By Timothy V. Gatto

Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

Those words should be the next mantra for this American nation. The actions of NATO and the United States are certainly absurd. The statement by Obama that we are involved in Libya on “Humanitarian Grounds” is patently ridiculous. The truth is that we are involved in Libya to further American Imperialism and support American hegemony in the region. If we sincerely wished to promote Arab democracy, we wouldn’t have supported Saudi Arabia’s decision to send troops into Bahrain to stifle democratic dissent against a harsh monarchy. The mainstream media’s take on the events in Libya have shown conclusively that we have no free press here in America.

When talking about domestic issues, the budget that is predicated on debt is not sustainable. Sooner or later the United States will have to pay the piper. This may be in decades, or if things get tight, it could be much sooner than that. The truth folk’s, is that with the current rate of spending, we will never be able to pay off out national debt. We are living in an impossible situation that will never be resolved unless we deal with some cold hard facts.

The foremost of these facts is that we can no longer permit the Federal government to spent 53% of our taxable revenue for military spending, Homeland Security, and the many intelligence agencies that in a large part duplicate each other’s work. 53 cents out of every taxable dollar goes to these endeavors. This takes away from fixing our crumbling infrastructure, educating our young people and paying off our debt.

The Congress has already cut into the budget but has made no important headway into the true nature of why we can’t balance our budget. I’m sure you have heard this all before, but it is worth mentioning again.

1. We are involved in military involvements all over the World. These include Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Yemen, Bahrain and Pakistan and I’m sure there are others that are operating below the radar.
2. We give military assistance in the billions to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as well as Afghanistan, Columbia, Honduras and Costa Rica as well as other nations that we are trying to convince to join NATO or become members of the “Partnership for Peace” which is a NATO endeavor but in reality is an alliance with the U.S. This includes Turkistan and all the other “Stans” such as Uzbekistan and all the other former Soviet bloc nations.
3. We have no qualms in using our carrier fleets to intimidate nations that may not toe the American line. At present we have 11 nuclear powered carriers that cost our government between 50 Billion to 100 Billion a year to operate. The nation that is closest to us in Aircraft Carriers is Spain and Italy with two.
4. During operations in Libya, the first day we expended approximately 115 Tomahawk Cruise missiles with a price tag of 1.5 million dollars each. That’s $172,500,000. If you count the airstrikes and movement of assents into place we have spent over $550,000,000 in order to prop up a revolution we know nothing about. Is this responsible?

We are told that we are in a humanitarian operation in Libya. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are there to guarantee that Libya’s oil will continue to go to Italy, France and the UK. Since when has the United States cared about “humanitarian” endeavors after we dropped thousands of tons of depleted uranium on Kosovo, Serbia and Iraq? In Iraq parents of a newborn no longer ask if their child is a boy or a girl, the ask “Is it normal?” Birth defects have risen fourfold since we invaded that country. http://www.internationalnews.fr/article-cancer-rate-in-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-the-consequences-of-a-us-war-crime-54377658.html

We are a nation that has become a military state. We can’t begin to balance our budget until we reduce the military budget that is bankrupting this nation. We have yet to see any profits from the devastation we have caused around the globe. When will we begin to concentrate on our own crumbling nation instead of trying to control the rest of the planet?

I blame the people of the United States, especially the war parties of the Democrats and Republicans. Haven’t people realized two years into the Obama administration that the Democrats are but the other side of the same coin? Until we realize that the Corporate Military Industrial Complex runs this country lock, stock and barrel, we will see no change. We must make the changes we need in the streets. Writing these politicians will bring us nothing. They could care less about the people. The only time they care about us is at election time when we go to vote for the cronies they put up as candidates.

Drastic times call for drastic measures. We can continue to watch the Middle Class raped to keep the wealth of the top 10% or we can tell the government we have had enough. No more foreign wars and no more spending for outrageous subsidies of our paid allies. Bring the troops home for good and return to a representative republic. Enact Campaign Finance Laws that rid the political system of corporate money. Pass an amendment that revokes “corporate Personhood”. Stop believing in the Democrats and Republicans.

Haven’t we seen enough?

-###-

By Timothy V. Gatto timgatto@hotmail.com Read Tim's Book "Complicity to Contempt" and his Novel "Kimchee Days or Stoned Cold Warriors From Oliver Arts and Open Press and available on Amazon and all other online bookstores.