This consistent line of violence directed against the Iraqi people to achieve American political aims had been established for decades.
I think it’s time for us as Americans to start questioning the assumptions we have in war and stop placing so much faith in what war can achieve for us overseas.
Most Americans don’t even understand that war is real when they are watching it on television.
It’s very concerning because we have this very recent evidence of how hysterical and unhinged U.S. military decision-making can be.
Policymakers making assumptions about the use of military force and how quickly that military force will achieve political objectives. We’ve seen over and over again how some of these assumptions are faulty.
In the late 1930s, when my dad was working hard for low pay in a factory, he tried to enlist in the U.S. Navy. The Navy recruiter rejected him because he was roughly a half inch too short.
If war is as much a cultural construct as it is a political one, then we need to elevate these dissenters’ voices in our culture.
War with China is neither imminent nor inevitable, unless America lends too much credence to wannabe warrior-generals who profit from rampant threat inflation.
You don’t have to be antiwar to be highly suspicious of the U.S. military.
The system will not reform itself. It will always demand and take more—more money, more authority, more power. It will never be geared for peace.