As I look back at the vast devastations of the last century, several things stand out. First, that World War One was really unnecessary, at least for us. We did not need to participate. Multiple genuinely Imperial powers duked it out for 3 long years (I think it was) without us, none of them saints. We lost some 120,000 dead, and presumably a multiple of that wounded (eyes, legs, arms, ability to be happy, gone).
A credible case can be made that we participated in that war to protect business investments made by JP Morgan. I will not go into that at length now, but if you think back to your history, you get the Lusitania, but other than that, no credible threat to the US.
Arguably, World War Two came about as a result of the way World War One ended, and it only ended the way it did because WE WERE THERE. Quite literally, EVERYTHING became worse as a result of our participation, for Americans. It was better for Europe, of course, at least in the short term, but do we really owe other nations our blood for their foolishness, vanity, greed and ambition?
Both World Wars: unnecessary, for us. Actually, to be clear, of course World War Two was necessary. Sooner or later, Hitler would have developed a nuke and dropped it on us, repeatedly. The Japanese attacked us, so obviously our national sovereignty was put at risk by their actions. What I mean is that had World War One not happened, World War Two would not have happened, at least in Europe. I will leave aside considerations of the war with Japan for the time being, not least because I don’t know the history well enough.
Actually, though, China would not have become Communist had the Japanese not invaded. This is a history I need to learn at some point.
I actually believe that both Korea and Vietnam were more necessary than World War One. Our interests were at stake, since we faced a global power genuinely intent on conquering–one nation at a time–the world, and the Cold War was a war of public opinion, of military credibility, and of alliances. We won this war. Frankly, we also could have won the Korean War outright–China had no nukes at that time–and we DID win in Vietnam, only to to abandon our victory due to the influence of Communists in our government.
Which brings me to our two most recent wars. As I keep saying, the importance of realizing a larger conspiracy was in place on 9/11 cannot be overestimated. Given the logistical challenges inherent in planting enough explosives in the right places in three large office towers, undetected, one must assume formidable organizational prowess, planning capacity, covert operational ability, and malice.
Many assume this must have been the CIA. Certainly, the CIA likely has those capabilities, but do people really want to argue that at the top levels everyone in the CIA wants America to become a totalitarian state? I don’t think so. Nor was Iraq such a present threat that any significant number of Americans could have been persuaded that the best means of dealing with it was the mass murder of Americans. That is why I choose the Russians as the likeliest candidate to have been working with American and other bankers, who would have benefited both by increasing the loans they could make, and in terms of apparently long term objectives of ruling the world.
I alluded to this video earlier. Here it is, ten minutes of the Aaron Russo video: http://www.celebritynetworth.com/watch/oygBg6ETYIM/nicholas-rockefeller-admitted-elites-goal/
Now, Russo himself was a Republican, then a Libertarian. You can read his biography here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Russo
One of the themes that dominates debates about wars is pacifism versus what I would term realism. Some people say all wars are bad. This would seem to imply that all political regimes are equal, since if you fail to wage war at times, you will lose your political sovereignty at some point, and live by someone else’s rules. Would you rather have a regular person with common sense morality as a boss, or a violent psychopath? Only if you view the two as equal can you say all violence is wrong, and war never necessary.
But there is this subtle trick that happens here. Ron Paul gets called a pacifist all the time. He is not a pacifist: he is simply unwilling to risk and lose American lives for causes that do not genuinely support our way of life and the interests of the American people.
What happens is that those who understand war is sometimes necessary get angry with those who call our troops baby-killers, who call all American use of power overseas necessarily imperialistic, and who want to sugar coat and sanctify the often horrible people running other nations. These people, those who truly support our troops, in defending our troops and the abstract necessity of fighting wars, will often find themselves defending wars that, if they looked at them analytically, and solely in terms of protecting American lives in the actual United States, they might not agree with.
The war in Afghanistan should have been wound down back in 2009, not escalated. We sent troops in to retake areas from the Taliban that they will take back the moment we draw down. There is no point in taking something that you know you will eventually have to give back anyway. It does seem clear to me that there were in fact terror training camps there, but–and here is the important point–it is IMPOSSIBLE to evaluate what the objective danger of those camps was, until we understand who all was involved on 9/11.
Iraq is the same thing. I do believe that the nuke program was transported to fellow Baathist (which I think might accurately be called Fascist) nation Syria in the lead up to our war. How much danger it represented to AMERICA, I don’t know. I can say that clearly part of our goal was stability in the region for the OPEC nations, and that it would not have mattered strategically to us if we were energy independent, which would be greatly expedited with a LOT more drilling.
In the end, of course I value the sacrifices of our troops. I have spent years defending them. It just bothers me that they were better in many cases than the causes for which they gave their lives. We do not respect and remember them properly if we fail to see this out of convenience or cowardice. Effective soldiers do not have the luxury of illusion on the battlefield, and neither do we, on the battlefield of ideas.
Short version: our troops are the tip of the spear, but who is at the other end?