The Hescos of Afganastan and the twelve foot high concrete walls in Baghdad that divide the Sunni and Shia populations [see video here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/mar/17/baghdad.city.of.walls] are dwarfed by the 30ft high concrete ones in the 'Holy' Land; which is in pieces, Bantustans.
All the builders of these barriers and walls claim that they are democracies and that the walls are all about Security.
All builders of
these barriers and walls exhibit the schizophrenic discipline of thinking two
contradictory truths at the same time. Coined by George Orwell in
"1984" as 'doublethink' the Ministry of Peace wages war, the Ministry
of Truth fabricates lies and the Ministry of Love tortures and kills any it
deems threatening. Most threatening of all for Big Brother are those with
independent thought.
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In 2007, Naomi Klein, in her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster
Capitalism, argued that at the height of the 2003-07 economic boom, the
military industrial complex was driving Israel's tremendous economic
growth, and Israel had the largest GDP growth
of any Western country.
Klein theorized that the source of Israel's tremendous economic
growth in the past five years cannot be attributed simply to its encouragement
of high tech entrepreneurship and basic science. Its success must be
understood, rather, as a product of its ability to use the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank as a laboratory for defense
industry innovation -- and to showcase their wares.
"Young Israeli computer scientists and engineers gain their training in
the military, and then go on to start the kind of technology companies that
have proliferated wildly in Israel and whose products are
much sought after abroad. The entire Israeli hi-tech sector and not just
military technology per se, is thus an outgrowth of Israel's hyper militarization.
The Israeli economy's tech sector grew by 20% in 2006 alone, and Israel is now the foreign country
with the second most US stock exchange-listed
companies. Klein's point that Israel's military-derived
technologies are an economic growth-driver because they can be tested in situ
is correct, but it is insufficient for describing the magnitude of the
military's tremendous penetration of the country's economy. Palestinians under
occupation can indeed be seen as human "guinea pigs" and not just
merely military targets, as Klein claims, but the society's militarization is
far more profound than even she suggests." http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=860&Itemid=198
"After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Israel's economy was devastated,
but then came 9/11, and "suddenly new profit vistas opened up for any
company that claimed it could spot terrorists in crowds, seal borders from
attack and extract confessions from closed-mouthed prisoners...Many of the country's
most successful entrepreneurs are using Israel's status as a fortressed state,
surrounded by furious enemies, as a kind of twenty-four-hour-a-day showroom--a
living example of how to enjoy relative safety amid constant war...Israel now
sends $1.2 billion in "defense" products to the United States-up
dramatically from $270 million in 1999...That makes Israel the fourth-largest
arms dealer in the world...Much of this growth has been in the so-called
"homeland security" sector.
"Before 9/11 homeland security barely existed as an industry. By the end of this year, Israeli exports in the sector will reach $1.2 billion--an increase of 20 percent. The key products and services are ...precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the "global war on terror.
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"Israel's
policy of erecting walls and checkpoints to seal off the occupied territories
are also "laboratories where the terrifying tools of our security states
are being field-tested Palestinians--whether living in the West Bank or what
the Israeli politicians are already calling "Hamasistan"--are no
longer just targets. They are guinea pigs." [Ibid]
Iraqis Slaughtered since the U.S. invaded
Iraq:
1,331,578
www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html
U.S. Military Personnel officially acknowledged dead in America's War
on Iraq: 4,326 www.icasualties.org/oif
The War on Iraq has
spent $665,578,410,207 USA tax
dollars so far.
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