In his Contra Corner, David Stockman suggests that the line between Empire and homeland security is being crossed by the Trump administration in bombing Iran, which had little ability to attack the United States. Stockman writes:
Indeed, war is so inimical to the very health and well being of liberty that the founders counseled against it in no uncertain terms. James Madison himself would have excoriated Donald Trump’s current threat to trample upon yet again the War Powers reserved exclusively for an act of Congress, reflecting the voice of all the people, in order to engage in an utterly discretionary act of war unrelated in any way to defense of the American homeland:
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” —James Madison
To to contrary, the very idea of dropping 30,000 pound bunker buster bombs on Iran’s Fordow nuclear enrichment site was purely a stratagem of Empire. And in this case, another foray into the middle east in behalf of an “ally” that his done precious little to enhance America’s Homeland Security over the decades since 1948, but is the overwhelming reason why the map below appears as it it does.
Even today, there are upwards of 51,000 US troops in the region surrounding Iran but all of them are attributable to the contingencies of Empire, not the necessities of Homeland Security. These former factors which unnecessarily position US forces and military assets in harms’ way include defense of Israel, protection of the Persian Gulf oil supplies and functioning as the regional and global gendarme for the alleged good of mankind.
But all of these reasons are illicit, as we amplify below.
Read more here.
If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for my free weekly email.
