However, it appears that the US coast guard, like the national guard, has a history of being used in imperial warfare.  For instance, the USCGC Dallas, the largest coast guard ship currently in commission, has just made a pit stop in Georgia.  Not the Peach State, but rather in the Black Sea near the Caucasus.

And while the federal government officially states that the ship is conducting humanitarian aid, based on its previous history (active in the Vietnam war theater as well as Kosovo in 1999), one could surmise that its appearance is more than coincidence.

To give the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt, it should be noted that numerous coast guard vessels are perpetually deployed in forward stations across the globe.  However, this again illustrates the vast geographic expanse that the imperial state attempts to command and control.

Or are there a lot of Cuban refugees attempting to ford the Bosporus?  Is the Dallas practicing hurricane relief techniques from tropical storm experts in Asia minor?  Is someone really arguing that the USCG is actually protecting the shores of Corpus Christi and Mertyl Beach by tacking around in Russia’s bathtub?

See also:
Who Started Cold War II?
And None Dare Call It Treason
Is Not Western Hypocrisy Astonishing?
Does Bush Want War With Russia?

So if Iranian assassins are called “death squads” what are similarly trained operatives from the CIA or Army called?

Perhaps the euphemisms that Pentagon officials use are: customer service representatives, safety patrol officers, personal assistants, and make-over specialists.

While the actions of both sides are essentially premeditated murder, the CIA and Army special forces should also come clean about their decades old operations involving the execution of foreign nationals.  Come clean on operations in Guatemala, El Salvador, Vietnam, and even Iran itself.

Contemporaneously, after deafening calls to reinstate the official sanctioning of assassinations, the legacy of director Richard Helms continues unabated,as the Pentagon continues to fund and operate the notorious School of the Americas at Fort Benning which has trained hundreds of foreign nationals with assassination tactics.

Furthermore, despite being banned in the 1970s — after revelations disclosed by the Church and Pike committees — with the assistance of Israeli Defense Forces, the US Army has been actively training “hunter-killer” squads in Iraq under a program called Operation Gray Fox.

And the latest act of bellicosity: this hypocritical condemnation comes a month after an exposé showed that last year, Congress appropriated $400 million for the CIA to conduct clandestine operations in Iran.

While the exact nature of the operations are undisclosed, it is difficult to fathom that the funds are financing more plumbers, carpenters, and electricians in a covert attempt to build new homes and infrastructure for local residents.

This is ironic in part because the US military is a large player in the oil economy.  If the US military was a country it would be the worlds 38th largest consumer of oil.  Yet despite its large appetite and soaring crude prices, its operations will continue unabated.

Every year untold quantities of jet fuel are dumped into the ocean by Naval aircraft prior to landing due to weight restrictions.  Main battle tanks are notorious gas hogs, with a thirsty M1 Abrams getting about .56 mpg.  The Humvee doesn’t fare much better, cruising at 4 mpg in the city, or 8 mpg on highways.  And according to SDUT, “an F-16 warplane consumes more fuel in one hour than an average car does in two years.”

Plus, threatening to attack the petroleum infrastructure of another country would certainly not help conserve gas and energy — even if someone plans to siphon the crude off the killing fields.

See also: US military oil pains
The US military oil consumption
How about banning tanks, jet fighters and submarines?

Is there any level of suicides that is par for the course? Do megacompanies like Walmart, McDonalds, General Electric, IBM or ExxonMobile have off-years as well?

No. Perhaps it is because employees of McDonalds aren’t required to force customers to purchase combo meals. Nor does Walmart require its staff to imprison anyone that fails to submit to its no-shirt, no-shoes, no-service policy. Has anyone recently seen a road-block from IBM forcing drivers to buy workstations before they are allowed to continue traveling? Do employees of GE break down doors of consumers and use waterboarding to discover where the customer purchased his appliances?

The army and its soldiers are paying the seemingly unseen toll of occupation, of torturing, of nation-building: the very job Bush promised never to put them through. A job that no one should ever have or be asked to do.

See also:
Vets’ Lawsuit Opens Door on Suicides, Poor Care
If War is the Health of the State, then Peace is the Health of Civilization

Researcher Frida Berrigan copiously details the geometric rise of the Pentagon’s budget and omnipotence through the concerted efforts of the current administration. As Tom notes, it is perhaps the most powerful and concise overview on the breadth and scope of the evergrowing military complex.

And while frequent readers of AWC will not be surprised with the revelations, perhaps most troubling is just how meddlesome the Defense department has become in diplomatic affairs, superseding the relatively dovish State department in all negotiations. For instance, why bother talking through civilian channels when the real decision making ultimately takes place through viceroys operating at a Unified Combatant Command?

As the title suggests, the Pentagon really has taken charge and as Berrigan unfortunately notes, no matter who is elected president it is a trend that shows no sign of abating.

