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TechnoratiAmerica's Soul Sickness & Permanent War: Obama's Rude Awakening
Obama's first challenge will not be the unresolved Middle East crisis. Nor will it be Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo or the economy. His primary challenge will come in coming face to face with the Bush/Cheney doctrine of permanent worldwide war. Unless Obama renounces it on inauguration day, this doctrine will continue to be U.S. policy.
Beyond that, an even larger challenge - one which he may not ever be able to meet - is healing a nation that for too long has been sickened by what American Indian historian, Jack Forbes terms in Columbus and other Cannibals: soul-sickness. It is a disease that historically has allowed a majority of EuroAmericans to believe that God has chosen them lead the rest of the world into the light, permitting the United States to employ massive military might in achieving that so-called mandate.
Over the past eight years, it is the Bush-Cheney doctrine that has drawn the particular ire of the entire world - because it permits the United States to unilaterally attack any nation with massive force or to attack any target within any nation, regardless of civilian casualties. This doctrine has also permitted this outgoing administration to assert and amass extraordinary powers that have virtually rendered the U.S. Constitution meaningless. This doctrine includes the assertion that the executive branch and its extraordinary powers can not be questioned or hindered by Congress or the courts during times of war, thus the assertion of permanent war (the war on terror).
Yet, even if Obama were to reject this Bush-Cheney doctrine, the soul sickness would remain.
That notwithstanding, the president's first order of business has to be the rejection of the Bush-Cheney doctrine. Failure to do so immediately, will cause the promise of change [to the United States, the world and the future] to fall on deaf ears.
It will not be enough to wind down the Iraq War if it means that the president will simply shift resources to broaden the war in Afghanistan and to also continue the Bush-Cheney endless worldwide war against undefined enemies into the foreseeable future.
Eradicating that soul-sickness is probably not possible; it is what sustains the myths of this nation. It is what defines this nation. The secular equivalent of believing that God has chosen the United States for a special mission is the belief that being a superpower is an elected position and that with that title, the United States and its allies are entitled to invade, topple or occupy any nation they see fit. And it is not something that began with Bush and Cheney.
It can be no irony that those that initiated the invasion and occupation of Iraq - in defiance of the UN - were the United States, Britain & Spain... on Portuguese territory. In the past 500 years, these are the world's leading imperialists and colonialist nations. Essentially, they have been the world's architects of the policies of dehumanization - feeling entitled by God and blinded by greed to trample over the lands, bodies and rights of peoples [of color] worldwide.
Despite this imperial club, there's a reason the U.S. government is particularly despised by most of the world. It isn't just the Bush-Cheney regime, though they have certainly put a face to the "ugly American." It's that smug soul-sickness that permits Americans to believe that they indeed know what's best for the rest of the world.
When Obama was elected president, it was the hope of the world - evidenced by massive celebrations worldwide - that he would indeed reverse the arrogance of the Bush/Cheney doctrine. Though for those expecting president-elect Obama to bring about radical change to the world, all signs indicate that we are all in for a very rude awakening.
But it's a sleep or dream that many Americans don't want to wake from. To be sure, being elected U.S. president is not the same thing as being elected high commissioner for human rights or prince of peace. Since WWII, the United States has become the most powerful military empire in the history of the planet. In the path of this machine, millions of casualties are strewn about in Asia, Africa and Central America. Some have been the result of secret, proxy, unnecessary, foolish and illegal wars - such as Iraq - but truly, which war or military action by the United States since WWII has been necessary and legal and not foolish?
This is what Obama is inheriting; not just a permanent war and a soul sickness, but also the reins to a voracious military-industrial complex that needs to be constantly fed. There's little indication that he will starve this machine. But there is always hope.
52 Comments so far
Show AllI suggest an interesting book on this subject. A local Portland, Oregon author, Paul Levy, has written a book entitled "The Madness of George W. Bush". One interesting thing is that the book is not about Bush, it's about all of us, at least in the USA. Give it a look and see if it is relevant. Peace.
