Paul B. Farrell: War is America’s new economic stimulus policy
War is America’s new economic stimulus policy
Commentary: Why are we still throwing extra billions at Pentagon?
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Yes, I’m mad as hell again. I just read some bad news that should make every American mad as hell. In fact, two bad news items.
First, as a U.S. Marine vet, I got angry reading that there have been more military suicides than war deaths the past decade. Yes, more Iraq and Afghan war vets have killed themselves than were killed by America’s enemies in combat. And more are expected as we had more than two million serve in the two wars.
Second, if the economic, psychological, political and moral consequences of the past two wars aren’t bad enough, many politicians and candidates — some of whom never served in the armed forces — are proposing that the full Congress pass the Ryan budget and force Pentagon generals to spend billions more than they requested.
This is insane. More taxpayer money for the Pentagon war machine? Why? We’re winding down two wars. We’re dealing with the tragedy of vet suicides. These same politicians whining about the debt and taxes. So why do they want to increase Pentagon spending? Do we love war that much? Are they planning to start a new war? Let’s analyze this contradiction. .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/war-is-americas-new-economic-stimulus-policy-2012-06-05
= new reply since forum marked as read
...but, but, but...
The war profiteers have been running the U.S. since WW II. And what the war profiteers want, the war profiteers get--whether it's big wars, little wars, on cue to keep them in clover, or the "war on drugs" as the backup boondoggle, or vast R&D funds to develop the most sophisticated killing machines in human history, or a thousand U.S. military bases around the world, or war presented as a video game by the corporate media on TV, or the New York Slimes telling us there are WMDs in Iraq, or 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines all over the U.S. funded by Congress ($4 billion), with no audit/recount controls required, in the same month as the Iraq War Resolution (Oct. '02) to insure their wars against voter revolt...
Wait a minute! WHAT?! 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines? Yup! All over the U.S. in every state, with the code owned and largely (80%) controlled by one, private, far rightwing-connected corporation--ES&S, which bought out Diebold.
Whatever the war profiteers want, the war profiteers get. The American people don't support a war (56% of the American people opposed the Iraq War, Feb. '03, all polls)? Well, we'll just have to stop counting their votes in the public venue.
There has been an escalation in the power of the U.S. war machine that is orders of magnitude worse than anything I've seen in my lifetime--a lifetime that includes being a young adult during the Vietnam War. When that war began to grow rancid in the public mind, its "war president" (LBJ) fell into disgrace and could not run for reelection in 1968. Though opposition to that war had not even reached 50% by 1968, and though the anti-war candidate, Eugene McCarthy, did not even win the New Hampshire primary, President LBJ was compelled to retire from the field because opposition to the war was growing and because he didn't win the New Hampshire primary by a big enough majority.
That could not happen today. And the reason that it could not happen today is NOT that the American people have become more war-like. In fact, the evidence is that the American people were onto to Bush from the very beginning probably because of the Vietnam War--didn't trust him, didn't believe his war lies, didn't think the Iraq War was justified. But what happens in his reelection year--with his WMD lies exposed, with his vast use of torture exposed (64% of the American people opposed to torture "under any circumstances"--NYT poll, May '04), and with huge opposition to other policies (90% opposition to the Pukes messing with Social Security)? He gets 're-elected' with Diebold's 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines spread over most of the country, with virtually no audit/recount controls, and huge purges of black voters in Ohio, Florida and other places, and his polling numbers drop 25 points two weeks after his inauguration!
Bush. did. not. win. that. election.
He should have retired in disgrace. But that was not what the war profiteers wanted. The only way they could get another "war president" for their vast, bloody, boondoggle in Vietnam, in 1968, was to assassinate the major anti-war candidate, RFK, who had just won the California primary and would have pummeled Nixon into the dust. (Yes, I'm sure they did it.)
But now they have 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines--machines that contain code that the public is not permitted to review--all over the U.S., with ZERO auditing in half the states and a miserably inadequate 1% audit in the other half. They also now have the war media to write the narratives for the war profiteers and their brethren in the financial industry. The American people don't count any more. Is that not perfectly obvious, no matter where one looks?
The U.S. war machine has become the most powerful industry in the world, and--also something new--it has become hugely "privatized" and scandalously riddled with private contractor theft (billions of dollars for shoddy products, paper-pushing or doing nothing) and has furthermore spawned private armies. There has always been corruption in the U.S. war machine, but never, ever at the levels we are seeing now with complete impunity. Billions of dollars "gone missing" in Iraq. Where did it go? And that ain't the half of it. Much of the corruption is buried deep in the vast increase of government secrecy.
The U.S. war machine is out of control. It picks presidents. It controls presidents. It now installs utter scumbags in Congress and state governorships, at will. It plays us like a piano. It gives us a period of "forgetting" of Bush Junta crimes, with a president (Obama) who is powerless to initiate any reform, whatever his instincts might be, and who is actually putting the war machine back together after the Pentagon (Cheney-Rumsfeld) war on the CIA (long story--CIA Director Leon Panetta, old Bush Sr. crony, now at the Pentagon, hired--or, rather commissioned by Bush Sr.--to heal the internal war wounds). (My educated guess.) Powerless to investigate his predecessor's many heinous war crimes ("we need to look forward not backward"
. Seemingly gung-ho on the latest war toys (USAF drones murdering hundreds of "suspects" in many foreign countries).
That's what 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines mean. That's what they're FOR. We the People have no voice in these matters whatsoever--and that is a big, big change.
Though this change has been building up for a long time (beginning with Reagan), it can accurately be described as "new" since it exploded like a neutron bomb on this country in 2004. Up to that time, we had the tools as a people to correct the wrongs, to reform, to throw out the bad guys, to reassert democracy, to elect a president and congress to do the will of the people. That's when it ended. And though ES&S/Diebold's monopoly control of our privatized voting system was not quite complete, at that point (it had to be combined with voter purges in 2004), it is now.
And please don't accuse me of being "anti-Obama" or trying to discourage people from voting. I will never, ever, EVER give up on my right to vote, no matter how irrelevant our transglobal rulers and war profiteers have made it, no matter how uncounted it is. We must NEVER give up. We must never stop voting and organizing. We must vote for the "lesser of two evils" when there is no other choice. We must work for reform, starting with the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, however long it takes. We owe it to those who passed democratic ideals to us, to pass them forward to others. That is our legacy as Americans.