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Can Obama Take on the Pentagon?
The Mega-Pentagon
Under President George W. Bush, military spending increased by about 60%, and that's not including spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eight years ago, as Bush prepared to enter the Oval Office, military spending totaled just over $300 billion. When Obama sets foot in that same office, military spending will total roughly $541 billion, including the Pentagon's basic budget and nuclear warhead work in the Department of Energy.
And remember, that's before the Global War on Terror enters the picture. The Pentagon now estimates that military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost at least $170 billion in 2009, pushing total military spending for Obama's first year to about $711 billion (a number that is mind-bogglingly large and at the same time a relatively conservative estimate that does not, for example, include intelligence funding, veterans' care, or other security costs).
With such numbers, it's no surprise that the United States is, by a multiple of nearly six, the biggest military spender in the world. (China's military budget, the closest competitor, comes in at a "mere" $120 billion.) Still, it can be startling to confront the simple fact that the U.S. alone accounts for nearly half of all global military spending -- to be as exact as possible in such a murky area, 48% according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. That's more than what the next 45 nations together spend on their militaries on an annual basis.
Again, keep in mind that war spending for 2009 comes on top of the estimated $864 billion that lawmakers have, since 2001, appropriated for the Iraq war and occupation, ongoing military operations in Afghanistan, and other activities associated with the Global War on Terror. In fact, according to an October 2008 report by the Congressional Research Service, total war spending, quite apart from the regular military budget, is already at $922 billion and quickly closing in on the trillion dollar mark.
Common Sense Cuts?
Years late, and with budgets everywhere bleeding red, some in Congress and elsewhere are finally raising questions about whether this level of spending makes any sense. Unfortunately, the questions are not coming from the inner circle of the president-elect.
Representative Barney Frank (D-MA) drew the ire and consternation of hard-line Republicans and military hawks when, in October, he suggested that Congress should consider cutting defense spending by a quarter. That would mean shaving $177 billion, leaving $534 billion for the U.S. defense and war budget and maintaining a significant distance -- $413 billion to be exact -- between United States and our next "peer competitor." Frank told a Massachusetts newspaper editorial board that, in the context of a struggling economy, the Pentagon will have to start choosing among its many weapons programs. "We don't need all these fancy new weapons," he told the staff of the New Bedford Standard Times. Obama did not back him up on that.
Even chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense John Murtha (D-PA), a Congressman who never saw a weapons program he didn't want to buy, warned of tough choices on the horizon. While he did not put a number on it, in a recent interview he did say: "The next president is going to be forced to decrease defense spending in order to respond to neglected domestic priorities. Because of this, the Defense Department is going to have to make tough budget decisions involving trade-offs between personnel, procurement and future weapons spending."
And now, President-elect Obama is hearing a similar message from the Defense Business Board, established in 2001 by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to give advice to the Pentagon. A few weeks ago, in briefing papers prepared for President-elect Obama's transition team, the Board, hardly an outfit unfriendly to the Pentagon, argued that some of the Defense Department's big weapons projects needed to be scrapped as the U.S. entered a "period of fiscal constraint in a tough economy." While not listing the programs they considered knife-worthy, the Board did assert that "business as usual is no longer an option."
Desperate Defense
Meanwhile, defense executives and industry analysts are predicting the worst. Boeing CEO Jim McNerney wrote in a "note" to employees, "No one really yet knows when or to what extent defense spending could be affected, but it's unrealistic to think there won't be some measure of impact." Michael Farage, Sikorsky's director of Air Force programs, was even more colorful: "With the economy in the proverbial pooper, defense budgets can only go down."
Kevin G. Kroger, president of a company making oil filters for Army trucks, offered a typical reaction: "There's a lot of uncertainty out there. We're not sure where the budgets are going and what's going to get funded. It leaves us nervous."
It's no surprise that, despite eight years of glut financing via the Global War on Terror, weapons manufacturers, like the automotive Big Three, are now looking for their own bailout. For them, however, it should probably be thought of as a bail-up, an assurance of yet more good times. Even though in recent years their companies have enjoyed strong stock prices, have seen major increases in Pentagon contracts, and are still looking at boom-time foreign weapons sales, expect them to push hard for a bottom-line guarantee via their Holy Grail -- a military budget pegged to the gross domestic product.
"We advocate 4 percent of the GDP as a floor for defense spending. No question that has to be front and center for any new president's agenda," says Marion Blakey, president of the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group representing companies like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
Listening to defense industry figures talk, you could get the impression that the Pentagon's larder was empty and that the pinching of pennies and tightening of belts was well underway. While the cuts suggested by the Defense Business Board report got a lot of attention, the Pentagon is already quietly laying the groundwork to lock the future Obama administration into a possibly slightly scaled-down version of the over-the-top military spending of the Bush years.
Business as Usual?
At the beginning of October, the Pentagon's latest five-year projection of budget needs was revealed in the Congressional Quarterly. These preliminary figures -- the full request should be released sometime next month -- indicate that the Pentagon's starting point in its bargaining with the new administration and Congress comes down to one word: more.
The estimates project $450 billion more in spending over those five years than previously suggested figures. Take fiscal year 2010: the Pentagon is evidently calling for a military budget of $584 billion, an increase of $57 billion over what they informed President Bush and Congress they would need just a few months ago.
Unfortunately, when it comes to military spending and defense, the record is reasonably clear -- Obama is not about to go toe-to-toe with the military-industrial-complex.
On the campaign trail, his stump speech included this applause-ready line suggesting that the costs of the war in Iraq are taking away from important domestic priorities: "If we're spending $10 billion a month [in Iraq] over the next four or five years, that's $10 billion a month we're not using to rebuild the U.S., or drawing down our national debt, or making sure that families have health care."
But the "surge" that Obama wants to shift from Iraq to Afghanistan is unlikely to be a bargain. In addition, he has repeatedly argued for a spike in defense spending to "reset" a military force worn out by war. He has also called for the expansion of the size of the Army and the Marines. On that point, he is in complete agreement with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. They even use the same numbers, suggesting that the Army should be augmented by 65,000 new recruits and the Marines by 27,000. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that these manpower increases alone would add about $10 billion a year -- that same campaign trail $10 billion -- to the Pentagon budget over a five-year period.
