It may not be fashionable to say so, but I am sick and tired of being told to thank the military. The idea that thanks is owed grows out of the inability of most Americans to recognize simple cause and effect relationships. As I’ve said before, Americans seem to be unwilling to ask themselves the most basic questions about precisely how U.S. wars have made them freer. What are the specific results that the U.S. military has either achieved or prevented in the past 70 years that have led to this supposed increase in freedom? How would be less free if the U.S. government did not fight one or more of those wars? While I have dealt with this at length before, let me summarize briefly:
1. U.S. citizens are not freer because the U.S. military invaded Korea.
2. U.S. citizens are not freer because the U.S. military invaded Viet Nam.
3. U.S. citizens are not freer because the U.S. military invaded Grenada (does anyone really take this one seriously?).
4. U.S. citizens are not freer because the U.S. military invaded Somalia.
5. U.S. citizens are not freer because the U.S. military invaded Kuwait.
6. U.S. citizens are not freer because the U.S. military invaded Iraq.
7. U.S. citizens are not freer because the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan.
Now, I know that these statements are at odds with conventional wisdom and will be regarded as unpatriotic by conservatives and even most liberals. However, after completing the required ad hominem attack upon the author, I challenge anyone who disagrees to refute these statements logically, providing a reasonable argument that there is some cause-effect relationship between the cited wars and the relative freedom of U.S. citizens. It will be particularly difficult to make the argument in the case of Viet Nam, where the objective (to prevent North Viet Nam from taking over South Viet Nam) was not achieved. U.S. citizens should have been less free as a result. Were they? How?
Also, be sure to read the insane, moronic comments by one Troy Walters. He calls Mullen a "spoiled whiner" for being tired of all the mindless "thank the men and women in uniform" crap. He says that they serve and die for our freedom and others, when the truth is, they serve the military-industrial complex, die in vain (if they joined thinking they were "defending our freedoms"), and murder foreign civilians in the tens of thousands, as in Afghanistan. They sure as hell don't serve me by being overseas, nor do they in ANY way defend my freedom (if they really want to defend the freedom of the U.S. population, they need to invade Washington, D.C.).
He then goes on to tout the "deterrence" that the US military provides. Let's see, more US military spending than the rest of the world combined, and a US military presence in most of the world (see map below) is necessary to deter our so-called "enemies" (most of whom have a grievance with the US government, not the American people)?
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This also ignores the fact of "blowback", that it is the US military's very aggressiveness and occupations around the world that creates enemies and "terrorists" in the first place, which Troy seems clueless about, as he states that "[Almost] NOBODY thought anyone would be crazy enough to fly passenger jets into buildings on US soil either." Of course, there were plenty of people who predicted that US actions overseas, particularly in the middle east, would cause exactly something like that, a response of terrorism and attacks by the victims of US aggression (or those who felt they were fighting for those victims).
One of Troy's idiotic responses to Tom Mullen's main question was to bring up Kuwait, and the first Gulf war:
Your whole rant crumbles – period. Thirty-two nations were involved!
In other words, just like the "coalition of the willing" in the invasion of Iraq (based on the US lie of Iraq's supposed WMD) it wasn't a matter of US bullying and outright lying to get its puppets to go along, it was a mighty coalition for freedom!
Troy:
" It was IRAQ that was after oil – and the WORLD."
Translation: It was the US Empire that was (and is) after oil – and the WORLD!
Troy:
It was NOT a US invasion of Kuwait. The US-led because we happen to be the biggest and the best, and the world knows it. The fact that our military is such a deterrent is what keeps this country more free than any other.
Oh how I wish it were true, but as any perusal of the daily news indicates, post 9/11, the US has increasingly become a police state, with more and more freedoms limited or threatened by the rulers in D.C. and their evil, clown costumed "Law" enforcement agents. Let's see, the drug war, the TSA, the PATRIOT act, the internal highway "checkpoints", the IRS, the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security, the endless new laws and regulations, why, we're just as free as the birds, honey pie!
Sorry, Troy, but there are other countries that in many respects are more free than what the US has become. Jesse Ventura knows this and proves it by his decision to stay in Mexico rather than continue to visit or live in what he calls "The Fascist States of America".
Let me state this Troy, I neither respect nor honor in any way, anyone currently "serving" in the US military. They make possible, by their "service", the very illegal wars of aggression that make me and those I love less safe by making America a target for the hatred of those we (our government, actually) aggress against.
The men and women in US military clown costumes deserve nothing but contempt from every decent, freedom loving American. It is you, Troy Walters, who are just another one of the pathetic, useful idiots of the US Empire and Police State.
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