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’s war without end

Endless war.

It’s no longer a nightmare scenario created by some doomsday futurist, but accepted policy among America’s political elites. In his latest article in The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald points out that it’s not merely blowhard pro-military Republicans who support the never-ending war strategy against terrorism, but many top Democrats as well, like Hillary Clinton, Leon Panetta and, of course, Obama. Endless war is the one area where the President can claim a bipartisan victory.

Money, notes Greenwald, is a major force behind our government’s perpetual war mentality, as military contractors reap billions in profits spilling blood in the sand. I also think that the situation we have created is like a poker game with no limits, forcing players to keep raising their bets. We need oil, terrorists live in areas where there is oil, we bomb the terrorists and innocent civilians, the people who survive our bombing become angry, more terrorists are created, we need oil…

As many others have pointed out, you can’t kill an idea with a bomb. As long as we continue doing what we’re doing, there will be new generations of terrorists seeking revenge against the West. Obama had his chance to break this insidious cycle, but for reasons we can only guess at, threw in the towel early on and surrendered to the political and profiteer’s voices calling for eternal war.

This is what America has become, a war mongering imperial power that keeps its citizens in constant fear, which allows it to both attack and replenish its enemies.

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.

Here we go again. This time it's Syria.

On the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a totally unnecessary war that cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and trillions of dollars, we have a cadre of armchair generals in the Capital (both Republicans and Democrats) calling for America to intervene militarily in Syria based on second-hand reports of rebels using chemical weapons. Some are already calling for boots on the ground.

Jesus H. Christ. Where do these morons come from? Why are they in positions of power? Why do we keep sending soulless, callous, clueless dolts to Washington to vote on matters of life and death? No country that continues voting for people like Michele Bachmann, Lindsey Graham, and yes, even Dianne Feinstein, can stand the test of time.

Our elected officials seem determined to keep us in a state of never-ending war, constantly sending young men and women off to a jungle or a desert to die or be maimed for life to satisfy the blood lust of a fading empire and war profiteers who are already rolling in piles of gold.

I make a modest, but serious, proposal. Any elected official in congress who votes for war or any military action involving violence must either a) have served in the military or b) have an immediate family member serving in the military. They are so anxious to send off faceless, nameless Americans to die in foreign countries, maybe, just maybe, they might be a bit more reflective and cautious if they were involving someone they loved in the bloodshed.

It will never happen, but maybe someone has a better way to stop the war madness that plagues America’s elites.