Militarism

America's National Strategy of Global Intervention

2008-10-28T22:17:48-05:00

Last June the U.S. Department of Defense unexpectedly issued a new version of its National Defense Strategy. The noteworthy thing about this National Defense Strategy statement is that it says nothing directly about American national defense. It is a strategy for intervening in other countries, and preventing others from blocking or resisting American interventions.

Diego Garcia, swept clean & sanitized

2008-10-28T00:42:49-05:00

No one was allowed to stay on the part of the island unoccupied by the U.S. military or on the two remaining islands. Perhaps the U.S. military had something to hide? This highly secret "mass kidnapping" preceded by conspiracy was unknown to the British Parliament and the U.S. Congress for almost a decade. There were no newspaper reports — nothing!

Courtesy: Renew America

Out of Eden

2008-10-28T00:24:46-05:00

The Indian Ocean paradise of Diego Garcia was once home to more than a thousand contented British subjects. In 1966, Harold Wilson's government sold it to the US in a secret, illegal deal and terrorised the population into leaving.

Courtesy: www.johnpilger.com

Stealing A Nation: How Britain & the US expelled an entire population

2008-10-28T00:16:45-05:00

John Pilger's documentary titled 'Stealing a Nation' followed by his commentary in the Guardian in 2004 had revealed the shocking, almost incredible story of the expulsion of the population of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean by British governments in order to make way for an American military base.

Courtesy: www.johnpilger.com

UK denies right to return to Diego Garcia islanders

2008-10-28T00:06:22-05:00

Natives of the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia won't be allowed to return to the Chagos archipelago they left more than 35 years ago, following a ruling today by Britain's highest court, the House of Lords.

The London-based court upheld the British government's appeal in a 3-2 verdict, overturning earlier rulings by lower courts which held that the UK government wrongfully took away the islanders' "right of abode."

That right is a "creature of the law," wrote Lord Leonard Hoffman today. "The law gives it, and the law may take it away."

Chagos Islanders Denied Right-of-Return

2008-10-28T00:00:53-05:00

About 2,000 Chagos inhabitants were forced off their land and exiled by Britain in the 1960s and '70s when the UK granted permission for a US air and naval base on Diego Garcia, the largest island in the archipelago.

Diego Garcia has been used in US military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. The islanders had been fighting a legal battle in British Courts for the 'right of return'. Britain's House of Lords has denied the islanders 'right of return'.

This post brings together the news of this ruling along with three commentaries and link to a documentary.

Pentagon Dedicates Army Force for Deployment within the US

2008-10-26T22:48:38-05:00

On October 1, the Pentagon, for the first time ever, dedicated an Army force specifically to NorthCom, which is in charge of securing not some foreign region but the United States of America.

The unit it assigned is the 3rd Infantry, First Brigade Combat Team, which has spent three of the last five years in Iraq. It was one of the first units to get to Baghdad, and it was active in retaking and patrolling Fallujah. One of its specialties is counterinsurgency.

Courtesy: www.progressive.org

Most Americans Have No Dog in This Fight

2008-10-23T01:32:38-05:00

''Contrary to the accepted "wisdom" of the electoral experts, Americans are not so divided as we might seem. More than 80 percent of us oppose the war in Iraq, with the majority wanting immediate withdrawal (not "redeployment"). Larger majorities want an end to government wiretapping (and vociferously opposed the wiretapping immunity bill), a scaled-back military budget, and universal health care that excludes the insurance industry. Further, almost no one outside the beltway or the NY financial district bought into the "crisis" that mandated a $850 billion bailout for Wall Street.''

P Jerome writes on AmericanFreePress.net

The Destabilization of Bolivia and the "Kosovo Option"

2008-10-15T21:41:30-05:00

"USAID has an "Office of Transition Initiatives" operating in Bolivia, funneling millions of dollars of training and support to right-wing opposition regional governments and movements." This is not the first time that the "Kosovo model" of supporting terrorist paramilitaries has been applied in Latin America. The Salvador/ Kosovo option is part of a US strategy to fracture and destabilize countries. The USAID sponsored OTI in Bolivia performs much the same function as a similar OTI in Haiti.

Noted economist and Left activist, Michel Chossudovsky writes in Global Research.

The U.S. Imperial Triangle and Military Spending

2008-10-04T03:07:18-05:00

The United States is unique today among major states in the degree of its reliance on military spending, and its determination to stand astride the world, militarily as well as economically. No other country in the post–Second World War world has been so globally destructive or inflicted so many war fatalities. Since 2001, acknowledged U.S. national defense spending has increased by almost 60 percent in real dollar terms to a level in 2007 of $553 billion. This is higher than at any point since the Second World War (though lower than previous decades as a percentage of GDP).

Foster, Holleman and McChesney (Courtesy: Monthly Review) offer an incisive assessment of an imperialist state that supports its global position and social order through $1 trillion a year in military spending, most likely far exceeding that of all the other countries in the world put together, unleashing untold destruction on the world, while faced with intractable problems of inequality, economic stagnation, financial crisis, poverty, waste, and environmental decline.