The Iran Sanctions Bill we wrote about in December has passed the Senate in a unanimous voice vote late January. It must now be reconciled with the House version before it can become law. Because the final bill will inevitably pass, the best outcome at this point is to mitigate the damage by changing the bill in conference committee to give the president greater flexibility in applying the sanctions. Without provisions that would allow President Obama discretion in applying sanctions, Iran looks certain to be facing a fourth round of sanctions that promise to lower the standard of living of its people and provide the regime with a scapegoat for its mismanagement of the country. Worse, this latest round of economic condemnation is just as unlikely to persuade Iran to forgo nuclear weapons as the previous three.
This bill is far too broad and runs too great a risk of hurting the regular Iranians who — still extremely discontented with last year’s stolen election — are pushing for democracy in their country. The Obama administration has made it clear that they prefer sanctions that are targeted at people responsible for Iran’s nuclear program and human rights abuses:
The Obama administration has been tweaking its rhetoric about sanctions, shying away from the broad measures found in the umbrella bill led by Sen. Chris Dodd, D-CT, and a companion bill by Rep. Howard Berman, D-CA. Those bills both include measures that could affect large swaths of the Iranian population by restricting such things as refined petroleum exports to the country.
But with increasing disparity between the Iranian regime and the Iranian population, the administration’s appetite for sanctions that have broad consequences for the Iranian economy seems to be waning. “If we can create a sanctions track that targets those who actually make the decisions, we think that is a smarter way to do sanctions,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in Honolulu, “But all that is yet to be decided upon.”
As it stands, the bill gives the president little flexibility in interpreting the legislation, which in turn ties his hands in negotiating with Iran. The majority of the bill’s provisions were written before the Iranian election and the turmoil that followed, but Congress has been so anxious to pass legislation condemning the illegitimate regime it has not done its due diligence in reviewing the bill. For example, the National Iranian American Council reports that it has failed to remove even a stipulation which places restrictions on Iranians’ access to the internet – a communications tool that has proven invaluable in organizing protests against Khamenei’s regime.
But while S.2799 includes exceptions allowing outdated tools like phonographs, telegraphs, and cassette tapes to go to Iranians, it fails to update the list to include Internet communication software. This means that, even as Iranians are using cell phone apps to organize protests and broadcast videos in to the outside world, and as the Administration works to rewrite regulations to promote rather than restrict Internet freedom, S. 2799 holds in place harmful policies blocking Iranians’ access to communication tools.
Broad sanctions against Iran have always been a bad idea that had little hope of working. But this latest round is especially atrocious: not only does it fly in the face of the Obama administration’s vision for what the sanctions should look like, it punishes the very people that are working to restore democratic legitimacy to the country.
Jon Rainwater’s Opinion Editorial calling on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s to push for the kind of credible, cost effective alternatives that Afghanistan Ambassador Karl Eikenberry argued for ran today in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Rep. Pelosi is one of the most powerful people in the country, so if you live in San Francisco, Rep. Pelosi’s district, you are in a unique position to make an impact on our course in this war. So to all you San Franciscans, I am posting an email Rebecca Griffin sent to our San Francisco supporters today.
Supporters of strong nonmilitary options in Afghanistan need a champion in Congress, and your representative is a prime candidate. That’s why we took our message to the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle today, calling on Speaker Pelosi to stand up and fight for a better plan for Afghanistan and America. We need your help TODAY to make sure Speaker Pelosi gets our message. Please email her to tell her you agree that it’s time for her to speak up.
San Francisco, your representative is one of the most influential politicians in America, so that means you are uniquely positioned to make a difference. Speaker Pelosi is already moving in our direction. She told the media that she is done selling the war in Afghanistan to Congress, and called for cutting wasteful Pentagon spending. Now we need her to sell real alternatives to the war in Afghanistan to Congress, the Democratic Party, and the American people.
President Obama asked Congress yesterday for $160 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq next year, and another $33 billion now to send 30,000 more troops into an unwinnable war. We know there are better options out there, and the administration hasn’t given them full consideration. Afghanistan Ambassador and former military commander Karl Eikenberry told the State Department in secret cables, “we should weigh whether a relatively small additional investment in programs for development and government would yield results that, if not as visible as those from sending more troops, would move us closer to achieving our goals at far lesser cost and risk, both in lives and dollars.”
There’s a better way, and we have a real opportunity to point Congress in that direction. Speaker Pelosi is paying close attention to the public sentiment on Afghanistan, and she and her fellow Democrats are worried about reelection. Click here to tell Speaker Pelosi that supporting an alternative for Afghanistan is the smart, moral and politically savvy thing to do.
Thank you for building our power at a critical time.
And when you are finished sending your email (which takes all of about 30 seconds) please take just a few moments to send a letter to the Chronicle’s editor too. Yes, this takes a bit more time than just clicking to send a message, but it is so powerful. You can do it here.
