War | e-commentary

Archive for the War Category

Drop A Bomb, Gestate A Terrorist; Drop A Bomb, Sprout A Refugee (November 16, 2015)

Posted in Book Reference, Iraq, Middle East, War on November 16, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

J “The problem is the continuing and recurring problem. Dropping bombs caused the problem; dropping more bombs causes more problems; dropping even more bombs causes even more problems.”

K “Everyone is gasping and grasping for a solution without understanding the problem.”

J “Everyone is so gripped with fear that no one is thinking clearly.”

. . .

K “When someone drops 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 google mega-tons of bombs on ISIS or ISIL or whatever it is and kills all the ISISists or ISILists or whateverists, what will result?”

J “ISIS 2.0.”

K “Yup. I refer to it as ‘ISIL Part Two.’ Coming to a troubled region near you. In 2024.”

J “Those who failed to anticipate and prepare for ISIS 1.0 are not anticipating or preparing for ISIS 2.0. And what if it transmogrifies into ILIS?”

K “We are doomed. Of our own doing.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at Intended Consequences In Iraq (August 3, 2015) and Staying the Collision Course In Iraq and The Mid-East (September 25, 2006).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Think Big; Think Long; Heck, Think.

What happens in the Middle East stays in the Middle East.

“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.” George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

There is no money in the Truth.

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Seriously Sizing Up Syria Seizing Up (October 12, 2015)

Posted in Afghanistan, Bush, Climate, Dollar - World's Reserve Currency, Foreign Policy, Global Climate Change, Global Warming, Iran, Iraq, Middle East, Newspapers, Russia, Sports, Syria, Vietnam, War on October 12, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

7 “They could make it easier if they wore jerseys with numbers.”

8 “The good folks could sport odd numbers and the bad folks could sport even numbers on their uniforms.”

7 “Or the good folks could use even numbers and the bad folks could use odd numbers. Or use different defining colors. Or stitch the sponsor of the team on the back of the jersey.”

8 “During the Southeast Asian War Games conducted in ‘nam, a ‘Stars and Stripes’ newspaper cartoon depicted two identical individuals in pajamas and flip flops – one described as ‘Friend’ and one described as ‘Enemy’.”

7 “Nothing changes. Discerning one’s friends and one’s enemies among those wearing towels and sandals is vexing.”

8 “The great feud between the Shia and the Sunni seems akin to the great feud between the Hatfields and McCoys. No one was right and no one really knew what they were fighting for and no one really knew why they were fighting.”

7 “The reality is that the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, the enemy of my enemy is my enemy.”

. . .

7 “Most folks are more comfortable with what the nerdy folks describe as a ‘Manichean’ division into good and bad, or right and wrong, or us and them. International relations are described as a balance of power and depicted with a scale. A pint of water on one side can be balanced with a pound of whatever on the other side. Yet international relations are more akin to multiple Calder mobiles strung and hung together. Tug on one string and everything tips out of balance. The unprovoked invasion of Iraq by then President Cheney and Vice President Bush in 2003 was the great tug that triggered the imbalance accelerating today.”

8 “Toss a rock in the pond and watch the concentric circles and the eccentric responses. The lack of water in Syria and other places is fueling the fury. A drought of water leads to a drought of hope. The world is transitioning from wars over oil to wars over water.”

7 “And wars over currency. Everything is out of balance.”

8 “Seems that global climate change is bringing about global change.”

. . .

8 “For the U.S., ‘Iraq’ is Arabic for ‘Vietnam’. For Russia, ‘Syria’ may be Arabic for ‘Afghanistan’.”

7 “‘Waterloo’ is French for ‘Waterloo’.”

8 “Or Esperanto for ‘quagmire’.”

. . .

7 “We make decisions with limited information. Look at who is for and who is against going to war. Former General Wesley Clark suggests that the United States seeks to take out Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran. The Neo-conservatives in America want the United States to be mired in constant war everywhere on the planet all the time. They keep getting us in trouble.”

8 “The bad folks. Do they have even or odd numbers? What color are their uniforms?”

. . .

7 “Much of the fighting is a prolonged currency war between the United States and many other countries. The United States is slowly losing the franchise on the world’s reserve currency.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at World’s Reserve Currency War I = Cold War 2.0 = WW III (?) (September 8, 2014) and Le Dollar – World’s Reserve Currency? (November 28, 2011).]

Bumper sticker of the week:

Are they doing the watusi when they should be doing the hokey pokey?

