Category: WAR
The US Senate, long the lap dog of the man who would be king, President Donald Trump, appears to have finally remembered its proper constitutional role.
Last week, the Senate voted 55/45 for a new bipartisan War Powers Act to constrain military action against Iran. The Congress voted a similar act. Both are designed to start returning the right to make war to Congress, as the Constitution clearly intended. The president is not the Warlord-in-chief in spite of what he thinks.
Here’s a word of advice to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Unless he wants to risk a smudge on his reputation of the sort that accompanies John Howard to this day: don’t get involved in conflict with Iran beyond limited naval engagement in a Gulf peace-keeping role.
via Acting on Iran has painful shades of joining the US in Iraq
“John Bolton and the Trump administration are turning us away from international accountability and cooperation and towards war and unilateral aggression,” concluded Win Without War.
In a rush to create heroes where there are only victims (ODT)
Ben Roberts-Smith: Beneath the bravery of Australia’s most decorated soldier
Notorious billionaire and war profiteer Erik Prince, who founded the disgraced mercenary firm Blackwater, is once again appealing to President Donald Trump to privatize the 17-year-old war in Afghanistan. Notorious War Profiteer Erik Prince Refuses To Give Up Dream of Mercenary Takeover of Afghan War
The story didn’t say whether any of the reporters listening to General Dunford asked why it had taken more than 16 years for the world’s leading military power to come up with the “fundamentally different approach” that the general believes has put U.S. and Afghan forces on the path to success. (None of the changes he mentioned really sounded fundamental, either.) Still, it’s a question worth asking: If Americans are right in ceaselessly telling themselves that theirs is the most powerful country the world has ever seen and that their military is the “greatest fighting force ever,” as President Trump calls it, should it have been this hard and taken this long to find a way — if they really have — to defeat enemies whose war-making resources are a tiny fraction of ours?
via “Infinity War?” After 17 fruitless years in Afghanistan & elsewhere the US Military needs to Rethink
According to the report, military spending across the world has increased by 1.1 percent in 2017 compared to the previous year to reach $1739 trillion.
The United States continues to top the world’s list of military expenditure with $610 billion, followed by China, which increased its military expenditure by 5.6 percent over 2016, or $228 billion.
The report explained that Middle Eastern countries increased their military spending by 6.2 percent in 2017 where they spent 5.2 percent of their GDP on armaments; the highest in the world.
via Saudi Arabia world’s 3rd highest military spender but 41st in World Population
The states pursuing this kind of offensive war see three advantages, two military and one political:
* Their own forces take minimal casualties, meaning fewer bodybags and funeral corteges
* They believe that the tactic works in practice
* There is very little media coverage of this type of war, and in the case of some countries, most notably Britain, there has been a long-term political convention that the role of special Forces should not be subject to public debate or even scrutiny.
The U.S. Air Force is on track to triple the number of bombs dropped in Afghanistan this year compared with last year.
Ominously, the former head of the IAEA, Mohammed Albaradei, who pointed out in spring of 2003 that the George W. Bush administration’s case for going to war against Iraq was bogus has weighed in on this new warmongering ploy:
Source: Elbaradei: Trump Propaganda on Iran Nuclear Deal like Run-up to Iraq War | Informed Comment
Not only are our two publicly owned television channels spewing pro US rhetoric, our so called “left-wing” party, Labor have once again bent over for Uncle Sam. Why do both parties constantly shill for US wars? The answer is that our rich and powerful elite need the US. This is all about money and both parties are very much protecting the parasitism and immorality of the very wealthy.
Source: “War Pigs” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In case you haven’t noticed, the US is about to start another war. Remember George W. Bush and the lead up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003? On that occasion it was a carefully calculated move, complete with lies about Saddam Hussein’s arsenal, fabricated intelligence delivered to the United Nations by then Secretary…
Source: It’s all happening again. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The billionaire inventor says an artificial intelligence arms race, and not the nuclear stand-off on the Korean Peninsula, will most likely be the cause of World War III.
By Riccardo Labianco | (The Conversation) | – – Since the catastrophic Yemeni civil war began in 2015, the British …
Source: Should Western Countries be Selling Masses of Arms to Saudi Arabia? | Informed Comment
Trump’s mercenary supporter Erik Prince has a self-serving proposal for Afghanistan. It must be condemned and rejected.
The United States is on a war path with Iran.
Source: America’s Looming War with Iran: What You’re Not Being Told
World leaders aren’t taking Donald Trump’s trade barbs lying down.
The United States remains the world’s dominant weapons dealer despite a fall in sales.
Source: Who’s benefiting from the war industry? – Al Jazeera English
Worries of ‘New Cold War’ intensify as United States cuts diplomatic ties with Moscow over war in Syria.
