War Pigs - The Fall of a Global Empire
By Jim Quinn The Burning Platform May 2012
“We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower
“How far can you go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?” -Dwight D. Eisenhower
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah!
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
As Americans mindlessly celebrate another Memorial Day with cookouts,
beer and burgers, the U.S. war machine keeps churning. As we brutally
enforce our will on foreign countries, we create more people that hate
us. They don’t hate us for our freedom. They hate us because we have
invaded and occupied their countries. They hate us because we kill
innocent people with predator drones. They hate us for our hypocrisy
regarding democracy and freedom. Just when we had the opportunity to
make a sensible decision by leaving Iraq and exiting the Middle East
quagmire, Obama made the abysmal choice to casually sacrifice more
troops in the Afghan shithole. We have thrown over $1.3 trillion
down Middle East rat holes over the last 11 years with no discernible
benefit to the citizens of the United States. George Bush and Barack
Obama did this to prove they were true statesmen. The Soviet Union
killed over 1 million Afghans, while driving another 5 million out of
the country and retreated as a bankrupted and defeated shell after ten
years. Young Americans continue to die, for whom and for what? Our
foreign policy during the last eleven years can be summed up in one
military term, SNAFU – Situation Normal All Fucked Up. These endless
foreign interventions under the guise of a War on Terror are a smoke
screen for what is really going on in this country. When a government
has unsolvable domestic problems, they try to distract the willfully
ignorant masses by proactively creating foreign conflicts based upon
false pretenses. General Douglas MacArthur understood this danger to
our liberty.
“I am concerned for the security of
our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but
because of the insidious forces working from within.”
Economic Opportunity Cost
“You can’t say civilization don’t advance… in every war they kill you in a new way.” – Will Rogers
Any doubt that the Military Industrial Complex is as strong as ever
should be removed after examining Obama’s 2012 Budget which has $900
billion dedicated to our military machine. We spent $370 billion in
2001, $620 billion in 2006, and now this liberal anti-war Democrat from
Illinois is spending 45% more than that war monger Bush who was burned
in effigy by the anti-war Democrats during Iraq War protests. It seems
both parties are war pigs.
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, leaving the United States as the
only remaining superpower on earth. Since 1990, the United States has
depleted the U.S. Treasury of $11.5 trillion for
spending on War. With no military on earth capable of challenging us why
would there be a need to spend this much on the military? Over this
same time frame the U.S. spent $500 billion on science, space &
technology and $70 billion on energy, a mere 6% of the spending on
invading sovereign countries. Military expenditures benefit humanity in
no way. If these trillions had been invested by the private sector or
devoted to energy and scientific research, our economy might not be a
hollowed out shell, dependent on China for financing and oil exporting
countries for energy. Neo-Cons argue the Arms Industry employs millions
and benefits the country. These companies employ brilliant engineers and
scientists who spend their days developing weapons that kill people
more efficiently. If they had been employed manufacturing high tech
goods to export around the world, inventing new technologies that didn’t
obliterate human beings, newer safer nuclear power plants, a
more efficient electric grid, upgrading our deteriorating
infrastructure, or finding a cure for Alzheimer’s, would the United
States be better off today?
The National Debt in 1990 was $3.2 trillion. Today, it is $15.7
trillion. This is a 500% increase in twenty-two years. What benefit has
$11.5 trillion of spending on War produced for the United States or the
world? In 2001, spending on Defense was 17% of total governmental
spending. In 2012, Defense, Homeland Security, and war spending account
for 25% of government spending. In the meantime, major cities experience
blackouts due to an overloaded electrical grid, our 156,000
structurally deficient bridges crumble, one hundred year old water pipes
burst under our streets every day, and we transfer over $300 billion
per year to foreign countries for our precious oil. The 19 terrorist
hijackers who implemented their plan with box cutters, spent less than
$500,000 to pull off their 9/11 acts of terror – not war. The United
States will directly spend at least $3 trillion on our wars of choice in
response, while turning our country into a prison camp and stripping
our citizens of their freedoms and liberties for perceived security and
safety.
