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Praying for peace while waging permanent war
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41960.htm
Memorial Day: Praying for Peace While Waging Permanent War?
By Bill Quigley
May 25, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - Memorial Day is, by federal law, a day of prayer for permanent peace. But is it possible to honestly pray for peace while our country is far and away number one in the world in waging war, military presence, military spending and the sale of weapons around the world?
U.S. Global War Machine
The U.S. has 1.3 million people in the military, and another 1 million serve in the military reserves. The U.S. has over 700 military bases in 63 countries across the world, deploying over 255,000 U.S. military personnel there. The Department of Defense officially manages over 555,000 buildings on 4,400 properties inside the U.S., and on over 700 properties across the globe. The U.S. has over 1,500 strategic nuclear warheads; over 13,000 military aircraft; dozens of submarines, many of which carry nuclear weapons; and 88 destroyer warships.
Global Harm
Nearly 7,000 U.S. military people died as a result of the wars waged by the U.S. since 9/11. Just as important, in Iraq over 216,000 combatants, most of them civilians, have died since the 2003 invasion. Some estimates of Iraq casualties are double that. No one even counted civilian deaths in Afghanistan for the first five years of our war there. Our drone attacks have murdered hundreds of children and civilian adults in Pakistan, and dozens more in Yemen.
Memorial Day: Praying for Peace While Waging Permanent War?
By Bill Quigley
May 25, 2015 "Information Clearing House" - Memorial Day is, by federal law, a day of prayer for permanent peace. But is it possible to honestly pray for peace while our country is far and away number one in the world in waging war, military presence, military spending and the sale of weapons around the world?
U.S. Global War Machine
The U.S. has 1.3 million people in the military, and another 1 million serve in the military reserves. The U.S. has over 700 military bases in 63 countries across the world, deploying over 255,000 U.S. military personnel there. The Department of Defense officially manages over 555,000 buildings on 4,400 properties inside the U.S., and on over 700 properties across the globe. The U.S. has over 1,500 strategic nuclear warheads; over 13,000 military aircraft; dozens of submarines, many of which carry nuclear weapons; and 88 destroyer warships.
Global Harm
Nearly 7,000 U.S. military people died as a result of the wars waged by the U.S. since 9/11. Just as important, in Iraq over 216,000 combatants, most of them civilians, have died since the 2003 invasion. Some estimates of Iraq casualties are double that. No one even counted civilian deaths in Afghanistan for the first five years of our war there. Our drone attacks have murdered hundreds of children and civilian adults in Pakistan, and dozens more in Yemen.
Replies
Talk about quality reporting. I'd really love to know what a civilian combatant is.
If one or more countries are building up their military (and Russia and China both are) we have to do the same. This scenario has played out before, Germany, Italy and Japan building their war machine while the U.S. Britain and France pared theirs. And we know how well that worked out.
While democracies (and we still are one, somewhat)rarely start wars, we still need to be prepared for them.
Who decreed that we are the world's policeman? The reason we are is to facilitate the corporate and financial elite exploitation of the world's economic resources, by military force if necessary. That is an immoral, illegal, and invalid reason. The crimes against humanity that we commit in the process makes us an outlaw nation and I see no justification
for it. Nuremberg established that the worst international crime is starting aggressive illegal wars, something the U.S. has done repeatedly while hypocritically praying for peace. That needs to stop.
While I agree we should not be the world's policeman, it seems we are by popular acclaim here AND abroad, after all, why should some rinky-dink country fight their own war when they can get Uncle Sucker to do the killing and dying for them?
Wow, there's a lot of BS to unpack in that short paragraph.
Start unpacking, because it's all true.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=80482
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=us_iraq_80s_807
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omnskeu-puE
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/leadup-iraq-war-timeline
If you truly believe that, then I have some nice ocean front property in Arizona that I make you a deal on.
We did not "Green light" the invasion of Kuwait. April Glaspie perhaps could have been more forceful with Saddam over the issue, but it was not a ruse to invade. If it were, why did we stop? Why not remove Saddam right then? Why control Iraq by Air when we could have controlled it from the ground?
IIRC, we told the Taliban to give us OBL, and they refused.
Maybe you have some source material for this stuff.
I posted some of the source material in post #8.
Here is another source:
http://billmoyers.com/2014/06/27/the-first-iraq-war-was-also-sold-to-the-public-based-on-a-pack-of-lies/
And this means absolutely **** all.
Read the source material, you might learn something.
So Sherb, after reading the source material, what do you think?