See also:
War Immemorial Day - No Peace for Militarized U.S.
A History of Folly
Military Handouts and Financial Aid in Africa

Arguably the fairest solution would be to have simply returned the money to the original taxpayers thereby removing the incentive for the Fed to expand the credit supply to fund the current war.

However, regarding a hypothetical mission to Mars, at the very least none of the astro guys would be kinetically detonating onto population centers.

An entire region of the globe comprising a billion people wouldn’t be annoyed with the West for lofting 500 rocket scientists onto a barren rock. The same can’t be said for 500 pound bombs.

See also: The Broken Window Fallacy and Can the Future Do Without Economic Logic?

The Bureau of International Information Programs has created, at taxpayers expense, an entire website devoted to “Telling America’s Story,” or rather whitewashing the foreign policies enacted by the administration.

For those looking for objective independent analysis, you might as well tune in to the American Forces Network, at least with them you get to hear some decent tunes between speeches by Tokyo Rose.

See also: Operation Mockingbird and Neoconservatism: a CIA Front?

A basic logic lesson and please forgive me if you think I’m talking down to you. I’m really not. It’s just that I’m shocked at how many people, including McCain, don’t seem to get logic. If I say, “All crows are black” and I also say, “That bird is a crow,” then I’m saying that that bird is black even if I don’t say so explicitly.

On ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” on Sunday, April 20, John McCain called William Ayers “an unrepentant terrorist.” What was McCain’s evidence? McCain said that Ayers “was engaged in bombings which could have or did kill innocent people…” So McCain is saying that someone who engages in bombings which could have killed or did kill innocent people is a terrorist.

Now consider what McCain did. McCain flew a bomber, an A-4E Skyhawk, over North Vietnam. I don’t know whether he actually dropped his bombs before being shot down. But certainly he was engaged in actions that, if he had succeeded, could have killed innocent people. Which makes McCain, in his own words, a terrorist.

Now McCain could argue that that’s different because, as he said elsewhere in the interview, “I had a reconciliation with the Vietnamese, when we normalized relations.” Did he apologize to them? He didn’t say. If he did, that would make him a “repentant terrorist.” Too bad Stephanopoulos didn’t challenge him.

However, forty years later, it should be updated to read a trillion here and there. For instance, one of the articles highlighted in the Viewpoints section today details the ever expanding blackhole that is the accounting system(s) used by the Defense of Defense: “The Pentagon’s $1 Trillion Problem.”

It is arguably a depressing piece if for no other reason than to serve as a sobering update to a 3-year-old SFGate report, “Military waste under fire - $1 trillion missing.”

While the details of either investigation may not surprise the readers of AWC, the fact that these problems not only continue but geometrically grow could arguably serve as yet another empirical case-study of how socialism cannot calculate. The military, a bastion for the purest form of socialism, has neither the incentive, the knowledge, nor the ability to price goods and services — let alone produce accurate records of its own nefarious activities.

In many cases it is the sole consumer of vehicles and armaments whose existence is entirely alien to the market-based world that must satisfy wants and needs by providing useful and productive services to potential customers.

And in other instances its insatiable appetite distorts the market-clearing price for commonly used goods such as oil.

Even if a unified, common accounting system was implemented, institutional inertia comprised by secret committees, kleptocratic planners, and politically-controlled technocrats will perpetually fail to coordinate a Byzantine bureaucracy that inherently cannot communicate or calculate.

And there is little reason to believe that the engine for state growth - the health of the state - will be muted or diminished in the coming decades.

See also: Socialism, by Ludwig von Mises
The Security-Industrial-Congressional Complex, by Robert Higgs

The army is losing its best and brightest. West Point, the alma mater of American generals going back to Ulysses S. Grant, has seen a relentless rise in the number of officers who leave at the earliest opportunity. Whereas only about 35% of the West Point class of 2000 had quit after five years, for the class of 2001 the proportion rose to 46% and for the class of 2002 to 58%. Retention problems are particularly severe among captains and majors with 11-17 years’ experience—the potential future military leaders. The army currently has only half as many senior captains as it needs, and forecasts that it will suffer from a shortfall of 3,000 captains and majors (out of a cadre of 52,000) until at least 2013. The maximum age for recruits has been raised to 42, and fitness and educational standards have been lowered.

Last week’s Economist has a whole section on possible changes in American foreign policy after November 2008 .

Like the German mercenaries known as the Hessians who fought with the British against Americans in the Revolutionary War, so now American mercenaries are coming to a country near you. Since 9/11, the United States has granted citizenship to over 32,000 foreign soldiers. Thanks to a generous citizenship to foreigners plan, about 8,000 foreigners join the U.S. military every year. Then we transport these “large armies of foreign mercenaries” overseas to do our dirty work.

And she’ll get money for college.