| ARMS
TRADE RESOURCE CENTER
CURRENT
UPDATES: September 13, 2005
Dear Friends,
Can it be true? Four years since "9/11" became shorthand for "the day everything changed."
Where were you on Sunday? A prayer service mourning those killed on that day? A community event to remember and be together? A vigil for the countless thousands who have died in the "Global War on Terror"?
There were innumerable meaningful ways to mark September 11, 2001 and its unlawful aftermath this weekend. But, one event I bet most of you missed was the Pentagon's "Freedom Walk."
Underwritten by companies like weapons-giant Lockheed Martin, the fast-food restaurant Subway, and computer behemoth AOL, Freedom Walk was conceived of by the same folks who brought you the new American Superheroes- Captain America, Spiderman and Rumsfeld: www.AmericaSupportsYou.mil.
Freedom Walk was billed as a chance to remember and support "American servicemen and women, past and present" and to "commemorate our freedom." But it was far from free. To participate one had to register by 4pm the day before. Four-foot-high snow fencing all along both sides of the two mile route and the hundreds of Park Police kept anyone who had not registered from joining the march along the way.
But these measures did not keep some from expressing themselves. The Washington Post spoke with Mimi Evans, a "Freedom Walker" from Hyannis, Massachusetts. Her son is a Marine serving in Iraq, and she wore a white T-shirt that said in red and blue letters: "No more lies, no more lives." Evans explained to the Post that while a good Marine has to follow orders and assume the war policy is correct, a responsible civilian should question the policy. "I'm sorry, there's absolutely no connection between my freedom to be an American and what our troops are doing in Iraq. There's no connection between what our military is doing and 9/11."
Country singer Clint Black, best known for his pro-troops anthem, "Iraq and Roll," gave a concert at the end of the walk, and was joined on the stage by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who carried his jacket and loosened his tie for the occasion.
Black did not perform his signature song; "Iraq and Roll," on September 11th. Perhaps the organizers thought that lyrics like the following were a little much:
Iraq, I Rack'em up and I roll
I'm back and I'm a high-tech GI Joe
I pray for peace, prepare for war
And I never will forget
There's no price too high for freedom
So be careful where you tread
....
It might be a smart bomb
They find stupid people too
And if you stand with the likes of Saddam
One just might find you
In a more thoughtful analysis of what this anniversary means, reporter Mark Danner observes that; "Four years after the attack on Pearl Harbor, U.S. troops ruled unchallenged in Japan and Germany. During those 48 months, Americans created an unmatched machine of war and decisively defeated two great enemies."
Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Danner continues, "How are we to judge the global war on terror four years on? In this war, the president had warned, 'Americans should not expect one battle but a lengthy campaign.' We could expect no 'surrender ceremony on a deck of a battleship,' and indeed, apart from the president's abortive attempt on the U.S.S. Lincoln to declare victory in Iraq, there has been none. Failing such rituals of capitulation, by what 'metric' - as the generals say - can we measure the progress of the global war on terror?"
For his answers to these crucial questions, read the whole article, "Taking Stock of the Forever War," Mark Danner, New York Times Magazine, September 11, 2005.
In this update:
I. THE IRAQ QUAGMIRE
II. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AT THE CROSSROADS
III. SPACE: BUSH'S NEXT FRONTIER
I. THE IRAQ QUAGMIRE
The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War and the Case for Bringing the Troops Home
A Study by the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus, August 31, 2005
This report, from our friends Erik Leaver and Phyllis Bennis and the Institute for Policy Studies' Iraq Task Force, is a lengthy and exhaustive assessment of the costs of war.
In the introduction, the authors note:
"Iraq policy is no longer a partisan issue. Both Democrats and Republicans are joining those questioning the very basis of the war. Six months ago in official circles the words "withdraw," "quagmire" and "exit strategy" were avoided altogether, or spoken only in whispers. Today 60 percent of Americans believe the President's handling of the war is wrong. 60 percent of Americans want to bring the troops home and 33 percent want them all brought home immediately. Iraqis want that too; close to half of Iraq's elected parliamentarians have called for the 'departure' of foreign troops."
In their efforts to calculate the costs of the war, Bennis and Leaver take a broad approach, and their report, all 84 pages of it (including footnotes), reflects the scope of that work. They divide the report into four chapters:
Chapter 1: Costs for the United States
Chapter 2: The War's Consequences for Iraq
Chapter 3: The Costs to the Rest of the World
Chapter 4: Our Exit Strategy: a plan to bring the troops home and internationalize the peace.
Some key findings:
Echoes of Vietnam
"According to current estimates, the cost of the Iraq War could exceed $700 billion. In current dollars, the Vietnam War cost U.S. taxpayers $600 billion.
