US Mayors: Cut Military Spending

By Reginald Johnson

  

 Mayors around the country are rallying against President Trump’s federal budget plan, which slashes funding for social services and urban needs, while increasing the military budget.

The United States Conference of Mayors, which represents hundreds of small and large cities,  recently passed several resolutions which demand that Congress oppose Trump’s proposed $54 billion increase in military spending and instead put the money back into human needs including housing, education, health care and job creation.

  “Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the United States Conference of Mayors urges the United States Congress to move our tax dollars in exactly the opposite direction proposed by the president, from militarism to human and environmental needs,” said the resolution.

  A second resolution, introduced by New Haven, CT Mayor Toni Harp, calls on the mayors of each of the member cities to promptly hold public hearings that examine what each city department  needs to carry out their goals and what they could accomplish if funds were available that now go to the military.

 That resolution also urges legislative bodies in all cities to pass resolutions “calling on our federal legislators and the US government to move significant funds away from the military budget to human needs.”

  A number of mayors around the country in recent weeks have expressed concern about the negative impact that the Trump $4.1 trillion budget plan for 2018 would have on their communities. The budget proposal calls for deep cuts in funds for Medicaid, food stamps, education, environmental protection and housing. The budget would wipe out some programs altogether, such as the community development block grant, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, for instance, said the budget would have a “hugely negative impact” on the city. New York stands to lose some $912 million in federal aid, if the budget is approved.

Several peace organizations, including the US Peace Council and CODEPINK reacted enthusiastically to the action by the US Conference of Mayors.

  “The Peace Council applauds the resolve of major city mayors to dramatically cut the US military budget and to take the funds saved to provide money for jobs education, housing, transportation, seniors, youth, rebuild our roads, bridges public transportation and much more,” said Henry Lowendorf of the US Peace Council.

  “The mayors understand how pouring the wealth of our great country into building war machines and waging wars around the globe does not make us more secure. To the contrary, this gigantic military budget is strangling our country and the many unnecessary wars only generate death, destruction and enemies.” said Lowendorf, who chairs the Greater New Haven Peace Council.

  Medea Benjamin, of CODEPINK,  said “We are very excited that the entire US Conference of Mayors, from major metropoles such as New York City and Los Angeles to small rural townships, understand that the resources being sucked up by the Pentagon to wage endless wars overseas should be used to address our crumbling infrastructure, the climate crisis and poverty at home and abroad. Congress and the Trump administration should listen to these mayors, as they reflect the needs and hopes of their constituents, not the greed of corporate donors.”

   New Haven’s Board of Alders earlier this year passed a resolution calling on Congress to reduce the appropriation for defense and divert that money into human and social needs. New Haven is one of a number cities and towns around the country that have passed such resolutions.

 

  

Shut Down a Cold War Relic

By Reginald Johnson                                      

    Nearly 25 years after the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, many people are wondering, why is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) still around?

   NATO, an alliance of nations including the United States and western European countries formed in 1949 to deter any potential aggression by the Soviet Union and its allies, is not only still around, but has increased its membership and been involved in several military interventions.

   NATO forces led the intervention in Serbia in 1999, took part in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and aided in the bombing of Libya in 2011.

   Defenders of  NATO say the alliance is still needed to provide vital help in combatting terrorist forces around the globe and countering perceived expansionism by Russia.

  But critics, both in Europe and the U.S., claim NATO has become a point organization for protecting western imperial interests around the world.  The bombing of Libya, for instance, they say, was done to make sure that western oil companies could regain access to Libya’s rich oil fields, something they had lost when former dictator Mohammar Quaddafi came to power.

   “NATO is an extension of the Pentagon,” said Henry Lowendorf, a leader of the New Haven Peace Council. “The U.S. calls the shots, and these other countries go along.”

   “Everybody thought, when the Soviet Union fell, that would be the end of NATO. Instead they grew. NATO grew,” Lowendorf said.

    Acting in violation of the agreement U.S.officials struck with the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev --- that NATO would not take on any more members and move its borders to the east towards Russia --- NATO did just that in the last two decades, picking up new members out of the former Iron Curtain group, such as Poland, Lithuania and Hungary.

   The eastward advance has caused great distress among Russian officials, and is fueling the crisis over Ukraine. That country, which borders Russia, is now led by a western-oriented government, which took power after a coup in February. Government forces have been fighting a civil war against pro-Russian dissidents in eastern Ukraine who are refusing to be under the control of the new regime. The Ukrainian government recently applied for NATO membership.

 Lowendorf and a small group of others recently held an anti-NATO protest in downtown New Haven, handing out leaflets to passersby and holding placards that said “NATO, U.S. War Puppet” and “Dissolve NATO.”

Protests are also taking place in Wales, where NATO countries are holding a summit this week. President Obama will be attending.

Nancy Eberg, Mary Compton and Henry Lowendorf protest NATO.

  The Ukraine situation is expected to be a chief topic of discussion, as well as a push by the U.S. and the UK to make other member countries increase their defense spending and meet the NATO requirement that each nation spend at least 2 per cent of their GDP on the military.

 

   Lowendorf and others say it’s time to fold up NATO.

  “We’re asking that countries of NATO decide that NATO has no positive value in the universe and be dissolved,” he said. “We’re looking for the people of the United States to join the people of Europe, who know more about NATO than we do, and call for its dissolution. Shut it down, get rid of it.”