WAR!

Yesterday marked the hundredth anniversary of the US entry into World War I, a transformative exercise to say the least.

So what does El Caudillo do? He authorizes a missile strike on a Syrian airbase while at dinner with China's Xi Jinping at the Winter Palace in Florida. Hm. Who'd a thunk?

This is supposed to be the Peace-Maker, Deal-Maker God-Emperor who will keep the US out of Syria, make nice with the Russians and preserve, protect and defend us from that horrid warmonger Hag who was just itching to engage in nuclear annihilation with Putin.

Clintons, Obamacrats, and all they represented delenda est! 

Of course it was all fantasy and bullshit, but what the hell. We saw our politics fall through the looking glass a long time ago, and there seems to be no way back. Fantasy and bullshit rule for the duration. Make the most of it.

I pointed out a long time ago that there was never much difference in the policies of Clinton vs Trump on most matters. Their rhetoric tended to emphasize differences, but when you drilled down, their policies were close, in some cases identical. Where they differed was in implementation -- whether radical and harsh (as Trump wanted)  or incremental and "softer" (as Hillary seemed to want -- it was never clear with her.)

So here we are now with Trump executing Hillary's Syria policies without a qualm, a near 180° turn around from statements out of the Regime just days ago.

Of course, things change. Assad (once again) "gassed his own people." The way he does. Ergo, something had to be done. After all, such monstrousness cannot be allowed to stand!

Never mind that Assad may not have intended any such thing, but in WAR!!! strange things happen.

Never mind the hundreds of civilians (including "beautiful babies") slaughtered in Mosul by an American air attack the other day. "Collateral damage, too bad, so sad."

Gotta root out them terrrisss.

Ya.

It's all stupid -- much as WWI was -- and follows a course of events that cannot be controlled.

We should know that by now.

And even Caudillos and God-Emperors cannot make events conform to desires.

They say the cable news nets are wetting themselves with delight over WAR!!! frenzy. Not surprising. It is their stock in trade. They enjoy slaughter for its own sake, for the ratings boost, for the patriotism of it all.

But no.

This won't end well.

Any more than WWI did.

What a whirled.

1500

At least 1500 people have been killed by U.S. police since May 1, 2013. https://www.facebook.com/KilledByPolice  #KilledByPolice

I know it's an undercount, however, because two of the police killings that happened near enough to our place to cause shudders never made the "corporate news." How many others might there be? Who knows? Many. That's for certain.

How many wounded? Thousands, many thousands. Not counted yet. But they will be.

These are the casualty counts of a civil war, not pursuit of criminals. These are the casualty counts that come from summary executions and the brutality of stark terror, not crime suppression. These are the casualty counts of occupation, not policing. They violate every principle of dignity, justice, community and peace. These are casualty counts that constitute acts of war on the people.

I don't doubt that others will suitably separate and categorize the raw statistics, and the justifiers will come along and claim that the victims deserved to die the way they always do. The Otherness of the victims will be highlighted and the rest of us will be told to go about our business because we're the fortunate ones. We are served. We are protected by the forces of good and prosperity working tirelessly on our behalf to keep us from the Evil of the Other.

The New Model Imperial

[Apropos of nothing in particular, I'm reminded that my sister and her husband drove older Imperials in the Fifties and early Sixites; they had two of them as I recall, a 1951 and a 1954. To me, they were very stodgy cars, too proper by half. But my first car was a Packard convertible, followed by a Buick Roadmaster and which was followed by a Cadillac Sedan de Ville. So I should talk...]

We're living in an era in which the Imperial Idea is reasserting itself with a vengeance. I've often commented that the course of warfighting in the Great and Glorious (Neverending) War on (Some) Terror(ism) initiated following the attacks of 9/11/2001 has closely followed the British Empire's march, and the targets were, until recently, mostly the failed projects of the British -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, the Yemen, even Egypt. They may still be failed Imperial projects, but they have been ripped to pieces and strictly punished for their temerity. Let that be a lesson to them.

Recently, the Imperial Idea has expanded, though, to encompass theaters of operations outside the former British sphere, starting with Libya (which was an Italian colony at one time) and moving on to Syria (French)  both of which experienced a descent into civil war and chaos , the Syrian matter still unresolved, and now, interestingly, expanding into (the) Ukraine (Russian). There are other sites where the New Imperial Idea is being fostered (Venezuela, Thailand, Bosnia, among them) but for now (the) Ukraine is the hot spot. (Note: "The" Ukraine is a Soviet slur according to some; the proper name of the country is simply "Ukraine" with no preceding article...)

There was some hoo-hah the other day over Mark Ames' article at Pando Daily that exposed Pierre Omidyar's funding of the opposition in (the) Ukraine, and his daring to question the integrity of the First Look Media staff, especially regarding their ability to do "adversarial" journalism when their boss and the owner of First Look is an active "co-investor" with the US government and other NGOs in the overthrow of the Ukrainian government and the installation of a more compliant one.

Oh, the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments that ensued! Oh, the focus on personalities and not the issue! The Twitter Wars! The tits-for-tats!

Yes, well, that's how it goes with today's media. It's really is all about personality, hardly about issues at all.

In the midst of the all the angst and ennui over the Pando article, there appeared a blogpost that's having a bit of play because it dares to focus on the issues of New Model Imperialism, and how the various regime changes and overthrows under way, particularly the one in (the) Ukraine, fit into the New Model Imperial Idea, and how -- perhaps -- Ames wasn't even conscious of what he was doing when he wrote the article in question. (Note: I'll write another post dealing specifically with that one.)

According to the author, Patrick Higgins, Ames inadvertently showed just how the New Model Imperial Idea is organized and implemented through the collaborative activities of NGOs (they are legion and extremely well funded by the US government and private agencies), private funders like Pierre Omidyar through their foundations, pre-existing and newly created in-country opposition groups, together with American government agencies -- openly and prominently by the USAID, covertly the CIA and others unnamed and probably unknown. It's a formula for regime change that typically doesn't require military intervention. It may lead to civil war, but that's an internal matter (viz: Syria), not something that requires sending in Marines and occupation forces to enforce order and the rule of predation as in the dreadful cases of Iraq and Afghanistan. The situation in Ukraine is a bit dicier because it treads on Russia's historic interest in holding or at least controlling territories on its western and southern borders, and the overt attempt to detach Ukraine from the Russian sphere isn't going over well in the Kremlin. Not a bit.

Higgins gets into the fact that oligarchs like Pierre quite naturally play a prominent role in the New Model Imperial Idea, not (by any means) a marginal one. They are integral to the process of regime change that is such a feature of New Model Imperialism. It's actually hard to imagine the process of regime change without oligarchic participation. Especially so in the case of Ukraine.

RT ran a story the other day that touched on the role Oligarchs as a class play in the Ukrainian developments, focusing on the role Ukrainian Oligarchs are playing, not even mentioning Pierre. Understanding that RT is strongly funded and influenced by the Kremlin, if the story is true -- there's no reason to doubt it at this point -- then parts of the Imperial pageant we're seeing play out in (the) Ukraine is being undertaken by Ukraine's own Oligarchs who apparently are being installed or installing themselves as Eastern District rulers and warlords -- fascinating. They are playing roles that seem to be in line with Kiev's new rulers, who in turn pledge fealty to Frau Merkel and her bankers, but how is one to know? These men are billionaires. They will do what billionaires do. They will look out for themselves, not "their people" -- of which there are none. If it means the Ukrainians and Russians are pink misted, so be it.

