TT`s Lost in Tokyo : war

Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize; "What For?" asks green group

TokyoTom — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:45:00 GMT

Pres. Obama has apparently been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this morning "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," but there appears to be a few on the left who feel that the award is undeserved.

I copy below an interesting message that I just ran across in my Inbox from the group Green Change; the message - which looks like it could have been written by a libertarian group! (or Glenn Greenwald) - also appears on their webpage:

This morning, President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Nobel Committee said.

Why?

Did Obama bring peace to Iraq?

No. He continues to station 124,000 U.S. troops there, with tens of thousands deployed perhaps indefinitely.

Did he bring peace to Afghanistan?

No. He has escalated the war there, and is part responsible for the scores of civilian deaths that have occurred there. He has done this despite that most Americans now believe the Afghan war is "not worth fighting."

Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Nobel committee said in an interview that "Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics." Has Obama done anything singular to stop the worldwide crisis of climate change?

No. He has spent little or no political capital on the climate crisis, and still refuses to publicly commit the U.S. to strong actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Jagland said that "The Nobel Committee has in particular looked at Obama's vision and work toward a world without atomic weapons." But on this issue, Obama is merely implementing the ideas of the more conservative foreign policy minds of our nation, including Henry Kissinger.

Did he beat the swords of the giant U.S. defense budget into plowshares of peace?

No. In fact, he will soon approve the largest defense bill in our nation's history.

Has he brought home the troops scattered across the world stationed to maintain our empire?

No.

Has he stopped our nation's scandalous weapons trade?

No. The U.S. has expanded its weapons trade. We now supply 2/3rds of the world's foreign armaments.

Did Obama sign the cluster munitions treaty to ban cluster bombs, because 98% of cluster bomb casualties are children?

No. The U.S. has not signed the cluster munitions treaty.

Has Obama brought home the army of mercenaries we have stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan?

No. He has expanded the ranks of these mercenaries to 250,000.

There are millions of people across our world who spend their blood and sweat every day for peace -- real peace. Each and every one of them deserves the Nobel Peace Prize far more than Barack Obama.

Best,

Gary Ruskin
Co-founder
Green Change

P.S. If you like our work, please help us reach our $25,000 fundraising goal by 12/31. Donate $15 or whatever you can today.

So why WAS Obama awarded the Peace Prize? A cynic might wonder if it was given to put moral pressure on Obama not to become even more bellicose (towards Iran), and perhaps to encourage him to achieve more.

Doug Bandow urges Republicans to rebuild based on calls for a modest foreign foreign policy

TokyoTom — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 05:38:00 GMT

Doug, you were right on Iraq in 2003 and are right now , but haven't you forgotten one little thing? What gives you any cause to believe that the stiff-necked neocons and others who fell for their war-mongering (the Christian right and other) will...(read more)

Fein on Iraq: Obama should unilaterally limit Presidential discretion by rejecting the AUMF

TokyoTom — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:34:00 GMT

Good idea, Bruce , but do you really expect Obama to bite, and thereby drastically reduce his own discretion? Obama already has George W. Bush and Congress to blame for the war - what important advantage does he gain by claiming the AUMF was an unconstitutional...(read more)

Ron Bailey/Reason: Gore's proposal to generate all power carbon-free in 10 years requires trillion$ on nukes

TokyoTom — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:47:00 GMT

On July 17, Al Gore challenged our nation to produce " 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly carbon-free sources within 10 years ". Ron Bailey , science correspondent of Reason online , has examined whether Gore's...(read more)

Jared Diamond: Those in stateless societies "enjoy" lives that are murderous and short

TokyoTom — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:50:00 GMT

Jared Diamond has an interesting essay at the current issue of New Yorker, " Vengeance Is Ours ", that is worth considering. In the essay, Diamond not only describes the moral and political economy of cycles of personal and inter-tribal vengeance...(read more)

Hope from Democratic candidates on War? See "A Responsible Plan to End the War"

TokyoTom — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 23:17:00 GMT

Democrats presently in Congress don't seem to care too much about doing much to stand up to Pres. Bush on the war in Iraq, despite becoming the majority party on the back of a wave of voter revulsion over the war in November of 2006. This lack of...(read more)

Harold Bloom: "The Fall of America"

TokyoTom — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:14:00 GMT

There's a short but good interview here of Harold Bloom, Yale literature professor and cultural critic (update: NOT to be confused with the long late Allan Bloom, author of Closing of the American Mind; my bad!): http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture...(read more)

Goering and Madison on War

TokyoTom — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 14:31:00 GMT

Having just stumbled across places where Lew Rockwell and others have done me the honor of posting three of my favorite quotes on war, I'd like to repeat those quotes here in the hope of increasing the likelihood that others might see them.

