W.J. Astore
Remember President Biden’s request for $33 billion in “aid” to Ukraine? That $33 billion package has become $40 billion and has already been approved by the House. More than half of this “aid” is in the form of weapons or in support of deploying more U.S. troops and equipment to Europe. And even that $40 billion isn’t high enough for some members of the Senate, who are calling for even more “aid,” i.e. more spending at the expense of the American taxpayer that will likely serve to prolong the Russia-Ukraine War.
More and more money for war recalls a famous quip by Winston Churchill in the age of navalism, when industrial interests in the UK pushed for more and more battleships to be built so that Britain could continue to rule the waves and not be slaves.
As Churchill famously said: The Admiralty had demanded six ships; the economists offered four; and we finally compromised on eight.
America has embraced a militarized Keynesianism that is very good indeed for weapons makers like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. It’s also very good for the Pentagon, whose budget projections keep rising when they should be falling.
Think about it. Overall, the Russian military hasn’t yet distinguished itself in Ukraine, and the longer the war lasts, the weaker that military becomes. If the U.S. military budget was actually based on an honest assessment of threats, the budget should be decreasing as Russia becomes less of a threat.
Another interesting aspect of this is that it’s mainly been Republicans voting against the $40 billion package in “aid.” Democrats, no matter how “progressive,” are eagerly voting for it, even as inflation soars in America and people struggle to make ends meet.
Perhaps it’s time to build more battleships to help the poor and struggling? We can house the unhoused in ships!
Bracing Views 
The entire Russian Military Budget was $60 BILLION last year. Dragging out the Afghanistan War for 20 years and $2 TRILLION, made a lot of American Oligarchs rich off WAR. It’s not only Russian Oligarchs.
Most Christian America turns a BLIND eye to that reality!
The US DoD budget was only $60 BILLION when Eisenhower pointed this out in 1953 DOLLARS with his CROSS OF IRON speech.
What can the world, or any nation in it, hope for if no turning is found on this dread road? The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated. The worst is atomic war.
The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and labour of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system, or the Soviet system, or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point the hope that come with this spring of 1953 – and Summer of 2022.
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwighteisenhowercrossofiron.htm
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I’d add one small point to your best-case scenario, Ray. As militarism increases (anywhere, but especially in the U.S.), so is global warming exacerbated. Even absent atomic annihilation, many areas of the planet are becoming nearly unliveable, and the military is a big contributor to that condition.
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U.S. military consumes more hydrocarbons than most countries — massive hidden impact on climate
Date: June 20, 2019
Source: Lancaster University
Summary: Research shows the US military is one of the largest climate polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more CO2e (carbon-dioxide equivalent) than most countries.
The US military’s carbon footprint is enormous and must be confronted in order to have a substantial effect on battling global warming, experts argue.
Research by social scientists from Durham University and Lancaster University shows the US military is one of the largest climate polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more CO2e (carbon-dioxide equivalent) than most countries.
The majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting routinely focuses on civilian energy use and fuel consumption, not on the US military. This new study, published in Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, calculates part of the US military’s impact on climate change through critical analysis of its global logistical supply chains.
Continued at https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190620100005.htm
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Heh. You wrote: “Perhaps it’s time to build more battleships to help the poor and struggling? We can house the unhoused in ships!” You need to send that idea to the Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon:
US NAVY TO RETIRE 24 SHIPS SAVING $3.6 BILLION TO BOOST FUTURE FLEET
The US Navy has revealed its plans to decommission 24 ships to save $3.6 billion to boost its future fleet.
The announcement came as part of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Fiscal Year 2023 budget proposal.
On 28 March, the Biden-Harris Administration submitted to Congress a proposed fiscal year 2023 budget request of $813.3 billion for national defense, $773 billion of which is for the DoD. This marks a $30.7 billion (or 4.1%) increase compared to planned spending for the fiscal year 2022.
