Lock The Door To Islam || Geert Wilders

[The Grand Nudger]

But my impression has changed a lot over the years. Not as far as history is concerned but as far as today's USA is concerned. From an outside perspective it looks to me as if certain interested parties are actively looking for enemies. To justify the unimaginable costs of that behemoth of an army and, of course the military industrial complex. To also justify the presence at nearly a thousand outposts around the globe.

To me it almost seems to be Orwellian.

You hardly need to look for enemies in a global world.  There is always someone, somewhere, who's interests are not aligned with your own, or whose interests are actively engaged -against- your own.  We don't -have- to justify the cost of our behemoth of an army, that's just something -you- think we'd have to do as an outsider.  It's a sacred american cow.  Both sides of the aisle (and all of their constituents) will not be seen doing anything -other- than "supporting our troops" (so long as they don't have to, you know..support our troops, lol).  That particular piece of americana doesn't require much in the way of maintenance.  We certainly don't -need- to galavant around the globe invading shit to do so...because we maintain that force -even in peacetime-.  This, too , grinds against the idea that we need to have enemeies to maintain the military industrial complex.  We don't...we'd do it anyway, we -have- done it anyway.  You could say that it became a habit.  That a half decade of cold war made up-armament the norm.  It's not a bar that we invent things to raise to, it's the ground floor.  

As to our presence in outposts.  You mean, those strips of land we rent and lease, in ally and client states, in which we amass military equipment, that the governments in question don't seem to treat as an invasion..in an effort to be certain that should a fight arise (we have alot of proxy war experience) it plays out in someone else yard?  Here again, we have no need to invent an enemy to apply this "faraway war" doctrine to....history tells us that they will present themselves with regularity.  

I;m not, in any of the above, signing off y approval on the policies.  Frankly, I come down far and away on the other side of that line.  However, when the narrative becomes that of the evil empire, an orwellian nightmare...I can't help but to suggest that this is a mis-identification.  It isn't through malice, or at the behest of the military industrial complex, or because of a need to justify this that or the other, that we do these things.

To another, related opinion of mine. I think that maybe, a government as large and faceless and as ours, with the ability to do what it can and has been doing, cannot but -help- to appear orwellian, cannot help but be perceived -as- the evil empire. There's something about a beaurocratic grinding machine that we all rail against, enough to write fiction about it in every language, for it to be a trope. Juxtapose that view of the US against the fact that we're a bunch of (mostly) chubby, jovial fuckers who like to watch people play sports and buy useless but novel shit made elsewhere for cheap. How does an army, and country, made of that, become the empire, one wonders? Proxy wars would be the easy answer...but we don;t acknowledge our involvement in proxy wars, it's not something that we wave flags for. If we did, there'd be no point in denying our involvement (however transparent that denial is). At worst, we have flawed and or incompetent people doing things, and helping others to do things that no one -supports-. That no one wants their names attached to, in an increasingly complicated world. It's more a tragedy than a story about a monster. More a collection of dolts with limited means than of totalitarian puppetmasters.

Besides, the really smart guys, candidates for puppetmaster general, they went to the military industrial complex, they aren't in public service....the pay is shit........ and that;s why our goivernment has trouble standing up to them. They're outmanouvered, and the other guys have all the talent. We -should- have put these factories in other countries, where we could proxy the shit out of them when they stepped out of line.