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The root cause of the American crisis: a view from up north

Civilization and the social stability it provides, allowing human beings to live their lives in peace and pursue their plans and dreams can never be taken for granted. Recent modern history has shown how fragile is the veneer of civilization: when a demagogue with a talent for manipulating and appealing to the most dangerous, primal instincts of human nature can take over one of the world’s most civilized nations, with disastrous results, for that nation and the world.

How quickly history and its lessons hopefully learned are forgotten. It is happening again in, of all places, the great democracy that saved the world from the most evil, murderous, racist tyranny it has ever known. And again, it is not only that country, but the world that is already starting to suffer the consequences. It can only get worse if that country, the United States of America, can’t somehow soon pull itself together and stop itself from self-destruction.

It’s terrifying from up here north of the border to see day after day how badly American politics and society are divided. On one side, the cult-like obeisance of a large proportion of the population and so-called conservative lawmakers to the demagogue and his outrageous lies. If anything, it grows more extreme, driving the world’s first and greatest democracy deeper into an existential crisis. On the other side, various commentators beside themselves with loaded language, preaching to the converted and looking down upon the others, as they reveal yet more evidence of the demagogue’s failed, but too-close-for-comfort attempt to stage a coup after he lost the last election just over a year ago. There is no effective communication between the two sides, nothing that might offer a glimmer of hope. It’s as if infernal strings are being pulled behind the scenes by a malevolent force beyond human control. Or is it that we humans are, after all, so tragically flawed?

Speak the truth, by all means; it is the only hope. But start where it begins, at the root cause of the malaise that now threatens the end of a great nation, and the world.

The rise to power of a ruthless dictatorship in Germany in 1933 is well-documented: a war lost at great cost of human life, a punishing peace treaty with crippling reparations to pay, out-of-control inflation and more mass misery, and then a global, ‘Great Depression.’ The demagogue who has pledged to make Germany great again blames it all on communists, and especially Jews. His party in democratic elections has become the largest, but with less than 40 percent support of voters, still lacks a majority. But he is appointed Chancellor (Prime Minister), of a bipartisan government by an elderly, increasingly senile, figurehead, war-hero President. It is expected the demagogue can be controlled. The Reichstag (Parliament) is set on fire, the communists are blamed, the demagogue is given emergency powers. The old president dies. And the demagogue and his ‘National Socialist’ party seize total power. Other political parties are banned. Jews, homosexuals, and other people considered racially or mentally defective are persecuted, sent to concentration camps, murdered. All members of the military and government officials are required to pledge personal loyalty to the leader (Fuhrer).

So, the question arises what has made such a large proportion of the American people, so vulnerable to a demagogue who wraps himself in the Star-Spangled Banner, declares himself the person who can save the country and return it to greatness, demands loyalty to Him, and tells lies constantly?

Let’s start with war, shall we? And talk about how, even before the 9/11 terrorist attack on the U.S., wars and the military-industrial complex that thrived on war became a predominant fact of American life; one that became even more predominant after 9/11 when, days after the attacks, a figurehead U.S. president, George W. Bush, began using the expression, “the global war on terrorism.” There never was a formal declaration of war by Congress in that regard, though a U.S. military, service medal of that name, was awarded to U.S. troops that served in post 9/11 wars.

First, a few words about the growth of the military-Industrial complex from the late, former U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, the former Commander-in-Chief of Allied (western) forces in the Second World War, in his farewell address as president on January 17, 1961:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial 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 defence with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Prophetic words indeed, well worth remembering in the context of the present and continuing crisis.

The Viet Nam War is a good place to start a discussion of the fateful impact war has had on the American psyche and body politic. Its causes are complex, beginning in the wake of the Second World War, when France tried to regain its lost Indo-China colonial territory, and was defeated. How the U.S. then embroiled itself in a war that ultimately ended with the humiliating images of helicopters landing on the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon to evacuate Americans who fought off desperate Vietnamese refugees hoping to get on, is well-documented on this history.com website.

By 1955, under President Eisenhower, the U.S. had begun providing a new, anti-communist government of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) with military training and equipment to help combat a coalition of internal opponents. They included Viet Cong fighters U.S. officials assumed to be under communist North Vietnam’s control. That support role grew under President John F. Kennedy, and was further increased under his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson after Kennedy’s assassination in November, 1963. The direct involvement of American forces in the Vietnam conflict began when President Johnson ordered retaliatory bombing of North Vietnam after torpedo boats attacked two U.S. destroyers in the nearby Gulf of Tonkin. The U.S. Congress soon passed a resolution giving Johnson broad war-making powers. At its height close to 500,000 American troops were in Vietnam. By the time the war ended in 1973, 58,200 had died, and an estimated two million Vietnamese, mostly civilians.

