War or Peace: Which is America's Legacy?

To this very day, thoughts and discussions of the war in Vietnam evoke strong and widely differing emotions and opinions.

Reminders of the horrific consequences of that war are still living on the streets of America—alone, abandoned and seemingly all but forgotten. Except for the few voluntary initiatives to afford these displaced veterans understanding, compassion and assistance, it would seem that America would just as soon conveniently forget the war and altogether ignore it’s living legacy’s state of despair.

But we can’t seem to shake the memories of that war—especially when one inspects the label of origin on a pair of Levis and finds that it says: “Made in Vietnam.” Is that not the most ironic of all possible post-war outcomes? I cannot imagine what might be more bizarre—except quite possibly a forty-year-old somewhere—after reading the Levis label—asking: Why, then, did my daddy die?

[NOTE: In addition to Viet Nam and since the end of World War II, 43,577 other Americans have been killed. In Korea: 36,516; in Afghanistan and Iraq: 6,280; with the remainder losing their lives in nineteen lesser known foreign U. S. military actions. In Korea and Vietnam there were also 7,258 American combatants listed as missing in action (MIA).]

For what purpose, then, did 58,209 young American men and women have their lives abruptly, violently and needlessly ended?

In addition to the U. S. casualties cited above, there are a number of normally overlooked details that are terribly wrong with this picture, not the least of which are: interfering in the internal affairs of other nations; bringing death and destruction upon innocent civilians, debilitating a sovereign nation’s life sustaining infrastructure, and finally—through the muzzle of an M1A1 Abrams battle tank—claiming the right to convert a nation to a form of western democracy that will “hopefully” prove to be “friendly” and “useful” to the foreign policy and natural resource market-cornering initiatives of the United States and it’s allies.

Equally outrageous is the accruing debt to fund these “wars” being incurred by today’s citizenry -- as well as many generations yet unborn. The U. S. Treasury Department produces a monthly report that lists the major foreign holders of U. S. securities (debt). Inclusive of the nations the United States is in debted to are China ($1.4 trillion), oil exporting nations (OPEC) including Iran, Iraq, Libya and Venezuela ($226 billion), Mexico ($26.8 billion) and Italy ($24.2 billion)—but to name a few.

In 2008 dollars, the Vietnam war cost the U. S. taxpayer approximately $800 billion and, to-date, the Afghanistan/Iraq conflicts have surpassed $1 trillion.

To better understand the dynamic of war making, policing the world and nation building, and the effect these actions have on the population at large, there are but two words that encapsulate the serious nature of the certain consequences: death and debt. In either case ... we the people lose.

In an extremely well researched January 2012 Vanity Fair article by Todd S. Purdum, he reveals: “American military spending accounts for 43 percent of all defense spending worldwide, 6 times the share of China, 12 times that of Russia. The U.S. Navy is larger than the next 13 navies combined. Overall, defense spending increased about 70 percent under George W. Bush, and it now stands at more than half a trillion dollars annually, roughly $100 billion a year (in inflation-adjusted dollars) above the levels at the height of the Cold War.”

America’s unquestioned military superiority notwithstanding, the false flag, fear-mongering has—especially during the current round of republican presidential debates—reached a near fever pitch; clamoring for further pre-emptive military intervention (both covert and overt) in the [alleged] soon-to-be nuclear Iran.

In late November of this year a joint NATO/US operation in NW Pakistan killed 24 Pakistani military; the outcome of which was Pakistan closing the truck route used to carry military supplies from Pakistan to our forces in Afghanistan. Moreover, Pakistan has threatened to order the US to evacuate the airbase from which many US drone flights originate.

News flash: Pakistan has an arsenal of 100 to 110 nuclear weapons and a delivery system with a range of 1,500 miles (2,500 km).

The burning question: Why should the USA fear an Iran that has neither a functional nuclear weapon nor a tested and proven weapons delivery system—if we have no fear of alienating a largely Muslim nation that is friendly to Al Qaeda and possesses deliverable nuclear weapons? 

Here then is the irony: Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus. In that He gave us “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God (Matt 5:9),” is it not incumbent upon us to measure His words against our nation’s foreign policy and ask: Is our country’s legacy worthy of God’s blessings?