Seymour Hersh on Obama Being "Dominated" by the Military "

[Mari333]

Run time: 02:18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rHJQNC8Dc0   Posted on YouTube: May 09, 2010 By YouTube Member: mmflint Views on YouTube: 497   Posted on DU: May 09, 2010 By DU Member: Mari333 Views on DU: 1326

 

[ananda]

1. If you don't think the military-industrial complex is out of control...

... go visit Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.

Everything is expanding, including the hospital
and wounded soldier services.

It's utterly disgusting.

[Mari333]

2. not a peep from the blacked out corporate media, of course.

[ixion]

3. Of course not... they're too busy giving face time to teabaggers

and doing their job: supporting the desires (and the desired narrative) of the MIC and Big Business.

[Merlot]

5. How is the hospital and the wounded soldier services being expanded

disgusting? No matter what you think of the war, the truth is that wounded vets are going to need care LONG after this war is over (if it's ever over).

[JohnyCanuck]

4. Quote from interview with author Chalmers Johnson.

One of my four “sorrows of empire” at the end of the book is bankruptcy. The military is not productive. They do provide certain kinds of jobs, as you discover in the United States whenever you try and close a military base—no matter how con servative or liberal your congressional representatives are, they will go mad to try and keep it open, keep it functioning. And the military-industrial complex is very clever in making sure that the building of a B-2 bomber is spread around the country; it is not all located at Northrop in El Segundo, California.

I have grave difficulty believing that that any president can bring under control the Pentagon, the secret intelligence agencies, the military-industrial complex. The Department of Defense is not, today, a department of defense. It’s an alternative seat of government on the south bank of the Potomac River. And, typical of militarism, it’s expanding into many, many other areas in our life that we have, in our traditional political philosophy, reserved for civilians. domestic policing: they’re slowly expanding into that.

http://www.counterpunch.org/kreisler05062010.html

[eridani]

6. Transcript

http://readersupportednews.com/off-site-news-section/47-47/1906-seymour-hersh-obama-being-qdominatedq-by-the-us-military

REPORTER: You didn't include Obama in your list of liar presidents. I'm wondering if you would include him also?

HERSH: To use a basketball or a football analogy, American football, fourth quarter – he may have a game plan. At this point he's in real trouble. Because the military are dominating him on the important issues of the world: Iraq, Iran, Afghan and Pakistan. And he's following the policies of Bush and Cheney almost to a fare-thee-well. He talks differently. And he's much brighter, he's much more of the world. So one only hopes he has a game plan that will include doing something, but he's in real trouble, in terms of – he's in real trouble.

In Iraq I don't have to tell anybody the prospects – in the American press they never mention Moqtada Sadr, but look out. He's going to be the kingmaker of that country. He's now studying in Iran. And he's going to be the next ayatollah-to-be. I don't know how he'll work it out with Sistani. But he's going to be the force, the Shia. And so this is going to be very complicated for us because the two men we talk about, Allawi and Maliki, have about as much to do with the average Iraqi – they're both ex-pats. Allawi, let's see, he was certainly an American agent and a British agent, the MI-6, the CIA, the Jordanians ran him probably for Mossad. I'm not telling you anything that is not a fact. So who knows?

So Iraq is very problematical. There's going to be much more violence. Whether it's civil war or not it's going to be much more violence.

He's never going to win, whatever that means, in Afghanistan. The only solution in Afghanistan is a settlement with the Taliban. And the only person to settle with is Mullah Omar, and he's become another Hitler to the American public. So how we're going to do that and survive politically?

And the same in Pakistan. He's got the wrong policy there. So it is – and again for Obama, Iran's not resolved, in terms of, the Iranians have come out of this crisis stronger than ever. We don't want to believe that

[wurzel]

7. Thanks. n/t