Eric Blair

Activist Post

What balls! What hubris! What hypocrisy! What happened to America?

Once again, America has preemptively attacked a sovereign nation that posed no threat to her without a declaration of war from the people’s representatives. Apparently the U.S. president now gets permission from the U.N. to spend U.S. taxpayer dollars on unprovoked wars and outright murder. Isn’t it still called murder when killing is not done in self-defense? Okay, just checking to make sure I haven’t lost my mind.

Nobel Peace prince Obama launched his liberation of the good people of Libya with his own shock-and-awe bombing campaign appropriately on the eighth anniversary of Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq. This tyrannical intervention is so naked, so brazen in its hubris that whatever shred of goodwill America had left is completely gone. America is officially the most murderous, anti-democratic, terrorist nation the world has ever known.

And get this, on the very same day of this unconstitutional act of war, ethically-challenged Charlie Rangel reintroduced his National Service “Draft” bill. Rangel pointed out in his announcement that the government lied us into the Iraq war that ultimately resulted in the deaths of over 4,400 servicemen with over 32,000 injured. He claims this is the reason we need a draft:

Based on false pretenses of weapons of mass destruction and involvement in the 9/11 attacks, the unfunded war in Iraq has cost our nation not only $800 billion dollars, but the lives of more than 4,400 brave American patriots. Over 32,000 U.S. soldiers have also been seriously wounded in the war we should not have been in the first place.

It is because of these devastating statistics and the commitment our nation must make to sharing in duty and service that I reintroduced the Universal National Service Act, commonly known as the draft bill.

You can’t make this stuff up. So, our government lies us into wars for profit and oil, thrusts our brave young men and women in harms way against poor nations who in their wildest dreams couldn’t threaten America, and puts off paying for them as long as the banks and China get their interest payments at gunpoint from the taxpayer. And now you want to force all of our kids to take part in this sociopathic behavior?

Rangel continues:

Currently the burden of defending our nation is carried by an increasingly smaller segment of our population. Only 1 percent of the American population currently makes the sacrifice of laying down life and limb for our country.

Far too many are being forced into repeated tours of duty, sometimes as many as six deployments. This repeated combat exposure to our troops is why 25 percent of America’s active duty military personnel suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It is why the Army’s current suicide rate is far above the civilian rate at 22-per-100,000. The rate for the Marine Corps is even higher.

Boy, Rangel is a first-rate salesman. Who could resist the idea of forcing their children into repeated tours of duty and a 1-in-4 chance of getting ruined by PTSD? Or, making them so miserable that they think suicide is better than killing poor brown people for Big Oil profits and their pocket-change politicians — all while bankrupting the country and their home towns in the process?

Rangel’s pitch that a draft would alleviate these problems is ill-conceived, as he even pointed out: “Having a draft does not necessarily mean that everyone called to duty would be required to serve in the Armed forces.” Who in their right mind would choose the Armed forces in this corrupt imperial climate if given a choice of community services?

Of course, liberals like to think Rangel’s hidden argument is that a draft would actually discourage war by making the people pay more attention to the wars enough to protest. Wake up! We can’t even get Congress to vote for these wars anymore! The notion that the decision makers will actually give a shit about the people’s will is laughable. Besides, we all know how they handle peaceful protesters these days, despite their lofty rhetoric of fighting for people’s rights in foreign countries.

At this point, it seems the only thing that can stop these conquistadors is when soldiers start refusing to fight en masse. They, and they alone, have the power to end this insanity. As Albert Einstein said “Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.” God help them find the courage and moral compass to end this tyranny.