The Magazine of Future Warfare

Physical Map of the World

Editorial

The United States is preparing for presidential elections and America's national security takes center stage once again. The majority of Americans want US troops to leave Iraq, and almost all GIs in Iraq want to come home. However, they are told to choose between President Bush, who wants US troops to stay for years, and Senator Kerry, who wants to send more troops to Iraq for years. A popular candidate who argued for leaving Iraq and acting neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Governor Howard Dean, was promptly destroyed by America's multinational corporate media. Despite his lead in the polls for the Democratic party nomination, the corporate controlled media chose his -- Hooyah! cheer to prove his mental instability, which was replayed continually on American television while corporate reps shook their heads. It was played 244 times on CNN within a week while TV models on all channels insisted that Dean was a nut, just like they had done with Ross Perot several years earlier.

A viable independent candidate, Ralph Nader, is blocked from the ballot box in most states, ignored by television news, and not allowed in the presidential debate. Most Americans think Nader is a nut, because their corporate television, newspaper, and magazine commentators tell them so. Whatever one thinks of Nader, his proposals are clear and his platform reflects the traditional values of the Democratic party. It seemed like 90% of the delegates at the Democratic convention opposed invading Iraq and favored pulling US troops out quickly, yet they "chose" John Kerry, who supported the war and wants to expand the US Army so that more troops can be kept overseas. Although most Democrats agree with Nader's views, the corporate media has them so confused that they hate Nader, and Republicans so confused that most do not realize that Bush has increased social spending twice as fast as Bill Clinton. The Constitution Party better reflects the viewpoints of most Republicans, yet few have heard of it. While the corporate media bores audiences daily with hours of free coverage of the wanderings of Bush and Kerry, it doesn't find any time to excite Americans with alternative parties and discussions of real issues.

The two official candidates ignore the real threats to national security: #1 National Bankruptcy, which G2mil addressed in May 2003 - The Cost of an Empire and March 2004 - Freeze the Military Budget ; #2 Rapid population growth in the world's poorest nations, which G2mil addressed in July 2003 - The Refugee Threat ; and #3 The resultant mass immigration into American's poorest communities, which G2mil addressed in January 2002 - Homeland Insecurity and September 2003 - Securing US Borders. While the corporate media and politicians focus attention and massive resources to prevent a major terror attack which may kill a few thousand Americans, there is no interest in protecting Americans from hospital errors, which kill 195,000 Americans each year.

Neither of the two corporate candidates address these issues, yet corporate spokesmen instruct their television "news" listeners not to "throw away their vote" by voting for whoever they like, and rarely mention any other candidate except that he may steal votes from their candidates. The corporate candidates and their media focus on terrorism, which is not even one of the top five threats to national security. It falls behind the demise of high tech manufacturing industries and the dire effect of legal bribery in the US government in the form of "campaign contributions" and post-retirement kickbacks paid as bonuses, salaries, and stock options to recently retired congressmen, generals, and bureaucrats.

The United States does not have a true multi-party democracy enjoyed by the Europeans, Canadians, and most other modern nations, and very few Americans understand what this means. Basically, if you have 100 seats in the legislature, and your party gets just 3% of the vote, you still get three seats. Ross Perot and the Reform Party got 19% of the vote in 1992, yet were allowed zero representation in the government. The United States has 535 seats in Congress, yet only one is held by someone not certified by the corporate financed Republican/Democrat political machines.

The election system in the USA is more like that of the Soviet Union, which had elections with only one party candidate on the ballot. The American system is more clever, two nearly identical party candidates, so there is a choice. This year's choice for emperor is between two candidates from extremely wealthy families, both from exclusive Yale, and both members of the small and selective "Skull and Bones" fraternity, and neither with a realistic plan to fix America's crumbling economy burdened by a rapidly expanding federal government. Both favor big centralized government, the American empire, and unquestioned support for the expansion of Israel into the West Bank, which is why Muslim terrorists hate us. Both spend much time "raising money" by meeting with the world's wealthiest people who write checks in exchange for promises to support their interests.

During the last election, Americans thought they had some choice. The Clinton administration had spent billions of dollars to expand the American empire into the Balkans and built more military bases in the Persian Gulf. Most Americans opposed this waste and meddling, and presidential candidate George Bush appealed to these voters during the presidential debate four years ago.

BUSH: ...I would take the use of force very seriously. I would be guarded in my approach. I don't think we can be all things to all people in the world. I think we've got to be very careful when we commit our troops. The vice president [Gore] and I have a disagreement about the use of troops. He believes in nation building. I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders.

...I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say this is the way it's got to be. We can help. And maybe it's just our difference in government, the way we view government. I want to empower the people. I want to help people help themselves, not have government tell people what to do. I just don't think it's the role of the United States to walk into a country and say, we do it this way, so should you.

In the next debate, Bush disagreed on sending US Troops to Haiti: "I wouldn't have sent troops to Haiti. I didn't think it was a mission worthwhile. It was a nation building mission, and it was not very successful. It cost us billions, a couple billions of dollars, and I'm not so sure democracy is any better off in Haiti than it was before." Few Americans know that President Bush sent US troops back to Haiti this year to remove their democratically elected President. Candidate Bush summarized his views during this debate: "Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation building core from America? Absolutely not. Our military is meant to fight and win war. That's what it's meant to do. And when it gets overextended, morale drops." With results such as this, it is no wonder that Iraqis are not enthusiastic about American style democracy and that most Americans vote against this rigged system by not showing up at the polls to endorse it.

Carlton Meyer editorG2mil@Gmail.com

G2mil editorials may be freely distributed without permission

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Fall 2004 Articles

have been returned to the Members Library

Letters - comments from G2mil readers

Why Torture is Wrong - not only because it is illegal

Anti-Satellite Lasers - the future of war

What if John Kerry wins? - the impact on the US military

The Unbearable Costs of Empire - onwards to bankruptcy

The U.S./Mexican Border Has Become a Sieve of Death - and needs US soldiers

US Army Off Course (pdf) - Colonel Macgregor's remarks to Congress