No wonder so many of us are sick of this shit

[Scuba]

[Funtatlaguy]

1. Eisenhower was correct.

Beware

[merrily]

5. You mean, West Point graduate Eisenhower who spent his life in the military, a good chunk of it

as military brass, and was CIC for 8 years before he said that--all without having done diddly about the MIC? Warned us on the day he left office? What the eff are we supposed to do about it that he couldn't do?

I have zero respect for him and his Farewell Speech.

[starroute]

16. The military-industrial complex only really became powerful around 1958

It didn't exist when Eisenhower was at West Point. It started to develop as a result of World War II. It gradually became able to affect public policy after the war, but it only really exploded when the launch of Sputnik in 1957 made people nervous and money started to be thrown at high-tech weapons systems.

It then proceeded to effectively sabotage the last two years of Eisenhower's presidency. He was trying to develop openings to the Soviet Union and end the Cold War. The military-industrial complex made that impossible. I've even seen it suggested that the U-2 incident was deliberately used to prevent any US-Russian rapprochement.

So don't piss on Ike. He figured out what was going on earlier than almost anyone and did his best to warn the rest of us.

[merrily]

20. Do you have any links to support any of what you are saying? Samuel Bush was a figure during World

War II, Prescott during World War II. It's very hard for me to believe that the MIC was no thing until 1958.

Aside from that, Ike was a racist and delayed implementing the Brown v. Bd. of Ed decision as long as he could. I have no use for the man.

[LiberalArkie]

29. I have seen some of the old documentaries years ago where GM had to stop

making cars and make tanks. We had to use merchant marine (cargo shipping) ships to move the army and such. Really we had not much at the start of the war and no industry except for making ships. We had a civilian aircraft companies that had to retool to make the bombers and fighters. Remember Molley the Riveter? Training the housewives to build planes. He did not have a MIC at that time and it took years to bring it online. That maybe the thinking of why it can not be shrunk because of the fear of it happening again.

The Russians let their armament companies go under and they are having one heck of a time getting back up to speed in the heavy stuff. The missiles and stuff are easy to start up, it is the bombers, ships and fighter productions that are difficult.

[merrily]

34. OK, no links. Also, I am not connecting anything in your post to no MIC until 1958.

The MIC is people in industry making money from the war machine. That has existed as long as there has been war. It does not depend on whether factories have to be re-tooled or whether it's women rather than the men in the factories. The first war the Bushes made money on was World War I. BTW, it was Rosie the Riveter, not Molley the Riveter.

[LiberalArkie]

35. Whatever

[hedda_foil]

42. I think you're both right.

There have always been war profiteers, as you say, merrily, as long as standing armies have existed. The Bush family is a prime example, starting with good old great, great grampy Sam and the company that vaulted him into the industrial stratosphere of Rockefeller, Harrington and Remington. (the Buckeye Steel Castings Company of Ohio.

..snip..

In the spring of 1918, Bush became chief of the Ordnance, Small Arms and Ammunition Section of the War Industries Board of Bernard Baruch and Clarence Dillon, with national responsibility for government assistance to and relations with Remington and other weapons companies.BUsh was essentially taking national responsibility for government assistance to his own Remington Arms Company and other weapon makers. Through these weapons manufacturers, Samuel Bush made and sold arms to 75% of the WWI combatants on both sides.

..snip..
Samuel Bush was labeled a "Merchant of Death" in the years following the Great War as investigations began into the instigators of the war and of the new emerging world militarism. The German Army under the Kaiser was the largest and most well armed in the world in 1914, and they were largely armed by Samuel Bush. After WWI, Germany was stripped of their arms, but Samuel Bush was allowed to keep his millions, and his arms business was allowed to grow and prosper. In 1944 he was awarded a huge government contract to make armor casings for WWII. He died shortly after the war ended in 1948, within months of the passage of the National Security Act.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x633661

And great grampy Prescott, who followed the family tradition of treason by trading with the Nazi enemy.

But there really wasn't a standing army until after WW II because, basically, it's unconstitutional. So after the war, there wasn't much of what could be considered a MIC. Fortunately, the Dulles boys and the generals were on the job, and managed to scare Truman about the red menace quickly enough that he jumped into the Korean War just a few years later. At least Truman caught on when General MacArthur wanted to expand his little war into China. Ike was brought in to stop the war, but the Rosenbergs gave Russia the recipe for the H bomb, and the arms race started, but even Ike had a lead time to figure out WTF was going on. It wasn't until sputnik, though that the arms industry really took off.

