American Warscapes

American Warscapes by Tom Engelhardt

Tom Engelhardt stands back and takes a look at the big picture of what's become of America. It's not a pretty sight. It's ugly, in fact, but it's true - and we tolerate it at our enormous peril.


Bill

How Neo-Cons Became Honorary Christians

How Neo-Cons Became Honorary Christians By LAWRENCE SWAIM

The Middle East is a ticking bomb. "Oh," someone will say "how could it be a ticking bomb when we're already at war?".

True, we have invaded and occupy two countries so far, but it's not YET a real war because most people in America aren't personally affected by it. It's only a very tiny percentage of families who have kin engaged in the war who are actually feeling it, the rest of America is more concerned with jobs, the economy and whatever "major news" stories of the day break out.

But this status quo will change. The dogs are out, and while they are still contained "over there", the underlying, driving forces have taken a life of their own, as happens with war.

It's very clear that too few of us remember what war actually is, and far too many are willing to put up with and even romanticize it. Be that as it may, the dogs are out and they're running all over the Middle East. It is only a matter of time before things get worse, far worse, first "over there" and eventually - nobody knows when - the devastating consequences of war come home with the chickens to roost.

As anyone who has given any serious thought to the invasion of the Middle East knows, it was fueled and sparked by the Neocons and their sympathizers, especially and particularly in our information supply, the people who frame our national narrative. If you've read anything I've written on the subject in the last decade or so, you'll know that I'm completely and totally against this gang, and as you might guess been stuck with the anti-semite sword as a consequence. Fine. I don't care. I care about America and the world at large. I care about peace and building, and I see mankind's future in space exploration, not to mention repairing our own planet. Everything I see and want is negated by the onslaught of this gang's mind-numbing activities.

The following is from another excellent article on the subject. I'm very pleased to see such intellectual heavyweights gaining momentum if only on alternate websites today. The power of their truth cannot be stifled by Neocon filters over our information supply.

"The neo-con approach to problem-solving is no longer rational, or based on enlightened or even informed self-interest, but has become an apocalyptic movement based on identification with the Holocaust, driven by an almost complete internalization of its trauma and an ever-present and semi-hysterical death worship of the six million. The basic neo-conservative idea is that both America and Israel must exist in a state of permanent war, an idea that neo-cons first expressed in their public letter to Netayahu in 1996 pleading against a peace deal with the Palestinians. But what country can remain in a state of permanent war? Why is that better than peace? Permanent war is an abomination, and people who believe in it are insane.

The apocalyptic, victimology-driven Jewish neo-cons who want permanent war do not flinch for a moment at the potential loss of Jewish lives; indeed, they have lived for years in a moral and emotional universe in which it is assumed as self-evident that the world hates the Jews, everybody is against them, and a new Holocaust is on the way. In fact it is so self-evident and so necessary to their weltanschauung that the neo-cons that believe in it will do almost anything to make it happen.

The more Jews that die: the more children murdered: the more the neo-cons can trumpet to the world that everybody really does hate them. Their solution is an apocalyptic one, borrowed from the most hysterical and blood-obsessed form of Christianity, but going the Christians one step better—to the neo-cons the objective is not to win the Final Battle, but to lose it, thereby acting out to ecstatic completion the total authenticity of their victim status. The apocalyptic solution is, at bottom, a dangerous, narcissistic form of public suicide that seeks the destruction of the world as its answer to the paradoxes of the human dilemma."

Bill

The War On Terror

The War On Terror by Paul Craig Roberts

"Are Americans aware that the same neoconservatives who made these fantastic mistakes, or told these fabulous lies, are still in control of the government in Washington?

...

The US government creates terrorists by invading Muslim countries, wrecking infrastructure and killing vast numbers of civilians. The US also creates terrorists by installing puppet governments to rule over Muslims and by using the puppet governments to murder and persecute citizens as is occurring on a vast scale in Pakistan today.

Neoconservatives used 9/11 to launch their plan for US world hegemony. Their plan fit with the interests of America’s ruling oligarchies. Wars are good for the profits of the military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned us in vain a half century ago. American hegemony is good for the oil industry’s control over resources and resource flows. The transformation of the Middle East into a vast American puppet state serves well the Israel Lobby’s Zionist aspirations for Israeli territorial expansion."

Alert -- The Same Neocons Who Peddled the Al Qaeda-Iraq Connection Are Setting Their Sights on Iran By Ali Gharib

"They lied us into one war, and now they're trying to get the U.S. into another. "

Bill

Publish or Perish

Publish or Perish Getting a Read on American War By Nick Turse and Tom Engelhardt

"Quick — name the five most important, influential, and best known books on the Afghan War. Okay, name three. Okay, I’ll settle for two. How about one?"

Recently, I've wondered about something very similar: the fact that there isn't a single anti-war song being played anywhere. I'm not seeing any anti-war movies either, but it seems to me the missing songs are the more important. You do remember John Lennon, right? Remember "Age of Destruction", which could have been written today.

