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Saturday, February 19, 2011

Balance Budgets by Ending the Wars

ON WISCONSIN: End the Wars, Invest at Home

By Tom Hayden
Beaver County Peace Links via TomHayden.com

The direct monthly costs of the wars are more than enough to close state budget gaps

Cost of Iraq: $3 trillion [projected]
Cost of Afghanistan: $1 trillion [projected]
California budget gap: $28 billion
Wisconsin budget gap: $138 million

The details can be debated, but these figures make clear that the budget crises faced in places like Wisconsin and California can be ended by rapidly ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. California taxpayers have contributed no less than $146.3 billion to these wars since 2001; Wisconsin taxpayers, $18.4 billion. Direct monthly costs of the wars - $12.5 billion in Iraq, $16 billion for Afghanistan – are more than enough to close the gaps in those two states.

It is time for our most prominent liberal economists to broaden their analysis of the domestic crisis to include spending for these unfunded wars. Only Joseph Stiglitz has done so.

Where are the others? Are they ambivalent about ending the wars? If so, they should explain their reasons. Are they afraid of the counter-attack by the right? It is more likely that their conventional economic models simply discount the factor of war expenditures. If that’s the reason, a quick adjustment of their analysis would make a huge contribution to the national debate.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Congress: Time to Leave Afghanistan

New Bill: A Responsible End

to the War in Afghanistan

By Barbara Lee
Beaver County Peace Links via Huffington Post 2/17/11

On September 14, 2001, I placed the lone vote against the "Authorization of Use of Force" -- an authorization that I knew would provide a blank check to wage war anywhere, at any time, and for any length. Nearly a decade later, the United States remains embroiled in the longest war in our nation's history in Afghanistan, longer than Vietnam and World War II.

The fact is, we cannot continue to funnel billions of dollars a week toward a counterproductive military-first strategy in Afghanistan while sacrificing vital domestic priorities such as quality education, affordable health care, and much-needed investments to create jobs and jump start the economy.

And that is why today I will re-introduce my legislation, The Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act, which would end combat operations in Afghanistan and limit funding to the safe orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops and military contractors.

This week, the U.S. House of Representatives remains in the throes of a budget debate that will determine the trajectory of our nation in the face of great economic challenges -- a return to the failed Republican policies of the past which precipitated the economic crisis and two unfunded wars, or a commitment to bolster our diplomatic and development capabilities while increasing investment in our communities at home to create jobs, protect public health and safety, and spark American innovation.

The mounting costs of the war in Afghanistan and out-of-control spending at the Pentagon have never been more relevant. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost nearly $1.2 trillion since 2001. Meanwhile, U.S. military spending has more than doubled over the past decade, now accounting for nearly 60 cents of every federal discretionary dollar and totaling more than $700 billion per year.

The trade-offs are clear. The estimated costs the war in Afghanistan in 2011, totaling more than $100 billion, could provide for 1.6 million new police officers on our streets or elementary school teachers in our schools. It could provide for 19.3 million students to receive Pell Grants of $5,550 to assist in continuing their education.

Military and foreign policy experts agree there is no military solution in Afghanistan. Ending the war in Afghanistan is not just a budget imperative, but a national security imperative. It is the first step toward reorienting our national security policy to reduce the threat of terrorism and alleviate the conditions that produce conflict in a more effective and sustainable manner.

Hastening a responsible end to the war in Afghanistan is not a partisan issue. Recent polling indicates 72 percent of Americans, an overwhelming majority, support action to "speed up the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan." The Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act already has bipartisan support in the House. Members of Congress in both parties are increasingly opposing a policy of open-ended war and looking toward an orderly, responsible drawdown in Afghanistan.

This momentum for a change in course in Afghanistan was evident last year, when 100 House Members voted in support of my amendment to limit funding in Afghanistan to the safe and orderly redeployment of U.S. armed forces.

Regardless of the situation in Afghanistan we have seen the Pentagon come back to us asking for more time, more troops, and more resources. In response, it is time for Congress to reassert its constitutional authority and compel the swift, complete withdrawal of all troops and military contractors.

It is time to break the near decade-long status quo of costly, destabilizing war in Afghanistan. It is time to bring our troops home.

New Bill: A Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan

By Barbara Lee
Beaver County Peace Links via Huffington Post
On September 14, 2001, I placed the lone vote against the "Authorization of Use of Force" -- an authorization that I knew would provide a blank check to wage war anywhere, at any time, and for any length. Nearly a decade later, the United States remains embroiled in the longest war in our nation's history in Afghanistan, longer than Vietnam and World War II.

The fact is, we cannot continue to funnel billions of dollars a week toward a counterproductive military-first strategy in Afghanistan while sacrificing vital domestic priorities such as quality education, affordable health care, and much-needed investments to create jobs and jump start the economy.

And that is why today I will re-introduce my legislation, The Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act, which would end combat operations in Afghanistan and limit funding to the safe orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops and military contractors.

This week, the U.S. House of Representatives remains in the throes of a budget debate that will determine the trajectory of our nation in the face of great economic challenges -- a return to the failed Republican policies of the past which precipitated the economic crisis and two unfunded wars, or a commitment to bolster our diplomatic and development capabilities while increasing investment in our communities at home to create jobs, protect public health and safety, and spark American innovation.

