Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worth noting Trump was the first US President to not start a war in half a century.
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War Is a Racket (1933)
71–80 of 235 posts
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#72Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worth noting Trump was the first US President to not start a war in half a century.
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What a trivial distinction.
Either way you had to go back that far to find another president that didn't start a new war.
It would be remarkable if it was 20 years.
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's worth noting Trump was the first US President to not start a war in half a century.
He also launched more drone strikes than Obama, relaxed the rules of engagement and civilian oversight over the chain of command, and killed hundreds of civilians in airstrikes on Afghanistan and the first use of a MOAB in combat.
> He also launched more drone strikes than Obama
And Obama more than Bush. Either way, the direction is monotonically increasing. Could it be the problem isn't who holds the presidency?
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s a clear feedback loop between the military and the politicians, it is absolutely not a one-way street of control. This is the entire premise of the term military-industrial complex. Military will always advocate for itself to get more funding and more use (as in, bombing things). And it will continue to serve as a successful launching point for political careers. Not to mention all the companies, fat off of d…
You should read some memoires from higher-ups in the military instead of trying to lecture people about something you have no experience with. Military leaders will say they don't need more equipment, but politicians will spend a ton on it anyway because the equipment is built in their district. Military advice is often ignored by politicians in order to score political points, like when Obama ignored advice to incre…
Your example of military not advocating for increased use of itself is… Obama ignoring the military advocating for increased use of itself in Afghanistan?
I’ve read memoirs. Some interesting ones about the Vietnam war and how every military higher-up was champing at the bit to throw more troops into the meatgrinder.
My “experience with” this is watching the military incinerate orders of magnitude more taxes than I will pay in my entire life on useless bullshit as I walk past dozens of homeless people a day. Like that $80-150 million plane they threw in the drink just the other day. Real good stuff!
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#76Beforehand [0] the author of this text, Butler, the most respected general in the US at that time was offered to lead a coup d'etat to overthrow FDR and then to become effectively a dictator. [0] https://bigthink.com/the-present/fdr-coup/
Very interesting! You should submit that to HN too.
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#77Beforehand [0] the author of this text, Butler, the most respected general in the US at that time was offered to lead a coup d'etat to overthrow FDR and then to become effectively a dictator. [0] https://bigthink.com/the-present/fdr-coup/
>Remembering when bankers tried to overthrow FDR and install a fascist dictator
Ironic considering that FDR's economic reforms were openly modeled on fascist Italy, and FDR was on good terms with Mussolini. He was also in the process of following Mussolini's lead and attempting to overthrow the American institutions that were in his way. He had already gone out of his way to install a KKK member on the Supreme Court, and was planning to double the size of the Supreme Court if they wouldn't accept his unconstitutional changes.
The article even admits this by quoting articles written at the time that were calling for a fascist takeover of the country and supporting FDR's goals in this direction. Many were terrified that this was indeed what FDR was planning.
This whole thing about Butler coming out and saying it was the other way around, and fascists were tying to overthrow FDR was just a political point scoring. This article even admits that if something like that even happened it was at best a “a cocktail putsch.”
This is just the typical rewriting of history from people who refuse to face their ashamed past.
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that this description of war seems to paint every US military intervention post WWII extremely well. There's also no point in positing counter-factual scenarios regarding WWII. If you want to imagine a world where the US rushed in and "saved" Europe early and prevents Pearl Harbor, you also have to imagine a world where US domestic support for Germany ultimately wins out and we end up supporting them.
> Except that this description of war seems to paint every US military intervention post WWII extremely well. Maybe except the intervention in Korea
There was also the pesky business with Milosevic exterminating people while the EU just sat on their thumbs.
Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Russia currently has troops on Ukrainian soil. They invaded 8 years ago, and the invasion has not ended.
The current lie is that there is a threat of a new invasion. Not even Ukrainian leadership agrees with this, but it doesn't seem to affect planning in the United States. "They invaded 8 years ago" hm ok. Do you know what a US color revolution is? https://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2014/03/11/pierre-omidyar-c...
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Re: War Is a Racket (1933)
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would like to see the Ukrainians be able to determine their own fate: without war. All the numbers say the Ukrainians, by vast majority want their country for themselves, unmolested. What I hear from Western media is deep worry for the fates of these people who have become friends of the EU bloc. I work with Ukrainians daily. I am deeply worried they will be crushed beneath the tank treads of an authoritarian dicta…
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> Have you heard about almost all opposition media in Ukraine being closed by simple executive orders without any courts being involved?
s/opposition/Russian/g