According to the statement, the FY23 budget allows DoD to develop, procure, and modernize capabilities to ensure combat-credible forces across all domains “to address the pacing challenge from the People’s Republic of China and to address acute threats from Russia”.
Under the new plan, THE NAVY WOULD BUY NINE WARSHIPS including two Virginia-class attack submarines, two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, one Constellation-class frigate, one America-class amphibious assault ship, one San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock, one John Lewis-class fleet oiler, and one towing, salvage and rescue ship.
Within the surface ship portfolio, the Ford-class carrier program also requests $2.5 billion in funding for CVN-80 and 81. The navy also made a request for two additional ship-to-shore connectors, as well as the funds for Harry S. Truman’s complex refueling overhaul estimated at $618 million.
Other significant Navy investments in weapons and platforms include increases to hypersonic weapons through conventional prompt strike and standard missile, both strike fighter variants and several classified programs, according to the statement.
The document also REVEALS THE NAVY’S PLANS TO RETIRE 24 NAVAL VESSELS. The total value of the reinvestment opportunity is $3.6 billion across the fiscal year budget plan, according to US Navy deputy assistant secretary for budget Rear Adm. John Gumbleton.
THE VESSELS SLATED FOR DECOMMISSIONING ARE NINE FREEDOM-VARIANT LCSS, FIVE TICONDEROGA-CLASS CRUISERS, FOUR AMPHIBIOUS DOCK LANDING SHIPS, TWO ATTACK SUBMARINES, TWO OILERS AND TWO EXPEDITIONARY TRANSFER DOCKS.
However, the navy would require a waiver through Congress for 16 units, because they have not reached their end-of-service date. [EMPHASES added.]
https://www.navaltoday.com/2022/04/05/us-navy-to-retire-24-ships-saving-3-6-billion-to-boost-future-fleet/
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Tangential to this post is an article I read today. The author posits that Bush/Cheney et. al. at least looked the other way when the intelligence services picked up reams of information about the impending 9/11 attack, because invading Iraq was always a goal, along with enriching profiteers such as Halliburton (read: Cheney), and the attack provided a pretext for the exponential ramp-up of the military and the surveillance practices we saw post-9/11.
https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2022/05/12/paul-jay-the-lies-of-9-11/
I haven’t fact-checked Jay’s assertions, but they do jibe with other accounts I’ve seen. All this to say that the obscenely bloated military that exists today didn’t start with 9/11, but the events that day gave a big push to the Pentagon. Along with justification.
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If Bush/Cheney had any integrity, they would have resigned after 9/11 for failing to protect America from a threat they’d been warned about.
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No. They should not have been given the option to resign.
They ~ along with the entire National Security establishment ~ should have been Impeached for that Dereliction of Duty.
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Yeah, that was one thing that staggered me after 9/11 was how the W administration was able to deflect any blame. Another jaw-dropping moment was when the US electorate chose to RE-elect W in 2004, even after the MSM was actually doing some reasonable work and revealing the lack of WMDs in Iraq.
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Yes, I think that re-election was the lowest point for the country in the last several decades. Until 2016, that is.
I saw interviews with several average citizens on the street who openly acknowledged that Bush would be bad for the economy, but they were voting for him because, “he’d keep the country safe.” Talk about a cover-up successfully buried by a propaganda machine!
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Recall that Rudy Giuliani said George W. Bush had prevented a major terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Well, except for 9/11, which Rudy, the Mayor of NYC, apparently forgot!
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Good thing Rudy’s lost all relevance, huh?
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I’d go further, Bill. I’ve always believed (admittedly, with little evidence) that 9/11 was an inside job. That was my first thought when the towers came down, after stunned horror. At the least, Bush II, plus Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rice, and all the other PNAC signatories/sympathizers, were complicit.
