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Guest Post: War Pigs - The Fall Of A Global Empire
Submitted by Jim Quinn from The Burning Platform
War Pigs - The Fall Of A Global Empire
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower
“How far can you go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?” -Dwight D. Eisenhower
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah!
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
As Americans mindlessly celebrate another Memorial Day with cookouts, beer and burgers, the U.S. war machine keeps churning. As we brutally enforce our will on foreign countries, we create more people that hate us. They don’t hate us for our freedom. They hate us because we have invaded and occupied their countries. They hate us because we kill innocent people with predator drones. They hate us for our hypocrisy regarding democracy and freedom. Just when we had the opportunity to make a sensible decision by leaving Iraq and exiting the Middle East quagmire, Obama made the abysmal choice to casually sacrifice more troops in the Afghan shithole. We have thrown over $1.3 trillion down Middle East rat holes over the last 11 years with no discernible benefit to the citizens of the United States. George Bush and Barack Obama did this to prove they were true statesmen. The Soviet Union killed over 1 million Afghans, while driving another 5 million out of the country and retreated as a bankrupted and defeated shell after ten years. Young Americans continue to die, for whom and for what? Our foreign policy during the last eleven years can be summed up in one military term, SNAFU – Situation Normal All Fucked Up. These endless foreign interventions under the guise of a War on Terror are a smoke screen for what is really going on in this country. When a government has unsolvable domestic problems, they try to distract the willfully ignorant masses by proactively creating foreign conflicts based upon false pretenses. General Douglas MacArthur understood this danger to our liberty.
“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.”
Economic Opportunity Cost
“You can’t say civilization don’t advance… in every war they kill you in a new way.” – Will Rogers
Any doubt that the Military Industrial Complex is as strong as ever should be removed after examining Obama’s 2012 Budget which has $900 billion dedicated to our military machine. We spent $370 billion in 2001, $620 billion in 2006, and now this liberal anti-war Democrat from Illinois is spending 45% more than that war monger Bush who was burned in effigy by the anti-war Democrats during Iraq War protests. It seems both parties are war pigs.
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, leaving the United States as the only remaining superpower on earth. Since 1990, the United States has depleted the U.S. Treasury of $11.5 trillion for spending on War. With no military on earth capable of challenging us why would there be a need to spend this much on the military? Over this same time frame the U.S. spent $500 billion on science, space & technology and $70 billion on energy, a mere 6% of the spending on invading sovereign countries. Military expenditures benefit humanity in no way. If these trillions had been invested by the private sector or devoted to energy and scientific research, our economy might not be a hollowed out shell, dependent on China for financing and oil exporting countries for energy. Neo-Cons argue the Arms Industry employs millions and benefits the country. These companies employ brilliant engineers and scientists who spend their days developing weapons that kill people more efficiently. If they had been employed manufacturing high tech goods to export around the world, inventing new technologies that didn’t obliterate human beings, newer safer nuclear power plants, a more efficient electric grid, upgrading our deteriorating infrastructure, or finding a cure for Alzheimer’s, would the United States be better off today?
The National Debt in 1990 was $3.2 trillion. Today, it is $15.7 trillion. This is a 500% increase in twenty-two years. What benefit has $11.5 trillion of spending on War produced for the United States or the world? In 2001, spending on Defense was 17% of total governmental spending. In 2012, Defense, Homeland Security, and war spending account for 25% of government spending. In the meantime, major cities experience blackouts due to an overloaded electrical grid, our 156,000 structurally deficient bridges crumble, one hundred year old water pipes burst under our streets every day, and we transfer over $300 billion per year to foreign countries for our precious oil. The 19 terrorist hijackers who implemented their plan with box cutters, spent less than $500,000 to pull off their 9/11 acts of terror – not war. The United States will directly spend at least $3 trillion on our wars of choice in response, while turning our country into a prison camp and stripping our citizens of their freedoms and liberties for perceived security and safety.
You would think we must be trying to keep up with our enemies by spending $900 billion per year on past and present military adventures. But one look at the following chart reveals the United States is spending almost as much as the rest of the world combined. The two countries considered potential rivals, China and Russia, spent $200 billion combined in 2010. This is 22% of U.S. spending. From a foreign viewpoint, one must wonder why the U.S. is spending such vast sums on our military. They can only conclude that it is for offensive intentions rather than defensive. The United States soil has not been attacked by a foreign power since December 7, 1941. Prior to that surprise attack, a foreign power hadn’t attacked the U.S. since the War of 1812. With this stupendous level of wasteful spending, our leaders feel compelled to interfere in the business of sovereign states and dictate how they should govern their nations . When you have an enormous hammer, every country looks like a nail.
Laughably, the neo-con hawks and Fox News pundits declare that our military is a hollow shell and needs much greater funding to insure our safety from attack by our many enemies. Other countries, such as China and Russia, feel they have no choice but to increase their expenditures on the military. On a percentage basis, they have more than doubled their expenditures in the last ten years, and still are a drop in the ocean compared to American Empire spending. The fact is that the U.S., China and Russia all have enough nuclear weapons to obliterate the world – mutually assured destruction. The United States could realistically protect itself from attack with only the 18 ballistic missile nuclear submarines we have in commission.
When did Americans lose their ability to distinguish between intellectual and moral pygmies like George Bush, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney versus statesmen like Dwight D. Eisenhower? The Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war when our country was not threatened has proven to be financially and diplomatically disastrous and his blueprint is being followed by our Nobel Peace Prize President in his saber rattling with Iran. Following this policy puts them in fine company.
“Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower
The U.S. borrowed $807 billion from China, Japan and oil exporting countries to wage a war in Iraq that was based on false pretenses. None of the terrorist hijackers on 9/11 were Iraqis, they had no links to Al Qaeda, and Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Historian Barbara Tuchman description of “war as the unfolding of miscalculations” was never so fitting. In 2002, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld estimated the costs of the war in the range of $50 to $60 billion, a portion of which he believed would be financed by other countries. The United States invaded Iraq to secure the 115 billion barrels of oil reserves, pure and simple. We traded the blood of young Americans for oil because we chose to not develop a cohesive logical energy policy in the last 30 years. Americans, not in the military, sacrificed nothing in the last 11 years of war. We bought BMW SUVs, 6,000 square foot McMansions, flat screen HDTVs, iPads, iPhones and Rolexes while less than 1% of Americans fought and died, with the cost passed to future unborn generations. We are a country of chickenhawks, willing to sacrifice the few so the ruling class can comfortably relax on their decks sipping wine, believing Fox News propaganda about terrorists lurking behind every bush, and filling up their Mercedes convertibles for their excursions to the summer cottage in the Hamptons.
“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.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
As we spend $900 billion per year on instruments of destruction, 49 million Americans live in poverty, with 46 million on food stamps. There are 3 to 4 million people homeless in any given year. Military Veterans, who make up 13% of the population, account for 23% of the homeless. This is another example of Federal government politicians using young Americans to fulfill their agenda and then tossing them away like pieces of garbage. With the country supposedly three years into an economic recovery, tent cities of homeless dot the landscape across the nation. We pour billions into killing technology while millions of American families are forced to live in tents or sleep in their cars.
