The war in Iraq is now costing the country $12 billion a month. While the rest of us get poorer, who's getting rich off this windfall?
A glance backward at the period between March 20, 2003, when our troops rolled across the desert to invade Iraq, and March 20, 2008, the fifth anniversary of the war, showed industry analysts that the value of Standard and Poor's Aerospace and Defense Index had doubled during that time. (It's worth noticing that during that same period the dollar lost a quarter of its value.)
Big winners have been General Dynamics Corp. and Florida-based Harris Corp., which makes combat radios; the stocks of both companies have tripled, a result that certainly ought to fill the non-investing working taxpayer with shock and awe. L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., which has supplied the military in Iraq with body scanners and other high-tech security equipment, saw its stock rise 164 percent.
It's an axiom among some libertarian conservatives that the government should only do what the people can't do for themselves, and at the head of the list of what the people can't do for themselves is maintain a military. In theory that's not an unreasonable position, even if it does ignore the constitutional mandate to provide for the general welfare as well as the common defense.
But here's what happens when it's put into practice: defense firms fatten while the common weal, which is not just a phrase but which is our own and our neighbors' wellbeing, begins to look haggard.
To the news about defense company profits add these recently reported facts: the worst job loss figures in five years were recorded for this past February, and in that same month, banks seized twice as many homes as in February, 2007; the demand for food stamps is on the rise (28 million will be using them by October, the government estimates); in moves that will hurt not only college-aged young people and their families but educational institutions, large lenders are now pulling out of the student loan business; and the government is cutting funding for local police.
Twelve billion a month will run all of us but the armsmakers into the ground. We get what we pay for; the times are decisive as to what kind of society Americans want.
