WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
– From Major General Smedley Butler’s War is a Rackett
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich has just penned an extremely powerful warning about the warmongers in Washington D.C. Who funds them, what their motives are, and why it is imperative for the American people to stop them.
The piece was published at The Nation and is titled: Why Is the Foreign Policy Establishment Spoiling for More War? Look at Their Donors.
Read it and share it with everyone you know.
ashington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality by banding together, declaring themselves “think tanks,” and raising money from external interests, including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life concerns of the American people.
As a former member of the House of Representatives, I remember 16 years of congressional hearings where pedigreed experts came to advocate wars in testimony based on circular, rococo thinking devoid of depth, reality, and truth. I remember other hearings where the Pentagon was unable to reconcile over $1 trillion in accounts, lost track of $12 billion in cash sent to Iraq, and rigged a missile-defense test so that an interceptor could easily home in on a target. War is first and foremost a profitable racket.
How else to explain that in the past 15 years this city’s so called bipartisan foreign policy elite has promoted wars in Iraq and Libya, and interventions in Syria and Yemen, which have opened Pandora’s box to a trusting world, to the tune of trillions of dollars, a windfall for military contractors. DC’s think “tanks” should rightly be included in the taxonomy of armored war vehicles and not as gathering places for refugees from academia.
According to the front page of this past Friday’s Washington Post, the bipartisan foreign-policy elite recommends the next president show less restraint than President Obama. Acting at the urging of “liberal” hawks brandishing humanitarian intervention, read war, the Obama administration attacked Libya along with allied powers working through NATO.
Indeed, I warned about this in last week’s piece: U.S. Foreign Policy ‘Elite’ Eagerly Await an Expansion of Overseas Wars Under Hillary Clinton.
The think tankers fell in line with the Iraq invasion. Not being in the tank, I did my own analysis of the call for war in October of 2002, based on readily accessible information, and easily concluded that there was no justification for war. I distributed it widely in Congress and led 125 Democrats in voting against the Iraq war resolution. There was no money to be made from a conclusion that war was uncalled for, so, against millions protesting in the United States and worldwide, our government launched into an abyss, with a lot of armchair generals waving combat pennants. The marching band and chowder society of DC think tanks learned nothing from the Iraq and Libya experience.
The only winners were arms dealers, oil companies, and jihadists. Immediately after the fall of Libya, the black flag of Al Qaeda was raised over a municipal building in Benghazi, Gadhafi’s murder was soon to follow, with Secretary Clinton quipping with a laugh, “We came, we saw, he died.” President Obama apparently learned from this misadventure, but not the Washington policy establishment, which is spoiling for more war.
The self-identified liberal Center for American Progress (CAP) is now calling for Syria to be bombed, and estimates America’s current military adventures will be tidied up by 2025, a tardy twist on “mission accomplished.” CAP, according to a report in The Nation, has received funding from war contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing, who make the bombers that CAP wants to rain hellfire on Syria.
The Brookings Institute has taken tens of millions from foreign governments, notably Qatar, a key player in the military campaign to oust Assad. Retired four-star Marine general John Allen is now a Brookings senior fellow. Charles Lister is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, which has received funding from Saudi Arabia, the major financial force providing billions in arms to upend Assad and install a Sunni caliphate stretching across Iraq and Syria. Foreign-government money is driving our foreign policy.
As the drumbeat for an expanded war gets louder, Allen and Lister jointly signed an op-ed in the Sunday Washington Post, calling for an attack on Syria. The Brookings Institute, in a report to Congress, admitted it received $250,000 from the US Central Command, Centcom, where General Allen shared leadership duties with General David Petraeus. Pentagon money to think tanks that endorse war? This is academic integrity, DC-style.
And why is Central Command, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of transportation, and the US Department of Health and Human Services giving money to Brookings?
Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who famously told Colin Powell, “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it,” predictably says of this current moment, “We do think there needs to be more American action.” A former Bush administration top adviser is also calling forthe United States to launch a cruise missile attack on Syria.
The American people are fed up with war, but a concerted effort is being made through fearmongering, propaganda, and lies to prepare our country for a dangerous confrontation, with Russia in Syria.
