It’s interesting, Dennis, how frequently You cite here on BV that “America has killed more than 20 million people since the end of World War II” meme.
You state that almost as often as You claim that “America is the greatest country in the world” that people all over the world want to come to and live in. Maybe that’s because if they lived here, they wouldn’t have to be worried about being attacked by the American military, eh? At least not yet.
In any event, You raise an interesting question: Isn’t the MIC “blameless” for all this carnage?
After all, all it’s doing is providing the means, methods, mechanisms, and tools for those who establish, control, and direct American foreign policy and its hyper-militarism. It’s not the MIC’s fault that there are trillions and trillions of dollars to be made in their business; as long as they share it properly among all the stakeholders, shareholders, and other beneficiaries of Uncle Sam’s bottomless pit spending capability thru its credit card wars.
In actual point of fact, nobody in the “Military,” “Industrial,” or “Congressional” wings of the MICC could get away with any of what it has inflicted on this Planet over the last 77 years without the willing acceptance by ~ and at least tacit endorsement of ~ all this by the American People. The same People who keep sending War Mongers to Swampland every election, and who keep dutifully sending money to the MICC thru either taxes or campaign donations.
The close to 1,000,000 people killed just in the post-9/11 Wars ~ to say nothing of the millions more who have been physically and psychologically maimed and crippled, or orphaned, widowed or widowered, made childless, and made homeless, hopeless refugees ~ NONE of that could have happened if the American People had not gone along with it completely from the very beginning on September 14, 2001, and the implementation of The Forever War’s AUMF.
So Yeah, You may be right. The MIC is completely and totally blameless for all this. After all, all it’s doing is patriotically and selflessly serving in the “Defense” of America against all forms of Evil. And it’s not its fault that there have been and will continue to be trillions and trillions of dollars to be made in serving in that “Defense.”
And just curious: If all this goes back to Nuland and the State Department in 2014, what did Corporal Bonespurs do during his 4 years on the throne to change ANYTHING about America’s role in what was unfolding and that would ultimately lead to America’s War in Ukraine against Russia? Other, of course, than to attempt to force the President of Ukraine to find some dirt on Biden that the Corporal could use in Election2020?
For America’s Baby Boomers, fifty-nine years ago today ~ on 22 November 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas ~ was The End of The Beginning of The End of The World As We Knew It.
It was exactly one year and one month earlier ~ on 22 October 1962, the nite President Kennedy informed the nation about the unfolding situation with Russian missiles in and headed toward Cuba ~ that The Beginning of The Beginning of The End of The World As We Boomers Knew It happened.
And it was three weeks before Dallas ~ on 1-2 November 1963, when the Diem government of South Vietnam was overthrown and he assassinated by a US-choreographed military coup ~ that those who were paying attention caught a very brief but clear glimpse of what the next decade plus held in store for both Americans and America, and for Vietnam and the Vietnamese.
For me personally ~ then a hot-shot high school football-playing Senior ~ the Beginning of The Beginning of The World that we Boomers would come to know very intimately happened two days later on Sunday, 24 November, at 12:20 pm EST. It went like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6PcVCqg3tg .
i remember watching that with my Parents on live, black and white network TV and asking myself and then them: “How can the man accused of murdering the President of the United States be gunned down in the basement of a fucking police station?”
Which ultimately planted a very real but deeply buried seed in my head, heart, and gut that there was much, much more to this whole story than anybody in the US government or Dallas Police Force was telling the American People.
