Fifty years ago, President Eisenhower warned of the danger of the 'military-industrial complex'. The huge budget and reach of America's modern defence industry has proved him correct, says Rupert Cornwell
By Rupert Cornwell
January 17, 2011 "The Independent" - - If you doubt, half a century on, that Dwight Eisenhower had it right, then consider the advertisements on WTOP, the Washington region's all-news radio station. Every big metro area in the US has one, where car dealerships tout their bargains, and fast food chains promote a new special offer.
WTOP has all that. But it boasts other advertisers too, with names such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics.
Of course, the average listener can't remotely afford a brand new military aircraft, or a state-of-the-art battlefield management system. But that's not the point. These almost otherworldly ads, with patriotic music playing softly in the background, are aimed at a very restricted audience: the government that is their only customer for such wares. For the rest of us, they are proof that in the capital of the world's richest democracy, the defence industry is a very big player indeed.
Exactly 50 years ago, on January 17 1961, Eisenhower delivered one of the most celebrated farewell speeches in American history, whose fame has only increased over the decades, eclipsed not even by JFK's inspirational inaugural that followed three days later. Kennedy might have projected the dynamism of youth. But the old soldier won the prize for prescience.
In his speech, Eisenhower warned about the growth of a 'military-industrial complex,' and the risks it could pose. "The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power," Ike said, "exists and will persist." His anxieties back then were prompted by the ten-fold expansion of the US military after two world wars, and by the development of a "permanent arms industry of vast proportions". Today, the proportions of both the military and the industry that serves it are vaster than ever.
Adjusted for inflation, US national security spending has more than doubled since Eisenhower left office. Year after year, the defence budget seems to rise – irrespective of whether the country is actually fighting major wars, regardless of the fact that the Soviet Union, the country's former global adversary, has ceased to be, and no matter which party controls the White House and Congress.
One common thread however exists: the military-industrial complex, or perhaps (as Eisenhower himself described it in a draft of his speech that was later amended) the military-industrial-congressional complex. Others have referred to the beast as the "Iron Triangle".
In one corner of the triangle stands the arms industry. The second is constituted by the government, or more precisely the Pentagon, the end-consumer of the industry's output. In a totalitarian state, such as the Soviet Union, that combination would be sufficient. The US however is a democracy, and a third corner is required – an elected legislature to vote funds to pay for the arms. This is Congress, made up of members who rely on the defence industry for many jobs in their states and districts, and for money to help finance their every more expensive re-election campaigns.
But maybe even triangle is an inadequate description. Today, more than ever, a fourth element underpins the military-industrial complex. It is the extraordinary prestige, verging on veneration, Americans accord their armed forces. Whatever the country's soldiers need, the general public broadly believes, they should have.
In fact, the MIC is not the largest show in town. According to the specialist website of the same name that tracks US defence spending, the total value of contracts issued by the Pentagon since October 2006 exceeds $1.1 trillion, while total military spending in that period tops $2.5 trillion. But even these gigantic sums pale beside a health-care sector now accounting for a sixth of the entire national economy.
The difference of course is that the MIC basks in the reflected glory of the military, shown by poll after poll to be the most trusted institution in the land. In terms of trust and admiration, the health insurance and drug companies rank right down there with Wall Street and the banks.
Nonetheless Eisenhower's warning has never ceased to resonate since his death in 1969. Indeed, it is one reason that in the stock market of posthumous presidential reputations, few have risen like his.
When he delivered that farewell address, America couldn't wait to be rid of him. Ike was regarded as senile and semi-detached, utterly out of touch with the times. The future lay with Kennedy, symbol of vigour, youth and novelty. But the old general knew whereof he spoke. Indeed, the MIC had worried him for years.
A treasure trove of old documents, covered with dirt and pine needles and discovered last year at a cabin in Minnesota once owned by Eisenhower's chief speechwriter Malcolm Moos, reveals that the 34th president had been working on the speech since mid-1959. It went through at least 21 drafts; in a later one, the "congressional" reference was struck out because, it is supposed, Ike did not want to upset old friends on Capitol Hill. But the "military" part was there from the outset.
At the time, the speech raised few eyebrows. Now its words are viewed as prophetic, and the man who spoke them is deemed one of America's greater presidents. From today's anxious vantage point, the 1950s are remembered as a golden age of order, contentment and certainty. Ike himself is perceived as a wise and measured statesman who most certainly would never have led the US into the ruinous Iraq adventure.
In fact, for all his strictures about the MIC, the worst has not come to pass. Wars have always been good business for weapons manufacturers – and so it has been with Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. The arms industry therefore was never going to be very happy with the notion of a "peace dividend" at the end of the Cold War.
But it is a leap to describe modern America as a "warfare state" – in which the Iraq war, say, was the direct result of a colossal conspiracy by the arms industry to force the country into a conflict purely to enrich itself. As for the ultimate nightmare, a military take-over akin to the one that came close to in John Frankenheimer's fictional 1964 political thriller Seven Days in May, that is simply inconceivable.
