The Obama Administration is sending its record $4.1 trillion 2017 budget proposal to Congress today, and while Congressional leaders scoff at many of the non-military increases, the narrative on more money for wars seems to be dominated by the administration, hyping the assorted wars and “threats” they’ll be getting us into.
The early Pentagon budget talk emphasized the ISIS war in Iraq and Syria, though the money sought for this was ultimately dwarfed by money requested to prepare for potential wars against Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran in 2017,
If you thought they were done, you’d be wrong, as today saw a new array of crises to throw money at, including significant new spending on military intelligence, citing the threat of ISIS attacks inside the US, despite officials repeatedly saying there are no credible threats for any such thing.
That’s not all neither, as the Pentagon is throwing requests for drone operations across Africa, along with some of the early funding for a war in Libya, along with other wars in unspecified places across Africa, to fight ISIS in Africa.
Administration officials have been hyping the idea of going into Libya in recent weeks, while feeling out other NATO members about the possibility of joining the war. Where else they might throw troops to “fight ISIS” on the continent is at this point unclear.
Ultimately, the specifics don’t matter a lot for these speculative wars anyhow, as the Pentagon seeks to get them into the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) budget, which Pentagon brass is able to shuffle around with few restrictions, meaning whatever the excuse, the money is ultimately a big slush fund for the Pentagon to spend on whatever seems interesting to them at the time.
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