[PAA-Discuss] FW: ZNet Daily Commentary: Dollars for Death, Pennies for Life By Norman Solomon

[Lee Loe]

Nick, we have permission from Solomon and Z (michael albert) to use their
articles for hpn, if you want to, as long as credit the site. Lee

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From: no-reply at zcommunications.org [mailto:no-reply at zcommunications.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 3:32 AM
To: leeloe at igc.org
Subject: ZNet Daily Commentary: Dollars for Death, Pennies for Life By
Norman Solomon


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Dollars for Death, Pennies for Life


February 15, 2010 By Norman Solomon

Norman  <http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/normansolomon> Solomon's
ZSpace Page / ZSpace <http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/> 

When the U.S. military began a major offensive in southern Afghanistan over
Presidents Day weekend, the killing of children and other civilians was
predictable. Lofty rhetoric aside, such deaths come with the territory of
war and occupation.

In mid-January, President Obama pledged $100 million in U.S. government aid
to earthquake-devastated Haiti. Compare that to the $100 billion price tag
to keep 100,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan for a year.

While commanders in Afghanistan were launching what the New York Times
called "the largest offensive military operation since the American-led
coalition invaded the country in 2001," the situation in Haiti was clearly
dire.

With more than a million Haitians still homeless, vast numbers -- the latest
estimates are around 75 percent -- don't have tents or tarps. The rainy
season is fast approaching, with serious dangers of typhoid and dysentery.

No shortage of bombs in Afghanistan; a lethal shortage of tents in Haiti.
Such priorities -- actual, not rhetorical -- are routine.

Last summer, I saw hundreds of children and other civilians at the Helmand
Refugee Camp District 5, a miserable makeshift encampment in Kabul. The U.S.
government had ample resources for bombing their neighborhoods in the
Helmand Valley -- but was doing nothing to help the desperate refugees to
survive after they fled to Afghanistan's capital city.

Such priorities have parallels at home. The military hawks and deficit hawks
are now swooping along Pennsylvania Avenue in tight formation. There's
plenty of money in the U.S. Treasury for war in Afghanistan. But domestic
spending to meet human needs -- job creation, for instance -- is another
matter.

Joblessness is now crushing many low-income Americans. Among those with
annual household incomes of less than $12,500, the unemployment rate during
the fourth quarter of last year "was a staggering 30.8 percent," Bob Herbert
noted in a February 9 column. "That's more than five points higher than the
overall jobless rate at the height of the Depression."

Herbert added: "The next lowest group, with incomes of $12,500 to $20,000,
had an unemployment rate of 19.1 percent. These are the kinds of jobless
rates that push families already struggling on meager incomes into
destitution."

The current situation is akin to the one that Martin Luther King Jr.
confronted in 1967 when he challenged Congress for showing "hostility to the
poor" -- appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity" but
providing "poverty funds with miserliness."

Such priorities are taking lives every day, near and far.

Early this month, the National Council of Churches sent out an article by
theologians George Hunsinger and Michael Kinnamon, who wrote: "What the
Haitians obviously need most is massive humanitarian relief. They need food,
water, medical supplies. They need shelter and physical reconstruction.  . .
. Over half of Haiti's population are children, 15 years old or younger.
Many were already hungry and homeless before the earthquake hit."

But the warfare state, with vast budgets for military purposes, has scant
funds for sustaining life.

These priorities kill. 

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From: Z Net - The Spirit Of  <http://www.zcommunications.org/> Resistance
Lives
URL:
http://www.zcommunications.org/dollars-for-death-pennies-for-life-by-norman-
solomon

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