Phosphorous on the skin keeps burning down to the bone!
Friends, the thought occurred to me yesterday that, for some time, the world has been involved in a cycle of endless war.
Now I know you will say that there have always been wars but I would counter by saying that there have been sporadic wars with periods of peace in between. Some wars have resulted in there being a clear victor (the spread of the imperial Roman Empire for example), and some wars, like WW1, were fought to a stalemate with no one really winning.
But since WW2 finished, a war that weary people thought would herald peace, wars have been occurring virtually non-stop. Now why is this? Who is causing the problem?
Well, at the end of WW2, the U.S., which entered that war almost two years after it began, realized that it could become the pre-eminent military power in the world if it could somehow vanquish the Soviet Union (but not in a traditional war). After all, as a result of WW2, it had military bases in Germany and Japan as well as many other places so it was off to a good start for its attempted imperialism.
So it embarked on a massive program to build up its armed forces and spent untold billions on rocket development and nuclear warheads and jet planes. As well, America further expanded its manufacturing industries to make the weapons of war which it began to sell around the world. It proved to be a lucrative investment because nations with arms are bound to use them eventually which guarantees that wars will escalate and the sale of arms burgeon.
Now, as you know, the Soviets, depleted by the war against Germany, eventually went bankrupt while trying to keep up with the U.S. Meanwhile the U.S., seeing a ‘red under each bed’, began to confront communism and so we had a war in Korea (1950-53). Korea ended up being split in two which was hardly a success for anyone. It is still a flash point even today.
Vietnam followed (1962-75) and the invincible American army suffered an humiliating defeat. This loss did not send America home to lick its wounds. Instead of learning a lesson that a standing army can’t defeat a determined guerrilla army, America further increased its standing army stupidly believing that eventually, ‘might will overcome all.‘
The words of William Blum, an American, in an article called ‘In Struggle With The American Mind,’ describe well what eventuated during the next decades.
“It would be difficult to name a single brutal dictatorship of the Western world in the second half of the 20th Century that was not supported by the United States; not only supported, but often put into power and kept in power against the wishes of the population. And in recent years as well, Washington has supported very repressive governments, such as Saudi Arabia, Honduras, Indonesia, Egypt, Kosovo, Colombia, and Israel. As to terrorist groups being adversaries of the United States, the United States has supported terrorist groups for decades. As they’ve supported US foreign policy.
In the post-World War Two period, in Latin America alone, the US has had a similar hostile policy toward progressive governments and movements in Guatemala, Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, and Bolivia. What these governments and movements all had in common was that they were/are leftist; nothing to do with oil.
For more than half a century Washington has been trying to block the rise of any government in Latin America that threatens to offer a viable alternative to the capitalist model. Venezuela of course fits perfectly into that scenario; oil or no oil.
This ideology was the essence of the Cold War all over the world.“
So America used militarism both overt and covert to ensure its militaristic domination and, as it became the world’s richest nation, it could also use aid (bribery) to impose its will on other nations to say nothing about erecting trade barriers, etc.
Then the world suddenly realized that oil was an increasingly scarce commodity. America was alarmed (and it was also alarmed by the emergence of China and India as potential rivals). Its armies couldn’t function without oil. So what did it do? It invented pretexts to invade oil-rich countries, pretexts like ‘Weapons of Mass destruction.’ It started with mineral-rich Afghanistan on the basis that Ben Laden, its previous ally, was there and that he organized 9/11.
The Americans then went to Iraq. Then, after they’d reduced it to rubble, after leaving 50.000 troops there, they returned to Afghanistan. America is now involved in Pakistan and Yemen and is threatening Iran. America wants never-ending war. Why? It is making money from war, its own and wars engaged in by others. It is gaining scarce resources from war. It is gaining strategic advantage from war. It is stopping the rise of India and China by grabbing fertile land around the world.
It also has a bevy of allies who it’s convinced should be involved in America’s wars, perhaps for a cut of the spoil. Nato, Australia, Canada, etc, foolishly and blindly follow America believing they are ‘fighting terror’ – whatever that means – when all they are doing is furthering American imperialism and its war-based capitalist system.