The Vietnam memorial, engraved with the names of 58,200 American dead

That final image of defeat was the parting wound among many that cut deep into the proud American psyche. “The war had pierced the myth of American invincibility and had bitterly divided the nation. Many returning veterans faced negative reactions from both opponents of the war (who viewed them as having killed innocent civilians) and its supporters (who saw them as having lost the war), along with physical damage including the effects of exposure to the toxic herbicide, Agent Orange, millions of gallons of which had been dumped by U.S. planes on the dense forests of Vietnam,” says the history.com article.

And this: “According to a survey by the Veterans Administration, some 500,000 of the 3 million troops who served in Vietnam suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, and rates of divorce, suicide, alcoholism and drug addiction were markedly higher among veterans.”

Many Vietnam veterans are still alive today, the fathers and grandfathers of millions of Americans. Many of them, and others, would have recalled that humiliating image of how the Vietnam war ended when the shocking images of the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan were shown around the world this past August. That was as thousands of Afghans desperately tried to get on flights at Kabul airport. It’s no coincidence President Joe Biden’s approval rating suddenly dropped, though it was former President Donald Trump whose administration negotiated the withdrawal deal with the Taliban insurgents, without the involvement of the now-defunct Afghanistan government at the time.

The U.S. spent $120 billion on the Vietnam war from 1963 to 1975. But that number pales in comparison with $14.1 trillion spent on the military and wars following the 9/11 attacks and the virtual declaration of the ‘war on terror’ by then-President George W. Bush. There never was a formal declaration of war by Congress before the U.S. invaded, first Afghanistan, with justification, and then Iraq, without.

The Center for International Policy, at Brown University’s Watson Institute, has recently published a series of research articles called, ‘20 Years of War, a Cost of War Research Series.’ One is titled, ‘Profits of War: Corporate Beneficiaries of the Post-9/11 Pentagon Spending.’ So far as I can tell it has received little news coverage. That’s a shame because it contains a wealth of revealing, and shocking, information about the “dramatic increase” in U.S. military funding since 9/11.

Quoted in the article is a comment by a high-ranking official of one of the five major, private defence contractors, in this case Boeing, that jumped out as an expression of the overwhelming war fever that gripped the U.S. after 9/11 and contributed to the huge increase in military spending after 9/11:

“Harry Stonecipher, then vice-president of Boeing, told The Wall Street Journal in October, 2001, the month after 9/11, ‘the purse is now open …any member of Congress who doesn’t vote for the funds we need to defend this country will be looking for a new job after next November.’”

Of the $14.1 trillion total Defence/Pentagon “$4.4 trillion went for weapons procurement and research and development, categories that primarily benefit corporate contractors,” the Watson Institute article says. It adds “the rest was used to pay for pay and benefits for military and civilian personnel and supporting expenditures needed to operate and maintain the U.S. military. It noted the $4.4 trillion figure is “a conservative estimate of the pool of funding Pentagon contractors have drawn from in the two decades since 9/11. The Pentagon’s massive budget for operations and maintenance also subsidizes contractors, but it is harder to determine what share if this category goes to private firms.”

The article notes the Pentagon has become increasingly reliant on private contractors in the post-9/11 period; and “that raises multiple questions of accountability, transparency, and effectiveness. This is problematic because privatizing key functions can reduce the U.S. military’s control of activities that occur in war zones while increasing risks of waste, fraud and abuse.” (my italics, for emphasis)

“One-third to one-half” of the $14.1 trillion went to defence contractors that earned profits “that are widely considered legitimate,” the article says. But “other profits were the consequences of questionable or corrupt business practices that amount to waste, fraud, abuse, price gouging or profiteering.”

The paper notes the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan estimated that waste, fraud and abuse in the two war zones as of 2011 had already totalled $31 billion to $60 Billion.”

It goes on to describe numerous examples. I will focus on a couple that had a direct and deadly impact on American troops. See the link above to the full report for all the examples.

What the paper calls “a particularly egregious case of shoddy work that had tragic human consequences involved the electrocution of at least eighteen military personnel in several bases in Iraq beginning in 2004 due to faulty electrical installations.” It says some of the installations were done by Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) and its subcontractors. KBR was a subsidiary of Halliburton, one of the best known and controversial reconstruction and logistic contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The article says, “An investigation by the Pentagon’s Inspector General found that commanders in the field had ‘failed to ensure that renovations… had been properly done, the Army did not set standards for jobs or contractors, and KBR did not ground electrical equipment it installed at the facility.’”