So Eisenhower publicly warned his successor, and Kennedy obviously took him at his word, trying to end the cold war and prevent atomic devastation, as well as firing Alan Dulles from the CIA. There's a lot of folks think those were the reasons behind the assassination.

[merrily]

64. How, if at all, does what you posted relate specifically to the year 1958?

[malthaussen]

65. There have been profiteers in every war, aye.

Used to be they were called "War Contractors," or "Commissary Agents." A host of names. They have always been synonymous with corruption, but there is a difference between them and what has come to be known as the "Military Industrial Complex." In the U.S., there was no pipeline to industry from government, and the regular military was kept quite small, by the Constitution, which was penned when people had a pathological fear of standing armies. While Europe, engaged constantly in major wars, evolved a system of reserves and standing forces to quickly mobilize the whole nation for war, America, with only a few natives to fight, made do with a small, starved military in which all senior ranks were appointed by approval of Congress, not by the Commander-in-Chief. This is why so many captains and lieutenants found themselves generals after the Civil War broke out, generals of Volunteers, appointed by the governors, not by the Federal government which controlled the regular forces, which numbered only about 25,000. (It's also, incidentally, why most ex-slave combat units were formed as "U.S. Colored Troops," on the regular establishment, because few governors wanted to raise "Colored" regiments. Some exceptions apply, but there were only a few "Colored" regiments of volunteers.)

When WWI came along, Europe committed collective suicide and the war profiteers made a bundle; there was plenty of feeling that the profiteers prolonged the war because they were making so much money, which a casual reading of Siegfried Sassoon's life would demonstrate. But the U.S. was largely untouched by WWI, and in the inter-war period, thanks to the Depression and cutbacks by the Isolationists, we didn't even build all the ships and weapons we were allowed under various international treaties. Thus, we were seriously wrong-footed when we entered WWII, because we had not yet begun to increase our armaments. This is a lesson that would linger, although after WWII. we were in such a hurry to de-mobilize that Korea again caught us unprepared. Since it takes rather a long time to change over automobile assembly lines to produce tanks, and to pipeline the large numbers of aircraft without which the military is not capable of fighting a war, the more hawkish advocated setting the economy on a permanent war-footing, with fat defense contracts flowing from the Pentagon (which was only built during WWII, you may recall) to the profiteers, including the Bush evil empire.

Citations? All this is so easily learned and understood that a casual Google of "Preparedness" would give you enough material for several books. You may not like Ike, which is your privilege, but he was warning about something that was a relatively new thing under the sun, at least in the U.S., where our habit had always been to starve the military so that Congress could have greater say in it. Of course, since WWII, Congress has cravenly betrayed the obligations it was placed under by the Constitution in respect of war. which is one reason why we haven't declared any since 1941, despite being in constant combat.

-- Mal

[merrily]

68. He was warning people with no power about something about which he, as President, had done nothing.

And he waited until he was about out the door. And, after he was out the door, he did nothing.

That is why I will not venerate him on this issue.

[malthaussen]

69. Venerate him or not as you please...

... but understanding what he was talking about is rather crucial to interpreting modern times.

-- Mal

[merrily]

70. Understanding the post to which you are replying is also important.

Never once in my life, let alone on this thread, have I said that I do not understand what Eisenhower was talking about or that the MIC does not exist. So, please let that strawman rest.

[liam_laddie]

58. Rosie the Riveter...

[former9thward]

40. Eisenhower got us out of one war and kept us out of any others.

Quite an accomplishemnt given the records of other presidents and given the times. To put Brown v. Bd. of Education on Eisenhower's back is ridiculous. Brown was a decision aimed at local school districts of which there are thousands. The federal government had and has no way of micro-managing them.

[mountain grammy]

45. I remember my dad being gone for a year in the fifties

To someplace called Korea. An undeclared war is still a war.

[Major Hogwash]

53. My dad's best friend from high school spent 3 years from 1949-1952 in South America.

He was working for the CIA, starting "little wars" in countries condescendingly referred to in American newspapers as "banana republics".
In 1960, he was transferred to an office in Florida working on the "Cuban problem".

