Aug 24, 2019 Posted by AGA Editor

War Isn’t Fought for Freedom

“You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” —Malcolm X

I realize as I sat down to pen this blog, that the words I write may upset some of you. Especially the topic of this post. Unfortunately the most important issues become the most controversial, which makes them difficult to discuss with a level head. I am not trying to offend anyone, though I am sure some will be. This subject, however, is too important to shy away from, so I hope you will give it some rational thought. Please, don’t wave the flag in my face just yet.

However, I just listened to an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Alaska, Margaret Stock, and she pointed out that she is a retired Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a former professor at West Point. Stock stated that she had served alongside and mentored soldiers “who have given their lives for our country.”

It would be difficult for me to find anything more nonsensical than that.

Show me one soldier — just one — in the past 231 years who has died for his country or, as others assert, in the defense of our freedoms here at home. You can’t do it.

Most of those soldiers died because officials within the national-security branch of the federal government ordered to go to some foreign country thousands of miles away, where they were placed in a position of kill or be killed. In fact, many of them were first conscripted (i.e., seized) and then ordered to deploy.

Nothing is more Patriotic than respecting and supporting the ideals that gave birth to America. Many American citizens often refer to this country as the greatest nation on earth. With the freedoms and rights we have here compared to other countries, they believe that America can do no wrong. However, as great as this nation may look on paper, it is far from perfect and even the most patriotic Americans can see that I’m not wrong.

Despite how high a pedestal this country is placed upon, the truth is that it also has a lot of blood on its hands. From slavery, to wealth inequality, social injustice, and the perpetual state of its wars to name just a few “demerits”.

We all have our views about war, but have you ever been in one? It’s not like you see on television. War up close, bears no relation to the images we see on TV or what we are taught in school. It is depraved and cruel. It has nothing to do with noble ends or freedom. There is a vast disparity between war’s reality and the myth peddled by the press and our politicians.

I didn’t understand what we were all so proud of. Am I the only one? Aren’t we all reading the same history books? Are we all seeing the same wars? Are you aware of the savage brutality that our flag has presided over? The oceans of blood that have been consumed in the name of freedom?

In my research I could find no war that can be said to have secured our freedom. Instead, all these wars, fought for profit, ideology, vengeance, or the boogie man (war on terror), have, by any measure, eroded both our security and our freedom.

Our history bears out this contention. Over the past century, U.S. wars have triggered major encroachments upon civil liberties and freedom in our own country. NSA, TSA, Patriot Act. Need I say more?

Wars don’t protect our freedom and our naive insistence on calling soldiers heroes for killing innocent people, is what erodes real democracy. Let’s not forget, all soldiers (foreign and domestic) are innocent people. Most are just fighting to protect their country. Much like we would, if the roles were reversed.

Our country’s founders warned against a standing army and pointed out that a standing army is actually a threat to our freedom and liberty. But today we equate any action by that army to freedom. I have seen everyone who worships the military also complain about big government, and correctly claim we cannot trust a single politician. Do they realize the politicians send the troops off to war? Do they realize that the military and police have always been what big government’s uses to oppress the people?

It seems as though this misguided belief, that “wars give us freedom”, will remain the norm. It can easily be argued that the American military fights in foreign lands simply to expand its empire, for oil, or for corporations. I am still waiting for a reasonable, logical argument which could clarify that the US military actually fights wars overseas to defend the freedom of Americans.

It’s time for the magically-inclined to wake up and realize they’ve been hexed. In the media, in conversation, the government trolls whisper excuses for evil just as easily as it spreads lies to further its own agenda, an agenda it values much more highly than our own lives or Americas freedoms.

Freedom is not at risk from some boogie-man in a foreign country. Freedom is at risk… from within ourselves.

There is nothing more powerful than the truth.

Are you awake yet?