You would think we must be trying to keep
up with our enemies by spending $900 billion per year on past and
present military adventures. But one look at the following chart
reveals the United States is spending almost as much as the rest of the
world combined. The two countries considered potential rivals, China and
Russia, spent $200 billion combined in 2010. This is 22% of U.S.
spending. From a foreign viewpoint, one must wonder why the U.S. is
spending such vast sums on our military. They can only conclude that it
is for offensive intentions rather than defensive. The United States
soil has not been attacked by a foreign power since December 7, 1941.
Prior to that surprise attack, a foreign power hadn’t attacked the U.S.
since the War of 1812. With this stupendous level of wasteful spending,
our leaders feel compelled to interfere in the business of sovereign
states and dictate how they should govern their nations . When you have
an enormous hammer, every country looks like a nail.
Laughably, the neo-con hawks and Fox News
pundits declare that our military is a hollow shell and needs much
greater funding to insure our safety from attack by our many
enemies. Other countries, such as China and Russia, feel they have no
choice but to increase their expenditures on the military. On a
percentage basis, they have more than doubled their expenditures in the
last ten years, and still are a drop in the ocean compared to American
Empire spending. The fact is that the U.S., China and Russia all have
enough nuclear weapons to obliterate the world – mutually assured
destruction. The United States could realistically protect itself from
attack with only the 18 ballistic missile nuclear submarines we have in
commission.
When did Americans lose their ability to
distinguish between intellectual and moral pygmies like George Bush,
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney versus statesmen like Dwight D. Eisenhower?
The Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive war when our country was not
threatened has proven to be financially and diplomatically disastrous
and his blueprint is being followed by our Nobel Peace Prize President
in his saber rattling with Iran. Following this policy puts them in fine
company.
“Preventive war was
an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone
seriously that came and talked about such a thing.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower
The U.S. borrowed $807 billion from China,
Japan and oil exporting countries to wage a war in Iraq that was based
on false pretenses. None of the terrorist hijackers on 9/11 were Iraqis,
they had no links to Al Qaeda, and Iraq had no weapons of mass
destruction. Historian Barbara Tuchman description of “war as the unfolding of miscalculations” was
never so fitting. In 2002, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld estimated the
costs of the war in the range of $50 to $60 billion, a portion of which
he believed would be financed by other countries. The United States
invaded Iraq to secure the 115 billion barrels of oil reserves, pure and
simple. We traded the blood of young Americans for oil because we chose
to not develop a cohesive logical energy policy in the last 30 years.
Americans, not in the military, sacrificed nothing in the last 11 years
of war. We bought BMW SUVs, 6,000 square foot McMansions, flat screen
HDTVs, iPads, iPhones and Rolexes while less than 1% of Americans fought
and died, with the cost passed to future unborn generations. We are a
country of chickenhawks, willing to sacrifice the few so the ruling
class can comfortably relax on their decks sipping wine, believing Fox
News propaganda about terrorists lurking behind every bush, and filling
up their Mercedes convertibles for their excursions to the summer
cottage in the Hamptons.
“Every gun that is made, every
warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a
theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are
not clothed.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
As we spend $900 billion per year on
instruments of destruction, 49 million Americans live in poverty, with
46 million on food stamps. There are 3 to 4 million people homeless in
any given year. Military Veterans, who make up 13% of the population,
account for 23% of the homeless. This is another example of Federal
government politicians using young Americans to fulfill their agenda and
then tossing them away like pieces of garbage. With the country
supposedly three years into an economic recovery, tent cities of
homeless dot the landscape across the nation. We pour billions into
killing technology while millions of American families are forced to
live in tents or sleep in their cars.
As the world spends $1.7 trillion per year on new methods of killing, millions die the old fashioned way.
- 13 million people per year die from starvation in the world.
- The FAO says that 925 million people worldwide are undernourished.
- For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years.
- One child dies every 5 seconds as a result of hunger – 700 every
hour – 16 000 each day – 6 million each year – 60% of all child deaths
(2002-2008 estimates)
What kind of a civilized society allocates 44% of the taxes taken
from its people to war? Only 2.5% of your taxes go to science, energy,
and environment. Only 2.2% of your taxes go to education and jobs. You
produce the results that you would expect from your investments. A full
13% of our population doesn’t have a high school diploma (20% of African
Americans & 43% of Latinos) and only 30% have a college degree. How
do we expect to lead the world in technology and research with these
figures? We do lead the world in government issued student loan debt
with $1 trillion and rising.
