Those whose jobs depend on maintaining, "The military/industrial/congressional complex."

[another_liberal]

The Russian Federation has become an all-consuming boogeyman for many Pentagon and intelligence service employees charged with advising the U. S. government in regard to foreign policy. Russia is an international competitor with the United States in the fields of commerce and political influence, but is that really a valid reason to roundly demonize her leadership and put our national military on a nearly paranoid footing, with sky-high expectations of some kind of a Cold War style "sneak attack" from the implacable, though illusionary, "Russian Empire?" In the article quoted below, former CIA officer Philip Giraldi offers a imminently plausible explanation for this wide-spread logical disconnect.

The Pentagon.


Sabotage: US Officials 'Distort Image of Russia' to Keep Their Own Jobs

A whole array of US experts and officials create and use Russia's hostile image in order to hold down their jobs, former CIA officer Philip Giraldi, who is now executive director of the Council for the National Interest, said in his article published by the opinion journal American Conservative. He said that when in Moscow, he often met ordinary Russians who asked him why Washington hates Russians so much and "why does the American press seemingly have nothing good to say about them?" Giraldi admitted that he eventually failed give a clear-cut answer, even though he tried to attribute the problem to the political situation in Russia.

Touching upon the negative stance on Russia, Giraldi acknowledged that "there are many older Americans entrenched in the media and government as well as in the plentitude of think tanks who will always regard Russia as the enemy. And then there are the more cunning types who always need the threat of an enemy to keep their well-paid jobs in the government itself and also within the punditry, both of which rely on the health and well-being of the military-industrial-congressional complex," he said.

He also wondered why those in the White House and the US media fail to realize the fact that "a good relationship with Russia is indispensable."

Giraldi touted Russia as a good partner in Syria and a driving force to hold current talks on resolving the Syrian gridlock. In addition, Russia "has consistently been a reliable ally against terrorism, in recognition of its own vulnerability to ISIS and other Islamic militants, One does not have to love Mother Russia or Vladimir Putin to appreciate that it is in America's interest to develop a cooperative relationship based on shared interests," Giraldi pointed out.

(snip)

Read more at: http://sputniknews.com/world/20160110/1032897666/united-states-russia-image.html

[cantbeserious]

1. Know Thy Enemy - Oligarchs, Corporations, Banks And Their Media Minions And MIC Henchmen

eom

[another_liberal]

2. Hear! Hear!

I could hardly agree more, cantbeserious.

[newfie11]

6. I so agree

And I'm tired of all the fear mongering STILL in the press about Russia and/or Putin.

Our record on invading countries is sadly impressive!

[SoLeftIAmRight]

9. you must not be getting your require dose of the TV

terrorism - liberalism - these are the problems

[RKP5637]

3. Likely applies to all of the MIC. There would be so many jobs lost if world tensions

subsided. And corporations diminished. ... etc.

[another_liberal]

4. Yes, I have no doubt . . .

The profit mark-up on all of those jet fighters, missiles and tanks would fall like a stone if anything resembling international peace were to actually break-out. The promise of peaceful prosperity, wasted at the end of the Cold War, might even be finally realized.

[Bad Dog]

5. Mark Thomas Comedy product.

Did a brilliant expose of the arms industry, it's a little bit dated now, but still very relevant.

[another_liberal]

12. "A bit dated," perhaps . . .

But still right on target.

[Octafish]

7. The Pitfalls of Peace

The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth

Tyler Cowen
The New York Times, JUNE 13, 2014

The continuing slowness of economic growth in high-income economies has prompted soul-searching among economists. They have looked to weak demand, rising inequality, Chinese competition, over-regulation, inadequate infrastructure and an exhaustion of new technological ideas as possible culprits.

An additional explanation of slow growth is now receiving attention, however. It is the persistence and expectation of peace.

