|
costs of major US wars
November 2008
DoD spending on the war in Iraq has
nearly matched the cost of the war in Vietnam, according to a new
Congressional Research Service analysis of the financial costs of wars
throughout United States history.
Total post-911 United States military
spending has exceeded the cost of Vietnam by a considerable margin.
The
ongoing war in Iraq has incurred an estimated $648 billion to date, and total
post-911 military spending including the Iraq War, Afghanistan and other
terrorism related military expenditures has reached $859 billion.
The
Vietnam War cost an
estimated $686 billion in 2008 dollars.
The total cost of the American
Revolution was $101 million, or about $1.8 billion in 2008 dollars and less
than 1% of gross domestic product.
The cost of World War II was about
$4.1 trillion in 2008 dollars, and consumed a massive 35.8% of gross domestic
product.
The Iraq war took 6.2% of gross domestic product in
2008.
"All estimates are of the costs of military operations only and do
not include costs of veterans benefits, interest paid for borrowing money to
finance wars, or assistance to allies," the CRS report indicated.
Costs of Major US Wars, Congressional Research Service, July 24,
2008
"The Pentagon's new
Defense Media Activity (DMA) -- which "combines formerly separate
Pentagon media organizations, such as the Armed Forces Radio and Television
Service, the Stars and Stripes newspaper, and the Pentagon Channel" -- needs someone to run it.
The Defense Department is looking for an "energetic and imaginative
executive" to oversee "2,400
military, government and contract employees around the world and a budget of
more than $225 million."
The DMA is tasked with communicating
"messages and themes" from officials and providing "a
wide variety of information products" to
Pentagon staff, service
members and their families, veterans and "external audiences."
The DMA
also provides "high quality visual information, including
Combat Camera imagery depicting
United States military activities and operations."
Army Times:
"Development of the group and its first-year budget has been given to Bryan
Whitman, since the job of his supervisor ... is vacant."
Whitman's name
frequently appears in the Pentagon pundits
documents.
The DMA "will not include the America Supports
You public relations program," which is
currently under investigation for funneling PR and marketing contracts through
Stars and Stripes.
Whitman said America Supports You "wasn't placed under the DMA
because it is not of the same 'nature' as other external information programs."
- Washington Post, August 25,
2008
Veteran Pentagon consultant Michael Bayer, chairman of the
Defense Business Board, told his fellow panelists that the new
president's inner circle should "set aside time in transition to identify the
planning, gravitas and interagency process necessary to respond to a likely
first-270-day crisis."
1968
DoD Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, or "Operation Garden
Plot," is developed in response to the major protests and disturbances of
the 1960s.
November 18, 1988
Executive Order 12656 defines
national security
emergency as "any occurrence, including
natural disaster,
military attack,
technological emergency, or
other emergency, that
seriously degrades or seriously threatens the
national security of the US."
Since this date the US military has been
training troops and
police in " civil disturbance
planning".
1990
Estimated value of the
weapons, equipment and factories
devoted to the DoD is
83% of the value of all plants and equipment in US manufacturing.
2008
"The 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat
Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle
rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.
Now they're training for the same mission at home.
Beginning
Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st Brigade Combat Team will be under the day-to-day
control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an
on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and
disasters, including terrorist attacks.
After 1st Brigade Combat Team
finishes its dwell-time
mission, expectations are that another, as yet unnamed, active-duty brigade
will take over and that the mission
will be a permanent one.
They may be called upon to help with
civil unrest and
crowd control." - Army
Times, September 30, 2008 On December 17, 2008,
"A new report
by the US Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon
troops being used should the economic
crisis lead to civil
unrest, such as protests against businesses or
runs on beleaguered
banks.
The study says
economic collapse,
terrorism and
loss of legal order are
among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the
US" - Phoenix Business Journal
"Widespread
civil violence inside the
US would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis
to defend basic domestic order and
national security." -
Army War College report
1896
Manufacturers and industrialists
inform their
employees that if William Jennings Bryan is elected
all factories and
plants will close.
William McKinley
favors the Gold Standard.
