Wars are very expensive enterprises. Not only expensive, but wars create many enemies, disrupted families and marriages, and do damage which usually will never be completely repaired. Hard feelings and animosity remain for generations. Japanese children are still taught in elementary schools that America started WW II, and Jews will never forgive the Germans. Korea killed 50,000 American troops, plus probably a million Koreans on both sides. Vietnam killed 59,000 Americans, plus more millions on both sides. Hundreds of millions were injured in just these two conflicts, and hundreds of billions were spent fighting these two conflagrations, in neither of which we should have been involved. I have asked dozens and dozens of Korean and Vietnam vets if they know why they were there, and none of them thought it was any of our business.
Wars take valuable men, and now even women into battle to fight politicians’ wars, which they will not fight themselves, and do battle to keep their own kids out of them. Joe Sixpack becomes cannon fodder for the politicos, and it is tragic. The cost of wars in natural resources such as oil and steel are unbelievable, and the detriment to currencies on both sides of any war are death dealing. Monies which could be used for infrastructure and public improvements, are wasted on battlefields. Valuable, historic buildings are destroyed, and architectural wonderments are lost forever. Chemicals, mines, and other pollutants remain on battlefields for decades, and further decimate the limbs and health of the remaining populace.
Can anyone tell me why America is fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq? Neither posed a threat to America, and neither had anything to do with 9/11. Even if you believe the lies about 9/11, it was the Saudis who supposedly piloted the planes, not Afghans or Iraqis. Osama is a Saudi, not an Afghan or Iraqis. Both are so obviously pointless and expensive, that they are both totally absurd. Yet stupid Americans, who watch the boob tube endlessly, believe the politicians’ propaganda about ’fighting for freedom,’ and ’defending our country,’ even though fighting in faraway lands does nothing but antagonize and cripple the lands in which fighting occurs.
Terrorism? Why would anyone want to terrorize America, if America stayed home, offered no help or advice to anyone, and became a totally neutral nation? Spain stayed neutral during WW II and was never attacked. Switzerland has been neutral for hundreds of years, and has no worries about terrorism. America is so used to having troops fighting somewhere or other, and ’defending our freedoms,’ that everyone takes it for granted. America, fighting in other lands, has cost us our freedoms, and is killing America. It has made us hated by Muslims, and assorted others, in whose lands we fought and fight, needlessly and expensively.
America, unfortunately, seems to be a nation which loves to go to war, and thrives on it. Why, I cannot understand. The costs in hatred, currency devaluations, and depletion of human and natural resources, have gone a long way towards killing America.
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And as far as the so called “bailout” is concerned, remember, I have an opinion about everything. If you are in Las Vegas and lose your wad in a slot machine, whose fault is it and who suffers? If you are a smoker and get lung cancer, as my Dad did, whose fault is it, and who pays the consequences? If you do something stupid, who will pay for your mistake, even if it were done innocently? You will. Did you or I act stupidly, and give loans to those who didn’t deserve them, and now can’t pay them? Did you or I give absurd loans, and then frantically try to offload them to gullible buyers? Is it our fault that greed and sheer ignorance has brought down huge banks? Why then, should we pay in what may lead to hyper-inflation? The Treasury Secretary used to run Goldman-Sachs. Don’t you think he knew then that it would all come down eventually? I say let the chips fall where they may. Who cares if the big banks go down and take foolish buyers and their frauds go with them? Germany and France didn’t buy the trash paper, their banks still stand, and they look at America and say we deserve what we get. If the silly Brits went along, and they suffer, so what? Let the government, which can do nothing right or timely, run a multi trillion dollar ’bailout?’ It was the government which helped it to happen, and now the Federal Reserve, privately owned, will print more money created out of thin air, and loan it at interest? This should have been allowed to run itself out and the guilty suffer the consequences, just like you or I do when we make a mistake. A lot of trash would have been weeded out. As it is, a lot more trash will be created, more gobbledygook, more government employees, more tragic waste, and of course we will all pay through our noses with incredibly higher consumer prices.