(This post is from our new blog: Unofficial Sources.)
Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers has formed a new pressure group, now active in Iowa and New Hampshire, to serve as the “premiere national security and foreign policy organization during the 2016 debate” and to “help elect a president who supports American engagement and a strong foreign policy.”
Roger’s group, Americans for Peace, Prosperity, and Security, is hosting candidate events and intends to host a candidate forum later this year. The organization does not disclose its donors. But a look at the business executives helping APPS steer presidential candidates towards more hawkish positions reveals that many are defense contractors who stand to gain financially from continued militarism:
- Advisory Board Member John Coburn is chairman and CEO of VT Systems, a company that delivers communications technology for the Defense Department.
- Advisory Board Member Stephen Hadley is a principal at the consulting firm RiceHadleyGates and serves as a board member to defense contractor Raytheon, a position that pays him $228,007 in annual compensation.
- New Hampshire Board Member Rich Ashooh lists his employment as Director, Strategy at BAE Systems.
- New Hampshire Board Member James Bell is the chief executive of EPE Corporation, a manufacturing company that says it is a “premier supplier to the defense community.”
- Advisory Board Member John Engler is the president of the Business Roundtable, a lobbying group for major corporations, including defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, United Technologies and Northrop Grumman.
- New Hampshire Board Member Ken Solinksy is founder of Insight Technologies, a night vision and electro-optical systems firm acquired by L-3 Communications.
- New Hampshire Chairman and Advisory Board Member Walt Havenstein is the former chief executive of BAE Systems and SAIC, two of the largest defense contractors in America. Havenstein, who left SAIC in 2012, was paid partially in company stock options.
And blogger Joshua Huminski worked in 2013 as a spokesperson for Aegis Defense Services, a contractor that provided security services to U.S. facilities in Afghanistan. Aegis did not respond to a request asking if Huminski is still employed there.
As we first reported, Rogers may have a conflict of interest as well. Though he announced that he left Congress to pursue a career in talk radio, we found that the former Michigan congressman later admitted taking on jobs in consulting and in private equity. His office has refused to provide more information about those private sector gigs.
Watch a promo video fro APPS below:
Rogers told local media that his new group, which plans to be operational in South Carolina soon, will be closely engaged with the candidates, not only through public events, but also through private meetings with the APPS advisory board members. Just before kicking off her presidential campaign, GOP candidate Carly Fiorina appeared at an APPS forum in New Hampshire. In April, APPS-NH chairman Havenstein personally sponsored the First in the Nation kick-off event for the New Hampshire Republican Party.
The Issues portion of the APPS website is devoted to news articles featuring a range of threats to American national security. Explaining the goals of his group to a news outlet in Indiana, Rogers lamented the lack of “surveillance capabilities” and warned of increasing threat of cyberwarfare.
Rogers and APPS did not respond to a request for comment.
“It’s not unusual for the arms industry to use front groups to press for a more aggressive foreign policy,” says William Hartung, director of the Arms & Security Project at the Center for International Policy.
“It sounds a lot more credible when a group called ‘Americans for Peace, Prosperity and Security’ calls for a policy shift than if the same argument comes out of the mouth of an arms executive or lobbyist whose livelihood is tied to the spread of tension and conflict,” Hartung said.
Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
Pope Francis explains to children that war profiteers never want peace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWbeh44pBbA#t=57
He said it indeed.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/12/pope-francis-weapons-war_n_7266688.html
He also doesn’t like polluters.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/12/pope-environmental-sinners-will-face-god-judgment
When does he start knocking over the moneylenders’ tables?
Irony: the missile launcher that fires during the menacing “nuclear Iran” narration is a Patriot missile defense system made by Raytheon, the company that APPS Stephan Hadley is a board of. So – scare the public about supposed foreign threats, yet in reality they are so unserious that you have to use stock footage from the massive American military world.
The best I can offer to all of you on this is to watch this three hour documentary, “JFK to 9/11: Everything Is A Rich Man’s Trick”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Qt6a-vaNM
Pour a tall one and sit back for a history lesson unlike any you have ever seen.
The question is, what next?
Aye ya yae — 3 and a half hours! I cannot do it. But I found this quote which apparently is at end of film.
