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by Ron Forthofer
Originally published in the Boulder Daily Camera, August 6, 1999.
Unfortunately, the lesson the U.S. and a few other countries took away from Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that more nuclear weapons were needed. Once the atomic genie was unleashed, nuclear proliferation became the name of the game. Talk about your overkill - the U.S. eventually manufactured and deployed more than 70,000 nuclear weapons! Might, not diplomacy, was ‘in’.
By the early 1960s, five nations had nuclear weapons, with the Soviet Union and the U.S. armed to the teeth and following the policy of mutual assured destruction (MAD). The leaders of these countries were indeed mad! Commenting on this situation, Army General Omar Bradley, the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said "Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living."
Stephen Schwartz of The Brookings Institute reported the U.S. spent over $5.5 trillion (in 1996 dollars) on nuclear weapons, a large portion of the $18.7 trillion spent on the military between 1940 and 1996. Contrast these amounts with the paltry sums for preventing violence and supporting agencies working on international cooperation. Speaking on military expenditures in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower said "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
Has all this money spent on nuclear weapons and the military brought us peace and security? Or has it simply improved the killing capability of our military and enriched the merchants of death, our military-industrial complex, at the expense of our people and worldwide peace and security? A look at the past 50 years shows that our huge and bloated nuclear-armed military has not brought peace throughout the world. In fact, it appears that the U.S., by having such a powerful military, tends to turn to it instead of solving problems diplomatically. The latest sad example was the recent criminal NATO attack on Yugoslavia. A senior Clinton Administration official told the media at the Rambouillet ‘negotiations’ that "We intentionally set the bar too high for the Serbs to comply. They need some bombing, and that's what they are going to get." By resorting to military means, we have killed millions of civilians and tens of thousands of our own soldiers during the past fifty years. We have also managed to ruin the image of the U.S. - we are no longer seen as a fighter for freedom, but now are viewed as the enforcer for U.S. multinational corporations.
Despite a military budget that, at about $280 billion, is almost three times the combined military expenditures of our possible enemies, the military wants more. This figure excludes the approximately $170 billion military budgets of our NATO allies. According to the Friends Committee on National Legislation, 40-45 percent of our discretionary spending goes to the military at the expense of programs that benefit us, the U.S. people. Not being satisfied with dominance on Earth, the military and U.S. multinationals are planning to control outer space with $30 billion allocated for this venture. Meanwhile, back here on Earth, we are planning to spend $60 billion over a 12-year period on the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP), doublespeak for additional nuclear weapons development. Will this madness never end?!
Edmund Burke said, "All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men remain silent and do nothing." Good men and women can help to end this insanity by calling their senators and demanding that the U.S. ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) on nuclear weapons. Also tell Congress to stop funding the SSP. Of crucial importance, tell Congress that the U.S. should pay its back and current dues to the UN, the best hope for world peace, without any side conditions. To learn of other activities, please contact the Rocky Mountain Peace & Justice Center.