WAND public policy director Marie Rietmann reports on the sad news of the passage of the India nuclear deal: Thank you to the many WAND and WiLL members who responded to our requests to contact Congress. The arms control community was a significant speed bump on the road to passage.

Send a message to your Senators and Representative: Thanks or no thanks WAND and a number of our allies in the arms control community did a great deal of work on the India deal. Staff in one Hill office that we work closely with on these issues said, “We all worked our hearts out on this, and for a very long time. Thanks for all that you folks did, I think we have a lot to be proud of.”

More information about the deal here.

U.S. Should Boost Nonmilitary Security
Foreign Aid, Diplomacy, Key to Strategic Success
By MIRIAM PEMBERTON AND LAWRENCE KORB
Published: 29 September 2008 | More here.

At a time when national consensus on anything is rare indeed, here's one example: The balance between our spending on military forces and other security tools - like diplomacy, nonproliferation, foreign aid and homeland security - needs to change.

The summary: A non-partisan task force of military, homeland security, and foreign policy experts laid out the facts of the imbalance between military and non-military spending. The ratio of funding for military forces vs. non-military international engagement in the Bush administration’s proposed budget for the 2009 fiscal year has widened to 18:1 from 16:1 in the 2008 fiscal year.

Find the full report here. From the executive summary:

Since 2004, the annual Unified Security Budget report has outlined and promoted a rebalancing of resources funding offense (military forces), defense (homeland security), and prevention (non-military international
engagement, including diplomacy, nonproliferation, foreign aid, peacekeeping, and contributions to international organizations.)

FINDING: This year that goal has entered the realm of conventional wisdom. During the past year, the foreign policy establishments
representing defense, diplomacy, and development have all converged to support a rebalancing of security spending.

FEDERAL BUDGET WATCH

The bailout. The rescue. The financial meltdown.

It's been a fun ride. Watching the Democrats and the Republicans jockey for credit and lay blame; watching the stock market careen up and (mostly) down; watching people suddenly realize that these things matter: federal budget unwatched, capitalism unregulated...

Our immediate reactions: yes, $700 billion is a lot! And it's about what we spend on our military EVERY YEAR. Pay attention!

And when we spend that on our military, we're messing up the economy even more. We're investing in permanent war; wasting money on outmoded weapons systems that don't help with today's threats; ruining the environment; and NOT investing in the things that make us healtheir and more prosperous.

So all of a sudden, we can find $700 billion for this crisis. How many other dire needs have we tried to get funded -- to no avail? Childhood obesity, which leads to chronic diseases; bridges and levies that fall down and kill people; people who can't afford to visit the doctor; and you know the rest...

We can change this. YOU can change this. Take action this November.

Palin's Kind of Patriotism
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN | New York Times | October 7, 2008

Palin defended the government’s $700 billion rescue plan. She defended the surge in Iraq, where her own son is now serving. She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan. And yet, at the same time, she declared that Americans who pay their fair share of taxes to support all those government-led endeavors should not be considered patriotic.

I only wish she had been asked: “Governor Palin, if paying taxes is not considered patriotic in your neighborhood, who is going to pay for the body armor that will protect your son in Iraq? Who is going to pay for the bailout you endorsed? If it isn’t from tax revenues, there are only two ways to pay for those big projects — printing more money or borrowing more money. Do you think borrowing money from China is more patriotic than raising it in taxes from Americans?” That is not putting America first. That is selling America first.

Sorry, I grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, and my parents taught me that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.”

I can understand someone saying that the government has no business bailing out the financial system, but I can’t understand someone arguing that we should do that but not pay for it with taxes. I can understand someone saying we have no business in Iraq, but I can’t understand someone who advocates staying in Iraq until “victory” declaring that paying taxes to fund that is not patriotic.

Let's Just Say You Had $700 Billion to Spend

By Allison Stevens, Women's eNews. Posted on Alternet October 9, 2008

Anti-poverty and women's rights lobbyists are looking at the government's $700 billion bank bailout and seeing a way to talk about national spending priorities.

"It's obviously incredibly unfair," said Irasema Garza, president of New York-based Legal Momentum, a legal advocacy group for women. "We're willing to get ourselves in that type of debt to take incredible risk to bail out those industries but as a country we're not willing to take a fraction of that particular risk to make sure we have sound economic policies to give the citizens of our country the basic things they need to live: a place to live, health care, food, education for their kids and the creation of good jobs."

