Today is Memorial Day, during which our nation honors those who have “given their lives” for our country in war.
Of course the US has been at war for much of its history.
My American ancestors arrived in Massachusetts in the 1630s as part of the Great Puritan Migration.
During the almost 400 years of American history since the Europeans first came, my ancestors have served in the military in many of its wars. At least one died—in the American Revolution. While I never served in the military myself, I served on the civilian side of the federal government for 32 years.
I will say, however, that of all the wars fought by the United States since it gained its independence from Great Britain in the Revolution of 1765-1783, not a single one was necessary. All could have been avoided by reasonable, responsible, mature action.
Therefore I do not celebrate Memorial Day.
I could write a book on this topic; maybe several. For now, a few broad strokes must suffice. For additional discussion, see my recent book, Our Country, Then and Now.
From independence in 1783 until the War of 1812, the US was able to stay out of the European wars involving chiefly Great Britain vs. France. Avoidance of war was accomplished by the heroic restraint and wisdom shown by our early presidents: George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. Staying out of Europe’s wars became a staple of US foreign policy for over a century.
The War of 1812 took place when the James Madison administration declared war on Great Britain. The primary motivation was for the US to send an army north to conquer Canada, an attempt which failed. The reason: land hunger. The issue of impressment of American sailors into the British navy had already been settled when Britain rescinded its impressment policies. Because the US had been so stingy in enabling a military defence of the East Coast from a British landing, a small British force was able to burn Washington, D.C., virtually without opposition.
The Mexican War took place from 1846-1848. It was declared by Congress and fought by the James K. Polk administration for the primary purpose of acquiring new slave states to bolster the power of the Southern “slavocracy” in controlling the US government. The war was opposed by former president John Quincy Adams and the Whig political establishment who were convinced that were the US to expand to the Pacific Ocean and fulfill some idea of “Manifest Destiny,” it could be done peacefully, with Mexico being paid for its virtually empty territories. As an example of what could have been done, the US gained control of the Oregon Country through peaceful negotiation with Great Britain.
The Civil War had been predicted by alert observers since the 1790s, when it became evident that the constitutional provision that slaves would count as 3/5 of a person in congressional representation would give the Southern “slavocracy” an unfair advantage in federal government appointments, representation in the House of Representatives, and voting for president in the Electoral College. The failure of US politicians and statesmen to deal with this issue, at a time when all other civilized nations had outlawed slavery, led to the explosion that split the nation in 1861-1865.
The Indian Wars went on from the time Europeans arrived until the Indians came close to extinction by the end of the 19th century. The mistreament of the Indians was among the most egregious of failures that tarnished the mind, heart, and soul of the American nation. The more responsible parties of the time, especially among the New England Puritans but also including figures like Thomas Jefferson, favored a policy of Indian assimilation that involved reimbursing them for lands they occupied while providing sufficient land and assistance for them to succeed at converting to agriculture. All the Indian Wars were unnecessary.
The Spanish-American War of 1898 involved the US playing the European colonization game by taking the Philippines from Spain and conquering Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Guam. The US had no other reason to launch an invasion into East Asia and could have acquired an interest in Cuba, elsewhere in the Caribbean, and Hawaii through negotiation.
World Wars I and II were entered into by the US after it had been taken over by the globalist financial interests headed by the Rothschilds and other City of London bankers who engineered the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and commandeered the power of the Rockefeller and Morgan financial interests in annihilating Germany. World War II has been called “the Good War,” one of the biggest lies in history. This was followed by the Cold War against the Soviet Union and countless neocolonialist wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and the Middle East, Libya, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, etc.
All wars since World War I have been wars of conquest by the Anglo-American-Zionist Empire of which the US was drawn into being the military arm, particularly since the Council on Foreign Relations leveraged the Roosevelt Administration to embark on a program of global military dominance through studies written in 1939-1941.
Today the Empire is fighting a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine and is supporting Israel in its genocidal wars in the Middle East. The wars of conquest continue day-in-and-day-out, fomented by the Deep State, all in the interest of globalist finance. All these wars are egged-on by a media that engenders a constant drumbeat of hatred to foment more and more unnecessary wars.
The US is a natural fortress, once invulnerable geographically but probably not anymore, and could indeed have been a light to the nations of the world in human freedom and peaceful development, and an example of generosity and prosperity unmatched in history. Instead we have allowed ourselves to become an agent of hell-on-earth through two-and-a-half centuries of unnecessary wars.
I would therefore like to make the earnest suggestion that Memorial Day be replaced with a National Day of Shame and Repentance. I would suggest that we do this before our beloved country commits so many more heinous crimes that it either collapses internally, which may happen soon, or comes to a premature end at the hands of the rest of suffering humanity.
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Richard C. Cook is a retired U.S. federal analyst with extensive experience across various government agencies, including the U.S. Civil Service Commission, FDA, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury. He is a graduate of the College of William and Mary. As a whistleblower at the time of the Challenger disaster, he exposed the flawed O-ring joints that destroyed the Space Shuttle, documenting his story in the book “Challenger Revealed.” After serving at Treasury, he became a vocal critic of the private finance-controlled monetary system, detailing his concerns in “We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform.” He served as an adviser to the American Monetary Institute and worked with Congressman Dennis Kucinich to advocate for replacing the Federal Reserve with a genuine national currency. See his new book, Our Country, Then and Now, Clarity Press, 2023. Also see his Three Sages Substack and his American Geopolitical Institute articles at https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/category/agi/.
“Every human enterprise must serve life, must seek to enrich existence on earth, lest man become enslaved where he seeks to establish his dominion!” Bô Yin Râ (Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken, 1876-1943), translation by Posthumus Projects Amsterdam, 2014. Also download the Kober Press edition of The Book on the Living God here.
Featured image: Picture of graves decorated with flags at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day 2008. (Public Domain)
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