Molly Ivins August 1AUSTIN — In one of those hopeful signs that makes you perk up and think the human race might make it after all, the world's diplomats are meeting in Geneva to see if they can figure out how to ban or at least slow the spread of land mines. Not making much progress, but at least they're meeting. You've probably heard the arguments — war in poor countries leaves hundreds of thousands of these damn things scattered all over, so that children step on them and kill or cripple themselves for generations after the shooting has stopped. Getting rid of land mines would be an unmitigated good. Unfortunately, the United States is not in a position to take a high moral tone here, since we're the No. 1 arms merchant in the world. The old phrase "merchants of death" fits us nicely, thank you. But what's even worse than that is that we taxpayers are subsidizing this dismal trade to the tune of $7.6 billion a year. While Congress is busy cutting welfare to poor American children, we're beefing up welfare for our arms merchants. As they say in the Texas Lege, it's time to re-think our pry-roarities here. According to a new study funded by the World Policy Institute, which is the offspring of several reputable foundations, total federal subsidies for arms exports jumped from $7 billion in 1994 to $7.6 billion last year. Clinton and Congress created two new subsidy programs — a $200 million annual tax break for foreign arms clients and a taxpayer-backed, arms-export loan-guarantee fund. The United States spends more than $450 million and employs nearly 6,500 full-time people to promote and service foreign arms sales by U.S. companies. The Pentagon has an arms sales staff of 6,395, an increase of 7.5 percent since 1992. Since you've never heard anyone running for office say, "Vote for me, and I'll use your tax dollars to subsidize weapons manufacturers," you may wonder how this charming arrangement came about. And you will not be amazed to learn that major weapons-exporting firms contributed $14.8 million to congressional candidates from 1990 to 1994. Lockheed and Martin Marietta alone (now merged into Lockheed Martin, the merger generously subsidized by you and me) gave more than $1.1 million to candidates in 1994. The company also contributed $10,000 to help launch Speaker Newt Gingrich's televised lecture series, the one in which he helpfully explained that boys like to hunt giraffes while girls get infections in ditches (you know I'm not making this up — my imagination isn't that good).
The grand result of legal bribery is what is known in political circles as an OPO — Obvious Pay Off. The taxpayers are now underwriting one-half of the total value of U.S. arms exports. I don't know about you, but I'd rather underwrite food exports or environmental technology exports or, come to think of it, anything else. As it happens, we are last among the industrialized nations in promoting the export of environmental technology, and while we're No. 1 in arms exports, we're also last in terms of gross national product in economic aid to developing countries. The sheer stupidity of this piece of lunacy is nicely illustrated by the last five times we have sent our troops into conflict situations — Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti and Bosnia. In every case, the forces on the other side had access to U.S. weaponry, training or military technology. Does the word "self-defeating" ring any bells? The World Policy Institute study clearly demonstrates that many of the weapons-proliferation threats cited by the CIA and our military intelligence agencies as rationales for increasing U.S. military spending have been exacerbated by our own weapons sales. In other words, we have to spend more to defend against dangerous situations we ourselves have helped create. Does the word "dumb" come to mind? Lockheed Martin has even gone so far as to cite the easy availability of U.S. fighter planes on the world market as a reason to build the Air Force's next generation of combat aircraft, the F-22. Think about that. At a cost of $160 million a jet, the F-22 will be the most expensive fighter plane ever built. The taxpayers are getting fleeced coming and going on this deal, while Congress cuts food stamps for poor working families. What can we do about it? 1) Write. 2) Vote. 3) We have got to change the way campaigns are financed, or this madness will continue until our ever-more- likely extinction. No joke, the way weapons dealers buy influence in our government is just one example of the way the whole system is screwed up by this insane campaign financing problem. The people we elect and we pay to represent our interests are, in fact, bought and paid for by corporate special interests who then siphon off our tax money to make higher profits. And in the case of the merchants of death, we get the additional joy of watching our own soldiers get killed by the weapons we subsidize. *** Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. COPYRIGHT 1996 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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