"America Exists Today to Make War" — Lawrence Wilkerson on Endless War & American Empire

Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, says the escalation of tensions between the U.S. and Iran today is a continuation of two decades of U.S. policy disasters in the Middle East, starting with the 2003 run-up to war with Iraq under the Bush administration. “America exists today to make war. How else do we interpret 19 straight years of war and no end in sight? It’s part of who we are. It’s part of what the American Empire is,” says Wilkerson. “We are going to cheat and steal to do whatever it is we have to do to continue this war complex. That’s the truth of it. And that’s the agony of it.”

Endless war is a key feature of the national economic model, the goose that lays the golden egg.

(Video only, transcript forthcoming.)

Democracy Now!
"America Exists Today to Make War": Lawrence Wilkerson on Endless War & American Empire

Congress: War Profiteering Is Real. We Need To End It. Sarah Anderson

War is bad for nearly everyone. But as long as we allow the leaders of our privatized war economy to reap unlimited rewards, their profit motive for war in Iran or anywhere will persist....

Putting some numbers on it.

Other Words
Congress: War Profiteering Is Real. We Need To End It.
Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-editor of Inequality.org

Graham E. Fuller — Turning Point in US Foreign Policy?

Former CIA "operative" Graham E. Fuller comments on Stephen Kinzer's article posted previous at MNE today. Fuller post also contains a complete copy of the Kinzer article.

Once the financial and economic elite ("the wealthy") on the both sides of the political divide conclude that present policy is costing them more than they are getting out of it, policy begins to shift. The question is whether they have deeper pockets than Sheldon Adelson and the Mercer family.

Fuller is all for it, and he is a "deep state" insider.

Graham E. Fuller
Turning Point in US Foreign Policy?

Graham E. Fuller | adjunct professor of history at Simon Fraser University, formerly vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, and a former senior political scientist at RAND

Alfred W. McCoy — Never-ending war: Washington’s drug of choice

About Afghanistan.

There is method to the madness of staying in Afghanistan. The US deep state doesn't want to actually "win" the war, which would be a reason to leave and "save money,", since continued US military presence there is essential in terms of geopolitics and geostrategy, which is focused on US hegemony. Afghanistan is a key piece in controlling Central Asia and the Eurasian landmass. This is a part of a proxy war with Russia and China.

Tom Dispatch
Never-ending war: Washington’s drug of choice
Alfred W. McCoy | Harrington professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Nicolas J S Davies — Duping Americans on Healthcare and War

The American people have been sold a deadly bill of goods both for their lousy healthcare system and for their perpetual war machine – and there’s no end in sight, as Nicolas J S Davies explains.

Consortium News
Duping Americans on Healthcare and War

Nicolas J S Davies

Truthdig — U.S. Defense Contractors Tell Investors Russian Threat Is Good for Business

War and the treat of war is music to their ears. The US is not only the #1 arms buyer for the US military, but also the #1 arms exporter. Who said US manufacturing was dying?

Truthdig
U.S. Defense Contractors Tell Investors Russian Threat Is Good for Business

Chris Floyd — “Close Your Hearts to Pity”: a Security State Critic Embraces Total War

War to end all war. What could go wrong with that?

Counterpunch
“Close Your Hearts to Pity”: a Security State Critic Embraces Total War
Chris Floyd

Alexandr Bovdunov — Ralph Peters: the concept of constant conflict

This is an interesting post based on short article by Ralph Peters, Constant Conflict, Parameters, Summer 1997, pp. 4-14: US Army War College. Lt. Col. Peters has written a number of books and was a contributor at Fox News until recently when he was let go for calling President Obama "a total pussy" on air. His most recent books, a compilation of articles, is Lines of Fire: A Renegade Writes on Strategy, Intelligence, and Security. Stackpole Books, 2016.

Katehon
Ralph Peters: the concept of constant conflict

Alexandr Bovdunov

Robert Parry — Risking Nuclear War for Al Qaeda?

The risk that the multi-sided Syrian war could spark World War III continues as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and U.S. neocons seek an invasion that could kill Russian troops — and possibly escalate the Syrian crisis into a nuclear showdown, amazingly to protect Al Qaeda terrorists, reports Robert Parry.

The American public doesn't know this, since they have been lied to about who the US is backing in the attempt to overthrow the Syrian government and replace the Assad regime with an Islamist one. The only question is who would be dominant, Al Qaeda or ISIS.