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Smedley And Ernest On Our Friend “War”; The “Racket” Continues (September 7, 2015)

Posted in Banks and Banking System, Book Reference, Magazine Reference, Military, Oil, Wall Street, War on September 7, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

_ “Four score years ago this month, the world of arts and letters and the world awoke to a pair of trenchant commentaries on our friend ‘War’ written by two scholars who had spent time in the trenches and developed the ‘street cred’ to command attention and respect. Smedley D. Butler was a United States Marine Corps major general, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history who also should have won a Nobel Peace Prize. Ernest Hemingway wrote stuff. We should listen.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary presented on a prior Memorial Day on this Labor Day at In Memoriam (May 26, 2014).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.” Smedley D. Butler in a poem in the September 1935 issue of the magazine “Common Sense” that later become an overlooked classic.

“They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason. . . . The only way to combat the murder that is war is to show the dirty combinations that make it and the criminals and swine that hope for it and the idiotic way they run it when they get it so that an honest man will distrust it as he would a racket and refuse to be enslaved into it.” Ernest Hemingway in “Notes on the Next War: A Serious Topical Letter,” in a September 1935 issue of the magazine “Esquire”.

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Opportunity, Welfare And Unrest (June 15, 2015)

Posted in Collapse, Global Climate Change, Global Warming, Kleptocracy, Minimum Wage, Poverty, Slavery, Society, Wages, War, Welfare on June 15, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

4 “They say that welfare is the bribe paid to the underclass not to revolt. The bribe is no longer enough. The underclass reasonably seeks more from the overclass. Many of them do not want a bribe, they want opportunity. There is no opportunity today and will be even less opportunity tomorrow. There is more restiveness. There is more restlessness. There will be more unrest.”

6 “The war on poverty has become the war on those in poverty.”

4 “Always a war. Could be a hot summer. Or a hot winter.”

6 “A hot winter? Is that anthropogenic global climate change?

. . .

Bumper sticker of the week:

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” John F. Kennedy

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The Choice: Pro War And Pro-Wall Street Candidate v. Pro War And Pro-Wall Street Candidate (April 13, 2015)

Posted in Bush, Clinton, Elections, Journalism, Newspapers, Presidency, Press/Media, Wall Street, War on April 13, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

C1 “The election is already over. One party nominates a candidate who is pro war and pro-Wall Street and the other party nominates a candidate who is pro war and pro-Wall Street.”

C2 “And if you demur in a public forum, the popular press will dismiss you as an isolationist for questioning war and as a populist for supporting an equitable and sustainable economy.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at The First Look At The “Second Political Party” (January 3, 2011).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Bush III

Clinton II

Jeb Clinton

Hillary Bush

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Giuliani – Draft Dodger And Chickenhawk (March 2, 2015)

Posted in Draft, Hypocrisy, Vietnam, War on March 2, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

5 “He dodged the draft – catch this – by claiming that he needed to be a clerk for a federal judge in New York.”

7 “Now I’ve heard everything. The guys in the trenches on the front lines always bemoaned and blasted the Rear Echelon Mother Fighter, the REMF, who had no idea what combat is like. Lollygagging in New York is the ultimate Rear Echelon Mother Fighter job.”

5 “Glass houses are revealing places.”

. . .

5 “He exploited ‘9/11’ for fame and fortune.”

7 “He coined the phrase ‘9/11’ as a noun, a verb and even a conjunction.”

5 “Using the catastrophe at the World Trade Center as a profit center is unseemly.”

. . .

5 “Democrats such as McGovern, Gore, Kerry, Cleland, and Webb are war veterans. Republicans such as Giuliani, Bush, Cheney, Romney and Ashcroft are draft dodgers. Democrats don’t like going to war unless necessary. Republicans do like going to war but like to send others to fight the war.”

7 “We need to bring back the draft to force the Ruling Class to struggle with avoiding it.”

5 “Glass houses are revealing places.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Chickenhawks For War

“No one man nor group of men incapable of fighting or exempt from fighting should in any way be given the power, no matter how gradually it is given them, to put this country or any country into war.” Ernest Hemingway, “Notes on the Next War: A Serious Topical Letter,” Esquire, September 1935.

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Joint Base Fort America (July 28, 2014)

Posted in Bush, Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Freedom / Liberty, Military, Military Commissions Act, National Defense Authorization Act / FY 2012, O'Bama, Security State, USA PATRIOT Act, War on July 28, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

5 “America is now one gigantic fortified military base.”

7 “Joint Base Bush O’Bama. JBBO.”

5 “Or Joint Base O’Bama Bush. JBOB. What’s the difference.”

7 “We are in the fourth term of the Bush Administration. Or during the first term of the O’Bama Administration, President Cheney and Vice President Bush invaded Iraq without provocation or plan based on lies and deception.”

. . .

5 “A locked compound on lock down. And too many Americans are not locked on to this development. The government is locked and loaded and ready to lock up dissidents or the downtrodden.”

7 “The authorities have us locked with stock and barrel. The new USSA – the United Security State of America – is not much different than the old USSR.”

