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FTR#1218 The Military Matrix

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­­­FTR#1218 This pro­gram was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment.

CORRECTION: Only one of the drugs in the drug cock­tail dis­cussed in FTR#1111 is used in the Pfiz­er Covid Pill, not two as Mr. Emory stat­ed.

Intro­duc­tion: Proof that big things can, indeed, come in small pack­ages is Nick Turse’s impact­ful vol­ume The Com­plex: How The Mil­i­tary Invades Our Every­day Lives

Clear­ly writ­ten, brief and to the point, yet alto­geth­er rev­e­la­to­ry, the book details the many ways in which what Pres­i­dent Eisen­how­er termed “the mil­i­tary-com­plex” has come to dom­i­nate every­day life in the U.S. to an extent unre­al­ized by even rel­a­tive­ly aware cit­i­zens.

Con­tin­u­ing with the intro­duc­tion to this remark­able tome, we read the con­clud­ing pro­por­tion of the pro­gram, in which the author com­pares the per­va­sive influ­ence of the “Com­plex” to the pop­u­lar sci­ence fic­tion movie The Matrix.

Fur­ther devel­op­ing Turse’s com­par­i­son of the Pen­ta­gon to The Matrix, we high­light part of his con­clu­sion to the intro­duc­tion: “. . . . The high lev­el of mil­i­tary-civil­ian inter­pen­e­tra­tion in a heav­i­ly con­sumer-dri­ven soci­ety means that almost every Amer­i­can . . . is, at least pas­sive­ly, sup­port­ing the Com­plex every time he or she shops for gro­ceries, sends a pack­age, dri­ves a car, or watch­es TV—let alone eats a bar­be­cue in Mem­phis or buys Chris­t­ian books in Hat­ties­burg. And what choice do you have? What oth­er com­put­er would you buy? Or cere­al? Or boots? . . . .”

The remark­able profli­ga­cy of Pen­ta­gon spend­ing is exac­er­bat­ed by the fact that DoD has avoid­ed audits! “. . . . Giv­en such expen­di­tures, it’s hard­ly sur­pris­ing to find out that the Depart­ment of Defense has nev­er actu­al­ly under­gone a finan­cial audit. Speak­ing in 2006, Sen­a­tor Tom Coburn (R‑Oklahoma) made spe­cial note of the DoD’s ‘inabil­i­ty to pro­duce auditable finan­cial state­ments’:

‘In oth­er words, they can’t under­go an audit, much less pass one. If DoD were a pri­vate­ly-owned com­pa­ny, it would have been bank­rupt long ago. In 2004, the Depart­ment set the goal of under­go­ing a full audit by 2007. That dead­line has not been met, and in fact, has been moved to the year 2016 . . . . Amer­i­cans are being asked to wait a full 10 years before their dol­lars are tracked well enough for the Depart­ment to fail an audit. And that seems to be the new objec­tive of finan­cial man­agers at Dod—to get to a place where DoD fan actu­al­ly fail an audit. Pass­ing the audit is a pipedream for some future date beyond 2016.’ . . .”

Some exam­ples of stun­ning­ly exor­bi­tant spend­ing by DoD are chron­i­cled by Turse, topped off by dis­clo­sure that Hal­libur­ton sub­sidiary Kel­logg, Brown & Root charged the tax­pay­ers for 10,000 meals a day. alleged­ly served to troops (ahem) serv­ing over­seas: ” . . . . Sim­i­lar­ly, in 2007, it came to light that dur­ing the pre­vi­ous year the Pen­ta­gon paid anoth­er defense con­trac­tor “$998, 798 in trans­porta­tion costs for ship­ping two 19-cent wash­ers.” This was in addi­tion to, accord­ing to the Wash­ing­ton Post, a “2004 order for a sin­gle $8.75 elbow pipe that was shipped for $445,640 . . . a $10.99 machine thread plug was shipped for $492,096 . . . [and] six machine screws worth a total of $59.94 were shipped at a cost of $403,463,” in 2005. The piece de resis­tance, [a won­der­ful pun—D.E.] how­ev­er, was found in the tes­ti­mo­ny of the for­mer food pro­duc­tion man­ag­er at Halliburton’s sub­sidiary Kel­logg, Brown & Root (KBR), who told con­gressper­sons that Hal­libur­ton charged the Depart­ment of Defense for as many as ten thou­sand meals a day it nev­er served. . . .”

 Pro­gram High­lights Include: Dis­cus­sion of the pro­found links between DoD and acad­e­mia; the enor­mous fuel and fos­sil fuel con­sump­tion of the Pen­ta­gon; the mil­i­tary’s role as the world’s largest indi­vid­ual land­lord, includ­ing the acqui­si­tion of many inhab­it­ed islands, often in con­tra­ven­tion of inter­na­tion­al law.

