Category: War

Rumors Fly, Truth Walks

1/25/2014

Noriega. Hussein. Bin Laden.

What do these leaders have in common?

They were all our ALLIES at one time!

We started a rumor that Noriega was a drug-runner.

We invaded Panama in 1989.

The truth that Noriega had been on the CIA payroll walked.

We started a rumor that Hussein was the next Hitler.

We invaded Iraq TWICE – 1991 and 2003.

The truth that we supported Hussein and his crimes for many years walked.

We started a rumor that Bin Laden instigated attacks on 9/11.

We invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

The truth of bin Laden's CIA connections still walks.

Let’s stop the cycle of lies. Let’s get the full story before we believe our leaders!

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Barry Goldwater Was Right after All

1/15/2014

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Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice - United States Senator Barry Goldwater

Many political observers cringed when candidate Barry Goldwater delivered this phrase at the Republican National Convention in 1964. It sounded like Goldwater would put no limit on United States intervention in Viet Nam.

Years later, I believe Goldwater’s comment reflects the way the world really works. The words are malleable enough to justify any action taken for any cause.

What is extremism?

It depends upon to whom one refers. Goldwater spoke by implication of
aggression by the old Soviet Union or North Viet Nam. Perhaps tacitly, he implied the reason there was no limit to actions we were willing to instigate was because we feared what the “enemy” might do.

So, if we believe another nation or group of people oppose us, or may take something we want, they are “extremists.” We believed that North Viet Nam was a threat to our ally South Viet Nam, so some of the forces in the Gulf of Tonkin contacted President Johnson and lied about the North Vietnamese firing upon our ships. Goldwater backed Johnson’s
subsequent response to step up the bombing and to ask for Congressional support for expanded force in that region.

We were not extremists. We just did what we had to do to protect an ally and our interests in that area of the world. We also did not want anyone else in the world to believe we would back down from the threat the “enemy” posed to us.

In short, we can use extreme measures, but we are not extremists.

What is liberty?

Again, it seems to matter whose liberty to which we refer.  Our liberty is something we find necessary to defend.  Our Declaration of Independence makes mention of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Liberty places second after the need to live first but before our own happiness. It seems, then, that life is meaningless without liberty.

The irony is not lost upon me that we often destroy the liberty of others (by invading, bombing, disenfranchising, etc.) to make sure that we have our own. We must fail to recognize that simple reciprocity would deprive us of what we say we prize.

So what, then, do we make of vice?

It seems that we do not assign the word vice to ourselves but rather to those whom we oppose. The communists, the terrorists, the extremists, the fascists and everyone else our nation has cornered at the point of a gun.  The threats we perceive are wrong; the threats we use to counter the perceived threats are right.

I guess, in my heart, I know Goldwater was right. We do whatever we think necessary to make the world safe for us to dominate.  Then we plead danger because people ask too many questions when the going
is safe.

Goldwater’s only real vice was telling the truth.

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Here is How We Can Support the Troops

7/22/2012

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What does it mean to support the troops?

I frequently see the statement “Support Our Troops” on bumper stickers and I hear it from people as well. Like a lot of short, simple statements, its vagueness encourages its likability.

Our troops have bombed and invaded nations that presented no threat to us. They participate in drone bombings and have killed innocent people. In all fairness, those who say they support the troops do not likely support these actions.

Many who join the armed forces do so because they cannot get a job nor can they afford college. They are the ones who most need our support and we can give it to them.

What if more young people could choose to go to college?

Consider a new report from Bloomberg.com reported in The Week magazine that the “net worth of the average Canadian household was $363,202, while the average American household had a net worth of $319,970.” The net worth statistics used to be the other way around.

How have the Canadians surpassed us in this regard?

We could look to what our federal government spends. For Fiscal Year 2010, spending on the United States Defense Department took up at least twenty percent of the budget. The number goes higher when one considers spending on Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, interest on debt incurred in previous wars and other issues.

