The escalating anti-Russian rhetoric in the U.S. presidential campaign comes in the midst of a major push by military contractors to position Moscow as a potent enemy that must be countered with a drastic increase in military spending by NATO countries.
Weapon makers have told investors that they are relying on tensions with Russia to fuel new business in the wake of Russian’s annexation of Crimea and modest increases in its military budget.
In particular, the arms industry — both directly and through its arsenal of hired-gun, think-tank experts and lobbyists – is actively pressuring NATO member nations to hike defense spending in line with the NATO goal for member states to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.
Retired Army Gen. Richard Cody, a vice president at L-3 Communications, the seventh largest U.S. defense contractor, explained to shareholders in December that the industry was faced with a historic opportunity. Following the end of the Cold War, Cody said, peace had “pretty much broken out all over the world,” with Russia in decline and NATO nations celebrating. “The Wall came down,” he said, and “all defense budgets went south.”
Now, Cody argued, Russia “is resurgent” around the world, putting pressure on U.S. allies. “Nations that belong to NATO are supposed to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense,” he said, according to a transcript of his remarks. “We know that uptick is coming and so we postured ourselves for it.”
Speaking to investors at a conference hosted by Credit Suisse in June, Stuart Bradie, the chief executive of KBR, a military contractor, discussed “opportunities in Europe,” highlighting the increase in defense spending by NATO countries in response to “what’s happening with Russia and the Ukraine.”
The National Defense Industrial Association, a lobby group for the industry, has called on Congress to make it easier for U.S. contractors to sell arms abroad to allies in response to the threat from Russia. Recent articles in National Defense, NDIA’s magazine, discuss the need for NATO allies to boost maritime military spending, spending on Arctic systems, and missile defense, to counter Russia.
Many experts are unconvinced that Russia poses a direct military threat. The Soviet Union’s military once stood at over 4 million soldiers, but today Russia has less than 1 million. NATO’s combined military budget vastly outranks Russia’s — with the U.S. alone outspending Russia on its military by $609 billion to less than $85 billion.
And yet, the Aerospace Industries Association, a lobby group for Lockheed Martin, Textron, Raytheon, and other defense contractors, argued in February that the Pentagon is not spending enough to counter “Russian aggression on NATO’s doorstep.”
Think tanks with major funding from defense contractors, including the Lexington Institute and the Atlantic Council, have similarly demanded higher defense spending to counter Russia.
Stephen Hadley, the former National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush now serving on the board of Raytheon, a firm competing for major NATO military contracts, has argued forcefully for hiking defense budgets and providing lethal aid to Ukraine. Hadley said in a speech last summer that the U.S. must “raise the cost for what Russia is doing in Ukraine,” adding that “even President Putin is sensitive to body bags.”
The business press has noticed the development. The Washington Business Journal noted that “if anyone is benefiting from the unease between Russia and the rest of the world, it would have to be Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin Corp,” noting that the firm won a major contract from Poland, which is revamping its military in response to Russia. Roman Schweizer, an analyst for the defense industry with Guggenheim Securities, predicted last year that U.S. arms sales would continue to rise, particularly because “eastern NATO countries will increase procurements in the wake of continued Russian activity in Ukraine.”
At the Defence Security Exposition International, an arms dealer conference held in London last fall, contractors were quick to use Russia and rising defense budgets to hawk their products. “The tank threat is … much, much more closer to you today because Putin is doing something” in eastern Ukraine, a shoulder-fired-rocket touting representative from Saab told Defense One.
“Companies like Lockheed Martin and Boeing have pledged to increase the share of exports in their overall revenues, and they have been seeking major deals in East and Central Europe since the 1990s, when NATO expansion began,” said William Hartung, director of the Arms & Security Project at the Center for International Policy. Hartung noted that as some nations ramp up spending, U.S. firms will be “knocking at the door, looking to sell everything from fighter planes to missile defense systems.”
“Russian saber-rattling has additional benefits for weapons makers because it has become a standard part of the argument for higher Pentagon spending — even though the Pentagon already has more than enough money to address any actual threat to the United States,” he said.
Top photo: Cutaway sections of 30mm x 173mm munitions are displayed on the Nammo stand during the Defence and Security Equipment International exhibition in 2015.
This makes me think a lot of Bertrand Russell’s great pre-WWII essay, The Case for Socialism. http://www.ditext.com/russell/cs.html
She says she wont take any more foreign money for her global slush fund.
Why not close it down?
So that she can accept lots of money from individual Americans.
Hellary Clinton is being supported buy weapons makers, war funders and wallstreet crooks.
They need pardons.
Hellary now wants to go into the PARDONS FOR DONATIONS business.
And then she will begin writing pre-emptive pardons. All for donations to her global slush fund.
it’s pretty simple.
When asked about these pardons – if they are ever made known to the public – she will say they are necessary for national security.
She’s the monster’s mother.
Hellery clinton is in the business of declaring enemies, making enemies, starting wars, and capitalising on weapons sales.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/259485/time-arrest-hillary-joseph-klein
She dumped Bill for Webster Hubbell. She dumped Webster for Kissinger. She dumped Kissinger for Netanyahu. She dumped Netanyahu for Lucifer. Now she wants your first born daughters to register for the draft for her greater war.
Hi Karl,
Again I have to respond to you at the top of this thread as the comment software doesn’t allow me to respond directly to other comments. You summed up my statements pretty well. Yet I still differ in from you in your perceptions of pursued American goals.
Most US military actions in the Middle East have been tactical military successes, yet the steps needed to the stabilize the Middle East has been lacking mainly due to a void at the strategic level to create a viable plan for stabilization. This fact has also been repeated by top military officials as they frequently voice a lack of sound follow up political policy for a cohesive strategy after achieving military tactical “successes.” In the mean time many ad hoc strategies have been presented to Americans have proven to be false or failures. Yet we get more of the same policies, which is not rational. The only truly successful strategy that I have seen is along the following given by George Friedman in “The next 100 years” pg 49:
“The United States was, indeed, adolescent in its simplification of issues and in its use of power. But on a broader, more strategic level, that doesn’t matter. So long as the Muslims are fighting each other, the United States has won its war.”
This book has various editions with different texts, but the same title. This one that I’m referencing has a green cover (I was so taken aback after reading it that I took pictures of it). The other copies may have been reprinted to sell more editions, yet I suspect that they also changed the wording to water down the truth and do a better job selling the wars in the Middle East to an American audience.
This was written by the founder and former CEO of Stratfor, which is part of the larger security industrial complex, thus giving them the ability to push their own strategy and heavily influence developments based on their own work. Since there hasn’t been a clear uniformed US foreign policy strategy since the end of the Cold War, unorganized or individualist institutional goals create an environment in which a simplistic strategy like this one, creating chaos in the Middle East a proclaimed strategy in itself, can rise to the top to become a defacto goal for everyone.
“…their potential to turn a profit for those who construct American policy; this is where the unfettered access to natural resources come into play.” Many companies, as this article clearly demonstrates, can turn a profit off of war or conflict alone without having to gain access to natural resources. So your statement is just as true if you removed the half of your sentence after the colon mark.
Thus my understanding that America’s foreign policy is more simplistically driven by Neocon ideology than rational calculation, like long term natural resource interests. Or as George Friedman in “The next 100 years” says on pg 49:
“Anger does not make history. Power does.”
And power can be achieved by war alone for those perpetuating it. Consequently for American society there is not, has not been, and there probably will not be a net benefit.
@ No one gives a monkey about philosophy
“Enrich its closest ally, the nuclear armed Saudi Arabia..”
Saudi Arabia is nuclear armed? You’re mistaken or mistyped this part.
