|
by Jennifer Randolph '00 We spend 300 billion dollars on defense. That's more than the rest of the permanent members of the Security Council combined. It's over eighteen times more than the total spent by the seven nations we consider potential enemies: eighteen times North Korea plus Iraq plus Iran plus Libya plus Syria plus Cuba. All this military spending means that, in many ways, we turn to violence and war first to solve conflicts because we have these sophisticated, costly weapons sitting around. With this kind of outspending, war is our "strong suit." This policy of war and the military spending it creates and is driven by incurs two deep costs on our world. Military Spending Kills People Not only does military spending kill people, but usually they are not the "right people". In spite of the Geneva Conventions, which delineate the rules of engagement to prohibit targeting civilians or civilian structures, 90% of war casualties in the last ten years have been civilians. This is what happens when you bomb population centers, or even bomb shelters, or destroy infrastructure including power stations and water sanitation facilities as we did in both Kosovo and Iraq. American military spending even kills Americans. 30% of the deaths of troops stationed in Korea have been from our own landmines there. The US is the #1 exporter of weapons in the world; those guns and technologies turn around with ever-changing political climates. We sold Saddam Hussein military equipment, including biological and chemical weapon seed stock, during the Iran-Iraq war. Should we be surprised that he had military equipment and biological and chemical weapons when he threatened our interests only a few years later? Military Spending Cuts Social Spending In December 1998 the US fired over 400 Tomahawk Cruise missiles into Iraq at a cost of 1.1 million dollars each. Those missiles not only mean death or serious injury for "an enemy," they also mean that much less of our tax dollars are available for social programs. The 1999 military budget is almost $300 billion. The Department of Education will get $29 billion. We can see our society's priorities through where we spend our money. Money is powerful, and makes a lot of things possible. Let's make sure that's the education of children rather than their death by a cluster bomb. Who Profits, and Who Dies? The last piece to this puzzle is the power of the military contractors. Not only does weapons stockpiling mean we look to weapons to solve problems; ballooning weapons production has a lot to do with the political influence of these companies. Alliant Tech in Hopkins, MN (see related article), is a 1.3 billion dollar a year company. The serious money and lobbying efforts of military contractors and the factory jobs they promise in congressional districts win them fat contracts. In negotiating these fat contracts some people are routinely forgotten: our own school children and small farmers, the countries we see as threats and their relatively tiny military expenditures, the farm families we drop these bombs on in Iraq or Kosovo. We have to speak out to make sure those people are remembered first next time.
|