The world just hasn’t had that much warfare lately, at least not by historical standards. Some of the recent headlines about Iraq or South Sudan make our world sound like a very bloody place, but today’s casualties pale in light of the tens of millions of people killed in the two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Even the Vietnam War had many more deaths than any recent war involving an affluent country.

Counterintuitive though it may sound, the greater peacefulness of the world may make the attainment of higher rates of economic growth less urgent and thus less likely. This view does not claim that fighting wars improves economies, as of course the actual conflict brings death and destruction. The claim is also distinct from the Keynesian argument that preparing for war lifts government spending and puts people to work. Rather, the very possibility of war focuses the attention of governments on getting some basic decisions right — whether investing in science or simply liberalizing the economy. Such focus ends up improving a nation’s longer-run prospects.

It may seem repugnant to find a positive side to war in this regard, but a look at American history suggests we cannot dismiss the idea so easily. Fundamental innovations such as nuclear power, the computer and the modern aircraft were all pushed along by an American government eager to defeat the Axis powers or, later, to win the Cold War. The Internet was initially designed to help this country withstand a nuclear exchange, and Silicon Valley had its origins with military contracting, not today’s entrepreneurial social media start-ups. The Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite spurred American interest in science and technology, to the benefit of later economic growth.

War brings an urgency that governments otherwise fail to summon. For instance, the Manhattan Project took six years to produce a working atomic bomb, starting from virtually nothing, and at its peak consumed 0.4 percent of American economic output. It is hard to imagine a comparably speedy and decisive achievement these days.

SNIP...

Living in a largely peaceful world with 2 percent G.D.P. growth has some big advantages that you don’t get with 4 percent growth and many more war deaths. Economic stasis may not feel very impressive, but it’s something our ancestors never quite managed to pull off. The real questions are whether we can do any better, and whether the recent prevalence of peace is a mere temporary bubble just waiting to be burst.

Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University.

SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/upshot/the-lack-of-major-wars-may-be-hurting-economic-growth.html?_r=0

[another_liberal]

10. And if the one percent of our very rich didn't demand to live like Roman Emperors . . .

Two percent growth wouldn't be bad. Let alone the fact of the possibility of stimulating growth through means other than building ever more and more expensive firecrackers to be blown up. There are other ways to generate enthusiasm and make reasonable profits, without causing the rest of humanity to hate and fear the very name of our country.

[Octafish]

16. If only there were an organization big enough to address such a problem.

Who could imagine such a thing? Democrats.

[another_liberal]

20. Eloquently illustrated . . .

Simply eloquent, Octafish.

[dmr]

32. +1

[Bluenorthwest]

8. The US and Russia are the world's #1 and #2 top exporters of weapons of war, 31% US, 27% Russia

China comes in at #3 with a mere 5% but that's rising swiftly, Billboard would say they are #3 with a bullet and in this case it would not be a metaphor. And of course the financial powers in these countries are the sales and finance teams for the arms dealers.

[another_liberal]

11. Think of all the engineering genius, developmental investment, and production capacity wasted . . .

All so some sociopaths in uniform can exercise their God-like powers of life-and-death over fellow human beings they dislike or fear.

Sure is one hell of a way to make a damn buck. (sigh)

[Bluenorthwest]

13. In both the US and in Russia. That's the part that is missing from your OP.

Reading about this from RT is like reading about this from the Lockheed Martin Newsletter.

[another_liberal]

14. Every hour of every day . . .

We have thousands of people telling us about what the Russians are doing wrong. Why should I bother to pile on there?

[LanternWaste]

39. A creative rationalize for your conspicuous and relevant absence.

"Why should I bother to pile on there?"

A creative rationalize for your conspicuous and relevant absence. It's a somewhat clever way to maintain the pretense of objectivity.

[another_liberal]

40. Aren't we in a suspicious mood today . . .

Don't forget to check for commies hiding under those beds!

[GGJohn]

41. Or on this very board.

[another_liberal]

44. Careful!

You are going to reveal your true agenda.

