Sunday, June 19, 2011

Eisenhower's worst fears came true. We invent enemies to buy the bombs | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian

Eisenhower's worst fears came true. We invent enemies to buy the bombs | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian: "Why do we still go to war? We seem unable to stop. We find any excuse for this post-imperial fidget and yet we keep getting trapped. Germans do not do it, or Spanish or Swedes. Britain's borders and British people have not been under serious threat for a generation. Yet time and again our leaders crave battle. Why?

Last week we got a glimpse of an answer and it was not nice. The outgoing US defence secretary, Robert Gates, berated Europe's 'failure of political will' in not maintaining defence spending. He said Nato had declined into a 'two-tier alliance' between those willing to wage war and those 'who specialise in 'soft' humanitarian, development, peacekeeping and talking tasks'. Peace, he implied, is for wimps. Real men buy bombs, and drop them."

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