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Title: The Occupied Turn Occupiers
Source:
War is a Crime
URL Source: http://warisacrime.org/content/occupied-turn-occupiers
Published: Sep 27, 2011
Author: David Swanson
Post Date: 2011-09-27 10:41:12 by lucysmom
Keywords: None
Views: 2558
Comments: 7
In a recent debate Congressman Ron Paul claimed the United States military had troops in 130 countries. The St. Petersburg Times looked into whether such an outrage could actually be true and was obliged to report that the number was actually 148 countries. However, if you watch NFL football games, you hear the announcers thank members of the U.S. military for watching from 177 countries. The proud public claim is worse than the scandalous claim or the "investigative" report. What gives? We are supposed to be proud of the U.S. empire but to reject with high dudgeon any accusation of having an empire. Abroad, this conversation makes even less sense, because those troops and their bases are in everyone's faces. I lived near Vicenza, Italy, years ago. The people tolerated the U.S. Army base. The addition of a many-times larger one in the same town, now underway, has led to outrage, condemnation, and bitter resentment of being handed second-class citizenship in one's own country while being asked to show gratitude for it. As President Obama encircles Russia with missile bases and China with naval bases, the people who live or used to live where the bases are built resent the occupation, just as the people of Iraq and Afghanistan resent the occupation. A global movement against U.S. military bases is rapidly rising from all corners of the empire. But so is a movement against the occupation of Der Homeland by an unrepresentative and unrepresenting police state. Those of us not in the Forbes 400 have been handed second-class citizenship in the place we are supposedly protecting through the occupation of every other place. A large majority of us want the rich and the corporations taxed heavily, but they are not. We want the wars ended, the troops brought home, and military spending cut. None of this happens. Nor do the outcomes of elections impact the likelihood of any of these things happening. We want to keep and strengthen Social Security. We want Medicare protected and expanded to cover us all. We want rights enlarged for human beings and curtailed for corporations. We want to cut off the corporate welfare and the bankster bailouts. We want to invest in infrastructure, green energy, and education. We want the right to organize and assemble. And we want a clean system that allows public pressure through ordinary means: publicly funded elections, verifiable vote counting, no gerrymanders, no media and ballot barriers to candidates. None of this is forthcoming. We are paying taxation and receiving no representation.
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#1. To: lucysmom (#0)
Accounting Note: The Bush-Cheney-Obama "war of choice" in Iraq has cost the US $1 trillion so far. None of this expenditure was matched by increases in taxation or reductions in other spending over the last ten years.
The "no new tax" conservatives said the war would pay for itself.
"You post articles- intellectual excrement, really- that support your inane, insipid mentality, on a regular basis. Capitalist Eric
Which was of course a lie meant to infer that they could get away with pumping oil from that country to steal to pay for the exercise in imperialism. There as no way they ever could do that and get away with it withough a firestorm of condemnation and backlash. Now the same party that warred us into bankrupcy wants to make everyone believe that the gutting of the economy in the wake of how sound it was under Clinton didn't happen under Bush and that this problem is all Obama's fault. Bush did the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq and is responsible for the finantial harm it caused, no one else.
I've noticed that no one in the media ever mentions the cost of these wars as being a major source of our financial problems. I can only assume that they're afraid of being called "anti-military". Too bad about that, because the trillions we've blown on George Bush's little adventures have bankrupted this country, and continue to do so.
Not to mention that it was against UN rules of occupation - which might not have been such a problem if the Bush administration hadn't claimed Saddam's violation of UN sanctions as justification for invading. - oh well...
"You post articles- intellectual excrement, really- that support your inane, insipid mentality, on a regular basis. Capitalist Eric
Instead most infer that we will need to invade Iran in the near future too.
But the Generals who disagreed were Immediately replaced...;} always watch who the State is slow to remove and/or Immediately replaces...
We are paying taxation and receiving no representation.
#2. To: mcgowanjm (#1)
None of this expenditure was matched by increases in taxation or reductions in other spending over the last ten years.
#3. To: lucysmom (#2)
"The "no new tax" conservatives said the war would pay for itself."
#4. To: Ferret Mike (#3)
#5. To: Ferret Mike (#3)
There as no way they ever could do that and get away with it withough a firestorm of condemnation and backlash.
#6. To: Skip Intro (#4)
I've noticed that no one in the media ever mentions the cost of these wars as being a major source of our financial problems.
#7. To: lucysmom (#2)
The "no new tax" conservatives said the war would pay for itself.
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