The word from Wall Street? In a report entitled "Early Thoughts on Obama and Defense," a Morgan Stanley researcher wrote on November 5th, "As we understand it, Obama has been advised and agrees that there is no peace dividend… In addition, we believe, based on discussions with industry sources that Obama has agreed not to cut the defense budget at least until the first 18 months of his term as the national security situation becomes better understood."
In other words: Don't worry about it. President Obama is not about to hand the next secretary of defense a box of brownie mix and order him to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.
Smarter, Not More, Military Spending
Sooner rather than later, the new administration will need to think seriously about how to spend smarter -- and significantly less -- on the military. Our nose-diving economy simply will no longer support ever-climbing defense budgets.
The good news is that the Obama administration won't have to figure it all out alone. The contributors to Foreign Policy In Focus's new Unified Security Budget have done a lot of the heavy lifting to demonstrate that some of the choices that need to be made really aren't so tough. The report makes the case for reductions in military spending on outdated or unproven weapons systems totaling $61 billion. The argument is simple and straightforward: these expensive systems don't keep us safe. Some were designed for a geopolitical moment that is long gone -- like the F-22 meant to counter a Soviet plane that was never built. Others, like the ballistic missile defense program, are clearly meant only to perpetuate insecurity and provoke proliferation.
To cut the military budget more deeply, however, means more than canceling useless, high-tech weapons systems. It means taking on something fundamental and far-reaching: America's place in the world. It means coming to grips with how we garrison the planet, with how we use our military to project influence and power anywhere in the world, with our attitudes towards international treaties and agreements, with our vast passels of real estate in foreign lands, and, of course, with our economic and political relationships with clients and competitors.
As a candidate, Barack Obama stirred our imagination through his calls for a "new era of international cooperation." The United States cannot, however, cooperate with other nations from atop our shining Green Zone on the hill; we cannot cooperate as the world's sole superpower, policeman, cowboy, hyperpower, or whatever the imperial nom du jour turns out to be. Bottom line: we cannot genuinely and effectively cooperate while spending more on what we like to call "security" than the next 45 nations combined.
A new era in Pentagon spending would have to begin with a recognition that enduring security is not attained by threat or fiat, nor is it bought with staggering billions of dollars. It is built with other nations. Weapons come second.
110 Comments so far
Show AllWalk through the Pentagon, as I have recently, and it's obvious how the Department of Defense has become little more than a badly-run jobs program. One could fire every fifth employee and the only appreciable effect would be that food concessions sales would drop off. I say this believing that we have an effective and apparently honest Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, whom the troops revere -- I am one of those troops. The Army in particular has to cease its seeming ceaseless social programs and return to the business at hand: learning to fight just and defensive conflicts in the most humane (and yes, I understand the apparent irony) manner possible. Make no mistake, though: an army's mission is to destroy or break things and kill people. As intolerable as that may seem to the childless, it is a perfectly valid reality for those of us who do have children we will protect at the cost of our lives in our violent world. So Obama can reduce defense spending best by ending the wars (we'll never defeat the Taliban, who were never really our enemies anyway), slowly rebuild our Army and Marine Corps (the Navy and Air Force are practically useless, coddled, and part-time "warriors") and dump the civilians who are mainly retired officers collecting a second paycheck while surfing the web.
.Funny, I believed the function of the U.S. military was to defend this nation from any attack originating from another sovereign nation. It is not a criticism of that military to point out how badly they have been used to carry out political missions rather than defensive ones.
That our military budget is bloated and spent on weaponry ill suited to their current mission, that the armed forces are top heavy with overpaid and overly incompetent are both moot points.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
ardee:then there is also the Cheney driven privatization of the military, starting with building,running, feeding, laundry, etc. that's been going on for what, 20 years? DemocracyNow has covered that,too. And the extra cost, rather than having the military do all things for the military bases as done in the past.
who says obama want to take on the pentagon? when and where did he say so?
stan van houcke
No.
Why do we even need to ask at this point?
Because Chomsky et al. have moated our main lesson plan or means of learning on this question, the Kennedy Assassination.
The words "comspiracy theory" have been placed in the left lexicon like a miasma that serves as a linguistic Siberia.
Fortunately the New book endorsed by Daniel Ellsberg and Marcus Raskin and tons of other utterly credentialled multi-celled organisms-- JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It matters teaches the assassination WITHIN THE WIDER CONTEXT OF COLD WAR FOREIEGN AND DOMESTIC POLICY like not other.
It is starting to sell like hot cakes even with no add budget and being completely boycotted by our remaining bookstore.
Can Obama Take on the Pentagon?
How about Farm Subsidies?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122765760437258197.html
WVK
Does anyone seriously out there believe that Obama could have become president of the United Staes if he ever even hinted at reducing the military budget? Corporate America will not sponsor a candidate (thereby making a serious run for President next to impossible) that doesn't support the status quo. Universal healthcare, an end to the war or protecting the bottom 80% of Americans simply won't happen under Obama or McCain.
'Does anyone seriously out there believe that Obama could have become president of the United Staes if he ever even hinted at reducing the military budget?'
this is a great example of whats coming from the 'Left' these days.
This statement almost makes it seem that there wasn't an election - or that 53% of those that voted voted for Obama. If all those millions did not choose him, did the Pentagon?? There was an election, you know?
8 years in the wilderness and unable to accept that change is happening. The change wont be perfect and wont be enough - but to say that there will be NO change even before the man has taken power is self-imposingly stupid.
http://LMV.hu/redjade
In your selection / election process did you see this fundamental question of funding for defence debated openly by informed intelligent people, anywhere near the candidates? When you had a choice between twiddle de dee or twiddle de dumb, was this question or any other question as important, accounting for 30-45% of the federal budget, and which could threaten the status quo, discussed?
Semantics: No change, of course there will be change meaningless change, or superficial change, little and big change, change of priorities, of scenarios, all sorts of change by consequence, BUT NO change of power, just ask AIPAC, arms makers, military services contractors or the medical insurance lobbies, the bank executives, etc..
Your election was cosmetic, your little feel good part in a reality fantasy fest. Welcome to the American Dream. But in really, until you wake up, nothing will change. They’ve turned your democracy to a farce, soon you won’t even miss it…
What has NOT changed is what Ron Suskind reported in ’04 when speaking to an administration advisor :… he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
That did NOT change with the selection/election. Left or right are just lables but seriously suggest you have a little listen to and think about Chomsky, he just turned 80 by the way, Happy Birthday Noam :
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/24/noam_chomsky_what_next_the_elections
Lucitanian: I'd like to add a little context. I think the guy Ron Suskind was speaking to was referring to how the religious Right, the fundamentalists in the Bush Administration were looking at policy and that lying was OK in the service of their religious ends. (I heard him on DemocracyNow.) Chomsky has that speech, in the link above and a longer version, I think, on Znet online.
