Capitol
Hill Update, February 2008
 |
PIE.
The president served up
his budget pie for next
fiscal year. You
will not be shocked to find
that this pie looks a whole
lot like the previous pie.
Most
notably: More for
the Pentagon, less for the
rest of us. We've
compiled some good resources
that explore the federal
budget. Please take a look.
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 |
Support
real diplomacy with Iran, instead
of military threats (2/08)
We
don't need to use military force
every time we don't like the answer
from another country... Take
Action |
 |
Notes
from the WAND News Bulletin
editor
You may
know Bobbie Wrenn Banks.
She's worked for WAND,
on and off, for many years
now. |
|
She's
one of the most articulate
and intelligent people
we know -- especially
when it comes to the federal
budget. (Which is not
all that exciting a subject
all on its own; but she'll
convince you how important
it is to understand it
-- and to change it.)
She's
taking her show on the
road again, this year
with the Great
American Pie Campaign.
She'll be happy to do
a session in your town!
Feel free to
invite her to come by
and do a presentation
or a training. You WILL
be happy you did. |
|
Military
and Pentagon spending have skyrocketed
during Bush administration
From
our friends at Friends:
For
the first time in history, the total
2009 U.S. military budget proposed
by the president will surpass one
trillion dollars. The military budget
has increased by 70 percent since
President Bush took office, according
to the White House. FCNL
calculates that the increase may
be closer to 100 percent.
This
amount of military spending starves
other domestic and international
priorities, shortchanging programs
that are vital to our security,
health, and welfare as a nation.
The
president's budget proposes reducing
domestic spending by $454 billion
in the next five years.
These cuts would be felt by millions
of people in this country. Internationally,
the administration continues to
focus on building U.S. capabilities
to fight and win wars, while providing
little money for the tools necessary
to prevent deadly conflict. Has
the spectacular failure of the war
in Iraq taught the U.S. nothing?
| Donna
Edwards takes a huge step
toward Congress
 |
WAND
intern Andrea Stone
(l), along with WAND
public policy director
Marie Rietmann, braved
rain, sleet, and snow
to urge voters at
Berkshire Elementary
School to support
Donna Edwards for
Congress on February
12. Voters did so
in droves, throughout
Maryland’s 4th
district, electing
Edwards by a margin
of 59-37. That made
Donna the first candidate
this cycle to upset
an incumbent. Given
the heavily Democratic
nature of the district,
she's almost sure
to win in November. |
Extremely
high turnout resulted
in shortages of “I
Voted” stickers
and provisional ballots
(those used by recently-registered
voters). Voters waited
for more provisional ballots
to be delivered for up
to an hour at Berkshire
Elementary (and other
places, too, no doubt),
some with their children
in tow.
"There
was a resounding cry and
call for change in this
congressional district,"
Edwards said following
her victory.
Support
Donna and other great women
running to serve in Congress
for the first time!
WAND
PAC has endorsed several
progressive and pragmatic
women who want to take
their seats at the tables
of power in 2008.
Read
the latest about the candidates
here! Thanks.
Above,
two of them at the WAND/WiLL
national conference in
2007: State Sen. Joan
Fitz-Gerald (CO) and Hon.
Jeanne Shaheen.
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Getting
out the message about real security!
WAND
public policy director Marie
Rietmann organized and moderated
a great briefing for Congressional
staff on Capitol Hill on February
20, 2008. The full title of
the briefing was "Keeping
America Safe: The FY09 Budget
and Real Security Priorities."
Speakers
examined our nation’s
unmet and unfunded security
needs, and told how to enhance
security for our nation and
create a federal budget that
reflects our real needs. WAND
conference participants are
familiar with the Unified Security
Budget, being published for
the fifth year by co-authors
Miriam Pemberton and Larry Korb.
It details how to shift spending
to make America safer.
The
room was packed! Hill staffers
in attendance were from Democratic
and Republican offices, and
included chiefs of staff and
committee staff as well as interns,
and all levels between. Our
Hill sponsors were Rep. Barbara
Lee (D-CA), honorary WiLL co-chair,
and Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS),
chair of Homeland Security Committee.
Briefers
were Miriam Pemberton of the
Institute for Policy Studies,
who spoke at the 2007 WAND conference;
Larry Korb, President Reagan’s
Assistant Secretary of Defense;
and Bill Johnstone, consultant
to the Partnership for a Secure
America and former staff to
Georgia Senators Wyche Fowler
and Max Cleland.
|
What
goes up must come down... or, why we
shouldn't even THINK about putting weapons
in space.
