Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.
How far can you go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?
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.
all of the above from five-star general, supreme allied commander, president and prophet dwight d. eisenhower, who probably knew a thing or two more about such matters than all of his enthusiastically warmongering successors put together, and who would no doubt be drummed out of his party today for daring to suggest such views.
ah well, we can't say we weren't warned.
4 comments:
I remember the Eisenhower era -- a sea of gray men in gray topcoats over gray suits and a lot of Homburg hats. I watched the A-bomb tests on TV in the morning before going off to school and the Army-McCarthy hearings in the afternoons when I came home.
At school we sat under our desks or crouched in the halls when the bells rang for the nuclear bomb air raid drills. Happy days notwithstanding, it was not a care-free, happy time.
It's interesting reading Eisenhower's warnings -- thank you for bringing them up again -- would that he had been a bit more dynamic in delivery of them, because I don't remember that people took much notice. Then Kennedy and Jackie arrived on the scene and everybody swept all that gray aside along with the warnings.
will: eisenhower was an old-school, conventional warrior who, i think, was genuinely horrified by the rise of, as he put it, the military-industrial complex in response to this new kind of "cold" war over whose formative years he presided, and which he proved either incapable or reluctant to check. and you're right--his warnings were somewhat pallid and weak; i think in his last days in office when he made them, he already knew that they came too late.
but his hands are far from clean--remember, it was under his watch that the CIA "preventively" deposed the legitimate ruler of iran when he proved unreasonably unwilling to turn his country's oilfields over to the west, installed the corrupt puppet shah in his place, and thus started us down the road to where we find ourselves today.
I like Ike.
Is guttermorality left wing on war?
It would seem like guttermorality has eclectic political beliefs.
There are efforts in Congress to replace the cuts in defense at the end of the year with cuts to domestic programs -- particularly to the poor.
What's your take on that?
As for Memorial Day, I stand in deep respect for the unbelievable courage of so many men and women who died for this country -- in so many wars.
noblesavage: welcome, and thanks for visiting the blog. as a first-timer, you're obviously not aware of my oft-stated views on the nature of war, those who initiate it and profit from it, and the cannon fodder they so coldly dispatch to kill and die for their "cause".
i suggest you click on the links "state of america" and "state of the world", found in the left sidebar, for more of my thoughts on this subject.
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