STWR - Share The World's Resources

22nd March 07 -  Christopher Brauchli ~ STWR member

If people in New Orleans and environs are feeling depressed at the pace of reconstruction they should take heart from Iraq. Unlike New Orleans, Iraq has not dropped off George Bush’s radar screen and nonetheless things continue to go badly on the reconstruction front.

According to the most recent quarterly report by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, there is precious little to show for the $21 billion Congress put into the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction fund created in 2003. Eighty percent of the money has been paid out. Seventy five million has been spent to rebuild the pipelines crossing the Tigris River at the Fatah pipeline crossing and not one pipeline has made it across. Parsons Corporation was paid $243 million for construction of 150 medical clinics. It completed 20 of the clinics. It received $72 million for construction of a police college in Baghdad that had to be closed because of sewage leaking from the ceiling.

20th March 07 - David Krieger, STWR

It is a great honor to celebrate with you the 40th anniversary year of the Treaty of Tlatelolco, officially called the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean.  This Treaty was a great achievement, and has served your region well.

Many years ago, I had the pleasure of knowing and working with Alfonso Garcia Robles, the great Mexican diplomat who was so instrumental in creating this treaty.  For his vision and commitment, he shared the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize with Swedish diplomat Alva Myrdal.

The Treaty of Tlatelolco paved the way and was a model for other Nuclear Weapon Free Zones – those in the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central Asia.  Today, virtually the entirety of the southern hemisphere is covered by Nuclear Weapon Free Zones.  Latin America and the Caribbean led the way in this important achievement. 

But, as great as the achievement has been in creating first the Nuclear Weapon Free Zone for Latin America and Caribbean, and then the southern hemispheric series of Nuclear Weapon Free Zones, it is not enough.  While regional efforts are useful, they cannot fully protect the people of the region from the effects of nuclear wars in other parts of the world.

When President George W. Bush presented his budget proposals recently for the fiscal year 2008, he emphasized that the nation’s security is his highest priority, and he backed up that declaration by proposing that the Pentagon’s outlays be increased by more than 6 percent beyond its estimated outlays for fiscal 2007, to a total of more than $583 billion. Although many Americans regard this enormous sum as excessive, hardly anyone appreciates that the total amount of all defense-related spending greatly exceeds the amount budgeted for the Department of Defense. Indeed, it is roughly almost twice as large.

In the fiscal year 2006, which ended last September, the Pentagon spent $499.4 billion. Lodged elsewhere in the budget, however, other lines identify funding that serves defense purposes just as surely as—sometimes even more surely than—the money allocated to the Department of Defense. On occasion, commentators take note of some of these additional defense-related budget items, such as the Department of Energy’s nuclear-weapons programs, but many such items, including some extremely large ones, remain generally unrecognized.

Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks
— A Tone Poem by Richard Strauss

It has an appealing symmetry. George Bush is deploying a missile defense system that may or may not work to defend against nuclear weapons that might be fired from Iranian secret weapons sites that may or may not exist. This strategy is of a piece with the rest of George Bush’s foreign policy strategies that have produced such successes as, for example, Iraq.

In February it was disclosed that Mr. Bush plans to plant a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. Poland gets a missile battery and the Czech Republic gets a radar site. The United States has not declared the missile defense system fully operational. Under the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s approach to things military, the fact that the system is not operational is no reason not to deploy it. In 2003 Mr. Rumsfeld testified about the money being spent on deployment of an anti-defense missile system before it even worked explaining: “I happen to think that thinking we cannot deploy something until you have everything perfect, every ‘i’ dotted and every ‘t’ crossed, is probably not a good idea in the case of missile defense. I think we need to get something out there, in the ground, at sea, and in a way that we can test it, we can look at it, we can develop it, we can evolve it, and find out-learn from the experimentation with it."

27th Feb - Jim McDermott, Seattle Times (Washington)

In a world torn by conflict, I can't think of a better time, or a greater need, for America to act as a force for good at home and around the world.

A bill recently was reintroduced in Congress that will go a long way toward bringing peace both at home and abroad. The measure would create a Cabinet-level Department of Peace.

The proposed department will give voice to the latest research and expertise on peaceful efforts in many areas — from safe schools to international arms control.

The legislation, which I am co-sponsoring, would fund, support and coordinate programs already in existence — in schools, prisons, police departments, educational institutions, charitable organizations and elsewhere — that are proven to reduce domestic and international violence and enhance the security and health of all Americans.

I believe a Department of Peace represents the ideals on which this country was founded. Our legislation, HR 808, embodies the dreams and aspirations of Americans to live in a nation that uses its great strength to support the cooperative efforts of people throughout the world to create peace.

26th Feb 07 -  F. William Engdahl, Global Research

what happens when Cowboys don’t shoot straight like they used to…

The frank words of Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to the assembled participants of the annual Munich Wehrkunde security conference have unleashed a storm of self-righteous protest from Western media and politicians. A visitor from another planet might have the impression that the Russian President had abruptly decided to launch a provocative confrontation policy with the West reminiscent of the 1943-1991 Cold War.

However, the details of the developments in NATO and the United States military policies since 1991 are anything but ‘déjà vu all over again’, to paraphrase the legendary New York Yankees catcher, Yogi Berra.