Policeman of the World

It is past time for America to stop its endless military adventurism. How much American blood and treasure have been spent since World War II on military operations overseas, and how much have we gained?  How much actual peace time have we enjoyed in that time?  What will be the marker that tells us we have done enough? Do we actually believe we are coming to a time when all of our enemies have been conquered, or at least cowed? I have heard time and again an argument against military operations based on the notion that we have no exit strategy. Well, apply that idea to our military operations for the last sixty-five years. What is our exit strategy from endless warfare?

After the Second World War the United States was the premier country in the world in terms of wealth and power. We had created an incredible military economy that was so powerful it was scarcely appreciated by our enemies until it was too late for them. We were the "Arsenal of Democracy," with an industrial capacity so immense we could arm, not just ourselves, but our allies as well. Germany and Japan lay in ruins, Russia was devastated and economically exhausted, and Great Britain could barely feed itself. Most of Asia and the West were in a similar state. But the United States was virtually untouched, able still to send vast quantities of food and other goods to the defeated enemy.

In a sense, World War II never ended. Because of Soviet expansion, and Communist revolutions and insurgencies in China and other parts of the world, countries that had been U.S. allies during the war quickly became enemies, and instead of demobilizing as it had done after World War I, the U.S. military remained in a powerful state, as it still is. Less than five years after the end of the world war we were embroiled in another hot war, in Korea. We have essentially been on a war footing ever since.

During the 1950s and 1960s there were many debates about the United States being the world's "policeman" because we were constantly sending troops to various parts of the globe where conflicts arose. While that term is no longer used, the involvement in conflicts has not stopped; if anything, it has increased. We seem to have become inured to sending troops and armaments practically anywhere to put down (or try to put down) conflicts, especially if they are offensive to a sense of fair play; if it seems one side is bullying the other. ISIS is a prime example: they kidnap and enslave little girls, they behead victims on camera, they enforce Draconian rules in their conquered territories; consequently, we drop bombs on them.

Of course, there is a sense of satisfaction when that happens; evil, violent people deserve to have bombs dropped on them.  The problem is, there will never be and end to evil people. Even if we were to completely destroy ISIS and bring about peace in the Middle Ease, there is still the lunatic regime in North Korea, and if we were to bring about a happy outcome there, there would be another conflict somewhere else, and another genocide somewhere else, and another bully somewhere else. Somalia, Sudan, Ukraine, and on and on. Does that mean we have to send our sons and daughters to foreign lands to die forever?

Our Endangered Principles

In 1959 a revolutionary war ended in Cuba when forces led by Fidel Castro, his brother Raul, and Che Guevara overthrew the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, thus bringing about one of the longest-standing political (and almost nuclear) conflicts in modern history. Castro was a communist, and he created a communist state: one party, nationalization of the economy, a terrifying secret police, a policy of harsh reprisal against anyone set against the regime, and the guarantee of a subsistence lifestyle for most--but certainly not all--of the populace. Don't be mistaken; Batista was not a nice guy. He was a greedy, corrupt power monger who made himself and the upper class grotesquely rich at the expense of the poverty-stricken majority, and his police state was just as terrifying as Castro's. Batista earned getting kicked out, and more. But Castro repudiated all the United States held dear, and embraced its arch-enemy, the Soviet Union, and for that he was to be despised, punished, and hopefully, destroyed.

When Castro's intentions became clear at the start of the 1960s and the war of words between him and the Kennedy administration became increasingly strident, the animosity between the two countries heated up. John F. Kennedy did not want a communist state at the southern doorstep of the U.S., especially one led by an obnoxious blowhard. This led to a decades-long attempt by this country to kill, overthrow, or at least humiliate Castro. The result? Kennedy is dead; Lyndon Johnson is dead; Richard M. Nixon is dead; Castro is still there. He won his little piece of the Cold War simply by surviving.

Of course, the United States government did not want to look like a gigantic bully picking on a tiny, helpless victim--which was exactly the case--so the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency were tasked with finding covert ways to get rid of Castro and his regime. What came out of these efforts was a long string of ridiculous, unethical, and downright criminal plots, none of which had the intended effects, but did give the impression there was a secret federal Department of Dirty Tricks, and that it was in the capable hands of Larry, Curly, and Moe. An intended invasion sponsored by the U.S. was a fiasco; outright attempts at assassination never even got close; even a plot to make Castro's famous beard fall out failed.

