Tag: Endless War

Jan 16 2015

War On-With Parades

So we’ve recently passed another milestone in our perpetual War. Sunday December 28th 2014 marked the end of our combat mission in Afghanistan.

And we recently passed another set of new year’s parades Rose Bowl and Mummers etc. I’d ask the question “Who doesn’t love a parade?” but I get that there are plenty of people who have an aversion to parades in the same way some people are freaked out by clowns.

Anyhow, I thought it was as good a time as any to reflect on the time line of the country’s aversion to a ticker tape parade celebrating the end of longest running “combat operations” in our history.

Obviously, a ticker tape victory parade makes some people feel a little awkward. And it should. It highlights the fact that combat is NOT over. Military action should never have be used as a substitute for law enforcement action. Not to mention all the rest of the hypocrisy: the false pretenses, the unprosecuted torture war crimes, the illegal spying on and execution of American citizens. There’s plenty for the country to be outraged about. At the very least embarrassed.

A parade forces people to recon with what exactly we went to war for. Can you really declare victory against a tactic? What’s the difference between a War On something and a War With something? And when will we have that victory parade for the war on with drugs?
 

more War on with-

May 18 2011

House Bill to authorize War anywhere in the world, including inside US borders!

Cross-posted at DailyKos and Progressive Blue.

With the House of Representatives at recess it can’t happen this week but Sec. 1034 of National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that was marked up by members of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) last Wednesday is very disturbing. The Bill has the potential to set up Army on American street scenes from the movie “The Siege” and, with a little massaged intelligence, U.S. Armed Forces suppressing nurses planning to protest for single payer health care.  

Last week at the ACLU blog there was Unchecked Executive War Power Could Slip Through the House

Tucked inside the National Defense Authorization Act, being marked  up by the House Armed Services Committee this week, is a hugely important  provision that hasn’t been getting a lot of attention – a brand new  authorization for a worldwide war.

This week there is House Gets Ready to Vote on New Worldwide War

A couple of  minutes past midnight, Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) offered an amendment to  strike Sec. 1034 – the new authorization for worldwide  war provision – from the NDAA. Visibly angry that such a large sweeping provision  had not yet had any public hearing whatsoever, he vigorously characterized it  as a very broad declaration of war.

That amendment debate ended quickly (about ten minutes) and Rep. Garamendi’s plans to introduce it again on the House floor where he expects more results. But this bill has the potential for the Chief Executive to use military force anywhere in the world (including your back yard) in search of terrorists.

Though it is a very troubling expansion of war authority, it has been lingering for more than three years as a “sleeper provision,” and it is finally getting the attention of some members of Congress. We hope that further debate in Congress in the weeks ahead will allow for a more in-depth examination of unchecked authority to wage worldwide war, and what the outcomes of such a provision will yield.

We Hope? Feel like contacting your Congressperson to express your thought on Posse Comitatus before it slips through?  

Jul 08 2010

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

May 26 2009

Obama falls victim to his bogeyman

Like some great inflatable amusement park monster, Obama and his fellow Democratic Party Machiavellians decided to pump up the deflating Al Qaeda bogeyman to prove their “toughness” on national security – and to keep the arms merchants happy. But the problem with reinvigorating bogeymen is that they frighten people.

The campaign promise of closing Guantanamo has now collided with the rediscovered super-evil, world-threatening, cosmically colossal threat of AL QAEDA! This great terrorist organization, which has been incapable of putting so much as one sniper with a rifle and a box of bullets in the United states, is now becoming a self-created political obstacle for the Obama administration.

We are waging two ruinously expensive “wars” against the Al Qaeda bogeyman, and now the main issue Republicans are using to undermine Obama is his “weakness” in dealing with the terrorist threat he has revived. The irony is extraordinary, but the results are very bad for America. We will continue to piss away our dwindling resources chasing the Al Qaeda bogeyman, and Obama has given the Republicans a permanent claim to superior devotion to protecting us.

Al Qaeda is a weak enemy that can easily be contained for a fraction of our “war on terror” expenditures. But Obama can’t tell these simple truths. He is now the victim of his own bogeyman.