The letters to the editor section is the second most widely read page of the newspaper. By sending in your letters supporting our Opinion Editorial, you help our message reverberate and make a stronger, more lasting impression. Please click here to send yours in:
Even if yours doesn’t get published, your submission will make it more likely that someone else’s will. It will take just a few minutes, and it will make such a difference. And here’s that link again.
Funding for nuclear weapons programs next year is now being proposed at about $7 billion — a 10% increase from last year. Released yesterday, the Fiscal Year 2011 budget for the Department of Energy increases funding for nuclear weapons activities by $661 million and increases funding for defense nuclear non-proliferation by $550 million, an artificially high number that includes other programs.
Though the president has often spoken of the long-term national security goal of achieving a nuclear weapons free world, this budget sends the wrong message to the international community by investing so heavily in the nuclear weapons complex. Most disturbing is the fact that facilities that would enable the U.S. to increase its capacity to create new nuclear weapons in the future received large funding increases. Funding for the dismantlement of nuclear weapons actually decreased. As a major international conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) approaches in May, it will be hard for the U.S. to be able demonstrate it is fulfilling its disarmament obligations with this kind of budget. Showing progress toward disarmament will be critical to winning the support of the international community for greater non-proliferation measures.
The White House offered an early preview of the rationale behind the budget last week, with an OpEd by Vice President Joe Biden in the Wall Street Journal stating:
For as long as nuclear weapons are required to defend our country and our allies, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective nuclear arsenal. The president’s Prague vision is central to this administration’s efforts to protect the American people—and that is why we are increasing investments in our nuclear arsenal and infrastructure in this year’s budget and beyond.
Ensuring the nuclear weapons arsenal is safe and secure certainly makes sense, and each year the stockpile has been certified to be in good working order. However, the types of infrastructure investments made in this budget seem to have less to do with that goal and more to do with the need to gain the votes of 8 Republican Senators in order to ratify upcoming nuclear weapons treaties. It’s hard to say if the budget’s nuclear pork for new facilities will satisfy the weapons labs and Republicans. In December, 41 senators (all Republicans and Independent Joe Lieberman) sent a letter to Obama stating that “modernization” of our nuclear arsenal (read new nuclear weapons) are needed. Though the budget invests in the infrastructure that creates the capacity for new nuclear weapons, no explicit funding was giving for a new nuclear weapon program like the Reliable Replacement Warhead. The Kansas City Star reports:
Some experts said the administration apparently is hoping its plan to boost spending on nuclear weapons will persuade enough Republicans to join Democrats in ratifying the new treaty with Russia and a global ban on underground testing known as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty….
Iran and North Korea, however, could argue that the plan contradicts Obama’s pledge to cut the U.S. arsenal and seek a nuclear weapons-free world in their campaigns to blunt U.S.-led efforts to halt their nuclear programs.
Other countries could see increased U.S. spending for nuclear weapons as backsliding by Obama, whose strategy helped win him the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
“The tightrope the president has to walk is to put in enough funding to ensure everyone that the weapons will remain safe, secure and effective, but not so much that it looks like a new arms buildup,” said Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund, a foundation that underwrites arms control programs. “There is no question that some counties, friends and foes, will see the increased spending as a sign of U.S. hypocrisy.”
Below is a breakdown of some of the main programs in the administration’s proposed budget to keep an eye on as Congress begins debating what to fund.
Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR) – Funding increase to $225 million, up from $97 million in 2010.
The new CMRR facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico would allow for increased plutonium pit production — the bomb cores of nuclear weapons. A few years ago, President Bush unsuccessfully sought to increase plutonium pit production capacity from its current levels to up to 125 pits per year. The Department of Energy continued to push for a pit production capacity of 50-80 pits per year instead of the current capacity of 20 pits per year. The new CMRR would allow for this increased pit production capacity, creating the capability in the future to churn out new pits for new weapons.
Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) – Funding increase to $115 million, up from $94 million in 2010
The UPF facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee is a uranium manufacturing facility that could increase warhead production capacity. Total costs for UPF and CMRR could climb to more than $3 billion each (though officially the costs are still “to be determined”), with large increases over the next 4 years.
Dismantlement of nuclear weapons – Funding cut from $96 million in 2010 down to $58 million for FY 2011.
Strangely, as a new treaty between the U.S. and Russia on nuclear weapons reductions is being finalized, funding for dismantling nuclear weapons we no longer need has been cut by roughly one-third.
Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation – Funding increase to $2.7 billion, a 25.8 percent increase from 2010
At first glance, this seems like a big increase until you dig a little deeper and see that $217 million of the increase actually goes to a program that funds a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication plant in South Carolina, not nuclear nonproliferation. While there is still an increase for nuclear nonproliferation programs, it’s not quite as much as a bump as we would hope.
