What if every American decided to change the world? What if America went back in time to become a place where being excellent was hard? What if being “exceptional” took more fortitude than nodding one’s head when America’s president filled up the TV screen proclaiming greatness? Hell, the world would be changed instantly. Well, here’s a call for the real America to stand up, and finally.
“When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”
“Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.”
- The United States and the coalition invaded Afghanistan. To date there have been 3,407 coalition men and women killed. That’s a few hundred more than those who perished on Manhattan.
- Civilian casualties in Afghanistan documented from 2001 to today include; 26,000 dead, another 30,000 wounded, and as many as 320,000 or more overall that have not been catalogued.
- US taxpayers will pay for decades to come, on the $1 trillion dollar price tag for accomplishing absolutely nothing – Al-Queda is still warring in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and elsewhere.
- Since George W. Bush ordered the US military to take over Iraq, there have been 4,425 US service personnel killed and over 32,000 wounded.
- Civilian death tolls vary greatly, but it’s accepted that as many as 1,000,000 people have died as a direct result of the fight for Iraq.
- Experts agree, by the time all is said and done, the actions in Iraq will have cost in excess of $6 trillion dollars. That 6 thousand billion dollars.
- ISIL, Al Nusra, and Al-Queda still roam the deserts of Eastern Syria and Northern Iraq.
Are you still one of Mark Twain’s “patriots?” If so, read on. Returning to JFK for a moment, he also is quoted as having told an Amherst College audience, only a month before his assassination;
“I look forward to a great future for America – a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.”
Moral restraint, wisdom, and our purpose. Oh my, how far we have fallen. Today a new Cold War rages. It’s not a war brought on by the Russians, as corporate media in the West would have you believe. Instead, it’s the same war that George W. Bush began waging the day after 9/11. Today, the Barack Obama administration does not even deny CIA support and arms for the anti-Assad extremists inside Syria and in the North of Iraq. The money trail was documented by WikiLeaks from before 2006, when Bush funded Assad’s opposition. I could go on and on, laying out for you the US’s influence on Arab Spring, Libya’s bloodbath, the upheaval in Egypt, Ukraine, and the murder going on in Yemen and in Gaza. But you already have the evidence, just follow the dead bodies to find the victims. Then ask, “Who funded or armed the killers?” As for your patriotic fervor, one of America’s greatest military leaders, General Douglas MacArthur has your answer;
“Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency.”
It’s all right in front of you, right here on the Internet. And my grip with my countrymen is, they’re too lazy, selfish and spoiled to notice, let alone care. I know, some of you are saying; “Hey buddy, not me!” But really now, what did you do to sway the Neocons away from the killing fields? Did you buy Obama just because he was Oprah’s pal one time? Or is it easier to simply pretend America is great, simply because you live there?
The great French general and president, Charles de Gaulle encapsulated the situation we see today perfectly;
“Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”
I bet some of you still don’t believe me. I’ll bet a few reading this have uttered how unpatriotic I am too. Others of you, I hope and pray, will perform the same self evaluation of “understanding” that I have. You have the words of great men. You know that the politicians are trained to lie. And you cannot ignore the mounting evidence, that all I have claimed here is true. The reality is:
- General and later President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned in his farewell speech of the might of the military industrial complex – we ignored him
- JFK refused t0 commit to Vietnam, he was killed, America went anyway.
- 58,220 Americans died in Vietnam, hundreds of thousands were marred for life, and for no purpose whatever.
- Osama bin Laden was empowered and created by the United States as a thorn in the side of the USSR in Afghanistan – then he was our enemy.
- Saddam Hussein was America’s friend versus Iran, the Donald Rumsfeld and Bush betrayed the former friend and invaded Iraq.
- The Bush White House begins funding Arab Spring uprisings across the region, including WikiLeaks disclosed funding for anti-Assad groups as early as 2006.
- Obama entertained then Russian President Dmitry Mededev with Vladimir Putin in the wings (remember open mic story) then back stabbed Russia after Arab Spring took hold.
- Obama’s administration continued and escalated Bush’s campaign against Syrian President Assad even before the US planned withdrawal from Afghanistan. The CIA is supply Al-Queda and ISIL with what they need to destroy Assad.
- Vladimir Putin and Russia have intervened throwing a monkey wrench in the regime change the US and Israel, France and Britain have planned for some time.
This pretty much brings you up to date on where American foreign policy stands today. What you suspected, but have not been informed about, is the energy aspect of all this killing. The fact new and massive natural gas and oil reserves have been discovered off Syria bears a special weight here. The map above reveals data about Syrian oil exploration that mainstream media failed to report. The offshore areas you see contain no less than 117 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and over 100 billion barrels of oil which Assad controls. The US wants him out for a multitude of reasons, but the impact Syria’s oil and gas can have on Europe and the region is astronomical, especially for the Saudis. British Dutch Royal Dutch Shell, and French Total are among the parties interested in these new fields, in case you wondered about French war planes over Syria.
I leave you with a final quotation from President Theodore Roosevelt. A soldier and a statesman, conversationist and reformer, if his words do not ring true for you, you’d better examine your own character friend. The man whose face adorns Mount Rushmore alongside those of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln prophesied for today;
“The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.”
Now examine please, who is benefiting from all this death and carnage on our planet. In the answer you’ll find true American patriotism and liberty ringing.
