Shrewd Deceptions: Lying By Omission

John Rachel
OpEds

Here's a different feature of that concept which is useful for understanding how misguided, arguably insane, our military priorities and spending are.

Within kinetic warfare itself -- bombs, missiles, soldiers, planes, submarines, tanks -- there's also a profound asymmetry. And the asymmetry is the difference between OFFENSIVE WARFARE and DEFENSIVE WARFARE.

First off, let's be clear about something: Defending one's own nation is much easier and less expensive than attacking another nation, because first of all the positioning of military assets is at the outset opposite, then what is used in the engagement of the enemy and how the enemy is engaged is dramatically different.

That being said . . .

We hear the following question over and over: Why is it that the U.S. spends more on the military than the next 9 countries combined?

In parallel . . .

Why is it the combined defense budget of the U.S. and NATO, which in 2020 came in at over a trillion dollars ($1.028 trillion) is four times the combined defense budgets of China ($237 billion) and Russia ($48 billion)?

FOUR TIMES as big!

S I D E B A R.
Not impressed.  This is how we keep wasting our money. Advanced Russian weapons have made all this fancy hardware obsolete. Persisting in world dominance is futile, but imperialism demands it. Our military should concentrate on defending the motherland, and that's it. No more threat inflation and other stories manufactured to scare the easily scared US public. 

Yet, we are now hearing even louder and more insistently than ever the harangue from generals and other military planners that WE NEED MORE! More equipment, more troops deployed, more bombs, more ships, more missiles.

MORE MONEY!

And at the core of the justification for the latest DOD money grab is this statement, coming by the way from both the Army and Navy:

"We can't win a war with either Russia or China."

Wait!

We can't win a war with Russia and China. YES . . . that's true. But you know what else is true? They can't win a war with us!

Maybe I'm being quixotic but this sounds to me like a cause for celebration. In some twisted 21st Century way, this is a recipe for peace! None of the major powers would dare start a war since they know up front they'd lose.

I say . . . break out the champagne!

Of course, that begs the question: why are our military planners crying the blues, getting all weepy, and saying we're in a boatload of trouble? America's military force is apparently a paper tiger.

The answer is both simple and quite revealing. Because what we have here is yet another example of the grotesque deceptions we're relentlessly subjected to. This one is a classic case of LYING BY OMISSION.

What did they leave out? Well, what they left out is . . .

• WE CAN'T WIN A WAR OF AGGRESSION against Russia.
• WE CAN'T WIN A WAR OF AGGRESSION against China.

We can't attack them on their soil, in their sphere of influence, on their seas, in their skies . . . and defeat them. WE'RE A SAD BUNCH OF LOSERS!

This heightened paranoia and self-serving prevarication highlights in big bold letters exactly what's wrong with our foreign policy, our military planning, our conquer-the-world mentality, the whole regime of military and diplomatic planning.

AND . . . it also makes it completely clear why our DOD budgets are and will always be increasing, why our bloated expenditures on bringing the rest of the world to its knees to worship at the altar of our absolute power are completely irrational, the product of delusion and pure hubris.

There simply is no bottom to the hole we're digging ourselves into.

Right now our military is freaking out about the advanced weaponry of Russia. We can't keep up. Hypersonic missiles, nuclear-powered cruise missiles, high-speed aquatic attack drones, advanced Anti-Access/Area Denial electronic warfare.

Russia has left the U.S. in the dust!
Our DOD budget for 2020? . . . $718 billion.
Russia's military budget 2020? . . . $48 billion.
Yes, really. Only $48 BILLION!

Let's even factor in the differences in cost of living. Current figures show that the COL of Russia is about half that of the U.S., meaning in U.S. dollars everything would cost twice as much. Alright, 2 times $48 billion is STILL ONLY $96 billion. In U.S. dollars, to create and maintain their awesome, SCARY military power, Russia spends 13% of what the U.S. does.

THAT'S how inexpensive a truly remarkable, effective DEFENSIVE military can be designed and deployed. Why then are we spending over seven times as much for our less-than-capable military machine?

As if we could forget, we haven't won a single war since WWII. Okay okay . . . we trounced Granada in a one-sided invasion against some lifeguards and tow-truck drivers.

The problem is obvious . . . trying to police and conquer the entire planet is bankrupting us! No amount of lying, propaganda, and rah-rah-support-our-troops PR blitz changes the truth.

Isn't time we the people put a stop to this grotesque fraud? Isn't it time we united behind a couple of simple, straightforward, obvious propositions?

Enough is enough!
We're not going to take it anymore!
Stop the military insanity before we destroy ourselves!

We can do this, if we just do what we need to do. Our current leadership and the military are incapable of reining themselves in. It's up to us -- we the people -- alone.

We must confront the lies and remove from power the liars who tell them, to halt America's self-destructive obsession with full spectrum dominance.

Like Julian Assange says: "If wars can be started by lies, they can be stopped by truth."

John Rachel has a B.A. in Philosophy, is a novelist and established political blogger. He has written eight novels, three political non-fiction books, and a fantasy/travel/cookbook about the dietary preferences of mermaids. His political articles have appeared at OpEdNews, Russia Insider, Greanville Post, Dissident Voice, Nation of Change, and other alternative media outlets.  Since leaving the U.S. in 2006, he has lived in and explored 34 countries. He is now somewhat rooted in a traditional, rural Japanese community about an hour from Osaka, where he lives with his wife of four years. Daily he rides his bicycle through the soybean fields and rice paddies which sprawl across the surrounding landscape. You can follow his writing and the evolution of his world view at: https://jdrachel.com