Being a hawk has nothing to do with national security

[yurbud]

Hawkishness has nothing to do with national security. Our national security has not been directly threatened since the War of 1812 and indirectly since World War II. On 9/11, we were attacked by a nationless group whose primary supporters were our allies, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. If al Qaeda were a real threat, we would have gone after those countries. We did not.

No, when as a candidate you say you are a hawk, you are telling corporate and finance donors how far you will carry their water.

Are you willing to use America's armed forces to make them richer? Will you kill people, blow the heads off mothers, burn the arms off children, and rape fathers to make sure workers on our banana plantation don't form a union, or an elected leader doesn't put his people's interest ahead of our corporate interests, or to wrestle an oil concession away from a "foreign suitor"?

If you are not willing to go that far for big business, you could be dangerously independent in other areas. You might appoint regulators who actually do their job and protect them from retaliation when they do. You might figure out a way to make corporations pay those pensions they reneged on, to charge health insurance company executives with murder for routinely withholding life-saving treatment, or even charge executives and stockholders who lobbied for and got wars for their financial benefit with war crimes--and put them in prison instead of merely fining them one half of one percent of the profits they took from the pockets of the dead.

If someone is a "hawk" it has nothing to do with our security. If we can't successfully occupy a medium-sized country like Iraq, no one could successfully occupy us. China has a laughable air force and navy compared to ours, but we would never attempt to occupy them. The number of people would make it impossible. If our military was the size of China's, we would only lack the ability to attack, invade, and occupy others. We would not lack the ability to defend ourselves.

No, if someone is a hawk, it means they are more like a contract killer whose value is determined by how coldly and efficiently he dispatches his target (with the added duty of convincing witnesses the victim deserved it). And when he does so, instead of just getting an envelope full of cash, he gets some choice stock, a place on the board of directors, or maybe even becomes a CEO.

A hawk is someone's bitch; a whore.

And we are never the pimp.

[bryant69]

1. I don't think this is entirely accurate

Rather, this is an explanation for some hawks but not for all hawks. Some hawks are whores, but others believe the ludicrous things they say. And of course there are plenty that are somewhere in the middle - they believe because they don't want to accept that they are just whores.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[yurbud]

4. it's hard to believe someone who gets elected to congress doesn't understand this

some are just smoother than others.

[PLF]

2. k&r

[Vexatious Ape]

3. True.

I like that:
If someone is a "hawk" it has nothing to do with our security. If we can't successfully occupy a medium-sized country like Iraq, no one could successfully occupy us.
If these so called hawks gave a rats ass about national defense we'd be spending 2 Billion a week on radiation detection at our ports and borders--not on a civil war in Iraq.

[yurbud]

6. which again, tells you how real the war on terror is

Once that program was set up, people wouldn't think about it anymore, especially if it was working correctly, and the equipment probably wouldn't need to be replaced that often, so not much profit.

No money, no propaganda points, why would a politician vote for something like that?

[Hawkowl]

5. Indeed

War is a racket designed to make the rich richer and the poor dead. Hawks are worse than whores, they are the financial enablers of a vast cadre of mercenary serial killing corporations. Our military needs to be cut to the bone. Period. No more multi billion dollar give aways to weapon system manufacturers and Haliburton. The Defense Department needs its original name back: The WAR Department. That way no one is soft on "defense" any more, just against WAR as they should be.

[yurbud]

7. good point on the nomemclature--I would give a further clarification: separate defense and offense

The department of defense would be responsible for United States territory ONLY, and could go at most 200 miles beyond our borders. The department of war would do everything else. Then when you want to cut military spending, it will be more clear which you are cutting. The corporatists would want more on war than defense, and the rest of us would prefer nearly all on defense.