Help! I'm weak on "Weak on defense!"

I have too many questions and "wonderings" around this subject. I could use help sorting through them.

I believe that Democrats were once criticized as the war party, which was portrayed as a bad thing. (I believe that being the war party is indeed a very bad thing, but that is not relevant to this essay.) Somehow, Republicans went from portraying the war party as being a bad thing to priding themselves upon being "strong on "defense," and champions of the U.S. military, while knocking Democratic politicians for being weak on "defense." (Foolish consistency is certainly not the hobgoblin of Republicans minds, is it? But that's also not relevant to this essay.)

It seems to me that Democrats have been the war party. IMO, Democratic CIC Wilson did not get into World War I during his first term only because he realized that the US military was nowhere near ready to fight a modern war abroad. So, he remedied all that and more during his first term and got America into the war during his second term. http://caucus99percent.com/content/presidential-elections-and-liberals-l... In any event, get America into it, he did. (I guess preparing the military for a war you need not get into at all before putting them in harm's way is preferable to the Bush Cheney Rumsfeld Rice method http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/08/rumsfeld.kuwait/index.html, but don't both suck? There I go again, being irrelevant to this essay!)

Democratic CIC FDR did something similar with respect to World War II, gearing up war production lines, first, to aid the British. Then, FDR doggedly strove to overcome the anti-war sentiment reflected in a number of Neutrality Acts passed by Congress and the America First movement. (Of course, the events of "the day that shall live in infamy" settled all that anti-war hash decisively.)

U.S. troops home from World War II had barely shaken European soil from their combat boots before Democratic CIC Truman sent them to fight in Korea. Although CIC Eisenhower began sending combat troops military advisors to Vietnam, Democratic CIC Kennedy, and certainly Democratic CIC Johnson, escalated American involvement in that country markedly.

Poppy Bush bombed Iraq (unaccompanied by McCain or the Beach Boys), but so did Clinton. Bush the Lesser went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but with the votes of most Democrats then in Congress. For his part, Obama certainly continued those wars, "surging" in Afghanistan, bouncing out of the SOFA and doing multiples of the drone killings Bush had done. And so much more! http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/14/13577464/obama-farewel...

But,what really made news? Not Obama's listing certain nations as especially dangerous as he bombed them, but Trump's proposing to vet their visitors to our shores longer than visitors from other nations. (Yes, both suck, both are probably unconstitutional without a Congressional declaration of war and yes, I am again being irrelevant to this essay.)

I do not associate any of above with being strong, but Republicans seem to. So, going by historical fact, where's the alleged "weak" in their eyes? Was it the vote against funding the Vietnam War during the Nixon administration? After all, it was Nixon who had campaigned on knowing how to end the Vietnam War "with honor," while the albatross of Johnson's Vietnam War escalation record had hung from Humphrey's neck. (Supposedly, Johnson refused Humphrey permission to distance himself from it and Humphrey, who had long desperately wanted to be POTUS, deferentially complied with Johnson's wishes. Maybe there was more to that story? Again, irrelevant to this essay!)

Did Carter's amnesty play into the narrative? How about his refusal to start World War III over the Iran hostages? IMO, that was very rational and wise; and, in light of the calumny heaped on him literally daily for it, very courageous and principled. Is there some fable that Democrats kowtow to their peace-loving "hippie" base? Because they sure don't do that.

We all know the DLC game. However, why did pre-DLC Democrats allow themselves to be portrayed, at the whim of Republicans, first, as war mongers, and then as "weak on defense?" Why do Democrats seem even to play into the "weak on defense" canard? For example, why did FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Clinton and Obama find it necessary or desirable to have Republican Secretaries of War of Secretaries of "Defense," and/or Republican National Security Advisors, sometimes even switching from a Democrat to a Republican as war seemed more likely? Anyone know if Republican Presidents since FDR have appointed Democrats to those slots?

Meanwhile, before most of them aged out of active politics, Democratic politicians who were World War II and Korean War veterans outnumbered Republican politicians who were veterans of those wars (I believe the same was true of Vietnam War veterans, but am not certain.) And many Democrats were under those heartbreaking white crosses all over the world. How, when and why did troops change from numbering many Democrats among them to being dominated by rightists? Is it only that a nation's military would typically be government's first line of defense against revolutionaries and the US mistrusts its left far more than it mistrusts its right?

