By SJ Otto

If there is one thing I detest politically, more than anything else, it is this country’s (USA) addiction to war. Over the last 30 years there has been nearly NO discussion on US foreign policy. That means no politician; neither Democrat nor Republican in Congress have discussed alternatives to the endless wars this nation is involved in. The mainstream press, which is The Wichita Eaglehere in this part of Kansas, has also ignored any dissent of the USmilitary industrial complex.

During the presidency of Ronald Reagan there was a powerful peace movement to oppose his intervention in Central America. That included Reagan’s attempts to topple the Marxist oriented Sandinista regime in Nicaraguaand to stop his attacks on the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) guerrilla movement in El Salvador. Despite all the variations of Marxists and left oriented groups in Central America and the Caribbean, Reagan treated all those nations as part of a cold war strategy that was by now obsolete. He treated his strategy of war in Central America as if he were fighting in Eastern Europe. Reagan was delusional about the cold war and no one close to him made any effort to change any of that. Many USconservatives played along with Reagan’s delusions that Central America leftist movements were nothing more than an extension of Eastern Europe and satellite nations of the Soviet Union.  Before Reagan left office he invaded Grenada, a small Islandnation that had been run by the Marxist government of Maurice Bishop. Bishop had come to power through a revolution (or coup),  in 1979. He was overthrown by another Marxist, on the 19^th of October 1983 Bernard Coard. Reagan invaded the country on the flimsy excuse that there were nearly 1,000 Americans in Grenada at the time and they were in danger from the Coard Government. Many of the Americans were students at the island’s medical school. Reagan claimed that the invasion was needed to protect those students. Nearly the entire world condemned the invasion of Grenada, but the USsimply ignored world opinion and did what was popular with US conservatives. Before the invasion Reagan had included Grenadain his cold war agenda of destroying all Marxist governments in Central America and the Caribbean. Now it was clear that the US had no respect for international law.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US took on a new role, now that this country saw itself as the winner of the Cold War. That lead to the idea that the USwas now the only super power and Marxist regimes were abandoning their Marxist, anti-imperialist ideology for that of European Democratic Socialism. With the Soviet Union out of the way, the US began to flex its muscles, making invasions common place in combination with the idea of world conquest. Reagan’s follow up, President George Bush, invaded Panama, about 1989, to remove Manuel Noriega and replaced him with a US puppet regime. Communism was no longer the reason behind the conquest of nations. Noriega was accused of being a drug dealer. In the later part of his term in office, Bush began the first war in Iraq, on the 28th February 1991. In many ways this was the beginning of what Bush himself called “the new world order.” Since that time the US has invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan. Today the US is involved in about 7 wars, including the two occupied nations just mentioned Yemen, the KoreanPeninsulaand Syria. We can also include Venezuela, a nation we may be at war with soon. 

This country has become the major military power. By now most leaders realize that invasion by the USis no contest. Losing is a sure thing by all those who dare stand up to the US Empire. And the invading warier is now a part of the American culture. We see army personell honored as “heroes” even though many have not done anything that heroic. Army people are constantly on television, in commercials, TV shows, news shows, as they surprise their loved ones, such as their children, after coming back from conquering and plundering other nations. We see them in the movies and TV dramas. The USwarrior is now a part of the American psyche. No nation spends more money on their military than the US. Nearly half the USbudget goes to the military. Unlike the days of Ronald Reagan there is virtually no opposition to the USwar machine. That includes the US Congress, all USpresidents since Reagan and the overwhelming majority of the US mainstream media.

Some activists blame Barack Obama for the end of an active peace movement. A lot of political activists believed Obama would put an end to the endless wars the USwas fighting.  Most were disappointed when he made no effort to rein in on this country’s many wars. It was as if this country just gets into one more endless war after another one. Since that time many anti-war activists have become disillusioned as well as just plain overwhelmed with this country’s militarism.

National Public Radio (NPR), usually considered to be a liberal source of news, has been very supportive of the military, covering its “warier heroes” and US’ wars.  

Here in Wichita I have written to The Wichita Eagle,[1] with a letter opposing this country’s meddling in Venezuela. It has not been published. But they ran a pro-war editorial column Sunday by Marc A. Thiessen,[2]“Great nations don't quit wars before they prevail.” While complaining that we have endless wars, his way of fixing them is to try and win all of these un-winnable “anti-terrorism” wars:

His article is full of contradictions. Just how many materials assets and how many lives are we supposed to sacrifice in order to win these wars? How do we know when we have won such a war? Will we ever consider ending these wars? We have had 30 years of people running around with those giant Styrofoam hands yelling “we’re number one,” as if we were simply at a football game. Enough is enough. A country dedicated to the conquest of others can never feel safe. Such attitudes erode civility and lead to a false sense of security. And for those who want to bring about change in this country, how will that be tolerated when change is not tolerated in our puppet regimes or of those democratic countries we are supposedly installing around the world. Change will not come easy to a nation that has forged a culture of force and coercion.