“All terrorism is fake. It is a military deception practiced by the rich upon the poor in an ongoing class war. Their most important weapon in this class war are television presenters. The BBC has actually become The Ministry of Truth of George Orwell’s 1984….Why is this happening right now? It’s happening because we no longer have an enemy. We have an unprecedented situation in which there is only one super state: the Anglo-American alliance…..The ruling group maintain their position in society by controlling the masses through fear. In order to make us believe that we must live in fear, the rich had to provide us with a new foreign enemy, a “bogeyman” who wants to conquer the world. The moment you have a world at peace, the keystone in the arch of ruling class power is gone. Every year America’s oligarchs take three trillion dollars out of America’s economy. This is how the rich have rigged the system – so that it benefits them at the expense of everyone else all of the time. To keep this fraud going, the public must be convinced of the need for military expenditure, and this is where all of the phony terror attacks come in. Here is Orwell’s definition of totalitarianism: ‘ A society living by and for continuous warfare in which the ruling caste have ceased to have any real function but succeed in clinging to power through force and fraud.’
should have been Americans for Patriarchal Profits and Prosperity
(Wealthy elite) Americans for Peace( through war), Prosperity (for the few) and Security (for none!).
War is Peace
They talk of times of peace for all but then prepare for war. (Oilz)
Ironic name, defense (read offensive weapons) contractors lobbying with Peace in their name.
I recall aircraft makers targeting one another’s tails for contracts, but this is rather to the point isn’t it? They hate turn overs unless they can call them.
The War Criminal lobby now funds candidates.
Taking over for the Mob.
Well, of course they would like more, but even more compelling is defending what they already have. The United States is no longer sovereign in its information systems including its budgeting systems. Private industry is managing them.
Remember the health care roll out? Some Canadian private Canadian firm got the contract and delivered a crappy overpriced system. This annoyed the Republicans. They wanted THEIR friends to get the contract to deliver the crappy overpriced system.
If you want some idea of what is going on behind the scenes you might want to listen to Catherine Austin Fitts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiqMAf0Wc1U
Did you catch the geoengineering going on in the photo accompanying the article. Geez!
And yet, the obese, ignorant Americans will squabble over which War Pig candidate is better, like there is any difference between their two corporate owned parties.
America – bring death and destruction to mankind and the World. What a cesspool of humanity.
“The war on terror is genocide” written by Karen Jayes of Cage UK
http://www.cageuk.org/article/war-terror-genocide
Thanks for your stories Lee. It begs the question though, do you ever go home? Story after story exposing the corruption in high places are coming so fast, if I take a day or two for personal pursuits, I’m left in your dust. This is in no way a complaint, just an observation. Keep ’em comin’ Lee. The only complaint is in needing to get these articles to a wider audience, where you’re not mainly preaching to the choir. Whenever an opportunity presents itself, linking to TI is one avenue for us to take. All my friends and family have been shown the way here, but you can lead a horse to water, so the more the better. It’s a numbers game, and right now we are greatly outnumbered.
Jgreen7801, thanks for checking out my reporting! I appreciate your readership.
I second (and I’m sure many many others concur) with jgreen7801’s appreciation of your work. Thank you for trying to promote justice.
For those of you who continue to deny Cointelpro, Jeffrey Kaye links today on Twitter to ‘mind control’ lawsuit that the CIA was forced to settle. @Jeff_Kaye is my hero. http://www.breggin.com/ECT/civilDOrlikowPretrialstatmnt.pdf
How dare the pathetic welsh tories refer to Charlotte Church as a “champagne socialist” She is right in saying” the reigns of power has been handed over to the bogey men” and I think its great to see a successful and wealthy celebrity taking part in a demonstration against austerity.
For those that may have missed it here is the BBC news story :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-32680882
A lot more credible to whom I wonder? Those who are aware of what goes on behind the scenes don’t find it credible no matter the group or name and most of the rest of the American public is ignorant and apathetic – paying no attention to the whole thing.
I would like to see either Lee Fang or Glenn Greenwald or a team of TI journalists do a retrospective article based on a compilation of the combination of lies and ignorance that Mike Rogers bandied about on TV gabfest programs, congressional snooze panels and other venues made available to him to showcase his buffoonery about the Snowden Documents. Not necessarily to re-debunk all of his lip-flappery, but more for the purpose of highlighting what a brazen yet clumsy liar he is, and also how easy it is for him to find willing participants who will offer a platform for his Carnival Barking.