Whew! I think I may finally have run out of questions, for now, anyway. Meanwhile, carnage must not go unaccompanied: Below are collections of songs from World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, respectively.

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Lookout's picture

and are like little kids...am not...am too.

I really enjoyed Chris Hedges show the other week when they discussed the start of the Spanish American war - our first colonial/imperial war (other than the one we just had completed against the indigenous peoples). (25 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA4KbyWZAxg

There was debate about becoming an imperial power, but when the Maine blew up it was sold as an act of the Spanish (not)... and so we descend into the position of developing empire.

Rethug or Democrap...same war hungry politicians owned by the same corporations. Government by Raytheon. My view anyway.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout

Smile

I wonder if gjohnsit has posted his or her take on the Spanish American War? Think I'll try a search, even though the search feature on this board is not always kind to me.

As far as Democrat v. Republican, I should have checked the war votes, at least for World Wars I and II, when we were still bothering to take war votes. (Good times!) I'm guessing the World War II vote was nearly unanimous, given Pearl Harbor.

I don't know, but I have a sneaky feeling that the reason the Korean War got dubbed the "Korean Police Action" was that Truman didn't want to pester Congress about a vote. Maybe the "Vietnam Era," too. As my essay says, Ike sent military "advisors" and the CIC probably does not need a Congressional vote to supply a nation with military advisors. (First, Truman sent money and, supposedly, only money. Geebus. Talk about mission creep.)

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earthling1's picture

@Lookout we will bomb our own troops in Syria and blame it on the Russians.
Off we go. It's becoming so predictable. The unwashed masses will line up.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

snoopydawg's picture

@Lookout
this country did so that people would get behind their wars.
Another thing I've noticed is that almost every person who has committed a terrorist attacked had been under investigation by the authorities.
The 9/11 men were known to be in the country but no one looked into them and the 28 pages backed this up.
The underwater bomber father called our government to warn them that he was going to try to set off a bomb, yet he was able to buy a one way ticket and had no luggage which was supposed to set off all kinds of alarms.
The Boston bombers had been under investigation as were many of the people in other countries who were able to commit acts of terror.
Many of us saw through their WMDs BS, but many of those same people are buying the Russian propaganda.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Strife Delivery's picture

@snoopydawg The frightening thing about your last comment there regarding WMD's is multi-faceted.

Not only were people easily misled and propagandized to believe that, they will also steadfastly tell you that each new incident is totally different from the last set of lies that they believed.

This Russian thing is so totally different from the WMD thing! Even though our intelligence agencies and government lied to us back then, it is totally different now.

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snoopydawg's picture

@Strife Delivery
I don't understand what you mean about how the Russian propaganda is different from the WMDs. In my opinion both of the reasons for the propaganda is to get people afraid of what might happen and that it's okay for the military to go to war with both countries.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg

looking at Depression glass on ebay a lot. The Maine was one of the things that made out of glass--all different colors-clear, pink, gold, blue, (radioactive) green, ruby. I believe, but am not certain, that it was originally filled with candy. Can you imagine selling kids candy in a model of the Arizona?

Okay, found it: here.

The lettering may be hard to read. It says, "Remember the Maine."

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CB's picture

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CB's picture

@HenryAWallace
genocide, slavery, fratricide, homicide and ecocide are its bloodline from its very inception to this day.

Since the last recognized 'war' in 1945 the US government has been involved in killings in 37 nations around the world. The following only brings us up to November 27th, 2015.

US Has Killed More Than 20 Million In 37 Nations Since WWII
...
This study reveals that U.S. military forces were directly responsible for about 10 to 15 million deaths during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the two Iraq Wars. The Korean War also includes Chinese deaths while the Vietnam War also includes fatalities in Cambodia and Laos.

The American public probably is not aware of these numbers and knows even less about the proxy wars for which the United States is also responsible. In the latter wars there were between nine and 14 million deaths in Afghanistan, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor, Guatemala, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sudan.

But the victims are not just from big nations or one part of the world. The remaining deaths were in smaller ones which constitute over half the total number of nations. Virtually all parts of the world have been the target of U.S. intervention.

