{"id":29934,"date":"2017-11-01T13:54:19","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T21:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=29934"},"modified":"2017-11-01T13:54:19","modified_gmt":"2017-11-01T21:54:19","slug":"the-definition-of-american-insanity-by-william-j-astore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2017\/11\/01\/the-definition-of-american-insanity-by-william-j-astore\/","title":{"rendered":"The Definition of American Insanity by William J. Astore"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here are two items this morning from FP: Foreign Policy (foreignpolicy.com)<\/strong>, which provides a daily summary (Situation Report, or SITREP) of news items related to the U.S. military and foreign policy. Together, they represent the very definition of insanity.<\/p>\n

Item 1<\/strong>: The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday<\/span><\/span> said US taxpayers are on the hook<\/a> for about $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years to modernize the country\u2019s nuclear arsenal. That huge number takes into account the replacement of nuclear-capable submarines, ICBMs, and new aircraft for the Air Force.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The budget office warned that the projected costs<\/a> would muscle out some conventional weapons programs in the coming years unless the Pentagon\u2019s budget is increased substantially. The CBO identified some cost savings however, saying the Pentagon could save as much as $139 billion if it delayed production of a new ICBM, stalled a secretive new nuclear-capable bomber called the B-21, and reduced the number of ICBMs and missile-carrying nuclear submarines than planned. <\/em><\/p>\n

All of those plans are carry-overs from the Obama administration, as the Trump team has yet to articulate a nuclear weapons strategy. <\/em><\/p>\n

Item 2<\/strong>: War in Afghanistan, redacted. The Afghan government is losing control<\/a> of more and more territory to the Taliban, according a grim new report from the congressionally-mandated Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. On the humanitarian side, civilian casualties from coalition and Afghan air strikes spiked by 52 percent in the first nine months of this year over last year, the report notes. <\/em><\/p>\n

In response to those unfriendly stats, the US military has started to withhold<\/a> information from the American public, refusing to report figures related to the size and success of Afghan security forces — which the US taxpayer has spent tens of billions to build and sustain.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Afghans know what\u2019s going on; the Taliban knows what\u2019s going on; the US military knows what\u2019s going on,\u201d John F. Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan, told the New York Times. \u201cThe only people who don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on are the people paying for it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

In sum, the American people will possibly pay more than a trillion dollars in the next three decades for more nuclear weapons (when the stated goal of leaders like Obama had been to eliminate them), even as information about the never-ending war in Afghanistan is withheld from the American people (especially the jaw-dropping waste of billions of dollars on Afghan security forces that can’t or won’t fight).<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, US citizens in Puerto Rico languish in the dark, the victims of a US government that seeks to punish the island for its debt to various financial institutes and power brokers.<\/p>\n

What madness!<\/p>\n

William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools and blogs at Bracing Views<\/a>. He can be reached at wastore@pct.edu<\/a>. Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author’s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are two items this morning from FP: Foreign Policy (foreignpolicy.com), which provides a daily summary (Situation Report, or SITREP) of news items related to the U.S. military and foreign policy. Together, they represent the very definition of insanity. Item 1: The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday said US taxpayers are on the hook for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-29934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29934"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29936,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29934\/revisions\/29936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29934"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=29934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}