MILITARISM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES – WHY WE SHOULD CARE by Mary Hladky

5o years ago, Martin Luther King, laid bare the relationship between U.S. wars abroad and the racism and poverty here at home - speaking out against war and its crippling effects on social progress. He denounced the death and destruction in Vietnam and the waste of billions on an immoral war. The destruction done to the Vietnamese is the same destruction we are doing to the Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis and others today. King connected the inherit racism of killing the Vietnamese people with the killing of black people in America through dehumanization and contempt for “other” people. King’s message was not heeded, and our problems have multiplied. The U.S. has a foreign policy based on violence and domination abroad which directly relates to the violence and problems we are afflicted with at home. The U.S. is the world’s largest arms dealer. Our wars have killed one million people since 2001 while creating a massive refugee crisis. At home, we have the world’s largest prison population, the highest murder rate for any industrialized nation, and the most unfair and unjust healthcare system. Congress has voted to spend our taxpayers’ dollars on endless wars at the expense of everything else. Total defense spending costs us all about $1 Trillion dollars each year to cover the costs of war, 800 worldwide military bases, nuclear weapons, intelligence agencies, healthcare for our veterans and interest on the war debt. The $1 trillion militarism price tag for a single year amounts to roughly $2.74 billion a day, or over $114 million an hour. We have a war machine, preparing to modernize our nuclear weapons, at the cost of over $1 Trillion dollars over the next 30 years. Our current nuclear arsenal can destroy the world many times over. Instead of de-escalating, we are increasing the nuclear arms race, to what end? There are no winners in a nuclear war. The new administration is asking for an additional $54 billion for the Pentagon budget balancing this increase by further cutting basic services. These cuts will have devastating effects on the environment, our children’s education, the ability to prevent war through diplomacy by cutting the State Department, with cruel cuts to social services to the poor, sick and elderly. Economist Jeffrey Sachs stated “The U.S. is incurring massive public debt and cutting back on urgent public investments at home in order to sustain a dysfunctional, militarized, and costly foreign policy.” We have a choice about how this country spends our taxpayer dollars. We can remain silent allowing billions to be spent on funding endless, futile wars or we can speak out, demanding our tax dollars’ fund healthcare for all Americans, support climate change initiatives, improve our educational system providing free college, rebuild our infrastructure and end extreme poverty in this country. We can no longer remain silent. We must challenge American militarism. There is no inevitability to the course of history, and a mobilized citizenry can redirect it toward a positive future.

Progress towards a global society that is fairer, peaceful and ecologically sustainable is interdependent. Our work and the various issues we address are all interconnected. We are unlikely to get far on any of these objectives alone without progress on all. Changing our trajectory is the fight for human dignity and survival. In our relationships, both with each other and the planet, we are now hard up against the choice Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. warned about 50 years ago: nonviolence or nonexistence.

Just one of many sources on number who have died due to Iraq & Afghanistan wars since 2001 http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/30164-report-shows-us-invasion-occupation-of-iraq-left-1-million-dead My article written for United for Peace & Justice reflecting on MLK’s Beyond Vietnam Speech https://popularresistance.org/mlk-beyond-vietnam-speech-relevant-to-war-justice-today/ Article written by my co-worker at United for Peace & Justice http://www.truth-out.org/speakout/item/40288-growing-nuclear-dangers-what-would-dr-king-say MLK’s Beyond Vietnam Speech http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/kingweb/publications/speeches/Beyond_Vietnam.pdf