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Look up the blog or read the text. The articles are legit.<br>
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On 8/17/11 1:06 PM, Laurie Solomon wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:BAY169-DS18F9434C8D71C125079EC5BD280@phx.gbl"
type="cite">
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<div>I find this post very confusing and do not know what to
make of it. First, there is this, which I take to be a
warning of some sort but which contains a link to <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.antiwar.com/blog">www.antiwar.com/blog</a>:
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<h1 style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 6px; MARGIN: 0px"><a
style="FONT-FAMILY: "
title="(http://www.antiwar.com/blog)"
href="http://www.antiwar.com/blog"
moz-do-not-send="true"><font face="Arial"><font
color="red"><font style="FONT-SIZE: 13.2pt"><font
style="TEXT-DECORATION: none">MailScanner
has detected a possible fraud attempt from
"www.antiwar.com" claiming to be</font></font></font><font
style="FONT-SIZE: 13.2pt" color="#888888"><font
style="FONT-WEIGHT: normal"><font
style="TEXT-DECORATION: none"> Antiwar.com
Blog</font></font></font></font></a>.<font
face="Georgia"> </font></h1>
<div style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 6px; MARGIN: 0px"> </div>
<div style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 6px; MARGIN: 0px">Second,
it is followed by a series of articles or posts.</div>
<div style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 6px; MARGIN: 0px"> </div>
<div style="PADDING-BOTTOM: 6px; MARGIN: 0px">I am
left unclear as to what is what. Are the articles
the real ones from Antiwar.com Blog or are they
fraudulent ones from <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.antiwar.com">www.antiwar.com</a>?
Whose mail scanner has detected a possible fraud?</div>
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<div style="font-color: black"><b>From:</b> <a
moz-do-not-send="true" title="galliher@illinois.edu"
href="mailto:galliher@illinois.edu">C. G. Estabrook</a>
</div>
<div><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, August 17, 2011 12:18 AM</div>
<div><b>To:</b> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
title="peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net"
href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net">Peace-discuss
List</a> </div>
<div><b>Subject:</b> [Peace-discuss] Antiwar.com Blog</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
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Antiwar.com Blog</a> <br>
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<li><a href="#1" moz-do-not-send="true">How The War Is
Spun: Mass Killings Mean ‘Progress’</a> </li>
<li><a href="#2" moz-do-not-send="true">The
Cherry-Picking Fantasy Land of Elliot Abrams</a> </li>
<li><a href="#3" moz-do-not-send="true">Coalition Tries
to Undermine Afghan Traditional Governance</a> </li>
<li><a href="#4" moz-do-not-send="true">Latin America
Beware: The Imperial Pretext Is Changing</a> </li>
<li><a href="#5" moz-do-not-send="true">Addicted to
Militarism, Despite Repeated Failures</a> </li>
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<p style="MARGIN: 1em 0px 3px"><a
style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 18px"
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/AWCBlog/%7E3/3AmWtD1BZ24/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email"
name="1" moz-do-not-send="true">How The War Is
Spun: Mass Killings Mean ‘Progress’</a> </p>
<p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 140%; MARGIN: 9px 0px 3px;
FONT-FAMILY: georgia,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;
COLOR: #555; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><span>Posted:</span>
16 Aug 2011 12:50 PM PDT</p>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 140%; MARGIN: 0px;
FONT-FAMILY: georgia,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;
COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 13px">
<p>That’s the title of <a
href="http://www.stripes.com/blogs/stripes-central/stripes-central-1.8040/how-the-war-is-spun-mass-killings-mean-progress-military-says-1.152255"
moz-do-not-send="true">Kevin Baron’s piece
at Stars and Stripes</a>, which explains how
propaganda is wrapped around the insurgencies
in Iraq and Afghanistan to make them seem as
if they’re on the losing end.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Politico’s Morning Defense shared <a
href="http://www.politico.com/morningdefense/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">an
email Monday</a> that is pure military
public affairs gold. How do you interpret a
suicide bombing assassination attempt north
of Kabul that killed at least 20 people into
an obvious sign the war was going as
planned?</p>
<p>An International Security Assistance Force
spokesman emailed MD’s Chuck Hoskinson a
response claiming the attack was “a
resounding failure” because: 1) the target,
a provincial governor survived, 2) the
Afghan security forces reacted
“autonomously” and 3) the attack did not
target U.S. forces.</p>
<p>The ISAF spokesman explained those points
are important to make because they are
“crucial to undermining the Taliban’s
attempt to obtain a propaganda victory from
their failed attack.”</p>
<p>Judge for yourself who won the victory,
propaganda or otherwise. <a
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/insurgents-attack-afghan-governors-compound-killing-at-least-20/2011/08/14/gIQAtD5fEJ_story.html?hpid=z2"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">According
to The Washington Post</a>, the attack
occurred in a relatively secure Parwan
province, north of Kabul. A car bomb blew up
an entrance to the governor’s compound, five
insurgents breached the facility and a
two-hour gunfight commenced where five
explosions “shook the building.” ISAF
reported <a
href="http://www.isaf.nato.int/article/isaf-releases/isaf-joins-president-karzai-in-condemning-the-attack-in-parwan-province.html"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">at
least six IEDs</a> in addition to the car
bomb were detonated.</p>
<p>In far worse carnage, bombings in at least
17 Iraqi cities on Monday killed more than
60 people in “<a
href="http://www.kansascity.com/2011/08/15/3077493/60-killed-as-wave-of-violence.html"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">bloodbath</a>”
scenes of scattered human flesh.</p>
<p>Stars and Stripes’ Erik Slavin, in Iraq,
reports <a
href="http://www.stripes.com/news/u-s-servicemembers-in-iraq-not-attacked-but-mission-targeted-1.152245"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">U.S.
