Endless War & the FP Establishment’s Crack
Up
Among veterans,
64 percent say the war in Iraq was not worth fighting, according to a study by the
Pew Research Center, slightly higher than the 62 percent of civilians who feel the same
way. Disagreement with the conflict in Afghanistan is lower — 58 percent of
veterans and 59 percent of the general public believe that was not a worthy
war. While some veterans support continued military engagement in Syria, more
than half — 55 percent — oppose it.
By JM
Hamilton (11-3-2019)
The news
piece wasn’t something JMH would typically read. But the Washington Post ran it, and as I went
through it, I had a sense déjà vu.
Was I reading a horror story about child abuse, animal hoarding, and
self-destructive adults - clearly w/ mental health issues - or was I reading
about the insanity surrounding US foreign policy?
The story, Police found 3 children living with 245 animals. Among them: Rats, sugar gliders and a hedgehog, ran in
the October 21, Washington Post. The piece
really put the hook in me. Was animal
hoarding analogous to nation-state hoarding or empire building? And so I researched “animal hoarding,” as a
mental health issue - w/in the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (or DSM) - yes, the Bible of the mental health community recognizes animal hoarding,
as an illness. Hence, it caused me to research the US FP
establishment’s mental health. Searching
megalomania, out popped narcissistic personality disorder & delusions of grandeur,
also recognized by the DSM. Which if one
was to describe the US foreign policy establishment – and our nation’s global
empire (800 military bases globally is often the estimate provided) – the
mental health issues, narcissistic personality disorder & delusions of
grandeur, are the first things that come to mind.
Ironically
enough, groupthink is another term (introduced by Psychologist, Irving Janis, in Psychology Today, circa 1971) that also appears to apply to the elites of the US foreign policy establishment. The term, groupthink, was originally
coined to describe the experts in Washington, who ran the Vietnam War (&
has Orwellian origin).
Let’s
see, the parallels between animal hoarding (AH), or hoarding, and narcissistic
personality disorder (NPD), or delusions of grandeur, are both as frightening
as they are numerous. Both AH and
NPD may involve: obsessive compulsive disorder; the aforementioned delusions;
sociopathic tendencies; a lack of empathy; a failure on the part of the mentally
ill to see that they are causing others great harm; a sense of entitlement; did
I mention a lack of empathy (?); and an inability to be self-critical.
Yes.
Bingo. Elites, groupthink, the US foreign policy establishment, The DOD, and
animal hoarders… a complete lack of empathy: this is the place.
For
instance, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the desire to
own and operate a global empire is a recipe for ruin. In the 20th Century, we saw the
failure of Nazi Germany, as well as, the fall of the Soviet Union with its own hegemonic
aims (building blocks of conquered or “aligned” states) … just as hoarding hundreds of animals w/in one’s home will result in ruinous consequences. Several European empires also dissolved under the weight of their own hubris during the 20th Century. The US empire seems to be facing similar consequences
(see our $23 trillion national debt, and growing, and the Fed’s near zero rate bound
monetary policy designed to mitigate the debt service load of same) – despite
the groupthink espoused by the armchair warriors, who make up the US foreign
policy establishment (FP) and their talking heads, ensconced w/in the MSM. Let’s see, trillion-dollar defense budgets,
per annum (more than the G8 combined), and $6 trillion, plus, wasted for our never-ending
wars upon terror and global occupation forces.
Interestingly
enough, animal hoarders actually believe they are helping the distressed and
dying animals they possess; oddly enough, the FP establishment loves to trot
out the story that the US is invading & occupying a country out of the
benevolence & kindness of the nation’s collective heart, and to free said occupied
country from a dictator or a highly embellished terror threat. The FP community may, on occasion, state that
the US is spreading freedom and democracy, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.