The overall conclusion reached is that the United States most likely has been responsible since WWII for the deaths of between 20 and 30 million people in wars and conflicts scattered over the world.
...

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@CB

Killing and maiming doesn't come cheap, ya know.

It seems to be our national DNA.

And our karma.

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@HenryAWallace

Actually, I rather suspect that it comes down to US citizens being so heavily propagandized over such a long period by greedy and destructive self-interests, rather than any 'national DNA' fault or karma. Other than Nazi Germany, what other modern industrialized nation has been brainwashed with the pathological 'exceptional us' 'we're No. 1' 'manifest destiny' nonsense, as just a start?

The mere fact that so many overcome this and much of a ton of other propaganda and find ways to inform themselves more accurately than probably is even imagined by the army of professional propagandists working overtime to disinform them says differently.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Ellen North

I apologize. I could have worded that post far better than I did. My reference to national DNA and karma was not about war. The references to blood and treasure and carnage, while they certainly encompassed the wars listed in CS's posts, were not confined only to wars.

CS's post, to which I was replying, began with: genocide, slavery, fratricide, homicide and ecocide. Those things have been in the bloodline of the USA since colonial days.

We engaged in enslaving, in slavery and in genocide very early in the colonizing process--or what some members of First Nations refer to as the "infestation" by white Europeans. Both were based in racism. I saw "fratricide" as a reference to our Civil War, fought by one side to preserve slavery. We could even say ecocide began with our rejecting the ways of First Nations. Also, the Civil War gave Northerners a chance to see how much lumber they could cut in the more rural Southern states. And of course, the imperialism inherent the treatment of First Nations--and the way we've behaved vis-à-vis other nations until today.

Every nation listed in CS's post was a nation whose indigenous people are people of color and a nation as to which we have behaved imperialistically and rapaciously. And, while we no longer formally enslave workers, to this day, we exploit them as much as possible, at home and abroad. Like Romney getting all excited about Chinese workers while they were sleeping in dorms, in bunk beds three beds high, which we don't expect even a ten year-old to do; and the perimeters of the roofs of their factories had to been piled high with barbed wire to prevent worker suicides.

And, of course, the race issues within this country have long dominated US politics, one way or another, from colonial days through the 2016 primary and beyond. And, all the above, from colonizing to slavery, to imperialism, have led to great expenditures of blood and treasure, whether we are literally at war or not.

That's why CS's post prompted me to cite our national DNA and its karma. It began as soon as we hit these shores with our colonizing, imperialistic mindset and our--whatever--I don't even have a word for it--for people of other races.

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Strife Delivery's picture

Simply put, though many aspects do exist, is fear.

There seems to be this perception amongst Presidents that they utterly despise being perceived as weak. We saw this with Truman in trying to strong arm negotiations against USSR, though he was utterly ignorant on the topics he was talking about. The diplomats were disgusted by him though Truman thought he showed those Russians a thing or two.

War is strength.
Peace is weak.
That's our mantra.

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sojourns's picture

@Strife Delivery Truman blew it. What he should have done is make much needed loans to Stalin's Russia with stipulations that Russian expansion must cease and desist. That may not have worked but at the very least it would make the United States appear to be less than cruel in making the gesture. After all, Russia is responsible for winning half the war and that should have been recognized. I suppose Truman had a short guy complex.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

Strife Delivery's picture

@sojourns Well historically the Russians have often held up their end of the bargain, it is often the Americans that have a history of backing out.

Stalin had been promised by FDR that aid would come to them, particularly with an agreement that Stalin help against the Japanese. Hence, Stalin had mustered up 1.5 million men to invade Japan. That is more the reason why Japan surrendered than Truman's atomic bomb. That is historical revisionism meant to soothe our massive war crime. Japan had become accustomed to the firebombings that destroyed their towns by the Americans, so suddenly losing a town via one big bomb didn't have the effect the Americans thought it would. But the Red menace...that caused them to pause.

Regarding Stalin winning half the war, I mean, perhaps I'd argue that it was truly Stalin that won both wars. If my numbers are correct from memory here, the West for instance had killed 1 million Germans whereas Russia had killed 6 million. Russia seemed to face the brunt of the Nazi war machine and pushed it all the way back. Couple that with Japan realizing that a two-front war would be impossible, particularly that opponent being Russia itself, and thus Russia is perhaps crucial component for WW2.

