The Military Industrial Complex says, “Pssst… Hey… Want some good stuff?”
Upon reading today’s news about the continued war in Libya (and yes, Marcus, it is a war) my thoughts again turn to the questions: “What is the compelling national interest that caused the UK and the USA to intervene on one side of the Libyan civil war? And when they did intervene, why did the UK and the USA choose to fight on the side of Al-Qaeda?”
Please don’t give me some nonsense about protecting the civilian population. Bahrain slaughtered its protesters and nobody lifted a finger and the USA and UK have said they won’t go into Syria no matter what.
Can anyone answer my questions? Can anyone really explain what is happening? I cannot, other than to think of this speech by US President Eisenhower on the eve of his retirement from office:
“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
… taken from Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1961 Military-Industrial Complex speech (link here)
Our friend Roland Shirk has some ideas about the problem…
This is Your Brain on Interventitron
You might not have given much thought to it—perhaps no one you know suffers from this addiction—but the most dangerous mind-altering substance afflicting Americans today is a drug called Interventitron. Developed in 1917 by the Princeton researcher (and American President) Woodrow Wilson, Interventitron is better known by street names applied to various brands by different dealers: “War to End All Wars,” “Just Cause,” “Enduring Freedom,” and most recently “Odyssey Dawn.” This drug was once confined to certain subcultures in Washington, D.C., and parts of Manhattan, and it has been shown to have legitimate use in treating diseases—for instance, its application from 1941-1945 proved to be life-saving. But the drug proved highly addictive, and was frequently over-prescribed in subsequent decades for phantom illnesses, or conditions where its medical benefits were clearly outweighed by its potent side effects. Among these side-effects, clinicians have identified the following as the most serious:
- Massive, uncontrolled pauperization, especially through metastasizing military and foreign aid expenditures—which once induced by a heavy dose of “Interventh,” have proven almost impossible for policymakers to stabilize, much less halt. Debilitating outcomes have included the U.S. occupation of Iraq and of Afghanistan.
- Hyperactivity of the military gland, which in moderate to severe cases can cause morbidity in otherwise healthy young men, especially between ages 18-25. This phenomenon often proves crippling or fatal; between 1963 and 1975, some 58,209 Americans died as a direct result of Interventitron abuse.
- Debilitating hallucinations, which result in violent behavior that proves destructive to self or others…
Continue reading Roland Shirk’s article This is Your Brain on Interventitron
Barbados Free Press 
Another african massive killing is going on in Ivory Coast, no one is mentioning that ?!
Bahrain slaughtered its protesters and nobody lifted a finger and the USA and UK have said they won’t go into Syria no matter what.
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i caan bodda to read d res uh dis trollope, but i would inform u dat d war’s still in progress n, as u have done, it would be idiotic to reach conclusions bout what will happen or what won’t happen etc. until it’s concluded!
oh, n by d way, in case yuh din know, Libya in d only supplier uh oil pun dis planet, or even d biggest one!
First of all, Al-Qaeda is no where in the picture, despite possible interest in the middle east unrest, Al Qaeda lacks the resources and manpower to have any significant influence on the unrest – BBC, It it is the claim of Gadaffi and his government that they are not fighting civillians but AlQaeda, this begs the question – What credibility does Gadaffi have in the first place? Furthermore although the military intervention is justified, to enforce a no-fly zone approved by the UN Security council and to protect civilians, cause lets face it Gadaffi at one point was worse than Saddam couldve ever dreamed of being – Until he gave up his arms to USA (who have done God knows what with them)in the late 1980’s. Imagine what he would have done had he still been in posession of those weapons. I totally agree that the unrest in Ivory coast should have been adressed long before the first Arab took to the streets in this wave of protestsin the middle east. The international community has been inconsistent in there assisstance to nations in crises – Lets face it oil talks louder than money such is the world we live in a blatant unjustified war in Iraq has been waged in the name of Oil under the false pretense of WPD’s none of which have been found to date. Libya is in a strategic position geogrpahicallly with respect to oil pipelines and sea/airports; This is the reason they are being “helped”. Allah knows best.
