Terrorism - America: Muder Unlimited :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

America: Muder Unlimited There's been no peace in my lifetime as an American. I don't know if fear of nuclear war had any effect on the Soviet Union but it sure affected me. The background radiation of the Manhattan Project has followed me everywhere. Was I born with post-traumatic stress disorder? No, my mother said I was a happy baby. She must have done a good job distracting me. At least, I didn't notice that I was lving through an endless series of wars. But as a citizen of the United States, I've lived through one war after another. They were not all called wars. In the past twenty years the American military has been involved in Iran, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Korea, Guatemala, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Panama, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, Dominican Republic, Oman, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Libya, Bolivia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Haiti, Croatia, Zaire, Liberia, Albania, Sudan, Macedonia, Afghanistan, Cuba, and many more. I didn't repeat any countries even though we had repeated engagements with some. I know I have left out some. In January 1961, President/General Eisenhower said, "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." We were in the Cold War more than 40 years. We have been in a war with Cuba for 39 years and counting. We have been in an ongoing war with Iraq for 10 years. Economists talk about the peacetime expansion of the U.S. economy. There hasn't been a time in my life when the U.S. was not involved in killing people in my name somewhere in the world. Yet this passes for peace. I think this is because U.S. military activity has always been global, mostly out of sight, away from home. Years ago the U.S. government was killing Buddhists in the jungles of Southeast Asia. Now it is killing Muslims in the mountains of Southwest Asia. This is what this "Judeo-Christian" country keeps doing while pledging allegiance to its flag, singing patriotic songs, and invoking its variant of God, a Supreme Being. These things go on simultaneously. The military activity is constant and continuous. That is why the military budget is so large, more than $350 billion this year.