FEDERAL BUDGET WATCH

An expanding military budget taxpayers can't afford
by Bernie Sanders | Boston Globe | May 20, 2008

Today, Bush's military budget is $515 billion, more than half of all discretionary spending. This is in addition to the $200 billion a year being spent on the war in Iraq, and another $16 billion spent on nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, as military spending explodes, the middle class in America is shrinking, poverty is increasing and the gap between the very rich and everyone else is growing wider. While we now spend $94 billion more on defense than three years ago, poverty and hunger are increasing, 47 million Americans lack health insurance, and an entire generation of young people wonders how to afford college.

Gates Says New Arms Must Play Role Now
By Thom Shanker| New York Times | May 14, 2008

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned the military and its contractors on Tuesday that expensive new conventional weapons must prove their value to current conflicts, marked by insurgency and terrorism, if they are to be included in further Pentagon budgets.

“I have noticed too much of a tendency towards what might be called next-war-itis — the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of what might be needed in a future conflict,” Mr. Gates told a conference...

Those comments are certain to alarm advocates of the newest generations of high-tech and high-cost weapons programs, in particular the Future Combat Systems program and the F-22, the Air Force’s advanced warplane. Both have come under scrutiny of Pentagon budget officers questioning whether either will be required for missions similar to the current operations in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates implored the U.S. military Tuesday to prepare more for fighting future wars against insurgents and militias such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than spending so much time and money preparing for conventional conflicts.

In unusually strong language, Gates warned against what he described as a tendency in the Pentagon to fall back on Cold War mentalities and said he feared that lessons from the U.S. struggle against insurgencies in Iraq could fade unless military commanders understand that today's enemies are the foes of the future.

Gates said there must be a balance between meeting today's demands and tomorrow's contingencies, but he expressed concern that the defense establishment is not concentrating hard enough on what might be needed in future conflicts. He said the armed services and their corporate counterparts should steer technology and resources toward battling insurgencies.

Budget Deal in Congress Tops Request From Bush
By Robert Pear | The New York Times | May 14, 2008

Senate and House Democrats said Tuesday that they had reached a tentative agreement on a budget blueprint that embodies their priorities and sets spending levels somewhat higher than President Bush had requested...

In his most recent budget, Mr. Bush requested $991.6 billion for the wide range of military and domestic programs subject to annual appropriations. Mr. Conrad said the agreement would provide “about $20 billion” more than the president requested for those accounts...

The agreement assumes that the government will collect substantial new revenues, but does not identify the sources...

Mr. Conrad said the agreement did not specify the fate of tax cuts that primarily benefit high-income taxpayers. Congress could secure additional revenue by allowing some of those tax cuts to expire, restricting the use of offshore tax havens, shutting down abusive tax shelters or finding ways for the Treasury to collect more of the taxes owed under current law, Mr. Conrad said.

Why so darn hard to divert federal money away from weapons and toward human needs? Because the wealthy and powerful defense contractors have spread their seed to every state in the country, and in doing so, have created jobs and bolstered local economies -- and convinced folks that if the military contracts leave, the ship sinks. Not true, of course, but who wants to be the one to tell them that, and to ask them to hang on until the local rail system gets rejuvenated?

Not the Members of Congress, that's for sure...

Boeing Contributes $700 Million Annually to Alabama Economy through GMD Program
CNN Money | May 15, 2008

U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) applauded the release of the economic data. "Boeing is an example of a world-class organization that has enjoyed great success in Alabama, and the company’s robust defense activities in the state have played a big role in sustaining Alabama’s strong economy," Sessions said. "The economic development numbers released today are evidence of the significant positive impact that the GMD program has in north Alabama."...

The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA), through its work on the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program, contributed more than $700 million to Alabama’s economy in 2007 and supported nearly 5,600 direct and indirect jobs, according to a new University of Alabama study.

NUCLEAR NOTES

Radioactive Hypocrisy: American Hubris Threatens Perpetual Nuclear Proliferation
By Tad Daley, AlterNet. Posted May 15, 2008.

...Mohamed El-Baradei, head of the IAEA and 2006 Nobel Peace Laureate, says that the time has long since come to "abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue nuclear weapons but morally acceptable for others to rely on them."

Why is it that when some countries act to protect their national security we hear barely a whisper of comment, while when others do the same it generates a torrent of righteous indignation? More fundamentally, why can some countries possess hundreds of nuclear warheads (e.g., Israel), or even many thousands (e.g., the United States and Russia), while other countries cannot aspire to obtain even one?

Leaving Cheyenne Mountain
By William J. Astore | May 5, 2008 edition of The Nation

How did the planet's self-proclaimed "sole superpower" in its moment of triumph become such a fearful country? In our endless face-off with the Soviet Union, did we come to resemble it far more than we ever imagined? After all, instead of the USSR, it's now we who are fighting a difficult war in Afghanistan; it's now we who are deflating our currency with massive deficits for weapons of marginal utility; it's now we who put forward unilateral proposals for earth-penetrating, bunker-busting nukes; it's now we who are often seen as aggressors on the world stage.

As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the agreement creating the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in May, isn't it high time we closed those twenty-five-ton blast doors one last time and, without glancing back, walked toward those starry skies and the twinkling lights of that city in the distance? Isn't it high time we fulfilled the Reykjavik dream?

As Americans, shouldn't we again learn to start worrying and loathe the bomb--so much that we roll up our collective sleeves and work to eliminate it from our planet? It's never too late to cash in whatever peace-dividend chips remain. And as we walk away with the last of our cold war winnings, no matter how meager, let's leave behind as well the bunker and barrier mentality that went with them.