At the time of his death USMC General Smedley Darlington Butler Ret. was the most decorated US Marine in history. After he retired from the Marine Corps, he wrote a short book called “War is a Racket.”
Here is an excerpt from a speech he made in 1933:
As the French say, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”
” idiotic to reach conclusions bout what will happen or what won’t happen etc. until it’s concluded!”
War is never over.
Besides death and taxes, war is almost impossible to suppress.
The human condition of greed and power are rarely in balance with the common good.
Ha, ha! Finally someone has figured it out. It’s all about the broccoli. I just knew their had to be an ulterior motive; was just tying myself in knots trying to figure out what exactly it could be.
Surely Syria, Jordan, Sudan and Lebanon can release their immense broccoli reserves to help the situation.
Aw shucks, it’s another mistake we meant to say soya beans.
Hose ’em down anyway it couldda been brocolli, better safe than sorry.
Apologies to any casualties suffered whilst we chased the illegal brocolli farmers and their state sponsors.
We promise to only kill soya farmers next time.
BFP says: “Can anyone answer my questions? Can anyone really explain what is happening? I cannot …”.
Really? You can’t understand what’s happening? You’re serious?
Look … I can answer your questions but I’m really pressed for time, so for the moment I’ll just offer this.
It is a truth beyond refute that the United States and the United Kingdom and France—at minimal cost, without risking the life of a single American or Brit or Francés, by pressing a few buttons—could turn the whole of North Africa and the Middle East into a car park.
It would be a really spacious car park, vastly better than the one outside the SuperCentre in Oistins, where some dick always parks across the yellow lines and the taxi drivers have the best spaces. You could get all the way from Ankara to Khartoum with no trouble at all. Zero parking problems. Zero.
Why is it, do you think, that the “military industrial complex” doesn’t just do it?
Is it oil? Okay. It being beyond doubt that the United States—without imperiling one single American life, just by pressing a few buttons—could turn the whole of Afghanistan into a car park by tomorrow morning, why don’t they do it? Is that for oil, too?
I can understand, BFP, that you don’t understand what’s happening. Perhaps you just have to think a bit more, and then alert the world when you’re a tad less ignorant.
Best wishes to you, of course.
How Empires Decline (including ours), an
Interview with author Chalmers Johnson (1931-2010)
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/1064.html
From Wikipedia:
Chalmers Ashby Johnson (August 6, 1931 – November 20, 2010 was an American author and professor emeritus of the University of California, San Diego. He served in the Korean War, was a consultant for the CIA from 1967–1973, and chaired the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley from 1967 to 1972.[2] He was also president and co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute (now based at the University of San Francisco), an organization promoting public education about Japan and Asia.[3] He wrote numerous books including, most recently, three examinations of the consequences of American Empire: Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic.
Dear BFP folks,
You know what’s cool? What’s cool is to cut and paste large chunks of unverifiable and uncorroborated shite from Wikipedia and pass it off as an opinion.
This is a tremendously cool thing to do and does not, in any way, not even in the tiniest and slightest way, make somebody look like a tool.
jack bowman are you a homosexual?
homo erectus asks, with the wit symptomatic of the truly and densely and irredeemably stupid:
“jack bowman are you a homosexual?”
You know, homo, I think I’m a sagittarius but I don’t really keep track of that stuff. You’d have to ask my wife
homo erectus: are you a lonely, sad, prematurely bald, overweight, unattractive and potentially psychotic motherfucker whose life is going nowhere because you have a shitty job and no friends and your depression is getting worse, and worse, and worse by the day because the only contacts you have are with other lonely and sad motherfuckers on the internet?
One thing we can learn from prior examples, when the US and/or Brits decide it is time to depose one dictator (or in the case of Iran in 1953 a democratically elected prime minister) they don’t like and impose a new flunky to run the show for them, they like to stay well in the background while they stir the pot and have paid off locals do the more overt dirty work. Plausible deniability is the name of the game.