As the world spends $1.7 trillion per year on new methods of killing, millions die the old fashioned way.
- 13 million people per year die from starvation in the world.
- The FAO says that 925 million people worldwide are undernourished.
- For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years.
- One child dies every 5 seconds as a result of hunger – 700 every hour – 16 000 each day – 6 million each year – 60% of all child deaths (2002-2008 estimates)
What kind of a civilized society allocates 44% of the taxes taken from its people to war? Only 2.5% of your taxes go to science, energy, and environment. Only 2.2% of your taxes go to education and jobs. You produce the results that you would expect from your investments. A full 13% of our population doesn’t have a high school diploma (20% of African Americans & 43% of Latinos) and only 30% have a college degree. How do we expect to lead the world in technology and research with these figures? We do lead the world in government issued student loan debt with $1 trillion and rising.
Human Cost
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait till their judgment day comes, yeah!
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Barack Obama are cowardly politicians who never had the “pleasure” of coming under fire in battle. The brilliant anti-war novel Catch-22 describes these men perfectly.
“Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three.”
The world has been a huge game of Risk for these warmongers, with young Americans as the game pieces. Instead of conquering Kamchatka in a board game, these non-veterans sent 6,470 Americans to their deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan for a false cause. Their ideology of empire convinced them they could change the world into their image of how it should be, and their re-election campaigns were funded with millions from the purveyors of death – the arms industry.
“In modern war… you will die like a dog for no good reason.” – Ernest Hemingway
Another 47,545 Americans have been badly wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan. Three of these despicable politicians have written their memoirs, raking in millions for telling lies and half-truths. The 6,470 dead Americans won’t have a chance to write their memoirs or get rich. They will never get a chance to see their kids’ graduate college or walk their daughter down the aisle at her wedding. Their children will grow up with a giant hole in their hearts. Their widows will never recover from their endless heartache.
Politician chickenhawks who send our young people to their deaths for oil and ideology will receive their reward on judgment day if there is a just God.
As National Guard troops have been deployed over and over again to Iraq and Afghanistan, they must realize that Catch-22 is alive and well in today’s military.
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.”
”That’s some catch, that catch-22,” he observed.
”It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed
American soldiers, who have completed their duty to country, have been lied to and had the rules of the game changed again and again. Their politician leaders have reneged on their promises by sending men and women back to the war zone or not letting them come home on the timeline that was agreed to. Meanwhile, their families have gone bankrupt, lost their houses, and saw their marriages dissolve. Politicians started these wars and are too cowardly and prideful to accept failure.
“The military don’t start wars. Politicians start wars.” – General William Westmoreland
Over 1,300 more Americans died needlessly when Barack Obama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, chose to double down in Afghanistan to prove he was as tough as Bush and McCain. Another man who has never been under fire needed to prove his manliness to his opponents and his constituency. He should have studied the words of former Presidents who were under fire.
“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
“My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.” - George Washington
President Obama follows the standard Presidential game plan and dutifully gives patriotic speeches at military bases proclaiming the bravery and sacrifice of our troops. These are the words of politicians. The brutal reality for troops is much different. Representative Ron Paul in November 2003 described the early mistreatment of our soldiers:
- Fort Stewart, Georgia housed hundreds of injured reserve and National Guard soldiers in deplorable conditions who were forced to wait months just to see a doctor. These soldiers made huge sacrifices, leaving their families and jobs to fight in Iraq. They found themselves living in hot, crowded, unsanitary barracks and waiting far too long to see overworked doctors. This was hardly the heroes’ welcome they might have expected. Only an exposé in a major newspaper brought attention to their plight, prompting an embarrassed Defense department to rush additional doctors to the base.
- Some wounded soldiers convalescing at Walter Reed hospital in Washington were forced to pay for hospital meals from their own pockets. Other soldiers returning stateside for a two-week liberty had to buy their own airfare home from the east coast. Still others paid for desert boots, night vision goggles, and other military necessities with personal funds.
- Existing federal rules forced disabled veterans to give up their military retirement pay in order to receive VA disability benefits. This meant that every VA disability dollar paid to a veteran was deducted from his retirement pay, effectively creating a “disabled veterans tax.” No other group of federal employees is subject to this unfair standard; in every other case disability pay is viewed as distinct from standard retirement pay.
The Humvees that soldiers were forced to drive did not have enough protective armor. In December 2004, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was giving one of his usual inspirational speeches when Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team, a unit that consisted mainly of reservists from the Tennessee Army National Guard asked him a question:
“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?”
This set off what the AP described as “a big cheer” from his comrades in arms. Rumsfeld paused, asked Wilson to repeat the question, then finally replied, “You go to war with the army you have.” Besides, he added, “You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can be blown up.” I’m glad Donald Rumsfeld has a clear conscience. History will not be kind to this despicable excuse for a human being.
Rumsfeld also sent Americans into battle without protective body armor. Only after bad publicity did the proper protection reach the troops. The blood of dead soldiers is on Rumsfeld’s hands. While President Bush sacrificed by not golfing, terribly wounded soldiers were sent to Walter Reed Hospital to recover. Instead they entered hell on earth. Outpatient mistreatment was reported in 2004, but nothing was done. In 2004 and 2005, articles appeared in the Washington Post and in Salon interviewing First Lt. Julian Goodrum about his court martial for seeking medical care elsewhere due to poor conditions at WRAMC. A Washington Post expose in 2007 finally revealed the horrible mistreatment of our brave wounded soldiers. These reporters uncovered the following conditions:
- WRAMC’s Building 18 was described in the article as rat- and cockroach-infested, with stained carpets, cheap mattresses, and black mold, with no heat and water reported by some soldiers at the facility. The unmonitored entrance created security problems, including reports of drug dealers in front of the facility. Injured soldiers stated they are forced to “pull guard duty” to obtain a level of security.
- The typical soldier was required to file 22 documents with eight different commands – most of them off-post – to enter and exit the medical processing world, according to government investigators. Sixteen different information systems were used to process the forms, but few of them could communicate with one another. This complicated system has required some soldiers to prove they were in the Iraq War or the War in Afghanistan in order to obtain medical treatment and benefits because Walter Reed employees were unable to locate their records.
There was a tremendous surge in suicides by soldiers who have been pushed beyond their limits as they increased by 80% between 2004 and 2008. There are almost as many deaths by suicide as deaths in combat:
- Overall, the services reported 434 suicides by personnel on active duty, significantly more than the 381 suicides by active-duty personnel reported in 2009. The 2010 total is below the 462 deaths in combat, excluding accidents and illness. In 2009, active-duty suicides exceeded deaths in battle.
