[Peace-discuss] Re: Suggested text for Main Event flyer

[C. G. Estabrook]

   WE HAVE THE MONEY - IF ONLY WE DIDN'T WASTE IT ON THE DEFENSE BUDGET
   by Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire
   (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006) --
   all on US militarism and imperialism

There has been much moaning, air-sucking, and outrage about the $700 billion 
that the U.S. government is thinking of throwing away on rich New York bankers 
who have been ripping us off for the past few years and then letting greed drive 
their businesses into a variety of ditches. In fact, we dole out similar amounts 
of money every year in the form of payoffs to the armed services, the 
military-industrial complex, and powerful senators and representatives allied 
with the Pentagon.

On Wednesday, September 24th, right in the middle of the fight over billions of 
taxpayer dollars slated to bail out Wall Street, the House of Representatives 
passed a $612 billion defense authorization bill for 2009 without a murmur of 
public protest or any meaningful press comment at all. (The New York Times gave 
the matter only three short paragraphs buried in a story about another 
appropriations measure.)

The defense bill includes $68.6 billion to pursue the wars in Iraq and 
Afghanistan, which is only a down-payment on the full yearly cost of these wars. 
(The rest will be raised through future supplementary bills.) It also included a 
3.9% pay raise for military personnel, and $5 billion in pork-barrel projects 
not even requested by the administration or the secretary of defense. It also 
fully funds the Pentagon's request for a radar site in the Czech Republic, a 
hare-brained scheme sure to infuriate the Russians just as much as a Russian 
missile base in Cuba once infuriated us. The whole bill passed by a vote of 
392-39 and will fly through the Senate, where a similar bill has already been 
approved. And no one will even think to mention it in the same breath with the 
discussion of bailout funds for dying investment banks and the like.

This is pure waste. Our annual spending on "national security" -- meaning the 
defense budget plus all military expenditures hidden in the budgets for the 
departments of Energy, State, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, the CIA, and numerous 
other places in the executive branch -- already exceeds a trillion dollars, an 
amount larger than that of all other national defense budgets combined. Not only 
was there no significant media coverage of this latest appropriation, there have 
been no signs of even the slightest urge to inquire into the relationship 
between our bloated military, our staggering weapons expenditures, our 
extravagantly expensive failed wars abroad, and the financial catastrophe on 
Wall Street.

The only Congressional "commentary" on the size of our military outlay was the 
usual pompous drivel about how a failure to vote for the defense authorization 
bill would betray our troops. The aged Senator John Warner (R-Va), former 
chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, implored his Republican 
colleagues to vote for the bill "out of respect for military personnel." He 
seems to be unaware that these troops are actually volunteers, not draftees, and 
that they joined the armed forces as a matter of career choice, rather than 
because the nation demanded such a sacrifice from them.

We would better respect our armed forces by bringing the futile and misbegotten 
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to an end. A relative degree of peace and order has 
returned to Iraq not because of President Bush's belated reinforcement of our 
expeditionary army there (the so-called surge), but thanks to shifting internal 
dynamics within Iraq and in the Middle East region generally. Such shifts 
include a growing awareness among Iraq's Sunni population of the need to restore 
law and order, a growing confidence among Iraqi Shi'ites of their nearly 
unassailable position of political influence in the country, and a growing 
awareness among Sunni nations that the ill-informed war of aggression the Bush 
administration waged against Iraq has vastly increased the influence of Shi'ism 
and Iran in the region.

In the past year, perhaps most disastrously, we have carried our Afghan war into 
Pakistan, a relatively wealthy and sophisticated nuclear power that has long 
cooperated with us militarily. Our recent bungling brutality along the 
Afghan-Pakistan border threatens to radicalize the Pashtuns in both countries 
and advance the interests of radical Islam throughout the region. The United 
States is now identified in each country mainly with Hellfire missiles, unmanned 
drones, special operations raids, and repeated incidents of the killing of 
innocent bystanders.

