The House and Senate have had Democratic majorities for the past four years. In January, the House will be run by Republicans, while the Democratic majority in the Senate will shrink. We still tend to call the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “Bush’s wars.” Republicans are often the most outspoken supporters of these wars, while many Democrats label themselves “critics” and “opponents.”
Such wars, however, can’t happen without funding, and the past four years of funding alone amount to a longer period of war-making than U.S. participation in either of the world wars.
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The New War Congress: An Obama-Republican War Alliance?,
David Swanson
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when I posted a link to this at reddit:
“I hate you”.
In the 1930’s big US corporate interests came to Butler to enlist him in a coup attempt against FDR. Butler refused. This might be the biggest story of the 20th century to be censored by the MSM.
The military in this country is highly respected and even venerated by right, left and center. To be sure the left is not so fond of the MIC but will always be pious about “our brave men and women in the military.” Well these brave people do some stunningly bad things but the weird perversions of the left in the U.S. never ceases to amaze me. Therefore, military spending will never get serious cuts–no one will favor it or discuss it because the corporate propaganda organs will blast such invective and raise such a ruckus that no politician, pundit, or researcher will ever work again in any profession.
The military in this country has near absolute power and even if Wall Street crashes and burns it will still have power because they can and will seize what they need since, people forget, the military is all about force and those that control the muscle control politics. The military in this country is no longer a peripheral political force under the domination of the executive. It is a force that has enormous international power and influence whether it is tanks and planes or, more importantly, covert and “special” ops. In my view this uncritical acceptance of every claim the military makes, this absurd mythology of “honor” and “brotherhood” in the military that makes soldiers appear more virtuous and self-sacrificing than they are is the most dangerous element in American society. And, frankly, there is no indication at all that this will change.
When Americans get tired of civilians running their politics they will turn to the soldiers who are seen as simple, uncorruptable (very dramatically not the truth) and virtuous simply because they wear a uniform. Strange because the record of the American military has not been particularly glorious. It’s methods are obviously and lavishly brutal using terror-bombing, targeted assassinations, torture, genocide and so on despite rhetoric that limits and humanizes the rules of engagement–in fact many officers violate those rules and sometimes soldiers do as well and are seldom disciplined other than a slap on the wrist.