The American Empire's $650 Billion Bailout Already Passed Congress
By Chalmers Johnson, Tomdispatch.com. September 29, 2008.

There has been much moaning, air-sucking, and outrage about the $700 billion that the U.S. government is thinking of throwing away on rich New York bankers who have been ripping us off for the past few years and then letting greed drive their businesses into a variety of ditches. In fact, we dole out similar amounts of money every year in the form of payoffs to the armed services, the military-industrial complex, and powerful senators and representatives allied with the Pentagon.

On Wednesday, September 24th, right in the middle of the fight over billions of taxpayer dollars slated to bail out Wall Street, the House of Representatives passed a $612 billion defense authorization bill for 2009 without a murmur of public protest or any meaningful press comment at all.

Making some sense of $700b
By James Carroll | The Boston Globe | October 6, 2008

By a nice coincidence, though, the financial rescue package of $700 billion duplicates a number that was also in the news last week - the Pentagon budget. In the fiscal year just beginning, the Defense Department will spend $607 billion on normal military costs, and an additional $100 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (As of June 30, 2008, Congress had appropriated $859 billion for the wars; Congressional Budget Office projections assume further costs of $400 billion to $500 billion as the wars wind down). But for the coming year, $700 billion is the Pentagon's nice round number (this includes neither Homeland Security nor intelligence costs).

Step back. All of last week's hand-wringing hoopla over the emergency bailout stands in stark contrast to the utter indifference with which politicians approved an equivalent layout for the military - an approval so routine that it was ignored in the press and by the public...

The $700 billion bailout aims to rescue the world's economy, but that, too, raises questions about the Pentagon's prior effect there. Because America has put military invention at the heart of its enterprise, the exporting of weapons to countries that do not need them and cannot afford them has become a main mode of this nation's being in the world. (The Arms Control Association reports that in 2007 the Pentagon sent $40 billion worth of arms to two dozen nations; that is double the 2007 appropriation for US foreign aid.) Unneeded weapons spark unnecessary wars.

Saving the U.S. Economy Through "Trickle Up" Economics
Blog posting by Deepak Chopra | October 6, 2008

8. Launch an immediate project, in the $50-100 billion range annually for the next 5 years, to rebuild and expand American infrastructure, including bridges, roads, hospitals, sewers, public buildings, green transit, alternative energy projects, and broadband capacity.

9. As fast as possible, zero out the $10 billion/month we spend on the Iraq war. Reduce annual defense spending to $600bn per, saving $100bn annually, and spend a third of the savings on each of the following: a crash green fuels program, further infrastructure improvements, and reduction of the national debt….

First, this question assumes that military spending could not be reduced to pay for the entire package and still leave the U.S. military with extraordinary high level of funding by historical standards. The American people must realize that even after the minor 10% cut recommended above, military spending would be dramatically higher than when George Bush took office, and that we are so broke we can no longer afford to spend more than the rest of the world combined on military matters. We have been on a permanent wartime funding in this country since World War II and such funding, more than any other single item, has led to the brink of financial ruin. Like every other empire that has preceded us, we must understand that the cost of maintaining a global military presence exceeds its value to us and is not making us safer and that the time has come for us to take our responsible role as one very powerful nation amongst a family of nations rather than continuing to attempt to run the world at the expense of the American taxpayer.

We can no longer afford to have hundreds of military bases around the world nor continue to procure weapons at the staggering rate we have for over 60 years. President Eisenhower warned us precisely of this danger in his Farewell Address at the completion of this second term. It is time we took his admonitions to heart.

Thanks to allies in Congress, a midlevel worker extracted nearly $350 million for items the Pentagon did not want.
Insider’s Projects Drained Missile-Defense Millions
By ERIC LIPTON | The New York Times | October 11, 2008

They huddled in a quiet corner at the US Airways lounge at Ronald Reagan National Airport, sipping bottomless cups of coffee as they plotted to turn America’s missile defense program into a personal cash machine.

Michael Cantrell, an engineer at the Army Space and Missile Defense Command headquarters in Huntsville, Ala., along with his deputy, Doug Ennis, had lined up millions of dollars from Congress for defense companies. Now, Mr. Cantrell decided, it was time to take a cut.

