Is perpetual war inevitable?
Posted inPolitics: National

Is perpetual war inevitable?

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In an otherwise interesting essay entitled, "The Price of Perpetual War," we find this perplexing paragraph:

The United States did not choose this era of perpetual war. It is the price of living in a world where, for the first time, terrorist groups and malevolent individuals can reach the United States and wreak havoc from virtually any corner of the world. That threat was literally brought home by al Qaeda on 9/11 and reinforced all too recently by the terror attacks in Paris, Brussels, and San Bernardino.

Does anyone believe this is so? Alas, millions of Americans. But to make a quick list…

…We chose to give a blank check to Saudi Arabia to run one of the world's most repressive regimes while spreading extremist war-on-the-infidels Islam throughout the Middle East and beyond. One doesn't have to subscribe to conspiracy theories to acknowledge that Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi citizens. And what has our kowtowing to the kingdom given us? The House of Saud's oil, to fuel our "non-negotiable" (and already heavily subsidized) car-based sprawl lifestyle. Most oil needs to stay in the ground if we are to avoid destroying the planet even more — and between "making different arrangements" and domestic oil, we don't need OPEC anymore. …

…We chose an even closer connection to Israel, Riyadh's quiet ally, whether this was in America's national interest or not. And with the oppressive and increasingly extremist regime of Benjamin Netanyahu is it increasingly not. Indeed, increasing Jewish settlements on Palestinian land and injustices against the Palestinian people committed by Israel blow back on the United States, which has long ago lost its credibility as an honest broker in the Middle East. It has inflamed Islamic and Arabic anger against us. And for what? To please the powerful donors of AIPAC and older Jewish voters in the swing state of Florida?…

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Posted inPolitics: National

Daddy, what did you do in the war on the Constitution?

It’s clear that President-elect McCain will run with this major theme: Barack Obama is not qualified to be president because he didn’t serve in the military. For example, when Obama praised McCain’s service and wondered why he refused to support the new GI Bill, McCain shot back, "I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his
responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my
regard for those who did."

The "religious test" prohibited by the Constitution has been seriously eroded by modern politics. But what McCain implies is more dangerous still to the future of the nation: that only soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are really qualified to lead the nation, particularly in wartime.

So many contradictions and hypocrisies here. Neither Woodrow Wilson nor Franklin Roosevelt were veterans, yet they led the nation in the two world wars. And where was McCain’s outrage over the neo-con chicken-hawks who took draft deferments during Vietnam, notably Dick Cheney (five deferments). Obama was a child during Vietnam. And what of the swift-boated John Kerry?

But the biggest concerns cut to the core of the American republic. They could reveal McCain not merely as a misinformed and misguided candidate, but a potentially dangerous one.

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Posted inPolitics: National

Five years that changed America, whether we know it or not

After five years of war in Iraq, we know a few things. None of them gives us much comfort for the future.

We know that, contrary to President Bush after 9/11 (used as a false pretense for waging war in Iraq), that everything did not change. That was certainly true on the home front. For the first time in American history, taxes were cut as the nation went to war. Most Americans were asked to make no sacrifices at all — indeed, we were told to "consume" more (imagine that admonition from FDR). Americans continued the unthinking choices that helped lead to the mess in the Middle East, chiefly driving ever longer distances in automobiles. Televised and electronic distractions continued and even increased. Many Americans still believe Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attack. The media unthinkingly report on "al Queda" in Iraq, although it is a separate group of insurgents that emerged as a result of the invasion. Most Americans, it seems, have "moved on."

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Posted inPolitics: National

Blond coed hooker admiral stands up against war with Iran

If only Admiral William Fallon had been involved with a $5,500 call girl named Kristen, or maybe had murdered a blond coed…

I don’t say this to libel this honorable man, but only to make the point about what it might take to get the attention of the addled, coddled, willfully ignorant American people about the really important things that are happening in the world. These thing will affect them far more than the hookers or coeds, or the "local news" that dominates their corporate-owned newspapers.

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