The war for America’s soul and treasure

Investigative reporter James Risen has written a new book, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War, that gets to the heart of our current American Empire.

The facts his expose introduces can literally make one vomit! In between waving red, white and blue pieces of cloth from their windows and garage fronts, maybe my neighbors should read about the waste of lives and treasure by our government.

Gore Vidal’s slogan of Perpetual War should have an addendum of perpetual destruction and perpetual corruption and greed! Risen documents the over one trillion dollars that our ‘excursions’ into Afghanistan and Iraq have cost you and me, John Q. Taxpayer. Yet, most of our numb and dumbed down American public is too focused on ‘illegal aliens’ invading our borders to get free handouts and medical care . . . oh yes, and great jobs. You know, every American wants to wash dishes, mow grass in oppressive heat, clean hotel rooms and scrub floors. Who cares that defense contractors, especially big donors to campaigns, raked in hundreds of billions, and continue to do so, as we occupy Afghanistan and Iraq . . . illegally and immorally, by the way?

So, did you ever ask yourself why ISIS or ISIL, or whatever the hell they call that group of fanatics, has been able to recruit so many from that region? As with the extremist Zionists in Israel, or the ‘end days right-wing Christians’ here at home, the so-called ‘jihadist Muslims’ represent but a small percentage of their worldwide religion members. The overwhelming majority of worshippers from all three of the above religions do not agree with the fanaticism of those sects . . . period! So, why has this new enemy to mankind gotten so many to join it?

As Risen relates in his book: ‘On March 17, 2011, American drones fired at least two missiles into a gathering in Datta Khel that killed more than forty people. The U.S. government insisted that the drone strike killed a Taliban commander, but villagers later told investigators that the drones had attacked a meeting of local elders, many who were heads of large families. Their deaths triggered yet another round of anti- American protests in Pakistan. The Pentagon and the CIA kept buying more drones, General Atomics kept building them’ . . . and our tax dollars make the owners of this company and others filthy rich.

As a footnote, in 2012 General Atomics received $1.2 billion in government contracts, up from just $110 million in 2001. War is good!

Later in his book Risen tells of Damien Corsetti, a private in the U.S. Army’s 519th Military Intelligence Battalion. Corsetti, was made a ‘military counterintelligence specialist’ with NO training in interrogations when the so-called ‘War on Terror’ began. When he first arrived at Bagram in 2002, he was given NO clear rules on how to handle prisoners. HIs superiors told him to ‘watch how the first group of interrogators operated.’ These were a mixed batch of National Guard troops and other military personnel who also had been thrown into Bagram with virtually NO preparation.

Corsetti did as he was told and watched as the prisoners were openly abused, and, most importantly, Coresetti’s commander did NOT tell his unit to refrain from the harsh tactics already in use. He was also told by his superiors that these detainees were NOT to be considered prisoners of war, but rather ‘enemy combatants’ who were NOT to have the same rights under the Geneva Conventions or the rules of war. So, along with most of the other interrogators, Corsetti says he ‘ went to work ‘. The things he did and witnessed changed his life forever. When he returned home Corsetti was a man filled with guilt and paranoia. The nightmares he carries with him from his time working at Abu Ghraib prison may never leave him. “Abu Ghraib, if an evil place ever existed that was it. It was ALL just death, and fucking death. That single place changed EVERYONE who was there!”

And now we have (duh, only after what, 11 or 12 years? ) the Senate coming out with their report of the illegal and immoral uses of torture by our military and CIA. The empire still has the audacity to make sure that there are plenty out there to come forward and defend and legitimatize what was done! Obvious war criminals like Dick Cheney go on the mainstream media and lie once again about keeping the wolf from out door. The sad irony is even more outrageous: Even those who come out and condemn our use of torture (Sen. John McCain, President Obama et all ) actually continue to trumpet our use of drone missile attacks as mentioned above.

And then the pundits all wonder aloud how this evil ISIS group must be stopped. It reminds one of how bad cops slap around a suspect until he has had enough and slaps back, and then they book him for resisting arrest and assault on an officer. Are there enough of our friends and neighbors out there to understand that what we have done and are doing in the Middle East has created the blowback?

President Dwight D. Eisenhower participated in the growth of what he later warned us of, the Military Industrial Complex. At the end of his eight years in office, Ike finally found the courage to warn us all . . . so few heard him. We learned nothing from our Vietnam debacle, or so it seems. In 1980, our military spending was $ 303 billion per year. In 1990 it was $ 409 billion. In 2011, including the supplemental for our occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, it reached over $1trillion. Just to keep one soldier in Afghanistan for one year costs us over $1 million.

Our states and cities are sliding down the slippery slope towards insolvency and many out there still bang the drum of American exceptionalism. They cover our sports fields and arenas with giant flags, trot out GIs in camouflage with honor guards, and have the nerve to call what we do abroad as ‘being at war’. We (rightly so) label those in ISIS who capture and behead innocents as maniacs, yet never condemn our own military and leaders who blow away little kids with collateral damage missiles or shooting up houses filled with innocent civilians.

The Nazis actually felt that the Poles and Russians they wasted away were in fact just subhuman to be gotten rid of. Well, our empire obviously sees those ‘rag heads’ as just that.

Let the current revisit to our torture policies, and the overkill by some of our local police be a fire that lights up our very conscience as a people . . . and get more of us to speak out against empire, and speak up for a moral republic.

Philip A Farruggio is son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC, longshoremen. He is a freelance columnist (found on Intrepid Report, TheSleuthJournal.com, Information Clearing House, OpEd News, Dandelion Salad, Activist Post, Dissident Voice and many other sites worldwide). Philip works as an environmental products sales rep and has been an activist leader since 2000. In 2010 he became a local spokesperson for the 25% Solution Movement to Save Our Cities by cutting military spending 25%. Philip can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net.