All of this spending is not for the defense of our national security, but for the defense of our "national interests" which are basically the financial interests of Wall Street, Big Oil, Big Tech and all the other "bigs" that control our government and steal our money.
And on top of it all, those whose "interests" we are paying to defend aren't even willing to pay their fair share of the cost. Instead, they pass their share of the burden off to the rest of us and our children, grandchildren and future generations.
Which is exactly why the whole Saddam-and-WMD scenario made no sense. I thought it was obvious from the beginning that it was a Dubya & Cheney scam. But they got away with it.
Denise, I often have wondered if the "whole Saddam-and-WMD scenario (that) made no sense" was because the Yanks were afraid that Saddam threatened their most favored ally, Israel?
Generally speaking, U.S. policy has been to weaken regional opponents of Israel. Recall that Iraq was supposed to lead to the defeat of Iran. Instead, Iran benefited from the folly of Iraq. Well done, Bush/Cheney!
I think there were multiple factors involved. One was Dubya's daddy issues. A second was the fact that Saddam was being defiant, no longer subservient to the U.S. Then there was the power motive, tied in with the passage of the Patriot Act. Also, Cheney was thisclose to Halliburton, an international construction and oil services company. Possibly most important to the gin-up of the war, IMO, was the objectives of PNAC, a creation of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et. al.
It's my understanding that some of the PNAC devotees were religious fanatics who thought that a war in Iraq would be part of the onset of the Rapture (!).
When I hear Christian Leaders say constantly 'Jesus is the only begotten Son of God,' that contradicts Scripture, and it creates something aloof, distant and unbridgeable embodying Christ in the Human.
John is explicit in his writing;
'He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them he GAVE POWER TO BECOME THE SONS OF GOD, even to them that believe on his name:
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 1: 11-13
What I find interesting in those verses is this, "WHICH WERE BORN NOT OF BLOOD."
A relationship with God is not inherited in a family line, a race or a Religion. Israel is mostly a Secular State.
In the Old Testament, it's written twice in the Book of Job, 'Now there was a day when the SONS OF GOD came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
And the LORD said to Satan, Where are you coming from?' Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
I superimpose that watching Today's Generations going to and fro over every new gadget or style, and either being high or bummed out.
Jesus describes a similar situation in the New Testament;
But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the markets, and calling to their fellows,
And saying, We have piped unto you, and you have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and you have not lamented.
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He has a devil.
The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.
Matthew 11: 16-19
"and they say" was the Jewish Religious Establishment observing Jesus and calling him a wine bibber or a wino in the sense.
Bill, wasn't in some ways WW2 the WORST thing that ever happened to America?
All that demonstrated strength, especially industrial, convinced too many Americans that they were the great overdog never to be challenged, ever.
I think about building those large floating barge derrick cranes for our Marine Construction Company in the 90's and 2,000's. So many large crane parts were produced for the US Navy in WW2 and never used, that we were still taking advantage of large boneyards of "new" parts - inexpensively, 60-years after they had been made during wartime production. The bargains were irresistible to our bean counters!
Meanwhile, the European's new derrick barge cranes were being built with state-of-the-art components and materials that put our derricks with their WW2 technology to shame. And providing jobs in state-of-the-art factories for their kids at the same time.
I often wondered if in the long-term picture that was really a disadvantage for the US?
The citizen-soldiers of WW2 demobilized themselves in the aftermath of that war. Then came the National Security Act of 1947 and the creation of the Department of Defense to replace the far more honestly named Department of War. It was all downhill from there.
There are two things that need to be kept in mind as regards World War II:
1. It was the only way America and the rest of the Planet got out of The Great Depression.
2. It was the beginning of Cold War I against the former "ally," the USSR, and its spawn, European and Asian Communism. And thus the birth of America's Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex.
I've bookmarked this essay. Your last two paragraphs belong as campaign "planks" of a political party or Presidential ticket that I would be proud to support.
