Responsibility #12

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=110 BGCOLOR="#666699" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04900840erlcjm.png"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>NATIONAL SECURITY--Structural,Moral,Economic,Domestic,International</B></FONT><B>     |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="NATIONAL SECURITYStructural,Moral,Econom"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id33.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility Contents"><U>Responsibility Contents</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id34.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 1"><U>Responsibility #1</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id35.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 2"><U>Responsibility #2</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id36.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 3"><U>Responsibility #3</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id37.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 4"><U>Responsibility #4</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id38.htm" 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to President, et al,"><U>Health Care Letters to President, et al, 8/24/94</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id123.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Arguments for Delay in Enactment of a He"><U>Arguments for Delay in Enactment of a Health Care Bill</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id124.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Post WORLD WAR IIPost COLD WAR Deja Vu"><U>Post WORLD WAR II--Post COLD WAR Deja Vu</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id125.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 89"><U>Responsibility #89</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id126.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 90"><U>Responsibility #90</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id127.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 91"><U>Responsibility #91</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id128.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 92"><U>Responsibility #92</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id129.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 93"><U>Responsibility #93</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id130.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 94"><U>Responsibility #94</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id131.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 95"><U>Responsibility #95</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id132.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 96"><U>Responsibility #96</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id133.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 97"><U>Responsibility #97</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id134.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 98"><U>Responsibility #98</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id135.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Structure of Our Nation is Unsound"><U>The Structure of Our Nation is Unsound</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id136.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ltr. to Editor, 3/19/96, Property Taxes "><U>Ltr. to Editor, 3/19/96, Property Taxes and Education Funding</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=190 BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" TEXT="#080000" background="04311c00egdysm.png"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=370 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> Responsibility #12</div> <div> (written prior to July 1992)</div> <bR> <div> To the People of the United States of America:</div> <bR> <div>      In 1787 Publius (John Jay) wrote in Federalist No. 4: <I><B>"If </B></I><B>[foreign nations]</B><I><B> see that our national government is </B></I><I><B>efficient and well administered, our trade prudently regulated, our militia properly organized and disciplined, our resources and finances discreetly managed, our credit re-established, our people free, contented, and united, they will be much more disposed to cultivate our friendship than provoke our resentment."</B></I></div> <bR> <div>      It is evident that currently, and often in our history, we have not achieved this formula for success in foreign relations. In a newspaper editorial of August 1991, it was observed "that this country had engaged in military action more than 200 times in its history, with only five Congressional declarations of war."  Having averaged war or near war conditions once a year in our nation's lifetime, it is clear that we need to change our ways.  We constantly need a foreign policy, we consistently require a domestic policy, and we must have a federal governing structure which together will produce the above cited Publius conditions.</div> <div>      The first condition is <B>"that our national government is efficient and well administered."</B>  A number of the prior Responsibility papers have been devoted to improvements toward this end.  The establishment of constituents' interest criteria will communicate, to elected and appointed officials, a clear enunciation of the views of the electorate.  The changes in the election process will offer the opportunity to find and elect the candidates best qualified to govern.  The elimination of campaign contributions, and the alleviation of the semi-monopoly of the two political parties, will help assure that allegiances or obligations, to other than the citizenry, do not interfere with decisions for the general welfare of our country and other nations.  </div> <div>      Establishment and enforcement of a Code of Qualifications and Conduct, reforms in the nomination and confirmation processes, a true threat of utilization of the impeachment process, and the likely withholding of immunities and pardons, all would help assure the lack of abuse of office.  Election of better qualified Vice Presidents, and a close working relationship to the President, would improve the administration of the oval office, and provide added protection for the nation, in case of the temporary or permanent loss of the President.  Further reforms for our country, to be discussed in later essays, will also contribute to the achievement of this first condition.    </div> <div>           The second condition is that <B>"our trade [is] prudently regulated."</B>  We are not prudent in our trade of war materials, when these sales are made for other than a clear requirement for national defense.  Our lack of prudence was notoriously brought to the world's attention in the Irangate travesty.  But this episode was merely an unacceptable extension, of our policy of selling weapons for sundry reasons, other than national defense. Reasons such as: (1) to decrease the research, development, and production costs of our own weapon purchases from our industries; (2) to induce nations to stand with us in a transient situation (such as Arab lands in Desert Shield and Storm); (3) to offset the outflow of monies from the USA to oil producing countries; (4) to reduce our trade deficits; (5) if we don't do it, some other nation will; etc.</div> <bR> <div>      During the decades of the Cold War, there was some excuse for the confusion of arms sales to various nations for legitimate defense, versus sundry reasons.  Now our efforts should be devoted to a controlled and calculated reduction in armaments of all types in all countries.  But is this the case? No!</div> <div> Consider these extracts from a newspaper editorial of March 1991:</div> <div>  </div> <div> "Now the Bush administration has informed Congress that it wants to sell high-tech weapons worth $18 billion--including F-16s, Patriots, M-1 tanks and multiple rocket launchers--to five Persian Gulf allies.  With such weapons going to Arab nations, Israel's defense worries are bound to increase; and Israel already is one of the largest recipients of the Pentagon's grants and low-interest loans for foreign nations' arms purchases.</div> <div> The administration also is siding with arms contractors who have been lobbying for restoration of government authority--unavailable since the late 1970s--to underwrite up to $1 billion in arms sales abroad.  The proposal, if approved by Congress, would permit the Export-Import Bank to guarantee commercial bank loans made to overseas buyers of U.S.-made arms.</div> <div> Administration spokesmen insist that there's no conflict with its stated aim of limiting arms sales to the Third World. The guarantees, they say, would be available only to the NATO allies, Japan, Israel and Australia, unless--a very big unless--the President found it in the national interest to include other nations."</div> <div>            </div> <div>      On the fiftieth anniversary of The Day of Infamy, an Associated Press article informed its readers that "President Bush on Friday lifted a 30-year embargo on arms sales to the former Soviet-bloc nations of Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia."  From Pearl Harbor to the Iran-Iraq War, war materials that had been sold by the USA or its allies to countries who had been friendly or allied to us, have returned to rain death on our own servicemen.  Arms, that had been sold for defense or war against common foes, have been turned by dictatorial regimes against their own citizens.  </div> <div>      The sale and existence of war making capabilities continue to make the world vulnerable to local or worldwide catastrophes.  So long as the USA provides arms and war materials to other countries for sundry reasons (other than clear national defense), we can be deemed to be Merchants of Death.  So long as our trade in armaments is not <B>"prudently regulated",</B> foreign nations will not be <B>"more disposed to cultivate our friendship than provoke our resentment."</B></div> <div>      Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of history, will live to repeat them.  President Eisenhower, at the close of his terms of office, cautioned the nation concerning the military-</div> <div> industrial complex.  </div> <bR> <div>      Our nation is currently in or close to a recession; for the last decade (in spite of immense arms sales to foreign nations) we have had large trade deficits; we can not see a light at the end of the tunnel for huge budget deficits; we have great perceived needs for increases in domestic spending; the total costs of bailing out savings & loans and banks (and possibly insurance companies, pension plans, and government-sponsored enterprises) is inestimable; the pressures are strong to pare our military forces to the bone.  If we seek to alleviate these problems through weapon sales, we will kill Peter to pay Paul.</div> <bR> <div>                     Publius IV</div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id46.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 13"><U>Responsibility #13</U></A></div> <div> Back to: <A HREF="id33.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility Contents"><U>Responsibility Contents</U></A>    </div> </td> </tr></table></body>