“Glenn Greenwald doesn’t have a clue”
“Snowden had help” “”We know he [Snowden] did some things capability-wise that was beyond his capabilities.”
“A thief [Greenwald] selling stolen materials is a thief”
The UK election was won by Conservatives with a majority. Lefties (Labour & Liberal Democrats mainly) lost big time. Because they did not represent the wishes of the population, only their own attitudes. Like it or not Conservatives did represent the people’s wishes fairly well as is shown by the results. In summary until lefties get on board with the population’s wishes they will remain powerless. Some of the wishes of the people (not all of course) are dealing with failed Multiculturalism, subservience to the EU rules on foreign workers contributing to widespread un-employment, un-controlled immigration especially of Muslims which now of growingly concern to them, and a host of issues that no lefties are willing to even face for fear of social back-lash within their own clique. The trend within Western Countries is conservative not left-wing. The whole subject is far too complex for me to say if this is a “good” thing or a “bad” thing, but that it is the trend is shown by these results.
Old, older, the oddest… Maybe the election system does not represent anymore the younger generations´ wishes? They will have to find their own ways to interact and rule the world. By having fun – and more sex?
Of course. As the saying (probably) goes, “There’s an app for that!”
Thanks for your assessment Tom, it reminded me of The Sun newspaper for some reason.
If I thought that 24% of the electorate voting for the winning party implied that the people are ‘fairly well’ represented, then I’d agree. But I don’t, so I won’t.
The LibDems and Labour are not Lefties, by most political analysts’ opinions. The SNP, by the same opinions are left of centre, and rumor has it they won a seat or two. Tariq Ali has written some of the best perspective that I have yet to read on GE15:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/05/08/farewell-to-the-united-kingdom/
I also would not agree that 24% voting for one political party suggests a trend to the right wing, or that the party could be deemed to represent the wishes of the population. The problem is that all the main political parties in the UK, and USA are much the same, and all centre – the reality being that the electorate has no choice, no democracy.It is time for change,transformation and time for some new radical ideas, and new political parties, which maybe could be funded differently, maybe through crowd sourcing. If Labour had stood up against Fracking, against wars of profit, and against mass surveillance, or what was referred to as the “snoopers charter” and had shown that it was not going to be a lap dog to the USA then I suspect that they may well have won. In the UK we need a popular leader, someone courageous and fearless – a Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, or any of the few remaining brave journalists that are prepared to take risks to expose evil, greed, and corruption. The people are many, and change can come about swiftly through viral social media campaigns, and if enough people keep exposing the criminality and corruption of our Governments.Its important to shout louder, and wider than the corporate owned media, and to ensure that propaganda, and lies are challenged.More pop stars, and movie stars and other celebrities need to also add their voices if change is to come about, and we are to have a fairer World, and peace for everyone.
Excellent analysis, Myers. The winners are quick to claim that their victory proves they are correct. It proves only that they won. The explanation of how and why they won requires much more in-depth analysis.
It will be interesting to see which direction the SNP goes after the fight for independence is won.
Add the 12% that voted for UKIP and you have 36% of voters for conservatism (right wing) although the fact that the 12% only garnered a single seat instead of about 85 seats if the system was PR (in one form or another) and not FPTP does support your theory. Gives me food for thought.
Like always, it’s wartime in the UK and U.S., and the wishes of the populations of these two countries are best represented by liars, thieves, mass murderers, and torturers.
British conservatives are far to the left of American conservatives ands even to the left of many American Democrats.
Trying to portray that asa movement toward conservcatism is simply bad math
On the other hand, the liberal NDP just just this week finished wiping the floor with the Tories in the Alberta, Canada’s provincial election, a conservative stronghold for 44 consecutive years, the home of the majority of Canada’s oil extraction, half of which population believes the earth is 6,000 years old.
