With apologies to Bob Dylan we are still the masters of war. Since the early days of the Cold War our country has become the policeman of the world for better or for worst. We have become the security state by which our allies have relied upon us to keep the peace and to secure the world from aggression. In the process we have made mistakes but at the same time we have helped secure the world from communist aggression. We are the world’s only remaining super power. Is it not time to have a new strategy for the world and have a plan by which we are the masters of peace?

We are still the masters of war and we are very good at it. Who is not impressed by our shock and awe? But life is not some video game.

Bob Dylan’s lyrics for the song the Masters of War are telling and they are worth restating:

“Come you masters of war

You that build the big guns

You that build the death planes

You that build all the bombs

You that hide behind walls

You that hide behind desks

I just want you to know

I can see through your masks

 

You that never done nothin’

But build to destroy

You play with the world

Like it’s your little toy

You put a gun in my hand

And you hide from my eyes

And you turn and run farther

When the fast bullets fly

 

Like Judas of old

You lie and deceive

A world can be won

You want to believe

But I see through your eyes

And I see through your brain

Like I see through the water

That runs down my drain

 

You fasten all the triggers

For the others to fire

Then you you sit back and watch

When the death count gets higher

You hide in your mansion

While the young people’s blood

Flows our of their bodies

And is buried in the mud.”

 

There are more lyrics to this song but the point is made, we are the masters of war. It seems to be that it is an older person who has never seen combat and sits safely behind a desk to send young people to die and suffer in some God forsaken place a long ways from home. We have to find a better way of dealing with problems than sending our young to fight on foreign soil. They see things that should never be seen. The toll that it takes on our young people is incalcuable. The mental and physical stress is such that the suicide rate of our veterans tells you that this nonsense needs to stop. We need to be the masters of something other than war.

Eisenhower warned us about the power of the military industrial complex. Bush’s war on terror promises a world with a forever war, a never ending series of conflicts. This is unacceptable!

Donald Trump avoided the draft. And now this chicken hawk would have in his hands the very power of life and death. Hillary Clinton would use force as a last resort. Hmmn, will we see any end to war or will we ever have a strategy for peace, and finally be the masters of peace.

History will give us the answer but of this we can be certain, the civil war in Syria is a window into our future. What has the civil war given Syria, nothing but the ashes of a lost world. Peace finally has a chance because each side is exhausted. There is very little left to destroy.

If we do not seek a strategy and a better choice for humanity what we see in the Middle East can be our future if we are not careful. The echoes of the death and destruction of nuclear weapons is perhaps too remote in our memories to take the effects of what a nuclear war would look like. We have one candidate who will not take the use of nuclear weapons off the table. Donald Trump has by this very fact become an unacceptable candidate.

We will defeat ISIS! Wars between nations is becoming rarer. But danger and a very real danger exists in a world that no longer seems to realize that we have the power to end life on our planet. We need to have a plan for peace and become the masters of peace.