The case of the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh in Iran is instructive, because at the time of his overthrow it appeared that what happened, in a nutshell, was some Iranian army officers had deposed their PM, seized power and put the Shah on the throne in order to stave off a communist attempt to take over control of the Iranian government.
This coup was actually supported by many Iranians because, being mostly devout, Muslim believers, they were aghast at the thought that had the army not acted to take control, the atheistic communists might have been able to take over the country and impose a Stalinist type of government and acted, as other communists had done, to impose controls on the practice of religion.
The joke was, this alleged communist insurgency was a fake. It came about as a result of a conspiracy between the US and British governments, who both wanted to see Mossadegh deposed. Together they provided the necessary funds and turned the organization of the coup over to CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt) and his co-conspirators in MI6.
The hidden role of the CIA and MI6 in organizing the fake, “communist-lead” riots etc. that supposedly prompted the army takeover did not come out until years later. For the longest time, the public bought into the arranged cover story and had no knowledge of what really went on behind the scenes.
Here’s a link to an article about the ins and outs of the CIA/MI6 conspiracy which overthrew Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran:
A Great Venture: Overthrowing the Government of Iran
So what’s the point of mentioning this here? Just to offer this word of advice, don’t swallow wholesale whatever story the mainstream media serves up as a the reason for the US involving itself in Libya at this point in time. I’d be surprised if we don’t find out down the road that it’s not the cut and dried picture of the American/NATO cavalry in white hats altruistically riding to the rescue of a spontaneous uprising of beleaguered, Libyan freedom fighters. If that’s the story the media and US government is pushing, it’s probably a safe bet there’s lots going on behind the scenes we don’t even know about (yet). I could be wrong of course, but going by past history, I would be surprised if I was.
For Jack Bowman:
You know what’s cool? What’s cool is to cut and paste large chunks of unverifiable and uncorroborated shite from Wikipedia and pass it off as an opinion.
.
Oh really? Maybe you should have tried using Google.
From the LA Times Obituary on the death of distinguished scholar, historian and author Chalmers Johnson:
The LA Times’ tribute to Chalmers Johnson, his intellectual abilities and his distinguished career as a scholar continue at:
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/24/local/la-me-chalmers-johnson-20101124
The Impact Today and Tomorrow of Chalmers Johnson
Jack, u don’t feel strongly about ‘Erectus’ by any chance, do you?!!!! LOL!!
The Business of War: How Federal & Private Military Contractors Profit Off War
You really have to watch this video. It deals with the corruption inherent in the US military’s arms procurement process and in the dealings between the Pentagon and the growing multitudes of military contractors. At around the 6:45 mark or so Congressman John McCain is being interviewed about allegations of corruption and overbilling on the part of Dick Cheney’s old employer Halliburton, where you might recall Dick used to be CEO (before he suddenly had an urge to become VP and minder to GWB).
Anyway, McCain takes the bull by the horns and comes right out and tells the interviewer he is in favour of holding an investigation into these allegations of wrongdoing by Halliburton. Within seconds of that remark the phone rings and one of his staff tells McCain the Vice President is on the blower and wants to speak to him. The “Oh sh1t! This can’t be good. Did he somehow hear what I just said?” look that crosses McCain’s face is priceless. Hmm, there’s a few remarks in there too from a guy that looks suspiciously like Chalmers Johnson (just a heads up for JB).
What? BFP objects against US military action on an Islamic enclave? Horrors!
Jack Bowman
I thought that they had some real nincompoops over at BU, but my God man, you is by far and away de ultimate.
Dear BFP folks,
Right of reply, don’t you think?
Reply might contain rude words. Even if your spam filter is turned up to eleven, BFP, this reply will be made.
First …
Ah, jeremy and bowlegs. Bless! Did you think up those witticisms all on your own? All by yourself? Really? Oh, we’re all so proud of you! Or is your mother still writing your material? Your mother still making your bed, too, and your dad always tucked you in at night? Whatever the case, they were tremendously funny things to say. Really, really witty. You didn’t get beyond secondary school, did you?