'...question of funding for defence debated openly by informed intelligent people, anywhere near the candidates?'
And this is entirely Obama's fault?
I see it as the American Left's fault for not being able or capable of talking to ordinary people and convincing them of Left ideas.
The majority of Americans have been against the Iraq War for many years now - and Obama got elected (partially) because of this - yet the Left is still just as sidelined as ever. But this is not Obama's fault.
'seriously suggest you have a little listen to and think about Chomsky'
I do and often - I have a lot of respect for the guy.
But obviously you have not listened to him recently. He said regarding Obama: 'I would suggest voting against McCain, which means voting for Obama without illusions.'
There's nothing about that I disagree with.
http://LMV.hu/redjade
I tend to agree with you. Although I don’t think it gains anything to frame this corrupt democratic process in a “left”, “right” or “centrist” perspective. The real damage effects all. Under this system, if he rocks the boat he would neither be nominated nor elected. Obama is a tool of the faux democracy elitist corporate autocracy. Blame him? For what? For being a tool of the system?
Of course Chomsky's qualified lesser evil recommendation covers his 80 year old derrière. To me what he's saying is, the elusion is that Obama can do anything. He will become the president, he wares the hat, but he’s not driving the train and he didn't build the tracks either, nor did Bush, nor Clinton before him.
To organize the kind of left you need for real "change", will take a few more social, economic, and geo-political chickens to come home to roost first and some real leaders. They seem to be on their way. It will take some suffering to strip away the sweet syrup of propaganda and stupid character marketing politics. And by the way Americans and even the Democrats were not so much against the Iraq war, if it could have been "shown" to be justified and above all if it had been “shown” to be won quickly. They turned against the humiliation of "defeat". It’s all about the image not the reality!
Even earlier last month when it is definitely evidenced that to justify a war based on lies, the administration lied more plus the CIA contrived false evidence in contravention of their charter and the law, the “American people”, not the left or the right, are doing nothing. Don’t weight for Obama here either. A nation under the law, my ass!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ron-suskind/the-forged-iraqi-letter-w_b_117056.html
There is no “left” until the people take responsibility; demanding and actively engaging to ensure a list of meaningful changes are made and real demands met. You need a vision, and action. You need a revolution. Look at Thailand, they are not being dissuaded. Now, there is a country which seems to have less wimps than the US and is doing something about getting rid of a corrupt administration and system.
Lucitanian: On the overnight BBC News on NPR (at midnight in NYC)for one hour, I heard that the Thailand resistors/rebels (I can't recall their exact name for their group.)are sitting in the two airports, putting up barricades and medical outposts, waiting for the military, and say they "will fight to the death"as the military was preparing to attack. I think it's sad. I don't suggest copying their methods for change.
Thank you.
Frida Berrigan is either woefully ignorant (and no US college "education" ever ensured knowledge or an ability to think, )or a paid propagandist.
The current corporate criminal interest squatter in the whitewashed house is just another "house nigger" parlaying the same corporate criminal agenda as it´s predecessors, in terms that the larger majority of ignorant as well as materially desperate US consumers can swallow more easily.
Yes, he is just another prostitute, but he´s OUR prostitute...comes readily to mind.
To date the current shill for hire has endorsed every single corporate criminal agenda item. So much for the "OUR" part, huh?
It is becoming more obvious by the day, the only way you or I are ever going to come home is going to be on the back of a tank moving at high speed down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Do not open any links on the wowgood post below, they're toxic. Why is Commondreams allowing this?
So much money is wasted for Pentagon spending and yet more illegals pour into our borders. And what about Iraq and Afghanistan? They're both failures despite all that spending. Until the Republicans or Democrats are ready to cut down on wasteful military spending, I will not listen to politicians who lecture about wasteful spending and yet keep it going. Besides, America's "defense" spending is used mainly for pimping other nations such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. America needs to be grounded and shackled at her ankles and wrist and locked to a chastity belt for at least a decade until she can be disciplined.
And I went against my heart and mind to vote Obama when I could have voted for Nader. Oh well, my vote wouldn't have made a difference now that the latest results show Obama at 68 million and Mccain at 59 million.
So much money is wasted for Pentagon spending and yet more illegals pour into our borders. And what about Iraq and Afghanistan? They're both failures despite all that spending. Until the Republicans or Democrats are ready to cut down on wasteful military spending, I will not listen to politicians who lecture about wasteful spending and yet keep it going. Besides, America's "defense" spending is used mainly for pimping other nations such as Saudi Arabia and Israel. America needs to be grounded and shackled at her ankles and wrist and locked to a chastity belt for at least a decade until she can be disciplined.
And I went against my heart and mind to vote Obama when I could have voted for Nader. Oh well, my vote wouldn't have made a difference now that the latest results show Obama at 68 million and Mccain at 59 million.
Lieberman recently stated that Obama's appointments are just "about perfect", yes that conniving, scumdog, neocon in drag, LIEberman, just "about perfect"???? John McCain said earlier he's "very pleased" with Obama's appointments. Wowie zowie!! now ain't that some awesome endorsements for the candidate of change. What's next? Obama announcing Cheney as his Consiglieri?
What better way to change peoples' minds about you than to have your bitterest rivals pretend they think you're the greatest?
Militarism is the new religion in the United States.
The Priesthood and Soldier have merged into one. The High Temple of this new religion is the Pentagon.
Instead of promising rain for crops, and that the Sun will rise and that the Gods will not be angered by visiting plagues upon a nation, the priests of this new religion promise "Freedom" and "liberty" and "The Right to Vote".
Just as the people offerred items of personal wealth such as Gold and gems to placate the Gods, so too do the people of today offer up the monies earned off their own labor to the new God Militarism in the way of taxes.
Just as people offered up blood sacrifice in the way of a fatted calf, or a beloved son or daughther, like Abraham willing to sacrifice his own son to Jehovah, the people of today offer up their own sons and daughters as a blood sacrifice.
Nothing will ever slake the appetite of the god Of Militarism. The more you give him, the more sacrifice he asks.
