Tag: War

Gearing Up for Another Major War – Iran

On By Norbert HauptIn War4 Comments

Remember the years after 9/11? Bush, Cheney, Rice and Powell parading in front of cameras every day telling us over and over again how Saddam had all these weapons of mass destruction and we needed to do something about them before it was too late. By repeating this message so long, so often, on so many forums, the country eventually believed it. And then we started another war in addition to the one that was already waging against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The war itself ended quickly, and Saddam, his sons and his henchmen were soon found and executed. It seemed like a winning situation when Bush announced Mission Accomplished after the major military operations were complete.

What we didn’t know at the time was that it was just the start of another decade of instability in the entire region. We had, without realizing it, taken out the dictator who was also the one element that kept the region somewhat stable. That gone, instability took over, costs rose, and we learned that nation-building is far more complicated and expensive than waging war.

After enough death and expense, the nation got sick of it and elected Obama who promised to end the war. He kept his promise and pulled out all troops, only to find years afterwards that it was a colossal mistake and it had given rise to a much more serious nemesis: ISIS.

Obama and Hillary are the founders of ISIS. They’re the founders!

— Donald Trump

Now, in just the first two weeks of Trump, we find new saber-rattling. Now it’s not Bush, Cheney, Rice and Powell parading in front of cameras every day, it’s Trump, Tillerson, Bannon, Conway, Spicer and Kushner.

It’s funny to read that. In 2003, if you had read to me these six names, the only one I would have even recognized was Trump. Otherwise, blank. Now, these names are already infamous. And they came out of nowhere.

They are now systematically setting up Iran as the great evil. I am not sure why. I guess another good war will be good for business, both the military industrial complex and Exxon and its cronies. It’s good for Wall Street.

You all know the simile about the frog in the pot of cold water. If you threw a frog into a pot of boiling water, the frog would jump out and save itself. But put a frog into a put of cold water and slowly boil it, the frog gets used to the heat and eventually dies.

Let me announce that the frog has been put into the lukewarm water, and the flame has been started. Our six friends on national TV on what I now call “America – the Reality Show” are going to tell us night after night in prime time how evil Iran is, how it’s Iran’s fault that there is ISIS (which is wrong, and they’re actually on our side of ISIS), and how dangerous Iran’s nuclear weapons program is. We will be egging on Iran in the Persian Gulf and we’ll wait for a convenient opportunity when Iran makes an aggressive move so we can start a shooting war.

The American public, the frog, will be sufficiently hot by then, and desensitized to the heat, and it will buy into this folly. We’ll have another multi-decade military debacle at our hands, we’ll spend another $10 trillion and thousands of American lives, and the middle east will be more unstable than ever before.

Just what we needed. Another war.

This is what happens when you elect a madman.

Beware of the Warmongers Amongst Us

On By Norbert HauptIn Political, War1 Comment

The GOP candidates keep talking about how our military is “deflated” and insinuate that that’s the reason ISIS exists.

What nonsense. ISIS’ existence has many sources, but our lack of fighter planes, technology, aircraft carriers, ships, guns and ammunition, if there even were such a lack, has nothing at all to do with it.

ISIS exists because of policy decisions by Bush and Obama, not because of anything the military did or did not do, or could or could not do.

ISIS exists because Bush purposely and thoughtlessly invaded Iraq, destabilized a nation and toppled a dictator that we understand in retrospect held together the Middle East. ISIS exists because Obama pulled out the military, following the wishes of the majority of Americans. If he had not done that, many thousands more of American soldiers would now be dead. ISIS exists because Obama and Clinton destabilized Libya and helped topple Qaddafi. ISIS exists because Syria became a failed state.

The “solutions” the GOP candidates propose, if those can even be called solutions, are more gasoline on the fire, nothing else. After toppling several dictators, they want to topple another one, Assad. Cruz wants to carpet bomb “them” whoever “them” is. Trump wants to bomb them into oblivion. Rubio wants “more military.” Great stuff.

