Category Archives: Military

Warring States

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The current debate about withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, and the anniversary of Daniel Ellsburg’s release of Pentagon papers started me thinking about our history of wars. When I looked it up, I was stunned!

Since our Declaration of Independence, the United States of America has been almost constantly at war. In fact, not counting the Cold War and relatively minor deployments intended to protect American “interests” abroad, the US has been at war all but 33 years of its 236 year history!

Now you may try to justify those wars (as I used to) by assuming they were the result of our desire to spread democracy around the world and to defend human rights.

You could use that argument. But you’d be wrong.

After wresting the continent away from Native Americans, Great Britain, France, Spain, Russia, and Mexico, our military has spanned the globe. Few of our enemies actually attacked us. More often, wars resulted from a perceived threat to our future and security, especially that of our large corporations. Following is a partial list of military actions involving the US:

1775-83 – Revolutionary War
1776-1915 – Indian Wars
1798-1800 – Quasi-War (undeclared naval war with France)
1801-05 – First Barbary War
1806-10 – Mexico
1810-18 – War with Spanish Florida
1812-15 – War of 1812
1815 – Second Barbary War
1824 – Puerto Rico
1838-39 – Indonesia
1840 – Fiji Islands
1841 – Samoa
1843 – China
1844-48 – Mexican-American War
1853-54 – Japan
1854 – Nicaragua
1857-58 – Utah War (dispute with Mormons)
1859 – Mexico
1861-65 – Civil War
1863-64 – Japan
1866 – Mexico
1866 – China
1867 – Nicaragua
1868 – Japan
1871 – Korea
1873-96 – Mexico
1889 – Kingdom of Hawaii
1893 – Kingdom of Hawaii
1898 – Spanish-American War
1899-1913 – Phillipine-American War
1900 – China (Boxer Rebellion)
1914-17 – Mexico
1915-34 – Haiti
1917-18 – World War I
1918-19 – Mexico
1918-20 – Soviet Union
1941-45 – World War II
1945 – China (vs. Japanese)
1950-53 – Korean War
1955-75 – Vietnam
1957-75 – Laos
1965 – Dominican Republic
1968 – Laos & Cambodia
1975 – Angola
1983 – Grenada
1989 – Panama
1991 – Gulf War
1992-96 – Bosnia and Herzegovina
2001-present – Afghanistan
2003-present – War in Iraq

Moreover, since the end of World War II our military, led by the Central “Intelligence” Agency, has overthrown numerous democratically-elected leaders throughout the world. As a result of this incessant meddling, millions have been imprisoned, tortured and killed. For example:

