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@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 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
