1. “We often hear the complaint that America doesn’t make anything anymore: that is, our economy seems driven not by producing actual things, but utterly intangible creations such as credit default swaps and securitized sub-prime mortgages.
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While our factories have long since moved abroad, where wages are lower and regulation is lax, and our crippled industries are in Dr. Obama’s economic intensive care unit, on life support and awaiting last rites, America’s number-one export – representing, by far, our single largest capital investment – is our overseas military presence.
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What do you mean we don’t make anything? What about wars? We make plenty of those: Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan and perhaps Iran – the Globo-Cop business is booming.”
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/11/17/our-chief-industry-war/
2. “Obama must call time on the Afghan war. Retreat can be spun as victory. But it can’t be conditional on impossible objectives
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Britain and America should demilitarise the war on terror, surely the most counterproductive main-force deployment in recent history. They need no longer rely on grand armies, popinjay generals and crippling budgets; on bringing death, destruction and exile to hundreds of thousands of foreigners in the faint belief that this might stop a few bombs going off back home. They would hand that job to the appropriate authorities; to the police and security services.
The modalities of withdrawal need obvious attention. Only idiots talk of leaving “overnight”, but only idiots make departure conditional on some unachievable objective, such as more European troops or an operational Afghan army or honesty in Kabul. Defeat must be spun as victory. Retreat must be covered by the smokescreen of a loya jirga or “surge, bribe and leave”. But it cannot be conditional on fantasy.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/17/afghanistan-obama-withdrawal-america-military
3. “Our National Cognitive Dissonance
A recent report by the Army indicates that troop morale in Afghanistan is sagging. That shouldn’t surprise anybody. “They’re tired,” says psychologist Barbara Van Dahlen. Who wouldn’t be? The Army has been at war for eight years and change, and there’s no end in sight.
There’s also a significant question, one straight out of World War II rhetoric: was this trip necessary? I sense that as the war timeline shifts right, more and more of our rank-and-filers in uniform sense that the sacrifices they’re making are for naught. Much of service for one’s country is Orwellian. It involves accepting the brainwash one is constantly fed, even though at heart one knows it’s untrue. A break comes at some point, though, and that’s why we’re seeing so many cases of PTSD and other mental problems with our war veterans.
Our woebegone wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have become our national cognitive dissonance. By now, all but the rabid among us know that our military adventurism is a counterproductive waste of effort, that we create two or more terrorists for every one we kill or capture, that our military and its supporting civilian and political structure have far more control of our government than they should.
Can we change course? Not easily. Can President Barack Obama put us on a vector of enlightenment? We’ll see. I for one am full of doubts on that score.”
http://original.antiwar.com/huber/2009/11/17/our-national-cognitive-dissonance/
4. “What’s the difference between Palin and Muslim fundamentalists? Lipstick
On censorship, the teaching of creationism in schools, reproductive rights, attributing government policy to God’s will and climate change, Palin agrees with Hamas and Saudi Arabia rather than supporting tolerance and democratic precepts.
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The most noxious belief that Palin shares with Muslim fundamentalists is her conviction that faith is not a private affair of individuals but rather a moral imperative that believers should import into statecraft wherever they have the opportunity to do so.”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/09/09/palin_fundamentalist/index.html
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/11/fed-talking-about-reducing-leverage-is.html
6. “The Weekly Standard’s ACLU smear indicts only itself
The ACLU (with which I consult) not only defends the most elemental American liberties (e.g., the State cannot imprison people without charging and convicting them of a crime), but also renders Al Qaeda’s demonization-dependent recruitment efforts against the West far less effective. By stark contast, the Constitution-hating, warmongering and tyrannical template embraced by The Weekly Standard is precisely what Al Qaeda needs — and desires – in order to thrive. The more the U.S. is represented by the warmongering and anti-due process face of Bill Kristol, the better it is for Al Qaeda; the more it adheres to the liberties and rights guaranteed by the Constitution and defended by the ACLU, the weaker Al Qaeda becomes. Kristolian neocons want and need a strong Al Qaeda in order to justify the array of wars and civil liberties erosions they crave, and everything they advocate is designed to achieve that goal — or, at the very least, guarantees that outcome.
The greatest irony of the last decade is that the very people who most despise core American principles and do more than anyone to fuel Islamic extremism have anointed themselves the arbiters of American patriotism and protectors of American security. The reality is that it is this very movement which simultaneously advances definitively un-American political values and strengthens anti-American Islamic radicals — both by design and by effect. The Weekly Standard‘s due-process-hating manifesto this morning is a vivid exhibit for how that has worked.”
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/
7. Their lack of moral courage is why it makes no sense to automatically ‘support the troops’:
“ There are two kinds of courage in war – physical courage and moral courage. Physical courage is very common on the battlefield. Men and women on both sides risk their lives, place their own bodies in harm’s way. Moral courage, however, is quite rare. According to Chris Hedges, the brilliant New York Times war correspondent who survived wars in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans, “I rarely saw moral courage. Moral courage is harder. It requires the bearer to walk away from the warm embrace of comradeship and denounce the myth of war as a fraud, to name it as an enterprise of death and immorality, to condemn himself, and those around him, as killers. It requires the bearer to become an outcast. There are times when taking a moral stance, perhaps the highest form of patriotism, means facing down the community, even the nation.
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The Courage to Resist
We cannot understand the psychological and moral significance of military resistance unless we recognize the social forces that stifle conscience and human individuality in military life. Gwen Dyer, historian of war, writes that ordinarily, “Men will kill under compulsion. Men will do almost anything if they know it is expected of them and they are under strong social pressure to comply.” “Only exceptional people resist atrocity,” writes psychiatrist Robert Lifton.
How much easier it is to surrender to the will of superiors, to merge into the anonymity of the group. It takes uncommon courage to resist military powers of intimidation, peer pressure, and the atmosphere of racism and hate that drives all imperial wars.“
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23987.htm
