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America's Deceptive Model for Aggression
http://original.antiwar.com/Nicolas_Davies/2016/10/03/americas-deceptive-model-aggression/Date Written: 2016-10-04 Publisher: Antiwar.com Year Published: 2016 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX19940 Since NATO's 1999 war on Serbia, U.S. officials have followed a script demonizing targeted foreign leaders, calling ultimatums "diplomacy," lying about "war as a last resort" and selling aggression as humanitarianism. Abstract: - Excerpt: The US today spends more on its military than the sum of our nine closest military competitors (most of whom are US allies in any case) and more than the total military spending of 182 less militarized countries combined. ... The reason that this imbalance is so dangerous lies in the very nature of military force. Weapons of war are designed to wound, maim or kill people, not to help them in any way. Bombs and missiles do not rebuild buildings, cities or societies – they only damage or destroy them. The term "regime change" is a misnomer. Overwhelming military force does not “change” regimes -- it just destroys them. We should understand by now that when our leaders threaten to "change" a regime by military force, that will replace it only with rubble, graveyards, chaos, corruption and poverty. But this huge imbalance in military forces and expenditures creates the dangerous illusion that our leaders can threaten or use military force to reshape the world as they see fit, to solve any problem or achieve any geostrategic goal. Corporate media, from Hollywood to the New York Times, spin this military madness into a full-fledged fantasy in which a country that doesn’t even provide its own people with basic human rights like healthcare, housing or a subsistence living, and instead manages poverty with aggressive, militarized policing and mass incarceration, is cast as a global warrior for democracy and human rights. Subject Headings |