My favorite quotes on war are from Hermann Goering and James Madison:

Hermann Göring (dialog with interviewer Gustave Gilbert while the Nuremberg Trials were pending):

"'Why, of course, the people don't want war .... Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.'

"'There is one difference,' I pointed out. 'In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.'

"'Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.'"

Gustave M. Gilbert, The Nuremberg Diary, 1947.

James Madison:

"A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people."
---James Madison, Constitutional Convention [June 29, 1787]

"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

--James Madison, from "Political Observations," April 20, 1795 in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, Volume IV, page 491. http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=875&chapter=63919&layout=html&Itemid=27

I first mentioned these on a Mises blog thread (in reaction to Lew Rockwell's "Blood on Their Hands" piece, http://blog.mises.org/archives/006825.asp); he separately posted these quotes on his website (http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/014163.html).

War-profiteering and "Parasitic Imperialism"

TokyoTom — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 10:40:00 GMT

I posted the following in response to a piece by Glenn Greenwald:

War-profiteering is simply more Treasury-raiding by elites - at our cost and our children's. An economics professor at Drake (Ismael Hossein-zadeh, an ethnic Kurd from Iran, by the way) has some interesting and relevant thoughts in a well-reviewed book that came out last year called "The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism", http://www.amazon.com/Political-Economy-U-S-Militarism/dp/0230602282/ref=ed_oe_p/105-9360914-5760441. His web page, with links to recent writings, is here: http://www.cbpa.drake.edu/hossein-zadeh/default.htm

In a recent article "Parasitic Imperialism", Hossein-zadeh concludes (emphasis added):

"Although immoral, external military operations of past empires often proved profitable, and therefore justifiable on economic grounds. Military actions abroad usually brought economic benefits not only to the imperial ruling classes, but also (through "trickle-down" effects) to their citizens. Thus, for example, imperialism paid significant dividends to Britain, France, the Dutch, and other European powers of the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. As the imperial economic gains helped develop their economies, they also helped improve the living conditions of their working people and elevate the standards of living of their citizens.

"This pattern of economic gains flowing from imperial military operations, however, seems to have somewhat changed in the context of the recent U.S. imperial wars of choice, especially in the post-Cold War period. Moralities aside, U.S. military expeditions and operations of late are not justifiable even on economic grounds. Indeed, escalating U.S. military expansions and aggressions have become ever more wasteful, cost-inefficient, and burdensome to the overwhelming majority of its citizens.

"Therefore, recent imperial policies of the United States can be called parasitic imperialism because such policies of aggression are often prompted not so much by a desire to expand the empire's wealth beyond the existing levels, as did the imperial powers of the past, but by a desire to appropriate the lion's share of the existing wealth and treasure for the military establishment, especially for the war-profiteering Pentagon contractors. It can also be called dual imperialism because not only does it exploit the conquered and the occupied abroad but also the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens and their resources at home.

"Since imperial policies abroad are widely discussed by others, I will focus here on parasitic military imperialism at home, that is, on what might be called domestic or internal imperialism. Specifically, I will argue that parasitic imperialism (1) redistributes national income or resources in favor of the wealthy; (2) undermines the formation of public capital (both physical and human); (3) weakens national defenses against natural disasters; (4) accumulates national debt and threatens economic/financial stability; (5) spoils external or foreign markets for non-military U.S. transnational capital; (6) undermines civil liberties and democratic values; and (7) fosters a dependence on or addiction to military spending and, therefore, leads to an spiraling vicious circle of war and militarism."

The vast amounts flowing to huge defense contractors in all states is the chief reason that the Dems refuse to stand up to Bush, and politics in Washington has generally become simply a fight over the spoils of the federal budget and other government largess. Because the Dems are not that much different, they have a tough time pretending that they are more responsible. And as the media is itself owned by large conglomerates, they have little interest in rocking the boat by standing up to either politicians, the military establishment or the corporate or Israel lobby, but are content to feed Americans pap, and individual reporters of course have more to gain from sucking up to the power brokers than in offending them.

Increasingly, elites are running the country for their own selfish interests. Wars and the fear they stir up better allows elites to further squeeze and control all of us (via the PATRIOT Act, domestic spying, data mining, a “Real ID” and citizen chipping, etc.).

By the way, Hossein-zadeh also specifically analyzed these factors with respect to Iran last year: "Behind the plan to bomb Iran" (8/31/06), http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14771.htm.

Greenwald's piece is here: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/08/29/iran/index.html; my initial posting is here: http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/08/29/iran/view/index34.html