WAR What is it good for?

Fifty years ago today, President Dwight Eisenhower made reference to “The Military Industrial Complex” and the threat it posed to our democracy.

As one of our most famous 20thcentury warriors, President, Eisenhower was in a unique position to accurately gage what he had witnessed during his life as a warrior and President.

Prior to WWII, our country had always practiced a sword to plow shear philosophy, in that once a war was over, we disbanded our military forces in favor of civilian endeavors.

During WWII a pentagram building was build of stone and highly reinforced concrete, a survivable structure deigned to withstand direct artillery fire. A building capable of deflecting crashing aircraft, a military sanctuary of extraordinary design, a temple to the art of war and the god of destruction associated with such pagan symbols.

This new concentration of power fueled a desire for more power and thus began the influence in our political decisions early in the 1950’s.

It began with the overstating of military threats from the likes of the USSR and its satellites, which prompted calls from congress to increase spending on military technology. This rapid and overt buildup on our part, then prompted the Soviets to increase their buildup and the race began.

The Pentagon’s focus has always been about war and like any self serving entity, its primary goal is self preservation and growth, which it has done in splendid fashion.

Through the years its leadership has always been about more death, more destruction, more weapons and better designs in killing. It has birthed some of the greatest hawks of our time, who in time, come to see their actions as being wrong.

Robert McNamar was one such person. The architect of the Vietnam war, admitted in the years before his death, “to being wrong, terribly wrong” in directing US policy during the Vietnam War… being “less than candid ... to the press”.

Today, our military industrial complex controls much of our society, influencing everything from children’s camafloge clothing to the wide spread economically addictive services and manufacturing base that supports it.

In recent years the Pentagon has created an official Psychological Operations Unit, whose sole purpose is to find the most effective ways in psychological control. One such project at the beginning of the Iraq war, was the 1.5 million dollar research project that culminated in the “Support Your Troops” yellow ribbon campaign, intended to quell dissenters by making support universally accepted.

These kinds of socio-political manipulations can be witnessed on a daily basis and over the last year has been highly visible. One such item is the C17 transport aircraft that the Military does not want, but that the politicians keep building. How is that? Because, the PentaPeople figured out several years ago that if you spread the production of military components across the country, it becomes nearly impossible for programs to be canceled because to many jobs under to many politicians would be lost.

Even the current Presidency is directed by the military, in that last years decision on Afghanistan was one of; we can increase a little bit or a lot, which do you choose Mr. President?

Today our military has perfected some of the most advanced civilian control devices that have been highly tested in Iraq. Sonic system that cause extreme pain to herd people, microwave technologies to inflict great pain for mass control (both are now deployed and used here in the US), aerial surveillance that can track your every move, and alleged ion weaponry that will vaporize nearly any object.

When you consider there are now at least 2 brigades stationed inside the US, whose sole purpose is population control, it becomes a grim picture indeed. Of an all powerful Penta based organization, spending billions each year with no accountability, designing secret programs to control the minds of the population and weapons to control their bodies, it is a highly disturbing trend.

What is next? As a nation that has over 750 military bases world wide, spends more than all the other nations on the earth combined and has become an imperial power, more of our young dying for nothing is my guess.

Because the current imperial trajectory of the United States isn’t about freedom or the spread of democracy, but is all about profitability through death technologies, guided by the PentaPeople.

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Oliver wrote on February 03, 2011 at 2:02 pm

One can think logically and

One can think logically and deduce all sorts of things, but, that doesn't universally make those deductions the "truth", but only opinions, of which most are based on biases.

Not too long ago someone deduced that our moon is a type of alien-operated space ship that was parked in its "special" orbit up there. That speculation was presented reasonably well --until--someone came along and refuted them, point-by-point, equally well. Ya picks ur choice....