The newly-appointed Dnepropetrovsk governor is Igor Kolomoysky, Ukraine’s third-wealthiest man, with an estimated fortune of $2.4 billion. He co-owns the informal commercial group Privat, which includes Ukraine’s largest bank Privatbank, which Kolomoysky heads, as well as assets in the oil, ferroalloys and food industries, agriculture and transport

A former ally of Yulia Tymoshenko, Kolomoysky reportedly had a falling out with her and refused to finance her election campaign in 2010, which the ex-prime minister subsequently lost to Yanukovich. Kolomoysky was reported to be a principal sponsor of the UDAR party, which is one of the three fueling the street campaign to oust Yanukovich. Kolomoysky has a dual Ukrainian-Israeli citizenship and controls his business empire from Switzerland.

The new governor of Donetsk Region is Sergey Taruta, who is estimated to worth around $2 billion, putting him among the top-10 wealthiest people in Ukraine. He heads ISD, one of the biggest mining and smelting companies in the world, and also own Donetsk-based Metallurg Football Club.

I've noticed that people refuse to accept news, even if it is perfectly factual, if it comes from the "wrong" source, and these days, RT (like Iran's Press TV) is considered by many on the "left" (so-called) as a "wrong" source. Unless the news reported above appears in the New York Times, say, many will simply dismiss it as propaganda.

Well, yesterday, the Times did report it. They couched the appointment of Oligarchs to rule the potentially restive East Ukraine as perfectly natural, of course, who wouldn't do this, but it's clearly recognized as something... odd if "natural" and provocative nonetheless.

Russia has its Oligarchs too, and so does the USA. Pierre Omidyar is one of them.

I still don't know much about him, largely because he has such a low public profile, and stories about him and his enterprises are fairly rare. His apologists at First Look and the Honolulu Civil Beat are fiercely defensive. And why shouldn't they be? He pays their freight. It's only natural to protect and defend one's patron.

The stories I have seen about Pierre, though, suggest that he is both busy and quite slippery, engaging in more than a few large projects, both philanthropic and for profit, in which his participation barely breaks the surface of consciousness. He says he likes to slip in under the radar and slip away again. Even those who profess to know him probably don't. One of the things that comes out in the article linked, however, is that even if the public knows little about Pierre Omidyar, he is quite well known in Power circles, indeed is a major player therein. How many people know that Pierre was living in Honolulu at the same time as Snowden? How many people know of the Omidyar Network's connections with Booz Allen, Snowden's last NSA-contractor employer? Then there is the whole PayPal 14 Thing which has so angered many in the online civil disobedience community, and which prompted Alexa O'Brien to declare of Greenwald, "He fucking lied."

As principal shareholder and chairman of eBay, Omidyar controls eBay’s child company, PayPal. PayPal has recently made headlines for prosecuting the so-called “PayPal 14,” the hacktivists who staged a virtual ‘sit in’ in protest of PayPal’s decision to cut off Wikileaks’ funding by organizing a Denial of Service attack on PayPal’s website. PayPal was co-founded by Max Levchin, a dedicated NSA supporter.

More worrying still, Sal Gambianco, one of the principal investment partners with the Omidyar Network, actually sits on the board of advisors of Globant, a software company in which both the Omidyar Network and Booz Allen Hamilton, Snowden’s former employer, are major shareholders. Philip Odeen, one of the Booz Allen Hamilton board members, also sits on the Board of Directors of Globant. The Omidyar Network and Booz Allen Hamilton are also both major investors in Innocentive.

Omidyar Network, BTW, is the funder of the Ukrainian opposition organization -- which is actually an umbrella organization for more than 50 Ukrainian opposition groups -- which Ames discovered in his research prompted, he said, by Marcy Wheeler's tweets which cogitated over whether the regime change in Kiev constituted a "coup."  (The obfuscatory denials from Wheeler, Greenwald and Culligan that they were discussing something else notwithstanding.)

Paging through the list of member organizations of "New Citizen" (aka "Centre UA") is really kind of creepy, as many of the opposition organizations that cluster under the umbrella of "New Citizen" are National Endowment for Democracy (NED) clients as well, and a surprising number of them are essentially media propaganda outfits.

I think I mentioned how slickly produced the video feeds from the Maidan were. This was no amateur on the fly footage, it was highly professional and designed to inspire/inflame. Well, among the 58 "New Citizen" member organizations are 7 or 8 public relations/media organizations, actually there are more, but they are masked under a number of different labels, but among the ones easily identified are a couple of media professional trade unions.

The umbrella can actually provide any sort of "technical assistance" the members need or want. That's its function. ON mentions that "New Citizen" is an umbrella for "over 50" orgs, but that seems to have escaped most other notice. Each of these member orgs has funding of its own, of course, and one of them ("Center UA") is also the master org for "New Citizen." "New Citizen" you see is a "project" of "Center UA") Oh what a tangled web...

The fact that the Omidyar Network funded the umbrella organization for so many other organizations has been dismissed as unimportant, "minor funding" given the $5 billion or so that Victoria Nuland-Kagan boasted of spending over the last two decades in Ukraine.

In other words, the "investment" of $335,000 in "New Citizen" over two years by the Omidyar Network is barely a drop in the bucket [UPDATE: Omidyar Network issued a communiqué today which "clarified" its "investments" in "Center UA" -- not mentioning "New Citizen". According to the brief communiqué, ON has "invested" a total of $1.105 millon in "Center UA", $335,000 in 2011 and $770,000 in 2013, made to "amplify the voices of Ukrainian citizens" and "promote open and accountable government." The communiqué is somewhat at odds with other documents however.] compared to the $5 billion, Nuland claims the US has "invested in the development of democratic institutions and other goals" since Ukrainian independence over two decades ago. That works out to about $20million a year, not by any means a small sum, but what-- exactly -- it's been spent on, and how much has been spent during any given budget cycle remains to be investigated.

We don't know. These are not things our rulers think we should know, either.

Omidyar is by no means the most generous funder of the Ukrainian opposition, the United States government is, directly and through its myriad NGOs, but Omidyar's funding should be more than a little interesting to in light of events. Greenwald and Wheeler claim it is not, however, as the political activities of Mr. Omidyar -- who pays them -- are of no interest to them, nor is his involvement in overthrowing dictators abroad in concert with the interests of the US Government of any particular moment. Just business, I guess.

Such willful blindness is itself interesting for what it says about dedication to "adversarial journalism and transparency."


Of course, we are supposed to "wait" before we pass any judgement on these things. 6 months, say. OK?

No, the course has been set, and the destination is clear. We are being led into another round of an old Imperial contest that always -- ALWAYS -- harms ordinary people, and at some point, we the Rabble have to say, NO MORE.

We are being propagandized and manipulated to believe that (suddenly) Russia has been transformed into the Soviet Union and Putin has become the reincarnation of Stalin (or Hitler, depending.) Lies and fabrications are everywhere, and the risks to the Ukrainian people from all sides is horrendous.

I doubt what Pierre Omidyar has to do with it is any greater than what the native Ukrainian oligarchs have to do with it -- though I don't doubt his assistance is welcome. The people of Ukraine, however, are the losers. How badly they will lose remains to be seen, but they can gain nothing.

We're On the Wrong Side Here -- Ukraine Goes To Hell in A Breadbasket

There are times when the situation abroad reaches such a fever one can no longer be a bystander observing events dispassionately.

The situation in (the) Ukraine appears to be deteriorating by the minute as the various players puff themselves up and double-dog dare their rivals to do anything about it. In the background lurk some truly monstrous figures, individuals who have been eager to engage in full on nuclear annihilation for decades and see their chance now, as forces build up on either side of the borders and troops casually show themselves in the Crimea.

War and rumors of war are in the air. Nobody knows what is actually going on in the corridors and parlors of Power, but the signs and portents on the ground are ominous.

And we, the United States of America (Inc.), are on the wrong side.