And fifty-nine years later, the American People and the World STILL do not know EVERYTHING about JFK’s Assassination that the US government knew then and still knows now… :
“In 1979, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) agreed with the Warren Commission that Oswald did, in fact, assassinate Kennedy, but CONCLUDED THAT THE COMMISSION'S REPORT AND THE ORIGINAL FBI INVESTIGATION WERE SERIOUSLY FLAWED. The HSCA CONCLUDED THAT AT LEAST FOUR SHOTS WERE FIRED, WITH A ‘HIGH PROBABILITY’ THAT TWO GUNMEN FIRED AT THE PRESIDENT, AND THAT A CONSPIRACY WAS PROBABLE.[9] The HSCA stated that THE WARREN COMMISSION HAD ‘FAILED TO INVESTIGATE ADEQUATELY THE POSSIBILITY OF A CONSPIRACY TO ASSASSINATE THE PRESIDENT’.[29]
“Documents under Section 5 of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 were REQUIRED TO BE RELEASED WITHIN 25 YEARS OF THE BILL'S OCTOBER 26, 1992, EFFECTIVE DATE. Most of the documents were released on October 26, 2017.[30] Exercising a provision of the 1992 act that allows for a President to extend the deadline, President TRUMP SET A NEW DEADLINE of October 26, 2021 for the remaining documents to be released.[31][32] In October 2021, President BIDEN FURTHER EXTENDED THE DEADLINE to December 15, 2022, citing delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic.[33][34]” Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theories [EMPHASES added.]
Fifty-nine years later, the Question remains: Why all the secrets about November 22, 1963? What is it that this government dare not let the American People know? It will be interesting to see what excuse Biden comes up with on 15 December.
Gee…. Whatta surprise, eh? And just in time for The Holidays… :
FBI, DHS LEADERS WARN OF ‘SUBSTANTIAL’ RISKS OF TARGETED VIOLENCE by Rebecca Beitsch - 11/15/22
National security leaders on Tuesday stressed the ongoing threat posed by domestic extremism, terrorism and foreign countries as GOP lawmakers homed in on the southern border.
The hearing, an annual examination from the House Homeland Security Committee of threats facing the U.S., highlighted the gap between the top security focuses of the Biden administration and the extent a Republican-led Congress would zero in on oversight efforts at the border.
FBI Director Christopher Wray and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas RATTLED OFF A SERIES OF THREATS FROM BOTH OUTSIDE AND INSIDE THE U.S., NOTING EFFORTS MADE BY RUSSIA, CHINA, IRAN AND NORTH KOREA TO SEEK TO UNDERMINE U.S. GLOBAL POWER.
And INTERNALLY, THE U.S. IS BATTLING A RISE IN VIOLENT EXTREMISM THAT HAS INCREASINGLY BEEN FOCUSED ON POLITICAL LEADERS AND GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS.
“The risk of targeted violence, perpetrated by actors abroad and at home, is substantial. Emerging technology platforms allow individuals and nation states to fan the flames of hate and personal grievances to large audiences and are encouraging people to commit violent acts,” Mayorkas said.
“Those driven to violence are targeting critical infrastructure; soft targets; faith-based institutions; institutions of higher education; racial and religious minorities; government facilities and personnel, including law enforcement and the military; and perceived ideological opponents.”
If America and “Americanism” has killed more than 20 million people since the end of World War II, how many people did Germany and Nazism kill before and during WW II? And how many did Russia, China, and that ilk and their Communism kill since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917?
THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE KILLED BY NAZISM:
Jews: approximately 6 million.
Soviet civilians: around 7 million.
Soviet prisoners of war: about 3 million.
Non-Jewish Polish civilians: around 1.8 million.
Serb civilians: around 312,000.
Disabled people living in institutions: up to 250,000.
Roma: 250,000.
Jehovah’s witnesses: about 2000.
Homosexual: about 1000.
Repeat criminal offenders according to the Nazis: at least 70,000.
TOTAL DEATH TOLL: More than 18 MILLION. Which provides an interesting perspective on America’s Death Count.
THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE KILLED BY COMMUNISM:
In USSR: 20 million deaths. [As many as America has killed all over the world.]
China: 65 million.
Vietnam: 1 million. [Does not include numbers killed by Americans and ARVNs]
North Korea: 2 million deaths. [Does not include numbers killed by Americans and South Koreans]
Cambodia: 2 million deaths. [Does not include numbers killed by Americans]
Eastern Europe: 1 million deaths.
Latin America: one fifty thousand deaths.
Africa: 1.7 million deaths.
Afghanistan: 1.5 million.
International Communist Movement and the Communist Parties not in power have caused about 10,000 deaths.
TOTAL DEATH TOLL: Almost 95 MILLION. Which provides another interesting perspective on America’s Body Count, as well.
And it must be remembered that these numbers say nothing about the totally inestimable millions more who have been physically and psychologically maimed and crippled, or orphaned, widowed or widowered, rendered childless, and made homeless, hopeless refugees, prisoners, and slave laborers who didn’t die.
