Mandy Smithberger

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Strange, isn’t it? Our secretary of state emphatically claims that China has been acting “more aggressively abroad” and behaving “increasingly in adversarial ways.” No, he insists, we’re not exactly at the edge of a new cold war or planning, in the style of the last century, to “contain China.” All this … Continue reading “Why the Pentagon Budget Never Goes Down”

Suckers? Give me a break. It’s perfectly clear that Donald Trump considers just about every last one of us a sucker (including the members of his base) and that’s not news at all. It’s only news when he calls the military dead of past wars "suckers" and "losers," as reported by Jeffrey Goldberg in an … Continue reading “Ending the Pentagon’s Pandemic of Spending”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Since it began in 2002, TomDispatch has been following the twenty-first-century rise of the Pentagon and the rest of the U.S. national security state, amid distant wars that simply never seem to end. While much has, in this Covid-19 era of ours, been in the process of going down (billionaires aside), … Continue reading “Prioritizing the Pentagon in a Pandemic”

Who doesn’t remember, as a child, making that Christmas wish list for Santa and his elves? As it happens, in this century – and in the post-Christmas season, no less – a Pentagon already sporting the highest budget ever is still making such wish lists, officially known as "unfunded requirements lists," for the orange-haired Santa … Continue reading “Letting the Pentagon Loose With Your Tax Dollars”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. In late December 2018, when James “Mad Dog” Mattis resigned as secretary of defense after President Trump announced that he was going to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, it was a hell of a story. The former general was pundited to heaven and back as the last “adult in the … Continue reading “How The Military-Industrial Complex Gets Away With Murder”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. In its latest budget request, the Trump administration is asking for a near-record $750 billion for the Pentagon and related defense activities, an astonishing figure by any measure. If passed by Congress, it will, in fact, be one of the largest military budgets in American history, topping peak levels reached during … Continue reading “A Dollar-by-Dollar Tour of the National Security State”

Originally posted at TomDispatch. Give Donald Trump credit. As a businessman, he’s brought into office some skills that previous presidents lacked. Take, for example, his willingness to plough staggering sums of money into five casinos destined to go bankrupt (and then jump ship, money in hand, leaving others holding the financial bag). Now, he seems … Continue reading “The Pentagon’s Revolving Door Spins Faster”