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by Ron Forthofer
Originally in the Daily Camera January 3, 1999
"And it’s bad, bad Leroy BrownThe song reminded me of the U.S. foreign policy in too many situations today. Our policy seems to be that we can do whatever we want because we’re the ‘baddest’.
The baddest man in the whole damned town
Badder than old King Kong
And meaner than a junkyard dog"
The recent bombing of Iraq is only the latest sad example of our addiction to the use of military force. The bombing also represents a flouting of both U.S. and international law. President Clinton violated the U.S. Constitution by usurping Congressional powers when he ordered the bombing of Iraq. In addition, the attack violated the UN Charter. Not surprisingly, the U.S. media coverage of the bombing, basically an infomercial for our military contractors, was mostly silent about these violations.
It appears that the U.S. has little respect for international law. In the last 15 years, we have attacked Grenada, Panama, Libya, Sudan and Afghanistan. We have also attacked Iraq three times since the Gulf War. All these attacks violated the UN Charter. In addition, we mined Nicaraguan harbors, an act later ruled illegal by the World Court, a ruling which we ignored. Given these violations, how can the U.S. expect other nations to take us seriously when we talk about the sanctity of international law?
We might be more apt to respect our Constitution and international law, and work more closely with international organizations, if we didn’t have such a powerful military. Does our unrivaled military might encourage us to resort to its use instead of pursuing diplomatic means? Note that we spend almost as much on our military as most of the rest of the world combined, and our military budget is far greater than the total military budget of all of the countries that one could consider as our enemies.
What’s worse is that we continue to use our precious resources to develop additional weapons. It is outrageous, particularly given the cutbacks in our social programs, that we are currently spending more on nuclear weapons development than we did during the height of the Cold War!
Has all this high-tech weaponry brought us security? When one considers all the changes we now accept as part of our daily life in the name of security, perhaps we are not really secure. This recent attack on Iraq has caused us to increase security measures at national monuments, embassies and airports. The threat we now face is not from the military of another country, but from someone, perhaps even a disgruntled U.S. citizen, placing a bomb or putting some biological or chemical agent in our environment. Given this, it’s odd that we are still wasting so much in weapons development and protections against missiles when the threat is coming from other sources.
If we would stop our military contractors from selling our weapons abroad, it would slow the arms race that we are in with ourselves. Contractors are selling some of our most advanced planes, for example the F-15 and F-16, to almost any nation with the money. The Pentagon now wants 330 new F-22s at a cost of $62.5 billion to counter the F-15s and F-16s we have sold. The contractors are happy to oblige while, at the same time, they are taking orders from other nations for the F-22. The Pentagon will then need a new plane, the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), because other countries will have the F-22. The JSF is scheduled for mass production in 2008 with a projected market value of $350 billion.
It’s time to stop this insanity! It’s time to consider non-violent alternatives that have a history of working. In the last 15 years, while the U.S. was using violence against weak countries which did not have the ability to fight back, nonviolent methods were used to change the governments in South Africa, most of the nations of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the Philippines and elsewhere. It’s time for the U.S. to get on board by supporting the UN and obeying international law. By working with and through the UN, we would be able to reduce our expenditures tremendously while providing for a safer and more secure world for all. Not a bad deal when you consider it!
Note that bad, bad Leroy Brown was defeated in the end; maybe there is a message there.