Democrats and Republicans dole out billions for Star
Wars
By John
Catalinotto
On March 17 and 18 the Senate, the House and the president
all pledged to hand out another $6.6 billion to the
military-industrial complex for what has been facetiously
called "Son of Star Wars."
That's $6.6 billion now--and who knows how many hundreds of
billions of dollars before it works.
The congressional vote and President Bill Clinton's collapse
on this issue brought home two truths: The militarists and the
Republican right will push for military funds even for projects
that probably won't work, and the Democrats will give in to
Pentagon demands every time.
If there is no movement independent of the two big
capitalist parties to stop Pentagon spending, the military
machine will roll on.
The Reagan administration had proposed the original "Star
Wars" plan--a missile shield including space-based lasers that
was supposed to be able to stop a massive rocket launch from
the Soviet Union. It was part of a gigantic military buildup
aimed at gaining a first-strike capability against the
USSR--or, failing that, to force the socialist country to pour
its wealth into a defensive military buildup.
Fantastic, unworkable and outrageously expensive, the plan
never got full funding. Each year, however, enough billions of
dollars were authorized for "research" to keep it alive.
And now its sponsors have revived a new version. While such
a missile defense could not stop a massive attack, they now
admit, its defenders claim it could stop a few missiles.
Who would launch these few missiles? "Rogue states," they
answer.
By "rogue states," U.S. imperialist politicians mean
countries like Iraq, Iran, Libya, Yugoslavia and the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea. They have designated these
countries as U.S. enemies--mainly because their governments
have refused to submit to Washington's orders.
U.S. policy has been to blockade these countries, impoverish
their populations, surround them with the Pentagon's power
and--in the case of Iraq and Yugoslavia--to bomb their
populations.
Thus, the politicians argue, the leaders of these "rogue
states"--already demonized in the U.S. media--plan to invite
certain nuclear annihilation by launching missiles at U.S.
territory. The fact that they even raise this possibility is
their backhanded admission that U.S. policy is so oppressive it
creates desperation.
The Republicans have always backed this "Star Wars"
project--even those who doubted it could work. But the last
time it came up for a vote 41 Democratic senators voted against
it. And Clinton pledged to veto it.
That was in late 1997, only 18 months ago.
This time only three Democratic senators opposed the bill:
Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, Dick Durbin of Illinois and
Patrick Leahy of Vermont. And Clinton--just as he gave in to
the Pentagon on the rights of lesbian and gay servicepeople and
on upping the annual budget--completely collapsed and promised
to sign the "Star Wars" bill.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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