Ninety years ago, the 'War to End All Wars' ended.
Had that been true, I wouldn't have been a veteran of the Gulf War. I would not have spent 21 years in the Air Force 'defending' our nation (read: US economic interests).
But I did. We have troops all over the world. We have troops in hostile territories. Russia, China, and our great nation are doing troop and mercenary tap dancing all throughout Africa and the Balkans for oil and pipelines. Georgia was just the latest example of this (we wanted a pipeline, Russia wanted to stop it).
That is the first layer.
Under that are figureheads that know the system and play it. Whether it be the people in Iraq we put in charge who will most likely die if we leave, or people like Palestinian leader 'Abas who would lose on any election. Like Mubarak. This is the layer we see on TV.
And we aren't the only ones that play this game. Here is France's version of the same shit. Chad. Sarkozy was suppose to change things. The corrupt president of Chad was supposed to be on the way out. But corporate concerns for Exxon and Total meant that Deby, who is corrupt as hell, was allowed to stay.
World Bank plans for "social spending" have been ignored by the government. Chad remains poor, corrupt and wracked by chronic instability.
One of my first deployments in the Air Force was to Sudan. "Arid Farmer" was the name of the deployment. Libya, Chad, and Sudan were all playing games (story we were told). I'm sure if the internet existed, I would have found that various oil/Uranium companies were fighting over resources. Two weeks after we left, President Numeiri of Sudan went all fundi and dumped all alcohol into the Nile.
How many more of me will be sent to wars because oil companies (and the puppets they pay) demand more oil wealth.
I was lucky and went through the Gulf War unscathed. (Kuwait got greedy and slant-drilled into Iraq. Iraq got mad and used April Gillipsee's lame response as an okay to take matters in their own hand. Maggie got pissed because the British Government makes money off of Kuwait oil, pushed Bush to attack. Democracy and human rights had nothing to do with any of it.)
When will the war to end all wars actually happen?
When will we stop putting puppets in place that have to depend on us, thus not establishing anything remotely close to a democracy? The puppets yell and scream to keep power and we oblige, thus keeping problems festering.
Please. Make it stop. Control of oil isn't something to make a young kid die for.