Tag: The Forever War

War Is Good For Business

I feel like a fool. Why? Because I didn’t buy Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, or any other politically connected weapons manufacturer’s stock when the market opened on Monday! Proving the 34th Ferengi Rule of Acquisition true, war is good for business:

The Paris attacks took place on Friday night. Since then, France’s president has vowed “war” on ISIS and today significantly escalated the country’s bombing campaign in Syria (France has been bombing ISIS in Iraq since last January, and began bombing them in Syria in September).

Already this morning, as Aaron Cantú noticed, the stocks of the leading weapons manufacturers – what is usually referred to as the “defense industry” – have soared:

I should have sought a job at one of these companies. They’re profitable so long as there’s war and there’s always war!

Drone Assassinations: The Only Thing Besides The TSA With A 90 Percent Failure Rate

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is no longer the only government program to achieve a 90 percent failure rate. Thanks to an unknown whistleblower, who will hopefully remain unknown, we now know that the United States’ drone assassination program enjoys an abysmal failure rate as well:

On Thursday the Intercept published a groundbreaking new collection of documents related to America’s use of unmanned aerial vehicles to kill foreign targets in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Yemen. The revelations about the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command actions include primary source evidence that as many as 90 percent of US drone killings in one five month period weren’t the intended target, that a former British citizen was killed in a drone strike despite repeated opportunities to capture him instead, and details of the grisly process by which the American government chooses who will die, down to the “baseball cards” of profile information created for individual targets, and the chain of authorization that goes up directly to the president.1

90 percent of the people killed by drones in a five month period were innocent bystanders. I can’t imagine how that could possibly create backlash. Surly all of the people in the Middle East understand that we have to bomb innocent bystanders in order to defend ourselves from terrorists!

The documents reveal a frightening fact: the United States government has almost no mechanisms in place to verify targets. It’s basically dropping bombs willy nilly. Based on the success to failure ratio it appears that the United States only succeeds by random chance.

News From The Frontline

The United States has been in a state of war since 2001 (actually it was in a state of war before that but the war on terror is the war I’m primarily addressing here). In those 14 wars the United States has dropped bombs on a large number of Middle Eastern countries, held prisoners in secret prisons without trial, and expanded a pervasive surveillance apparatus that spies on foreigners and domestic people. Fortunately Obama declared an end to the war effort in Afghanistan. But that was then. This is now. As it turns out the United States isn’t actually planning to leave Afghanistan:

WASHINGTON — The United States will halt its military withdrawal from Afghanistan and instead keep thousands of troops in the country through the end of his term in 2017, President Obama announced on Thursday, prolonging the American role in a war that has now stretched on for 14 years.

This should come as no surprise. Obama has continued to drop bombs on the two countries he’s claimed to have ended wars in. But everybody needs to recognize the new definition of war. War no longer carries the implication of two militaries fighting one another in an attempt to achieve some mutually exclusive goal. Today war implies an expansion of empire through military occupation. The United States is playing the same game Britain did at the height of its empire without the honesty of just calling itself an empire. Instead the United States “brings democracy” and “liberates” the citizens of foreign countries from “brutal regimes” and “terrorists.”

Since there is no defined goal an occupation, unlike a war, has no winning condition and therefore is perpetual in nature. This war will not end until the United States can no longer afford to wage it.

Reducing Violence

Because no tragedy can be allowed to go to waste, almost immediately after the recent shooting in Oregon Mr. Obama stepped behind is podium and demanded his fellow politicians further restricting legal firearm ownership. He did this under the guise of reducing violence. Not too long afterwards the United States bombed a hospital:

Jason Cone, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) U.S., disclosed the updated casualty figures on his Twitter feed, where he also said that the bombing went on for longer than 30 minutes “after American & Afghan military officials in Kabul & Washington first informed of proximity to hospital.”

He added that the precise location of the hospital had been communicated to all parties to the conflict “multiple times” in the past few months. He said MSF was “urgently seeking clarity,” on how the bombing took place.

In a statement, the organization said that it “condemns in the strongest possible terms the horrific bombing of its hospital in Kunduz full of staff and patients.” Of the 37 wounded, 19 are Doctors Without Borders Staff.

What Mr. Obama purports to be addressing are the approximate 11,000 homicides committed with firearms. Setting aside the absurd belief that disarming the general population will somehow reduce homicides let’s consider the grand scheme of things, namely the number of people murdered by governments.

