DECLARATION OF WAR, IT'S A HEAVY BURDEN!

DECLARATION OF WAR, IT'S A HEAVY BURDEN! (Frazer Chronicle)

Okay my little "red necks" out there; "put on your thinking caps," there will be a test on this subject at the end. The question is, "how many wars have been declared or just plain fought during the past 200 years, and their length?"

I'll give you several hints, "a declaration of war is a formal declaration issued by a national government indicating that a state of war exists between one nation and another. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution says, "Congress shall have the power to declare war." The United States has declared war against foreign nations six different times.

America has "formally" declared war on foreign countries on 6 separate occasions, 1812, the U.K. Mexico in 1846, Spain 1908, and Japan on December 8th. 1941 and Germany twice, 1917 and 1941. Included in the 1941 declaration of war on Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania were also included.

Military engagements or conflicts have been authorized and funded by the United States Congress on numerous occasions and by the Presidents alone 14 different times. The longest war fought by the United States is neither Afghanistan nor Iraq, but the war from 1840 to 1886 right here in the good old U.S. of A. That's right, the United States V. the Native Americans, the Indians, for 46 years, and many to this day say that the war is "not over."

Wars have been waged through the years by the United States for various reasons, right.....come on, we all know the answer to that question, the one constant in every war is MONEY, not freedom, not religion, and certainly not human rights. There aren't really any good guys in a war, just participants and victims.

The United States has been around since 1776, coming up on 236 years. Do you know how many years the country has been without a war to fight, or people to save, human rights to uphold, or territory to return to rightful owners.....zero, zip nada. Seems not possible right, well my little red necks, it not only is possible.....but it's true.

There has not been a decade without war being waged by the United States.....ever. There have been 80 major wars, "not declared" but fought, there have been literally thousands of conflicts and confrontations were blood was drawn and people died. Millions have died, millions wounded, millions permanently incapacitated and millions left without a meaningful life.

In the illustrious words of Jack Nicholson in the movie, A Few Good Men, he said, "you want us up there, and you need us up there." It's been the American way since the beginning of our countries history; it's the blood, the guts and our great good honor.....to fight. It has now come to the point that most of us don't even know what the fights about, we just know we "need to fight," we "need a cause," it completes us.

The cost in country resources has been tremendous, unless you count $11 trillion dollars as chump change. And now we are edging up to the $3 trillion dollar price tag on the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gee, pretty quick the money that has been spent on war by the U.S. will amount to our national debt....."Shut the front door."

I must admit that war does create some jobs, during the past several years, about 8.3 jobs per million dollars spent, but sadly there are “hidden” costs to these job creations. Dam, can't we ever catch a break? What does happen is that in today's work atmosphere, automation is used whenever possible to keep labor costs at a minimum.

Defense and democracy in America is a pricy business and the recent failure of the "Super Committee" whose job it was to slash the countries budget now opens the gate for automatic cuts to the budget to take place. However, don't get all upset and feverish over any defense cuts.....they won't happen, they hardly ever do.

Wars of choice, which the United States now wages has a "cushion" through the power of that little guy that is called "corporation," or "corp." for short. Corp. is actually the one who dictates the budget and the slice of the pie that corps’ brothers and sisters get. It's not complicated, it's not involved, and it's right there in front of everybody. It's called "Defense Spending," it's how we save our way of life, protect our own, and make sure that "Corp" and all the little "Corp's" continue to live and grow.

Ah screw the test, class is dismissed.