“For there has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.…. War is like unto a fire; those who will not put aside weapons are themselves consumed by them”.
So wrote Sun Tzu from China in the third century BCE.
The current stage of the US war in Afghanistan began ten years ago. The US invasion and occupation of Iraq is nine years old. At this point, the human suffering imposed by these conflicts cannot be described, except, perhaps, by parents, such as the Afghans who lost their ten year old children to a NATO raid last week. Or by the relatives of the Iraqi police recruits wiped out in a suicide bombing this week.
That these types of events have sunk below the level of every day consciousness in the USA should make our hair stand on end. Nothing good can come out of that type of moral sickness. It explains the treatment that the US government is handing out to our own prophetic witnesses, such as PFC Bradley Manning. Manning is right now being held in solitary confinement at the brig in Quantico VA for the crime of exposing a crime – the classified video of a US helicopter gun ship wiping out unarmed civilians in Baghdad.
We might not be looking at it, but the war walks beside us here at home. Ask a vet. Or ask the people being laid off by the state of Wisconsin, and all the other states imposing austerity measures . The total shortfall of all the states comes to about $120 billion this year. The cost of the Afghan war – $100 billion this year. But wait, as they say on TV, there’s more!
Everyone should read this article by Chris Hellman: “$1.2 Trillion: The National Security Figure No One Wants You to See.” http://www.commondreams.org/
When annual spending on so-called ‘national security’ reaches the 1.2 trillion dollar level, and has been for decades – we are talking about an entire economy dependent on, and warped by war. General Electric, whose former CEO now advises the President on ‘Jobs’, is a prime beneficiary of this spending. Ever wonder why people decided it was a good idea to make electricity by boiling water in nuclear power plants such as the GE reactor currently melting down in Japan?
“War is like unto a fire, those who will not put aside weapons are themselves consumed by them.”
Make every day a protest.
– Written by ROP’s Longtime Friend, Mike Edera