(Editor: I strongly disagree. The assassination of John F. Kennedy was in fact a coup de' tat or violent overthrow of an elected government and it can no longer be seriously contested in light of evidence brought to light in the wake of the JFK Act)
The true tragedy is not quite the one that Eisenhower imagined. The US by itself accounts for roughly half of military spending worldwide. How much better if some of that money would be used to improve the country's education and infrastructure, or provide health care for all, or increase foreign aid, rather than on protecting America from threats that geography alone renders illusory.
In reality, the dangers of Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex" are not new; from the earliest days of the Republic, political leaders have warned of them. "Overgrown military establishments," George Washington said in his own farewell address of 1796, "are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty." Nor is the concept confined to America.
In the Soviet Union, the ultra-secret arms industry devoured a third or more of GDP (compared to around 4 per cent in the US currently) and was a cornerstone of Communist power. Or, closer to home, consider Krupp in Germany during two world wars, or later Dassault in France, or Vickers and British Aerospace in the UK. But nowhere has the synergy between government and defence manufacturers, most of them headquartered a lobbyist's lunch drive from the Capitol, been as entrenched as in the US.
Ah yes, some say, but the tide is now starting to turn. After experiencing some contraction in the 1990s, the industry enjoyed a boom after 9/11. But the deep recession of 2008-2009 and the continuing colossal deficits will not spare even the hitherto sacrosanct Pentagon budget.
Once again, one might note, Eisenhower hit the mark in January 1961. Back then, budgets were more or less balanced, and the possibilities of the future seemingly boundless. Even so he urged his countrymen to "avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow". That of course is what has happened with the "credit card" wars of Iraq and Afghanistan, whose costs will burden American taxpayers for years to come.
Nor is that reality lost on Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, who back in May was warning that Congress could not, and would not, write blank cheques for ever. The Pentagon had to make every dollar count, he said, rather than indulge in such projects as "$20m howitzers, $2bn bombers, and $6bn destroyers." Alas, as Gates knows full well, the arms contract that comes on budget has yet to be invented.
Since then of course Republicans have taken back the House of Representatives, which controls the pursestrings of government, a victory driven by a Tea Party movement vowing to eradicate deficits. Last week, Gates announced $78bn of cuts over the next five years, to pre-empt demands from deficit hawks for even greater reductions. But the MIC has survived far worse, and will most certainly survive this modest downturn in its fortunes.
For one thing, even when the Pentagon wants to cut a programme, Congress – prodded by its defence contractor benefactors – sometimes won't let it. Take the case of the back-up second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the most expensive procurement programme in even the Pentagon's extravagant history, at a total of $382bn or a mere $112m per aircraft. The Pentagon doesn't want the second engine, to be built by GE and Rolls-Royce, and nor does the White House. But it gets funded anyway.
And so the show goes on. The Republicans may vote through some shrinking of the military budget. But giant arms projects, however wasteful, provide jobs and exports at a time when the broader economy struggles to do either. Congress will not sacrifice them lightly.
At the same time, the infamous "revolving door" between the Defense Department, the top military contractors, their lobbyists and congressional staffers will continue to spin, strengthening a commonality of viewpoint between the separate components of the MIC, and tightening the bonds of the "Iron Triangle".
Campaign contributions meanwhile will grow even more important. Defence companies give money to sitting Congressmen who have fought their corner. True, in the ferociously anti-incumbent mid-terms of last November, they could not save Ike Skelton, their ally and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, from defeat.
But financial support from Boeing workers was key in the re-election of Senator Patty Murray from Washington State, where she has fought hard to save Boeing jobs threatened if the company loses its bid for a $35bn tanker contract, for which the European-based EADS is also competing. That battle, incidentally, is also playing out in its own fierce ad war on WTOP, aimed at the same audience of government and Congress.
And even if budgetary pressures temporarily compress the market for top-of-the-line military hardware, fear not. The demand for national security and intelligence in the "war on terror" continues to surge – to the point that a Washington Post investigation last summer found that 33 facilities for intelligence work, equal to three new Pentagons, have gone up around Washington alone since 9/11.
Most fundamentally, there remains the popularity of all things military, at a time when civilian leaders with the stature and experience to challenge the Pentagon brass, and by extension the MIC, are few. George HW Bush was the last commander-in-chief to have tasted war and its horrors. His son famously had not, and – perhaps to make up for it – gave the military everything it wanted, and more. So maybe there is only one answer. America should elect a general as commander-in-chief. Like Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Showing posts with label MIC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MIC. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Saturday, December 18, 2010
JFK Assassination: Key to Global War on Terror
By: Dr. J. P. Hubert
The JFK Assassination is the key to understanding what is currently transpiring in the United States. One of the reasons why President John F. Kennedy was murdered is that he wanted to end the Cold War through negotiation with the Soviet Union rather than “win it” [which was the position of the war hawks in his own administration as well as the private corporations which were then part of the military industrial complex (MIC)]. Then as now the defense contractors were making incredible sums of money on armament production and loathed the idea that it might come to an end.