Securing loose nuclear material worldwide is one of the smartest investments we can make to keep America and the global community safe from the threat of nuclear terrorism. President Obama has talked about his goal of securing vulnerable nuclear material and weapons within four years and will be convening a summit in April to discuss nuclear security.
B61 Study on Life Extension Program (LEP) – Funding increases to $251 million from $32 million in 2010
Funding for this program now makes little sense. The B61 gravity bomb, a tactical nuclear weapon, is currently only deployed in Europe, where a number of our NATO allies have recently begun to question whether or not it is actually needed. The foreign ministers of Sweden and Poland made the case in a New York Times Op-Ed this week arguing for the elimination of tactical nuclear weapons on the way to a nuclear weapons free world. If Europe no longer wants tactical nuclear weapons, why bother spending money on a study for extending the life of the B61?
Kansas City Plant – This facility is transitioning from being government funded to privately funded in the future
Groundbreaking is expected in April (just before the NPT Review Conference that begins May 3) for a major new production facility, the Kansas City Plant (KCP), in Missouri. KCP will be responsible for 85% of all nonnuclear components used in nuclear weapons.
Photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amagill/ / CC BY 2.0
I always appreciate a chance to increase public debate, so I was pleased to discover (via a post on our Facebook fanpage) that Republican candidate Diggs Brown decided to post his response to our candidate questionnaire publicly. He is running in the Republican primary for the 4th congressional district of Colorado, a seat once held by the notorious right-winger Marilyn Musgrave, now held by Democrat Betsy Markey.
We sent him a questionnaire as part of our work to promote a foreign policy based on eliminating nuclear weapons, protecting human rights, and resolving conflicts with diplomacy. Each election year, our PAC endorses candidates who will promote that agenda in Congress. When we are interested in a race, I send questionnaires to all candidates involved to give each person an opportunity to share his or her views on our priority issues so we can weigh them in our endorsement decision.
I thought I would take this opportunity to respond directly to some of Mr. Brown’s decidedly misguided statements about American foreign policy.
Let the fun begin. Mr. Brown starts his response with this:
I’m a Green Beret. You’re something called “Peace Action West”. This is not going to be pretty.
So let me say to Mr. Brown:
I am an advocate of a smart foreign policy that actually makes Americans safer. You’re someone who thinks a 30,000-pound bunker-busting bomb is a “diplomatic tool.” This is not going to be pretty.
Question 1: The Future of International Nuclear Weapons Policy
To his credit, Mr. Brown supports some reductions of US and Russian nuclear arsenals. However, he goes on to add:
As for the “elimination of nuclear weapons,” are you kidding me?
It takes a pretty naïve outlook to assume that we live in a warm and fuzzy world where Kim Jong Il isn’t a lunatic dictator who’s starving his own people and blackmailing the Pacific Rim with nuclear threats.
I invite Mr. Brown to call up Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, John McCain, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Hagel, General Anthony Zinni and the countless other people from all political backgrounds who support the call for the global elimination of nuclear weapons and tell them how hopelessly naïve they are.
The fact of the matter is that nuclear weapons are a liability for US security, not an asset. As Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn wrote in their much-lauded 2007 Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal:
Reassertion of the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and practical measures toward achieving that goal would be, and would be perceived as, a bold initiative consistent with America’s moral heritage. The effort could have a profoundly positive impact on the security of future generations. Without the bold vision, the actions will not be perceived as fair or urgent. Without the actions, the vision will not be perceived as realistic or possible.
We endorse setting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and working energetically on the actions required to achieve that goal, beginning with the measures outlined above.
Question 2: A Nuclear Test Ban
In response to the question on ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, first let me address a sentence in Mr. Brown’s introductory paragraph:
Hitler signed a piece of paper agreeing to “peace in our time.”
I will point Mr. Brown to the corollary of Godwin’s law, which states that whoever makes an irrelevant Hitler reference has automatically lost the debate. The fact that Hitler once signed a piece of paper does not negate the positive benefits of treaties.
However, to take on the substance of his objection to the CTBT:
We must learn from history. We must continue to develop the most state-of-the-art weapons systems and we should be testing them.
What’s the use of having weapons if we’re not sure that they’ll work? More importantly, what’s the use of having weapons if our enemies aren’t sure that they’ll work?
The US hasn’t tested nuclear weapons since 1992, and the independent JASON scientific advisory board confirms that there is no reason to doubt the safety and reliability of our stockpile. As former Utah Republican Senator Jake Garn recently wrote:
Today, we stand to gain more than any other nation from a global, verifiable ban on all nuclear weapons testing. After more than 1,000 nuclear explosions, many of which produced deadly fallout on our state, we ended nuclear testing in 1992 and four years later signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which “prohibits any nuclear weapon test explosion” and establishes a powerful global network to verify compliance. However, in 1999, the Senate failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty over issues regarding the long-term maintenance and viability of our arsenal in the absence of testing, and concerns about the ability to detect surreptitious nuclear weapons tests by “cheater” nations.
