“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. 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 – War is a Racket
I peruse a number of websites everyday as I look for interesting articles to post or reference in one of my articles. I agree with many conservative leaning websites when it comes to economic issues, but when it comes to war mongering and flag waving, I go my own way. Any site that supports our empire building and excessive spending on war is not a conservative website. You can’t act in a fiscally responsible sustainable manner without dismantling our war machine and taking on the military industrial complex. You’re a faux fiscal conservative if you think we can continue to spend $800 billion per year on war with no financial implications. The entire Federal budget was $800 billion in 1983.
The latest storyline being propagandized by Mad Dog McCain and his band of merry neo-cons is that Obama’s latest defense budget will gut our military and make us susceptible to attack from all of our enemies. The mainstream media mouthpieces like Fox News repeat these boldfaced lies without seeking facts or real data. The power of the military industrial complex is dangerous to our citizens. They have bought off Republicans and Democrats in Congress and they control journalists who get paid to write scary articles about the horrific budget cuts and danger to our nation. It’s all lies. Spineless corrupt politicians like Bush and Obama do and say whatever is necessary to win the most votes. Statesmen like Dwight D. Eisenhower stood up to the military industrial complex and their bought off lackeys in Congress.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
Statesmen are like bald eagles around here – almost extinct.
The United States spends more per year on war than the next thirteen countries combined. That imminent attack by the Iranian navy may be overblown. Our generals blather about the threat from China, that spends 18% of our budget, and threat from Russia, that spends 7% of our budget. The mainstream media articles and fear mongering drivel from our corrupt bought off politicians are nothing but propaganda designed to keep the billions flowing to the arms peddlers like Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing, and the rest of the dealers of death. Politicians who have been bribed with decades of “political contributions” won’t even vote to get rid of weapons programs the military no longer wants.
It’s interesting how politicians are able to tell citizens they are only spending $520 billion per year on war when the true figure is $820 billion. Obama’s FY15 budget says we are going to spend $520 billion. He conveniently leaves out the cost of ongoing wars and the cost of past wars. We are still spending over $100 billion per year on our ongoing wars in Afghanistan, occupation in Iraq, and provocations in Libya and Syria. We are also providing military support of $50 billion to Egypt, Israel and dozens of other countries around the globe. Lastly, we spend over $150 billion per year on veterans of past wars. Our beloved leaders move that expense to another line item in the budget and pretend it is not a cost of war. The American people have short attention spans and once our wars of choice aren’t on the nightly news anymore they think it’s over. Tell that to the families of the 7,100 dead soldiers killed in our Middle East invasions, along with the 50,000 badly wounded servicemen, and the thousands more mentally damaged by the ordeal. The cost of war goes on forever. Government obfuscation does not fool anyone with critical thinking skills.
The dogs of war – McCain and Graham, along with hundreds of other war mongering pricks in Congress claim Obama is some pacifist attempting to dismantle our beloved military. These traitors of truth evidently can’t understand math or charts. Bush’s last war budget was $731 billion. The Iraq war has ceased and Obama is still spending $820 billion per year on war. Does it sound like the military is being gutted? Are we more in danger of being attacked by another country today than we were in 1999? That is the question that should be asked. They call it the DEFENSE budget because it is supposed to be used to defend us from attack, not to bully countries throughout the world and attack sovereign countries who are no threat to our security. Isn’t it convenient that the U.S. provoked overthrow of the democratically elected government of the Ukraine has initiated a new media created “Cold War”?
The country was sufficiently defended with a war budget of $333 billion in 1999. No one invaded us or threatened to invade. The Cold War was long over. The military industrial complex needed a 9/11 to revitalize their profits. The neo-con/military industrial complex created War on Terror has opened the door to never ending wars of choice around the world with no consent or approval from the people. War spending grew to $879 billion by 2011, a 164% increase in 13 years. Over this same time frame GDP grew by 74%. Does this sound like the military has been short changed? The fear mongering neo-cons and conservative websites are nothing but nattering nabobs of nonsense. Even the hint of slowing in spending on our empire building creates an urgency for a new evil enemy. Is it a coincidence that Vlad Putin has now emerged as an existential threat to our freedom and liberty according to the den of vipers in Congress, the military industrial complex, and the corporate media mouthpieces?
Even the dreaded sequester would have done nothing but slowed the rate of growth in war spending. You have to understand that a Federal government spending “cut” isn’t really a cut. It means the increase in spending you anticipated will be slightly lower. Of course, the one party system in Washington DC compromised and eliminated the sequester “cuts”. Those politicians need those “political contributions” to get re-elected in 2014. Defense spending will be far higher over the next decade, not including the inevitable wars of choice we are led into by our noble leaders. Putin must be stopped. Assad must be stopped. Iran must be stopped. China must be stopped. The world policeman must do his job and bankrupt the empire. War is highly profitable for peddlers of debt, corporate dealers of death, and the politicians getting bribed by Wall Street and the military industrial complex. The peasants who are sent off to die are nothing but cannon fodder for the power brokers of death, destruction and debt.
The war mongers will continue to use propaganda and misinformation to convince you we are in danger if the war budget is cut by 2%. The truth is that we need to cut the military by 50%, stop trying to operate a world empire, and withdrawal our troops from Germany, Japan, and the dozens of other countries around the globe. We need to stop handing billions of dollars we don’t have to Israel, Egypt and dozens of other countries so they can buy arms from our arms dealers. We are the cause of all the war and violence in this world. The job of our military is to protect our borders, not to police the world. Hubris, arrogance, and overreach, financed by central bank created debt, is how empires die.
