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Giant War on Terror

here's my $42 billion!
rush the toy combatants to me!
From Casual Contemporaries, with casual collaboration from Prof. Ed.

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no logic permitted. 22.Sep.2003 19:15

this thing here

ratio of number of B-1 bombers (x) it takes to kill 1 terrorist (y), where y equals 1.

i'll bet it's less less than 1.

ratio of price of 1 B-1 bomber to price of 1 terrorist.

i'll bet it's greater than 1. by at least 6 digits...

seeing the amount of weaponry displayed above reminds me of the amount of weaponry currently in use against terrorism, in a "campaign with no end and no tangible objective". it's the same useless mindset that has led to the war on drugs, a campaign where there will never be a clean decisive win, with no end in sight, and no tangible objective, except perhaps the imprisonment of all on behalf of all. "maybe if we lock each other up, we'll all be safe from ourselves, preventing us from ingesting illicit substances!" smart, "real" smart.

ooops. the terrorists don't have mechanized amoured divisions and wings of bombers and hundreds of infantry divisions and air fields. as much as the pentagon tries to change itself, it's still fighting the last war. or in this case still making the same mistake.

but maybe, in the eyes of the bush admin, it's not really a mistake? it is my opinion/theory, however, that the war on terrorism is nothing more than a cleverly disguised proxy war between states. where did i get this idea? "we'll go after the terrorists AND THE NATIONS THAT HOUSE THEM." the disguise didn't fool me.

and i'm surprised the bush admin. hasn't used that same logic in the war on drugs, just gone in and invaded columbia, occupied it, and sprayed all the coca fields (eliminated all the terrorists) ourselves. of course, it's an idiotic, failed from the start logic. do terrorists just hang out in one country? do drugs just come from one country? so tell me again how invading a specific nation state solves a problem that has no territorial boundry? ahh, but some of these nation states just happen to have a certain special resource...

of course, in the eyes of the pentagon/defense industry (same coin, different sides), it doesn't matter. whether it's a war on terrorism, or a proxy war between states, whether it's a total failure or resounding success, they still get paid the same amount. and what is that called? a racket...

Not so! 23.Sep.2003 04:12



Not so!

Large swaths of Latin America have been depopulated -- crops, livestock, and farmers too, fumigated to make way for corporate monocrops.

Clandestine agents are everywhere. Private armies slaughter whomever they please. Some of the most brutal thugs in history are buying expensive weapons as fast as they can be shipped. You! are bankrolling the rape of South America and, more importantly, supporting US arms merchants in a style they hope to remain accustomed to.

CIA has monopolies on both heroin and cocaine. Competition from cannabis has been eliminated (or bought out) almost everywhere. In most parts of the world, drugs are easier to obtain than clean water. Entire cities in USA are alternately nodding and gutting their piggybanks to pay the pusher.

Your local swineherd has been militarized to an extent that would have shocked your parents. No-knock, entrapment, and presumption-of-guilt laws are legislated faster than the pigs can keep up. When they murdered Fred Hampton, they had to do it in the dead of night. Now they do it in time to make the six o'clock infotainment.

I could go on and on and on ...

Tangible objectives, indeed.