By far the largest murderers in human history have been governments. This is true today. Only an organization with the means and will to involve itself in outright wars with out such entities can rack up a body country in the thousands or millions. Hell, Operation Enduring Freedom killed somewhere between 1,000 and 1,300 civilians in three months alone. And that’s just one operation in one country out of the known seven the United States is actively bombing.

I’m not condoning the actions of the shooter in Oregon, he was a piece of shit murderer after all, or trying to make his crimes seem less than what they are. What I am pointing out is the hypocrisy of a butcher like Obama talking about reducing violence. We’re talking about a man whose only notable achievement has been maintaining a continuous state of war throughout his entire presidency. He even manages to keep bombing countries he’s said we’re no longer at war with. So you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t take any statements he makes about reducing violence seriously.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong

In addition to war being immoral I also disagree with the United States’ involvement in the Middle East on practical grounds. The biggest one being the fact that nobody in the United States government seems to have a goddamn clue of what they’re doing. I get the feeling that the top brass and other people “in the know” are throwing darts at a dartboard of ideas and going with whatever one they hit. That can be the only explanation for suggesting something like this:

The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has been quietly urging U.S. officials to consider using so-called moderate members of al Qaeda’s Nusra Front to fight ISIS in Syria, four sources familiar with the conversations, including one person who spoke to Petraeus directly, told The Daily Beast.

The circle of unintended consequences continues! Back in the day the United States government funded and armed al Qaeda because it was fighting the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. After the Soviet Union ceased being a thing al Qaeda eventually turned its sights on the United States and flew a few planes into a few buildings. This resulted in the United States basically bombing everybody in the Middle East as it pursued its revenge. Now things are looping back to the beginning where people “in the know” are seriously arguing that the United States needs to fund and arm al Qaeda.

I like to say the government is incompetent at everything it does except wield violence but this kind of shit makes me think it’s event incompetent at that.

Remember When Obama Argued Peace Instead Of Bragging About The Number Of Countries He’s Bombed

It’s hard to remember the days of Obama’s first presidential run. Bush was in office, had dragged us into wars throughout the Middle East, and had lead the charge to increase the already pervasive and unaccountable surveillance state. Obama promises to end the wars and dismantle the surveillance state.

Since then Obama has dragged us into more wars and further empowered the surveillance state. His love of war has become so strong that he can’t even pretend to be reluctant about it anymore. Hilariously a lot of Republicans have been accusing him of not being a big enough war monger because of the deal he’s been negotiating with Iran. Not wanting people to question his dedication to bombing children in the Middle East Obama rebutted the Republicans’ accusations by pointing out just how many countries he’s bombed:

Beyond accurately describing Iran Deal opponents, Obama also accurately described himself and his own record of militarism. To defend against charges that he Loves the Terrorists, he boasted:

As commander-in-chief, I have not shied away from using force when necessary. I have ordered tens of thousands of young Americans into combat. . . .

I’ve ordered military action in seven countries.

By “ordered military actions in seven countries,” what he means is that he has ordered bombs dropped, and he has extinguished the lives of thousands of innocent people, in seven different countries, all of which just so happen to be predominantly Muslim.

It’s amazing how much things have changed since his first presidential run. He’s not even pretending to be anti-war anymore. And why should he? It’s not like he can run for a third term anyways. I think it’s also amusing, and sad, to see how his supporters went from being a huge percentage of the anti-war movement to either entirely silent on the issue of war or proponents of these new wars.

Obesity Could Save Lives

Obesity is being treated as a worldwide health epidemic. It makes sense. There is a whole slew of health problems that comes with being overweight. But obesity may very well be the key to saving an untold number of lives. How? By preventing militaries from being properly staffed:

Minnesota kids are too fat to fight.

That’s the message from a group of retired generals and admirals who say the state’s kids are too fat, eat too poorly, and don’t get enough exercise to qualify to join the military.

As part of a nationwide effort, the generals and admirals recommend more physical education classes and better meals in schools and more walking and biking trails in the state’s communities to get kids in fighting trim.

The report, released today, doesn’t pull any punches, even in the title: “Too Fat, Frail, and Out-of-Breath to Fight.”

If a military isn’t properly staffed it can’t go into a bunch of foreign countries and murder their people. Imagine if the United States lacked the personnel to invalid Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, and every other country we’ve invaded for no good reason. 1.3 million lives could have potentially been saved [PDF].

As an aside it’s also worth noting the state’s motivation in fighting obesity. It’s not because the state feels as though it should be doing whatever it can to protect the health of its subjects. The only motivation it has in fighting obesity is to ensure it has enough meat for the grinder. Once again the state demonstrates that it doesn’t love you, you’re just a resource for it to use.

