Reprinted from DailyKos
Colleen Hanabusa: War games can unite countries
Swear to god, that was the headline in The Garden Isle (Kaua’i) newspaper today.
The arms dealers would like us to believe that war games serve some societally beneficial purpose – of what? Cosy fellowship and a lovefest between countries? They should better be looked at as a wonderful way to expend munitions and, hey, buy some more from the military corporations!
Hanabusa has gone whole hog in shilling for the munitions and drone suppliers. As her campaign fizzles, she’s depending more and more on her military corporate sponsors to prop it up.
After all, as the wars we’ve started wind down, we have to figure out some way to use up munitions and justify the biggest military budget in the world.
Hanabusa is a member of the China Caucus, a conservative group dedicated to the wildly improbably notion that we must prepare for a military attack by China. She is joined in this fear by such intellectional giants as Rep Joe (“you lie”) Wilson , Steve (“women can’t get pregnant from rape”) King, and Ken (“IRS is like the Cookie Monster“) Calvert
Perhaps this announcement is the way that Hanabusa celebrates the RIMPAC exercises which are being held right now. Hanabusa has been advocating the U.S. military “Pivot to the Pacific” because she feels China is such a danger that we must mass armaments in Hawai’i to fend them off. Curiously enough, China is participating in RIMPAC this year.
The RIMPAC exercise features a merry menu of activities: Torpedoing and sinking ships, deafening sea life with sonar, deploying vast quantities of chaff in order to confuse and blind our weather radar and (four years ago) allegedly cutting our undersea communications cable, thus crippling our phone and Internet service for months.
Hanabusa and Republican Randy Forbes have been pushing for increased militarization of the already over-militarized Hawaiian islands.
In fact, just recently, she along with her Republican buddies appropriated more funds for the military than the military even wanted.
No wonder Hanabusa says we can’t pay for expanding Social Security!
Meanwhile, we invite everyone to come celebrate RIMPAC with us. Come and join the merriment as we blow up paradise!