Hi Iqbal,
You pack a lot into your posts. It's a pleasure to read someone who has so thoroughly considered the events of our day, and has synthesized this so adroitly with history, finance and what might loosely be defined as spirituality into a unified worldview. My hat is off to you for the effort your put into your work, and for the obvious polish that it exudes.
That said, I don't believe a word of it.
Re: look at this today and you will notice that war on terror has far reaching benefits,
Nonsense. It has specific benefits to certain special interest groups. The great bulk of humanity is deriving no benefit whatsoever from the "war on terror™".
Who, specifically benefits? Cui bono?
Obviously the 'usual suspect' that first comes to mind is that old nemesis of democracy, the Military-Industrial Complex. Let's review a bit of history just so we are on the same page:
"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's Farewell Speech to the nation, 1961.
"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
Now, I happened to notice in your post that you quote the military budget of the U.S. at $300+ Billion, ("a nation that spends 300 billion plus on defense". That is actually underestimates the current expenditure by 55%. I'm disappointed that your figures are so far off. Your usually meticulous approach to budgetary matters seems remarkably ill-informed on this most important number.
Here is more accurate summation of how much money the American taxpayer is slavishly lavishing on the Military-Industrial Complex today:
The FY 2004 Department of Death
"as appropriated" budget: $401 Billion
First Iraq supplemental: ~60 Billion
Second Iraq supplemental (Oct.2003): $87 Billion
Department of Energy -- Nuclear Weapons
R&D and Procurement 25 Billion
CIA, NSA, NRO white budgets 40 Billion
CIA, NSA, NRO, DoD "black" budgets ~25 Billion
Homeland Security 30 Billion
____________________________________________________
Total Military-Indusrial Complex Budget: $668 Billion
I hope that these corrected numbers are useful to you as you continue to analyze the actual benefit to be derived from perpetual war. As you suspect, I see massive waste of our collective wealth occurring, with corrupt war profiteering being the actual endgame for those who have created this unholy mess out of self-interest. Which leads me to digress for a moment, and ask whether or not you might be familiar with the anti-war "America First" movement which was powerful (but not powerful enough) in 1930s and prominently publicized the work of one of its shining lights, Lt. General Smedley Butler. In a nutshell, Butler summed up war as a "racket".
lexrex.com
fas.org
I will state for the record that the current "war on terror™" appears to me to be most egregious racket, the biggest swindle and the biggest hoax I'm aware of in my lifetime. And I was born when Harry Truman presided over the U.S.
Who else benefits from the "war on terror"? Obviously the media. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is better for ratings and circulation that a good expeditionary campaign against some foreign (and hopefully swarthy and ugly) enemy of the nation.
Who else? Why Karl Rove, of course. As you know, he's Bush's man (or verse visa). He's Alexandra's Rasputin, the Medici's Machiavelli and Stalin's Beria and Society's Svengali all wrapped up in one convenient evil genius who has created the telegenic and charismatic (if linguistically maladroit) George Bush.
It's as if Rove sees the world in these terms:
Fantasy Studios, in association with Orwell Productions, proudly presents the Latest Blockbuster!
"The War on Terror™" is currently playing:
well in Witchita,
swell in Spokane, tres
belle in Biloxi, it
sells in Salina, and
dwells on the minds of Denver.
***
For Rove, honesty, ethics, fair play and decency are all expendable relics of an inefficient society. The best way for the Masters of the Universe, such as himself, to create the perfect world is to lie, cheat, steal, loot, disenfranchise and otherwise abuse as many people as possible. Just as long as he and his cronies are happy and satisfying their lust for power and insatiable greed.
***
Re: If taking the battle from US streets to far flung areas of the world is not a success what is?
Hyperbole to be sure. But little else. You might note that maps are available now that you might want to purchase, or even look at for free at your library or online. Assuming for a moment that you are using the standard boilerplate "war on terror™" definition of "US streets" you might once again be mildly rebuked for being math-challenged. "US streets" as I've come to understand the dystopian PR version of this term includes the Pentagon approach road, half a dozen streets in lower Manhattan and a country lane in rural Pennslyvania. This however appears to be a statistically insignificant percentage of "US streets". Now, Iqbal, you wouldn't want anyone to think that you are engaged in a wee bit of puffery and emotional "selling of the product after Labor Day™", to paraphrase the White House Chief of Staff now would you? <gg> Of course not, I'm certain that you wouldn't want to associate yourself with the disreputable cynicism of Andy Card, a known propagandist.
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Re: These extremists are and will be in constant hibernation.
Except when their antics are useful for political purposes and "the beast" is trotted out of its cage. Here's a news story that didn't make it into the American media, and for good reason. If the American public actually knew that much of what is ascribed to "al Qaeda™" is actually false flag operations by our secret police covert operatives, they would be aghast. News of shadowy men like Michael Meiring never reaches the pages of the corporate media, nor would his case be discussed the TV or radio propagdists.
defendsison.be
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Re: Even Iran's recent cooperation with the IAEA represents how the threat of big sticks works across the board so comprehensively.
OK, now here is something I completely agree with you on.
Today we have a despicable regime in which bullying and military intimidation are the principle tools by which the illegitimate Bush Regime is attempting to impose its will on the world.
What if we lived in a perfect world and everyone was forced to play by the rules and the most egregious threats to the safety of the world were dealt with first? Impossible, you say. And I agree.
But take a leap of faith with me for a moment.
If everyone had to play by the rules, the most egregious violator of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty today is the U.S. military. They are more likely than not already engaged in their much touted nucular bunker-buster research and development. They are giving the program a fig leaf by not including anything in the printed appropriations process and thereby developing "plausible deniability" about what they are up to at DARPA, the DoE National Labs and Rockwell, etc. However, have they told you how much is in their "black" budgets for these new toys for the brasshats? No? Me either. But let's make an educated guess. Say you have a Manhattan Project and ...... I'm sure you get the picture.
So we have some bullies named John Bolton, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and an all-star cast and they are all whiny about some little nuclear plant is outer Fars in the hinterlands of Persia. And they have a willing corporate media that loves to spread hysteria because hysteria is good for profits.
So what is going to happen in a perfectly fair world? Well something completely different than the propaganda campaign that is being waged against Iran today. I can assure you.
********
Alas, Iqbal,
I have to admit, my fingertips are growing raw and numb from attempting to respond to your post. As you've noticed, I've only covered the highlights in the first two of seven paragraphs of you post. And I'm already exhausted! You'll have to forgive me for desisting my end of the conversation for now. As you can gather by now, we are kindred spirits. You laugh? You ask how can this be? In what sense are we the same? Well, as I see it, we both serve the best and most noble means when the end in mind is a thriving democracy. You are, in your way, a dissident from the mainstream of "your part of the world", and I clearly am a dissenter from the dominant paradigm that has come to somehow represent "mainstream" America. We are both critics of the worst aspects of our own cultures, in the profound hope to improve them. We are unwilling, as so many fools are, to find an imaginary foreign enemy in order to rail against them for political advantage within the herd at home. It would be far easier for each of us to dishonestly accede to the majoritarian mob will of our cultures. But we decline, and instead attempt to better our worlds by shedding light on them. In this regard, I have only one small bit of advice I'd like to share that will immeasurably improve the likelihood of your success as a debater. (And decrease my browbeating concomitantly.)
Stick to the facts. |
