War Pigs

They Don’t Care Which Side You Pick, so Long as You Pick

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The Israel-Palestine conflict is the latest narrative in the war of stories and is serving multiple strategic purposes. Aside from fueling the war economy, this conflict is having a particularly divisive effect on America. It is also being used as a pretext to bolster the Western censorship regime.

It is obvious that establishment forces want you hungry for this war; they might not even care which side you are on so long as you do pick a side. This article suggests that there is an alternative option, and it is one that the deep political establishment does NOT want you to consider.

It seems as though the permanent political class is in total agreement that the US should back Israel, despite the fact that a majority of American voters are not in favor of US support for Israel, many fearing that our involvement will only lead to broader conflict.

Elected officials are supposed to be working on behalf of their constituents, but if their constituents express reluctance to take a hard stance on a complicated foreign war and officials then choose to blatantly ignore those concerns, who do they really work for?

The answer all too often is: the donor class, particularly the military industrial complex.

The phrase military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC) was coined in a speech given by President Dwight Eisenhower (written by Malcolm Moos and Ralph E. Williams) in his farewell address from the White House on January 17th, 1961, though before Ike made the speech, the reference to Congress would be edited out. The same concept is also referred to as the permanent war economy.

Eisenhower's speech was an important warning not given much attention at the time, presumably since the CIA's Operation Mockingbird had already given the Deep State a high degree of control over the corporate media; the primary tool used to drum up support for war.

Despite a rise in public awareness of the MICC’s exploits, the speech still manages to fall on deaf ears every time a new war with a good marketing campaign comes along. All it takes is a few traumatic rounds of atrocity propaganda and suddenly the public is rallying behind a war-economy cash cow.

Most journalists and pundits worth their salt should be well aware of this system, yet time and time again talking heads prove their lack of understanding (or perhaps willful ignorance) of the real monster lurking in the background behind so many headlines.

The MICC is made up of many moving parts and sub-complexes, one of them is what’s been called the military-industrial-media complex. The role of the commercially-controlled media in promoting war and militarism is essential for the system to properly operate.

Even disregarding known CIA projects such as Operation Mockingbird, the case for Deep State control of the corporate media, and their wedding to the interests of the permanent war economy is compelling.

For years, General Electric owned 49% of NBC, and was a subcontractor for the Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot II missiles, which were used extensively during the Gulf War. GE also manufactured components for the B-2 stealth bomber and B-52 bomber and the E-3 AWACS aircraft, which were also used extensively during the conflict. General Electric received around $2 billion in defense contracts related to weapons which would be used in Gulf War and the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq. This is just one example of many showcasing the historic marriage between defense contractors and corporate media. (#)

We can expect the mainstream to be largely in agreement, but the response of journalists and talking heads in the alternative media is much more interesting, and more accurately represents the various attitudes of the greater public.

This conflict has caused some heated exchanges in alternative media spaces, both liberal and conservative. These exchanges showcase just how high some peoples emotions are running, and we should all have learned from 9-11 that emotional responses, particularly when it comes to war, often turn out to be disastrous.

The Right Fractures Over Israel

In the immediate wake of the attacks, Tucker Carlson gave an opening monologue where he expressed his personal views on the topic. His stance is essentially America First, agreeing that the attacks were tragic while noting that they do not necessarily require any action from the US.

In the monologue, Tucker plays two clips showcasing the response of notorious establishment neocons Nikki Haley and Lindsay Graham. Haley, obviously an avid fan of Mortal Kombat, urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “finish them”, which suggests that she does not care about collateral damage and the loss of innocent life.

Graham, also unfazed by the prospect of collateral damage, believes we should start an entirely new war with Iran by bombing their four major oil refineries.

Never mind the fact that we are heavily involved financially over in Ukraine, but we seem to be champing at the bit to be involved in Gaza, and now Lindsay Graham suggests we should start a war with Iran as well … all the while China is eyeing Taiwan, and bolstering forces around the globe. Great idea, Lindsey. No one shills for the Military Industrial Complex quite as hard as you do.

Speaking of congressional shills for the MIC, The Tucker monologue goes on to criticize a tweet by Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw, where he suggests that this will be “the war to end all wars”.

Of course, the idea that a war is somehow going to “end all wars” is absurd. Historically speaking, wars only beget more war.

