CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

The War Against Iran, Up Close and Personal (and All Too Far Away)

Image by Javad Esmaeili.

Guns or butter. Butter or guns. Can we have both? If not, which should come first? Consider it one of those chicken-and-egg conundrums of modern society.

“Guns” is the stand-in for a well-funded military and “butter” for all the human goods, comforts, and needs of a society.

Economists, politicians, and generals have long considered the balance of guns and butter. Wage too many wars, produce too many arms, and there won’t be enough money to keep a nation decently fed and comfortable. Produce too many consumer goods, meet everyone’s needs, and a nation might find itself ill-prepared and vulnerable in the face of a possible attack or even invasion. Everyone from Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has had something to say about the balance of guns and butter (or, more likely, the lack of it).

No surprise, but I like butter and don’t like guns. I have long been attracted to the graphics produced by groups like the National Priorities Project (NPP) and Brown University’s Costs of War Project that dramatize the opportunity costs of war investment in the United States. At some point, one of those groups created a pen that had a long scroll on a pull-out flap inside it. At parties, as you were discussing the military budget, you could take out that pen and unfurl a long bar graph comparing U.S. military spending to the budgets for education, healthcare, and infrastructure. Neat trick, right?

These days, NPP has a new factsheet that offers a breakdown of how the cost (so far) of Trump’s Iran “escapade” could have been so much better spent:

Covering Medicaid for all 14 million people at risk of losing their insurance, AND the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, for all four million people at risk of losing food assistance, including 3.5 million due to new work requirements for older people and caregivers, AND expanding Medicaid to an additional 10.3 million people.

Covering Medicaid for all 14 million people at risk of losing their insurance,

AND the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, for all four million people at risk of losing food assistance, including 3.5 million due to new work requirements for older people and caregivers,

AND expanding Medicaid to an additional 10.3 million people.

Those numbers are based on the Pentagon’s request for $200 billion in supplemental funding for the Iran war effort. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was on Capitol Hill on April 30th, supporting a lowball estimate of the war costs as a mere $25 billion (and worth every dollar!) and asking for support for an inconceivable $1.5 trillion for Trump’s war machine in fiscal year 2027. Guns vs. Butter? More like guns force-fed foie gras and caviar and sautéed in the world’s most expensive butter.

Every Warship Launched, Every Rocket Fired

If I ever got a tattoo, it would probably be of this line from President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1953 “Chance for Peace” speech: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

Eisenhower gave that speech 73 years ago (even as military budgets increased significantly while he was president) and yet the words ring truer than ever today. In reality, I’m unlikely to get a first tattoo at the age of 52, but I did see all of this up close and personal a couple of weeks ago at my Connecticut town’s school board meeting.

For months, school board members had been ringing an alarm bell about their budget. After years of scrimping and shaving, layoffs and early retirement packages, they were no longer able to economize their way to a balanced budget, and so were considering a “nuclear option”: closing one of our local schools.

Community members rallied, testified, and harangued.........

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