Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: economy

  • Stoking an Asian Cold War?

    This article was originally published by In Depth News.

    Proxy wars between countries was one of the more tragic features of the Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR. Both super-powers fuelled the conflicts supplying military materiel and political support while they piously claimed that nuclear deterrence worked so that they themselves never went to war. The U.S. in particular claimed that the George Kennan doctrine of the “containment” of the USSR worked and ere long the Communist giant imploded obligingly.

    Fast forward two decades, and a declining U.S. super power, trapped in economic woes of its own making, is groping for ways to contain a rising China. Proxy wars are no longer possible especially for a super power mired in the morass of Iraq and Afghanistan and encumbered by the unending and ubiquitous “war against terrorism” fighting an unseen enemy.

    What better then than to outsource the task of the containment of China to ambitious India and reluctant Japan? That, essentially, is the subtext of the unusually lengthy Joint Statement that came out at the conclusion of President Obama’s recent visit to India and the rationale for his Asian tour. Unsurprisingly both Japan and now India are the chosen candidates of the U.S. for permanent member status in the UN Security Council.

    The scenario has been a long time in gestation and operation and spans the presidencies of Bush the Son and of Barak Obama giving it the bipartisan support it needs as national security policy. For India — the world’s most populous democracy unable to match China’s poverty alleviation record and bedevilled by home-grown terrorism — the opportunity to escape the stigma of ostracism following the 1998 nuclear blasts was too good to be true.

    The Nehruvian vision of Non-alignment and moral superiority as the key to Great Power status had failed to unlock the door. Now it was self-built economic muscle (and a clever manipulation of the U.S. political system by the wealthy Indian lobby) and a replay of the old “Yellow Peril” cry replayed as a “string of pearls” theory that secured a place at the high table.

    The sophistication of Indian diplomacy will ensure that the new game will be played with finesse and without any of the crudity of the earlier proxy wars. It will garner huge bilateral trade and technology-transfer benefits for itself while maintaining normal relations with China competing at the same time for economic payoffs and political influence with China in Asia and Africa with U.S. support.

    Japan was settling into a low-key role after brief episode of assertiveness under Koizumi and a succession of bland Prime Ministers with little impact on the international political and economic scene. But China’s ill-conceived saber-rattling over the Diaoyu Tai or Senkaku islands plus Medvedev’s ill-timed visit to the Kuril Islands has made her ready to question China on its intentions in the East and South China Seas, recall its Ambassador from Moscow and play hard ball in the Six Nation Talks over North Korea’s nuclear weapon programme.

    It is a dangerous game to play especially since China is able to revive old animosities against the Japanese with its domestic audience and apply economic pressures as well. For the U.S. the revitalization of its old alliance with Japan on the eastern flank of China was long overdue and the rebuff over Okinawa was a sign that Japan had to fall back in line.

    While the speculation over the shift of the global centre of gravity from the Atlantic to the Pacific goes on, the Atlantic powers — the U.S. and NATO militarily and the U.S. and the EU economically — are not ready to abdicate their role in global affairs. The logical — and inexpensive — way to continue to exert influence in the Pacific and the Indian Oceans is through allies justifying their selection as a natural alliance among “democracies” with a common allegiance to human rights, anti-terrorism and nuclear non-proliferation (giving the Obama slogan of “a nuclear weapon free world” a rest).

    The side benefits are to break Non-aligned and G77 solidarity in the UN and other forums like the World Trade Organization’s Doha Round of negotiations and the upcoming Climate Change talks in Cancun isolating China at the same time. Possible irritants in the newly forged U.S.-EU-Japan-India axis will continue to be India’s stance regarding Iran’s nuclear programme, China’s human rights record and Myanmar or Burma’s military junta. The adroit management of this will be a small price to pay rather than giving the Republicans the satisfaction of shredding Obama’s foreign policy as they have done with his domestic policies.

  • Economic Justice for All

    “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

    These revolutionary words from the Declaration of Independence are worth reflecting upon in light of the current struggle for economic justice in America. The government of the United States, the richest and most powerful country in the world, is perpetuating economic injustice within the United States and throughout the world. While the government seems to have unlimited funds for missiles and munitions, it is failing to provide health care, housing or education for large segments of the US population.

    Millions of Americans, including working Americans, live below the poverty line. There are more than 40 million Americans without health insurance with little or no access to basic medical care. There are tens of millions of Americans without homes, and home ownership is becoming an impossible dream for most young Americans. The possibilities of a college education are also receding for young Americans, as the funds provided for education diminish. The truth is that we have no economic justice in this country and the situation is growing rapidly worse under the Bush administration.

    State budgets are running in the red, and that means that their services to the people are diminishing. In 2002, states cut $49 billion in health care, welfare benefits, education and other public services. They plan to cut another $25.7 billion in 2003. State budget cuts this year and last year will be nearly equivalent to the initial amounts requested by Mr. Bush and allocated by Congress for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Rather than help the states in meeting their budgets, and thereby support the American people, Mr. Bush has squandered our federal funds on an illegal foreign war.