"Operations costs in Iraq are estimated at $5.6 billion per month in 2005. By comparison, the average cost of U.S. operations in Vietnam over the eight-year war was $5.1 billion per month, adjusting for inflation.
"Broken down per person in the United States, the cost so far is $727, making the Iraq War the most expensive military effort in the last 60 years."
And the World is Less Safe
"The State Department found that the number of "significant" international terrorist attacks in 2004 reached 655, three times the previous record of 175 in 2003. Terrorist incidents in Iraq also increased by a factor of nine-from 22 attacks in 2003 to 198 in 2004."
Americans are Struggling
"Unemployment figures today range from 20 percent to 60 percent. By comparison, during the Great Depression, U.S. unemployment peaked at 25 percent. Up to 60 percent of Iraqis depend on food handouts and the average income has dropped from $3,000 in the 1980s to $800 in 2004."
And So is Iraq's Oil Economy
"Iraq's oil production remains stalled at levels lower than before the U.S. invasion. In 2003, Iraq's oil production dropped to 1.33 million barrels per day, down from 2.04 million one year earlier. In July 2005, oil production remained below pre-war levels. Iraq continues to import half its gasoline and thousands of tons of heating fuel, cooking gas and other refined products."
Human Rights are a Casualty of War
"Despite problems at U.S. detention centers, the use of arbitrary arrests continues. The average prisoner level in June 2005 was 10,783, up from 7,837 at the time of the January 2005 elections, and double that of the June 2004 level of 5,335. The U.S. is expanding three existing facilities and opening a fourth, at a cost of $50 million with the goal of being able to detain 16,000 long-term prisoners. Illustrating the problems caused by widespread sweeps of arrests without cause, review processes indicate that six out of every 10 Iraqis arrested are released without charges."
But the report is more than just data and numbers. It is a richly contextualized analysis of the many dimensions of the costs of war and includes some very useful tools:
* A Case Study of Halliburton: The Price of War Profiteering
* A Table of the U.S.'s Permanent Military Construction Projects in Iraq
* And, perhaps most critically, the Institute for Policy Studies' "Plan for Withdrawal."
Finally, the authors have accommodated those who have neither the time nor inclination to read an 84-page report, distilling their findings into a handy 2-page PDF.
This resource is online at www.ips-dc.org
II. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AT THE CROSSROADS
The United Nations' new Human Development Report is a perfect shelf-mate to the Iraq QUAGMIRE report.
A lively read for a UN document, the report's authors quote international figures like Margaret Thatcher, Plato and Martin Luther King Jr. The 370-page report uses the eight Millennium Development Goals as a spring board for criticizing the skewed priorities of industrialized nations.
The Millennium Goals are sweeping and precise at the same time:
* Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty
* Achieve universal primary education
* Promote gender equality and empower women
* Reduce child mortality
* Improve maternal health
* Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
* Ensure environmental stability
* Develop a global partnership for development
United Nations member-states agreed to detailed benchmarks and timelines for each of these goals in 2000. Now, according to the UNDP report, not only are they under attack by U.S. Secretary to the UN John Bolton, but they are no where near being met.
The report looks at each Millennium Development Goal (MDG) in turn, finding that:
* Halving extreme poverty and malnutrition depends on growth and distribution
* Education- missing the universal enrollment target
* Gender parity and empowerment- one target already missed
* Child health and maternal health- millions more children will die
* Water and sanitation- more than a billion unserved
The section on "Violent Conflict: Bringing the Real Threat into Focus" is required reading for any American wanting more context for the "Global War on Terrorism." The UNDP is blunt on how the threat of terrorism is small in comparison to the threats posed by poverty, disease and civil conflict-- threats that the MDG were created to address.
"Almost 15 years after the end of the cold war," write the report's authors, "there is a perception that our world is becoming less safe. In industrial countries, public opinion polls suggest that this perception is linked to fears of terrorist threats. These threats are real. Yet they also create a distorted perception of the distribution of human insecurity. Since 1998 terrorism has been responsible for nearly 20,000 fatalities globally.
"Meanwhile, conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is estimated to have caused nearly 4 million deaths, the vast majority not from bullets but from malnutrition and disease. In Sudan the ongoing humanitarian tragedy in the Darfur region flickers intermittently into world news reports, yet it is claiming victims on a scale that dwarfs the threats facing people in rich countries.
"Every civilian death linked to conflict is a violation of human rights. But the risk of violation is heavily weighted against people living in the world's poorest countries."
It might be hard for even the most intrepid investigator to get through the whole report, but the data and analysis is invaluable for anyone looking to understand the role that "an overdeveloped military strategy" plays in creating an "under-developed strategy for human security."