Again, not completely in line with your topic, but Jay contends that the intelligence services were aware of the threat, but Cheney expressly forbade sharing or publicizing any of the information. Per Jay’s assertions, gleaned from multiple interviews, various intelligence high-ups were directed to relay findings only to Cheney, where they entered a black hole. Richard Clarke, the “terrorism czar,” was expressly omitted from the loop. Clarke also said as much in his book, Against All Enemies. If Jay is correct, Bush II and Cheney are guilty of much more than failing to protect the country.
Btw, on topic, in all seriousness, I think using decommissioned ships as housing is a brilliant idea. In Europe, houseboats are becoming more popular. Why not here? Retrofitting the ships as apartment complexes surely wouldn’t be as expensive as, say, building more F-35s, right?
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Have you seen where sailors sleep? 🙂
WRT 9/11, I’ve always thought the crimes began after 9/11, not before. So I don’t think it was an inside job. It was far too intricate/complex of an event to keep it secret, and too many things could have gone wrong. For example, what about plane #4 that was going to hit the Capitol? Plane #3 could have done much more damage to the Pentagon. And so on. Too many “ifs.”
If you wanted to plan an “inside job,” all you needed was one plane to hit one tower in NYC and it still would have generated “shock and awe” enough to give Cheney & Co. the power they needed to advance their agenda.
So I think Bush/Cheney were revealed as total incompetents in failing to prevent the attack; then, even worse, they exploited the shock and outrage to get America involved in disastrous foreign wars while simultaneously curtailing freedoms here at home.
For me, then, Bush/Cheney were even worse than Trump/Pence.
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Colonel:
1. First of all, do You actually, honestly, and sincerely believe that some raghead living in a cave in Afghanistan had the communications capability, diplomatic connections [passports and visas], and cash and financial connections to pull that whole thing together WITHOUT assistance from somebody who knew exactly how those systems and the whole system worked? Especially if it was made available to him from the same folks he used to work for when he was waging their “Holy War” against the Russkies out of those same caves back in the 80s?
As far as Your “Ifs”:
2. Plane 3 could have ~ instead of executing the very difficult turning/descending maneuver it did to hit the Pentagon where it did ~ it could have simply flown straight and level in, and directly into that part of the Pentagon where Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs worked. And done considerably more “damage” ~ in a completely different sense, of course ~ wouldn’t You say? Especially when the alleged al-Qaeda “pilot” was a dipshit who was thrown out of Piper Cub Flight School.
3. And what about Plane 4? Do You believe the Heroes Tale of “Let’s roll!!!”? Or do You suspect that that plane was hit by an air-to-air missile? Which would explain the anomalies at the crash site that have yet to be explained. And what about all those alleged cell phone calls between 4 and folks on the ground? In a time when there was no air-to-ground cell service?
4. And are You sure that only one plane hitting one Tower would have been enough to convince the American people to give Cheney/Bush the go ahead [at least tacitly and in Spirit] to launch and wage their War? Until the second plane hit the second Tower, all the chatter on tv was about how a B-25 had crashed into the Empire State Building back in 1945.
How many images of that first plane actually hitting that first Tower were seen by anybody then; or have been seen today? But how many people were glued to their tv when the second plane hit the second Tower? That seems almost like it was choreographed perfectly for maximum media coverage, and thus psychological warfare effect, wouldn’t You say? You think Osama might have had some scriptwriters on his team?
5. And speaking of planes: Where was NORAD that day? Those folks had scrambled and intercepted 67 aircraft that were behaving improperly or were incommunicado between September 2000 and June 2001. On September 11, 2001, they intercepted 0 out of 4 [with the probable exception noted above].
6. The biggest indicator of Why 9/11 was an “inside job” was, is, and ever will be, the collapse of WTC Towers 1 and 2, and especially of WTC-7; which, You may recall, suddenly totally collapsed late in the afternoon despite not having been hit by an airplane or major debris, and suffering only office fires. Take a look at this video and ask Yourself if WTC-7 looks very similar to a planned demolition: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/440297301043350302/ .
Until 9/11, no structural steel frame buildings had collapsed because of fire. On that day, three did. Or so we are told.
