[dropcap style=”font-size:100px; color:#992211;”]N[/dropcap]avy seals, as all other soldiers of blood sustained empires, are not heroes.
They are two-legged tools of intimidation, occupation, and plunder. They are the enforcers of Murder Inc., also known as the militarist imperium. If Democrats actually did have the courage to refuse to stand during hagiographic tributes to the members of state-sanctioned goon squads killed in the line of thuggery, I would grant them a measure of respect.
In which war have US soldiers ever protected the homeland from hostile invaders? And don’t claim the one fought by “The Greatest [hyped] Generation.” In reality, the war in the Pacific was a clash of imperial powers: the US and Imperial Japan, over the resources of the South Pacific, Indochina, and beyond. The War Against Fascism in Europe was fought and won by the Red Army, as the US hung back and allowed the USSR and Germany to bleed themselves anaemic. 
Even before the end of the war, US elites (in the form of OSS operatives such as Allen Dulles) were forging alliances with and were saving the genocidal hinds of Nazis to wage a covert war against the Soviets.
I have witnessed in my lifetime, “our heroes” — who were only following orders — mirroring the traditions of the genocidal Bluecoats of the US West, slaughter millions of Southeast Asians and people of the Islamic faith during the course of wars. Wars based on lies. Wars that served no purpose other than to enrich the already bloated fortunes of a soul-dead elite.
In regard to US/NATO militarist belligerence towards Russia, and the concominant overspending on the military, it will not suffice to simply parrot the platitude, ‘the United States is the world’s policeman.’
The US is the world’s policeman only insofar as the nation’s wanton murder of dark-skinned people is concerned. The reality is, the US is a gangster state that has killed more innocent people in its imperialism-engendered wars, outright and proxy, than Putin could or would in a dozen lifetimes.
Don’t buy the con job. Wars are a money train for the rich and a reeking death cart for the powerless of the earth.
Image by Dan Booth. Not to be reproduced without express prior permission.
Phil Rockstroh is a poet, lyricist and philosopher bard living in New York City.
Yet a bio amounts to dharma for dimwits: It defines a human being in the same manner and degree of veracity as a restaurant menu describes the various slabs of meat offered … commodified things that were once living beings.