“The contractors are making a killing,” Mr. Cantrell recalled thinking at the meeting, in 2000. “The lobbyists are getting their fees, and the contractors and lobbyists are writing out campaign checks to the politicians. Everybody is making money here — except us.”

Within months, Mr. Cantrell began getting personal checks from contractors and later returned to the airport with Mr. Ennis to pick up a briefcase stuffed with $75,000. The two men eventually collected more than $1.6 million in kickbacks, through 2007, prompting them to plead guilty this year to corruption charges...

That pattern of larding up the defense budget with pet projects pushed by lawmakers and lobbyists is a familiar one.

“What they did may have been a scandal,” said Walter E. Braswell, Mr. Ennis’s lawyer, referring to the actions of his client and Mr. Cantrell. “But even more grotesque is the way defense procurement has disintegrated into an incestuous relationship between the military, politicians and contractors.”

Pentagon Wants $450 Billion Increase Over Next Five Years
By Josh Rogin, CQ Politics | October 9, 2008

The new estimate, which the Pentagon plans to release shortly before President Bush leaves office, would serve as a marker for the new president and is meant to place pressure on him to either drastically increase the size of the defense budget or defend any reluctance to do so, according to several former senior budget officials who are close to the discussions.

That's the conclusion of retired ambassadors and other foreign policy experts, who produced a report on the shortfall for the American Academy of Diplomacy.

Amusing, but Not Funny
Bob Herbert | New York Times | October 13, 2008

A country that refuses to properly educate its young people or to maintain its physical plant is one that has clearly lost its way. Add in the myriad problems associated with unnecessary warfare and a clueless central government that wastes taxpayer dollars by the trillions, and you’ve got a society in danger of becoming completely unhinged...

New Orleans was nearly wiped from the map in the Hurricane Katrina nightmare, and 13 people were killed when a bridge in Minneapolis broke apart during rush hour, hurling helpless motorists 60 feet into the Mississippi River. Neither of those disasters was enough of a warning for us to think seriously about infrastructure maintenance, repair and construction.

US generals planning for resource wars
The Irish Times | September 22, 2008

Under the auspices of the US department of defence and department of the army, the US military have just published a document entitled 2008 Army Modernization Strategy which makes for interesting reading against the current backdrop of deteriorating international fiscal, environmental, energy resource and security crises.

The 2008 modernisation strategy, written by Lieut Gen Stephen Speakes, deputy chief of staff of the US army, contains the first explicit and official acknowledgement that the US military is dangerously overstretched internationally. It states simply: "The army is engaged in the third-longest war in our nation's history and . . . the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) has caused the army to become out of balance with the demand for forces exceeding the sustainable supply."

Against this backdrop, the 90 page document sets out the future of international conflict for the next 30 to 40 years - as the US military sees it - and outlines the manner in which the military will sustain its current operations and prepare and "transform" itself for future "persistent" warfare.

The document reveals a number of profoundly significant - and worrying - strategic positions that have been adopted as official doctrine by the US military. In its preamble, it predicts a post cold war future of "perpetual warfare".

NUCLEAR NOTES

A Bad India Deal
New York Times Editorial | September 29, 2008

President Bush and his aides were so eager for a foreign-policy success that they didn’t even try to get India to limit its weapons program in return. They got no promise from India to stop producing bombing-making material, no promise not to expand its arsenal and no promise not to resume nuclear testing.

Senate Backs Far-Reaching Nuclear Trade Deal With India
Measure Goes to Bush, Giving The President a Rare Victory
By Glenn Kessler | Washington Post | October 2, 2008

...Opponents have complained bitterly that in the rush, the administration made concessions that fell short of requirements in a 2006 law that gave initial approval to the pact. "Never has something of such moment and such significance and so much importance been debated in such a short period of time and given such short shrift," Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) said yesterday.

Debate on Indo-US nuclear deal in US House: Who said what
(Compilation of Congressional comments on the deal)
NDTV | September 28, 2008

Edward Markey: Approval of this agreement undermines our efforts to dissuade countries like Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. By approving this agreement, all we are doing is creating incentives for other countries to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. This deal will not advance America's interests or make the world safer. It will, however, deal a near fatal blow to the stability of the international non-proliferation regime.

NPR runs series on current state of Missile Defense
by Mike Shuster | NPR web site |

It's a great listen, and an insightful take on one of the most expensive weapons system in history -- not to mention the most ill-conceived and unsuccessful...