We have had our lot thrown in with the Ukrainian Nazis and Fascists, unbeknownst to most Americans -- simply because they are so submersed in propaganda -- but it was a calculatedly strategic move by the operators of this game console.

The Nazis and the Fascists may represent a modest number of Ukrainians (it's far more complicated politically and socially in Ukraine -- and Russia for that matter -- than merely black and white) but they were used as shock troops against the constituted government of Ukraine. And the shock of their actions had extraordinary -- and clearly hoped for -- repercussions.

The Yanukovych government was shocked by the attacks and sabotage of the Nazis and Fascists; the shock destabilized the government; the government reacted late and with extraordinary ineptitude; shortly, the government fell. All according to strategic plan. Yanukovych fled Kiev, no doubt at the urging -- or was it command? -- of his oligarchs and Vladimir of Russia, and that, as they say, was that.

Out with the old, in with the... well, wait a minute. Who? New? No. No, the ones installed to run the tattered remnants of the Ukrainian government were re-treads, set up to serve the interests of Angela Merkel and her bankers. Which they immediately set out to do, pledging fealty and submission within minutes of taking power.

Meanwhile, on the borders and in the Crimea, the Russian bear stood firm and proud, biding time, knowing, probably, that this coup -- for that's what it was -- had little public support and less likelihood of survival. Yanukovych may have been inept and incompetent -- never mind corrupt, they're all corrupt -- but this new crew of re-treads is laughable.

Our bloodthirsty neo-cons (the Nuland-Kagan team running the Soviet Desk at State among others) really, really want to get their war on. Provocation is the name of the game with these freaks, and they'll do what it takes to provoke a confrontation with the Russian bear. They've been itching for it, they want it, they need it.

They can rile up their Nazis and Fascists any time they want to -- money talks, you know. If things don't move fast enough toward confrontation and conflict, there is always the false flag and the black op to touch off the conflagration. They will stop at nothing. They are monsters.

Did Washington and the White House get played or were they players? Was Nuland-Kagan running her own shop on the Periphery? I don't know; at this point, it hardly matters. What matters is that the situation is insane, and it is because the Ukrainian Nazis and Fascists were adopted by the funders of the Ukrainian uprising -- funders which included Pierre Omidyar, let's not play games here -- and sent out as shock troops to destabilize, undermine and precipitate the overthrow of the constituted Ukrainian government, a task which they performed successfully. They will demand --they are demanding -- their payoff. And if that means the Apocalypse is nigh, so much the better in their view.

We are on the wrong side here, not that there is a right one any more.

Blind obedience and blind obliviousness, both lead to that handbasket we've heard so much about.

Will the main disputants stop before they fall off the cliff and take the rest of us with them? So far, it doesn't look like it.

Let us pray they come to their senses.

Episode 92 -- Jeremy Scahill Interviewed by Tilo Jung on the Topic of "Dirty Wars"

As some people might know, I've used the concept of "Dirty (Little) War" from back in the days of Vietnam -- one of the filthiest wars on record until the unfortunate business in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The "Dirty (Little) War" formulation, of course, comes from Rado and Ragni's seminal "Hair" of 1966 when the nastiness in Vietnam was still on the up-ratchet.



Allen Ginsberg reads "Wichita Vortex Sutra" accompanied by Phillip Glass:

Meanwhile At the Imperial Display

His Serenity Sprach

"The State of the Union is Strong."

Whew!

Killing the Warrior Mentality

The United States has been suffused with a warrior mentality for its entire history. It's long past time to kill it.

Yes, I'm using the rhetoric of violence in an effort to spur an end to the overarching violence of the warrior mentality that leads directly to the outrageous levels of gun-mayhem that are unique to this country in the developed world.

Kill the warrior mentality, bring the constant low-level civil war in this country to an end, and make acquisition of private arsenals difficult if not impossible. The level of gun violence in the United States will drop, slowly at first and then quickly enough to startle the many chatterers and observers who are convinced "we are a violent society" and "nothing can be done."

The key is to undo the centuries of conditioning that tells Americans that they are ALWAYS at war with one another and with some external enemy -- which in an earlier post I characterized as the fictional Bug Planet of Klendathu.

It's neither normal nor natural to believe that warriorism is a requirement for living. But for America, war-making is the constant ethic, baked in to every fiber of society.

Stop the wars. Stop the war thinking. Stop the warrior conditioning. Stop celebrating killing. Stop the killing.

Stop it NOW.

How We Got Out of the Depression and Why US Poverty Rates Are At Historic Highs And Are Likely To Stay There

World War II.



No, our friend Franklin Delano Roosevelt was no great Keynesian when it came down to brass tacks as they say. He was more of a Hooverite. And during the 1932 campaign, Roosevelt ran to Hoover's right on economic matters. "Balanced budgets" were just as much of a fetish then as they are now. This was typical Democratic dogma at the time, and it never really changed, despite the fact that the Rooseveltian approach to Hooverite economic ideology was more flexible, shall we say, than Hoover's was, and to put a finer twist on it, Roosevelt was somewhat more interested in calming and managing the masses (using the hope of reward "one day" -- ie: Futurism) than was Hoover, whose sole economic interest was taking care of the upper-uppers.

World War II changed everything in ways that could neither be anticipated nor initially controlled.

The first noticeable big change was that it put everybody to work -- either in the military or in civilian employment supporting the military. Hiring began in 1940, before the United States entered the conflict, and the pace of hiring and drafting Americans increased through the end of 1945.

The second big change was that though pretty much every American who could work and wanted to was put to work during WWII and was paid for their work at a reasonable though hardly lavish standard, there was little for them to buy with their earnings, and necessities were rigidly price controlled.

In other words, though everyone was working, employment didn't at the time translate into a civilian consumer economy because there were so few consumer products available. Most of what was being spent was being spent by the government in pursuit of victory in war, thus most production was being promptly destroyed and replaced in warfare. For civilians and military alike, this was a situation that enforced savings. Troops and civilian workers were encouraged to buy War Bonds and hold them for the duration which they did. This meant that at the end of the war, many Americans had much more money in their pockets than they ever imagined and could not have possibly earned during the Depression.

A consumer economy was born out of these savings, particularly a post-war housing boom and an automobile boom, both of which essentially continued with only mild and occasional set backs until recently.

The War provided the twin factors of full employment and enforced savings that pulled the United States out of Depression. The unfortunate lesson learned from this experience by Our High and Our Mighty was that the way to prevent Depression in the future was to engage in perpetual war -- even if it was only Cold War.

The point of engaging in universal service and perpetual warfare, however, started getting lost during the 1970's in the aftermath of the Vietnam debacle.

Soon enough, the entire premise of the Cold War era would evaporate along with Our Bounden Enemy, the Soviet Empire. There are many reasons the Soviet Union collapsed; Ronald Reagan's "Brilliant Strategy" was probably the least important of a multiplicity of internal factors that were essentially built in to the Soviet system. In the Soviet collapse, Americans unknowingly got a preview of the coming collapse/transformation of their own rotting economic and political system.

The principal error after WWII was the rather dumb assumption that "war prevents economic depression." That's what experience showed to The Powers That Be, and so perpetual war was established as policy after WWII, carried out on the open battle field in Korea and Vietnam among other places. But the Cold War with the Soviets -- and to a much lesser degree with the Chinese and the Cubans -- was the endeavor that was meant to keep the wolves from the door.

One wonders what would have happened if the lesson learned had focused entirely on the civilian aspects of full employment and enforced savings instead of being diverted into perpetual warfare?

For we are now living with the consequences of that diversion, the apparent "victory" over the Soviets notwithstanding.

Having "won" the Cold War, the US had to have another Existential Enemy to fight in perpetuity, or there apparently would be no point in going on... Depression would return...