“As many frustrated Americans who have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120 foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly equals those of the rest of the world combined.” – Ron Paul
Understand where they are spending your money:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_20XXUSbn_XXbs2n_3031_051
If our pols are so worried about the supposed Chinese threat, why have they permitted our most sensitive military technologies to be sold to the Chinese?
By the way, this is one of your finest and truest posts.
Awesome fact gathering. Quick thoughts (I’m watching NCAA basketball.)
1). It’s easy to spend a trillion military bucks when hammers cost $600, or whatever. The waste (and fraud) in military spending is gi-fucking-normous.
2) Cut back too much on military spending and the economy collapses. ( I think that’s true.) Beating swords into plowshares …. nice Bible verse, hard to implement.
3). I think military-spending is one reason the USA has resorted to demonizing Russia …. again … over that Yook Rain opportunistic false flag. The trillions spent for the War On Terror since 9-11 seems to be petering out. Can’t bullshit the public forever. What to do? What to do? Hey … let’s resurrect an Old Enemy!! Problem solved.
Chinese military spending is less than the interest we pay on the almost $2 trillion in treasuries they hold. We are, by virtue of our debt, financing their military. We’re $17.4 trillion in debt, but nobody bothered to tell this to the criminals in Washington. They can’t say no to anybody. And the debt will be $20 trillion when Obama waltzes out of office. There is no future for our children, other than being debt slaves.
Sooner or later, a psychopathic narcissist fascist dictator, like Obama (and like Hitler) will go all in with our military, and attacking Russia looks pretty good right now. Or China. They represent a threat to our dollar/petrodollar hegemony. They are productive nations, and we are a bankrupt welfare state. If we don’t go to war, we’ll go out with a whimper instead of a bang. Or, an economic collapse at home and a civil war. So many options. We just can’t lay down and accept the consequences of what we’ve done, we’ll have to kill millions more people. Nobody I know supports Obama and what he’s doing. His polls are dreadful, while Putin’s are stellar.
We mistakenly fought the Iraq war, and the winner was China. They got the oil concessions and deals with Iraq. Afghanistan brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union, and will ultimately be our undoing as well. And if the idiots in Washington think going to war against Russia is a good idea, I think you’re going to see a mass revolt, people are finally going to get off their asses and do something, because nobody supports this farce. But then world wars are always started by 3 or 4 men.
There’s a price to be paid for all the death and destruction we’ve caused. We will someday have to pay that price. The criminals in Washington will keep spending on the military no matter what. There is nobody to stop them. They’ll keep spending a trillion a year on the FSA, there is nobody to stop them. And our country will collapse, there is nothing to stop it. Obama is a fascist, and in addition to the military, has 400,000 DHS thugs armed to the teeth. It’s not going to end well. And I hope it ends soon, before more young kids get sent off the murder foreigners, and more people have to die so defense contractors can make hundreds of billions of dollars.
Fucknuts Obama might get us all nuked. I wish to God somebody impeaches this idiot before he wipes us all out.
Russia’s Military Begins Massive Nuclear War Drill
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 03/29/2014
On Thursday, according to the Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 10,000 Russian troops began a drill simulating the massive use of nuclear missiles. Shortly before reassuming the Russian presidency for a third term, Putin reaffirmed the importance he placed on Russia’s nuclear forces in a number of articles and speeches. Thus, this week’s massive offensive nuclear drill is in line with the goals that Russia and Putin have been articulating for well over a decade. Still, the timing of the drill is likely to cause great concern in Western capitals, particularly in Washington.
The “defense” appropriations probably exclude spending on the spy agencies, nuclear research and development (Dept of Energy), Homeland Security, interest on debt, etc.
It’s safe to say the liars in Washington are squandering north of $1 trillion when these other items are included. What a racket.
We have an imbecile who can barely put sentences together without a telepromter dealing with a nuclear power. I don’t know about you, but I’m scared.
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Amen.
Ridiculous.
And if China was such a threat, why have we allowed them to make our military technology, and become the monopoly supplier of thousands and thousands of items, many of which would be necessary for a war against them.
I’m sure they didn’t do anything like put in kill switches, and I’m really sure they will continue depleting their stash of rare-earth minerals to keep on shipping the American military their tech toys as we kill their country’s sons and daughters.
Americans are a stupid lot.
Besides, you heard the Great and Powerful O, “austerity” is over.
I still haven’t been able to find where it actually started, but by god it’s over now, especially if we go t war.
I’ve been procrastinating but when I get around to it, imina post about the real amount we spend on Israel…a country that has a higher GDP than most of Europe. Yall will be shocked at what percentage of our national debt is solely a result of our building the israeli military machine, and making certain it is the big dog in the region.
I’ve been procrastinating but when I get around to it, imina post about the real amount we spend on Israel…a country that has a higher GDP per capita than most of Europe. Yall will be shocked at what percentage of our national debt is solely a result of our building the israeli military machine, and making certain it is the big dog in the region.
Just wait until the real fireworks start …. when Putin goes to China in May. That’s when he will sign a $1 trillion gas deal according to which Gazprom will supply China’s with 3.75 billion cubic feet of gas a day for 30 years, starting in 2018.
There’s that pesky “thermonuclear” (for the petrodollar) possibility that Russia and China will agree payment for the Gazprom deal may be in yuan or rubles. That will be the dawn of a basket of currencies as the new international reserve currency – a key BRICS objective and the ultimate, incendiary, new (economic) fact on the ground. Goodbye Dollar.
