[Peace-discuss] Kerry too prefers hegemony to survival

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Noam Chomsky's recent book, Hegemony or Survival?, is one of his most
wide-ranging and accessible.  I recommend it.  --CGE]

	<Defensenews.com>
	Posted 28 June, 2004
	What if John Kerry Wins? 
	By WILLIAM MATTHEWS

If John Kerry becomes U.S. president, defense budgets will keep going up,
he says - but how that money is spent is going to change.

Budgets have to keep rising "for a period, unavoidably," the Democratic
presidential hopeful said in a June 24 interview with Defense News. The
war in Iraq, the global war on terrorism, military transformation and the
need to repair and replace weapons lost or simply worn down in Iraq make
higher defense budgets inevitable, Kerry said.

But Kerry also said he is willing to delay missile defense plans and cut
back other weapons programs to add two divisions to the 10-division Army.

President George W. Bush has made deploying a missile interceptor system a
top military priority and plans to spend $9.2 billion on it in 2005 alone.
Kerry says that's spending too much too soon.

"I'm not for the rapid deployment of missile defense," the Massachusetts
senator said. "I'm for research and development and continuing the
testing. But I don't think we're ready for deployment. I think that's a
pool of money that's going to be wasted."

Cuts to the missile defense program could yield "several billion" dollars
to be spent on other defense needs, he said.

Kerry declined to specify what other programs might also be cut, saying he
would order a threat analysis to indicate which systems now in development
are no longer top priorities, he said.

"What I'm committed to is transformation of the military for the 21st
century," he said, a force that is able to fight terrorism and also able
to handle more traditional threats. "I think having a more mobile, more
special-operations-oriented, more flexible, rapidly deployable military is
very important to us."

Kerry said there is a general need to modernize weapons, develop newer
systems for urban warfare and repair or replace older weapons and
equipment worn out in Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Those would be budget
priorities.

Adding Troops

At least as pressing is the need to add troops to the overburdened U.S.
Army.

Of the two divisions Kerry proposes to add - about 40,000 troops - one
would be a standard combat division and the other would be a "support
division" designed for post-conflict operations. It would include "civil
affairs, psychological operations, military police, engineering, all those
kinds of components that are part of winning the postwar effort.

"I think we need greater training in that," Kerry said. "Winning a war is
not just winning the active war, it's winning the immediate occupation
afterwards, which this administration was completely unprepared and
ill-equipped to do."

As his red-white-and-blue campaign plane flew south along the California
coast, Kerry ticked off what he called the failures and arrogance of the
Bush administration. And he confidently spelled out how he would deal with
key defense matters, from transformation of U.S. forces to improving
relations with U.S. allies.

Kerry disparaged the Bush administration for its failures in the war in
Iraq and its failure to hold anyone accountable for them.

"I think there's a serious question as to why [Defense Secretary Donald]
Rumsfeld and any of them are still around," he said. "When you
miscalculate in war as badly as they have miscalculated, when you don't
have equipment that you're supposed to have, when you short the number of
troops you should have, when you don't even calculate the postwar process
accurately, when you willfully refuse to look at plans drawn up by others
in order to do this right, it's beyond negligence. When you pass off
looting as a minor happening, it's beyond me.

"The lack of accountability up and down the line sends a message
throughout the military that is counter to everything you've learned in
the military," he said.

Kerry argued that he is better qualified to manage the diplomatic and war
fighting duties of the commander-in-chief.

"I have 20 years experience on the [Senate] Foreign Relations Committee; I
have active war fighting experience; I went to chemical, biological
warfare school; I have served on the Arms Control Observer group of the
Senate; I've been chairman of the Narcotics Terrorism Committee; I've
visited bases and troops and countries abroad that are challenges to our
nation; and I think I am ready to be commander-in-chief in this new
world."

Kerry said he has "a greater level of preparation and a better vision of
how we'd make ourselves safe than George Bush has - even now."

>From the outset of his presidency, Kerry said he would work to repair
relations with U.S. allies. In the Middle East, he said he would strive to
get Arab countries more involved in their own policing.

"I believe you have got to turn to the Arab countries and say to them,
'Look, you have a choice, you can have a failed state as your neighbor and
maybe a civil war next door, or you get involved.' I think this
administration does not have the ability to do that because this
administration [disrespected] them so badly going in. I think you need a
new president in order to have a new policy in Iraq."

Kerry said he has influence with Middle Eastern leaders.

"I know Hosni Mubarak, I know King Abdullah [of Jordan], I know [Saudi]
Crown Prince Abdullah. I have dealt with these people for 15 years or more
- not in the case of King Abdullah because he hasn't been there that long,
but I know him. He has been in my home. I have worked with him on economic
development in Jordan. I have a relationship."

Kerry called for a broad dialogue on the Korean peninsula: "a bilateral
negotiation in North Korea where we put the entire force deployment issue
on the table along with the nuclear issue and the economic issue and human
rights issues, and you really try to come to resolution on the armistice."

And in Europe, he said the United States must work to build up the nascent
European defense capability. "It's a good thing for Europe to have a more
developed force, and I think we need to work with them to develop it."

E-mail: <bmatthews at defensenews.com>.