Obama signs bills for record Pentagon, Homeland Security spending

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Obama signs bills for record Pentagon, Homeland Security spending
By Patrick Martin
30 October 2009

In a ceremony Wednesday, US President Barack Obama signed legislation
authorizing the largest ever military budget, a gargantuan $680
billion for the Pentagon, including $130 billion for the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan. On Thursday, he signed a spending bill funneling
another $44 billion into the Department of Homeland Security, to
strengthen the apparatus of state repression within the United States.

The back-to-back bill signings are a clear demonstration that Obama is
extending and intensifying the program of militarism and attacks on
democratic rights for which the Bush administration was deservedly
hated, in the United States and worldwide.

Each of the bills contained provisions aimed at further restricting
democratic rights. The Pentagon budget bill authorizes the use of
military tribunals to try prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and others
seized illegally, either overseas or within the US, as part of the
“war on terror.” It also bars the release of Guantanamo prisoners—even
those found completely innocent—into the United States. It prohibits
bringing Guantanamo prisoners to trial on US soil without a 45-day
advance notice to Congress.

The Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill effectively
prohibits the release of photographs taken by US military personnel
during torture sessions at US bases in Iraq, Afghanistan and
Guantanamo Bay. It exempts these photos from the provisions of the
Freedom of Information Act, under which the American Civil Liberties
Union and several media outlets have filed suit in federal court. The
exemption would apply, not just to the photos sought by the ACLU, but
to any photos taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 to
which the Pentagon has objections.

Obama signed the record Pentagon budget less than three weeks after
receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. He then traveled to Dover Air Force
Base in Delaware to be photographed late Wednesday night standing at
attention as the coffins of 18 US military personnel killed in
Afghanistan in the last few days arrived in the United States.

A decision on how many additional US troops will be sent to
Afghanistan is expected late next week, likely in the interval between
the runoff presidential election in Afghanistan November 7 and Obama’s
departure for a lengthy trip to Asian capitals November 11. Obama
ordered 21,000 more troops to the war last March, and the top US
commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has requested an
even greater number this fall to escalate the war.

The $680 billion authorized for the Pentagon in fiscal year 2010 is an
increase of about 4 percent over the $654 billion authorized for
fiscal year 2009, despite the pledged drawdown of US forces deployed
in Iraq. The number of US troops in Iraq is projected to fall from
120,000 today to about 50,000 by September 2010. If the drawdown is
significantly slower, or the war in Afghanistan escalates rapidly, the
Obama administration will request a supplemental appropriations bill
that could take total military spending beyond the highest level
reached under George W. Bush.

At the signing ceremony, Obama singled out defense secretary Robert
Gates, a holdover from Bush, for special praise, declaring, “this
effort would not have been possible without an extraordinary secretary
of defense…on behalf of the American people, I want to thank you, Bob,
for your extraordinary efforts.”

The Pentagon bill includes a 3.4 percent pay raise for all military
personnel, and increases troop levels by 55,000, to a total of
1,425,000 in the US armed forces. The military buildup had
overwhelming bipartisan support, with all but one Senate Democrat
backing the legislation, while some Republicans opposed because of the
unrelated gay rights provision that was attached to the bill.

The US media paid relatively little attention to the bill’s passage,
or to the perfunctory, rubber-stamp character of the congressional
debate. Absurdly, the New York Times headlined its report on Obama’s
signing of the largest-ever military spending bill, “Victory for Obama
Over Military Lobby,” claiming that the deletion of a few big-ticket
weapons systems, notably the F-22 fighter jet, represented “reform.”

The combined total of $724 billion for war and repression demonstrates
the real priorities of the Obama administration, and the American
ruling elite as a whole. At that rate, the Pentagon and DHS will spend
more in 18 months than the entire cost of Obama’s so-called health
care reform. Two months of Pentagon/DHS spending would cover the
budget deficits of all 50 states.

The appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security
includes a raft of reactionary provisions:

    * Continued funding for the next three years of the E-Verify
program, requiring employers to check the immigration status of
workers against a federal database.
    * Funding a new program to monitor visitor exits from the United
States, in addition to the current system of recording entries.
    * A 27 percent increase in cybersecurity spending, to $397 million.
    * $800 million for security measures along the US-Mexico border.
    * $1.5 billion to accelerate deportation of immigrants facing
criminal charges.

One component of the Pentagon authorization bill is the Military
Commissions Act of 2009, which retains the military tribunals
established by the Bush administration with a few cosmetic changes,
such as prohibiting the use of prisoner testimony derived from
torture. Administration lobbyists successfully watered down more
restrictive provisions adopted in the House version of the bill
earlier this month.

A Department of Justice spokesman told Time magazine that the military
commissions would be a “viable option” for certain Guantanamo
prisoners. White House officials have already made clear that they
will not meet the January 20, 2010 deadline for emptying Guantanamo,
set by Obama amid much fanfare when he took office.

Obama’s cynical attitude toward democratic rights was on display after
the signing ceremony for the Pentagon bill. He hailed the portion of
the bill that extends federal hate crimes laws to include violence
against gays and lesbians, meeting with the parents of Matthew
Shepard, the young gay man beaten to death in Wyoming in 1998.

The next day, the Obama administration moved quickly to enforce the
prohibition on the release of military torture photos. Solicitor
General Elena Kagan sent a letter Thursday to the Supreme Court,
apprising it of the legislation and declaring that she would file a
supplemental brief on its effect on the ongoing ACLU lawsuit before
the Court’s conference November 6.

Copyright © 1998-2009 World Socialist Web Site - All rights reserved

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/oct2009/dfns-o30.shtml

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