Shining a spot light on how the military defends corporate interests, as
long as their own are well met, at the top.
With nearly 1000 military generals and admirals, the Pentagon has a
stunning cast of lobbyists. Seemingly better trained at strong-arming
congress than terrorists. I guess because there aren't more than a
handful of terrorists ever to practice on locally, and there's scant
need to practice overseas when poor enlisted men and women and drones
and bombs do all the work. As it turns out, they're chiefly in
Washington because there's money to be rounded up for their lavish
lifestyles--which include entourages, palatial residences, 234
(official) golf courses world wide.
When it's time for retirement, 70% of 3-4 star generals are hired by
private industry, all too often helping to drive up weaponry costs.
Britain has its royals. The U.S.has its top brass. But we never hear
late night talk show jabs about the latter. Perhaps in Britain--but only
about the US?
*
Natalia*
7 Shocking Ways the Military Wastes Our Money
*Hint: none of them have anything to do with national defense.*
/December 11, 2012/ |
http://www.alternet.org/economy/8-absurd-ways-military-wastes-our-money?akid=9790.4337.ZW5AfG&rd=1&src=newsletter759415&t=3&paging=off
The David Petraeus scandal has shined a light on the luxurious,
subsidized lifestyle of the U.S. military's top generals. But so far,
what the media has uncovered only scratches the surface of the abuses.
Here are eight absurd ways the military wastes our money--and none of
them have anything to do with national defense.
*1. A whole battalion of generals?* The titles "general" or "admiral"
sound like they belong to pretty exclusive posts, fit only for the best
of the best. This flashy title makes it pretty easy to say, "so what if
a few of our military geniuses get the royal treatment--particularly if
they are the sole commanders of the most powerful military in human
history." The reality, however, is that there nearly/1,000/ generals and
admirals in the U.S. armed forces, and each has an entourage that would
make a Hollywood star jealous.
According to 2010 Pentagon reports, there are963 generals and admirals
<http://www.ciponline.org/research/entry/myths-vs-realities-of-pentagon-spending#_ftn2>
in the U.S. armed forces. This number has ballooned by about 100
officers since 9/11 when fighting terror--and polishing the boots of
senior military personnel --became Washington's number-one priority. (In
roughly that same time frame, starting in 1998, the Pentagon's budget
also ballooned by more than 50 percent.)
Jack Jacobs, a retired U.S. army colonel and now a military analyst for
MSNBC, says the military needs only a third of that number. Many of
these generals are "spending time writing plans and defending plans with
Congress, and trying to get the money," he explained. In other words, a
large number of these generals are essentially lobbyists for the
Pentagon, but they still receive large personal staffs and private jet
rides for official paper-pushing military matters.
Dina Rasor, founder of Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog
group, explains
<http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/5920:the-pentagons-biggest-overrun-way-too-many-generals>
that this "brass creep" is "fueled by the desire to increase
bureaucratic clout or prestige of a particular service, function or
region, rather than reflecting the scope and duties of the job itself."
It's sort of like how Starbucks titles each of its baristas a "partner"
but continues to pay them just over minimum wage (and a caramel
macchiato per shift).
As Rasor writes
<http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/5920:the-pentagons-biggest-overrun-way-too-many-generals>,
"the three- and four-star ranks have increased twice as fast as one- and
two-star general and flag officers, three times as fast as the increase
in all officers and almost ten times as fast as the increase in enlisted
personnel. If you imagine it visually, the shape of U.S. military
personnel has shifted from looking like a pyramid to beginning to look
more like a skyscraper."
But the skyscraper model doesn't mean that the armed forces are
democratizing. In fact, just the opposite; they're gaming the system to
allow more and more officers to deploy the full power of the U.S.
military to aid their personal lives--whether their actual work
justifies it or not.
*2. The generals' flotillas.* Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates
appointed Arnold Punaro, a retired major general in the Marines, to head
an independent review of the Pentagon's budget. Here's the caution he
came up with
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/us/27generals.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>:
"We don't want the Department of Defense to become a benefits agency
that occasionally kills a terrorist."
So, just how good /are/ these benefits? For the top brass, not bad at
all. According to a /Washington Post/ investigation
<http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-11-17/world/35505221_1_robert-m-gates-commanders-joint-chiefs>,
each top commander has his own C-40 jet, complete with beds on board.
Many have chefs who deserve their own four-star restaurants. The
generals' personal staff include drivers, security guards, secretaries,
and people to shine their shoes and iron their uniforms. When traveling,
they can be accompanied by police motorcades that stretch for blocks.
