America is the most robust country in the world, but also the most vulnerable because it is a state without roots and without a soul – It lacks a shared cultural heritage and a collective national spirit to hold people together. What attracts migrants to the land of the United States are the tale of abundant material wealth and the myth about a liberated lifestyle.

However, the reality is quite different.

Reality Check

Today’s America is fast racing towards a police state with the most stringent Internet/phone surveillance measures implemented, and the US citizens can be targeted for state-sponsored assassination without due process of law.

Reportedly the U.S. government-mandated Internet filtering list grew 100 times from the initial 3,000 words to 300,000 just in the first decade of the 21 century.

When the material wealth is concerned, 1% of Americans own 25% of the nation’s wealth, with merely 2.5% to distribute among 60% of people. Further, more than half of the American population are in a debt trap one way or another, thanks to the numerous financial management packages created by Wall Street, which means over 50% of US citizens are the victims of institutionalised financial robbery.

The root of the problem does not just lie in Wall Street. Washington’s financial management system is also the most irrational in the world.

Profit-Driven

Other countries plan their financial budget according to the revenue, but in the US, it is according to the budget to raise the fund (i.e. borrow the money), while the annual revenue is only used to pay the old debts. From day one when the Federal Reserve Banks opened for business in November 1914, the US government has been placed under the mercy of the financial institution.

A government like this, no matter how impressive and intimidating it can manage to look like before small nations, deep down, is nothing more than a paid henchman of big banks, which is why the Prime Minister of a tiny country like Israel would dare to scold US president Obama in the front of the world community.

If you look more closely at the US budget, you’ll find it is even weirder. The Congress received a few billion, the figures for both the Department of State and CIA are several ten billion, while defence expense is at a massive 800 billion. Do you know why US Congressmen habitually utter foolish or outrageous comments, often at the expense of national interest? Because they have no choice; they are paid by other forces than US taxpayers.

The US Military Spending by Year
(Unit: billion)

The Military Spending by Country
(Unit: billion)

Military Spending as Percentage of GDP in Highest Spending Countries 2020

The structure of the US defence force is based on the model that places the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the leadership of the Department of Defence. While the JCS is a body consisting of senior combatant commands, the DOD head is a civil officer, normally a politician appointed along the party line. Since both Republicans and Democrats survive on the donations from big business and wealthy lobby groups, and since the biggest companies are multinationals, the real drive for the US government to initiate wars against the developing countries can’t be anything else but to serve corporations’ business objectives which sometimes are in the conflict with the US interest. Global capital has no loyalty to nation-states or its citizens, let alone the capital that is mainly controlled by people newly migrated from elsewhere.

As the US wars are chiefly profit-driven, understandably, the more money spent by the army, the more profit generated for the business, and the more donations/rebates to the politicians and political parties they belong to.

Take F22. They are expensive as hell and full of defects, but DOD ordered hundreds.

Take US troops. It is a common scene that the soldiers fled the battlefield on foot and left a large number of military vehicles at the hand of the enemy forces. It was the case during the Korean War, during the Vietnam War, and it is still the case in Iraq and Afghanistan because there are plenty of vehicles purchased by the department and stored in warehouses waiting to be utilized before rusting away.

The following is a partial list of US companies that profited from the Iraqi War:

Parsons Corp. Iraq $5,286,000,000
Washington Group International Iraq $3,133,000,000
Shaw Group/Shaw E & I Iraq $3,050,000,000
Perini Corporation Iraq $2,525,000,000
Tetra Tech Inc. Iraq $1,541,000,000
USA Environmental Inc. Iraq $1,541,000,000
Odebrect-Austin Iraq $1,500,000,000
Zapata Engineering Iraq $1,478,000,000
Stanley Baker Hill L.L.C. Iraq $1,200,000,000
Research Triangle Institute Iraq $466,000,000
Titan Corporation Iraq $402,000,000
Readiness Management Support LC (Johnson Controls Inc.) Iraq $173,000,000
Science Applications International Corp. Iraq $159,000,000
Vinnell Corporation (Northrop Grumman) Iraq $48,000,000
Parsons Energy and Chemicals Group Iraq $43,000,000
SkyLink Air and Logistic Support (USA) Inc. Iraq $27,000,000
Weston Solutions, Inc. Iraq $16,000,000
Stevedoring Services of America Iraq $14,000,000
Raytheon Technical Services Iraq $12,000,000
Ronco Consulting Corporation Iraq $12,000,000
Stanley Consultants Iraq $7,000,000
TECO Ocean Shipping Co. Iraq $7,000,000
Ocean Bulkships Inc. Iraq $5,000,000
S&K Technologies Inc. Iraq $4,900,000
Signature Science Iraq $4,700,000
United Defense Industries, L.P. Iraq $4,500,000
Simmonds Precision Products Iraq $4,400,000
Sealift Inc. Iraq $4,000,000
SETA Corporation Iraq $3,000,000
Stratex Freedom Services Afghanistan $2,000,000
Structural Engineers Iraq $1,000,000
Red River Computer Company Iraq $1,000,000
(More at yahoo.com, businesspundit.com, alternet.org, ethicalconsumer.org)

When the civil officers are so generous in the defence spending, the military officers on the ground have their own creative ways to squander military funds.

For instance, if a job can be done with one missile, they fire five; if there are no enemies around, civilians will be targeted as enemy combatants; if opponents have been wiped out, they would equip and train militant organizations and turn them into enemies. These are the sure ways for the generals and commanders to hang on to the prosperous and glorious military ranks.

All these have explained why the US can not live without war, and why the Democrat government is so keen on starting a war with China when the old wars are yet to conclude.

“The department in this budget takes a clear-eyed approach to Beijing and provides the investments to prioritize China as our pacing challenge,” The US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks declared, despite America’s per capita military spending being 8 times more than China.

These Democrats are no lesser warmongers than any Noe-con Republican. Because, again, they have no choice.

The problem lies deep in the fundamental flaws of the US political system.

The Article written by Fish was first posted in 2011 on another website that no longer exists. It was edited with new diagrams added by Awen on 31 October 2021.