Overgrown U.S. military unnecessary today

Tuesday, November 17, 1998

Overgrown U.S. military unnecessary today

PENTAGON: With fewer enemies, more cost-effective alternatives,
America should change policies

Until two days ago, America was beating the drums of war. Since
Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had refused the United Nations’
chemical-weapon inspections mandated by the 1991 Gulf War
ceasefire, President Clinton promised military strikes. Hussein
blinked, and Clinton called off his dogs. Troops stand at the
ready, however, in case Hussein should renege. This averted crisis
gives us a chance to scrutinize one of the least-scrutinized areas
of American government – the military – and its role in the
politics, economics and ethics of post-Cold War society.

Just how invested are we in the military?

The wealth that our country pours into its elephantine defense
network is almost beyond comprehension. Whatever you thought about
the Soviet "menace", its collapse leaves no monolithic enemy to
feed the American war machine. Nevertheless, defense spending
remains near Cold War levels. The new budget agreement for the 1999
fiscal year allocates about $271 billion in taxpayer money for
defense – $3 billion more than last year and $9 billion more than
the White House and Congress originally promised.

It’s also about $120 billion over the combined military budgets
of Russia, China and all the "rogue" states, and $50 billion over
that of the European allies. Just to put that in perspective: the
Pentagon got to have 30 Super Hornet fighters this year. If it
could make do with 23 of them, there’d be enough money left over to
give free tuition to every first-year student on the University of
California’s nine campuses for four years. If it could squeak by
with 12 (instead of 13) C-17 transport aircrafts, we could triple
the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts. Slicing five
percent from the total military pie would restore Aid to Families
with Dependent Children (AFDC), abolished under Clinton’s
welfare-reform bill.

Aren’t defense programs job programs?

Defense is one of the least efficient departments in
government.

According to the Center for Defense Information, every $1
billion of the Pentagon’s budget creates about 25,000 jobs; the
same amount could create 36,000 housing jobs, 40,000 education jobs
and 47,000 health-care jobs.

Skilled workers displaced by military cuts would have plenty of
places to go: our overcrowded schools, crumbling infrastructure and
antiquated commercial transportation systems. Besides, most
government welfare for the Pentagon flows directly into the coffers
of aerospace corporations that are contracted to build their
expensive toys.

It’s just one of many examples of public funds being pumped into
the only thing Clinton has ever really cared about – private
enterprise. You know these companies’ names: General Electric,
Boeing, Rockwell, Lockheed-Martin, etc. Their trend has actually
been to cut jobs rather than create them, laying off workers by the
thousands or replacing them with part-timers, even as profits and
executive salaries climb steadily.

Doesn’t the United States need to remain a strong world
power?

Even if you say yes, our obscene levels of defense spending are
out of all proportion to any real or imagined threat. Lacking an
international conflict, our government will invent one. Clinton
claimed that military threats were the only way to get Saddam
Hussein to submit to chemical-weapon inspections, an obligation
from which our own military is blissfully free. But the United
States was never committed to a diplomatic solution in the first
place. Originally, we made weapons inspection the job of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which meant that we were really
interested in gathering intelligence, not keeping the peace.
Eventually the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) took
over, but it refused to adopt the aggressive enforcement policy
recommended by then-head Scott Ritter.

Suspecting that UNSCOM was pulling its punches under U.S.
instructions, Ritter – who is no dove himself – resigned in
frustration. Then, announcing that all negotiations had failed, the
United States prepared to bomb Iraq back to the stone age. Doing so
wouldn’t have destroyed Iraq’s chemical-weapon facilities, since we
didn’t know where they were. But it would have destroyed the lives
of countless civilians, already made wretched by a U.S.
embargo.

A good dust-up like this is just what the military-industrial
complex needs to justify itself to taxpayers. Don’t expect that
Clinton will send his troops home now. If anything, he will credit
American military might for averting war and then increase our
presence in the Middle East. It’s the old "peace through strength"
argument, which is akin to strolling around Los Angeles with an
"elephant gun" bragging, "See? It works!" War itself tends to be
bad PR, but the perpetual threat of war is an excellent business
solution.

What about terrorism?

The greatest international terrorists are American creations.
Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who masterminded the World Trade Center
bombing in 1992, was coddled for years by the CIA. Overlooking his
proven terrorist record, the agency had given him a visa in
exchange for his informing against the Soviets in Afghanistan
during the 1980s.

In that same "freedom fighting" period, the CIA also supplied
weapons and training camps for one Osama bin Laden, who allegedly
repaid the favor by blowing up the American embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania last August. With egg on its face, the United States –
hastily, unilaterally and in clear violation of international law –
retaliated by bombing pharmaceutical plants in Sudan and
Afghanistan, which we "mistook" for chemical-weapon mills.

Afghanistan, by the way, is governed by the brutal Taliban
regime, which the United States supports. If these marriages of
convenience don’t sound logical or moral to you, it’s because they
aren’t. Justice is the least of the considerations in U.S. foreign
policy.

You may be interested to know that last July, when 120 nations
voted to establish an International Criminal Court for the
prosecution of war crimes, the United States was one of seven to
vote against it (we wanted a guarantee of immunity for our own
military).

Another one was Israel, whose U.S.-sanctioned intransigence in
ceding land to the Palestinians helps create an international
siege-environment. We also show no intention of settling our $1.5
billion in outstanding debt to the United Nations; as soon as this
figure outstrips our last two years’ payments, we will lose our
vote in the U.N. general assembly.

This kind of arrogance and hypocrisy demands a nationwide debate
on defense, an issue that’s almost disappeared from the table.

The public needs to shift the definition of "leadership" from
"missile diplomacy" to social justice and human rights, and let our
elected officials need to know that we’re expecting them to follow
suit.

The government can start by abolishing the CIA, which exists
solely to subvert democracy in the pursuit of American capitalism
around the globe. Soon-to-be-retired Sen. Pat Moynihan (D-N.Y.) has
been suggesting this move for years, and we need more people in
government with the guts to stand up to the American war machine.
Now, that would be real patriotism.

School voucher update:

Last week the Supreme Court refused to hear challenges to a
Milwaukee, Wis. statute that allows parents to enroll their
children in private schools at public expense. Opponents argued
that the law violated the separation of church and state because
the vouchers could be used at parochial schools.

Affirmative action update:

Ron Takaki, a professor of Asian-American studies at Berkeley,
has drafted a ballot proposal that’s in need of organizers and
backers. E-mail me if you’re interested.Adam Komisaruk

Comments, feedback, problems?

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