The Existential Enemy was found, of course, in the nefarious terrorist threat that stalks the land, but even with throwing in a few Imperial Wars of Aggression, Fighting the Terrorists doesn't provide nearly the economic boost that WWII and the Cold War did. These current wars are more of an economic drag instead.

They are a drag on the economy because they don't lead to full employment and they don't enforce savings.

It appears that Our Leaders have never learned that full employment and enforced savings are what pulls us out of economic depressions, and they are the major factors in preventing them, not warfar for its own sake.

Instead, they are practicing just the opposite -- conducting overseas wars and expanding the US National Security State with the least employment levels possible while preserving a consumer economy through ever higher levels of household debt -- or its contrast, forcing ever more millions of Americans into bankruptcy and poverty.

Not only is the United States back in Depression, we are in an economic Depression that there may be no rational/peaceful way out of if it goes on much longer.

This is a Depression that is enriching a handful of hyper-billionaires in ways most of us never dream possible primarily through gambling and financial hocus pocus in a rigged house, a casino that's rigged against the People. Even when they lose the bet, the hyper-rich get paid off by the rest of us.

It's the most amazing thing.

The more impoverished the rest of us become, the richer the handful at the top grow.

Unemployment rates remain at historic levels; poverty rates are growing to post-WWII highs. This is not due to some accident of the market, it's due to policy. As of late last year, half of Americans were classified as very poor or near poor, and more were being pushed into their ranks day by day as unemployment and the reduction of wages and benefits, with no concomitant reduction in cost of living, take their toll.

Meanwhile, public services and the public infrastructure deteriorate at an alarming rate.

Not only are the People falling into poverty, so is the public sector in general. The fall out from this Endless Recession and the contraction forced onto local and state governments will have a lasting effect, even if, eventually, someone who can do something about it gets the bright idea that it doesn't have to be this way, and the course can be reversed in a twinkling.

The longer we wait for that reversal, however, the harder it will be, and the more dangerous it might become for children and other living things.

There is the potential to make lemonade out of these lemons, however.

By adopting principles of voluntary poverty, for example, and by decoupling from the consumer economy that is still sputtering along, Americans have the opportunity to explore and reclaim the Better Future on their own terms rather than on terms set by Masters of the Universe and by a system of exploitation and destruction.


[To Be Continued...]

On War's Utility

It's long been an article of faith among America's Rightists and Reactionaries that FDR's New Deal policies didn't get us out of the Great Depression, it was World War II that did it. The corollary is that War is necessary to maintain Americans in the prosperity to which we were once accustomed.

While the Rightist/Reactionary catechism on these matters has an element of truth, it is far too simplistic to serve as a policy formulation; nevertheless it does.

War -- or its semblance and especially the preparation for it -- is seen by our policy-makers as a necessity for prosperity. This was a profound lesson learned from the experience of the Great Depression, World War II, and its subsequent continuation by other means throughout the Cold War.

The New Deal was not for nothing, despite the R/R mythology about it; whether it prolonged the Depression or not is utterly beside the point. But the New Deal did not end the Depression. It could not do so; it was too small, too narrowly focused, and too beset by opposition from the get-go.

What the New Deal did was ameliorate the dire economic conditions of enough people for long enough to prevent a coup or a revolution. It was initially a stop-gap that stabilized the political situation enough to "save capitalism" and it provided the outline of an economic stabilization program through Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and public works.

Make no mistake. These were very modest efforts, and they did not "end the Depression." They made it bearable for a sufficient number of people to keep the lid on discontent, and they provided "hope" for the rest that otherwise would have been absent.

The preparations for World War II and then the War itself are what transformed the situation, transcended political animosities, and got us out of the Depression in very spectacular fashion.

It's a lesson our policy-makers have neither learned nor forgotten. Permanent War became the centerpiece of American prosperity and policy following WWII, but it appears that the lesson of what happened and why it worked -- and why the New Deal didn't -- during and after WWII has never quite been understood by those same policy-makers who can't quite figure out why the various wars and dominance principles and practices of recent times not only didn't prevent economic catastrophe, they've arguably made it worse.

How could that have happened? And why hasn't any economic or war policy adopted in recent times made things better for more than a tiny handful of the super-rich?

If you go back to the New Deal, you should be able to see why the current policies are such stunning failures: The New Deal provided extremely modest levels of government funded temporary relief for some out of work individuals and households, instituted temporary programs of public works that employed some of those who were out of work and paid them very modest wages for their efforts, and it instituted long term programs like Social Security and Unemployment Insurance that were paid for through taxes on workers and their employers.

Wages and prices were stabilized -- to keep them from falling even further -- and unions were, for the first time, empowered and protected by government to bargain on behalf of workers for better wages, benefits, and working conditions; this was paid for in a sense by continuing high unemployment, however, which had the effect at the time of cancelling out any overall benefit to workers.

Banks were barred from engaging in the kinds of speculation, gambling, and chicanery that had been the precipitating cause of the financial collapse. Depositors' funds were guaranteed up to a certain relatively modest ceiling by the government.

These policies and programs stabilized the country economically and politically, and by instituting New Deal stabilization programs, FDR "saved capitalism" from itself. These programs and policies didn't necessarily prolong the Depression, but they did not reverse it, either. They were far too modest to do that. Even at the time, it was widely recognized that though the New Deal helped overcome the worst of the Depression, it was far too modest, underfunded, and in some cases, wrong-headed.

Something much more massive was necessary.

In Europe, the Fascists and the Nazis led the way with "something much more massive." In Asia, Japan was leading the way. Initially, that was not their later wars of aggression.

And then there was the Soviet Union, which stood apart from all the nonsense economic "solutions" in the West and East and went its own way.

The key which the Soviets, Fascists, Nazis, and Japanese Imperialists discovered was that full employment and economic security were the fundamental necessities for economic revival. Together with full employment, economic progress required enforced savings, by suppressing consumerism to an essentially subsistence level or by other means including confiscation of financial surpluses. These savings were then invested in research and development and expansion of manufacturing capability, infrastructure, and other general necessities.

Unfortunately, that included preparations for -- and then precipitation of -- wars of aggression, starting with the Japanese in Manchuria and China. The Japanese expansion into China was simple enough to understand: they wanted access to and control of markets, resources, and eventually slaves to maintain their expansionist economy.

It worked very well initially; why not continue, then, indefinitely?

In Europe, expansionist economic policies were combined with ethnic determinist policies to enable Germany to absorb Austria and Czechoslovakia, Italy to expand its interests and colonies in Africa, and so on.

The Soviet Union was isolated, but was doing astonishing things with very little financial wherewithal to create an entirely new social/political and economic system out of what was at hand.



The United States and most of the rest of the English-speaking world was way behind in comparison, limping along at best. All that changed, though, when the United States began serious preparations for war in 1938; unemployment began dropping, and by 1941, it was for the first time since 1930 under 10%. Of course, beginning in 1942, practically everyone who could work was employed either in the war effort or in civilian support capacities.

While many more people were collecting (still relatively modest) paychecks during the War, there was very little beyond bare necessities to buy, so workers bought War Bonds and Stamps, effectively saving a relatively large portion of their earnings. These savings were then invested in research and development, war materiel, and so on. Nukes! Yay! Jet planes! Yay! Television! Yay! Radar! Yay! On and on.

At the end of the War, many people had a surprising amount of money in savings, and there was so much pent up demand -- for many Americans, fifteen years of denial -- that the economy went on a growth binge that just went on and on and on. It wasn't at all like prior boom and bust economies; the post war American economy was very stable, growing incrementally, predictably, and this growth was paralleled by unprecedented social progress.

