Randy "Duke" Cunningham's Crash Landing-Grand Theft Pentagon

[kpete]

Yesterday, Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham pled guilty to federal charges of bribery and tax evasion. What follows is an excerpt from the first chapter of Jeffrey St. Clair's new book Grand Theft Pentagon, available soon from Common Courage Press.


Cunningham was never considered a particularly adept politician. He was not a gifted orator like Robert Byrd. Not a slick operator like Trent Lott or Christopher Dodd. Not a master of the legislative parlor tricks in the mode of Pete Dominici or Ted Stevens. Indeed, Cunningham is a clumsy speaker burdened with a boorish personality. The Duke got by on implacable loyalty to his party and, more decisively, on blind obedience to his political patrons.

As such, the Duke's travails serve as an edifying symbol for how completely Congress has been captured, from top to bottom and left to right, by the coterie munitions makers and weapons merchants that underwrite and direct the American political system. Some veterans of the Hill simply refer to incessant feeding of the Pentagon beast as "the Enterprise", the axiomatic function of their existence in Washington.

Unlike most agencies, the Pentagon is not bound by its budget. The more it spends, the more it gets. For example, the Pentagon told congress that the Iraq war would cost about $1.5 billion a month. It ended up costing between $5 and $8 billion a month, with no end in sight. The Pentagon has an apt catch-phrase for this bloody flood of spending. It's accountants call it the "burn rate."

What Cunningham in his obduracy never realized was that he was just an interchangeable part, a legislative errand boy, fetching home pails of contracts every fall when the appropriations bills come due. No special talent required. Almost anyone could do it. In the end, the congressman was expendable, so that the Enterprise might endure forever. The Pentagon and its contractors and numberless parasites have many available to shoulder the Duke's duties.
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair11292005.html