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By Joachim Hagopian<\/p>\n
Another excellent alt-news website that I used to write for is lewrockwell.com<\/a>. <\/em>From December 2015 comes an article titled \u201cIt\u2019s Time to Stop \u201cSupporting Our Troops.\u201d Every Memorial Day and Veterans Day in America, we often hear the expression \u201csupport our troops\u201d as standard, clich\u00e9 protocol. It\u2019s almost the obligatory thing to say and do, to pay lip service to the brutal blood sacrifice of millions of American soldiers\u2019 lives lost over America\u2019s last quarter millennium of wars in what has recently become a less meaningful national ritual, pretending that America is still the land of the free and the democratic beacon of light and freedom for the rest of the world. It clearly is not. Instead, America, with Israel, is the most despised nation pariah on earth.<\/p>\n Growing up the patriotic son of a 20-year US Navy submariner who bravely fought defending our proud nation through World War II and the Korean War, Memorial Day was always a holiday that meant a whole lot more than just another day off from school or work on a three-day weekend. My father\u2019s Silver Star bravery in the Pacific through two US wars inspired me to follow in his military footsteps, so in July 1969 I dutifully marched off to West Point during the last four years of the Vietnam War, the first agonizing war in US history identified as our nation\u2019s first humiliating war defeat, but with more to come. The Vietnam War painfully divided our country like no other as America\u2019s first outright attrition war loss, where protracted US military troop occupation and regime change took its bloody toll (over 58,000 American fatalities vs. the more than 3 million Southeast Asian lives lost). Sadly, more of these same fatal, costly errors in judgment arrived later in this century as Greater Israel Project wars fought in Afghanistan, Iraq and apparently now with even graver implications in Iran.<\/p>\n Since my own military days, hearing that expression \u201csupport our troops\u201d began gnawing at my conscience, seeing how it was contritely used to brainwash the next young generation to be marred for life marching off as more human sacrifice to die on the next foreign battlefield in yet another senselessly immoral Greater Israel Project war. So much so, that by 2015, still mired in yet another fake democracy-building debacle of a lie, it was destined to become American history\u2019s longest running war of them all in Afghanistan (2001-2021). In 2015 I felt compelled amidst this endless bitter aftertaste of neo-imperial conquest\u2019s Empire of Destruction ashes to take issue with the mantra that served as the graveyard for both a dying US Empire that outlived its once greatness as well as the literal graveyard for far too many Americans in uniform. And so, with this 2026 Memorial Day, while American families and friends gather for annual barbecue get-togethers, I figured it would be a good time to \u201crerun\u201d my scathing expos\u00e9<\/a>\u00a0from 11 years ago:<\/p>\n It\u2019s Time to Stop \u201cSupporting our Troops\u201d<\/p>\n With the 115-year-old tradition of\u00a0the annual Army-Navy football classic<\/a>\u00a0on Saturday, the so-called \u201cAmerica\u2019s game\u201d and \u201crivalry for the ages\u201d is now once again upon us. This occasion never fails to pay reverent homage to America\u2019s so-called \u201ccream of the crop\u201d elitist\u00a0military academies<\/a>\u00a0and always from the president to celebrities Americans give tribute to our armed forces. At this time, we hear that familiar patriotic mantra \u201csupport our troops,\u201d mindlessly repeated. So, it seems appropriate now to take a cold hard look to reexamine what it actually means to \u201csupport our troops.\u201d<\/p>\n As both a West Point graduate and\u00a0critic of the American Empire<\/a>, to me the \u201csupport our troops<\/a>\u201d sentiment has long outworn its propagandized welcome. US Empire has been using that contrite expression to brainwash Americans and justify its wars and violence for far too long. It sprang up during this last decade\u2019s protracted war losses in Iraq and Afghanistan. Never was it ever heard during the\u00a0Vietnam War<\/a>\u00a0when our combat veterans\u00a0returned home feeling defeated and suffering from untreated PTSD symptoms,\u00a0shunned by\u00a0a nation that had bitterly turned against them and their war, particularly by their own peer group.