Tag: military industrial complex

Anti-Capitalist Meetup: Will The Real Axis of Evil Please Stand Up? by Geminijen

Last Tuesday, in his speech to the UN General Assembly, the Prime Minister of Israel added a new power to the “Axis of Evil”. According to Netanyahu, “Militant Islamists” (including not only  ISIS in Iraq and Syria but Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and other Al Qaeda groups in Africa and the Middle East)”, want to dominate the world like the Nazis; only unlike the Nazis, they believe in a “Master faith” instead of a “Master Race”

Obama, in his speech four days earlier announcing that he would begin Air Strikes in Syria, also discussed “extreme fundamentalism” in the Middle East. Although he did not specify Islamists as the only fundamentalists, he emphasized the necessity of eliminating  these groups and, using a combination of the idea of “American Exceptionalism” and a retread of the colonial playbook where the civilized countries (read mostly white, western) have to quell the extreme militant fundamentalists (read “savages”)in the Middle East. This was of course, his justification for invading Syria and bombing ISIS.

The “Axis of Evil”,  originally inspired b the Nazis in World War II, was recreated by George W. Bush in 2002 and initially included three Nation States –Iraq, Iran and North Korea  –and became Bush’s excuse to invade Iraq.  Under his administration, this concept was later expanded to include Cuba, Libya and Syria. The American president offered no evidence to support what we now know was slander and had much more to do with protecting US oil interests than protecting the American people, not to mention the lives of other peoples of the world.

Of the original six members, Cuba and North Korea are effectively quarantined by Western-imposed embargoes, isolated from balanced international relations and development. Of the other four, Iraq and Libya, were invaded by US-led forces in the name of fighting Islamic terrorism, and have been destroyed and realigned to serve Western interests.

It is no accident that Obama is targeting one of the two remaining members, Syria, while changing the stakes from targeting a specific country to the concept of “extreme (read Islamic) fundamentalism” which is much broader and not hampered by nation state boundaries blurring the lines of what is legal and illegal under international law as well as increasing the threat of endless war since it is unclear what nation state you would negotiate with to end the war.

In analyzing the current crisis with ISIS, an historical analysis provides some perspective. Since the 1970’s, capitalist interests have morphed into a toxic combination of religious fundamentalism  and extreme militarism to achieve their economic goals  — whether that is the reawakening of the Christian-based KKK and the rise of the Patriots and Tea Party in the United States; the Evangelicals, military dictators and death squads in Latin America; the Orthodox Zionist Jews and the concept of a Greater Israel in the Palestinian conflict; or extreme Islamic fundamentalism  in the larger Middle East.  

It is unclear why this fundamentalism has such appeal these days – maybe it’s because the world is scarier as we globalize and people want to retreat to the “good old days”, to concepts they believe will not change. Maybe it’s because fundamentalism is unquestioning and based on faith rather than reason and it makes it easier for the 1% to manipulate the rest of us. Maybe it is because religious fundamentalism is not restricted by national borders and makes it easier to rationalize the new global paradigm. Maybe it is a combination of all of these.

Whatever the reason, the drums of war are rumbling again, and we are hoping that the drum beats will be loud enough to drown out the voice of reason by finding a new enemy.  An enemy who can be the bad guy — pure evil that must be squelched mercilessly which we can only do with war.  We, of course, are the “good guys” and wear the white hat because, as always, “God (and a white supremacist morality) is on our side.”

But I would suggest it is not Islamic extremists, terrorists, drug lords, rogue states, corrupt regimes, authoritarian superpowers or Eastern Block” (the “Red Menace sans Communism)who are “the enemy.” It is the multinational oil interests, the military industrial complex and the American government and its allies who are the real “axis of evil.”   It is the system of capitalist corruption, exploitation and enrichment that has put the world into poverty, conflict and on the brink of yet another major war.

Chris Hedges: Antidote to Defeatism

Activist and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Chris Hedges discusses the forces driving the acceleration of global decline,the military mind and the antidote to defeatism in a two part interview with Abby Martin on RT’s “Breaking the Set.”

