One must always ask cui bono? Who profits from those two "disasters." Were they not a boon to the people with inordinate influence over those we elect (at least nominally) to run the country? I refer, of course, to those of the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex who profiteer from tension.

The MICIMATT needs credible foreign enemies to "justify" obscene levels of military spending and to line the pockets of the wealthy "one percent" -- whom the Russians still call "the ruling classes." As for the rest of us, as comedian George Carlin might put it, the ruling classes with their bastard-child MICIMATT make up a big club, and we're not in it. It has grown like Topsy since President Eisenhower warned us of its disastrous potential 60 years ago. In his farewell address he labeled it the "military-industrial complex":

We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

Ike noted that the conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry was in those days new to the American experience. He added that "the total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. ...Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society."

Eisenhower stressed that the only way to prevent the military-industrial complex from endangering our democracy was "an alert and knowledgeable citizenry." That's the rub. The corporate-owned media has become the linchpin of the MICIMATT. Consumers of that media today are in no way knowledgeable. In such case, as Ike predicted, it becomes impossible to "compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

Whom Do You Hate More: Russians or Chinese?

The most recent Gallup poll shows that 77 percent of Americans hold an unfavorable view of Russia, while 79 percent view China unfavorably. For Russia that was a six-percentage point increase in unfavorability over that of last year; for China a 13-percentage point increase. I am reminded of Ronald Reagan's CIA Director William Casey's input at the first cabinet meeting at the White House in February 1981, according to Barbara Honegger, who was there:

We'll know when our disinformation program is complete, when everything the American public believes is false.

Note that MICIMATT acronym places Intelligence right next to Media; suffice it to say that, these days, the two could not be closer.

Media

I am not saying that George Stephanopoulos is working for the CIA, but he might as well be. MICIMATT is a seamless garment. If his objective was to "remind" TV watchers of the dubious charge that Putin poisons his enemies, what better way than to raise it with a gaffe-prone president and hope he will rise to the bait. Success might well prompt ABC to raise his current salary of $18 million a year.

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Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was an Army infantry/intelligence officer and then a CIA analyst for 27 years, and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). His (more...)
 
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