Interesting Links Give Perspective on Current Events

Link-o-rama Saturday:

• After declining in the post-cold war era of the early 1990s, global military spending is on the rise again — threatening to break the one trillion dollar barrier this year, according to a group of U.N.-appointed military experts… ¶ “The United States now accounts for about half of world military spending, meaning that it is spending nearly as much as the rest of the world combined,” says Natalie J Goldring, executive director of the programme on global security and disarmament at the University of Maryland.
• Karen Button sums up the war tax resistance argument in her essay Against Hegemony: When Bush Comes to Shove, Resist, Don’t Pay for People’s Death. “I didn’t know what to do. One thing became clear though: No matter how much I might protest the war, my money was being used to finance it. I was paying for people’s death. At that moment I decided I would not give the US government any more of my consent.”
• I’m fairly certain nothing good can come of this: US wants to build network of friendly militias to combat terrorism. The visual that comes to mind when I read this headline are a bunch of troops running about wearing bright yellow smiley-face helmets — “look! it’s the Friendly Militia! we’re saved!” But I’d imagine the reality will be something like contras, mujahideen or janjaweed — some hybrid of insurgents and mercenaries who occasionally take orders and supplies from Americans in mirrored sunglasses and who can do our dirtiest work for us without making us take responsibility.
• I haven’t had much good to say about John Kerry on this blog, but I will say that when I read his smart, bold and sincere 1971 testimony (which right-wing blogs insist is show-stoppingly treasonous) I think to myself “why won’t this John Kerry run for president?” The latest phase in the attack on Kerry’s Vietnam record is shifting towards an attack on this anti-war activist phase, and I’m curious to see whether Kerry will be defending or backing away from these statements and actions.