America’s Endless Wars
By James Donahue
When I was a child the world was at war. They called it World War II since it was the second great war to befall the world in the first half of the Twentieth Century. The United States emerged the great victor of that war. Everybody cheered. I remember whistles blowing, church bells ringing and people milling about on the streets. I think we dreamed that it was the end of war and since the United States was the winning nation, we could make sure there would never be another war like that again. We trusted our leadership in those days.
By the time I was in high school we were at war again, this time in Korea. They didn’t want to call it a war and said it was a police action. We were told it was a Communist threat by the North Koreans against the South Koreans who sought a democratic capitalistic system. Nobody won that skirmish. The fighting stopped at the 43rd parallel, the battle line was chiseled in the rock, and military forces spent the next half of the century staring down their gun barrels at each other. The United States military has maintained a presence in South Korea ever since.
When I was in college we were at war yet again; this time in Vietnam. Once again we were told it was a necessary action to stop the spread of Communism in that part of the world. Our forces battled the Vietcong in a vicious jungle warfare that we could not win. Once again, after 14 years of deadly warfare and the loss of over 58,000 American lives, we came home without a declared victory in 1975.
The Vietnam War was intensified by the Cold War, a “super-power” standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States, both possessing arsenals of enough atomic weaponry to literally destroy the world at the push of a button. A lot of people were turning their root cellars into underground fall-out shelters, thinking that if atomic warfare happened, they might have a chance if they could hide from the radiation. Fortunately such a war did not happen. Since then the formula for building atomic bombs has been passed around and at least eight nations now are known to possess nuclear weapons.
There was a thought that when the Soviet Union fell apart and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 that the very existence of all those atomic bombs would force peace to the world. Nations would be forced to get along rather than risk the possibility of anyone lobbing a nuclear bomb on an enemy.
Unfortunately this was not to be our fate. Instead of banning together to follow a movement to establish a one-world government, the U.S. Military Industrial complex, born during the horrors of World War II, remained an active and major wing of the nation’s government. We established military bases all over the world for the purpose of keeping the peace when local mini-wars broke out. Today the United States maintains nearly 800 such bases in over 70 countries.
After the 9-11 attacks the Bush Administration saw fit to launch wars that still are going on in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since then, with the development of robot driven aircraft and drones, we have seen fit to go on bombing missions in Libya and Yemen and are toying with possible wars in Iran and Venezuela.
Because of skilled propaganda the public is still supporting the nation’s military exploits, with relatives of lost soldiers justifying the sacrifice as made in “defense of our country.” But it doesn’t take a genius to notice that we haven’t fought a battle since the end of World War II to defend a square inch of the United States. When we broach that subject the retort is that we are preventing a future attack on the home front by fighting the battles overseas. But in our hearts we know this is not true.
War has become big business for the corporations that are developing, building and producing the planes, ships, land vehicles, guns, bombs, bullets and all of the personal materials provided for more than 1,500,000 active personnel in the field and serving at home. The uniformed services now include the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard. These divisions are all under the control of the President, who serves as Commander-in-Chief, and the Departments of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. Nearly 800,000 people are in the reserves and another 744,000 serve as civilian workers for the Department of Defense. This makes the Defense Department the largest employer in the world.
It should not be surprising that the United States thus feeds the largest military budget in the world. War has become such big business that it may now be impossible to ever enjoy peace in the world. There is too much money to be made the way things are.
By James Donahue
When I was a child the world was at war. They called it World War II since it was the second great war to befall the world in the first half of the Twentieth Century. The United States emerged the great victor of that war. Everybody cheered. I remember whistles blowing, church bells ringing and people milling about on the streets. I think we dreamed that it was the end of war and since the United States was the winning nation, we could make sure there would never be another war like that again. We trusted our leadership in those days.
By the time I was in high school we were at war again, this time in Korea. They didn’t want to call it a war and said it was a police action. We were told it was a Communist threat by the North Koreans against the South Koreans who sought a democratic capitalistic system. Nobody won that skirmish. The fighting stopped at the 43rd parallel, the battle line was chiseled in the rock, and military forces spent the next half of the century staring down their gun barrels at each other. The United States military has maintained a presence in South Korea ever since.
When I was in college we were at war yet again; this time in Vietnam. Once again we were told it was a necessary action to stop the spread of Communism in that part of the world. Our forces battled the Vietcong in a vicious jungle warfare that we could not win. Once again, after 14 years of deadly warfare and the loss of over 58,000 American lives, we came home without a declared victory in 1975.
The Vietnam War was intensified by the Cold War, a “super-power” standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States, both possessing arsenals of enough atomic weaponry to literally destroy the world at the push of a button. A lot of people were turning their root cellars into underground fall-out shelters, thinking that if atomic warfare happened, they might have a chance if they could hide from the radiation. Fortunately such a war did not happen. Since then the formula for building atomic bombs has been passed around and at least eight nations now are known to possess nuclear weapons.
There was a thought that when the Soviet Union fell apart and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 that the very existence of all those atomic bombs would force peace to the world. Nations would be forced to get along rather than risk the possibility of anyone lobbing a nuclear bomb on an enemy.
Unfortunately this was not to be our fate. Instead of banning together to follow a movement to establish a one-world government, the U.S. Military Industrial complex, born during the horrors of World War II, remained an active and major wing of the nation’s government. We established military bases all over the world for the purpose of keeping the peace when local mini-wars broke out. Today the United States maintains nearly 800 such bases in over 70 countries.
After the 9-11 attacks the Bush Administration saw fit to launch wars that still are going on in Afghanistan and Iraq. Since then, with the development of robot driven aircraft and drones, we have seen fit to go on bombing missions in Libya and Yemen and are toying with possible wars in Iran and Venezuela.
Because of skilled propaganda the public is still supporting the nation’s military exploits, with relatives of lost soldiers justifying the sacrifice as made in “defense of our country.” But it doesn’t take a genius to notice that we haven’t fought a battle since the end of World War II to defend a square inch of the United States. When we broach that subject the retort is that we are preventing a future attack on the home front by fighting the battles overseas. But in our hearts we know this is not true.
War has become big business for the corporations that are developing, building and producing the planes, ships, land vehicles, guns, bombs, bullets and all of the personal materials provided for more than 1,500,000 active personnel in the field and serving at home. The uniformed services now include the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard. These divisions are all under the control of the President, who serves as Commander-in-Chief, and the Departments of Defense and Department of Homeland Security. Nearly 800,000 people are in the reserves and another 744,000 serve as civilian workers for the Department of Defense. This makes the Defense Department the largest employer in the world.
It should not be surprising that the United States thus feeds the largest military budget in the world. War has become such big business that it may now be impossible to ever enjoy peace in the world. There is too much money to be made the way things are.