Again and again, just when you think you've reached maximum possible cynicism about politics, you discover that, actually, you haven't been cynical enough. It's almost always worse than you think.
You've probably heard that what President Obama trumpeted as "the biggest annual spending cut in history" was nothing of the sort. The purported cuts — $38 billion from a federal budget $1.4 trillion in the red — were pathetic enough at face value.
But according to the Congressional Budget Office, the real total for this year is only $352 million — with an "m." That, it turns out, wasn't even enough to cover the first six days of bombing Libya, which cost roughly $400 million.
[T]he main lesson is that NATO long ago outlived its usefulness.
Two fruitless and expensive wars weren't enough, apparently, so we've now added a third.
We got dragged into Libya by our NATO allies, who aren't competent to run a proper airwar against a crumbling Third-World autocracy, and are now complaining that we're not doing more to bail them out.
It gets worse: Would you believe that we're in this mess largely because of the machinations of a preening French intellectual with friends in high places?
France, you'll recall, was especially eager for war: first to recognize the rebel "government," and first to fire shots over Benghazi. "France has decided to play its part before history," President Nicolas Sarkozy pompously intoned. (Upon hearing that, a friend wisecracked, "How long now till Gaddafi rolls into Paris?").
Credit or blame goes to French celebrity-philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy, who, "in the space of roughly two weeks," the New York Times reports, got "a fledgling Libyan opposition group a hearing from the president of France and the American secretary of state, a process that led both countries and NATO into waging war."
Who is Bernard Henri-Levy (BHL)? He's heir to an industrial fortune, and a crusading socialist who favors open-collared shirts, stylishly long locks and "humanitarian" wars. One critic summed up BHL's persona tartly: "God is dead, but my hair is perfect."
Read the rest here.
Comment: Under the norms created by the 17th Amendment it is unlikely that any change regarding NATO would take place. However, with an emphasis placed upon "state rights" and the 10th Amendment through the repeal of the 17th Amendment it is more than possible, it would be inevitable because the states as a whole see this as it truly is, and would stop this endless war madness that sustains Old World European imperialism.This is precisely what our Armed Forces are being used for...not democracy or making the world safe from terrorism.
But again, until we realize the 100(-) in the Senate are acting at the behest of other nations and corporate global money changers, whose wealth was gained through European imperialism, our wealth and resources will be wasted away and our democratic institutions will go the way of this supposed benevolent form of European socialism.