Today's installment: Out-of-control
spy satellite might plummet down onto
your house. Or, just some of the pieces.
Or, the gas...
But,
rather than take this as a warning about
the dangers of such things, the military
regards it as an opportunity to test
their toys...
So
they did it: From the Washington
Post story:
Scientists,
arms-control advocates and others said
the shoot-down was based on questionable
modeling by the government of the risks
to human health and was a danger to
the future peaceful use of space.
WAND
public policy director Marie Rietmann
says:
This
shoot-down shows us that it continues
to be important to monitor the activities
in space of our Department of Defense.
The satellite that was shot down overnight
had apparently been defective from the
start. We need to be careful about what
we send up there. WAND will continue
to work with our several colleague organizations
who share our concern.
Look,
Up in the Sky!
Gail Collins | New
York Times | February 21, 2008
The
price tag for shooting USA-193 is up
to $60 million. Try making a list of
the threats to your personal safety
that could be reduced for that amount
of money. For instance, there’s
a construction site next to our office
building, and I personally spend a great
deal of time worrying that the monster
crane will come crashing through my
office window and squash me. I bet $60
million would go a long way toward convincing
the contractors to find another way
to lift things.
Small,
paranoid minds wondered if the government
was not being completely forthright
about its motives. The weapons the military
mobilized to do the shooting are part
of the missile defense system. Some
people think the whole poison-gas story
is just an excuse to give the Pentagon
a chance to test its hardware.
Effort
to Shoot Down Satellite Could Inform Military
Strategy
By
Marc Kaufman and Walter Pincus | Washington
Post | February 20, 2008
..."Whatever
their motivation for shooting down the
satellite, it's clear that this will
be quite useful to the military,"
said Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert
on military space issues and a department
head of the Naval War College in Newport,
R.I.
The
targeting of the satellite follows several
decades of effort by the Defense Department
to develop weaponry to shoot down enemy
satellites or missiles.
In
1985, the Air Force successfully tested
an air-launched missile to shoot down
a satellite, and in 2004, it
called for ensuring American "space
superiority" in an official policy
statement, a phrase meant to
cover the denial of enemy access to
space when needed.
The
Pentagon now spends more than $12 billion
annually to develop weapons capable
of shooting down missiles entering or
leaving space, but it has no dedicated
U.S. anti-satellite weapons program
in its latest unclassified budget. The
military has also worked on a laser
project in New Mexico that could have
anti-satellite capabilities, and has
launched two small satellites that independent
experts speculate could be modified
to attack, or defend, larger spacecraft.
International
treaties, opposition from Congress and
concerns about future space debris from
anti-satellite tests have all complicated
these efforts. The incoming spy satellite,
some believe, offers an opportunity
to avoid some of those constraints and
to test what amounts to an anti-satellite
defense.
The Greyhound bus-sized intelligence satellite
failed shortly after launch in 2006.
Intended to conduct both electronic eavesdropping
and photographic intelligence-gathering,
the satellite contains a large tank of
unused toxic fuel called hydrazine. The
fuel would pose a health risk if the tank
survived re-entry and landed in a populated
area. The satellite has been gradually
moving closer to the atmosphere and could
come down some time in the next several
weeks.
|
Toward
True Security
Ten Steps the Next President
Should Take to Transform U.S.
Nuclear Weapons Policy
Executive
Summary | Union of Concerned
Scientists | February 2008
The
next president should take 10
unilateral steps to bring U.S.
nuclear weapons policy into line
with today’s political and
strategic realities:
1.
Declare that the sole purpose
of U.S. nuclear weapons is to
deter and, if necessary, respond
to the use of nuclear weapons
by another country.
2. Take nuclear
weapons off alert, so they can
be launched within days instead
of minutes.
3. Eliminate
preset targeting plans. Replace
those plans with the capability
to promptly develop a response
tailored to a specific situation
if nuclear weapons are used against
the United States or its allies.
4. Promptly reduce
the U.S. nuclear arsenal to no
more than 1,000 warheads.
5. Halt all programs
to develop and deploy new nuclear
weapons.
6. Retire all
U.S. nonstrategic (tactical) nuclear
weapons.
7. Commit to
making further cuts in the U.S.
nuclear arsenal on a bilateral
or multilateral basis.
8. Declare that
the United States will not resume
nuclear testing, and work with
the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty.
9. Halt further
deployment of the ground-based
missile defense system and drop
any plans for a space-based missile
defense system.
10. Reaffirm
the U.S. commitment to pursue
nuclear disarmament and present
a plan to meet that goal.
