In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. 

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. 

The President's speech last night was passable but not one that will long be remembered.  In some respects one has to wonder why he gave the speech at all.  His "for the record" claim of fulfilling his pledge to end the Iraq War by yesterday produced no great fanfare and will reap the President little by way of any political credit or reward because everyone knows that American military involvement in Iraq (a.k.a.: the war) is ongoing.  Who, after all, are they trying to kid?  Leaving 50,000 soldiers and a contingent of at least that many mercenaries and other "contractors" behind plainly means that the war is not over and likewise that the big, multi-year combat effort failed.  No amount of Washington semantic game playing can get around that reality.  Sure the "official" combat forces are gone but the end of the American military mission is not over as long as the American military remains on Iraqi soil.  What we have is a partial withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.  And that's not much to crow about.  Making matters worse, this nation will not be able to sustain decades of US military presence in that country as it has in Korea which is the example many DC types are offering now about how we should proceed in Iraq.

It was an awkwardly written speech which in itself was a disservice to the President, that tried to make a number of points, some fairly complicated, and  few of the details are likely to have much political impact or really sink in with the general public.  The speech just didn't work well either on the policy or the political levels.  As such it did not put the President in a very good light and he doesn't stand to benefit much at all from it which is why it's reasonable to wonder why the White House thought it was a good idea to make this particular Oval Office speech to begin with.

The President obviously continues to be afflicted with a malady that many Washington, DC Democrats have come down with and don't appear to be able to get over and that is trying to serve two masters whose interests are opposed to one another in an attempt to avoid having to clearly favor one over the other.  This is a course often chosen by DC Democratic legislators because in the legislative arena the compromises that often work best for the politicians are those that give at least something to everybody.   Typically the powerful take the lion's share of any "compromise" and the people's interests are thrown a bone or two so it looks like predatory wealth isn't 100% in charge.  It allows the politicians to claim to have made progress whether or not it is real or illusory.  I've often noted that both the President and the congressional Democrats are having an increasingly difficult, if not impossible time, carrying this act off anymore.  Fewer people buy that song and dance with each passing day.  What worked fairly well in more prosperous times no longer works well at all during a time of major crises and watershed events such as those we're experiencing at this time in our history.  "Compromises" wherein the predators get 95% and the people get 5% of the benefits are insulting when 20 million or more cannot find suitable work, and 6 million have lost their homes to foreclosure in the past two years.

It was to some degree heartening to know the President understands that our wildly irresponsible approach to the two wars of the past 10 years is unsustainable.  It was clear from his remarks that he "gets" that the binge of war spending begun so foolishly by Bush and cheered on by many DC Democrats has severely crippled our ability to recover from the economic debacle that was allowed to develop in the Bush years, that we cannot continue to engage in such adventures in the future and hope to recover economically, and that the middle class is threatened by our government's neglect of needs here at home for many years. 

But unfortunately, instead of making a clean break with the failed approach of DC, Bush and his enablers in the mythical war on terror by actually getting our military out of that country for good, Obama chooses to keep one foot in and move one foot out of Iraq whilst simultaneously planning to recreate the very same failed scenario in Afghanistan.  Yes it is true, this is what he indicated in his campaign he would do, but he was wrong then and keeping a large army and a huge number of mercenaries and others in Iraq is wrong now.  The President's attempt at playing King Solomon on every issue is getting old and stale.  You can't split the difference in every situation and get a favorable policy outcome.  You just can't.  In fact, that approach has only limited utility at best.  Every problem and policy isn't the same and it is often necessary to take different approaches to different problems.  Yet on every major policy initiative Obama apparently prefers taking exactly the same plodding, indecisive, compromising approach that gives a little to everyone, satisfies no one, and does nothing to strengthen either the President's political position or actually solve the problem at hand.

This muddled approach is neither the pragmatic approach the cheerleaders of corporate centrist policies claim nor is it effective.  Instead, it is an avoidance of facing the real and difficult issues that must be confronted if the nation is to meet the challenges the President mentioned in his speech.  It's extremely ironic that he should pursue a policy that only prolongs the day of reckoning as opposed to showing some real strength and leadership now.  And because this policy approach is neither in nor out, but somewhere in the middle, there's no political dividend for the President or his party.  His effort at giving credit to Bush only emboldens and energizes his enemies in the Republican Party, something the President appears completely unable to realize.  Why the President continues to do this, what he hopes to gain, after the repeated and very public failure of his conciliatory efforts with the Republicans is difficult to comprehend.  At this juncture, if he still believes this nonstarter of an approach can still work then he's in deep, deep denial.  One wonders how many times a pit bull would have to bite the President in the face before he came to the realization that the dog means him harm, cannot and should not be befriended?