I don’t think there can be a single person on the planet who wouldn’t laugh until they pissed at humour of this standard:
“Jack, old man, why would he need to ask your wife? Does your wife also insert objects inside you?” (that’d be Jeremy)
and … [wait for it …]
“A more appropriate name would be Jackie Bowoman. Fits with the activities he engages in” (that’d be bowlegs).
Look, chaps, it’s clear beyond doubt that you’re witless dickbrains who can only write in very short bits and have no idea how to make someone laugh. You’re idiots, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re completely useless.
My own view is that you are, demonstrably, overweight bald pricks with a body-odour problem and disagreeable teeth who masturbate every night and every morning into your crusty sheets (which you really should launder more often, by the way), while a little bit of your little brains wishes that you weren’t fat, bald, witless bores who are completely fed up with your shitty little lives and your shitty little jobs and your little alcohol problem and your ever-increasing history of total failure with women who aren’t fat alcoholics or who aren’t bought.
Second …
Ah, Mr. BAFBFP. Bless! You’ve seen some “nincompoops” on Barbados Underground? I believe I’ve seen you there, Mr. BAFBFP. You seem to have a lot of time on your hands, and you don’t seem to be spending much of that time outside.
You seem, instead, to be inventing a persona that involves pretending to be Chinese. Let me say this with the greatest respect, Mr. BAFBFP: your Chinese thing is very probably the least funny item on the entire internet. It makes my toes curls just to read it, just to imagine the kind of mind it takes to believe that anyone would find this even slightly funny. It’s so ill-conceived and so poorly executed that anyone who doesn’t have the brain of a sprout must surely find it embarrassing. It’s also enlightening that, as far as I can tell, even among the roiling whirlpool of laugh-out-loud subliterates at BU, nobody else seems to find that insanely humourless bollocks to be funny, either.
And your other attempt at wit, Mr. BAFBFP? … when you pretend to be the Hasid and you do the astonishingly unfunny “verily” shite? … let me say only this.
It’s not a dynamite idea, Mr. BAFBFP, to pretend to be a Hassidic Jew and to talk shite in that persona, when you’re doing it on Barbados Underground. For it is a truth universally acknowledged that a prominent and non-anonymous member of the “BU Family”, indeed a Bajan who self-identifies as a public figure, has published on Barbados Underground (which is to say, has published globally), for the edification of the “BU Family” and for the world, a threat to hunt someone down in their home and “get them” because of his belief that they are Jewish.
And may I say, Mr. BAFBFP, with all due respect: screw you, you ridiculous little twat.
Is that a death threat, Dexter. Is that a fatwah?
Best wishes to you. I hope that you and yours are well.
PS. Did you just publish a death threat to me, Dexter, on Barbados Free Press?
I really just want to be completely clear about this, Dexter. When you write/publish this: “Jack Bowman is a bulling bitch who want killing”, is that a death threat against me or an instigation [“who want killing’] for soebody else to kill me?
Did you just threaten my life in public on Barbados Free Press, Dexter?
Dear BFP folks,
Going to need some resolution on this death threat very soon. Very soon.
Attention Jack Bowman,
Hi Jack. We just came online and saw your complaint and the threat. Terrible. This tek us back to when we had to have 24/7 comment moderation on. Now this “Dexter” threatened you, Peter Allard and Ian Bourne with death. Terrible to think that people can’t talk politics in Barbados without fear.
We unapproved the threat and here’s the IP number and the automatically inserted email, but we know from past experience that this is some sort of proxy and anonymous browsing service. Also the Royal Barbados Police Force does not bother to investigate threats on the internet ever since it was shown that some of the threats against Adrian Loveridge came from the Parliament building. That’s because the Commission of Police Dottin is a corrupt wimp who does wat the corrupt politicos tell him to do.
Dexter
nomen@nescio.it
209.119.117.138
Seems my nose for smelling out conspiracies has not let me down.