24 March 2011

Some thoughts on the newest War of Choice

While we are now at war, again, this time in Libya, I had a few things that I have found to be some what interesting.
The first, which I just ran across today while reading Tom Dispatch is that at first some of the senior people in the government were opposed to this war. That group included Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Chief of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mike Mullen, National Security Advisor  Thomas Donilon, and Counter terrorism chief John O. Brennan. These men were initially against any military action against Libya. At the same time, three of the biggest supporters for the current war against Libya were/are, Secretary of State Hi-Larry Clinton, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, and Senior National Security Council member Samantha Power. 
Very interesting. Now, to my thinking, if I may call it so, it strikes me that while the failed Equal Rights Amendment (the ERA) was not needed after all. We have at least three very powerful women in this administration who are as hungry for war as any man recently. See, this "equal rights" thing HAS worked out just fine in the end. YES, I was being sarcastic/snarky there. Hey, I just call them the way I see them. I have always have a "twisted" view point at times. I "see" things a bit differently, as it were. It just struck me that, indeed, women ARE as capable of war lust as any man can be.
Another "odd" take on the current goings on in the world is this; does anybody else sort of "wonder" how the war with Libya just sort of started shortly after the news started getting very bad regards the nuclear plants in Japan? Now, I do not subscribe to any of the current conspiracy theories floating around the net, but it does seem a bit "convenient", to say the least, that just as some bad news about the "spent fuel pools" and the damaged reactors was coming out, here comes a new war to distract us all.
Call it my own conspiracy if you want to, but just stop for a moment and think about it. While any war is very nasty and brutish, also, usually un-needed, this one just happens to now dominate the news here in the USA. To me, the threat of the nuclear fuel/reactors is much more a lasting long term threat to us all than any war that are currently being fought around the world.
The very fact that the "spent fuel" will be very toxic for decades, possibly hundreds of years is very concerning to all of us. Just consider the long term storage of that "spent fuel". What guarantees can we have that hundreds of years from now, the people who will be living on this planet then, will be able to read the warning signs that we post today? This is something that needs to be considered. Also, the TOTAL cost of nuclear power must be considered. That cost starts with the mining of the uranium ore and goes through the long term storage of the "spent fuel". This is always down played or ignored by the proponents nuclear power. IF the TOTAL cost of nuclear power are ever considered, it will be very clear to all that renewable energy is MUCH more cost effective. We need to start telling our representatives this truth and demand that those who favor nuclear energy must be honest about the TOTAl cost of nuclear energy.  There ARE very good alternatives to nuclear power. It is time for us all to realize this.
One further note about the Libya campaign. As of yesterday, Wednesday 23 March 2011, the US has launched 162 cruise missiles to try and "eliminate" old Gaddafi. The cost for each of these weapons is over one million dollars. That makes AT LEAST 162,000,000 plus so far in just cruise missiles alone. Yet, here at home, we have politicians telling us that we must cut back on things like education, Medicare, Medicaid, police, fire fighters, and many other needed social programs. As another quote I ran across this week, when it comes to war, we have all the money we need, when it comes to feeding the hungry, we are broke. America is on the wrong track people. It is up to us all to make our voices heard by those who supposedly represent us. We need for the protests in Wisconsin to spread over the entire country. We the people need to reclaim what is supposedly to be, government of the people, by the people, and FOR the people.
semper fi

7 comments:

gesneri said...

Seems like the administration is backpedaling now and trying to get someone, anyone, else to take over this war. Looks like that may be NATO. The administration seems to have suddenly decided that they don't want ownership of this new fiasco.

Tao Dao Man said...

The U.S. IS NATO ! ! !

This is as much about Afri/Com as it is about Sarkozy and his upcoming election.
These Neolib/Humanitarian/Interventionists are nothing more than Neocons with a little more finesse.

America is being scammed again.
Any so called liberal who backs O in this attack is a traitor to him/her/self.

charlie ehlen said...

True, NATO basically is the US. At least, what "we" want NATO to do, gets done.
France did seem to enjoy being the first to bomb Libya though. No doubt old Sarko does think(?) this will help him get re-elected in 2012. We will see how that plays out.
Gobomber sure has done his part as a Nobel Peace Prize winner, hasn't he? Some man of peace the guy is. Of course we have known for a long time that he is a fraud, just a tool of the "too big to fail" banksters and the war industries.
I want all these war lovers to have to be on the front lines of a war. Let them get to see war up close and very personal. It might just change their views on war. Maybe.

David G said...

The world is full of scams, Reality Zone. The U.S. is the best 'scammer' there is.

All that talk about bringing democracy and freedom to other nations while it was merely expanding its empire was very cunning and deceitful.

1,000 military bases gives you a lot of control especially when combined with the world's biggest army!

john francis lee said...

Full marks for noticing the evaporation of the nuclear disaster in Japan coincident with the New War in Libya, Charlie. It seems to me that a memo was sent to the media calling for 'no bad nuclear news'. I don't think that's the reason for the Libyan War, but certainly the Libyan war filled the vacuum caused when they pulled the plug on Japan's ongoing nuclear disaster. Check out

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/japa-m26.shtml

for ongoing coverage of the Japanese disaster. Apparently the NYTimes printed that it had it 'on good authority' that there was a large, long crack in the reactor vessel of reactor 3 at Fukushima I - that's the one that's running on plutonium - and that that's where the water with 11,000 times acceptable dosage came from that the new, green, low-paid, raw recruits stepped in there.

As Hirose Takashi says,

http://www.counterpunch.org/takashi03222011.html

if one of the reactors there goes into meltdown, all of them will, because the people working there will be so sick they will be unable to keep cooling them.

This is truly a disaster of the 1st order. Obama's war is 'just' another US aggression. We're all used to that by now. Right? We're all in it together... we're all war criminals.

gesneri said...

Reality Zone: If by "America is being scammed again" you mean the American public, I agree. The administration didn't want this new adventure to be seen by the American people as a third American involvement in the middle east. Having it be a NATO operation is great cover. And any "liberals" who back our President on any issue at this point are giving themselves away as being nothing more than members of his fan club.

charlie ehlen said...

Thank you all for your comments.
Reality Zone has a post showing how Ms. Maddow is supporting Gobomber and his war. She says this is "different" than the wars of Shrubbie.
Oh! Really? How so? Oh, wait, yeah, this time we are on the side of the "rebels". Big freaking deal!
It is just another damn fool war of choice. More on this soon.
Back to Japan. My new "start page" has news from the reactors. It does not look good folks. They have measured radiation levels that are very high around the complex where the damaged reactors are. Yes, there are, and will be, conflicting reports. That makes this all the harder for us to get honest news. The "media" just repeats what it is told. We need honest investigative reporting, but do not get it, yet. Only long after this is over will we start to get the real story. Yeah, when it is too late to do something.
I don't mean to be so depressing, but what is there in the "news" to be up beat about?