Growing Up Into War Culture

Growing Up Into War Culture

With the release of the film American Sniper, which chronicles the life and military career of Chris Kyle, an American sniper in the US military, I sat down to think of what are the effects of growing up in what I call "War Culture"? What influence does the constant barrage of pro war and pro military images, songs and the almost mandatory glorification and appreciation that must be bestowed upon those who "serve" have on individuals.
How does the use of militarism and imbued detached emotional conditioning in entertainment lend to this culture?

I think first I need to explain what I see as "War Culture"
War Culture is the constant inoculation of militarism and perpetual war to the people of the world. It is not an isolated subject and is seen in just about every country on earth. It is the conditioning through various means to make war seem as just another aspect of life. It is the systematic conditioning to raise new generations to believe that the only way man has lived is in this perpetual state of alarm or conflict. Through the entertainment industries we see video games, movies and music that revolve around the occupation of the military or its missions, in essence Propaganda. Through the political sphere it is a constant stream of fear manipulation and the misuse of resources for destruction rather than diplomacy. The schools teach the military conquests from their home countries and gloss over the destruction that resulted. Again this is not an isolated occurrence, it happens all over the world.

Those that were born in the US after 2001 have never known a time when the US military was not engaged in a conflict, war, occupation or mission in one or another Middle Eastern country. Those who were born after 2001 may never know of a time when the US military will not have some sort of presence or installation in these countries.

Those that were born in these Middle Eastern countries after 2001 have never known a time when there wasn't a foreign military moving into their homes and communities. They would not know a time when their family were not targets for violence by men from far away. They grow up into a system of seeing this everyday, their family fighting for their own homes and their own way of life and they follow into this mindset. It doesn't take too much of a leap of logic to see that when someone sees this behavior day in and day out from childhood that they would continue on with the cycle later in life.

Then too we can think of the child soldiers from some other countries. Those who have entered this "service" by voluntary means have also been in large part brought up into this War Culture. They have never known a time, most of them, that their fathers were not at war, that their homes have not been threatened or even that their minds not set to these actions by the learned behavior or expressions of their religious leaders.

Kids, in the US especially, are approached early in their lives to consider joining the gears of the war machine. They are fed the scripts and lies of recruiters who have to fill new boots as fast as they fill caskets. By high school age in the US a person is to have been familiarized to the concept of war, used to the blind obedience to authority and have had their heads filled with the idea of protecting freedom by killing whoever their government is fighting with at the moment.

The media and entertainment industries play a major role in this idea. Think about this past year, how many movies were released that were based around military and war themes. Unbroken, Monuments Men, The Boys of Abu Ghriab, Seal Team 8, Jarhead 2,Fort Bliss, Good Kill and many many more. Now what about the gaming industry. In recent years with the rise in military actions around the world the gaming industry has turned into putting out more and more titles that deal with war and militarism. Now there is a lot of debate about the effect the games have on the players, if they turn out to be any more or less violent than those that do not play those types of games. But the theory is still valid, as far as the desensitizing effect it may have. Getting used to shooting at another human, destroying homes businesses, taking orders from authority and doing so unquestionably. Titles like Call of Duty, Destiny, Fallout, Titanfall, all lend to this issue. Again this is still a disputed theory and has not been determined to be viable at all. It is only in mentioning this that I hope to illustrate the tendency of entertainment companies to follow events happening in the world and to bring about some sense of entertaining qualities of war and the military theme to each new generation.

{ Speaking with a friend on this theory as I am writing this he makes a notation that this theory, that violent images from games or movies can have an effect on the minds and responses of individuals, makes the case that if the theory were incorrect there would be no reason to sit your child in front of a television or use and audio program to help them learn certain traits or characteristics. Sesame Street being an example, it is said that the majority of parents feel that by allowing their child to view this show they hope to reinforce good behaviors and learning skills. IF this theory were true in this instance it would be true in the case for picking up violent behavior as well. }

Even before some kids make it to an age that playing these games or watching these movies become an option they are brought into the war culture through their public and private educations. The National Anthem in America is a song of the battle at Fort McHenry in Baltimore MD September 7th 1814. It is a song about battle, of war, glorifying the action and triumph of the American colonies from the invading British troops. This anthem, being recognized as a National Anthem of the US by a law signed on March 3, 1931 by President Herbert Hoover. This being one of the first encounters with the theme of war even on a subconscious level. But this isn't just left to schoolchildren any more, no the national anthem is played at most if not all major sporting events, public ceremonies, political events, funerals, weddings, birthdays, national holiday celebrations and in some areas just because people love to sing a song of war. Many other nation's national anthems depict war themes as well. Many calling for rivers of blood, domination over enemies, revolutions, the firing of weapons to defeat foes and the beating of war drums and superiority of the country in battle.

 The anthem of Algeria is a example of this: "We swear by the lightning that destroys, By the streams of generous blood being shed" 

"When we spoke, none listened to us, So we have taken the noise of gunpowder as our rhythm, And the sound of machine guns as our melody"

For more on Anthems used as the drums of war see here.

http://users.dickinson.edu/~history/product/perry/national_anthem.html

Then there are those parents that raise their children with an expectation of joining the military. With parents that wish to ship you off to either kill someone or die trying to do that, who needs enemies? Often heard are the pro war people, "I would be so proud if my son/daughter joined the military." Under this implication they are under a false impression that 1. the military fights for freedom or security and 2. that their career choice is somehow a service to the country. 

That being said, what do we see from the culture of war?

Being raised and seeing the media portray the figures and images of war, without the true nature of destruction that it leaves in it's wake has left us, the world, desensitized to it all. The ability to be entertained by the use of violence has disconnected us from the real tragedy of the brutality of war. The constant barrage of subdued tones of Patriotism means serving in the military, the threats of violence from those the defend the institution of war and of the military's that wage them to those who seek peace through diplomacy and free and open trade. The boogie men created by institutions of government that turn into the very real monsters they were meant to look like. All of these things have added to a culture that sees war as the health of the state, that sees heroism in being able to kill another human being, that sees patriotism and nationalism as the wanton release of all personal morals or beliefs in the name of orders.

The Glorification of soldiers and the illogical justification for actions that in any other setting are immoral and unjust is a hard barrier to break. Any attempt is usually met with a onslaught of defenders and a constant stream of physical violence and threats of violence, again a product of the culture. The almost mandatory subjection of oneself to a life of praise and glory being bestowed upon those who "serve".

*I used quotation marks when mentioning the word serve in relation to military members. This is because the false sense that they are serving a nation, a country, the citizens of a certain land. Their service is to the government imposed over that land and those people. It is true that the paycheck does come from the citizens but not by voluntary means, not as a signal of worth or seen value but it is coerced and forced from them by government mandate.

 

War begets War it is said. And it would be correct given the history of the world SO FAR. But we do have the capability to end the cycle of perpetual wars, unneeded killing and dying, destruction and conquest. I refuse to glorify or propagate a system of despicable behavior under a twisted logic. Hero's are not those that go along with immoral orders, they do not revel in killing other human beings, they do not use a justification cooked up by some other person or entity to inflict destruction and death.

The Real State of the Union

The Real State of the Union

President Obama gave his 7th State of the Union speech  last night, January 21st 2015. After hearing these speeches year after year, president after president I have come to see them not as projections of what the actual state of the nation is, but rather an advertisement for things the president thinks he did well,

“ ...more of our people are insured than ever before...”

Well yeah, they kind of have to be, remember you made them criminals if they didn’t buy insurance.

Not mentioned in last nights remarks is the reality of the real state of the union.

What about the National Debt?

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 21 Jan 2015 at 06:03:20 PM GMT is:

The estimated population of the United States is 319,850,520

so each citizen's share of this debt is $56,565.23.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of

$2.40 billion per day since September 30, 2012!

Or maybe the amount of new regulations?

A little over 75,000 pages of new burdensome and restrictive regulations were imposed on US businesses. Each one a hinderance to the growth and expansion of businesses.

No mention of the prison population.

More than 1.57 million inmates sat behind bars in federal, state, and county prisons and jails around the country as of December 31, 2013. Many from victimless crimes.

We could go on with the rising tax rates, poverty levels, inflation, wasteful spending, the drug war, real wars and their destructive nature, the rate of returning soldiers committing suicide, the rate of bankruptcy and homelessness, the NSA…. And so on and so on.

The State of the Union has become nothing more than promises of future action and commercialization of past actions, not to give a statistical breakdown of how the nation is functioning.

Afghanistan War: The Take Away

13 years, 2 months, 3 weeks, and 1 day 

The Afghanistan War is finally over at least in the sense that there will no more US combat missions for the time being. The take away from this ordeal is trillions of dollars (US) have been used and 2,356 American soldiers have died.  This is not to mention other nations service members that that died in combat. And it does not include the thousands of service members that commit suicide every year, an average of 22 per month in the US. These numbers do not include the medical costs to injured troops and the care they receive after injury. This does not include the pensions and retirements received by service members either. 