The mounting costs of the war in Afghanistan and out-of-control spending at the Pentagon have never been more relevant. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost nearly $1.2 trillion since 2001. Meanwhile, U.S. military spending has more than doubled over the past decade, now accounting for nearly 60 cents of every federal discretionary dollar and totaling more than $700 billion per year.

The trade-offs are clear. The estimated costs the war in Afghanistan in 2011, totaling more than $100 billion, could provide for 1.6 million new police officers on our streets or elementary school teachers in our schools. It could provide for 19.3 million students to receive Pell Grants of $5,550 to assist in continuing their education.

Military and foreign policy experts agree there is no military solution in Afghanistan. Ending the war in Afghanistan is not just a budget imperative, but a national security imperative. It is the first step toward reorienting our national security policy to reduce the threat of terrorism and alleviate the conditions that produce conflict in a more effective and sustainable manner.

Hastening a responsible end to the war in Afghanistan is not a partisan issue. Recent polling indicates 72 percent of Americans, an overwhelming majority, support action to "speed up the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan." The Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act already has bipartisan support in the House. Members of Congress in both parties are increasingly opposing a policy of open-ended war and looking toward an orderly, responsible drawdown in Afghanistan.

This momentum for a change in course in Afghanistan was evident last year, when 100 House Members voted in support of my amendment to limit funding in Afghanistan to the safe and orderly redeployment of U.S. armed forces.

Regardless of the situation in Afghanistan we have seen the Pentagon come back to us asking for more time, more troops, and more resources. In response, it is time for Congress to reassert its constitutional authority and compel the swift, complete withdrawal of all troops and military contractors.

It is time to break the near decade-long status quo of costly, destabilizing war in Afghanistan. It is time to bring our troops home.

[Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) represents the 9th Congressional District of CaliforniaFollow Rep. Barbara Lee on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@RepBarbaraLee ]

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Let Go, and Let Egyptians Take Power

 

Today’s Egypt Is on the Brink

-- With U.S. on the Wrong Side

By Phyllis Bennis
Beaver County Peace Links

via New Internationalism Project / IPS Feb 10, 2011

Now comes the hard part. On February 7, the popular mobilization in Cairo and elsewhere seemed to have crested. The “normalization” of daily life in Cairo loomed closer. But on February 9, the regime’s claim that the revolt had been packaged, contained, and put on a shelf collapsed, as hundreds of thousands of Egyptians once again poured into their streets. Overflowing Tahrir Square, claiming the streets surrounding Parliament, and filling the streets of cities across the country, well over a million Egyptians reasserted and expanded their revolution’s unity, breadth and power.

The uncertainty that briefly seemed to threaten the potential and the reach of Egypt’s revolution is now reversed in the wake of extraordinary public demonstrations. More than 6,000 Canal workers in Suez walked off the job protesting the regime’s brutal economic policies. Law professors marched to Tahrir in their black robes, demanding a nation of law. Hundreds of thousands clogged the streets of Alexandria, Egypt’s second largest city. One thousand cement workers walked out in protest of working conditions. Egypt’s three independent unions launched a call for a general strike linked to the demands of the Tahrir Square democracy activists – Mubarak and the Mubarak regime must go.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Cheering Freedom, Dodging Thugs

Mubarak Mobs and Street Vendors: Welcome to Egypt

By Medea Benjamin
Beaver County Peace Links via Huffington Post

Feb. 4, 2011 - I was in the middle of buying some mints from a street vendor on Cairo's Talat Harb Street -- right off Tahrir Square -- when the rocks started flying. I had given a 20-cent coin to the vendor. He gave me one pack of mints, and all hell broke loose.

"Run, run," people yelled at me. I saw a group of men running down the street, carrying a man whose face was streaming with blood. Then I saw the pro-Mubarak thugs, armed with rocks, metal pipes, whips. "Run, Run," the Egyptians on the street told me. I ran for shelter as fast as I could.

This has become a pattern the past few days. Thugs hired by the regime, many of them plainclothes police, try to create chaos on the streets just outside the entrances to Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the Egyptian revolution. They randomly attack people, including us foreigners. Many of us have been beaten, our cameras smashed. My CODEPINK colleague Tighe Barry had been picked up on this very street two days ago, thrown into a car, roughed up, and later dumped out with a warning to stay away.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Egypt’s People vs. Our ‘Control Freaks’

It's not Radical Islam that Worries

the US – It's Arab Independence

 

 

The nature of any regime it backs in the Arab world is secondary to control. Subjects are ignored until they break their chains

By Noam Chomsky
Beaver County Peace Links via Guardian UK

Feb. 4 2011 - 'The Arab world is on fire," al-Jazeera reported last week, while throughout the region, western allies "are quickly losing their influence". The shock wave was set in motion by the dramatic uprising in Tunisia that drove out a western-backed dictator, with reverberations especially in Egypt, where demonstrators overwhelmed a dictator's brutal police.

Observers compared it to the toppling of Russian domains in 1989, but there are important differences. Crucially, no Mikhail Gorbachev exists among the great powers that support the Arab dictators. Rather, Washington and its allies keep to the well-established principle that democracy is acceptable only insofar as it conforms to strategic and economic objectives: fine in enemy territory (up to a point), but not in our backyard, please, unless properly tamed.