3 Disturbing Facts Every American Needs to Consider this Veteran’s Day — This is How to Thank a Vet

This Veteran"s Day, consider these points when thanking a vet for serving, as the best way to honor them is to prevent more people from joining the service.

3 Disturbing Facts Every American Needs to Consider this Memorial Day — This is How to Thank a Vet

If you have served in any branch of the military, Memorial Day has symbolic and emotional meaning others can only relate to empathetically, but might never fully grasp. Today, we honor those who fought for the United States, dedicating a portion of their lives in defense of what we, as a nation, hold dear — often returning scarred and battered inside and out.

A mythos exists about the armed services — indoctrinated veneration of men and women in uniform, and a call to duty — where, by design, the people of this land aren’t taught to question war or the military, or the consequences reverberating into the past and future.

However, as a growing number of veterans will tell you in moments of bare honesty, taking up arms and donning a uniform isn’t exactly about fighting for freedom — and the wounds sustained in battle physically and mentally haunt many former service members for reasons that have little to do with glory and honor.

Our military, as many have discovered, entices young people not even old enough to buy a beer to risk their lives — and the Pentagon and recruiters propagandize service as a patriotic, educational adventure and opportunity to work with state of the art technology and equipment. But what they don’t explain are the horrors of the battlefield — and the truth about our government’s motives for war.

So, this Memorial Day, it’s imperative to examine military service for what it truly entails — what the government actually asks of service members — and why the last thing we should do is ask more youth to join up.

Inveigling young Americans to join the military by touting free college and patriotism is perhaps the most dishonest hoodwinks the government could make. Indeed, service members do fight in the name of the United States, but wars abroad in modern times are far more complex than just good fighting evil — and much of that surrounds our many proxy wars.

While the Pentagon claims the U.S. fights terrorists, particularly of the Islamic State, in Syria and many other Middle Eastern countries — and to a degree, that’s true — other terrorist groups are now considered our allies. In fact, certain offshoots of al-Qaeda — the exact radicals targeted by the U.S. in the years following 9/11 — receive funding and training from different agencies of our government.

This trick of logic benefits only the notorious goal of regime change — ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — while infuriating embattled local populations and the governments of other nations who don’t distinguish between the nefarious groups. To civilians victimized by military battles and belligerent radicals alike, a terrorist is a terrorist — no distinctions necessary.

Veterans who’ve experienced this duplicity firsthand agree with that assessment and many are furious with the government essentially employing terrorists to fight terrorists under the overarching mission to oust another nation’s leader. Discovering you’ve agreed to fight for reasons you not fully explained from the start — and should consider terrorists allies — has embittered countless veterans who honestly believed the military defends Americans’ freedoms.

Once you’ve fought for the government, it cares very little about your wellbeing.

Scores of fighters return to the United States in desperate need of expert healthcare to heal and rehabilitate minor to wholly incapacitating physical injuries — and mental and emotional trauma endured in witnessing the horrors of bloodshed. But the Veterans Administration tasked with that job falls criminally short on nearly every level.

Over two years ago, the Department of Veterans Affairs had amassed a backlog of 900,000 applications for healthcare, but far worse — and deeply revealing of a systemic issue — at least 300,000 of those applicants died while waiting to receive the benefits which should have been immediate.

Post-traumatic stress disorder affects tens of thousands of veterans, leading many to take their own lives not to be haunted by horrific and agonizing images making daily life a continuance of war. Those considering suicide have the option of reaching out to the Veterans Crisis Line — but actually speaking with a trained counselor is a task in itself.

A report earlier this year revealed the Crisis Line is rife with inexcusable problems, leaving desperate callers on hold for over 20 minutes wasn’t rare — and some calls were even diverted to voicemail, which staff did not even know existed. An investigation was initiated after an Iraq War veteran got voicemail instead of help, and proceeded to take his life.

Disrespect for former service men and women doesn’t end even once they pass away — in September, a whistleblower revealed the bodies of veterans in one VA hospital morgue had been allowed to languish for a month, and had badly decomposed.

Issues continue to plague the VA to this day.

If you think the U.S. enters countless military conflicts to protect the security of the American public, you would be astonishingly incorrect.