Canada’s been one of the bugger disappointments ever since about 2010. The country didn’t fall for the financial monstrosities leading to the fallout of 2008, but not long after they passed draconian laws forbidding various sorts of protests and proteat-related acts (like wearing masks in public.. no idea how balaclavas play out in the Canadian winter in peaceful assemblies), choosing to act as the trial country for some of the US’s disturbing surveillance tech, and now passing one of the most harsh surveillance bills oit there (not an exhaustive list by any means, nor did I touch upon the weird internet caps many ISPs get away with). I am coming to believe this is like an evil sadistic totalitarian form of Tulip Mania. Crowds are indeed mad and apparently assemblies of countries can act as crowds in all the worst kinds of ways. That election was a letdown. And the oil extraction policies coming down the pike more and more frequently are just terrible.
Thanks again for the wonderful reporting you folks do at TI. Best reads of the day.
I’m just a simple old country guy but I have the most difficult time understanding something.
How do the bastards that run this country and those that feed the killing machines the first group uses to terrorize the world sleep at night. When you spend the day terrorizing the less fortunate it should keep one up at night. Seems only fair but then I guess sociopaths have a different set of priorities.
Well said, Mike Tabony. Thank you. We obviously need more “simple old country guys” like you.
Let them sleep soundly. That way they won’t notice until too late when the peasants with pitchforks come to break down the gates.
Except the gates are electrified fences, the cameras are tamperproof, the facial recognition is divine, and the police consider themselves part of the non-peasant class.
Mr. Fang continues to chronicle the demise of American democracy.
The fix was in.
https://medium.com/@NafeezAhmed/how-big-money-and-big-brother-won-the-british-elections-2e8da57faac4
Your post is very interesting Myers,and the following paragraph, taken from it, provides excellent commentary on the election result, and an accurate forecast of the lack of future in the UK :
“The next five years promises more of what we have already seen over the last five years: austerity, corporate empowerment, privatisation of public services widening inequality, continued obfuscation on climate change, subservience to Big Oil and nuclear lobbies, and a return of the snoopers’ charter?—?previously blocked by the Lib Dems?—?that would enshrine excessively intrusive surveillance powers into law.
So we should make no mistake. This is not a victory for British democracy. It is a victory for Britain’s increasingly draconian corporate-security complex”.
Excellent reporting. But they don’t matter any more.
The world turned its collective back on them with Libya; they just don’t know it yet. Just like Detroit didn’t know.
This is the part where they pull down unethical politicians along with them to whicever hell they are going.
Having read several of your comments, it seems there is a real lack of intelligent discourse on the foreign policy of the U.S., regardless of which political party has a say. An obviously corrupted system by money from these lackeys of the defense. intelligence, military Cabool need s to be checked. Who do your suggest should do it? Hillary the Snow White or the 19 dwarfs?
I say give their sons all the guns they want and send them off to war
One of the names on that list rang a bell, with a great big clang. Stephen Hadley, as a quick check with his Wikipedia page, shows he was deputy national security advisor to George W. Bush, and mixed up in the yellowcake affair among other things. Wikipedia also had this Raytheon tie-in:
Not a conflict of interest if you’re advocating from Raytheon’s point of view. I suppose you could call that “product placement.”
Captain’s Log, supplemental. It looks like the Americans for War, Profits and Secure Dividends has some ready-to-wear candidates. The South Carolina Freedom Summit had the GOP presidential candidates doing the full Strangelove.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/09/republican-presidential-hopefuls-focus-fire-on-obamas-foreign-policy
Some highlights:
“We will look for you, we will find you and we will kill you,” sounds very similar to Barack “whack-a-mole” Obama.
And Obama’s already killed thousands of innocents in his impersonation of Lame Neeson.
Rubio is ready: ‘Like Barack Obama, only worse!’ He should use that as his slogan, though Hillary Clinton’s probably got dibs on it.
Well said! Cindy, you’re one of my favorite posters on TI.
I heard the same bell, and remembered the connection to W. I did not know that he went to Raytheon.
Raytheon has been buying up some of the most off-books offensive technology companies lately (think cyberwar). Given extra context here, that bodes even better than I could have hoped. (/s)
I thought we had seen the last of that crooked Rogers fellow.
Old crooks never die, they just move along o the next scam.
At approximately 01:10 into Rogers’ schlock video he and the background graphic boasts the following: “Connect Top Foreign Policy and Business Leaders With Grass Roots Activists.” I’d like to see some (One) example of a grass roots activist “connected” to the likes of Mike Rogers. How, exactly, is this “Americans for Peace Prosperity and Security” behemoth reaching out to or including grass roots activists?