Over the past decade, advances in our stockpile stewardship program mean that we do not need nuclear explosive testing to maintain the effectiveness and reliability of our remaining arsenal, which is the most fearsome and effective in the world. In 2006, the Department of Energy released the finding of lab studies that show that key plutonium parts in warheads last at least 85 to 100 years, which is much longer than previously thought.
The global network of seismic and other monitoring stations set up to verify compliance with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, together with U.S. intelligence, mean that no would-be cheater could confidently conduct an undetected nuclear explosion large enough to threaten our security. Once the treaty enters into force, we would also have the option to pursue short-notice, on-site inspections to investigate suspicious events.
As far as whether our “enemies” aren’t sure if they would work, there are some atomic bomb survivors in Japan who could tell the US government just how devastatingly “effective” US nuclear weapons have proven to be.
Question 3: The Future of the US Nuclear Stockpile
Since Mr. Brown offers support for new nuclear weapons without much explanation, I would encourage him to go back and read the text of the question laying out the scientific evidence asserting that there is no need to develop new nuclear weapons. Mr. Brown has plenty of harsh words for Iran, but does not seem to realize that the US has an enormous credibility gap in prohibiting the development of nuclear weapons by other countries while adding to a stockpile that could already blow up the world several times over.
Question 4: US-Iran relations
As the cornerstone of my negotiations with Iran, I would speed up the development and production of the Massive Ordinance Penetrator, a precision-guided, 30,000-pound bunker-busting bomb (the “MOP”) capable of destroying their underground nuclear facilities.
Bringing the MOP to the negotiating table would be an extremely effective “diplomatic tool”.
There would be a single precondition for negotiation: The immediate and unconditional cessation of all nuclear activities and the granting of full access to our weapons inspection teams. If Mahmoud Ahmedinijad does that, we can talk further.
Those poor Iranian students who Ahmedinijad’s henchmen were slaughtering in the streets of Tehran this summer (and who President Obama ignored because he was so afraid of offending the Iranians and damaging our “negotiations”) would be overwhelmed with gratitude if someone actually stood up to the tyrant running their country.
Do I laugh? Do I cry? This idea is not based on any credible interpretation of US-Iran relations. We saw how well threatening the Iranian regime worked under the Bush administration, during which the US made zero progress in resolving tensions or concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. The Ahmadinejad regime feeds on that kind of hostility and would use national pride to cling to its nuclear program if faced with the MOP. There are few credible experts who think a military attack on Iran would be viable. The neoconservative Robert Kagan recently said of an air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, “That would provide a huge boost to the Tehran regime just when it is on the ropes — and for what? The uncertain prospect of setting back the nuclear program for a couple of years?”
With all due respect to Mr. Brown’s support for the Iranian people’s struggle for democracy, it is naive to think the Iranian people would be “overwhelmed with gratitude” if the US threatened to bomb Iran with a massive bunker-busting bomb. Nobody I met while traveling in Iran thought that the Bush administration’s aggressive posture toward Iran had been at all productive, and many of them resented the double standard the US applied to Iran’s nuclear program. Iranians are not desperate for someone to “[stand] up to the tyrant running their country.” They’re doing it themselves. And while they want global support for their cause and protection of their human rights, they don’t want US threats or military intervention.
Question 5: Sanctions on Iran
I support any and all sanctions on Iran, unilateral if need be. However, any sanctions should be backed up with the “diplomatic tool” of the MOP.
Why not pile sanctions on top of this disastrous “diplomatic” strategy? I have argued repeatedly that broad, unilateral sanctions against Iran won’t work, and will most likely backfire.
The US has to engage in smart, tough-minded diplomacy—the other options of sanctions and military action are not feasible. That means serious engagement that involves offering incentives as well as requiring changes in the Iranian regime’s behavior, as laid out by Iran experts Hillary Mann Leverett and Flynt Leverett.
Question 6: The War in Afghanistan and the War on Terror
I spent a tour of duty in Afghanistan. I helped rebuild a school there, one of the first in the nation that allowed girls to get an education. I saw the Afghans enjoying art, music and freedom of expression for the first time in a generation. I saw Afghan villagers walk miles in bare feet to get their first medical care in years. I saw the overwhelming generosity of the American people who opened their hearts and their wallets to ship school supplies to help children they’d never met.
All of that was made possible by the United States Military, and I saw the gratitude of the Afghan people who saw the American Soldier as their best hope for a better future. The chants of “Thank you America!” still ring in my ears.