William McKinley
beats William Jennings Bryan by a small margin over the question of the
demontization of
silver.
1897
EH Harriman is
director of Union Pacific Railroad.
1918 Samuel
Prescott Bush, serving on the board of the
Federal Reserve Bank of
Cleveland, is appointed chief of the Ordinance, Small Arms and
Ammunition Section.
Samuel reports directly to
Bernard Mannes Baruch
as director of the Facilities Division of the
War Industries
Board.
The weapons industry has
associations, lobby groups, and trade shows.
Why?
Defense and military
industries in permanent war trash economies.
Those who profit from
permanent war erase
the line between the State
and the corporation as retired military officers
walk through the revolving
door.
Pentagon
public relations campaigns focus on
the transformation of military men into news
analysts - "message force multipliers" - to
fuel weapons sales.
Retired military men ideologically in sync
with neoconservative think tanks, frame events in anticipation of large
budget increases for military contracts.
Analysts, paid for the number
of times they appeared on television, are instructed not to quote handlers
directly or mention contacts.
"We knew we had extraordinary access." -
Timur J. Eads, retired Army lieutenant colonel, Fox "analyst", Blackbird
Technologies
Omnitec Solutions,
corporate branding
experts, monitors performance.
September 6, 2001 Veritas announces the
formation of an "advisory council" of well-connected retired generals and
admirals.
Veritas gives its advisers board seats, profit sharing
and equity stakes.
Veritas intends to turn quick profits through
initial public offerings.
After
September 11, 2001
Barry Richard McCaffrey makes 1,000
appearances on NBC and its
sisters.
McCaffrey, paid $25,000 for speeches, is quoted or cited
regularly in The Wall Street
Journal and thousands of "news" articles.
Barry Richard McCaffrey and Wayne A. Downing are on the advisory board
of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, an advocacy group created
with White House encouragement to make the case for ousting
Saddam Hussein.
BR
McCaffrey Associates, promises to "build linkages" between government
officials and contractors
like Defense Solutions.
McCaffrey advocates building up the
military to sustain an occupation, warning
premature withdrawal would invite
catastrophe.
He advocates spending for high-tech
weapons, including precision-guided munitions and
unmanned aerial vehicles -
important to the Veritas portfolio.
McCaffrey, chairman of HNTB
Federal Services - an engineering and construction management corporation that
often competes for national security contracts,
consistently advocates wartime
policies.
In corporate filings, Veritas' tells investors
they are well positioned to benefit from
a widening global war on
terror.
Veritas goes on a shopping spree, buying
corporations
deeply enmeshed in the wars in
Afghanistan and
Iraq, including
DynCorp.
McCaffrey
ridicules the Iraq Study Group recommendation of withdrawing all combat
brigades from Iraq while working with James A. Marks to win the Iraqi
translators contract for Global Linguist Solutions a newly incorporated
subsidiary of DynCorp.
When the Pentagon awards the contract to
Global Linguist Solutions DynCorp stock jumps 15%.
"I am 100% behind what the president of the US is
doing in Iraq."
Barry Richard McCaffrey
James A Marks,
an analyst for CNN,
pursues military and intelligence contracts as a senior executive with
McNeil Technologies.
James A Marks is named president of
Global Linguist Solutions and Barry Richard McCaffrey is designated as
chairman of Global Linguist Solutions.
McCaffrey is eligible to
share in profits: the contract is worth $4.6 billion over five years, but only
if the US does not pull out of Iraq.
McCaffrey published a report
recommending that the US equip Iraq with 5,000 armored vehicles provided by
Defense Solutions.
Paul E. Vallely, a Fox News analyst, a
specialist in psychological warfare had
co-authored a paper in 1980 that accused American news organizations of
failing to defend the
nation from "enemy" propaganda during Vietnam.
"We lost the war -
not outfought, we were out psyoped." - Paul E. Vallely
Paul E. Vallely
urges the continued use of
psychological operations which took aim not just at foreign adversaries but
domestic audiences as well.
Paul
E. Vallely called his approach "MindWar" - using network television and radio
to "strengthen our national will to victory."
