There are very few "just" wars, and no war is really just in the last analysis. World War II is often cited as a just war, but in that case it was only just for the allies. Otherwise, it was a war started by a mad man who had no excuse, just his hate-filled delusions. The Japanese were more conventional villains than the Nazis. The Japanese went to war to expand into an empire, to subjugate nations and seize their natural resources. Control of natural wealth and trade routes are why most wars are really waged.
US wars since 1945 have been of that Japanese model. The war against Iraq most certainly was. It was a war for oil. All other rationales were just window dressing to make a war rooted in corporate greed more palatable to the American public as making it appear to be an altruistic effort to destroy a bloody tyrant and enhance national security. The only truth in that was that Saddam really was a bloody tyrant. That he was a threat to American security, or even to his weakest neighbor, were bald faced lies. That the world is a better and safer place without Saddam in power is a mantra that the architects of the war have continued to use to justify their actions as all the other reasons have fallen apart under even the slightest scrutiny. Yet even this justification is brought into question by the rise of the terrorist regime of the Islamic State, which makes Saddam look like an enlightened despot by comparison.
The fossil fuel industry is on life support. Coal and oil are dirty, polluting and unhealthy sources of energy, and this is true even before we start talking about anthropogenic climate change, something that most certainly not a hoax. Yet the private enterprises that extract these resources from the earth are given tax breaks and government subsides to do so. Renewable energy is ready to come online and supplant fossil fuels in a matter of years. There is no excuse not to begin the process to begin the process of supplementing and finally supplanting fossil fuels with solar and wind power immediately.
Therefore, there is no need to fight wars in the Middle East. There is no need to spill the blood of America's future to secure more supplies of oil for ExxonMobil or Chevron.
We must not give our lives or the lives of our children or grandchildren to be sacrificed on the alter of the fossil fuel industries. We Americans must avoid military service until a rational energy policy is adopted by the government that supposedly derives its power and authority from We, the people, not They, the pollution pimps.
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