The mind of a neocon

Glenn Greenwald acknowledges that Thomas Friedman has value: If we listen to Friedman we will understand the way neocons think. We will understand their rage and we will understand how their rage tempts them to lash out indiscriminately. Here are Greenwald's words:

If I had to pick just a single fact that most powerfully reflects the nature of America’s political and media class in order to explain the cause of the nation’s imperial decline, it would be that, in those classes, Tom Friedman is the country’s most influential and most decorated “foreign policy expert.”
Here is the mind of a neocon in action (from a 2003 interview with Charlie Rose):

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Abe Lincoln’s warning about allowing a President alone to declare war

For at least the past ten years American Presidents, including Barack Obama, have been not-declaring their wars, including their secret wars. What's wrong with this situation? Glenn Greenwald quotes none other than Abe Lincoln:

There are few things more dangerous in a democracy than allowing a President to wage secret wars without the knowledge of the country. I’ll permit Abraham Lincoln — not exactly a pacifistic worshipper of legalisms and restraints on Executive power — to explain why this is so, in an 1848 letter to a proponent of unrestrained presidential warmaking powers:
Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, I see no probability of the British invading us but he will say to you be silent; I see it, if you dont. The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.

Continue ReadingAbe Lincoln’s warning about allowing a President alone to declare war

Eisenhower must be turning in his grave

At Truthdig, Bill Boyarsky reminds of of the words of Dwight Eisenhower, a man who both experienced war and understood the urge to go to war. Boyarsky offers this Eisenhower quote:

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberty or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

We've been warned, but we have not heeded the warning, according to Boyarsky:

Even in the face of this warning, we have become complacent. A small, insular group of security advisers and State and Defense Department officials, working out of public view and supervised by President Obama, are waging cyberwar in Iran and drone war in other countries. Behind them is a huge commercial apparatus of arms manufacturers, private security and logistics contractors and others who have an economic interest in war. Oversight is impossible; stiff penalties await leakers or whistle-blowers.

Continue ReadingEisenhower must be turning in his grave

Chris Hedges discusses the all-encompassing meaning of war

I just finished reading War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, a 2003 book by Chris Hedges. This is a deeply emotional book, but also a highly abstract treatise. Hedges has worked as a reporter in more than a few war zones, and he draws upon those personal experiences to illustrate his analysis of the instant and all-encompassing meaning of war. This is an extremely well-written work, that offers timeless observations. These are observations that are desperately needed by Americans and the many politicians that, perhaps unwittingly, mislead them. After reading Hedge's work, I am more convinced than ever that for many people war is an almost irresistible intoxicant. As Hedges repeatedly points out, war intoxicates news reporters too, and then the vicious cycle revs up. I'd highly recommend reading this entire book to anyone who wants to better understand warmongering, its cheerleaders and its victims. What follows, though, is a set of some of my favorite passages from War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning:

The enduring attraction of war is this: Even with its destruction and carnage it can give us what we long for in life. It can give us purpose, meaning, a reason for living. Only when we are in the midst of conflict does the shallowness and vapidness of much of our lives become apparent. Trivia dominates our conversations and increasingly our airwaves. And war is an enticing elixir. It gives us resolve, a cause. It allows us to be noble. And those who have the least meaning in their lives, the impoverished refugees in Gaza, the disenfranchised North African immigrants in France, even the legions of young who live in the splendid indolence and safety of the industrialized world, are all susceptible to war's appeal.

Continue ReadingChris Hedges discusses the all-encompassing meaning of war

No lessons learned

Glenn Greenwald points out that we've apparently learned nothing at all:

Here we have almost half of the U.S. Senate — liberals, moderates and conservatives — jointly demanding an escalation with Iran and all but endorsing a war before the U.S. Government even proposes one. Has the American political and media class learned a single lesson from the Iraq debacle?

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