Redefining Security for Green candidates 2.0
Posted by Greg Gerritt on 01/27/08Redefining Security Greg Gerritt 1/27/08
Recently I posted an essay on how Green candidates may participate in the current debate about how to stimulate the economy as we slide into recession. It is available at the Green Horizon website http://www.green-horizon.org/blog/archives/communitybased_economics/what_to_do_abou_1.shtml
The following quote from that essay stimulated someone to ask for an a statement on security, on how people might feel secure and therefore be ready for a dramatically smaller US military and military industrial complex.
From the original essay
“Immediately cut spending on the military by 50% and bring all American service personnel back to US soil with the minor exceptions of UN missions, the protection of embassies and similar functions. Phase in further cuts over the next 3 to 4 years. The reduced reliance on violence by Uncle Sam will send a clear message to the world and lead to a world in which large militaries are ever more superfluous. Asymmetrical warfare will dry up.”
This section stimulated someone to ask for an a statement on security, on how people might feel secure and therefore be ready for a dramatically smaller US military and military industrial complex.
Security in the world can never come from military might or an aggressive foreign policy. Security fundamentally comes from the knowledge that your neighbor feels and is secure and therefore allows you to feel the same way. In the age of the jet plane and the world wide web, everyone on the planet is your neighbor, and if they are insecure, so will you be.
People are insecure because they feel the resources necessary for the survival of their families and communities are at risk. That outsiders want what is in their land and are willing to kill to procure it. Resources in their neighborhood are being siphoned off to support giant corporations, corporations protected by the biggest baddest armies on earth. Oil, food, forests, water, the atmosphere, all fall into the maw of the corporate, and the results are insecurity for billions. Many grin and bear it, many make a fair bit of money, but many fight back, which provides the excuse for the military portion of the corporate tide to move towards ever greater and more violent and dastardly deeds to procure an ever greater share of the resources and to protect themselves from the consequences of their folly. Somehow we have to get off of the treadmill that runs ever faster if the people of the earth and our country are ever to feel secure.
I want Green candidates to explain this well, and have a proper explanation of what is going on earth But for a press conference they need 3 to 5 key points. Here is something they could adapt for the purposes.
Close every American overseas military base. Accept that it is immoral to have overseas bases, that they are a direct threat to peace and democracy around the world, and that only way to lead is by example. If we want to see democracies, we have to act like one.
Ban torture and prosecute the war crimes of American leaders who have ordered war crimes and torture, or acquiesced when confronted with evidence that it is going on. This one we can only lead by example, and right now the example we set is very bad.
Make it clear that we have better ways to spend our money than controlling resources around the world. If people want to trade with us, they will. Killing for resources is wrong, and pretty dumb in a world of crashing ecosystems in which the efforts made to secure resources only lead to a further weakening of ecosystems.
Stop making weapons, stop selling weapons. Ban nuclear weapons. Stop the revolving door between the Pentagon and the military contractors. As long as war makes money for the arms merchants, we seem to get more of it. The only way this game changes is for someone to drop out. Lead by example, stop the war machine and the development of new and better ways to kill.
Redirect all military spending to clean energy, mass transit, infrastructure, housing, education, living properly on planet earth. The need for a military will evaporate as we do a better job of being a good neighbor.