The U.S. has spent more than $60 billion deploying a land-, sea- and air-based missile defense system aimed at intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles. The complex and controversial system has drawn sharp criticism for its cost and questionable efficiency, even as the Pentagon looks to the future of missile defense.

New and Unnecessary
New York Times Editorial | October 12, 2008

...The Pentagon became concerned about “aging” warheads only after it could not persuade Congress to finance a new “bunker buster” weapon to go after deeply buried targets. The nation’s nuclear weapons labs have long been lobbying for a new challenge to lure a new generation of nuclear scientists. But nuclear weapons cannot be a jobs project.

Congress has wisely delayed financing a new warhead at least until a blue-ribbon study on nuclear weapons policy — led by two former defense secretaries, William Perry and James Schlesinger — is completed in December. Neither presidential candidate has categorically ruled out a new weapon. They both should.

If the existing stockpile is “safe, secure and reliable,” there is no reason to build a new nuclear weapon.

IRAQ UPDATES

Nearing the End
New York Times Editorial | October 8, 2008

We still do not know what Mr. McCain means with talk about some kind of magical “victory” in Iraq. Even American military commanders acknowledge that recent security gains are fragile. And there is no near-term expectation that Iraq can be the kind of stable democracy that Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain had envisioned.

What we do know is that only by setting a clear deadline and a sound withdrawal plan can America hope to keep encouraging Iraqis to make and implement the political reforms needed to stabilize the country. There is a lot to be done, and done quickly, to ensure that the withdrawal is safe, orderly and limits further damage to Iraq and its neighbors.

Published on Wednesday, October 8, 2008 by McClatchy Newspapers
New US Intelligence Report Warns 'Victory' Not Certain in Iraq
by Jonathan S. Landay, Warren P. Strobel and Nancy A. Youssef

A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year.

IRAN HAPPENINGS

While this piece reports good news, WAND public policy director Marie Rietmann comments: "After the statements were made that are in the article, the prime sponsor of H.Con.Res. 362, Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), proclaimed his intention to reintroduce the bill in the next Congress. So we’re not out of the woods yet!"

In Reversal, Democrats Shelve Iran Resolution
by Maya Schenwar, t r u t h o u t | October 9, 2008

Falling from shoo-in status to widely rejected legislation within the space of four months, a resolution that would have opened the door for a naval blockade on Iran was officially shelved at the end of September, after several of its cosponsors withdrew their support. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman has promised not to bring the bill, House Concurrent Resolution 362, before the committee until concerns about the text are addressed...

Yet, just as the bill was poised to sail through the House, another lobbying effort staged a counterattack. A widespread coalition of peace groups, religious organizations, Iranian Americans and Jewish Americans coordinated phone-ins, email campaigns and visits to Congressional offices. They stressed that, though the language of the bill may imply that it simply strengthens sanctions, it actually could only be implemented by military means.

Prominent military experts and military personnel concurred with the grassroots movement, and made their voices heard.

"The blockade is not a step short of war; it is war. It virtually guarantees military confrontation causing unnecessary casualties on both sides," stated University of Minnesota Professor Cyrus Bina and Col. Sam Gardiner (ret.) in an early July op-ed, in the Washington Times...

Congress's response was unprecedented: five co-sponsors officially withdrew their names from the bill, while several more, including Wexler, voiced firm opposition to the bill's current language and vowed to push for changes.

"None of us at FCNL can remember another time when five members withdrew from a resolution they had agreed to cosponsor," Fine said.

The President Who Will Deal With Iran
By Michael Gerson | Washington Post | October 10, 2008

A specter is haunting the presidential race -- and it is not just the economy. It is the specter of a nuclear Iran.

Economic downturns are wrenching but cyclical. Nuclear proliferation is more difficult to reverse, creating the permanent prospect of massive miscalculation and tragedy. America's next leader may be known to history as the president who had to deal with Iran.

Faith in Action

NEWS FROM WiLL

WiLL President Sen. Nan Grogan Orrock Named "Best Local Politician"!
Nan's a State Senator in Georgia, and a spitfire with a long history in fighting the good fight -- civil rights, women's rights, labor, and more. We congratulate her on being the best of Atlanta 2008!

IDEAS, VISIONS, RESOURCES FOR A BETTER WORLD

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