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They have well over 700 military bases girding the globe, They’re armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction including hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons and 2,150 operationally deployed strategic US nuclear warheads. to say nothing of chemical and biological weapons, which the US has ‘renounced’ but remains capable of producing. They have a fearsome record of genocide in Vietnam and Iraq and a reputation of mass murder of civilians from Panama to Palestine.
Their reach is long and deadly. In the period since the end of World War Two they’ve attacked
Korea from 1950 to 1953,
Thailand and Cuba in 1962,
Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos from 1961 to 1975 where they committed genocide,
The Dominican Republic in 1965,
Iran in 1980,
El Salvador in 1981,
Lebanon repeatedly from 1958 until 1982,
Grenada in 1983,
Iran (in the Persian Gulf) in 1987 and 1988.
Panama from 1989 to 1990,
Iraq from 1991 until recently,
Serbia in the 1990′s.
Afghanistan since 2001,
Iraq from 2003 until recently, a second genocide,
Libya, Bahrain and Yemen for the last several years.
They’ve continuously attacked Palestine since 1948 by supplying weapons to IDF thugs.
The solutions are easy, but the Democrats and Republicans will oppose them so we have to break with them.
1) fight for the immediate and total withdrawal of all US military, mercenary and security police forces (like the CIA) to US home bases and their demobilization and disarming.
2) press for a Constitutional amendment declaring that the US will never again engage in wars of aggression and laws making it a capital offense to plan or commit wars of aggression or to lie to Congress in the pursuit of wars of aggression.
3) call for convening an International War Crimes Tribunal to investigate US crimes against humanity and war crimes by US officials.
33 Comments
This is blasphemy to the MIC, Neocons and other assorted war pigs.
Anti-War protests/activism used to be a nexus for social/policy change. What happened?
Here’s some excellent insight by Glenn Greenwald. (good comments also) http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/04/war-on-terror-endless-johnson
Thanks, Rec’d
Yep, you are correct, but it goes against the propaganda narrative of American exceptionalism, doesn’t it?
Thanks!
Add Chile to your list.
And Iran in 1953 as well.
There’s a reason for this. Since WWII the only thing that has kept the economy afloat here has been the military and military spending.
In order to maintain and prop up this capitalistic system, the government has to keep pumping money into the weapons industry. FDR new that this is what ultimately got us out of the depression.
Truman knew it, JFK knew it, LBJ knew it … so when the Soviet Union fell and the cold war ended, new “adversaries” had to be found to justify the continued expenditures.
Otherwise the economy would once again tank.
Right now we have over 200 companies on the government dole. And this does not include those smaller companies that supply the top 100.
Which is the real reason why it’s hands off military spending.
It SUX BIG TIME. But it’s what is going on.
Kill the military and you literally kill the empire.
Sorry, there are so many I forget sometimes.
Actually you can add every nation south of the Rio Grande if you want to include interference in their internal affairs, organizing campaigns of mass murder and torture by US funded secret police and the military agencies and grand theft of their economic and environmental resources by rapacious US corporations.
How could I forget the Dulles brothers, John Foster, Eisenhower’s Ribbentrop and Alan, his very creepy Himmler, a master spy, murderer, torturer and saboteur.
Add to this that nearly every university research grant is defense related in one way or another.
Kill the military and you literally kill the empire.
That’s the point!
I don’t buy the propaganda that military spending keeps us afloat.
Right on the money. Recommended.
Fine by me. But just think what the unemployment rate would be if all those military contracts were cancelled and all those people in the military came home.
And you can bet there are people in Washington that are well aware of this.
Just something to think about.
I was a USAF supply squadron inventory management specialist.
I’ve seen the outrageous prices contractors get and was hep to corruption as a Nam-era airman.
I could name a hundred ways that the money could be better spent, and in doing so, employ millions. We’re slaves to militarism– perhaps, someday, turning into de facto authoritarianism.
Someday ?
The point is that contractors do not have to actually compete or be efficient to make outrageous sums of money.
The further point is that it is only the outrageous sums of money that bump up demand and keep the economy afloat.
There’s a bit of “welfare for engineers” in the way the MIC is run.
You got that right Tarheel.
Them’s wages, comrade.
The thirty silver pieces kind.
That’s the problem with wages.
So are we corrupt enough, deadly enough, or just the right amount?
Those are poles of a spectrum, comrade.
As Obi Wan Kenobi would say. It all depends on your point of view.
There is no we there.
It’s a sore spot– I don’t like the criminal element of government it fosters, among other hideous things.
The duped ignore the benefit of diverting the resources towards infrastructure and social programs.
We could pare the military down by 3/4 and still be #1 by two fold.
Think, comrade. It’s a military. It plunders.
The mode you’re hoping for is not the mode of this system.