I respect Mr. Brown’s record of service. I don’t doubt that there are many good-hearted soldiers in Afghanistan who honestly want to make life better for the people they encounter there. And there are surely some Afghans who are supportive of the US presence. However, the idea that chants of “Thank you America” are ringing out in Afghanistan is an view that glosses over an incredibly complex situation and growing resentment against the United States. The good intentions and the most committed, admirable efforts of individuals on the ground can’t fix the fact that the overall US approach is not only failing in its stated goals of defeating the threat of terrorism, it is contributing to instability and undermining US security by increasing anti-American sentiment.
In fact, Afghanistan expert Gilles Dorronsoro argues that the military presence is the number one factor in the resurgence of the Taliban, and the best way to defuse the insurgency is to reduce direct military confrontations.
Mr. Brown and I agree that we want to improve the lives of the Afghan people. However, I also agree with people like Afghan Parliamentarian Malalai Joya, a woman who faces death threats for her attempts to increase democracy in Afghanistan,, who argue that military occupation is exactly the wrong way to do that.
Question 7: Increasing civilian capacity in Afghanistan
Send in a bunch of civilians to get shot and blown up because there’s not enough military support to protect their butts? What could ever go wrong with that plan?
You are aware that there are very bad people who are trying to kill us, right? That’s why they call it a ‘war.’
I suggest that Mr. Brown (and everyone reading this for that matter) read US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry’s eloquent cables to the State Department arguing against a troop increase and arguing for civilian alternatives. Eikenberry served two tours of duty in Afghanistan as a commander:
In particular, we should weigh whether a relatively small additional investment in programs for development and government would yield results that, if not as visible as those from sending more troops, would move us closer to achieving our goals at far lesser cost and risk, both in lives and dollars. Accelerating our work on signature projects to deliver greater access to electricity, water, and education could have a high payoff in stability over the long term. With a greatly stepped-up development effort we could be in a position at some point to call off further troop deployments, as Afghans begin to see their lives improving and their needs addressed.
Question 8: Air strikes and drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan
You guys spent the first few years of the war complaining that too many of my brothers and sisters in the military were getting killed. Frankly, the use of military dead to make your political points is disgusting to me. Some of those men and women were my friends, and they would never want their sacrifice to be used to further your political agenda.
So now the Pentagon figures out way where a pilot can sit in a comfortable chair in Nevada and provide us air cover with a Nintendo controller, and you still have a problem?
What’s your plan? Sit back and “hope” that our enemies will learn to “Coexist” instead of murdering civilians, torturing women and plotting to plunge the world into a 7th Century theocracy?
This is where I really start to question the potential for a substantive debate. I encourage Mr. Brown to show me where on our blog or website we outline how we will hope so hard that everyone will start to coexist peacefully. Disagreeing about the approach in Afghanistan does not imply vapidity; there are numerous experts with direct experience in Afghanistan who are offering viable alternatives to the current approach in Afghanistan.
We have mourned and continue to mourn the loss of American life in Afghanistan, as well as the Afghans, Pakistanis and others who have died needlessly in this conflict. Counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen has condemned drone attacks for the way they undermine US security, and Jane Mayer in the New Yorker starkly laid out the longer-term impact on our society and the global community if we continue to go down the road of robotic warfare.
Question 9: Foreign Assistance and National Security
“Reestablishing civilian control of humanitarian and development efforts…” So the next time there’s an earthquake in Haiti or a Tsunami in Thailand the civilians will be the first responders?
Maybe the civilians will airdrop supplies from their massive fleet of civilian CH-47D Chinook helicopters? Or maybe the civilians will roll up onto the beaches in their civilian rigid-hull fast boats? Or maybe civilian paratroopers will secure the airfields for incoming flights of civilian C-130 cargo planes?
Mr. Brown appears to find the idea of civilian humanitarian efforts hilarious. However I, along with millions of generous Americans, funneled our money to those efforts through the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, Partners in Health, and other civilian organizations that are doing amazing, life saving work on the ground in Haiti.
We would have many more inspiring stories of the US government partnering with people on the ground in other countries to address problems like disease and poverty if our government committed the necessary resources to building civilian capacity. Secretary of Defense Gates has recognized the need for civilian instruments of national security and is a strong proponent or increasing funding for these programs:
“Funding for non-military foreign affairs programs… remains disproportionately small relative to what we spend on the military. Consider that this year’s budget for the Department of Defense—not counting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan—is nearly half a trillion dollars. The total foreign affairs budget request for the State Department is $36 billion … [T]here is a need for a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security.”
In his conclusion, Brown states, “It sounds like you and I have very different ideas about how the world works.”