The President would be much better off and needless to say, so would America, if he would admit his split the difference approach is a failure (which it clearly is) and start choosing to lead in a clear direction instead of waiting for his sworn enemies to join him in a national unity effort that exists only in his own mind.

The idea of keeping an army in Iraq for decades at permanent bases is just as unsustainable as the idea of continuing the war for decades and illustrates well why he and the Democrats can no longer successfully attempt to serve two masters.   In the case of Iraq the President wants to, but simply cannot have it both ways.  It is particularly difficult for him to try and take this approach when it is quite obvious that the surge "strategy" failed in Iraq.  The government is not stable; there have been few, if any, permanent or sustainable agreements reached between the various factions vying for power and so on.  The political breathing room the surge was intended to create which would then allow bargains to be struck never materialized and looks no closer to becoming a reality anytime soon than it did 5 years ago.  The corrupt and incompetent government we installed in Iraq is unlikely to change its character anytime soon.  The likelihood of a stable, popular government eventually emerging at some distant, unknown point in the future from the havoc we have wreaked upon Iraq is low to say the least.  Clearly we are leaving Iraq and her people in a worse state than when we invaded.  Our ongoing presence, far from helping will keep the pot boiling.

So the bottom line is that despite the official end of combat operations, the armed forces and associated organizations and people we have left behind will continue to engage in battle though less frequently and drain huge amounts of resources from our own urgent national needs for many years to come.  This only ensures that our government's ongoing response to the severe crises we face at home of unemployment, foreclosures, climate change and reducing our dependence on oil just to name a few will be hampered at best. 

Limiting our military involvement in Iraq is, of course, only the tip of the iceberg.  The fact is, America can no longer afford to continue to spend unlimited amounts of money annually on an imperial war machine that is bleeding our economy white, destabilizing whole regions of the world and consequently making our citizenry less safe with each passing day.  Rather than keeping us safe as the President continues to claim, our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are actually weakening US national security.  Our military interventions in the Islamic world, according the Pentagon itself, fuels the recruiting efforts of groups like Al Qaeda and actually breeds more terrorists.  Thus, our doubling down military strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a self defeating one to say the least.

Clearly the way to address the problem of terrorism is the approach the left has been calling for now for decades in response to the ongoing problems we have seen all over the globe for decades.  It always rates an honorable mention in the speeches but is never given enough resources to be credibly implemented anywhere.   That approach is to start addressing the legitimate needs and aspirations of the people all around the world in ways that are meaningful to them.  We know this approach works because it worked so incredibly well with the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II.  This isn't even debatable.  We know for certain this approach works.  We also know just as certainly what our record of war fighting has been since the end of World War II and that is a record dominated by stalemate, failure, endless expenses for weapons systems that never pay any return on investment and a massive weakening of our civilian economic power.  It is in many ways as simple as this: people who are well clad, well housed, and well fed, that have jobs that pay well enough to support their families, who have the opportunity to educate their children, get medical care when needed, live their lives in peace and worship their Creator (or not) according to their own conscience generally speaking, do not tend to become terrorists.  People whose villages, towns and cities are invaded and wherein the infrastructure of civilization is disabled, wrecked or destroyed, whose families, kinsmen, neighbors and countrymen are being killed, maimed, and menaced by foreign armies are a whole helluva lot more likely to turn to terrorism.  Despite the self evident truth of this, our nation's imperial war machine demands more time, more resources, more lives, more blood whether or not we have enemies that warrant all that and if they don't they will find new enemies for us to fear and for them to fight.   Though this dance long ago became completely unjustifiable our political leaders in the Democratic Party have not the courage to say this must come to a halt as soon as possible because of the fear they may be called weak by a genuinely extremist Republican Party's refusal to act responsibly and in the nation's best interest.  This is the definition of a corrupt system that requires massive, dramatic changes.  That is the campaign promise the President made that the people want to see him keep though it is readily apparent now he will not try to keep it.

