Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can't Kick Militarism Book

Addicted to War:
Why the U.S. Can't Kick Militarism
Updated to include the war in Iraq
3d ed. 2003
ISBN 1904859011
ISBN13 9781904859017
Joel Andreas
addictedtowar.com
akpress.org (publisher)
also available in Spanish

An engaging exposition of crucial truths. Thanks to Steve, Felix, Lars, and the rest of the Madison Veterans for Peace gang for putting up the Memorial Mile, selling books like this, and all they do to spread the word.

"As a veteran of three wars, WWII through Vietnam, with 33 years of Army service, I find this book to be the most truthful recitation of our government's policies available anywhere."'Colonel James Burkholder

Ch. 1 Manifest Destiny
All U.S. history has been of military imperialism in the service of greed.

"I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream . . . the nation's hoop is broken and scattered."'Black Elk, spiritual leader of the Lakota people and survivor of the Wounded Knee massacre in South Dakota.

"I spent 33 years and 4 months in active military service . . . And during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

"Thus, I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.

"I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested.

"Our boys were sent off to die with beautiful ideals painted in front of them. No one told them that dollars and cents were the real reason they were marching off to kill and die."'General Smedley Butler, 1934

The U.S. entered WWI for its [moneyed interests'] fair share of the spoils.

The goal of U.S. involvement in WWII was to achieve military and economic supremacy for the United States[' moneyed interests].

Ch. 2 Cold War, World Policemen
U.S. intervened militarily 200 times in foreign countries during the cold war. The U.S. slaughtered millions of civilians, installed and propped up corrupt dictators loyal to U.S. moneyed interests.

Ch. 3 New World Order
After the 1989 breakup of the USSR, the U.S. continued to rain death and destruction in other countries in the service of oil and war-profiteering interests.

Ch. 4 War on Terrorism
"What America is tasting now is something insignificant compared to what we have tasted for scores of years. Our nation (the Islamic world) has been tasting this humiliation and degradation for more than 80 years. Its sons are killed, its blood is shed, its sanctuaries are attacked and no one hears and no one heeds. Millions of innocent children are being killed as I speak. They are being killed in Iraq without committing any sins. . . . To America, I say only a few words to it and its people. I swear to God, who has elevated the skies without pillars, neither America nor the people who live in it will dream of security before we live it here in Palestine and not before all the infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad, peace be upon him."'Osama bin Laden, Oct. 7,. 2001

Ch. 5 The War Profiteers
Decisions to go to war and spend on the military are made by and in the interests of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, United Technologies, GE, and other war profiteers.

Ch. 6 The High Price of Militarism
Since 1948 the U.S. has spent on the military more than the cumulative value of all human-made wealth in the U.S. The average American household pays over $4400 in taxes yearly toward the military.

Social programs are short-changed. Infrastructure crumbles. Schools suffer. People don't get medical care. Homelessness balloons. No money for drug and alcohol treatment.

Nuclear and other weapons manufacture and testing spews radioactive plutonium and other toxins into air, water, land, and the food supply.

Our militarism breed retaliation and arms races, putting us in greater danger.

Civil rights are taken away in the name of security. Surveillance is used to suppress political opponents.

Soldiers die and are maimed and their psyches damaged, in battle and in training. The poor bear the losses.

Ch. 7 Militarism and the Media
All TV and other large media companies are owned by multinationals whose directors are also directors of war profiteering companies. Reporting is propaganda for war profiteering.

Ch. 8 Resisting Militarism
There's a large anti-war movement, quick to resist plans to go to war.

"War is constantly on the agenda in Washington.

But next time they ask you to put your life on the line . . . as a soldier . . . or as a potential victim of attack at home'ask yourself . . .

What is this addiction to war doing to the people of the U.S. and the world? How much does it cost? Who's going to profit? Who's going to pay? And who's going to die? Think about it. Do something about it. Kick out the war junkies! How can we do that? It's up to us to figure it out."

Links to antiwar groups. List at addictedtowar.com

Reference notes. 161 of them.