Is America at War with itself?

Is America at War with itself?

I must admit I am conflicted in writing about this. I'm conflicted because I'm a Canadian, and yet I owe so much to America.

Do I have the right to speak my truth about America, because I'm not a citizen?  But it's for the love of it's people that I write this article. 

It has welcomed me as a visitor, as a student, as a writer, as a broadcaster, as a friend and as a businessman.

Every summer while I was a child growing up my father would pack up the car and drive the 3,500 miles from Edmonton, Alberta to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. to visit his only living sisters from the holocaust. He lost both his parents and one brother. For him the United States was the sanctuary that he could go to where he felt at home. I too had the same feeling of a second home with Aunts, Uncles and cousins welcoming me. As an only child, that meant a great deal to me.

 The University of Montana welcomed me and gave me a college education that I would never have gotten in Canada because my grades were not good enough. But the U of M gave me  a chance to prove myself and I made the honor role twice, once as an undergraduate and once as a graduate student. My college roommate became a life long  friend.. I have so many friends in the U.S. they would fill up an entire data base. It's for that reason that I am conflicted.

It saddens me to see where America is at today, on it's knees, both fiscally and morally. But this is what power, corruption and greed can do to an entire civilization. The Wall Street Meltdown was the first warning sign, and just as I had written  6 years ago, I had hoped it would be their wake up call", but rather than stop pursuing the elusive American Dream they tried to re-birth it, re-brand it and politicize it. . And that was the definition of insanity.  . "Wealth in itself is kind of boring," a billionaire once said. "You just accumulate, and it's like having too much food on your plate."

The American Dream has indeed become it''s worst nightmare. On the eve of this Xmas and the day after the "purist" Mayans said we will enter a new dawn of enlightenment we can say that America continues to follow a path towards the ruin of it''s most precious commodity, it's people.

For the past 12 Xmases, including this one, America is fighting a war somewhere in the world and on this day it has begun to be at war with itself.

Whenever there is a public event, and with every opportunity; on radio, television,. or newspaper, America thanks it's troops.

 Last night David Letterman, had soldiers do video greetings to loved ones back home . He has done this every year for the past 12 years. And at the end he says, let's thank these troops for us being able to be free and enjoy the life we have here in the U.S.

I'm wondering if Letterman along with so many other entertainers and public figures continues to echo a feeling that somehow has gotten lost in  translation. 

How many times have we been told that Viet Nam was not a war we should have been in, CIA reports lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, even now the U.S. is planning on withdrawing from Afghanistan by 2014. So why is the U.S. in Afghanistan  in the first place?

The government has always told us it's to protect us from our enemies who want to destroy us and take away our freedoms. Who are these enemies? It seems to switch with each new conflict.

Now please put all these facts in perspective: Ten long years of continuous wars, trillions of dollars, 250,000 military personnel, trillions of dollars worth of intelligence gathering institutions and capabilities, millions of dollars set in rewards for Al Qaeda terrorists, and a supposed network with supposed Al Qaeda active terrorist members in very large numbers. Yet we have less than 1000 detained who have been accused of being Al Qaeda terrorists, and none ever proven to be an active Al Qaeda terrorist member.

Does this make sense to you? Does it make sense as far as the trillions of dollars you have been made to pay for this? What are we talking about here? A massive never-ending war against a fantastical network of technologically and militaristic dwarfed terrorists whose proven guilty members we haven’t been able to catch or kill.

Everyone is busy arguing whether we should cut or add a few billion dollars to the several trillion dollars war on Al Qaeda. People keep talking about which country we should be getting out of, or, how many more countries we should get into to fight against terrorist Al Qaeda. No one is asking what Al Qaeda is or who really these supposed Al Qaeda terrorists are. The question that never seems to come up is exactly how big is this Al Qaeda we are spending trillions of dollars and thousands of lives fighting against. I mean no one.

And yet the very thing America has feared, has now become it;'s darkest reality. Americans have become afraid of themselves. It's no longer about the terrorists, it's about Americans fearing Americans. Worse, the NRA, which has a powerful lobbying voice has taken a stand and it spells it out like an old Western movie from the 50's; ""The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun".       http://usat.ly/Tg8AXK

Here's the rhetorical question I have for the head of the NRA, how do you know who's a bad guy and who's a good guy? 

The biggest fear right now for Americans is that Obama will take away their right to have auotmatic army type rifles. And so they are cleaning out the gun stores like preparing for a hurricane, and a hurricane is what''s coming.

Remember Operation Gladio? The Pentagon, through NATO, organized bombings and shootings in the streets of Europe. When one of the terrorists got caught, he explained at his trial: “You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public to turn to the State to ask for greater security.” He later explained the “strategy of tension” to the BBC: “To create tension within the country to promote conservative, reactionary social and political tendencies.”

So the answer to the question, WHY? is really very simple: When you terrorize the population, you open the door for fascist, authoritarian politicians.

If they do not stop the insanity, the next step is anarchy. When every man, woman, and yes, even a child has a gun in America, there will never be a need to fear terrorists, because there will be nothing left to destroy. Americans will have destroyed themselves.. Geoffrey Canada, a prominent educator rights advocate said last night on CNN that the U.S. was heading towards a "moral cliff" from which there will be no turning back. http://bit.ly/12uLwta

I agree, the fiscal cliff is just about money, the moral cliff is about a human life. 

 I pray that none of my family, friends, and business associates and the people I love will be one of those human lives.

It's time for  truth, wisdom, peace and harmony, not anger, confrontation, and fear. (Definition of FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real)

  May God teach and guide the United States before it's too late to bless it.

Allan Holender is a writer, visionary, broadcaster and founder of the Zentrepreneurism movement.  His new e-book Zen 3.0 "The Inner Game of Conscious Business is available from Amazon and Apple on his website at http://www.zentrepreneurism.com