Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God
By James Quinn,
a certified public accountant and a certified cash manager
TheBurningPlatform.com
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Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah!
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
 You
know civilization is in danger when I find more wisdom in
the words of Ozzy Osbourne than in the words of any elected
U.S. official. The U.S. war machine keeps turning. As we
enforce our will on foreign countries, we produce more people
who hate us. Just when you think the U.S. government is
beginning to make sense by withdrawing troops from Iraq,
they make the terrible decision to shuttle 21,000 more troops
into the Afghan calamity. At a cost of $3.2 billion per
month, we will throw another $38 billion down a rat hole
in a country that has no vital strategic importance to the
United States. Barack Obama is doing this to prove that
he is a true statesman. The Soviet Union killed over 1 million
Afghans, while driving another 5 million out of the country
and left bankrupted and defeated after ten years. Young
Americans will continue to die for who? for what? Our foreign
policy during the last eight years can be summed up in one
military term, SNAFU – Situation Normal All Fouled Up. These
foreign interventions are a smoke screen for what is really
going on in this country. When a government has unsolvable
domestic problems, they try to distract the public by creating
foreign conflicts. General Douglas MacArthur understood
the danger.
“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation;
not so much because of any threat from without, but because
of the insidious forces working from within.”
Economic Opportunity Cost
“You can't say civilization don't advance...
in every war they kill you in a new way.”
Will Rogers
Any doubt that the Military Industrial Complex is as strong
as ever should be removed after examining Obama’s 2010 budget
just put forth. It calls for 26% more in spending on Defense
than President Bush spent in 2006. The Soviet Union collapsed
in 1989, leaving the United States as the only remaining
superpower on earth. Since 1990, the United States has depleted
the U.S. Treasury of $7 trillion for spending
on Defense. With no military on earth capable of challenging
us why would there be a need to spend this much on the military?
Over this same time frame the U.S. spent $360 billion on
science, space & technology and $52 billion on energy,
a mere 6% of the spending on killing machines. Military
expenditures benefit humanity in no way. If these trillions
had been invested by the private sector or devoted to energy
and scientific research, our economy might not be a hollowed
out shell dependent on China and oil exporting countries.
Nationalists argue that the Defense industry employs millions
and benefits the country. These companies employ brilliant
engineers and scientists who spend their days developing
things that kill people more efficiently. If they had been
employed developing electric cars, solar power, wind power,
nuclear power, an efficient electric grid, infrastructure
upgrades, or finding a cure for Alzheimer’s, would the United
States be better off today?
The National Debt in 1990 was $3.2 trillion. Today, it
is $11 trillion. This is a 343% increase in nineteen years.
What benefit has $7 trillion of spending on Defense produced
for the United States or the world? In 2001, spending on
Defense was 17% of total governmental spending. In 2008,
Defense, Homeland Security, and war spending accounted for
26% of government spending. In the meantime, major cities
have had blackouts due to an overloaded electrical grid,
our 156,000 structurally deficient bridges crumble, one
hundred year old water pipes burst under our streets every
day, and we send $500 billion per year to foreign countries
for oil. The 19 terrorist hijackers who implanted their
plan with knives spent less than $500,000 to pull off their
9/11 acts of terror. The United States has spent over $1
trillion in response, without capturing the mastermind of
the attacks.
You would think we must be trying to keep up with our enemies
by spending $765 billion per year on the Military. But one
look at the following chart reveals that the United States
is spending as much as the rest of the world combined. The
two countries considered potential rivals, Russia and China,
spent $192 billion combined in 2008. This is 27% of U.S.
spending. From a foreign perspective, one must wonder why
the U.S. is spending such vast quantities on our military.
They can only conclude that it is for offensive intentions
rather than defensive. The United States soil has not been
attacked by a foreign power since December 7, 1941. Prior
to that surprise attack, a foreign power hadn’t attacked
the U.S. since the War of 1812. With this level of spending,
our leaders feel compelled to interfere in the business
of sovereign nations.
Other countries, such as China and Russia, feel they have
no choice but to increase their expenditures on the military.
On a percentage basis, they have more than doubled their
expenditures in the last ten years, and still are a drop
in the ocean compared to the American Empire spending. The
fact is that the U.S., China and Russia all have enough
nuclear weapons to obliterate the world – mutually assured
destruction. The United States could realistically protect
itself with the 18 ballistic missile nuclear submarines
that we have in commission.
