It amazes me every time I see a United States citizen attack another United States citizen (verbally; I have yet to see it happen physically, though I don’t doubt that it has) over a disagreement on the validity of military operations that our government is currently carrying out in multiple countries.

We are not at war, yet we have somewhere in the vicinity of 150,000 soldiers on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our military is battling and killing foreigners every day, yet we are not at war.

I understand the need, after 9/11/2001, for vengeance. It’s a natural (though misled) response to a heinous act, particularly against people to whom you feel a connection. It has been ten years since that act of violence was carried out against us, and we still have 150,000 men on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Wait… Iraq? What does Iraq have to do with this?

Isn’t that an interesting question?

Saddam Hussein’s regime supposedly had weapons of mass destruction, and this apparently warranted the United States government to invade and put a stop to it. Evidently, our government has appointed themselves as the world police, with jurisdiction in any country they so choose — or rather, any country that they have sufficient military force to dominate.

How long did it take us to determine there were no weapons?

How long has Saddam Hussein been dead? Going on five years.

And we’re still in Iraq. There are still men and women who are fighting and dying on a fallacy. American people still support this, and our soldiers are even willing to die for this, because of “terrorism”.

Every time someone speaks out against the fallacy, against this chain that the government has wrapped around your neck and convinced you was for your own good, the majority has been so hypnotized and brainwashed by the fallacy that it will attack anyone who points out how wrong and backwards it is.

They have been somehow convinced that our military is “defending our freedom.” I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen the attacks consist of a phrase along the lines of, “They are fighting to defend your freedom to say these things.”

This is absolutely, 100% incorrect. In fact, as we continue to root for our troops and fear terrorism, the government pulls the chain tighter and tighter.

You have already lost infinitely more freedom to your own government than you would have if our military never deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq and left things well enough alone.

You now can’t fly without having your privacy agregiously violated. You can’t bring fingernail clippers in your carry-on bag. The police force is becoming increasingly militarized. Police road blocks are commonplace. We have to be careful what we say in public or risk being reported to the police by our neighbors. You can’t sell unprocessed, natural milk. You can’t even grow a garden in your own front yard.

Our military is not fighting for our freedom.

Our military is fighting to distract you from the man behind the curtain, taking your freedom away.

Moreover, these overseas operations continue to suck billions and billions of dollars away while our own country’s economy collapses underneath us.

Do I think our soldiers are murderers? Maybe. With 150,000 of them engaged in the fallacy, there’s no way to give an all-encompassing answer.

Do I think our soldiers are evil? Not necessarily.

Do I hate our soldiers? No. They are all, however, misled.

At the end of the day, everything that our soldiers do to make us proud is based on an enormous web of falsehoods, and is driven by powerful men who want only to become more wealthy and more powerful, and do not care about you.