Tucker, during an interview with Vivek Ramaswamy, goes on to suggest that the crisis at the southern border is more worthy of the Federal Government’s immediate attention than a crisis in a far away land. Naturally, this statement sent Ben Shapiro into a full-blown psychobilly freak-out.

Those who might tend to agree with Haley, Graham, Crenshaw and Shapiro, believing that somehow what happens in Israel and Palestine—collateral damage or not—has no effect on us here, I would implore you to consider a few things: The deep political establishment is hungry for this war; its media arm is hard at work trying to convince the population that our involvement will somehow fortify the security and safety of American people and government interests, but is that the truth? If not, is there a possibility that our involvement might have the opposite effect?

The Left Fractures Over Israel

It’s not only the American right that has split over this conflict; the left is also seeing its fair share of infighting.

I try to keep tabs across the whole spectrum of news, from right to left and from mainstream to alternative, and for the most part, you tend to see the left marching in lockstep, especially when it comes to leftist politicians.

What I have noticed recently is that there’s a growing contingent of left-leaning pundits and journalists who are becoming increasingly anti-establishment. The same folks who were given hope and then duped by the likes of Bernie Sanders and AOC may have been molded by their betrayals into the perfect critics of establishment Democrats. These are people the populist left will actually listen to instead of knee-jerk denouncing in the same way they would somebody like Steve Bannon.

A prime example of this kind of rare, anti-establishment journalist on the left is the former National Press Secretary for Bernie Sanders, Briahna Joy Gray (BJG). Now, I should preface this by saying most of this audience is probably not going to agree with Gray on a variety of topics—and that’s fine; that’s what makes this country so great—but what’s important is that we are seeing some common ground starting to emerge with our fellow citizens who happen to be philosophically left-leaning.

BJG, in addition to being a contributing editor for Current Affairs, co-hosts The Hill's web series Rising (you might recall her criticism of Bernie Sanders’ attacks against Cornel West on Rising in my recent SubStack devoted to Sanders). Last week, BJG had a very heated exchange with her co-host, Robbie Soave, over her criticism of the Israeli government.

Taking a page from Ben Shapiro, Robby Soave puts on a dramatic performance that is every bit as impassioned as it is off-putting. Soave and Shapiro, as intelligent as some of you might believe them to be, are not in these moments displaying the type of mindset one should have when making a choice that will have extreme consequences.

It’s not just journalists squabbling either; even presidential candidates are getting in on the action.

Former Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich, who had been running RFK Jr.’s presidential campaign, stepped down recently, and though no official reason was given by Kucinich, it is suspected that the split occurred due to irreconcilable differences over Israel-Palestine.

RFK Jr. has been a stalwart supporter of Israel, going so far as to oppose a renewal of the Iran nuclear deal.

(As a side note, RFK has so far failed to outwardly comprehend that much of Iran’s aggression over the last half century is a result of the Western-led destruction of Iranian democracy via military coup initiated by none other than then-CIA Director Allen Dulles, a man who is widely believed to have had a hand in the assassination of his uncle in 1963.)

Is US Involvement in the Best Interest of the American People?

The Biden Administration is using a lot of the same stale rhetoric that we heard regarding the need to support Ukraine to justify our support of Israel, and we can expect a number of multibillion-dollar support packages and access to our most important military assets to follow.

Wildly excessive government spending on foreign aid isn’t the only issue here; the way that this administration has been handling the situation is fueling a hatred of the West that could put American citizens abroad in harm’s way.

Beyond provoking Hamas, many other Islamic nations that are sympathetic to Palestine have now witnessed the United States not only taking a hard pro-Israel stance, but also being the only nation on the UN Security Council to veto a resolution calling for “humanitarian pauses” to deliver lifesaving aid to millions in Gaza.

This is not the first time that the US has vetoed resolutions designed to provide support to Gaza and the West Bank; this has regularly been the case for the last several decades, and has led to the perception throughout the Muslim world that the US is Israel’s partner and enabler. The massive protests that have popped up in countries like Lebanon, Turkey, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and obviously Iran (all countries with formidable militaries) are blaming the United States just as much as they blame Israel for what’s happening in Palestine.

