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American Public Turns Anti-War … Warmongers Desperately Reply, “But War Is GOOD for Us!”
The American people are now overwhelmingly opposed to more war in Ukraine, Syria, Iran and elsewhere.
Those who get rich from war (the military-industrial complexers and big banks) and their lackeys are desperate to reverse this trend.
As such, they are resorting to more and more outlandish justifications for war.
For example, Ian Morris has written an entire book arguing that war is the best thing ever, the only thing which has lifted us out of poverty and barbarianism. And – yes – he even says that war brings peace.
David Swanson provides a must-read dismantling of Morris’ book.
Morris writes this week in the Washington Post:
War has not only made us safer, but richer, too.
In reality, security experts – conservative hawks and liberal doves alike – agree that waging war in the Middle East weakens national security and increases terrorism. See this, this, this, this, this, this and this. So it doesn’t make us safer.
And there is now overwhelming evidence that war is horrible for the economy, and makes us poorer.
Morris continues:
Thinkers have long grappled with the relationships among peace, war and strength. Thomas Hobbes wrote his case for strong government, “Leviathan,” as the English Civil War raged around him in the 1640s.
In reality, Hobbes was an authoritarian who argued – just like (1) the leading Nazi legal scholar and philosopher who created the justification for “total war” to destroy those labeled an “enemy” of the Nazi state (Carl Schmitt), (2) Machiavelli, and (3) the father of the Neoconservatives (Leo Strauss) – that the public should be intentionally whipped into a frenzy of fear so that they would be willing to give up their rights and cede their freedoms to the sovereign.
Indeed, Morris accidentally reveals that he is cut from the exact same cloth when he states:
People almost never give up their freedoms — including, at times, the right to kill and impoverish one another — unless forced to do so.
In other words, freedom bad … authoritarian leader good.
Morris writes:
Since 1914, we have endured world wars, genocides and government-sponsored famines, not to mention civil strife, riots and murders. Altogether, we have killed a staggering 100 million to 200 million of our own kind. But over the century, about 10 billion lives were lived — which means that just 1 to 2 percent of the world’s population died violently. Those lucky enough to be born in the 20th century were on average 10 times less likely to come to a grisly end than those born in the Stone Age.
In other words, War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, and Ignorance Is Strength. I’ve seen this movie before.
Artwork by Anthony FredaMorris cheerfully notes:
And since 2000, the United Nations tells us, the risk of violent death has fallen even further, to 0.7 percent.
Unless, of course, you live in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria or one of the other countries targeted for regime change … in which case your risk of violent death is very high.
Morris argues:
Washington [must] embrace [] its role as the only possible globocop in an increasingly unstable world — a world with far deadlier weapons than Britain could have imagined a century ago.
In other words, Morris is an unrepentant apologist for American empire.
Amusingly, the vast majority of comments to Morris’ Washington post essay attack him for being a desperate shill and a fool.
But endless war is a feature – not a bug – of U.S. policy, and the American media (including the big “alternative” sites) are always pro-war.
So expect to hear crazier and crazier “justifications” for war.
Artwork by Anthony Freda- advertisements -
OK, haven't read the book. Didn't even read the article. It's long been recognized that war has been a primary driver of technological progress throughout recorded history, and the 20th century was the most dramatic example of this. It's probably true, that this has, in the long run, made us better off, because warfare is cyclical, but progress is cumulative. Of course, one nuclear apocolypse will reverse that calculation.
It's long been recognised that the state diverts talent away from civilian towards military research. It's also unquestionable that the industrial military has reduced the competitiveness of the civilian economy by rewarding wasteful processes and "cost plus" manufacturing. It doesn't logically follow that just because the military does a lot of research that they are the best people to do it on behalf of all humanity. What you're saying is just a popular myth.
'All We Are Say-in'
is Give Peace A Chance'
blam blam blam blam Blam!
Another isolated incident perpetrated by a lone nutcase..
It would seem the 'netz have innoculated the sheep with the peace bug.
nice.
war what is it good for? absolutely nuthin.lets sing it again! War......
Was Ian Morris' naval aviator uncle killed in WWII?
Note to Ian Morris: Go fuck yourself in the ass, you worthless little sassy cunt.
they had to destroy the village to save it...
