SCHOLAR ISLAND

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Eisenhower (1961 Farewell address to the nation)

"It is an organization or a complex of organizations and not a conspiracy ….In the conspirational view, the military power is a coalition of generals and conniving industrialists. The goal is mutual enrichment: they arrange elaborately to feather each other’s nests. The industrialists are the ‘deus ex machina;’ their agents make their way around Washington arranging the pay-off….

There is some enrichment and some graft. Insiders do well….nonetheless, the notion of a conspiracy to enrich the corrupt is gravely damaging to an understanding of military power…..The reality is far less dramatic and far more difficult of solution. The reality is a complex of organizations pursuing their sometimes diverse but generally common goals. The participants in these organizations are mostly honest men….They live on their military pay or their salaries as engineers, scientists, or managers, or their pay and profits as executives, and would not dream of offering or accepting a bribe….

The problem is not conspiracy or corruption, but unchecked rule. And being unchecked, this rule reflects not the national need but the bureaucratic need…."

John Kenneth Galbraith

Hot to Control the Military

"The Pentagon today is the biggest socialistic empire in the United States."

Senator David Pryor

Public Law 85-804 holds that contractors who are "deemed essential" to national defense must be protected against bankruptcy

"Weapons Merchants are going Great Guns in Post Cold War Era."

(Wall St. Journal)

CRUISE MISSILES: The $15 billion emergency spending bill that President Clinton signed Friday includes a $600 million crash program to refurbish cruise missiles. In the past year more than 600 have been fired at targets in Serbia, Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan. They are the "weapon of choice" and "we’ve got to make sure we’ve got enough," said Rear Adm. Michael Mullen, who oversees manufacture of Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The Air Force has only a few dozen of its conventionally armed cruise missiles. The Navy has about 2,200 Tomahawks, but many are not designed for land targets or don’t have the latest all-weather satellite guidance.

Refurbishing won’t be cheap: on average, $633,000 for each missile on top of an original purchase price well about $1 million. The Air Force will replace nuclear warheads with conventional ordinance in 322 cruise missiles at a cost of $178 million. The Navy plans to spend $421 million to refurbish Tomahawks."

Steve Komarow

"It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy, that our country is now geared to an arms industry which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear."

General Douglas MacArthur (Speech may 15,1952)

"I think you know that I believe we must be strong militarily, but beyond a certain point military strength can become a national weakness. The trouble with collecting military strength beyond our needs is that it tends to become a substitute for all the other things involved in true national security. It fosters the notion that national security is automatically tied to the amount of money spent on arms. What we overlook is that we may be spending our money on the wrong things. When we get into over-spending we get into misspending and inefficiency. I don’t want people who have a financial stake in crisis and tensions to have a voice in national policy."

Eisenhower

"The peoples of many countries are being taxed to the point of poverty and starvation….To enable governments to engage in a mad race in armaments….this grave menace to the peace of the world is due in no small measure to the uncontrolled activities of the manufacturers and merchants of engines of destruction, and it must be met by the concerted action of the peoples of all nations."

Franklin D. Roosevelt (message to Congress 1934)

"Lacking the courage to take on weapons corporations, the Commerce Department, and the Pentagon, and lacking the vision to devise new security paradigms, the Clinton administration has failed to seize the opportunity afforded by the end of the Cold War. Rather than seeking to reduce reliance on the use of force-and building up reliance on the rule of law-the White House is risking not only much more warfare to come, but killing and destruction at much higher levels."

Lora Lumpe

(Federation of American Scientists)

"Let us pity and forgive those who urge increased armaments, for "they know not what they do."

Andrew Carnegie