Let me say this:

If we had left Saddam Hussein alone in 2003, he would still be there, or his sons would be there, tyrannizing the Iraqi people, but the region would be “stable” and there would be no ISIS. Oil would be cheap. Thousands of American soldiers would not be dead, and tens of thousands of soldiers would not have lost arms and legs, and would not be suffering from PTSD. We would have two trillion dollars less debt – at least. We could have written checks for $6,250 instead to every one of the 320 million Americans, men, women, children and infants.

And rather than stopping all this insanity in other countries, our “leaders” want to do more of it.

This is all so wrong! Do we not see? Do we not learn?

War is a Game Old Men Play with the Lives of the Young

On By Norbert HauptIn WarLeave a comment

Hitler and Göring knew it. See below. George W. Bush and Cheney knew it. See Iraq and Afghanistan. Now Obama knows it too. See Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Naturally the common people don’t want war…. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along…. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Hermann Göring (or Goering), Nazi military leader, Commander of the Luftwaffe, and President of the Reichstag

The quote is taken from an interview G. M. Gilbert had with Göring in the jail cell where Göring was being held during the Nuremberg trials. I cannot, of course, reproduce the entire interview, but here is some context for the quote, beginning with Gilbert’s words:

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” Goering shrugged. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”

“There is one difference,” I pointed out. “In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare war.”

“Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

G. M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (New York: Da Capo Press, 1974) 278-9

— From WhoSaidIt

We continue to this day to tell our voters they are in danger of attack from religious fanatics on the other side of the world, so they are willing to send our seemingly infinite supply of young men and women to far-away countries so they can lose their lives, limbs and sanity.

We tell our son that he is a hero, but we don’t tell him that:

…the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece.

— Hermann Göring, Nazi and Master of War

Will we ever learn?

This is Gaza – Video by Jürgen Todenhöfer

On By Norbert HauptIn Atrocities1 Comment

The American media has effectively indoctrinated us that Hamas are terrorists and therefore Israel is justified in fighting back. When opponents of the war argue that Israel is killing innocent Palestinians, they counter that the Palestinians elected Hamas into power and therefore they are not innocent. They are terrorists.

Hamas are terrorists. Palestinians should overthrow Hamas and start the peaceful nation they proclaim they want. I am aware that I am asking for another civil war in Gaza.

It’s a complex situation, and I tend to agree with the argument from the side I listened to last.

But easy or not, Israel is terrorizing Gaza. Look at this video, for a change not by a slanted American media organization but by a slanted German one. Then look me in the eye and tell me that these children are guilty because they elected Hamas.

Don’t worry, you don’t need to know German. All the pictures are in English.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152434676470838&set=vb.12084075837&type=2&theater

No More Wars

On By Norbert HauptIn Commentaries4 Comments

The world has to listen to American saber-rattling once again. This time it’s Obama who has got himself into the unenviable position of having drawn a line in the sand which has subsequently been crossed. What to do?

We are not learning from history. We get involved in foreign countries that:

  1. We don’t understand
  2. Don’t respect us
  3. Don’t want us there
  4. See us as the imperialists which we obviously are.

Then we kill many innocent people by using massive and blunt weapons (of mass destruction).

Afterwards, we try to rebuild nations amidst enemies of all creeds.

Above all, we’re spending billions of dollars we don’t have, money you and I pay in taxes every month.

We did it in Korea, Vietnam, the Balkans, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya – and those are only the ones I can think of right now.

We just need to stop messing with the problems of other countries that we can’t fix and don’t understand.

Of course, to be fair, I have contradict myself here:

Hitler could easily have been stopped in the years between 1935  and 1939, when the British, the French and the U.S. were dilly-dallying, trying to stay out of a war that could easily have been prevented by ousting a dictator, a war that eventually cost over 50 million lives.

Is the right solution to oust another dictator?