A veteran’s dream: leave other countries alone
As a barely 17-year-old rebellious boy, whose parents were probably only too happy to sign papers allowing him to join the Navy, my husband was first sent to help rescue the French at Dien Bien Phu.
Soon after his battleship was hit in the South China
Sea, right where his bunk was. Fortunately he wasn’t in it. They limped into harbor with such a list they could barely stand. He helped establish the landing sites for our forces in Vietnam, and later set up the Swift Boat Operation — small, armed patrol boats that guarded the Mekong Delta and rivers from enemy actions.
Often under fire, sprayed with Agent Orange, he had to scrape what was left of his Bosun’s Mate, a good friend, off the overhead and bulkheads of his boat after it was hit. Again, he had good luck because he had passed out from his second bout of Dengue Fever, and had been hospitalized. Nevertheless, he lived with survivors guilt the rest of his life, and with health issues from exposure to our chemical weapons and the stress of PTSD, leading to his death. He often said he had witnessed the worst that man could do to others and would never trust anyone again. He was taught to hate the Gooks and believed the propaganda he was taught, but later came to regret his actions, and the whole motivation for war itself.
Years later we watched as a plane hit the second Twin Tower, then the rapid collapse of both buildings in what he termed Controlled Demolition, since he said the planes alone would not have caused that kind of collapse and he had been trained in those methods during his military career. He watched and listened in awe as we declared war on Afghanistan, commenting that it was unnecessary to destroy the whole country when we should have simply sent in special forces to track down Bin Laden and his men. When we used propaganda to start bombing Iraq he was disgusted and through investigation found something called the Bush Doctrine, composed by Bush, Sr., Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and other key actors who had designed a familiar False Flag way to motivate the country to expand war, to establish a base in the Middle East from which to destabilize the entire area, and control the oil. What followed was the destruction of Libya,
Syria, leaving the Middle East a wasteland. Evil Dictator, Human rights abusers, anti-democratic dictators, the usual tropes, were used to make us hate these people.
As a public we followed like sheep. Our media drown us in propaganda. Behind the curtain, pulling the strings, are huge corporations who profit immensely from war and military spending, at the expense of everyone in the world, driving inflation, destroying the lives of people and denying their needs. We are persuaded of our invincibility, our exceptionality, and the evil of any other leader who stands up to us or stands in the way of corporate greed and lust for power. We believe them when they tell us about the death and destruction caused by other countries, while we forget the millions we have killed — 400 million in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos — 6 million in the Middle East, millions worldwide in conflicts to which we provide the arms, etc. We’ve used chemical weapons — Agent Orange, Napalm, Phosphorous. Our truth-tellers are jailed, we attack one another when anyone questions the propaganda, and follow our leaders to the brink of destruction. Our media NEVER allows us to hear the real truth-tellers. Then we call ourselves a free society.
While we are left in the dark about the realities of geopolitics our treasury is bled dry, our real wages fall, we have increased homelessness and hunger, and stories of people stealing baby food, diapers and medicine for their children. Our government borrows trillions and uses their money printers, leading to inflation and destroying the value of our hardearned dollars — leading some countries to attempt to trade in other currencies, which will destroy our economy. For profit, our manufacturers sent our jobs overseas, then blame countries like China, where we sent many of our jobs, for being so economically profitable.
And remember, these people don’t have to pay for what they do. Most of them pay no, or few taxes. We are paying for our own destruction. None of the billionaires who are ruining our society and destroying the world with continuous war and destruction, are paying for their folly. They have formed formidable monopolies that control what products we get, the quality, and the cost. They can charge anything they want to, which is really dangerous when it comes to medicines and necessities.
My husband’s dream, and mine, is that we leave other countries alone, and focus on making our country the truly “Shining light on the hill.”
While we are left in the dark about the realities of geopolitics, our treasury is bled dry, our real wages fall, we have increased homelessness and hunger, and stories of people stealing baby food, diapers and medicine for their children.