; Time sums up:

fom’ lowing are excerpts
Magen’ July 13 issue of Time
Bazine:

wt . Military budget for fiscal
Ietang, ich began last week,
is ony at $71.8 billion, but that
Heng, % the ‘beginning. Nonde-
i budget coments of the federal
late ha are laced with costs that
ly military. By con-

tions 4, estimates, these allo-

to go In the new budget come
billion, raising the an-
Thitti, °St_Of defense to $91.8
‘1°f the es Burns, chairman
‘|makes €deral Reserve Board,
Htion; hep much higher calcula-
}tial ni figures that the tangen-

-}8peng:
, bilionn® to more than $106

; oncbts from deficits
Isig tomic Energy Commis-
Mission € Selective Service Com-
Aan est; and other agencies spend
‘Tor 7 ean $1.6 billion a year
eas one related projects. At
co eee of the $3.4 billion
Jean be for space programs
ecteq Considered defense-con-

,

Devel
Toy, opment spends
bile $950 million of its $1.9
Mee pudget to help the U.S.
atound ¢ military commitments
million the world, including $474
Nam, in AID funds for Viet-
Hug of the Coast Guard’s
jus. he $625 million and the
iNlion Ormation Agency’s $185
ing, A are really defense spend-
Fimpacteg | ooo million in aid to
}Sequenc School areas is a‘con-
i| Talk of the crowding caused
3 highy, itary families. Federal
| built ee Overpasses have been
| Comm © expensive heights to ac-
Toads ate tank-carriers, and
Pass clo ave been ‘extended to

ates Se to military bases. Ad-
ing Of subsidies for ship-
| their airlines and oil often win
| eral ee by arguing that fed-
Teas andouts are needed for

a of defense.
dep, Or item is the public
bie, Which has risen from $323
larg 2 to $373 billion since 1965,

€ly because of the deficits

-ao

All other countries, $7.00 one year

llitary costs lift defense’

‘tiona) | The Agency for Interna-.

“DAMN, WE'RE GOING. DOWNI”

|War boom and busi?

caused by the Vietnam war. In-
terest payments on this debt
for fiscal 1971 are expected to
reach $19 billion, of which $11

billion can be traced to the costs

of Vietnam and past wars. The
interest paid on the debt from
World War II has amounted to
about $200 billion so far.

The economic drain

Veterans Administration pay-
ments constitute another long-
lived but little-noted expense of
every: war since the Civil War.
This year they will add up to
about $8.9 billion in disability
pensions, education aid and
medical care. Since 1965, costs
of VA medical care have climb-
ed by $500 million; almost all
of the rise is attributable to the
Vietnam war. And forthcoming
costs to the nation amount. to a
large mortgage on the future.
Economist James Clayton of the
University of Utah estimates
that the total cost of pensions
for .Vietnam veterans alone will
eventually reach $220 billion.

Economist Robert Eisner of
Northwestern University calcu-
lates that the Vietnam conflict
has already cost the nation $219
billion. Direct war expenditures
accounted for $113 billion. In
terms of production lost because
young men went into service or
stayed in school to avoid the

draft, the civilian economy lost

another $82.5 billion, by Eisner’s
estimate. The human cost of the
dead and wounded is incalcu-
lable; the economic drain, in
terms of demand and production
that will never be: realized, is
calculated by Eisner at $23.1
billion.

Since 1965, Eisner figures
that real corporate profits, ad-
justed for the war-fueled infla-
tion, declined by 17%. He cal-
culates that soaring prices also
have caused the real average in-
come of the U.S. production
worker to dip by about 2% in
the past five years. “This loss
in income,” say Eisner, ‘must
be a major factor in working-
class malaise and tension.”

Editor—MAURICE RUSH
Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hostings St.,
Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288.
Circulation Manager, ERNIE CRIST
Subscription Rate: Canada, $5.00 one year; $2.75 for six months.
North and South America and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one yeor.

Wages of war

Why do stocks rise when there’s a
hint of a move by the U.S. rulers to-
wards peace in Vietnam, and take a
plunge with each new escalation of the
war? Is it due simply to manipulation.
on the stock exchange? Or is there
some other reason?