While the accumulated savings of Americans was the chief impetus to the economic growth after WWII, the United States remained on a war footing after V-J Day, having transferred the designation of "enemy" from the Axis powers to the Communists. "Minor Wars" -- in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and so on -- were constant. The draft continued. The military-industrial complex prospered -- and it was considered at the time both a danger and a benefit that it did so. The danger was that it could consume us all, but the benefit was that its secure prosperity was a stabilizing influence on the whole economy.

Post WWII, the policy was to maintain as close to full employment as possible because it was understood to be the most stabilizing social and political force, and full employment was key to economic growth. "Small wars" were engaged in continuously in order to counter the "Soviet threat" -- and to keep the forces limber and employed.

War's utility was largely a matter of domestic political stabilization and economic growth -- and international competition with Our Rivals in Russia.

The mobilization against the Vietnam War really did shock the older generation; they could not understand why my generation was so opposed to it, when to the older generation, the War ethic and economy are what saved them. It was not only how the nation had survived, WWII was for most Americans who lived through it, the most profoundly and deeply emotionally fulfilling thing they'd ever known.

Korea and the "small wars" of the 1950's were a continuation of that fulfillment, and when they got bigger in Indochina in the 1960's War was still seen as a blessing.

Opposition was deeply disturbing to that mindset.

With the end of the Vietnam War, the American War Economy shuddered and eventually collapsed.

The efforts to revive it after 9/11 have failed in part because the War Economy now only involves a very small segment of the population; there isn't even a hint at attempting to achieve full employment -- in fact, the ongoing economic policy is to maintain high unemployment levels indefinitely -- and for all intents and purposes, tens of millions of Americans have simply been made irrelevant and redundant. The War Economy now is meant only for the profit of the few, the government's owners and sponsors.

War still has a utility but not for the masses, who are more and more being left to fend for themselves, as even the inadequate New Deal programs and policies are successively dismantled.

You would think Our Betters would know better. But they don't.

Envisioning That Better Future -- Six: The End of Wars of Aggression

Apart from the fact that the notion that the United States does not engage in wars of aggression has always been a lie, the ease with which the US Government has become captivated by the current round of aggressive warfare since 2001 -- more than a decade now -- is truly shocking.

Wars of aggression have been refined to the point of nearly pinpoint liquidation of individuals at will (sorry about the continuing collateral damage, but we're working on it! Really!) -- by remote control, no less, operated by pimply faced boys and girls at video game terminals at Groom Lake, NV, for cripes sake -- but still, the notion that American Military Might can or should be "projected" willy-nilly, wherever and whenever Our Rulers and their owners and sponsors so determine without let or hindrance by even a whiff of International Law or Treaty or any barrier at all is still shocking to the conscience of anyone who still has a conscience after all these years of lies and propaganda about what is going on.

At first, it was obvious that the wars of choice and aggression that were being undertaken by Our Rulers, ostensibly in pursuit of so-called "enemy combatants" and rogue Terror States or what have you were actually no different than the Imperial Wars of Aggression practiced routinely during the colonial period of Western history when those who were weaker in the face of the aggressor colonialists were simply bulldozed into oblivion by the war machines assembled against them, their nations were demolished, and their things were stolen -- their wives and daughters right along with their cattle.

This was called "Spreading Civilization" back in the day, and propaganda mills churned out endless justifications for it, especially when the United States engaged in overseas empire building. Our Little Brown Brothers didn't stand a chance.

The war to subdue the Philippines that started in 1898 went on for more than a decade, with enormous slaughter of the Natives and destruction of much of the country's enduring social and political fabric, all to preserve a lie: that the United States was not building an Empire. The Natives deserved what they got for resisting the imposition of authority by their Betters.

The horror of what went on in the Philippines to establish the American Imperial presence shocked the consciences of many Americans at the time -- leading to many excuses from the Government, much "soul searching," periodic "investigations" and reports to Congress, and the simultaneous consolidation of American authority over the islands, its resources and its peoples. It was one of the most brutal colonial conquests of a very brutal colonial era, but "good works" (schools and hospitals!) were offered to the surviving Natives as modest compensation for what they had lost.

And of course there was a handy class of already "civilized" Natives (thanks to the Spanish former colonial masters) who were just as happy to transfer their loyalty from Spain to the US as long there was a benefit in doing so. In those days, American policy was to make sure there would be a benefit to being... loyal subjects.

But Independence could not be denied forever; the Japanese attack and invasion of 1941-42 put the lie to American invincibility in the Pacific even if Japan was ultimately defeated. An independent Philippines was one of the more immediate consequences of WWII in the Pacific, but of course there would always be strings attached... American military bases, for example, and American sponsored dictatorships running things from Manila on behalf of American interests.

That lasted as long as it could, but not forever. It can't last forever because the whole construct is based on a lie: The US doesn't seek Empire (it does); the US does not seek to rule overseas (it does; latterly through proxies); the US is beneficent and benign believing only in democracy and human rights(in your dreams!)

Even as they shook free of American Imperialism, the peoples of the Philippines found themselves more heavily indebted to American interests. It's not at all clear that even now they have achieved the level of independence the initial rebellion of 1898 sought.

And the Philippines was only one of America's numerous colonial/imperial expansions during the late 19th - early 20th Centuries. There were plenty of others, but the Imperial cause was temporarily derailed by the repeated World Wars, the economic Depressions, and the advent of the Soviet Union as chief rival of the United States on the world stage.

Nevertheless, the United States has been organized as a domestic Imperial State since the adoption of the Constitution. Once that domestic continental empire was consolidated through negotiations, subterfuge, strategy and many, many wars of aggression -- and of course a Civil War -- sights were set overseas almost immediately; Hawaii being the first victim. Taking over the remnants of the Spanish Empire was in some was a brilliant maneuver. In other ways, it was a moral catastrophe.

All of this had been worked out during the period of domestic expansion and expropriation. The ways and means to Empire through wars of aggression against a weaker opposition were integral to the American character.

But after World War II, the notion of any nation having the right to pursue wars of aggression for colonial or any other purpose was discredited and indeed made illegal under international law. Nazis were tried and hanged for such things.

The wars that the United States engaged in after the end of WWII -- principally in Korea and Vietnam -- were justified under the rubric of "defense" of allies who had been attacked by "aggressive" neighbors. But of course, this was fiction, too, as the "neighbors" were created by the very external forces that then engaged in the wars. It was a sophisticated means of continuing wars of aggression, and it failed dismally in the swamps of the Mekong Delta among other places.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, however, seems to have released the hounds of aggressive war once again. This time around, it seems that the United States and its allies are intent on going back to those parts of the former British Empire where the Lessons of Liberty didn't quite "take" -- Iraq, obviously, and Afghanistan; but a good deal of Eastern Africa and parts of the Persian Gulf and Middle East as well. Most of the places now under the aggressive gaze of American forces are ones that failed to become integrated under the British Imperial umbrella back in the day, and it seems that the main point of the current round of aggressive wars against them is to whip them into shape for proper rule and exploitation under some Native version of Anglo-American "law."

That it is being done on the same basis as colonial wars and imperial expansions of the past is grotesque; that's exactly what led to the world wars and other catastrophes of the 20th Century. Is this not understood?

Apparently not. And why not?

Apparently, Our Ruling Classes cannot see their own failures except through the prism of an arch-rival, such as the Soviet Union was back in the day, that held a constant critical mirror up to the failures of the West and pointed out what frauds the Western "democracies" were.

The collapse of the Soviet Union took that mirror away, and despite the efforts of the current rulers of the Russian Federation to hold their cracked and de-silvered mirror up to highlight the hypocrisy of the West, there is no real global rival to Anglo-American Imperial hegemony these days. Nations like China and India, that should be more than a little interested in using a cudgel against Anglo-American Imperial adventurism and their consequent wars of aggression are far more interested in their own domestic development (which is in hyperdrive at the moment) than they are in curbing Anglo-American excesses overseas.