The demonization of Russia is a calculated plan to resurrect a raison d’être for stone-cold warriors trying to escape from the dustbin of history by evoking the specter of Russian world domination.
It’s infectious. Earlier this year the BBC broadcast a fictional show that contemplated WWIII, beginning with a Russian invasion of Latvia (where 26 percent of the population is ethnic Russian and 34 percent of Latvians speak Russian at home).
The imaginary WWIII scenario conjures Russia’s targeting London for a nuclear strike. No wonder that by the summer of 2016 a poll showed two-thirds of UK citizens approved the new British PM’s launching a nuclear strike in retaliation. So much for learning the lessons detailed in the Chilcot report.
As this year’s presidential election comes to a conclusion, the Washington ideologues are regurgitating the same bipartisan consensus that has kept America at war since 9/11 and made the world a decidedly more dangerous place.
The DC think tanks provide cover for the political establishment, a political safety net, with a fictive analytical framework providing a moral rationale for intervention, capitol casuistry. I’m fed up with the DC policy elite who cash in on war while presenting themselves as experts, at the cost of other people’s lives, our national fortune, and the sacred honor of our country.
Any report advocating war that comes from any alleged think tank ought to be accompanied by a list of the think tank’s sponsors and donors and a statement of the lobbying connections of the report’s authors.
It is our patriotic duty to expose why the DC foreign-policy establishment and its sponsors have not learned from their failures and instead are repeating them, with the acquiescence of the political class and sleepwalkers with press passes.
It is also time for a new peace movement in America, one that includes progressives and libertarians alike, both in and out of Congress, to organize on campuses, in cities, and towns across America, to serve as an effective counterbalance to the Demuplican war party, its think tanks, and its media cheerleaders. The work begins now, not after the Inauguration. We must not accept war as inevitable, and those leaders who would lead us in that direction, whether in Congress or the White House, must face visible opposition.
Thank you Mr. Kucinich, I couldn’t agree more.
For related articles, see:
U.S. Foreign Policy ‘Elite’ Eagerly Await an Expansion of Overseas Wars Under Hillary Clinton
The Dirty Business of U.S. ‘Think Tanks’
You’ve Been Warned – Calls for Mandatory “National Service” for Americans Aged 18-28 Has Begun
Meet the Military-Industrial-Wall Street Complex: Blackstone Hires General Wesley Clark
Meet the General Who Tried to Pressure Obama Into World War 3 with Russia
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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While I am grateful that you bring us these incredibly important issues, I always find myself pissed off. Not at the message..not entirely anyway…but that there never seems to be the correct final touch. Here, Dennis Kucinich whom I think ought to have been President..finishes with saying leaders should face pushback.
Well wouldn’t that be nice.
But that isn’t going to happen. It hasn’t in over 25 years and it isn’t now and it won’t ever.
My anger is in why this is the case. And that is because Americans are STUPID!
And in masses they continue to do NOTHING. Except watch Kardashians and What Not To Wear.
Unless you start urging people Mike, as a largely respectable blogger (along with some others like you) and steer the masses to suggestive action based resources…educational tidbits, etc. eye opening will not take place.
I don’t care how big the piece written..how dire the message, indeed how collosal the circumstance….Americans are too stupid and lazy to even care!
Maybe that’s not fair. In a couple ways. One because surely there are Amermicans that are smart and do care. But we don’t see or hear from them in measurable ways. (Think Voting) and even then I can bet everything I own they don’t read and research before voting.
And it may not be fair of me to say such things even though I’m in my 50’s and have witnessed a life full of events and change and can clearly see how what I write is dead on…buy still it may not be fair in a 2nd way and that is because this has all been by design. People have fallen so far in intellect, self worth, imagination, creativity and ambition because…well..it was easy to happen. Things like smart phones have made people lazy and lose desire to be part of the scene which is part and parcel to what made the U.S. and that is civility, being part of an effort.
Effort is gone Mike. No one wants to speak out or do something. They just sit with a remote and watch Kim and her big ass. What’s his name?
Wayne, with all due respect I think you completely misunderstand the problem.