In September of this year (2014) a Bilateral Security Agreement was signed by the US and Afghan Governments allowing the US to continue funding, arming and training the Afghan Security Forces for another 10 years. 

"The deal stipulates long-term U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and access to numerous bases and installations in the country, including facilities located in Bagram, home to the notorious U.S. military prison. The pact does not detail the exact number of U.S. troops to remain, but Obama has previously stated he plans to cut U.S. troops down to 9,800 by the beginning of 2015, then cut that number by half at the end of next year, with further cuts slated for the end of 2016. As of earlier this year, there were approximately 50,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, 34,000 of which were American." Writes Sarah Lazare, staff writer for CommonDreams.org

Also from that article.

According to Peter Lems, Program Officer at the American Friends Service Committee, "That's one of the biggest problems with the War on Terror since September 11: these wars don't end," said Lems. "We have this crazy situation where we have undeclared wars and, perhaps because of the nature of undeclared conflicts, it's easy to look at them as dissipating but never-ending."

The deal also allows the U.S. to pursue "counter-terrorism" missions as long as they "complement" those of the Afghan military and "authorizes United States government aircraft and civil aircraft that are operated by or exclusively for United States forces to enter, exit, overfly, land, take off, conduct aerial refueling, and move within the territory of Afghanistan." Critics warn that the stipulation is likely to allow the U.S. to continue its covert drone wars against the region, including neighboring Pakistan.

Under the agreement, the U.S. is to play a critical role in "advising, training, equipping, supporting, and sustaining" the Afghan military, as well as "developing intelligence sharing capabilities; strengthening Afghanistan’s Air Force capabilities; conducting combined military exercises." Many warn that "training" is in fact cover for holding onto bases and other geopolitical footholds.

According to Lems, this provision sets the conditions for long-term U.S. domination. "To have the U.S. fully fund that apparatus will lead to dependence, but also encourage Afghan officials to use force and violence the way the U.S. has," he said."

So while the US has decided to pull out a large proportion of the troops in the country, this deal allows more to stay and the continuation of the funding and arming of this foreign army. It also allows immunity to US forces still in the country. This is a hotly contested aspect of the US presence in Afghanistan. Since the beginning of Afghan campaigns US service personnel were granted a certain immunity to crimes against Afghan civilians, including murder. With an estimated 21,000 civilians killed since operations began it seems immunity is getting it's use. Sadly.

So the take away on Afghanistan is this.

The US has put it's citizens into deeper debt with it's central bankers. It has made millionaires of designers and builders of machines that maim and kill. It has subjected it's citizens to death in the name of war. And it will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. 

On the US Torture Report

As Americans are hearing now from their government of the "enhanced interrogations" taking place in CIA held facilities. The US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its "Torture Report", and with it a flood of charges of inhumane treatments, murder, brutality and absolute detestable behavior from government employees and military service members. Of course there is no shortage of those who try and justify the treatment of detainees. Those that clamor for the reduction of the government, it's footprint into the lives and actions of people and claims of fiscal conservatism, have been using their loudest bullhorns to defend the actions of government officials and the military industrial complex, calling these actions "right for the public interest".

I am not sorry to say that any man who wishes these actions to continue or to propagate some idea of immunity for those involved are of the lowest respectable people of this earth to me. The idea that in order for "the good of the public" this evil must exist and be administered to other humans is completely asinine and reprehensible.

"No good can come from this evil,

 no justice can come from torture 

and no light from this darkness."

Torture is Torture no matter the reason or the results.
Torture is not acceptable when those you vote for say it is and those that follow them allow themselves to commit it. Shame not only for the politicians who contrive this action but all those in uniform or suit in the name of the government that facilitated or propagated torture of any other person. No act that is immoral for an individual to do unto others suddenly or miraculously becomes moral with the sanction of a State or central authority.

As Murray Rothbard states "In contrast to all other thinkers, left, right, or in-between, the libertarian refuses to give the State the moral sanction to commit actions that almost everyone agrees would be immoral, illegal, and criminal if committed by any person or group in society...if we look at the State naked, as it were, we see that it is universally allowed, and even encouraged, to commit all the acts which even non-libertarians concede are reprehensible crimes." (Ch. 2, "Property and Exchange")

Stats on Afghanistan since 2001

Since October 7th 2001 the US military has occupied Afghanistan. That is 13 years. 4735 days.

Billions of dollars have been used, wasted. The estimate for the cost of deploying one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan is over US$1 million a year. The total cost from inception to the fiscal year 2011 was expected to be $468 billion.

US service member deaths are 3749 estimated 30000 wounded.

Afghanistan deaths, both military and civilian, have been estimated at 35-50 thousand.

US launches airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria.

From The Guardian. The United States has started airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria. This should end well....

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2014/sep/23/us-launches-air-strikes-against-isis-targets-in-syria

Chelsea Manning raises her voice on the ISIS issue.

ISIS seems to be the hottest topic the past few weeks and now a new voice has risen to give a point of view. Chelsea Manning who served in the US army as an intelligence analyst as Bradley Manning has penned an article first appearing on The Guardian website yesterday. As with all opinions this should be taken as just her point of view and agreement or disagreement is not what this post is about, it is to forward the message and thought of Manning to the readers.

An artist's rendering of how Chelsea Manning sees herself.

A few different publishers have picked up this story and a bit of confusion or willful misinterpretation has taken place by some. In his article Manning lays out her experience and knowledge of the group and their aims. Manning explains what he sees as a legitimate course that can be taken to limit, degrade and ultimately try to destroy the group with as little intervention as possible. As she puts it, " Bullets and Bombs won't stop ISIS."

You can read the RT article here or the original letter to The Guardian here.

Also be sure to read the Breitbart article misinterpreting Mannings intentions here.

A response to "Want to Destroy ISIS? Congress Should Implement the Draft and Raise Taxes Immediately."

This is the headline from a recent Huffington Post blog post, authored by H. A. Goodman. In this post he gives a case for implementing the re emergence of a national draft and raising taxes to afford another war. In the face of another boogy-man in the sand box of the Middle East some will actually endorse these ideas and promote their full and swift introduction. Thrusting the US into another war inside Iraq, Syria, and other Middle Eastern and African nations will amount to what could be considered World War 3. And just as those two previous World Wars saw the forced conscription of citizens into the military forces, it seems some would still use this to obtain their wartime ends.

"It's time to get off the couch, America, and collectively sacrifice for national security, both through taxes to fund the next conflict and a draft, like previous generations in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. ISIS wants to bankrupt this country and drag us into another quagmire, so if you believe these maniacs need to be destroyed by bullets fired from American guns, it's time for you too to start firing these bullets and paying for the next war. Once we defeat ISIS, we can then begin to destroy the next terrorist group that pops up (like Al-Qaeda Iraq morphed into ISIS) with money from higher taxes and from the additional troop levels from a national draft."

This idea, to force people to fight in a war they did not start, or to give their lives for another person's sake and even worse the ends of their own government is arguably the worst form of absolute slavery in the US.  Those that choose to volunteer are admirable in their selflessness and sacrifice, but our military isn't a 100% voluntary idea. Since the US military is funded by the US Government and the US government is funded by yearly budgets. Those budgets are approved with the knowledge that every dime will be borrowed from the US central bank The Federal Reserve. What most Americans are unaware of is the added interest that is then owed back to the Federal Reserve for loaning that money. Also unaware to most is the fact that the "debt" that is now owed to the bank is then sold to foreign nations by the central bank.

So how then does this debt get paid back? Since the US Government does not produce anything, they rely on the citizens through taxation. Increased Taxation is the second point of this article. The author states, "To my fellow Tea Party Americans who care about debt and who, like me, want these terrorists gone, I ask you to remember the cost of war. According to Harvard University, "The US has already borrowed some $2 trillion to finance the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars and the associated defense build-up -- a major component of the $9 trillion US debt accrued since 2001." The total cost will reach $6 trillion when healthcare costs from both wars are taken into account and the interest from borrowing could reach trillions."  

He adds, " Taxes and military service is what America owes its veterans, future generations, and any terrorist who gets in the way of freedom and democracy. Open up your pocket books, pick up a gun, and say goodbye to your family, because America needs everyone to chip in and protect liberty."

This gives great alarm to me as well as millions who see the costs of wars as unnecessarily burdensome to our generation as well as those that will follow. Anyone who calls himself a Conservative or recognizes the insanity and exploitation of taxation should be completely against any such increase of the great draining of personal wealth for the idea of war. Now some will say that we do not pick these fights and that we, meaning the US as a whole, should be ready to defend our culture and our country at all personal cost. This is the great collectiveness of Nationalism. To assume that one would and should hold all personal sacrifice for a geographical area they were cosmically dropped upon birth assumes that all such persons should be ready to volunteer their lives and fortunes to defend the areas government in whatever troubles they may find themselves. That is a dangerous place to find oneself, a slave upon birth to the nation one was born. Just a teat to be suckled until no longer needed or producing.