Human Cost
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait till their judgment day comes, yeah!
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Barack Obama are
cowardly politicians who never had the “pleasure” of coming under fire
in battle. The brilliant anti-war novel Catch-22 describes these men perfectly.
“Some men are born mediocre, some men
achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With
Major Major it had been all three.”
The world has been a huge game of Risk for these warmongers, with
young Americans as the game pieces. Instead of conquering Kamchatka in a
board game, these non-veterans sent 6,470 Americans to their deaths in
Iraq and Afghanistan for a false cause. Their ideology of empire
convinced them they could change the world into their image of how it
should be, and their re-election campaigns were funded with millions
from the purveyors of death – the arms industry.
“In modern war… you will die like a dog for no good reason.” – Ernest Hemingway
Another 47,545 Americans have been badly wounded in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Three of these despicable politicians have written their
memoirs, raking in millions for telling lies and half-truths. The 6,470
dead Americans won’t have a chance to write their memoirs or get rich.
They will never get a chance to see their kids’ graduate college or walk
their daughter down the aisle at her wedding. Their children will grow
up with a giant hole in their hearts. Their widows will never recover
from their endless heartache.
Politician chickenhawks who send our young people to their deaths for
oil and ideology will receive their reward on judgment day if there is a
just God.
As National Guard troops have been deployed over and over again to
Iraq and Afghanistan, they must realize that Catch-22 is alive and well
in today’s military.
“There was only one catch and that
was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the
face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a
rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was
ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have
to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane
if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he
was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and
had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of
this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.”
”That’s some catch, that catch-22,” he observed.
”It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed
American soldiers, who have completed their duty to country, have
been lied to and had the rules of the game changed again and again.
Their politician leaders have reneged on their promises by sending men
and women back to the war zone or not letting them come home on the
timeline that was agreed to. Meanwhile, their families have gone
bankrupt, lost their houses, and saw their marriages dissolve.
Politicians started these wars and are too cowardly and
prideful to accept failure.
“The military don’t start wars. Politicians start wars.” – General William Westmoreland
Over 1,300 more Americans died needlessly when Barack Obama, winner
of the Nobel Peace Prize, chose to double down in Afghanistan to prove
he was as tough as Bush and McCain. Another man who has never been under
fire needed to prove his manliness to his opponents and his
constituency. He should have studied the words of former Presidents who
were under fire.
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower
“My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.” - George Washington
President Obama follows the standard Presidential game plan and
dutifully gives patriotic speeches at military bases proclaiming the
bravery and sacrifice of our troops. These are the words of politicians.
The brutal reality for troops is much different. Representative Ron
Paul in November 2003 described the early mistreatment of our soldiers:
- Fort Stewart, Georgia housed hundreds of injured reserve and
National Guard soldiers in deplorable conditions who were forced to wait
months just to see a doctor. These soldiers made huge sacrifices,
leaving their families and jobs to fight in Iraq. They found themselves
living in hot, crowded, unsanitary barracks and waiting far too long to
see overworked doctors. This was hardly the heroes’ welcome they might
have expected. Only an exposé in a major newspaper brought attention to
their plight, prompting an embarrassed Defense department to rush
additional doctors to the base.
- Some wounded soldiers convalescing at Walter Reed hospital in
Washington were forced to pay for hospital meals from their own pockets.
Other soldiers returning stateside for a two-week liberty had to buy
their own airfare home from the east coast. Still others paid for desert
boots, night vision goggles, and other military necessities with
personal funds.
- Existing federal rules forced disabled veterans to give up their
military retirement pay in order to receive VA disability benefits. This
meant that every VA disability dollar paid to a veteran was deducted
from his retirement pay, effectively creating a “disabled veterans tax.”
No other group of federal employees is subject to this unfair standard;
in every other case disability pay is viewed as distinct from standard
retirement pay.
The Humvees that soldiers were forced to drive did not have enough
protective armor. In December 2004, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was
giving one of his usual inspirational speeches when Army Spc. Thomas
Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team, a unit that consisted mainly
of reservists from the Tennessee Army National Guard asked him a
question:
“Why do we soldiers have to dig
through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised
ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?”
