Tags
2016 US Presidential Elections, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson, Hillary Clinton, Jill Stein, September 11, US Foreign Policy, US Militarism & War, War on Terror
Today marks the fifteenth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, catapulting our nation into what has become an endless War on Terror. With our strategy of fighting terror with terror, we have ignited the Middle East into sectarian wars that have fractured the nations of Iraq and Libya, fueled the emergence and spread of ISIS, threatened the destabilization of Syria, and forced over 65 million people from their homelands.
While the military-industrial-financial complex salivates with endless wars, we-the-people must bear the burden of such wars. Where do our presidential candidates stand on this issue, if unchecked, that could transform us into a nation of empty bombshells and drive our world into a nuclear holocaust?
Jill Stein – Green Party
Establish a foreign policy based on diplomacy, international law, and human rights. End the wars and drone attacks, cut military spending by at least 50% and close the 700+ foreign military bases that are turning our republic into a bankrupt empire. Stop U.S. support and arms sales to human rights abusers, and lead on global nuclear disarmament.
~ Plan for Peace and Human Rights: http://www.jill2016.com/plan
“The current foreign policy isn’t working out so well for us. We’ve spent $6 trillion since September 11, 2001, on these wars for oil or wars on terror…. What do we have to show for it?”
Jill Stein, May 9, 2016. Learn more at http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Jill_Stein_War_+_Peace.htm
Donald Trump – Republican Party
- We’ve spent $5 trillion dollars in the Middle East… [W]e have to rebuild our country. We have to rebuild our infrastructure.
- Defeat ISIS by taking out the oil that funds their operations.
- Let Russia make moves in Syria; it’s a quagmire.
- I want to have a much stronger military. I want it to be so strong that nobody is going to mess with us.
- So are we going to start World War III over Syria?
From interviews and debates, 2015 & 2016. Learn more at http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Donald_Trump_War_+_Peace.htm
Gary Johnson – Libertarian Party
The objective of both our foreign policy and our military should be straightforward: To protect us from harm and to allow us to exercise our freedoms.
[He] will move quickly and decisively to cut off the funding on which finance violent extremist armies depend. He will repair relationships with our allies. And he will only send our brave soldiers to war when clearly authorized by Congress after meaningful, transparent deliberation and debate.
Learn more of Gary Johnson’s Foreign Policy and National Defense at
https://www.johnsonweld.com/foreign_policy_and_national_defense
Hillary Clinton – Democratic Party
“Radical jihadists, like so many adversaries in our history, underestimate the strength of our national character. Americans will not cower or cave. And we will not turn on each other or turn on our principles. We will defeat those who threaten us. We will keep our country safe and strong, free and tolerant. And we will always defend our friends and allies.”
~ Hillary Clinton, December 6, 2015
Learn more about Clinton’s plan to deal with terrorism at https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/combating-terrorism/
Three Worlds One Vision 
Reblogged this on Guyanese Online.
LikeLike
Thanks for the re-blog, Cyril, and for your continued support. Have a great week 🙂
LikeLike
On this sad anniversary, what you chose to write about is important and should be thought about by all of our citizens.
LikeLike
Bernadette, it’s one of the vital issues for all Americans to consider with great care. Considering that the USA is the world’s sole superpower with more than enough nuclear power to destroy life on our planet, we Americans also hold responsibility for the fate of peoples worldwide.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very true. It is an awesome responsibility as a citizen.
LikeLike
Bernadette, yet we go through our lives with little or no knowledge of our civic duties and responsibilities. To criticize our leaders and their policies is considered unpatriotic. How far from the truth!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The single most significant anti-war action the US can make is to end the volunteer army. If all families have “skin in the game,” the support for needless war would quickly diminish. And, a sense of national solidarity would exist when war must be fought. While it is unrealistic to expect the Congress to pass such a reinstitution of the military draft, my recommendation is no more fanciful than some of those listed above.
LikeLike
You’ve raised an important point, Dr. Stein. Because the majority of American families are disconnected from our endless wars overseas, we have no vested interest in what we-as-a-nation has been doing these past fifteen years to make life unbearable for other human beings.