One week Institute for Study of War (a couple of Nuland’s in-laws) says “if we lose Ukraine Putin will be at Dunkirk, the next week Russia has huge demographic flaws.
Too little profits in the pitiful few years between the Berlin Wall falling and 9/11!
I went on active duty at close of Vietnam, late 1972. The image of PearlHarbor still vivid. USA seems threatened by any power that may overrun its outposts in northeast Syria. Or the U.S. “station sets” hidden in the Baltic region.
America's fatal hunger for full spectrum world domination.
Compelling analysis from the brilliant Anglophile Alastair Crooke.
Pull your head out America! Go home and leave the rest of the world alone!
The rest of the world is well aware of your mindset.
"Since World War II, during a supposed golden age of peace, the US military has killed or helped kill some 20-million people, overthrown at least 36-governments, interfered in at least 86-foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50-foreign leaders, and dropped bombs on innocent people in over 30-countries." - David Swanson. Lets Try Democracy
The rest of the world is well aware of your mindset by now.
And they will retaliate.
And in 2024, as the Houthis are showing, have the means to do so.
Your $13-billion aircraft carriers are irrelevant and useless in the hypersonic missile and drone age.
was the misspelling of alastaire cooke's surname as 'cRooke deliberate or unintentional, dennis? i assume the latter b/c of your approbatory remark re. that erudite and eloquent anglophile. my visual acuity is so compromised and increscently deliquescing, perhaps my eyes detected an 'r' where there is none. wishing you well for what remains of your viripotent life, dennis.
if i'd been able to open the youtube video you offered, dennis, i would have understood straightaway that the crooke fellow was not the cooke fellow, given that cooke died in 2004 at nearly 96!
The reason "communism" is considered such a threat is that it stands for giving the workers full ownership over the industries they run, rather than having an overclass of financiers reap all the profits while the workers do all the work. Workers do not fear communism, the ruling elite do. The US sets the world on fire to prevent worker ownership of industry. That tells you everything you need to know about why The Blob will do anything and everything to stop "communism".
As usual Col. Macgregor hits the nail on the head. But nobody listens!
The American way of thinking...."who are these piffling minor players in the world outside the USA?"
"I am very interested in how the US will improve the life of America inside and out without wars. Especially with such vile and stupid elites?" - Vladmir Putin
Bill, why did the US pull the two carriers out of the Mediterranean? Any ideas please?
The debt grew quickly in 2023, topping $32 trillion in June and $33 trillion in September, and it continues to increase at a rapid clip. It is expected to reach the $35 trillion mark as soon as March of this year.
i suggest that he leave it, Bill. It provides absolute, total, complete, and incontestable proof that he does not have a clue about what he is ranting and railing about.
Especially when it comes to "America's enemies and greatest threat" [sic].
I always ponder what might have happened had the US done absolutely nothing about communism. Can anyone cite one example of a country under communism that provided an enjoyable life for the citizens? As was put so well many years ago by a great philosopher, "if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make with anyone anyhow"
And now, I have to stop myself from laughing when I think of how China and Iran are given to us as such terrible threats. In the case of Iran - far away and militarily puny by comparison to us, and China is so bound with us economically that just an embargo would be disastrous, no need to fire one weapon.
Then what can be said of a country with 5% of the planet's human population with most of the military power on the planet that just itches to be number one in some intangible way...maybe by being able to dictate through economics, we've achieved that in the past and try to cling to it now. Maybe to be most admired nation? We had that in the past and lost it some time ago, but nobody in DC seems to care, now preferring "fear us rather than like us"
We are the self-defeating giant that any look at history will demonstrate.
Is there anything being done to alter our direction? I don't see it in what are considered the main contenders for the Presidency. We are certainly mighty, but at the same time pitiful, particularly since we can't seem to maintain the self-loving cohesion considered natural in the citizenry of a nation. Tear it down could almost be the motto of the Republican Party given evidence on Jan 6.
ah-ha; 2 different people entirely. i never knew about the irish crooke fellow, but i used to lend an ear to cooke's radio program LETTERS FROM AMERICA
A fair and important request, to bring America home. I would argue though, that there is no coming home at least until we get rid of the Federal Reserve and separate the financial sector parasites from the rest of the productive economy. Only by removing THE main engine of imperial economics (which I outlined here: https://believeandobey.net/the-behind-the-u-empire/) will there be any hope of ending the imperial violence that the US exports throughout the world.
