US WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS

 

This announcement of 2 new books on US aggressive warmaking marks the inauguration of OMNI’s US War Watch Wednesdays (WWW) . 

1.  WAR WATCH WEDNESDAYS (WWW)

December 23, 2020

2 new books on US wars: Vine and Sorensen

CHRISTIAN SORENSEN.  UNDERSTANDING THE WAR INDUSTRY.  Clarity P, 2020.

Publisher’s description:  The War Industry infests the American economy like a cancer, sapping its strength and distorting its creativity while devouring its treasure.

Stunning in the depth of its research, Understanding the War Industry documents how the war industry commands the other two sides of the military-industrial-congressional triangle. It lays bare the multiple levers enabling the vast and proliferating war industry to wield undue influence, exploiting financial and legal structures, while co-opting Congress, academia and the media. Spiked with insights into how corporate boardrooms view the troops, overseas bases, and warzones, it assiduously delineates how corporations reap enormous profits by providing a myriad of goods and services devoted to making war, which must be rationalized and used if the game is to go on:  advanced weaponry, drones and nukes; invasive information technology; space-based weapons; and special operations—with contracts stuffed with ongoing and proliferating developmental, tertiary and maintenance products for all of it.

DAVID VINE.  The United States of War:  A Global History of America's Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State.   U of California P, 2020.  Pages: 464.
Publisher’s description:  The United States has been fighting wars constantly since invading Afghanistan in 2001. This nonstop warfare is far less exceptional than it might seem: the United States has been at war or has invaded other countries almost every year since independence. In The United States of War, David Vine traces this pattern of bloody conflict from Columbus’s 1494 arrival in Guantanamo Bay through the 250-year expansion of a global US empire. Drawing on historical and firsthand anthropological research in fourteen countries and territories, The United States of War demonstrates how US leaders across generations have locked the United States in a self-perpetuating system of permanent war by constructing the world’s largest-ever collection of foreign military bases—a global matrix that has made offensive interventionist wars more likely. Beyond exposing the profit-making desires, political interests, racism, and toxic masculinity underlying the country’s relationship to war and empire, The United States of War shows how the long history of U.S. military expansion shapes our daily lives, from today’s multi-trillion–dollar wars to the pervasiveness of violence and militarism in everyday U.S. life. The book concludes by confronting the catastrophic toll of American wars—which have left millions dead, wounded, and displaced—while offering proposals for how we can end the fighting.