I'm willing to bet Morris hasn't had a close relative come home in a flag draped coffin.
Nor do I think he has laid around in a jungle for a week waiting for another lackey to show up.
"Ian Morris has written an entire book arguing that war is the best thing ever, the only thing which has lifted us out of poverty and barbarianism."
Send that cocksucker and his entire extended family to the front line of the next dust up all armed with butter knives. We need to clean the algae, flotsam and parasites from the human gene pool.
War is old men talkin' and young men dyin'. Shameful.
"Morris writes this week in the Washington Post:
In the hopes that 1984 isNOT the only book you are allowed to read such works as ROLLERBALL MURDERS STAND ON ZANZIBAR OR AGENT OF CHAOS are far more readable and less wordY THAN STATES SPONSORED CRAP like 1984
Where have all the young men gone?
Too old wars everywhere.
When will they ever learn?
(I realize that is a rhetorical question)
An Australian company says it has located the wreck of the possible missing Boeing 777 by Malaysia Airlines. The company GeoResonance thinks to have found the wreck in the Bay of Bengal, about 5000 km away from the area in the Indian Ocean where at the moment is wanted, about 2280 km northwest of the Australian city of Perth. http://www.telegraaf.nl/buitenland/22566354/___Australisch_bedrijf_vindt...
Where you been? Could have used you 11 fucking years ago
No doubt that if the boyish, "Let's-play-army" McCain won in '08 and again in '12 (as he underhandedly would have), the US may, at this hour, be a nuclear wasteland given his egotistical eagerrness to escalate the Ukranian crisis. "... after all, I gotta make my daddy proud of his son..."
I read all of Carl Schmitt's important works, while doing a research project for a professor in law school - that was in 1971.
At that time, Nixon had pulled out all of the stops against naysayers. He effectively implemented Schmitt's concept of "Friend and Foe" by sicking the IRS on his enemies and giving his friends a shield from the tax man.
In 40 years, nothing has changed in the governance of America, apart from the fact that the criminal acts of Government are now so blatant, that anyone with 5 minutes of curiosity can see the truth.
War is good for the economy - the ultimate "Broken Window Fallacy". So you build a battleship and it ends up on the bottom of the ocean. The alternative was to use the labor and materials for something else.
...like, a Giant Pyramid?
Escalator to nowhere.
With the large banks, MIC corporations and Likud/Israel Lobby all eager to use American blood and treasure in far off lands having little to do with American national or economic security, the American people wouldn't stand a chance in any event.
But since the American people generally still get their news from CNN and the NYT, and like news corporations, and since using the word "conspiracy" or "right wing" or "anti-Semite" or "isolationist" generally stops most people from thinking. and since America has maybe 60 or 70 million "Christian" Zionists who want to set the world on fire so Jesus will come back...
I'd say the rest of us are fucked.
And you'd be right. We are now being told we are being made safe by the same government that created the Islamic backlash in the first place by mucking around in their countries for the pathetic reason of defending Israel for its own transgressions and bad acts. The 60 or 70 million Christian Zionists who want to set the world on fire are in for a very bad surprise and disappointment. From what I've read about him, if Jesus does come back, he's really going to be pissed.
War is a necessary evil.
But 90% of our wars, particularly since WWII, have been UNNECESSARY and COUNTERPRODUCTIVE and served to set the stage for another war because of short sighted policies and bad peacemaking.
The better question is, what defensive wars have the US ever fought, apart from the War of 1812? None. And what about WWII, the so-called good war? The reality is that the US declared war on both Germany and Japan.
Yet the name of the Department of War was changed to the Department of Defense. That's a perfect example of double-speak. The continuing propaganda we are fed every day.
Why are we moving from republic to empire? And why are we doing it so quickly?
Vote for the elected political turds in D.C and states be the ones sent to war front lines.... and maybe the freeloaders and illegall aliens as well.... all tax paying U.S. citizens get to stay home and watch them on TV...
the last good war was the war of 1812.
The War on Hitlery could be the next good one, if we all pull together as a team.
Better hurry. If the front page tabloid pics on the sides of the grocery store cash register lines this morning were any indication, she and Bill are both on the fast track to dirt city. They must have caught a couple of bad ice cubes at the last soiree. I swear they look like a couple of centenarians. What a goddamn crying shame.