The lack of interest is not because Americans are stupid. It is because a neglect of our rights, freedoms, foreign policy impact on others, etc. has been studiously cultivated by the very people Kucinich is targeting.
This is not something that just happened. it is part and parcel of the strategy to get away with graft on a titanic scale. Even stupid people understand self-preservation. But when you are constantly misdirected, propagandized, lied to, distracted and ignored, it is no great surprise you will get a population that turns its gaze elsewhere. The choice has been between instant gratification (entertainment) and no gratification at all (political process).
What Trump has done, for whatever reason, is torn aside the temple veil and exposed the REAL workings of the criminal syndicate generously referred to as “our government.”
With the capable assistance of whistle blowers, Wikileaks, O’Keefe and others, all the nauseating corruption that typifies the American political aristocracy is being laid bare.
This is going to be one hell of a show.
Other issues aside, the entire foreign policy of this nation is being run out of Tel Aviv—-have no doubt about that Mike. Note PNAC for the answer for these wars of aggression. It has a purpose and only one. Traitors have taken over–bought and paid for. Tax avoidance “Foundations”, and PACS,hundreds of them if not thousands, need to be shut down now and reparations extracted from them individually. The biggest elephant in the room is the Federal Reserve which has allowed the fiat to bastardize and whore out this nation. Shut that down and repudiate the so called debt and hunt the owners down for reparations—–meaning seize all of their assets. Down to their shoelaces. Hemp rope may be a factor there. In fact, it best be.
We owe them nothing. Fraud has no statute of limitations. Death is the penalty for Treason.
Without fiat $$–NONE of this would ever be possible to have begun or to continue.
The People have been doped up with fluoride in their food and drinking water and, in the words of our genius and incredibly handsome CIA director—“Aerial Aerosol Dispersement” aka Chem Trails. It’s now admitted. He said it. Given Dope Phones that they stare at incessantly. We have no representation what so ever for the people. None. We have been inundated by invaders whilst the people are unemployed and broke. This is happening in Europe as well—-particularly Sweden and Germany and it has spread to the rest of Europe and of course–it is now and has been in the United States.
The call soon will be:
“We no longer acknowledge your authority” en masse.
We are experiencing The Bolshevik Revolution Part II but this time it is on a global scale. The same funders and the same outcome is desired. Time to end it.
Love will prevail in the end and the evil who has been in power will be destroyed.
James Corbett did an excellent expose’ on this monster. I suggest everyone watch it.
https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-292-century-of-enslavement-the-history-of-the-federal-reserve/
Thank you for your work Mike.
OK, here’s a rousing call from Kucinich to boldly step forward and stand for peace! …
… except there is exactly one candidate who is calling for war with Syria, demonizes Russia as a way to obfuscate her corruption and ineptitude, and is universally supported by all the policy establishment members Kucinich complains about. But he doesn’t dare name her (let alone suggest voting for her opponent, who has publicly called for de-escalation of hostilities and collaboration with the Russians to resolve the war in Syria). All brave Mr. Kucinich is willing to do is obliquely mention her comments on the death of Gadhafi.
What exactly is the purpose of Kucinich’s article, if it isn’t to prevent election of Ms. Clinton and the extension of the MIC establishment’s influence? Is he just hedging his bets in case she loses? Does he hope that in the future he can point back to this little editorial as a sign that he stood true to his anti-war beliefs, even though he didn’t dare to break ranks with his Democrat colleagues who are pushing for World War III? It’s not going to work.
Michael, I strongly urge you to see “The Occupation of the American Mind”
http://mediaed.org/occupationmovie/
I saw it in a church basement last week. It is a powerful documentation of the Israeli lobby in the US. If one needs supporting evidence they can read Tom Hayden’s 2006 mea culpa regarding the lobby. One gives a broad view, the other a personal example. Both are chilling.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/07/20/i-was-israel-s-dupe/
Michael; You say in Liberty but do you know what Liberty is? It is when the people rule over their government and entails a diametrically opposite daily operating model of both government and finance to the system the oppresses most all American’s today.
Now that you have been told what Liberty is, ask yourself what you have done to promote this cause you use in your closing salutation. You have danced around the issue, but because you never knew the meaning you’ve done nothing but miss the point, and again you do it here with Kucinich.
