Endless War category archive

Works on this side of the pond with minimal editing.

Via Mr. Feastingonroadkill.

If you consider the arguments for raining death from the Syrian sky, they pretty much boil down to

“Because somebody should do something.”

Not, I submit, a particularly sound exercise in policy formation.

Via the BooMan.

Don’t go there.

It’s a lose-lose situation, yet another endless war.

Despite the glorious delusions of the war faction (none of whom, it should be noted, would actually be in harm’s way), we are not the Omnipotent States of America.

If the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq and its companion piece in Afghanistan have proved nothing else, they have proved that.

Afterthought:

These folks are always willing freely to sacrifice other persons’ children for their fantasies of potency. Why don’t they just buy themselves some Viagra?

Pah!

Via Balloon Juice.

Gian Gentile assesses the results of the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq and its older cousin in Afghanistan.

Many years ago the British historian and strategist B.H. Liddell Hart pointed out that the object of war should be to produce a “better state of peace.” If that is what earns a war a passing grade, then the United States deserves a failing grade for Afghanistan and Iraq.

During the American occupation in Iraq between 2003 and 2011, as many as 250,000 Iraqis died and 1.4 million were displaced. Nearly 5,000 members of the U.S. military were killed, with many thousands more suffering life-altering wounds.

Read the rest about how we and they were Bush-whacked.

I’m not necessarily a David Sirota fan. I find his work “Sirota-centric.” Nevertheless, I think this interview is worth a listen.

I think that some consideration should be given to the idea that the NSA has managed to convince itself that SIGINT is somehow separate and distinct from spying, as it does not involve secret meetings, drop sites, trench coats, and suicide cyanide capsules.

Fresh Air’s Geoff Nunberg explores the conceptions, misconceptions, and misinformation about “metadata,” in particular statements from James Clapper, director of National Intelligence, that, somehow, metadata isn’t really data.

A nugget:

. . . (C)alling it metadata doesn’t make the process any less intrusive. Tell me where you’ve been and who you’ve been talking to, and I’ll tell you about your politics, your health, your sexual orientation, your finances.

Excerpt:

News is not a game show!

On a more serious note, Juan Cole is also unhappy with the coverage of Snowden.

I have not been flipping out over the recent NSA stories because, as I mentioned, it’s old news. If you didn’t know this was going on, you haven’t been paying attention.

In this video, Alan Grayson falls into the trap of believing some of the more fantastic inferences in some of the news stories (as has most everybody else who doesn’t understand how networks work), particularly the one of confusing SFTP with a “backdoor into a server”; nevertheless, I think that his comments on the the entwining of domestic surveillance and the military establishment are worth a listen.

On Linux Outlaws this week, Fab, whose university training was in Political Science (and whose rants are legendary in the Linux podcasting world), went off on this topic. He had a good handle on the facts, international law, and the implications of this practice, if not on his language.

The relevant portion of the show starts at the 55 minute mark and lasts about half an hour (follow the link to listen; if you do, remember that the language is NSFW and that the standards for “acceptable” profanity in the UK, where Fab resides, differ significantly from those in the US–in particular, the list of the most forbidden words in the UK does not include the most forbidden swear word in the US).

Video via AmericaBlog.

Leonard Pitts, Jr.:

People think tyranny will be imposed at the point of a gun. Paranoids look up in search of black helicopters. Meanwhile, the architecture of totalitarianism is put into place all around them, surveillance apparatus so intrusive as to stagger the imagination of Orwell himself.

The point is not that one has nothing to hide. The point is that whatever you have is none of the government’s business absent probable cause and a warrant. The point is that one should never repose unfettered power with the state.

We should know this, yet we fall for the same seductive con every time: We are afraid, but the state says it can make us safe. And all it will take is the surrender of a few small freedoms.

Read the rest.

Worth a think.

In related news.

Shaun Mullen is buoyed by President Obama’s recent speech, in which he promised to try to do something about endless war. A nugget:

This is because the speech articulated fundamental truths about the times in which we live long overdue in the telling, chief among them that our democracy demands that while we must continue to fight terrorism, the perpetual war the 9/11 attacks unleashed must end. And this: History shows that while terrorism continues to be ever present in many guises, it is by no means the greatest threat that America has faced, let alone one that justified abrogation of the liberties and principles that are the bedrock of our society.

Republicans predictably took to the fainting couch en masse, because — let’s face it folks — you either like war or you don’t like it, and the ideologues who have bent the Grand Old Party out of any recognizable shape believe there is no higher calling than shedding American blood on foreign soil no matter how flimsy the reasons for doing so may be.

Follow the link for his full thoughtful analysis. As I write this, the post has three comments which quite thoughtfully pertain to the post.

What the Booman said.

Will Bunch shares his thoughts on Memorial Day and what it memorializes.

Read it.

There are wars of necessity–wars brought to you–and wars of cynicism–wars you take to others, such as the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie in Iraq.

We have had a few of the former and too many of the latter.

Those who create wars of cynicism are old men who watch from the comfort of their dens as others die.

They call others amongst the beat of the drums and the skirl of the pipes, while they smoke their cigars, drink their champagne, and collect their checks.

First Son has four times been in harm’s way for the folly of those old men, for he enlisted so as to be able to pay his student loans.

Enough already, enough wars for lies.

Read Dick Destiny about the latest ricin scare. He knows whereof he speaks.

A nugget:

Purified ricin has never been accomplished by anyone known to be fiddling with castor seeds during the long years of the war on terror.

And no terror weapon has ever been made with it.

But, really now, facts are not nearly so much fun as fear-mongering if you want to sell papers and website hits or build an overarching surveillance empire.

Addendum, Later That Same Day:

Dick Destiny explains the chemisty.

The evil that men do lives . . . .

William Shakespeare

Via Balloon Juice.

Doghouse Riley takes time out for a Noonan.

A Peggy Noonan, that is.

A nugget therefrom:

A thing is not true just because you are, or pretend to be, serious about it. Especially you.

Via Bartcop.