[GGJohn]

45. Oh, I believe somebody already has.

[Recursion]

30. That's a very good point (nt)

[treestar]

15. The new bogeyman is not Russia

It's the Middle East. As soon as the USSR collapsed, Poppy Bush started finding us another enemy so his buddies could keep making money.

[another_liberal]

19. Too true . . .

First we encouraged Saddam by having our ambassador to Baghdad tell him we didn't care what he did in regard to Kuwait. Then when he invaded, we got all righteous about "international aggression" and attacked Iraq in order to "defend Kuwaiti freedom and sovereignty."

Worked just like a charm too (at least it did briefly).

[Odin2005]

17. Nice Putinist source you got there.

[another_liberal]

18. Nice character assassination . . .

In your attempt to slander an American citizen and former intelligence analyst as a "Putinist source."

Or didn't you even bother to read the first paragraph of what I posted before starting in?

[cherokeeprogressive]

21. Russia's a paper tiger who'd be nothing if not surrounded by countries lacking viable militaries.

[another_liberal]

22. If you really think that is so . . .

Just be sure not to try and involve my country in a shooting war with the Russian Federation based on that kind of strategic wishful thinking.

Seriously, please don't even try. I want to be around to see Spring come again.

[cherokeeprogressive]

23. I spent ten years in the US Military. Long enough to be unafraid of Russia.

When it was the USSR it was even more of a paper tiger because the different nationalities and ethnicities hated each other and in some cases even lacked a common language.

Russia... meh.

[another_liberal]

24. How similar those claims are to some others made about Russia . . .

Napoleon Bonaparte claimed: "The Russian Empire will shatter with my first blow, and the Czar will be murdered in a palace coup shortly thereafter." In fact, Czar Alexander presided over the peace conference in Paris which sent the defeated and deposed Napoleon into exile.

Hitler promised his doubtful generals that a war against the Soviet Union would be a walk-over. He noted that a year earlier, "They barely even managed to defeat the Finns!" Hitler would die by his own hand only four years later, as Soviet soldiers closed in on the last few hundred yards that still remained of his once vaunted "Thousand Year Reich."

A century before either of the above examples, the Swedes' Charles the XII was decisively defeated in battle and forced to flee into Turkish exile as his whole "Nordic Empire" was cast into ruin because of his vain attempt to conquer Peter the Great's Russia.

Now you are pedaling the same misconceptions in 2016? Why, in the name of all things redundant, do something like that?


"Rule one on page one of the Book of War is: Don't march on Moscow."

[cherokeeprogressive]

25. Here's a hint for ya... re the last line of your post: Armies haven't marched for decades.

So throw Rule One, on Page One, OUT.

Paper tiger. That's all Russia will ever be. I'm sorry but that's the way it is.

[another_liberal]

28. Your argument is singularly unconvincing . . .

Since that quote is from one of the World's foremost leaders of mechanized troops. He commanded Great Britain's armored divisions in North Africa, Italy and Western Europe during WWII.

He also knew very well what he was talking about.

[dmr]

33. Nobody is marching on Moscow.

Russia got her dander up, and rightfully so when Napoleon & then Hitler decided to take on that massive nation.

I've never been afraid of Russia. Even during air raid drills as a little girl hiding beneath my desk at school. My dad told me Russia would never attack America anymore than we would attack them. WWII made sure of that, he said. They knew our strength, & no one wanted another Japan.

[another_liberal]

34. Good!

Our World needs a great deal less of armies marching on places generally.

[nilesobek]

54. That's some potent neo-con crack.

Have you heard of the Tsar Bomba? 30 mile blast radius. Russia has the largest H-bombs ever made. They also have a new Thor nuclear missile that zigzags during flight, rendering anti-ballistic systems useless. Paper tiger? Russia would wipe the floor with us. We don't even have a functioning rocket. We have to hitch hike our way to space on Russian rockets. This kind of dangerous jingo you promote is uninformed prattle.

