NicolasDavies's blog

Giving War Too Many Chances

NicolasDavies — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 20:06:31 +0000

As the new year begins, it is important for the U.S. to acknowledge its troubling history of global war-making, especially over the past two-decades, as Nicolas J.S. Davies delineates.

By Nicolas J.S. Davies

Democratic Ex-Dove Proposes War On Iran

NicolasDavies — Wed, 22 Feb 2017 21:57:50 +0000

Rep. Alcee Hastings has sponsored a bill to authorize President Trump to attack Iran. Hastings reintroduced H J Res 10, the “Authorization of Use of Force Against Iran Resolution” on Jan. 3, the first day of the new Congress after President Trump’s election.

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/19/democratic-ex-dove-proposes-war-on-iran/

Delusions of Worthy Wars

NicolasDavies — Tue, 11 Oct 2016 14:55:51 +0000

Fifteen years ago, on October 19th 2001, Donald Rumsfeld addressed B-2 bomber crews at Whiteman AFB in Missouri, as they prepared to fly halfway across the world to wreak misdirected vengeance on the people of Afghanistan and begin the longest war in U.S. history. Rumsfeld told the bomber crews, “We have two choices. Either we change the way we live, or we must change the way they live. We choose the latter. And you are the ones who will help achieve that goal.”

The Science of Killing Has Become an Impractical Instrument of Political Domination

NicolasDavies — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 20:42:38 +0000

Surveying the U.S.’s imminent defeat in Vietnam in his 1972 book, Roots of War, Richard Barnet observed, “…at the very moment the number one nation has perfected the science of killing, it has become an impractical instrument of political domination.”

Since the 1980s, the U.S. has systematically violated the U.N.

Hillary Clinton & the Dogs of War

NicolasDavies — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 19:45:05 +0000

A poll taken in Iowa before the presidential caucus found that 70% of Democrats surveyed trusted Hillary Clinton on foreign policy more than Bernie Sanders. But her record as Secretary of State was very different from that of her successor, John Kerry, who has overseen groundbreaking diplomatic breakthroughs with Iran, Cuba and, in a more limited context, even with Russia and Syria.

In fact, Clinton’s use of the term “diplomacy” in talking about her own record is idiosyncratic in that it refers almost entirely to assembling “coalitions” to support U.S.

The Scale of the Slaughter: Passive Reporting vs Scientific Mortality Studies

NicolasDavies — Sun, 17 Jan 2016 17:55:28 +0000

How many people have been killed in the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen or Somalia? On November 18th, a UN press briefing on the war in Yemen declared authoritatively that it had so far killed 5,700 people, including 830 women and children. But how precise are these figures, what are they b

Defeating Terrorism - Theirs and Ours

NicolasDavies — Fri, 27 Nov 2015 18:58:28 +0000

"...at the very moment the number one nation has perfected the science of killing, it has become an impractical instrument of political domination." - Richard Barnet, Roots of War, 1972

Peace or regime change? Is US at a Crossroads in Syria?

NicolasDavies — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 19:53:13 +0000

November 1, 2015 https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/01/syria-at-a-crossroads/

The Record U.S. Military Budget

NicolasDavies — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 15:04:37 +0000

To listen to the Republican candidates' debate last week, one would think that President Obama had slashed the U.S. military budget and left our country defenseless. Nothing could be farther off the mark. There are real weaknesses in Obama's foreign policy, but a lack of funding for weapons and war is not one of them. President Obama has in fact been responsible for the largest U.S. military budget since the Second World War, as is well documented in the U.S.

How 94,000 U.S. Air-Strikes Created ISIS and a Global Crisis

NicolasDavies — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 22:37:47 +0000

Thirteen years ago, a draft dodger from Texas stood on a pile of rubble in New York City and promised: "the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." Of course, the people who flew the planes into the World Trade Center could not hear anybody, as their remains were buried in the rubble beneath Bush's feet. And our government's extraordinary relationship with one of the world's last and most brutal absolute monarchies ensured that any accomplices still in the U.S. were quickly flown home to Saudi Arabia before the crime could be investigated. In 2003, Bush meekly complied with Al-Qaeda's most concrete demand, that he withdraw U.S. forces from military bases in Saudi Arabia.

A month after September 11th, Donald Rumsfeld stood at a podium in front of a $2 billion B-2 bomber at Whiteman AFB in Missouri and addressed the aircrews of the 509th Bomber Wing, before they took off across the world to wreak misdirected vengeance on the people of Afghanistan. Rumsfeld told them, "We have two choices. Either we change the way we live, or we must change the way they live. We choose the latter. And you are the ones who will help achieve that goal."

Since then, the United States has launched more than 94,000 air strikes, mostly on Afghanistan and Iraq, but also on Libya, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Rumsfeld's plan has undoubtedly achieved his goal of changing the way people live in those countries, killing a million of them and reducing tens of millions more to lives of disability, disfigurement, dislocation, grief and poverty.