{"id":263390,"date":"2024-06-03T12:01:44","date_gmt":"2024-06-03T11:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=263390"},"modified":"2024-05-31T06:36:45","modified_gmt":"2024-05-31T05:36:45","slug":"if-the-wars-go-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/06\/if-the-wars-go-on\/","title":{"rendered":"If The Wars Go On"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Ed Curtin<\/p><\/div>\n

30 May 2024 <\/em>– I suppose my title could have been couched in the singular form, as Hermann Hesse, the Nobel Prize winning German\/Swiss author, did with his collection of anti-war essays about World War I (the war to end all wars that didn\u2019t), If The War Goes On . . . \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Or more appropriately, I might have eliminated that conditional \u201cIf\u201d since it seems Pollyannish.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a long hard road, this anti-war business.\u00a0 During the first Cold War and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis in the early sixties when Kennedy and Khrushchev narrowly avoided blowing the world to smithereens, Bob Dylan put it right in his fierce song, Masters of War<\/a>:<\/p>\n

(Verse 1)<\/p>\n

Come, you masters of war
\nYou that build the big guns
\nYou that build the death planes
\nYou that build all the bombs
\nYou that hide behind walls
\nYou that hide behind desks
\nI just want you to know
\n<\/strong>I can see through your masks<\/p>\n

(Verse 3)<\/p>\n

Like Judas of old
\nYou lie and deceive
\nA world war can be won
\nYou want me to believe
\nBut I see through your eyes
\nAnd I see through your brain
\nLike I see through the water
\nThat runs down my drain<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed there is a<\/strong> system<\/strong> of war<\/a> that guarantees that the various wars go on and on ad infinitum, and they are linked.\u00a0 It is why the warfare state has killed our anti-war leaders, first and foremost JFK for turning against war in the last year of his presidency. \u00a0Then in 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy in quick succession. \u00a0It is why if you dare to look around the world today, you will see that there is a series of wars happening, not only in the obvious places like Ukraine and Gaza, but in places that you may never have heard of, and if you peek a bit further into their causes, you will discover that a familiar culprit with 750 plus military bases around the world<\/strong><\/a> has its hand in most of them \u2013 the United States of America.<\/p>\n

These wars have their cold and hot phases.\u00a0 There are days when the corporate media let them sleep and other times when the same media wake them a bit, but never enough to wake their readers up to the reality of the deadly game.\u00a0 That is the media\u2019s job as stenographers for the warfare state. \u00a0Wars being essentially the health of the state, as Randolph Bourne wrote<\/a> long ago, they provide vast profits for the military-industrial complex\/Wall St., whether they are in preparation or in operation, awake or asleep, hot or cold.\u00a0 Ray McGovern, the former CIA analyst with a moral conscience, has aptly named this vast interlocking propaganda apparatus the military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think-tank complex, MICIMATT.\u00a0 It is a complex that blatantly serves the interests of the masters of war who \u201cain\u2019t worth the blood\/that runs in [their] your veins,\u201d in Dylan\u2019s words.<\/p>\n

The preparation for war is war.\u00a0 What is prepared must be used up, so other weapons can be prepared to be used up, so other weapons can be prepared to be used up, and on and on until one day no one is left to use anything, for the world will be used up in a nuclear conflagration.\u00a0 These weapons are produced in nice clean factories that pay good wages to people who take their pay and go their way, giving their souls to the killers.\u00a0 For the U.S. economy is built on the waging of wars so continuous that it is nearly impossible to find a break between its hot and cold phases, or what seems like decent employment and the diabolic.\u00a0 They are so intertwined.\u00a0 It is a system of capitalistic finance, a revolutionary system that builds to destroy.<\/p>\n

The U.S spends nearly $900 \u00a0billion dollars annually on \u201cdefense\u201d spending; this is more than China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, the U.K., Germany, France, South Korea, and Japan combined.\u00a0 The U.S.A. is a warfare state; it\u2019s as simple as that.\u00a0 And whether they choose to be aware of it or not, the vast majority of Americans support this killing machine by their insouciance and silence.\u00a0 That their country is spending up to 2 trillion dollars on modernizing its nuclear weapons<\/a> disturbs them \u00a0not.\u00a0 It is a death cult.\u00a0 Some \u2013 as I myself have done mistakenly \u2013 talk about the \u201cdeep state\u201d or some other deceptive phrase that conceals the truth that the official state is the \u201cdeep state.\u201d\u00a0 It stares us in the face, but many refuse to stare it back down.\u00a0 It is too obvious, standing, as it does, in the way of a life of illusions.<\/p>\n

