Marching Off to War

Can a person both despise war and admire soldiers?  Absolutely.

War is an abomination; war is hell.  Unthinkable, immoral, inhuman atrocities become justified and rationalized.  The cost in lives and property is devastating.  The idea that war can bring economic benefit to the citizens or bring us out of an economic depression is at best disinformation, if not outright dark propaganda.

However, we do have a Right - and an obligation - to defend ourselves, both as individuals and as a nation.  We deserve to have the strongest defense that we can muster, able to withstand any attack.  So the folks who serve in the military are to be commended and supported; we need them!  Like firefighters and police and many others, they are willing to put their lives on the line to protect us from aggression.  They love America and their families and their communities.

But offense and defense are not the same.  Initiating wars abroad, toppling governments and meddling in foreign elections is vastly different, on so many levels, from defending our country.  For one thing, it always creates blowback.  For another, the elite stay safe at home and send dedicated young women and men abroad where many sacrifice their lives for “American Interests” [a meaningless generic term that they use to rationalize (“rational lies”) and to justify anything.]  

Obviously that violates the universal moral principle of doing unto others what you would have them do unto you; we accuse other countries of what we are already doing, then attack them for doing or attempting the same.

“Old men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.”  – Herbert C. Hoover 

Our soldiers certainly do not deserve to be lied to, to be fed disinformation, or to be experimented upon without their consent.

Many soldiers - those who manage to stay alive - come home physically wounded.  And many more suffer emotional trauma.  The elite who send our brave citizens off to fight across the oceans too often “reward” returning veterans with hollow words rather than with the real support that they deserve.

After World War II, our foreign hot wars never even paused, though we were supposedly in a “cold war.”  The CIA grew in power and reach, executing myriad secret operations, sometimes independently, other times in cooperation with the military and the State Department.

My previous essay on March 18th explains how people become indoctrinated.  Following the world war, many were infected with a McCarthy-like fixation on communism, and on Russia in particular, as America’s greatest existential threat (prior to climate change and domestic terrorism, of course - now it’s all three at once).

Yet even after Russia fell and the Cold War ended, we were unable to shift gears; disband NATO; form a new relationship with Russia; or slow the momentum of the military industrial complex.  Many of our leaders remain totally indoctrinated in that anti-Russia paradigm.  Others use the "existential Russia threat" simply for their own political ends. 

"If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal.
If you want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative.
If you want government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate.
If you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist.” - Joe Sobran

But the Democrats have abandoned their traditional values.  While Republicans have likewise vacated their long-established principles.  Today both parties - Sobran’s “moderates” - agree on two things: they are aligned in their support for constant wars and unfettered spending and debt.

Are there times when foreign war is truly justified? Sometimes yes. But war should first and foremost be declared by Congress, as the Constitution requires. Must not be secretly and intentionally initiated by our own covert agencies. Must have a clear objective; a predetermined standard for how to know when we have won; and an exit strategy. Plus transparency.

“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle. Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

[Sun Tzu was a Chinese general and philosopher who wrote The Art of War some 2,500 years ago. Are both China and the Western globalists using those same strategies against us today?]

The point is this:  yes, we can honor and thank the brave men and women who serve!  And we should.  While at the same time criticizing and opposing the powers that send them off to fight and die in wars that we initiate by meddling or using false flags.  Or in proxy wars that are about serving special interests rather than protecting the American people.  Or that defend other nation's borders at the expense of protecting our own.  Or in wars that we do not intend to win, or cannot win.

Our brave young people are the future of our nation. They are not cannon fodder to be deployed for the ulterior motives of the deep state and the elite. 

Let’s celebrate and thank our soldiers.  While voting out and removing from power those who carelessly engage us in continuous foreign meddling and war for their own self-serving purposes rather than for actually defending the lives of American citizens.

We should heed the warnings of our Presidents who actually fought in wars - like Generals Washington and Eisenhower - and then warned us against foreign interventions and the expansion of the military industrial complex.  We need to understand the difference between the marketing and propaganda of the war machine - to their own selfish ends - versus respecting and honoring the individual soldiers who choose to serve and to defend.

Another veteran soldier, Colonel Douglas MacGregor has started a grassroots organization called "Our Country Our Choice" that is growing fast, with lots of support from veterans and non-veterans alike.  I have joined, donated and volunteered to help.  Please check them out:

https://ourcountryourchoice.com

Is there a real threat of a collectivist America, in a collectivist world?  For sure.  How best can we address that threat and how do we identify the real perpetrators?  Is America being “collectivized” from within?  How was America supposed to have been different from Communism and Fascism?  

Are never-ending multiple wars an answer?  Or is that part of the problem? Do we need the largest military the world has ever known in order to defend ourselves? With a budget larger than the next 10 nations combined? Or is that a requirement of an empire?

A majority of us believe that America is on the wrong track.  It seems to me that a change in direction will have to come through grassroots movements like “Our Country Our Choice.”  And “Convention of States.” And the “Fairtax.”  

And from declaring our Independence from the clutches of the two Parties, who are two wings of the same bird when it comes to foreign wars and spending.