War is peace? To get peace we need to construct a war? Orwell's "1984"?

In today’s New York Times we learn that Congressman David Obey (D-WI) is proposing a war surtax to pay for President Obama’s Afghan War and generally speaking, will oppose the war on the House floor. That article Legislator Sees Echoes of Vietnam in Afghan War provides hope for anti-war veterans and citizens.

"The trip’s snags played out through the week and across both theaters of war. Mr. Gates found himself grounded by weather in Kabul, stood up by the prime minister in Baghdad and startled by President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, who blurted out at a palace news conference that the Afghans would not be able to pay for their own security forces until 2024.

In a related Op Ed piece called A Game That’s Not So Great we read about the political games going on between Mr. Gates and President Karzai of Afghanistan.

Here is an excerpt from Maureen Dowd’s piece:

"At a joint press conference Tuesday at the presidential palace in Kabul, Hamid Karzai surprised the usually unflappable Gates when he knocked down President Obama’s attempt to get out of Dodge.

Needling his American sugar daddy, the Afghan peacock observed: "For another 15 to 20 years, Afghanistan will not be able to sustain a force of that nature and capability with its own resources."

Gates and Obama may have wanted to "light a fire," as Gates put it, under the corrupt Afghan president and warn that the A.T.M. is closing, but Karzai called their bluff. He knows, as do the leaders in Iraq and Pakistan, that America is stuck bailing them out with billions every year, even when they dawdle, disappoint and deceive."

All I can say is to repeat what we here at VT have been saying for months: we need that money here at home, we need it badly and for many things that directly affect the well being of the American people.  This war sucks those resources away from those urgent needs.

This incredibly expensive and totally unnecessary war is being waged for the explicit benefit of the super-wealthy.  These are citizens who do not serve in the armed forces, do all that they can to escape taxes that are needed for the well being of the American people and all the while we have disaster everywhere here at home.

One out of nine Ameircan homes stands empty due to mortgage meltdown and the evictions that follow on.  We are at 10% official unemployment which translates into about 17.5% real unemployment.  Banks are making it damned near impossible to refinance mortgages because they will not loan out money despite federal bailouts.  People are hurting in the most vicious manner across a plethora of issues.  Women are homeless in the streets with children in ever growing numbers.

But we need to wage a war?  What am I missing here?  There is war money but no money to allow the average American to get his or her life back in order?  This is a menu for civil war.

Getting back to the news, we find other intersting aspects of this ongoing insanity.

Here is another Op Ed piece on defeating El Qaeda worldwide entitled To Beat Al Qaeda, Look to the East .  There are opinions everywhere. I just hope that someone actually knows what we are doing in our own government relative to this war issue. There is always a war issue, isn’t there?  Waging war to "make peace" is right out of Orwell’s writings.  It was seen as insane then, it is seen as insane now.

What the hell is happening to my country?

In this article from Time Magazine online entitled Social Science vs. The Pentagon: Should Anthropologists Go to War? we learn that (1) the U.S. Armed Forces has been embedded with social anthropoligists in the war zone for years now and that (2) professional anthropologists are protesting. Good for them.

In today’s Washington Post in a section called Obama’s War there are at least twelve articles on the American involvement in Af-Pakistan. It is a treasure trove of information for the veteran who needs to be informed on this war. That would be all of us.

To be honest, at this point, all that we have in the Afghan War Opposition Movement is words. But soon, we will find a legal, peaceful and moral way to end this thing that has real punch and a real effect. I don’t know how or where or when, but we will do it. I feel confident we can end this war that seems to make no sense on a national defense level but makes a ton of sense on the level of "patricians’ greed".

To state this bluntly, it is not moral, or ethical or perhaps even legal to kill, maim and injure working class kids and have them kill others overseas so that the American super-wealthy can become the American mega-wealthy. And that is what we are doing, there must be no doubt in your mind about that. I don’t care what government officials say in their "government speak" soundbites.

This is a war that we have constructed to keep western and central Asian natural resources out of Russian and Chinese hands at the request of the American and Western elites.

All the arguments about stopping Russian and Chinese influence in western and central Asia come down to American kids being used in wars of aggression to make American fat-cats even fatter.  It all boils down to that.  Are you aware of any American neighborhoods that are willing to sacrifice their local kids for this?  Me neither.

So far, I have not been persuaded that we are doing anything else but constructing wars for the benefit of the wealthy. This cannot be just. This cannot be right. This cannot be "peace" regardless of what the president said in Oslo last week.

This is starting to become absolutely surreal.  George Orwell would probably be sick at this point.

CWO3 Tom Barnes,USCG (Ret.)