This set off what the AP described as “a big cheer” from his comrades
in arms. Rumsfeld paused, asked Wilson to repeat the question, then
finally replied, “You go to war with the army you have.” Besides, he
added, “You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can be
blown up.” I’m glad Donald Rumsfeld has a clear conscience. History will
not be kind to this despicable excuse for a human being.
Rumsfeld also sent Americans into battle without protective body
armor. Only after bad publicity did the proper protection reach the
troops. The blood of dead soldiers is on Rumsfeld’s hands. While
President Bush sacrificed by not golfing, terribly wounded soldiers were
sent to Walter Reed Hospital to recover. Instead they entered hell on
earth. Outpatient mistreatment was reported in 2004, but nothing was
done. In 2004 and 2005, articles appeared in the Washington Post and in
Salon interviewing First Lt. Julian Goodrum about his court martial for
seeking medical care elsewhere due to poor conditions at WRAMC. A
Washington Post expose in 2007 finally revealed the horrible
mistreatment of our brave wounded soldiers. These reporters uncovered
the following conditions:
- WRAMC’s Building 18 was described in the article as rat- and
cockroach-infested, with stained carpets, cheap mattresses, and black
mold, with no heat and water reported by some soldiers at the facility.
The unmonitored entrance created security problems, including reports of
drug dealers in front of the facility. Injured soldiers stated they are
forced to “pull guard duty” to obtain a level of security.
- The typical soldier was required to file 22 documents with eight
different commands – most of them off-post – to enter and exit the
medical processing world, according to government investigators. Sixteen
different information systems were used to process the forms, but few
of them could communicate with one another. This complicated system has
required some soldiers to prove they were in the Iraq War or the War in
Afghanistan in order to obtain medical treatment and benefits because
Walter Reed employees were unable to locate their records.
There was a tremendous surge in suicides by soldiers who have been
pushed beyond their limits as they increased by 80% between 2004 and
2008. There are almost as many deaths by suicide as deaths in combat:
- Overall, the services reported 434 suicides by personnel on active
duty, significantly more than the 381 suicides by active-duty personnel
reported in 2009. The 2010 total is below the 462 deaths in combat,
excluding accidents and illness. In 2009, active-duty suicides exceeded
deaths in battle.
- Soldiers returning from long tours in Iraq or Afghanistan suffering
from combat stress were sometimes met with scorn from their superiors
and something bordering on neglect from some medical officials. As their
largely untreated problems deteriorated, their marriages unraveled
under the strain. They turned to alcohol and drugs and in some cases saw
no other way out than suicide.
- Healthcare officials at various installations who are struggling to
help say they’re overwhelmed by huge numbers of troops returning from
two, three or even four deployments with acute mental problems from
combat.
- Statistics on Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, obtained in 2011
through a Freedom of Information Act request by a San Francisco
newspaper, found that more than 2,200 soldiers died within two years of
leaving the service, and about half had been undergoing treatment for
post-traumatic stress or other combat-induced mental disorders at the
time.
- For five years, beginning in 2005, a service member died by suicide
every 36 hours, according to the report by the Center for New American
Security.
Nearly 20% of military service members who have returned from Iraq
and Afghanistan — 300,000 in all — report symptoms of post-traumatic
stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half
have sought treatment, according to a RAND Corporation report. Many
service members said they do not seek treatment for psychological
illnesses because they fear it will harm their careers. But even among
those who do seek help for PTSD or major depression, only about half
receive treatment that researchers consider “minimally adequate” for
their illnesses. Recent studies expect PTSD to affect 30% of all
returning veterans.
For all the glory and accolades of dying for chickenhawks like Dick
Cheney, enlisted soldiers make between $17,000 and $32,000 per year. The
military evidently does not prepare them well for the outside world as
their unemployment rate is 12.1% versus the national rate of 8.2%. The
pandering Obama gives speeches and the criminal bankers at JP Morgan
have their PR maggots create TV commercials about hiring veterans, but
the numbers don’t lie. A country can be measured by how well it treats
its veterans. Our leaders talk a good game, but their actions prove they
don’t care about the human costs of war. They are busy planning their
next move in their game of Risk.
Moral Cost
Now in darkness, world stops turning
As the war machine keeps burning
No more war pigs of the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of Judgment, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings
All right now!