Why does Time magazine print

authoritative figures to demonstrate

that the war in Vietnam is no longer
profitable for the U.S. capitalists? _

In reality, the American war m
Southeast Asia has been and is very
profitable indeed to the capitalists. The
loot obtained by the big monopolies
that stand at the war orders trough has
has been beyond the wildest dreams of
all the buccaneers that ever sailed the
seven seas and ravaged whole conti-
nents. Of course, not all capitalists got
the same share (the biggest hogs al-
ways get the first place and squeeze the
runts away from the trough) and even
-ome of the big shots have had to con-
tent themselves with less profitable
types of brigandage. :

But the Time article points to the
downward trend of the rate of profit
of corporations. And it points to the
growing crisis of the economy in the
United States.

The U.S. billionaires got bloated by
the rape and pillage of Vietnam and
dozens of other countries. They gorged
on the extra profits to be made from
government war spending. They grew
fat out of the super exploitation of
working people at home and abroad
(the Time study, you will note, con-
cedes that real wages of American
workers have been reduced by the
war).

This has not saved the U.S. rulers
despite all their pelf and power from
defeat in Indochina. It has earned them
the hatred of peoples throughout the
globe equal only to that felt for the
Hitler gang a generation ago. And it
has brought social upheaval and in-

casing confrontation with the people
at home. :

The stock exchange is jittery.

The economy is in a'state of “depres-
sion.”

Many capitalists are getting scared.

The chickens are coming home to
roost... :

Trudeau’s two faces

Prime Minister Trudeau has express-
ed Canada’s protest against Britain’s
decision to openly sell arms to South
Africa. The protest was couched in
diplomatic language, but the message
nevertheless came across and seems to
have had some effect. We heartily com-
mend it.

External Affairs Minister Sharp is
even considering to stop the sale of

Canadian military supplies to South

Africa as well.

It is unfortunate that Mr. Trudeau
did not find the courage to voice even
a similarly mild criticism of Nixon’s
war escalation in Indochina, ~

He said at the time that he wouldn’t
protest the Yankee invasion of Cam-
bodia and that even if he did, it
wouldn’t make any difference; but evi-

dently there was some value in protest-
ing to London. es:

Can it be that the British lion is
toothless, while the American’ eagle
still has some feathers left? Or is there
another explanation?

Of course, Mr. Trudeau’s Govern-
ment is supplying war material for the
U.S. to use in Vietnam, and experi-
menting in germ and chemical warfare
for them at Suffield . . . so it wouldn’t
be “delicate” for them to upbraid the
Pentagon under the circumstances,
would it?

(Without diplomatic nicety, we say
STOPNOW, Mr. Nixon — withdraw
from Southeast Asia; and STOPNOW,
Mr. Trudeau — cease delivering war
supplies to the murdering and maraud-
ing U.S. forces in Vietnam, and close
down the hell’s kitchen at Suffield at
once!)

We commend Mr. Trudeau for pro-
testing against Britain’s open sale. of
arms to racist South Afriea in defiance
of the United Nations. embargo resolu-

ion.

We think he and Mr. Sharp should
halt the sale of military plane parts to
South Africa at once. .

And we remind Mr. Trudeau that he.
is making our country an accessory to
the criminal U.S. war in Indochina. _

And further, that he is dragging the
good name of Canada in the muck by
abetting the Canadian capitalist ex-
pipiters of black peoples in the Carib-

ean.

And by his Government’s treatment
of our Native Peoples here. in Canada.

Unhitch your — and Canada’s —

wagon from the imperialist parade.

Mr. Trudeau.

How much longer?

It is now twenty years that U.S.
armed force have been stationed in
South Korea. They are there for no

‘other reason than to maintain by force

the puppet Seoul regime which the -
people hate and prevent the-unification
of the country which the people want.
It is to do the same thing in Vietnam
that the full might: of. the American.
war machine has been devastating that
country and decimating its population.
This is counter to the Atlantic Char-
ter, to the United Nations Charter, and
to numerous pious declarations. and
hypocritical pledges of the American

leaders themselves.

The peoples of Asia are successfully
fighting this en cape “world
policeman.” World public opinion is be-
hind them and pressing for the. nu-
merous pledges of the right of uations
to decide their own affairs without out-
side interference to be at long last re-
deemed.

How many more victims are needed.
how many more crimes must be com-
mitted against humanity, how many
more ‘sacrifices on the part of the
peoples fighting for their freedom, how
much more effort on the part of all who
yearn for peace, before the U.S. mili-
tary get out of South Korea, out of
Southeast Asia, out of Taiwan and the
other territories which they have oc-
cupied? wes :

That will be decided by the actions
of the people fighting for peace. _.

___ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 1970—Page 3

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