[GGJohn]

55. You really are clueless.

Russia's conventional military is a joke, other than a few modern weapons systems, their military is a hollow shell of it's former Soviet self, their Navy is a collection of rust buckets, their Army is a bunch of druken conscripts, their Air Force is probably the most capable of the services, but it wouldn't stand a chance against the US Air Force.
The US nuclear arsenal consists of the Minuteman Missiles, which are still quite capable, the Peacekeeper ICMB's, which are deadly accurate, and the Navy's Trident II SLBM's, which the Russian Navy can't find when out to sea.

Your whole hypothesis about the Russian military vs. the US military is a joke.

[nilesobek]

56. GG

The point is mutually assured destruction. After all, when the fighting is over there would be nothing left in America worth defending. We are unable to reverse engineer the Saturn 5 rocket, made by nazis, which means that we have a half century of brain drain from this country. When are we going to get a decent rocket? The next "operation paperclip?"

[GGJohn]

57. The point is that in a conventional war, Russia would lose and lose badly,

Russia most certainly wouldn't wipe America off the floor, in a nuclear war, there would be no winners, just a smoking ruin of a world.

WTH are you talking about not engineering the Saturn V rocket?
It was used by NASA to launch the Apollo crews into space and the moon,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V

The Saturn V (spoken as "Saturn five&quot was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA between 1966 and 1973.[6] The three-stage liquid-fueled launch vehicle was developed to support the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon, and was later used to launch Skylab, the first American space station. The Saturn V was launched 13 times from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with no loss of crew or payload. The Saturn V remains the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever brought to operational status and still holds records for the heaviest payload launched and largest payload capacity to low Earth orbit (LEO) of 310,000 pounds (140,000 kg).[4][5]

The largest production model of the Saturn family of rockets, the Saturn V was designed under the direction of Wernher von Braun and Arthur Rudolph at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, with Boeing, North American Aviation, Douglas Aircraft Company, and IBM as the lead contractors. Von Braun's design was based in part on his work on the Aggregate series of rockets, especially the A-10, A-11, and A-12, in Germany during World War II.

To date, the Saturn V remains the only launch vehicle able to transport human beings beyond low Earth orbit. A total of 24 astronauts were launched to the Moon, three of them twice, in the four years spanning December 1968 through December 1972.

[nilesobek]

58. You just aren't very well informed.

Von Braun was a nazi "immigrant," brought over specifically for rocket making. His contribution to the Holocaust was overlooked. The wiki you posted is informative but does not address the fact that we are unable to reverse engineer the Saturn 5. We are spending over half of our GNP on the military and its turning America into a third world nation. On your conventional warfare point I would concede, but only tentatively, because our forces are spread way too thin. Even if we could conquer Russia proper we would never be able to effectively occupy it. Its all hypothetical though as Russia would nuke us immediately if we dared to attack them or violate their borders. It will be proxy wars and continual bleeding of the taxpayer to make contractors rich and they cannot even deliver the goods, like the F-35.

[cherokeeprogressive]

59. The point is we don't WANT to occupy Russia. To what end? Occupy Russia? IGNORE Russia.

Let them have Eastern Europe back if they want it.

Then contain them the way we did for decades. Russia has ONE aircraft carrier in service. Do you realize how important it is to be able to project air power across the sea? I've seen the US do it, up close and personal, like from the flight deck of three aircraft carriers. Hell the Russians have to invade helpless countries just for warm-water ports.

Read my lips... Paper. Tiger. Nothing to fear. Let Putin whose claim to fame is pulling the fingernails of interrogation subjects for the KGB rattle his saber. Ignore it, and he'll take his saber and go home. Not before bullying defenseless countries in his neighborhood to be sure, but go home he will.

Tsar Bomba? LOLOfuckingL. It was a one-off thing detonated when I was five months old. I'm 54 now. How would they deliver something like that? Slow boat from China?