servicemembers were not attacked</a>and
Iraqi forces had to call for American
assistance just once.</p>
<p><a
href="http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=65029"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">U.S.
Forces Iraq spokesman Maj. Gen. Jeffrey
Buchanan</a>, in the Pentagon Monday, said
the attacks show Iraq remains dangerous but
do not threaten the government and the
insurgency remains an unpopular shadow of
its former self.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is notable, but of course just barely
scratches the surface. I’ve <a
href="http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/08/08/media-subservience-ignoring-the-crimes-of-america/"
moz-do-not-send="true">written</a> <a
href="http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/08/08/a-warrior-for-christ-a-warrior-for-our-country/"
moz-do-not-send="true">variously</a> about <a
href="http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/05/27/saudi-arab-spring-policy-imitates-u-s-media-cant-see-it/"
moz-do-not-send="true">systematic bias</a> <a
href="http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/06/02/media-keeps-iraq-tyranny-on-down-low/"
moz-do-not-send="true">throughout the media</a>,
which is particularly potent when it comes to
war. Unfortunately, the majority of Americans
still develop their opinions about American
foreign policy, and these wars in particular,
from “news anchors” and pundits on the major
networks. This results in systematic
misunderstandings about U.S. foreign policy
and <a href="http://antiwar.com/donate/"
moz-do-not-send="true">obviously needs to
change</a>.</p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 1em 0px 3px"><a
style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 18px"
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/AWCBlog/%7E3/QEFleIZMZWM/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email"
name="2" moz-do-not-send="true">The
Cherry-Picking Fantasy Land of Elliot Abrams</a>
</p>
<p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 140%; MARGIN: 9px 0px 3px;
FONT-FAMILY: georgia,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;
COLOR: #555; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><span>Posted:</span>
16 Aug 2011 11:47 AM PDT</p>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 140%; MARGIN: 0px;
FONT-FAMILY: georgia,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;
COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 13px">
<p>At the blog for the Council on Foreign
Relations, <a
href="http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2011/08/16/will-ariel-block-peace/"
moz-do-not-send="true">Elliot Abrams
concludes</a> that people who think illegal
settlement construction hinders the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process are not
living “in the real world.”</p>
<p>Abrams has argued before, amazingly, that
settlements in the West Bank are “<a
href="http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67943/elliott-abrams/the-settlement-obsession?page=show"
moz-do-not-send="true">not a critical issue</a>”
(to which <a
href="http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/06/27/pro-israeli-falsehoods-on-the-flotilla-settlements-and-statehood/"
moz-do-not-send="true">I responded</a>). In
this latest fantasy land post, Abrams pushes
back against the condemnations for <a
href="http://news.antiwar.com/2011/08/15/israel-announces-yet-more-settlement-expansions/"
moz-do-not-send="true">the newest set of
approvals for 277 new homes in the West Bank
city of Ariel</a>. He argues that because
these are new units within an already existing
settlement, <a
href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=it%27s%20all%20good"
moz-do-not-send="true">it’s all good</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The new units are to be constructed in the
center of the town, it was also announced.