When entertaining, string quartets are available at a snap of the fingers.
A /New York Times/ analysis
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/us/27generals.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0>
showed that simply the staff provided to top generals and admirals can
top $1 million--/per general/. That's not even including their own
salaries--which are relatively modest due to congressional
legislation--and the free housing, which has been described
<http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/5920:the-pentagons-biggest-overrun-way-too-many-generals>
as "palatial." On Capitol Hill, these cadres of assistants are called
the generals' "flotillas."
In Petraeus' case, he didn't want to give up the perks of being a
four-star general in the Army, even after he left the armed forces to be
director of the CIA. He apparently trained his assistants to pass him
water bottles
<http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pentagon-to-review-perks-for-top-brass-8395457.html>
at timed intervals on his now-infamous 6-minute mile runs. He also liked
"fresh, sliced pineapple" before going to bed.
*3. Scandals.* Despite the seemingly limitless perks of being a general,
there is a limit to the military's (taxpayer-funded) generosity. That's
led some senior officers to engage in a little creative accounting. This
summer the (formerly) four-star general William "Kip" Ward was caught
using military money
<http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/U-S-Army-general-probed-over-perks-3797303.php>
to pay for a Bermuda vacation and using military cars and drivers to
take his wife on shopping and spa excursions. He traveled with up to 13
staff members, even on non-work trips, billing the State Department for
their hotel and travel costs, as well as his family's stays at luxury
hotels.
In November, in the midst of the Petraeus scandal, Defense Secretary
Leon Panetta demoted Ward to a three-star lieutenant general and ordered
him to pay back $82,000 of the taxpayers' misused money. The debt
shouldn't be hard to repay; Ward will receive an annual retirement
salary of $208,802.
Panetta may have been tough--sort of--on now three-star general Ward,
but he's displayed a complete refusal to reevaluate the bloated ranks of
the military generals. Unlike his predecessor, Robert Gates, who has
come out publicly against the increasing number of top-ranking officers
and tried to reduce their ranks, Panetta has so far refused
<http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/15/15166642-panetta-orders-review-of-ethical-standards-amid-allegations-of-misconduct-among-high-level-military-leaders?lite>
to review their numbers and has yet to fire a single general or admiral
for misconduct. He did, however, order an "ethics training" after the
Petraeus scandal.
*4. Warped sense of reality.* After the Petraeus scandal, the
million-dollar question was: Did the general who essentially built the
world's most invasive surveillance apparatus /really/ think he could get
away with carrying on a secret affair without anyone knowing? Former
Secretary of State Gates has floated
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-15/panetta-asks-for-review-of-officers-ethics-amid-turmoil.html>
at least one theory at a press conference in Chicago: "There is
something about a sense of entitlement and having great power that skews
people's judgement."
A handful of retired diplomats and service members have come out in
support of Gates' thesis. Robert J. Callahan, a retired diplomat who
served as U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua, wrote an op-ed
<http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-11-22/news/ct-perspec-1122-military-20121122_1_military-officers-sons-and-daughters-military-academy>
in the/Chicago Tribune/ explaining how the generals' perks allow them to
exist on a plain removed from ordinary people:
"Those with a star are military nobility, no doubt, and those with
four are royalty. Flying in luxurious private jets, surrounded by a
phalanx of fawning aides who do everything from preparing their
meals to pressing their uniform trousers, they are among America's
most pampered professionals. Their orders are executed without
challenge, their word is fiat. They live in a reality different from
the rest of us."
Frank Wuco, a retired U.S. Naval intelligence chief, agrees.
"With the senior guys and the flag officers, this is like the new
royalty," he said on his weekly radio show. "We treat them like
kings and princes. These general officers in the military, at a
certain point, become untouchable... In many cases, they get their
own airplanes, their own helicopters. When they walk into a room,
everybody comes to attention. In the case of some of them, people
are very afraid to speak up or to disagree. Being separated from
real life all the time in that way probably leaves them vulnerable
(to lapses in moral judgement)."
Sounds like a phenomenon that's happening with another pampered sector
of society (hint: Wall Street). Given the epic 2008 financial collapse,
do we really want to set our security forces on a similar path of power,
deception and deep, crisis-creating delusion?
*5. Military golf. *Of course, generals and admirals aren't the only
ones who get to enjoy some of perks of being in the U.S. armed forces.
Although lower ranking service members don't get private jets and
personal chefs, U.S. taxpayers still spend billions of dollars a year to
pay for luxuries that are out of reach for the ordinary American.