“How, exactly, is this ‘Americans for Peace Prosperity and Security’ behemoth reaching out to or including grass roots activists?”
In precisely the same way Hillary Clinton is ‘connecting’ with grass roots activists: by claiming affinities (in her case faux feminism, in his case faux masculinity), which is to say an illusion that exploits cultural identity and directs it to the same corporatism/militarism that both establishment parties desire.
Obama is a faux ‘black activist,’ and so on. Using propagandized stereotypes as caricatures to manipulate the populace into (one way or another) accepting the corruption of the state by multinational corporate interests under the guise of ‘grass-roots’ motives appears to be the fallback position of the establishment since the 1960s, the real movements of which apparently shook the system so effectively that destruction or co-option of such dynamics is now the system’s ongoingly-panicked but consistent failsafe.
Connecting community frustrations with more militarism as a solution is quite effective, if Fox News is the voice of said community, just as connecting community frustrations with a hatred of the ‘white middle-class male’ is quite effective, if (the almost equally violent) neoliberalism is the dominant. Either way, the system wins by co-opting all conspicuous voices and steering the people toward some form or other of the prevailing status quo (which is actually the problem, in reality).
Public emotions are being manipulated by an establishment for its own purposes, and that’s really all that’s happening, though it seems more complicated.
From The Guardian link:
So I see that earning the Official Outstanding Team Member label “grassroots activist” is similar to “Everybody wins a ribbon! Everyone wins a prize!” It’s about having a medal pinned on your chest by The Mega Stars, such as Mark Rubio, Rick Santorum, Carly Fiorina, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush. Some sick shit right there, man.
Yes, it means no more than the 2 minutes hate for Emmanuel Goldstein in 1984.
People should remember that in 1984 Emmanuel Goldstein was himself a fabrication of the establishment, and O’Brien (the torturer) claimed to have written much of Goldstein’s book. Some idiot referred to Snowden as Emmanuel Snowstein lately, not realizing the foolishness.
Obama is a willing ‘Goldstein’ for the system as it advances beyond him. And that’s some sick shit all right.
But grass is slang for informants, they are fans of informants, and informant roots can be real too. (/s)
Right out of the gate, the fraud reveals itself with the title of Rogers’ ‘group’, Americans for Peace, Prosperity, and Security.
How 1984 of you, Mike. Couldn’t you come up with anything more original?
Mike, you are a dangerous man and truly fucking insane.
Oh, they meant it about prosperity. It’s a very old racket, as Smedley Butler noted 80 years ago. His book is here —
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html
— and it includes things like this, QED:
Thanks for promoting my words which never seem to go out of fashion. (Because profiteering & war never seem to go out of fashion.)
These people really put the “monger” into “warmonger”. It’s not just a term of scorn, it really is a form of sordid business promotion.
@ Mr. Fang
I also want to note how much I appreciate your journalism and how glad I am you are here at The Intercept. It was one of the few reasons I read the Nation. Your journalism is always top notch and I’m always presently surprised by your uncanny ability to “find” important stories. I mean either you’ve got a Rolodex and the trust of your sources (or both presumably) that most journalists would be envious of and/or you have an uncanny ability to sniff out and drill down on a story like few journalists working today.
In any event, thank you. Keep up the good work. In fact I won’t even hold it against you that you used to work for Steny Hoyer. I mean that guy has been selling the liberal agenda down the river for a very long time.
“What did I do?”
– American, circa 2015
I think we are soon coming brutally into the era of “What didn’t I do?”… and that is some even more f’ed up sh!t.
Easy way to solve this problem if Congress wanted to–pass a law that says no candidate for elected office, or elected official, may take any financial contribution from any potential government contractor who bids on provide services to the government related to the manufacture or sale of arms. And if that doesn’t pass Constitutional muster, try the following which would work:
No American government contract for the procurement of arms, munitions, or parts for either may include more than 1% over the actual cost of production as profit to the supplier or manufacturer. No American arms or munitions manufacture may sell its arms to any other nation or individual absent approval by the Secretary of State. And any supplier found to exceed the 1% profit rate or selling arms or munitions to any party without US government authorization will be prosecuted as a war profiteer.