The U.S. has borrowed $609 billion from China, Japan and
oil exporting countries to wage a war in Iraq that was based
on false pretenses. None of the terrorist hijackers on 9/11
were Iraqis, they had no links to Al Qaeda, and they had
no weapons of mass destruction. Historian Barbara Tuchman
described “war as the unfolding of miscalculations.” In
2002, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld estimated the costs
of the war in the range of $50 to $60 billion, a portion
of which he believed would be financed by other countries.
The United States invaded Iraq to secure the 115 billion
barrels of oil reserves, pure and simple. We’ve traded the
blood of young Americans for oil because we chose to not
develop a cohesive logical energy policy in the last 30
years. Americans, not in the military, have sacrificed nothing
in the last 7 years of war. We bought SUVs, McMansions,
flat screen HDTVs, Blackberrys, iPods, and Rolexes while
Americans died and the cost is passed to future generations.
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft
from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold
and are not clothed.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
As we spend $765 billion per year on weapons, 37 million
Americans live in poverty, with 46 million uninsured. There
are 3 to 4 million people homeless in any given year. Military
Veterans, who make up 13% of the population, account for
23% of the homeless. This is another example of government
using Americans and then tossing them away like a piece
of garbage. Now, with the recession deepening, tent cities
of homeless are popping up across the nation. We pour billions
into killing technology while American families are forced
to live on the streets.
As the world spends $1.5 trillion per year on new methods
of killing, millions die the old fashioned way.
- 13 million people per year die from starvation in the
world.
- The FAO says that 854 million people worldwide are undernourished.
- The World Bank has estimated that there were an estimated
982 million poor people in developing countries who live
on $1 a day or less.
- For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry
children could eat lunch every day for 5 years.
- Poor nutrition plays a role in at least half of the
10.9 million child deaths each year--six million deaths.
- 1 child dies every 5 seconds as a result of hunger -
700 every hour - 16 000 each day - 6 million each year
- 60% of all child deaths (2002-2008 estimates)
What kind of a civilized society allocates 44% of the taxes
taken from its people to war? Only 2.5% of your taxes go
to science, energy, and environment. Only 2.2% of your taxes
go to education and jobs. With a population of 304 million,
the U.S. spends $59 billion ($194 per person) annually on
education. Saudi Arabia, with a population of 28 million,
spends $33 billion ($1,179 per person) on education. You
produce the results that you would expect from your investments.
A full 15% of our population doesn’t have a high school
diploma (20% of African Americans & 43% of Latinos)
and only 27% have a college degree. How do we expect to
lead the world in technology and research with these figures?
Human Cost
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait till their judgment day comes, yeah!
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld were politicians
who never had the “pleasure” of coming under fire in battle.
The brilliant anti-war novel Catch-22 describes
these men perfectly.
“Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve
mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.
With Major Major it had been all three.”
The world was a huge game of Risk for
these men, with young Americans as the game pieces. Instead
of conquering Kamchatka in a board game, these three non-veterans
sent 4,261 Americans to their deaths in Iraq for a false
cause. Their neo-con ideology convinced them they could
change the world.
“In modern war... you will die like a dog for
no good reason.”
Ernest Hemingway
Another 45,583 Americans have been badly wounded in Iraq.
We’ve lost 673 more Americans in Afghanistan without coming
close to finding Osama bin Laden. These three disgraced
politicians will now write their memoirs, raking in millions
for telling lies and half truths. The 4,934 dead Americans
won’t have a chance to write their memoirs. These three
men will receive their reward on their judgment day.
As National Guard troops are deployed over and over again
to Iraq, they must realize that Catch-22 is alive and well
in today’s military.
"There was only one catch and that was
Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety
in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was
the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could
be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he
did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more
missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane
if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If
he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he
didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved
very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of
Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle."
"That's some catch, that catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed
American soldiers who have completed their duty to country
have been lied to and had the rules of the game changed
during the game. Their politician leaders have reneged on
their promises by sending men and women back to the war
zone or not letting them come home on the timeline that
was agreed to. Meanwhile, their families are going bankrupt,
losing their houses, and seeing their marriages dissolve.
Politicians started this war and are too cowardly to declare
failure.
“The military don't start wars. Politicians
start wars.”
William Westmoreland
Many more will die needlessly now that Barack Obama has
chosen to double down in Afghanistan. Another man who has
never been under fire is going to prove his manliness to
other world leaders. He should study the words of former
Presidents who have been under fire.