The people should be thankful for this sacrifice of gold and of the blood of their sons and daughters. For just as droughts and plagues and famine would strike those countries who did not placate Baal and jehovah or those bloodthirsty Gods of the Aztecs , the God of Militarism will ensure the people of today can not vote or speak freely if he deems their sacrifice not enough.
It a blasphemey to question the sacrifice asked of the people.
pk
'Militarism is the new religion in the United States.'
Actually it an old religion in the USA - read some of Mark Twain's turn of the century writings and you will understand this. Religion wrapped in a flag is as old as....
http://LMV.hu/redjade
Can Obama take on the Pentagon? Sure he can... will he? Hell no! There's too much money and power floating around the MIC for Obama to do anything about it. I'm afraid he's just a straw-man. Lots of wishful thinking going on about what Obama will or won't do... but it will be status-quo... business as usual.
The only "change" is that you'll have empire with Obama's smooth smile instead of Cheney's snarl.
The question is not can Obama take on the Pentagon. It is that the Pentagon is incapable of taking itself on. This is the evolution that needs to occur. The pentagon claimes two-way street status in policy but provides only a one way street service.
Military power has the inheirent quality of being the violence applied in failure of the economy of social coexistence. Because it is the tool of failed human endeavor, it introduces a delusional dynamic wherby cause is claimed as effect, a dynamic known by some as mimetic violence. It is self-referential, and self-perpetuating. The long history of the failure of violence to provide creative alternatives is one that many in the world are learning and denied to socieities that embed the cycle in their way of functioning. It is only when the violence stops that alternatives arise.
The finite nature of the planet, the laws of nature, are at this point the only economy that is consistent. The debt column utterly invisible to economies like military tooling reflects the scope of correlation between the accumulation of resources for nothing more than destruction - a short circuit in every sense of the term - and the import/export allignment - both of which are fully configured on an expansion that quite frankly - is a delusion. The bean counters are begining to catch on.
A 'war' "on" something defines an addictive dynamic. The cycle of "terror" is one that can only be stopped by a perspective of cease and desist. For the military to be calling the shots is a tail wagging a dog - the tail thinks (ahem) it is the dog at this point.
Old Goat the best hope we have for the curtailing of the Pentagon is the same hope that we have for Obama finally doing what is needed to care for everybody in this nation--it's called the intervention of unavoidable reality.
So far the illusionists among "opinion leaders" have had enough smoke and mirrors to distract attention from where it ought to be--their own exploitation of the rest of us. The end of next month will signal the beginning of a new quarter and the requirement to find the liquidity needed to adjust another big raft full of worthless sub-prime backed securities.
When that happens one of two courses will have to be taken: Either we once and for all bite the bullet and watch as the economy goes into the tail spin it so richly deserves, or we get "helicopter Ben Bernanke" to start shoveling hundreds of billions more of printed money into the economy. Money which has no corresponding value to justify its creation.
Either way it will not be pretty as we either severely deflate or inflate and the revaluation of our money over the next year will make the last 6 months seem like "the good ol' days" by comparison.
When enough people get enough desperate, they will take matters into their own hands and all the Northcom storm troopers in the world won't be able to stop them--in fact they may just mutiny and refuse to obey such orders to do so. Same for the cops and sheriffs. If that happens, then watch as the torch carrying mobs start adjusting the assets of the rich downward as they get burned to the ground.
Poet
Thanks, Poet, Old Goat, and Rebelfarmer!.
It is going to go something like this:
THE NEW HOLISTIC ECONOMY OF HUMAN EXISTENCE:
1. TAKE what you NEED.
2. GIVE what you are ABLE.
3. WORK and CREATE that which is within your own nature.
4. SHARE what you can SPARE.
5. Let the material sort itself out. It does for Sparrows and it most assuredly will
for honest humans locked in brotherhood, dedicated to the equality of all
humanity, and committed to the eradication of homo barbaricus once and for all.
All the rest is lying claptrap put forward by those same barbarians who would keep humanity enchained in their fake, nationalistic, material bondage.
It cannot burn quickly enough to suit me. Just make sure that the burning takes place where it is needed, among the enemy and their servants for hire across the entire planet, and not among those who are suffering.
It is futile to wish or attempt to discuss details here, other than deliberately for specific purposes...
We, all of us, have to work out those issues as the tactical situation is found to be on the local field level before us, our friends, and our families right where we ourselves are, or are capable of engaging effectively.
Recognize if you will, that such a tactical plan based on such a strategic perspective ensures that the enemy to human brotherhood is ALWAYS at least one move behind and that the initiative ALWAYS remains with ourselves.
We select:
--the time(s)
--the place(s)
--the method(s)
--the target(s)
--the result(s)
They review:
-- bogus information
-- prestaged events
-- failed engagements
-- fake entities
-- deliberate plants (from among their own cadre)
-- prepared ambushes
-- critical hits against primaries
The news will spread and assymetrical events will unfold rapidly.
Stay well! Stay safe!
And most important of all ... be happy in your work saving the planet and humanity!
Life is EXHILERATING, is it not?
For me to B,
We must.
It took me awhile...
Thank you old goat.
Would you mind serving as Mr. Obama's national security advisor?
Finally we have a President with the intelligence and education to be able to comprehend what you have posted here. May be there is a chance for some sanity in our defense policy.
Now that is intelligent analysis. Thank you for your thoughts.
I posted this late yesterday, but I'd like to get a few more people thinking about it if I could.
This doesn't really belong on this string, but when I left the Food Bank yesterday we were out of almost everything and nothing was coming in.
PLEASE donate to your local Food Bank, I understand this is not just happening to us. Giving is down everywhere for obvious reasons, but even one can would help. Please give what you can.
To any that are offended by my posting off point, my apologies.
Thank you, Mr. More.
This army, as all armies, moves on it´s stomach.
A logistical/support organization has to be put in place in every community of any size, from a household to a block to a city to a region, in some form, based on the local parameters.
Such an endeavour is an excellent training tool, not to mention it´s merit as a morale builder. Or it´s obvious value in and of itself, of course.
PLEASE don´t forget the stockpiles of the enemy to human brotherhood as they are legio and can readily be accessed with a modicum of preplanning and prestaging.
Not many amateurs, but a few well trained are the teams needed for this.
Pay attention.
FOCUS on items that last and have the highest energy/nourishment value. Just skip the rest.