He ain't gonna renounce permanent war. He's all for it. No one will get anywhere near the Presidency unless he/she is fully in favor of endless increases in military spending.
Soul sickness, soul deficiency, soul shrinkage. The soul is there but it is minimally inclusive and disreputable...something to be a bit embarrassed about.
Involved is the bifurcation of mind and soul that is at the heart of capitalism where acquisitiveness (yes, greed) is separated from the healthy tissue and relentlessly promoted like Wild Bill's used cars in an endless loop. Putting greed in charge is like pruning trees (the forest of the soul) by cutting them down at the trunk. They won't grow anymore. They'll rot. Wonderful system, eh?
Obama is no shaman. (More like a salesman, IMO.) The "soul sickness" needs a shot of reality at the individual level. Starve corporate culture, feed and nourish individual responsibility and solidarity. Don't cooperate. Realize that this isn't a television show. The imperative is upon us. The MIC and corporate culture has *no* moral authority. You, however, do.
I am afraid it's too late for this piece.
To have a sickness of the soul, one must HAVE a soul.
I am convinced that just as there is no There there in Gringolandia, there is also no soul.
Damn Serena, you beat me to the punch. I was just gonna post something to that effect. America is souless.
.Condemning three hundred million out of hand...Hopefully you do not intend to rid this world of them all....Progress depends on rationality, seeing that it is the system we must focus on not the entire population of any nation.
One aside, if I may. By condemning out of hand those hundreds of millions, one sets up a sort of excuse for inactivity, after all one might change a system with hard work but one can never change three hundred million minds...
I prefer to see the kindness and generosity of my fellow Americans and to see that they remain trapped in a culture that we can definitely change. You are free to believe as you wish.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
.Please point out one single abusive mention in that post above. You cannot, because it isnt there. You probably dont even read them, just the name above and then launch into one of your ridiculous diatribes. What a sad and stupid little unhappy mess you seem. ( now that's abusive).
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
.I expect that these absurdities you post here are some form of therapy for you? I hope you are in therapy as you rather urgently need some. You seem to have absolutely no grasp of reality or respect for the truth. Is that why you wound up in a small village in Mexico, having alienated every single person in your life?
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
.Three hundred million people were just condemned by one of our resident ego maniacs.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Actually Serena it is worse than even you have painted above--because after counseling with their Roman Catholic clergy missionairies, the Conquistadors were assured that after the savages souls were saved by confession of faith and baptism, that death by whatever means was not only permitted but also was doing the newly converted savages a favor--'cause the next instant after they expired they would be in Paradise with no chance for backsliding.
Their Protestant cousins a couple centuries later were no better--they looked in scripture and saw that God commanded the slaughter of the Canaanites by the children of Israel when they entered the promised land. So, the Anglicans and their Puritan kin surmised that they were the Modern equivalent of the children of Israel, the Native Americans were the evil Canaanites, and that they (the Protestant Christians)would not spare them (the Native Americans) the way those who were the the chosen people in ancient scripture did. Hence, the misuse of religion to validate the North American genocide for the sake of keeping God's favor (and by the way to acquire the choicest piece of geography on planet earth.)
When Baby Bush was blathering on about the war on terror being a crusade, he was just an echo of his New England forbearers.
Poet
Ardee I think you are right on conceding to the dems for tactical purposes. I suspect that the damage caused by 8 years of Bush and a corrupt congress is irreversible, and a major voice of the right-wing propaganda machine will be the detestable sophist Mitch McConnell.
-30-
What has been refreshing about the Bush II policy is its revelation of what the US policy has always been: unqualified support for Israel no matter what.
What is so good about this article is how Rodriguez rises above Bush/Cheney and the militaristic inperialism of the US to isolate the core cultural hypocrisy that drives it:
\**********************
"It can be no irony that those that initiated the invasion and occupation of Iraq - in defiance of the UN - were the United States, Britain & Spain... on Portuguese territory. In the past 500 years, these are the world's leading imperialists and colonialist nations. Essentially, they have been the world's architects of the policies of dehumanization - feeling entitled by God and blinded by greed to trample over the lands, bodies and rights of peoples [of color] worldwide."
