Why do Americans love war

By Bob Livingston

Conventional wisdom is based on confusion and disinformation. It has a crowding-out effect in our thought processes that stifles inquiry.

In other words, conventional wisdom programs us to reject any information or thought not in harmony with our preconditioning and experience even if we realize deep down that the idea is not only plausible but possible. This is also called cognitive dissonance.

Conventional wisdom is what everybody knows. It is established by the controlled media — and, sadly, this even includes most private publications and alternative websites — and modern-day "Christianity."

Human liberty and personal survival in our time must originate in truth, no matter how incredible it seems and how shocking it is to our conditioned minds. Governments control the public mind with disinformation and confusion. No modern government could exist for 24 hours if it told the people the truth.

Bob Livingston Alerts is dedicated to the truth no matter how unpopular or unbelievable. Those who study and read with open minds usually eventually come to our conclusions. The problem is that people are at various stages of learning, and they must advance to a point that they can break through the parameters of thought control in America. At some point, we must have a flash that maybe we don't know what we thought we knew and maybe we have not been getting the truth. Unfortunately, many people run away or close their minds if they sense they are nearing the truth because the truth conflicts with what they "know."

The trouble is that mind control does not discriminate between the highest intelligence quotient and the simpleton. The Philadelphia lawyer is just as off in his basic information and assumptions as the downtown parking attendant. Neither does education equal intelligence. In fact, the most educated is usually the last to come around. This fact is a monument to the science and power of mass mind control. From the highest to the lowest in America, they don't know that they are unaware. These are they who are immune and even hostile to probes of inquiry beyond their credibility.

This is never more evident than when discussing American foreign policy in general and America's relationship with Israel specifically.

America has been involved in a shooting war in the Middle East since Jan. 17, 1991, when the aerial bombardment of Iraq began in order to drive Saddam Hussein's army out of Kuwait. An entire generation of Americans has become adults without ever seeing or knowing of a time when their country was at peace. And there is diminishing hope they will ever see peace in their lifetime.

Americans have not only come to accept war, they've come to love it. Christians, it seems, particularly love it. I shudder when I see or hear comments from some who no doubt would consider themselves Christians advocating total war up to and including nuclear strikes on Middle East or African nations simply because:

• They are allegedly attempting to acquire technology to acquire or create a nuclear weapon (Iran) in order to bring themselves on par with their "enemies" (Israel and the U.S.);
• A few tens of thousands of Islamist bad actors (who were funded and mostly trained and equipped by the CIA, the Mossad and a number of U.S.-allied Arab nations) are engaging in an Islamic sectarian war that has gone on for more than 1,000 years;
• Or they are aligned with Russia and Iran (Syria), and our leaders tell us they are inherently evil.

There is little or no consideration given to the fact that the United States' actions to destabilize the Middle East gave the Islamic State and the so-called "moderate rebels" in Syria a launching pad. Nor is any consideration being given by the American people to the fate of the millions of innocents — average citizens, including women and children, who have no say in what their governments do; and if they do have a say, they are likely subjected to even more propaganda and mind control than even Americans are — residing in those countries or of the long-term consequences of the destabilization of established regimes. Those deaths are just chalked up to collateral damage and dismissed out of hand.

Americans rightly became angered and disgusted by stories of atrocities committed against Christians and Muslims by the ISIS terror organization as reported in the mainstream media — the beheadings and mass executions in particular — yet gave little or no pause to the hundreds of thousands of people killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria by U.S. and NATO bombers and U.S. drones, and the millions who have died there since the region was destabilized. And the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed by U.S. bombers in 20 years of attacks and two wars on that country have all but been ignored and glossed over.

There is also an astonishing lack of consideration by Americans for the fate of the American fighting men and women who would be sent to fight the wars in Syria and/or Iran. We currently have untold thousands of maimed — both physically and mentally — American military members and veterans (and their families) attempting to cope with the scars they received fighting during two decades of unnecessary wars on behalf of the banksters and the military-industrial complex. And thousands more are dead.

And there is still less consideration given to the economic cost of the war that has been paid for by money printing on a scale never before conceived.

But after all those years of war and those injuries and deaths, the region is less stable than ever. How will more wars not result in more of the same? What evidence is there that continuing the strategies of the last four presidents to attack other countries will end Islamist sectarian conflicts or reduce the chances of terror attacks on American interests or American soil? Those questions are not considered in the rush to war.

The Donald Trump regime under new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continues to act as a belligerent against Iran, which poses no military threat to the U.S. This week, Israel is dropping bombs in Syria — apparently with American blessings. This comes on the heels of Trump's Tomahawk missile attack — aided by the U.K. and France — in the wake of what was reported to be a chemical attack by the Syrian government. But there is no evidence that such a chemical attack even occurred, much less that it perpetrated by the Syrian regime.

Yet the media, Trump's supporters and even the anti-Trump Republicans and Democrats were effusive in their praise of Trump for his military strikes on a country that has not attacked the U.S.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently stated his country will continue "to move against Iran in Syria." Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in a recent speech, his country would strike at any attempt by Iran to establish a "military foothold" in Syria.

This is part of the long-term strategy to ensure Israeli — and Saudi Arabian — hegemony in the region. American foreign policy in the region has been Israel-specific since the country was created by the UN in the late 1940s; and Saudi-specific since the 1970s.

The pro-Israel Zionist lobby has a stranglehold on American politics and, therefore, on American foreign policy.

In a copyrighted white paper published by Middle East Policy, Vol. XIII, No. 3, Fall 2006, the authors describe the Jewish lobby as "a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction." The lobby isn't a "unified movement with a central leadership," nor is it "a cabal or conspiracy." But "[T]he core of the lobby consists of American Jews who make a significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign policy so that it advances Israel's interests."

But it also consists of non-Jews who are of a Zionist bent.

One of the leading Zionist lobbying organizations is American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying against President Obama's Iran deal and has spent untold millions, if not billions, of dollars driving American politics in a pro-Israel direction over the past 60-plus years. Bucking them has serious political consequences.

Because of its power, the Jewish lobby's influence is rarely spoken of openly, particularly in a negative light. That's because, as Joe Biden stated in 2007, almost all of Washington is Zionist.

But in May 2004, Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings (D-S.C.) wrote an essay for the Charleston Post and Courier titled "Bush's Failed Mideast Policy is Creating More Terrorism."

Hollings wrote, "With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush's policy to secure Israel. Led by [Paul] Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Charles Krauthammer, for years there had been a domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel's security is to spread democracy in the area."

For it, charges of anti-Semitism were (of course) leveled against him by prominent Jewish political figures. It's their favorite ploy for stifling any conversation critical of Israel or its policies, and it usually sends people to the corners cowering in fear.

Using inflammatory code words like anti-Semitism, isolationist, racist, homophobe, conspiracy theorist, etc. to shut down debate and the spread of ideas is a common tactic used by those trapped in conventional wisdom because it gives them an excuse to avoid considering whether a concept may be true. It is a protection mechanism for them and for the establishment. Another protection mechanism is to run away from those ideas to prevent future exposure to them.

The U.S. government has as much a slavish devotion to Zionism as it does to war. And its propaganda machine, aided by the teaching of fundamentalist Christian preachers, has created a slavish devotion to it among the people. U.S. imperialism, the corporatocracy and Zionism dominate the U.S. foreign policy decisions of the past 50-plus years, hence the wars of the past quarter century.

We will discuss this subject more in future letters.