For a deeper look into the mystery and controversy about the collapses of WTCs 1, 2, and 7, check out Architects and Engineers For 9/11 Truth [https://www.ae911truth.org/]. And, check https://ine.uaf.edu/wtc7 for a University of Alaska Fairbanks study: “ A Structural Reevaluation of the Collapse of World Trade Center 7,” which
“is a study of the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7) — a 47-story building that suffered a total collapse at 5:20 PM on September 11, 2001, following the horrible events of that morning. The objective of the study was threefold: (1) Examine the structural response of WTC 7 to fire loads that may have occurred on September 11, 2001; (2) Rule out scenarios that could not have caused the observed collapse; and (3) Identify types of failures and their locations that may have caused the total collapse to occur as observed.”
7. It is my belief that 9/11 could not have happened without the failures of the NSA, the FBI, the CIA, the INS, the FAA, the DoD, and all the other federal and state agencies whose mission it is to ensure that something like that does not, and can not happen. Not only did they and the entire National Security Team fail to prevent 9/11; they failed to stop it once it got started.
And for that, the whole boatload of them ~ starting with Cheney/Bush ~ should have been sent to Guantanamo for a little “enhanced interrogation” of their own about exactly what happened on 9/11: How did it happen? Who made it happen? Who let it happen? And finally: Who ordered it to happen?
That might have come out in Impeachment trials, but it would have been more interesting to hear them from Guantanamo on live tv.
There are two kind of “conspiracy theorists” about 9/11, Colonel: those who subscribe the “Official Conspiracy Theory” as put out by the 9/11 Commission; and those of us who think that the OCT is complete and total Bullshit.
And we call ourselves “9/11 Skeptics,” rather than “9/11 Truthers.”
Just ask Yourself one simple question: Why do the American people not know EVERYTHING that their government knows about 9/11? Twenty-plus years later, Why is anything about that day still classified?
Of course, one could legitimately ask the same questions about JFK’s Assassination 59 years later. Or the Pandemic, 1,000,000 Deaths later. Why don’t we know Everything that our government knows about these things? And many, many more.
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I’m not going down that rabbit hole. My mind, my choice.
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Roger that.
Heh. But which “rabbit hole” is that, Colonel? There were several mentioned. But i understand.
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Rabbit hole?
In December 1998, Former US Defence Secretary Ash Carter, US Undersecretary of Defence John Deutch and Philip Zelikow, Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, colluded to write this in Foreign Affairs Journal,
Catastrophic Terrorism: Tackling the New Danger
By Ashton B. Carter, John Deutch, and Philip Zelikow
IMAGINING THE TRANSFORMING EVENT
A successful attack with weapons of mass destruction could certainly take thousands, or tens of thousands, of lives. If the device that exploded in 1993 under the World Trade Center had been nuclear, or had effectively dispersed a deadly pathogen, the resulting horror and chaos would have exceeded our ability to describe it.
Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented in peacetime and undermine America’s fundamental sense of security, as did the Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949.
Like Pearl Harbor, this event would divide our past and future into a before and after. The United States might respond with draconian measures, scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either further terrorist attacks or U.S. counterattacks.
I find it curious it happened just like that 3 years later, and one of the Authors was able to control what information the 9/11 Commission was able to see?
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den [i.e. the femme den, not our NZ den], you are ‘right on the money’ w/ your calculations and conclusion. i agree w/ you that 9/11 was an ‘inside job’, not w/ wja, who claims it was simply ‘a mistake’ of intelligence, ineptitude, judgement, vigilance, negligence, supervenience, or whatever. balderdash, i say! otherwise, all of the war-mongering and MICC/pentagon enhancements which unfolded from 9/11 till now make no sense. even a curious 3rd-grader would be able to puzzle out that nescient nonsense and identify the cratonic nucleus of verity.
