America’s Long History of Bloodletting

[marmar]

from Consortium News:


America’s Long History of Bloodletting
May 30, 2013

Americans like to think of themselves as peace-loving, but their history belies that self-image. From the genocidal wars against Native Americans through the current multi-front “war on terror,” the United States has been fighting and killing for most of its history, as Lawrence Davidson notes.

By Lawrence Davidson


There is an American tradition of frequent war. Indeed, over the course of the country’s history the United States has been at war almost constantly. Some of these have been relatively short conflicts like interventions in various Central American venues. Some have been much larger and longer affairs, like the Civil War, World War II and Vietnam.

The point to be drawn from this is that the people of the United States are (perhaps unconsciously) acclimated to always being in one sort of armed conflict or another. Unfortunately, this history renders a recent public statementby the Pentagon’s general counsel, Jeb Johnson, into just a bit of fanciful idealism. He insisted “war must be regarded as a finite, extraordinary and unnatural state of affairs.” Certainly not for Americans.

With their active assumption that the U.S. represents the world’s best chance for the victory of “good” against “evil,” Americans seem willing to battle on as long as they are convinced they are winning and the casualties are low. That may be why there was no popular protest when Michael Sheehan, Obama’s assistant secretary of defense for “special operations,” told a Senate hearing that the country’s “war on terror” might last “at least 10 or 20 years” longer (it has already been going on 12 years). In the mainstream media, there was not even a noticeable raising of an anchorperson’s eyebrows!

The reason given for Sheehan’s prognosis was that al-Qaida, and its franchise allies, keep recreating themselves as fast as their alleged leaders can be droned into oblivion. Missing from the congressional and media reaction was the obvious question of “how come” such groups keep recreating themselves? .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/05/30/americas-long-history-of-bloodletting/

[orpupilofnature57]

1. Ike identified the terror in 1961

The MIC .

[malthaussen]

3. Right, and Colin Powell refined it a few years ago

... into the Terror Industrial Complex. Which you may recall made not a ripple in the US newswaves until people from Monty Python (!) brought it up in an interview.

"Out of site, out of mind." We have discovered a way to have perpetual war without paying any price in social unrest. Neat trick, that.

-- Mal

[xchrom]

2. du rec.