*******************
The use of religion to validate greed and lust (both of which are prohibited by such faiths) is more than ironic. It shows the bankruptcy not just of finance, but more ominously of spirit and soul.
Say "Amen" Siouxrose and Serena!
Poet
Feed me, feed me, Seymore.
Give me to eat.
--- From "Little Shop Of Horrors"
LOL--As I read your post, I could see in my mind's eye Seymore quivering with nervous shock and fear at the demands of the Sunflower/Venus Flytrap hybrid. A very apt comparison.
Poet
.Even paranoids have enemies
I have pondered this past election from the standpoint of the candidates put up by the GOP. McCain was far from their best choice and Palin was simply a joke, not real funny but still.....
It has become my conclusion that the GOP really conceded the election to the Democrats knowing that, as horrific the damage done to this nation by Bush, anyone who followed him would be helpless to correct it all. I will expect to see, a short time into the Obama administration, a propaganda machine from the right excoriating Obama and company for all the ills he is failing to remedy.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
It's not OBAMA's rude awaking, it's his SUPPORTERS rude awakening! I only hope they WAKE UP! And stop supporting this murderous thug once and for all. As he has said, he favors american exceptionalism - it's enough of a reason to STOP SUPPORTING him.
We do have choices: we can reject all political parties that continue to support the permanent war/militarist paradigm. And vote for and support those that do not do so.
Obama's pre-election talk of bombing Pakistan and adding 20,000 troops to Afghanistan indicated to me that he's already accepted this "sickness" of empire, as the author expresses it. The global war on terrorism is a farce. It's the new framework for empire and a permanent war economy.
Obama's failure to just say that Israel's attack in Gaza is wrong is another indication that he will follow the murderous U.S. policies passed down from presidency to presidency.
The author has characterized the problem well. I'd add only that the two-party duopoly rule in the United States ensures that no alternatives to U.S. imperialism can get expressed. People may hope that Obama will be different, but he voted for the PATRIOT Act, the FISA bill and supported all funding for Bush's wars as a senator over the years. That's not a good record. His cabinet picks suggest a hawkish foreign policy to come.
-TIA
I just don't understand why Obama supporters don't understand their OWN complicity in it all? Or do they and they just can't admit it? It doesn't matter to them if people overseas are murdered, injured, families destroyed? My guess is that they are basically selfish and think only about their own lives - does it matter to the dead people if things would be worse with McCain? How about things would be much better with Nader or McKinney??
Up to this election, I have been voting my conscience all my life. I have an almost unblemished record of voting for and donating money to losing candidates, except for Shirley Chisholm, whom I worked for and who won. Otherwise I feel that all my protest votes have had the long-term effect of a fart in the wind. Look at where we are now.
So the self-righteous condemnation of Obama voters is merely irritating to me. There was the same-old same-old American type of isolated splinter dead-end "alternatives" that offered no chance of winning nor a vision of becoming contenders or organizing new supporters. They can't even work with each other.
Let's build something real and then we can talk about choice. Right now a protest voting without follow up to build a progressive party is more about personal purity than helping anyone.
Joe
."Otherwise I feel that all my protest votes have had the long-term effect of a fart in the wind. Look at where we are now."
Why not think yourself on the leading edge of change? Many who have cast"protest votes" for decades have been working for change as well, the two are not mutually exclusive. Posting reasons for voting against the status quo, making accurate critiques of the candidates , including Obama, and refusing to "settle" for politicians wedded to the corporate power that runs this nation seems to me to be a far more effective policy than swallowing ones pride,ignoring ones intellect and the system's load of bull and voting for those who support and abet what we desperately need to change.
Just because you cast ballots and see no change is not a reason to post an apology for returning to the fold of a party and a system that benefits you not at all.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Hey Ardee - I have worked / do work on many issues, like many others who post here. What I see is a huge disconnect between community activism, peace activism and the electoral arena. Our activities do not seem to result in finding and running authentic candidates and then building enough support to get them elected.