\u00a0Fast forward to four decades and three war defeats later,\u00a0and our government is still sending Americans off to fight and die in\u00a0Afghanistan<\/a>\u00a0(9800 currently) and\u00a0Iraq<\/a>\u00a0(3500 with another 100 on the way), and now in\u00a0Syria<\/a>\u00a0(50 just proposed with more on the way while war-hawk Bobbsey twins McCain and Graham are calling for 20,000 more troops in Syria). But this century\u2019s wars we keep\u00a0hearing red, white and blue, flag waving Americans urging us to\u00a0\u201csupport our troops.\u201d<\/p>\n Over the long haul, supporting our troops has resulted in the United States being the most warring, aggressive nation on earth, bar none. As we\u2019re about to enter 2016, our ultraviolent country will be killing other human beings somewhere on this planet for 223 out of the last 240 total years [updated 233 out of 250 years] the US has been in existence. That\u2019s 93% of our time<\/a>\u00a0as a nation-turned-Empire we\u2019ve been destroying human life. That\u2019s certainly nothing to be proud of. Yet it\u2019s \u201cour troops\u201d who\u2019ve been the murdering culprit. No compassionate, rational person could possibly place blindly obedient support behind such rampantly wanton disregard and contempt for fellow human life.<\/p>\n Another fact that Americans can\u2019t be proud of is knowing that the most warring nation on earth just since World War II alone has murdered up to\u00a030 million people<\/a>\u00a0around the globe with an estimated\u00a090% of them being civilians<\/a>. Having initiated 201 out of\u00a0the total of 240 armed conflicts from the end of WWII to 2001, it then follows that between those years the US Empire of Chaos and Destruction has murdered 27 million innocent people whose lives have tragically been cut short through no fault of their own for simply living in the wrong place at the wrong time belonging to the wrong ethnic nationality targeted by America\u2019s full spectrum dominance and global superpower hegemony. And that was before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.<\/p>\n And what does it take to be\u00a0targeted as a US foreign enemy<\/a>? Any country whose leaders choose to support their own citizens\u2019 well-being, independence and quality of life over US Empire\u2019s fascist transnational corporate interests is attacked economically through sanctions and embargos, politically through propaganda lies and threats, or militarily though\u00a0unnatural disasters<\/a>\/weather warfare, occupied invasions involving long term bloody conflict or\u00a0acts of terrorism, coups and assassinations<\/a>. Just ask Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Panama, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Congo North Korea, Donbas, Palestine or Russia just to name more than a dozen.<\/p>\n People around the world have been victimized for well over a century by American Empire\u2019s willful rape and pillage of their lands in the name of stolen natural resources and inhumane forced slave labor, and those are the nations whose puppet dictators willingly succumbed and acquiesced to US demands and pressures. In fact in the tradition of the British Empire, North America\u2019s entire domestic and foreign history has been made of\u00a0genocidal killing<\/a>, enslaving, stealing and subjugating other darker-skinned races into death and submission. Given this context with the bigger picture perspective, \u201csupporting our troops\u201d is really supporting mass murder around the world. So bearing that sobering, grim reality in mind, it\u2019s time for Americans to cease and desist with their jingoistic rah-rah that only adds insult to injury to the rest of the victimized world.<\/p>\n In 2008 the US spent<\/a>\u00a0more money every 5 seconds to wage an immoral, unlawful war in Iraq than the average working American earned all year long. 80% of America\u2019s taxes are earmarked towards funding the annual Pentagon budget to wage war around the world. When that kind of war investment misappropriating US citizenry\u2019s hard-earned tax dollars places such lopsided priority over the well-being of its own people, with over a decade of\u00a0wearing down an overextended military<\/a>\u00a0forced into fighting three, four and even five consecutive combat tours on two simultaneous warfronts, it also overburdened and\u00a0decimated America\u2019s middle class<\/a>. And now for the first time in nearly a half century, the\u00a0US middle class is no longer a majority<\/a>\u00a0in the United States. A large chunk of it died when sinking into an expanding lower class of impoverished, poverty-stricken Americans barely making ends meet.