Life is fragile and fraught with danger, yet life on Planet Earth
is thriving in all kinds of organisms that are begotten, that live out their
lives by sustaining themselves, and that reproduce before dying. This cycle is
continuous because organisms are genetically programmed to protect life.
Still, there are millions of reasons why life cannot be protected
at one hundred percent level of security. It's because security is compromised
by the fact that the organisms can sustain life only by taking a risk when they
forage for sustenance or when they seek opportunities to reproduce.
What all this means is that a balance exists between the effort to
sustain life and the risk that's taken when making such effort. All organisms
are genetically programmed to instinctively play the balance between the effort
and the risk in a manner that advantages the preservation of life. But in
addition to instinct, the human species was endowed with a brain that has the
power to override the instinct –– which it does for a host of reasons –– and
re-calibrate the effort versus risk equation.
In fact, different people play games that engender different
levels of risk because they enjoy the thrill of cheating death, so to speak.
Also, people get into professions that engender higher levels of risk because
they offer higher levels of remuneration. Policing is a profession that
engenders a high level of risk, so does the experience of soldiering. When you
combine the two by enlisting in the military, and be asked to participate in
policing a foreign quarrel, you take a risk that makes a mockery of the balance
between engaging in a worthy effort and taking a risk on your life.
And yet, this is what America has been doing for more than a
century. It did it for worthy causes and for unworthy ones. But most of the
time, America did it, not because it chose to do it after considering,
pondering and questioning the morality of getting involved in other people's
business, but because weak foreigners saw an opportunity in prodding mighty
America to do the heavy lifting for them … and America just could not say no.
But then, two things happened that forced America to slow down on
what seems to have become an addictive habit for it. One is that the American
taxpayers got fed up paying for the inclination of commanders in chief to take
instructions from foreigners, and almost bankrupting the country. The other is
that the nations which are most at risk to being bullied by America's military,
organized themselves in such a way as to make an attack on them a very unwise
proposition both for America and the foreigners who would prod it.
The result of that development can be seen in the editorial that
appeared in the Washington Post under the title: “Should US troops put their
lives on the line for Saudi Arabia?” It was published on September 21, 2019. If
you want an example that illustrates the meaning of the saying: “Doing the
right thing for the wrong reason,” this is it.
What the editors did was ask two questions that reveal a frame of
mind which is removed from both reality and morality … but is leading America
to doing the right thing, and that’s a positive thing. Here are the two
questions: Is it a vital US interest to defend Saudi Arabia or its petroleum
infrastructure from attack? Should US soldiers or pilots put their lives on the
line for the regime of Mohammed bin Salman?
Well, the only time that America fought a war that was in its
vital interest, was to go after Japan in response to the latter's attack on
Pearl Harbor. Other than that, every war that America fought came as a result
of its addiction to war, or because the adventure was meant to serve the
interests of colonial Britain, colonial France or the colonially minded and
empire seeking Jews. In fact, most of the serious wars that America was prodded
to fight came at the behest of those entities.
As to the question concerning US soldiers putting their lives on
line for a foreign entity, the Americans––like the Canadians––have always been
the least concerned about the lives of the youngsters they put in harm's way.
To wit, a Canadian Prime Minister almost celebrated Israel's murder in cold
blood of Canadian peacekeepers that were stationed on the Lebanese border. As
to the Americans, they neglect their wounded veterans so badly, the desperate
among them kill themselves. And if they don't, they find themselves out on the
street, dying like stray dogs. Why all that? To save money, which the authorities
then turn around and send to Israel where they look after their own veterans
like precious human resources.