Dwight Eisenhower
was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during WWII. After the
war he became the 34th President of the United States (1953 – 1961).
His words are especially relevant in today’s political climate:
“In the councils of
government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential
for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must
never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or our
democratic process. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable
citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military
machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and
liberty may prosper together.”
Apparently the
citizenry has been neither alert nor knowledgeable. The Pentagon has called “unnecessary
and unaffordable” the following five projects in Ohio alone:
1. Upgrades to the M1
Abrams tank. The Pentagon wants to suspend $3B in upgrades until a new version,
scheduled for 2017, is ready. Legislators say the action would cost 800 jobs in
Lima, Ohio, and are budgeting over $250M to keep the plant going.
2. Congress put $278M
into the Global Hawk Block 30 Drone program. The Pentagon says the U2 spy plane
can do the job and save $2.5B by 2017.
3. The Pentagon says
the C-27J Spartan cargo plane is not needed, and discontinuing its use would
save $400M by 2017. Congress, in its infinite wisdom(?) budgeted funds to keep ‘em flying.
4. The Pentagon wants
to cut 5,100 positions from the Air National Guard, thereby saving $300M next
year. Ohio’s representatives are fighting the proposal.
5. The Pentagon says
that a missile defense system to protect the east coast from Iran and other
highly sophisticated air attack forces is unnecessary, but Congress has
budgeted $100M to fund the project for next year. It is projected that the cost
could rise to $3.6B by 2017.
One has only to
Google “Unwanted Military Projects” to find examples of ships, planes, tanks
and other pork which the Pentagon considers unnecessary. Under sequestration, these
projects must be funded by money taken from projects which the Pentagon
considers to be essential.
Instead of getting
Congressional pork under control, we are closing schools, gutting programs that
feed hungry kids, letting our infrastructure deteriorate and forcing seniors to
eat dog food.
Here is another quote
from President Eisenhower: “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 . . . The cost of one
medium heavy bomber is this: a modern
brick school in more than thirty cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving
a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is
some 50 miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a
half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes
that could have housed more than 8,000 people . . . This is not a way of life
at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity
hanging from a cross of iron.”
Although the costs
mentioned by Eisenhower have changed since he spoke over 50 years ago, the
words have never been more relevant than they are today. It raises a question
which has often been asked in recent years: “Why can we not afford to feed our
own hungry people, but we can always afford another war?”
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My books, “There Are Only Seven Jokes” and “The Spirit Runs Through
It” are available in paperback or Kindle at Amazon.
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