[nilesobek]

60. 9 of the top ten largest

H-bombs ever made were made by Russia. They have one for every American city over 50,000 population. So its not a one time deal. They can deliver these bombs by ICBM, cruise missiles and submarine launched missiles along our coasts. We have no defense for such an attack.

The op is saying we are wasting our time and resources creating enemies where they don't exist. It reminds me of Ferguson Mo. cops who made a business out of creating so called criminals.

Also, I just don't get the agitated responses about Russia and their media. Our media is worse. Look what they did to Iraq. No amount of LOLing and cursing is going to change the facts. I'm immune to commissar tactics.

[Rex]

26. Despite being government propaganda - when you waste money at the trillion dollar level

you have to invent all kinds of industries to keep you employed. The US doesn't just use Russia alone...maybe Pooty Poot ain't been paying attention, but we pimp terrorism as our prime need to waste trillions of dollars a year to make sure military contractors can buy that second yacht!

Needs...wants...

[another_liberal]

27. You post things like "Pooty Poot," and still . . .

You expect me to take your comment seriously?

[Rex]

31. Why do you assume anyone cares what you think?

Seriously, how odd. I post whatever the fuck I want to and could not give a shit if anyone even pays any attention.

[another_liberal]

35. And . . .

I will know to not take your comments seriously.

[GGJohn]

37. You post nothing but Russian propaganda, using Russian owned "news" sources,

and we're supposed to take YOU seriously?
What a hoot.

[another_liberal]

46. I post the stories I find important . . .

And, usually, those ignored by our government-cowed mass media. I have found Russian media coverage much more likely to cover corruption and misdeeds by Western governments, such as our own. Being genuinely concerned with those matters myself, I naturally turn to Russian sources for the best information and insights.

One more thing, and let me be frank about this, the very fact that you and others like you are stalking and harassing me on DU for posting from Russian news sources is among the biggest reasons I will continue to do so. I know what that attempt at censorship is, and I am resolved to resist it.

[GGJohn]

48. You post Russian propaganda, which I guess you find important

so don't be surprised when you're called out on your blatant agenda.

Interesting that the only stories you post are either pro Russian or anti US, yeah, no agenda at all.
Nobody's censoring you, get over yourself.

[another_liberal]

51. I'm not the one "pushing an agenda". . .

I'm more the target of one, as you know.

[GGJohn]

52. This is laughable.

Get over yourself.

[Recursion]

29. Oh Sputniknews. Where would we be without you?

You realize this is the Fox News of Russia, right?

[another_liberal]

36. Fox News!

That is proof of an almost complete lack of real knowledge concerning the news source in question. One should really learn a little about Sputnik News' cutting edge coverage before trying to pile-on with the character assassination.

(sigh)

[GGJohn]

38. Sputnik News is a wholly created, owned and run by the Russian govt for the espress

purpose of spreading Russian propaganda throughout the world.

[another_liberal]

42. That is your belief . . .

A belief which is not, I should add, shared by many millions of Sputnik viewers, living in nearly ever country in the World.

[GGJohn]

43. Not a belief, but a fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_%28news_agency%29

Sputnik is an international multimedia service launched on 10 November 2014 by Rossiya Segodnya, an agency wholly owned and operated by the Russian government, which was created by a Decree of the President of Russia on December 9, 2013.[2] Sputnik replaces the RIA Novosti news agency on an international stage (which remains active in Russia)[3] and Voice of Russia.

And you wonder why you're viewed with such suspicion here? Consider this, the only sources you ever use are either Russian propaganda, or US bashing "news" sources.

Makes one wonder what your true agenda is here.

[another_liberal]

47. You wonder?

For weeks now you've been claiming you knew!

[GGJohn]

49. Oh, I know, just wondering if you'll confirm it. eom

[another_liberal]

50. Calling me a liar again?

I have repeatedly stated that I am not in the service of any government or nongovernmental organization, so let me repeat my direct question (which requires a direct answer from you):

Are you calling me a liar?

[GGJohn]

53. And I will repeat myself again.

Take it any way you want.