This week’s letter comes from Sue Bastian who, with more than just a hint of sarcasm, points out that war may just be the answer to our economic woes, if not our foreign policy woes. Thanks for the letter Sue. You can pick up your victor’s spoils, a bag of Strictly Organic coffee, at our office, 704 NW Georgia.
30,000 additional soldiers bumps the total to 100,000-plus U.S. jobs to establish a democratic police state in Afghanistan.
Jobs in the privatized military with companies such as Halliburton will be needed to supply food, transport and security as soldiers destroy infrastructure, schools and hospitals which will then need to be repaired and replaced. Jobs in the oil industry will be needed to drill, process and transport gazillion gallons of fuel to move soldiers hither and yon. Jobs for mercenaries such as Blackwater USA will need hired guns in the privatized war effort.The military industrial complex will need more workers to produce chemicals, weapons of mass destruction, nuclear weapons and equipment to achieve acceptable levels of destruction. Specialists with extensive experience in computer war games will be needed in the rapidly expanding unmanned drone project.
Gifted experts will be needed to determine when the number of US soldiers reaches a one-to-one ratio with members of the Taliban. Experts will also be needed to locate Osama bin Ladin. Embedded journalists will be needed to enlighten the public on military achievements and the media will need to hire academics and retired military to espouse the necessity and righteousness of war.
Jobs for health care workers will expand exponentially as wounded, disabled and mentally disturbed soldiers return to homes, homelessness or privatized military hospitals. Big Pharma will need to increase the number of research scientists and workers to develop, manufacture and distribute drugs, medicine and prosthetic devices for veterans. Financial institutions will need more banksters to accelerate the distribution of stimulus money to corporations so they can maximize profits from their patriotic war efforts. Significant numbers of police, mercenaries and Homeland Security personnel will be needed in the homeland to squelch protestors who oppose aggressive war policies and practices.
Intellectuals and political experts will be needed to research the success of the mission to identify the mission. Visionaries will be needed after the destruction of Afghanistan to plan and justify preemptive attacks on Israel, Pakistan, North Korea, India and Iran for their nuclear weapons programs.
Perpetual war for job creation. It’s all about jobs.
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2009.
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Sue, you are to be commended for your courage in writing this letter. As a European I can tell you that outside the US, there is a highly prevalent belief that the mechanism you describe so well in your letter explains why the US has been involved in armed conflict ALMOST CONTINUOUSLY since the inception of the nation. Many hold the view that the money poured into the various war-chests from the public purse is really “seed money” for the military industrual media complex.
Maybe Chomsky has been right all along
Writing letters does not require courage–only a pen. The European view described ignores their own history. Chomsky has been able to twist and interpret history to blame ‘Empire’ aspirations of the USA. It is comfortable for the Europeans to embrace his point of view because they can run away from their own culpability. The US is not innocent–but it is not the only one. Many of the French, Germans, and English decry the USA’s foreign policy on the one hand while their own arms industries sell weapons world wide. (Scale is not the issue–actual behavior is.)
Bastion has a point of view. She expresses it often and well. We should all realize that actions speak louder than words.
And Eisenhower’s often used phrase: “military industrial complex” was supposed to be “military industrial congressional complex.”
1. European “guilt” does not exculpate America
2. Actions: what would you propose she do – go to an allocated “demonstration area”?
3. The Eisenhower alternative you propose (I’ve seen it before) makes America look even worse!
4. You juxtapose American Foreign Policy and European private enterprise arms dealers – there is no equivalency here. Shaky argument.
5. Scale is most certainly the issue – holocaust vs. pogrom
6. Chomsky “twists” the facts – living in the US, how could you tell?
7. Why is the History of European nations relevant? They’ve changed their ways. The world’s foremost imperial power (military bases in how many countries? – google it) is the US – NOW. This trend started waaaayyyyyyyy back (Canada, Mexico, Phillipines) and now Iraq… shows no sign of abating.
8. And writing some types of letters in the US today certainly requires courage – that you may not perceive that does not negate it.
I have been a student of Ike nigh on to four and a half decades, and never, Never, have I seen documentation to support your closing statement, Cramer… Cramer? Cramer – the Idiot in a Seventies television sit-com, wait, it’s comin’ to me, set in some dive bar? Television, as in It Ain’t Real, fantasy, a bald faced lie. Right.