	###

Randall Cotton wrote:
> This goes right along with one of the suggestions made at the meeting
> (something on the economy), is also strongly anti-war and seems to me to
> be an excellent idea. Barbara is supplying electronic content for the
> Kenney events to Durl, who has volunteered to run off the copies, so it
> should be just a matter of posting the edited text to peace-discuss and
> Durl could take it from there. Someone pipe up if I'm wrong on any of this
> 8-)
> 
> Thanks
> R
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
> To: "Randall Cotton" <recotton at earthlink.net>
> Cc: <Peace at lists.chambana.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 11:37 AM
> Subject: Suggested text for Main Event flyer
> 
> 
> : Randall Cotton wrote:
> : >
> : > Someone is needed to create content for AWARE's "Main Event" flyer.
> : > One side of the flyer will contain publicity for AWARE's upcoming Dan
> : > Kenney events, but though there were suggestions for content for the
> : > flipside (see below in the minutes, under "Main Event"), no one has
> come
> : > forward yet to put this together.
> : > Contact: Randall Cotton, recotton at earthlink.net, 351-8644/722-8470
> :
> : > ...
> : > Flyer page 1 will be advertisement for Dan Kenney events
> : > Suggestions for the other side of the flyer:
> : > Something on the economy
> : > Something on local armed forces leaving this week to go to Afghanistan
> : > Something including the statistics that we disseminate via the
> anti-war
> : > electronic billboard
> : >
> : > Volunteer needed to assemble a second side for the flyer
> :
> : [Page 2 of the flyer should complement Kenney's topic by connecting the
> war and
> : the bailout (which is not dead). I'm willing to edit (and format) a
> selection
> : from the following piece by Chalmers Johnson (which is too long to fit
> on one
> : page).  Johnson is the author of three linked books on the crises of
> American
> : imperialism and militarism. They are Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of
> Empire
> : (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic
> (2006). --CGE]
> :
> : We Have the Money.
> : If only we didn't waste it on the defense budget
> : Chalmers Johnson
> :
> : There has been much moaning, air-sucking, and outrage about the $700
> billion
> : that the U.S. government is thinking of throwing away on rich New York
> bankers
> : who have been ripping us off for the past few years and then letting
> greed drive
> : their businesses into a variety of ditches. In fact, we dole out similar
> amounts
> : of money every year in the form of payoffs to the armed services, the
> : military-industrial complex, and powerful senators and representatives
> allied
> : with the Pentagon.
> :
> : On Wednesday, Sept. 24, right in the middle of the fight over billions
> of
> : taxpayer dollars slated to bail out Wall Street, the House of
> Representatives
> : passed a $612 billion defense authorization bill for 2009 without a
> murmur of
> : public protest or any meaningful press comment at all. (The New York
> Times gave
> : the matter only three short paragraphs buried in a story about another
> : appropriations measure.)
> :
> : The defense bill includes $68.6 billion to pursue the wars in Iraq and
> : Afghanistan, which is only a down-payment on the full yearly cost of
> these wars.
> : (The rest will be raised through future supplementary bills.) It also
> included a
> : 3.9 percent pay raise for military personnel and $5 billion in
> pork-barrel
> : projects not even requested by the administration or the secretary of
> defense.
> : It also fully funds the Pentagon's request for a radar site in the Czech
> : Republic, a hare-brained scheme sure to infuriate the Russians just as
> much as a
> : Russian missile base in Cuba once infuriated us. The whole bill passed
> by a vote
> : of 392-39 and will fly through the Senate, where a similar bill has
> already been
> : approved. And no one will even think to mention it in the same breath
> with the
> : discussion of bailout funds for dying investment banks and the like.
> :
> : This is pure waste. Our annual spending on "national security" – meaning
> the
> : defense budget plus all military expenditures hidden in the budgets for
> the
> : departments of Energy, State, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, the CIA, and
> numerous
> : other places in the executive branch – already exceeds a trillion
> dollars, an
> : amount larger than that of all other national defense budgets combined.
> Not only
> : was there no significant media coverage of this latest appropriation,
> there have
> : been no signs of even the slightest urge to inquire into the
> relationship
> : between our bloated military, our staggering weapons expenditures, our
> : extravagantly expensive failed wars abroad, and the financial
> catastrophe on
> : Wall Street.
> :
> : The only congressional "commentary" on the size of our military outlay
> was the
> : usual pompous drivel about how a failure to vote for the defense
> authorization
> : bill would betray our troops. The aged Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), former
> chairman
> : of the Senate Armed Services Committee, implored his Republican
> colleagues to
> : vote for the bill "out of respect for military personnel." He seems to
> be
> : unaware that these troops are actually volunteers, not draftees, and
> that they
> : joined the armed forces as a matter of career choice, rather than
> because the
> : nation demanded such a sacrifice from them.
> :
