Do you remember the reasons you were given for why the United States launched the Vietnam War? The Afghan War? The Iraq War? The Libyan War? Do you really remember? How many of those reasons turned out to be lies? How many were true? Were those wars worth waging?
The questions are worth serious thought. After all, your money went to fight them. And, as the numbers prove, vast majorities of “We the People” proudly supported them. So, by paying to wage those wars and praying for the troops who fought and died in them, you have a monetary and moral investment in them.
Take the longest war in American history, the Afghan War. We were told — by the President, Vice President, Cabinet members, Congress, Pentagon brass, military experts and the media — why Afghanistan should be attacked. Eighty-eight percent of Americans agreed, and so did our NATO allies. What has that war accomplished? What was its cost in innocent lives? How much was destroyed? How much money was spent? Did it make any moral sense? Do you really remember why the war was started? This piece from the Spring 2011 Trends Journal will help jog your memory https://trendsjournal.com/predictions/Flashpoint-Afghanistan.pdf.
Now, 13 years later, a mere 17 percent of Americans support the Afghan War. And do you know why the number is so low? According to Senator Carl Levin, (D–MI), a proponent of the war who voted for it in 2001, low public support is the fault of the media. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing held in March of this year, he blamed the media for failing to hype what he called the “positive” aspects of our presence in Afghanistan and “depriving the American people of the sense of accomplishment.”
Every war has its story and, while the details change, the plot line stays the same: If we don’t kill them, they’ll kill us.
I remember Vietnam very well. I recall, while a high school student, looking at the Daily News in mechanical drawing class and seeing pictures of a South Vietnamese leader in the cockpit of a made-in-America jet and thinking how cool he looked. I remember the patriotic Green Beret song and can still hear the lyrics. The storyline leading to the call-to-war went like this: The bad communist North Vietnamese wanted to overthrow the good South Vietnamese government that was America’s friend. If the commies won in Vietnam, like dominoes, one country after the next would topple to communism. Before you knew it, those dominoes would be falling on California.
I’m not making that storyline up. Most people bought it and close to three million American boys fought it. Nearly 60,000 died, and hundreds of thousands were, and are, physically and mentally wounded. Over three million Vietnamese were killed, millions wounded, much of the country bombed, napalmed and poisoned with Agent Orange. For what? Today, a unified Vietnam is one of our trading partners and multinationals eagerly employ cheap Vietnamese labor to produce their goods. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even pledged U.S. allegiance to Vietnam in its territorial disputes with China.
People forget the real costs of that war and how it was the beginning of the end of the American Dream. Rather than directing the nation’s resources toward advancing its future, the Vietnam War depleted the Treasury and squandered precious man- and mind-power. Furthermore, with more money going out than coming in and debt levels rising, President Nixon took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard.
Back then, Washington lied about the Gulf of Tonkin incident, using it as a pretext to take the nation to war, just as Washington lied about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda to justify a war against Iraq. In the run up to one war after another — Panama, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria and now Ukraine — the hawks proclaim the birth of another Hitler who — if we don’t stop him in one way or another — will butcher his own people and threaten our national security. And then, of course, since 9/11, there is the never-ending War on Terror to continue taking our hard-earned money and stripping us of the protections of our Bill of Rights in the name of exterminating those radical Islamist terrorists who hate our freedom and liberty.
Celente Solution
Promoting peace can be deadly. The Prince of Peace was crucified. Martin Luther King was shot. Government agents infiltrate, spy and frame proponents of peace. In fact, I too have become a target. I’m being called a traitor for appearing on Russian media, blasted for believing in the principles on which the United States was founded and brayed at for honoring the beliefs of our Founding Fathers: NO FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS.
I am not a pacifist. I fight close combat. But I believe in live and let live. We stay out of other countries’ business and they stay out of ours. America has my allegiance. I WILL NOT FIGHT FOR ANY OTHER COUNTRY, nor do I want my money going to support them, in war or peace. I believe that political leaders who betray the principles this nation was founded upon are traitors to those who gave their lives fighting for freedom and to the Founding Fathers who fought for liberty.
Today, the same political criminal gangs who have taken us into all those deadly, costly, losing wars are at it again. The war drums are beating. But this time, it’s different. If we let them prevail, America will wind up being attacked by those it attacks. And from there it will escalate into the “War of Hell.” All the weaponry and technology is in place to make life on earth not worth living.
I want to live in peace. With peace comes prosperity. In the upcoming months I will be launching an “Occupy Peace” movement. If you would like to stand up and speak out for NO FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS, please sign up on the web at www.occupypeace.us. More details will be forthcoming and we will keep you posted. The future doesn’t operate on anyone’s time clock and time is moving swiftly. At this moment, political lunatics have their fingers on the triggers. They need to be stopped.