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War Profiteering: Reckless Greed and Scandalous« Thread Star

Daily newsbrief journal for May 2004, also see http://www.usdemocrats.com/brief for a global 100-page perpetual brief and follow twitter @usdemocrats


War Profiteering: Reckless Greed and Scandalous« Thread Star

Postby admin » Thu Jan 26, 2012 7:51 am

War Profiteering: Reckless Greed and Scandalous« Thread Started on May 22, 2004, 11:19pm »--------------------------------------------------------------------------------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.miscDate: 2003-11-26 11:37:11 PST http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story ... .htmlScary and scandalousLeaderWednesday November 26, 2003The GuardianThe US administration's defence authorisation bill for fiscal year 2004 wassigned into law by George Bush this week. In all, it totals $401.3bn.Amazingly, this figure does not include one-off appropriations for USoperations in Iraq and Afghanistan of approximately $150bn. Overall USdefence expenditure under Mr Bush is at record levels. It is higher, inrelative terms, than equivalent, average American spending during the coldwar years when a hostile Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact confronted the US andits allies with thousands of nuclear warheads deployed on land, at sea andin the air, as well as chemical and biological weapons and vast conventionalforces. Yet Mr Bush suggested that terrorism now represented the most potentthreat 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 willbe 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 Bushsenses a very great menace; and that he will take every opportunity betweennow and the next election to tell American voters how much they have tofear. This is an unusually disconcerting, manipulative message. His campaignslogan could almost be: "Vote for Bush. It's really scary".Whatever the actual, unexaggerated threat level may be, some elements of thedefence bill are really scary, too - or just plain scandalous. They includeexemptions for the military from provisions of the Endangered Species Actand the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Apparently unpatriotic dolphins andvarious pacifist fish have been thoughtlessly obstructing trainingexercises. The bill gives $9.1bn for the further development of Mr Bush's"Star Wars" global ballistic missile defence wheeze. And it authorisesspending on research into a new generation of battlefield nuclear weapons,so-called "mini-nukes" and "bunker-busters" that, if built, will makenuclear warfare both more doable and more likely. This project breaches thespirit if not the letter of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which, in adeveloping world context, the US righteously and noisily insists upon. It isitself a potentially egregious act of proliferation. Japan, the world's onlynuclear victim so far, protested yesterday that the future US deployment ofsuch weapons is "something which cannot be allowed". Yes, but can it bestopped?
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