What do nations like Canada spend on their military? About 1.4 percent!

On the other hand, the United States’ federal government outspends the Canadian government in percentage of spending on education of the total budget. It also outspends the Canadians on issues such as health care.

What assists the Canadians in terms of education is that it does not cost to go to “college” there. Colleges are two-year schools that United States refers to as “community college.” The costs of going to community college are high and getting higher. So are the costs of going to college, as many in the military are well aware.

We can foresee a problem ahead of time. The costs of going to college will rise to the point where most young adults will not be able to afford it. Jobs will continue to require degrees of most applicants. The military will remain one employer that does not require formal schooling.

We need to shift some of the military spending to colleges to lower the tuition bills. Here is how:

We must stop starting “elective” wars where we choose to fight a non-existent threat. This will lower the payment of interest on war spending.

We must reduce the stationing of soldiers in areas of conflict. This will lower spending on veterans affairs.

We must encourage diplomacy and find ways to avoid conflict that we clearly cannot afford.

The result will be a generation of citizens who do not feel pressured to join the military. And those who do join will do so more willingly and with the realization that the avoidance of conflict is a goal worth pursuing.

Overall, our presence overseas will no longer exceed what we can afford. And the presence at home will be a future of better educated people who might have better ideas as to how to stop unnecessary wars.

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Explaining the United States with Fire Extinguishers

9/11/2011

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In the City of the Sheep, a company named The Corporation manufactured fire extinguishers.

The extinguishers came in all different sizes.

Whenever a fire broke out in the City, the fire department brought out The Corporation’s extinguishers to put out the fires.

The City paid the Corporation handsomely every time the fire alarms went off.

The leaders of the corporation became rich.

But it wasn’t enough.

The CEO of The Corporation wanted more for his shareholders and officers.

He talked to a friend on the fire department.

He told the friend that if he started a few fires “here and there” he would pay him well.

The friend knew this was wrong but…

He had a mortgage to pay and kids to send to college.

So he accepted the deal.

The friend learned to start fires in such a way as to leave no trace as to who started it.

He also learned to start fires so as to blame other people.

But he was having trouble doing his job and doing this “side” job for the Corporation.

So he enlisted some of his friends to help.

And these friends had a brilliant idea.

“Why not go to other cities and start fires?”

“Yeah, great idea - we will make the fires so bad that the other cities will contract with the only company with the right equipment - The Corporation!”

“Oh yeah, then we will get more money from our friend!”

So the fires started spreading around the City of the Sheep in neighboring cities.

Predictably, the cities turned to The Corporation for help.

The Corporation got so wealthy that it bought the City’s only newspaper.

The newspaper spread messages like “Support the Firefighters” and “We Must Fight Fire over There before It Gets Here!”

The Corporation paid for every politician’s campaign.

Contracts continued to flow to The Corporation.

Eventually, some of the City of Sheep’s residents investigated some of the “fires.”

These investigators completed reports that proved that many fires were not accidental.

They tried to get the only newspaper to publish their reports of arson by firefighters and The Corporation agents.

But the newspaper laughed and called them “paranoid.”

So the investigators formed their own newspaper and published the reports.

The Corporation called the Mayor and asked him to take care of the investigators.

The Mayor said, “I would. But the City of Sheep only wakes up to hear the fire alarms. Then they call me and demand the firefighters get a raise!”

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Reverse the Revolution of 1963

8/13/2010

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Complaints about President Obama's foreign policy can be heard among those who voted for change from his predecessor. But determining what to do about Guantanamo Bay, the rights of suspected terrorists and even finding ways to end the failed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will only address symptoms of a deeper problem.

Not even a revolution will cause substantial change if no one knows the root of what harms our nation. We should understand that we had a revolution in 1963. It would serve us well to recall how we got from there to here:

In November of that year, several shots fired from different directions felled President John Kennedy in broad daylight in Dallas, Texas. An innocent man, Lee Harvey Oswald, was framed for the crime and the authorities missed several leads, such as dozens of “ear” witnesses who said the fatal shot came from in front of the president’s motorcade.

