41. WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS, September 29, 2021
US WAR OF TERROR.
AFGHANISTAN: WAR IS A RACKET.
AFSC: CONVERT WAR PROFITEERING MONEY.TO HUMAN NEEDS.
Over two decades, U.S.’s global war on terror has taken nearly 1 million lives and cost $8 trillion.
Editor. Mronline.org (9-4-21) Originally published: The Intercept by Murtaza Hussain (August 31, 2021.
A new report from the Costs of War Project makes staggering estimates for the human and financial costs of the global forever wars.
The U.S Racketeering [WAR] Enterprise by Steve Fournier (August 16, 2021). https://m.facebook.com/pg/forpinoys/posts/
The war in Afghanistan was a racketeering enterprise from top to bottom. A responsible judge (if there is such a person) would be compelled by the facts of the case to find that people at the highest levels of government, business and the mass media colluded in a criminal enterprise to destroy a distant people for gain. And there was gain. Untold billions changed hands as profiteers contracted for everything from sewage to chow, while top public employees enhanced their material and political prospects.
Title 18 of US Code forbids racketeering in a section known affectionately by the acroslur "RICO," denoting the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The law creates a civil cause of action--a federal lawsuit--for victims of racketeering. The people of Afghanistan would qualify as plaintiffs, and they should assemble promptly, while the evidence is still warm, to conduct an investigation into the criminal conduct of their invaders. Their object should be to present their findings in a complaint to a US court. They were subjected by three presidents, ten congresses, a few hundred billionaires and every commercial news-monger in the western world to nightly terror at the hands of overpaid mercenary soldiers, and they should not hesitate to seek justice.
Somebody has a legal claim to the profits, obscene by any measure, realized by private contracting firms custom-created for this lucrative venture. Those assets and the personal property of the government officials who facilitated this atrocity need to be subject to confiscation and distribution to Afghans. Even now, relying on the distracted complacency of the public, the US government is aiding and abetting private financiers in the theft of Afghan government assets, an act that fits the definition of piracy. We can only guess where that money will end up. We'll never know how much has been looted by private parties from sure-to-be-abandoned government property. Our law has a process for holding the culpable parties accountable if anybody has the guts to invoke it.
I used to be a modestly resourceful lawyer, but I'm damned if I can see how news-mongers escape liability as racketeers. It's not as if it was a secret that retribution was being inflicted on Afghans for crimes in which no Afghans were involved. Reporters were OK with that. They were on board for the unconstitutional invasion under a recklessly adopted scrap of legislation that was not a declaration of war but a blank check for profligate destruction. Whether sponsored by Rupert Murdoch or "viewers like you," news-mongers had not a critical word to say. The high-profile media people who promoted the Afghan adventure remain strident and make bigger money than ever. Afghans should keep a detailed record of the somber, almost tearful lamentations of reporters over the failure of the Afghan army to kill and die in the last days of the occupation. Many of us hope that a day will come when the world understands the role of the mass media (including NPR) in promoting bloodshed and destruction.
It wasn't just Afghans who were victimized by the corrupt enterprise in West Asia. You suffered, too, if you had trouble paying your utility bills or your taxes or your insurance premiums, all of which carry hidden surcharges to defray the cost of war contracts. If you depend on government for any sort of social service, you paid in degraded service and reduced benefits. If you had a good feeling about your country and its place in the world or if you ever wore a military uniform, you suffered grievously as your nation's reputation plummeted before your eyes. The world knows, if we don't, that we tolerated an atrocity that will shock human conscience for a hundred years and discredit this generation irredeemably.
There's a lawsuit for that.
Tell Congress: Stop spending our tax dollars on weapons and war!
AFSC (9-4-21)
The House Armed Service Committee also voted to add $25 billion to the Pentagon’s already bloated budget—even more than what the Biden administration had requested. Urge Congress to move the money to fund human needs and address global problems, not war and militarism! https://www.afsc.org/action/stop-funding-war-and-militarism-and-invest-our-communities