Probably the most dangerous of all the proposals to get Castro was Operations Northwoods. The danger wasn't to Castro, though, or to Cuba; the danger was to American citizens. Operation Northwoods was a plan to commit acts of terrorism by Americans against Americans, and rig them so they appeared to be perpetrated by Cubans as a pretext to go to war against Castro. This unbelieveable idea came, not from a group of identifiably crackpot right-wingers, but from the Pentagon's Joint Chiefs of Staff, the most powerful officers in the United States military, under the guidance of their Chairman,  General Lyman Lemnitzer. These men were all part of Tom Brokaw's "Greatest Generation."

Operation Northwoods was not just some nutty idea thrown out during a meeting. It was put on paper and submitted to Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, and then to President Kennedy. Fortunately, Kennedy was not a lunatic, and he rejected the plan. Lemnitzer lost his job although he then became Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. He retired in 1969. Amazingly, he was later appointed by Gerald Ford to a commission to investigate possible misconduct by the CIA.

The point of all this is that anybody in a position of power is capable of conceiving, and carrying out, stupid, evil, unconstitutional, criminal, dangerous ideas. That's why nobody in government can be trusted. Lemnitzer and his buddies undoubtedly thought of themselves as patriots and believed their ideas were in the best interests of this country. Patriotism does not automatically confer righteousness, though. Adolph Hitler was a patriot and believed he was acting in the best interests of Germany. The result was the greatest mass murder in history and the destruction of the thing he purported to love. I'm a patriot, too. I served in the military, and would be willing to die for my country.

But my loyalties don't lie with the United States government per se, and certainly not with the people who make up that government. I am loyal to the principles that make the U.S. unique. I am loyal to the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble to the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. That is where the essence of this country is found. I am loyal to the concept of freedom from the government, my God-given right to be an individual, and government's responsibility to protect that right. Lyman Lemnitzer and his band of dirty tricksters were willing to destroy peoples' right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness by killing--or at least terrorizing--the very people they were supposed to protect, for the sake of beating up a pipsqueak nation, an idea anathema to American principles.

Those men were not unique in their willingness to do violence to the principles of this country in order to "protect" it. There's a group of neocons in Washington right now who are stridently insisting we invade every region, country, and hen house where people who hate the U.S. reside, and they think it's just peachy that the National Security Agency has carte blanche to spy on every citizen, in order to "protect" us. Such thinking does tremendous harm to what makes America America, because if our principles are destroyed, what's left to protect? Football? Flat-screen television? Disney World? Terrorism cannot destroy the United States; goose-stepping "patriotism" can.

Dumbing Down America

The United States of America is the world's only remaining superpower; the leader of the free world; an unmatched economic dynamo; the place the world's poor dream of coming to.  So how does the future look for this Utopia? In a word, grim.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a 34-member organization that supports economic progress and world trade through democracy and market economies, sponsors a student test called the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests three areas: reading, math, and science. The most recent test was conducted in 2012, when 510,000 students from 65 countries and other political entities (for example, Singapore, a city-state) participated.

The U.S. was humiliated in all three areas; the shining stars were Asian entries, and especially China. This outcome should frighten anyone interested in the future of this country; and I don't mean the distant future. Reading, math, and science represent the vital core of a 21st century education. They aren't the only important subjects, of course, but a generation that does not produce exceptionally well-trained people in those subjects, in a world driven by technology, is in deep trouble.

This is not a new problem. American test scores from the 2009 PISA were abysmal. But the 2012 scores were worse, so things are going backward. How bad was it? Well, the U.S. rank in reading was 24th, in science 28th, and in math 36th. We were lower than our old friend Vietnam in all three, even though it is one of the poorest countries in the world (per capita GDP is about $1,900; in the U.S. it is over $53,000). Not only that, but this country spends more per student than almost every other country in the world.

But we haven't reached the bottom yet. Not only were our overall scores bad, but our top achievers couldn't match the average scores of higher-achieving countries. And please, let's not get into any anti-U.S. nonsense--the OECD is not out to get us--or talk about cultural bias. People who outscored us came from Asia, Europe, and North America. Hong Kong--a city--outscored us; Poland outscored us; Slovenia outscored us; Estonia outscored us; Canada, our first cousin, outscored us.

