Eight Million per Day for War in Libya

The US is spending about $8 Million per day on its war on Libya. This of course in addition to the exorbitant amounts we are paying for our other ongoing wars. "Remarking last week on the deal he struck that slashes $38.5 billion in federal spending, President Obama said the agreement “between Democrats and Republicans, on behalf of all Americans, is on a budget that invests in our future while making the largest annual spending cut in our history.” With an untouched defense budget and no end in sight for our wars - where - what is our future? Definitely not better education, not better healthcare, still no jobs other than those making weaponry and flipping burgers. Future? Think about it. Thank you.

The Profitability of Wars - even little ones like Libya

Just found a great article by Robert C. Koehler, A Vortex of Death and Wealth, published today at CommonDreams.org He makes a case of how we -and other weapons manufacturing countries - make money off killing and destruction. He writes "And Libya is small potatoes compared to — no surprise — Saudi Arabia. Last year, according to Spiegel Online, the U.S. announced the largest arms export deal in history with the Saudis. The oil-rich kingdom will buy $60 billion worth of U.S. aircraft over the next five to ten years. “Money is no object,” the article informs us, “and the Saudi air force is to receive F-15 fighter-bombers, Apache attack helicopters, missiles, radar equipment and bombs. All together, according to the Wall Street Journal, the order is large enough to guarantee 77,000 jobs at Boeing.” So maybe this is the much taunted "Job Creation Program" of our current administration - let's go to war and sell weaponry - not only use it but also destroy it so we can eventually replace it. Since the US is not producing much else, there is our future. Unending war, unending arms sales. “This” — the Libyan no fly zone — “is turning into the best shop window for competing aircraft for years. More even than in Iraq in 2003,” said Francis Tusa, editor of the UK-based newsletter Defense Analysis, quoted in a recent Reuters article by Tim Hepher. For instance, enforcement of the no fly zone pitted two European-made jet fighters, the Typhoon and the Rafale, against one another for world leaders to view, and France, Tusa pointed out, “is particularly desperate to sell the Rafale.” This is the generally unstated truth about Western intervention in the Middle East and anywhere else in the world. The headline-generating acts of murderous repression by dictators, whether we love or abhor them, are made possible by weaponry and equipment they purchased from us. And then, when the time comes, we may have to attack our former business partners with the same weaponry we sold them." Common Sense apparently has no place in this game unless you apply it to the job creation program. Good luck to all of us.

The Goldstone Report Still Stands!

We are being deceived again. Judge Goldstone's OpEd in the NYT is reported as recanting the report. None such thing if you read the fine print. The Report (on the Cast Lead War by Israel in the Gaza Strip) stands as is, minus a few semantic 'corrections'. Time and again we are fed headlines based on a tiny part of the news story, hiding the true message and/or truth. Who are these people who publish this kind of misleading copy, who are they answering to? An honest journalist - objective as s/he should be - could never stoop as low as to distort a straightforward story. Why is it left to us to dig and find out what is really behind a misleading headline? And the majority of readers will of course not do that to begin with. They will go out and believe the headline, retell it, distribute it and thereby make it much more believable. Do I want to be part of this system? NO. I will hang on to my Common Sense!

Libya - Japan - and our Readiness to "Help"

Have you counted the number of nations sending their war machines to bomb Libya? Within two days of the UN Resolution there were at least eight of them. We, the US, of course in the lead. 125 Tomahawk missiles have been launched so far, at a cost of one million dollars each, to keep Ghaddafi's forces from 'killing' civilians. So we are killing to prevent killing. Makes great sense, does it? This is not genocide, where such an intervention would make sense and where we usually keep our eyes and forces averted until it is too late.

And what about the catastrophe in Japan? How many nations, ships and planes full of food and blankets and tents for half-a-million or more freezing and starving people without shelter are on the way? And written about? Zero, from what I can see. The 125 million or so dollars that went up in fire and smoke, destroying people and goods in Libya could have been sent the other way and done some good. NO? That makes too much sense for our "freedom"(= oil)loving and oh so moral leaders.

This morning I found an article by Pablo Ouziel on my favorite news site (www.commondreams.com) where he writes "The time has come to break our silence and judge them and their allies for crimes against humanity. Only when we have wiped clean the blood spilled in the name of our false morality, by confronting the crimes committed in our name, might we find ourselves in a position from which to ethically judge the crimes of the foreign petty dictators our leaders often called friends." My sentiments exactly!

Please read the whole article and others on that site. They are all eye-opening and not always hopeful, but they tell it as it is.

Fuel Fools

I have been aware of the fact that the military is one of the biggest users -if not THE biggest user- of motor fuel, think jets, planes, tanks, trucks etc. Now I read that 80% of the cargo that the US military hauls around .. is fuel. So, we go to war to ensure the fuel for the military so they can .. umm, lug it off to the war zones? Is that it? Unfortunately, yes, that's it.

Where is the common sense?

Don't Let Them Scare You!

As more and more slightly insane terrorist "bombers" appear on the scene, please be alert and read more than the initial story. From the Sears Tower plot (Chicago) to a conspiracy in Florida, from shoe to underwear bomber all these stories have big holes and plenty of proof how these plots did not have much of a chance to work and were hatched and executed under very suspicious circumstances. The Nigerian underwear bomber, for example, boarded the plane without a passport, was shephearded by an unidentified official through security and placed on the plane. Before that his father had appeared at the US Embassy and warned the authorities that his son had radical connections and might plan a terorist act. Of course, nobody followed up on that ... draw your own conclusions.

The latest scare, the Oregonian Christmas bomber story does not seem to pan out very logically. What struck me most was the following:

The Oregonian newspaper quoted Oregon US Attorney Dwight Holton as saying: "This defendant's chilling determination is a stark reminder that there are people - even here in Oregon - who are determined to kill Americans." I ask aren't there Americans who not only have the chilling determination to kill Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis but also have been doing so for many years?

Nothing makes sense any more. I am giving up - but not quite yet. Keep on reading and digging deeper. The truth is out there.

Read an article with details here: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/11/25-0

,

"Thou Shalt not Kill" Applies to All?

Yesterday I received an email asking me to sign a petition to save Sakineh Ashtiani, an Iranian woman accused of adultery, rescued from stoning by an international outcry and now threatened to be executed. Of course, I signed immediately. Anything I can do to save a life, I will do, gladly.

But this noble effort made me think of the non-effort in this country to stop the killing in the wars we keep going. Who raises awareness about the women (and children) who are not accused of anything, whose only "crime" is to live in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan and who get killed either by our over-zealous soldiers or by indiscriminant missiles fired from drones or other aircraft? Are we as a nation already totally numb to this constant wiping out of innocent lives?

When somebody else does the killing - in this case the Iranian government - our government's elected boogieman of the hour - we are being pushed to react, to rally and show our concern -- is it mainly because we want to magnify the bad image of the "enemy" rather than over the concern about the poor woman's life?

Wherever I look these days, double standard rules, applied without much thought but with great enthusiasm. I find it disheartening, disillusioning and actually quite disgusting. If I do it, it's ok. If you do it, it is a crime. We are not moving along the path of enlightenment that way. Peace!