{"id":275730,"date":"2016-10-26T17:42:35","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T16:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/at-the-pentagon-nothing-succeeds-like-failure\/"},"modified":"2016-10-26T17:42:35","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T16:42:35","slug":"at-the-pentagon-nothing-succeeds-like-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/at-the-pentagon-nothing-succeeds-like-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"At the Pentagon, Nothing Succeeds Like Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

When it comes to the Pentagon, nothing succeeds like failure. That is the message of William Hartung\u2019s latest article<\/a> at TomDispatch.com. The Pentagon, Hartung notes, continues to receive massive funding from the American taxpayer, even as its various wars drag on, seemingly without end. Hartung, who wrote a book<\/a> on Lockheed Martin and the military-industrial complex, has a knack for revealing the latest Pentagon follies. Even as you read his latest at TomDispatch.com<\/a>, I\u2019d like to add two more items to his list:<\/p>\n

1. Washington Think Tanks<\/strong>: Perhaps you\u2019ve heard of them, centers for thinking about national defense, hiring the best and the brightest to come up with disinterested recommendations to safeguard America. Ha! A few days ago, The National Interest<\/em> ran an article<\/a> on what these think tanks were proposing, the \u201clatest fashions in warfighting<\/strong>,\u201d as the article\u2019s title put it. Please note there\u2019s no \u201cfashion\u201d in peacemaking or war-ending.<\/p>\n

Four out of the five think tanks featured in the article were in basic agreement. \u201cDeterrence\u201d had to be based on massive investments in offensive weaponry. There was much agreement as well on modernizing America\u2019s nuclear arsenal, on the need to feature more drones and other unmanned platforms, on air power and power projection, as well as support for the wildly expensive F-35 jet fighter<\/a>. In sum, more of the same at the Pentagon, only more.<\/p>\n

One think tank, the Cato Institute<\/a>, a Libertarian outfit, dared to depart from Pentagon orthodoxy. Cato called into question the Pentagon\u2019s need for better nukes, prodigal jet fighters, and similar \u201csticker shock\u201d items on the Pentagon\u2019s wish list. This dissent drew a stinging rebuke from The National Interest<\/em>, which suggested Cato had developed a defense plan for Canada rather than the great and powerful USA.<\/p>\n

To that I say, tell me again what is wrong with Canada?<\/p>\n

A question: If four out of five think tanks essentially agree with each other, are not at least three of them redundant?<\/p>\n

2. Forcing Soldiers to Pay Back Bonuses<\/strong>: Yes, you read that right. Even as the Pentagon spends nearly $750 billion a year, even as it avoids any semblance of an audit, U.S. troops who fought overseas are being forced to pay back bonuses<\/a> that the Pentagon gave them, apparently by mistake (but also with some fraud involved on behalf of recruiters), at a time when the US military was under duress to improve retention rates.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be clear: In accepting the bonuses, the individual troops were not at fault. They took the money in good faith from a military that patted them on the back for staying in. But now the military says, whoops, we were wrong, we want the money back.<\/p>\n

In Pentagon terms, we\u2019re not talking big money. We\u2019re talking chump change. It\u2019s $15,000 here, $30,000 there. But of course it is big money to the troops and their families. Consider the stress of having government-sanctioned collection agencies on your tail. One soldier had to…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to the Pentagon, nothing succeeds like failure. That is the message of William Hartung\u2019s latest article at TomDispatch.com. The Pentagon, Hartung notes, continues to receive massive funding from the American taxpayer, even as its various wars drag on, seemingly without end. Hartung, who wrote a book on Lockheed Martin and the military-industrial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-275730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}