| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Black Elk" |
| Date: |
10 Dec 2005 09:57:12 PM |
| Object: |
"We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence" |
Pigs feeding at the trough of war
Review by Ashley Smith | December 9, 2005
Jeffrey St. Clair, Grand Theft Pentagon: How War Contractors Rip Off America
and Threaten the World.
Common Courage Press, 2005, 336 pages, $18.95.
THE BUSH administration's reign of error and terror has left a pile of
corruption, waste and destruction that rivals the muck of the Augean stable.
Jeffrey St. Clair's new book, Grand Theft Pentagon, accomplishes the
Herculean task of exposing these abuses with brilliant investigative
journalism carried off with unmatched sarcasm.
After the Cold War, the military industrial complex was desperate for a new
conflict to legitimize profligate spending on war, weapons systems and their
associated services. St. Clair chronicles how Bush's so-called "war on
terror" has enabled our rulers to rekindle the incestuous relationship
between politicians, the Pentagon and military contractors.
The marriage counselor of this foul union is none other than George Bush
himself.
In perhaps the funniest exposé of the Bushes yet written, St. Clair tells
the story of this company masquerading as a family. The portrait is not very
flattering, politically or personally. Demonstrating their congenital
penchant for putting profit before all else, the dynasty's founder, Prescott
Bush, barely escaped charges of treason for wheeling and dealing with the
Nazis during the Second World War.
The unlikely hero of this family saga is "W." St. Clair shows how he spent
his youth boozing, snorting coke, womanizing, failing classes, securing
draft deferments, dodging national guard duty, and starting and wrecking
corporations for which other people paid the price.
But this loser found himself reincarnated as a caring conservative. With the
help of corporate money, lessons at the foot of Karl Rove, lots of dirty
tricks and apparently direct conversations with the deity, he found himself
selected by the Supreme Court as U.S. ruler on the eve of 9/11.
Bush and the military-industrial complex used the tragedy to fulfill their
imperial fantasies and line their pockets. With Bush threatening war on the
planet, the Pentagon got the useless and dangerous Star Wars Missile
Defense, the unneeded B-767 tanker plane, the practically untested F-22
fighter and the Stryker armored personnel carrier that is almost useless in
Iraq since it is vulnerable to improvised explosive devices.
Boeing, Lockheed and a handful of other corporations thus bilked American
taxpayers of billions of dollars for senseless weapons.
These weapons contracts were just the tip of the iceberg. The Bush
administration also gave no-bid contracts to various private corporations to
service the "war on terror."
Clinton and Gore opened up this new space for corporate plunder through
their "Reinventing Government" program that opened the floodgate to
subcontracting government services and industries. Halliburton, Bechtel and
others were consequently able to get contracts for everything from doing
military laundry to rebuilding Iraq's oil industry.
Disproving neoliberal nostrums, they overcharged the government, provided
inferior service, and, in the case of rebuilding Iraq, completely failed to
restore electricity, running water or reconstruction of buildings destroyed
by the U.S. conquest. Despite being investigated, they got off scot-free
and, astonishingly, got new contracts to rebuild New Orleans.
Far from calling the Bush administration, the politicians of both parties
have aided and abetted the process. As St. Clair writes, "Today, the roots
of the two dominant political parties intertwine and are irrigated by the
same freshets of corporate money, much of it coming from the weapons
industry cartel."
None of this military gluttony would have been possible without Bush's war
on terror. As St. Clair proves, this war was without cause either in
Afghanistan or Iraq. He documents how Bush overruled offers from his own
emissary Kabir Mohammed as well as the Taliban to deliver Bin Laden to U.S.
custody. Instead, hungry for revenge and imperial domination, Bush launched
a vengeful war for imperial domination of Central Asia, its oil and natural
gas reserves, and the revitalization of the military industrial complex.
He also shows how, from the very beginning, the Bush administration set its
eyes on Iraq, despite the fact that it had no connection to 9/11. In
Rumsfeld's words, the Bush regime should "Go massive. Sweep it all up.
Things related and not." So they concocted lies about weapons of mass
destruction to justify a war for empire and oil.
And they found willing liars in the rest of the establishment, from the CIA
to the Democratic Party and the servile corporate media. One CIA manager
told his staff, "If Bush wants to go to war, it's your job to give him a
reason to do so." Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and the rest of the Democrats
save for a handful of dissenters joined the chorus of liars.
But now the tide has turned against Bush, the war and its profiteers. As St.