<\/p>\n But considering the costs of war to victim nations where since 2003 the US has killed over a million people in Iraq alone, this figure released from\u00a0a study earlier this year<\/a>\u00a0is admittedly a conservative estimate. The study concludes that up to two million in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have been killed by America\u2019s wars. These colossal crimes against humanity constitute supporting the US federal government as well as its military troops a moral crime. America\u2019s complete and utter destruction of the world\u2019s second and third largest oil producers in Iraq and Libya, turning them into failed states because their one-time US allied leaders moved away from the\u00a0US petrodollar<\/a>\u00a0is unconscionable, yet that\u2019s the tragic outcome of blindly supporting our troops. More than any other single country, the US today is responsible for allowing ISIS to\u00a0make billions<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0profit from stolen oil<\/a>\u00a0from Iraq and Syria financing the biggest terrorist group on the planet. And US partners-in-crime\u00a0Turkey<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Israel<\/a>\u00a0are the two biggest buyers of terrorist oil. So in effect supporting our troops is also supporting both crimes against humanity as well as worldwide terrorism.<\/p>\n Supporting our troops has contributed to the world becoming far\u00a0more armed and dangerous today<\/a>\u00a0than at any prior time in our recorded human history. Our nation is also responsible for\u00a0spearheading the biggest arms race<\/a>\u00a0in history where it\u2019s not just the US Empire spending so many billions on weapons of mass destruction but due to Empire aggression it has forced Russia and China to answer by also significantly increasing their military spending. A dozen years ago the\u00a0US defense budget nearly equaled<\/a>\u00a0the rest of the world combined. But during this century\u2019s two protracted US wars plus smaller secret ones around the world, America\u2019s military expenditures have soared to\u00a0$682 billion in 2012<\/a> from $417.4 in 2003 [this year the Pentagon budget more than doubled to over $1.5 trillion]. The exponential rise of American aggression likewise has pressured the unilaterally declared US enemies Russia and China to significantly increase their military spending as well. The US has gone from spending near half (46%) of the world\u2019s military amount in 2003 to just 35% in 2014<\/a>\u00a0due to Russia and China dramatically expanding their military budgets. In fact following America\u2019s lead, both the world\u2019s annual arms sales as well as its military budgets have exponentially skyrocketed amongst dozens of countries all seemingly gearing up for \u201cthe big one.\u201d Not surprisingly, at 31% the\u00a0US is also the biggest arms dealer<\/a>\u00a0on the planet followed by Russia\u2019s 27% with China accounting for 5% during the period from 2010-2014 that totaled a 16% increase from arms sold from 2005-2009.<\/p>\n Events and developments have escalated tensions and confrontations between the US and Russia and China in recent weeks. With the US backing NATO member\u00a0Turkey recklessly shooting<\/a>\u00a0down a Russian jet bomber resulting in a Russian rescue helicopter also brought down last month, in addition to the probable ISIS bomb taking down the\u00a0Russian airliner<\/a>\u00a0killing all 224 onboard a month and a half ago, the\u00a0US Navy destroyer<\/a>\u00a0skirting inside the twelve nautical mile range of built up Chinese islands in the South China Sea, the United States and the West appear to be baiting Putin and the East into\u00a0World War III<\/a>. And with nuclear powers going directly head-to-head in Syria, Ukraine and Asia, self-annihilation of the human race becomes a very real and grave risk culminating after a quarter century of US Empire belligerently operating as the sole global superpower and\u00a0\u201cglobal village\u201d\u00a0bully.<\/p>\n Out of nearly 200 countries no other nation on earth has more than a few military bases outside its own country except the United States. In contrast to the rest of the world, the US sends\u00a01.5 million military occupiers on active duty<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0over a thousand military installations<\/a>\u00a0on every continent throughout the globe. Just this week the Pentagon announced a\u00a0worldwide expansion of military bases<\/a>\u00a0without specifying a total number under the auspices of secrecy. West Africa, East Africa and Afghanistan are slotted for full scale bases. Meanwhile US Special Forces that covertly operate by stealth surprise often at night in guerilla-type, fast strike operations are busily secretly committing acts of terror in over\u00a0135 nations<\/a>\u00a0globally, that\u2019s about 75% of the all world\u2019s nations.