Greenwald: US military says Martin Luther King would be proud of its weapons

Greenwald: MLK's vehement condemnations of US militarism are more relevant than ever
His vital April 4, 1967 speech is a direct repudiation of the sophistry now used to defend US violence and aggression

(...) The way in which "America's soul is totally poisoned" is evident in virtually every debate over US policies of militarism. Over the weekend, several pro-war national security "experts" argued: "I'd pay closer attention to critics of drone strikes if they explained their recommended alternative." This is a commonly heard defense of Obama's drone assaults: I support drones - despite how they constantly kill innocent adults and children - because the alternative, "boots on the ground", is worse.

Those who argue this are literally incapable even of conceiving of an alternative in which the US stops killing anyone and everyone it wants in the world. They operate on the assumption that US violence is and should be inevitable, and the only cognizable debate is which weapon the US should use to carry out this killing (drones or "boots on the ground"?). Even though they have no idea who the US government is killing, they assume, with literally no evidence or basis, that those being killed are "terrorists" who want to attack the US and that therefore they - and anyone close to them - must be killed first. As Jonathan Schwarz noted on Sunday, they have literally embraced the same mindset as the Terrorists they claim to loathe: we must use violence and killing, even if it means we kill innocents, because we simply cannot conceive of any alternative.

Never once do they stop and wonder: why are there so many people in the world who want to attack the US? Never once do they do what King so bravely and rather subversively urged: "the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence" is it "helps us to see the enemy's point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves". King explained: "from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition." King thus urged the nation to "understand the arguments of those who are called enemy."

Adhering to King's prescription - "understanding the arguments of those who are called enemy" - would clearly reveal the obvious "alternative" to Obama's global assassination program: namely, ceasing the endless violence that is what drives so many people to want to bring violence to the US in return, combined with prosecutions of the handful of people who possess both the intent and capability to attack the US.

Arguing that "we must drone-bomb people in order to stop terrorism" is the equivalent of arguing that "we must continue to smoke cigarettes in order to stop lung cancer". As ample evidence proves, the so-called "solution" to Terrorism - endless violence and killing - is actually its primary cause. As the Yemeni blogger Noon Arabia put it this weekend after a series of multiple drones strikes on her country: "For those arguing effectiveness of drones, let me explain: civilians killed => animosity towards US = Qaeda members increase = Vicious !"

King made the same argument about Communists: that western militarism is not a solution to that ideology but is precisely what drives people to embrace it. He quoted a Vietnamese Buddhist leader who wrote that "each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct"; that "the Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies"; and that "Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat." That Buddhist leader, quoted King, warned that "the image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism." (...)

 RichardPrins wrote: 
Well, that's what war is. Look what we did to the Japanese-Americans during WWII. We continue to promote racism in this country, and imo Fox News is hugely complicit in this. 

Only the white children get memorialized. 125 non-white (mostly, I am assuming) children have been murdered in Chicago this year, where is their memorial? 

 RichardPrins wrote: 
yes

and not only that, but people, especially americans, can read this, act like it never existed, and go right back to the constant state of denial/state worship...

they are incapable of objectively applying any evidence of human rights violations to their leadership

indoctrination installs a partition in the mind

in this case it shelters horrific and brutal murder

they're trained not to acknowledge it because once that happens, they can never go back

real intellectual honesty destroys that partition, that double standard

unfortunately it's all coming home, the drones, the surveillance, secret police, the aggression and the assumption that your neighbor is or could be an enemy of the state

political force isn't an answer/solution to our dilemma, it's the root cause of it...

peace

Every war - particularly protracted ones like the "War on Terror" - demands sustained dehumanization campaigns against the targets of the violence. Few populations will tolerate continuous killings if they have to confront the humanity of those who are being killed. The humanity of the victims must be hidden and denied. That's the only way this constant extinguishing of life by their government can be justified or at least ignored. That was the key point made in the extraordinarily brave speech given by then-MSNBC reporter Ashleigh Banfield in 2003 after she returned from Iraq, before she was demoted and then fired: that US media coverage of US violence is designed to conceal the identity and fate of its victims.

The violence and rights abridgments of the Bush and Obama administrations have been applied almost exclusively to Muslims. It is, therefore, Muslims who have been systematically dehumanized. Americans virtually never hear about the Muslims killed by their government's violence. They're never profiled. The New York Times doesn't put powerful graphics showing their names and ages on its front page. Their funerals are never covered. President Obama never delivers teary sermons about how these Muslim children "had their entire lives ahead of them - birthdays, graduations, weddings, kids of their own." That's what dehumanization is: their humanity is disappeared so that we don't have to face it.

