War
is money.  Politicians
can blather all they want about keeping our so-called democracy safe from
antagonists, but the money in their coffers from such defense contractors as
Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop
Grumman belies that malarkey.  They are
by their acceptance of the largesse of these companies, and by their
acquiescence if not outright support of our overseas war efforts, complicit in
the deaths of U. S. troops who mean nothing to them whatsoever.  As for the dead soldiers, they are not heroes;
they are victims.

Don’t doubt for a moment that we are a militaristic
nation.  The marriage of state with military is even more nefarious than the church/state no-no, and
has been throughout time.  What general
is going to recommend against conflict?  That is their purpose in life.  That is their reason for being.  Our military is deployed all over the globe, at unimaginable taxpayer
expense, protecting our “interests.”  See
here:

U.S. & territories         1,200,000

At sea                            101,000

Europe                             81,000

East Asia & Pacific         56,000

N.Africa, Near East & S. Asia      6,000

Western Hemisphere         2,000

Sub-Saharan Africa              654               From:statista.com                                                

Kenneth E. Boulding once wrote that the
international system of unilateral national defense (e.g. every country for
itself) has “a significant probability built into it of irretrievable disaster
for the human race.”  When you get rogue
countries such as Iran and North Korea, run by impractical zealots, with
nuclear capabilities, the sense of doom is so great that we can’t believe it
and we go about our lives in denial. 

The people running our country seem to be playing
this all down, as if the recent N. Korean threat to nuke the U. S. is nothing
more than chest puffing on their part.  I
watch those news reports of N. Korean soldiers doing the goose step march, like
the Nazis did, and I shudder.  I’m
thankful that I do not have a son in uniform at the 38^th parallel.