Does it equal American Culture?
Originally posted in The Blog of Progress
Human life is worthless. This is the message that has been coming out of Washing ton this week. The Department of Justice in its attempt to justify death has created a legal frame work rationalizing the taking of human life. It seems that our Nation has embraced a militaristic culture where human life is not celebrated or preserved but deemed unworthy of such status. The United States is a Nation that instead of focusing on important things like helping provide a safety net to the people, or making sure we have an educated and civilized society, is much too busy and would rather draft up legal arguments justifying killing and torture. This sort of disregard for human life is one of the byproducts of the wonderful War of Terror, which while like Voldemort is no longer acknowledged by name it continues in a clan destine type of fashion.
The Nation has been at War now for 12 years. Death, blood and devastation has become a part of American society. A Nation which already has an Amendment glorifying killing, and has been doing damage abroad for quite some time. This week the Department of Justice’s memo, which dealt with ways to rationalize killing was released. The memos mind you are not from the Bush Administration, but from a current Administration who once upon a time was criticizing similar memos regarding torture. Now it seems that rather simply sending young men and women to die in a foreign land, this force will now be supplemented with killing machines driven by exhausted and overworked operators thousands of miles away. Amazingly there are many who fancy themselves to be liberal who are actually applauding Drones, and looking it as a way to reduce war? However this conclusion is erroneous as Drones will simply supplement the war machine (and fatten the bottom line).
Money is the root cause of war. In the past war was fought to claim new territories and riches to fatten the imperial coffers of an Empire. However with the Earth highly populated and much of the planet already claimed by various Nations, the end goal has become different. War is a way to control the trade in resources, it is a way to control a foreign economy or allowing Multi Nationals to operate in new economies. Going to war has become a way to support Globalization. Naturally war as we have all learned is an expensive enterprise and one that involves sovereign Nations and legal boundaries. With the creation of the Drone, this mechanized tool can now transcend legal boundaries go under the radar into any Nation “deemed a threat” an target out people who are chosen to die (yet they call this self defense). The drones are profitable in America for example top Pentagon supplier AeroVironment, makes a strong profit from supplying drones to the Pentagon. This new industry is on the rise and in recent years the lobbying clout has become so powerful that the Drone industry has even purchased a Caucus in Congress.
Because War is the common parlance of the land Americans are ok with the latest development. The Drones are simply a new phase of War which like the Atom Bomb, so many Americans in their realpolitik world view believe that this will be the answer to stopping soldiers from dying. The only thing Drone wars will do is break the boundaries of war and create conflicts even in Nations not engaged in formal warfare. After 12 years most Americans claim to be tired of war but thew war culture has seeped into the Collective Unconscious. America has officially become a Nation obsessed with the worship of Ares and the glorification of death. Naturally being Capitalist the militaristic culture has been brought upon because of the Capitalist lust for money. Hence in America War and Greed have come to represent the Nation.