Knowing our world wide interference and our warring past and much of it instigated I was taken aback when President Obama said during his inauguration speech that we are a peaceful people and do not like war but peace.
We supposedly attacked Afghanistan because they were housing Al Qaeda who attacked us at 9/11. However I remember Bush and Cheney meeting in the White House with the Taliban and when the Taliban refused to allow a pipeline to be built through Afghanistan Bush said they would attack them and lo and behold 9/11 happened shortly thereafter.
I have to admit that Libya was the first war in my time where I felt we had no choice if we did not want to sit by and watch the genocide of his own people by Colonel Kaddafi. However I have been listening to many say we had no right to interfere. I feel we had to in good conscience but people are right when they say there is no balance as to what we base the decision to go to war on. Now we are involved in Syria much of it clandestine. What is next? Iran? China? What? We will find one somehow.
Knowing I have been thinking of this for years and I based it on a book written in 2003 in which it was pointed out that we have been at war since our founding, 227 years. that is now 236 years so I had to revisit this thought.
Years ago now I was consumed with the crazy thought that my son who is an EOD (explosive ordinance Disposal) Team Leader just got home from Afghanistan then volunteered for Iraq. I was very concerned as to how many civilians and American soldiers were going to lose their lives in what many of us considered an illegal war.
I was listening again to the number of Americans killed in past wars including the civil war where some 562 thousand lost their lives as you know, fighting amongst ourselves. At first I was focused on the wasted lives in Iraq and was wondering how many there would be when all is said and done as well as feeling there is no foreseeable end and we still have to wonder, then I went to this list and I wanted to compare how many lives were lost in wars in contrast to how many we lost fighting amongst ourselves.
The numbers were getting too convoluted for me to come up with anything tangible I thought. I then was looking at the immense numbers of conflicts and wars we were in and I decided a comparison of war years to peaceful years would be best to tell our story. I couldn't figure it out. I was floored by the number of conflicts and wars America has been in since our founding and thought I would say we have only had approximately 50 years of peace and supply this link on our war and peace History. List of America's wars
Then I went back to Google and I found this compelling story by Jon Stanton showing that America has been at war openly or clandestinely essentially since we were founded. I merely want you to see what is out there and think about the whole story. Having read what he wrote I thought there was something at least worth reading, thinking about, and putting in perspective.
I never read him so I researched him and found him to be a Virginia based writer that writes from a left wing perspective and I am afraid I agree with much of what he says. In fact I have written much of it myself in the past. I am not a warmonger I am a peace lover so I thought I would give you the link to Jon Stanton's book 227 years of warfare written in 2003 and you could tell me what you think. 227 years of warfare It is now 236 years of warfare!
It did make me remember that I did a diary a while back in which I said the U.S. has a war economy and some took exception to that but looking at our History of wars our fault or not I really have to wonder, what are we? I am a peace lover willing to fight for my country as are my sons as you know but are the leaders of America fighting to live or living to fight? what is happening to us? How are we supposed to feel?
James Joiner
Gardner, Ma
http://anaverageamericanpatriot.blogspot.com
1 comment:
I was thinking about this last night while watching what's going on in Mali. Take a step back and you will note that countries enlist the services of the lesser of a population to fight the other lessers. I speak of the lower classes here being either uneducated or poor. This is not to say what your son or my brothers did is any less heroic, but look at who gained by our actions and how our veterans treated once they've finished their service.
Who's gaining in Mali? It's surely not the general population who are now afraid of both their own troops as well as the rebel extremists. No it's all the corporations who suck the wealth from the country all the while touting some cause to rally support.
The civil war had it's rebels. WWII had Nazis. Then it was the commies and now they use the generic term fighting terror (which by the way is an idea and not a person or people). All for what?
I kind of chuckle when you end a post with something like "this will end with WWIII!". They don't want WWIII. That would cut into their profit margins if the entire world was at war at the same time. Because you seem to forget we're all intertwined economically. And arms dealers don't care who they sell to they're amoral.
Post a Comment