But the author gives us a glimpse of his true intention of the article in the comments section.

"Yes, a great deal of it is indeed satire aimed at showing that if Americans in aggregate had to pay for and fight wars themselves, instead of letting the 2.5 million veterans of the recent Iraq and Afghanistan Wars fight for a nation over 300 million, we'd think twice about war. We'd also think twice about fighting a third Iraq War if we had to pay for it appropriately, through a war tax. My article is meant to ask the question, what if the average American had to pay and fight for the constant wars we engage in, and would Americans be as quick to send our troops everywhere and anywhere in the name of security? Also, we still have a VA crisis so what will happen to that when a third Iraq war starts? These are all issues I've presented in the article.The answers I believe can be found in these comments, both liberals and conservatives have their own view of this article, and I thank you and everyone on here who took the time to read my thoughts. "

 Taken at face value this article is full of the worst ideology and the worst policy that can come to my mind. I believe the author sets about this article in the most facetious way, and it worked, I was dismayed at the prospect that this man would push this idea forward with such a large audience. It does not bestow any confidence in the author that he kept his intention to the comments, but gives great caution that those who read his words and took them at face value would hold any such views. I do realize that there are many, many people who do hold these views and that do propagate these ideals, and that is a very prospect as to what may come in a short while.

Note: As of 9/16/14 the author has placed a editors note preceding the article. It seems more than just I were having trouble picking up on hints of satire.  Here is his note.

Dear Reader,

This article is satire. Its goal is to highlight that Americans would never engage in decade-long wars and put war on a credit card if a draft and taxes correlated to military engagements.

I am against a draft and please read my article prior to this one, or after this one, to see where I stand. My writing is also very much against perpetual war and I've had numerous posts on this subject, as illustrated within my bio page.

Also, I'm all for constructive criticism, but please remember that threats of death take place in fascist and totalitarian regimes against writers, so if you claim to be for freedom and democracy, try to simply argue a point through words like normal people.

In addition, one website claimed that my viewpoint is "we're a nation of selfish sloths"and tried to psychoanalyze my motives. I do not feel this way and if I adhered to conspiracy theories, I'd wager that such analysis was meant to create hatred of satire, or create something that isn't presented within my thoughts or this article. I absolutely do not think we'e a slothful nation, I just think we vote on emotional issues like taxes or a draft, or a beheading video, and not on things like the VA crisis still ongoing, or the repercussions of counterinsurgency wars on our veterans and nation, or other relevant issues to our security. Therefore, to conspiracy theorists who enjoy putting words in other people's mouths, please simply disparage my writing, or lack of knowledge, or the fact that my arguments might be flawed, not your cookie cutter view of vast conspiracies that coincidentally coincide with arguments, issues, or satire you disagree with or fail to accurately interpret. My body of work speaks for itself and I am against perpetual wars and if I engage in future satirical articles, please understand that satire works to illustrate the insanity of war and bloodshed, sometimes better than preaching. Sometimes connecting the dots means simply reading another's thoughts without the agenda of correlating them to a grandiose narrative and evaluating their work in aggregate. Don't worry, there aren't any codes or secret agendas in my satirical articles, simply addressing human fallibility and propensity for never-ending wars through an apparently flawed method.

Finally, anyone using this article to foment controversy or the belief that a draft is imminent, or that a conspiracy is taking place, or that their ideology is validated in this writing must remember the thoughts below are satire, and a satirical take on why our country continually engages in never-ending war.

I might write more satire in the near future and will specify within the article that it is indeed a satirical piece. I apologize to anyone I've offended, this was certainly not my intent.

Have a wonderful day,

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles"

Although Eugene Debs was an Anti-Capitalistic Union Socialist, rising to run for President of the US many times, he had a certain truth about War. It is never those that declare war that are required to fight it, Why?

This is a quote from a speech in Canton Ohio speech in 1918.

"Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder. In the Middle Ages when the feudal lords who inhabited the castles whose towers may still be seen along the Rhine concluded to enlarge their domains, to increase their power, their prestige and their wealth they declared war upon one another. But they themselves did not go to war any more than the modern feudal lords, the barons of Wall Street go to war. The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another's throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell.

They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war, and strange as it certainly appears, no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.

And here let me emphasize the fact — and it cannot be repeated too often — that the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish the corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace.

"Yours not to reason why;

Yours but to do and die."

That is their motto and we object on the part of the awakening workers of this nation.
If war is right let it be declared by the people. You who have your lives to lose, you certainly above all others have the right to decide the momentous issue of war or peace."


http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eugene_V._Debs.

Ultimately this speech would lead to the imprisonment of Debs for his active opposition of the United States Government's use of conscription to fill ranks and boots during its intervention into World War 1.


"On Sept. 14, 1918, Judge D. C. Westenhauer issued his sentence, sending Debs to prison for ten years. An appeal by Debs to the U.S. Supreme Court failed and in April 1919 he entered the Moundsville, West Virginia, state prison (which housed some federal detainees) to begin serving his jail term. Two months later, he was transferred to the Atlanta federal prison from which he ran his fifth and final presidential campaign. In the 1920 election, Debs captured his highest vote total ever (913,664), but the Socialist party's total vote percentage dropped to three percent.

On Christmas Day in 1921, the man who defeated Debs for president, Warren G. Harding, commuted his sentence to time served and Debs returned home to Terre Haute. Debs continued to speak and write for the socialist cause during the next few years, but was in poor health due to his prison experience and the effects of his grueling work schedule throughout his adult life. He died in Lindlahr sanitarium just outside of Chicago on Oct. 20, 1926." via The Anarchist Encyclopedia.

*NOTE*

I do believe it is in the best interest of people to be aware of those that fought against the issues we are still seeing today. I do not, in any way, agree with Mr. Debs on his notion or belief that Socialism is a better social and/or economic system than Capitalism,but I do acknowledge his work in the Non-Intervention, Anti-Conscription, and Human Rights Causes. We may not agree on everything 100% of the time but we should recognize those that put effort into beliefs that we do hold in common.

Why are Americans Joining Islamic Groups?

I was asked today by a coworker if an attack could be made by the group ISIS on American soil.
Of course it theoretically can happen. As traction is gaining with ISIS and it seems a "No War" situation is growing ever smaller, American Citizens are joining the ranks of this group. The Department of Justice has apprehended a few hopeful "wannabes" as they either tried to leave or have returned from places like Syria and Iraq. Recently one was even killed fighting with an ISIS linked group. We have seen in recent weeks tweets and news stories of people claiming to be ISIS members showing a flag and note at the gates of the White House and another leading police on a car chase with a ISIS flag displayed out their car window. These could be legitimate members of this group or another, and it could just be people claiming to be but not actual members of  these groups wishing to cause a stir and strike fear in the minds of the citizens.

This leads us to the title point "why would these people join the ranks of a group notably violent towards religions and peoples of certain geographical locations? Why would they give their lives for a cause of violence in the name of some distorted religious view?

It may be those that have found their own view of Islam in whatever fashion they accept it or it could be in some odd way a chance to gain notoriety in themselves. I do not presume to know what drives people to the choices they make. But it is an interesting question to be sure.

In talking with this co-worker he had also asked if any event took place do I think it would be a large scale attack or small. I have to say that for myself I do not really worry too much of the scale of what may or may not happen. It may be small on the scale of a suitcase explosive or it could be on par with a 9/11/01 attack, I think it is a non issue at the size or scale of whatever happens. I don't think it would take much at this point to excite Americans into a religious genocide against every self-described follower of Islam. With the amount of fear conditioning and propaganda being broadcast it wouldn't take much to start a war on all of Islam, in my opinion, although I surely hope I am wrong.

On the James Foley video

I finally watched the Foley "beheading"  video and along with that 3 others from people claiming to be of the same group ISIS, ISIL or any of their other aliases. To note that in every other video these groups or people have never cut away while the victim was being beheaded and the presence of large amounts of blood from the very beginning of the cutting, it is missing from the Foley video and the cutaway that takes place. Along with that there is the higher tech that was used in the Foley video to place a small waving ISIS flag in the upper corner of the video, it is not to say that the groups have not been able to acquire the equipment or knowledge to do this, but that is out of routine for them to do so. I also noticed a part of the Foley video that seems to imply a portion had to be cut away for some unknown reason.

All in all I am not going to say that Foley is still alive and it was all just a rouse, it seems very much like a staged event and one that sets a new precedent for what will happen in those countries as America and the world deals with what is going on.

Video experts have been analyzing this video since it's release and some have noted the very same instances and examples as I have. It is not to say that any of us are correct but that there are others who have the experience to make a judgement call on this video.