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
Omar Bradley, the last five star General in the U.S. military, was
known as the “soldier’s general” during World War II. He was portrayed
by Karl Malden in the movie Patton as a thoughtful man who cared about
his troops. He was one of the key architects of the Normandy invasion
and led the 12th Army Group consisting of 900,000 men until the end of
the war. After the war, Bradley headed the Veterans Administration for
two years. He is credited with doing much to improve its health care
system and with helping veterans receive their educational benefits
under the G.I. Bill of Rights. He ultimately rose to Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs. Contrast the words of the fictional Colonel Kilgore from
the movie Apocalypse Now, with the words of General Bradley:
Kilgore: I love the smell of napalm in the morning.
You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all
over, I walked up. We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinkin’ dink
body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled
like
[ sniffing, pondering ]
victory. Someday this war’s gonna end…
[ suddenly walks off ]
“The world has achieved brilliance
without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear
giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about
peace, more about killing than we know about living.” - Omar Bradley
We need giants like Omar Bradley and Dwight D. Eisenhower to lead our
country through the difficult times ahead. These men knew the horrors
of war and didn’t act like it was a game of chess. Instead we will be
led by intellectual and ethical infants, Obama or Romney. There are no
wise men with a conscience and high moral standards in power today. Only
those with no conscience and a willingness to lie are able to gain
power in today’s world. General Bradley understood that morality was
ultimately more important than power and strength in determining the
progress of a country. His words are those of someone who knew we had
failed in our moral duty:
“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.”
Peacemakers are ridiculed and shunned in America today. Those who
preach diplomacy and non-interventionism, like Ron Paul, are scorned and
ignored. Old men who care more about their own power than the human
race are willing to sacrifice the blood of young people for precious
oil, phony nationalism, their own strategic interests or corporate
interests disguised as philosophical agendas. The world is a game for
these old men. They care about their personal legacy and rigid
ideologies. War and militarism are a failure of passion over reason.
Albert Einstein, whose discovery brought about this age of potential
world destruction, had no love for these blind warriors.
“He who joyfully marches to music in
rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large
brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.”
The overwhelming cost of maintaining a global empire eventually
bankrupted Rome and Great Britain. Treasures were wasted, young men were
needlessly sacrificed in the name of the flag, and the morality of
leaders sank to unprecedented levels. The U.S. had advanced financially
and technologically for more than a century, but since the takeover of
our economic system by private banking and corporate interests in 1913
we have seen continuous war, continuous currency debasement, and
continuous moral decay. How far will we decline before a sufficient
number of Americans are outraged enough to lead a new American
Revolution?
Our current situation reminds me of the movie Planet of the Apes. The apes are divided into a strict class system: the gorillas as police, military, and hunters; the orangutans as administrators, politicians and lawyers; and the chimpanzees as
intellectuals and scientists. Humans, who cannot talk, are considered
feral vermin and are hunted and used for scientific experimentation. The
United States is now in the control of gorillas and orangutans.
If we continue down the current path of financial and moral decay,
allowing the Military Industrial Complex, criminal bankers and
corrupt politicians to push us into further world conflicts, we will
experience the shock and horror that George Taylor, played by Charlton
Heston, displayed in the final scene of Planet of the Apes .
George Taylor: Oh my God. I’m back. I’m home. All the time, it was… We finally really did it.
[ screaming ]
You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
The War Pigs must be stopped before it’s too late. The Military
Industrial Complex, with the unwavering support of central bankers
printing unlimited amounts of fiat currency, while controlling the
scoundrel puppets in Washington DC, will destroy this country in their
never ending quest for power and profits. One man fights a lonely battle
against these forces of oppression. We must join his legion and take
this country back from the war pigs.
“As many frustrated Americans who
have joined the Tea Party realize, we cannot stand against big
government at home while supporting it abroad. We cannot talk about
fiscal responsibility while spending trillions on occupying and bullying
the rest of the world. We cannot talk about the budget deficit and
spiraling domestic spending without looking at the costs of maintaining
an American empire of more than 700 military bases in more than 120
foreign countries. We cannot pat ourselves on the back for cutting a few
thousand dollars from a nature preserve or an inner-city swimming pool
at home while turning a blind eye to a Pentagon budget that nearly
equals those of the rest of the world combined.” – Ron Paul
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