[corp-focus] Military Lunacy: How About a Bit of Common Sense?

[robert weissman]

MILITARY LUNACY: HOW ABOUT A BIT OF COMMON SENSE?
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

In a crazy place, even the most modest steps toward sanity can seem radical.

Thus, in Washington, the Common Sense Budget Act, introduced this week
by Representative Lynn Woolsey of California, seems like a far-reaching
move.

In fact, it might be better titled the "How About Just a Bit of Common
Sense Act."

The legislation would divert $60 billion from the Pentagon budget, and
allocate it to social investment, renewable energy and humanitarian aid.
Fifteen other members of the Progressive Caucus, of which Woolsey is
co-chair, are co-sponsoring the bill.

Sixty billion dollars obviously goes a long way when it comes to
people's needs, and the legislation promises to do a lot. Among the
programs that would benefit:

* $10 billion annually would go to provide health care coverage for
millions of uninsured children.

* $10 billion a year would be spent on modernizing schools.

* $10 billion would be invested annually in renewable energy.

* $13 billion would be spent every year on humanitarian foreign aid.

Yes, $60 billion is a tremendous amount of money.

But not for the Department of Defense. The Pentagon is seeking $463
billion for the next fiscal year. That figure excludes the amount
Rumsfeld and friends will request to fight the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan (and anywhere else they might start fights). For
war-fighting, the administration is expected to seek an additional $115
billion in 2006. So we're approaching $600 billion a year in defense/war
spending.

The proposed cuts for the Pentagon follows recommendations from Reagan
Assistant Defense Secretary Lawrence J. Korb. In a report issued in
conjunction with the introduction of the Common Sense Budget Act, Korb
writes that, "without diminishing America's ability to fight extremists,
America can save $60 billion mostly by eliminating Cold War-era weapons
systems designed to thwart the former Soviet Union -- weapons and
programs that are not useful in defending our country from extremists or
the other threats we now face." Most of the proposed savings come from
reducing the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, cutting most spending for
the missile defense program, and scaling back or eliminating support for
weapons designed to fight perceived threats from the Soviet Union.

In other words, these are no-brainer cost savings. They aim to stop
spending on Cold War weaponry, but don't threaten the prevailing
war-fighting ideology at the Pentagon. The proposed cuts would upset
particular defense contractors and agencies, to be sure, but they don't
pose a fundamental challenge to the Pentagon's vice grip over the
federal budget and inside-the-beltway politics and culture.

By way of perspective, consider this: global military expenditures
soared past the $1 trillion mark in 2004, according to data compiled by
the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and
published in the Institute's 2005 Yearbook. In inflation-adjusted terms,
military spending is now rivaling the record total achieved during the
peak of Cold War expenditures in 1988-1989, according to SIPRI.

Since 1998, government military spending has jumped almost 6 percent
annually in real terms. "The major determinant of the world trend in
military expenditure is the change in the USA, which makes up 47 percent
of the world total," according to SIPRI's 2005 Yearbook.

By 2007, U.S. spending is expected to constitute more than half the
total global military expenditure.

There are roughly 300 million people living in the United States. There
are about 6.5 billion people on the planet, meaning the U.S. population
is about 4.6 percent of the global total.

One half the world's military spending. Under 5 percent of the world's
population.

Crazy.


Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter, <http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com>. Robert Weissman is
editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor,
<http://www.multinationalmonitor.org>. Mokhiber and Weissman are
co-authors of On the Rampage: Corporate Predators and the Destruction of
Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press).

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

This article is posted at:
<http://lists.essential.org/pipermail/corp-focus/2006/000233.html>