Why We Fight

"It is nowhere written that the American Empire goes on forever."



Military + Industry + Congress = Military Industrial Complex

"This is not about one President or one Party."

John McCain asked, "When does the United States go from a force for good to a force of Imperialism?"

President Eisenhower said, "In the counsels of government, we must guard against the Military Industrial Complex." He said that if we didn't keep an eye on the Military Industrial Complex, we would see what he called 'a disastrous rise of misplaced power'; people making policy who have zero accountability to the voter.

On October 10, 2002, the U.S. Congress passed Joint Resolution 114, granting the President the right to use force against Iraq at his discretion.

On how we maintain an all voluntary military, "We appeal to people's self-interest, and then put them into a situation that's based on self-sacrifice."

From a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel - "These guys were manipulating public opinion, okay, creating, ah, falsehoods and fantasies to inspire fear in the American people so that they could have their war." Further, she says, "I have two sons and I will allow none of my children to serve in the United States Military. If you join the military now, you are not defending the United States of America; you are helping certain policy makers pursue an Imperial agenda." Later, she says, "We have a Congress that failed, in every way, to ask the right questions, to hold the President to account; our Congress failed us, miserably. And that's because many in Congress are beholding to the Military Industrial Complex."

"It turns out, it's not that hard to get a country to go to war."

When pressed, President George W. Bush said, "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th."

"It's a terrible thing, when American citizens can't trust their President."

"There's something wrong with the entire system."

"The reason we are in Iraq, first off, has not honestly been told to the American people. It certainly had nothing to do with the liberation of the Iraqi people. It was never part of the agenda and it's not part of the agenda, now."

"We know we did not have an exit strategy in the invasion of Iraq, because we didn't intend to leave. We are in the process right now of building 14 permanent bases in Iraq."

"The world has changed and we're not going back to where we were."

"One of the sillier ideas [people say]...American policy has been hijacked by a handful of people and as soon as they are out of there, we're going to go back to the way it was. They are wrong about that, because we are not the same people we were, before."

"We are walking on thin ice. We are treading the same path taken by the first Democratic Regime ever created in the Western world, namely, the Roman Republic."

"[The Roman Republic] discovered that to maintain, expand, [and to] protect this empire, they required standing armies. Standing armies is what George Washington warned us against in his farewell address; that they will destroy the structure of government that we tried to create in our Constitution; to prevent the rise of an Imperial Presidency."

"[Our Constitution] gives the right to go to war exclusively to the elected Representatives of the people, to the Congress. Our Congress, in October of 2002, voted in both Houses to give this power to a single man, including the use of nuclear weapons, if he so chose..."

"The fundamental reality is that most of the government's decisions today are substantially dictated by powerful corporate interests. Clearly, Capitalism is winning [over Democracy]."

"...the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance, and we have not been vigilant since Dwight Eisenhower issued his warning to us back in 1961 about the dangers of unauthorized power in the form of the Military Industrial Complex."

President Eisenhower said, "We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper, together."

"So, why we fight? I think we fight [be]cause too many people are not standing up, saying, 'I'm not doing this anymore.'"