Imagine you are 18 to 22 years old and you are sitting home peacefully enjoying video games with your friends and the next thing you know you are fighting Russians, The Taliban, or some other poor souls.
For real. No games, no movies. All because someone or some small group of people decided FOR YOU that risking YOUR LIFE for an issue that some of them created, is worth the most precious thing you have. YOUR LIFE. Is that Freedom?
According to Wikipedia the United States has been involved in 105 Armed Conflicts since 1775, 4 of which are ongoing. And the list of Allies and Opponents is way to numerous to list. Now, I understand, there have been times where Armed Conflict is necessary, like after September 11. I have to apologize, I do not want to see my young son, my nieces and nephews or anyone else’s family members involved in a war with China or Russia or both. It seems like it is always the same story with some of the conflicts we get involved in. It begins with a few of the ruling class creating a villain or villains. Or they come up with some reason why they want to take something from someone else. Then the United States and it’s Allies devise their plan of how to get involved with aid and advisors. According to another unnamed source I found while Googling around the internet 80% of all global conflicts, wars, and meddling in the affairs of other countries since World War II involved the USA. Some of them may sound familiar, The Korean War, Plotting a coup in Syria, Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, Supporting civil unrest in Iraq, Supporting a coup in Pakistan, Invading Grenada, and something a little closer to the present, attempting regime change in Venezuela during the 2017-2019 time period. Who pays the price for all this meddling? American Families with the destruction of their loved ones lives either through fatality or severe injuries and with their hard earned dollars.
If you want to know how many American Casualties there were in what the Congressional Research Service calls the “Principal Wars and Conflicts” here is a link: American War and Military Operations Casualties: Lists and Statistics. You can do your own math. And how about funding for all these operations and meddling. According to to a paper written by a Boston University Professor titled: “20 Years of War” I quote, ” Including estimates of future costs for veteran’s care, the total budgetary costs
and future obligations of the post-9/11 wars is thus about $8 trillion in current dollars”. The quote indicates post 9/11 only, imagine what we have spent on armed conflicts all the way back to our founding or how about just in the 20th and 21st centuries.
I guess causing division and strife works everywhere around the world for the ruling class not just here in the United States.