In another case: “The 2008 death of Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a Green Beret who was electrocuted while showering in Iraq, brought Congressional and public attention to the issue. While KBR had inspected the building that Maseth died in and found ‘serious electrical problems’ almost a year before his electrocution, KBR did not fix the identified problems. Notably, KBR’s contract did not require ‘fixing potential hazards.’ A former KBR electrician accused other KBR contractors of falsifying documents to make it appear that they had fixed the previously identified grounding issues. Another former KBR electrician testified to the Senate that KBR used untrained or inexperienced electricians to do electrical work at a lower rate while billing the U.S. government at the same rate used for experienced electricians. Lastly, in July 2008, a KBR electrician testified that the (Department of Defence) had no oversight system for the electrical work, even after soldiers had been electrocuted.”

Halliburton became controversial in the post 9/11 wars because of its connection to Dick Cheney, U.S. vice-president in the administration of President George W. Bush. Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton when he was picked by Bush as his running mate in the run-up to the 2000 election. Cheney had previously been Secretary of Defence in the administration of President George H.W. Bush before he became Halliburton’s CEO. Widely regarded as an unusually powerful vice-president, Cheney strongly favoured the invasion of Iraq, despite knowing before the invasion that the intelligence upon which it was justified, that Iraq had amassed weapons of mass destruction, was faulty. As well, there was no evidence of a connection between Iraq leader Sadam Hussein, and bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist organization. After the invasion and the defeat of the Sadaam Hussein regime, no weapons of mass destruction were found.

Dick Cheney

The Iraq war claimed the lives of between 275,000 to 306,000 people. They included 4,598 U.S. troops, 3,650 U.S. contractors, 15 U.S. Department of Defence civilian workers, up to 208,964 Iraqi civilians, 323 ‘other allied troops,’ and 39,881 opposition fighters.

Canada did not join the U.S.-led coalition that invaded Iraq, but it was a member of the coalition that sent troops to Afghanistan where 158 Canadian soldiers lost their lives.

Another Cost of War study in the Watson Institute series found at least four times as many active duty personnel and war veterans of post-9/11 conflicts have died of suicide than died in combat. An estimated 30,177 have committed suicide compared with the 7,057 killed in post-9/11 wars. The report notes “the increasing rates of suicide for both veterans and active-duty personnel are outpacing those of the general population – an alarming shift, as suicide rates among service members have historically been lower than suicide rates in the general population.”

It’s fair to say the U.S. and its people occupied the moral high ground after the 9/11 attacks, and the shocking images that brought the watching world to a standstill. Hardly anyone could question their right to go in force to Afghanistan, to investigate and find and arrest Osama bin Laden and members of his Al Qaeda terrorist organization; and as well, members of the Taliban government who were complicit, by allowing bin Laden to use Afghanistan as a base of operations. And then they all could have been brought back to the U.S. to face justice at the scene of the crime, under the rule of law.

Perhaps that’s too much to expect, given human nature and its primal need for vengeance; and given the long, established history of nations going to war with or without justification. Some would even argue, and have, that war is the natural state of human beings in a perverse, ‘survival of the fittest’ scenario. Sometimes there does appear to be no choice, as in the Second World War, other than allowing absolute evil to take over the world. But Heaven forbid civilized nations should do something different, something better, when possible, even under such provocation as the 9/11 attacks?

Imagine, if you will, what the U.S. and the world would look like today if, after the inevitable fever for war arose, a strong but less disastrous course of action had been taken that did not kill, wound and traumatize millions of people; that did not cost trillions of dollars; and did not shake the stability of the U.S. and the world to the core, leaving old and new generations afraid and confused about what the future holds.

Instead, the war fever in the wake of 9/11 was exploited by unscrupulous people in high corporate and government places, who were, and are still, anxious to live the American dream by getting filthy rich, or staying in lucrative positions of power, whatever the cost to their country and its people may be.

Of course, there is a tragic malaise and a lot of deep-seated anger in a large proportion of the American population. They are victims, as are we all shaping up to be, unless Americans find a better way.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has had trouble getting Congressional support for his plan to spend, yes, a few trillion dollars, to update long-neglected, crumbling, U.S. infrastructure, and to improve the quality of life of Americans, millions of whom are struggling through poverty, homelessness, physical and mental health issues.

Some, but not all, Republican members have taken to calling the Biden plan “communism” and “Marxist” That’s how stupid they think the American people are. I choose to think they’re wrong.

The Capitol building at peace.


This post first appeared on Finding Hope Ness | Discovering The Wonder That’s In A Moment, please read the originial post: here

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The root cause of the American crisis: a view from up north

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