WP/Sun: Pentagon Can Now Fund Foreign Militaries

[Rose Siding]

Pentagon to Get New Authority

Congress has granted unusual authority for the Pentagon to spend as much as $200 million of its own budget to aid foreign militaries, a break with the traditional practice of channeling foreign military assistance through the State Department.

The move, included in a little-noticed provision of the 2006 National Defense Authorization Act passed last month, marks a legislative victory for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who pushed hard for the new powers to deal with emergency situations.

But it has drawn warnings from foreign policy specialists inside and outside the government, who say it could lead to growth of a separate military assistance effort not subject to the same constraints applied to foreign aid programs that are administered by the State Department. Such constraints are meant to ensure that aid recipients meet certain standards, including respect for human rights and protection of legitimate civilian authorities.

"It's important that diplomats remain the ones to make the decisions about U.S. foreign assistance," said George Withers, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America and a former staff member on the House Armed Services Committee. "They can ensure such decisions are taken in the broader context of U.S. foreign policy."
....
"This was the most heavily lobbied we've been by the Pentagon in the several years I've been here," said one Senate staff member. "They really, really wanted this."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/28/AR2006012800833.html

[PSPS]

1. Has bush chosen his epaulettes yet?

[Gronk Groks]

2. Watch the "Lord of War", just released on DVD...

...stars Nicolas Cage as a Ukrainian Gun runner. Based on a true story. Don't want to spoil it for you, but the ending matches this announcement perfectly.

This administration is just plain evil incarnate...

[54anickel]

3. Wonderful. Watch yer backs down there in South America. Rummy's

goin' shopping for "Freedom Fighters" (again) and he's packin' a full wallet and new powers.

[punpirate]

4. They've largely been able to get around...

... this limitation for many decades, and with the rather hawkish State Dept. leadership in the past, arms sales--and military grants--to foreign governments have rarely been higher.

The intense lobbying, I would guess, has more to do with the way the Pentagon wants to spend the money than the fact that it's going directly to foreign governments. First guess: direct covert support to the analogues of our own secret special operations (a la the Contras), to fight covert wars in the way that the CIA has in the past--this may give the Pentagon the sort of capability that the CIA has now, which has long been a desire of Rummy and his friends, as a means of making the CIA more and more irrelevant. I can envision SOCOM using this money unaccountably to fund joint operations with, say, the MEK to destabilize Iran, for example.

Quite apart from the moral and political questions of whether the US should be interfering with foreign governments militarily, there's also a practical one: what's the chance of the CIA and the Pentagon--quite secretly from one another--mounting operations with competing foreign renegade groups against each other? The Pentagon has, since the `80s, sought to trespass on CIA operations via special ops groups, particularly in the Central and South Americas.

What happens if the Pentagon and the CIA start killing each other (or each other's indigenous seconds) in places such as Paraguay and Bolivia simply because they each had the authority to spend money on rebel armies as they saw fit?

[GoldenOldie]

5. Funding foreign militaries while reducing funding for National Guard????

So what happens when the Govenors need to call for support in an emergency such as Katrina????

This asshole says jump and our elected representatives say how high????

Taxation without representation is tyranny.

[punpirate]

7. Unfortunately...

... it's progressively more unconstitutional (have a look at Article I, Section 8, to see what I mean), and is an inevitable outgrowth of an administration which is imperially-minded, and of a system which is no longer a republic, but, rather, a national security state.

Home defense isn't necessary today--in the minds of Rummy and his bunch--compared to the need to project force outwards into the world. In truth, this is not much money--actual existing budgets for foreign military assistance in both arms and training are actually much, much higher than this $200 million.

What this does, however, is set aside money that the Pentagon can use at its own discretion, without having to seek approval through the State Dept., and without having the impediment of someone in that agency saying, "why are we beefing up the military of some dictator who will use it to oppress his citizens?"

Ultimately, I think, if the neo-cons retain control of the government long enough, this is part of their plan to change the structure and funding of the National Guard. Those units which would be suitable for wartime support are to be consolidated and funded federally, in order to maintain their readiness for service in foreign wars. Those that are not will be defunded and marginalized, with the intention of leaving it up to the states to fund those units that are specialized in dealing with local emergencies.

[Kagemusha]

12. The admin fought the Iraq 18 bil for reconstruction every step

And there was a simple reason for that.

That money had actual standards linked to it, standards for accountability and honesty and integrity... and every effort known to man was made to deplete the money for matters other than the intended purpose. This effort was largely successful, with billions spent on "security" rather than infrastructure and similar diversions, citing on-the-ground necessity. After all, they needed to free up bribe money from the unaccountable military batches so they fought to beat the State Dept. administered 18 bil into a small box from the very beginning.

They simply don't like oversight. Of anything. Anywhere.

[Rose Siding]

8. Ollie North is wishing he were a much younger man

No accountability is key. How many billions have already been lost within the DoD?

[hippywife]

15. Last I heard any figures myself

was in 2003 and the amount at that time was $1.2 trillion.

[Theduckno2]

6. This is wrong for so many reasons.

1. Employing foreign militaries(think private contractors in Iraq) as mercenaries without direct accountability for their actions.

2. Avoiding any oversight that Intelligence Committees would have over CIA covert operations to fund foreign fighters.

3. Adding another layer of government to the list of potential sources of "blowback".

4. Remember, constraints don't matter when it comes to protecting Merkuns, Bush circumvented FISA courts and had the NSA engage in domestic spying.

There are plenty of reasons why this is a bad idea. :grr:

What an obediant nitwit Sec'y Rice is in signing off on this legislation. To think the Republicans throw her name around as Presidential material!

BTW if the U.S. military can contract out to foreign militaries, why couldn't the U.S. military be contracted out to foreign powers? You know. To protect Amerkuns and help balance the budget. I think this would appeal to Milo Mindbender? of "Catch 22" fame.

Edit: spelling

[Charlie Brown]

11. Remember when conservatives were about "less government?"

Now it's layer after layer of new bureaucratic programs and blank checks for "nation building." There's something to be said for fiscal sanity, especially where there's no oversight.

[bemildred]

9. When did they ever not? What horseshit.

This is just so the spineless weasels in Congress don't have to know.

[mom cat]

10. Rumsfeld " pushed hard for the new powers "

How many more "new powers" are they going to get?

[lovuian]

13. Ya King George used Mercenaries too and his empire

crashed and burned!!!

[HuffleClaw]

14. just one more example of the administration getting around pesky

things like "respect for human rights and protection of legitimate civilian authorities."

[krkaufman]

16. We're a looooong way from the Prime Directive n/t