Book Review: Strategic Terror (2006)

The politics and ethics of aerial bombardment
by Beau Grosscup
Review by Brian Wright

Originally posted in July 2012.

As many Americans, I’ve tended until recently to put out of my mind the actual effects of aerial bombardment on, you know, people, especially when the bombs are dropped by the American military or its allies over there. It’s just too easy to attend to other matters, to focus on our brave boys doing all the work, flying the planes, risking being shot down, and so on. How many times have the media shown the aftermath, on the ground, of an aerial bombing?

Once I became ready to face the harsh reality, it took a microsecond to grasp that being bombed from aircraft, in the city or the country, is probably the most horrific holy hell any living being can go through. Your screaming children writhing from shards of glass, people crushed or buried alive by falling concrete and steel, appendages torn off in an instant, then with the incendiaries like napalm—esp. napalm-B[1] coming along in the Vietnam Warcrime era—people’s lives ending in a slow, excruciating fireball of goo. [Speaking of Vietnam and antipersonnel weapons, millions of the ingeniously sadistic CBU (cluster bomb unit) 24s were dropped from US aircraft (mostly via B-52s and B-57s from undetectable altitudes).[2][3]

Background

Professor Grosscup starts by giving us the early history of aerial bombing, at the point where the flying technology and bombardiering technology were coming together… essentially the WW1 era. The author notes four major theoreticians, whom he calls the Prophets: Giulio Drouhet (Italy), Hugh Trenchard and Sir Basil Liddell Hart (England), and William ‘Billy’ Mitchell (United States). As every other political figure or military mind, the Prophets were horrified by World War I, the so-called Great War; they saw the millions of men killed in trenches as a feminine, defensive war, where nothing was glorified and offensive attack was suicidal. Strategic bombing became the savior of the affirmative role of manly martial prowess in stoking the Western patriarchies. Continue reading

Donut Whole: Preventing World War Three

How to stop worrying and NOT love the bomb
by Brian R. Wright

In this column I want to chat about a matter of the highest priority: it is reasonably certain that ‘high govern- ment officials’ of the Global deep state are planning to initiate a nuclear holocaust in the near future, one that will launch ICBMs and/or submarine missiles on the Russians and/or the Chinese in an all-out preemptive attack—whether or not these officials believe the Russians/ Chinese will be capable of massive retaliation against Europe and the United States. The argument for ‘reality of intent’ of preemption comes from several sources, I’ll quote a few lines from this column in Strategic Culture:

US Navy Prepares Decapitating Attack Against Russia

3/27/17. The US preemptive nuclear strike capability has significantly grown. The strategic nuclear forces modernization program has implemented new revolutionary technologies to vastly increase the targeting capability of the US submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) arsenal.

The Bulletin of American Scientists reports that as a result of improvements in the killing power of US SLBMs, they carry more than three times the number of warheads needed to destroy the entire fleet of Russian land-based missiles. Since only part of the W76 force would be needed to eliminate Russia’s silo-based ICBMs, the United States will be left with a substantial number of higher-yield warheads that could be used for other missions….

Then from this warning column by insider analyst, Paul Craig Roberts: Continue reading

Movie Review: The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

Another fun and clever blow to the MIC __ 8/10

The Men Who Stare at GoatsLarry Hooper: [from trailer] Lieutenant Colonel Django used funds from the project’s black budget to procure prostitutes…
Bill Django: That’s a lie!
Larry Hooper: …and to get drugs for himself and his men.
Bill Django: That… well, the hooker thing is definitely a lie.

… by George Clooney. As with other classic anti-war or anti-system movies that Clooney executive produces and acts in—Syriana, Michael Clayton, Goats exposes generally unknown facts about the government/Wall Street alliance that have a destructive effect on most humans. But Goats, while actually dealing with some of the most insidious antihuman technologies employed by the CIA under cover of war, does a magnificent job of airing out the subject with benevolence and humor. Continue reading

Movie Review: The Graduate (1967)

The GraduateComing of age film for the Baby Boomers __ 8/10


Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.


Continue reading

Brian’s Column: Here’s Ronnie

Ron Paul Takes Hollywood
by Brian Wright


Ron Paul on Jay Leno

What a thrill it was to be able to point with assuredness to the notice that small-l libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul would be appearing on the Jay Leno Show 12/16/2011 (which, fittingly, is Boston Tea Party Day). As a Boomer who remembers the NBC predecessor Tonight Show starring the inimitable Johnny Carson, I still hear the booming voice of Johnny’s announcer Ed McMahon opening the show: H-E-E-R-R-R-E-‘S JOHHNNNY! Well, on Friday Night, Johnny became Ronnie, Dr. Ron Paul that is. Continue reading