Thanks again.
Thank all of you.
I've been hungry before, though it's been because of self imposed fasts, and fortunately, never because of need. Pangs of hunger can be all consuming. Was it Gandhi who said "if you're hungry, God comes in the form of food"? It's a very sad state of affairs we are in and it seems that it may get much worse. Thanks for the reminder Thomas.
Your point is welcomed, and as important as anything else one could post about.
"I know not with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein
probably one of the most salient posts on the thread
Why should I think that Obama plans to "take on" the Pentagon. As of today he is not "taking on" any of the entrenched powers.
spinwing
The military budget starting point is "more". May I suggest " half."
If we could spend 700 billion dollars on history books maybe some people in the government might pick up on the fact that pretty much all empires go down by way of an exceedingly bloated military.
Hadrian, where's your wall?
Someone needs to explain to "the Pentagon" that a strong America also means economically strong. And, when facing an economic emergency, the DoD needs to make sacrifices like the rest of us. We have to drop the cable and cut the restaurant bills - they have to drop "star wars" and the golf resorts and at least half the 700+ bases worldwide. Etc.
Security isn't just blowin shit up - it's time "the Pentagon" added economic security to their package and respond accordingly, especially in the midst of a $$$911!
Major General Smedley D. Butler said it years ago: War is a racket.
I lived on Camp Smedley Butler on Okinawa while I went to jump school in 1967.I never knew the full history of General Butler until about 20 years ago. It all makes perfect sense and cents. Uncle Sam's Misguided Children continue to join a cult and they don't even know it.
Hoa binh
And now I know the real truth about you and Ardee.............anyone that would jump out of a perfectly good airplane.....well, I ask you!
.I believe airplanes to be only good for exiting, preferably at a few thousand feet. You haven't lived until you step out an airplane way up there. The military does it wrong anyway, static lines are for wimps.
Apropos of nothing in particular:
Sammy Davis Jr. was afraid to fly. When chided for his fear one friend noted,"when its your turn to die its just your turn. Sammy nodded and replied, "but what if its the pilots turn?"
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
I wouldn't need a static line in any case. I'm not jumping out of a million dollar plane using a hundred dollar parachute. Signed...The Wimp
.The difference between cost and utility. That hundred million dollar plane is , in reality, worth about two million or so dollars, the rest is profit and substandard materials. The parachute, however, is priceless when needed.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Priceless!
I think the Pentagram is run through Tel Aviv.
Based on the selections so far I see no chance of a change.
A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which
appaling experiences are survived with grace. - T. Williams
"A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which
appaling experiences are survived with grace. - T. Williams"
Or daddy's influence.
What are the chances someone who actually wanted to challenge the system would get elected, and what are they chances if they tried to change the system they would stay alive?
Aren't our chances greater, if we move in and try and change the local level, then to try and change a president who has to work inside of a broken system?
Effectively changing the 535 seems like a better way to change the system. Then it wouldn't be so "Radical" to have a progressive person in power.
A progressive person will get in power when you finally decide to vote for one. Yes, it's that simple.
What in God's name in forcing you to put a tick mark next to a two-party candidate? What is it? Is the pencil magnetic or something?
Next time don't support someone because you think he/she can win, vote for someone who you support. Yes, it really is that simple. It's called democracy. You're supposed to vote for the candidate who promises to implement what you believe in. Obama did not do that. Don't you remember his speech to AIPAC? Don't you remember about him saying he would take troops from Iraq and deploy them to Afghanistan? Come on. Admit it. You really did hear those things, didn't you? So, why did you vote for him? Did you think the tooth-fairy would come and save the country?
Now you have to wait four more years before you get another chance. Next time don't fail yourself. Simply vote for someone who you truly support. And yes, you had plenty of choices this time, and you'll have plenty of choices next time as well.
As long as you keep voting for a main party candidates, there will be no chance for progressives. And, progressives will not get voted in until you decide to start voting for them. It's that simple.
Chavez or even Ahmadinejad would make a better American president than Obama. No, I'm not kidding. I'm dead serious.
Well said.
I too was not sufficiently confident in Mr. Obama's victory margin to vote for Dennis Kucinich like I wanted to.
Yes, substantial and deep change cannot originate at the national level. Change in the US will come from many sources (primarily from various types of hardship). Although most changes will not come from the ordinary political process, change at the lowest administrative level (towns, counties, states) will, indeed, be important.
The better question to answer would be: Who was the last President who successfully took on the Pentagon?
The surprise answer is a former 5 star general named Dwight Eisenhower who ordered a 10% spending cut in the Pentagon's budget and made it stick because nobody would dare to question either the patriotism or military knowledge of the man who basically organized and successfully executed the liberation of Western Europe.
Ike used to say that he was probably the only one in Washington who could tell all the flag officers and executives at the Pentagon "no" and rest easy at night knowing that he rather than they were correct. He aso said,"I fear for this country when somebody with less knowledge and experience has to confront these people".
JFK crossed the MIC three times (Bay of Pigs, Cuban missle crisis, and negotiating the nuclear test ban treaty and paid with his life for thinking that as President he could tell them what to do. Since then all subsequent Presidents have behaved like whimpering little toy poodles ready to pee on the rug in the presence of these monsters.
Poet
Poet:I like your comment. Eisenhower had his own "skeleton in the closet",
I think, like being involved in the destruction of the Bonus March Army tent city in DC after WWI vets wanted their money. But he was correct on the Military Industrial Complex. I will never vote for a General or a Clergy person for President (although I did make an exception, twice to vote for Jesse Jackson in Dem. primaries in 1984 and 1988).
.Lest we forget, Ike gave approval for the CIA coup that overthrew the duly and democratically elected government of Guatemala in favor of a military junta that , to this day, tortures and murders its citizenry. Gotta help United Fruit after all.
But, on the whole, I liked Ike.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Did you/or would you have voted for JFK, McGovern, Kerry, Gore, or Jimmy Carter? They weren't Generals (or Admirals) but were still officers. Or is anyone below General/Admiral ok with you for President? And why?
I always wonder why people say "I will never..blah blah blah", but then turn right around and tell us why they did. (twice in your case....so far!!)
Well said.
The more we vote for two party candidates, the more toy poodle presidents we will have.
