http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/conservative_hypocrisy_on_military_spending
My piece on the hypocrisy of conservatives--both Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats--who pretend that they care about deficits, but never touch any project in the military budget, no matter how useless, over-budget, or under-tested, was picked up by the Asheville Citizen Times. It was then reposted on the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) web site, where I am an Associate Fellow.

Chris Hedges takes on "permanent war"

There is one experiment that history has run multiple times over the past centuries, always with the same result. That experiment is the test of whether a nation can remain tolerant, solvent, prosperous, free, etc., while trying to run the world.
The answer is always no. The imperial experiment always fails. Unfortunately, many elites within the would-be empire benefit over the short term from the attempt to rule, preventing the rest of the country from minding its own business, which both they and the rest of the world would prefer.
The U.S. is that latest in a long line to try this experiment, and the vast array of deep-seated problems inherited by President Obama from his inept and bellicose predecessor is evidence that we are likely to soon suffer the same fate as those rulers before us.
Chris Hedges takes a no-holds-barred look at our "permanent war" society in this piece:
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090518_the_disease_of_permanent_war/

"Gravy Train" loaded with extras

www.taxpayer.net/index.php

The Taxpayers for Common Sense recently posted a good article about the "gravy train" that is the Federal military budget (click under "National Security"). TCS points out that the House managed to add quite a few extra projects to the last supplemental bill, including "nearly $1 billioon for 11 C-130 transport planes and $100 million for wing repairs for Navy aircraft". The House also rammed in $2.25 billion for eight C-17 Globemaster cargo planes, one of two eliminated aircraft programs". As for the other "eliminated" aircraft program, the F-22 Raptor, "the Senate quietly deleted $147 million in shut-down costs, keeping the program on life support..." It's good to have TCS keeping an eye on these extra costs...

call in against the supplemental

United for Peace & Justice is promoting a call-in today to oppose the supplemental request for the Iraq & Afghanistan wars.
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/index.php

taxes for military

While looking at the National Priorites Project web site's nice breakdown of Afghanistan war costs (see blog post below), I also noticed a good tax analysis of military spendng that NPP had done last month, which I had missed...
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/taxday2009

Big $$ Cost of the Afghan War

The always-useful National Priorities Project has put together a quick history of the current Afghan conflict, along with a chart (on page 4) listing, state-by-state, the amount of money being spent for the war in Afghanistan. The NPP also lists the "opportunity costs" foregone in Head Start, health care, and renewable energy by spending this $172B in Afghanistan instead...
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/