Consortium News
Risking Nuclear War for Al Qaeda?

Robert Parry

Ira Chernus — Six Mistakes on the Road to Permanent War

Putting it all in perspective. Yikes!

The dream of a war of annihilation against evil has a long, long history in white America. It began in 1636 when Puritans in New England wiped out the Pequot tribe, promising that such a lesson would prevent further attacks by other tribes. In fact, it created a spiral of violence and counter-violence, and a war-against-evil template that the country still follows nearly four centuries later in its “war on terror.” The current conflict in Iraq and Syria seems only to be locking us into that template and its guaranteed cycle of violence ever more firmly.…

National myths are, however, invented by human beings, and we are always capable of changing our minds. Who knows? Maybe someday the Islamic State will figure out that brutal killing and other acts of horror in the name of the caliphate are not such a good idea after all. And maybe the United States will figure out that depending on an eternal, self-defeating war against evil for our national identity is a huge mistake after all. Maybe.

Tom Dispatch
Tomgram: Ira Chernus, Six Mistakes on the Road to Permanent War
Ira Chenus | Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder

Marcus Weisgerber — Dempsey to Pentagon: Prepare For the Never-Ending War

The U.S. military needs to reorganize itself and prepare for war that has no end in sight with militant groups, such as the Islamic State, and nations that use proxies to fight on their behalf, America's top general warned Wednesday.

In what is likely his last significant strategy direction before retiring this summer, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the Pentagon that "global disorder has trended upward while some of our comparative advantages have begun to erode," since 2011, the last update to the National Military Strategy.

"We are more likely to face prolonged campaigns than conflicts that are resolved quickly… that control of escalation is becoming more difficult and more important… and that as a hedge against unpredictability with reduced resources, we may have to adjust our

In what is likely his last significant strategy direction before retiring this summer, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the Pentagon that "global disorder has trended upward while some of our comparative advantages have begun to erode," since 2011, the last update to the National Military Strategy.

"We are more likely to face prolonged campaigns than conflicts that are resolved quickly… that control of escalation is becoming more difficult and more important… and that as a hedge against unpredictability with reduced resources, we may have to adjust our global posture,” Dempsey writes in the new military strategy.

Dempsey, the president’s senior military advisor, criticizes Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China for aggressive military actions and warns that the rapidly changing global security environment might force the military to reorganize as it prepares for a busy future....

The military will continue its pivot to the Pacific, Dempsey writes, but its presence in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa will evolve. The military must remain “globally engaged to shape the security environment,” he said.

If this sounds like historical imperial overreach, it is.

National Journal
Dempsey to Pentagon: Prepare For the Never-Ending War
Marcus Weisgerber, Defense One

Boniface Musavuli — The US wants war -- on European soil

More geopolitics and geostrategy. Sees the US grand strategy to maintain permanent global hegemony as global destablization and endless war.

Fort Russ
The US wants war -- on European soil
Analysis by Boniface Musavuli
Translated from French by Tom Winter

Published March 6 in AgoraVox

RT — ‘We should absolutely consider lethal aid’ to Ukraine – US Gen. Martin Dempsey

Slouching toward hot war.

It’s the first time that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, has spoken out in favor of supplying Kiev troops with American weapons. 

“I think we should absolutely consider lethal aid and it ought to be in the context of NATO allies because [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s ultimate objective is to fracture NATO,” AFP cited Dempsey, speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

I can't think of a quicker way to fracture NATO than to force Europeans into a hot war with Russia that they don't want on top of sanctions that are hurting them economically while the US is increasing trade with Russia. Or they will just roll over and agree to be loyal vassal states to get some strokes from the emperor.

To me it looks like Gen. Dempsey is either stupid as a strategist or he is acting like a politician and not telling the truth. But maybe he knows that the Brits and Europeans are more submissive vassals than I think.

RT
‘We should absolutely consider lethal aid’ to Ukraine – US Gen. Martin Dempsey

Ian Ruskin — The Unquenchable and Endless Thirst for War -- Thomas Paine Warns the NeoCons Are Coming... Again!

"Although the hour is very late, the U.S. still has time to respond unequivocally, staking out a position of strength. Dismembering Ukraine against its wishes is unacceptable. Washington should supply Kiev with weapons and other assistance, while also reviving President George W. Bush's 2008 plan to fast track Ukraine for NATO membership...... even if Obama's flaccid leadership has tragically lost Crimea for good. 

