We Will Go On Killing Under Obama
by James Glaser
May 7, 2009

Millions of Americans gave their hard earned money and their vote in the last election to Barack Obama, because they thought he was an anti-war candidate. People really believed he would shut down our prison in Cuba, and bring the troops home from Iraq. In truth, candidate Obama repeatedly said that he would bring the troops home, in 16 months. He said he had a plan.

He had a plan all right. It just wasn't a plan to bring the troops home. I believe most Americans thought when Barack Obama was out on the campaign trail, saying day after day he was going to bring the troops home, that meant the troops in Iraq would leave there in his sixteen month time frame and come back here (HOME) to the United States. Well, shame on me and every other anti-war American for believing any candidate for President who said they would kill the defense industry's cash cow... war.

Millions of Americans make their living, and many Americans have become rich, because we continue year in and year out to kill people all over the world. Also, we sell more military arms to the rest of the world than any other country. Yes, we are the "Merchants of Death," and we have been for the last 50+ years. Military arms sales and killing with those arms is a money maker.

Yesterday, Reuters reported that the Pentagon is going to create 20,000 more jobs to manage arms buys.

President Barack Obama's Defense Department plans to create 20,000 new government jobs to help revise how it buys more than $100 billion of weapons each year, the Pentagon's No.2 official told Congress.

You know the reason we buy $100 billion in weapons every year don't you? Because every year we use up those weapons killing people, and we then need to buy new ones. That is why we spend more on weapons every year than the rest of the world combined spends. The rest of the world is not out killing people every day of the year, so their weapons last year after year.

Those troops President Obama talked about coming home, well they are going to Afghanistan. Obama was so impressed with George Bush's military surge in Iraq, and when he saw how Bush's surge made arms sales increase, he knew he needed his own surge. So, that anti-war candidate we all wanted, has scrapped the troops home in 16 months thing, and is now sending tens of thousands of new troops to Afghanistan.

The economy might be hurting, but the Merchants of Death in that Military Industrial Complex that President Eisenhower warned us about are going to have another good year. You can bet they will be thanking President Obama with campaign contributions. In fact if you check it out, they already did during the last campaign. They help both sides out, just to make sure we will never really have an anti-war candidate.




Free JavaScripts provided
by The JavaScript Source


BACK to the 2009 Politics Columns.