Pushing Toward The Final War
Paul Craig Roberts
Does Obama realize that he is leading the US and its puppet states to war with Russia and China, or is Obama being manipulated into this disaster by his neoconservative speech writers and government officials? World War 1 (and World War 2) was the result of the ambitions and mistakes of a very small number of people. Only one head of state was actually involved–the President of France.
In The genesis Of The World War, Harry Elmer Barnes shows that World War 1 was the product of 4 or 5 people. Three stand out: Raymond Poincare`, President of France, Sergei Sazonov, Russian Foreign Minister, and Alexander Izvolski, Russian Ambassador to France. Poincare` wanted Alsace-Lorraine from Germany, and the Russians wanted Istanbul and the Bosphorus Strait, which connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. They realized that their ambitions required a general European war and worked to produce the desired war.
A Franco-Russian Alliance was formed. This alliance became the vehicle for orchestrating the war. The British government, thanks to the incompetence, stupidity, or whatever of its Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, was pulled into the Franco-Russian Alliance. The war was started by Russia’s mobilization. The German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, was blamed for the war despite the fact that he did everything possible to avoid it.
Barnes’ book was published in 1926. His reward for confronting the corrupt court historians with the truth was to be accused of being paid by Germany to write his history. Eighty-six years later historian Christopher Clark in his book, The Sleepwalkers, comes to essentially the same conclusion as Barnes.
In the history I was taught the war was blamed on Germany for challenging British naval supremacy by building too many battleships. The court historians who gave us this tale helped to set up World War 2.
We are again on the road to World War. One hundred years ago the creation of a world war by a few had to be done under the cover of deception. Germany had to be caught off guard. The British had to be manipulated and, of course, people in all the countries involved had to be propagandized and brainwashed.
Today the drive to war is blatantly obvious. The lies are obvious, and the entire West is participating, both media and governments.
The American puppet, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, openly lied on Canadian TV that Russian President Putin had invaded Crimea, threatened Ukraine, and was restarting the Cold War. The host of the TV program sat and nodded his head in agreement with these bald-faced lies.
The script that Washington handed to its Canadian puppet has been handed to all of Washington’s puppets, and everywhere in the West the message is the same. “Putin invaded and annexed Crimea, Putin is determined to rebuild the Soviet Empire, Putin must be stopped.”
I hear from many Canadians who are outraged that their elected government represents Washington and not Canadians, but as bad as Harper is, Obama and Fox “News” are worse.
On March 26 I managed to catch a bit of Fox “news.” Murdoch’s propaganda organ was reporting that Putin was restoring the Soviet era practice of exercise. Fox “news” made this report into a threatening and dangerous gesture toward the West. Fox produced an “expert,” whose name I caught as Eric Steckelbeck or something like that. The “expert” declared that Putin was creating “the Hitler youth,” with a view toward rebuilding the Soviet empire.
The extraordinary transparent lie that Russia sent an army into Ukraine and annexed Crimea is now accepted as fact everywhere in the West, even among critics of US policy toward Russia.
Obama, whose government overthrew the democratically elected government in Ukraine and appointed a stooge government that has threatened the Russian provinces of Ukraine, falsely accuses Putin of “invading and annexing” Crimea.
Obama, or his handlers and programers, are relying on the total historical ignorance of Western peoples. The ignorance and gullibility of Western peoples allows the American neoconservatives to fashion “news” that controls their minds.
Obama recently declared that Washington’s destruction of Iraq–up to one million killed, four million displaced, infrastructure in ruins, sectarian violence exploding, a country in total ruins–is nowhere near as bad as Russia’s acceptance of Crimean self-determination. US Secretary of State John Kerry actually ordered Putin to prevent the referendum and stop Crimeans from exercising self-determination.
Obama’s speech on March 26 at the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels is surreal. It is beyond hypocrisy. Obama says that Western ideals are challenged by self-determination in Crimea. Russia, Obama says, must be punished by the West for permitting Crimeans to exercise self-determination. The return of a Russian province on its own volition to its mother country where it existed for 200 years is presented by Obama as a dictatorial, anti-democratic act of tyranny. http://on.rt.com/sbzj4o
Here was Obama, whose government has just overthrown the elected, democratic government of Ukraine and substituted stooges chosen by Washington in the place of the elected government, speaking of the hallowed ideal that “people in nations can make their own decisions about their future.” That is exactly what Crimea did, and that is exactly what the US coup in Kiev contravened. In the twisted mind of Obama, self-determination consists of governments imposed by Washington.
Here was Obama, who has shredded the US Constitution, speaking of “individual rights and rule of law.” Where is this rule of law? It is certainly not in Kiev where an elected government was overthrown with force. It is certainly not in the United States where the executive branch has spent the entirety of the new 21st century establishing government above the law. Habeas corpus, due process, the right to open trials and determination of guilt by independent jurors prior to imprisonment and execution, the right to privacy have all been overturned by the Bush/Obama regimes. Torture is against US and international law; yet Washington set up torture prisons all over the globe.
How is it possible that the representative of the war criminal US government can stand before an European audience and speak of “rule of law,” “individual rights,” “human dignity,” “self-determination,” “freedom,” without the audience breaking out in laughter?
Washington is the government that invaded and destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq on the basis of lies. Washington is the government that financed and organized the overthrow of the Libyan and Honduran governments and that is currently attempting to do the same thing to Syria and Venezuela. Washington is the government that attacks with drones and bombs populations in the sovereign countries of Pakistan and Yemen. Washington is the government that has troops all over Africa. Washington is the government that has surrounded Russia, China, and Iran with military bases. It is this warmongering collection of Washington war criminals that now asserts that it is standing up for international ideals against Russia.