But this dehumanization is about more than simply hiding and thus denying the personhood of Muslim victims of US violence. It is worse than that: it is based on the implicit, and sometimes overtly stated, premise that Muslims generally, even those guilty of nothing, deserve what the US does to them, or are at least presumed to carry blame.

A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 - by Isao Hashimoto

 Voltaire wrote:

Sucking Up to the Military Brass
Generals Who Run Amuck, Politicians Who Could Care Less, an “Embedded” Media... And Us

Few things have characterized the post-9/11 American world more than our worshipful embrace of our generals. They’ve become our heroes, our sports stars, and our celebrities all rolled into one. We can’t stop gushing about them. Even after his recent fall from grace, General David Petraeus was still being celebrated by CNN as the best American general since Dwight D. Eisenhower (and let’s not forget that Ike commanded the largest amphibious invasion in history and held a fractious coalition together in a total war against Nazi Germany). Before his fall from grace, Afghan War Commander General Stanley McChrystal was similarly lauded as one tough customer, a sort of superman-saint.

Petraeus and McChrystal crashed and burned for the same underlying reason: hubris. McChrystal became cocky and his staff contemptuous of civilian authority; Petraeus came to think he really could have it all, the super-secret job and the super-sexy mistress. An ideal of selfless service devolved into self-indulgent preening in a wider American culture all-too-eager to raise its star generals into the pantheon of Caesars and Napoleons, and its troops into the halls of Valhalla. (...)

Canceled Nukes Meeting: A Setback for Obama?
The president took office with nuclear non-proliferation as a priority, but has little to show for it thus far.

The day after Thanksgiving, when Americans were still digesting on La-Z-Boys and watching football, the State Department quietly announced that the 2012 conference for a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons had been canceled by the United States. It doesn't quite qualify as inconvenient news deliberately dropped over a holiday weekend (Israelis and Palestinians were probably watching the news, not sleeping off turkey), but it comes close. 

The cancelation doesn't reflect well on President Obama, who had made nuclear non-proliferation a priority in his administration. In 2009, shortly after his inauguration, he appeared in Prague and presented an ambitious plan to achieve a world without weapons of mass destruction. Since then, he has continued to work towards that goal—holding nuclear summits in Washington and South Korea—with mixed results. The summit in Seoul for example, dissolved into squabbles between the US and Russia, and did little to advance a nuclear weapons-free agenda. (The New York Times called it "a most undiplomatic pileup.") Reports early this year indicated that Obama was considering reducing the US nuclear arsenal, but likely not until further talks with the Russians some time in 2013. (...)

 RichardPrins wrote:

That was interesting, Richard. Thanks. I think it might have been preaching to a choir, though.

The change begins within. I don't think that means to fill one's life with artificial attitudes that hide how you really think on things. I never try to lighten peoples woes by telling them they'll get over it. Some things we just can't get over. Time may heal the wound, but there is oft times a scar. I think to get over the death of a loved one and just forget them is kind of psychopathic in it's own right.

I would have liked to ask Jiddu how one reconciles the lunatics that just like to kill and hurt people and break things? You could create a collective of horse-loving pacifists, fine and dandy, but the principle of polarity says that a collective of war-mongers would also form and eventually they'd decide they wanted your horses. You would then be in a position where you must defend your equines as well as yourself and loved ones. Also, showing weakness to some folks is just inviting their wrath, no matter how kind you are.

I often wonder if human beings will ever escape their innate bestial nature. It's easy to claim to be something and then through action prove it all a lie. Inventing supreme superheroes (gods) hasn't worked, laws haven't worked, even kindness hasn't worked. We have created a world that protects it's weak and stupid and encouraged psychopathic personalities to thrive. Then we tell them it's wrong to kill, while warring with other nations and hero-worshiping the killers.

It's an entirely unleveled battlefield. Either we establish morality on a level field and stick to it or what's the point? If our leaders are always solving their problems with violence, how are we to have proper role-models? Oppression seems a short way off from anarchy. The pressure builds and then there's a story about some guy shooting people in a movie theater or school.

I wonder if peace can ever really exist. We're all too petty.
 

 Umberdog wrote:
Something I saw today, sort of echoes it: The Wisdom of Insecurity

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. ~ Bertrand Russell

I've often found this guys thoughts interesting.

J. Krishnamurti on The Causes of War

"To put an end to outward war, you must begin to put an end to war in yourself."

