Uncle Sam Wants YOU... to protect the global economy?

"How the U.S. responds to an unprovoked attack on one of the central pillars of the global economy is a test of American leadership. The consequences of failure will be felt for years."

Here we go again. Gird your loins, because the hawkish pundits are back, pushing for worldwide war to further their own economic interests. Gore Vidal is rolling down in Rock Creek.

Last week, another American soldier was killed in Afghanistan. President Trump almost had us out, but many Middle East players would like a permanent US military presence in the region, as ... "protection" for private business interests.

Then along comes Bret Stephens, late of the Jerusalem Post, the Wall Street Journal, and now with a paid platform at the New York Times, spouting essentially a "blood for oil" bargain. That's all our allies have to offer. While Americans want secure borders at home, for the day defensively when we might see threats entering, fighting for Israeli's promised lands or the Saudi Arabian kingdom is not in our national security interest.

Perhaps there will be bigger provocations in the days to come, to incite America to war, once again.

I thank Mr. Stephens today -- making his name most recently for his fear of bedbug fears -- for bluntly showing his hand in full: "How the U.S. responds to an unprovoked attack on one of the central pillars of the global economy is a test of American leadership. The consequences of failure will be felt for years."

The President of the United States understands that Big Government means a military designed to protect the world, and that parity in the Mideast region -- each country acting to protect itself and not provoking its neighbors while constrained to controlling its own people only -- is a workable, liveable, pragmatic policy. Warriors are not culture-changers. That's religious work, for the non-exclusive religions.

We don't send soldiers to remake another country in our own image at gunpoint. We knew, some of us, that wouldn't work well before the purple-fingers started wagging for Iraq's women and children. Before the US economy collapsed, with no plan to pay simultaneously for our war debts and our needs here at home.

Perhaps even in Israel, the message has been received? Perhaps the voters there have taken heart that while strongman Benyamin Netanyahu's soldiers can kick those in refugee neighboring camps -- beat up on Palis unmercifully -- they're not independently ready for a balls-up international war where the strength of the Israeli military is tested against a more formidable foe like Iran. (Adventuring Boy Scouts meet military men, with the most religious Jews sitting out service in study of the Torah.)

The Israeli voters responded -- voting well after the attacks on "the pillars of the global economy" -- but this time choosing representatives of a secular state, not the religious one that BN has been so keen to thump his chest and proclaim.

Speak softly and carry a big stick? If the Israeli military and the citizens there are not ready for a war against Iran without the United States military protecting them, perhaps parity and compromise will become their northstar. Evolution occurs quietly while military wars for the economy burn up the world. And in the end, accomplish little, except for the privileged few who benefit...

The war-years climate that brought hawkish haters like Stephens and the Washington establishment power is no more in this country. Picking up a gun in America to prove power is frowned upon in civil society. We are focusing long-term on our own now, and our own economy has become less foreign-oil dependent than under the Bush years.

Perhaps Stephens and his kind could pass the hat for the global economy though, and hire a team of mercenaries for the Sauds and Israelis if Iran is continually provoked and the peoples there are not secure anymore in their leadership without heavy American Evangelical and taxpayer backing? Fight on, if you must. Put your heart and spirit into it, not American dollars and young lives. Not for drone oil-field attacks with little, if any, human cost. #LifeMatters

"You got to stand up straight, carry your own weight, because those tears will get you nowhere, baby..."