One might also ask, what is there to come home to? Gainful employment? A better life? It's a volunteer Army/Air Force/Navy/Marines. Big numbers. Does anyone really believe that all those bodies, those "boots on the ground," signed up for purely patriotic reasons, for love of country, to - as my nephew put it - "kill people who hate America"?
The more money the US Military wastes on defending the "American way of life" in overseas wars, the more there is not going to be an American way of life worth returning home to.
The more "victories" the IDF soldiers reap in Gaza, the more economically, socially and spiritually destroyed Israel they are going to go home to. Having put Israel under even more threat forever. Their fallen comrades died for no gain - actually for making Israeli life worse.
If we do what it takes to dismantle the US monetary/military empire (a huge lift, I know!) then we will have gone quite far in creating an environment of sustainable economic growth that produces real wage gains and an honest marketplace. In short, a place worth coming home to. Peace.
All of this spending is not for the defense of our national security, but for the defense of our "national interests" which are basically the financial interests of Wall Street, Big Oil, Big Tech and all the other "bigs" that control our government and steal our money.
And on top of it all, those whose "interests" we are paying to defend aren't even willing to pay their fair share of the cost. Instead, they pass their share of the burden off to the rest of us and our children, grandchildren and future generations.
"What country would dare to attack the USA?"
Which is exactly why the whole Saddam-and-WMD scenario made no sense. I thought it was obvious from the beginning that it was a Dubya & Cheney scam. But they got away with it.
Denise, I often have wondered if the "whole Saddam-and-WMD scenario (that) made no sense" was because the Yanks were afraid that Saddam threatened their most favored ally, Israel?
Wonder what others think?
Generally speaking, U.S. policy has been to weaken regional opponents of Israel. Recall that Iraq was supposed to lead to the defeat of Iran. Instead, Iran benefited from the folly of Iraq. Well done, Bush/Cheney!
I think there were multiple factors involved. One was Dubya's daddy issues. A second was the fact that Saddam was being defiant, no longer subservient to the U.S. Then there was the power motive, tied in with the passage of the Patriot Act. Also, Cheney was thisclose to Halliburton, an international construction and oil services company. Possibly most important to the gin-up of the war, IMO, was the objectives of PNAC, a creation of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et. al.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
It's my understanding that some of the PNAC devotees were religious fanatics who thought that a war in Iraq would be part of the onset of the Rapture (!).
According to Jesus' other prayer, he doesn't believe in or want a "Rapture."
The Rapture is a man made doctrine.
I pray not that you should take them out of the world, (Rapture) but that you should keep them from the evil.
John 17:15
Evidently, there are a lot of evangelicals who aren't familiar with that passage.
Evidently so!
When I hear Christian Leaders say constantly 'Jesus is the only begotten Son of God,' that contradicts Scripture, and it creates something aloof, distant and unbridgeable embodying Christ in the Human.
John is explicit in his writing;
'He came unto his own, and his own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them he GAVE POWER TO BECOME THE SONS OF GOD, even to them that believe on his name:
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
John 1: 11-13
What I find interesting in those verses is this, "WHICH WERE BORN NOT OF BLOOD."
A relationship with God is not inherited in a family line, a race or a Religion. Israel is mostly a Secular State.
In the Old Testament, it's written twice in the Book of Job, 'Now there was a day when the SONS OF GOD came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
And the LORD said to Satan, Where are you coming from?' Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
I superimpose that watching Today's Generations going to and fro over every new gadget or style, and either being high or bummed out.
https://rayjc.com/2018/08/26/patience-of-job-the-man-patience-of-job-the-work-of-faith/
Jesus describes a similar situation in the New Testament;
But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the markets, and calling to their fellows,
And saying, We have piped unto you, and you have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and you have not lamented.
