The Ever-Expanding War Machine - CounterPunch.org

The Ever-Expanding War Machine - CounterPunch.org In the age of Donald Trump, like every era before his in my lifetime, the military-industrial complex that President Dwight D. Eisenhower first warned us about in his 1961 farewell address is only getting ever better funded and our American world ever more militarized. I doubt, in fact, that there has been a president in this century who hasn’t launched or continued an (unsuccessful) war of some sort. Donald Trump started quickly his second time around with the now-ongoing bombing of the Houthis in Yemen (which is also, of course, devastating parts of the civilian population and infrastructure there). But when it comes to the Pentagon these days, war abroad isn’t by any means the whole story, especially when the president happens to be focused on non-White immigrants right here in the United States as The Enemy. Yes, he may feel such immigrants are a disaster for the country, but they’re not for the Pentagon and the Silicon Valley tech companies now supporting it who are hot to further militarize our borderlands for plenty of dough, while strengthening the border-industrial complex. And don’t forget the growing immigrant detention system in this country. The White House is plugging for a sixfold increase in funding for it, and Senate Republicans have already proposed $175 billion over the coming decade just for “immigration enforcement.” While much of that money might not go directly to the Pentagon but to private detention operators, it will certainly help to further militarize this country of ours. Of course, as TomDispatch regular William Hartung, co-author of the forthcoming book The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home, has noted for years at this site, the Pentagon budget only grows (and grows and grows). And that’s no less true in the era of a president and his billionaire buddy whose goal otherwise is to cut, cut, cut. Tom