The Pentagon, for example, runs a staggering 234 golf courses around the
world, at a cost that is undisclosed.
According to one retired Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force, who also
just happens to be the senior writer at/Travel Golf,/ the very best
military golf course in the U.S. is the _Air Force Academy's Eisenhower
Blue Course
<http://www.worldgolf.com/courses/usa/colorado/coloradosprings/blue-at-eisenhower-golf-course-military.html>_
in Colorado Springs, CO.
He writes
<http://www.travelgolf.com/departments/travelfeatures/ontheroad/military-golf-courses.htm>,
"This stunning 7,000-plus yard layout shares the same foothills terrain
as does the legendary Broadmoor, just 20 minutes to the south in
Colorado Springs. Ponderosa pines, pinon and juniper line the fairways
with rolling mounds, ponds and almost tame deer and wild turkey." (The
Department of Defense did come under fire a number of decades ago when
it was discovered that the toilet seats at this course cost $400 a pop.)
And the number of golf courses is often undercounted, with controversial
courses in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Mosul, Iraq, often left off the
lists
<http://www.alternet.org/story/82009/the_military-leisure_golf_complex>,
which makes assessing the total costs difficult.
Yet some courses rack up staggering expenses as they become far more
than mere stretches of grass.
According to journalist Nick Turse
<http://www.alternet.org/story/82009/the_military-leisure_golf_complex>,
"The U.S. Army paid $71,614 [in 2004] to the Arizona Golf Resort --
located in sunny Riyadh, Saudi Arabia... The resort actually boasts an
entire entertainment complex, complete with a water-slide-enhanced
megapool, gym, bowling alley, horse stables, roller hockey rink, arcade,
amphitheater, restaurant, and even a cappuccino bar -- not to mention
the golf course and a driving range."
DoD's Sungnam golf course in the Republic of Korea, meanwhile, is
reportedly valued at $26 million.
For non-golfers, the military also maintains a ski lodge and resort in
the Bavarian Alps
<http://www.fpif.org/articles/too_many_overseas_bases>, which opened in
2004 and cost $80 million.
*6.* "*The Army goes rolling along!" *Vacation resorts aren't the only
explicitly non-defense-related expenditures of the Department of
Defense. According to a /Washington Post/ investigation, the DoD also
spends $500 million annually on marching bands.
The Navy, the Army, the Air Force and the Marine Corps all maintain
their own military bands
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/06/AR2010090603018.html?sid=ST2010090603042>,
which also produce their own magazines and CDs.
The bands are [pun intended] "an instrument of military PR," according
to Al McCree, a retired Air Force service member who owns Altissimo
Recordings, a Nashville record label featuring music of the service bands.
The CDs are--by law--distributed for free, but that doesn't mean the
private sector can't profit off these marching bands. According to the
Washington Post article
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/06/AR2010090603018.html?sid=ST2010090603042>,
"The service CDs have also created a private, profitable industry made
up of companies that obtain the band recordings under the Freedom of
Information Act. They then re-press and package them for public sale."
As if subsidizing the industry of multibillion-dollar arms dealers
weren't enough, the record industry is apparently also leeching off the
taxpayer-funded military spending.
*7. The Pentagon-to-Lockheed pipeline. *While the exorbitant costs of
private planes and hundreds of golf courses may seem bad enough, the
most costly problem with the entitlement-culture of the military happens
/after /generals retire. Since they're so used to the luxurious
lifestyle, the vast majority of pension-reaping high-ranking officers
head into the private defense industry.
According to William Hartung, a defense analyst at the Center for
International Policy in Washington DC, about 70 percent of recently
retired three- and four-star generals went straight to work for industry
giants like Lockheed Martin.
"If you /don't/ go into industry at this point you are the exception,"
Hartung said.
This type of government-to-industry pipeline, which he said was
comparable to the odious Wall Street-to-Washington revolving door,
drives up the prices of weapons and prevents effective oversight of
weapon manufacturing companies--all of which ends up costing taxpayers
more and more each year.
"I think the overspending on the generals and all their perks is bad
enough, but the revolving door and the ability of these people to cut
industry a break in exchange for high salaries costs more in the long
run," said Hartung. "This can affect the price of weapons and the whole
structure of how we oversee companies. It's harder to calculate, but
certainly in the billions, compared to millions spent on staff per general."
*Laura Gottesdiener is a freelance journalist and activist in New York
City.*
**
**
**
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