Our vengeance for injury suffered at the hands of those who hate us – only the gods know why they hate us – has no limits, no end. According to Clinton, “Americans will not cower or cave.”
LikeLike
Thanks, Rosaliene. By coincidence, I heard most of this on the radio yesterday. You and your readers might be interested: http://www.wnyc.org/story/ten-ideas-make-politics-less-rotten_radio
LikeLike
Thanks for sharing the radio link, Dr. Stein. I will tune in.
LikeLike
Rosaliene, the United Nations should be doing what you are advocating. However because of the veto power held by the permanent members of the Security Council nothing gets done unless they all agree. Russia and the US are finally cooperating to end the fighting in Syria. Let’s hope they succeed.
LikeLike
The UN Security Council is shackled by lack of US support. I’m with you in hoping that Russian and US cooperation in resolving the Syrian crisis will succeed.
LikeLike
While I abhor the wars “over there,” (Take your pick of countries.) I’m more disgusted by the wars on our own people by federal, state, and local governments, with their excessive use of eminent domain.
The Friday, September 9, 2016 issue of the New York Times had a front-page article, “‘I Want to Win Someday’: Tribes Make a Stand Against Pipeline” about how eminent domain drove the Standing Rock Sioux from their homes and livelihoods in 1958, when the Army Corps of Engineers’ used eminent domain to build the Missouri River dam that created Lake Oahe in North Dakota.
Now, Texas based Energy Transfer Partners has contracted with adjacent landowners to build the 1700 mile, four-state Dakota Access pipeline to cross bodies of water, including the Missouri. The Standing Rock Sioux have been joined by supportive tribes from around the country to contest the pipeline, [legitimately] claiming there’s a danger of water pollution from pipeline leaks and other probable consequences. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, stood with the protestors and were arrested.
This reminds me of a similar contest being waged in British Columbia between Kinder Morgan and the First Nations’ Ti’azt’en Nation. Chief Justa Monk (e-mail Justa.Monk@tiazten.bc.ca) has been leading the movement to prevent Kinder Morgan’s building an oil pipeline adjacent to their lands.
Both are important to me because Kinder Morgan (of Enron collapse fame), is colluding with Southern Company (of nuclear power plant fame) and the Georgia government (of perpetual stupidity fame) to allow private companies to use eminent domain here for their pipeline across 210 miles of Georgia, to ship oil, gas, and ethanol for export.
It appears the GoverCorp strategy is “divide and conquer,” but the targets are the very taxpayers and voters who pay their way and fund their pension plans and profits on Wall Street. The more the disenfranchised and disrespected can communicate and collaborate with each other, the better equipped we will be to stop the eco-rapists from descecrating and poisoning our formerly pristine homeland.
For anyone interested in the long-term history of the US treatment of Native Americans, Howard Zinn’s landmark book, “A People’s History of the United States,” is well worth reading. Zinn describes how over time the federal government has violated every promise and broken almost every treaty it ever made with Native Americans.
LikeLike
Thanks for raising this issue, Katharine. You’re always two steps ahead of me.
Our wars overseas and our wars at home – against Native Americans, blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, other brown-skinned peoples, and disempowered whites – are one and the same. The all-powerful transnational and multinational corporations have no regard for peoples everywhere who stand in their way of profit-making.
I’m currently reading Zinn’s book, one chapter at a time. He reveals that our continued struggle against the small elite class was set in motion a long time ago. With their global expansion, all the world is at their mercy. Warfare not only enriches their coffers, but also keeps us the 99 Percent in check.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I worried after posting that I had segued away from your primary topic of overseas wars. I justified it by remembering that oil is a strong link between wars overseas and wars at home.
Interesting coincidence that you are reading Zinn’s book now. It’s a powerful reminder that America’s so-called “greatness” began with exploitation and continues in the same mode today.
LikeLike
Katharine, I feel your pain and concern. We-the-people are fighting several battles on all fronts. The fight of the Standing Rock Sioux against the fossil fuel and financial Goliaths of our time is now in the forefront.
