Tell Me Again ... What's the War About?

[Octafish]

Blum asks a most important question no one seems able to answer.

Tell Me Again ...

What's the War About?

By WILLIAM BLUM

When facts are inconvenient, when international law, human rights and history get in the way, when war crimes can't easily be justified or explained away, when logic doesn't help much, the current crop of American political leaders turns to what is now the old reliable: 9/11. We have to fight in Afghanistan because ... somehow ... it's tied into what happened on September 11, 2001. Here's Vice-President Joe Biden: "We know that it was from the space that joins Afghanistan and Pakistan that the attacks of 9/11 occurred." 1

Here's Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC): "This is the place we were attacked from 9/11." 2

Rep. Mike Pence, the third-ranking House Republican, asserted that the revelations in the Wikileaks documents do not change his view of the Afghan conflict, nor does he expect a shift in public opinion. "Back home in Indiana, people still remember where the attacks on 9/11 came from." 3

Here's President Obama a year ago: "But we must never forget this is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans." 4

SNIP...

Never mind that out of the tens of thousands of people the United States and its NATO front have killed in Afghanistan not one has been identified as having had anything to do with the events of September 11, 2001.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/blum08052010.html

I'm wondering, too. What is this war about?

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Nothing good.

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. +1

[midnight]

2. Bring them home now.

[90-percent]

4. The Iraq War

A different justification, that I always found disturbing that the rational was CONSTANTLY CHANGING!

How can you go to war and then change the reasons why you're doing it? And we Americans fell for it!

Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here! Utter absurdity. But Dick Cheney said something like; "So what? They volunteered." At least Hermann Goering was honorable. Dick is nothing more than a mass murderer.

Read it somewhere: Bush going after Iraq after 9-11 is like FDR attacking New Zealand after Pearl Harbor!

-90% jimmy

[mmonk]

5. Didn't you get the memo?

Freedom and fighting them over there, so we won't have to fight them over here. It says so right there in the documents of the PNAC, AEI, PPI, CFR, etc., etc..

[Scruffy1]

29. These memos are sent out daily by the MSM

[Donnachaidh]

6. k&r n/t

[Junkdrawer]

7. Ever see the Japanese show Ninja Warrior?

Top athletes try more and more insanely difficult obstacle courses until the Final Challenge where almost NO ONE succeeds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasuke_(TV_series)


In the world of Empire, Afghanistan is the Final Challenge.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

8. Us agin the bad guys! Sheesh.

It is always Us agin the bad guys!

Here, let me explain. We are the good guys. They are the bad guys. Because they are bad and because we are good, there's a conflict, and they started it. So we have to finish it. It is just that simple.

[lunatica]

9. The war is about what it was always about

Controlling access to oil. The Afghans are in our fucking way godammit!

If the whole 9/11 thing were true Special Ops would have done away with everyone involved years ago.

[Mist]

12. Don't forget the poppies! nt

[Individualist]

35. and enriching/empowering the military industrial complex.

[david13]

10. Keeping the military industrial complex in the big money. dc

[Ichingcarpenter]

11. Apple Pie, the American Way, Freedom, Red, White and Blue

The American Flag, Jesus Christ, World War I to end all wars, World War 2 the good fight, our forefathers,
............... I got more reasons if you want them.




The origins of the term are actually rather interesting. It begins with the term “by jingo,” which was used as a euphemism for “by Jesus” as early as the 17th century. The term was common enough into the 1800s that it was included in an 1878 British music hall song which was meant to stir up Britons, encouraging them to go to war with Russia. The rhetoric in the song included the line “We don't want to fight, yet by jingo! if we do...” The song also contained references to Britain's superior military strength, and argued that Britons had an obligation to ensure that “the Russians shall not have Constantinople.”

The slang term “jingoism” quickly caught on to describe an attitude which promoted war with another nation. In the United States, the term was adopted several years later, and it became a popular replacement for “spread-eaglelism.” Spread-eagleism referred to stretching the wings of the national symbol of the United States, thereby gaining more influence and territory. Both terms were featured in a number of amusing political cartoons which sometimes included clever puns like replacing the “jingle” of “jingle bells” with “jingo.”

[whatchamacallit]

13. The scoundrels promoting our illegal wars under this bullshit rationale can go to hell

yea and that includes the prez.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. Saving face. It's better to continue a lost war than admitting to losing it.

See LBJ and Nixon for precedents.

[Iggo]

15. I dunno. Whadda you got?

[jotsy]

16. It's about the PTB's perception of securing long term wealth in global resources

$$$$$$$$$

Monopoly has become more than a board game and our armed forces act as the wing expected to enforce the will of the worldwide well off.

A bulk of mortgages in this country are held by less than 5 banks.

Monsanto, nuff said.

In some states, a single health insurance provider lays claim to better than two thirds of regional markets.

Local phone, cable, electricity and water companies enjoy a competitor free environment.

We're beyond expendable in their eyes. More likely, we are viewed as an infestation in need of eradication, if we are rendered incapable of delivering some benefit to them. If we are not viable as a consumer base and/or a labor market, I don't want to think about what these sadistic status seekers won't do.

As for all roads leading back to a day in September near a decade ago? Nope. See Peter Lance's Cover Up for what he refers to as an effort to fill the gaps in the official commission report. There's too many unanswered or buried questions and credible alternative theories about events that day for me. I remember a piece Randi Rhodes did way back 2003 or 4, about how some of our diplomats were informing officials in nations neighboring Afghanistan to expect a United States military presence in the region in mid to late fall during the spring of 2001. Negotiations for the pipeline in question were mentioned and a comment I believe was something like "A bed of treasure or a grave of sand." I remember the Tom Cruise like A Few Good Men question I had. If this attack was a huge blow we had no idea was coming, how could we have known to inform those nations we'd be there and when?

