It has been thirteen years since 9/11. The trail of wars shortly started after the tragedy simply keeps extending. Even the six years of “anti-war president” in White House did not make any difference. The overall situation still keeps getting worse and worse, and more expensive. The basic idea behind Bush and Cheney’s war on terror was to fight a, so called, axis of evil. Originally consisted of three countries, has now supposedly involved many more, around the world. In addition to the original, Iran, Iraq and North Korea, it, now, includes, Russia, Libya, Syria, Cuba, Belarus, Zimbabwe and host of many others. World seems to never had this much evil, before.
It is virtually impossible to find any connection, whatsoever, between different countries included in this ever extending list of evil. The only common feature seems to be that these countries refuse to align themselves with U.S. foreign policy ambitions. The bottom line is this: If you are not with us then you are evil, an advanced form of good old “you and us” religious doctrine. Sold out politicians and corporate media keep propagating fear, in spite of the fact that thirteen years of wars have brought to us nothing but ever growing spending, and loss of lives and property.
National debt is mounting, deficits are increasing, thousands of troops have died, tens of thousands injured, hundreds of thousands with PTSD and other psychiatric issues, over a million civilians dead? And what have we accomplished, so far? Virtually nothing, but, losses. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are a bigger mess, now. Libya is having a bloody civil war. Syria is being threatened by extremists. Egypt is unstable. Conflict in Palestine is getting worse. Still, there seem to be no end. Absolutely no signs of anything good coming out of this whole mess. Question is, how long are we going remain engaged in wars?
While we have spent over a trillion in these wars, so far, the real unemployment and under employment rates, combined, here at home remain around 20%. In spite of official figures showing improvements in economy, lowered unemployment rates and gruesome stock market, it is virtually impossible to find work for millions of unemployed since 2008, especially a job which matches your education, experience and skills levels. A job which may pay around the same level that you were used to earn before you lost your job after the 2008 crisis. Both congress and White House have seriously failed to offer any formidable remedies. Midterm elections have changed many faces, but, most new faces seem to be repeating the same rhetoric.
Notion is that they are coming for us or will attack us, right here, at home, if we do not destroy them abroad. Truth of the matter is that many of them really do not like us. Their willingness and ability to, in fact, attack is highly debatable and unlikely, though. Just take the example of ISIS. It is already in war with Iraq and Syria. Other major forces in the region like Iran, Hezbollah, Turkey and Lebanon hate it.
First of all, there is absolutely no way that ISIS can ever win this war in long run. Second of all, even if we consider a very remote possibility of them winning a long war, it will be completely impossible for them to ever have a stable government, in midst of all that animosity which prevails against them within the region. With themselves involved in a very long and bloody war and having no prospects of ever attaining any stability, how in the world they can attack us, even if they want? This proposition is not any different from Saddam making WMDs and Pakistan harboring terrorists.
Why are we wasting so much tax payers’ money and risking the lives of so many of our young men and women in military, to fight the enemies that can never achieve a capability to ever attack us? Wake up people! Just do some research and gather some facts. With your cell phones, tablets, laptops, book readers, desktops and even smart watches, it is not even that hard, anymore. Just require a little effort, at your own convenience, and a smart use of search engines and YouTube videos. Stop relying on corporate media, the only purpose of which is to misinform you. To keep you in the loop for vested corporate interests.
If our ambitions are to attain world domination and “eliminate the evil”, I have a news for you. These objectives are tried time and again in human history and never resulted into anything, but, bloodshed, loss of property and wealth, and broken families. These objectives have never been successfully achieved by any former super power. Rather than that this type of imperialism and ambitions have always been the number one cause of downfall of leading civilizations, on this planet Earth. It makes absolutely no sense to waste our scarce and limited resources on ambitions which are never achievable. The best any nation can do, under the circumstances, is to have optimal defense capabilities.
I know that many critics reject these kind of views based on the argument that these are based on stereotype view of the world and serious underestimation of our capabilities, resources, power and might. Only problem with such refusals is that contrary to our views the opposing arguments are not backed up by sound historical facts. All this war hysteria is basically being played under a fascism like patriotism. The only reasoning I hear, if you can call it reasoning, is that we are Americans and we can do this.
World has always been filled by conflicting ideas and haters. Those still do exist, and will continue to exist, forever. We believe that our ideas are best. Others are entitled to believe the same, too. Smart are the people who do not allow these differences to become the bases for their own destruction. None of these countries and terrorist groups have any capability to attack or harm us in foreseeable future. Only thing that is really harming us is our extremely cynical view of the world which has been far worse in past.
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