My one good experience - Shirley Chisholm was a committed educator from the neighborhood, a political person, and one who spoke out early against the Vietnam war. By pulling together a campaign leadership of local parents deeply involved in public education, anti-war anti-draft people, other local activists such as those in tenants' groups and those such as the local black fireman's group, a few union organizers and others who thought it was about time to elect a black woman to Congress, we ran a winning door-to-door grassroots campaign. It was based on inter-racial unity of neighbors for our "common dreams", which was an intoxicating novelty at the time.
The effort was low cost, built on volunteers. And we did not have the internet, which is a tool we could not even have imagined.
We are now in another period in which there is likely to be more activism on several old issues like justice, employment, education, peace, health, housing and on some new ones, like the environment, I hope. Some of the things that have happened have been new and exciting, such as the fellow who bid on the Land Management auction. Who knows what people will think of.
I am suggesting the possiblility of upping the ante to include an electoral component in these movements. In that way people will not have to live with the sad choice between someone has absolutely no chance of making a dent in the elections on one hand, and on the other hand someone who could win but has serious obligations to special interests outside the grassroots.
If we can elect some authentic people into office at any level, then we have a stable bit of power, a person in a position to look out for our interests. We would also have a believable threat to hold over those who continue to behave in a spineless and self-serving manner.
Joe
.Morning Joe, I trust you understand that I didnt imply that you were not an active and involved citizen.
Well, elections are of course the way people seek change in governance. My position remains that electing people into the Democratic Party holds no promise. I am certain that you are familiar with the stranglehold both parties maintain over their membership, with the use of withholding or bestowing campaign funding, committee assignments, and the several other swords of Damocles they hold over the heads of recalcitrant congresspersons.
I see some very decent candidates for political office, folks with platforms I support almost entirely. Sadly, these folks run from third party or independent positions and, due to the nature of the system, are seldom heard by the vast majority of voters. I am of the opinion that electing such candidates is a major priority to advancing the so-called progressive agenda. I cannot rationalize a two party system interested in fundamental change to that system that benefits them and undercuts their "competition"...I hope I make some sense here.....
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
One way to get started:
Harass the life out of media and those who sponsor forums to include all those who are on the ballot in debates. Imagine how a McKinney, Nader or Kucinich would have illuminated the discussions.
Joe
Yeah. Learn from the right wing. Their endless complaining works.
.Actually it is their ability to come together and ignore their differences while working towards a common cause that make them so effective.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
.One of my best day dreams is pondering how Ralph Nader would have shone in a debate with Obama/McCain....alas , never happened, never will. As to harassing the media, well they care only about advertising dollars and not you , me or the truth. I would think that organised boycotts against those advertisers might be effective...some tell me not so much.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.
– German proverb
War is the continuation of politics by other means.
– Karl Von Clausewitz
They are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of the labor, property, and lives of their people.
– Thomas Jefferson
One reason the United States finds itself at the edge of a foreign policy disaster is its underinformed citizenry, a key weakness in democracy.
– Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke
What a cruel thing is war...to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world.
– Robert E. Lee
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
– George McGovern
After each war there is a little less democracy left to save.
– Brooks Atkinson
We may extend our dominion over the whole continent...but be assured it will be at the price of our free institutions.
– Rep. William Waters Boyce
All wars come to an end, at least temporarily. But the authority acquired by the state hangs on; political power never abdicates.
– Frank Chodorov
The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated.
– William Ellery Channing
A man who kills on his own is a murderer. A man who kills at his government's request is a national hero.
– Ramman Kenoun
There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.
– Sun Tzu
Our poverty will be brought home to us to its full extent only after the war.
– Joseph A. Schumpeter
Acts of terror have never brought down liberal democracies. Acts of parliament have closed a few.
– Lt. General William E. Odom, US Army (Ret.)
