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Today's
Stories
June 17, 2009
Winslow T. Wheeler
How Obama Will Outspend Reagan on Defense
June 16, 2009
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq's Looming Peril: a Plague of Snakes
John Ross
Undermining Mexico
Afshin Rattansi
Guarding the Revolution
Marc Levy
How I Nearly Won the War
Paul Craig Roberts
Are You Ready for War with a Demonized Iran?
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Youth Make History
Brian M. Downing
Democracy in Iran
Merle Lefkoff
Israel's Angels in America
David Macaray
Charles Manson and Me
Robert Jensen
Finding a Stubborn Hope to Live in a Dead Culture
David Swanson
An Exit Strategy That Keeps Wars Going
Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament Fundraiser
June 15, 2009
Michael Hudson
The Ending of America's Financial-Military Empire
Reza Fiyouzat
The Iranian Elections: Sure They Stole It...Up Front and Honestly
Patrick Cockburn
A Whole New Ballgame in Iraq
James Ridgeway
Did Composite Parts Bring Down Air France Flight 447?
Marjorie Cohn
Agent Orange Continues to Poison Vietnam
Rannie Amiri
Iran and the End of the "Obama Effect" Myth
Dave Lindorff
How Obama is Blowing the Chance for Real Health Care Reform
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Elections and the Hysterical Media
Leonard Schwartz
The Angel of History and the Ghetto of Gaza
Martha Rosenberg
Start Your Engines, Drug Reps!
Website of the Day
Single-Payer v. Public Option
June 12-14, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Who Needs Yesterday's Papers?
Gareth Porter
The CIA's Drone Wars
Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Next Parlor Trick
Mark Ames
Elmer Fudd Nation
Esam Al-Amin
What Really Happened in the Lebanese Elections?
Franklin Lamb
Carter in Lebanon
Patrick Cockburn
Prisoner Swap in Iraq
Andy Worthington
The Long Ordeal of Mohammed El-Gharani
Heather Gray
A New Perspective on the Confederacy: Southern Greed During the Civil War
Felice Pace
Why NPR Refuses to Report on the Single Payer Movement
Ron Jacobs
Flashback to the End of a War That Really Did End
George Wuerthner
Burning Questions: Why the National Fire Plan is a Trojan Horse for Logging
Jeffrey Buchanan /
Trinh Le
Biloxi Trailer Blues
David Ker Thomson
Americana
Renaud Lambert
Brazil: More Dependent Than Ever
Kevin Zeese
Congress and the Health Business Lobby
David Macaray
SAG Vote:
A Lesson in Solidarity ... Not
Evelyn Pringle
FDA Throws Lifeline to Antipsychotic Pushers
Chris Genovali
Blood Sport Auction: Why eBay Should Stop Selling Guided Hunts for Bears, Wolves and Cougar
David Michael Green
The Rhetorical President
Brian J. Foley
Our Solar System is Not a Suicide Pact!
Charles R. Larson
No Safe Return
Kim Nicolini
Foreclosure is Hell: Sam Raimi's Frightfest
David Yearsley
Bach on Torture: Mr. Cheney, They're Playing Your Song
Lorenzo Wolff
Intent to Discord
Poets' Basement
Chris Jordan
Website of the Weekend
The Red Room
June 11, 2009
Kathy Kelly /
Dan Pearson
Down and Out in Shah Mansoor: With the Swat Refugees
James Bovard
The Latest Torture Cover-Up Scam
Tristan de Bourbon
The Toy Makers of Chenghai: the Financial Crisis Seen From China
Dave Lindorff
The Wheels are Coming Off the Recovery Program
Kevin Zeese
The Case for Disbarment of the Torture Lawyers
Ralph Nader
The Craft of Sam Maloof:
a Visionary Woodworker
Harvey Wasserman
The GOP's Trillion Dollar Reactor Plan Goes Radioactive
Nicole Colson
The Anti-Abortion Movement's Climate of Violence
Mark Weisbrot
Showdown Over the IMF
Dan Bacher
Big Water's Big Lie Unravels
Website of the Day
Top 10 Most Absurd TIME Covers
June 10, 2009
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Obama's Doublespeak on Iran
Jennifer Van Bergen / Douglas Valentine
The Dangerous World of Indefinite Detentions: From Vietnam to Abu Ghraib
Kathy Kelly
Visitors and Hosts in Pakistan
Paul Craig Roberts
Fear Rules
Rev. William E. Alberts
First the Torture of Truth ...