" ....as our nation crumbles into the dust bin of history." I don't see the big picture that way at all. I think the foundation of our society is as strong as ever, certainly nowhere close to literally being on the cusp of some dire collapse (and just what is that supposed to mean? rampant violence & lawlessness? people going back to internet dial-up speed?) The normal stuff of everyday life is all around us, just look, please. I will concede, though, that some doofus as President doesn't help our pursuit of life, liberty and getting the Cubs to win the World Series--or even *to* it.
Regards,

bluegrass wrote on February 03, 2011 at 4:02 pm

In the immortal words of

In the immortal words of Borat, "It's a very nice. High Five."

Yatiri wrote on February 03, 2011 at 9:02 am
Penteller wrote on February 01, 2011 at 9:02 pm

Thechampaignlife Your

Thechampaignlife

Your hesitation in linking to web sites that you’ve “never heard of” is a bit troubling for me, for a couple of reasons.

First, if you question that our current mass media systems of informational dissemination is tainted, which everyone seems to believe, from the regressive’s whose mantra is “liberal media” to the progressives who recognized corporate and overseas control, this alone leaves us little choice in looking elsewhere.

Secondly, (tongue in cheek) if you’re not practicing safe computing then you really need to get some protection. Remember to never leave the house on a wet day without your rubbers and always keep your virus check running. If you do, then you can not help but become healthy, wealthy and wise.

As conspiracies go, I was a huge fan of the Sherlock Holmes books as a kid, combine that with my childhood favorite TV character Mr. Spock and you have a pure raw logic directive in solving any mystery – and life is full of them.

So, the logic in the task of solving today’s socio-political mysteries, always comes down to – “Whenever you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” – Conan Doyle

The funny thing about conspiracies, like crime (which is usually one in the same), is that all you have to do is follow the money, observe all that you see which is usually in plain sight and the rest is elementary my dear Watson.

A great example is our former Vice President who upon becoming VP, owned 433,333 (more than likely a significant numerological number) of Halliburton stock, stock he had received while President of Halliburton (Halliburton stock in 1999 was worth $14, today it’s worth $48).

Not only did his stock price climb during the years he implemented war, but he continued to be paid handsomely by the former corporation he ran. Deferred incomes that ranged from $200,000.00 to nearly $300.000.00 from 2001 thru 2004. Something ol’Rush and O’Realy never bothered mentioning to their minions.

During the years as CEO of Halliburton, he was instrumental in the negotiations with the Taliban for a major fuel line to be built across Afghanistan. One of the head negotiators in these affairs was Osama Bin Laden whose family had close business ties with the Bush family, all had at one time or another done projects with Enron and George Bush’s close friend Kenneth Lay. This is the same Taliban that Regan had called freedom fighters and comparable to America’s founding fathers.

Like all good capitalist ventures in America, once there was no more hope of a “deal” what’s a nation to do? Why attack of course, with Halliburton becoming one of the largest defense services contractors, receiving billions in no-contract bids.

Conspiracy? You tell me. Is it just happenstance that while VP the company he use to run, in which he had millions of investment and continued to receive an income from, just happened to become one of the largest vehicles for the war he helped drive?

And what was that fire all about in the VP office, just before he left office? Not to mention the millions of Presidential Emails illegally hosted on a server that also served the RNC and did the voting tabulations for the contested Ohio elections. Emails and tabulation data that all inexplicitly disappeared from systems managed by a formerly unknown technician, who until 2000 ran a computer business out of his home, a young man who just happened to die after the Presidency was over.

The wealth in these kinds of affairs continues today and expand at an ever growing rate. Meanwhile, the regressive’s keep their followers busy squealing about liberals instead of concentrating on the hubris and imperial nature of our federal government and its growing militarism against the population.

War, what is it good for? It’s for the good dying young and the rich getting richer as our nation crumbles into the dust bin of history.

Penteller wrote on January 30, 2011 at 1:01 pm

Champaignlife Curious about

Champaignlife

Curious about your statement “conspiracy theories”, looking back over this thread I really didn’t see anything that was not documented, nor cannot be easily found through multiple sources. Over what point did you bring up “conspiracy”?

