First of all, let me state right away, my son is in the Army and just re-enlisted. He’s deployed to Afghanistan. I love my son and have always supported him in all of his endeavors. Like so many, 9/11 was a challenge to fight the enemy “over there.” Like millions of others, he couldn’t find a job and saw in the Army a career with benefits, paid for education and healthcare.

Supporting the troops should not mean supporting the wars, always based on lies, they are sent to fight by wealthy people in Congress and the White House, whose kids rarely ever go to war. They send other kids to war to fight the wars of the multinational corporations in order to extract resources: oil, minerals, fruit, vegetables and water. And, in the process, millions upon millions of innocent, indigenous people are murdered. Their towns, infrastructure, and ecosystems are obliterated by the unrestrained use of force.

It is a very sad commentary on this nation, whose number one export is weapons of war. More than 60% of our tax dollars go to the war department. How do they pay for the ever increasing war machine and the endless wars? They take it out of social uplift programs, education, infrastructure repairs and improvements, investments in renewable energy, and they even take it out of veterans’ and active duty benefits.

Not only are we not permitted to see the caskets coming home from these wars, but we never see or hear about the millions of innocent Iraqi, Pakistani and Afghan men, women, and children who are shot in cold blood, or killed as collateral damage by hellfire missiles fired from unmanned drones piloted from bases back here in the U.S.

Americans aren’t paying much attention to these wars as we did during the Vietnam conflict because without the draft, the wars do not touch the vast majority of American families. However, through sequestration, everyone is beginning to feel it when states no longer receive federal funds, and cities and towns no longer receive state funding because our tax dollars are paying for these wars. Sequestration is also hitting the military which will cut back on troops, but not the billions spent on war ships and stealth fighter planes and bombers.

Supporting our troops can only mean one thing: bringing our war dollars home along with all of our kids. America now outspends the next 14 countries combined for war and that includes Russia and China, and the rest are allies.  The reason is not national security. The reason is because war is profitable and the military industrial complex owns Congress and the White House.

War is a lie. It is not about spreading democracy and freedom. It is not about uplifting the nations we invade. One just has to look honestly at every war America has fought since Korea. In spite of the overwhelming and unrestrained might of the United States, America has lost every conflict against poorly equipped insurgents.

After 60 years, the conflict in Korea is not over. Four million Koreans were killed in that conflict. One million were civilians. North Korea was bombed and napalmed until there were no more targets left. In Vietnam, millions were bombed and napalmed. Entire villages were strafed and napalmed. The countryside and forests were reduced to nothing by Agent Orange.

No one can possibly think that America did any good in Iraq. That country was totally devastated and millions of noncombatants were killed or left maimed for life.

America is now ready to leave Afghanistan, worse off than ten years ago. Victory was never in sight. But, will America ever leave? Not if one listens to the disgraced top general David Petraeus who said there are trillions and trillions of dollars of rare minerals in Afghanistan that American capitalist must have.

Americans must look in the mirror and ask themselves was any of it worth it?

Support the troops, our sons and daughters, by forcing Washington to bring the troops home and bring our war dollars home so we can re-build America.