O I agree 100%. And we should. But since WWII we have never learned how to have a non-military country.
So the end result of doing so would be…….interesting.
Since 2009 the Fed and the Obama Administration have given in excess of $16 trillion dollars ($16,000,000,000,000.00) the banksters and looters who seem to be sitting on it, collecting interest.
Every one who comes home, except the war criminals could be employed greening the economy and infrastructure, organizing a socialized medical scheme, building high quality , interest free housing, preserving and greening agricultural production and paying for the investigation of war crimes. That money, in a decent society, would be recovered with interest and used for the urgent needs of the people here and in the nations ravaged by US invasion and occupation.
This is not yet a decent society but it will be come hell or high water.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwEVM4lLT68
I didn’t say non-military.
I’m saying that there’s too much plunder and increasing control for the elite, and less and less to trickle down, isn’t that obvious?… aren’t we supposed to be against such things? Anti-war used to be a good rallying point– Perhaps we’re getting a wee bit too disillusioned.
Those do not merit the full faith and credit of Amerka. Socialism is not enough.
Sounds absolutely wonderful to me.
Doesn’t it? … a well premised question JK.
It does. Seems the big fight(s) that led up to and bloomed from the late 1930′s into the full inferno of WW2 culminating in August 1945 with the unleashing of atomic hellfire weaponry on the Japanese was all about not letting Japan or Germany gain and run big global empires. Nothing wrong with that motive as tens of millions of USians would/will tell you and me. WW2 was The Noble War and the USA won because — well — the USA won because we were Being Noble and Fighting For Democracy! — that was what was claimed and is what went into USians history books.
Not seeing things this way after WW2 here in the USA was not viewed as being Good Americanism. Not being all gung ho about fighting the Red Menace was not viewed as Good Americanism either. Thinking like this led to the American Empire attacking Vietnam. Vietnam won. Pissed the American Empire off lots. Kuwait fixed that. Iraq and Afghanistan went and have gone awry. Attacking Libya and Syria has been a mixed bag to be honest for USians while just plain ruination for Libyans and Syrians.Attacking Iran so very likely doing another Big Imperial Mistake.
Ronald Reagan told us ( or read it off a script someone gave Ronny to read as he performed the role of POTUS ) the Soviet Union was The Evil Empire. Then along came a Iraqi Dictator called Saddam who we Americans were told was The New Adolf Hitler. Ten years later by 2002 Saddam was now the King Pin of The Axis Of Evil and Iraq was A New Nazi Germany reincarnate with nefarious Iran and North Korea part of this Axis Of Evil. Scary Stuff! 9/11/2001. A Slam Dunk!Terror!Unending GWOT!
By 2005 this narrative was all shape shifted around and now Iran is where Iraq was – with Libya/Syria being gamed for likely coming American Empire Attack on Iran.
That is what is so useful about creating and catapulting propaganda.
USians have some very good propaganda people doing world class propaganda.
Bill Perdue lays it out plain up above … X 2 to what BP said.
Thanks Bill …stay with it.
As for this American Empire it is not a good empire to be honest and to be really honest the American Empire and its attack dogs called the Pentagon and CIA since 1945 has not been All About The Democracy!
Those still under the delusion that American Empire is all about doing Freedom Fights and Delivering Democracy after the last decade events/conduct of American Empire is deluded.
I think it would be fair to state the American Empire was not ever a good hearted empire going way back to late 18th century.
The Effectively Evil Empire it turns out was/is the American Empire. The last POTUS is a War Criminal and the current POTUS is now a War Criminal as well. Evidently they are not worried about this being so. It would/may seem The American Empire is Untouchable and so then too are it’s White House and the Castles known as the Pentagon and CIA.
Such arrangements eventually do often seem to change over time.
History showing many examples. Here are two — See Germany. See Japan.
Good thing those two bad empire seekers lost WW2.
Too bad about the other bad empire that won WW2.
The Greatest Threat To World Peace? Likely so.
Bill! did not know you posted here. heh. glad to see you have a more receptive crowd here than over at the other place i know you from. there’s a bunch of 401K self satisfied queens for you, eh? (not a homophobic remark, internal gaii jargon sort of thing)
if you want some recipes, i did a PUAC today. for the hell of it! and also: for better eating habits for everyone. feel free to share yours.
Hi chicago dyke.
Several people who post here also post at Joe.My.God, AmericaBlog and AlterNet.
Commenters here are a pretty tough crowd in the sense that they know their stuff. That’s also true at AmericaBlog. There’s only one place where we all get the same lynch mob treatment from Obots.
That’s OK because nobody is really talking to Obots. Most of them are moving right in pace with Obama and the Democrats. Our comments are for the new generations of GLBT folks.
With food prices skyrocketing I’m looking for more veggies for my diet so I’ll be looking at your recipes. Veggies are cheaper than meat.