Talk about putting the breaks on our imperialism, just make all military attacks on other nations mandated by congressional vote. Oh that’s right! Says so in the constitution, but what is it anyway, an old document wrote by long dead people.

And speaking of imperialism, if you look at the regimes we’ve supported over the last 60 years and the brutal dictatorships we funded, democracy in the Middle East will not be very pleasant for us.

This is why you see our Government now saying little in support of the Egyptian masses who risk their lives in trying to overthrow a 30 year dictatorship sponsored by US. Yea, freedom is all well and good as long as it doesn’t affect our fat, dumb and happy gluttony.
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22975

Middle East cultures have long memories that stretch back thousands of years. With that said, what kind of legacy is the US leaving, through its bayonet diplomacy in forever wars.
http://uruknet.com/?p=m74377&hd=&size=1&l=e

Meanwhile back on the home front, Big Brother continues its incessant grip upon us, using military technologies to monitor more and more of our lives. If you think you have nothing to fear from our government, they you won’t mind 7/24/365 monitoring of your life by those you have never met nor know nothing of, for purposes and use you have no way of knowing.
http://theintelhub.com/2011/01/29/micro-drones-to-fly-surveillance-missi...

If this is conspiracy then heaven help our reality.

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored". ~ Aldous Huxley

thechampaignlife wrote on January 30, 2011 at 2:01 pm

Maybe it's just me, but

Maybe it's just me, but sometimes I read some of these threads which cite somewhat loosely connected stories of governmental abuse with URLs to sites I've never heard of before (not that that discounts their validity, I'm just too virus averse to click) and I get the image of a cigar-smoke-filled, walnut-paneled boardroom full of a dozen or so suitclad men twirling their pencil-thin mustaches and planning their next move in the great takeover of humanity. I'm certain that's not how it was intended and I simply have an overactive imagination but my mind glazes over and throws up a "consipracy theory flag" the more complex and involved the stories become as related to the original thread idea (war=bad in this case). I'll have to work on that.

I think we're on the same page on the big picture stuff, though. War is bad. It's used too often. It's called a conflict to avoid the unpleasantness of having to invoke a Congressionally-declared war and that isn't right. The office of the President has too much power. Government records should be open in all but the most sensitive of subjects (i.e. how to build a nuke but not who we have in custody or where we've sponsored torture or puppet regimes).

I'm beginning to really get behind the idea of sortition for one of our Houses of Congress as a way to at least keep our liberties and rights from eroding any further. If the House of Representatives was filled with randomly-selected citizens instead of career politicians with contributors to please, I believe it would restore a check and balance that has long been degraded.

Penteller wrote on January 22, 2011 at 8:01 pm

Oliver, There may have been

Oliver,
There may have been times in our history where war was inevitable and just, but that has not been the case over the last 60 years. As we have never won a war since WWII.

By using an all volunteer army who are paid well by civilian coffers, you stay away from the political land mines of military draft. Where rich kids go to college and get jobs at their daddy’s defense company and poor kids are handed a rifle before being shoved out the back of the plane.

When the Iraqi crime spree that George the H gang and our Penta-military started, it posed a significant problem - that of personnel shortages. We just didn’t have enough personnel to carry the load.

It was a war in which we were assured, it would cost no more than 60-80 billion dollars and that we could conduct our operations with existing personnel. True when you calculate all active, inactive and reserve/guard.

Thus began the call-ups and largest mobilization of reserve guard this nation has ever known. It was in effect a way of cooking the books socially, in that we didn’t have to do a draft, so no one protested and no one really noticed a guard unit here or a reserve there, being gone.

It was the perfect thievery, in that, if your thefts are far enough apart and random enough, no one will really notice that it’s a crime wave. So began the bleeding of American by a thousand cuts, the theft of a nation’s best for a war that did nothing but de-stabilize a region even further.

This manipulation of a nations perspective, of hiding the bodies coming home, of thieving from here and there so no one notices, created strain that now shows up. Strains that no civilian volunteer should endure, weekend soldiers who thought they had signed up for their nations last line of defense, but found they were merely the fodder of our rounds fired.