The purpose of this exercise is not to engage in some kind of “What Aboutism… .” As in: “Well, if You think America is bad, what about the Nazis and Commies?”
It is, rather, to condemn Any and All political/economic/social systems of government and governance that give one set of Humans total and complete legal and moral authority and lethal power to inflict all this pain and suffering on every and any other Human who gets in their way.
At least the systems Humans have come up with in the last 100 years. If not since the dawn of Western European Imperialism in the Western Hemisphere and then the rest of the planet from the 16th century on. And in actual Truth, since the very beginning of Human “civilization” and the earliest Familial and Tribal forms and systems of social and economic organization.
i have acknowledged here on BV several times in the past that the most important thing The Corporal did while on the throne was to not start any new wars or openly and overtly expand any existing wars. What was going on behind the scenes in his Pentagon, CIA, and State Department is a completely different matter.
But when the history of the America's War with Russia in Ukraine is written, it will be interesting to see exactly what The King Of Debt did and did not do besides talk nice-nice to Putin.
And what country is Carlson living in this week that "hasn't started a war for the first time in over four decades"? Apparently, he hasn't heard about Ukraine. Who does he think started that war? Putin?
And finally, i am not in Your MICC/ICCC business, nor in the Army, Dennis. So Your thoughts on what i call The Corporal and how i regard him with contempt and "disrespect" is Your problem. Not mine.
Just for starters, neither Trump nor any other President is my or any American's "CEO" who we work under and for. At least not in theory.
Warfare Is Welfare for the Merchants of Death
It’s interesting, Dennis, how frequently You cite here on BV that “America has killed more than 20 million people since the end of World War II” meme.
You state that almost as often as You claim that “America is the greatest country in the world” that people all over the world want to come to and live in. Maybe that’s because if they lived here, they wouldn’t have to be worried about being attacked by the American military, eh? At least not yet.
In any event, You raise an interesting question: Isn’t the MIC “blameless” for all this carnage?
After all, all it’s doing is providing the means, methods, mechanisms, and tools for those who establish, control, and direct American foreign policy and its hyper-militarism. It’s not the MIC’s fault that there are trillions and trillions of dollars to be made in their business; as long as they share it properly among all the stakeholders, shareholders, and other beneficiaries of Uncle Sam’s bottomless pit spending capability thru its credit card wars.
In actual point of fact, nobody in the “Military,” “Industrial,” or “Congressional” wings of the MICC could get away with any of what it has inflicted on this Planet over the last 77 years without the willing acceptance by ~ and at least tacit endorsement of ~ all this by the American People. The same People who keep sending War Mongers to Swampland every election, and who keep dutifully sending money to the MICC thru either taxes or campaign donations.
The close to 1,000,000 people killed just in the post-9/11 Wars ~ to say nothing of the millions more who have been physically and psychologically maimed and crippled, or orphaned, widowed or widowered, made childless, and made homeless, hopeless refugees ~ NONE of that could have happened if the American People had not gone along with it completely from the very beginning on September 14, 2001, and the implementation of The Forever War’s AUMF.
So Yeah, You may be right. The MIC is completely and totally blameless for all this. After all, all it’s doing is patriotically and selflessly serving in the “Defense” of America against all forms of Evil. And it’s not its fault that there have been and will continue to be trillions and trillions of dollars to be made in serving in that “Defense.”
And just curious: If all this goes back to Nuland and the State Department in 2014, what did Corporal Bonespurs do during his 4 years on the throne to change ANYTHING about America’s role in what was unfolding and that would ultimately lead to America’s War in Ukraine against Russia? Other, of course, than to attempt to force the President of Ukraine to find some dirt on Biden that the Corporal could use in Election2020?
For America’s Baby Boomers, fifty-nine years ago today ~ on 22 November 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas ~ was The End of The Beginning of The End of The World As We Knew It.
It was exactly one year and one month earlier ~ on 22 October 1962, the nite President Kennedy informed the nation about the unfolding situation with Russian missiles in and headed toward Cuba ~ that The Beginning of The Beginning of The End of The World As We Boomers Knew It happened.
