“Have
we raised the threshold of horror so high that nothing short of a
nuclear strike qualifies as a 'real' war? Are we to spend the rest of
our lives in
this state of high alert with guns pointed at each other's heads and
fingers trembling on the trigger?” ― Arundhati Roy
As
I said last month, the trend we will see running up to the 2016
elections will be one of fear and the message of needing a
‘strong’ president as
a response to that fear. Well as the following article from Mike
Krieger and Zerohedge shows, we are seeing that push accelerate as none other than
former CIA Director and former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta says
flat out to expect a 30-year war with ISIS and setting
the stage by implying Hillary Clinton had the right (i.e. pro-war)
strategy for Syria:
“I
think we’re looking at kind of a 30-year war,” he says, one that will
have to extend beyond Islamic State to include emerging threats in
Nigeria, Somalia,
Yemen, Libya and elsewhere.
In
the book’s final chapter, however, he writes that Obama’s “most
conspicuous weakness” is “a frustrating reticence to engage his
opponents and rally support
for his cause.” Too often, he “relies on the logic of a law professor
rather than the passion of a leader.” On occasion, he “avoids the
battle, complains, and misses opportunities.”
Link to referenced USA Today article: Panetta: '30-year war' and a leadership test for Obama
Link to AP article: Clinton says military action in Iraq is essential
Like I said before, Obama is being criticized for not being
militaristic enough, despite his current bombing campaign in
Syria and having done the same to six other countries
in his tenure thus far. Notice
here how the framework of the argument is being laid out for us? The
way they’re framing the argument is that there’s no question of whether
we do use military action or we don’t; it’s now all about what level
and degree of military action is needed. It’s
bad enough that the stooges in or running for office are framing the
argument thus, but the mainstream media is offering little in the way of
viewpoints outside this argument. Sure I agree that the way he's directing the military actions in Syria is crap-tacular, but the whole point is we shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
It
is even more disgusting how little pushback, or at least higher level
discussion, there is in the mainstream media about the whole idea of a
“30-Year War” against the Islamic State and various other groups in the Middle East and beyond.
I admit I get most of my news in web or print form and not TV so I may
have missed some random TV pundit’s or commentator’s argument against it. But I
have not seen an abundance of editorials railing against the apparently
sociopathic (though being a well-connected
and ‘credentialed’ one so apparently the media gives him a pass) Leon
Panetta and his statement that a 30-years war is good and necessary.
The fact is it is not necessary, and it will feed the very thing it is
supposed to stop.
I
suspect this is intentional. With the economy slowly crumbling and many government promises due to be unfulfilled in the years to come, there is a desperate
need for this
government and both major political parties to still have the
appearance of being relevant and necessary. Since they’re growing to
the point of being incapable of doing anything of actual lasting benefit
to the people, they need to convince the people
that there is a major threat out there somewhere and they need this
government to protect them. Some nations that have done this in the past have
created such ‘threats’ out of thin air, whereas others have taken
legitimate threats and hyped them up to appear much more
of a threat than they actually are. The Islamic State or ISIS or ISIL
or whatever we’re calling them this week is a prime example of the
latter. They appear to be an murderous bunch of fundamentalist whack
jobs, but when it comes down to it they are merely a regional military threat
and not nearly as much of a risk to the US as they’re being made out. They MIGHT be able to orchestrate terror attacks here and there in the US, but in that respect they're no different than a dozen of other such groups. Ultimately they are not that impressive.
But if one were to have a war of indefinite length, who better to have
it against than a flashy, yet clearly inferior, opponent? Sure innocent lives
will be lost, but those in power will usually
find some rationalization for whatever actions they find necessary to
keep that power. And if those innocents are mostly people you don’t
know on the other side of the world.... well, out of sight out of mind
(seems to work well enough at keeping consciences
quiet about their messy drone strikes in Pakistan...).
There
is nothing more damaging to a democratic society than constant,
long-term war. By its very nature such a constant war cannot be maintained indefinitely in a true
republic or democracy,
as the people will eventually tire of the sacrifice (both in lives and
money/resources) required for such a war. In order to keep the war going, the
society would HAVE to move towards a more autocratic or dictatorial style of
government. We have already seen a slow but steady move
in this direction ever since the War on Terror started (one might say
it started even earlier with the War on Drugs), with the steady erosion
of our effective 1st, 4th, and 5th
Amendment rights. Giving consent for another
indefinite war is just asking the government to take more of your
rights away, so why vote for any of these clowns? Even if one were to agree that something had to be done
about the Islamic State, to say that this piss-ant group of
fundamentalist douchebags requires a war of a length many times
greater than the war against Imperial Japan AND Nazi Germany in WW2 is
beyond absurd. To my thinking, a 30-years war is a means to an end, but
that end is all about the political elite in the US consolidating more
power locally and globally. Some might say Leon Panetta is no longer in office, but realistically speaking anyone with who has been both the CIA director and Secretary of Defense and has a political career of that span is as dialed in and part of the elite political club as anyone currently holding office.
Of
course now we happen to be at that horrid time… election season… where
we are once again told that our votes matter and labor under the
delusion that we
have any lasting influence in the higher levels of office. If you just
happen to be one of the rare few who actually have a Senator or Representative whose
actions (not just words) actually demonstrate a solid position against
further military involvement, well lucky you.
Most of us however, will only get a choice between ‘war-hawk’ and
‘war-hawk lite’. That’s not a choice… that’s the illusion of a
choice. And when it comes to the presidential election two years from
now I predict you’re going to see the same thing, only
this time on steroids. And many of us probably will be too trapped by
the fear peddled by the said candidates AND the media that we’ll fall
for the same trick again.
“You will know (the good from the bad) when you are calm, at peace. Passive. A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.” - Yoda
No comments:
Post a Comment