So President Obama has been quoted calling his war in Libya a turd sandwich, while Juan Cole calls it philanthropy, and Ed Schultz praises it as vengeance against this month’s Adolph Hitler. The last time we bombed this particular Hitler we took out his daughter, among other people.
How is Schultz’s spitting mad hatred as war justification squared with Cole’s humanitarian generosity? The answer is easy. They prefer different condiments on their turd sandwiches. Which is why wars are always packaged in multiple and mutually contradictory propaganda campaigns.
Obama’s advisors are almost certainly telling him that LBJ and Nixon were right to be terrified of “losing” a war. Of course refusing to “lose” a war cost both of them the presidency. Bush refused to “lose” in Iraq for years, handed that function to Obama, and credit for it is about all Obama has to ride on now. Two-thirds of Americans are demanding that we hurry up and “lose” in Afghanistan. Pollsters say Americans have turned against the Libya war faster than any previous war. And all Obama wants to know is whether he can supersize his turd sandwich.
This is the madness of militarism of which that gentleman spoke whom Obama told us had been wrong back in Oslo when the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was being pissed on — to continue the theme of human waste. “I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism,” said King. That’s OK, though, because it adjusted to him. A gun took him out, and a whitewashed history erased his opposition to wars and plutocracies.
That’s the logic to be found here: might makes right. War is peace. Non-combat troops do battle with armed civilians. Military aid is our leading charitable organization.
A UN resolution means we can disregard Congress. You go on recess, you lose. The war’s already started now. In fact, we’ve already declared mission accomplished. So, like Guantanamo and Iraq and investment scams and health insurance abuses, it’s “over.” So, don’t try to stop it! And if you do, warns Hillary, we’ll ignore you, just like my husband did a dozen years back. Then you’ll be as irrelevant as the UN in 2003, until we have a use for you.
Congress isn’t even needed for funding. The Pentagon has paused in its eternal screeching lamentations of poverty and near financial collapse to launch a billion dollar turd sandwich with its pocket change, in the same moment when the GAO spots another $70 billion the military has flushed away. And Obama has secretly directed the CIA to feel free to secretly arm the Contras — I mean the Rebels. Times might be tough, but an “intelligence” operation has enough spare cash lying around to arm an army sufficient to take out another army that we helped arm in the past (the past being a couple of months ago).
So the UN gets us around Congress, and the CIA gets us around the UN. But how is it still “us”? Isn’t it just Captain Peace Prize and Ed “I just swallowed a turd sandwich” Schultz? Or won’t it be soon? If we put the top guy at the CIA in charge of the military and the military’s star spokesgeneral in charge of the CIA, who’ll remember they aren’t the same thing? Probably the same 0.01% of Americans who notice that the War Powers Act doesn’t let presidents have wars for 60 days no matter how many times that horseshit is stuck between two slices of wheat bread. Or at least the 0.01% of THAT crowd who notice that the same bans on warfare apply even when it’s merely a kinetic military activity in support of an overseas contingency operation.
When it comes to believing your own overpriced lunch doesn’t smell, probably nothing tops the process through which war propagandists come to believe that taking out a single person will establish peace. How’d that work in Iraq? Demonizing one bad dude is wonderful propaganda for yahoos, but one bad dude only controls people who are willing to be controlled, and there are good chances they have motivations other than personal devotion.
Gadaffi’s strength is his nonsensical claim to opposing empire. Attacking him with imperial weapons is the ideal way to empower him to the greatest extent possible, and to empower any movement that survives his martyrdom.
Investment in weapons and bad governments is destroying the U.S. economy, and the U.S. government claims to be broke. Dumping more dollars into the same hole is the ideal way to further the collapse.
We call the result winning the future.
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David Swanson is the author of a book that was written with the purpose of avoiding having to explain any more war lies: http://warisalie.org