Actually, not only do the Saudis have a sizable ballistic missile force
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Saudi_Strategic_Missile_Force
But they also had plans to buy nuclear materials and warheads from Pakistan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Saudi_Arabia
I’m FAR more concerned about a Saudi bomb than an Iranian one, given their support for terrorists.
Dear Karl,
I apologize for responding to you here at the top of the thread instead of directly. Your comment contains rational logic and appears very much to be made in good faith. Yet I’m compelled to respond to it because it follows one of the mainstream explanation, which after doing research, doesn’t hold up under the weight of facts. The explanation that a competition for resources can explain the state of affairs of the world, especially Americans behavior towards everyone else has not been true since the neocons gained power in 2000. It appears to be one of the excuses sold to us educated rational citizens, so that we passively accept what is going on. Mainly because to many rational liberals behaving in a logical manner (but questionably moral) can be tolerated and accepted. Yet when the neocons came into power in 2000 our foreign policy and national policy shifted to ideology and not rational calculations. More or less rational arguments are given, as have fear based ones, nationalistic arguments, religious arguments, ect. all targeting their respective targeted audience. Educated Americans are heavily targeted with propaganda, especially since we can have a strong influence over policy, so at minimum our passive acceptance is sought and active rejection of policy is dreaded, as we have education, wealth, resources, and the ability to influence policy change when emotionally driven to do so. To Americans in the highest educated classes, behaving irrationally is a crime much greater than behaving immorally. Hence why Obama’s catch phrase, “don’t do stupid shit” is so popular among liberals. If he coined “behave morally” as a foreign policy mantra, it wouldn’t get much traction, because although we would like that be true about ourselves, our real guiding principal as a class is behave rationally (ie in our own self-interest).
The wars in Afghanistan, but especially Iraq, Lybia, our participation in Syria, and the propaganda to invaded Iran would make sense to many, if we gained oil. Oil is also widely accepted as a semi-secret principal driving our wars, but as a nation we didn’t gain oil or resources from these wars. Actually oil prices went up after we had invaded Iraq (stated to be in short supply) and climbed all through out the Bush years. In the lead up to the invasion, when a pentagon analyst posted a study saying that the war in Iraq would cost us more than Vietnam, Rumsfeld fired him and Neocon propaganda stated that oil would pay for the cost of the war. This never happened and was just a lie, but won over some rationalist support. When rational arguments were presented why the hell are we still in Afghanistan, at year the 11 year mark I believe it was, the Neocons put out a report that Afghanistan has a trillion dollars worth of minerals, thus shutting up the rational citizens. Yet mining operations require a level of stability, especially given the huge up front costs and the lack of portability which is why almost no companies are looking to start mines where there is chaos and war, like Afghanistan. Lydian oil fields, after the overthrow of Ghadafi, are now being contracted out to Chinese companies not American. Likewise rare earth metals are not that rare, they are just expensive to refine and result in a lot of pollution, so China hasn’t really one upped us in that regard. What China has done though is made huge investments in Africa, resulting in Africa having the largest population growth on the planet. These Africans are then consuming the very raw materials there, as end products made in China, that we are all competing for. So it doesn’t quite fit the model. In a world with finite resources, American dollar reserve status represents unlimited money to buy those resources. Yet the Neocons are squandering away this huge geopolitical benefit. Rewind to 1999, status quo was better than what they did.
Also war propaganda with Russia didn’t really start until Putin diplomatically diverted Neocon wishes to bomb Syria, by destroying Assad’s chemical weapons which UK independent labs showed were not used in the Sarin attacks that were used as justification for western participation; and also Russia’s diplomacy that brought mainly Iran and America (p5+ Germany) to a negotiating table, preventing Israel from bombing Iran and then America taking over their war. That’s when this new Cold War with Russia was rekindled. Neocons overthrew Ukraine’s elected government, Russia reacted as they obviously would. Russia was painted as evil expansionist wanting to take over their neighbors, the USSR 2.0. Not true as Russia didn’t occupy or absorb Georgia in 2008, they just don’t want be surrounded by countries hostile directly or as a proxy. Now no more peace and diplomacy for Russia, just lies to Americans and myths that some how those behind this garbage are doing this for our (national/personal) benefit. In reality we are paying for this by debt and inflation and abusing dollar world reserve status, so American economic pain is going to be felt latter. We are losing foreign assets and trust, not gaining it, so that lose will negatively affect us latter too. We have all these new enemies fueled by hatred from the bombs dropped on people that they loved, which can cause violent blowback towards Americans. We have lost much of our civil liberties and constitutional rights in this war on terror, which sets America up for totalitarianism. We are giving away American military technological secrets by using them on battfields in counties that couldn’t even conjure up a navy boat to make it to American shores. In the end that this is rational (national) behavior based on resource wars, that is to our benefit, is a just myth.
The aim is not to gain oil resources – there is plenty of oil to go round and the US means to add even more – the aim is instead to control its pricing mechanisms and significantly increase the price of oil. The US wants to flip economics on its head and increase oil prices whilst increasing supply, enabling it to kill several birds with one stone:
– Make its own shale oil reseverves profitable
– Enrich its supposed “closest ally”, the nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia (who is probably doing everything that Neocons et al claim Iran would do – use its nuclear weapons to bully America into possibly reluctant action)
– Attack its enemies, Iran and Russia and so on
– Discredit Russian military technology that now focuses on missile systems over warships and stealth planes
– Start addressing the huge flow of money and resiourses to China in a way that dwarfs the reasons behind the Opium Wars. China don’t have much oil of their own – hence the present tensions over new oil discoveries in SE Asia (Vietnam and The Philippines).
No one needs more oil, there is plenty to go round and comments to the contrary are lies, but they all want the easy oil money it generates. It is the best absolute unavoidable necessity which can be tapped into, given that air is still free as of this moment (though pottable water is getting scarcer and pricier!).
Despite the enormous attempts to paint Putin as the bad guy, he is taking a huge gambit to keep oil prices low. There may be less than altruistic reasons for doing this, sharing an enormous border with China being one of them, but all the same, Russia would financially benefit hugely from a huge oil price hike, but no one wants to see America and Saudi Arabia further enriched and empowered. And the reason for that is that these countries’ leaders are insane megalomaniacal arseholes of the highest order who must be resisted at all times.
Hi Mark,
In using the term “rational,” I assume that it is defined as “endowed with the capacity to reason.” More specifically, you appear to be degenerating the tendency of educated Americans to form sound moral judgments solely by a process of logic. In fact, you appear to be claiming that logic is the mean by which educated Americans are convinced (propagandized) of the rightness of America’s foreign policies by its leadership. And lastly, the measure of that “rightness” is the degree to which intended foreign policy outcomes meet expectations. Have I summed up you position correctly?
In taking exception to the view that American foreign policy is serving the best interests of the American people, you have cited a number of specific examples wherein intended outcomes purportedly did not meet stated expectations of acquiring unfettered access to minerals and/or cheep oil. However, the mere acquisition of cheep resources was not the overarching goal of the conflicts you listed; rather the neoliberal plan of global economic hegemony is the overarching goal of American foreign policy. The neoconservative approach to advancing America’s neoliberal hegemonic aspirations is via regime change as outlined in the Bush Doctrine. However, the policy of implementing regime change by means of military might requires huge sustained outlays of capital. In fact, the goal of initiating regime change would be “irrational” if the net outcome was not eventually profitable. The order in which countries were/are targeted by the neoliberalcons for the exportation of “American values” was/is largely governed by their potential to turn a profit for those who construct American foreign policy; this is where the unfettered access to natural resources comes into play. Acquiring sustained access to a particular countries’ natural resources via regime change is only one of many necessary prerequisites for attracting foreign investment from transnational capital interests. It is in this sense that you are correct, it is essential to establish, and then sustain in perpetuity, a level of peace and stability that is commensurate with conditions imposed by foreign lenders.