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|
WAND's
Marie Rietmann says: "Another
good reason to get rid of the
things! And in the meantime, give
workers at nuclear weapons labs
needed work to do on identifying
smuggled nuclear materials and
detonated-bomb components."
Ranks
of Nuclear Experts Dwindle
Few Replacements for Forensic
Specialists When They Retire
By Spencer S. Hsu | Washington
Post | February 17, 2008
Two
leading U.S. scientific groups
warned yesterday that, in the
next 15 years, as many as half
of the nation's relatively few
experts in identifying smuggled
nuclear materials and detonated-bomb
components may retire.
|
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Space
Wars - Coming to the Sky Near
You?
Scientific
American Magazine - February
18, 2008| By
Theresa Hitchens
A
recent shift in U.S. military
strategy and provocative actions
by china threaten to ignite a
new arms race in space. But would
placing weapons in space be in
anyone's national interest?
“Take
the high ground and hold it!”
has been standard combat doctrine
for armies since ancient times.
Now that people and their machines
have entered outer space, it is
no surprise that generals the
world over regard Earth orbit
as the key to modern warfare.
But until recently, a norm had
developed against the weaponization
of space—even though there
are no international treaties
or laws explicitly prohibiting
nonnuclear antisatellite
systems or weapons placed in orbit.
Nations mostly shunned such weapons,
fearing the possibility of destabilizing
the global balance of power with
a costly arms race in space.
|
Welcome
to new President of Ploughshares
 |
WAND
was delighted to learn that
our good friend, Joe Cirincione,
has been named President
of the Ploughshares Fund.
He has been a close ally
of ours for years and now
we will have the opportunity
to work even more closely
with him.
|
Congratulations,
Joe! (Check out this video
conversation between him and
Naila Bolus, Ploughshares Executive
Director (also a longtime friend
of ours).)
|
|
Notes
from the WAND News Bulletin
editor
Five
years later. FIVE YEARS.
March 19 is the anniversary
of the start of the Iraq
war, in 2003. And we’re
getting close to 4000 deaths
-- of our own folks, never
mind Iraqis and others. |
I
caught snippets of W and Laura
on "The Today Show"
on Monday morning. He was looking
more snide and sanctimonious than
usual. Maybe because he's the
BMOC in Africa, and the Africans
are enjoying the benefits of his
exercise of "soft power."
His administration is getting
credit for help on malaria and
AIDS.
An
idea: we could HELP people, rather
than blowing them up. They
seem to like that, and to have
respect for you. Whereas, you
know, when you bomb their homes
and kill their children -- they
get huffy and resentful.
During
the interview, I swear I am not
making this up, W said:
“Failure
in Iraq will be an unmitigated
disaster in the Middle East.”
Yes,
indeed, it will.
But
also: it will be a disaster for
the U.S. For one thing, our economy
is creaking along, soon to start
to crumble under the weight of
the debt and the staggering costs
of a war now five years old. Some
are calling this the Iraq War
Recession.
But
during said interview, W also
crowed about how the war is good
for the economy. Seriously.
So
many of us beg to differ (pleeeaase
let us differ, we're beggin you).
Including, you know, Nobel Prize
winning academics who study this
sort of thing. And, well, we'd
guess they have a better bead
on this thing than the guy with
the grin and the gun.
We
recommend the books listed here.
But you can do the math. This
is a heinous and expensive thing,
this war. I am shocked that anyone
can defend it. But they can, and
they do.
|
| The
Three Trillion Dollar War: The True
Cost of the Iraq Conflict
This sobering study by
Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz
and Harvard professor Linda J. Bilmes
casts a spotlight on expense items
that have been hidden from the U.S.
taxpayer, including not only big-ticket
items like replacing military equipment
(being used up at six times the
peacetime rate) but also the cost
of caring for thousands of wounded
veterans—for the rest of their
lives. |
| DayDream
Believers
Fred Kaplan argues that
the Cold War’s end and 9/11
persuaded President Bush and his
advisers to unilaterally impose
America’s political will on
the world, while remaining blind
to the military and diplomatic fiascoes
that followed. Rumsfeld’s
"Revolution in Military Affairs,"
a doctrine touting supposedly omnipotent
mobile forces and high-tech smart
weapons, convinced Pentagon officials
that Iraq could be pacified without
a large force or a reconstruction
plan. |
 |
The
Folly of Attacking Iran
Tour offers
an alternative perspective
to the predominant view
on Iran. Stephen Kinzer,
a former foreign correspondent
for the New York Times,
will speak at every event. |
Tentative dates and cities:
2/21: Baton Rouge or New Orleans,
LA | 2/22: Atlanta | 2/25: Miami,
FL | 2/26: Tampa, FL | 2/27: Raleigh/Durham,
NC | 2/28: New York, NY | 2/29:
New York, NY | 3/3: Portland,
ME | 3/4: Concord, NH | 3/5: Baltimore,
MD | 3/6: Washington, DC |
|
Questions,
Not Just on Iraq
New
York Times editorial | February
17, 2008
President
Bush’s mismanagement reaches
far beyond Iraq. He has torn up
international treaties, bullied
and alienated old friends, and
enabled old and new enemies. Before
Americans choose a president they
will need to know how he or she
plans to rebuild America’s
military strength and its moral
standing and address a host of
difficult challenges around the
world.