In closing I do feel sorry for Foley's parents, his family and friends. It is a sad state of affairs that a man who was in a country for the sole purpose of journalism was captured, tortured and ultimately killed for the actions of others. Time will tell if these instances will continue or if more aggressive means will be used to prevent the groups in those countries from moving forward with their plans.

I will not link the video, as anyone can easily find it themselves and I do not want to advance the viewership of anyone promoting it as an acceptable means of behavior or entertainment in any way.

What I do have to say of the message in the video. The member of ISIS uses the intervention into Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and other Middle Eastern Nations as their purpose of this act. As a non-interventionist I believe that all  intervention has effects such as this, as does all foreign aid. Both of these policies drive a hatred of America because of an act perpetrated by American Politicians. it is far past time for others to realize this. This can be a lesson for a new direction in foreign policy or it can be used as a propaganda tool for furthering the intervention and increased wartime spending and operations.

Radio Show I did over the Weekend.

I was asked to come onto a radio show by the host and talk about the blog and about other things, current news, a bit into the economics of police and the increasing militarization of police forces across the country as well as subsidies and the alter effects of taxation. It is a short 30 minute show and the host and I were able to get through a lot of topics and issues.

Take a minute to listen to a spot I did with Rakkur Crowley on his radio program Austrian Circle. You can find his entire playlist on the Voluntary Virtues Network Youtube channel.


https://s3.amazonaws.com/AustrianCircle/Podcasts/Austrian+Circle+Travis+Wilson+web.mp3

Arms exports from United States to Iraq 2000-2013

Arms exports from United States to Iraq 2000-2013

This is a list of all the arms trades made in contracts from the US government to the Iraqi Government.


#Ordered/Designation/Weapon description/Year of order/Year(s) of deliverie/ #delivered/Comments

8 Avenger Mobile SAM system 2012 2013 - 2013 (3) Part of $105 m deal; 'ISFF' aid
5 ISR King Air-350 AGS aircraft 2007 2008 - 2008 (5) Part of $132 m deal
5 ISR King Air-350 AGS aircraft 2008 2010 - 2011 (5)
16 Bell-205/UH-1 Huey-2 Helicopter 2005 2007 - 2007 (16) Iraqi UH-1H rebuilt to Huey-2
7 Comp Air-7SL Light aircraft 2004 2004 - 2004 7 Financed by UAE; assembled from kits in UAE
20 Bell-206/OH-58 Light helicopter 2007 2008 - 2009 20 Incl 10 ex-US OH-58C and 10 second-hand Bell-
206B version; aid
3 Bell-407 Light helicopter 2009 2010 - 2010 3 $6.9 m deal; T-407 trainer version
24 Bell-407 Light helicopter 2009 2012 - 2013 24 $60 m deal; armed version; option on 26 more
3 Bell-407 Light helicopter 2010 2011 - 2011 (3)
(11) Cessna-208 Caravan Light transport ac 2005 2007 - 2009 (11) Including 3 AC-208B armed version
1 King Air Light transport ac 2007 2007 - 2007 1 Part of $160 m deal; King Air-350ER version
1 King Air Light transport ac 2008 2010 - 2010 (1) King Air-350ER version
15 PC-9 Trainer aircraft 2009 2009 - 2010 15 Part of $257 m deal; T-6A version
12 Cessna-172/T-41 Trainer/light ac 2007 2007 - 2009 12 Option on 6 more
3 C-130E Hercules Transport aircraft 2004 2005 - 2005 3 Ex-US; aid
6 C-130J-30 Hercules Transport aircraft 2009 2012 - 2013 6 $293 m deal
43 ASV-150/M-1117 APC 2004 2004 - 2005 (43) $50 m deal; incl 2 CP version
(19) ASV-150/M-1117 APC 2004 2005 - 2005 19
378 Cougar APC 2006 2006 - 2007 (378) $180 m deal; Iraqi Light Armored Vehicle (ILAV) or
Badger version
20 Cougar APC 2006 2007 - 2007 (20) $7.8m deal; Iraqi Light Armoured Vehicle (ILAV)
version
50) M-113 APC 2006 2006 - 2007 (50) Ex-US; aid
27 Cougar APC 2007 2008 - 2008 (27) Iraqi Light Armoured Vehicle (ILAV) version
(122) ASV-150/M-1117 APC 2008 2008 - 2009 (122)
20 M-113 APC 2008 2010 - 2010 (20) Probably ex-US; incl 12 M-577A2 Command Post
version
09 Cougar APC 2009 2010 - 2010 109 $59 m deal; Iraqi Light Armoured Vehicle (ILAV)
version
80 ASV-150/M-1117 APC 2010 2011 - 2013 (80) $85 m deal; incl 8 command post version
(834) M-113 APC 2010 2011 - 2012 (834) Ex-US; M-113A2 version; modernized before
delivery; incl command post, mortar-carrier,
ambulance and other versions

Top Ten Countries and Military Spending

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute these are the top ten countries in relations to military spending. The US is again on top of this list as it has been for years. Even with its steady decline in spending due to budget cuts it still sits at over 3 times that of the number 2 spender China. All of this money is extracted from its citizens through taxation and sits as one of the top expenses in these countries.

Below is the list of the top ten countries and their military spending numbers. Although the Stockholm Institute does not give the break down per capita I have done those numbers and added them underneath each countries stats.

No. 10: Brazil
Military expenditure: $36.2 billion
Expenditure as pct. of GDP: 1.4 percent (tied, 62nd lowest)
1-yr. spending change: -3.9 percent (26th lowest)
Total arms imports: $254 million (24th highest)
Total arms exports: $36 million (12th lowest)
Population: 198.7 Million
Per Capita Spending: 183.00 Yearly


No. 9: India
Military expenditure: $49.1 billion
Expenditure as pct. of GDP: 2.5 percent (31st highest)
1-yr. spending change: -0.7 percent (46th lowest)
Total arms imports: $5.6 billion (the highest)
Total arms exports: $10 million (10th lowest)
Population: 1.237 Billion
Per Capita Spending: 40.91Yearly



No. 8: Germany
Military expenditure: $49.3 billion
Expenditure as pct. of GDP: 1.4 percent (tied, 62nd lowest)
1-yr. spending change: 0.0 percent (53rd lowest)
Total arms imports: $129 million (36th highest)
Total arms exports: $972 million (6th highest)
Population: 81.9 Million
Per Capita Spending: 601.95 Yearly





No. 7: United Kingdom
Military expenditure: $56.2 billion
Expenditure as pct. of GDP: 2.3 percent (34th highest)
1-yr. spending change: -2.6 percent (34th lowest)
Total arms imports: $438 million (15th highest)
Total arms exports: $1.4 billion (5th highest)
Population: 63.23 Million
Per Capita Spending: 903.10 Yearly



No. 6: Japan
Military expenditure: $59.4 billion
Expenditure as pct. of GDP: 1.0 percent (31st lowest)
1-yr. spending change: -0.2 percent (52nd lowest)
Total arms imports: $145 million (34th highest)
Total arms exports: N/A
Population: 127.6 Million
Per Capita Spending: 465.51 Yearly



No. 5: France
Military expenditure: $62.3 billion
Expenditure as pct. of GDP: 2.2 percent (39th highest)
1-yr. spending change: -2.3 percent (35th lowest)
Total arms imports: $43 million (55th highest)
Total arms exports: $1.5 billion (4th highest)
Population: 65.7 Million
Per Capita Spending: 948.24 Yearly



No. 4: Saudi Arabia
Military expenditure: $62.8 billion
Expenditure as pct. of GDP: 9.3 percent (2nd highest)
1-yr. spending change: 14.3 percent (16th highest)
Total arms imports: $1.5 billion (4th highest)
Total arms exports: N/A
Population: 28.29 Million
Per Capita Spending: 2219.86 Yearly



No. 3: Russia
Military expenditure: $84.9 billion
Expenditure as pct. of GDP: 4.1 percent (10th highest)
1-yr. spending change: 4.8 percent (48th highest)
Total arms imports: $148 million (33rd highest)
Total arms exports: $8.3 billion (the highest)
Population: 143.5 Million
Per Capita Spending: 591.63 Yearly



No. 2: China
Military expenditure: $171.4 billion
Expenditure as pct. of GDP: 2.0 percent (45th highest)
1-yr. spending change: 7.4 percent (36th highest)
Total arms imports: $1.5 billion (3rd highest)
Total arms exports: $1.8 billion (3rd highest)
Population:1.35 Billion
Per Capita Spending: 126.96 Yearly



No. 1: United States
Military expenditure: $618.7 billion
Expenditure as pct. of GDP: 3.8 percent (14th highest)
1-yr. spending change: -7.8 percent (12th lowest)
Total arms imports: $759 million (8th highest)
Total arms exports: $6.2 billion (2nd highest)
Population: 313.9 Million
Per Capita Spending: 1971.00 Yearly

As a total these top ten spenders on military combined equals One Trillion Two Hundred Fifty Billion Three Hundred Million, 251,300,000,000 trillion. 