War is the spectacular and bloody projection of our everyday life, is it not? War is merely an outward expression of our inward state, an enlargement of our daily action. It is more spectacular, more bloody, more destructive, but it is the collective result of our individual activities. Therefore, you and I are responsible for war and what can we do to stop it? Obviously the ever-impending war cannot be stopped by you and me, because it is already in movement; it is already taking place, though at present chiefly on the psychological level. As it is already in movement, it cannot be stopped- the issues are too many, too great, and are already committed. But you and I, seeing that the house is on fire, can understand the causes of that fire, can go away from it and build in a new place with different materials that are not combustible, that will not produce other wars. That is all that we can do. You and I can see what creates wars, and if we are interested in stopping wars, then we can begin to transform ourselves, who are the causes of war.

Continued... http://www.rainbowbody.com/newarticles/krishnawar.htm

Behind the "Support the Troops" Rhetoric
Micro Militarism
by MICHAEL SCHWALBE

My ATM receipts now tell me, beneath my checking account balance, that the North Carolina State Employees’ Credit Union SUPPORTS THE TROOPS!  The classical music station I listen to runs a dedication to “the men and women of our armed forces, who work so hard to protect us; without their sacrifices, none of our freedoms would be possible.”

When I browse for information about public universities in North Carolina, an ad pops up showing a young man in camouflage combat fatigues, holding a laptop computer.  The text of the ad reads, “Advance Your Military Career with an MBA.”  The ad is for an online MBA program at the University of North Carolina.

A few months ago the home page of my university, NC State, greeted viewers with an image of a young man in the cockpit of a U.S. air force fighter jet.  The text, as I recall, was to the effect that NC State is training tomorrow’s leaders today.  The fall issue of the university’s alumni magazine ran an adoring profile of army general Ray Odierno, a 1986 graduate.

The local weekly independent newspaper, which fashions itself as alternative and leftish, runs a feature called the “social activist calendar.”  Events are grouped under headings such as Community, Environment, Politics, Government, and LGBTQ.  In a recent issue, four events were listed under Troop Support.

Though the requests have abated lately, for a time earlier this year cashiers in grocery stores and gas stations consistently asked if I wanted to donate a dollar to support the troops.

The above are examples of what can be called micro militarism: pro-military practices squeezed into small cultural spaces.  Any one such practice might seem trivial.  Yet on the whole micro militarism does much to normalize militarism on a large scale. (...)

To maintain support for militarism on a large scale, people must be propagandized.  They must be made afraid of alleged enemies abroad; they must be told, as often as possible, that the U.S. is, unlike all other empires in history, concerned only about promoting freedom and democracy when it uses military force; they must be led to see military service—of which the essence is obedience, not courageous independence—as noble and heroic.

Some of the cultural practices through which this management of consciousness occurs are easy to see.  The martial-spirited national anthem is sung en masse before sporting events.  Military jets are flown over crowded stadiums.  College basketball games are held on air force bases and aircraft carriers.  Films and TV shows (e.g., “Stars Earn Stripes”) celebrate the skill and virtue of U.S. soldiers.  G.I. Joes and other military toys fill whole aisles in big box stores.

Micro militarism is harder to see.  An individual instance can look like nothing more than an expression of support for people who have given several years of their lives, and perhaps their entire futures, for national service.  The intentions behind many acts of micro militarism are good.  But intentions do not determine consequences. (...)

 helenofjoy wrote: 
and true

would work for shackles too

 RichardPrins wrote: 
Powerful

by BLU

Rethinking the 'Just War,' Part 2

 hippiechick wrote: 
we had a chance to do that on nov 6th

the two wings of the war party continue to rule

peace

Rethinking the ‘Just War,’ Part 1
By JEFF MCMAHAN / The Stone

Can war be justified? Is there such a thing as morally proper conduct in war?

(...) The Stone is featuring recent work by Jeff McMahan, a philosopher and professor at Rutgers University, on “just war theory” — a set of ethical principles pertaining to violent conflict, whose origins can be traced back to Augustine, that still influence the politics and morality of war today. The work will be published in two parts on consecutive days — the first dealing with the background and history of the traditional just war theory, and second consisting of the author’s critique of that theory.

 RichardPrins wrote: 
Thank you for posting this. If I had done it, I would have gotten piled on like the guy with the football. 

We must just stop fighting wars. Young people must stop enlisting. No one wants war but the bankers, the politicians, and the war machine manufacturers.  

There is no reason for us to have a base in almost every single country in the world. Really, Germany??? 

For Veterans Day, the best thing we could do is demand to stop the wars.