Glenn: The War on Terror is the end in itself, and Terrorism is merely its pretext

as with so many other things i've posted about on this blog, i find myself endlessly posting about and repeating the same sad litany of abuses and outrages time after time...

glenn greenwald...

In the wake of Osama bin Laden’s summary execution one year ago, many predicted that the War on Terror would finally begin to recede. Here’s what has happened since then:

*With large bipartisan majorities, Congress renewed the once-controversial Patriot Act without a single reform, and it was signed into law by President Obama; Harry Reid accused those urging reforms of putting the country at risk of a Terrorist attack.
* For the first time, perhaps ever, a U.S. citizen was assassinated by the CIA, on orders from the President, without a shred of due process and far from any battlefield; two weeks later, his 16-year-old American son was also killed by his own government; the U.S. Attorney General then gave a speech claiming the President has the power to target U.S. citizens for death based on unproven, secret accusations of Terrorism.
* With large bipartisan majorities, Congress enacted, and the President signed, a new law codifying presidential powers of worldwide indefinite detention and an expanded statutory defintion of the War on Terror.
* Construction neared completion for a sprawling new site in Utah for the National Security Agency to enable massive domestic surveillance and to achieve “the realization of the ‘total information awareness’ program created during the first term of the Bush administration.”
* President Obama authorized the use of “signature” drone strikes in Yemen, whereby the CIA can target people for death “even when the identity of those who could be killed is not known.”
* The U.S. formally expanded its drone attacks in Somalia, “reopening a base for the unmanned aircraft on the island nation of Seychelles.”
* A U.S. drone killed 16-year-old Pakistani Tariq Aziz, along with his 12-year-old cousin, Waheed, three days after the older boy attended a meeting to protest civilian deaths from U.S. drones (another of Tariq’s cousins had been killed in 2010).
* NATO airstrikes continued to extinguish the lives of Afghan children; in just the last 24 hours, 5 more Afghan children were killed by the ongoing war.
* The FBI increased its aggressive attempts to recruit young Muslim-American males into Terror plots which the FBI concocts, funds, encourages, directs and enables, while prosecuting more and more Muslims in the U.S. for crimes grounded in their political views and speech.

Does it sound like the War on Terror and its accompanying civil liberties erosions are ending, or going in the opposite direction? The morning after the bin Laden killing, I wrote that the killing of bin Laden would likely re-ignite American excitement over militarism and would thus likely further fuel, rather than retard, the War and its various implications. As always: combatting Terrorism is not the end of the War on Terror; the War on Terror is the end in itself, and Terrorism is merely its pretext.

 as much as it pains me to say it (and it pains me every time i do say it), i believe the u.s. has quite deliberately and consciously fostered a strategy of endless war... there is so much money to be made from ceaselessly fighting yet another menacing enemy that our super-rich elites and all those who profit immensely from war and military action that they will never allow it to come to a halt, even if it means engaging in deliberately provocative acts carefully calculated to inflame conflict...

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Linh Dinh: Obama is only here to facilitate the wishes of the Military Banking Complex

linh dinh posts at his blog, state of the union... this excerpt is via information clearing house...

If even preschoolers or wheelchaired farts on their last legs must be frisked for underwear bombs, box cutters and ninja stars, not to mention contraband copies of the Constitution, is it any wonder that our cops are becoming more trigger happy? Post 9/11, the United States has entered a permanent state of psychotic paranoia, all to justify our endless war (profiteering) for oil, and with a host of new laws enabling the state to harass, eavesdrop, strip search, arrest or even kill you without charge, that is, without presumption of innocence before proven guilty, supposedly a bedrock of our democracy and what separates us from all the other nightmare states we’ve always been warned about.