In fact, I suspect they approve of much of the aggressive warfare against uppity Natives that the Anglo-American alliance has been engaged in, for in the case of China (to some extent, India as well) they are financing it. If they see a danger to their own interests from the aggression of the Neo-Imperialists, they aren't showing it.

Yet it is vital for the United States to pull out of its current aggressive international posture, just as it is vital for Britain to do the same. There is no sign whatever of its happening, no matter the calls from the People and wide swaths of the intellectual communities to do so.

The Ruling Class neither listens to nor cares what the People "think." They only care about what the People DO; and so far, they have seen nothing that they feel they need fear from the People anywhere.

Certainly nothing -- yet -- equivalent to the Global Communist Conspiracy they once trembled before and made some positive accommodations to.

Yet there is nevertheless a global rising against the unfettered continuation of Neo-Imperialism, against the arbitrary imposition of authority, against the indignities and exploitation that are inevitable in the dictatorships propped up by the Neo-Imperialists, and against Neo-Imperialist indignity and exploitation as well.

People everywhere are saying "No!" -- but they haven't figured out yet how to stop it.

That is going to take a good deal more thought, struggle, experiment and failure to discover, but it will be discovered. For Peoples everywhere know that the Better Future they seek can only come once the new round of imperial wars of aggression are ended.

McClatchy's War Reporting Falters

Jonathan Landay, Nancy Youssef, and Warren Strobel, McClatchy's crack War Correspondent team in better days

McClatchy/Knight-Ridder has had an outstanding and deserved reputation for accurate and insightful war reporting since the days when they were essentially the only mainstream news outfit questioning the propaganda leading up to the Iraq invasion.

Jonathan Landay, Warren Strobel (now with Reuters), and Nancy Youssef have been far and away some of the finest reporters on the War Beat for years.

So imagine my surprise to read this morning's McClatchy story on the Chinook Down in Afghanistan. It was riddled with war propaganda from beginning to end, and it clearly obscured the real story behind veils of nonsense and deceit. What has happened to McClatchy?

It should be noted up front, however, that the quick, indeed almost immediate, acknowledgement that the Chinook was shot down by the rebels is almost unprecedented in our Imperial March through the Hindu Kush. For years, helicopter losses in the Battles and Occupations were never acknowledged to be due to the actions of the Jibbering Natives, it was always due to "mechanical failure," "dust," or "undetermined." So the public has no idea at all how many "Coalition" helicopters have been shot down during the various Imperial Wars of Aggression, nor, until this incident, that Our Valiant Forces could be shot from the air by the Primitives.

As for the McClatchy story by Jonathan Landay and Nancy Youssef about it today it opens promisingly:

KABUL, Afghanistan — Two Pentagon officials told McClatchy on Monday that an investigation into the helicopter crash that killed 30 American troops would probe whether it's a mistake to send the large, lumbering Chinook helicopter into a Taliban firefight, where it's a target for insurgents.

Indeed. Mistakes were made, and sending a troop-filled Chinook to an ongoing firefight in Afghanistan may have been one of them.

As the remains of the 30 troops killed in the military's deadliest incident of the Afghan war were being flown back to the United States, U.S. commanders confirmed that the servicemen were flying to the aid of American troops embroiled in a firefight when an insurgent shot down their helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.

Good heavens! How can that be? A single Jibbering Native, armed with sticks and poo, was able to bring down a giant helicopter filled with America's Finest, a military working dog, and several Native Auxiliaries (except the dog and the Auxiliaries aren't mentioned...) how can that be???

The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan offered the first detailed account of the tragedy since the pre-dawn crash in the Tangi Valley, a Taliban-infested area of Wardak province, about 60 miles southwest of Kabul, the capital.

Here we go, getting into the propaganda now. Note the highlighted text:

"tragedy"


• Depends on your point of view, doesn't it? Certainly the Afghan rebels don't consider it a tragedy, nor in fact, would very many American anti-war activists really consider the loss of Americans a tragedy under the circumstances.
  
  "Taliban infested"
  
  
• Oh, really. The Taliban, in the context of Afghanistan, are an "infestation?" How does that work, since they are Native rebels against the Empire, not all that different from the Afghan rebels against the Soviets, remember them?

"The helicopter was reportedly fired on by an insurgent rocket-propelled grenade while transporting the U.S. service members and commandos to the scene of an ongoing engagement," said a statement released by the International Security Assistance Force.

Actually, it's surprising they would say such a thing so soon after the helicopter was downed. In the past, the "coalition" has tended to lie and fabricate and dissemble whenever any incident occurs.

The Pentagon announced that the return of the servicemen's remains, in flag-draped coffins, to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware possibly as early as Tuesday won't be open to the news media, although family members will be allowed to attend. The ceremony will be closed to the public because there were "no identifiable remains," said Marine Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman. As of Monday night, military officials hadn't publicly released the names of the dead, although family members had confirmed many of the names to reporters.

"No identifiable remains" -- yet the remains are being returned in flag-draped coffins to Dover? How, exactly, does that work? Sounds like pure emotional propaganda to me, meaningless and yet filled with the "tragedy" of it all. Warriors' "remains" returned to the Homeland, though "no identifiable remains" remain... In other words, what is being returned?

Separately, two Defense Department officials told McClatchy that a military investigation into the crash would ask whether dropping a Chinook into the middle of a battle is too dangerous now. Before the incident, the Taliban rarely had shot down a Chinook, bolstering commanders' confidence that the military could use the aircraft, which can carry more people than the Black Hawk helicopter, under such circumstances.

Hold on. "Too dangerous now?" Because they shot one down, or because THIS one was shot down? Or... is it something else? A great deal of backstory is being left out. The Jibbering Natives "rarely shot down a Chinook." So the commanders had all-important "confidence" that sending a Chinook load of troops into battle was "safe?" What is it, exactly, they are trying -- and failing -- to say out loud? It was "safe" beforetime, but it isn't now? If not, why not? And where are these Jibbering Natives getting their rocket propelled grenades (which were so devastating against the Soviets back in the day? But we knew where they came from then: the USofA.)

But just two weeks earlier, on July 25, the Taliban used a rocket-propelled grenade to shoot down a Chinook in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province, injuring two U.S. service members. That Chinook was struck in the bottom and was forced to make a hard landing, defense officials said.

They did, did they? This is yet another admission of the effectiveness of the Natives against Our Valiant Troops, or at least their transport. Or is it?

On Saturday, officials said, the grenade struck the middle of the helicopter, essentially splitting it in midair, killing everyone on board.

The "officials" are even saying how it was done, when in times gone by, they wouldn't even admit that it was done at all. Whoa.

Area residents told McClatchy by phone that the ground forces and the Taliban were in the midst of a firefight less than a mile from the crash site.

Wait a minute. This is supposed to be a remote, "Taliban-infested" valley, the way they all are in Afghanistan, where a firefight was going on just a few days before, and yet the McClatchy reporters are able to establish telephone (cell-phone? iPad?) communication with the Natives to get their side of the story? Mmm. Interesting. Technology progresses no matter what.

President Barack Obama said that the incident, while tragic, wouldn't deter American forces from the fight in Afghanistan, now in its 10th year. U.S. forces have begun to withdraw 33,000 "surge" troops from the country, a drawdown that's expected to be completed in September 2012.

"We will press on and we will succeed," Obama said. "Our troops will continue the hard work of transitioning to a stronger Afghan government and ensuring that Afghanistan is not a safe haven for terrorists."

Very Churchillian, yes? Catapult that Propaganda!

Gen. John Allen, the commander of the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan, said: "We will continue to relentlessly pressure the enemy and we will continue to develop the Afghan National Security Forces so that on their strong, broad shoulders they can defeat this insurgency and bring lasting and enduring peace to this historic land and this great people."