Source: Russian Government Orders 40 Million Citizens to Prepare for Nuclear War
The U.S. is addicted to war. Stopping this horrible situation is up to the American people. The way we do this is by getting informed. These documentaries can help.
Source: Important Anti-War Films That Reveal the Uncensored History of the United States – Truthdig
Former New York mayor and close Trump ally discusses Republican nominee’s call to take Iraq’s oil, a move which appears to break international law
An Arkansas judge has been accused of operating a “modern-day debtor’s prison” that has locked up poverty-stricken citizens incapable of paying their bills,
Source: Judge Sends Cancer Patient to Jail For 90 Days When He Can’t Pay His Bill
At the annual Veterans For Peace convention, speakers including filmmaker Oliver Stone, historian Andrew Bracevich and journalist Ann Jones discussed public relation campaigns in support of war and the struggles American veterans face.
Source: War ‘Has Become a Permanent Condition’ for the United States – Truthdig
Soldiers in Britain’s elite special forces regiment associated with organized crime gangs, sold ammunition and some may have been borderline psychopaths, SAS veteran Chris Ryan has claimed.
Trump’s flap with the Khans over “sacrifice” misses a crucial question: Sacrifice for what?
The NATO summit says that the war is on the doorstep. They see Putin as their enemy
Source: The West has raped, killed and destroyed the whole world – PravdaReport
Barack Obama has called for a “world without nuclear weapons” during a historic speech in Hiroshima, Japan. There are around 15,850 nuclear warheads spread between nine nations, according to a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
By William D. Hartung | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – Now you see it, now you don’t. Think of it as …
Source: The Pentagon’s War on Accountability: At 600 Bn a Year, Why aren’t any Wars being Won?
An Australian soldier speaks publicly for the first time about a commando night raid in which five Afghan children were killed.
“This is the highest figure ever recorded and twice the number of refugees worldwide,” said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), co-authors of
Source: Wars displace record 40.8 million people in the world, report shows – Your Middle East
By Claire Bernish at theantimedia.org United States — “I think Smedley Butler was onto something,” Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former George W. Bush administration heavyweight, told Salon in an exclusive interview. Major General Smedley Butler earned the highest rank in the U.S. Marine Corps, accumulating numerous accolades …
Source: Former Bush Official Just Confirmed That Our Wars Are for Corporate Interests AnonHQ
It may be hard to believe now, but in 1970 the protest song “War,” sung by Edwin Starr, hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. That was at the height of the Vietnam antiwar movement and the song, written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, became something of a sensation. Even so many years later, who could forget its famed chorus?
CIA-linked private “security” companies are fighting in Yemen for the US-backed Saudi military campaign. Al-Qaeda-affiliated mercenaries are also being deployed. Melding private firms with terror outfits should not surprise. It’s all part of illegal war making.
Source: Pentagon mercenaries: Blackwater, Al-Qaeda… what’s in a name? — RT Op-Edge
Welcoming more migrants – in particular children – that you can’t look after leads to tragedy.
Despite an almost total lack of public debate, Western military escalation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya is on the rise. Renewed military interventionism has been largely justified as a response to the meteoric rise of Islamic State networks, spreading across parts of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. Missing from government pronouncements, though, is any acknowledgement that the proliferation of Islamist terrorism is a direct consequence of the knee-jerk response of military escalation.
History shows us that propaganda is an inherent part of any wartime society, obscuring facts and motivations in favor of those who initiate and benefit from war
Source: The Conspiracy Of War — Power, Profit, Propaganda and Imperialism | Wake Up World
Bernie Sanders’ stance on wealth inequality being “the great moral issue of our time, it is the great economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time” has garnered him support from many frustrated Americans. Indeed, wealth inequality in America …
The Republican wing of the War Party – and their Democratic doppelgangers – sure are having a field day over the San Bernardino massacre. At last they have a superficially plausible rationale for invading Syria and sticking Uncle Sam’s foot into yet another hopeless Middle Eastern quagmire – and they can cite poll numbers in […]
Source: No Easy Answers – Antiwar.com Original by — Antiwar.com
Major defense contractors Raytheon, Oshkosh, and Lockheed Martin assured investors at a Credit Suisse conference in West Palm Beach this week that they stand to gain from the escalating conflicts in the Middle East. Lockheed Martin Executive Vice President Bruce Tanner told the conference his company will see “indirect benefits” from the war in Syria, citing the Turkish military’s recent decision to shoot down a Russian warplane.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya…and maybe Syria, too? This investigative journalist points out some important similarities.
Source: Journalist: “Each War Is Preceded By A Big Media Lie AnonHQ
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“These are my medals, these were given to me were given to me as a reward for invading other peoples countries and murdering their civilians. I’m now handing them back.”
Source: Watch The Moment British Soldiers Throw War Medals To Floor With These Powerful Words AnonHQ