As we sleep, America has become one of those nightmares, I’m afraid, although all still seems relatively normal, for now. The home runs still fly, and the inane commercials still sing. All is normal until you find yourself on the wrong side of an increasingly brutal and arbitrary set of laws, or none at all, just whatever our President, local cop or security guard decides is right, for him, at that moment. You see, a nightmare is when you’re at the total mercy of another man, without recourse to remedy whatever wrong he may inflict on you, without the law or your fellow humans ever coming to your aid. Our tortured foreign detainees have long been acquainted with this evil, but we have looked the other way, because we are not them, you see, at least not yet.

[...]

This Obama presidency has been a brilliant move by our ruling class, for this black, personable decoy has managed to pacify vast swaths of an otherwise restless constituency, while enraging others for the wrong reason. Although Obama’s blackness is irrelevant, it has become a fixation to both his detractors and supporters, so that it has become a point of honor to defend or depose this man for his blackness alone, when in truth his race does not factor at all in any of his decisions. One should not care that he is black, because Obama does not care that he is black, and not in a good way either. Obama is not here to rectify whatever ails the black or any other community. He is only here to facilitate the wishes of the Military Banking Complex, and he’s willing to trample on you all, black, white, brown or yellow, to achieve their goals.

"all the inane commercials still sing"... i have that same thought daily as i go about my routine and wonder if i'm living in the same world as those around me... i keep waiting for the house of cards to fall and i wish it would just hurry up and do it...

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Exxon Mobil to earn $10.37B in Qtr 4 (or roughly $75K PER MINUTE)

very likely the highest profit ever reported for an american company...

The company is expected to earn $10.37 billion in the fourth quarter, according to earnings tracker Thomson Financial. That's about $330 million shy of Exxon's previous quarterly profit record of $10.7 billion set in the fourth quarter of 2005 - which also was a record for any U.S. corporation.

Exxon is expected to make $39.2 billion for all of 2007, just shy of its previous record of $39.5 billion in 2006, which breaks down to the company earning about $75,000 a minute.

this is the very definition of obscenity, and the money is coming directly out of the pockets of ordinary folks and into the pockets of those who are already rich beyond our ability to comprehend... my fondest wish is that, somewhere down the road, a report like this will be part of the history lessons we teach to our children as an example of the depth of greed that once enslaved the majority of the people of our planet, and it will be greeted with the horror and disgust it deserves, rather than receiving the laudatory top spot in the financial news...

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Two years later, the obscene war profiteer goes down

remember this...?

In May 2005, the U.S. Marines recalled more than 5,000 DHB armored vests after questions were raised about their effectiveness. By that time, [CEO David] Brooks had pocketed over $250 million in war windfalls.

do you remember why he's characterized as obscene...?

On the day the President told the American people to prepare for the long haul in Iraq, here’s a story that seems to perfectly sum up our priorities as a nation. They’re calling it Mitzvahpalooza. It may go down in history as the world’s most obscene birthday party (eat your heart out Dennis Kozlowski). David H. Brooks, CEO of bulletproof vest maker DHB Industries, spared no expense for his 13-year old daughter’s entry into adulthood. The girl and 300 of her closest BFFs were entertained recently in New York’s Rainbow Room by Don Henley, Stevie Nicks, Kenny G, Aerosmith and, believe it or not, 50 Cent (I guess 500 large can make you forget all about street cred). It was hosted by Tom Petty. The reported cost: $10 million.

i posted about this scum back in december 2005... finally, he goes down...

The founder and former head of a company that manufactures body armor for soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan was arrested this morning by federal agents on Long Island, N.Y and charged with using company money to supplement his lavish lifestyle and netting $186,000,000 while riding his company's stock down.

so, what the hell took 'em so goddam long...?

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Want to know why we wage war? Follow the money - to Halliburton

and here ya have it...

Halliburton Co. continues to benefit from placing greater emphasis on its operations in the Eastern Hemisphere, where expanding business helped the company post a 19 percent rise in third-quarter earnings.

The Houston-based oilfield services company said Sunday its net income rose to $727 million, or 79 cents a share, in the July-September period from $611 million, or 58 cents a share, in the year-ago period.