Enter Lyndon Baines Johnson, sworn in next to the late president’s widow, who still had his blood on her clothes. As soon as LBJ covered up the JFK assassination by appointing enemies of JFK to "investigate" the coup was complete. The revolution began and has never stopped.

Johnson went on to reverse JFK’s draw down of our involvement in a war in Viet Nam. And after using false reports of U.S. ships being fired upon in the Gulf of Tonkin to get “authority” to prosecute the war, he never looked back. He attempted to fund social programs to fight poverty and the war.

Enter Richard Nixon who said we had to choose one or the other. Guess which one he chose?

The war ultimately took the lives of millions of Vietnamese people along with over 58,000 of our troops. The public found out by that time that our leaders had lied about the war thanks to the Pentagon Papers and other reports.

No matter.

Enter Jimmy Carter. Elected after the only non-elected President, Gerald Ford, took over from Nixon, Carter said he would not lie. But even the president who used military force least often among recent presidents got us involved in a covert war in Afghanistan. He shipped weapons illegally through Pakistan to a group of people who fought alongside Osama bin Laden.

We had to stop the communists!

But the CIA wanted more covert action to fight the communists in Nicaragua. Carter wouldn’t do it. Not a problem. The revolution continued with some new leaders.

Enter Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Reagan was the front man who talked tough about Iran who held our people hostage. Bush was the guy in the back room making deals with the Ayatollah by sending him weapons in exchange for a delay in the release of the hostages.

Since then, we have continued with a succession of presidents who have kept the military happy. Bill Clinton went for Somalia and Bosnia, while George W. Bush used a false 9/11 story about terrorists as a pretext for invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Now Obama has kept the war drums going in both nations.

People such as military generals, arms contractors, politicians, those with stock in the contractors and the idiots who wave the flag no matter what have a major hand in this problem. They make up the "War Party." Though a minority, they have conned the rest of us into accepting a new kind of war.

Instead of fighting wars that we could win or even battle to a draw (like the Korean War), we started getting involved in wars for the sake of fighting wars.

Of course that sounds like unwise policy, so:

The War Party has employed phony arguments like Tonkin and 9/11 and phony enemies like bin Laden.

They have factored the phrase "national security" into public announcements of decisions but no one ever says what it means.

They told us we had to stop the "domino effect" in Viet Nam, but even though we lost South Viet Nam, the dominos did not fall.

They told us that we had to oppose the communists who don’t believe in freedom though South Vietnamese, our allies, never held free elections during the time we occupied their nation.

They told us Saddam Hussein was an ally, then they later said he was another “Hitler.”

They have told us both China and Cuba are evil communists, but that it is OK to trade with China but not Cuba.

They have told us bin Laden did 9/11 but fail to tell us that they have never indicted him for it.

They told us that we must be “tough on terrorists” while they traded arms to try to free them.

We cannot understand change without understand what got us where we are. Ignorance of history and its consequences is far more of any enemy than President Obama or any politician could ever be.

We could say we are victims of the War Party but by tolerating them we become accomplices to their greed. Understanding our own role in perpetuating the revolution is the first step in causing its demise.

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Deadline for Restoring Hope in USA: November 2013

4/15/2010

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Hope for the United States of America died many years ago.

Our nation used to have hope for so many and for so much. It used to believe that things were possible, like equal opportunity for all, ending involvement in conflicts that made no sense and serving as a role model for other nations. We used to have politicians who were statesmanlike and who had no fear standing up for unpopular principals at their own risk.

We are running out of time to get that hope back.

In fact, the deadline stares right at us. By November 2013, we must do the following before the spotlight of media and public attention given to those who fueled that hope runs out:

Establish the truth about those who were taken from us. Lies destroyed the hope we once knew. Lies about who killed the Kennedys. Lies about KentState. Lies about 9/11.