In consideration of the foregoing, U.S. foreign policy success is not being measured in years, but in decades. And again, return on investment from regime change is not being simply measured in terms of acquired resources but rather in the degree to which regional integration of radically dissimilar economic and legal systems into the emerging global economy allow for the most efficient free flow of transnational capital, labor, and natural resources. As capitalism is driven by the law of supply and demand, creating new markets for ones products is essential to sustained growth. Because China lacks the means by which a strategy of US/NATO style regime change can be made possible on a global scale, it has wisely partnered up with many African nations in the attempt to advance their mutual economic interests. Yet, in the doing, China has embraced an economic model that is intrinsically compatible with the emerging global economy. This is not an accident, but a matter of design. US Policy makers have worked with Chinese counterparts since Nixon’s rapprochement to aide it in devising a long-term strategy wherein China could modify its economy to mirror that of the US for the sake of its integration into the emerging global marketplace. India followed the same path as well. The result is that the two most populous countries in the world, China and India, have now become hotbeds of foreign investment and are the most vital emerging markets in the world.
For better or for worse, a reason-centric political ethos allows for and end-justifies-the-means approach to US foreign policy that invites and exploits a certain degree of controlled chaos as a necessary precursor of cultural assimilation.
Correction:
“In using the term “rational,” I assume that it is defined as “endowed with the capacity to reason.” More specifically, you appear to be degenerating the tendency of educated Americans to form sound moral judgments solely by a process of logic.”
Should have read:
“In using the term “rational,” I assume that it is defined as “endowed with the capacity to reason.” More specifically, you appear to be denigrating the tendency of educated Americans to form sound moral judgments solely by a process of logic.”
17-18: And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth. ~in their court of lawyers of her TPP Global Initiative to feed upon the toil and labors of the people to gather and hord their riches.
“Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military–industrial complex would have to remain, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.”
–George F. Kennan in preface to Norman Cousins’ book The Pathology of Power (1987).
No great inventiveness would be required, China is already lined up.
I doubt we will be seeing the result of Mrs. Clinton’s vast weapons sales to Saudi Arabia especially related to this recent bombing by Saudi Arabia of a peaceful Houthi rally:
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160821/1044475480/saudi-arabia-bombs-houthis-yemen.html
What a shame the United States mainstream media has completely abrogated their journalistic responsibilities to tell the American people the TRUTH.
thanks for that link
Hellary Clinton is chomping at the bit to escalate her GENOCIDE UPON THE PLANET as a whole.
If you fund, promote or enable lots of conflicts, you would be a WAR CRIMINAL.
and Hellary has a much bigger war in mind. Hint – she favors drafting women.
And who is Hellary to the US mil indus complex gone monster mad? She’s the monster’s mother.
Just because a commie isn’t hiding under my bed at the moment, doesn’t mean that they don’t aspire to…
Russia, China, and the US have long understood that there are finite limits on the world’s resources. Such limitations threaten to impose limitations on population growth within a generation. Potable water alone will be a major bone of contention in the near future. Rare Earth has recently become a hot topic as China has cornered the market. Of course concern over secure access to fossil fuels are currently driving much of the world’s current conflict. The Russians control of one-fifth of all uranium production capacity in the United States at the present moment. Even space itself is being viewed as a strategic asset that must be exploited while a fleeting window of opportunity exists.
In a global marketplace, cornering the market on strategic resources makes for renewed tensions and rapidly shifting alliances. For example, the Bush II administration sealed a deal with India (the world’s most populous democracy) to provide them with nuclear energy technology that is intended to meet their domestic energy needs into the foreseeable future. This arrangement was deemed essential to US global strategic interest as India’s lack of fossil fuels made it vulnerable to Iranian political overtures at the time. The same principle holds true for Europe whose thirst for Russian gas made them vulnerable to its political influence. More recently still, a failed coup attempt against Erdo?an has resulted in a recent rapprochement between Moscow and Ankara that could force the US/NATO block to remove its nukes from the Incirlik airbase to Romania.
In short, the cold war never really ended. Rather it has merely been shifted to the back burner and out of sight where it could simmer like a borscht in a West Indian pepper pot (that was made in China of course) while the Super three wet their appetites on Saudi Rice and Persian Maast-o-Khiar.
Such limitations threaten to impose limitations on population growth within a generation.
yep. And i dare say we have passed the point of no return to the extent that the imbeciles in charge of policy, who are the same imbeciles who whored themselves out to wallstreet growth thieves who produce nothing for a living, are quite content to create wars death and destruction as long as it is everyone else who suffers and the planet dies as the imbeciles who think this is a solution to growth fraud also believe they can escape the catastrophe they started.
And they are imbecilic enuf to live in their elite wealthy lowlying areas by the shores where the stench of the sea, salting of drinking water, the rising tides and storms, and zika will do a job on their imbecile arses.
General Hercules or General Israel? Thanks for trying to push the Samson option on us. Turkey having military ties with Russia is not that big of a deal, America will adapt and can draw Turkey and maybe eventually Iran into mutual beneficial agreements via diplomacy. Yet America’s perpetual warfare policy that is sacrificing the dollars world reserve status is bad for us and (nuclear) war with Russia (or Turkey of all places) would be an apocalyptic nightmare.
Lee, please do a supplementary piece on why the US Government refuses to audit annually the Pentagon and publicly release the results of this process.
“Many experts are unconvinced that Russia poses a direct military threat.”
Yet you couldn’t be bothered to cite even one.
Yes, it is good for investers, so therefore It is good for Union and State retirement accounts as well as the Federal Prison System where these companies use Prison Labor to make many items of war from helmets, to the vests to the uniforms of our troops..
After much research and observation, i have concluded that CONFLICT RESOLUTION in the US is accomplished by fueling the parties with as much weapons as they can afford which is a prescription for murder, genocide, and the sort of evil that spreads like a contagion.
Is America is toast? Americans are being conditioned to believe that negotiating and compromising are losing scenarios when one can kill their way to win. This is especially prevalent among the youth whom are forced into wars and conditioned to believe this is some sort of win even when it’s a loss, that somehow fighting the fight is a courageous win no matter how foolish the premise from the start. This condition is exaccerbated by the victimisation of Americans by wallstreet criminals who, by robbing Americans of their God given rightful ownership and productivity, depower Americans to an attitudinal state of “what’s the use”. Essentially casting a spell of low morale upon the the public and causing people to make decisions with the confines prescribed by wallstreet bankster criminals and their political whores.
Hellary Clinton is wallstreet and media’s favorite whore and the war monster who favors drafting women, funding conflicts illegally, starting conflicts illegally, genocide upon Palestinians by fueling hate by declaring Jeusalem as being owned by israel, and generally lying to the public about everything except her proclaimed fantasies of paradise?
And she does seem to be suffering from a number of ministrokes and prescription drug side effects.
This play has been going on since the fifties hell it may have got Jack killed in 62 for not playing ball with these money loving assholes.
Here’s an idea…why not have NATO states reduce spending to 1%?
More war propaganda visited upon the American people by MSM and the profiteers who don’t give a damned about peace. War is profit. The federal budget spends more than HALF on wars and preparation for War. Hillary Clinton is aligning more profiteers and war criminals behind her as the rhetoric continues to climb and the ‘new axis of evil’ (REMEMBER THIS?) Is now russia, syria and Iran. These bastard fascists care not that they will shepherd us straight into WW3 and Clinton is their master puppet.
