Post by bot on May 22, 2004 23:19:05 GMT -5
War Profiteering: Reckless Greed and Scandalous -- alt.politics.bush, 01:35:57 11/27/03 Thu
From: Gandalf Grey (gandalfgrey@infectedmail.com)
Subject: Der Fuhrer's Military Spending: Scary and Scandalous
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater, alt.current-events.wtc.bush-knew, alt.impeach.bush, alt.politics, alt.politics.bush, alt.politics.liberalism, alt.society.liberalism, talk.politics.misc
Date: 2003-11-26 11:37:11 PST
www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,1093202,00.html
Scary and scandalous
Leader
Wednesday November 26, 2003
The Guardian
The US administration's defence authorisation bill for fiscal year 2004 was
signed into law by George Bush this week. In all, it totals $401.3bn.
Amazingly, this figure does not include one-off appropriations for US
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan of approximately $150bn. Overall US
defence expenditure under Mr Bush is at record levels. It is higher, in
relative terms, than equivalent, average American spending during the cold
war years when a hostile Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact confronted the US and
its allies with thousands of nuclear warheads deployed on land, at sea and
in the air, as well as chemical and biological weapons and vast conventional
forces. Yet Mr Bush suggested that terrorism now represented the most potent
threat in the history of the US. "The war on terror is different than (sic)
any war America has ever fought," he said. "This threat to civilisation will
be defeated. We will do whatever it takes." So much for the peace dividend.
Mr Bush's knowledge of history is not a matter that should detain us here,
no more than is the meaning in this context of the word civilisation which,
like Jack Straw, he presumably uses "advisedly". It is clear that Mr Bush
senses a very great menace; and that he will take every opportunity between
now and the next election to tell American voters how much they have to
fear. This is an unusually disconcerting, manipulative message. His campaign
slogan could almost be: "Vote for Bush. It's really scary".
Whatever the actual, unexaggerated threat level may be, some elements of the
defence bill are really scary, too - or just plain scandalous. They include
exemptions for the military from provisions of the Endangered Species Act
and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Apparently unpatriotic dolphins and
various pacifist fish have been thoughtlessly obstructing training
exercises. The bill gives $9.1bn for the further development of Mr Bush's
"Star Wars" global ballistic missile defence wheeze. And it authorises
spending on research into a new generation of battlefield nuclear weapons,
so-called "mini-nukes" and "bunker-busters" that, if built, will make
nuclear warfare both more doable and more likely. This project breaches the
spirit if not the letter of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which, in a
developing world context, the US righteously and noisily insists upon. It is
itself a potentially egregious act of proliferation. Japan, the world's only
nuclear victim so far, protested yesterday that the future US deployment of
such weapons is "something which cannot be allowed". Yes, but can it be
stopped?
From: Gandalf Grey (gandalfgrey@infectedmail.com)
Subject: Der Fuhrer's Military Spending: Scary and Scandalous
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format
Newsgroups: alt.current-events.clinton.whitewater, alt.current-events.wtc.bush-knew, alt.impeach.bush, alt.politics, alt.politics.bush, alt.politics.liberalism, alt.society.liberalism, talk.politics.misc
Date: 2003-11-26 11:37:11 PST
www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,1093202,00.html
Scary and scandalous
Leader
Wednesday November 26, 2003
The Guardian
The US administration's defence authorisation bill for fiscal year 2004 was
signed into law by George Bush this week. In all, it totals $401.3bn.
Amazingly, this figure does not include one-off appropriations for US
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan of approximately $150bn. Overall US
defence expenditure under Mr Bush is at record levels. It is higher, in
relative terms, than equivalent, average American spending during the cold
war years when a hostile Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact confronted the US and
its allies with thousands of nuclear warheads deployed on land, at sea and
in the air, as well as chemical and biological weapons and vast conventional
forces. Yet Mr Bush suggested that terrorism now represented the most potent
threat in the history of the US. "The war on terror is different than (sic)
any war America has ever fought," he said. "This threat to civilisation will
be defeated. We will do whatever it takes." So much for the peace dividend.
Mr Bush's knowledge of history is not a matter that should detain us here,
no more than is the meaning in this context of the word civilisation which,
like Jack Straw, he presumably uses "advisedly". It is clear that Mr Bush
senses a very great menace; and that he will take every opportunity between
now and the next election to tell American voters how much they have to
fear. This is an unusually disconcerting, manipulative message. His campaign
slogan could almost be: "Vote for Bush. It's really scary".
Whatever the actual, unexaggerated threat level may be, some elements of the
defence bill are really scary, too - or just plain scandalous. They include
exemptions for the military from provisions of the Endangered Species Act
and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Apparently unpatriotic dolphins and
various pacifist fish have been thoughtlessly obstructing training
exercises. The bill gives $9.1bn for the further development of Mr Bush's
"Star Wars" global ballistic missile defence wheeze. And it authorises
spending on research into a new generation of battlefield nuclear weapons,
so-called "mini-nukes" and "bunker-busters" that, if built, will make
nuclear warfare both more doable and more likely. This project breaches the
spirit if not the letter of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which, in a
developing world context, the US righteously and noisily insists upon. It is
itself a potentially egregious act of proliferation. Japan, the world's only
nuclear victim so far, protested yesterday that the future US deployment of
such weapons is "something which cannot be allowed". Yes, but can it be
stopped?