- Soldiers returning from long tours in Iraq or Afghanistan suffering from combat stress were sometimes met with scorn from their superiors and something bordering on neglect from some medical officials. As their largely untreated problems deteriorated, their marriages unraveled under the strain. They turned to alcohol and drugs and in some cases saw no other way out than suicide.
- Healthcare officials at various installations who are struggling to help say they’re overwhelmed by huge numbers of troops returning from two, three or even four deployments with acute mental problems from combat.
- Statistics on Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, obtained in 2011 through a Freedom of Information Act request by a San Francisco newspaper, found that more than 2,200 soldiers died within two years of leaving the service, and about half had been undergoing treatment for post-traumatic stress or other combat-induced mental disorders at the time.
- For five years, beginning in 2005, a service member died by suicide every 36 hours, according to the report by the Center for New American Security.
Nearly 20% of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan — 300,000 in all — report symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment, according to a RAND Corporation report. Many service members said they do not seek treatment for psychological illnesses because they fear it will harm their careers. But even among those who do seek help for PTSD or major depression, only about half receive treatment that researchers consider “minimally adequate” for their illnesses. Recent studies expect PTSD to affect 30% of all returning veterans.
For all the glory and accolades of dying for chickenhawks like Dick Cheney, enlisted soldiers make between $17,000 and $32,000 per year. The military evidently does not prepare them well for the outside world as their unemployment rate is 12.1% versus the national rate of 8.2%. The pandering Obama gives speeches and the criminal bankers at JP Morgan have their PR maggots create TV commercials about hiring veterans, but the numbers don’t lie. A country can be measured by how well it treats its veterans. Our leaders talk a good game, but their actions prove they don’t care about the human costs of war. They are busy planning their next move in their game of Risk.
Moral Cost
Now in darkness, world stops turning
As the war machine keeps burning
No more war pigs of the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of Judgment, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings
All right now!
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
Omar Bradley, the last five star General in the U.S. military, was known as the “soldier’s general” during World War II. He was portrayed by Karl Malden in the movie Patton as a thoughtful man who cared about his troops. He was one of the key architects of the Normandy invasion and led the 12th Army Group consisting of 900,000 men until the end of the war. After the war, Bradley headed the Veterans Administration for two years. He is credited with doing much to improve its health care system and with helping veterans receive their educational benefits under the G.I. Bill of Rights. He ultimately rose to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Contrast the words of the fictional Colonel Kilgore from the movie Apocalypse Now, with the words of General Bradley:
Kilgore: I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinkin’ dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like
[ sniffing, pondering ]
victory. Someday this war’s gonna end…
[ suddenly walks off ]
“The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.” - Omar Bradley
We need giants like Omar Bradley and Dwight D. Eisenhower to lead our country through the difficult times ahead. These men knew the horrors of war and didn’t act like it was a game of chess. Instead we will be led by intellectual and ethical infants, Obama or Romney. There are no wise men with a conscience and high moral standards in power today. Only those with no conscience and a willingness to lie are able to gain power in today’s world. General Bradley understood that morality was ultimately more important than power and strength in determining the progress of a country. His words are those of someone who knew we had failed in our moral duty:
“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.”
Peacemakers are ridiculed and shunned in America today. Those who preach diplomacy and non-interventionism, like Ron Paul, are scorned and ignored. Old men who care more about their own power than the human race are willing to sacrifice the blood of young people for precious oil, phony nationalism, their own strategic interests or corporate interests disguised as philosophical agendas. The world is a game for these old men. They care about their personal legacy and rigid ideologies. War and militarism are a failure of passion over reason. Albert Einstein, whose discovery brought about this age of potential world destruction, had no love for these blind warriors.
“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.”
The overwhelming cost of maintaining a global empire eventually bankrupted Rome and Great Britain. Treasures were wasted, young men were needlessly sacrificed in the name of the flag, and the morality of leaders sank to unprecedented levels. The U.S. had advanced financially and technologically for more than a century, but since the takeover of our economic system by private banking and corporate interests in 1913 we have seen continuous war, continuous currency debasement, and continuous moral decay. How far will we decline before a sufficient number of Americans are outraged enough to lead a new American Revolution?
Our current situation reminds me of the movie Planet of the Apes. The apes are divided into a strict class system: the gorillas as police, military, and hunters; the orangutans as administrators, politicians and lawyers; and the chimpanzees as intellectuals and scientists. Humans, who cannot talk, are considered feral vermin and are hunted and used for scientific experimentation. The United States is now in the control of gorillas and orangutans. If we continue down the current path of financial and moral decay, allowing the Military Industrial Complex, criminal bankers and corrupt politicians to push us into further world conflicts, we will experience the shock and horror that George Taylor, played by Charlton Heston, displayed in the final scene of Planet of the Apes .
George Taylor: Oh my God. I’m back. I’m home. All the time, it was… We finally really did it.
[ screaming ]
You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
The War Pigs must be stopped before it’s too late. The Military Industrial Complex, with the unwavering support of central bankers printing unlimited amounts of fiat currency, while controlling the scoundrel puppets in Washington DC, will destroy this country in their never ending quest for power and profits. One man fights a lonely battle against these forces of oppression. We must join his legion and take this country back from the war pigs.
“As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined.” – Ron Paul
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This is your brain on drugs.
Neither you nor Augustus make any sense.
I hope for your own sake, you aren't trying to.
@all
"The United States invaded Iraq to secure the 115 billion barrels of oil reserves, pure and simple. We traded the blood of young Americans for oil because we chose to not develop a cohesive logical energy policy in the last 30 years. Americans, not in the military, sacrificed nothing in the last 11 years of war. We bought BMW SUVs, 6,000 square foot McMansions, flat screen HDTVs, iPads, iPhones and Rolexes while less than 1% of Americans fought and died, with the cost passed to future unborn generations. We are a country of chickenhawks, willing to sacrifice the few so the ruling class can comfortably relax on their decks sipping wine, believing Fox News propaganda about terrorists lurking behind every bush, and filling up their Mercedes convertibles for their excursions to the summer cottage in the Hamptons."
We ate a great meal
Now the bill is due
Good luck, MF's om
Greater nonsense has never been better written. Congratulation on constructing the excellent lie.
There was no need to have a war to access oil in Iraq. The United States was purchasing some of it every day. All of it was for sale, no war necessary. Only a facist totalitarian would follow the path you suggest. Note well that, as the US is reducing the forces in Iraq, that many countries are purchasing the oil. The outcome now proves that your analysis was incorrect from the beginning and false at the ending.
Quinn's just bitter because the only platform that's burning is his.
Oil is just a semi-valid excuse for invading Iraq. As poster noted above, the only thing Saddam wanted to do was sell oil and invade some of his weaker neighbors. Can't see why we objected when recent Saudi tanks rolling into Bahrain was cool-beans and no problemo?
The only feasible reason for invading Iraq was to destroy and leave in broken shambles, a Saddam led secular Arab state that might conceivably post a future threat to our masters. Can't have that, thus -- Invade, kill, destroy: Mission Accomplished. (and actually it was)
Reserve currency problem.