What will wake up the AMerican people? Dissolution of social programs to pay for more wars. OR, bombings upon our own country. The profiteers and the those politicians that serve them are becoming more deadly by the day.
Reporting (or Not) the Ties Between US-Armed Syrian Rebels and Al Qaeda’s Affiliate
By Gareth Porter
http://fair.org/home/reporting-or-not-the-ties-between-us-armed-syrian-rebels-and-al-qaedas-affiliate/
Reporting (or Not) the Ties Between US-Armed Syrian Rebels and Al Qaeda’s Affiliate fair.org
http://fair.org/home/reporting-or-not-the-ties-between-us-armed-syrian-rebels-and-al-qaedas-affiliate/
American jets scramble against Syrian aircraft bombing Kurdish rebels
By Alex Lantier wsws.org
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/08/20/kurd-a20.html
The disgusting Far Reich UK propaganda machine continues to wage its war on Jeremy Corbyn :
UK media denounces Corbyn’s refusal to support war with Russia wsws.org
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/08/20/corb-a20.html
the criminal banksters who OWN need wars because their criminal currency method – a crime against humanity – is designed like a pawn shop operation for the accumulation of assets and which fails to recirculate cash, thus their cry for war to promote the loan operation of the system.
Andrew Jackson despised them.
http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2008/07/21/why-the-founders-rejected-a-central-bank/
They gotta make money somehow. Have to keep the systematic butchering of the global population moving along to keep pace with Agenda 21 goals…
How long can the US Government continue to bankroll the war profiteers ?
The national debt of the USA, debt clock
http://www.nationaldebtclocks.org/debtclock/unitedstates
For as long as the American public lets the government get away with it, which has already been a very long time and is likely to be even longer — since the public doesn’t have much power to affect government decisions.
The debt is pretty much irrelevant. As long as the rest of the world is willing to accept a currency, a sovereign government (and its private banksters) can pretty much create as much as desired. When such a sovereign government is the world’s sole hyperpower, ready to send in the drones, or the troops and missiles, or to arrange a little regime change whenever that is convenient, the rest of the world tends to be willing to keep accepting the inflated currency.
Short version: don’t hold your breath.
Your right Doug, but the revolution may commence with either the inevitable financial crash which the elite are engineering to profit from, or through mass job losses, and the resulting mass poverty, from the next wave of disruptive technologies. The greed of the elite I believe will bring about their own demise. We are many, and they are few, and eventually good will triumph over evil.
Not as long as the majority of American’s narcissism sees to the election of more war profiteers and the corporate puppets that serve them. Hillary Clinton is the most dangerous candidate in modern political history and BOTH parties work on behalf of the MIC. What will wake American’s from their LONG nap? Dissolution of social programs to pay for more wars. SS being the most ‘profitable’, OR bombings upon our own soil.
With Clinton, this is inevitable.
One great way to put a spanner in the works of the new world order elite/Bilderbergs is to attack their Globalization strategies which are essential for their multi national corporations, and their financial institutions. They have pulled their money out from Western economies, moving what they have looted to their new playing fields, and for tax avoidance purposes. They need to ensure that their investments in the more rapidly emerging countries like India, Thailand, Cuba, Vietnam, Brazil succeed. Informing and educating the public of the dangers of the trade pacts, and the dangers of transforming their economies to digital economies. Creating mass awareness of the evils of the Imperialists, and how they will asset strip these new lands, and how it will bring greater poverty and inequality, not prosperity to the masses. The Intercept and other fearless media sources need to urgently become more Global, and to gain readership within more of these countries, and we the readers must also promote The Intercept in these countries whenever we see an opportunity. Blogs, sharing links, comments in the commentary sections of foreign media sources online. Using social media, and using Linkedin as a political tool.This war can be won if we break the elites control of information and the media Globally.
“The corporate elite regards the job crisis as an opportunity to force unemployed workers into cheap labour” taken from :
Full-time jobs and wages falling in Australia
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/08/20/jobs-a20.html
The corporate elite will use disruptive technologies to wipe out one ffith of all jobs in the West. Artificial Intelligence, robotics, smart machines, driverless cars, self service web portal, 3D Printing, Drone deliveries, and The Internet of Things will all assist the corporate elite in reducing labour costs.
People must refuse to self serve, and must insist on human service, and only buy goods and services from companies that employ only human labour. Reducing online shopping, and buying from brick and mortar stores will also help to protect jobs, as will fighting the drive to a cashless society.
Some radical alterations in international alliances in the Middle East seem to be taking place in the wake of the attempted Turkey coup – makes one wonder if Obama really did try to out Erdogan, a replay of JFK ousting Diem? Did Russian intelligence really tip Erdogan off? Look at this:
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37291-turkey-and-iran-reach-agreement-on-conditions-for-syria-peace
There seem to be quite a few reports that the U.S. is moving nuclear weapons out of Turkey at this moment – Google [ U.S. removes nuclear weapons from Turkey ] , too:
Given that Turkey is a NATO member (for now?) all this may throw a wrench into plans to increase NATO spending in order to line the pockets of U.S. defense contractors and their Wall Street shareholders.
American jets scramble against Syrian aircraft bombing Kurdish rebels wsws.org
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/08/20/kurd-a20.html
The US Government and their terrorist state coalition allies will continue to falsify and over exaggerate the threat posed by Russia as its good for the arms businesses of their elite sponsors. Another false flag to continue to fraudulently steal billions of tax payers bucks. No doubt when they run out of steam on self perpetuating the War On Terror, and can no longer create or sponsor further terrorists or proxy armies they will increase the rhetoric and saber rattling about Russia. Meanwhile the Guardian report below shows just who is continuing to support and sponsor the Saudi bombing of civilians in Yemen, slaughtering women children, and even targeting MSF hospitals again. Oh yes its the Far Reich Tories, who inflict savage austerity,on UK citizens, even taking away vital support from disabled people whilst continuing to support an indiscriminate Saudi bombing campaign :
“Who’s making sure the Saudi bombs keep falling on Yemen? The Tories” by
David Wearing The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/05/saudi-arabia-bombs-yemen-tories-human-rights
The whole U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia and Qatar has turned into a mega-debacle; those regimes are the worst actors in the entire region, and enough is enough:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/the-shiites-are-winning-in-the-middle-east-and-its-all-thanks-to-russia-a7197081.html
The defense contractors and their various government allies in the United States might just end up taking a huge bath soon; ex-Soviet weapons scientists ended up driving taxis and selling flowers in Moscow after the USSR went to pieces, and that could very well be the fate of a whole lot of Lockheed and United Tech and Northrup and SAIC employees, too
That might explain the release of all those NSA spyware tools, too – some enterprising fellows getting their golden parachutes in order?
Well I hope its an acid bath, and that the golden parachutes fail to open ! If they do end up selling flowers or even The Big Issue I, like most decent people wont, shed a tear for them.
Read “War is a Racket” by the most decorated Marine, General Smedley Butler. He learned from his experience what a 1% con it is. One of his suggestions was to take all profit out of war making, the incentive for the “elites” would go way down to have wars.
Many other valuable insights in his quick to read book.
i was half serious when i mentioned some time back about Hillary’s plan to starve the population of Yemen so they (whoever they are) could steal their land – and yet – today we hear the pimpagon denying their withdrawal of combat co-ordinators is for the genocide it is. Instead, the pimpagon, lacking humility and humbleness, insists on lying to the public (who wont believe them) and lying to themselves (who will believe them).