But don't conclude that you are forced to comply. Next time vote outside the two party system. Yes, it would be high risk for the candidate. But there are those, like Nader or McKinney, who are willing to take the risk. These are brave people, of the calibere of Kennedy even. To me it seems better to vote for a progressive outside the two party system than to be toy poodle voter and pee on the rug each election day.
The question is not whether the Pentagon can take on Obama, but rather the fact is that the Pentagon will take on Obama and Obama will serve the Pentagon.
A good article by Frida Berrigan. She's right--Obama will NOT stand up to the Pentagon. The last young democrat president to do that caught a bullet to the head.
The MIC controls the federal government, and most likely installed Obama.
Installed? Oh come on.
We need to expand Military Budgets not contract them
The Army had 18 Divisions under Bush 41 and Clinton (stupidly) cut them to 10...Germany lost WWII because they could not fight a sustained 2 front War...U.S. Doctrine ever since was to never get caught in that situation...Clinton ignored History ....that is one of the Major reasons Tours were extended to 15 months in Iraq and you had the massive mobilization of Guard and reserve Units...
He may cut or slow some individual weapon programs but with the World situation turning to shit more and more daily higher defense budgets, not lower are to be expected (and I work for DOD and I know what I'm talking about)
Pure bullshit. For the last 8 years, the military was expanded and eventually stretched thin and we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan anyway. Put away your guns and bombs and sit down and learn to be reasonable please. Even many DOD workers I talked to agree that our military is being wasted in the wrong places and wrong purposes. Not all DOD contractors are pee brained rightwingers.
Pure bullshit. For the last 8 years, the military was expanded and eventually stretched thin and we lost in Iraq and Afghanistan anyway. Put away your guns and bombs and sit down and learn to be reasonable please. Even many DOD workers I talked to agree that our military is being wasted in the wrong places and wrong purposes. Not all DOD contractors are pee brained rightwingers.
SnowWolf This is for SnowWolf November 26th, 2008 1:59 pm, keeps throwing it down here for some reason.
Welcome back.
You wouldn't need to raise the defense budget if you cut off all the expensive contactors like Blackwater and Hughes, etc, would you?
And you and I both know there are programs like the tilt rotor that should have been junked years ago. Years ago.
Would you consider its perfectly possible to add troops while maintaining or even reducing the current budget? Especially if we closed some quite useless bases?
Posted wrong place, sorry.
Disclosure - I am not American. I want to see the US pull back to within its own borders and defend itself from there. I don't want the US protecting me and the rest of the world. I don't want the US exploiting the world's mineral, environmental, economic, and human resources to make itself more prosperous than everyone else or to attack whoever it perceives at the time as an enemy. I don't believe it's a simple matter of good vs. evil. I don't want Ballistic Missile Defence. I don't want the military industrial complex hogging all the wealth.
I empathize with those affected by 9/11 but I realize that people are being bombed and lives destroyed like that every day somewhere in the world. I am no more scared of Islamic terrorists than I am of people like Timothy McVey, the KKK, or any other violent intolerant fundamentalist.
I think the huge gaps in income between the rich and the poor individuals and countries are the real threat to my well-being. I think poverty and lack of access to livelihood encourages terrorism. I want every person to have access to adequate food, shelter, health care, education and livelihood.
"I know not with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein
Jake
Works for me. And I believe you are going to get at least part of the wish list.
Beautifully said Jake.I am an American and I feel the same way.
Jake:I want what you want, as outlined in Paragraph 1. I'd add England and France,too. I think I'm still thinking about your paragraphs #2 and 3. I think I may have, along with others in NYC in the days following Sept. 11, 200l inhaled some of the people who were incinerated at/in the World Trade Center. I was opposed to the invasion of Afghanistan at the time, and said so. (I was not online at the time. Am only online for a year.)
I think every person is entitled to safety, shelter, education, water, food, health care, choices, work or if not able to work, income. I am for human rights for all people on the planet.
In a way, if we continue to pursue the adventure of empire, I agree - we will need to expand military budgets. But I submit that the pursuit of that phantom is insane and will inevitably bankrupt and destroy what remains of the republic and I am oppossed to it - if anybody actually asks me - which they won't.
I find your observation concerning why Germany lost WWII rather simplistic.
I find your statement concerning the 'lesson' we learned from their defeat somewhat overstated. NSC 68 - declassified in the '70s - offers a different view concerning why our governmental 'masters' think we need a big military than what you suggest. Some of them worked for the 'defense department' too.
As an aside, I don't find your trolling for creditility "...and I work for DOD and I know what I'm talking about." by itself very convincing. Jerry Falwall claims to work for God but I wouldn't consider him an expert on the subject. What imparts credibility is not who pays your salary, but the quality of your arguments.
wasn't a plug for my credibility...just pointing out that I get to see a lot of where they're coming from...
I have a funny feeling that BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) is going to become ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome) when they realize Obama isn't going to Cut Military Spending like they feel he should...or close Guantanamo ...he can't...not if he has any brains....and I figure he does...he ran a brilliant campaign....He's going to have to fight the next 2 front War... Afghanistan/Pakistan Border...and Al Queda's exodus into Africa ...This has never been about expanding American Emire...its about stopping the rise of radical Islam...they aren't suddenly going to stop their plans for Global Domination just because Obama got Elected...I seem to recall they called him a "House Negro" last week...really upset Al Sharpton (although Al Himself called Colin Powell one during Bush's first term...Karma's a bitch huh?)
"..where they're coming from"
'They're' being whom? Islamists or US military planners?
I have no illusion that Mister Obama will rationalize the military. I'm a pessimist and think it's so invasive now, so much a part of our national fabric that nothing will change its influence over our lives. I am guessing that we will continue to be the most successful modern militarized national security state until we are totally bankrupt - not just monitarily, but spiritually, politically, economically, and ethically. That may take some time.
"This has never been about expanding American Emire...its about stopping the rise of radical Islam..."
So does this you mean you recognize there is an American Empire?
I certainly don't carry water for radical Islamists or radical Zionism or radical Americanism for that matter. As has been I think wisely stated somewhere else on CD, a concerted, international 'police' response to the 9/11 'criminals' would have been more effective and resulted in less 'blowback' than has our blundering invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan for reasons obviously other than national security.
Our government always portrays its actions as merely responses to others' actions without context. If you believe the propaganda, we're just hanging out in the world doing our own thing and not bothering anybody. But that's not the fact. We have military assets/bases in numerous other countries (and building more all the time) yet no other country has a base on US soil. What does that tell you?
