Josh Paniagua

February 5, 2014

(ANTIMEDIA) Capitol Hill isn’t presenting much competition for President Obama’s nominee for secretary of defense Ashton Carter. In fact, he isn’t facing a single significant threat to his campaign and has received bipartisan recognition. Surprised? I’m not. After years of badgering the White House about the repeal of the Budget Control Act (BCA), it seems that the Senate Armed Services Committee is happy to see Obama’s pick on their side.

But the pentagon’s love story isn’t what I want to focus on here. What concerns me is Ashton Carter’s apparent intentions to further empower the US military as an opponent to BCA and and his ambition to advance US globalization.

During his hearing, Carter openly condemned the BCA, stating that former secretary Robert Gates was on the right track with his budget plan which required $70 billion in additional military spending.

Yes, Carter. Let’s throw another $70 billion to the military when the US is on the brink of another economic crash. Add another $70 billion into an utterly failing foreign policy, that sounds about right.

“Our country has friends and allies in every corner of the world and our adversaries have few… all this makes me proud and hopeful and determined to grab hold of the bright opportunities in front of us, as well as to counter the very real dangers we face. These dangers… include continuing turmoil in the middle-east and North Africa and the malignant and savage terrorism emanating from it, an ongoing war in Afghanistan, the reversion to old-style security thinking in parts of Europe, the long standing tensions from the past and the rapid changes in Asia and the continuing need for the stabilizing roll of the United States in that region which is so important to the future, the continuing imperative to counter the spread-or-use of weapons of mass destruction.”

Haven’t we all heard this before? We saw the same exact thing before invading Iraq, killing their leader, and scratching our heads when the WMD’s we went after were seemingly imaginary. This idea that it is our duty to invade and occupy countries simply because we don’t like what they’re doing is absurd, especially when one considers the vile and despicable things that our own politicians have done. Torture reports, anyone?

Carter has made it clear that when he is confirmed as new Secretary of Defense, he will see to it that the permanent termination of ISIL/ISIS becomes top priority. I find this part to be particularly interesting, only because the day immediately before his hearing, ISIS released a video of the execution of a Jordanian pilot causing John McCain to open the hearing with a 10 minute spew about the dangers of ISIS and his irritation at the BCA.

Ashton Carter, who unsurprisingly has received a free-pass from the corporate media, is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a former employee of Goldman Sachs. He also has deep ties to military contracting firms and the Military-Industrial-Complex, which creates an inherent conflict of interest with his soon-to-be job of Secretary of Defense. Surprised?

Is it just me or do you smell war? Watch the whole confirmation hearing here.

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