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Nice piece, Colonel. But i’m a bit puzzled that You seem to express surprise at ~ or found something new in ~ the things You noted.
For example: America has not RECENTLY “embraced a militarized Keynesianism.” We did that way back when the only way America and the rest of the West was going to get out of The Great Depression was by having and getting involved in a World War. And the growth of the “defense” budget has not stopped since.
And when is the last time ANY American military/security budget was based on “an honest assessment of threats”? Particularly since the fall of the USSR? If not the falls of Hitler and Tojo? Is that why we spend more money on “defense” than the next 10 nations on the Planet combined? And have for quite some time?
And has not Swampland made it clear that the “real threat” here and now that everybody actually, really needs to actually, really start getting really, actually concerned about is China. As the Navy put it in the comment i posted earlier: “… the FY23 budget allows DoD to develop, procure, and modernize capabilities to ensure combat-credible forces across all domains “TO ADDRESS THE PACING CHALLENGE FROM THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA AND TO ADDRESS ACUTE THREATS FROM RUSSIA.” [EMPHASIS added.]
Any idea what a “pacing challenge” is? One can only imagine.
And what’s the surprise about how “progressives” and everybody else but a few Republicans are paying the piper to beat the war drums? Can You name one vote by any “progressive” against ANY War Vote ~ from AUMFs to budgets ~ since 9/11?
When it comes to War, America is ~ and pretty much always has been ~ truly and sincerely a One Party political system, with solid representation from the Far Left to the Far Right.. That’s one reason why it is so easy to get the American people to go along with all these Wars: They have no real choices in any matters concerning national “defense and security.” And never have.
And finally, Colonel: You began by complaining about “more spending at the expense of the American taxpayer that will likely serve to prolong the Russia-Ukraine War.”
TODAY’s taxpayers are not paying a single dime for this War. It’s all going on Uncle Sam’s tab, adding to the Deficit and thus the national, sovereign Debt. But tomorrow’s taxpayers will; when the bills start coming due. Along with all the Interest.
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Hi Jeff: I think you’re arguing with a straw man of my piece, not the piece itself. For example, I didn’t say “recently.” I agree with you about threat inflation, as I indicated in the piece. And I didn’t suggest there was anything that “new” about all this. Indeed, in referring back to navalism prior to WW1, I was trying to show we are not the first country to exaggerate threats and to embrace unneeded weaponry in the cause of keeping people employed.
As they say in the Army, we are in violent agreement. 🙂
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Like i said, Colonel: i was “puzzled.” Thanks for the clarification.
Do we agree that today’s taxpayers are not paying a dime for this war? [One could say the same about “The Forever War,” but that’s a separate rant.
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We have to pay to service the national debt, right? Which is now at $30 trillion or so? You’re right: these wars have been put on the nation’s credit card, and we pay every year — and will keep paying — for the rest of the century, assuming we’re still here as a nation.
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$30.445 Trillion and counting, to be exact. https://usdebtclock.org/
And that doesn’t include State and Local Government Debt. Or the Federal government’s UnFunded Liabilities [Social Security, Medicare, etc] of $169.332 Trillion.
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Following on your comment about debt service, I’d say that the monies spent on the military are funds that are NOT spent on infrastructure, social services, etc., so in a sense, taxpayers are paying the cost for all the Pentagon’s shiny new toys (as Ray points out above). I realize the U.S. budget is not a zero-sum proposition, but if the military allocations were cut by half, those billions could find a good home directly aiding our citizens.
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A very comprehensive essay published in 2007 addressing the new era of neoliberal global militarism that was consolidating, according to the architects of the new model—Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Douglas Feith, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld (among others).
I think this author has been proved to have had it right with his views on the macroeconomics of US militarism.
Pretty heavy going – but an essential read for all Bracing Views forum participants.