Scott Walker, Internet Tough Guy

Continuing on the theme of Republicans and stupidity we have a perfect example from presidential hopeful, Scott Walker. Walker seems to be loved by Republicans everywhere, which is how you know he’s a terrible human being. But he’s not just terrible, he’s tough:

Similarly, Walker believes his stance against unions in Wisconsin would be a signal of toughness to Islamic jihadists and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

I’m sure both the Islamic State and Putin are quaking in their boots at the prospect of the United States being run by a man who can sign some legislation. After all, taking on peaceful protesters is the same thing as taking on a violent aggressor!

Walker is just like all of those Internet tough guys. He talks a big game but if you ever encounter him in real life I’d shit his pants before he’s go through with all of this threats against you and your mother.

The Government is Quite a Trickster

The United States government is pretty famous for its ability to trick the populace into believing lies. But bullshit unemployment numbers aren’t its best trick. That honor would go to its ability to convince people that the United States is no longer at war:

The holiday headlines blared without a hint of distrust: “End of War” and “Mission Ends” and “U.S. formally ends the war in Afghanistan”, as the US government and Nato celebrated the alleged end of the longest war in American history. Great news! Except, that is, when you read past the first paragraph: “the fighting is as intense as it has ever been since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001,” according to the Wall Street Journal. And about 10,000 troops will remain there for the foreseeable future (more than we had a year after the Afghan war started). Oh, and they’ll continue to engage in combat regularly. But other than that, yeah, the war is definitely over.

This is the new reality of war: As long as the White House doesn’t admit the United States is at war, we’re all supposed to pretend as if that’s true. This ruse is not just the work of the president. Members of Congress, who return to work this week, are just as guilty as Barack Obama in letting the public think we’re Definitely Not at War, from Afghanistan and Somalia to the new war with Isis in Iraq and Syria and beyond.

What’s sad is that I know people who buy into this fairytale. I’ve heard from several friends that Obama ended Bush’s wars. When I point out that we’re still bombing people in the Middle East they either cover their ears, stick their heads in the sand, of call me a neocon. More and more I realize that people don’t care about the truth but only choose to believe what they want. And you know what? I don’t blame them. Because the truth is fucking horrible.

And Suddenly People Care About Torture Again

Shortly after it was known that prisoners in Guantanamo Bay were being tortured there was an uproar by the neoliberals. They claimed to be very upset by the fact that people were being tortures. As it turns out they were only unhappy that their man wasn’t in charge when the torture was occurring and shortly after Bush was replaced by Obama they faded into the background (sadly joining most of the anti-war movement).

Yesterday a report on the torture performed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was released and suddenly people care about torture again:

The summary of the report, compiled by Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the CIA misled Americans about what it was doing.

The information the CIA collected this way failed to secure information that foiled any threats, the report said.

In a statement, the CIA insisted that the interrogations did help save lives.

“The intelligence gained from the programme was critical to our understanding of al-Qaeda and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day,” Director John Brennan said in a statement.

However, the CIA said it acknowledged that there were mistakes in the programme, especially early on when it was unprepared for the scale of the operation to detain and interrogate prisoners.

Welcome back everybody! Glad to have you with us again! Of course the reactions to this report have been very predictable. The neoliberals, who are again feigning outrage, keep reiterating that this happened under Bush’s watch. I guess the important take away from this report is that the old war criminal was in charge instead of the current war criminal (he’s probably too busy ordering the bombings of Middle Eastern children to bother overseeing torture operations).

The neocons have been equally predictable. Their main takeaway from the torture report is that it was totally cool because it was happening to Middle Easterners. They have also been busy trying to claim that the torture saved the lives of American soldiers even though no evidence exists supporting such a claim (and anybody who has studied interrogation techniques knows torture produces unreliable information because tortured people will tell you whatever they think you want to hear in the hopes you’ll stop inflicting pain).

I don’t care which war criminal was in charge at the time and I don’t care if acts of torture saved lives. Torture is unacceptable. Period. Not only does it produce unreliable information but it’s inhumane as Hell. The only thing torture is useful for is detecting people who should be removed from society. That is to say if somebody is willing to torture another human being they shouldn’t be in society.

Anyways this state crime, like all of its previous crimes, will likely be swept under the rug next week. Then it can go on to torture some other people and everybody can pretend to care for another week after a report is published by whatever party doesn’t hold the position of war-criminal-in-chief.