> : We would better respect our armed forces by bringing the futile and
> misbegotten
> : wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to an end. A relative degree of peace and
> order has
> : returned to Iraq not because of President Bush's belated reinforcement
> of our
> : expeditionary army there (the so-called surge), but thanks to shifting
> internal
> : dynamics within Iraq and in the Middle East region generally. Such
> shifts
> : include a growing awareness among Iraq's Sunni population of the need to
> restore
> : law and order, a growing confidence among Iraqi Shi'ites of their nearly
> : unassailable position of political influence in the country, and a
> growing
> : awareness among Sunni nations that the ill-informed war of aggression
> the Bush
> : administration waged against Iraq has vastly increased the influence of
> Shi'ism
> : and Iran in the region.
> :
> : The continued presence of American troops and their heavily reinforced
> bases in
> : Iraq threatens this return to relative stability. The refusal of the
> Shia
> : government of Iraq to agree to an American Status of Forces Agreement –
> much
> : desired by the Bush administration – that would exempt off-duty American
> troops
> : from Iraqi law is actually a good sign for the future of Iraq.
> :
> : In Afghanistan, our historically deaf generals and civilian strategists
> do not
> : seem to understand that our defeat by the Afghan insurgents is
> inevitable. Since
> : the time of Alexander the Great, no foreign intruder has ever prevailed
> over
> : Afghan guerrillas defending their home turf. The first Anglo-Afghan War
> : (1838-1842) marked a particularly humiliating defeat of British
> imperialism at
> : the very height of English military power in the Victorian era. The
> : Soviet-Afghan War (1978-1989) resulted in a Russian defeat so
> demoralizing that
> : it contributed significantly to the disintegration of the former Soviet
> Union in
> : 1991. We are now on track to repeat virtually all the errors committed
> by
> : previous invaders of Afghanistan over the centuries.
> :
> : In the past year, perhaps most disastrously, we have carried our Afghan
> war into
> : Pakistan, a relatively wealthy and sophisticated nuclear power that has
> long
> : cooperated with us militarily. Our recent bungling brutality along the
> : Afghan-Pakistan border threatens to radicalize the Pashtuns in both
> countries
> : and advance the interests of radical Islam throughout the region. The
> United
> : States is now identified in each country mainly with Hellfire missiles,
> unmanned
> : drones, special operations raids, and repeated incidents of the killing
> of
> : innocent bystanders.
> :
> : The brutal bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital,
> Islamabad, on
> : Sept. 20, 2008, was a powerful indicator of the spreading strength of
> virulent
> : anti-American sentiment in the area. The hotel was a well-known watering
> hole
> : for American Marines, Special Forces troops, and CIA agents. Our
> military
> : activities in Pakistan have been as misguided as the Nixon-Kissinger
> invasion of
> : Cambodia in 1970. The end result will almost surely be the same.
> :
> : We should begin our disengagement from Afghanistan at once. We dislike
> the
> : Taliban's fundamentalist religious values, but the Afghan public, with
> its
> : desperate desire for a return of law and order and the curbing of
> corruption,
> : knows that the Taliban is the only political force in the country that
> has ever
> : brought the opium trade under control. The Pakistanis and their
> effective army
> : can defend their country from Taliban domination so long as we abandon
> the
> : activities that are causing both Afghans and Pakistanis to see the
> Taliban as a
> : lesser evil.
> :
> : One of America's greatest authorities on the defense budget, Winslow
> Wheeler,
> : worked for 31 years for Republican members of the Senate and for the
> General
> : Accounting Office on military expenditures. His conclusion, when it
> comes to the
> : fiscal sanity of our military spending, is devastating:
> :
> : "America's defense budget is now larger in inflation-adjusted dollars
> than at
> : any point since the end of World War II, and yet our Army has fewer
> combat
> : brigades than at any point in that period; our Navy has fewer combat
> ships; and
> : the Air Force has fewer combat aircraft. Our major equipment inventories
> for
> : these major forces are older on average than any point since 1946 – or
> in some
> : cases, in our entire history."
> :
> : This in itself is a national disgrace. Spending hundreds of billions of
> dollars
> : on present and future wars that have nothing to do with our national
> security is
> : simply obscene. And yet Congress has been corrupted by the
> military-industrial
> : complex into believing that, by voting for more defense spending, they
> are
> : supplying "jobs" for the economy. In fact, they are only diverting
> scarce
> : resources from the desperately needed rebuilding of the American
> infrastructure
> : and other crucial spending necessities into utterly wasteful munitions.
> If we
> : cannot cut back our long-standing, ever increasing military spending in
> a major
> : way, then the bankruptcy of the United States is inevitable. As the
> current Wall
> : Street meltdown has demonstrated, that is no longer an abstract
> possibility but
> : a growing likelihood. We do not have much time left.
> :
> : ###
> :
> :
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/listinfo/peace-discuss