    In spite of these shortfalls, Mr. Bush pressed for tax cuts of over $700 billion over a ten year period, tax relief that would go largely to the wealthiest Americans. Congress ended up passing tax cuts of $330 billion, less than half of the Bush request. While some $20 billion will go back to the states, the bulk of the relief will benefit the very rich, including Mr. Bush and many in his cabinet. Most Americans will receive a few hundred dollars or less, and the poorest Americans will receive nothing or next to nothing. By contrast, the richest Americans will receive tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax relief.

    This means that those at the top of the economic pyramid will have more money to contribute to the candidates of their choice, who in turn will help them to get a larger share of the economic pie. The rest of us predictably will get a smaller share of the pie, and there are far more of us to compete for these leftovers.

    In America, if you are rich, it is very likely that the president and the Congress will be working for your interests, by providing tax cuts and other benefits. If you are poor, who will be representing you in our democracy? It is not likely to be the present incumbent of the White House. Nor is it likely to be your member of Congress, when many in Congress are indebted to corporate interests.

    If you are poor and not well educated in America, you may be able to work for minimum wage. That will probably be enough to keep you struggling below the poverty line, particularly if you have children, and your children will be forced to join you in poverty. Further, if these children do not receive a decent education, the cycle will go on and will likely be perpetuated to their children.

    If you are poor in America and you are young, you may be able to join the military. We couldn’t have a voluntary military without high levels of poverty. And without a voluntary military, we couldn’t have perpetual wars because then the politicians and their financial supporters would have to send their own sons and daughters to fight. They wouldn’t be any more likely to do this than they would be to volunteer to go themselves to fight. They far prefer to send your sons and daughters to kill and die in foreign lands. In actuality, only one member of Congress had a child fighting in Iraq.

    The war against Iraq is likely to cost the American taxpayer at least $100 billion and possibly much more. Those who profit will certainly include the Defense Contractors, those who provide the munitions and other material expended in the war. Other profiteers from the war will be those contracted to rebuild what we have destroyed in Iraq and, of course, the multinational oil companies.

    Corporate names such as Halliburton, Dick Cheney’s old company, and Bechtel will be among the winners from this war. Lockheed Martin, Ratheon, the Carlyle Group and other giant defense contractors will undoubtedly also be among the winners. The poor and middle class in America, as well as the people of Iraq, will be among the losers.

    We are now spending some $400 billion a year on our military forces, not including the special expenditures for the war in Iraq. This is approximately one-half of the money that Congress has discretion to allocate each year. The money that goes to the military cannot go to social programs that would lead to economic justice in our country. Money that goes to the military cannot even defend America as 9/11 demonstrated so dramatically.

    Four hundred billion dollars a year on the military is over $1.1 billion dollars a day. It works out to $45.5 million per hour, $761,000 per minute. Imagine all of the important social programs that will go unfunded or underfunded to pay that $400 billion per year for a military that cannot defend us.

    Some 500 billionaires on this planet, mostly Americans, have the equivalent assets of half of the world’s population. Three billion people on our planet live on less that $2 per day. More than one billion people live on less than $1 dollar per day. Over a billion people lack access to clean water, and over 2.5 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation. Millions of people die annually throughout the developing world due to water-borne diseases and inadequate sanitation.

    On our planet over one billion people are illiterate, and some 100 million children are denied access to primary education. For a small portion of what the US government spends on its military, it could be saving lives and building friendships by humanitarian assistance in food, health care, education and sanitation.

    Secretary of State Colin Powell has called for battling against poverty in the war against terrorism. “We have to go after poverty,” he said. “We have to go after despair. We have to go after hopelessness.”

    Of course, Secretary Powell is right about this, but it isn’t what our country has done historically, and Powell’s clarion call will not likely be heard in the White House. The US remains last among industrialized countries in the amount of its gross domestic product that it allocates for international development at 0.11 percent. The US is spending more on its plans to research, develop and deploy missile defenses ($7.8 billion) than it for its international humanitarian and development assistance ($7.6 billion). We are not seriously “going after poverty,” as Mr. Powell advised, but rather going after bombs, wars and missile shields.

    Our failure to make a serious effort to stem poverty and injustice in the world is leading to resentment, anger and aggression toward America and innocent Americans. Pumping large amounts of money into the military is not an answer to these problems and makes the situation even less secure for the average American. We need to change our policies both at home and abroad to bolster economic and social justice. We need to fund bread rather than bombs.

    If we want economic justice in America, we are going to have to change our direction. We are going to have to share the resources of the country with its people, not only the wealthy few, and also be more generous abroad. The United States is not meant to be a country “of the rich, by the rich and for the rich.” It is a country, we are taught, “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We are the People and, for the good of ourselves and the world, we had better reclaim our country and reallocate our resources.

    This means a far greater involvement of the people in our democratic processes. It means throwing out the politicians of both political parties who serve the interests of the corporations over the interests of the People. It means reallocating resources away from the militarization of America toward meeting the social needs of the poorest among us and allowing all Americans to live a better life.