The United States alone spends $100 per person in the WORLD.

These are absolutely staggering numbers. Ones that are unsustainable and unneeded. It is sad to see the worlds citizens be taken for what is a fortune in their own hands, to be taken for the sole purpose of running a governments military. A military that destroys wealth, property, and lives.  

The Enemy Within by Gore Vidal

     On 24 August, 1814, things looked very dark for freedom's land. That was the day the British captured Washington DC and set fire to the Capitol and the White House. President Madison took refuge in the nearby Virginia woods where he waited patiently for the notoriously short attention span of the Brits to kick in, which it did. They moved on and what might have been a Day of Utter Darkness turned out to be something of a bonanza for the DC building trades and up-market realtors. 

     One year after 9/11, we still don't know by whom we were struck that infamous Tuesday, or for what true purpose. But it is fairly plain to many civil-libertarians that 9/11 put paid not only to much of our fragile Bill of Rights but also to our once-envied system of government which had taken a mortal blow the previous year when the Supreme Court did a little dance in 5/4 time and replaced a popularly elected president with the oil and gas Cheney/Bush junta. 

     Meanwhile, our more and more unaccountable government is pursuing all sorts of games around the world that we the spear carriers (formerly the people) will never learn of. Even so, we have been getting some answers to the question: why weren't we warned in advance of 9/11? Apparently, we were, repeatedly; for the better part of a year, we were told there would be unfriendly visitors to our skies some time in September 2001, but the government neither informed nor protected us despite Mayday warnings from Presidents Putin and Mubarak, from Mossad and even from elements of our own FBI. A joint panel of congressional intelligence committees reported (19 September 2002, New York Times) that as early as 1996, Pakistani terrorist Abdul Hakim Murad confessed to federal agents that he was 'learning to fly in order to crash a plane into CIA HQ'. 

     Only CIA director George Tenet seemed to take the various threats seriously. In December 1998, he wrote to his deputies that 'we are at war' with Osama bin Laden. So impressed was the FBI by his warnings that by 20 September 2001, 'the FBI still had only one analyst assigned full time to al-Qaeda'. 

     From a briefing prepared for Bush at the beginning of July 2001: 'We believe that OBL [Osama bin Laden] will launch a significant terrorist attack against US and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against US facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.' And so it came to pass; yet Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, says she never suspected that this meant anything more than the kidnapping of planes. 

     Happily, somewhere over the Beltway, there is Europe — recently declared anti-Semitic by the US media because most of Europe wants no war with Iraq and the junta does, for reasons we may now begin to understand thanks to European and Asian investigators with their relatively free media. 

     On the subject 'How and Why America was Attacked on 11 September, 2001', the best, most balanced report, thus far, is by Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed ... Yes, yes, I know he is one of Them. But they often know things that we don't — particularly about what we are up to. A political scientist, Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development 'a think-tank dedicated to the promotion of human rights, justice and peace' in Brighton. His book, 'The War on Freedom', has just been published in the US by a small but reputable publisher. 

     Ashmed provides a background for our ongoing war against Afghanistan, a view that in no way coincides with what the administration has told us. He has drawn on many sources, most tellingly on American whistleblowers who are beginning to come forth and hear witness — like those FBI agents who warned their supervisors that al-Qaeda was planning a kamikaze strike against New York and Washington only to be told that if they went public with these warnings they would suffer under the National Security Act. Several of these agents have engaged David P. Schippers, chief investigative counsel for the US House Judiciary Committee, to represent them in court. The majestic Schippers managed the successful impeachment of President Clinton in the House of Representatives. He may, if the Iraqi war should go wrong, be obliged to perform the same high service for Bush, who allowed the American people to go unwarned about an imminent attack upon two of our cities as pre-emption of a planned military strike by the US against the Taliban. 

     The Guardian (26 September 2001) reported that in July 2001, a group of interested parties met in a Berlin hotel to listen to a former State Department official, Lee Coldren, as he passed on a message from the Bush administration that 'the United States was so disgusted with the Taliban that they might be considering some military action ... the chilling quality of this private warning was that it came — according to one of those present, the Pakistani diplomat Niaz Naik — accompanied by specific details of how Bush would succeed ...' Four days earlier, the Guardian had reported that 'Osama bin Laden and the Taliban received threats of possible American military action against them two months before the terrorist assaults on New York and Washington ... [which] raises the possibility that bin Laden was launching a pre-emptive strike in response to what he saw as US threats.' A replay of the 'day of infamy' in the Pacific 62 years earlier?

Why the US needed a Eurasian adventure

     On 9 September 2001, Bush was presented with a draft of a national security presidential directive outlining a global campaign of military, diplomatic and intelligence action targeting al-Qaeda, buttressed by the threat of war. According to NBC News: 'President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaeda ... but did not have the chance before the terrorist attacks ... The directive, as described to NBC News, was essentially the same war plan as the one put into action after 11 September. The administration most likely was able to respond so quickly ... because it simply had to pull the plans "off the shelf".' 

     Finally, BBC News, 18 September 2001: 'Niak Naik, a former Pakistan foreign secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. It was Naik's view that Washington would not drop its war for Afghanistan even if bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban.' 

     Was Afghanistan then turned to rubble in order to avenge the 3,000 Americans slaughtered by Osama? Hardly. The administration is convinced that Americans are so simple-minded that they can deal with no scenario more complex than the venerable lone, crazed killer (this time with zombie helpers) who does evil just for the fun of it 'cause he hates us, 'cause we're rich 'n free 'n he's not. Osama was chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the most frightening logo for our long contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan, planning for which had been 'contingency' some years before 9/11 and, again, from 20 December, 2000, when Clinton's out-going team devised a plan to strike at al-Qaeda in retaliation for the assault on the warship Cole. Clinton's National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, personally briefed his successor on the plan but Rice, still very much in her role as director of Chevron-Texaco, with special duties regarding Pakistan and Uzbekistan, now denies any such briefing. A year and a half later (12 August, 2002), fearless Time magazine reported this odd memory lapse. 

     Osama, if it was he and not a nation, simply provided the necessary shock to put in train a war of conquest. But conquest of what? What is there in dismal dry sandy Afghanistan worth conquering? Zbigniew Brzezinski tells us exactly what in a 1997 Council on Foreign Relations study called 'The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives'. 

     The Polish-born Brzezinski was the hawkish National Security Advisor to President Carter. In 'The Grand Chessboard', Brzezinski gives a little history lesson. 'Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some 500 years ago, Eurasia has been the centre of world power.' Eurasia is all the territory east of Germany. This means Russia, the Middle East, China and parts of India. Brzezinski acknowledges that Russia and China, bordering oil-rich central Asia, are the two main powers threatening US hegemony in that area. 

     He takes it for granted that the US must exert control over the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, known to those who love them as 'the Stans': Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan and Kyrgyzstan all 'of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and most powerful neighbours — Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China signaling'. Brzezinski notes how the world's energy consumption keeps increasing; hence, who controls Caspian oil/gas will control the world economy. Brzezinski then, reflexively, goes into the standard American rationalization for empire;. We want nothing, ever, for ourselves, only to keep bad people from getting good things with which to hurt good people. 'It follows that America's primary interest is to help ensure that no single [other] power comes to control the geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.' 

     Brzezinski is quite aware that American leaders are wonderfully ignorant of history and geography so he really lays it on, stopping just short of invoking politically incorrect 'manifest destiny'. He reminds the Council just how big Eurasia is. Seventy-five percent of the world's population is Eurasian. If I have done the sums right, that means that we've only got control, to date, of a mere 25 percent of the world's folks. More! 'Eurasia accounts for 60-per cent of the world's GNP and three-fourths of the world's known energy resources.' 

     Brzezinski's master plan for 'our' globe has obviously been accepted by the Cheney-Bush junta. Corporate America, long over-excited by Eurasian mineral wealth, has been aboard from the beginning. 

     Ahmed sums up: 'Brzezinski clearly envisaged that the establishment, consolidation and expansion of US military hegemony over Eurasia through Central Asia would require the unprecedented, open-ended militarisation of foreign policy, coupled with an unprecedented manufacture of domestic support and consensus on this militarisation campaign.' 

     Afghanistan is the gateway to all these riches. Will we fight to seize them? It should never be forgotten that the American people did not want to fight in either of the twentieth century's world wars, but President Wilson maneuvered us into the First while President Roosevelt maneuvered the Japanese into striking the first blow at Pearl Harbor, causing us to enter the Second as the result of a massive external attack. Brzezinski understands all this and, in 1997, he is thinking ahead — as well as backward. 'Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.' Thus was the symbolic gun produced that belched black smoke over Manhattan and the Pentagon. 