Because of this mythology about innocent little old America, Mister Bush could answer the major 9/11 quesion: Why do they hate us? with his nonsense about 'hating our freedom' when in actuality they hated/hate our imperial and murderous actions in the world. These actions are largely downplayed, distorted, or kept from most Americans who generally have to do a lot of digging around in the non-mainstream media to find out about them. I'll let you decide for yourself why the 'mainstream media' doesn't tell us the extent to which we 'terrorize' the rest of the world.
Do I support their violence against us? No. But I understand it. Apparently a lot of 'smart guys' in government either don't understand it or don't care. It is amazing how effective propaganda is in America; and the most thoroughly propagandized are always the maintainers of that very system of propaganda.
We've become the world cop and we like it. We search the world for 'evils' to remedy. We've staked our future on a preponderent military and need to justify its existence and pay the price - in blood - for that world view. It displays a perfect example of that old saying: 'If your only tool is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.'
I’m having difficulty to follow the logic of your comment. It is premised on the concept that there is a real enemy out there and that the actions of the Bush administration or the “global war of terror” have been ham fisted, that there would be better and more effective ways of dealing with the “enemy”.
“…a concerted, international 'police' response to the 9/11 'criminals' ……” the trouble with that approach is that you would actually have to investigate and get “real” evidence against the criminals. The same goes for 7/7, Atocha station in Madrid and the Bali Bombings, and probably Mumbai last night too; in as much as that, the effects of terrorism are real enough, but where it is coming from and who is behind the curtain directing it is far from apparent, but that it is successfully used is so clear. The whole PNAC, neocon, Bush wars, privatized military no bid contract billions, none of it could have happen without “Bin Laden” and the whole made up fantasy of Al Qaeda.
Perhaps there are by now some real terrorist cells out there, but when they phone al Qaeda they are calling Langley. And, whoever they are they are nothing compared to the false flag operations put together to start and maintain the plethora of myths. And be sure, it is easy enough to line up a couple of Saudi, or Moroccan or Egyptian or Pakistani angry young men. The MIC needs an enemy, and one that cannot be caught seen or measured is the best kind.
You write “Do I support their violence against us? No. But I understand it. Apparently a lot of 'smart guys' in government either don't understand it or don't care. It is amazing how effective propaganda is in America; ….”
Or perhaps a few of them just want you to think that. And you don’t think they are playing with your head.
But yet you know all the reasons they are doing just that, when you write, “We've staked our future on a preponderent military and need to justify its existence”
So you know they are lying to you yet you seem to buy into their lies.
Which part of the Psyops, mind games, propaganda did you miss? Face it, you have no democracy, you are played for what your worth to corporate interests, and you belong to big brother.
As the movie said, “Do you? Do you want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”
Lots of heat, but not much light.
‘I’m having difficulty to follow the logic of your comment. It is premised on the concept that there is a real enemy out there and that the actions of the Bush administration or the “global war of terror” have been ham fisted, that there would be better and more effective ways of dealing with the “enemy”. ‘
If you have a problem dealing with the logic of my comment the problem lies on your side. And since you seem to have an agenda you wish to pursue - whatever the facts - or a problem understanding simple prose, I’ll try to keep it simple for you. The World Trade Towers were destroyed. Someone did it and someone ordered it. It was a criminal act. We should find and deal with the criminals. We did not deal with the criminals by invading Iraq and Afghanistan. Invading Iraq and Afghanistan merely granted a level of credibility to the criminals – whoever they were. The criminals are still out there. We should use law enforcement tactics at least to start, to pursue them – not military tactics. Nowhere did I state who the criminals were.
I did suggest that there is, or has been manufactured, what we call ‘radical Islamists’ who among other things don’t like our support for Israel or our occupation of muslim lands. I think that can be demonstrated to your satisfaction. Those are the folks whose violence I don’t support but understand.
“But yet you know all the reasons they are doing just that, when you write, “We've staked our future on a preponderent military and need to justify its existence”
So you know they are lying to you yet you seem to buy into their lies.”
I’m trying to take what you say seriously but you keep taking things out of context to distort them. The full comment is: “‘We've become the world cop and we like it. We search the world for 'evils' to remedy. We've staked our future on a preponderent military and need to justify its existence and pay the price - in blood - for that world view. It displays a perfect example of that old saying: 'If your only tool is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.’”
What has any of this to do with ‘lying’ and ‘buying into their lies’? We have staked our future on a preponderent military and need to justify its existence. It’s a fact. I don’t subscribe to that policy, I just note it.
“It is premised on the fact that a crime was committed – the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. So you know they are lying to you yet you seem to buy into their lies. Which part of the Psyops, mind games, propaganda did you miss? Face it, you have no democracy, you are played for what your worth to corporate interests, and you belong to big brother.”
Man, you got it bad! Take a pill. Try addressing what I said, not who you think I may be or what I think.
Let me go out on a limb here and please correct me if I’m wrong but you seem to think there is a vast governmental conspiracy out there that is responsible for our ills. I’m sorry but I just don’t subscribe to that position. I am not closed to such an idea but there is insufficient evidence to support your claim. If you would provide some evidence - not just angry rhetorical accusation - I'd be glad to adjust my views.
You make some unwarrented assumptions. First: that there is a vast and secret governmental conspiracy, second: that ‘they’, this shadowy governmental conspiracy, are lying to me and third: that I’m somehow naïve enough to buy into those lies. Yet you provide or have no evidence to support any of those claims. Beyond that, you don’t actually address my comments, only my apparent gullibility – always the last refuge of a bully and a fraud – and by the way the same sleasy tactics the Bush people, whom you seem to despise, have used for eight years. I try to deal in facts and evidence, not in delusion. Maybe you should try it too.
‘As the movie said, “Do you? Do you want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”’
You sound very angry. I’m sorry for you. Your closing assumes the wearying posture of those who believe they have ‘the truth’ and those who don’t share that view not only don’t have ‘the truth’ but are somehow complicit dupes ripe for personal attack. I usually see this attitude in religious fanatics, but I guess it’s the same for anyone who has invested so much of themselves in something they take personally but may not be true.
Well said.
SnowWolf; I would really appreciate it if you could troll elsewhere. The Project for the New American Century is failed and finished. We are having an intelligent exchange here and I am not drinking the radical Islam-Be Very Afraid Kool Aid. Thank You.