Peter Lee
Obama and North Korea: a Warm-Up in the Offing?
Carol Miller
Why
We Need a Holistic, Cradle-to-the-Grave National Health Care System
Emily Ratner
Dreams of Flight in Gaza
Robert Weissman
The IMF's Accountability Moment
Dave Lindorff
The Sutra of the Crushed Volvo
Website of the Day
Starving in Gitmo
June 9, 2009
Winslow T. Wheeler
Back From the Dead: Pentagon Pork!
Mike Whitney
Is Hyper-Inflation Around the Corner?
Stan Cox
Biofuel's Drug Problem
Sibel Edmonds
The Battle Against the State Secrets Privilege
Jonathan Cook
Where the Victim is the Guilty Party
David Macaray
A Bad Time for Unions
Robert Jensen
In South Africa, Apartheid is Dead, But White Supremacy Lingers On
Nadia Hijab
The Obama Difference
Mark Weisbrot
Vulture Funds Descend on Argentina
Website of the Day
Waging Non-Violence
June 8, 2009
John Ross
Mexico: Politics as Drugs / Drugs as Politics
Paul Wright
Deconstructing Gus: How a Former Prisoner Took On and Took Down Corrections Corporation of America's Top Lawyer (and Cheney Pal)
Paul Craig Roberts
Long-Term Economic Memory Loss
Franklin C. Spinney
"Natural Growth:" Israel's Demographic Hogwash
Franklin Lamb
Lebanon's Elections: Return to the Status Quo
Uri Avnery
The Tone and the Music
Jonathan Cook
Israeli Loyalty Oaths
Eric Toussaint
/ Damien Millet
The Partisans of Capitalism Have Lost All Credibility
Jim Goodman
The Dairy Oligarchy
Norman Solomon
Words and War
Reza Fiyouzat
When Accusations Fly: the Spectacle of the Iranian Elections
Website of the Day
Latino Jobless Rate Soars
June 5 -7, 200
Alexander Cockburn
High Words, Low Truths
George Galloway
Our Convoy to Gaza
Paul Craig Roberts
Obama in Cairo
Jennifer Loewenstein
How Much Really Separates Obama and Netanyahu?
Franklin Lamb
Watching Obama's Speech in Lebanon
Mike Whitney
The Biggest Rip Off Ever?
Andy Worthington
Death at Guantánamo
Missy Comley Beattie
Peace Be Upon You?
Farzana Versey
Walk Like an Egyptian: the Oprahfication of Obama
Stanley Heller
Obama's Non-Starter
John V. Whitbeck
Nothing Comes From Nothing
Robert Weissman
GM: the Path Not Taken
Lee Sustar
The Fall of GM: Why Workers Will Pay the Price
Dave Lindorff
What a State-Run GM Could Do
William Blum
The Great, International, Truly Demonic Iran Threat
Ernest Callenbach /
Harvey Wasserman
A Green-Powered Trip Through Ecotopia
Greg Moses
By George! Austin Leads the National Recovery
Ron Jacobs
The Meaning of Yasser Arafat
David Yearsley
Art Set in Concrete:
the Desolate Urban Landscape of High Culture
Tim Stelloh
Pot Home Invasions:
Bud and Blow Torches
Belén Fernández
The Joksters: Obama and Thomas Friedman
David Ker Thomson
The Academics
Karyn Strickler
Clean Coal: a Dirty Joke
Christopher Brauchli
Judicial Amnesia and the Federalist Society
Charles R. Larson
Leaving Tangier: Exile and Exploitation
Kim Nicolini
"Hunger:"
Art With a Punch
Lorenzo Wolff
Good Head (Or Why the End of Hand-Crafted Music Isn't (Necessarily) the End of Music)
Poets' Basement
Jenkins, Orloski and Willson
Website of the Weekend
Tankman
June 4, 2009
Arno J. Mayer
The Future of Israel and the Decline of the American Empire
Mike Whitney
Bond Market Blowout
Gareth Porter
Report Ties Dubious Iran Nuke Documents to Israel
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Clearing Misconceptions on Pakistan's War in Swat
Mouin Rabbani
Paradigmatic Progress?
