Patricia Hernandez -

As of this year, the war on Afghanistan has been going on for over a decade--making it the longest standing war that the United States has been involved with. The average person living in the United States wouldn’t really know it, doesn’t really care, or can’t do anything about it.

The indifferent or helpless response makes sense. The “war on terror” makes it clear that the purpose of modern war is control--not conflict resolution. Peace isn’t on the drone’s radar. More war is. For in the “war on terror,” enemies could be anyone, anything; it has no particular enemy.

War becomes borderless. War cannot be ‘won’ in the traditional sense, it is ongoing, permanent. Security, and not defense, become the hallmark of ‘the war on terror,’ and this security redefines and violates civil rights in the name of the preservation of democracy. You’d think that the erosion of civil rights would create action, but this is where media such as games come into play.

John Stanton -

Why the Civilian Leadership Fears the Military

“Only 17 percent of the all-volunteer force serves for more than 20 years, and they are endowed with a lifetime benefit. The current US military retirement system does not compensate for those in high risk situations or extenuating circumstances (e.g., combat duty, hardship tour, and separation from family).. The current military retirement system is unfair.  For example, 83 percent of those serving in the US military will receive no retirement benefit.  US military personnel serving 5, 10, or 15 years will depart from service with no benefit or pension.  This cohort includes the majority of troops who have engaged and will engage in combat.  Retiree healthcare (TRICARE) is significantly more generous than civilian programs. For those serving more than 20 years, the retirement contribution is 10 times greater than the private sector: average private sector pension contributions range from 4-12% per year; military retirement benefit equates to 75% of annual pay per year for those who retire; and immediate payout after 20 years has no comparison in the private sector. In light of the budget challenges DOD is currently facing, the military retirement system appears increasingly unaffordable.” Defense Business Board

How times have changed since General George C. Marshall (1880-1959) walked the Earth. Chances are he would be appalled by the current-day US military leadership that has allowed (and taken advantage of) a national security/militaristic thinking to penetrate deep into the American political and social arenas. Marshall, no doubt, would be taken aback by the revolving door between the Pentagon and the private sector, and the hyper-privatization of the US national security machinery.

Pat Curtis -

Two researchers at Iowa State University are part of an international team that’s issued a new report on the effects of exposure to violent images — such as scenes in movies, games or pictures in comic books. I.S.U. psychology professor Craig Anderson is president of the International Society for Research on Aggression (IRSA).

He appointed a commission which released the report that concludes research clearly shows media violence can trigger aggressive thoughts and feelings. “My hope is that (the report) will inspire some parent groups and education groups to redouble their efforts to help educate parents about the importance of looking at the amount of media violence that’s in their children’s diets,” Anderson said.

The Media Violence Commission includes I.S.U. associate professor of psychology Douglas Gentile. The commission’s report is published in the September/October issue of the journal Aggressive Behavior. Anderson said he’s often surprised to find many parents don’t seem to realize exposure to media violence does increase an individual’s relative risk to become aggressive. Other parents recognize the risk, but don’t take steps to limit their kids’ exposure.

Making Contact: National Radio Project -

At the mall, online, and even within the US military. Interactive, realistic, pro-war video games have become part of American culture.  But anti-war protestors have found a way inside those games too.  And artists are finding ways to turn the virtual world, into a place where the military hero narrative can be questioned.  On this edition, We hear excerpts from the movie

TRANSCRIPT:

[Voices over walkie talkie]
- 6-70?
- Stand by.
- Got three personnel.
- Shoot ‘em.

[Machine gun fire]

Tony Soldo -

US Empire Propaganda is very powerful.