Today the so-called Global War on Terror (GWT) has replaced the “Cold-War” as a justification for continued massive military/intelligence spending that still inures to the benefit of the MIC (now the MIMIC). The basic arrangement is the same. The Regime creates a plausible justification for placing the country on a constant war footing and then proceeds to invent reasons why the war(s) must continue.
The actual reason a state of constant war has become "necessary" is that given our loss of traditional manufacturing base the US economy is critically dependent on creating a demand for the production of armaments. Munitions manufacturing after all is the only industry in which the US still leads the world. Virtually everything else has already been off-shored and out-sourced to third world countries where slave labor wages are utilized by US multinational corporations for the creation of immoral and obscene profits, the ill-gotten gains obtained in large part from the killing of innocent non-combatants in foreign wars.
The US economy then, is being artificially propped-up through the continual starting and prosecuting of unnecessary and immoral wars of aggression. The current situation benefits the private armament manufacturers and insures that no nation or combination thereof is able or willing to challenge American hegemony, thus perpetuating the status quo. This scenario will continue until the USA is recognizably bankrupt as a result of its total inability to service the now astronomically massive national debt. The powerful elites will then simply move on to another geographical location (read host nation) where they can repeat their rapacious activities having long since moved their bounteous personal assets off-shore. This is the real meaning of the vaunted "New World Order."
The JFK Assassination is the key to understanding what is currently transpiring in the United States. One of the reasons why President John F. Kennedy was murdered is that he wanted to end the Cold War through negotiation with the Soviet Union rather than “win it” [which was the position of the war hawks in his own administration as well as the private corporations which were then part of the military industrial complex (MIC)]. Then as now the defense contractors were making incredible sums of money on armament production and loathed the idea that it might come to an end.
Today the so-called Global War on Terror (GWT) has replaced the “Cold-War” as a justification for continued massive military/intelligence spending that still inures to the benefit of the MIC (now the MIMIC). The basic arrangement is the same. The Regime creates a plausible justification for placing the country on a constant war footing and then proceeds to invent reasons why the war(s) must continue.
The actual reason a state of constant war has become "necessary" is that given our loss of traditional manufacturing base the US economy is critically dependent on creating a demand for the production of armaments. Munitions manufacturing after all is the only industry in which the US still leads the world. Virtually everything else has already been off-shored and out-sourced to third world countries where slave labor wages are utilized by US multinational corporations for the creation of immoral and obscene profits, the ill-gotten gains obtained in large part from the killing of innocent non-combatants in foreign wars.
The US economy then, is being artificially propped-up through the continual starting and prosecuting of unnecessary and immoral wars of aggression. The current situation benefits the private armament manufacturers and insures that no nation or combination thereof is able or willing to challenge American hegemony, thus perpetuating the status quo. This scenario will continue until the USA is recognizably bankrupt as a result of its total inability to service the now astronomically massive national debt. The powerful elites will then simply move on to another geographical location (read host nation) where they can repeat their rapacious activities having long since moved their bounteous personal assets off-shore. This is the real meaning of the vaunted "New World Order."
Monday, September 13, 2010
Implications of a Pointless War
by Robert Koehler,
Antiwar.com
September 09, 2010
What does it mean that the New York Times, upon the occasion of President Obama’s announced drawdown of forces in Iraq last week, called our seven and a half years of invasion and occupation of the country "a pointless war"?
The editorial proceeded to do what Obama himself seemed to be under enormous political pressure to avoid: It skewered his predecessor, mildly perhaps, but repeatedly throughout the 645-word editorial: "the war made America less safe," "it is important not to forget how much damage Mr. Bush caused by misleading Americans," etc. The editorial even acknowledged an Iraqi death toll: "at least 100,000."
Why am I underwhelmed — disturbed, even — by this evidence of mainstream disavowal of the disastrous war that had such overwhelming support at its bloody, shock-and-awe onset? While Obama said it was time to "turn the page" on Iraq, the Times and the constituency it represents apparently feel compelled to wad it up as well and toss it into the dustbin of history. And thus, even though 50,000 U.S. troops, a.k.a., "advisers," remain in the shattered country and our commitment there, let alone our responsibility, is far from over, the Iraq war has officially become a consensus mistake, right alongside Vietnam.
Considering that I agree with the editorial, I marvel at how agitated it makes me. Maybe what troubles me is the unappreciated enormity of the phrase "pointless war" and the easy, consequence-free blame for it assigned to George Bush and his inner circle. Between the lines, I feel the rush to move on, to learn nothing, to throw berms around the insidious spread of responsibility (my God, what if it reaches us?). Better to cut our losses than to cut the Defense budget.
But this was $3 trillion worth of pointless war, which left in its wake a wrecked and polluted country with millions of displaced people, soaring cancer and birth defect rates, "at least" 100,000 dead Iraqis and by some measures more than a million. If we’re actually at the point of acknowledging that the war was a "mistake," that all this carnage, all this wasted blood and treasure, were "pointless," isn’t an accounting of some sort required — a pause in governmental operations, a national soul-searching, an inquiry? How in God’s name does the largest military machine in human history get mobilized into a pointless war?
