{"id":1290,"date":"2020-12-07T00:16:57","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T00:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=133974"},"modified":"2020-12-07T00:16:57","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T00:16:57","slug":"money-for-war-us-arms-sales-soar-and-bipartisan-militarism-thrives-amid-covid-19-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/07\/money-for-war-us-arms-sales-soar-and-bipartisan-militarism-thrives-amid-covid-19-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Money For War’: US Arms Sales Soar and Bipartisan Militarism Thrives Amid Covid-19 Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The United States sold more than $175 billion in military equipment to foreign governments in the fiscal year that ended September 30, Pentagon and State Department officials announced<\/a> Friday\u2014a 2.8% increase compared to 2019, when weapons exports totaled just over $170 billion.<\/p>\n

The latest figures on arms transfers were released one day before President Donald Trump said<\/a> that “military offense… is the most important thing a president can do,” during his meandering speech at the Republican Party’s Saturday night rally on behalf of Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue of Georgia who are facing Democratic candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, respectively, in runoff elections next month that will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n

 “The annual approval of the gargantuan U.S. military budget… is so ordinary and overwhelmingly bipartisan, it’s barely considered newsworthy.”
\u2014Sarah Lazare<\/p>\n

Although he spent most of the evening repeating unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the November election and baselessly asserting that Democrats will “cheat” again, Trump on Saturday still encouraged rallygoers to support the two GOP lawmakers at the polls on January 5 to avenge his loss in the “rigged” presidential contest. <\/p>\n

“At stake in this election is control of the U.S. Senate and that really means control of this country,” the president said<\/a>. “The voters of Georgia will determine which party runs every committee, writes every piece of legislation, controls every single taxpayer dollar.”<\/p>\n

Trump’s rationale for backing Loeffler and Perdue came in the form of a warning: “If the radical Democrats… get power, they will… ram through the most extreme left-wing agenda ever conceived while at the same time, destroying our military through a lack of funding.”<\/p>\n

Whereas Trump portrayed congressional Democrats as eager to pursue “draconian military cuts,” journalist Sarah Lazare argued<\/a> last week that “the annual approval of the gargantuan U.S. military budget,” which she called “one of the most reliable rituals in Congress… is so ordinary and overwhelmingly bipartisan, it’s barely considered newsworthy.”<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The U.S. “has by far the biggest mil\u00adi\u00adtary bud\u00adget on the plan\u00adet, spend\u00ading more than the next 10 coun\u00adtries com\u00adbined,” Lazare continued. “There is no indi\u00adca\u00adtion that U.S. law\u00admak\u00aders plan to reverse this trend any\u00adtime soon: For six con\u00adsec\u00adu\u00adtive years the military bud\u00adget has either increased or stayed rough\u00adly the same<\/a>, tak\u00ading infla\u00adtion into account. As the Nation\u00adal Pri\u00ador\u00adi\u00adties Project point\u00aded out<\/a> in June, the mil\u00adi\u00adtary bud\u00adget in 2019 account\u00aded for 53% of the fed\u00ader\u00adal dis\u00adcre\u00adtionary bud\u00adget.”<\/p>\n

“That we can find the money for war but not for coro\u00adn\u00adavirus relief expos\u00ades the moral rot at the cen\u00adter of U.S. pol\u00adi\u00adtics.”
\u2014Lazare<\/p>\n

While millions of the country’s working-class households\u2014battered by the Covid-19 pandemic and corresponding economic crisis\u2014await a new relief package<\/a> that ameliorates widespread hardship, “Con\u00adgress had no prob\u00adlem pass\u00ading leg\u00adis\u00adla\u00adtion to con\u00adtin\u00adue U.S. mil\u00adi\u00adtary vio\u00adlence,” Lazare added.<\/p>\n

She pointed out that the Sen\u00adate ver\u00adsion<\/a> of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed on July 23 in a vote of 86\u201314<\/a>, while the House ver\u00adsion<\/a> was approved on July 21 by a margin of 295\u2013125<\/a>. The NDAA was subsequently approved<\/a> last week by both cham\u00adbers of Congress.<\/p>\n

Lazare wrote that while it is “entire\u00adly rou\u00adtine at this point, it’s use\u00adful to high\u00adlight on the eve of yet anoth\u00ader mas\u00adsive Pen\u00adta\u00adgon hand\u00adout how the bud\u00adget for war could instead go toward life-pre\u00adserv\u00ading social goods.”<\/p>\n

“That we can find the mon\u00adey for war but not for coro\u00adn\u00adavirus relief expos\u00ades the moral rot at the cen\u00adter of U.S. pol\u00adi\u00adtics, a rot that must be dug out and expunged if we are to get through this crisis,” she added.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States sold more than $175 billion in military equipment to foreign governments in the fiscal year that ended September 30, Pentagon and State Department officials announced\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1290"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1291,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions\/1291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}