Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 15. Juli
2005 / Time Line July 15, 2005
Version 3.0
14. Juli 2005, 16. Juli 2005
07/15/2005
Financial Cost of Iraq War : As the Bush Administration
continues to spend billions of dollars on the war in Iraq, it tells
Americans, "Don't worry, be happy."
By Gail Vida Hamburg
In 1988, when President Bush, the elder, was on the campaign trail
during his first bid for the White House, reporters following him
wrote that he was besotted with a chart-topping hit of that time.
Its monotonous beat and dreadful lyrics made it an aural assault
weapon, yet by all accounts it resonated deeply with the then
vice-president.
Don't worry, be happy.
The landlord say your rent is late
He may have to litigate
Don't worry, be happy.
Cause when you worry your face will frown
And that will bring everybody down
The song celebrates a philosophy of blissful idiocy, denial
bordering on the pathological, self-entitlement and individual
recklessness, lack of caring for the consequences of one’s
actions on others, and a belief in maintaining appearances for the
sake of communal equanimity.
I heard the song the other day (after successfully dodging it all
these years), and found myself thinking of the former President,
the current President, and the Iraq War. I was still reeling from
line items in the House Defense Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year
2006: $409 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan,
$363.7 billion assigned for base funding,, and $45.3 billion in
emergency funding to cover “contingency operations costs in
the global war on terror” for six months starting October
‘05. The current monthly cost to American taxpayers for war
and reconstruction costs is $4.8 billion for Iraq, $700 million for
Afghanistan. Alarming numbers, but don’t worry, the President
has a solution—more resolve from the American people.
Just a month earlier, Congress had sanctioned $82 billion for
combat and reconstruction costs in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing
the total cost then to a staggering $221.3 billion: $185.7 billion
for war, and $35.6 billion for Army equipment costs and
reconstruction funding in Iraq. High-ranking military officials had
warned Congress then of two more supplemental emergency funding
requests they planned to make before the fiscal year ended in
October.
I don’t have an MBA from Harvard like the President, but
isn’t spending $221,300,000,000 at a time of unprecedented
budget and trade deficits voodoo economics? And for that much
capital, shouldn’t we expect a return on investment more
tangible than freedom? Perhaps Osama bin Laden?
According to one Congressional budget estimate, the total cost of
the Iraq War is expected to reach half a trillion dollars by 2010.
But this is simply not enough, according to Hamid Karzai, President
of Afghanistan, who visited Washington in May. Defending himself
from charges that he wasn’t doing enough to eradicate poppy
growing in his country, Karzai said: “We have done our job.
The Afghan people have done their job. Now the international
community must come and provide alternative livelihood to the
Afghan people, which they have not done so far.” Since the
coalition of the willing fled to the hills, the job of
rehabilitating Afghan poppy growers, and subsidizing them while
they learn the intricacies of coffee cultivation and rug making
falls on, guess who?
I am trying mightily to find joy in the President’s speech to
the International Republican Institute, which gives birth to a new
idea in American politics -- representation without taxation.
“Provincial Reconstruction Teams are helping the Afghan
government to fix schools, dig wells, build roads, repair
hospitals, and build confidence in the ability of
Afghanistan’s elected leaders to deliver real change in
people's lives.”
Fix schools? Teachers in overcrowded Chicago public schools, many
of them forced to wheel supermarket carts filled with their
supplies from class to class due to the shortage of rooms, will be
delighted to hear that no child in Afghanistan, at least, is left
behind.
Nearly every state here at home, including mine, is working
furiously to stem the bleeding red ink on its ledgers with cuts to
education, mass transit, garbage collection, and dozens of other
services. They are boosting revenues by increasing property and
“sin” taxes, introducing video gaming and gambling, and
studying ever-new tax-revenue streams including taxation for email
and cell-phone
USAge. But don’t worry, be happy, war supporters tell
us.
Honest answers about the monetary cost of the invasion and
occupation of Iraq have been elusive from the administration, since
long before the war. In 2003, Ari Fleischer, former White House
press secretary, told reporters: “It could be the price of a
silver bullet,” (referring to a convenient assassination of
Saddam Hussein) and “Iraq would be able to shoulder much of
the burden of reconstruction because of its oil wealth.” At a
Congressional appropriations committee hearing in March 2003, days
before the war, Paul Wolfowitz (then Deputy Defense Secretary),
painted a rosy picture of starting a war with no money down.