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He has a devil.
The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.
Matthew 11: 16-19
"and they say" was the Jewish Religious Establishment observing Jesus and calling him a wine bibber or a wino in the sense.
Bill, wasn't in some ways WW2 the WORST thing that ever happened to America?
All that demonstrated strength, especially industrial, convinced too many Americans that they were the great overdog never to be challenged, ever.
I think about building those large floating barge derrick cranes for our Marine Construction Company in the 90's and 2,000's. So many large crane parts were produced for the US Navy in WW2 and never used, that we were still taking advantage of large boneyards of "new" parts - inexpensively, 60-years after they had been made during wartime production. The bargains were irresistible to our bean counters!
Meanwhile, the European's new derrick barge cranes were being built with state-of-the-art components and materials that put our derricks with their WW2 technology to shame. And providing jobs in state-of-the-art factories for their kids at the same time.
I often wondered if in the long-term picture that was really a disadvantage for the US?
WW2 fed our egos--that's for sure.
The citizen-soldiers of WW2 demobilized themselves in the aftermath of that war. Then came the National Security Act of 1947 and the creation of the Department of Defense to replace the far more honestly named Department of War. It was all downhill from there.
There are two things that need to be kept in mind as regards World War II:
1. It was the only way America and the rest of the Planet got out of The Great Depression.
2. It was the beginning of Cold War I against the former "ally," the USSR, and its spawn, European and Asian Communism. And thus the birth of America's Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex.
I've bookmarked this essay. Your last two paragraphs belong as campaign "planks" of a political party or Presidential ticket that I would be proud to support.
One week Institute for Study of War (a couple of Nuland’s in-laws) says “if we lose Ukraine Putin will be at Dunkirk, the next week Russia has huge demographic flaws.
Too little profits in the pitiful few years between the Berlin Wall falling and 9/11!
I went on active duty at close of Vietnam, late 1972. The image of PearlHarbor still vivid. USA seems threatened by any power that may overrun its outposts in northeast Syria. Or the U.S. “station sets” hidden in the Baltic region.
Alastair Crooke: America’s Fatal Hunger for Honor and Glory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od5lipBQhe0
America's fatal hunger for full spectrum world domination.
Compelling analysis from the brilliant Anglophile Alastair Crooke.
Pull your head out America! Go home and leave the rest of the world alone!
The rest of the world is well aware of your mindset.
"Since World War II, during a supposed golden age of peace, the US military has killed or helped kill some 20-million people, overthrown at least 36-governments, interfered in at least 86-foreign elections, attempted to assassinate over 50-foreign leaders, and dropped bombs on innocent people in over 30-countries." - David Swanson. Lets Try Democracy
The rest of the world is well aware of your mindset by now.
And they will retaliate.
And in 2024, as the Houthis are showing, have the means to do so.
Your $13-billion aircraft carriers are irrelevant and useless in the hypersonic missile and drone age.
Wake up from your illusion!
was the misspelling of alastaire cooke's surname as 'cRooke deliberate or unintentional, dennis? i assume the latter b/c of your approbatory remark re. that erudite and eloquent anglophile. my visual acuity is so compromised and increscently deliquescing, perhaps my eyes detected an 'r' where there is none. wishing you well for what remains of your viripotent life, dennis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastair_Crooke
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alistair-Cooke
Hope you are well Jeanie
if i'd been able to open the youtube video you offered, dennis, i would have understood straightaway that the crooke fellow was not the cooke fellow, given that cooke died in 2004 at nearly 96!
WAR = $$$$
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: US Foreign Policy is a Corrupt Scam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlKuQ3r3Mwk
The reason "communism" is considered such a threat is that it stands for giving the workers full ownership over the industries they run, rather than having an overclass of financiers reap all the profits while the workers do all the work. Workers do not fear communism, the ruling elite do. The US sets the world on fire to prevent worker ownership of industry. That tells you everything you need to know about why The Blob will do anything and everything to stop "communism".
