War drums are beating for Iran. But who's playing them? (Terry Jones, MPFC)

[Octafish]

This Python makes more sense than almost all the politicians around put together.

War drums are beating for Iran. But who's playing them?

Just like the taxpayers of medieval Italian cities, we're having our money siphoned off to pay for a a greedy military machine

Terry Jones
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 6 December 2011 11.06 EST

In the 14th century there were two pandemics. One was the Black Death, the other was the commercialisation of warfare. Mercenaries had always existed, but under Edward III they became the mainstay of the English army for the first 20 years of what became the Hundred Years war. Then, when Edward signed the treaty of Brétigny in 1360 and told his soldiers to stop fighting and go home, many of them didn't have any homes to go to. They were used to fighting, and that's how they made their money. So they simply formed themselves into freelance armies, aptly called "free companies", that proceeded around France pillaging, killing and raping.

One of these armies was called the Great Company. It totalled, according to one estimate, 16,000 soldiers, larger than any existing national army. Eventually it descended on the pope, in Avignon, and held him to ransom. The pope made the mistake of paying off the mercenaries with huge amounts of cash, which only encouraged them to carry on marauding. He also suggested that they move on into Italy, where his arch-enemies, the Visconti, ran Milan. This they did, under the banner of the Marquis of Monferrato, again subsidised by the pope.

The nightmare had begun. Huge armies of brigands rampaging through Europe was a disaster second only to the plague. It seemed as if the genie had been let out of the bottle and there was no way of putting him back in. Warfare had suddenly turned into a profitable business; the Italian city states became impoverished as taxpayers' money was used to buy off the free companies. And since those who made money out of the business of war naturally wished to go on making money out of it, warfare had no foreseeable end.

Wind forward 650 years or so. The US, under George W Bush, decided to privatise the invasion of Iraq by employing private "contractors" like the Blackwater company, now renamed Xe Services. In 2003 Blackwater won a $27m no-bid contract for guarding Paul Bremer, then head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. For protecting officials in conflict zones since 2004, the company has received more than $320m. And this year the Obama government contracted to pay Xe Services a quarter of a billion dollars for security work in Afghanistan. This is just one of many companies making its profits out of warfare.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/06/iran-war-drums-terry-jones

I love British humor. It's the Truth.

[Octafish]

1. He also addressed the PNAC part, a very naughty bit indeed -- War Inc.

In 2000 the Project for the New American Century published a report, Rebuilding America's Defenses, whose declared aim was to up the spending on defence from 3% to 3.5% or 3.8% of American gross domestic product. In fact it is now running at 4.7% of GDP. In the UK we spend about $57bn a year on defence, or 2.5% of GDP.

It'd be a shame, if something were to happen to it kick.



Links burn, Colonel.

[Karenina]

2. This is more than worth the watch...

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/empire/2011/11/2011113091321689627.html

:loveya: Octafish, für immer und ewig.

[Octafish]

4. Vielen Dank, meine Liebe!

That "Empire" is one heckuva show! Outstanding interview forum, plus it provides an outstanding overview of what's what and who's who in the nuclear war game, Middle East style. The experts looking over the IAEA "case" is eye-opening for those fed a constant diet of ABCNNBCBSFakeNoiseNutwork and the rest of the dregs that are Corporate McPravda.

IMFO, Iran, as much as any nation, has a right to develop nuclear power. I don't believe any nation should hold nuclear weapons, but in a world filled with evil such weapons may be required to maintain peace.

Remember the MAD policy: Mutually Assured Destruction kept war between the USSR and USA "unthinkable." We haven't really journed far beyond that because it is a matter of power -- the power of the state and the power of the tiny minority that runs the show.

Who decides all seems to have become a matter beyond the control of democracy. Remember JFK said, "No!" to the warmongers who counseled nuclear attack.

What many Western leaders fail to realize is how quickly things could escalate into total war. Archduke Ferdinand -- the guy who wanted to liberalize the Empire with more democracy! -- hadn't been murdered, who knows what the world would look like today?

[PufPuf23]

3. kr nt

[Octafish]

5. And now for something completely the same: War is the Answer.

War With Iran: A Provocation Away?

by Tom Burghardt
Antifascist Calling, Dec. 4, 2011

Amid conflicting reports that a huge explosion at Iran's uranium conversion facility in Isfahan occurred last week, speculation was rife that Israel and the United States were stepping-up covert attacks against defense and nuclear installations.

The Isfahan complex transforms mined uranium into uranium fluoride gas which is then "spun" by centrifuges that enrich it into usable products for medical research and for Iran's civilian nuclear energy program.

While Iranian officials sought to distance themselves from initial reporting by the semi-official Fars news agency that a "loud explosion" was heard across the city, but that "the sound of the explosion was from military exercise," has been contradicted by several sources.

SNIP...

On Tuesday however, The Times reported that "satellite imagery ... confirmed that a blast that rocked the city of Isfahan on Monday struck the uranium enrichment facility there, despite denials by Tehran."

CONTINUED...

http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com/

Would the warmongers were in jail and the peaceful people were free to make planet Earth the kind of place it could be.

[Zorra]

6. knr

[CanSocDem]

7. Fear is a great motivator.

Fear of death, fear of hunger, fear of illness, fear of unemployment, fear of material loss, fear of status loss, fear of poverty, fear of loneliness, fear of strangers.......

At some point it all becomes irrational. If it wasn't so lucrative to exploit the nations fears, we would live in a rational world, albeit without the worlds most successful industries.

K&R

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