Jordan Flaherty
Life in Gaza
Adam Turl
Is Card Check Dead?
Nikolas Kozloff
Iran's Elections: the Latin America Factor
Yifat Susskind
Obama's Double Standard
Website of the Day
Pink Floyd's Roger Waters Slams Israel
June 3, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts
As the Dollar Falls Off the Cliff...
Kathy Kelly
A Weaver's Welcome to Pakistan
Alan Farago
Bailing Out the Land Speculators
Franklin Lamb
Israeli Spies and Fake IDs
Bill Hatch
Why Congressman Cardoza Stiffed Michelle Obama
Nadia Hijab
A Stifling Embrace
Dean Baker
Reporters With Pom-Poms: Cheerleading the Recovery
Binoy Kampmark
Whither GM?
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
What Happened to Air France Flight 477?
Remi Kanazi
Oslo Redux?
Behzad Yaghmaian
The End of Idealism in China?
Website of the Day
A Time Comes: the Story of the KingsNorth Six
June 2, 2009
Uri Avnery
Racists for Democracy
Robert Weissman
Bankrupt Thinking
Conn Hallinan
Shadow Wars
Gideon Spiro
Obama and Israel's Nuclear Arsenal
Roger Burbach
US-Cuba Policy: "Still Stuck in the Past"
Dylan Quigley
My Experience with Dr. Tiller
Dave Lindorff
The American Taliban Claim Another Victim
Ray McGovern
Navy Vet Honored, Foiled Israeli Attack
Belén Fernández
Israel's Newfound Concern for UNIFIL
Martha Rosenberg
Give It Up, Wyeth
Willie L. Pelote, Sr.
GOP: California's for the Rich (Poor People Should Move)
Website of the Day
You Bet Your Health
June 1, 2009
Pam Martens
Wall Street Braces for New Cops on the Beat
Yitzhak Laor
Washington's Mirror
Mark Weisbrot
More Stimulus, Not Deficit Reduction
Ramzy Baroud
Netanyahu's New Quest
Saul Landau
Dancing the Afghan Jig
Eugenia Tsao
Smug Toronto Seethes as Tamils "Go Too Far"
Afshin Rattansi
Women in Darfur: "We Saw No Evidence of Genocide"
Debra Sweet
The Murder of Dr. Tiller
Abdul Malik Mujahid
Obama's Trip Egypt and American Muslims
Bill Quigley
Haiti's Revolutionary Priest Gerard Jean-Juste: Presente!
John Wright
The Tragedy of Susan Boyle
Website of the Day
Young Neo Con Anthem
May 29-31, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Sotomayor and the Last of the WASPs
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq: The Mother of All Corruption Scandals
Vijay Prashad
Reeling Republicans
Gary Leupp
The Destabilization of Pakistan
Ray McGovern
The Impossible Rehab of Colin Powell
Rannie Amiri
Spies, Lies and Mr. Lebanon's Demise
Bill Hatch
The Mechanic's Tale: a Short Chapter in the History of Foreclosures
Chellis Glendinning, Stephanie Mills and Kirkpatrick Sale
Three Luddites Talking ... on a Computer!
Phyllis Pollack
Dosed, But Not Spiked:
an Interview with Grace Slick
David Yearsley
Eros and Susan Boyle; Fakery and Simon Cowell
Jean-Christophe Servant
A River of Acid: Mined Out in Zambia
Dave Lindorff
Sotomayor's Problem Isn't That She's Too Latina
James McEnteer
Straw Dogs: the Media and Sonia Sotomayor
Missy Beattie
A Place Called Despair
James C. Faris
On Evolution: a Critique of Darwinism
David Macaray
When Workers' Rights Go Unenforced
Harvey Wasserman
The Catastrophic Economics of Nuclear Power
Adam Federman
Drilling the Marcellus Shale Through the Halliburton Loophole
David Ker Thomson
Turtle Island: Adventures in Recycling
Mark Seth Lender
Great Egrets Return
Stephen Martin
Big Trouble in Little Britain
Joseph Nevins
Sin Nombre is Only Part of the Border Story
Sophia Mihic
Star Trek and the Continuing Mission of American Imperialism
Lorenzo Wolff
Dylan Kelehan Gets What He Needs
Poets' Basement
Fleming, Shields and Greer
Website of the Weekend
Petition: Grant Parole to Leonard Peltier
May 28, 2009
Joan Roelofs
The Philanthropies and the Economic Crisis
Paul Craig Roberts
Torture and the American Conscience
Ralph Nader
Corporate Frankensteins
Mouin Rabbani
The Dangers of False Optimism in the Middle East
Joe Bageant
Plain Truths From Appalachia: a Redneck View of Obamarama
James McEnteer
America Held Hostage
Dedrick Muhammad
Obama and the Harsh Racial Reality
Richard Morse
On Speaking Out in Haiti
David Macaray
Have We Turned Into Sheep?