Hell, it's War of the Worlds. Existential Propaganda! Oh, but, they, the Afghan Natives, will have to shoulder the burden manfully. No more will Our Valiant Ones expose themselves to Un-Safety like this. No more. Let the Natives do it. Well. Now that's potentially news.

According to the coalition statement, Saturday's incident began when U.S. ground troops became engulfed in a battle with Taliban forces armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and AK-47s. The troops were flying to the aid of other U.S. service members who'd gone into the Tangi Valley in search of an unidentified Taliban leader who oversaw "insurgent operations" in the remote area, the ISAF statement said.

"Engulfed?" Oh, fergawdsake. According to reports, there are no more than a few tens of al Qaeda, and perhaps a few hundred Taliban in all of Afghanistan. How is it possible for Our Valiant Ones to be "engulfed" by such a paltry -- and primitive -- force of malcontents and Anti-Afghan Elements? There aren't enough of them in the whole country to "engulf" anyone. Oh, but such loaded language does help to enhance the heroism of Our Valiant Ones, so there is that.

"After commencing the search, the initial security force on the ground observed several insurgents, armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and AK-47 assault rifles, moving through the area," the statement said. "The security force and the insurgents exchanged small arms fire, resulting in several enemies killed."

Well good. It's always important that The Enemy take substantial losses in any engagement with Our Valiant Ones. But why is McClatchy repeating this obvious propaganda release without comment? Ordinarily, they would simply refer to it, not quote it extensively. "The Coalition headquarters said that thus and so was going on, but the facts cannot be independently confirmed in detail at this time." Instead, they just present the PIO's statement uncritically. Odd for McClatchy.

The soldiers asked for backup, and 33 people — Navy SEALs, airmen and Afghan special forces — climbed into a Chinook and headed to battle, led by five crewmen.

This account differs from previous ones, and it significantly confuses matters. "33 People... climbed into... ." Uh. "Led by five crewmen." Uh. So that's 38, right? But previously, we were told there were 31 Americans and 7 Afghans, one of whom was an interpreter. And a dog. Who were killed. Still 38, but the dog isn't mentioned, and the crew is no longer "people?" Well... minor points. And now it is Narrative, not direct quotes from the PIO's press release. Hmm. Interesting.

When a Chinook lands, it descends slowly to the ground, and on Saturday it did so into a remote area where there was no surrounding base to offer protection. Even under the best of circumstances, military officials say, the landing is most vulnerable part of the flight. In Afghanistan, amid fierce fighting, it's the best chance the Taliban have of killing dozens of troops at one time.

More Narrative, though obviously based on PIO statements and press releases, "explaining" how apparently vulnerable these giant helicopters are in such fierce circumstances. Who knew? No one could have predicted.

Those killed aboard the twin-rotor CH-47 Chinook included "five aircrew and 25 personnel from the U.S. Special Operations Command," said the statement, which withheld the identities of the victims and their units.

Back to quoting the Statement, which is the basis for the Narrative, too. And yet the Unit (Navy Seals, same unit that double-tapped Osama, they tell us) has been named in other reports, why not this one?

Many of the dead reportedly were from the same Navy SEAL contingent from which was drawn the unit that killed Osama bin Laden in the al Qaida leader's hideout in Pakistan in May.

But there is no Official Confirmation. It's just "known." Um-kay. That does make it dramatic, yes? Which helps catapult the propaganda. Oh yes.

Also killed were an Afghan interpreter and seven Afghan commandos.

Yes, well. Them. Poor devils. WHAT ABOUT THE DOG?

After the crash, the unit on the ground "broke contact" with the insurgents, moved to the crash site, secured it and searched for survivors, the ISAF said.

More press release. No reporting. Just parrotting. Sigh. If there were no identifiable remains, there were self-evidently no survivors. If the machine broke in two and crashed (as reported previously) the crash site was likely extensive, eh? Or... not. Depending on how close the craft was to the ground when it was shot down.

Wait. What really happened here?

The investigation to determine the "exact cause" of the crash was ongoing, the statement said. It was the deadliest incident the U.S. military had suffered in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/08/08/119952/pentagon-to-reconsider-landing.html#storylink=omni_popular#ixzz1UYCIQCDD

As I said, what really happened here, and will we ever know?

Is the shoot-down by Jibbering Natives actually a cover story for something else, even worse? [Note: I shouldn't leave it dangling like that. What I mean by "something worse" is Friendly Fire.]

It is really surprising that McClatchy would allow themselves to falter so significantly on this story and that the reporters would simply parrot the official statement rather than being proactive in trying to find out what actually happened and reporting their progress (or lack thereof) in doing so.

This report seems to have been ordered up by Corporate, and the reporters complied, perhaps unwillingly.

We won't know any time soon. Meanwhile, anyone who is following McClatchy's ongoing financial struggles (and profit squeezing) knows that the days of this formerly top-notch journalistic outfit are numbered.

Plus ça change

The Big Scary Boogey Man Monster is said to be dead, taken out, they say in an "operation" in Islamabad Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he was apparently known by the US to be resident of a mansion/compound on the outskirts in the middle of town at least since last August -- if not quite a bit longer. His Serenity, the President, ordered his liquidation yesterday. Or was it the day before?


[Click image to embiggen]

[UPDATE: The military has released aerial pictures of the bin Laden Compound in Abbottabad, and they are nothing like any of the locations pinpointed on the Google Map of the area linked above. Hm. The site in the picture from Google Maps that I posted is one of several sites identified as "bin Laden's compound" on the map, and I decided to use it because it was so close to the Army College which has been referenced repeatedly in the "News" as being within 1000 feet of the Compound. That is not the Compound in the military's release. Well. How about that. Something to keep in mind, however, is that the military does not tell the truth. They lie.]

[SOME FURTHER NOTES ON "THE COMPOUND": Well, turns out the Osama Compound in Abbottabad where he was captured and/or killed, is this one:

[Clicking the picture will embiggen it]

...which as you can see is in quite a rural area of the Abbottabad district called "Bilal Town." What you can't see in this crop is that it is some distance from one of what I assume are several unmarked military installations in the Abbottabad area, but they do not appear to be the "Pakistani West Point."

No doubt you could walk from this site to the Army Burnall College, which is seen in the satellite crop I initially used, but it would be a goodly hike, several kilometers.

Since the Narrative has been ever-changing, the actual location of the Osama Hideout vis a vis other landmarks is not all that important. It's simply a data point for future reference and consideration.]



And there was dancing. Dancing in the streets of New York and DC now.



Well. Yes. I suppose.

Is bloodlust sated now? Can the Nation's military machine stop killing Arabs and other Muslims for a while? Or does this mean we "must move on" to the next target, the Persian Horde under the Devil Ahmadinejad?

Plus ça change, n'est-ce pas?

Once on a killing jag, they say, it's hard to get off, and what with the unfolding events in North Africa, there are plenty of signs that the Slaughter of the Infidel is far from done.

I'm reminded for some reason of the extraordinary Warrior Scenes found emblazoned on many of the grave goods in Tutankhamen's Tomb, these Warrior Scenes of the Boy Pharaoh at Slaughter, doing in Egypt's Traditional Enemies with the arrow, sword and lance, tying the pitiful survivors into slave coffles and hauling them off to perpetual servitude.



Over and over and over again.

Every Pharaoh had his Battle Scenes, every Pharaoh smote his Traditional Enemies, the Enemies of the Two Lands, the Enemies of Mankind. It's what they did, it's who they were, whether or not there was any protective need or reason to Smite the Foe, or even if they actually ever smote them, the Pharaohs of yore were always depicted doing so.

