I think it's wrong to look at the Military as a defensive tool, only to be deployed in defense of our country.It was followed shortly thereafter by another who said:
It is an instrument of political, social, and ECONOMIC might.
Fighting for oil or to promote economic stability is as patriotic as fighting to physically defend your homeland.
If it makes the country stronger in any way I'm for it.
The more global the economy becomes the more important it is that everyone play nice and do business and if America has to carry a big stick and bust some heads once in a while to achieve that then so be it.
[I agree]These comments were in response to someone asking about people's feelings about "liberals" who hate the military. Like any Internet discussion, the comments took off in a number of different directions, but these comments especially caught my attention because despite the tendency of this forum to lean somewhat to the (political) right, the people there generally seem to have their heads on straight with respect to freedom and liberty.
Oil is an essential part of the economy and our nation. It cannot run without it so it is worth war. Even though the two current wars in the Middle east are NOT because of it.
To hear people suggest that might makes right, that because we have a strong military, we should be able, if not have the right, to impose our will on others is really very sobering to me. I once heard someone say that the Tea Party doesn't have a coherent view of liberty. I don't want to make any statement about the Tea Party other than to say that these comments illustrate the point the gentleman was making at the time. For all the talk about freedom and liberty, many people seem to think that those things are reserved only for Americans and that our military is not simply a defensive tool but can and should be used to promote our own well-being at the expense of others'.
How can anyone simultaneously cry foul at U.S. government's trampling on its citizens' rights while at the same time demanding that it trample on someone else's? Rights come from our Creator, not the constitution. The constitution does not grant rights but instead restrains the federal government from infringing them, and people who truly understand what liberty and freedom are understand that all people have those rights.
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Glenn Greenwald writes about the U.S. government's treatment of its detainees, specifically Bradley Manning, the army private accused of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks. I'll admit that I'm a little conflicted about Mr. Manning's case. On the one hand, he allegedly leaked documents in violation of his promise to keep them secret. On the other, assuming he did leak them, he's brought to light a number of horrible, horrible things that the government has done in its pursuit of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the end, I think he ought to be commended for bringing these things to light. It's unfortunate that his "crime" against the government is getting all of the coverage instead of the crimes committed by the government. That's not what really scares me, though.
Read Glenn's article. What scares me is the treatment of Mr. Manning, a U.S. citizen, who has not yet been convicted of any crime and his visitors who have not even been accused of any crime. This treatment screams authoritarian "police state" and people of all political stripes, regardless of their feelings about Mr. Manning should be appalled by his and his visitor's treatment.
RE: War for Oil
ReplyDeleteI agree with your overall point, but I did want to interject that one doesn't have to believe in a Creator from which rights flow in order to believe that it is wrong to trample on the rights of others in pursuit of your own interests. Us atheists can be good folk, too. :)
RE: Bradley Manning
I, too, think this man is a hero that took action to defend the Constitution and the people of the United States, fulfilling the spirit of his oath. However he does have to be tried and punished for breaking the word of his oath due to providing state secrets to unpredictable foreign elements like Wikileaks. I would hope that the court would show extreme leniency in the end. That's what should happen. As to how it is currently being handled it's highly suspect and most certainly a clear indication of a wanna-be police state in action. The end result of this will either be his quiet disappearance (police state ending) or he'll be let off because of the misconduct in how this has so far been handled (free state ending). I don't know which is more likely. We'll see.
I read that post and it bothered me as well...
ReplyDeleteMills_in_FL
Sounds like Pentagon psyop bullshite.
ReplyDeleteWhen was the last time the US military was used in defense? Certainly wasn't 9/11/2001 -- except for Lt Col Rick Top Gun Gibney, who ignored Dick and Rummy's stand down order and shot down United Airlines Flight 93 or its doppleganger from Operation Northwoods. Certainly not defending the wide-open US border today, with 100s of unmanned border crossings on US highways, when millions of Mexican airline travelers are immune to TSA checkpoints as required by the North Amerikan Soviet Union at SPP.gov.
I'm an ex USAF soldier whose job was nuking active US military bases in highly populated ares via controlled demolitions of dozens of nuclear bombs, who participated in the unprovoked USAF bombing of Libya in Operation El Dorado Canyon that killed 40 women and children as they slept in their beds including the daughter of the president of Libya. Turned out the "justification" was based on a false-flag covert radio broadcast from Libya by Israeli Mossad, and US special forces rescued Qadaffi before the attack, "to prevent an international incident if visiting world leaders were killed", according to Dr Stoney Merriman chief of public affairs for the USMC as the Pentagon.
If the military wanted to attack somebody in defense of US, start with Mexico (part of the Nazi Axis), then Canada (part of the 53-nation British Empire), then Israel (remember the USS Liberty), then England (guess who burned down the White House in the War of 1812?) Nuke till they glow (my required motto while employed by the US Govt).
You wrote, "How can anyone simultaneously cry foul at U.S. government's trampling on its citizens' rights while at the same time demanding that it trample on someone else's"?
ReplyDeleteIt's called doublethink. Read (or re-read) 1984 by George Orwell aka Eric Blair to get the lowdown at the hoedown.