Chris Hedges Part I: Crisis Cults and the Collapse of Industrial Civilization

Chris Hedges Part II: The Military Mind & the Antidote to Defeatism

The Week in Editorial Cartoons – “I Have Here in My Hand a List of…”

Note: I kept getting errors about text being corrupted while trying to post the complete diary.  This is only half the diary.  There are many more sections and editorial cartoons in this diary that I posted over at Daily Kos.

Crossposted at Daily Kos and The Stars Hollow Gazette



Peter King – Ghost of Hearings Past by Taylor Jones, Politicalcartoons.com, Buy this cartoon

‘Don’t Go, Don’t Kill’

In the past few weeks a series of reforms have been passed which some are saying justify President Obama’s, the Democratic Party’s, and American liberals’ extreme moderation and corporatism (or, in some cases, a mere subservience to, if not an outright embrace of, this horribly corrupt form of capitalism).

However, I would advise you to consider these words which Malcolm X uttered in another terribly corrupt and unequal world which, as the US continues its decline as an empire and omnipotent economic presence, even many liberals and radicals are starting to get nostalgic for:

You don’t stick a knife into a man’s back nine inches, pull it out six inches, and call it progress.

That is, if you ignore the context in which these mild reforms are taking place, you are ignoring the fundamental problems which need to be solved.  This is particularly apparent in the case of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  

Exit Strategy or Essentially Endless?



USFndsAfghnTlbn

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  

This world in arms is not spending money alone.  

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.  

This is not a way of life at all in any true sense.  

Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.


~ Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

The United States Military Industrial Complex has might.  General and former President Eisenhower understood this.  He warned Americans.  Abundant might does not make right; it only advances the notion of righteousness.  Patriotism is promoted through militarism.  His words fell on deaf ears.  The sound was hollow in contrast to the drone of drumbeats.  At the time, Americans were as they are today; dedicated to the customs we think characterize democracy.

We see this in many a war and peace policy.  Questions are asked of the government and the people. Testimony is taken.  Think tanks assess Foreign Policy. Conclusions are drawn and decisions made.  Still, in 2010, a few within the electorate wonder as General Eisenhower had.. With Al-Qaida Fading, Why Expand the Afghan War?

Saving Our Economy

It’s an argument that might just catch on one day.

Saving our own Economy is more vital to our own National Security than robbing someone else’s (overseas) of theirs.

It is important that we all redefine the words “National Security“.  For, in truth, it has no relationship to transfering our Tax dollars overseas in order to spread a Worldwide Military Empire, or funneling our hard earned money to the IMF to hand over to Foreign Banks and Foreign Governments, or funding corrupt “puppet” Governments, etc. — and it has everything to do with Economic survival within our borders, the protection of the Environment, and maintaining the basic Liberties that our Country was founded on here at home.

Can we support the important efforts of these guys?



Cutting Military Spending Part 1



Cutting Military Spending Part 2

Diabolical Compromise

Hold on to your hats, ladies and gentlemen — Barack Obama is about to fulfill yet another campaign promise!

(Pregnant pause, whilst heralds blow trumpets and Obamatons fall over themselves in rapture)

White House Green Lights Repeal (of DADT)

Let the minstrels sing.  Let church bells be rung throughout the land!

In the letter, Orszag wrote that “ideally” the Pentagon’s review of implementation would be completed before Congress takes legislative action, but adds, “the Administration understands that Congress has chosen to move forward with legislation now…”

Wait….wait  Is that an actually an admission that the Obama administration never wanted, nor intended, to repeal DADT this year?  That Barack Obama always intended to break his solemn word to the honorably serving GLBT soldiers and the rest of GLBT America?

But, never fear, Obama will keep his promise.

The language would not include a automatic nondiscrimination policy but rather will return authority of the regulations for open service by gays and lesbians to the Pentagon.

Ok, in the words of Margaret Cho, “That’s not what I meant!”.  You mean, returning control of how and why gay people are drummed out of military to the very organization that has been witch hunting gays for 40 years?!

Sy Hersh: “Battlefield Executions” taking place under Obama, the Military is “Dominating” Obama

    I am greatly saddened to report the following . . .

    Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh says that US forces in Afghanistan are carrying out what he referred to as “battlefield executions” of prisoners.