Friends, the thousand-year war has begun. Only two things can stop it: America going bankrupt or nuclear war. But too many countries in the world have invested in America for it to be allowed to go bankrupt. It has tied the world into its selfish, violent, greedy wickedness and, if it goes down, so will many other nations.
That leaves nuclear war. And we all know which nation has already used atomic weapons, don’t we? But nuclear war will destroy the world so that option is rather problematic!
Somehow, we the people of the non-American world have to act if our world is to be saved. We have to boycott American products especially arms, condemn it strongly, force our Governments to stop supporting it, try to make Americans see what their bloodthirsty leaders are really doing, what their greedy corporations are really doing. Some do but not near enough.
Warmongering America is our enemy and the enemy of peace and harmony. Say no to America-created endless war before it’s too late!
P.S. I’ll leave you with a few more wise if rather ironic words from William Blum’s article which, if you Google it, you can read in full:
“I direct these remarks to readers who have to deal with Americans who turn into a stone wall upon hearing the United States accused of acting immorally; America, they are convinced, means well; our motives are noble. And if we do do something that looks bad, and the badness can’t easily be covered up or explained away … well, great powers have always done things like that, we’re no worse than the other great powers of history, and a lot better than most. God bless America.“
William Blum is the author of a variety of books including Killing Hope, Rogue State and West-Bloc Dissident.
If the US just took a fraction of the money it spent on war it could do so much good. Everyone could have health care, there could be good schools with good well paid teachers, we could have mass transit instead of endless freeways with gas guzzling cars and green jobs that would help to make our planet livable. It will never happen, but I can dream. The supporters of war will always be able to use violence to defeat those working for peace. They don’t really even need violence, propaganda alone will do as well if people do not think and question what they read and hear.
As I learn more about tea party suppoters I think, we are as a group, just too stupid to survive.
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David G Reply:
October 4th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Jeannie, there is a madness driving America. It’s leadership is filled with delusions of American grandeur, of belief in America’s right to run the world.
No matter that Iraq and Afghanistan are complete messes and demonstrate that America couldn’t run a BBQ chicken raffle let alone the world!
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Grace Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
“America couldn’t run a BBQ chicken raffle let alone the world!”
Lol, David!
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Kathy Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
You are so correct Grace! Scary how they are going to be running our health care huh?
Good synopsis, David, although Korea was before Vietnam.
You know that nuclear war would be devastating, and I know nuclear war would be devastating, but the greedy insane rulers of the US believe that it is winnable!
During the Reagan years, they printed up a bunch of address change cards, to be passed out after the nuclear war, so that the refugees would still get their mail!
Does it get any crazier than that?
And some of those same people were in the Bush and now in the Obama administrations.
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David G Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 2:48 am
Thanks for pointing that error in dates, Wagelaborer. I’d better not rely on my memory any more!
It’s amazing that the failures from each Administration seem to hang about like a bad smell. I keep seeing Bolton on Fox News and each time I do, I am struck by the stupidity of the man, his total inability to grasp the big picture.
Cheers!
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Grace Reply:
October 5th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
“The Forgotten War” is the other name for the Korean massacree. Easy to forget. David, would you further explain the naming of the 1000 Year War? That is a new one for me. Thanks!
Cheers!
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Hello All -
Martin Luther King, Jr, whose memory and great work were recently appropriated and besmirched at the Lincoln Memorial by a piece of extremist slime named Glenn Beck, once said that “America is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today”. For that and so many other truths that Amurkins don’t want to hear (because we are SO exceptional, just ask us!) he was assassinated. His words ring even more true today and I think he would be in despair to see the same corrupt warmongers in charge of everything.
I believe that Washington has one playbook which they apply to all situations in the world where we are trying to exert our dominance. U.S. foreign policy has been directly responsible for millions of innocent people’s deaths since World War II. This means nothing to the ruling elites and their lapdogs in the government and the Pentagon. The death of millions is “collateral damage” or “unfortunate consequences” or some such crap. The heartlessness and the lack of shame is staggering.
