Our Military Is the Virus

[Nevilledog]

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/military-coronavirus-covid19/

The phrase “thinking about the unthinkable” has always been associated with the unthinkable cataclysm of a nuclear war, and rightly so. Lately, though, I’ve been pondering another kind of unthinkable scenario, nearly as nightmarish (at least for a democracy) as a thermonuclear Armageddon, but one that’s been rolling out in far slower motion: that America’s war on terror never ends because it’s far more convenient for America’s leaders to keep it going—until, that is, it tears apart anything we ever imagined as democracy.

I fear that it either can’t or won’t end because, as Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out in 1967 during the Vietnam War, the United States remains the world’s greatest purveyor of violence—and nothing in this century, the one he didn’t live to see, has faintly proved him wrong. Considered another way, Washington should be classified as the planet’s most committed arsonist, regularly setting or fanning the flames of fires globally from Libya to Iraq, Somalia to Afghanistan, Syria to—dare I say it—in some quite imaginable future Iran, even as our leaders invariably boast of having the world’s greatest firefighters (also known as the US military).

Scenarios of perpetual war haunt my thoughts. For a healthy democracy, there should be few things more unthinkable than never-ending conflict, that steady drip-drip of death and destruction that drives militarism, reinforces authoritarianism, and facilitates disaster capitalism. In 1795, James Madison warned Americans that war of that sort would presage the slow death of freedom and representative government. His prediction seems all too relevant in a world in which, year after year, this country continues to engage in needless wars that have nothing to do with national defense.

*snip*

[soothsayer]

1. At least we're bringing it home

We’re at war with each other now.

[2naSalit]

2. And here we are.

Way back when Betsy's brother first hit public notice, I knew that shit would come home and bite us in the ass real hard for not quashing his operations and deeming him a pariah. Now look what's happened.

[Nevilledog]

4. But that's the beauty of mercenaries.

The only allegiance they have is to the almighty dollar. Not a single care that it's American citizens they're brutalizing.

[2naSalit]

6. Exactly.

[leftieNanner]

3. Read Rachel Maddow's Book Drift

It's a fascinating history of how we got to this point of constant war. It wasn't that long ago that we didn't have a huge standing army. We merely called up citizen soldiers when they were needed.

This is about money and power, mostly. Our Pentagon budget is beyond bloated. And when you think of what we could do for our country and the world with that kind of cash, it kind of boggles the mind. Universal Health Care? Done. Healthy food on every plate in every home? Done. Secure housing? Done.

SMDH

[2naSalit]

7. +1

[SheltieLover]

5. K&R!

And so, in 50 years, if humanity survives, I hope they aren't discussing the fact that the (once) leader of the free world nuked us all because our founders could not forsee a traitor in the WH, along with coconspirators in the Senate.

So world civilization is threatened because now dead founders didn't see this coming >200 years ago.

Mind boggling.

I'm sure the flames will be coming my way for saying so, but so be it.