And there is more than just Russia to consider. China, making territorial claims in the South and East China Seas, nuclear-weapons proliferators like North Korea and Iran, regional troublemakers like Venezuela, and terrorists and their state sponsors worldwide all see the same pattern". — John Bolton, Los Angeles Times 

More of John Bolton's saber-rattling. A vision of a world full of more and more enemies who must be put down, the axis of evil on overdrive.

The Huffington Post
The Unquenchable and Endless Thirst for War -- Thomas Paine Warns the NeoCons Are Coming... Again!
Ian Ruskin | Director of The Harry Bridges Project and The Life of Thomas Paine Productions

See also, John Bolton: As ignorant as he is dangerous, at 21st Century Wire

John Feffer — The Three-War Doctrine

Hyping threats from Russia, China, and the rest of the world, the U.S. War Party is gearing up to reassert American power.

Endless war. It's the only way to maintain an empire.

Foreign Policy in Focus
The Three-War Doctrine
John Feffer

Jonathan Turley — Meet XKeyscore: The Latest Massive Surveillance Program Of U.S. . . . As Reported In The Foreign Media

This morning we have yet another article detailing a warrantless surveillance program by the National Security Agency that contradicts representations made by President Barack Obama and members of Congress. You may recall how Obama has tried to get citizens to embrace a new surveillance-friendly model of privacy after the disclosure of massive surveillance of citizens, including programs acquiring every call made by citizens. Various Democratic members came forward to admit that they knew of such programs and not to be afraid . . . they have our backs. Yet every story that has surfaced has contradicted claims that such programs are limited and do not involve the content of communications in emails and messages. The latest program being reported is called XKeyscore and is described as scouring emails, chat rooms, and browsing histories . . . all without a warrant. In the meantime, citizens in polls are saying that they are more concerned with the threat of their own government to their privacy than the threat of terrorism. Once again, citizens learned of this program not from their representative or their media but largely from the foreign press and the disclosures of Edward Snowden.....

With Congress now fully supporting this surveillance state, citizens are left with a dangerous vacuum in our constitutional system. The federal courts have created a blind spot where they bar judicial review on the basis of increasingly narrow standing rules and classification barriers. 

Even reading about these issues is difficult. As we have been discussing, the U.S. media has largely yielded to demands of the White House not to call Snowden a whistleblower and we often have to read about these programs from foreign sources like the Guardian.

How did we come to this point as a nation?

Meet XKeyscore: The Latest Massive Surveillance Program Of U.S. . . . As Reported In The Foreign Media
Jonathan Turley | Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law, George Washington University

Max Blumenthal — Shocking 'Extermination' Fantasies By the People Running America's Empire on Full Display at Aspen Summit

A close up look at the scary people in charge. Well-intentioned but severely misguided about civil rights, human rights, the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, law, and democracy.

The military mind at work in the context of empire — the end justifies all means regardless of unintended and unforeseen consequences that the CIA calls "blowback." Frighteningly short-sighted and crass.

This is a big reason that there is civilian control of the military and separation of military and domestic security forces. The lines are now extremely blurred, and the wall of secrecy is so thick that it is difficult for the public to know what is going on or what their fate is.

AlterNet
Shocking 'Extermination' Fantasies By the People Running America's Empire on Full Display at Aspen Summit

Max Blumenthal

"Crackpot realism" (C. Wright Mills)

In his 1956 book, The Power Elite, Mills wrote: For the first time in American history, men in authority are talking about an 'emergency' without a foreseeable end... such men as these are crackpot realists: in the name of realism they have constructed a paranoid reality all their own.

Real Economics
Drinking from a firehose
Jonathan Larson

WashingtonsBlog — The Real Reason America Is Drifting Towards Fascism

I would say that the US has been in the grip of soft fascism since the Vietnam Era, and that the trend has been rising in the direction of hard fascism since 9/11.

The Real Reason America Is Drifting Towards Fascism
Washingtons Blog

Greg Jaffe — A decade after the 9/11 attacks, Americans live in an era of endless war

Endless war = dictatorship forever.

Fascism is capitalism plus murder.

▪ Presidential Agent II (1944)

The Washington Post | National Security
A decade after the 9/11 attacks, Americans live in an era of endless war
Greg Jaffe
(h/t Glen Greenwald @ggreenwald via Twitter)

I don't want to be all conspiratorial about this, but it is happening all around us now as even domestic security forces are militarized and the president is given the power to indefinitely detain and even assassinate US citizens.