SearchRecent comments
Democracy LinksMember's Off-site Blogs |
a pimp called security .....‘Britain has long been replaced by the United States as the world’s civilizing Santa. But aside from the Big Stick years of Presidents McKinley and the first Roosevelt, who left no natives unturned in the Philippines and South of the Border, it should be said that American imperialism had a decidedly Wilsonian bend for most of the 20 th century. It was too busy saving the world rather than conquering it (except, again, South of the Border, where American presidents have never been able to resist the impulse to act like Teddy Roosevelt gunslinging in his wildlife preserves). When the Soviet Union fell, it looked as if America ’s job as world’s sheriff was done. Finally, the West’s trillions could be invested in something more constructive than missiles and fearmongers’ dividends. Sure enough, Pentagon budgets quit sprawling under Bill Clinton.
Conservatives panicked. For lack of war’s distortions on national purpose - the phonier the war, the greater the distortions - peace tends to rouse social consciences, and with them police truncheons (on labor in the 1920s, blacks in the 50s, students and women in the 60s, anti-globalists in the 90s). Peace isn’t good for certain trades, imperial power and aimless leadership among them. For all his personal foibles, Gladstone was a great leader and reformer, and a critic of Britain ’s colonial brutality under Benjamin Disraeli.
Our streetwalker for democracy has none of Gladstone ’s qualities and all of Disraeli’s defects. Until the latter days of 2001 President Bush’s skeletal talents for peacetime democracy were creaking out of the closet and down the ravine of opinion polls. He was a Hoover in the making (the president or the vacuum, your pick). Osama bin Laden to the rescue. His one-hit wonder on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon did wonders for a presidency looking for salvation. And the most imperial presidency in the nation’s history was off on its wolves’ hunt, with democracy for a battle flag.’
|
User login |
maybe the russians could help .....
‘Britain’s planned troop deployment to Afghanistan is in chaos due to internal wrangling within NATO and what is perceived as the government's reluctance to commit itself to another risky military adventure.
Although Britain is due to take over command in the south of Afghanistan in May, military commanders are still waiting for news of how many troops will be sent and what they will be doing when they arrive.
The situation has been complicated by requests from the United States for British forces to be involved in operations against al-Qaeda remnants along the Pakistan border, and by uncertainty over the participation of Dutch troops in the deployment. But military sources also say that the government has been prevaricating over how many British troops should be sent to Afghanistan because it is worried that another deployment may prove unpopular with the public. ‘
Frontline Fighters Or Peace-Keepers?
just luv that amerikan hypocrisy .....
‘Venezuela is planning a "buying spree" for military equipment that goes beyond the country's legitimate needs, the State Department said Friday.
In recent days, the United States has sought to block proposed sales of military planes and other equipment to Venezuela by Spain and Brazil.
The transactions are part of what "we would consider an outsized military build-up in Venezuela," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.’
US: Venezuela Overspending on Military
destroying the fear meme .....
‘I am sick of being told who and what I must fear. For over two centuries now, our administration in Washington has exposed demons, marginalized races of people, described threats, and effectively turned the American public into a fearful race of people who cannot think for themselves or accept that there are other cultures in this world apart from our own.
They have not in any way attempted to help us understand the goodness created by the diversity of the world, but only what we should fear because it was not to their liking, or other nations would not become like ours.
These are always presented as a threat to the national interest or security, yet never naming what interest is threatened or what the threat is. It's merely the language used that makes what they proclaim so ominous. It is the justification behind whatever is desired.
In this process, over the last century, but especially the last five decades, I have watched as the rich got richer, and the poor became more numerous through the agencies of this fear that we are continuously fed in order that a few can obtain our homage...not only our own nation, but throughout the world.’
Tired of Fear