From Y2K to Why 2K?

I’m sure you remember all the concern about Y2K, computers crashing, power grids being shut down, etc., at the beginning of the new millennium. Looking back, it was nothing more than a charade, a clever marketing scam, but it worked. .

Then came 9/11…since that horrific event we have a new Y2K, or better put, Why 2,000? That’s the number of sons, brothers, fathers, daughters, sisters and mothers who have been killed since the Afghanistan charade began over a decade ago. Why 2000?

My view is that those 2,000 were sacrificed to support the military-industrial complex. For more than 60 years and a couple of world wars before that…there has always been a bad guy that was ready to attack the United States. I recall the “duck and cover” drills when I was in grade school, followed by a litany of bad guys that we needed to protect ourselves from. Certainly, there have been some bad guys. When I visited the national cemetery at Normandy last year and saw the more than 9,000 graves of fallen soldiers on D Day and looked out across the English Channel I was filled with the sense that World War II was necessary to thwart Hitler’s imperialism. He was a maniac and he needed to be stopped.

Today, 40% of the US annual budget is spent on defense. If we want to begin to retire the deficit and return to some level of solvency and fiscal responsibility…we need to stop spending. A strong military is of course a necessity. But to keep dumping billions and billions into a war effort that really has no realistic chance of success in Afghanistan is insane.

I find it very alarming that neither candidate for president is talking defense. It appears they are similarly minded on defense spending. What they fear aside from losing campaign contributions from defense contractors is the negative impact on GDP if we stop buying drones, choppers, fighter jets, ships, tanks, HumV’s, munitions and so on. That’s a serious consideration. Cutting back on defense spending will cause an economic recession…surely, perhaps a depression.

Unemployment is at a unacceptable level and to cut back on defense spending with the resulting loss of jobs will not garner many votes. Bringing a couple hundred thousand soldiers home from the Middle East will only create higher unemployment. Where would they work?

Having said all that….what’s 2,000 soldiers lives anyway?

Screw that, the United States needs to bite the bullets rather than shoot them.

I challenge every person who reads this to really assess who you are going to vote for this Fall. Only support the candidate or candidates who mirror your beliefs on whether the United States should be a military aggressor.

With football season approaching, I’ll use that analogy. Do football teams win with defense or offense? Sure it’s a mix of both, but my view is that our military has been too offensive in every sense of that word. Defense is certainly necessary and we need a prepared and ready military to defend our country. Switching to baseball, if we keep being the aggressor, we have a couple of “on deck” foes in the waiting…Syria and Iran. Where and when does it stop?

I am neither a confirmed democrat nor republican. I’m more of purple guy. Generally speaking, liberals are the blue state folks and conservative are the reds. I’m purple…somewhere in the middle. I wish more people and politicians were as well. This election year is horrific with all the negativity and heinous rhetoric in lock step with right or left political agenda….and damn what’s good for the country.

Very sad!