That is certainly true: our vision for American foreign policy is based on learning from past successes and failures, adapting to the new geopolitical landscape of the 21st century, and investing in tools that have a track record of success. We advocate for developing tools other than the blunt instrument of military force, using smart diplomacy to resolve conflict, supporting local development efforts abroad, and using our tax dollars that would be wasted on military misadventures to improve the quality of life for all Americans. We will continue to work with our supporters and elected officials to steer this country away from the dangerous and misguided path that Mr. Brown so strongly supports.
There’s been a glut of bad news of in politics of late, but one congressional leader is showing spine uncharacteristic for many congressional Democrats — Nancy Pelosi.
I’m talking about her criticism of Obama’s plan to freeze spending for everything but Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs. She’s saying that if there is a freeze, it should include some defense too, specifically singling out money that goes to defense contractors.
Pelosi said Thursday morning that there should be a “bifurcation” within the defense budget between money that goes to troops and money that goes to defense contractors.
“I don’t think the entire defense budget should be exempted,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference. “We support our military and their families … but we do not support the entitlement program for overruns on the part of military contractors.”
It’s a sensible point, since military spending accounts for more than half our discretionary budget, is wasteful beyond belief, and the wars it funds have not contributed to our security. It seems like a good place to start cutting to me. If you agree and you live in California’s 8th Congressional District (San Francisco), send her an email letting her know. And while you are at it, let her know you want to see more of this kind of leadership, namely pushing for an examination of cost effective, nonmilitary alternatives in Afghanistan.
Think Outside the Bomb (TOTB) is a grassroots youth organization that aims to eliminate nuclear weapons. This year, TOTB is focused on recruiting young people from across the country to participate in two major events it has planned for this year: actions at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review conference in May and at its “Disarmament Convergence” conference in August. Think Outside the Bomb will be holding a “training for trainers” camp in Los Alamos, NM on February 18-21 to prepare its organizers for campaign events planned for later this year.
We’ve written previously about why this year is particularly critical for nuclear disarmament. Not only do we have a president that shares our vision of a world safe from nuclear catastrophe, we’ve also got an international agenda chock full of opportunities for disarmament. Now is the time for youth to get involved. For more information on the conference or to RSVP, visit the Think Outside the Bomb website.
In the midst of a struggle to provide health care for millions of Americans and create more jobs, President Obama has just announced that he will freeze non-security domestic spending at $447 billion per year. That’s for everything except Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs. Guess what won’t be frozen? The $708 billion we will spend on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and many obsolete Cold War weapons systems.
What would you rather see America investing in? Yesterday our friends at Change.org launched “Ideas for Change in America 2010″, and your vote could help put peace and human needs at the top of our nation’s priorities.
And when I say “priorities,” it’s about putting our money where our mouths are.
Here’s what I mean. While Congress argues over how they can’t possibly find the funds to insure the 45,000 uninsured Americans who die every year, our total cost of wars since 2001 will top a trillion dollars in 2010. Just the addition of 30K troops to Afghanistan will cost us $82 million each day!
However, since the wars have been funded through “emergency” supplementals to the Pentagon’s budget, this does NOT include money spent just running the military, maintaining our massive nuclear arsenal, and buying new weaponry. If you tack on that spending, you have more than half of our nation’s discretionary spending, plus our growing foreign debt.
Do you think there are better things to do with all this money? If so, please click here to cast your vote, then share this post with five of your friends. Because by cutting the bloated Pentagon budget, we could rebuild America, putting people back to work in a green economy, providing health insurance to every American, and rebuilding our broken education system. We could even improve intelligence and security so a man with a bomb in his underwear can’t attempt to take down an airliner. We would then be in a position to really help countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Haiti with economic and humanitarian aid that would help them rebuild their countries, free from military occupation.
Change.org will take the top ideas and present them to the Obama administration in March. President Obama has said he wants to curb wasteful military spending. Please show him we want this, not war, to top his agenda. Then please pass this on to five of your friends.
Back in November, reports leaked that US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry had sent secret cables to the State Department expressing his concerns about sending additional troops to Afghanistan and the overall emphasis on counterinsurgency in the approach to the conflict there. Today, the New York Times has published the secret cables, and they reveal holes in the administration’s logic that many opposed to the escalation have surfaced, and unfortunately may prove to be all too prescient.
In the first cable, Eikenberry lays out his main concerns with the possibility of sending additional troops [emphasis mine]:
But I am concerned that we underestimate the risks of this expansion of our mission and that we have not fully studied every alternative. The proposed troop increase will bring vastly increased costs and an indefinite, large-scale U.S. military role in Afghanistan, generating the need for yet-more civilians. An increased U.S. and foreign role in security and governance will increase Afghan dependency, at least in the near-term, and it will deepen the military involvement in a mission that most agree cannot be won solely by military means. Further, it will run counter to our strategic purposes of Afghanizing and civilianizing government functions here.
