In terrorism fight, diplomacy gets shortchanged
The Bush administration says it wants to end extremism by addressing underlying conditions, but the money goes to military might.
By Josh Meyer
LA Times
March 18, 2007
WASHINGTON — President Bush, members of Congress and virtually all counter-terrorism experts have acknowledged that defeating terrorists cannot be accomplished solely by dropping bombs on them. Ultimately, they say, ending terrorism will come only by addressing its underlying causes.
"Our long-term strategy to keep the peace is to help change the conditions that give rise to extremism and terror by spreading the universal principle of human liberty," Bush said in March 2005.
But a close look at the United States' counter-terrorism priorities shows a strategy going in a different direction.
In recent years, the Pentagon has received a larger share of the counter-terrorism budget, whereas "indirect action" programs to win the campaign through diplomacy and other nonmilitary means have struggled for funding and attention, according to a review of budget documents and interviews with dozens of current and former U.S. officials.
Nonmilitary counter-terrorism programs have budgets that are measured in millions instead of billions, and in many cases are seeing their funding remain flat or drop.
(Continued here.)
By Josh Meyer
LA Times
March 18, 2007
WASHINGTON — President Bush, members of Congress and virtually all counter-terrorism experts have acknowledged that defeating terrorists cannot be accomplished solely by dropping bombs on them. Ultimately, they say, ending terrorism will come only by addressing its underlying causes.
"Our long-term strategy to keep the peace is to help change the conditions that give rise to extremism and terror by spreading the universal principle of human liberty," Bush said in March 2005.
But a close look at the United States' counter-terrorism priorities shows a strategy going in a different direction.
In recent years, the Pentagon has received a larger share of the counter-terrorism budget, whereas "indirect action" programs to win the campaign through diplomacy and other nonmilitary means have struggled for funding and attention, according to a review of budget documents and interviews with dozens of current and former U.S. officials.
Nonmilitary counter-terrorism programs have budgets that are measured in millions instead of billions, and in many cases are seeing their funding remain flat or drop.
(Continued here.)
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1 Comments:
I am glad that the LA Times has picked up on this story. I wrote about the underfunding in my blog on February 3rd.
The culprit here is pork barrel spending. Every politician wants to “support the troops”, so that is a High Priority Item in the budget, but it’s what is deemed to be Low Priority that gets sliced to pay for earmarks. As the LAT article pointed out, the State Department’s funding request got cut by Congress. Simple reason, they want the money to pay for Bridges to Nowhere and loan monies for Class II railroad expansion.
We can’t say that we need to protect the homeland without realizing that monies must come from somewhere … and as Bill Maher pointed out in an earlier posting Bush has not asked the populace to participate. What’s wrong with a Patriot Tax to pay for counter-terrorism and homeland security?
Further, Congress can lead in foreign policy. Read Nick Kristoff column in Sunday’s NYT entitled Talking about Israel. Immediately, you will realize that Norm Coleman and the rest of the Foreign Relations Committee need to take a hard look at what we are getting for the Foreign Aid. Why should we give monies to foreign countries without having requirements that they work for peaceful resolution of the Middle East crisis.
Chances of Congress cutting foreign aid is about as likely as cutting earmarks – slim and none.
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