General Dwight Eisenhower gave American citizens a warning in his farewell address to the nation. He cautioned against the domination of our democracy by the Military-Industrial Complex. He said, “The U.S. traditionally was an isolationist nation. We focused on our own hemisphere, we focused on developing our economy, not policing the world. We were Anti-Imperialist, that was part of our tradition. ”That was not just Jefferson, but it was Madison, Adams, Hamilton and all of them…This was an Anti-Imperialist nation!” Today we spend $500 billion a year on arms. That’s more than the entire world put together! Who benefits from war? Is this the beginning of eternal warfare?
Journalist Guy Lawson interviewed Omar Bin Laden for Rolling Stone Magazine. Lawson writes that now 28 years of age, Omar is one of 11 sons of Osama bin Laden. But from an early age, Omar stood out from his brothers for his independence. Though Omar does not believe that any of his siblings are still by his father’s side, he is the only bin Laden son to publicly disavow his father’s violence. In Growing Up bin Laden, co-authored last year with his mother and an American writer named Jean Sasson, Omar not only captures the insanity and cruelty inside his father’s world, but also provides an intimate portrait of what it is like to be the son of a sociopath. Omar says, “My father’s dream was to bring the Americans to Afghanistan. He would do the same thing he did to the Russians. I was surprised the Americans took the bait. I so much respected the mentality of President Clinton. He was the one who was smart. When my father attacked his places, he sent a few cruise missiles to my father’s training camp. He didn’t get my father, but now after all the war in Afghanistan, they still don’t have my father. They have spent hundreds of billions. Better for America to keep the money for its economy. In Clinton’s time, America was very, very smart. Not like a bull that runs after the red scarf. I was still in Afghanistan when Bush was elected. My father was so happy. This is the kind of president he needs — one who will attack and spend money and break his own country. I am sure my father wanted McCain more than Obama. McCain has the same mentality as Bush. My father would be disappointed because Obama got the position.
“Will there be more attacks?”
“I don’t think so,” Omar says. “He doesn’t need to. As soon as America went to Afghanistan, his plan worked. He has already won.” Guy Lawson concludes: “As Omar sees things, his father had destroyed the Soviet empire. Now, nearly a decade after 9/11, his father’s vision for an America of economic ruin and a soul-sapping war in Afghanistan has come to pass. As far as Omar is concerned, his father has brought ruin to two empires.” What if Al-Queda has only 50 members? BBC’s documentary called “The Power of Nightmares” speaks with top CIA officials who openly admit, Al-Qaeda is a total and complete fabrication, never having existed at any time. The Bush administration needed a reason that complied with the Laws, which were originally set in place to protect us from mobs and “criminal organizations” such as the Mafia, so the Bush Administration could go after “the bad guy of their choice.” And Bin Laden fit the bill after his attack on the U.S. and then the drive through the media was to convince Americans that Saddam Hussein was our enemy, even though he had nothing to do with 911. According to the documentary, the Bush Administration paid Jamal al Fadl, hundreds of thousands of dollars to back the U.S. Government’s story of Al-qaeda, a “group” or criminal organization they could “legally” go after.” this information comes from Polidics.com. And from a senior U.S. intelligence official to ABCNews.com “The approximate estimate of 100 al Qaeda members left in Afghanistan reflects the conclusion of American intelligence agencies and the Defense Department. The relatively small number was part of the intelligence passed on to the White House as President Obama conducted his deliberations.” Thirty thousand more troops have been sent to Afghanistan. Will the cost to taxpayers, many whom have lost homes and jobs, cause poverty to engulf the middle class? Prizewinning reporter Amy Goodman from Democracy Now interviewed British author David Cornwell who writes under the pseudonym John Le Carre. Le Carre is best known for his novel “The Constant Gardener.” Le Carre says of the previous Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, “It seems to me that any politician who takes his country to war under false pretenses has committed the ultimate sin. I think that a war in which we refuse to accept the body count of those that we kill is also a war of which we should be ashamed. I think it’s true that we’ve caused irreparable damage in the Middle East. I think we shall pay for it for a long time. Le Carre goes on to say; I remain terrified of the capacity of the media, the capacity of spin-doctors, here and abroad, particularly the United States media, to perpetuate lies. Mussolini, I think, defined fascism as the moment when you couldn’t put a cigarette paper between political and corporate power. I worry terribly that the absence of serious critical argument is going to produce a new kind of fanaticism, the new simplicities that are as dangerous as the ones which caused us to march against Iraq and as misunderstood. And on the media, he says, “I suffer from the same frustration that every decent American suffers from. I don’t know what the percentage now is, but I believe it’s still something like 65 or 70 percent of Americans believe that Saddam was involved in the Twin Towers. John Le Carre says that he would ask Tony Blair, (for Americans, George Bush and Barack Obama could be asked the same question), “I would ask him the really painful one, which I could not have asked if I hadn’t gone on my own journey . Have you ever seen what happens when a grenade goes off in a school? Do you really know what you’re doing when you order shock and awe? Are you prepared to kneel beside a dying soldier and tell him why he went to Iraq, or why he went to any war? I think that if anything has happened to Europe since 1945 that defines it, it is collectively Europeans do not believe in war anymore, until it comes as an absolute last resort, and then they’re going to do it rather badly. The United States, I think, still sees war as a necessary part of its existence. It’s impossible to maintain the military on that scale, a Pentagon on that scale, without turning it over. You’ve got to have officers who are experienced in command and control. You’ve got to have troops who have been bloodied. So, we were, in that sense, at odds. I was, as a European. I was at odds with the whole notion of a preemptive strike. And I think many Europeans have that in common, of course with very many Americans, too, feel the same. So I would have tried to challenge him in that area.” The question Le Carre would like to ask Blair, who believes what he did what was right regarding war decisions, and who defines himself as a Christian is “How that (his decision for war) relates to the Christian ethic? Do you believe in war first and negotiation afterwards? Exactly how does this work?
Maybe all the questions are for naught, because as author Chris Hedges writes, “The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” The longer we are addicted, and the more of us who become addicted, the stronger the craving, and the more powerless we are to this way of life, until we have a habit that is impossible to break, but in which we also have no resources left to feed. When greed and military expansion are the focus of an empire, a super power, and not their citizens, these empires crash.
“Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.” George Orwell
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