Harvey Wasserman
The 8 Green Steps to Solartopia
Website of the Day
Col. Peters: Just Kill the Gitmo Detainees
May 27, 2009
Joanne Mariner
Military Commissions, Round Three
Paul Craig Roberts
Doublespeak on North Korea
Walden Bello
Can China Save the World From Depression?
Dave Lindorff
Recidivism and Guantánamo
Brian M. Downing
Along the Durand Line
Carlos Villarreal
Separate But Equal Just Fine in California?
Nadia Hijab
Israel's Next Move:
Armageddon Now?
Adam Federman
The PCBs of the Hudson River
Laray Polk
RadWaste and Texas' Future
Isabella Kenfield
The Fall of a Brazilian Financier
David Michael Green
Overcoming the Poverty of Ambition
Website of the Day
The Case Against Shell
May 26, 2009
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Fearful Pride: North Korea's Second Nuclear Test
Mike Whitney
The Next Leg Down: When Deflation Becomes Entrenched
Sharon Smith
Obama and Abortion Rights: What We Learned at Notre Dame
Marjorie Cohn
The Gitmo Appeasment Plan: Obama Buckles on the Constitution
Dean Baker
Waterboard the Fed
Deepankar Basu
Was the Indian Election a Debacle for the Left? If So, Why?
Fred Gardner
The Vindication of Sgt. Northcutt
Jordan Flaherty
New Orleans for Sale
Josh Ruebner
Rethinking the Costs of Peace
Brian Cloughley
The Man Who Murdered Count Foulke Bernadotte
Website of the Day
The Montana Town That Wants to Become the New Gitmo
May 25, 2009
Diane Christian
Looking at Torture
John Ross
Mexico's Shock Doctrine
Kenneth Hartman
The Trouble With Prison
Uri Avnery
Netanyahu Goes to Washington
Fred Gardner
"War on Pot" Overrides "Support Our Troops": the Punishment of Sgt. Northcutt
Cindy Sheehan
Day of the Dead
Sen. Russell Feingold
Prolonged Detention and the Rule of Law: a Letter to Barack Obama
Sibel Edmonds
Two Sides of the Same Coin: From State Secrets to War to Wiretaps
Franklin Lamb
Der Spiegel Tries Again
Dave Lindorff
Memorial Day in the Land of the Weak and Wussy
Daniel Wolff
Learning to Read in the Pacific Northwest
Website of the Day
Decoration Day
May 22-24, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
How Long Does It Take?
Michael Teitelman
Obama, Torture and John Walker Lindh
Mike Whitney
Credit Default Swaps: the Poison in the System
Ray McGovern
Cheney Breaks the Taboo: Support for Israel Feeds Terrorism
Sonia Cardenas /
Andrew Flibbert
Why We Love to Hate Pirates
Clive Hamilton
Biblical Prophesy and the Iraq War:
Bush, God, Iraq and Gog
Conn Hallinan
Swine Flu Fallout
Fred Gardner
Sgt. Northcutt's Homecoming
Carlo Cristofori
The Latest AfPak War
Dean Baker
A Friendly Financial Intervention
Rannie Amiri
King Abdullah's 57-State Solution
Andy Worthington
A Message to
Obama: No Military Commissions; No Preventive Detentions
David Macaray
Democrats Betray Labor:
Card Check is Pronouced Dead
Nadia Hijab
What Kind of State?
Franklin Lamb
How Not to Win Votes for Team USA
Ted Newcomen
The Forgotten Casualties
David Ker Thomson
Joy (Or How Hope, the Thing With Feathers, Gets Plucked)
David Rosen
Porn Wars
Mark Weisbrot
Climate Change and Intellectual Property Rights?