In addition to the aforementioned conflict over regime change — which is a favored tactic of our government — most wars are battles to further establish U.S. hegemony and exploit the targeted nation’s natural resources. Oil is perhaps the most well-known motivation for war, but probably isn’t the most valuable.

Afghanistan, as seasoned U.S. veterans can attest, has the world’s largest opium poppy crop — courtesy of the American intervention.

In May 2001, a report by the New York Times said U.S. narcotics experts visited Afghanistan and discovered that Taliban rule “appears to have wiped out the world’s largest crop in less than a year.”

On October 7 that year, the U.S. conveniently invaded the country in the name of fighting terrorism, and shortly afterward opium poppy cultivation took off — increasing 35-fold from 185 tons in 2001 to 6,400 tons in 2014 — a veritable boon for Big Pharma.

And while pharmaceutical manufacturers enjoy skyrocketing profits from pushing opioid medications, the United States is now in the midst of a heroin epidemic. Veterans also suffer, as the VA doles out countless opioids rather than instituting reforms to actually care for those who served.

In addition to opium poppies, the U.S. discovered around $1 trillion in mineral resources in Afghanistan, as the New York Times reported in 2010:

“The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

“An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the ‘Saudi Arabia of lithium,’ a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.”

Afghanistan is, of course, only one of the countries the U.S. continues to exploit.

Countless additional arguments could be proffered to why we must inform young people about the true nature of military conflict — and many returning soldiers have made it their mission to stop people from signing up and bring an end to wars fought for less than noble reasons.

Veterans for Peace accepts former military members from around the globe, and as the group’s mission states, seeks to “increase public awareness of the costs of war, restrain our government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations, end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons, seek justice for veterans and victims of war, and abolish war as an instrument of national policy.”

Honoring veterans with a day certainly provides a symbolic recognition of service — but it rings hollow for too many who served for what they believed was duty, only to discover the truth of war.

Instead, we must stop creating veterans — stop destroying the lives of people who join the military and those of millions of civilians victims in foreign lands — all in the name of U.S. imperialism.

It is our imperative to expose these insidious truths and inform those considering signing up to serve that patriotic duty is only an illusion to ensnare the uninformed into fighting, killing, and even dying for corporate profit, exploitation, and hegemony.

Ask the profiteers and politicians to send their own kids to fight — and we’d see how quickly peace would prevail.

BREAKING: Using Russian Fear as a Distraction, US Military Just Attacked Syrian Govt

Amid mudslinging over the firing of FBI head James Comey and allegations President Trump maintains deep ties to Russia, a U.S.-led coalition aircraft struck a convoy of Syrian government armed forces.

Buzzfeed reporter Mike Giglio tweeted:

“BREAKING: US official confirms to @BuzzFeedNews that the US-led Coalition hit Assad regime forces with air strikes in southern Syria today.”

BREAKING: US official confirms to @BuzzFeedNews that the US-led Coalition hit Assad regime forces with air strikes in southern Syria today

— Mike Giglio (@mike_giglio) May 18, 2017

According to AFP, the coalition fighter bombed the convoy of President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in southern Syria near the border with Jordan and Iraq, as it headed to an outpost garrison run by the U.S.-led alliance.

An unnamed and thus unverifiable source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP,

“A convoy going down the road didn’t respond to numerous ways for it to be warned off from getting too close to coalition forces in At-Tanf.

“Then there was finally a strike against the lead portion of that movement.”

Reports say the garrison had been used by the British and American special operations forces to train Syrian rebel fighters — commonly referred to by the U.S. government by the misnomer, “moderate rebels.”

Giglio tweeted several as-yet unsubstantiated details, but posited the U.S. and its allies carried out the airstrike in the interest of protecting their troops and the ostensive training stronghold.

Giglio also noted militia fighters in support of Assad’s regime had been observed in the area where of the bombing.

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“US likely wants to get regime + allies to keep distance from US SF base at Tanf with strikes. But could escalate with myriad forces around.”