LACK OF HUMBLENESS IS A LEARNING DISABILITY. Any wonder the beltway, the media, and politicians are all frikt up and destroying America? Hellary will insist that the TPP & FRACKING are great for America because Hellary is high on her own supply of super lies. Could be she’s a super liar.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-usa-saudiarabia-idUSKCN10U1TL
Russia is not the problem. The problem is Turkey. Ever since the coup in Turkey failed, Erdogan has become highly suspicious of our policies. Our NATO allies also showed unnecessary disappointment which the wily Erdogan did not miss.
Turkey is a NATO ally, so their new friends Russia has full access to all the NATO secrets and codes, including any plans to attack them. They don’t even have to waste any time to hack NATO communication servers, however easy that might be given their demonstrated capability to hack NSA servers.
Obama has done a terrible mistake getting involved in the failed Turkey coup. I think he should just extradite Feth Gullen and try to regain the friendship and trust of the Turkeys. As a free gift he can send Hillary Clinton over as well.
Russians are good chess players. Putin is now using his pawns to checkmate our novice king, and it’s worse since one of our knights has changed colors in disgust.
splendid analysis. masterful chess analogy.
You are correct about Russia, they are not the problem here. The problem doesn’t stem just from 1 think. The globalist plans are so complex and connected that they use certain strategies for multiple purposes. They strategize this World Wide Globalist plan in their BILDERBERG group meetings that are illegal for US politicians to attend. Why have they not been arrested? Because the same group owns our government because they own the Federal Reserve (owned by Rothschild’s).
This same group (bank) funded both sides of every war starting with WWI. The master plan is to set up a New World Order with them as the kings and masters. They will continue to rob, loot, and steal every countries economy until they have control of every single one.
They have a problem because Putin and Russia aren’t just going to bow down and give NATO/US what they want. Ukraine, so they can take control of pipelines that run from Russia to Eastern Europe, destabilize and take control of Ukraine, and sell a sh*t ton of weapons for Military Contractors, same global bank will continue to fund both sides for more $$$$. How are these loans paid back? With your TAXES!!! Another way to break you so you are worthless and powerless. Money is power and Power is God to these people.
Now, since they have looted our country to over $19 Trillion in debt, while artificially bringing down interest rates to 0% (and probably will go negative like Europe),
THEY MUST START A WAR TO HIDE THE THEFTS OF OUR COUNTRY AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE ECONOMY. They will then blame the collapse of the economy on the war, while killing millions, and using the chaos to gain more control over the SHEEP!
US MSM acts like Russia is the problem. Let me ask people this?
1) Would the US allow the Russians to surround American boarders with their military? Air craft carriers, missiles, fighter jets, ect…
They aren’t giving Putin any options. You try to destroy his country and he fights back.
Unlike our P*ssy *ss presidents who are bought off little prostitute b*tches for the NWO. They are actually trying to destroy America. Hopefully Trump understands that War with Russia is no joke and I believe him and Putin would actually work together to prevent a war.
They are also trying to destroy Syria so they can (along with the Saudi’s) build an oil pipeline from Saudi Arabia all the way through Syria and into Europe. They precisely want to do this because right now Russia supplies much of Eastern Europe with oil. If they can build this pipeline, they can cut Russia off completely which will destroy their economy and help the NWO take them down easier. This is why Russia supports Assad in Syria. Russia kinda has Eastern Europe by the balls. If NATO messes with Russia at this point, they can completely cut the oil off. NATO isn’t going to make a move until they feel they have the upper hand all around.
NATO – is a global gang of violent countries trying to rule the world and set up a NWO.
Increasingly I see crowd funding as the solution – it has already succeeded in raising enough to start a proper investigation into the wealthy war criminal Tony Blair and the Iraq war. So why not crowd fund rope purchase, and for a private army, and new political parties of the people ? Millions of us and few of them.
Only CAGE people and Paki Terrorist Anjem Chaudhury can come up with this idiotic conspiracy.
Too late for that – if reports are right, Turkey is allying itself with Iran and the U.S. is busy pulling all nuclear weapons out of the Turkey; the latter is not verified.
The whole Putin Russia line is nonsense though, just as the whole China line is nonsense – these countries are not superpowers, there is no longer a Warsaw Pact – all you have is the U.S. military-industrial-Congressional-academic complex trying to whip up hype to justify the continuation of the bloated U.S. defense budget:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1IG
This isn’t about Putin’s ‘chess game’ – it’s just American imperial overreach, leading to a collapse of the American Empire that will be much like the collapse of the Soviet Union. The $1 trillion blown in Iraq, the rising poverty and associated tensions all across the domestic United States, the gross corruption and infighting in the federal government – the whole rotten corrupt structure has nowhere to go but down.
Turkey is now allowing the Russians to use the Incirlik base.
This is terrible news. That base has a few hundred of our nukes. We should nuke Turkeys and roast them before they can harm us more.
“We should nuke Turkeys and roast them before they can harm us more.”
Are you even aware of what you are writing here? The US does NOT own the world & therefore does not have the right to go around roasting others like they have done in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, not to mention Vietnam.
The poor chap still hasn’t heard the news that the Soviets have the bomb!
http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/image_files/atomic-bomb-1949_400.png
;-)
The Turkeys are very good and kind people. Unfortunately, we can’t allow any kind of desertion by our allies. Thus, if we have to barbecue them then it is a valid war tactic. I think they are the Sunny type Muslims who are usually very unreliable folks – one day friends, next day enemy. As a result we have to do a lot of unpleasant things because of their character deficiencies.
Better stay away from them then otherwise you might get infected with that contagious disease, like they have already infected you with vacuousness. Start being careful, your health is slowly going down the drain.
The problem is NOT the Middle east. The problem is the UNITED STATES and it’s power/profit addicted politicians and corporate overlords. We have ZERO business in the middle east and thanks to Clinton’s regime change fetish, it is now ongoing with the help of President Sell Out. The Clinton’s will be installed and the new ‘axis of evil’ is becoming the falsified rhetoric of corporate media whose shameless exploitation of the victims of our INCESSANT bombings, including the five year old Syrian boy, are a reflection of American narcissism and lack of empathy and the fascists insatiable appetite for war.
Hillary’s Global Initiave restaurant. She operates as an exclusive waitress in a place that doesnt really serve food. “Here are your menus, sirs.” “May i have your order please?”. “Check please.” “Thank you for coming in.” “wow, nice tip”. Oliver North might be able to provide some color on the operation’s global scope.
US foreign policy is now bordering on outright madness…….and insanity……
How much longer can the U.S. support a bloated defense budget as infrastructure falls apart all across the country, as poverty rises and domestic tensions between various disenfranchised groups explode into violence? See any similarities to the last years of the Soviet Union?
Gorbachev, once in power, opens nuclear weapons reduction talks with Reagan – and Reagan’s advisors, led by neocons like Richard Perle in alliance with the likes of Edward “Strangelove” Teller, do everything they can to disrupt them with their “Star Wars Initiative.”
Could Bernie Sanders have been a Gorbachev? Maybe, maybe not – Gorbachev was only 54 years old, and circumstances were different, but it would have been a step in the right direction. Bush and Obama and Clinton are just like Brezhnev and Andropov and Chernenko, Gorbachev’s predecessors – committed to the status quo, loyal to the Politburo, unwilling to push for changes, even if they know they are needed.
Now those very same neocons from the Reagan era are in alliance with Hillary Clinton, pushing for an increase in military tensions with Russia – and Obama has proposed a 30-year $1 trillion nuclear weapons production program, and has already poured billions into it. Madness.
