“The sinews of war are infinite money.” --Marcus Tullius Cicero
"How many free school lunches could have been bought with the money we used to send bombs to Israel so they could bury children under rubble?" --Professor Anthony Zenkus on X https://twitter.com/anthonyzenkus/status/1797464596552585340
There’s Always Money For Bombs
by C.A. Matthews
The images out of Gaza have been unrelentingly traumatic, but the slaughter in Rafah was just unbearably upsetting. Reports of decapitated babies. Charred children. People burned alive. All just days after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to halt its military offensive in Rafah. All while the US government makes excuse after excuse for Israel’s flagrant breaches of international law, which Israel said was just a “tragic mistake”.
After those images, I couldn’t function anymore. I certainly couldn’t sit down and try and write. The hopelessness and the horror and my rage felt too overwhelming. My complicity felt too overwhelming – the knowledge that this mass slaughter is being facilitated and funded by the US taxpayer, the knowledge that a little portion of my writing income goes towards this suffering. All while the public school around the corner from me in Philadelphia is failing because there’s never enough money for education and the library near me shuts on Sundays because there’s never enough money for public services and there are people going bankrupt in the US from medical bills because there’s never enough money to invest in public health. But there’s always money for bombs. --from Where is Joe Biden’s fury about decapitated Palestinian babies? by Arwa Mahdawi
When I read Arwa’s impassioned plea for sanity, I identified with it completely. I knew I had to write about it.
There is always—and I mean always—enough money for bombs in the annual budget that the US Congress passes. Sure, some of the money goes for tanks, nuclear subs, the dockyard queen known as the “Littoral Combat Ship,” and for the crash-worthy F-35, too, but that’s the gist of where the majority of our tax dollars go toward. Armaments. War. Death. Destruction.
Genocide.
Bombs that are bringing us each and every day closer to a nuclear war and the end of the world as we know it.
I’m sure there are plenty who feel that I’m exaggerating the point and that poor Arwa needs to take a chill pill and lie down until her brain fog clears. I call those types of people “idiots.” Okay, perhaps “morons” might be the better term in an intellectual sense, but either term works for me. Nowadays we can’t afford to keep listening to morons and idiots because these moron and idiots are trying to start World War III.
The Biden administration has given Ukraine permission to use US-provided weapons to hit targets inside Russian territory (...) a step that marks a significant escalation of the proxy war.There it is in black and white. The US is threatening Russia. One nuclear power is threatening another by giving bombs to another country, Ukraine, even after what President Putin said about the first country will be held accountable for whatever damage their bombs do. And the idiots and morons in the US allow Ukraine to shoot American bombs/missiles into Russia, targeting nuclear radar sites, knowing full well that these actions could escalate the current conventional bloodbath into full-fledged nuclear warfare. For added fun, US NATO ally France is sending some of its troops into Ukraine to get slaughtered as quickly as Ukrainian troops have. There can never be enough cannon fodder—I mean “soldiers”.
“Ukraine needs support from the US for targeting when it fires US-provided missiles, which means the US will now be directly supporting strikes inside Russia. The escalation risks provoking a major response from Russia, as Moscow recently warned the UK that it would target British military sites in Ukraine and “beyond” if British missiles were used in strikes on Russian territory. (…)
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any NATO countries that let Ukraine strike Russia with their weapons would face “major consequences.” From Biden Gives Ukraine Permission To Strike Inside Russia With US Weapons by Dave DeCamp
I know it’s difficult to get your head around this horrific state of affairs, but allow me to help. I believe the word you’re looking for to describe this situation is “suicide.”
See, that’s not too difficult to understand, is it? It isn’t a good thing. In fact, it’s something that the rest of the people of the planet desperately want to stop. It’s what keeping both Arwa and me awake at nights.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know what I mean by the terms “zio-bully” and “zionarcissism” and how to apply them to the behaviors of the United States of Israel. The US suffers greatly from the mental illness of zionarcissism. It believes the best thing in the world is to zio-bully everyone into doing what they say by threatening them with bombs raining down on them from the sky, along with the parts from more than a few Boeing jets for good measure. [Editor’s note: The US bombs that were rained down upon the sleeping refugee camp in Rafah were actually made by Boeing, the Boeing GBU-39. (Cost reports range from $30,000-$40,000 per bomb.)Yes, Boeing can make something that actually works as intended. Too bad this something was intended to maim and kill.]
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| by Mark Taylor www.DeMOCKracy.Ink |
For crying out loud, Butcher Biden has been giving away billions of dollars worth of bombs and armaments to Israel who is clearly committing war crimes against an indigenous civilian population! Children are being burnt alive and suffering amputations without the benefit of anesthetic because Biden allows the Israelis to block food and medicines from coming into Gaza. I ask you how is Biden’s behavior either “sane” or “moral”?
“But what do we Americans get out of all this death and destruction?” you wonder. “Surely we must get something out of it, or why else do it and ruin our reputation on the world stage?”
Good questions. Perhaps there are no satisfactory answers. One thing the NATO countries are getting from watching the Israeli Occupation Forces bomb and sniper-shoot their way across Gaza is lots of great data on how well their instruments of death work in the field. Military scientists now know exactly how many bombs it takes to turn a city the size of Gaza City into rubble. This could make fighting conventional wars in the future (if there is a future) much more organized and cost effective. If you know you’ll only need like 25,000 bunker buster bombs for your first month’s barrage, then you won’t need to buy or stock any more bombs than that. See how that could save a few trillion bucks in the Pentagon’s budget? (More money for those legendary golden toilet seats for F-35s!)
