Day: February 19, 2021

Closing Thought–19Feb21

We have continuous wars because of one thing…..PROFIT.

But who are these profiteers?

The U.S. ruling class deploys the military for three main reasons: (1) to forcibly open up countries to foreign investment, (2) to ensure the free flow of natural resources from the global south into the hands of multinational corporations, and (3) because war is profitable. The third of these reasons, the profitability of war, is often lacking detail in analyses of U.S. imperialism: The financial industry, including investment banks and private equity firms, is an insatiable force seeking profit via military activity.

The war industry is composed of corporations that sell goods and services to the U.S. government and allied capitalist regimes around the world. Investment banks and asset management firms hold most shares of every major public war corporation.

Consider Parsons, a corporation that sells goods and services pertaining to construction, command and control, espionage, and day-to-day military operations. Parsons’ initial public offering in May 2019, valued at roughly $3 billion, earned it an industry Corporate Growth Award. The top holders of Parsons stock are investment banks and asset management firms—including the familiar Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and State Street.

Who Are the Ultimate War Profiteers? U.S. Air Force Veteran Removes the Veil

These companies own our legislative branch…..as well as our executive branch….so until this changes we can look forward war after war.

“War Is Good Business….Invest Your Children”

To resurrect an old poster from the 70s.

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Amazon Female Warriors

Did you see Wonder Woman or WW84?

Wonder Woman everybody’s favorite Amazon.

By Amazon I am talking about the warriors of legend not the rain forest or the business that is sucking the life out of local retail.

Yes the Amazons are the people of Wonder Woman….but were they real or just myth?

Were the Amazons of ancient Greek mythology — fierce female warriors said to have roamed a vast area around the Black Sea known as Scythia — real? Or were they as fictitious as other Greek myths, such as Aphrodite emerging from genitals thrown into the sea or Jason stealing a golden fleece?

Modern historians assumed that the Amazons, first documented by the poet Homer in the eighth century B.C., were fantasy. But then, in the 1990s, archaeologists began identifying ancient female skeletons buried in warrior graves in the same region.

Some skeletons were found with combat injuries, such as arrowheads embedded in their bones, and were buried with weapons that matched those held by Amazons in ancient Greek artwork, according to Adrienne Mayor, a research scholar in the classics department and History of Science Program at Stanford University. 

“Thanks to archaeology, we now know that Amazon myths, once thought to be fantasy, contain accurate details about steppe nomad women, who were the historical counterparts of mythic Amazons,” Mayor, who is also the author of “The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World” (Princeton University Press, 2014), told Live Science in an email.

These nomadic warriors were part of an ancient group of tribes known as Scythians, who were masters of horseback riding and archery. They lived across a vast territory on the Eurasian steppe, stretching from the Black Sea to China, from about 700 B.C. to A.D. 500, Mayor wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine in 2015.

The Scythians were a hard-core people; they had a reputation for drinking excessive amounts of undiluted wine (unlike the Greeks, who mixed wine with water), imbibing fermented mare’s milk and even getting high on hemp, according to The British Museum. Frozen bodies of mummified Scythians preserved in permafrost reveal they were heavily tattooed with animals, according to the museum. 

https://www.livescience.com/who-were-amazon-warriors.html

Your lesson is now complete.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Afghanistan Forever

I recently read a statement made by a NATO official when asked about a possible NATO withdrawal he said that NATO would depart when there was more stability in the country.

Seriously?

After 20 years and the Taleban controls about 52% of the country……when would this stability miraculously appear?

The SecDef made it clear that there would be NO end to our involvement.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met with NATO ministers on Thursday and discussed the war in Afghanistan and the approaching May 1st deadline for all foreign forces to leave as per the US-Taliban peace deal. While no decisions were made on the pullout, Austin assured his NATO counterparts that there will be no “hasty” end to the almost 20-year-old war.

According to a statement from the Pentagon, Austin “reassured Allies that the US would not undertake a hasty or disorderly withdrawal from Afghanistan.” He also reiterated that the Biden administration is conducting a “thorough review” of the US-Taliban agreement.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said after the meeting that no decision was made on whether or not the alliance is planning to leave before May. While NATO and the US claim the Taliban hasn’t lived up to its end of the agreement, one pledge the Taliban did stick with was not attacking the US or other coalition forces in Afghanistan.

I am sorry but there needs to be some sort of moral obligation for Biden to end this forever war…..

The U.S. is approaching its 20-year mark in the Afghan civil war. Intervening after 9/11, Washington speedily crippled al-Qaeda and ousted the Taliban. Alas, three successive administrations found it much harder to bring strong central government and Westminster-style democracy to Central Asia. So American military personnel remain on station. Like in the Hotel California, it appears that Americans can check out but never leave.

Even many hawks gave up justifying the war on humanitarian grounds, preferring to talk about the importance of staying to fight terrorism or achieve other ends. However, Ronald E. Neumann, a former US ambassador to Afghanistan, took up the challenge of justifying nation-building. He asked: “At this time, when so many young Afghans are dying to build the kind of society we preached to them, have we no moral responsibility to sustain what we helped build?”

This claim has enormous emotional appeal. But it cannot justify America’s indefinite, and likely permanent, participation in someone else’s endless (civil) war.

President Joe Biden Has a Moral Obligation To Bring America’s Troops Home from Afghanistan

When will the American people start demanding that this war comes to an end?

When will the troops become a more important part of the dialog?

Questions with few actual answers.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”