This is a significant fact, for construction
of new units at the edges of the town would
mean that the security perimeter would need
to be extended to protect the new housing
and the people in it. But this will not
happen, and Ariel will expand in population
but not in land area. It is not, in the
usual Palestinian Authority parlance,
“taking more Palestinian land.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Right, they’re just increasing the population
of previously stolen Palestinian land. Not
only is this virtually a distinction without a
difference, but it pretends dishonestly that
“expanding in population but not in land area”
is typical for West Bank settlement
construction. Abrams leaves out the <a
href="http://news.antiwar.com/2011/08/11/israel-approves-4300-new-homes-in-east-jerusalem-2/"
moz-do-not-send="true">4,300 new units
Israel approved last week for construction
in Palestinian East Jerusalem</a> (which
Abrams calls “Israel’s capital”). These
thousands were in addition to the <a
href="http://news.antiwar.com/2011/08/04/israel-announces-930-homes-in-east-jerusalem-settlement-expansion/"
moz-do-not-send="true">930 new homes
approved for construction around the same
area</a> just days earlier. Abrams is
intentionally white-washing the fact that
Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes <a
href="http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110802/wl_mideast_afp/israelpalestiniansconflictdemolish"
moz-do-not-send="true">has skyrocketed this
year with 356 structures demolished and 700
people displaced in the first six months
2011</a>. These were not instances where new
units were built in the center of existing
settlements, but rather where innocent
Palestinian people were expelled from their
homes so that they could be demolished and
given to Israeli settlers. Like, for example,
the incident at the end of July where <a
href="http://news.antiwar.com/2011/07/27/israel-subsidies-untouched-by-us-budget-crisis/"
moz-do-not-send="true">the Israeli
government sued a group of poor Bedouin
Palestinians in the Negev desert for over
$500,000</a>, the claimed costs of
demolishing their village each time they
rebuilt it. Israeli authorities destroyed, and
the Bedouin rebuilt, the homes in al-Araqib
more than 20 times.</p>
<p>Abrams leaves out those nasty little details
so he can keep his imaginary framework for the
entire conflict nice and neatly undisturbed.
And then of course he chimes in with this
little number:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is not reasonable to view it as a
violation of international law and a threat
to a peace agreement every time bricks and
studs and drywall show up at the center of
an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Except that it is. They are a violation of
international law according to the consensus
view of the international community. The
Geneva Conventions <a
href="http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/WebART/380-600056"
moz-do-not-send="true">clearly states</a>
that forcible transfers and deportations
people in occupied lands is prohibited, as is
the transfer of “parts of its own civilian
population into the territory it occupies.”
Not to mention that numerous <a
href="http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/5fldpj.htm"
moz-do-not-send="true">international
agreements</a>, as well as the <a
href="http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1671.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">International Court
of Justice</a>, have declared the
settlements illegal. Heck, <a
href="http://news.antiwar.com/2011/08/02/israeli-court-orders-settlement-dismantled/"
moz-do-not-send="true">even Israel sometimes
admits certain settlements to be illegal</a>.</p>
<p>Not Elliot Abrams though. He’s a bit too far
down the rabbit hole…</p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 1em 0px 3px"><a
style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 18px"
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/AWCBlog/%7E3/ZuGNlMEUihY/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email"
name="3" moz-do-not-send="true">Coalition
Tries to Undermine Afghan Traditional
Governance</a> </p>
<p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 140%; MARGIN: 9px 0px 3px;
FONT-FAMILY: georgia,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;
COLOR: #555; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><span>Posted:</span>
16 Aug 2011 09:45 AM PDT</p>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 140%; MARGIN: 0px;
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COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 13px">
<p>The Associated Press headline pushes the
occupation line that <a
href="http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110816/ap_on_re_as/as_afghan_learning_to_govern"
moz-do-not-send="true">the “coalition” is
trying to “build”</a> a cadre of leaders,
but a perusal of the text makes clear that
Kabul and its Western masters are actively
demolishing age-old local governance
traditions in a probably futile attempt to
establish a European-style central state.</p>
<p>The piece begins describing a failed,
underattended shura in far-southern Helmand
province, organized by Kabul carpetbaggers.
Why did only seven men show up? Gee, could it
be this:</p>
<p>“The army commander had invited locals to the
small fortified camp, but <strong>sometimes
those invitations were extended during
gunfights when soldiers and U.S. Marines
were using private Afghan homes and farmers’
poppy fields for cover</strong>.”</p>
<p>*door smash*</p>
<p>“We’re using your house as a shield against
gunfire from your neighbors. Obey us or die.
Also, wanna go to a cool party next week?
