OPINION: On war, contracts and military spending

The paper stated that some of the consultants were getting as much as $440 an hour (that’s $915,000 a year) to offer advice on war plans and weapons systems.

Now, I’m sorry, but that’s a racket. If you’re representing the government and helping determine how millions of taxpayer dollars are going to be spent, then you better reveal who’s giving you money to influence your decision.

This troubles me, too, because I think of those serving abroad, those who may lose a leg or their life. They will never get rich off the military or eat with contactors at a fancy Washington steakhouse, or get a nice check after the final holed putt.

Our tendency in recent years has been to award anyone who served abroad with a title, “hero.” And that’s a nice and appropriate thing to say. If you’ve given up your time with family, given up your comfort, risked your life, then you deserve that word from those of us who haven’t. But let’s not kid ourselves either. The rest of us must confront our lacking in juxtaposition to a soldier’s sacrifice. And using the term “hero” can relieve us of our own guilt and lack of sacrifice and let us move on to our next thought, putting the matter of someone else’s troubles neatly behind us.

So we should recognize that the word “hero” rings hollow if it’s not backed up with more than a name. People who serve deserve more than symbolic gestures. They deserve the best our society can offer before, during and after their service. We spend many billions of dollars on the military, but we still don’t offer enough in this regard. For instance, there needs to be more help offered for those who are mentally and physically torn up by what they went through.

While on the matter of war, I know I will be in a real minority on what I’m about to say, but I don’t think we should ever engage in extended combat without simultaneously instituting a draft. If we choose to stay somewhere over a year, then an automatic draft should kick in. All able-bodied adults up to a very mature age (say 60) should be potentially called for service in some capacity. This would change the political nature of war in a positive way. If we’re expecting others to put their lives at risk, then we each need to consider the worth of our own life in the matter. Is this cause worth dying for?

Instead, we’ve put our recent wars on the backs of a few, without engaging our society as a whole. In the meantime, our politicians have done something terribly costly that I don’t think anyone really talks about. Rather than institute a draft, they have put a lot of military work off on private contractors. It would have been much cheaper financially to draft people to do the work contractors performed at a high cost. However, this would have proved politically ruinous. Meanwhile, soldiers have worked for far less money than private contractors, though they are surely in just as much danger.

Of course, our country prides itself on having the biggest and best military in the world. We should also seek to have the most financially efficient military, too. Right now, we spend six times more than China on our military. But are we six times as strong? If we’re the most efficient, the answer there should be “Yes.”

It’s worth pointing out that some military contracts are, in fact, ongoing stimulus projects. Whether weapons are actually needed can be beside the point when weighed next to local fiscal issues. For instance, in a bomb-making community, the value of the bomb isn’t the real issue at hand. Those local families are primarily concerned with the jobs that bomb provides.

Consequently, the politician representing that district will typically fight vigorously for that weapon, regardless of its worth to the nation. He will likely approve spending — even if it’s pork barrel — in others districts to get the reciprocated votes on spending in his own. Because he knows if a community back home is put out of work while he’s in Washington, he won’t be back in Washington. Therefore, bombers or other weaponry and equipment can be like those outdated American vehicles we fought so hard about — a form of government bailout. But a weapons bailout, though potentially endless, is generally easier for the public to swallow, since any military spending — no matter its worth — can be sold politically as “making us safer.”

Still, it bothers me to hear about those making the calls on such weapons contracts getting $440 an hour and resigning rather than revealing which contractors are buttering them up.

Perhaps those guys will just take the money and run … all the way to a seat in Congress. That’s the name of the game there, right?

Zach Mitcham is editor of The Madison County Journal.