Get the truth about JFK's assassination and tell everyone else, regardless of what the media or those in power say. We don't need every detail. We do need the truth that members of our government perpetuated the murder and framed an innocent man, Lee Harvey Oswald. All other facts about the assassination simply fall in line behind these two facts.

We must know the truth about these events for our own survival. If agents of the government can murder the president, presidential candidates and other innocent people, they are capable of murdering anyone. Knowing how they did it can only help us.

Tune out candidates who only give us sound bites. It started with the 1968 campaign, with Richard Nixon and Roger Ailes effectively using spot ads and focus groups to win the election. Nixon said very little about any plans he had for the United States and refused to debate his opponent, Hubert Humphrey.

The last presidential candidate to routinely speak off the cuff about his thoughts for improving our nation was Robert Kennedy. He spoke with passion and paid no attention to polls. He risked his life informing the people of Indianapolis that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been murdered, apparently by a white man. Of all the major cities in the United States, the only one not to suffer a riot that night was Indianapolis.

We must vote out the phonies and tune in the real candidates. If a candidate cannot talk straight to get the job, how will they tell the truth to us?

Stop the Wars! Our long involvement in Viet Nam gave our leaders reason to believe that they could get away with getting into a war over lies. Groups of people I call the "War Party" made a fortune with their stocks and contracts and they shoveled some of it back to those who made the war possible.

History repeats itself with the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and covert actions elsewhere. It is time to stop falling for lies like "weapons of mass destruction," "we have to get bin Laden" and "we must fight pre-emptively." These are just empty sound bites designed to stop reasoned conversation.

We must stop these kinds of wars to save future generations from the agony inflicted upon us.

Don't let November 2013 sneak up on you. After it is gone, no one will care much about JFK because the golden anniversary will have passed. Act upon the truth and for the truth now to bring back hope to our nation.

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We Must Make Our Economy Independent of Permanent War

3/27/2010

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Republicans and Democrats have given us great theater over the recently-passed health care legislation. But when it comes to the one issue that determines the future of our nation, there is complete agreement.

They all give war a chance.

When was the last time Congress voted against a resolution backing the President’s authority to use force?

When was the last time a President declined to use force?

When was the last time a credible candidate for President vowed to end a war?

With peace popular (note that few presidents have started a war in a re-election year), it is surprising that none of the questions above has a recent answer. Obviously, the mass of public opinion is not the real reason for these political decisions. So who pushes our nation to go to war?

Those who gain from war.

The contractors who make the weapons.

The stockholders of these contractors.

The intelligence community.

The companies that make equipment for war.

The talking heads on television who tell us their “expertise” on defense matters.

The politicians who got onboard first for war.

This is not a new idea. Smedley Butler wrote War Is a Racket to describe the beneficiaries of World War I. But the thought bears repeating.

We are always at war and/or on our way to one anywhere we can concoct a good excuse to make one happen. The lies about Iraq should have made that abundantly clear.

War gives public policy a focus that nothing else can. It tells our leaders what industries to favor, which side of an argument to give presumption to and how to interpret foreign nations and their actions.

Prominent leaders who try to stop wars get killed (the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, Jr.) while war supporters like Nixon and the Bushes get elected. Peace candidates like Dennis Kucinich get marginal support.

Our leaders see the world as a chess board on which to try out weapons and kill off our “enemies.” Why? Because the economy thrives on Halliburton, not the Veterans for Peace. So we can expect more assassinations and false-flag operations until we stop using war to feed the economy.

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Rumors Fly, Truth Walks

Barry Goldwater Was Right after All

Here is How We Can Support the Troops

Explaining the United States with Fire Extinguishers

Reverse the Revolution of 1963

Deadline for Restoring Hope in USA: November 2013

We Must Make Our Economy Independent of Permanent War

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