As for Truman, well he was actually short too haha. Apparently his father was even a shorter man, who would often pick fights with taller men in order to puff up his ego and show the world what he could do. Thus, that behaviorism seemed to rub off on Truman, in a desperate attempt to punch higher than his weight class, often to disastrous effect.

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@Strife Delivery

into two world wars got the reputation of being weak.

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Strife Delivery's picture

@HenryAWallace I mean it may have to do with the grandstanding and saber rattling against Communism, which there were times it seemed with Dems playing the velvet glove of the iron hand vs. just the iron hand, which allowed hardliners and hawks to make them out to be weak.

Of course it is strange that during that time they didn't (and perhaps they did but it isn't something that I saw really) reference the world wars to bolster themselves up against such accusations.

I mean for instance, look at modern Republicans. We are the party of Lincoln they proudly exclaim. They'll throw that card out no problem. Of course Reagan kind of replaced Lincoln on the mantle but there are times when Lincoln gets brought up.

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@Strife Delivery

I am not so sure about the other wars.

I guess the bottom line is that the so-called two-party system stinks. And we seem to be stuck with it. Also stuck with money in politics.

Sigh.

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@Strife Delivery

After all, FDR let Stalin fight on the side of the Allies in World War II! FDR could not abide Stalin, but knew he needed him. I suppose that's why Truman felt obliged to engage us in proxy wars in Vietnam (money only, supposedly, as the French were leaving) and Korea before we had recovered from WWII. So, no one would think FDR was really in love with Communism.

Dash 1

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@HenryAWallace

Perhaps that was intended more to convince a heavily propagandized population of 'war being strength' and 'all signs of humanity or of informed consideration prior to action affecting others are weak', which - like propaganda itself - seems to have been more the Republican's purview, at least up until the Clintons?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

as being like the two sides of a single coin. Their seeming opposition conceals the truth that both are composed of the very same substance. They operate in tandem, and one could not exist without the other. Being interdependent, they share certain fundamental, mutually-reinforcing goals -- one of which is global US economic and military domination.

Taken together they form a Duopoly that represents, not primarily the people of America, but primarily Power itself: Which is to say, the ability to control the nation's principal institutions. In the USA, power is exercised mostly by controlling the distribution and flow of money among the nation's various constituencies. Both political Parties share a vested interest in maintaining a single, unified system or hierarchy by which Power is shared and alternated between the two, and only between the two of them.

War for the USA has long been primarily a projection of Power; an augmentation and expansion of American power beyond the boundaries of America itself. Both Parties are essentially in agreement that such power projection is beneficial to their own interests, and to the interests of the nation as a whole. Since both Parties see themselves (taken together) as representing the entirety of America's political will, their unanimity of opinion in this regard is assumed to legitimize any and all foreign wars that might be undertaken.

To say that US-sponsored wars in places like Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and so on are defensive in nature, is of course patently absurd. Yet this is what the American public is being told -- again and again and again -- by the leaders of both political Parties, and by the near entirety of mainstream media. To say that this apparent consensus represents collusion among powerful interests both D and R, would be a gross understatement. What it actually represents is the frightening degree of control that corporate and State interests exercise over the collective consciousness of the American body politic.

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native

@native

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@HenryAWallace

Unfortunately though, not to most of us.

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native

@native

If politicians and media convince them that a foreign nation is about to attack us with WMD, then yes. If war correspondents show the horrors of war, maybe not. If people get war weary, maybe not.

I don't believe for a second it was out of respect that the US forbade photos of coffins. It also did not allow war correspondents in Iraq or Afghanistan unless they were "embedded." By and large those wars were made invisible to us.

I remember the early days of the Iraq War--yeayyy. We toppled the statue. Then....nothing.

On Memorial Day, I turned on the Today Show, thinking they just had to cover the war that day. As the show began, I heard a copter and thought, okay, here it comes; the war in Iraq.

Turned out Matt Lauer was in the copter reporting on holiday weekend traffic! They did have a few troops speaking to their families via video or phone, but they always put a good face on it, so as not to worry their families. Besides, if they told the truth on national TV, it would be time for Code Red.

