The Troops Did Not Die for Our Country or Our Freedom
Yesterday, I received an email from an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Alaska, Margaret Stock, which pointed out that she is a retired Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a former professor at West Point. In her email, 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. Does she really mean what she says? Or is it just political pabulum?
Show me U.S. one soldier — just one — in the past 65 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.
Some soldiers volunteered to go and fight in order to improve their chances for promotion. During the Vietnam War I knew of an Air Force colonel who volunteered to go to Vietnam because he was convinced that that was the only way he could make general. I also knew of several officers who were trying to get to Vietnam in the waning stages of the war to pad their combat resumes.
One thing is for certain: Contrary to what Stock asserts, the deployment of U.S. troops in wars for the past 65 years have had nothing to do with defending America or the freedom of the American people for one simple reason: America and American freedom were never under attack.
Suppose that U.S. troops had not gotten involved in the Korean War in the early 1950s. Ask yourself: How many Americans would have voluntarily traveled to Korea and helped the South Koreans defeat the North Korean communists?
Answer: Zero! None! Not one single American would have done that, even if President Truman and his national-security establishment had pointed out the dangers that international communism posed to America.
Suppose the U.S. national-security establishment had never invaded Vietnam and simply decided to stay out of that country’s civil war. Suppose President Johnson, the Pentagon, and the CIA told Americans that a victory by North Vietnam would pose a grave threat to U.S. national security because the dominoes would begin falling to the communists, with the big domino (the United States) ultimately falling to the Reds.
How many Americans would have traveled to South Vietnam and joined up with South Vietnamese forces to help them prevent a communist victory?
Answer: Zero! None! Not one single American would have gone to fight the commies in Vietnam.
Suppose George H.W. Bush had refused to involve his army in his war against Iraq in 1991, but had exhorted Americans to travel to the Middle East and join up with forces that were attempting to reverse Iraq’s (i.e., Saddam Hussein’s) invasion of Kuwait. Suppose that Bush had told Americans that while the U.S. government had partnered with Saddam during the 1980s in his war on Iran, Saddam had since become a “new Hitler” who threatened the world.
How many Americans would have traveled to the Middle East to join up with forces attempting to liberate Kuwait from Saddam?
Answer: None! Zip!
Suppose George W. Bush had declined to invade Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks but instead simply put out an arrest warrant and bounty for Osama bin Laden.
How many Americans would have traveled to Afghanistan and Iraq to oust the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power?
Answer: None. The only ones who would have gone over there would have been the ones looking for bin Laden in the hopes of collecting a large bounty.
If the U.S. government evacuated the Middle East and Afghanistan today, how many Americans would travel to Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria or the rest of the Middle East to fight ISIS and prevent it from taking over those countries?
Answer: Not one single one, including the infamous neocons who continue to tell us that “national security” is at stake. In fact, if all U.S. troops were ordered to withdraw from that part of the world today, not one single U.S. soldier, including officers and enlisted men, would seek to resign from the U.S. military and travel to Iraq and Afghanistan to prevent ISIS and the Taliban from winning and taking control in that part of the world.
So, does all that mean that the American people are cowards? That they are only courageous when it comes to sending the troops to do the fighting for them? That they’re not willing to put their lives on the line in the defense of their country? That they’re not willing to defend their own freedom and the freedom and security of their family members and countrymen?
https://www.fff.org/2016/05/31/troops-not-die-country-freedom/