At the end of World War II, the United States was the undisputed global power. Americans had invented a substantial amount of the twentieth century. We were famous for innovation and the creation of wealth, all of which came out of an educational system modern educators sneer at. But after throwing a breath-taking amount of money at schools, after endless theorizing and experimenting, we have nothing to show for it but a downhill slide. Our alleged experts are good for nothing but the creation of hot air.

Wacky Conspiracy Theories and the New Dark Ages

Note: this is not a skeptic blog. I am a person of religious faith and do not reject out of hand anything that cannot be demonstrated using the scientific method. God cannot be demonstrated using the scientific method, yet I am sure He exists. 

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, Europe entered an extended period that has been called the "Dark Ages." In many parts of Europe there was economic and political chaos, and what is perhaps worse, there was a loss of knowledge. Many of the scientific, technical, and philosophical advances made during Classical Antiquity (the high-water marks of Greece and Rome) were lost. Many people sank into ignorance and economic blight. There was never a complete loss of learning, art, and the other trappings of civilization, but a great deal of what made the Roman Empire great was replaced by something darker and poorer. It would not be until the advent of the Italian Renaissance in the fourteenth century that learning and culture would once again be the underpinnings of European greatness.

It appears very likely that we are entering into a new sort of Dark Ages, led by an ever-growing number of people I call the "ignorati." The ignorati repudiate science, mainstream learning, and expertise based on real knowledge. They prefer to develop their worldview from information provided by people who don't know what they are talking about. The ignorati believe the world is divided between the haves and the have-nots, and there is an endless number of conspiracies among the haves to maintain their wealth and power at the expense of everyone else. Lies and disinformation campaigns are a major part of every conspiracy; people who don't believe these conspiracies exist are "sheeple," deluded people who swallow the endless stream of disinformation, and so are not in the know.

There are real conspiracies, of course: Watergate, Iran-Contra, the ridiculous and criminal antics of the CIA in the 1950s and 1960s. But to the ignorati, everybody in a position of wealth and/or power has been, is, or will be, a conspirator. All major professions are run by conspirators. Any event in the news is suspect, any position taken by a recognized expert who doesn't  agree with them is a lie. The Centers for Disease Control are covering up the connection between vaccines and autism; presidents of the United States collude with aliens from other planets; archeologists don't want us to know the pyramids were power plants; cell phones secretly came from UFO technology; the United States government, that most malign of all agencies, is involved in endless lies, obfuscations, cover-ups, and dirty tricks. How dirty? Well, as an example, the alleged massacre of school children in Connecticut never actually happened! It was a lie concocted so the government has an excuse to take away our guns!

One of the craziest parts of this thinking is that believers can share their wacky ideas with a huge audience thanks to digital technologies and the Internet, all of which came from the very people they fear the most. For me, though, the scariest part of all this insanity is the repudiation of knowledge. Since the truly learned are part of the power structure, they are just as corrupt as politicians and bankers. Therefore, whatever they say is a lie, and anybody whose opinions diverge from theirs is to be taken seriously, no matter how ridiculous the argument. An excellent example of this phenomenon is the belief in Nibiru, which is supposedly a rogue planet in our solar system that is approaching the earth. This nonsensical idea has a convoluted history (which can be found on Wikipedia), starting with a woman in the 1990s who claimed to be in contact with aliens, who informed her of the planet's existence.

This idea was later taken up by a man named Zecharia Sitchin, a Russian-born economist and businessman who emigrated to England and then the U.S. He became interested in the ancient alien theories of people like Erich von Daniken and taught himself ancient languages, which he later said contained information about the existence of the planet Nibiru and the evolution of the human race via races from other planets. Sitchin, who is deceased, was an outspoken defender of his theories and wrote books on these subjects.

Sitchin was undoubtedly an intelligent and educated man, but not in astronomy, physics, or ancient languages, all extremely abstruse and technical disciplines. His work in those fields has been condemned by experts, but that does not stop many, many people from believing what he had to say, and concluding that the experts have conspired to keep the truth from the "sheeple." In order to believe Sitchin, a person is required to accept the idea that every astronomer in the world, and every expert in ancient Sumerian, is either a liar or a fool. The number of people willing to believe that can be estimated by going to Google or YouTube and researching "Nibiru."

Crazy conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, paranoia, baseless "history," unsubstantiated allegations, concocted evidence, repudiation of learning, suspicion of knowledge. How far are we from book burnings? It is vital that every reasoning person be aware of this awful development and fight it.