"There ain't nuthin uglier than an old white woman." Fred Sanford
Wow. That link was pretty much nonexistent support for this authors notion that americans are overwhelmingly opposed to more war. If its true, americans are not as stupid as we assume. When the media propaganda machine gets fully cranked up though, the sheeple will conform. Run a poll asking americans how they would characterize putin and bing, i'll bet you have evidence that the agitprop directed against putin has already sunk in, ie, 'hates gays', 'war monger', 'a russian newscaster even quit so russian news must be propaganda', 'he doesnt respect other countries' etc etc. I think americans would end up vigorously opposing a war with russia, but some masterful brainwashing and artful convincing could do the trick, which i'd love to see out of sheer morbid curiosity
I don't know who wrote the 10 commandments, but the one about not killing or murdering makes perfect sense.
Now if people could mind their own business, respect a fellow human's right to be on this planet and help out in time of need instead of consulting law books and speaking from prepared speaches, this world would improve.
Let's face it, life has enough challenges without war or murdering suspects.
What goes around comes around and Bush, Obama et all will see what harm they have done one way or the other.
Oh good luck, trying to relive those heady WW1 and 2 days...the problem is, you just can't count on your Hitlerian fascist dictators to show up on time.
And in the absence of one it is going to be a real challenge to drum up war-frenzy among Americans in 2014. We aren't going to go to war for wealth, or the preservation of wealth. We have reached Peak Cynicism, and short of alien invasion from another galaxy, we will not 'rally' to the cause like generations in the past. The pushback will see us enter a new era of isolationism instead of the big, lucrative war the powers-that-be want so desperately. Once our dollar loses its status as reserve currency, our isolation will be all but guaranteed, and the wealth-creating machine will seize-up altogether.
There will be no big war for the 1%. It's something they want that they simply will not get. And if they keep trying, their efforts will blow up in their faces, as quite frankly, people just don't give a shit about "saving" the status quo.
It would actually be entertaining to see how such a war would be 'sold'...and very amusing to watch the blow-back.
But I think they sort of realize this, so they tread carefully. No one wants to be the pathetic jerk who desperately tries to start a 'wave' in the bleachers and ends up looking stupid as everyone ignores him. So, they pray at night for the appearance of some 'Hitler' who they hope will help get those masses worked-up.
Trouble is, you just can't count on those Hitlers to show up where and when they are needed.
I disagree with you on one point: We have yet to reach peak cynicism in this country. While you or I may be there ourselves, the general public is not there yet.
The people know one and only one thing about war. Or at least should: "War is a racket"
Morris can send his children and nephews and grandchildren, as they won't get mine, I will go to war, a 'beneficial" one for sure, against him and them to prevent it.
"My guillotine likes war, as he can see who's next on the list."
To Ian Morris: You first. Pick up a rifle and start fighting.
War is where you kill or die or risk death so your leaders might win. What is the cost/benefit for you? What is the value of a ribbon or their false praise of you? Do your leaders really love you? Who believes it is noble to die for Obama's or McCain's glory?
Suppress it! You don’t know the horrible aspects of war. I’ve been through two wars and I know. I’ve seen cities and homes in ashes. I’ve seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is Hell!--William Tecumseh Sherman
Lots o' wisdom there.
Men like Sherman have existed periodically throughout the time-space continuum. They are rare.
To be more precise: war is where the children of the 99% kill or die or risk death. The children of the 1% seldom do.
Nice communist class war rhetoric.
This is a class war sir, between the very few haves and the very many have-nots. Always has been. How many of the 65 000 who died in Vietnam do you suppose were from Yale and Harvard?
What tripe. Care to argue the point with any substance?
