Peace Is Not An Option (In A For-Profit World)

Peace Is Not An Option 
(In A For-Profit World)

by C.A. Matthews

I'm fighting a war for peace. --John Lennon

I'm always amazed at how short human memory can be. Dozens of progressive pundits and journalists such as Lee Camp and Jimmy Dore immediately noted the similarities in our pattern of action. Heck, even Tucker Carlson of the Fox News channel and Libertarian-Republican Sen. Rand Paul labeled it as a "false flag" event. When both the left and the right agree on something, you know there's gotta be some truth in it.

Here's the pattern--Step one: Plant a false flag, a fake shocking/horrific image planted into the minds of the American public. The recent go-to false flag seems to be gas/chemical attacks against civilians (particularly children). Step two: Parade this false flag on all mainstream media outlets over and over again, burning the horrible image into said public's mind. Step three: Have the president say the US government is justified in dropping bombs and starting a war against said country for said heinous crime.

Mission accomplished! We are now at war with another country and its allies, and we can drop bomb after bomb, missile after missile, and then add a little drone warfare and/or physical invasion until we get our oil access--I mean, we have saved the innocent gassed civilians (or "incubator babies killed by Saddam Hussein") from their evil, despotic regime.

The name of the country and president can change from the George Bushes in Iraq/Kuwait to Barrack Obama in Afghanistan/Yemen to Donald Trump in Syria. The names of the presidents and countries are immaterial. Our heroes of the American Military Machine are always ready to come to the rescue of "democracy" and install a puppet-dictator government loyal to us "friendly, democracy-loving" Americans. Huzzah!

If both right and left-wing journalists and politicians haven't caught on to this

pattern of false flags, deceit and violence by now, they're probably dumber than a box of rocks, or (much more likely) they're making a mint of money from their Raytheon and Boeing stocks.

While there's no excuse for Trump's latest escapade in Syria, there was no excuse for the Bushes' or Obama's "feed the hungry military-industrial complex" actions, either. It's more of the same, and it's high time We the People spoke up and demanded those in authority put an end to this charade of making unethical excuses to bomb other countries for their resources.

Peace is not seen as an option in our for-profit world. Our nation's soul is bought for with the blood of innocents worldwide as well as the innocence of the American public duped into supporting these immoral excursions. These murderous lies generate trillions of dollars in profits for the robber barons of the International Military-Industrial Complex. Perpetual war makes the capitalistic economy go round and around and around until we're all dizzy from the sheer inhumanity of it all.

Is there anything We the People can do to shut down this all-consuming greed and senseless violence? Perhaps the only thing we can do is to get off the merry-go-round of our capitalist economy and shut it down entirely. We must make warfare unprofitable. 

How? We can use the tried and true methods of the BDS movement--boycott, divest and sanction. For instance, we can divest our savings from banks that deal with arms manufacturers and stop using fossil fuel-powered vehicles. We can ask for sanctions against countries that seem hell-bent on keeping the MIC alive and well, but that would be primarily the USA and its NATO allies. Would We the People be willing to suffer sanctions for the sins of our war-mongering leaders?

Of course, the bomb-building billionaires will find a way to keep their heads above water and their factories pumping out weapons of moderate and mass destruction (that actually exist). The one-percenters will convince their employees that it's the only way for workers to keep a roof over their families' heads and food in their stomachs. Haven't we seen enough of this scare tactic by the NRA? "Making guns creates jobs. More guns equals more wealth for the peasants. Who really cares about gun deaths, especially of the poor, persons of color, or uppity women and children? It's all about the money--uh, we mean freedom and the right to bear arms!"

Short of a massive spiritual revival and a return to clear-headed thinking in this country, the Military-Industrial Complex will continue to manufacture death and insist that it doesn't go stale sitting on a shelf in a warehouse. After all, weapons were meant to be used and not simply stockpiled. Thanks to our paid-off mainstream media outlets, ordinary Americans will continue to fall for false flag ruses to use these instruments of terror against other human beings for the sake of filling the one-percent terrorists' bank accounts with even more blood money.

Until We the People make the entire notion of war unprofitable and

unfashionable the fashion of the day will remain camouflage and khaki--or anything that hides blood stains. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a general in the US Army and leader of the Allied Forces in WWII, no less, warned us about the dangers of the military-industrial complex in his farewell address. It's high time we heed his words.