2005 Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq account for 37% of
DynCorp International
revenues.
2008 David Barstow reports that 75 retired military officers
regularly appearing on television "have ties to military contractors
vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air."
Collectively, the group represented "more than 150 military contractors
either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or
consultants."
The Pentagon pundits program used
three propaganda techniques to
sell the necessity of what
is now called "a dynamic and
evolving threat."
The Pentagon worries that framing this as a
'global' war risks reinforcing the image that
al-Qa`ida seeks to project of
itself - a highly organized, global entity capable of
replacing sovereign nations with
a global caliphate.
The three propaganda techniques involve:
the distortion of facts by
the selective withholding of
information;
the
creation of an emotional cascade beginning with fear and
ending with righteous anger;
and the concealment of the true source
of the message by putting the message in the mouth of some seemingly
independent third party.
2009 Pentagon
employs 27,000 people for recruitment, advertising and
public relations - nearly the
30,000-person State
Department work force.
The money spent on winning hearts
and minds has grown by 63%, to at least $4.7 billion - about the same
amount the military spent on
body armor for troops
in Afghanistan and Iraq from 2004 and 2006. |
|
 |
This web site is not a commercial web site and
is presented for educational purposes only.
This website defines a
new perspective with which to engage reality to which its author adheres. The
author feels that the falsification of reality outside personal experience has
forged a populace unable to discern propaganda from
reality and that this has been done purposefully by an international
corporate cartel through their agents who wish to foist a corrupt version of
reality on the human race. Religious intolerance occurs when any group refuses
to tolerate religious practices, religious beliefs or persons due to their
religious ideology. This web site marks the founding of a system of philosophy
named The Truth of the Way of the Lumière Infinie - a rational gnostic
mystery religion based on reason which requires no leap of faith, accepts no
tithes, has no supreme leader, no church buildings and in which each and every
individual is encouraged to develop a personal relation with the Creator and
Sustainer through the pursuit of the knowledge of reality in the hope of curing
the spiritual corruption that has enveloped the human spirit. The tenets of The
Truth of the Way of the Lumière Infinie are spelled out in detail on
this web site by the author. Violent acts against individuals due to their
religious beliefs in America is considered a "hate crime."
This web site
in no way condones violence. To the contrary the intent here is to reduce the
violence that is already occurring due to the international corporate cartels
desire to control the human race. The international corporate cartel already
controls the world economic system, corporate media worldwide, the global
industrial military entertainment complex and is responsible for the collapse
of morals, the elevation of self-centered behavior and the destruction of
global ecosystems. Civilization is based on coöperation. Coöperation
does not occur at the point of a gun.
American social mores and values
have declined precipitously over the last century as the corrupt international
cartel has garnered more and more power. This power rests in the ability to
deceive the populace in general through corporate media by pressing emotional
buttons which have been preprogrammed into the population through prior
corporate media psychological operations. The results have been the destruction
of the family and the destruction of social structures that do not adhere to
the corrupt international elites vision of a perfect world. Through distraction
and coercion the direction of thought of the bulk of the population has been
directed toward solutions proposed by the corrupt international elite that
further consolidates their power and which further their purposes.
All
views and opinions presented on this web site are the views and opinions of
individual human men and women that, through their writings, showed the
capacity for intelligent, reasonable, rational, insightful and unpopular
thought. All factual information presented on this web site is believed to be
true and accurate and is presented as originally presented in print media which
may or may not have originally presented the facts truthfully. Opinion and
thoughts have been adapted, edited, corrected, redacted, combined, added to,
re-edited and re-corrected as nearly all opinion and thought has been
throughout time but has been done so in the spirit of the original writer with
the intent of making his or her thoughts and opinions clearer and relevant to
the reader in the present time.
Fair Use Notice
This site may contain
copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically
authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our
efforts to advance understanding of criminal justice, human rights, political,
economic, democratic, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe
this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for
in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.
Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those
who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for
research and educational purposes. For more information see:
www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted
material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you
must obtain permission from the copyright owner. |
 Copyright
© Lawrence Turner
All Rights Reserved
|