US likely wants to get regime + allies to keep distance from US SF base at Tanf with strikes. But could escalate with myriad forces around

— Mike Giglio (@mike_giglio) May 18, 2017

“rebels worried last week that regime forces would get too close to US SF base at Tanf. it seems that happened today, and Coalition struck.”

rebels worried last week that regime forces would get too close to US SF base at Tanf. it seems that happened today, and Coalition struck

— Mike Giglio (@mike_giglio) May 18, 2017

“On Monday, Al-Masdr News reported that Syrian Arab Army soldiers along and militias affiliated with the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units are preparing to recapture the nearby Tanf Border crossing from Daesh [the Islamic State],” Russian state-supported Sputnik reports.

Syrian rebels ostensively feared the close proximity of pro-government forces, Giglio also reports — understandable sentiment for those actively fighting to bring down the regime of Bashar al-Assad, which, while not recognized or condoned by the U.S., is widely considered legitimate.

While the U.S. only quasi-officially entered the conflict in Syria in April, upon the direct but peculiar bombing of an older airfield, ordered by Trump after still unproven allegations Assad had attacked his own people with noxious, deadly chemical weapons.

Fighting the Islamic State has thus far been the stated goal of operations for the U.S.-led, multi-State coalition of forces — but that alliance hasn’t exactly had a perfect record of accuracy, and has indeed struck Assad’s troops before.

“On September 17, 2016,” Sputnik notes, “US-led coalition aircraft carried out four strikes against the Syrian army near the Deir ez-Zor airport, killing 62 soldiers and wounding some 100. The Pentagon said that the airstrike was a mistake and was intended to target Daesh militants, while a number of Syrian officials stated that the attack was intentional. Later, the Pentagon released a report claiming that the US-led coalition’s forces struck the Syrian army in Deir ez-Zor as a result of an ‘unintentional, regrettable error.’”

News of this strike — for which only a paucity of information has been made available thus far — comes right as headlines have exploded in controversy with allegations the U.S. President might have cozied too close to the Russian Federation.

Some outlets surmised the reason Trump fired Comey was to install another head of the Feds less prone to probe further into the president’s associations with Russia. Others proffered that Trump should be charged for sharing classified information on U.S. efforts to fight the Islamic State with several Russian officials.

Most of those reports failed to name officials and sources, and did not include evidence to unassailably confirm their veracity.

As this conflagration continues to be fanned by mainstream media, it would seem the U.S. has no issue going full steam ahead with its contentious aims of regime change in Syria — where it directly opposes Moscow and Russian military support of the Syrian government.

This article will be updated when and if further information becomes available.

US Hypocrisy on Full Display as Airstrikes Kill 4 Children in Syria

What better way to send a message that terrorist acts against innocent children won’t be tolerated than to launch 59 $1.59 million Tomahawk missiles at the supposed culprit — a show of force would, after all, surely emphasize a nation’s resolve and moral imperative.

Because killing people who allegedly killed kids would absolutely prove killing kids is wrong — until you destroy the airbase from which albeit opposition forces launch attacks against terrorists of the Islamic State — and, in disgusting irony, kill kids in the process of making that already dubious point.

Four children perished in Syria from the barrage of missiles delivered by two U.S. destroyers, hastily ordered by President Donald Trump in retaliation for an alleged chemical weapons attack by President Bashar al-Assad — alleged, because, as yet, precisely who was responsible, or if the killing of nearly 60 people was in actuality an attack at all, remains unclear.

Folly in war, however, has likely never been clearer than in the reckless, ill-advised, not Congressionally-approved, and falsely sanctimonious military strike undertaken by the Trump-led United States this week.

Killing in the name of killing people is wrong innately proves the hypocrisy of war — that the politicians send our youth to be molded into callous mass killers by hardened hawks of military brass, but will never themselves touch the weapons of death, is only one facet of this madness.

That those weapons of death found their target in four children and five adults who had no designs for anything but survival — and who would not, under Trump’s maliciously hollow travel ‘ban,’ be permitted the ostensively safe landing spot inside the U.S.’ borders — screams mockery of intent.

Conflict-ravaged and decimated in their homeland, Syrians — in vain, attempting only to survive the proxy wars of arrogant statesmen — could not possibly benefit in yet more death from above.

No matter the smug, self-satisfaction with which Trump and his ilk moralize the need for further killing, there will be civilian casualties — as there already have — and guiltless, blameless, innocent children, women, and men will be robbed of life for the unfortunate happenstance of their location in the path of American revenge.