And it was three weeks before Dallas ~ on 1-2 November 1963, when the Diem government of South Vietnam was overthrown and he assassinated by a US-choreographed military coup ~ that those who were paying attention caught a very brief but clear glimpse of what the next decade plus held in store for both Americans and America, and for Vietnam and the Vietnamese.
For me personally ~ then a hot-shot high school football-playing Senior ~ the Beginning of The Beginning of The World that we Boomers would come to know very intimately happened two days later on Sunday, 24 November, at 12:20 pm EST. It went like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6PcVCqg3tg .
i remember watching that with my Parents on live, black and white network TV and asking myself and then them: “How can the man accused of murdering the President of the United States be gunned down in the basement of a fucking police station?”
Which ultimately planted a very real but deeply buried seed in my head, heart, and gut that there was much, much more to this whole story than anybody in the US government or Dallas Police Force was telling the American People.
And fifty-nine years later, the American People and the World STILL do not know EVERYTHING about JFK’s Assassination that the US government knew then and still knows now… :
“In 1979, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) agreed with the Warren Commission that Oswald did, in fact, assassinate Kennedy, but CONCLUDED THAT THE COMMISSION'S REPORT AND THE ORIGINAL FBI INVESTIGATION WERE SERIOUSLY FLAWED. The HSCA CONCLUDED THAT AT LEAST FOUR SHOTS WERE FIRED, WITH A ‘HIGH PROBABILITY’ THAT TWO GUNMEN FIRED AT THE PRESIDENT, AND THAT A CONSPIRACY WAS PROBABLE.[9] The HSCA stated that THE WARREN COMMISSION HAD ‘FAILED TO INVESTIGATE ADEQUATELY THE POSSIBILITY OF A CONSPIRACY TO ASSASSINATE THE PRESIDENT’.[29]
“Documents under Section 5 of the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 were REQUIRED TO BE RELEASED WITHIN 25 YEARS OF THE BILL'S OCTOBER 26, 1992, EFFECTIVE DATE. Most of the documents were released on October 26, 2017.[30] Exercising a provision of the 1992 act that allows for a President to extend the deadline, President TRUMP SET A NEW DEADLINE of October 26, 2021 for the remaining documents to be released.[31][32] In October 2021, President BIDEN FURTHER EXTENDED THE DEADLINE to December 15, 2022, citing delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic.[33][34]” Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy_assassination_conspiracy_theories [EMPHASES added.]
Fifty-nine years later, the Question remains: Why all the secrets about November 22, 1963? What is it that this government dare not let the American People know? It will be interesting to see what excuse Biden comes up with on 15 December.
Gee…. Whatta surprise, eh? And just in time for The Holidays… :
FBI, DHS LEADERS WARN OF ‘SUBSTANTIAL’ RISKS OF TARGETED VIOLENCE by Rebecca Beitsch - 11/15/22
National security leaders on Tuesday stressed the ongoing threat posed by domestic extremism, terrorism and foreign countries as GOP lawmakers homed in on the southern border.
The hearing, an annual examination from the House Homeland Security Committee of threats facing the U.S., highlighted the gap between the top security focuses of the Biden administration and the extent a Republican-led Congress would zero in on oversight efforts at the border.
FBI Director Christopher Wray and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas RATTLED OFF A SERIES OF THREATS FROM BOTH OUTSIDE AND INSIDE THE U.S., NOTING EFFORTS MADE BY RUSSIA, CHINA, IRAN AND NORTH KOREA TO SEEK TO UNDERMINE U.S. GLOBAL POWER.
And INTERNALLY, THE U.S. IS BATTLING A RISE IN VIOLENT EXTREMISM THAT HAS INCREASINGLY BEEN FOCUSED ON POLITICAL LEADERS AND GOVERNMENT INSTITUTIONS.
“The risk of targeted violence, perpetrated by actors abroad and at home, is substantial. Emerging technology platforms allow individuals and nation states to fan the flames of hate and personal grievances to large audiences and are encouraging people to commit violent acts,” Mayorkas said.
“Those driven to violence are targeting critical infrastructure; soft targets; faith-based institutions; institutions of higher education; racial and religious minorities; government facilities and personnel, including law enforcement and the military; and perceived ideological opponents.”