Notice the increase in military recruiting ads on prime time TV news, sports, comedy, drama, and music channels. The US Empire spends a billion dollars a year on military recruiting advertising and they do it because it works. We need to stop military recruiting on TV and in schools. Stop military recruiters and you stop the wars. War is the biggest threat to peace and it is taught to children around the world that war, and the men who fight in them, is necessary and noble and sometimes holy, and the people who start them and profit from them also control the schools and movies and tv commercials that brainwash our children.  War is the greatest curse on mankind, wars kill millions while so called terror attacks only kill dozens or hundreds.  Violence has become so entrenched in our society, through an endless assembly line of action movies every weekend at thousands movie theaters across the country, from slasher flicks, to war movies, to cops hunting down the bad guys, that our culture has just accepted violence as normal human 
behavior.

Another popular mind-conditioning form of entertainment is video games. The first person shooter games are very popular with our youth, and a very effective tool by the government's military to train all future soldiers. Violence starts with an image that is imprinted on the mind, and over time, becomes part of one's thought process, and then from the mind, these violent thoughts become part of the emotional state, causing a feeling  or a "high", like any drug, and finally, violence manifest's itself through one's actions. Ask yourself one question. Why is violence so entertaining to you?

Another form of violence is "slap-stick" comedy. Think about all the cartoons and toys that we shower our children with. Before they can speak a complete sentence, they already know how to hit, kick, and push, other children, by watching violent cartoons and other action movies. Children "model" behavior, that's how we learn, by watching other humans act, either good or bad, this is called conditioning.

Turning off the TV and encouraging your children to take up constructive and positive activities is part of the solution, and a stable, loving, two parent home gives children the foundation for a happy adult life, but, don't think you have to defend the concept of violence to promote a well balanced and well adjusted child. We don't have to choose just one solution to the problem, and defend the other problem. Why do we need to be entertained with violence? Why is it so prevalent in our society?

"Stop Military Recruiters from preying on children. 
Resist Recruiters in schools.

There will be a day in our society, when recruiting children for war will be as offensive and evil as child molesting, instead of being noble, patriotic, and "Christian-like", as it is now.
There will be a day."

Maybe because it is drilled into our heads from the time we are old enough to sit upright and stare at that programming box that is in every home in the nation. Maybe because they use humor to ram the violence through our children's impressionable little minds. It is time to reprogram the minds of our society and change the culture of violence. Violence must become an unacceptable and vile form of entertainment, to the point that people will be embarrassed and ashamed to admit watching it.

We will never stop all violence in the world, but, if we started in our own home, by not being entertained by violence, and replaced those movies with more positive movies and cartoons and toys for our children, we could become the change that we want to see, and the next generation will pay dividends through living more peacefully with each other, and violence will become less acceptable and more offensive in our culture. All violence is evil but when governments brainwash millions of children to love the military and love the concept of war, and the parents give their blessings to their children, even after their loved ones have died in previous wars, that is the very definition of evil.

We must remember that the reason so many people cannot bring themselves to stop supporting the troops and harshly criticizing someone for joining the military and becoming a soldier, is a lifetime of mental programming, mind conditioning, and brainwashing.
95% of our thoughts, emotions, words, then actions, come from our subconscious mind, the other 5% from our conscious mind, so we cannot just hear or see the evil acts of a soldier and instantly comprehend that being a soldier is wrong, because our subconscious mind will always revert back to it's original programming, most of which has been downloaded into our "harddrive" in the first 6-10 years of our life.

Six Step plan for transforming innocent children into heartless, mindless, cold blooded, killing machines:

Step 1: Brainwash children with TV, movies, video games, toys, games, school, sports, entertainment, music, etc..., with pro war, patriotic, propaganda, so that by the time the child turns 8 years old, he decides that he wants to be a soldier when he grows up. 
At that point, his fate is sealed, and Satan has another recruit.

Step 2: Desensitize them to violence, death, human suffering, and pain, with the same tactics and methods in step 1, with TV, movies, video games, school, and music, becoming more prevalent and repetitive in the child's life.

Step 3: Recruit the child in school, at shopping malls, on TV, sporting events, music concerts, etc...,where ever they are, make sales pitch, set the hook, reel them in.

Step 4: Once they sign their life away, send them to a reconditioning camp, to break them down, erase their minds, and reprogram them to kill without thinking; Autokill.

