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February
4, 2002
John Chuckman
American
Politics of Grief
February
3, 2002
Zoltan
Grossman
War
and New Military Bases
February
2, 2002
Francis
Schor
Carlucci's
Strange Career
February
1, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
The
Great Ashcroft Cover Up
Jeremy
Voas
Why
We're Suing Ashcroft
David
Vest
10
Things I Know About Him
January
31, 2002
Rahul
Mahajan
The
State of the Union:
A New Cold War
Dave Marsh
Miles
Copeland, War
and the Future of Music
John Pilger
The
Colder War
Alexander
Cockburn
American
Journal:
Killer Dog, Weird Couple
Dr. Susan
Block
Blowback
and Daniel Pearl
January
30, 2002
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Linda
Lay, Hill and Knowlton and the Tears of a Clown
Jack McCarthy
Free
Noelle Bush!
Michael
Ratner
Memo
to Bush: Adhere to
the Geneva Convention
Jay Moore
Proud
to be an American?
Susan
Block
The
Great Pretzel Swallower
and Guantanamo Porn
January
29, 2002
Gary Leupp
Why
This War Was, and Remains, Utterly Wrong
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Birds of Kandahar
Patrick
Cockburn
Afghan
Opium Trade
Back in Business
January
28, 2002
Larry
Chin
Brosnahan
for the Defense
Mokhiber/Weissman
Tyranny
of the Bottom Line
George
E. Curry
Civil
Rights Nominee Called Affirmative Action "Racist"
Sen. Russ
Feingold
Campaign
Finance Reform?
Think Enron
John Chuckman
Liberal?
Media?
January
27, 2002
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Enron's
Drip, Drip, Drip
Tom Turnipseed
MLK
Jr.'s Dream Perverted
January
26, 2002
Norman
Madarsz
Adieu,
Bourdieu
January
25, 2002
National
Lawyers Guild
Know
Your Rights
Alexander
Cockburn
You
Call This Terrorism?
CounterPunch
Wire
Cal
Energy Crisis Hoax:
It Wasn't A Shortage,
It Was a Shakedown
Tariq
Ali
Kashmir,
Klinghoffer,
the Kurds and Chomsky
Nadine
Strossen
Protecting
MLK Jr.'s Legacy:
Justice and Liberty After 9/11
January
24, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Turkey
Targets Chomsky
Dean Baker
Lying
on Top:
Ken Lay One of Many
David
Vest
Idiot
Wind
January
23, 2002
Terry
Waite
Guantanamo
Prisoners:
Justice or Revenge?
Molly
Secours
The
Case of Abu-Ali:
Racism and the Death Penalty
Robert
Jensen
Speak
Out, Get Slimed
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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February 4,
2002
Five Weapons that
Bilk the Taxpayers:
$125 Billion That
Could Help Pay for Defense Budget Increases
By Eric Miller and Beth Daley
Today Congress will be presented with $48 billion
in defense spending increases. Rather than rewarding the bloated
and inefficient Defense Department and its greedy defense contractors
with such an excessive increase, the Project On Government Oversight
(POGO) urges Congress to implement the follow cutbacks:
--Eliminate the Marine's V-22 Osprey:
$26 Billion. Grounded after a series of crashes that killed 30
Marines, the V-22's woes are widely known. Even the Pentagon's
head cheerleader for weapons-buying, Acquisitions Chief Edward
"Pete" Aldridge, has expressed serious doubts about
the V-22 and considered cutting the program, some say. "I
personally still have some doubts," he said at a recent
briefing. "... There's lots of questions we don't have
answers to yet."
--Significantly cut or eliminate the Air Force's F-22: $42 Billion
Carrying a price tag of $200 million per aircraft, the F-22 would
be the most expensive fighter ever built with little increase
in capacity over F-15's and F-16's. F-22 spending is out of
control. Three years ago Congress attempted to reign in this
problem with a spending cap, but the program racked up $9 billion
in cost overruns anyway. The taxpayers do not need both the
$200 billion Joint Strike Fighter, recently awarded to Lockheed,
and the F-22 either fighter can accomplish the same mission.
--Dump the Army's Crusader Howitzer:
$9 Billion. Last year, a Pentagon advisory panel placed the
Crusader in the lowest category of defense priorities, suggesting
that billions could be saved if it were cancelled. The Crusader
is nearly twice the weight of the system that it replaces
too much for the military's largest transport plane to lift
without waiving flight rules but military battlefield
strategy calls for lighter more mobile weapons.
--Cancel the Army's Comanche helicopter:
$48 Billion. The Comanche, now in its sixth program restructuring,
has become one of the General Accounting Office's poster children
for bad weapons development. When first launched in 1988, the
Army estimated the Comanche's development would take 8 years
and cost $3.6 billion. Recent estimates are that it will now
take 18 years at a price tag of $8.3 billion. Among its many
problems is that the Comanche is too heavy to exit hostile battle
environments.
--Retire one-third of the Air Force's
B-1 bomber fleet: $130 million. The B-1 is so plagued with spare
parts shortages that much of the fleet is grounded anyway. Last
year, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld attempted to take 33 B-1s out
of service a third of the bomber's fleet. He was overruled
by Congress. "It's a 20-year-old system," Rumsfeld
said. "...It's designed for the cold war. It's been headed
towards expensive obsolescence."
During fiscal year 2002, the Pentagon
will spend $7.7 billion in development, acquisition, and upgrade
cost on the above programs alone. POGO estimates that eliminating
these weapons systems alone could save the taxpayers $125 billion
between now and 2026. Those savings don't include operation
and maintenance costs for the weapons and aircraft once they
are deployed.
Other savings could be found by forcing the Department of Defense
(DOD) to improve its financial oversight. According to the DOD's
Inspector General the Department could not account for $1.1
trillion, or 25%, of financial transactions in its most recently
audited financial year.
To learn more visit http://www.pogo.org
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