Remember he said this 15-years ago…….”Rather than constituting something entirely new, the current (2007) neoconservative thrust of U.S. grand strategy has tragically accelerated dangerous belligerent tendencies built into the structure of the U.S. political economy. Blowback effects from earlier phases of intervention (in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan) have now combined with the new superpower illusions creating a vortex of runaway forces, that seemingly justify a ten-year escalation in military spending—most of which has nothing to do with the Middle East and Southwest Asia.”
https://monthlyreview.org/2007/06/01/from-military-keynesianism-to-global-neoliberal-militarism/
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Interestingly, Dennis, all the men you list, except Doug Feith, were signatories to the PNAC letter. Hmmmm…..
http://www.takeoverworld.info/pnac_signers.html
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Yes. My husband has photos. I didn’t say retrofitting would be easy!
And yes, as loathsome a pair as TFG and Pence are, Bush/Cheney arguably did more damage to the country. Cheney, in particular, is going to have a section of Hell named after him.
As for their complicity in 9/11, if other actors planned and carried out the logistics, and the White House knew and “merely” quashed intelligence reports long enough for the attacks to take place, that’s all that was necessary. Obviously, the perpetrators and plans were all revealed shortly after the attacks. Other information has slowly surfaced, such as the involvement of “Bandar Bush,” but it has all been marginalized. The fact that the intelligence agencies don’t share findings to any extent played right into Cheney’s hands. He and Bush didn’t have to have direct control of anything that went down; all they had to do was….nothing, in the face of increasingly urgent intelligence reports. And give cover to the Saudi planners afterward.
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I will say this, Denise: If all that is true, or most of it, our democracy is dead and we need to overthrow the government now to have any chance of salvaging anything from the wreckage.
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With each day, Colonel, i find myself believing more and more that we may have already lost those chances of salvaging anything from the wreckage; simply because the wreckage ~ when it happens ~ will be too sudden and severe to do anything but attempt to survive.
But also each day, i remind myself: But maybe not.
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One thing is for sure Bill and Denise, voting for the Democratic Party next term is not going to salvage a dead democracy from ongoing wreckage. The Party has lost its way. So if you detest Trump, what are you going to do? And after you have decided that what are you going to Party wise, how do Americans get rid of Nancy Pelosi? Things look very dreary for progressives eh?
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All your points are well taken, Dennis. Seems as if all we have now is wreckage. I believe there are salvageable parts, but I have no idea how their recovery could be accomplished, at least in the foreseeable future. Certainly, neither wing of the Property Party is going to fix anything.
As for Nancy, I think she’ll be a fixture until her time comes, and after that, they’ll stuff her and prop her in the Speaker’s chair.
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Hence my perennial depression when I dwell on anything outside my own household.
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do not despair, den: your own swan-sqwax and dog-howls of depression can be followed by the lamentation that all empires eventually fail [customarily after most of their citizenry are dead], and, fortuitously, the US will be no exception. not so fortuitously, as you are sufficiently knowledgeable to prognosticate, neoteric empire ‘wannabes’ will rise from phoenix’s carbonized detritus. hope for some of us on wja’s site may prevail, but it is a chimeric exercise in futility, one that future generations, i vaticinte, will be gung-ho, keen, proud, and delighted to embrace, no?
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Ray: The fact that Condi Rice’s whore Zelikow was put in charge of the 9/11 Commission Report is just one of many, many reasons why “9/11 Skeptics” regard the “Official Conspiracy Theory” ~ as put forth in that document and sold by the media and academia ~ as complete and total Bullshit.
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What WILL you do, America, when 9.11 happens once again? [written in early December, 2001]
What will you do when your government once again fails its Constitutionally-mandated duty and responsibility to preserve and protect the Life, Liberty, and Property of America’s citizens from all enemies, foreign and domestic?
Will you meekly and absent-mindedly accept the fact that, once again, not one single elected politician, not one single entrenched civilian or military career bureaucrat, not one single anointed political appointee is to be held accountable or made to be responsible and to pay for his or her failures?
What WILL you do, America, when 9.11 happens once again?
