The USA's military is supposed to make the US more secure. But it has become, for many reasons and in many ways, the biggest threat to American security, the American way of life and even America's future. The leaders-- both military and civilian-- have to be considered part of the threat-- part of the problem, part of the system that is endangering America.
The US Military is a huge cancer on our budget. It weakens our economy, weakens our currency, saps our ability to maintain vital infrastructure. The 700 plus military bases spread throughout the world are supposed to make us more secure. Our wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are supposed to make us more secure. Instead, the wars have raised the levels of hate for the US to unprecedented levels.
Ron Paul says, today, on CNN, "We have fallen into a terrible trap, doing exactly what Osama Bin Laden wanted us to do."
Of course, it's not a simple matter of telling the generals to stand down. John Perkins, NYTimes best selling author of Confessions of An Economic Hit Man, told me, in an interview about his newest book, Hoodwinked, "It's the career people who are calling
all the shots and they are deeply influenced by the corporatocracy."
With the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, corporations have been handed even more power, and people like the Koch brothers, who Perkins says are guilty of sedition, are calling more and more of the shots as they buy more and more politicians ways into office.
This gets even more complicated by another problem Perkins describes how now, "There are many many ways to assassinate a person today. You don't need a bullet anymore."
Perkins points out the indisputable fact that Kennedy went against the Military and was assassinated. Eisenhower is credited with his famous speech about the danger of the military industrial complex, but Perkins points out he "spoke about the military industrial complex on last day of his presidency."
Back in those days, J. Edgar Hoover was suspected to have evidence that could "assassinate" the reputations of everyone in Washington, including the White House. Now, the CIA and FBI are agencies with minimal accountability, incredible funding from un-reported drug and gun sale operations, and that leaves out the massive, secret intelligence operations of the military which are even more unaccountable.
It's understandable that presidents are afraid to truly lead and stand up to the military threat that lurks between the lines. It may be, especially with institutionalized vote theft and with Citizens United in place, that we will be unable to use the voting system to change things. If Obama wins, \the corporations win. He's already their man. If the Koch brothers and friends win, and buy a Republican presidency, same thing-- corporatocracy continues.
For some, it's about oil, or access to shipping routes, or minerals or trade opportunities... there are many corporate uses for the US military.
Traditionally, challenges to the military are greeted with accusations of being unpatriotic. We need to change the narrative, the language and the conversation. The US military is no longer serving the needs of the American people It is serving and has long been serving the needs of the multinational corporations-- the same ones that cut jobs in the US by 2.9 million in the past decade, while increasing non-US jobs by 2.4 million, according the Wall Street Journal.
The US Military is really an arm of multinational corporations. It serves the globalization organizations that enforce the regulations and collections and monetary operations of these multinational corporations. The military may not be privatized, but it has become a form of corporate welfare-- we provide the security for their operations worldwide. I don't think they'd do it, because it would be hard to keep the illusion going, but it would be more accurate to talk about the GE Fleet, the Monsanto Army and the Boeing Air Force, just as sports and entertainment arenas are named.
John Perkins suggests that the answer may be to work through corporations. He Observes:
We'veGlen Beck lost his advertisers and is not off of Fox. Boycotts have had some effects in the past. This article doesn't purport to offer all the answers. The goal is to put it out there that the American Military, as it now stands, is actually not for America and has become a dangerous liability threatening and drastically endangering our near and long term security.
gone from a time when geopolitics was controlled by religious orgs,
then governments, now corporations.... the next phase is we the people
must take control. It's got to be bottom up.
If
it's in our corporations, then we can really address through our
shopping habits, through persuasion through embarrassing them, getting
them to change. We've seen an amazing example of this in Latin
America--- ten countries have voted in leaders standing up to the
corporations ."
We have a problem. First step is to face it. That's what this article is about. The US military is the number one threat to US security. It's leaders are part of the problem.Yes, we do need some form of military strength, but what we have is a cancerous monster that is totally unaccountable and out of control.
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