No one applauded Obama’s nonsensical speech. But for Europe to accept such blatant lies from a liar without protest empowers the momentum toward war that Washington is pushing.
Obama demands more NATO troops to be stationed in Eastern Europe to “contain Russia.”
Obama said that a buildup of military forces on Russia’s borders would reassure Poland and the Baltic states that, as NATO members, they will be protected from Russian aggression. This nonsense is voiced by Obama despite the fact that no one expects Russia to invade Poland or the Baltic countries.
Obama doesn’t say what effect the US/NATO military buildup and numerous war games on Russia’s border will have on Russia. Will the Russian government conclude that Russia is about to be attacked and strike first? The reckless carelessness of Obama is the way wars start.
Declaring that “freedom isn’t free,” Obama is putting pressure on Western Europe to pony up more money for a military buildup to confront Russia.
The position of the government in Washington and its puppet states (Eastern and Western Europe, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Georgia, Japan) and other allies purchased with bagfuls of money is that Washington’s violation of international law by torturing people, by invading sovereign countries on totally false pretenses, by routinely overthrowing democratically elected governments that do not toe the Washington line is nothing but the “indispensable and exceptional country” bringing “freedom and democracy to the world.” But Russia’s acceptance of the self-determination of Crimean people to return to their home country is “a violation of international law.”
Just what international law has Washington and its puppets not violated?
Obama, whose government in the past few years has bullied Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon, Iran, Honduras, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Venezuela and is now trying to bully Russia, actually declared that “bigger nations can not simply bully smaller ones.” What does Obama and his speech writers think Washington has been doing for the entirety of the 21st century?
Who can possibly believe that Obama, whose government is responsible for the deaths of people every day in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and Syria, cares a whit about democracy in Ukraine. Obama overthrew the Ukrainian government in order to be able to stuff the country into NATO, throw Russia out of its Black Sea naval base, and put US missile bases in Ukraine on Russia’s border. Obama is angry that his plan didn’t pan out as intended, and he is taking his anger and frustration out on Russia.
As the delusion takes hold in Washington that the US represents idealism standing firmly against Russian aggression, delusion enabled by the presstitute media, the UN General Assembly vote, and Washington’s string of puppet states, self-righteousness rises in Washington’s breast.
With rising self-righteousness will come more demands for punishing Russia, more demonization of Russia and Putin, more lies echoed by the presstitutes and puppets. Ukrainian violence against Russian residents is likely to intensify with the anti-Russian propaganda. Putin could be forced to send in Russian troops to defend Russians.
Why are people so blind that they do not see Obama driving the world to its final war?
Just as Obama dresses up his aggression toward Russia as idealism resisting selfish territorial ambitions, the English, French, and Americans presented their World War 1 “victory” as the triumph of idealism over German and Austrian imperialism and territorial ambitions. But at the Versailles Conference the Bolsheviks (the Tsar’s government failed to gain the Straits and instead lost the country to Lenin) “revealed the existence of the notorious Secret Treaties embodying as sordid a program of territorial pilfering as can be found in the history of diplomacy. It appears that the chief actual motives of the Entente in the World War were the seizure of Constantinople and the Straits for Russia; not only the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France, but the securing of the west bank of the Rhine, which would have involved the seizure of territory historically far longer connected with Germany than Alsace-Lorraine had ever been with France; the rewarding of Italian entry into the War by extensive territory grabbed away from Austria and the Jugo-Slavs; and the sequestering of the German imperial possessions, the acquisition of the German merchant marine and the destruction of the German navy in the interest of increasing the strength of the British Empire” (Barnes, pp. 691-692). The American share of the loot was seized German and Austrian investments in the US.
The secret British, Russian, and French aims of the war were hidden from the public, which was whipped up with fabricated propaganda to support a war whose outcomes were far different from the intentions of those who caused the war. People seem unable to learn from history. We are now witnessing the world again being led down the garden path by lies and propaganda, this time in behalf of American world hegemony.
Stucky that is a great piece by Roberts.
I feel the same way.
The thumbs down you already garnered leads me to believe his contentions are correct.
We are being led to our final war by corrupt puppets whom are supported by the media and then the public. Even if the support is based on outright lies.
My heart beats heavy for the future payments our children will be made to pay for this.
Fall of empires never end well for us peons
The PC Roberts’ piece–along with a number of his more recent posts–literally staggers from the incapcity of a normal mind to understand how complete the dismatling of rational thinking has been. Just like the premise of the present TBP entry, it asks in incredulity how it is possible that anyone who doesn’t benefit from the selling of this gargantuan lie of us being “threatened” can swallow it hook, line and sinker.
We have reached the point where propaganda is simply the blunt instrument of heaping lie upon lie. There is no longer the need for a false narrative that defines a higher truth, a national goal, a credible threat. There is a military that has become the scourage of Planet Earth…and its owners claiming the barbarians are at the gate.
They’re not. They’re inside the gate and safely elected in a democratic fashion. They look like us and talk like us but they are foreign to everything that the average American at least used to believe in. Now, who knows? There are few political arguments outside wonky circles or political blogs. The average person is exhausted from the endless wars, the endless threats, the endless gearing up for more violence.
God damn them, god damn them all. And damn us for not putting every one of these lying bastards out of their misery befroe they turn the planet into radioactive ash.
I was thinking before Admin posted this that Russia should give a week or two notice that it needs to shut down its gas lines for, say, two weeks, to do some maintenance. That, I suspect, would get the sheeple’s attention.
It might be a dangerous strategy,as wars have been fought over less, but it might also wake the sheeple up to the gruesome reality of what awaits if things get really nasty.