5 “The area along a nation’s border has always been a region where liberty is more constricted and civil liberties are constrained. The band of land, however, was narrow and circumscribed the border. The heart of the country was free. Today, the southern border of America is moving north while the northern border is moving south while the western border is moving east while the eastern border is moving east west.”

7 “The only free area may be the geographic center of the contiguous United States. The town of Lebanon, Kansas or thereabouts, but that may only be the last place to be enveloped. The plate tectonics of the security state are shifting ominously. A big collision is in the works.”

. . .

Bumper sticker of the week:

I wasn’t using my civil liberties anyway

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Unemployment Insurance = Welfare 2.0 (June 23, 2014)

Posted in Federal Reserve, Insurance, Journalism, Military, Newspapers, Pensions, Personal Story, Press/Media, Unemployment, War, Welfare, Work on June 23, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

E “They are not coming back.”

U “And they keep coming.”

. . .

E “After the War, he moved the family westward from the homestead bequeathed to his older brother to a community with no friends and no connections and moved upward from one manufacturing job to another and then retired as a floor manager. He put food on the table and kids through college. He said that all the companies he worked for have gone out of business or moved overseas. Most of the pension funds were dissipated or disappeared.”

U “Those returning from the current wars are not finding opportunities. Those who stayed have not found opportunities.”

E “Years ago, some guys worked at a service station checking the tires and washing the windows and graduated to a mechanics job for life. Now there is no service and far fewer mechanics positions.”

U “Yesterday’s grease monkey with a G.E.D. is today’s barista with a B.A.”

. . .

E “Many of the jobs are undertaken by a robot that may never craft an inspiring poem or participate in a parent-teacher conference, yet it produces a consistently high quality product very efficiently.”

U “A company can use the robots to fine-tune the built-in obsolescence. The product can be designed and manufactured to fail ten minutes after the limited warranty expires. And robots are not the most efficient consumers of their own products.”

. . .

E “The Federal Reserve is untethered by the Constitution, Congress or common sense except for a mandate in the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act to address unemployment in its decision-making. The Fed has knowingly pursued decisions that do nothing to promote employment and do much to transfer wealth to the wealthy.”

U “The Republicans respond with the obscene lie that a reduction in the capital gains rate will reduce unemployment. The Press almost always gives them a pass.”

. . .

E “Unemployment insurance originally covered thirteen weeks and then twenty-six weeks and then up to seventy-three weeks in many jurisdictions. Some are calling for further extensions of unemployment insurance.”

U “The insurance is becoming a tenuous version of ‘Welfare 2.0.’”

. . .

E “What happens when thoughtful people realize that the jobs are never coming back.”

U “The unemployed are categorized under the ‘U6 Unemployment’ category and forgotten.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Get a job

Where?

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In Memoriam (May 26, 2014)

Posted in Banks and Banking System, Book Reference, Bureaucracy, Hypocrisy, Kleptocracy, Military, War on May 26, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

A “Fly the flag, fight to allow others to burn theirs, and campaign to prevent unwilling and unwitting lads and lasses from fighting for the entertainment and economic advancement of those in power.”

B “And read the most insightful work on the underlying reasons that those in power take the powerless to war in the poem War Is A Racket by someone who understood war. General Smedley Darlington Butler was a United States Marine Corps major general which by the way was the highest rank authorized at that time. At the time of his death, he was the most decorated Marine in United States history.”

A “Decorated is a curious description. He knew his stuff. Take the book to the beach. Take it to head. Take it to heart.”

B “Take it to the class room. And put it on required reading list next fall in the schools.”

A “What about All Quiet On The Western Front?”

B “Put them both on the list. Remarque remarked on the absurdity and futility of the killing enterprise, whereas Butler served up the explanation front and center. Follow the money.”

. . .

B “They would not need to neglect as many veterans if they did not create and break so many of them.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Dissent is patriotic

Butler and Eisenhower said it all

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Celebrating All Heroes (April 7, 2014)

Posted in Military, War on April 7, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

L “Opening the season with a celebration of heroes with guts and guns is appropriate. Also acknowledging those with guts but no guns is appropriate but undone.”

M “There is much singing, but they are the real unsung heroes.”

L “Those who challenge the need for needless wars are never celebrated at public celebrations.”

M “They are the ones who would prefer that heroic deeds be done in stateside villages. Teach a kid to read, build a park, plant a garden.”

. . .

M “Those who may not acknowledge their quarrel with their prior military campaign often wear patches that proclaim: ‘All gave some; some gave all.’ They are less likely to carry a sign or sport a bumper sticker that observes: ‘There are no unwounded soldiers.’”

L “Those who gave some and are not unwounded occasionally snap.”

. . .

Bumper stickers and patches of the week:

All gave some; some gave all

There are no unwounded soldiers

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