From: David Swanson via DavidSwanson.org <info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, April 8, 2021 11:08 PM
To: miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Biden’s Announcement That Trump Got Military Spending Just Right Is
Dead Wrong
Biden’s Announcement That Trump Got Military Spending Just Right Is Dead Wrong
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By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, April 8, 2021
https://worldbeyondwar.org/bidens-announcement-that-trump-got-military-spending-just-right-is-dead-wrong/
President Joe Biden is proposing a level of Pentagon spending so close to that
of Trump’s last year in office that Bloomberg calls it a 0.4% reduction
adjusting for inflation while Politico calls it a 1.5% increase and
“effectively an inflation-adjusted budget boost.” I call it a disgusting
violation of the will of the public spent in the hypocritical name of a grand
battle against autocracies by so-called democracies, driven in reality by the
influence of war profiteers and contempt for the fate of the planet and the
people on it.
The U.S. public, according to polling, would reduce military spending if it had
something resembling a democracy.
Just five weapons dealers poured $60 million into U.S. election campaign
bribery in 2020. These companies now sell more weapons abroad than to the U.S.
government, with the U.S. State Department acting as a marketing firm, and with
U.S. weapons and/or U.S. military training and/or U.S. government funding going
to the militaries of 96% of the most oppressive governments on earth.
U.S. military spending is $1.25 trillion per year across numerous departments.
Even just taking the $700 billion and change that goes to the Pentagon and
stands in for the full amount in media coverage, U.S. military spending has
been climbing for years, including during the Trump years, and is the
equivalent of many of the world’s top military spenders combined, most of which
are U.S. allies, NATO members, and U.S. weapons customers.
Still using that artificially reduced figure, China is at 37% of it, Russia at
8.9%, and Iran is spending 1.3%. These are, of course, comparisons of absolute
amounts. Per capita comparisons are extreme as well. The United States, every
year, takes $2,170 from every man, woman, and child for wars and war
preparations, while Russia takes $439, China $189, and Iran $114.
“Takes” is the right word. President Eisenhower once admitted it out loud,
saying, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and are not clothed.”
When a mere $30 billion could end starvation on earth, there is no question
that militarism kills first and foremost through the diversion of funds from
where they are needed, while of course risking nuclear apocalypse and driving
environmental collapse, justifying secrecy, fueling bigotry, and degrading
culture.
The madness of militarism is not new, but it is always newly happening in an
environmentally riskier world in more desperate need of a redirection of
resources, and is happening now in the midst of a pandemic. Meanwhile President
Biden proposes to pay for things he wants to spend money on with slight
corporate taxes over 15 years, as if no other expenses will come up between now
and 2036.
A bill in both houses of Congress called the ICBM Act would move funding from
intercontinental ballistic missiles to vaccines. Dozens of Congress Members say
they favor moving funding from militarism to human and environmental needs.
Yet, not a single one has made a public commitment to voting against any bill
that fails to reduce military spending, and not a single one has introduced a
war powers resolution to end a single war, now that Trump’s veto cannot be
relied on to render such an action harmless.
It is a real shame that President Biden is not a member of the Democratic Party
whose 2020 Platform reads: “Democrats believe the measure of our security is
not how much we spend on defense, but how we spend our defense dollars and in
what proportion to other tools in our foreign policy toolbox and other urgent
domestic investments. We believe we can and must ensure our security while
restoring stability, predictability, and fiscal discipline in defense spending.
We spend 13 times more on the military than we do on diplomacy. We spend five
times more in Afghanistan each year than we do on global public health and
preventing the next pandemic. We can maintain a strong defense and protect our
safety and security for less.”
It’s just bad luck that President Biden does not subscribe to the religion
professed by the Pope who remarked last Sunday: “The pandemic is still
spreading, while the social and economic crisis remains severe, especially for
the poor. Nonetheless – and this is scandalous – armed conflicts have not ended
and military arsenals are being strengthened.”
According to Bloomberg, the U.S. military arsenal is being strengthened in a
proper progressive manner: “The $715 billion Pentagon ‘topline’ is likely to be
presented as a compromise to Democrats pressing for cuts in defense spending,
as some of the money would be slated for the Pentagon’s environmental
initiatives.”
With friends like the Pentagon, the environment has no need of enemies, real or
imagined.
According to Politico, wildly out-of-control military spending that Biden
believes Donald Trump got just about exactly right is actually a demonstration
of restraint because “Pentagon budgeteers” have been hoping for more. Let us
weep for them in our own private ways.
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David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is
director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org.
Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and
WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018,
2019 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. Swanson was awarded the 2018 Peace Prize by the
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