Robert Fantina
Gitmo, Democrats and Business as Usual
Heather Gray
Some Positive Directions in Public Health?
Farzana Versey
The Myth of Manmohan Singh
Chris Genovali
A Paler Shade of Green
Ron Jacobs
His Terrible Swift Sword: the Legacy of John Brown
Jay Diamond
Why the Left Should Cheer Hannity and Limbaugh
Dr. Susan Block
The Binds That Bond
Ben Sonnenberg
"Ballast": An Endlessness of Almost Ending
David Yearsley
Handel's Ghost ... Again
Lorenzo Wolff
My Problem with Led Zeppelin
Poets' Basement
Corseri and Bohm
Website of the Weekend
Bob Graham's CIA Notebooks
May 21, 2009
Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
The Politics of Bait-and-Switch: Obama and the Environment
Paul Craig Roberts
Morphing Dick Cheney
Chris Floyd
In Defense of George W. Bush
Gerald Paoli
Inside Iraqi Kurdistan:
Life and Death in the Qandil Mountains
Zach Mason
Something's Gotta Give:
Obama and the Hustler
Uri Avnery
A Quarrel on the Titanic
Andy Worthington
Out of Guantánamo
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
India: Two Funerals and a Wedding
Norman Solomon
The Afghanistan Escalation
Dave Lindorff
A Corporate Crime Wave of Labor Law Violations
Website of the Day
Swine Flu: The Panic That Wasn't
May 20, 2009
Michael Hudson
The Toll Booth Economy
Gary Leupp
Courting Hekmatyar: Obama and the Warlord
Michael D. Yates
Work is Hell
Jonathan Cook
Netanyahu Adviser Steps Out of the Shadows
Peter Lee
The World Doesn't Have a Pakistan Nukes Problem ... It Has a David Albright Problem
Binoy Kampmark
The End of the Tamil Tigers?
Peter Zinn
Eulogizing Lawyers
William Loren Katz
Tortured Reasoning; Tortured Results
Gary Lapon
Why Women Need Single Payer
Trudy Bond
Torture, Shrinks and a Groundhog's Day Moment
Website of the Day
Meet the Climate Change Lobby
May 19, 2009
Kristoffer Rehder
Check Point Iraq: a Soldier's Tale
Mike Whitney
The Real Lesson of the Financial Crisis
Ray McGovern
How Colin Powell Got Duped by the CIA
Vijay Prashad
The Indian Elections: a Game Changer?
Mirjam Hadar Meerschwam
Intimidation and Interrogation in Tel Aviv
Mustafa Barghouthi
Is Obama Up to the Challenge of Dealing with Netanyahu?
Andy Worthington
Gitmo:
A Prison Built on Lies
Binoy Kampmark
Britain's Speaker Crisis
John Walsh
John Kerry vs. Single-Payer
David Macaray
Alcohol as Metaphor: Zero Tolerance in the Workplace
Website of the Day
So You Think That Veggie Burger is Organic...
May 18, 2009
Dave Lindorff
The US is Using White Phosporous in Afghanistan
Abdul Malik Mujahid
Thirty Years of Tragedy in Afghanistan
Jonathan Cook
How Many Secret Prisons Does Israel Have?
Ben Rosenfeld
Police Violence: How Many Kicks to the Head Does It Take?