War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement
– James Madison
The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other.
– Thomas Jefferson
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
– Plato
War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
– Thomas Mann
Every move we make in fear of the next war in fact hastens it.
– Gregory Bateson
War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
– General Smedley Butler
Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
– George Orwell
Mankind will not fall because the USA went farther and farther astray after WW2 and collapses significantly, perhaps somewhat like the USSR did.....but the entire global technocracy has become increasingly unwieldy and highly susceptible to inexpensive means of organized sabotage. This is obvious, yet almost never acknowledged. (Entire western states are completely susceptible, for instance, to deliberate arson, power grids are highly vulnerable, etc etc....if any terrorist group had motives for such...)
The era of total population control through legal violence and repression is gradually ending, making way for the ushering-in of an era of renewed non-violent initiatives designed to replace war with more efficient and humane methods of maintaining peaceful societies. The present control of most mass media is an attempt to coopt a free and balanced info service by the usual suspects, but is failing due to the net.
All people must work daily for a more open and just global village. Hang in there folks, this is where it gets really interesting. Happy New Year.
"But there is always hope."
Right... Hope and $5.00 will get you a latte.
In Germany in the twenties Hope and 800,000,000,000 dm would get you an oz of gold.
"We've gotta get outa this place,
If it's the last thing we ever do."
No-thing exists.
Thank you, Roberto, for this piece.
I've been reading your columns, "The Americas," for years at
The Progressive Populist, www.populist.com
"What Obama is inheriting...the reins to a voracious military industrial complex that needs to be constantly fed." To the sum of six hundred billion dollars per year. As if it's a given that it need be that swollen.
So appreciation for raising the "soul sickness" question in this column and hope that we're not already spiritually dead.
"Bush/Cheney doctrine of permanent worldwide war. "
No one hates Bush/Cheney more than me. But even I think that saying they created "permanent worldwide war" is over the top. Bush is evil bit he's not Hilter. I know of Iraq and Afghanistan - neither are permanent wars. I don't think they started any other wars. So what am I missing?
The War on Terror is (obviously) just a metaphor like War on Drugs or The War on Poverty.
What are you missing? Maybe John McCain promising to stay in Iraq for 100 years+. Maybe W promising 30 years of war against terrorism. Maybe Grenada, Nicaragua, Libya, Kuwait, Panama, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq. Quite a list! Think peace is going to break out soon?
JoeHope,
You may think that the war on terror is just a metaphor, but I have a feeling that those who died from it, and there have been hundreds of thousands of those, probably wouldn't see it that way. Nor do the nearly four millions refugees the Iraq occupation has produced. Nor do the thousands upon thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis whose bodies have been permanently injured and maimed, whose lives have been wrecked and whose property has been destroyed by the violence unleashed by the foreign occupants.
Nor do Bush and Cheney, in fact, see it that way, albeit for different reasons: for them, it is indeed a pretext for total and constant military mobilization, i.e. for realizing the U.S. military doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance, and for intervening militarily wherever they see fit (provided, of course, the military forces and means available at any one time are sufficient). No end has been assigned to the war on terror, and some (such as McCain) have even spoken of a hundred-year war.
The comparison with Hitler in your post has only one purpose, as far as I can see, and that is to relativize BushCo's crimes. They cannot be relativized, however, even if they do not match up to Hitler's: war crimes and such are crimes, whether there exists some other individual in history who has committed worse deeds or not. Since you brought up the time of Hitler, you might want to note that the savaging of Iraq by the U.S. has now lasted longer than World War II.
I think you are right. There is a G. Bush under every rock in Texas. He isn't an evil madman, he's just the dysfunctional jerk we elected President. If war, permanent or temporary, is attributable to anything it is to a lapse in our educational system, or worse, our intelligence itself, that the body politic makes such uninformed and disastrous decisions. That critical thinking is not required to get a high school diploma. I hope the War on Terror quickly rejoins its predecessors as metaphor. To take such imperatives as real gets a lot of people hurt. The problem is that too many of us are dumb as hell.