Spread of Nuclear Capability Is Feared
Global Interest in Energy May Presage A New Arms Race
By Joby Warrick | Washington Post | May 12, 2008

VIENNA -- At least 40 developing countries from the Persian Gulf region to Latin America have recently approached U.N. officials here to signal interest in starting nuclear power programs, a trend that concerned proliferation experts say could provide the building blocks of nuclear arsenals in some of those nations.

Security Flaws Exposed at Nuke Lab
Monday, May. 12, 2008 By ADAM ZAGORIN | Time

One night several weeks ago, according to TIME's sources, a commando team posing as terrorists attacked and penetrated the lab, quickly overpowering its defenses to reach its "objective" — a mock payload of fissile material. The exercise highlighted a number of serious security shortcomings at Livermore, sources say, including the failure of a hydraulic system essential to operating an extremely lethal Gatling gun that protects the facility. Experts contacted by TIME — including congressional staff from both parties informed of the episode, and experts personally familiar with safeguards at Livermore — all said that the test amounts to an embarrassment to those responsible for securing the nation's nuclear facilities, and that it required immediate steps to correct what some called the most dangerous security weaknesses ever found at the lab.

Letter to the Editor of the Boston Globe from a member of the WAND Board of Directors | May 14, 2008

DON'T WE have enough problems here on earth without turning space into a shooting gallery? Space weapons would not bring the United States any security. They would offer no protection against terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change, recession, food and water shortages, collapse of the infrastructure, or any of the other real dangers that we face. The financial cost (hundreds of billions of dollars) and the political cost (a new arms race with Russia and China) are indefensible.

EDIE ALLEN, Arlington

IRAQ UPDATES

Notes from the WAND News Bulletin editor I swear I am not making this up.

In case you don't believe that W understands what it means to lose a loved one in a war, there's this from The Washington Post May 14, 2008:

President Bush said yesterday that he gave up golfing in 2003 "in solidarity" with the families of soldiers who were dying in Iraq, concluding that it was "just not worth it anymore" to play the sport in a time of war.

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," Bush said in a White House interview with the Politico. "I feel I owe it to the families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."

In related news, he gave up luxury yachting in solidarity with the dead children in China's earthquake region; and skydiving for the homeless in Myanmar.

However, he's still willing to keep sending these signals: tap dancing at a press conference, and taking the most vacation days of any American President. Ever.

See "The Vacation President":

President Bush famously, if unjustifiably, casts himself as Ronald Reagan's disciple. But in at least one way, he has surpassed his master.

According to the meticulous records kept by CBS Radio White House correspondent Mark Knoller, Bush on Monday (March 2008) lodged his 879th day spent in whole or in part at Camp David or his sprawling estate in Crawford, Tex.

By comparison, the 40th president only -- only! -- spent all or part of 866 days at Camp David or his ranch in California during his eight years in office, according to the Reagan Library. (By my count, Bush actually beat Reagan's mark on Dec. 30, during his Christmas vacation in Crawford.)

For more, you might enjoy Keith Olbermann's indignant rant.

To mark the fifth anniversary of the moment when the President boldly declared "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq, The New York Times solicited op ed contributions from various commentators.

How to See This Mission Accomplished
The New York Times | May 4, 2008

Oh, the Cusack siblings: so smart, so savvy. Now the John has gone and made a movie called "War Inc." -- which WAND can now adopt as its official tagline.

John Cusack: Outsourced Warfare Represents a "Radical, Dangerous, Disgusting Ideology"
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted May 19, 2008.

Cusack: So I think it's really about the entire system and that entire ideology. There seems to be these companies that helped create a new market by creating a war, and then they bar the competitors from entering into the clean up. In the meantime, they've privatized the entire country, which is basically strip mining it. Basically, it's a land-grab. So not only are we looking at a murder scene, but it's the scene of an armed robbery.

And that's the version of democracy ... the version of a free market that we're not only supposed to worship, but into which we're also supposed to keep feeding bodies. We have to kill to feed this kind of twisted version of their free market. And [American political leaders] seem entirely unconcerned that Halliburton and Bechtel -- and Parsons and KPMG and Blackwater and the rest -- are kind of madly gorging off of this protectionist racket.

Army's Next Crop of Generals Forged in Counterinsurgency
By Ann Scott Tyson | Washington Post | May 15, 2008

...McMaster challenged what he called the military's preoccupation in the 1990s with technology, to the neglect of the political and cultural dimensions of war. Military leaders must end the "self-delusion" that high-tech weapons and a "minimalist" commitment of forces can solve conflicts, he wrote.

Democrats' War Funding Bill Adds Surtax on the Wealthy
By Jonathan Weisman | Washington Post | May 15, 2008

...Pelosi said the tax is the least the affluent can do to provide benefits that would pay tuition for veterans at even the most expensive state universities. House Democratic leadership aides practically dared Republicans to oppose the measure.

IRAN HAPPENINGS

The New Cold War
by Thomas Friedman | The New York Times | May 14, 2008

The next American president will inherit many foreign policy challenges, but surely one of the biggest will be the cold war. Yes, the next president is going to be a cold-war president — but this cold war is with Iran...

Gates: U.S. Should Engage Iran With Incentives, Pressure
By Karen DeYoung | Washington Post | May 15, 2008

...A number of senior U.S. military officials have emphasized the need for robust diplomacy toward Iran, while not ruling out the use of force. "I'm a big believer in resolving this diplomatically, economically and politically," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a recent interview with The Washington Post. "The military aspect of this, which I think is a very important part of the equation and must stay on the table," Mullen said, is an option of "last resort."

NEWS FROM WiLL