This is just a desperate effort to restart the Cold War in order to preserve that bloated “national security budget” – while cities and towns all across the United State fall into ruin, with infrastructure collapsing, with massive impacts from global-warming related flooding in Lousiana, wildfires in California, rampant poverty and homelessness everywhere you look. Bush responded to Katrina just like Obama is responding to Louisiana’s epic disaster, as well – on vacation.
And this time, it’s “the liberals” who are pushing for this the hardest, of course with “conservative” support, Democrats and Republicans united in Congress to prop up the flailing empire, keep it limping on down the road for as long as possible. They’re all insane.
I don’t understand how it can keep going along like this, it seems like massive collapse is inevitable. . . but maybe not, maybe it’ll just go down slowly, with slums and wastelands spreading steadily across the United States as weath accumulates in a few cities and gated communities? Scary thought.
i say – the politicians do not live in the same world as do the people upon it and who depend upon it, the soil, the water. Politicians do not annoy themselves with the trivials of everyday life. Their soul game and ambition is power. Always has been. Always goes wrong.
I doubt our founding fathers would have wanted permanent elected persons for this very reason.
Be patient. All empires collapse, all civilizations end. Human lifetimes are relatively short, so we probably won’t see it, but the U.S. is in decline and the end is coming.
Yup.
The problem is, the background situation right now is unprecedented in the past 10,000 years – the time frame in which humans have gone from hunter-gatherers to empire-builders. To much fossil fuel CO2 dumped into the atmosphere, plus the boom in global human population into the billions, has created a situation in which global warming has altered climate patterns, threatening the agricultural base of human civilization over the next century (if not next decades).
So the traditional leftist anti-Empire perspective, which views Russia as a counterweight to “U.S. imperialism”, is flawed – Russia, like the USA, is a fossil fuel state reliant on control of energy flows for its economic health. Iran, like Saudi Arabia, is a fossil fuel exporter. Venezuela, socialist darling of the liberal progressive crowd, is utterly reliant on fossil fuels. Dilma in Brazil, or Temer in Brazil – they have Petrobras in common.
The world needs to stop spending money on fossil fuels and weapons and wars; if people don’t build infrastructure to prepare for this climate shift (Louisiana, California) and go full tilt on renewable energy deployment, and soon, then we will see a kind of global civilization collapse – along with massive genocidal warfare – that will make World War II look like a walk in the park. This is no exaggeration:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/report-climate-destabilize-nations/
The world can’t afford any more “grand chessboard” empire-of-oil games run by overgrown children posing as adults; playtime is over.
Sorry, but there is, sadly, no available combination of renewable energy choices that can come close to providing the net energy the world derives from fossil fuels — even as that net energy declines because of the increased energy costs of extraction of said fossil fuels.
The energy party is coming to an end and, unless we reduce consumption (and population) by very significant percentages via some relatively humane means, Reality is going to reduce both by decidedly unpleasant means.
Of course, we live under the rule of an economic system that requires endless growth of markets (population) and consumption, and humans have a psychobiological tendency to reject pessimism, so we’re not going to do those things.
The most likely future is Mad Max.
Right on Doug, you totally nailed it. I’ve been saying this for decades now. I’ve long advocated that people limit their families to one child at most and that they begin to deindustrialize their lives (and thereby societies) by doing things like organizing their lives so they don’t have to drive, etc. When I met the expected extreme resistance to these obvious necessary changes, I responded that humans can either do these things voluntarily, which would be the far preferable method, or nature will do it for them. The latter would bring far more human suffering, but it looks like that’s what people have chosen, albeit not consciously for most.
The only solution I see is a major human evolution in consciousness (mental and spiritual evolution) immediately, and the chances of that happening in time to save things, including ecosystems and other species, are minute at best.
I don’t agree with the Mad Max part though. While those movies were entertaining, they falsely assume that somehow people will still magically have oil and its refined products like diesel fuel and gasoline. This stuff will not be possible in a collapsed society because of the infrastructure and industrial-scale operations necessary to support it.
The only level of human population that we know is sustainable is 10 million people GLOBALLY. That’s how many humans existed when they started using agriculture. It may be possible to have more people and not destroy ecosystems and species if we live in a very ecologically conscious and respectful manner, but that’s just conjecture. I suppose it also may be possible to have some small level of modern conveniences, though that’s unlikely because even solar panels depend on oil for mining and construction. The problem here, as Tolkien and Earth First! pointed out, is not HOW we manage industrial society, but is in fact industrial society itself. Humans must start living a lot more simply and naturally in order to not destroy ecosystems and other species, and that almost certainly means giving up industrial society.
The good news is that we should be focusing on expanding our consciousness, which is the only useful thing that humans have to offer. This can be done in many ways — art, music, other culture, sports, mediation and other mental exercises, but it’s what our focus as a species should be. We need to prioritize being, not having.
That’s meditation, not mediation.
Absolutely right. The biker gang will have to ride bicycles — and hope that they can scrounge enough components to keep those operating.
Horse/pony/goat/dog-driven transport won’t work, either. The starving, hordes will raid the farms and eat the breeding stock.
How bad could it get?
My comment was in response to your question, “[h]ow much longer can the U.S. support a bloated defense budget …” I never said that any of this is OK or that I like or agree with it.
The beginning of your reply identified the root of the problem: human change from hunting/gathering to agriculture. This change is unprecedented in the history of the Earth and made humans the only species to use agriculture (aside from some species of ants, but that scale is exponentially smaller and not ecologically destructive like human agriculture is). This change gave us human overpopulation and civilization, the latter of which causes overconsumption. Civlization is considered positive by the vast majority of people living in civilization, but which I would argue is actually very negative (see Derrick Jensen, he explains this best: http://www.derrickjensen.org/).
I am first and foremost an Earth First!er and deep ecologist; Earth First!er meaning that all species have an equal right to live and thrive in their natural habitats, that humans have no right to kill other species except to eat, and that I don’t compromise in defense of the Earth or any part thereof; and deep ecologist meaning that all species have their own intrinsic value totally independent of any benefits they might provide to humans. I am NOT a leftist, though I do agree with the left on most issues. My priorities are totally different than those of the left, the latter of which are centered exclusively on human concerns (even their environmental positions are based on human concerns).
As Doug Salzmann identified in response to you, the root of all environmental problems and possibly all major problems are overpopulation and individual overconsumption, the latter including consuming things we should not, like fossil fuels, trees, and apex predators like sharks. If we don’t fix those two things relatively soon (not possible in our lifetimes, but geologically soon), all else will be like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
There was so much I forgot to mention: The problems caused by industrial society are not confined to one or a group of countries. Countries left and right, east and west, are all guilty of destroying the Earth with industrialism. Russia is a (now minor) counterweight to the U.S. regarding geopolitics, not regarding the environment. Any suggestion that communist or eastern countries are solutions to environmental problems or are even better regarding them is laughable. And all governments in Brazil, left and right, are evil, because they all support and/or allow destruction of the Amazon rainforest, by far the most important issue in that country.
Jeff D,,,Sadly Yup I agree with your very few words simple and but never so truer said.
Can anybody explain that illustration? Looks pretty damn snazzy.
Cutaways of explosive shells, isn’t it?
I don’t think so – they look like rifle cartridges, more or less, but loaded with some *really* *weird* *shit*.
They’re cutaways of 30mm x 173mm autocannon rounds.
Those little beauties are the rounds of choice for, e.g., the Bushmaster chaingun, frequently seen in action mounted on one of the versions of the AC-130 (nicknamed Spooky, Spectre, etc.), like this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/AC-130H_Spectre_jettisons_flares.jpg
The bird in the photo is just firing flares, but you can see the autocannon on the port side of the fuselage. To use the weapon effectively (that is, devastatingly), the Spectre (and/or its sister versions) flies banked circles counterclockwise around a target, saturating it with cannon fire. . .