As Chairman, CEO and only member of the https://neutralistassociationofthe.us/, I applaud your stance.
Best of luck from Canada.
Our weakness now is to do whatever you do.
It’s not called being your friend .
Col. Douglas Macgregor: "Wrongheaded US Military Priorities".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqNWKJENDLY
As usual Col. Macgregor hits the nail on the head. But nobody listens!
The American way of thinking...."who are these piffling minor players in the world outside the USA?"
"I am very interested in how the US will improve the life of America inside and out without wars. Especially with such vile and stupid elites?" - Vladmir Putin
Bill, why did the US pull the two carriers out of the Mediterranean? Any ideas please?
Number of the Day: $34,001,493,655,565.48
The gross U.S. national debt surpassed $34 trillion last Friday, according to the Treasury Department’s "daily debt tracker": https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny
The debt grew quickly in 2023, topping $32 trillion in June and $33 trillion in September, and it continues to increase at a rapid clip. It is expected to reach the $35 trillion mark as soon as March of this year.
Source: https://www.thefiscaltimes.com/
China’s national debt is $14.34 trillion
This comment isn't helpful. Suggest you delete it.
i suggest that he leave it, Bill. It provides absolute, total, complete, and incontestable proof that he does not have a clue about what he is ranting and railing about.
Especially when it comes to "America's enemies and greatest threat" [sic].
I always ponder what might have happened had the US done absolutely nothing about communism. Can anyone cite one example of a country under communism that provided an enjoyable life for the citizens? As was put so well many years ago by a great philosopher, "if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make with anyone anyhow"
And now, I have to stop myself from laughing when I think of how China and Iran are given to us as such terrible threats. In the case of Iran - far away and militarily puny by comparison to us, and China is so bound with us economically that just an embargo would be disastrous, no need to fire one weapon.
Then what can be said of a country with 5% of the planet's human population with most of the military power on the planet that just itches to be number one in some intangible way...maybe by being able to dictate through economics, we've achieved that in the past and try to cling to it now. Maybe to be most admired nation? We had that in the past and lost it some time ago, but nobody in DC seems to care, now preferring "fear us rather than like us"
We are the self-defeating giant that any look at history will demonstrate.
Is there anything being done to alter our direction? I don't see it in what are considered the main contenders for the Presidency. We are certainly mighty, but at the same time pitiful, particularly since we can't seem to maintain the self-loving cohesion considered natural in the citizenry of a nation. Tear it down could almost be the motto of the Republican Party given evidence on Jan 6.
America is most peculiar.
ah-ha; 2 different people entirely. i never knew about the irish crooke fellow, but i used to lend an ear to cooke's radio program LETTERS FROM AMERICA
A fair and important request, to bring America home. I would argue though, that there is no coming home at least until we get rid of the Federal Reserve and separate the financial sector parasites from the rest of the productive economy. Only by removing THE main engine of imperial economics (which I outlined here: https://believeandobey.net/the-behind-the-u-empire/) will there be any hope of ending the imperial violence that the US exports throughout the world.
One might also ask, what is there to come home to? Gainful employment? A better life? It's a volunteer Army/Air Force/Navy/Marines. Big numbers. Does anyone really believe that all those bodies, those "boots on the ground," signed up for purely patriotic reasons, for love of country, to - as my nephew put it - "kill people who hate America"?
The more money the US Military wastes on defending the "American way of life" in overseas wars, the more there is not going to be an American way of life worth returning home to.
The more "victories" the IDF soldiers reap in Gaza, the more economically, socially and spiritually destroyed Israel they are going to go home to. Having put Israel under even more threat forever. Their fallen comrades died for no gain - actually for making Israeli life worse.
If we do what it takes to dismantle the US monetary/military empire (a huge lift, I know!) then we will have gone quite far in creating an environment of sustainable economic growth that produces real wage gains and an honest marketplace. In short, a place worth coming home to. Peace.