Maybe It's Time to Cut Defense Spending

Dear VFP 21 & VVAW-N.J. Members and Friends

I just read in today's newspaper that the Obama Administration want to freeze domestic spending. Yet, when it comes to war and the military, money is no object, just like it was with the guy before him!

Tonight over dinner, this subject came up in a conversation with my son who is a Japanese language major and who has also spent time studying in Japan. We talked about how after the Second World War, the Japanese people adopted Article 9 to their constitution on May 3, 1947. This article prohibits the Japanese nation from engaging in war as a right of that nation and as a method for resolving international disputes.

The United States, on the other hand, has been in some kind of an overt or covert war against other nations almost continuously ever since V-J Day in 1945. In fact, many of these conflicts are unknown to most U.S. citizens. As a result, our country is morally, physically and financial bankrupt.

Perhaps what we really need is less spending on wars and weapons and more spending to uplift our citizens.

Please check out the information and pictures below and pass them on to all your contacts.

Peace and Solidarity

Ken Dalton
VFP 21, N.J.
VVAW


WHO "WON" THE WAR?
(Courtesy of John Ketwig, VFP 21 & VVAW)

I wonder at the reason this commentary was made? Is it saying that nuclear war is not such a bad thing after all? Or that Detroit, the home of the American automobile industry, has lost its way? My take is that the Japanese have a severely limited military activity as required by the surrender agreement we imposed on them at the end of WWII. The U.S., on the other hand, has a military budget greater than all of the planet's other countries put together, and there are no resources left for our societal needs. Our industrial base is gone. We find ourselves in the business of death and destruction, able to export nothing else, and now morally and financially bankrupt. What a shame.

Photos of Hiroshima in 1945 and today contrasted with photos of Detroit