Category: Anti-War & International Law
Today, April 15th, is the Global Day of Action to cut military spending. It is important that today we contact our Federal Representatives and tell them that it is time to cut the out of control Pentagon spending. Click HERE to find the contact information for your Nebraska Representative.
Join millions of people around the world today to focus public, political, and media attention on the waste, fraud and abuse of military spending and the need for new spending priorities. Carved into the stone of the IRS building is the Oliver Wendell Holmes quote, "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society." Yet, the U.S. leads the world in military spending, spending more on weapons and war than the next ten nations combined, almost surpassing the rest of the world. After more than a decade of war and unprecedented increases in war spending, the U.S. economy is nearly stalled, the nation is in deep debt, and millions of people are out of work with no job prospects in sight.
A telling and sad statistic provided by the Census Bureau reports that in 2011, 46.2 million or 1 out of 7 people live in poverty with almost 1 out of 16 people living in deep poverty. The Census defines deep poverty as income 50% below the poverty line. Census figures show that in 2011, 6.6 percent of all people, or 20.4 million people, lived in deep poverty.
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America’s New High-Tech Means of Global Dominance
by Hendrik Van den Berg
UNL Professor of Economics
Even though the U.S. military and the CIA have been using drones for surveillance and bombing for over a decade, the issue of drone assassinations became front-page news this year. In early March of 2013, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was called to testify before Congress about targeting U.S. citizens within our borders with drone strikes. Documentation was acquired by various news media suggesting that not only does the U.S. government claim to have a right to launch drone strikes against foreigners on foreign territory, but President Obama has legal memos that justify using drones to kill Americans in an “extraordinary circumstance.” The precise definition of “extraordinary” was classified information, however.
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March 20, 2013
Lincoln Journal Star
by Robert Haller and John Krejci
The following OpEd, written by Nebraskans for Peace members Bob Haller and John Krejci, appeared in last Wednesday's Lincoln Journal Star.
The members of the United Nations Association in Nebraska, like most Americans, are concerned for the security and leadership standing of our country. They see our mounting debt, and the huge military outlays contributing to that debt, as major long-term contributors to U.S. insecurity.
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For over 20 years, government auditors have been unable to determine where the Pentagon’s money goes.
The Pentagon budget has increased by almost ten percent annually since 2001. Military spending consumes virtually half of the federal government’s discretionary budget. (One out of every two of our tax dollars.) And yet, in a problem going back decades, the Government Accountability Office has been unable to complete a financial audit of the Pentagon due to its shabby bookkeeping.
In 2011, the Department of Defense’s own Inspector General reported “material internal control weaknesses ... that affect the safeguarding of assets, proper use of funds, and impair the prevention and identification of fraud, waste and abuse.”
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The following message was distributed by Peace Action, the national Peace & Justice organization with which Nebraskans for Peace is affiliated. Given the ongoing debate in Washington over the federal budget, this issue could not be more timely and we urge you to contact your member of Congress and your two Senators.
When Congress came to a deal over the budget negotiations earlier this month, they finally agreed to make the top 1% pay their fair share. It was a huge victory, but noticeably absent from the deal was what to do with the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts. Instead Congress gave themselves a two-month extension to hammer out a deal. We are joining with US Action to call for cuts in runaway Pentagon spending.
This could be our best opportunity to rein in Pentagon spending. We simply have to stop paying for the things we don’t need so that we can afford the things we do – like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. With a deadline of March 1st, lobbyists representing fat cat Pentagon contractors are already circling the halls of Congress to ensure they get the best deal.
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