Josh Paul, who spent a decade in State's bureau overseeing arms sales, exclusively spoke with HuffPost after quitting over the U.S. approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
It’s a little ironic, but we’re in the same boat France was, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq after 9/11.
We’re distant enough to have some perspective, and we have personal experience with this exact phenomenon. But whether we like it or not, we do have a pre-existing diplomatic and military relationship at play, and that complicates matters severely. Not supporting your allies in their time of need, regardless of whether they deserve it or not, is a heavy choice to make, with consequences of its own.
Bro the US can literally flip flop in any direction every 4 years. The only thing it cares about is money, and the best way to make that money is with war and oil. That should be the national motto.
Fortunately we can flip flop on that too, it’s not impossible. The term “military-industrial complex” itself was coined by President Eisenhower, WW2 general and 2 term pres, in his farewell address to the American people, when he explained it to us as a likely future problem.
Before WW2, we disbanded most of our military after basically every war. Much cheaper that way. Though always costlier in the first stretch of any new war.
These kinds of broad changes, like say, battling the robber barons of the 19th century, tend to take us more than a generation to fix, though. We’re not static, it just looks that way at personal timescales, about 99% of the time. It’s an illusion though, with proper training and/or practice you can see right through it.
I’m not alone, extremely cautious optimism is fairly common with more old school liberals.
Historians like Stephen Kotkin and Yuval Noah Harari frequently take these kinds of positions, with Kotkin having been pretty active regarding Ukraine, and recently Harari having to take some really difficult, nuanced positions about a situation he, his family and friends are literally living. He is a historian at the University of Jerusalem, if memory serves.
We were a more honest society then. The department of defense was appropriately named the war department, and not one of our many Orwellian jingoisms.
We also raised tax to pay for the war then too, and sold bonds to the public to fund it. Thats what part of the “war effort” at home was about.
Now we just devalue the dollar and rack up debt we will never pay. The rich already own everything money can buy, they won’t give two shits when it’s worth less than toilet paper. They’ve made out with everything of value while paying you less and less every year.
Stealing anything good any of us ever made with our wasted vitality and youth.
They’re a fucking cancer that needs to be excised.
I see right through it, it’s a country founded on the genocide of native Americans, made strong through the enslavement of a kidnapped people for 400 years, and then made the global dominant superpower thanks to capitalism, war, and oil.
It’s a little ironic, but we’re in the same boat France was, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq after 9/11.
We’re distant enough to have some perspective, and we have personal experience with this exact phenomenon. But whether we like it or not, we do have a pre-existing diplomatic and military relationship at play, and that complicates matters severely. Not supporting your allies in their time of need, regardless of whether they deserve it or not, is a heavy choice to make, with consequences of its own.
Bro the US can literally flip flop in any direction every 4 years. The only thing it cares about is money, and the best way to make that money is with war and oil. That should be the national motto.
Fortunately we can flip flop on that too, it’s not impossible. The term “military-industrial complex” itself was coined by President Eisenhower, WW2 general and 2 term pres, in his farewell address to the American people, when he explained it to us as a likely future problem.
Before WW2, we disbanded most of our military after basically every war. Much cheaper that way. Though always costlier in the first stretch of any new war.
These kinds of broad changes, like say, battling the robber barons of the 19th century, tend to take us more than a generation to fix, though. We’re not static, it just looks that way at personal timescales, about 99% of the time. It’s an illusion though, with proper training and/or practice you can see right through it.
Thank you for your optimism.
I’m not alone, extremely cautious optimism is fairly common with more old school liberals.
Historians like Stephen Kotkin and Yuval Noah Harari frequently take these kinds of positions, with Kotkin having been pretty active regarding Ukraine, and recently Harari having to take some really difficult, nuanced positions about a situation he, his family and friends are literally living. He is a historian at the University of Jerusalem, if memory serves.
Here’s a recent interview he did: https://youtu.be/9qaxYQqmzIg?si=hq3dbjC9gHGB4kXE
We were a more honest society then. The department of defense was appropriately named the war department, and not one of our many Orwellian jingoisms.
We also raised tax to pay for the war then too, and sold bonds to the public to fund it. Thats what part of the “war effort” at home was about.
Now we just devalue the dollar and rack up debt we will never pay. The rich already own everything money can buy, they won’t give two shits when it’s worth less than toilet paper. They’ve made out with everything of value while paying you less and less every year.
Stealing anything good any of us ever made with our wasted vitality and youth.
They’re a fucking cancer that needs to be excised.
I see right through it, it’s a country founded on the genocide of native Americans, made strong through the enslavement of a kidnapped people for 400 years, and then made the global dominant superpower thanks to capitalism, war, and oil.
Excuse me? I thought the motto was “The freedom fries must flow”