Among the many other landmark events that took place in 2016, the United States military dropped a whopping 26,171 bombs in foreign nations. This is hardly good news for those on the receiving end, and as conflict spreads in the Middle East and government pushes for all out war with Russia and China, ordinary Americans, those who foot the war bill with tax money, have some soul-searching to do.

Are the values this nation was founded on best shared with the world through violence and destruction? Has American ingenuity in all matters of science and productivity been eclipsed by out capacity to exert the will of the oligarchy though police actions and indiscriminate bombing? Is there ever a moment when enough is enough, and we admit that bombing people doesn’t create peace or achieve the aspirations of a free and moral people?

As reported by McClatchyDC:

The U.S. dropped 26,171 bombs last year, 3,027 more than 2015.

According to an analysis of Defense Department data from the Council on Foreign Relations, a non-partisan think tank, the majority of the bombs were dropped in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. leads an international coalition fighting the Islamic State group in both countries and has carried out air operations in attempt to reduce the area controlled by the terrorist organization.Nearly the same amount of bombs were dropped in Syria (12,192) and Iraq (12,095) last year. [Source]

This amounts to an average of just under 72 bombs a day for the year.

What makes this achievement even more remarkable is that most of these munitions were supposedly dropped on ISIS, a terrorist organization that even members of the U.S. Congress say is being funded covertly by the United States.

What makes this achievement even more remarkable is the fact that at present the U.S. is not legally at war with any nation, therefore all of the bombs fell on nations and people which are not engaged in open conflict against the U.S.

How incredible is this… the United States is technically not at war with any country right now but dropped more than 26,000 bombs in just 2016 and this under a “anti-war” President. We have an entire generation of Americans who have lived only under a system of “perpetual war.” The time is long overdue to redefine these issues. –Ben Swann

Finally, what makes this achievement even more outstanding is the cognitive dissonance associated with the fact that the U.S. maintains the illusion of being a peaceful nation and all of these bombs, as well as the hundreds of thousands of bombs dropped in the last eight years were done so during the administration of a Nobel Peace Prize winner. This is Orwellian double-think at its finest.

I should welcome almost any war, for I think this country needs one. – President Theodore Roosevelt

Prescient enough as it is, the above statement by Theodore Roosevelt is even more astonishing now when you consider the attitude of defense contractors, who view the possibility of world war III as a potentially great business opportunity.

Related Reading: The Instigation Of War: Is The US Provoking A Russian War For Profit?

The American public and the world have long since been warned of the dangers of allowing the military industrial complex to become such an integral part of our economic survival. The United States is the self-proclaimed angel of democracy in the world, but just as George Orwell warned, war is the health of the state, and in the language of newspeak, democracy is the term we use to hide the reality of the nature of our warfare state.