It’ll be about how great it will be to have a
Ministry of Sport.”</p>
<p>The article describes the various problems
suffered by the few local elders who have
decided to jump on the government bandwagon.
One of them is that constant fighting and
threats of assassination make it, hm,
difficult? to extend authority. Also, reports
AP matter of factly, “Some are corrupt.”
Nowhere is it noted that if one side of the
fight withdrew, the other side would have
nothing — or at least a lot less — to fight.
After all, local insurgents didn’t pick this
war. It came to them.</p>
<p>To illustrate the utter stupidity of trying
to surreptitiously form a state in a tribal
area, one of the elders who did show up to the
shura said he obtained permission — from the
Taliban. That’s pretty cocksure for an
insurgency we’re often told is on the wane.</p>
<p>Don’t we already have many guides as to the
success rate of slamming Eurostates onto
tribal societies with ancient and viable
alternative modes of governance? Somalia is an
ongoing nightmare of violence, due in large
part to the <a
href="http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2009/11/24/somali-american-terrorists-victims-of-unfortunate-labeling/"
moz-do-not-send="true">neverending attempts</a>
to smash its <a
href="http://mises.org/daily/2701"
moz-do-not-send="true">traditional law-based
society</a> and bring back the sort of state
that brutalized Somalis for decades. Even
Pakistan has never been able to truly tame its
tribal areas. It’s the same in many other
cases.</p>
<p>But how are America’s partners, the Brits,
helping demonstrate the fabulousness of
Western-style secular government?</p>
<p>Oh they’re building a million-dollar mosque.
</p>
<p>Which NATO blew up.</p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 1em 0px 3px"><a
style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 18px"
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/AWCBlog/%7E3/anUm82qLNhQ/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email"
name="4" moz-do-not-send="true">Latin America
Beware: The Imperial Pretext Is Changing</a> </p>
<p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 140%; MARGIN: 9px 0px 3px;
FONT-FAMILY: georgia,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;
COLOR: #555; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><span>Posted:</span>
16 Aug 2011 08:17 AM PDT</p>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 140%; MARGIN: 0px;
FONT-FAMILY: georgia,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;
COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 13px">
<p>During the Cold War, the pretext for reigning
terror down upon the masses in Central and
South America through U.S. imperialism was the
creeping communist threat. This was used as a
justification for our <a
href="http://www.fff.org/comment/com0502f.asp"
moz-do-not-send="true">1954 overthrow of
Guatemala’s democratically elected
government of Jacobo Arbenz</a>, <a
href="http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB11/docs/"
moz-do-not-send="true">implementing a
systematic campaign of political
assassinations, arming murderous right-wing
militias there for decades,</a> etc. Of
course, the same commie justification held for
the <a
href="http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm"
moz-do-not-send="true">CIA-orchestrated coup
to oust the democratically elected
government of Salvador Allende in Chile</a>
and installing the repressive dictatorship of
General Pinochet. The elusive Soviet threat
was also the pretext for Reagan’s terror war
in <a
href="http://libcom.org/history/articles/nicaragua-contras"
moz-do-not-send="true">Nicaragua</a> and <a
href="http://libcom.org/history/articles/el-salvador-counterinsurgency"
moz-do-not-send="true">El Salvador</a>. You
get the picture.</p>
<p>After the wall fell, the pretext became the
drug war and terrorism. Bush I <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_invasion_of_Panama"
moz-do-not-send="true">invaded Panama</a>
with the justification of capturing a minor
thug Manuel Noriega (previously on CIA
payroll), violent militias were continually
funded to fight the drug war (<a
href="http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/08/15/interventionism-south-of-the-border-teaching-drug-cartels-how-to-kill/"
moz-do-not-send="true">like now</a>),
Clinton and Plan Colombia <a
href="http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/07/28/supporting-atrocities-in-columbia/"
moz-do-not-send="true">which continues to
now</a>, <a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/21/usa.venezuela"
moz-do-not-send="true">Bush II attempted a
coup against Hugo Chavez</a> because
apparently he was ‘against us’ as opposed to
‘with us,’ etc.</p>
<p>Apparently the pretext for U.S. domination of
Latin America is set to change yet again. <a
href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/15/the_americas_not_the_middle_east_will_be_the_world_capital_of_energy"
moz-do-not-send="true">Amy Myers Jaffe’s
piece in <em>Foreign Policy</em></a>
doesn’t mention anything about U.S.
intervention, but she intelligently predicts
that the energy “center of the world” so to
speak will shift to the Americas, instead of
staying in the Middle East.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For half a century, the global energy
supply’s center of gravity has been the
Middle East. This fact has had
self-evidently enormous implications for the
world we live in — and it’s about to change.</p>
<p>By the 2020s, the capital of energy will
likely have shifted back to the Western
Hemisphere, where it was prior to the
ascendancy of Middle Eastern megasuppliers
such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in the
1960s.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>She writes the “reasons for this shift are
partly technological and partly political,”
but oil and natural gas are likely to frame
the geopolitical understanding of the Americas
in the coming years. That will attract the
attention of the U.S. who has been trying to
exploit and command the whole region since
1823 with <a
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine"
moz-do-not-send="true">the Monroe Doctrine</a>.