You don’t believe me that scientists actually collect this sort of data from the deaths of civilians and use it to make more lethal weapons? Well, if I told you that Nazi scientists tested weapons on the bodies of living (soon dead) concentration camp prisoners during World War II, and that information was snatched up by the US and others at the end of the war and studied closely, would you still not believe me? It’s okay if you don’t. But watch out that you and yours don’t become the next guinea pig they decide to test out their instruments of death on.
In the end, that’s all the military-industrial complex CEOs want—lots of profits (which the US government is providing) and lots of success with their “products” so they get repeat business. And these products won’t necessarily be sold to be used abroad in a distant land against a distant people you don’t like next time. Americans could be the next guinea pigs. Take a look at our militarized policing systems in American cities.
Why the hell does a small town with less than 25,000 people in the heartland of America need a dozen Humvee armored cars, courtesy of a Pentagon rummage sale? Answer: It doesn’t. But I used to drive past the police depot that contained these weapons of war when I lived in that little town, and I wondered if the cops bought them just in case they ever needed to mow down a few protesters who started acting out of line and demanding an end to the genocides, an end to the endless wars.
Small town cops can’t ever be too careful come a full fledged “riot” of five grandmothers and two dogs standing on the corner of Main Street carrying “Free Palestine” banners. Those armored cars will come in handy in running those “killer grannies” down, won’t they? Who’s to say our militarized police won’t use these military-grade weapons against us for other things like being the wrong color, wrong religion, wrong politics, wrong gender identity, wrong… You get the picture.
So remember: There’s always money for bombs. That is, until We the People decide that there isn’t, and we do something to stop these insane genocidal-suicidal morons.
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| photos by Stefan Fane |
I did just that this past weekend. I marched in solidarity for Palestine with an interesting mix of people—peace activists, queer activists, LGBTQIA supporters, American Muslim activists and their supporters. I know, these don’t sound like groups that normally would march together in a summer festival parade under the banner of Palestine liberation, but they did. We had a great time and received over all good responses from the community.
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| Marching with Stefan |
One day soon, we will make it so there is never any money for bombs as long as there are oppressed human beings in need of our help anywhere on the planet. I can’t wait to walk beside you then.
Israel’s Tents Massacre in Rafah Is a Heinous War Crime https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/tents-massacre-rafah-war-crime
Rafah Invasion Was Once Biden’s “Red Line” — But Israel Continues to Cross It https://truthout.org/articles/rafah-invasion-was-once-bidens-red-line-but-israel-continues-to-cross-it/
Where is Joe Biden’s fury about decapitated Palestinian babies? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/30/biden-palestinian-beheaded-israeli-babies
Biden Lets Ukraine Strike Russia With US Weapons While Ukraine Attacks Russian Nuclear Defenses https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/biden-lets-ukraine-strike-russia
Biden Gives Ukraine Permission To Strike Inside Russia With US Weapons https://news.antiwar.com/2024/05/30/biden-gives-ukraine-permission-to-strike-inside-russia-with-us-weapons/
US Presidents Who Gamble With Nuclear Armageddon https://consortiumnews.com/2024/05/30/us-presidents-who-gamble-with-nuclear-armageddon/
The Military-Industrial Complex Is Killing Us All https://scheerpost.com/2024/06/03/the-military-industrial-complex-is-killing-us-all/
Surveillance and interference: Israel’s covert war on the ICC exposed https://www.972mag.com/icc-israel-surveillance-investigation/
The ICC Takes on Israel and the US Congressional Mafia https://medeabenjamin.substack.com/p/the-icc-takes-on-israel-and-the-us
Top EU official accused at ICC of ‘complicity’ in Gaza genocide https://thecradle.co/articles/top-eu-official-accused-at-icc-of-complicity-in-gaza-genocide
Israel Seizes Entire Gaza Border! https://rumble.com/v4ygyze-live-israel-seizes-entire-gaza-border-and-much-more.html
Biden pressures Netanyahu to accept peace deal that could have been agreed 40,000 bodies ago https://www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/biden-pressures-netanyahu-to-accept
Falsified US State Department Report Inspires Yet Another Resignation https://popularresistance.org/falsified-us-state-department-report-inspires-yet-another-resignation/
This Texas Company Is Providing the Jet Fuel for Israel’s Assault on Gaza https://truthout.org/articles/this-texas-company-is-providing-the-jet-fuel-for-israels-assault-on-gaza/
UN Calls for International Aid as Sudan Faces Imminent Famine Amid Civil War https://truthout.org/articles/un-calls-for-international-aid-as-sudan-faces-imminent-famine-amid-civil-war/
UCLA's Disturbing Crackdown on Peaceful Protesters: An Injustice Unfolds https://www.citizenschronicle.org/p/uclas-disturbing-crackdown-on-peaceful
Gaza-on-the-Rhine, a history lesson https://autonomies.org/2024/03/yazan-alloujami-gaza-on-the-rhine-a-history-lesson/
From Massachusetts, Some Tax-the-Rich Inspiration https://scheerpost.com/2024/05/28/from-massachusetts-some-tax-the-rich-inspiration/
In a Victory for Assange and First Amendment, UK Court Grants Right to Appeal https://truthout.org/articles/in-a-victory-for-assange-and-first-amendment-uk-court-grants-right-to-appeal/
Why Celebrities Aren't Speaking Up About Gaza https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/why-celebrities-arent-speaking-up
Educators Celebrate as Judge Strikes Down New Hampshire ‘Banned Concepts’ Law https://scheerpost.com/2024/05/30/educators-celebrate-as-judge-strikes-down-new-hampshire-banned-concepts-law/
Delhi Heat Wave Suggests Underestimated Speed and Intensity of Global Warming https://truthout.org/articles/delhi-heat-wave-suggests-underestimated-speed-and-intensity-of-global-warming/
Murray & Galloway on Ending Israel's Genocide in Gaza https://youtu.be/mW5KF-Z08ug
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