The more apt descriptor today would be Military/Medical/Media/MultiNationalCorporation Complex. Or Israel.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military/industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
Ware–
You can source the reference here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-industrial_complex or http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Military-industrial_complex. His granddaughter, Susan Eisenhower made the claim. Maybe, after four and a half decades of study, there is still something to learn. The claim is that the original wording was too controversial. Who knows?
I’ll ignore the personal attacks–after all, coming from someone who apparently knows everything, I can only be wrong, I am sure.
Shortall–
The writing of letters in an open society is a minor act of courage. This isn’t Myanmar. If a demonstration in a designated area is the best or only alternative, guess what? History is full of actions by people who have taken risks in oppressive societies–Ghandi, King, and Mandela, for instance. The risks for Bastion, you or me are inconsequential when we write our fearsome letters to the editor. This is nothing more than a pastime for angry retirees. Inconsequential.
I never attempted to exculpate the US, and the expansion of the Ike quote was a recognition that our elected, representative government is a part of the troika that drives the budget-busting defense spending we continually, without end, seem willing to endure.
What I was attempting to do was refute your contention that it was solely the US that was at the root of every problem. In post after post you have stated your view that the Europeans have evolved past the behaviors that you find objectionable in the US. You do it again here.
Europeans have changed their ways, you say. What does that mean? Obviously, selling arms and encouraging violence is not a problem. Participation in the conflicts in Iraq and Afganistan are forgiven. Russia’s actions in the Ukraine, Georgia and Chechnya aren’t important. Beyond the UK’s NATO involvement, I suppose that the Falkland’s and the Irish ‘troubles’ are ancient history. France was in VietNam and Algeria–too long ago? Spain and the Basques? What about the Balkans? Religious and racial bigotry throughout Europe? Just imagination?
None of this makes the US innocent–but does it entitle Europeans to claim innocence and moral superiority? Most honest people would say no.
Bastion’s letter was about the melding of our military, foreign policy, and industry. Europe does the same thing, even though you call it private enterprise arms dealing–and if it could be on the scale of a holocaust, oh, wait, Europeans have done that already, haven’t they? There was the colonial period–and that little matter that involved the Jews.
Evaluating Chomsky’s judgments and interpretations of fact is not a matter of geography. That’s what they are: opinions, judgments and interpretations. Your hope that they are facts doesn’t make them so. One could contend that Europe has been in a near continual state of conflict in one place or another since the time of the Roman Empire and be just as correct as Chomsky’s claim about the US, too.
Mr Cramer – why so angry? Why so rude with the use of second names not preceded by an appropriate title? Anger is bad for both your health and your thinking.
I find no problem with your second paragraph.
As to your third paragraph – you leave out the vital ingredient in my argument and it is (for the very last time) this: the problem with the US, the one thing that singles them out above (or should that be below) all others is not their war like nature, no, it is their hypocricy… it is the fact that they blow on and on (and on and on…. etc) about being a Christian Nation, a Shining City on a Hill, “the last best hope’ for freedom [in a police state, that is a laugh], a Beacon for Peace blah blah until the vomitus is in one’s throat) WHILE being a world center for war, arms and violence. France and the UK make no such claims – in short, what sickens one, is America’s hypocrisy not its predilection for murder.
And the fun the US missed out on not having a WWII holocaust they more than made up for since.
And Chomsky…. in any other “developed” country on Earth (a group I seldom include the US in) he would be on TV weekly as the intellectual giant that he is… here, he’s censored much to your shame, and we have to look at Beck the Toddler instead (Beck, Exemplary American Male Haw, Haw)
Mr. Shortall–
No rudeness intended. No anger here. Health is excellent!
You write about a monolithic US that speaks with one voice. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Bastion and others demonstrate that continually with their posts here, and there are many others on a much grander scale speaking out and acting across the US. If you consider Beck a typical example of the American male, I recommend you expand your circle of friends–he isn’t.
And there are those who make the claims you state–but they don’t speak for everyone. As long as that is the case, I have hope, as do many, many others.
