The Case for U.S. Non-Interventionism: History Demands It
The U.S. is a nation of enormous military power, with a huge void in intelligent and honorable leadership, a long-time intent of profiteering imperialistically, consistently maintaining a myopic vision of goals and hell-bent on its mission of world conquest. After years of such policies, we need to look into the mirror and recognize ourselves. Then we need to do something about it.
Many, indeed most, of the wars we have fought and continue to fight are irresponsibly started and unavoidably chronic. We don’t win them because they cannot be won. The lives taken during these wars are significant, but are determined to be collateral damage by our elected and appointed leaders, as if the deaths enable America to raise itself to a loftier worldly position among nations. However, it is a smudged mirror image at best. The nation who perpetually lives by the sword will perish by the sword.
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” – James Madison, Political Observations, 1795
According to information provided in Chapter 5 of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)’s 2009 Year Book on Armaments, Disarmament and International Security for 2008:
World military expenditure in 2008 is estimated to have reached $1.464 trillion in current dollars (just over $1.2 trillion in 2005 constant dollars), which represents a 4 percent increase in real terms since 2007 and a 45 percent increase over the 10-year period since 1999. In addition, this corresponds to 2.4 per cent of world gross domestic product (GDP), or $217 for each person in the world.
The USA with its massive spending budget is the principal nation determining the current trend in global aggression and its military expenditure accounts for just under half of the world total, at 41.5% of the world total.
Since President Barack Obama took office in 2008 his administration and Congress have significantly expanded “the war against terrorism” with U.S. forces now operating in 75 countries, up from less than 60 at the start of his presidency. Furthermore, there has been a dramatic increase in the quantity of Special Forces operations and in the number of countries targeted.
Over the years the U.S. government has spent billions in support of oppressive, aggressive and terrorist regimes in many countries throughout the world. We have created a large percentage of the problems prevalent in world nations. We create unstable governments and then use them as an excuse for invasive purposes. As a former representative democracy the U.S. has lost its way in governing its own people and in being a world leader. We are a nation based on a Corporate-Military leadership and platform. After all, there are good reasons why the U.S. is the most military aggressive nation and also the nation with the most debt. We cannot continue to operate under that counterproductive platform and pace. We must strive for peaceful coexistence and become more resourceful and creative in cutting our debt and making profit. Ongoing wars, supporting unpopular governments, aggressive behavior and endless profiteering motives will be our ruin as a nation.
Peter Stern, a former director of information services, university professor and public school administrator, is a disabled Vietnam veteran who lives in Driftwood, Texas.
Texas Government ‘IS’ A Business???
The Iconoclast received a press release from Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts Susan Combs recently entitled “Running Government Like the Business It Is.” In the release, the Comptroller flatly stated: “As the state’s Comptroller responsible for Texas’ finances, acting as tax collector, chief accountant, revenue estimator and treasurer, I can assure you it IS a business. To run it even better as the business it is, we must tap the talents of men and women with business training, skills and perspectives.
“While our overall business fell by 1.7 percent last year, as measured by our gross state product, we still outperformed our ‘competitors’ in places like California and New York.”
We’ve known for a long time that Texas government, under the rule of Gov. Rick Perry, often dishes out vast numbers of taxpayer dollars to big corporations to “help” them locate here.
But to have the Comptroller issue a statement that government “IS” a business makes you wonder where the line is drawn. When do you become a corporate state (another term for “fascist” state)? You either are or you are not.
Since when does the State take on making money for big corporations that, incidentally, contribute to officeholder political campaigns?
Are the “taxpayers” stockholders?
Where are our dividends?
They are most certainly not co-mingled with the high insurance rates we pay, or taxes on just about everything we buy, or in “agencies” that do lip service only and never pursue complaints.
The dividends do not exist in the infrastructure and appropriate maintenance of roadways, nor in extremely high unemployment taxes, nor in a political education system that’s gone to pot.
No, Combs, a former porn writer, described the populace here as “customers.”
What a put-down!
— W. Leon Smith
