The Senate unanimously voted to restore $1.3 billion to the defense budget for a “missile defense system” September 22.
Senate Democrats successfully denied funding for missile defense earlier this month. Now in this climate of war-hysteria, they unanimously voted to restore funding for a system that they know could not possibly work., a system designed to protect us against enemies who no longer exist.
Democratic Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, urged the Senate to restore funding for this missile defense system he previously opposed. He also withdrew provisions from a bill that required Bush to obtain congressional approval before undertaking activities that would violate the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty.
Senator Levin said he had backed off on those issues because “An attempt to resolve them now would create dissent where we need unity”.
Unity. The one thing war is very effective at is creating unity by way of fear. Unity behind the president no matter how moronic his policies are. Unity behind a military that’s receiving a $343 billion defense budget this year, but cannot defend its own command center against a passenger plane. The Senate is sacrificing our civil rights with anti-terrorist legislation, but that’s acceptable because it’s in the name of Unity.
Repression in times of war has always been in the name of Unity. Wait and see.