Community | June 18, 2011 | 15 comments

Eisenhower's worst fears came true. We invent enemies to buy the bombs

source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/16/eisenhower-fears-invent-enemies-buy-bomb...

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Vierotchka
Britain faces no serious threat, yet keeps waging war. While big defence exists, glory-hungry politicians will use it.

Why do we still go to war? We seem unable to stop. We find any excuse for this post-imperial fidget and yet we keep getting trapped. Germans do not do it, or Spanish or Swedes. Britain's borders and British people have not been under serious threat for a generation. Yet time and again our leaders crave battle. Why?

Last week we got a glimpse of an answer and it was not nice. The outgoing US defence secretary, Robert Gates, berated Europe's "failure of political will" in not maintaining defence spending. He said Nato had declined into a "two-tier alliance" between those willing to wage war and those "who specialise in 'soft' humanitarian, development, peacekeeping and talking tasks". Peace, he implied, is for wimps. Real men buy bombs, and drop them.

(click on the link for the full article)
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15 comments // Eisenhower's worst fears came true. We invent enemies to buy the bombs

  • damush
  • PigFarmington
  • nobsartist
    • 0
      nobsartist  

    • We need a Congress willing to de-fund the military. They did it in the 70's to stop Veitnam, we need to complete the job and eliminate most ALL military funding. First though, we need a law that prevents politicians from using military planes for personal OR business travel.

    • 11 months ago
  • Vierotchka
  • COMMONSENSEFORCOMMONGOOD_COM
  • JPSayles
  • artemis6
  • bluestranger
    • +3
      bluestranger  

    • My favorite republican coinage is still Dwight Eisenhower's gift of "Military Industrial Complex". Guess that one went right over our collective heads.

    • 11 months ago
  • PressCore
    • +3
      PressCore  

    • Flashback to February 1970. Lyrics from a Canadian rock ban the
      Guess Who. " American woman, better stay away-hey. Colored lights
      that hypnotize, sparkle someone else's eyes. We don't need your
      War machines. We don't need your ghetto scenes." Can any of you
      guess what the reference american woman was based on ? Clue:
      It was a donation to the USA from France,stands in New York harbor.

    • 11 months ago
  • Vierotchka
    • +2
      Vierotchka  
    • PressCore:

      I remember it as if it was yesterday...

      THE GUESS WHO
      "American Woman"
      (Randy Bachman, Burton Cummings, Jim Kale and Garry Peterson)
      American woman, stay away from me
      American woman, mama let me be
      Don't come a hangin' around my door
      I don't wanna see your face no more
      I got more important things to do
      Than spend my time growin' old with you
      Now woman, I said, stay away
      American woman
      Listen what I say-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay
      American woman, get away from me
      American woman, mama let me be
      Don't come a knockin' around my door
      Don't wanna see your shadow no more
      Coloured lights can hypnotize
      Sparkle someone else's eyes
      Now woman, I said get away
      American woman
      Listen what I say-ay-ay-ay
      [Instrumental Interlude]
      American woman, said get away
      American woman, listen what I say
      Don't come a hangin' around my door
      Don't wanna see your face no more
      I don't need your war machines
      I don't need your ghetto scenes
      Coloured lights can hypnotize
      Sparkle someone else's eyes
      Now Woman, get away from me
      American woman
      Mama let me be
      Go, gotta get away
      Gotta get away now go, go, go
      I'm gonna leave you woman
      Gonna leave you woman
      Bye-bye, bye-bye
      Bye-bye, bye-bye
      You're no good for me
      I'm no good for you
      Gonna look you right in the eye
      Tell you what I'm gonna do
      You know I'm gonna leave
      You know I'm gonna go
      You know I'm gonna leave
      You know I'm gonna go-o, woman
      I'm gonna leave you woman
      Goodbye American woman

    • 11 months ago
  • PressCore
  • rgrisham
    • +2
      rgrisham  

    • American Foreign "Aid" is just tax payer money buying weapons from contractors. American Tax payers money support wars, massacres and genocides are the world. All in the name of Capital.

    • 11 months ago
  • lenhart
  • Schnookums
    • +5
      Schnookums  

    • Our economy only operates when have to keep building stuff, and what better way to ensure that, than to immediately blow up what we produce? War also feeds the debt machine (which is how money is created), so it is not a failure of policy concerning war, it is a failure of policy concerning how our economy is structured.

      Take away the need to perpetually grow our economy (on paper) and the need to create debt to create money, and war will turn back into the last resort, rather than the driver for our whole economy.....which is what it is today.

    • 11 months ago
  • PressCore
    • +2
      PressCore  
    • Schnookums:

      Agreed. As a Cinefile, a coin collector, and a History buff, I learn more
      from well researched, well documented movies about olden times, and
      the History channel than I ever did from school books. From 1792 through
      1844-55 the U.S. Govt was truely soverign, followed the Constitution,
      represented We the People. The repeated attempts to permanently institute
      a Corporate Bank of the U.S.Govt to take the power of the Treasury & the
      People to issue currency failed back then. Before the Govt. became big
      business, had a large Military industrial complex and collected income
      taxes to maintain it, people were big, and money was big. How big ? A
      solid Copper half cent= a quarter sized coin, with a full cent= a Kennedy
      Half dollar sized coin. And the standard of weights & measures in effect
      for the first 52 years meant that there was an ample money supply for
      each class of citizen. No class based inequity in our system of money.

      The USA's money was controlled by the Treasury and it's mints which
      ensured Gold, Silver, Copper mines preduced value based money.
      " debt based money " is an elaborate Ponzi Scheme which imposes an
      inflation tax on the very citizens least able to pay it. The Bankster printed
      currency we're forced to use today instead of the blue seal Silver Certificate
      U.S. Notes promote usery enslavement, and bloodless surrender of our
      soverignty. Eventualy the federal reserve note will not be worth the paper
      it's printed on. And based on current trends, unless they replace the rotten
      to the core, corrupt system incapable of reformation, the USA is headed
      for a world currency we'll be obligated to redeem with coins & bailouts.
      With the last vestige of the USA's soverignty gone, it will be blackmailable
      to policies issued by foreigners. My Webster's Dictionary of the American
      Language, college edition 1950 copyright derfines the masonic latin phrase
      In Novus Ordo Seclorum ( original NWO ) as world nations' emerging
      Democratic Republics. That presupposes We the People of the USA control
      our own affairs. And that the U.S. Government represents us, because as
      Lincoln told us all their legitimate authority derives from our consent to be
      governed. ( No taxation without representation ) Sounds like an American Revolutionary idea even now, huh ?

    • 11 months ago
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