And beyond that, where does our atonement lie? If we have just waged a war of pointless aggression and in the process killed between 100,000 and a million people, who are we? Are we capable of doing it again? Somehow, laying the whole blame on one lying president, who managed to deceive an entire industry of investigative journalists and an innocent, trusting public, doesn’t wash.
Indeed, if that’s the explanation, I would call it criminal naïveté on the part of every facet of American society, beginning with the media, that let itself be suckered into supporting, and continuing to support, a pointless war. And I don’t see anything much changing, despite our dishonorable drawdown in Iraq. We still have implicit faith in the military as the protectors of our safety and look toward the next war being shopped around and focus-grouped with a helpless credulity that would give P.T. Barnum pause.
Tom Engelhardt, writing the other day at TomDispatch.com about "the nonstop growth of the Pentagon and its influence," notes the irony of the fact that "even as the U.S. military has failed repeatedly to win wars, its budgets have grown ever more gargantuan, its sway in Washington ever greater, and its power at home ever more obvious."
He adds: "In Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, you can see that Pentagon version of an American foreign policy straining to be born. In the end, of course, it could be stillborn, but it could also become an all-enveloping system offering Americans a strange, skewed vision of a world constantly at war and of the importance of planning for more of the same."
Military-industrial capitalism, with its arrogant disregard for the human and environmental consequences of its activities, can have only a limited run on Planet Earth, but it doesn’t know this and has no inner, self-restraining mechanism. If we wait for its natural collapse, we’ll all go down with it. I would call this security code red, ladies and gentlemen. (editor's bold emphasis throughout)
But perhaps a door is opening. I repeat the question I asked at the beginning of this column. What does it mean that the New York Times is calling the Iraq disaster a pointless war? I know what it should mean: that such an awareness triggers an outbreak of responsible journalism throughout the corporate media, beginning with a curbing of military and disgraced neocon influence over what is proclaimed news.
Even this is too much to expect, of course, but we must demand it anyway, as we limp toward the ninth anniversary of 9/11, amid the screaming forces of fear and hate that would militarize this day of reverence and turn it into a grand occasion to make more enemies and celebrate our ignorance and isolation.
(c) 2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Antiwar.com
September 09, 2010
What does it mean that the New York Times, upon the occasion of President Obama’s announced drawdown of forces in Iraq last week, called our seven and a half years of invasion and occupation of the country "a pointless war"?
The editorial proceeded to do what Obama himself seemed to be under enormous political pressure to avoid: It skewered his predecessor, mildly perhaps, but repeatedly throughout the 645-word editorial: "the war made America less safe," "it is important not to forget how much damage Mr. Bush caused by misleading Americans," etc. The editorial even acknowledged an Iraqi death toll: "at least 100,000."
Why am I underwhelmed — disturbed, even — by this evidence of mainstream disavowal of the disastrous war that had such overwhelming support at its bloody, shock-and-awe onset? While Obama said it was time to "turn the page" on Iraq, the Times and the constituency it represents apparently feel compelled to wad it up as well and toss it into the dustbin of history. And thus, even though 50,000 U.S. troops, a.k.a., "advisers," remain in the shattered country and our commitment there, let alone our responsibility, is far from over, the Iraq war has officially become a consensus mistake, right alongside Vietnam.
Considering that I agree with the editorial, I marvel at how agitated it makes me. Maybe what troubles me is the unappreciated enormity of the phrase "pointless war" and the easy, consequence-free blame for it assigned to George Bush and his inner circle. Between the lines, I feel the rush to move on, to learn nothing, to throw berms around the insidious spread of responsibility (my God, what if it reaches us?). Better to cut our losses than to cut the Defense budget.
But this was $3 trillion worth of pointless war, which left in its wake a wrecked and polluted country with millions of displaced people, soaring cancer and birth defect rates, "at least" 100,000 dead Iraqis and by some measures more than a million. If we’re actually at the point of acknowledging that the war was a "mistake," that all this carnage, all this wasted blood and treasure, were "pointless," isn’t an accounting of some sort required — a pause in governmental operations, a national soul-searching, an inquiry? How in God’s name does the largest military machine in human history get mobilized into a pointless war?
And beyond that, where does our atonement lie? If we have just waged a war of pointless aggression and in the process killed between 100,000 and a million people, who are we? Are we capable of doing it again? Somehow, laying the whole blame on one lying president, who managed to deceive an entire industry of investigative journalists and an innocent, trusting public, doesn’t wash.
Indeed, if that’s the explanation, I would call it criminal naïveté on the part of every facet of American society, beginning with the media, that let itself be suckered into supporting, and continuing to support, a pointless war. And I don’t see anything much changing, despite our dishonorable drawdown in Iraq. We still have implicit faith in the military as the protectors of our safety and look toward the next war being shopped around and focus-grouped with a helpless credulity that would give P.T. Barnum pause.
Tom Engelhardt, writing the other day at TomDispatch.com about "the nonstop growth of the Pentagon and its influence," notes the irony of the fact that "even as the U.S. military has failed repeatedly to win wars, its budgets have grown ever more gargantuan, its sway in Washington ever greater, and its power at home ever more obvious."