Step 5: Send them around the world, unleash them on innocent, unsuspecting, human beings, to subdue local and regional areas, to create safe environment for corporations to extract all valuable resources, while enslaving and controlling the native population.

Step 6: Return soldier to his home, to try to resume a normal life, without telling him that all the mind control, programming, desensitizing, and actual killing that is part of his being and consciousness, is permanent and real, and the the body, mind, and soul cannot peacefully exist within this state.
Watch and wait for meltdown and breakdown, then publicly renounce the defective soldier and his actions.

Parents Do Your Job

What role does a parent play in deciding the future actions of their children when it comes to joining and fighting for a government's army, and then being forced to go anywhere at anytime, to kill or die for that government?

Most parents encourage their children to join the military, and even the parents that don't like the idea of their children joining, still believe the big lie that by joining, their children are "serving their country", and "defending our freedom." 

Parents are just as brainwashed as their children when it comes to patriotism and nationalism. 

Every generation passes these lies down to their children through war-glorifying toys, video games, TV, movies, books, schools, and parents who were in the military, telling their children war stories. 

It may be an all volunteer force, but, through mind conditioning and propaganda, most children who join are already "locked in" by the time they are 10-14 years old.

Every time a parent comments on the death of their young child who died while in the military, they all say the same thing,  
"He wanted to be a soldier since he was a little boy, and he died doing what loved," and
"He died serving his country and making the world a better place."

How sad it is that even after the most tragic event in a person's life; the death of one's child, so many people actually find comfort in the loss of their child by believing the big lie of patriotism, that soldiers must kill and die for our freedom and they  are giving freedom to the people in other countries, instead of the truth that all wars are fought to enrich the few powerful rich men who control all governments and large corporations, and those soldiers who die, die for a lie.

Parents, it is your job to protect your children, and the best way to protect them is to teach them not to believe lies, especially the lies of people within the government and corporations, and not to do anything to others that they would not want others to do to them, like attacking, invading, occupying, and oppressing other people.

And stop feeding your children's minds with violent, war-glorifying  entertainment, like toys, video games, TV shows, movies, and books, and teach them the value of respecting other people's right to be left alone, and to live and let live, and to live a peaceful as possible life, doing no harm to others.

Teaching our children to use critical thinking skills and to question everything and consider multiple solutions before they decide what is best for their personal belief system, would cause them to develop their own truth based reality, and to respect all other people, by leaving them alone, unless they request help, would solve many of our world's problems. 

The only justifiable use of force is when one protects oneself, and one's immediate family from an immediate or imminent threat.
All other acts of violence are un-defendable. That should be a parent's biggest responsibility towards their children's well being and future.

Parents, Do Your Job!

One thing you can do for your children is to "opt out" of being contacted by the military recruiters. Under the No Child Left Behind Act, the Pentagon gathers info on all school children, and then calls or writes to them at school and your home. If any school tries to stop this, they lose federal budget dollars, and no school superintendent can afford that.

Get the forms to print out so they can put your children on a no contact list. 

Here is the link:

http://www.themmob.org/lmca/forms.html

Schools should allow alternative perspectives and options, to allow the child a broader range of choices.

Here are some honest comments and questions for young people thinking of joining the military:

Advice for those considering joining the military

http://www.youtube.com/watch?nomobile=1&v=_8rbHwMXMT8

"That organization does not exist to give you money for school, that organization exist to exert the political will of the United States Government against other people by force of arms."
Stan Goff

Retired Special Forces Master Sergeant Stan Goff explains what military life really entails.

Stan's website is 

http://www.feralscholar.org

Before You Enlist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?nomobile=1&v=kcz7NFrPUg0

Collateral Murder soldier Ethan McCord

http://www.youtube.com/watch?nomobile=1&v=kelmEZe8whI

Should We End Military Recruiting in High Schools as a Matter of Child Protection and Public Health?
Amy Hagopian and Kathy Barker

http://www.watir.org/Articles_files/Child%20Protection%20and%20Recruiting.pdf

Source- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31346.htm

Mark Taliano -

In scenes hauntingly similar to those preceding the illegal invasion of Iraq, countries including Israel, the U.S, and even Canada, are once again beating the drums of war - against Iran. The hapless citizens of Iran - whose democratically-elected government dared to nationalize their oil industry, and was subsequently overthrown in a 1953 U.S/U.K coup - may well be the next victims of a Western Global War, Inc.

