AS,
As someone who has studied the actions of the U.S. military since the commencement of the National Security State (1947), I can tell you one thing with utter clarity and determination: YOU ARE WRONG TO PUT THE MILITARY ON A PEDESTAL AND HOLD THEM HARMLESS in view of the 60 year history of sadism, illegal invasions and immorality that they have engaged in.
Have you read the "Pentagon Papers" or Daniel Ellsberg's recent "Secrets"? tinyurl.com
Are you aware that on September 10, 2001 that Donald Rumsfeld was in Congress to try to explain why he could not explain where $2.1 Trillion had disappeared to in the Pentagon.
Are you familiar with Dwight Eisenhower's warning to the American public to be less innocent about supporting rampant militarism?
THIS IS WHAT A REAL PRESIDENT SAID:
: "In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." --President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Speech, January, 1961
Guns or Butter: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." --President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Speech in 1953
Source: eisenhower.utexas.edu
Compare that to George "Chickenhawk" Bush telling the Iraqi freedom fighters to "Bring it on!"
And you see what depths we have sunk to in this nation.
***
AS,
You are a complete fool to try to lecture me about getting on my knees and polishing the military's knob. That is a totally un-American suggestion and you should be ashamed of yourself.
America is currently misled. We are engaged in an illegal and immoral occupation. The military is complicit in this. Of course, George Bush should be tried as a traitor and executed. But to say that I need to turn a blind eye to the brutality of Abu Ghraib, of the merciless and criminal cluster bombs, of the napalming and burning alive of the citizens of Fallujah, of the rape of Iraqis women and Iraq's art, and of the dehumanization that the brasshats in the U.S. military impose on its "killing machine" troops, well, I can't stand that you are so immoral as to turn a blind eye to how ugly and inhuman all this is.
So forget about trying to get me on my knees in front of your imperial military police. It ain't going to happen. I'd sooner die free than become a citizen of the ugly new America you seem to find so comforting. Perhaps its only because of your elite class status that you can see yourself free to associate with the criminals who are creating a horrible imperial future that destroys America and all it has stood for for the past 229 years.
And if you think the military is the handmaiden of George Bush, you are awfully naive. You need to educate yourself about the interior politics of the military-industrial complex. We are at a crisis stage. Either we control the military-industrial complex, or else it will destroy America. It is well on the way.
Educate yourself:
The Sorrows of Empire : Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic [The American Empire Project] (Hardcover)
by Chalmers Johnson
tinyurl.com
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Since September 2001, the United States has "undergone a transformation from republic to empire that may well prove irreversible," writes Chalmers Johnson. Unlike past global powers, however, America has built an empire of bases rather than colonies, creating in the process a government that is obsessed with maintaining absolute military dominance over the world, Johnson claims. The Department of Defense currently lists 725 official U.S. military bases outside of the country and 969 within the 50 states (not to mention numerous secret bases). According to the author, these bases are proof that the "United States prefers to deal with other nations through the use or threat of force rather than negotiations, commerce, or cultural interaction." This rise of American militarism, along with the corresponding layers of bureaucracy and secrecy that are created to circumvent scrutiny, signals a shift in power from the populace to the Pentagon: "A revolution would be required to bring the Pentagon back under democratic control," he writes.
In Sorrows of Empire, Johnson discusses the roots of American militarism, the rise and extent of the military-industrial complex, and the close ties between arms industry executives and high-level politicians. He also looks closely at how the military has extended the boundaries of what constitutes national security in order to centralize intelligence agencies under their control and how statesmen have been replaced by career soldiers on the front lines of foreign policy--a shift that naturally increases the frequency with which we go to war.
Though his conclusions are sure to be controversial, Johnson is a skilled and experienced historian who backs up his claims with copious research and persuasive arguments. His important book adds much to a debate about the realities and direction of U.S. influence in the world. --Shawn Carkonen
***
Militarism is a sickness. Just ask Japan and Germany about what it did to destroy those nations. America needs to pull back from its mad obsession with total world conquest. |
