Dear President Obama, It's a clusterfuck and it's way past time to pack it in.

[woo me with science]

11. And Iran and Syria beckon...

[font color=blue]"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 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.
-Eisenhower, 1961[/font color]


Absolutely we need to be out of Afghanistan, but our goals also need to be larger than that. One of the ways the MIC succeeds is by focusing our attention on this conflict or that conflict. We need to have our eyes on the entire octopus.

The Military Industrial Complex is core to the goals and profit of the one percent, and the one percent have purchased our government and our electoral process.

These military decisions are much larger than the President and are driven by corporate money. The military industrial complex is a core element of the profit and power of the one percent, and it will continue to grow until we remove the influence of corporate money from politics. This is why foreign policy does not significantly change from one administration to the next and why the MIC will be protected at all costs.

I don't know if we will leave Afghanistan or not, but we can be certain that carefully crafted urgent issues in that part of the world will drive the continued growth of the MIC, whether in Afghanistan or elsewhere. The coming wars, when they happen, will be all about driving more nations into debt, restructuring political systems and imposing austerity, assuming control of global resources and an increasingly global workforce, and consolidating political and financial power for the one percent. Wars for profit can be both economic and military, and we are living through an alarming ramping up of both in this decade. It is no coincidence that the only potential solutions being trumpeted for the economic crisis in Europe involve nations' ceding more of their power to global corporate interests. America is moving toward austerity and vastly increased corporate control, too, and further MIC demands will help speed the restructuring of our way of life that we already see underway in so many ways.

It is important to keep our eye on the big picture. There are always drawdowns and promises of drawdowns in this or that place before elections. What is important are overall trends. We have seen some horrifying trends since 9/11, and the drumbeats are only escalating now. The purchase of our government by the one percent is not benign. Corporations have no conscience and no values. They exist solely for profit, and if profit can be made by blood and suffering, it will be.

America needs to wake up and Occupy, because we are sleepwalking in a very dangerous direction.