War is not the answer. However, doesn’t it depend on who asks the question? The military industrial complex? Politicians with aspirations of empire? Oil companies? Or you and I?

In Libya, the Navy so far has launched 161 Tomahawk cruise missiles that, according to a senior U.S. Navy official, cost around $1.4 million apiece. These missiles are built by the Raytheon Corp., whose annual revenues are approximately $25 billion, 90 percent of which are from military contracts.

Who is paying for these one-shot missiles at $1.4 million each? Consider the recently approved federal budget that increases the military budget while slashing the rest.

My family and I are helping to pay for a Tomahawk missile. For two years my husband and I have sacrificed a Social Security COLA. My son has been looking for a job for two years. My grandson will lose his state health care coverage at the end of the month. My sister-in-law has been “surplused” from her teaching job. The road in front of my house is regularly sloughing off into Puget Sound. And these “savings” don’t add up to one missile, so the balance was borrowed, building our federal government deficit (now $14 trillion).

War is not the answer if you are on Social Security, without a job, have no health care and see the infrastructure in your neighborhood deteriorating. War is only the answer for those who profit from it.

The 80-member Congressional Progressive Caucus has proposed a People’s Budget that would end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and raise taxes on the rich, thereby balancing the budget by 2014 and creating a surplus by 2021. That, in turn, would free up funding for jobs, health care, Social Security, the environment, education and energy.

In the Libyan war we have the military industrial complex, politicians and the oil companies saying yes to war, all benefiting. But you and I must say, “No, war is not the answer.”

— Kate Hunter