"Despite the sort of economic maelstrom not seen in generations, the defense industry, insulated by an enduring conviction that war spending stimulates the economy, remains almost impervious to budget cuts. To understand why military spending is no longer a stimulus driver means putting aside memories of Rosie the Riveter and the sepia-hued worker on the bomber assembly line and remembering instead that the Great Depression came before "the Good War," not the other way around. In World War II, it's also important to recall, the massive military buildup was labor intensive, employed millions, and was accompanied by rationing, austerity, and very high taxes.

"This time around, we began with boom years and spent our way into the breach, in significant part by launching unnecessary, profligate wars. Meanwhile, President George W. Bushcut taxes at a more than peacetime pace and borrowed like an addicted gambler on a losing streak to underwrite his wars of choice, including his Global War on Terror. If the former president's nearly trillion dollar (and counting) global war got us into this mess, by simple logic it's not likely to bail us out as well. 

"While the good times rolled during the long slide from surplus to deficit, from no war to global war, it wasn't just the Merrill Lynches and subprime mortgage giants that cleaned up.Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman -- the top three defense contractors -- had a ball, too.

"In 2002, the first full year of what came to be known as the Global War on Terror, for instance, those three companies -- ranking first, second, and third on the Pentagon's list of top ten contractors -- split $42 billion in contract awards, more than two-thirds of the $67 billion distributed among the top 10 Pentagon contractors.

"In 2007, the last year for which full contracting data is available, the same Big Three split $69 billion in Pentagon contracts, which was more than the total received by the top 10 companies just five years earlier. The top 10 divvied up $121 billion in contracts in 2007, an 80% increase over 2002. Lockheed Martin, the number one Pentagon contractor, graduated from a mere $17 billion in awarded contracts in 2002 to $28 billion in 2007. That's a leap of 64%. Given such figures, it's easy enough to understand how the basic military budget -- excluding money for actual war-fighting -- jumped from about $300 billion to more than $500 billion during the Bush years.

"Given the economic climate, it's no surprise that the three defense giants have all posted losses in the past few weeks. But before the hankies come out and the histrionics start, it should be noted that Lockheed Martin alone has an $81 billion backlog in orders, enough to keep chugging along for another two years without a single new contract.

"If such war spending had been an effective stimulus for the economy, we would be roaring along on 12 cylinders today. But increasingly this kind of spending mainly stimulates corporate shareholders, stock prices, and (of course) war itself. 

"Economists have also weighed in on why "war for jobs" as a way out of recession or depression has entered the world of mythology. An analysis from the University of Massachusetts' Political Economy Research Institute, for instance, finds that, for every one billion dollars invested in defense, 8,555 jobs are created. By contrast, the same billion invested in health care would create 12,883 jobs, and in education, 17,687 jobs or more than double the defense stimulus payoff.

"It has often been said that World War II -- and the production stimulus it offered -- lifted the United States out of the Great Depression. Today, the opposite seems to be the case. The "war economy" helped propel the U.S. into what might turn out to be another great depression, and so, unlike in 1929, as our economy crumbles today, we are already on a global war footing.

"As the Obama administration grapples with economic disaster and inherited wars, it will have the added challenge of confronting a military-industrial complex accustomed to budgets that reach almost three quarters of a trillion dollars, based on exaggerated global threats, unsubstantiated economic claims, and entrenched profligacy. When Obama's analysts pour over the budget, looking at all those overpriced weapons and plum contracts, they'll have to ask: Is each weapons system or program actually needed for American security and is it cost effective? Or are the defense contractors shoveling a load of shovel-ready bull" 

Mark Weisbrot's commentary at The Guardian points to the hypocrisy of the US on judging other countries' human rights record after Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, etc.

"The US state department's annual human rights report got an unusual amount of criticism this year. This time the centre-left coalition government of Chile was notable in joining other countries such as Bolivia, Venezuela and China – who have had more rocky relations with Washington – in questioning the moral authority of the US government's judging other countries' human rights practices.

"It's a reasonable question, and the fact that more democratic governments are asking it may signal a tipping point. Clearly a state that is responsible for such high-profile torture and abuses as took place at Abu Ghraib and Guanátnamo, that regularly killed civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq and that reserved for itself the right to kidnap people and send them to prisons in other countries to be tortured ("extraordinary rendition") has a credibility problem on human rights issues.

"Although President Barack Obama has pledged to close down the prison at Guantánamo and outlaw torture by US officials, he has so far decided not to abolish the practice of "extraordinary rendition", and is escalating the war in Afghanistan. But this tipping point may go beyond any differences – and they are quite significant – between the current administration and its predecessor. 

"It’s at the epicenter of a sad class divide between a desperate, poorly educated workforce and a demagogic oligarchy, and it has been a demarcation line stronger than the Mason-Dixon in separating the region from the rest of the nation.

"In their zeal to destroy unions and their hard-fought wage-and-benefits packages, the Southern senators could not care less that workers in their home states are among the lowest paid in the nation. Ever wonder why the South remains the nation’s poorest region despite generations of seniority-laden senators and representatives in Congress?"

And David Bacon writes at Truthout why labor law doesn't work for workers: 

"These are just the latest maneuvers in Rite Aid's war against the union. For the last three years its employees have overcome one obstacle after another in their effort to join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Each obstacle has been placed in their path by this country's weak labor laws, a problem the Employee Free Choice Act was written to correct. That's why Rite Aid and other large employers are fighting the bill in Congress.