I am profoundly ashamed of my country’s policies both domestic and foreign. I still remember a time when the U.S. was not considered a pariah by most of the world’s nations. However, the record of U.S. militarism and imperialism speaks for itself. Ronald Raygun once said (in a classic case of trying to shift attention of our own crimes to another country) that “the Soviet Union is the focus of evil in the modern world”. As usual Ronnie got it wrong such as when he stated that trees produce more pollution than cars. The Soviet Union never had the power or influence to be that focus but the U.S. did and it acted on it with vigor.
The endless “wars of liberation” such as Nicaragua (where Raygun referred to the beastial Contras as “the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers” (imagine the gall to say that!) plus the other endless conflicts and trumped up threats from all over the world, all in places where there were resources or political dominance to be had or the need to stamp out any fledgling system other than capitalism. Regimes that slaughtered their people with our arms and missiles that didn’t have resources, etc, were left to do their evil without intervention by us.
Why am I so fed up with my nation’s policies and so many of it’s people? Because after decades of this imperialism and millions dead around the world while we watched on TV, George W. Bush was able to haul his shameless ass over to the Congress and get everyone in an uproar about invading Iraq based on lies about WMDs. Those WMDs were never found and yet we remain. At the time of the second invasion Wubya’s favorable poll numbers were nearly 90%, right up there with his daddy who invaded in 1991. In fact, one of George H.W. Bush’s staff said that if only they had invaded later in the year and nearer to the election Bush probably would have won a second term! This is how these people think and act and it is evil.
David, you are probably correct. The world’s resources are running out and we will be going to war over water pretty soon. It will be just like Orwell envisioned, endless war with no hope of an end. War for the sake of war. War that the increasingly spied upon American people can watch on their giant LCD TVs, the “telescreens” of our time. I am sickened by this and as I have said before I am seeking a different place, hopefully one that is not a target for a future nuclear warhead. My great hero, Albert Einstein, famously defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results”. An excellent summation of U.S. foreign policy. He left Germany twice, once to renounce Kaiser Wilhem’s militarism and the last time to avoid the evil (and his likely death) from Nazism. If he were alive today I’m sure he would still be speaking out against our policy of war and perhaps looking for a saner and more humane place to live.
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Grace, I was trying to draw attention to the fact that the U.S. has decided on a strategy of endless war as a means of boosting its economy and furthering its domination of the world.
Bruce, when there’s a dollar to be made some humans have no heart or conscience. That’s the horrible legacy of capitalism. The Ancient Greeks despised money-grubbers. We’ve elevated them into iconic Gods!
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Grace Reply:
October 6th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
The US sure seems Hell-bent for a shining light on a hill. They seem to know exactly – in a foollish kind of way – exactly what they are doing, what they are unleashing! A 1000 years – if they don’t destroy the playing field first.
My husband was raised in a Hell fire Baptist church and he knows alot about the Bible. (That Holy book that every politician swears upon.) All the underground bunkers that the rich f’ers will run to when the sh*t comes down – thinking that they alone will be saved – In the Bible, the same rich people that won’t have much luck getting in to Heaven, will be consumed in the Earth. I hold out hope. It is all I have, maybe.
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David G Reply:
October 8th, 2010 at 2:31 am
Grace, I spent quite a bit of time in the Baptist Church and know full well how fundamentalist they are! They are very strong in the States which may be part of the American problem.
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I read an article where it was said that it cost the American military $50 million dollars to kill one Taliban……Gee those Taliban must super dooper soldiers!!!! America will go bankrupt and the poodles will follow suite. Nuclear war could have happened at least 10 times since the cold war….thankfully cool heads prevailed. One instance was when a rocket launched in Russia that was heading for Alaska due to a fault….the American finger was one the bottom to unleash hell….the soviets automaticaly blew the rocket up….Nuclear war averted. Even today 20 years after the cold war, missiles and men are on 24/7 standby to ensure Mutualy Assured Destruction.