Obviously, you think very, very highly of Chomsky. As a European, I can understand why–believing in his interpretation of history and events absolves all other nations, regardless of their actions. In Chomsky’s world view they are either victims or tools of US foreign policy and empire aspirations. It is the source of the hubris I see expressed in countless, unrelenting attacks on US policies, interests, and actions. You are sickened by American hypocrisy, implying that if the US would forthrightly state its intent as I assume Great Britain and France must, we would only be guilty of murder, as they must be. After all, absent claims of moral superiority, then all we have to do is judge them all by their intent and actions. Arms purveyors intend for their weapons to be used, ergo…
Sorry about the last name thing–same goes to you, Mr. Ware.
No rudeness intended. (present nevertheless and persisting despite being pointed out) No anger here. (Well… whatever you say) Health is excellent! (Long may it last, but I have scientific research on my side on this one!). As for Beck… I can understand you being ashamed of him, but he’s not interesting enough for me to comment further.
“After all, absent claims of moral superiority, then all we have to do is judge them all by their intent and actions. Arms purveyors intend for their weapons to be used, ergo… “… but my point IS “claims of moral superiority”… this more than anything else (and there are several other candidates) is what makes the US the most widely despised nation on Earth – generally considered a rogue nation, and I don’t mean that term in the tragi-comic sense in which it applies to Sarah Palin. It can’t be nice to have this pointed out by an outsider – but there it is… now perhaps the other 95% of the world just misunderstands how good and nice and apple pie y’all are.
Richard Shortall
…. and finally, coz I have stuff to do, Chomsky: there has always been a strong streak of anti-intellectualism in the US (Zinn, Chomsky, later peacenik Einstein, Dawkins, Vidal… all of these would have their own widely watched TV shows in Europe; all nigh on invisible in Dumbed-Down-Land) but your “analysis” of Chomsky’s body of work is superficial, even by “hurt patriot” standards. He backs up EVERY assertion he makes with mountains of research and historical findings – mountains. And what do the arguments made against him largely consist of? Well, you just made one.
A famous Scottish poet once said:
“Would the Lord
The gift wou’d gi’ us
T’see oursel’
As others see us”
One waits
Richard & Stephen–
Truly an interesting exchange!
The same poet also wrote: “There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.”
Thank you FUG!
And I agree: absolute assuredness is often first cousin of absolute error. I feel that some quaint and outdated nobility may lie in regarding one’s own country as the “Greatest Nation on Earth” and “a beacon of freedom” and “a promoter of world peace” (etc, etc) – it’s all very Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney and all that: but if the rest of the world regards your nation as a dangerous, aggressive, bullying rogue then you may continue to regard yourself as patriotic (a characteristic I equate with “idiotic”, but this is just one man’s opinion) but you can no longer regard yourself as right.
So I say to all those out there who wish to remain quaint patriots, keep going, don’t change, don’t learn….. and watch as the wind builds up.
Of this I am certain.
Whew. I almost missed this one. Just got back from two weeks of training to become better at protecting the free speech rights of socialists like Chomsky, closeted America loving capitalists like Shortall, and detached lunatics like Bastian.
It seems every couple of months, Bastian comes with crap such as this. It must take her that long to find a new way to rearrange the terms “military industrial complex”, “big pharma”, “haliburton”, “banksters”, and “police state” into one letter. Shame on the Source for continuing to encourage Bastian by giving her a cookie.
Of course, the biggest flaw in her contribution is her views on military members. Being the typical liberal she is, she in the past has claimed to be “for the troops”. But when convenient to her argument, she blasts off on soldiers, this time claiming the destruction they cause to “infrastructure, schools and hospitals” What??? That, ma’am, would be the Taliban. We are at work PREVENTING these backwards people from destroying infrastructure based upon their backwards religion, to establish a government which can indeed extend some rule of law across a lawless land. If you cannot get even the simplest of facts straight, please spare us your bitter, hyper-emotional rants.
Time for my unashamedly patriotic closing: God bless the American Military and God bless the USA.
Thank you Mr Jiggles for “protecting our freedoms” (snicker) and for demonstrating several kinds of ingnorant bigotry in such a small space. God bless the American Military for giving you a hobby and for installing occupation bases on over 150 other countries for their “freedoms”.