1953 – In Iran, the CIA overthrew democratically-elected Mohammed Mossadegh and replaced him with a brutal dictator, the Shah of Iran.
1954 – In Guatemala, the CIA overthrew democratically-elected Jacob Arbenz after he threatened to nationalize the United Fruit Company, in which CIA Director Allen Dulles owned stock. The right-wing dictators who replaced Arbenz killed more than 100,000 Guatemalans.
1957-73 – In Laos, the CIA carried out approximately one coup a year trying to nullify Laos’ democratic elections.
1959 – In Haiti, the U.S. military helped “Papa Doc” Duvalier become dictator.
1961 – In Dominican Republic, the CIA assassinated Rafael Trujillo, a brutal dictator supported by Washington. But only after his business interests began competing with our own.
1961 – In Ecuador, CIA-backed military forced democratically-elected President Jose Velasco to resign.
1961 – In Congo (Zaire), the CIA assassinated democratically-elected Patrice Lumumba.
1963 – In Dominican Republic, the CIA overthrew democratically-elected Juan Bosch and installed a repressive, right-wing junta.
1963 – In Ecuador, CIA-backed military overthrew President Arosemana. A military junta assumed command and began abusing human rights.
1964 – In Brazil, a CIA-backed military coup overthrew democratically-elected Joao Goulart and replaced him with a brutal junta.
1965 – In Dominican Republic, a popular rebellion tried to reinstall Juan Bosch. The revolution was crushed by CIA-led U.S. Marines.
1965 – In Indonesia, the CIA overthrew democratically-elected Sukarno. His successor, General Suharto, massacred 500,000 to 1 million civilians.
1965 – In Greece, with CIA backing, the king removed George Papandreous as prime minister for failing to support U.S. interests in Greece.
1965 – In Congo (Zaire), CIA-backed military installed Mobutu Sese Seko who exploited his country for billions.
1967 – In Greece, CIA-backed military overthrew the government two days before elections. The ensuing “reign of colonels,” backed by the CIA, tortured and murdered political opponents.
1967 – In South Vietnam, the CIA helped identify and murder 20,000 alleged Viet Cong leaders.
1969 – In Uruguay, notorious CIA torturer Dan Mitrione ascended to power becoming so feared that revolutionaries kidnapped and murdered him a year later.
1970 – In Cambodia, the CIA overthrew popular Prince Sahounek and replaced him with Lon Nol. The move strengthened the Khmer Rouge, which rose to power and massacred millions.
1971 – In Bolivia, CIA-backed military overthrew leftist President Juan Torres. He was replaced by Hugo Banzer who had more than 2,000 political opponents arrested, tortured, raped and executed.
1973 – In Chile, the CIA assassinated democratically-elected Salvador Allende. He was replaced by General Augusto Pinochet, who tortured and murdered thousands of his own countrymen.
1975 – In Angola, the CIA helped launch a war killing more than 300,000 Angolans.
1979 – In Nicaragua, following the fall of CIA-backed Anastasios Samoza II, the remnants of his personal National Guard became the Contras, who fought a CIA-backed guerilla war against the Sandinista government.
1980 – In El Salvador, following the murder of Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero, the country dissolved into civil war. CIA-trained death squads roamed the countryside, committing atrocities and killing 63,000 Salvadorans.
1983-89 – In Honduras, the CIA taught Honduran military officers how to torture people. The notorious “Battalion 316” used the techniques on thousands of leftist dissidents.
1986 – In Haiti, following the exile of “Baby Doc” Duvalier, the CIA rigged elections in favor of another right-wing military strongman. The CIA-created National Intelligence Service (SIN) suppressed popular revolt through torture and assassination.
1990 – In Haiti, after leftist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide captured 68 percent of the vote he was deposed by CIA-backed military which brutalized the country.
1993 – In Haiti, as chaos grew, military dictator, Raoul Cedras, is removed on threat of U.S. invasion. Aristide is returned to power only after being forced to accept an agenda favorable to the country’s ruling class.

Here’s an idea. If Americans are as serious about wanting peace as most claim, maybe we could stop meddling in the internal politics of other nations. Then we could take half of our massive defense budget to solve real problems like poverty, climate change, diminishing energy resources, air and water pollution, and health care.

But given our propensity for war, that will probably be viewed as unpatriotic.

Who Are We Afraid Of? (Part II)

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It was recently announced that the U.S. military budget ($692 billion for FY 2010) now exceeds military spending by all other nations combined. That’s right. We now spend more on defense than all 194 of the other countries in the world! And that doesn’t even include the money we spend on Homeland Security, or most of the money we spend on intelligence gathering. (A recent expose’ by the Washington Post reported an estimated 854,000 people work in the secretive information gathering business in the U.S. No one knows how much money is being spent on the endeavor.)

There can be only two conclusions from that data: We are the most powerful nation in the world. And we are the most paranoid; maybe with good reason.

According to Wikipedia, “as of March 31, 2008, U.S. armed forces were stationed at more than 820 installations in at least 135 countries.” Of course, we have large numbers in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. But we still have 52,440 in Germany, 9,660 in Italy and 35,688 in Japan more than 60 years after WWII. We have 28,500 in the Republic of Korea more than 50 years after the Korean Conflict. We have 9,015 in the United Kingdom (are we expecting a repeat of our Revolutionary War?), 47,236 in East Asia, 3,362 in North Africa … the list goes on.

Given the state of our economy, what could possibly justify the expenditures? If they’re not needed, we’re wasting an incredible amount of money. And if they are, we need to change our foreign policy, because we must be the most hated people on Earth.

What Republicans Really Stand For:

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Since Republicans like to attack any (make that every) Democrat idea, I thought it might be useful to look at what Republicans want.

1. Guns for everybody, no training required, the more the better.

2. Elimination of income taxes. Replace them with sales taxes, so the rich are taxed disproportionately less.

3. Elimination of labor unions. Who needs collective bargaining when corporations are so caring and generous to their employees?

4. Elimination of welfare, unemployment benefits, Social Security and Medicare. Only the wealthy deserve entitlements.

5. Elimination of public schools. After all, who wants children learning about such controversial issues as evolution anyway?