You’d think that when it comes to Foreign policy, the safety and welfare of the American people would be the primary factor in decision making, especially decisions with such extreme and far-reaching consequences, but that does not seem to be the case at all.

To answer the question of whether or not our support of Israel will make America safer, we only need to look back on conflicts of the past. I would challenge the reader to show me a war since WWII that the US was involved in where the actions of our government weren’t directly responsible for the other nation’s hostility.

Consider the War on Terror (at least the mainstream perspective:) when we were told that people on the other side of the globe attacked us because they ‘hated our freedoms’ or because we allowed gay marriage, or any of the other completely ridiculous explanations that were given at the time, all of which were invented by neocons like Bill Kristol and David Frum to drum up support for the war.

Few might recall that in the wake of 9/11, the federal government ordered the legacy news networks not to air any interviews, past or present, with Osama bin Laden. The reason that was given was that during a hypothetical interview he may try signaling to sleeper cells embedded within America to carry out further attacks, but the truth, as it so often is, was quite different.

The reality of the situation was that the government, and by extension the military industrial complex, were afraid that the renewed interest in Osama bin Laden as the grand architect of these attacks could lead to people uncovering the truth of why groups like Al Qaeda and the Taliban hate America so intensely. Bin Laden never claimed that this potent, anti-American animosity existed because women were allowed to walk down the street without burkas; his argument had historically been that he wanted to bring violence to America because America had a long history of instigating and carrying out violence in the middle east for decades.

Now please do not mistake this point as justifying jihadi’s actions or even supporting the horrendously-fabricated mainstream narrative regarding 9/11; all of this is to say that US involvement with foreign wars does have its consequences, and backing Israel, a nation we’ve already poured excessive amounts of taxpayer dollars into, is going to have the exact same effect.

Conclusion(s)

Our elected officials, at least outwardly, seem to be in near-complete unison with their undying support of Israel. There are obviously outliers like Rashida Tlaib and ‘the squad,’ but I would argue that their position, though it may seem adversarial, is fueling the same goal: public support for another war.

As I stated previously, it doesn’t matter which side you pick, only that you do pick a side.

The master psychologists within the deep political establishment are masters of creating binaries: in this case, you either support Israel, or you support Palestine. Even if you yourself are smart enough to realize that it is totally acceptable to exist outside of this binary, the system will still try to pigeon hole you into one side or the other, suggesting that ‘if you’re not against Hamas then you are with them!’ and vice versa.

There are undoubtedly alt-leftists who would claim that the establishment is only behind Israel, and the Palestinians are the oppressed underdogs who deserve to win the day, going so far as to claim that what Hamas did in Israel was justified. To better understand why there is an emerging contingent of young, white suburbanite hipsters supporting the actions of Hamas, look no further than the following headline:

These militant leftists have become the perfect bloodthirsty, nihilist soldiers for the MIC’s cause, and naturally, they are completely oblivious to the social engineering that has perfectly curated every aspect of their personality.

You might be wondering, what’s the benefit of the MIC propaganda wizards conjuring up support for both sides of a war when the US can only fund one side of the war?

It is no great secret that when large bills are passed with the intention of funneling taxpayer dollars in one direction or the other, that there are six ways from Sunday that money can be skimmed, diverted or even straight-up appropriated. This unfortunate fact of life is just as true about humanitarian aide as it is military support packages. Obviously the Congressional aspect of the Military Industrial Congressional Complex receive their nut from the donor class, and the donor class, primarily the MICC, get what they pay for from the politicians they back.

As for the deeper, more speculative conclusions, well …

It is my contention that there is something terribly dark lurking behind this conflict, something much more sinister than any talking head has yet realized. I personally believe that a peaceful solution to the perpetual conflict in Israel was never seriously on the table, and that where we are today is right on schedule for an endgame that most folks will never see coming.

I believe this conflict is the beginning of an attempt to foment World War III, but that is a SubStack for another day, and probably one that is best left unwritten for the time being.

In the meantime, stay vigilant in all aspects when it comes to this war. Chances are that this is only the beginning, and even if you’ve so far managed to stay blissfully unaware and uninvolved, chances are that this is something that will work its way into every home, and at some point, you may have to take a stance.

When that time comes, remember that there is always room on the side of peace.

Badlands Media articles and features represent the opinions of the contributing authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Badlands Media itself.

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