Self-destruction of the U.S. Military

Ron Paul blames reckless warmongering on the staggering rates of drug abuse and suicide in the U.S. Military:

With regards to drug abuse, Paul explained, “The truth is, killing strangers in unconstitutional and senseless wars causes guilt to the participant no matter what kind of military indoctrination is attempted. Those afflicted may attempt to bury the pain in alcohol or drugs or other destructive behaviors, but we see that only leads to more problems. It may not be popular to point this out, but it goes against human nature to kill a fellow human being for retaliating against those who initiate a war of aggression on their soil.”
How much does the military medicate its personnel?
[I]n 2011, the Pentagon spent more on pharmaceutical drugs and injections than Black Hawk helicopters, Abrams tanks, Hercules C-130 cargo planes and Patriot missiles combined. Since 2002, the government has spent $5 billion on Lipitor, Plavix, Advair, Nexium and Singulair.” Schwartz also noted, ““The military spent at least $2.7 billion on antidepressants and more than $1.6 billion on opioid painkillers such as Oxycontin and hydrocodone over the past decade.

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Matt Taibbi’s review of Zero Dark Thirty

I haven't seen Zero Dark Thirty and I don't plan to do so. I've read enough about the film's glorification of torture and violence, and the falsifications of history, that I'm not interested. I did read Matt Taibbi's review, however, which is primarily a comment on what this film says about us:

The real problem is what this movie says about us. When those Abu Ghraib pictures came out years ago, at least half of America was horrified. The national consensus (albeit by a frighteningly slim margin) was that this wasn't who we, as a people, wanted to be. But now, four years later, Zero Dark Thirty comes out, and it seems that that we've become so blunted to the horror of what we did and/or are doing at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and Bagram and other places that we can accept it, provided we get a boffo movie out of it. That's pathetic. Bin Laden was maybe the most humorless person who ever lived, but he has to be laughing from the afterlife. We make an incredible movie that celebrates his death - a movie so good it'll be seen everywhere in the world - and all it does is prove him right about us.

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The real battle over Chuck Hagel

Glenn Greenwald points out the "problem" with Hagel:

There's a reason Hagel's nomination has become so intensely controversial and such a vicious target for war-cheering neocons such as Bill Kristol and the Washington Post Editorial Board. It's because Hagel is one of the very, very few prominent national politicians from either party who has been brave enough to question and dissent from the destructive bipartisan orthodoxies on foreign policy. What plausible Democratic candidate for this job has been willing publicly to point out that the US and Israel are separate countries and American interests should trump Israeli interests when they conflict, or to advocate for direct negotiations with Hamas, or to candidly point out that America's Middle East wars are fought for oil, or to condemn the power of the pro-Israel lobby within both parties, or to harshly point out the stupidity of attacking Iran rather than cowardly mouth the "all-options-on-the-table" platitude?
Greenwald points out the conservative pretense for opposing Hagel, referencing a Michael Moore article that Harpoons Bill Kristol. Not long ago, Greenwald pointed out that it's not really Log Cabin Republican money that is financing the LCR attack on Hagel.

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Charlie Chaplin speaks

I hadn't before seen Charlie Chaplin's movie, The Great Dictator, but it ends with a rousing speech. First, a bit of background from Wikipedia:

Chaplin spent two years developing the script, and began filming in September 1939. He had submitted to using spoken dialogue, partly out of acceptance that he had no other choice but also because he recognised it as a better method for delivering a political message. Making a comedy about Hitler was seen as highly controversial, but Chaplin's financial independence allowed him to take the risk. "I was determined to go ahead," he later wrote, "for Hitler must be laughed at."Chaplin replaced the Tramp (while wearing similar attire) with "A Jewish Barber", a reference to the Nazi party's belief that the star was a Jew. In a dual performance he also plays the dictator "Adenoid Hynkle", a parody of Hitler which Maland sees as revealing the "megalomania, narcissism, compulsion to dominate, and disregard for human life" of the German dictator.
Watching this speech reminds me about how history so often repeats itself.

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