We the 99 Percent face innumerable battles on several fronts against the same enemy: the One Percent. They keep us divided. They exhaust our financial resources when fighting them in the courts. They drain our energies. They lock us up for peaceful protests. We have to come together as One People, One Voice.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A lot to say in response to this, and I’m not sure where to start. Maybe I should begin by focusing on our language, and the implications of the word “fight.” Also, we as a culture seem conditioned to describe ideas in terms of what they are not, such as “anti-war,” instead of “for peace.”
In my writing I concentrate on using forward going terms but catch myself resorting to cultural habit all too often.
According to me the “they” you refer to are desperately seeking to maintain their historical status and relevance, but the fortress walls are crumbling. GoverCorp can no longer maintain the illusion that wealth means wisdom and (delegated) power means ethical behavior. The fruits of their destruction are becoming universally apparent.
To be sustainable, One People, One Voice, must include the humbled one percent. I believe 9/11, when American’s most prominent symbols of wealth, power, and war, were desecrated, was the take-home message Americans most need to consider. Others may not like hearing this, but I believe we brought that tragedy on ourselves, by passively trusting the “one percent” too much.
LikeLike
“We as a culture seem conditioned to describe ideas in terms of what they are not, such as “anti-war,” instead of “for peace.””
~ I agree. The use of “anti-war” keeps war in the game; “for peace” is a whole different game.
“GoverCorp can no longer maintain the illusion that wealth means wisdom and (delegated) power means ethical behavior. The fruits of their destruction are becoming universally apparent.”
~ True, but GoverCorp is far from beaten.
“Others may not like hearing this, but I believe we brought that tragedy on ourselves, by passively trusting the “one percent” too much.”
~ Many Americans are totally unaware of what the One Percent/GoverCorp is doing overseas in our name with our tax dollars.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, yes, and yes. I believe Americans are afraid to see the breadth and depth of the betrayal. I don’t like being played for a fool, but the more I read and see for myself, the more it seems the bullies and cons have blocked all the exits out of this mess.
I say they are running on empty, and sooner or later the shell game will have to end. When the foundations collapse, the penthouse has farthest to fall. I miss Ron Paul. He claimed the Fed is fraud.
It occurred to me that totalitarian states, which the US is fast becoming, must bleed the people to feed the people. Food inflation has increased much faster than general inflation (0.8%). Food inflation was 4% in 2007 (the year the ethanol mandate was passed) and 6% in 2008. It’s 3% in 2016, a heavy burden on those with fixed incomes or who are unemployed. To think we are feeding corn to cars blows my fuses.
In general terms, wars seem to cause famine or are the result of famine. The 1% profits from the desperation hunger causes. I could say more . . . and will, over time.
LikeLike
I like your reply. I’ll let you say more…
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s hard to shut me up, if I have a little encouragement. Thanks for the affirmation.
LikeLike
Wouldn’t it be interesting, even essential, to see Clinton, Johnson, Stein and Trump engage in a foreign policy debate where each was asked to share their plans, ideas and visions for creating true and lasting peace on Earth. Americans voters would certainly welcome such important clarifying proposals, or lack thereof…
LikeLike
Jerry, I agree: it would be interesting and essential to have all four candidates debate this and other pressing issues for America. Would this happen? Most unlikely. Those holding our democracy hostage have already determined who will best serve their needs and designs.
Battles are not won in a day. We-the-people have to keep up the struggle. Together as one. On all fronts.
LikeLike
Jill Stein is the only candidate who not only makes sense, but consistently so. Everything else I could say has already been said much more eruditely than I could in the above comments. You have a great group of “followers” here Rosaliene. A pleasure to be aboard such a solid little craft. 🙂
LikeLike
I agree, Sha’Tara. Americans need to hear her vision for our nation.
Thanks for your comments about my followers who share their views and vision. Know that you are numbered among that group 🙂
LikeLike
This is such a crucial and timely post, Rosaliene. I’m grateful to see that it sparked important, thoughtful dialogue!
LikeLike
Thanks, Carol 🙂
LikeLike
may human wars end
sooner than later,
as they certainly will.
LikeLike
Thanks for that, SmileCalm 🙂
LikeLike