What will you do when thousands more of your countrymen are murdered before your very eyes on live television? Will you once again dutifully and diffidently shrug off your absolute, inalienable, and unconditional Right to know the Real, Whole Truth about WHAT actually happened, about HOW it actually happened, about WHY it actually happened, about WHO actually made it happen, and about Who actually LET it happen?
Will you once again passively and patriotically accept the Official “conspiracy theory” version of events as explained to you by your government, and as packaged and presented, marketed and sold to you by its experts, cheerleaders, gatekeepers, and champions in what used to be called The Media – mainstream, corporate, liberal, alternative, conservative, progressive, patriotic, radical, which, what, and/or wherever?
What WILL you do, America, when 9.11 happens once again?
What will you do when the so-called War Against so-called Terrorism abroad and at home is transparently, clearly, and undeniably demonstrated to be a total, abject failure and thus lie, scam, hoax, and sham?
Will you once again give even more untaxed money, unchallenged political power, and unchallengeable legal authority to the very people, offices, organizations, and agencies by whose failures this “War” was created and is waged, and who can promise you only that your — and their — investment in it will last forever?
What WILL you do, America, when 9.11 happens once again?
What will you do when your elected and appointed officials further dismantle Constitutional government in the name of “civilization,” further diminish individual and civil liberties in the name of “freedom,” and finally destroy the last vestiges of whatever power We, the People, may have once commanded, all in the name of “democracy” and “security”?
Will you obediently and obsequiously once again hide and watch the next stage in the biggest seizure of government power on this planet since Stalin’s Russia in the 20s, Hitler’s Germany and Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 30s, and Mao’s China in the 40s?
What WILL you do, America, when 9.11 happens once again?
Will you rush out to buy brand new flags and ribbons and bumper stickers, buttons, posters and signs, to replace the torn, shredded, faded, matted, pealed, and rusted ones you rushed out to buy after the first 9.11?
And then once again go on with your lives, desperately hoping that you can somehow continue pretending to pretend that nothing has really changed, that life does indeed go on the Day After The End of The World As We Knew It, Once Again.
What WILL you do, America, when 9.11 happens once again?
Will you piously, stoically, and heroically accept a Draft as part of the necessary, national sacrifice demanded in this time of new national peril and challenge? Particularly if you get to keep your tax breaks and gas in your SUVs, and your kid gets to get his Deferment?
What WILL you do, America, when 9.11 happens once again?
Will you, the so-called “peace, anti-War, and social justice” community of America, once again walk right past GROUND ZERO — The Real, Whole Truth — looking for something more significant, something more relevant, something more important?
Will you once again rush to hold your episodic, semi-annual Gatherings Of The Tribe to rail and rant and beat your breasts and massage your gums and egos against the newest extension and expansion and endless continuation of this so-called “War” at home and abroad?
This War about which you have — from DAY ZERO, from September 11, 2001 — completely refused and thus failed to “think the unthinkable,” and thus understand, and thus first prevent and then and now stop?
Will you ever succeed? Will you ever stop ANY War? Will you ever really want Peace instead of just Power, Justice instead of the Judicial Authority that comes with that Power, and Truth instead of nothing more or less than simply your fair share of the Loot?
What WILL you do, America, when 9.11 happens once again?
What will you do when those who benefited most from its happening the first time determine that the time has come for another major Terror Event, because maximal strategic and tactical political, economic, and, above all, psychological gain is to be achieved with another, with a second “new Pearl Harbor”? Will you once again feign ignorance of their — and your — history?
What WILL you do, America, when those who benefited most from the first 9/11 determine that they stand to gain even more with a second iteration? Who and/or What is going to stop them?
Do you have the courage to ask yourself any of these questions?
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ineffably, inennarably insightful, and profoundly disturbing polemics, jg moebus. thank you. i have divulgated your comment contributions from here to the ionosphere. your words will reach the deafened ears in my political and familial ambit.