It is important to remember that our truly vast and mighty military, with more resources and capability than any nation has ever possessed in the history of the world didn't keep us safe on September 11, 2001.  When the moment of truth came and we actually needed our military to protect us they failed in the most tragic, costly and spectacular way imaginable.  The mass violence of our subsequent military campaigns in Islamic countries and the concomitant destruction of humanity and property that necessarily accompany such actions have done absolutely nothing to protect us since then either. In fact, the opposite it true.  We are worse off today, in terms of our national security as a result of these military blunders.  Instead of destroying the terrorists we have bred more of them.  The invasion and occupation we carried out in Iraq only enhanced the power of Iran in the Middle East and weakened America's strategic position in the entire region.  Neither the American nor the Iraqi people are better off as a result of the reckless, illegal invasion of Iraq.  We have exhausted our military, spent close to a trillion dollars borrowed from foreign lenders in the bargain which we must now repay, had thousands of our soldiers killed, tens of thousands wounded, maimed and permanently traumatized, as well as having killed in excess of 100,000 Iraqis and wounded, maimed and traumatized vast uncounted numbers of them.

After approximately 60 years of being at war or preparing for war, the United States of America's ability to continue to sustain a healthy civilian economy alongside a malignant and metastasizing permanent war economy is over.  The continued growth of the permanent war economy has a direct proportional negative impact on the civilian economy.  This pernicious effect was previously hidden by the fact that our civilian economy was so large.  But now, our civilian economy, already weakened by over half a century of war and preparation for war has collapsed and a significant portion of our production capacity and our jobs have disappeared with little or no hope of a return of their previous vitality.  The consequence today of failing to significantly scale back our imperial war machine with all its exotic (and often useless) weapons is the continued and accelerating deterioration of our civilian economy the health of which our domestic prosperity and stability depend.  The consequences of continuing to neglect the real, productive civilian economy is continued contraction and eventual disappearance of the middle class, continuing deterioration in the quality of life enjoyed by common Americans, an ever expanding gulf between the haves in our society and a rapidly growing ocean of have nots. 

Though the political and business elite do not like to call it by it's true name, the result of Bush's twin military and economic debacles has caused an economic depression for the first time since the 1930's that constitutes a national emergency far more threatening to our people and way of life than the mythical war on terror.  The depression is unlikely to end anytime soon unless dramatic measures are taken to preserve and expand the jobs available to our people.  And that is where it becomes clear why attempting to please two masters will no longer work for our people anymore than it will work politically for the President or the Democrats in DC.  The interests of the military industrial complex are diametrically in opposition to the interests of the vast majority of citizens of the United States.  The continued growth of the military in the future will literally suck the life out of the civilian economy.  As the economy weakens further the military industrial complex will require and ever increasing share of an economic pie that is shrinking.  If this is allowed to occur the nation we become will look nothing like the nation we were and thought we would become.

We know there is no hope of Republican politicians doing the right thing.  They won't.  The time has come for the Democratic Party to demonstrate some courage and leadership.  Our elected officials and candidates must now choose whose interests they will serve: the people's interest or the interests of predatory wealth.  The time has come for us to face the fact that as it was in Lincoln's time so too is it true today that our house cannot long stand divided against itself.  The nation cannot serve the military industrial complex and the needs and aspirations of our people here at home.  The interests of the one are opposed to the other.  It is no longer acceptable to insist on splitting the difference and continuing the orgy of defense spending that has taken place not just in the past 10 years but in the past 60 years!  For too long the nation has delayed addressing the educational, health, employment, infrastructure, environmental and other needs of the people in the name of defending the world first against communism and now for the past 10 years the vastly overhyped threat of terrorism.  We did far more than was necessary to contain communism much to the detriment of our nation and we have gone completely over the edge to defend against the sometimes real but more often imagined threat of terrorism in the present.  We are now spending more on "defense" than we did during World War II as a proportion of our economy*.  Consider how absurd that is when the President's own national security advisor admits there are less than 200 Al Qaeda members in Afghnistan.  Less than 200 and we have deployed nearly 200,000 soldiers and that number again in mercenaries and "contractors."  It is not only unjustifiable it is insane. So long as the President and the Democratic politicians in DC refuse to be decisive on this issue we will continue to see the sort of uninspiring, even disappointing speeches the President gave us last night wherein our own economic prospects continue growing dim for want of investment while our national wealth is squandered on the failed path of military solutions to diplomatic, economic and social problems around the globe.

*Correction: This is not what I meant to say.  I should have said we are spending more now on defense than at any time since World War II... not as a proportion of our economy.  Defense spending skyrocketed from $295 Billion in the final budget year of the Clinton administration to $708 Billion as requested by DOD for FY 11.  The US now spends more on defense annually than almost all the other nations on earth combined.  Repeat: we spend more than almost all the other countries on earth COMBINED on defense spending. One might find that a slightly excessive amount given that there is no major threat from any nation on the horizon and the terrorists we are now so obsessively preoccupied with number a few thousand at best.