What gall it takes to dismiss the Constitution, bypass Congress, shirk diplomacy, and carry out a hapless offensive ultimately counterproductive to the wellbeing of the very people for which that shamelessly pompous act was undertaken — there is a damned good reason scorn, derision, and bullying best describe the U.S. to the people of the Middle East.

But the hypocrisy of mass killing to undermine terrorism isn’t only hypocritical in itself — the United States has an unseemly history of vocally pious but morally bereft military campaigns, as well as an uncanny knack for thwarting peace when it finally looms on the horizon.

In fact, the $93,810,000 in Tomahawks were fired into Syria on the literal eve of peace negotiations — including, incidentally, resignation by the United States that Assad would indeed remain in power.

And, as Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco and Middle East expert, writes for Yes! Magazine,

“The United States also has a long history of trying to undermine the peaceful, law-based efforts to eliminate chemical weapons, including opposition to the UN-mandated goal of ridding the Middle East of such weapons. Indeed, both Israel and Egypt — the largest recipients of U.S. military aid — have stockpiles larger than that of Syria.”

Yet chemical weapons, and the potential future use of them, provided the putative impetus for the first American direct bombing campaign in Syria — a campaign attempted previously by President Obama in 2013, but thwarted by a massive uproar.

Trump avoided public outrage by taking the coward demagogue’s route — bomb first, don’t bother asking questions later. If kids die because we need to teach Assad — who probably isn’t responsible for the gassing deaths of 86 civilians — a lesson about killing kids, then so be it.

Damn the geopolitical consequences. Damn any independent investigation to determine the culprit for the Idlib dead. Damn potential humanitarian ramifications. Damn the flirtation with World War III. Damn logic, reason, diplomacy, and the rules of engagement.

Damn the stupefying hypocrisy.

But most of all, going rogue with the largest military on the planet against a long-suffering nation whose children Trump won’t even allow solace inside the borders of this supposedly great nation makes resoundingly clear one message: Damn Syrians.

This feckless mission won’t save children. It will damn them to a childhood of war.

3 Disturbing Facts Every American Needs to Consider this Veteran’s Day — This is How to Thank a Vet

If you have served in any branch of the military, Veterans Day has symbolic and emotional meaning others can only relate to empathetically, but might never fully grasp. Today, we honor those who fought for the United States, dedicating a portion of their lives in defense of what we, as a nation, hold dear — often returning scarred and battered inside and out.

A mythos exists about the armed services — indoctrinated veneration of men and women in uniform, and a call to duty — where, by design, the people of this land aren’t taught to question war or the military, or the consequences reverberating into the past and future.

However, as a growing number of veterans will tell you in moments of bare honesty, taking up arms and donning a uniform isn’t exactly about fighting for freedom — and the wounds sustained in battle physically and mentally haunt many former service members for reasons that have little to do with glory and honor.

Our military, as many have discovered, entices young people not even old enough to buy a beer to risk their lives — and the Pentagon and recruiters propagandize service as a patriotic, educational adventure and opportunity to work with state of the art technology and equipment. But what they don’t explain are the horrors of the battlefield — and the truth about our government’s motives for war.

So, this Veterans Day, it’s imperative to examine military service for what it truly entails — what the government actually asks of service members — and why the last thing we should do is ask more youth to join up.

Inveigling young Americans to join the military by touting free college and patriotism is perhaps the most dishonest hoodwinks the government could make. Indeed, service members do fight in the name of the United States, but wars abroad in modern times are far more complex than just good fighting evil — and much of that surrounds our many proxy wars.

While the Pentagon claims the U.S. fights terrorists, particularly of the Islamic State, in Syria and many other Middle Eastern countries — and to a degree, that’s true — other terrorist groups are now considered our allies. In fact, certain offshoots of al-Qaeda — the exact radicals targeted by the U.S. in the years following 9/11 — receive funding and training from different agencies of our government.

This trick of logic benefits only the notorious goal of regime change — ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — while infuriating embattled local populations and the governments of other nations who don’t distinguish between the nefarious groups. To civilians victimized by military battles and belligerent radicals alike, a terrorist is a terrorist — no distinctions necessary.