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“I think we are in rats’ alley, where the dead men lost their bones.”
It might be argued we’re already standing amid the wreckage. As in the aftermath of Trafalgar or HMS Hood’s encounter with the Bismarck, it will take a while for all the debris and bodies to settle.
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As my wife likes to say, we have already struck the iceberg and are taking on water. How many will make it to the lifeboats to be rescued remains to be seen.
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And, as with the Titanic, it’s a safe bet that the steerage passengers will NOT be in the lifeboats.
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Glenn Greenwald on the madness of this moment. All Democrats in the House voted for $40 billion in military “aid” for Ukraine. There is no left or progressive part of the corporate Democratic Party
https://rumble.com/v14fh3w-the-us-anti-war-left-is-dead.-the-squads-40b-war-vote-just-killed-it..html
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Perhaps Biden brought the pressure to bear on the Squad that he refused to use on Manchin and Sinema…
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Didn’t Winston Churchill assure (trick?) the U.S. that it was safe for their shipping vessels to traverse English Channel waters, while he actually knew it was dangerously Nazi-Uboat infested — all in order for the American shipping vessels to get torpedoed thus pulling the U.S. into WWII Europe?
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Not that I’m aware. Actually, even before Pearl Harbor, the U.S. sold destroyers to Britain and the US Navy was already escorting ships halfway across the Atlantic. We had already picked a side, and the Navy well knew about the U-boat menace, though it was still unprepared for it when war was declared in Dec. 1941.
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The 2014 Maidan Coup d’Etat
By William Engdahl
By November 2013 an economically corrupt and floundering Ukraine under elected and also very corrupt President Viktor Yanukovych, announced that, rather than accept a “special” association with the EU, Ukraine would take a far more generous offer from Moscow to join the Eurasian Economic Union led by Moscow. Russia had agreed to cut the price of Russian gas to Ukraine by 30% and to buy $15 billion of Ukraine bonds to ease the Kiew financial crisis.
At that point, on 21 November, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the man selected by Washington’s Victoria Nuland and Kiev Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, together with then-Vice President Joe Biden, launched what were called Maidan Square protests against the Yanukovych regime backed by US NGOs. On February 20, 2014 after CIA-organized snipers, reportedly recruited from nearby Georgia, killed dozens of student protesters and also police, leading Yanukovych to flee, Yatsenyuk became Prime Minister in a hand-picked US-run regime, hand-picked by Nuland and Biden among others.
Later in December 2014 in an interview with a Russian newspaper, George Friedman of Stratfor, a private firm consulting to the Pentagon and CIA among others, said of the US-led February 2014 Kiev regime change, “Russia calls the events that took place at the beginning of this year a coup d’etat organized by the United States. And it truly was the most blatant coup in history.” He was boastful in the interview.
That Kiev coup regime proceeded after February 22, 2014 to wage a war of extermination and ethnic cleansing of Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine, led to a large degree by a private army of literal neo-nazis from Right Sector (banned in Russia), the same ones who ran security in the Maidan Square and launched a reign of terror against Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Battalions were formed of neo-nazi mercenaries. They were given official state status as “Ukrainian National Guard” soldiers, the Azov Battalion, financed by Ukrainian mafia boss and billionaire oligarch, Ihor Kolomoisky, the financial backer of Zelenskyy as president. The Azov soldiers even sport open SS runes as its logo. In 2016, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) accused the Azov Battalion, officially upgraded to a regiment in January 2015, of committing war crimes such as mass looting, unlawful detention, and torture………………..
‘Ukraine And The Deeper Global Suicide Agenda’
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I’m only a concerned Amateur, but it’s interesting to read more Professionals are now writing and confirming the Title of the post to my Blog is the Reality, ‘US POLITICIANS ARE SLEEPWALKING TOWARD THE NUCLEAR ABYSS’
Posted on April 13, 2022 by Ray Joseph Cormier
‘Col. Richard Black: U.S. Leading World to Nuclear War’
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