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‘Obama’s new roadmap no step to pacifism’
Published: 06 January, 2012, 07:43
TAGS: Arms, Military, Obama, Politics, USA, Kevin Owen, War
Barack Obama has announced a new roadmap for the US military – and Brian Becker, of the anti-war ANSWER Coalition, told RT that the new plan means America will save money, but won’t spare the misery of its targets for conflict.
“This is not a step away from war, this is not a step towards pacifism or towards a retreat from empire building,” Becker says. He argues that it simply proposes a military strategy that costs American political leaders, Obama or otherwise, less on the home front.
“If there are fewer American casualties, if all the bleeding is done on the other side, if all the destruction is done by those who are suffering the consequences of war, they feel there will be less anti-war sentiment at home.”
So, according to Becker, Obama's proposal is anything but progressive.
“What the Obama Administration and the Pentagon are doing – and Obama is signaling it explicitly in his speech – is putting again the primacy of the turn towards Asia, which really is a turn against China.” Becker says the US is looking forward to “endless competition and the evolution of a possible Cold War-type scenario with China,” which would give the Pentagon a long-term enemy to justify a continued expansion of the US defense budget.
“This does not cut the defense budget, it only slows its projected growth,” Becker says. The US government budget deficit is a major problem and a threat to the US standing in the global market, Becker points out, but nonetheless the primacy of the military-industrial complex is intact.
“So if there is a budget shortage, you’ll see teachers laid off, nurses laid off, firefighters laid off, but the Pentagon will get more than its fair share.”
The plan, with an emphasis on making the military leaner and cheaper, calls on the armed forces to abandon their ability to fight two simultaneous land wars, and shift focus to military superiority across Asia and the Pacific.
06.01, 07:18
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MikeNZ wrote in#1
I'm getting confused ....
It used to be that the Russians and the Chinese were the 'bad guys' but it now appears that the Americans are the 'Evil bad guys' ...
Isn't anyone consistent anymore?
I suppose it depends on your point of view. If starting endless wars, undermining other elected governments, corrupting the U.S. political life, believing other countries are inferior, assassinating one's own citzens without due process, just for starters, then it seems the U.S. has always been the bad guy. China and the Soviet Union/Russia were cast as the bogeyman to enable the U.S. government to hoodwink its citizens as to who their enemies were.
The U.S. corporate state has replaced the elected governement of the masses so as to benefit that small group of mega-rich whose sole aim is to enlarge their money empires. But you won't read about or see it in the media as that same select group own a considerable part of that media.
In my view the U.S. and its allies have become akin to totalitarian states, their citizens mere pawns in the game of making money for the few.
The whole system is rotten and nothing less than a revolutionary change will bring about a more peeaceful, equitable society. The U.S.'s days as the knight in shining armour is but a distant memory,which in truth, you probably viewed through a flattering light.
U.S. CLASS WAR --- MORAL ISSUE
Most everyone in America believes they deserve more, so they take all they can take, rich ruling-class hide away in their mansions, the educated middle-class sequester themselves by mutual gratification in their terrific homes, and the uneducated and impoverished laboring-class are kept out of sight in police states called slums. Bingo --- class war.
Whereas, if we give them all an attitude adjustment, give them a conviction that they deserve less, then convicted that everything they own belongs to those who have less, everyone would spend all their time in a class below theirs and feel most guilty if ever they failed to give all they could give. Bingo --- a one class society.
TRUE REVOLUTION --- HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GOVERNMENT
CON
“U.S. and its allies have become akin to totalitarian states...
The whole system is rotten and nothing less than a Revolutionary
will bring about a peaceful, equitable society.”
Problem is, democracy be nothing more then the organized moral will of the voting majority, which in Empire USA is the greedy morality of the 51% most educated and wealthy. For so impoverished is the lower half of society, that refuse to go to the polls, surely for not so stupid are they as to waste time voting for their next set of dictators.
The perfect solution would be a moral democracy, one where the 25% most wealthy are not allowed to vote or have any involvement in politics. For the greedy 51% most wealthy having a voter monopoly, this is the root cause of all corruption in the Western world.