1. Con­tin­u­ing with the intro­duc­tion to this remark­able tome, we read the con­clud­ing pro­por­tion of the pro­gram, in which the author com­pares the per­va­sive influ­ence of the “Com­plex” to the pop­u­lar sci­ence fic­tion movie The Matrix.

The Com­plex: How The Mil­i­tary Invades Our Every­day Lives by Nick Turse; Pic­a­dor [SC] Met­ro­pol­i­tan Books [Hen­ry Holt & Com­pa­ny]; Copy­right 2008 by Nick Turse; ISBN 978–0‑8050–8919‑6; pp. 14–18. 

2. Fur­ther devel­op­ing Turse’s com­par­i­son of the Pen­ta­gon to The Matrix, we high­light part of his con­clu­sion to the intro­duc­tion:

The Com­plex: How The Mil­i­tary Invades Our Every­day Lives by Nick Turse; Pic­a­dor [SC] Met­ro­pol­i­tan Books [Hen­ry Holt & Com­pa­ny]; Copy­right 2008 by Nick Turse; ISBN 978–0‑8050–8919‑6; p. 18. 

. . . . The high lev­el of mil­i­tary-civil­ian inter­pen­e­tra­tion in a heav­i­ly con­sumer-dri­ven soci­ety means that almost every Amer­i­can . . . is, at least pas­sive­ly, sup­port­ing the Com­plex every time he or she shops for gro­ceries, sends a pack­age, dri­ves a car, or watch­es TV—let alone eats a bar­be­cue in Mem­phis or buys Chris­t­ian books in Hat­ties­burg. And what choice do you have? What oth­er com­put­er would you buy? Or cere­al? Or boots? . . . .

3. The remark­able profli­ga­cy of Pen­ta­gon spend­ing is exac­er­bat­ed by the fact that DoD has avoid­ed audits!

The Com­plex: How The Mil­i­tary Invades Our Every­day Lives by Nick Turse; Pic­a­dor [SC] Met­ro­pol­i­tan Books [Hen­ry Holt & Com­pa­ny]; Copy­right 2008 by Nick Turse; ISBN 978–0‑8050–8919‑6; p. 81. 

. . . . Giv­en such expen­di­tures, it’s hard­ly sur­pris­ing to find out that the Depart­ment of Defense has nev­er actu­al­ly under­gone a finan­cial audit. Speak­ing in 2006, Sen­a­tor Tom Coburn (R‑Oklahoma) made spe­cial note of the DoD’s “inabil­i­ty to pro­duce auditable finan­cial state­ments”:

“In oth­er words, they can’t under­go an audit, much less pass one. If DoD were a pri­vate­ly-owned com­pa­ny, it would have been bank­rupt long ago. In 2004, the Depart­ment set the goal of under­go­ing a full audit by 2007. That dead­line has not been met, and in fact, has been moved to the year 2016 . . . . Amer­i­cans are being asked to wait a full 10 years before their dol­lars are tracked well enough for the Depart­ment to fail an audit. And that seems to be the new objec­tive of finan­cial man­agers at Dod—to get to a place where DoD fan actu­al­ly fail an audit. Pass­ing the audit is a pipedream for some future date beyond 2016. . . .”

4. Some exam­ples of stun­ning­ly exor­bi­tant spend­ing by DoD are chron­i­cled by Turse, topped off by dis­clo­sure that Hal­libur­ton sub­sidiary Kel­logg, Brown & Root charged the tax­pay­ers for 10,000 meals a day. alleged­ly served to troops (ahem) serv­ing over­seas:

The Com­plex: How The Mil­i­tary Invades Our Every­day Lives by Nick Turse; Pic­a­dor [SC] Met­ro­pol­i­tan Books [Hen­ry Holt & Com­pa­ny]; Copy­right 2008 by Nick Turse; ISBN 978–0‑8050–8919‑6; p. 87. 

. . . . Sim­i­lar­ly, in 2007, it came to light that dur­ing the pre­vi­ous year the Pen­ta­gon paid anoth­er defense con­trac­tor “$998, 798 in trans­porta­tion costs for ship­ping two 19-cent wash­ers.” This was in addi­tion to, accord­ing to the Wash­ing­ton Post, a “2004 order for a sin­gle $8.75 elbow pipe that was shipped for $445,640 . . . a $10.99 machine thread plug was shipped for $492,096 . . . [and] six machine screws worth a total of $59.94 were shipped at a cost of $403,463,” in 2005. The piece de resis­tance, [a won­der­ful pun—D.E.] how­ev­er, was found in the tes­ti­mo­ny of the for­mer food pro­duc­tion man­ag­er at Halliburton’s sub­sidiary Kel­logg, Brown & Root (KBR), who told con­gressper­sons that Hal­libur­ton charged the Depart­ment of Defense for as many as ten thou­sand meals a day it nev­er served. . . .

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