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Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

PEACE THROUGH WAR

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Cross posted at the Progressive Zionist (www.progressivezionist.com)

Hat Tip to Jed Lewiston and his Front Page Diary at Daily Kos: Remember when Paul Ryan blamed the attack in Benghazi on the sequester?

In reading Jed’s diary something struck me in one of Paul Ryans quotes:

We should always stand up for peace, for democracy, for individual rights.

Ok… on it’s own sounds fine.

Then Ryan goes on to say:

And we should not be imposing these devastating defense cuts, because what that does when we equivocate on our values, when we show that we’re cutting down on defense, it makes us more weak. It projects weakness. And when we look weak, our adversaries are much more willing to test us.

And this is where Ryan channels Big Brother. Allow me quote from George Orwell’s Masterpiece 1984:

WAR IS PEACE

So… what Ryan here is directly saying is… (In my words): “Let’s stand for PEACE and the way we stand for PEACE is to build up our WAR machine to a point where no one will be able to challenge us, because if they do, we will utterly destroy them.”

Now, aside from the facts that Guerilla movements in SouthEastern and Central Asia give lie to his commentary (after all, we outgunned the Viet Cong and Taliban 10,000 to one and we were able to wreck complete destruction upon their relative nations and yet that didn’t stop them). This is a dangerous fallacy that has infected the American Polity in a number of ways.

OH, and before we go on I want to make it clear that I am not an isolationist, I am not a Green, and I have no issue with the United States having a presence around the Globe (though I am certainly not a supporter of “Empire Building”). Further, I fully support the notion that the U.S. and our allies should have what I term a “Stout Defense”. But, that said, I also support an honest commentary on what that means and NOT use of Orwellian terminology to create a false meme.

But here… Here is a chart of our Defense Spending relative to the rest of the world

1. United States          711.0    

2. China                  143.0    

3. Russia                  71.9

4. United Kingdom          62.7

5. France                  62.5

6. Japan                   59.3

Now, notice… IF the U.S. Cut it’s military spending by over $ 400 BILLION per year. That’s right… you saw it $ 400 BILLION PER YEAR, we would STILL outspend the next five countries on the list added up together.

Let’s break that down even further. IF we cut our Defense budget by $ 500 Billion for one year we would still almost outspend our main rivals Russia and China together (they would have us by $ 3 billion).

NOW, does anyone in their right mind think that Al Qaeda for one second looks at our defense spending and says: “HOHOHO America cut it’s spending – well they must be weak” and further does anyone even further out really think that our main allies, Britain, France, Israel, Australia, etc… think that we are somehow “weak” even though we are outspending the next five nations (Nations 3 2-#6) collectively???

No.. What this is, is a blatant Orwellian Chant of “War is Peace”, “We destroyed that village to save the village”.

Paul Ryan’s words are hypocritical. His party stands firmly against Democracy (look at his party’s efforts to not count the popular vote), his party party stands firmly against individual rights (Marriage Equality, voting rights, civil rights). Ryan talks about Peace but in this, he is only talking about the Peace that comes from utter destruction left in the wake of War.


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/ 10 Comments

10 comments

  1. Mets102

    and I would listen to the generals and other experts as to what is necessary to maintain our global presence and deterrence.  Of course, that said, no matter how much the US and Russia spend, we’re each going to have the ability to destroy the world many times over as the ultimate deterrent.

    And, yes, Paul Ryan, like pretty much every other Republican, is for that ‘War is Peace’ crap.  Remember, after all, the whole basis of Bush foreign policy is that we would make allies through war.  All we had to do was march in, we’d be greeted as liberators and showered with flowers.

  3. Wee Mama

    more interesting and in the long run more enduring than waging war. We just need to keep pushing in that direction and reminding people of how well the Marshall Plan worked (as just one example).

  4. HappyinVT

    spending in any proposed “spending cuts,” we know they aren’t serious.

    I’ve long wondered why, given how quickly non-defense factories transformed for WWII, no one has suggested that defense contractors are now given incentives to retool for civilian uses (say, alternative fuel sources).  We’re kidding ourselves that we aren’t getting our asses kicked in a lot of areas of product design/manufacturing.

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