“There is a lot of money to pay for this. It doesn’t
have to be U.S. taxpayer money,” he said. “We are
talking about a country that can finance its own reconstruction and
relatively soon.” For his accurate financial analysis and
forecasting, give or take $300 billion, Mr. Wolfowitz has been
dispatched to head the World Bank.
But to doubt or question President Bush’s dream -- of
democracy and freedom blooming like cactus flowers across the sands
of the Middle East -- is to invite derision from war supporters.
Don’t worry be happy, is the song they wish us to sing.
Americans, who are more practical and realistic -- taxpayers all --
have every right to ask the President what he meant when he said in
his second Inaugural address, “Our country has accepted
obligations that are difficult to fulfill and would be dishonorable
to abandon.” How much money should Americans spend in Iraq
and Afghanistan before we achieve honor? $400 billion? $900
billion? $1 trillion? How many soldiers dying in Iraq would be
honorable? 5,000? 10,000? 58,000 as in Vietnam?
The latest raid on the national treasury is not the last. The
bridge fund of $45.3 billion will take us through February. And
then what? And how much more for President Bush’s ambition to
succeed where God has failed -- to end evil and tyranny in the
world? Come to think of it, Don’t worry, be happy is the
perfect anthem -- to render us unconscious while our government
remakes the world. All they need is your checkbook and our
kids.
07/15/2005
Belgisk parlament ønsker fjernelse af amerikanske
atomvåben i Europa
Det belgiske parlament har vedtaget en resolution om nedrustning og
ikkespredning af atomvåben, der kræver fjernelse af de
amerikanske atomvåben, der er opstillet på
europæisk jord. Man beder også om, at atomvåben
holdes ude af EU’s fælles sikkerhedspolitik. Dette er
anden gang, en parlamentarisk forsamling i Europa har krævet
fjernelse af amerikanske atomvåben. Det belgiske senat vedtog
en lignende resolution den 21. april 2005 lige forud for FN’s
revisionskonference om ikkespredningstraktaten (NPT) i New York,
som blev en fiasko. Det formodes, at ca. 480 taktiske amerikanske
atomvåben er placeret i Belgien, Tyskland, England, Italien,
Holland og Tyrkiet. Amerika er i øjeblikket det eneste land,
der har atomvåben opstillet på andre landes
territorier.
Det belgiske parlament vedtog resolutionen lige forud for
60-årsdagen for ”Trinity” – den
første atombombe, der blev prøvesprængt i
”Jornada del Muerto”-dalen i New Mexico den 16. juli
1945. Siden hen er 2.053 atomvåben blevet detoneret –
eller i gennemsnit et hver tiende dag siden 1945.
Pol D’Huyvetter, som er talsmand for ”Mother
Earth”, en medlemsgruppe af ”Friends of the Earth
International”, meddelte: Denne resolution er en meget god
nyhed for de mange mennesker, der har deltaget i vor
nedrustningskampagne i mange år. Resolutionen vil
hjælpe med til at overbevise vor regering om, at de er
nødt til at nedlægge NATO’s atombase ved Kleine
Brogel. Denne atombase er en mørk plet på
verdenskortet, da basen har kapacitet til at opbevare indtil 20
amerikanske B61-atombomber, som hver især har en
sprængkraft, der er 14 gange mere dødbringende end
Hiroshima-bomben. Vi har brug for en global traktat, der forbyder
disse udryddelsesvåben så hurtigt som muligt.
Desværre møder en sådan traktat kraftig modstand
fra USA. Men selv
uden USA arbejder vi videre, som vi beviser igen i dag, ligesom vi
gør med Den Internationale Straffedomstol, Landminetraktaten
eller Kyoto-protokollen. En dag bliver de nødt til at rette
sig efter det globale krav om en atomvåbenfri verden.
Resolutionsteksten findes på fransk og hollandsk
på:
http://www.dekamer.be/FLWB/pdf/51/1545/51K1545007.pdf
Kilde: D’Huyvetter, Pol, For Mother Earth Press
Release, 15 July 2005.
Oversat af Ingeborg Roed Hansen, Esbjerg Fredsbevægelse
07/15/2005
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