How to Unf*ck America: Part 5 — The Military

by Rob C.
Art by Nate Beeler

TL;DR: America spends like a drunken empire on a Pentagon that couldn’t pass an audit if its life depended on it. The cash doesn’t go to soldiers, veterans, or actual security — it goes to defense contractors whose business model is “profit first, quality optional.” Trump is treating the U.S. military like his personal warlord cosplay brigade, and Fox’s own tattooed fascist-in-training Pete Hegseth is busy purging anyone in uniform who still believes in democracy. Meanwhile, we underfund schools, healthcare, and veterans, because apparently feeding the war machine is more important than feeding Americans.

Ah yes, the United States military — the institution Americans are taught to treat with the reverence usually reserved for holy scripture or Beyoncé. But unlike Beyoncé, the Pentagon cannot sing, cannot dance, and cannot — for the love of God — pass a single audit.

We’re currently spending nearly a trillion dollars a year on “defense,” a number so obscene it could make a Roman emperor blush. And what do we get for it? According to William Hartung’s The Trillion Dollar War Machine, we get a bloated bureaucracy, outdated weapons nobody asked for, endless contractor grifts, and corporate profits so large they require their own zip codes.

Meanwhile, as I wrote in Democracy for Sale, the military-industrial complex has become the ultimate “government for sale” racket — a revolving door where generals retire on Friday and reappear on Monday as “consultants” for the very companies they used to regulate.

Where the Money Actually Goes (Hint: Not the Troops)

Despite the patriotic rhetoric, the Pentagon budget is really a high-speed money funnel into private contractors. Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing — you know, the usual suspects — are swimming in profit while soldiers are rationing insulin, veterans are sleeping on the streets, and military housing is full of mold that looks like it could file its own taxes.

We’ve essentially built a giant, tax-funded ATM for war profiteers. And boy, do they make withdrawals.

But don’t worry — the Pentagon swears it’s trying its best to someday pass an audit. And by “someday,” they mean “never.”

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A Brief Stroll Through Our Greatest Military Disasters

Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Grenada. Panama. Syria. Libya.
Pick a continent — we’ve destabilized it.

Our foreign policy has two settings:

1. Invade

2. Oops, that didn’t work — invade something else

And as Hartung describes, these forever wars weren’t accidents. They were business opportunities. War is a profit model. Peace is terrible for shareholder value.

Vietnam: A lie got us into a geopolitical horror show, all to maintain France’s empire.

Iraq: An invasion justified by imaginary WMDs, and the promise of controlling the oil fields.

Latin America: Where U.S. foreign policy has historically gone to violate international law in pursuit of corporate profit.

All of this for what? Stability? Democracy? - Nope. Defense stocks.

Enter Trump: Our Orange Colored Commander

Donald Trump has always loved two things:

1. Attention

2. Authoritarian cosplay

So naturally, he treats the military like his own live-action role-playing game.

Recently he’s been killing “pirates” in boats in the Caribbean, threatening Nigeria because someone whispered an unverified Facebook meme into his ear, and deploying military to US cities against his enemy… The Constitution. He’s acting like he’s directing a low-budget remake of Julius Caesar.

He wants to be a warlord and a uniform with epaulets.
It’s terrifying, pathetic, and deeply on-brand for Trump.

And Then There’s Pete Hegseth

Fox News’ resident tough guy, whose tattoos are a collage of white supremacist symbols disguised as “heritage,” has been busy purging the officer corps of anyone who:

• Believes in democracy

• Reads books

• Has the audacity to put the Constitution ahead of Dear Leader

Hegseth is Trump’s personal military groomer — shaping the armed forces into the kind of authoritarian, hyper-macho, theocratic army that would make Franco blush.

And it’s working. The top brass is being gutted and replaced with loyalists.
Loyalists to Trump, not to America.

What We Sacrifice to Feed the Beast

For every unnecessary weapons system the Pentagon buys, here’s what we don’t buy:

• Fully funded public schools

• Affordable healthcare

• Adequate mental health support for veterans

• Infrastructure that isn’t collapsing

• Housing for the tens of thousands of homeless veterans

• Clean energy

• Childcare

• A functional society

Every dollar we pour into the military is a dollar we don’t invest in the actual things that make a country strong.

But sure — let’s buy another $2 billion stealth jet that can’t fly in the rain.

The Pentagon Can’t Do Math

So Why Do We Keep Giving Them More Money?**
Imagine a friend who keeps asking for money.
You ask where the last $900 billion went.
They shrug.
Then they ask for more money.

That friend is the Pentagon.
And we aren’t even questioning it — we’re signing the check with a smile.

An institution that loses track of half its assets should not be receiving half the federal budget.
That’s not national security — that’s national insanity.

How to Unf*ck the Military

• Audit the Pentagon — and if it fails again, freeze spending

• Cut defense contractor middlemen

• Bring manufacturing in-house

• Stop starting wars for fun and profit

• Ban Fox News hosts from shaping military policy

• Prohibit any president from treating the armed forces like a personal militia

• Redirect funds into veterans’ care, public education, climate defense, and actual national needs

You know — the things that actually keep a society functioning.

Warning: S.N.A.F.U. (Google it)

A Nation That Funds Cannons Over Classrooms Cannot Call Itself “Free”
If we keep letting the military-industrial complex eat the federal budget like a religious offering to the gods of endless war, we won’t just go broke.
We’ll go authoritarian.
And Trump is already halfway there, dreaming of parades, medals, and “beautiful, so beautiful” missiles with his name engraved on them.

If we don’t rein in the Pentagon, Trump won’t just cosplay as a dictator.
He’ll get the real army to play along.

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Robert Cain, is author of Democracy for Sale: How Corporate Greed Is Corrupting Democracy and Endangering the Planet