The report includes some useful tables:
INEQUALITY AND HEALTH IN THE UNITED STATES
Box 2.1
The United States leads the world in healthcare spending. On a per capita basis the United States spends twice the world average on healthcare, or 13% of national income.
US public health indicators are marred by deep inequalities linked to income, health insurance coverage, race, ethnicity, geography and-critically-access to care.
The infant mortality rate is now higher for the United States than for many other industrial countries.
* MALAYSIA-a country with an average income one-quarter that of the United States- has achieved the same infant mortality rate as the United States.
* The Indian state of KERALA has an urban infant death rate lower than that for African Americans in Washington, DC.
MILITARY SPENDING VS. DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE
Figure 3.10 and Table 3.10
"Comparisons with military spending are instructive. For every $1 invested in development assistance another $10 is spent on military budgets*. The amount that rich countries currently spend on HIV/AIDS, a human security threat that claims 3 million lives a year, represents three days' spending on military hardware."
CONFLICTS STEADILY COST MORE IN HUMAN LIVES
Table 5.1 traces the history of war since the 16th century when wars cost .32% of the world's population to the 20th century when wars are responsible for the deaths of 4.35% of the world's population. The report carries the unspoken hope that a change in priorities could mean a very different 21st century.
The Human Development Report: International Cooperation at the Crossroads, Aid, Trade and Security in an Unequal World is available as a PDF at hdr.undp.org, You can view and download the report in sections at
III. SPACE: BUSH'S NEXT FRONTIER
With U.S. military policy accomplishing sooooo much here on earth, President Bush is planning his next steps into space.
A new national space policy - to be unveiled in the coming weeks - is expected to be a sharp contrast from the previous policy of arms control in space endorsed by President Clinton. The Bush administration has placed a greater emphasis on using space for military operations, and could grant the Air Force the green light to deploy space-based weapons.
On March 1, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld signed a new National Defense Strategy paper that said the use of space "enables us to project power anywhere in the world from secure bases of operation." A key goal of Rumsfeld's new strategy is "to ensure our access to and use of space and to deny hostile exploitation of space to adversaries."
A 2001 report, drafted when Rumsfeld was the nominee for Defense Secretary, called for the military to ensure that "the president will have the option to deploy weapons in space."(Report of the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, www.defenselink.mil)
ONE SMALL STEP FOR BUSH
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan recently said "certainly during the last eight or nine years, there have been a number of domestic and international developments that have changed the threats and challenges facing our space capabilities." For one, in the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, more than 70% of the weapons used in the war were guided to their targets by military satellites.
The 2006 budget requests $60.9 million for an experimental XXS spacecraft whose "microsatellite payloads" could attack enemy satellites and another $68 million for a Near Field Infrared Experiment that would use infrared technology to disable enemy satellite transmissions.
Last October the U.S. deployed its first mobile, ground-based system - the Counter Communications System - which uses electromagnetic radio frequency energy to temporarily disrupt communications from an enemy satellite.
ONE GIANT STEP (BACKWARDS) FOR HUMAN KIND
General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former head of the Space Command, told the House Armed Services Committee this part March, "I think everybody that I know in the United States military and the Department of Defense understands the important role that our space assets play in our national security." But will deployment of space weapons improve or degrade U.S. national security? Hmmm, that is a tough one.
The U.S. is currently the world's dominant space power, using satellites for reconnaissance, targeting, communications, and intelligence gathering. Breaking the taboo against placing weapons in space will encourage other countries with space interests to develop their own space weapons, thereby placing U.S. military space assets at risk. There are voices both within the military and within industry who have argued against the deployment of space weapons on strategic, economic, and technical grounds.
This fall, we will release an update of our TANGLED WEB report, focusing on the missile defense and space lobbies. SO KEEP AN EYE ON OUR WEBSITE http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/index.html
In the meantime, take a look at the Center for Defense Information's fact sheet, Questions on U.S. Plans for Space Weaponization
OTHER RESOURCES:
A. First Online Global Parliamentary Hearing To Focus On Space Security, September 14, 2005 - Tomorrow, a group of legislators from ten countries will hold a joint parliamentary hearing with members of the U.S. Congress. The hearing will focus on the future of outer space, and in particular on the possible deployment of weapons in space. Webcast live, the event will invite participation from journalists and citizens worldwide. For the program schedule and list of speakers, go to the Center for Defense Information, www.cdi.org
B. KEEP SPACE FOR PEACE WEEK, October 1 - 8, 2005, Worldwide Actions, www.space4peace.org
C. "The Folly of Space Weapons," by Richard Kaufman, www.TomPaine.com
D. Union of Concerned Scientists, Should The United States Deploy Space Weapons?
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