PRESS ROOM

The Sustainable Defense Task Force correctly pointed out that the biggest global challenges we confront, including pandemics, are not military in nature. President-elect Biden won by promising to build our country back better. Investing in the Pentagon when the rest of the economy is suffering would be the worst way to do it, particularly because we knew that investments in other sectors of our economy, like healthcare, are more effective at both job creation and in strengthening our response to the current crisis.

Scott interviews Danny Sjursen about where his former commanders from Afghanistan have ended up in the years since the surge. Sjursen goes through a handful of these men: almost without fail, his former generals have ended up with profitable jobs in the arms industry or at hawkish think tanks, and his colonels have been promoted to take the place of those retired generals—and will surely join them in the private sector soon enough. The fact that none of this surprises us should be a reminder of just how corrupt America’s military-industrial complex is.

“It’s telling the think tanks rep­re­sent­ed here — RAND, CSIS and CNAS — are among the top recip­i­ents of Depart­ment of Defense and Depart­ment of Defense con­trac­tor fund­ing,” says Ben Free­man of the For­eign Pol­i­cy Trans­paren­cy Ini­tia­tive, which recent­ly authored a report on think tank fund­ing. ​“CNAS and CSIS are lit­er­al­ly num­ber one and num­ber two in terms of dona­tions received from U.S. defense con­trac­tors in the last six years. RAND is, by far, the top recip­i­ent of Depart­ment of Defense fund­ing of any think tank.”

“This is no time to be offering a major weapons package to the United Arab Emirates,” said William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy. “The UAE's role in the brutal war in Yemen, its violations of the UN arms embargo on Libya, and its transfers of U.S.-supplied weapons to extremist groups in Yemen should disqualify it from receiving U.S. arms at this time.

“Doing so is just an endorsement of its unacceptable conduct that will enable it to do more damage in the region,” he added.

Patriotism is one of those rather difficult words to define, to nail down in any agreed-upon way. It is also a word whose official—or at least dictionary—definition has changed over time. For example, Merriam-Webster now defines patriotism simply as “love for or devotion to one’s country.” This seven-word explication of one of the more powerful forces in American and global life is striking in its very vagueness. Furthermore, this dictionary lists nationalism as a synonym for patriotism. This is as curious as it is potentially dangerous. A basic grasp of modern world history demonstrates the extraordinary differences between simple patriotism and the far more traditional chauvinism and superiority typically inherent in nationalism.

The author of "Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War" spoke with filmmaker and author Oliver Stone at the 14th annual Heyday Harvest.

The U.S. law, first created in 1938 out of a fear of Nazi propaganda, is too broad, Mr. Freeman said. It requires registration for anyone doing non-commercial activities, notably political activities, at the request of a “foreign principal,” which can even be an individual, Mr. Freeman said. And he argued the U.S. needs more transparency, such as disclosure of foreign donations to think tanks.

“Using OCO to subsidize the Pentagon‘s non-war activities is bad budgeting, period,” William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, wrote in a piece for Forbes last year. “Eliminating the OCO slush fund and restoring budget discipline at the Pentagon is both doable and advisable.”

“If Trump escalates with Iran, it will be a ruse to try to shore up his support and further try to invalidate the elections. … [He] could view a conflict with Iran as a means towards assaulting U.S. democracy more than he has already,” Yasmine Taeb of the Center for International Policy wrote in an email. “The American people and progressives should be hyper cautious, be ready to organize, and view any claims Trump and company make about Iran with the utmost scrutiny.”

“The UAE's role in the brutal war in Yemen, its violations of the UN arms embargo on Libya, and its transfers of U.S.-supplied weapons to extremist groups in Yemen should disqualify it from receiving U.S. arms at this time,” Hartung said. “Doing so is just an endorsement of its unacceptable conduct that will enable it to do more damage in the region.”

“The UAE is not a responsible client,” William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, told National Journal. “Not only because of their killing civilians in Yemen, but violating the [United Nations] arms embargo on Libya, and a number of items of U.S. equipment have ended up in the hands of members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, [and] the Houthis.”

It’s one hell of an inversion. The colonels and generals who commanded at high levels during my 2011-12 Afghan surge tour may have lost the war, but they sure won the personal prosperity battle. The military campaign – strategically, at least – wasn’t even close this time around. Whereas the first surge I had the distinct displeasure to join, in Iraq, produced – or at least coincided – with enough short-term security "progress" to feed a success mythology, the Afghan reprise never really caught on. For the most part, that bloody jaunt passed with barely a whimper – as if we were all supposed to forget the grandiose overpromises on what surge snake oil could produce in this "graveyard of empires."