More insights and memes on the US strike on Syria--
Raytheon Stock Skyrockets with Tomahawk Airstrikes:
http://fortune.com/2017/04/07/syria-airstrikes-tomahawk-missile-boeing-raytheon-stock/

There's a Good Chance We're Being Lied to About the Chemical Attack in Syria:
http://theantimedia.com/syria-chemical-weapons-attack-lied/

From the Associated Press earlier in the year -- US has no evidence of Syrian use of Sarin gas, Mattis says:
https://apnews.com/bd533182b7f244a4b771c73a0b601ec5

Canadian journalist David Doel makes some very strong points on The Rational National--U.S. Makes Outrageous Claims Following Strike on Syria:
https://youtu.be/JHtkf6YdoXw

7 Questions About the Syria Airstrikes That Aren't Being Asked: https://ourfuture.org/20180416/7-questions-about-the-syria-airstrikes-that-arent-being-asked
 
Tim Black TV --Trump is Making Money for the Military Industrial Complex
https://youtu.be/HF0AI4ixduk
Oil pipelines the world over are a source of conflict. Big Oil wants them, and it's not afraid to gas civilians to get them. Remember Standing Rock?

https://www.ecowatch.com/syria-another-pipeline-war-1882180532.html

Trump tweet from August 30, 2013:  "The president must have Congressional approval before attacking Syria--big mistake if he does not!" 

Has the military-industrial complex convinced Trump otherwise and made him change his stance from  five years ago? What did they promise him in return?

"[Assad] may be a tyrant, but he's not an idiot. The US leaving his country is good for him, and a gas attack prevents the US exit," says Steve Cox.  Lee Camp points out the false flag  and the likely cover story mere days before the actual bombing of Syria in the following short video:

 
"Empathy doesn't pay very well." -- Lee Camp

https://youtu.be/reuQAoXM8bE
Straight up facts about the Syria strikes with Lee and journalist Max Blumenthal.

From The Humanist Report-- In spite of what he said in 2013, Trump now says targeting civilians is a good thing:
   
https://youtu.be/XVeFJMD5hbw 

And now, we take a hard look at the numbers behind our MIC...

Boondoggle and Bloodletting
by Coast Watcher

In November ten years ago the US Navy commissioned what it hoped was the first of fifty-five new Littoral Combat Ships (LCS), shallow-draft vessels specifically designed to fight in coastal waters such as those in the Arabian Gulf. Intended as a versatile all-singing, all-dancing warship, it turned out to be tone deaf with two left feet. Plagued by systemic failures, the program was cut to thirty-two hulls.

Of the eleven ships completed so far, the first four were relegated to undeployable training duties, others as test beds for new weapon systems – which have not made much progress. The whole program also resulted in a hot mess of problems arising from the deployment of personnel. To quote USNI News' Megan Eckstein:

Within each division, the first ship has a more experienced crew that is responsible for training and certifying the rest of the crews, and the other three ships are deployable assets. Due to this model, not only does the deployable ship have to be in the water and ready for operations, but so does the training ship.

Senator John McCain (R-AZ) cited the LCS as an example of botched contracting, driving up costs unnecessarily. Shipbuilding politics and the need to protect a diversified industrial shipbuilding base are some of the main arguments as to why the program still exists. At the cost of $220 million each, the LCS has already cost over $2.42 billion. It's no wonder that the LCS class was nicknamed "Little Crappy Ship."

The Navy recently announced it may not deploy any LCS this year, citing "a confluence of maintenance availabilities." Last year they effectively admitted the LCS program is a bust when they issued a requirement for a new guided missile frigate.

So, what else could've been bought with that cash? To renovate or build a new high school averages around $110 million. That's two new or refurbished schools for the cost of just one of the eleven LCS delivered so far. A new hospital costs between $800 million and $1.3 billion. That's two major medical facilities for the equivalent cost of those eleven ships.

Instead of adding more war material to the general bloodletting going on in the Middle East, why doesn't the US government put the money toward building facilities that actually help the citizens it's there to serve? With a military machine already twice the size of all other national military forces in the world, it would hardly weaken the might of the United States to do so.

Related articles:
https://news.usni.org/2018/04/11/navy-may-not-deploy-littoral-combat-ships-year

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/20088/little-crappy-ship-none-of-the-navys-littoral-combat-ships-may-deploy-in-2018?xid=fbshare

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Littoral_combat_ship#Budget_overruns_and_deployments

http://www.wcsdbuilding.com/how-much-do-new-schools-cost/

https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-it-cost-to-build-a-hospital

https://www.johnlaurits.com/2018/cost-of-tomahawk-missiles-trump-strikes-damascus/

BIO: Coast Watcher is tallying the numbers, and they're not adding up. Our governments are spending time and wealth on endless wars for oil instead of helping human beings. It's time We the People speak out and stop the insanity. #NoMoreWar #HandsOffSyria

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