    The American dream is being squandered by a small group of extremist ideologues who are both greedy and myopic. Let us reclaim our land from these extremists. Let us strive to be a great country because we care for each other, particularly the least among us, and for the world in which we live. The implications of restoring economic justice are profound. They lie at the heart of environmental devastation of our planet and the suffering of large portions of humanity. Economic justice may prove to be a far more important factor in quelling terrorism than military force.

    We can begin by empowering ourselves to bring about the changes necessary to achieve economic justice in our country and in the world. We can start by speaking out and urging our members of Congress to oppose tax cuts and instead allocate this money to support health care, housing and education. Let us also urge our members of Congress to vote to cut back on obscene military expenditures and transfer these funds instead to meeting human needs, in the United States and throughout the world. The next step should be to work through the electoral process to replace those political leaders who remain indebted to corporate interests and committed to the militarization of America. By taking these steps, by our engagement, we can move toward restoring dignity and economic justice at home and abroad.
    * David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the co-author of Choose Hope, and the editor of Hope in a Dark Time, Reflections on Humanity’s Future.
    Readers Comments

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    America needs to seperate itself from the imperilist Corporate giants who drive the economy and our government.I think the first thing we could do is start to elect officials that are not so easily corrupted and lust after money,I think the first Question that should be asked any new candidate for any political office should be “Do you wish to partake in or put a stop to the plunder of the American People?”We need men who are strong willed and moraly driven not profit driven if we abide by Gods law we will prosper without manipulating markets and enslaving poor third world economys with high interest loans taken under deress and with conditions that are impossible to meet That would be the Imf and its buisness practices.

    –Stephen, USA

    Timely comments. In my opinion the current Bush tax cut proposal amounts to a radical departure from sound principles not only of economic justice but also of fiscal management — aided and abetted by what Alan Greenspan refers to as “the deafening silence” of Congress. This proposal is merely the latest in a series of measures thinly disguised as economic stimulants but cynically calculated to divide our society further into two economic spheres and to consolidate political power in the hands of the wealthy few. As you suggest, this plutocratic system (let’s not call it “democracy”) builds upon itself — as money influences our political processes, the moneyed interests are able to expand their control over those processes and eventually come to dominate all policy. Having consolidated their control and governed in their own interests, they then denounce any dissenters as fomenters of “class division.” The question is, how may we free our politics from the grip of money and thus approach “Democracy in America?”

    —Rob, USA

  • Policies of Mass Destruction

    There is a force – a secret force hidden wisely from our view – that makes you and me, this newspaper, our planet, our sun and the Milky Way galaxy stretching trillions of miles around us. This force is omnipresent, coursing through every particle of your body. Indeed, this force IS you. It is the most powerful force we know, a force that makes the Universe we see, by the balance – the equilibrium – in its eternal action.

    57 years ago, this equilibrium was shattered when human beings split atoms within a primitive nuclear weapon. Through intervening decades, the phrase “weapon of mass destruction” has become all too well known in our lexicon.

    I became familiar with the controversy surrounding weapons of mass destruction in the late 1970s, when my father and mother organized Utahns United Against the Nuclear Arms race, an activist movement that confronted the United States military and ultimately helped to defeat the monstrous MX missile “shell game” basing plan. Before and since that era, other historic visionaries have battled the nuclear weapon insanity and its obscene policy fig leaf, mutually assured destruction.

    But life took me in other directions. into business, investment, and the technology breakthroughs of Silicon Valley. For more than a decade I pursued the American entrepreneurial dream as a CEO, driven by innovation and measured by profit. I was successful and content in this pursuit. That is, until I came to appreciate that there are other kinds of weapons of mass destruction than those launched from bunkers, subs and planes.

    Since 1998, I have come to realize that weapons of mass destruction come in many forms.

    A global economic program that rapes the natural world is a weapon of mass destruction far more lethal than any device in any arsenal of this world.

    An energy policy that invests in destructive rather than benign production is a weapon of mass destruction.

    Copyright and patent laws that artificially inflate the cost of sharing stories, songs, and science are weapons of mass destruction.

    Education systems that fail our children are weapons of mass destruction.

    Media that places ratings over truth is a weapon of mass destruction.

    A national security policy that shreds the sacred civil liberties within our democracy, and which sheds the international obligations between democracies, is a weapon of mass destruction.

    Indeed, a nation – our nation – whose high-school history teacher has a deeper grasp of world affairs than the man it entrusts with the future history of the world… is a weapon of mass destruction.

    To be sure, Saddam Hussein’s attempts to develop devices of mass destruction must be halted by the community of nations. But at the same time, we must ask ourselves: how can such devices best be eliminated from every nation’s arsenal? Shall it be by the development, testing and deployment of more such devices by a 21st century empire? Or rather by the global abolition of them, and a global program of verification, catalyzed by the greatest democracy the world has ever known?

    To me, one thing seems certain: we will not succeed in eliminating devices of mass destruction while we fail in eliminating policies of mass destruction. I find myself in rare agreement with George Bush in saying that we cannot allow the world’s worst leaders to use the world’s most dangerous weapons. I am hard pressed to identify a single major policy initiative of the Bush administration that is not a weapon of mass destruction.

    The elections of 2002 and 2004 are our opportunities for regime change. Let us use them wisely.