Het Militair Industrieel Complex 5

Begin 1961 waarschuwde president Eisenhower in zijn afscheidsrede voor het opkomende militair-industrieel complex: 'Elk kanon dat wordt gemaakt, elk oorlogsschip dat te water wordt gelaten, elke raket die wordt afgevuurd betekent uiteindelijk diefstal van degenen die honger lijden en niet gevoed worden, die koud zijn en onvoldoende kleren hebben… Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.'

Lees: http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

Meer dan een halve eeuw later is de militaire macht alleen maar schrikbarend toegenomen.



Ellsberg: Obama Fears Military Revolt
Monday 02 November 2009
by: Sari Gelzer, t r u t h o u t | Report

Ellsberg: Leaked Pentagon Papers from Vietnam give clues to why Obama will most likely grant military requests to send more troops to Afghanistan.

Paul Jay, senior producer of The Real News Network, interviewed former military analyst and Pentagon whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg about the common thread between the conflict in Afghanistan and the war in Vietnam.

Like Vietnam, Ellsberg said "no victory lies ahead [for the US] in Afghanistan" and President Barack Obama knows it.

Still, Ellsberg believes Obama will "go against his own instincts as to what's best for the country and do what's best for him and his administration and his party in the short run facing elections, which is to avoid a military revolt."

That means the president will likely authorize a sizable increase of US forces in the region, Ellsberg said, because Obama fears that top US military commanders will stage a revolt if he rejects their requests for additional soldiers.

Ellsberg predicted that Obama will cave in to Gen. Stanley McCrystal's request for as many as 40,000 US troops in order to, "prevent his military from making a political case to his public and to the Congress that he has been weak, unmanly, indecisive, and weak on terrorism, and has endangered American troops."

The Pentagon Papers, which Ellberg leaked to The New York Times in 1971, made public the decision-making details behind the Vietnam War. Ellsberg chose to leak the highly-sensitive papers because they revealed that the government was continuing the Vietnam War despite knowing it would not likely be won.

Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/1102096