The most-recent results included a favorable income tax benefit of $133 million, or 15 cents a share.

Third-quarter revenue rose 16 percent to $3.93 billion.

can you think of anything that could possibly be more euphemistic than "continues to benefit from placing greater emphasis on its operations in the Eastern Hemisphere, where expanding business helped the company post a 19 percent rise in third-quarter earnings"...? you've got to admit that it sounds one hell of a lot better than "continues to cash in on the war in iraq"...

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The free market isn't free "for anybody but the contractors" who use the government as "an ATM machine"

more from naomi klein, talking about her book, shock doctrine, on bill maher...

from raw story...

"In New Orleans,it's the privatization of the school system, the public housing. After September 11th, it was the launching of a new economy in privatized homeland security, and in Iraq it's the Blackwater economy--The worse things get in Iraq, the more privatized--and profitable--this war becomes.

"So it's not about the corporations taking advantage; we expect corporations to do that. It's about the politicians who think the government should be an ATM machine and just transfer wealth to their friends in exchange for a deposit in the form of campaign contributions.

[...]

"You could call it crony capitalism, you could call it corporatism; but it certainly not the free market.

"And, the irony is,it's the free market ideology that gets used to propel this vision forward which has absolutely nothing to do with--it's not free for anybody but the contractors..."

i think most of us of are pretty well aware of what a tremendously profitable thing war is (for the right people, of course), but ms. klein delivers a valuable new way to understand the overall mechanism of HOW it's as profitable as it is... i've always claimed that the chaos and breakdown created by war offer unbounded opportunity to those whose aim is to profit from them... ms. klein not only shows how that works but also expands the concept to natural disasters, an arena that previously served to pull people together and make communities stronger, but are now being used to tear them apart so that the profiteering vultures can rush in to fill the gaps...

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Did anyone honestly think, for even the briefest of moments, that this WASN'T going to happen?

United States Embassy, Iraq

Iraq Embassy Cost Rises $144 Million Amid Project Delays
Planning, Workmanship Cited as Problems

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 7, 2007; Page A01

The massive U.S. embassy under construction in Baghdad could cost $144 million more than projected and will open months behind schedule because of poor planning, shoddy workmanship, internal disputes and last-minute changes sought by State Department officials, according to U.S. officials and a department document provided to Congress.

ok, let me ratchet my cynicism up yet another notch... i think this kind of cost overrun is deliberately orchestrated to keep the massive river of cash flowing... the common wisdom says it's due to incompetence but i no longer believe that... the iraq war, just like every other war that preceded it, generates unimaginable wealth for the right people, usually those who are strongest in their support for those who will make war the principal tool of our foreign policy... the amount of money consumed by the illegal iraq war is so vast as to be beyond comprehension, at least for us ordinary folks for whom a few grand is a small fortune... but, folks, it was PLANNED to make money, not to depose saddam, not to dispose of wmd, not to free the iraqi people and not to spread democracy to the middle east... just like the sub-prime mortgage debacle, it was initiated to make money, pure and simple, and in that it has been a stupendous success...

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Wholly Shit, Smedley Butler Foretold Our Future

This is just the first chapter of a book I plan to read in total by Maj. General Smedley Butler. He was a forgotten great American, much to our shame.
The Fascists made us eventually go to war to stop them. Is that what we need to do today?

Thanks to Lexrex. Go to the site to read more from Gen. Butler.

Chapter One

WAR IS A RACKET

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?(emphasis added)

The parallel to our time is staggering.

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

Again they are choosing sides. France and Russia met and agreed to stand side by side. Italy and Austria hurried to make a similar agreement. Poland and Germany cast sheep's eyes at each other, forgetting for the nonce [one unique occasion], their dispute over the Polish Corridor.

