( – promoted by buhdydharma )
Crossposted at Daily Kos
War is Peace.
The Military Industrial Complex meets the Terroism Industrial Complex.
In his widely reported London speech earlier this month, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, described how people constantly offer him ideas for fixing that country’s problems. One of the more unusual recommendations, he suggested, came from a paper that advocated using a “plan called ‘Chaosistan.’ ” McChrystal said it advised letting Afghanistan become a “Somalia-like haven of chaos that we simply manage from outside,” but there was no further explanation of its origins.
Bold added by diarist
Much more below the fold
Clearly, the question that the Military is looking to answer is NOT how to win a war in Afghanistan or even how to end it, but how to drag it on for as long as possible for the greatest profit and benefit for all involved. (except people in Afghanistan)
When journalists from NEWSWEEK and other media outlets asked McChrystal’s entourage about where the paper came from, they were directed to an obscure Web posting-an October 1998 speech headlined “What is Chaostan [sic]?” delivered by investment adviser Richard Maybury at a New Orleans conference for gold enthusiasts. Maybury predicted that 24 wars in “Chaostan”-a vast region stretching from Poland to North Africa to China, Vietnam, and Indonesia-would eventually merge into World War III. From an investor’s point of view, Maybury wrote, this will be “great for weapons stocks and security–equipment stocks…and non-Chaostan oil investments.” Was this really what McChrystal was referring to?
Bold added by diarist
Anyone familiar with Naomi Kleins “Shock Doctrine” can see where this insane idea came from. The fact that it was entertained by McChrystal as a viable option reinforces my belief that GENERAL MCCHRYSTAL MUST BE FIRED.
More and more I find myself looking back at George Orwell’s 1984, and particulary the sections of Emanuel Goldstein’s Book within the book for something I have thought about since my political awakening when first I read these words.
The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built. In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population. In practice the needs of the population are always underestimated, with the result that there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on as an advantage. It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another. By the standards of the early twentieth century, even a member of the Inner Party lives an austere, laborious kind of life. Nevertheless, the few luxuries that he does enjoy his large, well-appointed flat, the better texture of his clothes, the better quality of his food and drink and tobacco, his two or three servants, his private motor-car or helicopter-set him in a different world from a member of the Outer Party, and the members of the Outer Party have a similar advantage in comparison with the submerged masses whom we call ‘the proles’.~snip~
War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them.
ministryoffiles.com/1884.pdf
Bold added by diarist
War IS Peace.
There IS NO MIDDLE CLASS, there are PROLES and there is everyone else in the Top 1% of society that owns 95% of the property. That 1% DOES NOT fight wars, they start them and profit by them all along the way. They do NOT wish to see war end. Rather, they wish to expand the war, expand the empire, and expand their own riches in the process.
The Military Industrial Complexdoes not exist to lay dormant. It needs more conflict, more bodies, more war, and a never ending parade of “Shock and Awe”, chaos and the inevitable attempt to try to create order, at any and all costs.
Where one man sees costs, another man sees profit.
Two U.S. intelligence officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing a sensitive matter, say that the reference almost certainly comes from a recently published, and secret, CIA analysis titled “Chaosistan” (not “Chaostan”). Prepared by a “red team” of CIA analysts, the document, says one official, picks apart conventional analyses of the war and explains how forces inside Afghanistan-from hostile ethnic groups to intrusive neighbors to societal damage caused by past Taliban rule-work against the notions of a central Afghan government.
And Disaster Capitalism roars on, creating profits for the top 1% and disasters for the rest of us.
Good thing we have the media to cover the frakking Balloon boy.
Ignorance IS Strength
There is no word yet whether we will go with the “Choasistan” plan devised by the CIA, or if we will go with Operation “Drag It Out For As Long As Possible”, but we can rest assured knowing that our bodily fluids are safe thanks to the tireless effort of the Ministry Of Peace that is the Military Industrial Complex.
War IS Peace
Also Crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com
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DOWN WITH the Class War and the Oligarchy that is winning it