By David Swanson
http://worldbeyondwar.org/another-11-6-billion-obamatrump-wars-hell-no/
President
Obama waited until after the election last week to propose an unpopular
idea. He asked Congress for $11.6 billion extra — outside the huge
existing military budget — for wars. Here’s his letter including all the gory details. Please read it yourself when you begin to hope that I’m making up some of what follows.
This
massive pile of money, equivalent to the annual spending that the
United Nations says could end the lack of clean drinking water globally,
adds between 1% and 2% to U.S. military spending — but is by itself
more than the entire military budget of all but 14 other nations on
earth, 12 of which top-spending nations are U.S. allies.
This $11.6 billion would be added to another $73.7 billion in
off-the-books war spending already appropriated. That’s military
spending outside the gargantuan military budget and supposedly for
emergency wars that just shockingly arose, although actually for a
half-dozen permawars plus basic profiteering and preparation for future
slaughters.
While nothing would prevent this new money from being used for any
war that the current or next president desires, it is requested in large
part for the wars in Afghanistan and Syria/Iraq. That includes
supplying other militaries such as the Iraqi, Afghan, and Kurdish armed
forces with free gifts of instruments of mass murder, as well as
expanding U.S. military facilities in Somalia, Mauritania, Chad, Turkey,
and elsewhere.
The unfathomable sum of $11.6 billion would go to fund war efforts
that the next U.S. president has sometimes said he wants to end (the
arming of fighters in Syria) or not commented on at all. It would also
give the Afghan military U.S.-made helicopters so that it no longer uses
Russian ones. This follows lobbying by Lockheed Martin and Textron that
warned of “tensions over President Vladimir Putin’s military
intervention in Ukraine and Syria,” tensions that may not apply come January 20.
Also requested: miniature killer drones that can be launched by U.S.
troops in Iraq — troops whose boots are, despite White House rhetoric,
on the ground.
Also requested: a big chunk of change for secret operations that
Congress is expected to fund with our money despite not knowing what
they are. And another for secret research and testing (which sounds less
like an “emergency” war than profiteering on the preparations for more
wars down the road).
Also in there: funding for a major war on drugs in Libya and West
Africa. Not to mention: funds for USAID operations of the sort that have
facilitated violent coups in places like Ukraine.
While the President’s request claims to devote 50% to non-defense
efforts and includes aid for refugees while funding the creation of more
of them, in fact 0% of this is related to defending the United States,
and only 14% of people
in the U.S. believe these wars are making us safer. Meanwhile, most of
the supposedly “non-defense” spending requested is part and parcel of a
military mission and devoted to things like “security,” “stabilization,”
and “police training.”
A petition
has been launched opposing this war bill. One reason it might gain
traction, ironically, is that resistance has begun to build against
Republican wars (what the large peace movement of 2002-2006 was aimed
at). It’s ironic because these are, of course, the wars that President
Obama has continued or begun during the last nearly eight years. We
can’t know which good and which horrible statements a President Trump
will follow through on. But it’s possible that with the right pressure
and influences he will end some of these wars — also that, if we cannot
prevent it, he will escalate or initiate others. All we can know for
sure is that millions of people in the United States will be suddenly
more willing to oppose the wars Trump tries to wage.
Some months back, Obama was absurdly talking about undoing his
self-created permission to kill anyone anywhere with a missile from a
drone, so that nobody would suffer the indignity of being dismembered by
a Republican. Yet, now, post-election, Obama has dropped that idea.
After all, once you’ve firmly established the presidential power of
inventing “laws” and violating “laws” and shredding the “laws” of the
previous president, what difference does it make what you try to impose
on the next emperor?
Not only is Obama passing along unprecedented powers to spy,
imprison, torture, kill, operate in secret, and persecture
whistleblowers, but he is now trying to make sure all war operations are
abundantly funded for his successor. There ought, in a reasonable
world, to be a huge percentage of us across the political spectrum
prepared to stop this cold.
--
David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a 2015 and 2016 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
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