I may lose a few friends for posting this but I consider this a larger issue than Democrats vs. Republicans, or most other ‘issues’ being broadcast on network news outlets.
Since I was draft age I have mostly kept my opinions to myself on war and profiteering as many friends and neighbors have lost loved ones in ‘Sacrifice for Democracy.’ My father would NEVER talk about his service and he certainly did not want either of his boys going to Vietnam. Neither of us did, it turns out. But I did lose a cousin to the horrors of Agent Orange, a chemical rained down on the forests of Vietnam by the U.S. military. We killed our own.
As Muhammad Ali famously said in 1967, "No, I am not going ten thousand miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would put my prestige in jeopardy and could cause me to lose millions of dollars which should accrue to me as the champion."
I grew up about ten feet from Fort Riley, Kansas, and we could hear tank maneuvers, shelling, and ‘practice’ war all the time. Hell, we even played war as kids. It was FUN. I still have my Civil War set. Pretend killing was easy as a kid. You just dusted off your jeans and went home to SpaghettiOs for dinner.
I now live in Tucson, Arizona, which most people think of as a ‘leftist’ community, and I certainly live in a liberal bubble most of the time. The other side of that coin is two of the largest employers here are Raytheon Missile Systems and Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. And close by is the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca just outside Sierra Vista. It’s all around us, all the time.
How do you vocalize that no wars are noble and most (or all) are merely for profit and domination? There are certain journalists and other writers slowly coming to the surface, below the radar of what’s considered ‘NEWS’ in this country, to speak of hard truths.
Sabir Shah, writing for The News International, reports, “Research conducted by the “Jang Group and Geo Television Network” reveals that the United States has been at war for about 225 of the 243 years since its inception in 1776. While the number of US foreign military interventions had stood at 188 till 2017, the world super power was found involved in 117 “partisan electoral interventions” between 1946 and 2000 or around one of every nine ballot exercises held since Second World War.
This means that the United States has been at war for more than 92 per cent of the time since its birth, making critics view that the rulers of the land found by Christopher Columbus have been addicted to the use of military might and intoxicated with their successes against weaker nations that could not defend themselves for one reason or the other. Or in other words, the United States has only been at peace for less than 20 years.”
In in an even tougher piece Caitlin Johnstone writes that a 1992 article by The New York Times titled “U.S. Strategy Plan Calls For Insuring No Rivals Develop“, reporting on a leaked document which describes a policy known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine after then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz, and it reads as follows:
In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting stage, the Defense Department asserts that America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to insure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territory of the former Soviet Union.
A 46-page document that has been circulating at the highest levels of the Pentagon for weeks, and which Defense Secretary Dick Cheney expects to release later this month, states that part of the American mission will be “convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.”
The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.
This is food to chew on and hopefully help us all in some way. I’m as blind as the next person most days but today I’ll be thinking about my Dad and also my maternal grandfather, who also never talked about his experiences in WWI. I’m just glad they both lived to NOT tell the tale.
Hear, hear Gary. My dad just died a little over a year and a half ago at 96. He had many World War II stories to tell, but they were always funny stories. Such as drinking helmets full of Belgian beer in Belgium, “rescuing” wine in France, etc. He never spoke of the day to day horrors that I’m sure he saw constantly. I will never forget watching Saving Private Ryan with him, and if you remember the opening sequence, it left my dad shaking visibly. He was in D-Day, he was also in Patton‘s third army at the end of the war. I can only imagine the things that he saw and went through, but they will only be in my imagination now forever.
Paul ('The Iraq War will pay for itself') Wolfowitz always a good name to draw ire toward the very worst of the Bush/Cheney/Hastert era 'New World Order'. His 'doctrine' and utter misreading of the situation might've subjected a lesser policy wonk to obscurity, but instead he was rewarded as prez of the World Bank (what else?). He would later (unsuccessfully) audition for a post in the Orange administration, but somebody (Bannon?) said 'unh-uh'. Chas (our Dad) loved 'Wolfy' almost as much as I did. Here's to Chas and his older brothers in WWII, and younger brother Dick in Korea, a household of service to Country.