   “One of the great tragedies of my country is that Mr. Obama is looking the other way, because equally horrible things are happening to prisoners, to those we capture in Afghanistan,” Hersh said during a discussion at the Global Investigative Journalism Conference last month in Geneva, where he was also the keynote speaker. “They’re being executed on the battlefield.”

HuffingtonPost.com

Bold text added by the diarist

    Video and more below the fold

Afghanistan and Imperial Wars — How to Achieve Success with Failure

(now cross posted at DailyKos)

The ongoing war in Afghanistan-it can now be thought of as perpetual and unending is more important than a lot of people seem to think. It is not just a far-away semi-colonial war but part of an ongoing struggle for control of Central Asia and the Middle East by the imperial forces of NATO.

It has to be very clear than despite the fact that Europeans are somewhat reluctant partners in this enterprise they are, nevertheless partners and part of essential parts of the Empire. Europeans, like Americans, like their priviledged position in the world. They are a little less bloodthirsty than we are-it is a less essential part of their cultural life. In America violence is loved for its own sake. In Europe it is merely a sometimes necessary component of asserting interests. That’s the only realistic difference between Europe and the United States. The notion that Europeans are more “progressive” than Americans in foreign policy is just not true. Europeans sees the United States as the military arm of the Empire required to insure that world security is maintained particularly energy security. Europeans like the fact the United States provides them with security and are quite willing to accede to the brutality of the the American military in keeping the wogs in check-a brutality that they have far more knowledge of than the American people do. I generalize here because in Europe a large segment of the left is notably against militarism still unlike here.

Having said that the war itself shows us some interesting patterns. As reported in the NYT, the great show “battle” has not really had any real results. The article Violence Helps Taliban Undo Afghan Gains is worth reading but you and I both know what it says and probably knew even before the “battle” happened what the results would be as do all non-compromised journalists and observers of the situation. This and many other stories of the recent war in Afghanistan often buried on the back pages of the NYT tell a tale of woe almost unbelievable in its pathos.  

Ron Paul Educates U.S. Media on War/ForeignPolicy

Congressman Dr. Ron Paul educates the Orwellian U.S. News Media about War and Foreign Policy.


Al CIAda – The Bigger the Lie…

rumsfeld and saddam Pictures, Images and Photos

“The Bigger the Lie, the More the People will Believe it”

– Adolf Hitler

Just a few days after the latest fake Osama bin Laden tape release, scantly a month after the ridiculously trumped up false flag underwear bomber ‘attack’ on Jesus’s fake birthday and on the heels of a relentless propaganda campaign of fear obviously designed to roll away the stone and resurrect the big lie of 9/11 there is this: Report: Al-Qaeda aims to hit U.S. with WMDs. Bravo to the neocons, they are right back in the game, not that they ever left, you just can’t completely get rid all of the cockroaches after an infestation no matter how good the Orkin men happen to be. The Mighty Wurlitzer’s story on the report in question leads with this nightmare blurb which smacks of the apocalyptic conjecture of smoking guns in the form of mushroom clouds that years before had been used to sell the wars that are still bankrupting America:

Read this. Just read this.

This is one of those essays where I’m just going to send you to someone else’s work.

Read it.  Just read it.

I don’t even know where to begin, as far as paraphrasing this, trying to pitch it, whatever.  You just have to read it.

The title tells you the subject matter:

The Military-Industrial Compex is Ruining the Economy

I’ve mentioned this blogger before.  I think he’s brilliant.  I think, in fact, that he’s the best single blogger out there.

(Sorry everybody else).

His stuff is so dense, yet so readable, that it’s even difficult to blockquote.   But I have to try a sample:


As I pointed out in August, public sector spending – and mainly defense spending – has accounted for virtually all of the new job creation in the past 10 years:

The U.S. has largely been financing job creation for ten years. Specifically, as the chief economist for BusinessWeek, Michael Mandel, points out, public spending has accounted for virtually all new job creation in the past 1o years:

Private sector job growth was almost non-existent over the past ten years. Take a look at this horrifying chart:

Between May 1999 and May 2009, employment in the private sector sector only rose by 1.1%, by far the lowest 10-year increase in the post-depression period.

It’s impossible to overstate how bad this is. Basically speaking, the private sector job machine has almost completely stalled over the past ten years. Take a look at this chart:

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