And what is equally apparent today \u2013 or should be if one is not asleep \u2013 is that because of the war policies of the U.S., the chances of another world war and the use of nuclear weapons is rising by the day.\u00a0 Despite all its denials to the contrary, the US\/NATO is pushing for open warfare with Russia that will involve the use of nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

Our masters of war are pushing us toward a nuclear abyss.<\/p>\n

In a recent perceptive article, \u201cRussia and China Have Had Enough,\u201d<\/a> Pepe Escobar writes truths many prefer not to hear.\u00a0 That there is no split between Russia and China but the opposite \u2013 a rock solid Russia-China strategic partnership and a determination to oppose and defeat the U.S.\/UK\/NATO hybrid war tactics across Eurasia and the Middle East.\u00a0 That the more these U.S.-led forces attempt to destroy Russia, the more the expanding alliances involved in the Shanghai Cooperative Agreement (SCO) and the expanding BRICS partnerships of emerging economies (originally just Brazil, Russia, India, and then South Africa; now also Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, with many more countries waiting to join) will gain in power.\u00a0 In Escobar\u2019s words, \u201c. . . the Global Majority is on the move: Russia is closely cooperating, increasingly, with scores of nations in West Asia, wider Asia, Africa and Latin America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite this fact, the United States and its allies blithely continue as if their control of the world order is secure.\u00a0 That they can butcher and badger the world into submission.\u00a0 The insane are usually deluded, but when they control nuclear weapons, the people of the world need to awaken.<\/p>\n

Ray McGovern, a Russia expert, (see raymcgovern.com<\/a>) has echoed Escobar on the absurdity of the Russian China split; has emphasized how Israel\u2019s genocide of the Palestinians has made it an isolated but desperate pariah state; and how the U.S. war against Russia in Ukraine is leading to the increased use of \u00a0U.S. tactical nuclear weapons that could lead to full-scale nuclear war.\u00a0 He is not alone in this warning.<\/p>\n

There are many signs that we are moving toward a nuclear war with calls for U.S.\/NATO to support more strikes inside<\/strong> Russia, crossing a very dangerous Russian red line. \u00a0Russia has made it very clear they will respond.\u00a0 As politicians of various stripes \u2013 French President Macron, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, et al. have ecstatically been urging the Biden administration, who needs no urging, to escalate the war in Ukraine by attacking Russia proper (\u201cThe time has come for allies to consider whether they should lift some of the restrictions they have put on the use of weapons they have donated to Ukraine,\u201d Stoltenberg told The Economist<\/em>.<\/a>), Mike Whitney has written about a recent such attack that should send chills down everyone\u2019s spines \u2013 \u00a0\u201cWashington Attacks Key Elements of Russia\u2019s Nuclear Umbrella Threatening Entire Global Security Architecture.\u201d<\/a> \u2013 but \u00a0since the corporate media ignore it, most will dream away and get their barbecues ready for Fourth of July celebrations.\u00a0 They and the flag-dressed Dolly Parton can sing<\/a> all they want about when Johnny comes marching home again, but Dolly and no one will be jolly if there are no homes to march to, no Johnnies marching anywhere but to death, no anything.\u00a0 Just a wasteland.<\/p>\n

Michel Chossudovsky, Ray McGovern, Eva Bartlett, Craig Murray, Patrick Lawrence, Vanessa Beeley, Pepe Escobar, Oliver Stone, Andrew Napolitano, Craig Paul Roberts, Scott Ritter, Chris Hedges, Alastair Crooke, Caitlin Johnstone, Peter Koenig, Finian Cunningham, Diana Johnstone, Lew Rockwell, and so many other sane but marginalized writers whose names I am omitting as I write quickly, are warning us of our closeness to nuclear annihilation.\u00a0 Cassandras all, I fear.\u00a0 Marginalized prophets such as writer and antinuclear activist James W. Douglass (Lightning East to West, JFK and the Unspeakable,<\/em> etc.) have been issuing such warnings for decades.\u00a0 It is understandable that so many turn away from such warnings, for the thought of a nuclear war induces deep anxiety hard to control.\u00a0 But unless the vast majority can break through such reticence and see through the official propaganda, the world will be destroyed by madmen sooner or later.\u00a0 The signs today all point to sooner, for we are on the edge of the abyss.<\/p>\n

