March - May 2002

Terror War Without End?

What Will We Gain - And Lose - Fighting an Endless
War Against Invisible Enemies?

We're all still reeling from September 11. Some say it's "Pearl Harbor without World War II." Others say it's "slow-motion World War III." What are we getting ourselves into? And at what cost to everything else?

The Bush administration has embarked on what it calls a "global war on terror" that it says may never end. It has identified half a dozen countries where it has already deployed military advisers - the Philippines, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Colombia. Many others - including long-time dictatorships - are receiving weapons and training. There's been little debate about the risks of arming unsavory regimes. Yet recent history has taught us that in a few short years, those weapons could be pointed right back at us.

President Bush's 2003 military budget tops $396 billion - a 13% jump, the biggest in twenty years:

• The $48 billion increase alone trumps the entire defense budgets of every other nation but Russia.
  
  
• The U.S. comprises less than 5% of the world's population but 40% of global defense expenditures.
  
  
• $9 billion is allotted for a missile defense program - widely agreed as the least likely method of attack.
  
  
• The White House Budget Office predicts a return to deficit spending - $80 billion in 2003.
  
  
• The budget would slash vital federal programs and force states to make up the difference.

A large portion of the $68 billion weapons procurement budget would be spent on big-ticket, Cold War-era systems that have little to do with fighting a highly dispersed, elusive, guerrilla-style enemy.

New York will host the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in early April. Center stage will be the recently leaked Nuclear Posture Review, where for the first time the White House is considering using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. The report triggered a firestorm. Many analysts warn that this new doctrine replaces a half-century reliance on deterrence (or Mutual Assured Destruction) with nuclear war-fighting (or Unilateral Threat of Attack). Some say the "mini-nukes" proposed by the Pentagon contribute to a dangerous illusion that they're usable by lowering the threshold for nuclear warfare, reviving nuclear testing and inciting other nations to develop nukes of their own in "self-defense."

Will military might vanquish terrorist violence? Or does it fundamentally misread the nature of the problem? Will our allies remain supportive of the war on terror if Iraq or other nations become targets of U.S. military action? What roles might there be for nonmilitary strategies to address rising anger in the world - equitable economic development, poverty reduction, and preventive diplomacy? How far are we willing to go in pursuit of international terrorists, and at what cost to other essential priorities?

The Mainstream Media Project offers you and your listeners the opportunity to speak with the nation's foremost experts and analysts who offer insights into the roots of terrorism and most effective ways to lessen threats to national and global security.

In March-May 2002, MMP conducted a major public education campaign on these issues. In all, we scheduled 345 radio, television, print, and internet interviews in 33 states. Of these, 21 were regionally, nationally or globally syndicated. 61 of the radio interviews occurred on commercial radio stations. Some 83 authorities were interviewed.

Guest Speakers by Topic:

Carl Conetta, Co-Director, Project on Defense Alternatives

Craig Eisendrath, Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy

Lawrence Korb, Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

Charles Pena, Director of Defense Policy Studies, CATO Institute

Sherle Schwenninger, Senior Fellow, World Policy Institute

Jane Wales, President and Chief Executive Officer, World Affairs Council of Northern California

Lloyd Jeffrey Dumas, Professor of Political Economy and Economics - School of Social Sciences, University of Texas, Dallas

John Isaacs, Executive Director, Council for a Livable World

Steven Kosiak, Director of Budget Studies, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

Ann Markusen, Professor and Director, Urban and Regional Planning Program, Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

Franklin Charles Spinney, Co-Author, Spirit, Blood, and Treasure: The American Cost of Battle in the 21st Century (2001), Analyst, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Program Analysis and Evaluation, Pentagon

Nathanael Heasley, Program Director, Taxpayers for Common Sense

Nick Johnson, Directory, STate Fiscal Analysis Initiative, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Susan Shaer, Executive Director, Women's Action for New Directions

Greg Speeter, Executive Director, National Priorities Project

Deborah Avant, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University

Dan Briody, Investigative Journalist

Conn Hallinan, Lecturer in Journalism and Provost, Kresge College, University of California, Santa Cruz, Columnist, San Francisco Examiner

William Hartung, President's Fellow - New School, World Policy Institute

Peter Singer, Senior Fellow in Foreign Relations, Brookings Institute

John Burroughs, Executive Director, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy

Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation

Natalie Goldring, Executive Director - Program on Global Security and Disarmament - Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland

Christine Kucia, Nuclear Analyst, British American Security Information Council

Arjun Makhijani, President, Institute for Energy & Environmental Research

Greg Mello, Executive Director, Los Alamos Study Group, nuclear labs lobbying politicians and the Pentagon for new generations of nuclear weapons

Alistair Millar, Vice President, Fourth Freedom Forum

Christopher Paine, Senior Research Analyst - Nuclear Program, Natural Resources Defense Council

John Gershman, Asia/Pacific Editor, Foreign Policy in Focus, Senior Analyst, Interhemispheric Resource Center

Adam Isacson, Senior Associate, Center for International Policy

Leon Sigal, Director, Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project, Social Science Research Council

Leonard Spector, Deputy Director , Washington Office, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies

Amin Tarzi, Senior Research Associate for the Middle East- Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies

Chris Toensing , Executive Director, Middle East Research and Information Project, Editor, Middle East Report

Stephen Zunes, Associate Professor, Department of Politics, Editor, University of San Francisco

Gordon Clark, Field Director, Congress Watch, Public Citizen, National Coordinator , The Iraq Pledge of Resistance

Ivan Eland, Director of Center on Peace and Liberty, Independent Institute

Jonathan Granoff, President, Global Security Institute

Theresa Hitchens, Vice President, Center for Defense Information

Dennis Kucinich, D-OH, U.S. House of Representatives

Michael Levi, Science and Technology Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution

Walter Uhler, Chief of Operations, Defense Contract Management Agency, Department of Defense, Independent Scholar, Defense Contract Management Agency, Department of Defense

Melvin Goodman, Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy, Professor - International Security, National War College

James Clay Moltz, Associate Director and Research Professor - Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies

Stephenie Foster, Director of Public Policy, People for the American Way

Elisa Massimino, Director, Washington Office, Human Rights First

Robert Jensen, Professor - School of Journalism, University of Texas, Austin, Author, Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (February, 2004)

Nancy Snow, Assistant Professor of Communications, California State University at Fullerton, Lecturer and Adjunct Professor in Communications, University of Southern California

As'ad AbuKhalil, Associate Professor of Political Science, California State University, Stanislaus, Fellow, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Ali Abunimah, Vice President, Arab American Action Network, Co-Founder, The Electronic Intifada

Rania Awwad, Regional Director, Palestine Media Watch

Bobbie Banks, National Field Director, Women's Action for New Directions

Phyllis Bennis, Fellow in Middle East & United Nations Affairs, Institute for Policy Studies

Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst, Political Research Associates

Larry Birns, Director and Professor of International Politics, Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Landrum Bolling, Director at Large, Mercy Corps

Helen Caldicott, Physicians for Social Responsibility, New School for Social Research

Elizabeth Chesnut , Associate National Field Director, Women's Action for New Directions

Philip Coyle, Senior Analyst, Center for Defense Informaiton

Deborah Gerner, Professor of Political Science, University of Kansas, Co-Director, Center for International Political Analysis-UK

Rose Gottemoeller, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Karl Grossman, Professor of Journalism, State University of New York, Old Westbury, Author, The Wrong Stuff: Nukes in Space

Lisa Gue, Policy Analyst - Critical Mass Energy & Environment Program, Public Citizen

John Hadder, Northern Nevada Coordinator, Citizen Alert

David Holloway, Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History - Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, Director, Institute for International Studies

Pervez Hoodbhoy, Member, Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, Professor of Physics, Quaid-e-Azam University - Islamabad, Pakistan

Hussein Ibish, Communications Director, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee

Kevin Kamps, Nuclear Waste Specialist, Radioactive Waste Project, Nuclear Information

Larry Klayman, Chairman and Founder, Judicial Watch

Charles Knight, President and Co-Director - Project on Defense Alternatives, Commonwealth Institute

Ying Lee, Former Senior Legislative Aid to Congressman Ron Dellums

Michael Lerner, Rabbi, Beyt Tikkun Synagogue, Editor, TIKKUN magazine

Ian Lustick, Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania

Ed Markey, D-MA, U.S. House of Representatives

Haggai Matar, Member, Ta'ayush - an Arab-Jewish Partnership, Member, Yesh Gvul and New Profile - Refusal Groups

Alex Matthiessen, Hudson Riverkeeper and Executive Director, Riverkeeper, Inc.

Zia Mian, Physicist, Research Associate - Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Princeton University

John Nichols, Washington Correspondent, The Nation Magazine, Editorial Page Editor, The Capital Times, Madison, WI

Gregory Palast, Investigative Journalist, BBC Television's Newsnight

Michael Posner, Executive Director, Human Rights First

Ram Rahat-Goodman, Activist & Israeli Army Refusenik, Yesh Gvul

M.V. Ramana, Physicist, Research Staff Member - Program on Science & Global Security, Princeton University

Laxminarayan Ramdas , Former Chief of the Naval Staff, Indian Navy

Mohan Rao, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst - Department of Economics

Ishai Sagi, Activist & Israeli Army Refusenik, Yesh Gvul

Jerome Segal, Senior Research Scholar - Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, School of Public Affairs, University of Maryland, President and Founder, The Jewish Peace Lobby

Adam Shapiro, Volunteer, International Solidarity Movement

Daniel Smith, Senior Fellow Military Policy, Friends Committee on National Legislation

Wayne Smith, Senior Fellow, Center for International Policy, Visiting Professor - Latin American Studies, Johns Hopkins University

Sanho Tree, Director, Drug Policy Project, Institute for Policy Studies

Harvey Wasserman, Senior Advisor, Nuclear Information and Resource Service and Greenpeace, Senior Editor, www.freepress.org, The Last Energy War

Tim Wilson, Director of Seeds of Peace Summer Camp and The Portland Project, Seeds of Peace

Daphne Wysham, Director, Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, Institute for Policy Studies