{"id":2418,"date":"2008-02-23T18:30:10","date_gmt":"2008-02-24T00:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/letters-to-the-editor\/other-voices\/the-war-budget\/"},"modified":"2008-02-22T10:56:08","modified_gmt":"2008-02-22T16:56:08","slug":"the-war-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/letters-to-the-editor\/other-voices\/the-war-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"The War Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

Craig S. Barnes – Commentary<\/a> 
The War Budget<\/p>\n

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Nuclear bombs are of practically no use in the so-called war on terror. Although this is the war that we have, this is not the war that pits can be used for. Nuclear bombs cannot be used in Islamabad, or in Mosul, or to protect nightclubs in London or Bali. They can\u2019t be used in Al Anbar province and they can\u2019t be used\u2014except to level the mountains\u2014in Waziristan; they can\u2019t be used to uncover subversive cells in the United States and they can\u2019t be used against the Chinese or the Russians without starting a final holocaust. They aren\u2019t practical for anything at all except as a jobs program for the defense oligarchy. … <\/p>\n

Building bombs creates the impression of great danger. Assuming great danger gives excuse for assuming absolute authority. Assuming absolute authority, Mr. Bush regularly says that he will suspend all, or parts, of laws with which he disagrees. It does not matter that a statute has been enacted exactly as the Constitution requires; if Mr. Bush does not\u2014or thinks he may not some time in the future\u2014agree, he issues a signing statement saying that he will not enforce that law. In so doing he attempts to suspend, not only the law, but also Articles I and III of the Constitution which were intended to give legislative and interpretive authority to the congress and courts. He just plain, flat out, restructures government. The Boston Globe reports that he has declared his intention to suspend legislation over 1,000 times. <\/p>\n

When the constitution of the republic is willingly overridden, when the priorities are to build bombs rather than find the water, or fund the trains, or maintain the forests, when a ruling oligarchy of defense contractors is funded while at the same time ignoring all those who actually educate, carry the rifles for, and feed our nation, ignoring all those who wrap up our wounds and inspire us with poetry and song, the time has come to find someone else to draw up the budget.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Craig S. Barnes – Commentary<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Craig S. Barnes – Commentary The War Budget Nuclear bombs are of practically no use in the so-called war on terror. Although this is the war that we have, this is not the war that pits can be used for. Nuclear bombs cannot be used in Islamabad, or in Mosul, or to protect nightclubs in London … Continue reading The War Budget<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-voices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}