Perhaps the charts we have all seen showing the U.S. presence rising and then dropping off in coming years in a bell curve will prove accurate. It is more likely, however, that these forecasts are imprecise and optimistic. In that case, sending additional forces will delay the day when Afghans will take over, and make it difficult, if not impossible, to bring our people home on a reasonable timetable. Moreover, none of these charts displays dollar costs. Acknowledgement of the astronomical costs might illustrate the greater desirability of civilian alternatives now dismissed as too costly or not feasible.
While I and many others have praised the fact that President Obama spent considerable time deliberating this decision to send additional troops, Eikenberry’s cables confirm that the debate was narrow and did not fully vet nonmilitary alternatives that could ultimately prove more effective and less costly in lives and dollars. It is truly bizarre, as the president prepares to ask Congress for $33 billion for the troop increase and $708 billion for the wars and other military expenses, to think that some in the administration were dismissing civilian alternatives as “too costly.”
Eikenberry goes on to express his concerns about Hamid Karzai’s role in the US strategy:
With his re-election, Karzai will remain Afghanistan’s dominant political actor. We hope we can move him toward taking firm control of his country and guiding its future. But sending more combat forces will only strengthen his misconceptions about why we are here. Before any troop announcement, we should first have a high-level dialogue with Karzai and his new government to explain our goals and obtain agreement on what we expect from them. Even with such an understanding, it strains credulity to expect Karzai to change fundamentally this late in his life and in our relationship.
Eikenberry then points out that exorbitant military costs are ignored, while relatively small requests for development money are closely scrutinized and denied:
The proposed strategy may not be cost-effective. Sending additional combat brigades will require tens of billions of dollars annually for years to come, costs not detailed in DOD charts. Yet an Embassy request this summer for a $2.5 billion increase in our budget for development and governance was analyzed and debated in great detail, only to be rejected. If more troops are sent to Afghanistan, we should revisit decisions about our development funding.
In particular, we should weigh whether a relatively small additional investment in programs for development and government would yield results that, if not as visible as those from sending more troops, would move us closer to achieving our goals at far lesser cost and risk, both in lives and dollars. Accelerating our work on signature projects to deliver greater access to electricity, water, and education could have a high payoff in stability over the long term. With a greatly stepped-up development effort we could be in a position at some point to call off further troop deployments, as Afghans begin to see their lives improving and their needs addressed.
It’s important to remember that this recommendation to shift emphasis from military to civilian work is coming from a former military officer who served two tours of duty in Afghanistan and can speak knowledgeably from both sides of this debate.
In his second cable, sent on November 9th, Eikenberry recommends opening up a larger strategic conversation and taking more time before deciding to send additional troops:
I now propose that the White House commission a deliberate process to lay out the range of strategic options on Afghanistan and Pakistan, broadening the analysis beyond military counterinsurgency doctrine.
There are three purposes for doing so:
First, to make sure that we have tested every assumption behind the Afghan-focused military counterinsurgency proposal;
Second, to examine non-military alternatives or companion requirements to a major troop increase;
Third, to develop U.S. political understanding and support, as well as Afghan and allied public commitment…
…We have not yet conducted a comprehensive, interdisciplinary analysis of all our strategic options. Nor have we brought all the real-world variables to bear in testing the proposed counterinsurgency plan.
You can read the full cables here. It is painful to think about how much better the US’s Afghanistan policy could have been had the administration taken Eikenberry’s advice seriously, rather than getting further entrenched in a failing military strategy that will surely result in greater loss of life and squandering of our tax dollars.
Eikenberry did not comment on the cables, but an embassy spokeswoman told the Times, “We stand by what we provided during the review process, which got us to the clear strategy we’re now implementing, that the ambassador unequivocally supports.” It’s hard to imagine that Eikenberry can truly back the current strategy considering that few if any of his concerns have been met. We can only hope that he continues to raise these concerns within the administration behind closed doors, and take seriously our responsibility to raise them publicly and to our representatives in Congress.
Last week, Bill Moyers interviewed Greg Mortenson, a man who has worked on the front lines of the war in Afghanistan not as a soldier, but as a humanitarian. Mortenson’s non-profit organization, the Central Asia Institute, has constructed dozens of schools in the region in an attempt to provide education to the very people that can best lead toward a better future for Afghanistan. He is also a co-author of the book “Three Cups of Tea” which, according to Moyers, “has become required reading for our senior military commanders and Special Forces in Afghanistan.” His perspective is invaluable because of the unique insight he has into the conflict. Here are some highlights from the interview.