The assassination of King Alexander of Jugoslavia [Yugoslavia] complicated matters. Jugoslavia and Hungary, long bitter enemies, were almost at each other's throats. Italy was ready to jump in. But France was waiting. So was Czechoslovakia. All of them are looking ahead to war. Not the people – not those who fight and pay and die – only those who foment wars and remain safely at home to profit.

There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.

Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?(emphasis added)

I think I like this guy, he speaks plain and upfront

Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:

"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it."

Undoubtedly Mussolini means exactly what he says. His well-trained army, his great fleet of planes, and even his navy are ready for war – anxious for it, apparently. His recent stand at the side of Hungary in the latter's dispute with Jugoslavia showed that. And the hurried mobilization of his troops on the Austrian border after the assassination of Dollfuss showed it too. There are others in Europe too whose sabre rattling presages war, sooner or later.

Herr Hitler, with his rearming Germany and his constant demands for more and more arms, is an equal if not greater menace to peace. France only recently increased the term of military service for its youth from a year to eighteen months.

Yes, all over, nations are camping in their arms. The mad dogs of Europe are on the loose. In the Orient the maneuvering is more adroit. Back in 1904, when Russia and Japan fought, we kicked out our old friends the Russians and backed Japan. Then our very generous international bankers were financing Japan. Now the trend is to poison us against the Japanese. What does the "open door" policy to China mean to us? Our trade with China is about $90,000,000 a year. Or the Philippine Islands? We have spent about $600,000,000 in the Philippines in thirty-five years and we (our bankers and industrialists and speculators) have private investments there of less than $200,000,000.

Then, to save that China trade of about $90,000,000, or to protect these private investments of less than $200,000,000 in the Philippines, we would be all stirred up to hate Japan and go to war – a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.

Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends.

But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children?

What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits?

Yes, and what does it profit the nation?

Take our own case. Until 1898 we didn't own a bit of territory outside the mainland of North America. At that time our national debt was a little more than $1,000,000,000. Then we became "internationally minded." We forgot, or shunted aside, the advice of the Father of our country. We forgot George Washington's warning about "entangling alliances." We went to war. We acquired outside territory. At the end of the World War period, as a direct result of our fiddling in international affairs, our national debt had jumped to over $25,000,000,000. Our total favorable trade balance during the twenty-five-year period was about $24,000,000,000. Therefore, on a purely bookkeeping basis, we ran a little behind year for year, and that foreign trade might well have been ours without the wars.

It would have been far cheaper (not to say safer) for the average American who pays the bills to stay out of foreign entanglements. For a very few this racket, like bootlegging and other underworld rackets, brings fancy profits, but the cost of operations is always transferred to the people – who do not profit.

This guy new how the game was played, is played, by the Elites.
If only we remembered this man and his words, we might have been reminded of how easily we can be manipulated.
It's a shame there isn't a General Smedley Butler protecting us today.
While we got dumb, fat, and happy, we let the NeoCons steal away the Republic that Gen. Butler defended on the battlefield and in the halls of government.
What the hell are we going to do about it?

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I'm discouraged

i know it's temporary and will pass, but, i gotta tell ya, i've just finished my early morning news skim and all i see is a bleak vista of a country and a presidential administration headed rapidly downhill with all the speed and power of an out-of-control freight train... from the account of robert greenwald's congressional testimony on war profiteering in alternet (drawn from his movie, "Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers"), to our lying attorney general and world bank president, both of whom still hold office, to the iraq war funding bill passed yesterday that bush says he'll veto, to the two-star general saying that the hadita massacre didn't deserve an investigation, to darth continuing to lie about the iraq run-up, to democrats climbing in bed with bush on free trade, to the totally bullshit story about bush (again) being open to compromise, this time on iraq benchmarks, WHERE, i would like to know, is the reason for optimism...?

p.s. i'll get over it... i have a half-day drive ahead of me to a smaller town where i begin teaching a graduate class this evening... it'll keep my mind off of doom and gloom and might even improve my outlook, who knows...

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