U.S. wars employ more contractors and mercenaries now than troops. When mercenaries are killed and their bodies publicly displayed, the U.S. military will gladly destroy a city in retaliation, as in Fallujah, Iraq. But war propagandists never mention the contractors or the mercenaries. It's always the troops, the ones doing the killing, and the ones drawn from the general population of just plain folks, even though the troops are being paid, just like the mercenaries only less.
The point of course is to prop up the piece of nonsense that says that opposing a war equals joining the other side of that war, so that wanting to be kinder to members of the U.S. military than the U.S. military is equals hating and attempting to destroy those people.
"Even though we don't always agree with the war, we know that the men and women who are fighting are doing that. They chose to do that. They're fighting for the country. And they are not the ones who chose the war." Thus speaks somebody quoted by CBS News describing Memorial Day. You may oppose the war, but you MUST celebrate participation in the war because the people participating in the war are participating in the war. Q.E.D.
Also, you must support more and more and more wars, even though nations with greater freedoms fight fewer wars or no wars at all:
"We forget that freedom isn't free. It must be paid for, and not just once. Again and again, Americans have stepped forward in a moment of crisis and put their lives on the line." "'Fox News.
While this Orwellian deception is stripping people in the United States of their rights in the name of Freedom, the greatest loss of life, limb, and liberty is happening abroad at the hands of the U.S. military. While Korea is seeking peace and unification and disarmament, the U.S. government is doing everything it can to sabotage that process and restore the stock prices of weapons companies to what they were before the specter of peace appeared.
The people of South Korea are not asked for their opinions or votes before their property is taken and turned into bases for the U.S. military. The U.S. efforts to thwart popular will at every turn in Korea is not democracy promotion. The devastation imposed on Jeju Island with new construction for the U.S. Navy has come despite the courageous and concerted nonviolent resistance of the people.
Further south on the islands of Okinawa sits an untapped opportunity to facilitate peace in Korea and simultaneously spread democracy. This could be done by honoring the overwhelming opinion of the people of Okinawa, bringing every member of the U.S. military stationed there home, retraining each of those people for peaceful employment, and devising creative schemes for what to do with all the left-over money following that conversion.
The Ryukyu islands, colonized by Japan as Okinawa, in turn colonized by the United States as a client state in a global empire, are home to indigenous peoples whose lives have been severely harmed by the theft of their land, by the introduction of militarism to a peaceful society, by the crashing of planes, by the raping of girls, by the environmental destruction of base construction, by the racist discrimination against them and the denial of their rights. While Kosovo has the right to secede, Crimea must not, and Okinawa never. For decades the U.S. government has "colluded" in "hacking" Okinawan elections and reversing Okinawan decisions to impose military bases on people who in many cases risk their lives repeatedly to resist such tyranny.
This is a story repeated all over the earth, as the United States imposes mammoth military bases on dozens of non-indispensible nations on every inhabited continent. None of the bases are glorious. None of them are heroic. None of them are worth celebrating with flags or parades or picnics or the slathering of ketchup and mustard on roasted dead animal flesh. Let's do better. Let's celebrate holidays that promote things we truly value, including peace.
[i] "The Legatum Prosperity Index 2017," Legatum Institute, click here.
[ii] Ian Vasquez and Tanja Porcnik, "The Human Freedom Index 2017," the Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute, and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, click here.
[iii] "2017 World Freedom Index," .worldfreedomindex.com.
[iv] "Civil Liberties," World Audit, .worldaudit.org/civillibs.htm.
[v] "Ranking 2017," Reporters Without Borders, .org/en/ranking/2017.
[vi] "2018 Index of Economic Freedom," The Heritage Foundation, .heritage.org/index/country/unitedstates.
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