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LETTERS / “Our Government” Attacks People Who Didn’t Attack Us

Dear Editor,

Most American Christians pledge their unquestioned loyalty to “our” national-security state. This is demonstrated by the unconditional praise they give to the troops who “our” national-security state uses to violently impose its will on others around the world. In their praise, they never question the war department’s actions. American Christians automatically assume that whatever the troops are doing is good and whoever they’re doing it to is a “bad guy”. Citizens don’t trust government or the media, except, apparently, on our wars.

Most American Christians don’t ask if “our military” is violating God’s laws accepting the story that American soldiers are defending freedom.

“Our government” attacks people who didn’t attack us. American Christians said Iraqis, Afghanis, Vietnamese, etc., had no right to defend their nation against the Empire. Those who defended their homes automatically became “bad guys” who deserved to die. Would Jesus think were you a “bad guy” if you had to defend your home?

If “consumers” were to ask that question, they’d have to decide who gets their loyalty: God or “our government”. If they chose God, then they’d have to oppose “our government’s” actions. American Christians have made the military an idol, against a certain list of commandments. “God’s on our side” so troops must always be supported, praised, and thanked, regardless of their actions. Enlightened projects like control of fossil fuels, weapons profiteering, and maintaining global hegemony become “God’s work”. Nazi’s did the same.

Church going Americans submissively accept whatever Caesar does to anyone. Sanctions, embargoes, coups, partnerships with dictatorial regimes, occupations, wars of aggression, assassinations, torture, kidnapping. Anyone who questions what the national-security state is doing anywhere, is considered disloyal, un-American, in the same way that Soviet dissidents were measured. That’s what COINTELPRO was all about. In the name of the Cold War, Americans surrendered their consciences to the national-security state. They still don’t want to know what’s done in their name, with their money.

The police motto to “protect and serve” has become “comply or die”. If you live somewhere that has welcomed “our” national-security state; surveillance cameras, forced DNA extractions, Stingray devices, private prisons, questionable SWAT raids, etc., while militarizing police forces, and operating beyond the Constitution, then you don’t live in a democratic republic: you live in a police state. Our wars have come home.

When Dubya took power in 2001, his neo-con managers faced the facts: it was just a matter of time before the Empire lost its global geopolitical and economic control. The choices were; manage the decline, or bet it all to consolidate global supremacy using war. The Obama regime has continued Dubya’s strategy refusing to admit the Empire has lost any ability to provide meaningful solutions to the current world situation.

NATO’s top military commander warned that Russian “militarization” of the Crimea could be used to control the Black Sea. The Russians could easily refer to our “militarization” of the Gulf of Mexico.  The Empire/NATO recently tried to take control of Crimea using the Maidan “revolution”. If the Empire believes Russia might use the Crimea to control the Black Sea, then what was the Empire hoping to achieve had their newest puppet, Ukraine, succeeded in taking over Crimea?
The head of the legislature in Russia’s Chechnya region says that Russia will provide weapons to Mexican drug gangs if the Empire supplies weapons to Ukraine saying this would be aimed at reigniting disputes over “territories annexed by the United States in the American states of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and part of Wyoming.” Would you understand this turnabout?

It’s another example of America’s corporate media hypocrisy.  It goes like this: America in Gulf of Mexico is good.  America in Black Sea is also good.  Russia in Black Sea is bad.  Russia in Gulf of Mexico is unthinkable. The Empire’s arrogance is predictable. The willing slavery of Europe is curious.  They all know it, but they pretend not to notice, like America’s Christians. WWJD

Americans should understand what’s meant when “our leaders” say they’re fighting for “freedom”. It’s one of those vague values no one would think of attacking. Freedom for most English-speakers has its popular meaning, but there can be many: Whose freedom, to do what with what limit?

Freedom could mean a society where you’re reasonably safe from poverty/oppression, where education, health care, and “consumer goods” are affordable, and there’s real opportunity to work with the hope of earning a decent living. Freedom in the American dialect, as most of “our leaders” use the term, means something rather different: freedom for corporations.

When you hear “our leaders” talk about freedom in Cuba you ought to consider who is repressed and not free? A teenager of African descent, as in America, or saboteurs and Batista lovers, as America has pressed on Cuba for 50 years?

It’s “free speech” to enrage Muslims about Muhammad, but “hate speech” to infuriate Jews by drifting ever-so-slightly off the Israeli Holocaust Story: the religion of the Zionists.  The difference between “free speech” and “hate speech” is perspective, money and power.

Iraq/Afghanistan/Vietnam never attacked the Empire or threatened to. The president failed to get the declaration of war that the Constitution requires. Every American soldier takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Christians glorify soldiers who participate in our wars. Should they be honoring soldiers who follow illegal orders in aggressive wars? Remember the Nuremberg trials.

What should have higher priority in the mind of the soldier and you: conscience, moral and religious principles or blind allegiance to whatever the national-security state is ordering its soldiers to do?

Government is the most expensive thing you buy in your life. Are you getting value for your money? Judging by the “official” news stories, we’re not. Your money goes to Wall Street, the war machine, CIA torture dungeons, NSA spy shops, and of course Israel: When you wake up its hard to go back to sheep. Why are you silent?

What’s never questioned is how a country with crumbling bridges and growing poverty can spend billions of dollars we don’t have on imperialism. America believes war is peace calling wars of aggression, liberating ones. Our humanitarian intervention is mostly genocidal slaughter and destruction, against one nation after another, supported by American Christians.

Americans have accepted “our government’s” offenses against them as “necessary protection against terrorists”. “Our freedom, democracy, liberty, blah-blah”, is camouflage for America being ruled by money. Wave the flag, see enemies where “our government” tells you to see them, and above all, never think.

The Empire habitually chooses force, notices it isn’t working, and assumes that it’s because they aren’t using enough of it. Its special operations meddled heavily between 2011 and 2014 in our multi-generational struggle without end. When will it end?

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175945/tomgram%3A_nick_turse%2C_a_shadow_war_in_150_countries/

Our warmongering politicians and journalists sell us wars that they themselves created pushing soldiers into the slaughter chute. Most American soldiers died fighting foes who were no threat to America, for secret agendas of which they knew nothing. Our boys died for the One Percent’s bottom line that hid their self-interests behind the flag.

Craig Dudley