Endangered Homo Wise
Put Homo Sapiens on the endangered list
Genghis Khan is looking for another tryst
as new age looters give plunder a new twist
the flimflam robber baron cysts
blow black gold bubbles
as the spiral of spin is picking up speed
like black water freedom
the security baby burners
victimless and carbonized like clean coal
efficient like corn fuel and safe like nukes
while the Monroe doctrine dukes trump
the slump with worthless greenbacks
Good article, but the doctrine of permanent war did not start with Cheney and Bush. It started officially on 14 April 1950, with the issuance of NSC-68 by the Truman Administration. Cheney and Bush have simply done in their way what all Administrations have done since Truman. US foreign policy has been remarkably consistent since then.
As for the soul sickness Mr. Rodriguez speaks of, it is a very old European ailment, which makes members of certain European nations believe they have the right and the ability to dominate the world. At various stages over the past 500 years Spain, Holland, Portugal and England have suffered from it. The current North American version of it is simply a continuation of the sickness of the English soul. But since the centre of gravity of the Anglo-Saxon world was transferred from London to New York and Washington after World War II, we suffer from it more than do our siblings in our ancestral homeland across the sea.
Mark Marshall
Toronto
Well stated, Mark!
· Yr Obd't Servant
Rodriguez is, unfortunately, right about nearly everything. Save about one thing: he actually seems to think that "there is always hope."
If by 'there is always hope' Rodriguez means that there is hope that Obama will indeed reject the doctrines that are constitutive of the neo-conservative coup d'etat that took place in early 2001 (when the presidency was handed over to George W. Bush by a judge) and whose quasi-dictatorial powers were enshrined by 9/11, then Rodriguez is plainly wrong. What would the evidence be for entertaining such a hope (not only in Obama's campaign, but, especially, in his voting record in Congress)?
What else could 'there is always hope' mean in the context of this article?
The Truth must be known if we are to save our American Way of life, restore the power of our Constitution and our once given freedoms that have been systematically dismantled by the Bush/Cheney Administration.
The Main Stream Media does not want the truth known or to be seen because its not in their economic interests. War is a very profitable venture if your owners are making a lot of money off of fat war related contracts. If America is to gain any standing in the the world we must hold the current administration accountable for the crimes they have committed. Impeachment proceedings must be started and charges filed if we are to ever find the truth. wexlerwantshearings.com
Those fools who voted for O-bomb-a (which will obviously soon be his sobriquet) out of their fear, disgust and hopelessly quaint "hope for real change", deserve more pentagon/congressionally mandated insanity, which in its mendacious double standard towards the world has finally, thanks to the neocon debacle, shown its true face. Had the USA actually been welcomed in Iraq as the liars claimed, we would have voted in another proto-facsist (p)resident. Blame the liars controlling the boob-tubes, they are the principal culprits.
When humans receive increasing power, then increasing sobriety, fairness, equanimity, compassion, abnegation, and intelligence is required if humanity is to avoid collective suicide. Our power has been increasing individually and collectively for two centuries but the lag time required for the "new human"'s rise has been excruciatingly long......
"Permanent War"
Again and again I rant -
The '(global) war on terror' is the roadblock to all Progressive concerns, from undoing the overwhelming power of the war-time Executive to balancing the budget.
America must address this insane and unwinnable war which has no victory and no end in sight. Unless that happens, unless Americans bring this war into the light of day, this worldwide military effort will have us all in cages (and therefore unable to commit 'future terrorism'). This can be the only outcome unless the military steamroller is halted.
America must stop being a nation at war and resume being a nation at peace, when all things progressive are possible. While America is at war, nothing is possible because national security will always trump freedoms and liberty (i.e. Patriot Act).
---
"It will not be enough to wind down the Iraq War ..."
Again and again I rave -
There is NO Iraq war. The war AGAINST Iraq ended in 2003. US troops there are now involved in two missions, the post-war occupation of a friendly country to ensure stability and 'counter-terrorism' (Iraq is now one campaign in the war on terror - thus the military hands out the 'Iraq Campaign' medal).
