There is no longer a Republican party or a Democrat party, there is only a War party. Steve Chapman, writing for Reason, notes:

Looking at recent history, you would conclude not that the Constitution allows the president to make war, but that it requires him to do so.

The entire article is very well written and should be read. And it brought up a very interesting fact:

Ninety-six years ago, when President Woodrow Wilson ran for re-election, two notable things happened: 1) His campaign used the slogan “He kept us out of war,” and 2) he won. It has been a long time since any president could seek a second term while making that boast.

I got to thinking, didn’t George W. Bush run on a platform of non-interventionism? And he won (thought that was hotly contested). Now, we have a guy who runs on a platform of non-interventionism, and he’s called a kook. He’s said to be out of touch with reality and even “dangerous.” I can’t tell you how many people I’ve heard say “Well I like Ron Paul but he’s just got a dangerous foreign policy.” One really begins to wonder exactly what is so dangerous about having our troops here at home, where they belong.

We’re heading into an election, and the Republican party will ratchet up the fear mongering by calling Obama weak. They will call him an appeaser and a wimp. Yet Obama has done nothing but increase our involvement, and perpetuate our wars. But we’ll hear from the Romney campaign that he hasn’t done enough, and we need more war. There’s just not enough enemies, we need to make more. We need to bring down more countries.

We need to obliterate Iran and decimate Syria. Oh, and that Kony guy? Yea, we need to take him down asap. Hell, while we’re at it why don’t we just roll across the 38th parallel and take out North Korea.

Since the 1970’s the GOP has been painting the Democrats as soft on whatever the threat of the day is. First it was communism, now it’s Islamic extremism. And you can be sure that Mitt Romney will not miss the bus on this one, and will promise more war and decimation than “the last guy.” It’s almost as though to keep your “Prez Cred” up you need to do more than the last guy.

Anyways, nobody seems to see the point that increasing violence does exactly that. Escalating force always ends up in, well, escalated force.

Sending more troops into a country will only increase the resistance those troops face. Think about it: If there were 20,000 Chinese troops in America right now, and 20,000 more were sent, wouldn’t you be inclined to join a militia to defend against them? Of course you would. They are attacking us!

And the whole mantra of “we’re here to get the terrorists” plain won’t work. Firstly, the populace won’t know that is your mission. And even if you tell them it is, there’s an instinctive distrust (imagine a Chinese soldier telling you they are patrolling your neighborhood for terrorists… you probably wouldn’t buy that, now would you?). Secondly, you are viewed as an invader. An intruder. An uninvited, unwelcome guest. The longer you stay, the more resistance you’ll face.

So going on and attacking Syria or Iran will only serve to increase the general anger at America. It will increase the number of “freedom fighters” who step up to the plate for the cause of fighting the “great satan” that is America. And finally, it will ultimately serve towards decreasing, and not increasing, your national security.

I can already hear the screams of “we fight them ‘over there’ so they don’t fight us ‘over here'” crowd. To which I say bullshit. Just by mere virtue of being “over there,” in what they consider their holy lands, you are already doing more for their recruiting efforts than the best cleric could hope for. The attacks of 9/11 weren’t because we listen to rap music and let women drive. They had nothing to do with porn stores or loose morals. The reasons were very specific: They were because we had troops in Saudi Arabia, which has two Islamic holy sites (Mecca and Medina), because we imposed sanctions against Iraq, and because of our support of Israel over Palestine.

So what did we do? We sent more troops into Muslim lands.

An escalation of force led to, you guessed it, an escalation of force.

But we simply can’t withdraw, they say, because it’ll make us look weak. So to save face and maintain our pride, we arrogantly continue down a path of destruction.

Let’s face it, America is addicted to war. Once the cold war came to an end, there was supposed to be peace and prosperity. Alas, since then, we’ve been at war in two out of every three years. Doesn’t seem very peaceful, now does it? As George Carlin famously said, “Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.”

Steve Chapman sums it up best in the closing of his article:

Military considerations increasingly shape—and warp—our entire system of democracy and law. Despite the absence of any major threat to our safety and independence, we have become a garrison state, permanently mobilized for incessant intervention. It’s a safe bet that whoever wins in November, we will be embroiled in a new war sometime in the next four years.

Romney and Obama may pretend they represent stark differences in America’s approach to national security and world affairs. But in this realm, there is no Democratic or Republican party. There is only the war party.