     Since the Iran-Iraq wars, Islam has been demonized as a Satanic terrorist cult that encourages suicide attacks — contrary, it should be noted, to the Islamic religion. Osama has been portrayed, accurately, it would seem, as an Islamic zealot. In order to bring this evil-doer to justice ('dead or alive'), Afghanistan, the object of the exercise was made safe not only for democracy but for Union Oil of California whose proposed pipeline from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan to Pakistan and the Indian Ocean port of Karachi, had been abandoned under the Taliban's chaotic regime. Currently, the pipeline is a go-project thanks to the junta's installation of a Unocal employee (John J Maresca) as US envoy to the newly born democracy whose president, Hamid Karzai, is also, according to Le Monde, a former employee of a Unocal subsidiary. Conspiracy? Coincidence! 

     Once Afghanistan looked to be within the fold, the junta, which had managed to pull off a complex diplomatic-military caper, abruptly replaced Osama, the personification of evil, with Saddam. This has been hard to explain since there is nothing to connect Iraq with 9/11. Happily, 'evidence' is now being invented. But it is uphill work, not helped by stories in the press about the vast oil wealth of Iraq which must — for the sake of the free world — be reassigned to US and European consortiums. 

     As Brzezinski foretold, 'a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat' made it possible for the President to dance a war dance before Congress. 'A long war!' he shouted with glee. Then he named an incoherent Axis of Evil to be fought. Although Congress did not give him the FDR Special — a declaration of war — he did get permission to go after Osama who may now be skulking in Iraq.

Bush and the dog that did not bark

     Post-9/11, the American media were filled with pre-emptory denunciations of unpatriotic 'conspiracy theorists', who not only are always with us but are usually easy for the media to discredit since it is an article of faith that there are no conspiracies in American life. Yet, a year or so ago, who would have thought that most of corporate America had been conspiring with accountants to cook their books since — well, at least the bright days of Reagan and deregulation. Ironically, less than a year after the massive danger from without, we were confronted with an even greater enemy from within: Golden Calf capitalism. Transparency? One fears that greater transparency will only reveal armies of maggots at work beneath the skin of a culture that needs a bit of a lie-down in order to collect itself before taking its next giant step which is to conquer Eurasia, a potentially fatal adventure not only for our frazzled institutions but for us the presently living. 

     Complicity. The behavior of President George W. Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to all sorts of not unnatural suspicions. I can think of no other modern chief of state who would continue to pose for 'warm' pictures of himself listening to a young girl telling stories about her pet goat while hijacked planes were into three buildings. 

     Constitutionally, Bush is not only chief of state, he is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Normally, a commander in such a crisis would go straight to headquarters and direct operations while receiving the latest intelligence. 

     This is what Bush actually did — or did not do — according to Stan Goff, a retired US Army veteran who has taught military science and doctrine at West Point. Goff writes, in 'The So-called Evidence is a Farce': 'I have no idea why people aren't asking some very specific questions about the actions of Bush and company on the day of the attacks. Four planes get hijacked and deviate from their flight plan, all the while on FAA radar.' 

     Goff, incidentally, like the other astonished military experts, cannot fathom why the government's automatic 'standard order of procedure in the event of a hijacking' was not followed. Once a plane has deviated from its flight-plan, fighter planes are sent up to find out why. That is law and does not require presidential approval, which only needs to be given if there is a decision to shoot down a plane. Goff spells it out: 'The planes were hijacked between 7:45 and 8:10am. Who is notified? This is an event already that is unprecedented. But the President is not notified and going to a Florida elementary school to hear children read. 

     'By around 8:15am it should be very apparent that something is terribly wrong. The President is glad-handling teachers. By 8:45am, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the North Tower, Bush is settling in with children for his photo op. Four planes have obviously been hijacked simultaneously and one has just dived into the twin towers, and still no one notifies the nominal Commander-in-Chief.
     'No one has apparently scrambled [sent aloft] Air Force interceptors either. At 9:03, Flight 175 crashes into the South Tower. At 9:05 Andrew Card, the Chief of Staff whispers to Bush [who] "briefly turns somber" according to reporters. Does he cancel the school visit and convene an emergency meeting? No. He resumes listening to second-graders ... and continues the banality even as American Airlines Flight 77 conducts an unscheduled point turn over Ohio and heads in the direction of Washington DC.
     'Has he instructed Card to scramble the Air Force? No. An excruciating 25 minutes later, he finally deigns to give a public statement telling the United States what they have already figured out — that there's been an attack on the World Trade Centre. There's a hijacked plane bee-lining to Washington, but has the Air Force been scrambled to defend anything yet? No.
     'At 9:35, this plane conducts another turn, 360 [degrees] over the Pentagon, all the while being tracked by radar, and the Pentagon is not evacuated, and there are still no fast-movers from the Air Force in the sky over Alexandria and DC. Now the real kicker: a pilot they want us to believe was trained at a Florida puddle-jumper school for Piper Cubs and Cessnas, conducts a well-controlled downward spiral descending the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes, brings the plane in so low and flat that it clips the electrical wires across the street from the Pentagon, and flies it with pinpoint accuracy into the side of the building at 460 knots.
     'When the theory about learning to fly this well at the puddle-jumper school began to lose ground, it was added that they received further training on a flight simulator. This is like saying you prepared your teenager for her first drive on the freeway at rush hour by buying her a video driving game ... There is a story being constructed about these events.'
     There is indeed, and the more it is added to the darker it becomes. The nonchalance of General Richard B. Myers, acting Joint Chief of Staff, is as puzzling as the President's campaigning-as-usual act. Myers was at the Capitol chatting with Senator Max Cleland. A sergeant, writing later in the AFPS (American Forces Press Service) describes Myers at the Capitol. 'While in an outer office, he said, he saw a television report that a plane had hit the World Trade Centre. "They thought it was a small plane or something like that," Myers said. So the two men went ahead with the office call.'
     Whatever Myers and Cleland had to say to each other (more funds for the military?) must have been riveting because, during their chat, the AFPS reports, 'the second tower was hit by another jet. "Nobody informed us of that," Myers said. "But when we came out, that was obvious. Then, right at that time, somebody said the Pentagon had been hit."' Finally, somebody 'thrust a cellphone in Myers' hand' and, as if by magic, the commanding general of Norad — our Airspace Command — was on the line just as the hijackers mission had been successfully completed except for the failed one in Pennsylvania. In later testimony to the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Myers said he thinks that, as of his cellphone talk with Norad, 'the decision was at that point to start launching aircraft'. It was 9:40am. One hour and 20 minutes after air controllers knew that Flight 11 had been hijacked; 50 minutes after the North Tower was struck.
     This statement would have been quite enough in our old serious army/air force to launch a number of courts martial with an impeachment or two thrown in. First, Myers claims to be uninformed until the third strike. But the Pentagon had been overseeing the hijacked planes from at least the moment of the strike at the first tower: yet not until the third strike, at the Pentagon, was the decision made to get the fighter planes up. Finally, this one is the dog that did not bark. By law, the fighters should have been up at around 8:15. If they had, all the hijacked planes might have been diverted or shot down. I don't think that Goff is being unduly picky when he wonders who and what kept the Air Force from following its normal procedure instead of waiting an hour and 20 minutes until the damage was done and only then launching the fighters. Obviously, somebody had ordered the Air Force to make no move to intercept those hijackings until ... what?
     On 21 January 2002, the Canadian media analyst Barry Zwicker summed up on CBC-TV: 'That morning no interceptors responded in a timely fashion to the highest alert situation. This includes the Andrews squadrons which ... are 12 miles from the White House ... Whatever the explanation for the huge failure, there have been no reports, to my knowledge, of reprimands. This further weakens the "Incompetence Theory". Incompetence usually earns reprimands. This causes me to ask whether there were "stand down" orders.'?? On 29 August 2002, the BBC reports that on 9/11 there were 'only four fighters on ready status in the north-eastern US'. Conspiracy? Coincidence? Error?
     It is interesting how often in our history, when disaster strikes, incompetence is considered a better alibi than ... well, yes, there are worse things. After Pearl Harbor, Congress moved to find out why Hawaii's two military commanders, General Short and Admiral Kimmel, had not anticipated the Japanese attack. But President Roosevelt pre-empted that investigation with one of his own. Short and Kimmel were broken for incompetence. The 'truth' is still obscure to this day.