Just an idea.
Thanks, Admin.
Several very great deals were stuck in the early days of America when other countries had wars to pay for.
America scored the Louisiana Purchase when France finally had to pay the bills for the Napoleonic Wars.
Imperial Russia’s coffers were emptied after the Crimean War and they sold off Alaska to the US.
Wars are expensive. Some day somewhere down the line, payment comes due.
Along with the comments above, this has got to be one of the most important and interesting TBP articles yet written.
Admin, your a dangerous man. Kudos.
The “Imbecile with the Teleprompter in the White House” might do well to remember that without Russia’s co-operation, the ISS becomes just another piece of (expensive) unmanned Space Junk, since the US has no means to transport personnel there (and by extension, back to Earth!)
Wonder if the US Military might be persuaded to lease “their” Shuttle to NASA?? After all, it too was paid for by the long-suffering US taxpayer, so it might as well be put to some really beneficial use . . . . .
So, “How are those Sanctions working out for you Mr President?”
How long before Russia and China set up their own “non-Dollar denominated” Interbank transfer system to bypass SWIFT?
How long before the BRICS Nations decide to follow suit, and start to trade in non-Dollar terms using the Sino-Russian system?
How long before the G20 starts to look at Debt vs GDP as an entry barrier – and how long before the US as he World’s largest debtor, is asked (politely, I’m sure) to leave?
Then what??
On 9/12, Junior Bush should have resigned as Commander in Chief and slithered back to Texas to make more money from eminent domain property seizures. Then, the top 100,000 or so in the Pentagon should have been fired for dereliction of duty. Same thing should have happened after Pearl Harbor.
Instead, we increased their budgets and turned George into the “imperial president”, a role now taken over by O. The country would be better off if neither ever left the golf course.
I like what I know of the Swiss model: give everyone a rifle, train them to use it, and completely gut the military.
@Nick A
Two years ago.
“BRICS 2012: Nations Sign Pacts To Promote Trade In Local Currency”
http://www.ibtimes.com/brics-2012-nations-sign-pacts-promote-trade-local-currency-refuse-follow-us-sanctions-iran-431562
Just brand your enemies “Hitler,” and the sheeple will follow:
“This is sure way to activate a demon in the American national memory and to mobilize the United States to again fight evil personified by the new Hitler. John Kerry said Assad is Hitler. John McCain said Castro is Hitler. George Bush said Saddam was Hitler. Donald Rumsfeld said Chavez was Hitler. The list of leaders the US has targeted as Hitler includes Allende (Chile), Noriega (Panama), Ortega (Nicaragua), Milosevic (Serbia), Arafat (Palestine), Gaddafi (Libya), Ahmadinejad (Iran), and Kim (North Korea).
Hitler, in fact, was defeated by the USSR more than by the USA. After the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943 and the Battle of Kursk in August 1943, Germany had effectively lost WWII. D-Day was a year later, in June 1944. Soviet armies caused more than 90% of total German casualties. Nevertheless, Americans remember that it was they who defeated Hitler.”
Russia has a long history of being invaded: the Mongol Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Napolean, the Nazis, and now NATO is posturing. The article is written by an anti-war Norwegian who is looking at what’s happening from a Russian perspective. Russia has lost a lot of lives over the years.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/28/viewing-the-ukraine-crisis-from-russias-perspective/
Re Paul Craig Roberts great article: I too was a pissed-off Canadian when I saw our puppet (Harper) was over in the Ukraine, looking like the idiot he is!
Admin, another fantastic piece of work. Thank you so much!
P.S. Read a bunch of comments a few days ago on another site. “Rah, rah, U.S.A., let’s pound some Russian heads” was the tone. It was obvious that these people had swallowed the propaganda, and it was actually frightening to read their narrow views of world affairs.
Admn.,
Timely and well done. The MIC needs to be streamlined and become more for self-defense and less empire building. We are a nation rotting from the inside out.
“You can’t act in a fiscally responsible sustainable manner without dismantling our war machine and taking on the military industrial complex. You’re a faux fiscal conservative if you think we can continue to spend $800 billion per year on war with no financial implications.”-JQ
Perhaps true, except Capitalism is built on the War Machine, They are one in the same thing really. You cannot be Anit-War and Pro-Capitalist at the same time. You are one or the other. If you are truly Anti-War, you MUST be Anti-Capitalist.
Welcome to the club Jimmy Boy.
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Spot on JQ. +1000 as noted ,the great war machine should more aptly be referred to a great corporate welfare fraud vehicle.
And great 12,000 word C&P Stuck. I should take lessons from you.Nevertheless an interesting read. Thanks.
PCR bluntly exposes what General MaCArthur washinting at so long ago.
I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.
Douglas MacArthur
flash
It’s just 1,959 words long. I can’t help it, I’m channeling my inner-flash.
Glad you liked it. Four neocon fucktards did not.
Herr StuchenFlash strikes again!
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Comrade McCain Warns US Corporations on Doing Business in Russia
De facto President of the United States and preeminent warmongering psychotic Senator John McCain has slipped the chain again. On Friday McCain issued a veiled warning to US corporations seeking to do business with Russia in the frenzied reincarnation of the Cold War that the neocons have been so relentlessly pushing through every propaganda organ in the land.
With McCain fully invested in the unelected occupying government in Kiev, he spent much time over there palling around with neo-Nazis before the US backed coup d’etat went down he is in this thing to win it.