Saddam remarked out loud that he might consider trading crude in some other currency that the USD. He suggested that the euro might work.
Three weeks later, Iraq was invaded.
The same goes for Libya, Gaddafi planned for pricing oil in a gold backed currency "gold dinars" And Iran has also been planing on pricing oil in gold or other bilateral trades.
From Phillip Weiss June 5, 2011:
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/06/neoconservative-david-brooks-admits-that-i...
Basically what I said in my post. The Saddam oil for dollars thing is semi-valid, but if the fool didn't like dollars he could have shut his yap, sold his oil for dollars then bought euros or gold.
He would have still been invaded, Likewise Q-Daf
Our masters must be served Sheople, and slavery is forever, and our children's forever.
Now that is the sort of thing that pisses me off.
"We ate a great meal
Now the bill is due
Good luck, MF's"
No, oldman, you ate a great meal, and all you left for those of us who came after was a plate full of shit sandwiches. Be glad you had your time, but keep your filthy mouth shut about it. I was only 22 when TPTB decided to steal our country with 9/11, and I'm not paying your bill.
doop
And NATO has killed at least 50,000 people in Libya.
Ans what response do you think the US govt would have if domestic terroroats, I mean freedom fighters, were attacking ?
To be fair, the Syrian government is blowing the crap out of armed rebels who are attempting to violently overthrow it. Any government in the world could be forgiven that transgression in similar circumstances. I hate looking at pieces of human body parts, and this might seem disproportionate, but I have a hard time watching shouting protestors get billy-clubbed and pepper sprayed for shouting and not giving ground in a society where freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are supposed to be Constitutionally protected rights, yet this is what we keep seeing ... when the MSM isn't too busy showing us body parts and destroyed buildings in Syria or, better still, telling us about John Edward's bad hair days.
Whether Western civilization can survive its own mass media remains to be seen.
Bill Clinton, the guy who brought us not only NAFTA and the elimination of Glass Steagall, but something every bit as important to the destruction of essential democratic institutions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
The funniest thing is the underlying support for totalitarian government.
To put it simply, I heard the same stupid ass shit from the most violent people on earth in defense of banning freedom of expression. Weird, because they don't have MTV, violent video games or liberal gun laws.
Not to go too far off tangent but same sort of ridiculous hysteria dictated violent crime would geometrically increase in the US with record gun and ammo sales, and poor economy, lliberalising of gun laws, reduction in police forces-blah, blah, blah,
meanwhile violent crime has done nothing but go down.
where do you live? from what I have heard, the only reason violent crime has gone down is police force cuts and underreporting. Here is a story about New York's underreporting, I know Chicago has the same problem:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/nyregion/nypd-leaves-offenses-unrecorded-to-keep-crime-rates-down.html?pagewanted=all
How do they underreport homicides? Pretend bodies don't exist?
The earth is not flat, violent crime in the US was supposed to go up exponentially according to the know nothings around here and instead it is down,
just the opposite.
To believe there is some massive underreporting is to believe that the beaurocrat has completey abandoned fear mongering for funds or the basic MO. It is laughable regardless as the liberal scumbags desperately try and cling to the wrong output of their deity like social science folks,
it is what it is. Violent crime is down despite the perpetual and never ending predictions to the contrary.
Homicides are under-reported because the police not calling them homicides. They are called "died of natural causes", "suicides", "accidental death" or if the Feds are involved, the local police just don't investigate. Just because there's a body doesn't mean it's a homicide. Example: Vince Foster, the guy that comitted suicide and then wiped his fingerprints off the gun so the police wouldn't know he was the one that killed himself.
Excellent point, afterall Islam executes people all the time but since free press is illegal they are characterized as merely missing.
The problem with that is, it's hard to claim natural causes or suicide when have families chasing after answers and one is not a corrupted federal official.
Otherwise excellent point, people being murdered left and right going as suicides.
Mate i got giant sized photos and mass rallies every month, cameras every twenty feet, gunships on the Thames all protecting people who are out to make my life harder while stealing as much as they can. How many fucking cameras' giant murals and sound cannons dot hey have set up in Pyongyang right now? I'm in London.
What did the Feds do In Waco Texas? What did the British due to put down the Irish Republican army. marines went into Falluajh? Assad and Gaddafi are no different from the people we have in power now. Its just Assad and Gaddafi can't hurt us and the people that can are telling us we need to apy to get them out.
As an adultering lesbian muslim female author I beg to differ greatly.
Afterall one who denies that smart bombs and missiles exist of course if going to deny any substantive threat exists,
that's the whole goal.
Oppressive, intolerant Islam follow the same identical path as Dolph and pretend again there's no threat in Europe's backyard,
no not at all.
oh FFS, is there ANY need for you dudes to be SO ridiculous in your descriptives when trolling?
no. you. are. NOT.
you're over-posting on ZH, that's all, nothing more, most likely less.
He's just got his panties in a bunch because people here don't willingly accept his "izzie first, Muslims are teh eeeevill" claptrap.
argh.
this thread is so full of ridiculous that I wish I'd never bothered. . .
That is the point of the troll, annoy the real posters into reducing or ceasing their legitimate participation.
The key is, ignore the comment, the troll goes away when ignored, it is the only weapon the paid shill can be defeted with. The shill will return with another avatar and must be ignored. Shill boi will never quit, you must be stronger.
Not to mention the chaotic physical disorganization of the thread they produce in this format. The goal is certainly clear.
aye, you, and Bob below, are right - and mostly I just scroll by the trollish ones - but it DOES interfere with the flow of the thread, as you both note.
and I also realise were replies to be threaded under relevant comment, most would scroll past "arguments" they're not interested in, which would surely include mine as a "minority" voice here - heh - so I've no better solutions to hand!
thanks guys, truly.
Since US turned into a police state every potential criminal is already in jail.
Make that every potential blue collar criminal and I'll agree. The focus upon "property crime", drug crime and violent crime (except in service of the corporate government) is awfully convenient for the master criminals.
what the fuck are you talking about?!?
James just ignore him. He is AnAnon's cohort and as we can tell neither have read anything about history. I do believe Genghis Khan was the first to use total warfare. That would not do for them though as that was accomplished before the USA was discovered or formed. Back then just us native's running wild.
Clauswitz did indeed state, War was the last trick in a politicans book.
Sun Tzu wrote his book on warfare long berfore the USA was formed as well.
Sun Tzu also wrote that dictating venue was advantageous and yet you people would rather kick back and play the backboard.
Go fucking figure.
and guess what? Those natives were warring, absent a banking system and the USA,
the natives used to war against each other, it's incredible to me,
afterall, I thought the US invented war.
Jews were doing total warfare long before Genghis was born.
When the PALS launch missiles from your living room is that considered total war?
Next time just post you hate joos, it is so MUCH simpler.
Since you seem to be so obsessed with Moslems, why don't you some in-depth studying of the suicide-bomber techniques and protocol? And do it in your country not over here. TIA
It' amazing how they achieved total domination of the levers of power in the world and yet were nearly exterminated. Don't you have another bogeyman you can trot out?
