The trillion dollars per year delusion

Washington's 'Project Bankruptcy'

My headlines seek to express Chalmers Johnson's recent judgment about the Pentagon. He wrote:

Given our economic crisis, the estimated trillion dollars we spend each year on the military and its weaponry is simply unsustainable. Even if present fiscal constraints no longer existed, we would still have misspent too much of our tax revenues on too few, overly expensive, overly complex weapons systems that leave us ill-prepared to defend the country in a real military emergency. We face a double crisis at the Pentagon: we can no longer afford the pretense of being the Earth's sole superpower, and we cannot afford to perpetuate a system in which the military-industrial complex makes its fortune off inferior, poorly designed weapons.

And:

It is hard to imagine any sector of the American economy more driven by ideology, delusion, and propaganda than the armed services. Many people believe that our military is the largest, best equipped, and most invincible among the world's armed forces. None of these things is true, but our military is, without a doubt, the most expensive to maintain.

As the world has witnessed since the onset of the Wall Street-driven economic crisis, "what can't continue won't continue." Pax Americana will not prove to be an exception to this general rule. Americans can expect "our" Boys and Girls to return home — if they can afford the plane fare — in the near future.