Wasteful Military Expenditures



The lead editorial in the New York Times for April, 2008 explains how Congress approves spending vast sums to buy weapon systems from military contractors; the final bill is usually far higher than was agreed on, and quite often the weapons don't work as promised. But the contractors to not hesitate to pocket their enormous profits and pay generous "campaign contributions" to the obliging congressmen who put over the deal. Everybody has reason to be pleased except the U. S. taxpayers who provided the hundreds of billion dollars.



Finally, the principal argument to justify all this is "Do you know how many jobs would be lost if this contract is cancelled?" And if a member of Congress should object the response is "Do you know how many jobs would be lost in your district? We will tell all those voters that you voted to put them out of a job." Therefore, the appropriations are almost never denied.



Andrew Linn

PRECIPITATE WITHDRAWAL? 27 March 2008

The presidential candidates are arguing about a "precipitous withdrawal" from Iraq.
I agree that we should not withdraw precipitately, because the Iraqi people would feel that the U.S., after doing so much harm to them and their country, was walking away and making no effort to clean up the mess we have created.

Instead, the U.S. should start, now, to do things for those people such as seeeing up water and electrical systems, and health services. Any such measure should be in conjunction with Iraqi individuals and groups. It should be made clear that once an electrical system, for instance, is operating, the U.S. will turn over more and more of the management and labor to Iraqis, and meanwhile reduce our partication.

Bringing home our soldiers and weapons should begin as various projects for the improvement of Iraqi living conditions become operative.

Some people will say that it is a waste of money for us to do these things for the Iraqis ---- that our money should be used only for the benefit of the U.S. But we must realize that it WILL BE to the benefit of the U.S. to improve their lives --- It is the only way to combat the insurgency.
--- Andrew Linn

THE U.S. EMPIRE AND PEACE

Peace in the Middle East is the last thing the imperialist U. S. government wants.

If real peace were to begin there would be a great demand, from U. S. citizens as well as from other countries, for American troops to be brought home and our military installations in that area closed down. If the various nations develop friendly, cooperativwe relationships for their mutul benefit (including something like the European Union), the result would be stability and prosperity that does not depend on U. S. dominance and control.

What the managers of the U. S. empire fear most is that really independent countries will nationalize their oil, and exclude the foreign corporations that derive so much profit from it.

It is for this reason that the U . S. contrived to fight a war in Iraq that required having more than 100,000 soldiers there. (It is commonly believed that the troops are there because of the war. In fact, the opposite is true -- the war was arranged in order to have an excuse to send troops to the Middle East.)

Those troops are available, at a moment's notice, to take over Saudi Arabia when a revolution finally throws out the Saudi family and nationalizes their oil. Of course this will be
announced as our generous effort to "protect" the Arabian peoople from the revolutionaries.

--- Julien Sorel