In an interview given to Bloomberg TV the globe-trotting bloodsucker who feeds on death and destruction took it upon himself to caution major corporations about exactly how and where they are to do business as Cold War II begins. This will surely go over real well with the crazed neocons, after all their ideological roots sprang from Russia and the diktat from the longtime face of bomb them back to the stone age American foreign policy.
I excerpt from the Bloomberg piece entitled “McCain Looks to U.S. Companies in Russia If Putin Pushes”:
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“The U.S. should consider forcing major American companies such as General Electric (GE) and Exxon Mobil to suspend business in or pull out of Russia if President Vladimir Putin attempts to take more territory from Ukraine or other neighboring nations, said Senator John McCain of Arizona.
“I know that that’s a tough call and I know that we don’t want to hurt our own economy, but what are the consequences of Vladimir Putin just being able to act?” McCain, a Republican from Arizona who advocates military assistance for Ukraine, said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” airing this weekend.
Such a move likely would come through formal sanctions rather than political pressure on individual corporations, McCain said, and “would only be considered” if Putin “went much further.”
In addition to GE and Exxon-Mobil (XOM) Corp., the companies with the largest business interest in Russia include Ford Motor Co. (F), General Motors Co. (GM), Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and PepsiCo Inc. (PEP)
Putin, who annexed Crimea from Ukraine earlier this month, has amassed tens of thousands of troops along the border, which McCain says indicates Russia may strike soon.
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It takes a serious egomaniac as well as a real set of stones to threaten, even implicitly the profitability of such enormous American corporations and this may effectively be McCain’s political death warrant as CEO’s of such huge entities do not take kindly in having some foolish ass tell them how and where to do business, let alone to call them out in such a public manner.
The Arizona Republican party has already censured McCain and he has just opened his mouth one time too many which will likely ensure that there will be a biblical sized tidal wave of campaign funding coming to the Grand Canyon state to primary his ass come 2016.
Not that anyone should ever mistake John Sidney McCain III for representing American values with his ongoing crusade to bankrupt the country by involving it in innumerable wars, civil wars and other insurrections, his sheer contempt for what is left of democracy by not just shutting the fuck up and acknowledging that he lost to the black guy in 2008 and now his open contempt for free enterprise.
The cowardly McCain who has hyped himself as a war hero despite dropping napalm on Vietnamese women and children and then being dumb enough to get shot down and thrown into a prisoner of war camp instead of just doing the honorable thing by killing himself to avoid capture has always been one of the biggest frauds in modern American history.
He may be wrap all of his bullshit up in old glory but what he is truly preaching with his message to those corporations is nothing short of Communist style centralized planning and enforcement by a corrupt pack of government jackals.
Let’s see those corporations put their money into something that would truly benefit this country by funneling several million dollars into Arizona to fund McCain’s opponents.
http://carryingaflag.blogspot.com/
You need to use a more meaning metric than spending of U.S. defense vs. entire world. It needs to be normalized to equal terms. The pay of an army infantry or defense industry worker in China is a fraction what the U.S pays. If you normalize to capability, it will tell a much different story.
Sunshine
We await your detailed analysis of this metric. I’m sure you’re working on it as we speak.
A massive Army study focusing on records from nearly a million soldiers provides a more detailed analysis of the suicides trend plaguing the service.
The Army suicide rate surpassed the civilian rate in 2008 and continued to climb
Study of Army soldiers is the largest ever done on suicide
Highest suicide rate was among soldiers who had been to war
Suicide rates soared among soldiers who went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan and those who never left the United States, according to the largest study ever conducted on suicide in the military.
To prepare the study, researchers scanned records from nearly a million soldiers.
Scientists have long speculated that the fast-paced tempo the Army was under at home and abroad during the war years was an overall strain that contributed to suicides and that deaths were not just a factor of combat duty. The research by the National Institute of Mental Health appears to bear this out.
“A simple explanation that war is hell and you send people to war and bad things happen to those people is an incomplete explanation,” says Michael Schoenbaum, an epidemiologist and lead author on the study looking at suicide rates.
The ongoing, $65 million study produced three separate research papers published online Monday by The Journal of the American Medical Association Psychiatry.
Among key findings: while suicide rates for soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan more than doubled from 2004 to 2009 to more than 30-per-100,000, the trend among those who never deployed nearly tripled to between 25- and 30-per-100,000.
Rates for a civilian population of similar age and demographics remained steady at 19-per-100,000 during this time. The Army suicide rate, historically far lower than the civilian figure, surpassed it in 2008 and kept climbing.
The research tracked soldier records through the end of 2009. But suicides in the Army continued to rise thereafter, reaching a record high in 2012 before dipping last year.
Other findings revealed by the research published Monday:
• Researchers debunked theories that suicides were the result of two Army trends designed to recruit or retain people. One trend was the use of waivers for recruits with poor education or conduct records. The other was the practice of forcing soldiers to remain in the service beyond their enlistment, something known as “stop-loss.” Neither practice contributed to the rise in suicides, researchers found.
• Some of the same risk factors that predict suicide — such as a history of mental health problems, a demotion in rank or a disciplinary action — also were were found to predict fatal accidents among soldiers.
• About one in four soldiers in the Army appear to suffer from at least one psychiatric disorder and one in 10 have multiple disorders.
• Women have lower suicide rates than men in the Army except during deployments.
• About a third of soldiers who attempted suicide are associated with mental disorders developed before they joined the Army, an indication that the service could do a better job of screening recruits.