Clair concludes, the task is to reinvigorate "a militant and uncompromising
popular movement, unaligned with either political party, whose first task
must be to put an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and snuff out
further imperial adventurism in Iran, Syria and North Korea." Grand Theft
Pentagon is an invaluable tool in the building of just such a movement.
http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-2/568/568_09_GrandTheft.shtml
--
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties 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.
Military-Industrial Complex Speech, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html
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| User: "Werner Hetzner" |
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| Title: Re: "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence" |
11 Dec 2005 11:58:29 AM |
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Black Elk wrote:
Pigs feeding at the trough of war
Review by Ashley Smith | December 9, 2005
Jeffrey St. Clair, Grand Theft Pentagon: How War Contractors Rip Off America
and Threaten the World.
Common Courage Press, 2005, 336 pages, $18.95.
THE BUSH administration's reign of error and terror has left a pile of
corruption, waste and destruction that rivals the muck of the Augean stable. ...
if "we the people'' must pay for a "money pit'' we obviously don't
want, does that not make us accountable to
government?
http://1marketsquare.com/CapLP/Accountable.shtml
schools
http://1marketsquare.com/CapLP/PerformanceGap.shtml
http://1marketsquare.com/CapLP/ReportCard.shtml
http://1marketsquare.com/CapLP/Schools.shtml
http://1marketsquare.com/CapLP/Environment.shtml
http://1marketsquare.com/CapLP/Social%20Security.shtml
http://1marketsquare.com/CapLP/Health%20Care.shtml
http://1marketsquare.com/CapLP/Drugs.shtm
http://1marketsquare.com/CapLP/Education.shtml
http://1marketsquare.com/CapLP/Poverty.shtml
http://1marketsquare.com/CapLP/ExampleTOC.shtml
and more
Dollars in the common treasury are like fish in the common sea - anyone
who can will harvest to extinction. That is why socialism is
fundamentally corrupting and can not work. ----
Wasn't America supposed to be about voluntary agreement instead of
forced obedience?
Isn't it high time to join The Resistance?
http://www.ny.lp.org/choice
----
"
In crafting the Bill of Rights, the framers were careful to acknowledge
implicitly and explicitly two key truths:
The first is that government does not grant rights it acknowledges them.
They exist independently of government. They're part of who and what we
are. And, as Jefferson noted in the Declaration of Independence, the
only legitimate function of government is to secure them.
The second is that government is a servant to whom we delegate powers,
not a master who dispenses privileges. The Constitution carefully
enumerates the powers we, the people, delegate to our government and it
specifically denies that government any powers not so delegated. Our
rights lie beyond the pale of that delegation. They are sacrosanct. Any
government which infringes upon them is engaged in an intolerable
usurpation.
"
www.badnarik.org
-----
A "right" as envisioned by the Founders meant that the government was
not permitted to interfere with your pursuit of them, i.e., your
pursuit of happiness was to be unhindered by government.
The "right" of free speech means that government cannot interfere
with your free speech. The "right" of gun ownership means that the
government cannot infringe your gun ownership. What does "right" to
health care mean? It means that the government cannot stand in the
way of your pursuit of health care, or impede your obtaining health
care. The "right" to an attorney means that the government cannot
prevent you obtaining an attorney to represent you.
Of course, "right" has incorrectly come to mean that someone must
supply you with something. If your "right" to housing means that some
slave must supply you with housing, and your "right" to health care
means that some slave must supply you with health care, and your
"right" to an attorney means that some slave must supply you with an
attorney, does your "right" to free speech mean that some slave must
supply you with a loudspeaker, or TV air time? Does your "right" to own
guns mean that some slave must supply you with guns?
Gary Popkin,
NYC
http://1marketsquare.com/CapLP/Rights.shtml
---
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| User: "Black Elk" |
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| Title: NEO-FASCISTS ARE COWARDLY LIBELOUS TROLLS >>> Re: LIBERALS WANT TO LEGALIZE SEX WITH CHILDREN! ==> "We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence" |
11 Dec 2005 10:32:20 AM |
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The Franklin Coverup Scandal
The Child sex ring that reached Bush/Reagan Whitehouse
http://www.thelawparty.com/FranklinCoverup/franklin.htm
---
Republican Sex Scandals
From dKosopedia, the free political encyclopedia.
http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Republican_Sex_Scandals
--
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the
country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag
the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a
parliament, or a communist dictatorship. 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 greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm
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