Former British diplomat Alistair Crooke, in a recent article \u2013 The brink of dissolution: Neurosis in the West as the levee breaks<\/em><\/a> \u2013 writes about how the Biden administration\u2019s policy toward Russia-China, not to say Israel-Palestine, being nothing more than more of the same, is stupid, self-defeating, and very dangerous.\u00a0 Rather than accepting that its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is a disaster, the U.S. is escalating the conflict to a terrifying level.\u00a0 Rather than accepting the obvious deep alliance between China and Russian exemplified in the recent hug between Putin and Xi and their joint 8,000 word joint statement, Biden has said, \u201cRussia is in a very, very difficult spot right now. They are being squeezed by China.\u201d\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t get any stupider. \u00a0But when more of the same doesn\u2019t work and you can\u2019t accept the reality of a changing world order, you do more of the same.\u00a0 Crooke, writes:<\/em><\/p>\n

The paradox is that Team Biden \u2013 wholly inadvertently \u2013 is midwifing the birth of a \u2018new world\u2019. It is doing so by dint of its crude opposition to parturition. The more the western \u00e9lites push against the birthing \u2013 through \u2018saving Zionism\u2019; \u2018saving European <\/em>Ukraine\u2019 and by crushing dissent \u2013 perversely they accelerate the foundering of Leviathan.<\/p>\n

President Xi\u2019s double farewell hug for President Putin following their 16-17 May summit nonetheless sealed the birth \u2013 even the New York Times,<\/em> with customary self-absorption, termed the warm embrace by Xi as \u2018defiance of the West\u2019.<\/p>\n

The root of the coming dissolution stems precisely from the shortcoming that the NY Times<\/em> headline encapsulates in its disdainful labelling of the seismic shift as base anti-westernism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More of the same, yes, that is Biden\u2019s approach, inflamed regularly by the anti-Russian hatred spewed by The<\/em> New York Times<\/em> and its ilk.\u00a0 It is an obsession bordering on full-fledged madness, yet it is integral to the belief that the U.S. is an empire and will remain one while the rest of the world can go to hell.\u00a0 Such a mindset is behind the U.S.\u2019s abrogating all the nuclear weapons treaties that provided a semblance of security that nuclear weapons would not be used.<\/p>\n

Crooke ends his piece with these sobering words:<\/p>\n

Put plainly, with the U.S. unable to exit or to moderate its determination to preserve its hegemony, Lavrov [Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister] sees the prospect for increased western weapons provision for Ukraine. The discourse of military escalation is in fashion in Europe (of that there is no doubt); but both in the Middle East and Ukraine, western policy is in deep trouble. There must be doubts whether the West has either the political will, or the internal unity, to pursue this aggressive course. Dragging wars are not traditionally thought to be \u2018voter friendly\u2019 when campaigning reaches its peak.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let me repeat that last understated sentence: \u201cDragging wars are not traditionally thought to be \u2018voter friendly\u2019 when campaigning reaches its peak.\u201d\u00a0 <\/strong>And so?\u00a0 More of the same?<\/p>\n

Ray McGovern<\/a> suggest what is more likely:<\/p>\n

Israel [is] becoming a dangerous pariah; Ukraine\/US\/NATO a dangerous loser. As Israel defies the UN, and as the \u201cexceptional\u201d geniuses around Biden ignore Kremlin warnings regarding provocations re Ukraine, the likelihood increases for US use of tactical nukes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Desperadoes do desperate things.\u00a0 In Biden and Netanyahu we have two blood-thirsty nihilists at the end of their ropes.\u00a0 These masters of war make me think that a better title for this piece would have been:<\/p>\n

If the World Goes<\/strong> On<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Edward J. Curtin, Jr., Ph.D. is a widely published author and a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>. His new book is <\/em>Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies<\/a> \u2013 His website: <\/em>Behind the Curtain<\/em><\/a> – email: <\/em>edcurtinjr@gmail.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 edwardcurtin.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

30 May 2024 – It\u2019s a long hard road, this anti-war business.\u00a0 During the first Cold War and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis in the early sixties when Kennedy and Khrushchev narrowly avoided blowing the world to smithereens, Bob Dylan put it right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":108249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3143,2642,2914,2009,2343,2877,112,70,481,757,2534],"class_list":["post-263390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-anti-hegemony","tag-anti-imperialism","tag-anti-nato","tag-anti-war","tag-john-f-kennedy","tag-kremlin","tag-pentagon","tag-usa","tag-warfare","tag-wwi","tag-wwiii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263392,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263390\/revisions\/263392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}