Swans

What Kind of Nation Neglects Everything BUT Weapons?

by Dale Bumpers

January 16, 2000

 

 

January 16, 2000 - Note from the Editor:  Our friends at Timeline passed on the following reprint of a letter by former senator Dale Bumpers, now director of the Center for Defense Information (CDI), a group of retired generals, admirals, and other high-level military officers in Washington, D.C. We include a couple of figures to emphasize where our national priorities are. In addition, this week, we are reproducing a very pertinent analysis by former State Department Yugoslavia officer George Kenney, Kosovo: On Ends and Means, which was initially published in The Nation. Once you've read both pieces you may want to ask yourself two questions: Have you heard any discussion on the campaign trail about these issues, and what kind of people are we becoming?

 

We have just witnessed what may be the biggest U.S. foreign and military policy disaster in modern times: Congress' resounding rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Today, the world is much less safe than it was.

Congress has surrendered America's moral authority and our leadership on nuclear arms issues, effectively saying to every nation on Earth, "Nukes are important to us and they should be to you, too." India, Pakistan, China, and Russia have all, in the past, said they would ratify the CTBT when the U.S. did. Now, they are free to modernize; proliferation will surely follow.

The arguments against the Treaty were partisan and pitiful. Opponents said the Treaty was not verifiable, which is untrue. The Treaty itself provides for 337 worldwide monitoring stations. They said it wasn't perfect, and that's true, as with every treaty we ever ratified. The CTBT is the first major treaty to be defeated since the Versailles Treaty in 1920, and we will pay a heavy price.

One of the most dangerous assumptions in America today is that the end of the Cold War greatly diminished the threat of nuclear war. That's not only dangerous, it's dead wrong. As Russia's conventional forces have declined in quantity and

quality, she has become more reliant on her nuclear forces. Yet Russia's Early Warning System is woefully inadequate and subject to fake warnings. It stretches credulity to believe we can have over 15,000 strategic warheads in the hands of seven nations and not ultimately see them used.

The nuclear danger from the CTBT debacle is heightened by the U.S. drive to deploy a National Missile Defense. Moscow has announced in clear and unmistakable terms that if the U.S. deploys such a system, Russia will have no choice but to modernize and change its nuclear targets to include our missile defense sites. They correctly say that overwhelming our missile defense system will be much simpler and cheaper than trying to build their own.

Ask yourself this question: How would the U.S. respond if the Russians announced they were building a missile defense system, had just succeeded in their first intercept, and then two weeks later rejected the CTBT?

The U.S. has about 6,500 strategic warheads, and the Russians 7,000. About 3,000 of theirs and 2,500 of ours are on "hair trigger" alert, ready to fire at a moment's notice. It is sheer madness. It would take only 24 hours to de-alert every one of these weapons, and CDI has joined others in pleading with the President to engage the Russians on this urgent matter.

 

President Clinton's Proposed FY2000 Discretionary Budget

Military............................................................................................................................................................................................281
Education..................................................................35
Health.......................................................................31
Justice....................................................................26
Natural Resources & Environment..................24
International Affairs............................................21
Housing Assistance.........................................19
Science & Space...............................................19
Veterans Benefits..............................................19
Training, Employment & Social Services....17
Transportation.................................................14
General Government.....................................13
Other Income Security..................................11
Economic Development...............................9
Social Security & Medicare..........................6
Commerce....................................................5
Agriculture....................................................4
Energy..........................................................3
...................................................0..............50.............100............150.............200............250........

BILLIONS OF DOLLARS

Source: Center for Defense Information, Washington D.C.

NOTE. For the fiscal year 2000 budget, Congress increased defense spending by 8 billion dollars while funding for all other programs either remained constant or was reduced.

NEW MASSIVE INCREASES FOR THE PENTAGON

Military spending for FY2000 jumped $20 billion over last year and will soar by $133 billion over the next six years--without a credible threat in sight. Now everyone, including the Department of Defense, may get a 1 percent funding cut. Incredibly, the Pentagon says this 1 percent cut would jeopardize national defense. Incidentally, the military got their $20 billion increase first, leaving everyone else to fend for themselves.

The massive spending on the military has no rationale whatever. No new threat, no foreseen threat. We believe the expenditures planned for attack submarines ($63 billion), for 3,800 new fighter planes ($350-450 billion), for 600 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft and other weapons are excessively costly and totally unnecessary. Here are the results of years of making everyone else fend for themselves:

1.  We rank 19th in education among the top 29 industrialized nations;
2.  28,000,000 Americans can't identify the U.S. on a world map;
3.  140,000 youngsters eligible for Head Start won't get a head start for lack of money;
4.  Over 100,000 aliens are being invited to accept U.S. citizenship if they possess high-tech skills, because we're not educating enough people to fill these jobs;
5.  U.S. teachers' salaries are the lowest as a percentage of national income of any nation on Earth.

You and I have a solemn duty to do everything in our power to change our priorities. There are some 30 ethnic and religious wars going on in the world, each a result of ignorance and poverty. As we become a more diverse society, we must do everything possible to dramatically improve the education, health, and economic well-being of our people. When only 36 percent of our people care enough to vote, our democracy is threatened. What kind of nation neglects everything but weaponry?


To further demonstrate:

Cost of waging war against Yugoslavia for ONE day: $160 million
Proposed American government's contribution to the worldwide campaign against AIDS: $325 million for the ENTIRE year

 

This Week's Other Article:

Kosovo: On Ends and Means by George Kenney (initially published in The Nation)

 

Resources on the War in Yugoslavia and its Aftermath

 

Articles Published on Swans Regarding the War in Yugoslavia and its Aftermath


Published January 16, 2000
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