General Sherman.
Total war.
What are you talking about? If anything, the tolerance for collateral damage is at an all-time low! Are there aren't more accidents, either. You are just hearing about more of them because of improvements in communications technology (aka the Internet). Are you sure accident rates are increasing?
Lotsa profits in machinery.
Or the other way around:
A father mourning his son (killed in afghanistan in 2009): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu1CgQKNVz0&feature=plcp
Its sickening to me how proud this father is that his son died for a "good cause"... not a single word of anger against the absurdity of war comes out of this fathers mouth...
Additionaly... check out how much this father cheered when he recieved message about the death of bin laden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTYqwkTrOFY
...and he is ooooh so proud!!!
when you understand how some people have children in order to "fix" their own childhood memories, by firm-hand-guiding their offspring to do what they as parents never did when children, little "mini me" tykes all dressed up and ready to go. . .
then that "proud father" - who is alive, advertising his patriotism and "sacrifice" for attention, while his child is dead - will begin to make more sense. . .
all those mantlepiece portraits, framed uniformed pictures on the walls, and yellow plastic ribbons on trees, decals on cars, all the fucking advertising that goes into "proud parenting" of "soldiers" - this needs to be corrected, sharpish.
enough with the parading of death.
Bullseye.
It's ignorance and patriotic fervor. Look, a lot of the kids dying over there want to be there because what they came from is worse and it isn't like they had that much to offer the rest of society. It is a tragedy, but the tragedy began long before the kid died in some far off shithole.
Those flag are made in China too
Oh an don't forget... They hate us so bad they choose to over-run the nation with illegals. 30,000 aday enter the system.
not as likely to get killed in the wars the u.s. wages if they just stay out of the military.
the drug wars have killed about as many mexicans as the vietnam war killed u.s. citizens. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/world/americas/mexico-updates-drug-war...
that's got to help some decide.
<<They hate us so bad they choose to over-run the nation with illegals. >>
Those "illegals", that TPTB refuse to prosecute as such, are rustled sheep. When one lord provides and shows his neighboring lord's sheep holes in the border fence and entices those sheep with greener grass and the neighbor's sheep take the bait, that is rustling, i.e. stealing the neighboring lord's sheep/slaves. They are not freed, they are merely made part of the other lord's flock. They are only "illegals' to the other sheep who must then share the pasture.
The other sheep are just as stupid as the local sheep. They only believe what they are told by TPTB. You appear to be one of those stupid local sheep that believe what he is told by the media pundits and politicians.
EXCELLENT post FeralSerf.
nation states are fictions that those who play the global finance game have created in your mind - the invisible boundaries are shifted any time they like, as historical maps prove.
getting the flocks to identify with the proffered "history" stories, pure f'ng genius - wave the flag, BBQ the meat, wipe a tear at the parade, drink a beer.
Truman Show, every day. . . wake up.
+1 and +1. Most sage.
as I know you know - for anything in the world to be changed, first it must be the mind.
People, like Jim Quinn here, who make statements like the US is less than 5% of the world's population but makes up half of the world's defense budget do not understand the geo-politics of oil.
Do you understand that without our miltary bases in the middle east and aircraft carriers patrolling the world, oil would NOT flow freely? How would you haul your fat ass around town in a Hummer without middle eastern oil, Mr Jim Quinn? You think your car runs on freedom and democracy?
No, the world runs on oil. And for oil to flow to the US we have to be the world's policeman.
Peak Oil is also the reason why our military will one day make sure that Saudi Arabian crude flow ONLY to the United States. Deal with it. If you want to balance the budget you should be advocating getting rid of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.
you are not Goerge Orwell, you are everything he despised. You should be disposed off down an oil well, with your Saudi buddy attached to you.
and if it were for oil what would our policy toward israel be, hmmm?
hint: there wouldn't have been any israel in 1948 or ever.
The oil wouldn't flow without America, World Police. That is funny. So true; all those people sitting on top of oil would just not sell it, they would just hoard it and be poor. Right.
The truth is that America would have to compete more openly for the oil, there would be less in America and it would cost more, but the oil would still flow. People love money, with or without America to police them.
Funny how reality completely defies that notion isn't it?
Afterall the oil has been there for millions of years while the US has only been around for 200+.
People are hysterical, without oil the middle east economy is the size of a lemonade stand.
Yet somehow they love money afterall, they taking in more than any single Islam could have ever dreamed of in 1900 and they have largely lost the human race to the former eastern bloc, parts of southeast asia and central america-
but if the US wasn't involved, it would just be a minor inconvience.
I'm saying if America were to stop policing the world tomorrow, the oil would still be produced.
I'm not hypothesizing about an alternative universe in which the United States of America never existed.
Standard Oil did just fine in the pre-American Superpower days.
Exactly. The pretense that Muslim Oil wouldn't be good oil is completely absurd.
You know I swore I wasn't going to be sober and thoughtful today... but I have to respond here:
Yes, it can be a bit counter-intuative - but free international trade in precious commodities does depend on the existence of a global hegemon; one who is at least benevolent enough to avoid simply expropriating everything for its own use.
Rome used to be such a hegemon. Trade flowed in a giant swath of the West and near East, from Britain, the maghreb, Iberia, Asia minor... when the crisis of the second century came, walls went up around towns and self sufficiency became the aspiration. The "middle ages" and the manor economy started well before the last western Emperor.
Real anti-globalists understand this; they know that global trade requires a global hegemon, and they oppose both. My views differ, but I grant them consistency: they want an end to US global hegemony and an end to global trade.
So to return to your point: why would other countries leave their oil in the ground? Because there would be no opportunity to sell it, only to have it stolen.
"you are not Goerge Orwell, you are everything he despised. You should be disposed off down an oil well, with your Saudi buddy attached to you."
My understanding is that Orwell wrote 1984 to advocate totalitarianism. Yes- we may find it horrible, but to Orwell, that was utopia. I missed that on the first read, myself. It's in the preface to the copy I have.
Right. We sure are reaping the benfits of that Korean and Vietnamese oil...
THe funny thing is the denial.
The US hasn't increased it's geographic borders in how long?
The wikileaks leak contained thousands and thousands of documents detailing the purposes of US forces abroad-
are they there for colonization purposes? The troops in Bahrain, are they there to colonialize Bahrain or to protect the Straits of Bahrain-it's very, very tough to figure it out especially since it is in black and white thousands and thousands of times over.
The inclusion of Hawai?
And Fuck the people of Bahrain, there's no cost too high for them to pay for our oil. The government massacres their citizens in the streets and gives doctors life sentences for treating injured protestors shot by government forces, but that's all well and good so long as Pig Fucker America can take by violence what it can't pay for with work.
"The US hasn't increased it's geographic borders in how long?"
