“If there was a draft and rich kids had to go to war there would be plenty of protests,” a friend said. Perhaps that is what marks the difference between former President Bill Clinton’s generation of draft dodgers and the reliance on volunteer military service. It may account for indifference toward U.S. military involvement in occupied nations and increased belligerence and overt interference into internal affairs of other nations involved in their own civil wars.
It is more than the old Monroe Doctrine, Bully Pulpit diplomacy or Laissez-Faire. This is brand new. It is the politics of profiteering carried to the extreme. It has nothing to do with warriors. We are a nation that loves football. It is a warrior sport. Strength is required to defeat the opponent. The last time football skirmish tactics were used in warfare occurred on the battlefield of Gettysburg where two opposing armies, the North and South, faced each other in lines of skirmish. Pickett’s Charge was a disaster. The Korean War was a disaster. The war in Viet Nam, Cambodia and Laos was a disaster.
The local library just acquired a book of photographs taken by a famous English war photographer. Anyone that flips the pages will be an instant advocate for peace. Young Americans suffering terrible wounds, civilian populations terrorized, children playing with guns and laughing in a religious war joking over the dead body of a young girl lying in a filthy, littered street.
I’ve never been a hippie, consider I’m rather conservative and literal in the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. I don’t oppose war on religious or moral grounds and understand that, in the course of human conduct, force may be the only persuasion that works. I am a realist when it comes to interpreting historical significance of the war in Korea and Viet Nam. Realistically American politicians learned no lessons from French occupation of Indochina nor any of the various colonial wars by occupying powers. Contemporary politicians learned nothing from the tragedy in Viet Nam.
The United States cannot occupy Afghanistan. The Russians couldn’t do it; it bankrupted their country. The U.S. learned nothing from the Russian occupation. Iraq is an oil producing state with 250 of the shallowest, most productive oil wells in the world. Oil is king. Manipulation of oil prices has resulted in international profits that will never be fully investigated or even known. Bombing Libya in the name of support for some rebellion also has questionable motives. One little man that aspired to be president would likely have us bombing Iran.
Meanwhile the stock markets and economies of the world are in ruin. The U.S. has been downgraded by the most respected rating organization Standard and Poor’s. The downgrade likely has not gone down enough. The reason S&P gave is inability by American leaders to cope with the economic turmoil.
War helps an ailing economy. Consider that every soldier in the field is supported by a dozen more in the war trade. Huge cities have been built in the occupied nations for billets and support. Contractors have picked plums in overseas work and consultants galore are making huge profits. The reason for the continued conflict is as clear as the lies that were used to justify it to Congress and the American people.
Too clear. Economically the terrorists have won. They have virtually bankrupted the United States and have diverted its purpose from being the guiding stellar light to a brutal nation bullying the world.
China’s got our number. They are America’s greatest creditor and our greatest enemy. They are still waging and winning the Korean War. The answer is clear, ‘it’s blowin’ in the wind,' as the melodious Viet Nam War era song put it. Trouble is 545 elected officials in Congress refuse to heed it.
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Note: The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and are not necessarily representative of Epoch Times.