The media's weapons of mass distraction

     But Pearl Harbor has been much studied. 11 September, it is plain, is never going to be investigated if Bush has anything to say about it. In January 2002, CNN reported that 'Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to limit the Congressional investigation into the events of 11 September ... The request was made at a private meeting with Congressional leaders ... Sources said Bush initiated the conversation ... He asked that only the House and Senate intelligence committees look into the potential breakdowns among federal agencies that could have allowed the terrorist attacks to occur, rather than a broader inquiry .. Tuesday's discussion followed a rare call from Vice President Dick Cheney last Friday to make the same request ...'
     The excuse given, according to Daschle, was that 'resources and personnel would be taken' away from the war on terrorism in the event of a wider inquiry. So for reasons that we must never know, those 'breakdowns' are to be the goat. That they were more likely to be not break — but 'stand-downs' is not for us to pry. Certainly the one-hour 20 minute failure to put fighter planes in the air could not have been due to a breakdown throughout the entire Air Force along the East Coast. Mandatory standard operational procedure had been told to cease and desist.
     Meanwhile, the media were assigned their familiar task of inciting public opinion against bin Laden, still not the proven mastermind. These media blitzes often resemble the magicians classic gesture of distraction: as you watch the rippling bright colours of his silk handkerchief in one hand, he is planting the rabbit in your pocket with the other. We were quickly assured that Osama's enormous family with its enormous wealth had broken with him, as had the royal family of his native Saudi Arabia. The CIA swore, hand on heart, that Osama had not worked for them in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Finally, the rumour that Bush family had in any way profited by its long involvement with the bin Laden family was — what else? — simply partisan bad taste.
     But Bush Jr's involvement goes back at least to 1979 when his first failed attempt to become a player in the big Texas oil league brought him together with one James Bath of Houston, a family friend, who gave Bush Jr. $50,000 for a 5 per cent stake in Bush's firm Arbusto Energy. At this time, according to Wayne Madsen ('In These Times', Institute for Public Affairs No. 25), Bath was 'the sole US business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden... In a statement issued shortly after the 11 September attacks, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden's, in Arbusto. In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests ... after several reincarnations, Arbusto emerged in 1986 as Harken Energy Corporation.'
     Behind the Junior Bush is the senior Bush, gainfully employed by the Carlyle Group which has ownership in at least 164 companies worldwide, inspiring admiration in that staunch friend to the wealthy, theWall Street Journal, which noted, as early as 27 September 2001, 'If the US boosts defence spending in its quest to stop Osama bin Laden's alleged terrorist activities, there may be one unexpected beneficiary: bin Laden's family ... is an investor in a fund established by Carlyle Group, a well-connected Washington merchant bank specialising in buyouts of defence and aerospace companies ... Osama is one of more than 50 children of Mohammed bin Laden, who built the family's $5 billion business.'
     But Bush pere et fils, in pursuit of wealth and office, are beyond shame or, one cannot help but think, good sense. There is a suggestion that they are blocking investigation of the bin Laden connection with terrorism. Agent France Press reported on 4 November 2001: 'FBI agents probing relatives of Saudi-born terror suspect Osama ... were told to back off soon after George W. Bush became president ...' According to BBC TV's Newsnight (6 Nov 2001), '... just days after the hijackers took off from Boston aiming for the Twin Towers, a special charter flight out of the same airport whisked 11 members of Osama's family off to Saudi Arabia. That did not concern the White House, whose official line is that the bin Ladens are above suspicion.' 'Above the Law' (Green Press, 14 February 2002) sums up: 'We had what looked like the biggest failure of the intelligence community since Pearl Harbor but what we are learning now is it wasn't a failure, it was a directive.' True? False? Bush Jr will be under oath during the impeachment interrogation. Will we hear 'What is a directive? What is is?'
     Although the US had, for some years, fingered Osama as a mastermind terrorist, no serious attempt had been made pre-9/11 to 'bring him to justice dead or alive, innocent or guilty', as Texan law of the jungle requires. Clinton's plan to act was given to Condeleezza Rice by Sandy Berger, you will recall, but she says she does not.
     As far back as March 1996 when Osama was in Sudan, Major General Elfatih Erwa, Sudanese Minister for Defence, offered to extradite him. According to the Washington Post (3 October 2001), 'Erwa said he would happily keep close watch on bin Laden for the United States. But if that would not suffice, the government was prepared to place him in custody and hand him over ... [US officials] said, "just ask him to leave the country. Just don't let him go to Somalia", where he had once been given credit for the successful al-Qaeda attack on American forces that in '93 that killed 18 Rangers.' Erwa said in an interview, 'We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they [US officials] said, "Let him."'
     In 1996 Sudan expelled Osama and 3,000 of his associates. Two years later the Clinton administration, in the great American tradition of never having to say thank you for Sudan's offer to hand over Osama, proceeded to missile-attack Sudan's al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory on the grounds that Sudan was harboring bin Laden terrorists who were making chemical and biological weapons when the factory was simply making vaccines for the UN.
     Four years later, John O'Neill, a much admired FBI agent, complained in the Irish Times a month before the attacks, 'The US State Department — and behind it the oil lobby who make up President Bush's entourage — blocked attempts to prove bin Laden's guilt. The US ambassador to Yemen forbade O'Neill (and his FBI team) ... from entering Yemen in August 2001. O'Neill resigned in frustration and took on a new job as head of security at the World Trade Centre. He died in the 11 September attack.' Obviously, Osama has enjoyed bipartisan American support since his enlistment in the CIA's war to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. But by 9/11 there was no Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, indeed there was no Soviet Union.

A world made safe for peace and pipelines

     I watched Bush and Cheney on CNN when the Axis of Evil speech was given and the 'long war' proclaimed. Iraq, Iran and North Korea were fingered as enemies to be clobbered because they might or might not be harbouring terrorists who might or might not destroy us in the night. So we must strike first whenever it pleases us. Thus, we declared 'war on terrorism' — an abstract noun which cannot be a war at all as you need a country for that. Of course, there was innocent Afghanistan, which was levelled from a great height, but then what's collateral damage — like an entire country — when you're targeting the personification of all evil according to Time and the NY Times and the networks?
     As it proved, the conquest of Afghanistan had nothing to do with Osama. He was simply a pretext for replacing the Taliban with a relatively stable government that would allow Union Oil of California to lay its pipeline for the profit of, among others, the Cheney-Bush junta.
     Background? All right. The headquarters of Unocal are, as might be expected, in Texas. In December 1997, Taliban representatives were invited to Sugarland, Texas. At that time, Unocal had already begun training Afghan men in pipeline construction, with US government approval. BBC News, (4 December 1997): 'A spokesman for the company Unocal said the Taliban were expected to spend several days at the company's [Texas] headquarters ... a BBC regional correspondent says the proposal to build a pipeline across Afghanistan is part of an international scramble to profit from developing the rich energy resources of the Caspian Sea.' The Inter Press Service (IPS) reported: 'some Western businesses are warming up to the Taliban despite the movement's institutionalisation of terror, massacres, abductions and impoverishment.' CNN (6 October 1996): 'The United States wants good ties [with the Taliban] but can't openly seek them while women are being oppressed.'
     The Taliban, rather better organised than rumoured, hired for PR one Leila Helms, a niece of Richard Helms, former director of the CIA. In October 1996, the Frankfurter Rundschau reported that Unocal 'has been given the go-ahead from the new holders of power in Kabul to build a pipeline from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan to Pakistan ..' This was a real coup for Unocal as well as other candidates for pipelines, including Condoleezza's old employer Chevron. Although the Taliban was already notorious for its imaginative crimes against the human race, the Wall Street Journal, scenting big bucks, fearlessly announced: 'Like them or not, the Taliban are the players most capable of achieving peace in Afghanistan at this moment in history.' The NY Times (26 May 1997) leapt aboard the pipeline juggernaut. 'The Clinton administration has taken the view that a Taliban victory would act as counterweight to Iran ... and would offer the possibility of new trade routes that could weaken Russian and Iranian influence in the region.'
     But by 1999, it was clear that the Taliban could not provide the security we would need to protect our fragile pipelines. The arrival of Osama as warrior for Allah on the scene refocused, as it were, the bidding. New alliances were now being made. The Bush administration soon buys the idea of an invasion of Afghanistan, Frederick Starr, head of the Central Asia Institute at Johns Hopkins University, wrote in the Washington Post (19 December 2000): 'The US has quietly begun to align itself with those in the Russian government calling for military action against Afghanistan and has toyed with the idea of a new raid to wipe out bin Laden.'
     Although with much fanfare we went forth to wreak our vengeance on the crazed sadistic religious zealot who slaughtered 3,000 American citizens, once that 'war' was under way, Osama was dropped as irrelevant and so we are back to the Unocal pipeline, now a go-project. In the light of what we know today, it is unlikely that the junta was ever going to capture Osama alive: he has tales to tell. One of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's best numbers now is: 'Where is he? Somewhere? Here? There? Somewhere? Who knows?' And we get his best twinkle. He must also be delighted — and amazed — that the media have bought the absurd story that Osama, if alive, would still be in Afghanistan, underground, waiting to be flushed out instead of in a comfortable mansion in Osama-loving Jakarta, 2,000 miles to the East and easily accessible by Flying Carpet One.
     Many commentators of a certain age have noted how Hitlerian our junta sounds as it threatens first one country for harbouring terrorists and then another. It is true that Hitler liked to pretend to be the injured — or threatened — party before he struck. But he had many great predecessors not least Imperial Rome. Stephen Gowan's War in Afghanistan: A $28 Billion Racket quotes Joseph Schumpeter who, 'in 1919, described ancient Rome in a way that sounds eerily like the United States in 2001: "There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome's allies; and if Rome had no allies, the allies would be invented ... The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbours."' We have only outdone the Romans in turning metaphors such as the war on terrorism, or poverty, or Aids into actual wars on targets we appear, often, to pick at random in order to maintain turbulence in foreign lands.
     As of 1 August 2002, trial balloons were going up all over Washington DC to get world opinion used to the idea that 'Bush of Afghanistan' had gained a title as mighty as his father's 'Bush of the Persian Gulf' and Junior was now eager to add Iraq-Babylon to his diadem. These various balloons fell upon Europe and the Arab world like so many lead weights. But something new has been added since the classic Roman Hitlerian mantra, 'they are threatening us, we must attack first'. Now everything is more of less out in the open. The International Herald Tribune wrote in August 2002: 'The leaks began in earnest on 5 July, when the New York Times described a tentative Pentagon plan that it said called for an invasion by a US force of up to 250,000 that would attack Iraq from the north, south and west. On 10 July, the Times said that Jordan might be used as a base for the invasion. The Washington Post reported, 28 July, that "many senior US military officers contend that Saddam Hussein poses no immediate threat ..."' And the status quo should be maintained. Incidentally, this is the sort of debate that the founding fathers intended the Congress, not military bureaucrats, to conduct in the name of we the people. But that sort of debate has, for a long time, been denied us.
     One refreshing note is now being struck in a fashion unthinkable in imperial Rome: the cheerful admission that we habitually resort to provocation. The Tribune continues: 'Donald Rumsfeld has threatened to jail anyone found to have been behind the leaks. But a retired army general, Fred Woerner, tends to see a method behind the leaks. "We may already be executing a plan," he said recently. "Are we involved in a preliminary psychological dimension of causing Iraq to do something to justify a US attack or make concessions?" Somebody knows.' That is plain.
     Elsewhere in this interesting edition of the Herald Tribune wise William Pfaff writes: 'A second Washington debate is whether to make an unprovoked attack on Iran to destroy a nuclear power reactor being built with Russian assistance, under inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, within the terms of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty of which Iran is a signatory ... No other government would support such an action, other than Israel's (which) would do so not because it expected to be attacked by Iran but because it, not unjustifiably, opposes any nuclear capacity in the hands of any Islamic government.'