Patrick Cockburn
These Killings Will Only Strengthen the Taliban
Ralph Nader
They Want It All: New Tricks From the Old Energy Lobby
Stephen Soldz
Psychologist Bryce Lefever Clarifies Defense of Torture
Eugenia Tsao
On the Devaluation of Labor
Walter Brasch
Cheney's Magical Mystery Media Tour
Roberto Rodriguez
War and Torture
Charlotte Laws
Politics and American Idol
Website of the Day
Disbar the Torture Lawyers
May 15-17, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
King of the Hate Business
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Case of the Missing H-Bomb
David Rosen
Sexual Torture: What is Acknowledged and What Remains Unknown
Mike Whitney
From My Lai to Bala Baluk: Obama Picks Up Where Bush Left Off
Bruce Page
A Real History of Rupert Murdoch
Jeremy Scahill
The Black Shirts of Guantánamo
Fred Gardner
Tortured Reasoning: Judge Bybee Rules Against Brian Epis
Tom Barry
Fighting the Drug War at Homeland Security
Mats Svensson
On the Beach in Tel Aviv
Ramzy Baroud
The Drones Are Coming
Mark Engler
Science Fiction From Below
Mark Weisbrot
Stealth Move by IMF to Get $100 Billion Without Congressional Debate
Farzana Versey
Of Scapegoats and Separatists
Ron Jacobs
It's Up to You to Save Troy Davis
Hannah Wolfe
What to Tell the Children
Cal Winslow
Fresno, the New Ground Zero in the Battle Between the SEIU and NUHW
David Macaray
Labor Needs a Southern Strategy
Christopher Brauchli
Involuntary Baptism
Mark Seth Lender
The Lion Tamer's Story
Robert Fantina
Lapel Pins, Arugula and Mustard
David Ker Thomson
Last Man Walking
Stephen Martin
Lipstick Nightmare for Spin Merchant
Charles R. Larson
Double Exile
Chase Madar
"Angels & Demons" and the Extraordinary Power of Imaginary Heretics
Kim Nicolini
Vaginas From Outer Space! Boldly Sitting Through Star Trek
David Yearsley
Handel's Ghost
Lorenzo Wolff
Killer Virtues
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Jordan and Moser
Website of the Weekend
Catch F-22
May 14, 2009
Michael Hudson
Where Russia Went Wrong
Andy Worthington
The Poisoned Mosaic:
Judge Condemns Guantánamo Evidence
Paul Craig Roberts
The Impotent President
Jonathan Cook
The Pope's Pilgrimage: Legitimizing Netanyahu?
Ray McGovern
See No Evil:
Ugly Questions for General Myers
Lance Selfa
The Limits of Liberalism
David Green
The Deportation of Demjanjuk
Dave Lindorff
Obama Channels Cheney
Frida Berrigan
Nuclear Options
Sue Udry
The Bybee Question
Website of the Day
Our Bombs: Tracking US Air Strikes
May 13, 2009
Brian M. Downing
The Road Out of Iraq
Gareth Porter
Gen. McChrystal and Afghanistan
Robert Sandels
Obama and Latin America: No Light, All Tunnel
Ricardo Alarcón
Cuba: Measure of a Revolution
Eric Walberg
NATO in Georgia: Fun and Games
Dave Lindorff
The Sinking of GM: When Captains of Industry Don't Go Down with the Ship
Deepak Tripathi
A Culture of Abuse
William S. Lind
Back to the Balkans: Hillary and the Sleeping Dragon
Kevin Zeese
A Populist Health Care Rebellion
Franklin Lamb
Lebanon: From Perdition to Redemption?
Website of the Day
Beth McIntosh: The Wild Ride
May 12, 2009
Gary Leupp
The Bomb Iran Faction
Richard Neville
The AfPak Blues: Corpses of the Kids by the Truckload
Wajahat Ali
Obama Chooses a Reliable Dictatorship
Dean Baker
The Banker Boys Are Alright! Time to End the Bailouts
Franklin Lamb
What Palestinian Refugees Need From Lebanon's Elections
Norman Solomon
A Progressive Challenge to Jane Harman
Paul Craig Roberts
Beware the Hate Crimes Bill
Lisa M. Hamilton
Let's Grow a New Crop of Farmers
Bob Fitrakis /
Harvey Wasserman:
Why Isn't Obama Turning to Credit Unions?
David Macaray
Wading Through the Grassroots
Website of the Day
Electronic Police States
May 11, 2009
Andrea Peacock
No Justice for Libby
Michael Hudson
Gordon Brown Spills the Beans on the IMF
Patrick Cockburn
Who Killed 120 Civilians?
Ralph Nader
The Single-Payer Taboo
John Kelly
Pseudoscience and Wrongful Convictions in the War on Drugs
Saul Landau
Cuba's Biggest "Crime"
Dave Lindorff
Blaming the Dead Victims
David Michael Green
Get Obama
Anthony Papa
Gov. David Paterson Does the Right Thing
Paul Krassner
Jon Stewart and Truman, the War Criminal
Website of the Day
Generational Homelessness
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June 17, 2009
How Obama Will Outspend Reagan on Defense
The Pentagon Spigot is Wide Open
By WINSLOW T. WHEELER
On Jan. 27, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Congress, "The spigot of defense funding opened by 9/11 is closing." Right after Gates' defense budget was released on May 7, the Pentagon's comptroller, Robert Hale, confirmed to the press: "The spigot is starting to close." A closing spigot implies less money, but the new 2010 defense budget shows quite clearly that the spigot is not closing; it's stuck - full on. Not counting the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon's annual appropriations for 2009 were $514 billion. For 2010, Gates is requesting $534 billion. The flow is to increase by $20 billion.
