A World Made by War - American Warscapes

[Panaconda]

A World Made by War
How Old Will You Be When the American War State Goes Down?
By Tom Engelhardt

...

Warscapes

From a remarkable array of possibilities, here are just a few warscapes -- think of them as like landscapes, only deadlier -- that might help make more visible an American world of, and way of, war that we normally spend little time discussing, questioning, debating, or doing anything about.

As a start, let me try to conjure up a map of what “defense,” as imagined by the Pentagon and the U.S. military, actually looks like. You can find such a map at Wikipedia, but for a second just imagine a world map laid flat before you. Now divide it, the whole globe, like so many ill-shaped pieces of cobbler, into six servings -- you can be as messy as you want, it’s not an exact science -- and label them the U.S. European Command or EUCOM (for Europe and Russia), the U.S. Pacific Command or PACOM (Asia), CENTCOM (the Greater Middle East and a touch of North Africa), NORTHCOM (North America), SOUTHCOM (South America and most of the Caribbean), and AFRICOM (almost all of Africa). Those are the “areas of responsibility” of six U.S. military commands.

In case you hadn’t noticed, on our map that takes care of just about every inch of the planet, but -- I hasten to add -- not every bit of imaginable space. For that, if you were a clever cartographer, you would somehow need to include STRATCOM, the U.S. Strategic Command charged with, among other things, ensuring that we dominate the heavens, and the newest of all the “geographic” commands, CYBERCOM, expected to be fully operational later this fall with “1,000 elite military hackers and spies under one four-star general” prepared to engage in preemptive war in cyberspace.

Some of these commands have crept up on us over the years. CENTCOM, which now oversees our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, was formed in 1983, a result of the Carter Doctrine -- that is, of President Jimmy Carter’s decision to make the protection of Persian Gulf oil a military necessity, while both NORTHCOM (2002) and AFRICOM (2007) were creations of the Global War on Terror.

...

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175308/tomgram:_engelhardt,_american_warscapes/#more

[Octafish]

1. Ever wonder why they call it CENTCOM?

It's how you rule the world.

K&R

[CanonRay]

3. Shouldn't CENTCOM be in like, Lawrence, Kansas

if defense is really what we're worried about. NORTHCOM in Fairbanks, etc.

[blindpig]

2. War, what is it good for?

Profit and control for the ruling class, that's what.

[maryf]

6. So in other words...

Absolutely nuthin (of real value anyway!) K&R this OP

[Evasporque]

4. RISK....nt

[wuvuj]

5. The JOINT CHIEFS have been...

...tokin' on a few too many again?

[Swede]

7. Time for an AIRSICBAG.

:puke:

[DFab420]

8. Are we really making an issue

of the fact that the Pentagon and the military have divided up the world as strategic centers of military enforcement?

I mean it's not like this map is how WE as a nation, or even as a government view the world. It's how the military, which has the specific job of being a military, breaks down to movement of troops and the chain of command.

Honestly, this doesn't surprise me, or really upset me..

But a rec for an interesting article!

I just don't think it's really a bad thing for the military to understand how it would work in any part of the world.

[leftstreet]

9. Oh come on. They're not wars, they're just little occupations!

We're bringing the worldz their freedums and rescuing their resources!

K&R

[onethatcares]

10. and of course we're offering them democracy on our terms at the point of a gun

what better way to win the hearts and minds of citizens worldwide?

:wtf:

[maryf]

11. So sad to say...

I'm glad I'm not young, morning kick.