Edit: Accidental Double Post
"Government under democracy is thus government by orgy, almost by orgasm. Its processes are most beautifully displayed at times when they stand most naked - for example, in war days. The history of the American share in the World War is simply a record of conflicting fears, more than once amounting to frenzies. The mob, at the start of the uproar, showed a classical reaction: it was eager only to keep out of danger. The most popular song in the United States in 1915 was 'I Didn't Raise My Boy to be a Soldier.' In 1916, on his fraudulent promise to preserve that boy from harm, Wilson was re-elected. There then followed some difficult manoeuvres - but perhaps not so difficult, after all, to skilful demagogues. The problem was to substitute a new and worse fear for the one that prevailed - a new fear so powerful that it would reconcile the mob to the thought of entering the war. The business was undertaken resolutely on the morning after election day. Thereafter, for three months, every official agency lent a hand. No ship went down to a submarine's torpedo anywhere on the seven seas that the State Department did not report that American citizens - nay, American infants in their mothers' arms -were aboard. Diplomatic note followed diplomatic note, each new one surpassing all its predecessors in moral indignation. The Department of Justice ascribed all fires, floods and industrial accidents to German agents. The newspapers were filled with dreadful surmises, many of them officially inspired, about the probable effects upon the United States of the prospective German victory. It was obvious to every one, even to the mob, that a victorious Germany would unquestionably demand an accounting for the United States' gross violations of neutrality. Thus a choice of fears was set up. The first was a fear of a Germany heavily beset, but making alarming progress against her foes. The second was a fear of a Germany delivered from them, and thirsting for revenge on a false and venal friend. The second fear soon engulfed the first. By the time February came, the mob was reconciled to entering the war - reconciled, but surely not eager. There remained the problem of converting reluctant acquiescence into enthusiasm. It was solved, as always, by manufacturing new fears. The history of the process remains to be written by competent hands: it will be a contribution to the literature of mob psychology of the highest importance. But the main outlines are familiar enough. The whole power of the government was concentrated upon throwing the plain people into a panic. All sense was heaved overboard, and there ensued a chase of bugaboos on a truly epic scale. Nothing like it had ever been seen in the world before, for no democratic state as populous as the United States had ever gone to war before. I pass over the details, and pause only to recall the fact that the American people, by the end of 1917, were in such terror that they lived in what was substantially a state of siege, though the foe was 3,000 miles away and obviously unable to do them any damage. It was only the draft, I believe, that gave them sufficient courage to attempt actual hostilities. That ingenious device, by relieving the overwhelming majority of them of any obligation to take up arms, made them bold. Before it was adopted they were heavily in favour of contributing munitions and money to the cause of democracy, with perhaps a few divisions of Regulars added for the moral effect. But once it became apparent that a given individual, John Doe, would not have to serve, he, John Doe, developed an altruistic eagerness for a frontal attack in force. For every Richard Roe in the conscript camps there were a dozen John Does thus safely at home, with wages high and the show growing enjoyable. So an heroic mood came upon the people, and their fear was concealed by a truculent front. But not from students of mob psychology."
“It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking.” ~ Ron Paul
I like the good docter, but it should be pointed out that the US alone during the 18th century was involved in the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and the various Indian Wars. The Civil War and the various Indian Wars could be thought of as forms of total war. Just think about Sherman's march to the sea and the Trail of Tears. We just didn't have bombers and mustard gas back in those days. And if you go back before US history, raping and pillaging had been a standard feature of (imperialist) war. It's a nasty business with or without central banking.
And that is not in any way a defense of central planning or the Fed, because I dispise them.
The idea that "all wars are banker wars" is simple, elegant, and wrong.
However, it is not entirely wrong, and indeed, the ability to receive interest payments on currency you and you alone can create out of thin air is a truly awesome power - but without guns and gas, it is worthless.
my understanding is that the Age of Total War started when unconditional surrenders became the norm. which, interestingly, leads back to the American Civil War and Sherman
negotiated peace after inconclusive war was much, much more common before that
yet the good doctor has a big point with his phrase: before the age of central banking, you had to accumulate a gold treasury for defense. and when it was spent, you had to sue for peace, often finding a less bellicose opponent at the table with the same problem
I dunno. Rome seems to have gone all out on Carthage. Genghis Kahn was also pretty brutal too. I just don't see the 20th century as having a monopoly on total war. Only the industrial capacity to wage it on a grander scale.
Rome went all out in the third punic war. yet I'm not talking about ancient warfare, I'm talking about the kinder forms that started during the Middle Ages and went on up to WWI. the Dutch, for example, were furious when consensus shifted to include economic embargos to war. hell, we had wars here in the Old World where even farmers did not stop their work just because there was a battle going on in the next field. and this happened in Europe as much as in China or Japan
I don't want to write "America made XXth War different" because it simply would not be true. that America holds WWII as a template for judgement of many things would be much more accurate, yet still debatable