[former9thward]

61. Eisenhower took over in 1953...

[Major Hogwash]

62. Eisenhower supported the CIA, he gave the go ahead for the Bay of Pigs invasion.

[former9thward]

74. The Bay of Pigs was planned by the CIA during the last months of the Eisenhower adminstration.

President Kennedy gave the go ahead.

[Major Hogwash]

76. After consulting with Eisenhower.

That's just a matter of history, dude.

[former9thward]

60. Really?

Isn't that the war tha began under Truman and Eisenhower ended as soon as he took office? I guess I must of got that wrong. The things you learn here ....

[mountain grammy]

72. Oh pardon me..

didn't mean to sully the name of St Eisenhower.

[former9thward]

73. He is no saint to me.

No president is. Are any to you?

[mountain grammy]

75. Absolutely not!

[kristopher]

37. You left out nuclear weapons/nuclear power.

Those two quasi related technologies are the linchpin justification for the MIC.

[starroute]

38. I hadn't realized the major nuclear buildup only stated in the late 50s

But you're absolutely right.

[Javaman]

48. this is the same ike who authorized one last U-2 flight over the Soviet Union

prior to the summit with Kruschev.

that flight is now famous, it was piloted by Gary Powers.

so please, ike is as guilty as the rest.

he also expanded greatly our nuclear arsenal that deepened the cold war.

he had to sign bills increasing defense spending as well.

so cut him all the slack you want, I won't give him an inch.

[Major Hogwash]

54. It's strange to me they don't include the CIA with the MIC when discussing war.

But, maybe they don't know how many "little wars" the CIA actually started from 1945 to 1960.
And beyond.

[Javaman]

55. allen dulles was an evil paranoid bastard

I sincerely hope he's roasting someplace.

he fucked up U.S. foreign policy forever.

the cia should be dismantled.

[Hekate]

59. The sheer ignorance....

[merrily]

66. A post whose only possible purpose is to insult a DUer seems like sheer ignorance to me.

Sheer nastiness, too.

We each are entitled to our standards.

[Hekate]

67. oh yeah

[Stuart G]

32. Just read my signature...Eisenhower was/is correct...!!!!

This is on every post I put up.....



"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." DWIGHT D EISENHOWER, speech April 16, 1953:

[lewebley3]

51. War will never go away: Its part of the human condition: Mankind has never been w/out

Politician cannot fix what is wrong with humans, they can only
manage the best they can.

[onehandle]

2. The longest peacetime expansion in American history was when a Clinton was in office.

Not going to reply to the many wrong people replying to me. Hannity was wrong too.

http://mediamatters.org/research/2006/07/07/hannity-repeated-false-claim-that-reagan-oversa/136113

[jeff47]

3. As long as you consider bombing other countries "peacetime". (nt)

[merrily]

11. It's as though we're addicted, isn't it? This is your brain on war:

Address to the Nation on the Invasion of Iraq (January 16, 1991)



George H. W. Bush


Just 2 hours ago, allied air forces began an attack on military targets in Iraq and Kuwait. These attacks continue as I speak. Ground forces are not engaged.

This conflict started August 2d when the dictator of Iraq invaded a small and helpless neighbor. Kuwait—a member of the Arab League and a member of the United Nations—was crushed; its people, brutalized. Five months ago, Saddam Hussein started this cruel war against Kuwait. Tonight, the battle has been joined.

much more at:

http://www.millercenter.org/president/speeches/speech-3428

transcript: President Clinton explains Iraq strike

CLINTON: Good evening.

Earlier today, I ordered America's armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.

much more at:

http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html

more at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026211673



Senate vote on 2002 AUMF at:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2002/s237



House vote on 2002 AUMF at:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/107/hjres114

10:16 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.


On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war. These are opening stages of what will be a broad and concerted campaign. More than 35 countries are giving crucial support -- from the use of naval and air bases, to help with intelligence and logistics, to the deployment of combat units. Every nation in this coalition has chosen to bear the duty and share the honor of serving in our common defense.

more at http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030319-17.html

[kristopher]

39. How much of your life have we been at war?

For me it's 41.7%



Also, if you want to see a timeline of all the wars since 1675, go here:
http://americanhistory.about.com/library/timelines/bltimelineuswars.htm

[Major Hogwash]

52. Ever since I was born!

The US has been at war ever since 1950.

[merrily]

6. Sowing the seeds for the economic collapse of 2008, with

things like NAFTA, repeal of Glass Steagall and the Commodities Futures Financial Services Act of 2000, with his White House lobbying Democrats hard for both, so he could later shrug and say "veto proof majority."