But
the reality is far, far different: AH participants do great harm to the animals
under their control and has anyone taken a look at the countries the US has invaded,
overthrew & occupied recently (?): arguably, failed state after
failed state. Hence, the need for US
forces to stay indefinitely. Hundreds of thousands of war dead or collateral damage, often played down – conveniently
enough – by the DOD. Abused and
suffering US soldiers – not only suffering the afflictions, slings, and arrows
of war - but suffering a pandemic of suicide, and poor VA care, once they
return stateside. As for the countries the US invades, directly or by proxy, often
in the name of fighting terror, corrupt puppet regimes are often installed,
while US multinationals – Big Oil & Defense contractors – reap the rewards
of the United States foreign policy malaise. Meanwhile, the regimes that spread real terror are our so-called allies & friends.
Within the Washington Post’s animal hoarding piece, the collateral damage is the children that are grossly
abused and neglected, by the adults suffering, clearly, a mental break from
reality. Ditto the US FP establishment. For as the nation
wastes trillions on our global empire: one in five US children live in poverty,
40 to 50% of Americans can’t make a $400 emergency payment, and the American
people and the US economy suffer endless austerity. And the MSM, and
their warmonger pundits, tells us that we should be worried about Kurds and
Afghanistan women, while failing to mention the bottom half of American society
that live in poverty. (In a perfect world, we should all be worried
about all of humanity, and the planet’s health.) Before the US
attempts to save the world, if that really is our aim, and it’s not …
shouldn’t we insist that the elites, who run US FP, try and save our own
country first? (And we wonder why the congress hasn’t the courage to
debate these issues, and the US war machine relies upon an AUMF that’s nearly two
decades old.)
Animal hoarders, it turns out, are
often isolated from their communities, and offers of help or assistance are
often viewed as a threat to the distressed animals and an insult to the
hoarder’s delusion of providing expert care. And so it is w/ the
increasingly isolated US FP establishment: Here in the US, as the NY Times reported, the vast majority
of veterans and American citizens now view the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as
wars that should have never been fought. Today, it's
lonely being an elite pushing the endless war propaganda line, on behalf of Big Oil, MIC contractors, despotic allies, and Wall Street banks (who are all too
happy to finance endless war).
And of course, these
diseases of the mind lend themselves to additional comparisons.
Like the hoarding of animals, the US empire – consisting of hundreds of military bases
around the globe, and endless regime change/nation building wars - is not only
wrong but represents the failed logic of an amoral &, perhaps, ill mind.
The
impact of US FP upon domestic & foreign lands --- the lives of innocent civilians (in the
form of collateral damage), US taxpayers & citizens faced w/ austerity, the
ever-growing national debt, and particularly, the pain suffered by US troops
and their families --- is not to be underestimated. Even if we were to stop fighting today, the
fallout from the groupthink surrounding the US foreign policy establishment
will be with us for generations to come.
US credibility in the world’s eyes takes a direct hit when our nation fights
endless wars and allow our fighting women & men to become mercenaries for
foreign governments, the MIC, US multinationals, and Big Oil.
Here,
again, we see the breakdown & erosion of our democratic values, when foreign governments, Big Oil, and the MIC lobby our government to continue to fight endless wars (that the American people, clearly, no longer want to be a part of or
anything to do with).
To put a stop to this mental illness: AUMFs should be required to be renewed &
passed by a formal congressional vote every 24 months; K-Street, foreign
governments, and the MIC should be – permanently - banned from lobbying for war
& the execution of US foreign policy in support of their interests; wars
& nation building requiring a commitment of greater than 24 months, should
be put to the vote by an international body, and funded & fought by same; and
a wedge should be driven into the revolving door between the US military brass and
the numerous commercial interests, who have much to gain by placing our
fighting women & men – and the US fiscal budget – into harm’s way.
And
finally, bringing back the draft would ensure that all stakeholders in society
have skin in the FP game. With these reforms, and others, sanity just might
return.
If congress doesn’t have the guts to vote for endless war & nation building
every 24 months – in defiance of the voters back home and our fighting women
& men – it should demonstrate to America and the world how amoral, corrupt,
and mentally unstable US FP has become.
Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2019
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