He adds: "In Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, you can see that Pentagon version of an American foreign policy straining to be born. In the end, of course, it could be stillborn, but it could also become an all-enveloping system offering Americans a strange, skewed vision of a world constantly at war and of the importance of planning for more of the same."
Military-industrial capitalism, with its arrogant disregard for the human and environmental consequences of its activities, can have only a limited run on Planet Earth, but it doesn’t know this and has no inner, self-restraining mechanism. If we wait for its natural collapse, we’ll all go down with it. I would call this security code red, ladies and gentlemen. (editor's bold emphasis throughout)
But perhaps a door is opening. I repeat the question I asked at the beginning of this column. What does it mean that the New York Times is calling the Iraq disaster a pointless war? I know what it should mean: that such an awareness triggers an outbreak of responsible journalism throughout the corporate media, beginning with a curbing of military and disgraced neocon influence over what is proclaimed news.
Even this is too much to expect, of course, but we must demand it anyway, as we limp toward the ninth anniversary of 9/11, amid the screaming forces of fear and hate that would militarize this day of reverence and turn it into a grand occasion to make more enemies and celebrate our ignorance and isolation.
(c) 2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
Monday, August 30, 2010
The Hatred of the "Other"
Kill Them
by Linh Dinh
CommonDreams.org
Published on Saturday, August 28, 2010
Michael Enright, a 21-year-old college student, slashed a NYC cab driver in the face and neck because this man was Muslim. Enright is being held in a psychiatric ward. If he is mad, then the United States is also insane. Enright's assault merely mirrors what we, as a nation, have done for nearly a decade.
The United States has responded criminally and incoherently to what happened on September 11, 2001. Lopped of our twin members, downtown, we also lost our authoritative voice. Two days after that disaster, George Bush grimly declared, "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." Six months later, Bush shrugged, "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." Our current president never mentions bin Laden, yet Obama has sent many more troops into Afghanistan. We're not leaving any time soon, that's for sure. Congress has just approved 1.3 billion dollars to expand our military bases there. Our new mission, if Time Magazine is to be believed, is to defend Afghan women against the Taliban, whom we created in the first place, to fight the Soviets. America gets a kick out of these flip flops. We propped up Saddam Hussein, then we had him hanged. We fought Communist Vietnam, then we staged a naval exercise with that same regime, as happened just recently, riling up China. Tension feeds the military industrial complex. Wars are even better.
Responding to 9/11, America also invaded Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with that catastrophe. Since the real reasons for our two current conflicts, access to oil and natural gas, defense of the petrodollar, war profiteering, are never admitted to, many Americans have concluded that we're simply waging war against Islam, which is, frankly, not that far off the mark considering our unequivocal support for Israel whenever it attacks Gaza, Lebanon, Syria or any other Muslim population. The U.S. has also been killing Pakistani civilians and threatening Iran. It's a miracle many Muslims don't hate us more.
Without Israel and oil, it's a safe bet we wouldn't be demonizing Muslims so relentlessly. As is, this stoked hatred is bringing out the worst in our character. On Yahoo! News, many comments on the Enright story don't condemn but applaud his obvious crime, and also bash Islam.
Bruce, "Slay the infidel.....stone the rape victim......beat your wife........mate with your goat.....wipe your bu tt with your bare hand.....AHHH the joys of islam!"
David, "this guy should get a medal and be aloud [sic] to blow up the mosque at the ground zero sight, its [sic] about time someone in ny stepped up and showed some american balls!!!"
Spreading like cancer across the internet, openly hateful and racist comments are especially common after stories about Muslims, blacks or Mexicans, the top three scapegoats at the moment. Obama is a lightning rod for anti-black racism, which is ironic because he does not favor blacks in any way. Like Bush, Clinton and the rest of our bank-bailing-out, paid-for politicians, Obama couldn't care less about the little guys. Eyeing his own wallet and his future after the White House, Obama's here to defend the moneyed interest. His blackness is merely symbolic, but that's enough to enrage the racists.
After Michelle Obama went to Spain, Alternative Right, a webzine with contributions from several established authors, had an article titled, "Michelle's Vacation in Whitey World." Among the comments, one man suggested that she should have gone to a blacker destination, like "Ghana or the Maldives."
One Sheila wrote, "I cringe every time I see a photo of the Sasquatch/Wookie as purportedly "First Lady" of American women. My spouse always comments that she reminds him of a chimp with her underbite, and I am always struck by her enormous feet and trapezius muscles. Either way I feel a sort of cognitive dissonance, such as when I view old photos and see 19th century blacks dressed in Victorian clothing. As far as her amazing European adventure, she is putting herself in white people's faces. Her very presence is a way of announcing the new order."
There's no new order, lady. Obama himself is a head fake! Scratch that skin lightly, and you'll see your beloved Dubya again. Everything is still in place, including the torture chambers. After another article in Alternative Right, a reader lamented, "After 9/11, we saw the lack of a white nation identity. There was abject surrender to Islam." Only the most deluded can call the killing of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, and the occupation of two Islamic countries, an "abject surrender to Islam." Although not all Americans think this way, of course, this man is hardly alone. As the world's biggest source of terror, we're posing as its most helpless victims.