The people behind the wars care not one bit about American borders. Many are not American. These are private interests running the American war machine for their benefit and no one's else's, least of all the American people. We invaded Iraq so private interests could control more oil. Oil became more expensive, and the oligarchs got to control more of it. Saddam did not allow the majors to drill Iraq's oil. Now they are all over the country like flies on shit. Mission Accomplished, asshole.
After reading this, I am in full support of Death by Stoning.
I blame the internet.....
the world policeman before this one was just slightly more conscious about costs, though
100 years of gold standard, budgets surpluses and paying back the immense sums spent to fight Napoleon (from 180% to 60% of GDP)
say what you want, this world policeman is a tad wasteful compared to every other empire that ever existed since the mighty Mongol Khanate
We don't need to import oil, we need our country to live within the resources it has and only import in a balanced trade senario. We need the people of this country to stop being so selfish and work together as a human race.
We need our unemployed to build a reliable transit system that allows freedom of exploration within our borders without breaking the bank.
We cannot take care of the world when we aren't getting it right here at home.
Freedom of Exploration? Go tell that to Obama and his environmentalist friends. Why does Obama oppose the Keystone pipe line? Why is Obama continuing to fund Solar companies that go belly up shortly after they get their funding? I agree we need to do more drilling on our own shores and not let the environmental nuts have their way.
Why should we build a pipeline so Canada can get their oil to port? As it is, they are forced to sell to us at a discount right now.
Anytime somebody complains about the Keystone pipeline they are advertising their ignorance of oil politics.
And btw, there are very few restrictions on where oil can be drilled-and most of them are local. The country has been drilled more than a Kardashian sister.
Whatever the Canadian discount, the calculation is that it is less than the transportation discount for building the infrastructure to their coast and then ship to the product to Asia. A locally surplus commodity located far from the point of much higher usefulness will always sell at a discount.
For sure, because most of the free world being dead broke, having already curtailed military spending and with higher taxtion isn't really epic fail it is a roadmap to the US' future.
No doubt, especially since the US DoD budget is 1/3rd for veterans healthcare and pensions,
while your avg liberal social shithole that has completely decimated their militaries include that expense in general welfare.
And how did healthcare and pensions for veterans become such a large budget item? Could it be due to getting lots of people wounded fighting wars all the time?
Once you have nuclear weapons, how much military do you really need for DEFENSE? When is the last time someone tried to invade America? Are you really worried that Cubans will sieze Colorado?
Yes, all of Western Civilization, including America, is broke due to promising so much to the Boomers, and not charging them enough for it, and due to planning on 7 percent compounding growth annually forever. America spends nearly twice as much per person on healthcare as "your average liberal social shithole"; is the quality of service twice as good? Do Americans live twice as long?
I guess when all of these other people who love money start actually producing something that moves the human race forward, I'll know.
Till then,
90% of one's healthcare is spent in the last nine months of their lives,
and it isn't close, people not moving to liberal social shithole land for end of life medical care in anyone's lifetime around here.
So Medicare and the Military-Industrial Complex is responsible for Edison, Tesla, Ford, Einstein, IBM, Intel, Google, Apple, all of it? Good to know.
Are you trying to say that people move from Europe to America at the end of their life?
"90% of one's healthcare is spent in the last nine months of their lives"; So show us how you do it. Gun to head, rope, jump from a tall building, pills? The journey begins with a single step. Make yourself an example. Or except the fact that this is how life ends for most.
Well, Mexico has already seized California and large parts of Texas.
recovered? a string of missions up the Cali coast says "they" were here long before. . .
typical ignorant neocon rationalization- where'd you get that one from? Rush? hannity? Michael savage? Levin? Foxnews? All of the above?
Go back to globalist fascists parrot.
What is a neo con parrot?
Someone who grows the government beyond all belief and creates huge central governance like No Child Left Behind? Cause that sounds like a liberal scumbag to me.
Do you actually know what any of these words mean? Cause it sure doesn't seem like it.
Which rationalization that doesn't exist did I get from entities who I could careless whether they existed or not?
The one that is a fact, that 1/3rd of the DoD is welfare and not military?
or the one that other nations don't count it as military spending?
or maybe it was the one, where any old fucking moron can look around and see the once most prosperous places on earth dead fucking broke with little military spending?
Do they have a military in New Jersey or Chicago for that matter?
How broke is most of Europe? Well they already went with your failed plan of cutting military and raising taxes.
I want to be as stupid as you, that is my goal in life. This way I too can pretend.
When you run a business of extorting the weak, farming the poor, giving up on the military is not an option.
As oil extraction is plateauing, monitoring the consumption of the US military will show that US citizens are ready to sacrifice to keep up the military machine.
Holy crap, a clear, understandable post with an actual point to it. Keep up the good work, and keep doing whatever it is you do when you write coherently.
No shit.
I gave him an up arrow on this one. I suspect this was one of those "momentarily touching reality at a tangent point" times on the Möbius strip track that his tilt-a-whirl of delirium follows.
No doubt he'll soon be back to his normal "Confucius was a US citizen" insanitation.
Damn it, that was fucking funny!
You are truly the Van Helsing of Chinese Citizenism trolling monsters.
aye, you and the Fourth have been quite the troll patrol here, and sometimes your posts hit peak crazyfunny - have you noticed that AnAny's strict "voice" has dropped a couple of times of late, and hits it out of the park? he definitely makes some interesting points at times.
*wink*
I can't say that I have noticed any trend of momentary quasi-rationality in AnAn's posts lately, but I haven't been around ZH much lately either --- I've been working overtime traveling in my time machine back to 16th century Easter Island, making sure that the islanders blob-up all their resources by cutting down every tree, and infecting them with ideas of consumerism and the gas-guzzling automobile culture, which in any event they will not be able to indulge for another five centuries in their time continuum. But you know, a US citizen's work is never done.
awwwww akak - it's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it!!
Faith No More - We Care A Lot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1g9PFtSCKw
(take. . . care)
And know we know why they made those giant heads- attracting tourist dollars.
Good work, agent akak.
i dont want to troll this shit with you because you are an ignorant fuck cake.
you put George Orwells name in shame by using it as a handle.
but one last thing, if what you are saying is true, how come the revenues from oil is not covering the budget deficit and the military expenditures?
you remind me of Paul Wolfowitz who said that the Iraq operation will generate oil revenues worth $2Trillion! How come the Iraq War costs something like $4trillion?!
PS: Whenever the US goes into war and kill "The Infidels" guess what the Chinese do to gain the oil contracts
"They Ask"
this is the reversal of fortune, and JQ is Boss.............
Well, there's plenty of carbon fuel in this country. With a bit more freedom, say eliminating the EPA and shrinking the central government's onerious regulating authority, the continental United States becomes the Saudi Arabia of the 21st century.
.
Everyone wants the USA to stop being a superpower, but no one has a plan for the power vacuum that would ensue. We get it guys, the cost in blood and treasure is too high and we need to stop. So, what's the plan?
I think you are looking at it bass ackwards. Why does the world need a superpower? Do you really believe the entire world will collapse into anarchy, a la Somalia, without a superpower to force everyone into compliance?