.I would offer that you make a serious mistake in condemning the presence of alternative opinion here or anywhere. I find the opinions of Snow Wolf to be very, very wrong and his political direction wrong headed as well. Yet I would never suggest that he be silenced or asked to leave. In fact I would encourage him to post more frequently and on an expanded political agenda as well.
Not only does he expose the fallacies of his politics and make a great sounding board to expand upon the rightness of the progressive agenda but he serves to make me feel so much better about my own positions.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Ah-Ha!
.You are not surprised Thomas, I trust.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
"You are not surprised Thomas, I trust."
Of course not! And you knew I wouldn't be.
Usually I try to be patient with the ignorance of people but in Snow Wolf’s case I will make an exception because I think he is either deliberately trolling here or he is playing some dumb game for HLS.
You talk about the US’s war against Al Qaeda migrating to Africa. If you want to know how to stimulate the “the rise of radical Islam...” in Africa don't ask Al qaeda, just ask the CIA they know exactly how to put the cat among the pigeons:
It is not a coincidence that the US is fighting extremists around the world, you need an enemy to justify the expenditure, the last fling of the MIC and you have a delusion of global control and grandeur which is directly related to the other of global corporate imperialism.
Take a read of : Nobody is watching, Americas hidden war in Afghanistan
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-shadow_war2nov24,0,4720127.story
If there’s this big bad enemy out there getting bigger perhaps rather than lobbing a couple of billions more in missiles you should start asking why and who is thwe real enemy. Personally I believe its YOU.
You bring up the 9-11 sceptics of the Bush Conspiracy Theory and the subsequent lies and cover-up, but I hope readers here remember that Defence Sec. Rumsfeld announced on 9-10 that he could not account for 2.3 trillion, see the video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU4GdHLUHwU )
He managed to get the announcement, and the problem “buried” the next day. How convenient! But did that clear his responsibility? Was that the end of it? Well no, but the next day, whatever it was, some say Flight 77, complicated the issue a just a little more, coincidentally. “From The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, December 20, 2001: "One Army office in the Pentagon lost 34 of its 65 employees in the attack. Most of those killed in the office, called Resource Services Washington, were civilian accountants, bookkeepers and budget analysts…. It was also the end of the fiscal year and important budget information was in the damaged area." And Insight Magazine editorialized that "the Department of the Army, headed by former Enron executive Thomas White, had an excuse [for not making a full accounting]. In a shocking appeal to sentiment it says it didn't publish a "stand-alone" financial statement for 2001 because of "the loss of financial-management personnel sustained during the Sept. 11 terrorist attack."
And you talk about “killing two birds with one stone” the events of 9 – 11 rolled out a whole new un-accountable spending spree, including the War of Terror and two pointless bloody occupations.
My full comment on the great American hood winking called “defence” appears on a similar subject article covering many of the same points titled, Smart Defense, by Katrina vanden Heuvel which appeared last week here on CD : http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/18-4
Personally, I am happy to see the America that can steal quite so much money from its citizens to afford and cause such mayhem in the world destroyed and defeated, as it inevitably will be by its own avarice. So in that sense bring on the next anti-missile program which doesn’t work! That’s what we all need to see.
Thanks Lucitanian. You saved me so much typing--right on. Our "Defense" Dept. is more like an Offense Dept. And speaking of 9/11 (thats the elephant in the room), it could not have been carried off without the wonderful cooperation and active assistance of our "War Dept." It needs immediate shrinking by half, just for starters.
SnowWolf is no troll, he is straight up about his opinions and his postings. I'd suggest that just because a different opinion is expressed, doesn't mean its ignorant.
Thomas... sometimes even some of the more sincere "expressions of opinion" are highly ignorant.
You've been reading my posts again!
Once again, nice to see you posting.
.Man, have I a bridge to sell you ,sir. Snow Wolf has certainly shown his true colors enough times to make your defense of his "honesty" rather trivial next to his call for endless war against the Muslim world and ever more military expenditures when it has been so plainly proven that they waste money with a mind numbing consistency..
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
He has never made any effort to portray his opinion as anything but that. His opinion. He and I don't agree on most things, but do on some, but there are many people that hold different views than I do.
I don't mind any postings unless they are dishonest, racist, or filled with rhetoric like Storm Trooper, Nazi or absurd crap like that.
Besides what would I do with another bridge? My backyard is full of them.
.You know I encourage all opinions, Thomas, as I believe that a free and open dialogue is necesary to the decision making process. I do not,however, hesitate to assert that the policies he ( Snowie)advocates and supports lead only to more violence not less, to the enrichment of the few and the suffering of the many.
That he is a walking ,talking advertisment for the extreme right wing, that his posts may be well written and clear while tinged with bigotry towards 1.4 million followers of Islam, that he claims an expertise because he turned a wrench in uniform for thirty years are all absurdities in need of perspective.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Ah-Ha! "You know I encourage all opinions,"
I know you do. And I also know you will assert left, right and dead center if you disagree with anyone...except me of course as I'm never wrong, to which everyone here can attest....
Perhaps a smaller hammer......
To sell Al Qaeda, Muslim extremism, and such boogy men, as the reason for a country, that accounts already for more than half of the global expenditure on military to spend more, given that the self same expenditure is to a large extent on the development of highly sophisticated weapons systems, when the alleged enemies are apparently using box cutters and 20 dollar road side bombs, is not a question of difference of opinion but a matter of total ignorance and delusion, the same delusions peddled by the MIC, and a principal qualification of most of the US Senators, Representatives, Administration and it is why the US has become the global pariah that it is.
Absolutely correct!!
"This has never been about expanding American Emire...its about stopping the rise of radical Islam...they aren't suddenly going to stop their plans for Global Domination just because Obama got Elected."
Before they had radical Islam they had international communism and before that the Nazis and before that ... we didn't have a permanent military, did we? This is about holding on to the power they got during WWII. This is about generating economies of scale through military Keynesianism. This is about avoiding dealing with the inadequacies of capitalism revealed during the Great Depression. This is about the stated plans of the military-industrial complex (PNAC) for Global Domination. This is about a lot of things. What it has absolutely nothing to do with is keeping our families safe or preserving our freedoms.
Radical Islam would have no support if we just got out of their countries. They barely have any support now. Of course, if you people get your way they could become a lot stronger.