The scapegoating of Muslims, blacks and Mexicans gives the appearance that we're being threatened from without and below, when we're actually being mugged from above, from the inside. It's the entrenched who are killing us, not outsiders. Even with 9/11, too many questions remain. One must remember that Bin Laden began as a CIA asset, and two months before the attack, he was at the American hospital in Dubai, where a CIA agent visited him. On September 10, 2001, bin Laden was at the Army Hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, to receive dialysis treatment. Again, no attempt was made to arrest him. Today, we're also not trying to arrest this man, and that's no conspiracy theory.
by Linh Dinh
CommonDreams.org
Published on Saturday, August 28, 2010
Michael Enright, a 21-year-old college student, slashed a NYC cab driver in the face and neck because this man was Muslim. Enright is being held in a psychiatric ward. If he is mad, then the United States is also insane. Enright's assault merely mirrors what we, as a nation, have done for nearly a decade.
The United States has responded criminally and incoherently to what happened on September 11, 2001. Lopped of our twin members, downtown, we also lost our authoritative voice. Two days after that disaster, George Bush grimly declared, "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." Six months later, Bush shrugged, "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." Our current president never mentions bin Laden, yet Obama has sent many more troops into Afghanistan. We're not leaving any time soon, that's for sure. Congress has just approved 1.3 billion dollars to expand our military bases there. Our new mission, if Time Magazine is to be believed, is to defend Afghan women against the Taliban, whom we created in the first place, to fight the Soviets. America gets a kick out of these flip flops. We propped up Saddam Hussein, then we had him hanged. We fought Communist Vietnam, then we staged a naval exercise with that same regime, as happened just recently, riling up China. Tension feeds the military industrial complex. Wars are even better.
Responding to 9/11, America also invaded Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with that catastrophe. Since the real reasons for our two current conflicts, access to oil and natural gas, defense of the petrodollar, war profiteering, are never admitted to, many Americans have concluded that we're simply waging war against Islam, which is, frankly, not that far off the mark considering our unequivocal support for Israel whenever it attacks Gaza, Lebanon, Syria or any other Muslim population. The U.S. has also been killing Pakistani civilians and threatening Iran. It's a miracle many Muslims don't hate us more.
Without Israel and oil, it's a safe bet we wouldn't be demonizing Muslims so relentlessly. As is, this stoked hatred is bringing out the worst in our character. On Yahoo! News, many comments on the Enright story don't condemn but applaud his obvious crime, and also bash Islam.
Bruce, "Slay the infidel.....stone the rape victim......beat your wife........mate with your goat.....wipe your bu tt with your bare hand.....AHHH the joys of islam!"
David, "this guy should get a medal and be aloud [sic] to blow up the mosque at the ground zero sight, its [sic] about time someone in ny stepped up and showed some american balls!!!"
Spreading like cancer across the internet, openly hateful and racist comments are especially common after stories about Muslims, blacks or Mexicans, the top three scapegoats at the moment. Obama is a lightning rod for anti-black racism, which is ironic because he does not favor blacks in any way. Like Bush, Clinton and the rest of our bank-bailing-out, paid-for politicians, Obama couldn't care less about the little guys. Eyeing his own wallet and his future after the White House, Obama's here to defend the moneyed interest. His blackness is merely symbolic, but that's enough to enrage the racists.
After Michelle Obama went to Spain, Alternative Right, a webzine with contributions from several established authors, had an article titled, "Michelle's Vacation in Whitey World." Among the comments, one man suggested that she should have gone to a blacker destination, like "Ghana or the Maldives."
One Sheila wrote, "I cringe every time I see a photo of the Sasquatch/Wookie as purportedly "First Lady" of American women. My spouse always comments that she reminds him of a chimp with her underbite, and I am always struck by her enormous feet and trapezius muscles. Either way I feel a sort of cognitive dissonance, such as when I view old photos and see 19th century blacks dressed in Victorian clothing. As far as her amazing European adventure, she is putting herself in white people's faces. Her very presence is a way of announcing the new order."
There's no new order, lady. Obama himself is a head fake! Scratch that skin lightly, and you'll see your beloved Dubya again. Everything is still in place, including the torture chambers. After another article in Alternative Right, a reader lamented, "After 9/11, we saw the lack of a white nation identity. There was abject surrender to Islam." Only the most deluded can call the killing of hundreds of thousands of Muslims, and the occupation of two Islamic countries, an "abject surrender to Islam." Although not all Americans think this way, of course, this man is hardly alone. As the world's biggest source of terror, we're posing as its most helpless victims.
