Interview: It's illogical U.S. spends much on wars, very little on infrastructure, says renowned anti-war activist

Photo taken on Jan. 19, 2023 shows the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Photo by Ting Shen/Xinhua)

NEW YORK, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- "It isn't logical at all" the United States spends so many tax dollars on wars overseas and very little is left for infrastructure or any sort of services at home, a renowned anti-war activist has said.

"It's very dangerous what they're doing all over the world. We're neglecting things at home," Eric Garris, director of Antiwar.com, a premier anti-war website in the United States, told Xinhua in an interview on Wednesday.

"Look at what just happened in Ohio with that horrible polluting train wreck... All the government seems to be interested in is to stoke tensions and be the bully," said Garris, who started to march in civil rights demonstrations at age 8.

Noting that the United States spends "a higher percentage of its budget on military by far than any other country on Earth," Garris warned of the dire consequences of the U.S. wars overseas.

"We are killing lots of people, and the results are not coming the way they (U.S. politicians) promise, and it's only getting worse, and it could get very, very bad. It's very, very scary. That's why we have to build a movement in this country that relies on talking to people and getting out this information," said Garris, referring to recent anti-war rallies in 15 major U.S. cities, including Washington D.C..

Garris noted it seems that the Biden administration's only solution to the Ukraine-Russia conflict is "not to promote diplomacy, is not to promote ways to resolve differences, but rather to stoke them. And this is really, really bad."

"What they're doing is they are trying to exert their own supremacy over Europe. And they think that Russia is the main enemy for that supremacy," he said. "And in fact what we're doing is we are building up these alliances that are reminiscent of the beginning of World War I where you had a very small spark in a very small place that sparked World War."

"The difference between that and today is that today you have nuclear weapons. And so it becomes a much, much different potential outcome. And it's very, very dangerous. And we need to take a look at World War I and see the lessons of what happened when you create these alliances ... With nuclear weapons, it's a completely different situation and can lead to just catastrophic results," said Garris.

One of the big reasons that the United States is so obsessed with wars is "the defense industry has found a way for them to be rich," said Garris.

"And you have a lot of politicians that are getting rich by voting for these wars. They get their money from the defense industry. They get their money investing in defense stocks. Members of Congress are not prohibited from investing in defense stocks," he said.

"It's just awful. And they have no regard for the people that they're supposedly representing. And it's becoming fairly obvious and I hope that people wake up before it's too late," said Garris, adding "unfortunately so much of the American media has become bought out by these special interests."

"I hope the American people can tell their politicians that ... enough is enough. We need to stop this. We need to focus on trying to make peace and nothing else abroad. That's the only thing that we should be doing," he said.

"If we keep going in the direction we're going, not only will we bankrupt ourselves, but we could destroy the world. And that's very, very scary ... The United States needs to get out of Ukraine. We need to, you know, not escalate there. We need to deescalate, we need to demand peace talks and let the disputes be settled," Garris said.

The United States announced on Feb. 20 an additional 500 million U.S. dollars in military aid for Ukraine on top of the more than 50 billion dollars already promised, a move that is widely believed will further escalate the crisis.

The United States and its allies have already committed nearly 700 tanks and thousands of armored vehicles and 1,000 artillery systems, among others.