No one cares about the number of angels on the head of a pin. We have a superpower, it's the USA, people here have stated they don't want the USA to play that role anymore, so fine and well what's the plan to back the USA out of that role?
Quit changing the subject and answer the question.
Shut down the insanely wa$teful military and distribute the weaponry among ZH posters with screenames starting with the letter "P"
Problem solved. Do you have any further questions sir?
I didn't change the subject, I replied to your question of "what happens with the power vacuum".
How to get out of the role of superpower?
I would say start by turning the overseas bases over to the locals: the bases in Japan to the Japanese, Korea to the Koreans, Germany to the Germans, etc.
In a world with nuclear deterence, I do not believe the massive land wars and outright invasions of the past will continue (except those countries that do not have nuclear weapons and fail to ally themselves with a nuclear power).
You don't have to lay-off all the soldiers all at once; you can just bring them home, so at least they cost a fraction as much as they do when they are posted all over the planet.
Wind down Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. The hard part will be doing an about-face on the Iran situation and just chilling out, since the whole Hormuz thing has become a much larger problem than it ever needed to be.
Maybe cut down from 10,000 nukes to only 1000, and get rid of all the chemical and bio weapons that there will never be the political will to use anyways.
Permanent storage of nuclear waste is tied in, since there is a massive amount of waste from nuclear subs somewhere in Washington or Oregon.
Start cutting back on new defense R&D, and check to see if any existing contracts can be cut without massive penalties that cost more than the program. The F-35s look like a massive waste of money from what I can tell.
As far as insuring stability, there should be some sort of international law enforcement that actually has issues like piracy (the real kind with guns and boats not computers) and issues like that under its jurisdiction.
Thanks, Matt. As opposed to the other mouth breathers that did a reflex -1 on me, at least you came up with a plan. I don't believe we need to have our fingers in every pie, either. Saying you want something done vs. actually doing it and living with the consequences are two different things. Something the 'greenhouse prepper' crowd here doesn't seem to understand.
I think having enough defense in place for promoting security of our borders and peaceful commerce is plenty. Anything after that is pure empire building. For my part, I think Western Europe needs to learn what it's like to truly pay for their own defense again. Same goes for Japan. I also agree the F35 program needs to die.
Now, how do we tackle the "butter" side of "guns and butter"? Last time I checked the sum of those programs was larger than defense by far... when we're done with that it's time to overhaul US tax policy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png
Edit: and, I gave you a +1 for tackling the issue.
post turtle,
the plan is to construct more of those mosques and learn to enjoy banging their heads on the floor.
Let Denmark rule the world.
"IF" the US was not purchasing the oil, the entire Middle East would be living in those mud cities and traveling by camel. Other than a few pearl from some coastal areas, they have nothing but sand to trade. The Fat Ass potentates would still have the best of the women for the harem. It is just that there would be no airconditioning for the average Mo.
If the Rulers cut off the oil supply, average Mo will cut off Ruler's head. That was the original purpose for head chopping in the region.
Wow, just wow..
.
ah yes, reminds me of the bumper sticker:
How Many Soldiers Per Gallon Does YOUR Truck Get?
Yeah, we don't want that, because we might have to drill for oil in ANWR, or frack a little more shale, or, worse still, develop alternative technologies to power the Hummer and heat the McMansion.
You might want to think a little farther down the line rather than spouting the same old party line.
Jesus, that guy Dwight, understood it all ! He came accross as a father figure for my generation, a good guy who led the great generation march to Renaissance after Armageddon. But he also represented the birth of rabid Americanism that would give us the CIA actions in Guatemala and Iran, the first two hubristic interventions of the Dulles brothers who iconised his foreign policy of hegemony garbed in anti communist crusade. For him to have kept his skeptical lucidity is a tribute to his personal mindset. He was not duped by the path of US hegemony in its quest for post-WW2 supremacy at all cost.
GOes to show a Potus who is respectful of due process does not control all the wheels of power...Unfortunately he did not fight that trend during his two terms as Potus. Maybe he had fought too many wars in his youth...and needed a rest, on the golf course!
Hats off, anyways!
Jim Quinn, moronic 14-year-old who falls for every progressive shibboleth because he's never had an original thought in his life.
Since the military is protecting your freedom, cutting funding to the military by de facto is defunding freedom. So, who among us wants to defund freedom?
0/10
If the military protected our freedom they would arrest 99% of our politicians and judges for acts of treason and sedition.
Smedley Butler had the military industrial complex figured out long ago. The military exists to protect corporate and oligarchical interests.
Always has been, always will be.
And freedom does not come for free.
US citizens destined to collapse under the weight of freedom. Aint it beautiful? You could make a hollywood movie out of it.
Freedom only exists in a state of war. War is the manifestation of freedom. Without the sacrifice it does not exist. It's the existence of a construction, not the absence of one.
Is this why all animals in nature declare all out war on one another? Yea those other species out there are always declaring "war" on each other, now aren't they.
the main point of this article was that the military is not protecting 'our' freedom.
Not sure how you missed that though.
i_call_you_my_base bleated:
Good example of the logical fallacy of circular reasoning.
I do.
Logical fallacy, moron. But thanks for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts for you!
I would not mind de-funding some of that new & improved freedom I keep encountering at the airport or that keeps rearing its ugly head in things like NDAA, SOPA, PIPA, CISPA, M-O-U-S-E, etc.
Lionizing Eisenhower, especially in juxtaposition with Presidents Obama, The Shrub, and wannabe Romney, is questionable.
To wit: Eisenhower uttered his adumbration about the MIC as he was leaving office. What, exactly, did President Eisenhower do to forestall it? Not much, if anything.
Also, Eisenhower never spoke out forcefully against McCarthy and McCarthyism, but Ike's record as a Civil Rights President was, all things considered, quite good.
His words are what are important in a modern context, not his record in office.
Maybe Ike never spoke out against McCarthy because McCarthy was actually RIGHT?
Even though you'll never read it in a history book, it's pretty much well-established that communist agents were running amok in the 50s. Alger Hiss, as an example, has been conclusively demonstrated to have been a soviet agent.
All down the "memory hole".
What assholes like you completely fail to understand is that in a free society, communists should be allowed to run amok. Their ideas will die a natural death in a free society that respects the First Amendment.
If a person is spying, arrest them and prove their crime. McCarthy went after Hollywood and what he considered anti-American books and movies. His was a war on ideas, and thus a war on Freedom and Liberty. Get over your idiot conservative brainwashing. Or just admit that you hate freedom and desire a daddy figure like McCarthy to protect you from ideas that scare you.
Careful, your libertarian is showing.
The tactics McCarthy employed were pretty bad. However, the thesis that Hollywood was infested with Communists is well proven by now. And the same with the communist spy infiltration of the State Department.
Hell, Stalin had spys working on the Manhatten Project while the first atomic bombs were being created at Los Alamos. Some of the spys were British. One of them was named Klaus Fuchs. The Americans weren't the only ones infested with Communist spys during and after the war, the British were as well.