Suspect states and the tom-toms of revenge

     'Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it compromises and develops the germ of every other. As the parent of armies, war encourages debts and taxes, the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended ... and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people ...' Thus, James Madison warned us at the dawn of our republic.
     Post 9/11, thanks to the 'domination of the few', Congress and the media are silent while the executive, through propaganda and skewed polls, seduces the public mind as hitherto unthinkable centers of power like Homeland Defence (a new Cabinet post to be placed on top of the Defence Department) are being constructed and 4 per cent of the country has recently been invited to join Tips, a civilian spy system to report on anyone who looks suspicious or ... who objects to what the executive is doing at home or abroad?
     Although every nation knows how — if it has the means and the will — to protect itself from thugs of the sort that brought us 9/11, war is not an option. Wars are for nations not root-less gangs. You put a price on their heads and hunt them down. In recent years, Italy has been doing that with the Sicilian Mafia; and no one has yet suggested bombing Palermo.
     But the Cheney-Bush junta wants a war in order to dominate Afghanistan, build a pipeline, gain control of the oil of Eurasia's Stans for their business associates as well as to do as much damage to Iraq and Iran on the grounds that one day those evil countries may carpet our fields of amber grain with anthrax or something.
     The media, never much good at analysis, are more and more breathless and incoherent. On CNN, even the stolid Jim Clancy started to hyperventilate when an Indian academic tried to explain how Iraq was once our ally and 'friend' in its war against our Satanic enemy Iran. 'None of that conspiracy stuff,' snuffed Clancy. Apparently, 'conspiracy stuff' is now shorthand for unspeakable truth.
     As of August, at least among economists, a consensus was growing that, considering our vast national debt (we borrow $2 billion a day to keep the government going) and a tax base seriously reduced by the junta in order to benefit the 1 per cent who own most of the national wealth, there is no way that we could ever find the billions needed to destroy Iraq in 'a long war' or even a short one, with most of Europe lined up against us. Germany and Japan paid for the Gulf War, reluctantly — with Japan, at the last moment, irritably quarrelling over the exchange rate at the time of the contract. Now Germany's Schroder has said no. Japan is mute.
     But the tom-toms keep beating revenge; and the fact that most of the world is opposed to our war seems only to bring hectic roses to the cheeks of the Bush administration (Bush Snr of the Carlyle Group, Bush Jnr formerly of Harken, Cheney, formerly of Halliburton, Rice, formerly of Chevron, Rumsfeld, formerly of Occidental). If ever an administration should recuse itself in matters dealing with energy, it is the current junta. But this is unlike any administration in our history. Their hearts are plainly elsewhere, making money, far from our mock Roman temples, while we, alas, are left only with their heads, dreaming of war, preferably against weak peripheral states.
     Mohammed Heikal is a brilliant Egyptian journalist-observer, and sometime Foreign Minister. On 10 October 2001, he said to the Guardian: 'Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaeda as if it were Nazi Germany or the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there. Bin Laden has been under surveillance for years: every telephone call was monitored and al-Qaeda has been penetrated by US intelligence, Pakistani intelligence, Saudi intelligence, Egyptian intelligence. They could not have kept secret an operation that required such a degree of organisation and sophistication.
     The former president of Germany's domestic intelligence service, Eckhardt Werthebach (American Free Press, 4 December 2001) spells it out. The 9/11 attacks required 'years of planning' while their scale indicates that they were a product of 'state-organised actions'. There it is. Perhaps, after all, Bush Jnr was right to call it a war. But which state attacked us?
     Will the suspects please line up. Saudi Arabia? 'No, no. Why we are paying you $50 million a year for training the royal bodyguard on our own holy if arid soil. True the kingdom contains many wealthy well-educated enemies but ...' Bush Snr and Jnr exchange a knowing look. Egypt? No way. Dead broke despite US baksheesh. Syria? No funds. Iran? Too proud to bother with a parvenu state like the US. Israel? Sharon is capable of anything. But he lacks the guts and the grace of the true Kamikaze. Anyway, Sharon was not in charge when this operation began with the planting of 'sleepers' around the US flight schools 5 or 6 years ago. The United States? Elements of corporate America would undeniably prosper from a 'massive external attack' that would make it possible for us to go to war whenever the President sees fit while suspending civil liberties. (The 342 pages of the USA Patriot Act were plainly prepared before 9/11.) Bush Snr and Jnr are giggling now. Why? Because Clinton was president back then. As the former president leaves the line of suspects, he says, more in anger than in sorrow: 'When we left the White House we had a plan for an all-out war on al-Qaeda. We turned it over to this administration and they did nothing. Why?' Biting his lip, he goes. The Bushes no longer giggle. Pakistan breaks down: 'I did it! I confess! I couldn't help myself. Save me. I am an evil-doer!'
     Apparently, Pakistan did do it — or some of it. We must now go back to 1997 when 'the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA' was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Central Asia specialist Ahmed Rashid wrote (Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999): 'With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan's ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war, waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals, from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan's fight between 1982 and '92 ... more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghanistan jihad.' The CIA covertly trained and sponsored these warriors.
     In March 1985, President Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive 166, increasing military aid while CIA specialists met with the ISI counterparts near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Jane's Defence Weekly (14 September 2001) gives the best overview: 'The trainers were mainly from Pakistan's ISI agency who learnt their craft from American Green Beret commandos and Navy Seals in various US training establishments.' This explains the reluctance of the administration to explain why so many unqualified persons, over so long a time, got visas to visit our hospitable shores. While in Pakistan, 'mass training of Afghan [zealots] was subsequently conducted by the Pakistan army under the supervision of the elite Special Services ... In 1988, with US knowledge, bin Laden created al-Qaeda (The Base); a conglomerate of quasi-independent Islamic terrorist cells spread across 26 or so countries. Washington turned a blind eye to al-Qaeda.'
 When Mohamed Atta's plane struck the World Trade Centre's North Tower, George W. Bush and the child at the Florida elementary school were discussing her goat. By coincidence, our word 'tragedy' comes from the Greek: for 'goat' tragos plus oide for 'song'. 'Goat-song'. It is highly suitable that this lament, sung in ancient satyr plays, should have been heard again at the exact moment when we were struck by fire from heaven, and a tragedy whose end is nowhere in sight began for us.

© 2002 Gore Vidal
Source: The Observer, Sunday 27th October 2002, Review Section, Pages 1-4