Fwd: [blind-democracy] Trump's Military Drops a Bomb Every 12 Minutes, and No One Is Talking About It

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carl Jarvis <carjar82@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2018 07:38:56 -0700
Subject: Re: [blind-democracy] Trump's Military Drops a Bomb Every 12
Minutes, and No One Is Talking About It
To: blind-democracy@freelists.org

While we still talk about War Hawks, the truth is that it is the
Greedy, Fat, War Hogs that are sucking up our tax dollars. Each of
our hard earned dollars that go into the Pentagon Budget represents a
body part of an innocent Human Being.
America has been slipping in many catagories, but we are well out in
First Place when it comes to Murder by Bombs.

Carl Jarvis

On 6/20/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Trump's Military Drops a Bomb Every 12 Minutes, and No One Is Talking About
> It
>
> Pixabay
>
>
> We live in a state of perpetual war, and we never feel it. While you get
> your gelato at the hip place where they put those cute little mint leaves
> on
> the side, someone is being bombed in your name. While you argue with the
> 17-year-old at the movie theater who gave you a small popcorn when you paid
> for a large, someone is being obliterated in your name. While we sleep and
> eat and make love and shield our eyes on a sunny day, someone's home,
> family, life and body are being blown into a thousand pieces in our names.
>
> Once every 12 minutes.
>
> The United States military drops an explosive with a strength you can
> hardly
> comprehend once every 12 minutes. And that's odd, because we're technically
> at war with-let me think-zero countries. So that should mean zero bombs are
> being dropped, right?
>
> Hell no! You've made the common mistake of confusing our world with some
> sort of rational, cogent world in which our military-industrial complex is
> under control, the music industry is based on merit and talent, Legos have
> gently rounded edges (so when you step on them barefoot, it doesn't feel
> like an armor-piercing bullet just shot straight up your sphincter), and
> humans are dealing with climate change like adults rather than burying our
> heads in the sand while trying to convince ourselves that the sand around
> our heads isn't getting really, really hot.
>
> You're thinking of a rational world. We do not live there.
>
> Instead, we live in a world where the Pentagon is completely and utterly
> out
> of control. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the $21 trillion (that's not a
> typo) that has gone unaccounted for at the Pentagon. But I didn't get into
> the number of bombs that ridiculous amount of money buys us. President
> George W. Bush's military dropped 70,000 bombs on five countries. But of
> that outrageous number, only 57 of those bombs really upset the
> international community.
>
> Because there were 57 strikes in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen-countries the
> U.S. was not at war with and places that didn't have ongoing internal
> conflicts. And the world was kind of horrified. There was a lot of talk
> that
> went something like, "Wait a second. We're bombing in countries outside of
> war zones? Is it possible that's a slippery slope ending in us just bombing
> all the goddamn time? (Awkward pause.) . Nah. Whichever president follows
> Bush will be a normal adult person (with a functional brain stem of some
> sort) and will therefore stop this madness."
>
> We were so cute and naive back then, like a kitten when it's first waking
> up
> in the morning.
>
> The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported that under President Barack
> Obama there were "563 strikes, largely by drones, that targeted Pakistan,
> Somalia and Yemen. ."
>
> It's not just the fact that bombing outside of a war zone is a horrific
> violation of international law and global norms. It's also the morally
> reprehensible targeting of people for pre-crime, which is what we're doing
> and what the Tom Cruise movie "Minority Report" warned us about. (Humans
> are
> very bad at taking the advice of sci-fi dystopias. If we'd listened to
> "1984," we wouldn't have allowed the existence of the National Security
> Agency. If we listened to "The Terminator," we wouldn't have allowed the
> existence of drone warfare. And if we'd listened to "The Matrix," we
> wouldn't have allowed the vast majority of humans to get lost in a virtual
> reality of spectacle and vapid nonsense while the oceans die in a swamp of
> plastic waste. . But you know, who's counting?)
>
> There was basically a media blackout while Obama was president. You could
> count on one hand the number of mainstream media reports on the Pentagon's
> daily bombing campaigns under Obama. And even when the media did mention
> it,
> the underlying sentiment was, "Yeah, but look at how suave Obama is while
> he's OK'ing endless destruction. He's like the Steve McQueen of aerial
> death."
>
> And let's take a moment to wipe away the idea that our "advanced weaponry"