Veterans who’ve experienced this duplicity firsthand agree with that assessment and many are furious with the government essentially employing terrorists to fight terrorists under the overarching mission to oust another nation’s leader. Discovering you’ve agreed to fight for reasons you not fully explained from the start — and should consider terrorists allies — has embittered countless veterans who honestly believed the military defends Americans’ freedoms.

Once you’ve fought for the government, it cares very little about your wellbeing.

Scores of fighters return to the United States in desperate need of expert healthcare to heal and rehabilitate minor to wholly incapacitating physical injuries — and mental and emotional trauma endured in witnessing the horrors of bloodshed. But the Veterans Administration tasked with that job falls criminally short on nearly every level.

Over two years ago, the Department of Veterans Affairs had amassed a backlog of 900,000 applications for healthcare, but far worse — and deeply revealing of a systemic issue — at least 300,000 of those applicants died while waiting to receive the benefits which should have been immediate.

Post-traumatic stress disorder affects tens of thousands of veterans, leading many to take their own lives not to be haunted by horrific and agonizing images making daily life a continuance of war. Those considering suicide have the option of reaching out to the Veterans Crisis Line — but actually speaking with a trained counselor is a task in itself.

A report earlier this year revealed the Crisis Line is rife with inexcusable problems, leaving desperate callers on hold for over 20 minutes wasn’t rare — and some calls were even diverted to voicemail, which staff did not even know existed. An investigation was initiated after an Iraq War veteran got voicemail instead of help, and proceeded to take his life.

Disrespect for former service men and women doesn’t end even once they pass away — in September, a whistleblower revealed the bodies of veterans in one VA hospital morgue had been allowed to languish for a month, and had badly decomposed.

Issues continue to plague the VA to this day.

If you think the U.S. enters countless military conflicts to protect the security of the American public, you would be astonishingly incorrect.

In addition to the aforementioned conflict over regime change — which is a favored tactic of our government — most wars are battles to further establish U.S. hegemony and exploit the targeted nation’s natural resources. Oil is perhaps the most well-known motivation for war, but probably isn’t the most valuable.

Afghanistan, as seasoned U.S. veterans can attest, has the world’s largest opium poppy crop — courtesy of the American intervention.

In May 2001, a report by the New York Times said U.S. narcotics experts visited Afghanistan and discovered that Taliban rule “appears to have wiped out the world’s largest crop in less than a year.”

On October 7 that year, the U.S. conveniently invaded the country in the name of fighting terrorism, and shortly afterward opium poppy cultivation took off — increasing 35-fold from 185 tons in 2001 to 6,400 tons in 2014 — a veritable boon for Big Pharma.

And while pharmaceutical manufacturers enjoy skyrocketing profits from pushing opioid medications, the United States is now in the midst of a heroin epidemic. Veterans also suffer, as the VA doles out countless opioids rather than instituting reforms to actually care for those who served.

In addition to opium poppies, the U.S. discovered around $1 trillion in mineral resources in Afghanistan, as the New York Times reported in 2010:

“The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

“An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the ‘Saudi Arabia of lithium,’ a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.”

Afghanistan is, of course, only one of the countries the U.S. continues to exploit.

Countless additional arguments could be proffered to why we must inform young people about the true nature of military conflict — and many returning soldiers have made it their mission to stop people from signing up and bring an end to wars fought for less than noble reasons.

Veterans for Peace accepts former military members from around the globe, and as the group’s mission states, seeks to “increase public awareness of the costs of war, restrain our government from intervening, overtly and covertly, in the internal affairs of other nations, end the arms race and to reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons, seek justice for veterans and victims of war, and abolish war as an instrument of national policy.”

Honoring veterans with a day certainly provides a symbolic recognition of service — but it rings hollow for too many who served for what they believed was duty, only to discover the truth of war.

Instead, we must stop creating veterans — stop destroying the lives of people who join the military and those of millions of civilians victims in foreign lands — all in the name of U.S. imperialism.

It is our imperative to expose these insidious truths and inform those considering signing up to serve that patriotic duty is only an illusion to ensnare the uninformed into fighting, killing, and even dying for corporate profit, exploitation, and hegemony.

Ask the profiteers and politicians to send their own kids to fight — and we’d see how quickly peace would prevail.