U.S. diplomats are negotiating as we speak with the corrupt government of Iraq to see whether it will allow us to keep troops there beyond the end of this year. Can you believe that? We’re treating continued deployments to this miserable, dangerous place as a prize that we’re hoping to win.

     How did our government ever get so stupid? Apparently Iraq is the new Germany, Korea, Japan, Italy, etc., etc. Obama earlier let us know we'll stay a minimum of 13 years in Afghanistan. Once we go in, we don’t go out. Why? Well, when you talk to foreign policy “experts,” they say it’s to protect U.S. “interests.” What interests? Anybody ask you if you’re interested in occupying these foreign countries? I didn’t think so. Republicans, Democrats, makes no difference who’s in office. Obama, Clinton, Bush, it’s all the same on these issues. But they do ask somebody.

     They ask Exxon-Mobil, and Halliburton, CitiBank, GE, and folks like that. At least the Supreme Court says these entities are folks when it helps the corporate bottom line. When it doesn’t, the corporations become non-people again. Try putting Goldman Sachs or Moody’s in jail next time they swindle us.

Anyway, the corporations reply, yes, “we” need to protect “our” interests in these far-off places and keep building weapon systems to protect them too even though the Cold War ended two decades ago and we have no potential adversaries building weapons that can even match our old systems.

These corporations whose “interests” we protect with lives and limbs and billions and billions of dollars are multi-national entities that pay off politicians in Washington to make sure they contribute as little to America as they can get away with. Their tax bills are low or non-existent. They’re American only when it pays off. Meanwhile, go buy ten gallons of gas at an Exxon station and see if you get a special price for being an American whose tax money protects Exxon’s interests. Veterans who left limbs in Iraq pay the same as anybody else, which is the world price, the same one they pay in China or Transylvania, places where no one puts out a nickel in taxes to protect Exxon interests.

 The easiest way to get out of the dangerous places these jerks stick our troops into is to reconstitute the draft. The government has to be more careful with the lives in its care if those lives come from a deep, broad spectrum of the population. It’s an expensive solution, but it also creates jobs and training and protects American lives from being wasted for the sake of “our” interests.