So. The liquidation of bin Laden, if it is real -- or even if it is not -- will not necessarily have any effect on the perpetual smiting of Enemies, real or not. "Protection" from our enemies, whoever they are, wherever they might be, has become the primary public role of the Presidency, a Presidency that has morphed into an Imperial Autocracy right before our very eyes.

Without Enemies and their perpetual extermination, what's the point of... well, anything?

Plus ça change...

"Uncertainty" -- and The Libya Thing

What's going on in Libya is one of those Grand Mysteries of Empire that defy logic. The situation there was never apparently dire. It was just "uncertain."

And for some time now, Our Rulers have been obsessed with the notion that somehow "Uncertainty" is crimping their style and their pocketbooks, and the whole -- and only -- point of Government is to provide them (Our Rulers) with "Certainty" so that they may be comfortable in their own skins and reliably profitable as they scam the rest of humanity.

Simple.

So when things began to go south in Libya, the "Uncertainty" Principle was invoked, louder and louder, to justify military intervention. Well. Intervention. It was not entirely clear that those who were calling loudest for Intervention were aware that the kind of intervention they were calling for was actually a military intervention. It is not clear that these people understand even the most basic aspects of civilization, to tell you the truth.

Which gets us into another question of whether the Ruling Class is actually composed of ignorant and savage Barbarians. But that question will have to wait for another time.

Meanwhile, the Uncertainty in Libya filled the Rulers with dread. What if the Wrong People got hold of the Oil? You see? You see how awful it is? When rebellions erupt in Oil Rich regions, it becomes imperative to ensure that only the Right People have their grubby hands on the Oil Spigots. In Libya, the problem was that nobody knew who ultimately would have their hands on the Spigots, when and if they were turned on again, and that was intolerable.

Either the Madman Gadaffi would restore his authority and cooperation with his Oil Buddies, or the Unknown Rebels would win, with who knew what results?

Ergo, Intervention was imperative.

All the yabbering about "humanitarian" concerns is so much jejune palaver meant to mask the true nature of the mission: not to seize the Oil outright -- that's never necessary -- but only to ensure that it goes to market with as little hassle and interference as can be and that the profits from the sale of the Oil go to the Right People, not the wrong ones.

Under the circumstances, there are no "humanitarian" concerns at all.

The United States of America does not do "humanitarian interventions" in any case; we should be quite aware of that by now. The United States only does Interventions that enhance the pecuniary interests of the Government's sponsors. Unless those interests are served first and foremost, there will be no Intervention no matter how horrible the consequences for the Poor Devils on the ground.

So. What we're looking at with the Libya Thing is an Intervention intended to impose
Certainty on an Uncertain situation for the purpose of providing as much comfort and convenience to the Oil Oligarchs as possible.

That hundreds or thousands of Libyans will die in the process is of neither interest nor concern to those who must have Certainty.

Never was.

According to Ackerman...

This must be a first. I'm actually referring to and linking to a post by Spencer Ackerman over at FDL. Hm. I'm sure Spencer is always very well informed and astute but I have never been able to make head nor tails of much of what he writes for them. Does anyone have a decoder ring?

This post is (apparently) about the likelihood that the New Model Congress assembling in January will "revisit" the AUMF under which Our Glorious Imperial Project is being prosecuted.

Well, isn't that special?

In fact, the 2001 AUMF has little or nothing to do with the current Imperial Project under way and any close reading of it (or even a superficial glance thereat) shows that continuing to use it for the purpose of violently stamping out any resistance or opposition to American Imperial Overlordship is less than satisfactory.

That's what the Imperial Project is about at its base, destroying resistance/opposition to Our Glory. That's the Mission they keep yabbering about. That's the Job that's never "finished."

"We must Finish the Job, we must Complete the Mission," quoth the Generals and their civilian flacks, and even quoth the troops, but neither Mission nor Job is ever clearly specified. Just what is it they are Over There to DO exactly? And all we can tell from what transpires is that they are there to liquidate Natives who resist the imposition of Glory from Above, Glory imposed directly or through local puppets and surrogates. That is all.

It has nothing to do with the Designated Enemy -- AQ-Wherever or Whatever -- any more than the Indochina Wars of my day had anything to do with the Dreaded Commonists (as they were known). It has to do with resistance to Overlordship. Resistance must cease. Period. Full Stop.

So Spencer, apparently (though I haven't quite decoded his post), believes the AUMF under which the Imperial Project is being pursued will be replaced by some other, more specific, measure that better spells out both the scope of the "war" under way and the status and treatment of the captives thereof. In other words, those already captured who cannot be tried either because they would say something embarrassing or because they are acknowledged to have been tortured for "information." That is to say, false confessions. One can assume that unless further false confessions are necessary, any future captives will simply be... disposed of.

What's kind of interesting about this is that there is apparently no consideration of removing the Powers and Authorities granted the Imperial Presidency under Bush and now continued under Obama. No, just clarifying and updating them somewhat and perhaps extending them "forever". Nor has there been the slightest fretting on the right that His Serenity might be misusing other Authorities and Powers such as domestic spying that the Civil Libertarians have been up in arms about since Bush.

In other words, despite all the kabuki over Obama's "socialism" and whatnot, when it comes to the Domestic National Security State and the Imperial Project Overseas, this Obama fellow seems to be just fine in the eyes of the Right and the Owners.

Just. Fine.

Ponder that for a while.

Chris Floyd Explains It All For You (Again...)

Just go read it. It's brilliant. Creeping Terror: The New American Way of War


In sum:

.... That's the American way of war. Creep, sneak, kill, run, lie – repeat. Sure, it only makes things worse, creates more enemies, keeps the wars going. But isn't that the point? Check it out, baby: they're piling an extra $33.5 billion of prime war pork on top of the mountain of Terror War funding already laid out for this year! And you need a whole lot of blood to wash down that meat – and a whole lot of new enemies to make sure the feast never ends.

I'd just add that the entire Anglo-American Warfighting effort these days seems to be based on a dirtier, more technologically adept version of Operation Phoenix in Vietnam, and the direct rather than indirect application of terror campaigns against civilian targets, including torture and massacres, based on the Central American Bloodbath of the Reagan years.

Sweet.

Freedom! Fuck yeah!

Something Else for Memorial Day

The other day while combing the discard book bins at Goodwill, I pulled out what looked like it was probably a high school year book from Hawaii, from, say, sometime in the Fifties or early Sixties. Didn't check it for what it really was until yesterday, and then, I was astonished.

Turns out this yearbook is a yearbook -- well, a record of three and a half years -- of Navy Seabees in the Pacific in World War II, and as such it is one of the most remarkable documents of the War in the Pacific I've ever seen.

What follows are scans of some random early pages of this journal to give you an idea of how these men of the Fifth Naval Construction Battalion saw their experiences in the War, who they were, their dedication, the adversity they knew every day, their triumph. As far as I can tell, this yearbook was produced soon after V-J Day, perhaps as early as September 1945, or possibly as late as sometime in 1946. The men depicted are of my father's generation in many cases (he was drafted in 1944, when he was already middle-aged, and served as a legal officer in the Army Air Corps through its transformation into the Air Force.)

Their basic decency shines through this record. Though we might today criticize some of their commanders' decisions and actions, it is not because we would dispute their humanity or their commitment to building a better world.

What strikes me about this journal most of all is the contrast between these truly amazing, and I think heroic, men in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945 and the sham of "heroism" and "defense of democracy" that the Busheviks have made of our military, and the insults and contempt with which they treat the brave men and women who continue to serve as best they can a corrupt regime, rotten to the core.

There is no comparison. The pride I feel for the SeaBees in their Journal of Two Journeys contrasts so strongly with the shame I feel for what the Busheviks have done to their honor, and the honor of the American People, I can't help but be overcome.

Click on the images to enlarge them to full size.