Yep. That peacetime expansion, during which he bragged about having ended welfare as we know it.

[Act_of_Reparation]

7. Somalia, Sudan, Bosnia, and Iraq might disagree with you there. n/t

[yeoman6987]

13. You missed adding the sarc tag. What you typed is hilarious

We bombed all over the place in the 90's.

[daleanime]

19. +1

[morningfog]

25. When you want to tout something it was "a Clinton." When its a bad mark, it's sexist

to suggest Hillary agrees.

Of course, I disagree with your "peace time" assessment anyway.

[Iggo]

41. Not all Clintons!!!!

[LiberalArkie]

31. It may have occurred during Clinton, but started and purchased under Reagan.

Clinton would be about right, there is a heck of a lead-time in stealthy bombers and fighters seeing as how they had to be invented. But all that crap started under Ronny ray-gun.

It is very easy to spend a trillion when you know the bill won't be due until you are gone.

And we are still paying for Ronnys crap

[Major Hogwash]

56. Bombing the living shit out of Milosevic is "peace"?

The Air Force Colonel that was interviewed by Rachel Maddow when he was discovered by the Boise police to be gay, flew 100+ missions over Bosnia and Serbia during the decade that saw the Clinton administration.
That's how he earned 5 Air Medals, before going to Afghanistan, and then on to Iraq.

[bigwillq]

4. K and R (nt)

[Lurks Often]

8. Good luck finding a time where the wasn't a war of some kind going on

somewhere. I was curious a couple of years ago and did some research. I went all the way back to 1750 and could not find a year where there wasn't a war going on somewhere in the world.

The bottom line is that the human species is violent and has been since forever, long before the US even existed.

[Scuba]

10. Yet some countries manage to avoid being at war.

[Lurks Often]

12. Only the unimportant and useless ones

Good luck finding a major country that hasn't had and still has wars going on. Russia, France and England have all been at war at least once since the end of WWII

[daleanime]

22. At least once....

almost nonstop.


There could be room for a little bit of difference.

[snort]

27. War mongers big and small

are useless. But who doesn't want to be important? If only they knew how good it felt.

[merrily]

21. A war going on somewhere in the world is very different from what the OP is saying.

[Hissyspit]

43. Yeah, kind of important.

[KamaAina]

9. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.

Quite half the posters had the wrong faces on them. Clearly the agents of Goldstein had been at work.

[Blue_Tires]

14. FWIW, a few European countries can easily make a similar claim...

[jalan48]

15. The United States is a country that was founded on violence and the enslavement of people.

It's in our national DNA no matter how much we want to sugar coat it with "helping others".

[tclambert]

17. I would be interested to see a list of the 17 years we were not at war.

I'd also like to see a graphic version of this--ya know, a chart or graph with the different wars as different color lines kinda thing.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. War. It's the American Way.

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." - Friedrich Nietzsche

[kairos12]

23. Maybe we should amend the Constitution and have Congress declare when we are not at war.

[Glassunion]

24. The world has only experienced about the same percentage in the past 3,400 years.

Humans are pretty darn good at f$#king up this place.

[Octafish]

26. ''A Cross of Iron'' or ''Theft in the name of National Security.''

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, from a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953

[Dont call me Shirley]

28. Imperialist plutocrats know no boundaries, what's anyone else's is theirs they believe. They have

had so many of thousands of years of practice at stirring regular folk up, conniving them into believing and serving in their poison wars of expansion.

End oligarchy imperialism monarchy plutocracy.

[Ivan Kaputski]

30. k and r

[chknltl]

33. We should have wars:

War on poverty, war on racism, war on sexism, and most importantly a war on "stupid". There is no good reason why we can not be a world wide society of well fed respectful enlightened equals.

[merrily]

36. We should stop calling things wars that are not wars. That's how we got War on Terror.

[gordyfl]

44. Nowadays, Most U.S. Wars are Unnecessary

[mountain grammy]

46. Perfect..war through the ages, same old shit.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

47. Duck vs Rabbit

[Bernardo de La Paz]

49. Dogs

[SoapBox]

50. Religion...and...land.

Always an argument.

[Martin Eden]

57. "They" must really hate us for our freedom!

[Ford_Prefect]

71. Hail, Hail, Freedonia! Land of the Brave and Free!

Duck Soup Indeed.

[jwirr]

63. Ouch.