WARS ALWAYS BECOME UNPOPULAR

WARS ALWAYS BECOME UNPOPULAR

(Tom Germain, New York Times, Michael Hauben, The Village Voice, Mary Nemeth, Phoebe Marr)

(Anthony Shugar, Joseph Gerson, Richard Reeves, Lisa Beyer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

(Brian Jones Jr. Steven M. Walt, Dominic Tierney, Carol J. Williams, Frazer Chronicle)

Did the U.S. government want the American people to be well informed on the serious question of whether the U.S. should initiate a war? Since August 2 all United States authority figures (e.g. the media and the government) have only given reasons to or enforce why people should be in favor of war.

It’s the old Pentagon two step, and it’s been going on for years and years, in the above scenario, it was the lead-up to the Iraq invasion back in 1990-91. The U.S. held a hard spot for Iraq and Saddam Hussein long before the 2003 altercation initiated by President George W. Bush for all kinds of reasons.

In fact, Bush 42 wasn’t even very original in his reasoning for the invasion of Saddam in March of 2003, was it weapons of mass destruction, nuclear threat, inhumane treatment of Iraqi civilians, or to clean up a destructive presence in the Middle East…..you pick-um, any one can fit.

The American people are a fickle lot, it’s the “what have you done for me lately issue” as its being reported through polls that 66% of Americans say that the Afghan war was not worth fighting. Well gee wiz folks; war is one of the most permanent exercises that people can do, one to another. Without exception, war brings two things for sure, injury and death. The misery and human carnage caused by war are two of the biggest reasons not to make war. War is dirty, its sticky, and it never, ever solves problems.

I never was for war after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks because frankly I thought that the enemy, which I acknowledge there was one…..the enemy, was a different breed of cat, and using conventional methods of rooting out the enemy wouldn’t work.

The Taliban, terrorists, or radical Muslims, whatever you want to call them, are a shattered movement, it seemed to me at the time, 2001, as if all of the parts were independent, yet dependent one on another. I didn’t think, nor do I think today, that there was much of a chain of command. The accusation or organization for terrorism was more a media and military necessity,

What happened to Osama bin Laden wasn’t captured. He wasn’t held as a prisoner of war, to be questioned by U.S. authorities; he was rooted out of his hiding place, executed, and buried at sea. Exactly what in the hell is up with that; maybe bin Laden could shed some light on some thorny issues of the day…..or something. But oh no, shoot the dastardly bastard, and then dump him at sea…..will wonders never cease.

SINCE WW II

Since the end of hostilities in August, 1945, ending World War II, the United States has been involved in five different skirmishes, encounters with what could be called enemies of the United States. Korea, June, 1950 to July, 1953, which claimed 54,246 deaths and 8,142 missing in action.

Vietnam, 1959, to April 1975, where the U.S. suffered 58,193 killed, 153,203 wounded, and 1,948 missing in action. I call this encounter the real beginning of the United States effort to enlist enemies of the United States. We didn’t have an enemy, so we went looking for some.

Korea could be labeled as the first attempt by the U.S. to look for enemy candidates, but I figured that the Korean Conflict, being so close to the end of World War II, you could give America a break, and site as legitimate the fear of the spread of Communism. But after Korea, all bets were off, and the United States simply needed an enemy, one, to hate, and two, for the military industrial complex, which by the latter part of the 1950’s was becoming bigger, and bigger, and required an enemy to embrace!    

After Vietnam there was Desert Storm, (August, 1990 to February 1991) which claimed 378 deaths and around a thousand wounded. There were 30 coalition nations, and of course the coalition was lead by the U.S. No other nation suffered as many casualties as the U.S. why, did we have the most military forces…..the answer is yes, and sadly whenever a country leads a coalition in a war it’s an unwritten law that that country must suffer more deaths than anybody else except the enemy.

Of course we all know about Afghanistan, October, 2001 to the present, by far the longest conflict that the U.S. military has been involved in. In total the U.S. again the coalition leader has suffered 2,300 casualties, with 2,400 wounded.

And finally we have what lots of people call “Bush’s War,” March, 2003 to December 2011, the invasion of Iraq…..which has cost the U.S. 4,404 deaths and a whopping 31,827 wounded in action. Iraq marked a new chapter of U.S. military activity…..as President Bush said, “even if there isn’t a coalition of the willing, we…..the United States…..will act alone.”

A BAD EGG TO CROSS

There has been two instances of enemy attack on American soil, Japan on December 7, 1941 in Hawaii, and terrorists on September 11, 2001. The retaliation in both instances was decisive, quick and brutal, no preparatory was safe, his family wasn’t safe, his town wasn’t safe, and probably where his ancestors were buried wasn’t safe. The United States can be one vindictive son-of-a-bitch when it comes to payback, everybody in the world knows that by now.

That knowledge, coupled with the fact that we have the second largest standing army, and the biggest budget in the world illustrates that the U.S. ain’t nobody to screw with…..unless you’re one of those idiots who’s willing to strap on a belt of dynamite and blow himself up for the cause.

With two exceptions, the U.S. fights wars on foreign soil…..that’s why people hate us, it’s ridiculous for anybody to say that “people hate us for our lifestyle, or freedom, or the bountiful way we we, drink and be merry.” How naive, George W. Bush and his cronies were to figure that we (as a nation) would believe such dribble, hell most people around the world, those un-tethered to ritual or religious belief, want to be just like us.

There are five basic reasons why the United States keeps waging war in a fashion no other country can…..at the moment:

1. Because we can, it’s the most obvious reason, the U.S. has a remarkably powerful military, planes, ships, mechanized military vehicles, and a million man army…..who you gonna call in a crisis, or who’s gonna stop us?

2. The U.S. has no serious enemies go ahead name one…..betcha ya can’t, oh sure the Taliban, or radical terrorists…..wow, how long would they withstand a (real attack) by the U.S.

3. The all-volunteer force, in conscription, no problem, everybody who suits up every day to play soldier wants to. Probably the very smartest most that the evil forces of darkness that reside in the secret places of our government has done. With no draft, you create less of a voice to curb military intervention by the U.S.

4. It’s the Washington establishment, it’s why we keep fiddling around all over the world, it way we keep poking our collect noses in places it doesn’t belong. The establishment in Washington is “hard wired” in favor of doing something, there’s a huge need to export democracy and liberty…..and these neoconservatives have never met a war that they didn’t like, and hey, if there ain’t one, they’ll make one.

5. Congress has checked out, yea that’s right, the Congress is supposed to be the one’s declaring war, but we all know it’s damn easy for the president to get a case of the old red ass, flip a few switches, make a couple of calls, and wham-o-, the U.S. is another shooting war.

Not a pretty sight huh, nothing real good to think about either, but it’s our lot in the world at the present time. Oh somebody some day will come along and give us the whacking that we deserve…..but I think that day won’t be in my lifetime

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!