The scapegoating of Muslims, blacks and Mexicans gives the appearance that we're being threatened from without and below, when we're actually being mugged from above, from the inside. It's the entrenched who are killing us, not outsiders. Even with 9/11, too many questions remain. One must remember that Bin Laden began as a CIA asset, and two months before the attack, he was at the American hospital in Dubai, where a CIA agent visited him. On September 10, 2001, bin Laden was at the Army Hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, to receive dialysis treatment. Again, no attempt was made to arrest him. Today, we're also not trying to arrest this man, and that's no conspiracy theory.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Grayson's Smart Calculus Makes War Cost Real for Taxpayers
By John Nichols
May 25, 2010 "Huffington Post" -- Congressman Alan Grayson is at it again. This time, the Florida Democrat who shook up the health-care debate by saying Republicans were the real death-panel party and who shook up the bank reform debate by leading (with Texas Congressman Ron Paul) the “Audit the Fed” fight, is shaking up the debate about so-called “emergency” supplemental spending to fund the occupations of foreign lands.
Grayson’s mad because the Pentagon and its allies in the White House (be they Bush and Cheney or Obama and Biden) keep demanding tens of billions in additional allocations to fund the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. And they do so in a manner that makes debate difficult and dissent rare.
But Grayson is out to provoke a debate – and he is definitely dissenting.
“What George Orwell wrote about in 1984 has come true. What Eisenhower warned us about concerning the ‘military-industrial complex’ has come true,” the congressman argues. “War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape, so much so that no one notices it anymore.”
Grayson proposes to change this circumstance with a bill he has introduced: “The War Is Making You Poor Act.”
“The purpose of this bill is to connect the dots, and to show people in a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars,” he explains.
To make the cost of war real for working Americans, Grayson performs a simple calculus:
“Next year's budget allocates $159,000,000,000 to perpetuate the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. That's enough money to eliminate federal income taxes for the first $35,000 of every American's income. Beyond that, (it) leaves over $15 billion to cut the deficit."
“And that's what this bill does. It eliminates separate funding for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and eliminates federal income taxes for everyone's first $35,000 of income ($70,000 for couples). Plus it pays down the national debt.”
The congressman is betting – with good reason –that the key to opening up a real debate about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is to make real the cost of these occupations to American families.
“The costs of the war have been rendered invisible. There's no draft. Instead, we take the most vulnerable elements of our population, and give them a choice between unemployment and missile fodder. Government deficits conceal the need to pay in cash for the war,” explains Grayson, with a reference to the mounting trade deficit with China. “We put the cost of both guns and butter on our Chinese credit card. In fact, we don't even put these wars on budget; they are still passed using 'emergency supplemental'. A nine-year 'emergency.’”(Editor's emphasis throughout)
If Americans recognize what they are personally paying to maintain occupations of distant lands, Grayson argues that Americans will tell Congress: “the cost of these wars is too much for us.”
It’s a good bet.
In the first 72 hours after Grayson introduced his legislation, more than 22,000 Americans signed an online petition endorsing it.
May 25, 2010 "Huffington Post" -- Congressman Alan Grayson is at it again. This time, the Florida Democrat who shook up the health-care debate by saying Republicans were the real death-panel party and who shook up the bank reform debate by leading (with Texas Congressman Ron Paul) the “Audit the Fed” fight, is shaking up the debate about so-called “emergency” supplemental spending to fund the occupations of foreign lands.
Grayson’s mad because the Pentagon and its allies in the White House (be they Bush and Cheney or Obama and Biden) keep demanding tens of billions in additional allocations to fund the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. And they do so in a manner that makes debate difficult and dissent rare.
But Grayson is out to provoke a debate – and he is definitely dissenting.
“What George Orwell wrote about in 1984 has come true. What Eisenhower warned us about concerning the ‘military-industrial complex’ has come true,” the congressman argues. “War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape, so much so that no one notices it anymore.”
Grayson proposes to change this circumstance with a bill he has introduced: “The War Is Making You Poor Act.”
“The purpose of this bill is to connect the dots, and to show people in a real and concrete way the cost of these endless wars,” he explains.
To make the cost of war real for working Americans, Grayson performs a simple calculus:
“Next year's budget allocates $159,000,000,000 to perpetuate the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. That's enough money to eliminate federal income taxes for the first $35,000 of every American's income. Beyond that, (it) leaves over $15 billion to cut the deficit."
“And that's what this bill does. It eliminates separate funding for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and eliminates federal income taxes for everyone's first $35,000 of income ($70,000 for couples). Plus it pays down the national debt.”
The congressman is betting – with good reason –that the key to opening up a real debate about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is to make real the cost of these occupations to American families.
“The costs of the war have been rendered invisible. There's no draft. Instead, we take the most vulnerable elements of our population, and give them a choice between unemployment and missile fodder. Government deficits conceal the need to pay in cash for the war,” explains Grayson, with a reference to the mounting trade deficit with China. “We put the cost of both guns and butter on our Chinese credit card. In fact, we don't even put these wars on budget; they are still passed using 'emergency supplemental'. A nine-year 'emergency.’”(Editor's emphasis throughout)
If Americans recognize what they are personally paying to maintain occupations of distant lands, Grayson argues that Americans will tell Congress: “the cost of these wars is too much for us.”
It’s a good bet.