In fact, Stalin new of the success of the first explosion at Trinity even before Truman spoke to him about it at the Potsdam Conference.
maybe those who work "globally" - with no nation state boundaries, but free to flit from land mass to land mass, unemcumbered with Tall Tales of fictitious glory aka "history" - maybe they just go where the money currently is, or the science funding, or where they are "assigned" by another higher up who resides. . .
anywhere they like.
God dammed Brits are still fucking around in our country. Just turn on NPR to hear what i mean.
Its a quid pro quo for the 38,000 troops, dozens of nukes and commercial espionage listening posts you have over here.........
Fuchs was fine till he got rejected by his peers then he turned.
McCarthy was not going after free speach and freedom to be a communist. It's not like these Communists were just printing anti-American propaganda. He mostly was trying try to expose the treason and sedition being committed by Soviet spies. They were trying to undermine and destroy our country. They had plans to kill or "re-educate" of to 50 million of us.
Please try to get an education and look up Venona cables on the Googlemachine. If anything it proves that McCarthy's bigest mistake was that he underestimated the extent that these snakes had infiltrated our govt.
I usually disagree with all of your posts LetThemEatRand but this time you truely show yourself for the uninformed douchbage that you really are.
Fortunately, we have history to show that you are a complete idiot. Comrade. Given that McCarthy was undone before he uncovered the vast conspiracy to which you allude, it either wasn't all that vast or the Founding Fathers were simply correct that bad ideas would be exposed in the sunlight of free speech and that autocratic government attempts to stifle ideas are always bad.
Look around you, stupid! Half this country is communist. The only difference between a socialist and a communist is that the socialist wants to vote on it and the communist uses a gun.
The gun is comming, jackass!
"Half this country is communist."
Really?
If 50% of americans are communist how come they have'nt siezed power?
The history of the 20th century proves you wrong. Marxist ideas were disseminated in the 'free societies' of the West following the Second World War and slowly and subtlely transformed traditional Western culture to the point where it is barely recognisable today.
McCarthy was obviously right about Hollywood. Who would even deny that most of Hollywood now espouses ideas that were once considered 'far leftist' ones? His error was in seeing the current he opposed as a Communist one when it was in reality one of a novel breed of Marxism that originated with the Frankfurt School and had little to do with the ambitions of the Soviet state. The rest - the 'cultural' revolution of the 60s - is, as the saying goes, history.
Yep... ideas have to live and die on their own merit if we truly want to call ourselves a free society. That takes work, though.
The only way to protect our freedoms in the USA is by making sure no one can discuss ideas that government doesn't deem acceptable.
Now bend over and spread 'em. You might be sheltering terrorists up in there.
Your age is showing. Is it the Alzheimers or the years and years of propaganda you old guys have been subjected to that you make you so wize?
Buckaroo Banzai
Do you hate Jesus because he was a communist?
http://blog.videosift.com/jwray/20-reasons-jesus-was-a-communist-pacifis...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_communism
How appropriate: WAR PIGS!
There's a crucial distinction between the current war and Vietnam (and the Civil War) - we don't have a draft.
So I don't buy the image of evil old generals sending young men off to die.
In fact, I think the soldiers are the ones enabling the war because there's not nearly enough political will for a draft.
This is always the recurring debate; that a draft should be instituted because it would make people more apt to oppose and stop the wars.
I don't agree and I've got 3 kids that would be drafted because we don't have the money to bribe politicians or send them to Harvard.
There is NO evidence that the protests during Vietnam caused the end of the war, btw. The reason the war ended IS BECAUSE THE UNITED STATES FUCKING LOST!!!!
I have been opposed against every single war in my adult life; even participating in low turn-out protests during the Bush #1's Gulf war against Iraq, yet people like you would like to snag my kids into the war machine to prove your ideological point.
People like you make me just as sick as the war pigs, for pushing a draft.
The US really won in Vietnam if you look at it in terms of military objectives, sure wasn't 100% victory but let's say a solid 90%.
As far as stopping these war campaigns (often illegal according to the world court) application of the constitution would go a long way.
Protests seem to help as well - and I do feel the protests helped a good deal with ending Vietnam.
But generally there's so much money invested in continuing the war machine and propagandizing it the situation seems kind of hopeless.
And I completely agree with your point on reinstituting the draft being a terrible idea.
I figure one good thing we can really do presently is help veterans through donating to veterans organizations.
Depressing memorial day... Good write up Jim.
The US lost. Then declared bankruptcy. The Saudis saved the US from collapse by continuing to accept paper instead of gold. And people wonder why most of the 9/11 attackers were Saudi... Oh wait no they don't, it never crosses their minds.
And that's yet another benefit of gold, when you run out of gold you have to stop killing people. Bankers on the other hand will happily let you continue as long as you are "good for it".
This should be written as a post on Before It IS News. The only factual part is noting that there was a Vietnam War and an attack on 9/11.
"The US lost. Then declared bankruptcy. The Saudis saved the US from collapse by continuing to accept paper instead of gold."
You are conflating a whole range of complex issues and coming up with a false statement.
US objective in Vietnam was claimed to be stopping the North (communist) from turning the South communist + stopping the supposed domino effect of unchecked communism. They achieved this goal with the peace accord, from which Kissinger absurdly won a Nobel Peace prize. Militarily the US decimated the country and the losses were far greater to the Vietnamese than the Americans.
After the US and USSR left, North Vietnam took over the South but at that point the whole place was in shambles.
Following that, American companies (and other developed nations, namely China) moved in to use the Vietnamese as a source of cheap disposable labour.
The oil embargo was a different issue which mostly flared up due to America moving off the gold standard + support of Israel and the need of an oil rich ally to stabilize (read: favourable oil prices to the US) oil prices. Enter Saudi Arabia.
Moving off the gold standard may have been related to the debt from Vietnam but the larger issue was inevitably the US would be relying it's development increasingly on foreign oil and with the oil rich countries aligned the writing was on the wall.
So, with or without the Vietnam War the US had to find a source of cheap oil and pay for the oil in exchange for something it controlled.
Some of you seriously need to read some books about the Viet Nam war from the other sides perspective. Our politicians lost the war but if you read the books we had them beats and pulled out too early. I am not here to troll anyone, just go read the books. Even Ho Chi Meng wrote a book about it. By the way it is an excellent read.
Win? Lose? Isn't it all about how much business we end up doing with them ultimately?
US citizens want the opportunities coming with war.
In a sort of way, the repelling of the draft was backstabbing as it exposes US citizens. With the draft, it was even to claim being pushed into war.
Wanted: one Mongoloid-to-English dictionary.
They can't find jobs -most get in to get training and expereince. Who are you to judge these young men? Their stupid parents and grandparents have fucked it up for them by contining to vote for the sociopathic candidiates of the psychpathic elietes.
when the only choice you get is giant douche v turd sandwich, what did you expect?