COMENTARY... With Rand Paul 'video' on Gov't Waste
Throughout
U.S. history, bloodthirsty war hawks have baselessly slandered their
detractors as sympathetic to America’s perceived enemies for having the
gall to believe the United States military should mind its own business
when it comes to foreign conflicts. It’s a centuries-old trick with
examples too stupid to believe.
When George Washington was president, he weighed sending American
forces to Europe to fight the British alongside the French. Despite
immense pressure from some of his closest allies, Washington wisely
refrained, believing that embracing a foreign war would be too much for
his new nation to withstand and recognizing that the Anglo/French
conflict was not related to America’s interests.
For making that decision, that era’s asinine pro-war political elite
depicted Washington, who had just defeated the British on the
battlefields of the American Revolution, as more committed to serving England’s interests than those of the United States.
A similar dynamic unfolded in the early 1900s as Congress debated
whether to authorize the United States’ involvement in World War I.
Despite recently being reelected for being the president who kept
America out of the Great War,
Woodrow Wilson began his second term with a complete 180 by requesting
Congressional approval to declare war on both Germany and
Austria-Hungary. D.C. politicians overwhelmingly favored the president’s
destructive ask, but their agreement was not unanimous.
Robert
La Follette, a Republican senator, served as his body’s strongest
anti-war voice, arguing that “Collective homicide can not establish
human rights. For our country to enter the European war would be treason
to humanity."
That didn’t mean La Follette condoned Germany’s submarine attacks or any of the rogue nation’s military activities. It meant he didn’t want American blood spilled over matters that lay an ocean away from his country’s shores.
The media immediately attacked La Follette as “decidedly pro-German
[and] un-American,” “nothing short of pathetic,” and “lending himself to
the encouragement of autocracy.” Over 100,000 Americans went on to die
in the war La Follette desperately fought to prevent.
And just over two decades ago, deranged neocons attacked Barbara Lee,
the only member of Congress who voted against America’s disastrous
Afghanistan invasion, as a “traitor” to her nation. In reality, she was
the sole American lawmaker wise enough to foresee the United States’
impending catastrophe.
Today, weak, frothing, and actually pathetic
policymakers are pushing America to the brink of a nuclear conflict
with Russia, quenching their long-held urge to thrust our country into
its next forever war. There’s no justification for their behavior –
Vladimir Putin has not harmed or even threatened America’s safety – but
they don’t care. They get off on power and violence.
Those opposed? The “radicals” uninterested in risking human extinction over a conflict that has nothing to do
with U.S. interests? Washington’s bloodthirsty war cult is certain to
slanderously label them America-hating, democracy-loathing zealots
secretly rooting for a foreign power to topple the United States and
bring Western life to a screeching halt.
Just like it always has. |
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