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David G Reply:
October 6th, 2010 at 2:43 am
It suggests that the level of insanity in some humans is at a dangerous level, Kemosobi. It will only take one incident, perhaps a false flag one, to start the use of small nukes which I believe have already been trialed.
Once we’re on that slippery slope, the end is nigh and we already know which nation will bring it about!
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It would seem to me that wars are no longer meant to be won just waged. That’s where the money is.
First you find your rogue state, then you make impossible demands for them to stop doing something they aren’t doing, then your corporately provisioned military invade with much Shock and Awe, then you have your corporations move in to ‘rebuild’, buildings and democracy that is. When the locals that are left have recovered somewhat from the shock and awe of it all they are predictably pissed off and can relied upon to blow up things that have been rebuilt. Then more troops are needed to make the ungrateful locals understand the responsibilities of freedom and democracy through the prison system. The corporations have to come back and rebuild the buildings. If the locals are too busy scavenging for food and tending the dying and diseased and generally trying to survive and don’t have the time and resources to resist the freedom loving invaders then the freedom loving invaders will even do that for them with their little helpers in Blackwater and other such mercenary outfits. Is there no end to the generosity of the invaders? All of this is provided for by the printing presses of the US Federal reserve and their friends. The bill presented to the rogue state de jour and the taxpayer of the US and their friends. This is a quite a different scenario than it was for the USSR in the arms race who actually had a real economy based on production of real tangible things. Every weapon cost them dearly. Where as, for the US, every weapon is a new money making possibility. No use stockpiling them. They have to be used and replaced. As well as the cannon fodder. Too many useless males since mechanisation has become widespread. Run out of US males? No problem. First they can use prisoners and when they run short then they can import males from other countries with the promise (if they survive) of a green card. It’s already happening by the way. But hey, ain’t Capitalism grand? So much superior to those peace loving Reds.
P.S. Some enterprising atheists have set up a service where all the Rapture types can pay now and have their animals cared for when they’ve been taken up to heaven.
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David G Reply:
October 9th, 2010 at 6:38 am
Magda, I loved the story about the pet service for Rapturists. It confirms that I live in an insane asylum: it’s called planet Earth!
The rest of your comment is right on the money: the printed money that is!
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Although the Israel government from the birth been stilling the Palestinians land yet that’s been done with knowledge and well orchestrated EU and US of what is called “democratic” governments.
Israel is the only friend that US or for that matter EU would have or have in Middle East.., the atomic technology were given to Israel with the blessing of EU and US in pretence for Israel “defending” itself and scare the Arab nations – nationals in the region. Here and for all other social political reasons the EU have promised a land to Middle East Christianity as Orthodox Assyrians, Armenians and Syrians among other country in Sweden where they in return work against Islamic immigrants and very much a supporter of Israel.., in another word.., a dogmatism in the process by EU in what is called humanitarian agendas of the UN. Now after 9 years of war in Afghanistan and Pakistan and killing of millions of Iraqi babies to massacres of old and young Iraqis Israel is not been punished for its war crime nor for what has been documented over 550 times at UN yet the lies by the EU and US about terrorism coming from Middle East is yet another argument that these arguments are nothing but lies. Having said that, for peace and prosperity of all nations in Middle East is time for EU and US to act.., not just talk.., and boycott Israel in all aspects of political and social economic.., they did that to Iraq.., they do prosecute the war crime’s of Yugoslavia.., yet they still talk to Israel. Let me put it like this.., Mr. president or prime minister or kings and queens.., the only language that Israel will ever understand is to be boycotted by your governments and your economical institutions.., then and only then.., they will obey the international laws, respect the Palestinians and agree to return to 1967 border and let Palestinians have a home. Meanwhile.., you the people could start and boycotting Israel goods in US and elsewhere in this world.
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David G Reply:
October 9th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Thanks for dropping by Guess and your perceptive comments about Israel. The problem is that the U.S. and Israel have formed an unholy alliance, one which suits their respective imperial objectives and Nato tends to be subservient to America.
Resultantly, we’ll get no action from the U.S. or Nato that will restrict Israel!
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