Is it possible there is no passion out there? Am I, and the writers at the anti-war sites I visit regularly, the only ones that feel a sense of passion over what's happened to America? Are film and song writers not among us - at all?

Or is there a deeper, darker, more insidious truth? Is it possible that the channels of distribution for songs and movies are controlled by the same people who control the mainstream media's editorial content?

On the subject of poignant anti-war writing, a reader comment to this article submitted by Jeff Davis quotes from "Johnny got his gun"

""Of course a lot of guys were ashamed. Somebody said let's go out and fight for liberty and so they went out and got killed without ever once thinking of liberty. And what kind of liberty were they fighting for anyway? How much liberty and whose kind of liberty? Were they fighting for the liberty of eating free ice cream cones all their lives or for the liberty of robbing anybody they pleased whenever they wanted to or what? You tell a man he can't rob and you take away some of his liberty. You've got to. What the hell does liberty mean anyhow? It's a word like house or table or any other word. Only it's a special kind of word. A guy says house and he can point to a house to prove it. But a guy says come on let's fight for liberty and he can't show you liberty. He can't prove the thing he's talking about so how in the hell can he be telling you to fight for it? No sir anybody who went out and got into the front line trenches to fight for liberty was a goddamn fool and the guy who got him there was a liar."

"Was it freedom from another country? Freedom from work or disease or death? Freedom from your mother-in-law? Please mister give us a bill of sale on this freedom before we go out and get killed. Give us a bill of sale drawn up plainly in advance what we're getting killed for... so we can be sure after we've won your war that we've got the same kind of freedom we bargained for."

— Dalton Trumbo (Johnny Got His Gun) "

Bill

Why Germany Has It So Good -- and Why America Is Going Down the Drain

Why Germany Has It So Good -- and Why America Is Going Down the Drain By Terrence McNally

"... Germany has somehow managed to create a high-wage, unionized economy without shipping all its jobs abroad or creating a massive trade deficit, or any trade deficit at all. And even as the Germans outsell the United States, they manage to take six weeks of vacation every year. They're beating us with one hand tied behind their back."

"My second proposal is simply the most effective way to move ultimately to a single payer healthcare system, which I think we have to do. I would say that even if I didn't think single payer were a better system. You have to have one consistent system of payment to get control of healthcare costs. All the European countries do. It doesn't have to be single payer, but it has to be a consistent system. You can't have a mix of private market and single payer."

You may recall the health care "debate" and how it was framed by the media as a comparison between the American and the Canadian and British health care systems, but not a single word about the German system. While this article touches on this subject, it's far more then that.

"You point out that as globalization grew, the US chose to compete on the basis of cheap labor by outsourcing. We kept the marketing and executives here and moved the manufacturing elsewhere. We've been playing that game for 20-30 years now. Germany chose to play the opposite game."

The article ends with:

"McNally: Let me finish with a quote of yours that really struck me: Without an industrial base a democracy dies.

Geoghegan: My own favorite ending line would be: Countries like Germany do both capitalism and socialism better than we do."

Bill

Our Country Is Lost Believing in What It Sees on Screens, and We Are Going to Pay a Nasty Price for It

Our Country Is Lost Believing in What It Sees on Screens, and We Are Going to Pay a Nasty Price for It By Chris Hedges

"We do not shake ourselves awake quickly from our electronic hallucinations and defy the elites who are ruining the country and trashing the planet."

Chris Hedges has a remarkable way with words. Every time I read his writing, I relate completely to what he's saying and only wish I could express myself as well. Right on, Chris, as usual.

Helen Thomas Cries, Denies Anti-Semitism, Calls President Obama 'Reprehensible'

See excellent reader comments.


Bill

Why defense spending won't go down much

Why defense spending won't go down much Posted By Stephen M. Walt

"Although it is mind-boggling to realize that five percent of the world's population (the United States) now spends more on defense than the other 95 percent put together, this situation is hard to avoid when you see threats emerging virtually everywhere and when you think all of them are best met by an ambitious and highly interventionst foreign policy."

Cutting the Fuse The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It by Robert A. Pape and James K. Feldman

"Since 2004, the number of suicide attacks—whether within a country or transnational—has grown with shocking speed. Through a close analysis of suicide campaigns by Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Israel, Chechnya, and Sri Lanka, the authors provide powerful new evidence that, contrary to popular and dangerously mistaken belief, only a tiny minority of these attacks are motivated solely by religion. Instead, the root cause is foreign military occupation, which triggers secular and religious people alike to carry out suicide attacks."

Surprise -- The Very Dark Side of U.S. History By Peter Dale Scott and Robert Parry

"What is clear from these experiences in Indonesia, Vietnam, Central America and elsewhere is that the United States, for generations, has sustained two parallel but opposed states of mind about military atrocities and human rights: one of U.S. benevolence, generally held by the public, and the other of ends-justify-the-means brutality embraced by counterinsurgency specialists."

Israel Invokes a Loyalty Oath for Non-Jews

Reader comments say it all.


Bill