Put Your Money Where Your Conscience Is

This blog noted a few days ago that the President's "Uncle Bucky" has cashed in, to the tune of a half-million dollars, stock options whose net increased was the result of the company's (on whose board he sits) Iraq war contracts.

Now, it's easy enough -- and certainly appropriate -- to feel outraged at the sight of companys and persons closely connected to the White House (very closely in the case of Dick Cheney and Halliburton) making out like bandits from an illegal war opposed by 90% of the World's population; in which it has been conservatively estimated that 100,000 civilians have been killed so far, in which any number of banned weapons were utilised, in which one entire city has been completely destroyed and its entire population made refugees, in which the civilian infrastructure has been largely wrecked, in which the country's cultural and archeological legacy has been more less destroyed, in which a previously secular society has been overrun by fundamentalism, and so on, and so on, and so on.

But the shenanigans perhaps obscure a more important question: should a private company be profiting from war at all -- that is to say, even in the absence of corruption, lies, war crimes, occupation, and cetera?

In other words, let's suspend our disbelief, and take the Bush Administration at its word. Let's pretend that the "War On Terror" (under whose umbrella, we'll recall, the "Battle For Iraq" falls) is this generation's ultimate battle between good and evil. Let's pretend that 90% of the World's population was in favor of the invasion of Iraq, that the Security Council had given its consent, that population centres were not bombed, that the Pentagon's "precision" strikes unfailingly distinguished between civilian and military targets, that nobody has been (or is being) tortured, that no permanent U.S. military bases are being built, and so on, and so on, and so on.

In the case, then, of a "good war", should private companies profit? Or, if we accept that the State has the authority to conscript its citizens to fight and die (if not explicitly through the draft in this case, then through back-door methods: the poverty draft, stop-loss orders, extended tours, Individual Ready Reserve call-ups), to restrict its citizens' Civil Liberties, to unilaterally allocate its citizens' tax dollars to the "war effort"; then should we not also expect the State to order manufacturers of munitions and military hardware to produce these items at cost in accord with the general sacrifice required of all citizens (interestingly enough, Multinationals are constantly requesting -- and receiving -- the same rights accorded citizens) in order to save the civilised world from the depredations of onrushing savages?

Note that we'll pay them for materials, for labor costs (and even a living wage for the big-wigs!), for R&D, for depreciation of facilities, etc.. And we'll not even ask their CEOs and board members to put themselves into "harm's way"; or to be taken from their lives and families for an indefinite time period; or to expose themselves to conditions which are known to result in greatly increased rates of permanent psychological scarring, suicide, and homelessness. So we're not so much asking for any sort of sacrifice -- just that military contractors at least contribute to the great effort to pull humankind's bacon out of the fire. (Not to mention, et voila!, instant deficit-reduction.)

Assuming we find the proposition sensible, what can we do to make it happen? A couple of things.

We can draft a letter to the President's uncle (who's going to use his newfound largesse to bid on a house in Florida, but who claims that he would "prefer" that his company had "no business in Iraq"); suggesting that he donate his $450,000 windfall to Doctors Without Borders, or the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, or Oxfam, or any other organisation dedicated to mitigating the horrors of war:

Uncle Bucky c/o Engineered Support Systems, Inc. 201 Evans Lane St. Louis, MO 63121

We can write letters to editors and/or submit Op-Eds to our hometown dailies pointing up the dichotomy. We can contact our representatives -- we in the Seattle area have two, Jim McDermott and Jay Inslee, who could be especially receptive to the idea of making the weapons contractors pull their fair share.

And, alas, we simply must take our financial matters into our own hands. So long as we continue to lend our monetary support of injust policies, so long will these policies continue -- whether we agree with them or not.

That means refusing to pay federal income taxes, refusing to purchase gasoline, refusing to purchase products made in China and other maquiladora-ist export zones, purchasing as much as is possible only locally grown organic foods, and investing our money with Community Investment funds rather than with funds and institutions that will support military contractors and other ne'er-do-wells.

Apologies if it all sounds too preachy. But it's either that or un-ending resource wars and their concomitant blowback, increased nuclear proliferation and instability, and ecological catastrophe.

Posted by Eddie Tews at February 26, 2005 12:22 PM