Military Budget Round Three
mashed articles by Pat Darnell | Mar 1, 2014 | Bryan TX
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USA has been at war for all my natural life. We are somehow designated world police, and therefore also designated scapegoat for all our hapless allies. We invade and occupy countries in the name of human rights, and are called upon by those of the oppressed groups to help them avoid genocide, terrorist attacks, expulsion, injury and death by their oppressors. I read that there were 2.2 million refugees out of Syria in their last civil/religious/factions/insurgents war.
"War ... I hate War," said FDR once. But I am beginning to think the USA loves War. Even when we cut war chest budget and soldiers go home, we still as a nation go on killing with new war toys -- like remote controlled drones. I think we will reinvent ways to kick everyone's ass for a long time, even if war resembles video games.
In light of today's "cut backs" in military budget, we find the roots of this in the recent past.
Barack Obama's new way of war 2012 | MyFDL: "In the main article, Bacevich describes three phases of the War Formerly Know As The Global War On Terror (WFKATGWOT): the shock-and-awe (conventional forces) phase, the COIN (counter-insurgency) phase, and finally “Round 3: Assination”, which he describes as follows:
"...The United States is finished with the business of sending large land armies to invade and occupy countries on the Eurasian mainland. Robert Gates, when still Secretary of Defense, made the definitive statement on that subject. The United States is now in the business of using missile-armed drones and special operations forces to eliminate anyone (not excluding U.S. citizens) the president of the United States decides has become an intolerable annoyance. Under President Obama, such attacks have proliferated."
'via Blog this'
" ...Rather than setting out to clear, hold and build thousands of tiny, primitive villages scattered across the Afghan countryside, such a strategy should emphasize three principles: decapitate, contain and compete. An approach based on these principles cannot guarantee perpetual peace. But it is likely to be more effective, affordable and sustainable than a strategy based on open-ended war.
"... Decapitation — targeting leaders for elimination — provides the means to suppress immediate threats to our safety. The violent jihadists who pose those threats are vicious but relatively few in number. They possess limited capabilities. Their aspirations of uniting the world’s Muslims into a new caliphate are akin to Sarah Palin’s or Dennis Kucinich’s presidential ambitions — unworthy of serious attention. They are rank fantasies (Andrew Bacevich. September 2009. )..."
CONCLUSION
“True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”
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State of the Union Address in January 1944. Reported in: "The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt: Victory and the threshold of peace, 1944-45", p. 41]
“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” [The public papers and addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt: with a special introduction and explanatory notes by President Roosevelt (1941), p. 538, "A Message on Education for American Education Week, September 27 1938"]
“We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.” [Greeting to the American Committee for the Protection of the Foreign Born, Washington, D.C. (9 January 1940)]
For the past 80 years what FDR says in his speeches is what we are fighting for, and what Americans have been voting for -- an implied social contract. It is perceived that we are the greatest civilization to ever exist, mostly perceived by ourselves about ourselves, and that all civilizations append their archaic systems to be Democracies like the USA.
According to FDR, and all who believe him, USA fights for ... "economic security and independence, ... [t]he real safeguard of democracy...education .... [and] scrupulously guard[ing] the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens ..."
I don't think military budget cuts now in 2014 will amount to much of anything. USA will forge ahead in its safeguarding and providing security all over the world at whatever cost.
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UPDATE ::
" ... News: January 12, 1993 | Economist Jack Hopper returns with a discussion of another book by William Greider--"Who Will Tell the People?" We review how, during the Reagan-Bush years the drive of the rich and powerful to capture completely the organs of government, to lock out all meaningful public participation, and to bend all laws and the administration of them to their own interest have had a seriously detrimental effect on the people in general--impoverishing and disenfranchising them. This destruction of the social contract implied from the years of FDR is nothing less than class warfare by the American ruling class on the rest of us. (Producer: Frank Morrow. Copyright January, 1993.
LINK) ..."
___________________________Reference
http://my.firedoglake.com/wigwam/2012/03/03/barack-obamas-new-way-of-war/
http://izquotes.com/quote/309850