Cute how Reverse Engineer et al. think we have capitalism. How can they be unaware that progs won the war on free enterprise long ago? They’re calling for the destruction of an economic system that’s been dead for 100 years. What a bunch of dumbasses.
http://www.strike-the-root.com/92/colyar/colyar2.html
A certain amount of military spending will always be needed, as many other countries are continually upgrading their technology and military capability. “If you would have peace, be prepared for war.” — Seneca. Nations must be preppers, just as individuals.
Trouble is, the US has gone far beyond preparedness and has been abusing its troops for way too long in this effort at hegemony. It’s grown worse with the increasing incompetence of our so-called leadership.
In this instance, Putin is playing chess while our folks are struggling with the rudiments of tic-tac-toe.
If Russia is the enemy then why are we supporting/financing an IMF Debt Restructuring Loan to the Ukraine of which about $10B is slated to pay off Russian Oligarchs?
The military industrial complex DID 9/11 to revitalize their profits.
There… fixed it for you Quinn!
The geo/political/financial illiteracy of the self-deluded Smokey(Jim)Quinn, and the willful ignorance of the supposedly highly educated bloviating classes, has never been more evident than when examining the concept of the official CIA 9/11 narrative and their aiding and abetting in treason and murder.
Once again you… FAIL!!!
The Litmus Test…
When will Quinn address the Fourteen Year Old War and Terror which was declared against the people of the world on September 11, 2001.
Enough of the fancy bar charts and meaningless graphs already Quinn.
Get down to the real nitty-gritty and 9/11Truth or… STFU!
……………………………………..
An Eye Opener https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do6o57N_SVA#t=60
Obama won a Nobel Prize , surely he’s a lover of peace … ha ha ha
Right on the mark. War is a business. And I believe the War Criminals are on the loose. We are in the hands of organized evil.. See links below:
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2013/09/the-rule-of-evil.html
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2014/02/the-wars-and-civil-wars-of-political.html
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2014/01/the-war-business-its-victims-and-its.html
Even if it was true, Republican politicians have had one single response to criticisms of cutting other government expenditures: “Cutting will teach them to be leaner and more efficient”. OK, so if we cut the military budget, that will just teach the military to be leaner and more efficient.
But then again, these were also the jokers who claimed that the sequester was grounding all of our F-22s, which was a total lie – when the sequester happened the fighters had already been grounded for two years over engine problems.
Commemorating Suicides, Vets Plant 1,892 Flags on National Mall
By Chris Good
Mar 27, 2014 2:32pm
On average, 22 veterans commit suicide each day, according to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).
To commemorate them and raise awareness, 32 veterans from the group flew to Washington, D.C., to plant 1,892 flags on the National Mall today, one for each of the veterans that the group says took his or her own life in 2014. IAVA extrapolated that number from a 2012 Veterans Administration report finding that 22 veterans took their lives each day in 2009 and 2010, only a slight increase from years past, and a number that includes all veterans, not just those who served in America’s more recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The event was part of IAVA’s 2014 Storm the Hill campaign, an annual week of action in which organization vets meet with lawmakers to push a veterans’ agenda picked for that year. In 2013, it was the Veterans Affairs benefits-claim backlog; this year, it’s veteran suicides.
“I know several individuals that have died by suicide,” Sara Poquette of Dallas, a video journalist who served in Iraq, said, adding that she herself considered suicide while experiencing the hardships of reintegrating into civilian life. “For me personally, it was more just getting through until I was really ready to get help, just realizing that my life was going down a path that I never really wanted it to go down.”
In Joining IAVA, Poquette said, she found a “new unit.”
The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America is pushing a bill, the Suicide Prevention for America’s Veterans Act, which Sen. John Walsh, D-Mont., plans to introduce. Walsh commanded a Montana National Guard battalion in Iraq.
“When we returned home, one of my young sergeants died by suicide, so this is very personal to me,” Walsh told reporters on the Mall today, calling veteran suicides “an epidemic we cannot allow to continue.”
The bill would extend eligibility for Veterans Administration health care, create a pilot program for student-loan repayment if health care professionals work for the VA, instigate a review of certain behavioral discharges, and mandate a review of mental health care programs at the VA, IAVA said.
The group is calling on Congress to pass the bill by Memorial Day.
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“Cute how Reverse Engineer et al. think we have capitalism.”
It’s what the system has been called for the last 200 years. Now Capitalist Apologists want to change the name to “Corporatism” or “Crony Capitalism”. The fact is there has never been anything but this, the magical wonderful “Capitalism” is a figment of the imagination. Go back to the time of Smedley Butler, the army made life safe for Standard Oil, go back further, the Navy forcibly “openned” Japan for trade and the Cavalry committed Genocide to clear the land of Natives. That is the history of Capitalism. Live with it.
RE
Debunking the Gutting of the Military Storyline by Jim Quinn now UP on the Diner Blog!
http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2014/03/31/debunking-the-gutting-of-the-military-storyline/
RE
Your best post yet! Congratulations on making it so 80% of the sheeple –I mean– We, the People will ‘get it’.
Keep up the very good work, all best,
Joseph E Fasciani, 71
Esquimalt//Victoria, BC
Kanada
AMEN. Another insightful article, James.
Empire is expensive, in terms of debt which is Karmic debt as well. Any system that is dependent upon constant growth is based on an illusion. When the growth or expansion season ends, the panic begins, and the monetary lies and the force-feediing of the rich with free money (low-interest) from the citizenry begins. Deflation is the natural balancing of the growth season. When the deflation season is subverted by the rich to avoid a loss of their empire, then we pervert the natural system of filling up and emptying out.