Continued at https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3736668-fbi-dhs-leaders-warn-of-substantial-risks-of-targeted-violence/
{EMPHASIS added.]
Scott Ritter talking in a Boston church yesterday with his latest update on the US instigated WAR with Russia over Ukraine.
https://youtu.be/0IvmmoGsdGA
If America and “Americanism” has killed more than 20 million people since the end of World War II, how many people did Germany and Nazism kill before and during WW II? And how many did Russia, China, and that ilk and their Communism kill since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917?
THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE KILLED BY NAZISM:
Jews: approximately 6 million.
Soviet civilians: around 7 million.
Soviet prisoners of war: about 3 million.
Non-Jewish Polish civilians: around 1.8 million.
Serb civilians: around 312,000.
Disabled people living in institutions: up to 250,000.
Roma: 250,000.
Jehovah’s witnesses: about 2000.
Homosexual: about 1000.
Repeat criminal offenders according to the Nazis: at least 70,000.
TOTAL DEATH TOLL: More than 18 MILLION. Which provides an interesting perspective on America’s Death Count.
THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE KILLED BY COMMUNISM:
In USSR: 20 million deaths. [As many as America has killed all over the world.]
China: 65 million.
Vietnam: 1 million. [Does not include numbers killed by Americans and ARVNs]
North Korea: 2 million deaths. [Does not include numbers killed by Americans and South Koreans]
Cambodia: 2 million deaths. [Does not include numbers killed by Americans]
Eastern Europe: 1 million deaths.
Latin America: one fifty thousand deaths.
Africa: 1.7 million deaths.
Afghanistan: 1.5 million.
International Communist Movement and the Communist Parties not in power have caused about 10,000 deaths.
TOTAL DEATH TOLL: Almost 95 MILLION. Which provides another interesting perspective on America’s Body Count, as well.
And it must be remembered that these numbers say nothing about the totally inestimable millions more who have been physically and psychologically maimed and crippled, or orphaned, widowed or widowered, rendered childless, and made homeless, hopeless refugees, prisoners, and slave laborers who didn’t die.
The purpose of this exercise is not to engage in some kind of “What Aboutism… .” As in: “Well, if You think America is bad, what about the Nazis and Commies?”
It is, rather, to condemn Any and All political/economic/social systems of government and governance that give one set of Humans total and complete legal and moral authority and lethal power to inflict all this pain and suffering on every and any other Human who gets in their way.
At least the systems Humans have come up with in the last 100 years. If not since the dawn of Western European Imperialism in the Western Hemisphere and then the rest of the planet from the 16th century on. And in actual Truth, since the very beginning of Human “civilization” and the earliest Familial and Tribal forms and systems of social and economic organization.
i have acknowledged here on BV several times in the past that the most important thing The Corporal did while on the throne was to not start any new wars or openly and overtly expand any existing wars. What was going on behind the scenes in his Pentagon, CIA, and State Department is a completely different matter.
But when the history of the America's War with Russia in Ukraine is written, it will be interesting to see exactly what The King Of Debt did and did not do besides talk nice-nice to Putin.
And what country is Carlson living in this week that "hasn't started a war for the first time in over four decades"? Apparently, he hasn't heard about Ukraine. Who does he think started that war? Putin?
And finally, i am not in Your MICC/ICCC business, nor in the Army, Dennis. So Your thoughts on what i call The Corporal and how i regard him with contempt and "disrespect" is Your problem. Not mine.
Just for starters, neither Trump nor any other President is my or any American's "CEO" who we work under and for. At least not in theory.
Good Madison quote. Not that very many students will even know who Madison was. Their loss and ours.
Bill, I see you closed off commentating on your WordPress site.
Maybe that's because I was the only one to comment there on 'Taking On the Military-Industrial Complex?'
Why don't you just shut down the WP account you're paying for and just stick with this substack?
Seems to me like a waste of money to pay for web hosting twice posting the same articles.
The Christ says, Blessed are the Peace Makers, for THEY shall be called the Children of God.
In self-proclaimed 'most Christian America' they are marginalized as the Children of WAR are incited by the MSM, the 5th Horseman of the Apocalypse.