. . .as was done last fall in the attack on a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan that killed 42 people.
That’s what the photo is. Of course, if you’re a manufacturer of autocannon ammunition, it’s the very picture of money.
Thanks – there’s at least a bit of explanation of ammunition types at Wikipedia starting from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M242_Bushmaster . I guess the little “arrows” in #3-#4 are some kind of armor-piercing, fin-stabilized projectile then. Seems like it would be an awful waste to fire those at a hospital when you could clear out the patients with plain old bullets… sigh.
“Seems like it would be an awful waste to fire those at a hospital when you could clear out the patients with plain old bullets… sigh.”
Yeah, but Uncle Sugar’s Fighting Forces don’t like to take any chances — and they never spend $10 when $100 is an option.
Good job, Lee.
I just want to point out that anywhere there is a reference to “Russian aggression,” or “saber rattling,” or the annexation of Crimea with an implication that said annexation was the overwhelming desire of the Crimeans and undertaken in the wake of a US-facilitated coup, requires the qualifiers “alleged,” “claimed,” “in NATO’s and Lockheed Martin’s wet dreams, etc.” You got most of them, but just to be clear. . . Russia is not the aggressor here.
“. . .that said annexation was anything other than the overwhelming desire of the Crimeans. . .”
. . . and then along came John F. Kennedy, God’s gift to the military-industrial complex.
This is one of the strangest things, how the ‘progressive left’ swallowed all the myths about JFK being a liberal peacenik. This continues to this day – Salon founder David Talbot, for example, says this about JFK in “The Devil’s Chessboard”:
As someone who got into history by studying the development of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs around the world, from the USSR to Britain and France to the United States, it’s clear this is absolute horseshit. JFK whipped up fear of the Soviets during his election campaign over a non-existent “missile gap”, and immediately boosted biological and chemical and nuclear weapons funding as soon as he entered office. His team of corporate military-industrial insiders – like MacNamara – were a direct line between his government and defense contractors. He put nuclear missiles in Turkey – a major factor in the Cuban missile crisis – and ran assassination programs targeting all kinds of developing world politicians – and was a diehard advocate of keeping South Vietnam as an American client state. How – and why – did this history get turned on its head?
And yet, much-beloved “liberal progressive news outlets” like Democracy Now! suck up Talbot’s nonsense and spread it far and wide with no questions asked – I mean, is this deliberate, or are they just grossly ignorant of history, or is it just a myth that allows Democrats to feel good about themselves? JFK was responsible for the Vietnam War, but that was just a continuation of policy (Eisenhower, like Truman, backed the French colonial agenda, not the Vietnamese independence movement) – so did the myth have to be created, that JFK was opposed to the Vietnam War, for political purposes? It’s kind of astonishing, the scale of the historical revisionism employed.
These tactics are very shady – as if, by including a certain amount of factual material, people like Talbot – and Amy Goodman? – can use that as a vehicle to promote mythological feel-good stories, to get people to believe in myths about people like Obama. . . in articles like this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1565992/Barack-Obama-is-JFK-heir-says-Kennedy-aide.html
Yes, Obama really was in the same mold as JFK – but what that really means is something very different from the classic liberal-progressive view of JFK as young idealist reformer; it means Obama was also utterly devoted to the national security state and the expansion of military power around the world – under the cover of “pro-democracy humanitarian interventions.”
But maybe that’s how the American Empire really operates – unlike the Soviet Union, where conformity was enforced by gulags and state violence, perhaps here conformity is enforced by massive propaganda efforts spanning all political groups?
There is especially one notion the man ushered that revealed his true nature and tendencies:
“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”
That is basically and factually what Adolf Hitler told the Germans. One can probably wait until the Americans are asked (if they haven’t answered that question already): “Wollt Ihr den totalen Krieg?”
“Do you want total war?”
Answered by chants of USA! USA! USA!
Disheartening beyond words how the Nazi apprentices have surpassed their masters skills. Goethe could have never imagined that.
Well, the Nazis didn’t lose WW II, the Germans did. The Nazis just moved here (and to a lesser extent, to the Soviet Union).
Exactly. Excellent post.
I can’t think of any excuses for Talbot, who must surely know better. For Amy, and for much of the progressive community she exemplifies, I think the “excuse” is that they just don’t have a real grasp of the history and have been surrounded by the Camelot myth for so long that is seems unquestionably true to them.
JFK was the consummate cold warrior and a “liberal” interventionist par excellence.
BTW, Kennedy’s commitment to SVN as a client state extended to blessing and largely orchestrating the overthrow of the Diem regime and Diem’s assassination.
Yes. Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism
Along with easy credit and the imposition and maintenance of the lifelong “consumer trance,” it’s all working out nicely for the Bosses and the MIC. For the moment. . .
Thanks, it’s helpful to know that others can see this. It reminds me of a discussion I had with a history teacher once, about the book “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong”, by James Loewen.
http://zinnedproject.org/materials/lies-my-teacher-told-me/
He said something like:
I recall being dumbfounded. . . I think here’s a counterargument, from Chinese activist Ai Weiwei:
This can be seen in the United States’ steady downward spiral into Third World status in so many areas, I think, accompanied by chants of “We’re Number One! We’re Number One!”
Indeed. Sadly, we have seen for years how executive power- particularly on foreign policy- has grown, with Congress unwilling to do their job. The Judiciary Committee did not approve impeaching Nixon for the secret bombing of Cambodia. Tip O’Neal did not approve of impeaching Reagan over Iran-Contra. Bill Clinton did nothing to aid Lawrence Walsh, the Iran-Contra Special Prosecutor (and given what we see now, it’s not surprising). House Republicans did nothing to impeach Clinton for his lying about Iraqi WMD, or his using it as an excuse to divert Congress from impeachment hearings. They also failed to use their powers to stop the illegal bombing of Kosovo. Democrats mostly backed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and when a new Democratic majority took over in 2006, with popular support for Iraq down and impeachment up, Democrats backed an escalation of force and took impeachment off the table. Republicans did nothing when Obama and Clinton launched the bombing of Libya, despite a clear absence of Congressional approval, and continued to do nothing when the War Powers Act deadline was passed.
As for those who do seek to do something about these high crimes? They get targeted. The lucky ones like Ron Paul and Walter Jones stay in. The unlucky ones like Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney and Alan Grayson get purged- by their own party.
All this war profiteering has been going on for decades, blatantly and openly. Yet, conservatives try to complain about scientists allegedly scamming the government for research money by fear mongering about climate change. This war profiteering draining US taxpayers is the elephant in the room that the conservatives are willfully ignoring!!
I’m sorry, conservatives? Did you really say conservatives? Isn’t this also what liberals are ignoring? I mean, Bernie Sanders, clearly a liberal – said not one word that I can recall during the entire primary about the need to vastly reduce the U.S. military budget in order to pay for his proposed liberal social programs – college education for all, public health programs, infrastructure rebuilding, etc. Sure, neither did conservatives in the Republican primary; Trump’s plan for infrastructure rebuilding also is unfunded due to the drain of military-industrial contracting.
The only person who brought this up has been Jill Stein and the Green Party, who are willing to admit that a “Green New Deal” for economic growth would have to be matched by a big cut in military spending.
And in Congress, every senior Congressmember, regardless of party, seems to have some tie in with a military-industrial contracting program that benefits their own district somehow, regardless of whether they are a liberal or a conservative. Gosh, just look at what Bernie Sanders said about military-industrial contracts in New Hampshire:
http://gui.afsc.org/birddog/bernie-sanders-lockheed-martin-f-35-jets-vermont
That didn’t get much “liberal progressive” media coverage, did it? This whole thing is highly bipartisan, the kickbacks to Congressmembers are huge – political donations, jobs for their home districts, it really is the Congressional-military-industrial-academic complex, all the way – yes, academic too, major universities like MIT and the University of California have been neck deep with the defense contractors for decades.