Both sides of the interest rate mechanism have to be used, equally. Expand money (lower interest rates) when the growth season arrives (1911, 1947, 1983, 2019); tighten money (raise interest rates) when the growth season ends (1929, 1965, 2001, 2037…). It is a breathing process. The world we ‘create’ (say, from 1983-2001) we must also ‘deconstruct’ or deflate (from 2001-2019); this process allows us to re-create the world with a better model from 2019-2037. This is what evolution is, but we must be wise enough to give up our moral high ground (dualism) that fuels the expansion or growth stage.
We should have begun slowly raising interest rates in 2001, and we should continue protecting the dollar until 2019. Why? To deflate asset bubbles, and to lower prices back to the level of salaries. Yes, such a contraction will be painful, but it will re-balance the playing field again away from the speculators who make a killing off of cheap money. And it will increase the savings-hoard of the general public to help fuel the next expansion, circa 2019.
On a larger scale, Empire is ALWAYS followed by a Dark Age, or a Night, (a Moon-Goddess experience) as Empire itself is a Day (a Sun-God experience). The Dark Age allows the earth to rest, allows humans to recover from the insane period of growth, competition, dog-eat-dog frenzy, greed and selfish calculation and self-serving pre-eminence. The Dark Age is also the period in which the ‘seed’ of the culture escapes the decaying dead body and begins to germinate. (Rome’s empirical germination was triggered by the ‘German nations’ — Joyce would have loved that — of tribal Vandals, and Visigoth and other end-of-the-alphabet manifestations — a veritable ‘wind’ that scattered these seeds all over the fertile lands of primordial Europe, up even into England, burying them in the soil for gestation.) During the Dark Age the culture ‘sleeps’ and dreams and begins to image who/what they will become when the next Dawn appears in another 1300 (?) years.
Theocracy; Aristocracy; Democracy; Chaos (recirculation). Thank you, Mister Vico. V stands for Venus, for the Virgin (Mary, or Sea), for the Vagina or Vomb (Vomb almost rhymes with Moon) — clearly the germination in the Earth is a symbol for this planing of the seed in the womb and period of gestation before the madcap growth season of empire returns both as our salvation from the entropic Night and also as our ever-recurring curse of waking.
Hope you are well.
Michael
More dumbassery from Reverse Engineer. It would be funny if it weren’t so fucking tragic.
How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!
–Samuel Adams
“The defense appropriations probably exclude spending on the spy agencies.”
—-Steve Hogan
Don’t think so. I know for a fact that DoD’s “black budget” (the classified version) includes funding for the CIA. For example, the CIA’s annual budget is currently around $14 billion and has been buried in the defense budget for a long time. I’m not a numbers-cruncher, but it shouldn’t be that hard to hide $14 billion in a total budget of about $700 billion. I’ll bet Admin could do it without breaking a sweat.
Jeebus H. Fuck. I get 24 thumbs up for promising to post a thread about the true costs of the “special relationship” with the locus of every evil in the modern world that completely sucks ass and should be wiped off the face of the earth…oh wait, yall have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s a little country called Israel. Anyway, when I do it, the fucking post is largely ignored. wtf is up with that?
Though he waged a good fight and issued stern warnings, Ike fought a losing battle against the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Initially, he succeeded in cutting defense budgets, but eventually he caved to congressionally approved defense increases. And he was a retired five-star general who was president for 8 years. One of the most widely admired and respected war heroes in our nation’s history. And easily one of the top five most popular presidents ……. ever.
Now, we need to recognize that historical context. And ask ourselves, “If Eisenhower couldn’t reign in this unnecessary and bloated defense spending, who can?”
I submit it likely WON’T BE a future president and/or elected members of congress. The political variables are too great for that to happen, and the MIC has too much power and influence on those variables. So where does that leave us as citizens of this republic?
Perhaps, just maybe, a small group of senior military officers, fully cognizant that their careers are about to end, will step forward to issue a lucid and straightforward statement to the American public that “This has got to stop. We are doing far more than what is necessary for America’s defense. It is too expensive, we can’t afford it, and most importantly, we don’t need it.” The officers could continue with specific examples of just exactly what it is we don’t need.
Perhaps, just maybe, this will gain traction with elected officials and the public alike. Prudent defense budgets will eventually become the norm based on what is SUFFICIENT for our needs. I can dream, can’t I?
The two sides of the American mind — the two brothers, Shaun and Shem, as James Joyce called them — are focused on two images: The Growth Empiricists are fixated with the image of America as Rome and are committed to the continuing expansion of the American Empire, at whatever cost; the Shem Mind (the Non-growth Romantics) see the only solution to American evil in the world as being secession, the breaking of the Great Singularity of White Light (the refraction of that light into the lesser lights, the colors of the rainbow) into smaller countries or larger states, and with the subsequent castration of Washington DC and New York City, or decentralization. Decentralization leads into the Dark Age, but it also leads toward rebirth. The continued fixation on the Empire Story only leads to more debt and more tribal cultures hating America and wishing to invade and eliminate the beast from the world scene.
Read the book ‘The Nine Nations of North America” and get a sense of what secession will do for America and for the world. Note: There is good and bad in every action. Decentralization means we will lose our empire and with it our supposed exceptionalism. We will lose civilization stage; but we will eventually gain our culture stage (9 difference cultures?) and we will emerge from the Dark Ages like Europe did, as city-states embracing a Renaissance (Spring) season.
Something to think about.
“More dumbassery from Reverse Engineer. It would be funny if it weren’t so fucking tragic”-MG
I’m looking for a refutation of the concept here, and can’t find it.
MG obviously grasps Capitalism is a corrupt and failed system of economics, but is unable to express his ideas coherently.
RE
Clash Royale
https://www.ygames.me/crgems/