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived
it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility,
its stupidity.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
“My first wish is to see this plague of
mankind, war, banished from the earth.”
George Washington
President Obama follows the standard Presidential game
plan and dutifully gives patriotic speeches at a military
base proclaiming the bravery and sacrifice of our troops.
These are the words of politicians. The brutal reality for
troops is much different. Representative Ron Paul in November
2003 described the early mistreatment of our soldiers.
- Fort Stewart, Georgia, housed hundreds of injured reserve
and National Guard soldiers in deplorable conditions who
were forced to wait months just to see a doctor. These
soldiers made huge sacrifices, leaving their families
and jobs to fight in Iraq. They found themselves living
in hot, crowded, unsanitary barracks and waiting far too
long to see overworked doctors. This was hardly the heroes’
welcome they might have expected. Only an exposé in a
major newspaper brought attention to their plight, prompting
an embarrassed Defense department to rush additional doctors
to the base.
- Some wounded soldiers convalescing at Walter Reed hospital
in Washington were forced to pay for hospital meals from
their own pockets. Other soldiers returning stateside
for a two-week liberty had to buy their own airfare home
from the east coast. Still others paid for desert boots,
night vision goggles, and other military necessities with
personal funds.
- Existing federal rules forced disabled veterans to
give up their military retirement pay in order to receive
VA disability benefits. This meant that every VA disability
dollar paid to a veteran was deducted from his retirement
pay, effectively creating a “disabled veterans tax.” No
other group of federal employees is subject to this unfair
standard; in every other case disability pay is viewed
as distinct from standard retirement pay.
The Humvees that soldiers were forced to drive did not
have enough protective armor. In December 2004, Secretary
of Defense Rumsfeld was giving one of his usual inspirational
speeches when Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental
Combat Team, a unit that consisted mainly of reservists
from the Tennessee Army National Guard asked him a question:
"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills
for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass
to up-armor our vehicles?" Wilson asked, setting off
what the AP described as "a big cheer" from his
comrades in arms. Rumsfeld paused, asked Wilson to repeat
the question, then finally replied, "You go to war
with the army you have." Besides, he added, "You
can have all the armor in the world on a tank and it can
be blown up." I’m glad Donald Rumsfeld has a clear
conscience. History will not be kind to this man.
Rumsfeld also sent Americans into battle without protective
body armor. Only after bad publicity did the proper protection
reach the troops. The blood of many dead soldiers is on
Rumsfeld’s hands. While President Bush sacrificed by not
golfing, terribly wounded soldiers were sent to Walter Reed
Hospital to recover. Instead they entered hell on earth.
Outpatient mistreatment was reported in 2004, but nothing
was done. In 2004 and 2005, articles appeared in the Washington
Post and in Salon interviewing First Lt. Julian Goodrum
about his court martial for seeking medical care elsewhere
due to poor conditions at WRAMC. A Washington Post expose
in 2007 finally revealed the horrible mistreatment of our
brave wounded soldiers. These reporters uncovered the following
conditions:
- WRAMC's Building 18 is described in the article as
rat- and cockroach-infested, with stained carpets, cheap
mattresses, and black mold, with no heat and water reported
by some soldiers at the facility. The unmonitored entrance
created security problems, including reports of drug dealers
in front of the facility. Injured soldiers stated they
are forced to "pull guard duty" to obtain a
level of security.
- The typical soldier was required to file 22 documents
with eight different commands – most of them off-post
– to enter and exit the medical processing world, according
to government investigators. Sixteen different information
systems were used to process the forms, but few of them
could communicate with one another. This complicated system
has required some soldiers to prove they were in the Iraq
War or the War in Afghanistan in order to obtain medical
treatment and benefits because Walter Reed employees were
unable to locate their records.
Salon recently reported about the tremendous surge in suicides
by soldiers who have been pushed beyond their limits:
- Last year the Army had its highest suicide rate on
record -- 140 soldiers. But new data from the Army on
Wednesday showed the number jumping even higher. Forty-eight
soldiers have already killed themselves so far this year.
If that rate keeps up, nearly 225 Army soldiers will be
dead by their own hand by the end of 2009.
- Soldiers returning from long tours in Iraq or Afghanistan
suffering from combat stress were sometimes met with scorn
from their superiors and something bordering on neglect
from some medical officials. As their largely untreated
problems deteriorated, their marriages unraveled under
the strain. They turned to alcohol and drugs and in some
cases saw no other way out than suicide.