In Afghanistan it is all about the war to prevent future terrorism. That's why more than half of US troops there are not within the NATO command structure (rebuilding Afghanistan) but are hunting and fighting al-Qaeda and the Taliban, our announced enemies.
The only war is the war to 'prevent future terrorism', a victory condition impossible to achieve. It's been 7 years and nobody yet has said how this can be won, what victory would look like.
Thus US troops remain in Iraq and Afghanistan, and attack into Pakistan and Syria and Somalia.
And an active military unit is based within the Homeland of the US of A.
And a new military command is set up for Africa (AFRICOM).
And the 4th fleet is re-established in the Caribbean.
It is a global and never-ending war which can only escalate, since politicians and military leaders will do nothing except more of the same.
I repeat yet again, the US military does NOT award 'Iraq war' or 'Afghan war' medals (they award campaign medals, as in campaigns in a larger conflict).
The only war that the US military hands out medals for is the 'War on Terrorism'.
The American people and their leaders are avoiding dealing with this crisis.
Mr. 'Change' Obama will avoid it, as well, unless we pressure him.
The New World Order is marching towards completion. With the perpetual self-defined Bush/Cheney doctrine that we are at War with Terrorists and not another country, their is no end to this War in sight.
And as long as we are in a defined War, the Patriot Acts replaces the Constitution.Just read them and find out for yourself.
Until we rename the War with Terrorists to something like Law Enforcement against organized global murder incorporated, we will be at the mercy of the war mongering military complex, and the world is their playground.Its become very obvious that the more we engage them with our military the faster their organizations grow.And everyone knows it. You will need a global police state of spys and informants to hunt down and kill every terrorist.
Like I said, a New World Order is fast approaching. You are either with us or against us, either way, your soul belongs to us. We can kill it or nourish it, choose a side.
Mr. Rodriguez is correct, there is a battle raging for Americas soul, one side is armed with the Patriot Act and the other side our Constitution.
One side will allow this country to be run by fear mongering and the other side is Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. NO FEAR.All must have faith in the Constitution.
The winner of this battle will determine all Americans fates for generations to come.
BornFreeMen
Warrant Less Surveillance Torture Victim since Dec 2006. Bradenton Florida.
I will never knowingly join any organization or corporation that practices warrant less surveillance.
I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States Of America till my death, Live Free or Die.
Eradicating that soul-sickness is probably not possible; it is what sustains the myths of this nation.
I agree with this whole heartedly. The consequence is more of the same: Decline. If you're going downhill without any brakes because you don't think you need them and it is every one else's responsibility to get out of your way, keep on truckin'! Yes, the hill is as long as it is steep but there is a bottom - a 25 foot thick titanium wall built by everyone from Alexander The Great to Napoleon to George Wanker Bush. By the time you see it and stick your bare foot out the door to try and slow down, all you'll do is grind your foot off before you die in the resulting crash. Obama is going to have to be Houdini to get us out of this. I hope he is!
Would you please stop calling him "George Wanker Bush". It gives wanking, a perfectly normal and natural thing, a bad name.
---USAn---
Yes, it's the brutal truth. The United States is a Barbaric Empire with an equally barbaric culture, and is very uncivilized. Sure, here and there are pockets of civility, but certainly none in Depravity Central (DC).
I'm moving to DC in a week, wish me luck haha.
Well, it isn't going to happen because Obama has stated publicly that he believes in "American expectionalism". I quote.
This is based on western religious christian exceptionalism and it will be continued as is proven by his choice of Rick Warren to give the prayer for his inauguration.
Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and the enabling Congress must be held accountable for their Crimes.
Without Justice, there can be no Peace.
And until the Criminals are made to answer for their Crimes, we will have the continuing Permanent War.
Thank you MSM/MIC (Mainstream Media / Military Industrial Complex) for enabling these Criminals, destroying America and the World, and perpetuating the downfall of Humankind.