6. The criminalization of abortion, birth control and sex education. You can never have enough unwanted, uneducated children, right?

7. Repeal of health care reform – if you can’t afford health care on your own, you deserve to die.

8. Unlimited campaign contributions from corporations, but only for Republicans.

9. Deregulation of Wall Street, Big Oil, mining, Big Pharma, military contractors, commodities and any other campaign contributors.

10. Elimination of community organizers – you know, anyone who will fight for the underpriviledged and, most importantly, anyone who will register poor people to vote.

11. Elimination of mandatory minimum wages. It’s a drag on business to have to pay employees a living wage.

12. Downsizing of government, except for Homeland Security, I.C.E., border patrols, and any agency that looks out for wealthy Americans.

13. Privatization of the military, the Post Office, National Parks, and almost every other branch of government. There’s no profit for shareholders if the government does it.

14. Elimination of the Environmental Protection Agency. Climate change is just a myth perpetuated by Al Gore and those tree-hugging liberals. Besides, what good are natural resources if corporations can’t exploit them? Right?

15. Recognition of Christianity as the state religion. God bless America.

If you think I’m exaggerating, you just haven’t been paying attention.

Who are we afraid of?

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Following the end of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, we have no military foes.  (At least not in a traditional sense.)  The Soviet Union is gone, replaced by Russia and a host of independent states.  China has gone from being a perceived enemy to our out-sourced manufacturing state holding billions in U.S. bonds.  And Germany and Japan have not been allowed to rebuild significant forces since the end of WWII. 

The only perceived threats are the failing state of North Korea, which has a large infantry and a few nuclear-tipped missles that are incapable of reaching our shores, and Iran, which has a smaller infantry and a nuclear bomb in the making.  In addition, there is nuclear-armed Pakistan with a government under seige by fundamentalist Muslims. 

True, it’s possible that our relationship with Russia could deteriorate enough that we might eventually have to worry about its nuclear aresenal.  But that would seem to be unlikely, and we have far superior technology along with our own enormous nuclear arsenal.

So, I repeat, who are we afraid of? 

What could possibly justify our continuing expenditures on military weaponry?  We spend more on our navy than the next 13 nations combined.   And, in total, our military expenditures exceed the next 11 nations combined! 

We could trim tens of billions of dollars from our weapons procurement budget and still be more than adequately prepared for any potential threat.  Indeed, one could argue that we could use that money more effectively to prevent poverty and other conditions that lead to war.  What if there were good schools for poor Muslim children and respectable jobs waiting for them after they graduate.  What if that helped them achieve the self-respect they are looking for?  Would they still consider blowing themselves up in a suicide attack? 

What if we relegated the neo-cons’ misguided “Plan for A New American Century” to the garbage bin of history where it belongs?  What if, instead, we quit trying to dominate the world?  What if we quit using our lone superpower status to support the imperialist designs of our large corporations?  What if we quit using our political clout and collective wealth to exploit the natural resources of less developed nations?

Or what if we used a portion of our enormous military budget to pay down our national debt?  Yeah, I know.  Why on Earth would we want to do that?

© LaMaster Propaganda – All rights reserved.

The Corporatization of America.

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Those on the political right incessantly condemn government while, at the same time, promoting “privatization” – another word for corporatization.  What they want is to eliminate all forms of public regulation and turn all of our government affairs over to large corporations. 

They have a good start.

In the U.S., our health care and pharmaceutical industries have long been privately-owned and controlled.  This despite the fact that taxpayers provide large research grants to these companies to help them develop their products.  And over the past 30 years, we’ve seen increased privatization and control of the food chain, schools, prisons, even the military.  The mercenary company, Blackwater (aka Xe), has become a household word for its role in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Indeed, some reports state that there are as many mercenaries working for the U.S. in those wars as there are government troops.  We’ve even seen our government award patents (and the resulting control) to corporations for genetic discoveries, including plant hybrids even though they were often subsidized by our government.  Perhaps the greatest threat of this privatization nonsense is to our water supplies. 