We also see from time to time some member of the military surprising his or her kids somewhere. It's insane. During World War II and Korea, they broadcast news every night and showed newreels in movie theaters. The Vietnam War was on TV at 6 pm and 11 pm, with non-news shows covering the war, too. Specials, talk shows, etc.

If we had as much anti-war propaganda as we have pro-"defense" propaganda. I think Americans would be very anti-war.

The image above is an Associated Press photograph that won the Pulitzer Prize for spot news. It was taken by Nick Ut on June 8, 1972.

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sojourns's picture

I think it was the Vietnam war that seeded the Democrats to become hawkish. Republicans were sorely peeved at the hippies and determined to do something about it after Carter. That is when the Dems began to creep to the right began to include more tolerance to not only participating but encouraging military responses beginning with minor, contrived skirmishes such as Granada; brought to you by Ronald Alzheimer's Reagan which put yet more pressure on the dems. Other things poisoned the well also, such as the Democrats never having enough money, so why not cozy up Wall Street where war can be supported indirectly? I also believe that these incidents and others during this time is what solidified the modern day duopoly.

It's a mess.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

@sojourns

When will they ever learn? (Speaking of hippies.)

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-kTXBp_2iw]

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I usually find more sanity and common sense from Daniel Larison at The American Conservative than from most so-called liberal or left-wing sites. A sample from Why War Opponents Usually Lose:

War opponents always operate with a number of disadvantages, and one of the most important of these is the lack of sufficient time to organize before the war has already begun. With the notable exception of the backlash against the proposed bombing of Syria in 2013, the U.S. often goes to war so quickly before the issue has been debated that there is never a chance to stop U.S. involvement until after the damage has already been done. In that case, the U.S. would have been at war with the Syrian government without any debate at all if the House of Commons had not recoiled from another unnecessary intervention. The lesson interventionists learned from that episode was that elected representatives should just be bypassed, and so they have been. In several recent instances, the U.S. has simply started or joined a war without authorization from Congress, and there is never an occasion when war opponents might voice their objections.

The biggest disadvantage that American war opponents may have today is that keeping out of other nations’ wars is no longer considered the normal and traditional role for the U.S. as it was a century ago. Americans that have grown up in the last three decades would have almost no memory of a time when the U.S. wasn’t actively engaged in hostilities overseas for most of their lifetimes, and few of us can recall a time when the U.S. was continuously at peace with the rest of the world for more than a decade. The extraordinary thing is that virtually every war that the U.S. has fought over the last century has been one that our government chose to fight when it didn’t have to.

I usually agree with what Larison writes; most of the other writers there, not so much.

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@PhilK

https://caucus99percent.com/content/did-obama-draw-red-line-syrian-sand-...

Ignoring the Constitution sickens me. However, I don't think it matters if war opponents have time or not. I do not think war demonstrations or speeches change a single Congressional vote. Whatever may or may not have been the case in the Sixties, they ended almost a half century ago.

I don't know much about your author, but I like what he says about obeying the Constitution. I very much do want people who have to run for office every two years to be on the hook for a war vote. However, that is all by the boards now.

As long as the POTUS checks in with the Speaker of the House, the President Pro Tem of the Senate and maybe a few other leaders, as Obama was finally forced to do about Syria, no one is going to worry about war vote. They are so inconvenient when one has to run. Look at how helping Bush lie us into war plagued poor Her both times she tried to be POTUS. No one in politics wants that.

The problem that I have with some anti-war conservatives--mostly libertarians--is that they seem to decide about war based solely on how much it costs. Then again, I suppose I don't really care why they decide against it, as long as they decide against it.

I keep saying that we--rank and file left--need to find a way to work with rank and file rightists on an issue-by-issue basis. Opposing war and holding those who foster it accountable at the polls may be an issue where common ground is possible.

BTW. I don't think giving war opponents time matters.

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@PhilK

He contributes regularly to The American Conservative. He is ex-CIA, and much better informed than most commentators.

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native

one disadvantage of war opponents is that they get killed or imprisoned if they begin to have influence.

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bygorry

@bygorry

one has figured out how to make money from peace. There is money to be made from fear, from war, from "peace process."

