War in 2010

We move into a new decade, still plagued by the tendencies of our past. According to Newsweek, the Obama administration has carried out over fifty predator strikes against enemy targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This high volume of drone strikes has already exceeded the amount undertaken in the entire eight years of the Bush administration. While committee hearings and congressional panels debate how to more effectively combat terrorism, few if any on capitol hill have considered changes in our foreign and economic policies as solutions. At the beginning of the "war on terror" many commentators were amazed at the anger these terrorist had towards the United States, but rather than address the real reasons like neo-imperialism most wanted to shout really loud about how middle easterners hate democracy or envy our freedom. Imagine if our ancestors here in the United States had spent the last couple thousand years fighting off invaders to their home country who looted their resources, and who returned periodically with supreme funding and better war instruments to do it all again. Imagine if the United States had been occupied during the civil war, by the French or English, which nearly happened, to step in a divide us up amongst them or force us to become a client state to the one who emerged victorious. Given the lack of resources, and destruction of infrastructure and knowledge how do we expect these cultures to rise to the "advances" we entertain in today's western culture? Folks here in the USA take for granted that we the people should decide our own laws and political destinies, as outlined in the declaration of Independence and Constitution. Yet for the better part of the last two hundred years the United States has been meddling in the laws and political destinies of many peoples and nations around the globe. Our support for and involvement in countless coups and large scale violence all to influence a nation's economics in our favor has gained us quite a reputation with our peers around the world. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, California, and Hawaii are just a few examples of the results from U.S. "expansionism", which is a nice way to say imperialism. All of these undertakings were motivated by financial profit, as are most foreign and war policies. Early 20th century Major Marine General Smeadly Butler once said that war was a racket, and that motivations for war were mostly due to corporate and finance interests. Butler was so popular with the military personnel that he was included in a plot by some of the nation's wealthy and powerful to take power in a coup against then President Franklin Roosevelt; Butler blew the whistle on the operation stopping it in it's tracks. You may not find many sources to prove this, but it is on congressional record. One can only hope that in our own time, we may find even just a few leaders like Gen. Smeadly Butler, who will realize that our lust for profit and global predominance will not only continue to earn us enemies around various ravaged parts of the world, but also inevitably lead to internal undoing much the same way the Roman empire did centuries ago.