Appearing on Christiane Amanpour’s CNN program, Robert Kennedy, Jr. stated that this is becoming a very big concern throughout the world.  He stated that water is one of the biggest bargaining issues for peace between Israelis and the Arab world.  And, according to Kennedy, the issue we’re seeing in the Middle East is now becoming a very big issue in the western U.S.  For example, as the result of urban and irrigation pressures, the Colorado River now runs dry before it hits the ocean.  Lake Powell, which provides water for Las Vegas, is projected to be dry in 20-50 years.  In addition, much of the prime farmland in California now lacks water for irrigation because of the demand on reservoirs.  Of course, some suggest that the solution is to give control of water supplies to private corporations. 

This is a very bad idea.

This privatization stupidity has gone so far that some want corporations to take over public lands, public parks and public buildings.  In the state of Arizona, the Republican-controlled legislature has already cut millions from education, tourism and public safety in its attempts to balance the budget while simultaneously cutting taxes.  Yet those measures haven’t been sufficient.   So the Republicans are actually promoting legislation that would force the state to sell all state-owned public buildings to individuals or corporations and lease them back.  The result would be to literally hand billions to the buyers at the expense of the taxpayers who paid to build them.

If the choice is between a well-regulated government and greedy corporations (think AIG, Goldman-Sachs, BankofAmerica, et al), which would you want to control your fate? 

How tea-baggers can eliminate the national debt.

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Since President Obama’s inauguration, the so-called tea-baggers have demonstrated, yelled at and threatened the administration. They claim the President is not a citizen. They believe he is trying to implement a socialist, or even communist, agenda. And they seem most angry over increases in the national debt. Never mind that the increases are the result of the previous administration’s policies. Never mind that much of the money allocated through TARP funds has been repaid. Never mind that GM seems on the road to recovery. And ignore the fact that, according to the CBO, the stimulus has saved or created 1.6 million jobs.

However, I think we can channel all that anger and energy to help pay off the national debt. Since the tea-baggers have driven up sales of guns and ammo following Obama’s election, they’re certainly well-enough armed to defend our shores. That would permit us to eliminate most of our national defense budget.

Just think, without a large military force, the tea-baggers would no longer have to fear that our government will take away their freedoms. Of course, we could keep a small professional military to operate, maintain and defend our enormous arsenal of nuclear tipped missiles. That would ensure that no foreign government would attack us. We’d bring home our troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, Germany, Japan and South Korea. Without an enormous military and all of its ships, planes, tanks and troop carriers, we would have less need for oil, so we would no longer need to project American power around the globe. And since most of our large, multi-national corporations have already exported most of our jobs, we should feel no obligation to protect corporate interests on foreign soil. Besides, those companies can afford to hire their own protection such as the likes of Blackwater, aka Xe.

What’s not to like? No more war. No more nation-building (other than on our own soil). No more national debt. All made possible by putting the tea-baggers’ guns and anger to better use.

The return of Dick Vader?

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Liz Cheney has stated that she hopes her father will run for President in 2012.  Even allowing for the admiration that a daughter naturally feels toward her father, I have to respond, “Are you out of your @%#^ing mind?! “

This week’s most popular movie at the box office is a disaster epic entitled “2012” which portrays the end of the Earth.  If Dick Cheney were to be elected President, reality could well be more awful than fiction. 

Just imagine, in a Cheney presidency, there would no namby-pamby diplomacy with other nations.  No dithering with our enemies.  Indeed, we’d likely attack every nation that wouldn’t kowtow to Cheney.  We’d treat all Americans as suspected terrorists and spy on their phone calls and emails.  We’d jail our political enemies and hold them for years without trial.  We’d cut taxes on the rich.  We’d virtually eliminate taxes on large corporations.  We’d transfer even more wealth to our overlords.  We’d conduct all government business with no-bid contracts.  We’d privatize our military.  We’d politicize everything.  And we’d centralize all power in the executive branch. 

Wait!   Isn’t that what happened when Cheney was running the country with Bush as a figurehead?

“An electronic Pearl Harbor”

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Last Sunday, a report by Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes discussed the threat of cyber terrorism.

At the center of his report, Kroft interviewed Jim Lewis who directs the Center for Strategic and International Studies. According to Lewis, the United States has already experienced “an electronic Pearl Harbor.” Lewis continued, “Some unknown foreign power, and honestly, we don’t know who it is, broke into the Department of Defense, to the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, probably the Department of Energy, probably NASA. They broke into all of the high-tech agencies, all of the military agencies, and downloaded terabytes of information. Someone was able to get past the firewall and encryption devices of one of the most sensitive U.S. military computer systems and stay inside for several days,” he stated. The system he referred to is the CENTCOM network, which is our military’s control center for fighting wars. Lewis said that the hackers sat inside the network, tracking information and documents “like they were part of military command.” According to Lewis, this is the “most significant” breach of security ever “acknowledged by the Pentagon.”

