And sanity has left the building...again .
On Thu, May 24, 2012 at 11:17 PM, Judah McAuley <[email protected]> wrote: > > Afghanistan also has significant deposits of minerals used in high > tech manufacturing. > > However, I really don't think that was the reason we invaded. It's > possible that some far right delusional folks thought we might take > over Afghanistan and suppress the Taliban and do a good job extracting > resources and helping guard against an alliance over oil between > Russia and the Middle East. But, given history, I think that most > people in their right minds would have regarded that as a rather > extreme fantasy. We can bomb a country back to the dark ages, but > when it's already in the dark ages? Really, what are your odds of > success? > > No, we've got the good old fashioned military industrial complex at > work. I know, seems trite, doesn't it? Eisenhower warned us against > it, after all. That makes it pretty long in the tooth. Obviously just > hippy shit these days that people tell each other as they fit aluminum > foil hats. > > There is a huge amount of money to be made and a huge amount of power > to be had by simply being at war. Doesn't matter so much with who. > There are advantages one way or another with different enemies. Sure, > if we did manage to triumph in Afghanistan, it would have some nice > benefits. Same thing for Iraq. Or Iran. But that's all secondary. A > nice bonus, if you will. Keeping people afraid allows you to pass > further draconian laws that blow away privacy. Being at war allows you > to funnel massive amounts of money to a tiny number of big companies > and agencies with secret budgets and no bids. Spending trillions on > wars allows you to look at the increasing deficits and say, "oh no! We > need to cut everywhere other than defense!" and put people further > into poverty and even more into subjugation. > > The brilliant part of the "war on terror" is that it isn't a war with > anyone. It's a war with an idea. No one ever gets to easily claim > "we've won" and be able to show it. There is no white flag from the > enemy. Anyone who ever says "we're done" will have a well trained > group of media attack dogs jumping them and saying "you gave up and > are a coward" and "you've placed everyone's children at risk". Hell, > that's happened to Obama and he doubled down in Afghanistan. > > Nope. The legacy of 9/11 is that we have a country where we funnel > almost unlimited (and totally untracked) amounts of money into an > endless war against unknown and constantly changing enemies while > sacrificing an untold number of civil liberties for no appreciable end > game. There are plenty of other games within a game (like the > millenarian folks that think that Israel has to have some sort of > weird war stuff to happen for the rapture to come) but when you have > hugely profitable companies making large amounts of money and > government power brokers gaining greater control over the populace, > they'll be pretty happy with a continued state of rolling unrest. > > Authoritarianism suits large industry and large government. And war is > the best way to ensure that authoritarianism keeps a strong grip on > our country. > > Judah > > On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 12:18 PM, Larry C. Lyons <[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> exactly the only greed factor I can see is with KBR, but during that >> time period they didn't have the same presence as they did in Iraq. I >> think Tim can enlighten us on that - he was there. >> >> But the only real money to be made in Afghanistan are with opium and weed. >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:351398 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