If she’s right, and if Latin America’s recent
moves towards strong independence movements
doesn’t continue to resist the weight of U.S.
pressure, we may be looking at a whole new
pretext for a whole new set of ugly wars and
interventions south of the border.</p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 1em 0px 3px"><a
style="FONT-FAMILY: arial, helvetica,
sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 18px"
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/AWCBlog/%7E3/2dkNungBu-A/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email"
name="5" moz-do-not-send="true">Addicted to
Militarism, Despite Repeated Failures</a> </p>
<p style="LINE-HEIGHT: 140%; MARGIN: 9px 0px 3px;
FONT-FAMILY: georgia,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;
COLOR: #555; FONT-SIZE: 13px"><span>Posted:</span>
16 Aug 2011 07:00 AM PDT</p>
<div style="LINE-HEIGHT: 140%; MARGIN: 0px;
FONT-FAMILY: georgia,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;
COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 13px">
<p>Richard Falk has an insightful and somewhat
dispiriting piece at al Jazeera called “<a
href="http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/08/201181592644232878.html?utm_content=automateplus&utm_campaign=Trial5&utm_source=SocialFlow&utm_medium=MasterAccount&utm_term=tweets"
moz-do-not-send="true">Why the Afghanistan
War Won’t End Soon</a>.” He writes about the
prescience of the so-called ‘Vietnam Syndrome’
(<a
href="http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/06/06/war-fatigue-is-far-too-late/"
moz-do-not-send="true">once referred to as
“sickly inhibitions against the use of
military force”</a>), and about the
systematic tendency for America, as the
planet’s military superpower, to aggressively
apply military solutions to non-military
problems. I was reminded of the opportunity to
avoid unnecessary war after 9/11 by treating
the attacks as a criminal act instead of an
act of war (how many lives and dollars would
have been saved, how many laws never broken…).
But Falk focuses on conflicts like
Afghanistan, say, which have available
solutions towards ending war but which are
treated to the Petraeus counter-insurgency
magic described by Falk as “gradually
expanding the war by means of a surge of
troops combined with a ten-fold increase in
drone attacks” with little regard for civilian
casualties. Why the insistence on applying
ineffective and destructive militarist
solutions when they are not applicable?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Why do intelligent people persist in doing
stupid things? If we had a completely
convincing answer to this question we would
have a far clearer understanding of the
dysfunctional underbelly of US/NATO foreign
policy.</p>
<p>To get such clarity, we probably need to
delve into the collective unconscious of the
warmakers, but even without such Freudian
probes, there are some obvious dark forces
at work in the West. For Europe especially,
but also the United States, there is a
definite nostalgia for the colonial period
when military intervention was efficiently
triumphal and conspicuously rewarded with
prestige, markets, and resources. There
lingers in the West a sense that there must
be a way to restore those happy days of
global ascendancy despite the formal
elimination of colonial rule. Closely
connected with this residual imperialism,
given some credibility by way of economic
globalisation in the 1990s, is the parallel
adherence to the realist belief that it is
military power that continues to shape world
history.</p>
<p>What follows from this search for
explanations is what might be described as <strong>‘militarism,’
here defined as the compulsive or
addictive reliance on hard power for
conflict resolution that is not altered by
repeated experiences of failure.</strong></p>
<p>[...] Whether American militarism is better
regarded as insanity or addiction is not so
significant, but that its compulsiveness
discourages a proper diagnosis and cure is a
distressing reality. It has led to a
succession of prolonged bloody
confrontations that bring misery and
encourage extremism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Add to these explanations the fact that the
last decade has seen <a
href="http://news.antiwar.com/2011/08/15/defense-industrys-growth-since-911/"
moz-do-not-send="true">a truly unique
expansion of military capacity and defense
industry booms</a>, all of the most readily
available (and profitable) tools are military
in nature. So no wonder that is the most
popular and proximate diagnosis.</p>
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