What do I mean by this term? We must face the fact that Many nations' foreign policies now - from the US to the UK and Canada - are being run for the benefit of a few companies that profit vastly from keeping these countries on a permanent 'war footing.'

Lockheed Martin is part of War Inc., when it successfully lobbies Canada to buy sole-sourced F-35 war planes, designed for offensive bombing operations.  The contract for the planes is expected to be C$29.3 billion over 30 years, far more than the $C16 billion-C$18 billion promised to tax payers.

Blackwater Industries, more recently re-branded as "Academi,"  is also part of  part of War, Inc.,  by providing an ever-growing list of services, such as catering, construction, and even (well paid) private soldiers.  Each of these "services" was previously the exclusive domain of the military.  Blackwater charges about $1,222 per day per guard, about six times what a regular soldier receives, even though it's the taxpayer who foots the bill in each case. Since June 2004, Blackwater has been paid over $320 million out of a State Department Budget (Worldwide Personal Protective Services) of $1 billion.

Media conglomerates also profit from war and have become part of War, Inc.:  in 2003, when the U.S and the U.K unleashed weapons of mass destruction on Iraq, the corporate media barely mentioned the thousands of anti-war protestors in the U.S and the U.K.  Why not? CBS was owned by Westinghouse, and NBC by General Electric, two major weapons manufacturers, when the war began. Business is good for weapons manufacturers when there is war or the threat of war. Balanced reporting is of lesser importance in such circumstances.

As reported by Yves Engler, author of "Militarism On Rise in Conservative Canada," and in the context of plans to have overseas bases throughout Europe, Canadian Chief of Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk  told the Canadian Press recently, "We have some men and women who have had two, three, and four tours, and what they're telling me is 'Sir, we've got that bumper sticker.  Can we go somewhere else now?'"  He continues, "You also have the young sailors, soldiers, airmen and women who have just finished basic training and they want to go somewhere and in their minds it was going to be Afghanistan.  So if not Afghanistan, where's it going to be?  They all want to serve." Mainstream media's response to these statements - which spell out that War Inc. has to find new markets - has been a deafening silence.

Finally, Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper is a war-monger who profits from war.   Engler describes the Conservative's modus operandi in creating a war culture in Canada:

He explains that the war culture is first enabled by Canadian Forces promotions. In 2010 -2011, for example, the Canadian forces spent $353.6 million to promote their work - to message the positive value of militarization. After the war in Libya, the government spent an additional $850,000 to promote the message of peaceful, laid-back Canada being a "warrior nation."  This messaging creates a climate in which war profiteering can continue to roll in.

At the June 11 Conservative convention, when asked by Macleans editor Kenneth Whyte whether we were "in a great conflict or heading towards one," Harper responded, "I think we always are."  (Yves Engler, Militarism On Rise In Conservative Canada)

This statement indirectly reveals his intentions - to continue to keep Canada forever on a "war footing."  Harper, like Bush and Obama, has signed on for the profit machine of endless war as a global industry.

But war kills with equanimity far from these corporate boardrooms and Parliamentary councils, and the trauma experienced by survivors among both aggressors and victims is widespread. In 2012, the same number of U.S soldiers have killed themselves, as have been killed in battle.

There is no certainty that this war will manifest itself, but there is much certainty about who will gain and who will lose. Innocent Iranian non-combatants will surely pay the highest price … again.

People around the world now hate America for its support of endless War, Inc. If Harper's Canada continues on its present course, Canadians too will soon be asking themselves why people throughout the world hate their government as well.

Source: http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/266-32/12920-war-inc-the-benefits-of-endless-conflict