(2
of the questions...)
NONPROLIFERATION
Mr. Bush tore up arms control
treaties, offered to sell civilian
nuclear technology to India, then
wondered why so many countries
weren’t more outraged by
Iran’s nuclear misbehavior.
Do the candidates have practical
plans to halt the spread of nuclear
weapons? Would they commit to
deep cuts in America’s nuclear
arsenal, forswear the development
of new nuclear weapons, and persuade
the Russians to do the same? If
the candidates see nuclear energy
as a way to control global warming,
how would they ensure that its
spread does not lead to the spread
of nuclear weapons?
DEFENSE
SPENDING The United States’
annual military budget is now about
$500 billion, with nearly $200 billion
more for Iraq and Afghanistan. That
is a 62 percent increase in overall
defense spending during Mr. Bush’s
tenure. And there is no relief in
sight. The American military —
in terms of both its people and
equipment — is badly strained.
Even a new president committed to
a swift withdrawal from Iraq will
have to keep asking for large budgets
to repair the damage and ensure
that the country is ready to face
new dangers.
There will have
to be tradeoffs. What weapons
systems would the candidates cancel?
What new acquisitions would they
seek? Should the Pentagon make
nation-building a prime mission?
Should the State Department play
a larger role in postconflict
reconstruction?
|
|
And
now... even those on the right
wing believe we should engage
Iran in negotiations...
Reuel Marc Gerecht,
a former Central Intelligence
Agency officer, now a resident
fellow at the American Enterprise
Institute, had this to say in
the New York Times on
February 20, 2008:
The
Bush administration should advocate
direct, unconditional talks between
Washington and Tehran. Strategically,
politically and morally, such
meetings will help us think more
clearly.
...Negotiations
are likely the only way we can
confront this threat before it’s
too late. The administration’s
current approach isn’t working.
For selfish and malevolent reasons,
China and Russia will not back
tough sanctions. Neither likely
will the trade-obsessed Germans
and the increasingly self-absorbed,
America-leery British. Washington
and Paris cannot play bad cop
alone. We must find a way to restore
the resolve of all those parties
and hit Iran with a tsunami of
sanctions if we are to diminish
the victorious esprit in Tehran
and the centrifuge production
at Natanz.
|
|
Support
real diplomacy with Iran, instead
of military threats (2/08)
We don't need to use military
force every time we don't like the
answer from another country...
Take
Action |
The
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
Presents: DC DAYS 2008
COMMUNITIES
IN THE CROSSHAIRS: Nuclear Weapons,
Power & Waste Target Our Security
& Environment
April 13-16, 2008, Washington,
DC
Advocacy and training about nuclear
issues:
- Learn
from experts and maximize your
impact
- Meet
with Members of Congress
- Network
with activists from across the
country
www.ananuclear.org
or email kmatsakis@ananuclear.org |
 |
Go
Run is a weekend
long training dedicated to
equipping you, the future
candidate, with the skills
to run and win. |
- Colorado
Go Run | March 28 - 30, 2008,
Englewood, CO
- Iron
Range Go Run | April 11 - 13.
2008, Tower, MN
- Ohio
Go Run | June 6 - 8, 2008, Columbus,
OH
|
Tentative dates and cities:
2/21: Baton Rouge or New Orleans,
LA | 2/22: Atlanta | 2/25: Miami,
FL | 2/26: Tampa, FL | 2/27: Raleigh/Durham,
NC | 2/28: New York, NY | 2/29:
New York, NY | 3/3: Portland,
ME | 3/4: Concord, NH | 3/5: Baltimore,
MD | 3/6: Washington, DC |
IDEAS,
VISIONS, RESOURCES FOR
A BETTER WORLD |
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It's all good. |
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