AntiWar

From the Roman Empire, to the Napoleon conquest, war has been prevalent throughout our entire human evolution. We have made incredible innovations but nearly two thousand years later, it is still extremely present throughout our human society. In the last two hundred years we have seen the most deadly and destructive conflicts in the entirety of human history. It seems as we progress as a society and humans we can't escape our natural instinct for conflict, but rather just invent ways to cause more destruction. This is still true today within the United States as we have been in almost a constant state of conflict or war my entire lifetime. It started with the invasion of Iraq, then the war in Afghanistan and now we seem to be supporting a war in Israel and a war in Ukraine. It seems to never have an end. We even have things like the war on drugs in which we go into other countries to prevent drugs form reaching our borders. As a wealthy, prosperous, and powerful nation, many look to us to solve the worlds problems and correct injustices around the world. And although this may seem noble, this is far from the part we actually play within conflicts. 

Woodrow Wilson first got the United States involved in World War I (after saying that he wouldn't do so), it has started a trend where the United States government has taken conflict abroad in order to pursue our own self interests and take preventive measures against harm. This has led to increased conflict with many other countries around the world and meant that while we are helping some, we are also harming others. World super powers no longer want to work with us and respect us, but otherwise pray on our failure and actively try to harm us.

The idea of a peaceful and more connected world has become much more talked about in the past 50 years, however, we still see conflicts and death continue to occur. And with the escalation of nuclear threats around the world, the possibility for extinction is much more real. 

So, where does this bring us in today's society. Well liked we talked about in class and in these articles, you don't see much large media or civilian push back on these wars. Honestly, most of the time you see much support and appreciation for all we are doing. This is because our media does not enforce ideas like the American Conservative or Antiwar.com that war is bad. Instead we listen to our politicians enforce why these wars are beneficial and that we are doing it because we are "good people". However, this leads you to miss out on the many facts of why these wars are harmful for our countries national defense, development, and people. Some of these facts include that we are wasting trillions of dollars to support the wars in Ukraine and Israel, we are closer to war with China and Russia then ever, and we are not focusing on our issues at home. There are millions of Americans struggling around the country and instead of helping them we are focusing on trying out all our new weapons of war. 

So, in my opinion the reason why we don't hear from these sources or similar ideas more is that many Americans and people are not even aware of the issue. We our so busy in our everyday lives that we forget to check in on what our presence is around the world. Where a narrative as simple as Russia is invading Ukraine and believe that we must step in an d be the hero. However, this has not and will not always be the case. So, I urge everyone to research these topics and be informed about the reasoning behind these conflicts before we support them. Because even though it might not seem like it, it can have an impact on our very lives. Which we have seen recently as our fellow North Carolinians were hit by Hurricane Helene and could not be given more than a thousand dollars in relief . However, we spend trillions in support of Ukraine. So, just be cautious and know what impact your support can have.