I can pretty much guarantee you that if you take the “profit incentive” out of war, it would become very rare. At least between nation states.
This is an excellent suggestion for cleaning up our own ethics. But it will have no effect on the rest of the world. Plenty of other countries are happy to bolster their trade balance by exporting weapons and plenty of companies will fill the gap left by American companies prohibited from exporting. Despite the lack of practical effect worldwide, it would be beneficial for the US. We would be taking a step toward becoming the shining city on a hill that we always claim to be. We could set an example, showing that it is possible to be prosperous by engaging in honest, decent, constructive, beneficial enterprises.
The State Department already controls sales of weapons to foreign countries, so that part of your suggestion would have no effect, unfortunately. The approvals that are given today would merely be renewed after your proposal was implemented.
When the board of directors can simply increase their compensation packages to bring the profit margin within your proposed 1%, profit constraint legislation will have little to no effect. There appears to be the formation of a consensus among many here that the time for a legislative fix passed some time ago. For those who propose revolution as the solution, be aware that revolution is a fearsome process frought with many pitfalls, collapse of society and the ensuing chaos that would bring, being just one, so calling for revolution should not be taken lightly. Of course, doing nothing may result in the same outcome. Wish I had an answer. Answers anyone?
Salary caps back to what the differentials were about a century or two ago might help a little bit. Doing away with SuperPACs and PACs. Starting our own crowdsourced anti-surveillance/pro-privacy PAC (but with only money and not power to offer, probably a weak suggestion – nevertheless might gain some political supporters who do sympathise but cannot “afford” to vote against the base; perhaps that little bit could help tho it also buys into the corruption of the system). For starters.
Another thing, help lift up the people that DO have ethics – which is to say work on expanding the base of those who do brave, bold, or admirable acts (not just words). Get congress into the senate. Get strong-minded ethical people from the community into congress. Get senators who have spoken out running for president (though until you have more in the senate they may be better where they are for the time being). Wyden saying he would fillibuster ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/10/ron-wyden-nsa-surveillance_n_7251562.html ) makes him, imho, someone worth backing – because he was also one of the people who would have come out sooner with a bit of an earlier push. Often politicians can’t stick their neck out until someone presents third party proof – and sometimes they want to make a difference legilatively – but they cannot do so from a prison cell.
There is simply no possibility that the kind of corruption described in this article will ever be ended by some mechanism of the franchise. Only revolution will put an end to the influence of the filth that are pictured here. Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains.
Let’s call it what it is that Rogers and other merchants of death suffer from: mental illness.
Disgusting war criminals, merchants of death,seeking to widen and intensify conflict, prolonging the war on terror to increase their corporate profits, and personal gains.How dare this group of psychopaths call itself Americans for peace ! For this level of deeply entrenched corruption there is but one solution, revolution.
That says it pretty well for me! Fight fire with fire!
I don’t know what revolution means today. We can’t even get people to vote let alone show up enmasse anywhere to protest the government’s abuses. I do not know why the print media does not, can’t or won’t organize readers to action like online sites and civil organizations do to sign petitions, or boycott certain topics, sites, etc. This movement is lacking a visible leader a la Martin Luther King who can call his/her supporters to action. Perhaps Snowden should become more vocal.
Why in the world would you expect the print media to organize readers? First of all print media doesn’t really exist anymore. Secondly, print media is in the hands of oligarchs like Rupert Murdoch. It is a giant commercial enterprise, not terribly unlike the arms industry, and with similar profit first, last and always ethics.
Naivete? Former reporter here who really drank the Koolaid.
I don’t think it is naivete, NW — I think things have just changed for the worse, and rather rapidly with regards to scale (and it is accelerating by orders of magnitude every decade). Those were the old ways (and even they weren’t around that long, in the scheme of things – a few centuries, at best) and they are still what is taught in journalism classes, as is the dream of being a journalist in the idealised sense (the heyday of which was probably the 70s imho).
“To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” The U.S.’s invasion and occupation of Iraq was a gratuitous enterprise of aggression that could be seen as justified only through the same “lens” used by Nazi Germany to justify what would later be seen as paradigmatic wars of aggression. There can be little doubt that the U.S. embarked on what it quite consciously and deliberately knew was a gratuitous war of aggression against Iraq, when measured according to the respected standards of Nuremberg.