Now the stress comes home and the cooked books that never show the full cost of war, begin to reveal their bloodied pages.

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/01/19/national-guard-reserve-suicides-soar/

thechampaignlife wrote on January 27, 2011 at 8:01 am

Just wanted to chime in to

Just wanted to chime in to say that while I don't necessarily buy into all the conspiracy theories, I do believe we've improperly used war in the past 65 years. War is terrible and I only support it to stop genocide and similar atrocities and it must be declared by Congress, not these "conflicts" they put us in so war doesn't have to be officially declared. Not to shake up an unfriendly government. The only other uses of troops besides Congressionally declared war that I support is peacekeeping and disaster relief.

ractivist wrote on January 21, 2011 at 1:01 pm

What is next? If the puppet

What is next?
If the puppet masters have their way, ultimately there will no longer be wars, only skermishes keeping the people at bay in their new one world government that will only have one very large military. At least that is their ultimate utopian dream, though it not be my dream to be a serf, a slave in their utopian world.

How we got here is extremely debateable. Man's inhumanity to man is legendary, from within and without all governments. The Republic was corrupted long ago, and there have been dire consequences for that. The new fundamental change on the table is not the solution. Death, destruction and genocide will be manifest in this transition. Nothing will change with the dynamics at play, as history attests to.

Admittedly things need to change, unfortunately mans corrupted state will not allow a reasonable solution to evolve. Buckle up folks......................

Oliver wrote on January 21, 2011 at 11:01 am

I am unable to post a quote

I am unable to post a quote which was part of the original post. I've sent it to Rich Lawson to try to see what triggered the "spam alert". I'd like you to see it, if for nothing else than to be aware it could not be posted here!

Regards,

Oliver wrote on January 21, 2011 at 3:01 pm

Just to perhaps complement

Just to perhaps complement the McNamara quote, this from "Legends, Lies..." a book by Richard Shenkman, p. 102.

I left out one word, the name of the country that had the experience before JFK got us rolling with 7000 troops... ("advisers"?) The country is, of course France, and the quote by deGaulle to JFK.

OK, so far so good. Apparently it was something in the long quote that was not acceptable. I will take a guess to see if I can figure what is so objectionable.

Oliver wrote on January 21, 2011 at 4:01 pm

War is the ultimate breakdown

War is the ultimate breakdown which Cool Hand Luke found out the hard way was ("what we have here,,,,is,,,) uh faylure to communicate."

Years ago I coined the phrase "war is an unfortunate means of persuasion".

What's war good for? I contend you and I wouldn't be sitting where we are, doing what we're doing if someone had not made the sacrifice of war at various times in the past. Of course you may not care for sitting and doing what you're doing, but, I think learning a foreign language such as German, and saluting Hitler III under fear of death wouldn't be too thrilling either.

Regards,

Oliver wrote on January 21, 2011 at 4:01 pm

Oh, for goodness' sake, I

Oh, for goodness' sake, I think the big deal was the 6th word of the 2nd sentence mistaken in a physical way!!!

Just to perhaps complement the McNamara quote, this from "Legends, Lies..." a book by Richard Shenkman, p. 102.

"You will find that intervention in this area (Viet Nam) will be an endless entanglement. Once a nation has been ar_used, no foreign power, however strong, can impose its will upon it. You will discover this for yourselves. For even if you find local leaders who in their own interests are prepared to obey you, the people will not agree to it, and indeed do not want it. The ideology which you invoke will make no difference. Indeed, in the eyes of the masses, it will become identified with your will to power. That is why the more you become involved out there against the Communists, the more the Communists will appear as the champions of national independence, and the more support they will receive, if only from despair. We have had experience of it. You Americans want to take our place. I predict you will sink step by step into a bottomless military and political quagmire, however much you spend in men and money."

I left out one word, the name of the country that had the experience before JFK got us rolling with 7000 troops... ("advisers"?) The country is, of course France, and the quote by deGaulle to JFK.