industrial complex and not mention the man who has been banging that drum for over 40 years now. He's only written, I forget, how many books on it. Hegemony or Survival, Deterring Democracy. I'm really quite mad about this more than anything else. Jon Stewart clearly knows Chomsky is admired the most among college students, and college students are the prime demographic for The Daily Show.

I'll write about this, in another post. Sometime...