We're Spending 2 Trillion Dollars on Weapons That Must Never Be Used
By Donald A. Smith, PhD. Using my lyrics and Udio.com for the music, I created this military march about the risk and costs of the nuclear modernization program.
We are spending two trillion dollars on weapons that must never be used. Nuclear missile modernization they call it. The waste and risks cannot be excused. Two trillion dollars, and what does it buy? Weapons of extinction to light up the sky. Corruption and greed keep the war machine alive. If the weapons are ever used, no one will survive. Politicians grin, saying "jobs will be made" While the truth is that we're all being played. For every job made building weapons of war, Money spent elsewhere creates two or three times more. We’re spending 2 trillion dollars on death's quiet plan, Building bombs in the shadows, buried deep in the land. Sentinel missiles standing ready to fly. If they ever launch, we’ll watch the world die. We tore up arms treaties, walked away from the deals. Now the money flows faster, greased by power’s appeal. What’s the true cost when we flirt with the flame? It’s humanity’s end, in this high-stakes game. Cost overruns soar and the profits are high. Politicians line pockets, with kickbacks that satisfy. What are the opportunity costs? And who’s made more safe? The end of the world is the risk that we face. We are pawns in a system that’s broken and blind, Building weapons of war that will wipe out mankind. For some jobs and for profit, for power and gain, We face a future of deprivation, death and pain. We are spending 2 trillion dollars, but it’s all for the few. As we edge toward the brink, what can we do? A system so broken, with the darkest design, Where we gamble existence, for the sake of their bottom line. |
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See also
The New York Times' essay America Is Updating Its Nuclear Weapons. The Price: $1.7 Trillion.
William Hartung of the Quincy Institute's Inside the ICBM Lobby: Special Interests or the Public Interest?
Newsweek's essay by Rep. Adam Smith (no relation): Congressman: U.S. Land-Based Nuclear Weapons Need a Rethink | Opinion
Selling War: How Raytheon and Boeing Fund the Push for NATO’s Nuclear Expansion
Roots Action's Stop ICBM Madness and Defuse the Arms Race
Senior U.S. diplomats, journalists, academics and Secretaries of Defense say:
The U.S. provoked Russia in Ukraine
For example, Jack Matlock (former U.S. Ambassador to the USSR under Ronald Reagan) said in a 2024 interview: "Why don’t we understand that trying to remove Ukraine from Russian influence and put military bases there would be, in their case, absolutely unacceptable and worthy of defense?" Matlock said the U.S. backed the 2014 coup, and "Obviously, to any Russian leader, not just Vladimir Putin, that would have been an absolutely impossible, hostile act, which they had to react to. And in particular, they were not going to lose their naval base in Crimea." Finally, Matlock said the Ukrainians are "dominated in their thinking by neo-Nazis — we tend to ignore that, or when Putin points it out, we say he’s lying. He’s not lying."
U.S. hypocrisy is absolutely stunning, since it invaded and bombed countries all over the world (e.g., Iraq) for flimsy reasons, often allying with Muslim extremists (e.g., Afghanistan in 80s, Serbia, Libya, and Syria). The U.S. occupies 1/3 of Syria (the parts with oil), with help from its proxy army, the Syrian Defense Forces. Russia's invasion was along its borders, in response to CIA and NATO meddling in a country with deep historical, linguistic, and cultural ties to Russia. U.S. meddling included "engineering" the 2014 coup, according to Chas. W. Freeman, former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Lifetime Director of the Atlantic Council. Crimea had voted multiple times for closer ties to Russia. The U.S. exploited divisions in Ukraine between pro-Western and pro-Russian provinces and groups to provoke the war. RAND Corporation recommended arming Ukraine as the best way to "weaken and overextend" Russia and predicted it would result in a war. Anti-Russian, far-right militias armed by the U.S. were attacking Russian speakers in the east. Before the 2022 invasion, the militias increased their bombings.
Other music: America the Battleful (Oh Beautiful for Endless Wars!)
We Can't Compete with China, So Let's Provoke a War (bluegrass)
Thomas Merton's Prayer for Peace
Rock Opera about U.S. Militarism, Part One
Requiem for Victims of U.S. Wars
Bending Over for Dearest Uncle Sam
Endless War Blues
Windy City Protests -- from Vietnam in '68 to Gaza in '24
No More Blood For Their Endless War: an antiwar folk song made with AI
Machinery of Death (death metal song)
No More Stupid Wars!
Lesser of Two Evils Blues
Eisenhower warns about the Military-Industrial Complex
Eisenhower Warns about U.S. Militarism.
and Love Song by the U.S. Military Gospel Choir.