The war in Afghanistan is about perpetual war, not Afghanistan.
It’s about preventing democracy in the United States, not bringing it to SouthWest Asia.
And it is the tombstone of the Obama Presidency.
The war in Afghanistan is about perpetual war, not Afghanistan.
It’s about preventing democracy in the United States, not bringing it to SouthWest Asia.
And it is the tombstone of the Obama Presidency.
For reasons to fight, they’ve rounded up the usual suspects: Terror. Oil. Minerals. Poppies. Democracy.
But George Orwell’s 1984---now updated with two new books--- illuminates the bigger picture: “continuous warfare” is the key to social control.
It keeps the public frightened and dependent.
And it keeps “the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed.”
Better to destroy them in a ritual slaughter like Afghanistan, and wherever is next.
For a truly prosperous society, educated and secure, cannot be ruled by the few. Poverty, ignorance and fear are the three pillars of authoritarian control. Without war, they all disappear.
Thus Afghanistan. Before it: the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, central America. After: whoever else is handy.
Recent books by Howard Zinn and David Swanson have updated Orwell’s analysis.
Zinn’s THE BOMB (City Lights), testifies to the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the utter senselessness of these “announced nuclear tests.” Once an Allied bombardier, Zinn revisited a French town he helped destroy. He found the act, of which he was once proud, had no military meaning whatsoever.
Though he passed away earlier this year, Howard’s PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES continues to shape our understanding of this nation’s true core. In narrating the hidden, bloody past of our compromised democracy, he warns at end that even for the US, “There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.”
Swanson’s new WAR IS A LIE (Seven Stories Press) adds to the litany. A tireless campaigner for peace and justice (www.warisacrime.org) , Swanson was instrumental in tearing away the ridiculous Bush lie that the war in Iraq was about Weapons of Mass Destruction. WAR IS A LIE adds carefully documented, passionately argued reasons why the era of endless slaughter in SouthWest Asia is simply a tool of social control for the military-industrial complex.
Nowhere has this become more transparent than in the Obama Administration. The “Shellacking” the Democrats took this fall stems directly from Obama’s painfully visible failure to bring hope or change to a nation at war since 1941.
For a few infuriating weeks Obama danced around the decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan. Rarely has a single human being had a greater chance to change history.
Obama could have stood up to the generals. He could have de-escalated. He could have introduced a draw-down of military spending.
More than 50% of taxpayer money goes to weaponry. We have troops in more than 100 countries. We spend more on our military than all the rest of the world combined (with 5 times the US population, China spends more on renewable energy than its military).
With a simple speech, Obama could have begun the Great Reversal. It was a crystal clear moment. The public support was there. It was what he was elected to do. The reality of what was being decided was completely transparent.
But like Lyndon Johnson’s March 1965 catastrophic decision to escalate the war in Vietnam, Obama went exactly the wrong way. He became the first man in history to accept the Nobel Peace Prize with a pro-war speech. He buried the nation still deeper in the lethal quagmire of perpetual war.
All else since has been mere detail. When Obama caved on Afghanistan, so did his presidency.
As Orwell, Zinn and Swanson make clear, perpetual war is the carefully engineered route to poverty, ignorance and dictatorship.
Afghanistan is merely the latest installment. Its ever-changing justifications are meaningless smokescreens, forever poised to cloud the coming of the next perpetual war.
Until we find a way to break through---and we must---the possibility of our survival is an illusion.