Endless War category archive
All Guns, No Ifs, Ands, or Butter 0
Will Bunch considers Donald Trump’s budget proposal. He does not like what it portends. Here’s a bit (emphasis added):
Because war is just what authoritarians do. So is this budget — a tinhorn dictator budget, the budget of an immature boy-king who’s in love with the cold steel of tanks but has zero empathy for America’s humanity, let alone the National Endowment for the Humanities.
War and Mongers of War 0
I hope Farron is overstating things. I fear not.
Welcome to pariah patriotism.
Trumpling the Bomb 0
I remember sitting on the side porch in the 1950s and feeling relief that, in the event of World War III, we were within the radius of the nuclear attack that would most certainly be delivered to Norfolk Naval Base, so I would not be around for the aftermath.
If Trump wins, I can comfort myself with that same thought.
Via TPM.
ISIS, Origins Issue 0
Thom explains how ISIS arose from the Neoliberal paradise resulting from President George the Worst’s Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq.
Cannon Fodderers 2
Bob Chernow, Milwaukee businessman and veteran, is fed up with the chicken hawks, those politicians and lobbyists willing to send the children of others to die for the sake of short-term domestic political and personal gain (which leads to as good a definition of “unjust war” as I am likely to hear). A snippet:
But I do take issue with chicken hawks who dodged the draft or shirked their duty during war but advocated that others fight and perhaps die in war. This lack of character is prominent among many elected officials.
Read the rest.
Your Military-Industrial Complex at Work 0
Read the tale of “Fat Leonard.” Here’s just a tiny bit:
He exploited the intelligence for illicit profit, brazenly ordering his moles to redirect aircraft carriers to ports he controlled in Southeast Asia so he could more easily bilk the Navy for fuel, tugboats, barges, food, water and sewage removal.
Over at least a decade, according to documents filed by prosecutors, Glenn Defense ripped off the Navy with little fear of getting caught because Francis had so thoroughly infiltrated the ranks.
The company forged invoices, falsified quotes and ran kickback schemes. It created ghost subcontractors and fake port authorities to fool the Navy into paying for services it never received.
Francis and his firm have admitted to defrauding the Navy of $35 million, though investigators believe the real amount could be much greater.
Collateral Damage 0
The old bumper sticker from my youth was correct. War is hazardous to humans and other living things.
New research indicates that war causes CTE.
Follow the link for an article as depressing as it is long.
“Words Mean What I Want Them To Mean” 0
At The Nation, William J. Astore considers the vocabulary of endless war. One might say that his article is an extrordinary rendition of enhanced obfuscation techniques.
A snippet:
I Want To Teach the World To Sing
In Perfect Hegemony Reprise
0
Harry Shearer interviews Andrew Bacevich about Bacevich’s new book detailing the America’s four decade misadventure in the Middle East.
It is a must-listen. The interview starts about five minutes in.
“I Want To Teach the World To Sing
in Perfect Hegemony”
0
At the Boston Review, Stephen Kinzer interviews Andrew Bacevich on the mess in the Middle East and how it got way. Bacevich argues convincingly that it’s all about the oil, complicated by hubris and misunderstanding, in short, a desire to be God Emperors of Dunes.
A snippet:
AB: The rationales were becoming more diffuse. Yes, oil remained a core interest—not only oil to be consumed at home but also oil to fuel the rest of the industrialized world, meaning many of our allies. But by this stage, there is something else: an effort, however ill-considered and lacking in specificity, to capitalize on the end of the Cold War, claiming the mantle of sole superpower, with U.S. military supremacy the ultimate manifestation of that status. Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, the United States attempted to assert hegemony over a large part of the Islamic world. Again, there was no master plan. It was haphazard. It was arrogant. It was undertaken without any appreciation for the complexities involved or for what exertions hegemony would actually require.
Read the rest.
Have Guns, Will Travel 0
Swampwater rides again!
Warning: Language.
American Taliban: Jingo Unchained 0
Werner Herzog’s Bear thinks that the punditocracy is overlooking the central appeal of Donald Trump, even as they clutch their pearls and fall on their fainting couches, in the grip of the vapors at his ungentlemanly behavior.
Mr. Bear believes that uniting Trump’s appeals to bigotry, racism, and xenophobia is an overweening theme of aggressive nationalism*. I urge you to read his full piece; here’s a bit:
About the same time that Mr. Bear was forming his post, Giles Fraser of The Guardian offered his theory as to how Americans who loudly and vociferously proclaim their fealty to Jesus Christ can espouse policies that directly counter his words as reported in the four Gospels:
In short, he suggests that American fundamentalists evangelicals whatever they call themselves today you know who I mean have replaced the Prince of Peace with a God of War–that they have built their own Golden Christ, wrapped in an American flag, carrying an M16, and piloting a Predator drone.
Frankly, I think that both writers are onto something. In particular, it is much easier for persons to change their god than it is for them to change themselves. Christianists (or, as Michael in Norfolk calls them, “Christofascists”) have taken that step.
______________________
*Left implicit is the “white’ in nationalism.
Plus Ca Change 0
Shorter Dan Simpson: It’s deja vu all over again.
The Candidates Debate 0
Jim Wright is having trouble absorbing what he heard. A snippet:
Carpet bombing? Waterboarding? And the crowd cheered.
The crowd cheered.
What in the holy hell is it with these goddamned people?
When did the unabashed willingness to engage in the indiscriminate obliteration of entire populations, when did the enthusiastic willingness to torture our enemies, when did those things become traits anybody liberal or conservative would want in an American president?
Follow the link. Read the rest.