End These Wars

Published: Sunday, February 20, 2011, 7:02 PM

By Guest Columnist  

  By Charlie Phillips

 

This March we will have been at war for eight long and grueling years. It will be the longest period of time our nation has been at war in its entire history.

In all that time, of course, we've not enacted a draft -- which means that soldiers in the regular army and reserves and their families have had to endure numerous tours of duty. We are abusing these people in a conscious effort to prevent opposition to the wars. By avoiding a draft, the wars remain distant and impersonal to the vast majority of Americans, ensuring their continuation indefinitely. And that is cowardly, cruel and un-American.

We have replaced the communist boogieman with the Islamist boogieman and stumbled on the the "War on Terror." Well, there will always be terror; there will always be terrorism. So will there always be war?

Not a bad state of affairs for the military-industrial complex whose budget this year alone approaches $1 trillion -- nearly as much as the entire rest of the world's defense spending combined and nine times larger than the military budget of China.

And to what end exactly? Why are we at war and what are we trying to accomplish? There were no WMDs. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 or even global terrorism.

And Afghanistan? What exactly is the realistic end goal?

Apparently, we're at war because the threat of terrorism is so bad, so evil, so large that tens of thousands must die, many more must suffer permanent physical and emotional damage and millions must be displaced from their homes and have their lives torn apart.

Or is it? What exactly is the risk that terrorism represents to you and those you love?

Put it in perspective: Your lifetime odds of dying in a car accident are about one in 83. Your lifetime odds of being killed by lightning are about one in 80,000. Your lifetime odds of being killed by terrorists are about one in 400,000.

Living in fear is exactly what the terrorists want for us. Doing so unnecessarily is what at least some in the military-industrial complex want; it's good for business. And after all, it's a really big business. A trillion dollars a year goes a long way to explaining the last eight years.

It's time for America to stop letting fear rule our lives -- and our pocketbooks. It's time to end perpetual war. It's time to address our urgent needs here at home caused by the recession and years of neglect of our infrastructure, our schools, our basic health as a nation while we paid for these wars. It's time to stop diverting our money into the hands of the few ultra-wealthy who make their money in the business of killing others.

America, it's time to learn to live with fear, get on with the business of living and end these wars.

Universal Truth

Stuff is ALWAYS in the last place you look.

Life is Tough and Then You Die

" All I can say is, if there is a God, he's a hell of an underachiever"
...Woddie Allen

Are Pro-lifers, Pro-Life?

Why is that many if not all the radicalized pro-lifers and many of the mainstream pro-lifers seem so anti-life? They are passionate as pertains the fetus but are rarely pacifist. 100,000 to 200,000 Iraqi lives seems hardly worth thinking about.The four million civilians we killed in Vietnam - huh? The millions who have died as a result of ethnic cleansing while they so causally hardly noticed. 
Is it not odd that pro-lifers, more often that not, are staunch supporters of the death penalty? Ardent supporters of war. So blindly supportive of authority even after it exceeds limits of brutality?
So many pro-lifers are clearly NOT pro-life. In fact they so often fail even as regards compassion and simple human decency.

John Boehner and the Republican Congress

John Boehner 'prays all day long', gets strength from his 'facebook page', and cries a lot.

Boehner says things like, "The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide".
So wrong on so many levels. Lets just focus on exhale - as in get rid of - being the key. If it comes from our body it can't be harmful? By this argument perhaps urine should be served at high tea?

Boehner receives campaign donations from cigarette manufacturers.

Some of his colleagues in congress have described him as a tool, a political shill. A phonetic pronunciation of his name I think better reflects his true nature – but I digress.The next two years would otherwise promise to be a source of great amusement as Mr. Boehner and his Republican cronies self implode, if it weren’t for the damage they will do to this country along the way.

Question

How many centuries have people squinted and squirmed trying to force a frayed thread through a needle eye hole?

And then finally one day - there it is. It's as if we had suddenly awoken - and there it was - just out of our grasp all along.

We go through so much of life like that - hypnotized. Repeating patterns and traditions, never really seeing, never really knowing, forgetting to reach out, forgetting to even question.

It's beautiful when we finally do - isn't it?

Fear and Civil Liberties - Letter to NYT

As the holiday crush at the airports is nearly upon us I’d like to offer food for thought.
Your one year odds of dying in a car accident are about one out of 6500. Your lifetime odds of dying in a car accident are about one in 83.
Your one year odds of being struck and killed by lightning - one in 6.2 million with a lifetime odds of one in 80,000.
Your odds for being killed by terrorists in any given year - one in 30 million; lifetime odds of one in 400,000.
Living in fear is exactly what the terrorists want. Doing so unnecessarily while relinquishing your civil liberties is what some in government want.
Millions have died in wars precisely to protect the civil liberties we now so causally relinquish for a false sense of security against exaggerated threats.