Be afraid, be very afraid. Now the recession is hurting the Pentatgon.

That’s the word in response to the news that the Defense Department has cancelled a $1.7 billion spy satellite program. The next question we’ll hear in Congress come appropriation time: "Are you willing to let the US credit crisis limit our  “defense” capability?"

Let’s not go down that road without a little intelligence. For one thing, those who helped kill the spy satellite program point out that the US already has this capability the skyborn cameras would offer, albeit through private contractors. The fact is, there’s no recession in the US weapons market. Just the opposite.

Between 2001 and 2008, Lockheed Martin saw its contracts from the Department of Defense jump nearly 130%, from $14 billion to $32 billion.

The Defense Department’s base budget, which does not include funds for nuclear weapons or the $12-billion-a-month "global war on terror," has grown by nearly 70% — from $316 billion in 2001 to a request for more than $515 billion for 2009’s fiscal year (which begins in October). And even though that’s close to what the rest of the world combined spends on its military, neither Barack Obama nor John McCain has adopted any plan to reduce US military spending. U.S. weapons sales to countries like Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel are on track to be 45% higher in 2008 than in 2007.

You can cry all you like for the prospects of peace in a world prickling with deadly U.S. made ways to kill people. But don’t shed a tear for the war industry. Downturn or no downturn, that’s one part of this economy not hit so far by anything resembling a recession. Is peace in trouble? Yes. The Pentagon? Far from it.

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