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s look at the way our federal government supports our troops. After sending over\u00a06800 US soldiers<\/a>\u00a0(along with 7000 civilian contractors) to their early graves fighting in America\u2019s two longest running wars in the nation\u2019s history, leaving one million wounded personnel filing VA claims ranging from life threatening physical injuries to emotionally crippling PTSD traumas and scars, the feds have betrayed our patriots serving our country by treasonously targeting all returning combat veterans as the\u00a0biggest enemy threat<\/a>\u00a0on American soil. Indeed veterans,\u00a0gun owners and dissidents are deemed to pose a greater danger than even\u00a0the\u00a0feds\u2019\u00a0own created terrorist monster ISIS that Obama\u2019s open border policy facilitates easy\u00a0access to establishing terrorist cells inside America.<\/p>\n Those veterans seeking help are customarily snowed under by\u00a0lethal Big Pharma poison<\/a>, fast becoming addicted and even more unstable. Many are haplessly waiting and dying on lists for medical services that often don\u2019t come soon enough. Exposing forty veterans who died awaiting services on invisible lists at the Phoenix VA hospital alone triggered a major\u00a0scandal last year<\/a>. For several years running on average\u00a0twenty-two veterans have been killing themselves<\/a>\u00a0each and every day in the United States. The overloaded Veterans Administration has been caught grossly ill-prepared to adequately deal with the sheer enormity of the problem with so many severely damaged ex-soldiers in dire need of long term assistance and care. One study predicts that up to nearly a\u00a0half million<\/a>\u00a0veterans will\u00a0end up with\u00a0criminal cases in the court system.<\/p>\n With nearly half (44%<\/a>) of Congress millionaires and so few (19%<\/a>) ever serving in uniform now, the DC warmongers are ever-at-the-ready to send young men and women from America\u2019s lower class into harm\u2019s way fighting Obama\u2019s dirty little secret wars in multiple combat zones around the world that the public never even hears about. Yet you\u2019ll see next to none of their own sons or daughters fighting in some far off war.\u00a0The way our own government has used, abused and not supported our troops is despicable.<\/strong><\/p>\n And then a sizeable percentage of those Americans who are so vocal in their claims of \u201csupporting our troops<\/a>,\u201d are too frequently disingenuous. Often hypocrites merely mouth the same banal platitudes year after year from their ivory-towered, pretend world, living so far removed and disaffected from actual war conditions or even knowing anyone who wears a military uniform. Never fathoming the tragic insanity or bloody lifelong consequences that US wars ravage on millions worldwide, permanently damaging all involved, Americans who haven\u2019t a clue will glibly pay lip service, \u201cWe owe so much to our soldiers who fight to keep us safe and free.\u201d What bubble, planet or century are they living on or in?<\/p>\n Since the inside coup of 9\/11 was perpetrated, US citizens have become the murderous neocons\u2019 war on terror victims as well, terrorized by their own international crime cabal government and militarized police state that\u2019s effectively stolen their freedom and civil liberties while the guilty treasonously continue violating sworn oaths to uphold and protect both the Constitution and American people. Yet too many brainwashed, dumbed down and clueless in America don\u2019t seem to get it. Maybe it\u2019s because they\u2019re bombarded 24\/7 by\u00a0MSM lies and disinformation<\/a>\u00a0that never expose the ugliness of war as it really is. The ruling elite controls all aspects of mass media, engaging in widespread censorship of films, television and video games where\u00a0violence and war are only glorified<\/a>. Military, CIA and FBI liaisons control every aspect of what comes out of Hollywood these days.<\/p>\n But over four decades of a\u00a0volunteer army<\/a>\u00a0comprised of less than half of one percent of the total US population also contributes greatly to the widening disconnect between the 99+% civilian population and the less than 1% Americans in uniform. The atrocities and horror that the imperialistic Empire\u2019s killing machine has inflicted on Third World nations half a world away may as well be billions of miles away on another planet or galaxy. Out of sight, out of mind goes many civilians\u2019 insulated, tunnel version reality.