The Nuremberg chief American prosecutor’s statement with which I began this comment may be read not only proscriptively, but also descriptively, and even prescriptively: i.e. the statement not only prohibits, according to its logic, “wars of aggression,” it also describes with effective communicative economy a thesis which may, in fact, be read as a determinative theory of what such “wars of aggression” inherently, even auto-dynamically, entail: “the accumulated evil of the whole [of all other war crimes].” A given description may of course also be read as a prescription or, at least, as a concision of actual utilizable prescriptions contained elsewhere, so that in the case of the text in question one may reasonably conclude that its theory of a determinative (“it contains” [not It “may contain,” and not because it does., but because it is.]), totalistic “evil” inherent in all aggressive war may serve implicitly as a “recipe,” or at the least as an instrumental prognosticator of the conditions requisite for the generation of such “supreme…accumulated evil.” In any case, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. were, of course, aware of the multifarious implications of this famous Nurembergian declaration and there can be little doubt that they perceived with the utmost clarity the inerrancy of such statements when the belligerent aggressor is possessed of a war machine of the kind Nazi Germany or they themselves had at their disposal, and when the will is there to commit to a genuine war of aggression, i.e. to one that is sure, because so intended, to contain “the accumulated evil of the whole.” Abu Ghraib, we now know, was part of that intention, of that project to create conditions of supreme evil, of the accumulated evil of the whole that still has not stopped accumulating, indeed, that now encompasses not only great swathes of the Middle East, but, in fact, the majority of the world, almost in the manner (especially ideologically, jurisprudentially, constitutionally, etc.) of a Third World War (ostensibly, to be sure, on “terror”) which, less evidently, is a metastatic product of that supreme evil, which contains (and continues to spread) the accumulated evil of the whole, and which has its origins in the U.S.’s aggressive war contravention of the Nuremberg principles through its gratuitous (yet supremely aggressively calculated) 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq.
One thing I find amazing is that few people seem to recognize the blowback from the Iraq war. They freak out about ISIS but don’t seem to realize — or pretend they don’t know — that ISIS is an evil spawn of the Iraq war. Some even go as far as to argue that the existence of ISIS shows the US needs to have a military presence in the Middle East. But again, that’s insane, because intervention and destabilization are the very things that produce groups like ISIS.
As far as how the US should deal with terrorism, I’d defer to Noam Chomsky’s suggestion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPj89C7bzO0
Obama, the corporatist war monger (see Iraq/Syria presently, tripling the troops in Afghanistan previously, drone strikes in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan, and dirty wars in abundance presently, the reduction of Libya to a hot mess contemporarily, the support of Saudi Arabia’s assault on Yemen, thousands of troops in Iraq, and troops and mercenaries in the thousands in Afghanistan currently…) will be gone soon.
What will take his place, whoever it is, Democrat or Republican, will be even worse. Which is saying something.
Unless the culture itself can be uplifted spiritually to some semblance of a decent society, positive social movements and appeals to the better angels of those in the establishment – laudable and practical though such things may be – are evidently going to be crushed as always, perhaps more viciously, so please everyone do your part to uplift your personal community, and pray that it helps awaken people to resist the soul-deadening advance of the corrupted system spreading mental disease across the ‘5 eyes world’ behind the scenes of what the propagandized populace thinks is normal life.
Winter is coming.
Obama’s poodle is now Majority Prime Minister. So time to go bomb Syria and Iran.
The fix was in there, too. Labour was insufficiently Conservative, or at least that’s what this old monster says. “Return” to the”centre”. Resistance is futile.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/09/tony-blair-labour-return-centre-ground-general-election-defeat
Like they were supposed to copy-and-paste the Tory manifesto. A lesson the US Democratic Party needs to reflect on: do you really want to be Tweedledum?
This time there is no “US Democratic Party” … just one filthy rich candidate.
Who’s going to lose.
Yeah. That is an amazing definition of Conservative. Lotta moxie.
Htlers dream coming true, one day at a atime
Rogers is a ruthless servant to the merchants of death. He must surely need a new mirror
everyday because his breaks each time he looks into it.