- Healthcare officials at various installations who are
struggling to help say they're overwhelmed by huge numbers
of troops returning from two, three or even four deployments
with acute mental problems from combat.
Nearly 20 percent of military service members who have
returned from Iraq and Afghanistan — 300,000 in all — report
symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder or major depression,
yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment,
according to a new RAND Corporation report. Many service
members said they do not seek treatment for psychological
illnesses because they fear it will harm their careers.
But even among those who do seek help for PTSD or major
depression, only about half receive treatment that researchers
consider "minimally adequate" for their illnesses.
For all the glory and accolades of dying for Dick Cheney,
enlisted soldiers make between $15,000 and $30,000 per year.
The military evidently does not prepare them well for the
outside world as their unemployment rate is 11.2% versus
the national rate of 8.1%. A country can be measured by
how well it treats its veterans. Our leaders talk a good
game, but their actions prove they don’t care about the
human costs of war. They are busy planning their next move
in their game of Risk.
Moral Cost
Now in darkness, world stops turning
As the war machine keeps burning
No more war pigs of the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of Judgment, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings
All right now!
Black Sabbath – War Pigs
Omar Bradley, the last five star General in the U.S. military,
was known as the “soldier’s general” during World War II.
He was portrayed by Karl Malden in the movie Patton as a
thoughtful man who cared about his troops. He was one of
the key architects of the Normandy invasion and led the
12th Army Group consisting of 900,000 men until the end
of the war. After the war, Bradley headed the Veterans Administration
for two years. He is credited with doing much to improve
its health care system and with helping veterans receive
their educational benefits under the G.I. Bill of Rights.
He ultimately rose to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Contrast
the words of the fictional Colonel Kilgore from the movie
Apocalypse Now, with the words of General
Bradley.
Kilgore: I love the smell of napalm in
the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for
12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find
one of 'em, not one stinkin' dink body. The smell, you know
that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like
[sniffing, pondering]
victory. Someday this war's gonna end...
[suddenly walks off]
“The world has achieved brilliance without
wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear
giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than
we know about peace, more about killing than we know about
living.”
Omar Bradley
We need men like Omar Bradley and Dwight D. Eisenhower
in control of our country today. These men knew the horrors
of war and didn’t act like it was a game of chess. There
are brilliant men in power today. There are no wise men
with a conscience in power today. Only those without a conscience
are able to gain power in today’s world. General Bradley
understood that morality was ultimately more important than
power and strength in the progress of a country. His words
are those of someone who knew we had failed in our moral
duty:
“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected
the Sermon on the Mount.”
- Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the
kingdom of heaven.
- Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land.
- Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted.
- Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice:
for they shall have their fill.
- Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
- Blessed are the clean of heart: for they shall see God.
- Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called
the children of God.
- Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice
sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Peacemakers are ridiculed and shunned in today’s world.
Old men who care more about their own power than the human
race are willing to sacrifice the blood of young people
for oil, phony nationalism, strategic interests or philosophical
agendas. The world is a game for these old men. They care
about legacy and ideology. War and militarism are a failure
of passion over reason. Albert Einstein, whose discovery
brought about the age of potential world destruction, had
no love for blind warriors.
“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and
file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a
large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would
suffice.”
The overwhelming cost of maintaining a global empire eventually
bankrupted Rome and Great Britain. Treasures were wasted,
young men were needlessly sacrificed in the name of the
flag, and the morality of leaders sank to unprecedented
levels. The U.S. has advanced financially and technologically,
but continues to decline morally. How far will we decline
before the American people revolt?
I’m reminded of the movie Planet of the Apes.
The apes are divided into a strict class system: the gorillas
as police, military, and hunters; the orangutans
as administrators, politicians and lawyers; and the chimpanzees
as intellectuals and scientists. Humans, who cannot talk,
are considered feral vermin and are hunted and used for
scientific experimentation. The United States is now in
the control of gorillas and orangutans. If we continue down
the current path of financial and moral decay, allowing
the Military Industrial Complex and corrupt leaders to push
us into further world conflicts we will experience the shock
and horror that George Taylor, played by Charlton Heston,
displayed in the final scene of Planet of the Apes.
George Taylor: Oh my God. I'm back.
I'm home. All the time, it was... We finally really did
it.
[screaming]
You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God
damn you all to hell!
If you are seeking the truth, join me at www.TheBurningPlatform.com.
Published - May 2009
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