Proof that the Obama administration is weak militarily and soft on terrorism? No, wait!

The cost of war.

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Our war in Afghanistan has now dragged on longer than the failed Soviet Union occupation.  And President Obama is faced with a decision to expand the war by adding up to 40 thousand new troops, engineering a withdrawal, or committing to something between those extremes. 

By all accounts, this was a war that could have ended several years ago if we hadn’t become preoccupied with Iraq.  But as the Iraq “liberation” dragged on, our real enemies in Afghanistan regrouped and gained in strength.  Now it seems that no option in Afghanistan is a “good” option – especially given our economic woes at home.

It was recently reported that the Afghan war has already cost nearly $230 billion.  It was also estimated that the war costs $500,000 (Pentagon estimate) to $1 million (Congressional estimate) to maintain one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan for one year.  That cost includes transportation, equipment, support facilities and all incidentals.  If those figures are correct, adding 40 thousand more troops to the conflict will cost the U.S. an additional $20-40 billion over the next year.   And given that we still have combat troops stationed in Germany and Japan more than 60 years after the end of WW II, the cost will likely continue for many years to come. 

Not included in that estimate is the cost of VA to treat lasting injuries and psychological damage.  There are also the sums paid to veterans for disabilities.   And, of course, it’s impossible to place a price on the lives lost in action.   

Add to these costs the price of the war in Iraq which some estimate to total more than $2 trillion.

All of this is background to the debate over health care reform and economic stimulus.  The economic stimulus package that was signed by President Obama included $787 billion to create or save jobs by rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure.  And the cost of health care reform bills being considered are estimated to  cost more than $800 billion over 10 years.  Of course, the conservatives are horrified by these numbers.

So they must be apoplectic over the cost of Bush’s wars?  Not exactly.   The conservatives can’t wait to send more troops to Afghanistan and spend more money (and more lives) on open-ended, no-bid contracts for the likes of Halliburton and Xe.  They even trotted out the dark one (former V.P., and former Halliburton CEO, Dick Cheney) to attack Obama for “dithering” over the decision to commit more troops. 

Conservative logic goes something like this:  It’s un-American and un-patriotic to spend our own money on our own citizens for jobs and health care.  But it’s absolutely necessary to spend trillions to kill a few knuckleheads on the other side of the globe. 

Does this make any sense?  I think you know the answer.

Let the investigations begin.

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It was recently announced that a former member of the Bush cabinet, Gail Norton, is the subject of a corruption probe. As Secretary of State, Ms. Norton awarded some lucrative oil shale leases to a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the company that hired her a few months later.

The focus of the investigation is whether Norton violated a law that prohibits federal employees from discussing employment with a company if they are involved in dealings that could benefit the firm. It’s also possible that she broke the federal “denial of honest services” law, which permits a government official to be prosecuted for violating the public trust.

I have no idea if Ms. Norton is guilty. Her actions certainly give the appearance of guilt. But she’s certainly not the only former member of the Bush administration who appeared guilty of some impropriety. 

How about former EPA chief Stephen Johnson who found ways to avoid regulating greenhouse gases? How about former Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson who authorized billions to former colleagues in financial institutions without restrictions? How about former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who fired US attorneys for what appeared to be political purposes? Or how about John Yoo who found questionable justification to approve torture? Scooter Libby was convicted of outing a covert CIA operative, but what about those above him who likely encouraged him to release the information?

How about Don Rumsfeld who was responsible for awarding “no bid” military contracts to the corporation that was previously headed by former Vice-President Cheney? Finally, how about the former president who usurped power from Congress and seemingly ginned up information to justify an unwarranted invasion of Iraq?

As long as there are reasonable suspicions that these people committed illegal or unethical actions, there is a great likelihood that this kind of unethical behavior will continue.

And why limit the investigations to former government officials? The Bush administration was especially egregious. But the problems with our government go much deeper.

While we’re at it, let’s investigate the links between all elected officials and lobbyists. After all, when a political candidate receives tens of thousands of dollars from an industry, corporation, lobbyist or individual expecting special access or treatment, is that not as unethical as what Gail Norton is accused of?