Mortenson’s work
While Mortenson has built schools for boys and girls, the majority of his work has been dedicated to educating girls. The success of Mortenson’s strategy of focusing on girls’ education speaks to the power of gender equity and non-violent approaches to uprooting the source of extremism. (Emphasis mine throughout)
The education of girls has very powerful impacts in a society. Number one, the infant mortality’s reduced. Number two, the population is reduced. The third thing is the quality of health improves. And, from my own observation, when girls learn how to read and write, they often teach their mother how to read and write. Boys, we don’t seem to do that as much. They also, you’ll see people, kids coming out for the marketplace, have meat or vegetables wrapped in newspaper. And then you’ll see the mother very carefully unfolding a newspaper and ask her daughter to read the news to her. And it’s the first time that woman is able to get information of what’s going on in the outside world around–very powerful to see that. And another compelling reason is when women are educated, they’re not as likely to condone or encourage their son to get into violence or into terrorism. In fact, culturally when someone goes on jihad, they should get permission from their mother first. And if they don’t, it’s very shameful or disgraceful. So when women are educated, as I mentioned, they are less likely to encourage their son to get into violence.
Comments on the war
Mortenson survived a week long kidnapping by the Taliban and has spent years in dialogue with the young people that are its prime recruiting audience. He knows better than most what fuels extremist behavior on the border with Pakistan, and how to put a stop to it. The measures that have worked best during the last eight years, it turns out, have not been the violent ones. The worst thing we can do, says Mortenson, is to substitute dialogue with bombs.
And, like Vice President Joe Biden and columnist George Will, the conservative columnist, have both recommended pulling out the troops but doing more selected targeted bombings. And I can tell you, of all things that the elders say is, please, do not bomb and kill civilians. That is the number one way to antagonize people.
Moreover, Mortenson remarks that as the Taliban have grown more reliant on criminal activities and become less ideological, their popularity has only declined – an indication that violence and coercion does little to discourage radicalism. Instead, we should focus more on providing the humanitarian services and infrastructure the Taliban – and the US — have neglected.
The Taliban are getting less Saudi funding now, so they’re doing more extortion, heroin trafficking, illicit lumber trafficking, kidnapping, crime. What’s interesting, too, is having been on the ground for many years, I’ve seen a shift in where people are starting to turn against the Taliban in the last two years. As a militant entity, they had a lot of support. But they’re not able to deliver healthcare, education, roads, and the things that most people want, and peace.
Just do the math
But perhaps Mortenson’s most persuasive argument is grounded in simple arithmetic.
BILL MOYERS: It costs us a million dollars a year to keep one soldier there. That’s $30 billion for the new 30,000 troops.
GREG MORTENSON: And ultimately–
BILL MOYERS: How many schools could you build with that?
GREG MORTENSON: Well, $1 million we could build 30 or 40 schools. And in one generation we could have over 20,000, 30,000 kids educated.
“One nuclear weapon exploded in one city — be it New York or Moscow, Islamabad or Mumbai, Tokyo or Tel Aviv, Paris or Prague — could kill hundreds of thousands of people. And no matter where it happens, there is no end to what the consequences might be — for our global safety, our security, our society, our economy, to our ultimate survival.”
– President Barack Obama, Prague, April 5, 2009
Nuclear weapons are dangerous and deadly, and more than 20 years after the Cold War’s end, they’ve got to go.
But nuclear hawks like Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) are stuck in the past, ready to oppose common sense steps to make us safer, like reducing our nuclear arsenal.
It won’t be easy to overcome this kind of hotheaded opposition, but 2010 is our best opportunity in years to make progress toward eliminating nuclear weapons. That’s why I’m asking you to join hundreds of thousands of people across the globe, and sign the petition to President Obama. Together, we can show Obama that the nuclear hawks are the minority, and that the world is ready for international negotiations to begin eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide. Please sign the petition to President Obama today.
Supporters of nuclear disarmament from around the world will descend on New York this May for a major international conference on nuclear weapons. Local and international organizations are collecting petition signatures to deliver in May, sending a unified message that the world supports leadership to eliminate this common threat. Click here to sign the petition now.
We can’t waste the opportunity we have — a president who shares our goal of a safer world, free of nuclear weapons. A new nuclear weapons reduction treaty with Russia is being negotiated now and while it’s a good first step forward, it can’t be the last. If nuclear hawks succeed in blocking first steps like this treaty, they can derail further efforts to finally eliminate nuclear weapons for decades. That’s why we must create the political space for Obama to press on toward this end goal by showing him we support international negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons.
With your help, we stopped Bush’s dangerous new nuclear weapons in their tracks. Now, I need your help again to show the president we support real change: an end to nuclear weapons.
Please sign the petition today to put us on the path to eliminating nuclear weapons.
Jon Rainwater, Executive Director. For over 25 years, Jon has been active in campaigns on issues of peace, nuclear disarmament, social justice and environmental sustainability. 
Rebecca Griffin, Political Director. Rebecca is spearheading campaigns to get Afghanistan right, and promote a diplomatic solution with Iran. 
Cara Bautista, Deputy Political Director. Cara is head coordinator for 