In the first 72 hours after Grayson introduced his legislation, more than 22,000 Americans signed an online petition endorsing it.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Military-Industrial Complex is Ruining the Economy
by Washington's Blog
January 9, 2010
Everyone knows that the too big to fails and their dishonest and footsy-playing regulators and politicians are largely responsible for trashing the economy.
But the military-industrial complex shares much of the blame.
Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says that the Iraq war will cost $3-5 trillion dollars.
Sure, experts say that the Iraq war has increased the threat of terrorism. See this, this, this, this, this, this and this. And we launched the Iraq war based on the false linkage of Saddam and 9/11, and knowingly false claims that Saddam had WMDs. And top British officials, former CIA director George Tenet, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and many others say that the Iraq war was planned before 9/11. But this essay is about dollars and cents.
America is also spending a pretty penny in Afghanistan. The U.S. admits there are only a small handful of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. As ABC notes:
U.S. intelligence officials have concluded there are only about 100 al Qaeda fighters in the entire country.
With 100,000 troops in Afghanistan at an estimated yearly cost of $30 billion, it means that for every one al Qaeda fighter, the U.S. will commit 1,000 troops and $300 million a year.
Sure, the government apparently planned the Afghanistan war before 9/11 (see this and this). And the Taliban offered to turn over Bin Laden (see this and this). And we could have easily killed Bin Laden in 2001 and again in 2007, but chose not to, even though that would have saved the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars in costs in prosecuting the Afghanistan war. But this essay is about dollars and cents.
Increasing the Debt Burden of a Nation Sinking In Debt
All of the spending on unnecessary wars adds up.
The U.S. is adding trillions to its debt burden to finance its multiple wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc.
Two top American economists - Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff - show that the more indebted a country is, with a government debt/GDP ratio of 0.9, and external debt/GDP of 0.6 being critical thresholds, the more GDP growth drops materially.
Specifically, Reinhart and Rogoff write:
The relationship between government debt and real GDP growth is weak for debt/GDP ratios below a threshold of 90 percent of GDP. Above 90 percent, median growth rates fall by one percent, and average growth falls considerably more. We find that the threshold for public debt is similar in advanced and emerging economies...
Indeed, it should be obvious to anyone who looks at the issue that deficits do matter.
A PhD economist told me:
War always causes recession. Well, if it is a very short war, then it may stimulate the economy in the short-run. But if there is not a quick victory and it drags on, then wars always put the nation waging war into a recession and hurt its economy.
You know about America's unemployment problem. You may have even heard that the U.S. may very well have suffered a permanent destruction of jobs.
But did you know that the defense employment sector is booming? MORE...
January 9, 2010
Everyone knows that the too big to fails and their dishonest and footsy-playing regulators and politicians are largely responsible for trashing the economy.
But the military-industrial complex shares much of the blame.
Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says that the Iraq war will cost $3-5 trillion dollars.
Sure, experts say that the Iraq war has increased the threat of terrorism. See this, this, this, this, this, this and this. And we launched the Iraq war based on the false linkage of Saddam and 9/11, and knowingly false claims that Saddam had WMDs. And top British officials, former CIA director George Tenet, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and many others say that the Iraq war was planned before 9/11. But this essay is about dollars and cents.
America is also spending a pretty penny in Afghanistan. The U.S. admits there are only a small handful of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. As ABC notes:
U.S. intelligence officials have concluded there are only about 100 al Qaeda fighters in the entire country.
With 100,000 troops in Afghanistan at an estimated yearly cost of $30 billion, it means that for every one al Qaeda fighter, the U.S. will commit 1,000 troops and $300 million a year.
Sure, the government apparently planned the Afghanistan war before 9/11 (see this and this). And the Taliban offered to turn over Bin Laden (see this and this). And we could have easily killed Bin Laden in 2001 and again in 2007, but chose not to, even though that would have saved the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars in costs in prosecuting the Afghanistan war. But this essay is about dollars and cents.
Increasing the Debt Burden of a Nation Sinking In Debt
All of the spending on unnecessary wars adds up.
The U.S. is adding trillions to its debt burden to finance its multiple wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc.
Two top American economists - Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff - show that the more indebted a country is, with a government debt/GDP ratio of 0.9, and external debt/GDP of 0.6 being critical thresholds, the more GDP growth drops materially.
Specifically, Reinhart and Rogoff write:
The relationship between government debt and real GDP growth is weak for debt/GDP ratios below a threshold of 90 percent of GDP. Above 90 percent, median growth rates fall by one percent, and average growth falls considerably more. We find that the threshold for public debt is similar in advanced and emerging economies...
Indeed, it should be obvious to anyone who looks at the issue that deficits do matter.
A PhD economist told me:
War always causes recession. Well, if it is a very short war, then it may stimulate the economy in the short-run. But if there is not a quick victory and it drags on, then wars always put the nation waging war into a recession and hurt its economy.
You know about America's unemployment problem. You may have even heard that the U.S. may very well have suffered a permanent destruction of jobs.
But did you know that the defense employment sector is booming? MORE...
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