War is a Racket, by Smedley Butler warned publicly of the true nature of military presence. To secure the interests of the internationally affluent.
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0>

War is loss for most, and most are going to be lost if we can not find our way back to level. Republicans can claim all they want that it's people destroying the system. I contend it's the other way around.

K and R!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ignis]

17. K&R

[northernlights]

18. um, controlling an oil pipeline

control resource - check
support military industrial complex - check
show China and Russia how tough we are - oops

[Scruffy1]

28. We have a winner!

[gratuitous]

19. Who needs a reason?

Americans just like war. We like going to other countries and blowing things up. Sure, a few innocents get in the way from time to time, but we pay their survivors a couple thousand dollars, and everything's jake. Do you know how much a couple thousand dollars is to those people? It's, like, a king's ransom! Some of them are actually happy their kids got blown to Kingdom Come by a red, white, and blue all-American missile, bomb or UAV. You think the Taliban or Al Qaeda pay off their victims? I think not! Why, I'll bet some folks over there have babies just hoping the little brats get greased by some American ordnance.

Okay, it sort of sucks to have the troops over there, missing their families and stuff. But it's kind of like an extended camp out, and who doesn't love to go camping? It also gives some of these guys a chance to get off by themselves for a while. You see some of those military wives, and they aren't exactly Pamela Anderson, if you know what I mean. I'll bet some of these guys are glad to get away from the old ball-and-chain.

There's also the parades, and the fly-overs at ball games, and snappy uniforms. Are you saying that you hate these things? War makes it all possible! Are you saying that you hate the troops? 'Cause that's what it sounds like! Goddam hippy. Go back to Moscow, comrade.

/Bob Boudelang

[Bravo Zulu]

20. Once the first bullet leaves the barrel of the gun,

you're in for the long haul, bu$h knew that, that's why he rushed into Iraq before diplomacy put a stop to it!

[blindpig]

21. Profits.

War is always about money.

[Octafish]

22. Know your BFEE

...Merchants of Death



..."Money Trumps Peace."

[leftstreet]

23. You mock the al-Qaeda Naval Forces at your peril !!

K&R

Excellent article

[Dr.Phool]

24. How about the country that supplied the attackers?

Part of their ruling family gets to own about 30% of our #1 propaganda network, Faux Snooze.

[EFerrari]

25. from The Problem is Civil Obedience

"Yossarian was right, remember, in Catch-22? He had been accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy, which nobody should ever be accused of, and Yossarian said to his friend Clevinger: "The enemy is whoever is going to get you killed, whichever side they are on." But that didn't sink in, so he said to Clevinger: "Now you remember that, or one of these days you'll be dead." And remember? Clevinger, after a while, was dead. And we must remember that our enemies are not divided along national lines, that enemies are not just people who speak different languages and occupy different territories. Enemies are people who want to get us killed. "

Text of the speech (originally given in defiance of a court order, btw)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/CivilObedience_ZR.html

[girl gone mad]

26. Welfare queens on Wall St. and in the DOD. n/t

[glitch]

27. bingo. although I would add the contractors to the DOD. nt

[Lorien]

30. Yep. And a Democratic President and majority in both houses = no protests!

it seems like most Americans forgot about the war almost as quickly as they are forgetting about the BP Gulf disaster. Lives are still being wasted and our treasury is being drained, but how much do we care about it?

[glitch]

33. I think the ignored protests against the war on Iraq showed us we need better tools.

We tried re-taking the government, only to realize the problem goes a lot deeper.

I think you'll be hearing more about general strikes as the anger grows. (But you won't hear it on the corporate media.)

[another saigon]

31. what we always knew...

<snip>

The only "war of necessity" that draws the United States to Afghanistan is the need for protected oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea area, the establishment of military bases in this country that is surrounded by the oil-rich Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf regions, and making it easier to watch and pressure next-door Iran. What more could any respectable imperialist nation desire? Oh, did I mention that the military-industrial-security-intelligence complex and its shareholders will be further enriched?

But the war against the Taliban can't be won. Except perhaps by killing everyone in Afghanistan. The United States should negotiate the pipelines with the Taliban, as the Clinton administration tried to do, without success, then get out, and declare "victory". Barack Obama can surely deliver an eloquent victory speech.

[spanone]

32. $700 billion to private contractors....heard this on npr thursday

[bobthedrummer]

34. A "New American Century"?? n/t

[Uncle Joe]

36. It's about humanity being addicted to fossil fuels as a source of energy.

That addiction to a finite, increasingly precious commodity enables the funding of the military-industrial-security-intelligence complex.

The only "war of necessity" that draws the United States to Afghanistan is the need for protected oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian Sea area, the establishment of military bases in this country that is surrounded by the oil-rich Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf regions, and making it easier to watch and pressure next-door Iran. What more could any respectable imperialist nation desire? Oh, did I mention that the military-industrial-security-intelligence complex and its shareholders will be further enriched?

If energy was infinite, sustainable and readily available, there would be no profit to be made from such a venture to fund said MISI complex. The fossil fuel industry and MISI complex have a symbiotic relationship, they both profit from societal dependence and spending on the other, although the rest of American Society greatly suffers.

Kicked, but too late to recommend.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.

[Overseas]

37. War, What is it Good For?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01-2pNCZiNk
(link to Edwin Starr original video)

[malaise]

38. Oil and

pipelines