I don’t disagree with you being against more war, I”m on the same side. But here you have an opportunity to proclaim for a State of Liberty whose effect is to end the wars you say you oppose, but just like Kucinich you remain attached to the government that rules over the people, the very establishment that maintains the status quo dedicated to the wars you say you oppose.
Am I saying that Hillary and the DNC are the war party? You’re Goddamn right, that’s exactly what I’m saying; it’s so obvious it’s impossible to miss; yet you remain silent, and by your silence you enable.
You say you are opposed to the neocon warmongers and their war party candidate, but where are you? Sitting on the sidelines because big bad Trump has personality disorders. Is this worse than the social disorders of the public/private lives of Clinton who lies, cover ups and arguably solicit murder of those who get in their way?
At least Trump has some compassion for the American people.
The Clinton’s look upon American’s with all the compassion one gives to an ant before stepping on it. They’re on a mission and it isn’t from God, maybe god, Lloyd Blankenfein’s god, but not God.
Yet who is the war hawk you do not oppose? Who calls for a no fly zone over Syria, which is a declaration of war against Russia? Who staged a coup in Ukraine and Egypt? Who overthrew Libya, left 4 men to die turning a stable North Africa into a no man’s land that has become the incubator for Islamic terrorists and replied “What difference does it make?
Who is closely connected to the Saudi Arabia that finances it all?
Now here is your big chance, who do you endorse for el presidente?
You’re either a slime or a moron and in either event you mislead; and that is your greater crime, worse still, I believe it is you who misleads yourself.
I don’t think you’re a slime, I think you’re a moron.
You know nothing of Liberty else you would sing its praises and make all of your judgements based upon its facts and guidelines.
You are a good writer and publicist, an unaware propagandist and a great waste. I’ll be shocked if you leave this post up for all to read.
Serfs Up America!
I remain silent about Hillary? You clearly don’t read my website and are just trolling for Trump.
Your comment makes you sound like a fascist who throws a fit when someone refuses to endorse your pet political candidate. Truly sad!
Also, here’s some good life advice. It’s typically not a productive use of time to read and engage with a person you consider a “moron.”
I’ll let the readers decide who is right.
Awesome job Mike, Thank you again. This is in my opinion the most important topic of our current time and I will pass it on to family and friends.
Why do you ignore the 900 pound gorilla in the same room with these ‘think tanks,’ the Israeli factor?
Jewish American Haim Saban is the main shareholder in Brookings and has said he’s a “one-issue guy, and that issue is Israel.”
To support his Apartheid nightmare, Saban recommends sponsoring think tanks, buying politicians and news outlets.
From an April 2003 Haaretz article:
The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it’s possible.
This is a war of an elite. [Tom] Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/white-man-s-burden-1.14110
All one has to do is to change Iraq with Libya, then Syria and this news story stays current. What Tom Friedman finds funny about that war–Iraq–that makes him laugh is beyond me.
Maybe if Mr. Friedman were to experience first-hand the sheer terror of fleeing from artillery shells falling down around him or smart bombs raining down from the sky, with no safe place left to run, and roving, armed psychopathic gangs, who shoot anything that moves, maybe if Tommie were to ‘enjoy’ that not as a well-paid spectator but as an unwilling participant, maybe then he wouldn’t think it so funny?
I realize that speaking this kind of truth about Israel will probably get my comment tossed and me banned.
But that won’t make the ‘Israeli factor’ go away.
My father is Jewish, and by writing the above you have insulted half my family, as well as many close friends.
This site is for the discussion of ideas, not unenlightened ramblings about how everyone from this or that group is responsible for all the world’s problems. That is what simpletons do, who are lazy and don’t want to bother with actually having to discuss ideas and the actions of specific individuals.
You can take your dislike of Jews or any other group elsewhere, it is not welcome here. The comment section of my website is not, and never has been, a safe space for bigots.
If, there is a need for “Interim Government” President, Dennis Kucinich would best qualify for this position…Because of his knowledge about IFO’s (UFO’s)…thus being most qualified to make “Disclosure” a reality.