Exploiting The Fog of War

Here's an essay from TomDispatch.com which details the extraordinarily profligate spending by the U.S. on war.

We've all heard the shibboleth The Fog of War. In my mind it has had mostly to do with friendly fire deaths and such. One of the characteristics of incidents often blamed on The Fog of War is cover ups of what really happened. Pat Tillman's killing comes to mind.

This article provides Believe-It-Or-Not examples of another kind of behavior which is also obscured by The Fog of War; the uncontrolled spending on things like military bases and all their complements, making them actually small cities complete with what any small city is likely to provide its inhabitants: restaurants, ball fields, mini-golf courses and the like, for the amusement of the troops. It helps them to avoid focusing on what they're actually doing in a foreign land. The piece also catalogs the huge inventory of vehicles and all manner of war materiel, all of which must be moved somehow, to somewhere.

The logistics of drawing down our so-called footprint in Iraq is likened to relocating an entire city the size of Buffalo.

These very tangible things are all a part of the cost of war which is hidden from the public, the bill payers for all this, by the Fog of War. The Pentagon, the military/industrial complex and the Neocons love war, somewhere, all the time because wars can be conducted, veiled in the fog which obscures the profligacy of its prosecutors and the corruption which follows all war caravans.

The Pax Romana was characterized by this same kind of obscene behavior, paid for with the high taxes imposed on the citizens of Rome and its conquered and occupied territories. We are no different it seems.

There really is nothing new under the son. It's all part of Human Nature. To rail against it is to spit in the wind, yet rail we must and should. We might still be in Vietnam if it weren't for the railing of the public.

It probably would take a military draft to awaken the public from its stupor to start an arousal sufficient to get the attention of Congress. That's not going to happen any time soon. The Neocons don't want the public to wake up and notice. That would spoil all their fun and games and expose their crimes by blowing away the Fog of War in which they hide.

Leandethal