I believe it is important to remember that the US administration threatened the so-called "shock and awe" (of I believe it was 9 Hiroshima's) but it was delayed (and cut back) by the uprising of the millions of activists who marched all over the world trying to stop the invasion. The US entered Iraq a couple of days later than planned with the result, I believe, that wind storms got sand into the electronic workings of the invasion. Perhaps someone with a stronger search engine can confirm this.

And just a couple of days ago, a spokesman for the pentagon got up at a press conference and said that Dr King would be alright with these wars and would support them, knowing that we have come into a far more "dangerous" time than the 60's were. This man should be removed from his position and NEVER allowed near a microphone again. The man shows that the gov't will lie at the drop of a hat and smile at you while they do so. This is shameful, and this man and his writers need to be censured and fined for LYING.

There is NO way that Dr King would have approved for a heartbeat where we are now. We spend more on guns and bombs than the rest of the world combined, and our "leaders" are trying to figure out even more ways to spend LESS on the PEOPLE every day. We have no compassion or interest in life, anymore, we are so DEAD after 30 years of our "leaders" playing divide and conquer on us. WE have NO soul left as a country, the way we treat everything as just another reason to give the rich even more of our money is killing us off on BOTH the right and the left.

Ike was right, the big money is the problem, and Dr King was right, we HAVE lost our soul. The country sure seems to be over to me, other than it's dying gasps.

there is a reason why there are so few comments. Peace activists are jailed or ridiculed. JFK's American Univ. speech marked the beginning of his end just as the Riverside church speech marked MLK for death. War for oil and profits will continue until the world no longer accepts the dollar. The Christians in America are anything but. When has any Christian church or Catholic bishops critisized the Amerikan war machine? Fear for their tax free status? Keep singing God Bless America in the seventh inning sheeple and salute our paid assassins with , "thank you for your service"

Kind thoughts but like 90% of the progressives writing on this topic this author fails to touch on the root causes of these war crimes.

Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran are all about the future profits of Big Oil supported by the Pentagon and Congress and the White House.

And why is it so hard for the bleeding heart liberals use real language like fascism ?

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power” Benito Mussolini

Until the core issues become common knowledge, there is little hope for change based upon moral ideology, especially when dealing with the American public.

What a thoughtful and perceptive essay about our government and its obsession with war and the weapons of war. Interesting to note that though the USA fields the most expensive and sophisticated military force on the world stage, this country has not decisively won a major military conflict since 1945. The USA and its allies won WWII primarily because it was a war that our leaders mobilized the entire nation to win in the shortest time possible. President Roosevelt created the War Production Board (WPB) and all but nationalized US industries in support of an all-out war effort. He created the Office of Price Administration, which fixed monetary limits on almost everything, wages, rents, the price of goods, etc. Overnight, government policy shifted to one of well-nigh complete control of the nation's economic life. Rationing, price controls, and full-employment were the order of the day as our government took charge of the economy and mandated a war effort unlike anything the world had ever seen. The end result of all that government intervention into "the free market" was, well, the decisive defeat of rampant militant fascism in Europe and the Far East in less than four calendar years from the day the USA entered the war, the US military's greatest ever victories, and, ultimately, an astounding, world-changing post-WWII economic renaissance in America and in much of the world. Today, the US military cannot seem to win a war decisively. Why? When, just as Ike feared, "defense" corporations effectively run the Pentagon and determine government policy, their goal is not to win wars but, on the contrary, to prolong them. Unlike the companies and corporations that accepted their marching orders from Roosevelt's all powerful WPB, today's permanent "defense" establishment, that is, the huge and powerful corporations that run our nation's war machine, have no peacetime industrial production to which to return after wars end. When the war ends, their production slows down dramatically and profits decrease because demand for their products is much reduced in peacetime. War is the "defense" industry gravy train, and the corporations that make up the "defense" industry work to keep wars going, rather than to win them, certainly not to end them. In that hideously destructive and utterly immoral effort they are ably assisted by the Congress, Big Media, Big Finance, and Big Oil. That is America today, and Americans are learning the hard way that a "defense" industry and war machine run amok do not a sound manufacturing base or sustainable economic, defense, or foreign policy make. Against such a demoralizing backdrop, hope, love, and peace can seem but a distant, fading memory. Yet there is hope, and there is love, and there will be peace. As Dr. King noted, "there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron feet of oppression" and "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." Even if corporate America continues to be the enemy of peace, peace will come. The question may well be whether America will survive to see and enjoy the blessings of peace.

" But militarism is a more insidious danger because very few are willing to speak out against it. Martin Luther King Day is perhaps the only day in which such a message can be heard: a message of love, hope, and peace."

70 percent of Americans say they believe in a God, or say they are Christian.

25 percent of these folks got to church regularly.

So % 70 of 300 million people is 210 million , and 25 percent of this number is 52 million.

If we could get half of the church going- God fearing- Jesus following Christians to protest wars every week , all over this country , and % 25 of the so called non church going Christian to protest war every week, we would have 25 million church going Christians + 39 million non church going Christians protesting war every week,

We would have 64 million people protesting wars, and demanding peace every week.

Do you think the government and the pentagon would listen and obey "we the people"

How far will the arrogant war mongers go, before Americans realize that these wars are killing our souls and turning us into heartless monsters.

Jesus , send us a sign, or just shutdown all technology, before we nuke ourselves into hell.

cmichaelg49:

Good historical post.

"The USA and its allies won WWII primarily because it was a war that our leaders mobilized the entire nation to win in the shortest time possible."

And many Americans, being poorly informed and somewhat delusional, fail to appreciate the roll Russia played in Hitler's defeat. By the time we invaded Germany, the fate of the Nazi regime was already sealed after their defeat on the Russian front. And of course prior to that chapter in the conflict we had taken the targeting of civilians via the deliberate bombing of non-military targets (as in Dresden among other examples) to previously unknown levels. And later in Japan we nuked civilians.

But today we can all hope the words of Dr. King may some day become part of mainstream American culture. Once, in 1966, I heard him speak in person and that experience changed me forever.

Pax