Comptroller Hale also told the press, "We don't have a plan be yond 2010." He said there would not be one until after the Defense Department completes its review of strategy, programs and policy - the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR).
Actually, there is a plan for the out-years "beyond 2010." It's in the budget that President Barack Obama approved and sent to Congress that same May 7. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) materials on the budget show a flood of numbers for DoD's outyears. They are all available to the public in Table 26-1 of OMB's 415 page tome for the 2010 budget, "Analytical Perspectives." It projects DoD spending all the way out to 2019.
Not counting money projected for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the presidentially approved budget plan would continue increasing the Pentagon's budget: by another $8.1 billion in 2011 (up 1.5 percent), another $9 billion in 2012 (up 1.6 percent), and $10.4 billion in 2013 (up1.8 percent), and so on all the way out to 2019.
If we add in the costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon budget for the current fiscal year - 2009 - exceeds any year since the end of World War II, including the spending peaks for the Korean and Vietnam wars.
President Obama's plan is to increase that lead.
Obama also will outspend Ronald Reagan on defense.
Obama plans to spend $2.47 tril lion on the Pentagon for the years 2010 to 2013. If he makes it into a second term, he plans to spend an other $2.58 trillion for the years 2014 to 2017. Put together for the eight years, 2010 to 2017, Obama plans to spend $5.05 trillion.
In his first four years, Reagan spent, in inflation-adjusted dollars, $2.1 trillion. In his second four years, he spent $2.11 trillion, for an eight-year total of $4.21 trillion.
Obama will out-spend Reagan in his first four years by $369 billion.
Over eight years, Obama will exceed Reagan by $840 billion.
Many Republicans are trying to accuse Obama of cutting the defense budget. They seem to have confused their plus and minus signs. According to their logic, the near-sainted Ronald Reagan was a defense budget slasher.
And what of Hale and his implied assertion that none of these numbers will mean anything until the Pentagon completes its much touted QDR? The Pentagon has been conducting these reviews since early in the Clinton administration. Each one has been greatly ballyhooed and cited as the essential precursor of big decisions to come. Each one has come and gone and done nothing to change whatever trajectory the Pentagon's leadership has pre-decided; it functions as little more than a review by the department bureaucracy of itself.
Just as the 50 program and policy decisions that Gates announced to the press on April 6 held some dramatic news, such as canceling the Air Force's F-22 fighter, the new QDR will probably contain some newsworthy decisions when it is finished later this year. Notably, however, Gates' 50 decisions were budget neutral (the 2010 budget was set at $534 billion both before and after them). We can expect the QDR to be the same.
Or, we can expect the numbers to climb a little. On May 14, Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee that sustaining the Pentagon's current program will require 2 percent annual growth in the department's budget. That's just a little more than Obama has now in his plan.
Breathlessly, some will protest that we must wait for the results of the QDR and the big changes everyone knows are needed. However, based on Obama's performance on national security issues so far, it clearly is not going to happen. With his decisions on Afghanistan, extra-judicial military com mission trials of suspected terrorists, the public release of recorded prisoner abuse and other matters, Obama has already shown he has no stomach for major departures from conventional wisdom and the "moderate" - i.e., politically safe - thing to do on questions of national defense.
Similarly, we can expect Obama's first QDR Pentagon exercise to land on safe territory, certainly not on the stormy seas of actual reductions - or the uncharted waters of real and meaningful Pentagon reform.
The spigot is pretty much stuck where it is. It would take real change for it to be otherwise.
Winslow T. Wheeler spent 31 years working on Capitol Hill
with senators from both political parties and the Government
Accountability Office, specializing in national security affairs.
Currently, he directs the Straus Military Reform Project of
the Center for Defense Information in Washington. He is author
of The
Wastrels of Defense and the editor of a new anthology: ‘America’s Defense Meltdown: Pentagon Reform for President Obama and the New Congress’.
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