War! What is it good for?
Business.
Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
181–190 of 322 posts
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#182If you still think of the world as divided into good and evil, then I have to break it to you that you have been played. Brainwashed by years and years of media programming. One man's terrorist is another man's hero. The U.S routinely bombs other sovereign countries and this is show cased as a "hero" activity. If the bombed people retaliate, they are terrorists. The truth is not black/white. Same way U.S data surveil…
Good and evil is always relative to ones position. No one thinks they are the bad guy, ever.
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder what aspect of Chomsky makes him uninteresting. Maybe it's that his message - trying to point out the human flaws of his governmemt - goes so much against the grain of hollywood aided propaganda that people presume it's either minute details or just wrong?
In my experience, the only country in which Chomsky is seen as uninteresting or nitpicking is in the U.S. That's not to say there are no complexities to whether or not a Pax Americana is better than the alternative (based on previous U.S. govts.), or that all governments records are equivalent when it comes to propaganda or human rights (for their own citizens). But no other country sees the U.S. unequivocally as "th…
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Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
He's not making a humble, leftish point about our moral failures in foreign policy! He was shrugging off the use of murder as a political tool. America may be in a bad place right now, and we've done a lot of awful things in other people's countries. But unlike Russia, we are not at a point where our leaders simply "disappear" domestic political opponents and journalists. Things can get a lot worse. Trump was express…
> He's not making a humble, leftish point about our moral failures in foreign policy! How is that point leftish in any way? The left are not defined by the idea that there is a moral good and a moral bad, and they want the moral good. Left good Right bad is one of the most infuriating assertions to see casually chucked into a sentence. You're right, of course, that he wasn't trying to suggest that America should pay…
> Left good Right bad is one of the most infuriating assertions to see casually chucked into a sentence.
i didnt say that.
it just happens that in American politics, admitting that our foreign policy has been amoral is something done almost exclusively by the left.
writers like noam chomsky, glenn greenwald, jeremy scahill. politicians like tulsi gabbard. etc.
that's why i called it a "leftish point"
politicians on the right, even when they favor less foreign intervention, tend to justify it in terms of cost savings, constitutional limits, and smaller government. rand paul, for example.
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#185this is not hacker news. if I wanted this dribble, I would have stayed on Slashdot.
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#186If you still think of the world as divided into good and evil, then I have to break it to you that you have been played. Brainwashed by years and years of media programming. One man's terrorist is another man's hero. The U.S routinely bombs other sovereign countries and this is show cased as a "hero" activity. If the bombed people retaliate, they are terrorists. The truth is not black/white. Same way U.S data surveil…
YES! But this bears question, why is that so?
Why is the US empire (and the US oligarchy) so thirsty for war that it is willing (one could even argue: eager) to sacrifice lives, physical and psychical health of its people (soldiers)? Why is it not putting trillions into infrastructure, health, education instead of spending them to wage wars with nations which have not even thought to attack the US, let alone have done it? (And most of which don't have the resources to do it!)
Well, yes, it is about oil:
Syria: Another Pipeline War http://www.ecowatch.com/syria-another-pipeline-war-188218053...
But the issue is much deeper. So deep indeed, that I'll (again!) quote a man who knew what he talked about, George F. Kennan: "Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy." (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan)
So, it is not only the oil (or any other resource to be taken from others). And is is not only about money to be made from bombs (and private contractors who fight, spy, prepare meals for soldiers, wash their uniforms, repair their trucks, build military installations etc.).
It is the US economy at stake.
And that's why you need the POTUS, the Senate, the Congress, intelligence agencies, millitary-intelligence-indutrial complex, the media - to all pull on the same string. And to "invent" enemies: Russia, China, Vietnam, Serbia, North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Syria... or "the Muslims".
But the truth is hidden by the fourth estate from the US citizen with slogans such as "we bring democracy, human rights and freedom to the world", or with self-aggrandizing "American exceptionalism" (cringe!).
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#187If you still think of the world as divided into good and evil, then I have to break it to you that you have been played. Brainwashed by years and years of media programming. One man's terrorist is another man's hero. The U.S routinely bombs other sovereign countries and this is show cased as a "hero" activity. If the bombed people retaliate, they are terrorists. The truth is not black/white. Same way U.S data surveil…
I saw a clip on the news recently of a reporter badgering Trump about his intent to create closer ties to Putin. "He's a murderer, he's killing innocent civillians", the reporter states as though this is particularly important. The President responded with something along the lines of "And we're so much better?". I'll freely acknowledge his flaws but by Gods it felt good to see someone acknowledge the tricks of persp…
Just for some perspective, that "reporter" was Bill O'Reilley, and Russia wanted Fox News to apologize for the statement.
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#188If you still think of the world as divided into good and evil, then I have to break it to you that you have been played. Brainwashed by years and years of media programming. One man's terrorist is another man's hero. The U.S routinely bombs other sovereign countries and this is show cased as a "hero" activity. If the bombed people retaliate, they are terrorists. The truth is not black/white. Same way U.S data surveil…
YES! But this bears question, why is that so? Why is the US empire (and the US oligarchy) so thirsty for war that it is willing (one could even argue: eager) to sacrifice lives, physical and psychical health of its people (soldiers)? Why is it not putting trillions into infrastructure, health, education instead of spending them to wage wars with nations which have not even thought to attack the US, let alone have don…
Because the US is doing it under the altruistic guise of individual freedom (probably an easier sell than collectivism) and also making small numbers of people large amounts of money.
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#189If you still think of the world as divided into good and evil, then I have to break it to you that you have been played. Brainwashed by years and years of media programming. One man's terrorist is another man's hero. The U.S routinely bombs other sovereign countries and this is show cased as a "hero" activity. If the bombed people retaliate, they are terrorists. The truth is not black/white. Same way U.S data surveil…
Try to tell people why Eisenhower said "there was no reason to use that awful thing" (the atomic bomb) and that the greatest threat to America was the Military Industrial Complex. You could stay close to the facts, but still they'd think of you like some kind of conspiracy theorist because you don't agree with what they've been taught to believe. It is entirely within the realm of likely possibilities that our nation…
Very well put. Some people are really, truly evil, and will never change, but you still have to go out and look for the good people anyway or you'll go insane. This is why sanity is so challenging.
Re: Thousands of deadly U.S. military airstrikes have gone unreported
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Honestly, I somewhat doubt a thread like this could make it to the top of HN at a time when most Americans aren't sleeping. Americans don't want to read this stuff. I completely agree with you, and I'm an American. To claim that Americans are the only ones that need to wake up is a bit disingenuous though. Perhaps we need a wakeup call from the outside. The nations that have allied with the US, or benefit from frie…
I'm American too (and I posted this) and I fear that you two are correct. I live on the other side of the world though, hence the posting hours. I was totally surprised to see this at #1 for a bit, though I am just happy that it's getting discussed. No candidate for president will ever get my vote unless they talk seriously about scaling back the American military-industrial complex.
Do you think the HN crowd is the type to bury their heads in the sand? I don't get that impression. I'm on here all hours of the day and I see things like this hit the front page pretty regularly. They don't stay up long, I think, because they're a bit outside the targeted topics for this site.