America the War Machine

Like all Americans born in this country, I was raised on propaganda. I was told America was exceptional, we only fought wars when we had to and the cause was righteous, war was always a last resort and we, as a country, worked to maintain peace and freedom around the globe. These are, of course, lies. Let me introduce you to author Nick Turse who wrote a book titled, “Tomorrow’s Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa.” Here are some facts from that book that demonstrate exactly how hard America works for international peace and freedom. 

• American special ops have been sent to a record 147 countries — that’s 75% of the nations on the planet.
• This represents a 145% increase from the days of George W. Bush.
• On any given day, elite U.S. forces are on the ground in 70 to 90 countries.
• The U.S. military is involved in more than 90% of Africa’s 54 nations.

 In a recent poll, people from around the world were asked what country they felt was the biggest threat to world peace, and the U.S. won hands down. We have turned into a military monster whose answer to every international challenge is a bomb or a bullet. We murder innocent people routinely with our drones. We actively work to overthrow leaders we don’t like, despite the will of the people. The U.S. is by far the world’s largest weapons exporter, and we spend more on our military than China, Russia, the UK and 10 other countries COMBINED.

The U.S. has become a giant murder and mayhem machine, shooting up foreign countries for fun and profits, and to continue justifying its obscene defense spending. We are not respected around the world, but feared. What country will we invade or bomb next? What foreign leader will be assassinated next? In what country will we instigate a phony people’s uprising next? Which whistleblower will be arrested or murdered next?

Thanks to the politicians who manufacture the fear and the industries who make trillions in profits from war, we’ve managed to turn America the beautiful into America the despised. Our brand is no longer freedom and democracy, but death and destruction. How long will the rest of world put up with us?

Another Bush legacy: Endless war

Since 9/11 and the freakout of the Bush administration, the President has been granted far more powers than he previously had to wage war through a variety of Authorizations to Use Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress over the years. Obama is introducing a new AUMF that, as an article in today’s Salon points out, is problematic, but whether it passes or not, “…we still end up with claims to fairly unlimited Presidential authority to wage war.”

Fourteen years after the attack on the World Trade Center, we find ourselves embroiled in an endless war with an elusive enemy that is not bound by geography. When I say endless, I mean exactly that. Every bomb that falls from a drone or bullet fired by a rifle breeds a new radical willing to pick up the cause for which his comrade died.

A state legislature from Arkansas has offered a brilliant solution: Nuke ‘em. That’s right. He thinks we can end this fight quickly with a few well-place nukes in the Mideast. This is the kind of lunacy frustration breeds. We will never defeat terrorism with violence. It only breeds more. However the great American war machine must be fed, and we can’t just leave all of that oil in the hands of our enemies.

The AUMF is yet one more indication of how off kilter our system of checks and balances has become. We have a completely incompetent Congress, an activist judiciary at the beck and call of this country’s elites, and an executive branch that believes it has the authority to take America to war anytime anywhere for any reason it chooses.

Thank you, George Bush and Dick Cheney, for all that you’ve done for your country.

America: A long history of violence

As the drums for yet more war in the Middle East beat louder and louder, cheered on by the ratings-hungry American media, we the people stand by helplessly as the Obama administration ponders yet another certain foreign policy fiasco. We’ve already sent troops to the area and we’re conducting bombings of suspected ISIS strongholds, but if you listened to the talking heads on the Sunday news shows, Obama’s response is weak and ineffectual. The pundits demand blood and another full-scale invasion. Endless war seems our destiny, just as it was for Rome, and we all know how that turned out.

Are the times that we live in an anomaly? Weren’t we once a peace loving country that only used its military as a last resort? Aren’t we the global standard bearers of freedom and democracy?

The answer is no, no and no.

We are, in fact, an international bully that has been interjecting its military might around the globe since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Our violent recklessness has touched people from the Ivory Coast to Iraq, Cambodia to Croatia, Argentina to Angola, not to leave out two world wars, Korea and Vietnam. The Global Policy Forum has put together an extensive list titled, US Military and Clandestine Operations in Foreign Countries - 1798-Present, and if you go to this site, your jaw will certainly drop at the extent of American intervention (both military and CIA operations) around the world, and it only goes up to 2004. Add to that the past ten years of war in the Middle East and the list would probably grow by a third.

America has a long, sad history of violence and meddling that now extends well into the twenty-first century. When historians of the future look back on the history of the United States, will they focus on our lofty rhetoric and self-satisfactory smugness, or will they look at our actual record, like the Global Policy Forum list? If they do that, we’re not going to end up being a shining example of good in the world.