Your comment kind of supports what I said about JFK, doesn’t it? Let me guess – you think he wanted to get the U.S. out of Vietnam, don’t you? Liberals and conservatives -really, neoliberals, neoconservatives – they’re both advocates of this system. The only real difference is a shallow veneer on “domestic social issues”.
I think the most recent research into JFK showed that while he was originally a big hawk when he became president, he began changing his mind on that issue and DID eventually want to get the U.S. out of Vietnam.
I think that if Kennedy and Khrushchev had remained in power, the world would be a lot better place. But they were too anti-military and anti-imperialist for the people in power in their respective nations, so one was killed and the other forced out of power.
Anybody else having a problem with the comments not loading on Biddle’s NSA leak story?
I am. This is a test.
It’s stupid for a story which begins by noting it is major issue in the presidential election and then never discuss where the candidates stand. Where’s the reference to Queen Hillary the Ukraine and Syria hawk?
Trump has also pushed in this direction, if obliquely. He has threatened to withdraw support for NATO members that do not meet the 2% of GDP on defense threshold.
That said, the neocons are lining up with Clinton, which should tell me something.
That 2% is the entire yearly economic growth of most European NATO members.
If the U.S. were to cut NATO budgets by that amount, and divert that money to domestic infrastructure repair (badly needed) in the United States, would European countries realistically put up the difference? I kind of doubt it, but that’s what Trump was calling for.
Hillary, instead, is saying that the U.S. taxpayer should give money to NATO to buy arms from defense contractors, whose top shareholders are the Wall Street firms that she’s so tight with, and not worry about Europe not footing the bill; this is why Wall Street loves her – very biddable.
You have to read the defense contractor newsletters to understand their mentality:
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/07/06/natos_100_billion_defense_budget_gap_109525.html
No, global threats are not on the rise. . . and if the United States set up a $100 billion-a-year domestic infrastructure fund for states to dip into to repair infrastructure, wouldn’t that be a good idea? But no, this would be a problem for defense contractors. . . instead, they’re pushing for a $100-billion-a-year Pentagon contingency fund.
$100 Billion is not enough? By comparison, that’s around 133% of Russia’s defense budget…
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/mo-budget.htm
Um, no. It’s entirely acceptable for Lee Fang to assume a reasonable level of political literacy among the readers. Spelling it out as if we were all 12-year-olds would be the wrong approach for this adult site.
Spelling it out as if we were all 12-year-olds is your job Mona!
What are you asking?
.
My impression is that this article is about using fear/terror to achieve an outcome. It seems clear to me that Russia is being singled out as an enemy to achieve an outcome (profit, growth). Cold wars are massively profitable, and provide excuses for phenomenal amounts of expansion and growth and a lower ethical threshold; wmd development skyrockets in those conditions, and then other countries are forced to keep up regardless of whether they want to or not… We saw this in the nuclear field, the cbw field, the psyops fields, and most recently the cyber fields. The best excuse to get funding is to create enemies. Once they have the weapons, the reasoning is irrelevant, because there is no rate limiting available. The more powerful the weapons become, the less expensive and more indiscriminate they have become, and the more people have access to them. Russia is convenient, as is China (though this country has borne in mind that much of its financial stability probably lies in not rocking that boat too much). Muslim countries are convenient targets as well, since the US already has people believing that all Muslims are evil (and evil is fairly nonsectarian).
During WW I, they called this ‘war profiteering.’
Now they just call it prudent shareholder enhancement.
I call it treason.
Of course the truth is that there is NO Russian threat.
The country on Earth that spends hundreds of billions of dollars per year on military expenditures, more than the combined expenditures of all the other major countries is the major threat to the planet. That is the United States.
Russia did not invade Iraq on lies and destroy it. The United States did.
Russia did not invade Libya on lies and destroy it. The United States did.
Russia did not foment unrest in Syria resulting in a civil war where the “rebels” (terrorists) are funded and armed by the United States.
And what has the United States created by these military actions in Iraq, Syria and Libya? ISIS. Terrorist blow back inside the United States.
Russia did not foment unrest and the coup in Ukraine leading to the slaughter of thousands and the Crimeans overwhelmingly voting to join Russia. The United States did.
Nicaragua and the “Contras”? The United States.
What country propped up the bloody dictator in El Salvador in the 1980’s? The United States.
The United States has been on the wrong side of history from its inception. From slaughtering the American Indians to steal land, to slavery, to lies and false flags to conquer other countries throughout the bloody decades.
Bin Laden was “our guy” in the Middle East at one time. Saddam Hussein was “our guy” in Iraq at one time. Even Assad was cozy with the United States at one time.
Our CIA and “NGO’s” have destroyed more innocent lives world-wide than Russia has. No contest.
The American people have been played for decades with lies and propaganda, especially regarding Russia.
Our lies at the creation of NATO when Russia was promised that NATO would never be a threat to Russia are coming true.
And now we are faced with the possibility that Hillary Clinton will be elected President. And if she is we can expect a war with Iran which will easily and quickly lead to Russia’s involvement and the very real possibility of WW III.
Hopefully the people are starting to wake up and educate themselves to the TRUTH about the U.S. government’s history in relation to fomenting wars of aggression and imperialism in order to achieve control over resources and the planet. It’s called “Full Spectrum Military Dominance”.
We need to put the brakes on these policies and quickly.
Denying Hillary Rodham Clinton the Presidency will be a good first step.
In an interview she gave to a reporter in California she said when asked if her health is good enough for her to endure four years as President she snapped back: “It’s my turn. I’ve done my time. I deserve it.”:
http://www.thedailysheeple.com/hillary-clinton-tells-reporter-she-deserves-to-be-president_062014
No she does NOT!
“Hillary, Trump and War With Russia”:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article45294.htm
Lovely rant. How is the weather in St Petersburg?
How is the weather in trailer park Alabama? Back to watching the Kardashians.
1. Russia is not a threat
2. wallstreet is infected with criminal thieves who betray Americans
3. defence contractors are now running their scam on Americans with the help of whore hillary who is pushing the “russian threat fantasy”
4. the entire scherade is for the masked effort to have a
– global currency empire
– global military empire
– global legal empire (TPP)
Hellary Clinton supported the coup in the honduras and the murder of hundreds including a democratic activist. And yet she is willing to poison the water supply in the US with fracking and bankrupt the US with insane delusional fantasies of armageddon.
She’s nuts.
Banksters and war mongers trying to bleed out the US Treasury.
How much of that loot could be spent on repairing USA infrastructure?
Close ALL overseas bases, bring ALL the troops home, and mind our own business.
When I see a Russian threat to my life, I will reconsider but for the time being I’m more threatened by pharmaceutical and insurance companies. What do we have in the arsenal for that?
Reading this I cannot help but wonder how much influence and pressure and illusion of threat has been created or exaggerated by the military/industrial complex. Not just currently but also in US history, perhaps in much of its history. Create a problem to justify having a permanent military. Then create problems to justify military spending buildups. It is entirely possible, even probable given current evidence of this being the case. That is scary.
It was revealed after the fall of the Soviet Union that the CIA and Pentagon knew all along that the Soviet Union was no match for the U.S. militarily and that they constantly exaggerated the threat from it. So there’s at least that. But this is a form of pro-war propaganda that Goebbels espoused and is probably nothing new.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods