W.J. Astore
Send the “troops” to the front!
Coming soon to a Kindle store near you: all my articles for TomDispatch, with a new introduction by me and a foreword by Tom Engelhardt. You can preorder it by clicking on this link. Thanks!
Speaking of American militarism on steroids:
It’s been called the “House of War” by esteemed author James Carroll. Within the military, it’s jokingly referred to as the five-sided puzzle palace on the Potomac. It’s a monetary black hole that consumes eagerly and without bounds (in light of seven failed audits in a row) roughly a trillion dollars in yearly military expenditures. It’s a place where full-bird colonels, who should be leading regiments in the field, become errand boys and girls to a grossly inflated number of generals. Yes, it’s America’s very own Pentagon, built in record time in the early months of World War II to manage that colossal war—and never shuttered since because perpetual global war is very much fundamental to the American way of life.
If there’s a symbol of America that captures current and past governmental budgetary priorities and foreign policy commitments, it’s the Pentagon. Forget the Statue of Liberty. Never mind Freedom Towers and national parks and bald eagles and the like. Increasingly, the Pentagon is America, a highly militarized version of our country, which is precisely why it needs to be closed down. Where’s Elon Musk and the DOGE wunderkinds when you need them?
Nearly 30,000 people work in the Pentagon on a daily basis. It makes for some crowded parking lots—and cramped offices even for those aforementioned bird colonels. It’s a hotbed of intrigue and competition among the services for money and resources. It’s depressingly short on natural light. It’s a repository for hidebound thinking, a place where good ideas go to die. A line from the original “Star Wars” has been used more than once to describe it: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”
And (again) it’s time to shut it down.
Here’s an idea to make the U.S. military far more efficient. Empty the Pentagon of all its worker-bees and from them create infantry battalions. An average battalion consists of roughly 800 “effectives,” so demobbing the Pentagon work force and mobilizing them instead for action in the field would create roughly 35 battalions. Send these battalions to all combat zones where U.S. troops are deployed today. Does Ukraine need more troops at the front? Does Israel need more stormtroopers in Gaza? We’ve got some Pentagon legions for you, Bibi.
Of course, I jest. I want to close the Pentagon to weaken militarism, not to wage war and genocide. Nevertheless, I’m guessing putting the entire Pentagon workforce at the point of the spear might serve to dull it a bit. Perhaps war boosterism might decrease if the cheerleaders were sent directly into the trenches instead of remaining safely on the sidelines?
Bracing Views 
Or assign them to a convoy laden with humanitarian supplies to distribute the Palestinians, and while they’re on the voyage have them watch videos of mutilated kids. See if that might motivate them enough to run the Israeli blockade and have the moral courage sabotage US arms shipments to the Zionists.
Or have them visit with people who don’t have insurance, or whose houses are being foreclosed on due to medical debt because we have an exploitive health care system, because we supposedly “can’t afford” universal health care.
Or have them do some financial modeling on what it would take to improve the American Society of Civil Engineering’s rating of our infrastructure, some elements of which are schools (D+), wastewater (D+), roads (D+), public parks (C-), drinking water (C-), bridges (C), and broadband (C+). Have them compare their calculations with the annual trillion dollar (though steadily increasing) Pentagon budget.
Or have them visit with military families who lost loved ones in service to George W. Bush’s concocted “war on terror”, or who suffered life-altering injuries and debilities. Then have them drop in on Dumbya sequestered at his gated ranch in Crawford, Texas to see if he’ll respond to a few pertinent questions. For the more travel adventurous ones, have them visit the families and the grave sites in Iraq and Afghanistan of those killed during Dumbya’s excellent adventure, or who died from starvation, disease, and lack of proper medical care in the years after he boldly declared “mission accomplished.”
Or have them visit locales in the US and elsewhere on earth where the effects of global warming are being particularly felt (e.g., areas of droughts, floods, disappearing glaciers, collapsing fisheries, unproductive farmlands) to get some idea of the destruction being done to the earth in addition to what the battlefields cause so they can get some idea that that’s where the threats to our survival, not just our security, lie, rather than spending time and money in chasing down some software code glitch (among hundreds if not thousands) “hangar queen” F-35.
If this doesn’t blunt their “tip of the spear” ardor, then they’re pretty much hopeless, and can return to filling out Musk’s questionnaire on the five things they’ve accomplished over the past week to further the war machine. As for the rest of us…?
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Congrats on yest another new book, Bill. Looks to be a literary version of a double live album of greatest hits, a la Frampton Comes Alive. May your sales be similar… ; )
Rock On, Mr. Astore!
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If only! 🙂
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