<\/p>\n Those currently in uniform need to be reminded that they have a sworn duty to protect America from domestic and foreign enemies. As citizens who no longer live in a democratic republic but now a totalitarian police state, they need to recognize that their federal government has a\u00a0diabolical agenda<\/a>\u00a0to enslave and eliminate fellow Americans. Instead of\u00a0criminalizing dissent<\/a>, the real domestic enemy has become the federal government and all Americans need to accept this tragic development. Therefore, both those already in uniform as well as those ready to sign up and allow themselves to become their crime cabal\u2019s latest cannon fodder in the elite\u2019s wars need to stand up and be counted as patriots\u00a0loyal to their nation<\/a>\u00a0and fellow citizens rather than adhere to blind obedience to their psychopathic masters. It\u2019s no longer okay to support the troops when they\u2019re misdirected into committing treason against their own citizenry. Military personnel need to take responsibility for their actions and do what\u2019s right by both their Constitution as well as humanity.<\/p>\n 2015 has been a tumultuous year when by\u00a0globalist design<\/a>\u00a0terrorism has expanded to all corners of the earth, spreading death, war and destruction in its wake. Meanwhile, feeling its economic prowess slipping away in the face of the\u00a0emerging power of Eastern rivals<\/a>\u00a0China and Russia, the United States government has already conceded losing its war to retain the US dollar as the world\u2019s reserve currency. The DC crime syndicate knows its days in power are numbered. Since the psychopaths ruling the planet are unwilling to relinquish their ruthless power of absolute control, they realize that using their Manchurian puppet president and his overstretched US Empire to recklessly do their dirty planetary bidding to successfully destroy the world\u2019s most powerful nation sending Empire into rapid freefall decline on the way to one world government can only be achieved by\u00a0igniting World War III<\/a>\u00a0against the Eastern powers just as their Ponzi-rigged, house of cards, debt-based global economy implodes on itself. So this late in the power elite\u2019s endgame when we\u2019re still hearing \u201csupport the troops,\u201d in actuality it\u2019s time to fight for our lives in support of humanity\u2019s struggle for survival and good ultimately triumphing over evil.<\/p>\nJoachim Hagopian<\/b>\u00a0is a West Point graduate, former Army officer and author of \u201cDon\u2019t Let the Bastards Getcha Down\u201d exposing a faulty US military leadership system based on ticket\u00a0punching up the seniority ladder, invariably weeding out the best and brightest, leaving mediocrity and order followers rising to the top as politician-bureaucrat generals designated to lose every modern US war by elite design. After the military, Joachim\u00a0earned a master\u2019s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In Los Angeles he found himself battling the largest county child protective services in the nation within America\u2019s thoroughly broken and corrupt child welfare system.<\/i><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe experience in both the military and child welfare system prepared him well as a researcher and independent journalist, exposing the evils of Big Pharma and how the Rockefeller controlled medical and psychiatric system inflict more harm than good, case in point, the pandemic hoax and kill shot genocide. As an independent journalist for the last decade, Joachim has written hundreds of articles for many news sites, including currently\u00a0thegovernmentrag.com,<\/a>\u00a0stateofthenation.info<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0jameshfetzer.org<\/a>,\u00a0theinteldrop.org<\/a>
\nand\u00a0<\/i>Global Research<\/a><\/i>,\u00a0<\/i>lewrockwell.com.<\/a><\/i>\u00a0<\/i>As a published author of a 5-book volume series entitled\u00a0<\/i>Pedophilia & Empire: Satan, Sodomy & the Deep State<\/a><\/i>, Joachim\u2019s books and chapters are Amazon bestsellers in child advocacy and human rights categories. His A-Z sourcebook series fully document and expose the global pedophilia scourge and remain available free at\u00a0<\/i>pedoempire.org\/contents\/<\/a><\/i>. Joachim hosts a weekly\u00a0<\/i>Revolution Radio<\/a><\/i>\u00a0broadcast \u201cCabal Empire Exposed\u201d on Fridays (ID: revradio, password: rocks!), and is additionally a regular geopolitical analyst on two weekly podcasts with James Fetzer.<\/i><\/div>\n