posted April 16, 2003 at 2:27 PM MDTTrotsky and Tony Cliff were all over the notion of "permanent-war economy".
The Permanent War Campaign [motherjones.com] - "President Bush seems to be planning to run on Sept. 11 and its aftershocks straight through the 2004 election."
"Back in 1980, a little-known writer named Sidney Blumenthal published a small book called "The Permanent Campaign." Much of what Blumenthal laid out in that book about the evolution of political image-making has long since been accepted as conventional wisdom, and Blumenthal himself went from being an outsider at the Boston Phoenix to one of the more infamous Clinton White House insiders."
[ cato.org responds with "Contains no data" ... WTH?!]
Permanent War State [Charlie Reese] - " ... [I]n addition to being the world's chief arms peddler, we also train the military personnel in more than 70 countries and have our own troops stationed in nearly 100 foreign countries. It has not been unusual for Americans to end up fighting people with American equipment and American training. The missiles on the wings of the Chinese fighter plane that collided with our intelligence aircraft were Israeli copies of American missiles. People trained and armed by the CIA during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan founded much of al-Qaida."
Permanent War; Permanent state of emergency [blackcommentator.com] - "George Bush has embarked on a strategy of permanent war abroad. The inevitable result will be a permanent state of emergency within the borders of the United States. There is no possibility of separating the two. And permanent domestic emergency will certainly mean a permanent state of siege for Black America, the permanent domestic enemy.
... According to the logic of the New American Century, it does not matter what Iraq, Iran or North Korea do, or whether they even speak to one another. The "Axis" countries share one thing only - a presumed willingness and capability to resist the U.S. - and must be deprived of that capability by all means necessary. Their mere capacity to deter U.S. intervention in their regions puts them in Washington's cross hairs. The report says this plainly, and lays out in detail the permanent deployment of U.S. forces to suppress such capability anywhere it appears."
George Bush's Permanent War [progressive.org] - "There was something almost pathetic about George W. Bush's attempt to make his fight against terrorism akin to the fight against the Nazis.
[...]
... Congress did not give him carte blanche to wage war against any and all terrorists everywhere, or against regimes that seek chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. He has taken that power unto himself, as he enunciates the Bush doctrine of permanent war.
It's a war that won't risk global annihilation, like World War II or the Cold War did. That is some solace. "A common danger is erasing old rivalries. America is working with Russia, China, and India in ways we have never before to achieve peace and prosperity," he said. The bouquet to China was well-thrown, since Bush's missile defense plans, reiterated in his speech, look ominous to Beijing.
But Bush's permanent war will likely sow seeds of discord among our European allies and stir pots of resentment throughout the Islamic world."
[N.B.: This was written in January of 2002!]
The Permanent War Machine and the Rise of Deathwashing [greens.org] - "The collapse of the Soviet Union and explosion of the computer age have propelled the world into the era of the Permanent War Machine. Since the 1970s, the US has sought to overcome the "Vietnam Syndrome"- the unwillingness of people to march mindlessly to war. This syndrome was exacerbated by a vacuum of enemies when the Soviet Union was gone.
A few years later computer technology decisively altered complexities of the military-industrial complex. Just as research makes software obsolete within months, microchips spawned an incredibly rapid turnover in war technology. Redesigned weapons systems cannot be assumed to work simply because an abstract simulation says they will. They require real homes to destroy and actual human flesh to burn. A new war must happen every few years.
The Permanent War Machine and the Rise of Deathwashing As this millennium closes, the Permanent War Machine is characterized by its continual creation of new images of Evil against which breakthroughs in killing technologies can be tested."