> hits only the bad guys. As David DeGraw put it, "According to the C.I.A.'s
> own documents, the people on the 'kill list,' who were targeted for
> 'death-by-drone,' accounted for only 2% of the deaths caused by the drone
> strikes."
>
> Two percent. Really, Pentagon? You got a two on the test? You get five
> points just for spelling your name right.
>
> But those 70,000 bombs dropped by Bush-it was child's play. DeGraw again: "
> Obama] dropped 100,000 bombs in seven countries. He out-bombed Bush by
> 30,000 bombs and 2 countries."
>
> You have to admit that's impressively horrific. That puts Obama in a very
> elite group of Nobel Peace Prize winners who have killed that many innocent
> civilians. The reunions are mainly just him and Henry Kissinger wearing
> little hand-drawn name tags and munching on deviled eggs.
>
> However, we now know that Donald Trump's administration puts all previous
> presidents to shame. The Pentagon's numbers show that during George W.
> Bush's eight years he averaged 24 bombs dropped per day, which is 8,750 per
> year. Over the course of Obama's time in office, his military dropped 34
> bombs per day, 12,500 per year. And in Trump's first year in office, he
> averaged 121 bombs dropped per day, for an annual total of 44,096.
>
> Trump's military dropped 44,000 bombs in his first year in office.
>
> He has basically taken the gloves off the Pentagon, taken the leash off an
> already rabid dog. So the end result is a military that's behaving like Lil
> Wayne crossed with Conor McGregor. You look away for one minute, look back,
> and are like, "What the fuck did you just do? I was gone for like, a
> second!"
>
> Under Trump, five bombs are dropped per hour-every hour of every day. That
> averages out to a bomb every 12 minutes.
>
> And which is more outrageous-the crazy amount of death and destruction we
> are creating around the world, or the fact that your mainstream corporate
> media basically NEVER investigates it? They talk about Trump's flaws. They
> say he's a racist, bulbous-headed, self-centered idiot (which is totally
> accurate)-but they don't criticize the perpetual Amityville massacre our
> military perpetrates by dropping a bomb every 12 minutes, most of them
> killing 98 percent non-targets.
>
> When you have a Department of War with a completely unaccountable budget-as
> we saw with the $21 trillion-and you have a president with no interest in
> overseeing how much death the Department of War is responsible for, then
> you
> end up dropping so many bombs that the Pentagon has reported we are running
> out of bombs.
>
> Oh, dear God. If we run out of our bombs, then how will we stop all those
> innocent civilians from . farming? Think of all the goats that will be
> allowed to go about their days.
>
> And, as with the $21 trillion, the theme seems to be "unaccountable."
>
> Journalist Witney Webb wrote in February, "Shockingly, more than 80 percent
> of those killed have never even been identified and the C.I.A.'s own
> documents have shown that they are not even aware of who they are
> killing-avoiding the issue of reporting civilian deaths simply by naming
> all
> those in the strike zone as enemy combatants."
>
> That's right. We kill only enemy combatants. How do we know they're enemy
> combatants? Because they were in our strike zone. How did we know it was a
> strike zone? Because there were enemy combatants there. How did we find out
> they were enemy combatants? Because they were in the strike zone. . Want me
> to keep going, or do you get the point? I have all day.
>
> This is not about Trump, even though he's a maniac. It's not about Obama,
> even though he's a war criminal. It's not about Bush, even though he has
> the
> intelligence of boiled cabbage. (I haven't told a Bush joke in about eight
> years. Felt kind of good. Maybe I'll get back into that.)
>
> This is about a runaway military-industrial complex that our ruling elite
> are more than happy to let loose. Almost no one in Congress or the
> presidency tries to restrain our 121 bombs a day. Almost no one in a
> mainstream outlet tries to get people to care about this.
>
> Recently, the hashtag #21Trillion for the unaccounted Pentagon money has
> gained some traction. Let's get another one started: #121BombsADay.
>
> One every 12 minutes.
>
> Do you know where they're hitting? Who they're murdering? Why? One hundred
> and twenty-one bombs a day rip apart the lives of families a world away-in
> your name and my name and the name of the kid doling out the wrong size
> popcorn at the movie theater.
>
> We are a rogue nation with a rogue military and a completely unaccountable
> ruling elite. The government and military you and I support by being a part
> of this society are murdering people every 12 minutes, and in response,
> there's nothing but a ghostly silence. It is beneath us as a people and a
> species to give this topic nothing but silence. It is a crime against
> humanity.
>
> Lee Camp
>
>
>
>