R
“for demonstrating several kinds of ingnorant bigotry in such a small space”
I correct Bastian that it’s the Taliban who are destroying infrastrucure and burning girls schools because it runs contrary to their ridiculous sharia law and somehow that makes me a bigot? Better just stick to making big sentences that never answer a question posed or address any issue, call a few people childish names and skip the thinking part. You’re not particularly good at it.
Better yet, you and Bastian could go to north east Afghanistan and enlighten the folks with your wonderful world view. If your you were lucky enough to keep your head attached, you could come back and tell us all about it.
Lesson in basic ratiocination for the unschooled Jegguls:
Actions of the Taliban are not related to your defense that you are not (despite all the evidence to the contrary!) a raging bigot.
I notice you’re not in Afghanistan Jiggly, then you could come back and tell US all about it.
Keep up the Boy Soldier Hobby if it makes you feel like a man
Once again you fail to address the issue (Bastian’s lies and your defense of them), call names, and use needlessly big words failing in every way to demonstrate my bigotry save for the fact that Richard Shortall says so.
Furthermore, you have shot yourself in the foot yet again by making wild assumptions about me. First of all, my location. You are half right (an improvement, congratulations!), I am not in Afghanistan. But I am not in Central Oregon either, I am thousands of miles and oceans away from home. Several weeks ago, you assumed because I know the United States to be the greatest nation on earth, that I had never been anywhere else. Wrong again. I still get a chuckle out of that one. Perhaps the narrow mind is yours.
And how funny is it that the one who raised his right hand is being called out by a cowardly leftist whose only contribution to the peace and security of any nation is to make meaningless posts on an online newspaper.
Mr Jugular,
I’m sorry you find some of my words “big”… I will try to simplify things for you out there in Empire Building Land.
Secondly, apart from a feeling of unease that you are on the same planet as I, I have no interest whatsoever in your “location” or your gun-totin’ hobby.
Examples of bigotry: “ridiculous sharia law”, “these backwards people from destroying infrastructure based upon their backwards religion”
Next, you claim to have highlighted the lies of other contributors and you’re clearly used to situations where others just back down (by virtue of your “authority” no doubt) – but where are these lies and where are your brilliant exposes of these lies?
Point out where your posts are any less meaningless than mine or why you address “issues” and I don’t.
Finally, in what way exactly is the US “the greatest nation on earth”, where did you put your right hand up and how many times do we have to congratulate you for it?
The people of Cambodia, Vietnam and Iraq thank you for your bomnbing
“I’m sorry you find some of my words “big”… I will try to simplify things for you out there in Empire Building Land.”
Again you assume. I understand your language, but using a $5 word when a 50 cent one will do is verbal vomit and it is typically used to mask intellectual deficiency.
“Secondly, apart from a feeling of unease that you are on the same planet as I, I have no interest whatsoever in your “location” or your gun-totin’ hobby.”
You brought up my location, not me.
“Examples of bigotry: “ridiculous sharia law”, “these backwards people from destroying infrastructure based upon their backwards religion” ”
From Time Magazine, December 4, 2009,”The numbers show the extent of the war on education by the Pakistani Taliban. At least 473 schools across Swat and Federally Administered Tribal Areas have been destroyed over the past two years.”
or from the Huffington Post, June 17 2008, “Taliban fighters destroyed bridges and planted mines after overrunning villages outside southern Afghanistan’s largest city”.
The examples are endless.
“Next, you claim to have highlighted the lies of other contributors and you’re clearly used to situations where others just back down (by virtue of your “authority” no doubt) – but where are these lies and where are your brilliant exposes of these lies?”
Aready addressed. It’s the standard far left platform of “American Soldiers are the real terrorists” that Bastian so enthusiastically upholds and you apparently agree with. As for my “brilliant exposes”, none are forthcoming. The information is already out there, see above and give an internet search a try.
“Point out where your posts are any less meaningless than mine or why you address “issues” and I don’t.”
My posts are absolutely as meaningless as yours. We agree.
“Finally, in what way exactly is the US “the greatest nation on earth”, where did you put your right hand up and how many times do we have to congratulate you for it?”
The U.S. is good enough for you to have chosen, eh?
“Finally, in what way exactly is the US “the greatest nation on earth”, where did you put your right hand up and how many times do we have to congratulate you for it?”
So, no answer, eh?