When someone figures out how to get rich on peace, we might have peace. Until then, we're going to be fear-mongering, very strong on "defense," nationalistic and very proud of our military, especially if they don't become veterans that we have to take care of in VA hospitals or pay benefits to.

Parson my cynicism, but ""No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up." Lily Tomlin

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snoopydawg's picture

Just like Obama was able to hide behind the republicans obstructing his legislation which is repeatedly stated over and over, the democrats hide behind We don't want to look weak to the rest of the country when it comes to wars. Just another smoke screen.
Just like Obama could have passed his agendas during the first two years of his presidency when the democrats had the majority if he would have come down harder on the blue dogs, the democrats had the power to cut the funding for the illegal wars after they were the majority party in 2006 which they ran on doing.

As for the Russian interfered with the election bullshit and that members of Trump's cabinet met with Russian officials, it's another propaganda false story to get people to believe that the war with Russia is justified. They don't care that the war had been planned long before Russia interfered with the election.

Over at DK which I'm calling the New Red State, they are believing everything that the intelligent agencies say, just like Red State believed the WMDs false stories.
I can't believe that this was written on that site.

The intelligence community is made up of some of the most dedicated civil servants out there; they work almost exclusively to protect the country and its citizens, they do it proudly, yet receive little to no recognition for it.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg

that rarely, if ever, are they fought for the reasons people believe they are being be fought for. The DKos loyalists resemble nothing so much as a flock of sheep, spray-painted orange and oblivious to its eventual destination.

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native

snoopydawg's picture

@native
administration. This article explains how some of the members of Reagan were responsible for creating psyops for the purpose of getting people to agree to their wars that were started on false pretenses and as you stated, not for the reasons people were told
. https://consortiumnews.com/2017/03/25/how-us-flooded-the-world-with-psyops/
It's a long read and there are a lot of people who were involved with it.
I read an article about how Roosevelt was aware of the Nazi camps in Germany before the Pearl Harbor attack happened and that he turned away boatloads of Jews who had fled Germany and other countries.
He was also aware that Japan was going to attack Pearl Harbor and that was why he moved the newer ships out and away from danger. He left the people behind so when Japan did attack, there would be enough casualties for people to want revenge and willingly sign up for the military. How many times has this country done those things?
lol on your description of the people on DK. What is left after the migration is a lot of Orange Sheep or Orange Parrots because it is an echo chamber.
I read a few articles there and wonder how many times did I do the same things.

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@native

Remember the Maine!s

Remember the Lusitania!

Remember the Arizona!

Seems as though once planes pretty much replaced ships, we skipped the slogans and just slogged through Korea, Vietnam, Laos, etc. And now, the hot messes in the Middle East that we barely mention.

Quick! Look over here (but not so closely that you discern the smoke and mirrors)! Russia gave us accurate information about a candidate for POTUS!

It's an act of war, I tells ya! Call Blackwater, right mucking now!

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@snoopydawg

He took the fall because he was an indie by then and on his way out anyway. No Democrat could be blamed.

In reality, Rahm and Obama had settled the structure of that bill with industry lobbyists--individual and employer mandates, no drug re-importation, no strong public option, no meaningful controls on medical costs or on insurance costs. A health insurance bailout bill masquerading as a health care bill. The only truthful part of the ACA's name was "Act." It was not affordable care. Helluva act, though. (Barump bum)

Why would Obama rein in blue dogs? The "pragmatic" Third Way has a lot more in common with, and solicitation for, the blue dogs than with the left. And they enable people like Obama and Hillary to call themselves progressives because, oh, shucks, if it isn't Republicans foiling all their wonderful intentions, it's the blue dogs foiling them. If only they had free reign rein, everyone's life would be all ice cream, puppies and rainbows.

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... For example, why did FDR, Truman, Kennedy, Clinton and Obama find it necessary or desirable to have Republican Secretaries of War of Secretaries of "Defense," and/or Republican National Security Advisors, sometimes even switching from a Democrat to a Republican as war seemed more likely? Anyone know if Republican Presidents since FDR have appointed Democrats to those slots? ...

Orders from TPTB making offers they either couldn't or didn't want to refuse?

Edit: or maybe (im)plausible deniability, hoping people would think it was those pesky Republicans (the Dem put into position to do whatever) getting all bloodthirsty, not those naive but charming Good Cops Dems?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.